Jessup Think: Recent Episodes
William Jessup University
Join Mark Moore, a New Testament and Theology Professor at William Jessup University for engaging conversations with guests about cultural topics and their impact on people and society.
Historian Abigail Feely joins the show to discuss the importance of studying history, especially giving voice to marginalized histories.
Founder and President of Fidelis International Seminary, Frank Schattner, joins the show to talk about the his project of making a low cost seminary-style education accessible to people all over the globe. Check out fidelisproject.com for more information.
Mark and Rex examine the complexities of the process of deconstruction while offering some helpful guides on one's journey of faith.
Long-time Intervarsity staff member Susie Veon joins the show to talk about her experience of the Jesus movement in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Authors Matt Tebbe and Ben Sternke join the show to talk about their book Having the Mind of Christ. Matt and Ben explore what they have had to unlearn and relearn from Jesus about what it means to be a Christian.
Liturgist Karl Gurney joins the show to talk about worship and faith within the Catholic church in a post Pope Benedict XVI world.
Licensed professional counselor Krispin Mayfield joins the show to discuss his book on attachment styles and the spiritual life.
Dr. Amy Peeler from Wheaton College joins the show to discuss her new book Women and the Gender of God. Dr. Peeler explores how our understanding of gender affects how we relate to God and how we relate to others.
Founder and Executive Director of The Alliance: Defending the Cause of Kids & Families, Tiffany Loeffler, joins the show to talk about her work with foster youth as well as her work at Jessup with the OnRamp scholarship fund.
Dr. Damon Horton from California Baptist University joins the show to talk about his approach to conversations on race as a preview to his lecture on campus at Jessup on February 9.
Renown author Richard Foster joins the show along with Brenda Quinn to talk about Richard's new book: Learning Humility: A Year of Searching for a Vanishing Virtue. This is a great way to start 2023!
Mark and Rex wish everyone a Merry Christmas and happy New Year by sharing stories from their past which include a Christmas Eve in a Columbian jail and a nefarious BB gun.
Dr. Winfield Bevins joins the show to talk about the connection of liturgy and mission. Points he highlights in his new book, Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Life of the World.
Mark and Rex discuss the interplay between faith and economics, tackling questions like, How should a Christian view wealth? Poverty? What does the Bible hae to teach us about money? Just in time for holiday shopping.
In honor of Native American Heritage Month we are bringing back our interview with the lead editor of the First Nations Version, Terry Wildman, we recorded last year. For more information on the translation, go to firstnationsversion.com.
Jessup's lead faculty in mathematics, Michelle Clark, joins the show to discuss how math helps us understand the wonder and beauty of God.
Jessup's newest professor of biblical studies, Dr. Max Botner, joins the show to talk about his journey to Jessup and his heart for studying and teaching the Bible.
Dr. M. Daniel Carroll from Wheaton College joins the show to discuss his new book The Lord Roars: Recovering the Prophetic Voice for Today.
Scholar and Jazz enthusiast William Edgar joins the show to discuss his new book, A Supreme Love: The Music of Jazz and the Hope of the Gospel.
Mark and Rex kick off Season 4 by looking back at their summer travels and summer reading list, proving once again Julius Rex Gurney is the most interesting man in the world!
Sociologist Felicia Song from Westmont College joins the show to discuss her new book Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age.
Theologian Kelly Kapic joins us again to talk about our new book You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News.
Dr. Loren Haarsma, professor of physics and astronomy at Calvin University, joins the show to talk about his recent book, When Did Sin Begin? Human Evolution and the Doctrine of Original Sin.
Author Kaitlyn Schiess joins the show to discuss her recent book, The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor.
Mark and Rex are joined by their award winning student associate producer, Matthew Todd, to recap the highlights of season 3.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Everyone welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore
0:04 and your co-host Rex Gurney and resident minion, Matthew, Todd,
0:07 and Rex and Matthew, we are excited today. This is Season Three finales. And this is our final one before we go into summer reruns. And we're just going to look back at the show, and we're going to introduce you maybe more to the minion in the room. Mr. Matthew, just show you the reach
0:25 of Jessup Think. Actually, I connected with one of my former seminary friends is living outside of DC and they've been there forever. And I mentioned that you have podcasts and so he listened to all season three backwards, he said,
0:39 Oh, there we go. Well, we hope you enjoy the season three finale.
0:43 Yeah. Well, if you're listening then and I can, I can spread it to my new place, too.
0:48 So where's your new place? So here
0:50 what we have, we have to have a break for them to and then we'll start the episode. You know what I'm saying? Like that was the intro. So we can tailor if you're listening after the enjoy season three finale, you can you can go into the music and then
1:08 oh, yeah, okay.
1:10 I forgot we're pros here.
1:11 Yeah, we just
1:13 so Pro that we gave him extra content to work with
1:15 just more content. So now we'll start the podcast portion of the show.
1:29 Rex and Matt, so glad to have you. That might be the first time I've ever called you, man in my life.
1:35 I feel like one of those things that you wipe your feet on when you come into someone's house.
1:39 That's true. Do you prefer Matthew? I do.
1:42 However, I think you know, being Matt is sort of biblical, because you're supposed to be humble and let everybody walk.
1:51 In a sense, doormats, right, they wash your feet, and when one manner of speaking if you kind of wipe your shoes on it, you know, and that's that's what Jesus would do.
1:59 And you know, that is why Matthew Todd our associate, slash minion, hear the podcast was one of the most distinguished Jessup graduates when one of our highest award he was you can just see there's just Biblical stuff dripping all over him. Right,
2:16 right. Yeah, that's right. He's an award winning graduate of Jessup for this last year. And the reason he's on the show for the last year, he's been our kind of associate producer, helping helping the show helping us with social media. Amen.
2:31 Amen. And finally, being the spur that we needed to actually get T shirts and we made the two years after he made the T shirts happen,
2:39 you can probably hear it, but I'm wearing it right now. Let me just give you a little sound a little sneak preview.
2:43 We heard that T shirt in the wind. Well, yeah, so you graduated. And where? Where are you going? What's life after Jessup?
2:53 So I got my degree in biology, and I am going to start pharmacy school in the fall and the University of Florida at their Orlando campus. So very excited about that. I'll be leaving in less than two months.
3:07 There you go. See, look at look what can happen with a Jessup grand now here on the West Coast, get a biology degree
3:15 and then go directly to what second string Promised Land Texas is first string but but Florida is pretty close.
3:24 Now I had to go I had to rank the promised lands, you know?
3:27 Yeah. Great. University of Florida pharmacy school.
3:32 That sounds good. Yeah. 30 minutes from Disney World, basically. Hey, there you go. Yeah, dealing drugs,
3:37 you're gonna have to be an official drug dealer.
3:41 But for my street cred for the for the podcast. I have to mention, I also graduated with a Bible minor. Very much like every single other exact transfer of Jessup, who graduates but so
3:53 I mean, you did win the award a graduation, you won our highest male Graduate Award, I
3:59 believe, right. Yeah. That's called the founder award, the founder or which means I'm, I guess that means I'm like William Jessup, but I've never met him. So hopefully, that's like a good thing.
4:09 You do get your name on a plaque somewhere. I think
4:13 it has John Jackson's thumbprint on it. Okay. I think I can maybe save that and sell it or something. Yeah, get
4:18 a piece of tape. You know, St. Peter's asking for that. I've heard at the pearly gates.
4:22 So I know he's like, Well,
4:25 like here, I'm a Founders Award. Because you embody the spirit of Bill Jessen.
4:30 Oh, wow. Yeah. I never even knew him. Did you guys ever meet the founder? No, no, I didn't assume
4:36 more. Yeah, it was son, his grandson, actually. Yeah. Yeah. So when you were hired here, Mark was was Bryce still president? Yeah.
4:45 It was it was his last year 2010 Wow.
4:49 I remember when I was first hired. I was walking across the old campus with Bryce Jessup and he said he was really I don't know if I should be saying this on the podcast, but he cuz I was really glad I was at Jessup because he wanted me to try to set some people theologically straight on campus.
5:06 Oh, there we go. He's talking about but coming in as the Enforcer, I
5:11 guess.
5:12 Yeah. And we'll assume that you did that, you know, I don't know. I believe it set him right. Or maybe they're gone now. And they've never been heard from again. Exactly. That is kind of enforcement. That's how it works. And I Bryce gave them kind of a wink. And then Rex is like, Alright, I'm gonna figure out what that means. Well, we
5:29 actually have some brutal faculty meetings back in the day, as far as professors yelling at each other about whether we were an Arminian or a Calvinist school. Oh, I remember of theology professor almost jumping up on a table and just screaming and everybody, because there was a little bit of Calvinists talk that he was very uncomfortable with. Oh, that was years ago, though. Yeah, the good thing is we don't do that. And I've
5:52 repented of that.
5:55 An earlier version. The bad thing is that, you know, maybe we don't take theology seriously enough to jump on tables and screaming at each other anymore. I've lost something.
6:05 Yeah, we've lost a little bit of the passion. Yeah, a little bit of the passion
6:08 and even read those stories, because supposedly, that's a pretty common thing with theology like meetings, they can get really heated about their, what they're talking about, there was someone talking about how the serpent would have moved before it slid on its belly, and somebody got mad, and at the accusation that supposedly it could bounce like a pogo stick, and they were getting really, really angry, and irate. And it's like, recorded somebody, like, typed down all the things they said, quote,
6:34 I got transcripts.
6:35 I did not know that. I didn't know the full knowledge that I had never happened. Yeah, definitely. Good. We
6:41 have. So as a snake could pogo stick before? Before the temptation? Yeah,
6:48 because the curse was that he now had this.
6:50 Yeah, maybe that's maybe that's what made him so intriguing to Adam and Eve that he just didn't. Yeah, you're like, Wait, what is this snake doing? Amazing. See theology? Well, I'm one of the purposes of the podcast is to help make theology a little bit, you know, more accessible, more accessible part of the conversation. So you're learning stuff. And just, you know, we did have a pretty amazing season, you know, looking back on the guests we were able to, to get, and it was our first season having an associate producer, student producer. So thank you, Maddie Todd, for all of your work. But even starting out at the gates, cause our seasons go from September to the end of June. And then July and August are always reruns. So we'll pull some of our best shows from season three. And we'll play him as reruns this summer sort of greatest? Yeah, exactly. And we were able to, we kind of started off season three with Caitlin shez, who's author of the liturgy of politics. And I think on that one I was, you were out of town. So I was able to actually, it was excellent. I think it's gonna be one of our one of our reruns, because she just had an amazing way of talking about that. For one, everything in our lives is political. So when you try to say like, No, I'm not trying, I'm not political. Almost every decision we make has, has some type of political ramification or, you know, and so it's like, hey, instead of distancing ourselves saying, okay, life is political. What does that mean? What does that mean to be a faithful Christian in in politics? And not not just in she kind of strays away from like, partisan politics, but just in politics? What does it mean to be a Christian and to be faithful in that, so really helpful. Went from Caitlin chest to Priscilla Pope Leveson, who we had her husband, Jack Lovcen on in her book, models of Revelation, our models, how we say that models revelation, because that's the Avery Dulles that she based it on models of evangelism. And I thought that was it was really helpful book because I had not thought of the different ways of evangelism in that way. And the categorization was good, and it also made me I am pretty skeptical of kind of the cold calling evangelism. Oh, yes.
9:31 I remember in seminary, we actually, we actually had to go to the beach and annoy people. I remember doing that. I think, yeah, I did it. I did it. And I did it. I did it. Yeah. We used to walk around basically, you know, with a question if I mean, you know, you know, the question, this is a nice goal, right? Yes. Like if, if you were to be run over by a bus Do you know? Like, that's the best question we can come up with
10:00 You have the best starter,
10:01 and I did in like summer camp, we would ask what what do you think happens when you die? And I remember specifically, someone just was like, my ashes are gonna be spread across the world. And that's the end of it and they just like walked away. I was like, well, at least he saw of it. Yeah.
10:15 He's confident.
10:18 However, we can demystify evangelism, because that's just one.
10:22 I think that's important. Yeah, she had a chapter on that. And, and it was kind of like, yeah, the, you know, I think because of my fear of kind of the cold calling, it also plays itself out in me maybe not bringing up Yeah, yeah, God enough when I could, you know, obviously, you know, with our professions, Rex, it kind of comes up. I mean, I guess you can be like, I teach history. Rama was like, Hey, I teach and they're like, Oh, what do you teach theology? You know, and they're like, Oh, okay.
10:53 Well, you know, depending on whether I want to have a conversation or not, with a seat meet on a plane, I can actually when the dreaded question comes up, what do you do? I can say two different things and be truthful, saying both things. I can say I'm a college professor, and that has implications but I can also say, I'm an ordained Southern Baptist pastor. Oh, yeah, that's usually that if you want to start a conversation stopper right there almost every time
11:18 you're like, I'm gonna put my headphones back in.
11:20 Oh, you got like the select for you that that's like a conversation starter that they like, suddenly just get into it, you know?
11:26 Yeah. Yeah. But it was, for me. Yeah. The chapter was was helpful. Like, hey, there's there is a place right. And there are I mean, here's the reason why. Why not only a Christian do many Mormons do it. I mean, I agree. You're, you're out there. So I thought that was yeah, I'd never really thought of evangelism. And it was always kind of nervous about this over evangelism, I guess. Yeah. And the way she broke it down and the models I thought, were really helpful to bring them back in. Then we had Terry Wildman on the show with the First Nations version translation of the New Testament that was so cool, which I've been doing my kind of devotion, sorry, devotion, flex, they're out of it. And it's just
12:13 they've been doing the same amazing, in fact, this morning, and I hadn't thought about that, that connection, but it's providential. Apparently, I actually finished the last chapter of John. And so the copy that I have of the First Nations version that he's that he's responsible for, is just the Gospels and acts and Ephesians. And so I just finished it up today. It's been really helpful for me, in fact, I actually have the Lord's Prayer in the First Nations version on my wall in my office here. That's great love how I love how he have this translated.
12:52 Yeah, it is because it talks about the corn and in the Buffalo maybe. Yeah, brings in like it brings in Yeah, marry
13:03 the good row cultural. Yeah.
13:04 Good road. wanna
13:05 walk the good.
13:07 Fun fact about Terry Wildman? He has a he has a connection with Sacramento. He was actually just in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago, staying at one of the board members at our churches. Oh, wow. She's She's worked for university for 30 Some years and he was doing a retreat. And he said he's going to be back in the Sacramento region doing maybe we can get him on the show again. Yeah, we could have him live on the live on the show. That would be that'd be great. We went from Terry Wildman. I mean, this is we went Kailyn shez Priscilla Pope Levison tear Wildman with the First Nations version to Dr. Lauren haarsma from Calvin College, Calvin University, in his book, which was very theological winded sin begin. It's interesting that you brought up the snake. Yeah, and the pogo stick the snake and the pogo stick. But it was really helpful to, you know, because in this conversation of theology and, or faith and science, you know, especially in terms of a doctrine of creation, is it's hard to understand and theologically, right, like some of the things that we're seeing in the fossil record and in, you know, in actual scientific data, like, I think he was helpful to say, we can't be afraid of that. And it's not that that shapes our, you know, or molds, our theology, but our theology should understand that and it's kind of like they can dialogue together
14:48 right now, one thing I really appreciate about this book and I actually went out and bought it after the after the pot because I really wanted to not just skim it, but you know, take a deep dive into it is I Think you probably remember me saying because actually, Matthew was in my Christian perspective classes last semester. So I might have said, I'm a broken record, I say the same thing over and over again, but haven't got same stick, same stick every time. Try to modify it if it doesn't work. But anyway, my ears. I probably said something like, there's some class. But, you know, with the science and faith thing, there's very few kind of bullet proof positions that you can have if you want to take both the biblical witness and the scientific consensus seriously, right. Yeah. And so you know, with them with age of the earth and that kind of thing. You do have certain questions that have to be answered about the first chapter of Genesis. But the second and third, is something that theistic evolutionists have to deal with too, because how do you actually get the fall into this? And how does that make sense from an older standpoint? Right. Right. There's no easy solutions to those things. Yeah.
15:58 Yeah. And that's what he's really kind of tackling that. Yeah. In the book tackling Okay, where does the fall right in right? Did it have to? Like, did Adam and Eve have to be the very first actually humans or hominids? Or were they in alignment, he gave a couple of different options that I think fit with the biblical text and also fit with current scientific research, which I thought was really helpful. Because it's, it's, it's unfortunate, and especially in terms of theology, where we could take a position as a church that then forces people when they go to a biology class, especially at just a state school or anywhere else, right. That means
16:46 we're gonna see at the University of Florida, yeah.
16:47 And we received Florida this no Christ in anywhere in that time,
16:50 right? Not at all. That we put them in a position to where they have to be either reject what they're hearing in class or reject the Bible. And it's like, and I think Dr. Aardsma did a good job of being like, hey, there's we don't have to reject these two. Can Yeah, yes. And we can learn what's the what is the theological principle that's being taught in Scripture? And, and how does that then help us approach things we see in the scientific data? Also noting that not just our scientific data isn't concrete, right. And there's still mystery and question and theory involved? Yeah.
17:34 And the landscape changes so rapidly. I mean, like things that we believe now we probably didn't believe 100 years ago, right. And we're not gonna maybe believe 100 years from now. Right? Should the Lord always growing upon what we
17:45 have to say that for the Lord, millennials,
17:49 for in terms of science and mean, as well, I love that actually, in that Christian perspective, class, there were so many questions. You had discussion questions about the intersection of faith and science, because I was like, This is my thing. And most people are like, Oh, I don't really know anything about science. Like I know all.
18:06 I know, we just defer to our resident expert, Matthew Todd.
18:08 Yeah. So Matthew, in your biology class,
18:12 you think about this. And so I got up my pulpit was like, Well, guys, I'm just kidding. Yeah.
18:17 Well, in that yeah, so that one might, that one might make a comeback on the on the summer reruns. We got four episodes that we do summer reruns, and we have
18:26 so many wonderful podcasts to choose from.
18:28 I know we really do. Think we are. We are getting close to 100 episodes. Wow. It's season four. We'll get we'll reach 100 episodes. So any plans for when that happens? I know we're sound effects. Fireworks. Yeah.
18:45 Well let the Patreon people decide. And if you haven't heard of Patreon, just you'll hear about at some point. Okay,
18:54 ah, oh, yeah, you will hear about Patreon at some point.
18:57 I mean, yeah, maybe they'll do something wild. Who knows? Yeah, it will be well, I'm expecting some jumping on tables and shouting, just like we kind of previewed at the beginning of the episode.
19:07 Okay. Yeah, shouting each other with your Patreon. Yeah, it's happening. Moved from that we did kind of a pretty good stretch of of having outside guests on. We had Hillary McBride on after that, and a psychologist and talking about the wisdom of your body, listen to your body. And I think it's so important, so important to to understand the embodied nature of human beings and that our actual physical bodies while it's not the totality of who we are, it is a part of who we are.
19:49 And it's really necessary to reclaim that phrase. Yeah, popular music, because right is listening to their bodies in ways that perhaps are not helpful.
19:57 Right. And that's very true and hips dome All right, so yeah,
20:01 it's like we have this fun, we have an interesting designation between, like, you know, we consider to be like the flesh that you can listen to, but it's also the body that we were given, you know, God came, or Jesus came to earth and a body. Yeah. And so for a reason, right? We're not meant to just hate it and just wish that we were just little souls like, in our movie soul that just float around.
20:21 Right, yeah, we are embodied. And, and we have to listen to what our body is saying in terms of health. And in terms of mental health, all that. I mean, like body doesn't just mean Yeah, I think sometimes in the church we talked about body has just like flesh, flesh versus spirit, right? Yeah. Flesh is bad. And we kind of, even if we don't explicitly say that, I think people catch that in church, right? And so they they end up, I was just listening to the songs sung from back in the 90s. That was kind of like an under underground song. But one of the lines said, I grew up. I was told when I was young, not to trust in my body. Oh,
21:07 that's from Bruce Cockburn. Yeah. And I actually love that song. Sort of last night, an amazing song. It is, hey, yeah, I knew Rex and
21:20 interesting thing about Bruce Kapur and you know, so he had moved to San Francisco. And started for the first time in a long time, he's always self identified as a Christian, but kind of doesn't want to have anything to do with the institutional church. Yeah. But um, started going to church with his wife in San Francisco. And they had some issues with getting musicians for their praise band. And yeah, nobody knew who he was. You know? Because if you don't know, you don't know. And the guy's kind of older now. So yeah, he's like, Well, you know, I'll play guitar with you. Yeah. And they didn't realize that a guy that's playing guitar in their praise band is like this famous singer songwriter. Right. So, you know,
21:59 that's amazing. Yeah, that's just, that's really cool. Well, I knew I could tell from the song that it was. And even that mine, that he had had some type of relationship with a church trying, you know, grew up learning not to trust my body. And then the next line is I've carried that burden all my life. And I thought, wow, that's really interesting. And we have to be careful about that in the church. Now, like what you were saying, Rex, like, there are, like listening to your body doesn't mean and I think Hillary did a good job of this doesn't mean you listen to whatever it says, right? You know, I mean, especially when we're talking about kind of what we would I'm doing air quotes here. Like, fleshly, you know, desires. But that's not necessarily like, body related. I mean, I think we have to make that distinction of our actual physical body versus what Paul would be talking about as flesh.
22:51 Right? Exactly. Yeah. Cuz your body is made of flesh. And so it's confusing in our English language.
22:57 Right? Right. Yeah, it is. And it's, and it is confusing, because the Greek that Paul's using literally just means flesh. So and we have to kind of, you know, we go back and forth. Okay, do we, you know, the NIV I think calls it sinful nature. But then we're like, Hey, that's not what the Greek word so then it's like, well, flesh, but flesh doesn't really help us. Because it's not literally the pink stuff, you know, underneath your skin that Paul's talking about. So I thought that was that was really helpful. And I think particularly, her book was helpful. I feel like there is a big focus on the body in culture. And some good some bad, right? But I think it's, it's a focus of, hey, we have to, we have to learn how to live in our bodies in your bodies. And I think it's also helpful. As you get older, I'm getting older and you have to listen to your body right body can't do the same things you could do when you were 20. So what
23:54 is the gray your beard sustained? Yeah,
23:56 exactly. The beard. You know, the gray. What's that? Like, guys? I don't even now it's just more wisdom.
24:04 Just more of any,
24:05 I'm one step closer to playing Santa Claus. That is my life goal, My life goal. We move from there and did a little bit of the advent calendar. I think we're always you know, one of the things Rex and I love to do is bring in kind of church calendar and liturgical practices. I'm really, really drawn to that. We were also able to have one of our we actually over the course of this season, we had two of our psychology profs on and on, but we started with Melanie Trowbridge. And we just talked about kind of mental health in the church and how the church doesn't always approach mental health in a gentle way, in an empathetic way. And just really important, especially I mean, more and more news reports coming out me know of a Just the amount of kind of a mental health crisis among college students among younger but also among adults, I mean, adults are not immune in any way. And what's it like
25:13 over half of folks are going to have at some point in life, a verifiable mental, right health episode of some sort, right? Nice is ubiquitous.
25:24 And it seems like maybe on the church side, it goes back to the body thing, sometimes we, we deny the physical or neurological part of that. And if we focus only on the spiritual, I think, obviously, I'm a pastor as well, focusing on the spiritual is important. But we also have to focus on the physical and the neurological, I was just reading an article that said, you know, it was talking about the, the hidden cause you're not cause but like, a hidden problem with mental health, especially among high school students. And it was sleep.
26:02 Oh, totally. It was totally my wife's a nurse practitioner. And that's her mom's mantra right now. It's just like, you know, it's how many hours of sleep do you get? Especially when she's dealing with high school students? Because, you know, apparently, until you're 21, you still like go to pediatrics. But anyway, yeah. Um, it's like, you know, so how many hours you know, right, when you get right, it's just an issue. Yeah, it's an issue.
26:26 It's crazy how like, so whenever someone especially like Trowbridge, I've been in summer classes, she's amazing. And that one of the biggest things you can do to kind of help your general health is just sleep, diet and exercise, and how people will buckle those and sleep honestly, it seems like it's almost like, you don't get the choice as much, because you're just forced to work late, you're forced to wake up early to go do other things. And so that one, it seems hard. And diet sometimes can be like, you know, money restrictive, and things like that. But it's, it's funny, because relatively speaking, those are somewhat simple. So the thing is just, you know, closing your eyes and going, right, right and exercises, it can be something like going on a walk and but it can be so difficult sometimes. Yeah, to get all three of
27:08 those. Yeah, it's interesting. I think that's a good picture of life, often the best thing for you is the simple thing. And the simple thing is often the hardest thing to do exactly. I think it's, it's we would rather like no, I'm gonna go to the gym for four hours. And it's like, why don't you just take a 15 minute walk? Just start there. Start there. And you know, take your phone out of your bedroom, turn your computer off and be able to go sleep I mean,
27:38 park in the last space in the parking lot, right yourself have to actually walk a few extra steps. Yeah, here's the things Yeah.
27:45 And diet. Yeah, I don't know. Just saying like something like diet can be financially restrictive. But also when you look at it there are from pretty affordable fruits and vegetables.
27:57 Vegetables live in a food desert, though, and there's all sorts of issues with that. Yeah, nope, an error. Yes,
28:02 very true.
28:04 Very true. In the same way what you were talking about, there's like a difference between going all the way paleo or something like that only go into like extremes Yeah, and just cutting out some sugar like maybe you eat like seven candy bars a day eat like five or four or one or none? That's a good that's a really good good there's smaller things you can do you know, each seven candy bar confession time. The truth is out there not really bars, but Reese's are, are my weakness.
28:34 And when they're only little cups, thing, for those no problem, they're fine. We also had sociologists malicious song on the show from West marsh and Professor Westmark talking about the role of technology and the role of devices. And, and part of that was, you know, the devices that keep us from sleep that can actually keep us from health, you know, now, and I thought it was yeah, really helpful book I keep going back to it when I find myself staring at a screen too long or being caught in this kind of triple screen prison of TV, your phone and, and, and not and what I liked about her approach was it wasn't a hey, you need to throw all these things. Go it's kind of that extreme mood that I had she had it is a like, have habit play a proper role in your life. But also be aware of maybe how you're using it to distract yourself, how you're using it, where it actually is impeding you from maybe being healthy and things like that, you know, so I thought it's we're only going to have to talk about that more and more as as all of our lives are more automated. Now that's not to say that there weren't problems in the 1800s. Right? I mean, I think that's the kopien. Future. Yeah. Like that's the that's my always beef with kind of a technology thing is that yeah, if you just go Luddite doesn't solve all your problems. And, and technology can be used really helpful. I mean, I listened to a ton of audiobooks every year.
30:20 Yeah, it's podcast. There's a Jessup thing. I love listening to it. It's yeah,
30:24 see, you could listen to this podcast. couldn't do that.
30:27 While you take exercise and become healthier. Yeah, actually, yeah. Which will help you sleep better actually,
30:33 literally listen to while you're exercising, wasn't to read for you go to bed. We are the solution. We are the solution,
30:43 we'll have a line of pajamas in a while.
30:47 Oh, hey, all right, we've got a few more few more to go through, we're gonna have another one of our own professors on he's in our leadership and division part of my school, Derek Zond, with his book, looking at how to be Christian and not be a jerk, which is sad that we would have to have a book on that, but it is so true. And it was a helpful, like, Hey, you can be faithful to Scripture, you can be faithful Christian. And, and in fact, I would maybe even go as far to say, if you are a faithful Christian, you shouldn't be a jerk like that would exclude being a jerk. Right? Like, like if you were taking on the characteristics of Christ. And gentleness, humbleness, love, joy, peace, all of those. You wouldn't, but yet we struggle with that.
31:43 Yeah, I find it encouraging because sometimes, I don't know why. Maybe it's just something about some people have hung around who aren't Christians, you get this feeling sometimes that inherently by being Christian, maybe you're being a jerk. There's something about Christianity. And that's not the case. Nothing about like sharing, just saying that you're a Christian is like, in any way rude to people. There's nothing about our faith that is like jerky. It's just the way that you can kind of act and you can be vindictive in certain ways. It's a more behavior. So something like inherently about Christ, that then means that well, if I'm going to serve you this, I gotta be a little bit of a jerk to people. Like, that's not required.
32:16 I think some people will think that though. Okay, everything's in as a guy,
32:23 which is why it's good to have like that book as a reminder, I thought,
32:26 yeah. Yeah. So good. So helpful. After that we were able to have I'm gonna call them a good friend, since you've been on the show a couple times. But Kelly Capek theologian from Georgia, and his book was also on body, right? You're only human how your limits reflect God's design and why that's good news. And I've probably used more from that book in my classes right away than maybe some of all of the books from from this season, I thought it was just, again, really helpful for helping us understand what it means to be human. I've told the maybe partly because it's a little awkward. And so sometimes it's good in class to throw an awkward story in there to wake people up, right, because they're like, Wait, what is happening? But the whole, like, I think I leave out what Kelly Capek, how he starts it, but the whole stare at your belly button. And what does that teach you? Right? Like, like, what does that teach you about you? That means you you were connected to someone else at some point? Like you did not create yourself? You did not, you know, the thought, Wow, that's so. So, so good. And so simple is right there on your own body be like, Wow, I was connected. Meaning we're connected as humans, and he goes into kind of body and the role of the body and listening to the body as well, which, which I really appreciate. I really appreciate it. A lot of what Colin Kaepernick has written and good that we can call him a friend of the show.
34:06 Yeah, I was kind of like all sad that he ended up ditching the former name, which was the theology of navel gazing. For that, yeah,
34:14 he Well, I think, editors sometimes the title committee got rid of that. They were like, No, we're not doing a theology of navel gazing. Yeah, but that will be my upcoming book. Oh, great. Yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, might as well take that multiple you can get Yeah, exactly. Now that we now that we have it, then we had our scholar who did our, the annual theology spring lecture, Dr. Thomas Reynolds. Up from Canada, he actually wasn't able to then come on campus. But he was able to do that remotely and then obviously join us remotely looking at disability theology of disability and and the church and how the church and when at gained from that one from working in a church. I've thought so much about that, and how, how it's not just we are being accommodating to those with disabilities, but rather how we are including them as as a vital and just normal part of our community is not like, oh, we'll put up or we'll make no, you are a part of our community. And, and that's so important that involves architecture that involves setting things up, but also just involves like, hey, like we are a family together and and we want to embrace that. And I feel like that conversation is, is rising more and more of hey, the church and disability what does that look like? And and how can the church be better at at reaching out? Then we were we had Dr. Aaron Ambrose on to kind of highlight and we did this kind of a two parter. We had Matt on later, Matthew Gatchell to look at, we did we started with toxic masculinity. And, and in some ways, that wasn't necessarily the, what we went into maybe the podcasts that I bought, but that kind of was what emerged because it is looking at, hey, how is the church? And how is culture highlighted masculinity? And how has that? How's that influenced the church and how we talk about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman? And what are some things we need to change and when were in the church has been rocking, you know, over this last year, we just had more and more stories and more and more continue to come out of where a an incorrect view of, of masculinity has gotten church leaders in trouble and we look at the Maurice Hill and all of that, and a lot of it is built on this. This incorrect idea of what it means to be a man and and so we were able to follow that one up. I thought Dr. Ambrose did an amazing job.
37:20 One more thing that Dr. Ambrose, we actually went to that conversation, as Mark just mentioned, wants to talk a little bit about something else. But as soon as she spent a couple of minutes with two men here suddenly the whole conversation ended up with toxic man basket. Yeah,
37:35 yeah. Do satisfy other who were probably. Well, I do What are you gonna say? You gotta say, we're probably. I'm just saying we're not.
37:48 You guys are men. We are man.
37:51 We have the beer session. Yeah, we have beards. I don't even feel like that's true. Sorry. Sorry, guys. Sorry, man. No, we had Dr. Brad Harper from Multnomah University, which I thought was one Yeah, one of our more powerful podcasts of the season, looking at his book space at the table. Conversation between an evangelical theologian and his gay son in sight, it was just so helpful way to frame this conversation. I mean, the conversation on human sexuality within the church can be so heated, and so divisive. That I thought it was helpful to say, hey, let's let's talk about the other elements of this story, not just well, how does God define human sexuality? And Brad holds a traditional view of human sexuality, and a traditional view of marriage. He also wrestled with, okay with those views, how do I love my son? How am I in my son's life? And I thought the book just sort of did a good job of balancing that, that there's more, there's more questions involved. And and you can answer the question of maybe what does the Bible say about human sexuality? But you also have to answer the question, what does the Bible say about loving others, as you love yourself, loving your neighbor reaching out? Right? Like, it's not one or the other? It has to be both. And I think Ben Harper did a great job of really helping us helping us there. Then we had a local local pastor Kevin Adams, talking about baptism. And, and again, like, in some ways, this book on baptism was similar to the book on evangelism when I went into it being like, okay, yeah, baptism, part, it's part within these get in the book, and I think as Kevin described it, I was like, Oh, wow, like, I just saw the greater importance not that it wasn't. I mean, it's an important sacrament in our church and it's, but just seeing kind of kind of just a greater focus and what role it can play in someone's spiritual Life I think is really a great book and a really important realization. And that one was able to that one came right on the heels of me having a couple of like interesting baptism stories in my own life that I had to do. And baptizing neighbor and she ended up passing away two weeks after baptizer baptized her with a red solo cup on her couch because she couldn't get underwater. She was stage four, cancer and was passing away. But she'd never been baptized and wanted to be baptized. And then on Easter Sunday, so this would have happened after the episode. On Easter Sunday, actually Easter Saturday. Guy from who was kind of connected to our church, he's struggled with addiction and been in and out. He called me up and wanted to meet at the church. So I was like, alright, you know, and Friday are good Friday service. We filled the baptismal because we were gonna do baptisms on Sunday, even though no one had signed up. But after our good Friday service, we were just like, You know what, take them off. That's yeah, let's fill this, I think, you know, our Lead Pastor Richard was like, I feel like God's name was filler. And so it filled it. And then I met him, and I met this guy and our sanctuary on Saturday. And he was just talking about wanting to change, you know, wanting and wanting to be baptized. And, but he was, he was a little bit skeptical and nervous about coming on Sunday in front of, you know, big Easter crowd. And I was like, hey, it's full right now. And so him and I just him and I in our sanctuary, in our ice cold. We didn't turn the heater on yet. So it was ice cold baptismal. Just did a baptism right there. Yeah, it was just Yeah, it was just really cool. Really cool experience. And I think, probably having read Kevin's book leading up to that made me think about that differently than I would have in the past,
42:04 when I was pastoring. I just grew up in a church where, you know, baptism was obviously important, but we wanted to stray so far away from any sort of sacramental theology surrounding that in our sort of free church tradition Baptist Church, that it was literally just something you tack on to the end of the service, and there was just, you know, not much going on there. Right. And I really felt when I was pastoring, that this is such an important thing without embracing necessarily full full on sacramental ism. It's still just really, really important. And so we would always have the whole service basically. It'll be based on what was happening in baptism, the whole thing?
42:49 Yeah, that's, that's so good. I mean, it's helpful and I think particularly helpful for evangelical communities. Who kind of post reformation and most that have been Yeah, so nervous of anything that strikes of sacramental ism, that it's a this is an important part of of the journey. And the symbolism is so important to symbolism. So important. We were then able to have in this book has still been coming back to my mind. Sociologist George Yancey from Baylor
43:23 and interesting thing about Georgia MC, it's not often that Jessup thinks actually gets a leg up on Christianity today, but we scooped them. Oh, we am on our podcast talking about his book about a couple of months before Christine today actually reviewed it
43:37 every go take that. JT and CT. Yeah, maybe maybe they listened to the episode. And we're like, we need to get that book could be almost. But it was, I feel like it's been a helpful addition to this conversation on race in the church. And, and I think Georgia does a good job of, and I'm a sucker for the Middle Way, right? Or the third way. This this idea of, hey, conversations to the extremes of race on both sides have not been helpful and have not produced reconciliation. So why how do we all come to the table? We all have a voice. And we can know what is good. And we can also say like, Hey, that maybe takes it too far, one way or the other. And I just, it was a helpful, I think a book that and that I think the church could really use because I think sometimes particularly in the evangelical church, a lot of times in the white Evangelical Church, anything that talks about race is being you know, labeled as something that it's not and it's been rejected. And it's like why we have to have a conversation and we have to be in this conversation. And I think Nancy's book is a is a good way to move beyond. That's kind of his title beyond racial division. And to in that moving beyond, right, it's not a moving beyond that, that denies racism or denies that this is happening. What is the book that that understands that it's happening, but it's like how do we move to conversation? How do we move to reconciliation part of moving to it is recognizing that it is happening, right? And, and kind of the repent and lament elements. We were able rounding this off. As we finish up our season finale, we had Cameron Wilson, our English professor on the show, talking about the importance of literature, check that one out, then we were able to have as Guinness right show as well, during the great quest, which that was, I was amazing. I've been reading knives for a lot, large part of my life. And so it was amazing to have a conversation with him. Particularly to hear his life he had such an amazing life story. That that I think was helpful, especially as he frames this book on the meaning of life. What does that look like? And I think we're all there in our lives. Sometimes we go back to it several times, especially when you get to midlife. Or a second stage of life. You're like what is the meaning? You know, I thought I knew it when I was 20.
46:24 I obviously have it down. I'm never gonna change my mind. Clearly. You pretty much know everything. I'm gonna know. Right? Yeah, I just finished. So yeah.
46:31 Yeah, right. Nothing else learn till you hit 40. Then it all changes. Now we had Cynthia shape rally it on the show for a final time as a William Jessup University professor, but possibly not the final, but not the final never, never the never final time we'll be able to, we'll be able to get a hold of her at Baylor. But we're really proud of her and happy for her. She goes to Baylor goes to the big leagues of biblical research. Yeah. And we can we'll be able to tell people we knew her one day. Yeah, we had her in the studio. And
47:07 her best work, of course, was done when she was at Jessup. And so yes, it's gonna be anti climactic.
47:13 Exactly. Just kidding.
47:16 And, and then we had Maddie Gotcha. I've kind of references to Amanda Gatchell on to kind of do a follow up of the toxic masculinity be like, Okay, what is biblical masculinity? You know, and especially, and I think what I have wrestled with and wrestle on the show is like, what are elements in Scripture that are gender specific? And what are not because I think there's so much that is not gender specific, just all of us as Christians need to. And actually, I think if we focus there, that helps us become better men and women. Rather than just trying to be a better man versus a woman. What about being being more Christ like, and as a man, that makes me a better man?
48:04 I think that was one of our longest podcasts too, because we just couldn't stop talking. I mean, right three of the say that all thought this is such an important topic and right in what to do, right and better with that.
48:14 Yeah, it's it's important. And now we're at our season three finale. Three seasons. Moving up. Closing in on 100 episodes. Looking forward to season four as well. Any plans so you're moving to Florida over the summer? Any? Any summer plans while people are?
48:36 Lots of weddings? I got two more. I think that's pretty common for once you graduate. Yeah.
48:41 Once you get everybody's like we're graduated wedding here. Yeah. Yeah. colleges
48:45 that are similar to ours. Yeah.
48:47 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Christian school. You finish it up. And then yeah, so I had to throw a Christian bachelor party too. And that's that was pretty nice story that you can tell because it was we had a devotional, you know, and I was like, there we go. Is Christian There
49:00 you go. That is maybe some coffee involved. Was there some coffee? It was no, I don't like is
49:05 that before after you guys hit the bars? Well, yeah. It was make us feel bad.
49:12 coffee bars.
49:15 The candy bars, right. Like I said, it's definitely day to day until we let loose
49:21 from that very, very nimbly there.
49:24 I brought it up. So I had to expect to be able to dodge Yeah, that's
49:27 true. My Buffy Rex.
49:30 Actually, interestingly enough, we my wife and I are probably going well, planning on spending a week in Orlando. Not to see me you know, not necessarily just to visit our esteemed minion but to go to a conference there and hopefully spent some time with a cousin that lives in Hilton Head and Oh, for years and I've never been there so beautiful to Charleston Savannah, and Some places like that, that as a history person, yeah, you know, wanted to see and never have seen. So we're planning on doing a little bit of
50:07 the South side that might see a little bit of the south of California. So doing some beach camping and a conference in San Diego, which there are worse places.
50:20 So yeah. So dogs the mouse like he is,
50:23 yeah. Is that Yeah, yeah, I will continue to dodge the mouse until the mouse cost less. Then probably getting back to Indiana season family. So yeah. And then also both you and Rex and I are teaching summer classes. So we'll be Well, we hope you enjoyed season three. I hope you enjoyed this kind of little recap, if you hadn't kind of seen those episodes, maybe go back and check them out. We will be pulling for those to do some a rerun. So we hope you enjoy kind of these reruns of highlighting some of these really important episodes and really important issues. And we're looking forward to season four and kind of continuing the conversation and continuing to make you think more deeply about theology and your life.
51:13 Congratulations on making it to the end of the podcast. Be sure to follow us on Instagram @jessupthink where we'll be posting updates and some behind the scenes content. We would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you might have to leave us a comment or email us at think@jessup.edu. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. And you want to support the show. Leave us a review on iTunes. We can reach more people. Until then, I'm Matthew Todd outro reader extraordinaire, and this has been Jessup Think.
51:45 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies. Designed to see each student whipped and transformed into leader they're called to be as go don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Professor Matt Godshall joins the show to explore what true masculinity looks like. This episode expands on our previous session toxic masculinity.
Esteemed Hebrew Scriptures professor Cynthia Schafer-Elliott joins the show before she heads out to join the biblical studies department at Baylor University.
Author Os Guinness joins the show to talk about his new book, The Great Quest: Invitation to an Examined Life and a Sure Path to Meaning.
English professor Cameron Wilson joins the show to discuss the importance of good literature in pursuit of a deeper faith.
Sociologist George Yancey joins the show to discuss his new book Beyond Racial Division: A Unifying Alternative to Colorblindness and Antiracism.
Pastor Kevin J. Adams joins the show to chat about his new book, Living Under Water: Baptism as a Way of Life.
Dr. Brad Harper, theology professor from Multnomah University, joins Mark and Rex to talk about his book which he co-wrote with his son, Drew, entitled Space at the Table: Conversations Between an Evangelical Theologian and His Gay Son.
Dr. Erin Ambrose joins the show again to chat with Mark and Rex about gender stereotypes in the church and the harm they cause.
Mark and Rex follow up on their conversation with theologian Kelly Kapic by discussing the shocking truth that God not only loves us but God really likes us as well.
Scholar Thomas E. Reynolds joins the show to talk about how disability is handled in the church and how the church can foster a more open and hospitable community.
Theologian Kelly Kapic joins us again to talk about our new book You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News.
Jessup professor Derek Zahnd joins the show to talk about his recent book Hope for Unity and Diversity: How To Be A Christian Without Being A Jerk.
Sociologist Felicia Song from Westmont College joins the show to discuss her new book Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age.
One of Jessup's beloved Psychology professors, Melanie Trowbridge, joins Mark and Rex to examine the growing mental health crisis among young adults and how the Church needs to respond.
Mark and Rex discuss the importance and beauty of the Advent season as well as the significance of the structure of the Church year. This episode is a wonderful way to thoughtfully begin the Holiday season and and excellent frame for the coming year.
Historian Priscilla Pope-Levison joins the show to talk about her book Models of Evangelism. The book is a fascinating survey of eight models of evangelism highlighting the diverse ways in which the gospel is proclaimed.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Welcome to Jessup tank. I'm your host Mark Moore,
0:04 and he co hosts Rex gurney. And Rex.
0:06 We're so excited to have Priscilla Pope Levison on the show. She's an associate dean of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, and the author of a recent book entitled models of evangelism.
0:18 And she's a second scholar we've had from Southern Methodist University. Yes. Looking forward to talking about evangelism to them.
0:25 Yeah, looking forward to kind of diving deeper into these different models, and not just having one way to look at evangelism. Right. So I think you're really going to enjoy the show and get it and get a better view, a more robust view of evangelism.
0:45 We are really excited to have you on the show to talk about it, but models of evangelism. And I love First off, I love the nod to Avery Dulles and models of Revelation. Sometimes, in my mind, I'll keep saying models of Revelation. So if I say it today, it's okay. Because Dallas has taken over my mind. But okay, would I I really did appreciate getting into the book, looking at evangelism through the lens of a wide spectrum of models. That is not just one and I think within the church, we often when we hear the word evangelism, we think of it one way. And perhaps we think of it in terms of, you know, going door to door knocking, or, you know, you always hear the pastor who saves everyone on the plane on their cross country flight. And, and so, as you were looking at this, I know from your book, here, it comes from your experience over 20 years of teaching intro to evangelism. Yeah. Was it during that time that you started to kind of isolate or identify these models?
1:53 Good question. And let me just say how delighted I am to be on this podcast, I've been looking forward to it as well. And I love your reference to the airplane story. So many evangelism books start with this success, you know, I was on the plane and, and I, all I wanted to do is read and hide myself. And then someone sat next to me, and they just happened to be, you know, I converted them to Jesus Christ. And it's, it's just a hard way to begin a book, if that's not been your experience, which it hasn't been mine, but it also sets up this high expectation for evangelism that it's going to be, you know, such a spectacular success the whenever you do it, so, no, I don't have a airplane story in a book. But, um, I found, well, you know, as a teacher, you try to help students take these ideas and concepts and practices, and route them in daily life. And so I started teaching evangelism when we were at Duke Divinity School, and most of 95% of the students were going to head off into local church ministry. And so you know, how do you help them take this concept, and really give arms and legs and you know, bodies to it and make it a reality. And so I started to incorporate models, and I had actually it was research project, I gave them a list of maybe, maybe 15 models. And they went off and, you know, did their research. And then they were came back and presented to the class. And I just found over the years that that was a time that students really seemed to engage even deeper, they could see the relevance for where they were going to be serving in North or South Carolina, or Virginia, or wherever. And, and so I started then to think about, after a number of years of this, think about a book that would be I could use in the classroom, that churches could use that would present these models, and I chose eight. You know, there's certainly more than that. But I tried to, to pick eight, that first of all, showed a breadth of approaches to evangelism. And also were grounded biblically, and theologically And historically, and really had lasted, in a sense, the two millennia plus of Christianity. And so that's how I came up with the eight. I actually haven't had too much pushback that I had one person that wanted me to do a particular model of evangelism that he had kind of made famous. And I thought about it, actually, but it it just, to me wasn't comprehensive enough. It hadn't stood the test of time, in a sense. So
4:55 Priscilla, you're also historian and so have you seen some of these models? wax and wane over the past couple of millennia.
5:03 Absolutely. From one historian to another. At Yes, I mean revivalism comes to mind right away. When I taught American Christianity, I would usually say at some point that revivalism was the quintessential expression of American Christianity. So I'm from the Wesleyan family and certainly how Methodists and Baptists, you know, traveled west was by revivals, whether that be in a camp meeting, you know, a brush arbor or a, you know, most places, they didn't have a building, you know, to hold these revivals in. But I would say, I know, revivals still happen. I start off the chapter with an example from Greg Laurie's filling the at&t Stadium in Dallas. They still happen, but they're not at all a part of kind of the I would say American DNA anymore. Or they're they're kind of harken back to a bygone era. I would say the same about visitation. It hit its high point. Kind of in the 20s 30s 40s. It came back with James Kennedy and evangelism explosion. I'm trying I've never done visitation evangelism, but I think it has some real merit to it. And so I've been kind of talking it up to people maybe with the hope that, you know, in might come, it might be a model that people turn to. But absolutely, and of course, then I end with media evangelism, which I define media as tools of communication. So that has been with us always. But now when we're looking at the Internet, and social media and all of that, that certainly is, gives that a contemporary cast.
6:53 So if I was like in the 1970s 1980s, and I bought a bunch of balloons and put Bible verses in them and tried to fly them over into Eastern Europe, would that go come under the rubric of media evangelism?
7:08 Yeah, well, it would be also entrepreneurial, I think evangelists are nothing if not entrepreneurial, because I don't know if you remember the story that I tell in there about Florence Crawford, and the Apostolic Faith Mission in Portland, Oregon, where she bought a plane, she was really into transportation, and she bought a plane, and her son flew it over, like a jail yard of a county square. All and they would drop leaflets, little tracts of gospel of John or whatever. And so you can just imagine these these pieces of paper flying through the air. But yes, they are. They're just some wacky stories.
7:56 When when I was kind of reading through the eight models, I felt relieved, that there are so many models, and you don't have to just do one, you know, and I'm, I've been on staff at a church for over almost 20 years, teaching here for 12. And, and I think sometimes people look at a pastor and think, Well, they obviously have to do evangelism, or they're, you know, and we look at different gifts and and yeah, knocking on doors, strangers, doors has never been my gift mix. Not even like to ask for sugar or anything like that. Right? I would just not. And to see the different models to see. You include some of the newer ones understanding that media is a form of evangelism. And, and, and just seeing that I was really appreciative of that, that I think people approaching this book if they're a little bit leery of evangelism, or maybe even feeling like yeah, I don't have the gift of evangelism. To see the different models. I think people will be able to say, Oh, wow, yeah, but I actually do some type of personal evangelism, coworkers and right into their lives, maybe even small group. Evangelism may have been a part of getting a Bible study together. And and seeing that as evangelism thing is really helpful. I love talking about tent revivals, because I just yesterday, I was driving in Sacramento, and there was a Baptist church and they had a tent in the parking lot. So they have a building but they brought a tent in to have a tent revival. Okay. And I hear you're saying that it is kind of a harken back to I grew up in Indiana, and rural Indiana and so revivals of many tent revivals I went to as a child and and I thought it was just interesting that it is kind of a harken back to, to something that was part of that American DNA and mid 20s, early 20th century and kind of bringing that back in a sense of, hey, we have a building now, but let's still, I still put a tent in the parking lot to, to use this revival as a form of evangelism
10:11 sort of got institutionalized to I mean, I never thought anything of it when I was growing up, I grew up Southern Baptist. And, you know, we would actually have a revival week or two that was in the church calendar. And of course, it will be put into the church calendar, like a year ahead of time. And so, you know, it's like, this is when the Holy Spirit supposed to show up this week. And if nothing happens, then, you know, I, looking back at it now. That's interesting.
10:38 Okay, so you all have raised about five issues. Let me let me just respond to that real quickly. Right. And there's a whole debate as you and you know, as an historian, there's a whole debate about whether revival can be planned. And do we even use the word revival for something that is, is scheduled in the calendar, you know, a year ahead of time? So that's, that's a really interesting question. Um, I have seen, to your question mark, or comment about tent revival. There's a church in Dallas, that Aunt for Easter Sunday, sets up a big tent in a city park right across the street. And they do that for a couple of reasons. One is, of course, a lot of people come more than they can fit into the sanctuary. But they also do it kind of as a halfway place. So this is an area that where there are, it's a low income area, a fair number of homeless there, and probably many people who live in that area might not feel comfortable coming into the sanctuary. And so it's kind of a halfway, not a halfway house, but it's, it's a place for people to come from the neighborhood. There's breakfast served. And then it's it's not so much a revival, but it is I mean, it's a worship service. And then there is an evangelistic message preached on Easter Sunday morning. But they do that intentionally. So that people who wouldn't feel comfortable, they may not have the right kind of clothes, they may not be, you know, showered or whatever would would feel okay, walking into a service in a tent. And so that, to me is a is a way to kind of reframe that for, you know, we always talk about, I mean, churches now are in malls and all kinds of places, because we want to eliminate that big step from when my dad never showed up at church without unless he was in a, you know, two piece suit, sometimes three, and a tie, you know, and and that's not going to make it for a lot of people. But back to your first comment about you felt relief. That is one of the reasons that I wrote the book, because I know the angst that people feel about evangelism. One of someone who wrote on evangelism back in the 80s, talked about exercising the ghosts of evangelism. So, you know, as a teacher, or as if you're rolling out an evangelism idea at a church, you have to spend time, you know, hearing that, but the whole point of the book is to say there isn't one way and to be honest, I, if I were setting out an evangelism plan for a church, I would do a combination of models, I think there's some that really work well together. And that can complement each other. So it's actually more than eight, you could have ate on their own and then mix and match. So there's, there are actually, I think, not quite infinite. But there are certainly many ways to do evangelism.
13:49 Could you unpack a little bit on one of those ways of eight ways on because that is probably not particularly familiar to our listeners, and certainly I never heard in all my theological education, actually. liturgical and Angel ism in the same sentence, yeah.
14:06 Yeah, well, that's, that was from actually he was Robert Weber was a longtime professor of historical Theology at Wheaton College. And my spouse, who was was on your show a while ago, had Dr. Weber and it just he just blew Jack's mind about theology and history. But Bob was a grew up very conservative, I forget which church doesn't make any difference, and found his way into the Episcopal Church. And for him, the liturgy became the lifeblood of his faith. And so he has had these Evan Jellicle roots and this liturgical framework. And what he found is that at the at the outset of Christianity, that that the early church really brought these two Two Together evangelism and worship. And, you know, so you're setting evangelism catechesis worship along the lines of the Church year, you know, starting with advent going through Christmas into Lent and then to Easter. And, um, as you saw in that chapter, He bases his it's really a modern reframing of an ancient text apologises apostolic tradition. And, you know, Bob does more with it. But it's, it's really, and that is certainly also being done in the Roman Catholic Church with the rite of initiation for adults in and so there's a lot of it's very ecumenical. But having said that, I think there's so many ways that churches of all stripes could look at their service, because they all have a certain literally literature, right? I mean, even when you're nondenominational. It has the same flow Sunday after Sunday. Right. So how can that how can you integrate evangelism into the service in, you know, in the songs in the message in your adherence to the church here? And I know that many Nandan arms don't are not. But but most celebrate Christmas and Easter and sometimes, you know, so there are ways to think about reframing the worship service, so that it is is a is a place for evangelism. So it does, it's not happening outside of the worship service. But you've got, you know, you've got newcomers, old timers, youth, children, adults, I mean, you've got this intergenerational mix of people and to think of that as a time for evangelism, I think could really be interesting, no matter what, your denominational preference,
16:55 yes, reframing it, in the sense of evangelism, there's always this kind of tension within the church, right of going out and having people come into the church right now. But also understanding, hey, things that we do within the church can be evangelism way in the sense of inviting people in. And like you said, no matter what denomination you're from, or non denomination, we do have a church year that we follow, particularly with Christmas, and at least with Christmas and Easter. And, in my mind, I had never, you know, in Rex, I'd never connected that with evangelism. But after reading the chapter, I was like, Oh, that actually makes so much sense. And actually at our church we had been because we often say, hey, Christmas is a wonderful time to invite people to church, people are a little more open. Easter is a perfect time to invite people to church. So it's, it's maybe even helping, helping the people in the church realize, hey, this can be this church year is actually has evangelism wrapped up into it in the sense of telling the story, and framing that story in a way that gets the good news to people, whether you're in a highly liturgical church, and I appreciate Dr. Weber's story, because I grew up very evangelical. And in college, I started going to an Episcopal Church, and the liturgy, just I fell in love with the liturgy and the structure. And, and I think it's so important, and now I'm in a Wesleyan Church, so part of the Wesleyan family as well, and have been able to kind of bring, bring in that little bit of the liturgy, feel the church, and now thinking of it in terms of evangelism, I think can help, you know, we were just doing a membership class on Sunday. And I don't know why they have me teach the membership class, because I still I kind of philosophically question what membership is in the church, but they keep having me teach it, but had one guy kind of, you know, in the small group, you know, ask us, like, what are we doing about evangelism? What he meant was, what are we, I don't see anything of us going out and knocking on doors and, and telling people about Jesus, okay. And it was kind of helpful having this framework, to be able to say, that's one model, and we have all of these other models of evangelism that we are, you know, taking part of. And so it was just interesting for me within the church, there's still that tension of there's only one way to do evangelism. Yeah. But yet we can frame all of these different models. really help us understand that. We're actually maybe being more evangelistic than we think we think. Yeah.
19:53 I think the other thing about liturgical evangelism that I think is so important, particularly in our context, Today where we can't assume knowledge of Christianity, I mean, people call it post Christendom is the recognition that people will rarely make a decision for Christ in an instant, like they might have in the revival age. And so this recognizes that people take time, they have to kind of see it, weigh it, you know, look at it from different angles. Think about it, talk to people, and that can take place in the church community, rather than you know, this one moment that God is going to work in your heart, which certainly still does happen. But it's not the norm anymore. It's more of a process. And I think liturgical evangelism can hold that whole process in a way that a revival service or, you know, sort of a one time short, even, even an evangelistic Bible study or small group, they're only intended to go four to six weeks. Well, if they may need to extend, you know, if people still have questions. I, my former colleague and dear friend, Billy Abraham, talks about how people need to have enough knowledge of what they're saying yes to. And I think that's really important in today's world, where so much is accessible, there's so much information. And you know, they may want to just take a process and talk with someone and, and I think, liturgical evangelism recognizes that there is a process of teaching, and only in a sense, at the very end, will people be ready, really, wholly, to commit themselves to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. So I think that it fits where we are as a society better in a sense, then, revivalism
21:56 a Christian community, I've always believed when it's when it's done well is very winsome. And I know that a lot of folks are attracted to a good Christian community first, and their decision for Christ actually will come labors. And sometimes, a long time later, but it's sort of mediated through through the body. I actually see that more and more with folks.
22:20 That's exciting.
22:22 Yeah, it seems like Billy Sunday would not have the, you know, the same career if he started today than when he started that. And perhaps maybe I was thinking of this because you you kind of starter, you raised the question in the book, that oftentimes, many sincere Christians today are a little bit actually leery of evangelism, or if someone brings it up there. And and do you? Do you see a root for that? And is a root maybe in some of the kind of, you know, fire and brimstone revivalism that was happening?
22:59 It's interesting that you bring up Billy Sunday, because given our political climate, I wonder if he might have a following now? Because he was it? I don't know. It'd be interesting to think about Billy Sunday. In in this age, because he was all about patriotism in America first. Just yeah.
23:20 Right. We are the nation that he would give when you walk down the sawdust.
23:26 So we could talk a lot about that. Um, so in terms of your question was about Christians? hesitancy, right?
23:37 Yeah, kind of skepticism of evangelism, not wanting, you know, I hear from a lot of students today have definitely not wanting to force anything. And even as a pastor, I don't want to force anything on anyone. And certain for some reason, I think, within the church, we may have that view that evangelism is forcing someone to convert.
23:59 Or I think, yes, I think a lot of that has been fueled by tele evangelism. And also, as we've been talking about that revival mentality where you, you know, you make this decision tonight, because you may die and and, you know, where do you want to spend eternity? And I wonder, though, how much of that is how much people have really experienced of that? Or if that's kind of in the woodwork, especially people my age who were around in the 80s, in the 90s, and saw the televangelists kind of you know, come and go or we think a megachurch pastors kind of you know, make skyrocketing and then you know, falling away sort of thing. And I think that an invitational winsome dialogue conversation would be attractive to many Christians and for some reason, there's In this mindset, again, as we've been talking about evangelism has to be done one way it's generally done by by a male in a, you know, in an audience or you know, or as you said, coming to the door and there is a sense of, of forcefulness in that. So I'm trying with the book, again, to dial that back. And to suggest that not only are there many ways to do evangelism, but there are it's, it's a step by step kind of in the in the chat, the first chapter on personal evangelism I borrowed from someone else to raise your evangelistic temperature. You know, you can do that by increments. It's not going to change overnight. But where some of those went to talk about exercising the ghosts, where some of those ghosts came from, in this day and age, I'm not quite sure. It just seems to be in the woodwork. And it's hard to kind of get out. You know,
26:04 I don't know if this is taking this a different direction. But it's something that I'm really interested in and kind of working out Personally, myself. I mean, that's the whole issue of cross cultural evangelism. I just remember, I spent a few years in South America back in another lifetime. And, you know, I felt absolutely no issues of going into some of the barrios and borrowing to Columbia and knocking on doors and hearing the gospel as the great white hope or whatever, I didn't even think about it back in the day. And I would, I would feel very uncomfortable doing that in the neighborhood that I live in right now. And and I don't even know how to unpack that, actually.
26:48 Yeah, and if I understand Rex, as I said, I've never done visitation evangelism. But what, but I have since moving to Texas, Jack and I have gone door to door to lobby for a particular House of Representatives, that candidate that we were supporting. And you know, we did it, and it was a there was it, maybe you could say there was a particular season for that? I mean, we had some we had some rude responses. Most people didn't answer the door. But why is it that some of us will go out for a political candidate that we believe in, but somehow we won't do that for for Jesus? So and I struggle with that Rex? Because, you know, what, what was it that that I was hoping to accomplish? I was hoping to accomplish that. They would see someone who was hopefully halfway intelligent, who could, you know, suggest why this certain candidate was a good fit for office and whatever. So I think we will do it. And I don't know why I and so many, maybe you too, are so reluctant. And it bothers me. You know, I pray a lot. When I wake up in the morning for courage. You know, here I am writing a book on evangelism. And I still need courage, I still need the nudging of the Holy Spirit. You know, and so I'm not sure that ever goes away. And that most of us are not so gifted with evangelism, that it's just my mother in law was she sold Avon and brought people to Christ? You know, I just, she was hospitality incarnate. You know, she, she started in a bowling league and brought brought some of her, you know, team members to Christ. It's just, it's just who she was, that is not most Christians. And it doesn't mean that they're not faithful. They're not fervent. They're not, you know, growing in discipleship, but there is just a hesitancy. And I'm not sure it's even so new. I mean, I know. I know, as our culture becomes more diverse religiously, and just, you know, philosophically, but you know, as I as I read through history, it's always been hard for people to to make that step two, and maybe that's the first. Maybe that's the first way to begin if, if any of your listeners are saying, I just don't think I can do this. It's just to recognize that that's where we are, and to pray everyday for courage. You know, is there one person with whom you can ask a question, you know, what do you have you had a spiritual journey, or have you ever had an encounter with God? I mean, there's so many ways to begin this in a very natural conversational way. It doesn't have to be up on a stage or it doesn't have to include knocking on doors, or standing at a street corner. It can be very, very natural part of our everyday life.
30:04 I think that's one of the values of, you know, mentioning that there are a number of different models of evangelism because, you know, we all have different personality types. And unless you're introverts or extroverts, you know, some of us, those kinds of conversations just are easier simply because all conversations are easier. And you know, even introverts like myself, there are ways we can evangelize if we will broaden out the definition of what that is. Yeah. Yeah, there
30:33 you go. Right. So you could start like an introvert evangelism ministry,
30:38 I see a t shirt. That's right.
30:41 Well, I'm kind of wrapping up the conversation. And thank you again, so much for being being on the show, and and really am excited to promote this book and promote it to other professors here who are teaching on evangelism. And it's so helpful, I can see it being so helpful in the church that I'm currently at. One of the things that I really appreciated about your approach is the historical approach. And you kind of start with these little vignettes, these little stories. And I was just wondering, you know, is Was there a particular historical figure who modeled evangelism or something that just stood out to you that was like, Oh, I researched all these stories. And this one person just keeps coming to mind and the way they approached it, or how they went about it.
31:28 Thank you for asking that. Because there actually was, in fact, this person got me into my old all my research into the history of evangelist and particularly the history of women evangelists, of which there have been so many, but most of them have been forgotten, you know, from left out of history, but her name was either Durham Barnard at she was a Methodist Deaconess, who found it two evangelistic institutes, one in St. Louis, and then the male clergy. She was Methodist, male clergy in St. Louis ran out of town when she was on maternity leave, giving birth to her only son. And then she started again in Chicago, and she founded the Chicago evangelistic Institute and ran it for 30 plus years until she died. And what I appreciated about Barnard is she was highly intelligent. She was she, although she never finished college. She did complete a teacher training, and then she went on to Wellesley for a year. Wow. And then she had a full scholarship to Swarthmore to finish her education. And God got a hold of her and called her into evangelism. She always regretted that she hadn't finished her college degree, she received an honorary doctorate afterwards by Oh, I can't the school in Indiana is is escaping me. But anyway, um, she had a highly intelligent, theological, yet life based approach to evangelism. It was she wanted to integrate evangelism into everything that any full time religious worker was involved in, whether you were teaching or nursing or preaching or writing or whatever missionary whatever it was, she trained her deaconesses to, to be sold winners is what she called it, and then when she went to Chicago and founded that school, and the other thing I love about her is her husband. So she and she put off getting married to this man who was deeply in love with her for a long time, because she really believed that God was calling her to open the school. And he was an architect. He said, either I am willing to be your janitor in the institution that you found now. Okay, so this is like the early 1900s this is long before you know dual marriages or marriage equality, or you know, egalitarian marriages like Jack and I have, and I just so appreciated that he so recognized that God's call was on her life, and he actually did end up giving eventually giving up his career as an architect to support her in her work. Um, but I there's so much that I could say about her. When I when I first started teaching evangelism. I didn't see any women really except for Katherine Coleman. And he said, Well, my person Exactly. And so I just asked the question, were there any other women evangelists and I am still finding them 25 years later, but I have a Durham Bernard was the first one that I found. And it was her intriguing life story that just led me deeper and deeper into To into this other topic that I research, but I did want to say that the reason I began the book with those historical vignettes is to demonstrate that evangelists come in all shapes and sizes, colors, genders, everything, and have done since really since before America was founded as as a country. And I hope that also disarms people that, you know, some of these, some people did it from their home, some people, you know, traveled and it generated, there were just so many ways that people did evangelism. And that's what I wanted to start the book with to say, you can do this, you know, you can do this. It's very helpful.
35:44 Yeah, thank you so much for for being on the show. Thank you for putting all of your research into this book. I think it's gonna be so helpful, and the university and in the church, thank
35:55 you. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's been delightful.
35:59 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup think
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Psychologist and award winning researcher Hillary McBride explores the broken and unhealthy ideas we have inherited about our bodies in her new book The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Everyone welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex. Rex on the show today, we have Hilary McBride. She's a psychologist and an award winning researcher. And she's going to explore the broken and unhealthy ideas we've inherited about our bodies in her new book, The wisdom of your body, finding healing, wholeness, and connection through embodied living. And even though in our podcast, I guess we are disembodied voices, I think we're going to learn that embodiment is a very, very important part of our spirituality, so important in so important to our life in the world, and our life with God, I really hope you enjoy the show, I
0:49 want to start by saying thank you so much for joining us on the show, and really excited to talk about your book. And a main thread that that kind of connects your book is this idea of embodiment. And so I'd love to just start there, and have you kind of tell our listeners what, what is embodiment? And how does that kind of connect the themes of your book. Yeah, that's a great place to start, because the word embodiment is thrown out so much these days. And yet having it clearly defined as something that I find doesn't happen as often as it's used. So I think a great as it again, as an academic, I love starting with defining the terms.
1:29 We most of us hear the word embodiment when we think about someone living up their values. So somehow the things that matter up here are kind of up in their head or in flashed and the way that they move through space and time how they are with people how they occupy space. But the the way that I'm using embodiment, and the principle that moves through, like you said, that weaves together, the book is just a little different than that. It's, it's about the felt experience of being a body. So not just being a mind that is carried around by a body, which is how most of us think about ourselves in a western context, particularly those of us who have advanced education and whatnot, there is this kind of over identification, over identification with the mind or our cerebra reality. So embodiment is our way of, of acknowledging that we are also a body, in fact, maybe we're even more a body, but that way of being in space is not something that we think of as ourself. So embodiment, is both the felt and lived experience of being a body engaging with the world, right? We our bodies, in social contexts, but also the the redistribution of identity to be able to say my body is, is not something just that I have a thing. But there is something in my body that actually is me that makes up who I am. And we can start to get into the weeds a little bit with that if, if you'd like naturally there, is there some pushback that people give, when we say like, well, I am my body, because we've spent most of our lives in a western context, trying to subdue the body, to conquer the body to have mind over matter. So people don't like that so much.
3:16 Right, right. Yeah, this is this is where we're all about getting in the weeds.
3:22 Because that's when that is important. I mean, I think is an interesting place to understand the the idea of getting away from a kind of mind body dualism, to an understanding of I am my body. And I work with students. And sometimes when I say that to students, I can see them kind of squirming like, wait, I'm not. What does it mean to identify with my body or to to say the phrase, I am my body. And there's this, this push back. And I think, maybe a pushback of, of connecting identity with embodiment. We could say we identify, maybe when the church do we identify with our soul, you know, we get preached, this is who you are. And so it's hard for us to connect those two. But it but it seems so vitally important, because we are our bodies more than have a body and I like how you make that distinction in the book. Yeah, one of the first things I actually thought when I was just skimming, the first couple of chapters of the book was,
4:34 you know, the fact that at least the theological tradition that I come from the church denominational tradition that I come from, has never really sort of chucked off the specter of Gnosticism and there's this, this mind body thing and so you know, mind or spirit or flesh or it's all super platonic, is somehow more real and and there's just something about our bodies that is, is less than
5:00 And so we get uncomfortable when we start talking about things like embodiment or or actually that being, you know, a constituent part of our identity, foreign part of our identity. Yeah. I think we've been told explicitly, you're not your body and you shouldn't be your body because your body is bad. I mean, how many different ways can we have it said, I have an infinite number. Apparently, because I have so many different seasons of my life, I've been told your body is sinful, your flesh is bad, you need to conquer the flesh in order to achieve said directly like this or not, like achieve some sort of superior spirituality, or you're not tied down by the limits of the constraints of being a body. So there's that side of it, where we're actually explicitly told specifically in faith contexts, this is this is a barrier to your holiness. This is a barrier to your evolution as a spiritual being. And then there's the other branch of it, which is for people whose bodies have been
6:03 the place of profound suffering for people whose bodies have
6:10 been marginalized, oppressed, objectified, made to be unsafe, saying I am not my body has been a survival strategy, it has been the most powerful way to say I can escape into the furthest reaches of my mind where nobody can have.
6:29 Exactly yeah, so we see both sides of it right to say I am my body makes us squirm, because it in some ways, it goes against so much of what our faith tradition has taught us, but also, it might actually feel threatening to some people because it causes them to then again, identify with the place where their pain has been. So I see the complexity of saying this, and I want to nod to all of the bodies that have been feeling the lived realities of the traumas of what we do to bodies, and have tried to escape that as a way to survive.
7:07 Yeah, it's important, it seems like many theologians, particularly black theologians, have been recognizing that in several decades leading up of understanding the role of the body and faith in the role of the body in our experience. And And interestingly, in maybe Oh, kind of white Eurocentric theology, there's this there's this underlying thing of, hey, our maybe our bodies are supreme, and so we we have to then disregard disregard the flesh, disregard the body, but it's, it's completely approached in a different way, culturally. And, and we learn that in the church. And I think that's yeah, it makes us struggle with recognizing our body and identifying with our body, right?
8:03 And maybe help us walk through that, to in what ways are maybe how are we our body? How can we how can we understand identity and body better? Well, I like to go back to when we think about nature and nurture, and how, of course, we now know that it is always both, that we show up in this world as a body that is the first place that we experience the world through, we think about I've got a three month old daughter, and I'm watching her, put everything in her mouth starting to do that, right so that the body being the locus of the self experience, it is the place in the playground of existence. And we know that from the beginning, everything that we encounter through the world we encounter through our body. And it is over time that we slowly start to lose that or for some people, if there's a really significant trauma, maybe leaving the body happens sooner. But we know we're all born knowing from from the if that's really it. This is our birthright, our mother tongue to speak language of our body. That is how we interact with the world. And we get feedback from social contexts about what that's like the color of our body, the way we move our body, the size of our body, the level of ability of our body. And that shapes the narratives that we have about ourself. We call this Interpersonal Neurobiology in the field that I'm in but the idea that our interactions with other people shape our felt experience of ourselves inside. And so the construct of individualism starts to really, really dissolve when we look at what's going on in our brain body systems in social contexts. But we have this narrative that we carry around inside of ourselves that is really the the conglomerate of all of the stories that have been projected back to us about how we show up in space. And as much as I might at this point, be able to identify myself by my name or by
10:00 My written work or by the sound of my voice, there is no question that people who know me will see me walking in the door, my friends, my family, my colleagues, whatnot, will see my face will see the way that I walk as they walk in the door and know that it's me. So we in our kind of modern world can have these forays into this embodiment in a way that seems to be well supported on social media. And like I was saying in the written word, but the truth is, you are known by how your body moves through space. And assumptions are made about you based on how you move again, your size, your shape, your level of ability, the color of your skin, and your gender identity and how you share and express your affection with other bodies. assumptions are made about you, and and those shape, what it feels like to be you in the world. So we have kind of the projection on our body that shapes identity, and how much we identify or not with those projections. And then we also have the felt and lived experience from the inside out of being being in flashed. So I know it sounds simple, but all of our senses are the way that we interact with the world and our senses are bodily, they're not intellectual, they're felt from the ground up the bottom up, and they move up to shape our cognition. So and this will be kind of the last point I say, On this note, we in psychology have a long tradition of over identifying with cognition as the seat of the self. But we know based on how the structure of the brain is created, that actually, emotion and interoceptive cues, these things that come again, from the ground up, are what shapes so much of our cognition. So although we think of ourselves as thinkers, the thinking is really the dumping ground of the felt and lived experience on a sensory and affective level.
11:57 And there's this sort of symbiotic relationship, I've always felt between, you know, the mind and the body anyway, when whenever I'm feeling anxious, and this has happened almost all my life, in fact, I was going to try to get some free therapy here on the podcast, but yeah, it literally has happened all my life, and I get anxious, even if even if I can't identify the source of the anxiety. It could be just global, it could be whatever, right? I'll, I'll feel it in part of my body. And in, I almost can't help that. And it's,
12:31 and it's interesting. So when I go through a day where I'm not anxious, or I'm distracted in another way, so I'm not, you know, thinking about whatever the source of my anxiety is, and suddenly the pain, the aches, the whatever, that's localized in a part of my body, I call it picking on myself, I've done that sort of forever, just sort of goes away. And then I'm kind of shocked. It's like, well, that's not hurting, right?
12:54 Because there's actually not anything, I don't know physically wrong there. But there's this connection. Yeah. And I, it's, it's wild, isn't it like this is the one that will blow my mind, probably till the day that I die. We experience proprioceptive memory. So based on the position of our spine, and our the movements of our limbs and how we are relative to the ground into gravity, we can store and remember memories without ever moving up into our cognitive awareness. So we can encounter things posture, really, that remind us of traumatic, scary enjoy, or enjoyable events. And then we can have the emotional response that correlates to those experiences without us ever actually knowing what's going on up here. So our bodies can be sensitized to not just posture, but environments, sensory cues, like smell smell, goes, instead of it being processed through a few different loops before it goes to the motion center of the brain and actually goes directly there. There's a direct connection between olfactory bulb and the amygdala response response. So what that means is, without us ever thinking about it, we can be noticing and remembering things and our body can be reacting to protect us to keep us safe. And we have no idea what the cue is. So this is the this is something that happens often for people when they come into therapy.
14:18 I'm having a reaction I don't know why, without us ever realizing their body on some levels connecting to what's going on around us is picking things up and is telling the truth about probably something that was dangerous for us in the past. But because we over identify as cognitive beings, if we don't have a narrative that we like to understand about it, we feel disoriented by our body's reactions and blame our body instead of going oh, my body is so wise and so smart. She he they are picking up something in the past that was dangerous for me and trying to protect me.
14:53 Do you think it works the other way too? Like like like, you know, like peak experiences are important things that are
15:00 You know, beneficial, I mean, I know sometimes I'll just, you know, get a whiff of something and I'm just slammed back 30 years, could it? I can't help it. It just happens. And you're just right there again, maybe thinking about something that I haven't thought about consciously or deliberately for ever. But it's just, it's almost, it's almost immediate, and is through my sense, yes, his bodily senses. It's just this immediate thing. You're so right. And that I'm so glad you mentioned that. Because I think it's really easy when we start talking about embodiment, and being in the body in the way that the body reacts. To talk about the things that are hard, the trauma, the anxiety, the panic, the pain, the illness, I mean, all of the things that go on, that make it hard to be in our bodies. But I think what you're saying is really important here, which is that our bodies are not just places that store trauma, our bodies are also places, or vibrancy and passion and sensuality, and connection and empathy and deep joy and vibrancy. And I mean, think about a laugh, like what is a laugh except your body having so much joy inside of it, that it has to expel waves of sound outwards, reverberate around to signal to your community, something awesome is going on over here. Like, it's incredible that our bodies can do this. And I mean, as you're saying that I met, I'm at my parents house right now, as I was telling you, when we started the interview, and the smell of walking into my parents house and the smell of the baking around Thanksgiving, and like all of the memories that come back with that, or you can hear a song and all of a sudden feel like you're on that first date that you were on again 20 years ago or whatever it is like our we're storing joy and pleasure just as much as we're storing pain and trauma. Yeah, yeah, definitely. For me, it is downy fabrics. Okay, when I smell there, at my grandparents house in Indiana, the door, you would go in walked right by the washing machine, the washer and dryer. So when you walk into the house, it always smelled like fabric softener. So that smell just literally takes me right back to my grandma's house, which was a place of warmth, love and safety. There's definitely a commercial for Downey sponsored this this season. Yeah, you're gonna get loads of Danny in the mail. No, I think what, what can be really cool about that, too, is when we start to think about embodiment, in in a very intentional way. When we are paying attention to the cues that our body is giving us that are associated with comfort and warmth and pleasure and ease. We can intentionally access those, by stimulating ourselves are stimulating our senses in ways that bring us back. They're so Rexy we're saying, right, okay, we've got these sensations in the body that feel overwhelming. And if we're distracted, maybe we don't notice the sensations. But we can intentionally go smell something or go listen to a song or go do something that's associated with ease as a way of telling your body Hey, actually, you're safe right now. Right? It's okay, so in my keepsake boxes, I actually have some old old bottles of cologne that I actually wore, like 40 years ago, and every once in a while, if I want to take myself back, and you got to be careful with this stuff. Right? I can just unscrew that thing. And just it's like, oh my gosh, you know, and, you know, obviously, if it's a good memory, it's a deliberate thing to try. Yes. You know, access that memory and and then of course, you know, though, the song stuff actually will tell the students sometimes it's like, you know, I understand that it's this music you would think it's just ridiculous. And actually right now, it probably is right. But you know, I will roll up my windows and put on you know, these things from from 3040 years ago, because it's a time of my life that and this of course is a you know, a sensory thing to this. Oh, yeah. And, and the hearing like the smelling just, it provides immediate access to some to some good memories and you feel yourself groove in the windows are down. Yeah. Well, my music the windows are down too much, right.
19:14 So that's what's going on when I pull up next to you leaving.
19:18 Like feeling it? Yeah.
19:21 In regards this is kind of making connection for me in regards to body image, you you made the point that oftentimes we approach negative body image with I need to change my thoughts about my body. But you, you go beyond that saying it's more it's more than just changing our thoughts and love to hear more about that. Well, if if we follow the line of thinking that I'm already presenting here, which is that thoughts are just kind of the end result of some, some interoceptive some sensory some affective experiences, then maybe what we need to do is create
20:00 ate more enjoyable, pleasurable experiences of being a body to drown out some of the thoughts. And they actually got some overwhelming evidence that my body is not just a thing that has a look. But is my being. And my being is good. And here's all the proof that I have for it. So there's two things that are happening there, structurally, one is that we are creating a whole new category of evidence for our goodness, and our goodness being not just about image, but about this felt and experiential sense of self. And two, we're kind of redirecting our attention away from those thoughts. And the interesting thing about thoughts is, the more we rehearse them, the better our brain gets it, finding evidence for them. And so instead of actually staying in thinking and staying in that kind of thinking, we're giving ourselves just something else as a way of like pinching, pinching off the life support for some of those cognitive maps that we have. And it is, it's a different way of thinking about our bodies to say that our bodies are more than just an image because actually, when I start talking about bodies, and I say you are your body, people who have struggled with their looks, really do not want to hear that. Because culturally, the way that we identify with our bodies the most is through appearance, we actually think, right, our bodies are how they appear, instead of our bodies being the field of sensation, this kind of Fiesta of their tapestry of exquisite experiential data on the inside. So, yesterday.
21:37 So I think it, it is a little disruptive for our disembodied, highly objectified and self objectifying paradigm to say we are our body, but that have actually nothing to do with image. And it just,
21:52 it is extraordinarily liberating to someone who's lived with and recovered from an eating disorder. very liberating to change the perception of
22:05 image from the outside to being a body on the inside. It means when I'm eating, for example, here's a direct application. I'm not thinking about what my eat food is doing to the outside of me. I'm thinking about how enjoyable it is. I'm thinking about the pleasure of eating and feeling the experience of noticing fullness and hunger inside. So there is indirectly in there to agency,
22:32 self compassion, attunement to self all of the things that get impaired when we are so focused on our image being the most important thing about her body. We'll be right back.
22:45 Rex, did you know that there are somewhere between 303,000 different versions of Cinderella I can honestly say I did not know that. And our theater department this fall is going to be doing Rodgers and Hammerstein classic version of Cinderella starting on Thursday, November 12, running through November 24. And tickets can be found at just.edu/shows. And the price ranges from 10 to $22. And doors are gonna open an hour before so you can get in reserve your seats and enjoy the living Christmas Village is the best show in Placer County. Welcome back to the show. What's your book you highlight and I love the title I'm I'm a sucker for good. Okay, and the wisdom of your body? I just love the the phrasing of that, that the body has wisdom to teach us
23:39 and, and love to explore what what is the wisdom that our body has to teach us? Oh, yeah. Well, I'm not gonna hide my agenda here or my kind of my assumptions are play neutral. I believe our bodies are good. And I believe our bodies are for us. And our bodies are holy and sacred. And are a, an invitation to be deeply connected to all life around us. So when we if I step back a little bit here, when we in our disembodied culture, a core of our culture that is so
24:19 you'd have wound into this narrative of the bifurcate itself, the mind body dualism, it is our bodies become the source of the problem if something is not working for us. So we scapegoat our bodies we say I can't do the thing I wanted to do. Therefore my body couldn't perform or my body got in the way or my body is attacking me or why does my body hate me or whatever the languages that we use to imply that the body is is not only separate from the staff, but it's against us. And the irony is that when we go in, and I think about this from like, a pseudo spiritual perspective, but I would say
25:00 largely a neuroscientific perspective, when we go into what's going on in the messages that our body is sending, that we often blame our bodies for. That is a result of our body, having tried to keep us safe in dangerous situations, trying to tell the truth about who we are in a context that is trying to silence us. Trying to ask to be fed, ask for movement, ask for rest, in social systems that don't want us to feed ourselves don't want us to stop buying don't want us to enjoy being at ease don't want us to connect in a slow thoughtful way with the earth and with people around us. So we're blaming our bodies, and yet our bodies are actually telling the truth, and they're calling us home, if only we knew how to interpret that and knew how to listen to it. And when we can flip our narrative and say, My body's not against me, my body is asking for a disruption in a system that doesn't work, then we can start to see the way that our body is actually directing us towards individual and collective healing. For example, emotion is part of empathy. If I cannot feel my feelings, I cannot feel with your feelings. And I do not care about your suffering, and then sustainable, interconnectedness way, if I'm not connected to my body, then I'm not going to notice that going at a pace that's unsustainable is hurting me. And I'm not going to
26:25 I'm not going to be able to disrupt kind of the wheel of capitalism, so to speak, or the wheel of hyper productivity that is threatening our well being. So our bodies are not only good, but they are actually or maybe this is an expression of the goodness directing us into more wholeness, If only we knew how to understand and listen to that.
26:48 So are there some I know, this is like the practical question, which, you know, you might already be tired of hearing, but I'm sure that I'm not the first person that's asking, Are there you know, a couple of I guess, practices that can help me, just place myself in a position that I'm more open to the wisdom that my body is? Hmm. So a simple switch is when we notice sensations that are otherwise irritating, threatening, or confusing. Instead of saying, that's a problem, or I need to ignore that, or I'm going to brush past that. Simply asking our bodies, what are you trying to tell me? What is it that you want me to know? Or maybe we have a feeling? Or that could be an emotion feeling or another kind of sensation, a tightening? Okay, tight shoulders? What are you trying to say? So adjusting our direction from avoidance or even shame, or frustration to curiosity, in a way that opens us up to hearing more. So I think that that's a really simple cognitive one. But I think another another more practical sensory one would be slowing down just to check in with what our body is feeling. So I can get very,
28:03 very focused on whatever's going on in front of me, including if I am stimulated intellectually, it can go into these, like we call it a hyper focus like rabbit holes of focus that are take hours for me to come out of and it has been a discipline, I would say, spiritual discipline for me to learn how to slow down. Oh, and pause, go, Whoa, I haven't checked my posture. I'm like a, you know, a gremlin over the laptop here. Like,
28:32 like, I'm thirsty. And I didn't know I was thirsty. Like, what is with the hunched over? Like, is really no funny postures we take when we're going in hard on something on the laptop. Yeah. So the the ability to stop and slow down and go, Whoa, my shoulders? Are they so tight? Like, oh, I am thirsty. Just checking in on a few things, is a way to interrupt how long we can go with being disconnected. So the point this is kind of like with mindfulness meditation, the point is not that you are perfectly attuned all the time, that that doesn't really exist. But the point is that you come back to yourself sooner, and you don't wait. So you come home.
29:14 I'm glad you mentioned the mindfulness meditation because I was I was thinking as I was, perusing your book, that there actually are some resources from our spiritual tradition, that that are more linked in between with the body and our spirituality than we even think, like, for example, why would one want when one wants to, you know, in turn to contemplation or meditation or whatever, why is it important to like, you know,
29:41 I don't know restaurant wise posture important. I mean, why why does that even matter? Right? But of course it does. And this is wisdom from you know, as 1000s of years old, even in the Christian tradition that you, you do that. So there's this link, even if one wanted to, like, somehow have an out of body experience.
30:00 Got it, it's probably impossible. But there's you can't even do that until you have a bodily experience. It's just ingrained in the process. Absolutely. Yeah. And we can, we can shift our mental states by shifting our physical states by adjusting our posture by adjusting how we are
30:21 existing in space together. It's amazing how that is such an under you underutilized resource for our spirituality in, at least in the faith tradition that I grew up in, where there was so much kind of sedentary, isolating, restore body restriction that was seen as being like a really good performing good church attendance, like sit quietly in the pew keep your feet on the ground. Although
30:48 there is something actually about changing what's happening with our body changing posture, changing movement, assuming different positions, with our body that actually I think is can signal so much about what's happening in a spiritually or be a way to access things spiritually, more ease, or more experience, perhaps, right. One thing I often do before my classes is all, you know, just read a prayer from I teach history. And so I always have a little didactic reason for doing this. But the general read a prayer from Christian history, I'll read it from different prayer books from different parts of the world. And sometimes I will read something from this African prayer book that's edited by Desmond Tutu. And right away, when you're just reading those prayers, they are almost like embodied prayers is almost a complete, it's just that the body is important, and how the how the connection between your body and your spirituality is just there in a way that in my culture, my tradition just was almost never right. It's it's startling, it's just startling the difference? Well, we maybe when we start to get into it, we can see the paradoxes or the the discrepancies and what we were told and what we were shown because most of us, I would say, if we grew up in, in the Christian tradition, particularly if some
32:08 sphere of evangelicalism or right that maybe the white evangelical movement, or kind of white Christianity, which is its own subset subset of
32:19 the faith tradition, that there was this narrative that the body was bad, the body was sinful, at least with what I grew up with. But then also really,
32:32 really heavy emphasis on hospitality and caring for other people in in a bodily way, take them food,
32:41 nourish them ready think about being told about Parker Palmer said having someone sit with Parker Palmer, while he was depressed, and someone just rubbing his feet for hours, right? Touching, touching the body caring for the poor, caring for the sick, caring for the elderly. And so we're told your body is sinful. But we're showing the body is actually such a loving way to express the love of Christ into the world. So there's often these tensions or discrepancies that we see if we look hard enough, where I think on some level, we know the body is important, even if we get tied up in
33:13 what to do about the parts of the body that are complicated and painful, and maybe hurt us and hurt other people too.
33:22 And many of the students we have here, chemists come from evangelical backgrounds, and, and so a lot of times they come in with, with that view that the body is bad, and I need to subdue the body. And in introducing kind of the ancient spiritual tradition, or spiritual practices, I think many of them are shocked at how embodied those practices are that they deal with your body to deal with posture we deal with. And then students have often associated their spiritual life as a fight against their body.
34:02 Instead of seeing the body as an indispensable ally, actually, yeah, and the place. I mean, maybe even the place where God exists, if we were to say that, like,
34:16 perhaps I don't know how that resonates with you, or how that would feel for some of your students, but instead of our body being the obstacle X actually being the doorway.
34:25 The entry point Yeah.
34:28 Well, we often you know, we haven't talked about Jesus, we're living in our heart, but we we don't really identify with God living with us like being with us, and and us experiencing God in an embodied way.
34:44 It's, it's more of just an image we have.
34:49 Yeah, I think you're right about that. I remember the first time I made that shift from feeling like I knew, I would say that the Spirit was working through me if I was using my body to care for somebody else.
35:00 But I realized the schism inside myself where I didn't also believe the same thing, if I was carrying bodily for myself if I was brushing my teeth, if I was beating myself, like, why is it that the spirit is only working when we are moving outwards, and not in this circle to also care for our own bodily selves. So that has been a huge shift for me in terms of my understanding of spirituality, that, that feeds really well into self care. And then I would say, like a kind of sustainability for all of the other kinds of loving acts that we distribute outwards. We need both
35:36 and letting other bodies care for you. I'm thinking about that with you know, Parker, Palmer sphere, you know, this, it's, it's an embodied
35:45 way to care for someone actually. Yeah, you know, that, well, I don't have to convince the two of you here.
35:52 Right, preaching to the choir.
35:57 But it's, it's an important message for, for, for our culture, and, and for our students, because I feel like they hear they hear negative voices from culture and from the church, about their body. Yeah. And so for them to, to understand the vital role that their body plays in their identity and who they are. And,
36:26 and in their spirituality, I think is really important. Because there's there's two extremes of listening to the maybe cultures lie that we are our appearance. And, and you have Kim Kardashian, West's hosts Saturday Night Live, and basically say, you know, I'm a reference sheet for the plastic surgeon. I mean, that was one of her jokes and her monologue, and it was just like, wow, this has a lot about what our culture thinks about body. And then maybe you go to church and hear someone talk negatively about that, and you can get a feeling of I need to subdue my body.
37:06 And the body loses in both of those scenarios. Yeah, I think that's something that really gets into the way that women are socialized, in particular around bodies, which is, your body is a liability. It's a problem. In the church, we hear, you know, messages around that with purity culture, women are responsible for men sexual transgressions. So right, your body is a problem in all of these ways. It could be the thing that makes you makes you I'm using air quotes here, makes you experience sexualized violence, right, it's because of your body, that that's the reality that you encounter. Or the other side of it, which is and your bodies. And also the only good thing about you, it is your social currency, it is the way you accrue social value. And you have two options, right, your body is dangerous, or this thing that you can refine to hopefully be valuable in a society that devalues you for so many other reasons and skills. So there are lots of these tensions that we can get into when we start looking at gender role socialization, and the sexual sexual objectification of women's bodies and how, how we are given these limited options, and none of them really allow for the full person to exist as a body, who is not just an appearance, who was not just an object. So we're trying to slice some of these things really thinly here and differently than maybe the the broad strokes around bodies that were given culturally.
38:39 Well, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I mean, I think our conversation has highlighted the the need for your book and the need to, to understand how we relate as a body. And, and, and how that that influenced by culture and also influence in the church and, and how we can become I loved your phrasing of using these practices to come back to ourselves. And I think I think the book is really going to help people understand their body and understand themselves better. Thank you so much for joining us. Pleasure.
39:19 Thank you so much for having me. Congratulations on making it to the end of the podcast. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Jessup think where we'll be posting updates and some behind the scenes content. We would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you might have to leave us a comment or email us at think@jessup.edu. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. If you want to support the show, leave us a review on iTunes we can reach more people. Until then, I'm Matthew Todd outro reader extraordinare and this has been Jessup thing. If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited
40:00 a four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see each student whipped and transformed into the leader. They're called to be as go don't forget to hit subscribe and shares never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Dr. Loren Haarsma, professor of physics and astronomy at Calvin University, joins the show to talk about his recent book, When Did Sin Begin? Human Evolution and the Doctrine of Original Sin.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Hey everyone. Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore
0:04 and your co host Rex gurney.
0:05 And Rex on the show. Today, we pulled out the big guns we got Dr. Loren Haarsma. Here is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Calvin University. And his recent book is when did send begin human evolution in the doctrine of original sin.
0:20 And this is not an esoteric discussion, it is something that I actually am very interested in personally, and I found his book very helpful. And so I'm, I'm really looking forward to our conversation with Lauren.
0:32 It's an issue that is important for our students. It's an issue that's important for the church. We hope you enjoy.
0:45 Lauren, thank you so much for joining us on the show to talk about your new book. And we think it's such an important topic. And it's something that hits close to home to our students here at Jessup, and we talk about it every semester. So just thank you so much for joining. And I
0:59 think actually, uh, Mark and I were mentioning that both of us have already used your book, or at least read a couple things from it in our in our classes. So I'm really helpful.
1:09 Oh, well, thank you very much. And thank you for this invitation. I'm happy to be here.
1:13 Wonderful. Well, as we get going and looking at at the book, when did send began, it'd be great for our listeners, if you could just set up the the basic problem here this this tension between the doctrine of original sin and human evolution.
1:29 So there's sort of a core doctrine of original sin, which most of the churches had for most the time and, and sin Augustine, in particular, was really trying to preserve certain core teachings, that God is good and just and holy, that human sin is rebellion against God's will. And that no one can be righteous apart from Christ redeeming work. And I think all that still stands. We're gonna continue to hold all that. Now, Augustine was facing also a number of other questions that were important at that time, like, what is how does God create new each new human soul and his guilt from passed from one generation to the next or not? So Augustine came up with a theory, a way of putting it all together, which worked for him. And for Augustine. He included the assumption that Genesis chapters two and three, were referring to Adam and Eve as literal historical persons only to individuals who lived a few 1000 years ago, from whom we all descend it well, that assumption doesn't fit with what we've learned about human history in the last few centuries. So we want to preserve that core doctrine that theologians have agreed about throughout the centuries now, throughout the centuries, theologians have actually discussed and debated some of those other peripheral issues. There has been disagreement. A few centuries after Augustine, Aquinas came up with another version, which agreed with, uh, with Augustine on many points, disagreed on some other points. And all of this theological history is a really nice treasure trove to sort of use to read from to learn, and and to think about to say, okay, what are we going to do now, to preserve the core doctrine of original sin? It looks like humans didn't all descend from a single pair just a few 1000 years ago.
3:35 Right? I often will will kind of couch it like this. When I talk about the science and faith issues in my Christian perspective class, it's like, there's no like silver bullet here. It's like, if you're a young earth creationist, you sort of have a Genesis one problem. But if you're a theistic evolutionist you sort of have a Genesis two and three problem. So, you know, we can't like stop thinking about these things and the implications of of these positions that we hold.
4:00 That's right. Science gives us new information to think about, ultimately, our theology guides us in how we're going to interpret Scripture, but science process to think, think through some things from time to time.
4:15 Yeah, and there seems to be this, you know, in in the book, he talks about this relationship between science and scripture, and how science, how they both can help us read each other, but but they're not the underlying thing. Well, at least science is not the underlying thing that draws meaning out of Scripture. You use the phrase of science doesn't interpret Scripture, but theology does. And I thought that was that was a really important part because when you're reading, Genesis one, two, and three, the purpose I don't think of reading those is to understand the science of what's going on, but rather to understand the theology of what's happening. Yeah,
4:59 So, there there have been some times occasionally in the past where science and theology seem at first to be saying dissonant things and are hard to reconcile. And I once had a theologian sort of asked me this question, Why does it always seem like science is coming into correct theology? Shouldn't it be the other way? Sometimes? Shouldn't it go both ways. So I thought a lot about that, as I was working on this book. There, there are a lot of positive interactions between theology and science. Theology gives us a philosophical and religious framework for doing science. A Christian? Well, any scientist has to believe that if you're going to do science, that there's regular, repeatable patterns of cause and effect in the world, and that science is worth doing, and that you got to do experiments and, and a Christian can hold those beliefs for very biblical reasons about God's governance of the world, and God's freedom to create, and, and the worth of studying God's creation. So theology actually gives a very positive basis for doing science. Another great thing that theology does for us is, when we get a scientific results, often that allows for multiple philosophical interpretations. So you know, we can say that nuclear fusion powers the sun, and it'll run out in a few billion years. Okay. Scientists had many worldviews can agree on that. But what do we do with that they're atheists, there's multiple different atheist interpretations, multiple Christian interpretations, maybe multiple Buddhist interpretations. What good theology does is give us a lens for thinking about the implications of those results. Now, when the influence goes the other way, when science gives new information to theology, I like to think of that is just another example of life experiences. I think many of us have had experiences where an experience in life prompted us to rethink how we were interpreting a certain passage of scripture or, or maybe looking at things going on society or history prompts and say, Oh, what the church was doing there wasn't good. So we learn things, by by, I think this is the Holy Spirit, prompting us to say, hey, here's something to think about. Ultimately, theology decides theology decides how we interpret Scripture, but life experiences in which science is one can sometimes say, let's look at this, again, let's maybe weigh the pros and cons of certain interpretations a little differently.
7:32 I think bringing in science as life experience is really helpful. Because because we do understand that and we may have an experience, we may lose a loved one. I mean, I've I've also pastored a church. So I've counseled many people, and they lose a loved one. And that affects how they read scripture, that that affects like, Hey, I'm rethinking just going up to someone and saying, God has a plan for everything. Right. And, and so understanding science and new scientific data, as hey, this is us experiencing the world. And bringing that in. I think that's really helpful. We will be right back after this short message. Rex, did you know that there are somewhere between 303,000 different versions of Cinderella, I can honestly say I did not know that. And our theater department this fall is going to be doing Rodgers and Hammerstein classic version of Cinderella starting on Thursday, November 12, running through November 24.
8:33 And tickets can be found at just.edu/shows. And the price ranges from 10 to $22.
8:40 And doors are going to open an hour before so you can get in and reserve your seat and enjoy the living Christmas Village is the best show in Placer. County. Welcome back to our conversation with Lauren haarsma.
8:51 So you basically mentioned a number of different possibilities for dealing with Genesis chapter three and, and sin in our world. I actually read those different possibilities to my students in class. I did not elaborate on them, but I read them just last week. And so I think, at least in my copy of your book, there's four that's in the pages there. But I also looked at the footnotes, and I noticed that there actually were eight. And so I don't know if you want to explicate all eight, but just sort of briefly just talk about what some of the options are if one wants to take the reality of sin, and Scripture seriously, but also wants to take scientific consensus seriously as well.
9:40 Yeah, um, I could summarize a little bit about what science says about human evolution and then some of the questions and then maybe go through some of those options.
9:48 That'd be helpful.
9:50 So what are some things that science has been sort of teaching us well, humans share common ancestry with Animals that's especially other more recently with with other primates. And there's a lot of different kinds of evidence, multiple different kinds of genetic evidence and other evidence for that the human ancestral population was always more than two individuals, it looks from genetics like the there was a bottleneck in the human ancestral population around 120,000 years ago of at least a few 1000 individuals and, and our ancestral population was larger than that most of that time. Humans are unique from animals, in many ways, the level of our intelligence and our language skills and cooperation, but, but it looks like God gave us those capabilities, gradually, through evolutionary processes with sort of no sharp demarcation, where there was a huge sudden change. And it also looks like our ancestors would have had a mixture of behavioral dispositions to be nice to each other and to be nasty to each other. So but But nevertheless, we're all geologically and genetically one unified species together. So science can tell us that but it doesn't answer the question. When did sin enter the story sin as a rebellion against God? for that? There are some interesting questions we could ask, we could ask, Well, did it happen? But there's, there's some possibilities question might be, how long ago was it? Maybe you feel it a few million years ago, maybe 150,000 years ago, maybe 10, or 20,000 years ago, each of those are possibilities. There's pros and cons. For each of those. How best you interpret Adam and Eve and Genesis two and three, maybe God specially selected a pair of individuals out of a larger population, to act as representatives of all individuals. And when when they send everybody sort of became centers or, or maybe they were a pair of individuals. And when they send send them spread through social contact or other means to the rest of the population. Or maybe we should think of Adam and Eve as sort of a compression of many individuals, a literary retelling of many individuals, many centuries of human prehistory of people who receive special revelation rebelled against God. Or maybe we should think of them symbolically as representing all of our ancestors over a very long period of time as they collectively rebelled against God. Those are all possibilities. Another question you could ask is, well, for the first individuals, among our ancestors who sinned, how did it spread? Were they sort of acting as legal representatives? Did it spread? Socially by learning? Did it spread sort of parent to offspring, Genie illogically? These are all different possibilities. And you can answer each in different ways. And each sort of is worth thinking about. And there you can probably think of, Oh, these are some strong theological reasons to favorite and these are some theological reasons to say, maybe, maybe not, there's, there's pros and cons, I would say all of them preserve the core doctrine of original sin. And so all are worth having on the table and thinking about, and they all lead to sort of the current state, what I call the core doctrine, how all humans today are centres, and no one is I just apart from apart from the rescue of Christ. So that sort of lays out the range. And the four I sort of highlight in the book I mentioned in my in my answer here, but I also expanded it with a few other questions. Right,
13:34 so how important is this? I guess, core doctrine of original sin, it's, it's usually thought of in the Christian community to explaining the situation that we're sort of in, I've often heard this statement, and it's been attributed to all kinds of people often Mark Twain, but whenever somebody says that Mark Twain said it, he probably didn't, but whatever. And that is that original sin or something like that is one of the only empirically verifiable doctrines of in the Bible. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's out there. And, and there is a, I guess, a narrative behind it. And how important is that narrative? How important is it to somehow privilege historical ways that narrative has been transmitted?
14:25 So the right so so it's obvious that we are all nasty to each other and we're, none of us are as good as we want to be. Right? Yeah. And if God's if God says, apart from Christ, you don't really belong in my presence, unless you're perfect and you're obviously not perfect. Then everybody needs Christ. Going back to the time of Augustine, this was actually a debate going on in the church. Was it in theory possible for someone to live a sinless life or not? And Augustine and other theologians said, No, we need to preserve the uniqueness of Christ, there is no way to be right with God apart from Christ. And so simply to say that everybody's nasty to each other, that's easy to verify. But to say that this is a huge problem in in that it disrupts our relationship with God and what separates us from God, eternally apart from Christ rescue Well, that's, that's for that we need sort of major. And, and that's something we want to preserve. And there's a few other things I mentioned that God is good and Justin holy and our sin is, is a rebellion against God's revealed will. Those things are taught in many places in Scripture. And so I think it's important that whichever sort of model, we think about it and sort of look at the range of possible models for how to put together the doctrine of original sin and human evolution, I sort of didn't spend a lot of time on versions that didn't preserve that core doctrine. Other Other people may want to look at those. I was interested in keeping those, because I think they're very important because I believe they're taught in many places in Scripture,
16:09 and something we simply can't avoid wrestling with. Right, simply can't do that.
16:15 And that that highlights the right that tension between theology and and maybe what we're learning in science is there. There are things theologically that we can't give up that that are taught throughout Scripture. And so that that becomes that issue of okay, how do I harmonize, harmonize that now, now, Rex, I don't know about Mark Twain, but Reinhold Niebuhr did say that in nature and destiny of man, that that, that human sin is the only empirical doctrine in the Bible. And that was kind of you know, that was that from Mark Twain or not, or Yeah, that's true, he could have been quoting Mark Twain, but it kind of captures that, you know, the mid 20th century, Christian realism that Niebuhr represents, but that realism that we are not we are not good as human beings, we, the more we progressed, actually, the more violent we get, the more power hungry we get. And, and so yeah, I think I think it is interesting that, that we can see that I feel like a lot of culture recognizes that. And so understanding that as a as a core doctrine, I think is is really important. And understanding then that solution in the sense of salvation in Christ and His death and resurrection that seems to sum it up, you know, in class, I, we were talking about, you know, Genesis three and Adam and Eve and and kind of playing off of your lead, Lauren, I asked them, hey, what's what's the theological meaning of Genesis three, and had a player he was a baseball player, student in the back, not always engaged in class, but I won't sell him out on the podcast. And he just raised a hand, he said, we're all sinners, okay, just like, hey, you like we understand that, I mean, some of these and in class, we were kind of having this debate. Some of these seem to center around or some of the the arguments or these options sent around the historicity of Adam and Eve. And, and, and I would love for us to explore that a little bit more, I'd love to hear from you learn about the, you know, some stress that that it is, it's vital. Like if you give up historical Adam and Eve, you give up the doctrine of original sin. How do you understand that conversation?
18:36 So as I was writing this book, I decided, well, the way I let me back up a step, the way I approach any of these issues were at first, there seems to be a dissonance between science and and a theology I learned growing up. I say, Well, I want to make sure I understand the science and learn some philosophy of science. But I also want to read biblical scholars learn more hermeneutics, and I want to read systematic theology. And when I do, I often find there's more than one way to put it together. There's, there's not just one way to find harmony. I sometimes joke that the problem after writing this book is not that there's no way to reconcile human evolution is that accurate originals, and there's too many of them. And we got to sort through all the pros and cons. Well, right in the middle of my book, I spent a lot of time with biblical scholars to study that question of the historicity. And I spent a lot of time quoting six in particular, biblical scholars, although although I refer to more, both Old and New Testament scholars, and half of them would say something like the following. As I study the scriptures and read the text, it looks to me like the best interpretation is that Adam and Eve were real individuals. Maybe not of that name, maybe that living in bed epidemia but real individuals who were part of this larger population, and this historicity seems to be there, however, they would say, the doctrine doesn't rise or fall on that. They think that's the best interpretation of Scripture. They didn't think it's the only faithful interpretive interpretation of Scripture. The other scholars I looked at said, as we look at Genesis two and three and other passages through the Bible, it looks to us like the best interpretation is to have a more literary or symbolic understanding of Adam and Eve. And there's lots of various hermeneutical reasons, one could make in favor of that. But they also would say, while we think the better interpretation is to read them as not historical, it's certainly possible to read them as a historical pair, without getting into trouble with science and still maintaining all the core theology. So, again, I think it's important to look at the possibilities, see the best arguments and realize, well, this is an interesting and important question, the doctrine itself doesn't rise or rise or fall on that question,
21:14 you made an interesting distinction in your book, between the plain reading of Scripture, and the plain lesson of Scripture, and I actually, you know, highlighted that, because that, that I thought was really, really a good distinction and might actually help us to sort of find our way out of this box that we've put ourselves in, in, in trying to uphold biblical authority and even biblical inerrancy in some way, and yet, you know, accept scientific consensus. And so, um, could you tell me a little bit about about the difference between those things, the plane lesson in the plane reading?
21:56 Yes. So one of my favorite examples of that goes back to when I was in middle school, and the pastor asked us, in our class, or Sunday school class, the Bible says, you know, God is responsible for the stars, moons as motion of the planets, but, but sciences, gravity keeps planets in orbit around the Sun do we have to choose? And after letting us think, of course, the pastor helped us understand that no, we don't have to choose. And that was an important lesson, it taught me something important about science, namely, that a scientific explanation doesn't replace God. Both can be true. But it also taught me something about the Bible, the Bible doesn't mention gravity. Nor should it have done that wouldn't have made sense to the original audience, they thought in terms of a flat earth and a solid dome with waters above the earth and, and the earth and everything. Yeah. And, and, and the, the, the planets moving along this dome. Now, science advanced from there, the ancient Greeks figured out that the Earth was spherical. So then people picture these these spherical shells around a stationary Earth and, and then they figured out that the earth moved, and then they figured out moved into elliptical orbits, and then they figured out Newton's laws of gravity, and then they figured out general relativity. But as our scientific understanding, changed, the message of Scripture didn't change, because it was written in a way the original audience could understand. The plain lesson of those original passages was about God being sovereign over these things that the sun, moon, and stars and planets are not the gods of the other pantheons. They are just things that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob made. That's the plain lesson they would have read now, you know, the plain reading of a passage of scripture might change from culture to culture, language, or language, which historical idea and how much science you have, you just read the text, what's the plane reading, but the plane lesson is the one the original audience and author would have heard and that doesn't change. And so I've been very grateful learning from from biblical scholars, that what we need to do is get ourselves in the mindset of the original audience and author hear the message they heard, and that helps us understand today, what we should be getting. That's helpful.
24:21 I think some some students that that I work with, can sometimes and this happens within the church as well can get overwhelmed by the amount of options to approach something and, and sometimes it can make them you know, maybe they've grown up only hearing one option. And so when they when they hear, there's different ways to approach scripture, different ways to interpret, they can sometimes leave feeling well, no one knows anything, then, you know, there's you know, and it's kind of this, sometimes I termed it theological agnosticism where there's just a there's there's too many options here. So it It highlights we don't know anything. So I wondered if it might be helpful for our students and I think people within the church, how do you counsel people to as they wade into all of these options.
25:13 So if it ever seems surprising, and maybe disturbing to find out, there's more theological options, and answers to a question than the one you necessarily grew up with. I find it helpful to think about the fact that scientists deal with this all the time. In science, we are very used to being in a situation where the data is limited. And there's multiple theories that could explain it. And we don't yet know which one is best. So what we do is we go to work, we start testing and thinking about it and try and narrow it down. And every now and then some new data comes along, that surprises us, and says, actually, the models you're working with, they have some truth, but they're going to need further work and refinement. So then you go back to that, and you sort of expand your, your theories, and you test some more. We do this because this is how we make progress and understand the natural world. I think the same can be true in our sort of theological thinking, as we build models in our mind about our relationship to God and how God relates to the world. Sometimes we're surprised sometimes we learn new ideas. Sometimes life gives us new data. But there's an underlying truth behind it. In science, we don't doubt that there's an underlying truth. But we know our own understanding as partial. And we can say the same in theology, there is an underlying truth there. And what we've learned from the past, there's a lot of surety to it. But we shouldn't be surprised if we have to do some rethinking from time to time when some new data comes along. So I personally love reading more theology and, and biblical scholarship, I actually feel called by God to dive in every now and then on these hard topics. But I know not everybody gets the same joy I do out of reading a dense theological tome that everybody's called to spend lots of time. But that's why we have the church together. We have theologians and biblical scholars and scientists and experts. But we can then ask, can you help? Can you summarize this? Can you help us see what are the possibilities? What are the options? Where do you think it falls within the range of historical Christianity? Where do you think might be outside of it? And how can we try and figure out harmony, also in science is okay for a while to live with some uncertainty and say, I don't quite know yet how this is all going to work together. So also, we can say, in our life of faith, I know there's truth there. I don't quite see how it all works together best. But I trust that if I keep working at it, I'll keep learning more, and maybe make some progress.
27:58 Yeah, that tension between certainty and uncertainty and being able to live with both of those, I think is so important as as a Christian. And as as you're dealing with this. And, and perhaps the highlighting the certainty is really focusing on those theological meanings we've been talking about, you know, that that deeper theological, meaning that we are all broken, and in need of a Savior, like we can, we can at least be certain of that. And then we can look at the possibilities of when that entered, how how that happens. And there's always going to be this tension, I think helping helping people live and helping students live in the tension is really important.
28:43 There's so much that I would actually like to continue to talk about here, but I'm looking at our time, and probably don't have it right now. But this, this can be a plug for your book, actually. So there's other things that you wrote about that I know, I'm not the only person that would be fascinated with and so, you know, get the book talking about, you know, the issue with God of the gaps and episodic deism and the issues that come that arise from that, or, or focusing on the fall and having the fall shape creation, and that perhaps giving a little bit too much play to the force of evil. And then, you know, the whole issue of false apparent history, because that just comes up a lot, especially with with young earth creationist models. And those things are are fascinating. And so, you know, buy the book and read the book.
29:32 Thank you. I've did a lot of listening, as well as reading over the last 2030 years. So a lot of the content and structure of the book are based on questions. I've heard discussions I've had with people in the pew. So if you see a lot of questions reflected that students in people in the PU have that's because I've been trying to you know, I'm trying to say, What's the best enter I have at the moment for that really good question.
29:59 Yeah. Dr. Hoffman, thank you so much for joining us on the show. And thank you for for kind of taking your life experience and your expertise and and putting it in this book because I do think it's going to be extremely helpful for our students and for the church.
30:15 Thank you very much. Thanks for the invitation and you're very good questions.
30:20 Congratulations on making it to the end of the podcast. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Jessup think, where we'll be posting updates and some behind the scenes content. We would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you might have to leave us a comment or email us at think@jessup.edu. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. If you want to support the show, leave us a review on iTunes we can reach more people. Until then, I'm Matthew Todd outro reader extraordinare and this is Ben Jessup thing.
30:52 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see each student equipped and transformed into the leader they're called to be as go don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Lead editor of the First Nations Version, Terry Wildman, joins the show to talk about this excited new indigenous translation of the New Testament. For more info on the translation, go to firstnationsversion.com.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore
0:03 and your co host, Rex gurney. And Rex, we
0:06 both of us can't be more excited for the show
0:08 today. Exactly.
0:10 We have been waiting for this we are having on Terry Wildman. He's the lead editor of the First Nations version of the New Testament.
0:18 I've been using that version in my personal devotions for months now. And so when I heard we were gonna have him on the show, I just, it's a real privilege to
0:26 be here. Yeah. And as you listen to this show, you're gonna be I think, so excited about this version is put out by InterVarsity press. And it is the New Testament, an indigenous translation of the New Testament, the First Nations version, First Nations version. And you can also go to First Nations version.com, to check it out, to see a sample of it and to see other things. Terry and his wife also do music. You're going to hear all about that on the show. But we just want to promo that in this intro. So that you will check that out. There's such a wonderful translation. And I think you'll really enjoy the show.
1:12 What Terry, we are so excited to have you on the show. Rex and I are both, you know, out of all of our guests. We were we were extremely excited for for the interview. So thank you so much for joining us. Hey, it's great to
1:24 be one reason, thanks.
1:25 One reason I was excited is actually Sherry, I have been using the First Nations version in my personal devotions for about six months now. So when when Mark said we were gonna have you on the show, I was really looking forward to that.
1:40 Yeah, and that was so the the full New Testament has just been released, and then it was released in smaller portions up till now.
1:49 Yeah, a couple about halfway through the project, we released half of the New Testament. I self published it at that time. And, and then InterVarsity press, saw what we're doing and got involved and said, hey, we'd like to publish this. And so we worked out the details.
2:11 That's great. That's great. And, and so what's Yeah, what, maybe self publishing that first part or even how it began, I would love to hear that story of how of how this version took shape.
2:23 Oh, definitely. You know, I'd like to say first of all that, you know, we live in Maricopa, Arizona, and we live on the traditional lands of the Pima, and the tahona. Okay. And so I just like to give that acknowledgement in my podcast. So, you know, the first nation version started. You know, back when I lived, my wife, I live for five years on the Hopi Indian Reservation in northern Arizona. We work with YWAM and with the American Baptists at that time, and that's where the idea, or the first seeds of the idea began. And I discovered a Hopi Bible. And I was very excited. It was in the storage room, and nobody was using them in our church. And so I kind of wondered about that. So I began to ask around this, if somebody could read from the Hopi Bible, and I really couldn't find anyone. And it wasn't until much later, I found one person who was able to read a little bit from that Hopi Bible. And then I discovered my wife and I both discovered that this is basically true across the across turtle liner, which we call North America. And so these and the reason for this is the years of assimilation, government policies, boarding schools. At the same time, the translators were translating the Bible into native languages, other branches of the church got involved with the government, in taking those native languages away from us.
4:00 So working at cross purposes there. Yeah, so it's
4:03 kind of a situation where I'd say over 90% Don't read or speak our language today because of those policies and, and tough even though many are working hard to reclaim their languages. Many of our tribes do it. There's over 250 distinct languages and many other portions of those languages spoken among the different traditions. So my wife and I had an idea of, of, since native people are an oral people, and learn by tradition, we wanted to create a story of from creation to to Christ, telling the story of the Bible. And so we working with some other Native people, we we did that and we created a scene De called the great story from the sacred book with music in the background, my wife and I are musicians. So we recorded this ourselves and I was the narrator. And what what was amazing was we submitted that to the Native American Music Awards, and won the Best, our Best Spoken Word in 2008. For the Native American musical words. And so here was the story of Jesus told in a native way that actually was being recognized officially by, you know, the, the Native American people. And so we've, we felt that was a really good beginning. But then I began to search for a Bible that that was translated in English, since most of our people are speaking English, over 90%. Has there been a Bible that was translated with Native people in mind? And it couldn't find one. So that right, so over the years, I began to from that CD, I began to read words, some of my favorite scriptures. I had no idea that I would ever be involved in a translation. I didn't feel like I could, you know, I wasn't trained that way. And, and how could I do that, but, but I did play around with rewarding things. And as my wife and I traveled, and as we used the rewarding there on the reservation, and then later, as we began to travel to many different places, many different tribes, I would my wife would play the flute and, and I would read these portions. And native people would come up to me afterwards and say, What Bible were you reading from? And I told them, there wasn't one like that. And they said, well, there should be. And then another native elder in California told me when, when you say it in English, it's the way we think, in our language. And so that's kind of that idea. kept working on me. And I and I thought somebody surely is going to do this, right? And no one did. So
7:14 surprising what people don't do. Yeah. And so
7:17 eventually, there was just so much confirmation and positive feedback. I committed myself to doing it with a lot of prayer, and a lot of folks coming around me and praying over me and confirming things for me. And and so, but I didn't know how I was going to do it. You know, who's who's gonna take seriously a translation by Terry wild man, you know, I mean, who am I to do that? But, but what happened was, it took about eight, nine years before I finally committed myself. And so I started by not going too long here. This is a,
7:58 it's fine. This is the story we want to hear. Yeah. Okay.
8:01 So we started by doing the, the Christmas story, I had already kind of sent out to our supporters, this idea of that, I'm going to do this. And so we sent out portions of the Christmas story, and started getting good feedback. So we, the first book we created is called the birth of the chosen one. And so that, that we have found an artist, and, and created that that took a while. And then after that, I did another book, where we did a harmony of the four Gospels. And so Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but but all harmonize together, which, you know, is impossible, but we did it anyway. We did the best we could. You know, it's an ancient tradition, the harmonies have existed since the second century,
9:00 right. Since station, I think, yeah, but but
9:03 so we just did it, like a storyteller would do it. And, and, and so we call that when, when the Great Spirit walked among us. And so that, when that was finished, I self published that. And then in 2015, I said, Well, here we go. I'll start over with Matthew. And we're gonna start doing this translation I created, I had created a website, a Facebook page. And in April, I had already been working on it quite a bit. By April, I got an email on April 1, which is April Fool's Day. Right. And, and I got an email from the CEO of one book of Canada, Wayne Johnson, and he was that the CEO at that time, and one book is part of the Wickliffe global alliance of Bible translators. At the time, they were doing over 40 translations in Africa. Were working with indigenous people and their philosophy was that the indigenous peoples should be the translators. And they would be the helpers to give expertise and help and, and funding and, and, and all these different things. So I had a three hour conversation with Wayne Johnson from one book, and we ended up forming a partnership with one book and rain ministries, which is our, my wife and I use ministries called rain ministries. And we and we began the translation but they by forming a translation council of 12. I thought that was a good number.
10:51 It sounds good.
10:52 Councils a lot better word the committee. So I knew from traveling for 10 years on the road, my wife and I traveled and shared Jesus with Native people. And we, when we went to regular non native churches, we would talk about the issues with Native people, why? Why aren't native people going to church? Why aren't native people falling to Jesus? Why is there such a low percentage. And so I would talk about these things and work on reconciliation issues and things like that, along with sharing portions of the translation, so. So I had a lot of relationships across Turtle Island, North America. And so I reached out to my friends from different tribes, different geographical locations. And from there, we we spent a couple of weeks in Florida, in Orlando at the Wickliffe associates. And they worked with us, our whole our whole council of 12, they worked with us to help us figure out how we were going to do this translation as a group effort. And then after that, in November of that year, we went to Calgary, Canada. And we spent three weeks there. And for one week, we had a smaller group, about half of our council came a week early, and Wycliffe Cliff identifies about 200 words that need to be translated properly. So we took all those 200 words. And we decided together, how we were going to word them in English, how we were going to translate them into the English. And also, we got this wonderful program on a computer called Paratext. And Paratext is is a translation software that biblical translators all over the world use. But it had never been used to do an English translation. Yeah. So. So we entered all that information into Paratext. To keep us on track, make sure we were translating the words correctly in the way we had agreed upon. And finally, we we agreed on a method where we would have, I would do the initial since I had worked on it for a couple years, I would do the initial wording, and translating. And then the council and other native people would be reviewers to give feedback, suggest changes and make sure it was worded in a way that honored scripture and honored our cultures. So that's kind of how difficult came about Go ahead.
13:52 How difficult was it to get consensus on some of the some of the words since there's so many different Native American cultures and languages? Or is there an underlying sort of commonality that made that easier than someone like me might think?
14:07 No, that's a really good question. And it comes up quite a bit. Because we're all speaking English. Okay, and because the government allowed us to have these gatherings called Powerex. Okay, our people began to come together from different tribal Heritage's and learn from each other. And, yes, a commonality developed out of out of those gatherings and things and, and so there's, there's, we don't claim that this translation is tribally specific in any way. It just has some general terms that are used kind of across the board, and the native people recognize in so far, we feel like we've hit that pretty well, from the feedback that we're getting.
14:57 That's great. I was I'm intrigued by the list. From Wickliffe of 200 words, what were what were some of those words that had to be translated correctly?
15:06 Well, you have, you know, righteousness, you have priest, you have Kingdom kingdom. Yeah, they're all these fields, some of them are theological words. Right? And and so you just kind of go down to there, how are you going to translate Hades? Or hell? How are you going to translate Gahanna? You know, all these different terms that are found in the Scripture? How are you going to translate sin? How are you going to translate truth or whatever? Whatever? The main words that are important, because there's a lot of words that really don't have a lot of significance that that way. But there are key words, and that's what we focused on.
15:56 Yeah, I could see that with these various theologically loaded words of hey, how are we? How are we translating them into and being culturally relevant, but also capturing the theology that that is maybe housed in those words, one thing for me, reading the first thing that I think stands out to a lot of people, and when I first got it, my first sermon after I got it, I read out of it at our church, right? So I got a lot of people in our church excited, excited about the copy even gave away my copy that day to someone to someone in the church. They're like, where did you find that? But the one thing that stood out to me and stood out to my congregation as well, is the names. Yes, the names and and I'd love to hear more about that. I think it's, to me, it's so powerful to hear these names in a different way.
16:53 Yeah, that was one of the things our counsel was 100% on, always, we're going to translate the meanings of names, because in many of our tribal traditions, our names all had meanings. Right. And in the Hebrew language, and often in the Greek, that same tradition exists, names have meanings. And that's brought out especially in the book of Romans by the, by the small man, Paul, and yeah. And so in Paul's talks about Abraham, and he says, Abraham is truly the father of many nations, as his name means father of many nations. And, and so Paul brings that idea out. And it's amazing as you as we began to translate the meaning of these words. And of course, as we dug into the Hebrew and Greek and tried to figure out the meaning of each name in place. What what began to happen was, was the there was a few times we didn't find the meaning. And so we had to figure out what to do in that case. So we kind of made it up. According to the context, you know, that it was being talked about, I can't remember, I think we translated Saddam as village of bad spirits or something like that. Yeah, it didn't, if that's the one I don't, I don't specifically, specifically remember. But the other thing we found out was often the meanings of the names lent meaning to the story. Yeah. And they tied into the story. And that was a such a beautiful thing to find. And that's the feedback that we have gotten that you've just given me, has been the same. Our native people just so appreciate they say, I love you had me at Matthew one.
18:50 which no one ever says that about the genealogy.
18:55 And, and a lot of people give that feedback, and they love to say the name. But the other thing as we, we did some testing early on, and we translated Luke and Ephesians. And we, we published that, and then we sent copies out several 100 copies out to pastors and leaders, native, all Native people, a few non native people, theologians, you know, things like that. And to get some feedback, and the feedback was, was really good. 90% Positive. But but that was the most positive feedback of all was putting the meanings of the name, I guess, in some ways, we've broken new ground by doing this in a translation. Yeah, but also the feedback said, well, it gets How do we know who it's referring to? If you don't know the Bible real well, so we decided to put in parentheses the standard English translation of the name So there wouldn't be any confusion and, and a few people who might think and sometimes we get the feedback, oh, you can't be saved by calling on Creator sets free, you have to call on the name of Jesus. They said, Well, you know, I understand what you're saying. But I do believe that you can be saved calling on the name of Creator sets free, because that's the meaning of the name of Jesus. And it's not the backlight the name isn't magic, it's the person we're referring to that has the power, right, you know, and so, as long as you're referring to the proper person, it's good. So that was some of the feedback.
20:37 In the Word, Jesus would be an English translation of Yeshua, anyway. So we're already translating and yeah, giving the meaning to the names or showing that I so agree with you that it, it does add, it draws out the meaning of the stories as well. And that fits better with the Hebrew culture and the Greek culture, then Western non native culture. And, and so I yeah, I think it's unlocked a way of reading scripture, and understanding the power of names and unlocking that, you know, the story behind that.
21:16 So I actually have a question for Terry, that that has not been bothering me, but is something that I'm just sort of aware of, I'm not Native American, I've been using the First Nations translation devotionally. Now for quite a while I actually had a copy of the what, Luke in Ephesians, actually, and the one I'm using now, actually, it's not the whole New Testament, it's the Gospels and acts in Ephesians that I'm working through. But I'm not Native American, what would you know, I'm always, I don't know, concerned and worried about issues of misguided cultural appropriation and things like that. What would be a benefit of, of this translation for for someone like me?
22:02 Well, one of the things that, that we discovered, as we began to put this out there for people to give feedback, was the non native people were, were giving positive feedback. Yeah, I love it. And, and so one of the things that we began to see was that this First Nation version was was our gift not only to our Native people, but a gift from Native people, to the dominant culture. And so as a part of the body of Christ, we have something to offer, we have something of value that will help non native people draw closer to the Creator, to draw. And so that's the idea behind that. And we have had amazing feedback. We have people in the UK that are reading it, and using it. We have Celtic based Christians that love it, because it really resonates with them. And again, to understand, not all native people are going to like this translation. It depends on how they've been raised. It depends on their view of Christianity, it depends on as a Christian natives, if they've been raised that the King James Bible, or these translations are the way to go. They've been assimilated, that some of them won't be open to this. But we've discovered that over 90% are open and love it and are actually telling us that it's drawing them deeper into their faith and trust in Jesus. And I believe that's true. So we just love, love that that's happening.
23:52 Another thing for me that really stands out in the text is the different names for God that are drawn from from native culture. And I wondered I can, I can only maybe assume that there was maybe some there's been some pushback there. Because because people get maybe antsy when we don't use the word God, knowing that it's still an English name, God, and it doesn't hold that and I in your introduction, I really appreciated that. But I would love for you to kind of tell our listeners how you went through the process of incorporating those names and why that's important.
24:31 One of the things that I early on as as I was living on the Hopi reservation, I read a book I think the book is is written by a Wickliffe translator. I think the books called God speaks Navajo. Okay. And so the translators at that time were trying to figure out how to say God in the Navajo language, and they weren't sure there wasn't as specific word for God, there was kind of an idea of this great, invisible spirit who is holy, the most holy one. And so that was dn dn. But the translator was nervous about it, that, well, maybe they, they would get it confused with other spirits or other gods so to speak. So they added the word God, God, to the end to the end of that, so it's dn God. And so, some of the, in the book there was, it was funny because the Navajo people were trying to figure out who was this? Who What is this God? That's holy? What what is this? Because the word God had no meaning to them? Yeah, at all in their language. It's a German word basically comes from a German. Right? And so. So what happened was at Christmas time, the the missionaries put up a beautiful green Christmas tree. And they looked at and go, Oh, good. See their juniper tree, their evergreen is called Good. And so they thought, oh, this Holy Spirit is a tree. Yeah. So the idea. And then when they went to the Apache people, they didn't do that. They didn't add God. They just used the Apache word, I think it was usin. For for for the Creator, and more Apaches came to faith than the Navajos? Well, they believe it was because of the the the using the indigenous words for the Creator. So I said all that, to say, we use general terms, we didn't use God, we stayed away from God. First of all, a lot of natives have a negative opinion of Christianity. And that's because of all the boarding schools, the government policies and things. So the name of God and Jesus are often attached to, in their minds to this negative image. But creator, and great spirit are native general ways native have natives have referred to the Supreme Being. And also, we found there was a few other ones that we use the one above us all we used, nor of hearts, you know, there's different terms that have been used. And we we just picked a few that we felt were more common, and and use those in the translation. And that that has been a very, very positive feedback also. But you're right, there are some that don't like it, or we get some pushback. I would be shocked if we didn't get pushback, right? But it's okay, because this is it's not for everyone. But it's touching many that would probably not be able to read this without these barriers coming up. In other words, too, like the word sin, when our native people went to boarding school, it was a sin, to speak your language, it was a sin to cut your hair. I mean, to have long hair, it was as all these different things were sin. And so the word sin is like a trigger word. And it triggers a bad memory that that has actually been passed down generationally. And boarding schools weren't as long ago as some people think. Right? There's people alive today that experienced boarding school. And we're getting those testimonies. So So those are some of the the ideas and the feedback we've gotten has been positive in that direction.
29:09 Yes, I am a theology teacher here at Jessup and trying to help students, sometimes they've grown up in the church, and they have words like God, or words like sin. And the meaning kind of gets wrapped up in that word. And to kind of help them understand, hey, the word God is actually just a general term. And we have to fill in the blank. You know, when we say God, it doesn't necessarily mean Yahweh doesn't necessarily mean we have to. And we have to understand who the god is we serve and that term is just a title or sin. What do we mean by sin? And, and yeah, I think it's helpful. I think that a translation like this, for me is helpful to show the students there's deeper meaning then, than the English word we've been using. Yes, and and it has a concept that yes is way more universal that we
30:05 can all benefit from, from understanding those deeper meanings I am.
30:09 And in both the Hebrew and Greek there are other terms other than God that are used for God. Right? You know, right. Creator is used in places, and Most High is used the most high. Yeah. And so there are there are different ways in, in the Hebrew people, they would say, Hashem, you know, or they talk about the name, you know, and they wouldn't even say his pronounce his name in the Hebrew. And so um, so names are meaningful. And we had when we first presented this, we were at the crew, crew is the former Campus Crusade for Christ. We weren't, we were invited to the in 2015, to their staff gathering from all over the world, there was over 5000 staff there. And they let us present on the on this project. And yeah, and I read our early version of the the Lord's Prayer. And afterwards, the native lady came to our table, and she had tears. She says, I'm unbeliever, I've been a believer for years, I'm a staff. But when you read that, and I heard those words said, in that in those in using those native terms, something happened inside of me. And a connection was made in my spirit that never existed before I was able to integrate my nativeness with my belief in Jesus. And I thought, wow, you know, that's what we're hoping for. You know, and that's a lot of the some some of the feedback has been like that.
31:52 One of the things that I'm benefiting a lot from going through the First Nations version devotionally is the fact that following Jesus is a journey. It's not it's a path, it's a road, you walk, it's not just a deposit of affirmations that you have to assent to. And that's, that's it. And that, that means a lot to me.
32:11 Yeah. The term kingdom of God was probably one of the most difficult ones to translate, because Kingdom has such colonial baggage attached to it. Right, right, you know, the United Kingdom, in the takeover in America and of our native people in the these different things. So we use George Tinker is a native theologian and believer in Jesus. And we used he has a whole chapter in one of his books called Spirit and resistance, where he talks about how would the, the kingdom of God be understood in a native way. And his conclusion, which is several pages long, was that it would be like a good road to walk. Yeah, and so that's how we, we say the kingdom we say creators, good road, traders good road. And so it becomes a Native people have always seen spirituality, not in a dual way, but in a in a singular way. We don't have secular and spiritual we, we have creation and spirit all together, natural spiritual working together, intersecting with each other, in in the ways that creator wants it to. And we believe that when things go wrong, something's happened to that balance between spirit and natural, and it has to be restored. So that's the idea of sin broken relationship or broken ways or sometimes it can be wrongdoings. We, rather than the word sin, and so we, we, we wrestled with all these different terminology to present the meaning of the Greek. But but in a way that's going to resonate more with many of our native people.
34:12 That's one big question for me is, are you working on the Old Testament,
34:19 every interview, I get? See, I'm just gonna say pray for me, please pray we are considering it. And it would be a huge project. And it would involve needing to raise funds and a lot of different things to be able to the time it takes to do this. And I would love you know, we had volunteer people that volunteered their time native people across the board over probably over 50 people have volunteered their time into this translation. I would love to be able to give them something more than just you know, We'd love to say, hey, you know, we can actually pay you to do this? You know, when that'd be amazing. Yeah, you know, so yeah, we were considering,
35:10 again, good, well, hopefully we can spread the word. And that can, can get you some resources to be able to because that's I mean, I just the this is so valuable and can see having the whole scripture would be would be so valuable.
35:27 Well, another thing that was really interesting that happened is in the middle of this translation, some folks from the Jesus film from crew got a hold of us, and they somehow had gotten a copy of the First Nation version, one of the early copies of Luke and, and so there was a discussion about doing some kind of film. And what we finally decided on working with other people, they got a nice donation to actually create something with the First Nation version. So working together, we came up with an animated version of, of Jesus, feeding the 5000. And walking on the water after that story. And so it took a couple years to find the right people and to get this put together, and then it's beautiful. And so if you go to the website, First Nations version.com, you can click on the link for the Jesus film. And you can see it, it's embedded right in the website. Or you can go to the YouTube version, or you can go to the Jesus film itself into a search for First Nations version. And so that was released almost two weeks just before the First Nation version was released. And so it helped as a promotional way. And we've gotten really good feedback back from that film. I hope you guys are watching your listeners will take time to take a look at it.
36:54 Definitely. When you were talking, I thought me a really neat way to end. Would you mind reading the Lord's prayer for us out of the First Nations version?
37:06 Oh, sure. I'm going to read from the matt Matthews version. Okay, in Matthew chapter six, oh, gray spirit, our father from above, we honor your name as sacred and holy. Bring your good road to us. For the beauty of your ways in the spirit world above is reflected in the earth below. Provide for us day by day, the elk, the buffalo, the salmon, the corn, the squash, in the wild rice, all the things we need for each day. release us from the things we have done wrong. In the same way we release others for the things done wrong to us. Guide us away from the things that tempt us to stray from your good road and set us free from the evil one and his worthless ways to hope. May it be so.
38:19 So good. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. And thank you for for doing this project. It really I think you're gonna find and the feedback is already so good, but you're gonna find this, this is gonna have far reaching impacts. And we're just so grateful that you joined us the
38:36 same great. It's been a while seeing the glitch. This in our league. Thank you for listening.
38:43 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup think
39:09 if you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Author Kaitlyn Schiess joins the show to discuss her recent book, The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore. We are so excited to welcome author Kaitlyn Schiess to the show today. She's the author of the liturgy of politics, spiritual formation for the sake of our neighbor, was released by InterVarsity press in September of 2020. She's a recent graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and a current Ph.D student at Duke Divinity School. Faith and politics is such an important conversation for the church, we know you're going to get a lot out of the show today. Enjoy.
0:40 Thank you so much for for being on the show. And I'm a huge fan of liturgy. So when I saw your title, when it was recommended to me by my friend, Dan, the liturgy got me right away. And so I'd love maybe we can, we can start there by exploring how you how you're bringing these two concepts together, how you're applying this concept of liturgy, to the concept of politics.
1:05 Yeah, it was kind of a new word for me to have just like, realizing that the way that I grew up, the fact that there were so many things that were consistent, when I came to church were consistent in my life that were shaping me, I wouldn't have used that word to describe what was happening in my church, certainly, right, and what was happening in my life, you know, either. And so kind of coming to seminary and learning more about spiritual formation and kind of being exposed to different church traditions than the one that I grew up in. It was such a helpful word for me to realize that I was being shaped in church by the words that a pastor used or by the words of a song, but I was also being shaped by like, my physical posture. And the times when I would get up and go and, you know, have communion or the times when we would all say the same words together, or it made me think about the words of a song or the kind of motions we were going through in a different way. Whereas the way that I grew up, if I had heard the word liturgy, I probably would have thought, you know, that sounds old and stodgy and kind of, you know, ritualistic. And I mean, it's helpful language to say, you know, there are some church traditions that are more formal in their liturgy, but the churches I grew up and use the liturgy just as well, they had sort of a schedule a kind of rhythm for things. I was at my parents Church recently. And they do the same exact, you know, two songs, announcements, another song sermon. And that particular Sunday, they did one song, and the pastor who was preaching stood up and started preaching, and we all were like, What is
2:36 Yeah, well, he just changed the script once.
2:39 Yeah, yeah. So it was helpful to kind of realize, I want to be thoughtful, not just about those kinds of actual things like the sermon and the songs, those are important. But could I also be thoughtful about the order of things and the repetitive nature of things? And how am I being formed, not just by the things that I've typically been intentional about, but all of those other things as well?
3:06 Yeah. And so when you apply that to politics, how does that how does that maybe change how you approach politics?
3:14 Yeah, it was a really helpful word for me to think about politics to partially because so much of our political participation is more repetitive, and sort of like has all of these deeper meanings involved. Then some other things in our lives normally our you know, when we engage in politics, not only do most of us have sort of habits, about the media that we consume, even just the neighborhoods we live in the schools, we go to the grocery stores we shop at those are all kinds of community building things that are really kind of habits for us. If we have habits about political participation, right, like some of us are in the habit of voting or not, some of us are in the habit of going to a person who's speaking or going to a protest or rallies, moves aren't in that habit. So it's repetitive things. But all of those things are also they're not just giving us political information. They're teaching us what things to love, and what things to fear, and kind of an ultimate story about the world. And it was really early in seminary. I mean, I started my first semester, the 2016 election was happening. I was taking a bunch of spiritual formation classes, and I realized, we were being taught to apply all these ideas about habit and spiritual formation, to all of these other areas of our lives to the places we grocery shop, to our schools. But we weren't often having a conversation about how much those things influenced our political participation that we might want to be a little more thoughtful about, What habits Am I getting into when it comes to my political participation? And how are those habits just like all liturgies forming things in me that I might not even realize are being formed in me, like, how could I be more conscientious of that? And it was really once I started thinking about that, I saw it everywhere. It was like anyone who gets obsessive about a project right? Everywhere I went, I just thought, oh, it would be so helpful if we could just have a better conversation and be a little more intense. tensional about, this isn't just who I vote for, or the kind of candidate I support, or the, you know, legislation I support, those things are important, but it's shaping how I treat my actual neighbor. It's shaping how I think about God and other humans and my obligations in the world. And that's when I, you know, in this institution, all these people are being, you know, trained to be pastors or be in ministry. And I thought, we are missing this really crucial area of people's lives, where they're being spiritually formed, their theology is being shaped their actions are being shaped. And I understand why we're scared to get into it, but I was realizing how important it was for us to talk about.
5:36 Yeah, and I think, understanding what you're just saying to of being afraid to get into as a church. I mean, I think that, for me, I've I've kind of been in that situation, since I'm also a full time professor here, but also work at a church. And in some ways, it's like, alright, let's just not bring up politics. Yeah. And let's focus on Jesus, right, and keep everybody, you know, everybody playing nice together. But it does a disservice when we're not engaging in this conversation. And we're not engaging in those habits and practices, that that are a part of daily life. And and sometimes I think it's, it comes from good motivation, maybe from the church, sometimes it'd be like, oh, let's not be political, and even talk about, you know, kind of contrasting that kind of popular critique of evangelicals, that they are too political. And maybe I've leveled that same, you know, accusation as well. But I kind of like, you know, you threw me a curveball, when you said maybe were insufficiently political. And I would love I'd love to hear more about that. Because I think I'm maybe still skeptical. But I, but I do. It is such an interesting topic that we ignoring it is not helping anybody. Right? So how do we maybe how do we move from being labeled as too political or trying to understand that to what is what is sufficiently political? Or what does that look like for you?
7:09 Yeah, it I had always kind of believed that to write that we're, like, overly political and and there is a sense, obviously, in which that's true that evangelicals historically have really closely tied our theology not just being a Christian, sometimes it was broadly being a Christian, sometimes it was to be this specific kind of Christian in America also very much means a close relationship with the Republican Party, and got to political about something that's 100%. True. But what I kind of realized, as I was studying, you know, early in seminary, and the election was very much in our faces was two kind of things. On one hand, it was realizing that for all of our talk about how important as a Christian, it was to be involved in the public square, we still sort of acted like there were completely different rules when it came to government. And when it came to our personal relationships, when it came to the way we acted in the church. And that was a theological disconnect. For me, I think a lot of younger evangelicals during the 2016 election, hearing how people talked about other people watching what their leaders and parents were doing, were struggling a little bit, sometimes with political disagreements, but sometimes it was just, I want I kind of grew up with this sense that how I learned to treat people in church was not somehow completely different from how I treated people in the world, or how I voted. And that disconnect to me was sometimes going maybe we're not as political as we think, because we act like those are two very different spheres. A related thing, I saw a study I cited in the book, about how many evangelical pastors were kind of falling one way on immigration, at least in just very gracious merciful way of saying, we want to care for refugees, we want to care for immigrants who are here, we want to be compassionate in our policies and in our personal relationships with immigrants. And yet, when their congregations were pulled, it was very different, there was a huge divergence. And that to me was such a picture of some of that fear, right, of recognizing that people who have some level of spiritual authority over other people recognize where the lines are and what you don't cross and what you don't say. And for me, that was also a picture, though, of if there's any political issue that has something to do with our theology, that's, that's high on the list, immigration and how we treat immigrants, right. That's a theme that's, you know, so consistent throughout Scripture. So for me, that was kind of a revelation of maybe we've missed some political nature of the message that we're supposed to be preaching, if there's such a divergence when it comes to leaders and when it comes to people in churches. And that, for me, is really the heart of what I wish I would see more of is not, you know, a pastor getting up and saying, here's who you vote for, or like, here's the party to support on either side. I don't want that from him, right. But what I really do want is when you come across a passage of scripture that deals with something like immigration, that deals with how people use their money that deals with how they treat other people who are different from them, that if there is, you know, kind of hesitancy in you to really strongly teach on that because of the political divide. visions in your church, that maybe the desire to really be faithful to Scripture should override the desire to kind of keep the peace and to also recognize that there are going to be things, current events, moments in your very specific community, I try not to talk to nationally or definitely not internationally because I care so much about people's context. But if there's something locally happening, and the passage that you've already planned, or if you're following some kind of lectionary or something, the passage that you are preaching on, has direct application to something happening in people's lives in your community. Again, you don't get up and say, here's how to vote or here's how to, but would you have some, you know, desire in you to say that, hey, the people of God are not just about what we believe it's about how we act and how we live. And so for this particular group of people in this place in this time, there is a pretty clear application, right? Like if there's a group of people coming in new refugees in your community, and the passage is there. It's like, that's a moment to call people to account, not just to say, hey, care for people individually, but to really kind of call out some of the political idolatry that can cause people to be hesitant when it comes to treating immigrants well, when it comes to treating people who are different from them well, and those remote to me, that's like a really kind of political form of preaching, which totally scares people for you know, to hear me say, but it's, if the truth of Scripture is going to impact the way we live our lives. And if we live inevitably, political lives, you know, we don't we live in a country where we have the ability to vote and influence political processes. We live in a country where some of us have a level of kind of wealth and privilege that some of those policies don't affect us as much, but they affect our neighbors, you know, really severely, then it's kind of impossible to be a Christian who believes what Scripture says, and not have it impact the way that we live in the political world that we inevitably live in and finding that balance I fully affirm is difficult. And I as someone who is not, you know, even working at a church right now, I never want to feel, you know, have people feel like I'm saying like, you need to be better and do more, and I don't face some of the difficulties you face. But I worked in church ministry for a long time during my time in seminary, and it is really difficult navigating those conversations. And yet, I think we're really missing what's happening with people spiritually, and what's happening to the neighbors that they could be loving. Well, if we ignore some of that stuff, because it gets labeled political.
12:18 Yeah, perhaps, like, by being too political, what we maybe mean is, or maybe the critique that I'm loving is maybe too, too much aligned with party politics or identifying with and that's on either side of the aisle, right? That's what the right? If that is, if that is your message, then it's like, oh, but yeah, we can focus on Scripture and say, Hey, there's what Scripture says, and there is a maybe clear political application of this, or at least it's a part of the conversation and not not saying it's all simple once we get to those those issues, but but allowing, yeah, faithfulness to Scripture. And and it seems like our loyalty or faithfulness to our party sometimes influences how we interpret Scripture instead of the other way around. And absolutely, and that is on church leaders, I think to to lead in that situation and scenario to say, hey, let's do a good job of interpreting scripture. Well, and and applying it. Especially I love what you're saying. So in the title, I mean, you had me all over the place in the title, right? You got me at liturgy and then you got me a spiritual formation. For others. Politics was the was the my least favorite part of the title? I'll be honest. But But I love I love your connection there. And we often don't politically, or at least in the in the conservative Evangelical, and I feel like from from the little bio I got in your book as well, like we've lived very similar lives in the sense of, we have our evangelical street cred, right, we've got our evangelical street cred we've been we're a part of this, the university won't Jessup University, where I'm at right now is very much in the evangelical tradition. And so I think it's important for us inside the evangelical tradition to, to be able to see maybe the blind spots that we have, and, and to be able to, you know, to say, in our policies or in our voting in our in our political life, are we worried about ourselves first, or are we thinking of our neighbor thinking of policies that maybe not affect us or but are affecting others in and I liked how you brought kind of spiritual formation for for the sake of your neighbor, and applying that to political you know, politics because we often vote. I mean, I have a friend who, who says he votes based on his tax, you know, what benefits him in taxes and, and that drives that drive People, but it's also so important for us to, to get past ourselves. And and to realize that yeah, that we are engaging in a political process that includes more than ourselves. And, and so important. So, so great job on the title and subtitle damages. Yeah, it was just, I thought you it really did bring those those things together well and, and along with liturgy, and you kind of set it to already. But you, you use this kind of metaphor of idols or false gospel. And so within the evangelical community, what are some of those false gospels or idols that we're kind of tempted to, to worship in place of, of the true gospel?
15:52 Yeah, it was important to me to use that kind of language, because again, trying to kind of tie in, the way that we participate politically, is not totally separate from the rest of our lives, everything is spiritual. Everything that we're doing is connected to our theology and our spiritual lives in our relationship with God and others. And I was just looking around and watching people who I knew cared deeply about scripture, and cared deeply in some ways about really caring for their neighbors, being so captivated by ideas that seemed to me really, obviously, counter to the story of Scripture. And yet I knew these people to be kind and faithful, I didn't want to assume they were just, you know, acting maliciously, which we can very easily do. But kind of understanding how being really immersed in a specific story and set of ideas could influence you in ways that you were unaware of, and then trying to be really thoughtful myself about what are the ones that I don't see, right, who are people in my life that can point those out for me, but ones that were kind of clear to me and my own communities. And I really wasn't trying to talk about ones that were in other kind of, you know, other Christian communities or Christian committees around the world, because I don't know those. But I know my own, as you said, kind of evangelical tradition. I know that well. And some of the ones that became so clear to me over the last couple of elections were prosperity, which was surprising because I, a lot of the people that I grew up with, you know, in churches would have said, Oh, there's like the prosperity gospel people. That's not us, you know, right. But I watched how people my age older than me had this really deeply held sense that everything that they owned they had earned, and that if you worked hard, and pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, then you would be successful. And if you were in poverty, it was 100%, your own fault, right? You had kind of bad moral decisions that got you there. And again, it was just so startling to realize how strongly held that belief was that it wasn't just sort of a passing idea, but that we had been so immersed in that story about the world. And it had something to do with our identity, right? No one wants to be told that they haven't earned everything that they have, that they're not just hardworking and brilliant, and have kind of figured everything out. But that maybe they had some advantages in their life. And maybe some things kind of went right that they don't really get to take credit for. And so realizing how often in Scripture, wealth and poverty were talked about, in not the kind of morally weighty ways that they were talked about in my communities that there wasn't this sense of the poor have just deserved it all the time. And the rich have deserved what they've gotten. But instead, like the strong language in James, about the wealthy people abusing their, their workers, and how the things that they have won't last. And so that was a really important one for me to realize, was coming from the political sphere of like, it's politically useful to tell people that they have earned everything that they've gotten, even if theologically we don't believe that that's true, especially when we think about God is the giver of all good gifts away, the people of God throughout, you know, all of Scripture have had this sense of I don't own everything I have you own it. And if you asked me to give it away, then I should give it away, you know. So prosperity was a big one. And the other one that I wish I talked about more, because I think it's more important than people realize, is security, and our really strong sense of safety and physical security as the highest good. And both of those things can be good, like being prosperous. In a really well rounded sensors, a good thing, being physically secure is a good thing. But I was watching people in my life, make political decisions and personal kind of community decisions, as if there was no good higher than being physically safe. And so we're not going to go into an unsafe neighborhood. Even if there are people there who we should build relationships with, even if there's good that we should do. I'm going to live in a community that has you know, three gates outside of it so that no one unsafe can come in. And I'm going to make decisions about my life or my children's life, my family's life that are solely based on safety and security. And that played itself out and how we voted again. It was sort of my safety and my security who's in and who's out that sort of as the primary thing. But then it played out in the ways that we thought about our communities and The way we serve, you know, I watched people over the last six or seven years, who really deeply care about the poor, the marginalized. But were so immersed in political stories that said, it's their own faults and your highest good is your security, that I watched them not only vote in ways or interact politically in ways that made me heartbroken. But I also watched them decrease their involvement in missions or in serving in their own communities going, you know, a few neighborhoods over to be with people who were different from them. And it was that those kinds of connections that made me realize we're not just ignoring this part of people's lives, that is informing how they vote, we're ignoring this part of people's lives, that's changing how they serve their neighbors, even in kind of individual ways, even among their church. And so those were two ones that I think we don't talk about enough in the book, I list, white supremacy, and talk a little bit about racism in the history of racism, and evangelical communities, and patriotism. But those are two I feel like we're talking a lot about right now, which I'm thankful for. Yeah, but those other two, I think, inform those second two in some significant ways. And if we miss those, I think we'll fix some current problems, maybe with like, how we speak to each other, or we might have some initiatives to sort of change things, and those are all very good. But we'll miss maybe some of the things that we really value above everything else that's then causing us to continue to act in ways that aren't loving to our neighbor.
21:22 Yeah, and it is so important to I think, to highlight the prosperity and security because like you said, it's it's their double edged in a sense that they're not bad things, and, and we all want those, but in our quest for those is causing us to neglect our neighbor. And, and in the book, you also, you know, just kind of note, I think you use a phrase or the picture of a youth group, you know, getting on a bus to go to the other side of town to minister and realizing that's political, right. Like, there's like that is all coming together. And, and I hear you on that, that. And this, again, can be people on both sides of the aisle when when political beliefs and what you are supporting and voting, if that is causing you to engage less with your neighbor, and engage less like, wow, as the church that's where I think we can step in and clearly know, hey, this is this is not, this is not part of God's kingdom, and what what God is calling us to, in the book, you also draw wisdom from early Christian thinkers, and like Augustine, and others. And I just would would love to, to highlight a couple of those things that you drew out that you know, what, what is, what are some early Christian thinkers like Augustine teach us about politics today? Or how we can engage in politics?
22:52 Yeah, I was really lucky in seminary to have a class that was literally called spiritual formation in historical perspective, I think our mutual friend Dan was in that class with me. And it was so helpful, because when you're taken out of your own historical context, you notice all these things that were normal to them that are strange to you. And the professor in the class kept emphasizing, and also hopefully, when you're immersed in what's normal to them, you'll see what's strange for yourself, like what has been normal for the Christian tradition, but is not present in our particular churches today? And how could we recognize that it's hard to see what's just normal for you, it's hard to see what should be strange. And so when we were reading a bunch of early Christian apologists describing how the early Christian community treated each other and treated outsiders, there was such a consistent connection between what we would think of as like internal, like the life of the church, the spiritual disciplines, worship, preaching, and the way that they interacted with people outside of the church. So for us, I feel like most churches, if you were like, go to their website, right, you might see a tab that's like, here's worship, here's the people that lead worship, here's how we think of what's here's what happens in a service, here's what to expect. And then there might be like an outreach tab or like a missions tab. And those are separate. There might even be two separate pastors over that. And there's nothing wrong with you know, any of that. But there just wasn't that sense of separation for them. One of the examples that I loved the most, and it really motivated, a lot of what I became interested in was realizing how often fasting was practiced in order to care for the poor in the community. If you're already a pretty poor community, you know, the early church was not full with rich, you know, powerful people, there were some but not a lot, you know. So if you don't have a lot to begin with, and then someone in your community cannot eat, you know, is impoverished. It's not like you have tons of resources to give to them. So what do you do you all get together and you fast you don't you deprive yourself of some material need that you have, so that you can give to them? And that was such a picture to me of sort of like what we would think of as an internal thing, a spiritual discipline. That's about my personal relationship with God that makes me into a, you know, more faithful Christian. And all of those things can be true. And yet there wasn't a sense of like, well, one day, we fast and then later we go and serve the poor. It was like when we fast, we are preparing to serve the poor. And those are both, you know, connected in the life of the church. And I think it's helpful for Christians, especially people today who might be a little frightened or cautious about how things are changing culturally, if they're starting to feel like their church is more embattled culturally, if they're starting to feel like things that used to be normal. And the church was just, you know, in step with the culture is now not true. Instead of trying to like reinvent the wheel and figure out what it means to live in a culture that is different from the church, which has always been true on some level, but you're feeling it more now. It would be better to look historically to look at the really early church to look at the black church and American history that has a very different, you know, history than predominantly white churches. And so for me, it was just encouraging to say, when I look at the political situation, and I'm feeling really heartbroken about what's happened, that over identification of theology with our political with a partisan identity, like you said, instead of going, okay, all the young people in the church that are frustrated about this, we have to like fix everything, come up with a great new plan. And you know, tell all of the elders that you know, they were wrong, and we've got it figured out. What if instead, we looked to history, and learn from Christians who faced the same exact questions in very different contexts throughout all that time. And Augustine was such a helpful person for that, too. I mean, I tell people all the time city of God is such a beast, but like they should just if you need to take multiple years. Like that's fine.
26:41 Be Your Mount Everest.
26:43 Yeah. But it's I mean, it's, it's a work written by a man trying to really be in a moment of crisis, right? The very beginning of it is describing Rome has been sacked Christians are being blamed for it. How do I respond? Unlike our blog post today, it wasn't just like a quick little polemic. It was a giant, sprawling work of theology. But But describes the strange mix of obligations and identities that Christians have that we have an obligation, first and foremost, to the coming Kingdom of God, to what Augustine calls the City of God. And yet we share our temporal goods, we share the way that we live together on Earth, with people who are not a part of that city, who are part of the earthly city. So how do we find kind of a provisional justice and peace and can work together? It's such a helpful way of both thinking about politics, but also thinking about our, like, the spiritual element of it, that you're never just seeking the peace of the city that you're in. And it's just sort of this task that you do by fixing laws and electing the right people. There's always a spiritual element involved. So how do we do that in a way that doesn't harm our souls? How do we do that in a way that maintains our ultimate allegiance to Christ? We don't have to refigure out how to do that. Now we can look to people who've done it before in the past.
27:59 Yeah, I think that's that's such a good move. And honestly, as a theology professor, I appreciate that so much. And trying to help our own students, right, and be like, hey, you know, and in reminding them, that this is not the craziest time in world history is like, it's all been crazy. Actually. We can we can learn from, from those situations from the past, and how, particularly how the early church engaged in it, because like you said, it wasn't they weren't engaging it from a place of political power, you know, in which is different from our situation now. And so, it's so important for us to learn, I think, from that perspective, for sure. All right. Well, I would, I would love to kind of finish, finish the interview, with a little bit of advice, advice for for maybe families advice for college students who are, who are in their family, and there's they're trying to talk maybe about politics, but it's, it's, it's gotten a little tricky, you know, right. What advice what advice would you give for families who are kind of struggling to talk about politics and maybe a peaceful way?
29:19 Yeah, I can relate to that. And I can relate to the way it's, it's in your family, it's in your church, it's in, you know, hopefully, if you are in relationships with people who are not like you, whether that's age, gender, race, socio economic, you know, you're gonna, they're all going to be difficult, right? Right, that you were all the same. They'd be hard, but especially if you're in the right kind of community that is diverse, it will be hard. I think the biggest thing that's been helpful for me is to stay in tune to emotions, which sounds sort of on one hand counterintuitive, and another quite obvious, right? People get very emotional when it comes to political conversations. But I think some people look at that dynamic and go okay, we got to just shut it down. Let's have a rational Conversation, let's leave emotions out of it, people get too upset. The difficult thing is, we are full humans, and we bring emotions and intellect and you know, our full identities and selves and our theology and all of those things to a conversation. And so instead of just saying, Once things get emotional, we're done. And that that can be really helpful thing if the if the temperature has gotten too high. Sometimes it's better to just leave it and try again another time. But instead, I think we should go into those conversations with a sort of toolbox in our mind of thinking through different questions, what fear is being expressed here, what desire is being exported, what good thing are they seeking after that? Maybe we disagree about how to get there, maybe we even disagree about whether that's a good thing or not, but can I identify the fear, the desire, the loyalty, whether that's to a group of people or to a political party? Or to an idea, right of just like, this is the America I want to have? Right? That's a certain sense of loyalty? Yeah. Who is being talked about? And what kinds of ways who's the bad guy who's the good guy in this situation? And having in your mind those questions, both to think about the people you're talking with? And then also to think about yourself, when am I in this heightened emotional state? Maybe not? Because I disagree. I mean, I probably do. But mostly because my identity has been threatened. You have said something that is counter to this deeply held idea of who I am and my place in the world, not so that we never poke those things. As Christians, we should poke the kind of wrong ideas people have about themselves or their communities, but so that we can be more sensitive and have a more productive conversation. One of the most instructive conversations I've ever had, was with a woman at the church that I was in for a few years, we were having a conversation about racism. So it was not easy or difficult. We had very different opinions. And I realized this was during COVID. So it was over zoom. So already, like, increase more layers. Yeah. And I realized at one point, as the emotions kept getting ratcheted up, one, it was helpful moment to realize you can control your own participation in the mind the emotions ratcheting up, but also realizing that this woman had been alone in her apartment, because of COVID, for like three months, was just sitting at home, watching the news, seeing protests, seeing deaths, seeing all this horrible stuff. And she was frightened. And the idea of something being really wrong with her country was so unbearable, that she just couldn't have a conversation in the way that I wanted to have the conversation. And it was a helpful moment for me to like, really pump the brakes and step back and try and figure out what was going on with her emotionally what was going on with her spiritually, and meet some of those needs, so that we could have a better because I think the conversation was important. It wasn't, well, that's unimportant. Let's deal with this other thing it was, if I don't learn what's going on with you, and how the emotions that you are having that are very legitimate, are driving your response to this, I'm not going to be able to have a productive conversation with you. And that's really changed how I've engaged since then it's, it's helped me understand myself better and understand other people better. And really, it's just, it's not easy advice. I wish I could tell someone like if you save this thing this way, it will just totally fix the problem. But instead, I think it requires practice of just learning how to read those emotions, read the underlying identities and loyalties that are motivating people, and not just leaving them there. But recognizing when is the right time to really gently deal with those things, because they're tightly held by people? And how could you actually maybe gently deal with those things, especially if you're someone who is in a really close relationship with someone, or especially if you're someone who's in any kind of like, spiritual authority or relationship if you're in a small group with someone, or you're teaching people or you are a pastor to church? How can you deal with those identities and loyalties in a different context? That isn't the political conversation and have a conversation about? What how do you most fundamentally think about yourself? You know, what do you most fundamentally believe about your life? And how you've lived it and your place and community? And how can we have a conversation about the most biblically faithful way to think about yourself in your place in your community, in an environment that is not charged by the political conversation that will hopefully then inform the political conversation to be better when we get there?
34:16 Yeah, that's so helpful. And it's such a good reminder that for one, we can control our emotional response. So yeah, being aware of that, and again, it's always looking to the other person, right? I mean, it's this, this cares, this focus, to try to understand where the other person is coming from. And I always kind of encourage students, you know, maybe find those places where you have points of connection. Yeah, I was talking with a friend and kind of the issue of guns came up and and they were kind of shocked that I didn't have a loaded weapon in my house, you know, and, and that and and his his statement though was like, Don't you worry about your family? And it kind of clicked with me it was like, oh, yeah, we both you and I both agree that we care for our families. Now, maybe we disagree about how we we pursue that. But that was a moment actually of connection. It's like how your your ideas are, what's influencing you is actually the same thing. Maybe that influences me, it's both our care for our family, we're just approaching it differently. So then we can go on to have another conversation. But now we know, hey, we actually have some things in common. And, and we can kind of moved from there. And so now and that's, that's really helpful, and it's helpful for church leaders. I mean, I think what you've laid out in the book, and I've even talked to other church leaders, since reading the book, who've who've handed this out to families handed the book out to families that, hey, read this, and maybe it can help you have a conversation. So thank you so much for just the insight in the book. And I think how you brought it together in a way that that I hope helps the church engage in it. And it doesn't have to be like politics doesn't have to be a divisive topic. We really can approach it. And I think I think your book is really a step in the right direction of hey, how can we talk about it without it being divisive? So thank you so much. And thank you for for joining us on the show. And, and good luck in your new studies at Duke and excited for other projects you have coming up. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup think
37:02 if you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Welcome to season 3! Mark and Rex kick off the new season by looking back at their summer reading list. You will find a great variety in their selections and hopefully a new book to read.
TRANSCRIPT 0:09 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore
0:11 and your co host Rex Gurney.
0:13 And Rex we're excited. This is the season opener of season three,
0:17 season three.
0:18 Season Three.
0:18 So we're gonna be approaching by the end of season three we'll have almost 100 episodes. Oh wow. Wow. So excited for that. And we haven't really called them seasons until now. So maybe you didn't even know we had separate seasons. Oh, we are seasoned veterans.
0:36 We are Yeah, we are seasoned veterans moving into you know, kind of looking at you know, the school year as as a season and in our summer of reruns which we'll we'll be able to add to even more this next summer and excited to to go into this new Season and Season Three coming out of the year that we just came out of exactly and and excited for what season three could hold we got a bunch of guests lined up and more authors more scholars hitting some of the same topics kind of going deeper into topics we have and exploring some some new areas so excited for that but what I thought about this first one right is we're just getting into it is September you know classes have just been going for just a little bit so we're getting our head back in the game right we're gonna head back in to the academic world wanted to kind of maybe look back at the summer and talk about you know what what you did this summer not like you know trips and things like that, but
1:38 just stand up before the class and Alright, a little paper a good summer
1:43 family when what I did in Grand Canyon, but more of what do you kind of studied and and research what you read? What will kind of perked your interest over the summer? And I have a couple things that I kind of focused in on the this summer on. But maybe we'll start start with you, Rex and maybe look at what was what was one book out of the many books because you already showed me your list of the many books maybe what was one book that really maybe turned on some lights for you this summer?
2:15 Well, first of all, the list is not as long as I always hope it will be when I start the summer because, you know, I tend to just read I call it mercenary reading during the school year, because I'm always trying to just expand my knowledge base and you know, learn some new stuff for the classes and just but it's all you know, for a class, right? That's so I look forward to the summer. So I can just read for me. Although, you know, I taught two classes during the summer. And so a lot of the stuff I've read for pleasure is applicable to my classes. So when you can mix. Pleasure,
2:52 there you go. Um, let's see, I'm reading right now, I'm not quite done with it. It was one of those books that I wanted to kind of skim or skim heavily, because you know, just I'm basically still on my read 20 books by five books, read 20 books by five books, because I have a whole shelves. Yeah, I haven't read yet. And I understand I'm not getting any, I'm not getting any younger. So I feel I have to do something about that. And so I look forward to just kind of skimming some of them. But I realized when I pick them up, it's like, well, now I know why I actually bought this thing a couple of years ago. And I can't skim this because it's a great book about Tom I read it. But it's an interesting book by a Spanish theologian slash philosopher called disarming beauty. And basically, his argument is how to talk about Christ in his frame of reference is mainly Europe. But we're kind of seeing, you know, in some ways, that Europeanization not in a good way of life here in the United States in, you know, for a long time, we would talk about Europe, that's the place where the birth rates are below replacement level, you know, and of course you blame every you know, and honestly, you can blame secularism for some of it, you really can. Right. And we have found perhaps the pandemic has something to do with this. But as our as our president, John Jackson, not Joe Biden is fond of saying that the the pandemic is sort of accelerated trends over already starting and so maybe this was going to happen anyway. It's just like happening it now. But we're finding the we're below replacement level, right now here in the United States In the United States, which is really interesting. And if you're going to blame that a secularism and post modernism and whatever you want to blame it on, then you know, it's not you know, it's not over there. It's over here, and that seems
5:01 harder to make that case for America, America still kind of holds on to that right? The religious foundation. Right, right,
5:09 which, you know, apparently is not quite at least right now what we thought it was. Anyway, the argument by Holly on Chiron is basically, you know, in a postmodern sort of secular culture, one way to get people to take Christ seriously is just to talk about the beauty of Christ, and the beauty of even Christian theology. So we talk about the good and the true and the beautiful, we're really good on the true, right, we focus there if right, the good, you know, we at least have illusions that were there, but we rarely really talk about the beautiful. We may talk about aesthetic, some but just the beauty of the Christian life and the beauty of not not just the life, but the way that looking at the world through Christ size allows you to see the beauty of the world. And beauty seems to be in short supply in our society right now. And so that may have some real apologetic value. I never thought of that before. I find that compelling Chiron
6:13 comes from the Catholic tradition, which Yeah, I feel like in the Catholic tradition, there's always this focus on beauty on mystery that we don't have in the evangelical tradition. Well,
6:27 I grew up in a Baptist box. I mean, literally a Baptist box. And so you know, all life to the pulpit. No stained glass, there's no beauty. No, you know, in the surely purely functional, it was that way. Just purely functional. And of course, that's not what a European cathedral looks like.
6:42 Definitely. Yeah. And I think that's what it does draw people in, and I love I kind of I really like that argument of, wow, if we if you focused on the beauty of Christ, how that disarms. Right? And that's why the arguments against
6:57 that's why he calls it disarming beauty in the book, because it's a way of disarming arguments or disarming objections.
7:06 I like that. So that was disarming beauty essays on faith, truth and freedom by Julio and cut around. That is that's going on, I just saved it on my list. Okay, so maybe, maybe, you know, this fall, it is true Rex, where you're saying, once the school year starts, pretty much all of my reading is focused on something I can use in class. So I was like, Okay, I'll read this. But if it's not, you know, we'll get to I do have some, some fiction books that I'll try to weave in. But even those, I find a way to weave them into class. I'm like, Okay, this, okay. This connects one. Well, actually, a couple books. I'll send a couple of books after that this summer, early, early in the summer. My wife and I were over in kind of the Napa area where Santa Rosa. And I stumbled into a used bookstore, which I just always seem to do. Yeah, always seem to find, you know, the the used bookstore, occupational hazard. That's right. Just like a magnet is drawn to them. So and right when we saw it, my wife was like, you want to go in there? And I'm like, yes. So she went and maybe did some other things. I went in there. And I was like, take your time, honey, take your time. And it was a really big use bookstore. And I always love. You know, on the show, we've talked about my favorite use books are about time down in San Diego Adams and we had Brian on the show, who was the owner and met up here and fulfilled a lifelong dream
8:37 and taught at our school. Yeah, in Bible theology, and also in the history department. We had him teaching for us too. Yeah.
8:45 Good. Yeah, great guy and a great eye for books. And that in this bookstore felt very similar to Adams Abba had a really big religion section, and Christianity and theology. So what you find there, so I'm summoned through and I found two beautiful fine so one one that I found both of them are first edition. Oh, wow. So they were a little bit more money than I'm used to spending in a used bookstore. But are they autographed by the author because if they were autographed by the author, I would I would have them in a steel case or something. But one of them is from Paul Tillich is a collection of sermons called the new being so it's a it's actually a follow up to shaking the foundation's, which was his kind of the first collection of sermons. And when you you know, Tillich is an interesting guy to get into and we've talked a little bit about Tilak on the show, and can be a little bit tricky because you kind of have to have this existential language to to understand him, but actually, I've found that his sermons are very approachable, very readable and actually when you when you listen to things about his life, most people felt you know his his obviously most accessibility was in his sermon. and most of his theology is, is best represented in his sermons. And so it's the new being has a collection of sermons, but the very first one is called to whom much is forgiven and the sermon on Luke seven. And that the passage where the woman washes the sinner, woman washes Jesus's feet and the Pharisee Simon, so not Simon Peter, but a different Simon says, you know, if he knew who this woman was, he wouldn't, you know, wouldn't let her touch his feet. And Tilak just does an amazing job of, of highlighting that for one in this story, we have to realize the the sinners truly are sinners, okay. And that the righteous, the Pharisees truly are righteous. He's like, it doesn't do us any good to, to downplay and be like, well, well, you know, the Pharisees were righteous, but they didn't really
11:02 get a parenthetical thing. You know, I think I've shared this some maybe with our, our listeners before, but I know I've shared with you, I'm, I'm even right now reading sort of a First Nations Native American, right translation of the New Testament. And, and it's interesting, because in order for them to actually, you know, in Native American kind of pan Native American terms, you know, which had to be a little bit vaguer than specific tribes, but in order to, you know, talk about the Pharisees, you know, they actually are like, you know, sort of a purified ones. And when you start talking about them, then, you know, in I guess terms that would resonate to Native Americans. It's like, you can't really bad mouth them, you know, they're there. I grew up knowing that or thinking that they were the bad guys the Bible, but actually, you know, they're, they're not
11:51 right. And they're and and what toga saying is, obviously, in this story, they, they've missed the widely missed the, you know, wildly have missed the point. But that, in their time, they were considered like, everyone would have been like, yeah, they're good guys. And he was kind of saying, Today, if you met a Pharisee, you'd be like, they're righteous person, like they're, you know, they uphold they are biblical they, and, but then he goes on to show that the reason the, the woman was so sorrowful and was was Washington juice feet, and was so thankful. Again, he tells that many little parable to Simon that, you know, if two people owe debt and one has a bigger debt, who's going to be more, you know, more thankful? It's like, well, the person who had the bigger debt, right, and you're saying, and one thing that I love that Tilak does, he doesn't well in this is that he highlights the the reason, you know, Jesus tells her she, she is forgiven, he doesn't forgive her. Right? He doesn't say, because you have done this, you're forgiven. He just says you are for transactional. And and for the Pharisees, he says they turn every, you know, for, for sinners, it's in spite of, in spite of your sin, you're forgiven. Pharisees turn everything into because because I have done this, I'm forgiven, right? And it's like, wow, that is such a big change. And, and you know, and one thing breaks obviously, you and I growing up in the church growing up in a Baptist box, and, and I grew up in a kind of a nondenominational country garage turned sanctuary, okay, so not a lot of beauty happening either in there. But growing up in that, it can be really easy to, to think, Well, God loves me because I've done these things, or I'm forgiven because and, and it was just a helpful reminder from Tillich. I'm forgiven in spite of my sin.
14:05 So I know Mark that you're listening to some tapes of Thomas Merton giving some talks on prayer. Yeah. I would. Have you ever heard a Tilak? Sermon? Like recorded like impression? I know they have to be right.
14:18 They have to be they have to be so I will. I'm gonna search those. I'm gonna search those down. Interesting. I found Yeah. How thick is German accent I know if I be able to understand it.
14:28 Apparently, he wrote, you know, a little bit more clearly than spoke but but as you know, we've said here on the show before, I don't know how much more money you get for having a you know, to tonic accent while you're preaching. But when I was growing up, if you had an Australian accent, you know, it was worth $10,000 in salary, but if I had a Scottish accent, you could command whatever you wanted. I kind of not joke, right?
14:52 Yeah, that's true. That's true. I think that's why we're more Dave Tim's has the Australian accent. I bet you he has a little bit of bump
15:00 Yeah, you probably have to check figure that out. I did check that and then work on our Scottish brogues.
15:06 I know Yeah. I'm not afraid this next year, I'll just start the school year. I mean, the students won't know, the freshmen won't know. So you just never know start with an accent. Yeah. So Tilak and then what's funny that you bring up Martin. The other book I found in this beautiful used bookstore is a early collection of Thomas Merton poem. Oh, wow. So he was a monk and a writer and also a poet, pretty much a renaissance man. He just really right. And, and this was this is also a first edition. And it was published in 1947. So it's actually his. I think it's his third collection of poems that were published.
15:47 When did he write seven story mountain? When was it published?
15:51 I think it was published in his 40s. It was published in the 40s. Because it's about kind of write things that happen in the 20, late 20s. Right. But I thought it was early 40s. Okay, at 41. Okay. 30. So it and then obviously, that, that book has Yeah, some sort of mountain went on to kind of affect an entire generation. Exactly. Moving into the 60s and and Henry now and is one of them that was deeply got a whole
16:17 lot of people actually making pilgrimages to get some of the Abbey.
16:21 Traveling to Kentucky. Yeah. And, and so yeah, so it was it was cool to see this poetic side of Merton. Nah. And then like I said, yeah, we've just been listened to a bunch of tapes of Merton on prayer, and Merton on contemplative life, Merton on the nation spirituality.
16:42 And he told me that he was actually quite the funny guy. He is yeah, like
16:45 when you listen to these tapes, or they're, you know, digitize now, but they were tapes, it was just a tape recorder. I mean, it's kind of you know, in many ways Merton was maybe the first podcaster Hi. Okay. One one that I have is him literally in a room by himself with a tape recorder and he's recording it for a convent, some nuns down the street, but he's not actually with them. Okay. And He even talks about his like, well, this is weird, you know, just in a room by myself. And which is okay with Thomas Merton, basically, right? Yeah, he's, he's fine being by himself. But yeah, so those have been those just been great to summer to kind of listen to those hearing them not from anyone else hearing him actually say that. Yeah. And he is he is a lot funnier and would bring in a lot of jokes. Now, maybe, you know, a group of monks is an easy audience to make laugh, and maybe some of the things he makes him laugh by. We don't wouldn't find
17:41 a lot of inside jokes and slides now to share humor. I guess.
17:45 That's right. That's right. But no, yeah, so those have been two. Those are two books I've found this summer in the so the collection of poems from Thomas Merton is called figures for an apocalypse. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. So and that's kind of his. Here's that title poem that's about as about like, four or five pages long. So it's kind of a longer prose poem.
18:07 So I'm reading a, this is a book that I'm actually still reading right now. And it's a book um, I think I mentioned to you that I actually checked out from the Roseville Public Library, kind of shocked by this look like Well, well, I do and innocent University Press book, which, you know, yeah, I'm surprised me too, that it's there. But actually, I'm, I'm buying the book, because I want to mark it up. It's just such a good book. And then, you know, and some, I'm probably going to take it back to the library today after I get an Amazon copy. But it's called White, awake, not wide awake, bright, white, awake, wide awake by a pastor of a multicultural church in Chicago. His name is Daniel Hill, he actually kind of started it with the blessing of Willow Creek. He was a kind of associate pastor Willow Creek. And anyway, it's just really interesting because he, you know, gathered together because he wants an intentionally multicultural church. Right? And, and he found out that even though the church was growing, it was all like white millennials that were going to it and just like, that's not why we started this place. We're just trying, yeah, we're trying that's just what happened here. So he, he gathers a group of pastors, African American pastor, or Latino pastor, an Asian pastor, and then another white pastor and books like so tell me what I'm doing wrong or whatever. And one of them, you know, just kind of you know, gives them a truth lesson. Yeah. And Charlie points out gently points out the fact that, you know, you're, you're actually trying to do all of this from, I guess, assuming that that your whiteness is normal. And then what do I need to do to to to change mine normality? So that more folks of different ethnic groups will come to my church. And and the African American pastor kind of gently told him, Well, you're really starting in the wrong place, because you're not even aware of the fact that you operate from, from a white culture, it's like, I don't have a culture, you know, we don't have like, you know, white days, and anything, well, actually you do. And you're just sort of not aware of it. And that's, that's got me thinking a lot, you know, that, that his white identity is white culture is is normal, and then you operate out of that, right. And, and he mentioned something in a book and just, you know, and this is just in the first like, 15 pages of it, and it just really struck me. So in most seminaries, or most Bible colleges, or whatever, right, you study theology. And let's say, I'm going to seminary it. And so I've taken my year long, you know, survey of theology, and then I still have to get some theology credits. So I can take some upper division electives to fill out my theological education. So, you know, since the seminary I'm going to is a, you know, seminary that is very sensitive to, you know, different different cultural expressions of things. They have classes in, like Black Theology and, and Latino liberation, theology, and whatever. And it's just really interesting. It's like, so we have the real theology, which is why theology and then we have all the electives. And I had never ever thought about it that way before, right? Because that seemed normal to me, is the sort of normalizing of a white perspective. And you just wonder why that doesn't work when you're trying to do you know, multicultural ministry,
21:42 right, we call, we call it theology. And then we have the subsets of theology. And this intro, yeah, we're not realizing,
21:51 and the fact that everybody we're talking about are white Europeans, that's just true. And so that's like, you know, once you get your base in the real stuff, then we can branch out to this other stuff. And, you know, we don't see that other folks do,
22:06 right. And that's in one that's interesting to to think about as, as a member of the White Church, right? by a swarm, the realize that being white also has a culture associated with it, you can, you can often think, and people do just well, this is just culture, or just, and it's like, Well, hey, the reason maybe that's not attracting multicultural is because it's its own culture. And we have to realize, so now, that's really
22:36 all we do. We do it on my terms, not your terms, right, which is really, really interesting. And I've even seen that in my own approach to, you know, to multi ethnic things. It also makes me look back over my pastoral career because as you know, we shared before I think, on the podcast, I've always been in multicultural churches. And the church I was pastoring, before I started working at Jessup was a Latino church. I was the only Gringo in the church literally, because I mean, even my wife Latina, so my kids are half and a half. I'm the only 100% Gringo in the church, which is just really interesting. And my experiences there for three and a half years. With that. I don't know, after reading this book, or as I'm reading this book, I'm kind of filtering it back to my own experiences. And I'm just wondering what or if I would have done anything different. You know, because I was just not aware of that. I'm right. I speak Spanish. What's the problem? Well, yeah, interesting.
23:35 Understanding that all of us come from a cultural perspective, actually, exactly. And, and if we are trying to then reach and blend multicultural, multicultural, like experience, like, then we have to, we have to provide space and, and, and have maybe different starting points, and not always start only from our culture and trying to bring people into our culture or not are wondering why our culture isn't reaching. Reaching others. Oh, no, that's good. That's wide awake. So white, white, awake, wide awake. Daniel Hill, Daniel Hill. That's a good one for the list. One. One of the things that I've really focused on this summer is not necessarily one book, it's actually incorporated a bunch of books, from commentaries on Matthew commentaries on Hosea doing some even Hebrew and Greek word studies. So I felt like I was doing homework this summer. So as what's interesting for college professors summer we get to do homework during the school year, we grade homework, and then summer we get to do homework. But I've been really struck by a phrase that Jesus use us twice in the book of Matthew. And it's actually a quotation from the book of Hosea. Okay. And the first one is, is Matthew nine and this is the calling of Matthew. So Jesus calls Matthew, he goes to Matthew's house is having dinner with him and many tax collectors and sinners. There's that word senators again, right? came and ate with them. And the Pharisee see this and they asked the disciples like, Hey, why is why is your teacher eating with sinners? And Jesus hears that and this one he says that kind of famous, famous phrase like it's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. He says, This is Matthew nine, verse 13. But go and learn what this means I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I'm not coming to call the righteous, but sinners. And I was just, you know, really struck by that one thing that I've been doing this this year, and obviously was doing it over the summer, is just been going through the Gospels as many times as I can, so at least once a month going through all four gospels, so you know, hopefully, by the end of the year, that means at least 12 times, right, read through them and just really trying to
25:56 so do you read them to the in one setting? No, I've just
26:00 kind of over the course of the of the month, just you know, and oftentimes for me, I'm listening to him, I'm, I'm very auditory even when I'm reading, I can sometimes have a print book, and I'll have the audio book of it. And I'll be kind of going back and forth between the two because I kind of like if I hear something and see it with my eyes as much better.
26:21 So Mark, that's going to be totally random question. Yeah. But, but like So who are your favorite? Like, you know, folks that do the audio tapes? Oh,
26:31 I'll have to look them up. But I do have a couple who if I see them do an audio book. I listened to them read the dictionary.
26:38 Is Charlton Heston
26:42 quiet but yeah, I think he did some but I think he did. No have to. Yeah, I'll have to look them up because there's just one particular I don't know if it's Arthur Mori. But yeah, he's done a couple He's done a lot of Eugene Peterson books. And so in my mind his voice is basically Eugene Peterson even though it's not I have a couple of books where the Scripture more compelling
27:04 with a Scottish accent.
27:07 Okay. Where, but yeah, he's, but I actually have a couple of Eugene Peterson himself. Oh, and, and those are pretty cool, too. A couple
27:17 a biography kind of books, a biography that recently came out of his ministry and apparently it's a good one on his on my Amazon to buy list of Eugene Peterson, Eugene Peterson, His whole ministry is written Oh, really? He died.
27:29 can check that out? Yeah. But no, so So I just taking so reading through the gospel that kept hearing that every time you know, going through Matthew, and it happens again in Matthew 12. And that's where Jesus and his disciples are hungry on the Sabbath and His disciples are picking, you know, heads of grain. And the Pharisees again are like, hey, what's what's going on? We have these rules, you're not following them. And Jesus says, Hey, haven't you read what David did? And you know, I love how Jesus always brings brings the Pharisees back to Scripture, right? Like back to the book that they are experts in right? He says, Well, hey, didn't you didn't you read this part? You've got this part. And, and he again, brings that phrase up, that I desire, mercy, not sacrifice. And so kind of just, you know, caused me the summer to dive into then Hosea. So it's Hosea six, six. And what's the Hebrew word? The Hebrew word is
28:27 say, Okay, I was wanting to say said, which is one of my favorite words. Yeah, universe. Well, actually,
28:32 that that is, I love that, because it really is like some people may like that's a strong statement, but I agree with it. Because it's, well, for one, it's there's so many ways that can that has said can be understood. And it's oftentimes translated as loving kindness, right, or steadfast love. So
28:51 interestingly enough, when I was in seminary, I had to do actually is a bizarre story. So when I took Hebrew, which, to my surprise, I actually found easier than Greek. I don't know why I was an English major in college. I thought Greek you know, it's got like vowels. And so but but I found Hebrew actually a whole lot easier. But for the midterm. So my professor was Asian. He was born, I think, in what's now the People's Republic of China. He had gotten his degree at Tubingen. So he had studied all this stuff in German, German, and now he's teaching Hebrew to a bunch of English speakers. Well, so well, and well was the problem. Nobody knew what he was talking about. So he has this midterm exam where we're supposed to activate some scripture, right? And so I kept asking him, it's like, what am I supposed to do? What do you want and everything I said, he'd say Yes, right. So my midterm ends up being 42 pages. And then he tells the whole like, class that that minds like the earth paper, like the Platonic form of What he said he's having an enshrined in the law. And everybody hated me. I was not trying to brown nose. I just didn't know what to do yet because he was so good at all. But it was on the prayer. That's kind of the middle of the book of Jonah. And the psalm sort of that Jonah said, Right And interesting enough. hesed is prominent in that prayer, and it's almost like a personification or an anthem. It's almost it almost means God Himself, like God is has said, Right, right. I mean, I know firsthand. God is love, but God is headsets. So headset. Yeah, they're definitely it's expansive. And it also is just this is God's character. So great word. Great word.
30:42 Yeah. And so it was really interesting, because obviously in the in the Greek, and then moving to our English translations is mostly in Matthew there, it's mostly translated as mercy, which does, I think, capture it as part of it. Yes, right. That's part of it. And it definitely captures how Jesus is meaning it. So when you look back in Hosea, when when God is telling them this through Hosea, it is this, you know, they've, they've kind of repented, and they're, they're coming back to, to Yawei. But your heart's not in there really? was just kind of repenting. Right. And, and so, Jose is giving them this message, you know, he was saying, I desire, I desire your heart. That's why sometimes in the Hosea passage is sometimes translated as kind of like, loyalty or covenant faithfulness, like I, I don't want you to just do these sacrifices, but I want you to, to mean it, right to mean it. And actually, I desire you to mean it more than even the sacrifice. And so it was interesting to note that background and then and then to see it in the way Jesus was placing it, Jesus, and especially Matthew nine is clearly putting it in this idea of mercy to others, right, like God's mercy to us, then we show that mercy to others that when I'm approaching Matthew, when I'm approaching a tax collector or center, wow, hitting them on the head with the Torah, is not going to be effective, right? It's not, and even then separating myself from them because of the Torah, or because of what I think is torah faithfulness, actually misses the heart of the Torah. And and so it just got me thinking of one the, the role or are how does mercy capture that heart of God and I love how you connect that with his head that that God is has said, like, God is mercy. God is love. God is loyalty. God is sovereign. Yes. God is loving kindness. And, and so I just think it's an important word for for the evangelical church today, in our attempt to be biblical Christians. Are we missing the desire for mercy? Forgetting the sacrifice part or the the biblical part, right. But are we missing? Well, how does mercy play into this? Sometimes
33:26 I wonder if we're actually getting either one of us, right? That's very true.
33:29 We're gonna miss, we're probably missing both of them. But we think we're getting one. Okay. And Jesus comes in to, to the experts of the law, and I love that phrase, but go and learn
33:44 that have you seen this impacting like, you know, where you're going with this?
33:49 Yeah, well, I think it just I think impacts maybe how the church reacts to a response to the world. Okay. Right. The instead of instead of separating, wow, what does what does mercy look like? What is mercy? What is showing mercy to someone who you clearly think R is outside of the kingdom of God? From their actions, lifestyle, any of that? What would showing the Mercy do how would that be different than somehow because I think somehow we think separating, is our sacrifice to God. Right? Like I'm doing this because I'm not
34:34 faithful to God right? They're all having fun. I'm not Yeah, I want to impress
34:37 God. And and I think God is saying, and I I wish you I wish you knew that I desire mercy, not sacrifice and I had a really good friend actually just the this past summer. I was privileged to to speak at his memorial service. But he worked down we've talked about him a few times on the show, he worked down at Loaves and Fishes in And when I would go down there and work with him and help with him, he always said something to me that I've just has stuck with me. He was like, if you're gonna err, you know, because there was like protocol to do different things. And if someone came and asked for something, you need to point them in the right direction. But he would always say, hey, but if you're going to err on anything, err on the side of mercy, Wow, that's great. Err on the side of grace, like, I'm not gonna be mad at you. I might say, hey, next time point, I'm here, but if you're gonna err, err on the side of grace. And, and, and I feel like that's, that's captured a little bit there in that phrase that desire mercy, not sacrifice, like, when Jesus is dealing with Matthew and tax collectors and the Pharisees and even the disciples are like, well, you know, we're not allowed to go into that house, right? I mean, like, the Torah is very clear here. We're not allowed to, but Jesus is. I think he's trying to help them understand like, wow, instead of being caught up on Man, am I following this? Am I doing the sacrifice just right? What does mercy mean? And if I live a life of mercy, it's kind of like that. Disarming beauty. Right? Like, like Mother Teresa. It's, it's very hard to, to, you know, say a bad thing about Mother Teresa. I'm sure people can you can find things.
36:29 Oh, Chris. Christopher Hitchens wrote a whole book correctly, bad mouthing Mother Teresa. So there you go.
36:34 But she's also in the general I think world population, you think Mother Teresa and write to her? And it's not because of her theology? Or because she did the rosary, you know, hours every day. It's her mercy. Right? And wow, her mercy disarmed a lot of people to be able to at least talk about the, to these talk about God and why I feel like maybe we're, we're missing that from Jesus. So that's why I kind of, you know, and that's gonna be, it's kind of just, I'm just scratching the, you know, the tip of the iceberg here. And, and really diving into this, and, and diving into what I'm calling a theology of mercy and trying to maybe develop, so maybe we'll hear more about that.
37:20 And maybe if this develops into a book, then you know, in podcasts of the future and other places, they'll be talking about books I read over the summer, and it's like, there's this book by Mark Moore. There we go and change my life, changing my life theology of mercy. That'd be perfect.
37:35 That'd be perfect. Well, hey, Rex, I think we got time for maybe, maybe one more book on your side. And
37:42 so this is actually from the Jessup Library, and it's a it's a book on kind of Latino theology called gummi animals on horses or walking with Jesus or walking the way with Jesus. And by Roberto, guys wet, I think that's how you pronounce him. He's, I think, Cuban American. And I don't really want to talk about the book, but he does mention that in the Latino community, and he's writing specifically from, you know, the Roman Catholic, Latino community. But I think having had a lot of experience with the evangelical Protestant, Latino community, I think it characterizes them too. But he talks about how important popular religion is, you know, and and, you know, academic theology and a lot of liberation theology is very academic, but but really coming almost conehead Seuss, you know, is is like, you know, what we do every day. And popular religiosity really places a role in that. And it got me thinking about, you know, it's like, so put about my tribe, and my folks and how much, you know, how much does popular religion? And what would that even be? Right, right? pegs, you know, now, now that that
38:56 phrase is making your tribe a little nervous, a popular religion,
39:00 you know, it doesn't mean like big churches, that's about right. And, you know, now that they've closed on every day, religion, and whatever, the artifacts of that, you know, and now that they've closed down all the Christian bookstores, you know, I used to know what popular religion was I could go into like, Berean they had more like stuffed pillows that had bible verses on it. Yeah, they actually had books, right? Yeah. So it's like, well, that's an example right there. But now those don't exist anymore. So what the heck are we even talking about, but it has to impact me in has to impact you know, how how we all live out our faith to write um, I don't exactly know how maybe that's another book. You know? Yeah. Coming under my I have to walk in with Jesus. A white perspective on part, right. Yeah. So with apologies to coming on, let's go ahead.
39:53 No, that's yeah, and and so many. I think so many things. theologians like a Tillich or even a runner, even bar, like they often stressed. This has to go from the intellectual to write your everyday life, or it doesn't really matter if it just stays in your brain. And that's why
40:17 Tilex more compelling, perhaps as a preacher than he is as a theologian,
40:22 right? Because that's where he's applying rice to, to life. So so that's a that's a pretty good collection of books, I think. And that's not even all the books that happened this summer. We also I know Rex, you've maybe done some and also like to weave in a little fiction books as well. So it's important to I think, also read fiction, not just nonfiction.
40:47 I know that's that's been the bane of my life since I was technically an English major in college. But it's like, you know, I don't like fiction. I still read fiction. My wife, you know, for years has been on me about that. It's like you were an English major. How come you Yeah. But I've been trying to mend my ways. That's good. And so I've been reading some fiction.
41:06 Well, it's it's so important and fiction, it's good
41:09 stuff, you know, stories, you know,
41:11 it's really cool. Yeah, people. And fiction is so important in developing empathy. Yeah, I believe so. It is totally so important. And so when you can hear and read about people from different in different life circumstance, so
41:25 one fiction book you're reading right now,
41:27 one fiction I'm reading project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. He was the writer was about function. It is not okay. It is it is space travel or football at Naughty. Yeah, exactly. It is space travel. And there's a little bit of you know, Earth is Earth is dying, so they got to figure out, so it was a little bit in that it is a Hail Mary to try to save planet Earth. But it's really, really interesting. You know, I don't want to give any of it away. But there's just some cool things that happen along the way. And, and, and actually a lot of science and math. Oh, that's, it's been stretching me learning all this many sides. Maybe one.
42:10 So I just finished reading. The night watchman by Louise Edrick won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. And I normally wouldn't like jump on the, you know, read the hottest book bandwagon, but my wife already had it on Kindle, it was free. there and that it won the Pulitzer Prize. It's like, well, I guess it's okay. And you know, after the first 40 pages in it, I almost wanted to put it down because I just couldn't get into glad, though, that I kept on because it is a great book. And I totally, it totally deserves the accolades that it had. And we go, yeah. Yeah, won't say
42:43 anything else. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to give away any of the plot? Well, I think with this collection of books, it does show kind of the eclectic nature of our reading and study and, and probably bodes well for, for why we're able to connect or get different guests on from a lot of different you know, so we're excited for season three to, to explore a lot of different topics and explore a lot of application of applying theology and biblical studies to our real life. And we got some good people and yeah, and we've got some good, some good guests. So we hope you are excited for season three. We're glad to be back. And I will see you on our next episode. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup think
43:53 if you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is a premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Dan Kimball joins the show to discuss his new book How (Not) To Read the Bible.
TRANSCRIPT 0:00 Hey everyone. Welcome to the Jessup think Podcast. I'm Taylor, the producer of the show. I'm here to let you know that these summer episodes are reruns of previous episodes from season two of the show. These were handpicked by Mark and Rex themselves. And here they are with a few thoughts.
0:16 Hey, everyone, welcome to our final rerun of the summer and we're excited to to replay our episode with author and Pastor Dan Kimball, looking at his book, how not to read the Bible.
0:30 And just to clear up some confusion. He's not talking about putting the Bible up in a closet under your pillows that would say the easy way out.
0:37 Yeah, yeah. He's looking at Hey, how do we approach the Bible and and understand the hard passages and understand what the Bible is about? And so this is, I think, such a practical lesson and such a practical book. And it's so important for the church moving forward. Right. Welcome to Jessup tank. I'm your host, Mark Moore,
1:00 and your co host, Rex gurney.
1:02 And Rex on the show today, I'm so excited because I have actually one of my personally favorite authors and pastors in the Northern California region, Dan Campbell. He's a vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz. And he's also the author of an upcoming book called How not to read the Bible, making sense of the anti women, anti science, pro slavery, pro violence and other crazy sounding parts of Scripture. And there's a
1:29 so connection with him to be he has he's spoken a chapel here a number of times and has a long, long history with the school so has a lot of good things to say.
1:39 Yeah, it does. It's a fascinating conversation. And it's a really important conversation for right now. Because because Miss reading the Bible can actually lead people away from Jesus and, and the purpose of Scripture is to point people to Jesus. And so we hope you enjoyed this episode. There's a lot to chew on and a lot to think about.
2:07 Well, Dan, we're really excited to have you on the show. And we know that you actually have a little bit of a history with William Jessup University, or at least you've been. You've been here before and spoken at Chapel.
2:22 Yes, yeah. I've been there to chapel I met with John Jackson, I think a couple times and with Bryce Jessup several times as well. So William Jessup used to be in San Jose. And when it was there, when it was called San Jose Christian College, then it became William Jessup, our church used to get a lot of interns from William Jessup. And that was like, amazingly wonderful. And we were sad, actually, when you guys moved to Sacramento, but then glad that you could expand and have more property, and all of that, but yeah, I feel wonderfully at home at William Jessup. And it's I'm always so thankful for doing there in Sacramento and all the students that come from all over the place.
3:03 We still have a presence, I think in San Jose, but it's it's not the same sort of thing. Yeah.
3:11 Are in Aaron Rockland area.
3:14 No, yeah. And Bryce Jessup. I have an 11 page, handwritten letter from Bryce Jessup, because when I first entered into ministry, at Santa Cruz Bible Church, I was very interested in I didn't grow up a Christian. And then when I was entering into ministry, he spoke at Santa Cruz Bible. And I was wondering, like, you know, I really liked his message. And he was older at the time and wondered, you know, what sustains someone that is going into ministry, and he wrote me an 11 page, handwritten letter back, which I still have, because it sounds
3:46 like rice. It really does. Sounds like he was that kind of guy. Yeah,
3:49 yeah. Well, I've great yeah, he was such a encouraging person and loved when I was over there to be able to meet meet up with them.
3:58 Oh, that's great. That's really great. We'll have to take a peek at that 11 page letter sometime. But she has wisdom for us all. And
4:06 yeah, it was great. It really was.
4:10 And we're excited to have you on the show with this connection, but also to talk about your new book, which is coming out in December from Zondervan, how not to read the Bible. And I love this subtitle, making sense of the anti women, anti science, pro violence, pro slavery and other crazy sounding parts of Scripture. And if the if the subtitle alone doesn't make people pick up the book, I don't know what would because I think that that draws us into into an area of, I think, the Christian face that we often don't look at, and that is maybe how different aspects of the Bible are read or maybe misread or misrepresented. and how that can have an extreme effect on someone's face. And, and in the book, you kind of start out with a story of a college student who grew up in, in a Christian home, right grew up in with the Christian faith, but it was actually reading the Bible that caused them to leave.
5:23 Yeah, and I mean, the quick summary of that story, which is actually becoming more and more common is that you have, he was a college student, raised in a great church. And here's what the differences, I think, even from years past, he had a super positive experience in church and great youth leader. It was a contemporary church, good bands, you know, it wasn't any type of cultural disconnect in the church itself. And it was a very loving church. And then he got to college, and he joined InterVarsity, up on campus. And while he was at InterVarsity, on campus, he they did a study of Exodus, you know, like the Goethe manuscript studies that correct? Yeah, yeah. And so he said, he was studying through the book of Exodus, and then, you know, he grew up hearing all, you know, the Moses stories, and, and all of those, but then all of a sudden, he read that, God, he started thinking about it, God, it was the Passover, you know, had the firstborn of the Egyptians killed. And he actually knows 1819 year old pasta there, and said, that's a pretty, you know, horrific thing that kind of was part of the story. But you know, they're always the bad guys. And so that killing, didn't think about it. Yeah, many started. His question was, so what he said was his whole life growing up, he heard that how evil it was for Herod to kill the two year olds and under in Bethlehem, and that was evil, you'd never killed children. Yet. All of a sudden, he started, he realized that God did that in the book of Exodus. Then he said, he kept reading. And then he said, you know, he started reading about slavery. And he read the verse about, you know, selling your daughter into slavery, and then even the word I believe it was property, as slavery. And he started saying, wait a minute, these are things that have been in the Bible. Now, as an adult, as I'm studying it differently. I'm noticing these things more. And here's where it gets northwards worse, but what he said was, he went and talked to his parents about it. And his parents said, Oh, that's in the Bible, like they know. And so he's like, Oh, my parents have never paid attention to this. Then he asked his youth leader, and he started asking others and he he said something to the sort of, well, I kept saying, well, there's many things and, and Heaven will know. So it doesn't matter for now. And he said he could not intellectually, I guess, you know, agree with that, and be satisfied with that sort of brushed off answer. And then he said, again, it's just like the story you hear over and over. So he started typing these verses in on Google. Right? Right. And what comes up is so many anti Bible, you know, websites, he said, he found one called Evil Bible comm. And you can look that up, it's still there. And then he just started saying, I didn't I shot, there's maybe a few things that I've seen, there's, you know, dozens and dozens of Bible verses and passages that I never knew before. And for him, it was over the course of months, he his faith started unraveling. His confidence in the Bible was then you know, started deteriorating. And then like, last minute, the university leaders sent me an email, Hey, will you meet with this person? And so I did. And he was a really sweet, intelligent guy. And it was kind of like the tail end of that. And he's already sort of made up his mind, and we walked through it. And that was, like, all I can say is that is the common story you're hearing over and over again, not just my 18 or 19 year olds, a lot of 30 Somethings are now deconstructing faith and thinking about things they never did before. It's always been in the Bible. But they've never stopped to like, look more closely. And that's what's going on today, I think.
9:26 Yeah. And I think what's so interesting about that story that you point out is and maybe what has been different in the last 20 years or so, is that it wasn't a story of a negative experience of church. He was in a loving community. And maybe 2030 years ago, there was more of those stories of church was really judgmental or church, you know, the church experience you culturally there was a disconnect. But it seems like even today, you know, with maybe more loving communities, more communities are open students and we're seeing the same thing and Jessup students, you know, and I have friends who graduated from Jessup and I've stayed connected with. And the more they look into scripture, which is the one thing we tell them to do, right? Like, hey, we encourage them to read their Bible. But they come with more questions. And sadly, we often don't, or maybe we're unprepared to be able to have those discussions. And, and so yeah, then they move to, to other online forums where they can hear people bring up but I think you do a good job just in that prelude of really piling it on of like, yeah, it's not just one or two verses in the Bible. It is, I mean, there's a lot we have to process and work with,
10:45 well even shows up in I actually have my little copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. And it's almost like the first paragraph in that book. That, of course, was the New York Times bestseller, and I would assume, I guess, a lot of people read it, where it's basically sort of sort of right away just sort of hits everybody with this with this stuff. The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction, which of course, makes my red flags go up right away, but still, you know, jealous and proud of it a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, and on and on, and on and on. And so this stuff's out there. And folks, folks confronted all the time. And it's good to acknowledge that and to realize that, that's not the end of the story we have, we have some things we can we can say about those misapprehensions of God's character.
11:38 Yeah, and I love Dan, your, your honesty, and talking about the explanations and talking about those passages you say? And kind of the prelude. If these were the only verses in the Bible, you would run the other direction as well.
11:55 Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And I think, you know, because I didn't grow up in a church. And I would, I was never an atheist, I was probably more like a Deist. I think there's God, but didn't think about it too much. So, but if I was only seeing, like, some growing up in our world today, and all I'm seeing is, you know, in the book, there's I gave a lot of those memes, I don't know, if you've looked at some, yes. All over the place, you know, and they're taking Bible verses, and putting very clever graphics on them. And their actual Bible verses this is what I think is different than the past is that they're actually using the Bible to discredit the Bible. So they're very compelling when you're looking at these verses, you know, if you have one about like, women be silent, you know, actually, you know, it's, it's a disgrace to know to speak in the church, you know, only go home and ask your husband questions there, submit. And you see those Bible verses with a graphical image of a woman with their mouth taped shut, and then, you know, it's plastered all over. And like that I didn't know that was in the Bible, you know, or the blatant slavery versus where the English word slavery is used? And I'm seeing these things, and especially when you get into young adulthood, when your question, you're going to question things anyway, it's normal. Right? Right. Yeah. But in the past, we didn't have I think, you know, these are not new verses in the Bible. But there's an acceleration of information available, you know, if I was to, I would not have seen Richard Dawkins quotes, if it was probably 2530 years ago, pre internet. And, you know, there's some books written by atheists that might be in the, in the bookstore, but I'm not seeing those where today, they're on memes, they're, they're very prominent, and I have access to that so easily. And that was not the case in the past. I think that's part of it, as well, is just the information is out there. And I don't think we were prepared in proactively teaching enough about the problematic sounding verses that are out there.
14:01 One thing I was thinking when I was dipping into the first couple chapters of your book, that it's almost like reverse proof texting, you know, we sort of young will take verses out of context in order to, you know, be an explanation for our favorite doctrine does your but this is sort of the exact opposite of that. There's lack of context on both sides.
14:25 Well, that's the title of the book, how not to read the Bible, right? It really is for Christians and non Christians, because we have been, you know, of course, you want to focus on and see like the nice happy verses on coffee mug. And those are those are important because we want to be encouraged. But, and so but we have done you know, we have, as you know, and teaching the Bible at William Jessup is that when you pull verses out, they might sound you know, all the happy ones, but are we using them correctly out of context? Are we just pulling them out and using them because They're nice. So we have been cherry picking the nice verses you could say. And the opposite is now going on. We've been they've been pulling out the evil sounding verses and the ones that portray God in a certain way or things and it's the same fault. It's not. It's reading the Bible, not the way it was meant to be read, pulling verses out of isolation, to make cases towards something. And that's what's going on, you know, again, like all over the place, so Christians have been doing it. Happy way. And now we're seeing one letter against, you know, the faith in the Bible, doing it the, the unhappy way and pulling out those verses.
15:41 Yeah. And in the first chapter, you you highlight, it was a verse that actually came to my attention maybe five or six years ago, but has quickly become maybe one of my favorite verses to bring up to students. And that is numbers 2322, in the King James Version of the Bible, because it was the Bible, of course. That's right. That's right, seven purified version. It says God brought them out of Egypt, he hath as it were the strength of a unicorn. Now, when that was first shown to me, my first thought was actually that children's ministers worldwide had missed an opportunity, a golden opportunity, like we could have unicorn day at church. I mean, there could have been, but it's what's what's interesting is, I'll bring this up and kind of sarcastically serious tone with students, like I want to share this verse. And when I read it, I can feel the tension in the room, where they're like, Well, you know, you have 1819 year old students who've grown up in the church, and they're like, the Bible talks about unicorns. So so how do we approach versus like that?
16:53 Well, I mean, you're you kind of already said some of the problem, what it was, but again, like in the past, you wouldn't have heard necessarily the word unicorn associated with the Bible in contemporary times. But like my barber, who is not a Christian, I'm gonna see him tomorrow. And we, we talked about Bible and theology very openly. And he's the one that raised the unicorn thing up to my attention, because I had not actually seen it before. And like there's not a unicorn in the Bible. So I look it up corn Bible on Google. And then you'll see all of these images that come up. And this what you said was right, like, you'll see the unicorn. And then the Bible verse, I think there's eight or nine of them. One of them some numbers that will say, like, use the word unicorn from in the scriptures. So I'm seeing an image or a unicorn, there and quoting a Bible verse. And then the mockery, you know, Christians believe in mythical animals like the unicorn. Yeah, at surface glance it and especially seeing eight or nine verses that's convincing, like, Oh, my goodness, I didn't know that was the Bible is there? And that's even if I know the Bible, you know, for all of those that have no Bible knowledge, that's all. And then the answer is simple as use basic Bible study methods. But look at that word, you'll find out that the word unicorn was a translation from I was the Hebrew word and R E. M, I think it's RAM and eating wild ox, I would I would get translated today. But in 1611, they didn't know what word to use. And so they use the word unicorn, because it's a verse that is talking about an animal with some sort of prominent horn. And they just put that word in there. And today, it more means more of a mythical animal. And it has it's an incorrect word to use for modern tech translation. It's not an that's an easy one to answer. But it certainly makes a good meme. It's certainly good, like, look at what the Bible says. And it's just one of many, of course,
19:00 where the where the rubber hits the road is not actually just on unicorns, but it's on all the other stuff that you'll find on the means right about slavery and women being silent in church and things like that. I think in your book, though, you suggest that actually the same process of dealing with that with dealing with a unicorn is a helpful process with dealing with some of these other things that admittedly are seem to be on the surface more troubling than that.
19:26 Yeah, I mean, it is. Yeah, and that's why I appreciate you know, William Jessup University also, you know, having like you guys that are focusing on theology and Bible you were talking to earlier like, what a great thing like having film and then looking at a theologically that's that's so important, and I think we have not done that well in a lot of churches. So therefore, that's why it's a bigger problem today. But what you said is, it's, you know, it's how it's, it's how not to read the Bible so that you're missing interpreting the verses that are causing so many of these problems, and the majority of them that you'll see on memes, you know, do not eat shrimp, you know, it's like God hates Trump. There's actually a website, God hates trump.com. See so often on signs, you know that protesting things like Christians are hypocrites, and they list a lot of Levitical laws, and they'll pull out things. Does it say not to eat shrimp in the Old Testament? Yes. Right. So, right to can we eat shrimp today? The question is, are can we you then do a study of what was the Leviticus Levitical law written to? You know, what happened in the New Testament? Was it something that continued in the New Testament after Jesus or not? You'll find out that no, that was not the case. We have all the freedom in the world to eat shrimp today. But without doing that study, you then you can just look at a Bible verse and say, we're not supposed to eat shrimp, look at these hypocritical Christians, because it is a Bible verse talking about shellfish. Slavery, same thing. I mean, they took a billboard out these were actually when I say atheist, I ate there is a wide variety of atheists, as you know, right? So I can see where those atheists let there is kind, loving, peaceful, they're not trying to prove Christians, wrong, atheists. And then there are the more vocal ones that are. So when I'm saying atheist, you know, the majority of them are not anti Christians. They're just atheists, they don't believe in God. But the ones who are the ones that are using it, you know, as a, almost as a, like an activist, almost like I'm going to show they're wrong. You know, they rented a billboard. And it shows, you know, a horrific picture of like, what American the horror and evil of when we had African slaves in America, and they put a big image, and then they'll quote, Old Testament verses and put them up or New Testament verses, and saying, Look, your God is endorsing slavery. Now you see the Bible verse, you see the image. I'm like, I don't want to have to do anything with that. But I didn't realize Christianity would endorse slavery The Bible does. And again, it's like, the imagery, the actual Bible verse, it certainly seems like, that's what's going on, at a surface level. And then you have to do the study of like, what does that mean? Was it slavery? What was you know, what was slavery? Like New Testament times? What was slavery? Like an Old Testament times? And, you know, the quick answer is just, it was an entirely entirely different form of slavery than we think of today, not race based. People actually give themselves into slavery. You know, there's, as a scholar, you know, this so, but it certainly makes a good case, to say the Bible is evil. And this God is evil, if this is what they're promoting, from these verses.
23:13 Dan, you have an intriguing statement, early on, in your book effect enough that you know, I almost like want to write it and keep it on the wall of my office actually, is some something to the to the it's something like the Bible is not written to us, but for us. And I think that's, that's very, very helpful statement, because uses elaborate a little bit on on that.
23:37 Yeah. Dr. John Walton from Wheaton came up with that statement, and what and it's, again, it's, it's an incredibly important statement, because what we'll often do, is that we will open up the Bible and immediately think, like, is supplying to me, or we will read into it? I mean, that's what we naturally want to look at. How does this affect me? What is it about me? You know, and we've made the Bible often to very me centered, because we're, we want to know, you know, how does this apply to me? But we're, the Bible wasn't written to us, not one single book of the Bible. You know, it was written directly to us in the year 20. In Northern California, right, in our world here. So it was, we have to say, you know, who was the book of Romans written to write to us when the Romans, so the Roman church? So then you have to, like, what was going on, like, politically what was going on with Christians at the time what was happening in that context? So that we can see what was the Spirit of God doing through Paul, and writing this out to give to a church that was in a specific geographic location at a specific time, so that we can understand it more from then that's another one of the most number one problems in Bible interpretation. If we don't do that, of course, we then can glean them. amazing truths that apply to our lives. But if we're not foremost looking at who it was written to, and not even realize it wasn't all written to us today, we will read into our reading our modern mind view and our problems and, and come to probably some incorrect application for our lives. And that's a major thing. That's and that's why so many written, so many verses are seen as crazy because they're not applicable for us today. It wasn't written to us today.
25:31 Little Jessup shout out here actually, we in our Bible and theology minor that everybody had to take, they'll have to take an introduction to Old Testament introduction in New Testament, but everybody has to take a biblical interpretation class, you have to do that you that's just important. It doesn't just stand alone, you need to learn how to do this and do this in a in a good way.
25:53 Every Christian in the world should be forcing mark more worked up on this because like, it's so urgent today. Like, I think in the past, we could kind of get along with it like, but like we can't anymore, because this is this is why I wrote the book lives are at stake. I mean, decisions about following Jesus are at stake here, impressions of who Jesus is, which ultimately then applies to what you believe in His atoning death on the cross and resurrection, as a real thing are at stake here. Because these kind of things will then push people away from taking the rest seriously, if that's all they think it is. And of course, God's Spirit can do anything and scout spirit who moves people, you know, towards, towards him. But we as human beings then have to address the issues of our day. And that's what I believe this is a major one, these are major in our day, you know, in the creek days to creature it and they were dealing with other things. So they wrote the creatives, I think, are biggest problems today is the Bible being seen as almost an evil book. And then you see younger Christians and older abandoning faith, and I don't talking there's a edifying science, you know, like all the stuff of science, this another one, like, you hear this, the stories sound almost cliche, and but their real stories is not right, about human beings, younger people, often who are now confronted with things that they never thought of before, right, when, right in the time of our, our, you know, our faith. Our our faith was the Fowler stages of faith, if you know that book, you know, the identifies like, when you hit your late teens and your 20s, you're going to be questioning things are in black and white in March. It's a beautiful thing. And right at this time of questioning, then all of a sudden, you're hearing you know, maybe what you were taught as a kid is not that simple. You're talking to Noah and the ark, they were painted in your children's classrooms. As it's a cool thing God rescued right. But then you'll see there's a book out called awkward moments Children's Bible in the cover of it is they take Bible verses it's no as a best selling book on Amazon. It was written by a former Christian and I've talked to him before and he you know, the cover of the book is no on the flood of sorry, the floods happening but then all around the ark. And it's it's like a beautiful children's, like, looks like a children's book. And yeah, all the dead bodies floating around the water. Right? Right now they're saying, you know, look what you're promoting the story but God killed? Who knows how many people there's all their bodies floating around the water? You forget that part? Don't you Christians, you just like that. The happy part for the science? We the John Walton. You know, why? Why do we read into this is like another one that affects so many people? Why do we read Genesis to be with through our modern mindset and asking the questions that we have today that were never questions for them back then. So Genesis was not written to answer our questions, thoroughly. Chapters it was written to address like, who was written to? Yeah, the Israeli people coming out of Egypt after 400 years and in a polytheistic culture in Slate while they're in slavery in Egypt, and God wanted to them no, don't worship the sun. I created the sun. And the early chapters of Genesis were not written to us, but they're written for us to understand like, who God is, but their questions were like, which God is real, which they weren't saying like, you know, how do you work the fossil record, sir, what about right? They didn't even know like when we think of the word Earth as you know, like, they didn't they when we think of the word Earth We often will think of it, you know, the outer space, right view, right? Or when was that first photographed and like 1950s, I forget what year? Yeah, have that image until. So they don't think of things. And we can't underestimate that. And it's not meant to us. And if we start dissecting it today, and then having problems coming up, that's we're missing the entire point of it. And sadly, it's not just an argument, it's about people's lives, who will then say, I don't think I can believe this anymore. Right? I didn't buy in, and it's. And that's why I'm so intense about this, because I'm seeing people go through these deconstruction stories, and the same ones are coming up.
30:45 And I just know, and I'm so thankful we're doing it William Jessup because you're teaching the that age group, right, as they're hitting that age, to understand how to look at the scriptures more, so that through their lives, you know, there's going to be dozens and dozens of weird passages, they're going to find that they'll be able to not get caught off guard, not be freaked out, understandably, but then like, Oh, there's another one, there must be a way of understanding this and, and not having to say I can't believe in stuff anymore.
31:19 Yeah, I did in one of your earlier books, Dan. They love Jesus, but not the church. You use this illustration of the to, to bridge illustration, right? We have the classic bridge, you know, that Jesus, that were separated from God by sin, and Jesus is the bridge to God, right? That's kind of the classic conversion. But you highlighted in that, that there's this second chasm, which at that time, you kind of highlighted as Christianity or Christian subculture. And it seems like almost the Bible now is in that second chasm, that that that Bible that are approaching the Bible, or reading the Bible wrong, or misunderstanding the Bible, is a is a bridge people have to cross before they can even maybe get to that place to even think about those deeper theological things about like, who Jesus is, and and what he's done for us. Yeah, absolutely.
32:15 You know, because I, you know, the story that we started out with, I think, was a good example, where maybe in the past are still valid, not just the past, but like, no, the big ones were, well, you know, I found out that all these Christmas Christians were judgmental, you know, or that irrelevant, music or that kind of thing. And that became a barrier to, to overcome before you then move into a place of, of maybe being open to have some I'm speaking about the gospel to you, where today, I mean, it's accelerated with the internet and the awareness of things. Right. Right. Is that now is that's why like, Christians in the Bible is becoming seen as more of an evil book, like, and I'm not hyper exaggerating this, right? If you knew me over my 30 years of ministry, I'm not like an alarmist, like, or before it's, but when you start seeing it, like here, then you hear another story, and then hear another story and another story and then hearing some, you know, even well known Christians that are no deconstructing faith, and then they'll say, Well, I can't believe in this. So I moved to more of a progressive form of Christianity, which to me, I don't know You know, I couldn't be a progressive Christian because then they interpret the Bible entirely differently and then I would make a move me into a whole different realm of being agnostic and to be yeah person but in other words, that's the default you know. And that's why it's happening so much in is why I think we have to be diligent in this all the more
33:48 so what can we do um, I guess briefly in the local church, you know, besides like handout copies of your book to start, that's a start that's a good thing where
34:04 this is gonna sound like so like easy because in a way, it is easy. It just means in today's world we have to go down to elementary age and we have to start even at that age start teaching the Bible storyline more not just the you know the nice story of David like because you like David and he any sin with Bathsheba right then like, okay, good King and all that heart after God thing even look at his life and he killed 200 Philistines and cut off their four skins and presented them to like, like brace things and, and the, you know, and he had what was it eight wives and 10 concubines like wasn't just one and they and you we have to teach earlier on the storyline. I think I the best thing I would recommend to youth leaders is grab these memes off the internet. Put them up on the screen. And then say like, how do you answer this? Because sounds are shocking, you know? And then you'll be, I don't know, like, and what a great, great energy kind of, like you said during the class to, to be, then how do I solve this, because when you're pushing those problems out, then they'll see that there's answers and you're teaching them how to study the Bible correctly, then when they do get confronted by them later, it won't be such a shock, it's not going to be like I didn't know that was in there. I just think we know gotta like, pull the covers up more in the Bible and pull out not just the nice stories, but the bad stories and bad sounding stories. Yeah. And address those. And that's what I'd highly recommend children's leaders at the right time, especially youth leaders, college leaders, to be making sure this is in their diet of teaching through the through the calendar years, they plan out what they're teaching about.
35:52 I couldn't agree with that answer more.
35:54 Yeah. And one of the things that I really appreciated about the tone in your book as well, Dan, is that you as you're highlighting this right, and, and even noting, like it is a simple solution, but we also know that it's not simple. And, and and recognizing that these passages are difficult, and they and they need to be struggled with, you know, and I think maybe within the church, too, we've we've defaulted. And you highlight this in the book, we've defaulted to kind of simplistic answers to these tough questions. And that doesn't, that doesn't suffice anyone's real desire to understand why these are in the Bible, and how it fits. And so I think it is really important for us to, like you said, to start tackling it so much younger, where we often try to maybe shield them from it. But approach it and and really work with people and let them know that we also recognize that these are difficult passages that we have to work with that we can't there's there. There aren't just simple answers. But there are answers right there. There is explanations, and we can talk about him.
37:07 Yeah, I mean, I would I would not, I would not be a Christian and still take the Bible seriously, if I started finding, I couldn't believe in this anymore. You know, I would, I would say there are answers, but what you said, there are some things This isn't like an apology saying like, Oh, just, you know, we'll just kind of talk and all the difficult things. Right, some of them are gonna be very, very difficult. God still ordered killing of people, right? There's no, you know, erasing that, right. But when we do look at it, why he did it, his patients and waiting for them, you know, always saying like, please turn, you know, and then looking at, you know, in the Old Testament, some of the practices that you'll see, you know, of, like, you know, when they were sacrificing babies and hot, horrible, horrible things, like, you start seeing that there is reasons going on, for these things, but it still is a very difficult thing to say, God used violence, and that is, but it's not random. You know, as may have, like, he just you know, he's so bloodthirsty is just killing people left and right, that type of a thing, right? You know, the movie. If you go on Google, and you type in scary, Mary, I might have to remember I did a leader thing there. I'm pretty sure I showed this video. They're only a minute long. And they take Mary Poppins to the movie. And they just pull out tiny little sections of when Mary's like looking out the window. And those all of the the, the maids or whatever, like they are, they're the ones that are wanting to do her job all get blown away. Yeah, thing. And then, you know, there she's staring at the kids and they get sucked up in the chimney. And so they they piece out the actual little parts of the movie, piece it together. And at the end, the children, you see them running, running away. They're like Hydra children, scary Mary. So if you only see those things, of course, you're gonna look at Mary Mary Poppins is a horror film, you know, this woman's evil and all she's doing, but we know the whole story. So therefore, those things are happening. It's in the framework of the whole story. And that's like the scriptures when God did use violence and it did happen. We then see the framework of the whole story of what was going on. And then we see his consistent compassion, love, patience in all of these things. And a lot of the violence he didn't order humans beings beings did it on their own. So there's, there's graphic stories of violence that God was not the one that said do it. It was just human beings, killing each other and things so right. That's, that's so important. Again, it's piecing out little clips, and you can turn Mary Poppins into a horror film. And that's what's going on with the Bible, pulling out little pieces, turning it into evil book, don't trust what's going on, there can't be real God wouldn't be that the guy that we believe in His love, He wouldn't do this. And then you start worshipping or believing in a false god, then that's what's false Jesus, all of this.
40:25 Yeah, and and I think with and maybe a good place to kind of wrap up our conversation is you, you give kind of four and Rex mentioned one of them, you have kind of four ways of approaching the Bible, right? Or reminder that the Bible is a library, and not a book. And I find that having to Ryan, remind students who've grown up in the church of that all the time that this is a library. And oftentimes people are like, I'm going to read the Bible. So they start on what they think is page one, right? And Genesis one and that's, you know, with it being a library, it is all these different books. The Bible was written for us, but not to us. Never read a Bible verse, which is Adam, is that a nod to Wayne's World? The never read AB Bible verse like, I don't even know
41:19 what that statement, never read a Bible verse, you know, just like saying, don't pull, just don't read the verse always go back. The whole part of it. Yeah,
41:27 yeah, I think that's it's brilliant. It's really helpful. And then the last point, is the idea that all of the Bible points to Jesus. And and one thing that I tried to help our theology students realize, and this really gets fleshed out, I think, best by Bart, is that Jesus is the revelation of God. If you have a question about who the God of Christianity is, Jesus is the revelation of God, Ryan. So the God we serve, is revealed to us by Jesus written in Scripture, right, proclaimed by the church. And so I think it's so important. Yeah, all of this to to, like you said, read the whole story. And know that this whole story flows through this lens of Jesus, that gives us a drastically different picture of God. And if you just pull one or two verses out,
42:23 right, and you hear people minutes, like church history, we're talking about the importance of young people knowing church history, Marcion, new said, Old Testament God, I can't believe in that Old Testament God, because he's evil. But Jesus knew the Old Testament. That was his. You never see him dismissing it, he used it, he loved it, he was quoting it. Jesus knew all of the wacky stories in the Old Testament, saying, guys, this was that that part's not true. You know, he emphasized, you know, all of the Scripture is from God. So it's like, the bow, and that's why I wrote this, you know, the first section is what you said, the first part is just a basic how to read the Bible, taking the storyline, and those four things you say, and then we get smack into the verses about Levitical laws and, you know, tattoos, and should you wear it, you know, it can eat shrimp, and all of these things that are being pulled out today and mocked, you know, like, look at these bizarre things, and then the anti women versus which there's plenty of them and anti science verses and all the violent verses, and then the hard truth that when Jesus said, there's only one way to God, and is that in a, you know, is that a arrogant, horrible thing to say, and so we go into those specific verses, and I hope by the end of it, people not just know those verses, because there's 500 more, but just like, Ah, now I can have confidence and I do even parents and grandparents will pay attention to this to say, this is something to you know, pay attention to, that your kids are probably becoming more and more aware of. So be ready for questions. Don't be like that one parent who said that's in there, you know, like, Yeah, cuz that's, that's important.
44:12 Alright, so thank you so much for being on the show. And your book, again, is how not to read the Bible, and is available now published through Zondervan. So we really encourage everyone to check it out. We know, I know. I'm going to be utilizing it here at Jessup to kind of help our students walk through these tough passages. So thanks again, Dan, for your work and being on the show.
44:34 Yeah, you bet. I mean, we're putting up some videos and other stuff on Dan kimball.com. Zondervan is making these so it'd be like extra helps for people to so I and thank you so much for being faithful to the Lord faithful to the Scriptures that William Jessup through all these years, you know, you're not wavering and just, you know, being caught off by culture and shifting things. Thank you for your faithfulness to raise Using up leaders of all vocations to while art William Jessup yet thank you for doing that and for sticking with the truth.
45:08 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup think
45:34 if you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
New York Times' Bestselling author, Jemar Tisby, joins Mark and Rex again to discuss his new book How to Fight Racism.
TRANSCRIPT 0:00 Hey everyone,
0:01 welcome to the jest of thing podcast. I'm Taylor, the producer of the show. I'm here to let you know that these summer episodes are reruns of previous episodes from season two of the show. These were handpicked by Mark and Rex themselves.
0:14 And here they are with a few thoughts. Everyone, welcome back to our second interview with Jim Hart has been is our third rerun of the summer, we hope you've been enjoying kind of looking back at these episodes. We're excited to have both of these interviews back to back. And this will be jamara talking about his most recent book, how to fight racism.
0:36 And one thing I really appreciate about jemar besides his actually being on the show with us, is that he wrote his second book after he wrote his first book. Yeah, and and I think that's a very important thing.
0:46 He lays out a really, I think, a clear and good and helpful path forward and how to confront racism in the church. Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore, and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex, so excited to have jemar tisby. Back on the show on the show for the show. He is, you know, an author we had him on for the color of compromise. He's also the president of the witness of black Christian collective, where he writes about race, religion, politics, and culture. And he also co hosts his own podcast called pass the mic. And his the color of compromise became a New York Times bestseller this past summer of 2020. And he's just released a new book on how to fight racism, courageous Christianity and the journey toward racial justice. And I know you as listeners are gonna love this episode and learn so much because we learned so much being with desarae.
1:54 hagemeyer We're so happy to have you back on the show. And how have you been since we last had you on the show?
2:01 and running going? I'll tell you though, the holiday season was a bit more low key. And so do write for all of us. Yeah, exactly. And I think there was something to that, because we needed every ounce of energy for 2021.
2:18 Right? Yeah, that is the truth, as a truth and you. So we had you on last time, I'm talking about the color of compromise. And then you've just released a new book, how to fight racism, and we're gonna be focusing on that. But also, like, I don't think we talked a lot about this last time. In the middle of all this, you're also a PhD candidate. How are you? How are you doing all this?
2:46 Listen, I don't know that I am doing any of it. Very well. And so yeah, that is a Super Challenge. I'll tell you the dynamic is good, though. Because that the type of work required to write a dissertation, it's like this deep, focused work where you're just in a silo. And I feel like it steeps you in knowledge and information and data and truth. And then when you come up for air, and you see current events and everything, this is one of the reasons why I wanted to pursue this degree in history was to be able to bring all of that deep study that academic rigor, and just the context of history to what we're experiencing right now. So I like that going back and forth. I think if I was not in the program, with everything that's going on right now, I would just be even more scattered than I am. So.
3:43 And speaking of right now, we're actually doing this podcast on January the seventh 2021, which is one day after January the sixth. And so, um, you know, that that just kind of places us right now in the context of, of what we're talking about. And so, you know, we really want to give you a voice tomorrow, because we respect him so much. And we really do want to get to your book, but yeah, you know, do you have anything to say about what happened yesterday, especially in conjunction with, you know, the fact that that, frankly, the crowd that stormed the Capitol was almost completely white? Yeah, yeah.
4:27 I sort of am processing it on three levels, an emotional level at historical level and a spiritual level. So on the emotional level, my goodness, how frustrating is all of this is, it is so big, I mean, obviously disheartening, frightening to a degree, but also frustrating. In particular, as a black writer. I've been I've been talking about these things in particular, putting words to them in writing, literally for years. In the more recent past, at least, you know, since the 2016 presidential cycle, and there are so many like me who, because of our social location racially, ethnically, we are canaries in the coal mine for these kinds of things. So we heard the rhetoric we saw, we saw the people who were attracted to this President and this administration. And we said, Hey, this is not good for us, and so many people, minimized it ignored those calls. And what is frustrating is that it could have been prevented or at least mitigated, had had we taken action sooner. So that's the emotional level. On a historical level, there are all kinds of parallels, my mind jumped immediately back to the aftermath of the Civil War. And here you have sedition, rebellion, treason on a national scale that led to what is to this day, the bloodiest War The United States has ever been involved in. And what happened after that, you would think, you know, in light of this, this treasonous nation forming and literally spilling blood and rebelling against the union, there would be some harsh penalties and consequences. When in reality, what happened was the full pardon of Confederate soldiers, amnesty for many Confederate leaders and generals, wealthy people continue to own land. And one of the things I say in my first book, The color of compromise is that racism never goes away. It adapts, as the labor gap did. After that to sharecropping and convict leasing, it continued the economic exploitation of black people, and basically got a slap on the wrist, if that for for rebelling against the nation. And the way that connects to what happened January 6, is that relative leniency LED and emboldened more than a century of white supremacist extremism, because it was clear that the nation, or at least the authorities weren't going to take strong action. And I think we are seeing the very bitter fruit of those rotten roots, even in
7:20 our websites, our confederate flag in the central hall.
7:27 So So yeah, and we can go on and on and on, we can talk about the the KKK as white nationalist organization, we can talk about what happened during the civil rights movement and the ways they protest and push back against black civil rights. And we can talk about the marriage of, you know, Christianity, and the religious right, which is the third aspect, the spiritual level. So what I'm seeing there is Christian nationalism on full display, when you have people carrying literal crosses, like four by four wouldn't been with 1012 foot crosses up there, you know, it's one step away from just like messing thing on fire. And then you have, you know, signs and banners that say Jesus saves right alongside signs and patterns that says Trump saves or Jesus 2020 and Trump 2020. Right. So So you have all of these religious symbols, where they are using the sort of vocabulary and the symbolism of Christianity, but importing this nationalists? Is xenophobia, racist meaning into them. And it is so frustrating because for the past several years, we saw this in the church first, but it also hit the white house when they started issuing executive orders on this stuff about critical race theory and critical race theory as the biggest threat to Christianity in the US the biggest threat to Orthodoxy, etc, etc. They use this label as a pejorative for basically anyone who was doing any type of racial justice work they didn't like the vein in here is far right fundamentalist Christians who are pushing back against racial justice in the 21st century. And it was a red herring. It distracted us from from what has already infiltrated many sectors of the church in the United States and as Christian nationalism, so impressive on all those levels,
9:31 I know the the assembled, I guess, seminary presidents of the denomination that I grew up in, all basically kind of got together and banned even I guess the the, you know, use of the term in in their seminaries. And that's, that's discouraging, and
9:48 listen, this is a time to name names. I think this is a time to name names. The Southern Baptist Convention has done these religious things. Yes, they issued this the president of the SBC seminaries issued an egregious statement condemning critical race theory saying it is wholly incompatible with Christianity, which actually went against a resolution they passed in 2020. I believe about it and saying, we know there are some parts we can learn from other parts that are incompatible. They just did wholesale thing. And then to go further, from an article by Charlie dates, who whose church left the SBI. In the wake of this statement, right here, he's privy to all of the the conversations and whatnot. And he said, it was at the urging of Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that they went further and made that statement, because it could have just been a statement in affirmation of the Baptist faith and message on his 20th anniversary, but they had a little jab about critical race theory in there. And then Moeller, several months prior to that came out and said, as a Christian, he couldn't see voting for anyone other than a Republican candidate for president for the foreseeable future, and directly attach that to his Christian faith and theological leanings. And to this day, as far as you know, as we record on January 7, has not reputed his support for this president who overtly and explicitly inflamed and encourage this insurrection.
11:34 Yeah, and I agree that it is a time that, that we name names, and we we put that on record, I mean, I think this is, as we look back on this time, we're gonna be looking back on the record of who voiced and who stayed silent. And, and I think it's so important, and that's why I think it's so interesting that your book is is released, I think, at an amazing time in history, because I think people are looking for those who have their eyes open and ears open are looking for ways, how do we enter this conversation? Like how do we fight racism and and you start your book with the line, something is different this time. And even though the events of January 6, you know, bring us back, I think steps. It does feel like what what do you think is different this time, you know, from from spring 2020, moving forward.
12:28 Right, so I opened the book with a sort of recounting of the sustained uprisings that we saw from the spring of 2020, through the summer of 2012, about racial justice, and it was spurred most proximately by the murder of George floy. Briana Taylor, among our very, but of course, there's a much longer history. And, you know, in the midst of that, it felt different. This time, it felt weightier, it felt like there was more momentum, it felt like there was a greater potential for change. And I stand by that I absolutely stand by that we saw. So this, the prime example I give is going to seem relatively minor at idiosyncratic to people outside of this area, but it's a major deal, the state of Mississippi finally changed its state flag, which, of course, last one in the Union, to have the Confederate battle emblem on it. And mind you, that flag has flown uninterrupted, since 1894 126 years for that flag to come down. And there's a reason it came down in 2020. And so that's one sign we can point to lots of different other ones. The The other reason I think this time feels different, is not simply because of the protests or the progress, but because of the opposition. And so what happened on January 6, is actually part and parcel of the protests and uprisings we saw in 2020, partially as a reaction to that. And so you know, the strength of your movement by the strength of the opposition you fix. And so we've, we've seen this resort resurgence in white supremacist extremism and terrorism and violence, and that is in direct proportion to the strength of the movement that's pushing for racial justice.
14:25 Yeah, that's such a good point. And and being, you know, witness to that over these last couple days, and and seeing that, and seeing how we can continue to move forward on this journey of racial justice. And I like how in the book, you call that you call it a journey of racial justice, and you provide a model that you created called the ark of racial justice. And I think there's a really, you kind of shaped the book around that and I really think that's a powerful way for us to start to answer that question of Okay, well What can we do? Right? Well, how do we make those next steps? So you could walk us through that arc of racial justice and love that?
15:06 Yeah, it's pretty simple is designed that way. Because my brain is simple, okay, and be I want it to be memorable for other people. So the arc of racial justice is an acronym that stands for awareness, relationships, commitment. And I think you need all three, to have a robust holistic approach to racial justice, awareness, the knowledge, the data, the facts, the information we need, about race, racism, white supremacy, in order to understand what we're dealing with, and to better address it. And so what is awareness building looks like a lot of different things. It's reading the books, watching the documentaries, listening to the panel discussions, all of those things we do to add information. But we can't just have big heads, we got to have big hearts around this thing, too. This is the one I find toughest to explain, because the immediate pushback, which I have to is that fighting racism is about much more than individual relationships. Right? The pothole that that especially white evangelicals fell into around racial reconciliation was to think that racism is primarily a problem of interpersonal attitudes, one person not liking another. And so the solution then is, well, some of my best friends are black, or I'm nice to people, you know, I have black friends, or Asian friends or whatever it might be. Which, which, yeah, they stopped there, which is a problem. And I'll get to that in the last portion of the model. But I still think there's a place for relationships, as my friend I know, there is, even as a black person or a person of color, it can be really easy to to paint in broad strokes and make white people all the absolute same. Now, I nuance that and say, Listen, if you're white, you benefit from whiteness, no matter how woke you are, no matter how sensitive you are to issues, I understand that. But it's a check on my heart, to make sure that I'm not saying all of this stuff, divorced from actual relationships with people. But it's even more incumbent, I think, on white people, because even simply being in the numerical majority, it's going to be harder for you to make real good authentic relationships across racial and ethnic lines, there are simply more of us than there are us. But beyond that, this nation has been extremely adept at on purpose separating white people from other folks. And so there are all of these structures, residentially educationally even ecclesiastically that keep you separated. And so you're going to have to cross all those boundaries and scale all those walls to build relationships. Lastly, we can just have good relationships, because, hey, we can have a great heart to heart on this podcast, we can, you know, when we're when the vaccine has been distributed, and we can meet again, we can hold each other high five, all that stuff. None of that's gonna do a thing about mass incarceration, about voter suppression about black women dying in maternity related deaths at three times the rate of white women. So what do you do about that stuff? That's where the commitment aspect comes in, that says, prejudice works itself out not just through people, but through policies as well. And so we got to work at the legal level, we got to work the policy level, the practice level, in the ways our systems and institutions are structured, that created a perpetuate racial inequality, we got to attack that too.
18:41 And be willing to I don't know, I guess, except whatever you think is a sacrifice to do it. It may not actually be one, but you might think it is. I've been reminded that with, with just the vaccination thing, you know, it's like, you know, I'm probably on level 130 z or something. But you know, I want to sort of jump the line, but I also have to understand that people of color are being affected by the whole COVID crisis at in numbers that people like me aren't, I have a place to go, I have a job that I can I'm at home right now on this podcast, and other people don't and and honestly, you know, they should be vaccinated first. It should be and I need to understand that and accept that.
19:25 And I think you're hitting on something that is critical. So in the book, the chapters are all sort of uniformly structured, there's usually some sort of introductory story that illustrates the broad concept. And then there are two sections, essential understandings and racial justice practices. So the racial justice practices, obviously, are the practical hands on here's what to do stuff. But I really think part of the treasure of the book if there is a value to it is the essential understandings because that articulates kind of my broader approach to race and how to think about it and so You touched on just a moment ago, is the idea of sort of communal thinking, in the sense of not groupthink, but in the sense of I'm part of a broader community. And I am going to do something that is good for the entire community and not just myself. That's a fundamental shift in thinking. racial and ethnic minorities have that because we tend to be viewed by society as a group. So the analogy I always use is when I was in seminary, which was overwhelmingly white, over 90%, white, if I did badly on a class assignment, or something, that would have not just been jamara did badly, it's the see those black people, you know, they can't handle it, or they can't hack it, or whatever it might be. Whereas if one of my white classmates did poorly, but that's just john, let's just mark Keenan study at night, you know, if there's not as an individual kind of thing, so so that shift of thinking about the good of the group, and how this affects us all COVID is a perfect example, right? Where, because, you know, you may be able to work from home or be more affluent and can afford better health care, it doesn't affect you the same way. But that's not all that matters, is about the good of the group. And so I just wanted to highlight, you know, that really important concept that she just just mentioned.
21:25 Yeah, and in your book, you, you I appreciate how you bring in Christianity explicitly in this conversation, right a year, you tie it directly, and you label as courageous Christianity. So could you highlight what is courageous Christianity? And you also highlight like, why did you need to tie the conversations of race and racism directly to Christianity?
21:53 Thank you. Yeah, that subtitle is doing a lot of work there courageous Christianity and the journey toward racial justice. courageous Christianity, in contrast to complicit Christianity, which I talked about in the first book. And so the sordid history of white Christianity in the United States is one, pretty much characterized, in most cases by compromise and complicity in the face of racism. You can go even further than that, you know, active cooperation and construction of a racist society. But in contrast to that compromising complicity, would be courageous Christianity, that instead of compromising actually confronts injustice. And so I say in the introduction, you know, I really want this book to be broadly read, and it absolutely can be, you don't have to be Christian, you don't have to claim any faith tradition at all, I think, to glean from this book, but I felt I had to also address Christians because of a couple of things. First and foremost, when it comes to white Christians in this country, they've so often been part of the problem, this is your opportunity to be part of the solution. I really think, you know, white Christians need to be at the forefront of this thing, examining their own institutions, their own churches and nations,
23:22 perhaps waving a Jesus flag as I climbed the Capitol steps before I smashed the door.
23:30 And by saying at the forefront, I mean, need to be a foot soldiers in this thing. But But that doesn't mean taking the lead over and above people of color and black people who've been living this and, you know, have the insights and experience. So I thought we got to bring Christianity in for that. The other thing is, is on the more positive side, we have so many resources within the Christian tradition, for fighting racism and promoting justice. And so in the book, I talk about sort of broad themes, the image of God, I spent a lot of time in the first section of the book talking about this idea that we're all meeting God's image. And that gives us inherent dignity and worth. And that tells us so much of what we need to know about how to interact across racial and ethnic lines. But it also talks about love and, and justice and justice being loved in public, that kind of idea to get in the fact that we can't just approach this on an interpersonal level, but also a systemic and institutional level as well. So, again, I think it's accessible to anyone of any faith tradition, or no tradition at all. But I do think Christians in this nation absolutely have to be part of the solution. And so it's addressed partially to know
24:53 Yeah, I think any, you know, encouragement, actually, a I'm trying actually not to mention institution right now. But there's a Christian College in California very, very conservative that I am sort of related to, through my son and his in laws. And his father in law is actually on the administration there. And they have, you know, decided to have a, the administrators actually have sort of a book club on the cover of compromise. I just thought it really, really, you know, I that's a good thing. I don't know what's going to come of it or whatever. But those are the people that need to be reading it. Yeah, I'm glad they are.
25:32 I'm glad they are. Well, it's gonna be interesting. In groups like that you mentioned, you know, that there might be more on the conservative side. With the first with the color of compromise. I was actually surprised there wasn't more pushback. And I think that's because of two reasons. Number one, you're dealing with history, which is, as much as there is a war on facts and information right now. It's a little bit harder to critique. I mean, when you've got the literal primary documents and whatnot, like the words are there, the evidence is there. So it's, you know, you got to get much more creative if you want to just attack the knowledge there. But I think Secondly, there was less criticism than I expected. Because the further back in history you go, the more people think it's distant, it doesn't apply to them. threatened. But to the extent, to the extent that there was criticism and pushback, it was on two counts one, the more recent history, say from the 1960s on so they really didn't like, you know, when I talked about Billy Graham and his record on race, right. And that really, really didn't like when I started talking about the Moral Majority. And this connection between Christianity and the GOP. On the second, so the more recent history, they criticize, and then the second part they criticize was the last chapter, which was dedicated to practical steps we can take. And in many ways, you know, the color compromise and how to fight racism paired together well, because that last chapter, I've essentially expanded into entire book and how to fight racism. But that part, where you start talking about, you know, celebrating Juneteenth that taking down Confederate monuments and doing reparations, they love that one. That's the part where they where they start to push back. So in these groups that study, the color of compromise, and perhaps even more so how to fight racism, I do anticipate most of the pushback and criticism comes when you actually start talking, not in just vague generalities racism is wrong. But here's what we do. Right, specific things we we do. Yeah.
27:50 Yeah. And it's what's interesting there, it's the specific things and actions is what we need to focus on right now. And what I mean, we need, we need that awareness. Definitely in the historical awareness. And I think, for me, personally, that's part of what I think this year has, has been that something's different this time, at least for me personally, like, the more I've dove into the historical record, and, and even the summer thinking, how did the church tree Martin Luther King, Jr. You know, I just asked that question. I never heard that growing up. And then as I look into it, I'm like, oh, not very well. Like, wow, how can we learn from that? So you need that. And that's been good for me. But we also then we need to look at, okay, what do we do next? Like, how do we, how do we step in more? And, and we have to be able to talk about that. I one question that I wanted to ask you is, and part of it is with this, like with with maybe more Current Conversations is within the church? How would you help us have conversations about slogans and movements like black lives matter? Right, because especially and I'm Pastor in a predominantly white church. And and that's where people are always pushed back, you know, and I think like, this is a clear and obvious statement. That is true. And we should easily support but people always push back with arrow hits too close to home, there's this separation of movement versus organization. How would you kind of guide us on that?
29:32 A couple of things, and they're, they're pretty broad, but I hope helpful, one, at the beginning of 2021. If people are still rigorously pushing back against black lives matter, I don't think they're gonna change their minds very soon. And it's true. We have seen so much in 2020 alone, and we're continuing to see it, such that if people want to cling to this idea that in no way, shape or form Should Christians Be involved with a firm or even say the words, Black Lives Matter, I just don't think you're going to get very far very quickly with them. And to me, that is a signal to say, I love you, but I got to keep moving. I don't know if that means disfellowshipping. And going to another church, I don't know if that simply means I'm going to unfriend you on Facebook, that kind of thing. But I would, I would be very cautious about expending so much energy at this point on people who are who are still pushing back so hard against the phrase in the movement. The second thing is, in general, the people I find protesting most loudly against black lives matter, aren't doing anything besides that aren't doing any advanced racial justice in a substantive way. And so they're spending all this time and energy critiquing the movement that is happening, while not while using it as an excuse not to get involved in the movement at all. And so the the immediate question one can ask is okay, you don't like BLM? What are you doing? Yeah. And it'll probably be along the lines of I'm preaching the gospel. I'm nice to people, you know. But when it comes to, you know, actually changing laws about, I don't ever want us to forget that the 2020 uprisings were about anti black police brutality. So you could ask an even more pointed question for the people who are objecting to the use of the term or the movement? What are you doing about anti black police brutality, you will be crickets 95% of the time. So So all of that in mind. If you're a leader of the church, speak the truth and love, light. Look, I've been doing this long enough, there is no way to contextualize soften tiptoe around these issues, enough that someone is not going to push back. Doesn't matter how careful or circumspect you are. So why not take that burden off yourself. Just speak the truth and allow people the dignity of deciding for themselves, whether they want to believe it or not, and what they want to do with it. And so I would just encourage people who have a voice in leadership at their churches, now is the time for bold truth in love. But understanding that the truth divides, and that may be a necessary division. Yeah.
32:36 That's so helpful. Thank you so much for that. And thank you again for coming back on the show. I wish we had more time. Maybe we'll have to get you back. I'm sure they'll be more Yeah, we can tackle. Yeah, exactly. And with with this being your second time on the show, you officially become a friend of the show.
32:59 A button. We're working on T shirts where we can finally get those t shirts in the line. Yes,
33:11 we will. But thanks again. And we're so excited about your book, which was released on January fifth. You can get it anywhere books are available.
33:21 Is it racism, calm how to fight racism, calm. We'll get you get you fixed up.
33:27 Awesome. Perfect. Thanks again, Jemar. fun talking to you guys. Thanks for the invite. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
33:59 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go. Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
New York Times' Bestselling author, Jemar Tisby, joins Mark and Rex to discuss his book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism.
TRANSCRIPT 0:00 Hey everyone, welcome to the jest of thing podcast. I'm Taylor, the producer of the show. I'm here to let you know that these summer episodes are reruns of previous episodes from season two of the show. These were handpicked by Mark and Rex themselves.
0:14 And here they are with a few thoughts. Hey, everyone, welcome back into our second rerun of the summer. And we're actually going to be doing a two parter here.
0:23 We're going to be looking at our conversation with historian jemar tisby. And we've actually had him on twice it was it was actually a couple of months apart, but you're going to get him back to back yes with two of the important books he's written
0:36 in this first episode is going to be looking at his his first New York Times best selling book, which is the color of compromise the truth about the American churches complicity in racism. Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And on the show today, we are excited to have new york time best selling author jemar tisby. This is the first time we've had a New York Times bestselling authors. First time Yeah. We have we had last time but the first time but jomar is the author of the color of compromise the truth about the American churches complicity and racism and Rex This is really a show that is continuing the conversation right on race and racism in America and in the church. And what is our role to, to combat that racism and and to choose another way in Jim Marrs book and this this conversation I think is so important for us to continue to have. He takes a historical look at how the church has has either been silently involved or overtly. And it's a look that we have to take to be able to move forward.
1:58 Hey, Jemar, thank you so much for joining us on the show. And excited to have you I thought we start with a little bit of common ground. I was reading your bio. So you're born and raised kind of in the Chicago area.
2:11 That's right north of Chicago,
2:14 north of Chicago and I and then you did your undergrad at Notre Dame go Irish? Yes, I did. And there we go. So I was born and raised in Indiana. Okay, and so small town, Indiana, though, I think Yeah, a very small town. But I did I did make the pilgrimage up to Notre Dame. And and we went there a couple times on game day night, never inside, but just just hanging out outside. And well.
2:42 It's gorgeous here. So even going out there is Yeah. What did you do one time?
2:47 It really is the cameras beautiful. One time I was there. And somehow the doors were open. And I walked down. I was with my soccer team actually in high school and we walked down onto the football field and just started running around and basically acting like Rudy got kicked out by security.
3:09 Oh, that's great. I don't think I've ever been on the grass of the field. So you had a deeper football experience was that I did. Although I agreed to go I counted it up one time. And between undergrad in the year after I graduated, I got to go to 24 straight home games. Oh, wow. Yeah. Mexico, so I have absolutely no football afterwards.
3:34 That's true. That's true. I'm pretty hopeless down there. But it's good. Good to have another, you know, Irish fan on the show. Now you're currently down in the Mississippi River Delta. Here on the Arkansas side.
3:49 That's right. That's right. It's always Alright, using two people. I mean, the language is confusing because it's called the Mississippi Delta. And then of course, people think of the state, but it's really about the river. And then right it spans Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana. So I always have to specify on the on the Arkansas side of the river, but the delta is a region and a culture all to itself. It really obeys no state boundaries. Yeah,
4:19 that's very true. Well, I must be a little precarious being a Notre Dame fan.
4:27 DC country. Yes, yes. We were absolutely passionate about football at Notre Dame. And but coming down to the SEC. Wow. Wow. Another World it is another world. It's been very interesting. Especially because I have gone to school in Mississippi. And there was a time a few years back when Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi were both ranked, right. Yeah. I mean, heads were exploding people. walking on air for that couple of weeks, but most of the time, it's not. It's not that story of winning. It's been a time since then.
5:11 That's the truth. Well, I'm excited to kind of get into your book, The color of compromise the truth about American churches, complicity and racism. And for me, I love the book kind of dove into it this summer. And I even was did a guy's group at our church kind of walking through. Really, yeah, it's really good. And, for me, it's kind of like, I think two key words jump out from that title, compromise and complicity. So I'd love to hear you kind of how you use those two words to kind of frame the story of race and racism in America and the church.
5:50 Thank you. Thank you for leading with that question, because it really frames the entire discussion. So right off the bat, a lot of times people kind of misunderstand the idea of compromise and complicity. And and their argument is, well, it's more than that. Right? Christians have been active participants in constructing a racial hierarchy in the United States and even beyond. And so in a sense, those words are not strong enough, is what they say. Yeah, excuse me, which I totally agree with. There have been instances and individuals and institutions that have been very overt in their racism. And I talk quite a bit about them throughout the book. But what I'm trying to get out with the idea of compromise and complicity is that when you look at the most extreme forms of racism, putting on a white robe and hood burning and cross stringing up a noose, whatever it might be, that's a, that's actually a relatively small number of people quantitatively, right? But how do those acts of racism occur? How is it permissible in a society or in a community isn't because you have all of these people as sort of active bystanders who are observing these things. And even if they're not actually physically doing these acts of racial terrorism, by their inactivity, by their silence by their past activity, they are tacitly giving approval to it. So I begin the book with the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, and the murder of four little girls through an act of racial terrorism. Obviously, that incident is egregious. And what's so interesting is that people around the nation and around the world, even staunch segregationist, condemned that act. But what was so interesting to me is a speech by a young white lawyer named Charles Morgan Jr, that he gave in the wake of that tragedy. And he calls his audience which was a group of white businessman in Birmingham, he calls them to task because he says, Listen, if we had spoken up sooner, if we had drawn a line in the sand over racism, in our families, among our friends, at parties in the workplace, maybe this never would have happened. And so what he was getting at, I think, is the idea of compromise and complicity, that you don't always have to be the one lighting the dynamite or tying the noose, or using the racial slur. But if you are not one who's actively standing up against that stuff, then you create a context of compromise.
8:38 It's kind of, you know, sad for me, because almost every example that you use basically comes from the theological and denominational tradition that I grew up in Southern Baptist. You know, and even worse, when you mentioned Dabney, it's like I went to Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia for my PhD. Wow. And so, you know, there's the there's the Dabney connection there, and it's it's all over the place.
9:04 It's all over the place. It really is no, no Christian tradition in the US is, is completely innocent on this matter, right. I mentioned in the book that all three major denominations, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian split, essentially over the issue of slavery prior to and leading up to the Civil War, numerous smaller denominations are facing the same kind of decisions and in the face of those decisions, whether they could sort of take the fork in the road that moves toward racial justice, or take the fourth fork in the road that's wide and easy and supports the status quo. So many took the latter approach. So I think I hope it forces us all to be introspective.
9:50 Yeah, cuz they're especially they're just again, using that idea of compromise and that it's not it's not necessarily there are those examples of overt racism. But there's also there's so much of that in invert racism or that compromise that, that it doesn't. You know, it's kind of funny like growing up growing up in Indiana and and growing up in a very white churches. You know you kind of you kind of meet people under like I never met a racist there no one ever said like, Hey, I'm a racist. But there was a lot of silence and a lot of complicity in that way in
10:27 the 1920s. I am a history professor is like 1920s was southern Indiana, I think was like, right around zero the KKK resurgence. Exactly. Well, Indiana. Right. Right.
10:38 Yeah, it's so interesting. Our parks, you know, I drive in and around the delta and Mississippi all the time. And you know, it has this reputation externally as being this really backward racist place. But I am far more nervous try driving in parts of Indiana, Missouri, Southern Illinois than I am in Mississippi. So absolutely.
11:00 Yeah. When and Martin Luther King Jr. noted that the worst racism he saw was in Chicago.
11:06 Right, right, right. So one of the points I tried to make in the book is that bigotry has no boundaries. And racism is not confined to a region. So there was an entire chapter in the book called complicity with racism in the north, North being a proxy for anywhere outside the South. It could be the Midwest, all of that. But it's important to remember, and this is a journey that I've been on. Having been born and raised in the Midwest, we had sort of this aesthetic diversity, right? So in around the Chicago area, you'd have people from a lot of different places, you have large immigrant communities, you had a huge Polish community, and I went to Catholic schools, for most of my There you go. So we had Cardinal poleski, and all of that stuff. So yeah, that was all around, but we were still so very, very deeply separated and segregated. But you have the illusion of sort of being post racial, we wouldn't use that term back then. But you had the illusion of saying, Well, you know, racism is not really a problem here, look at all this diversity at the mall, or downtown or whatever it might be right. And then you come down south, in the divisions are so stark, in some ways, I mean, we're really close proximity, but the, the lives are still very separate. And realizing that but then having seen this is what I think is sort of the power of, of understanding race through a southern lens, at least it has been for me is because like, I needed this remedial course in how racism operates. And you come down to the south, and it's, it's in big block bold letters, racism, functions, right. But then if you learn those basics, then you can look at other parts of the country and see, oh, that's where it's working. That's, that's how it's not working between the races. It's still there. I just didn't see it until I had, you know, a primer course, if you will, on on what it looks like. And then I could see some of the nuances and other places. My wife and I were very, I guess we shouldn't have been, but we were sort of surprised when we moved to Richmond, Virginia. And because I was going there to you know, for graduate school, we
13:25 didn't have any money. And so we're always looking for free things to do. We had two small kids, right. And so you know, whenever the paper said, you know, street festival, or free concert or whatever, we'd be there. And invariably, the crowd was either all black, or all white. And we were like looking around, it's like, so here are the signs. And you know, the signs are like written in everybody's heads. We just didn't know how to read them yet. And one reason we actually moved back to California was our kids were in elementary school, and it was like, you know, we don't want them learning where the signs are. Because they're there.
14:02 That's a great point. It's actually connects to what we were saying, I think at the top of the show, about football, right, and, you know, it's cliche, it's funny, but honestly, the only time in my little community where people come together across races is at the high school football game. There's one high school for the area, it's mostly black. But no matter what race you are you you like to watch football and you like to watch your team win. And so especially when the team was winning, made it to regionals, and all that stuff. That's pretty much the only time because it's certainly not happening on on Sundays. Right now, it's
14:44 not. You mentioned something Jamal, about that racism never like goes away. It just adapts. And I'd like you to kind of expound on expand on that just a little bit. It never goes away. It just adapts almost like a virus. It's We're dealing with right now.
15:01 Yeah, very apropos analogy. So that theme in the book is critical because so many people, especially in a book, like the color of compromise, that uses history as a vehicle to convey the point, so many people would be tempted to say, Oh, that's horrible. I'm so glad we're past that. Now. I'm so glad racism isn't a problem anymore, right. And so I say, racism never goes away. It just adapts so that we can be clued in to how racism operates in the present day. And I would say, you know, there are three major iterations or major manifestations of racism. You have race based chattel slavery, you have Jim Crow segregation. And now you have what Emerson and Smith call in their book divided by faith, a racialized society in which virtually any quality of life factor from health to wealth to education and more falls predictably along racial lines. And that's sort of the legacy of these more overt forms of racism. We're seeing that now in the pandemic, we're totally a perfect example, right? Yes, it's disproportionately affecting Latino and Latino communities, black communities, incarcerated communities, right, right, all of those things. And to say that racism never goes away, it just adapts is to pay attention to the way that racism manifests differently in different areas. Why should we think that in 2020, racism is going to look exactly the same as it did in 1920, or 1820. And the reason racism persists, why does it continue to be a problem, I argue is because of the narrative of racial difference, or white supremacy, right? So white supremacy, crafts, a story about races, about ethnicity, about culture, that posits that white people are in the center or on top, everything else is marginalized or less than, and because that narrative remains, then you're going to see racism is going to look different in different times in places, but the undergirding ideology has not been dismantled. And so Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, put it this way. He said the North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative war. And I think I learned that Virginia, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, that's this is the all the debates over Confederate monuments now, right? Because these symbols are telling a story. That story is one of enshrining, re enshrining white supremacy, post emancipation, post civil war, and take them down, I argue and others argue, is to begin to open the space for writing a new narrative that is based on equity that is based on dignity of all people, but those who argue to keep it up, saying heritage, not hate and all of these things, arguing for the lost cause narrative of the Civil War. It is a narrative of racial difference that perpetuates racism. Right.
18:17 One of the most amazing things I've seen this summer is that huge statue of Robert E. Lee on monument Avenue, because you know, we lived in Richmond, and to see it now basically, you know, just sort of covered with BLM slogans and such and the interesting thing that people don't, I guess, realize is that on monument Avenue near that statue is First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia, which is really interesting. I think I'll just leave that at that. Yeah. Yeah.
18:46 Yeah. When Angela in the book, like using history as a vehicle, and Rex is actually a history professor. So he appreciates obviously, that aspect. I think it does help us realize the way that racism hasn't gone away. It's just adapted because you see those same themes. You see that same narrative of white supremacy, even if it's not maybe an overt white supremacy, you know, group that might be saying something, but I've heard people even during, you know, during the last six months, say things and I'm like, Wait a second. That is what people were saying in the 60s. Yep, yep. And so it is so important to, for me, it's been kind of diving back into the history. That's why I appreciate so much about your book is because we don't it is a sobering history, right. And you say that in your book, you know, it's like having a sobering talk with your doctor like, but you have to look at the truth. And there seems to be right now this desire to, to rush to reconciliation, right like rush to like, hey, well, can we just get past this? And and I think it's so important the point you make in the book about that, we have too, we have to understand the history first. That's right. And we have to have that confession before we get to reconciliation. And I think that's, that's something that I think the the, the white church is learning and needs to learn more of right now. Like, we can just jump to peace and harmony, right? We've got to walk through this and, and really engage.
20:24 So you make a couple of really important points that I want to highlight. And I'll state them upfront in case I forget. The first one, I want to connect some of the the same tropes and lingo that we've heard in the past to the present. And then the second is, you know why we need to go through this truth telling process if we really want to get into reconciliation. So on the first one, I'll just give a concrete example. So in the chapter on the civil rights movement, that was a chapter actually had to completely rewrite, it was tough, because there's so much there. There's so much there to talk about in terms of Christian complicity. And so the way I decided to frame it was sort of juxtaposing Martin Luther King and Billy Graham. And so MLK is this activist pastor and preacher. And Billy Graham is sort of the face of white evangelicalism for really half a century. And they're both Christians, but they're both approaching civil rights from very different perspectives. And what made Graham interesting as sort of a foil in this chapter is that he's not a foaming at the mouth racist, right? Like he's not playing the N word. Even in 1953, he pulls down the rope separating black and white people that one of his rallies, and that's before Brown v Board of Education, he has King to pray at one of his rallies in 57. So you know, he's making these gestures. But then by 1963, when when kings activism is still going, when the tensions are even higher than they were in 1955, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott and all of that. Grandma's saying, put on the breaks a little bit, right, but in terms of the echoes from the past, to the present. So while Graham isn't sort of overtly opposing black people, or black civil rights, he is adamantly preaching against communism. And so we need to remember the context, right? This is post World War Two, there's the cold war going on. So so it has, you know, different political implications, you know, in the 50s and 60s than it does now. But also understand that that communist was an epithet that they foisted upon civil rights activists to discredit them. They're basically saying, just like the communist want to flatten out society and have everything be equal and equal distribution of everything. That's what the civil rights activists are, they're trying to flatten out, the racists have everything under this authoritarian regime. And so you cannot be part of the civil rights movement. So this is coming from the mouth of the most prominent evangelist. And of course, people are making the connection, explicitly or implicitly, to civil rights activists. And then now in the 21st century, is remarkable. Same language, they still using cognero. I was kind of surprised about here, there's still communist around, right. Like, I mean, you know, they do put a twist on it. So now it is critical race theory. And they're basically using that label in the same way that they've used communist. socialist now in the public, in political discourse, especially, you can look at sort of right wing political commentators. And the way they talk about Biden, in the way they talk about the democrats right now is, you know, we have to defeat them in order to defeat socialism in the United States. So, again, just you know, the link between those two past and present is very remarkably consistent.
24:02 You know, Jim, you did say, I guess something, or at least I think I read this, that America's Original Sin isn't slavery but greed. Right. And I think that's sort of speaks to what we're talking about right now. Actually, you know, we seem to have an economic reason to avoid dealing with this issue. And I see this honestly, during the pandemic and that, regardless of what, you know, health, public health people will say, the important thing is even among my tribe, which which is why evangelicalism, at least many is is you know, we can't sacrifice the economy. for public health, it's, it's, it's the same economic argument. That's right, that's right enshrining that. So
24:56 and I think if, if we have the time should the Lord tarry and You know, 50 years from now we look back on this, I think it would be reasonable for historians to make that connection between profit over people, and especially people of color. So it still falls along those racial lines. And I think, you know, sort of the white us church writ large is kind of an example of the parable of the rich young ruler. So the rich young ruler comes to Jesus and said, you know, Jesus, I've done XYZ for the faith and for religion, what what must what else must I do to be saved was like Jesus, like, Good, that's great. go sell all your possessions give to the poor and come follow me. Of course, the rich young ruler goes away sad. And in many ways, the white church in the US is like that rich young ruler in the sense that, you know, they've done the tithing and the donating, and then nonprofits, they preach on Sunday, they evangelize, right? And then they say, What must I, what must I do to be saved? And Jesus says, Give up your privilege. Yeah, give up your riches, even financial riches that you've acquired over the course of centuries, due to the exploitation of black people and other people of color, sell it all, give it to the poor, in which case, in this case in the United States would be, you know, people of color, racial and ethnic minorities, and come follow me. In so many cases, the church whether a congregation denomination or sort of culture of Christianity walks away sad, because the cost is too great.
26:35 Right, it says the whole Well, the whole system. And and I think you sort of mentioned this, and and is something that has not been a theme we haven't talked about a little bit in the podcast is, you know, oftentimes, I'll hear folks basically try to detour the argument about systemic racism, or any sort of systemic solution to the issue, and try to personalize it. I'm not personally racist, or I don't think I'm personally racist. And so there go, you know, no problem, basically. And I tend to think as, as, you know, sort of a amateur theologian teaching at a Christian school, that there's a couple of things going on there. One of them is sort of, I don't know, almost an implicit Gnosticism in it, which is just sort of really interesting. It's like, spiritual equality, you know, we're all equal in the sight of God. And so you know, and I think this way, I being, you know, well, I'm obviously very white. You know, but, but it's like, that's sort of a gnostic, spiritual sort of thing, but sort of getting down to flesh and blood, and this world and systems sort of don't want to go there. And I remember a book I read years ago, by Harold bloom, which is interesting, he was talking about the American religion. And when I was reading that book, he basically said the American religion is Gnosticism. And then he talked about the two primary institutional culprits and one was the LDS church. And so I'm going yeah, I can see that I can see that. And then of course, the second one was the Southern Baptist Convention. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And you know, it I could see here I could see his point.
28:22 Well, you can see his point, bring up a really important point about this. I think artificial, extra biblical bifurcation between the spiritual and the material. Density predates the United States as a as a nation, in terms of how Christianity has developed on this continent among people of European descent, so you can go all the way back to one of the most startling sort of events that I found in my research was about the Virginia assembly in 1667, passing a law that said baptism would not emancipate an enslaved Native American, African or person of mixed race background, right? And so you have this in this law, this bifurcation between the spiritual baptism and the material your your emancipation, and then you have even Starker examples on a smaller scale. When you have Francis Zsa, a missionary with the Society for the propagation of the gospel speaking in the late 18th, early 19th century and his the baptismal vows that he makes new converts who are Native American or African, recite, say that you are seeking baptism purely for the salvation of your soul and not out of any intent to free yourself from slavery. And so even in the very vows that people say upon their entrance into the household of God, they are being relegated to second class citizenship, and the separation between the spiritual and material which as you say, persists up to this day, in this form of Gnosticism. To say that, well, we can preach the gospel to people, you know, and a lot of people say that that phrase, just preach the gospel as a retort to folks who are saying, well, the gospel entails material. Social Justice, right? Yeah. Anything? No, no, no, just preach the gospel, change hearts, one person at a time, all of that stuff. So there's this individualism aspect, which we should talk about. But there's also the separation between the spiritual and material, as long as I preach Jesus at you, then I'm doing my part, and we're good, whatever, that you're stuck in generational poverty, who cares that you're more likely to be incarcerated than than other people. All of that, just just focus on your eternal soul will be fine.
30:50 That seems to go back to as well, that comparison between Graham and King, they're there. Graham was focused on the sounds and I think I mean, there's a there's an image to have, I think it's during the watts riots in the 60s, that you have Graham flying overhead with the newscaster and talking about how that represents kind of the degradation of the American society. And you have King going to the protesters and saying, what do you want to talk about? What do you need? And and and that theme then has carried with obviously, within evangelicalism, like he said, I mean, there are people even as as things started, you know, happening in this summer, you know, since May, with kind of you know, and I know different news outlets have called it, you know, another like America's race reckoning, and talking about it and talking about it in church. Yeah, there's been a lot of people saying, hey, just preach Jesus, just preach Jesus. And it's like, I'm pretty sure they just taught Jesus and the Civil War as well and in the south, and how we as especially in the evangelical community, and that's kind of the community that Jessup is in. How do we bring those two together? We can talk about salvation, but it has to include social justice, as well. And we have to speak to, to what's happening in the lives of people. And I think that's, hopefully that could be maybe one of the reckonings that's happening this summer, Anna, in a shift that, yeah, that can be made,
32:28 I think I would bring up two things to your point is, you know, compare and contrast, evangelical ethics with Catholic social tradition, which I learned, and then also the selectivity of this separation between the spiritual and the material. So on the first point, I didn't know there was I was going through Catholic school, K to eight and then college. But there's an entire tradition in Catholic ethics, that is socially oriented. You can certainly read some of the people bowls, and some of the encyclicals that talk about unions that talk about preferential option for the poor all of these things, right. And so what I was sort of imbibing without really being conscious of it was that the gospel and social justice there's, there's not there's there's no space between them, there's not a gap between them that what your Christian calling is, is to work on behalf of your neighbor. And working that out, and all kinds of practical, everyday, even political ways. Right. So I think that's a huge growth area for evangelicals is to have that, you know, there's no real tradition, you can pull it out in places in their theology, but to have sort of a coherent tradition, like others do, is, I think, foreign to the evangelical tradition in the US. And then secondly, bears noting that evangelicals tend to be very selective in what they critique of as social justice. Because they will take on other causes publicly.
34:15 I, I teach a class here where, you know, we talk about Christian perspectives on such and I'll try to mention the seamless garment. thing and and a lot of my students just is just No, that can't possibly be there's no connection between life issues, that life issues is just basically one thing, and I think we know what it is, and everything else is not a life issue. And I talk about, you know, in the Catholic Church, there is at least this tradition is not always, you know, taught like it should be, but at least there's this tradition that there are links between all of these things. And the interesting thing is, that's just sort of hard for for my tribe, and I include myself, I'm a white evangelical, it's just I guess, we've been I don't know, if theologically trained not to see those connections.
35:05 You really hit on it theologically trained right, like, so I just did a book review in the times on Robert P. Jones, his new book white too long. And he's essentially making that same argument, as are a handful of other books that are all coming out about the same time from Crystal posed who made Jesus and john wayne. reconstructing the gospel by Jonathan Wilson hardgrove, taking America back for God by Whitehead and Perry, all essentially making the same argument and touching on the same point that she did that there's actually something in the way the white evangelical church does, Christianity does theology that that undermines any sort of stated commitments to racial justice. And racial equity is the way they are learning to practice faith that actually undermines any efforts toward racial justice, racial reconciliation, and then to the selectivity point, just a very contemporary example, there's a very well known pastor in California, who is leading his congregation in what he calls an act of civil disobedience, to meet in person for church amidst a pandemic, in direct defiance against policies and ordinances, against crowds like that, which are, and then views it as this righteous cause. He basically framing it as Christ has called us to, to gathered worship, the state is not going to prevent us from doing what Jesus says. And so we're going to gather whatever the consequences may be. And then that is seen by many evangelicals, not all but many as a righteous cause. Right? When you take the same sort of acts of civil disobedience, and saying that, that, you know, the law is unjust, and we'll take the consequences. When you apply those tactics to racial justice, all of a sudden, it's just preach the gospel. Don't we? Romans 13. Obey the authorities. Right? Right. Right. It's just very selective in in what people frame as a worthy Christian justice issue, and what's not.
37:26 In spite of all the angry letters and emails we're going to get in this podcast. I believe you're, you're totally right. You're just it's it's that's obviously, right. Ryan's obviously true.
37:40 Yeah, and I guess so as moving forward. And you have an upcoming book, right? That is how to fight racism. Looks like it'd be coming out maybe first of the year. That's right. January 21.
37:55 I was gonna, I was gonna ask you tomorrow. Um, you know, if I can't wait to January, the first and I know that, you know, I need to what would be a couple of helpful anti racist books for someone like me? You know, there's a lot out there. I just, and you know, we're all busy people, but I want something that that's helpful. And doesn't skirt issues. For someone like me, obviously, growing up in a growing up with white privilege is just, it just is, yeah. Well, what do I need to read?
38:24 I have a bias toward history. So I would, I would recommend books, particularly by academic historians. And so I say that to differentiate between, you know, what's popular on bookshelves that brick and mortar stores, right, which are not always written by historians. not always accurate, and we can't shop there right now. Anyway, so Yeah, exactly. California, right now. So some of the books that I mentioned previously white too long, Jesus and john wayne, a couple of books that have been impactful for me, given my context in the south john Denver's local people. It's sort of a slog in the sense that it's it's the narrative is hard to follow. But it is chock full of facts about the grassroots civil rights movement in one of the most racially recalcitrant states in the union. And it's important, because I don't think and even I didn't fully realize the obstacles that civil rights activists, not just the big names that you know, but everyday on the ground people face, it was reading that book that made me angry and agitated because people were fighting for basic things like like the vote, or like the equitable distribution of government funding right throughout the state. And it was some basic stuff. They're not demanding anything unreasonable. They're not even demanding anything over and above. What white people got for it? Folks are shot preachers are shot in their cars. Houses are burned, people are fired. They're publishing lists of addresses and phone numbers to shame people who are joining civil rights organizations. It is a calling and it's a Mississippi story, but it's an American story at the same time, right? So that's one book. So we're recording this, and I'm in my office where most of my books are. So you, I'm gonna give you a list. That's fine. All right. Sorry about that. So the one I was thinking of initially was Peggy Wallace Kennedy's the broken road. Peggy Wallace is the daughter of George Wallace, the notorious governor, segregationist, and whatnot, right. I think that would be interesting for your listeners, because here's a white woman who was not only raised in this sort of culture of segregation, but actively benefited from it through her family's prominence in politics. And this book is sort of her it's kind of a memoir, but it also talks about how she now thinks of her father, and being raised in that environment. So she's not at all racist like her father was. And then even George Wallace supposedly underwent some changes toward the end of his life. But but it's an insider view that I thought was fascinating. And I don't want to convey at all this sort of, you know, white redemption story or whatever, I just think it's a it's a it's a really unique peek inside base, sort of a family that was at the center of all in the civil rights, and on the wrong side of rye write. Another book that's sort of a contrast to that is john Perkins classic book, let justice roll down. Another memoir book, by john Perkins, black man born and raised in Mississippi, his brother gets killed by a cop flees to California, God gets a hold on him comes back to Mississippi, and has lived here ever since fighting for civil rights and racial justice. Another story of this, this is more civil rights era stuff, God's long summer by Charles marsh. I think it's fantastic. Because he juxtaposes civil rights activists with segregationists and talks explicitly about how they are each understanding the faith in vastly different ways. more contemporary books, Latasha Morrison's be the bridge. And so this is a good book for books studies and book clubs. And she's deliberately trying to bridge the racial gap through reconciliation techniques, but but really hard hitting, you know, truth telling at the same time. Two more books that I'll end with this from a sociological perspective, why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?
43:19 so helpful, I read this in college, and it helped me put language around some of the racial experiences I was having as a minority in a predominantly white institution. And it also talks about racial identity development, for people of color, but also for white people, too, because one of the things that white people don't acknowledge enough is that they are racialized as well. They're being an ultra rated into race, they have a culture. And they go through different stages of development in terms of their racial identity. And knowing what those stages are, I think helps us progress through to healthier stages, and more mature stages. And then lastly, tanahashi coats is classic book between the world and me. It's a short book, you can read it in a day or two. But you're going to want to slow down because every sentence is packed with such activity, in meaning I quoted in almost every one of my formal book presentations, because there are just so many rich concepts, themes and ideas in there that give you a glimpse inside the contemporary experience of being black in America. That's very helpful. Very helpful. Sorry. I was like, let me go find ways to say, oh, there's an educational component.
44:40 That's right. Yeah. We're trying to educate people indicate. Well, I think kind of as we wrap up our conversation, one of the things from your book Jemar that I think you see, and it's through the history is a lot of these missed opportunities where the church could have made a decision and didn't and And I think maybe now we stand in another moment that could be looked back on as an opportunity How? What are some things we can do as a church to not miss this opportunity?
45:14 I'll start with probably the hardest one. First is the church needs to lead the conversation on financial reparations. So I make the case throughout the book that that what race based chattel slavery was, in its essence, was an exploitative economic system that did not pay laborers for their labor, that did not end with emancipation, you get sharecropping, I'm sitting here in the Delta, literally cotton country, the statewide rate for poverty is about 20%. In my community, it's 41%. The Delta is the poorest area in both Arkansas and Mississippi, it also has the highest proportion of black people. And that is no coincidence, you know, plantation system in a sharecropping system, you need more laborers than owners. And that has persisted in the demographic data. But it's also persisted in the financial data as well, we have a racial wealth gap in the present day where the average white family has 10 times the wealth of a black family. And that is not because black people are lazy or don't know how to work with money. It's because there have been systems and traditions that have created and perpetuated racial wealth inequality. So I think the Church must lead in that conversation, because it really gets to the pain point, like we said earlier in this show that, you know, many people say America's original sin was slavery, I think that's America's original symptom. And the original sin is greed. And so until we start talking about money within the context of racial justice, we're not getting to, to what's really neither near the core of why racism persists, even in the church. And then secondly, in order not to miss this moment, or this movement. The I would say the US evangelical church needs to re theologizing especially around the ideas of individualism and the separation between the physical and the spiritual. So, US evangelicalism is hyper individualistic, you know, it's just me and my Bible, my personal relationship with Jesus, racism is all about, you know, how I feel or treat one another person. And we really have to understand racism is working itself out through systems and institutions, that policies can perpetuate racism. And it doesn't take a personal attitude of bigotry for those policies to persist. The other thing along with the re theologizing is, you know, eliminating that gap between the spiritual and the material that that we cannot say that we love God, if we are hating our neighbor in our actions, if we are ignoring the needs of our neighbor, if we are looking at the black community and anti black police brutality, and saying simply back the blue, as a deflection, and not getting to, you know, the historic connections between modern policing and historic slave patrols, if we're not looking at the disproportionate impact, even in a place like Ferguson, which is so controversial, over the killing of Mike Brown, the Department of Justice did a report on the Ferguson Police Department and found a pattern of policing black people in order to give them fines. So money from fines would fund the city budget. Another form of economic exploitation this time through law enforcement policing in the criminal justice system, so you can't look at those realities and say, just preach the gospel. Right.
49:00 Yeah, but those are those are good and hard things for the church has to lead in. And and that's I think, walking away from the book for me, it's it's that kind of idea of like, man, the church, the church should be the one leading the church that's what we've been called to. And I man, if we can focus on those three things, it would be a pivotal moment in American history and and would change
49:28 as we're too often the tail light and not the headlight. Often, the thermometer, measuring and thermostat determining the temperature. So good.
49:41 That's so good. Thank you so much, Jemar, for joining us on the show.
49:45 It was fun conversation guys in folks can't see it where we're on screen right now. But we're like brothers in beards right now. has increased facial hair exponentially
50:00 Exactly, are excited about your new book coming out to talk to you.
50:08 Yes available for pre order now on Amazon and it comes out January 21. And I would love to be back on the show to talk about practical steps toward fighting racism.
50:20 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessica.
50:46 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is a premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Dr. David VanDrunen from Westminster Seminary California joins Mark and Rex to discuss his recent book, Politics after Christendom.
TRANSCRIPT 0:00 Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Jessup thing podcast. I'm Taylor, the producer of the show. I'm here to let you know that these summer episodes are reruns of previous episodes from season two of the show. These were handpicked by Mark and Rex themselves.
0:14 And here they are with a few thoughts. Everyone welcome into our summer of classic reruns. We're hand selected for episodes that kind of highlight guests we've had over this last year that really hit key topics that are important in this first one is Dr. David VanDrunen is professor of theology and ethics down in Southern California. And he's going to be talking about his book politics after Christendom.
0:41 And we recorded this actually almost a year ago and it's still as pertinent today as it was on the day we recorded it.
0:48 Yeah, hope you enjoy. Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore, and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex we have on the show today, Dr. David VanDrunen. He's the Robert B. strippable, Associate Professor of systematic theology and Christian ethics at Westminster Seminary in Southern California. And he's on the show to talk to us today about his new book, politics after Christendom. And
1:16 I think we will all find this a fascinating conversation. He has a lot of really interesting things to say.
1:22 Yes, we hope you enjoy the show. Well, Dr. VanDrunen, and it really is a pleasure to have you on the episode. So excited to talk about this topic. I think it's so important, especially maybe for this year, being an election year. And just understanding politics and Christian life, understanding our role in as the church in politics. And and we're here to kind of talk about your new book politics after Christendom that was put out by Zondervan academic. So we want to give a shout out to Zondervan academic for connecting us and for sending us a copy to be able to dive into. And even with that title, it really caught my eye. And one of the reasons why I reached out to you is that idea of politics, after Christendom and so some people may have a little bit of question of what what do you mean by Christendom? So can we start maybe there by by defining Christendom, as we kind of move into what what it looks like to have to politics after that?
2:35 Yeah, sure. That's a I think that is a good place to start. Because when when you hear the word, Christendom, people don't always use it in the same way. So when I use that, in the book, I'm referring to this, you might say this long experience or experiment, primarily in European countries that lasted really from the very early Middle Ages until really, a within the last few centuries, in which it was generally regarded that these companies societies were regarded as holistically integrated Christian communities. So just for some historical perspective, of course, when the gospel was first proclaimed, after after Christ's death and resurrection, in the Roman Empire, the the early Christian church was this tiny minority. They faced a lot of opposition and persecution from the authorities. The Roman Empire was officially pagan, you might say they had their gods that they worshipped. And it was not comfortable for those who didn't want to worship those gods. And yet, after a few centuries, you might say the tide began to turn the Roman emperors who were who began to profess the name of Christ, and the Roman Empire became officially Christian. And it wasn't as though church and state became indistinguishable or something. There were still distinctions between church and state and families and universities and trade associations since but at the same time, it was understood that all of these were united by a common Christian profession. And as part of that, the understanding was is that the civil authorities would be supporting in favoring the one true church as that was understood, and that they would punish heresies and blasphemies. And those who were of other religions or who had believed in versions of Christianity that didn't fit the prevailing model, there really wasn't a place for them in these societies, or else they could exist with pretty extreme hardship. And that was really the kind of the kind of mindset that that prevailed for really well over 1000 years. And it was really only until what we would call the the modern era, that opinions and practices began to change. And so you know, now we find ourselves in communities that used to be considered part of Christendom in which it's no longer understood that these are Christian holistically, Christian societies, right? It's no longer assumed that, you know, everyone's a Christian, it's no longer assume that there's going to be one church that will be accepted as the church in a particular society. And now we consider it in a sense, it's it's optional. It's up to everyone's personal decision as to what you believe how you worship or even if you will worship? Yeah, so really, what what my book is trying to explore is, you know, how do we as Christians reckon with this post Christendom kind of situation. And I really think that a lot of the things that we struggle with, as Christians in our own society, are, they're really a result of trying to reckon with the pluralism that we find surrounding us. And we're, in a sense, we're still trying to figure out what do we do in a society in which we no longer are calling the shots the way we we as Christians used to and maybe think that we ought to
6:33 write I'm going to jump in, actually, since we're on the title of your book. And and it's not just Christendom that some of our listeners might need a little bit of education on but your definition of politics or the political seems to be much broader than what is in folks minds when they first look at that. Look at that word, too. Could you elaborate a little bit on that?
6:53 Yeah, I'd be happy to I think that's, that's, that's a helpful thing to explore as well. Yeah, I, you know, certainly my, my book is about politics as we understand them, to some degree. But I I'm using the term in what would be an older kind of classical sense of politics, you know, we get the word from the the Greek word polis, which means city. And the that that idea is that there is this sort of this public space, this kind of common space that other people in a particular community share, of course, we have our individual families and our smaller associations that are not open to all people. But there's also this city in which various individuals, various families come together. And they have certain common projects that they, they work on together. And so I'm taking politics in this older sense. It's, it's the life of the city, which we might translate as the larger this larger community, larger society in which we have not only our political life in the sense of governmental life, but also our legal life, our economic life, our shared projects in science, and art, and sports and these various things that we don't just do in our individual families, but we view as larger human projects. And so it is important for my book that this is not just a book about government, it's not just a book about the next election, or, you know, what's going on in Sacramento where you guys are or in Washington DC, in my book is about those things. I mean, that is an important element of my job. But I do think it's, it's actually really important to say that our we have this life in society in the city, that is not just reduced to our what what we ordinarily think of as a political governmental,
8:59 kind of where the institutions of society sort of interface in I guess what these Yeah, well, I don't know, third spaces. I've heard that or the public square. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that those are also helpful terms.
9:14 Yeah. And you were 100 100. And connect, in the in the book in the first chapter, you kind of lay out four characteristics of a political institution that I think were really helpful to maybe help us shape our approach to politics. You mind if we kind of explore those those kind of four key characteristics that you give?
9:38 Yeah, I was, you know, obviously, when you're writing a book, you want to begin in a in a healthful way. That's foundation for the rest of the study. And I thought you did. You did. Thank you. I appreciate that. You know, I wanted to Well, I was I was trying to reckon with this what what else? thing is quite obviously true is that I think there's a temptation that probably almost all Christians have who think about politics is that there are, there's a temptation to take part of the truth, part of the theological truth about what political community is about or what government is about. And the kind of absolute ties that in a way that you kind of lose other important aspects of the truth. And so it occurred to me that it might be helpful to to lay out several characteristics of our political communities, our governments that, in a sense, in order to get a proper, biblical theological perspective, you need to hold all of these things together, and not to choose one over against the other. So the first term that I used is that our political communities and their governments are legitimate. And what I mean by that is that there is a God ordained quality to these that we actually see in Scripture that even though if we human beings, who set up our governments, we establish legal frameworks and constitutions at the same time, there as Romans 13, among other places, does that God himself has instituted civil government so that when we human, establish governments and live together in our in our cities, that this is actually something that God wills, and God approves. Now might the second characteristic, then is sort of the counterbalance to that, wherever remote that governments are also provisional. So there could be a temptation if, you know, once we acknowledge that governments and our political communities are legitimate, that we we give them too important a role that we act as if these are that, that their legitimate authority is actually, you know, we're expecting too much from them. And so I think it's also very important biblically to say that God has established our political communities and their governments for limited purposes on to accomplish important things, but not to accomplish the most important things, and that our governments are in particular, especially in response to our sinful condition and the need for protection, the need for justice, to be able to remedy the effects of sin in this world to some degree without bringing, without bringing the new creation, which government is not capable of doing.
12:39 Right. And that seems to be a really, I think, helpful balance point of making that point, that, that political institutions are legitimate, that they are God ordained. And we see that in Scripture. Because Because sometimes I think in in maybe our current climate, there can be that voice. Right, that, that that tries to legitimize government. And so it's balancing that, but then yeah, and I like how you would then understand that with the idea that they are provisional, though, they're not meant to do everything. And they're not meant to, to do the highest calling. And so I felt like that was just a really good initial approach was with those two. Other two more actually. Yeah. And two more categories. Those who kind of like, Oh, those are helpful, because they balance each other. And it seems like the last two balance each other as well.
13:30 Yeah, that was the point to just to sort of set the the first two, in some sort of, kind of proper tension with each other. And then yeah, these last two as well, yeah. So the third category is common. And that is, by that I mean that God has instituted our political communities and our governments for the entire human race. They're not just for the benefit of some subcategory of humanity. It's not just for for us as Christians, it's not just for people of a certain ethnic background, or it's it what that basically I think, as we look at scripture, we find that God has ordained these communities and these governments to serve all people, and to do justice for all people. And that's obviously not something that you can take for granted in the history of the human race, where there's always this temptation to think that the benefits of government the benefits of political community are for us or our kind of people, but not for other kinds of people. So that was that that's a very important theme throughout the book, and then I try to balance that off with my fourth category, which is the idea that the government is accountable, our political committees are accountable, and the The reason why I wanted to emphasize that as well, as I think, if you have, you know, once you make the case that governments are our political communities are common. They're for all people, there's a temptation to think that well, I guess we can't really talk about moral issues that if we're going to say that our political communities are for Christians, and for Muslims, and for Hindus, and for atheists, then well, I guess anything, anything goes, it's just kind of morally neutral space. So I think it's important to say, Well, no, we really can't go that way, even though it might be tempting that scripture also makes really clear that our political communities are accountable before God, and that God actually will judge our political communities. I mean, he, you know, there's, there's a mysterious Providence at work in this world, even now. And we know, certainly on the last day that God will hold our communities accountable for doing the work that he has given them to do. So here, again, I think there's, there's a kind of, sort of creative tension that Christian political theology needs to wrestle with, to really affirm that, you know, we need to involve all people in our political life, and at the same time, not give up the kind of kind of genuine moral discourse that needs to happen if we are actually going to pursue justice in this world.
16:28 I think that that tension is what I loved, I think most about the book as is highlighting those two elements, because I feel like in the conversation of politics in the church, it is so one sided, often, and it is just kind of, like you said, they absolute ties certain aspects, and, and to be able to hold, and that doesn't just seem to gel with kind of common experience and real experience that we do have two things going on, in that government is in place for all people, you know, and, and, and it all it is also accountable to a higher moral standard. And I think it feels like do you feel that the characteristic of common is kind of a foundational characteristic for you moving forward in the book?
17:21 I do. And in part, that's why I thought the title politics after Christina was as was what was appropriate because there's a real sense in which emphasizing the idea of common really gets to the heart of the of the Christendom idea. I mean, there's a real sense in which that long experiment of Christendom was a fundamental rejection of this idea of commonality. Right? I mean, this idea that our, our, our political communities are for Christians, it is Christian who want to hold the reins of power, it is Christians who want to have special protection, maybe will allow, you know, perhaps Jewish communities, but if so, they have, you know, under very limited conditions, and if they don't behave themselves, we might, you know, not treat them very well. So, I mean, I, it's, you know, it, I need to be careful, because, of course, history is complicated. And it's not as a Christian of what the same in every place at every time. And so, a lot of Christian theologians who did have certain ideas of toleration and so that that was present. But I think at the same time, in my judgment, the, the long experiment of Christendom did have some fundamental failures on this basic notion of commonality.
18:47 Yeah, I've been kind of getting into kind of the history of England, and especially the time of when the Vikings and the Danes were coming over. And you kind of see that clearly where there's this very strong Christian identity with with the kingdom of Wessex or the kingdom of Mercia, and and the Danes were pagans. And so there was this separation and to try to think, a government or a king that was going to be king over all of them and allow them to be unique. Yeah, just wasn't, wasn't even in their kind of worldview at the time, and had to be either Christian or pagan. And, and then you move into the modern era, and America, maybe, especially and you kind of highlight that in the book that America kind of really grabbed hold of that idea of building a a political institution that was for everyone, not just one polarity, no one religious belief.
19:48 Right. Yeah. And I think it's, it's I think it may be hard for us to our American to us sort of reckon with the fact of the of how Of how distinctive the American experiment is in comparison with the vast majority of human societies THROUGH THROUGH THROUGH history, and that it wasn't just Christendom that had the idea that, you know, if we're going to have an orderly peaceful justice it we need to, we need to be unified on the most important things, we need to be unified theologically, we need to be unified philosophically. And it was I think you are getting at this point for, for so many people for most of history, it just assumed that if we don't agree about those things, then it's gonna lead to anarchy, Civil War, we're not going to be able to have a kind of a peaceful, productive society. And so the idea that, well, we're actually going to found a country, that is to a significant degree giving up that idea, it doesn't say that we don't agree on anything. Of course, there has to be some degree of unity in a society in order to be able to live and work together. But the idea that we could have fundamental theological disagreements, and maybe still possibly live peacefully with each other, and work with each other, or trade with each other, that's not something that that that you can take for granted in human history. And I think, you know, we as Americans are kind of used to that idea. And yet at the same time, I think, Today, more than ever, we are feeling where we may have the sense that this is this is not as easy practically, as we might think it is. Theoretically, and it is certainly the case that that the more differences you have, and the deeper the differences there are, the more difficult it becomes to try to live with each other. And so I do think that part of what my book is trying to wrestle with is, is this question are we as Christians in this present, social, cultural, political environment in which we find ourselves is our goal to try to recover Christendom Is that really what we're working for, to try to eliminate this kind of pluralism that we see or is our goal not to try to recapture that, but to try to figure out godly, just productive ways to live within these pluralistic societies that we that that we have, and to sort of, you know, if not to love in every respect, at least to embrace that identity of being sojourners and and exiles in this world in which we, we actually expect that the world might hate us, and that things might not always go the way we want them to. And I make the argument that actually, it's that second scenario that we actually think we're called to be not sort of pining for the last Christendom, but actually to be trying to figure out how we can live peacefully and productively as best we can, in the kind of pluralistic societies that we find ourselves.
23:03 So Dr. Benjamin, he would expect this from, I guess, a history professor, but if indeed we're sort of post Christendom right now, and trying to figure out how to navigate that as Christians, culturally and in whatever polis we find ourselves in right now. Are there any resources from I guess, the time before Christendom that might be helpful for us? You know, Christendom didn't always exist. And if we're on the other side of it, of course, there was a time before it where there were Christians for 300 years or so. Right. And And is there anything from that period? Whatever you want to call it, that might that be a resource?
23:45 That might be his follow up book politics? Before Christendom? I just gave you a second book. Yeah, well, I don't know. I think I think ones enough here. Yeah.
23:59 Yeah, that's a good question. And, you know, to sort of comment on that, on your comment, Mark. That I mean, part of my argument is that, you know, politics after Christian actually is not this totally unique thing that that really my my kind of smart aleck answer to the question is, well, the New Testament is a pre Christendom resource that is that actually and so it's kind of a smart aleck answer, but it's actually kind of a serious answer to because I do think that I mean, I think any straightforward reading of the New Testament, it prepares Christians for living in a world in which they're not calling the shots. It's It's It's addressing Christians, as soldiers as exiles in this world. It tells Christians you will be persecuted if you want to live a godly life, right. And tells us that our citizenship is in heaven that we are awaiting us. As a city there, we don't have a lasting city here. So I really do think that the New Testament itself is a pre Christendom document that, that really, that prepares us wonderfully for a post Christendom world. Now, I also think that in in the early church after the New Testament era itself, there are also other helpful resources. I mean, one I just might might mention is Augustine's great work the City of God, I was actually thinking about that. Right. Yeah. I mean, so, Agustin is living at the time where, you know, since things are things are turning so has been converted. So I mean, they're, you know, the idea that there is now a Christian Emperor has just come on the scene. And Theodosius
25:50 has actually kind of made the whole thing official by the time he's writing the City of God. Yes.
25:56 Yeah. But what is still a very new idea, you might say, and it's, you know, it kind of figure I didn't know, there's obviously the, the Roman Empire is weakening. And there's no, there's a lot there's a very interesting political situation. But I mean, there's so much in that great work. And, but but one of the ways that a Gustin tries to, to portray Christian life in this world as one in which Christians are pilgrims, on this journey towards the heavenly city. And so it's, it's, I mean, I guess, Gustin does set out a kind of a positive, I would say, a kind of a qualified positive view of life in this world. He's not really he's overly enthusiastic or optimistic about about about life in this world, but he has a place for Christians living in this world, participating in this world. At the same time, there is this, this real sense that, you know, don't don't stay too much upon on the affairs of this life, don't expect that you're going to triumph in this life, don't expect that you're going to be on top of the heap. In this world, this is a world in which we're called to suffer. And I think gosens does set forth a pretty helpful paradigm for saying, look, yeah, there's, there are all sorts of ways in which we can live in common with our unbelieving neighbors, there are a lot of things we can share. Christians don't have to make up their own language. Christians don't have to make up their own their own style of dress. You know, I mean, we can, that's probably good. That's probably good to make. And probably is. But, you know, I guess it was very helpful in saying, You, we cannot compromise on our allegiance and our worship of the one true God. So he's wrestling with these ideas that I'm trying to wrestle with in my book is how do we maintain a proper commonality in the ordinary affairs of this world alongside this, this this 100% devotion and allegiance to the one true God? So I think that's one really, really great resource we
28:09 have as a qualified admirer of a Gustin I just switched the seat of God was about 800 pages shorter than it actually is, at least for my students.
28:19 A long work well, I mean, I think, yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I The thing that I tell my students, and I mean, I, I, I teach at a seminary. So these are theological students. So I tell them, you really need to read through the City of God, at least once in your life, you really haven't completed your theological education until you haven't done that. But it's not really realistic for all Christians to do that, but I think especially if, if any of your listeners would like to dive in just a little bit, and they don't have the fortitude and patience to work through the whole thing. Book 19, I think gets at a lot of these issues that that we've just been talking about. So that might be a helpful place for them to, to take a to get a nice little sample of what's there.
29:07 I have a confession to make, as long as we're talking about a Gustin, that's an inside joke there. But I took it as a point of pride when I was in seminary to you know, be one of the few students that actually read everything that was assigned. But I have to say that with gusto and City of God after about 100 pages, I basically flipped through it and said, done, I've read the City of God. Five minutes after 100 pages. I wish I had been more diligent now that I really do a thorough work. How about that? We'll say,
29:37 yeah, we can say that. You also don't render and make a connection with the Hebrew Bible as well. And in the covenants, specifically with the noahic covenant. And it seems you connect the Noah covenant with that concept of commonality. Can you explain a little bit more that the connection of the new covenant with kind of what shapes our political point of view maybe? And specifically, that idea of commonality. Sure,
30:05 yeah, that that certainly is an important theme throughout the book. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm, I'm a reformed theologian. And so for those of us who are working in, in that tradition, we'd like to talk about the biblical covenants that just an important feeling for us. But I hope it's something for those who are from other traditions Can, can appreciate this because, I mean, you just opened the Bible, and it's, you can't deny that you find these covenants, and that they obviously play an important role. So, you know, these, these, these covenants are relationships that God enters with the human race, and perhaps even beyond it, the human race in, in, in, in some instances, and what you know, one of the important things about covenants is that, you know, here we find God committing himself to, to deal with his created partners in a certain way. So you know, we know the terms in which God will will deal with us and that's, that's really a very helpful, wonderful thing. And so when we find these biblical covenants, it's, it's important for us to ask, okay, I mean, am I am I as a Christian now participating in the this covenant that is that is described, and if so, that's going to help me understand my relationship to God and the responsibilities that I have in this world. And so the Noah covenant just to be clear, that's, that's referring to that covenant that God makes with Noah and the larger created order, after the Great Flood as the tribe at the end of Genesis eight and beginning of Genesis nine. And one of the things that's fascinating about that covenant is that it is truly universal. God makes that with Noah, and with all his descendants after him. The company is also made with every living creature, and so that that includes the the animal world as well. And it also concerns the broader created order, God makes promises about not sending another flood of upon the earth. He says that day and night, summer and winter, see time and harvests, they are not going to cease for as long as this world indoors. So there's this this this universality to this covenant. So that's a long prelude to kind of getting to the real answer to your question. So as God makes this comment with the entire human race, which is different from say, the covenant with Abraham, or the covenant at Sinai later, which is made with a, you know, what a particular people, this no way a covenant is, is universal. And one of the things that does is it establishes, maybe not for the first time, but we see this institution of of justice, who sheds the blood of man, by man will his bloody shot there, there's this idea that God Commission's the human race to do justice. And I think this is really important for several reasons. One is because God promises that this covenant is going to endure for as long as this present world indoors, that means that we are still under the no way at covenant. As far as preserving this present world. These are still the terms by which God is interacting with the world as a whole. And and secondly, you might say that, because this covenant is made with the entirety of human society, indicates at least this is my argument that the institutions of justice, this idea of the having people who bear the sword, in defense of the well being of the human race, that that is actually instituted for the entire human race. And so this gets back to this idea of commonality that we were talking about earlier, that this is the doing of justice, even by by coercive mean, is not something that's just for part of the human race. It's not just for those who claim to be Christians or those who claim to be able to some superior ethnic or racial group. I mean, this is actually for the entire human race. And so it seems to me that that's, that's a really important foundation for thinking about political community. And part of what I do in the book is try to try to show how that, that that foundational conviction actually explains a lot of what we find later in Scripture as it talks about political communities and the institution of government.
34:48 We just want to thank you, Dr. bandroom, for joining us on the podcast has been so helpful. And I really think I wanted to put this book in front of our listeners because I think it's, it helpfully shapes the conference. And it kind of, I just want to thank you for how you take it out of the polarized kind of place politics are in America right now. And you bring us back to maybe a more traditional language and more traditional use of the language. So we can understand what is our role in politics today? What is our role as the church what is our role as Christians, and to realize that there is so much more than than power to be had, and that we are called to something much higher than that. And as a church, we're called to something much more than Christendom. And so thank you for that. Thank you for thanks for the show.
35:43 It's been great. It's been my pleasure, and I certainly appreciate your kind words and you're interested in my book.
35:52 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup thing.
36:18 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex finish out Season 2 strong with a recap of a year like no other and a look toward the vast possibilities of the future.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney on racks we have come to the end of a season. So we're finishing up season two. And so on today's episode, it's just you and I, and we're gonna kind of take a look back at the year. And obviously, it's been a year that comes along, you know, once in a generation, right, yeah. And we really need to process that. And also, we're going to look at, what will it look like for us to move forward, to move forward. And to understand the realities that happen in 2020. I understand where God is calling us.
0:42 And there's one thing I really want our listening audience out there to understand that when Mark and I talked about end of the season, it doesn't mean we'll never be back again. I know that every time the girlfriend broke up with, she always said, Rex, this is the end of the season. And there was no season two. So we are actually going to be back we
1:01 can promise right we probably will be a season unless we both get run over by a bus. That's true. Then there will be a season three,
1:08 there will be a season three. So we hope you enjoy this recap of season two and a look back at 2020. Well, Rex, this says definitely been
1:26 a year it has been quite a year. I don't think any of us anticipated what kind of year it was going to be even right even the first few episodes that I joined in the in the podcast. Yeah, it's not at the beginning, but close to the beginning.
1:39 Right. Well, yeah, I was gonna give a little a little bit. Okay. Okay. Okay. So with with just I think we're, we're now moving into what we're gonna want to look at as dedicated seasons. But our first we're closing in on 70 episodes. Wow. 70 070 they still let us do that hang? No, I don't I you know, I think we're still hiding under there. But it's 70 episodes are first episode aired on January 15 2019. Oh, wow. 2019. Well, over two years ago, yeah. So a little over two years, which is
2:16 wild. Hell might have been in like, a decade or an epoch or era ago.
2:22 Since then. Right. Exactly. And, and Rex, you were actually a guest on the show. Okay, just a guest in late February. What were we talking? We talked about Protestantism, types of history of jellicle history of that. Yeah. So we kind of highlighted the, you know, in some ways, the history of the evangelical church. And, and, and that's maybe, you know, we had obviously, we were friends and talked before, and maybe when with that episode, I was like, you know, this would be great having Rex as a regular voice. So you joined, I asked you and you graciously accepted, and you joined as a co host in May. Okay. In May. And in that first episode, you were on was actually entitled, Vietnam, the monkeys, and classic. And we had Derek Martin or theater director, we're all over the place. Yeah, exactly. We've covered we've covered all of our bases, okay. And we range from, you know, when people ask, like, Hey, what's the podcast about? Like, what's a little bit about everything having to do with the spiritual life? The understanding, you know, how your Christianity up applies to the rest of the world, how you view the arts, we're looking at spiritual disciplines and spiritual practices, right, you know, and that's something that's near and dear to both of our hearts. And so and then some different expressions of the Christian faith. Yes, exactly.
3:54 Celtic spirituality, a little bit on orthodoxy.
3:57 Right. Right. And, and we were able to then kind of over 2020 start to expand. Right. And, and we'll talk about that, you know, we were able to kind of reach out to authors and professors, and academics throughout the US. And even we, we went International, by the times, right, this season was over, by the time when season two started, you know, we're going to you can think of the seasons kind of being September to June, okay, remember to June, and kind of that summer break of, you know, of handpicked reruns. So this summer, we're actually selecting for episodes that we've had in the past, and highlighting them again, because they were really important. So they they're worth another Listen, and they are in there and they're continuing a conversation that that will continue well into 2021. For sure. And so excited to kind of do that, you know, but yeah, when we started, let's say Season Two And that would have been actually in the fall of 2019. So, so kind of, you know, Season One was a shorter season, right, we started in January. But if we think of seasons that way, you know, we had no idea for one what was getting ready to happen, right. But we had no idea. By the by the end of season two, we would be having guests from Australia. Right, we would be having guests from North Carolina, we foreign country. Right, exactly. We had guests from Texas, I went well, there you go, basically. And so, you know, it's been great being able to get a lot of voices, from a lot of different disciplines, and perspectives and, and even theological camps, you know, being able to hear their voices on things that are happening right now. And, and books that they're writing, and, and publishing, and promoting. And so, it's been great kind of over, over this season to to expand in that we're really excited for season three, and and some guests that were already lining up looking at, again, some, some not only, you know, one thing that I think is nice for us is that being in the academic world, we're able to connect with other professors, right, because we kind of have, you know, shared misery, maybe, you know, shared, we understand where each other so we can connect on that level, and also highlight maybe some of these academic works that don't necessarily get the popular attention, right. And, but are still so important and so important for the conversation in the church, and the conversation on on key topics. So really looking forward to season three, and the guests that we will have will continue to spread that net out. And even you know, stay International.
6:54 Well, that that word international mark. So when I when I was in the pastor at almost every person that I met a fellow minister that I met, that said they had an international ministry meant that they had, like, you know, done a missions trip to Mexico once and so suddenly, they you know, our international accounts, accounts accounts. We actually have talked to somebody and it was interesting, you all sort of didn't know that, but the the timezone differences. The International dateline was a little tricky. It was a little tricky with the Australian one. Yeah, it was,
7:29 yeah. So you know, we can be honest, we've had one, okay. But we're looking to expand that we're looking, you know, we've we're figuring out the time zones. And so if you're not inside a preseason,
7:42 I had almost forgotten. Well, I not almost I actually had forgotten the topic of the first time I was on the show. Yeah. And I was just thinking that how relevant our topics are, it's probably no secret that we're still struggling with the COVID pandemic, right. And if you want to know the difference between evangelical Protestantism and mainline Protestantism, even right now, the evangelical churches are open for in person services, and the main lines are still on virtual servers. You can even see just yeah, different. Yeah. With that, yeah. Yeah. play out. We've seen that play out this last year.
8:22 Right. And then And then also, in some ways, bleeds into political division and political viewpoints. Right. That tied in together that that often evangelical Protestantism, has a more right of center perspective. And not always, but
8:41 and often a different sort of posture towards, you know, issues of government overreach. Yes. Right. Right. misinterpreted government overreach. Yeah, and things like that.
8:52 Yeah. And more mainline Protestant, typically a very different place. Yeah. Yeah. And so it is really interesting. It's helpful to understand the background of these two camps to understand a little bit about what is going on, right in America. Yeah. Over over this year as we approach so the
9:13 stuff we're talking about here, folks is real stuff. Yeah, it is real stuff. And it plays out every day.
9:18 That's true. When I got I got maybe a personal question. I didn't even tell you. I was gonna ask this
9:24 personal question. I have one for you, too, about the shirts. Were seven day episodes into this thing and I still don't have it.
9:30 Yeah, I know. We're gonna I promise you. I'll declare right now he's declaring season three. Okay, we'll have shirts, okay. It's gonna happen. I know it is definitely gonna happen. I can guarantee you guarantee. Okay, I have I have it on good authority. Okay. With even maybe a budget line. Okay. I'll continue to leave mark. Okay, continue, please. We'll just move in the date back. The pigeons came and told me a new date. Okay, a new day to season three. So but no In all seriousness, looking over this last year, what's something maybe for you personally, that you that you learned or gained a different perspective on? over 2020? And even now? Well, you know, we're halfway through 2021. And it still seems kind of like, you know, a blur.
10:19 What? Well, some of it. I mean, you know, there's, there's sort of a macro picture and a micro picture, a micro picture, this just sort of connected with the podcast. Yes. You know, we've had actual guests that have had that have that have national reputation. And as much as Mark and I would like to believe it's because of the notoriety of our podcast, and people are just clamoring. But actually, the pandemic has sort of worked to our advantage in a way because, you know, folks write these books, and some of these books actually make it on the New York Times bestseller list, right? They can't go on book tours, right? Just sort of can't do that right now. Right. And so they're just much more amenable to be on a quality podcast like ours. That's right. And that's been a real boon, not just for us, but for the listeners. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's been a you know, I guess. You know, I was trying to ISO thinking about this the other day, like, even a year ago, maybe a little bit over maybe 14 months ago. I had no idea that my life would change so much. And I had no idea of what the pandemic and all of its associated stuff. And there's a whole lot of stuff that's revolved around that. Right, right, right. Scientific, political, all sorts of things. I, I really, perhaps in my naivete, I did not see coming, what it has done. For the unity of the church. or lack there, right. Yeah. Yeah, I really wanted to release unity. You know, perhaps I was naive or idealistic. Right. You know, but I did not really see that coming. Yeah. And that's been a, you know, a source, in some ways of of heartache for me as someone who takes the church very seriously. Right. Right. But but it's, you know, we can look at it as an opportunity, you know, you can't deal with the lay of the land, if you don't know what the lay of the land is, and a lot of us are finding out what the lay of the land is right now. Right. And and, you know, the positive thing about that is we can address these divisions, since no one can deny them anymore.
12:35 Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's, that's what it has been really interesting that, you know, we've, you know, I've lived through several different political changes, right, you know, and different political parties, and when within the church and the church, in a sense, has has, often, especially in the evangelical community has often leaned, you know, right of center on on politics. But there's but this year, yeah, this last, you know, this last season has definitely been a more lines drawn in the sand in the sense that you can't be on this other side and be a part of us
13:13 racially interested, because, you know, in some ways, well, actually, in a major way, I believe that Christianity at its best is always countercultural, if the culture is basically, yeah, you know, this world. Right. Right. Right. Um, but, you know, the cultural faultlines, that the pandemic, and its associated stuff now has, has brought to us you know, those fault lines are in our culture, they're in our politics, they're in our churches. Right. Right. And these lines are very similar almost everywhere, which, you know, is really grist for and cries out for some good sustained theological and biblical thought. Right about right before we move forward from this.
14:00 Yeah. And it's really interesting looking at, you know, because this isn't the first time divisions right in the church. Right, right. And even looking at what Paul said to the Corinthian church, right, in the first that first letter, you know, first couple chapters, he's saying, I hear that there are divisions or factions among you some say, you know, I, I love Paul, some say, you know, and even pulls the Jews
14:26 that serve Jesus, the scary part of that, though, I mean, you're totally right, Mark, but the scary part of that, as someone who, as Mark also is representative of this, just know some stuff about church history, you know, some 50 years later or so. Clement of Rome is writing to the Corinthian church, and this is like 50 years after Paul's letters to the Corinthian church, and if you read first collimate the Corinthian church is dealing with all the same exact stuff, right? It's like right to yours and nothing's changed even after like Ryan Hall wrote you the letter, you Yeah, and you know, he could say something about, you know, human nature, the nature of sin, just the nature of organizations, but in some ways, it's, it's, you know, disheartening.
15:13 Yeah. What it is? Yeah. And that's, like you said, I mean, looking at this last year, that's probably been one of the, within the church that one of the most heartbreaking things is, is the disunity in, in just on how approaching different things right, right, Amy and Yun are not talking about a homogenous idea, right. Without saying, right. Everyone needs to then just think the same way to get along. But how can we how can we strive for a better unity in the midst of our differences, especially
15:47 since these fault lines aren't necessarily just between, you know, different denominations, right like that? They're in local churches. Yeah. I've read article after article after article and in places like Christianity Today and religion, news service and other other online kind of religious new things. Yeah, I look at every day about, you know, how pastors are even supposed to preach to their congregation. Right. Right. Right. Right now? Yeah, with the division there. How do you how do you minister to that from the pulpit? Right. You know, there's, there's, it's always been there. But right now, as we said, you know, the fault lines have been exposed. Yeah. And, and exaggerated. You know, one thing that the president of our institution, john Jackson often says, and he's he's right, is that the, the pandemic has accelerated some trends that have already been there, right. It's not like made that some of this stuff is just exposed it and sort of, you know, put it in an hyperdrive. Yeah. And you can't put that genie back in the bottle. Right. And so, you know, grist for thought and theologizing.
17:04 Yeah, definitely. And one of the other things over over this last year, and especially one that I think we've we've dove in into on the podcast, and something that I've really been working on and wrestling with, and understanding more is, is racial injustice, in, in America and in our world. And so, you know, we've, we were able to in this summer, I'm excited to have, you know, do replays of our two episodes with jemar tisby. And just an interesting historical look, because we needed you know, I, when I look back at this year, some of the things that I learned that that I'm saddened by is that, um, you know, middle aged, you know, getting closer to upper middle age. And so Mark's beard is not gray yet, right? Mine is a I have I have speckles of gray and more speckled speckles there. But, but, you know, it took me till my to my mid 40s to ever really hear what redlining was, to my mid 40s, till I ever learned about Juneteenth. Yeah, my mid 40s till I ever even knew there was a race massacre in Tulsa in the 20s. Yeah. Right. And I look back and think, Wow, how, how did I not ever hear about these things?
18:28 Probably because you grew up in Indiana, but right. No, I mean, yeah, it's context for sure. In my situation, similar, you know, part of it was growing up in New Mexico, it was interesting. You know, this is a story that's not, you know, a secret that I may have talked about on the podcast before, but my mother was a missionary from Virginia sent out because to New Mexico, that's how I was born and raised there. sent there because she had some health problems in Virginia. So it was back in the 50s. When it's like, Go West young woman. Yeah, pretty much and there will be better. Yeah. No, I mean, the sanatoriums were out there, right. And all this stuff. And so she was sort of sent out and they the Southern Baptists in Virginia had kind of paid her salary for a few years and that she met my father and quit. But that's, but even after that happened, we always sort of went to mission churches, and I was actually baptized in a small. It wasn't called church. It was called the Neighborhood Center. And it was a it was a mission church that the Southern Baptist had and sort of paid for in in what at that time qualified as, I guess, for lack of a better word. Albuquerque is like ghetto, huh? Yeah. Because Yeah, Albuquerque, you know, about half Anglo, half Latino, and a very, very small African American community. Yeah, but this church was there, right. So and that was because my mother still wanted us to do mission work. Yeah, and yeah, things like that. But even with that, there was just no wider knowledge of the stuff. It wasn't till I moved to Virginia, actually, and in the 1990s, right, yeah. And saw some of the stuff still alive and well, right. Right, alive and
20:16 well. And, and that's, and I think that's was was another thing of 2020 is just a reminder that this, that racism is alive and well, it's 25 years later, not much has changed, and, and the church needs to be on the forefront talking about this, rather than responding later,
20:37 we want to be the engine of the caboose. Right in the cultural conversation, right.
20:40 And, and, and historically, I mean, that's what i what i think so appreciated about the episodes were damar is historically, it kind of helps us recognize where we've got it wrong in the past, like, right, we have to start there like that. This isn't a condemnation of every Christian who's gone before us, right. It's just saying, Hey, we missed it here. Let us not miss it now.
21:06 Well, that's because jomar is interesting, because, you know, the guy actually has some fame right now. Right? In fact, it's interesting. Just a couple weeks ago, I was talking to somebody, a colleague teaching at another institution, and they were talking about Have you heard of this book? jemar? tisby? It's, uh, yeah, like, well, Have you listened to our podcast? We've actually, we've actually had him on twice. But sometimes when I'm reading about him and other mediums, they'll talk about jemar tisby, the historian, right, because he actually is his greatest in history, right. And so he, you know, it's kind of just telling folks that never knew this stuff that was there that was there and is rare.
21:57 Right? And, and it's, and that's just an important, like, you were saying, like you You don't know how to navigate, you don't know, the lay of the land. And so as you as we sadly have to re educate ourselves, because we didn't learn this. It's like, wow, how can how can the church be? Again, on the on the forefront of talking about issues of diversity, equity and inclusion? Right, you know, and there's often this kind of jump maybe to unity, but we kind of have to have those hard conversations first, right, we have to have those hard conversations. And, and, and we were also we're privileged to have our own faculty and staff on and talk about issues of race, and, and issues of, of again, how, you know, the church in the 60s didn't always intend that's an understatement. They didn't accept Martin Luther King, Jr. and they didn't support him wholeheartedly. And there was division or go the letter from Birmingham Jail. Right. Exactly. And, and those are things we can learn from, you know, I, you know, we had Ed stetzer on recently, and he was here on campus kind of talking, and I've always appreciated from Ed, this historical understanding, right, he, like, he looks at trends, and and I'm always fascinated by that. And, and we do have to realize, you know, while 2020 was, you know, at least in my lifetime, more hands down be the most tumultuous year, at least for right now. You know, anything can happen, and then I could do with my life, too. But looking back at the same kind of tomo in the mid 60s, right, and, and he kind of talks about it as these kind of cultural reverberations right are and, and so we have to realize, like, this isn't something new. Right? Right. Right. But what we can I think do as a church is is and this is the importance of history, and having a history prof on the show, like Rex is how can we learn from history to to move forward?
24:12 What not repeat the mistakes of the 70s which came right after the 60s? Because we have, you know, right, all the 60s and then we had disco? Yeah. Which honestly, is a reaction to all of that stuff. Right? Let's just all go dance with the mirror ball and look, yeah, right. Which is probably not going to be a healthy reaction to what we have just gone through. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, we can so we can learn from from all sorts of decades.
24:43 Definitely. Definitely. And, and so that's kind of, you know, on this kind of, kind of recap of season two and looking towards the summer. And also we want to kind of spend a little time here Rex looking towards the future right. Like, like, and when we say that we are not saying that to mean that those things, you know, the pandemic, and racial injustice and political division are over, now we get it, you know, it's not like, oh, the storm has passed, we can, we can move forward. It's what can we what can we? What wisdom can we gain from this last year? And how do we move forward knowing that these are still things we have to confront? We're halfway through 2021. And it's still the same conversation. You know,
25:35 I wonder sometimes that perhaps some, you know, we're not futurists, or anything. But we talk about moving forward and having a vision of whatever comes after this. I think sometimes part of the problem is, is we don't actually have a vision of what comes after this. We just want to get through with this. Right. This over with Yeah, right. Yeah. And then, of course, you know, as a historian, you know, that, if that, if that's the only approach to these kind of things, then you know, the same darn thing is going to happen over again.
26:10 Right. Right. And so I think it's, I think it's important for us to, to look at, okay, what what is a healthy way to move
26:21 we talk about racial reconciliation, we talk about these things, well, then what exactly does that look like? is it just an absence of strife? Right? Or is it something more positive than that? Yeah. And I think that we have a unique opportunity right now to start thinking in those directions.
26:40 Yeah, you know, definitely. And that a, you know, was helpful in the second episode that we had germar on it was promoting his newest book, which was how to fight racism. And he kind of highlights this arc. Right? Hey, ourselves, yeah, see this arc of, of racial justice, or this arc of reconciliation? And it kind of starts with that awareness phase. That is the awareness phrase, phase and, and then moves to relational things. Right, you know, and, and I think that's, that's where I can see in this next year of how, how do we begin to and people have used this phrase a lot, how do we begin to build bridges, right. And, and start to see our communities much more interconnected. And, and start to see the church as much more interconnected and interdependent, and, and continue to listen, continue to learn, continue to lament. And, and continue to repair. And, and moving, moving forward in that sense, but we can't just kind of fast forward to, to the moving forward react to that, that hard work of, of engaging, and, you know, repenting of what has happened.
28:09 It's interesting, I have always been not only a fan of but have been called to, I guess what you would call multicultural ministry. In some ways, the churches that I pastored were very, very much that way. Particularly the one in Oakland, it was like, every color of the rainbow pretty much. Yeah. But at the same time, I've been reading article after article after article now about how the promise of the multicultural church movement has actually not been fulfilled that much. Yeah, that there's been real issues with that. And yet, still, at the same time, there has to be a way to address rise faultlines even in the Christian community. Right. Right. And that, you know, takes an openness to perhaps some new thinking, yeah, it's not like, well, let's just do something that hasn't worked as well as we hoped it would. better, right, let's maybe do something different. And I actually don't know what that is right now. Yet want to have an open heart and an open mind to where God wants us to go with that.
29:15 Yeah. One One thing that has been on my heart recently, and I'm actually doing a little bit of study and writing on it this this summer, but twice in the Gospel of Matthew and I'll just pull out one of them. Scripture here, I'm gonna go for it. We're going for in, in the Gospel of Matthew in chapter nine. He also does this in chapter 12. He says the same quote, and it's actually a quote from Hosea. So it's not just New Testament he's quoting, but in in Matthew nine, it's when he's calling Matthew not to be a disciple. And the Pharisees are like, I can't believe he's eating with tax collectors and sinners and That's where we get the kind of I've, you know, the sick need a doctor, who else is there to actually eat with. Right? Right? And, and Jesus says this line and he gonna repeat it in Matthew 12. He says, you know, but go and learn what this means I desire mercy, not sacrifice for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners. And I've just been kind of meditating on that phrase I desire mercy, not sacrifice
30:30 and in your meditations, where or is that leading you right now?
30:33 Well, I think it's leading me to you know, we kind of see that play out so, so many other places in the Gospel, right? When you have the story of the Good Samaritan that finishes with Jesus flipping the question, right, the quarter The story starts with the the expert in the law saying, Well, hey, who's my neighbor? Right? Gotcha. Yeah, like, and Jesus flips it asks him, he tells the story, right. And then he says, who was the better neighbor? And the expert on law? Probably begrudgingly, but I might be reading into the text there. Says the one who showed mercy. Right, the and and I feel like God is calling us not to be enforcers of his law. Right. Not to be enforcers of ritual, as much as I love ritual, actually, and sacrament. He has called us right is this idea of going learn what it means I desire mercy, showing mercy to anyone who's hurting. And I think the, the, to me, the point of the Good Samaritan story is, whoever you see hurting
31:49 is your neighbor. And that would mean you'd have to get rid of something that I have been played with and probably still am played with in my life right now. And that's this sort of great, you know, I don't know, Abacus or whatever in the sky. Right? Yeah. To where there's this balance here. And you know, who desert who deserves My Mercy desert? That's really that not only is that the wrong question, that is an unintelligible question. Right? who deserves My mercy? Right, right.
32:16 Yeah. And it's, and it's anyone who needs mercy, or it's too, right to show that mercy. And that's really where I think Jesus worked so hard to get the disciples and his earliest followers to really grasp that idea, right of loving God and loving others. What does that look like to to love others?
32:40 And speaking of pandemics, and Christians loving others on one lesson from church history, and we probably have mentioned this before, and yeah, many of you have heard it, and other venues, other places. But one of the, you know, real signal, talking points for Christianity when it was still illegal under the Roman Empire was these plagues, which would come across every, you know, 2030 years. I mean, folks, this kind of stuffs been happening forever. It's just this is just our turn. Right? Right. In many ways, many ways. But Christians would not just take care of their own. They take care of the pagan sick too, because, you know, wealthy Romans and such will just get out of Dodge, right? Oh, yeah. But Christians wouldn't. And that really made an impression on people. these are these are folks that aren't just in it for themselves. Yeah. And very powerful,
33:32 that is powerful, that, that that our witness, right for Jesus is living a life that is others focused, characterised by mercy for all people. Yeah. That, that desire is not like and I think we always try to, it's kind of like mercy, but mercy, mercy, but we got to bring in wrath right, mercy, but judgment, mercy. And I think Jesus saying, Hey, I'll take care of the rest, right? But I want you to go and learn what was meant by desire, mercy, not sacrifice. And, and so I think for me, that's, that's this next phase of the journey this next year. The idea of, of, of doing just that and going and learning what that means, what does that mean, to kind of develop and understand a theology of mercy and, and being able to then show mercy, not to those I deem deserving. But to anyone who is in need and, and starting with mercy, that that it's the it's the mercy or kindness of God right. Paul says this in Romans that leads us to repentance. It's it's that is how God approaches us and how he's asking us to approach others and and kind of this other this Other idea has been kind of running around in my in my head and this comes from Proverbs. And this actually, Proverbs 29. And and I really, since college, I started reading the Proverbs and the message paraphrase, you know, just, it kind of helps, you know, you can think of it and now it's interesting as a theology professor and you know, and being in a church for so long people can get kind of caught up on the translation.
35:29 What is my favorite pet? favorite pet papers? Isn't that an interesting way to put it? Apparently, I have a lot of, wow, I need to have a favor. I need I need someone to have mercy on me. But one of them is is is I mean, I think it's a totally legitimate thing, because I do believe the Scripture is inspired by God. Yeah. to parse the Greek to figure out what it is right, right. But the pet peeve is when preachers will sit there and talk about well, but Jesus meant this when he said this and use this Greek word. That's like, I'm actually Jesus was speaking Aramaic. Right? Right.
36:13 Translated from Aramaic integrates now into English. Right? Right. And, and there is so much and that's what so that's why, you know, like, you know, and I appreciate all kinds of translations that kind of help us get closer to one
36:26 another. And when I'm just using Now, just to see Scripture with fresh, you know, you get as old as you need to have, you need to, um, see here and read Scripture with fresh eyes, ears and whatever else. But I'm actually I'm reading a Native American translation of the gospel, which is, I've been, I've been doing that in my personal devotions. fact, this morning, I was reading Ephesians. And in that version, and it just makes things you know, I'm not I don't think you should, you know, base any doctrine on this particular paraphrase. Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, it really makes scripture come alive again. right for me, right? What if the gospel is like the good road? Right? And what does it mean then to walk the good road with the creator? Yeah. And that's, it makes money. That's great.
37:19 Yeah, I like that. And so that's why Yeah, it's just a message and I feel like Eugene Peterson does a good job of, of getting to, hey, this is what is this is the thought that's being that it's getting across in this. And it's actually proverbs 29, eight. And in the message, it just says this, it says a gang of cynics can upset a whole city, a group of sages can calm everyone down. You know, and it's, it's easy, you know, and I think maybe people like, like, you and me maybe are can be more predisposed to cynicism. Right? occupation. And, and that's just been something that is has really been hitting me that cynicism is not going to help us move forward. No,
38:08 right. It's not gonna make for a happy household either. And two weeks ago, my wife and I do not need to hear that right now. And she was totally right. I wasn't even aware of the fact that I was I just gotten so negative about writing,
38:22 right. And so we need to be careful of that, that if we want to move forward, that cynicism is not going to be the response that helps us now analysis critique, those cannot but those can be done without cynicism. Right. And, and I love that that juxtaposition, right? Or that contrast a gang of cynics versus a group of sages, sages, right? A group of sages got How can we approach all of these topics, all of these experiences? guy with wisdom, with mercy, with with with a calm, mind, a calm heart that says we want to hear? We want to listen, we want to respond not rashly. Right? And we don't just want to, with what we disagree, we don't just want to well write it off, burn it down. But well, how can we engage? right and so so I think for me, maybe the rest of this year, and hopefully this will come out in season three? With the T shirts. That's right with the T shirts. Do we need to wear them in the studio? You know, there'll be a little more social media happening in season three. So yeah, there'll be some photo ops. But the idea of for one I desire mercy, not sacrifice. And well what does it look like to not not fall prey to cynicism, not fall prey to cynicism, but in wisdom, which humility, mercy, grace. Those are all parts of wisdom, right? Like those, even when you think of someone in your life, you're like, wow, that was a wise person. They probably had a gentle, merciful, calming spirit. That's probably true.
40:14 It's, it's interesting, I once heard somebody say that, um, one of the marks of a really grounded, wise person is that you can be talking to them and feel that you have not aged in their presence. I'd love that. Yeah, I want to be that kind of guy. I'm not that kind of guy. But I've always wanted to be that kind of guy. Because wisdom is timeless. And as of course, it would be because our true wisdom is from God.
40:37 Yeah. And so. So I think our invitation for our listeners, for you listeners out there is, as we kind of break, as we break for the summer that maybe engage in these reruns come. And, and the first one will kind of highlighting a professor out of Southern California, Dr. David van drunen. He's going to be highlighting politics after Christendom, you know, what does it look like to engage politically, when the the overarching power structure is not Christian? Right. And so we can look back in history and think of those times in England, things of those times after Constantine, basically, in the Roman Empire, where there was such a fusion of Christianity and political power, right. And we can learn from that and learn maybe, wow, look at these mistakes that were made, how we move forward. And so and we actually recorded that last summer. But we're bringing that back, because, you know, kind of snuck in. And that was one of our first kind of Professor interviews. Yeah. Right. It's kind of interesting to look back at that, and then highlighting the two episodes with jemar tisby. First one on his book, The color of compromise, which is a, which was a history of the American church, and, and in the subtitle he highlights is the complicity of the American church. Right, that, that it oftentimes wasn't even just passive, or in the background, it was the actively since Yeah, actively, you know, enforcing racist ideas. And so we need to, we need to know those stories, we need to confront that, you know, and, and then his his follow up book on how to fight racism, which I think is really helpful, practical, how do we move forwards?
42:34 And one thing I admire about jemar is that he wrote that second book after the first book, right? Because a lot of folks wouldn't have right. And that's Yeah, that's impressive and important. I mean, now, what do we do about it?
42:45 Right? Right. Yeah, I agree. You could have wrote the first book and said, Yep, I'm gonna give up on the church and move on. But it's not let's let's do something about this. And we can write, we have the tools without a church and and we need to hear other voices, so excited for that. And then the fourth one, is actually from a northern California pastor writer named Dan Kimball over in Santa Cruz, of his release, we did this guy, I think, last, you know, last year, of how not to read the Bible. And, and it's so important, you know, because as you as as you bring the Bible into these conversations, it is really easy to miss read it for one to use it to your advantage. And it's also easy for people who haven't read the Bible to pick up on a few things and say, yeah, the Bible's pro slavery, the Bible's this and that, and it's like, well, let's really look at these tough passages. Let's look at this. And let's remind ourselves that for one, what the Bible is and how to approach it. So really excited for that, and then we just encourage you over this next year, wow, how can we how can we develop wisdom, not cynicism? I mean, that's that's just personal. That sounds like something to work on. Yeah. And, and what what's that balance and once that understanding of mercy over sacrifice, and you can kind of understand that again, Eugene Peterson, paraphrases that I desire mercy, not religion. Right, because the sacrifice he's talking about there is, is kind of religious ritual sacrifice, right. And what is mercy? What is showing mercy to someone like Matthew, when Jesus does that?
44:38 Well, James will tell you actually what true religion is.
44:42 Exactly. And James also highlights mercy triumphs over judgment, right. And so it's, it's a consistent theme that I think is important and I and I just love the phrase, and it's actually a kind of typical, maybe rabbinic phrase. That Jesus use, go and learn, don't learn, go and learn. So we would ask that if you go and learn what is meant by I desire mercy, not sacrifice go and learn wisdom over cynicism. Sounds like a good charge. Yeah, we look forward to a good season three. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
45:47 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup. Think
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Jessup President John Jackson and noted social commentator and teacher Ed Stetzer join the show to discuss the state of the Church as we move forward from 2020.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And our guests on the show today are dr. john Jackson, the president of William Jessup University, and Dr. Ed stetzer. Dr. stetzer, is a professor and Dean at Wheaton College, where he also serves as the executive director of the Billy Graham center. We are really excited to have him on the show, and we're going to be looking at the church post 2020, particularly how we move forward. Enjoy the show. JOHN, and Ed, thank you so much for joining us on the show calls you john. Dr. Jackson,
0:41 he does but the doctor thing we can just dispense with it. Don't
0:44 worry, it is in the introduction. Okay. So the introduction has already happened. You don't even know what happened. And it is great to have president of William Jessup University, Dr. JOHN Jack's doctor,
0:57 I told you, your doctor. He's got. He has many leather books and the smells of rich mahogany. don't depend on me though, to deliver your baby or do surgery.
1:05 That's exactly right. airplane, if someone says a doctor on board, yes.
1:09 My daughter's once said, so you're a doctor. But you don't really help people. Like Well, I help people. It was too late, though they were getting moving on. We just jumped on your introduction. Sorry about that, hey,
1:19 it's no problem. It's no problem. It's free flowing. Here it is. I feel I feel the flow. And we're I'm I am just excited to have you on the show to really talk about, I think, a really important topic and one that church leaders across America and across the world are asking right now. And that's how do we move forward? How are we coming out of a crazy year, but but I agree with you and on points that you've made? This isn't an anomaly, right? 2020 is not an anomaly.
1:45 It's anyways, the new normal, I mean, maybe not with the pandemic part. But gives I think, ultimately, that's that's waning. We hope we don't know about the variants. But you know, but that's waning, and we've been through I don't have any of your account, you know, 20 plus pandemics since the beginning of the church. So pandemics and the British sweats isn't around anymore. We're not you know, we're not dealing with you know, the black plague. So pandemics em, but I think the cultural tumult and turbulence that we saw in 2020, if it was just a pandemic, but what just pandemic it was, you know, political division, you gotta remember, you know, and the strength in the, in the course of the pandemic, before the, like, weeks before the pandemic, and in during the pandemic, we had to impeachments. So we don't realize it just I mean, wow. And then we had, you know, racial injustice on display, then we had unrest in the cities. We had. We had economic I mean, that April and May last year. I mean, I don't know about you, but everyone's freaking out budget wise.
2:41 Well, absolutely. And don't you think that Ed, we kind of have this on historical I think a lot of times, we're all theological, but we're also all historical to kind of go like God, yeah. Right. So
2:52 you know, I remember like, when I was at moody church, I just finished up I was finishing up the interim pastor at moody church on Easter is Easter 2020, the rooms empty, right, because everything's shut down. I think everyone was shut down then right? There was like, Yeah, but then at that time, so I think 6% of churches did shut down. We did a survey later. So we're standing up there, cuz there's 3000 3750 empty seats in the heart. And the question was, at the time, were we allowed to go and fell into the film right here, we an essential service, and I actually had a recipe. And so I went down, and we did that. And but then it kind of struck me that 100 years earlier, yeah, the pastor of moody church stood in the same building during the Spanish flu epidemic, or actually was that building went around was a bigger building during the Spanish flu epidemic, and we made it through and and I think part of the reality is, is that this is the greatest global crisis of our lifetime. I think everyone would agree. Yeah. That collectively now individual something like listings that I had cancer last year, that's the greatest, my personal, but globally, there's no question. But, you know, we emerged from these things. And, and I think it's going to be different. I think the church is going to be different. I think there are significant long term ramifications in the church. I think mental health issues are gonna have long term ramifications. I think financial issues are gonna have long term ramifications. And of course, you know, we've lost hundreds of 1000s of people to to do this illness as well. So yeah, there's I mean, this is, but now is the time to start talking about what does the post COVID reality look like? Because we got to be prepared for it. We, of course, we weren't prepared for the pandemic, because how could you be bear for the pandemic, right? But now we got asked, What's the post COVID rally look like? And how do we engage it?
4:26 So I think and mark that, that a lot of what happened in that pandemic is that it was a revealer. And I use that word at the very beginning, it revealed revealed things about church revealed things about family about culture, economics, governments, etc. But I also think it was an accelerator COVID accelerated a number of things. And I think we're seeing Ed did a great presentation today at Jessup and we're seeing the reality of what some people call the rise of the nuns. Yeah. Well, that just means essentially the what I think Ed said earlier, the the end of nominalism we're seeing more and more if you're a committed Christ follower. That's an intentional choice. And for me, Mark, the question of the church post COVID is okay, in light of the fact that our culture is moving in really challenging ways. We've had a pandemic. How does the church respond? I actually think it's an amazing opportunity for evangelism.
5:15 Yeah, no, I think you're right. I would say to just to touch on that there's a fascinating article in The New York Times by Ross Douthat, he's a former evangelical, practicing Catholic, it's called waking up in 2030. And it's the subheading is the suspended time of the bat demick has put history on fast forward. So it gives a right where what you're saying is that all of a sudden, these social issues, these cultural issues, right, so we think we're in a pandemic, and we got economic challenges. And then, you know, we saw the killing of George killing George Floyd, and then people with great awareness of racial issues. But then everything just hit fast forward. And we saw in and around, you know, we're still going through these issues of, you know, what do societies change his mind on same sex marriage? That's now the the majority of the majority of you, it's the vast majority of you. But now it's like, well, what does that mean for schools like, William just Wheaton? or What does that mean? And what does the transgender revolution mean? Right? So all of a sudden, these conversations are and the Equality Act right before us. This is like, suddenly super accelerated. And I think that articles will helpful because what happens is, we would have had 10 years to do to work through these crises, these cultural changes, but we don't there before us. And I think that's part of the cultural turbulence that we're experiencing right now.
6:28 And I think in some ways, great reference both with the article and the thinking, sometimes technology emerges, where the emergence of that technology accelerates past the level of where our social discourse and moral worldview has been developed, I think of Biomedical Ethics. Many, many years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I was in a Catholic hospital on a on a medical ethics committee, they let me just sit in Well, I was way over my head. Yeah. But it was amazing to see how disciplined the Catholic thinkers were about ethics. But they were saying, you know, many of the technologies we have, and this is in the early 1980s, are advanced beyond our ethical frameworks. And I think some of the social pressures, some of the technological realities have actually gotten past where our ethical frameworks are. I think the church is gonna have to grapple with those issues. What do we do when we're in a culture? By the way, do we think it's any worse in our day, then Rome, Corinth yaffa says, Come on. Fair, I know, a greater remind students of that, yeah, yeah,
7:30 we have remarkable freedoms. And I think part of the reality is, is that we have had a home field advantage. This was home field advantage for us. You know, I came to Christ in the charismatic movement of the Episcopal Church. It wasn't shocking, you know, it wasn't I mean, it was like, Okay, I was irreligious, you know, we were grew up nominally Catholic, but then to the world around me, I became religious, but that was generally a good thing. I think now, what we've done is we've lost our home field advantage, we're now maybe that's generally not a good thing that converting towards religion, particularly maybe evangelical religion, could make you angry or mean, or did I forget some of the terms that you used earlier? And I think that part of the reality is, is that still it's not subsequently followed by a beheading? It's right. It's, you know, you can be you can go to work, you drive your truck for ups, you can work as the account and you can work as the banker. But I think the reality is it is getting, I mean, we're gonna have socio cultural pressure in and around some of these issues. And it's just beginning. I think there's more to come.
8:27 So Mark, I completely agree with Ed's assessment. I think right now, just every follower of Jesus in North America is a missionary. And that's a man. That's kind of a shocking worldview. We have had this quote homefield advantage before, we have thought of Gosh, no, America's Christian. And that's always been a debatable and be sort of laughable at one level. This is not a theocracy. This is not a quote, Christian, baptize, sanctified nation, for all the glorious privileges and wonderful things we have here in America. So in light of that, if you're a missionary, how do you think about reaching the culture? How do you think about incarnating the gospel? How do you think about manifesting the love the light of Jesus? How do you be? This is my sort of crux of my life that I struggle with personally and fail miserably all the time. How do I be full of grace? Yeah. and full of truth. Yeah, I don't want any compromise the truth. On the other hand, I'm always been thankful that the passage in john where it says the law came through Moses, but Jesus came full of grace and truth. I've always been grateful with my Baptist heritage full of truth, that the word grace came first, because I think a lot of longtime Christians do have what I would describe as elder brother faith, that that parable of the prodigal that I think a lot of long term Christians, like me, grew up in the church, maybe have an elder brother kind of faith that works righteousness, a legalistic kind of thing. So now the question is, in a missionary context, how do we be full of grace, full of truth? I think that's an opportunity post COVID Mmm,
9:58 yeah. And what's great about That is I think that's what the New Testament writers that was the environment they were in right. There wasn't home field advantage. They were missionaries. And so we can look to the new testament to find that kind of
10:12 playbook. So let's see if this works for you, Mark, do you have this broad theological background that has theological background, as well, and I just think about this. So we're in a context now in North America where the Gospels get to be lived out in the epistles. And that's actually the way the New Testament evolved. Jesus lived. The Gospel writers wrote about it later. But then the epistles emerged from people who had an encounter with the living Christ had an encounter with the resurrected Lord, and or the word and teaching of the apostles. So now you read the epistles, you read Corinthians, you read Ephesians, read Colossians, those were letters to real life churches in real life settings, who were dealing with real life issues, many times huge morality issues. How do we as a church now deal with that? I think the epistles are going to come alive to untrusting
11:00 there's, I can see that I can see the the context of the instruction of these churches that were struggling because I don't think a lot of people are struggling now. And I would say I mean, I you know, I'm not speaking contrary to what you say, I would say, the reality of the gospel of the kingdom as described and preached by Jesus in the gospels, then applied and lived out in cultural context. But man, I tell you, when I when I look at Corinth, you know, I look at the letter versus Second Corinthians sure to sound a lot like where we're living today. And and so I think the the teaching the didactic nature of the epistles, the the, you know, the call to live as strangers and aliens, but faithful on preaching through, just preach through Philippians at Calvary Baptist Church in New York City room serving as the interim. I'm a Baptist to like, like Jesus and all that as you go. Yes. And we got about the same more or less that even before Jesus, that's true. That's true. Thank God for john the baptist shown us the way. There's no john the Lutheran just to point that out. There's boy, john, john, where's john? That's true. We love everybody. I'm here at William Jessup. But I but I do think that the call to living as you know, first Peter talks about, you know, strangers and aliens. And that's just going to resonate to people in 2021. and beyond. Well, I'd
12:16 have to say this coming from California, and my friend Larry Osborne, and I'm sure many others did but but preach to First Corinthians many years ago, and just call it letter to the Californians. Did he really do? And live? If you live in California, you kind of feel like,
12:30 like Garth is pretty much the party. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think part of the reality is, is that I mean, just the whole meal you in which the New Testament was birthed, you know, probably I should I should write not all of it. You know, the gospel. Some of the gospels are written in a, you know, a Jewish, Matthew, for example. But when you get to the epistles, it's a pagan context with a few exceptions. And so that pagan context reflects to us today we do live, we've lost our home field advantage. The mission is now from everywhere and to everywhere, it always was, but now we know it more every Christian is on mission, in their context to show and share the love of Jesus, the complexity of that has changed. I mean, 50 years ago, people weren't asking the same questions they are today. So this requires a deeper discipleship, a deeper engagement. That's why the certificate programs at William Jessup are so important to see what that's good. No, I just leave it I think because one of the things we don't have that right now we in college to go over things I'm asking it we got is, you know, the week has Billy Graham center in particular, how do we equip regular people to because that's, I mean, the theological complexity that everyday people are dealing with today is something you know, I became a believer I started you know, I think I did to seven from the navigator started memorizing Bible verses Aygo. Nobody was asking me some of the questions you're asking me today. It's complex today.
13:46 That's right. And let me just throw something in that it will seem absolutely contrary to the narrative we've been working on all day about, you're just
13:52 excited to be done with this. You're like, I want to go. He's going to go a different way. So whose podcast is as it is? Today, the breath? So is this like a school podcast? It is. It is. Cool. You
14:03 have all kinds of great folks watching and listening. So here's the deal. Yes, right. First Thessalonians. Yeah. Which some scholars argue, I think, or at least they used to that it might have been the earliest thing. Yeah. So if that's the case, I think it's First Thessalonians two says this, make it your ambition, to lead a quiet life. And essentially, have your life be a witness to outsiders. I don't do the quiet life thing. Well, so. Like, how many of us go like no, I want to be a world changing culture changing transformational Christian. Paul says in the earliest letter in make it your ambition, to lead a quiet life and to have your life be a witness to outsiders, but your speeches and Ephesians let your speech be seasoned with grace. Yep. What they're like, Where's the transformational, you know, drive the barbarians from the central, and then you go back to the Old Testament, pray for the city and the prosperity of the city which is called in Jeremiah. What does that mean for us here in America today when we're not on the home field anymore?
14:56 Well, I do think in part, there are different roles for different people. All of us have The role to live a quiet life and, and to you know, just show through our loving deeds and actions, the love of Christ. So that's for me, that's my neighbor. That's a baseline for him. That's the baseline. So for me, that's how I want to engage my neighborhood. That's when I'm engaging my community. So I think all of us would be there as well. I think that for some, we're called to engage in the public sphere. So that's why I'm, you know, I'm on Morning Edition ran VR on USA Today. But even there, I try to, you know, Krishna today, I try to articulate something that calls Christians to live the very thing you're talking about. So earlier on one of your professors here as to, you know, telling question about James Davidson hunter and his idea of in his book to change the world faithful presence. Well, I think that's what you mean. James Davison Hunter is just describing, live a quiet life and love your neighbors. Make a difference. You make the world a better place. Yeah. And so I do think that that's the call we have and that, you know, pray for the welfare of the city, work for the welfare of the city, are and those were to, don't forget that that's in Jeremiah. That's, that's the Lord speaking. By the way. It says yes, says Lord of hosts. But that's right, given to written to the Lord's word to the exiles in Babylon. Now, I mean, again, if California is Corinth, then certainly the West is Babylon. Yes. And so what could we do is we work for the wall for the city. So So what so in Sacramento, right or in Rocklin, where we are in Chicago, where I am, one of the things that most Christians can and should be engaged in is showing and sharing the love of Jesus to their neighborhood. Amen. And a subset of them will be politicians, and some of them will be doctors. And some of those will be cultural commentators that those all matter. But all of us need to join Jesus on mission moving to the neighborhood, joins us on mission and show and cheers, love there.
16:42 That's so good. I think that's rich. And Mark, I want to take over too much more. But he says, think about Joseph, Daniel, Nehemiah, Esther, those are wonderful examples of being worshipers of Yahweh worshippers followers of God and being present in positions of responsibility in pagan atmospheres. And so that's our world today. And so again, we're all historical sometimes. Come on, let's let's be a church that engages in the public square, figures out how to deal with people who don't have our worldview, and say, How do I interact with love, Grace, compassion, kindness, be full of grace, full of truth? Love it.
17:19 That is really listening all day? Yeah. Which is great. What's his podcast called? Is it called Jessup? Think Jessup think? Oh, very cool. So that's very good to Joe Jessup. The President is thinking right here. Thank you trying to keep up with the company in this room. There's a lot of a lot of New Testament scholarship over here. I'm not a New Testament scholar. So you could fix all that New Testament.
17:38 No, it's good. And you recently wrote about the gospel centered church. Gosh, I thought was really interesting. Because here, Jessup we've been kind of running with that language of gospel worldview gospel. So what is a gospel centered church?
17:53 Well, I did a series I think you probably read a five part thing on five, kind of ours of a gospel centered church revitalization. So I think ultimately, when we talk about gospel centrality, a lot of you know, sometimes that's code word for reformed, you know, hang around the, the gospel coalition, which really is the reformed relish. That's true. And and it was meant to be it was meant to be foundational. They had no choice. Yeah, choice today. Exactly. But I'm pumped. So but when I'm talking about gospel centrality, I'm talking about how the gospel in our understanding of the gospel is not just the ticket to entry to the Christian life. Yeah, it's not just the ticket to enter heaven. But ultimately, it's a shaping reality of the Christian life is that you know, that I'm, I hear the words of Jesus as the Father has sent me Even so send a you I joined Jesus on his mission, that gospel mission that shapes me the recognition that I have, not in my own, but through Christ be life in him. But then also I live out the implications of that gospel. You know, the gospel is not something you do the gospel is something Jesus did, right. But I live out the implications of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. So for me, I love when people talk about, you know, you got to be careful, you don't want to just slap gospel on the front of everything. You know, people did that with missional for years, and I saw one person say, missional t shirts, I'm like, What the heck. So but what I would say is, I think ultimately, what we need is a deeper engagement of the gospel, the gospel, the power of Christ understood that the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the living in the power of that new life in Christ. And I would say there are contrast to that, you know, there's verses of Christianity that are cultural diversity, Christianity that are more shaped by a cable news than they are by the gospel. There are verses of Christianity that are more shaped by could be nationalism, as well, there are expressions of that. So that gospel central I think it's good language I like to use around here
19:46 and I tell you that I personally have grappled, some people adjusted but notice I've grappled because words like biblical Yeah, words like Kingdom mean a lot to me, given the context and journey I've been on but I finally have a seated, not that they need to say Let's, let's place the gospel with centrality. let's describe what we mean by the gospel. And then let's make sure that we're making very specific reference to the kingdom. Very specific reference to Scripture. Because again, if the gospel is a watered down word, it gets watered down or gets reinterpreted. It can end up losing time. You know, Grace has lost its meaning. Oh my gosh, yes,
20:22 but I do love. I mean, I love the rot that emphasizes the kingdom too. I mean, we are Kingdom citizens. You know, to be fair, you know, Eton's thing is for Christ and King. Yes. But ironically, you know, that's a theological phrase that came from post millennialism. Yes. So it's not it's not even something that we would use the same way it works today. Yeah. But it meant something different. When we came up with that slogan,
20:40 when I was a young student at Fuller, I had not come across George elden, lad. Oh, yeah. Now, and when I did, and for some of the listeners that go like what you know, that's an ancient manuscript, but for me, it was a life giving and raised in a Baptist context and thinking about church and getting people saved and going to heaven. And then recognizing No, there's actually the kingdom of God. And it's now and we live in manifests, by the way, live and manifest the gospel under the rule and reign to the power of the Holy Spirit in our present age. And by the way, I think that I think every tribe brings a gift to the nation that is the body of Christ. And so you mentioned reform, I just want to honor a lot of our reformed thinkers have been clear, and and precise, theologically, and that's a gift to the body of Christ. I think a lot of our charismatic Pentecostal friends have been more than they are many inside have been absolutely focused on life in the spirit of that the power of transformation. That's a gift to the body. Again, full of grace full of truth. Oh, come on the word full of spirit. It's the miracle of and
21:40 and you guys here and now I'm now I'm doing what he did. So you guys here are introduced word interdenominational describing Yes, and so so you have cuz I know Wheaton is the same way. But Wheaton historically, has felt more like Presbyterian ish and stuff like that. Now, ironically, now, it's a lot of Anglicans and charismatics. And you know, and I'm the lone Baptist I think in the whole place, who's, who's gonna somebody has to keep everybody accountable. And he's got to exactly exactly inviting them back through the waters of baptism. So So how do you like even on hiring and things that's or do you build like a diverse evangelical team that holds these it got charismatic, she got reformed, we got Baptist,
22:15 I think we've done so I've been so pleased. We talked about the language. We're a nation, not a tribe. So we're a nation with many tribes. And I think both in our faculty and certainly our student body, we have about 50 denominational tribes present a lot of people these days nondenominational, but not 50 different tribes. And then on any given semester, this is fascinating to me over 500 churches, we ask every student, where did you come from our students represent over 500 churches on any given semester. Now some of them have a home church, where they came from then they have their church in the local community. But I just think that's a great representation of the body of Christ. Love it.
22:50 I love it. I think I think as we move forward, of course, there are a couple of challenges because neither your school or my school, our church base, right, it actually helps us if we're a church, because that can easily step confessional standards. So we all may do what some people are doing, we may end up being a church, that's fine create, there's a kind of a way you do that legally to make that work. But yeah, but the but the other thing because it gives us confessional identity. But I think as we look to the future, two things First, the rise of nondenominational evangelicalism. That's the largest group now. So what you are what we are, is now the largest group of Southern Baptists used to be now they're the second largest. And I think that's only going to continue. But at the same time, I would say in nondenominational evangelicalism, it's kind of a drift, it's kind of unsure what it believes, unsure where it's going, and some institutions are going to have to help it more itself more in a, you know, institutions naturally, naturally drift, and particularly academic.
23:42 Every study suggests this sort of automatically drift to the left. I think it's a little bit structural here at Jessup. I've really appreciated our School of Theology leadership, just really trying to help us say, what does it mean to be gospel centered? What is the nature of the gospel? And then I think without this, I hope my reformed friends will not be upset without a 20 page theological statement. Westlands can have 20 page precision, precision, and I appreciate that. My sense is that where we are emerging with reading some, we have cessationists on campus, and we have continuation so we have all kinds of people on different theological spectrums, but I think we're going to get that common core to get enough clarity, so that we say yes, that's the essential core, and I'll freak some people out here, but I think if you go back to the Nicene Creed, and just at least start there and go, Okay, now, what do we mean by that? And what does that mean the modern, no kingdom of god there? I know. I know. It's,
24:40 it's kind of like even since the Luzon statement, yes. A lot was on the issues of sexuality. We don't have to deal with it on those things. Right. So so the Nicene Creed, the apostles creed, they're all also products of their time. Yes, when they weren't dealing with somebody we're dealing with, but I do love that broad. Mirror evangelicalism is sometimes what we say mirror evangelists Are you like this because of my Baptist background, your Baptist background we
25:02 want to be confessional not creedal. Okay. Yeah, fair enough. So, you know, there are many amazing confessions in Baptist history, New Hampshire, London, etc. And those confessions, were ways to articulate this is what we feel drawn together as a movement about. And so we want to find a way to be confessional without being creedal, where you're sort of saying, if you're not, if you can't ascribe to the blood, you're out. Right.
25:22 Right. And that's, I think that's historically more of a Baptist, traditional, second linen, second Baptist Church. So first church, I started, again, not strong in the kingdom, but again, it's they're all products of their day. But But I love that. And I think ultimately, that if of angelical ism is theologically adrift, or at least parts of it are theological, adrift, I do think that we're going to have to say and remind one another, do what the writer of Hebrews says, provoke one another love and good deeds, when it comes to doctrine as well. You know, we just saw a major Christian school faculty overwhelmingly vote, to actually say that the position of the denomination, which is an excellent, well articulated, biblical position, is is you know, this is their object to it. They they they lost confidence. So fundamentally,
26:05 we're talking about history that that faculty of that particular school voted 70% that 2000 years of church history is wrong. And horrifyingly wrong. Yep. That is horrifying to me. Yeah, no, I
26:16 agree. And, and so so here, but here, and so we see it in institutions, and I think institutions do naturally drift left. And everyone should think that if you, I mean, Harvard, you know, we just go to all the schools, right? So we know that to be the case. But it may be more so because of their institutional factors in academia. But so it is true. I mean, drive through the cities of America's major cities, and you'll find church after church that once preached the gospel, that once was gospel centered, and today has kind of abandoned both its view of Scripture, its view of the diversionary power of the gospel 100 other things as well, so So I do think that because what happens is we get a bad rap people like you, me who say we got a stand for certain things. All three of us not leaving you out. Sorry, sorry, Hey, hello there,
26:58 but we get a bad rap. Because people but when you don't stand for something, you drift for something. And I think ultimately, that's the distinction between the two. I can't quote mark, but there's a Chesterton statement, it goes something like this, the problem when people begin to drift is not that they don't believe something, it's that they'll believe anything. That's good. And I think I guess not exact quote, but I think that's kind of the place we're in. We're in such an experiential era. We're in such a relativistic era. We're in such a Post truth era, that a lot of folks even within the church, have no clarity about what it means to say the Lordship of Christ. Yeah. JOHN 14, six is offensive. When Jesus says on the way, the truth and alive, no one comes to the Father, but by me that's offensive to the modern ears. And I would suggest to you even to the modern churched.
27:44 Actually, we did a study a few years ago, by the way, when he quoted john 14, six and kind of spelled it out there that was for my benefit. You know, what? I suggested professor who knows what I know. But one of the we did a study a few years ago have regular of angelical church attendees, and half of them 49%. When asked to kind of give an answer to whether or not people who have basically we gave them a universalistic or a pluralistic answer, half of them said that, well, I'll say that again. regularizing attendees of evangelical churches, half of them actually indicated that they hold a universalistic or pluralistic view of salvation.
28:23 If so, if you're a pastor listening to this, if you're a church that you're listening to this you just need to forget everything else. Anybody said, folks, oh, it's stunning.
28:29 It's tough. So basically, you got you have people in a bed jellicle churches or Universalists? Yeah, and, and and we sort of knew that because they sort of fun gift. Because if they really believe that Jesus died on the cross for us and in our place, and he was the only way to heaven, we would live and act differently. That's an that's why my passion of my life is evangelism is showing and sharing the love of Jesus. And I know you your pastoral ministry, and now here, even Jessica, one of the distinctions, even in this community, California is much more secular than many contexts. It's also a rich environment to reach people for Jesus. It is and by the way, some of the leading churches United States are here in California, nothing that's accidental, some of the major movements of God, Jesus people movement, Azusa Street, etc, Charismatic Renewal movement all launched in California.
29:12 I think that's not an accident of history. I think that's the contrast the divide between California is sort of innate secularism. You look at the Gold Rush days, all of that. And then you think about the spiritual movements that have been birthed in California if you're a California and you're Christian. In my mind, you got an amazing missional opera school. I love it.
29:28 Yeah. Well, thank you for schooling me. I knew I was just gonna get the ball rolling. Yeah, you're worried about getting this talk.
29:36 So I literally host a radio show. So I'm about ready to say Hey, everyone, welcome back. So yeah,
29:41 it's all good. Now with john on the weather.
29:45 It's always nice. The weather like always as nice as it is right now. Absolutely never rains in California. It's always perfect temperature.
29:50 117 No. Never. But now as we kind of maybe are landing the plane a little bit. I would love it. To kind of hear from both of you on things that you're seeing around the country around the world that gives you hope for the future, or for the church moving forward,
30:10 I would say students like yours and mine, we see the students and, and, you know, they're, they're paying a price to come here, you know, they're there. They're, in many ways choosing a Christian college university, because they, you're not every one of them, but many of them because I want to be shaped by a Christian worldview. And I love I love that fact. I would also say to i, just a few minutes ago, I was I was meeting with my publisher intervarsity. I'm publishing a book on the future of evangelicalism. And to be honest, I'm literally two years late on delivering the manuscript, but it's been really hard to. So they asked me, so do you have hope? I mean, what's the hope? And I said, Yeah, I do. I mean, you mentioned earlier, john, the future of the church is tied up in African American, Latino and Asian church. That's stronger than you said it. But I have super hope in what I see. In the Latino congregations and Africans. I think we're gonna learn a lot from African American churches and more. So African congregations. I'm super hopeful about church planting, it's still God using church planning, all over the context. And for me, and then you just jump in and have whatever you have for sure. But for me, I would also say that I'm hopeful that the last few years has been sobering to Christians at multiple levels. And part of it's sobering, that we have some real we're have legal challenges coming our direction, right? We have cultural challenge already come our direction. We have challenges inside of angelical ism in the last few years has revealed I've written widely on people debate about people get, but I would say that there's a lot of stuff we got to both fix. But there's a lot of opportunity that we got to be on mission.
31:39 Yeah. So I'm gonna go after this. I'll start with a negative, but I'm going to redeem it quickly. He didn't say that's true. So I think that COVID has revealed that the American Evangelical Church is horrifyingly deficient in discipleship Oh, come on, baby. I agree. And I believe that every American church of all sizes, shapes and etc, will grapple with what it means to develop fully devoted followers of Jesus developed disciples of Jesus, every church going to be a discipleship Training Center, and then I'm going to shock you what I see happening, partly because of our students, just like Ed said, in terms of passions, a church who's not involved in the local educational experience, the K 12 education, I think is going to become a form of irrelevant So researchers will be involved in education. Number two churches be involved in vocation. I first learned this from my African American friends, you would never go to an a dominant African American church, without them knowing about the school down the street, and knowing about who's employed who's not employed, the vocational realities. Yeah, a lot of Anglo dominant churches. We don't have a clue what's happening with the church right down the street, nor do we have a grip on what's happening vocationally. So I think education vocation, third one I'm gonna shock you with, I really believe that this pandemic is going to send floods of Christians into the healthcare world. Oh, interesting. And I think that's gonna be an amazing fantasy. Quite frankly, one of the visions that I have is I think that in here in our community in Northern California, if we had 100, community health clinics open up on church campuses staffed by licensed people from those churches, we would radically shift the provision of health care, instead of churches being away from the system and complaining about the system. I'd rather we marched right into,
33:15 you know, that's a black church thing, ideas versus a very common things. When I was I preached for James Meeks. Yes. Oh, they got the whole team.
33:25 There to me, they're in carne. That's why I have so much hope in the in the black church, the Latino church and the Asian church. Second Great Awakening, I felt preached to 10,000 people and started churches, but then he also started schools, right hospitals, orphanages, why do we have any dissonance between the work of evangelism which I'm 100% for, yeah, and the work of manifesting the love care, compassionate region,
33:48 I am ready for the altar call that's up past the offering plate anymore. So that's true. Let's rip that up.
33:57 No, that's perfect. And I think that is where the church needs to get reengaged which the church used to be Yeah, involved in all of those and in establishing hospitals and other church event hospitals. So for sure, right. And so, so in many ways, maybe this is the church moving back to where we were back to the future. Yeah, well, cool car
34:18 well used to be I do. But you know, what I did earlier in the seminar I did earlier, which he didn't give me enough time. So I didn't get to the end of it, is actually I gotta bring you back. That's well, fair enough. I would love to come back. There are three kind of historic examples. You know, one of them was cyprian. And cyprian was the the Bishop of Carthage, Carthage, Carthage. And you know, the Christians have been persecuted intermittently at the very moment. They weren't, but they certainly were harassed. And so then the plague of cyprian comes through, which is unfortunately, it's called the plague of cyprian. It wasn't his fault. He just described it. Yeah. And he brings the Christians into the town square and says, we're going to care for people. We're going to care for others who those who persecuted us, those who arrest us. We're going to use our own money and resources to do that. And over and over again. And we see this and the kind of the thing I'd love to get to that I didn't get to today was Julian the apostate. So now that's an emperor named Julian the apostate his mother didn't call him Julian. History calls him that because he you know, Christianity we know about, you know, Constantine and well, they go back and forth and there are some Emperor's are Christian, some are a pagan. So Julian wants to back it up and go back to paganism. So he's really upset at the Christians and he writes, and he says this in the letter he says, Those in pious Galileans. That's what he called them, because they didn't have piety because they didn't worship the gods. They were atheists. It's strange, but these in pious galleons, they care not only for their own sick and dead, but for all is all ours, also welcoming them into their yabe. And I think ultimately, that's going to be key. Now. It's not the only thing. I think we're gonna have to advocate for issues and culture. I think we're gonna have to build institutions like William Jessup and more. But I think ultimately, I want to be known as an pious Galilean, who cared for those around us and showed us the love of Jesus. See how they love one another. Amen.
35:59 Come on. Amen. Well, that's great. Thank you guys so much.
36:04 Again, Jessup just saying Okay, yeah, just think thing we just think could still use same in the same vein, yes, for something else. But next time you're out, you can be back on one day, if I can be welcomed back into California. I'm going to come because my daughter's interested in the school so we got to come at some point and have a visit where she can check out the school and more the great work folks are doing here at William Jessup. It's just been neat to see. Thanks for having on the program.
36:28 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
36:54 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Rex and Mark discuss the false self in regards to the spiritual life and identity. Relying on the wisdom of Merton and Nouwen, they unpack how we construct a false self and how to discover our true identity in Christ.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And on the show today, Rex, we're going to talk about the false self and the true self, which is probably actually a good topic because I worked really hard and bringing my false self in here.
0:14 Yes, we're gonna do I was hoping to interview your false self today. And that way we can hopefully get to the true self Okay, behind there the truth self that finds its identity in God,
0:26 the issue is, I don't know what voices is it is really connected to the false self or the true self actually, well, what
0:31 we're gonna discover that today, and and our hope for this episode is for pre listeners, that you can start to grasp these concepts as a concept in the spiritual life. And how we so easily build a life around a false self, that finds identity wrapped up in in everything society says you should be and Mrs. identity in Christ, and who we really are and who we've been called to be. So we hope you enjoy the show and get a lot out of it.
1:12 All right, Rex, we're, we're definitely are we talking to the real Rex or the false? You
1:17 know, I'm already confused. Actually. I'm hoping that by the end of this podcast, through, you know, either just self talk or perhaps seeing right to lead from you to figure out what's what's up
1:30 basically a counseling session. Okay, so so listeners, you're, you're invited into this counseling session, but we want to Dr. Mark, and we want to talk about this concepts within the spiritual life of the false self and the true self. What does that language come from Mark? And that language, really, for me kind of comes from two riders that we've talked a lot about on the show, Thomas Merton and Henry now, the language itself has a background in psychoanalysis, right, or psychology. And that's really I think, where Merton and now in our are not stealing, but maybe borrowing the terms are they're definitely re directing them. It's kind of interesting in the 60s, which both Merton and now and would have been writing heavily in the 60s, in the 60s in psychoanalysis, false self and true self. There's kind of this movement by a professor and a psychologist named Winnicott that our our false self was the self that that placated to everyone else around them like placated to our parents placated to teachers, whatever expectation Yeah, and just people we want the right honor form to those. And our true self was that kind of an unrestrained self, the self that wanted to scream when it wanted to. So
2:55 the wild man would be my true self and right, complacent Rex
2:58 would be my wanting to fight when I wanted to bite, you know, one two punch. And so it's kind of interesting, that it's it put this position on your true self is that selfie? You know, society has been telling you to, to contain
3:14 it historically. I mean, you can actually look at that philosophically, because right, I think a lot of the philosophically speaking, the whole romantic movement was sort of like that, like, you know, Rousseau and the noble savage and civilization has corrupted us. So really, right, you know, and then that sort of find yourself wild man movement, which actually impacted even some churches to where Oh, yeah, really, we all have to go out and put more paint on our faces, and do all sorts of politically incorrect things in order to, right somehow connect with that with, interestingly enough, I would say connect with someone else's expectation of a false,
3:53 right. Yeah, someone else's vision of Riot should be exactly. And yeah, and that's what was they're saying. So I think Merton and now when took that, took that terminology, and said, Well, that doesn't seem to solve any problems either. Like, and there's no question that there's maybe some truth, right. We have to, you know, we kind of hide ourselves in order to maybe placate you know, if we didn't think so rowdy would be having this pod. Right. Yeah. And but, but I think we're Winnicott missed it right. And coming from a completely secular position, is the idea that the idea that we find our true self is this unrestrained self, but it's completely outside of the realm of God, or identity in God. And it's still kind of this vision of what someone else right maybe a vision of what Winnicott thinks you should be exactly
4:54 and yeah, and disconnected from what I would call Under the real world, but honestly, you know if I'm so wrapped up in my false self perhaps I'm so you know, in the matrix that I don't even recognize what is real anymore. Right. So but you know, that's a that's a psychological and philosophical cul de sac there. So
5:17 yeah. And that's maybe one of them too is that with with Winnicott, it would be hard to know, what is your false self and true self? Right? If you don't have a concept of the imago dei, yeah, where you go with and just as unrestrained, unrestrained, selfish, that being your true self, it's like, well, if we all live like that, society would be
5:40 better, I guess, in some way, from an evolutionary standpoint, if, you know, that could sort of make if one was into that some sort of sense because, yeah, no, we, if what we call culture and society is no sort of a construct anyway. That just helps us to survive. Yeah, but those are artificial sort of things that help us survive. And so the real self re, what he was saying the wild man, yeah,
6:08 but it doesn't seem that the opposite is that if we were just all selfish and acted on our impulses, then it would be better said it would be like, yeah, it'd be like Viking period. Right?
6:20 Do you think that this is somewhat what john Dominic Crossan was kind of talking about when he wrote his book on the historical Jesus and Jesus as sort of a wandering cynic in Palestine, you know, because the cynics were sort of the anti social, anti cultural anti constraint. Yeah, you know, yeah, I'm working against all the, you know, mores of society. And I, you know, honestly, I guess you could look at Jesus if one wanted to see right as that cross and definitely definitely does. But yeah, in I guess, in his estimation, and I have to admit it, even though I have that book on my shelf, and I have actually heard him speak once. It's a long book, and I haven't actually read the thing. So my assumption is, though, in some sense, that would be a good thing about Jesus, I guess in his estimation, yeah. Sort of as you know,
7:15 one there's there is a positive in what Winnicott was saying in the sense of and this is kind of what Merton and now and we're gonna say is we do need to question our the society and who society is wanting us to be right so that so there's a little bit of truth to that I definitely think cynicism right but if it's just radical cynicism right or unrestrained that all of us living for ourselves doesn't you know, and that's where we're Merton is able to change this and say that it's not just this you need to find this true wild self, but rather recognize your false self as a fabricated self as a fabricated self that is actually driven by social compulsions. And and when we have to live up to social compulsions on on at what is definitions of success? What is definitions of maybe even masculinity, definitions of femininity,
8:26 and this has implications often negative to actually your spiritual life. I right. Know what he's talking about. And we probably be sharing some stories about that in this podcast. Right. Right. And, and, you know, we know that our stories are not unique. Mm hmm.
8:41 Exactly. And the, the, the idea, I think of the false self being this fabricated self again, it's this, I often think of it as this external facing self, it's the self that we, we want others to think we are or face to the world. Yeah. And, and then we in many ways, it's disconnected from finding our identity in God. Finding our identity away from what and notice in the church this can happen the church can put can put you know, compulsions on Sir, we think we just Okay, let's put up the facade. And everyone can see us on Sunday and be like, hey, they're doing great because they're here, they're smiling. And we know, hey, check that box off, and everyone thinks it's good. And, and so we're able to hide behind this and I have this. It's actually a quote a little bit longer quote. I'm working on my side podcast, which is going to be me reading Henry now and books. Okay. It's going to be storytime with me now and
9:48 hopefully modulating not to put us to sleep.
9:50 Right, exactly. That's right. This is from Nouwen's the way of the heart. And he's actually talking about Merton and Merton's view. of the false self, okay? And he says this he says, Why do we children of the light so easily become conspirators with the darkness? The answer is quite simple our identity our sense of self is at stake. secularity is a way of being dependent on responses of our society. The secular or false self is the self which is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says by social compulsions compulsive is indeed the best adjective for the false self, it points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation, which I think is a good description of the false self. And I mean, it's really a great description of anytime we struggle with finding identity, right? It's never satiated, ever. No, ever, right? It is. I need constant affirmation, right? Yeah. And so for ongoing and increasing affirmation, who am I, I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated or despised, when we can even find our false identity in the fact that we are hated by others, right? That we are disliked by others. Whether I am a pianist, businessman or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world. And then these are some great Wednesdays he hits home and he's writing this. He published this in the early 80s 1981. He says, Well, if being busy is a good thing, that I must be busy. I would say that's still true for our culture today. being busy like you never, you never go up to someone and say, Hey, you know, what are you been up to lately? And they're just like, absolutely nothing. Just been laying around. We'd be like, What is wrong with this person? Right? Like, we're in and even like, when some Yeah, when someone comes over to your house, you're like, Oh, yeah, I was just doing stuff. It was I was definitely wasn't sitting on the couch.
11:58 It's interesting. When you see people do that, you know, you you understand that they're just it's like they just suddenly started getting interested in something or you know, something. Yeah, it's pretty bright.
12:07 But being I mean, it's and think when we meet people and I love that now when is often going to bring this into a ministry context. But you know, at ministers conference, sometimes people we lead often with all man so busy doing this, doing this doing this, and it's like, because that's something our culture, that's even something our Christian culture value.
12:30 I talked about that and Christian perspective, actually, and, you know, I don't have unlimited stories. So I hope I haven't given before in the couple years, we've been doing this, but yeah, you know, an acceptable question to ask at any sort of social gathering or party or anything that you're at at that you are around a lot of people you don't know, but you feel that you need to somehow, you know, be sociable. Yeah, yeah. Small Talk. You just have to write Yeah. And so, you know, unacceptable question, eventually. And it usually happens often, it's not the very first question, but it's within the first couple is is what do you do? Yeah. You know, what you don't ask is probably the most important question and that would be Who are you but if I went up to somebody, you know, and said, Tell me who are you they would be like calling the police Yeah, maybe like I'm not talking that guy. And the interesting thing is what's actually the most important question but of course I'm socialized into never asking that right and I wouldn't I you know, I'd call the police on myself if I was doing
13:34 and and we make often make value judgments of people based on that certainly. Oh, I do this. Oh, wow. Well, we post she has we both have been in the ministry and you know, the hall we know how to go well, we know you know, especially when we meet people outside of church. I know how to kill the conversation. What do you do? I'm a pastor. Oh, wow. Oh, great, you know, and then immediately leave and it's awesome. Um, but yeah, so we have what do you do and we're gonna get to that, because that finding, finding our identity and what I do is something that the false self is very drawn to. So, being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. Wow. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts, the compulsion manifests, manifests itself in lurking fear of failing and a steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same more work, more money more friends. And then he gives us two things from from now on is going to give them to us that I hadn't really thought of and then they just keep coming coming up in my life and coming up in my understanding of, of enemies of the spiritual life. He says these very compulsions are at the basis of the two main Enemies of the spiritual life, anger and greed. And, and it's this idea of when he goes on to say when my sense of self depends on what others say of me. Anger is a quite natural reaction to a critical word. Right?
15:19 And you can always tell, you know, what's what's important in your false self. And this has happened to me a lot. And it's only been, I mean, I've kind of vaguely been aware of it for. It's only been recently in the past couple years that I've really noticed it and tried to do something, you know, about it, or let God basically heal that part of me. Right. But you know, it's, it's what, what just makes you angry? Yeah. You know, in interactions with people, what makes you angry, what what in what they do is a threat to you somehow that would cause this sort of anger response. And it's almost always a threat to a self that's constructed. That's really not you. But you know, and of course, the insidious thing about all of this is most of us are experts at doing this. And we've been doing it so long that it feels like us, right? Even if it isn't, it feels like us. And so we play to what we think is us. And you know, and we actually don't like the US that we're playing too often. And so we'll invest in all the things that are, you know, going to want to deal with that right, without actually dealing with the root issue that that that was never us in the first place.
16:29 Yeah. And Merton said, I mean, that we are, we are very susceptible to illusions, especially illusions that we hold dear. The illusions we hold dear. Yeah. And dare mess with that. Right. And, and, and I've just been really thinking about from from now. And his idea that the two main enemies of the spiritual life, anger and greed and other places, now in writing, he says, anger and lust, and so he really, he really brings lust and greed in that same getting is helpful. Because often, you know, in the Christian world, when we think of lust, we only think of sexual lust. But really, lust is is so much more than that. It's this, it is this greed for more. And, and, and particularly I like how now in attaches both of those to identity. So if a if a critical word, if I find my identity and what others say about me, and someone has a critical word. Oh, I get angry, if someone questions what I just did, right, or questions, did you do that correctly? And of course, this
17:41 happens at the end of every semester, Mark, because we have to read student evaluations. Right. Right. Yeah, I have actually, this is, you know, I have been, you know, I mean, I'll read. I mean, not that this happens all the time, but occasionally happens, that I'll read a bunch of positive student responses. Right, right. And there'll be one negative one, that actually you even know, makes no sense. I mean, how could these even be in the same class, honestly, right. Right. But but it's the negative one that just I mean, it'll it'll almost put me into a spin out in depression, and I'll obsess over that negative thing. Yeah. Like, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't get everybody. Right. You know, but that's interesting, though. So my performance, I guess, yeah, you know, couldn't get everybody in this like, so really, that's what I, you know, got into teaching for? Yeah. I've actually learned that if I'm planning a trip, like in the summer, summer vacation, yeah. And the trips, like, you know, in May or something like that. I will not read my student evaluations. And we made a mistake. A few years ago, when I went to Europe. And you know, it was one of the things that we've been planning for a while and yada, yada. And I made the mistake of reading student evaluations. Right. Before we I know, it was like on the airplane. Well, no, but right before and it was just like, you know, and then, interestingly enough, saw obsessing about this. And I mean, I had a wonderful time, but it could have been a better time. Right? I hadn't obsessed about this. Yeah. But then I reread them when I came back and was like, honestly, you know, this wasn't that bad. And I don't know why I put my so I don't even you know, since I know I'm gonna misinterpret everything. I'll leave those misinterpretations until I get back. Yeah.
19:25 Yeah. But we I mean, in it. And in terms of the spiritual life, I mean, again, it's this identity. We we even when we say in the church, we kind of know the churchy word or the phrase, I find my identity in Christ. Right? We know that. But when when we get angry or depressed or something because of a critical word that should cause us to say, oh, why am I anger and now Oh, and this is where discernment comes in. And this is where it is like, God help me see this right. Right friend. They can help, you know, can gently help is like, Oh, I'm angry because that's actually because I find my identity in everyone thinking I'm the best of this or I'm perfect or, or even just competent, you know anything, right? And if someone has a critical word, this, and now I'm not angry because I've built up this false self and I have to protect it. Right? Right. And right, and then greed. So now and this is something that now in is known for, to talking about identity and false identity. He has three things that we often and they really do kind of sum up where we find our false identity. I, I am what I can do. Right? I am what I have. Right? And I am what others say about me, or think about me, the trifecta. Yeah. And, and I actually use that in the freshmen intro class. Every fall semester, been teaching for almost a decade now. And every time every semester I teach it, I'm like, oh, man, and I tell this, it's like, this doesn't get easier when you get older. You may be hoping, and it doesn't, and sometimes
21:14 you don't even I mean, because the identity, the false self that you've constructed somehow, you feel is a positive thing and a good thing, because there's a lot about our false selves that we love, and we actually feel are noble. And maybe they are actually they're just, you know, for the wrong reason, right. And then when, when that's taken away for some reason, then you kind of don't know why you suddenly feel rudderless. Yeah. And I, we were talking about that a little bit before the podcast, I realized that happened. When my boys finally left home, my two sons, you know, finally both of them in college and then out of college and living their own lives. And I had a pretty much a non relationship with my father, and almost everything that was relational was negative. And so my parenting style was everything that my father did, I would do the exact opposite. Right. And so I had I had, you know, I guess constructed this ideal dad, of course, this right, talk to my son. That'd be the next episode. Right. But but yet I, you know, I thought I'm a pretty good father. And I'm doing I'm doing a right. Yeah, yeah. And you know, whether that's true or not. But then when they left home, I just, you know, my wife actually had to really get on me about that, because I just felt lost and rudderless. And I didn't know why. Because I still had a job that I loved. I still had a home, there was no breakup in the family, there's no, you know, I mean, you know, I thought I already dealt with my midlife crisis by growing my hair long for a little bit. I didn't want to do the other things, because I can't afford it. And I have morals. Right, you know, but at least I could do that. And then, you know, the hair doesn't look the same when you're five in gray weight. And it did. You know, so I quickly nixed that. I have some embarrassing pictures. Oh, yeah. That we might have to but but Instagram, I felt lost. And and it's actually my wife that pointed out to me. So I was so invested in in being the great dad and doing everything right, that that when actually everything almost went right. I mean, you know, it's like, failure to launch is failure to launch. Right. Successful launches are launches. Yeah, exactly. But that also means that suddenly that you're right. I was I was I was sort of lost. And I didn't know why. And, of course, I, you know, took it out on the wrong people, right on myself and my wife and cetera. And I didn't even know why I was doing that. I was feeling that. And she pointed it out. And as with much that my wife points out about me, I immediately recognized that actually, that was true. Right? And that surprised me, because I hadn't I had actually not thought about that.
24:14 Yeah. Yeah. And when I think that story is, brings up a good point that things we can find our false identity and aren't necessarily bad, right? Like, that's a great thing, to be a father and to and to want to be a good father
24:31 and to be a good good pastor. And you're bringing bring people to Jesus and as you're using you and things were, you know, yeah, but yet it's,
24:39 yeah, yet, if that is if the function alone is where you find the identity when things change, because they're going to change, because, yeah, the goal was that they would grow up and move out. Right, right. He would actually be unhealthy. Exactly, not and you maintain this good father and they're in They're 50s and they haven't moved and you're making their lunches every day and right like that would that would be unhealthy. And so that change element and I think that is the the danger, especially if finding identity and what you do, right? When that maybe as we age to that is what happens when it's like, Oh, I can't do the same things I could do 20 years ago, and we have this kind of identity crisis. That's why people get lost when they retire. Right. Right. And, and, and again, it's, it's reaffirming, that we have a deeper, truer self, right? That has an identity that is unchanging, right. And, and that even though these, these functions or roles may change our identity, and it's actually having a stronger inner true identity, that then allows you to, to be a better father. And
25:59 so, since I'm so wrapped up and I still am, I think because I have several false self that I think I'm still indebted to how what do I What do I do help me here? Yeah, actually, Mark helped me, you know, what, how do I, you know, false self, maybe for good reasons, but still false self? I recognize that and yeah, and I recognize that, you know, a false self is well, ipso facto false. So how, how do I, I know, I know, my true identities. And Jesus, I understand that, you know, and I believe that you pass a test in Sunday school, Brian, but how do I suddenly connect that into my heart in my head?
26:38 Yeah. I mean, we're, we're both now in in Merton go, which I think it's been really helpful for me and Dallas, Willard and others have picked us up is this is where the role of the spiritual disciplines come into play, particularly disciplines that that help you rely less on what others say about you. Right. So now in particularly points out the discipline of solitude, you remove yourself for a period of time from others, in order to just be you and God. And, and, and to be in that moment to where you can't be propped up what others are saying about you. You can't be torn down by what others say about you. But you have to kind of come face to face with God, saying, okay, who am I, beyond all of these things beyond what I do? beyond what I have beyond what others think about me? I think that's what is important, even in this this past, this past Lent. There's a handful of people in our congregation when you talk about giving some hope for land, right? And I would say a handful, gave up social media, which and I'm sure there's kind of two things at play that was maybe happening with social media. One is a anger often comes in, because you see people posting join water, they think and I can't believe they believe that right? And then you kind of have to ask yourself, and I would have to catch with them. Like, why am I angry right now? Like, cuz you're right there. Yeah, exactly. Obviously. So anger, but then also think about what we post on social media. And then we want Yeah, even out there anyway. Yeah, we want, we want this, we want the likes we want. And I think maybe for a period being like, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to remove myself from that. So that I can really talk to God and say, Wow, where am I finding my app?
28:43 So what might be the link between? I mean, I'll, you know, while we're talking about this, all sorts of things are spinning around, I think, yeah, both of us and probably with you all who are listening to this, right, because we all are in the same boat. But what what might some people talk about the curated self Hmm. And, and I would assume that the curated self is always a false self.
29:08 Yeah. Right. It has to be if it wasn't you are not who you are right putting together Yeah. The and I think it's, it's really trying to we need those times of solitude, those times of prayer, those times of silence so that we can talk to God and it has been for me in those moments. When when God helps Turn the light bulb on of like, hey, wow, you're really your anger issue with this person or you're even if the anger doesn't have to be outward explosive is right. It can be inward turmoil. The while that's really because you're, you're scared of them thinking you're not as good as you think you are. Fill in the blank.
30:00 Yeah, yeah. And because you're afraid somehow, yeah. Because you're so indebted to the false self that you actually are that.
30:08 Right. Right. And without that, and what's funny is sometimes our false self is reinforced in a positive way, right? You know, I mean, like, because maybe as a kid, you know, as I was the youngest of four, and so I was able to kind of observe my siblings, older siblings rebel, and I was able to see them get in, you know, fights with my parents. And so it was easier for me to just be like, oh, hide any of that. And then my parents were like, Oh, yeah, marks the good was the golden boy. And, and I was able to, and and then that's affirmed. And then which is good, right? I mean, like, it's everything is good that there's, there's, you know, affirmation, like, hey, you're not being openly rebellious. But then that causes me maybe to then stuff my rebellion more and just hide it better. I didn't, when I was less rebellious. I just got better at hiding it because I was keeping up this facade, and
31:10 I assume our culture is not going to help us much because, right, honestly, I think almost everything in our culture, at least everything that is trying to sell itself to me is marketing itself to my false self.
31:26 Right. Right. Right. And it's, it's have more of this and you'll be happier, you know, have more of this and people will think you are successful people will say good things about you. Right? And, and this is where bringing in and now and brings in Romans 12. Two, which is a great, a great passage and and we often know it may be an IV or you know, if you grew up memorizing the King James, sometimes I'll slip into the King James, from childhood. After all, Jesus spoke that so he definitely spoke Elizabeth in English, Victorian English, even though the Shakespearean English even though it's probably more of what it was,
32:12 are you are you are you marketing yourself to your false so that we know that you know, arriving different? Oh, yeah, I was impressed. I'm impressed.
32:20 Thank you. I'm trying the Indian IV, right. It's like do not conform to the patterns of this world. And, actually, no one who's a Catholic priest and bow and Merton was a Catholic monk. Now in quotes out of the Jerusalem Bible, which was a kind of mid century kind of Catholic translated the RSV Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it was a little more like, reader friendly.
32:53 Kind of a link, like the Living Bible slash with the RSV for Catholics would be the Jews. Yes.
32:59 Yeah. Right. And, and the translation of it hit me in just a different way. And it says this, do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around you. But let your behavior change, modeled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what is what it is that God wants, and what is the perfect thing to do. I kind of liked that, like, yeah, and often we think of the behavior of the world around us, as you know, we have all you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll. But actually, it's this behavior of propagating the false self right, with success with finding identity in what your ability, finding your identity and what you have, and finding your identity and what others say about you like that. That is the message you get, whether overtly or kind of subversively, in, in culture, maybe both within and outside of the church. And this idea of not changed a renewed mind. Don't model yourself after that behavior. But model yourself after this, this new mind, which is a new mind that that understands. Well, I don't have to impress anybody. Right. I don't have to
34:23 because the career reverse already. You know, you. You're his favorite, Mark. Yeah. And, you know, thank you. So is everyone else. Right? Which actually what I think about that sometimes it's like, That's not fair. Yeah, you're like, the favorite. I mean, I'm okay if if a few other people are that way, but not this person. Understand that at all. But yeah, they are.
34:47 And I think part of it within within the spiritual life is to continue to remind ourselves, wow, God, God sees us. Beyond all of those things, right. God loves us completely. We, and and God is calling us to see others the way he sees them. Right? We even have to retrain our mind not to look at people based on and make any judgment based on what they do, what they have, what we hear others saying about them,
35:18 you know, oftentimes when you're growing up, people would would use, you know, God sees you as sort of a negative sort of thing to keep you in line. You've got the clipboard, but honestly, you know, when God sees you, he sees your real self. That's, that's, that's not a, you know, that's actually a good thing. Right? Right. Even if it's terrifying, it's a good thing, because he sees who you really are. And yeah,
35:45 yeah. And it's in maybe for too long, when you when you do get wrapped up in building up this false self, it does become, does become difficult to even recognize that right? And, and that is where being in a Christian community, and having people close to you, that can reaffirm to you like, Hey, no, I, I love you, sweetie, regardless of any of those things, right. And, and, and have friends and have spouses that can say, hey, maybe, maybe you're, you're feeling this way, because you found identity in this role. And now the role has changed, right. And, and, and it's helpful to be reminded of that, and, and we so desperately need these times with God, that we are separated from anything else, that we can hear from God, and that we can hear we are loved, right? Because that's now ends, like conclusion is, is that your true identity is that you are the beloved of God, you are the beloved. And, and, and starting there. And now that actually frees me to, to respond to others with compassion, right with empathy, because I don't have to prop up the false self. Now what happens is, it still creeps back up, right? And, and in a secular setting, and in the church, right? And addict at a Christian university, it's so easy for us to, to know what other Christian university exactly this ever happens, it will adjust, it's easy to know, oh, these are the markers that people are looking for. And I just present that right. And while we need to, but it is it is a rare thing that we sometimes like, with our true selves, it can be a little overwhelming. And if someone comes up to you, and it just presents, you know, their true self, you know, you're going like, Whoa, we just met, we're, we're because you realize, Wow, we have just gone to another level in the relationship. And so it is important to be in community and to you know, you don't have to, you know, take everyone to the deepest part of who you are in every conversation. But it's but it's important to recognize, what am I constructing, you know, identity on? Yeah,
38:18 I heard, I don't know who wrote this, and maybe some of our listeners will recognize the quote, but, um, someone talked about, you know, people that are so just filled with integrity. And so in tune with as much as you can be in tune with your true selves, that when you have a conversation with them, you feel that actually you haven't aged any. And I actually loved, like, the time that you know, that you spent with them, actually, you know, was was total Kairos time and non Kronos time now, you know, I don't see how you can possibly do that if you're just operating out of your false self. And I want to be that guy. Yeah, I'm not that guy. But I want to be that guy, where people actually feel that, you know, something timeless has happened. And I'm talking with him, I feel I have an age. nobody's asking me anything. He's not selling anything.
39:11 Right. You know? Yeah. And it's that, you know, and what's interesting is, I think within our culture, there's this cry for authenticity. And that's really what that cries for, too. You know, and it's funny like we how we started, you know, we've tried to answer that by well, being authentic is just whatever your impulse is, and just acting on it. It's like well, we can we can look from the 60s till now practice to see what happened with that. Yeah, it didn't didn't pan out, like, like when it caught thought they would pan out. And so we know that that's like we understand to for us, being in this biblical storyline, we understand that we are in a broken world, right. So our impulses our rights are our misguide. are going to be broken. Even if they feel natural on any of these other things that have, you know, adjectives that are placed upon them, we have to realize, well, we can't just trust them, right? I can't, and we can't build our identity on those either. Again, it's this relationship with God, and understanding that he loves us, in that giving us that solid foundation, and that integrity, to then be able to relate to others. And I don't have to get mad if they make a critical word of me because I'm solid. And I don't have to be greedy for more when I see that they have good things, right? Because I'm okay. Yeah. And but it's because I'm finding, you know, and I'm saying all those things as I want to do that, right. Not that I wish those things, right. These are aspirational.
40:55 Yeah. But you know, we should aspire to them. Because actually, when we are aspiring to that, I really feel that we are aspiring to our, our true selves. And our false selves. Yeah. Right. The reason why we want to be that even if we don't know exactly what that that is, because we've been so alienated from the that for so long, because of our constructions of our false self. The reason we would even, like, you know, think that that would be a good thing is because it is a good thing. And it's a good thing, because we were created by our Creator to be that.
41:27 Yeah. And that seems to be where more posts headed in this idea of new creation. Right? Right. That that is the new creation is is that getting rid of that false self? Right and, and being acquainted reacquainted with our true self? And so we hope, you know, over over the course of this episode, you know, maybe you even brought up like, wow, yeah, maybe? Maybe a good way to approach it is, oh, how? How do I find my identity? Do I find my identity and what I do? Maybe it is a role that I play, father, mother, my occupation? Maybe it's my enneagram number, I don't know. Could be anything really good? What I have my possessions and we, I mean, there are culture that is that's, that's based on that right? And then especially what others say about me, right?
42:27 And you know, the Christian faith is always countercultural in some ways. Yeah. Always. Yeah. And this is an example of that.
42:34 Right? And we're called to be that and called to find our true selves, in how God sees us in His love. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
43:11 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Dr. Jack Levison from Perkins School of Theology explores the Holy Spirit in the Gospels from his new book An Unconventional God: The Spirit According to Jesus.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And today on the show, we're excited to have another amazing author. It's been great being able to get connected to of the scholars and authors. We have jack Levison, who is the WSJ, a power professor of Old Testament interpretation and biblical Hebrew, have Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University
0:27 in Dallas, Texas, and we'll see what kind of accent he has once he
0:30 Yeah, exactly. And his scholarship has focused on the Holy Spirit's both Old Testament references, Pauline pneumatology, and his current book is an unconventional God, the spirit, according to Jesus gonna look at the Spirit through the lens of the four Gospels. And it's a really amazing book and kind of a powerful view of the spirit in the gospels, and how it's connected to the Old Testament. Yeah, this promises to be a really, really good conversation.
1:09 We'd love to kind of hear a little bit more of for our listeners hear a little bit more your backstory jack of how, how you kind of got to where you are now and maybe even got into writing about the Holy Spirit and kind of your scholarship with the Holy Spirit.
1:27 So I'm 64. That'll take the whole time. The abbreviated version, how long it takes you you never asked an academic for the abbreviated version. That's true. That's true. Okay, so
1:42 I grew up on Long Island in the Christian churches in the restoration movement. And I at 12, I was baptized and at 15, I felt I was at church camp, this little plywood camp up in the Catskills, and I really felt called to Christian ministry. So I went up. And I was really trying to decide on where to go to college and ended up the looking my sister had gotten an application to Wheaton College in the days when you had paper applications. And she didn't fill it out. So I did. So I simply print out this crumpled old application and send it off to Wheaton. And during my first year, at Wheaton, I had a Greek teacher called Jerry Hawthorne. And he walked into the class the very first day, and put his briefcase on the desk. And then he just without saying a word wrote on the board, a bunch of Greek. And he said, Who knows what this means, since it was Greek one, none of us knew what it meant. And he, he said, Oh, this is Philippians 413. Who knows what this means. And of course, since it was Wheaton College, every other student's hand went up, they all for 13. I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And he said, Is that true? Can you pass a chemistry exam through Christ who strengthens you? It's not true. And then he began to tell us I like the today's English version, I can I have strength for anything through the one who gives me power. And he started talking about different ways of translating the Bible translation equivalent versus word for word. And I think I had a Wesleyan experience. Yeah, having my heart strangely worn in the fourth, third or fourth floor of Blanchard Hall on the Wheaton College campus. And then Jerry took me under his wing and I became his teaching assistant. I taught a course or two for him when he was doing something else. And then I went off to Cambridge, and then to Duke for my PhD, where I met an absolutely wonderful young woman called Priscilla Pope. There's a whole story with that one. And then Jerry, actually, for two summers, I taught his Wheaton College summer classes in Greek. So basically, I really trace my deep love of being a professor to my freshman year, the first day of my Greek class, but then it developed and I ended up marrying a woman who was it sort of changed my restoration background as a Methodist minister. And then the rest is history as they say,
4:27 what what moved you towards Hebrew then since you're, you know, basically Old Testament guy,
4:32 yeah, it's a little crazy thing. When I went to Duke for my PhD, I wanted to do the background, the Jewish but it was the big days with WD Davies. There was a lot going on in the Jewish background in the New Testament. And so I wanted to write a PhD dissertation on the background of the figure of Adam in Paul in Romans, the Adam in Christ contract. And when I started looking at the Jewish literature, it's just in the early days, where the pseudepigrapha collection of Jewish slit was coming out. And my adviser Let me read dot matrix copies the manuscript as it was coming out. So it was literally folded over my house. He's like a dress because people your listeners probably won't know. But dot matrix was the paper was perforated and it just write miles. Yes. And so what happened is I could not I never got out of the Jewish material very much. I just, I loved it so much that I stayed in it, which meant I was a misfit. I could teach Old Testament or I teach New Testament. So my first job in Kansas City was New Testament. And then I believe I moved to Old Testament at northpark. And then when I went to Duke, they didn't know what to do with me. So they called me to Biblical interpretation. Yeah. And then in 2001, I moved to Seattle Pacific University, and they said, What do you want to be? And I said, you know, I've been mostly Old Testament and biblical, I want to be New Testament. And then this chair came up at Perkins here at SMU, and it was it was decidedly Hebrew Bible Old Testament. So basically, because I started in this world of Judaism, I could flip either backwards or forwards. And with my work on the Holy Spirit, it's meant flipping backwards and for Right, right, right. So that's why I'm really I'm Old Testament here, but I was New Testament for 15 years, because I just, I just don't fit.
6:30 Okay, okay. Well, he does. However, he fights for your latest book, though. So
6:36 yeah, I mean, I got I got both that I got an Old Testament book in February and a New Testament book and whenever it was September, October, right, both probably terrible. So
6:46 who cares, right? Hey, that's not true. I think both are really good. And was really this newest one, an unconventional guide. So you're looking at the Holy Spirit through the lens of the Gospels. Yeah, the lens of Jesus. And I was really captured by that. The title is what I first came across, and seeing it maybe as a follow up to a boundless God. I would love for you to unpack maybe that a little like, what would the meaning behind unconventional?
7:17 So I was teaching a course for Perkins down in Houston, we have a hybrid program down in Houston. And I got the picture of the cover they were going to give me and the cover had a big stained glass dove underneath with standing a semi pregnant Mary. So I called them and I said, Oh, no, no, I swore there were two things I never wanted on the cover of a book was a skinny ascetic looking saint. Don't say it on my book, and don't put it up. This lovely kind of see a dark kind of see, because I think, here's what lies behind that. When you think about the Holy Spirit, if I'm here for a minute church asking people what they think about the Holy Spirit, they'll say, comfort or, or they'll think, spiritual gifts, like hearing speaking in tongues, prophecy, or the fruits of the Spirit, joy, peace, patience, that kind of thing. And so you we tend to put a very gentle edge or very dove like edge on the right, right, because we begin with Paul's letters, sometimes the book of Acts, but when you refract an understanding of the Holy Spirit, through the life of Jesus, which was a life driven toward the cross, during toward martyrdom, and he knew that his disciples would be driven to martyrdom. He doesn't give us a candy coated view of the Holy Spirit gives us a really unconventional view of the Holy Spirit by associating it with scorpions and snakes, by its association with the wilderness by saying when your back is to the wall and you're being flogged in the synagogues, don't worry, the Holy Spirit will give you a word to say, this is unconventional over against what we think of as the very gentle kind, peaceable spirit that floats gently like a dove into our hearts. Right. That's why unconvicted, I answer your question. Yeah, yeah. You didn't. Yeah, very different view of the Holy Spirit from normal.
9:22 Right. We have to get this question out of the way right away for so yeah, look like George Clooney. They were thinking that's what they were thinking. Actually, no, it's funny. There's a book that I've been assigning for years. So my students and it's Anyway, there's this history professor basically from college as one of the protagonists in the books and so I always thought the guy actually looks like the guy on the cover because they had like stock history professor, you know, kind of dumpy Tweedy has a beard. Sort of sort of looks like me, I guess. And then I actually was checking on his website and like, he looks like a movie star. It was just like, Oh my gosh, it doesn't look like it. But anyway, I grew up Baptist. And so um, you know, I'm always afraid, you know, several times a day that I'm going to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. And and so I'm wondering if you can help me out a little bit to make sure that I, that I that I don't do that because we're all terrified of actually committing that unpardonable sin? Wow. Be facetious.
10:40 That is really the hardest question you could possibly ask me. And I will say, if anybody's listening the book, unconventional God has a chapter on blasphemy, which took me a very long time not to research only, but to write because that's a difficult passage. So, you know, the blasphemy statement is there or not? Is there but they struggled with it, right? Because in Mark's gospel, it's associated with Jesus being called crazy by his family. So his craziness and blasphemy are associated Matthew separates those two. Luke puts blasphemy in a completely different context. So if Matthew and Luke see blasphemy as something that Jesus opponents do, right, you all can blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. in Luke's Gospel, it's something that the followers of Jesus do because Luke takes the blasphemy statement, and juxtaposes it hooks it up, ties it at the hip, to the statement about witness. So clearly, the gospel writers really struggled with what this meant, so much so that they each give it a different interpretation. And Luke's is entirely different from Matthew and Mark. I, Jerry Hawthorne, the professor I talked to said, blasphemy he I remember his definition, all these years later, blasphemy is attributing to Satan, what some what God does. So that's that was Jerry's definition of blasphemy, mine would probably be a little more nuanced, in the sense that, and again, it differs depending upon Mark, Matthew or Luke. So if I could get my head just sort of the center point for a podcast. What I think Jesus is saying, is that no, I'm not crazy. But what I do is done by the Spirit. And when I exercise a demon, you cannot attribute that to Satan, because a house divided against itself will not stand. So blasphemy isn't about just everyday life, and it's the unpardonable sin. I think that's comes from Hebrews. And I don't think you can necessarily say Hebrews is about blasphemy. But boy, I'm really wandering around here at five, eight, my brain going blank trying to make sense of this. But it's in the context of exorcism that Jesus talks about blasphemy. One thing I found writing in unconventional God is, when you have the Holy Spirit there, Satan is not far behind. It's amazing. If you look at references to the Spirit, in much of the gospel, they're Satan's. There's references to evil and Satan. And that's why. So in Luke, where it says, If asked, and shall begin to seek and you shall find, knock, and the door shall be open to you, if you ask, God's not going to give you a scorpion, instead of an egg, or God's not going to give you a snake, instead of a What was it? I can't remember. But you can ask for the Holy Spirit. And I think why would God why I've never thought I would receive a scorpion or a snake when I asked for the Holy Spirit. That is only people deep in prayer. Only people deep into the Holy Spirit know how much kind of overlap there can be between the life of the spirit and the life of the evil spirit of Satan. So I think what's going on with blasphemy is Jesus is talking about a very deep level and saying, look, I can do these exorcisms. Because of the Holy Spirit, though it may look like I'm doing them because of an evil spirit. Okay, so there's depth there. The question might have been sort of semi facetious, but I think Josh and I answered, No, no, no, no, no, the answer was very helpful. The answer was, yeah, I've had people write to me about that I had someone write to me. Like, I have blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. And it took me forever to write a response to someone I did not know thinking this could be a mental crisis, right used to be really dangerous.
15:23 Think of kirkegaard father, it's kind of sitting there sort of, you know, with his angry fist towards heaven in that kind of, you know, marking the family and his son forever. Whenever I think of that, but I'm here, but I'm, this discussions been helpful
15:36 for me. Well, it really is so complicated. And each gospel writer clearly grappled. I mean, when I see Luke do something totally different from Mark, I know that even Luke didn't know what to do with it a few decades later. How could I possibly know what to do with it, but I tried to make as clear a statement as it could good, clearer than in this.
15:58 One, it seems like when we approach that we, and especially maybe Rex within the Baptist background, too, we get hung up on the unpardonable part, right. Like if it was if it was just a normal sin, and we could get forgiven for it, we would be like, hey, that's fine. We don't need to know. But when you attach the unpardonable Miss to it, we were like i'd How do I know if I did that? You know, if we don't even know how to clearly describe it. And again, I think we're maybe too caught up on the unpardonable part. And, and like you were saying, jack, focusing on really what the writers were wrestling with, and, and looking at it through the lens of try, like that idea of attributing something to Satan, that is the spirit, right? Like you're, you're not giving the spirit, its credit, or the credit do and not understanding the source. But, again, I think we get then caught up on the unpardonable part, and we don't want our heaven card revoked. So where we get we get kind of nervous about that.
17:04 Yeah, you know, Hebrews is a tough book to build any sort of theology on, I did write, I wrote a long academic article, finally, on the Spirit, Holy Spirit, and Hebrews or something. And I can't remember what I said about that. But that is a very tough book, to understand the role of the Holy Spirit. And and I think I've done a good job of it. But it's very difficult. I think, what we need to remember the blaspheming, the Holy Spirit, principally is about Jesus, in Matthew and Mark, the scary one is Luke, where it's, if you're testifying to me, the spirit is there. But if you deny your testimony, then, you know, is the one that makes it so hard. Because he said he associated with Christian testimony rather than their Jesus opponents. So I don't feel like that was the clearest thing in the world. But it's, it's, it's, I wish I could recount what I wrote about it. It'll work in the cell phone,
18:07 with with kind of comparing unconventional God to a boundless scan. What are some maybe key features of the spirit in in the gospels, maybe compared to autism? I know you do a really good job of showing the Old Testament connection and Ruth that that same current that you know, that Jesus has said in the New Testament, but are there some key features that kind of set apart how the spirit is, is spoken of, or portrayed in the gospels, maybe compared to the Old Testament, or connected to the Old Testament?
18:41 Yeah, that's a really good question. I think the first thing I would say is, there is a certain ambiguity with respect to the spirit. So if you read most books on the spirit, they'll they'll sort of slice and dice. So you have here the spirit means human spirit. And here, the spirit means God's Spirit. And here, the spirit needs wind. And here, the spirit means breath. And they sort of lay them out on a table. And they have four different piles, and of the 800 or so references that are in our Bible to either the Hebrew root, or the the New Testament piuma over those 800 references, you put them in piles. What I what I saw more is what lies between those piles, and the overlap, I see much more overlap in the Old Testament between, let's say, the Divine Spirit and the human spirit. And in fact, I wouldn't even use that category. And I think you see that a little bit in the New Testament as well. So that in the story of the Annunciation and the virgin birth, where you know, what is in you is of the Holy Spirit in Matthew's Gospel right at Christmas time at Advent. But an actual fact I'm not sure what that the Holy Spirit is what makes Mary pregnant or Mary's Holy Spirit allows her to be pregnant. You see, there's overlap more like a Venn diagram. So I think one of the things I found, as I wrote is that I'm more intrigued by the the places between the piles, spirit with a capital S, small s. Breath, and when I think there's more overlap, that is there. So that's the first thing I would say. I would say, secondly, it's very traditional for Christians to say, in this in the Old Testament, the spirit comes intermittently. Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah, yeah. And in the New Testament permanently, well, all you have to do is read the Old Testament. No, that's not true. You know, the spirit of Daniel, the spirit of Joseph, the spirit in the artisans, men and women who constructed the priestly garments in the tabernacle. All of those people, there's every indication they had spirit, even from birth. So I think this notion where Christians try to say they're better than the Jews, you know, the Old Testament is interpreting the New Testament is permanent, not when you read the Old Testament, is that true? That's false. So that's the second thing. So the overlap between the definitions would be one thing. The second is I think there is a permanence in the old that's also there in the new, I think there is salvation associated with the Holy Spirit in the old, just as there is salvation in the new. In fact, I think I think Christians may be reading wrong texts like x two on Pentecost, because they're often reading that as the spirit coming for the first time. Right? Right. Right. Jesus doesn't say that Jesus calls it the promise of the Father. And of course, what's really happening at Pentecost is they're being empowered to be witnesses. They're not being saved. In Acts two, they're being empowered to testify, which is what they do they proclaim the mighty acts of God in other languages. So I think there is a connection, in terms of sort of salvation and liberation, this is all going on on a continuum between Old and New Testament. And then I'll give you a fourth one. So we have between the piles. And then we have it's not just intermittent in the old, and it does have to do with salvation in the old and there's a spectrum continuation. Also there. I think the most maybe the most important passage for understanding the New Testament is Isaiah 63, which most Christians have probably never even gotten that far. I mean, I wouldn't normally, but it's a really beautiful passage where the exodus is attributed to the spirit even it's called the Holy Spirit. And I think that lies behind a lot of Paul's language in Romans eight about the spirit. I think it lies behind the temptation scene. And I think it lies behind the blasphemy passages. So I think, Isaiah 63, I hope people go home and read it, Isaiah 63, chapter, verses seven to 14, lots of references to the spirit in the context of the Exodus, I think that becomes pivotal for understanding the New Testament. So those are some connections, I think I might have been a little too granular and new or maybe didn't step back, but I hope so.
23:32 No, that was good. And I and I, I really found it intriguing how you made that connection with the lamere and Isaiah 63, especially to Jesus testing in the wilderness, the same, the same kind of way of Jesus being led out and and being prepared by the Spirit. And so I thought that was a really interesting connection to to a part of Isaiah that Yeah, I'm not too many people maybe make it that. That deep, and
24:03 we liberals make it Isaiah 61, you know, me to bring good news to the poor. So get that far, but Who's 6263? Who needs it? But I think that's pivotal. So Tom, right? You know how Tom Wright talks about how, where Israel failed, Jesus succeeds, where Adam failed, Jesus succeeds. So I think there is a very strong Exodus substratum to the New Testament. What Tom hadn't done, is to connect that specifically to the spirit, the exodus substratum to the spirit, and I do that in Isaiah 63. I think he agrees with me now. Yeah, I think so.
24:46 We can call him up and see we can go on.
24:50 Talk about a talk about an eloquent speaker. Oh my god. Yeah, that's my advisor. He was one of my advisors to Cambridge. He was just down in college and He took a lot of time with me when he didn't need to I was nobody and still nobody, but he took a lot of time to help me learn how to write what's called a garbett, which is a part of the Cambridge exams and stuff. Yeah, he was really quite the mentor.
25:15 None of us would be anywhere near where we if it wasn't for people like that.
25:20 Yeah, right.
25:23 The now you'd mentioned you the one thing you'd promise yourself is never have a dove on the cover of a book. So maybe help us unpack the dove image? Why, why is the dove what is what are the New Testament writers using the gospel writers with his imagery of dove?
25:42 I you know, I was teaching on this Friday, we have a lay of lay education thing mostly lay at Perkins called Perkins summit, and my wife Priscilla is in charge of it. And she was also teaching she has a new book coming out. I came out on evangelism. And we were we taught it separate days. But I was teaching on this precisely the baptism in temptation of Jesus. And every time I say, Why a dove, I think of the old Groucho Marx, right. So why was the why a client? Why not a chicken? Why don't a chicken, chicken? Well, I think there's a lot going on there. And I will try to unpack it fairly briefly. I think the idea of a dove coming down goes right back to Genesis one and the creation, because the word used of the Spirit of God there is hovering. And that is the same verb used in Deuteronomy 32, of the mother Eagle, describing God bringing them out of Egypt. Yeah. So I think that you're supposed to think the dove is about the possibility of new creation with the presence of Jesus. I think you're also supposed to think of Noah and sending out the dove and it comes back and sends it out, comes back, sends it out at it doesn't come back, that there is going to be again, a recreation of chaos. And so when you see that heavens split open to the dove come down. I think there's a sense of recreation and hopefulness that's going on there. Another really important text and I don't want to get too technical on this is a text from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in 1947. And so we know they predate Jesus. These are texts that predate Jesus is called the Messianic apocalypse for Q 521. I think it is, it was founded, it's 521 and K four. But they are there's a description based upon Isaiah 61 of the Messiah, and the hovering of the Spirit. And in that wonderful texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, you have giving sight to the blind, the lame walk and the dead. The dead are raised from the Messiah. And of course, this is what Jesus says to john the baptist when he's in prison and census emissaries, he said, these things are happening, and he mentions raising the dead. So I think the dove that is hovering over Jesus is not unlike the spirit that hovers in the Messianic Apocalypse, where these expectations of what would happen with the Messiah are actually then fulfilled in the person of Jesus. So I think you have their very clear one segment of Judaism and their expectation. So I think what the dove does is heightened expectation whether for a new creation Genesis one or the or the the end of chaos, Genesis eight and the flood now or the Messianic Apocalypse, what Jews in the day of Jesus, some Jews in the day of Jesus believed the Messiah would do when the Spirit hovered over the poor. So I think you have just this expectation going on within the giving of the Spirit.
28:54 One thing that you when that's one reason why I tell my father in law, I can't go dove hunting with him, because I can't I can't I can't shoot the representation of the Holy Spirit that
29:06 were in the townhouse. But we have a dove on the next house over at our son said to me went to dinner. Yeah, yeah, I'm not a hunter. I grew up on Long Island, a BB gun, you could kill your neighbor with you. Right? Yeah, you know,
29:23 the one one thing I think that you highlight really well in the book that that made me thinking it might go back to a little bit of your story and not in not fitting in Old Testament or New Testament. But I think one thing that your study really showed well and reinforces is to really understand the New Testament, you have to understand the Old Testament. I mean, there's so much you know, the imagery and all of this that the gospel writers are using, they're not just creating, they're not just making up and that that deep connection that even Paul has with The Hebrew Scriptures to I mean, bringing bring them forward, I just thought that not necessarily a question but just there was a really good connection and, and maybe a good thing that you don't fit in one in one specialized place, in a sense, I mean specialized in seeing both of them. Because of that connection, I have a good friend who is finishing a PhD and doing some adjunct teaching. And the only kind of opening he could find his his training is on Old Testament, but it was a New Testament survey and describe to him like, hey, actually, yeah, that's perfect, because the students need to hear that from you. Because most often in the church, we don't we just read the New Testament, primarily, we don't know the the Jewish understanding the Jewish scripture understanding, and how much that would unpack for us.
30:55 I think it was Rex, who was talking about the temptation, right. But before I go there, I'm writing these things down to try to remember, one of my heroes is a guy Herrmann, gunkel, who in the 1800s 1888, he wrote a book called The effects of the Holy Spirit. I know float flew in the face of scholarship. And he ended up he was in New Testament, he could never get a job in New Testament because of what he was writing. Now, he may have been an awful person. It sounds like he was a little bit arrogant, as at least in some of his autobiographical statements, but he ended up teaching Old Testament, how about God call and he's known for doing some of the most ingenious Old Testament stuff, but he started in new, and I've always loved the idea of starting in one testament and ending in the other. Let's give an example of this temptation. Right, Rex, I think you were talking about the temptation stories or the baptismal stories. Well, after the baptism after the dove comes into our on to Jesus, and I think Mark, you mentioned this, in Mark's gospel, the Spirit does something extraordinary and expels Jesus into the wilderness. And the Greek word of course, is a caballo. As an exit bolo, as in ballistic missile, throws Jesus out into the wilderness. It's an awful verb. It is the verb used in Genesis chapter three, verse 24, in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, of the expulsion of Adam and Eve. And so I think you're supposed to think of this as Jesus will succeed where, where Adam, and Eve failed. In fact, even the idea of being with the animals in Mark's gospel is evocative of the promise of again, peace with the animals. So in Mark's gospel, clearly the foreground is Genesis three and the expulsion from Eden. And then as you said, Matthew says, The Spirit lead Jesus up into the wilderness. Matthew doesn't see Adam as the background. But Exodus is the background because they always talked about you brought us up out of Egypt, you brought us up. So Matthew sees the temptation as a new Exodus, coming up out of Egypt, Luke changes it again, and says, Let the spirit lead them in the wilderness led led Jesus in the wilderness, that's clearly not the exodus from the Red Sea, but the leading from Sinai to the promised land. So all three temptation scenes can only be understood in the light of a particular background in the Old Testament. And of course, in Matthew and Luke, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy eight, which contains the story of the wilderness. And so if you don't know that you don't know that Jesus is the new Adam, Jesus is the new Moses, Jesus is the new Israel. He's just Jesus, which may be enough. Not enough for me. Right? Right. That's, I think the I think the background is so important. I've always thrilled that I've had to teach both Hebrew and Greek, old and new. Yeah, I've never minded that.
34:16 One seems like with pastoral training to like, if pastors were more steeped in the Old Testament, it would be it would help them unpack and I mean, I say that as a pastor too. And so I always, always tell my students when I'm pointing fingers at the church, I'm pointing that myself, right. But I can know when I approach a New Testament passage, I often don't think, Hey, what is the what is the Old Testament background of this? What is the foundation, but yeah, even those that that unpacks the story of the temptation so much more when you have that connection to, to those kind of three events and things happening in the Old Testament. I mean, it helps us understand that power in it. It's really important for us as Christians to, to not neglect the Old Testament. And and to really understand its its power in interpreting the New Testament.
35:12 And pastorally I think I mean, it's so much more gritty. I mean, the family dynamics, ruinous relationships, whole nations being given, like a mess telling them what's going to happen if they don't change, and then they don't change. And then it happens. I mean, we could learn so much as individuals, as families, as churches and as a nation, from the Old Testament that's just not there in the New Testament. And the New Testament is too easily spiritualized and individualized, if you don't realize that they were writing out of the context of the Old Testament, which is not individualized and spiritualize. But you extract them and and you make it, you make it fit what you want it to be, because it's no longer in that large context.
36:01 Yeah, especially some of maybe the more difficult parts of the new testament to in our, in our church, we're reading the New Testament, 90 days. So we'll finish right before Easter. So these last 10 days is all the book of Revelation. And yeah, reading through that, it's like, man, if you don't know the Old Testament, this is hard enough to make sense, you know, of everything. And yeah, and if you're reading it through an individual lens of trying like to find the direct application to your, to your life now, without context of, of how the author is using the Old Testament and imagery and themes that you I mean, obviously, that book has been misapplied wonderfully throughout history, maybe not quite
36:50 fancifully through fancifully. Yeah, I mean, if you don't know, Daniel, and if you don't know Ezekiel, and even some of the Jewish literature, some of the Enoch literature, right, that was the time of Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls. I don't, it's no wonder they people can screw up revelation so badly if you don't set it in. It's an apocalyptic context. Yeah, no, I agree.
37:15 One of the, one of the final chapters you have, that I really liked was called the spirit and our future, like the spirit, maybe as as we kind of wrap up here, can you can you kind of lead us through that? Like, what is what has been a study of the spirit in the New Testament? Say, say to us in the sense of how is the spirit leading us into our future?
37:40 Well, that's a lovely question. If you look at the Gospels, and that the way they they end, I love how they end read Mark's gospel, I basically say the longer ending the unoriginal ending, it has these five signs, you will drink poison, step on snakes speak in new languages, lay hands, what was the other one was a fifth? They'd say, nonetheless, they're not associated with the Holy Spirit. So I was able to say, you know, you have all these signs that are associated with the Pentecostal movement. Well, certainly, you know, the, the the more passionate Pentecostal movement like Appalachia is in a hollers. Yeah, yeah, salvation, I'd say, a mountain, that kind of thing. That actually in the in the end of Mark's gospel is not associated with the spirit. These are signs but they're not signs of the Spirit. But if you look, then at Matthew's Gospel, Matthew has Father, Son, Holy Spirit, in the context of what teaching, teaching what teaching everything I commanded you. And I think it's really important to remember that though we may want to associate the Holy Spirit with the extraordinary and the spontaneous, and, and the out of body sort of things. Matthew doesn't do that Jesus in Matthew's Gospel says, How do we live a life in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we teach everything. You don't need to be charismatic. You don't need to be creative. You need to be attentive to every last thing Jesus taught, and then you're living in the spirit. So that's Matthew is teaching everything, you'll have to make decisions on what to teach and what not to teach. just memorize it. you memorize the gospel, and then you'll be living in the Father sunspear. Luke, I think is really interesting because Luke talks about the promise of the Father. And then in Acts one, the second volume, he makes them Wait, wait, wait. So I think that the key in Luke's Gospel is the ability to learn to wait, which is a very hard thing a friend of ours who was a former student who's a psychologist said there have been studies of tweeting of texting. And once you send a text, you become anxious until you hear back, right? Your brain actually lights up. Luke's Gospel is saying, if you want to have a Pentecost experience, if you want to be a witness to the world, wait, Jesus says to wait at the end of Luke, in Acts chapter one, he tells them to wait. In Acts chapter one, they go to the upper room, and they wait. So I think receiving the spirit is a matter of learning to wait. So you have on the one hand, Luke's Matthew's Gospel where the spirit is related closely to teaching everything being diligent and attentive to all that Jesus said, in Luke's Gospel, you have the idea of waiting, waiting on the spirit waiting for that sort of like, Mark what your people are doing, reading the Bible into Easter is a process of waiting, so that the Spirit can be full in us. John's Gospel is my favorite, because the disciples are huddled in the upper room. And it says he goes into the room it says Hi. Hello. And then it says it's translated he breeds on them, which I think is absolutely a cowardly translation, the Greek is m fusaro, a combination of n as an entrance, freestyle breathing into, I think what Jesus did was he went up to the disciples, they embrace them any kiss, the kiss the life of the Spirit back into them. And I'm quite certain of that, that the cowardly translation is a nice little committee decision. Yeah. But in fact, Jesus breathed into them the way the same Greek verb in the Old Testament translation of the breathing in of Adam, or Elijah's breathing on the young boy who died, or zekiel breathing into the bones. I think Jesus kissed them back to life. I think there was intimacy and physicality. And that the Commission was sealed with a kiss. So that's part for our future teaching, waiting, kissing the divine if
42:19 that's good, that's really good. But again, thank you so much for joining us on the show. It's been it's been wonderful talking to you. And I don't I don't know if we've laughed this much in a podcast yet. So that's good. I don't fit. It's it's a breath of fresh air or spirit depending
42:43 on Venn diagram. Well, it's been lovely to be with you guys and to visit with you. It's just been wonderful and seeing these beautiful backgrounds behind you an icon and a crucifix. And
42:58 yeah, this is nice. I'm just at home. So thank you for having me. Delighted to come with you.
43:05 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
43:31 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup. Think
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Dr. Dorothy Lee joins show from down under to talk about her new book The Ministry of Women in the New Testament.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And our guest on the show today is the Reverend canon Dorothy Lee. She's the Stewart research professor of New Testament at Trinity College, University of divinity in Melbourne, Australia.
0:19 And actually, this is going to be a first on two fronts for the jest of things podcast because number one is our first international broadcast. And this is the first broadcast where we are actually peering into the future because the voice you are hearing is one day ahead of us right now. Yes,
0:36 kind of kooky. Exactly. She's gonna tell us the future. And Dorothy is an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Melbourne, associated with St. Mary's, North Melbourne, a canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Holy Trinity Cathedral, and a fellow of the Australian Academy of the humanities. her new book is entitled The Ministry of women in the New Testament, reclaiming the biblical vision for church leadership. We really hope you enjoy the show.
1:14 Well, thank you so much for joining us. All the way from Australia. So you are you our first international guest on the podcast. Wow. So let's so it is it is that says award worthy, I think award worthy. You receive it as an award. added to all of your all of your other accolades. But we're really, really excited to to have you on the podcast and to talk about your new book. And but before we kind of get into that, we kind of would love to hear for you to be able to tell our listeners a little bit of your story. How did how did you become the Reverend canon Dorothy Lee?
2:04 I'm not really sure actually. Hang on. I was there and now I'm here. Right? I think I was brought up in a very, very conservative you'd probably say fundamentalist upbringing, in in a form of Presbyterianism called the Free Church. breeze,
2:25 freeze, dried all about that when we were Scotland, we wonder why there were all these searches in a row. And people were telling us about all the little splits in the Church of Scotland.
2:36 side of the egg that you really funny. Yeah, my father was a really was a wonderful man. He and I were very, very close. And, and I don't know, I just developed a love of theology, I think. And he was a scholarly man, and also somewhat more broad minded than his cohort. church because I would only use the King James Version. And he thought it was okay to use the ni vi. So, you know, he was considered a dangerous radical. And, I don't know, I just I felt that I was called into theology and, and then I felt I was called into ministry. So and I talked about it to him, and he's in a church that wouldn't even let women pray or read the Bible. And yet he, you know, totally supported me and my mother was a bit but, but it was great. And at the time, I'm an Anglican Episcopalian, I think you'd probably say and, and I, but at the time, they weren't ordaining women. So I went into the United Church, which was the old union of Presbyterian and Methodist. And I stayed there for a while, but, but I problem to that very hospitable church, but not strong on theology. And also, I regard myself as a conservative in many ways. And that's not how I'm always seeing, but I hear I don't want to be in a church, which never says Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you know, I just felt that that it would become very PC. A little bit too PC for me. Now, that all sounds sounds judgmental, and I feel bad saying that, because I was so good to me, and so hospitable. And so encouraging of women's ministry, but but, you know, there came a point where I really needed to move. So I moved across to the Anglican Church. And that's been more like a home, I mean, a home in every sense of a home, you know, lots of fights.
4:37 But, you know,
4:39 actually one of our colleagues, in fact, she has the office or had the office right next, right next to mine, who left two years ago is actually just a few months ago was ordained an Episcopal priest. So we watched the virtual COVID sort of ordination things, you know, which is kind of sad, but yeah, so I believe The Holy Spirit
5:00 still works even through writing. So yeah, yeah. So. So that's and and also, when I was at university, I studied classics first. And partly because we moved between on that actually Scottish and we move between Scotland and Australia. And we went to Pompeii when I was 12, or 13. And that just had such a huge impact on me. So at school, I did Greek and Latin and, and studied them at uni. So you know, so it all sort of came together somehow ordination, classics, theology, you know, all seem to. So it's not really a very interesting story. Neither one of ours, I'll tell you, I think that the part of it that was most difficult was as a woman to put myself forward and say, Yeah, I believe the Lord is calling me in this way. And, and you're wrestling with demons, they're not just out there. They're in there, as well. And so the Lord's calling you and you're saying, Well, you know, I don't really want to do this, I don't want to get in all feminists fights. And, and of course, in typical fashion, God just ignores all that. They will do it anyway. So that's, that's always been an ongoing struggle, I think, for me and for many women. So I suppose that's part of my motivation in writing the book was to encourage women and encourage men who want to encourage women.
6:31 Okay, well, I have to get this, I have to get this story out, actually, before we get into the book. So I grew up in New Mexico, and sort of fundamentalist Baptist. And we would have, you know, visiting evangelists and visiting preachers. And the most popular ones were the ones that had Australian accents, or a Scottish accent. And so the joke, the joke we always had was that if you were looking for a call to a church, and an Australian accent was worth $5,000 addition on your salary, but if you had a Scottish accent, it was worth 25,000. So you robbed the bank in New Mexico back then. Yeah, except for the fact that is fundamentalist Baptists. And so probably not.
7:17 Unfortunately mentalism. But fundamentalism, right. Yeah. Solid, incidentally, I don't like feminists fundamentalism, either. Anything can be turned into a fundamentalism candidate, you know?
7:33 Yeah, that's right. Can and that's and that's a good distinction. And I think that's a distinction we're we're working through and kind of conservative evangelicalism in the United States. Is, is parsing through what is fundamentalist driven? And yes, and what is evangelical driven? And, and understanding, you know, that we don't have to give away evangelicalism. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And, but but really recognize, like you're saying the danger of of turning anything into a fundamentalism or turning anything into a, a strict legal code, that that is enforced in a certain type of power structure, that that doesn't view maybe equality the same way and, and doesn't maybe view the gospel in the same way?
8:25 And I think that's, you know, in a way, that's what Jesus was on about isn't that really, in many ways, are not the only thing was on about but but it was against that sort of turning something that's good. That is the law, which is life giving into a set of strict rules, whether it's in those in and those out, and it's just, it's a distortion. I think Paul so combated that as well, you know, yeah, so yeah. I mean, now, I like, you know, the Catholics talk about terrorism's and I really like that. Because I think because all that denominations in a way, we have a Catholic catechism to bring. And I'm in a church that has evangelicals and more sort of whatever you call it, the the other end of sort of high church, I'm kind of a foot in both. And, and, and I think, you know, these are terrorism's that, that, you know, so evangelicals bring a terrorism to our church, they bring an emphasis on Jesus, on a personal relationship on the centrality of Scripture. And then I think the Catholic side of the church brings an emphasis on dignified liturgy and the importance of the sacraments understood, right, and, you know, so and you can expand that across the church, you know, to say, yeah, each church has a charism, at least one that it brings to the body of Christ and our role is to experience to embrace that carries, you know, into accepting that actually, right encouraging Yep, yeah,
9:50 definitely. So as you were researching and writing this book, so looking at the Ministry of women in the New Testament, what is is the most surprising thing that you came across? Would you say? Um,
10:10 well, I don't think there was. I mean, it sounds terrible to say that only there was too much in my study of Scripture that surprised me because I had thought about these things for a long time. Right? I'm not saying that I wrote it off the top of my head. There were lots of little surprising. Well, actually, there was what surprised me. Actually, how I was going to answer that in the first place. Let me start with that, because what surprised me was the evidence from the early church for women's leadership. That did surprise me. But But coming back to looking at the New Testament, I wanted a book that could speak across the spectrum, because, you know, evangelical women were coming forward and you know, the Priscilla papers which have been going on for a long time. But you know, people like in Australia, Kevin Giles, I don't know if you're familiar with him wonderful man. He's written on women and supported women. And he comes from a conservative evangelical perspective. And, and then Roman Catholic women at the same time, we're having the same struggle, and looking, to some extent, the same checks. So what was surprising to me was, was just how strong the movement was on both of those in the evangelical, and the Catholic sides, how strong how many women were actually coming out and speaking up, and how many incredibly impressive women there were, I came across quite a number of evangelical women whom not many of whom I've met, but I've kind of feel as if I've know the most I feel as friends now. You know? And, and the same, I think with with with some of the Catholic women, as well. So that was surprising to me. How, and also sorry, if I'm talking too much, just tell me but not at all. 20 years ago, I wrote a book called flesh and glory, which is on my first love, which is part from our Lord is the gospel of john, of course. And, and I'd written a book on it, and I was quite critical of it was a feminist book, I suppose. But it was also very critical of a lot of feminism, because I found very liberal feminism, really disturbing, because I don't actually think scripture is out to get us. And I don't think we need to bring this hermeneutic of suspicion towards the Bible. I think we need to bring it to ourselves. Yes. So don't go Don't go the Mary Daly route, right. Or even Elizabeth Shuster fear, enter, and I have great respect for her. But that's not my way. But what really surprised me was just how diversified feminism had become Christian feminism, feminist Christianity, however you want to put it, and and just what strong. I mean, how wonderful to hear women who actually love the Scriptures speak about it. And to hear women talking about the women in Matthew's genealogy, or the women at the empty tomb or to speaking of them, not as a way of showing how patriarchal it all is, but on the contrary, actually drawing out the life giving gospel from it. So that was, and I think something similar, particularly with the early church, with some of the Catholic women and and including one orthodox woman who might read, just to find that impetus that live given impetus That, to me is of the spirit for the church in different types of church. So that was a delightful surprise.
13:27 That would be an interest of mine to my doctorates in church history. I rarely get to teach it here. I have to teach other stuff, but it's still my first love. And so I'm just wondering, you know, in the pre constantinian church, what what what sort of early extra biblical sources Did you find for women's leadership in that nescent? Christian?
13:48 Well, look, I have to confess, this is not my field. I'm much more comfortable messing around in the New Testament. But, but I read, well, a number of sources, but one of the important ones was a book by Ali could choose if I pronounced her name correctly, an English Roman Catholic, and she talks about not only some of the cakes, and this is not a sort of, let's look at all the apocryphal Gospels and say, they really liked women, whereas the Orthodox didn't. Oh, it was not that sort of attitude, but looking at I mean, even the fact that someone like to tell you and not my favorite one of the church fathers, I might say, I give me Irenaeus IV many days. But, you know, even if the Italians telling women to shut up, and not to mention they're doing it, right, right, so then that that's negative, but also the other thing that Cal alley could choose, points out is the number of depictions of women, as priests as precipitous, as bishops, you know, the, the actual artistic representation in, in, you know, in pictures and in stained glass or not smart stained glass. That's too That's too Early for that, but you know, the different artistic representations of women, really including Mary, you know, the mother of our Lord, depicted as a priest, you know, and, and in fact, actually alika Chu says that one particular depicts, at one point in the Roman Catholic Church in the early 20th century said that it was wrong, you could not depict Mary as a priest, actually, for beddit. So I think that, that tells us a story, doesn't it. So, and then looking at figures like the color, now, I don't know thickly existed, I just hope she did.
15:36 She, because she's, my grandmother was tech. And I, I knew her name is Tecla. And I had no idea who Santa Claus is my Polish grandmother, and I had no idea until just about five years ago, and it's like, oh, she's named after it.
15:57 Well, I mean, I found it interesting reading, I just trying to think of the name of the book and just see if I can see it on the shelf. But it's a link coic it's written on this to a women in the church, the fabulous writer, actually, really one of my heroes. And, and, and looking at women, like the capitation, women have Christian sized women away, you know, and, and just seeing this sort of, so that now I can feel comfortable talking about the fathers and mothers of the church, even if there aren't as many mothers and fathers, their mothers here and have a great love of Christ and a great love of the church and, and show leadership in their own ways within the limitations of their culture. So all of that was just very rich and wonderful for me.
16:48 Let's get in it. And it seems often when we approach the New Testament, that he's now looking back, I feel like we read it through a lens of trying to find the hierarchy or find the order, or there seems to be a stress, especially maybe on a and I do appreciate in your book, how you put complementarian often in quotes. Oh, yeah, that really annoys me. Because I'm afraid. Yeah, yeah. So maybe explain that a little. Why do you put complementarian in?
17:23 Well, because I think a complementarian view says that women and men are different, and that they bring different gifts to the table. Well, hey, you know, I am, I'm happy with that. I mean, I like that. Glad, I'm glad that very, very conservative. Christians are not saying that women are inferior, because they were saying that for a while, because my father was one of them, although he was challenged on that by both his daughters revised his views. Yes, but but I think that the, the notion that men and women are complementarian does not necessarily follow that women can't be leaders, or that they have to obey their husbands in the home. So I think it's a misuse of the word. Because I think now that I know, there's a variety of views on gender. And I, I really tried to avoid all of that. But if it is true that men and women are very different, then that's all the more reason why we want women in leadership. Right, right. Right. That's it for that reason. So, you know, I just think the complementarian I'm really it wasn't trying to be nasty. Yeah. complementarian label is. I just think it's an unfortunate one. Now, I don't know what a better one for them is. But I have to work hard at Christian charity.
18:37 Yeah, well, clearly, I was I thought it was interesting when I was reading and saw that I was like, Oh, that's, that's helpful. Because often when people use the term complementarian, they and they stress equal, but different. The difference is often thought of in a hierarchy, the differences, you can't be a leader,
18:58 it sounds like plessy versus ferguson in this report, to stay separate but equal, right? It doesn't work that way. Right. Right,
19:05 doesn't work that way. And what's really disturbing about it can sometimes go along with that sort of hierarchy within the Trinity. And I think that, you know, we we've sold out Christian orthodoxy, as far as I'm concerned if that's really the end, because, again, going back to the Cabot oceans, you know, they were the ones who absolutely affirmed that an equality of divinity of our Lord within within the Blessed Trinity, and I think we're in big trouble if we have a hierarchy within maternity. Yeah, the whole kind of talking about that, actually, right before that. Yeah.
19:39 Eternal, eternal functional subordination is is it same with me, I'm very difficult grasping that in an orthodox sense, because to put Jesus in an internal submissive state it to highlight that again, not that Jesus didn't submit, right, so father and the Incarnation Yeah, but you're right. But to say then that is ontologically, or essentially part of the Godhead is and and it feels like it's reading into the Trinity, in order you want to see on earth. And so it's like, exciting it does. And I think seeing the Trinity as equal and and life giving, and and that helps us then understand male and female relationship, and I think understand the gala terian ism in that way. Yeah, so yeah, it really does as I think that's really insightful once I think the structure of male and female we start to then look at the structure of the Trinity as well. And that kind of is the whole imago dei and male and female is is part of that in Genesis 126 and 27. I always remind my students that Genesis 126 and 27 comes before Genesis two, I just, you know, I mean, I know it's, it's mathematically it goes forward, but just helping them remember before that before the rib narrative. And again, the rib narrative has so many interpretations and the ones we are brought up with either, right, right, you know, and that kind of highlights I like in the beginning of your book to you talk about interpretation, because really, when you approach anytime you approach scripture, you're approaching it, you know interpretively yet, but I liked how you applied that, especially to this topic, because what's interesting is so many of these passages are interpreted wildly different by by different camps. And so it really does. Having a good interpretive practice and looking at it at the text and trying to get to see what the text is saying, I think is is really important. And we often maybe miss our our own interpretations and how they may be influenced how our recent sexual reading the text and writing
22:12 and the importance to reading in community, you know, it's not just an individualistic sitting by ourselves reading the Bible, I think that's a good thing. But, but at the end of the day, we read it in community in the body of Christ. And and that means, you know, reading it sometimes with people who take very different views. Unfortunately,
22:38 no, that's the issue with conservative evangelicalism in our country, particularly because it has a very underdeveloped ecclesiology. And so you just use really is this soul? You know, growing up in the domination that I did, we would always talk about soul competency. And and, you know, that's a wonderful word, but it almost gets sort of gnostic, you know, it's just me and my interpretation floating out there, you know, and unmoored by anything but me and Jesus, and there's all kinds of dangers. And
23:09 you do, yeah. And you do have to, I mean, I was brought up in a similar attitude, you do have to wonder what texts are actually reading. I mean, when you look at, you know, Paul's letters, you know, right, dressed to communities, often written, I mean, we always forget this, you know, sauce, and he says they do. And there's people walking in and out and saying things, and there's a scribe chipping in his little bit. And, you know, this is, Paul's not an individual writing in isolation is writing to communities and within communities. And that's true. Also, I think of the Gospels, much more community oriented. And I think we're the result of the sort of industrial revolution is our, in the West, our individualism, you know, I have students who are from other cultures who are much closer to the biblical world, and they're much more family and community oriented than our individualistic. So we've ended up so individualistic, but we
24:02 all ask my students, sometimes in a kind of a worldview, philosophy sort, of course, that all the students here at our university have to date before they graduate. And we talk some about what it's like to read the scriptures, through eyes that hit well through a through a mindset and eyes and interpretation that hasn't gone through the enlightenment. And folks, well, wait a minute, Tim poorly. Everybody has, but actually, it's a two thirds world, most people haven't gone through that the way we think of it. Yeah. Is there anything we can you know, I mean, the answer is pretty obvious to me. But is there anything we can actually, you know, learn from these folks? Absolutely.
24:40 And we can learn a lot about a shaman on on our culture, too, isn't it? I mean, there's so right about the biblical worldview, right makes that makes that make sense that they can offer us I think, yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:54 When you're looking at the Gospels, and drawing out how does the Gospels kind of apply approach because obviously there really is when I was reading it seems there's a difference in how the Gospels maybe present women in ministry, and how Paul even talks about that, how when you were reading the Gospels how what stood out to you maybe about how the Gospels approached the Ministry of women?
25:20 Um, I think, I mean, I take the view and I know, there are a number of feminists who don't agree with if I take the view that the gospels are very positive about women, as disciples. And as and how I mean, it, what struck me is how, you know, hollywood hasn't helped us here. But you know, the picture of Jesus with the 12, you know, they're all walking along, on a range, Jesus is in front by himself. They're all what straggling along behind all 12. You know, and so that is not the gospel picture of Jesus. And at 1770, then there's a much bigger crowd there. And, of course, who's often accused of being a bit anti women and I think unfairly. And here, I think I've been influenced by Craig Keener, who's, I think, a wonderful exegete with an absolutely phenomenal mind. But I think that, Luke, actually deliberately, namesakes women in chapter eight, you know, so we're in absolutely no doubt on who's on the journey to Jerusalem, and Natalie's it till after the passion, but then it's such a powerful statement about the Galilean women. And if you don't, if you follow through and look at, you find those Galilean women, they're there at the empty tomb, then we have the road to a madness. And incidentally, I think that is definitely to men, I can't see how that second person is a woman though, some people have argued that the women are there. Thereafter, they're at Pentecost. I mean, they're, you know, but we're actually visually, iconically, we walk them out, or we ignore them. So I want to bring, I think, mattawan, I wanted to do is to is to just point a finger at some of these texts and say, Look, look, then there we are, you know, we were there. Yeah. And sometimes we actually did better than men. Not always, okay, let's not push that. in trouble, but, but there were occasions where we actually succeeded for various reasons, were the men, some of the men actually failed. So, you know, there's, it's something really important, I think about all that. So. So I think, I mean, I've never thought Paul was on the side, just Incidentally, I've never have and, and studying, going through the book and reading, you know, perhaps some of the early writings of Paul and you know, Galatians, three, and, and not just that the women he worked with Romans 16 is so important, right, women who had every respect for an apostle, Jr, a deacon Phoebe, you know, who carried the letter, the Romans to run, and no dad explained it to them. To us, too, but you know, she may have I mean, that's imaginative, but, but, you know, extraordinary women. The ease that Paul had with women, I think, also reflects something of Jesus, who was always at ease with women, and and not threatened by them, in any sense. So. So I don't know if I'm really answering your question. I'm sort of wandering off. Sorry.
28:36 Yeah. No, that was great. And I love going into Paul, because I think that is important. And I loved in the book, that chart you have of all the women Paul worked with, and mentioned, because I think it's visually helpful to see that to see that Paul is not just him and a bunch of guys doing this ministry. And and, and the women listed and who we're talking about, had vital roles and had Vital Voices into the end of the process. And you mentioned something in the book too, about Paul's language, kind of is androcentric language, which, which he made the point which I thought was helpful, like, even in our own time, just 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and I still have to like correct quotes, when I'm using them in class. I'll say when they say man here, they mean human beings. But we've kind of we've, you know, we did the same thing in in English language, we would use man or mankind, when we met men and women. Yes, that's just Oh, sometimes I think, yeah, maybe in the New Testament, and with Paul, the male centric language, is we can read that and we miss the fact that women were actually present there and it's helpful to have it pointed out
29:53 Yeah, and, and also, I mean, I think one of the most difficult texts is one john which is also one of the most beautiful Texting another great Epistle of love. And yet it's if you read it in English Standard Version, and I must say I secretly like the English Standard Version, because it's so close to the Greek. But in other ways, I absolutely loathe it because it refuses to use inclusive language. So you have a love hate relationship with the ESV. But if you read through one john in the ESV, it's just it's brothers, and it's like women don't exist. And I think that I would like a deltoid, I think there's a good case to be made, that it is an inclusive term in the way that it used to be when they used to talk about the brethren. You know, or even a denomination called the brethren. They knew that they were included. Right. Yeah. So I think I think it's legitimate to translate that as brothers and sisters, I think that is accurate. So, so I don't think we need to sort of stick to Android centric language anymore. I think we can. Yeah, it's not easy for us. And it's English is not doesn't make it very easy for us either. And we've got language, I just, frankly, don't really touch on that, because I think that's part of the culture about but I don't think anyone thinks that God is actually male, Jesus.
31:18 Actually, I have I have a colleague, that I had an argument with, actually, in front of my door, just a couple of years ago, he was insisting that that God was a male, because he's pointing to all the male pronouns. And the, I don't know, Mark, if you want to hear this, but I won't say the name wasn't me, it wasn't gay wasn't talking about, you know, it's like nobody, but he was just he was just, but I happen to know, this person is very, you know, he's, he's a complementarian, and probably not the healthiest sense of that word. And I kind of know him and how he views things. And so yeah, you know, it was almost like a God made it his own image just because of some wayward pronouns
32:05 in the Bible, and I looked in many ways for masculine was used as sort of a neutral kind of, you know, where you dumped everything, right. And that still is the case in English. So I try not to use he or his for God. But I sometimes do, and I don't worry about it, if I do. A God self is a horrible thing. grammatically. It's hard for us that I just hope.
32:28 Right? But it is, it is difficult to have I work with a group of our capstone students in theology and Biblical Studies, and trying to help them just even recognize gender inclusive language, and when they're referencing God, and, and it's funny one, you know, one student kind of highlighted, you know, that they were like, well, I'm still going to use he and him. Because that's, you know, and, and now he's like, Well, part of it is just recognizing, like, like, you were saying, are they we realize, God is not male, right? This is just to where we have limitations within our language, but we need to be mindful that our language then affects our theology. Yeah. And I said, it would probably be different if, you know, another student wrote the paper and used all female pronouns for God, then that student who was like I'm going to use him would probably be like, wait time out, you know, and, again, we're not saying God is female is again, the limitation is a limitation of English language. It is a choice. And when we approach scripture, I think we often when we read it in English, we forget that that again, is translated. And, and there's so much behind these that I think the author's Paul would have been like, hey, that's not what I meant by this or that, you know, that's just how we use that word.
33:50 If you go find you, Mark, the is that the rhib live icon there. Behind you. Yes, Trinity. Yeah. That is not that is absolutely beautiful. I know. It's, everyone's into it. I've even got one down here. But, you know, that is such a beautiful image, and it does not portray particular maleness, you know, at around. There's something that's beyond gender in in yet profoundly personal, profoundly personal, because that's what we want to assert that God is personal beyond any sense that we have of what personhood actually. Right. Right. And, yeah, so I have trouble with using creator Redeemer and sanctifier for the Trinity. I don't think it's Trinitarian. I think if you take Oh, it's my realistic. Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And that's trouble with a few feminists for my
34:51 views on that. Right. Right. And it but it's hard in and I know we're helping our students kind of walk through that because the And biblically given that kind of metaphor of father and son, and spirit, and it kind of helps us understand. But it's the relational aspect that is being stressed Not, not the gender,
35:12 not the agenda. And I think there's something really important theologically, and I read this in john and also Paul, and that is that, that we are drawn into the sonship filiation, if you prefer a more neutral, the Latin root, but when we become children of God, because we're drawn into Jesus's sonship, his filiation, and therefore God is our father. It's not that we have a direct relationship. You know, God is the father of everybody. It's God is our father, because God is first and foremost, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So I think theologically, that's just really important, really important for inside our will is Ephesians, isn't it? I mean, it's, and it's certainly John's Gospel, you know, Jesus says, to Mary Magdalene, I'm ascending to My Father and your Father, my God, and your God, not our father and our God, mine and yours, you know, there's a uniqueness that Jesus has in relation to the Father. So, so I don't want to get rid of that is beautifully rich, wonderful imagery. And I've written elsewhere on the fatherhood of God, that the Father regarding the gospel of john is, is is actually anti patriarchal, it's very opposite opposite of what patriarchy does in terms of building up power and, and excluding, you know, whereas, you know, the father in the fourth gospel is, is, is self giving, even to the point of His love being rejected. And, and, and, and is, it's an inclusive love, it draws in, it draws people in, it doesn't exclude. And so there's something profoundly anti patriarchal about, I think, the New Testament understanding of, of the fatherhood of God that I think we need to reclaim. Now, that doesn't mean we don't need to look at feminine images. There's lots of rich, feminine images in the Bible that we can draw out and I'm all for that, too. But, but I think we've got to start with the language we've been given and look at its richness first.
37:04 Yeah. And you use that, that word reclaim in your subtitle as well. Right. reclaiming?
37:10 Yeah. Just find it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I have seen the Lord that wanted.
37:20 Once it goes to a titling committee, they, you know, who knows what it's gonna be?
37:25 Look, and they certainly will put me or Magdalene on the front Would that be okay, that'd be fine that they said we want a title that communicate straightaway so I could see their point.
37:35 Yeah, and you know, and maybe to the to their point, it is helpful when you're looking through a catalogue or you know, you're looking for you know, you're teaching a class on women in ministry or women in the Bible and are one of my colleagues is is looking at your book to use in a women in the Bible, women in Scripture class next fall, and she's been looking for a good New Testament source and she came across yours and so and that kind of tipped me off to your source and and yeah, so the title help so you can you can tell Baker you know, okay, you got you got a
38:12 bike a bike were absolutely wonderful to work with. I've never had worked, had such a good publisher ever. So, so open and so lovely, just lovely.
38:26 One, I think maybe that that part of the subtitle, just using the way you use the word, reclaiming there, I think is important, right? The reclaiming, like, we have this biblical language biblical and imagery, and a biblical vision of women in leadership that needs to be reclaimed, not rejected. Not, you know, or invented, yeah, or invented yet. And that just maybe seem to be like the on the more extreme side of feminism. It becomes a rejection of, of Scripture, a rejection of Paul, but rather may be a a reading of Paul, through the lens of, hey, look how many times he references women and their role in his ministry. It helps us understand those those problem passages, or the more difficult passages of Paul,
39:22 and I think, but Beverly Venter is the one who said, you know, he says, we need to start with Paul's actual experience. That's where we start. You start with his actual experience with women and the women that he worked alongside of, and the women he worked with. And that's where we start studying Paul. And then we look at some of the open passages and then we go to the difficult passages and say, Okay, how do we interpret that in the light of what we already know, a poll and the whole poor line school if you want to call it that? That was tricky for me, because, of course, quite a number of my colleagues think that Paul didn't write Ephesians or possibly Colossians on to Timothy and Titus. And so I thought, well, I don't want to buy into that argument because actually, I don't care. It's in the canon. It's in some sense, Paul line. And it doesn't worry me too much. You know, I'm not gonna dismiss something because it's somebody reckons it's not Paul on and right. I always remember at university getting into trouble for writing an essay in philosophy, and the one that my tutor said to me that wasn't they weren't your word, by word. She said, Well, that's not your usual lifestyle? Well, it probably wasn't because I went to a lot of trouble over this one. But she wouldn't accept me. And always remember that, because you just have to talk about whether someone style will change, you know, and would be different in different contexts. So. So the question, so what I wanted to do be able to do is to speak to both those who are who only see, you know, a small number of or spewer letters as Paul line and others, except the whole 13 as Paul line, no paper calls. And I wanted to be able to speak to both because I think what some of them have done, like the translators of the New Revised Standard Version of Dan is to say, well, Paul probably didn't write it. So we'll just try. We'll just interpret it the way we always have taken out the fact that all these women and men are doing all this work on these texts and looking at verbs like our thin chain and saying, well, it actually doesn't mean to teach it mean to dominate, you know, so what difference does that make? You know, so? So, I just wanted to be able to speak, to just get out of get out of a rough ground lightly, I think and just sort of, I think, mistaken emphasis, I think it's mistaken on who wrote it. Yeah. You know, because at the end of the day, it's in the canon, you know, and it's under the name of Paul. So it is, in some sense, Paul line. And I don't believe even if Paul didn't write it, and I find it hard with with Timothy, because, you know, they such personal letters anyway. But yeah, no, I agree with you. I mean, one of the people that I find really, really difficult is Bart Ehrman. In fact, the students know not to mention him in my class.
42:11 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's one that got away after his whole education paid for by the folks he rejects later. But that's all other story.
42:23 Yeah, that's interesting, though, is I mean, he's, he's writing out of it, and a lot of unresolved anger. Right. And it's influencing younger scholars to which I find very sad. Yeah. And to move in his direction before, you know, we're talking about these fraudulent texts. And, you know, I mean, for goodness sake, you know, right. I just feel like saying, well, we understand why you're angry, that's okay. You can be angry, you just need to move on. Right, so that wasn't a very scholarly comment. But the point is that I was trying to avoid all that and look at those texts in their own right as Paul line, in some sense that I don't always understand, you know, Sonny's might have written quite a bit of one of those letters you know, he's names there at the top some of them and not to mention the scribe I love the way pops his head up and in writing that burst, you know, why back? But I wanted to avoid all that debate. So we could look at the text in themselves to take them seriously as, as canonical texts. And therefore, especially for us and to ask, okay, is the traditional reading the way the only way to read this or are there other ways that we can interpret these texts? And, and I found all sorts of help from people like Craig Craig. Craig keener fee, Gordon fee. If If Bruce is, you know, older, older scholars, but still were arguing way back then if Bruce is saying, you know, the structure of the ancient aim of ancient marriage is not the same as modern marriage, you know, maybe a girl of 13 or 14 or 15, an educated marrying a man who's twice her age, who, of course, he's going to be the leader in the house. That makes a lot of sense, but in our context, he argues it doesn't you know, so. So that kind of contextual work as well as exegetical work. I found it immensely enlightening to actually study it was a privilege to be allowed to mess around in texts.
44:28 Yeah. When I think you you handled the Pauline texts really well, I really appreciated how you how you approach them and are a gentleman scholar that that's, that to me is a compliment Thank you. Yeah, they're great and and it was and i think i appreciate because I would be in a similar and I think Rex would be to in a similar boat where we're not going to just reject a text because we're like, well, if that's not Paul's and just get rid of it. It's again, it's like this is scripture. And we need to, we need to, we need to learn and wrestle with it how best to read it, right? That is instead of instead of just maybe accept it like black and white what the word say or reject it, you know, there is this kind of middle, and a harder path of doing the work doing, doing the absolute plus contextual, you know.
45:21 Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And, I mean, I have disagreements with some of my colleagues, north of the border in I don't know if you know much about Australian geography, but in the Anglican Church is perhaps moments of slight tension with our sisters and brothers in Sydney, actually, mainly with our brothers in Sydney. And one of them talks about the perspicacity of Scripture and has written about it. And, and what it seems to mean is that whatever he thinks Scripture says, That's what it says. And that's what's obvious to everybody. And you just can't argue you. Actually, you can't break through that you can't even suggest that loving God with our minds might mean we have to struggle with God's word, you know, to understand its meaning for us, we might actually do some have to do some hard work. And that might actually be good for us and healthy for us. And it might be good for us. Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
46:16 Yes. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. We're a podcast. We just have a chat, right. Yeah, exactly. We don't to record him. We're, you know, we're available and late evening. So after afternoon, your time. We're just happy we got it all timed out. Right. And, and then I, I, I've been getting some lessons from my Dean of the School of Theology. He was from Australia. And he probably would be upset with me because I don't I don't know right now. Exactly. Where in Australia he's from which I probably should know. What? David Tim's David Tim's he was at hope international for a while. I don't know. He went to Macquarie. Right? Yeah. Sydney? Yeah. Sydney. That's definitely in Sydney in Sydney. Yeah. And Sydney very well. We'll go with that. We'll go with that. Well, when I was telling him I was excited, you know, sound him? Well, for one I made a mistake. I told him we were having our first guests from Australia on and then he reminded me he'd already been on the podcast and he's from Australia, but he's, he's an expatriate. He's living over here. He's been over here for 20 some years. But oh, boy, you guys. Oh, yeah. Good. Boy. It's that is
47:56 the bed. I was telling him. You were in Melbourne, Melbourne, and he was trying to coach me on how to say it. So it's just Melbourne like Melbourne, not Melbourne. Now. Melbourne is Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne.
48:12 We might see speakers in Australia. Shortly anything or get rid of a syllable will fall away.
48:19 Yeah, just get rid of it. So, thank you so much for joining us from Melbourne. Mark and Rex. It's been really lovely to talk to you. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
48:55 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup. Thank
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Noted theologian Douglas Ottati joins the show to discuss his new book A Theology for the Twenty-First Century.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And on the show today we have Dr. Douglas o Tati, who is the Craig family distinguished professor of Reformed theology and justice at Davidson College in North Carolina. In fact,
0:17 he actually was teaching at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia when I was getting my doctorate and he was one of my professors about 29 years ago. So it's gonna be an interesting show today.
0:35 Thanks again, Dan, for joining us on the podcast all the way from North Carolina. Well, thank
0:41 you, Mark. It's a beautiful spring in North Carolina is probably not as dry heat as you have in California. But it's beautiful out here right now. We have blue birds flying around. I mean, it's it's a great picture of God's world. You enjoy it.
0:56 Yeah. That I've always told my wife if we moved anywhere. It would be North Carolina, America.
1:01 That's a good spot. It's got mountains. It's got a beach. It's got Sandy stuff. It's got a lot of things.
1:07 Yeah, that's that's grabs I'm good friends and kind of the Chapel Hill and Durham area. And I think I've been through Davidson is it is the city, called Davis is a little town. Charlotte isn't?
1:22 Yeah, it's exit 30 offer route 77. So we're about I want to say we're about 17 miles, 20 miles from the city of Charlotte. We're in the same county as they are. But we're in the northern part of the county. And it does, the town now has a lot of nice different things. They've got a nice little Italian restaurant. I'm really pleased about that. Because I grew up on a little Italian family. So I like to get something good to eat. They got a really good proprietor over there and all that kind of stuff. But I hear that some time ago, a dog could have gone to sleep on Main Street not been disturbed. A little bit since then.
2:00 Right. Right. But and you have a connection with Rex, that I actually didn't know that when I emailed you to set up this interview. And then seminary Virginia.
2:15 Yeah, yeah, a long time ago, but 21 years. Since I was there, I actually dug I don't know if you are aware of it. But without mentioning your name, because you know, frankly, would mean anything to anybody. I do actually use my first day in the first seminar I ever had at Union, which was with you, in theological method where we had to deal with trash, but I use it as sort of an example when I'm talking about the fundamentalist modernist controversy. And so the story I sort of tell and I have to say that I was so intimidated, actually, by you that that very first seminar, but so I went to a Southern Baptist evangelical seminary and got an M div a number of years before that. And for some inexplicable reason, they had given me the annual theology award when I graduated, which I don't understand why they did that, because I was a church history guy anyway, but whatever, whatever. I'm feeling pretty proud of myself. Because, you know, I got an award, and I, you know, and so five years later, I am in your seminar, and the very first day, I had never heard of anyone that you were talking about. And this little light bulb comes on above my head. It's like, Oh, it's like, there's two different worlds out there. And they don't even talk to each other. And they sometimes don't even act like each other exists. And so real, real kind of steep learning curve. For me to start off there.
3:41 I bet I bet. And ours troughs, you know, that's, yeah, there you go. That's a reference thing. And he and he's got certain questions in mind, and they hold up really well, for the modern period, they never go away. Right, you know, like, what do you want to make out of historical criticism in the Bible? And does it make you less confident and what you prefer to believe? Because you'd like to believe it? Right? Maybe what you like is precisely the criteria was not true. And so he's got a lot of stuff like that. He's got a, you know, an instance where a student comes into his office and is having a crisis. Neither Well, what do you know, what's your crisis? So well, because, you know, I'm not I want to believe that Jesus did XYZ. So okay, so what's the crisis is? Well, because I don't know, I think precisely because I want to believe it. It might not be true. And this sort of stuff, and then you know, schleiermacher and all those Yeah, yeah. And trolls on religious pluralism, I mean, it doesn't go away. And so can you really claim absoluteness for Christianity, and do you want to, in relation to World Religions is a real nice theological question like
4:58 Yeah, yeah. stuff is perennial particularly particularly now, in fact, I've sort of seen in an evangelical Ria reappropriation of schleiermacher lately, actually, because stuff he's dealing with his his his
5:12 stuff that everybody's dealing with guy cares about piety. He cares about religious experience. He cares about conversion. He cares about your orientation in the world. What's nice about that, what's not to like about that? Right? I mean, he's pretty good on that. And then traulsen on the stuff about absoluteness. I mean, in a way, if you really want to be a follower of Christ is the first thing you do is claim absoluteness. A lot of possibilities. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. And who knows what the answer will be. It's worth exploring,
5:47 right? Definitely. Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask first for you, before we get into your book, I would love just to to know a little bit more about your background that like kind of how you got into theology and kind of build or build a life and a career in the theological world?
6:07 Well, I guess mark, almost everyone who turns out to be a theologian and teaches this stuff Wrexham for you. I mean, the stories are always particular and peculiar. That Yeah, everyone's a little odd, right? I mean, they got to be that. And for me, I grew up in New Jersey, six miles west of the George Washington Bridge. And my father was from Brazil, and was a doctor and interested in modern medicine, mostly in what you call Tropical Medicine. So I asked him about once. And he said, that was where you had a refrigeration trail. And at the end of the refrigeration trail, someone who could count so he worked on oral polio vaccines is a perfect illustration of that. And what's going on now, with vaccines in the pandemic is ease of delivery is a really big question. Yeah. How much refrigeration and camp? Does someone also have to be able to negotiate a syringe on the other end? Or can they just be able to count and that that's one thing. And then my mom was from outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan on a farm. And she was German Lutheran, they got a lot of her relatives buried up there in Ann Arbor on a piece of real estate that I know the University of Michigan I'd love to acquire. But I don't think they can by law. And then one of them has in frock tour, you know, a picture and description of the death of the guy who never ended up being my great, my great, great grandfather, because he got run over by an ox from New York to Michigan, his brother, Adam, as was the customer in the old country, married his wife and proceeded to have something like eight children. So I, my great, great grandfather was Adam, rather, the other guy whose name I can't even recall. So these two people get married. I get porn in the apalis and baptized Lutheran. Now we moved to New Jersey when I'm like three, we have a mass family conversion, just like in the early church and all join the Presbyterian Church at Tenafly. And mostly that was because the only Lutheran Church in town was Missouri Senate. A wonderful denomination, I guess, in a way, but it's a little more virulent than some other Lutheran possibilities. And I think Fernando is my father was not about to take catechism right. But not because he was so Catholic because he basically believed in modern medicine. So we end up being Presbyterian, and that's how I got that. And and as far as that goes, my mom taught Sunday school. My dad would go with me sometimes stand at the deli after, after church services, Northern Presbyterian stuff where they have inexplicably the church service at the same time as the Sunday school. So you can either go to Sunday school lunches, we can't do not the world's greatest arena and southern church better than that. And so then we will go to the deli, he pick up some stuff there. We got sandwiches, we argue over the sermon. And that's, that's my earliest theological education is right there doing that with my mom and my dad and she teaching Sunday school. We had some fine ministers and ministers do make a difference even when, even when people don't get one. They don't get told that by people immediately. You know, by the time of the by the time I'm willing to tell them I don't even know where they are.
9:47 So, we had one man who delivered a sermon about gun control and stuff in New Jersey at the time. Well, you know, I can't remember the whole firm and I do know he was for controlling Some guns, and I do know that he caught a bunch of stuff for that. Yeah. And I thought, Well, okay, you know, we got somebody willing to stand up and say something. And then it was another guy who did the youth group. And he was terrific, too. I mean, maybe they just wanted you to ask questions. No, we did have some Bible content in those days. I don't know if people have as much of it now. And I wonder about that. But we did have that we had questions. So it was pretty good background, and I will go to college, and it's 1968. And I'm at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. And it's civil rights and this anti war, and it's all this stuff, and then the pill, and all this sort of stuff available. And I thought, you know, it's a time where questions about what you thought was worthwhile. Yeah, we're big. Yeah. And so I don't think I did anything more than just kind of go with the program there. I thought that questions about what's worthwhile, were important. And and so what was helpful to me, some of that Presbyterian stuff was pretty helpful. Confession in 1967, is pretty helpful. The religious thought department, as it was called, was also very helpful as the English department stuff like that. But these were questions on my mind. And it was because of that kind of background at the time, you know? Yeah.
11:23 No, that's fascinating. And I could tell right, when we were starting by your accent, I was like, oh, there's more. There's a story here. It's New Jersey, that doesn't start in North Carolina. All right, that's great. Well, when your book came across my desk, I was really struck by the title, this idea of a theology for the 21st century. And, and so that that title really drew me to it. And I wondered just at the beginning, you could paint a little bit of a picture of, of what what maybe is the difference, or what is a theology for the 21st century look like that maybe is different than a theology for the 20th century or, or 19th century?
12:09 Well, things keep moving right along. And I think for the 21st century course, we don't yet know what it will be. Yeah. But the 20th century, I think starts out in the name of the journal, people are hoping in this country that is the Christian century, it's pretty optimistic. It really was what's very different from from from Morrison and those guys. And what they mean by that is they've got a nation that professes to be Christian, is looking outwards, some it doesn't look outwardly, as much as one might give it credit for my work. People don't. And it's gonna have to go through a bunch of different things. But when it starts out then with the social gospel, and you're in the United States, it can be the Christian century, particularly if you're in the United States in some way, I think. Yeah. So the social gospel is great, right? I mean, people care about industrialization, urbanization, and movements of immigrants to cities, they understand that if you're going to be genuinely Christian, you need to have a social ethic, you need to understand that people are formed by social institutions and, and structures and that their possibilities and their limits are related to that this is all to the good, right? This is all good. Yeah. And then some in some of the bigger articulations of that, around Bush, and so forth. They're positively evangelical, that guy grows up in a church where conversion is the big thing. But now he thinks he needs to have a new apostolic converted to a social Christianity. Well, so it's a pretty interesting stuff. They're rational, which is wonderful. He's a tad optimistic about how this all might work out and right lever is going to follow up and say, I'm not going to go back on social Christianity, you need to have a social ethic. But yeah, this is too optimistic over here. And we don't have a sufficiently radical doctrine, assent. We don't have a self sufficient appreciation for many of these traditional doctrines. We're off and running. And it's really interesting stuff with both of them, you get Martin Luther King Jr. shows up, reads both of them, and revises both of them to talk about a beloved community and a kind of non violent involvement that can also reach the conscience of the other person and turn it and can still put pressure on stuff. What's a great thing and and he's also drawing of course on a black church tradition that wants to talk about the importance of unearned suffering and wants to talk about getting to the promised land like in his final speed, right. You know, we as a people are going to get there by might not get there. So there's a kind of idealism and a hope at the same time. It's great stuff. And this is a great tradition out of this wall. Okay, so you ride this into the 21st century, and a couple of things are going to happen. Well, it's been a long time since MLK was around, you do have some really important things going around, still, you've got john lewis, and people like that. It's going to tradition. But you go to a Reagan Administration, you go to a country that is increasingly, if you compare it to the social gospel back there, internationalist, somewhat Imperial, you know, and, and, and, and all that kind of stuff involved in a whole bunch of different things. And it gets harder to say that you're going to have the Christian century. Maybe you're going to have a century. Yeah. You know, because that's just counting. But is it going to be a Christian century? Well, that's tougher to say. And it's tougher to say not only because you're involved in the rest of the world, but also because there's more different people where you are, yeah, right. Right. So it becomes really interesting in that way. And so I think what I think a theology for the 21st century is systematic wants to do is it wants to more or less unapologetically, in one sense, in another sense, I have a lot of apologetics in my stuff. But in one sense, you want to try and articulate a Christian vision in a world, that's probably not going to be the Christian century say, yeah, yeah. And, and you want to do it, you want to do it unapologetically. And you want to give the whole vision, when it turns out that not everyone is like you, it's not time to shut up and be quiet. It's time respectfully and in conversation with other people to articulate what you believe and see if that helps with other people and also helps your own community. And that's sort of what I think of a theology for the 21st century. A little bit different than Walter rashon. Bush thinking. He's working for the true democracy in America in the Christian century. Yeah.
17:05 I actually had that book within arm's reach of my office right now. I'm in my office, I think, which was the route, the Russian bush book. He's a terrific book.
17:13 That's right. It's a terrific book. And and it's a socially engaged and it's a religiously engaged book. The guy is magnificent, right. I mean, there's a reason why it worked out so well.
17:26 So on our part of the Christian tapestry here, you know, it's really more conservative evangelical. Yeah. There's a lot of be moaning and wailing about a supposedly, you know, marginalization, sort of enforced marginalization in greater society. Do you think that that's, I mean, first of all, you know, is that true or not? But secondly, even if it was true, actually, is that necessarily a bad thing?
17:53 There there? There's a great question right there. Rex, I mean, one, is it true? Wow. Yeah, it's kind of true. I mean, it's kind of true to the extent that there's more different people around, it's kind of true, to the extent that you're more engaged in the rest of the world, but cannot go back to that stuff from the early part of the 20th century in this country. might be important, because it's a little myopic, that we're so sure we're in the catbird seat. It may not be entirely true, in a lot of ways. And then, of course, there are different varieties of Christianity, right? And a good evangelicals gonna understand that part of the writing high of liberal and Neo orthodox and Christian realism stuff doesn't necessarily include them all the time. So that's important, right. But the other thing I think is true is the other question isn't necessarily that bad thing. Are there some ways in which being in the catbird seat is not optimal for articulating what you believe in an environment? Right? I think the answer that's got to be Yes, right, Stanley. Howard Ross is not wrong about everything. But but but, you know, okay, I'm not going to try and make you an alternative to the whole world all the time. I had too much for Calvin, I think God rules what's God's world? He's supposed to engage it see what half Yeah. But on the other hand, it is true that thinking you're in the catbird seat, sometimes these two kind of grand compromise before even though what's going on, and it's not so great. That one last thing though, is Richard Baxter, right. Richard Baxter, he of the Christian directory, and writing all that practical theology stuff, and talking about how people should do stuff. The Puritan who's also an angle can kind of vacuum. Richard Baxter ends up writing a lot of stuff in prison. So it's a little hard to argue that he's some establishment, right? But he writes in prison and he tells you that you should participate in the society he tries to figure out what a doctor should be doing what an educator should be doing whether or not you can be a soldier, he does not back down. Now, he knows that he's not the only guy in town interpreting this stuff, right? I kind of like Richard Baxter on this stuff. I think that maybe if you're writing a theology of the 21st century, go ahead and interpret this stuff and say what you believe in conversation. don't back down. And Don't be an idiot about it. Dismiss everybody all the time. But you should do that. So I guess what I'd like to say to some of my evangelical friends is I'm not sure we're always displaced. I think part of it is a hangover from a false understanding of being at the center. Yeah, right. But even if you are displaced part of the time, remember Richard Baxter, go ahead and engage the thing and try and do it the way you think is proper. The big point is to witness to God and the kingdom and to Christ. The big point is not to be the winner all the time. The big points to do that. Yeah.
21:04 Yeah, that's so good. And really, when you look back at even most of the New Testament writers experiences right I'm involves mostly writing from prison, not writing from the position of power. And, and so that that desire for the Christian community to be in a place of power to be able to have a voice doesn't seem to be aligned with the tradition.
21:27 I think that's really right. And Paul, on that kind of stuffs really interesting. You got Romans 13. Oh, it's not my favorite chapter. But you know, you're supposed to pay your taxes and participate on a revelation 13 empires a piece pieces and pay your taxes. And there may be some possibilities there. But you know, you got to say that Paul is not running the whole show, but he still thinks you're participating. And that's a pretty important point. Really, yeah. And I think Baxter is making a Pauline point in the way let's not say Paul's making a Baxter. Reverse reverses history. But just because you're not in the center of things all the time are in control, doesn't mean that you don't have something important to contribute, when you witness to the truth. And you know, if you go to Johnny teen or something like that, and Pilate asks, What is truth? cynical question, because he thinks only power map. And Jesus says, Well, you know, I represent a community or a kingdom of truth and not going to fight this, they're not going to fight, you know. And pilot says, Well, how many divisions that I have is kind of right. And, you know, the point is that, that the church witnesses to the truth, it believes that the light shines in the darkness anyway. And if you think that's true, and if you think the truth, there is a power of truth, that is not the same as the principalities and powers. Yeah, well, okay, what what why are you so worried about not being in the center of things and then being in the center things as close to this other kind of power? Maybe it's helpful once in a while as a corrective not to be there, right. CBS of Cesar Rhea thinks that Constantine the Great on the moon, but I'm not sure it's the best timeout for Christian theology. There's so other things to say too.
23:24 Yeah. And you also taught me another term there and all that and now it'd be the catbird seat. Now, I heard that but I'm gonna use it now. I'm from Indiana. Right. My mom was from Michigan. And that means that you are you're controlling, yeah, you're which is good. Yeah. But I did. I grew up in Indiana. And a small town called Marion, Indiana, Fairmount, Indiana, just about an hour north of Indianapolis. Okay. And then I'm talking to James Dean is France. Right. Jamie Dean,
24:03 major, major acclaim? I mean, I think that's great. Because, you know, the levels like the say that when James James Dean rejects modern society, he's actually rejecting a particular place. It's a rejection, but it's not necessarily rejection of everything. Right. I mean, it's kind of fun.
24:27 Yeah. And hey, we Yeah, we it is definitely a claim to fame, our hometown and county. In your definition of theology, I really found it interesting. You're connect the connecting theology to the articulation of a vision of God and ourselves in the world. And in my systematic class, we always look at a bunch of different definitions of theology. And, and I would say an eight out of 10 of them, they use the term articulation right because that is something we're doing Were articulating, which I think is really important. But I like i thought was interesting. You connected piety to theology, which I don't think often happens. So can you explore that for us like that connection between piety and, and theology?
25:17 So I'm a I'm a Edwardes in schleiermacher. Gustafson, other sort of characters, H versioni. We're kind of guy. Yeah. So I think that religious men Oh, right. I think there's no divorce between the affections and the articulation of a good theology. I think a good theology is secondary to those affections, and it helps to clarify them. And it helps you to orient in a world with conviction, and with a kind of impetus, right, which I take to be the point about piety. So we call it faith, if you want, I mean, there's a lot of terms you can use their faith sometimes gets construed as believing that something is the case, yeah. And then it becomes reductive. But of course, that's not the way the tradition has generally understood it. And if you say I believe in God, the Father almighty maker of heaven on earth, you know, saying, I believe that God the Father, hey, believe in there's a trust. Yeah, and there is an effective resonance. So that's the way it's supposed to be. But I like the piety stuff. For me, a systematic and a theology is in the service of the life of piety and the life of faithfulness. And it is, in that sense, pragmatic, right? That is the big test for theology, the big reason it exists, is to help people do the basic work, which is to be faithful and bet their lives referring to God. Yeah, the basic reference to God is in the life, that the theology refers to God. And we can talk about whether it should be highly metaphysical or not. I'm not all that fond of metaphysics in some ways. But But what I really do like is the idea, it's the person who refers to now Yeah, it's the faith in the Bible and piety does. So I think that that's a really big deal. And so then what I think is the reason that you have theology most of the time, other things that people get interested in, but it's not most of the time purely speculative. It's because you've got a community that's trying that has a pastoral aim, to train people to be faithful. And then the question is, well, how am I going to do that? How am I going to be faithful in relation to my neighborhood? How can you be faithful in relation to these kids who are adolescent and behaving in these crazy ways all the time, that are gifts of God. So they need to be construed and interpreted. And that's why I think that the that the pastoral task, the formation of the people of God has an intellectual moment. It has a moment where theology matters, and why theology matters is because it helps you to on the basis of the tradition relation, the Bible and because you have a pious committed piety and commitment to construe and interpret your life and other things you interact with in relation to God, that's the first deal. So if you're interacting with the Pentagon, okay, you want to talk with the Pentagon or Russian guy, suppose you're not really doing that so much. You're just hanging around with some adolescent kids in Richmond, Virginia, trying to figure out why they sleep in late at night, everything else? Okay, that's a good place to. And all those things are important. In that sense. I think a theology is a little like a sermon. It wants to address those things. It wants to help people construe those things in a way that's faithful in relation to God and Christ. It's not necessarily gonna make them faithful. It's not the only game in town. But it's something to help with a Christian life.
29:06 So So do you think that the conversation partners in other disciplines or areas of you know, life is different for theology of the 21st century than and then it was for a theology of, say, centuries before? It's what what disciplines are, is it imperative at this point that we be in constructive conversations with? Well, there
29:27 are differences like that, right. I mean, I think that's really right. Rex, I mean, I think when you when you get to the turn of the 20th century, the big deal is the social problem, sociology and so forth. That has not gone away. Yeah. You've got questions of economics and society. Now they are very important is Martin Luther King, Jr. said Walter rashon. Bush articulates a social dimension that Protestantism should never lose. I think that's right. We don't want to go down on the Other hand, it's also true that you and I are in a global environment, right, we have a bigger sense of how people and cultures are embedded in the planet. And that life is a planetary phenomenon. That kind of stuff is a very big deal with a lot of the biology in the astrobiology. So we know that the way we behave, effects a whole bunch of things, or planetary systems. And we also know that life has always impacted the planetary system, we would not be able to be here and breathe, if a bunch of microbial life didn't release gases in ways that probably is not polite to bring up here. But you know, and that's why we can breathe, there's oxygen. Yeah, so life never leaves an environment untouched. We're now talking about something that's a little bit different than Darwin, we're not just talking about an organism, adjusting to a steady state environment, we're talking about these two things, adjusting to each other going along like this, in a dynamic process, and we're embedded. Now that's a big deal. And one of the ways it's a big deal is with respect to ecological things in the future of the planet. And it's God's good creation. That doesn't mean you're never supposed to touch it, if that's not what it means. And in Genesis, either you can be a steward, you have distinctive capacities of action. And with those distinctive capacities come responsibilities that squirrels don't have, squirrels are great. And they change some stuff, but they don't do what you and I do state of Indiana, where your mark, it looks like some from the air that a squirrel could never have. So, you know, those are big things. And we know that now, we also know that we have a global environment, socially and economically. That's not a post of the social gospel. The social gospel has a sense of that at the beginning of the 20th century. But what we're talking about now is a much more complete globalized system of things that happen and a way in which everyone is displaced. No one is the center of the whole thing, both ecologically or in terms of global politics and economics. I think it's one of the big confusing things. When people talk about international politics now. Is it going to be the American century we dominate the whole world? I doubt it. But is it going to be the Chinese century they dominate the whole world? Maybe what we got to think of is some other possible models here? When is the world been this interdependently? interconnect? Right? And are we likely to have the same sort of models emerge? So I think the 21st century is different that way. And then I think it's different in this country, more pluralized, more fragmented in the country, and so forth. And fragmentation means in part, again, Protestantism of a certain source, not in the catbird seat, what should it do, once you try and articulate as best you can, when it believes, as a witness first, and second, a contribution to a wider conversation? That's good.
33:13 Yeah. And I could see for, like, my students in looking at theology, in taking this approach, bringing in piety and bringing in their lives, I think, is actually something within maybe now the 21st century that they are looking for, like they're looking for a theology that actually influences their life now, not just a set of propositions or a knowledge and, and looking towards, especially in, you know, kind of the evangelical worlds where we've been in there have some ways separated society and, and religious knowledge. bringing those together, I think, is really important.
33:57 I surely hope so. I mean, propositional form and systematic theology is very old. And it's in Thomas Aquinas and another formats, and Bart said a bunch of stuff, nothing to matter with it. It's trying to be clear, it's trying to give somebody the reason why Thomas adopts quite steel method is because he thinks it's the latest instructional stuff of the day, and you can follow the argument and that's what you want to do with a student as opposed to just have a marginal notes and commentary Glassell glug, right, right. On that evil Tex. Well, so that's a great thing he wants to be able to follow. The argument is good, I'm all for that. On the other hand, if you get it articulated certain ways, it's dry intellectual stuff, which I actually think that a lot of the Scholastic Orthodox people were not as dry as they appear to us. Those are their lecture notes, and I think they had other things going on. Yeah, but okay. So you want it to relate to live life. That's the big deal. The only reason the propositions even exist is if they're helpful to care that clarify, the lived life, the lived life is the deal. And the big question in life is not, are you going to conquer the world? The big question is like in life is not? Are you going to rule the whole shebang? The big question is life. And life is how are you where you are going to be faithful to God and Christ and to God and neighbor, you know how you plan on doing this, that's a meaningful life, you may not be able to plan it all out and understand what's going to be who could do that. But you want to try and be engaged and do that. So that you can say, that's what you're trying to do. Now, trying to do that does not save you. grace alone saves. Yeah, you want to be and you want to have a good theology for that too. Because if you start out down this road and try to do this, you will end up relying on grace more often than you first the first thing. And that's important, but the theology is supposed to help you do that. So the theology is not supposed to help necessarily, the church run everything or something like that, or be the dominant social force, maybe he is, maybe it isn't. It's supposed to help you witness is supposed to help you leave a lead a faithful life, one that you think is meaningful, and then that intersects with your heart a little bit, you know,
36:32 we probably need to read the transcript of our conversation right here, right at the beginning of every theology class at the beginning of the semester, because I've found that most students here, even though it's a faith based institution, are positively allergic to theology, which is, you know, a shame and a misunderstanding, as you've pointed out of what of what the theological enterprise is all about.
36:55 I think that's important or excellent, I think, of course, it's not really simply their fault. The theology has been presented to them in a certain way. 1234 This is what it is really fighting for. Retail, that's what it looks like. But you don't have to go retail here. You can go with some good theologians. They're there all over the place. You're not just the big ones that you remember from the history, plenty of places, plenty of ministers, plenty of preachers, plenty of everyone else who's a really fine theologian, and what you're going to see is they care about where the breath touches the blood, they care about the light. Yeah, that's a good thing to say that a lot of Kierkegaard I mean, of course, I headliner, and look, if you refer too much when you're 18 it's probably bad for your house. Too much iron Rand, although Kira vastly superior for a while you're gonna no one was actually the plot of a novel actually, someone started reading Kierkegaard to, like ruin his life. He cares about the stuff he cares, he cares about right? In the heart. Yeah. And and he's right to do that. And so schleiermacher right, is that is two very different thinkers a lot of ways. Carl Bart, who I know has his problems, which firewall. But if anyone tries to argue that Carl, Bart doesn't care about a commitment, they're not Yeah, because he does care about a commitment. And you can read it in a whole bunch of different things of his writings, including the humanity of God, which is a nice little compact essay for someone to look at, or, you know, some of his sermons called release to the cactus that he preaches at prisons in wherever he is in Switzerland. They're terrific. Yeah. Okay.
38:53 Actually, this is a little bit of a blast of past here, but on Donald da, who was one of your colleagues back at Union in his semester long schleiermacher class that I essentially did my final paper, more on Kierkegaard than on schleiermacher and still seem to pass my way through that.
39:14 Right, I mean, they both air about affections right and stuff. And they both understand despite the critiques the schleiermacher that there is a kind of an object that defines the piety. If you ask schleiermacher what the object is, the first thing you're gonna get is a phenomenological denial of objects. Those think there is a God Right. Yeah. And he doesn't want to make her an object alongside of other objects. Well, good for him. I mean, he's probably right about that. So yeah, I think it makes perfect sense to do that kind of thing, Rex. I think it also makes perfect sense. If you want to know the truth talk about cure Gar and evangelicalism, schleiermacher and evangelicalism. ration bush evangelicalism, Jim Gustafson and evangelicalism. Obviously Jonathan Edwards and even Joe's, every one of these people cares about affections and how they go. Yeah. And it's important.
40:15 Yeah. And that kind of connects, and maybe they're in our kind of final wrap up here. You, you bring in really early in, in your first kind of defining theology, you bring in that role of wonder and mystery. And, and our, again, maybe going back to our experience of the world in our experience of that man's sense of the Divine that draws our shirt and draws us in.
40:44 Well, you know, Jim Gustafson, my teacher wrote a book called The sense of the Divine any claim that there are a number of scientists that have this to that which I think is right. I think that there's no such thing as an uninterpreted, unmediated experience, right, by the time you and I have, right, right. There's something going on, right. But that doesn't mean there's no content, no experiential content to what you're talking about. So what we have is we have interpreted or construed experiences. That's what's ensconced in a fair amount of the biblical language and everything else, like Genesis one, like Genesis two, or like Psalm 104. I mean, you know, the point of Psalm 104, is not that God literally stretches the heavens out like a tent. That's a great metaphor. So the point is that everything has its place and what God is. And that's a reflection of experience. It's, but it's a construed experience. And I think that there, you want to say that you do want to go back to experience without reducing it to trying to go back to something before in language before you thought of anything. There's some kind of crazy idea, you need to do that. But you do want to go back to experience and so you can talk to someone like Abraham Heschel, or read Abraham Heschel, wonderful theologian and no one thing he will tell you that the beginning of knowledge is not radical doubt, it's radical amazement. It's that the world really has some compelling stuff going on. You want to be in touch with it. That is a magnificent, magnificent theological thing to say. And I think it's true. And so you don't want to lose that. When you're talking about theology. In, in somewhere in the beginning of all this, people have experiences that they want to track down that have are compelling to them. Sometimes it's nature. Sometimes it's another person, you know, you meet somebody, and you talk to them. You talk about where you're from, they talk about where they're from. It's a person, and there's no one else like that. Quite. Yeah, well, that's pretty remarkable. Yeah, we can start talking to snowflakes or something except that person there. And you know, you were in an environment you grow up in Indiana. Yeah, look at the countryside. It's there. It's not anywhere else. It's there. And you were in North Carolina and grew up here, but it's here, you know, it's that those things are compelling. The compelling presences of things in God's world that help pull you out from yourself, are in fact an introduction to how to be faithful. That's great. Yeah.
43:38 That's so good. And that's a great, I think that's a great ending point for us pitches. right thing, right. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
43:47 But thank you guys so much. I really do appreciate it and you know, blessings on teaching theology and ethics and Bible in the world. Like a Scott, definitely.
43:56 Thank you. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection in deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
44:24 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup thing.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Father Chris Flesoras joins Mark and Rex to discuss Eastern Orthodox spirituality, a spirituality marked by ritual, tradition, and beauty in worship.
TRANSCRIPT
0:02 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore,
0:05 and your co host Rex Gurney. And today mark, we're actually going to break with traditional a little bit. And although we're going to be talking about I know Yeah, we're gonna focus on tradition, and I'm going to introduce our guest today, and it's father, Chris Flesoras or Dr. Chris Flesoras or pastor Chris Flesoras depending on how you how you know him. He's the priest at St. Anna's Greek Orthodox Church here in Roseville, and he has been teaching with his sewer Jessup, particularly the history department. He does have a PhD in history, along with his laundry list of other degrees. And he's been teaching with us for about 10 years. And he's actually one of the most more popular teachers in in the history department. I've actually never heard anybody say, it's a negative thing about about his his classes on even though he really does challenge ourselves. But I think you'll really, really enjoy what Chris has to say, just sort of explaining a little bit about the Orthodox tradition. And and what that brings to the wider Christian world.
1:08 Yeah, he's such a great voice to have on campus, and we're just excited to be able to share his voice with you on the podcast. Hope you enjoy the show.
1:24 Father, Chris, it's great to have you on the show. And I was even I was thinking this morning. I was like, I can't believe we haven't had you on the show yet. So my apology right, right away. No worries. Because, because I think you are are such a unique voice at Jessup. And and one that every student I've talked to has loved your classes. And, and you bring more students. They live in terrified. Yeah. pool of students. I talked. There was a student back in 2018. Yeah, they loved it. But now just excited to have have you on the show and kind of talk about orthodox spirituality. And, and, and I think it's really important that here just we have your voice with all of our voices, too, right. So we can kind of learn from different traditions, and but maybe to help our listeners, how long have you been teaching at Jessup? I think about 10 years,
2:25 you know, I was trying to think actually, when when it's like, how and when I like first, you know, I don't know got in contact with you or something for
2:34 Yeah, cuz you would have been the connecting piece. Right. I don't even remember that. It
2:38 was sort of Professor Professor Nystrom that used to be here. Okay. Yeah. teach, teach early church, but I became familiar with the campus through his brother that's at Sac State. For him, okay, and then learned of Jessup a. Right That's and then from there. I think when he went down to Southern California, then that was an opportunity to come and have a conversation with Rex about the department about maybe some needs here. Yeah. So I believe that's one thing started off. And
3:05 you've been teaching our early church history class, like forever. Right. Right. And, and there's no better person actually to teach that. Oh, right. I'm, I'm not making this up. Yeah.
3:15 When we may have came to Jessup at the same time, because I came around was fall 2010 was when I taught my first class, Jessup, and I'm trying to think I would have we would have connected shortly after that, I think yes. 2011. in there, so. So thank you, Rex for connecting for us and maybe played a nice drone for having a brother.
3:44 It's been a real benefit for not just our department, but I think for the whole school, especially with, ya know, what you brought to some of the conferences that we've had and such. I mean, it's good to have somebody that knows everybody. That's actually a good thing. Yeah. And, and Chris does.
3:58 Yeah, that's true. And, and with the church, too. How long have you been there?
4:04 So I was assigned to the parish in in 2001. Okay, wow. So I bought a pair of him for about 2120 years now. 20 years? Yeah, that's great. Yeah. So thank god it's been it's been good. That was the primary focus of course of coming up and then a lot of being just more studies up here and and then once it concluded then it was a matter of trying to plug in somewhere because I love higher education.
4:23 Right. And you're from California, right? For one reason, Modesto. Yeah, yeah. Along with one of our other professors. Actually, we have Yeah, the history department. Richards also from Modesto capital or some
4:33 way we went to high school. High School. Yeah. So I still kind of just give him that stink eye as we walk across each other. Yeah.
4:41 The Friday night football game. That's right. Hey, we still won. Yeah. Well, that was great. And that is being at a church for 2021 years. You know, the parishes great. I've been at church in Sacramento for coming up on 13 years. This I'm trying to I'm trying to catch you on on the time. And it's and I think is great to be with a community for that long. I mean, there's so much, especially within in the evangelical tradition, it feels like there's so much turnover of pastors, you may be at a at a church for a couple years
5:19 or years. It's just sex for a while. We're just appalling. It was like, yeah, move on, like less than two years. And it's just like, what's going on with that?
5:27 Yeah. And there's something to be at a place and to
5:30 well, and in our tradition to the blessing is, it's not, it's not my choosing? Yeah. So one of the bishop says, You know, I need you elsewhere then is your will be done? Yeah. So the nice thing is the parish always has to be set up for somebody else to come in. So it's never charismatic, driven. Right? My personality is such it's, my job is to have it set up for the next person. It's going to come in and serve. Yeah. So as long as he finds it's a good fit here and the needs aren't elsewhere, then Mina may be blessed. And you do have help help. They're right. There. Do we have a second personnel, which is great. And we have our Deacon as well. So that's, that's open up some opportunities. It's been easier navigating and kind of this whole COVID season with some of the other obligations. Yeah. So I know the parish is in good shape as as things come up. Good. Yeah.
6:14 Yeah. That's still looking forward to that. That final worship space when he ever actually
6:23 grounds actually got one the groundbreaking next month, good, good. And I was just speaking with, it's gonna be magnificent. I just know that it is. I was just speaking with the mosaic assists, goodness gracious last week, sort of finalizing some of the plans of what that's going to look like. And my hope is, once I get my first and second shot, then I'll be flying over to Cyprus, and then to Thessaloniki, and then over to Florence, in about a week and a half to just meet with our various trades, folks. That'll be doing the woodwork. Work, the silver to get everything ready. Because God willing, it'll be ready for Easter. 22 Oh, wow. Wow, that's great. Wow. Yeah, that's not with all the all the mosaics if we're to put them in the equip, that equates probably to eight to $15 million worth of work just to mosaic work. Wow. So we're not going to be doing that right away. Yeah. But some of it will be phased in. But we have to have the master plan done. Yeah, for us, and then for future generations as well. Well,
7:22 I think that highlights a part of the Orthodox tradition, that I've always appreciated, and that is somewhat different than maybe the evangelical tradition is the the eye for detail in architecture, and how that adds to worship. And, and bringing in art and, and form and function and all of that, and worship engages all of your senses, all the senses, right? Correct.
7:47 And that's because it's looking at the beauty of the human person, the fullness of the person and that every every part of us can connect with Christ and ought to be engaged in worship. I, I guess the criticism, let's say, of of Christianity, post reformation, is it becomes really an intellectual exercise. I know God through the intellect. But yeah, but for early Christians, it was knowing God through experience, the intimacy of experience. And then also, what do we do folks have faculties that aren't as developed as others, right? If one isn't intellectually developed, can they know God, at any point would smell from an orthodox perspective, of course, because they can engage through the sights, the smells, the tastes? The sounds,
8:31 we actually talked about that very question in Christian perspective class today, because some of the students really wanted to talk about that, and I never had before, and I was determined to try to address that.
8:40 So from our standpoint, it's a non issue
8:43 for the traditions that we come from, it can be right didn't seem right for any of the students there. But I could see how it can be for some folks. Especially if your whole relationship with with the faith as sort of propositional and intellectual then that's going to be an issue. Yeah. Right. It's that's what it is. Right?
9:01 Yeah. And we often don't and I'll keep saying y'all keep maybe pointing to Rex here, you know, cuz he's a Baptist and he's a Baptist, the altar, the altar. I mean, when you kind of grow up, I think, for me, it was when I got to college, I started to get into more religious artwork and, and, and using that in forms of worship and understanding that because and I grew up to in a tradition that we didn't have, you know, artwork in the sanctuary and that wasn't like a word designing a sanctuary. That wasn't no one was flying to Cypress wrote to talk to and I think that that is really important, like you were saying, to be able, within worship to engage all of the senses. And and we kind of missed that I think in our which would can just kind of engage maybe the mind with a with a 40 minute sermon.
9:59 Who knows Growing up, I actually never heard of anything called a worship service. It was always the preaching service. And just really interesting when you look at it now growing up, I just never, you know, I mean,
10:08 historically, of course, that was a part of actually take it back in some cases, it wasn't even a part of services. And there was only early church, it was just the bishop that would preach
10:17 still, instead of being centered around the Eucharist since I've been sick, right on the surface,
10:21 if it were centered, right, you're advancing through the various circles surfaces of the day, you're being engaged by the space itself, to where, really, if one's praying the service, the homography, listening to the Scripture, looking at the icons, the smells, the sounds, you don't need a sermon. Yeah, it's already preached and everything that we're seeing and hearing and re experiencing. Yeah, so there's still days for us in our tradition where we won't offer a sermon, there's enough said within the service to, to stand alone.
10:50 Yeah. And there are some preachers out there listening right now. They're like, Oh, all right. And then other preachers are like, that sounds great.
10:58 And there's, there's something too, I sometimes feel bad for a few of my, my dear friends that don't fall don't have lectionaries as a church, right? Alright, because it's attempting to be relevant and create series. When churches always had it, there's a liturgical cycle that we just plug into. And it's there in spite of me. And I don't have to be clever crafty. I use the readings, the history and as I was sharing with the kids, and or students, excuse me, in the early church class, the first class, as we talked about the apostles, and they have to write a paper on one of the 12 of the 70 apostles. And the way this particular text we use one of the text notes is Gonzales notes. It is almost folkloric information about whomever it might be. Well, to the Orthodox world, or to the Catholic world, which make up the vast majority of Christians. It's not folkloric, it's not legendary. It's a tradition. Yeah. So if we're engaged in the service for today was the feast of St. Nicky photos, an early martyr of the church and become familiar with his life. It's not folkloric to us that's living, we just have the privilege of praying that service on the particular day incorporating ourselves into that greater feast with part of that cloud of witnesses. Yeah. So what is it just a different engagement and experience? Right? Yeah.
12:14 And it helpful when I mean, when we're talking about tradition I grew up in. And once again, I always had to, I feel obligated, I guess, but sort of a caveat to anything I say, with that, because I'm actually grateful for the tradition that I grew up in Christ. And that's just an important thing in my life. But now I can see some deficits and in in the way more the tradition I grew up in, and one of the major deficits, Chris is actually it was sort of tradition less,
12:42 which is a tradition unto itself, just
12:46 unmoored from Christian history. You know, it's almost as if, in fact, we've been skipped. We've been skipped the beginning of the reformation, we sort of skip all the way over until like, you know, I don't know, the Second Great Awakening, right. Yeah. So and, you know, that just I mean, is it's historically wrong in the first place, but it just, it cuts you off from the riches of your own heritage that you don't even know that you have.
13:12 Well, that. You know, I'd like to think, of course, within every tradition, there's a great deal of sincerity and a good intent. But good intent doesn't make good theology. Yeah. Yeah. And from can kind of an early church perspective. You know, that in the early days, there weren't Shades of Grey, you're either in or you're out. But the beauty of I think the culture we live in today, or the the period we live in, we look at things of shade of gray, the Holy Spirit blows, we're at will, so you can find goodness in every tradition. And even if it traditions non traditional, it's still a tradition unto itself. There's still right. It's a religion. I mean, it's a traditional a ritual, but it's still a ritual and a tradition unto itself. Folks just sometimes don't always realize that.
13:55 Right? I actually will mention that with some of the students in the classroom talking about the liturgy. And it's like, you know, March edition has a habit of saying, well, this look at chaplet. Jessup. Try, you think there's only two things that are going on there, but try switching them? Yeah. And you know, that if you tried switching him, that would be problematic for a whole lot of people, because that's the the ritual in itself, you know, you do that, yeah, that way. And so
14:18 and there's an inherent beauty and predictability that allows us to then be prepared to prepare ourselves for Yeah, if it's on campus elsewhere, right. But and yes, and that's, of course, just one of the hallmarks of who we are in the Orthodox world is the importance of that structure, physical structure, the elements of beauty of how we just have the privilege of plugging into it where we're living. So when you were mentioning before about the sanctuary being built to the coolest thing, it hit me a while back, but sending an email to the parish have known that when the sanctuary is built, it will never be anything else. And it will stand here until the second coming of Christ. Yeah. Really I mean, that's, that's remarkable to think whatever we construct now we'll be here until the second coming, whether it's tomorrow or whether it's in 1000 years, that's I will never be used for anything else. And it doesn't matter who the priest is, it doesn't matter who the people are, the, the hallmarks of Orthodoxy will remain in spite of all of us, which is beautiful. Yeah. So what really is
15:23 one thing, this always impressed me, but coming from a sort of a free church, image free tradition, actually. Is, is the use of the icon of status in worship, like liturgically, you know, not for private devotions or anything but liturgically and I was wondering if you could sort of explain to us neophyte some something about that.
15:44 So, okay, so, the Anastasio the icon screen is, what can be there considered it point of division or point of unification between the Holy of Holies, the Knave, and then the North x, right. So it's just so for us, we go back to the the tentative meeting and look at the structure of the tentative meeting that had structure and division of space. Solomon's Temple had structure division of space, early Christian churches had structure and division of space. So the icon screen when you're looking at it, there's the road or at the center, that's entrance, but then on the right hand side is my kind of Christ, next to Christ is going to be an icon of john the baptist, on the left hand side is going to be an icon of Christ in the arms of Mary. And the next is next to the icon of Christ, Amir in the left is going to be an icon of the church to whom it's dedicated. So when we're looking at the space, we're reminded, of course, first and foremost, and oh, I should say on the icon of Christ, the book is open. I'm the light of the world, because that's kind of our focal point there. When you're looking at john, John's reminder of pointing to the word right, which is his prominence on the icon is the last of the Prophets, and the greatest the prophets and then the other side, we can't escape the fact that Mary was the vessel of Cujo. So you can see, I just started thinking that I was being the birth giver of God, as opposed to Crystal tocris, or whatever are the terms we come up with it. We're considered deficient in the early church, right? And so we've got her there in throne. And then on the to the left, in our case is an icon of Anna. But Anne is not in the Bible. But she's the mother of Mary. And we know that from extra biblical sources. And, again, when we spoke of tradition before, there's no question east or west of her prominence, in fact, she's the most venerated woman in Christianity next to Mary. So that space then is not so much a separator from the holy sanctuary of the Holy of Holies, in which is the ultra table, vigil lamp that perpetually burns to show the presence of God, the Holy Eucharist isn't thrown on the altar table together with the book of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john, because the altar, the altar table then takes on the, the fullness of being the throne of God. So those two spaces are unified, and then they were people meet God. So whatever mystery unfolds in the sanctuary, and the Holy of Holies, let's say, is then brought forth into the nave through the rail doors. And then on the if you go, I'm sorry, two icons out one on like on either side. On the left hand side all the way over to the left is these are referred to as deacons doors. So the far left door has an icon of Michael the archangel, and on the right side is Gabriel, the Archangel. The reason Michael is on the left is that's the way the deacon exits the altar. And it's a reminder that Michaels there standing guard, keeping everyone out of Paradise, but the way the deacons able to come back in is through the good news in the proclamation of Gabriel. So, so everything is everything, Charles? Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. And even looking at our iconography pattern for the church, the beauty is going back and looking at other historical churches looking at plans from the unis, these theses, the airy APA guide, who is considered to be one of those first converted by Paul in Athens. And he came up with a plan of iconography not so much for the church, but how certain things are drawn in their hierarchy, even of the angels and all the categories of angels we have come back to the uneasiness so we have to consider all those things and consider the space and then where does everything go? How does it fit in, so that it is well pleasing scheme. And as always elevating the soul toward the the understand that God dwells here among men. Now,
19:20 he has a really way of using space to tell the story and and invite you and and again draw you into the presence of God,
19:29 which is and walking into the space. It's not it's the sight, but it's also the smell. Yeah, so walking into one of those early churches, when some of the students traveled to Greece to the Holy Land. You walk in and there's just a smell. There's a feel, and especially what's what's tragic, at least in my opinion, from here in the West is some of our, our spaces. There's a utility and a function to them, but there's no beauty. Yeah, yeah. So walking in, we'd have no concept that the divine lives or dwells here until the people Come in and pray. But the space audit control the space audit, communicate something more. Yeah, because that was a part of Judaism. It was a part of early Christianity, it continues to be a part, you know, really up until now, more contemporary times, right. And I understand what building cost but if the church doesn't preserve beauty, who will? And that's why we feel obligated. Coming back to mosaics in our case, if we don't do Mosaic, you're in Roseville who's going to do it within our region. And it's one trade that's been lost.
20:33 So tell me a little bit you were, I guess, a couple of years ago when? I don't know if you had brought a representative of the last like, mosaic workshop or whatever in Florence? Or was it? Yeah, that guy or whatever? I just I remember that. So there's
20:49 a handful of shops. Yeah, there are handful shops that are still doing the work there.
20:53 And so but it's very, very, very few worldwide right now that are doing that.
20:58 Yes. And very few of the caliber. So as an example, in the dome, the dome on Pisa, okay, as an example. So when you look at the structure, beautiful structure. World War Two, the windows were blown out. So the question is, what are those original windows look like? And since the Domo did not have its dome done inside, what would have been the plan based on that period? So they'll bring in some folks to come in and research and masimo, the gentleman that's helping us is the one that had to put together the plan of saying, Wow, historically, these are the Windows based on other windows we have during this period that would have been here, at least a variant of it. And this logically is what the dome would have looked like Had it been able to amend done. So this is what we're proposing, which is then to not just the the the Vatican, but also to the bureaus in Rome that ensure that everything in Italy, are done, according to spec. So that's the gentleman that's helping us with our project. Yeah,
21:59 yeah, that's a real I want to say cool, but it kind of is actually to have someone of that caliber. Oh, absolutely. It's awesome working with your church. It's just amazing. Ladies, a good man to read family. No, that's
22:10 great. Yeah, that was great. It's making me excited for this. For this sanctuary to be built. And to see it.
22:20 There's a there's a beauty to it. There's a functionality of it. Ah, well, this is a little bit of a sidebar, but about three weeks ago, we ripped up all the shrubs on our grounds in the parking lot, and they're good. They were pretty, but they don't produce anything. So the question is, what do we what do we do especially in our age right now, where? With all the COVID words, right, so, Rex has been up on our site and in the front of our property, we have our grapevines we imported from Cyprus to make our communion wine, we've got our palm branches for Palm Sunday, we've got some more lemon or whatever else, but then it was what else can we bring in? That would be beneficial for us on we've got a ton of roses because it's Roseville. But we're replacing all of our shrubs with I think we have 80 fruit trees that are coming in. Oh, wow. Wow. And the rationale is, historically, we were self sustaining the church communities. Yeah. And what a great thing for us to have. So we can enjoy these things ourselves. But then we can give back to the city, to the food banks and the handful of yours. So knowing that we're going to three harvests a year that takes care of our parishioners. And with excess, then we just give it back to the city.
23:24 And there's some echoes of revelation actually, in that whole image of the trees there. It's it's great stuff.
23:30 Again, that's what we're supposed to do. Right. It's, that's part of our monastic tradition is everything's kind of done in house. So we've got our bees on site, so we harvest our own honey but yeah, we then take the the wax and give it to our sisters up at one of our monasteries, and they can make the beeswax candles. So and the other cool thing is it's giving our, our own people, especially our young adults trade, where they can start getting familiar with of how to how to toil, because part of the frustration disappointment today is people don't actually know how to get dirty anymore. Yeah, work with their hands and produce anything. And yeah, and a part of I think even what Genesis says, aren't we supposed to like dig and plow the ground? Yeah, I think he's doing that in what Minecraft just is not the same thing.
24:14 Yeah. Not quite, you know, although if it was my children would be my son would be an overachiever. Yeah, he was he is really playing saints by this point. But I that's what what's interesting about i'd love that I love again, using all of the church space to to speak to the community and and to bring people together. And it's interesting over over kind of COVID time, my my wife and I and our my two sons became duck farmers. We build a coop area awesome and rotten. we afford ducks and resistors I joked with a class I was like, This really is part of my spiritual formation, right? Like, I go out there every morning by 630 and let him out, you know, replace their food. Replace water have to do their pools couple times a week and it just there's this rhythm that it puts you in there. And it's really interesting what you're saying when you look at monastic traditions and that there was there was so much of the spirituality was tied to to work during the day and meaningful work and and that being part of their formation not something they did on the side right not just like oh, you you kind of work during the day and then you come back to the monastery and pray like know when you're making bread when you're making candles when you're praying when you're making cheese. Yeah,
25:34 we introduced our we have chickens now in our yard. Hey, there we go. And we have beehives. Yeah, in addition to our fruit trees, and I want my kids out toiling. I want them to become familiar with these trades. And there's something beautiful also about a few weeks ago was picking up kumquats and making a preserve, which I'd never done before. But what a great gift to be able to give someone because we're toiling right and realizing the blessing of producing something. Goddess, you know, God gives us the trees, we water them, we tend to them. God gives us the fruit, we then pick the fruit and
26:04 work with it, and then offer it back since he's wrong on monasticism a little bit. I know this is one of those like, like, Can you tell me in a nutshell sort of questions to ask something like this, but but what what are some of the, I guess in a nutshell, differences between Western and Eastern monastic traditions? Okay, so the first thing
26:26 so the first thing is that a monastic is one of the practices ASCII sees for spiritual exercise. Every Christian is meant to have spiritual exercise. Yeah, the Lord says when you fast when you pray when I got it's not Yeah, there are no F's in fasting, right? And so our monastics live extremely austere lives. Many are in a monastery, and but every monastery is gonna have its own flavor of what that life in Christ looks like. A typical monastery is going to have what sick about eight hours of prayer day. But as you're mentioning to the work, as they toil throughout the day, all of that is considered part of prayer. But it's not the formal prayer of a brotherhood or sisterhood. So we don't have teaching orders, we don't have Sisters of Mercy and things like that, and beautiful traditions in the West. But in the eastern side of the house, when one becomes a monastic, it really is denying and giving up the world. Not so much shunning the world, acknowledging the goodness, but the missionary system historically, in the early Christian church came forth from monasteries, and those that went into the world to encourage people in martyrdom work from monasteries, and those that would serve in hierarchy were from monasteries, because there was a different formation that took place in the world. So thank god here in the United States, we're finally really building up our monastic communities, it's little by little, we're probably still not going to be on let's say, an orthodox community probably for about 100 years in the United States. And that's what the parish is maturing, but also our monastery is really taking root but that's one of the reasons I'm going to Cyprus has spent some time there one of the communities that I'm have a great affinity for. So just a lot of prayer. Hospitality is important. And that's like when folks traveled to the Holy Land or Jerusalem. All the holy sites, the sepal occur the Church of the Nativity and and and and, and all those are part of the Brotherhood of the holy sapsucker, which is a monastic brotherhood that manages all these sites serves at them, and then by extension, opens them up to the greater Christian world for hospitality. Yeah. So but not so much as a particular order. But as a brotherhood or Sisterhood of just focused in prayer under their salvation. Fair.
28:36 Sounds good to me. Cool. Yeah, sign me up. The I think I have another kind of ludicrous nutshell question, which might be hard. But there might be many of our listeners who, who are still thinking, I don't really know, maybe distinctions of the Orthodox tradition versus Catholic versus Protestant. But if so, if you were if you were trying to explain to someone, the How would you summarize the essence of the Orthodox tradition?
29:06 Hmm. Goodness gracious. Um, that's a tough one. It's not a simple answer. Right. The first thing is, we're ritualistic. Why, because the early churches ritual, ritualistic right to we're all about dogma and doctrine, because the early church was doctrine and dogma.
29:25 theology is important. theology is almost like prayer, isn't it? In some ways?
29:29 Well, of course. Yeah, of course, it isn't. If we consider the ship to be the, the vessel of salvation and the churches, again, that image of the ship, it would be really bad for us to be even off by a degree, because then we missed the port, right? So these things are super essential to us. So there's a great respect for ritual. There's a great respect for history a great respect for theology for tradition. I guess one of the things I would say is that, in some cases, it seems like across the Christian spectrum, again, not a negative The criticism to different things, yeah, is some of the approach the gospel by saying, Let's bring it down to the level of the people, right? We'll say, why don't we challenge the people to rise the level what it means to be a Christian? Because the blessing is, you know, we've got, especially when we go back to when we were one church for about 1000 years, there was only one way of doing it. Right. And it worked. Yeah. And there might have been some, let's say, human errors along the way with how some things were administered. But when folks really get back into the theology of it, it was a pure faith, and we're talking about today in the class. You can't escape the Church Fathers just can't escape them, right. You can't escape escape what Tertullian who gave us understanding of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, right? You can't escape the decay that gives us an understanding of how to baptize people. Yeah. It's can't escape the efficacious. God became man, so man could become God. It's so many things we just can't escape. Yeah, so it's having a great respect for it, and accepting the tradition that's been given to me, but then passing it on to the next group, unblemished. And if, and that's the beauty of our faith, again, is that it's not going to change. Just a bit, it can't change. None of us have the power. And actually, the minute our faith changes, let's say in Roseville, the minute we see some being orthodox, and the blessing is I've got a bishop over me that would ensure that I'd be removed, more people would be sequestered in a sense, or suppressed that if we started to preach or do something that was anti, Yeah, we are.
31:34 So what's the formation, Christa, of the Orthodox priests said, you know, the educational and sort of the standard
31:40 is the course an undergraduate degree. And then our seminary is going to be a three or four year program for a master's level. But the formation is different than a lot of our seminaries out in other Christian traditions. The day starts with chapel every morning at eight o'clock. What lasts anywhere from half an hour to an hour, and then everyday conclude. So the first morning prayer, then the day concludes at five with Vespers and evening prayer, every day. And then, of course, on Sunday, the celebration of mountains and liturgy, and on great feast, the church, the students will be seminary started at seminary starting service at seven, and then concluding morning prayers by nine. And that's just part of the routine. So it's really it maintains
32:21 that
32:23 tradition of praying with your faculty, studying with your faculty, eating with your faculty, and then praying with your faculty again, yeah, and kind of closing the day. So it's, it really is immersion. And then additionally, our students be at regardless of our seminaries either spend time in Greece, content, Turkey, Russia, Alexandria, Antioch, as part of their formation, even if it's for a handful of weeks of getting an experience of that large those the larger orthodox world, I should say, in the Holy Land, of course, too. So it's pretty. It's a lot of immersion, into the tradition, and formation, I should say, That's the goal. It's not, it's not about the academic stuff. Don't get me wrong, it's not important to all of our preset masters. But it's about the formation that takes place. What is just and there's no, it has to be done on campus. Okay, there's some things we can do online. Yeah, I guess that that sort of would not work. For us. It just wouldn't. And there's and don't get me wrong, there's there merits to online studies. But there's some things where, right, you know, we really have to think things through carefully and wisely because we have these implications of not just our immediate experience, but what's going to be long lasting after this. information can take a long time. And I should also, I should have also thrown in wrecks that, you know, in our case, if one recently becomes orthodox, one can't go to the seminary for I think it's about a five year period for them just to get used to being acculturated, right, not not into an ethnicity, but into orthodoxy, which is a culture unto itself. Yeah. And once they're comfortable, they're then progressive with the blessing of a bishop with the blessing of their spiritual father to go to seminary, then coming out of seminary doesn't mean one's going to be a priest, because one still needs to go to the whole battery of exams, psychological exam course all the background stuff now, but also needs a blessing from their spiritual father and Bishop that it needs the approval of the Synod of Bishops in order for one to be ordained a deacon or priest. So there are no guarantees. But I appreciate that. Because it's, it's not about the ego. It's not about me, it's about
34:31 what will be and what will be. I appreciate the rigor of that to my ordination, which was meaningful to me, but I always sort of joke that in the tradition that I was brought up in as long as someone has or feels they have a call from Jesus, that they will ordain a rock pretty much. And I remember it was like, there was no I mean, as far as battery of tests or anything, it was basically you have the date for the ordination. You make sure that There's a potluck afterwards so that people will bring the food. Yeah. And then like 10 minutes before the ordination, sermon and service, a group of local pastors will just in my case and toss me a couple of softball questions. And and, you know, you're always going to pass that because other people have already bought the food. So a foregone conclusion and have and and, you know, I think there's much more to be said about beer tradition than that way of ordaining folks, well,
35:30 just. Which doesn't mean it's not a valid ordination, right i by any means, but the intentionality, right? And when you mentioned about the battery of questions that actually came in our senior year, where we'd have to sit down with all of our faculty, and then we were peppered for hours, with questions, and then at that point, they could either recommend us or not for ordination. So it didn't matter what our intention was, after three or four years at the seminary, you can have your faculty say, Gosh, God bless you with your studies and how you've done. But ordination isn't for you. Yeah. And it's, and I gotta tell you, I like that, because it's then not about me. Right? Right. There are others who are making the decisions. And my task is just to be obedient. And that's probably one of the greatest things in Orthodoxy is just this concept of obedience that I don't always know what's best for me. Yeah, I can be self deceiving. So being able to put myself in the care of someone else to kind of mentor me and guide me along. Right is wise. So where do you go to seminary? I was back in Boston. Okay. So we have our seminary Holy Cross, which is not there's a Holy Cross Catholic, and there's a Holy Cross orthodox. So we're in Jamaica Plain, or Brookline. So did my studies there. And then continued post and yeah, and then just kept going? And you also have a degree from UC Davis. I do. Yeah. my doctoral studies there on and northeastern, and then I'm actually back in another master's program right now in joint operations studies for the military.
36:49 That's right. And so a real renaissance man here. Yeah. Why he we love having him. I mean, it's an I've always felt, Chris, that. You know, you're doing us a favor here, actually. I really believe that what you bring is something that that we need, and our students need just the intellectual rigor and just the tradition that you come from, and we're all in this together rain, that's always that, but it's a good thing. It's
37:15 like it can't hurt and the the challenge if we really believe there's a God, right, get really basic about it, if we really believe it. It's pretty important relationship at the end of the day, and it's nothing we should take too casually. Right? Right, right. So we're only going to become sharper through ongoing engagements and conversations and and Rex can testify to this. But when I first got here, some folks were not a fan of having me on campus. It was a little bit unsettling for some of having an Orthodox priest here and over the years rexel remember, we've had a monk that is now at Mount Sinai, a priest monk who came into lecture, we've had some other professors that orthodox clergy and non orthodox that have come on campus to help me out with my class. And in this current class, we're going to be zooming in a priest monk or a monk I should say, from keycodes monastery in Cyprus, it's gonna be joining us at one point, but this is about it's a pretty grand Christian world. It is not it's not just 21st century America, right in California, in Roseville, or in Rocklin. Right. So it's important for us to have a good understanding of all of it, and the timelessness of the Church of what of all times Kevin Adams like saying that, but I think it's a great saying, right, the church of all times in all places, yeah, if we don't have an appreciation of that, our understanding of it, my goodness, gracious, we're doing a disservice to ourselves into the church. That's right, because it's not about me at the end of the day. Yeah. And we should be able to have some good, insightful conversations about the church dispassionately and with clarity, rather than just opinion. Right. And that's why Rex will know, my poor students in class. Opinions just unless it's rooted in something of history, right. And it just isn't gonna have a place in the class. Yeah.
38:56 And I always tell them that it's good for you. So that's right. And and really, for our, you know, our audience out there. Yeah. The, you know, millions that list Exactly, yes. It is true that honestly, I've never heard a student that has gone through a class with Chris and he's taught the route church class with us. He's taught a course in Christian art, I believe art in architecture for us and history of ancient Greece, all sorts of things. But I've never heard a student that actually. Well, they've all said it's a challenge. Right? And that right, and but they've always appreciated that they knew what was going on.
39:34 Yeah, even if they didn't like it necessarily at the time, they knew what was going on. And they appreciate it. The purpose of higher education is to challenge our understandings to make a sharper and better and who, as individuals, right, right. And that's, if I don't bring that to a classroom out of respect to my students, and I'm failing in my vocation and you don't I shouldn't be teaching. So it's a privilege always working with the students and it is a workload, but if they're upper division classes, the students need to be put All right, yeah, I need to be able to make sure that they're prepared. Because for some of these kiddos, it's going to be off into the real world. Right? Some of them are going to ministry, others are going to go for graduate studies, or they're just going into work. So that's part of the privilege of, of helping them out right? successes and failures for all of us along the way. Yeah.
40:18 Well, we're so glad you're here. And so glad that you joined us on the show. And I think it's really important, some of you said that we can just kind of land on the idea that the church for all time, right, and that for the first 1000 years of the church, we were one and and I feel like even though maybe at the beginning, you know, a little resistance on campus. I think it's important for us to start to recognize and, and, and become have our different traditions, but to see ourselves more unified than separate, and that we are all in the church together. And and the kingdom of God is all of these traditions. Absolutely. And, and so we're just so glad to have your voice on campus and on the show. So thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. Great. That's always nice to be here. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup bank. We would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
41:35 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex discuss the complex and inspiring topic of Celtic spirituality, a spirituality marked by prayer, love of nature, and union with God.
TRANSCRIPT
0:02 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And today on the show, we're going to be exploring Celtic spirituality, spirituality marked by a deep sense of community, a love of nature and a reverence for the Trinity.
0:17 And even though it's something I've kind of come to a little bit later in my life, it's something that's really impacted my, the way I see the world and my, my devotional walk in an incredible manner really had sent and I think it has some things for all of our listeners as well.
0:34 Yeah, we hope that you enjoy the show, and it impacts you in the same way that it has us. Alright, Rex, we're gonna be I was well, I was waiting for the bagpipes to come on. Yeah. The pennywhistle. And maybe, maybe, maybe we can talk to post production. Maybe they've already added it in. And then Taylor goddess. But yeah, looking at Celtic Christianity Today and Celtic spirituality, which he said in the intro, there's something that you kind of came to later in life, and it does feel like probably the last 20 or 30 years, there's been more of an interest in Celtic spirituality.
1:25 That's right. I remember that too. I remember when it kind of got got discovered, which is sort of bizarre when you talk about been around for 1500 years that sort of got discovered it was almost faddish for a while but but after the, you know, everybody gets on the bandwagon, kind of thing. It's, um, you know, it's lasted. Really? Yeah. Because there's a deep, deep and rich vein of spirituality there.
1:52 Yeah. I remember when the Northumbria community when they published a daily prayer. I remember, man, I want to say I was in college, but maybe just out of college. I remember picking that up. And that was kind of late 90s, early 2000s.
2:09 Yeah, yeah. Almost exactly. When literally, that was exactly when I remember the wife of the associate pastor of the church. We went to Virginia, suddenly, she was also a seminary professor. And she was suddenly into Celtic spirituality. So she actually went to Ireland or Scotland or somewhere and brought back some, you know, it was she was she was really in it for a while. But that's the first time I'd ever heard of it. Actually. Yeah.
2:33 Yeah. One, especially in maybe the evangelical community, we didn't run out and talk about I mean, I think even growing up there was a suspicion of like Celtic crosses. Right. You know, I mean, just like, there's a suspicion of the crucifix as well, I think that is this kind of suspicion of, of, you know, of Celtic spirituality, and maybe the mystical element of it
2:59 right now. And in the pagan element, the warmed over druidism, or something like that. I've kind of right, you know, I've heard people criticize it for that, but it's deeply Christian.
3:10 Yeah, it is. And as we kind of get into this, or maybe people listening right now who are like, I don't exactly know, maybe the backstory of Celtic spirituality. So if you want to kind of maybe give us a little rundown on the history where it originated,
3:24 okay. It's really interesting, because it actually for Gosh, probably six or 700 years, was sort of an alternate but parallel, you know, version of the Christian faith, that kind of grew simultaneously with what ends up becoming the Roman church or the Roman Catholic Church, and really didn't have that much contact with it. But sort of grew a little bit differently. I mean, nothing, you know, heretical or anything about it, you just had sort of an almost an independent origin. And so the Celts, of course, are, you know, usually associated with Ireland and Wales and Scotland. But as we were talking before the podcast, they're sort of everywhere. I was really surprised. Actually, the first time I went to Spain, it was like, What are all these people up in northern Spain with like red hair and blue eyes? And it's like the traditional music up in northern Spain has bagpipes in it is like what was going on with this, but then actually, when you just like look at a map, it's just like, you know, it's just a swim from the coast of Ireland down to hit the northern part of Spain. And so, it was pretty widely disseminated. But what ended up happening was, you know, Christianity came with the Romans to England, and then when the Romans sort of bugged out in the fourth and fifth century, Christianity kind of it took sort of local route, but it ended up being sort independent of the rest of rapidly christianizing Europe was the Roman Empire fell. Right? Yeah. But then, you know, certain Christians and I think St. Patrick, of course, is the most famous one and a lot of legends, you know, kind of serais, right. He apparently was a historical character and an amazing person, but he, you know, was a Christian and basically wanted to evangelize his own people. And so he went over to Ireland, and from Ireland, where it took basically it kind of crossed the straits to Scotland and then sort of spread around. But but sort of arose independently, a little bit of the Roman Church, which which gave the Roman Church Willies after a while, because they really felt that, you know, you needed to sort of submit to the authority of Rome, you know, yeah, you have to you have we have to have that happen. And eventually, they did actually, it was it was a very conscious decision on the Celts to basically, you know, just go for unity with one church in the West and not not two or three, right? Yeah, but but since it grew up sort of differently. It does have a different cast. And that cast is very attractive to a lot of folks. And I think it really has resonance today. And you were mentioning a few of those sort of distinctives of Celtic spirituality, before the podcast and I kind of forgot your list. So you want to repeat Yeah,
6:30 well, I think one of the first ones you need to see this when you look at different kind of Celtic communities is just that stress on community and a lot of times it was through the lens of monasticism. Exactly, exactly. And one thing I think with monasticism, that sometimes in the evangelical community, since we don't have too many evangelical monks out there, although there's been different moments where there's been a push right, we have a few on campus. Yeah, exactly. I know. I barricade myself. Yeah. You and I are trying our hardest. Interesting about monasticism is that we often think of like monasticism as a, as a solo spirituality, right and spirituality alone. And there are permits, and there are those who go in and even the Desert Fathers, but many of them went into times of solitude, but but came back to live in community. And really, monasticism is marked by a deep sense of community.
7:35 And one difference sort of, of the Celtic version of monasticism made least in the first millennium of our era was that, whereas, you know, the church in in, in Europe, pretty much would separate men and women into completely different monasteries, in, you know, until basically, they had to give this up, they would often have, you know, they'd be separate communities, but they basically be one monastery, and they'd have an Abbot and an Abbot and an Abbess. And yeah, they were considered equal, actually equally in charge of the monastery with, you know, with the community of women and the community of men. And there was just this sort of egalitarian cast of Celtic spirituality that I think, of course, a lot of folks today find really attractive to.
8:25 Yeah, yeah. And it kind of draws you into, into that community where it's not just like saying maybe it's not just a male community or a female community, but it's, it's really a community of everyone coming together as a community of saints base. Yeah. And deepening their, their spirituality, I also have kind of seen that their type of monasticism was also marked, and this is for maybe other monastic types as well. But it wasn't marked so much by a desire for knowledge, like a deeper secret knowledge of God, but rather it was marked by, by a way of living your life. Right, right. That is,
9:09 it was much more in tune. And this is another attractive thing about Celtic spirituality, to many of us moderns who have disenchanted our world after the enlightened after the enlightened Yeah, um, Celtic spirituality is very, very tied to place and, and tied to the earth tied to nature, not in a, you know, pantheistic way or anything, but realizing that, you know, that the world is enchanted with God's grace, you know, yeah. And, and you can find God being manifest in God's creation. And, you know, one thing that they talked about and this is another thing that's sort of been picked up by us moderns is the whole concept of thin places. And, you know, those are places where, you know, we know God's everywhere, right? Yeah, but but these are cases where it just seems like for whatever reason, the veil between heaven and earth is just a little thinner. Yeah, it's almost like nature as Theophany. Sort of. And yeah, that's something that's really stuck with me for a long time I actually brought with me, one of the books I have, basically, I have several notebooks that whenever I, you know, find something that inspires me in my devotion, writing, whatever, I'll sort of the spiritual discipline of copying, actually, yeah, I'll copy it down in my best handwriting. And I tried to do it, like meditatively, it's not a ratio, and put it in these notebooks. Right. And, you know, every once in a while, every couple of years, I'll look, you know, look through here and just read some of this stuff. And it's like, Yeah, I know why I wrote that down now. Right. Um, but one thing I keep in this particular iteration of those notebooks is a little three by five card that I've written thin places in my life, and I've kind of kept see different pin is pencils for I've added to it through the years. And yeah, and you know, when I look at this card, and I just remember, you know, I felt God's presence in those places. And I remember God speaking to me in those places, is like, the veil between heaven and earth was just really thinner. Yeah, and just looking at my little list of thin places, is really helpful to me when I'm in a very thick place.
11:31 Right. Right. And that's, and that is, I think, one thing that's really attractive about the Celtic spirituality, that emphasis on thin places, and maybe that emphasis on that place and location, can have a factor in spirituality, right. And some, oftentimes, we maybe exclude that. But yeah, I can look in my life and think of maybe different I mean, there's a there's a camp up in Tahoe that I that I've worked with for almost 20 years now. And that would be a thin place in my life that is just that there's that, like you said, that veil just seems to be much thinner, and the connection with God, and there's something about location.
12:15 Right, right. I was gonna ask you about shifts in places, I was looking through this list here, just right now. And you know, some of them are out in nature. Some of them are in like, cities is just, you know, that there's some places I've been to, again, that that just, I don't know, the combination of, of, you know, the people and the place and nature usually is by the ocean somewhere, right? But but it's just, it's just all comes together for me sort of like Ace God and humanity. And even though I don't know, these people, and they don't know me, we're all sort of, you know, here together under God's good graces, and that that's really impacted me profoundly. Yeah, that's why I keep the little list.
13:02 Yeah, I think that's, that's great. It's so great to have those to recognize those places. And too often we disconnect our spirituality from from place and and then we don't necessarily allow them locations to impact us in that way. And so so being able to rely not rely on that, but but be able to have those type of places where it's like, man, I know this a place I can get away and connect with God.
13:31 And even some of those places that you know, I'm figure prominently in the history of Celtic spirituality when you visit them today. You just sort of feel God's presence there. The island of Iona is one of them. I've actually never been there. I've been to Scotland, but I haven't been to Iona. Yeah. But I've seen pictures and people that have been and maybe one of these days, I'll get there. Yeah, there you go. It's just a special place. Yeah, it's a special place. And and it was it was it was seen as such by the original folks like St. Columba that that would founded that community and, and came up with these wonderful things like the Book of Kells. And there's a lot of this that I'm pretty sure our listeners are really already familiar with. It's just sort of, you know, connecting the dots a little bit.
14:21 Yeah. Now like David Adam writes this about Celtic spirituality especially connected to play so the vision of the Celts was sacramental rather than mystical. They saw God in and through things rather than direct visions. The Celts only miss a take time to learn and play the five stringed harp which are the five senses, and I love that idea of of it, you know, and that's maybe where you were saying at the beginning, there was this maybe mistrust of Celtic spirituality because of the mystical side and I said, warmed over, you know, paganism or Druid ism. But but I think we don't need to be afraid of that connection to nature and that in that use of nature to, to explore the presence of God in viewing it, I like that switch in words that it's not, it doesn't have to be mystical but rather sacramental meaning that that God is present in these places, just like he's president everywhere, but there are moments and places where you can sense him in a different way because maybe distractions are gone. Right? By like how you're saying, I think in my own life, too, like I have some of those places that are in nature. You know, up in Tahoe, I would say back in Indiana, at at dusk time right at sunset because there's no elevation change in Indiana. So it's it is like staring out over the ocean in the sense that you watch the sun drop, you know, drop off the side of the earth, just like you watch it go into the ocean. And I always love that as a kid, I always felt that as a special time of contemplation. But also, even for me walking in a big city like walking downtown with a bunch of people. It's just something about that, too, that I can that I can sense God and sense. And since others
16:23 at Thomas Merton famously felt that in Louisville, Kentucky. That's one of his most famous sort of theophanies in a hand It happened in you know, downtown Louisville. Yeah. Which is so good. But if you do go to Scotland, and like, I can't say I'm, you know, Mr. Scotland or world. But But if you do look at the Hebrides, you know, the inner and outer Hebrides, which is those islands that are out there, kind of between Scotland, and you just you just see the sun there, and the sea and the sky, and, and you sort of get it, you just you get it. And one, a collection of prayers that actually came out of folks that had lived there for centuries, it was called the, the communica Delica. And what ended up happening is, you know, it's sort of like folklore is today, we just go around and and, and just take down and write down these prayers that people had had, you know, said for centuries, basically. And, you know, one thing that Celtic spirituality has is a prayer for everything, because they really believe that that you know, God's presence was in everything. Right, right. And one of those prayers, actually, I have on a little three by five card and I will read about once a week and disappear that actually comes from kind of a domestic sort of thing you're supposed to say in the morning, if you're, you know, in a in that truth, cottage somewhere, sky or something like that sounds great to me, even in Roseville, California, I mean, this is called kindling the fire. And I just think it's, I mean, I need this. So I just like to read this prayers, I will Kindle my fire this morning, in the presence of the angels of heaven, without malice, without jealousy, without envy, without fear without terror of anyone under the son, with the Son of God to shield me. So God Kindle in my heart, a flame of love for my neighbors and my foes, for my friends and all my kindred, for the brave for the Knave for the beggar, oh, son of the loveliest Mary from the lowest creature that there is to the name that is highest, above all, and I need that that's just for guessing for everyone, even people I admit, I don't like God changed my heart and my attitude towards them. And, and there's, you know, I mean, there's hundreds of prayers like this, you candle the fire, you say this prayer, you know, you bake bread, you say this prayer, there's this concept of threshold. You know, when you when you go into a house, or you leave a house, where where you just sort of bless you're entering and you're leaving, and it's not superstitious as some people might write might write, that's really not what's going on there at all. It's just, it's just acknowledging, you know, that every step we take needs to be, you know, in the light of God, and they really felt this about everything. And yeah, I, I missed that in our world. And I missed that in much, much of the, you know, spirituality that I grew up with.
19:39 Right. Right. And I think maybe that's what has drawn both you and I to to Celtic spirituality and and the spiritual disciplines. is in and I think that's why, you know, over the last 40 years, there really has been even within the evangelical community has been a bigger interest in that, that what we would call deeper spirituality. But really, it's just kind of spirituality, and maybe what spirituality would be. But we need that encouragement. And I think we need those examples to show us what, what it looks like to, to live in the presence of God every moment. Right? And to remind ourselves, and yeah, maybe, maybe for too many are, our spirituality is a church service that we go to, but we're kind of separate from, and then our daily life looks much different. And then we check in on weekends. And I think something like Celtic spirituality or the disciplines offer us offers a daily daily life that
20:48 is important, really is right. So you just want God with you and everything that you do. And I find that really, you know, really important in my life, and you know, you teach theology mark, and apparently I won an award in theology. That's right, you're at, I didn't deserve an award winning whatever. Later, but nothing, but we've already gone over all that in a previous podcast. But um, you know, one interesting thing about about Celtic spirituality is it's, it's very Trinitarian. And they put a huge focus on the Trinity, and how every person of the Trinity and that being very, very important, you know, yeah. And you see that, with, you know, prayers like St. Patrick's breast place, and you see it all through the coming to get Delica. Yeah, and, you know, for so many of us that, that, you know, we claim we're Trinitarian because, you know, to be Nicene Christians, yeah, sort of, right. Yeah. But, yeah, a lot of times we're functional Unitarians in some way, and just really are, yeah, and, you know, Celtic spirituality really reminds us of the three and the end the one, yeah, you know, and God in three persons plus a trinity, and you see that over and over again, through the prayers.
22:17 And you see it in their symbols and their artwork as well. So, I mean, I think that's what has always drawn me to the Celtic Cross, is that kind of that overlapping pattern, that is really a pattern that is that is describing the three in one nature of God, right. And, and, and again, perhaps it's, it's in spiritualities, like Celtic spirituality, where we get to also see how, how symbols are used to reinforce truths about God and to help us and, and maybe perhaps being part of spiritualities that maybe lack some of those symbols. We do have that tendency to, you know, to think about God as a single person, and then we'll talk about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but it's very hard for us conceptually, right, to think of God as three in one as Father, Son, spirit, right?
23:17 And even though you know, Celtic spirituality has a fine appreciation for Theophany or God's presence in nature. It's not like, you know, these folks are just sort of wandering around starry eyed communing with a leprechaun or whatever you think the Celtic spirituality has, is very aware of, of evil and the dark forces in this world around us yeah, need for, for protection from that and, and our need for for, you know, realizing that, that you know, this is God's world, but it's a fallen world and and we need, we need Christ in us to make our way through this world, part of the famous preference St. Patrick, and I'm actually reading this out of another book here. You know, you've heard all this before, but and it sounds really repetitive and it sounds like you know, you know, can you think of anything else to pay or something but but really, you know, we all need this. It's like be Christ this day, my strong protector. Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ to the right of me, Christ to the left of me, Christ in my lying and my sitting and my rising, Christ in the heart of all who know me, Christ on the tongue of all who meet me, Christ, in the eye of all who see me in Christ in the ear of all who hear me, Christ in and through everything. Yeah. You know, once again, that's something that I don't cultivate in my life. Right as much as I would like to and yeah, Celtic spirituality. helps me to at least try.
25:03 Yeah, it really does. So if, if someone were, you know, if their interest has been piqued Now, over over the course of this episode, and they wanted to, to start to learn more about Celtic Christianity, where would you point them first?
25:17 Well, you know, especially, you know, like anything that sort of becomes a Christian fad. There's been a plethora of books that have been written on it. And you know, I actually have some of my library don't have any with me right now, except for the two books that I brought. But a good introduction to Celtic prayer by Esther devall, W, A L. Sounds Dutch. So I don't know how Yes, it does. But it's just called the Celtic way of prayer. And I actually read part of St. Patrick's breastplate. There. And, you know, the other book, I was quoting from songs to the isles is just sort of an updated modern version of, of the communica Delica. because, frankly, you know, a lot of these prayers, you know, even though I guess most people in Scotland in Ireland speak English now. But yeah, these were all in Gaelic. Right. Right. And I would have loved to have heard some of these things in Gaelic, actually, but it's a it's an ecumenical spirituality, because, yes, we know, Scotland sort of became Presbyterian, you know, without actually losing this whole vibe. You know, that's sort of important for everybody. And, yeah, it's been it's been wonderful that it's been rediscovered in reappropriated. In the last 50 years or so.
26:41 Yeah, no, those are great, great resources. And, and one that I kind of mentioned earlier, too, if you look up the Northumbria community, and they published a few books on on Celtic spirituality, and Celtic daily prayer, and I've really found that those have been extremely helpful. I'm just understanding the, the focus of Celtic spirituality. And again, giving us you know, I'm a huge fan, just like you are Rex, of giving us written prayers that we can go back to, and and it just teaches us a depth and teaches us maybe a different perspective that we hadn't in. And maybe as we're looking, you know, hear at the beginning, and just into 2021. And ready. Yeah, like, as, as we're looking at this new year, I think I think it would be a great year to, to hone in on these elements from Celtic spirituality hone in on, what does community look like? You know, it was interesting with 2020 being such a disruption of our normal, right kind of Christian life, in a sense in America, right? That I think it's a good time to, to think about, yeah, what, what is the basis of our spirituality? And what does community look like from a Sunday gathering, but also to a daily life? And what does? How does our daily lives, you know, center us around God and keep bringing God's presence back to us in every moment. And so, I think 2021 could be a great time to kind of explore, explore these principles and explore a deeper spirituality.
28:29 I'm certainly willing to do almost anything in 2021.
28:38 Yeah, there we go. All right, you're leading the charge, you're leading the charge and will follow. But now I hope that this has maybe has piqued your interest into into wanting to learn a little more about Celtic spirituality, and a form of spirituality that really highlights community but also highlights this the sacramental nature of every moment of every day. And, and now hyla highlights God's presence in nature, but also at your workplace and in your city. And so being able to, to know that God is there, and that every moment of your life can be directed towards him and can be centered around him I think is really important.
29:26 When you start looking and expecting God to show up. It's amazing how he does. And yeah, shows up everywhere. And anywhere actually. And so wonderful thing to look for and expect.
29:37 Definitely. Well, thank you so much, Rex for for putting this topic forward. And teaching us a little today about Celtic spirituality. Not the expert, but certainly the advocate. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes. These reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
30:16 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Dr. Nijay Gupta from Northern Seminary joins Mark to discuss how the church can better read and apply the writings of Paul and the New Testament.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And on the show, we are joined by Dr. Nee, J. Gupta, who is a professor of New Testament and northern seminary. He's the author of numerous books, including Paul and the language of faith, a beginner's guide to New Testament studies, reading Philippians, a critical commentary First and Second Thessalonians, just amongst a few of the books that he has published. He also co edits several books. He's a world class scholar, and Anna, and a great writer and a really fun conversationalist. I know you're going to enjoy the show.
0:44 Yeah, DJ, thank you so much for being on the show and joining us and really excited to, to talk to you about your scholarship on Paul in the New Testament. And particularly with Paul in the language of faith, but we'll we'll get there. But as I was kind of preparing for, for this episode, it was interesting at our church, also a pastor here in Sacramento, and at our church, we're reading the New Testament through and 90 days, so that can the first 90 days of the year, you know, added onto your workout regimen or something, you know, that you that you do starting on January one. And and this year, I think for me was, was the first time like we read through the Gospels, and just hearing Jesus hearing that and the message. And then moving to Paul and was like, Oh, yeah, there's there's a little bit of a subtle shift in, in maybe tone and what Paul highlights in a sense, and, and so I could see and then started getting questions from people in the church like, Oh, hey, how do I understand this? How do I read this? How do I, you know, how do I understand Paul here is for me, it was kind of, you know, a really good experience to be like, Oh, yeah, when we get to Paul, it's a little bit different. And we have to understand like, Okay, how, how do we approach Paul? And so really, I'd love just from you, maybe what are some ways or what are some advice for people in the church to read Paul better? Like, what is their things they need to know going into Paul? And how can we understand Paul better?
2:23 Yeah, hi, Mark, great to be with you. And it's fun, fun to be connecting with your institution. And great, even during a pandemic, we can, you know, talk online and through a podcast and connect and meet new people. Yeah, you know, it's when you start reading the Bible carefully, you start noticing differences, distinctives of different writers and things like that. So just within the Gospels, if you're paying careful attention, you'll notice gospel, john does things differently. Right. Right. JOHN is called the maverick gospel. Yeah, because it's anti Mark, Luke are Matthew. But because it gives a little bit different of a vantage point, it kind of highlights some different things. If you think about like a modern biography of Lincoln, or even, you know, Barack Obama. Right now you're dealing with the same basic information about a person in history, you can take different camera angles, to look at that person, and it gives you a more robust picture. So yeah, when you turn to Paul, you notice things are a bit different. I would give a couple couple pieces of advice. Number one is to remember that most of Paul's letters were probably written before the gospels were written down. Yeah. And that's actually hard to keep in mind. The gospels were reading about Jesus who came before Paul's ministry, right? And yet something like First Thessalonians and Galatians were, you know, they're known to be the earliest New Testament texts. So I hate to use the word primitive, because it has negative connotation. But when you're thinking of the earliest voices in Christian literature, you're talking about Paul, and that's, you know, I Dunn's work in First Thessalonians, and you get this kind of a grittiness there to that letter. That's very different than something like Hebrews, which is this really thought through sermonic reflection on the Jesus story, right? looked at in terms of the Old Testament, and sacrifice and priesthood and things like that. So one tip is to remember how early Paul's letters are. Yeah, it doesn't make them better or worse than the gospel, it just means they're going to use maybe a little bit different vocabulary. They're going to talk about things a little bit different way. The second thing to keep in mind is that doesn't mean we change our Bibles It doesn't mean we rip out parts and put stuff earlier or later. Yeah, I believe in many scholars, like Do Timothy Johnson Bravo chiles believe that the church gave us an ordering of the New Testament that would be most helpful for the flow of how we read the Bible. Hmm, yeah. So it's helpful to start, it's helpful to start with the Gospels and get fully entranced or, you know, in mashed in this story of Jesus, and then go on to Paul, because he carries on this post, post Ascension ministry. So So I still like that ordering the book of Acts kind of sets up the life of the church. But another, I'd say that third thing to that, and then we'll we'll go back and forth on it. But the third thing I'd add is remember that their letters and letters are situational or occasional texts. Yeah. And so Paul is giving advice, he tells Timothy, Hey, stop drinking water and drink more wine. I mean, he's saying things that he's giving advice in a personal letter. And so some things are gonna be hard for us to understand, like, First Corinthians talks about baptizing the dead. What does that mean? When we read letters, we realize you can't just pull everything out and apply it immediately to our lives. Yes, scripture is written for us, but it's not written directly to us, we have to go through a process of interpretation, I believe, and I'm sure you believe, mark that everything in the New Testament and Old Testament is relevant for life today in some way, right? Sometimes it's on the level of principles, what principles, moral principles, theological principles, just in the same way we know when we hear drama, that we need to interpret that to dollars and cents. Right, right. In other areas, we need to go through that kind of process. Those are three tips that I like to give early on when people think about how to study Paul.
6:47 Yeah, no, those are really helpful. And I've always I've always joked with my classes, and I teach kind of a New Testament intro class, and along with other theology classes, and so I've always joked with them that that that advice from Paul to Timothy is probably like every Christian college student memorizes that first, drink more wine. Now water, they're like, Wait a second, is this biblical? But trying to help them oftentimes in this new testament intro class. It's the first time they've heard and many that have grown up in the church. It's the first time they hear that Paul's writings predate the Gospels. And, and often it's the first time they hear the context and situation of his letters. And, and I agree with you that it's it's so important as we approach scripture, and especially as we approach Paul, to realize there is this kind of context there is this culture. And I like what you're saying, how, how can we because because often, I think when people within the church, and when students are reading scripture, our focus is how do I apply this to my life? Right? Like, we read everything, and it's through this lens of application. And, and sometimes, then we can read Paul, talking about headcoverings. And we're like, Okay, how, you know, I guess, you know, I'm a man, I need to cut my hair, right? I can't have long hair or, and and we get caught up in application. How can we how can we understand kind of the situation or occasion or the cultural specificity of Paul, in terms of our application? I like what you said about principles. Love, just hear more about that.
8:30 Yeah. So starting with understanding like the Bible's context and background, you can learn a few things that are going to help you really grapple and understand the cultural world of the New Testament. Things like how men and women relate social class, you know, how slavery worked back then, meals and how important they are. So one book I'd recommend is Craig keener has done the IVP Bible background commentary, which is kind of a lookup any text of the New Testament, and he'll give you background context information, which is super helpful. Another great resource, if that might be too hefty is the IVP Bible backgrounds, Study Bible. And yeah, that's Yeah, gives you study notes that are going to give you cultural information. But in terms of then how to apply that for today. My professor at Gordon Conwell, his name is Walter Kaiser. He taught us something called the ladder of abstraction. And this really, yeah, it's really helpful. I know it could continue to sounds like something from Dr. Seuss. Right? But so what you do is you take some issue, like for example, when the New Testament says women shouldn't have hair braids. Yeah, right. And then you try to figure out the ladder abstraction is you go up this ladder from the ancient context to some abstract concept or theory. Yeah. And so you go from hair braiding to what did hair braiding mean? symbolically in the ancient world, and scholars talk about two things. One is possibly showing off wealth kind of flaunting wealth or social life. Yeah, Another possibility is showing your kind of sexual availability. Not sure depending on the context, which one but you go up the ladder of abstraction, you say, don't don't advertise your kind of sexuality or that you're kind of wanting a sexual partner outside of marriage. Or don't flaunt flaunt your wealth. So you're at this abstract, and then you climb back down the ladder on the other side, into our world. And you could do this in Bible study and process. Okay, what would that look like today? That might look like not taking like pictures of yourself on Instagram? Like 10 cars? Yeah, you know, something like, they don't always take your Hawaiian vacation pictures, you know, and show all the fancy things you're doing. And, yeah, that simple process you can do on almost any text, if you can get a good grasp of what it meant. In a change context, it's worth getting a group of people together and talking about, okay, how does this apply today? So for example, I've been doing stuff on the New Testaments work on how we relate to one another, especially in public. And I've been applying that to how we use social media. Okay, and yeah, using some things about peace, the language of peace in Hebrews and and so the New Testament says nothing directly about social media, but it has a lot to say about how we engage with one another in a public space.
11:44 Right. Well, and that is so so pertinent right now in our culture, and just how divisive social media can be and and how argumentative and and then I like you're saying, like, cuz I think most people when they're reading Paul, they wouldn't go from hair braids, or even Peter right when he talks about, you know, jewelry and adorn yourself. They don't jump from that to Oh, yeah, how do my Instagram posts connect to this passage, but they totally do. And you? And I love that. And I'll just admit it right now on the air, I'm going to steal the letter of abstraction, a ladder of abstraction. And, and I will, I will, I will, you know, note you in class, and I will know Walter Kaiser as well. But that is that's so helpful, right? Because that's getting you to a principle. And that really speaks to how we read the Bible in general, right? You know, that it's not just the words, but it's getting us to the meaning and the principle that then becomes the application. And that's, that's really helpful. And now it's, you know, I don't you know, to be honest, I don't have a ton of social media posts in my life. But it makes me think about, well, how am I using those how, how am I and I love what you're saying in that research, too, of like, how am I responding to others? And you know, and that's as a message message for the church right now. My Another thing I wanted to kind of ask you about Paul, and students bring this up all the time. And I think we see it, maybe more in his Corinthian letters. But there seems to be some times where Paul is just saying, Hey, this is just my advice to you. And then sometimes he's saying this is God speaking to you right like this. How do we how do we understand that knowing like, you know, having a view of biblical inspiration, how do we balance maybe those two and understand when Paul is is he's maybe speaking for himself? Or when Paul is speaking inspired? You know, the words of God to us?
14:03 Yeah, that's a great question mark, because it kind of raises questions both about what Paul's doing in his letters and about what what Scripture is. So the first thing to say is, as Paul says himself, All scripture is God breathed. So there's no part of scripture where we say that's not really from God. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. Even the parts where we feel like it seems completely irrelevant. So for example, at the end of the letter, I've been just teaching this and of course, he gives greetings. And you know, a friend of mine memorize the whole book of Romans in seminary in English. And he got to Romans 16. And I remember sitting down with him over coffee and he said, should I memorize chapters? Right? Yeah, all these like, Hey, how you doing? But I said, Man, you've gotten this far, just finished across the finish line. And as I've been studying these little things in Scripture, they They proved to be actually really important. They're more important than we tend to realize. You know, when you're talking about Are there times where Paul's just giving his opinion? And he's not saying, hey, you have to do this because I'm writing scripture, we have to remember Paul didn't know he was writing stuff that would be read, right by billions of people. Right. You know, I think I think of the, you know, the Christian pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he wrote all these personal letters from prison to his friends, including his ministry friend, Eberhard, Becky, and he, you know, he reveals a lot of very personal things. He didn't know that this would be published by a book company and read by 1000s of people. Same thing with Paul, he didn't know. So when he's saying, Hey, this is, you know, from me, not from the Lord. He wasn't meaning this is not scripture. The church decided his letters were scripture. Yeah, I think what it means is, sometimes he's giving people advice, that he doesn't want to be really pushy about. Hmm, yeah. And so he's maybe being more descriptive than prescriptive or something like that, or kind of nudging them. I still think there's important things to learn from that, especially on the level of principle. But there are times where, you know, one of the jokes I like to make about, you know, reading Paul's letters is at the beginning of First Corinthians, he says, You know, I didn't baptize anybody. And he's like, okay, except these people. Yeah, I guess so. So it's kind of funny if you if you try to divide up, okay, is this scripture, but not this, you know, kind of makes a little goof up in there. And that's okay. It's still it's still the way God works through flawed humans. Yeah. Yeah. So I take all of Paul's we all the church takes all of Paul's letters as God breathed, inspired. But I think on some occasions, he is more gently encouraging them towards something and other occasions, he's saying, hey, you don't want me to bring a big stick? Right? Right. Right. Right, right of discipline, because I'll do that. Like he kind of Yeah. Whereas with Lehman, he's more buttering them up. He's like, oh, you're wonderful, you know, and Isn't that right? So I think I see more of those as kind of rhetorical strategies to get, you know, we have this with our kids, right? Where, hey, you know, on this occasion, I'm gonna get them to do what I want. By making them cookies. On this occasion. I'm going to take away screentime right? Yeah, I think it's, I think it may be some of that.
17:29 Yeah, files is kind of saying, hey, if you do this, you get some cookies, or, or I'm gonna have to come over there. And take away your screen. Yeah, take away your screen time. Because Yeah, cuz even in, I was in class talking about First Thessalonians. And there's a part in there where he, where he says, like, if you reject this, you're not rejecting me, you're rejecting God's, you know, Yasmin. So he's like, that was a Yeah, I was. I was screentime. That was screentime. Oh, yeah. Then other parts in First Corinthians where it's like, Hey, this is just me, you know, maybe answering your questions, right, the questions they had about marriage, and, and that, you know, within their culture, and so, but I love the I love the framework you put on that that doesn't mean parts of the in Paul's writings are not scripture, right? Not God's word. And that I think that's helpful, too. Because I think that's, that's the root behind some of the students questions, right is, or if this isn't from God, then it's not scripture. And, and yeah, how we approach the entire scripture and how the church understands it. And inspiration really does guide us there and helpful and
18:42 we have to understand how radically innovative was Paul's concept of using letters to teach theology? I give an analogy and one of my books that Imagine you have some, you know, you're a pastor of a church, which you are, and you have a guest, let's say you bring me in as a guest preacher, you fly me from Portland, to Sacramento. I'm a guest preacher, I preach, you know, a decent message. And I leave, and I'm sitting at the airport, and I text you and I say, Hey, Mark, I had a great time you say, hey, DJ, thanks for coming in. And I said, I had something else I want you to tell your church. And they say, Okay, great. Go ahead and text it to me. And then you see the three dots going and going, and then I text you 10 pages. Yeah, over text. And you're like, why would he send me that over text? Yeah. Why would you miss him? Yeah, it seems like a really bizarre medium to use to get across the kind of information like you use text for just a quick, you know, one send message. And here I am sending you 10 pages of text. That would be the cultural equivalent of Paul sending Romans. Yeah, most ancient letters were shorter than five Leeman Yeah. And then you take these, you know, massive letters like First Corinthians, Romans. And it's actually an innovation in that time scholars have said, it's a real innovation to say, I'm going to teach theology this way. So we have to take that with the good, which is this very personal way of expressing oneself, along with the challenges, which is trying to figure out what what relates to us directly. And what may be more something where we have to step back and say, is there a bigger principle or theology point or ethical point to take away from this? That's the challenge of Paul's letters?
20:35 Yeah, and that's, that's really good. And it's such a great analogy. And oftentimes, I don't think we think about that with Paul using letters, we think, oh, everyone wrote these, like long doctrinal treatises to people. And that is this wasn't the case. And and I think maybe another challenge that you highlight in your books to specifically maybe with Paul and the language of faith, is how we even understand the words Paul uses, right, and how we are translating that from Greek. And so I'd love to, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about his use of faith and how and how it's more than often we use it maybe just as belief or mental assert. But how, how is Paul using it? And how is it maybe deeper than that?
21:23 Yeah, well, you know, the reason I thought about this is because we often use faith language in a very in your brain kind of way or in your head kind of ways. We have faith statements. We have faith traditions, some people will say, you know, you just take it on faith, which means it's kind of just a leap into the unknown, right, and, and when I looked at Paul's letters, so this goes back to a dictionary article, I was asked to write on faith in the whole Bible, and Okay, language in the entire Bible. And so New Testament, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of, but as I started studying the Old Testament and Jewish literature around the time of Jesus and Paul called Second Temple, Jewish literature, I realized faith language had already been used by Jews before the New Testament came along. And it's interesting that Jews didn't use faith language to mean a belief system, the way that the way we might use it today. Yeah, they really often used faith language in the way we might think of a covenantal relationship. So in the ancient world, so I call these relationships of Concord, were two people, you know, like Jonathan, and David, you know, make make an agreement, they're going to look out for each other, they're gonna take care of each other, they're going to, they're going to, you know, be friends, they're going to help one another out. And you often see this language used both in Jewish literature and in non Jewish literature to refer to relationships of mutuality, Concord, goodwill, expectation, obligation. And once we start thinking in those terms, I argue that basically pistis The Greek word for faith, becomes the way that the early Christians talk about a covenant relationship. Yeah, where just like a marriage to people are kind of knit together. And we see this all over the place in Paul, but, you know, I like the example of Galatians 220. I've been crucified Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by pistis by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me, this this doesn't just mean hey, I believe these things, I can mark the checklist when I get to the pearly gates, right? It means that I have I have tethered myself you know, to Jesus, and there's no going back. No turning back. Right? Are you know, it's it's kind of like our fates are intertwined. I put all my eggs in this basket, whatever analogy you want to use, there's, there's a major relational social element to it. That often gets kind of ignored because we're so used to hearing faith as something that happens only in kind of theory or in your head. Right?
24:24 Yeah. And you you also use the word obeying faith, right? versus believing and with obeying faith. You use another word that I thought was interesting. It's pre you call it pre obedience. Yeah. And and I love that and I was like, What did he just make up a word is DJ coining a word here? I do. I do sometimes make up words. Yeah, no, that's good. You have every right to that's perfect. And but I think it was really helpful. So what, how how, like, what is obeying faith? And then what did what did you mean by pre obedience?
24:59 Yeah, so So when I look at Paul's use of faith language, it's helpful to nose in in the New Testament general, it's not neat and simple. You know, there's some words where you pretty much always use it in the same way, like truck, you're pretty much always going to use the word truck in the same way. But take a word like love, you can say, I love my children or loved my spouse. Yeah, and, you know, that's this very intimate thing. But then you also say, like, I love one division, and it's a TV show that I may forget what it's about in two years. So you know, or when you like something on Facebook, or you like something on social media, that's different than saying, like, I like Mac versus PC, like I'm really invested in back more than just like it happens with face language. Sometimes faith can mean, I believe it might rain tomorrow, but sometimes faith can mean like, I'm going to commit myself to this no matter what. And so on the one end of the scale of how it might be used, I call believing faith where it does have to do more with the way we see reality. As in Second Corinthians five, seven, we walk by faith and not by sight. But then on other occasions, it seems to mean something that is more embodied something that is more dynamic in terms of kinetic energy of the person. Yeah, and it's not exactly action. It's not exactly obedience, I wouldn't just combine the terms and say they're equivalent. Yeah, but I think kind of like a relay race where you're passing the baton, the baton is not is still in the hands of the first person, right? That would be like, the desire of the thinking. And it hasn't been handed off to action, that would be like the next person. But it's kind of in between. So pre obedience would be like, would be like, just when you hand it off, like maybe you're both touching it, you know, you in the next person are both touching it. And so you know, I think of this maybe, on the one end of spectrum, you have the mind, which creates the thoughts on the other end of the spectrum, on the other end beyond you have action. But then I think it's something kind of in between, which is the will, right? The will, right? Right, engages more in this person's commitment to something. Yeah. And I think of that as kind of, okay, the wheel is now moving. And that might be kind of where this kind of pre obedience takes place. I don't know. It's it is kind of all all kind of something you kind of make up as you go. But But it seems like pistis can mean faithfulness as well. And his faithfulness and action, is it a thought it's kind of neither, right? And right now, this is what Bible scholars do, right? Marcus, we sit around, and we say, does this, what does this word mean? Right? Yeah, does this
27:58 word really mean? And then we could have long conversations about that. And then we get a makeup words that kind of help. But I really do like that idea of pre obedience that because it is that in between of it's not action, but it moves you to action, right. So that moves you to action. And so that, you know, I think being able to give it a term actually helps because then now we have that framework, right in our mind. So again, another term I'm gonna steal from you moving forward. So this is a great ladder of abstraction and free obedience. Now, you also, along with all the writing you co edit, are several things, too. And you co edited the state of New Testament studies with Scott McKnight, in 2019, I believe that came out, which I usually would refer to that as last year, because 2020 is kind of a blur. So when I say last year, it means 2019. I wish that and maybe even looking forward to what would you maybe highlight as as maybe one of the most important kind of topics being covered right now and current New Testament scholarship?
29:13 Yeah, good question. I'll mention a couple things. One is what scholars call reception study, reception studies. So often we're reading the Bible, we read it, and we kind of leap to from from, you know, 8050 to 2021. Right. And we kind of assume nothing happened in between, or not that important happened in between, right, except maybe Luther or something. Right. So when we have questions about what the Bible says, and what it means, excuse me, we might turn to a Scott McKnight to get advice and Scott's great, obviously, but there were these early Christian themes. logins that wrote tons and tons of stuff about scripture. Yeah, that were kind of like commentaries. They many of them were homily sermons, but they were very commentary like people like john chrysostom, or Theodore, or Theodore of Cyrus, ambrozy astir. And they wrote lots of stuff. And only until recently has that stuff been widely accessible in English. Yeah. And we learn a ton from those patristic theologians. And I'm glad right now a big conversation is what we can learn from early reception history, how the Church of the second, third, fourth century, fifth century, read and interpreted these texts. Why? Because sometimes we have to get of our own culture, our own headspace. Yeah, because we're used to seeing things in terms of, let's say, capitalism, individualism. You know, some of the things that have gone on our lives have been very helpful, like thinking about race and gender issues. But in other ways, we just don't understand that ancient world. And some of these patristic writers who understood it better john chrysostom was a Greek speaking church fathers, we understood the Greek language and that guy better than we do. Yeah, he has lots of great stuff that we can learn from. And so one area that's really important. So I encourage Christians, even if you're not, don't consider yourself academic. There's a great series called ancient Christian commentaries on scripture, which are from University Press. Yeah. And they give these almost like devotional snippets from patristic writers on biblical texts. You could buy volume on Matthew, and you get kind of their greatest hits. Yeah, math. Yeah. Have you read these before? Mark? Yeah, there's so helpful. Oh, they're so great. So I encourage that, because I found that reading the church fathers, which I really didn't do in seminary, so that wasn't really going on when I was in seminary, right. It's really huge right now, I found it just profoundly helpful. I even find it more helpful sometimes in reading modern modern Bible studies. Because they just think so differently. Right. Right. That's so good. That's so good. Yeah. A second. A second one I'd mentioned is something called Empire studies. And if you're not tuned into Biblical Studies, and some kind of, you know, more modern theology stuff, you might not understand what this is. But it's basically trying to understand how the wider political space of the ancient world affected the experience and worldview of the earliest Christians. Yeah, I feel like we just kind of see Christianity in a bubble in the ancient world, and don't really care about what was going on behind that kind of dome. But just as today, I'm writing books and things. And I can't tell you how many times I've talked about in my writings COVID more raised race issues in America, right? Or, I mean, these things come to mind, how can they not right, you can't just turn that off when you're writing. Yeah. And so Empire studies is taking seriously that politics, Empire power structures, affects how the early Christians thought. Now some, some theologians say the early Christians were out and out against Empire against Caesar against Rome. Other scholars say no, no. Sometimes they seem to be more Pro, sometimes it's more against. So there's all these different ways of looking at it. So I'm not trying to pitch a certain way. But what we can't do anymore is just ignore it. We can't just say, oh, it doesn't matter. It matters as much then as it does now to how we think about what we watch. What grocery store we go to, you know, how we do church. I mean, how we do Church has been affected by whether by pandemic, by Paul right by race. So, you know, I've benefited a lot from just reading more about the political world of antiquity. To better understand how does someone like Jesus
34:15 navigate being a part of an empire being a part of, you know, and movies like, and books like, Hunger Games, actually help us think through this? Like, yeah, it affects how you live and what you view the end game of God is and how God relates the powers of the world.
34:37 Yeah, that's, that's so good and so true. And I also teach a class on pop culture, scripture and pop culture and I'm tracking right with you on that. Yeah, we can. We can understand this from our pop culture artifacts to that they they grasped and I particularly think you know, it's I do find it not interest is the wrong word. But I I'm not surprised that Empire studies would be, would be a focus right now. Because it's understanding because I think we're trying to process how do we live in an empire? And how, as a Christian, how do we relate to that? And what is our stance? What is our posture? And maybe what what, what is God really kindness to? And so it's helpful to think, yeah, the earliest Christians lived in the Roman Empire, you know, and, and you probably experienced this with New Testament intro classes as well. I think it's in many ways, the first time students realize that Western Civ and the New Testament are overlapped, right? Like, they just kind of think of the Bible characters as separate. And then you give them just a quick Greek Roman history. It's like, Hey, this is this is the context of the New Testament. And so understanding that I think is, is really helpful. And so I like I really like both of those as a focus the reception studies, especially looking at this patristic view of Scripture and, and understanding culture better than also understanding Empire and, and that effect. And I think that that those two have an ability to get outside of academia. And, and, and the lay person in the church can be like, wow, I can learn from that, you know, learn from that. Well, as we kind of wrap up again, thank you so much for for being on the show. I don't want to take too much of your time, but I could talk all day about these things. But I also want maybe just wondering, with, with all of the writing, you're doing what are maybe some new, are you allowed to share any new projects you're working on? coming up in 2021?
36:49 Yeah, for sure. So one thing that's now done and kind of in production is a New Testament theology for real life. So I took 13 big words, and the New Testament words like life, righteousness, faith, Grace gospel. And I basically say, this is christianese. We don't use these terms in everyday life like fellowship. Right? You know, I mean, maybe if you know, I'm from Ohio, so we use these terms all the time, because everyone's in Ohio. Right now. fellowship is just a really often misused and misunderstood term and modern in modern Christian use in terms of how Paul used it. So I take these terms. And I basically say, what would this actually look like? Today? If we tried to understand that the way the biblical writers were trying to explain it, take, for example, the word righteous. I mean, outside of religious terminology, it's not really used. So it feels very old timey. But it is the normal word that they would use in the world for honesty, integrity. Yeah, respectability. Yeah. Right. So we talk about things like the Ravi Zacharias stuff, or we talk about I have the kind of Christian celebrity cultures, scandals. And the term righteous would fit into what's needed in those kinds of spaces. Right. I don't talk about those issues, because I wrote the book A while ago, but yeah, but so it's called words of life, because I try to say, okay, we sometimes feel this distance when we read the New Testament because of the language that's used in the New Testament. That's partly a problem with our translations. I don't think our translations are bad, but not reflecting the fact that the language in the New Testament by and large is coin a Greek which means the language of everyday speech, right? When we say Hallowed be thy name, we're not expect 2.8 Greek being the language of the people. So project and I hope that I've come out in about a year. I'm, you know, just eager. It's really written for laypeople for pastors to help them think through how to preach some of these things. Another book I'm writing right now, which I'm teaching a course on is called the women leaders of the earliest Christian churches. Yeah, I don't know if you remember the the movie. I didn't read the book, but I don't remember the movie Hidden Figures. Yeah. And it's this idea. There were these women in the NASA program that were kind of the brains, mathematicians, the computers. You know, actually, if you read the New Testament carefully, there seem to be these women that were really important to the leadership growth of the church. I'm going to preach I'm going to teach excuse me not preach on junia and Priscilla and Romans 16. Right. One of the last things I say about jr on my lecture is these jeans Nia and Andronicus Romans 16 verse seven. My last slide says, they were not disciples of Paul. They were mentors of Paul. Yeah, he was he says they were in Christ before him, you had to be pretty early in Christian history to pray. Christian, right. And so I say, basically, they are his auntie and uncle. Hmm. Rather than, like, you know, people like Timothy that he mentored. Right. And so there are these hidden there these Hidden Figures throughout the New Testament that you know, how come in high school I never heard about your audience into key or ninfa. Right? Why did no one Tell me about them? Or Phoebe and how Phoebe might have been an important Christian leader. Right? Right. And so I'm writing this book, because I have daughters, and my wife's a pastor. And, you know, we all have heroes that shape who we are. I, myself am very much impressed with and influenced by these women in the New Testament. And honestly, Mark, their stories just aren't told often enough. Right? So I'm excited to be doing some research on them.
41:11 Oh, that's so good. Well, I'm now really excited for both of those projects. And, and I can already see even for both of those, but even the last one, like our school, we have a, a women in Scripture class, and always searching for good kind of New Testament resources for that, too. So I could see how that would be a perfect addition for a class like that. So I'll put it in a good word for you with that, but No, thanks. Again. I'm really excited for those projects and and really have just appreciated your scholarship and your writing, leading up to this and just again, honored that you'd be on the show with us. So thank you so much, and continue to, to keep doing what you're doing and as really helping other academics. other teachers are the New Testament, and and really impacting and helping others to just again, thank you so much. Thanks, Mark. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
42:39 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Mark and Rex have a candid conversation about the shocking mixture of Christian nationalism, white supremacy, and political extremism seen during the January 6th riot at the US Capitol. The event caused them to reflect on how Jesus approached topics of faith and politics.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And Rex on the show today, we're just gonna have a candid conversation about faith and politics. It's It's such a supercharged topic right now. But I think in a very bipartisan way we can really examine, what does it mean to be a Christian? And and intermix faith in politics?
0:34 All right, Rex, I know we we kind of talked about this show, and we both talked about maybe approaching him with fear and trepidation. I think we've we've done that with other shows. But we, but we both felt that it was really important for us to, for one, just kind of reflect on what's been happening in the United States, right? politically, and, and that includes the conversation of faith. And we were, I think, really blessed to have jemar tisby back on the show. And we recorded that show a day after January 6, we recorded that show on January 7, so we got to kind of hear him reflect on that. And, and that really, was thought provoking for me. And I think it just opened up for us a way to have a conversation about faith and politics right now in America, especially in light of January 6,
1:29 well, as we mentioned before, when we were, you know, kind of scoping out the tone we were going to take on this podcast, and yeah, thinking about places to go and places not to go and, you know, but you know it, this is just one of those moments that that you have to confront it or talk about it or think about it, because the The situation has almost forced a reflection and a conversation. Yeah. You know, and is has not just, you know, professors at a Christian institution that, you know, are professional and academic lives kind of cohere around some of these questions. But yeah, just as Christians, this is, this is an important thing to talk about, and a necessary thing to talk about, in light of recent events have kind of, you know, brought it to a head, but this is a rise. This is something that didn't start yesterday. Yeah, that's true. So it's a worthy topic of conversation.
2:32 Yeah, it really is. And, and our hope today is that we can do this in a bipartisan manner, that this is not going to be picking one party or one group and, and, and looking at them or shaming them or anything like that. It's really just having this conversation because because politics are a really important part of our lives and important part of our nation. And as we engage in politics, we can't help but bring our faith into politics.
3:04 Right. Right. And it's interesting, because I'll ask this question. Because in a class I teach and Christian perspective, we do, you know, do a week about faith and politics, because it's such a constituent part of our of our of our lives. And it's interesting, I've seen this now for a number of election cycles. That, you know, there's always a section of our students that are engaged, and you know, that they're here for that, I think, yeah, yeah. selves in one way or another is kind of culture warriors. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. And you know, this would be one of the places to go if one wanted to become a better one. Yeah, but I've also noticed more and more students just being totally apathetic. You mentioned the word politics, and they just don't even want to engage it at all. And write interesting that. And this is coming from folks that are maybe on, you know, marginal, the margins of the Christian community, but it's also people that are dedicated Jesus followers, they just don't want to have anything to do with it because they feel it's so divisive. Yeah. But you know, you can't I mean, you it's unavoidable, you can't you can't avoid it. Yeah. If you know, if we want to teach you a holistic Christian perspective, that means trying to think Christian Lee about every part of life, you can't avoid thinking Christian Lee about politics and public policy and things like that. He just, he just can't and right. And we bring our faith to it. And different Christians will bring different you know, emphases to it. Yes.
4:43 And, and for us, I think it really does. I like how you pointed out that it's not. This didn't just happen, you know, in the last couple of days, you know, this conversation or the tension between faith and politics, right. And so it's important to note that so we do want to give a little history But I think it's also important for us to note that the events of January 6 was so shocking and startling. And in the mixture that it brought of, of the Bible and crosses, and Confederate flags and white supremacy
5:20 banners that said, Jesus save and all mixed in with with, right with the other stuff.
5:26 Yeah, well, the camp passwords are part and parcel
5:28 with it. And as a Christian, I mean, this, I hope is not a political statement. But it just, you know, it's kind of shocking, actually. Right. See that? Yeah. In the same mix? Yeah. And so, um, you know, you mentioned the name, Constantine, you just kind of throw it out to anybody that Yeah, he's in the in that, you know, thinking about this, and either is the best thing that happened to the church, or the worst thing that happened in the church, you know, right. Right. Ever since that time, to one degree or another Christians have been involved with the state. Yeah, to various degrees. Yeah, sure. And have been, you know, interested party on how the state is conceived and about what their influence will be in the state. And in the in the culture that we live in right now, that inevitably involves you with politics? Yeah. You know, I mean, one of the reasons for the support of a particular candidate in the last couple of election cycles, is because many, many Christians thought that that candidate would restore somehow the Christian voice to the center of the public square. Right. Right. And, and other people view that as extremely problematic. Yeah, it's not just secularists that would view that too. There are other Christians that actually think that Constantine's The worst thing that ever happened to the church, right, you know, right. And, and I'm seeing increasingly among some of our Christian students here, it's just I don't want to think about it at all. Yeah. Right. You know, that's probably not an option. right for us, and so true, how to think about it, Christian Lee with grace, and, and being informed, you know, and then making informed Christian decisions. And, you know, one thing I emphasize all the time is that, you know, those informed Christian decisions could end up on different parts of the political spectrum. Right. You know, there are people that that, you know, vote for certain candidates in certain political parties, because they view that, you know, that that constellation of issues that they view are morally weighted as Christians are better addressed through one party. And there's others that have another group of very Christian issues that they feel are better addressed by another party. Yeah, you know, and so I'm not here to judge the sincerity or even the validity of those Christian issues. I know, there's a lot of us that wish there was a viable, like, you know, right. option. other option than, than that, yeah, that we have as far as that goes. Right. Right. Because often
8:13 I hear I hear, like, both right points. And I'm like, both of these points are important. Right, right. Yeah. Issues of life, issues of sanctity of life, and issues of racial justice and, and economic poverty. And, like, both of those issues, I think, are really important. Right. And it seems like they've been separated by parties. And so you have to choose one or the other.
8:38 Right? And and have we somehow been complicit in making this whole thing? Sort of a zero sum? game? Yeah, there's Yeah, there's winners. There's losers. I know that, um, you mentioned in our chat right before the podcast about power. Right. And right, and how, you know, that gets into the mix, too. And that's a very, very you know, it's a very potent word.
9:03 Yeah. Right. When when you bring up Constantine that's, that's what I kind of think of. Right, that was the church moved from being persecuted for being marginalized to now being center of Yeah, at the center of the action and at the center of power. And so I guess, no matter how you you know, land on the the Constantine issue, one of the things that it did fundamentally change for the church is that from Constantine on, the church had some access to power politically, in policy in major formations within European history, and Western history. And so it it to me it brings up that really important picture and one of the things of why I would do what happened with Constantine that it It wasn't, I think it can, you can take maybe a neutral approach to it. But you can at least say, that doesn't seem to help, right, because just getting political power didn't necessarily move the church into a place where now it definitely spread, it was a part of the spread of Christianity and Western culture and that, but I think looking at it in how it's in the kingdom of heaven actually impacts people outside of politics. And for me, that issue of power is where we can run into problems, right, that that need for power, and particularly, maybe the need to hold power at all costs. So then we make concessions.
10:52 And it's interesting because, you know, you want the power and, and I guess, just parenthetical sort of thing. I've been thinking a lot, I really have been thinking a lot in my devotional time, and I've actually written down little things on cards to to help me to, like, you know, pray for the situation, pray for people pray for myself, how do you write why through this minefield right now, you know, with integrity and with with, you know, Christian integrity. And I've been thinking a lot about Original Sin. I really have it's, yeah, we somehow we think that of all the people that can have power, once we get it, that we will use it somehow, you know, for the common good, right? Or whatever. Right? And then we're always like, shocked, when that doesn't happen. Yeah, yeah. When we should have known that that was not going to happen anyway. Because we're all human beings and and right. You know, hopefully on the road to some sort of final sanctification, but not quite there yet. And yeah, yeah. And power is just a is a is a powerful drug power is a powerful drug.
12:04 That's the truth. It just is. And when I look at Jesus and how he approached, you know, because Jesus when he was here on Earth kind of first century was really interesting time. Historically, Robert, so you're under the Roman Empire, right? But you're also within the Jews who kind of want they are longing for political power, and man, political freedom and religious freedom. And Jesus comes in, in different ways, actually, among the Jews walking for That's true. Yes, yeah. It wasn't just a unified the level of all over the place, what the kingdom of Israel would look like. And and I think Jesus came in and why he was so shocking, both to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles that he reached is that he was while he was 100%, interested in influencing and bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth, right and announcing the kingdom of heaven is here. And as President available. He was not concerned with political power.
13:06 That was one of the temptations and he was right. Yeah. And it's interesting that that's like, like, you know, one of the very first things that happens, yeah, in the gospels in his ministry, it's like, right away that option is out there. Yeah. You know, right. Yeah. Right. And he needed to make a decision about that. You know, I mean, have that works when one is a Caledonian Christian. I don't know. But right, but he made the right one. Yeah, he did. He did the right one, but it was it was a it was right away. It was one of the first things that came up. Yeah, first temptation that comes up first. And it's a it's a you know, we're always looking for, I guess, an easier route to get what we want done and Yeah, sometimes, Yeah, looks like an easier route. What I concerns with with the, you know, politicization of, of, you know, particularly my people. Yeah, yeah. Right now, it just is, yeah. Is that, you know, what, what? And it's not just future generations, it's like, you know, the half generation under me is already thinking about all of this. And right now, I've mentioned before, historically, that's, that's one of the good things about, you know, being his professor, but it's also one of the bad things too, because you can see what happens and it's happened over and over again. Right and issue. You know, look at what's happening now with a little bit of trepidation simply because I'm an interested party. I mean, I I want to see the kingdom of God advance I want to say that and and I, you know, sometimes wonder about certain ways of going about that and how they can actually be countered. productive,
15:00 right? What it seems like if you if you make political power, the focus, then it does seem like it, it allows you to then start making concessions on issues of character, issues of morality, start making concessions on how to get that power. And it also you make concessions about maybe who else is joining you in that fight for power. And that's where I think, for me, the January six, should be a really wake up call, like to see all of those images and I read several articles, many they're coming from a completely secular perspective. And they just noticed that they said, Wow, look at this in American history, we have the coming together of the cross, and people praying with me, again, we're not not saying that all of these people are the same people. Right, but just saying images outside of the Capitol, you're bringing together those with clearly issues of sedition and insurrection, and Confederate flags and all of the meanings that that brings. And, and white supremacy symbols and, and deeper conspiracy theories that, that and so I think it definitely causes us to pause and say, Whoa, wait, what? What are we fighting for? What are we fighting against? And for me, as in that question, if Jesus was here, where would he be? Right? If Jesus here, where would he be? And that's always a point of conviction, I think for anyone, right? You can say that to anyone? And you're like, Yeah, no, he's probably not going to be with me. But But I think when you look at Jesus in the Gospel, like he is, he is always concerned with the marginalized, right? And the ones who, and less concerned with the political power
17:06 is interesting when we look at the, you know, amalgamation of folks that, you know, genuinely, I mean, no matter where you are in the political spectrum, it takes a lot to ally yourself with doing that that's not, you know, that is sort of a, I don't know, a collection of grievances. And and yeah, you know, and these are, these are, these are folks that that feel that that they once were at the center of things, and they either are marginalized or are about to be marginalized. And we both know that that has been a conversation for decades now. Right. Right, evangelical Christians. Yeah. You know, we are we'd be marginalized. We've been persecuted. And, you know, some of that's true. I mean, it's, you know, oftentimes, it's our voices are not welcome at the table of academia and public policy and things. Sometimes, because they feel those voices are divisive, and honestly, the images of a couple of January the sixth, right, don't help that any. But But you know, so so there's, there's a, there's an underlying reason for this feeling of grievance, but the feeling of grievance can sort of end up taking on a life of its own. And once you feel that, then it opens up all kinds of options that you would not follow or would not entertain, if you didn't have that feeling of grievance, because it's who's going to be able to address this grievance? Who's going to be able to, you know, put something which has been D centered in its rightful place at the center of our society. Yeah, you know, and who's going to best do that? Right. And, you know, and so there are some interesting bedfellows when that happens, you know, right. And it's also really, really interesting. And we talked about this just a little bit, just kind of trying to put it a little bit more into broader philosophical and sociological perspective. What I think is interesting, and this is just an observation. I don't even know I mean, they're probably smarter people than I am more adept people than I already writing books about this. So I'm pretty sure of intervarsity Press will come out with something like this. I'm
19:31 not saying for sure that there are smarter people than you. I'm saying for sure people are working on I'm not
19:35 the only person. I'm not the only person who's thinking about and all I do is think and I don't right, so, but but it has, it has seemed really interesting that one of the things that we are really concerned about, and I understand the concern, and it is a real thing. And that's that's the erosion of a commonly accepted notion of truth. And what is True and how when access is truth in our society, right, right. What's interesting is that's happened on a theological and philosophical and then kind of, I don't know, broadly, cultural thing. Right, right. But now it's gone deeper into, you know, politics and worldview. And, and and, you know, history and reality and all sorts of things. Yeah. And so it's, it's really kind of been on steroids in the last few years. And, you know, I guess someone dispassionately looking at this, if that's possible, right now could say, you know, I guess you could see some of this stuff coming. Right, what what's interesting to me is the very thing that we have, rightly, been so concerned about, you know, infecting or impacting the, the wider culture, you know, this this, you know, relativization of truth,
20:58 right? Yeah, erosion of truth or foundation for truth. Right.
21:01 And you know, that that's, that's a rightful concern. But suddenly, almost, without knowing it, we have sort of bought into it. Completely, I like completely. And so either either, you know, either we're helpless victims of a societal force that we have no, you know, no way to address or we, for whatever reason, and this is where, you know, other things can kind of come into this, like power and access and, and, you know, there's other things too, that are actually impinge on this, but it's interesting that we find ourselves at the center of this whole conversation. And interestingly, it seems like in some cases, the whole conversation is flipped. And so it's almost a case of the old adage, we have met the enemy, and it is us, we've seen the enemy, and it is us, it's almost like we see our reflection in the mirror. Something we have claimed that we were, you know, fighting against for so long. It's a it's a, it's a phenomenon I've noticed. And right, I think we should you know, it, there's some Christian reflection on that.
22:19 Yeah, it really does. And it's, and it's been fascinating for me that that issue of truth has been brought up, you know, where, yeah, the critique, you know, 20 years ago, was that culture was just, there is no truth and everyone's truth. But, but in the last, you know, several years, this focus on Well, what is actually true, how do we know it's true? And, and sources of information, all of that is,
22:45 and so if there are competing versions of truth, you know, and you're kind of, you've kind of got into the narrative that there are right, yeah. Even if, you know, on sort of an ultimate level, you think that's problematic? Still on a practical Kind of day to day level? you operate that way? Then? I don't know if there's competing versions of truth. And those competing versions are talking about something that is of vital importance, then, then what do you have left, but appeals to power? Right, because, right, something has to know. Something has to adjudicate those conflicting versions of truth. Wow. Oh, it's who can that's so true. Who can do that? Or who will? Who will help you who will offer you that? Yeah, for you that Yeah.
23:37 I think that's, that's really insightful, right? When you have these different versions of truth or different sources of truth, then it does become whoever is the most powerful and can just say this is the truth. Right. It's kind of that that move towards Neel ism. Really, right. Or this idea of, of mic making. Right.
23:59 It's interesting, because I I've heard, you know, it's, uh, some people have have, you know, talked about the events of the past few months as, for example, an attack on our democracy. I've heard that a lot. Right. Right, you know, an attack on on on just the assumed common vocabulary that we've had for 250 years. Right, right. We've suddenly broken down, right. Yeah. And, you know, but I have heard some of my Christian brothers and sisters basically say, well, democracy is overrated. And that's really interesting, because it is because these are folks that almost worshiped our democracy, right as almost a total mistake. And I understand that i think that you know, this, the American experiment, at its best is one of the greatest things that's ever happened, you know, right on this planet, I believe now, but it's interesting to hear the conversation that, you know, since you know, we have these competing versions of truth. And they can only be adjudicated through power or political power. Because that's the only way to address this, then democracy actually becomes a stumbling block to that. Right. And so I have heard folks say, you know, it's time for a dictator. You know, and of course, you know, that they have someone in mind. And it was time for you person just to be in our society, and it's too late for our democracy. And yeah, you know, I just I rarely heard Christians here. Yeah. Talk in those words, at least in my lifetime. Right. But we have seen historical examples before. Right, once again. Yeah. You know, and, you know, plug for a history professor. I mean, what are you, folks? Absolutely don't know, you know, they talk about the Constitution, but they've never read it. Right. I hear all the time about all this stuff is in the Constitution. And it's someone who like, you know, teaches that and who, yeah, yeah. Has the students read the whole thing and everything? It's, it's interesting, you know, yeah. It really is, you know, maybe there's an alternate reality where those things are, you know, it's just, it's, it's an interesting place.
26:27 Yeah, that is that I think it kind of for me, it begs and this is kind of maybe the point of the question of the episode of us kind of reflecting on what is happening. And also trying to, to answer that question. So how, like, what is the proper balance of faith and politics? What, how should a Christian approach politics in your mind?
26:50 Well, you know, I mean, I would go with, you know, I am the way the truth and the life and now Jesus came to initiate inaugurate establish the kingdom of God. Yeah, I would be about Kingdom things. And then we argue over what that is.
27:12 It's true, it's really there's no, there's no answer that everyone's gonna be like, yes, that's where we are not pushing back on your ex, but, but I think it is important what you bring up like, the focus being on on Jesus, like, I really do think that's so important of, because like we've said, In this episode, faith and politics are part of our lives. And we can't separate the two we can we can approach one without we know, well,
27:41 I mean, there are some Christians that are, you know, suggesting that there are options that we have, and is basically, to sort of, you know, run up the white flag, but not run up the white flag from a position of, you know, slinking off with our tail between our legs, and just joining the general, you know, yeah, mission or whatever. But right, but running up the white flag in that particular battle, we're fighting right now. And just going off and carving off our own kingdom. You know, and, you know, in a number of very, you know, best selling books about that buy right now, authors and these options, and often actually was in the title of one of them, you know, options, and I can, you know, I guess that would be attractive to some folks, you know, right. If we have thought of our faith in terms of a culture war in the first place, right, then what happens when, you know, you've, you've lost it, right? You know, do you fight a rearguard action, and the only way you can do that is through raw power? Or you go off and you be, you know, construct, arrange it just separate. And, you know, there have been options, obviously, throughout history of doing just that. Right. It's interesting with evangelicals, because it seems to go against evil what we're supposed to be about. Right, you know, in doing that, you know,
29:16 right. Yeah. And it seems to me, it still comes back to that the issue or the concept of power. And I like what you're saying, if if you approach this conversation, thinking of it as a war, then you do have to come to grips either with one doing whatever you have to do to win the war, or if you lost water, your options and, and it seems to me, Jesus didn't approach that. He didn't approach culture in that way. He didn't approach it as a war. He wasn't at war with the Romans. He wasn't at war with Pilate. He wasn't at war with the Emperor.
29:54 He wasn't really even at work. The Pharisees no matter what, right Yes. You know,
30:00 Yeah. And so for me, I think that's that's been the thing that is, it's been a helpful guide for me in terms of of my faith in politics is, am I am I guided more by power in the the need for power or the security of power? Am I guided more by that than I am by Kingdom principles that we see these, these principles of the kingdom of heaven that, that Jesus came to initiate and to highlight? And I think those are those could be helpful guides and questions.
30:36 And a corollary to that, I guess, with with the you know, what got us in this jam in the first place is if, if, if language and talking points arguments, conversations have have been exhausted. And the only way one can stay in the conversation is by somehow, you know, yelling louder, or, or somehow somehow silencing, you know, the voices of your conversation partner. Right. But that's sort of a dead in that right, that that in itself is is not just a zero sum game, then then maybe are there other ways that we can address the Are there other conversations we can have? You know, there are other ways to address this, if the ways we have right now seem to not be healthy? You know, are there other ways to talk about this? That are? Because the questions are so important? Right? Right. You know, and I'm always for the, I don't know what they are, but I'm always, you know, you don't have to surrender. And you don't have to change the subject, you just need to somehow find another introit into the conversation.
31:48 Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a really good approach that, that are looking at ways of, of being in the conversation and understanding ones that have come to a dead end. Or worse, and, and saying, There's got to be a different way to approach this, because, cuz I think it's important for Christians to have a voice in politics, certainly, and to speak, and to speak for truth, right, I think it comes me it kind of comes back at these issues of power and issues of truth. Right. And, and, and, and speaking the truth. And, and also understanding, the, you know, we had david van drunen, who's a professor down in Southern California, on the podcast several months ago, talking about his book on politics and Christendom. And I thought it was so good, what he said about understanding the commonality of politics, right, that politics is, is called to speak to people from different backgrounds and, and different faiths. Right. And that's, that's part of the American experience, right, is that it is speaking to, to all Americans. And so I think finding a place where we can have a voice in that, and a voice that allows for other voices as well, you know, and we can kind of talk and we can stand up for the truth and we can, we can be less concerned with political power, and, you know, and more concerned with, with living by the kingdom, and and, and living by these Kingdom Principles, and, and the power that actually is, is in that right?
33:29 It's a powerful thing in itself. Probably the most powerful thing,
33:33 actually. Definitely. Well, thank you, Rex for entering this conversation with me. I hope as listeners, I hope that you know, there have been things that you have stretched you, maybe you want to push back on. We'd love to be in dialogue together. So we hope you never feel like this is just us telling you what, what the way you should think about something but rather it's opening a conversation to say, Well, have you thought of this? Have you thought of this? How can we how can we continue this conversation of faith and politics moving us to a place where where we can actually have a voice in politics that's not a voice reliant on strength, or power, or coercion or anything like that, but as a voice that's actually reliant on the power of the kingdom of heaven, right? And that power of sacrifice and that power of humility, and all of the qualities that Jesus brought to this conversation. You must be a preacher mark, I, you know, and I'm ending this podcast with a crescendo there, right? We've got you know, sometimes you've got to have a little theatrical. When you give it a shot, you've convinced me I'm ready to stay. I got one person events. Move on to the next but now thanks. Thanks, listeners. For Hang on with us and there'll be more conversations to come for sure. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
35:29 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Dr. Danny Carroll from Wheaton College joins Mark and Rex to discuss his book The Bible and Borders: Hearing God's Word on Immigration in preparation for his lecture at Jessup's Faculty of Theology Annual Spring Lecture.
TRANSCRIPT
0:02 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And on the show today we have Dr. Danny Carroll. Dr. Danny Carroll is the scripture press ministries professor of biblical studies and pedagogy at Wheaton College. He's the author of numerous books, and the one we'll be focusing on in this episode is the Bible and borders, hearing God's Word on immigration.
0:26 I hope you all appreciate the fact that we're going directly to the evangelical mecca for our podcast. Now we're upping our game.
0:33 That's right. And we're excited about this topic, because it's so important. And Dr. Carroll is also going to be our special guest lecturer this year for our faculty theologies annual spring lecture series. You can join us Thursday, February 11, for the virtual lecture, check out jessup.edu for more information, hope you enjoy the show.
1:00 Fun, Danny, and thank you so much for joining us on the show. And for being our special guest lecturer this spring, we're really excited for the lecture. Even if it is virtual, we're kind of getting used to the virtual part of it. But we're really excited because it's such such an important topic. And I love the kind of the new book we're going to be looking at with yours is the Bible and borders, and I love the subtitle, hearing God's Word on immigration. That's how we can maybe start with that broad question that could lead us and maybe a lot of different directions. But what does the Bible have to say about immigration?
1:44 Well, a lot. I mean, that's why I wrote the book. Yes, so you want this in 25 words or less.
1:53 But actually, there's more in the Bible and what's in the book, I mean, so there's a lot. And when I first got into this over a decade ago, I didn't know what I was going to find. I didn't go in with any particular agenda. I'm half Guatemalan, and there's a story behind how I got into the whole immigration piece. But I went to the Bible, I'm an old testament Prof. To see what the Bible might have to say. And the more I got into it, the more I began to see that it was all over the place. Really, in both testaments. Beginning in Genesis chapter one, all the way through the New Testament and the epistles and how the church was, was birthed and grown. And even some of the epistles are responding to those kinds of issues. And, of course, you know, even Revelation, this isn't really in the book, but revelation. I mean, John's on Patmos, I mean, he's displaced, from beginning to end, it just it it covers the whole waterfront, so to speak. So getting people to see it as a challenge. And then once they see it, you know, getting them to kind of maybe reorient their thinking about it is the is the next challenge.
3:15 Right. Yeah. Because I wanted, what's interesting is that, I think, especially in American politics, we talk a lot about how the Bible should influence our policies and legislation. But in in some of these areas, it seems like we like you were saying that the harder part is actually getting people to see that scripture does have something to say, say about this, and, and speaks to it and kind of helping them hear that and really dive into that.
3:45 Yeah, what I found is that most people in the how they understand their faith, it's very individualistic and personal. And of course, the culture tries to push you that way anyway, right, keep the public square. But what that does is, oftentimes, is that when people get to the bigger social issues, because they're not used to thinking about their faith, or the Bible, along those lines, their positions, whether left or right, I see both are actually determined by their party affiliation, instead of the other way around, right. Yeah, the relationships are different. Yeah. And so, you know, left and right will have kind of their favorite verses they go to but it's really a second move. It's not the first move. And so we've we've actually created our own problem. And then of course, this will be perpetuated in our churches and things like that. I mean, so we create the problem. And sometimes it comes home to roost,
4:49 right. So just a little background. This this topic really resonates with me for a lot of reasons. I spent a couple of years in South America in Colombia and My wife's Latina, so I'm doing my part in the browning America. I actually, when I first actually had a connection with this school, I was pastoring, a Spanish speaking church in San Jose, California. Wow. And so if you're in California, and you have, you know, a primary Latino congregation, and both the churches that I pastored out here, one was multicultural, and one was primarily Latino. But you know, there are going to, frankly, be undocumented folks in the church. So that's just, you know, if you don't want to deal with that, then don't pastor, a Spanish speaking church in California, right. But I got hit from both sides on that by some of my fellow pastors, I had pastors actually call me up, especially in the first church, and it's like, you know, we know that you have, you know, illegal immigrants among your congregation, and it's your, it's your biblical duty as a Christian, because they are breaking the law to actually turn them into ins I actually had fellow pastors tell me that I didn't do it. You know, I'm kind of on the other side of that issue. But speaking about picking verses to to, you know, fit with the prior political commitment. Yeah, yeah. I've experienced that.
6:16 Yeah. And I've seen that same kind of thing. There was a church in Atlanta, a former student of mine from Guatemala. So I've taught him What a wall for many years was up here. pastoring, in 95%, of his church was undocumented. And like many of these churches, they would meet on the grounds of a, another truck. In the afternoon, and, you know, one day, the Anglo pastor showed up and, and said, you know, the only people that will be allowed on the premises are documented people. And the student, you know, who had been my student who's a pastor now, said, Well, you know, that's almost all this congregation. And, and so basically, the next week, the church was, they tossed them. Wow. Yeah. And the church, you know, they all left and went looking for other churches, because I've seen that a lot. So that's, that's not uncommon, sadly. But,
7:22 yeah, I actually in San Jose, because one of my deacons was undocumented, but he was, you know, involved in in issues like that sort of, politically, and he had spoken on the steps of the city hall in San Jose at a rally the day before. And I opened up the San Jose paper on Sunday morning. The literally on the front page is like my Deacon. And I'm thinking, Oh, my gosh, the IRS is gonna raid our church this morning. There's just it's like, it's all over. Of course, nothing happened. But
7:55 you know, well, they really can't. I mean, and we're not obligated by US law, to actually turn them in. So I will never do that. Anyway. Yeah, there's so much misinformation out there. But a lot of it, a lot of it. Yeah.
8:10 It seems interesting that the conversation goes to, and you bring this up in, in the book, Danny that goes to, you know, fluctuate from illegal or illegal. And, and we kind of take it from that angle. And I love one of my favorite quotes from Bible and borders. From me, you say this as if Christians believe that current or proposed immigration legislation does not fit the teaching of the Bible, and the ethical demands of God's heart. Some of them will not ask, what is it about illegal that you don't understand? Instead, they will ask what is it about the Bible that you don't understand? Yeah, that I thought was just such a powerful way to express that because the Bible doesn't talk about it in terms of illegal or legal. I think you highlight that? Well,
9:01 yeah. And what I find, too, is that when people get into that discussion, almost nobody actually knows what the law is. Right, right. They don't know the history of US immigration legislation, which is pretty checkered. They don't know how contradictory and complex and outdated and also, I mean, one easy one that people don't know about is that in this country with current legislation, if you come into the country without documents, and you're in, there is nothing you can do to get right. With the law. There isn't. Right. The only thing that current law contemplates is deportation. So there's nothing that they can do so you have over 11 million people in that situation. And and who would really love to get right with the law, but there's nothing they can do. And the mainstay now is over a decade. So you're talking about people who are beating You know, very embedded in our crime. I mean, it's just, but people don't know all these things.
10:06 And often their children, no, no, no other community than the American community that they're in.
10:12 And then you have this issue, which I've also had of mixed status families where some children are not documented because they came with their parents, others were born here. So they're automatically US citizens. And so that's a whole nother family dynamic, where you've got some children, who are, you know, US citizens and others who are documented and the parents are, or you have mixed status marriages to I mean, so it gets, it gets pretty complex.
10:45 I do have a question I was gonna ask a little bit earlier. And this comes from your years of teaching Seminary in Guatemala, and just, you know, your, I guess, experience growing up there. Do you think that the link, at least among I guess what we would consider evangelical Christians in you know, in Latin America, the link between, for lack of any better words, the spiritual and the social is is sort of different than it is with evangelicals here in our country?
11:16 You mean, is a reason to come?
11:17 When No, no, no, just simply linking linking the biblical witness with policies? Oh,
11:27 you know, to be honest, it's not that different. Latin America, and partly is because the Evangelical Church predominantly are the heirs of the missionary movements, right? Central America be different in South America, but in Central America, a lot of the the missionary movements begin at the end of the 19th into the early 20th century, largely driven by Bible colleges. And so I remember when I was a new missionary, we were in Costa Rica, my wife was in language school. There, we were there for a year in the mission I was with, and there may have been eight missionaries, couples, I mean, so they'd be double that. I think there was one seminary grad. And so so you know, you appreciated the fervor and the commitment, all this stuff. But they they came with this kind of ideological mindset of what we see in this country where social things are kind of bad. social gospel, you know, slippery slope, right? It's about the internal self. And so I remember, for instance, in Guatemala, I was there during the Civil War. And I preached on that church one Sunday, and one of the deacons came up to me during the coffee time. He said, we don't talk about such things from the pulpit. But of course, in the coffee time, that's what we're talking about, right? I mean, right? Yeah. I really don't see that different. If you go to the ecumenical side, it was different. Okay. But in Guatemala, on the ecumenical side, they may have been 5% of the Protestant population. It's very unlike here, Mr. Kelly, because you would know in Spanish, is a broad word to cover all Protestant, right? But in Latin America, wholesale botanicals are 90 95%. what we would call evangelical and half or three quarters, depending on the country are Pentecostal. Right. So it's a very different world. And of course, the Pentecostal movement would also skew more toward the spiritual sensationalistic though you do have some Pentecostals getting into politics in Guatemala had that too. But a very shallow understanding of government and things like that because of their lack of kind of good Bible grounding. So it's complicated.
14:08 Okay. Okay. I remember I was a pastor of First Baptist Church, Quito, Ecuador, one summer, and just kind of a replacement for the missionary pastor that was there, right? It's an international congregation, but since I was there in the summer, like they had the yearly, I don't know preachers Council, so I was invited. And of course, all the missionaries were there too, because most of these churches were started by American missionaries. And I remember one of the pastors was speaking and it was sort of like liberation theology light. I mean, like, this was not full blown anything. And I remember one of the missionaries actually standing up and basically telling him to shut up and sit down and if he didn't stop speaking like that, there would be no more financial support for his church. I was up Paul, if this was a pastor's meeting in the 1980s, actually, that was to support. Yeah, so that's the sad thing was he shut up and sat down. That was the, for me, that was just the really sad thing about it.
15:15 In the book, you do, I think, a really helpful job of giving definitions of refugee asylee. And immigration, because we often don't understand those kind of implications and those nuances, and especially for us in the Sacramento region here in Northern California. We have a lot of Afghani refugees and Syrian refugees. And so when we talk about immigration issue, sometimes community too, it's like, almost 100. Right. And yeah, yeah. So could you kind of help us and maybe help our listeners understand the the nuances and the differences or distinctions between those terms?
15:57 You know, Thanks, Mark, it really is important to understand that you're talking about three different legal categories, each of which has a different way of getting into the country, that that they function differently. I'll begin with the refugees refugees are worked through the United Nations, and what the United Nations does, it establishes relationships with countries around the world and a bilateral agreement about how many to accept per year. So in the case of the US, under the Obama administration, the last year it was getting close to 100,000. Under the last year here of the Trump administration, they were trying to bring it down to 19. Now these refugees largely are in refugee camps, massive ones around the world, there's a huge one. In Kenya, for instance, you'd see them in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Turkey, yeah, yeah. And so what happens then, is that the United Nations, in these camps, you say, people will sign up for for a specific country, actually. And there's no guarantee that they'll get the country they want. It depends on the quotas. But once that has been agreed, and there is actually room in the desired country, then the United Nations will vet them in the refugee camp. And in the case, the United States, United States will have a representative that will also vet them in the camp, then they are transported to their new country. And in the case of this country, the the US covered will actually tell them where to go. So we when we were in Denver, several years ago, we helped at our small group, church group to help the resettlement and they were. They were Sudanese, and they were sent to Denver. Okay, so of course, that was a temperature shock for them. But what happens then, is that once they are here, the US government has relationships, and working agreements with largely religious groups that will take these refugees and help them with housing, English learning, learning how to do a job interview clothes, learning where the stores are in the schools, and all these kind of things. And the US will actually give them housing. Here, not too far from my house here in wheaton, there's a good size apartment complex, and they're lodgy refugees, they've been placed there by the US government. And the US government will actually give them some kind of stipend for about six months. So they're kind of ramped in, with all kinds of help. Now in asylees, very different asylee is a person in this country who shows up at the US border, and ask for asylum, which means there they are fleeing people or groups that are persecuting them. And actually, they're under threat of death. So Central America. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. And so that, but what happens, and I've seen this in Guatemala, and I've been there, sometimes people coming North are actually encouraged to make that kind of application. Because they know until the US government, these this arrangement with Mexico in Guatemala, to keep them away from the border, which is another story. They knew that if they would show up at the border, and ask for asylum, the US by law would have to let them in for a hearing. And I know cases where this was in Guatemala, actually, um, you would hear this this was actually a rumor that was circulating that if you sent your child to the border, and had the child asked for asylum, and they would get in so it's very cool. Complicated on that? Yeah. On this side of things. What that does is it kicks in illegal process, which I've been told, would take normally, six months to two years where you have to prove that you are under threat of death. If you go back. Well, when you have 1000s of people showing up with that, what does the US have to do, it has the house them now get processed. And so this helps generate what we've seen in the US border. Okay. But that's one kind of specific process. The immigrant doesn't work on either the refugee track or the ISI lead track, it works through the application of visas. And normally, this would be done at the embassies. So Guatemala, you would go to the embassy and apply for a visa.
20:55 But in the case of Guatemala, you have to pay a fee of $100, just to have the interview, which is preliminary to even being considered for a visa. And then the visas in this country, every country has its own system, work on a quota system, right. So all these different categories, unskilled labor, if you have a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, a doctoral degree, things like this. Or if you're sponsored by a business, all these different kinds of categories are all with quotas. And once those quotas are filled, there are no more visas to give out and these quarters will be filled globally. The problem with the quota system is we have it now is that it is very outdated, they haven't been updated to fit, current economic need. And so when people say, Well, why did they come in the right way? Well, because there were no visas. Right? If we look at unskilled labor, the visa annually in this country is five to 10,000. We estimate that we need about half a million a year to harvest crops to work, construction, landscaping, all these kinds of jobs. So you can see in fact, this was one of the things number of years ago when there was a bi partisan bill to reform the system was to connect the quotas to economic need, that would vary by year would that be like the federal system sort of that well? Different? It would be different because of what I said our system was a man would come usually man working crops would come for a time and then return. Okay. Okay. And and it comes from Brasil which means arm right. So it was kind of foreign labor on on our southern border Cal Southern California, Texas, especially working with a pseudo program. But it was men coming across for seasonal labor. There's a story behind that and why that was set aside. But it's a very complex history of US immigration legislation, let alone the history of US, US immigration itself. So it's these are these are complex issues. And the media just wants kind of bullet points, you know, kind of 32nd sound bites. And you can already see that this doesn't work. Right? complex into multi layered and historical to deal with it that way.
23:27 I found in conversations with a lot of people. And you've just pointed this out that a lot of people don't realize how hard it is actually to immigrate legally here to the United States. It's it's, you know, very difficult to get a visa.
23:41 Yeah. And the thing to one last point on this is under current US law, once you're in without documents in your inside, there is nothing in US law that allows you to get it right. Right. So the only recourse is deportation. Under current law, so you have a little over 11 million people that that's what they've got. They can't get it right, even if they wanted to, and they do. Yeah, there's no fine to pay, there's nothing there's no form to fill out no office to go to they have no recourse. Then you have families, entire families like this or mixed status families where some children have it, some don't. Some were born here some came in mixed spousal marriages. I mean, so it's, it's, it's a total mess. And the no one wants to actually touch it. You know, substantively, right? So
24:40 should our posture as Christians and our posture biblically be the same or different towards these three different like categories of folks that you've talked about?
24:53 That's a good question. Cuz you got to somehow coordinate biblical kind of junctions with pragmatics. Okay, so I think on one side, basically the answer is, the category is vulnerability. Okay, so all those three fit into that category. The pragmatics is how fast can the US absorb? In terms of schools, medical care, housing, jobs, education. We had a case a few years ago with Germany, which a lot smarter than we are, of course, took in a million refugees in one year. Wow. Well, there was a I mean, wonderful gesture, but a pragmatic mess. Because how do you absorb and accommodate? And just think of language learning? I mean, you see this in our schools? I mean, you'll have a school of elementary kids, let's say, and there's like 25 languages in the school? How do you educate those kids to get them into to the job market? I mean, all these things are going on. So that's that's the problem, you know. So you know, I'm a, as you would guess, I'm very much a proponent of immigration reform. But I don't think open borders, makes any kind of sense, it would be total chaos that his country could never and no country in the world could ever handle. So how do you somehow coordinate compassion, biblical injunctions and pragmatism? Hopefully, the biblical injunctions are driving the pragmatism because one answer to the pragmatism is to shut the whole thing down, which is what you're hearing by some in this country?
26:49 Yeah, seems like you'd do, I think, a really good job in violent borders, especially at the beginning. And I'll admit, my opening question was a bit too broad, the bit too broad, because the Bible does say, does say a lot. And, and the reason I kind of went there is because I think you do such a good job of highlighting the underlying kind of motivation of compassion that God was trying to teach the the people of Israel, yeah, he was. And part of that was connected to their own history as foreigners in Egypt. And, and that seems to be we often maybe forget that in, in current conversations, maybe forgetting our own status, or America's own status as as, as a land of immigrants, and, and we move away, I like what you're saying, we move away from, from trying to balance that compassion with the pragmatism and and the Old Testament is, is just riddled with that, that lens of compassion to the outsider in the stranger.
28:01 And what you see in the Old Testament is, is tied into their identity. Don't forget that that's what you were. Yeah. And New Testament, which is full of immigration and migration stories. And the church is founded, right, are migrants around the Mediterranean basin. You know, what's interesting is when you get to the New Testament, you see some that already in the old where migration becomes a metaphor for faith. It's kind of a sojourner with God. I mean, you'll see the songs, and there's that language. But when you get to New Testament, it's very explicit. Say, we're in First Peter, for instance, as the easy one. There's other passages, were actually called strangers, sojourners in a strange land. So if we remember that we have a different kingdom, that different citizenship, we are strangers we should be the problem is, is that, instead of being strange, we, you know, we kind of like this place. And so, to me, this place is getting stranger all the time. And so we actually try to keep the strangers out. And what I tell people, as you know, the more we understand about migration and immigration, we may learn more about what it means to be a Christian, and what it means to be strange. Because immigrants, and refugees and asylees they knew what it means to be strange. It's not a metaphor for them. Right? That's real. And so I when I speak to Latino churches, you know, tell them, you know, like, like, ESEA and Lord knows necesita I mean, the Anglo church actually needs us. Because, you know, they need to be reminded just how strange This place is. And so anyway, there's all kinds of ways you can go on that. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's very much about who we should be. And in the Old Testament, it was actually a test of whether they really love God because in Deuteronomy 10, it says, You will Love the stranger because I do. Now, you know when people say why do you love the stranger to use that kind of language? I think is God does I can't give you a better answer than that. And then it says he loves them Deuteronomy 1017 to 19 by giving them food and clothing. How did you do that? Well through his people, I mean, so it's, it's, it's a expression of your love for God actually.
30:30 Yeah, I think that sums it up perfectly, and a great place for us to land and highlight just that you will be with us virtually, in in just a couple of days for our annual spring lecture, so we're excited for that. And we'll give people more information on how to get that. But thank you so much, David, for joining us, and we're excited to to hear from you again, after lecture. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection in deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
31:26 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Fellow Jessup faculty member Brad Swope joins Mark and Rex to discuss the nature of truth. Is there such a thing as absolute truth? Do we have access to it? Can we be certain of anything? The trio discusses these questions and more.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore
0:04 and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Mark, we actually have a fascinating conversation, I think that we are inviting our listening audience into and that's a conversation about, about truth. Yeah. And about the, the absolute indispensability of maintaining the concept of absolute truth, even in a society that's very suspicious of it.
0:26 Yeah. And, and you, you used your words wisely, and we're gonna unpack those words. And we have to, yeah, we have the Reverend Dr. Brad Swope, who, as a local pastor also teaches here at Jessup, and he's been on the show before and just love his mind love his his ability, his desire to get into these conversations and to unpack things and use uncomfortable illustrations Even so, so we hope you stay with this conversation and really just immerse into this conversation and be asking yourself Yeah, what is truth? What is my access to truth? And and what does that mean about then how I live right? So I hope you enjoy the show.
1:19 It's it's good to have you back on the show. Reverend Dr. Brad's Whoa. Oh, we got the title. Right. We say that I think are we are we a pair a trio of Reverend doctors ello. Whatever endo doctor. His sounded better is does Yeah. That you have to be you have to live in Colombia for a while to get that title. Well, I was neither one of those things for a long time ago. But you earned it by living in Colombia positively changed my life. That's true. Yeah, very true. Well, of course, as
1:54 you know, everything changes once you become a doctor. People will respect you more your words mean more, have more authority instantly.
2:02 I'm just waiting for to be on an airplane. And so is there a doctor? You waited your whole life? Is that airplane or flat? plane? Yeah, yeah. airplane, we can just you know, we'll see. See what happens. But no, it's great to have you back on the show. You're You're officially I think even before this, we would have called you a friend of the show. But you're you're officially a friend of the show. Now I know, t shirts. You know, that's we're working. You know, we're working on our funding. Right? We're working on our funding and I don't even believe t shirts. I've been promised the T shirt. Or you might be bringing in the listeners in on this. fundraiser. Patreon. You never know Be on the lookout out there because then we could have actual t shirt crowdfunder t shirts, give it our give to our guests. What end of the show t shirt.
2:52 I do have on my Jessup when I when I spoke at Chapel, I get one of those mugs. Yeah. And on the other side of it. I do have your your sticker. Oh, nice. There we go with your shout out. Amen. Amen. Amen. I do believe though I paid for that somehow. I don't think it was free. Did
3:09 you get free? I can't remember. But you paid for it. It went to a good cause I paid for my swag. It went to a good cause. I feel like I gave it to you for free. But I don't know if you paid for it. It went to a Spain missions trip that never happened. That's right. But it was for was for a good cause. Okay, for a good cause. Yeah, but glad to have you on the show. And today really wanted to kind of bring, you know, it's great having you and Rex on the show today as you guys kind of teach our Christian perspective class. And that's really a class on critical thinking and how to think christianly about topics, but want to want to kind of hit kind of the broad idea. And this is, you know, the classic, the famous question from Pilate for Jesus, right? What is truth? Right, what is truth? And one of the reasons this topic kind of popped up for me was I was recently watching the social dilemma on Netflix, which if you haven't seen it, it's a documentary about, really about social media, not just technology, but but social media specifically, and how it's gonna ruin your life. And so after you watch it, you burn all of your phone and computers, and you log off of every social media network. But I was I was really interested in the middle of the documentary. They talk about kind of the age of disinformation we are in, right and how much false news or false reporting happens on social media, and how much you can get caught in an echo chamber of just people you agree with. And so it looks like you're getting a bunch of facts and a bunch of things and you're like, I can't believe anyone else would think differently. Look at all of these facts, but the other people aren't even seeing those facts. Let alone maybe those facts be true or not. And so the people on the documentary,
5:08 Okay, can we just name something here? We can remember that vice president of debate. Yeah, there was a famous fly that was attacking Mike Pence. And during this podcast, there is a fly. That
5:18 seems to only like you, it is attacking me. But I can push through, I'm pushing through that I've been amazed at your concentration thus far, you know, maybe it's a little pensez. from Indiana, maybe I have a little bit that stoicism is like it does matter. Out of this, I can feel fly,
5:34 it might have something to do with the product in your hair that's attractive my
5:38 or the product in my beard either. It's there's an attractor happening. I'll agree with that. But it is less mean for now. So we're good. But on the documentary, it was really interesting. They kept going back. And many of these were like former Silicon Valley workers, some of them had been execs in Silicon Valley, but they kept coming back to this idea of truth. They use an example, you know, that false information is six times more likely to spread than true. But but it kind of begs the question. Okay, well, what do you mean by true? What makes something true? And in obviously, in the Christian world, and theological world, we look at what is truth, and we've kind of have this modernism into post modernism. And so want to just kind of talk about that. Rex, I know that you've kind of had some, some points on, you know, in terms of like, true theory,
6:36 right? There's sort of different, you know, sort of definitions or iterations of what, what truth means and what it entails. You know, most of us, I guess, when we think of something as true or false, we think of the correspondence theory of truth, it either is, or it ain't, there's just no middle ground. Right. And, you know, that was, I think, the accepted definition for a long, long, long time, right. But then there's several other theories. And you know, we all recognize them, no matter what they're called, like, the coherence theory, you know, if the ideas involved don't contradict, then it's okay. But that can get you in some interesting weeds. Yeah. But I think more likely, with what we're talking about with this sort of crisis of truth in our society is, you know, with the pragmatic theory of truth, it's true if it works. And then, most of all, with just the conversation we even had before the podcast started is sort of the emotional theory of truth. If it feels true, it is right. And, and, and, wow, I guess that's all I can say that that is a very, we've come a long ways from, I guess even the Enlightenment, which is really interesting,
7:48 right? Yeah, cuz, because a lot of, I think a lot of the questioning of truth, but also a honing in on ideas of like, absolute truth happened in the enlightenment. And then post modernism is a reaction against that, that modernist view of truth, that may be honed in like, like, I think, for Kant, that idea of reason. And that reason, highlights and that truth is something that you can, maybe you have to be able to prove and test. And so therefore, like for Kant, religious knowledge became not like a source of knowledge. You couldn't access that objectively, but more subjectively, but then postmoderns just even a reaction against like, objective, absolute truth, moves it more into the realm of, of personal truth, or private truth, and it becomes like a bullet. That's true for you, but not for me. Yeah, we,
8:51 I think both Rex and I teach a section of our class on this. What's happening in modality, what's happening, even pre enlightenment, a one of the things that's fascinating to me is the Reformation. And I always quote, Luther at the Diet of Worms, where he's casting away Pope's and councils and creeds and all this stuff, and referring back to what, autonomous self through reason accessing the truth of Scripture. So essentially, he's dismissed any structure except for the self as ascertaining what is true. And so one way we say there's modernism, and we said is post modernism, but I kind of think that post modernism is just hyper modernism, because what you have is the autonomous self on crack in the current age, you everyone's out there just assessing what is true, okay. And it's the autonomous self that does the science for them, decides for themselves. What will be true in this situation, there is no authority, there's no referral, there's no there's no need to tap into anything deeper than Yeah, just what I myself want to say is true. I mean, I'm sure you cover that in the same in the same way in your course. I always find that quote, to be fascinating because here we he is this pillar of reformation and we looked at but this quote just captured perfectly this shift away from authority trician and tradition, the church, a long standing thing that came before him. And it's just now me right now what the Scriptures and I say, this is what the Scriptures are. And of course, the problem is the next guy swingley. Melancon, yeah. Hey, Luther. That's pretty good. But I see the scriptures. Right, and you're wrong. Well, who, where's the reference? How do we, how do we adjudicate that
10:32 scholars have for a long time pointed out that that, you know, the process? Well, the seeds of secularism, were laid with the Protestant Reformation. And it's almost a foregone conclusion. Actually, once you once once the authority as you say, bread becomes the self instead of the church or the Councils or the you know, whatever. Yeah. And, and mad, you spin that out out to its ultimate conclusion. And you just end up with, you know, me and my truth against the world. And it's really fascinating. It's almost very gnostic in a way. But that's another conversation.
11:08 Yeah. You always you like to bring the conversation back to Gnosticism. I've noticed that you like he likes to sneak in there.
11:14 There's a lot of Gnosticism and evangelicalism. Oh, totally. I mean, that's right. That would be another podcast. But like, I it's fascinating to, to see these. One of the things that I'm not I, I am an amateur, when it comes to philosophy, but I'm intrigued by it. And I think it's helpful. In this day and age. It's super helpful to theology. But one of the things when you study history and philosophy, and ideas, you see there aren't that many of them and they always repeat themselves. So like every age, kind of reinterprets, this set of four or five different distinct ideas. Yeah, repackages them, and suddenly it's the latest, greatest thing. Right? So Gnosticism is an idea. It's an ancient idea. And it's still with us today. But again, yeah.
12:00 Right. But it does in one, even with like, Luther his perspective, I think it's, in many ways, repackaged by Descartes, in the sense of now I'm the referent of my existence, right? I think, therefore I am. It's not, you know, my, my maybe relationship to God, which would have been before my relation to God, I guess it would say, but now the self has become the reference point for my existence, paid for Luther, the self became the reference point for how you're reading scripture. And I like what you're saying, right? Cuz I never thought about that. Because most people view post modernism as this reaction against modernism, but I think viewing it as hyper modernism. it accentuates the role of the autonomous self. Right, so the individual self is king. Yeah. And that really is when we talk about truth. You know, people even say, well, this, you know, true for me, maybe not true for you. And perhaps the problem there is that there are some things that that are subjective, right. So that can be true for you. Well,
13:05 tell me what's not subjective. I mean, okay, yeah, access everything as a subject. Right. So right. Yeah, that's true.
13:12 Yeah. The postmoderns critique about, you know, that there's no view from nowhere is, I think, self evidently true. Yeah. And that's, I find that that that scares a lot of people. Right, because especially as Christians, especially our tribe, and feel that we cannot do without a very robust, strong conception of absolute truth in it. As soon as you start even admitting that some of the postmodern critique is true. It's already been talked about this right? Well, then suddenly, that's that's just a very, very threatening thing.
13:44 This is where and Rex will attest to this, why I'm such a big Dallas Willard fan. Because he goes, he actually helped me a great deal, because as soon as you admit to the postmodern critique as being valid, then if you admit it, it feels like you'll lose your way. And then so for me, he he reintroduced a couple of different terms and helped me understand them. And he was one of the things I think he's brilliant at is trying to distinguish between belief, knowledge and certainty. Hmm, yeah. And I think those terms are for me more helpful than truth. I think truth is, it has a lot of baggage and it, but like, if you start distinguishing What are we actually talking about here? And, and his book that I teach is called knowing Christ today. It's it's not a well titled book. It's actually an argument for moral knowledge. Right, right. And you know, things morally, and he would argue that yes, you can well, in this day and age, that that's like that, that arguments gone. Yeah. Could you could you make an argument? So like, I don't know. I don't know how racy I can get here. Okay. Yeah. Well, we can edit any we can. Okay, so I give this illustration. I actually, in my class, I make them Do this thought experiment, okay? And I say to them, I know a man. And I actually do know the guy who a small business owner in Sacramento. Before the bunny ranch closed in Reno, which is a brothel, he would go up. And he would hire prostitutes to put on high heeled shoes and walk all over his body include his face, and I say to them, can you make a moral argument that this is in any way wrong? And don't refer to the Scriptures? Yeah. So don't quote the Bible. Yeah. Can you make an argument? Even not even wrong, bad, you can even make that argument. And they, they sit in stunned silence, right. And eventually, after about five or six minutes of coaxing, they start working on the problem. Because in the culture, in terms of sexuality, you can't say it's wrong. You can only say, ooh, yuck. That's not for me. It's all that's all you get. Right. Right. So do we have to just give that away? Or, or can we work on it in a different way? So could can we know that that's bad? Can we know that that's wrong in any way? Now? It's not an easy argument. Right. Right. It's a difficult argument. I still think it's worth having. Yeah. But it's, it's a challenging way to start thinking about the terms a little bit. And any I don't know if you want to go belief, knowledge and certainty, but yeah,
16:18 no, I think diving into that is really helpful. Because Willard has helped me there as well. And that is a good distinction, because when we use the word truth, does have a lot of baggage. And, and there's there is more complexity there. And so that idea, so yeah, go into a little bit of what Willard saying with certainty versus knowledge?
16:38 Well, both Dallas and a guy named JP Morley helped me a lot with Christians tend to think of knowledge and certainty as being the same thing. And they dismiss that notion. And they say, you know, essentially, there's very few things that you can be absolutely certain of, there are things that you can be relatively certain of, but that's more like, stop saying relatively certain and start saying you have great confidence in that. Yeah. So knowledge is not the same thing as certainty. And as finite beings, their certainty is not our, our, that's not where we get to play. That's not our sandbox. Yeah, God can play in that sandbox a lot more than we can, right. So we have to, we have to deal with this area of knowledge. And we have to distinguish it from belief. So you can you can believe almost anything, right? You know, Dallas used to say, beliefs are like lint on a sweater, you find that you can just pick them up as you go along. So you can be listening, you can be in the car, and not even paying attention to a news report. And it's the Wall Street, you know, report and it's going down, and you can pick up beliefs just simply you absorb it from your arm. Yeah, they don't have to correspond to reality. But you will act as if they are true. That's what a belief is. It's that in which you're willing to act as if it is true. But it's a very different thing than to say that how knowledge works in add in distinguish from belief, knowledge is a different kind of thing. So
18:04 So I guess the million dollar question with that, especially in the environment we're in right now, right, of personal truth and alternative facts and all this stuff? How? What can we do to smuggle that back into popular culture? You know, that that's sort of the million dollar question to me, because because I feel it's necessary to do that. I just feel sorry. really intimidated?
18:30 Can I give an example? So I was talking to somebody who tends to be prone towards conspiracy theories, and is politically right. mid September, our president retweeted something about Joe Biden being a pedophile. And we were talking about it. And I said, You can't just throw that stuff out there. It can't be. And they said, Well, he might be he could be right. And I said to them, well, your husband might be too. But Should I just throw that around? Or should it be grounded in something Right, right. Now, when we make these claims, these truth claims these propositional truth claims, you have to ground them. Yeah. I don't want to say that anything could be true. But of course, there's some percentage chance that he will, but you don't just say it. Yeah, you have to. You have to it has to be it has to have a reference, right? There has to be a good reason for believing something to be true or claiming that it's Yeah, that you know, it's true, right. And this is the thing that I think we've given up is that people don't want to ground their argument. They just want to believe things. And this is why what you're saying is really hard. What we would say it's a prior commitment to worldview, whether it's seen or not seen that that doesn't really matter to them. If it's world if it's reality or not, right. It's my worldview, and I'm committed to it. So it's a hard orientation that you're only committed to. And what I find that scary is the lack of critical thought to even challenge things that might go against your worldview. Now, that is a hard thing. I think Get out. But I'll just throw something else out here. Dallas Willard once said to me, or to a group of us, do you know the reason why gambling is immoral? And we're like, no. Why is it immoral? He says, because you have to suspend reason. He said you have to you, if you if you could apply your mind to say that there's no way I'll win. Yeah. But you have to suspend that reason to do it consciously, not not recreationally to really believe that you're gonna win at gambling? We know the odds are against you. Right. Right. And he it's, he would say it's a violation of what it means to be human to not access reason is a violation of how we're made. I find that to be true right now, is that there's something about the willful determination that not access, what is accessible, using reason to do critical thinking that I find is frightening. Because it can take in some really bad places. Yeah. So to me, the challenge would be, isn't that why we would teach the course that we teach? How do you do critical thinking? So like, I'm sorry, to dominate the conversation, you know, again, you find people who only choose one, one news source, and they just swim in that stream. Yeah. And then. And then when you challenges say, well, who knows what's true, there's so much misinformation. I actually think that's cheating, what is possible, which is I think you can access, you can build a pretty good picture of reality, you just can't do it from one source, right? You have to do the hard work of looking at all sources and trying to build a picture. So it's still possible. But we've just throw up our hands and say, Well, I don't know so much truth. I'm just gonna listen to this one voice. Right. I think you could make an argument that's immoral. Because you're actually not accessing here. Back to the word truth. Yeah. Right. What is Yeah, you are accepting something less than truth. So if we were supposed to come to a conclusion as to how to resolve this, I think I'm just getting more depressed at this. Right.
22:13 Yeah. But I think it's, it is helpful to, to at least, show it in a perspective where it understands that truth is not like, obviously, our access to absolute truth is limited. Right? And like you're saying, like that that's not our sandbox to play in right? certainty. I think, I think absolute truth maybe lands in that box of certainty, right. And the, and, but, but that doesn't mean that we can't do the hard work of critical thinking and accessing, you know, because we've, especially during this this season, of, of, of kind of the crisis of information, I guess, or disinformation. I've had students come up and say, How do we know it's true? Like, you hear one side, and they say this and other side says this? And part of it is, you know, like, Okay, well, we do have to do the hard work of like, okay, let's look at all of these sides. And let's try to find that reference point. Right, try to find our agreed upon reference points, again, you know, it's gonna be our access is limited to some of those things. But I like what you're saying, in terms of understanding are finding truth is going to take a little bit of work, right. And it takes the work of being critical and not just listening to something that supports you. And that happens on both sides, right, both sides. And, and I've even found, if I'm reading an article, and I can tell it's gonna say something that I don't I start to be like, Oh, no, man, I didn't want this to be true. But I think that's true. Now I have to change.
23:50 It's a difficult thing. I i've, because I've, I've felt that I don't want to live in echo chamber either. And it's really easy for me to because I feel very passionately about certain things. Yeah. But I've deliberately subscribed, of course, it was a cheapy subscription that came to the mailbox. But still, I didn't have to do it. Yeah, I delivered subscribe to a magazine. So it's a, I think a bi weekly magazine, I won't mention it, because then that'll pin me down a wall here. That has a very different view than I feel but I'm making myself reader. I actually read some of it this morning. Because I and the interesting thing, though, is when I read it, there's this physical, it's just really interesting. What's happened to all of us. It's just a physical reaction. I have to force myself to to read something that I have already decided. I disagree with. Yeah. But of course, I have to force myself to do that. Because you know, it's the hard work of seeking after truth is hard work. Yeah. We
24:57 we got this little grant as a church to To think about creation care, science and faith, yeah. And so part of the grant, we gathered this fall focus group of people that are on the topics that we want to preach on the spring on. We talk through them all. We read books, articles, and I purposefully gathered a group of very diverse people. And we come together. So the last time was environmental stewardship. And far right, too far left to somewhere in between is in this group of about 10 people. Yeah. And it's not necessarily comfortable, right. It's challenging. Now we do it, we do it. And this is I think, part of the principle here of even talking to somebody that you disagree with or that you think differently about is there's we I wanted, I wanted to wait until we could do it in person. I didn't want to press flash, and oh, he didn't actually press last. But you see eyes and Bo, six feet apart. I have to figure it out. See the eyes because I had to have this conversation with an actual human. That's, that's right there in front of me, right. Yeah. But like, I always walk away. Feeling like, I gained something really important. I don't always change my view. But it certainly rounds my perspective to understand. And a different view. Yeah, more fully, or why people was I was I was, started this going 100 different direction. Richard Rohr, somebody that I don't know who I was reading, but they were talking about the fact that when you when you have somebody with a dissenting opinion or disagreement, try to listen and hear what they value, and see if you can honor that. Yeah, which I found, I find that to be a really helpful, it's helpful. Because if I can, if I can find out what's behind the passion as to what you deeply value, and then recognize and sell it, I get that I get where the passion is coming,
27:02 where I might even feel that same passion, it just plays out in a different way in my life. And so yeah, there's something in common that we have our common humanity be made in the image of God. And, you know, that's always a good thing to recognize, since we dehumanize our opponents so much, you know, we just, and that that's, you know, one of the saddest things to me about, you know, the the state of our conversations, and there are multiple conversations. Yeah. Yeah. Is is the sort of demonizing the opposition. That's just deeply disturbing,
27:35 right? Or even coming back to the point of, can you access reality? How do you do it? Can you actually get it? Get it? What's actually there? Sometimes these conversations with the centers are an important part of doing critical thinking, right? You're just you're gonna ground. Of course, you can believe what you believe. But if you so one of the things I love about a university, and I say this to my class all the time, there's things I can talk about here that I can't talk about my church, right, which is ironic to me, but the university should have is more of a marketplace of ideas where you bring the idea to the marketplace. And it gets it gets tested there. Yeah. So cross disciplines, right. So perspectives and disciplines, and then the idea becomes better because it gets tested in that place. I love that I find most people don't want to do that. Right? They don't want to, they don't naturally think that way. Yeah. And I don't know how to get at that. I don't know how to get it that except for I think it's really important work to do.
28:38 And I think sometimes maybe people come and just say, I would love for you to support what I already believe, and just helped me understand better how to support that.
28:48 Well, it's fascinating. I, I've had this I've had this told to me a number of times when they find out that I teach history. And so I'll have someone say, I hope you teach the right version. Yeah. And I know exactly what they mean. Right. Right. And it's like, well, I teach the best historical consensus is as far as we can access that. It does not a really satisfactory answer, if it was the right version that they wanted me to teach. I just agree with.
29:19 Okay, can I ask that direct question to you? So history would be a great example. Do you think it's possible to access reality or truth when it comes to history?
29:33 I think it's possible to get close to it. You could piece it together piece it together with reasonably Yeah, but not without not with no certainty, certainty, no certainty, right. Yeah. And I was actually going to ask the same question. I guess to all of us here, you know, that. I feel as a Christian, I need to believe this, but I also do believe this. So you know, it's nice when you're desires and cohere with what you actually believe. But I do believe in something called absolute truth, although I almost don't like that phrase because we bandied about in ways that I think it's not really helpful. Yeah. But at the same time, I believe that whatever we're thinking about when we think about that, you know, is a is is is there it's a reality. But
30:22 can I ask are you when you say absolute truth teeth? Do you think we're talking about universals? Why don't you explain universals to me first. So a free for me a universal would be something that would be true. Despite context, it would be true in all times, in all places for all people. So for me, a universal and absolute would be that God exists. Yeah, like I, I would I would put a flag on. Yeah. Now, I'm not gonna say I can't say certainty. I can claim knowledge of that. But I do think that's a universal. Yeah, I would argue morality is universal. Hmm. There's lots of people that would disagree with that. Right. But I would, I would say that you find every human being has a concept of right and wrong, though, then from culture to culture, that how it's defined is different. But there, there's a referent inside. Yeah, that there there. Like fairness. Yeah, every category. There's a category of it. So I do think there are things called universals. It's not a popular opinion, these days. So that's what I would mean by Would you say that's the same thing in your mind as absolute truth?
31:48 Yes, but I tend to think that there is absolute truth, but we are not capable on this side of the veil of accessing it, that we always access it in perfectly. Yes. And I always say, I also think that the Absolute Truth of the universals are, in some sense, contextualized? Because I don't think that you can avoid that. No, no, no, it's always contextualized access is always going to come. And that's what throws people off, you know, is that that is admitting that because some people I I least have found in, in my interaction with them believe that as soon as you throw context into it in any way, then you somehow are chipping away at the concept of absolute truth somehow, because, like there's this absolute context that we have access to, which I would argue this side of the veil doesn't exist.
32:47 And that seems to be I think, the fear Yeah, people, especially in in the Christian world, right. We're using a universal like God exists, like true at all time, all places. When you bring in context, people would feel like, Oh, you have to give up that universal. Right. And I think what we're talking about is giving up the access to certainty of, of that. I think that's a helpful with look, yeah,
33:12 I don't think you can be certain that God exists. I actually think that God created the kind of world in which he could be doubted. Hmm, yeah. Because you find lots of people who do doubt. Right, right. He has not wiped out. Right, the ability to doubt him in the world in which he called to being I find that fascinating. Right, right. Like, he apparently it's not believed that he's actually after. Hmm.
33:36 And it's perhaps the the process of doubting, or whatever has happened in that can be helpful exactly can be in understanding what the truth is, which is a really interesting way to look. And
33:47 I would argue that what he's actually after his pursuit, not relief, because I use this with my students, you know, we open up the Golden One center a few years ago in Sacramento, why didn't he just manifest his presence there, right, with all those reporters and famous people? Well, because he's actually not after belief. He's after something else. So this is a final famous lecture that morlan gave, why does God hide himself? And I've, I actually think it's a super helpful way of thinking about it. Because of course he does. Yeah, he could make himself more is than he does. So faith, and we can define that too. But a knowledge of god i think is possible. certainty of God's existence, I don't think is, and I think it's a fine distinction, but a true one.
34:38 And that's maybe where Willard is going to that idea of not certainty, but confidence, right? Like you can have confidence God exists, but that's something different than certainty. And
34:48 he would say that, that all knowledge has basically three sources, authority, reason and experience. And you have to define authority because people don't know what you mean by that. But like, I Tell people when you go to your math calculus class in high school, you actually don't develop math all the way forward. You take accepted math or authority, and you start from there. Yeah. So much of what we know, we take on authority, because we don't have the time or bandwidth to actually go relearn everything. Right. So authority is one stream experiences. Another reason are the ways that we access it. Anything we would say that we know, right, and I think you can apply that to God. And it still doesn't arrive at certainty. It arrives at great competence. Yeah. Like, moving forward.
35:36 Yeah. And I love that you would flow that into the idea of pursuit, because I often use kind of a similar maybe example. They're not exactly the Golden One example. But the idea that, you know, what, if God ripped the roof off of this classroom right now and said, Hey, I'm right here, everybody believe in me? That wouldn't be enough. Right? The problem of not being enough, we would all subjectively access that. And you could ask us, it'd be like, Yeah, something like the roof ripped off. I don't know what happened.
36:05 Well, even James says, you know, the, the, the demons have perfect theology. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. demons have perfect. They believe the right things. Yeah. Yeah. That doesn't lead into anything in terms of pursuit of God. Right. So like, it's possible to believe, right? Yeah. He was only after belief. Of course, he could make us all belief. Right. But that doesn't seem to be what he's ultimately after.
36:29 Yeah. Yeah. And calling us into that pursuit. And I think maybe, as we wrap this back into truth, right, because you might be listening to this and be like, Oh, man, we don't know anything. Right. We know, there is no truth. We can be certain God exists. What is happening? Have you been following the arguments if you come to that, right, yeah, cuz that's not that's not it. And but it is helpful to know. Okay, truth is much more complex than just what, hey, it's right or wrong. That's either true or false that we do. We have to know we do bring subjectivity into it. We bring in experience. I think we also do I mean, there is that element. I think when that's what struck me about the social dilemma. There is an element of I mean, on that documentary, they're saying, This information is not true, because it doesn't correspond to an action that happened, right. Like this is not ground data. It's not grounded. Yeah. So it's not justify. So I think it is something within our culture. Even in this hyper modernity and self being the reference point. There is this sense of you need to ground statements, you need to ground the truth, right. So there's the maybe we wouldn't use the word absolute truth, we wouldn't use correspondence theory. But I think people are looking for what is the grounding for, for what we're saying, right? And, and I think that's what they mean by truth, or what we mean by truth, like saying someone just throwing out a baseless claim about someone. The reason it offends us is because you're like, well, that's not grounded on anything. In the social dilemma, they use the pizza gate as the example where it was online and the conspiracy kind of again, pedophile ring or sex ring that pizza places where, and a guy actually went to a pizza place with a gun, and was like, unlock the kids, right? And the police arrest him in eighth show body cam, and the police officers on the ground, handcuffing him, and he's like, why are you here? And he's like, I'm just here to rescue the kids. And he's like, What are you talking about? And it's just this idea that obviously, that was not true. Right? Pizza gate was not true. It didn't have anything that grounded it. There weren't actually children back by the boxes of pepperoni or something. How do you know that mark? Hey, you got a website here that
38:56 I can argue that was possible to know that it wasn't true. Yeah, I just don't think they want to do the work.
39:03 Right. Right. And maybe another way of finding out if it's true or not, is not going to the pizza place with a gun but just going and you know, saying hey, can I see your freezer real quick? Are you know, like exploring that more, but we're looking Yeah, what I think was interesting for me is that, I think in our culture, in the midst of a very much of a personal idea of truth, and subjective idea of truth. We're still longing for some type of grounding, something to ground our statement,
39:32 do you think that's necessary for cultural survival? Do you think that this is not just some esoteric, you know, philosophical slash theological concepts that we're banding about here, but that we really somehow need to recapture a commonly accepted view of what truth is in order to survive as a culture.
39:52 Can I ask you as historian we've had regimes that that ran for decades on propaganda that were is not true, right? So I always, I always say to my classes as well, that reality is like a two by four, you can act like it's not real. But if it's being swung at your head, you better duck. Right? Or it's gonna hit you. Right? So like, you can defy reality, perhaps for a season but does not always, in some ways win. Yeah,
40:21 I believe so. Because I believe that reality is actually kind of hooked up to the absolute truth that I believe in, which is always in the person of God. And right. I do believe that. And I'm thinking about that a lot lately, too, right? within the current situation that Yeah, and I think I mentioned this to you guys before the podcast that you know, the arc of the arc of history in the arc of reality, bends towards justice and Shalom, and the truth. It may take a while for that to happen. But it's sort of interesting, all of these regimes at some point have been exposed,
40:54 exposed, and the camp came crashing down, and
40:56 they cannot continue because after the exposure, they can't.
41:00 So in my mind, a flourishing human life is the one that parallels what's true, or what's real. So if you live at cross purposes to what's real, yeah, it's going to, it's going to, it's gonna break you. Right, right. So there, there is a way in which now we're back to God. Right? aligning ourselves with God, as revealed in Jesus is actually in my view, that the fastest and best way to reality or truth, yeah, because you're actually paralleling with, with what's real. And sometimes I say, God is more real than material presence, because he called everything into being so he was first he's primary, right? Everything else is built on him and is sustained by him. So to know God, to align with God to seek God is actually to seek truth, reality, and to try to live your life in parallel to it. You know, it's, for me the way to successfully most successfully navigate the human life. Yeah, it doesn't mean it's gonna be perfect, you know, make lots of mistakes, but you will arrive at something that's true and real and can be counted on. Yeah, so I'll just say one more thing, then, yeah, I hear Hey, you're allowed to say, I know, I don't know how, what, where we're at the time like, again. So like, we were all young man at one point, and deeply studying in seminary and so smart. And we know so much about God and theology, it was just coming out over years. And we can answer any question, right? We get older. And some things we would say we know less well, right. But there are some things we know. More well, or more deeply. Yeah. So like, one of the arguments in my church I make all the time is I actually think I can know the sufficiency of God. And I can, I can make I can ground that I think it's justified true belief, which is what I believe knowledge is, yeah. So like, I, I really believe I can count on it. I can base my life on it, I can build my life on it. I can bet on it. I can make decisions based on it right? Now. Scripture promises us that yeah. So that's one source, right? We have Paul, Romans eight, we have this history of the church. And as they believe it, and act on it, finding it to be true. Now we're tapping into this long tradition, this authority I can access as by reason, and I can also look in my 30 years of being a Christian that it's God's always been sufficient, you know, every season. Yeah. So now I can have great confidence. Not certainly a great, great confidence. Yeah. And then act as if, you know, right, this thing. I can count I can live in parallel with this deep, deep truth. Now I can enter the world without fear or anger. Because I don't have to defend myself or secure my own existence. I can know that God has me. Yeah. Well, making this argument for at least in I don't know about the culture, but in the church. If we can convince the church of that, just that truth alone. It changes. Almost everything. Yeah. Now we don't grip. We don't fear. We don't have to be angry. We don't have to be partisan. We don't have to fight right. Yeah, we don't have to us in them. We don't have to demonize because God, the most real thing secures our distance. I think this is the whole purpose of the Sermon on the Mount. Yeah. Matthew six. I think this is the purpose of Jesus ministry. Yeah. Why do you run around like the pagans, right? The godless ones trying to secure existence? Don't you see the flowers? Don't you see the birds? Yeah, if God loves them, you can get much more you. So I think this, this is a really important way of saying to Christians, you can know things. And you can access reality and you can access truth. Yeah, it's not. It's may be hard. It may be complex, you might have to do a lot more work. But it's possible and it's worth doing.
44:46 Yeah. And I think that's really helpful for our for our listeners and for the church. And I think that is something that that culture wants, like they they want, they they want that grounding. They want That. And they, they always would would maybe use it when we use it all the time in counter arguments, right? Like, hey, what you're saying that's not true, or that's not grounded with you just logically true.
45:11 I mean, if we're meeting the image of God and the God is the source of all truth, and we are not fulfilled as a Gustin said, until we actually find our own, you know, find find ourselves in him then then that's a universal, not just longing, but that's a universal need. Yeah, that people have and and when one thinks of it that way, it it's it shines a little light in the in the present darkness
45:38 does not mean that what we offer the world is actually good news. Sure. I mean, yeah, so you own galley on. It's it's good news. I don't know if the church has been giving a lot of good news. But like, maybe in this area, culturally, not sure everyone's gonna believe it, but we can offer good news. Yeah. And that's something to have hope in.
46:01 Yeah. And that's, and that's sort of open. And I like that Rex, that, that we see that universal in everyone. And I think for me, kind of, we're gonna wrap it up here. But coming back to the social dilemma, that's what that's what really struck me was, oh, and all of this. And I remember, you know, the time I was just coming out of college, when kind of a lot of the conversation about post modernism, and what we were going to do, and truth is gone now. So we're not and it was this, this holding on to absolute truth, right? It was this grip by the church, like, we can't give these things up. We can't give an inch to post modernism. And it was this fear that hey, once you give up truth, no one will ever, but I feel like social dilemma, majority thing that drove them was, hey, the problem here is this information is not true. Like we live, you know, in a in a period that is now well past that. But no one has given up on the concept of truth. No one has just no one in that documentary said, it doesn't matter what the post is. That's what people think that's good for them. They're like, no, that is dangerous, right? That untruth is dangerous. And so yeah, it'll always because we're made in the image of God. And because we're called, I think, into that truth, it'll always come back there. I don't think culture can ever get in. Because it's like you're saying, Brad, the idea of reality, reality is always going to be there. So you can only deny reality for so long before the two by four smacked in the face. You know,
47:32 it's the guy at the pizza place. You know, he was not in touch with reality. And right and reality smacked him. Like, he got arrested and taken off. Yeah, he did not live his life in correspondence what was true and real unknowable, right. And he found out the hard way,
47:48 but he was still look, as I was just thinking about that, while you guys are talking about, I think he was still still exhibited that desire that something be true, or he wouldn't have gone to the rice in the first place, which I
47:58 want to even honor the guy. If you were convinced that there were children out there, right. That's a noble thing.
48:05 I don't know. that correspond to reality, but it was no, the aspiration was, well, this has been a strange conversation is, you know, you never know where it's gonna go. That's not the takeaway of this podcast.
48:19 Maybe edit that out. Now. But But, but it did. I mean, I think the, the takeaway would be that, that idea that, that there is this longing for truth, there's this longing for grounding and justice. Yeah. And, and when we live in that reality, that is where God is calling us right? living in truth with that reality, the reality of not just God's existence, but yeah, you're saying of justice that's he's put in to this world of beauty of truth, like when you live in that, that is like that is in line with God and that and, and, and then obviously, understanding the complexity of truth and maybe an encouragement for our listeners to do the hard work, of, of truth of being able to look at two sides of an argument, even though it might physically make us cringe. Look at both sides so that we can see different things and use reason, authority experience, and understanding what what God is saying to us as well. I think that is just important. And it's helpful for me to, to note that you don't have to no one's abandoning, you know, absolute truth or universals, like you know, it's not an abandon this. It's just a better understanding of what actually is the nature of truth of what we're talking about who you are. Yeah, and and pursuing that. So thanks a lot. Brad and Rex was a helpful conversation. For me. We covered a lot of ground, so I'm glad people can hang with us. And I know there will be more and more topics like this will will pop up. Well, thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
50:34 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
New York Times' Bestselling author, Jemar Tisby, joins Mark and Rex again to discuss his new book How to Fight Racism.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex, so excited to have jemar tisby back on the shack on the show for the show. He is, you know, an author we had him on for the color of compromise. He's also the president of the witness of black Christian collective, where he writes about race, religion, politics, and culture. He also co hosts his own podcast called pass the mic. And his the color of compromise became a New York Times bestseller this past summer of 2020. And he's just released a new book on how to fight racism, courageous Christianity and the journey toward racial justice. And I know you as listeners are going to love this episode and learn so much because we learned so much being with him. That's right.
0:57 Hey, Jemar, we're so happy to have you back on the show. How have you been since we last had you on the show?
1:04 Man running going? I'll tell you though, the holiday season was a bit more low key and subdue. Right? for all of us. Yeah, exactly. And I think there was something to that, because we needed every ounce of energy for 2021.
1:22 Right? Yeah, that is the truth, as a truth and you. So we had you on last time talking about the color of compromise. And then you've just released a new book, how to fight racism, and we're gonna be focusing on that. But also, like, I don't think we talked a lot about this last time. In the middle of all this, you're also a PhD candidate. How are you? How you doing all this? Listen,
1:50 I don't know that I am doing any of it. Very well. And so yeah, that is a Super Challenge. I'll tell you the dynamic is good, though. Because that the type of work required to write a dissertation, it's like this deep, focused work where you're just in a silo. And I feel like it steeps you in knowledge and information and data and truth. And then when you come up for air, and you see current events and everything, this is one of the reasons why I wanted to pursue this degree in history was to be able to bring all of that deep study that academic rigor, and just the context of history to what we're experiencing right now. So I like that going back and forth. I think if I was not in the program, with everything that's going on right now, I would just be even more scattered than I am. So yeah.
2:46 And speaking of right now, we're actually doing this podcast on January the seventh 2021, which is one day after January the sixth. And so, um, you know, that that just kind of places us right now in the context of, of what we're talking about. And so, you know, we really want to give you a voice tomorrow, because we respect him so much. And we really do want to get to your book, but, you know, do you have anything to say about what happened yesterday, especially in conjunction with, you know, the fact that that, frankly, the crowd that stormed the Capitol was almost completely white? Yeah, yeah.
3:31 I sort of am processing it on three levels, an emotional level, a historical level and a spiritual level. So on the emotional level, my goodness, how frustrating is all of this is, it is so big, I mean, obviously disheartening, frightening to a degree, but also frustrating. In particular, as a black writer, I've been I've been talking about these things, in particular, putting words to them in writing, literally for years. But in the more recent past, at least, you know, since the 2016, presidential cycle, and there are so many, like me, who, who, because of our social location, racially, ethnically, we are canaries in the coal mine for these kinds of things. So we heard the rhetoric we saw, we saw the people who were attracted to this President and this administration, and we said, Hey, this is not good for us in so many people, minimized it ignored those calls. And what is frustrating is that it could have been prevented or at least mitigated, had we taken action sooner. So that's the emotional level. On a historical level, there are all kinds of parallels, my mind jumped immediately back to the aftermath of the Civil War. And here you have sedition, rebellion, treason. on a national scale that led to what is to this day, the bloodiest War The United States has ever been involved in. And what happened after that, you would think, you know, in light of this this treasonous nation forming and literally spilling blood and rebelling against the union, there would be some harsh penalties and consequences. When in reality, what happened was the full pardon of Confederate soldiers, amnesty for many Confederate leaders and generals, wealthy people continue to own land. And one of the things I say in my first book, The color of compromise is that racism never goes away. It adapts. And so they were adapted. After that to sharecropping and convict leasing, it continued the economic exploitation of black people, and basically got a slap on the wrist, if that for for rebelling against the nation. And the way that connects to what happened January 6, is that relative leniency LED and emboldened more than a century of white supremacist extremism, because it was clear that the nation, or at least the authorities weren't going to take strong action. And I think we are seeing the very bitter fruit of those rotten roots even in we actually saw
6:25 we actually saw confederate flag waving in the Statuary Hall.
6:30 So So yeah, and we can go on and on and on, we can talk about the KKK as a white nationalist organization, we can talk about what happened during the civil rights movement and the ways they protest and push back against black civil rights. And we can talk about the marriage of, you know, Christianity, and the religious right, which is the third aspect, the spiritual level. So what I'm seeing there is Christian nationalism on full display, when you have people carrying literal crosses, like four by four wooden themed, with 1012 foot crosses up there, you know, it's, it's one step away from just like messing thing on fire. And then you have, you know, signs and banners that say Jesus saves right alongside signs and banners that says Trump saves or Jesus 2020 and Trump 2020, right. And so you have all of these religious symbols, where they are using the sort of vocabulary and symbolism of Christianity, but importing this nationalist, xenophobia racist meaning into them. And it is so frustrating because for the past several years, we saw this in the church first, but it also hit the white house when they started issuing executive orders on this stuff about critical race theory, and critical race theory as the biggest threat to Christianity in the US the biggest threat to Orthodoxy, etc, etc. They use this label as a pejorative for basically anyone who was doing any type of racial justice work they didn't like the they in here is far right fundamentalist Christians, who are pushing back against racial justice in the 21st century. And it was a red herring. It distracted us from from what has already infiltrated many sectors of the church in the United States and us Christian nationalism. So processing on all those levels.
8:35 I know the the assembled, I guess, seminary presidents of the denomination that I grew up in, all basically kind of got together and banned, even I guess, the the, you know, use of the term in in their seminaries. And that's, that's discouraging and
8:53 time to name names. I think this is a time to name names. The Southern Baptist Convention has done these regional things. Yes, they issued this, the president of the SBC seminaries issued an egregious statement, condemning critical race theory saying is wholly incompatible with Christianity, which actually went against a resolution they passed in 2020, I believe about it and saying, we know there are some parts we can learn from other parts are incompatible. They just did wholesale thing. And then to go further, from an article by Charlie dates who whose church left the SBI in the wake of this statement, right. He's, he's privy to all of the the conversations and whatnot. And he said, it was at the urging of Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that they went further and made that statement because it could have just been a statement in affirmation of the Baptist faith and message on its 20th anniversary, but They had to have a little jab about critical race theory in there. And then Moeller, several months prior to that came out and said, as a Christian, he couldn't see voting for anyone other than a Republican candidate for president for the foreseeable future and directly attach that to his Christian faith and theological leanings. And to this day, as far as you know, as we record on January 7, has not reputed his support for this president who overtly and explicitly inflamed and encourage this insurrection.
10:37 Yeah, and I agree that it is a time that, that we name names and we we put that on record. I mean, I think this is, as we look back on this time, we're gonna be looking back on the record of who voiced and who stayed silent. And, and I think it's so important, and that's why I think it's so interesting that your book is is released, I think, at an amazing time in history, because I think people are looking for those who have their eyes open and ears open are looking for ways, how do we enter this conversation? Like how do we fight racism and and you start your book with the line, something is different this time. And and even though the events of January 6, you know, bring us back I think steps. It does feel like what what do you think is different this time, you know, from from spring 2020 moving forward.
11:31 Right, so I opened the book with a sort of recounting of the sustained uprisings that we saw from the spring of 2020, through this summer of 2020, about racial justice, and it was spurred most proximately by the murder of George Floyd, Briana Taylor, Amman, are very, but of course, there's a much longer history. And, you know, in the midst of that, it felt different. This time, it felt weightier, it felt like there was more momentum, it felt like there was a greater potential for change. And I stand by that I absolutely stand by that we saw so this, the prime example I give is going to seem relatively minor at idiosyncratic to people outside of this area, but it's a major deal, the state of Mississippi finally changed its state flag, which, of course, last one in the Union, to have the Confederate battle emblem on it. And mind you, that flag has flown uninterrupted since 1894. It took 126 years for that flag to come down. And there's a reason it came down in 2020. And so that's one sign we can point to lots of different other ones. The The other reason I think this time feels different, is not simply because of the protests or the progress, but because of the opposition. And what happened on January 6, is actually part and parcel of the protests and uprisings we saw in 2020, partially as a reaction to that. And so you know, the strength of your movement by the strength of the opposition you fix. And so we've, we've seen this resort resurgence and white supremacist extremism and terrorism and violence, and that is in direct proportion to the strength of the movement that's pushing for racial justice.
13:29 Yeah, that's such a good point. And, and being, you know, witness to that over these last couple days, and seeing that, and seeing how we can continue to move forward on this journey of racial justice. And I like how in the book, you call that you call it a journey of racial justice, and you provide a model that you created called the arc of racial justice. And I think there's a really, you kind of shaped the book around that. And I really think that's a powerful way for us to start to answer that question of Okay, what can we do? Right? How do we make those next steps? So you could walk us through that arc of racial justice? I love that.
14:10 Yeah, it's pretty simple is designed that way, because my brain is simple can be I want it to be memorable for other people. So the art of racial justice is an acronym that stands for awareness, relationships, commitment. And I think you need all three, to have a robust holistic approach to racial justice, awareness, the knowledge, the data, the facts, the information we need, about race, racism, white supremacy, in order to understand what we're dealing with, and to better address it. And so what is awareness building looks like a lot of different things. It's reading the books, watching the documentaries, listening to the panel discussions, all of those things we do to add information, but we can't just send big heads. We got to have big hearts around this thing, too. This is the one I find toughest to explain because the immediate pushback which I have to is that fighting racism is about Not much more than individual relationships, right? The pothole that that especially white evangelicals fell into around racial reconciliation was to think that racism is primarily a problem of interpersonal attitudes, one person not liking another. And so the solution then is, well, some of my best friends are black, or people, you know, have black friends or Asian friends or whatever it might be. Which, which, yeah, they stopped there, which is a problem. And I'll get to that in the last portion of the model. But I still think there's a place for relationships. As a matter of fact, I know there is, even as a black person or a person of color, it can be really easy to to paint in broad strokes and make white people all the absolute same. Now, I nuance that and say, Listen, if you're white, you benefit from whiteness, no matter how woke you are, no matter how sensitive you are, issues, I understand that. But it's a check on my heart, to make sure that I'm not saying all of this stuff, divorced from actual relationships with people, but it's even more incumbent, I think, on white people, because even simply being in the numerical majority, it's going to be harder for you to make real good, authentic relationships across racial and ethnic lines, there are simply more of you than there are us. But beyond that, this nation has been extremely adept at on purpose separating white people from other folks. And so they're all of these structures. residentially educationally even ecclesiastically, then keep you separated. And so you're gonna have to cross all those boundaries and skill all those walls to build relationships. Lastly, we can just have good relationships, because hey, we can have a great heart to heart on this podcast, we can, you know, when we're, when the vaccine has been distributed in we can meet each other again, hold each other, high five, all that stuff. None of that's going to do a thing about mass incarceration, about voter suppression about black women dying in maternity related deaths at three times the rate of white women. So what do you do about that stuff? That's where the commitment aspect comes in, that says, prejudice works itself out not just through people, but through policies as well. And so we got to work at the legal level, we got to work the policy level, the practice level, the ways our systems and institutions are structured, that create a perpetuate racial inequality, we got to attack that too.
17:45 And be willing to I don't know, I guess, except whatever you think is a sacrifice to do it. It may not actually be one, but you might think it is, I've been reminded that with, with just the vaccination thing, you know, it's like, you know, I'm probably on on level 130 z or something. But you know, I want to sort of jump the line, but I also have to understand that people of color are being affected by the whole COVID crisis at in numbers that people like me aren't, I have a place to go, I have a job that I can I'm at home right now on this podcast, and other people don't and, and honestly, you know, they should be vaccinated first. It should be and I need to understand that and accept that.
18:29 And I think you're hitting on something that is critical. So in the book, the chapters are all sort of uniformly structured, there's usually some sort of introductory story that illustrates the broad concept. And then there are two sections, essential understandings and racial justice practices. So the racial justice practices, obviously, are the practical hands on here's what to do stuff. But I really think part of the treasure of the book, if there is a value to it is the essential understandings because that articulates kind of my broader approach to race and how to think about it. And so what you touched on just a moment ago, is the idea of sort of communal thinking, in the sense of not groupthink, but in the sense of I'm part of a broader community. And I am going to do something that is good for the entire community and not just myself. That's a fundamental shift in thinking. racial and ethnic minorities have that because we tend to be viewed by society as a group. So the analogy I always use is when I was in seminary, which was overwhelmingly white over 90% white if I did badly on a class assignment or something that would have not just been jumar did badly it's the see those black people, you know, they can't handle it, or they can't hack it or whatever it might be. Whereas if one of my white classmates did poorly, that's just john, let's just mark Keenan study that night, you know, if there's not as an individual kind of thing. So so that shift of thinking about the good of the group, and how this affects us all COVID is a perfect example, right where, because you know, you may be able to work from home or be more affluent and can afford better health care, it doesn't affect you the same way. But that's not all that matters is about the good of the group. And so I just wanted to highlight, you know, that really important concept that you just just mentioned.
20:29 Yeah, and in your book, you, you I appreciate how you bring in Christianity explicitly in this conversation, right, a year, that you tie it directly, and you label as courageous Christianity. So could you highlight what is courageous Christianity? And you also highlight like, why did you need to tie conversations of race and racism directly to Christianity?
20:57 Thank you. Yeah, it's that subtitle is doing a lot of work there courageous Christianity and the journey toward racial justice. courageous Christianity, in contrast to complicit Christianity, which I talked about in the first book. And so the sordid history of white Christianity in the United States is one, pretty much characterized, in most cases by compromise and complicity in the face of racism. You can go even further than that, you know, active cooperation and construction of a racist society. But in contrast to that compromising complicity, would be courageous Christianity, that instead of compromising actually confronts injustice. And so I say in the introduction, you know, I really want this book to be broadly read, and it absolutely can be, you don't have to be Christian, you don't have to claim any faith tradition at all, I think, to glean from this book, but I felt I had to also address Christians because of a couple of things. First and foremost, when it comes to white Christians in this country, they've so often been part of the problem, this is your opportunity to be part of the solution. I really think, you know, white Christians need to be at the forefront of this thing, examining their own institutions, their own churches and nations. Yeah,
22:26 perhaps waving a Jesus flag as I climbed the Capitol steps before I smashed the door well,
22:34 and by saying at the forefront, I mean, need to be if what soldiers in this thing, but but that doesn't mean taking the lead over and above people of color and black people who've been living this and, you know, have the insights and experience. So I thought we got to bring Christianity in for that. The other thing is, is on the more positive side, we have so many resources within the Christian tradition, for fighting racism and promoting justice. And so in the book, I talk about sort of broad themes, the image of God, I spent a lot of time in the first section of the book talking about this idea that we're all made in God's image. And that gives us inherent dignity and worth. And that tells us so much of what we need to know about how to interact across racial and ethnic lines. But I also talked about love and, and justice, and justice being loved in public, that kind of idea to get in the fact that we can't just approach this on an interpersonal level, but also a systemic and institutional level as well. So, again, I think it's accessible to anyone have any faith tradition, or no tradition at all. But I do think Christians in this nation absolutely have to be part of the solution. And so it's addressed partially to know.
23:57 Yeah, I think any, you know, encouragement, actually, a, I'm trying actually not to mention the institution right now. But there's a Christian College in California, very, very conservative that I am sort of related to, through my son and his in laws, and his father in law is actually on the administration there and they have, you know, decided to have a, the administrators actually have sort of a book club on the color of compromise. I just felt really, really, you know, I that's a good thing. I don't know what's gonna come of it or whatever, but those are the people that need to be reading it. Yeah, they are. I'm glad they are.
24:36 Well, the it's gonna be interesting in groups like that you mentioned, you know, that they might be more on the conservative side. With the first with the color of compromise. I was actually surprised there wasn't more pushback. And I think that's because of two reasons. Number one, you're dealing with history, which is as much as there is a war on facts. And information right now, it's a little bit harder to critique. I mean, when you've got the literal primary documents and whatnot, like the words are there, the evidence is there. So it's, you know, you got to get much more creative if you want to just attack the knowledge there. But I think Secondly, there was less criticism than I expected. Because the further back in history you go, the more people think it's distant and doesn't apply to them threatened. But to the extent, to the extent that there was criticism and pushback, it was on two counts one, the more recent history, say from the 1960s on, so they really didn't like, you know, what I talked about Billy Graham and his record on race, right. And that really, really didn't like when I started talking about the Moral Majority. And this connection between Christianity and the GOP. On the second, so the more recent history they criticize, and then the second part they criticize was the last chapter, which was dedicated to practical steps we can take, and in many ways, you know, the color compromise and how to fight racism pair together well, because that last chapter, essentially expanded into entire book and how to fight racism. But that part, where you start talking about, you know, celebrating Juneteenth that taking down Confederate monuments and doing reparations, they love that one. That's the part where they where they start to push back. So in these groups that study, the color of compromise, and perhaps even more so how to fight racism, I do anticipate most of the pushback and criticism comes when you actually start talking, not in just vague generalities racism is wrong. But here's what we do. Right, specific things we we do. Yeah.
26:53 Yeah. And it's what's interesting there, it's the specific things and actions is what we need to focus on right now. And what I mean, we need, we need that awareness. Definitely. And the historical awareness. And I think, for me, personally, that's part of what I think this year has, has been that something's different this time, at least for me personally, like, the more I dove into the historical record, and, and even the summer thinking, how did the church tree Martin Luther King, Jr. You know, I just asked that question. I never heard that growing up. And then as I look into it, I'm like, oh, not very well. Like, wow, how can we learn from that? So you need that. And that's been good for me. But we also then we need to look at, okay, what do we do next? Like, how do we, how do we step in more? And, and we have to be able to talk about that. I one question that I wanted to ask you is, and part of it is with this, like, with with maybe more Current Conversations is within the church? How How would you help us have conversations about slogans and movements like black lives matter? Right, because especially and I'm Pastor in a predominantly white church. And, and that's where people are always pushed back, you know, and I'm gonna, and I think like, this is a clear and obvious statement. That is true. And we should easily support. But people always push back with air hits too close to home, there's this separation of movement versus organization. How would you kind of guide us on that?
28:36 A couple of things. And they're, they're pretty broad, but I hope helpful one, at the beginning of 2021, if people are still rigorously pushing back against black lives matter, I don't think they're going to change their minds very soon. And that's true. We have seen so much the 2020 alone, and we're continuing to see it, such that if people want to cling to this idea that in no way shape or form, should a Christian, be involved with a firm or even say the words, Black Lives Matter, I just don't think you're going to get very far very quickly with them. And to me, that is a signal to say, I love you, but I got to keep moving. I don't know if that means disfellowshipping and going to another church. I don't know if that simply means I'm going to unfriend you on Facebook, that kind of thing. But I would I would be very cautious about expending so much energy at this point on people who are who are still pushing back so hard against the phrase in the movement. The second thing is, in general, the people I find protesting most loudly against black lives matter aren't doing anything besides that aren't doing any advanced racial justice in a substantive way. And so they're spending all this time and energy critiquing the movement that is happening. Well, not While using it as an excuse not to get involved in the movement at all. And so the the immediate question one can ask is okay, you don't like BLM, what are you doing? Yeah. And it'll probably be along the lines of I'm preaching the gospel. I'm nice to people, you know. But when it comes to, you know, actually changing laws about, I don't ever want us to forget that the 2020 uprisings were about anti black police brutality. And as you could ask an even more pointed question for the people who are objecting to the use of the term or the movement. What are you doing about anti black police brutality, you will be crickets 95% of the time. So So all of that in mind. If you're a leader at the church, speak the truth in love. Like, look there. I've been doing this long enough, there is no way to contextualize soften tiptoe around these issues, enough that someone is not going to push back. Doesn't matter how careful or circumspect you are. So why not take that burden off yourself, just beat the truth and allow people the dignity of deciding for themselves, whether they want to believe it or not, and what they want to do with it. And so I would just encourage people who have a voice in leadership at their churches, now is the time for bold truth in love. But understanding that the truth divides, and that may be unnecessary division. Yeah.
31:40 That's so helpful. Thank you so much for that. And thank you again for for coming back on the show. I wish we had more time. Maybe we'll have to get you back. Yeah, we can tackle. Yeah, exactly. And with with this being your second time on the show, you officially become a friend of the show. A button or we're working on T shirts where we can finally get those t shirts with me in the line. Yes, we will. But thanks again. And we're so excited about your book, which was released on January 5. You can get it anywhere books are available.
32:25 Is it racism? Calm how to fight racism, calm. We'll get you get you fixed up.
32:31 Awesome. That is perfect. Thanks again, Jim. are fun talking to you guys. Thanks for the invite. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
33:03 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Mark and Rex discuss one of their topics: theology. Specifically they ruminate on the fact that we are all theologians and how much our thoughts about God truly matter.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host, Rex Gurney, and Rex on the show today, we are kind of just gonna kind of follow where the Spirit leads, I think and and mostly framing it under this lens of the importance of theology. And we're the two perfect people to talk about that too, because you teach theology and I used to teach theology just before they stopped letting me teach you. That is, that's a good, a good marker. I used to teach theology. So we have Yeah, current theological theology teacher, former theology teacher, but we're gonna mostly frame this through the lens of what does it mean to think the illogic, right, right, and how does that affect other areas of our life? Exactly. And
0:45 that's a question that you can't avoid.
0:48 Exactly. So we hope you enjoy the show. By Rex, we had just a few podcasts ago, we had theologian Kelly Capek, on, you know,
1:04 and as soon as as soon as actually he was on the show, I started noticing his name everywhere I was, I was having my personal devotions. I'm not making this up, actually. Sounds like one of those people brag. I know. I know. I know. But, so I was having my devotions on looking at this book that I'm reading. And it was co written by Kelly kapok and I had no idea I bought this book, like forever ago, and oh, my gosh, this guy's everywhere.
1:27 Yeah, he has really been a part of a lot of books and edited a lot. So right. So it was great. Having him on the show really enjoyed that. So if you're listening to this, and you haven't seen it, go back and listen to that episode. But I wanted to start this off Rex with a with a definition of theology that he gives. And he provides this in his little book for new theologians, which really is an excellent book, we didn't get a chance to really talk with him about Right, right, because we focus mostly on another one of his good books embodied, embodied hope. But this is a great it is literally a little book, like his little in size. And it's short pages. So perhaps, yes, some students will actually Yeah, exactly. So that's, I mean, those are the kind of books I look for, for students, because they might actually read this, we're so jaded. But, um, but I love that he goes to the whole thing, and he ends on this actual definition, okay, of theology. And he says this, he says, In its most fundamental form, Christian theology is an active response to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, whereby the believer in the power of the Holy Spirit, subordinate to the testimonies of the prophets and apostles, as recorded in the Scriptures, and in communion with the saints, wrestles with and rests in the mysteries of God, His work in his world. And I love how how much he packs into that, right? There's a lot in that state. It's a long sentence, right? I don't know, if you know, my English teacher would probably critique maybe the length of the sentence. But I love how he ends. The first part, which I think is really important. This has been something for me, theologically, that has really shaped me, I would say over the last five to seven years, is the idea that, that the revelation of God is first and foremost, most pronounced in Jesus. Because often when we think of Revelation, and even when we think of special revelation, right, if we look at those categories in theology, special revelation versus general revelation, we often in the evangelical community, we often jump to the written,
3:44 right scripture, right, right, the written word, where's the living word? Yeah. What subordinate to the other
3:49 and I think it's important that that Kelly highlights this. And it's really, it's really an idea that I think Carl Bart influenced and, and really bring to, you know, to prominence or gave prominence to it in the middle of the 20th century. But the idea that not the revelation of God, so Christian theology is an active response. Right? It's not passive, right. Something deliberative, yeah. To the revelation of God in Christ so and that's kind of changed my focus of theology and and when you think of theology, right is trying to trying to understand God, right or No, God, you know, I mean, in its simplest form, it's tempting to
4:33 think clearly about God and His revelation.
4:35 Yeah. And and then to do that, to recognize that Jesus is that revelation of God, so, so to know God better, is like knowing Jesus better is to know God better, right? So everything, anything that's part of Christian theology, everything we think our say about God has to go through the lens of Jesus. If it's Christian theology, yeah, right. Yeah. Right. And, and that totally changes because I think sometimes in our, in our minds subtly and not so subtly, we completely separate the God of the Old Testament and Jesus. Right. Right. And, and they're, they're two different and in some ways we tried to use Jesus to reconcile, and he kind of pacifies that God from the Old Testament. And maybe he eventually assuages that God with his blood on the cross, but they're still kind of two separate ideas. And in Christian theology is trying to help us bring them together, right, that God is Father, Son, spirit, and
5:40 there's a number of different streams of Christian theology that have that have worked on reconciling that. Yeah. You know, we've mentioned Christian theologians and people better than me who write Long, long sentences with big words. But one thing I read recently about theology that really stuck to me is this phrase, to be a Christian at all is to be a theologian, there are no exceptions. And that, that, that that's important for me as someone who, even though I'm a history professor, I still touch you know, on theological issues a lot, even in my history classes. But having taught in a conservative Christian College for a long time, where most of the students are Christians, and most of the students take their faith fairly seriously. I have been surprised that most students seem to be allergic to theology. Yeah, it's almost it's almost like if you want to empty out a room, say the T word. theology. And, and because I think some folks think that it's just, you know, thinking these arcane statements about God or right, or, or, or it's not practical or has no, you know, street cred, or real world value, when actually what you think theologically about God and the way God interacts with God's creation has impact on on every step you take through this world, you can't avoid it. Right? There's a couple of authors that that mentioned, the difference between an embedded theology and a deliberative theology embedded theology being something that we, we have as Christians, we pick it up. Yeah, we pick it up from our families, we pick it up from our churches, we pick it up from fellow students from life experiences, yeah. And we draw some, we're not even thinking about it's not even a conscious thing, necessarily, but we're drawing theological conclusions. And those conclusions affect the way we think about the world. And, and when we think about the Christian life, what we try to make students do here, Jessica, and I know you struggle with that all the time, because you're one of the primary maker makes students do this is to think deliberatively, about about your embedded theology, because what our embedded theology needs is some real critical reflection. It could be right, right, right. But but at least you need to think about what you you know what you mean, and how to talk about what you feel about God in the way God works in the world.
7:59 Right. And that's where it is trying to help students and help everyone, right? Everyone realize, we are all theologians, we all have a core set of beliefs about God, right? That, that, perhaps are embedded because of the culture we grew up in a family we grew up in, the church we grew up in, or the non church we grew up in, right. So I mean, when we say everyone is a theologian, that means everyone, right? We all have a core set of beliefs about God. And that's why I think it is so important to get people to, to start thinking about, okay, what is that theology that you have? What have you, what do you believe about God? And is that in light? Is it informed? Is that a response to the revelation of God in Christ? Right, right. And, and that's a really good comparison and be like, oh, wow, maybe what I believe about God, that actually doesn't line up with what Jesus says about God. Ooh, that can that can help us think about our theology. But yeah, you're totally right. When, when often you bring up theology, and I teach, like, you know, my bread and butter is required, right? classes, right, they have to take, they have to take them to get out of here. That's how I make my money. And, and so most of the lot of students do come in and I see this in the church all the time. Yeah, people will say, Oh, well, I'm no theologian, but it's like, No, you
9:26 actually are. Yeah, you're about to make a theological statement.
9:29 Yeah, exactly. You're, you're about to make a theological statement. So recognizing that and helping people understand. Okay, yeah, what, what is it that I believe about God? And how has that belief maybe shaped the way that I approach God, right, the way I approach others, the way I approach, you know, my life in this world,
9:50 I've heard it said about embedded theology that embedded theology is is usually serviceable until a crisis hits in my be helpful. And hopefully we actually attempt to do that with our students. Right is to have people think deliberately deliberatively about their theology, because before the inevitable crisis will hit, right, because it might actually help you navigate that crisis in a in a healthier and healthier way.
10:19 Yeah. And especially, I mean, think about it this way, right? If you're, if a, if an embedded belief you have about God is that God is retributive in the sense that he will he pays you back for what you do, because that's just how God Yeah, cuz that's quid pro Pro. Right? So that's how God is. So therefore, when that tragedy strikes, your maybe initial thought of God is Oh, God is punishing me, or this is what I did. I do. Yeah. And, and, and being able to change that view of God means actively deliberately engaging in theology, which is understanding the revelation of God in Christ. I also love where Kelly goes here, that in the power of the Spirit, we also engage with the testimonies of the prophets and apostles, which is another way of saying scripture. But I kind of like it phrased that way, this idea of, because sometimes when we think of the Bible, like I think we think of this leather bound book, right, that our grandma gave to us for Christmas, you know, 1984, I'll just throw out a date. And that would been more of a date for me, Rex. No, no, I'm
11:34 trying to think what what you know, because I pass it for years, as you are now. And so you know, what does every like, you know, Pastor need for Christmas from his family or his parishioners, of course, it's another Bible, another Bible. And so I have all these Bibles. And I was growing up that you know, the way I grew up, you know, not not only is the Bible, the Word of God, but the Bible is the most important physical object in your home. Right? So you're never supposed to put anything on top of the Bible. Yeah. You're never supposed to throw a Bible away. No. You can't like burn it or something. Of course, you just give it to people that don't have the word of God. But it's like if they can get a brand new Bible by the Gideons, why do they want my old? So I literally have, I still do, yeah, stacks of Bibles in the garage. When we think
12:20 of Bible I think sometimes we do think of that physical book. But I think framing it in the sense of those were the testimonies about God, from the prophets and the apostles, right? That's, that is what they were saying about God, inspired by God, right, inspired by the Spirit. And, and so as we're thinking about what we think about God, we're informed by the revelation of Jesus, right, the revelation of God and Jesus, and subordinate to the testimony of the prophets and the apostles of what they said, and how we're, you know, how we're trying to understand, then what we say. And often maybe, sometimes, we're, we're all theologians, but perhaps maybe we're non deliberate theologians, right. And we never then go into the testimony of the prophets and apostles to really do that work of comparing our theology with the revelation of God in Christ. And in concert with the written word, the testimonies, and that's really, I think the work of theology that is
13:29 called certain Christian traditions tend to put more stock in deliberative theology. I know the reformed tradition does interestingly enough, Kelly right. A Copic is in from the reformed tradition. Yeah. Which, which doesn't surprise me that theology is very, very important. Yeah. I I don't know if my feel feel theological colors need to show right now. I guess we've seen them we see. So our institution did start from an Armenian tradition. So I guess I'm sort of safe here saying that I am. I'm definitely not a five point Calvinist and I have sort of a love hate relationship with reformed tradition. Yeah. But one thing I've always admired about the reformed tradition at its best, and I really deeply admire that is that they take theology very, very seriously. Yeah. Which has been interesting, because, you know, with some quibbles, I might have about certain formulations in the reformed tradition. It's kind of sad. And it's actually happened to me here at Jessa. Before it's like, you know, the only people that will even discuss the theology with me, because the only people that I actually think it's really important are people that I really sort of disagree with their theological affirmation, but they're the only people that you want to talk about. Right. Right. Which is, which can be frustrating because we all live in that world, whether we are conscious of it or not.
14:46 Yeah. And that's perhaps maybe even in really interesting turn in the you know, in the last 20 years of theology in the evangelical community is that the the reformed tradition has really captured that That flag of theology that this is important and is often drawn there. And where Yeah, maybe the Armenian side. It's interesting, because has not often focused on on the theology aspect.
15:14 As an important there's, there's, and this has really been in the last like 20 or 30 years or so that there's been two streams of thought about what the best way to prepare for the ministry is, you know, one is you go to seminary, right, right. And the other one is you, you, you attach yourself to a successful mentor, you shadow the mentor, you work under the mentor, you sort of learn it that way. And, and, and there's positives and negatives about both of those things. But one thing that sometimes slides by the wayside until it becomes important is where actually you have the chance to, you know, deliberate theologically, and we won't be naming names here. There was a church that I know of, that a rather large church that hired their youth pastors on the basis of charisma, pretty much. Yeah, which is, you know, right. not an uncommon thing. Yeah. Right. Right. And, and so everybody loved this guy, because he's very charismatic, you know, was able to build the youth group into hundreds of kids, yada, yada, yada. Nobody actually really worried about or even thought about what he thought theologically about something. Yeah. Right. Because, you know, he's in the broad evangelical tradition, right? until, you know, it suddenly matters. And at a summer youth camp with the youth from his church, there were some stuff that he was saying, and some stuff he was doing that when the kids came home and told their parents, they were like, appalled that this Well, nobody had even like him before. Because, you know, as long as you can get a lot of kids here, who cares what you really think theologically and feel? Of course, you do. Because it's always going to come out. You can Oh, yeah. Right. That's my little, you know, propaganda for theological education. Yeah, it is important, folks, it really important.
17:01 And it's not about being Right, right. It's not about necessarily like, do you know, the correct theological answer? Because, and I think khabib captures this really well, in the realm of theology, this is where we wrestle with and rest in these mysteries of God. So, so it doesn't mean like, okay, there's only one way to think theologically, and as long as you know that that's the right way. But it is important for us to be thinking about our theology. And, and definitely maybe vetting that in people who are going to be teaching this like, Hey, what are you thinking about God? And is what you're saying about God in line with the revelation of God and Jesus and scripture?
17:43 What's interesting about about what, what I guess Copics talking about him, and what you're alluding to is, is the resources we have for our theological deliberation. Yeah. And that is that has been different in different Christian traditions, right? Which makes it really interesting, and sometimes cuts off dialogue, unfortunately, because of that. So yeah, for example, you know, with, generally speaking, especially on the conservative sides of the evangelical tradition, it's, you know, sola scriptura realm, and that that's all we need for theological deliberation. And, you know, I understand that thoroughly. And it says, it's certainly an honorable way of looking at that, that's kind of what can pick is talking about, but actually, in many even Protestant traditions, there are other resources that are that are brought to bear in that, especially in trying to understand scripture. You know, there's in you may or may not, I know you're aware of it, Mark, you may or may not resonate with the sort of, you know, Wesleyan quadrilateral Hi, yeah, resume with okay. But but there's, there's four things that right, that are resources for even deliberating theologically about thing. Yeah. Right. And so scripture is one of them. The most important the first one, but there's other things that kind of Korean, because they do they do they you can't help tradition, reason and experience Exactly. grounded off. Exactly. And my tradition, they actually give busts of john Wesley to pastor
19:16 which is amazing, which is great, okay, because the one at our church often gets decorated in different outfits. So, so he sets in the church office, and sometimes right now, he's been a Michigan State football player for two years. Okay, we need to we need to separate you know, change him up a little. But that brought up a good question for me that I wanted to ask you, Rex on this, because there seems to be a tension sometimes in in the evangelical community of what is thinking theologically and what is thinking biblically, and almost like I have to choose, right. I've heard I've heard people say that, you know, I don't need theology. I have the Bible.
19:57 Right, which of course, is a theological stance. It's a totally a theological statement. Yeah, it's not a statement that is is accepted on those terms. Right, by by the whole Christian communion. However, I guess there's a way to deal with that. You just could say, you know, everybody else is wrong. That's usually what were the argument ends up going. And you know, that's a legitimate way to, to think about it. But other Christian traditions will have other other foundations and how to, you know, interpret God's revelation in Scripture and perhaps God's revelation in even outside of Scripture, depending on you know, what you think about natural theology and, and regulatory theology. For example, the Roman Catholic Church famously has scripture plus tradition. Yeah, we say tradition, what they really mean is the teaching magisterium of the church. Right, right. And that's been the source of millions of millions as an exaggeration. Did I say I pastored for years? Yeah, exactly. That's an exaggeration. Right? Right. But that has been a source of a lot of unproductive conversation for a long time, especially since the Protestant Reformation. And even before actually, the Eastern Orthodoxy will have a slightly different, you know, look at that is scripture, scripture is the commonality and all of the right and the fresh thing and all of them but yeah, but there'll be the church councils. And they're really important. Yeah, what's interesting, and I think a lot of even evangelicals don't think of this because and how that fits comfortably in what we call evangelical Christianity is really interesting. ecclesia logically and historically, but the fastest growing, I guess, segment of or expression of, or iteration of Christianity worldwide right now. Is is decidedly charismatic. Now, by far the fastest growing, it's actually, especially in the global south. Yep. But what people I think sometimes don't think about is actually as opposed to conservative evangelicalism. There's another source of authority theologically, for many Pentecostals. Yeah. And so it's scripture, but it's not sola. scriptura. Right. It's the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Right. That has almost as much importance actually. Yeah. And so once again, even in the fastest growing segment of Christianity worldwide, right now, there's, you know, there's more than one foundationalism about about, you know, how to think theologically about the Christian life.
22:29 Yeah. And I think for me, that kind of the, how I understand the difference between thinking theologically, and just thinking biblically, is that anytime you approach the Bible, you have to approach it in an interpretive way, you have to interpret what it is saying and how that applies to your life. And
22:51 if you did, we wouldn't make all Jessica students take this class today, you know,
22:56 art of interpretation. Yeah. And, and so really, for me, theology is biblical interpretation. Right? theology is what we say about God, informed by what has been said about Jesus and what is said in Scripture, right? It is, it is, theology is us wrestling with the biblical text, and trying to understand it, trying to understand God in light of the biblical text in light of revelation in Jesus. And so you can never for me, you can never separate those two because because theology is the work we do, you know, so anyone who takes the Bible and then poles, maybe an axiom from the Bible says, This is what we live by. That is a theological, now you're making a theological statement, or because of this verse, this is who God is. Right? You've now moved into the realm of theology, and theology just broadens that conversation, right? say, Okay, well, what does that how do we interpret that? And that's why all of the traditions, you know, I think it's, it's really important for us to know, within Protestant tradition, Catholic tradition, and an orthodox, that that commonality is scripture. I mean, you can almost say that commonality is Jesus, the living word, and scripture, the written word. And then it is, you know, the differences, really, maybe in our theology is what we've said about those two things, right, how we've interpreted them, how, how we've applied them, but we have that commonality. And I think we often need to remind ourselves of that commonality, and remind ourselves that it's never just it's never just scripture without interpretation. It's
24:39 always organic. It's always been an organic art. theology has been it's, it's, and, you know, I can understand how that that can make some folks uncomfortable, but it's always been that way, even in conservative evangelicalism. It's always been that way. Right? You know, there's folks that think dispensationalism has been around forever and it kind of ain't true. Hey, yeah. You know, Carl Bart, I guess famously, I don't know, sort of like Mark Twain everything you want to say the Mark Twain said theologically, yes, tribute had to borrow so much stuff. And I never read the whole church semantics. So he must have said that somewhere but you know, somewhere in there, the Christian should have the Bible in one hand and like the newspaper in the other. Yeah. And, and, and you're, you're, it's kind of a symbiotic kind of thing. Because you're in you're interpreting and looking at the world that you live in, in existence through the revelation that you find in Scripture. But the way you experience that is, is is in the context of the world that you live in. Yeah. It's sort of like what, and I know, this gets controversial too. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what was going on with that. But what supposedly is going on when it was working well, with the base communities, and liberation theology? Yeah, in Latin America particularly. Yeah. So. So really, the the text, I mean, what you use to reflect theologically on stuff is scripture. Yeah. But you you look at scripture, and then you go out and you live your life. And then you come back and look at scripture in what does it have to say about what you have just experienced? Right, which is deliberative theology. What was happening with that was its, you know, for example, a bunch of Nicaraguan peasants actually, you know, doing theology, which may have scared a lot of professional theologians. Yeah. But, you know, these folks are trying to find out what God's will is for them in the culture they live in, and the economy they live in, yeah, how they're supposed to, you know, walk the Christian life and think about life around them. Whereas some people that didn't like that may have been writing books that nobody actually reads. Anyway.
26:52 Right. So what in that movement? I think it really highlighted this move to where you connect that gap between theology and the practical, right, and we call it in practice. And and that, and that may be Where, where, in other theological traditions, particularly maybe in the evangelical tradition, there has been this separation between theology and practice, because maybe we're not applying it in that sense in in certain realms, right.
27:20 That's true. I actually heard someone else say, and I may be quoting from the same book here, I just can't remember the author's. So I'm trying to make her like, I read tons of books for this podcast. But yeah, there are two problems with with that we typically have is orthodoxy without active commitment, and orthopraxy without thoughtful theological reflection. Yeah, and both of those things are needed. But the one, the one common denominator in that is the theological reflection. Right? Right. It's just it's, it's inescapable.
27:58 And you can attach that back to Biblical interpretation as well. Right? So you thinking I often go to that, that passage in Isaiah, Isaiah 61, that Jesus then reads later and and says, within this, it's been fulfilled, right? Make heard it makes a lot of friends in the synagogue, right? He but it's that passage that the Spirit of the Lord has on me, right. And I have come to proclaim good news to the poor, to the captive to give sight to the blind. And if you're in Nicaragua, like and speaking of that, you're saying, Whoa, good news to the poor. You go and apply that to physically poor, right? economically poor, but sometimes in an amazing American context, we can read that and just spiritualize it, right. God has come to to, to Jesus has come to speak to the spiritually poor, we're all poor, and sinful. What are you looking Luke are Matthew, right? And, and we, and we have that distinction between then maybe practically how we apply it, but but so it's interesting, right? It comes back to that biblical interpretation, then gets gets fleshed out in theology, but then notice how that then affects what we actually do in the world. Right? So right, so for the peasants in Nicaragua, it was we need to then focus on the poor, and we need to focus on the economies that Hey, what's going on in this injustice. But often, maybe sometimes in American theology, if we spiritualize that interpretation, then we can talk about Jesus in that and never really have to talk about the economic poor. And so, again, another example for me of how thinking theologically can be can be influenced by our biblical interpretation, and then that definitely influences the, the outcome or the or the practical application, right of that. Right.
29:59 Right. We actually talked a little bit about that. I was just reminding that on a podcast we did a few podcasts ago. Yeah. With with actually our author Kelly kopeck. And we talked a little bit about the Gnostic tendencies, even in American evangelicals. And I really think you can see that in what you just said, Mark is that the danger with spiritualizing everything is you sort of fall into this bifurcated universe that then that your, your, what you think about God, your experience of God actually doesn't really have much to do with what happens here in this in the real world, we start talking about the real world, right? what the real world is all, you know, under the sovereignty of God, what are you talking? Yeah, yeah, but practically, we tend not to think that way. Eric, go once again, the importance of thinking theologically, about this stuff.
30:55 Yeah, cuz, I mean, we can, we can live in that realm of spiritualizing. And then that ultimate Escape is actually leaving the earth. Right. And, and going to heaven. And and we never get to that point of like, what is our lived experience here? And what does God have to say about that? Right? What does God have to say? And that's, we really get to flesh that out in the realm of theology, and being deliberate with that. So I think part of maybe the purpose of this show, is to, you know, let us ramble a little bit on on our love of one of our favorite topics. Yeah, exactly. We could, we could talk all day on this, folks. But I think part of it too, for me, and this is to help our students and help you as listeners, is, is to help us keep reminding ourselves that we're all theologians, right? We're all theologians, we all engage in theology, we have a core set of beliefs about God. And that core set of beliefs affects how we live our lives, right? That's right. And so so it's so important for us to, to actually do the hard work of theology, which is to be deliberate to, to read Scripture, to to look at the life of Jesus and say, Wow, how is God revealed in Christ? And to do that work of wrestling and resting in these mysteries, you know, knowing that, and this is maybe where theology has gotten a bad rap to knowing in theology that we're not going to know all the answers, we're still going to see through a glass darkly. Yeah, we're in. So we have to, we have to know that we have to know our limitations. And that's one thing I've always appreciated that I think I really learned from Bart, is the idea that, well, just a reminder that Well, God cannot be brought down and put under the microscope, when we never stand above God. Right. So so we don't wouldn't want you to leave this episode thinking we, you know, you're going to figure everything out about God, and that will change the way you live. That's another podcast. Yeah, that's probably not one that we do. Right. Right. But it's more of doing that work of, of understanding God and how God has revealed himself to the world. And, and then living and reacting in that, right and knowing that, and that takes a biblical interpretation. It takes understanding Jesus and also like, the Catholic highlights, it takes in communion with the saints. Right? Right. Which, in our tradition, we don't often talk about that, but but the idea of, but we do in a certain way, and this one thing that's been interesting to me, we do highlight the the lives people live, and how we're influenced by them. And that's really, for me, that's, I think, what the saints represent, like, they were people who, who lived the Christian life in a unique way, that their story impacts others, right. And, and you see those you see those saints even now, even if they never, you know, and we can talk about like, the actual thing of sainthood or something like that, but, but living in the communion of saints is looking at different Christians who have lived or deliberately, who have allowed theology to influence their lives. And and also learning from them.
34:08 An important question that I've heard is, is is theology an individual discipline? Or is it a communal discipline? Of course, there's a false dichotomy there. But yeah, but in many ways, it's unavoidably inescapably a communal discipline to because we don't we don't see all the joys in a vacuum. Right. And we weren't meant to theologizing or backtracking if God is who God has revealed to be through Scripture and through the living word, Jesus.
34:36 Yeah. We do our theology in a context and in a community right. And, and so yeah, part of part of this is maybe helping you as listeners realize you are theologians, and you're doing theology in a community and in a context so you need others is not just you in your room with you know, Calvin's Institute's, or or coins. minuses work, right? So
35:01 some of our, you know, freshmen, sophomore and junior listeners out there. Just because we say you are theologians, which you are doesn't mean that you can like clip out of Christian theology, you just have to take, you still have to take the
35:14 right. You don't have to have a theology degree to become a theologian, but you do have to take the class. Right, right to get that, but, but now we're hoping we're hoping this conversation just just helps you even start to think and this is, you know, the crazy thing about being a human is we can think about thinking, right? So we want you to think about thinking theologically, and and what that could mean for your life. And how that could deepen your understanding of who God is who God has been revealed in Christ and in Scripture. And then Wow, how you then apply that, and that moves and so, so we hope you are in maybe inspired by this, to do a little bit of the work of theology, pick up maybe some of these sources, right and talking about and, and dive into theology, knowing that that incorporates the life of Jesus through the Scripture, the life of the saints, the saints who live around you, you get to be in community with right and then ultimately that will spill into your your practical life. And so, be encouraged. You are a theologian. That's right. Even without taking the class, you're still a theologian. And maybe, you know, listen to the podcast helps you be a little bit more deliberate.
36:34 Perhaps you can, you can borrow, you know, Mark selection. No, Sunday. There
36:38 you go. I'll post them on the internet. Okay. I'm sure they're already out there already. Five Luke Chile's vine, yeah. Hey, there we go. We won't go there. Yeah, we will. We will hope you enjoy the show. And we'll see you next time on just a thing. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
37:21 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Author and cohost of the popular podcast Bible for Normal People, Jared Byas, joins Mark and Rex to discuss his new book Love Matters More: How Fighting to be Right Keeps Us from Loving Like Jesus.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex on the show today. So excited to sit down with Jared bias. He's a co host of very popular podcast, the Bible for normal people. Also, the author of a book recently put out called Love Matters More, how fighting to be right keeps us from loving like Jesus. And it's a conversation that's going to talk about what it looks like to really love people more than wanting to be right. And in the proper place, maybe of love with truth and wisdom.
0:33 And it's a conversation that's really important, and one that I think our listeners will really enjoy. Yeah,
0:39 so hope you stay with us. And check out the book. Love matters more.
0:52 Well, Jared is really excited to have you on the show. And excited for the book that's come out. Love matters more. And as we get kind of started here, I'd love for you to kind of maybe share some of your background because as I was kind of reading it, I felt a connection with your with your kind of spiritual background, your church background, and I know Rex will have some connections as well.
1:15 Yeah, sure. And it's it's a story of a spiritual Mutt of in many ways. So I grew up in a small town in Texas Southern Baptist, and my grandmother, though, was a kind of a traveling charismatic preacher. So I definitely had a charismatic, heavy influence as well as Southern Baptist, and then ended up going to a Presbyterian Church in high school by myself. I was drawn a little bit more to kind of the intellectual ism of Presbyterianism, you ended up going to Liberty University, and then from there to Westminster seminary, which is a Presbyterian leaning seminary, for sure. And then, you know, went to a few other areas was a pastor to nondenominational church where we had a bunch of us from different backgrounds, and currently a member of a Mennonite Church, actually, okay. Well, Mark has the Liberty connection here.
2:04 Yeah, I was gonna say I was I didn't know about the Liberty connections. So we got some shared history there. I guess.
2:12 I grew up Southern Baptist. And actually, I so got my indev at a Southern Baptist seminary. And then I guess I went to the wrong kind of Presbyterian seminary for my PhD it was union, it's a PC PC, let's say, Yeah. Very, very different than I mean, I don't regret it at all. It was it was a wonderful experience for me, but very different than my mtef. Experience. Yeah.
2:36 And what's your would share with the transition to the Presbyterian Church, she's saying in high school, you went there kind of on your own, drawn to more the intellectual side? That Yeah, how did that transition kind of happen? And maybe what did your family think when that was gonna? cabinet? Yeah,
2:51 I mean, you have to remember, it's also in the context of a small Texas town. So everyone's Christian, everyone's kind of in the same general area direction. Yeah. So it wasn't that much different, except for that emphasis again, on much more reading much more about outlining systematic theology, and how does God work? And how do we get into the nuances? And how do we address those questions and doubts and come up with some solid answers for all of that. And so that was kind of my transition. It's just more of my personality, I think and how I how I thought about faith.
3:27 And how did you get the Texas accent drilled out of you? lots of practice. Yeah, lots of I grew up in New Mexico. And honestly, all of our all of our pastors in my whole childhood a useful experience were from Texas. And so I really thought that God spoke with the Texas accent. I just didn't know any different. Till I learned there was a wider world out there.
3:46 Yeah, it's very surprising to watch old home videos from when I was a kid. I'm like, Oh, my word. This is extreme.
3:53 It'd be kind of like a Texas accent reading the King James Version. So because even in in Indiana, he was growing up. I grew up in Indiana, it was more rural parts of Indiana, which is most of Indiana. But most people up there have Southern accents as well. And I'm like, How did this happen? We're in the north. And
4:15 southern Indiana was like, ground ground zero for the KKK back in the 1920s. Yeah, sadly,
4:21 sadly, it really was Really? Wow. Yeah. And yeah, so we had I call it a country accent. It's not quite a southern accent as a country accent. But yeah, most, most of the pastors I grew up with as well. And so I could kind of feel like maybe God just has an accent. Maybe God has an elicit Elizabethan accent, which is perfect. But with that, I think in your book, too, you kind of know your, your transition and maybe like you're saying a little bit of personality in high school that also kind of drove you deeper into that field. Of being right height or getting that right theology above love. And, and then I think for a lot of the book too, and for a lot in the church now seem to be sent around or we can have a frame for it with that that classic Christian phrase speaking the truth in love, right? So why why do we often get that so wrong? I mean, we use it maybe wrongly maybe out of good intention, but it still seems that application, we're maybe not quite grasping what that means to, to speak the truth and love? Yeah, I hear it. Right.
5:39 Right. I think there's this abstract or maybe big picture view for that. And then there's maybe more of an emotional, at least in it just in my observations. So at the big picture, you know, we have to recognize in some ways we come by it, honestly, because we are in a tradition that has emphasized thinking the right thoughts for the last 500 years. So the modern period in the West has been more and more of rationality and reason. And if we just put our thinking caps on, we can all agree, and that's what's going to lead to peace and prosperity is thinking the right thoughts. Of course, in academia, this started to really break down in the in the 40s, and 50s, in the aftermath of World War Two, where we thought we were headed to world peace, and yet we used our brains and technology just to kill more people. And so there was a pessimism there around that. But I think in pop culture, we still kind of have this idea that, hey, if we just got everyone to agree with me, because I happen to always have the right thoughts, then, you know, the world would be a better place, we'd be at peace, there'd be this utopia. So I think we come by it honestly, in this intellectual tradition. But I think for me personally, and I, the people I've interacted with, there's also this fear of the unknown, and uncertainty and a need to feel secure, and a need to belong. And we know we belong, it's easiest to know those markers if they are kind of these checkmarks of beliefs in our head. So what do you believe about? And that can be politically or religiously? What do you believe about these five topics occur? Great, I feel like you're safe, I can be myself with you. And there we go. Now we belong, and we're insiders. So I think both of those are worth exploring and seeing whether they are we sometimes just inherit them both the emotional posture or the social posture as well as this intellectual tradition? And we don't question it. But I think it's worth questioning is that the only way to be in the world. And I think there are some other ways and I think the Bible really doesn't come out of that tradition as much as we wish it did. Yeah, and
7:35 one thing I encounter a lot in, I teach this class, it's called Christian perspective, but it's sort of a hodgepodge of philosophy, and sociology, and little theology, and all sorts of stuff that all of our seniors have to take before they graduate. And if done well, it's a great class, it's done poorly. It's a horrible glass, but but one thing that I find animates a lot of my students is that they feel they cannot give up a concept of absolute truth. And you know, that that's just non negotiable. And, of course, you know, there's, there's some cognitive dissonance there, because they do sort of understand that a lot of our truth statements are conditional. And so how do you? How do you somehow, you know, deal with those two conflicting sort of things? And I find that's a real, real struggle for many students.
8:25 Yeah, I think it's a struggle for a lot of people in the Christian tradition. Again, if if the content of our faith is beliefs in our heads, then God is in some ways equivalent to absolute truth. And so to to question, absolute truth is to question God in the same way that it's to question the Bible is to question God and a lot of traditions as well. And so we do have to kind of dig deeper at some of those underlying assumptions and start to pry away maybe our confidence in the wrong things,
9:00 or have some humility, some intellectual humility, which is, you know, oftentimes hard to come
9:05 by, and that's often the first step I'll take is okay, that's fine. We can believe in absolute truth. The real question is, do we have access to it?
9:12 Right, and I actually really love your phrase, like only God sees the elephant, because, you know, of course, I like everybody else will use that, you know, analogy. You know, that's actually I think that's gonna show up in probably next semester. We were already done with that so far this semester, but next semester, I think I'm gonna I'll name check you though. Okay. Let everybody know that I'm that's not original with me.
9:37 Yeah, that's fine. And that's in what Rex for our listeners, what Rex is highlighting is in the first chapter of your book, he kind of talked about that classic example of, you know, truth of the three blind men and I like how you first question like, hey, why is this community just letting blind men roam around and getting lost in a cave somewhere, but three blind men in there, they're feeling Each part of the elephant ride and it's that classic example of we just have access to, you know, maybe the truth that's in front of us. But we do all kind of tell that story from the point of the narrator, right, from the point of having that information like, well, we obviously know it's an elephant. And so it's hard to, it's hard to use that as a true example of our position because no one except God is in that position of knowing and, and I like what you said in the book, too. Like it's not. It's not getting written. This is why I think maybe a fear in the evangelical community is it's not a getting rid of absolute truth, right? It's not saying we have, there's just nothing, there's no truth. There's no foundational claims for anything. But rather, it's a recognition that we may not know absolute truth, you know, perfectly, and we may not have access to it. And so like I said, they're just having humility, in our understanding of truth, knowing that God, God has truth under control, right, and we don't have to, we don't have to control it. But it's also just recognizing, we do have a limitation in our, in our understanding of, of truth and, and our access to it.
11:19 Yeah. And then the corollary is that humility that Rex was talking about, I think that's, that's the key. And there's a reason I started with that in the book is because I think everything flows from that humility, you have to pry our hands off of thinking that our opinion is the absolute truth. Before we can really allow love to take root in between that space.
11:43 So So When, when, for example, you hear someone say something like, you know, you know, love the sinner, but hate the sin, because I have to sort of hang on to that sort of thing. But yet I still, you know, love you, but I hate what you do. How does that sort of play out in this? You know, truth versus love kind of issue?
12:06 Yeah, I mean, I think the the question that most people have is, I think, a false dichotomy, that we have to give up our beliefs and convictions to love well. And I think that's just not true. I think that's actually we use as an excuse, because most of the time, our standing up for truth isn't loving, to be honest, right. And so then we just think the problem is, these are always in intention. And so I just have to choose truth over love, when really, there's a lot of nuance, and there's a lot of skill, to having conviction, standing up for what we believe, and yet doing that in kind and compassionate and loving ways. And I think there's just a lot of room for growth. And instead of doing that hard work, we just chalk it up to the user intention, I just have to tell the truth. And that's where we pitted against each other. And truth telling becomes more important than loving. And we don't recognize, I think that there's a lot more to it. And it's very practical. There's some very practical things for how we can speak our opinion to people and do that in a loving way.
13:09 And so what are some of those things? I'm really curious, because I want to be that kind of person. But I often have another kind of person. So
13:16 yeah, I mean, I think there's, first of all that humility, and patience. You know, in the book, I tie these two, interestingly, this phrase that Paul uses in Ephesians, chapter four, speak the truth in love. And but in that same chapter right before that, he uses the same phrase, do something in love. But it actually is bear with one another in love. And right before that, he tells us a little bit about what that means. And he uses these words like patience, and humility. And I think those are what we can be talking about. And then I break that out even more, not necessarily in the book, but just in my practice, to thinking about, okay, what does being patient mean, in the context of a relationship where I fundamentally disagree with you on political and religious matters? It means maybe that I have to respect that you're an adult, and you may not change your mind in this conversation, and I have to make hard choices. Is my relationship going to be bigger than this fundamental disagreement? Or is it not going to be bigger than it? And for some, right, it's not some you don't need to have a deep relationship with people you disagree with, because you can't have a relationship with everyone that's just not practical. But there are close people, especially friends and family where we may say, no, it's bigger than that. And now we have to, you know, wade into the deeper waters of how to untangle our own emotions, you know, have this phrase in the book too, that we can't confuse discomfort with our conscience. Sometimes we're just uncomfortable with something and we think that therefore, that's a wrong thing for someone to do. So there's this a lot more our egos are at play a lot our opinions about things our own situatedness and context, our own inherited ideas about whatever the thing may be. Race, politics, religion, culture. And we just have to ask ourselves, is it worth it in this relationship to wade into all that?
15:09 Do you think? sure that sort of the, you know, conservative Christian apologetics industry has not really helped us out much, you know, in actually, you know, learning those very important skills.
15:22 Yeah, I think for sure, I mean, in a lot of ways, you know, I was really, from a young age, I wanted to get a PhD in presuppositional apologetics, that was my life goal, from the time I was probably 13 years old, just like most 13 year olds, you know, I'm sitting there, exactly, I was gonna say this near cassette tapes by Greg bahnson, at 1030, at night in my room, or whatever it is. So that was my whole goal. And it's I know that world well, and I think one of the things that saddens me, where I am now is to realize that they propped up these arguments that ended up shooting them in the foot. Right, like, like the idea of absolute truth, and making these all or nothing statements, and assuming that everyone's just gonna be all in, but when they're not, then they throw the baby out with a bottle of bathwater, and then they're not in at all. And I think those are just unhelpful categories to make things black and white like that.
16:13 I found that, um, you know, some of the more popular contemporary apologists, and I'm trying to talk in a way that, you know, I don't I know, I try not to mention the names here. But I found out that that, you know, there's these strawman arguments that are set up, and then you knock down the straw man, and then you just go on to the next argument, but yet, at least folks that I know that have serious, you know, and legitimate questions about the Christian faith and all of this from mutations aren't asking those questions that these apologists are shutting down, and then they move on and the site CASE CLOSED, and hope maybe they say, CASE CLOSED that might have actually,
17:04 you know, I know that works for some folks, but it leaves you know, in, in, in, in our contemporary society, especially anybody that's, you know, educated at all, I don't think that that works as well as it used to,
17:17 at all. I mean, I would argue it never really worked to be honest. Now, but it did, what I think it did is it gave people the sense of security and confidence and certainty that people were looking for. And again, it wasn't ever about convincing people with the argument, it was about convincing people through confidence, and saying, Oh, I want to have that confidence in something. And now, people I think, are more willing to not know. And so now we put ourselves in a bind, you know, I tell him the book, there was a class I taught when I was a pastor called for skeptics only. And what I didn't say in the book was that originally, that class was designed with a modern apologetics approach. So I inherited that class. And for me, that just didn't work. And it was it felt really inauthentic. And so I changed the goals to be from trying to argue people out of their atheism, to letting them understand that, that that the circle is big enough for their questions and their doubts, and that God wasn't going to strike them down if they didn't agree with me and my positions on the Christian faith. And that tended to work much better. And by work, I just mean, they didn't think Christians were a bunch of jerks. And that was really all I was hoping for.
18:32 Right? Yeah. And that is a good goal, I think, is the goal we need to bring back because it seems like with for me, that phrase, speaking the truth and love, often when we use it, we are we really downplay the love part. And, and, and we're not. And we may actually not even love the person, we're just trying to speak the truth and and trying to recapture that, like, hey, what does it look like to to love someone you disagree with? And and what does it look like to do that? Well, for me that I think there I also have maybe a follow up question where this would be, what role then does truth play in love? Like what role does truth and maybe knowledge play in
19:18 again, I think that's important to recognize, too is that I the name of the book is called love matters more. Not only love matters. And it's it's because truth is important. And you see this in the Bible, which I was frankly surprised. But like in, in this list, and First Peter and other things we're talking about these virtues that we're trying to build knowledge and understanding are often in there. They're just not the ultimate thing. They're not the last thing in the list. Yeah. So I think it's really important that we have our good understanding. Because just think, psychologically, and emotionally of what we learned in the last 100 years, I would say we're in a better position now to love people well, just based on information that we've learned the truth about things and so I will use the example of parenting, you know? So sometimes how we love is about impact, not just intention. So some of us, you know, grew up in the 80s, I would say my mom loved me as best she could. But there were some things that I ate and drank that were not healthy for me. They were not, they were not loving things to be feeding of, you know, five year old drinking. I'm trying to think of what that was, was the what was the green soda? That wasn't Mountain Dew? It was it was only in the 90s. Squirrel or yellow squirt, or to look it up. It's just like, an ad saying and 90 thing. our listeners are probably sort of screaming. Yeah, the other one. Yeah. But anyway, yeah. So you haven't that and like eating powdered donuts, you know, every Saturday morning. So it was my mind being loving, it depends, are we talking about just intention or impact. And I would say love is this is this wisdom category in between those. You know, it's not just intention, just because I want to love you and my hearts in the right place doesn't mean my impact is going to be loving. So and that's where knowledge really can play is when we learn things we can love better. But the goal has to be the love not just to know things better. Because when when, when truth is the guide, often love gets left behind, like what you're saying. But when love is the guide, truth is a necessary part of that.
21:24 Yeah, and it seems so interesting for Christians to let love be the guide seems like a scary thing which it should be yesterday like that, that seems to be the point and the goal. But it's it's kind of a failure, afraid to then let you know. So
21:43 the ranch if you talk about the core value of our faith, which is really bizarre situation.
21:49 Right? And, and bringing these together, right, if you if you do have that maybe truth and knowledge that would help you to love better and, and allow love to lead. I mean, the way, way Jesus, you know, is the example of that, where he had the knowledge and the truth. And that allowed him to love better and allowed him to love those who were at the margins of the society, and especially the religious society. Actually, it was history, the knowledge that that was a grounding for his love for them, rather than you but to the religious leaders of his day, it looked like he was he was losing his way. And he was letting love lead rather than truth.
22:33 One thing that's helped me I think, in this whole conversation is realizing that truth can take care of itself, just like God can take care of himself. And so neither God nor truth need me to like prop it up. And so if that's true, then, you know, we can actually get down to what we're supposed to be doing anyway. And that's, you know, respecting people and loving people and wanting the best for people and working for the common good and things like that. Yeah, that's well said, I would agree with that.
23:03 And in the book, one of the I think, one of the most interesting and maybe challenging chapters for some people is that idea of love changes truth. And you even recognize at the beginning, you're like, I know this is gonna be scary. Like we're not allowed to change truth is unchangeable. But with that, yeah. How do you how do you perceive that of love changing truth? And what is that?
23:27 Well, not to get too far into it. But I think it's really important that we start with the understanding that truth is a slippery term that can mean different things. So of course, to say love changes, the truth is to be, you know, purposely provocative, but it's really digging into the idea that truth is more than facts. So does love change facts? No. But as humans, we can't help but always try to make meaning of facts. So we're always putting the pieces together. And love definitely influences how we put the pieces together. And I think that's really important is that we put the pieces together differently when love is our guide. And, you know, we can talk about some people talk about the package that we put it in, right. And so we would like to think that we can just get to the facts. The problem is As humans, we never just get to the facts. We're always communicating the facts. We're talking about the facts, we're internalizing them, we're connecting them with other facts in our head. So there's always another element besides just the facts, ma'am, so to speak. And
24:25 right, some of the facts are accessible. At least they have been right I just raised
24:30 Yeah, so we did talk about meaning and and really what I mean is that love changes meaning. And I think that is true, what something means is different. I give this example of, you know my dad and the story of the shoes in the closet and the statement that he makes, and then as I have my own kids how that takes on new meaning. It takes on new depth it to even not even just in the tone, but just literally what he meant. Whenever he did that And when he says these words, it changes how I understand it as I get older. And I think that's how love changes, meaning. And I think that's really, it's really key. And it comes back to the humility of recognizing that we're not getting to the facts all the time. We have, like Rex says, like these holes in our understanding, and we have all this other stuff in between that is, in a lot of ways really great. We want to be able to make meaning or else we'd be kind of just robots. But we have to recognize there's a downside to that as well.
25:33 Here, it seems like with, as you were kind of talking Jesus with a woman at the well, was kind of emerging, where it's like Jesus actually knew the facts about her, but it's still the meaning in the application. And the love didn't change. I mean, he didn't change the fact that she had had, you know, he's I've actually you've had more than one. But the facts weren't the point there.
25:54 You know, I don't know facts have ever really changed anyone's life. I mean, I actually haven't thought of that before. But that just well may be true. I mean, love changes minds, not facts. Yeah, that's a good point.
26:08 And, and yeah, and it's great to see that, you know, obviously, we get that example with Jesus. And again, being Christians, it's so hard for us to, to actually follow that example, it's so easy for us to go back to just understanding, you know, maybe what we call it playing a quote unquote, plain reading of the text or a plain application of the text. And, and one thing in that chapter of the love changes truth that I think you do well is kind of highlighting the way Jesus even took the Old Testament and said, Hey, you have you've heard it was said, Now, I'm telling you this right, there's a different application. And that application is, is driven by love, and it's driven by wisdom more than it is by just the bare facts of the Old Testament.
26:56 Yeah. And you know, when we read the Bible, and you if you go through college, you know, Bible study classes, we talk about something called authorial intention, which is, what did the author originally mean by this? That the problem with that is, that's only allowing for one way of thinking of meaning. And it is, by definition, disconnecting us from that world. The point is, what did it mean to the author? That's different than what does it mean to me, and we get this intuitively, every Sunday, if you go to a church service, and they're talking about how, you know, Paul, words is really irrelevant to us and our social media addictions and in our watching on our phones, and like Paul, in talking about phones, but get right get to these more ethically sticky things like divorce, or a women's place in the church or, you know, LGBTQ like, now it gets to be a little dicey. But when we're talking about cell phones, it seems to be no question. And so yeah, you know, we just have to be thoughtful about about some of that.
28:01 Right? I actually, I think about this every time I hear a pastor talking about the, you know, the Greek in the original Greek this, this means this and that. So Jesus meant this and that, and it's like, well, I do believe, you know, in the inspiration of Scripture, but Jesus was speaking Aramaic. You're going on all this thing. And that's not even the language he was speaking, right. He originally said right words, like them. I try not to actually push that point.
28:35 It's good to have Rex in the audience when you're giving a sermon because, you know, he's just gonna be he has a he just has posters with big markers.
28:44 But I, I've always been here before I before I started teaching, you know, I know what it's like to just be a good Pew sitter and never sit there and, you know, send a letter to the pastor every week. Wrong. I hated that. And so I'm not going to put it good. Exactly.
29:00 That's right. You learn you learn, you learn that matters more. That's right. That's right. And I think it was a couple months ago, maybe on your blog, Jared, you, you talked about the title. Love matters more. And you talked about how that begs the question. What does it matter more than? And so yeah, how would you you kind of answered it in a couple different ways in that? How, yeah, what does love matter more than I mean, we know that the punch line of it matters more than fighting to be right. But what else? What else does it
29:39 mean? At the end of the day, the older I get my conclusion is it within the Christian context of the Christian faith that loves matter matters more than everything? It really ladders more than anything, it colors everything that we do now. Yeah, I think love is a robust enough concept that it it morphs and it changes just like wisdom. You know, loving well is a wisdom concept in mind. So it's not to say definitively, here's the category, here's the black and white. It's just saying, This is that concept. That's, it's, it's like the horizon. It's the thing that draws us closer to it. But the closer we get to it, it still seems to be out there somewhere. And maybe the point is in the journey toward it, not necessarily and ever getting to it. And I think that for me is, what that is about is how do we change the conversation? How do we change the posture of our life, to show and demonstrate that love is something that really matters to us. I've seen in my history in the church, that love matters, I mean, that truth matters to us. That's pretty obvious and pretty clear. What's not as clear is that love matters to us and such that it met truth matters so much to us, that we've started calling truth telling love. That that's is the content of love. And so we've started to overshadow any other aspect of love, other than telling you my opinion, regardless of my posture, my investment in your life, my tone, and my relationship with you.
31:06 Yeah, and that's really good. Because we really haven't used that classic example of, well, if someone was taking poison, and they'd want you to, you know, it'd be loving to tell them that it's poison. But again, that story has all kinds of nuances, because you're like, Well, how do we know it's poison? Is it really? Like, do you think it's poison, the person doesn't think it's poison, and then you go up and smack it out of their hands, you know, and they're gonna be like, thank you for loving me. That, that, but that idea, but I do really appreciate what you're saying there of trying to understand what that really looks like to say that love matters more than anything, right, then everything that, that if we look through, through again, the lens of Jesus and his actions and his interactions here on Earth, all of that driven by love,
31:58 not totally a theologically, you know, defensible position, I really believe that I really believe that.
32:04 Right? And that's where and you know, in some people always kind of push back on that though, right? They're like, well, we can't talk about love too much.
32:12 Everything's, everything's a zero sum game. Now. I mean, we see that in our society, we see that in, you know, inter church and intra church relationships, and everything and love really gets, you know, lost in in that kind of worldview. Yeah.
32:27 Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think we got to keep coming back to that, to that idea of love. And that's why we appreciate about about the book, Jared. And I'm definitely be something we get a promo around campus, and through the podcast, Rex can promote in his class. For help all the students need Take, take a breath when we talk about love and truth, and that we can, we can focus on love and will be helpful, actually, yeah. And it's not again, it's not a giving up of truth. It's not CIA. Again, the idea here is that kind of zero sum game, it's like, if you talk about love than well, truth has to be out the door. No, it's just letting truth. Letting truth guide all of our actions and our sorry, in letting love I am. I'm well trained and well trained. Letting love guide us. Because if we if we really do have the love that God wants us to have the love that Jesus had, we're not going to have to worry about the truth in that sense, because the truth can take care of
33:44 itself. Big Boy, just like God. You know, I exactly understand that we can use it there. But I think the concepts true, it doesn't need my help to prop it up.
33:55 Yeah, definitely. So. So with the book coming out, you got your podcast Bible for normal people. What else you got going on your life? What else keeping you busy. I
34:04 mean, I'll be writing other books as well. But you know, I spent a lot of time I actually have a firm I work with family businesses. I work primarily with family businesses, and to be honest, just as much as my training and philosophy and biblical studies as a pastor influenced this book. So did the work I do with families because there is similar right? It's about truth, the truth that maybe you're not cut out to be in this role, or this position and your job and my love for you as a brother or as a father, or as a son and how do we navigate that? So it's a it gets real practical, real fast, in that world that I kind of inhabit every day. Sorry, for family businesses, actual churches. I there's a lot of combos around here and some of the mega churches. If that's true, some of them actually don't work that well. Anyways,
35:00 Maybe I can be a family business sometimes can be a family business. Well, Jared, thank you so much for for being on the show. And we are really excited to be able to promote this because it is such a topic that we need to continue to understand and and especially with you know and Jessup were in the evangelical community. And we keep we need to keep them tension with, hey, what is love and what does that really mean? And if we're going to use that phrase, truth and love, let us those really know what the love part of that is and may love drive that rather than rather than the truth, and I think you do a really good job of highlighting that. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
36:08 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Author and pastor Dan Kimball sits down with Mark and Rex to discuss his new book, How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex on the show today. I'm so excited because I have actually one of my personally favorite authors and pastors in the northern California region, Dan Kimball, he's at vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz. And he's also the author of an upcoming book called how not to read the Bible, making sense of the anti women, anti science, pro slavery, pro violence and other crazy sounding parts of Scripture. And there's a
0:34 connection with him to be he's he's spoken in Chapel here a number of times and has a long, long history with the school. So he has a lot of good things to say.
0:44 Yeah, he does. It's a fascinating conversation. And it's a really important conversation for right now. Because Because Miss reading the Bible can actually lead people away from Jesus. And in the purpose of Scripture is to point people to Jesus. And so we hope you enjoyed this episode. There's a lot to chew on and a lot to think about.
1:11 Well, Dan, are really excited to have you on the show. And we know that you actually have a little bit of a history with William Jessup University, or at least you've been, you've been here before and spoken at Chapel.
1:27 Yes, yeah. I've been there to chapel. I've met with john Jackson, I think a couple times and with Bryce Jessup several times as well. So William Jessup used to be in San Jose. And when it was there, when it was called San Jose Christian College, then it became William Jessup, our church used to get a lot of interns from William Jessup. And that was like, amazingly wonderful. And we were sad, actually, when you guys moved to Sacramento, but then glad that you could expand and have more property, and all of that, but yeah, I feel wonderfully at home at William Jessup, and it's always so thankful for doing there in Sacramento and all the students that come from all over the place. We still
2:08 have a presence, I think in San Jose, but it's it's not the same sort of thing. Yeah. Are in Marin Rocklin area.
2:18 No, yeah. And Bryce Jessup. I have an 11 page, handwritten letter from Bryce Jessup, because when I first entered into ministry, at Santa Cruz Bible Church, I was very interested in I didn't grow up a Christian. And then when I was entering into ministry, he spoke at Santa Cruz Bible. And I was wondering, like, you know, I really liked his message. And he was older at the time and wondered, you know, what sustains someone that is going into ministry, and he wrote me an 11 page, handwritten letter back, which I still have, because
2:50 it sounds like rice, it really does. Sounds like he's that kind of guy. Yeah,
2:54 yeah. Well, I've great Yeah, he was such a encouraging person and loved when I was over there to be able to meet up meet up with them.
3:02 Oh, that's great. That's really great. We'll have to take a peek at that 11 page letter sometime. I wish that has wisdom for us all. And yeah, it was great. It really was. And we're excited to have you on the show with this connection, but also to talk about your new book, which is coming out in December from Zondervan, how not to read the Bible. And I love this subtitle, making sense of the anti women, anti science, pro violence, pro slavery, and other crazy sounding parts of Scripture. Yeah. And if the if the subtitle alone doesn't make people pick up the book, I don't know what would because I think that that draws us into, into an area of, I think, the Christian faith that we often don't look at, and that is maybe how different aspects of the Bible are read. Or maybe misread or misrepresented, and how that can have an extreme effect on someone's face. And, and in the book, you kind of start out with a story of a college student who grew up in, in a Christian home, right, grew up in with the Christian faith, but it was actually reading the Bible that caused them to leave.
4:27 Yeah, and I mean, the quick summary of that story, which is actually becoming more and more common is that you have, he was a college student, raised in a great church, and here's what the differences I think, even from years past, he had a super positive experience in church and great youth leader. It was a contemporary church, good bands, you know, it wasn't any type of cultural disconnect in the church itself. And it was a very loving church. And then he got to college and he joined intervarsity up on campus. And while he was at intervarsity, on campus, he they did a study of Exodus. You know, like the Goethe manuscripts studies that correct? Yeah. Yeah. And so he said he was studying through the book of Exodus. And then, you know, he grew up hearing all of you know, the Moses stories and, and all of those, but then all of a sudden he read that, God, he started thinking about it God, it was the Passover, you know, had the firstborn of the Egyptians killed. And he actually knows that 1819 year old, passed there, and said, that's a pretty, you know, horrific thing that kind of was part of the story. But you know, they're always the bad guys. And so that killing, didn't think about it. Yeah. And then he started his question was, so what he said was his whole life growing up, he heard that how evil it was for Herod to kill the two year olds and under in Bethlehem, and that was evil, you'd never kill children. Yet, all of a sudden, he started, he realized that God did that in the book of Exodus. Then he said, he kept reading. And then he said, You know, he started reading about slavery. And he read the verse about, you know, selling your daughter into slavery, and then even the word, I believe it was property, as slavery. And he started saying, Wait a minute, these are things that have been in the Bible. Now, as an adult, as I'm studying it differently. I'm noticing these things more. And here's where it gets off the words worse. But what he said was, he went and talked to his parents about it. And his parents said, Oh, that's in the Bible, like they have one of those. And so he's like, Oh, my parents have never paid attention to this. Then he asked his youth leader, and he started asking others and he he said something to the sort of, well, I kept saying, well, there's many things and in heaven, well, no, so it doesn't matter for now. And he said he could not intellectually, I guess, you know, agree with that, and be satisfied with that sort of brushed off answer. And then he said, again, it's just like the story you hear over and over. So he started typing these verses in on Google. Right? Right. And what comes up is so many anti Bible, you know, websites, he said, he found one called evil Bible calm, and you can look that up, it's still there. And then he just started saying, I didn't I shot, there's maybe a few things that I've seen, there's, you know, dozens and dozens of Bible verses in passages that I never knew before. And for him, and it was over the course of months, he his faith started unraveling. his confidence in the Bible, was then you know, started deteriorating. And then like, last minute, the University leader sent me an email, Hey, will you meet with this person? And so I did. And he was a really sweet, intelligent guy. And it was kind of like the tail end of that. And he's already sort of made up his mind, and we walk through it. And that was, like, all I can say is that is the common story you're hearing over and over again, not just from 18, or 19 year olds, a lot of 30 somethings are now deconstructing faith and thinking about things they never did before. It's always been in the Bible. But they've never stopped to like, look more closely. And that's what's going on today, I think.
8:30 Yeah. And I think what's so interesting about that story that you point out is, and maybe what has been different in the last 20 years or so, is that it wasn't a story of a negative experience of church. He was in a loving community. And you know, maybe 2030 years ago, there was more of those stories of church was really judgmental, or church, you know, the church experience, you've culturally there was a disconnect. But it seems like even today, you know, with maybe more loving communities, more communities that are open students, and we're seeing the same thing and Jessup students, you know, I have friends who graduated from Jessup and I've stayed connected with and the more they look into scripture, which is the one thing we tell them to do, right? Or it's like, Hey, we encourage them to read their Bible. But they come with more questions. And sadly, we often don't or maybe we're unprepared to be able to have those discussions. And, and so yeah, then they move to, to other online forums where they can hear people bring up but I think you do a good job just in that Prelude of really piling it on of like, yeah, it's not just one or two verses in the Bible. It is. I mean, there's a lot we have to process and work with.
9:50 Well even shows up and I actually have my little copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. And it's almost like the first paragraph in that book. That of course, was a New York Times bestseller. And I would assume, I guess a lot of people read it, where he is basically, sort of sort of right away just sort of hits everybody with this with this stuff. The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction, which of course, makes my red flags go up right away, but still, you know, jellison, proud of it a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, and on and on and on and on. And so this stuff's out there. And folks, folks confronted all the time. And it's good to acknowledge that and to realize that, that that's not the end of the story we have, we have some things we can we can say about those misapprehensions of God's character.
10:43 Yeah, and I love Dan, your, your honesty, and talking about the explanations and talking about those passages you say? And kind of the prelude. If these were the only verses in the Bible, you would run the other direction as well.
11:00 Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And I think you know, because I didn't grow up in a church. And I would, I was never an atheist, I was probably more like a deist. I think there's God, but didn't think about it too much. So, but if I was only seeing, like fun growing up in our world today, and all I'm seeing is, you know, in the book, there's I gave a lot of those memes. I don't know, if you've looked at some of them, yes. All over the place, you know, and they're taking Bible verses, and putting very clever graphics on them. And their actual Bible verses This is what I think is different than the past is that they're actually using the Bible to discredit the Bible. And so they're very compelling when you look at these verses, you know, if you have one about like, women be silent, you know, actually, you know, it's, it's a disgrace to know to speak in the church, you know, only go home and ask your husband's questions, there's submit, and you see those Bible verses with the graphical image of a woman with her mouth taped shut, and then, you know, it's plastered all over? It's like, I didn't know that was in the Bible, you know, are the blatant slavery verses where the English word slavery is used? And I'm seeing these things, and especially when you get into young adulthood, when your quest you're going to question things anyway, it's normal. Right? Right. Yeah. But in the past, we didn't have I think, you know, these are, these are not new verses in the Bible. But there's an acceleration of information available, you know, if I was to, I would not have seen Richard Dawkins quotes, if it was probably 2530 years ago, pre Internet, and the other some books written by atheists that might be in the in the bookstore, but I'm not seeing those were today. They're on meems. They're, they're very prominent, and I have access to that so easily. And that was not the case in the past. So I think that's part of it, as well, is just the information is out there. And I don't think we were prepared in proactively teaching enough about the problematic sounding verses that are out there.
13:05 One thing I was thinking when I was dipping into the first couple of chapters of your book, that it's almost like reverse proof texting, you know, we sort of will take verses out of context in order to, you know, be an explanation for our favorite doctrine does your but this is sort of the exact opposite of that. There's lack of context on both sides.
13:29 Well, that's the title of the book, how not to read the Bible, right? It goes for Christians and non Christians, because we have been, you know, of course, you want to focus on MC like the nice happy versus on coffee mug. And those are those are important, because we want to be encouraged. But, and so but we have done, you know, we have, as you know, and teachings, the Bible at William Jessup, is that when you pull verses out, they might sound you know, all the happy ones. But are we using them correctly out of context? Are we just pulling them out and using them because they're nice to sit and so we have been cherry picking the nice verses, you could say. And then the opposite is now going on? We've been they've been pulling out the evil sounding verses and the ones that portray God in a certain way or things and it's the same fault. It's not. It's reading the Bible, not the way it was meant to be read, pulling verses out of isolation, to make cases towards something. And that's what's going on again, like all over the place, so Christians have been doing it, that happy way. And now we're seeing one letter against, you know, the faith in the Bible doing it the, the unhappy way and pulling out those verses.
14:45 Yeah. And in the first chapter, you you highlight. It was a verse that actually came to my attention maybe five or six years ago, but as quickly become maybe one of my favorite verses to bring up to students and His numbers 2322 in the King James Version of the Bible, because it was another Bible, of course. That's right. That's right seven purified version. It says God brought them out of Egypt, he has, as it were the strength of a unicorn. Now, when that was first shown to me, my first thought was actually that children's ministers worldwide had missed an opportunity, a golden opportunity, like we could have unicorn day at church. I mean, there could have been, but it's what's what's interesting is, though, I'll bring this up and kind of a sarcastically, serious tone with students like I want to share this verse. And when I read it, I can feel the tension in the room now where they're like what, you know, you have 1819 year old students who've grown up in the church, and they're like, the Bible talks about unicorns. So so how do we approach versus like that?
15:57 Well, I mean, you're, you kind of already said some of the problem, what it was, but again, like in the past, you wouldn't have heard necessarily the word unicorn associated with the Bible and contemporary times, but like my Barber, who was not a Christian, I'm gonna see him tomorrow. And we, we talked about Bible and theology very openly. And he's the one that raised the unicorn thing up to my attention, because I had not actually seen it before. And I'm like, No, there's not a unicorn in the Bible. So I look it up and type corn Bible on Google. And then you'll see all of these images that come up. And this what you said was right, like, you'll see the unicorn. And then the Bible verse, I think there's eight or nine of them. One of them some numbers that will say like, the word unicorn from in the Scriptures, some seeing an image or unicorn, there and quoting a Bible verse, and then the mockery, you know, Christians believe in mythical animals, like the unicorn, you know, and, and at surface glance it and especially seeing eight or nine verses that's convincing, like, oh, my goodness, I didn't know that was the Bible is there? And that's even if I know the Bible, you know, for all of those that have no Bible knowledge, that's all. And then the answer is simple as use basic Bible study methods. But look at that word, you'll find out that the word unicorn was a translation from I was the Hebrew word and R e m, I think it's M and eating wild ox, I would I would get translated today. But in 1611, they didn't know what word to use. And so they use the word unicorn, because it's a verse that is talking about an animal with some sort of prominent horn. And they just put that word in there. And today, it more means more of a mythical animal. And it has it's an incorrect word to use for modern tariff translation. It's not an that's an easy one to answer. But it certainly makes a good meme. It's certainly good, like, look at what the Bible says. And it's just one of many.
18:03 And of course, where the where the rubber hits the road is it's not actually just on unicorns, but it's on all the other stuff that you'll find on the means right about slavery and women being silent in church and things like that. I think in your book, though, you suggest that actually the same process of dealing with that with dealing with a unicorn is a helpful process with dealing with some of these other things that admittedly are, seem to be on the surface more troubling than that.
18:30 Yeah, I mean, it is. You know, and that's why I appreciate you know, William Jessup University, also, you know, having like you guys that are, you know, focusing on theology and Bible you were talking to earlier, like, what a great thing like having film and then looking at it theologically. That's, that's so important. And I think we have not done that well, and a lot of churches, so therefore, that's why it's a bigger problem today. But what you said is, it's, you know, it's how, it's, it's how not to read the Bible so that you're Miss interpreting the verses that are causing so many of these problems. And the majority of them that you'll see on memes, you know, do not eat shrimp, you know, it's like, God hates shrimp. There's actually a website, God hates trump.com. He so often on signs, you know, they're protesting, things like Christians are hypocrites, and they list you know, a lot of Levitical laws and they'll pull out things. Does it say not to eat shrimp in the Old Testament? Yes. Right. So, right to Can we eat shrimp today? The question is, alright, can we you then do a study of what who is the limit of good Levitical law written to? You know, what happened in the New Testament? Was it something that continued the New Testament after Jesus or not? You'll find out that no, that was not the case. We have all the freedom in the world to eat shrimp today. But without doing that study you then you You can just look at a Bible verse and say we're not supposed to eat shrimp look at these hypocritical Christians, because it is a Bible verse talking about shellfish slavery, same thing. I mean, they took a billboard out these were actually, when I say atheist, I ate that there is a wide variety of atheists, as you know, actly, right. And so like, you know, those atheists that there is kind, loving, peaceful, they are not trying to prove Christians wrong, you know, atheists, and then there are the more vocal ones that are. So when I'm saying atheist, you know, the majority of them are not anti Christians, they're just atheists, they don't believe in God. But the ones who are the ones that are using it, you know, as a, almost as a, you know, it's like an activist almost like, I'm going to show Christians they're wrong, you know, they rented a billboard. And it shows, you know, this horrific picture of like, what American, this hurt the horror, and evil of when we had African slaves in America, and they had a big image. And then they'll quote, Old Testament verses and put them up or New Testament verses, and saying, Look, your God is endorsing slavery. Now, you see the Bible verse, you see the image. I'm like, I don't want to have to do anything with that. But I didn't realize Christianity would endorse slavery the Bible does. And again, it's like, the imagery, the actual Bible verse, it certainly seems like, that's what's going on, at a surface level. And then you have to do the study of like, what does that mean? Was it slavery? What was you know, what was slavery? Like New Testament times? What was slavery? Like an Old Testament times? And, you know, the quick answer is just, it was an entirely entirely different form of slavery than we think of today, not race based. People actually give themselves into slavery, you know, there's, as a scholar, you know, this, so, but it certainly makes a good case, to say the Bible is evil. And this God is evil, if this is what they're promoting, from these verses.
22:17 Dan, you have an intriguing statement early on in your book, in fact, enough that, you know, I almost like want to write it and keep it on the wall of my office actually, is some something to the to the something like the Bible is not written to us, but for us. And and I think that's, that's very, very helpful statement, because us is elaborate a little bit on on that.
22:41 Yeah. dr. john Walton from Wheaton came up with that statement, and what and it's, again, it's, it's an incredibly important statement, because what we'll often do, is that we will open up the Bible and immediately think, like, is supplying to me, or we will read into it? I mean, that's what we naturally want to look at. How does this affect me? What is it about me? You know, and we've made the Bible often very me centered, because we're, we want to know, you know, how does this apply to me? But when the Bible wasn't written to us, not one single book of the Bible, you know, is written directly to us in the year 2020. And, you know, Northern California, right, in our world here. So it was, we have to say, you know, who was the book of Romans written to write to us when the Romans, so right, the Roman Church? So then you have to like, right, what was going on, like, politically what was going on with Christians at the time what was happening in that context, so that we can see, what was the Spirit of God, doing through Paul, in writing this out to give to a church that was in a specific geographic location at a specific time, so that we can understand it more from then that's another one of the most number one problems in Bible interpretation. If we don't do that, of course, we then can glean amazing truths that apply to our lives. But if we're not foremost looking at who it was written to, and not in realize it wasn't all written to us today, we will read into our reading our modern mind view and our problems and, and come to is probably some incorrect application for our lives. And that's a major thing. That's and that's why somebody's written. So many verses are seen as crazy because they're not applicable for us today. It wasn't written to us today.
24:36 Little Jessup shout out here Actually, we in our Bible, and theology minor that everyone has to take, they'll have to take an introduction to Old Testament introduction in New Testament, but everybody has to take a biblical interpretation class, you have to do that you that's just important. It doesn't just stand alone. You need to learn how to do this and do this in a in a good way.
24:57 Every Christian in the world should be Tonight, for Mark more worked up on this because like it's so urgent today. Like, I think in the past, we could kind of get along with it like, but like we can't anymore because this is this is why I wrote the book lives are at stake. I mean, decisions about following Jesus are at stake here, impressions of who Jesus is, which ultimately then applies to what you believe in His atoning death on the cross and resurrection, as a real thing are at stake here. Because these kind of things will then push people away from taking the rest seriously, if that's all they think it is. And of course, God's Spirit can do anything, it's God's Spirit, who moves people, you know, towards, towards him. But we as human beings then have to address the issues of our day. And that's what I believe this is a major one, these are major in our day, you know, in the days the creature written there, we're dealing with other things. So the wrote the creatives, I think, the biggest problems today is the Bible being seen as almost an evil book. And, and then you see younger Christians and older abandoning faith and no one's talking, there's a science to like, all this stuff, the science, this is another one like, you hear. These stories sound almost cliche, but they're real stories is not right, about human beings, younger people, often who are now confronted with things that they never thought of before, right, when, right in the time of our, you know, our faith, our faith was falar stages of faith, if you know that book, you know, and identifies like, when you hit your late teens and your 20s, you're going to be questioning, things aren't black and white anymore. It's a beautiful thing. And right at this time of questioning, then all of a sudden, you're hearing you know, maybe what you were taught as a kid is not that simple. You're taught at Noah and the ark, they were painted in your children's classrooms, as it's a cool thing, God rescued, right. But then you'll see there's a book out called awkward moments children's Bible, and the cover of it is they take Bible verses, it's it was the best selling book on Amazon. It was written by a former Christian. And I've talked to him before. And he you know, the cover of the book is no on the flood of sorry, the floods happening, but then all around the ark. And it's like a beautiful children's, like, looks like a children's book. And yeah, all the dead bodies floating around the water right? Right now, and they're saying, you know, look what you're promoting the story, but God killed? Who knows how many people and there's all their bodies floating around the water? You forget that part? Don't you Christians, you know, you just like the happy part, or the science? We the john Walton, you know, why? Why do we read into this is like another one that affects so many people? Why do we read Genesis to be with through our modern mindset and asking the questions that we have today that were never questions for them back then. So Genesis was not written to answer our questions. The early chapters, it was written to address like, who was written to know the Israeli people coming out of Egypt after 400 years and in a polytheistic, culture and slate while they're in slavery in Egypt, and God wanted to them No, don't worship the sun, I created the sun, in the early chapters of Genesis, were not written to us. But they're written for us to understand like, who God is, but their questions were like, which God is real, which they weren't saying, like, you know, how do you work? The fossil records? Or what about diamonds? Right? I didn't even know like, when we think of the word Earth, as you know, like, they didn't, that when we think of the word Earth, we often will think of it, you know, the outer space, right view, right? Or when was that first photographs on like, 1950s? I forget what year? Yeah, yeah, have that image until right? So they don't think of things and we can't underestimate that. And it's not meant as if we start dissecting it today, and then having problems coming up. That's we're missing the entire point of it. And sadly, it's not just an argument, it's about people's lives, who will then say, I don't think I can believe this anymore. Right? I didn't vote button and it's and that's why I'm so intense about this because I'm seeing people go through these deconstruction stories and the same ones are coming up.
29:50 And I just know, I'm so thankful you're doing it William Jessup because you're teaching the that age group, right as they're hitting that age. Understand how to look at the scriptures more, so that through their lives, you know, there's going to be dozens and dozens of weird passages, they're going to find that they'll be able to not get caught off guard, not be freaked out, understandably. But then like, oh, there's another one, there must be a way of understanding this and, and not having to say I can't believe in this stuff anymore.
30:23 Yeah. And in in one of your earlier books, Dan, they love Jesus but not the church. You use this illustration of the tube to bridge illustration, right, that we have the classic bridge, you know, that Jesus, that were separated from God by sin, and Jesus is the bridge to God, right? That's kind of the classic conversion. But you highlighted in that, that there's this second chasm, which at that time, you kind of highlighted as Christianity or Christian subculture in it seems like almost the Bible now is in that second chasm, that that that Bible, that of approaching the Bible or reading the Bible wrong, or misunderstanding the Bible, is a is a bridge people have to cross before they can even maybe get to that place to even think about those deeper theological things about like, who Jesus is, and and what he's done for us.
31:19 Yeah, absolutely. You know, because I, you know, the story that we started out with, I think, was a good an example, where maybe in the past, or is still valid, not just in the past, but like, now the big ones were, well, you know, I found out that all these Christmas Christians were judgmental, you know, or they had irrelevant music, or that kind of a thing. And that became a barrier to, to overcome before you then move into a place of, of maybe being open to have some I'm speaking about the gospel to you, where today, I mean, it's accelerated with the internet and the awareness of things. Right, is that now is that's why like Christians in the Bible is becoming seen as more of an evil book, like, and I'm not hyper exaggerating this, right. If you knew me over my 30 years of ministry, I'm not like an alarmist, like, or, or it's, but it when you start seeing it, like here, then you hear another story. And then you hear another story and another story, and then hearing some, you know, even well known Christians that are no deconstructing faith. And then they'll say, Well, I can't believe in this. So I moved to more of a progressive form of Christianity, which to me, I don't know, you know, I couldn't be a progressive Christian, because then they interpret the Bible entirely differently. And then I would make a move me into all different realm. I be an agnostic, be. Yeah, person. But in other words, that's the default, you know. And that's why it's happening so much, is why I think we have to be diligent and this all the more. So what
32:53 can we do? I guess, briefly in the local church, you know, besides like, handout copies of your book to
33:05 start, that's a start,
33:07 that's a good thing.
33:08 This is gonna sound like so like, easy. Because in a way, it is easy. It just means, you know, in today's world, we have to go down to elementary age. And we have to start even at that age, start teaching the Bible storyline more, not just the you know, the nice story of David like, because, you know, like David, and he any sin with Bathsheba, right then like, Okay, he's a good king and all that. And he had heart after God, they even look at his life. And he killed 200 Philistines and cut off their four skins and presented them to like, like, bright things. And, and the, you know, and he had, what was it eight wives and concubines, like, wasn't just one and the back and you we have to teach earlier on the storyline, I think I the best thing I would recommend to youth leaders, is grab these memes off the internet, put them up on the screen, and then say like, how do you answer this? Because it's shocking, you know? And then you'll be I don't know, like, and what a great, great energy kind of like what you said in the class to to be then how do I solve this? Because when you're pushing those problems out, then they'll see that there's answers and you're teaching them how to study the Bible correctly, then when they do get confronted by them later, it won't be such a shock. It's not going to be like I didn't know that was in there. I just think we know got to like, pull the covers up more in the Bible and pull out not just the nice stories, but the bad stories and bad sounding stories. Yeah. And and address those. And that's what I'd highly recommend children's leaders at the right time, especially youth leaders, college leaders, to be making sure this is in their diet of teaching through the through the calendar years. They plan out what they're teaching about. I couldn't agree with that answer more.
34:59 Yeah, and One of the things that I really appreciated about the tone in your book as well, Dan, is that you as you're highlighting this, right, and even noting, like it is a simple solution, but we also know that it's not simple. And, and and recognizing that these passages are difficult, and they and they need to be struggled with, you know, and I think maybe within the church, too, we've we've defaulted. And you highlight this in the book, we defaulted to kind of simplistic answers to these tough questions. And that doesn't, that doesn't suffice anyone's real desire to understand why these are in the Bible, and how it fits. And so I think it is really important for us to, like I said, to start tackling it so much younger, where we often try to maybe shield them from it. But approach it and, and really work with people and let them know that we also recognize that these are difficult passages that we have to work with that we can't there's there, there are just simple answers. But there are answers, right there. There is explanations, and we can talk about them.
36:12 Yeah, I mean, I would I would not, I would not be a Christian and still take the Bible seriously, if I started finding, I couldn't believe in this anymore. You know, I would, I would say there are answers, but what you said, there are some things This isn't like an apology saying like, Oh, just, you know, we'll just going to soften all the difficult things. Right, some of them are going to be very, very difficult. God still ordered killing of people, right? There's no, you know, we know erasing that. Right. But when we do look at it, why he did it, his patients and waiting for them, you know, always saying like, please turn, you know, and then looking at, you know, in the Old Testament, some of the practices that you'll see, you know, of like, you know, when there were sacrificing babies and hot, horrible, horrible things, like, you start seeing that there is reasons going on, for these things, but it still is a very difficult thing to say, God used violence, and that is, but it's not random. You know, as mayor, like, he just, you know, he's so bloodthirsty, he's just killing people left and right, that type of a thing. In other movie. If you go on Google, and you type in scary, Mary, I might have to remember I did a leaders thing there I'm pretty sure I showed this video there a minute long. And they take Mary Poppins to the movie. And they just pull out tiny little, you know, sections of when Mary is like, looking out the window. And those all of the the, the you know, the the maids or whatever, like they are the ones that are wanting to do her job all get blown away. Yeah, thing and then you know, they're she's staring at the kids and they get sucked up in the chimney. And so they they piece out the actual, you know, little parts of the movie, piece it together. And that the end the children, you see them running, running away. They're like Hydra children scary Mary. So if you only see those things, of course, you're gonna look at Mary Mary Poppins is a horror film, you know, this woman's evil and all she's doing, but we know the whole story. So therefore, those things are happening. It's in the framework of the whole story. And that's like the scriptures when God did use violence and it did happen We then see the this framework of the whole story of what was going on. And then we see his consistent compassion, love patience in all of these things. And a lot of the violence he didn't order humans being beings did it on their own. So it's there's there's graphic stories of violence that God was not the one that said do it. It was just human beings killing each other and things so right that's, that's so important. Again, it's piecing out little clips, and you can turn Mary Poppins into a you know, a horror film. And that's what's going on with the Bible pulling out little pieces, turning it into evil book, don't trust what's going on there can't be real God wouldn't be that the God that we believe in is love. You wouldn't do this. And then you start worshipping or believing in a false god, then that's what's going on false Jesus, all of us.
39:29 Yeah, and and i think within maybe a good place to kind of wrap up our conversation is you, you give kind of for and Rex mentioned one of them, you've kind of four ways of approaching the Bible, right or reminder that the Bible is a library and not a book. And I find that having to Ryan reminds students who've grown up in the church of that all the time that this is a library, and oftentimes people are like, I'm going to read the Bible. So they start on what they think is page one. And data is one and that's you know, with it being a library it is all these different books. The Bible was written for us but not to us. never read our Bible verse, which is Adam, is that a nod to Wayne's World? The never read a Bible verse like
40:24 that statement, never read a Bible verse, you know, just like saying, Don't pull, just don't read the verse always go back. The whole part of it. Yep.
40:31 Yeah, I think it's brilliant. It's really helpful. And then the last point, is the idea that all of the Bible points to Jesus. And, and one thing that I try to help our theology students realize, and this really gets fleshed out, I think, best by Bart, is that Jesus is the revelation of God. Like if you have a question about who the God of Christianity is. Jesus is the revelation of God, right? So the God we serve, is revealed to us by Jesus written in Scripture, right, proclaimed by the church. And so I think it's so important. Yeah, all of this to to, like you said, read the whole story. And know that this whole story flows through this lens of Jesus, that gives us a drastically different picture of God, then if you just pull one or two verses out,
41:27 right, and you hear people like church history, we're talking about the importance of you and people know in church history. marcian, who said, Old Testament God, I can't believe in that Old Testament God, because he's evil. But Jesus knew the Old Testament. That was his. You never see him dismissing it, he used it, he loved it, he was quoting it. Jesus knew all of the wacky stories in the Old Testament, saying, Hey, guys, this was that that part's not true. You know, he emphasized, you know, all of the Scripture is from God. So it's like, bow and that's why I wrote this, you know, the first section is what you said, the first part is just a basic how to read the Bible, taking storyline, and those four things you say, and then we get smack into the verses about Levitical laws and, you know, tattoos and And should you wear it, you know, it can eat shrimp, and all of these things that are being pulled out today and mocked, you know, like, look at these bizarre things, and then the anti women versus which there's plenty of them and anti science verses and all the violent verses, and then the hard truth that when Jesus said, there's only one way to God, and is that an a, you know, is that a arrogant and horrible thing to say, and so we go into those specific verses, and I hope by the end of it, people not just know those verses, because there's 500, more, but just like, Ah, now I can have confidence, and I do hope even parents and grandparents will pay attention to this to say, this is something to you know, pay attention to, that your kids are probably becoming more and more aware of. So be ready for questions. Don't be like that one parent who said that's in there, you know, like, yeah, cuz that's, that's important.
43:16 All right, guys, thank you so much for being on the show. And your book, again, is how not to read the Bible, and is available now published through Zondervan. So we really encourage everyone to check it out. We know, I know, I'm going to be utilizing it here and just to kind of help our students walk through these tough passages. So thanks again, Dan, for your work and being on the show.
43:38 Yeah, you bet. I mean, we're putting up some videos and other stuff on Dan Campbell Comm. Zondervan is making these syllabi, like extra helps for people too. So I and thank you so much for being faithful to the Lord faithful to the scriptures that William Jessup through all these years, you know, you're not wavering and just, you know, being caught off by culture and shifting things. Thank you for your faithfulness to raising up leaders of all vocations through Weiler at William Jessup. Yet, thank you for doing that and for sticking with the truth.
44:13 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
44:39 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader. They are called to be as you go, don't worry Get to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
WJU Psychology professor Stephanie Caine joins Mark and Rex to discuss the idea of race as a social construct. The classification system based on skin color developed over the last four centuries is not grounded in biology or theology but rather was constructed in order to maintain a societal hierarchy. Thankfully, we can abolish those older categories and together write a new story.
TRANSCRIPT
0:02 Welcome to Jessup Think I'm your host, Mark Moore, and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex on the show today, we're so excited to have one of our own psychology professors, Stephanie Caine has been with us just a few years now. But she teaches in the undergrad and our graduate level or master's in counseling, right. And she's on the show today to help us understand the idea of race as a social construct. The idea that race is not something that these classifications that have been given to race is not something that is God given. It's not something that is etched in stone, but it's something that society has created, and then placed on people, and then we've been living with that construct. And so we're so excited to have Stephanie's expertise on this, as we continue the conversation on race. And and we want to make that, you know, we want to keep this a part of the conversation.
1:01 It's a priority. And not just for this podcast, but it's a stated priority of our university. And we want to be, you know, part of this conversation. We don't want to just, you know, let it sort of by osmosis or something just sort of die out because it's uncomfortable. It's important to keep to keep this in front of us. It really is.
1:28 Well, Stephanie, we're so excited that you're on the show. Another another person from the psychology department we've had, we've had a couple we had Richard Mollison, so awesome, Dr. Wallace. So excited to have you on and excited to continue our conversation about race. We've, you know, Rex and I looking at the podcast and looking over even at the summer, I've really wanted to make sure that that it is a priority. It's a priority on campus for us. And it's a priority for us to continue this conversation to help us think about it in a better way and a theological way, in a relational way. And to be to be better informed and in the conversation.
2:15 Right? We don't want to let the conversation digest because it's an uncomfortable one. It's important, right? Relax with us. And so we're trying to,
2:23 yeah, definitely. So excited to have you on. And today, I kinda wanted to look at race as a social construct. Like, if maybe with the conversations happening this summer, people may have heard that there's some room in like, or you know, even into the phone, and like, I don't know exactly what that means, right? So can you help us kind of put some framework on that, that idea of race as a social construct?
2:49 Sure. And you know, before we even jump into that, I just want to acknowledge what talking about race does to people will have different reactions, there's some people who are excited about it, and you know, very knowledgeable and really want to contribute to the conversation. And you know, they can't get enough of it. And then you have people in the middle who are not familiar with it, and, but they're open to hearing more about it and learning more about it. And then you have people who really experienced discomfort with it. And as a result of the discomfort that they feel that there can be some defense mechanisms that come out. So there's people in different areas of the spectrum with that I'm not going to shame anybody for where they are in the process, because it's fluid, you can there's going to be certain elements of, of talking about race that's going to cause people who maybe were initially comfort, comfortable, uncomfortable. And then were people who were initially uncomfortable, comfortable, but I do want to acknowledge that for the people who are listening to this, if you are feeling uncomfortable, there is a you know, concept in counseling called cognitive dissonance, which is we have these belief systems all of us that have been set in us. But as we grow up, and and those belief systems are really important to us, and when we get information that conflicts with what we believe or what we were aware of, that we go into a state of tension, internal tension and conflict and it's a stressful situation. And what our mind does to protect us is immediately get defensive. And so you you may want to say you may want to stop it, you may want to discredit the people who are talking about it, you may want to, you know, lash out in any way. But I urge you to move past the tension. And don't embrace shame. just embrace an openness to hearing what information you're getting here. So open to that.
4:54 No, that's so good. I think that's just such a good that's a that's a helpful place to start because Talking about race can be uncomfortable, right? And, and we have to realize like, Oh, yeah, and maybe take that moment to look back and say, Well, how does talking about race make me feel? And why am I feeling that way? Right. And
5:14 I actually think in this particular conversation, there's like two sort of sources of discomfort to, to some of us as Christians. One is, you know, talking about race, and the other is talking about anything as a social construct a double whammy here with that, and so we're actually doing both at the same time. So they're trying to make everybody uncomfortable, there might be a lot of cognitive dissonance around arouse conversation, but it's still such an important one to have.
5:40 It is it is, and there's gonna be some things I'm going to bring up when we're talking about race as a social construct, I am going to talk about American Christianity, and I'm going to specify it as American Christianity, which I'll kind of dive into more. And then you can't talk about race as a social construct without talking about whiteness without talking about slavery, because those are two very important elements that played a role in that, and talking about the role of the church in race and establishing race as a social construct. So all of these elements are going to be coming up next, because they all play together in that. At a very fundamental level, when we're talking about race as a social construct, I want you to think about social society. So we have different people that make up a society. And, and people, human beings in our brains, we have a tendency to want to sort things and sort people. That's just how it we store information in our brain. And so we use categories to sort things people, etc. and race as a social construct is sorting people using on the basis of race. Okay, so we're talking about grouping people by race. So you maybe think, Okay, well, what's the big deal with that? Well, what, there's a lot of baggage behind that because of the motivation behind why people would be sorted by race. And what lasting effects has it made on different people who've been categorized in different ways. I'm going to specifically focus on blackness and whiteness, because that was the predominant. Those were the predominant groups that were being considered when we were when race as a social contract was first established. And it's still a big part of the tension that exists not to say that there are not different racial groups and different ethnicities that have experienced tension and difference experiences. But I'm just saying that I'm going to specify and talk about race with in the black versus the white group subgroups.
7:54 I guess, just an example of expanding that out. I, I'm married to a Latina. And I had no idea that I was in a interracial marriage until we moved to another part of the country. And we would call it an interracial couple. And I was like, What? Nobody, where I'm from thinks that it wouldn't even enter our minds. But yet, the category was there in this other, you know, part of the country. And this is just, you know, angle and I'm Latina. And so that's already happened. That's already happened.
8:25 Yeah. So when we talk about sorting, we got to talk about what what is the difference? And we're talking about social construct. What's another construct? That's probably another question that comes up? When we talk about social construct, the other construct is the biological construct, that could be an aspect of it. And so that was something that was debated is when we were sorting people by race, are their biological differences. Could we say that race is a biological construct? Would you say? Are there biological differences between black people and white people? Well, the scientific community has studied that and found evidence that there's actually more variations within racial groups within groups than there is between groups. Okay, so basically, there's more genetic variations between me and a black person than there is between me and you guys. So there is not evidence to really show that there's necessarily a biological element to constructing that, although there were some biological arguments you use to justify right behavior in the treatment of black people. Okay, but the scientific community has dispelled that, but they're still beliefs with that,
9:44 okay. And that seems to be where maybe race as a social construct, moved from a social construct, to then saying, this social contract is actually a genetic or biological distinction. And carries these things. And and they've, they took this social construct from that and applied it then to the physical or the biological. Right,
10:10 right. And I think that that's where people to this day struggle with that conversation, because when you look at visibly at Black people versus white people, what you notice immediately is that there are physical traits that are very distinguishing between the two. So it's hard for you to think like, Okay, what is the big deal of separating them? We do look very much different, right? Yeah. Oh, what, what's the problem with that, right, so. So that's where we go that element. So I'm going to focus for a second on social construct aspect of it, but recognizing that there are some biological elements that played a role in the development or establishment of race as a social construct, okay. So it started probably around, maybe the 1600s or so it was several centuries ago, when, basically America was starting to establish their society. So you have these new people coming into this land, and they're wanting to build it and make the land commercial, and, you know, just start commerce and start any economy and establish communities. And as they, as the people, Europeans entered the land, they realized that it was very difficult to really make the land useful to them, they struggled with it, obviously, they were indigenous people who were already in the land. And they were able to, they've been able to effectively, you know, use the land, who knows for how long beforehand it was their land. And so they did not struggle with that, but, but the Europeans did. And so they're trying to figure out, what is a way that we can get the help that we need to really develop this land. And this is where African slaves came into play. So so then now you have these three groups, you have the European, white European group, you have indigenous people who were there, and then you have African slaves who were brought in for the purpose of working the land? Well, now here you have a society to a certain degree, because it's a group of groups of people, but a different right. And so there was obviously tension between indigenous people and Europeans, because they're coming into this land. And they, I, they labeled indigenous people as being savages to justify, you know, dispossession of land from them, and enslaving them as well and using them to, to further develop the society in the land. So what you saw is a development of a social caste system, where it was determined who is on top, who has the who is afforded the rights and privileges to have the right to the land, who has authority over the land and authority over how everybody else operates. And who gets to be in, you know, at the bottom or below below that. So what are we going to use to determine that? Well, the issue with indigenous people is, they were incredibly familiar with the land and very, and they're very comfortable with the land. And so if they ran away, it would be hard to find them, right. Yeah, they can they know where to go.
13:28 They'd be I mean, that's it, they'd survive, and they'd be gone, then you had, then you had to look at class. So there were people, you know, Europeans who had access to resources and funding to help them but then you had poor, very poor Europeans who did not have. Well, the problem with that is, if you enslaved your other Europeans, they could easily blend into European society, then, you know, you wouldn't know who's who, yeah. Because of their features. They're right there. Oh, but you couldn't tell? Well, when you look at the Africans will clearly there were very clear differences between the two, so you can identify them easily if they ran away. And they also brought incredible skills in farming and leather making, there's a lot of skills that they brought that were really good, so they could be used. But here they were brought into this foreign land, foreign language, completely out of their culture. So completely unfamiliar to them. So they were the easy ones to put at the bottom of the social caste system. So here we go with the race as a social class, we start looking at Okay, who is it? We're going to have a hierarchy here, who is going to be a top what we're going to do to determine who was going to be on top and who would have access and then who would be underneath and underneath and that's what we started seeing the development of Chatel slavery so You may be wondering, why am I bringing up slavery? Well, that was a big that was a motivation for creating race as a social construct, right? They had to justify enslaving people, and using them as property and using them for free forced labor. So they had to develop some sort of construct, to allow that to happen.
15:26 And that's that, I think that that's what always is, as I've been doing more research and study this summer. Like, that's been the thing that's been that blows me away that this whole thing was built merely on the idea that you have a different skin color, therefore, you're going to be in this part of society and send it really mean the the American story really does show that sliding scale from form whiteness to blackness, right?
15:54 You also see that in is, this tends to be something that colonial societies tend to have in common. I know that in Latin America, they actually have an even more complicated sort of caste system. You know, if you are a Spanish born Spaniard, you're above a pendant, American born Spaniard, and then down if you're misty, so then below that, India, and then below that in black, then you start mixing Indian and black, and then you start it just goes on and on and on and on and, and pay people in place people and make very, very little social mobility out of that. Right system.
16:31 Right. And, and it also it really challenges. The, you know, beautiful story that we've been taught growing up about how America emerged, what was the prominent story that was told to us that it was these people that were fleeing religious persecution, and they were looking for an opportunity to be in a place where they can, you know, live in faith. And you know, it sounds beautiful, but really, when you hear really the motivation, which is not described Virginia, it just not subscribers.
17:10 It was it was money, it was how can we get this? How can we wire as much land as possible, make it usable, and develop an economic system without having to invest anything into it? So it's free for slaves, that that's what that was about? And it's kind of hard to really go, Wow, it's not necessarily this beautiful, flowery story of how, you know, our country was established.
17:41 Yeah. And it's, and that's, I think, the has been the hard part of the conversation and is the hard part for many people, but it's, it's a part of the conversation that we have to that we have to wrestle with, right? I mean, we almost have to be able to, to accept that cognitive dissonance, right? We have to be like, Okay, this, this is when you really look at the story, you're like, that is a different story than what I was taught. And, and, and I've heard it explained this way, which I thought helped me a little, in the sense of, perhaps the good part of the American story is that America did start with ideals that are good. They just didn't live up to those ideals, right? I mean, the idea of justice for all and that, that for all part was lacking, right? That and, but at least that had that ideal, so we can at least now begin to maybe build on that. But we but we have to be able to be honest, it doesn't do us any good as a country as a society, to ignore that part of our history. And to gloss over it. And and just recognize this was a part of the story, how do we how do we change those things? Not just, hey, that's not how it happened. Because that is that is what how it happened. And, and sadly, the church played a role in that as well.
19:10 They played a major role in establishing it as a as a racial construct. Because naturally, then being believers thought, Okay, what happens when Africans when indigenous people desire to know Christ, do we, you know, do we evangelize to them? And if we do, and they do accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, then are we saying that they are souls than they become like our brothers? And can we justify treating them as property and having them in lifetime slavery, forced labor, and torturing them? Because that's what took place. Can we justify that if we do that, so that so that did come into question
19:53 as a live conversation in the colonial period. It really was about that. And in fact, if I'm not missing Taken, there actually was some in some of the colonial legislatures there was legislation passed that baptism by a slave does not change his status as a slave. And so do what you want, but it's not going to make any difference in whether you are enslaved or not. Yeah, that those laws would not exist if folks weren't concerned about the implications of that.
20:23 Yeah, yeah. And Christians were divided, you had, you had some who believed, you know, primarily in the north, you know, abolitionist who believe that you absolutely cannot enslave people. And that was their interpretation of the Bible, and very strongly believed that you had those in the south who believe that they were affirmed and supported. And, you know, with biblical scripture about slavery, that they could, in fact, do that, that there were people there we could, but then that was even that was split, because it was, well, we could but what we need to do is to sanction it just to create ways that we can treat slaves humanely, you know, so almost putting them in the position of looking at slaves, African slaves as being infant tile, and they in the position of being like a father figure, the head of the house of journalism, right, yeah. Trying to manage their, you know, quote, unquote, infantile behavior, mischievous kind of childlike behavior. So there was that, but its base. And then you had the others who just felt like, who really adopted this is where there was another force where we talked about a biological aspect to it, where, through the Enlightenment period from Europe that this, there were many, there were scientists who really developed some theories, making assumptions that African people were, in fact, biologically inferior, that there was something wrong with their brains that they did not know how to rationalize, they were in fact, so human. And, and people really adopted that idea. Because then if you thought of people as being subhuman, then you can really treat them any way you want. Right? you fast forward, it was even included in legislation where black people in America considered three fifths a human right. And the electoral college is what we used today, that was a driving force behind that there are still remnants in legislation today that we use of this social caste system. There. So um, and then, and so that was just a dominant force. And we got, we also have to understand that the level of depravity and cruelty with adopting that idea, it's not just that black people were not given right then that they had to work long, and they were separated from their families. That is egregious as it is, right? When we were tortured, they were lynched. They, people would have parties and children, families would surround bodies had black bodies hanging from trees and take pictures and postcards. And you'd be able to send your family member that you could send your family members, people would keep fingers toes, like that there's a story of a black woman who was pregnant with twins, and they hung her. And she was almost, you know, full term, and the baby started moving around in the stomach in her stomach, and they, they stopped on the baby step. It's hard for me to say that for me to hear. But I think it's important for people to know, this, this is what happened. This is this is the extent of race being used as a social construct and the motivation behind it. And it may make you angry and uncomfortable. But that is what happened. And also recognizing that when we talk about this, people experience it differently. So for I don't want to speak for all black people, but I would say generally speaking, African Americans, this is it's not just we're hearing stories, these are stories of our ancestors and our great grandparents or, you know, great, great grandparents, it's not that far off. So it's, it's very real to us, there are stories that have been passed down to us in our families about this in the way that we were raised, we've been raised to protect ourselves or remnants of lessons that were passed down from this social construct.
24:34 Yeah. And, and I think that, you know, that's kind of I think, drives a current conversation because I think in in the, in the white community, there can often be this feeling of, well, I'm not racist, and I wasn't those people. So why do I need to keep talking about this? Right? Yeah. And and I think that your point is I think is a very powerful one. Because if this was our, and maybe on our side on the on the white community side, that that maybe the mindset should be our ancestors who did do these things that's not also very far off in history either. I mean, the the same, the same people who passed and enforced Jim Crow laws even in the 60s are still alive today. Yeah, alive. So it's not like this is hundreds of years ago, and we've somehow completely moved No, that that is still and so. Um, but maybe Yeah, how would you? How would you talk to someone Stephanie, who was saying, like, you know, maybe if a student at adjustive was like, Hey, that was that was a problem in the past? Why do I, why do I have to talk about it? Now? Why do we, you know, why do we have to be, you know, harping on this issue right. Now, what would what would you be your advice there?
26:02 There's a few things I would want to say about it. I would say number one, all of us who who've been educated in the American system, education system, specifically in social studies, have been misinformed. And under informed. Yeah, completely. There are so many stories, so many accounts that historicity historians have written many books about, that many of us have never some of the things that I've shared right now in this podcast, and that some people have heard have never heard this ever in their lives. And it is the story of America. So you have to ask yourself, why did I not know this? Right? I mean, I was wrestling with this, because I did not know this.
26:48 Yeah. I mean, it took me 42 years of life on the planet Earth. Before I heard about the Tulsa massacre in 1922. Right? How did that never come up in school?
27:01 Right. Um, and so we just, you know, we have to accept that first of all, you were there's new information, you're just learning now. Yeah. So it's not like, you know, we have been over the years had the opportunity to process what has happened. We're starting now with all of this information that you have learned all this information, I knew I did not learn from school, I, I myself, started reading books written by historians and doing research because I had a curiosity for. So I educated myself, I'm educating my children outside of school, because the information is just not fair. So there's, so there's that that I offer, as of grace to say, you didn't know. So you have to know now, it's your responsibility to know because the information that we were given, really gives a misconception and is misleading about what our country is and what our country is about, and how can we truly say we love our country, if we don't have the right information about our country, it's like when you're in a relationship with somebody, and they tell you, they're, they're in love with you. But if you know that, there's a lot of stuff about you that they don't know, it's hard for you to really embrace that love, right? Like, it's like, I don't think you I don't know, if you really love me until you know everything about me or certain things about me. So if you truly want to establish and embrace a love of your country and a love of your ethnicity as an American, then you have to understand everything that happened in America. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to love those things. But you see it for what it is. And yeah, at least know about it. So there's that aspect of it. And for those who go, I didn't do it. You're right, you didn't do it. But you have this beautiful opportunity to start a new story. See, it's been centuries of legislation policies that have been absorbed into the American system that has prevented black people from experiencing upward mobility in the social caste system. And it's not just at slavery, we can move, we can fast forward to the 1930s with the New Deal, where, you know, these were opportunities and programs that were specifically given to white people so that they can experience some economic growth and expansion, that black people had no access to that, in fact, not only do they not have access to but we're even harmful to them because they were not able to access employment in the same way. And then we can fast forward to the 50s and 60s and we could talk about, you know, in the 50s there was this push to to help white people have homes, you know, because we know that wealth is very much tied to land ownership and property ownership and black people are not so now when I talk about 50 In 60s, I'm talking about some of our parents now, right? Like I'm getting really close to home, we're not talking about. So now we're talking about your grandparents and your parents now. So there are opportunities that parents and grandparents have had access to that have afforded them the opportunity to, to provide you with inheritance, maybe fund opportunities that you have, you don't have to be ashamed of that. But recognizing that there's literally a whole other group of people that were strategically and intentionally and legally kept from having the same access. So you go, well, what's my story? No, you can't undo what was done before you. But you can set a new path to make things right, for the next generations ahead. And you can be part of that new story you can you can write a new, beautiful American story. And my question would be to them would be, don't you want to be a part of that?
30:55 Right? collaborative thing instead of instead of a guilt rendering thing and
30:59 why it happened, right? Get the information so you can know about it, so you can be informed about it. So it can help you understand and plan, what role can I play to create a different path? I want what the history book opens to 2020 or 2021, I want there to be a new story. And I want to tell my children and grandchildren, I was part of this new story. So my question then would be Do you want to be a part of that?
31:25 Yeah, that's such a great question. And I mean, and that is, I think that's been the driving force. For me kind of this summer, that is I want to be a part of this new story. Like I don't, I don't want to look back in history and be like, oh, there, he missed it again. Right, or? Yeah, that's where the church missed it again, you know, because one of the things for me, like I, this summer started, then looking at, well, how did the church in the 50s, and 60s respond to King and some of those things that are so praise now? And it's like, ah, they know, well? And so how do we, yeah, how do we have? How can we be a part of that new story now. And I think one of them is, is is starting to understand this, this idea of race. And this classification, this caste system that was created is, even if even if we would denounce it today, it still is, is a part of that underlying fabric. And it weaves in just psychologically into our lives. And so we make those we have those biases, or we make those decisions. Because this, this construct has been given to us. And so we make a judgement when we see someone of a different skin color. And we have in our mind, there's already a category, where they go, and part of that new story is, is is creating different categories, right, and maybe erasing those categories,
32:52 right. That's the beauty of the human brain is neuroplasticity, we can create new paths, we can add new information, we can change our thinking, no matter our age, we can do that. And we can, you know, go in a new direction if we're willing to do the work if we're willing to acquire the new information. And we live in this amazing age of technology where you can access information from reputable sources. Within seconds, you know, you can go to the website of the Smithsonian Museum of African immune African American Museum, and there's all of this information, short videos, everything that you need to know you can sit there and and learn years of history that you didn't get you can learn it in 30 minutes have an overview of a survey? Yeah, the direction you do have that opportunity doesn't take too much effort. It just takes your will to do that. You know, when we talk about, you know, when you mentioned about, you know, the remnants that are still today from that ideology. It was hundreds of years ago that Bacon's Rebellion took place, which seems like a small rebellion. But that's when a time when poor white people and black people who were enslaved actually were together, because they were working hard on the land. And there was a huge desire to acquire land, and the major planters and the owners were, you know, there was an unfair system where they had the opportunity to continue to acquire land, while the poor white people and bad people were the ones working. So they got together and put a rebellion together to fight against that. Well, the result of that is the plant has realized that you know what, we've got to establish a construct, we have to establish a system to separate these two, because it's not safe for us if we have them together. So they started establishing rules and policies and laws that prevented white people and black people from interacting. And so that started the separation. So you go Okay, well, what does that have to do with today? Well, let's be honest about our neighbors. That's where we grew up. Yeah, let's be honest about our so if you look around and you ask yourself, you were my top five best friends, then that related to, you're honest about that. Think about where you live or where you grew up. I bet you know which street or which town has the predominantly black community predominant Brian brown community versus the predominantly white community, right? Like we still see that. And that was a result of that which also transferred into redlining, which happened around the 50s and 60s which prevented which created, quote, unquote, black neighborhoods that were uninhabitable and not worth investing in and white neighborhoods that were invested in. So and we still see the remnants of that today. Yeah, so and so because we still are experiencing the remnants of that. Those are opportunities to change that. And so it's not about saying asking yourself, are saying, well, I wasn't a part of that. It's like, Okay, well, you're part of something today. Yeah, part of some, some the remnants of that today. What are you going to do so that your grandchildren, your great grandchildren can say, Wow, my great grandfather or grandmother, this is what they did that change that?
36:13 Yeah. And that might be the, one of the biggest benefits of beginning to understand race as a social construct, is, then that idea that if it's a social construct, that means it can change, right? Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. And change that we can, I can, yeah, deconstruct it and, and make something new.
36:33 And that comes out of proximity. So I think that it's an it's an intentionality add, saying, you know, what, I need to start making friends with people who don't look like me, if you're white, and you don't have that we need you need to make friends with more black friends, if you're black, you know, you have to make friends with white friends, like we need to, we need to get back to prior to Bacon's Rebellion when they were together. And, and start talking to each other and building relationships with each other and listening to stories, listen to the stories of, of black people about their experiences and validating those stories. And that also helps develop new files in our brains, and we start humanizing by people, they're not distant people, we don't know about just what we've been told. So I think it's an opportunity there,
37:25 I would even expand that a little bit with, with, you know, I need to make more black friends or just fill in the blank, I think that's really, really important. But sometimes it leaves folks like me, will want black friends that I'm comfortable with, or black friends don't make me nervous or black friends that I don't accept on their terms. And what's really important is that when we do pursue these relationships, I believe that, you know, they have to actually respect the integrity of, of the people you're having the relationship with, you know, maybe I have to change. And that's just a little bit more difficult than having someone change to fit my comfort level. But so it's so important.
38:06 I think, Rex, you bring a big point that's really good about the church. And what you're talking about is accommodation versus assimilation. So when you're making relationships with people, should it be assimilating to you and your comfort level? Or should you be willing to make some accommodations to them? Because that's where you learn. That's how you grow. And you know, in the church right now, and this is why I think it's important for us as a Christian community to talk about that is we see remnants of all of this in the church, right? I mean, like the church was talked about as being the most segregated hour. And, you know, in America, it is still very much segregated, and even in churches that are being intentional about creating, you know, having multiculturalism just going to be frank, I think they're taking too much credit for people of color who are willing to assimilate without experiencing accommodations. Yeah. And so when you look at the mobility of, you know, which churches are experiencing these diverse experiences, you see a lot of, you know, white LED churches, with more people of color joining them, but how many black led churches do you see with more white people joining them, and look at the data for that and ask yourself, Well, why isn't that happening? what's what's behind that? And then also, those churches who are being multicultural, you know, you know, have multicultural? What is experienced that with that? Do you ever if you're a white person and you're in a church that is, you know, diverse and there's, you know, people of color around you? Have you ever listened to worship music that was not familiar to you that you do that grew up with or a style that's familiar to you Have you had preaching in the style that was different from you, you know what has that because if it's still your comfort, and it's people coming in, and they're there, that's they're the ones that are assimilating. But you guys are not necessarily accommodating. And so when conversations like this come up during this time period, particularly when we're talking about racism, and we're talking about issues that are affecting the black communities that are really affecting our communities, there's tension, because even in the church, there has not been an intentionality in making accommodations. So you have people who've been conditioned to still being in an environment that is within their comfort level. So all of a sudden, to make me talk about something that doesn't make me comfortable. But I've never had to sit in church and talk about something like race or, you know, been convicted, I've been convicted. I've been challenged personally, but not between my my pupil over here, you know, that experience. So I think that that's a challenge to the church, to particularly to, you know, American Christianity, which is what I started. And I just want to, you know, really say that there. The reason why I call American Christianity versus Christianity is that Christianity in different cultures, it's their interpretation of what it looks like playing out in society, we're not in heaven, we don't see the perfect version of Christianity in a society because we're not in heaven. So this is the American interpretation of that. And that conversation from hundreds of years ago, where the negotiation of how can we justify enslaving black people? And in Chatel slavery, which is lifelong, and generational? How can we justify that the church was part of that conversation? and created a compromise and negotiated with that, so we have to acknowledge that, because of that, we have to look back at that, and we can't really reconcile until we, we embrace what really was.
42:04 Yeah. You know, yeah, that's so true. And as we kind of wrap up the episode, I just think it's, it's important to I love how you kind of came back to where you started on that. And and that idea that I think, for me, one of the one of the best takeaways from this time is that idea that we have the opportunity to be a part of a new story, like we need, we need to get all the information, like we need to have all the information on hand, and, and we are still getting that information. We didn't we can't act like oh, we know everything like no, we, we still need all the information. And then together we can be a part of, of the new story of telling the new story. And what would what would be beautiful, is if the church led that, right, if the church was on the, on the leading edge of that. I mean, I know that's our prayer, and hope and, and that takes that takes the church recognizing a problem for one recognizing this information. And, and actually having that will like you were saying that will to to have uncomfortable conversations to move to begin to start telling a new story. So I think that's the desire of the Lord. But there's, there's a lot there's a high cost with that. Yeah, there is and, and it takes people willing to pay that high cost. And, and so thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah. And, and it's just so good. And so does this your first time on the show? So if you come on the show another time, then you're an official friend of the show. I mean, I would still call you a friend of the show, right now that come with that, but I've never seen it yet. So we're working. We're working on the honors and benefits
43:58 an honor to have been invited. You believe in a lineup with jemar tisby. And
44:03 you're right, yeah, right up right up there with my resume. That's right. But thank you so much. And I think it's given us a great direction. I hope this helped people understand. Okay, racism is something that was, you know, given by God saying, hey, you should classify these people in this world. This was something that society came up with. And, and that is now our chance as society to change that and right and to write that news story. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes. These reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, Mark Moore and Mrs. Jessup.
45:02 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Rex and Mark discuss the scope and influence of dispensational theology in traditional evangelical thought.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. Yeah. Rex, on today's show, we're gonna be talking about a theological category of dispensationalism. Those words bring music to my ears. Yeah. The way I grew up, yeah, so And what's interesting in what we're going to be really highlighting is maybe the influence that dispensationalism had, particularly on evangelical theology in the 20th century, and not just
0:32 theology and in our politics, actually, in writing pop culture in some of the things we consume, it's it has, its had a much wider reach than we assume.
0:44 It really has. And so even if you're as listener unfamiliar with dispensationalism, as we talk, you might begin to recognize the theories. So, so we hope you maybe have a little bit of education in this episode, and a little bit of insight, and we hope you enjoy the show.
1:09 All right, Rex, we're talking about dispensationalism. So, yeah, there's there's a lot of a lot of maybe different ways to approach it. And maybe for some of our listeners right away. They might be thinking, Okay, wait, timeout, step back a little what is dispensationalism? Because it was really kind of this phenomenon in theology, from the 19th century into the 20th century. Right. And, and it really did have a lasting impact on particularly North America and North American evangelicals. That's Jan, and even if four people may be in a church, and they don't explicitly use the word dispensational theology, but as we start to explain it, lightbulbs might start going off of like, Oh, that's what we are taught at church or
2:04 happened to a few of my students, sometimes I'll put a dispensationalist chart and we might be talking about charts, actually, yeah, that gives you a clue as to what we're talking about. And I'll put them on the PowerPoint and to look at and it's like, I have no idea what that is. And then I start explaining and it's like, oh, I've never seen that chart. But that's kind of behind the preaching in the church that I grew up in. It's like, yeah, now you have a name for it.
2:29 Yeah. And so we want to kind of just explore that maybe kind of the hidden influence of dispensational thought, and and his lasting impact on like you said, in kind of an intro is lasting impact not just on theology, but on politics and pop culture and, and, and so on, even like maybe, let's say book series that have come out in the in the 2000s.
2:57 Yeah, I think we know who we're thinking, yeah, I know that one of the best selling books of the 1970s in any way that you calculate bestsellers, actually kind of didn't make the New York Times bestseller list sometimes because they had sort of ghettoize Christian bookstores and yeah, there were different categories, different category, but there was a book that was dispensationalist that outsold, I think everything but the Bible during the 1970s Wow, some of our listeners might be searching their brains to figure out what that is. We'll leave that to be a secret right now. And oh, yeah. I think a little light bulb will come on on our on our Yeah.
3:41 Listeners later on. Yeah, maybe it's like a trivia that later, though, right? Yeah. Well, for for our listeners, Rex, who maybe don't know what dispensational is by name. Let's let's have them now. How would we describe dispensational theology?
3:59 Well, dispensationalism is is sort of a subset of a Christian eschatological position. And some of you are probably familiar with post millennialism. In our millennialism, I've never quite figured out all millennialism. Right, and premillennialism. And of course, growing up Baptists, we always said we were Pan millennialist. It'll just all pan out at the end. There's about all this stuff. No, I actually really believe that, because I think we were all dispensationalists anyway, right? But dispensationalism is a version of premillennialism. And sometimes it helps to make a distinction between historical premillennialism and dispensationalist. Peru malayalis. Yeah, basically, you know, near the end of the 20th century, the assumption was everyone who is a pre millennialist would be a dispensationalist. But actually premillennialism has been a Christian eschatological position for almost 2000 years. And yeah, I guess calls to 18 150. years before something called dispensationalism actually came down the theological pike. Right. It hasn't always been around its roots caps have. But as a as a theological and eschatological position. It's not that old. Really. Right. Yeah. And by premillennial, we're talking about that the church will be, will be raptured and taken into the kingdom. Before the millennial reign Exactly. Jesus comes back to sort of ushered the church out before the millennial reign, and different varieties of dispensationalists. You know, there'll be pre trip and post trip and mid trip. And yeah, there are endless variations and iterations of how one can make that dispositional chart, which is good for book publishing. It's really good for bookbub. Right, right, definitely. And because it actually ties in so much to current events, at least in many people's minds, then whenever something happens internationally, or nationally, you can always write into the book and write in the dispensational framework, which makes the whole phenomenon really both interesting and self perpetuating at the same time.
6:07 Right. Right. Yeah. And we'll we can, I think we'll get there to talk about that, especially of the, the way, it turned eschatology or study the End Times. Right, so this eschatological view and started connecting current events that were happening, and really, you know, started connecting specific dots and naming names, right. My name, naming names, and, and particularly in the book that we referenced from the 70s. And while we can highlight that, but But even as we we get further into it, so it's this this eschatological view that is very focused on premillennialism. So focus that Jesus is going to come back and and assure the church right or rapture the church, before a literal millennial reign to so many times, it's a focus on a literal millennial reign. And it was kind of first started by a guy named john Nelson Darby. Yeah, yeah. So his brother, and then a good kind of Anglo Irish preacher, but then a priest and then kind of renounced that, and a sense to be part of the Plymouth, you know, to begin the Plymouth brethren and, in many ways, kind of this independent, you know, segment of the church. And with this theology he created, he kind of divided the history of God's interaction with the world into seven dispensations,
7:43 right? And sometimes this will say shilshole will name those dispensations a little bit differently and yeah, so those charts can vary but but they will have a similarity that this is different periods of time in in the world's history and I guess salvation history which ends up being collapsed into one thing Yeah, in the way that God has related to first of all, all humanity then his chosen people Israel, and then sort of new Israel or adopted Israel yeah Church Age later on and and even within that there's there's variations but that's that's a general the general gist of a god relates to humanity through different dispensations different covenants. Yeah, and you can name those covenants, different ways. And you can find, you can find that explicitly stated, according to dispensationalist, in a close reading of the Old Testament, particularly.
8:42 Yeah, and we kind of see some of those names you know, they've they've divided them or are labeled them this way. First, age is Age of Innocence, right or innocency. So you the era of Adam and Eve ride garden, before the before the fall so innocent, and then moving into conscience, sometimes I've seen that and labeled that which is kind of that arrow from the fall to Noah. And then the third one is civil government. I've seen it labeled that way, which is no a to Abraham. And, and then with Abraham, we kind of start the the patriarchy, you know, role. Sometimes it's called the promise as well, sometimes that dispensation, and that's Abraham to Moses. So you get the call of Abraham, to, to then the law of Moses. So that fifth dispensation is the Age of the Law of the law. And that's Moses to Jesus. And then the sixth dispensation which we would be in currently is the church age or also called the Age of Grace.
9:52 Although there there are various spins on on why there is even a church age actually depending on how one spins Who Jesus originally was sent to basically, right and how that kind of played out. We are either a parenthesis, or a plan B or part of the plan all along depending on how sensationalist you talk to.
10:17 Yeah. And then it really focuses in that seventh one is the millennial reign, right? That will be the seventh dispensation. And so the church age or the Age of Grace that we are in, is from Christ to, to the return of Christ. Right. So and so that's why within I think dispensation, there's such a focus on the return of Christ, because that's going to mark the ending of this, of this dispensation and
10:45 what has to happen as a prelude to the return of Christ. And Roberts, the two biblical books that are indispensable in ferreting this out are revelation as you would expect. And Daniel in the old Yeah. And you put revelation and Daniel together, it does have the key that unlocks what people will call the End Times.
11:09 Yeah. And so for you, Rex, how did you see maybe dispensational thought, influence what you were taught, maybe as a child, and then even as you were pastoring in different Baptist churches, and
11:23 well, I was not conscious of it. Actually, as a child. I grew up in a fundamentalist church, but we never didn't know we were fundamentalists, I guess. Yeah, but looking back on it, we certainly were. Yeah. I definitely ran into it. Not just in my theological education, but I really ran into it in in the ministry, in the denomination that I was pastoring. In. And in some folks in, in in my church. So my first church is a Baptist Church. It's in Oakland, California. Some of you may know that Baptist churches have traditionally had adult Sunday school, it wasn't just kids that went to Sunday school around Sunday school class. In fact, often it was not uncommon to have more people in Sunday school than actually for the preaching service. Because yes, I school, go home, it was really interesting phenomenon when I was going out, but it's my first Sunday, there, I'm on the job. I've already accepted. We've already moved there, we've already committed and I'm wandering around the church. And I go to an adult sized school class because I'm, you know, I ended up teaching various years. But when I first got there, so I sit in the back. And suddenly the teacher who happened to be a deacon of the church, and on the pulpit committee, I had no idea about what was coming. Yeah, stops the class. When I come in. I thought it was like, Well, here's the new password. Right? Not what happened. Yeah, no interaction, no introduction, he stopped the class, he looks at me. And he says, I'm a dispensationalist. And this class is taught through the lens of dispensationalism, everything I teach, and if it wasn't for dispensationalism, I would not be a Christian. that's a that's a, you know, pretty powerful thing to toss on the family of a pastor. And yeah, you know, what he meant was that dispensationalism to him was the key to interpreting and he had quite a following in the church, actually, yeah, no, that at that time, but he that was the key to interpreting the Bible. And it's interesting stuff. If you're, if you know, once you start down that road, it really is fascinating, right, and has, you know, endless iterations. And it's very logical. Once one accepts that logic, is also very methodical, and the pieces do fit together. And it involves a lot of prophecy. And it is a way of having the Bible make complete, not just sense, but it strings, the story together, the past and the future in a way that is very, is very neat and clean in a lot of ways. Yeah. And what he meant by if it wasn't for dispensationalism, I would not be a Christian, I sort of found out later. So this guy was an accountant at a big accounting firm in San Francisco. And as soon as I put two and two together, it was like I can understand, and I can see why that would really appeal to him that way of interpreting. Yeah, because it's all numbers. It's numbers. Right. Right. And it's fascinating, and it doesn't make sense. It does make sense if one accepts the premise behind it.
14:36 Yeah. And that seems to be maybe one of the positives of it. And maybe the reason why it did have such a hold on theology, especially evangelical theology for for a lot of the 19th and 20th century.
14:51 Well, it was a prime player in the fundamentalist modernist controversy. Yeah, cuz people looked at dispensationalism, which hinges on an inerrant interpretation of Scripture itself. ranges on that, right? It doesn't work unless everything is. And we've talked about this before, Mark, everything is literally true, but you don't take it literally, which is really missing. Right? Look at it. But yeah, I'm still very, very high view of biblical authority. And when you are combating, you know, higher criticism and all this German liberal theology or whatever, right, this proved to be a very useful and powerful sort of tool in the conservative Arsenal against the corrosive impact of higher criticism. So it really, it really did help in the minds of some people to save the Bible from its attacks by liberal and higher criticism.
15:45 Yeah, and in many ways, it was it was kind of saving the Bible by maybe showing some type of logic in the Bible, or reason in the Bible that, hey, this is a logical connection, from the time of Adam and Eve, going through these different areas and different dispensations. And and I like how you're kind of highlighting Rex, I think this is important for us to grasp on dispensational theology is that it definitely hinges in his stresses an inaccurate view of Scripture, right? along with a fairly, what would be called literal, you know, interpretation of Scripture. But right, like, we've like we said, Yeah, literal does not always mean literal. But but a very, a very, let's say, straightforward, right? interpretation of Scripture,
16:39 the, the prophecy is a literal prophecy about real things that either are or will happen in the world. And so, you know, in that way it is it is very literal, if literal means, I guess, real or empirically verifiable, right. Yeah, this is this is also a very useful tool against Darwinism, and all sorts of things. There's a lot of reasons why this became popular, and understandable reasons. understandable reasons.
17:08 Yeah. And it does seem to like you're saying hinge on a view of the end times, you know, which, which is interesting, because it doesn't necessarily, it wouldn't necessarily have to only focus on that, you know, because I mean, I, I could see, like, yeah, splitting up how God has interacted throughout the world, but it definitely, and I think part of that is because of that was a major theme in evangelical thought in the 19th and 20th century, the return of Christ,
17:39 right, there was this movement into prophecy conferences and things like yeah, which, which totally proved fertile ground for this type of this type of theology.
17:50 Definitely, and, and there was, and there was just this, in many ways, an obsession, maybe with what is gonna happen at the end?
18:02 Especially, right, you know, in the 50s, and 60s, you know, during the Cold War, there's a lot of people have a lot of anxiety about nuclear annihilation. And, yeah, and it does look like you know, for the first time, when you say that, you know, the world could end or be destroyed in fire or so yeah, that, that there was a literal image that was not outside the realm of possibility of the whole world, this happening to, right, starting in the 50s. And, and what's interesting is, is that, you know, the viewer has been around for a while, although I have met dispensationalists that will basically say, you know, every real question for the past 2000 years has always been a dispensationalist. Yeah, that's the danger of actually studying church history, because you understand that that's not the case. Right, that there are a lot of people were pre millennials, that is true, but there were historical premillennialists that that weren't, didn't slice it quite the way some dispensationalists do. Yeah. But with all the with all the stuff happening in the world, you know, the United Nations, the European community, the Soviet Union in its fall. The United States, basically, you know, whether we are not a new Israel, there's just all sorts of things that can fit into this that make it very interesting for everyone and very attractive for people that do believe that this is the Bible is teaching this about the future. What's interesting about that, though, is that sometimes that seems to be all the Bible's teaching. We write certain iterations of dispensationalism. So yeah, it was just a book of prophecy and not a book of whatever.
19:41 Yeah. Yeah. And that seems to be the dangers when the when the focus gets solely put on the end times and fulfillment of that prophecy. And and in particularly trying to understand a literal I'm understanding of that prophecy and starting to put names to it, then that sometimes then the target moves. But yeah, can and it can kind of create this feeling that that's the only thing the Bible is about is trying to figure out when Jesus is going to return. And and I think I think maybe we're at a good place where you can, or we can reveal the name of
20:24 that during that I was going to say, but I was going to try to figure out its initials first CL Gp who did the L GP? Yeah. His name was how Lindsey Yeah. late, great planet Earth. And it's sold buku copies. I remember reading it because everybody read it. Right. At the end of the 70s. I think he had to, like, revise it some, the issue about it is that it sold so many millions of copies. And it was, you know, almost as important as scripture in the minds of some people I used to know. But hardly any of the specifics actually ever happened in it. Right. And so it had to be revised and right, that that tends to be something that does happen in dispensationalists literature. Yeah. And you will see, I mean, just go into I was perusing a Christian as what publishing house, whatever, newsletter or CBD yesterday, and just looking into slike, you know, another slew of books, you know, especially with things that have happened here in the united states currently, and things that are happening, our world currently being published, and many of them do see what's happening now through a dispensationalist lens, as well. Yeah, it makes great movies doesn't mark right. It does. Yeah,
21:53 makes good books and movies. And maybe Kirk Cameron via Nick Cage, Nick as well.
22:02 Although apparently Nick Cage didn't even know it had anything to do with like, just a bunch of explosions and a paycheck. Yeah, exactly.
22:09 It was an airplane airplay on air explosions. I'm there I'm in. But I think one of the things that this highlights for me is, and we've talked about this on other episodes, but it's just the perhaps the danger in terms of eschatology, the danger of viewing it or interpreting it through your national lens. And so yeah, I think it is interesting that for North American and particularly American evangelicals, in the mid 20th century, in dispensationalism, it was always interpreted as, as America holding that place of like, a new Israel or, or the good place. And, and in how Lindsay's book in the first regression, it was the Soviet Union, that was the enemy, and then it fell. So then it had to kind of transition to Russia. Right, Jen, maybe transition to the European Union. And, and that has been the, in many ways, the danger of then trying to, particularly and this is what's interesting, right interesting about literal interpretation of Scripture, right? Because you're trying to then interpret the prophecy. And prophecy is not geared to a literal interpretation, because even the literal interpretation would be that Babylon would rise again. Right? Like that would be the literal interpretation that that Babylon, back rather on. So there you go, yeah, that that rather that. Babylon is, is maybe this code word for, for, you know, an earthly power that represents that represents the all of the bad of earthly power. And, and perhaps, that's kind of, for me, what dispensational is does is it brings that the how we approach scripture, how we interpret scripture, it brings it to the forefront of how we can have that discussion and maybe knowing that there are, there are many ways in different ways that we can approach scripture and interpret, while also maintaining a very high view of Scripture and scripture, as the Word of God and as you know, as the error free Word of God to write the inspired Word of God. And sometimes the biblical literalism actually works against maybe the genres in Scripture, and now they are meant to be interpreted.
24:50 Right. Well, one interesting thing about that I found in my discussion with some folks that held to certain strains of dispensationalism, and I think it's very careful for our listeners. And I had to continue to remind myself of this too, that, you know, we shouldn't tar all dispensationalists with one brush just because there's a facet of it that right, right doesn't fit, you know, our particular theological positions or predilections. But one, one place where I at least got off of one particular dispensation was bus was actually with that same person I was talking about earlier in the Sunday school class. This was a few years later, I found out that he believed as some dispensational, still that Jesus was actually sent to redeem the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So Jesus was sent to, and when the when the lost sheep of the house of Israel rejected Jesus, then the mission expanded out to the Gentiles and initiated the church age, which makes it really interesting that the Church Age is sort of something that that I guess God knew was going to happen, but wasn't supposed to happen. Right? Yeah. But maybe wouldn't have happened if Jesus had been rejected, which, which is an interesting position. But for this for this individual. And I know he was not the only one. The the key to interpreting for example, what's going on in Matthew or when the Church Age begins, is to try to figure out when exactly in Jesus's earthly ministry that the Jews of first century Palestine rejected his message, right? Because everything that's before that rejection is actually not for the church is for the Jewish people. Yeah, doesn't really apply to us everything. Yeah. After that. So where he actually made the cutoff point was after the Sermon on the Mount, and so he would teach his sermon on the mount was not for Christians and did not apply to Christians. Wow. And I know, wow, I was thinking, well, that's actually, you know, I think the Sermon on the Mount had some really hard sayings and Yeah, exactly. get you off. The bar really, really high. And now I have an added, it's not for me. Yeah, I don't, I don't have to do that. And I mean, honestly, I think the Sermon on the Mount is is key to Jesus's charisma. And so I'm not willing to just jettison that is not applicable, right to my life or the life of the Christian community. Not all dispensationalists will do that. But I have run into some that will.
27:33 Yeah. And I think even there's, there's other clarifications to on trying to figure that when the Church Age begins. And I know, I've heard I mean, there's sex of dispensationalism that are mid acts. So it's not till the midway through the book of Acts that the Church Age begins, because the very beginning of the church is still very Jewish and Israel oriented. And so maybe not till it makes that full transition into the Gentile church. And what's what's very interesting about a dispensationalist
28:05 reading of history is that if it is true for whatever reason that the eschatological clock stopped, when the Jews rejected Jesus, which some iterations of dispensationalism will say, yeah, then when does the eschatological clock start? Again? When do you kind of are at the end of the church age and starting to get closer to the end times? Basically, right? Yeah. And, and, and that's very important for those of us that that certainly would not want to be left behind. Right. So for those who don't know, the whole left behind series of movies and books is thoroughly dispensationalist. Yeah, it relies on a dispensational framework, just for the narrative of the books. But so the Jews might have rejected Jesus, but then something happened after World War Two. In 1947 1948, when, you know, with the United Nations resolutions, suddenly there is for the first time in 2000 years, yeah, actual, you know, feet on the ground state of Israel. And for some dispensationalist that means that the eschatological clock started ticking again. So the end time, so basically, we're in them, and they started when the nation of Israel, yeah, became a nation again, which of course, makes what happens with the nation of Israel, of extreme importance of to dispensationalist and to many of us that have been influenced by dispensationalism there's a real reason for that because Israel, what happens there plays a major role in in the in times of Jesus coming back and the Millennium and then, you know, hopefully the new heavens and the new earth and so that's all good stuff. Yeah, you know, stuff we would look forward to. So yeah, good for everyone in the end, so right. So we are very, very interested in Israel. Yeah. And sometimes it seems like the only friends that Israel has in the whole world are American evangelicals. It sometimes seems that way. Yeah. And and there are, that's not the only reason to support Israel. And I personally believe we should support the right of Israel to exist. So Right, right. Oh, yeah. no issue with that at all. Yeah, but but it's important. It's hyper important to some events. Yeah. So I was I'm at a mega church in the Bay Area. And I was there to see some Christian concert. I forget what it was. And this is a long time ago, so I won't even name who Yeah, if I remember. Right. And I was there alone out of my wife couldn't go with me or something. And nobody else wanted to go, whatever. Anyway, I went by myself. And right before the musicians came on, the pastor of the church that they were having the concert in, called up a young woman who was the daughter of the mayor of Jerusalem. At that time, I think his name is Teddy Kollek analysis daughter. Yeah. And she was making a tour of major evangelical churches all around the United States giving greetings. And of course he was because right, that was probably the most effective use of her time. And yeah, and getting goodwill for what's happening in Jerusalem. She was going to American evangelical mega churches. Yeah, she was giving greetings from the mayor of Jerusalem, because that's music to our ears.
31:36 Right. And and that, yeah, that kind of helps us understand maybe why the focus. There's such a focus on the nation of Israel, particularly in evangelicalism, right is this connection through dispensational thought, but that connection to the end times and connection to the fulfillment of prophecy, connection to a Third Temple being built? Right. And
32:02 apparently, did you know that actually, I think it's under Temple Mount, they have everything ready. So that's ready at the snap of a finger, they can put that baby together in like five minutes. Yeah, I understand.
32:12 And, and I think one of the things yeah, and one of the things with that is that it is definitely influenced, like you were saying political, political parties, political understanding of Israel, and I've always, often look back because I agree with you, too, right? I mean, 100% support, Oh, right. Israel as a nation, and the support. But as you look back through the Old Testament, right, that doesn't mean everything that Israel did as a nation, was glorifying to God. Right. So I mean, it is this balance where Israel as a nation, still has the ability to not do maybe what God wants them to do,
32:53 right? Actually, no dispensationalism has even there's an explanatory power in either dispensationalism itself, or it's sort of being the background noise behind some some positions and some views. And yes, dispensational premillennialism is a very pessimistic worldview. You understand? post modernism is a very optimistic worldview, right? Yeah, I was gonna get better and better and better and better, and Christians are actually going to have a huge part in that. And yeah, it just comes back to sort of give his stamp of approval at the top. Right. Right. And you know, that that's, that's one eschatological position, right. But of course, with premillennial, dispensationalism, for this whole thing to work, and you have seen the movies, yeah, things are gonna get worse and worse, gets worse and worse. And there's, there's actually nothing that we can do or even should do really try to interrupt that process. Yeah. And that, that that would mean that you would want to support political positions that you feel would be the best positions to have in a world that's going to hell in a handbasket. Yeah. And, and right, once again, they're certainly reasons to all over the place to support these these policies. But yeah, it is. That is one of them. That is your reason. And I think that's behind some of it. Even if it's not conscious. I think that's behind some of it.
34:21 Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And I think that Yeah, at some white balls might be going off aleko Yeah, that you mean just even understanding that this is the view contingent on things getting worse and worse, right and and how that would then influence maybe how we interact in the world in terms of trying to make things better or our social interaction things like that policies. I think for me, and maybe as we kind of, as we kind of wrap up this discussion and we again, we hope that today was kind of this episode was educational. Maybe you know, I learned a little on on dispensationalism learned how It is influenced and still has a lasting influence on especially evangelical theology and policy. I think one of the most interesting things and and one of the things that, for me is a place of caution is within the church how dispensational thought, especially a strong premillennial view of the rapture, has has put a stress on Christians leaving the world and going to heaven. Right? So is this view of us leaving and going, rather than a stress on Jesus? Bringing the kingdom here, right. So the idea and so there's been kind of this escapism, almost right, like things are getting worse. And so God will you escape us from this. And it seems like in Scripture, that there's this, there's this, another view could be add of Jesus bringing the kingdom to Earth, right and bringing, and as maybe things get worse, and that is that rather than us in the stress of us just getting out of here and go into heaven, but rather, being able to be with Christ in His Kingdom as it invades Earth, right. So there's so
36:19 one of my favorite pieces of dispensational artwork is a pitcher that and I know this is gonna elicit some light bulbs going on at some of our listeners. Yeah, I don't think it can. Those of us who grew up in a certain time in a certain evangelical subculture will recognize this. I remember seeing pictures of Jesus coming back. And and of course, it was over Dallas, Texas, because where else would Jesus come back to Dallas, Texas, there's the Dallas, Texas skyline. And there's a freeway going downtown, and there's airline, there's airplanes smashing into buildings, there's car wrecks, all over the freeway. Everybody's being raptured, up out of the cars. Yeah. And so, I mean, literally, Christians are being raptured. And everyone else is being killed in airplane crashes, right, our wrecks, and yeah, I didn't even miss a beat even thinking about that seeing this artwork when I was crying. It's like, well, that's just sort of the way it's gonna be. Yeah, yeah. Hope I'm in that group going up. I wish we'd all been ready. Life was no, because you remember those old sayings, right? Yeah. And yeah, and I look at that now. And it's like, well, you know, you can actually believe, you know, in, in, in, you know, the rapture and yeah, not have to have this particular view of sort of, I don't know, it being a zero sum game. Right. Right. Was Yeah, yeah. You know, little disturbing to me not looking at that picture. Yeah, what's behind it,
37:48 right. Cuz you It feels like, like, when you look at the book of Revelation. The the overall purpose of the book of Revelation was to inspire hope, and have a good ending, right ending folks is is hope and and Yeah, and I think that's there just seems to be sometimes within evangelical eschatology, those that have been influenced by the by different strands of dispensationalism. misses that hope aspect, like there just wasn't that stress of hope. Yeah. Like when I was when I was a kid, it was, the End Times was the thing of fear. For me. I was like, I want to be ready. There were times you know, my parents didn't come home. And it came home late from something and I was like, it's happened. I missed the Rapture. I knew it was at least knew my brother was gonna miss the Rapture. But then I was I was a little surprised. I was still there. But there was there was fear. And I think what I missed is men. How can we bring in because yeah, it's I mean, end of the world world will not just be hunky dory. Right. But how do we understand that eschatological hope that scripture is, is giving us right that john in the book of Revelation, and even in Daniel, this, it's actually a hope that despite everything being bad, despite world powers, exerting their power, all over the place that God's kingdom is going to last it God's kingdom is going to win election ends
39:23 with an invitation? Yeah, doesn't it? Yeah. Condon. Yeah. Yeah. Come in. Right. Who wants to drink the water of life? Really? Yeah. That's, that's a very hopeful thing. I want to be there. Yeah. I want to be there very much.
39:39 Yeah, definitely. And so how we have today kind of, you know, gave you a little bit education made you think about Oh, yeah. What are some of those dreams? Maybe I grew up I grew up in the evangelical community. Yeah. What are some things that I could maybe point back to dispensationalism or even, you know, just the the popularity of the left behind? theories and and how that influences our theology and and then I think Yeah, ending on that idea of I think anytime we talk about eschatology, we need to we need to elevate the idea of hope. And we need to elevate that idea as much as any of the other ideas we elevate out Molly's want to get them back to in the purpose in Scripture. And even the purpose of many of these prophecies was to to give hope to the church right to give hope, that that God's kingdom is going to win that God's kingdom will be established. God's kingdom will rain.
40:38 Rubbish is not a pessimistic book. Yeah, it's really nice into one by some folks, but it is it is yeah.
40:44 So we hope you, you think about your, your theology, think about how it's been influenced, and that you can capture the hope that is offered by the the idea of the message that cries for return, that is not meant to be fearful, or meant to be hope. And and you can maybe dust off some old dispensational charts and say, hey, what was said, Well, maybe maybe in your church, go find an old backroom, you might be able to find one. There. They're rolled up somewhere. That's right. Well, thanks for your insight, Rex, and we'll catch people on another episode. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
41:54 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Theologian Esau McCaulley joins the show to talk about his new book Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And I'm so excited to be able to sit down with Dr. Esau McCauley professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, and author of reading while black, African American biblical interpretation as an exercise in hope. It is such a powerful book. And in Dr. McCoy has such a powerful voice in this conversation. I hope you enjoy the show.
0:35 Dr. McCauley, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Really excited to have you on the show and excited to kind of continue this conversation on on race and particularly with your book. Yeah, through the lens of biblical interpretation. And what the Bible has to say to us and I, I love at the beginning of your book, and in that initial chapter, your your nod to 90s hip hop, so so I'm, I'm a product of the 90s as well, I felt well as I was reading it. I was like, I think we had some similar, you know, similar music tastes happening in the 90s. And I loved how you weave that in So, so I thought I'd kind of start with a question. What did 90s hip hop teach you about? biblical interpretation? the black community?
1:23 Yeah, what what Thank you. I mean, what I wanted to do, I began to book that way intentionally, because I wanted people to think this is a different kind of theology book. Yeah, I wanted to kind of give myself space to do my own, do the work that I felt like God had called me to do. And so when I talk about what, like 90s hip hop did is that it was a soundtrack that reflected that things were going on in my community. And so it helped me to put voice to the kinds of questions I was trying to answer. And what I mean by that is, is sometimes we think about, well, what does Christianity mean? If I am raising a family? What does Christianity mean? If I'm single, and I want a spouse? What does Christianity mean? If for my job, and you know, climbing the corporate ladder? And I said, Well, what does Christianity mean? If you're young, black and southern, and you try to make sense of what it means to be a follower of Jesus in the world. And so for me, the conversation partners that I dealt with rare forms of sometimes nihilism, or hopelessness, and sometimes music reflected that. Sometimes it was about real critique what was going on in society, and the music reflect get that. And so what I wanted to say is, though, that portion of the black community, we're in part, a dialogue partner that oftentimes isn't taken seriously, in the wider kind of Christian world, as people were asking important questions that deserve answers.
2:51 Yeah, definitely, as I did a Grammy, right from the title of that first chapter, I was like, okay, Hey, where are we going with this? And it was it, I think, a great beginning, because like you're saying it was starting a theology book in a different way.
3:04 Yeah. That was one of the first things that I wrote, I actually wrote, I knew that I wanted to start this book off with that story. And with that analogy, now, I wrote it much later, the first chapter that I actually wrote was a chapter on policing. But that idea of starting with the sounds got something to say, was something like, my own personal declaration of scholarly independence.
3:29 Yeah. Oh, my God, I was hearing loud and clear like that. And so in the book, here, you're looking at the tradition, the black ecclesial interpretation, tradition. And so just wondering, like, how do you understand that tradition? And how, how does that tradition help us read the Bible better?
3:48 Yeah, I think it's really important to put that tradition into conversation with the other communities that are kind of out lots of people understand what I mean. So when I talk about ecclesia, that's just a fancy word for for church, right? You know, that I grew up in the black church, surrounded by black preachers, who articulated to me a vision of God and the scriptures that on the one hand, emphasize salvation from sin and personal holiness. And that was a part of what it meant for me to be a Christian. But it also, you know, talked about things like injustice, and I grew up, you know, in the shadow of the civil rights movement in Alabama. So things like the governing bus boycott, and Selma and Birmingham was part of what it meant to be a Christian, instead of me to be a Christian meant to see the Bible as a whole, speaking both to the struggles that we're facing as people under oppression, and for the need to trust in Jesus. Now, when I when I got to college, those tradition that union of those two ideas were often fought apart. And I encountered for the first time, kind of white progressive Christians who had a strong emphasis on social action, and I agree with that, that's like, that's really good. But there were theological differences. And then there were elements of evangelicalism once you're sure I love to take the scripture seriously. But these, the scriptures aren't just the passages that you saying are important. It's the entire Bible. And I found myself in different ways alienated from both of those traditions. And so I use the black church tradition to talk about the ways in which I felt like the piety that I experienced, push back on both those binaries, and had a distinct gift to offer to the church. And and I could say more about that if you want, but because of the way in which the African American church was born, and the world into which it came into being, it has certain interpretive habits are not unique to them, but our points of emphasis in our tradition.
5:43 Yeah, no, and no, it'd be great to expand a little more on that.
5:47 Yeah. So So let me give you an example. This is, um, I talked about, because of slavery, and we and we often it is very hard for us, even though we know it, to remember this slavery was a law, we think of it as a moral issue. Right. And Christians can be for or against this moral issue. Slavery is good or slavery was bad. But when so when the when the black church is born, like slavery existed as a law, like it was legal to hold slaves. And so when the African American Christian is pushing back on slavery, they are pushing back on an established legal practice that we think needs to be changed in order for us to gain freedom. And so for us, the idea that we should just preach the gospel and slavery, I mean, like social justice, social injustice will just go away is alien to our tradition, because there were Christians who were slave owners. And so we're gonna say, not just let's preach the gospel. But let's understand how the gospel touches on the lived experiences of people. And so because of that, there's a strong union, between social action and like, piety. So today, when you hear people say, well, the church needs to just focus on the scriptures in the gospels, Oh, hold on. This was what was told to us when we're in slavery. Right? We don't worry about your actual freedom, but just worry about what you're going to get in the by and by. The other thing that happened was because oftentimes, the the, the pro slavery faction focused on just a few texts, you know, First Timothy, you know this until right to respond to that what the African American Christian tradition did, is it engaged in a much more canonical form of argumentation. And so instead of saying, let's just argue just about First Timothy, I call that the Lord of the Rings, theology, the one verse to rule them all. Let's look and see what happens when we read the entirety of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. And you say, Well, you know, instead of starting with like the question of First Timothy, how does our understanding of slavery change? We begin with the book of Revelation, not the book of Revelation, the book of the Exodus. And so you see how this tradition of looking at the canonical witness or even saying something like, Well, what does it mean to love your neighbor, there's actually there's a letter that I quote, in the book, we're a group of slaves, quote, Paul's word in when Paul says, You need to bear one, bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, and a slave to asking, Well, how can I bear my brother's burden? If I'm forced to bear this burden? How can I How can a husband love his wife as Christ loves the church, if a master can step into their relationship and sell them? And so they're looking at all the ways in which the variety of the Christian tradition pushes back on this issue? And not just a question of a few Pauline slave text? And so that's what I mean, when I talk about the canonical instinct of the African American Christian tradition, even talking about I don't want to go through all the different elements, I talked about the theological, the importance of theological interpretation. So they begin to ask questions, what, once again, not just what are these two verses say? What does the Bible reveal to us about the character of God? What we understand about the character of God impinge upon the question of black freedom. And so these ideas of thinking theologically, and thinking canonically aren't unique to the black church, other people were doing this as well. But the unique ways in which that was deployed, as relates to issues of injustice, are gifts that I think to the African American tradition can give to the American church in particular in our day.
9:16 Yeah, and with with that, why do you think maybe so many evangelicals have trouble with the tradition or seem skeptical of black theology or black, the black interpretation tradition? Well,
9:31 I think there's a variety of reasons. One is, it is it is a distinctive history and narrative within which evangelicals live and move. Yeah, and this narrative is the it's a largely and that only people understand what I mean when I say this. This is like, empirically true, not, you know, politically true, is a largely white narrative, and this is what I mean. We like especially the roots of evangelicalism go Back to the fundamentalist modernist debate, post Industrial Revolution, there's tons of suffering in the world. And Christians are arguing what's the relationship between my faith and access in the public square, this generation, that when this first occurs, especially in places like England, where there are evangelicals who say, No, let's get involved in things like child labor laws. But what's happening at the exact same time, is the rise of higher criticism, and the kind of deconstructive readings of the Bible. And for a variety of reasons, we don't need to be traced here. The people who engage in a deconstructive reading of the Bible, are also the ones who engaged in social action. And the people who are conservative reading the Bible, were the people who kind of stepped away from social action. And so in the white Christian context, to care about social action, strangely enough, was seen as being linked to liberalism, and being drawn from that we seem to be linked with conservativism. Now, the important part to me when I say this is like a white concern, largely, because they know black Christians at this point engaged in the conversation. This is the rise of Jim Crow. So if you kind of turn your gaze from like that argument that we learn about, like the scopes, Trumps it, what's going on, actually, in black communities, we're undergoing Jim Crow. We experiencing like legalized segregation. Until right, we're not actually and then the interesting thing is the people who are opposing segregation, are often the same people who have the Conservative Party in the Bible. So that means that black Christians in particular, when they begin looking for allies, they don't find allies among evangelicals, they find allies among the progressive wing of like the white church. And so for that reason, there is a historic suspicion between African the African American church sometimes and kind of evangelicalism. The last thing is, and this is really important, precisely because evangelicalism wasn't concerned with issues of social action, they weren't actually interested in promoting black voices. And so because black voices were only largely accepted into institutions, in more progressive universities and seminaries, most of the African Americans who you saw in publications from the progressive string of the stream of the black Christian community, so becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, evangelical, and traditional seminaries and colleges won't hire black people, because they don't talk about justice. That means that the black Christians who, who kind of are closer theologically to them have no places where they can work. So they remain in the church, black ecclesia theology, and then Black academic theology becomes the dominant form of discourse. And so people then begin the story of black theology with Mike, someone like James Cohn and the entry into the academic world. But what they don't recognize, and this is not to talk about James Cole today, but when I realized that there was actually black theological reflection that preceded that. So what becomes the analysis of this isn't too confusing, is there is the kind of mainline evangelical fight that goes on for 60 or 70 years. And then they go, Oh, here comes like black theology, and they put in a category, and then they kind of go on, instead of realizing that the entire time there was black theological reflection going on. And those are some of the least historical reasons why that there tends to be a fear of the black tradition, because you think it's linked in inherently, to some deconstructive readings of the Bible.
13:32 Yeah. And do you see yourself trying to maybe bring those two together within the evangelical world, which to the you refer to? So kind of bringing in that kind of in the book, you talked about looking and understanding the the evangelical sense of, of Orthodoxy or, you know, conservative theology in that sense, but also bringing then justice, and those themes of justice and liberation?
14:00 Well, what what I was trying to do in the book, and it's kind of it's it's funny how it echoes in different places. What I felt like was because of the ongoing experiences of injustice in this country, many black Christians were starting to kind of check out of the Christian tradition. Yeah. And so the book, African American biblical interpretation is an exercise and hope was first in the first place, like directed towards those kinds of Christians who feeling disillusioned and say, No, you can still, you know, care be a Christian who values the things that Christians have always believed and cared about justice. So in the first place is not directed to like convince evangelicals to like care about justice. Right. It also serves as an example, then, in some cases that fears of evangelicals are not founded. And the fear is if I care about these things, injustice, poverty, racism, Good, I'm gonna somehow I'm going to end up like not believing the Trinity, or something like that. And so it's served that purpose. But that wasn't his natural intent.
15:10 Yeah. And it is, I think, a sad thing that has happened where we've had to, for some reason, in the evangelho community, those two have been separated by the Trinity and justice, and right. Why can't we believe in both of those?
15:24 It's one of the things where, and this is what this is important, because people think this is all you know, politics, Luke, chapter four, Jesus's first sermon, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach, good report. Now, of course, that's that's important. But let's go back and look at Isaiah, the two Isaiah passages that he cites, one of which of us is Isaiah 58. So Jesus is setting the agenda for his ministry. And he begins by quoting a passage that in the context, rebukes false religiosity. Why do you fast? We do not hear it? Why do we kind of why don't why don't you attend to our religious ceremonies, and God says, because your religious ceremonies are emptier, apart from your real concern for the people who are suffering. So then when I say that is a part of being a Christian to care about those who are suffering, it's not because I'm engaged in some kind of sophisticated form of Cultural Marxism is because I believe the Luke chapter four is actually important. Then when Jesus started as a 58, he did it because he says, I'm not going to be about a religion that has to perform as a religious performance, that doesn't actually care about the lived experiences of people. And so what I want to say there is that it's important to remember that all of this stuff that is occurring, is a manifestation of what I think, and what many African American Christians things are, like the major emphases of the Bible that we're trying to put into practice in our day
16:54 prior. And that was I mean, I feel like this summer, working through these issues in the church that I'm at, and even in school was, it was like, we were immediate when people were like, why do we talk about this? It's like, yeah, you go to look for me, like, Hey, what did Jesus just say, and, and start or the Psalter,
17:12 I mean, one of the things you should predict into the Psalms, because in the Psalms, sometimes, we talked about God, the defender of order orphans, and widows, or God is the one to whom I turn to for justice. That was because if you lack power, if you lack political power in the in the court in the king doesn't help you. There's no one for you to turn to. But God until you see over and over and over again, this idea in the Old Testament, that I'm going to trust my vindication to God, because there is nowhere to help. In God glories in being the kind of God who says yes, I'm going to help. And so it's not just like proof texting like, Luke, it's about God's own character, as revealed in the Psalter, or even God's own characters is revealed in the, in the prophets. I told the story of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar This is one of the examples of how so much of this stuff hides in plain sight. I'm assuming that you this is a Christian college or at least a lot of the listeners know about their story and when that whenever condesa is about to go I'm about to go insane because of his pride. And then we know their story that Daniel comes and he gives the prophecy because you bring hottie you're going to like lose your mind for a period of time. But what people don't this is just like, literally go to Daniel for go down to the end. My lot. Can I read Bible verses in this thing? How you're allowed to I think, this time, let me see. I'm gonna see if I can, cuz this is a printed Bible isn't printed Bible. I know Michael printing Bible. I don't even know that these things exist. Hold on one second. It's not my normal printed Bible. So I gotta like, you know, like when you have your own Bible that you memorize, yeah, no, no, exactly. We're certain. So this is like, this is the end. This is Daniel. Right after and it's only gonna be one verse. And I won't do this is the first time I've read a Bible verse and a podcast interview, but I really like it. I like it struck me. So this is the end of that part. And Daniel, in Africa is going to get judged. This is verse 27. In everybody's Bible, I'm sure no one's paid attention to it. Right? Therefore O'Kane may might counsel be acceptable to you atone for your sins with righteousness, and your iniquities, with mercy to the oppressed, so that your prosperity may be prolonged. So he says, look, look never confessor. You're in big danger. Yeah. So what you need to do is care for the oppressed. In that brokenness, this is important. He's not Jewish. He's not he's not in the covenant people of God was not a member kanessa should know more because he he said, he said, No, no, even a pagan king is in danger judgment by God because it was unjust This. So what does this mean for the Christian witness? That even someone who doesn't share our values? Right, is responsible for justice. And so part of what I'm trying to do in the book is point out all of the ways in which these kinds of ideas are just facts hiding in plain sight.
20:21 Yeah. Yeah. When you actually then read the text, and there's so many verses like that, I feel like that we don't read it that way.
20:30 Because I've heard I've heard never condenser talked about 1000 times. Right. It was always how prideful he was. Like that he was arrogant, he put himself in the place of God, therefore, God drove him mad. Now, that's definitely there. If you read Daniel chapter four, but then you see another problem attached to that is injustice. So what happens when you put Jesus his first sermon alongside the Psalter, alongside the profits, and we could go, we had time we will go to Neil, we talk about how Isaiah does the same thing. And Jeremiah does the same thing of holding foreign, pagan kings responsible for injustice, within then you start to say, Well, hold on, it feels like the whole of this book, from Genesis to Revelation deals to this issue. Yeah, so that part of the Christian witness is being concerned with these things. Now, a lot of times what happens to the people want to want to argue whether or not it's a part of the gospel, right? Like people say, like, Is it a part of the gospel? And that's the argument. So we feel like if I can define justice into the gospel itself, and people have to do it, if I can exclude justice from the Gospel, if I can say, love, God is more important than love your neighbor, then I've kind of, I've kind of removed my responsibility. But you know, I say to people, I don't necessarily care about including it in the definition of gospel, right? I'm asking, Is it biblical? Yeah. And if you're going to talk about we're Christians who care about the scriptures, as God's Word to us, then it doesn't have to be defined as gospel for it to be our responsibility. Right. And I think it's really hard pressed to kind of look at things like the profits and look at the Torah laws, like compassion, and look at, um, the the Psalms in the western literature and Jesus's ministry and Paul's ministry in the book of Revelation and say, it's biblical. So that's the language that I use. It's biblical. I don't care about, you know, the word games. Is it part of the gospel to talk about the kingdom or not? That's not necessarily my concern. I have opinions. But it's not mine. Yeah.
22:32 Well, and if we were only going by just a definition of the gospel that would cut out a lot of things that the church talks about, like marriage. The church talks more about it in the Gospel,
22:44 this would I mean, this would I mean, so this is important. I don't, I never want to downplay the gospel, and what this does and allows Christians, what I want us to do is to think consistently about what we say, yeah, so we will say, let's just preach the gospel. And then hearts will change as relates to racism. And this is the way that we deal with it. But like, we don't say that about marriages, right? We don't say just preach the gospel, and your marriage problems will be changed that Okay, now that you're Christian? Yeah. Here's some practical tips about how you should treat you, right. Here's the actual advice. Now, if you're a Christian, and you have kids, you don't just say, just preach the gospel. Everybody intuitively know how to parent, right? No, no, you're a Christian. Now, let me disciple you to how to be a good father. Yeah. Then we disciple you like, let's just preach the gospel and input Whoever believes the gospel and charter youth ministry say, No, no, you might believe the gospel. But I don't want you watching my kids. Right. And so the idea that just preaching the gospel, solves societal problems, is something that is something that we don't sometimes you have to just preach the gospel, and they'll tie Well, no, no, no, you got to say, now that you're a Christian, this is what we do with our finances. And so what I'm trying to articulate is that just like, our finances, our relationships, and even our parenting, require Christian discipleship, information, dealing with racism requires our explicit articulation of the problem in ways in which we might move forward. And that's something that we recognize in other areas of life. They for some reason, because I know why because of the emotion attached to it, we want to deny that the way that we need to do things as relates to racism.
24:34 Yeah, cuz in the church, we'd have a marriage seminar. Yeah, parenting seminar,
24:38 and nobody would. Nobody would say like, you know, the crown financial ministries, or What's that? What's that? What's the name of that guy who does the money? Dave Ramsey, Dave Ramsey? crowner those Yeah, like they rant no one's like, you know, just preach the gospel and you know how to pay your credit card bill like no, no, no, it's like, right because and this is the reason this is important because Even though you're a Christian, you live in a world that the site was you in anti God practices. Yeah, you got to learn how to consciously reject those things. And so as a Christian, we live in a world that has fallen. That means there are habits and customs as relates to race, that are death giving, not life giving. So the idea of and this was this, what I tried to say to people, the United States is not exempt from the fall, right? racism is not exempt from the fall, right? Every generation isn't born. We don't believe in evolutionary morality, it is born and all of the previous moral gains are, like downloaded into new babies, such that racism was a problem last generation, but then the new baby is born is born, like free of all taint, the original said. And so No, it was a No, no, in each society, we must choose again the things of God. So each generation of Christians, we have to, again, reject materialism, we have to again, reject lust and greed. So every generation as Christians, we have to again, reject the opportunity or the desire to put people in a hierarchy in order to give ourselves self worth. And in the same way, there's something like materialism, because of the culture in which we live. It's something that Christians have to fight forever. I have my this, they can't see it at my Apple Watch. And I saw the new Apple Watch coming out. And I said, Do I need it? And I thought that I needed it cuz there's nothing wrong with my current Apple Watch. Because I like something about this society, I need the newest shiny thing. And I have to preach to him, I'd remind myself to disciple my mind. Don't chase after that. So if that's the case, and we we grew up in a culture of with the racial bias, and the Christian has to be vigilant, and saying, how is the society and the culture discipling me into hostility? Because the world benefits from us hating each other? Yeah. The world benefits from I mean, social media, and I'm a part of it, right? I mean, existing? I'm not a part of this part. It's fueled by animus. Yeah. Right. The more that the people who are the most popular on social media are the people who hate people the best. Who can be the most cruel, and community of people who kind of choose the representatives who talk about the things that they hate the most, right? So like the person who is like, you know, I hate Republicans. And so like, the more you yell, tweet, Republicans, the better you are, or you hate Democrats, the more you yell at Democrats, and there's a whole community of people not centered around the love of Christ, in the contending for the vision of the Christian society, but who simply just hate people who disagree with them. So being discipled out of that polarizing hate, and being people of truth and justice, and goodness, and beauty, is a spiritual discipline, that isn't simply an inevitable fruit of this hearing that Jesus died for your sins, that people who believe that Jesus died for your sins, and who slay people. Right? That meant they didn't understand the implications of their confession. That means somebody had to tell them. No, do we have to do the same thing in a hard day?
28:19 Yeah, I think that's so good. So good. We keep going on there. Sorry. I got I got on a rant. Forgive me. I love their I love it is so good. I did want to move to towards the end of the book, one of your last chapters, you deal with anger and pain. Yeah. In the black community. Yeah. And, and I thought that was really good of how of what the Bible can say to that, first to the black community about that. But I think that also helping the white community on maybe understand or empathize with that pain and rage because it seems to be, or some some people in the white community get get uncomfortable about the anger and pain that exists.
29:01 Yeah, I've been surprised by the response to that chapter. In particular, I think of all of the chapters that I've been, you know, in the book, I get asked about this chapter in every single interview by black and white readers. And I think for the black reader, it's like, thank you for saying that. And for the white readers, like, Oh, I didn't know. And it's one of the ways in which social location influences how we interpret the Bible. So like, I have a lot of pastors and friend or readers who said, I've never really thought about how the Bible helps me deal with this kind of anger because I don't experience it is alien to me. And so what I wanted to do in that chapter, and the reason i'm i've been pleased by it is I was afraid that I'm so some black Christians might not like it because it ends on forgiveness. And I knew and I knew that as a Christian, what I had like where we had to land, but the process Getting there is always a, you know, it's a bumpy flight to get from where you want to where you feel like God wants you to go. Yeah, so what I wanted to do was a couple of things. One, I wanted to make sure that articulated as clearly as I possibly could, the reasons that African Americans feel angry about what happens in America and wanted people to understand that when I'm talking about this, I'm not talking about in the abstract, but I know the depths of the problem, right. And then I wanted to talk about how God Himself, the scriptures themselves know about the sufferings of innocent people. And that the people of Israel oftentimes complained about experiencing injustice, especially in things like the songs. And so that I what I wanted to do is give people the emotional space to say, it's okay to say the guy what's going on in your life, we sometimes think that, like, we can only pray, we can only say prayers, like, God, thank you for the sunshine, and thank you. And that's important, we should be grateful. But it's also the same God, my co workers are really, really bothering me right now. Like, I wish they would just quit and leave me alone. And like, I get hurt. I wish that, you know, the, the main thing is the ones who were hurtful to me, and I want them to feel that pain. Now, that doesn't mean that God's gonna say, Yes, I'm gonna like, you know, afflict your enemies and boys. But it does mean like, since God knows what we're thinking about, we should at least tell him and be honest in our own prayers. And I found myself, especially in this season, finally beginning to get the resources, even in this context to pray for my enemies. Because we talk about racism in America. In the church, there's always going to be certain Christians who say, well, oh, he's a critical race theorists, or he's abandoned orthodoxy. And so I've learned how to genuinely as a Christian, pray for those people. But what I wanted to say beyond that, is that the American of the Bible is not that it articulates like frustration, the American of the Bible is taken into account after that frustration, and the old end and the New Testament, and this is I just don't think we feel this. Isaiah, who's speaking to people who are going to return for the Babylonian exile, is saying, there's something beyond our return, there is God's salvation reaching to the entirety of the world. But the question that I think is unresolved, that kind of sits side by side in the Old Testament, is, there's this anger, and then there is hope. And the question of how we get there, I say, as answered by Jesus. And the cross allows me to say, and you got to read the rest of the chapter, but I'll try to be brief, this is important. The cross allows me to say that God takes in utterly seriously that what happened to me was real. And what happened to us was real. And it was it was a manifestation of society sufficiently broken, that God had to send His Son to redeem it. But it also means that if I recognize that I, myself, have seen and fallen short of the glory of God. And despite the things that I've done, God has forgiven me, it gives me the theological and spiritual resources, to begin to imagine a world on the other side of justice, it doesn't mean that I have to pretend like the things that have happened to black people didn't occur. It doesn't mean that I don't have to contend for like, accountability and justice, it does mean that there's more to me to look forward to in the future than simply vengeance. And one of the great things about the Christian, the African American Christian community is it's like, like the motto, that became the motto of the AMA, God, our Father, Christ, our brother, humanity, our family. And that is the Christian tradition that allows me to see a future beyond vengeance, in which we're all together united under the Lordship of Christ. The last thing I talked about, this is just like how a Christian eschatology then begins to influence you, right, that, that in the end, we believe that there is a writing of wrongs, and it's in this judge, because that precisely because I believe sin is judged.
34:02 I don't want anybody to come before God unrepented. You know, even when I'm most angry, I am. I talked about how there's hints of like eschatology and in God's God's own judging power that want people to avoid anything that even shaped it. And so what I really want as a Christian now is not for my enemies to be destroyed, for my enemies to change. And I think that's, I think that's the way in which I can move through the world in a way that's not destructive for me, because a life consumed by bitterness and anger ultimately consumes us.
34:40 Right? And I love how you really center the whole book around that idea of hope. And I like what you're saying you're you're on social media, on Twitter, and I think it was a surprise maybe in the summer you tweeted out having an ironic experience of writing a book about finding Helping the Bible and then actually finding hope. And
35:03 I know it's weird because I write I wrote a book called an exercise and hope. Because in I mean, it's so, so weird how words take on meaning. So I don't know about the like, I don't like exercising all the time. Yeah, I'd much rather sleep. But I realized that in order to stay healthy, I got to go out and run. And sometimes I'm just like running so that I don't die of heart disease. And I found myself in the midst of the run, like, Oh, this is actually not that unpleasant. And you get the runner's high. Well, this actually feels good. And so the so I found I encounter hope along the way. And so I wanted to say the process of Bible reading the fact that I opened up the Bible, the very fact that I can open it up physically. Sorry, I think you just actually physically still own Bibles. Yeah, I like it. I like it, that expect God to speak to me through those texts, is an exercise or practice of hope. It'd be amazing thing is like, I said that. But I was saying it to other people. I was studying the Bible one day, and I was just down. And I said, and I just, you know, I got up that morning anyway. And I pray and I'm reading, oh, God has done it again. Yeah, I wrote a book about an exercise and hope. And I'm reading the Bible, simply as an act of spiritual discipline. And I encounter Whoa, this is why I think church and Bible reading are so dangerous. Because we can go to church, or we can open the Bible expecting nothing. Yeah, that thing, nothing. And the next thing you know, like the heavens are ripped apart, and you're face to face with the glory of God. So every single time you open the Bible, every single time you close your eyes to pray, every single time you walk into a certain force of worship. You are at an encounter between God and humanity and eternity. And you never know. You never know what you're going to experience until like, I think it's a dangerous thing. Yeah, so I never know like, I'm not one of these people who for like, every single morning, it's just like, spiritual high where you got to go. No, it's just like, yeah, I'm going through my life. It may be once a month, maybe once every six months. What? Oh, God, you real What can I do a fall on my face? So yeah, that's that happened to me this summer, I encountered uncounted Oh, this is like recently, just recently, it's been this passage in Ephesians. I've been thinking about a lot for the last week, because I'm preparing a lecture. And it was like, you once were children of darkness, but now your children of light, and the children of light, it's something along the lines, you should be oriented towards that which is righteous, good and true. And that's the thesis like five, nine and 10. Then he says this, he says, trying to discern what the will of the Lord is. And that's so basic. Yeah, so basically trying to discern what the will of the Lord is, I was like, You know what? That's, that's like, that's 99% of the Christian life. Hey, what does God want me to do? Right here? I think he's talking with the church broadly, he's talking about the church in Ephesus. Yeah, what would God have the Christians in emphasis, do? And then do it? I said, what I can actually apply to me too. Like, I'm trying to figure this out all the time. What does God want me to do? In this moment? What does God want me to do with this tweet? What do God want me to do with this article? And then it batches I can do it.
38:39 Yeah. That's so good. Thank you so much. He's out for joining us on the show. I think he's given a lot of people good stuff to think about and good promo for the book. So we're gonna be we're gonna be promoting your book all over campus, and I know, even using it in classes next semester. So thank
38:58 you. I thank you, hopefully, hopefully, it is of use to your students. And maybe one day post pandemic God had invited me out.
39:07 That's right. We'll definitely have you out here. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
39:36 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Author and theologian Kelly M. Kapic joins Mark and Rex to discuss his book Embodied Hope: A Theological Medidation on Pain and Suffering.
TRANSCRIPT
0:02 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And on the show today, we're so privileged to have Kelly M. Capek on the show. He's an author, Professor of theological studies at covenant college on Lookout Mountain in Georgia.
0:17 And I hope you all understand that we're really upping our game here with the podcast because we aren't we are having, you know, celebrated authors. And that's right. So we're
0:26 here here and I'm here first on Jessup. Thank and he's author of numerous books, right. But one of the his most kind of recent book is embodied hope or theological meditation on pain and suffering, came out in 2017. And so that's what we're going to be highlighting on the show today, really talking with Kelly about pain and suffering, and how we can approach pain and suffering in a theological way. What to do and what not to do. So I really think you're gonna enjoy the show. And it's, it's gonna it's so timely with everything that's going on in 2020. Exactly. This should be a wonderful conversation.
1:12 Well, Kelly, thank you so much for being on the show. And we could maybe start out here by making a northern California connection. So you're actually Okay, you grew up in Lodi?
1:26 Yeah, born and raised, and Lodi, California and, miss. Now it's the Zinfandel capital of the world. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, go there. Yeah. Oh,
1:41 that's great. Well, it's good to have, you know, another Northern California in here. Even though you're coming to us from Georgia right now? That's right. Yep. I'm going to college. And I've just kind of recently been introduced to some of your writings. And I know you've written several things as I've been getting into your works. But it's really been influenced by your little book for new theologians. I'm maybe drawn to little books, right? When I'm thinking of my students, what I'm thinking my students and hey, what can you read? What will you actually read? But no, I love that. And as much as I would love to get into maybe the nerdy side of theology with you, which we might be able to sprinkle it in. On the show. You also most recently published a book called embodied hope or theological meditation on pain and suffering. And so want to kind of talk about that, you know, and especially, it's kind of interesting in in 2020, right now, I think there's there's enough pain and suffering that we can talk about. And I think it's so helpful to help us understand how theology can maybe help us talk about and experience pain and suffering and, and I think you do a great job in the book of talking about the limitations of theology or the limitations of trying to answer all of the questions on pain and suffering. But you lead us into a place of, of being able to experience that pain and suffering and experience in in a way where we can experience it with other Christians and with God. And you, you say in the beginning, you kind of talk about how sometimes within the church and sometimes within maybe even the evangelical community, there's this sense of trying to maybe gloss over pain and suffering, and we want to kind of jump to the promises or jump to the blessing. What do you think maybe that is for for maybe the evangelical community, specifically, why do we, why do we struggle sometimes to really deal with pain and suffering?
3:58 Yeah, those are those are great questions. I you know, I think for different reasons. I think, a large segment of kind of evangelicalism in America, we're kind of
4:15 been taught often at a subconscious level or, you know, inference level that you know, happy clappy everything's good. Be happy. Jesus is in control. That's great. Kind of, even though we wouldn't claim to be prosperity, gospel or victorious living but it is a Victorian, like we're supposed to be getting better and stronger and faster and and so we don't do very well with members in our congregations. When they when heartbreak happens. And and especially when it's it's one thing if it's episodic, and it's it's an intensive difficulty, but then you get to move past it, but for Example things like chronic pain, we really struggle with, because we don't know how to do that. So I kind of in some ways, I'm trying to respond to two groups. On the one hand, I'm I'm worried about pop evangelicalism who just don't know how to deal with sadness, and frustration and even anger about things. On the other hand, I'm a reformed Presbyterian theologian, and some of my world which has overlapped with evangelicalism, but weak sometimes on the other end, where it's almost stoic. And to raise any concerns, means you doubt God's sovereignty, or you doubt his character, His goodness. And so I'm trying to, to navigate between those two communities and try and draw that draw us back to some biblical themes that I think, speak to both both ends of that spectrum. Yeah, that's great.
5:54 As I was interacting with some of your thoughts, just in preparing for the podcast here, I, you know, was thinking, I guess, on similar lines with with the fact that our therapeutic culture, which we've embraced wholeheartedly, at least, in my segment of the tribe, certainly has not really helped us much with that. And I was reading a book this was years and years and years ago is by Allan bloom is one of his books. No, Harold bloom. And it was one of those books that actually nobody read his more famous books were more popular, but it's called the American religion. And in reading that book, he sort of concluded that the American religion was Gnosticism. And then he named the two major institutions in American, you know, religious institutions in America. First one was LDS. And I was like all into that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I grew up Southern Baptists. And so his next example, and his primary example was the Southern Baptist Convention. And I was like, Oh, no, how could that possibly be? Although, as I was reading it, I was just remembering some things I was taught. And yeah, and you know, if it is true, that there sort of gnostic tendencies in that, I can see that that sort of denial of the flesh would would lead to a denial of, of the reality of suffering somehow, if one is Christian. And so um, I think many of us kind of grew up with a double whammy here. Hmm.
7:27 Yeah. Go Yeah, go Go. Go. No, no, you. I think that's Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So nice. So nice. Is that kind of maybe where you're headed with the title like I was drawn to that title, embodied hope, this idea of that one, maybe realizing we are embodied people. Right. You know, which obviously, that's what Gnosticism is kind of denying. Is that embodiment?
7:56 Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. You even mentioned that right? And then you pick up on that. The Gnosticism. I don't really we don't want to get into this right now. But recently wrote a book with an economist named Brian Ficker, who is the one who wrote when helping hurts. And so we did a follow up volume that just came out called becoming whole why the opposite of poverty isn't the American dream. And in that there is a chapter on Gnosticism. Okay, okay. And it's that very thing, and, and it is widespread. And so I do think we struggle to make sense of our bodies to value our bodies. And you see this in all kinds of insidious ways, where, for example, in a lot of evangelicalism, the whole goal of the Christian life, or the whole goal is to become a Christian, to be converted. And then once you're converted, we really don't know what to do with your life until you die. But you're gonna get to go to heaven. But we don't really know why this life matters, except for like trying to be ethical. Try not to commit adultery, try not to steal. Like, we don't know what investing in this world or why it matters. So we end up very, with multiple personality stuff, because on the one hand, we act like our bodies in this world doesn't matter. But on on our actual lives. We act like our bodies are all that matter. And so when pain and suffering happens, we're pretty torn. Because on the one hand, we think, oh, we shouldn't care if we are hurting. And on the other hand, we see it's wreaking havoc on my employment, my ability to be employed or my relationship with my spouse or you name it, you know, it affects all kinds of the physical and the spiritual are not easily divided, like we pretend. So
9:45 I think that's particularly true with with, like, I don't know mental suffering or mental illness. Yeah, I know that it's my tradition has really struggled with how to deal with and, you know, teaching on a college campus is becoming more and more prevalent. Actually, yeah, yeah. And you know that that sort of goes against the renewal of the mind if the mind is is somehow part of the part of the issue. I know that from personal experience,
10:14 right? Yeah, no, I think you're right, because we come, you know, as Ivan juggles, one of the great part of our tradition, at its best has been the renewal of the mind, and in that way, trying to think carefully. But as we also know, in American evangelicalism, there's strong roots of anti intellectual ism. So this creates a weird kind of thing. But then when people do emphasize the mind, it always does. It's like your mind is detached from your body. And there's lots of empirical neuroscience data, thoughtful arguments to say, it's way more complicated than that, in fact, our emotions and other things are happening in our minds to kind of follow in those ways, which can be people can get upset about it, or it can be like, it's kind of like politics, you know, watch your life and your doctrine closely. Because they're interconnected. You're not just gonna think, right? If you act like your mind doesn't matter. Your your life doesn't matter.
11:14 Right. Right. I've been called them and intellectual with a sneer several times. And so I try to run away from that, apparently, it's a really bad thing. Yeah.
11:25 Well, one of the things too, in the book, Kelly, that I appreciated as you right at the beginning, you kind of focus on maybe how, how not to approach pain and suffering, if you're the person not going through it, right. So and I love even even some of the titles of like, the title of your second chapter is don't answer why I were so quick to want to answer like, why is this pain and suffering happening? And maybe, especially in our setting, as as theologians and as professors, we're used to trying to explain why things are happening with pain and suffering, as different.
12:05 Yeah, I think even and it and it is just at first, I was only annoyed, as, you know, part of the background, which we didn't talk about when don't need to, but it's just this stuff relates to my family and stuff, and particularly My wife has gone through and we've been dealing with very, we had cancer and then dealing with serious chronic pain for a decade. But so part of it is I just get annoyed, but I've come to see, you know, there, it's out of good desire, right? People actually want to heal. Right, right. Having said that, good intentions don't cover hurting people, and certainly should grow in that. And we speak out of turn all the time, as if we know things that we don't know, you know, it's kind of like a child is in the hospital and on the verge of death or even will die. And these are all examples they know, and someone who will say, but, but I think God's gonna use this to save that nurse. Right? Right. Well, if you're a parent and your child dies, you can be forgiven for saying, right, that's the last thing. How about we keep my kid and you say, this kid, and now you know this person? Right? And, and or, you know, people will say, well, this happened because of this. Well, what happens is two years later, that nurse leaves the faith. Right? Or this tragedy happened. But look, the church now is going through renewal. But what happens is two years later, the church is exactly where it was again, right? We don't know. And so I do think we we we so long for clarity and strong found you know, things to base all eyes on? Yeah, and we we say promises are things that we don't actually know we know that God will be with you in the flame. Yeah, but we don't know that you're going to escape the flame right and like Daniel and his friends, you know, he, he'll be with you, but it doesn't mean necessarily gonna escape them. Yeah,
14:05 I think sometimes we also at least this happens with me a lot is when I'm you know, faced with pain that seems to be clickable and enduring. You know, I feel helpless. It just sort of makes you feel helpless. And and for someone that's supposed to major in the victorious Christian life, they just sit and feel helpless. Like I really, you know, I I don't have anything to say and that makes me feel uncomfortable actually. Yeah, no, I I have actually avoided you know, even I pastored for nine years and another one. And I've even actually, when I was pastoring, sometimes I would avoid actually ministering as quickly as I should have to a certain situation my parishioners because I did that feeling of helplessness.
14:53 Yeah. Yeah, I think it's very difficult and especially because And thankfully, it's starting to be recaptured. But especially because, again, American evangelicals, the audience, I'm thinking primarily of, we have really struggled to understand lament, or to practice limit or to have to feel like it's doing anything. And and so we do struggle. And so since we can't lament, and we can't just weep with people, and we can't cry to God, I can't be frustrated with God and ask him questions. We think we actually have to fill that space. And I also have come to see, when people are trying to give us answers. It looks like they're trying to help the person, but it's kinda like what you were alluding to there, Rex, often, actually, when we're trying to get people answers, we're trying to help ourselves, right? We're so uncomfortable. It's just to make us feel better. So who cares if it's actually true? It makes us feel better. Yeah, but it may be hurting the other person. Right? Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, I
15:55 can see that. And I've been working at a church for even currently still on staff at a church. And especially in the younger years, when someone would talk. I was trying to come up with answers, but exactly for that reason I was coming in France or so I could walk away being like, I think I answered that pretty well.
16:13 Yeah. And, and, and, and even when you're ministering to people, you know, one of the things you have to learn, they will even ask you for answers, right? They'll ask like, why did God do this? And if you're not, if you don't have enough pastoral experience, you think they're literally asking you, and you should answer, but it's a trick question. No matter how good their landmines everywhere, and you don't know it, and even if they like your answer for a time, six months later, they may come back furious. So you just, it doesn't matter. Even if they're asking the question. You got to know what you're allowed to answer what you're not. Yeah.
16:51 Yeah. And you highlight two, two things to develop as you're dealing with people going through trials, and that's pastoral sensitivity, and theological enstein. They call it empathy and Orthodox work together. Yeah. How do you with those, how do those two work together and in the development of those two aspects? Yeah.
17:14 Thank you for highlighting I you know, we're torn. Right. Well, there's, we kind of live in a tribalistic time we live in a time that's polarized, though, we just immediately take sides. It's political. It's all these kind of things. And you see it infecting the church. So either you care about truth, or you love people. Right? Those are your apparently your only awesome, right? Yeah. And obviously, you know, we want to step back and go, No, no, no. We need to hear about truth and orthodoxy lowercase O is just actually at its basis, right? worship, it's right. It's rightfully knowing who this God is, and how do we think about him and talk? So in that way, truth matters, right? But, but knowing God and knowing people knowing ourselves is interrelated. And most of us have experienced people who know a lot of quote unquote, right answers, or good theology, who were beast, who were animals who are just treat people so cruelly. And I actually think it's not just them being bad, I think it shows some problems in their theology, some misunderstanding, right? So I do think, I think, kind of theology apart from pastoral sensitivity can just breed kind of aloof, intellectual ism, or coldness or something like that. But kind of pastoral care without the ology good theology, kind of can develop just to be reduced to a mere psycho psychology, right? And I want us to be very thoughtful, psychologically, and informed and wise. But we need these together, we need to kind of navigate them and they should feed each other. Right? So some of the challenges in seminary and you guys can probably talk about, sometimes in our seminaries, we train people to read well, and to think well, and to learn about the, but we don't train them how to, like interpret people, right? And if you can, you can interpret a text and if you don't interpret people, it's gonna be a disaster, and you're preaching and you're counseling. But we do that a lot.
19:25 Yeah, I don't think I actually was well served by either the seminaries in that in that space, there were very very different places one was pretty fundamentalist, and one was, guess what the fundamentalist would consider pretty liberal. But you're right. And and I, I value my education in both of them sort of different reasons, but I really did not get that at either one of them. Yeah, I think we've struggled with that. For sure.
19:52 Yeah. And with the kind of developing theology and again, yeah, holding that holding that Balance. You used an analogy for theology, which I really loved. You said theology is more like farming, then, you know, stacking doctrinal bricks on to each other. And I'd love to, you know, as a person who teaches theology and a lot of times intro to theology, I love to explore that a little bit more like theology as farming. And and what we can gain from that analogy.
20:28 Yeah, I know that. You know, and like you teaching, especially introductory theology, kind of thinking through this through the years, I saw some of the problems when trying to imagine that theology is just kind of learning a truth and stacking that as a brick, and then the next brick and the next brick. And that is a quick path to using theology as a weapon, rather than that which cultivates worship. Right. And I think theology is meant to cultivate worship. And in that sense, the garden imagery, the farming imagery works a lot, you you're tilling the soil, you're paying attention, with the hope that it will flourish, that this will be that there will be growth that there will be you know, health. And, and we've also seen people who read books about stuff, but never enter into the lives of people, it's a very different thing. You have to get your hands, you can't just read about gardening, you actually have to get your hands in the soil to kind of figure out what it feels like and what it needs.
21:30 Yeah. I love that. And there's some of that image of, of getting in and because it is, I think, and sometimes it can feel like that in, in evangelical communities and in those doctrinal classes is just like, here's the right answer, and stacked on this. And then now you can refute arguments against those against those blocks.
21:53 And I yeah, I love it. I mean, I tell students, like if you've come into class, thinking, Okay, I've got Catholic now, and for this semester, for this year, he's going to tell me what I need to think what's the right answer? Probably, you're just going to be frustrated right here, right? I mean, I have I am drawing on the tradition, I want you to learn the Christian tradition. But it's more complicated. And you know, but but here's the here's the thing. With the more organic imagery, it makes sense. Well, let me back up and say this way, when a friend or someone you care about is having trouble. When you think of doctrine like bricks, you're just it's you can watch it happen. People are listening until they click, they go, Okay, I know what went. Right, right, which brick they need. But But the truth is, it is more like gardening, where you have to really see the soil and all the soil is different. And even one part of the garden that gets more shade than another is different. So it's not, and this freaks out evangelicalism. It's not the same answer to everybody. Yeah, right. I mean, there's a reason that Paul is emphasizing, you know, the significance of faith and not works, and James is emphasizing, get your butt up and do something, right. They're not a you know, you and I all of us know, they're not contradicting each other. But they are applying this biblical truth in different ways to the particular audiences and what they needed to hear. But we struggle with that for some reason. Yeah.
23:23 I teach a class. It's kind of a capstone of the general education here, but it's it's called Christian perspective, which it's a hodgepodge of a whole lot of stuff. But it's basically just, you know, helping students think christianly about stuff. And and that's, that's it's very difficult sometimes for students to not want to know what the right answer is that they're supposed to think about something. And the fact that I try really hard not to let them know, you know, what I think about in your opinion, because it comes out, sometimes it might get in my face, there's just sort of hide that. But that that that really frustrates folks, because you know, that we're just used to the, we're not used to tilling the soil and having to do all that hard work, basically. Right.
24:10 Yeah. And, you know, just I and I love that you're putting, because we also whether we're 18 years old, or 68 years old, we confuse knowing a sentence that is true with knowing the truth. Right. So, so for example, there are people who will say I affirmed the sovereignty of God. And then I'll have, you know, a little lady has been in church for decades. And she'll say, I don't believe in the sovereignty of God, it sounds like because they're worried she's worried about something she's heard about that, you know, maybe you've reduced everything to puppet. But then when you pray with these two people individually, the person who says they believe in the sovereignty of God, it is as if everything rests upon their shoulders, and they need to do it all. And this little old woman who denies the sovereignty of God is clearly utterly dependent upon God recognizes his reign in role. And you're like now who actually understands the sovereignty of God? And that's very hard for us because we think, Well, no, as long as you say the sentence, you got it. And that's, you know, sometimes I tell people, we're always worried that our theology will be better than our lives. And I think that can happen. But I think it's also true that sometimes our theology, our lives are better than our theology. Right? That woman is testifying to the fact that that God reigns and rules in his sovereign, even if she doesn't use the words. So
25:37 no, after after write that down. I think I can weaponize that against my wife. As a weapon. That's great. Yeah. Yeah, that's perfect. I like and I heard that you were kind of quietly said to my wife,
25:52 very particular audience. That weapon against that is such a, that's such a great way to look at it, that sometimes our lives can be better than our theology, right? We live in that can go for that can go for sometimes I think for people who don't believe in God, sometimes their lives are better than what they would maybe say. Things You know, they do think that there is purpose and that there is, you know, something look for right and, and yeah, way we live.
26:28 No, that's, that's actually Nietzsche's whole point. And I know Nietzsche's really problematic for us as Christians, but I actually I kind of mentioned to him, you told me Yeah, because, because his whole point is exactly what you're saying that, that Nietzsche says, you guys, the whole God is dead thing. And I did talk about that, and embodied hope. But you guys are pretending that God is dead and saying that he doesn't exist, but you're still pretending that your lives have meaning and purpose. You're alive. you're experiencing the benefits of this divine transcendent, meaning, yeah, even though you're denying it, and the real and so Nietzsche says, You guys aren't ready to be courageous enough to just embrace the darkness. But as Christians, we're gonna want to say, isn't that great? rather than getting mad Murthy isn't a great your life has meaning. Right? And that there are these things. But let's ask why. You know, where does that come from? Yeah, I think you're right to bring that up that it's not just Christians we're talking about with that. Now.
27:27 I think so with this, with this topic of pain and suffering, and maybe especially with 2020. In, in light and, and from the pandemic to racial injustice and to the fires in California, that continued to rage. How would you, how would you maybe guide us and how to work and help people going through pain and suffering? It's pretty apocalyptic out here, actually. Yeah. Yeah, pretty. Yeah. It's tough. I mean,
28:05 I was on a call with someone the other day and yeah, when you start listing COVID, and racial injustice and economic uncertainties and difficulties and, you know, the fires and that it does apocalyptic actually feels like the right word, to be honest. So I mean, it part of it is what I was mentioning earlier, I actually think practices that we as a church have neglected would be helpful for us like lament. I think the fact that as evangelicalism we're not very familiar with limit, and especially corporate limit, has made things like social injustice, really difficult for us to handle. Yeah, because we're not used to communal ideas. We're not used to. We're not used to saying, I'm really sorry, I can't believe that if I didn't personally do it. And, and, you know, I understand that thinking, but just when we know that's far more American than it is biblical. Well, I mean, you have communities, you know, Isaiah with me, and I'm a man of unclean lips and with people. But I mean, the idea is far more communal than we're comfortable with. But all that to say also, then, yeah, the the expression of lament is really important. And to be able to to lament when you yourself, don't feel it, right. I still have my job. But when my friends at church don't and they've lost it, and it's really affecting things. Can I weep with those who weep? Yeah, right. And, and it's not my job, but when one part of the body hurts, we all hurt.
29:44 So are there traditions that do that better than others? I was just thinking about that. I'm trying to have you know, I know my my tribe doesn't do that very well.
29:53 Yeah. Well, I honestly think I think this is a great example where the black church in America has actually been great at this. If, and it's it's one of the problems of our ignorance about the tradition. So so for example, and I talk something about this, nobody Whoa, but they have a whole tradition of witness. Right. And a lot of white evangelicalism, when we say witness, we instantly and only think about sharing your faces and it really important, very biblical. But there is another sense of witness both biblically and experientially that the black church emphasizes. And that is, so if, if someone's preaching, or someone's giving a testimony in that setting, often you'll hear someone in the congregation is shot witness, you know, or someone say, I need a witness, or you know that, you know, that kind of thing. And the, quote unquote, witness they're talking about is always twofold. And I think it's quite beautiful. On the one hand, when they're talking about witness, they are bearing witness to just how difficult things are for that person or that situation. Right? So that person's telling the story about being abandoned by their spouse, and having lost their job and being whatever it is. And the congregation, is there bearing witness insane? You're not crazy. This is as heartbreaking as you think it is. Yeah. And that is such a gift to that person, right? But then the flip side is, they will also bear witness because there's the person saying, and then this happened, and then this happened. But if you pay attention, they will often say, and God did this in the midst of it, or God was very gracious to me, or God really gave me this song. And we struggle with that, because we think, either it's really bad, or God is there. And so it's really good. Yeah. And that twofold witness of, let's be honest about just how bad things are, and be honest, that God is still good and present. And so I think we have a lot to learn from the black church in this, but we don't take that as a white shirt, we don't tend to take that posture of humility, and we're here to learn. Well,
32:06 that works well with that with a metaphor of, of theology, you know, and farming, basically. Because in order to do that, well, you have to get your hands dirty. Yeah. And and that's difficult for some of us.
32:19 Yeah. And it relates to, you know, in America, and whether you want to debate whether this is historically or whatever, accurate, there's a lot of way of intelligence here, like, we're now getting persecuted, we're in the minority. This is it, you know, what do we do? How do we be Christians? You know, we don't have people in office or whatever, which is bringing up all kinds of other. But anyways, like, what do we do? And I've had lakh brothers and sisters, who are Evan jellicle, who say, like, hey, we've been doing this for a long time, maybe right? You could actually learn from us on what it's like to not have power and still try and be faithful. Right? Yeah, right. There are examples for us to look at, that we can learn from. So sorry, I was so excited.
33:10 Such a good connection to everything that's happening right now, and particularly in the racial injustice, arena and understanding Lemaire and being able to stand with our fellow brothers and sisters, in being able to learn that with a community in all of these, in all these settings, I think that's, that's really helpful.
33:33 Yep. And it can betray the fact when we struggle with it. You know, we'll say we're saved by grace and all these kinds of things. But our inability to be empathetic and to lament can betray the fact that actually, even though we would never admit it, we think things are going well for us because of what we've done. And it actually betrayed some pretty ugly things in us that are right below the surface. And so we've been, you know, we're like, oh, I'm sorry, you're hurting. But in our mind, we're like, well, if you just stop eating gluten, or if you just got a list of 100 things, yeah, there can be some truth to those. But when you're on the receiving end of that, it actually can be quite cruel, because it is a sense of, actually, I deserve this. This is a punishment. I just tried harder, you know, that kind of thing. And there can be a cruelty to that.
34:31 I actually see that that is one. It could be a healthy byproduct, if we would let it be but certainly a byproduct with a pandemic is it seems to be stripping bare a lot of things. Yeah. From from my own folk, even in my own life. And right. Yeah, I'd rather not have been stripped away. But yeah, probably need to be. Yeah. Amen.
34:53 That's great. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the show Kelly. And, and the way that I feel like the principles in your book and just the things you talk about in the book can highlight with pain and suffering and it can you talk in the book, you're looking at physical ailments, and kind of the chronic pain is that Crux, but like you just did here, it can apply to so many different areas in our life. And, and in current issues today. And, and it really highlighted for me, I think that's been something really important the way they're the connection between our theology and our actual life and how we live that. And like you're saying, We there's often a disconnect between those two things. And, and part of maybe with this show, and having you on the show is, is helping people think through that that theology does influence maybe how we act not just gives us the right answers for the, you know, the entrance exam with St. Peter. But it actually teaches us men how to live and, and mixing empathy with that right doctrine and getting that blend. And it's not just one or the other.
36:10 All right, that's Yeah, I know, we're out of time. But even, like, right now, with the pandemic, what's been revealed, for a lot of us as individuals and communities, is really what do you think about God? What do you think he's like? How do you think he works? How do you think he views you? Yeah, that's all theology, whether or not someone knows that word or not. Right? What do you think about God and how he, and yeah, and telogen? Yeah. And so all of a sudden, a lot of us got meaning from all the activities we did in our life, and they're stripped away. And we feel like God is disappointed with us. We know like, we don't know. And it reveals kind of like you're saying, it reveals what there. And that's an opportunity for beautiful repentance from life for joy. And we shouldn't be scared of it. It's a good thing. We're all like, you know, all three of us. I know, it hurts. But we're all theologians. It's not a question. If, if you're one, it's just Are you a good one? Right. And that's not about an exam. That's just about life. You guys, thank you.
37:19 Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the show. And hey, we look forward to maybe having you back on the show. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
37:53 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is a premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex highlight two powerful Christian voices of the 20th century: Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.
TRANSCRIPT 0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And Rex On today's episode, we're gonna highlight two American writers, okay, bankers, who also both happened to be Catholic, who have have made an impact on American culture. But maybe you're not as well known within the evangelical community. So we want to highlight them today. Okay.
0:27 And and these are two people that I for one had never heard of until I got into college, actually. And maybe even after that, I sort of grew up in a Catholic free world. And Ryan, I would never even know these people. I'm only to find out like, I found a whole lot of things out that they're like world famous, and I just had never heard of. So.
0:49 Yeah, so we're excited to dive into kind of a story of Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. So hope you enjoy.
1:02 Rex in 2015, Pope Francis actually became the first pontiff to address a joint session of the United States Congress, which I think is pretty cool. I remember that I remember watching him. And if you if you haven't read, I'm sure you probably have you may, you may be already like posted on the wall in your office, I don't know. But if you haven't read the full transcript of that speech is actually extremely powerful, and covers a lot of ground. And he in the speech, he highlights for Americans that he's been kind of deeply influenced by and who have influenced the world. And those four Americans are Abraham Lincoln. Check. Yeah, Martin Luther King, Jr. Check. Dorothy Day Who? Yeah, who I'm sure there were members of Congress are like, well, and Thomas Merton, huh. And, yeah, so it's really interesting that those are the four. Yeah, and exactly your response, right. It's like, we know, we know the story in the folklore of Abraham Lincoln. And, and we know MLK, and the work that he did, and, and Francis references both of them in their, in their messages, their messages of freedom. and and the the dream for justice, that MLK had that, that Francis said, He's still influenced by that dream, and is still driven by that dream. And then he, yeah, he's like, but I, but I also have to reference to maybe lesser known Americans, and endorsed today, so So today on the show, like you and I've kind of talked about this, we're really just want to kind of maybe let our listeners know, a little bit about Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, because in the evangelical community that both you and I grew up in, it was kind of a, we didn't hear a lot about them. And maybe, particularly because they came from the Catholic tradition, and then there was there was this kind of division, that has been kind of narrowing, right, like, as has been lessening, which I think has been really good. And, and, and both of their stories are actually really interesting. They have some some unique similarities. Right. Right. And then they also have I mean, I think there's a lot of application for us. I definitely think that, Jeff, I want to kind of, kind of dive into maybe Dorothy Day first. Okay, when when did you first kind of maybe hear about Dorothy Day? Or how did that you
3:39 know, I sort of don't remember I, I want to say when I was like introduced to her writings, but honestly, you know, I'm probably thinking of Thomas Merton sort of Dorothy Day when I'm talking about writings I she wrote the long loneliness or a long biography, which is great and haunting died. Oh, yeah. It's amazing. And if you know about her life, which I'm sure we'll we'll talk about, you can see our literary associations Also, you can see right, we come up with the title like that, but yeah, I don't really remember I I remember knowing about Martin a little bit just, um, well, honestly, just when I started getting interested in, you know, the religious history of America. Yeah. And one thing I do when I, when I teach a course, that we teach every year here, history of religion in America, or every two years now, one thing that I'm wanting to do is just introduce my students to these people that I had never heard of that actually are really important in right, especially in the 1950s. It's like, this guy's one of the most famous Christian Jamboree figures in the 50s that you've never heard of, you know, right on the Samaritan, and probably the only Well, I tried to make a little, you know, fun of the fact that nobody's ever heard of the trap as either it's like he's he's probably the most famous monk in In America, probably the only famous monk in America. Thomas Merton. Right, but he certainly was. And yeah, it's good to know who he is.
5:10 Yeah, it was and that would be Yeah, with the the writing side too. I mean, I think I was introduced to Martin before Dorothy Day, and now would have been kind of in college in that in a in a time of my life when I was longing for a deeper version of spirituality and her
5:29 story so cool as you know, I grew up where you always had your what BC and I don't know ad stories you when you when you sit around this in the Yeah, in the circle and youth group and you know, tell your, your testimony, right and write good kids like me would always be embarrassed because everybody else had these great druggie testimonies, and it's like, pick something up. But yeah, but she definitely did not have to make anything up neither to Thomas Merton. No, but Dorothy Day, her story is just amazing. It's just
5:58 yeah. And I think the first time I actually saw her name, or you know, it kind of maybe heard her name in college and I was hearing Merton but you know, never heard a lot. Never heard a lot about her. And then when I moved at Sacramento, actually, and I was volunteering at loaves and fishes, which is a Catholic homeless outreach in downtown Sacramento. They had a Dorothy Day room. And that was where their orientation was. And I was like, Oh, yeah, or Dorothy Day, and you know, and then started looking up and, and there, there used to be a hospitality house, a Catholic Worker, hospitality house, here in Sacramento. And I know there's some worker there. So that was kind of my entry into Oh, I want to want to get to know more about Dorothy Day. And like you said, her story is pretty amazing because she did not grow up in a necessarily religious home. Right. She often spoke that God wasn't wasn't really mentioned, they were kind of maybe nominal, a pice couples, right, but they didn't, you know, they didn't even really go every Christmas type thing that was just not really mentioned. And she grew up most of her life in New York.
7:09 But she does have a California connection that she does. She is alive during the San Francisco earthquake, which is Yeah, he's a little kid during the day. Yeah. But that's kind of fascinating. And speaking about first time you've ever seen Dorothy Day or, you know, at least a picture of her I think was when I saw a picture of her with sesor Chavez and the United farmworkers marching that had to be new the life that she's there now front row along with sesor Chavez. And, and that definitely was California, too.
7:37 Right. Yeah. There's a picture of her that I think is the last time she got arrested. And we'll, we'll get into the hacker was in 1973. And she was with Cesar Chavez in the Central Valley. Right here. So yeah, she has kind of a unique kind of Northern California connection. And yeah, she was born late 1800s, like 1897. And, and live till 1980. So actually lived a pretty long, full life. And but then, but yeah, as a little kid, right after the great earthquake of San Francisco, her family moves back to Long Island. Because it was it was just going to be so hard to rebuild, honestly, in San Francisco, so their father just saw the destruction and saw that and so they moved back. And she kind of grew up in, in this kind of New York intellectual, you know, it wasn't necessarily her family, but she kind of started running in those circles,
8:36 right and faint with some famous folks. I mean, you know, there's stories of hers Yeah. And down I'll say Broadway but Right, right. arm and arm, you know, drunk at night with with people that later on become like, yeah, I mean, Dorothy Day becomes famous, but in her own circles, but people that everybody's heard of,
8:56 yeah, she was she was she actually talks about, she was good friends with Eugene O'Neill, right. To play. Right. And, and actually, it was Eugene O'Neill, who started to pique her interest about Catholicism that he would she kind of talked about, like some nights and, and this is great. I think, Brian Lucas, he used to teach at Jessup and we've done a podcast together about old books he used to. He used to own my favorite used bookstore in the entire world, which was down in San Diego. It's called Adams Avenue books. And him and I were talking about Dorothy Day, and he referenced like, she used to hang out in the village like he said, and she kind of had like a hard a hard drinking, hard smoking, swearing, you know, 20s and she used to hang out with Eugene O'Neill in a in a bar called the hellhole the hell in Hell's Kitchen. And she used to say at night sometimes like on Tuesday on cold winter's night, when you do nail, would you Jean No Neil would be drunk, he would start reciting the poem, The Hound of heaven. And he would talk and she said he was just impacted by he, he had, he kind of had this like, deep spiritual search that he was going through. And he grew up Catholic and kind of had that. And she said, that was a time when it actually didn't turn her off to religion or Catholicism, it actually piqued her interest of like, maybe, maybe in the sense of like, Yeah, what I'm searching for something similar to what O'Neill's searching for, or maybe has found and rejected. And then she also talked about a moment when she was a little, a little kid, probably, I think, like nine, nine or 10. And she ran to a friend's house to, to call him, you know, to come play, and a little 10 in their house, you know, in New York. And the mom had just finished dishes and was kneeling in the kitchen, praying. And she remembers Haman. And the mom just kind of looked up and said, oh, they're already outside and then went back to praying. He said that always stuck with her. Like, like her just that sense of like, you just finished the morning, breakfast dishes. And now you're praying and and she she brought that up in, In her autobiography, Dorothy Day did. And so it is really interesting.
11:28 She was quite the Bohemian and yeah, folks was, who was the the guy with ended up? Actually, she flirted with communism for a while, sort of everybody probably did write circles. Yeah. And interestingly enough, even though I guess in some senses as an ideal ideology, especially an atheistic ideology, she ends up projecting that but as far as some of the purported aims of Marxism, you know, in action, right, you know, right, the sort of justice sort of issues with that she's certainly carried with her all of her life and actually was criticized by especially conservative Catholics because of that.
12:09 Yeah. And that'll be Yeah, that kind of her connection because yeah, a lot of those a lot of that early 20th century kind of New York intellectuals there was a there was a strong kind of Marxist right theme going through because it was kind of a reaction against the unfettered capitalism that was happening in you know, you just post Industrial Revolution. You have you have kind of factories popping up and you have kind of these worker issues now kind of popping up and you have Upton Sinclair's the jungle, written in 1906, about the Meatpacking industry and
12:52 becomes governor of California, I was actually reading the day again, I was like, Oh my gosh,
12:57 right. And, and definitely kind of a strong and just a strong reaction to, to, to a capitalism that is left to its own devices that literally is just about consumption and doesn't care for the worker or safety, or even the quality of, of the meat industry. I mean, there's up to declare and endorsee de was really influenced by Sinclair and and becomes friends becomes friends with him. But yeah, that's something so now in that world, it was kind of there was a lot of these kind of Marxist socialist themes. And and obviously that is before some of those conversations avenues right before World War One, right. And then and then clearly before World War Two, and and then kind of
13:47 she's she's definitely knee deep in Bohemia there. At least Yeah. Amy lifestyle down. In fact, um, there's a movement. I guess the official word you would say, a cause for her canonization in the Catholic Church now. And I think we were talking once and you mentioned one of her most famous quotes about when people would call her a saint later on life. What What did she say after she said,
14:12 she said, Don't call, don't call me a saying I don't want to be written off that either. I
14:17 don't want to be she may not have any choice. But if that actually happens, she would probably be the first saint at least in my knowledge base. That would be ironically, a saint in the Catholic church who actually had an abortion. Right as early on in her life, you know, yeah, before Christ's life she, um, she did.
14:41 Yeah. Yeah, now would be and that would be, I think, a really powerful story of redemption, and certainly wouldn't be it. And grace because she, she's in the canonization process. She's She's in the process where she is now termed a servant of God, which is A an actual designation on the road to to sainthood. So yeah, that would be that would be really interesting and and I hope that that would be a Yeah, that story of redemption could be highlighted in that because because she has yes he has abortion early and then she gets pregnant again and keeps her daughter I Tamar. Yeah. Which Yeah, I wonder if there's a connection there with the Hebrew Bible Tamar if she's, and it's actually the birth of Tamar that causes Dorothy to move towards the Catholic Church. She wants to baptize her daughter so that she said that her daughter wouldn't flounder the way that she had floundered. But her common law,
15:47 I guess, sort of a common law marriage she was in with Yeah, I guess foster batting hammer. Yeah, yeah. And he, you know, he was sort of an anarchist in a way and just wouldn't you know, everybody, yeah. Would you get married? Yeah. Yeah. But that's not really the breakup was that he just couldn't support her or right, or move to faith, although they, you know, apparently kept in contact for the rest of their lives. But yeah. Fascinating. So once she does make that leap to faith, and sort of, you know, even if it's sort of a circuitous route to it, why should we? Why is Dorothy Day? I mean, there's a lot of people that actually, you know, have stories like hers that Yeah, but they're not famous, like Dorothy Day. What did she do?
16:31 Yeah, wouldn't she she was in similar to Merton. I mean, she was writing and mostly in journalism. And she had kind of worked at different papers and and foundered, and I think is in the early 30s. She meets this guy named Peter muran. Yeah. And, and Peter Moran. I heard he was a, he was a mixture of St. Francis of Assisi. And a Charlie Chaplin character from a silent film. Yeah, this is that one biography strange guys. Yeah. And, and he had this vision of creating a movement within the Catholic Church, that that, that fought for fought against poverty, that fought for the rights of workers, that that moved to, to open what were called houses of hospitality, where, where people could get fed. I mean, these were kind of soup kitchens. And so in their early 30s, she formed that and this is going to be it's called the Catholic Worker movement
17:39 worker movement. And they had a little newspaper, too. I think they have a
17:42 little newspaper in the or something Penny cafe called the Catholic Worker,
17:46 and also bought a farm I think in upstate New York to actually get some of these folks that are just in the in the Bowery, you know, in nature for a little while. Yeah,
17:55 they they did yeah, that comes a little later. And that was kind of Peter Moran's vision was to have this kind of communal living space out, you know, out in the country working, you know, with your hands. Now, it's funny in the, in the biographies, they talk about how it wasn't, it wasn't always Oh, for sure. Clean transition, you know, because even Peter Moran wasn't a farmer was exactly it was more of that ideal.
18:23 But transcendentalists actually kind of going out to nature and not having a clue as to actually survive.
18:29 Right? Yeah. What do you do when you're out here? But that's really where and many people say that she was like she was born to start the Catholic Worker movement with being around I get really she really comes to life when that and she finds her voice with the Catholic Worker this this newspaper that I think is still available today still penny a cop still a penny a copy. And, and started there in the 30s. So kind of right. During the Depression, yeah, during the Great Depression. So they started those houses of hospitality to to basically soup kitchens, I mean, soup lines, and then people would live there. And then different houses of hospitality popped up throughout the US kind of following her lead, and Peter Moran's lead. And, and it was really through the paper, that she started to have that kind of voice of speaking out against poverty, especially like institutionalized poverty, and, and, and kind of speaking to workers rights.
19:36 It becomes sort of a social justice Crusader in the best sense of the term. He ends up becoming sort of famous for that. Yeah, actually. Yeah. And one of my favorite stories, actually, and I think we've talked about this before to one of my favorite stories about Dorothy Day. And actually, it's one of my favorite stories about anybody was, she was already famous she was in New York is probably was in the 70s or something and a German journalist was going to do some sort of feature on her. And so he has this appointment, I guess with her. And he comes down early to a Catholic Worker house. And Dorothy Day sitting in a kitchen, and she's talking. She's deep in conversation with a homeless woman. And the reporter comes in, and she kind of acknowledges that he's there. And then she goes on basically talking to this homeless woman, or mainly listening to her ramblings for another half hour or so. And then finally, she remembers the reporters there. Yeah. And she turns to him and says, I'm sorry to keep you waiting. Which one of us? Do you want to talk to? Which one? Are you here to talk to? And I just love that, you know, yeah, actually, you know, put the homeless woman on the same level as she was her story's just as interesting as mine. Which one of us do you want to talk to? And I love dogs like that. I want to be that way. Right? Not most of the time, right. Want to be that way?
20:58 I think that's Yeah, that is one thing that made Dorothy Day so unique, too, is that she, she was very focused on not just speaking out against poverty and and speaking out for workers rights. She committed to a life of poverty, run and committed to live with those who she served and extolled the dignity of the folks that she lived with and exactly served with. And she often I mean, in that ruffled some feathers in the Catholic Church, when she would see other when she would see other priests or nuns doing work. And then going home, there was a story she was staying with, with some sisters in an account and they would all go out and kind of work during the day in different kind of social justice and, and, and different volunteer places and then come back. And at dinner one night, Dorothy asks, like, why don't you just stay with them? Where you live? And it was kind of everyone's like, Oh, yeah, that you know, and so I think it was her commitment to, to being with the poor, not just being an advocate for the poor, but actually being with the poor. And then being a voice and being a voice that, that was heard. And, and she also was, was a very strong pacifist as well. And so she, interestingly enough, she did a little bit of nurse training at the end of World War One, right during the Spanish flu pandemic. And so she was working in a hospital during like, in 1918, like during, during the Spanish flu pandemic. And so she had a little bit of that in her background, and then obviously, when it came to even World War Two, and that she was kind of a pretty vocal opponent to war, which took a lot of courage during which did Yeah, yeah. And it didn't didn't make her a lot of friends.
23:07 It's interesting, though, so so in God's economy, a book I remember reading a long time ago, because we all had to read it. When I went to seminary, it was called the upside down Kingdom actually found it in the Jessup library. Yeah, guy named Kraybill, I believe, so I read it, and not quite as impressed with it now as I was back, I mean, mainly because I just totally agree with the message. So it's not right, right. Yeah, not anything new. But the books entitled The upside down kingdom. And so God's economy is not like our economy. And so interestingly enough, you know, her critics who probably at the time thought of themselves more, I don't know, influential in their circle, right. Then she was obviously thought they had a platform to criticize her. So I, you know, we don't even know who they are. Now. Nobody even knows who their names are. I mean, you could look it up. Yeah. You know, Dorothy days on her way to sainthood. And so right, there you go. God's economy is different.
24:04 Yeah, it is. And she has a, she has a great quote, that I just found that I thought was interesting. And it kind of kind of speaks to that maybe that mid mid 20th century, early 20th century and in US history, and it can be helpful. Now, she said this, she said, when you feed the poor, you are called a saint. When you ask why they are poor, your call to communists? Yeah, I remember. And it's and it's just, yeah, that, you know, it's kind of like, people are like, Oh, that's good to to feed the poor and that, but then to get into issues of why they're poor. Right. And that starts to get into issues
24:50 that are controversial. Yeah. Today, actually, exactly. The difference between ours is they get involved in social ministry, you know, and then social justice. Just advocacy, which are two things with sort of a similar end, but right, we still struggle with, you know, whether one's even biblical or not. Right.
25:10 And so, and that seems to be Yeah, is really interesting. You mean, you look at the time, she's coming up in the 30s, and the Great Depression, you also have kind of the rise of fundamentalism. Right? You know, and, and that was, was a move in a kind of a rejection of being involved in society and, and social issues. There was kind of this divide. And and I think that's maybe what makes Dorothy Day and people like her so powerful as they dove into those social issues and saw them as spiritual issues and issues of religion as well, that it wasn't just
25:55 that actually is a good transition into the other guy that we want to talk about. Yeah, as you know, he comes from literary circles also in New York, and you're fascinating, you know, before he conversion story as well, and ends up basically retreating from the world, interestingly enough, sort of like in a different way. fundamentalism did for a while in the 30s 40s. Yeah. And then he becomes known later on in his career as an inveterate writer about everything and ends up being associated with a lot of social justice causes himself, right would be the other person that I'd never heard of when I was growing up, who ends up being famous also is a Samaritan.
26:39 And and with Merton, he was a he was about a 15 or so years younger than Rosie day. And, and in his kind of conversion story, or here or that, yeah, conversion story, and then even move into monasticism as captured in his kind of maybe most famous writings, seven story mountain. And that came out in the late 40s. I believe, I've
27:08 never gone out of print. I mean, it's still it's interesting. You can go into bookstores and see, which is it's it's a conversion story, actually. Yeah, conversion story to, I guess, one of the most Catholic of Catholic things you can do if you're going to join the Catholic Church, become a Trappist monk. But yeah, it's never been out of print. Because one reason i think is because Thomas Merton is a writer, he also comes to me, Lou, he's, he's a writer, he's probably a writer almost before he's a monk or before anything else, in some ways. And yeah, you know, there's sort of never an end to Thomas Merton his writings, and it's enjoyable read, because he knows how to ride. Yeah, and he has a lot to say. And, and because of that, he's his appeals pretty wide.
27:55 Yeah. And it's, it's interesting to me, when you look back at his history, even the impact that it had, right away, right, in the late 40s, in the 50s, you know, post war, and you have this kind of trajectory of, of the American economy, and you have all this post war, rebuilding, you know, kind of the mid century American Dream happening, it goes the other way around. Yeah. And he rejects that, and, and goes the other way. And in that story, it becomes maybe so appealing, and it says, you know, one commentator noted that he sent a drove of maybe college students and even former war veterans, to run to monasteries, in in the early 50s. You know, who were also Travis Yeah, who were also kind of seeking, seeking a deeper meaning in life and, and and seeping seeking a different experience. Then,
28:58 sort of that just sort of become an issue with Thomas Merton though because he becomes sort of Thomas Merton trademark are a little bit later on in his life. And yeah, which is really interesting for the Saracens, actually, because they're, you know, cut off. That's actually a harsher form of monasticism than even the Benedictines, right. And yet, you know, he becomes the most famous monk in America. Yeah. Which becomes an issue actually. And it causes issues with him and and his Abbot and his fellow monks for the rest of his life. Although he never ends up rejecting that he has, he has, you know, chances to, and then he doesn't.
29:43 Yeah, and it's interesting that I mean that he kind of goes from New York, he also was studying a little bit at Cambridge and leaves and comes back and then was at Columbia for a little while. Right and He falls
30:00 into some folks that actually sort of lead him interesting enough in in sort of, you know, I don't know, the English department of Colombia, which is where you would not think these people would be end up leading him towards Christianity, which is fast. Yeah.
30:14 And it's really, and maybe both of these stories are kind of Dorothy Day is baptized in the Catholic Church in the late 20s. I think it's like 1927. And then Merton would have been, you know, it would have been sometime in the late 30s, maybe early 40s. And yeah, it is kind of interesting that perhaps, at highlights a different time in, in American history, yeah. And in that where there was still this, this route of, of Christianity and even Catholicism in that, that was it was something should be Yeah, it was an option that was intellectually
31:00 respectable. Option is right, it right. Yeah. I still could attract, like de and meryton in ways that. I guess it still could. Today, but yeah, it's just not so prominent in society is it was simply because religions not not as prominent.
31:21 Yeah. in it. And yeah, it's kind of interesting that it, it was seen as, as an option in that kind of intellectual sense, as well. And that divide really started happening, kind of 40s 50s where it was kind of that religion and the intellectual community. You know, there was this kind of divide driven, especially in maybe evangelical communities. And and to see that, you know, maybe another reason why we didn't hear a lot about Dorothy Day, or Thomas Merton growing up. Because it wasn't Yeah, it wasn't within that. within that circle, that if
32:06 you're looking for a conversion stories, though, I mean, it reminds me as much as anything of of St. Agustin in some ways, yeah, there are bits and pieces of a Gustin and both Dorothy Day story, and now Thomas Merton story, now, but then once he starts writing, American begins writing about everything, and one of the most you know, he's kind of omnivorous in the things that he writes about. But one thing he does do is, he kind of catches the first wave of the movement that introduces contemplative prayer into American spirituality. Yeah, and I think, even today, especially for Protestants that have heard of, or even evangelicals that have heard of Marin, I think that's kind of the intro into his life is his writings on contemplative, contemplative prayer, which had been really influential.
32:55 Yeah. And now, I mean, his, his small book, called contemplative prayer was one of the things that really impacted me in college as I was looking for that deeper spiritual life. Looking for the, the how the spiritual disciplines could take me deeper into relationship with God and, and Merton and I know Merton highly influenced Henry now and, and then
33:23 and basil Pennington, and also Yeah, folks that end up writing a lot about that, right.
33:28 And Merton and Dorothy de influenced each other, they were connected and friends. And, and, and kind of especially, obviously, later in, in days life and then later in Mertens life who has an untimely death. In the late 60s. Yeah,
33:49 he he ends up being electrocuted in a bathtub. Yeah, sure. has to be one's interesting ways to
33:55 go right. In Cambodia. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Oh, in Thailand. Yeah. I think Yeah. Yeah. So what's he doing? What's he doing in Thailand? Yeah. So this is another interesting American mug. Yeah, the 60s is, what's he doing there?
34:11 Yeah. Another interesting twist, I think for Merton is that, you know, really, in the mid to late 60s, Merton started really diving into interfaith dialogue and dialoguing with other contemplatives of other traditions. And, and was was at a conference where there were Christians and and Buddhists and they were talking about their traditions. And, and was there and that and that was, I think, kind of interesting too, because you have within us history. You also in the late 60s have this interest in eastern spirituality, right and, and and a lot of college students making a pilgrimage east and and i Think I think Merton saw that not as a threat but as as another form of dialogue with how to yes as how to move people into a recognition of the spiritual life.
35:14 How can you learn from and this is something that is definitely kind of foreign to, you know, our evangelical genes. And yeah, that's a whole topic for another time. But yeah, you know, how can you have inter religious dialogue? How can you learn from each other without trying to convert each other? Right? If when conversion is, at least for us, I guess is the whole point. Right? You know, it's like, if, you know, if I can't witness to you and get you to agree with me, then why am I even talking with you, actually, which defeats the whole purpose of interreligious dialogue at all, and of course, Martin's not there. He definitely wants to see what we as American, you know, in our tradition, as American Catholics as an American Catholic monk, to teach a group of Buddhist monks and what might they be able to teach me without, you know, somehow dissolving into each other in some amorphous kind of spirituality that does damage to both of our traditions?
36:15 Right. Right. And yeah, and he really led the way and it was not a necessarily a popular not back then either decision at the time,
36:25 just like God zapped him in the bathtub. I've been facetious here, but a lot of people actually thought that's exactly why that happened. Right? You know,
36:35 and it is, and that was in 1968, which is just me as an interesting year. You look at US history and, and other deaths in the US. And in the late 60s, and you're moving into a time of, of social unrest. I mean, you're moving into a time of year at the height of the civil rights movement, but you also have the Vietnam War, escalating as well.
37:03 And yeah, he's involved in all those things. Yeah. Riding on that, right.
37:09 And, yeah, so it's just such an interesting time. And I also saw that Merton was often called the conscious of the conscience of the peace movement, that he was able to speak into it because he was sometimes called a quiet pacifist. Which, which is maybe a version of pacifism, that's just not as vocal or he's a Trappist monk. Maybe that makes sense. He's right. He's not supposed to talk. Yeah. And so I think he was able to kind of speak into the peace movement, also speak wisdom into the peace movement. And so again, with that untimely death, you you see that, that I think America really lost his voice.
38:00 It's so fascinating with folks like, and I'm not trying to lump them together on the same spiritual plane. So please, listeners, do not misunderstand me at all. Yeah. But it is interesting when when people sort of, you know, have an untimely death, and at the top of their influence when they are beginning to move in a different direction, but no one knows where that would have taken them, or whether they would have been able to reconcile that different direction with who they were. And yeah, those questions come up with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, those questions come up with Thomas Merton. I would like to think that they would have remained true to their convictions and just, you know, broadened them.
38:40 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's so we'll never know. Right? Yeah. We'll never know. We won't. But yeah, I think for me, and maybe with this episode is just trying to introduce some people who, who maybe haven't heard that much about Dorothy Day, or Thomas Merton to kind of pique their interest to, to dive into their stories, because because they represent two really influential Christian voices of the 20th century. Right? That that we shouldn't miss. Even if, even if elements of their message make us uncomfortable, that that we need to dive into them. They also represent to I've always been struck by and I think Brian Lewis and I were talking about this on the on the episode do a year ago or so that they were both like, crazy readers. I mean, they read anything they could get their hands on good writers are often good readers. It's so true. Yeah. And and actually, it was for, for Dorothy Day, Dostoevsky was one of her main and and Tolstoy I mean that that Russian literature was a real main influence influence on moving her to speak to him. issues of poverty and you totally have to have Devin dedication to read through it is a journey to get through relative worth, it is worth it to me it is well worth it. Well worth it. It is. And, and so I think they can be, you know, I just think going back to Francis standing, you know, in front of the the US Congress and saying, I mean, look at all of the amazing people that America has produced, right? And saying, let's look at these four people to we may know really well and then to bring in Dorothy Day and her voice and to bring in Thomas Merton and his contemplation and his depth of spirituality,
40:46 they are people worth checking out for Yeah,
40:48 they really are. Yeah, they really are. And, and so we hope maybe we've, we've piqued your interest to dive into their stories more their stories are even even, like more complex than than we can even get into in one episode. And, and I think they also kind of highlight, like you were saying Rex, very, very Augustinian in their in their life and in their conversion. Right. And and so they highlight this, this complexity of let's say, with Dorothy Day, this complexity of sainthood, right? Like you we normally think of saints, maybe as, you know, people who are like angelic figures who were at work since they were six years old. Right, right. And right, diet eight, yeah. Yeah, angelic not human. Right. And not Dorothy Day. Right. Thomas? She was, yeah, she and Thomas Martin were very human. And that's good. Yeah,
41:49 I am, too. And, exactly, um, we can relate to human beings a lot more than we can relate to plaster saints on a dashboard. That's so true. And neither one of them are that.
42:01 Right. And I think one of the thing too, that kind of maybe leads to their, you know, we can just keep running with the sainthood line. morons in Africa. During the day, maybe, but there's something that's true, no. But they, they, they move us to a place of that, that kind of the reality of what it means to be human, and to still be deeply spiritual. And also, they take I think that next step two, they put action to their beliefs. A lot of people yeah, and a lot of with Merton, it was his writings. And and with Dorothy Day, it was the Catholic Worker newspaper and the Catholic Worker movement. Right. And it was her presence had a lot of places to be a voice and to speak up. And I mean, I that's what I think is so powerful of that photo of her at, at, you know, almost age at a thing I don't Well, yeah, she was she would have been late, early 70s. In 1973, in the middle of a hot field, in, in the Central Valley. And to be there on a chair, and setting in front of for, you know, police officers coming out to arrest the protesters who are protesting for workers rights, because of the conditions and the pay. And, in the treatment. Were were notably horrendous, and that
43:36 would be a cause to to Dorothy dsred.
43:38 Yeah. And that she would be there that she would leave the comfort of her own home, the comfort, you know, of that of New York and everything she had there to be a voice. And, and, and I think the other thing too, both with Merton and Dorothy Day, and Dorothy Day was, was very much a part of and she connected with, with Martin Luther King, Jr. On this. Both of them were very committed to non violent, right, direct action that sometimes led to nonviolent civil disobedience, where, you know, I think she was arrested like four times in her life, mostly just for setting somewhere and not moving. And, and, and I think that's another aspect to their story, you know, of that, that direct action actually doing something. That is why we know about her. And we don't necessarily know about all the people who condemned her maybe during that time were mentioned by Pope Francis before Congress right now. Yeah. So we hope you know, we could we could talk all day about pride Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton and there's a lot of wonderful resources out there on them a lot of good biographies of Dorothy Day. Apple just came out this year PBS just did a documentary this year that you can search and and watch. And and I think it's important that that we have these Christian voices that are still very much a part of the what is called the American Century. And and and their voices we need to know and and we need some of the
45:25 issues that they were dealing with are still with us today. And so yeah, there's still there's still a resource for those of us that care about those things. Definitely.
45:34 Well, thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you you do a little reading and maybe some further study. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
46:08 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Derek Martin, director of the Theatre program at Jessup, joins Mark and Rex to discuss the precarious landscape of Christian aesthetics. In other words, the trio discusses why sometimes Christians make bad art.
TRANSCRIPT
0:03 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex on the show today, we have Derrick Martin, kind of the head of our theater program here Jessup. Back on the show, he's a good friend of the show and our critic extraordinary Exactly. And we're going to be talking about Christian aesthetics. Right. And that by aesthetics, we mean, how you appreciate art, and appreciate beauty, appreciate truth. And we're going to be looking at kind of maybe this disparity sometimes between Christian art, and what some people would just call regular art. And as if there's some distinction Exactly. And so we kind of want to explore that, and explore some ways as Christians that we can, that we can be critical, and we can engage. But we can also enjoy art. I think it'll be a great conversation. Hope you enjoy.
1:02 Alright, Rex and Derek. So there was a movie that recently came out, I think it was kind of released kind of, it's kind of been hitting the kind of festival. I haven't seen it in the multiplex yet. No definitely hasn't been in the multiplex yet. Haven't haven't seen at least around here, haven't seen around here maybe have to drive over to San Francisco to see it. But it is a movie is called faith based the movie. And it is a spoof, or a parody on Christian films, made by to two actors, wrote it, Luke Barnett, and then Tanner Thomason, and it is it kind of follows them. And it actually has some, some pretty big star, some comedians in it, Margaret chosen it. And it follows them they want to get in the movie business, but they just been having flop after flop. And then they realize, or they get instruction actually from I think Jason Alexander. So from Seinfeld, fame, another, he gives them the idea that they could make a faith based film, because even if it's a terrible movie, it'll still Christians will still buy it. So that's kind of the whole premise of and then the movie they create is just outlandish. And it kind of has all of these elements that, but it's a really interesting critique of kind of Christian film. And I think we could even pull it back and kind of Christian art, you know, because it's kind of this idea that, hey, even if it's bad art, Christians will still buy exactly a commentary on whether it's, it's, you know, fair or unfair about Christian taste,
2:49 right. And the interesting thing about that whole thing is that we I mean, just from a marketing standpoint, you know, every like, I don't know, 10 years or so Hollywood, discovers that Christians go to the movies, right? Yeah. And then they forget about it. And then about 10 years later, they'll they'll discover it again. And so we'll, you know, there'll be stuff that's marketed to us, right, because we're a demographic and we are a pound demographic. Right. You know, it's kind of hard to be thought of as a interest group and a demographic I guess we are.
3:20 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that the studios have started to come up with face faith based sections of their studios, because the demographic has deep pockets and actually can fund entire studio. Right. So that's kind of an interesting, there is a very much an economic piece at play.
3:41 Yeah. And it's kind of and that's where I think this movie kind of highlights both of those. Exactly. They want to make a buck. Yeah, there's there's a economic side of it. But then it also seems to highlight and that's kind of what we want to talk today about, you know, in an episode, we kind of want to look at Christian aesthetics, right, like, what, what, what makes good art what, what makes, or how can we approach kind of aesthetic appreciation? And and the question seems to be at least within, you know, the last maybe 100 years, maybe even shorter, maybe last 50 years of Christian art seems to be that, that we haven't been making the most top quality art. What makes you think that I know and I'm not? And again, I don't think it's it's meant to be critical or, or or judgmental. I guess it I think it is meant to be critical. But it does seem to be I mean, it kind of begs that question. It's like, hey, yeah, Christians do go to the movies, right? And we do. But but it also can be I mean, it's kind of like I mean, even pop music, kind of sometimes pop music. People just follow a formula and they can make money doesn't necessarily mean it's the greatest music that has ever been written. But that seems to be happening within the church and so won't come To explore that, like, what do you think some reasons for? For maybe Christian art? Not always kind of producing the most aesthetically pleasing?
5:11 Well, you know, I, I think there are there are a couple of issues at play. But I think one of the main issues if I was gonna put it together is that Christianity is not a genre. It's a worldview. Oh, yeah. And we've created it into this very artificial genre. Yeah. And I think that's one of the main reasons I think another reason and it plays into that, is that, you know, you look at propaganda. And a lot of times what Christian art is, is a, like a movie, sometimes a song painting, whatever, that then a message is applied to it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. not recognizing the fact that a work of art already has a message, or implicitly built into it. Right. Right. And, and I think it for me, what would be better is instead of I mean, I think Listen, a when you're, when you're talking about poor quality stuff, it's very easy, especially if you're me, who talks about Christian aesthetics all the time and deals with this? And yeah, has been fighting for quality stuff everywhere. poor quality stuff everywhere. The reality is that it's not just a Christian. Yeah, that's not exclusively a Christian problem. It is true. I think that's important to be fair. Yeah. Yeah, I think that is fair. But on the other side, you go, Okay, well, if we believe excellence is a value to God, and our work should be excellent. Then, in my estimation, the best work coming out of the arts field should be coming out of
6:50 Christians should Yeah, should be should be ahead of the head of the game instead of following, following along behind exam chasing fads. What one way to talk about that is, I I'll ask my students, sometimes, when we're talking about this stuff is like, does this confessional intent override artistic quality? which is sort of another way of saying they can be a crappy movie, a crappy song, a crappy piece of artwork, or whatever. But if the message is somehow I don't know, honor honoring Jesus, right, yeah, then that sort of okay. Yeah. And it's really interesting, the theological weight we put in, in our artistic sensibilities, because that'll happen to right even in different sort of strains of Protestantism. So, you know, mainline Protestantism, for lack of a better word, we kind of know what we're talking about, has often sort of elevated classical art or the classical arts is most glorifying to God. And, and, and then sort of evangelical Christianity has sort of gone the popular route. Right? Right. And, and both of them will basically, you know, take potshots at each other, for not actually, you know, honoring God with what they're doing on one side, it's like, well, you know, what's he singing this hymn? If it's a great art song, but nobody can sing it? Maybe it's interesting, musically, but if nobody can see in the congregation, what do you do? Right, right. Yeah. And on the other side, it's like, well, you know, you're singing the same five words, and two chords, and every single song you're saying, so that the battle just goes back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. And they put theological weight on it. It's like, once glorifying God and what's not,
8:36 you know, when we, when we talk in, in some of my classes about aesthetics and doing aesthetic analysis, as a Christian, how do you approach art? You know, one thing I talk about is value theory, which is basically the concept that if you look at the aesthetics of something, you can then assume the values behind those things is every aesthetic choice comes out of a value or belief. In turn, you can also see where there's aesthetic, or value theory dissonance by looking, you know, so I once went to a church, it had kind of mustard colored walls on the inside. It was a small, you know, 70% evangelical church. And I grew up in that church. Come on. All right, well, next it had you know, I'm kind of curtains that on the windows that looked like they took an 80 year old woman's dress and cut them into curtain. That was my grandma's dress. I'm gonna I'm gonna continually Yeah. And then it had pews that were broken, but they had to be there because there are pews. And they they made a statement once where they said, We want this church to be the most kid friendly church. Oh, yeah. Right. And I went, well, you know, you have a dissonance issue and we're missing some aspects. Right. And I think that that is that's that's kind of neat. It's an easy tool. It's a relatively easy tool that anyone can use. The hard part is people often jump to the end. Like when you say, for instance, I once did this where we showed like a Catholic Church, and I said, Tell me the ascetic choices that are being made, and someone went stifling. You know, and I went, Whoa, okay, well, you just jumped to pass the aesthetic now, right? And you're just applying what your own feelings about this are right? Like, let's talk about it. So for instance, it's like you see, everything's very vertical. You know, there's instead of a stage your eyes go somewhere, your eyes go somewhere, there's there's art adorning everything the
10:37 real essential thing to this, like, it's visual. Yes. It's olfactory. Yeah, yeah. And
10:45 so I feel like if you if you start to apply some analysis tools, like the, that's one value theory, you can start to get to, okay, how do we accurately now portray our values and beliefs? Now that we understand how that people will interpret I mean, this is the big thing we say, with text analysis as a director and theater and looking at film you go, if you even a non choice is a choice, and somebody is going to interpret that choice. So you, you really can't have the excuse of just saying, Oh, I didn't really make a choice here, you have to actually be really intentional. I think even more so where we have intentional spaces. I think we have a very weak theology of space in the evangelical world. Yeah. You know, you look at the buildings, mostly it's a warehouse. Right? And that does speak, Evaluate the Value, right? So that's one two, I would say another interesting tool would be the, you know, does it expose or exploit sin? You know, you look at a piece of art, you just kind of balance, what's the truth and live balance in this piece? Every piece because it's filtered through humans, is going to have a balance of truth in life. Right, because of the film. I mean, and this is the big mistake we often make about the church with aesthetics, or with artistry, is we look for appeal, we want the pure holy kind of creation, I'm like, well, you picked the wrong vehicles to create this, then, because we have a sin issue, right, following this issue. And I think it comes to the art itself is just an expression of what it means to be human, I would say, in light of a creator, you know, the Christian says what what it means, but it's still that humaneness kind of filters it out throughout. So those are just some tools when you're looking at this stuff that I think as a church, if we were to apply some of these things, it takes a little more brainpower when you're engaging art. Right, right. And to be honest with you, at the end of the day, sometimes I just like, personally to go watch movies where things blow up. Yeah, it doesn't matter about the aesthetic value. I just want to see things but I don't know, that just feels right. It's and that's some brokenness and right, yeah, there you go. We'll have that conversation later.
12:41 Yeah. But I think to written right, the beginning, I think he made a really good point that I had not thought of that, I think helps categorizes when we turn Christianity into a genre. It makes it like it's separate from Oh, so you have drama, you have comedy, and you have Christian films. And it's neither comedy nor drama. Yeah. It's a tragedy. But yeah, and that's so true. Like, it's, it's now like, even if studios have their own segment, like a there's hard, that's our faith based segment. That is that that does kind of separate it from taking this kind of worldview that could be told in a drama, and a drama, or a comedy, or even a rom com. I don't know, you know, like, but I think that's a good way to a viewer, because we've kind of turned it into its own genre. Therefore, the film or the book, or the piece of art has to has to kind of propagate a certain message to to maintain its Christian genre, rather than just its genre and has truth. And then that message is there because it's a work of art. Well, there's a book, I think that all three of us have read and actually use. The title of the book actually addresses that whole issue by Frank Brown, good taste, bad taste, and Christian tastes as if that's a tertium quid. You know, over there on its own, I remember, I had a T shirt once when I lived in Oakland. I haven't thought about this. But it had a circle on it. And it said heaven in hell it off to the side is said Oakland. Something in a category. So Christian taste is somewhere out there. Yes. Right. Yeah. Like it's some it's separate from your good taste.
14:39 And of course, the books about trying to you know, explode that misconception. Right. Yeah. Right.
14:44 Yeah. And, and you also kind of, I think, brought up something good Derrick, that I've kind of noticing that there does seem to be a difference in aesthetics in the Christian world, maybe depending on your background and denomination, though. Yeah, it seems like especially older or maybe what we would call more high church ideas, and especially within the Catholic Church, they're very conscious of, of the visuals and everything that leads us to God. And I think it's important for us, in the evangelical world to to be more thoughtful about that, you know, and it is kind of interesting, if you look at most of our places of worship. They're not necessarily adorned with art and things like that, but rather, it is all kind of blacked out and focused in on a stage. Yeah. And it's like, Yeah, what, what?
15:35 We'll have some traveling evangelists. So we'll come in and will paint, paint a picture while he's doing a sermon. Yeah, go and turn it around. It's like, Oh, it's Jesus. I didn't see that.
15:46 But then it's like this, there's a whole side to that where you're going is so our artistry is, is more of a gimmick. I mean, you know, in that kind of brings, there's nothing wrong. I think the thing is, there's nothing inherently wrong with that either. Right, right, is that what I think would be interesting is if we as Christians, instead of looking to and I don't think there's anything wrong necessarily with Christian or even though I think the quality is bad. I think there's a time and a place for that in effect, it's like the same reason that people like lifetime movies and hallmark movies. Yeah. You go like there's a plate it edifies people there's something in Frank
16:23 brown actually actually speaks about them. When he says what happens when the thirst for God is expressed, artistically through kitsch. Okay, ah forces us to raise the questions of quality because no one thinks about kitsch, including religious kitsch without thinking that is, in some sense, bad art, or somehow in bad taste. But kitsch is, by no means unappealing. Indeed, that seems to be part of the problem. It is art that appeals to many people, but for reasons that others find objectionable. And while various sophisticated people enjoy kitsch, in some fashion, even while recognizing it as kitsch, like the ironic sort of view of it. Most people who think kitsch is good to do not think of it as kitsch at all to them. It is ideal art, usually well crafted, and generally heartwarming, filled with memories and dreams. And I don't know who actually wrote about this that I stole, but I remember one author talking about popular art, especially popular art that we tend to consume as Christians a lot as trafficking in nostalgia. And that's a really interesting thing. And then, of course, there's different ways you can go about talking about that, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Yeah, and what kind of theological implications that has,
17:41 when it's kind of like, kind of like, Christmas movies, where most of it is it doesn't necessarily have to be a good movie to be a Christmas movie. But if it has a bit traffics that nostalgia, people may may watch it and and hallmark, hallmark, Hallmark 365 Days of Christmas 300. Yeah, well,
18:02 we can we can kind of get it closer to home here. We can talk about a Thomas kincade painting. Sure. And painter, painter of light painter of light. Yeah, with a trademark are so often asked to. So name one contemporary Christian artists like painter. And of course, the only one anybody can think of would be tomsky. Right. So we'll put a representative Thomas kincade. And painting up there. Right. Yeah. And and we'll talk about the fact that the the critical reception in the wider critical artistic community and his reception among well, Christians that would buy his stuff. Yeah, right. Either prints are on pillows, or on cross stitch things. And everything was very, very different. And we tend to invest emotional stuff in that it's like, you know, well, critics if they don't like this, or if they have anything to say about this is because they're anti christian, because we've so identify our tastes with this. And so, so you get emotional. I mean, I feel you're being attacked. And so I try to, I try to avoid those conversations about it, and just have them sort of look at look, look at the painting. It's like so why, and it's not just we or us that like it and buy it, but I'll just, I'll just use those terms. It's like, why did why do we like it? And I actually, you know, talk about myself. And so why am I drawn to this, you know, there's this path and it's just rained, and there's this cabin, and there's lights on it, and there's smoke there. And I look at that, and it reminds me of home and and i know what's in there, and it's warm, and there's probably an apple pie baking and everything and so it it makes me feel good. And it brings me to this sense of nostalgia and and he's very good at that. Yeah, absolutely. No, very good Craftsman at that. Right and and if it's something that that draws people in, it draws To me and to the interesting thing about it is that I'm being strategic for something that I've never experienced in my life. Yeah, isn't an interest, which is really interesting, right? But I'll have students that will push back on me with that. Actually, this is the kind of way we set this whole thing of the class anyways. And they'll say, Well, yeah, well, maybe you never had, but actually, isn't that sort of a nostalgia for the garden? Yeah. And you could look at it that way, too. So there's, there's all kinds of ways you can look at this stuff as just algae as being a negative thing or a false thing, or actually a theologically important thing.
20:37 Yeah. And I think there, and I think there's room for all kinds of types of art. You know, I think there is room and I think, you know, one of the big lies, I think that the the contemporary art world would tell you is like, you know, that pain is like one of the highest forms of artistry. And it's not to say that, you know, the funny thing is, it's not to say that there that it isn't that there isn't some artistry or that there isn't truth. I mean, I think truth is, you know, when we're looking at things like beauty, and you're looking at things like art, truth is a really good marker right? of what's going on in right. to kind of jump on to the Thomas kincade thing. What's really interesting as of course, his life, right says something very different than his pieces, right. And then on top of that, he has some pieces that people don't know about, as that aren't as well known. Yeah, that are really interesting. For instance, he did a portrait of Jesus, which is in a impressionistic style, which was very rare for him. He didn't do a lot of Impressionism. But this is an a very intense and presses, very modeled, paint brushes, wide, fat, paint strokes, and it has an orange. It just, it looks like Jesus is in pain he's on he's obviously he's got the crown of thorns. It's a very painful painting. And it's a really unique piece, because it's Yeah, completely opposite. If it makes you feel very uncomfortable, right? And it's so different than Thomas kincade. Usual work. Right. Right. And so I just I find it easily. Interesting that you go, Okay, so with Thomas kincade, was he going to his happy place that was helping him get through live? And what was the background for why he created what Right,
22:17 right. And then he went Disney on us. And then he went, which is, I guess a good thing, because I've heard that Disney, Disney, this is next to godliness.
22:28 I'm sure there are many people who would agree with that. Disney does Disney really well. That is very true. And that I mean, I think that brings up a good kind of point. And and we can kind of understand that there are so many different perspectives on art, and what is good art, bad art. And this conversation is not just a Christian conversation, right? It's all over the world of what is high art? What is low art, pop art, versus, you know, there's more refined? Are people really like if something must be wrong? Yeah, exactly. And so, and I think for me, probably, like, my maybe big quantum was kind of Christian art of the last 50 years, or, sadly, I guess, my lifetime that it all went downhill born and just come on, man. Because you look at obviously Christian art throughout the centuries. I mean, we were kind of leading it and and and i think that there's kind of two things for me. And it kind of brings up what you were saying, Derek, this idea of truthfulness, that that you bring that into conversations about beauty and goodness and and I really feel like maybe within Christian art, like my my big qualm is that there seems to be a fear of the uncomfortable and a fear of the complex, that that to have a complex character. That's not just maybe one dimensional, but does have some good and some bad and we kind of see that it's really hard sometimes I think in Christian art to to have a character like that,
24:14 which is interesting. Since every morning when we look in the mirror, we're looking at a character like that.
24:18 Yeah, exactly. And the Bible is full of complex characters. I mean, that's what makes the Bible so interesting people yeah. And and that's what I mean for me like when I when I appreciate something like in a in a book or you guys know they still write books, they're still people. Yeah, people
24:37 actually wait what around in class? Yeah, this is a book people you study these things? Yeah, we use it to hoist up my computer. monitor my monitor on top of both the desktop Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
24:50 these things are just help us get our technology closer to zero, right. But when you are in a book or TV show, like definitely I hate her on TV shows or streaming shows, whatever however you watch him that when you can find a story that that is real, and by real means it is complex, and there are maybe moments of reconciliation and moments of forgiveness, but there's also moments of failure. And, and and I'm always appreciate like there's there's a lot of shows or maybe movies that that sometimes get vilified in the Christian world that I'm always like, Yeah, I know, I disagree with the maybe the morality that is portrayed in this story. Yeah. But I also disagree with the morality that's portrayed in the David and Bathsheba story. And that's kind of the point. Exactly. That's the point.
25:44 You were mentioning actually, when we were, you know, preparing for this podcast, you you had brought up a movie that was roundly boycotted back in the day.
25:54 The Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah, very challenging piece. Right. You know, one of the things I don't know if I should put this on a podcast, we can always that is happening, okay. You know, I mean, one thing that I think is very important as an educational institution, a Christian educational institution, with with my students, especially in their senior year, we have a particular class where I expose them to challenging works of artistry. These pieces, in theory should have had some substantial cultural influence. But I want to look at pieces that have that the church has had problems with, right, so that, you know, it's it's, it's, it's not to help them or cause them to question their faith. Right, right. In fact, it's to strengthen it. It's, it's to say, Okay, what do you think about this piece? what it what do you think the piece is really saying? Right, you know, did the artist you know, the artist is communicating something to, does the artist have any responsibility to what they're communicating? You know, does? You know, does the piece have a, you know, off of what you've heard kind of the mainstream, you know, Christian world say about the piece? And what do you get when you see the piece? How can you analyze this kind of, so we look at challenging peach pieces aren't on purpose, to kind of refine
27:09 and when you check your outrage at the door, it's really interesting, what you can actually see, oh, my God, well,
27:14 this is this is the funny This is the amazing thing is I have found, there is very little content, that Christian shouldn't engage to some degree. Now, there's a caveat to that, which is like, just as I say, you shouldn't bring an alcoholic into a bar. Right? You know, I think you do have to be aware of the different kinds of materials. So when we discuss the Harry Potter issues that go on in Christianity, oh, yeah. You know, dun, dun, dun, um, and we compare it to like, Lord of the Rings. And I just, you know, and we kind of go back and forth. And it's amazing, because very reasonable Christians fall on very different sides of that particular argument, right? Different reasons, right? Well,
27:56 obviously, Lord of the Rings is inspired Word of God.
28:00 That's what we always end up coming to. But it is it isn't it. It causes people to critically, it causes the students to critically think about the work.
28:10 And that's really important. It's really important I once read, and actually do not know where I got this from. Derek, you might know, I don't know, you're, you're more conversant in this than I am. But if someone's talking about there's three sort of aspects of Christian criticism, and this is just one way of looking at it, there's there's others, but you take any piece in any way, and you look at its role, or its use you look at his perspective, and you look at this construction, and those are actually three different things, and you appreciate something on one level, yeah. And, and, and be able to, you know, be critical of it and another level, but still understand why some people would feel differently about this. I remember, my wife and I like to go see our film. So she's, we always have to go into San Francisco easily to see. And I remember, there was this one film it was years ago, is probably about 12 years ago, that was and I even forgot the title of it. I think Penelope Cruz was in it, but it was it was an Italian movie. And he got like, you know, four and a half stars out of four, you know, he was one of this way to save the world. So it's like, well, I guess we got to go see. Right, right. Yeah. And I remember walking out thinking two things about that movie, thinking I can understand why people loved this. It was really, really well done. Yeah. But it was the most a moral thing, not necessarily immoral bribe a more movie I had ever seen in my life. And so I was able to, you know, understand what was going on on one level and right and why some right could appreciate that. But on another level, it's just that, you know, it left me with this real hollow feeling coming out now. Still recognizing that it was really well done,
29:52 right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think that's well in. Going back to the book, the good taste, bad taste Christian tastes brene Brown talks about Having a theological aesthetic that has teeth without things. And I think that's what do you mean? Like cuz you can be, cuz it's not we're not saying don't be critical of right of modern culture artifacts, like, you can still be critical. But having fangs is different, right? Having that outrage, saying, Oh, no, I can appreciate I can see why this is well made. I can even see the truth. And the point that is trying to make that in so many current films are really just exploring the depravity that we have, right? I mean, they're and they just kind of highlighting and it's like absolute. Yeah. And, and, and, and you can kind of note the difference of something that's trying to exploit it or or kind of lower, yeah, explore, or something that's saying, hey, yeah, look at this, and what it does to human relationships and what it does, and we see that, and that seems to be the one place where Christian films also always kind of maybe fear to tread. Yeah. And, and, and that would be my hope for Christian art, is that is that we would move to a place where we can be honest, and we can be real, and we can create real characters in real stories, in a shocking way, just like the Bible did, like, in a way that has that has real characters that have real flaws, but also have real points. Yeah. And and note that the stories in the works of art, have a message so we don't always have to try to force a message through them.
31:34 Yeah, I think I think you got something there. I think that, you know, I, I would love Christians to just make films without attaching the title Christian to it. Yeah, having a genre. Yeah, like being able to go and see the Marvel, you know, whatever, right. 40 new Marvel movie is able to go and as a Christian be able to analyze it and go, Okay, here's where, you know, here's where I see the truth in this particular piece. You know, when we look at, it's so funny to me, for as much as we had the Christian genre, you know, tries to be its own thing. If you read a hero with the book of hero with 1000 faces, I mean, the basic storyline, and all of history has never changed, right. And it's this kind of good versus evil. It's a hero that has to go on a quest to overcome something. Yeah. I mean, and that is this. That's the story and the main story, and I look at the Bible, and you're like, it's got a similar story. There's a reason why we resonate with the story. Yeah, because it's the earth story. Yeah. Yes, it's true. Because it's true. And why can't we just go and watch movies? And and I know a lot of people say, like, for instance, while that, you know, I had, I'm from Boston area, I've had many people go, what is it about the boss? Why are those such filthy language? The boss and I go, have you been to Bali? I'm sorry, you're here, you'll find out why they're actually being very true, right to a lot of the culture doesn't mean everybody in Boston talks with that language, but a lot do and you can vary the truthfulness of that piece to truthfully represent that culture. It may be flawed, but if you're going to be truthful about the representation of the culture, then then I go if that's what we're about, we're about truth. Yeah. Why can't we go? Watch those movies? Or, and, and be able to kind of sit there and go, Okay, do I agree with the overall narrative that's being said, Here? Do I agree with the point of view with the worldview? Can my worldview support that? Again, I find that a Judeo Christian worldview, if Jesus is the Lord of all, the Judeo Christian worldview should support a lot more perhaps than it does. You know, I feel like a Christian. You know, Chris, when you look at boxes of where does art fit? Yeah, to look at the Christian art box. And it's a fairly small box of what's available. Right. You look at the art world, and it's a huge I mean, it's, yeah, enormous box. I think it's interesting, because it still is a box. Yeah. Yeah. But when you look at God, there's no box, right? And so I'm going we should be connecting to that. Yeah. I just feel like there's it's not to get down on anyone who's experimenting and trying to create these movies and do it. Right. It's, I just think that we're chasing after the wrong thing. I think there's just go tell the story, right? And the message would be they're gonna tell a story,
34:24 you know, tell it well, one, and it seems to be kind of a more of a modern phenomenon that we would have Christian books or Christian films, when you look at kind of the history of art and history of literature, where you had Christians doing these works, but you would never think of like Dostoevsky as like, Oh, well, he wrote Christian books. And he just wrote great books of Russian literature, right. And he happened to be a Christian and he wove those things in and he had really complex characters and and complex stories.
34:56 If only he could write this stuff in 50 pages. Oh, yeah. I know that I just had one minutes. I just, I just made it through Brothers Karamazov. And it was, I made myself read it. Yeah. It's like climbing Mount Everest.
35:12 Like even like I'm like, do you know I think of like Aristotle and Plato, arguably not Christians? Well, maybe not arguably. But right, do Christians find value in Aristotle and Plato? Yeah.
35:24 I mean, well, it's really interesting. Honestly, in the medieval era, folks were talking about as Moses was to the Jews in preparing the way for Christ. So Plato was to the Greeks in preparing the way for Christ. Yeah. Which is an interesting way. Yeah. I'm not selling this, folks. Right, right. But there's no yeah, there's different ways of living, that can connect with the gospel. And there is
35:51 it makes sense. I mean, if God, you know, in theory, if we got a theory, not in theory, God is the Creator of all, then it makes sense that his ideas would come out of all people, right. You know, it's the idea. Can you know, this, this concept? Can non Christian create a Christian work of art? I would say, what
36:09 I actually make make the students in Christian perspective class answer that question. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And once they start looking at it, it's all over the price. And we'll get right interesting movies that they that they come up with that actually have a Christian theme that nobody would have thought, but yeah, they were forced to look at it that way. And it's fascinating how you can see that because, right, you can, that's very, that's cool.
36:33 This helpful, and I think this is just a helpful conversation as we kind of come to a close on the episode, but I think it's really important for the church, and particularly the Evangelical Church to, to continue to think I mean, that's why we've had you on a few times a good friend of the show, to kind of talk about this idea of meant to just be really kind of critically engaged in art and aesthetic, and, and really moving to that place of looking for truth. Yeah. And, and I think it's important just to highlight some of those things, man, since we've made Christian as genre is just wow, how that changes everything. And that really is a modern phenomenon, right? That didn't happen even 100 years ago, right now. And and so we need to be mindful of that. And we do need to be able to kind of take their critiques of people who make movies their spoof, because it is true, like, yeah, if you just slap Christian on it, then you're gonna have a market divided. It's like, Man, that shouldn't be the case. Like, yeah. And, and again, that's not to say we all have kind of different tastes, and there's there's different forms of art. But if we can move in all of our art, whether it's pop art, or or high culture, art, are we moving to a place of speaking truth? And particularly for me, just going back to those two things like I think it's really important that that we not fear the uncomfortable and not fear the complex, because because that is human nature, that is human experience. And that is the Bible. I mean, the Bible is always taught. I mean, when you when, you know, in classes, it's really interesting to bring up Bible stories that make students uncomfortable. And they make me uncomfortable when I read them. And it's like, hey, this we need to realize this in the Bible. And because this is a part of our human experience,
38:28 I need to sneak this quote in before we close up Yes, yes. I don't know if we'll ever talk about this book. Again. My favorite line in in Brown's book is he's talking about you know, different people people's different perceptions what they like what they don't like, and and he says to enjoy another's enjoyment is an act of love. And so you know, it may not it may not work for you. Yeah, it works for someone that you care about, then you can at least understand and appreciate and allow them to enjoy the fact that it works for them. That's great. And that's a loving act, right? I I try to remember that about my wife's music and also Yeah,
39:05 a good thing to think about how that that kind of thing kind of goes like both ways like you know, so it's like maybe more high art can appreciate right pop art and the other way around, right? And you can bro you can understand someone's love for the bachelorette. And if you love them, you can you can enjoy their enjoyment doesn't mean you have to enjoy it. That's where I draw. I don't think that's portable by Jessa Bachelet.
39:43 Nobody that is good. I mean, I think I think and this is across the board, not just in the Christian world, like right, we also do have to be very careful of just being critical and condemning of other people in their enjoyment in their art, whether it's like oh, you watch these times. movies like even hallmark movies like, Oh, those are cheesy and that and it's like, well, No, they're not. So we do and I'm always in the place to where it's like I never want to mocks and say, right, right, right. That that I want to appreciate it. It's 30 yen if if someone enjoys it, I can enjoy their enjoyment. And then I can also engage in these things to learn about culture. And I can do that without just condemning and who
40:24 knows, you might start to enjoy it a little bit yourself. Exactly. You can see something redeeming in it that you could not see before because you're looking at it through the eyes of love, if not the art, the person who is enjoying it. Yeah, it really makes a difference. That's
40:37 so so true. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Derek, thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
41:07 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
New York Times' Bestselling author, Jemar Tisby, joins Mark and Rex to discuss his book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism.
TRANSCRIPT
0:02 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And on the show today, we are excited to have new york time best selling author jemar tisby. This is the first time we've had a New York Times bestselling authors. First time. Yeah. We have we have last time, but the first time but Jemar is the author of the color of compromise the truth about the American churches complicity and racism and wrecks This is really a show that is continuing the conversation right? on race and racism in America and in the church. And what is our role to, to combat that racism and and to choose another way, and Jim Marrs book and this this conversation, I think is so important for us to continue to have, he takes a historical look at how the church has has either been silently involved or overtly. And it's a look that we have to take to be able to move forward.
1:08 Hey, Tamara, thank you so much for joining us on the show. And excited to have you and I thought we start with a little bit of common ground. I was reading your bio. So you're born and raised kind of in the Chicago area.
1:21 That's right. north of Chicago,
1:23 north of Chicago and I and then you did your undergrad at Notre Dame go Irish? Yes, I did. There we go. So I was born and raised in Indiana. Okay, and so she Deanna though I think Yeah, very small town. But I did I did make the pilgrimage up to Notre Dame. And and we'd we went there a couple times on game day, not never inside, but just just hanging out outside. And well, it
1:51 is gorgeous here. So even going out there is Yeah. What did you do one time?
1:57 It really is the cameras beautiful. One time I was there. And somehow the doors were open. And I walked down. I was with my soccer team actually in high school. And we walked down onto the football field, and just started running around and basically acting like Rudy got kicked out by security.
2:18 Oh, that's great. I don't think I've ever been on the grass of the field. So you had a deeper football experience was that I did. Although I agreed to go I counted it up one time. And between undergrad and the year after I graduated, I got to go to 24 straight home games. Oh, wow. Yeah. I'm from the Mexico. So I have absolutely no.
2:44 That's true. That's true. pretty helpful on there. But it's good. Good to have another, you know, Irish fan on the show. Now you're currently down in the Mississippi River Delta. You're on the Arkansas side.
2:59 That's right. That's right. It's always using two people. I mean, the language is confusing, because it's called the Mississippi Delta. And then of course, people think of the state, but it's really about the river. And then right, it spans Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana. So I always have to specify I'm on the Arkansas side of the river, but the delta is a region and a culture all to itself. It really obeys no state boundaries. Yeah,
3:29 that's very true. Well, I must be a little precarious being a Notre Dame fan.
3:37 sec country? Yes. Yeah. We were absolutely passionate about football at Notre Dame. And but coming down to the SEC. Wow. Wow. Another World. It is another world. It's been very interesting. Especially because I have gone to school in Mississippi. And there was a time a few years back when Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi were both ranked. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, heads were exploding. People were walking on air for that couple of weeks. But most of the time, it's not. It's not that story of winning. It's been a nice time since then.
4:21 That's the truth. Well, I'm excited to kind of get into your book, The color of compromise the truth about American churches, complicity in racism. And for me, I've loved the book kind of dove into it this summer, and even was did a guy's group at our church kind of walking through. Yeah, it's really good. And for me, it's kind of like I think two key words jump out from that title, compromise and complicity. So I'd love to hear you kind of how you use those two words to kind of frame the story of race and racism in America and the church.
5:00 Thank you, thank you for leading with that question because it really frames the entire discussion. So, right off the bat, a lot of times people kind of misunderstand the idea of compromise and complicity. And and their argument is, well, it's more than that. Right? Christians have been active participants in constructing a racial hierarchy in the United States and even beyond. And so in a sense, those words are not strong enough, is what they say. Yeah, excuse me, which I totally agree with. There have been instances and individuals and institutions that have been very overt in their racism. And I talk quite a bit about them throughout the book. But what I'm trying to get out with the idea of compromise and complicity is that when you look at the most extreme forms of racism, putting on a white robe and hood burning across stringing up a noose, whatever it might be, that's, that's actually a relatively small number of people quantitatively, right? But how do those acts of racism occur? How is it permissible in a society or in a community is because you have all of these people as sort of active bystanders, who are observing these things. And even if they're not actually physically doing these acts of racial terrorism, by their inactivity, by their silence by their passivity, they are tacitly giving approval to it. So I begin the book with the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, and the murder of four little girls through an act of racial terrorism. Obviously, that incident is egregious. And what's so interesting is that people around the nation and around the world, even staunch segregationist, condemned that act. But what was so interesting to me is a speech by a young white lawyer named Charles Morgan Jr, that he gave in the wake of that tragedy. And he calls his audience which was a group of white businessmen in Birmingham, he calls them to task because he says, Listen, if we had spoken up sooner, if we had drawn a line in the sand over racism, in our families, among our friends, at parties in the workplace, maybe this never would have happened. And so what he was getting at, I think, is the idea of compromise and complicity, that you don't always have to be the one lighting the dynamite or tying the noose, or using the racial slur. But if you are not one who's actively standing up against that stuff, then you create a context of compromise.
7:47 It's kind of, you know, sad for me, because almost every example that you use basically comes from the theological and denominational tradition that I grew up in Southern Baptist. You know, and even worse, when you mentioned Dabney, it's like I went to Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia for my PhD. Wow. And so, you know, there's the there's the Dabney connection there, and it's, it's all over the place.
8:14 It's all over the place, it really is no, no Christian tradition in the US is, is completely innocent on this matter, right. I mentioned in the book that all three major denominations, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian split, essentially over the issue of slavery prior to and leading up to the Civil War, numerous smaller denominations facing the same kind of decisions and in the face of those decisions, whether they could sort of take the fork in the road that moves toward racial justice, or take the fourth fork in the road that's wide and easy and supports the status quo. So many took the latter approach. So I think I hope it forces us all to be introspective.
9:00 Yeah, cuz they're especially they're just again, using that idea of compromise and that it's not, it's not necessarily there are those examples of overt racism. But there's also there's so much of that in invert racism or that compromise that that it doesn't, you know, it's kind of funny, like growing up growing up in Indiana and and growing up in a very white churches. You know, you kind of you kind of meet people under like, I never met a racist there. No one ever said, like, Hey, I'm a racist. But there was a lot of silence and a lot of complicity in that way in
9:36 the 1920s. I mean, I'm a history professor is like 1920s was southern Indiana, I think was like, right around zero. The KKK resurgence. Exactly. Right,
9:48 right. Yeah. It's so interesting. Now apart. You know, I drive in and around the Delta in Mississippi all the time. And you know, it has this reputation externally as being this really backward racist place. But I am far more nervous dry driving in parts of Indiana, Missouri, Southern Illinois than I am in Mississippi. So absolutely.
10:10 Yeah. When and Martin Luther King Jr. noted that the worst racism he saw was in Chicago. Right? Right, right.
10:18 So one of the points I tried to make in the book is that bigotry has no boundaries. And racism is not confined to a region. So there was an entire chapter in the book called complicity with racism in the north, North being a proxy for anywhere outside the South could be the Midwest, all of that. But it's important to remember, and this is a journey that I've been on. Having been born and raised in the Midwest, we had sort of this aesthetic diversity, right? So in and around the Chicago area, you'd have people from a lot of different places, you have large immigrant communities, you had huge Polish community, and I went to Catholic schools, for most of my There you go. So we had Cardinal Pulaski, and all of that stuff. So yeah, that was all around, but we were still so very, very deeply separated and segregated. But you had the illusion of sort of being post racial, we wouldn't use that term back then. But you had the illusion of saying, Well, you know, racism is not really a problem, you're looking at all this diversity at the mall, or downtown, or whatever it might be right, and then you come down south, and the divisions are so stark, in some ways, I mean, we're really close proximity, but the, the lives are still very separate. And realizing that but then, having seen this is what I think is sort of the power of, of understanding race through a southern lens, at least it has been for me is because like, I needed this remedial course in how racism operates. And you come down to the south. And it's, it's, it's in big block bold letters, racism, functions, right. But then if you learn those basics, then you can look at other parts of the country and see, oh, that's where it's working. That's, that's how it's not working between the races. It's still there. I just didn't see it until I had, you know, a primer course, if you will, on on what it looks like. And then I could see some of the nuances and other places.
12:24 My wife and I were very, I guess we shouldn't have been, but we were sort of surprised when we moved to Richmond, Virginia. And because I was going there to you know, for graduate school, we didn't have any money. And so we're always looking for free things to do. We had two small kids, right. And so you know, whenever the paper said, you know, street festival, or free concert or whatever, we'd be there. And invariably, the crowd was either all black, or all white. And we were like looking around, it's like, so where are the signs? And you know, the signs are, like written in everybody's heads. We just didn't know how to read them yet. And one reason we actually moved back to California was our kids were in elementary school, and it was like, you know, we don't want them learning where the signs are. Because they're there.
13:12 That's a great point. This actually connects to what we were saying, I think at the top of the show, about football, right? And, you know, it's cliche, it's funny, but honestly, the only time in my little community where people come together across races is at the high school football game. There's one high school for the area, it's mostly black. But no matter what race you are you you like to watch football and you like to watch your team win. And so especially when the team was winning, made it to regionals, and all that stuff, that that's pretty much the only time because it's certainly not happening on on Sundays that are coming together.
13:53 Right now it's not. You mentioned something in Jamal, about that racism never like goes away. It just adapts. And I'd like you to kind of expound on expand on that just a little bit. It never goes away. It just adapts almost like a virus. It's why we're dealing with right now. Yeah,
14:12 very apropos analogy. So that theme in the book is critical, because so many people, especially in a book, like the color of compromise, that uses history as a vehicle to convey the point. So many people would be tempted to say, Oh, that's horrible. I'm so glad we're past that now. I'm so glad racism isn't a problem anymore, right. And so I say racism never goes away. It just adapts so that we can be clued in to how racism operates in the present day. And I would say you know, there are three major iterations or major manifestations of racism. Usually of race based chattel slavery, you have Jim Crow segregation. And now you have what Emerson and Smith call in their book divided by faith a racialized society in which virtually any quality of life factor from health to wealth to education and more, falls predictably along racial lines. And that's sort of the legacy of these more overt forms of racism. We're seeing that now in the pandemic, we're totally a perfect example, right? Yes, it's disproportionately affecting Latino and Latino communities, black communities, incarcerated communities, right, right, all of those things. And to say that racism never goes away, it just adapts is to pay attention to the way that racism manifests differently in different areas. Why should we think that in 2020, racism is going to look exactly the same as it did in 1920, or 1820. And the reason racism persists, why does it continue to be a problem, I argue is because of the narrative of racial difference, or white supremacy, right? So so white supremacy, crafts, a story, about races, about ethnicity, about culture, that posits that white people are in the center or on top, everything else is marginalized or less than, and because that narrative remains, then you're going to see racism, it's going to look different in different times in places, but the undergirding ideology has not been dismantled. And so Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, put it this way. He said the North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative war. And I think I learned that in Virginia, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, that's this is the all the debates over Confederate monuments now, right? Because these symbols are telling a story. That story is one of enshrining, re enshrining white supremacy, post emancipation post Civil War. And to take them down, I argue and others argue, is to begin to open the space for writing a new narrative that is based on equity that is based on dignity of all people, but those who argue to keep it up, saying heritage, not hate and all of these things, arguing for the lost cause narrative of the Civil War. It is a narrative of racial difference that perpetuates racism.
17:25 Right. One of the most amazing things I've seen this summer is that huge statue of Robert E. Lee on monument Avenue, because you know, we lived in regimen. And to see it now basically, you know, just sort of covered with BLM slogans and such an interesting thing that people don't, I guess, realize is that on monument Avenue, near that statue is First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia, which is really interesting. I think I'll just leave that at that. Yeah. Yeah.
17:56 Yeah. When Angela in the book, like using history as a vehicle, and Rex is actually a history professor. So he appreciates obviously, that aspect. I think it does help us realize the way that racism hasn't gone away. It's just adapted because you see those same themes. You see that same narrative of white supremacy, even if it's not maybe an overt white supremacy, you know, group that might be saying something, but I've heard people even during, you know, during the last six months, say things, and I'm like, Wait a second. That is what people were saying in the 60s. Yep, yep. And so it is so important to, for me, it's been kind of diving back into the history. That's why I appreciate so much about your book is because we don't, it is a sobering history, right. And you say that in your book, you know, it's like having a sobering talk with your doctor like, but you have to look at the truth. And there seems to be right now this desire to, to rush to reconciliation, right, like rush to like, hey, well, can we just get past this? And and I think it's so important the point you make in the book about that, we have to we have to understand the history first. That's right. And we have to have that confession, before we get to reconciliation. And I think that's, that's something that I think the the, the white church is learning and needs to learn more of right now. Like, we can't just jump to peace and harmony, right? We've got to walk through this and, and really engage.
19:34 So you make a couple of really important points that I want to highlight, and I'll state them upfront in case I forget. The first one I want to connect some of the the same tropes and lingo that we've heard in the past to the present. And then the second is, you know why we need to go through this truth telling process if we really want to get to reconciliation. So on the first one, I'll just give a concrete example. So in the Chapter on the civil rights movement. That was a chapter actually had to completely rewrite. It was tough because there's so much there. There's so much there to talk about in terms of Christian complicity. And so the way I decided to frame it was sort of juxtaposing Martin Luther King and Billy Graham. And so MLK is this activist pastor and preacher. And Billy Graham is sort of the face of white evangelicalism for really half a century. And they're both Christians, but they're both approaching civil rights from very different perspectives. And what made Graham interesting as sort of a foil in this chapter is that he's not a foaming at the mouth racist, right? Like he's not playing the N word. Even in 1953, he pulls down the rope separating black and white people, now one of his rallies, and that's before Brown v Board of Education, he has keen to pray at one of his rallies in 57. So you know, he's making these gestures, but then by 1963, when when kings activism is, is still going, when the tensions are even higher than they were in 1955, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and all that kind of grammar saying put on the brakes a little bit, right, but in terms of the echoes from the past, to the present. So while Graham isn't sort of overtly opposing black people, or black civil rights, he is adamantly preaching against communism. And so we need to remember the context, right? This is post World War Two, there's the cold war going on. So so it has, you know, different political implications, you know, in the 50s and 60s than it does now. But also understand that that communist was an epithet that they foisted upon civil rights activists to discredit them. And they're basically saying, just like the communist want to flatten out society and have everything be equal and equal distribution of everything. That's what the civil rights activists are, they're trying to flatten out, the racists have everything under this authoritarian regime. And so you cannot be part of the civil rights movement. So this is coming from the mouth of the most prominent evangelist. And of course, people are making the connection, explicitly or implicitly, to civil rights activists. And then now in the 21st century, is remarkable. Same language, they still using cognero. Same kind of surprised about here, there's still communists around, right? Like, I mean, you know, they do put a twist on it. So now it is critical race theory. And they're basically using that label in the same way that they've used communist, or socialist. Now, in the public, in political discourse, especially, you can look at sort of right wing political commentators, and the way they talk about Biden, the way they talk about the democrats right now is, you know, we have to defeat them in order to defeat socialism in the United States. So, again, just you know, the link between those two past and present is very remarkably consistent.
23:12 You know, tomorrow, you did say, I guess something, or at least I think I read this, that America's Original Sin isn't slavery, but greed. Right. And I think that's sort of speaks to what we're talking about right now, actually, you know, we seem to have an economic reason to avoid dealing with this issue. And I see this honestly, during the pandemic, and that, regardless of what, you know, health, public health, people will say, the important thing is even among my tribe, which which is why evangelicalism, at least many is is you know, we can't sacrifice the economy. for public health, it's, it's the same economic argument. That's right, that's right. enshrining that, so,
24:05 and I think if, if we have the time should the Lord tarry, and, you know, 50 years from now, we look back on this, I think it would be reasonable for historians to make that connection between profit over people, and especially people of color. So it still falls along those racial lines. And I think, you know, sort of the white us church writ large is kind of an example of the parable of the rich young ruler. So the rich young ruler comes to Jesus and said, you know, Jesus, I've done XYZ for the faith and for religion, what what must what else must I do to be saved? And it's like Jesus, like good. That's great. go sell all your possessions, give to the poor and come follow me. And of course, the rich young ruler goes away sad and in many ways, the white church in the US is like that rich. No. ruler in the sense that, you know, they've done the tithing and the donating and the nonprofits, they preach on Sunday, they evangelize. Right? And then they say, What must I, what must I do to be saved? And Jesus says, Give up your privilege. Yeah, give up your riches, even financial riches that you've acquired over the course of centuries, due to the exploitation of black people and other people of color, sell it all, give it to the poor, in which case, in this case in the United States would be, you know, people of color racial and ethnic minorities, and come follow me. And in so many cases, the church whether a congregation denomination or a sort of culture of Christianity walks away sad, because the cost is too great.
25:45 Right, it says the whole Well, the whole system. And and I think you sort of mentioned this, and it's something that has not been a theme we haven't talked about a little bit in the podcast is, you know, oftentimes, I'll hear folks basically, um, try to detour the argument about systemic racism, or any sort of systemic solution to the issue, and try to personalize it. I'm not personally racist, or I don't think I'm personally racist. And so there go, you know, no problem, basically. And I tend to think as, as, you know, sort of a amateur theologian teaching at a Christian school, that there's a couple of things going on there. One of them is sort of a, I don't know, almost an implicit Gnosticism. And it which is just sort of really interesting. It's like, so spiritual equality, you know, we're all equal in the sight of God. And so you know, and I think this way, I being, you know, well, I'm obviously very white. You know, but but it's like that sort of a gnostic spiritual sort of thing, but sort of getting down to flesh and blood, and this world and systems sort of don't want to go there. And I remember a book I read years ago, by Harold bloom, which is interesting, he was talking about the American religion. And when I was reading that book, he basically said the American religion is Gnosticism. And then he talked about the two primary institutional culprits and one was the LDS church. And so I'm going yeah, I can see that I can see that. And then, of course, the second one was the Southern Baptist Convention. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, yeah. And you know, it, I could see here I can see his point. Well, you can see his point,
27:32 bring up a really important point about this, I think artificial, extra biblical bifurcation between the spiritual and the material. And that's predates the United States as a as a nation, in terms of how Christianity has developed on this continent among people of European descent. So you can go all the way back to one of the most startling sort of events that I found in my research was about the Virginia assembly, in 1667, passing a law that said baptism would not emancipate an enslaved Native American, African or person of mixed race background, right. And so you have this in this law, this bifurcation between the spiritual baptism and the material your your emancipation, and then you have even Starker examples on a smaller scale. When you have Francis luxuria, a missionary with the Society for the propagation of the gospel speaking in the late 18th, early 19th century and his the baptismal vows that he makes new converts who are Native American or African, recite, say that you are seeking baptism purely for the salvation of your soul, and not out of any intent to free yourself from slavery. And so even in the very vows that people say, upon their entrance into the household of God, they are being relegated to second class citizenship, and the separation between the spiritual and material, which, as you say, persists up to this day, in this form of Gnosticism. To say that, well, we can preach the gospel to people, you know, and a lot of people say that that phrase, just preach the gospel as a retort to folks who are saying, well, the gospel entails material, social justice, right? And if they No, no, no, no, just preach the gospel, change hearts, one person at a time, all of that stuff. So there's this individualism aspect, which we should talk about, but there's also the separation between the spiritual and material as long as I preach Jesus at you, then I'm doing my part and we're good. Whatever, that you're stuck in generational poverty, who cares that you're more likely to be incarcerated than than other people. All of that, just just focus on your eternal soul will be fine.
29:59 That's seems to go back to as well, that comparison between Graham and King. They're there. Graham was focused on the sounds and I think I mean, there's a there's an image to have I think is during the watts riots in the 60s, you have Graham flying overhead with the newscaster and talking about how that represents kind of the degradation of the American society. And you have King going to the protesters and saying, what do you want to talk about? What do you need? And and and that theme then has carried was obviously within evangelicalism like he said, I mean, there are people even as as things started, you know, happening in this summer, you know, since May, with kind of, you know, I know different news outlets have called it, you know, another like America's race reckoning, and talking about it and talking about it in church. Yeah, there's been a lot of people saying, hey, just preach Jesus, just preach Jesus. And it's like, I'm pretty sure they just taught Jesus and the Civil War as well and in the south, and how we as especially in the evangelical community, and that's kind of the community that Jessup is in. How do we bring those two together, we can talk about salvation, but it has to include social justice, as well. And we have to speak to, to what's happening in the lives of people. And I think that's, hopefully that could be maybe one of the reckonings that's happening this summer. And in a shift that, yeah, that can be made,
31:38 I think I would bring up two things to your point is, you know, compare and contrast evangelical ethics with Catholic social tradition, which I learned, and then also the selectivity of this separation between the spiritual and the material. So on the first point, I didn't know there was I was going through Catholic school, K to eight and then college. But there's an entire tradition in Catholic ethics, that is socially oriented. You can certainly read some of the people bowls, and some of the encyclicals that talk about unions that talk about preferential option for the poor all of these things, right. And so what I was sort of imbibing without really being conscious of it was that the gospel and social justice there's there's not there's there's no space between them, there's not a gap between them that what what your Christian calling is, is to work on behalf of your neighbor. And working that out in all kinds of practical everyday, even political ways, right. So I think that's a huge growth area for evangelicals is to have that, you know, there's no real tradition, you can pull it out in places in their theology, but to have sort of a coherent tradition, like others do, is, I think, foreign to the evangelical tradition in the US. And then secondly, it bears noting that evangelicals tend to be very selective in what they critique of as social justice. Because they will take on other causes publicly.
33:25 I, I teach a class here where, you know, we talk about Christian perspectives on such and I'll try to mention the seamless garment thing, and a lot of my students just is just No, that can't possibly be there's no connection between life issues, that life issues is just basically one thing, and I think we know what it is, and everything else is not a life issue. And I talk about, you know, in the Catholic Church, there is at least this tradition is not always, you know, taught like it should be, but at least there's this tradition that there are links between all of these things. And the interesting thing is, that's just sort of hard for for my tribe. And I include myself, I'm a white evangelical, it's just I guess we've been, I don't know, theologically trained not to see those connections.
34:15 You really hit on it theologically trained, right, like, so I just did a book review in the times on Robert P. Jones, his new book white too long. And he's essentially making that same argument, as are a handful of other books that are all coming out about the same time from Christian homes do make Jesus and john wayne reconstructing the gospel by Jonathan Wilson hardgrove, taking America back for God by Whitehead and Perry, all essentially making the same argument and touching on the same point that she did that there's actually something in the way the white evangelical church does Christianity does theology that that undermines any sort of stated commitments to racial justice and racial equity is the way they are learning to practice faith that actually undermines any efforts toward racial justice, racial reconciliation, and then to the selectivity point, just a very contemporary example, there's a very well known pastor in California, who is leading his congregation in what he calls an act of civil disobedience, to meet in person for church amidst a pandemic, in direct defiance against policies and ordinances, against crowds like that which are not, and then views it as this righteous cause, basically, framing it as Christ has called us to, to gathered worship, the state is not going to prevent us from doing what Jesus says. And so we're going to gather whatever the consequences may be. And then that is seen by many evangelicals, not all but many as a righteous cause. Right. But when you take the same sort of acts of civil disobedience, and saying that that, you know, the law is unjust, and we'll take the consequences, when you apply those tactics to racial justice, all of a sudden, it's just preach the gospel. We don't we Romans 13. Obey the authorities. Right? Right. Right. It's just very selective in in what people frame as a worthy Christian justice issue, and what's not,
36:36 in spite of all the angry letters and emails we're going to get in this podcast. I believe you're right, you're totally right. You just, it's it's that's obviously, right. Right, obviously true.
36:50 Yeah. And I guess so as as moving forward. And you have an upcoming book, right? That is how to fight racism. Looks like it'd be coming out maybe first of the year. That's right. January 21.
37:05 I was gonna, I was gonna ask you tomorrow, you know, if I can't wait to January, the first and I know that, you know, I need to what would be a couple of helpful anti racist books for someone like me? You know, there's a lot out there. I just, and you know, we're all busy people, but I want something that that's helpful. And doesn't skirt issues. For someone like me, obviously, growing up in a growing up with white privilege is just, it just is, yeah. Well, what do I need to read?
37:34 I have a bias toward history. So I would, I would recommend, um, books, particularly by academic historians. And so I say that to differentiate between, you know, what's popular on bookshelves that brick and mortar stores, right, which are not always written by historians? Not always. And we can't shop there right now. Anyway, so Yeah, exactly. California, right now. So some of the books that I mentioned previously, wait too long, Jesus and john wayne, a couple of books that have been impactful for me, given my context in the south john ditmars. Local people, it's sort of a slog in the sense that it's it's the narrative is hard to follow. But it is chock full of facts about the grassroots civil rights movement in one of the most racially recalcitrant states in the union. And it's important, because I don't think and even I didn't fully realize the obstacles that civil rights activists, not just the big names that you know, but everyday on the ground people face, and it was reading that book that made me angry and agitated because people were fighting for basic things like like the vote, or like the equitable distribution of government funding, right. throughout the state. It was some basic stuff. They're not demanding anything unreasonable. They're not even demanding anything over and above what white people got. for it. Folks are shot preachers are shot in their cars. Houses are burned, people are fired. They're publishing lists of addresses and phone numbers to shame people who are joining civil rights organizations. It is appalling, and it's a Mississippi story, but it's an American story at the same time, right. So that's one book. So we're recording this and I'm in my office where most of my books are so you, I'm gonna give you a list. That's fine. All right. Sorry about that. So the one I was thinking of initially was Peggy Wallace Kennedy's the broken road. Peggy Wallace is the daughter of George Wallace. The Tory governor segregationist, know what not right. Um, I think that would be interesting for your listeners, because here's a white woman who was not only raised in this sort of culture of segregation, but actively benefited from it through her family's prominence in politics. And this book is sort of her. It's it's kind of a memoir, but it also talks about how she now thinks of her father, and being raised in that environment. So she's not at all racist like her father was. And even George Wallace supposedly underwent some changes toward the end of his life. But, um, but it's an insider view that I thought was fascinating. And I don't want to convey at all this sort of, you know, white redemption story or whatever, I just think it's a it's a really unique peek inside a sort of a family that was at the center of all in the civil rights, and on the wrong side of rye write. Another book that's sort of a contrast to that is john Perkins classic book, let justice roll down. Another memoir book, by john Perkins, black man born and raised in Mississippi, his brother gets killed by a cop flees to California, God gets a hold on him comes back to Mississippi, and has lived here ever since fighting for civil rights and racial justice. Another story of this, this is more civil rights era stuff, God's long summer by Charles marsh. I think it's fantastic. Because he juxtaposes civil rights activists with segregationists and talks explicitly about how they are each understanding the faith in vastly different ways. more contemporary books, Latasha Morrison's be the bridge. And so this is a good book for book studies and book clubs. And she's deliberately trying to bridge the racial gap through reconciliation techniques, but but really hard hitting, you know, truth telling at the same time. Two more books that I'll end with this from a sociological perspective, why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria
42:29 is so helpful, I read this in college, and it helped me put language around some of the racial experiences I was having as a minority in a predominantly white institution. And it also talks about racial identity development, for people of color, but also for white people, too, because one of the things that white people don't acknowledge enough is that they are racialized as well. They're being an adulterated into race, they have a culture. And they go through different stages of development in terms of their racial identity. And knowing what those stages are, I think helps us progress through to healthier stages, and more mature stages. And then lastly, tanahashi coats is a classic book between the World and Me, it's a short book, you can read it in a day or two, but you're gonna want to slow down because every sentence is packed with such quantity. And meaning I quoted in almost every one of my formal book presentations, because they're just so many rich concepts, themes and ideas in there that give you a glimpse inside the contemporary experience of being black in America. That's very helpful. Very helpful. Sorry. I was like, let me go find ways to say, oh, there's an educational component.
43:50 That's right. Yeah. We're trying to educate people indicate? Well, I think kind of as we wrap up our conversation, one of the things from your book jamara, that I think you see, and it's through the history is a lot of these missed opportunities where the church could have made a decision and didn't. And and I think, maybe now we stand in another moment, that could be looked back on as an opportunity how, what are some things we can do as a church to not miss this opportunity?
44:24 I'll start with probably the hardest one. First is the church needs to lead the conversation on financial reparations. So I make the case throughout the book that that what race based chattel slavery was, in its essence, was an exploitative economic system that did not pay laborers for their labor. That did not end with emancipation. You get sharecropping. I'm sitting here in the Delta, literally cotton country. The statewide rate for poverty is about 20%. In my community, it's 41%. Delta is the poorest area in both Arkansas and Mississippi, it also has the highest proportion of black people. And that is no coincidence, you know, plantation system in a sharecropping system, you need more laborers than owners. And that has persisted in the demographic data. But it's also persisted in the financial data is, well, we have a racial wealth gap in the present day where the average white family has 10 times the wealth of a black family. And that is not because black people are lazy or don't know how to work with money. It's because there have been systems and traditions that have created and perpetuated racial wealth inequality. And so I say the Church must lead in that conversation, because it really gets to the pain point, like we said earlier in this show, that, you know, many people say America's original sin was slavery, I think that's America's original symptom. And the original sin is greed. And so until we start talking about money within the context of racial justice, we're not getting to, to what's really neither near the core of why racism persists, even in the church. And then secondly, in order not to miss this moment, or this movement. The I would say the US evangelical church needs to re theologizing especially around the ideas of individualism and the separation between the physical and the spiritual. So, US evangelicalism is hyper individualistic, you know, it's just me and my Bible, my personal relationship with Jesus, racism is all about, you know, how I feel or treat one another person. And we really have to understand racism is working itself out through systems and institutions, that policies can perpetuate racism. And it doesn't take a personal attitude of bigotry for those policies to persist. The other thing along with the re theologizing is, you know, eliminating that gap between the spiritual and the material that that we cannot say that we love God, if we are hating our neighbor in our actions, if we are ignoring the needs of our neighbor, if we are looking at the black community and anti black police brutality, and saying simply back the blue, as a deflection, and not getting to, you know, the historic connections between modern policing and historic slave patrols, if we're not looking at the disproportionate impact, even in a place like Ferguson, which is so controversial, over the killing of Mike Brown, the Department of Justice did a report on the Ferguson Police Department and found a pattern of policing black people in order to give them fines. So the money from fines would fund the city budget, another form of economic exploitation this time through law enforcement policing in the criminal justice system, so you can't look at those realities and say, just preach the gospel. Right.
48:10 Yeah, but those are, those are good and hard things that the church has to lead in. And, and that's I think, walking away from the book for me, it's it's that kind of idea of like, man, the church, the church should be the one leading the church. That's what we've been called to. And I man, if we can focus on those three things, it would be a pivotal moment in American history, and would change as co Ed we're too often the tail light and not the headlight.
48:42 Often, the thermometer, measuring and thermostat determining the temperature. So good.
48:51 That's so good. Thank you so much, Tamara, for joining us on the show.
48:55 It's been a while it's fun conversation guys in folks can't see it where we're on screen right now. But we're like, brothers in beards right now. has increased facial hair exponentially?
49:10 Yes. Exactly. Right. Excited about your new book coming out to talk to you.
49:17 Yes. ailable for pre order now on Amazon, and it comes out January 21. And I would love to be back on the show to talk about practical steps toward fighting racism.
49:29 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
49:55 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go. Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Dr. David VanDrunen from Westminster Seminary California joins Mark and Rex to discuss his recent book, Politics after Christendom.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex we have on the show today, Dr. David VanDrunen. He's the Robert B strumble, Associate Professor of systematic theology and Christian ethics at Westminster Seminary in Southern California. And he's on the show to talk to us today about his new book, politics after Christendom.
0:25 And I think we will all find this a fascinating conversation. He has a lot of really interesting things to say.
0:32 Yeah, so we hope you enjoy the show. Well, Dr. VanDrunen and it really is a pleasure to have you on the episode. I'm so excited to talk about this topic. I think it's so important, especially maybe for this year, being an election year. And just understanding politics and Christian life, understanding our role in as the church in politics. And and we're here to kind of talk about your new book, politics after Christendom that was put out by Zondervan academic. So we want to give a shout out to zahner unacademic for connecting us, and for sending us a copy to be able to dive into. And even with that title, it really caught my eye. And one of the reasons why I reached out to you is that idea of politics, after Christendom and so some people may have a little bit of question of what what do you mean by Christendom? So can we start maybe there by by defining Christendom, as we kind of move into what what it looks like to have to for politics after that?
1:44 Yeah, sure. That's a I think that is a good place to start. Because when when you hear the word, Christendom, people don't always use it in the same way. So when I use that, in the book, I'm referring to this, you might say this long experience or experiment, primarily in European countries that lasted really from the very early Middle Ages, until really, a within the last few centuries, in which it was generally regarded that these companies societies were regarded as holistically integrated Christian communities. So just for some historical perspective, of course, when, when the gospel was first proclaimed, after after Christ's death and resurrection, in the Roman Empire, the the early Christian church was this tiny minority. They faced a lot of opposition and persecution from the authorities. The Roman Empire was officially pagan, you might say they had their gods that they worshipped. And it was not comfortable for those who didn't want to worship those gods. And yet, after a few centuries, you might say, the tide began to turn, the Roman emperors who were who began to profess the name of Christ, and the Roman Empire became officially Christian. And it wasn't as though church and state became indistinguishable or something. There were still distinctions between church and state, and families and universities and trade associations since but at the same time, it was understood that all of these were united by a common Christian profession. And, and as part of that, the understanding was is that the civil authorities would be supporting in favoring the one true church as that was understood, and that they would punish heresies and blasphemies. And those who were of other religions, or who had believed in versions of Christianity that didn't fit the prevailing model, there really wasn't a place for them in these societies, or else they could exist with pretty extreme hardships. And that was really the kind of the kind of mindset that that prevailed for really well over 1000 years. And it was really only until what we would call the the modern era, that opinions and practices began to change. And so you know, now we find ourselves in communities that used to be considered part of Christendom in which it's no longer understood that these are Christian holistically, Christian societies, right? It's no longer assumed that bit you know, everyone's a Christian, it's no longer assume that there's going to be one church that will be accepted as the church in a particular society. And now we consider it in a sense, it's it's optional. It's up to everyone's personal decision. To what you believe how you worship or even if you will worship? Yeah, so really what what my book is trying to explore is, you know, how do we as Christians reckon with this post Christendom kind of situation. And I really think that a lot of the things that we struggle with as Christians in our own society are, they're really a result of trying to reckon with the pluralism that we find surrounding us. And we're, in a sense, we're still trying to figure out what do we do in a society in which we no longer are calling the shots the way we we as Christians used to and maybe think that we ought to
5:42 write I'm gonna jump in, actually, since we're on the title of your book. And and it's not just Christendom that some of our listeners might need a little bit of education on but your definition of politics or the political seems to be much broader than what is in folks minds when they first look at that. Look at that word, too. Could you elaborate a little bit on that?
6:02 Yeah, I'd be happy to I think that's, that's, that's a helpful thing to explore as well. Yeah, I, you know, certainly my, my book is about politics as we understand them to some degree. But I I'm using the term in what would be an older kind of classical sense of politics, you know, we get the word from the Greek word Paulus, which means city. And the that that idea is that there's this sort of this public space, this kind of common space that other people in a particular community share, of course, we have our individual families and our smaller associations that are not open to all people. But there's also this city in which various individuals, various families come together. And they have certain common projects that they, they work on together. And so I'm taking politics in this older sense that it's, it's the life of the city, which we might translate as the larger this larger community, larger society in which we have not only our political life in the sense of governmental life, but also our legal life, our economic life, our shared projects in science, and art, and sports and these various things that we don't just do in our individual families, but we we view as larger human projects. And so it is important for my book that this is not just a book about government, it's not just a book about the next election, or, you know, what's going on in Sacramento where you guys are or in Washington, DC. I've been my book is about those things. I mean, that is an important element of my job. But I do think it's, it's actually really important to say that our we have this life in society in the city that is not just reduced to our what we ordinarily think of as a political, governmental,
8:09 just for the institutions of society sort of interface. And I guess what, UCL I don't know, third spaces. I've heard that or the public square. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that those are also helpful terms.
8:23 Yeah. And you have been driven kind of, in the in the book, in the first chapter, you kind of lay out four characteristics of a political institution that I think were really helpful to maybe help us shape our approach to politics. You mind if we kind of explore those those kind of four key characteristics that you give?
8:47 Yeah, I was, you know, obviously, when you're writing a book, you want to begin in a in a healthful way. That's foundation for the rest of the study. And I thought you did. You did? Well, thank you. I appreciate that. You know, I wanted to Well, I was I was trying to reckon with this what what I think is quite obviously true, is that I think there's a temptation that probably almost all Christians have who think about politics is that there are there's a temptation to take part of the truth, part of the theological truth about what political community is about or what government is about, and the kind of absolute ties that in a way that you kind of lose other important aspects of the truth. And so it occurred to me that it might be helpful to to lay out several characteristics of our political communities, our governments that in a sense, in order to get a proper, biblical theological perspective, you need to hold all of these things together and not to choose one over against the other. So the first term that That I used is that our political communities and their governments are legitimate. And what I mean by that is that there is a God ordained quality to these that we actually see in Scripture that even though if we human beings who set up our governments, we establish legal frameworks and constitutions, at the same time, they're as, as Romans 13, among other places, does that God himself has instituted civil government so that when we human, establish governments and live together in our in our cities, that this is actually something that God wills and God approves. Now might the second characteristic, then is sort of the counterbalance to that were remote that governments are also provisional. So there could be a temptation if, you know, once we acknowledge that governments and our political communities are legitimate, that we we give them too important a role that we act as if these are that, that their legitimate authority is actually, you know, we're expecting too much from them. And so I think it's also very important biblically to say that God has established our political communities and their governments for limited purposes on to accomplish important things, but not to accomplish the most important things, and that our governments are, in particular, especially a response to our sinful condition, and the need for protection, the need for justice, to be able to remedy the effects of sin in this world, to some degree without bringing, without bringing the new creation, which government is not capable of doing.
11:48 Right. And that seems to be a really, I think, a helpful balance point of making that point, that, that political institutions are legitimate, that they are God ordained. And we see that in Scripture. Because Because sometimes I think in in maybe our current climate, there can be that voice, right that that tries to legitimize government. And so it's balancing that, but then yeah, and I like how you would then understand that with the idea that they are provisional, though, they're not meant to do everything. And they're not meant to, to do the highest calling. And so I felt like that was just a really good initial approach with with those two, or two more actually. Yeah, two more categories. Those who kind of like, Oh, those are helpful, because they balance each other. And it seems like the last to balance each other as well.
12:39 Yeah, that was a point to just sort of set the the first two, in some sort of, kind of proper tension with each other. And then yeah, these last two as well, yeah. So the third category is common. And that is, by that I mean, that God has instituted our political communities and our governments for the entire human race, they're not just for the benefit of some subcategory of humanity. It's not just for, for us as Christians, it's not just for people of a certain ethnic background, or it's what basically, I think, as we look at scripture, we find that God has ordained these communities and these governments to serve all people, and to do justice for all people. And that's obviously not something that you can take for granted in the history of the human race, where there's always this temptation to think that, you know, the benefits of government, the benefits of political community are for us or our kind of people, but not for other kinds of people. So that was that that's a very important theme throughout the book. And then I try to balance that off with my fourth category, which is the idea that government is accountable, our political committees are accountable. And the reason why I wanted to emphasize that as well, is I think, if you, you know, once you make the case that governments are our political communities are common for all people, there's a temptation to think that well, I guess we can't really talk about moral issues that if we're going to say that our political communities are for Christians, and for Muslims, and for Hindus, and for atheists, then well, I guess anything, anything goes, it's just kind of morally neutral space. So I think it's important to say, Well, no, we really can't go that way, even though it might be tempting that scripture also makes really clear that our political communities are accountable before God and that God actually will judge our political communities. I mean, he you know, there's, there's a mysterious Providence at work in this world Even now, and we know Certainly on the last day that God will hold our communities accountable for doing the work that he has given them to do. So here again, I think there's, there's a kind of, sort of creative tension that Christian political theology needs to wrestle with, to really affirm that, you know, we need to involve all people in our political life, and at the same time, not give up the kind of the kind of genuine moral discourse that needs to happen if we are actually going to pursue justice in this world.
15:37 I think that that tension is what I loved, I think most about the book as is highlighting those two elements, because I feel like in the conversation of politics in the church, it is so one sided, often, and it is just kind of, like you said, they absolut ties certain aspects, and, and to be able to hold, and that doesn't just seem to gel with kind of common experience in real experience that we do have two things going on. And that government is in place for all people, you know, and, and, and it all it is also accountable to a higher moral standard. And I think it feels like do you feel that the characteristic of common is kind of a foundational characteristic for you moving forward in the book?
16:30 I do. And in part, that's why I thought the title politics after Christina was as was what was appropriate because there's a real sense in which emphasizing the idea of common really gets to the heart of the of the Christendom idea. I mean, there's a real sense in which that long experiment of Christendom was a fundamental rejection of this idea of commonality. Right? I mean, this idea that our, our, our political communities are for Christians, it is a Christian who ought to hold the reins of power is Christians who want to have special protection, maybe will allow, you know, perhaps Jewish communities, but if so, they have, you know, under very limited conditions, and if they don't behave themselves, we might, you know, not treat them very well. So, I mean, I, it's, you know, it, I need to be careful, because, of course, history is complicated. It's not as Christian doesn't work the same in every place every time. And so, a lot of Christian theologians who did have certain ideas of toleration and so that, that that was present, but I think at the same time, in my judgment, the, the long experiment of Christendom did have some fundamental failures on to this basic notion of commonality.
17:57 Yeah, I've been kind of getting into kind of the history of England, and especially the time of when the Vikings and the Danes were coming over. And you kind of see that clearly where there's this very strong Christian identity with with the kingdom of Wessex or the kingdom of Mercia, and, and the Danes were pagans. And so there was this separation and to try to think, a government or a king that was going to be king over all of them, and allow them to be unique. Yeah, just wasn't, wasn't even in that kind of worldview at the time, and had to be either Christian or pagan. And, and then you move into the modern era. And in America, maybe, especially, and you kind of highlight that in the book that America kind of really grabbed hold of that idea of building a, a political institution that was for everyone, not just one political one religious belief.
18:58 Right. Yeah. And I think it's, it's, I think it may be hard for us who are American to us, sort of rockin with the fact of the, of how, of how distinctive the American experiment is, in comparison with the vast majority of human societies THROUGH THROUGH THROUGH history, that it wasn't just Christendom, that had the idea that, you know, if we're going to have an orderly peaceful, justice, it we need to, we need to be unified on the most important things, we need to be unified theologically, we need to be unified philosophically. And it was I think you are getting at this point and for for so many people for most of history, it just assumed that if we don't agree about those things, then it's going to lead to anarchy, Civil War, we're not going to be able to have a kind of a peaceful, productive society. And so the idea that Well, we're actually going to found a country that is to sing Never get a degree giving up that idea. It doesn't say that we don't agree on anything. Of course, there has to be some degree of unity in a society in order to be able to live and work together. But the idea that we could have fundamental theological disagreements and maybe still possibly live peacefully with each other, and work with each other trade with each other, that's not something that had that you can take for granted in human history. And I think, you know, we as Americans are kind of used to that idea. And yet at the same time, I think, today more than ever, we are feeling we have this sense that this is this is not as easy practically, as we might think it is. Theoretically, and it is certainly the case that that the more differences you have, and the deeper the differences there are, the more difficult it becomes to try to live with each other. And so I do think that, you know, part of what my book is trying to wrestle with is, is this question, are we as Christians in this present, social, cultural, political environment in which we find ourselves is our goal to try to recover Christendom and Is that really what we're working for, to try to eliminate this kind of pluralism that we see or is our goal not to try to recapture that, but to try to figure out godly, just productive ways to live within the pluralistic societies that we that we have, and to sort of, you know, if not to love in every respect, at least to embrace that identity of being sojourners and and exiles in this world in which we, we actually expect that the world might hate us, and that things might not always go the way we want them to. And I make the argument that actually, it's that second scenario that we actually think we're called to be not sort of pining for the last Christendom, but actually to be trying to figure out how we can live peacefully and productively as best we can, in the kind of pluralistic societies that we find ourselves.
22:12 So that's my journey, you would expect this from, I guess, a history professor. But if indeed we're sort of post Christendom right now, and trying to figure out how to navigate that as Christians, culturally and in whatever polis we find ourselves in right now. Are there any resources from I guess, the time before Christendom that might be helpful for us? You know, Christendom didn't always exist. And if we're on the other side of it, of course, there was a time before it where there were Christians for 300 years or so. Right. And And is there anything from that period? Whatever you want to call it, that might not be a resource?
22:54 That might be his follow up book politics? Before Christendom? I can just give me a second book. Yeah, well, I don't know. I think I think ones enough here. Yeah.
23:08 Yeah, that's a good question. And, you know, to sort of comment on that, on your comment, Mark. That I mean, part of my argument is that, you know, politics after Christian actually is not this totally unique thing that that that that really, my my kind of smart alec, answer to. The question is, well, the New Testament is a pre Christendom resource that is that actually, and so it's kind of a smart aleck answer, but it's actually kind of a serious answer to because I do think that I mean, I think any straightforward reading of the New Testament, it prepares Christians for living in a world in which they're not calling the shots. It's, it's, it's addressing Christians, as soldiers as exiles in this world, it tells Christians you will be persecuted if you want to live a godly life, right? And tells us that our citizenship is in heaven, that we are awaiting a city there, we don't have a lasting city here. So I really do think that the New Testament itself is a pre Christendom document, that, that really, that prepares us wonderfully for a post Christendom world. Now, I also think that in in the early church after the New Testament era itself, there are also other helpful resources. I mean, one I just might might mention is Augustine's great work the City of God, I was actually thinking about that right. Yeah. I mean, so, Agustin is living at the time where you know, since things are things are turning So, right, has been converted. So I mean, they're, you know, the idea that there is now a Christian Emperor has just come on the scene and say
25:00 delcious is actually kind of made the whole thing official by the time he's writing the City of God. Yeah.
25:05 Yeah. But but it's still a very new idea, you might say, and it's, you know, it kind of figure I didn't know, there's obviously the, the Roman Empire is weakening. And there's really there's a lot there's a very interesting political situation. But I mean, there's so much in that great work. And, but but one of the ways that a Gustin tries to, to portray Christian life in this world as one in which Christians are pilgrims, on this journey towards the heavenly city. And so it's, it's, I mean, Gustin does set out a kind of a positive, I would say, a kind of a qualified positive view of life in this world. He's not really he's overly enthusiastic or optimistic about about about life in this world, but he has a place for Christians living in this world participating in this world. At the same time, there is this, this real sense that, you know, don't don't stay too much upon the affairs of this life, don't expect that you're going to triumph in this life, don't expect that you're going to be on top of the heap. In this world. This is a world in which we're called to suffer. And I think a gosens does set forth a pretty helpful paradigm for saying, look, yeah, there's, there are all sorts of ways in which we can live in common with our unbelieving neighbors, there are a lot of things we can share. Christians don't have to make up their own language. Christians don't have to make up their own their own style of dress. You know, I mean, we can, that's probably good.
26:43 That's probably good. We don't make
26:46 it probably is. But, you know, I guess it was very helpful in saying, you know, we cannot compromise on our allegiance and our worship of the one true God. So he's wrestling with these ideas that I'm trying to wrestle with in my book is how do we maintain a proper commonality in the ordinary affairs of this world alongside this, this this 100% devotion and allegiance to the one true God? So I think that's one really, really great resource.
27:18 As a qualified admirer of a Gustin I just wished the City of God was about 800 pages shorter than it actually is, at least for my students.
27:28 A long work well, I mean, I think, yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I this sort of thing that I tell my students, and I mean, I, I, I teach at a seminary. So these are theological students. So I tell them, you really need to read through the City of God, at least once in your life, you really haven't completed your theological education until you haven't done that. But it's not really realistic for all Christians to do that, but I think especially if, if any of your listeners would like to dive in just a little bit, and they don't have the fortitude and patience to work through the whole thing. Book 19, I think gets at a lot of these issues that that we've just been talking about. So that might be a helpful place for them to, to take a to get a nice little sample of what's there.
28:16 I have a confession to make, as long as we're talking about a Gustin, that's an inside joke there. But I took it as a point of pride when I was in seminary to, you know, be one of the few students that actually read everything that was assigned. But I have to say that with gusto and City of God, after about 100 pages, I basically flipped through it and said, done, I've read the City of God, five minutes after 100 pages. I wish I had been more diligent now that I really do a thorough work. How about that?
28:46 We'll say, yeah, we can say that. You also try to make a connection with the Hebrew Bible as well. And in the covenants, specifically with the noahic covenant. And it seems you connect the Noah covenant with that concept of commonality. Can you explain a little bit more that the connection of the noahic covenant with kind of what shapes our political point of view maybe, and specifically, that idea of commonality. Sure,
29:15 yeah, that that certainly is an important theme throughout the book. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm, I'm a reformed theologian. And so for those of us who are working in in that tradition, we'd like to talk about the biblical covenants that just an important feeling for us. But I hope it's something for those who are from other traditions can can appreciate this because, I mean, you just opened the Bible and it's you can't deny that you find these covenants and that they obviously play an important role. So, you know, these, these, these, these covenants are relationships that God enters with the human race and perhaps even beyond it, the human race in, in, in in some instances, and what you know, one of the Important things about covenants is that, you know, here we find God committing himself to, to deal with his created partners in a certain way. So you know, we know the terms in which God will will deal with us. And that's, that's really a very helpful, wonderful thing. And so when we find these biblical covenants, it's it's important for us to ask, okay, I mean, am I am I as a Christian now participating in the this covenant that is that is described, and if so, that's going to help me understand my relationship to God and the responsibilities that I have in this world. And so the Noah covenant just to be clear, that's, that's referring to that covenant that God makes with Noah and the larger created order, after the Great Flood as a tribe at the end of Genesis eight and beginning of Genesis nine. And one of the things that's fascinating about that covenant is that it is truly universal. God makes that with Noah, and with all his descendants after him, the covenant also made with every living creature, and so that that includes the the animal world as well. And it also concerns the broader created order, God makes promises about not sending another flood upon the earth. He says that day and night, summer and winter seed time and harvest, they are not going to cease for as long as this world indoor so there's this, this this universality to this covenant. So that's a long prelude to kind of getting to the real answer to your question. So as God makes this comment with the entire human race, which is different from say, the covenant with Abraham are the covenant at Sinai later, which is made with a, you know, a particular people. This no way a covenant is is universal. And one of the things that does is it establishes, maybe not for the first time, but we see this institution of of justice, he sheds the blood of man, by man will his blood be shed there, there's this idea that God Commission's the human race to do justice. And I think this is really important for several reasons. One is because God promises that this covenant is going to endure for as long as this present world indoors, that means that we are still under the new covenant. As far as preserving this present world. These are still the terms by which God is interacting with the world as a whole. And and secondly, you might say that, because this covenant is made with the entirety of human society, indicates at least this is my argument that the institutions of justice, this idea of having people who bear the sword, in defense of the well being of the human race, that that was actually instituted for the entire human race. And so this gets back to this idea of commonality that we were talking about earlier, that this is the doing of justice, even by coercive mean, is not something that's just for part of the human race. It's not just for those who claim to be Christians or those who claim to be able to some superior ethnic or racial group. I mean, this is actually for the entire human race. And so it seems to me that that's, that's a really important foundation for thinking about political community. And part of what I do in the book is try to try to show how that, that that foundational conviction actually explains a lot of what we find later in Scripture, as it talks about political communities and the institution of government.
33:57 We just want to thank you, Dr. VanDrunen, for joining us on the podcast has been so helpful. And I really think I wanted to put this book in front of our listeners, because I think it's, it helpfully shapes the conversation. And it kind of, I just want to thank you for how you take it out of the polarized kind of place politics are in America right now. And you bring us back to maybe a more traditional language and more traditional use of the language. So we can understand what is our role in politics today? What is our role as the church what is our role as Christians, and to realize that there is so much more than then power to be had, and that we are called to something much higher than that. And as a church, we're called to something much more than Christendom. And so thank you for that. Thank you for thanks for the show. It's been great. Well,
34:53 it's been my pleasure, and I certainly appreciate your kind words and you're interested in my book
35:01 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
35:27 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Musical guest Timothy John Stafford joins Mark to talk about his most recent EP Letters from Lancaster Prison. On the album Tim tells the stories of five different inmates serving a life sentence without parole. The songs cover themes of hope, redemption, justice, and grace.
TRANSCRIPT
0:09 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore. And excited on the show today we have our very first musical guest Timothy john Stafford. Welcome to the show, Tim, thank you very much for having me in here. And I'm really excited because I think as our first musical guests that really like taking us up as a podcast like another notch Yeah,
0:28 I feel like that may be overselling me. Hey, I'm gonna do my part.
0:35 You're a musical guest you have an album we're gonna talk about Yeah, now I'm not overselling anything you know, and and you're also the host or co host of Vox podcast with Mike Geary.
0:46 Yeah, I got hired on as the producer of that just trying to clean it up and edit the episodes and whatnot. And then slowly just got roped at work
0:56 your way into co hosts? Yeah. How long is that podcasts been going on?
1:00 I think that podcast has been on for three and a half years ish. somewhere around there. Yeah, we're like 230 200 I think this week's episode was 229.
1:11 That's like 20 years in dog years. Old her podcast years. That's good. Well, I like that. I like working your way in as producer. I did that in college. I just started playing, doing sound for a band. And then one year their bass player never came back. And I was like, I'm like, yeah, just where the notes again. Just point to him. And
1:33 I'll play him on a YouTube story too. Like Bono was the he was like their manager. He wanted to be the band super bad. And they kept giving him different roles. Yeah. Finally, there's like, Alright, man. Fine. Fine. You can work down there.
1:46 I guess so. Yeah. No. And they were probably like, what? 15 years old when they very not not a bad gig. You know, your first job ever.
1:55 And dog ears are like a million.
1:57 Yes. That is the truth and still going. So they are still going though going? Well, what are your most recent EP is is entitled letters from Lancaster prison. Yeah. And I'm really intrigued by just the story behind that album. How did that album kind of come about? And maybe your connection with Lancaster prison?
2:16 Yeah. So a couple years ago, I was getting my master's degree. So I could come and teach at a prestigious institutions such as William Jessup,
2:26 right? Yeah, we failed to mention you also teach some English class right?
2:29 I am a pretty sound. Still sounds very weird to say that. But my professor, I am one who professors? Yeah. You Professor English. Yeah. Not well. But during my master's degree program, I took a class that dealt with so Lancaster prison. I went to Cal State LA, okay, down in Los Angeles. And we won't hold that against you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, I was the odd one out. All my old enemy teams that we grew up with sports wise, are all la team. Yeah, it was awkward. But Cal State LA has one of the only accredited programs in a prison system in the state of California. Oh, wow. And it got founded by the professor there who's now one of my good friends. And he basically was going into the prison started with him just going in and teaching a few classes in the prison. And then he just had worked it up to the state level to get it actually accredited. So they It was a bunch of men, of course, serving life without parole. Okay. And they, they earned the right through kind of just being, you know, not getting involved in violence or drugs or anything in the prison for like, most of them had been like, 10 years. I mean, they've been in there. All these guys have been there for a very long time. Yeah. And like, for example, one of the guys is the last he actually just got out, but he was the one of the last incarcerated men from the LA riots. Wow, from the early 90s. So just as a framework there, but yeah, so we were I took the class and the class was built around this idea of reading a bunch of shared texts with the the men in there and then kind of, we were helping them with their papers, editing their papers with them, and then corresponding with them and so that that would go on throughout the semester. And then at the end of the semester, the teacher said, Hey, you know, you guys need to do a, some kind of like a gorilla project where it's like, either, you're gonna go do a poetry reading, or you're gonna facilitate some small event. It didn't have to be anything crazy. But I, as I tend to do, I like to bite off a little bit more than I can chew and I just shot a music video for a friend. So I bartered some studio time, okay. And I say you only know what why don't I, I have an idea. I'd like to record a record. In this case, the EP and asked the teachers like we gather a bunch of have a bunch of the men write their narratives, however they see their story, whatever it is, and bring them to me and I'm going to sort through them and try to find five that sparks something to write us. About and try to find five different themes. And so he brought me a manila folder full of like 20 or 30. Just handwritten narratives by a bunch of these guys. And I just went through them read through them for a while and then picked five and then wrote five songs and went into a studio with a live band and cut all the songs in like two days. And then that was that.
5:23 Oh, that's great. Yeah. Well, first off, just with the style of it, too. I love the style of music is kind of I mean, I would kind of continue to like in the country.
5:31 Yeah, it's kind of in there. It's got some traditional country elements, which tend to make you more alternative, which is fun. Right, right. There's some kind of Western sounds on there, too. But yeah,
5:40 definitely. Train slide ish guitar. Yeah, yeah. I like that. So so I was drawn in by the style.
5:48 Good. You never know countries either like you like it or don't.
5:52 Right. And it's definitely well, and that's why I would consider this that's why I would kind of say all country a little different than like, give a chance on the radio.
5:59 Give the chance guys. Oh, yeah. It's very opposite of Country radio. Yeah,
6:02 exactly. Yeah. So and we won't we we're not trying to alienate our country listeners. But this is also just a, you know, a different style of country that I think is. That is that is nice. You heard it here first. That's right. First, so for one. Yeah, I just love the kind of the style on that. And then I was also kind of drawn in. And it's interesting to hear that. So you you got the stories from the men first. Yeah, had them kind of write it down. And then you took them and turn them into songs. And so I'd love to kind of jump into a couple of these tracks. And one and this EP is available on Spotify. It should be on every wherever you plan on Yeah, digital music. Yep,
6:45 it's all over out there. There we go. And musics weird. It's like having kids because you kind of like you put all this time and effort into it. And then you just release it into the world. You're like good luck. Yeah. Like I hope people like you. I hope you do. Well. You're like I like you. Yeah, I think you're great. I like you. I'm just now it's your turn but you never know there's a bully around the corner that's like you know what?
7:06 As your as a great description. It's good for other artists listening that I would say any type of art you perhaps the
7:13 same way you you put all this life and love into it. And then it's just like, all right now erupt everyone else. Yeah. Scary, scary world out there.
7:22 It's a harsh world. But as we kind of look in, I'd love to one of them. That seems to be too on on. Spotify kind of has the most hits too. And I was drawn in kind of musically to it. But also lyrically to it was called the longest line. And it seems to be the story of Daniel. Can we Yeah, talk a little bit about your story. And
7:45 so I did, I did try. I did release that as a single. I'm doing air quotes for those of you who are not in this. And so Daniel was the guy that I worked with, he was the one who papers I kind of revise and edited. And then we wrote back and forth. And he was a writer and his story was really interesting. He I don't want to get too graphic, and I don't know how graphic I can get.
8:09 I mean, we can Yeah, it's um, it's a family show. But and you can be real, you can be real he,
8:15 he was he was a teenager, and he was hanging out with the more unsavory kid, kid who'd been involved in some had already been involved with some petty crime gang. And, and he, the kid, the other kid, was having problems with an abusive stepfather. And then Daniel was over there spending the night at the kids house, and the kid had said that he was going to inflict harm. Yeah, in a very all, you know, he was going to try to take the guy's life. Yeah. Or maybe he'd called Daniel. And then Daniel said, to come over and try to talk him out of it, and then went to sleep and was under the impression that he had talked him down, and then got woken up in the middle of night that it had, he had in fact, taken the other man's life. Oh, wow. And, and Daniel and asked Daniel, that he told me to help him take the like, deal with gas. Yeah, kind of clean up. Yeah. So he, he did that, you know, he was a teenager, right? flustered. He when you talk to him about it, he's like, I know what I did, incorrectly. I know the part that I played in this and I've been I carry the remorse of that forever and right and whatnot. The stories got twisted in the aftermath. The kid told the police everywhere that Daniel did it. Whoa. So Daniel has been in prison for over 20 years now serving life, he's still trying to prove his innocence. Yeah. You know, a lot of the men a lot. It's interesting when you're in there. So I've been in the prison now, multiple times. I'm halfway through shooting a documentary in there as well, because they've given us such good access to the actual prison. So it's like we should bring cameras in here and try to tell the story of right because for me, what's the most interesting thing is the education is offering Knees men a chance at being like, reformed, right? So restored? Yeah. So you know, a lot of us will talk about restorative justice often as a great buzzword or an idea. But I was like, this is interesting, because I'm actually seeing it happen in a tangible way, like education is brought in. You guys are earning degrees. And in 2016, we passed prop. And I want to say 57. But it's been a few years now. But we proposition got past that allowed all these guys who are serving life without parole. Like, a chance at parole. Okay. Yeah, like, at least, you know, maybe a hearing or something. Yeah. So bunch of the guys that we work with have been released since then a ton of them. So those guys are all locked in for life. Yeah. Which, you know, everyone has different opinions on but in a lot of ways, it is a death sentence, because you're sequestered and then you're there until you die. Yeah. So that these guys have gotten out. While we were filming the documentary, like oh, now, you know, so and so is out so and so is out the teacher who is just this remarkable guy of Islam, Buddhist atheist, like, yeah, so you know, and he, he also volunteered to kind of be their probation officers, like instead of the house on the campus, okay, so a lot of the guys are coming out and living on the campus and continuing their education. And so it's been very interesting. So Daniel, I actually met recently, I was in there, and I was able, he was in a meeting because we published a journal. That's just the men's writings. Oh, wow. And the program is called words uncaged. And you can, it's all over the internet and stuff. But so I was in a meeting and I saw him for the first time. I was like, hey, Daniel is like, yeah, next to him. He's like, Oh, yeah. So we had a weird moment because we had spoken so much via like, you know, letter writing and whatnot. Yeah. It's a very surreal, very surreal thing and Lancaster's, a very surreal Eric's it's right. It's out in the wild in the desert. Right. And so it gets very, very hot and very, very cold and very isolated and flat, and just everything kind of feeds into the same narrative of isolation. Yeah. Yeah. So that song, this idea of kind of, you know, being at the end of the longest line, like he's, he's been continued, every time he's up for parole, he gets pushed back. And so he's just kind of been perpetually kind of locked in this thing. And, you know, he feels that he was unjustly incarcerated and unjustly persecuted or whatever. And so, and that was a lot of the narratives was, you know, not all of them. But
12:28 right. Yeah, I mean, that does seem to be like you're saying maybe a common, you know, most maybe you guys are gonna be like, I didn't do it. Yeah, but when you get to hear people and get to hear stories, and and try to understand to that, that effect of incarceration and the effect of isolation who in turn and yeah, it really is and and I think it's what's what is unique about this is giving these men a chance just to share their story. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm sure it from their perspective. And yeah, now has Daniel heard the song.
13:02 And he has they've all they I think all the men have heard it. And when I finished the record, I I sent at least those five guys I sent. I wrote them each a letter, and I with the lyrics of the song, kind of where I had landed with it. And yeah, and sent it to the gave it to all of them. And we did a we did a radio broadcast with this woman who has been working on prison reform for like 3040 years or something. She has her own little like NPR kind of radio show. So yeah, she's involved and we and she was able to set it up to the guys calling from payphones into the show. Oh, wow. And, and so someone that I think they played some of the music over the speakers, I can't remember exactly how Yeah, yeah. In the prison. Yeah. It's very Yeah, very interesting. Very, not something I ever intended to be involved in, but have gotten very involved in it.
13:50 Yeah. There was another track on here called the architect. Yeah. And about door tell,
13:57 yes. Door tell this is a great. So this is a different version of a story. So he, he's a he was a young African American guy, he was in high school, he went to his high school counselor and said, Hey, I want to go to college. And the counselor said, I'm sorry, I don't think your college material. And and so he This was in the prime early 80s or so mid, mid early 80s. And so he ended up getting the other option that he had available to him was getting involved with selling drugs. And so he ended up working on the streets and got married, had a kid and then there was a drug deal that went wrong, went bad and his wife ended up getting shot during the drug deal. He didn't pull the trigger. He didn't actually hurt anybody, but he became an accomplice to the murder and and going to prison for life. Yeah. And so his story is so interesting because he has, he has a daughter who he hasn't really seen and some alerts in the end of the song like I think it's been a while since I've looked at it, but Yeah. The last lines of the song are like, Father forgive me, by noon will not want to do. Daughter, please forgive me, because I longed to be there with you. Yeah. And so he had it seemed that she got raised without both parents because one passed and I was incarcerated, and then, but he's earned two or three degrees in prison. Oh, wow. Like he just like, it's so it's so heartbreaking because you can see how much he wanted this education, and that has now just continually pursued it and has continually bettered himself. And I think he's even I think he's in seminary now. If I remember correctly, yeah, yeah. It's just a wild ride. And he's just like, he's so calm. And he's very articulate. And he knows that he made mistakes, obviously. And he and he carries, like, the weight of a lot of those mistakes, just with his wife and the connection with his daughter and whatnot. But yeah, I his has always been such a great, not a great sorry, that's the wrong way to say that it has been a very it's a great example of what the program is, like, you know, it tends to be a lot of minorities who have been kind of pushed away or grown up in communities where there's not a lot of opportunity. And right, so you watch guys like door tell. They're just like I'm making it happen. Like I'm in the worst possible situation that you could imagine, right? And I'm, and I'm, and I'm going for good. I'm going, I'm going I'm going so yeah, he's been he's cool. I met him too. I met all those guys. Actually, at this point, I
16:29 think. Yeah, that's so great. And, and what's interesting about this, too, is that this being part of like a school, right, kind of assignment almost. Yeah. And not necessarily coming from a faith perspective. But kind of as you were there, and as you kind of hear the stories, what were some of the things you learned kind of our How did this influence your own faith? And how was your faith journey kind of during?
16:57 Yeah, a ton. I you know, I grew up a white middle class, hetero Christian male, right. So I had all the boxes checked for being able to, for my life to have been fairly simple. Yeah, yeah. For me, the I mean, the guy walking into the prison is, is it's a big kind of slap in the face or not a slap in the face. But it's, you feel very out of place. You feel that you feel the brevity of that when you're in there. Yeah. Like I was filming interviews in the cellblock and going into the cells, and you just you, you put yourself into this tiny little closet that you live in for 3040 years, right. And it's a wild wakening. I guess it was kind of the Yeah. And so for me, it's constantly wrestling with this idea of like the imago dei and that's kind of what was always kind of in my head at every time I go in, there's like everyone has been made in this image of God, that God was intentional with that kind of that that plan on that idea. And so you're in, you're in this prison, you're meeting these guys who, whose lives have taken drastically different turns drastically different. That, you know, a lot of just, they're in different places. But they're all these guys. These are all people that God like intentionally made and created. Yeah. So this idea of, of who is beyond redemption, is anyone beyond redemption, right? Obviously, that conversation is different. If you are the family who has had the crime committed against you, right, your your, your emotional vantage point is gonna be dramatically different than mine. And so you carry all that because I meet those families as well. I met the prisoners, families, I've met families who have been affected by the prisoners. And so all of that's real, right. It all exists. It's that's all real energy, and thought and emotion and pain, that all exists in this thing. So being intentional with how you like, try to sort through that stuff. Where is God? How is God moving? I'm not going in there and just being like, hey, do you know Jesus, right? There's plenty of people doing that. Yeah. And we're kind of going in and being like, hey, I want to help encourage you in in bettering your situation and earning this education and a lot of the guys are Christian. There's a song in there called the burden of hope. Yeah. That's not the one yeah. burden hope by about jack. Yeah. And he became, he was like, his story was nuts. And he was in gangs at a really young age and saw his best friend Mona like 15 get shot in the head of a gang altercation and his whole life was violent and led to this place and then he found Jesus in jail and he's like, the most peaceful person there and yeah, he wrote me this long letter was like, Hey, brother, like bomb deleted it. And, you know, we had never met but we he got the song and he was just like, we had a connection through this idea of who Jesus was and who faith how faith plays in that and whatnot. So it's really I mean, the end of that song just kind of ends with us. Repeating of like, I sing prayers or something like that. And it's just picturing jack in the prison, singing these songs. And just finding God in the midst of the worst, you know, the worst environment, the worst circumstances and whatnot. So, I don't know, man, it's like, it is like a collision of humanity right in there. And it's all just tightly in there. And these tightly fenced in locations and a lot of ego and a lot of pain and right. A lot of people looking for hope and peace. And yeah. So it is really kind like a microcosm of the world. Right, smashing this little.
20:39 Yeah, really? It really is. Yeah. One of my one of my favorite stories or parables that Jesus gives is in Matthew 25 parable, the sheep and the goats. I believe cake also wrote a song about that, but I have a little bit of different interpretation, although actually they get kind of the gist of what the songs done. local band, yeah, let's say Sacramento ban. But I love what you know. And that's kind of the famous one where it's the you know, if you if you fed me, clothed me, but I've always been struck by one of the lines was, I was in prison, and you came in to visit me. Yeah. And always. And there's a there's actually a local, homeless kind of outreach, kind of the kind of call themselves a survival Center here in Sacramento. And they base everything they do off of this Matthew 25. I love that. Yeah, they close they feed, and they visit in prison. Right. And they, and and I just thought, you know, as we were kind of getting into this conversation, I just drawn back to that, that that, that does seem to be an element, maybe within the church that we kind of read that. And we don't necessarily see how that powerful, powerful kind of nature of if I'm in prison, meaning I've been isolated, I've been set apart, mostly, maybe because of things that I've done. Right, yeah. But then the power of someone reaching out and visiting, like, and, and, and like your professor just kind of maybe reaching out to them, and saying, Hey, we want to hear your stories. We want to give you the opportunity of education. And what's great about this, this parable, and it's kind of like what you just said, you kind of snuck it in. When highlight you said finding God there in the prison, right? Yeah. Often we approach maybe ministry or things like that. And we would be like, we want to take God to the prison. Yeah, we want to take Jesus to the prison. But actually, in this story, Jesus saying, if I'm there, and if you help me, that's you that here if you help them, and that's you helping them, man, that verses come up three times in the last week. Oh, there you go. That's telling. Yeah, I got
23:00 that. And I, because for me, you know, that's explicit. Right? God, right. Jesus, like, I want you to do this. Yes. There's no like, gray. Right. Yeah, what exactly. There's other things that we focus on often with in the church that are not so black and white. This is a very, like, straightforward issue. And God also kind of spoke to the same in the Old Testament. Yeah, spoke to some of the same thing. Right. Well, yeah. And so I was thinking about that verse. Just yesterday, actually think we were talking to a guest on our podcast about it. And it just randomly came up. And I was just like, I'm so am I that has been on my heart for a couple years now. Yeah. Like if the church just focused on those things, the difference the church can make in the world for like, we're going to do the things that just that Jesus really was like, right, bom bom bom. Right, man, what a difference the church globally could make. Yeah. And then also that, you know, that's pretty close to right before he dies, and then rises and then gives a great commission. It's like, Well, yeah. Looking at those all kind of like, in a linear context, like, hey, do this, do this, do this. And then he comes back and says, hey, go and make disciples now know how to do it. Yeah. That seems pretty clear to me. I don't know. Or God's trying to say something to me through that stuff lately. Yeah, you thrown it at me a bunch of you came in. Pay attention?
24:19 I think it is. I think it's so important. I mean, because it it really is looking at some of these clear things that Jesus said to do. And again, with the perspective of this isn't me taking Jesus to these people? This is me actually seeing Jesus in them partnering up Yeah. And and I agree wholeheartedly with you that if the church just literally and simply focused in on these things, so much would would spread from that Oh, man, but again, it just kind of gives shape to that power. And so thanks a lot for coming on the show and sharing this Yeah, sharing the CPE encourage everyone to kind of listen to it and actually as we kind of close out we're going to be able to let you as listeners hear kind of I think the first track your longest line and so as we close it out hope you enjoy this song and you can check out Tim on Timothy john Stafford calm and here's some of his other music. He has couple other albums never man unless are miracles. Oh yeah, you can check those. Remember those albums? But thanks again and thanks just for the reminder of the power of people story. Yeah, and just giving them a chance to share it. And how men were called to were called to see Jesus and everyone especially those who are hurting those marginalized folks. Yeah, yeah. And, and man if we can get our eyes tuned to see that we'll start seeing Jesus in our world. And Jesus is smart dude. I don't know I'm just throwing that out there Yeah, hey, I think that that's a good last night. Jesus was a smart dude. We hope you enjoy this song as well. Where whereas on the hall nine I didn't know where friend is a friend who stories tear down the wall. Acid I'll just talk now my hands bloody red. No way. Five data analysts. We heard his mom scream. See live streaming gear at the end
29:03 here at the end
30:23 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes. These reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
30:50 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Dr. Michael McGrann, chair of Jessup's Institute of Biodiveristy and the Environment, joins Mark and Rex for part two of their series on theology and environmentalism. Dr. McGrann helps them understand how science and faith teach us the interdependence of all creation which provides a foundation to build an environmental ethic.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And Rex today on the show, we have a scientist on the shining. On the nose with john Hess. We have Dr. Michael mcgrann. He's the chair of the Institute for biodiversity in the environment here at Jessup and associate professor. And he's coming on for part two of our conversation had a theologian on theologian we're trying to kind to cover our bases. That's right. And we're looking at how theology influences our environmental ethic, or at least how our theology should influence our environmental ethic. I think you're gonna like where the show head last time we were on the end of the story, this time we look at the beginning of the story and how that affects our role in being stewards and caretakers of this earth. We try to cover all the bases Jessup things.
0:55 All right, Michael. Well, thank you for being on the show. First time on the show. Yeah. And we're excited to have you Rex. Here's got some some questions he's gonna pepper you with. So all right. It's good to have a scientist on the show. This is
1:09 finally some of the notes for the
1:12 week. Oh, yeah. All these Biblical Studies theology. Get your finger to get your hands in the dirt.
1:20 Yep, I get my hands dirty. My boots dirty. Yeah, exactly. That's
1:23 great. And this is, this is kind of our follow up. Right. So it's part two to kind of this idea of, of how theology affects our environmental ethic. Right, you know, and kind of in last episode, we had Dr. Matt gotcha on kind of New Testament and theologian, and he's worked with you on the environmental ethics class, and even some environmental ethics committee are in that and so we knew we wanted to have you on as a voice to kind of help us maybe see the conversation to from a different light brother from the lens of a scientist. We're multidisciplinary heroes. Yeah, all good education. Exactly. That's right. podcast me and by as right. And so we kind of looked at, at how theology affects our environment, I think, but we mostly looked at kind of eschatology, right, so our interpretation of the end of the story. Yeah. And in my conversation with you, I know we've talked a lot about then origins, right, right, how the story began. And something we we said last on the last episode, was that how you interpret the beginning of the story and how you interpret the end of the story really affects how you live out the story.
2:36 Right? I would say that, yeah, perhaps your last conversation, you're focusing at the end of the story, but really, in our environmental ethic is weaved throughout all of Scripture, the entire story, right? Yeah, that's starting starting at the beginning. With Genesis, and I think, I think, you know, having, or coming to terms with origins as a scientist, I think is essential to doing good science, especially as an ecologist, as an environmental scientist, as a biologist, but also as a believer in the Bible as a follower of Jesus, to come to terms with, you know, an interpretation of Genesis that frees me up as a scientist to do the science, the science that impacts decision making, and to follow the science wherever it may lead, because that's what science does. That's what science does. Right? Science is supposed to be an objective process. Yeah. And revisionary based form of learning and don't give you just right, or deducted from there. Yes, yeah.
3:46 Yeah. Well, in the in the, you've highlighted this before, to that revisionary aspect of science, right there. Science is not, is not coming in and saying this is maybe the only way, but it's saying hey, this is and then when things maybe get discovered more or further, oh, hey, we need to revise that a little right. You know, and,
4:05 and what I tell my students all the time in class is you never prove a hypothesis, right? You never prove something. In science. You you attempt to falsify a hypothesis. Right? Right. And, and so that's the goal of science is there to revise that hypothesis. And when as you learn more, okay, you realize what you don't know and that you need to keep learning more. Right. And so that's the process of science. And I think, you know, starting with Genesis, though, you know, the way I see Genesis is as a framework, and I'm not saying that necessarily all Christians have to agree with me on interpreting Genesis this way. Yeah. But I see it as a framework. And it for describing how God are describing why God did it and who did it.
4:58 I actually spoke about that. Yeah. Today in the classroom, for this particular podcast, about different theories of origins, and the framework theory or theories was was one of them, but I wish you were in the class because none of us actually could adequately get ourselves around that one,
5:14 right? The framework framework theory? Well, basically, it's pretty straightforward. My understanding of it, and I certainly didn't invent it, there's lots of scholars that have built into this idea that when you read Genesis, the way that it was written by the ancients was that it was illustrating first, who, who did it, right. And then why, why God did it. And it was to build their establish a relationship. And so and also, the this framework is kind of a poetry and kind of typical Mormon of Hebrew poetry, where you have the first there's kind of symmetry in it, where you have the first three days you have God created, the realms, create traded, light, and darkness, created, the sky, created land. So the three realms, they're on the first three days, right. And then on the second three days, God created and populated those rooms, and created the bodies that fill those rooms. So you have the heavenly bodies, you know, the sun, and the stars and the moon, the fill, fill the sky, and you have the birds that fill the sky or the fault. Yeah, and then you have other living creatures that dwell on the land. Right. And interestingly, you know, on day three guide kind of lumps are the authored lumps, vegetation, with with land, because the ancients kind of saw vegetation as part of the landscape, even though plants aren't right, separate organisms. But um, all of you see the cemetery there. So you have all the rooms the first three days, and then on the second three days, God populates those rooms. And then on the seventh day, God rested. And what's interesting about the first three days in are the first six days is that there's a sunrise and the sunsets are the sunsets on the first six days. But then on the seventh day, the sun doesn't set. So maybe perhaps implying that we are still in the seventh day. Yeah. And that rest? Yeah. And that rest period? Yeah.
7:25 So as soon as you kind of look at the Genesis narrative, as a scientist, what does it teach you about environmental ethics? Like what are some themes you draw out of that? That kind of help you build an environmental ethic?
7:40 So what's really compelling to me about this interpretation is one that it kind of, you know, it sets the stage for, for a much more my view of powerful interpretation that runs throughout Scripture, the story that runs throughout all of Scripture, establishing that God desires of right relationship with all of creation, and that God has established his temple on earth, and that he was essentially building a temple
8:14 that I've heard that actually as another iteration of the framework theory that actually has to do with the Jewish temple.
8:20 Right? But when there's similarities to to the temple, or it's analogous to the temple right on the seventh day, God rested Well, what is God rest? What do we mean by resting? Is God kicking his feet up on the barking lounger and resting or? No? What? But it perhaps me is that God is dwelling? Yeah, like God rests in the temple or dwells in the rest? Yeah,
8:46 yeah. And God is with Adam and Eve, right? He is with his walk. He's he's kind of that indwelling of the temple. And it's that presence. That's right there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, kind of highlights that relational aspect.
8:58 So yeah, that the second chapter of Genesis is more of that intimate relationship, that God is building with humankind. And, and the Eden kind of represents we're building off the temple analogy, is that Eden represents the Holy of Holies. Where the most intimate relationship with with with God where God is directly present, God is dwelling in the Garden of Eden and desiring a relationship, an intimate relationship with humankind and with alteration to the point of Genesis is it sets the stage for all of Scripture, the whole entire story of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, of what a right relationship would should be with God with the nation and with all of of mankind. And so that sets the stage for an environmental ethic, what's our role as believers in terms of an environmental What environmental ethic? What Why? What do we mean by ethic? Why do we care? Why do we care about the environment? Why do we care about stewarding what God has given us
10:10 an ethic, I guess would imply that there's a right way. And our there are better ways and worse ways to go about this thing, right? Yeah.
10:18 Why don't you kind of see how how those narratives would affect your ethic. Because what I like, kind of when I approach the origin story in, in my theology classes, we kind of talk about the other ancient Near East stories and have this town. Yeah. And so you mean, you have the Babylonian ones, that is just violence, it's two Gods fighting each other. Right? And God's being ripped in half and in the realms kind of coming out of that? Yeah. And if that's your story, right, if that's your story, as a culture, that's going to change the way you approach or the environment, right, that it's gonna make violence and war and kind of destruction, just a natural part of of the world. Right, that. And then the Egyptian one is, is much more sexual. And something I wouldn't say on the show, right? Yeah. Even if we weren't being recorded, I don't think I would say it to you guys. Yeah. But that again, would would kind of would kind of put a lens on you as a culture of saying, Oh, this must be what the world is about. Yeah. And then yeah, you have Genesis one and two, that is so different from those. And it's this picture. Yeah. But God have a God who's, who's this amazing artists, right, right is creating this world, in order to be in relationship. And then giving, it seems to be giving human beings a status within that created order to to be stewards. So it feels like to me like if you really take Genesis one and two seriously, it kind of pushes us further into an environmental ethic. And one that would be that would be built on care and intentionality, right, and that idea of stewardship, rather than just, I can I could do whatever I want to with this.
12:17 Right. And well, that's why an interpretation like that is particularly powerful when it comes to an environmental ethic, because it defines it defines what that relationship is what that relationship is, with the intense intimacy that God desires with creation and with us, and that we have a special role in creation that we've been charged with stewarding and caring for creation. Again, that kind of that also comes from chapter two in Genesis. Right, when we're talking about the Garden of Eden, right,
12:52 some people will replace the word stewardship, with dominion, and that that has other implications. Yeah. And that we don't
13:01 use that word and other places that often.
13:04 Right, right. Right, right. Or even in all Christian circles, but right, certainly the ones, you know, in my tribe, we use Dominion language, right? And that that does affect the conversation. In in different ways.
13:20 Yeah. In different translations used a minion as of Scripture, but I mean, what do we mean by Dominion? Exactly right. I would much rather be under God's Dominion in my life, right? I mean, God is a just fair, provident, loving, creator, right? But we have poor examples of Dominion in human societies and tyrants that rule over and oppress people, right. And so when we think of dominion, we think of ruling over and oppressing and exploiting
13:53 right creation and taking things out of context. If you know if dominion is a is a characteristic of God, and we bear the imago day, and then you can look at God and how God relates to his creation. Yeah. Which might give us some clues as to what that concept might mean for us. Unfortunately, we don't always go there.
14:14 Yeah, but that's a really good point. Because when you kind of look in that, especially Genesis one kind of 26 through 28, is where we get that that kind of Dominion language if you're reading the KJV, right, or Fiona Byron, Katie 1611, right. I saw a guy once who had a trucker hat, and it said, KJV 1611. Like that is amazing hat. But when like the NFV kind of uses that idea of subdue, of subdue it, but first, I think you're making a good point that in that passage, we also see that human beings are made in the image of God and because of that, imago dei Then they are given that, that kind of call to to rule over the fish of the sea, right, and the birds in the sky, all of those things that have just populated realms. But I think connecting it to the imago dei is really powerful. Because, yeah, it's not just a power or Dominion or rule that we have on our own. But it's because we are reflections of who God is. And so then we'd have to ask yourself, okay, how does God approach the environment that does change the conversation? Yeah, it really does. And, and it appears, at least in these first two chapters, that he approaches it with care and love and, and put in wonder in their plan,
15:45 yeah, and joy and satisfaction, almost like, you know, Glee at how good it is. Right. All is good. Right? Good.
15:54 Declare several times that it is good. Yeah. And, oddly enough, when you get to the humans declares us as very good, right? And so we can reflect who God is. We can reflect who God is by being loving, by being servants to one another, by by being gracious by being for forgiving by being merciful. God doesn't exploit. Right, right. Yet, sometimes, perhaps, in certain Christian circles, you hear the word stewardship used in other contexts, right? We should exploit these resources, because they were given to us, we have the right to do that referencing this scripture, right. But if you look at the God, the example that both that Christ has said, for us, exercising Dominion also means being a servant
16:56 being mean, on the ground. I mean, this is this is fascinating. Yeah, not thought of this much before. Um, but what would it mean for humanity to be a servant to the rest of God's creation? I don't I don't know how to take that. But I find that very, yeah, very attractive concept.
17:14 Yeah, well, I think what it would mean is that we're thinking about God's plan. We're thinking about the whole story from Genesis to Revelation, and that God's plan is to one day restore creation, and that we should reflect that that we are another concept assault in the light to all of creation. Yeah. And, and that means that we hold back, we hold back, or we're a force against evil, against decay against the destruction of creation, and that we're emulating what is to come and what a rat right relationship looks like? Yeah. And so I think that's what service is, and I think it requires humility, I think it requires, you know, that we don't just plow over everything, or cement over everything or pave over everything. That Okay, what are the consequences of our action with respect to the environment? As as followers of Christ? How's this our actions, emulating what is to come of what is what is the restored earth and heaven on earth going to look like? That's the promise in urban revelation, right. And our role as believers as followers of Christ is to emulate that, to me like that, not only in our relationships, often in Christian circles, which is great, we need to emulate that in our personal relationships with one another. But it also means all of creation, having a right relationship with all of creation, yeah, and exercising justice and fairness. And, sure, we have these resources that are available to us to use to consume for needs, but with the mindset that it's sustainable for the future, for future generations, and also with the, you know, to make sure that we're conserving this for the long term, not just for our immediate needs for this generation.
19:11 And that's not seems to be where the conversation in the, you know, late 20th century now 21st century, has changed compared to kind of the ancient Ancient Near East culture, or even the first century of, of kind of the New Testament, in these kinds of agrarian societies that were very dependent on what nature provided for them. And so I try to remind students that, that in these societies, they would have been focused on caring for the earth because the earth literally provided food for them in a very real way that they were connected and connected in that sense of, they knew that it wasn't just for that harvest season, but it needed to be for the next harvest season and the one after that. And, and and there there was this, maybe there's a closer connection to the earth.
20:09 It's this disconnection I think that drives. Yeah, you know, some folks like certain iterations of the anabaptist to basically, you know, live close to the land and not have this this, you know, distance between that and that that's a more biblical way to live.
20:29 Right, right. Well, the disconnection I think, for us from the land, can could make me more callous to like, Oh, yeah, I don't care, as long as I can, you know, can go to Taco Bell and order food. I'm good. And I don't ever have to see how it was made. And got there never good. Yeah, no, I don't want to see how it's been. I don't think I've actually eaten the Taco Bell since 1995. However, Taco Bell is a sponsor of the show. And we support them. Talking about sponsorship, yeah, that would change the conversation. But that, but that does seem to, obviously that affects the conversation, this disconnection. And these these stories and narratives were written into societies that just had a much closer connection. So it's so for them, I think when they saw maybe, rollover subdue, it definitely didn't have this. Oh, yeah. us whatever it was like, No, we have to, we have to care for this because it is actually providing us life. Right. Yeah.
21:39 And then is them and SNS says, since most of us don't live in an agrarian society more disconnected from that. So right as as a disconnected person, which I actually am. Right, right. Yeah. What How does what should I do? I mean, how should maybe push should i do is not the right question. But what should my posture be? Right? Yeah, that posture approach, right.
22:05 But I think the first step is to realize that you actually aren't disconnected even though you may psychologically or emotionally feel that you are okay. Right. We're incredibly dependent on the environment around us. Yeah. I don't know about you, but I ate today. And that food came from somewhere. I'm breathing air right now, that I'm glad is clean and not arming me, right? I drink water every day, or coffee or tea or whatever. And that water comes from somewhere, right? We are absolutely dependent on the environment around us and how we relate to the environment, whether it's in a way that is stewarding the environment, and that as a resource that God entrusted to us. First, you know, the first step is to realize that, hey, it doesn't belong to us, right? It's not ours. Yeah, guess who it belongs to trusted to belong belongs to the Creator, right. And so we're interested to steward it in a way that is an adjust way that benefits others around us, as well, and not to exploit it for our own selfish gain, perhaps. Right. And so I think that's the first step. Okay. I'm not I'm not correcting you, Rex. But you're correct. We're good all the time. Our microphone is pretty brutal. Yeah. Just to realize that we, you know, we feel like we are disconnected. We're not we're actually not right. Yeah. But I think when we're out there, you know, growing crops and and we are intimately connected to the land and the amount of rain that occurs or doesn't occur, or what the soil is doing, why aren't Why are my plants growing? not growing anymore? What happened? Well, maybe the nutrients are depleted in the soil and right, maybe we need to plant different crops, or maybe we need to let them around land rest, Oh, my gosh, what?
24:08 Money we make money, we can't let things rest all
24:10 the land has opportunity for nutrients to the return true. So there are biblical principles that were established back 4000 years ago, because of that intimate connection with the land. Right. And, you know, I take I take my my students for several weeks, eight to 10 weeks out in the wilderness on the Pacific Crest Trail. And I read Psalm 104, which is I call and several other folks called the ecology where it's talking about God's provision for all of creation, how God provides it provides for all of creation, including the mountain goats in the higher x in the higher elevation, and how we read that together when we are actually in In the High Sierra, last time I read it I was on, we were on a peak. And you could look down the spine of the car and see several peaks of 12,000 foot peaks now in one direction, look down the east slope of the car and see the Owens Valley. And there was actually a Marmot that came up as we were reading about it, just like the Bible is talking about, and you see down the western slope, this incredible VISTA point. And you realize how impactful that scripture is, right? Because it was written by a shepherd, David, who was inspired by this when he was out in the wilderness himself, and directly connected to creation. Yeah, and how God speaks to His servant, while he is in creation, that intimate connection comes through God's creation. So I think, I think I think that there is something they learned from the, from the ancient, right, because they had such an intimate relationship with creation and with their Creator. And they took for granted that that we now are disconnected. Like you mentioned, Rex, in some ways disconnected from here.
26:11 And this has implications all over the place. I mean, I was just, I was just thinking of, you know, lived in Oakland for a while, and I would take kids up to the Sierras. And like they never seen snow, they never been out of the concrete jungle. Right. And and I guess more of the point what we're talking about, they never been out of the out of the food desert that they live in. They have to go to Taco Bell all the time, because honestly, they can't get a Yeah, had a fresh lead. Right. Right. And there's issues there to interconnect with this
26:38 one that may be Rex, kind of like to your question, two things that we can do. I mean, in in, in environmental ethics, we bring up a lot of things. I mean, obviously, like recycling, and just being mindful of waste. And, and I think those are all really amazing things that we can do. And not that all of them are easy, but they're easy to at least start and implement, right and teach to your children, things like that, that. But I think maybe even even before to maybe help you even get to that step might just be reconnecting with, with the earth, right, like getting out of just urban centers. And being able to get out into nature, and to realize it because I think yeah, that that experience of being in nature is very powerful to be like, wow, this isn't it kind of highlights the interconnectedness, which is I know, a theme that you that that you'd like to talk about, Michael, the the idea that, man, all of it's not just us doing everyone, we are so connected to earth, like you were saying we're dependent on breathing air right now. You have food.
27:43 That's why we have, you know, Christian camps up in the mountains. Yeah, that's where they're at. Right. Right. I don't think we take advantage of that. And I agree, I agree should be Yes, you're right. those connections. Are there bigger connections? And, you know, a lot of times we're aware of, yeah,
28:02 yeah, certainly the interconnect connectedness. We but also that inter dependency, perhaps, yeah, that's a stronger I like that. Yeah. And we're dependent on the Creator. And then we're dependent on creation. We're dependent on each other. And I think when I take my students it, I describe it. And this probably not been told by marketing that this is not the best phrase to recreate. But I describe it as a voluntary crisis, when you go out with me on the Pacific Crest Trail for 810 weeks, right in the wilderness. Yeah, you are volunteering for a crisis. When you're in a crisis, and this is what my pastor always says, He always tells me that if you're not currently in a crisis, don't worry, you will be one soon. When you're in a crisis, you realize that you are utterly dependent on the Creator. Right? And so and that interdependency that Yeah, you're not alone. Operator, that. And that's a difficult concept. I think for Americans, you know, we're very fiercely independent. Yeah. But when you're in that wilderness setting, disconnected from technology, from all communication, you realize you're dependent on each other, right? on our team. And to get through this. We're doing science out there. We're collecting data, but also, you're dependent on the environment, because we get our water right from various sources. When is our next water special? When we're going through the desert section of the trail? It can be several miles like there's one stretch where we have to carry water for 30 miles, multiple days. Oh, wow. And my students comment on how they you know, they see this they're their Nalgene bottle full of water earlier. There. I was doing everything, not just the the jug, you know, Chuck does everything I can do. But that dependency on The environment on on the on the water that you drink on the resources from there were in that situation in that that crisis, you're physically pushed the limit, realizes that, yeah, we are dependent on everything around us this environment and the creator for for our needs, and each other, and that we need to trust each other, and we need to help each other. And we need to be very sensitive to the changes in the environment as we're moving along the trail. And as we're studying the environment. And so I think that highlights that interdependence, you
30:36 know, it would be great if I know this is a utopian sort of thing, but it would be great if you know that that force crisis was not just available to all just sort of forced on them. Yeah, right. Right. Really, when I was in high school, I went to a private school that had the resources to do this. But they took our whole junior class down to Big Bend National Park and hooked us up with our bound for a whole week. And we're just a bunch of city boys who had never done any of that kind of stuff before or anything, but at least, you know, they thought that we needed to do that. If we asked to do that, and and, you know, some things I learned, you know, um, you know, the wrong way to repel.
31:16 Yeah, that's a good lesson to learn. Oh, goodness, me today. They really do. It's a good lesson to learn and come back from sometimes. Glad you survived that Yeah, exactly. Like you should me it wasn't just me, went over. Or kicked over. Oh, my God, thank you so much for being on the show. Because this has been really helpful. And yeah, and I think, because part of it, I think part of the reason for this, these two parts series was to kind of highlight not necessarily just prescribe for people what to do next, or where to go over, I think, to give them a good starting place, and at least for maybe, where we see where theology and where our interpretation of the beginning and the end of the story, we're gonna affect the whole story. Yeah. And, and I think that, that theme of interdependence is really important, because it helps kind of bring everything in. I mean, it helps bring in that we are dependent on God, right creator, we have to, we have to reread Genesis one and two and make sure God is the star of that story. Not us, right, because it's easy to read it or a particular theory of origins. Or Yeah, or a theory of Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The gods, the starb. were dependent on him. were dependent on each other. Right. So that's why we love God with everything we have and love others. Yeah. And we're all dependent and interdependent on creation. When and, and therefore as, as God's very good creation. Yeah. We've been called and interested to, to be stewards of that. We've been entrusted with that. So thank you for that reminder. And I think that's a good starting point for people. It's been really good. Yeah, no,
33:01 no problem. I enjoyed enjoyed it. It's been my pleasure to be on your show.
33:04 Great having a scientist on the show to look forward to having you back. Yeah. Once we trap you in, you're gonna That's right. Once you once you've been on once then. I enjoyed it. Well, thank you. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessica.
33:44 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Dr. Meghan McMahonJohnson rejoins Mark and Rex to further discuss issues of race and equality. The three look to identify ways forward to speak out against racism and inequality.
TRANSCRIPT 0:02 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore. On today's episode, we are rejoined by Dr. Megan McMahon Johnson to further our conversation on race, the church and equality, we have so much to learn, and so far to go. But it's a journey we must take. Hope you enjoy the show. Hope it causes you to think more deeply about these issues.
0:31 All right, Megan, and Rex who want to continue our conversation and kind of continue this look at race in America injustice, inequality, and specifically in the church? And that Jessup you know, and I think framing today's conversation through the lens of what are ways that we can move forward in this conversation? You know, we've, we've kind of talked a lot about some different areas, we've we've looked back at Dr. King and his letter from Birmingham Jail, and which I think, for me is just again, been so helpful in framing how we can view it now particularly in the church. And I've just been doing a you know, kind of a deep dive into the 1960s, particularly kind of that 63 to 68. So, Rex, oh, you know, bring some history lessons, and then you can correct me today.
1:28 Since I'm by far the oldest person I think. Actually, I actually remember some of that. Yeah, you have first hand knowledge. I remember being in elementary school and having to close the windows on our bus, because of the tear gas in the streets because of slam stations and stuff. Oh, wow. Yeah. Where were you at? And so I was in New Mexico. Yes. New Mexico. Yeah. And in Albuquerque, and yeah. I mean, we had our own, you know, race riots there. I mean, honestly, we did. And I remember going downtown after one of them, because everybody did just to see the damage. And honestly, it's, you know, sort of voyeurism, I guess, right? Yeah. But I remember going down Central Avenue in Albuquerque. This is when I'm in elementary school, actually. And seeing every window smashed out and having the National Guard on the street, you know, and as a kid, you know, seeing soldiers in their jeeps this would be for Humvees, this jeeps? I mean, we're surprising. They're not like riding donkeys are curious. Anyway, long ago. But I do remember just being, you know, with their 50 caliber machine, I don't know if they were loaded or not, but they were riding around, it was just, gosh, oh my god. Wow. And so, yeah, the 60s were something they really were,
2:45 as a truth. And, and I think we can, for me why I've been kind of diving into that, because it's like, Man, what are the lessons we didn't learn at that time, that we can hopefully 60 years later, Start to begin to learn, you know, and, and, and that way, you have the luxury of looking back and be like, wow, this is these are key areas where we missed the conversation? Because it seems to be I mean, there's been kind of these obviously, pivotal moments, right? I mean, you have emancipation in the late 60s of the 1800s. Right? And we know that that didn't solve the problem. Right? It's it solved one of the problems. But it didn't solve and that's, that's one of the things that's been interesting to me. I've been reading a book by Mark Noll. That is God and race in American politics. I actually have that book in my actually have an amazing shelf. There we go. And it's it has been very fascinating. He kind of goes all the way back to kind of the Civil War era and the Reconstruction Era and moving forward. And he made a connection for me and a distinction that I think were extremely helpful. There we go. If you were if you podcast listeners could see us right now. Hold up that but but he made, he made the connection, and a distinction that I think was pretty helpful. This. For one, it was a distinction between the slavery in the New Testament and the the transatlantic slave trade. And actually, the slavery in the New Testament was not a race based slavery. It was a conquest based slavery and economic based slavery. And actually, in in a majority of maybe parts of the Roman Empire, the the slavery would have been slavery of Caucasian people was right,
4:50 right, I think. Yeah, I mean, I think historically, though, there was an ethnic component of that with the Romans, you know, it was always Greeks or de right. Or golf?
5:01 Yeah, it was it was an ethnic, it was definitely ethnic. But he made the distinction between race which I thought that was interesting because he brought it up because there were actually people in the US before the Civil War, who were pro slavery, and they were pro slavery for any individual, they thought you should be allowed to enslave anyone. And then people even on the labor side, were like, hey, that's too far. And so they kept it. And so he made this. So that was an interesting distinction, though. I agree with you, Rex. I mean, there are definitely there were definitely ethnic and, and it was mainly Yeah, Greeks and goals.
5:38 Some people would even say, and honestly, I'm not an expert on this, like at all. And so I could just say the statement, and I can't actually elaborate on it. Okay. Yeah. But but some people say that the whole concept of race, like we think of race didn't really exist, then, I mean, it doesn't mean that, you know, there weren't differences in prejudice, right. All sorts of stuff. But But races, we look at it right now just was kind of a foreign concept. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
6:09 Yeah. And kind of maybe the stereotypes and the things that are associated with race. And the way then, race was used, especially in the transatlantic slave trade race was used to then keep people down, regardless of anything else. Right. It was, it was almost solely based on race. And so he made that distinction. But then he made this connection. And then that was the connection that the slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. And the North American slave trade was race based. So therefore, during the emancipation and reconstruction, you can outlaw slavery, but you can't outlaw racism. You can't You can't pass a law. And then you just see, I mean, literally, for that next 100 years. And beyond. Exactly.
6:58 Try, if you try you try to enforce it, it just didn't right. Work in the south. Right.
7:05 Yeah. And, and it was just, I think, a really good for me a good distinction or connection that was made. That, that it wasn't just because I think some people can look now and 2020. And think, hey, the black community was freed from slavery 140 years ago. And then even in the 1960s, the civil rights movement moving they kind of think, oh, hey, that is no longer a problem. Like, I think I've been hearing that comment more and more like, they have every right that white people have they have. And it's like, man, when you really look at the history, you can't, there are certain things you can't legislate, right, that you can't make him policy. And it's that I mean, deep seated racism, and And that, I think, is what continues to come up in the conversation. And so for me, that was kind of a frame of looking forward of like, you can't just make this claim that everyone is free. And equal in that sense, because of the injustice of racism, and the existence of racism inside and outside the church. And so it seems like that target needs to be focused in more and more on that on racism. So
8:32 if Let me try to actually kind of focus our conversation a little bit into, yeah, you know, the current time, for example, because of the Black Lives Matter as a phenomenon, right? I know, many, many people and many of many Christians, and and good people, well, meaning people, people that actually feel that they don't have a racist bone in their body. But when someone mentions the words, black life matters, often they'll respond with something that sounds very, very, you know, very, I guess, deeply true. From a theological, you know, standpoint. And that's like saying, No, all lives matter. But I just know that for many African Americans, when the rejoinder to Black Lives Matter is all lives matter. It seems to mean something else when somebody says that, and so I'm just wondering, you know, what do you think, you know, African Americans, particularly in our society, here, when someone like me, says, All lives matter.
9:42 You know, for me, and of course, I can only speak for me but I think the system it would, would, would really apply to anybody. It's just like somebody's telling you that you know, in in any sort of, you know, they're a victim of something You then go and say, Oh, no, that couldn't have possibly happened. Oh, no, not here. Oh, that, you know, those kinds of things don't happen anymore. You begin to invalidate people's experiences. And I think that that is one of the one of the things that I hear if I say Black Lives Matter, and somebody says, All lives matter, well, you're negating what it is that I'm what I'm saying. You're negating what's behind black lives matter? You're invalidating my experience. And, of course, all lives matter. I don't think that anybody can argue with that statement. Right? Right. It's very interesting, though, that when you say Black Lives Matter, there's always a but there. Oh, but what, uh, oh, but but this Oh, but that and it's like, well, how come? We can't just say black lives matter? Right, right. What What is the problem with just being able to say, yes, Black Lives Matter, without having to invalidate a person's experience or just their standpoint or where they're coming from? There's always a butt with it. And I think that that happens a lot. When we talk about the issues that the African American community faces. There's always the I shouldn't say always, but there tends to be a an effort to minimize the experience, as opposed to just kind of fully leaning in to the information, even though it may be foreign to a lot of people because they don't live. They don't have that same experience. They don't walk in those shoes. They're they're tense there, there is this tendency of minimizing what's happening to the point where, you know, we don't really need to focus on that right now. There's bigger issues at hand, we'll get to that later, we'll, or that's a product, you know, and then you you have the other side of that when people say, well, that's your own fault. You put yourself in that position. You You did that to yourself, you get you get that people say what about black on black crime, it's like that is a completely made up construct to deflect what the real issue is. So you you run into those different lanes. I think when you get the all lives matter, response to black lives matter
12:33 if you're changing the subject it right. It's totally I don't have to talk about what we were talking about. Because I'm young, it's a conversation.
12:43 Yeah. Well, Pastor Carlin's, he's pastor Hill song, East Coast now, I think they're calling used to be just New York. And then when it was COVID, everything now they're online, or they were already online, but now they're now they're the whole East Coast, church of the whole East Coast, but the Holy Ghost
13:08 he made a grant, he actually made this point in a sermon back in 2016. But he made the point, because he was talking about Black Lives Matter. And Megan, he said the exact same thing he said, there is no but after that sentence, right? Black Lives Matter period. There's no qualification. You don't have to change the and and he's he made the comparison. That when Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, it would be like being like, No, no, Jesus, oh, bless it are all people. That's not my point. Right? People are blessed. But the point right now, right now I'm speaking specifically to a community that does not feel blessed.
13:56 And I think part of it that I've been, and this is, well, I want to say something I struggle with all the time. But that's probably not true, because I am very capable, as a sinful human being of changing the subject, when I myself experienced some cognitive dissonance because cognitive dissonance or, you know, disequilibrium is you know, it's it's hard to face sometimes. So it's easy for me just to kind of go on to the next thing, but yeah, I have been thinking about this when when I forced myself to or circumstances force forced me to think about this. So, you know, I mean, I consider myself a fairly progressive person, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I am you know, a upper middle class over educated, you know, white male I am I see that every, every day when I look in the mirror, and sometimes I wonder that changing the subject also means that I avoid any of the consequences of actually taking for Example The statement Black Lives Matters and everything behind that seriously. Like, like, you know, is it going to take more than just righteous thoughts and good vibes for this thing to change? You know, what if I have benefitted from white privilege? If now that's true, and we'll just make this hypothetical. I personally think it is true, but we'll just make it a hypothetical right now. Then, you know, what, what is really interesting, we get, we get, you know, this sort of bottom line kind of thing in our society. And I think America's like that, too, you know, what's what's, you know, what's the cash value of this? And so what's it gonna cost me? You know, what's it gonna cost me if this does change? Because I've benefited from it being like, it is, you know, not because I'm a horrible person. Okay, maybe, but, but, and I, I, that that's a, that's a difficult thing to think of, you know, kind of a scary thing, you know, what's gonna have to change about my life? Right, the way I walk through life, you know, the things I expect to happen? Well, I
16:13 think that's a good point to bring up. Because when, when we talk about these systemic changes that that have to happen, in order for there to be this kind of true sense of our feeling of change. I don't, I don't believe that it means one person has to lose something in order for the other to gain. And that is a, I think, a common misconception when we've, again, when we talk about Black Lives Matter, let's address these systemic issues with our criminal justice system with our education system, within the the board rooms of of these companies, if thing people don't have to lose in order for others to gain. This is just leveling the playing field, right? We talk so much about equality, and things being equal, but we can't have it equal until it's equitable, until people are at the same. They're on the same playing field with the same advantages. Same disadvantages, right? It's all at the same level. And I think, if you look at it from that perspective, then it to me when it would seem as if it's easier to digest what it is, you know, we were talking about the systemic changes that you don't have to lose anything in order to do this. It's it's not about taking away, it's really about giving to because if we, if we uplift the black community, how much better is society going to be as a whole, because now you've got this diverse, incredibly diverse population that is just adding to what we already have. So there's, there's no loss in that.
18:01 So So do you think that and this is just, you know, kind of the historian in me, right, and the sort of observer of demographics and stuff? You know, we live in California, and California, has already become I guess, the first maybe it's not the first but you know, I mean, I've heard it's the first sort of, I don't know, majority minority state, like, like, no single ethnic group has over 50% of the population in California. Right. And, and our country's getting closer and closer and closer and closer to that. Yeah. And it's kind of interesting to me, when when the closer we creep to that the more dissonance there seems to be with people, you know, it's sort of a demographic kind of thing. You know, and and in some ways, I think the demographics might be inevitable. Yeah. And so how are we going to deal with that? How are we going to, and, you know, I grew up in New Mexico, and so we were always super proud of the fact that, you know, we're very multi I think, so for African American. I mean, honestly, that, that that's been the this smallest percentage of the population historically in New Mexico. But, you know, we were, you know, we have the highest percentage of Native Americans in the state. As far as percentage of the population, right? We're about 40% Latino or Hispanic, 40% Anglo. So it's this multicultural thing, right. And so, that always was on the travel brochures, you know, New Mexico's this shining beacon, everybody was trying to get people to go to New Mexico, but of course, all of us, all of us that live there knew that actually, that's not true. You know, it's I mean, I grew up in Albuquerque, and literally I grew up on on what was the Mexican side of town is just sort of true in the south Valley. It's like 80% Latino, and it's a different thing that the high school the local high school, that I would have gone if I hadn't gone to a private school to Talking about privilege here. Yeah. was probably 80 85% Latino, because that was our side of our side of town. Right. Yeah. And, and so the the sort of, you know, multi ethnic utopia that we like to think we lived in. We really didn't. Yeah, right. And and, and it's interesting, though, it's like, if my father hadn't had education he had and the job he had, and I guess, the expectations he had and the ethnicity we have living on that side of town, I would have had to have gone to that high school. But because we had resources, I was able to go to a private school, literally on the other side of town. Yeah, and you know, and honestly, because my education was so much better going to that school than the local high school because of resources and all sorts of stuff, then that set me up. That kind of set me up for where I am today. And so that's a that's a benefit and a privilege I had. Yeah. You know, didn't, yeah,
21:07 it's, it's interesting. On the flip side of that, I was I grew up in the Bay Area. So I grew up in Oakland, urban East Oakland, and for five years were born in Oakland. That's where I grew up in in Oakland, and the high schools that were by me, my mother refused to send me to, she's like, absolutely not. Like, we're just we're not going to do that. And so I had the opportunity to go to private school. But me going to private school meant that I was maybe one of two to three black kids in the entire school. Right. So we even then we, you know, you mentioned privilege, and this, you know, multicultural, multi ethnic, you know, utopia, like, that didn't exist for me. I went to school and was taught by people who didn't understand my experiences, didn't look like me, didn't sound like me. You know, it was very foreign, you know, for me, but the alternative was the Oakland public school system, which then was, you know, it just wasn't, it just wasn't where you wanted to be. Nobody wanted to be,
22:27 we have we left when our kids were still little, but we were thinking around another few years, then we would have had to make that decision. It's like, one of my kids go into a coma school. And you know, and I just, yeah,
22:42 and then, you know, I lose I lost out on it wasn't until much older college and even now that I've really been able to dive into my own history, because when you if you're you're at and I mind you I went I also went to religious based schools, my high school was a Catholic school. So it we weren't the history we were learning was very Eurocentric history. So they're not even teaching me about me, about my history about my culture, I'm learning a Eurocentric view of history and, and what culture you know, quote, unquote, looks like so even now just kind of bringing it to the, you know, where do we go next steps and things like that. It's like, there's a lot of relearning of stuff of everything's, you know, that that has to happen for a lot of people. And I think that's what keeps a lot of people stuck in a no, no, no, things can't change, because you have to re learn everything that you were taught, you've got to have a completely different lens, to view this world through now, then what you've become so accustomed to believing as true.
24:01 That's uncomfortable for a lot of people. Right, present company included.
24:06 But I think that is such a good point. Maybe I mean, I think that is, in many ways, one of the maybe one of the first steps that can happen towards that is just a re education of, and it's not changing history. It's really just learning what actually happened in history. So So recently, I mean, it's not like yes, no one's changing history. Oh, we didn't hear the entire US.
24:31 You heard this in the national conversation and actually, on Facebook conversations that I have, I have seen actually, you know, lately trying to stay away from Facebook these days. That's a good thing. I don't add to these conversations, but sometimes I'll get I'll get hooked into looking at them. But, for example, nobody seemed to have ever heard of Juneteenth before and they were like, like, how come I never heard that? How come it was never mentioned ever? Like ever that that was even a thing. Oh, okay. I didn't know about this. Well, you just were you know, not you were just learning a truncated history. Yeah. That's why you didn't know about this.
25:16 Yeah, I mean, when I looked around at my friend group and just kind of asked like, how many people in elementary, junior high high school ever were taught about Juneteenth. And it was like, nobody raised their hands like, wow, that I mean, even looking back, for me at the at the 60s, it has been kind of diving, diving into that decade, that when you look at the things King was rallying around, and marching for it was for voting rights, Equal Housing rights. And then when he was in Memphis, that was workers rights. Really, it was the sanitation workers. And it's like, wow, all of those things are, they're not astronomical asks of anyone. They're like, Hey, we should we're allowed. I mean, 1870, Reno 15th amendment allowed the black community to vote, but so I would, in certain areas, 0% were registered in the 1960s. I would share I was
26:22 shocked just the last last couple of weeks just learning about, you know, my own state of California here, at least adopted state spend most of my life out here. Right. Right, that, you know, speaking of non racial utopias that California actually was one of the last free states that were on the in the north, right, during during the civil war that actually ratified the 14th and 15th. amendment was until the 20th century, more here in California is oh my gosh, oh, my gosh.
26:54 And that's kind of I think that's the part of re education, Megan, that you're talking about that is helpful, just realizing, because it, I think it helps us understand the systemic part of systemic racism, you know, because I know, people, you know, these days, I feel like people are getting really caught up on words and, and the meaning of words, or they're using a word to change the conversation. Right? And but it's, it's really helpful to understand that idea of systemic racism, when you look back at history, and you see those things that it wasn't just, it wasn't just even people's individual racism, but it was racism that was then in law. Yeah, was encoded, yeah, changed maybe a little bit differently. But even in, in, in California, in different my wife's in real estate and the different kind of housing communities, they're gonna see CNRS like the community covenant and requirements. They still on on ones you signed today still list how they used to look in the 50s 60s and 40s. And there are several communities in Sacramento where it was written into the CCR that no one of color could live there, could buy a house or even rent a house in that community.
28:15 So my students always just really surprised when I, we lived in Richmond, we moved from Oakland, to Richmond, Virginia for seven years. And before we move back out to California, and, you know, Richmond square, I mean, the monument Avenue right, the Robert E. Lee's statue, the whole thing, right. And Richmond, as as this is not uncommon for cities back east. And I may have mentioned this before, Richmond is about 85% African American, but the counties around it are probably 70%. White, and yet you have all these Confederate statues that are running through, you know, one of the nicest avenues in a city that's 85% African American. Yeah. And, and then people just wonder why people have issues with that, you know, right. And I was crazy while we were there. So, you monument Avenue. Of course, the statues are all you know, civil war heroes, right. And, you know, individually, probably decent folks, you know, I'm gonna Robert he probably, I mean, I know for a fact as a historian, it wasn't a bad guy, but he was leading a cause that was a bad cause. And there you go. Right. And, and he's on his horse there and, you know, but they decided they want to put a statue in Richmond of an African American on monument Avenue, because everybody there's, you know, white basic, well, not just white, but like Civil War wide, right. And, and so, one of the most famous African Americans that came out of Richmond was Arthur Ashe, the tennis player, right? He's born in Richmond, and because when he was growing up there, he couldn't play on white tennis courts. He literally had to kind of learn his tennis almost like street tennis because that was the only way that he could do it. Right, but he's from Richmond. These other guys aren't even from Richmond, right. And you You should have heard the screen it took about two years to get that statue up of folks is screaming about it. We can't have you know, a statue of a person that's actually from here and is famous, right? Yeah, on monument Avenue and sad thing about it. And I'll just make an aesthetic judgment here. It was actually kind of a horrible statue they ended up with it's like, they should have done a better job with the statue. But it was just the whole fight. It's like this guy's from here in the city. That's 85% African American and you won't put a statue there on monument Avenue, you will put that monument there. Right. It's he's there. Now, although I think last week somebody spray painted white Lives Matter all over his nation. So a man still stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's the truth. And, and so I think yeah, I think the re education is, is is a is a major step forward. I think that's happening, starting to happen. I mean, to us hearing more and more people being like, kind of like we were saying, did you know? And it was funny as and then some of your friends were like, yeah, I didn't know that. Because I've lived that, you know, or I experienced that. So I think we have to also be careful with our epiphanies. Maybe? Megan? Megan, we're trying to be careful with our
31:18 you know, I bear was so random. The SBS just released this, like, random, like video that they're going to do at the beginning of the show, or whatever. And what something that they said was, are we going to make mistakes in what we say along the way? Yes, but that doesn't mean that the conversation stops. And I think that's so important. In this as we learn more in and grow and dive deeper into this thing. Yeah. People are going to end up saying things and you're like, What? Are you thought? Yeah, I know. But that's okay, you know, having those honest and open conversations, because in those moments, I think that's where people are sometimes most open and to hearing the other person's experience, right? Because then you're like, Oh, wait, you did? Oh, you live this? Okay, tell me more. Like, what what am I missing in this? What What am I not able to see because my lens is, is is such a different lens that I view this from, but yeah, we're gonna, like, and I think on both sides, right, gonna say things that don't always, you know, go over so smoothly, but it doesn't mean that the conversation stops.
32:44 Right. And that's helpful because I know some people are, yeah, are afraid to maybe say something or speak out because they don't want to say something wrong on the other side in it. And I like that, that doesn't have to stop the conversation. And and in fact, maybe it can lead to further further conversation, and deeper conversation. And I think maybe along with, like, re education, even of history, and and this may be some of the Megane you were you were getting at is, is how we as we're learning and maybe having these epiphanies and learning about experiences, looking at what we are maybe reading or watching and and making sure we're reading and watching things from people who have had that experience from black authors and black historians, and black filmmakers, right there that be able to, and that's something within education and at at Jessup I think that we always are having to relook at and a couple years ago, we had Dr. Reggie Williams on campus for our spring lecture. And he talked about bond hoppers experience in Harlem. And it was amazing lecture and we were having dinner with him actually, before the lecture. And we kind of asked him, What What is something we could do as a division to to help and be a part of the conversation of race on campus and things like that. And one of the things he brought up was to take a look at all of your syllabi, and your reading lists, and even how white are your reading lists? You know, and you look and I look back at my theology classes, and I'm like, oh, wow, they're all pretty white. Right and and part of that is that's where a lot of theology came from. We honestly we have James James Cohen is gonna just fry people's should maybe it should, right right. But but it's, it's being able to just even look at that and say, Wow, how, what our voices that we've just been, maybe not even purposely excluding, but have just been looking over or looking past and And making sure we're listening to I mean, I think that's been one of the big themes that has been going around of listening. And men listening to voices from the black community talking about their experience, I think is so important as a part of as a part of that. So as we're having epiphanies we can we can hear people who've lived that experience.
35:23 I'm, I'm wondering if if if we need to move beyond that word conversation that although I believe that needs to start there, and that's an important thing, but kind of maybe hook this back into sort of our tribe, right, conservative boy, pretty much evangelicalism, right, white evangelicalism pretty much is what is the dominant tribe that we sort of operate out of. And, you know, the gospel, we all know, the gospel has structural implications, but we sort of major on the personal implications of it, which it does have, which it totally does have, right, right. But if we can just, you know, talk and understand and then walk away, then a whole site, well, then nothing was changes. First of all, we're gonna have to have these conversations again, when something else explodes. Right. Right. But we also, I think we need to be get more comfortable with seeing sin as structural, not just personal, even within our own theological tradition. Yeah. You know, and not everything can be resolved just by a nice conversation, although it's got to start there. It's got to start there. Right. Yeah. But we have to understand that some you know, that, that if structures are sinful, then they need to be addressed. Whether we benefit from them or not.
36:49 We're at that is very much that systemic piece of it. But I think you're right, like we can't, it's, and I think that will be the same for any issue that was at hand, right? You people, to some degree, have to understand what it is that they're changing, right? Instead of just making these kind of blanket changes, we know if we, if you just make the blanket changes, but you don't understand why you're making the changes, or the I mean, you could just not agree with it, then you're bound to kind of step into the same holes that you did previously. So the conversations are really important. And I think, at this point, I feel and why we see so much unrest is because people feel like they've been having these conversations for a very long time. And now, we're, you're it's kind of like, you're just now listening to what we've been saying, for how long? So, you know, are we still at the conversation stage right now? Or is it at the point where it's just time to do something different, it's time to actually make those changes? And I think that's the you hear a lot of people now talking about being anti racist, as opposed to Well, I'm not a racist. I don't believe those things. But being anti racist means you are, you're actively doing something right. You are challenging the the systems you are challenging the the policies, and the beliefs, all of that, like there's some action behind what you're what you believe. And that I think, is where everybody has to be at this point is, especially for people who consider themselves allies, you know, it's, we, I had the opportunity to go out and march with the Urban League, the Greater Sacramento Urban League. And one of the things you know, that they said was like, we can't be silent anymore. You can't just sit back and say, Oh, I'm not I'm not racist. I don't believe those things. That's not that's not how I think that's not how I feel. That's not how I raised my children. Okay, but what are you doing? What are you doing with that? You know, it's it's one thing to say I'm not, but it's another thing to actually move, move policy and move structures forward.
39:26 Yeah, it really does have to go from that conversation stage to action. And, and that action tackles starts to tackle those systemic things and those structural things. And what's interesting, I think, within the evangelical community Rex is that we've we've done that on various issues we've moved on and non activists it's just we've moved into the policy room on other issues we've moved into yeah activism,
39:59 but attention thing that a lot of our activism has still been. And I this is not an original observation with me, it's been observed over and over and over again by buku. authors, right, that a lot of our activism tends to be directed still towards personal issues and not systemic issues. Like we'll get politically involved as long as it's against, you know, issue acts that that that we feel has a link into, you know, I guess personal sin. Yeah. And, and not so much on some other things. Yeah. That are equally gospel issues.
40:35 Exactly. And that's a really good point. I think that's been one of the one of the transitions that I've been hearing within the church that I think is helpful is, is starting to emphasize racism as a mortal sin. Yeah, like all of the other sins, right. Ba and a personal sin, right? It's not this isn't a political thing. Right. Right. Cuz that conversation about, you know, like, well, should the church really talk about this? That's kind of what society's talking about and is like, not if this is a sin issue, then that is the exact thing the church does talk about. And I think until we start really viewing it that way, I think you're right, Rex, that the reason maybe we're involved in those other policy reforms, and activism is because we view it as a sin issue or right, wrong. And somehow, yes, racism has escaped that, that it's just it's enough. Yeah, maybe I think people are like, Well, I'm not racist. And so they kind of stopped there. And it's like, well, now how do we move? How do we move forward? And I think it can cut that one of the things that I've been kind of saying lately, the idea that, like you're saying, This isn't, like you're saying, Megan, this isn't a political issue in the sense of it's not what political party you come from. Right. Right. Not a political issue. But, but it is kind of a policy issue. And, and, and a structure issue and a system issue, which means we have to kind of step into that realm. And it would be very nice to be able to step in that realm without having to have that battle between kind of the identity politics that happens in America. And because because it is like, moving in, when you look at the history of of civil rights, and we'll say from reconstruction on there, there were clear times when policy had to be enforced to to enforce equality. I mean, they had, they had to have guards. And the US military escort people on to campus to desegregate schools in the south. I mean, they had to centralize local government had to step in. And so yeah, it just kind of brings up it brings up issues and topics that we're, we're used to talking about on one side, but I think we need to, we need to bring maybe the two together, in a sense, and part of that linking them is that you're saying Rex is, is no longer having racism, just as, as, as something on the side, but rather as a great moral sin and a great moral sin of our country that we need to deal with. You know, I mean, growing up, it was Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, that was the three biggest things that we're going to take you down. No one ever preached a sermon in youth group about racism I've ever heard growing up, and it's man, how is that not? It not at least in the same conversation, as of all those other you know, you can bring in and, and I think that, I think, for me, that the change there could be really helpful in moving forward of understanding racism as a moral issue, therefore, a gospel issue, right. And, and a speaking freedom to the oppressed issue, which again, makes it a gospel issue. I mean, it all comes back to to racial equality as a gospel issue. And as I think as that, as that cry begins to be louder, I think that that people will, Megan people will actually start listening, even though the conversations have been had for let's just say centuries now and people will listen. And, and, and, and begin to move forward. And I think another aspect and we kind of maybe can land the plane here, I know we could just keep you know, going I know our listeners want to go for like the three hour long haul podcast. But, but also just, I think as we move forward We're just helping re educate ourselves on on what really happened in history. Like it's not rewriting history. It's not changing anything. It's just there's just getting the whole history and and, and diversifying the voices through which we hear that history and through through which we hear experience and starting to view racism as a moral issue. And I think as we move there, for me, maybe that next step
45:32 is, is building trust between the two communities as well, building trust between the white community in the black community, building trust with the black community and the white church. Right, because there's been so much hurt and so much damage, that man that trust needs to be rebuilt there so that we can move from conversation to, to action, and I think trust can be built, when the black community sees us actually standing up with them, and for them. And, and making that transition and making that move.
46:13 Yeah, I think that last piece of what you said is so important, B, because I think a lot of times we've we talked about building trust and unity, but to some extent, we got to see you move First, we have to see where you are like what are you? What are you going to do? How are you really going to, to prove yourself in this right, that this isn't just a series of words like we even see now we all these companies coming out with these anti, you know, oh, we black people make, we wouldn't be without the black people. And we stand for this and we stand for that. Okay, that sounds really good. But what are you going to do to prove yourself in that and and I feel that with the the church with with the white church especially is that? Prove it? Prove it. And in that you build trust in that you you build a sense of progression and unity that is missing right now? Because there's been so much talk, not enough listening, and then no movement and no, no action behind it. So that's a really good point, Mark. Be proactive and not just reactive. Right.
47:43 And that's something King said in the 60s, he was talking to the white church and white allies. And he said, he said, All I'm asking is for you to stand with us. Like move with us and even for you to say and you're speaking kind of to the to the white church, just say I stand with you whether you want me to or not, I'm gonna stand with you. Anyway, King worded that, that, that he was just he was looking for that man. And I think as that can happen, I agree with you, Megan, like you show action. You're gonna you're gonna like trust isn't earned just through words. It's earned through action. And, and, and I'm glad that these conversations are having and I hope, I think are kind of moving towards action, I think. And I think, at least in our little little part of the world at Jessup we can we can move through action. And we can kind of be a part of our communities and moving and looking to action. So thanks again, so much manga for joining us. This was your second time on the show. So friend of the show, yes. All right. I still don't have the T shirt. I still don't have a T shirt or just a dream out where I'm gonna make them happen. I've heard that before. I can't wait to eat this. My own money in this. But no, thank you so much. Yeah. And as a friend of the show, that means you'll be back on the show. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what before? I can't wait, this has been great. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
49:59 If you're Interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go. Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Dr. Meghan McMahonJohnson joins Mark and Rex to discuss the current unrest in America regarding racial injustice. The Church has much to learn from King's prophetic and profound letter.
TRANSCRIPT 0:02 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and I'm your co host Rex Gurney. In today's episode, we'll explore the current unrest in America concerning racial injustice and inequality. And the conversation will be framed by Dr. King's profound and prophetic letter from a Birmingham Jail. The church in the white church most explicitly has so much to learn from his wisdom and insight. We're joined by Dr. Megan McMahon Johnson, who's our Director of Student care here at Jessa. And we hope you enjoy the sale. We hope it challenges you to think more deeply about issues of race in the church's response.
0:49 All right, well, we've we've got a pretty easy topic today, we can just smooth sailing through this one. It's clear in our world today, and particularly our nation, that we need help. We need healing. We need wisdom. We need guidance, guidance. And there's been so many responses to kind of the social unrest and the protests that have happened over the last couple of weeks. And some of the responses have been really helpful, and really wise, and others, not so much. And, and so we want to kind of talk about today, like how the church has been responding. And, and for me, considering some of the churches, some of the statements that I've heard from the church recently, particularly the white church, I was drawn back to Dr. King's letter from a Birmingham Jail. And I had to I had to remind myself that while King is praised now, he wasn't always praised by the church. And in the 60s, wasn't always well received, was misunderstood was misquoted. And, and I needed to kind of remind myself of that, you know, and so I kinda was just doing some research on, on how particularly how the white church responded to King during his, during his work for, for civil rights. And I was pretty shocked by reading the letter from Birmingham jail again, through the lens of our current situation, how timely it was, and how if you didn't know, that was written in April of 1963, you were thought he wrote it, in May of
2:45 a lot of the rhetoric, a lot of the rhetoric has not changed at all, at all, actually, Ryan, and especially the rhetoric that he was pushing up against hasn't.
2:53 Right. Yeah. And and it's sadly that case, you know, that we haven't maybe learned from, from our mistakes, learn from our Centurion, Rex, I know, we've talked about this a lot, like has a history professor, this is our chance to, to be able to look back at history and and really learn or relearn these things are attempt to learn.
3:20 Yeah, I actually have, we may not want to look back of that much right history, because it actually hasn't been that good with us. I mean, we might as well just sort of admit it. I am. Yeah, that's so true. Yeah. You know, I grew up into domination. And, you know, I'm grateful for the denomination I grew up in. That's the Southern Baptist Convention. You know, which is sort of like, I don't know, the Catholic Church of the south or something. You know, it is, um, you know, the very fact that that denomination exists, is because of slavery. And because of basically, the, the Southern Baptist wanted to appoint slaveholders, missionaries. And the Baptist in the north said, No way. And the Baptist in the south just went their own way, and then became this huge thing. That's sort of born literally in in racism. And And honestly, it's just true. And even until the early 60s, if you were African American, and you tried to go to First Baptist Church of I don't know, you know, almost anywhere in the south. Yeah. And tried to enter you would be ushered out by by the white deacons and the white ushers and told that you are not welcome. And that's not that long ago. In fact, that's that's kind of almost was sort of surrounding Dr. King's letter from Birmingham Jail. That's in Birmingham, Alabama, if any of his folks tried to go to a white church, they would have been treated the same, you know, by people that I'm sure in many ways were good people or thought of themselves as good people, but you know, is this racist thing going on? And so I'm pretty sure familiar with that growing up with that?
5:02 And I think, sorry, I think the, the really important pieces in this to point out is kind of the structural foundation to all of this, and how, where it's rooted, right? Because, you know, we always say, we have that saying, you know, we don't learn from the past, you know, history tends to, you know, repeat itself. But unless we can really address the roots of, of where we are right now, we don't get the full understanding or the full meaning of why there is sort of this contention about where we are as a society right now. Yeah. It's so true.
5:46 Especially because so many, so many folks. I mean, you know, just assumed we were beyond this, and anybody who had actually was taking the temperature of anything with no, we weren't, but but, you know, we sort of, and I say, we, and that's my tribe, basically, right, white evangelical Christians just sort of thought we were beyond this, and then we find out that we're actually not. Right.
6:07 Right. And, and, and I think, for me, that's what's been really eye opening is just hearing some of the responses to, to the demonstrations and protests, and, and not hearing anything about the underlying causes behind the demonstrations.
6:29 Historically, I think, I mean, there's a real reason for that, and part of this, because, you know, we as evangelicals tend to look at at sin, in personal terms, and not in systemic terms or structural terms. And so, you know, it's like, well, I don't Harbor, you know, racist thoughts, or I don't think I harbor consciously racist thoughts. So everything's okay. Because you've personalized it, not realizing that you benefit from a system that's totally, you know, built on white privilege. Yeah. And that system has been in place for a long time and is still in place. And the issues are systemic, right, not just personal. Right.
7:11 I mean, that's, that's an amazing point. I wish there were there were more people who could see it that way. And that is not, you know, one of the biggest things I hear is, you know, what, I didn't do it, you know, it's not me, you know, I'm not, you know, I didn't, you know, do these things to to Africans or to, to black people. But it right now, we really have to look at this, how it's built into the very fabric of everything that we do, right. All of our systems are based off of the backs of slavery and white supremacy, and it still permeates very deeply within our laws within you know, we, especially with what's going on now with our our criminal justice system, our police department, education, housing, like, this is a big thing. Right? It's a big thing, you know, and we, the current environment leans toward reform within our criminal justice system in our police departments. But that really is just one piece of a larger of a larger hole, it is still a symptom of a larger problem that that exists within our country.
8:33 And the folks don't, I mean, you know, folks like me, and I just need to open up to the fact that I'm a white American, and, and folks like me, don't like to talk about it. I just actually read a book just a few months ago called white fragility, things that made its way to the New York Times bestseller list. And as I was reading through there, I was just thinking of so many people, I know that if you even mentioned the word like that, we still have a race problem or such. They get very, very defensive, very defensive, because personally, they don't think they do and so they don't still want to talk about it right. Now change the subject. It's like the thing we can't talk about the, you know, the elephant in the room that we can't talk about, right?
9:20 If you don't want to put people in a place of guilt, or, you know, any sort of conversation, right, like that's, that's not the goal. And and I think that's the, sometimes the easy way to kind of lean out is that well, don't make me feel guilty about something that you know, my ancestors did, and I'm like, Okay, well, no, that's not really the point of bringing this up, right or, or putting these issues on the forefront.
9:47 But the fact that I can be who I am and enjoy the privileges that I have, because like my ancestors did what they did. I really, you know, wanted to get back to it. Dr. King's letter because that's, that's what we're talking about. This is just such a deep and expensive subject here. But yeah, you know, when I, when I, you know, read, think about white privilege and understand that I, myself have benefited from that often I, I don't know what to do. And I know that sometimes when you don't know what to do, because this because it's so ingrained, and it's so it would mean, change, it would mean some things about me and my situation culturally would have to change. And now is a big ticket for a lot of people and spec ticket for me. I mean, I don't want to, you know, I guess some people say I'm, you know, one of those white liberals, and we're part of the problem and actually has been reading some articles that say that, you know, for all of our bloviating, we actually have not done much to really address this issue either. And so it can make people like me feel sort of helpless, actually, about how to address things. And that's not where I want to be. And that's not where we need to be.
11:10 Yeah, and that's, I think that's what I find so helpful about Dr. King's letter, because kind of going to his letter, you can look at how the particularly the white church and and with the letter from Birmingham Jail, just a little background. There was a statement put out, Dr. King was in Birmingham, speaking out against injustice is the many in justices that were happening in Birmingham, Alabama, at the time in the early 60s, in a group of white pastors, initially, in 1963. In January, they wrote kind of an open statement, calling for what they deemed law and order and common sense. It's interesting how that language is added about today. Right, which Yeah, we need to be in tune to the language. And then again in April, and I think it actually was on Good Friday, they released a group of eight white clergymen from Birmingham, seven pastors, and one rabbi, kind of sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it was seven pastors and a rabbi, they released a statement and then King's King's letter from a Birmingham jail is in response to their statement. And in their statement they called King's actions and his associates actions and the demonstrations in Birmingham, unwise and untimely. And he read their response. And then he gives us what I think is one of the most poignant and inspired letters of the 20th century. And, and his response, and his kind of understanding their condemnation can help us I think, learn Rex what to do, and how to move forward or at least how to begin to move forward what our posture could be. And one of one of the first things he says, which I think is really important for us during this time, he says this, he says, You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I'm sorry to say fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations, I'm sure that none of you would want to rest content with a superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham. But it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative. And it just when I read that, I was like, oh, cuz I'm, it's so easy to hear that message from the church today of like, I wish there weren't demonstrations, I wish, you know, I wish there was peace. But they don't. And we could say we don't right, express maybe the same amount of concern for the underlying causes behind the demonstration. And perhaps maybe that's, at the very least, you know, I'm trying to look for like, bare minimum. At the very least, we can at least express a similar concern for the root causes of the demonstrations, as much as we are just calling for peace in our cities or, quote unquote, law and order and we'll get to we'll get to that phrase later as well.
14:38 I think it goes a lot also toward you know, we hear the church say a lot you know, there has to be unity. And there you know, this this idea and you know, rightly so of reconciliation that we hear now, like those are the words that we that we use today. But in order for there to be unity or something Some sort of reconciliation, there also has to be this admittance that there is something wrong that we are reconciling. Right? And that, it seems that now we are, we here, we're dealing with the same thing that that Dr. King was expressing to two B's, you know, white evangelicals at the time, like you, you don't want us to do this, but you're not addressing why we're doing. The same thing we hear now, you want to call for unity, and that we are, you know, one race and all one under God, but we're still not addressing why we're, you have people that are calling out and, and expressing anger and frustration and sadness over their treatment. So, you know, we see these two parallels right, of 1963 and 2020.
16:03 Right, and, and we've got to, we've got to be able to see those parallels and begun, I think you're so correct of, of our now our posture, I think has to include I mean, before there's unity, or reconciliation, or you could at least say a part of reconciliation, like the first step of reconciliation is recognizing what is wrong, recognizing the injustice.
16:26 And that's why even some, you know, words that we end, you know, I mean, as soon as you say anything here, people are going to get offended. And that's one reason, I think, why so many of us don't want to talk about it because of that, right, but I'll just go ahead anyway. You know, whenever, whenever you you, you try to say something like, and I understand the sentiment behind it, and it sounds noble and and and theologically I think it's sort of theologically correct, but it totally misses the point when when it's like, you know, it's not just black lives matter. It's all lives that matter. But as soon as you say all lives, has you matter, you have totally changed the conversation. And you've totally ignored what the the original conversation was. It's a it's a very idealistic and and, you know, spiritual detour. So where you don't actually address the problem. Yeah,
17:20 yeah, that's a that's a good point, you know, and you see all the kind of means and things like that, that are going around right now. You know, we talked about, you know, breast cancer awareness, or, you know, another tragedy that happens, you know, Boston Marathon bombing, you know, it's like Boston, strong, you know, we stand we're walking for breast cancer, we don't then shout out Well, what about colon cancer? Or what about? Sorry, you know, what about that? No, we were we know that there's a cause at hand. And that's what we're focusing on. Right. But it is, it is very, it has become very evident. I think, maybe more so now, just with where we are with social media and everything else that it's very easy, I think for it has become it seems very easy for the church, unfortunately, to bypass that. And it's well, but let's focus on unity. We, we want it Yeah, okay. Let, let's just focus on unity right now, let's not really focus on you know, the the issues at hand,
18:22 and its unity on on, on on, you know, a very narrowly construed set of terms that that's the fault, the issue, you know, we can be unified as long as you sort of agree with, right. And that's, you know, I often will, and it's a set up, and I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before, with one class I teach here, when I'm talking about politics and Christian faith, and I just mentioned, what is kind of true that you know, you know, election cycle. You know, every election cycle we've had for the past at least 20 years or so that about 80% 85% of I will say evangelical Christians are firmly aligned with a certain political party. And everybody will will, you know, shake their heads, yes. And then I say, Well, wait a minute, actually, that's not really true. We have to put some qualifiers on it. And those qualifiers are ethnic qualifiers. And so when I say 80%, I'm talking about white evangelical Christians, if you're going to talk about African Americans, who are theologically at the exact same place, as these white evangelical Christians, the whole thing shifts to like 9010 the other way. And so what's obviously happening here is that there are two different worlds here. Just you know, we live in Well, actually, we live in one world, but we experience it two completely different ways. And then you start talking about Latinos and Asians and everything else too. And so you know, we're, we're, you know, unity and and that's great, but unity on his terms, right?
20:00 Yeah. And and a unity without a recognition of wrong that has been done will never lead to true unity never lead to true reconciliation. There's also this, this feeling of I think with their, with the white clergymen from Birmingham their their commendation or condemnation of King during this time and the actions also centered around the tension that is felt during demonstrations and protests. And I've heard that just recently within the church, right is just like, oh, people are uncomfortable by the social unrest. And, and when you hear King's response, it kind of puts it in perspective, because protests are meant to be uncomfortable. That's why you do it. Right. protests are meant to, to have tension now, what I've always appreciated about King and and people like Gandhi before him, and any kind of non violent kind of civil civil disobedience, you know, our, our call for civil rights King talked about there's four elements to any non violent kind of movement. And the first one is an a gathering of all of the information to see if injustice has happened. And the second, which I would say on that, one is the information has been gathered, we've come to a decision. injustice has happened, right. And I know, we still there's still a lot of people, we have to get on that one. And second one is negotiation. Third one is self purification. And then the fourth one is direct action. And so for obviously, for King nonviolent direct action, like marches, Satan's protests, and he was talking, you know, in the letter, they kind of they, the clergymen, were asking the, the community of black community in Birmingham at the time, to not do demonstrations that they should try to be more peaceful, try to go through the courts, you know, and it was, and when you read it, you're like, Okay, I can see maybe in their minds where they're trying to logically make like, hey, this just will be peaceful. But, but I love King's response here, he says, He says, you may well ask, why direct action, why citizens marches and so forth, isn't negotiation a better path, you are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis in foster such a tension, that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate, is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue, that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension, as part of the work of nonviolent resistance may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I'm not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly opposed violent tension. But there is a type of constructive, non violent tension which is necessary for growth. That call for you know, and that's the that's what I think is interesting. There's, there's there can be a response to demonstrations and protests, you know, and kind of this uneasiness with the tension that it creates. But hearing from King like, that is the purpose that tension is meant to make it bring us to a point where we can no longer ignore it, we can no longer as as the white evangelical church, we can no longer just say, Oh, that's not a problem anymore, or it'll it's getting better. Just give it time, let it keep getting better. But we have to and I know that this is, this is not a time to say, hey, just stop demonstrating. This is a time to say we hear you. Let let us start the conversation again. Let's start talking
24:26 about it again, right. Like these are these are things that move you you, just like you said, You can't just sit back and say okay, well, you know, just using the the current situation that are happening in society today. Like you can't sit back and just say, well, let's let the courts decide. Let's let it go through the system. Right, right. Because the system is what we're fighting. And I think Dr. Cam I mean that his entire letter. It's kind of like the mic drop of all mic drops, right? It really is. He wasn't just an especially in this piece. He wasn't just challenging. I think the, like the rhetoric that was so prevalent at the time, but he was also very much challenging the system. You say, okay, we you want us to negotiate instead of March in the street, but the very people that we're negotiating with are segregationists. They, they, their roots are based in slavery, and segregation, and, you know, the, the, you know, murder and killing of blacks during that time, the the way that things happen, so, okay, negotiate, but negotiate with who? And to what extent, right.
25:59 And even that appeal to let the courts let the courts kind of have their day, in a sense, this is in 1963, the Supreme Court ruled against segregation in 1954. And, and deemed illegal unconstitutional, and that with all haste, it must be it must be righted. And it's still obviously wasn't in 1963, you know, almost a decade later. And it would take even longer than that.
26:32 So the great state of Virginia in order to try to avoid, you know, that court order desegregation, actually one county was is print something County, in Virginia was in the sort of south central part of the state, and famously, they just literally shut down all the public schools, rather than, rather than a you know, and, and as long as we're talking about a legacy of some of the things is that, you know, it's just a historical fact that many of the Christian schools that were associated with churches in the south that started the 1960s were really what historians call segregation academies. Because, yeah, you know, it's like, we're gonna pull our kids out of the public schools, they have to, you know, have have, you know, black classmates, and so they go to these charter schools, which is just, I mean, you know, for anybody that's ever read the Gospels, is a mind boggling to do that. But that kind of puts behind a whole lot of those things
27:30 in, you know, enforcing that. There is tuition for those schools that they knew, you know, black parents would not be able to afford. So it again, it just kept them separate. And that was, that was the goal was to keep it separate. Yeah,
27:51 yeah. Yeah. So there's not like just saying, hey, let the courts because even when the courts did rule in favor of civil rights, if you're not going to go around, luckily, what are you gonna do? Yeah, still wasn't implemented. I mean, that's been the thing, too, was 1870 was the 15th Amendment, which gave black Americans the right to vote. But it wasn't till 1968. black male, right. That is true. Yeah. That's so true. Yeah, there's a lot of layers happening there. But it still wasn't till the 1968. Where it was really, it really came into fruition. There was, I mean, so many things put in place of black American males, and then during suffrage, from poll taxes, to literacy tests, to everything that kept the black community from being able to vote,
28:52 and the live events were hilarious. I mean, they just say, it's like, if you're white new show to the judges, like what state are we living in? And the guy says that after, you know, after three times, he gets it wrong, whatever, I'm just joking. But the the black guy comes up, and suddenly it's like, you know, from, you know, what's article, whatever the Constitution, Beetham, and you know, nobody could do that. And so right. There you go.
29:15 Right. So even when law was in place, and in favor of civil rights, the implement implementation of law was unjust, and, and that's what Cain was speaking out against. And so it's, it's funny that the argument of well just rely on Law and Order and common sense from these white clergymen. King is saying, We've tried that, and that still isn't working. So we still have to raise this conversation. We have to raise the tension level to a point where we can really begin to have this conversation and really allow change to start and and part of it is. And King notes this in the letter which I think this is for me this is kind of the crux of understanding the church's stance on it is king King was desperately wanting the church to view racial injustice has a moral issue, not just a social issue. There's so many moral issues even today that the church rallies behind and but are we viewing the racial injustice and racial inequality has a moral issue, not just a social issue? And he says he says this, he says, I've heard numerous Southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is law. So saying, hey, the Supreme Court did this in 1984. It's law you should obey it. But I have long to hear white ministers declare, follow this decree because integration is morally right. And because of the Negro is your brother. In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious Arab irrelevancies and sack sanctimonious trivialities. And that that is for me another Mic drop moment, Megan, I do I think every time I read a paragraph, I'm like, well, he just dropped the mic again, like, but that one I think is particularly pointed and is something that that's my fear, I do not want to be a passive white churchman on the sideline, speaking, kind of pious Vega, these that don't actually speak to the issue, and don't actually help lead and Shepherd the church to change.
32:03 So So, you know, when when students, you know, say that I have never experienced any race, or I hear this all the time, we're from California, California is different, what looks like, um, you know, actually, there's a lot of difference California has, actually and, you know, I lived in Richmond, Virginia for seven years, that's where I got my PhD. And, you know, we, we went to what was considered one of the progressive, this is fascinating, white Baptist churches, because honestly, in Virginia, it was really interesting. In fact, that's one reason we, well, one of many reasons we really wanted to get back out to California was because when we first went there, and talking about systemic, which is just, it's it's embedded, you know, it's almost as like the system, the system is organic, almost you you just grow up with it. And yeah, it's part of the air you breathe in the blood that goes through your veins, and you're not even aware of it. We didn't have any money. And our kids were really little when we moved there, there were three in one. And so we just were always, you know, looking for free stuff to do you know, and so, we would, and this is Richmond, Virginia, this is in the 90s. This is not the 1890s. This is the 1990s. Right? Yeah. And the crowds were almost all either exclusively BLACK, OR exclusively white for almost every public thing. And this is, you know, and we were wondering where the signs is, like, you know, I don't know, well, it's like, everybody has these signs in their hearts, I guess. And one reason why we want to move away, and I'm not saying this, you know, from any any, you know, moral high ground, because I have, you know, a lot to learn and a lot of my own issues and dealing with my own implicit racism and benefit. And the way I benefit from a system that, you know, doesn't try and white privilege. Yeah, we didn't want to stay there long enough for my kids to actually be able to read the signs that weren't there. I didn't want them to know that, like everybody else. Like time to get out time to get out. You know, not only to move back to California and find our other signs, you know, it just looks different with Asians and also write your signs all over the place in people's hearts. And we have a we have a moral problem
34:28 here. Yeah. And we often, you know, hear about it as, like, we're we're not just dealing with and I think this piece of King's speech, you know, talking about it being a moral issue, not a social issue, where we're not just dealing with the the legislative piece of this, right, the law, the that that surrounds kind of how the system is built, but we're dealing with a heart issue and it's it's it's a It really is an issue of people's hearts and where, where they are, but especially the church, right? You, we are called to love one another, it not just the people that look like us, not just the people that agree with everything that you know, we think or feel, but we are called to love one another. And for I think, and I will say I think I know for black Americans it's love one another, but and then there's this, there's this dot dot, dot, dot dot, right? Yeah. And it's so interesting that it comes from the church, where we are supposed to be all inclusive, right? You bring everybody into the sanctuary, no matter where they are, whatever space they are in life. But when you talk about race and and issues within the black community, there always tends to be this but at the end of it,
36:00 yeah, yeah. Yeah. And once again, you try to, like, personalize the problem is still of dealing with the system that ends up with the personal dysfunction. There's a system behind that, that drives it, and it's a systemic issue. And I'm, once again, I'm going to circle back to the fact that we, you know, I mean, I believe in personal sin, and I believe in confessing my personal sense. That's, that's, you know, Jesus came to say that too, but he also came, you know, to build the kingdom. And, and, and that's a structural thing. It really is. Yeah. And then and as long as we can personalize it, then we just avoid doing what you know, well, then is 2020. And nothing changed. Yeah.
36:43 Yeah. And we can easily kind of deceive ourselves in in thinking, while I'm maybe not this way, therefore, the system isn't set up wrong, the system is set up with equality and things. And it's, and again, it's that part of reconciliation. And that part of moving forward is that initial recognition, that wrong has been done. The recognition of the inequality, again, and Megan, I said at the beginning of the episode, it's not about guilt. It's not about over guilt. But it is about recognition of wrong that has been done. And, and it's this desire and a willingness to listen and to move forward and to speak to change. And that change is speaking to individual change, because like you're saying, Rex, there is still a heart issue. And magne said that they're still heart issue that does need to change. And that is an individual level. But then there's also a systemic level that needs to be spoken to, that, that we in the church need to be a voice of accountability against those systems. And we often haven't had that voice in some ways, because a lot of the systems were built to then prop up our own power structure. So we have to be able to recognize that and it's not always easy to recognize that. But But King makes this statement to about the church that I think he was saying this again, like I'm My mind is continually blown by this letter, that he's saying this in the 60s. And he could have said it today. He could have. But he talks about, if the church doesn't miss this, the damage that's going to be done. And he says this, as if today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century. We say 21st century and then he says this line, which just was just a dagger, I think every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.
39:14 And that's happening now. Actually. It really is. And that's deeply this as someone who you know, is committed to, you know, the church and is a Christian and believes that, you know, this is the truth that's just really disturbing to me. And one of my fears that, you know, I mean, this is where the history professor comes down, I'm sorry, but so many so many times in issues like this. We actually haven't emerged from those issues looking very good. Right. You know, I just, I mean, an issue is with with Spain, my wife grew up in Spain, and she actually went to high school during the last years of the Franco regime there, you know, and when Franco you know, In his brand of fascism sort of took over Spain, the, the Catholic Church was totally in his pocket, or he was in their pocket. It was a really, really close thing. Yeah. between them and and you know, is sort of, you know, it went hand in hand, the Spanish fascism and the Catholic Church. Right. Yeah. And it's, you know, and so, you know, they had a monopoly on everything right. And, and then Franco dies. And then, you know, nobody goes to church anymore. I mean, church attendance in Catholic Spain now is about 5%. Yeah, because people end up just associating the church with, frankly, with repression. And yeah, and, and that's not the only example of that, we need to be very, very careful, very, very careful, as someone who's concerned for the churches message, which is a message that still needs to be heard desperately.
40:49 Yeah. And Ken King was concerned for the church, he says, In the letter, like, his tears for the church are tears of love, because he, he grew up in the church, he was the son of a preacher of a grandson of a preacher and the great grandson of a preacher, his his was a love for the church. And it was just that, that recognition that if the church doesn't start speaking on this, and moving towards change, you're going to lose a generation. And that was in 1963. And I think it's just continued to see that in, in the 21st century, that, that, then the next generation is saying, why would I listen to a church that speaks so much about this, quote, unquote, moral issue, but doesn't say anything about this issue.
41:41 And I think it also really kind of compounds the just the overall relationship that a lot of black Americans have with the, the institution of the church in general. I mean, you, you know, Christianity was never introduced to the slaves as a way of liberation, or, you know, having this relationship with Christ that we, that we know we talk about now, right? That that's, that's what we're supposed to be, it was used to enslave, it was used to control the slaves at the time, you know, with, you know, the the slave Bibles and, you know, all of the things that that were done to really control at that point. So, it's, you have these two kind of reckonings, I think, where you you, if you understand where it began to now, it's still not speaking for you Christians, and, and, you know, they're still not speaking for you. Especially as a young person, you know, you you really find art with that. And it's hard to say, Well, I want to be a part of this, I want to, I want, you know, I want this relationship with Christ and to love others. And, you know, to do all of the things that we know Christ has called us to do, when doesn't really seem like he's been for us. Or the people who have presented Christianity to us are not for us. So how can I be for it? Right? Yeah.
43:25 Yeah. And, and it's so true. And I think that's the, for me that that is the call that I'm hearing to the church today. Is, is a call to say. Can you first of all, put down your defenses? Put down? Your fragility? Actually, yeah. Yeah, put down your fragility and, and recognize the injustice that has happened here, hear the cries. Stand with our neighbors. And, and really take this seriously as a moral issue as seriously as we take every other moral issue and begin to speak to this and begin to speak to to true reconciliation and unity, not just call for it, because we want to ease the tension and we don't want unrest. But and knowing that to get to true unity, it is going to be a rough road, it's gonna be uncomfortable, it's gonna be uncomfortable. Yeah. And we have to be willing to have those uncomfortable conversations and, and and live in and King in the letter kind of talks about that. That idea of that there's kind of two types of peace and one type of peace is is kind of like a parent peace, but he really knows peace. The negative peace because it's, it's, it's only peace because one side is being silent and submissive and just living with injustice. And anything true peace is going to be recognizing the injustice and move and working towards actual peace which he would then call actual law and order. Right. And, and so we just need to you know, I just really obviously oh these these last couple weeks have been emotional for everyone and and I just was was looking at how the church was responding and man I just am so afraid that we can so easily and and subconsciously make the similar mistakes that were made 60 years ago. And we need to constantly remind ourselves and move to for the for the white church specifically moved to a place of humility and and move to a place that that is seeking true unity that is seeking the true gospel. Like you're saying, Megan, the this idea of unity for everyone. And that can only exist it's not just unity on on one person's terms. But but that true unity and and that is what we're caught in this is this is the the first step or the first part of a conversation of a much longer conversation. But I think we can at least first look at our posture right now. Say how is our posture? How can we hear and stand with the black community and and with our black students at Jessup and sand width. And, and and say we hear the cries of injustice, and we repent. And we lament, and we want to move towards change, want to move towards actual change and what what I've been blown away is when you see the amount of young faces in the protest and really interesting, yeah, that there is a desire to say this has got to change.
47:23 And it's very multicultural. I mean, those those rainbow faces, they really are they really Absolutely.
47:29 And I think one of the you know, as as you're talking mark, one of the things that is so true then and Dr. Kane talked about it in his letter, where a lot of his disappointment came from the the leadership, right, and the same thing that we see, now, it's, you have the the lay people right there, they're out there, they're on the front lines, they're, you know, doing what they can in this fight to to get the black boys heard. But really the disappointment is in the leadership, and the same in 1960, as it is in 2020. And and I think for for our churches, where this has to be something that comes from our leaders, right, this is a very top down, down, side to side sort of, of issue, but it really has to come from our leaders because they they are the ones that are going to, I think truly guide a lot of these conversations, if people see that leadership is on board, you know, for lack of a better word, right? Then it really eases I think the ability for people to have these conversations, right? It doesn't make the conversations any easier. But they also know that I'm not I'm not in this by myself. I'm not the lone voice out here talking about it. My leaders are kind of in the thick of things with me.
49:07 Yeah, yeah, it really does. And it is interesting. Right now, I think that's so insightful. Megan, that the the lady is in many ways leading right now. And, and they need to hear that voice from the leadership within the church and within the white Church of saying we hear this call for injustice, and we and, and frankly, the, the the church leadership needs the courage to be able to speak up and and to, to lead and that's when I was reading King's letter. I just, I just felt that void of leadership that I think we're feeling in 2020. That and now knowing that even with King's voice and his leadership, it still wasn't an easy road. Right and And it still ended in tragedy. But that Yeah, those voices of leaders who can be calling us to change. And, and this is a time, and I think we're, you know, we're there, obviously, tons of mistakes and bad things have been have happened in our past. But it's a time for the church to say we can we can change, we can change this, we can change the tone of the conversation, we can change directions. And, and and it's about moving forward, it's about just listening and understanding more. And, and, and moving forward towards change, knowing that this is what the gospel has called us to. And that this is a moral issue. And I know, sadly, we're not going to be able to solve every problem on this episodes. Thank you so much, Megan, for joining us. great having you with us. Yeah, yeah, it was a pleasure being here for sure. And I know that this is going to be the first of many conversations as as as we move
51:13 forward. And hopefully, you'll be involved with us in this continuing conversation in some future episodes.
51:21 Absolutely. I would love to be it's great to be a part of the conversation. It's I think sometimes it's easy to kind of talk about issues in silos. And Ron actually have all of the voices at the table to discuss issues like this. So it's really great to be a part of a part of this conversation.
51:40 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
52:05 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leaders.
Dr. Matt Godshall joins Mark and Rex to explore the important topic of how theology positively or negatively affects our view of environmental ethics.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore, and I'm your co host Rex Gurney. I'm Rex today on the podcast, we're excited to have a conversation about something I think is really important. And it has theological implications and practical implications. We're going to be looking at how our theology affects our practice, specifically, our view on environmentalism.
0:23 And it's an important topic to talk about. It really is, and I think we have a wonderful guest this morning that will help us process
0:32 renew we, Professor Matt Godshall has been on the show a few times press are New Testament, teaches an environmental ethics class here at Jessup. And so we're excited to have this conversation. hope you tune in.
0:53 Well, today's episode, we're going to look at the idea of how theology affects our practice. And particularly, I think we want to zoom in on how theology maybe even particularly, eschatology, which is just a fancy way of saying how you viewed the end times are the end of the world as we know it. How your eschatology I'm feeling fine. Yeah, that's good. That's a good reference. How your eschatology affects how you view the environment, and maybe how that that position you take on care of the environment, and just environmental ethic issues in general. And, Rex, I know that this issue has been really kind of big in your life and gun owner, you deal with it a lot in classes, so kind of throw the ball to you. First on, we also have Matt Gaucho with us. Professor of New Testament, we decided we need an expert. That's right. He also teaches a class on environmental ethics for Jessup. And so we're excited to have you on the show again, man. I mean, you're a definite friend of the show. And I am excited to say like it might happen t shirts are in the world brand of the show t shirts are in the works. They're gonna be at a local Walmart near you. Coming soon, find a Walmart yeah. Oh, yeah, exactly. We can bring in, but yeah, no, Rex, we'll start with you. Because it kind of is
2:25 so on your heart. Um, I mean, the whole issue and actually have something in front of me right now. This is no arms and it will like Christian perspective class. One thing we do is kind of do a theology once over just to talk about what most Christians most of the time, most places have thought about God and mankind and redemption and soteriology and eschatology, that big word, but not to try to, you know, just go over doctrine and teach doctrine, but just to show how that actually has. And I don't like this term, but I don't know of another term, sort of a cash value, okay, in how you live your life and how you look at things, how it affects your worldview, right. And so we'll talk about eschatology, and how your view of in times or how that impacts contemporary history, and what's going on around you really can affect some things like who you vote for, what you vote for, what policies you vote for, even when you don't think about it deliberatively it's sort of theology of the gut. And I just try to get students to make a connection between those things, but it also affects the environment. So for example, and I'll just give one I have had relatives and they're actually not in this place anymore. So they have I believe grown in this area, right. But but for a while they they refuse to recycle. And they actually had sort of a almost a religious Christian reason for not right and right as they were dedicated to a pre millennial dispensational view of in times. And so, you know, the world's going to hell in a handbasket. That's just the way it is. You can read it and Daniel and Revelation, right, and so since we're not going to be around much anymore, and since there's nothing we can do to positively impact the future, because I think I already mentioned the hell in a handbasket. Then, actually, why would you recycle? In fact, if you even look at it and think about it, it's almost like recycling would be an act of bad faith sort of this right. Which is just totally well, frankly foreign to the way I personally feel and yeah, people I know feel but at least I sort of admired the consistency in that I mean, know that least they had made some connections. You know, no matter Yeah, I felt about those.
4:45 Right, right. Yeah. You felt it was a good connection are not they were they released maybe living out of that. But yeah, it's really interesting when you have kind of clear examples of that kind of connection. People can make of like, hey, if I if I believe we're going to be gone. Why would I try to make the earth a better place? And and would you say with that, that it's probably also a. So you had kind of the premillennial, dispensational, sarees. And all the words you're gonna get your dictionary. Of course, that's not the only view. Yeah, yeah, not the only view but but a predominant view in kind of conservative evangelicalism. Right. Definitely in the 80s. Early.
5:30 Yeah. Used to be it's really interesting. Yeah, like that was supposed to save us. In fact, I remember that, that that eschatological view was explicitly linked to saving the authority of the Bible. And right, I heard right. I think that some corners of contemporary evangelicalism have actually found a new thing, to sort of save the integrity of the Bible. Yeah, that might be another podcast. But yeah, it's sort of interesting how the connections there right, actually, right.
5:59 But yeah, if you had in that, and, and kind of growing up, I heard kind of very similar idea. Now. It's interesting, you know, Indiana, was probably a later addition to the recycling world, then California. And, and so it wasn't really, you know, necessarily an issue that someone took a stand on, When, when, when I was growing up. But I could definitely see how the theology are being taught, especially maybe a theology of how the world was going to end would affect then your direct application of, Okay, why would I then take the time? Why would I maybe spend more money to care for this? And and I think it's important for us now, and I think one of the reasons why we wanted to do this show is to kind of help our listeners understand, right? Hey, like, there's sometimes we make a direct connection like that. But there's a whole lot of other times that we just have a theology, and then it just kind of flows out into our actions. And we're maybe not realizing like, oh, wow, I'm, I'm not doing something because I think the world is positioned this way. And so we have to kind of step back and say, Well, how is my theology affecting my direct action? And I know in your with your class, you kind of get to tackle these issues and environmental ethics. What are some of them? Maybe, yeah, some of those issues of theology and environmentalism that you kind of see.
7:26 I think, yeah, Rex, you've already touched on. Big connection is eschatology, how we view the end of the story definitely shapes our participation in that story now, so one of the first steps is to help students rethink what the end is, right? Regardless of millennial positions, we don't get into those now. But we have charts on our social referencing them right now in front of you have perfect so I can pronounce them anyway. So but if you view the end as somehow including a restored creation, a new heaven, yeah, meaning sky in space and a new earth, a restored creation made new creation, right. That's a very different ending, then a lot of students and myself included growing up was was taught about the end of the story, as Rex you hinted at if God's gonna destroy it anyways, in the end, let's just live kind of helping that along. Now. Why?
8:26 Or if you don't want us help it along, which, which actually has some policy implications, but at least get as many people into the lifeboat as you can? Yeah. Which is a real incentive for evangelism. It's not the only incentive for evangelism. But I understand how it really is an incentive for that, right. Yeah,
8:44 I remember going to church as an undergrad student, and the pastor there was, you know, opened up the Second Peter three, and his conclusion was, God's just gonna destroy it all, you know, more, oh, we should just, you know, go along with it. And not to worry too much about caring for now, which, at the time, I thought, Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Okay. I don't need to worry about caring for the right environment, I can just let it go, whether it's recycling or other things. So I think the first thing though, is that, at the very least, to say, God's actually cares about the world. He may Yeah, when Paul talks about restored creation in Romans eight or revelation 21, envisioning God making all things new, that includes more than just humans, right. And so if that's the end, how do we as people who Paul would say are people of the end, storytellers at the end? How do we reflect that? So that's kind of the first step is to try to get students to think how to my actions now in relation to the environment in which I live. Yeah, tell the story of God's renewal of all things. Now. There's a lot then that comes into that. What does this mean for certain policy issues as you're saying Rex or my practical everyday living gets into some pretty difficult Yeah, That's when the that's where the debates and challenges really come is like, how do we tell that story, but we at least need to start with, we should be telling that story or that is the story we are trying to tell.
10:12 Yeah. So I mean that maybe that first step is just realizing whatever theology you hold of, of, of the end, how that will affect your actions, like even just starting there and recognizing, and then maybe start taking those next steps of, hey, what what does, what does scripture say about the end? And I like how you highlighted this idea of restored creation, right? Because I mean, that was the one thing that I, I would say, I didn't really hear a lot growing up. And then the more I studied a more looking at it, this idea of New Heaven, New Earth, and it's like, whoa, whoa, wait, it's really not I was just going to heaven was his new Earth aspect. And, and now you add that in, it's like, oh, wow, like, yeah, this, it highlights God's care for that. And then I think your language is interesting, too, because a restored creation brings up the original creation. Yeah. Right. It kind of takes you from the end of the story, all the way back to the beginning, which is why remember Genesis one, I could be wrong here. But I think God pronounced it as as good. Good. That's right. I think if I'm, you know, applying my awana knowledge, okay, I think it was good. I think I have a badge. That's a good says the athlete good badge. And yeah, the so it kind of connects the whole story, right? Don't get, it's not maybe even just what you think of what's going to happen at the end. But what happens at the beginning and, and, and all of that, no matter your take, because we we've talked about this, there's different Christian takes on how it's going to end. And there's different Christian perspectives on how it all began, in a sense. I mean, God's still being creator and at the center. But But no matter maybe what position you take on that there is that one overriding, overriding theme, that God is the Creator and that God cares for his creation, and, and that God wants to eventually restore and renew his creation,
12:17 and if we are bearers of the imago dei, and that means anything. Yeah, that has implications for us.
12:24 Yeah. Yeah, we're being restored to the imago dei now as we live in Christ, and which would the very least be reflecting God in his care for the world at least last conversation? If God loves the world, we probably should do that seems pretty logical framework. What could I go back to a passage of scripture real quick about eschatology? Would that be alright? You're not allowed to read scripture and he's got a Baptist upbringing. Speaking of conservative. So what's fascinating was first Corinthians, Paul, throughout the letter challenges, kind of the Corinthians worldviews often related to the end, ran right and he sees their actions in the present is very much reflecting their eschatology. So in chapter six, he quotes the Corinthians their slogan was, food is for the stomach, stomach is for the food, God's gonna do do away with both God's gonna destroy him. So yeah, that's eat what we want, do what we want with our bodies, God's gonna destroy him. And Paul corrects them to say no, but our hope is resurrection. If God cares for our bodies now, or God cares for buys in the future is going to restore them, we should do the same in the present. So don't become addicted to certain ways of living and eating or trapped in the sexual and moral lifestyle. So yeah, so Paul sees that connection very explicitly. If this is how God's going to act in the future. You should practice that or reflect that in the present. not perfectly not. We're not there yet. Right. That's, that's, he saw that link between the Yeah, and the present very clearly.
14:07 Yeah, that's a really good kind of connection that he is able to see and make very early in this story, right? Yeah, that's right. And it's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa,
14:16 if I can add up just sort of a historical Christian sort of perspective. I'm a history guy. One thing that I guess the church and it's not just the church, because it's outside of the church has always struggled with his his Gnosticism or, or just kind of, I don't know, a skewed view of platonism. And that, that that ends up sort of diminishing one's respect for material things and for the body.
14:46 Yeah, this idea that spiritual is good and material bad apple.
14:50 Yeah, Matt, you know, a mentioned that that, as I believe that the scripture does teach the resurrection of the body, but it's interesting that when I'm mentioned that actually, it, it throws off some students because they will push back that says, No, Scripture teaches the immortality of the soul. And that's a very different thing. Yeah. And I could just sit here and say, you know, try to give them reasons how that snuck in. And this and that, and this and that. Yeah. But they also have different implications, you know, and if you sort of devalue the material world for whatever, because, yeah, then that does have certain implications. I once read a book and it was it was written by Harold bloom, he actually just died a few weeks ago, I think he was the guy that wrote the western canon, whatever sort of literary critic, but he also had a very high view of his ability to be a critic of everything. He wrote, yeah, he makes him a good critic. Exactly. He wrote a book called The American religion. And when I was reading it, it was really interesting book, but but he basically concluded that the, the American religion is Gnosticism. Yeah. And I was reading it. And and he uses two institutional examples. And one was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And so I'm reading those chapters, and I'm going, you know, the Baptist boy that I am. Yeah, I get that. I get that. Right, that. But his second example was, of course, the denomination that I grew up in. And, and I was like, No, that can't, that can't possibly be until I remember some things that I didn't even think about, that were sort of taught from the pulpit, that I can see how that can influence the way people think about the material world and, and all sorts of things. And even though I was offended by some of his examples, I had to admit that Yeah, I heard some of that stuff, too. Right. Which is really interesting.
16:48 Yeah. And that I think, if we're honest, as Christians, which I try to be, I think that we do need to recognize our maybe complicity is too strong of a term, but the world we've had in providing theological or what we might think of as biblical justification for poor treatment, and neglect of the world in which we live. So whether it's implicit, like you start we started the show with but or just explicit coming from the pulpit or books, like we have purported and continued on this narrative that says, our actions toward the rest of creation don't really matter in the long run don't really matter to us as spiritual beings made in the image of God, that's not that important in. And so there is a sense in which Christians now as we least there is a little more movement toward caring for the earth and trying to promote care for creation. We should also practice repentance, and apologizing and saying, Yeah, we've, as a community, have not told the story. Well, and we've actually Adam purpose, but at least implicitly supported just this on on federal consumption, consumption of the earth and its resources and very little disregard for the
18:16 implications that we can even end up getting. Not necessarily theological, but ideological. Although I believe the ideologies that via theology, yeah, for example, you know, environmentalist, of course, are Indian, you start just naming every cliche that you can hear, right, they're Neo pagan, they're tree huggers. Right, as Christians, we can't get anywhere that nature worshippers and we also, that's the kind of stuff that the Bible invades against all along. So you just you can tend, because this is kind of the environment, at least I partially grew up into, they have to understand this is like 67 days, you know, what, I'm in Sunday school, and right and right, later on, he started don't want to get near that because once you start walking down that path, you know, you end up being a tree worshiper or something that's like this inevitable sort of thing. And so, unfortunately, because of your distaste for the the image that you have in your mind, which is anti christian, or whatever, and frankly, some of that language was not exactly sympathetic towards organized expressions of Christianity, there may have been some reason for that, and or not, right? But you just sort of don't want to go there because you don't like those people. And you don't want to become like those people. Even if what some of those people say if you thought about it, actually might be more biblical than you think it is. Right
19:46 now. The ability to listen to others is something that could help us as we navigate this as Christians.
19:53 Yeah. And that seems to be kind of the the, the maybe the sad twist in all of this and how it's happened. is it's kind of become a us versus them within, especially within issues of environmentalism. I feel like within the church, that it became, oh, we can't support that, because that's what they do. And we're us. And we'll even go see that
20:19 I think there's this there's this, you know, narrative, which is a great word, Matt, that that posits scientific consensus against, I don't know, biblical faith or something, as if there's this vast gulf between it. And some of that actually, is because of the battles over origins and things like that, I understand how this ends up in the in the conversation, right. Because of that, you know, sort of divide there. You. If, for example, the scientific consensus is and then we argue about what that is, or rust or whatever, but let's just say for, you know, purposes of conversation that the scientific consensus is, you know, that there is that climate change is, is real, in some sense, and that perhaps there's a human contribution to it. And I think it's a very complicated thing. But if you sort of distrust science, because scientific conclusions go against the narrative you've taught has to be true, then you are more likely to sort of dismiss that, right. And so we have with a phenomenon that we have among many conservative Christians, and I understand where that comes from. And actually, I don't even want to go there or down. But I think that that's sort of what we talked about the difference between embedded theology kind of theology, the gut, you know, in theology of the world deliberative theology, right. And I think some of the embedded theology would be, well, if, if, if this is the consensus, but they also conclude this, and I'm against, then I'm suspicious of this, right. And then we end up, of course, in interesting positions, where we have a significant number of conservative evangelical Christians that that believe the scientific consensus is wrong. Or worse. Yeah, and that's really interesting, that situation
22:22 that seems to expose kind of that, like you're saying that deeper issue of of that divide or mistrust between people of faith and science, and we've talked about that a little before. Yeah, as it's a can't be friends, and they can't work together. And yeah, and then it causes us to our conservative Christians to maybe disregard things from the scientific community, because of this mistrust. And that and, and maybe causes us not to realize the role that we've play in care for the environment, or the role that we haven't played and what we should. And maybe that's a case of, of where we're not letting our theology guide our actions. Because that might be the other side of this coin, like, so. And one side of the coin could be your theology, especially the times if you think it's all gonna burn. But many would probably say they agree with, that God created and it was good, and that he gave us stewardship of it, and you have it, but then maybe we don't really live that out of actually being stewards of the earth and caring. And so it's kind of interesting that they both kind of work that in some ways. Our theology doesn't influence us enough as we as it should. And frankly,
23:41 you know, since we are just talking about the imago dei, you know, um, you know, that's the Genesis one than Genesis two, three talks about the fall and no matter how that is interpreted, or, or thought about, I think, as, and I would say, Mark Twain, but honestly, I've heard from all kinds of people that will say, you know, person x said that, right, right, that, you know, original sanely empirically verifiable doctrine in the Bible. Right. So yeah, it for whoever said that, yeah, just look around, actually look in the mirror. But, you know, there, there are not just policy implications, or something being something that we need to biblically care about. But right, so personal lifestyle things, there are economic consequences. And I understand the hesitancy. You know, I'm just trying to I'm just trying to live my life and provide for my family. Right. You know, if I'm really serious about this, and I support these policies, then, you know, what does that mean about, you know, my job in the steel industry or whatever? Yeah, I get that. Right. That, yeah. That shouldn't be the end of the conversation, but right. It's like, I can understand how complicated that can be for Yeah,
24:58 yeah. Yeah. That is that Challenge, I think to actually, what how do we live this out? I mean, yeah, I think it's, we still need to start with theory and grasping the theology and in least buying into restore creation. Practice now. Okay, we get there. Yeah. Now it's the So what? Yes. How do we practice? Yeah, how do I actually practice and right? This is where at least in the class I teach it. Students actually have the hardest time myself included. But we go, we can get so far down in the conversation that we almost think I can't eat anything like anything. It's hopeless. And yeah, that's then the other challenge for students to help them think through. We're not there. We're not in the restored creation. Yeah. So we're there. We still live with the effects of the fall ourselves and the world is broken and tainted by sin. Yes, that's so when we're there. So let's the language I end up using with them is to the best of our ability. So maybe it starts with something simple. I'm going to change a purchasing habit. Yeah. And whether it's a food item, or stop buying certain plastic items, or whatever, reduce plastic use, let's say, and then over time, you kind of realize I can live with your dad or changing the way I did that, and you can add something else. So there are ways of doing it. But it's also a challenge and I think this is where Christians we need to give each other grace. Yeah, as well. So might be a practice I say, Hey, I'm gonna do my best not to use my dryer the house we're gonna hang dry our clothes even a winter. No, yeah. At least in the spring and we'll hang use the leaves the line outside and dry our clothes saves me energy. But if I then was to put that on a brother and sister in crisis a you have to then that would be going outside at least biblical ethics. I think they're to say, yeah, let's talk about this. Let's encourage each other. Let's hope and long for that new creation. But let's give each other grace to as we're struggling.
27:08 Yeah, that's right. I
27:10 had our financial advisor, I even hate having one but close to where I start thinking of right? Yeah, yeah, people my age. And it's kind of scary. You all know that, folks. My age, I'm a middle baby boomer are the less prepared and the less save for retirement of any generation? We've had for a long time? I don't know what's supposed to happen, right. But we've tried to be proactive. And when he was going over the stuff, it actually was, well, I guess we're in better shape than we thought. But that actually opened up a question because some of that, that we're depending on his stocks in a certain company. And that becomes an issue. Yeah. Right. Because it's, and here's why I have to give myself grace, and I'm just gonna show my colors as someone that's still on pilgrimage. It's really good stock, and it's performed wonderfully well. But yeah, it's 20 years, but right. I would rather not think of the ethical implications of it, because darn it, I'm gonna have to live off the right stuff in five years, you know, and so I i understand a complicated that gets Yeah, but I, I'm obviously thinking about it wasn't even mentioned. Yeah. Yeah.
28:21 I think for me, it kind of has to come down to you got to have a reason or reason behind your actions like Britta something I mean, like, because anything you try to do in life, like any, you know, resolution or things like that. Like, you have to have a pretty substantial reason, or why that sustains you. Right? And I think that's where trying to help people make these connections between the theological foundation for their actions, and kind of helped them see both sides were like, hey, part of your theology, like the Corinthian people is like, hey, if you just think it's all gonna burn up, do whatever and Paul's like, no, that's actually not you know. So you need to see that side of it, but then also see the side where, hey, this is God's Earth and God's creation and he has called us to care for it. And so then that adds another little element right? Okay, my choice to recycle or not. Now that is a conversation that involves my spiritual life and my theological life as well not just a practical like, hey, should we or should we not or I don't associate with those people who do but it's like, no, what is what is God calling me to do? What is God calling me and, and starting it there that can lead us into these more specifics about you know, what, what God might be calling like, hey, yeah, maybe stop this or stop buying this or, and, but, but I think For those actions to be sustained, you know, it's got to we've got to build a stronger theological foundation that gives us a bigger why we
30:08 also need a supportive community in some ways, you know? Yeah, I think that's really important. And I that's kind of the sticking point in some of this actually from from, you know, I hate using this language. But since I sometimes talk about sociology, and what sociologists will say about religion as a sociological phenomena, even though I obviously believe it's more than that, right, right. But it is that too, you can study it that Yeah, yeah. But what once you start going down that road, then you start talking about, you know, tribes, and actually, I belong to a tribe, I grew up in a tribe that can be studied, you know, it's a pretty big tribe. And actually, for a while, we thought it was like the only tribe. And even if I've moved on from some Cardinal, you know, assumptions of the tribe, I can't deny my heritage as being part of that tribe. Right, right. But then it gets really interesting when your theological and I believe, biblically grounded convictions are not shared by a lot of folks in that tribe. And a tribe that you don't want to necessarily disassociate yourself from, because that that makes all sorts of other implications and statements that you don't want to make or don't right over there. Yeah. And so finding community that will that will, because this is hard stuff to do. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's hard stuff to do. And so you need some support? Yeah.
31:39 Yeah. And you can also, it's the advantage of talking and brainstorming together. And when you share life together with people, you know, they do that I could do that, right? Or, oh, that's how you do that. Sometimes it just seen it, right. You can envision your life a little differently. Yeah, in light of what other people are doing.
31:59 I know, when especially was just a couple years ago, when you started teaching the environmental ethics class, I remember. And now when I'm doing different stuff, or bringing something to lunch, I'm always like, oh, man, I have this, I gotta do this part of accountability. It's right, and it's good. But you will see what I bring, and you're like, falling off falling off the wagon. Well, this is obviously a much larger conversation. And we're excited to in our next episode, we're going to have one of our science professors on to kind of hit this from a scientific angle that I think will really add to this conversation. But as we kind of, as we kind of wrap up, I mean, we can hit a lot of things. And it seems like, for me, the the point behind maybe an episode like this is for one just to get us to start thinking about, hey, our theology does affect whether whether we make that direct connection or not, whether it's deliberate or embedded, it affects our actions. And so we need to then pause and be like, hey, what are we dwelling on? theologically? What are what what foundation have we built? And and how is that affecting me? And then I think, like, would you guys were just ending on being finding a community that can help you process that. And, and, and look at, hey, what are ways that man, we can help each other? do our part, do the best we can? Yeah, in this world of doing our part to to help and care for God's creation known, we're not going to be able to make it perfect on our own. But there are things that we can do. And then theologically as we're getting deeper into it, there are things maybe that we should be doing right, that there's that there's a bigger reason why behind that, that it should be something we think about should be something we try to act on.
33:58 And one thing we're doing, I assume in these podcasts actually for, you know, whoever's listening to them, apparently, there are some folks that yeah, these conversations we're having in here are about important things to have conversations about. And so these conversations are just to open up further conversations with Yeah, our listeners and among ourselves. Because this is this is something we all not just with what we're talking about specifically today. But the things we're talking about are things that affect all of us and that we all should be talking about.
34:30 Yeah. And that's great. You've kind of bring up conversation because people can have conversation with us via email, they can email us at think@jessup.edu. We'd love to hear from you. Yeah, we'd love to hear from you. Your thoughts on these topics, thoughts on topics you you want us to kind of hit to bring up those kind of deeper conversations. But Matt, thank you for being on the show. Again. You're a good friend of the show. Thanks for having me again. And And you're always encouraging me to be a better steward of his earth. And so I appreciate that. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup thing.
35:32 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Dr. Libby Backfish joins Mark and Rex to discuss another area of the Old Testament that we often misread: the Law. Dr. Backfish encourages us to look at the Law through a covanental lens.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And today on the show, we have friend of the show returning Dr. Libby backfish. This is third fourth time she has been here a third time I think Tommy's third time and she's going to be carrying on the conversation that we started with Cynthia, on how ways that we misread the Old Testament and particularly the law in our Yammer essentially, today, she's gonna she's gonna focus on I think an area that we wildly screen right. And that is the law, how the Israelites viewed it, and how it applies to us today. So hope you enjoy this. This episode and I just warn you have your dictionary ready, because we're gonna be using some multisyllabic word syllabic words so hope you enjoy the show.
0:55 Well, I'm so excited for this episode. I woke up today, just full disclosure, before we start into the episode, I woke up just excited about life. Jazz ready to go live? He is a true friend of the show. She is Yeah, this is third time on the show. Very friendly. Very friendly. You. You definitely get the T shirt. Yes. After the show. If that ever happened to me, it's gonna happen. For a long time more I say it on air, the more it will happen. Are you somebody was just someone created? Yeah, that's right. Positive confinement. And it will happen. That's actually probably a good a good topic for a future pod. Yeah, that will be but today, I think the reason why I'm so excited is we're kind of continuing a conversation that we had. So we've had a first part of this conversation with Cynthia just just about ways that we misread the Old Testament. And I mean, there's so there's so many ways that we approach scripture, both Old and New Testament, that just maybe a subtle misreading can really move you in the wrong direction. Right. And, and there are a lot of things just I mean, the longer you spend with Scripture, that when you kind of take a closer reading, you're like, oh, that actually maybe doesn't say what I thought it did. And so we want to kind of, again, help our listeners and help Rex and I. And that's why we brought you in Libya as the expert to kind of help us understand what are some of the ways that we've been maybe misreading the Old Testament or the Old Testament experience. And one of the ways that we want to focus on today is the law. How the law is, is viewed by the Israelite people, and then we'll eventually get to maybe how that carries into the New Testament era. Right? And how,
2:45 how long it's in. But I'm always excited about this, because that's, I think, a part of the Bible that for 21st century now Christians are always like, yeah, how do we approach the Old Testament off after nine years of every Sunday preaching a sermon, and doing buku sermon series? And, you know, I would dip into the Old Testament, you know, everybody has the Canon within the canon. My cameras in the Canon actually did not include a sermon series on the law just didn't forgive you. There's forgiveness in the law. Yeah. So I need some tutelage.
3:22 So I think a good place to maybe start here is that is that initial understanding of and maybe a misunderstanding that we've had of how Israel viewed the law, to be kind of to begin with something sometimes from a New Testament perspective, and then especially a post reformation perspective, we can view the law and maybe their experience of the law as somehow they were using it to earn salvation, or using it to earn God's favor. And and the more I dip into it, and the more we've kind of talked, that doesn't seem to be Israel's view of the law. So would you want to kind of start there, let me
4:04 Yeah, sure. So this topic is really interesting to me, because I find a lot of my students don't understand just how much Israel loved the law, because they kind of approach it with this attitude that the law was bad. It was maybe there as punishment, or it was there as a means of salvation like it was how they were justified back then. And now we're justified by grace through faith, or it was just seen as something irrelevant to us. Jesus came from Psalm 119, which says emphatically I love the love of law and long for the law. Right, right. So that's something I really tried to help my students get their head around that the law was a good thing. It was seen as a gift and it's not antithetical to grace. It's actually a means of grace. Yeah, one of the things I like to unpack with them, and that seems I mean, I
4:53 think maybe two part of it is any of our approaches to law. I mean, most people aren't like I love laws, right? Like I love the speeding limit. It's amazing. It keeps us safe. It's a gift of the state, right, I think, mostly approach laws, maybe maybe specifically coming from an American mindset, right? Well,
5:11 we've been exposed to some bad laws, some really unfair laws. Yeah. And so we have this kind of negative understanding of law, whereas law in Israel's context was seen as a good thing, because they needed that guidance. And that law came directly from a good God. So those were good laws. And if you look at the historical context in which Israel was receiving the law, at least in the literary perspective, they're right on the verge of entering the promised land, they've just come out of Egypt, they don't really know much about this God, who he is or what he expects them to do or be. So they need that guidance. So it was seen as a good thing. And then it also reveals who God is so that they can reflect him. There's this idea in the Old Testament that men and women were made to reflect God's image. Well, how do we do that? Well, we have to reflect His holy character. Hmm. So Leviticus 19 this refrain throughout a be holy for I am holy?
6:08 Yeah. I think maybe some of the some of the antinomianism that we struggle with is in its contemporary Christianity comes from, you know, our individualistic culture where, you know, it is really all about us. And Ryan tends to be very, very different from from the the people of Israel, the the community of Israel, and I think in some ways, law makes more sense, or is more easily approachable that way. Right? It's definitely different than what most of us
6:42 Yeah, because the law was definitely the terms of the covenant and the covenant was a communal thing with
6:49 with God. Right, right. And I think in that I did hear sirens, it was clear. It's a big word siren like sirens, whoo, big word, big word. So I want to circle back to antinomianism. Because it's a good word. And we want to be a part of education here.
7:03 If you wish to converse with us, you have to define your terms.
7:05 Right. So we want to just Yeah, antinomian suspicion of the law, anti law, anti law. And it seems like maybe we do, on a surface level get that a little. Our could be misread even to from Paul, when we feel we feel we have some warrant for Yeah, so there's with Miss reading. Yeah. Right. But this suspicion of the law, right. But I think that is such a revelation, in a sense. To hear someone say, No, Israel loved the law, like, I think because we think, Hey, we don't have to follow those laws. We don't have to eat kosher. We don't have to do some of these things. And we feel maybe freedom from that. And we don't realize, for the Israelite people, no, it was something they received from God gratefully. And it's something that shaped their identity.
7:58 And what would it mean to love the law? I'm all confused as to how exactly that would play out. And, you know, their attitude towards it. Yeah,
8:07 I think it's gratitude for receiving guidance from your way, knowing what to do. Like if you think about kids, kids generally like some kind of good rules that give their life structure, because it protects them, it shows them this is what we want you to do, you'll be appreciated for this. And so Israel saw those laws, as, you know, just good guidance that they needed. And it was been a context of salvation and in the context of their relationship with your way.
8:37 Yeah, and is interesting, over over the Christmas time, I was reading a book as a biography of a, of a famous rock star. He may be a bass player for a certain band, who remain nameless. But I was reading I'm a sucker for like rock documentaries, and biographies. Sort of Stanley play bass. And, and he talked, he grew up in a very unstructured home in, in East Hollywood. And it's kind of funny as interesting reflecting him reflecting on that he kind of said, actually, like, it may have been nice to have structure and rules and food on the table at dinner time. Like it was funny, he could look back on that in his life, and say, you know, I did all these crazy things from age 13 on and that kind of shaped me to become this rock star. But looking back, man, I kind of as a 13 year old and 10 year old I kind of wanted my parents to be more involved and to be more so I like what you're saying like to have a view of of the law as this is God being involved in our lives and saying, Hey, I care about you and and giving those giving that structure
9:56 and there's even a freedom in that like your story, just remind me of Thomas He was a monk who lived in Abbey and Kentucky, and he got to his monastery after this crazy, awesome life. And he's finally where he wants to be. And he says in there, I was enclosed in my four walls of freedom. Because there's these definitely rigid rules in a monastery, you can't do this, you can't do that. But he felt so free because he was where he wanted to be doing what he wanted to do. And so I think Israel, and Christians feel a freedom when we're doing what God wants us to do. There's a freedom in that obedience, because we're,
10:28 we're acting as God created. Yeah, that's really good. I think that's a really good perspective. And something else you said that I think we can explore more, because this may be the main, I think, one of the main Miss readings of the law. And that is that the law for the Israelites was not a means of salvation. And and in other conversations with May, you've described this as it has more to do with sanctification. So right, like the spiritual life and life in the spirit versus justification. Yeah, and I think that's really helpful for, for, for maybe primarily New Testament readers, to note that they weren't Yeah, trying to like I'm trying to eat kosher and follow Sabbath, so that God will accept me, but rather, so that I can be a part of his kingdom maybe and, and, and,
11:18 and receive covenant blessings and yet be shaped just as Christians are shaped in sanctification when we try to obey God in the New Covenant. And we see this clearly in the exodus event. So the exodus event is that paradigmatic Old Testament event of salvation, Israel did not receive their salvation because they had obeyed the law, they hadn't even received the law, right? It's not like Moses was standing there by the Red Sea. Okay, gotta sign off to this before I let you through, right? I know, God had that act as you submit to these 300, some 638. They were saved out of grace. And then they were given the law. Yeah, as a means of, like you said, being shaped into God's people and who he wanted them to be.
12:01 I kind of like, I think it's john Walton, who says it's it was God's speaking, order into chaos. Given the law, he's because, and yeah, trying to help students and ourselves realize that at this time period, I mean, it is it is crazy lawless, and you're literally into human history is speaking in, like, hey, maybe you shouldn't just go around and kill whoever you want to, like, maybe there should be some really good reasons for that.
12:28 Right? And how are we to worship you your way? Are you going to require child sacrifice, like some of these other routes around in the area? So they needed that?
12:36 So that's a contemporary Christian, who was kind of raised in a church that did not talk about the law much. And when he did, it was pretty much, you know, compared unfavorably to grace and a new dispensation in the New Covenant. Yeah. How would a re appreciation of the law and a love of the law even help help better shape? I'll just use myself as a contemporary Christian.
13:03 Well, let's look at some of these New Testament passages, because I think that'll help us because sometimes we just look at Paul's negative statements about the law, but sometimes he's talking about a different law, the rabbinic law, perhaps, sometimes he's talking about a misuse of the law, and those things are bad. But a lot of times when he's talking about the law of the Old Testament, which Jesus also upholds, right, Matthew five, he says good things about it. So Romans 331, he's talking about he says, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means? On the contrary, we uphold the law, Romans 712 and 13 laws holy, it's righteous, it's good. What was the problem? He says, The problem was sin. We couldn't write the law, right? There was nothing wrong with the law in itself, there was something wrong with our inability to keep it, which is why Jeremiah 31, the prophets are saying this new covenant is going to be characterized by a transformation of people, you're going to have the law written on your hearts. And that was the major change, not the law itself. And then Galatians 310 11. And all in all of these places, Paul is also using Old Testament scripture to substantiate his his answers to he's looking at Genesis 15, four or 15, six, Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness. Habakkuk, two for the righteous shall live by faith. So he's using the Old Testaments to support his arguments, he's certainly not going to say we're going to throw that stuff out, right?
14:24 It's so true. And and, again, is important to to recognize how he's approaching it versus those other things like in that that's always been interesting to me, like the rabbinic law. And then elsewhere, you kind of see specifically in the gospels, there's a couple references they call the tradition of the elders and it seems to separate and Jesus even when when he uses that, traditionally elders he also then says the tradition of men, so he kind of separates it from the law, right from God's law from Torah. And then I think that's maybe the work of us today reading the New Testament, we have to be able to kind of separate like, which what law is Paul talking about? and housing? How is he approaching it? And how is he showing that, hey, this isn't the laws fault, but this was actually our fault. And the law did its job by exposing that within us. And we've talked about that on this show before that, that as human beings, right, when someone tells you, you can't do something, then that becomes the one thing you want to do. Right? And it wasn't the laws fault. It just it just awoken in you. Maybe your awareness that Oh, yeah, I want to kind of rebel and, and that seems to be maybe a little bit of Paul's perspective to hear of, yeah, the law did its job. Now the law wasn't then capable of removing that from you. But it did awaken that in you that recognition that, that And so again, wasn't the loss fault, but it was sin within us.
16:02 Because even that is a good thing. If it awakens our recognition, then we recognize our desperate need for forgiveness and repentance. So even that, I think that's second use of the law and the reformed tradition is a good thing.
16:16 Yeah. And it seems like Jesus goes on to then intensify the law. Right? He doesn't remove the law, he. And that's one thing that I mean, the Beatitudes are obviously a beautiful piece of literature to write and like, and, but I love in this whole sermon on the mount, that he always he the way he phrases It is so well done, because he's always like, you've heard that it was said. And then he says, But I say to you, and it's always I taking that law, right? You've heard that it was said do not murder. But I say to you, yeah, and he intensifies it, he doesn't get rid of it. He actually makes it even harder to follow.
16:59 Yeah, he's looking at the spirit of the law, which I think is one of the main differences between what Jesus is doing there. And that intensification and what the traditional the elders were doing when they were building a fence around the law, that was legalism, right. So they weren't intensifying the law. They were restricting. They were building more letters around the law. They were not paying attention to the heart of the law, whereas Jesus was saying, Okay, look at this commandment on adultery. Yeah, let's look deeper and say, what's the spirit of that law? Not just the physical act of adultery, but even lusting that's included? And that's not building a fence around it. That's saying that's what's at the heart of it. Yeah. And I think it takes wisdom to recognize how do you look for the spirit of the law versus how do you, you know, avoid getting just building a fence around it? Yeah. Which brings me to the fact that this Old Testament law literature, which we think of as kind of sometimes drab and boring, might better be understood as wisdom literature.
17:58 Right? I like, oh, whoa, like that. Because usually, you know, Bible in a year, you get to come out and try again next year. Yeah. But yeah, approaching it, as with so so by.
18:15 What I mean by that is, we have 613 laws, right? In the Old Testament, they're not exhaustive. They are not telling us everything we need to know now. And they weren't even telling Israel everything they needed to know, that wasn't the purpose. But if the Israelites would meditate on the Law Day and night, and Psalm 119, Psalm one, then they would know how to approach issues that work directly addressed in the law. And that's where the wisdom comes in. And we see that same thing happen in other ancient Near Eastern cultures where the law wasn't necessarily meant to be followed to a tee, it was more hypothetical, showing the wisdom of the king, because the king would write the law. And supposedly, that law would come directly from the God. And that would be the God stamp of approval on that King. See, look, this king is righteous and ruling in my stead as evidenced by this great law. And so I think if that's the way that Israel was approaching the law, I mean, yes, they were supposed to follow the law. But more importantly than that, they were supposed to let the laws shape them by meditating on it just like they were to let wisdom literature shape them. I think that might be a helpful way of understanding how Jesus is looking at the law is the spirit of the law.
19:24 Yeah, that's so because I'm one of the things I love about Jesus's approach to the Pharisees and the different kinds of keepers of the law at the time, is when they're like, pressing him on issues of Sabbath and pressing him on issues of healing on the Sabbath and those things. He specifically in Matthew, He seems to come back to this saying and he and he says it Allah, He says, I wish that you would have understood what was said, when it says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Yeah. And it's kind of like I wish you would have ruminated on the Law not just looked for the letter like, hey, can't carry this much weight, you know, so we'll just make everything one pound showing, you know, shy of that, or one. You can only walk this far. So you know, we'll make some work arounds to be able to, to walk further on the Sabbath. But I wish you would have understood I desire mercy, you know, which would have taken wisdom in order to take and spending time with the law to capture god, he's
20:24 not saying here, I've got a new way to interpret it. Right, this is how you always should have been interpreting it.
20:29 Yeah, this is what it has always said. Which which, again, maybe highlights like you were kind of saying at the beginning that that is not the strict dichotomy of law versus grace, that the law had wrapped up in it. Grace, and, and, and even laws of grace and laws of reaching out and things like that, but it was often missed, was often missed by the Israelites, and then obviously missed by us. As they missed it, you know, we kind of missed the importance as well. And we can easily kind of translate that into our own experience of of law versus grace, or like legalism versus grace. And we're missing that spirit versus letter.
21:13 So I guess I have a historical question, I guess. One thing that perhaps not unique in the annals of human history, but I don't know many other examples of it was the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay, actually tried to legally Enshrine the first table of the Decalogue, not just the second, everybody sort of does the second in one way or another, but they didn't first.
21:42 Okay. And, and those are the ones that could be summarized as loving God. Right.
21:46 Right. But it ended up being some some places that many of us would be really uncomfortable with right now with what ended up actually in the statute books because of that. And I think that that a fear some people have is that if one pays too much attention to that, that that would end up being a well, there's no way out of a rampid, legalism, and then a sort of a society or politically enforced legalism, which, obviously, the Puritans thought was a really good thing. But yeah, yeah, most of us, most of us, not all of us, but most of us actually think was not quite the good thing they thought it was. And so how, how does a correct appreciation of an approach to the law mitigate against that kind of thing?
22:38 I think one comes back to what we're just talking about the spirit of the law and viewing it as wisdom. And so it's not such a rigid document that can that must always be carried out in certain ways. But that there's flexibility within it, that it's supposed to be a guide in most circumstances, and that it takes wisdom to know when and how to apply it to our lives.
22:59 Yeah. And one thing, I think, that I've really appreciated about, like, understanding the Gospels, and just really getting into Jesus and how he's approaching, I feel like and it's beginning to take more shape and my my mind and thoughts, the more I spend that time, but it seems like Jesus never uses the law to to control others or to exclude others. Like, it seemed like the first sometimes were like, Oh, they don't follow this law, therefore, they are not. And and it seemed like, that's where he came up for air and said, No, don't use laws to exclude people from my kingdom. And, and, and perhaps maybe where, you know, the Puritans misstep was, was taking laws, or or is forcing them on forcing him on?
23:56 Because the law only makes sense in in the context of Covenant. Hmm, yeah. You know, yeah. And that's really actually thought of themselves as the covenantal people. But yet, you know, since there is a legal state entity that right then suddenly, you have things like, you know, laws against I mean, Jesuits are Catholics, you got one chance, if you show up there, again, you would be executed those kinds of things. Now, whether they actually did that or not, so another thing, but the laws are on the books and right, we're simply very serious people. And there's something to be somebody admirable about that. But some of those sensibilities may may strike us right now as to legalising.
24:37 Well, even now, there are the optimists who think that all of the laws should except for the sacramental law should be applicable today. Even the civil laws, right, right. Right. Apparently, I mean, bacon. Nobody will want that would mean if you disrespect your parents, you should be stoned. Oh, goodness. Right. Right. If it was good enough for Israel, it's good enough for you one left, so we no one left. So and I think maybe one thing that helps clarify this whole, you know what's applicable to us now, it's a little simplified, but I think it's helpful as an entry point is that a lot of people will distinguish three different categories of law, right? So you have the sacrificial law, which all Christians will say Christ abrogated those those have been perfectly fulfilled in him through his sacrifice in his role as a priest. There's the civil laws that some would say, still are binding, we should still be a Christian government. We're still a theocracy. And then there are the moral laws, summarized in the 10 commandments that everyone would agree is still applicable. Some people disagree on the Sabbath. So it's the theory animists. It's the Puritans who would say, Oh, those civil laws, we should still be living by those, why aren't we living by those anymore? Whereas other Christians would say, No, we aren't a theocracy anymore. Things have changed in the New Covenant under Christ. We're not accountable to those laws. But I think maybe a more helpful paradigm rather than those three categories, because our tendency is to just disregard anything that's no more applicable to us is to look at each individual law and recognize that each law is fulfilled in Christ and then ask how is it fulfilled in Christ? And what that means now? And what does it mean for us now? Yeah, so for us, so the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16, obviously, it's been fulfilled in Christ. Do we not study it anymore? No, we study it because when we study it, we recognize just what His Atonement means. It's so multifaceted. It has to do with cleansing, it has to do with expiation, propitiation, substitute ransom, like all these categories are right there in the Old Testament shadow, the civil laws can we learn from them? Absolutely. My favorite example is in Leviticus 19, the gleaning laws were it was a law on the books that you do not harvest all your crops right up to the edge, you've got to leave that for the poor, for the widows for the sojourners right now, I am not a farmer. So I'm just going to disregard that law, right? Wrong. I can still learn from that, right, because that should shape the way I think about the poor and immigrants and sojourners and widows and so forth. It's going to look different in the way I practice that generosity and so forth, but, and then the moral law to adultery, and all of its issues looks maybe different in my context, we have pornography to deal with, we have all sorts of other contemporary issues that that law can be applied to. So I think maybe that's a more helpful way for Christians to appreciate the law and apply it to our lives under New Covenant.
27:31 Yeah, so it almost takes one instant, though. But that's Yeah, that's why I think that point was so good that it does take wisdom. And and so I guess, God, kind of my hearing I know, and I like this, instead of not reading the laws, instead of just being like, yep, doesn't apply to us, you're good to go. Rather, we should spend more of that time of, hey, let's read these. And let's examine these and let's let's in wisdom, ruminate on them and say, Yeah, why? Why would God be giving this? How is it fulfilled in Christ? And what does that mean now? And yeah, there's so much to learn from those. That is much better approach than disregarding it. Or having some simple dichotomy that that was law versus grace, we're under grace. So So let freedom ring,
28:26 it helps, it shapes us. It helps us appreciate to know what to do. But it all in it convicts us of our own sin and our inability to do it perfectly. But then it also makes us should make us more grateful for Jesus who perfectly obeyed the law too. That's another element I forgot to throw in there. And one maybe on a moment and says, okay, you're an Old Testament professor. Yeah, you can forget about ever.
28:51 As you as we kind of land the plane, I don't want to throw another huge topic out here. But there is something that I think comes up when when we talk about the law that might be helpful just to say a few words on what do we do with I think you've called them the weird laws. I like to call them the funky, funky little James Brown kind of Mojo. Okay, I like that. Yeah, cuz there are some laws that we read, especially in the 21st century. Whether they maybe have to do with deal with slavery or deal with like, what to do with the the woman you've just captured from another country and how you treat them or like, Whoa, should I wear a COTTON BLEND now? Like what what do I do with that? What are just Yeah, what so yeah, we can maybe approach those that?
29:41 Yeah, so I'll start with the funky laws because I think those are easier. So we've got like things like dietary laws, clothes, you don't you're not supposed to blend certain clothing together fabrics together. We know we're tassels on your clothing, Deuteronomy 22. I think some of those laws were to set Israel apart from the nations around them to remind them on a day level. I mean, you eat everyday you eat clothes every day. So it's a daily reminder kind of like wearing a cross or something right of who they are, that they're different from these other nations Don't act like those other nations. Yeah, there's also really practical implications for some of these laws. So I was telling some of my students that I was gonna do this podcast, because I always feel so famous when I come on. Yeah. And I said, What do you all want to hear about the law? And they said, Oh, talk about that one lot. And it's in a few places, Exodus 2334, Deuteronomy 44, that says, Do not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. Yeah. And that law just kind of sometimes dropped right into the text. And you're like, what is that mean? And so it was asking someone wiser, the nice, Cynthia Schaffer Elliot about this. And she said, there's a practical reason because the milk bacteria would soak into their porous pottery, and it would the fresh meat, it would spoil the meat. So there's a very practical reason on cross stitch in a kitchen. That's so charming. The Stove Company you with us there? Yeah. So sad to go on vacation. Yeah, there's practical implications. A lot of the implications are to remind them that they are holy, that they are literally set apart. And it's a daily reminder of that, and I could talk about that forever. Like the skin disease ones, too, because those ones always kind of jumped out to me as like, man. What? Well, I think some of that's practical, too. Yeah, exactly. That's contagious. A lot of that is contagious, or it would need to be anything like Shouldn't you show them compassion? They
31:20 have a skin disease, but it's like, Hey, you shouldn't be in this. Yeah, cuz you
31:24 end the mold. You know, a lot of those are you gonna we can kind of figure out what that what that was for. Right? But then the uncomfortable laws, those questionable laws, slavery, what do you do with female captives, things like that. And I was just looking at my text, Exodus 21. Everybody reads Exodus 20. That's the 10 commandments, then you get to Exodus 21. And it's the law for Hebrew servants is what my nav says. But it's also the same word for slaves. And when you're talking about buying and selling servants, let's just call it like it is right? Right. So this is the way I understand those uncomfortable laws. In the context of the ancient Near East, God revealed his law to his people in ways that they would understand in ways that wouldn't be earth shattering. But in ways that would be a beacon of grace and light in that context. So I tell my students, that the law in some places, was not ideal. But it was perfect for that time and place. And we see this progressive infiltration of grace and God's will and in the law, and then you know, you get to the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus is really escalating that and he's actually saying, yep, no more divorce. That was an accommodation for you, because we're too weak. So I think some of these laws that are really uncomfortable for us are accommodations, but even if you compare the slave laws in Exodus 21, with slave laws of Hammurabi, code and other places, right, right, there's a lot is a huge difference. Yeah. So I think that's important to
32:48 know, that is really important. And that's actually something that Rob Bell said in his book, more we talked about when we talk about God, he talks about that God is before us. And he kind of used some of those laws as an example that for us, those laws seem like steps back, right. But he said for them at that time, it was miles forward of where they were, it was calling them into a new place of like, Oh, hey, this, these are especially maybe the women captors, one, you can't just do whatever you want. Or marry your rapist. Yeah. Like they were lausitz to us seem steps back. But at the time, there were steps forward. Yeah. And yeah, and we're a form of accommodation for that time. That which again, highlights that as we approach law, it has to be approached with wisdom, and has to be approached with not just reading the letter of the law, but understanding the spirit behind and what guys doing with the Israelites and what
33:52 and doing the hard work of looking at the historical context. So we could see what these other laws were. Right.
33:58 Yeah, right. Yeah. Cuz when you compare them to the other engineering culture,
34:03 I was just looking at some I'm studying Ancient Near Eastern families right now. And I was looking at some primary documents about different pagan pantheons. And their stories of Gods and Goddesses killing each other. Right? There are stories of Gods and Goddesses raping each other. Right? Talk about rape culture that is normalized by the very Godhead. Yeah. I mean, how radically different was Yahweh? So I mean, this law that he's giving to them, even though it's uncomfortable by our standards, and by New Testament standards, it's it's radically gracious in the context.
34:36 Yeah. Well, this has been such a helpful conversation. And I know that we could just keep going, so maybe we'll have to have you back on the show. Sometime. I would love to be a BFF again, there we go. Yeah, you we will. By the end, you do actually get something the fourth time we will have something I want a T shirt t shirts will happen is gonna happen. But thank you so much for coming on the show again. Thank you. And that is that is so helpful because it is, it is a way that we that we misread the law. And that affects how we read or don't read the Old Testament. And it affects how we read the New Testament affects how we read Jesus. And then especially how we read play,
35:17 it just calls us to engagement, which we're supposed to be doing anyway. Right. So it's how do we live as good Christians? That includes the law? Yeah, right application of it.
35:25 Okay, let's see if our listeners want to learn maybe a little more about this. And because this conversation has been so helpful, they want to dive deeper. Do you have some resources that will kind of help them get into this question of law and how it applies now?
35:39 I certainly do. Alright, so one resource is by Carmen Joy eims. She teaches at Prairie college, it's the book called bearing God's name. Why Sinai still matters. Okay. It was just published last year by IVP. foreword by Christopher Wright. It's awesome. Wonderful. Sandra Richter wrote something about 10 years ago called The Epic of Eden, a Christian entry in the Old Testament. Very good. And it gets into she's a specialist in why the Old Testament and how the law specifically applies to Christians. So that's in there. And then an older resource, but I think this whole series of resources is very helpful is five views on law and gospel. It's part of zonder vins counterpoint series. Yeah. Talking about that with the students today. Not that particular volume, but the whole series, right, the whole series. Yeah, the format is great. They have five different scholars who give their view on the law and how it relates to the gospel and to Christians. And then what's great, they respond, they respond to each other. So it's kind of like you're privy to this debate, this dialogue, and it helps me get my head around the issues in a more nuanced way. So that's where I would start.
36:37 That's perfect. Those are great resources. Thanks for bringing those. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
37:08 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Kevin Adler, founder and CEO of Miracles Messages, an innovative non-profit using digital media to reconnect homeless people with their loved ones, sits down to talk with Mark about this amazing work.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And I'm so excited to be joined on the show today by Kevin Adler. Kevin is the founder and CEO of miracle messages, an innovative nonprofit using digital media to reconnect the homeless, with their loved ones, have been so inspired by Kevin's work, and I know that you will be inspired as well. Hope you enjoy the show.
0:31 Kevin, thank you so much for joining me on the show. And I was so inspired when you spoke at Jessup in Chapel about a month ago now feels like two years ago, but but I was so inspired. I was actually in my office, listening to the chapel livestream. While I was, I was multitasking. And but then I stopped and I just listened to the rest of your message. And I was so inspired, I got out of my office and basically ran to the RA, you know, as as socially appropriate as I could walk fast through through campus, and ended up catching you just as you were coming outside the chapel building. I didn't know that backstory. Yeah. So just connect, because I was, I was just so moved by the work that you're doing in the work, and the focus of miracle messages. So maybe for our listeners, if they don't quite know, what is the work that you do with miracle messages? And kind of maybe how, how'd that all get started?
1:33 Yeah, well, thank you. I'm honored mark. Here, that little anecdote, I like to figure out what the appropriate speed is to be running while pretending to be professional. Are you an Olympic Qualifying or not? You know, so miracle messages is a nonprofit that I started about five years ago. And we help people that are experiencing homelessness, reconnect with their loved ones, and with us as their neighbors. The first part of that has developed into an award winning reunion service, where we record short video, audio and text messages from people on the streets, and that shelters and living in their cars, to family members and friends that they haven't seen in a while. And it could be to say, I, you know, would love to come live with you. But it could also simply be I miss you. I love you. I'm sorry. I want you back in my life. So when one of those messages gets recorded, usually by a client directly, or a volunteer, or a caseworker, or one of our formerly homeless community ambassadors, and you're usually using one of our tools, whether it's the mobile app, paper form, the online form, or our one 800 miscue hotline. We have a network of volunteer digital detectives, that then go online and make phone calls write letters to see if they can locate the loved ones deliver the messages to reunite folks with our families. So that's the reunion service, the how do we better connect with people experiencing homelessness as our neighbors? That's a really exciting area that's just been emerging, really, in the last couple months, even a couple of weeks? Around COVID-19? Yeah, new and exciting ways. And I'd be happy to share more about that. If that's of interest.
3:47 Yeah, definitely. That I mean, that we're definitely have experienced a shift in, in the world in the last, you know, in the last couple of months. And and yeah, interesting to see. So that's kind of brought up new things within miracle messages. In that new Yeah, I want to express Yeah, a little bit of that kind of the new stuff you have going on.
4:11 Yeah. Well, let me read some news that is in front page of the New York Times right now. I just got the news in the last hour or two. And it's, I think, very relevant and pressing it for where things could be moving very soon. So it was just announced that today, on Wednesday, there were five positive cases at the largest homeless shelter in San Francisco. Today, there are 70 Wow. Wow. And there's a real fear as well as sense among advocates that our neighbors experiencing home listeners will be decimated by COVID-19. Health underline health situation, the aging on the streets, number of people who are 50 and older number of people who are immunocompromised respiratory issues, and then just the sheer ability to shelter in place and find a find a safe space to physically distant and stay safe and if you're failing to, to get help. So it's a disaster, and it has the makings of a compound disaster between the pandemic and the homelessness epidemic. So what we're doing as part of that, is, as we're encouraging as much as we can, you know, advocating for people experiencing homelessness, to be safely invited into hotels and motels right now, there's a lot of vacancies. Right and, and getting people stable, the house in a place that is safe, is is of utmost importance, once they're in a place that could be stable the house for the next couple months, potentially, the question is what then, and you just leave them there. There's needs around food, medical care, physical safety and harm. And then just isolation, loneliness, anxiety. And so miracle messages is working with the City of San Francisco and in talks with a couple other regions, to develop a virtual buddy system, where we're going to be connecting volunteers who received some training and support with people experiencing homelessness for 10 to 15 minute daily phone calls and text messages, oh, wow, check in with them. And then as issues are identified, it's really just meant to be a good neighbor, and provide companionship and support. But if there are issues that are raised, to be able to log them in a case management system share that information on an update form that then reaches a caseworker who can follow up with a client and try to address the issue.
7:24 That's so good that, and that really, I think, highlights a point of miracle messages. The one thing that you highlight that I think is, is really interesting, and it's an interesting aspect of, of advocacy for the homeless is that idea of social homelessness, the idea of a loss of connection, and community. And so to be able to meet that, not just physical needs, but then yeah, to be able to meet the community and connection needs, through that. I think that's such a great follow up to, to is going on,
7:58 we really seen as a perfect complement to the kind of reunion service because we know, family and friends sometimes was part of the problem, not part of the solution. Right? There's situations where there's domestic violence, or situations where it's unsafe for a young person to be living with their family, they don't accept them for whatever it happens to be. And so in those scenarios, or maybe the family is as under resourced as they are, what do you do? You know, and we know from experience that about 10 to 20% of people experiencing homelessness? are good candidates potentially benefited by miracle messages as a reunion service. So for the 80 or 90%, that aren't necessarily benefited. How do you build relationships and social capital and a sense of home where the person is the social home as you're saying, right? And and that's really where this service comes in. And they're not mutually exclusive. We envision our volunteers through those one to one daily interactions, being able to say hey, do you have any family or friends you'd like to reconnect with? Maybe we can help rebuild those relationships, right?
9:16 And on the on the reunion side of miracle messages, what? How did you kind of maybe come up with that idea what first started that to go get video and try to reconnect people through that through the use of that kind of digital media?
9:30 Yeah, so it started out my uncle was homeless for about 30 years, and suffered from schizophrenia on and off the streets. But you know, never looked at him as a person who's homeless just saw him as a person as my uncle. Yeah. And so after he died, I was at the gravesite with my dad, and just having a really deep father son conversation about his younger brother, my uncle mark, the life he lived when he wasn't at the Christmas dinner table or the Thanksgiving dinner table with us. And I just started thinking about, you know, as moved as I was by sitting at the grave of my uncle, looking at the tombstone, it didn't tell me much about who the man was, you know, it was Mark Adler birth, that your birth, your death and all the good years, all the good memories are in the dash, right. And I get back in a car and I you know, pull out my smartphone and start scrolling on Facebook, social media. And within, you know, a few seconds, I kind of stop and catch myself, I realized I'm learning more about my random acquaintances on Facebook than I did about my uncle at his gravesite. And so that was kind of thought one thought the next thought a few days later, I was at church. And there was a project at the church I was going to in San Francisco, called who is Jesus? And they invited you to answer that question was some kind of art form. So some people painted pictures, some people wrote songs. And I thought, you know, I'm not much of an artist, I'm not much of a singer. I love using storytelling tools, smartphones, social media, wearable cameras, to help show our humanity, our interconnectedness, I like technology, I like social impact. So I got this question on my heart, is really reverberated for the last five years to this work, which is how would Jesus use a smartphone? And I thought, well, gosh, you know, it's not taking in sharing selfies or cat videos. And so I just started really taking that question to heart. And my initial response was over the course of a year, inviting 24 people experiencing homelessness to wear GoPro cameras around their chests. Oh, wow. And I said, Why don't you walk around, do what you're going to do. And then just narrate what's going through your mind how you're feeling? You know, I walked by you, hundreds of people walk by you every day, but you're still there. what's what's it like to be you? And I got the footage back, and was just really, you know, overwhelmed for sad, by what I saw. Yeah. And in one clip, I heard someone say something that really caught my attention. He said, You know, I never realized I was homeless when I lost my housing. Only when I lost my family and trends. And that angle, I said, that makes a lot of sense. But I've never heard any organizations talk about that. I've never heard any service providers talk about what we've come to call relational poverty, as a type of poverty. And so long story somewhat less long. Decided five years ago at Christmas time to take a walk down Market Street in San Francisco, went up to every person I saw who was experiencing homelessness and just said, Hey, do you have any family or friends you'd like to reconnect with? kind of add some cookies and I'm drained and had a volunteer to with me and just went up to everyone not sure what to expect? Yeah. And the first person I met was a guy named Jeffrey. He says, I haven't seen my family in 22 years. And so I sat down with him, started having a conversation. He volunteered to record a video to his family, I pull out my phone, recorded this really heartfelt message to his desus nephew, his sister, his father.
13:51 I went home that night. And that night, I did nothing. I sat on the video, because I wasn't sure I could believe who this guy was. And I didn't know if I didn't want to interfere. Right? But a few days later, it was just kind of, you know, on my heart, felt like is burning a hole in my pocket and said, Okay, I got to do something with this video. So I went on Facebook, and I found a Facebook group connected to the guy's hometown. So posted the video there, short message, and within an hour, the video was shared over 100 times. Made the local news that night. classmates started commenting, hey, I went to high school with Jeffrey I worked in construction. Does he needs a job. You know, I work at the congressman's office does he need health care. And in the first 20 minutes of the post, his sister got tagged. We got on the phone The next day, and she told me that Jeffrey had been a missing person for 12 years. Wow. And so I shortly after that, quit my job. I've been working in edtech doing startup Social impact in the education space and decided to do this full time because I knew Jeffrey wasn't the only one and that this shouldn't be happening. We shouldn't have someone in downtown San Francisco few days before Christmas, that visible in some ways as a person experiencing homelessness in front of the old maybe flagship store, that that isolated that lonely and having that social support network just under the surface, thinking about him every night and waking up every morning wondering how he's doing.
15:29 Yeah, that's so powerful. And that, was it really kind of that video with Jeffrey, that kind of spurred? You moving forward? Well, yeah.
15:38 It I sat on it for a couple more months after that, because I thought maybe it was a one off, it was a needle in a haystack. Maybe I don't know if I'm care enough about this issue. Like I never I never thought homelessness as my issue. I thought, yeah, education, social justice. You know, democracy, human rights, but environment, but like homelessness. And what I realized Mark was, it's not homelessness, that drew me in has led me to devote the last five years of my life to this work. It's my belief in the intrinsic value of each person, yeah. And the interconnectedness of us all, and that we're all created in God's image. And once, you know, I became aware of my values and my core beliefs as rooted in the Gospel, then I was able to say, well, where are those values and beliefs not manifest? Where's the where's the Delta, between this truth of interconnectedness and intrinsic value, as we're seeing right now in the pandemic, how interconnected we are in terms of public health and your well being as my well being and vice versa? So where is that not manifest? And then what can I do about it? And how can I learn more? And so that's what led me to start asking questions. And, you know, fast forward to today, we've now reunited over 325, people experiencing homelessness, families, average time disconnected, separated as 15 years 80% of the time, it leads to a positive outcome 15% leads to housing, stable housing or living with family, again, fraction of the costs of any other program. And so it's been, it's been really a godsend and a blessed journey to be on since then.
17:33 That's so great. And I find it fascinating that you connected it to I wanted to kind of circle back to this connected to the thing that your church, the program in your church of answering that question, Who is Jesus? Because I think that's such an amazing question. Because I had a really good friend who worked at a homeless kind of advocacy program down in Sacramento. And he worked there for like 23 years, and I met him through there, and was kind of hanging out with him. And he used to kind of in the morning, bring all the volunteers together. And there was a place called friendship Park. And people could just come hang out, get a warm cup of coffee, get a day old pastry, and find community and connection. And he used to kind of get the volunteers who wanted to, to get together and pray. And he would always when the first time I heard it, it blew me away, because it was something I'd never heard before. But he would pray that we would all see Jesus in the guests who were coming in today. And and it was it was the the opposite of I think what I had always heard growing up, like I need to be Jesus to those who and he was like, No, you need to see Jesus in the least of these. And and it was just a fundamental shift in my life, to be able to see him and note that and that what's crazy is that comes exactly from Matthew 25. When when Jesus says, Whatever you've done for leases, you've done for me, and it's this connection of, you know, so answering that question, Who is Jesus? It's almost like, in that video, Jeffrey is Jesus.
19:12 Well, and that's so well said, Mark. And I think that applies in so many areas of life, like, you know, thinking of Jessup University, you know, Friday night, and you're going on a date, right, get dressed up, you're looking in the mirror, if you take a moment, to just say, you know, that person I'm going out with, that's someone's daughter, right? That's someone's son, that someone's ground grandchild, that maybe some day will be someone's mom, someone's sister, suddenly, you almost can't help but almost well up with respect, right and gratitude to be able to spend that sacred time together in the context. And I just think we lose sight of just the beauty and the rootedness of the people before us constantly, right. And so at miracle messages, you know, our shirts, the slogan says, everyone is someone, somebody. And we have found that the quickest way to build empathy for a person experiencing homelessness is not to see them as a homeless person, any more than if we were going to build respect for each other. We don't define each other as housed people. Right? Right. But to see the person as someone's son or daughter, brother, sister, mother or father, as someone, somebody, and when we see people, I think, in the same way that Jesus would try to see them and we would try to, we would try to see Jesus, wow, this is the Son of God, my brother, you know, this is my Savior. Suddenly, we know exactly how to show respect and reverence. It's not even a question. It's when we lose sight of the beauty and the, the godliness, you know, that, that we're each created in his image, that we start falling short.
21:16 Yeah, so true. And that's what I think I really appreciate about miracle messages that focus on of noting, and understanding the humaneness of everyone. And, and and yeah, that totally changes when you and you know, and some other talks that you've done, you you've resveratrol, some studies that that show, that that kind of part of our brain, when we see another person doesn't get triggered when we see a homeless person. And yeah, and just that concept of, yeah, that I'm mad. I'm not even recognizing that I'm seeing a person. And how that fundamentally changes if you you shift. And that happens. I mean, in California, we have such a growing homeless population, right. And in different communities. There's, there's all kinds of different angles and views. And it's interesting in just the community of Sacramento, you know, there's voices that talk about the problem, and how do we fix this problem, but it's always viewed as a problem not viewed as, how do we help these people and, and making that shift? And that's why I love Yeah, with miracle messages, is it? it humanizes everyone, because like, Hey, who do you? Who do you have a connection with that, that maybe you haven't seen in 2030 years, and you want to send a message and as simple as that can kind of change someone's trajectory?
22:46 Yeah, well, you've done your homework as our vision is, we want to, you know, end relational poverty on the streets and inspire people to embrace their homeless neighbors, not as problems to be solved, but as people to be loved. Right. And, you know, I think it's important to just kind of take a moment like we're not exonerating the actions that day or that we have done. Right, right. We're right. But But Jesus knew that the human tendency is not towards, well, we're just going to sanctify everyone.
23:22 Yes, we're going to pass your stop casting the first stone right, yeah, right, to condemn everyone to condemn and judge everyone and see this winter in the log. Yeah. So, you know, I
23:35 think Jesus was speaking to us, but you know, it's it's worth noting that, like, I'm not going around. Like, with the, you know, the the Hallmark Channel where everything's kind of blurred out when they say something powerful,
23:46 right? Yeah. Everything. No glow around halo effect. Yeah, that's not us. Like my eyes. Don't listen.
23:55 But so we're seeing people as people want, we're messy. I'm messy. There's things I've done. I continue to do that. I'm not proud of like, how I treat people how I treat myself. How I treat God, you know, I mean, right. Let's be real, but it's still it's just meeting them as people. Yeah, I'm that level playing field. So
24:16 yeah, I really appreciated that when you were at Chapel you kind of talked about the complexities of homelessness, and that even even reuniting families doesn't solve every problem. Right. And, and, and we understand that and I think that that first just great step is to start to to approach everyone as a human being made in the image of God and and start there.
24:40 What in your life when you find that you're not approaching people that way? What's going on?
24:47 Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is because I was even thinking when you were saying this. We have we have a hard time just maybe seeing our you know our neighbor at the grocery store. As another human being, we just walk right by, and we need to get where we need to get and, and let alone then homeless person maybe who is another step removed. And and I think part of it is, is that in my life when I see that happening even with my family, it's because my focus is on myself, right focuses on maybe my needs, what I need what I want to do these things and, and I'm looking at other people just as obstacles maybe or and and i think that that I think that's some way that the issue of homelessness is approach sometime too, right because people are thinking of property values and things like that. And, and, and starting to, to view our homeless neighbors as human beings and even our own neighbors, our own houses, neighbors, as human beings, as people who have family and connection and loved ones. I think that that's the I feel like that's the fundamental heart move that Jesus is trying to get us to. Because I agree with what you're saying, like, he knew we weren't gonna, that wasn't going to be our natural inclination, our natural inclination is going to be to judge and condemn and always put ourselves above. But with the work like I am still just I'm so inspired with the work that you're doing. How can people like myself and maybe like listeners get involved and help miracle messages?
26:33 Well, one immediate need is we need volunteers to get matched with their homeless neighbors. You know, like, yeah, commit three to four hours a week, for the next month, two months, three months kind of timeframe. To do a 10 to 15 minute check in with a person, it doesn't have to be where your base be. It's a phone call, it's a text message. And we have it a partnership with a company called Dialpad, where they're providing 1000s of phone numbers to us for free for our volunteers, so you can have your number no contact information protected. Yeah. So getting people to sign up for miracle friends, which is the name of that program is
27:21 called miracle friends.
27:23 Miracle friends, yep. And they go to, they can go to miracle friends.org. Or, you know, it's through miracle messages. So miracle messages.org slash miracle friends, okay, and learn more about that program. And then, of course, if folks want to help locate loved ones, be digital detectives, make phone calls, write letters, try to find family members and friends, that's needed to and they could sign up on our get involved page miracle messages.org slash get involved. But you know, even if either of those are too much to ask, you want to just start, take a moment to watch one of our videos. You know, and just think about the people that you walk by when you're walking down the street, and you're not staying safely at home. But if you're, you know, thinking about the people who don't have a home to stay out right now. And the people that you see on your way to the grocery store, and you kind of turn to the other, you know, even less likely to engage now. Right? Right, right? What, what comes to mind when you see the videos that we have, and then you think about the people in your neighborhood, you know, and again, we want people to save to always feel comfortable. But even just taking some time to check your own prejudices and your own stereotypes and stigmas, right is such a key to unlocking the humanity and the sense of loving thy neighbor that that Jesus was so adamant that this is literally guys, one of the two commandments like right, remember these two? Were doing all right. So love God love each other. So,
29:10 exactly. I'm trying to simplify this for you guys. Just two minutes. I gotta
29:14 tell you gotta remember and what a beautiful message for a Good Friday on a Good Friday, unlike many others, right? Where we're all facing this global pandemic, there's real loss of life, there's incredible suffering, there's, at the very least inconvenience for pretty much everyone. You know, what does it look like to go back to the cross? back to that very, you know, basic. Ask that basic invitation. And how can we at this time of isolation not be alone?
29:53 Right. Well, that's so good. Thank you so much, Kevin for joining me on the show. I know our listeners are going to be inspired and I hope, I hope they check out so it's miracle friends.org and that is Connecting, Connecting with someone 15 minutes a day through text message, phone call, are, are at the very least check out miracle messages.org all the same goes same plays, and they can find different ways to support you. And and get involved. That's what I'd love to is that. I feel like that with miracle messages, there's so many ways to get involved where you don't have to be in the Bay Area you can be and can still support and help you. So I know that I think a lot of listeners are gonna jump on that. But thank you again, so much for being on the show. And
30:45 all thank you for having me. And you know, I'm sure there's listeners out there that are gonna jump right on this. And then I'm also sure there's some where they're gonna feel I'm not sure. I'm a little uneasy. Yeah, no. And if that's you, I would just I think the word that just comes to my heart is just be still for a moment. Like as this as you finished listening to this program, just kind of take in and maybe write down or just pray on what messages on your heart because that uneasiness. discomfort is where I was as well, where we all are at different times. Right. That's something to honor to. So I just say Come as you are. And when you're ready, we're ready for you.
31:29 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
31:55 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Dr. Erin Ambrose joins Rex and Mark to discuss ways of cultivating mental and spiritual wellness during times of crisis.
TRANSCRIPT
0:02 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney and we are not from our regular studio today, are we? Exactly. We're back again to our social distance podcast. And today Rex on the show. We have Dr. Erin Ambrose. She's one of our esteemed psychology professors. And she's really here to help us and help you as listeners understand how to how to cultivate mental and spiritual wellness in times of crisis. I'm really looking forward to what she has to say. Yeah, we hope you enjoy the show. Erin, thank you so much for for being on the show. And and Rex and I really right now, we need your help.
0:50 I'm going crazy in here. I just don't know how I'm gonna make the next. You know, a few weeks, much less than next few months. happens. And so I need some help, Erin.
1:00 Yeah. And Rex is Rex is he's now Where are you three weeks into the ponytail? Is that what's happening? I actually ran that by a class. My wife is I talk to them for the quarantine ponytail. But, but now I am we're really excited to have you on the show and just kind of help us and help our listeners really look at like, Okay, how do we? How do we cultivate mental and spiritual wellness in a time of crisis?
1:33 Yeah. Because we are all in crisis right now. Right? I mean, this is really unprecedented, that we have our whole state, our whole country, the whole world, really in a moment of crisis all at the same time. Even though, you know, this is not the first pandemic, we can go back, you know, well, Rex, you to be able to tell us
1:57 that this has happened. I have a book plagues throughout human history. He reads it, he reads it at night to compare themselves. It's been worse, it's been worse.
2:11 But the thing is, you know, that that in the time that we are, currently we all are able to see the crisis that we're all in. So historically, we wouldn't have been able to see the crisis that was happening in other parts of the world, we wouldn't be able to experience it in real time, like we are now. So this it really is unprecedented. Because we are not only experiencing our own crisis in our own town and our own state in our own country, but we're also experiencing vicariously it crisis all over the globe at the same time. All of us are in this period of panic, fear, anxiety, stress unknown. I mean, there's just so much so it makes sense that, that we have this type of conversation like how do I personally stay? Okay. You have all this that's going on around us?
3:14 Yeah. And it's, I think it's really good that you they point out that the fact that we can see this happening and almost kind of could see it coming and hitting in in waves, does just build that anxiety, I remember the first couple of days of it, I just kept, you know, refreshing the different counters and being like, oh, man, the numbers are going up. And this is happening in Italy, in Spain. And it was just like that just added to it.
3:42 I had to stop doing that. I totally right. I had to take the things off, take the icons off my phone and take them off my computer.
3:51 Yeah. And it's interesting, because I'm actually during this time reading a Dorothy Day biography. And in in 1918 to 1920 she actually was kind of wanting to change your life and went to nursing school in New York. So she went to nursing school at the height of the Spanish flu epidemic. But it was also the tail end of world war one or one, right. And so she was like she was working 12 hour days in the hospital lining up. And so she was like, I didn't even think about the war that was happening anywhere else. And then people were focused on the war. And the flu epidemic was also happening. And so yeah, there was just all these things, but for right now, it's like the entire world can be like, we can just all stop and we focused on this academic this pandemic,
4:44 right. And as you mentioned, you know, watching it's happening in Spain, it's happening in in Italy, it's happening and feeling like it's getting closer, it's getting closer, it's getting closer, and then now it's here and it's getting bigger and it's getting bigger and and you made a good point Rex about the importance of tuning it out. That is, I would say one of the most important things we can do for ourselves is not watch it all the time. Right? Right, we really don't need to have the counter, we don't need to know how many deaths are happening every day. For most of us, we don't need to that's not part of our our field, we don't need to have that information. And it's not necessarily helpful. So getting information in small doses from reputable agencies only as needed, really, right.
5:41 If I replace cnn with, you know, the CDC and the who website, so I just click on both things like once a day, and that's been really helpful, really all we need. And for some people, they don't even need it once a day,
5:55 they can even do it less than that. You want you want the guidelines, you want the current guidelines, you want to be able to follow what your state what your local, you know, is expecting of you. That's really all we need. We don't need more than that. And for some people, any more than that is going to cause more panic. For others. It's not an you know, we have to think about the way that God has created us, we're individuals, yeah, is going to cause unnecessary anxiety for one person is not going to cause that for another person. But it's okay. You know, we do have to recognize that we are individuals. And so if we can know a little bit about ourselves, like, Oh, I'm not feeling as well, when I'm checking it more frequently. So I'm going to check it less. Yeah, know ourselves, well tune into our emotions a little bit to know, okay, is this helping me? Or is it not helping me? So we want to tune in to our emotions, but not give in to our emotions? Hmm, right.
6:58 Right. Right. So like knowing yourself well enough yet to be able to like, hey, there's too much news, I need to but still being in, because then other people maybe react where they just try to, you know, not think about their negative emotions, or not think about those things. So yeah, like, I think I get what you're saying, like,
7:17 stress is actually even healthy. You know, it's, again, it's wired into us, it makes us pay attention to our surroundings, it's part of our level. So if some if you're feeling stressed right now, welcome to the human race. I mean, it is normal, and we shouldn't be beating ourselves up over feeling a bit more uneasy than normal right now, in totally makes sense. When, when we don't know what's happening, when things feel out of control. When a situation is unpredictable, or unknown, those are all the things that that make us feel more more stressed. And especially if it's ongoing. Well think about this. We've been in this now for six weeks, right? Some of us, but at least a good month anyway. And we don't know how long exactly this is going to continue. So, you know, some amount of stress is is normal, it's healthy, it's part of our survival. But panic isn't healthy. And so that's what I was, you know, tune in to your emotions. Okay, is this a normal amount of stress that I'm feeling? And then what is the best thing for me to do with it? Or am I now allowing my emotions to get the better of me and I'm starting to feel more panicked. And then we have to look to what do we need as an individual for our self care? Yeah, yeah. When we focus more on what we can't control than what we can control, we start to feel more panic. Right? So paying attention to what can I control right now? I can't control when all these restrictions are going to be lifted. I can't control that. Right. I can control what time I go to bed at night. In getting good sleep is important for our emotional health, in addition to our physical health was I can make sure that I'm going to bed at a reasonable time. I can't control you know, whether or not my neighbors are out and about but I can control whether or not I am out and about.
9:32 Again, take the multivitamin instead of going to the donut shop it's it's in my control. And that's probably a good thing. Right? Yeah, I
9:41 can control washing my hands. Right I can do that right? focusing on the things that you can control I you know, exercise is such an important and healthy way, the way that you know we are created. We are one system body, mind, soul spirit, we are one system and so if I'm exercising, I'm also helping my emotional part of my system, not just the physical part of my system, I'm helping the spiritual part of my system. So exercise is something that I control. So going to make sure I'm getting getting some exercise is something I can control. Paying attention to what we can control, and letting go of what we can't control will really help us emotionally.
10:21 Yeah, cuz that I mean, that seems to be the Do you think it's the loss of control, that kind of starts to spin us into panic? Because kind of as humans we are used to being able to control? And I'm pretty good at that actually. Right? Yeah. Taken away. It's really disconcerting. And this Yeah, and this feels like, yeah, there's so much out of our control.
10:45 Right? That right. And, and like you said, you know, we've gotten pretty good at it. And it's not a bad thing, right. Like to beat to have self control is a good thing. manage our lives, Well, again, is a good thing. And there and so that we just need to look for what can I still control? What can I still control, I can control the food that I'm eating, right? I don't have to eat all, you know, junk food, right now I can be helpful either. So I can, you know, looking to one of the healthy choices that I can make, that I can control. I can control how much media I allow, I can control whether or not I'm looking at social media right now. Which can be a scary thing, no matter what time of the year.
11:30 Right? Yeah, good one. And I feel like the, with that idea of control, too, when we feel a loss of control, it's easy to just to stop even focusing on what we can control. And just, it's almost like a helplessness. Right? And, and then yeah, we turn to maybe junk food to comfort us. And then we realize that's not it actually is making us worse.
11:59 And we're gonna beat ourselves up over that, which is not going to be helpful for anybody. Right?
12:03 Yeah. So I'd love that focus on, on reminding yourself of what you can control. And really the control that God has given us and that and that we look at, even with the fruit of the Spirit is self control, right? Like, there are things you can control. And being able to look back at those, like you're saying, sleep habits, healthy eating exercise,
12:30 those kind of things I deliberately write, you know, instead of just, you know, have a sweatshirt and shorts on because they can't see everything in movement. I'm teaching my classes, right right now. I'll actually put a shirt on as if I you know, collared shirt is if I wasn't in my classroom, you know, putting, you know, normal pants on nice socks. I even even. I was just actually thinking about this recently, because, you know, our local churches gone totally, you know, virtual worship. But while we're watching the virtual worship, my wife and I actually will dress in our church clothes. Yeah. Because that's just something we can do to maintain some sort of sense of causing, right and it's, it's helpful. It really is.
13:15 Yeah, my, my wife has actually been been poking fun of me, because right before class, I'll sit down in my chair where I normally have them and I'll put my boots on, and then I'll walk into the guest room and teach my class. You know, I my boots, just, I love that we're all different, because I've taught all of my classes in yoga pants. Exactly. Yeah, that is so true. Like the difference. That's why we have you on the show, Erin, I mean, you don't have it all together. So Exactly,
13:47 yeah. But I I've been seeing all my clients via zoom, but I'm still doing it in my counseling office. And right now I'm doing this in my office on campus. And to me, that has been an important thing. So even though it's all been on zoom, it's it's been it's for me to get in the mind frame of what I need to I'm doing it in my in a in my normal setting of I mean, obviously not the classroom but but still on campus, teaching my classes from my office at Campus office, and seeing my clients even though seeing them as seeing them via zoom. It's still in my counseling office. So it does, it does help if we kind of think about our cells in our surroundings. That's, that's actually a good point in think about our surroundings when people start to feel panicked. One of the things that we really helpful is to get grounded in your surroundings. So like look at you know, the fight or flight thing that we get that we get into when we start to panic. We can use what's physical around us to help help us stay more focused on the now. So if I'm sitting in my room, I can feel the desk and I know that I'm safe if I'm Looking around my room, I'm actually safe, there isn't a tiger chasing me right now, right, which is that my dog would go home. Right now I'm actually in my home, I'm in my living room, I can feel the leather on my couch, I can look out my window and I can see the trees, I can hear the birds, if we can get like that physical grounding in our space, it helps us to slow down and fail.
15:24 And speaking of, you know, listening to birds and nature, I found that actually really helpful for me. I you know, have read all the seen all the movies and read the pandemic novels where you know, after a nuclear holocaust or something like that, it's like nature's turned against you too. But that's actually not what's happened here at all, like the birds are still saying the squirrels are circling around, you go outside, it's just like that, you know, that's, you know, the, the flowers and the birds are not worried about this. So hanging around with them has actually been kind of helpful. For me.
16:00 Being out in nature is really helpful. It's something I'm encouraging everyone to do. If the weather allows, spend some time out in nature. Clearly socially distanced, I understand that but but if you can still be outside, and it is for that very reason Rex, to realize I am safe right now as I'm walking on this trail, as I'm looking at the trees, I am safe. And we can actually tell ourselves, like stand down like to our to our fight or flight system, you know, like, thank you for alerting me, but I'm okay. Right, really a helpful thing that we can do if we get grounded in the hearing now, actually, right now, I'm okay, I can hear the crunch of the gravel underneath my feet. As I'm walking. I'm okay. Those things can be really helpful to slow us down a bit. Because when we're panicking, it's like, we speed up real fast, like our thoughts are racing, and we need to slow ourselves down. And we can do that by getting physically grounded in where we are in the moment.
17:05 Yeah, I think this too, I mean, in my life, I think that also helps right now. Like, if you're going to the grocery store, and you see these empty shelves kind of for the first time, right, and it's easy. I remember the first time I went as it started, and to see all of the you know, the paper products, there's totally empty and you're just like, and you could feel yourself kind of speeding up like, should I I should I find some Shouldn't you know, I drive around and yeah, you almost just have to tell yourself like, no, you're okay. Right, right. Yeah,
17:35 I think self talk right now is really important, as long as we're using it in a healthy way. Right? So to not beat ourselves up. If we're feeling anxious, it's normal to feel anxious right now. And just remind yourself, okay, I'm feeling a bit more uneasy than then I would normally, but that's okay. It's normal. But I'm not going to panic and to use our right we can always use our thinking part of our brain to control our emotional part of our brains to use our thinking part of our brain. Okay, no, actually, I'm okay. I have food in my pantry. I the air I'm breathing is clean as I'm walking outside, probably cleaner actually. Right.
18:16 Right. And I like how you've been pointing out Erin, that, that this isn't a one size fits all experience that we we all experience it in different ways. And even within a family. Oh, my goodness, yes. We were experiences. So yeah. Do you have like kind of tips for for kind of mental and spiritual wellness kind of for everyone in the family? And? Sure.
18:40 Yeah, I think it is important to recognize that that every household is not the same. So some households have young children. And so they're obviously experiencing something different with maybe homeschooling that they hadn't planned on. And kids asking lots of questions. Like when when do we get to go out and play with our friends again? Or when do we get to you know, have you know, little league again? Or when do we you know, and so, parents it's really important that they answer questions to their children in simple answers, and not overwhelm them with more information than they can their little child mind can can take in and not panic if they if they forget to cover their mouth when they sneeze, you know, they don't, you don't need to panic, it's, it's likely not going to be a problem within your household if your six year old forgets to cover their mouth. Right? Right. So we can help our children be calm if we're calm. Hmm, really important that the parents in the household stay calm so that their children can stay calm, finding you know, maybe have to relax some of the standards a bit, you know, with kids because everything is just a bit different. And so normally, maybe they aren't allowed to watch quite as Mitch you know, Disney Channel as they know. But now they are allowing, recognizing that doesn't mean we're, we're changing our standards forever. It's just for now we need to relax that, you know, a little bit. I think families that have adult children back home, you know, we're all college professors. And so most of our students now have gone back home, right? So for a lot of families, there are multiple adults in the household at once, which can feel quite interesting, right for adults under the same roof. And even within that family, there could be differences in terms of individual needs of introversion extroversion, right, so we have introverts who may feel like they don't have any space anymore, because their house is crowded with people and they don't have their space. So for them to get their space elsewhere, you know, if you go to a park and sit by yourself, if you can find one that you can get to, or a space that you can, you know, go to outside to get, you know, in the backyard on their own, instead of feeling like they have to stay in their room, which may be feels too claustrophobic. extroverts even may feel like they're not getting enough people. Right. So even even though all they have people in the same house, it's not the same. So doing zoom, you know, with all your friends at one time can be really helpful for extroverts, if they need more time with people, and they obviously can't get out around people. Singles are going through a different time. Now people that live alone, yeah, because they might have gotten their social needs met, you know, out and about, and now they're not doing that. And so to be really intentional about phone calls, about you know, zoom meetings, or Skype or FaceTime, or, you know, but in to be more intentional, I think that's really true for everybody is we just need to be intentional about what we need.
22:01 But kind of the flip side of that actually is, you know, my wife and I are around each other a whole lot more than we usually are right? Well, you know, there's, there's there's sort of a renegotiation of that whole thing, because we're used our new normal is different than our usual normal, which seems to have worked pretty well for a long time.
22:22 Right. And so if couples can understand that, that even though they're spending more time together, they still, there might be differing needs between between a husband and wife, in terms of time apart, even though they're under the same roof. And so, in the past, who've, you know, both both worked outside the home, and they maybe only have their weekends together, they might have spent a lot of their weekends together, because that's when they can connect. But now a couple that's, you know, both working from home and everybody's home the whole time, they may need a little bit more time apart to just, I don't know, just have their thoughts to themselves or right, to create their own hobbies. You know, if you think about, for all of us, we can look at, or ask ourselves the question, what do I want to reflect upon? when this is all over? Yeah, yeah, I've been. I have, I have clients who are taking up learning a foreign language right now. It's like, well, I've got all this extra time, I've got all these, you know, I can watch YouTube or Duolingo. And I can I can learn a foreign language during how long this is gonna be. But I'm gonna learn a foreign language, got others who are learning to knit or others who are taking up other hobbies, but how or or, you know, reading a section of the Bible in another in another translation, you know, so they can just want to reflect on this time, and I want to have something to gain from it. Like, I want to, I want a product at the end of this time that I did this during quarantine as a as a positive, the more we can do positively, even if we do you know, when we do something positive for someone else, it also feels good for us. So, you know, I know there are a lot of people out there making masks right now, or sending positive messages, writing messages on cards, sending them to or putting them up near nursing homes. What can we do positively that also builds our own sense of well being?
24:29 Yeah, it really is. I mean, I think that's what's interesting, when you see that happening in the midst of crisis, people starting to focus on Hey, we need to do this and be positive, I think, yeah, it's, in some ways, it might even be subconscious, but they're helping themselves psychologically.
24:47 I've seen that in our neighborhood actually, because I take walks every morning around the neighborhood just for exercise and and, you know, those little kind of, I don't know, pinwheel things that people are putting out is it you know, almost every But at first, it was just a couple of them. Now, everybody because you know, maybe there's some social pressure not to you're missing. You know, just seeing that as you're walking along, actually, there's a sense of solidarity a little bit with that. And that thing.
25:15 When I was out on my run this morning, I saw rocks that were painted, bright colored rocks that were painted with just hope, I saw another one that was love. And it just brightened my day as I was just random rocks along the side of the path that had been painted. And with a little message of encouragement, someone took the time to do that. And I'm sure they felt good putting it out. And I really felt good running by them.
25:43 I see chalk art actually, people's brought in Dr. Wright. messages of hope on it. And that's
25:50 right, right. You know, Philippians 481 of my favorite verses, whatever is good, whatever is lovely, if anything is admirable, have good report, think on those things. We can look to the positive things and bring positive to others. And in doing so, it brings positives to ourselves. Right?
26:11 Yeah. And that's so good. That's such a good encouragement. And I had another thing to ask you, Erin, about structure, because this is definitely time when our normal structure has been has been taken away. Yeah, and people are and I realized people are different, like, I'm very structured. So I like a mark. Yeah, I know. And so it looks very organized behind me, you know, I try. And, and so I and so I'm always kind of harping on the need for structure in that, but but even during the summer, I've been reading more about that on how structure helps, even for people who are, traditionally we would call them maybe unstructured, but they still have their own structure, right? Like, what what role does structure play and kind of keeping us
27:04 and that's a really good point, Mark, because even people, like you said, who were maybe more free flowing, they had structure built in, they might not have done it themselves, but we have structure built in. Yeah, and so we've all rely a bit on structure. And it is, you know, the way God designed us to be we all need some. And so when it's all kind of pulled out from under us, we need to create some structure. And we'll feel better if we have it on. So obviously, some people will want more, and some people may need less, but we all need some. So have, I'm still going to get up at approximately the same time during the day, I'm going to have you know, the my meals are going to be approximately about the same time. Like I mentioned before going to bed, that's something that I can control. So having some structure of structure is also really important for children. And so even though school has changed for you know, our K through 12, providing some structure for them is really helpful. And in doing so, it also provides some structure for the parents, because we're going to put that in. So yeah, having some structure like I'm going to get up in the morning, I'm going to read my Bible, I'm going to do the st my my practices that bring me a feeling of familiarity. Having a feeling of familiarity is a way to reduce our stress as well. Yeah, kind of building in patterns, you know, is I'm moving my hands here realizing that nobody's doing a podcast because I still, you know, do all my gesture, right? Yeah, we've been having patterns, helps us, again, kind of the rhythms of life, and the patterns in our life help bring a sense of calm. So
28:59 I'm thinking of patterns and rhythms, for those of us that are actually blessed and lucky enough to be able to work from home. Because, you know, we still can do that. And we're actually able to do that. But the downside of that is sort of walling off your work life from the rest of your life. I used to be able to just you know, leave my office or leave the campus come home, we all had to take work home because right part of it but still different. It was different. You didn't have to do that. Now, you know, it's just going from one room to the other. And, and, and I find that I'm working. I don't know if you know, my supervisor should hear this but I find that I'm actually I'm working more right now to don't like it actually is I'm not sure that that's healthy even in this situation. So what kind of advice would you have for those of us that struggle with that?
29:51 I'm really glad that you brought that up because I'm kind of like that too. I like to work in my office and leave it here and then not you know, because I need to give myself time off. And so I think, you know, setting setting your work hours and then sticking to that, and you know whether or not it's a timer that says, okay, when this is up, I am going to go for a walk when when my timer you know goes off, I'm going to go in the other room and make myself you know, a glass of iced tea and I'm going to go sit outside and I'm going to listen to the birds, I'm going to do something I'm going to force myself to, to out work. And if you can do it in one room, and so then you don't work in other parts, you just, you know, leave the room. And you mentioned Rex, like wearing your Sunday clothes when you're watching church. Yeah, you know, if you could, like set your own, like set your work hours and say, Okay, that's it, and ask people to help keep you accountable. I have a few people in my life who I have asked to keep me accountable to not work all the time. Because right now, you can understand as a person, a mental health professional, I could be working all the time right now. But I need to also practice what I preach and manage my own mental health. So I have people in my life who keep me accountable to not working too much. So if you can have your wife say when time when works up Rex that, you know, works up and and call it quits for the day.
31:24 Yeah, I have a friend who who works from home normally, so so it's been kind of good to ask him advice, because he's that's his normal kind of routine. And every every day, when work is over, he actually, you know, leaves his office and actually goes, takes a shower and change his clothes and says, Okay, now I'm off work like it's over. He just has a set thing that just helps his body his mind. No, that's over. I'm on to something else. Mr. Rogers, let me hear you. No.
31:58 That's exactly right. You know, I do that when I come home from work, I changed my clothes off. So now, maybe, you know, I want to make sure all my German clothes stay in the garage. But it helps me be like, Okay, that's it. I'm done for the day.
32:13 Yeah. Well, that's so good. This is all been very helpful. And thank you so much for being on the show. And I feel better already. I feel bad. I'm glad you can make it through the day now
32:24 is struggling, it's really important that we reach out and we let somebody know that we're struggling, you don't have to struggle by yourself. We're all in this together. And we can all we can all be a part of helping each other. You know, we need to check in on our friends. We need to check in on our loved ones and make sure that they've that they're doing the things that they need to do for their own, you know, mental and emotional health. If somebody is really struggling, can I give you a few numbers for support? Yeah, so if somebody's struggling, and they don't feel like they can reach out to someone else, so you can always text a Crisis Text Line, you can text talk, ta lk 2741741. And the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is one 800 273 talk ta lk. So don't suffer alone.
33:21 Yeah, that's so great. Thank you so much for giving us those resources. And, and just being on the show and and helping us out. And I know really, really learned from this time. And I think there are things we can learn from this time that are actually going to help us with our mental and spiritual wellness after the pandemic,
33:41 right. Right. I'm looking forward to that T shirt though, has a pandemic kind of put a put a stop to the front of the show t shirts.
33:48 Right? Because and this is your second time on the show. So you're officially a friend of the show now.
33:53 Oh, okay.
33:56 Especially a friend of the show. So yeah, once our once our T shirt production gets back in line, you know, maybe this summer, we can get you a T shirt. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessica.
34:33 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Rex and Mark record their first socially distant podcast and discuss how the Christian community has responded to pandemics in the past and how it can best respond now.
TRANSCRIPT 0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And today Rex on the show. We're going to talk about what everyone has been talking about and that is the coronavirus pandemic.
0:14 And you probably noticed that we are actually not in our studio, but we are doing this from the comfort of our own. I don't know where are you at Mark? I'm in my guest room actually. Okay, okay, I'm in our guest room turned off syncing. Both both guestrooms Yep, there we go. Everything's perfect. And
0:33 we got our own little studios for schools and And now for the podcast. And we really want to focus in today's episode, just kind of highlighting the Christian response maybe to everything that's going on, there's been so much on the news, so much. So many rages daily. It's just, it's all over the place. It does. Yeah, you could you could kind of think, you know, something one day, and within a couple of hours, it changes, right. And there's also been a lot that maybe Christians have put online and different responses to this. And we just kind of want to cover it. What does it look like to to be a Christian maybe in the middle of this pandemic? And what are some of our responsibilities? And what are some of our actions and reactions to this?
1:27 Rex, we are not in the studio today. We are zooming away from from the studio there. Jessup, Stan safe, how are you doing during this quarantine?
1:40 Um, you
1:41 know, I'm actually working more than I usually do, which is interesting, because, you know, it's not like, I'm going anywhere. And that computer is always staring at me. And those Jessup emails are always staring at me. And so I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I have to actually just deliberately, like, put my phone away. And you know, at a certain time in the evening, just so that I don't just work all the time.
2:03 Right. I know, it's true. And it's praying for so many people who are listening to podcasts, and now they're working at home, I have found that I'm working more and yeah, it's because the computer is always there. I can always sit down and grade a little bit more, right answer another email, right. And so you do have to kind of find this kind of balance, right.
2:23 And something else, you know, for those of you who may not only be listening, but it's possible that there might be some video with with this podcast where we're going to, we're all in sort of uncharted territory right now. So we decided on the podcast to do the same thing. And you probably noticed that there's, there's a handsome guy with a beard there. And then there's, then there's Rex Carney. Pretty much what we looked like, both, I guess bearded wonders here. But you know, as right, that comes with the beard.
2:53 That's exactly. And I've been encouraging people who kind of during this time of quarantine, it's a great time to grow a beard. So,
3:01 well, I may be more than that, actually. Because it just kind of dawned on me like sometime last week that depending on how long this is, and depending on you know, if this thing, you know, spins into the summer, then I might not be able to get a haircut for like three months. And so if I can't get a haircut for three months, I might as I might just throw caution to the wind and you know, come back to school next fall with a ponytail. We'll see. There we go. We'll see.
3:30 I'm looking forward to that. You heard it here on the podcasts. There's gonna be a Rex Gurney Tony Dale, go just fold john the baptist on everybody. slit her hair out that you'd
3:41 say I already did that. I have my midlife crisis about 15 years ago. And I decided to to grow my hair like it was in college. And so I kind of that might have been a little bit before you got here. But I also weighed like 40 pounds more than I do right now. And so it was not a pretty picture. My gray long hair. Anyway. I'm glad I got all that out of my system. And
4:07 oh, hey, man, we might we the listeners and viewers may want to see that. So we'll keep we'll keep people posted on on Instagram. You can check out these. But But yeah, as we kind of look at this global pandemic, and and like you said, Rex, I mean, we're all really in uncharted territory. Right. Now, what's interesting is this isn't uncharted territory for humanity. No, or for Christians actually, or for Christians. Yeah, that's such a good point. That pandemics plagues, epidemics, have been a part of our history, and, and have come in so many different times. And so I think it is important for us to kind of have that historical perspective. I know we are throwing a little history with you, Rex. And I think it's important because we can kind of feel like, Oh, this is maybe the first time we're experiencing Yes, but it is for our generation, right and prior generation, but this is a common human experience
5:07 it is. And it's sort of interesting, I guess, because, you know, I'm especially, you know, because I'm a kind of a middle baby boomer. And and so, you know, we just sort of thought we would escape all this stuff, you know, write stuff that happened to maybe our grandparents and, and you know, might happen to our grandchildren. But it's certainly not going to happen to us, because honestly, we've had it so good, so long. It's just true. Right? But you know, here you go. It's been 100 years, pretty much, actually, it hasn't been 100 years, which is really interesting. I've been reading up on a lot of this, and people are talking about it. And some of our listeners may even remember this. I don't, mainly because I was a toddler, but the whole polio scare the 1950s I mean, apparently, people were social distancing. For that back in the 1950s. And of course, everybody, you know, if you didn't know about it, you know about it. Now, the 1918 influenza epidemic? Yeah, the Spanish flu. And, you know, we often think about the Black Death in the 1300s. But that wasn't the first time to play ever, you know, came in decimated parts of humanity. There was a horrible plague in the five hundreds, sometimes they call it Justinian plague. Wow. And perhaps up to, you know, a third to a half of the people in the Byzantine Empire actually lied. Yeah, and, and then, you know, for those of our listening audience that know, Roman history, during the third century, which would be the two hundreds, Rome, came really close to falling apart. Like it did sort of semi fall apart for a while and right, we different empires, but part of the part of the issue of that horrible century was, you know, waves and waves of what they called, and we would call the plague would just decimate communities. And then yeah, and this is before Constantine, which means this is before Christianity became legal and recognized. So right, we had these plagues that are that are devastating, especially urban areas of the Roman Empire, and you have still what is, in some ways, an underground church that is responding to all of this and living through all of this with, with them, you know, their fellow citizens in the Roman Empire. And that gets really interesting, because many scholars think that this actually was a real it was it was, you know, sort of good propaganda for the early Christian church, because of their response, basically, to what was happening. Oh, yeah, if you had any means at all, and you had your Villa out in the countryside, you would just take off, and you would just leave the poor of masses to just rot fester and die pretty much, right? Yeah, Christians wouldn't do that. And not only would they not just, you know, take care of their own, they would take care of the pagan abandon also. And people notice that, and they noticed that there was something really, really different about that. And, and that was really a good sign for the growth of the church, actually.
8:25 Yeah, that's really interesting, too, that that kind of wraps into this idea of response. Right. It is a mix right that time? Yeah, it's a response actually showed the church as something different. Right. And we are responding right now. Oh, yeah, we are. And it's, it is really interesting to kind of Yeah, kind of see some of the different responses. And before we get to the Christian response, because because we'll talk about that. I do think it's interesting, and it kind of highlights what you were saying maybe for the the middle baby boomers. But I think in some ways, it's kind of this. It was a mindset that came from modernity, but it's kind of this mindset that, hey, we are growth growing and developing and advancing and all these areas, sure, we're going to we have nature under control, right? Or upward, right? And then it's something like this. It's something like a pandemic that, that I think makes everyone realize, whoa, we don't have this under control. Yeah, and there's so much that we don't know. And, and so I think that's been interesting. And in many ways, it's kind of put us all in, in in a level playing field.
9:38 It's really gonna help with feeling for people like me, and my generation that really felt that we did. Yeah, you know, and now we, and now we're like, you know,
9:49 you know,
9:52 possibly the segment of the population that may be most
9:55 Right. Right now to that right now. It's It's interesting. too I did here. I did hear one kind of what I would call funny response to, to this. And it was in kind of a newspaper article, which this has actually been kind of great for the news industry. So newspapers are doing well. So it's it's a, some some rise some fall, right. But I was reading this and someone who was as from a younger generation, and they they made this claim about the pay now, but they were like, We didn't ask for this. And I thought, Well, I hope not. Like, is anyone? Right? Like, I mean, maybe like smite and smoke my enemy, right? I mean, like, maybe someone, you know, maybe some student out there was like, God, I need to get out of this semester, or I need to, you know, I need to get out of school. But no one's asking for a global pandemic. So I was like, well, that's just kind of an interesting, interesting response. And then, of course, now, with everyone being kind of quarantine, for the most part, I mean, like, they were saying, almost three fourths of the US now will be kind of understate at home. By the time we're recording this, there'll be a stay at home kind of orders. And so more people are online, and more people are sharing things and, and making videos and making
11:20 your mental and spiritual health to actually so so for my own, you know, sanity, and actually my own, you know, Christian home, about a week and a half ago, I decided to delete a lot of my news apps off my phone and take the shortcuts off of my computer. Yeah, you know, just look at some of the local stuff. Because I've got to know, I've got to know what you can and cannot do. And I have to know what the latest information is. But you know, there's just so much stuff out there that's just not helpful on both sides, either. is completely falling in. This is like the death of humanity, or it's nothing. Right. You know, it's neither one of those things are helpful.
12:04 Yeah, and it's true. Like, I think that especially in a in a time of 24 hour news, right? It's just, it isn't helpful all the time, just to have it on. And some people now working at home, maybe just have it on in the background all day. And it's, yeah, can really be overwhelming. And so I think that's difficult for me, because I
12:21 mean, I'm a history professor. And, you know, part of that is you're supposed to, you know, sort of this is a historical moment. I mean, it is, yeah, we'll write about this in the future, you know, so, you want to you want to be mindful of what's going on. But But, you know, you also need to be mindful of your own spiritual health, too. Yeah. So if you can write about this stuff, indeed, you do personally survive it. And so I just needed to stop. Stop listening to everything, right.
12:50 I think that's, that's good. And that's just kind of good advice. And it was interesting. One of the things that started to go around kind of online, and actually one of my sons showed this to me was, was people were kind of thrown around the passage set of Second Chronicles 713, to 14, specifically out of the good news Bible, so the GNB version. And it says, this says, whenever I hold back the rain, or send locusts to eat up the crops, or send an epidemic on my people, if they pray to me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing, then I will hear them and haven't forgive their sins and make their land prosperous again. And it was kind of being put around online saying, hey, look at the beginning of 2020, with all the fires in Australia, because of no rain. And apparently, there's a locusts kind of epidemic happening in Africa right now. Then, obviously, the global pandemic. And I just, you know, when my son was kind of showing me that I was like, Well, I can see how someone reading that, particularly maybe in the GMB could be like, Whoa, that seems to be speaking directly to what's happening. And I was fascinated because it's actually a really good example of, of how we can take some certain passages from Scripture and maybe Miss apply them or if we don't kind of start with the proper context, right. And sometimes it does look like they fit just perfectly with modern day kind of happenings. And we have to kind of pause real quick and say, Okay, let's let's look at maybe the context. And one thing even even beyond that, because this what's interesting is this is in the context of Solomon dedicating the temple. So it's really in a joyous time that's happening for the Hebrew people. And but one thing that I I'm always cautious of anytime something like this happens anytime a big event in history or big catastrophe happens. I was mindful of us trying to make that direct connection with causation and God that oh, God must be causing this to judge us. And maybe what why do you think we're, we're often quick to, to make that connection?
15:15 Well, there's, there's a whole lot there and a whole lot behind there immediately. What, what the image that came to my mind was, you know, when a hurricane katrina came through, and people were showing images of the Doppler radar, and the Doppler radar looked somewhat like a human fetus. And so, and that was like, everywhere on the internet, oh, yeah, certain Christian corners of the internet. And that was like, you know, proof that God was sending us during her Hurricane Katrina to punish, and this is where it got kind of fuzzy, but it hit New Orleans, but it's a sort of punish America for, you know, our sin of legalized abortion. Right. And, and, you know, once again, when there's a devastating earthquake in Haiti, you know, God sends this to Haiti, you know, 200 years later, interestingly enough, in order to punish them for something that happened 200 years ago, because they apparently made a deal with the devil in order to get independence from France. And, and, you know, there's all sorts of things going on there. But I think the deeper thing with this is, is our kind of response to, you know, how we feel about you know, theodicy when when, you know, especially what we would call natural evil, right, yeah. Right. So, so earthquake, hurricane, pandemic, you know, and, and, you know, since the rain seems to fall on the just and the unjust alike with this, that one, you know, possible way to do and is what you know, is what's God trying to teach us through this or punish us for or whatever you look for that causation? Because that's one answer, actually, to what some people call natural evil. There are other Christian answers to that. But it is not uncommon one, and of course, you're seeing it, obviously, right now.
17:20 Yeah. And I think that's it's really interesting to kind of bring up that theodicy question right? So when we talk about theodicy, we're looking at how do we reconcile God's justice and and kind of the evil that we see in the world and particularly here like you're saying Rex natural evils. And and saying, okay, God and yeah, and so so Christian responses in the past have been maybe a direct connection to judgment. And and then another one has been kind of that teaching one right kind of though, we will call pedagogical approach. And, and I think that those have some elements of where they can help us understand maybe some events, but they also, for me, always kind of made me take a step back and say, Whoa, do I want to do I really want to put everything of this onto God? And, and that God is saying, Okay, now, I'm going to take my time to judge the whole world with this type of pandemic and like you said, the the rain falls on the just and the unjust. So it's not just all people who are unjust, who were who would be getting it and that's why I always want to be cautious. Now, what that doesn't mean is that in the midst of a global pandemic, we can ask ourselves, hey, what is God teaching me in the midst of this global pandemic? But that's different than causation, right? What Why is God caused this to teach me that's different? It's very different. Right? And I think it's, I think it is important to kind of maybe ask ourselves, especially in a time where we get to slow down our normal routines are kind of broken and and we're approaching our life differently is is a great time to be like, Whoa, how have I been living my life? What has been really important to me that in these last two weeks isn't important anymore?
19:15 Right, right. And that's something that I've been thinking very deeply on and spending a lot of time which I have a lot of time to get time to spare you know, my my real concern and anxiety I guess, is not so much you know, am I going to get COVID-19 in Am I going to survive it if I get it and you know, that that is what happened or not. And what will happen with that will be what it is and what is not and I I'm pretty much at peace with that. Um, but I am kind of concerned over what's, what's going to happen on the other side of this Hmm, you know, not just to the wider society, but to the Christian, you know, to, to, to my people. Yeah. Because there have been some very helpful things that you're already seeing, and there's some, perhaps unhelpful things that you're already seeing. Right, you know, the the best and the worst of our nature, actually. And both of those things are on display. And and it's just going to be interesting to see how that plays out on the other side of this.
20:31 Yeah, and I think that that brings up a good point, because it, it allows for us maybe right now to to recognize that this is an opportunity for the church, to really be the church and to really shine. Right. And it also then means it's an opportunity for us for to stick our foot in our mouth to,
20:50 you know, have more resources, then, you know, the third century Christians did and yeah, or Rome, right? Certainly. We're also in a very different social position, though, from that, too, which is, which is so true, which is interesting. So, so I, I know that some of my people, because they're my people, one thing I really try not to do is, even if I personally have some issues, that folks, you know, my fellow believers do to not try to disassociate myself from them. Because, you know, I'm one of them. I yeah.
21:31 And that's good, because it's easy to be like, Oh, I just want to distance myself. Sure, for sure. And
21:35 I just, I just don't want to go there, because it's not true, because they don't like people. But at the same time, my people are doing some things that are not helpful. And my people are doing some things that are helpful. Yeah. So my people are seeing ways that they can not only, you know, Minister to those in their own congregations, but perhaps, you know, really care about the common good. And maybe we can actually talk about that a little bit more later on the podcast, because I think that's really interesting. And very Christian concept that that is talked about a lot, even with questions of whether I should keep my church open or not. Right. Yeah. And, and so, you know, I see the best of it, but then I also see and I know, it's, you know, it's not all the pagans out there that are doing this, it's my people that are going out and hoarding. Right, you know, it's my people. Those is the best of the worst, you know, and and, and I understand that because my people are people and people do it, we'll do what people do, when they're under this kind of pressure, right? You just hope that redeemed people would at least think, you know, think twice about it before they just read on while the toilet paper. Right?
22:49 Exactly. I know. I mean, literally, toilet paper has gone on forever. And that I really liked that because it helps us understand that in the in a moment of scarcity in the moment of a pandemic, we can, we can actually choose as a church to to have a mindset that's different than everyone else, right. But it is it is tough, because we are people and we have moments of panic and moments of it is unnerving. You go to a store and there's literally no toilet paper. Even though I wasn't going there to buy toilet paper at all. I was still like, maybe we should buy toilet paper, hardly any ice cream either. That's really infant now Hey, what's going on with the ice cream hoarders? People have deep freezes?
23:34 Well, honestly. I mean, I know people that have gone to Home Depot and Lowe's and it's like, you know, within the first couple of days of a possible shutdown, that people would just, I mean, literally, they cleaned out those places of freezers that you right now it's just like,
23:51 Yeah, and it's and it's really interesting, too, to have to battle that within ourselves as a church of saying, hey, this, this is not a time just for me to to hoard and protect, but I can take care of myself and look to take care of other people and I have this. It's actually a quote from Martin Luther, who his city of Edinburg was also going through an outbreak of the bubonic plague in the mid 16th century, early 16th century about 1527. And a fellow pastor going to ask him, Hey, how should we respond? How should I handle this situation? And this is luthers response, which I think is great. He says, I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. So Luther saying, first off, I'm just gonna ask God, please protect us. Then I shall fumigate help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others. And so caused their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, He will surely find me. And that's kind of what you're saying, Rex, like, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. And I have done what he has expected of me. And so I'm not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. And I like what he says here. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person that will go freely as stated above. See, this is such a God fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy, and does not tempt God. That is an amazing quote. Yeah, there's so so fitting a friend from church sent that to me, and I was like, wow, that just perfectly fits. Because, yeah, I think response we can have right away is one to pray, like, hey, God, would you protect us? Would you protect our city, protect our friends or family? And then also do our part of, of sanitizing everything? and
26:02 social distance? Right. Yeah. maintaining social distance to do that for the, for the common good, actually, which is right, which is interesting, right?
26:11 Yeah. And I think that's, that's the way to, I love how how Luther helps us understand that it is that it's actually for the good of others to to do those. So,
26:22 you know, and the church in the in the third century, it's like, we don't just take care of our own, we take care of you all too, right? And so, if the rain falls on the just and the unjust, the healing that we can do is going to also be for everybody. Yeah. And that's a wonderful thing.
26:45 And I think like what you were saying Rex, too, we do need to in this time, it can be easy. And sometimes on a podcast, it's easy to kind of highlight how the church gets it wrong. Right, we got focused, but but I do think that it is important to and we can recognize that and say, hey, that's like we, we are Christians, these are people, but we disagree. So we can recognize those moments. But I do think it is important for us to recognize to the countless churches who are looking for their neighbors and are doing it in a responsible way. It's not just about holding Sunday services. I think that's, that's what's really interesting about these last couple of weeks, is that it I think it's helping the church realize churches so much more than a Sunday service.
27:31 And more than that, it's so much more than a Sunday service in a specific location that you have a moment. Yeah, I do wonder I you know, I mean, I am very cognizant of the financial implications of all of this and everything, and I, and that, and I think those things are really important. But, um, you know, we all know, and I'm pretty sure all of our listeners know, too, that the church is not a building, this is becoming very, very evident. And this is also sort of forcing us to actually have you have to confront that. If I can't physically go down with my, you know, with my fellow believers and worship in our place at a specific time together. And that's church, like I go to church, right. And I know, because I've been taught in Sunday school that the church is actually the body of Christ. Right. Yeah, we know the right answer. We know the right answers. But now it's like, well, you know, this is where those right answers have to have you have to pay pay attention to these right answers. And I'm finding that that that's a very good thing. Yeah. And it's a thing a lot of us are struggling with and struggling The best way to do that. Yep. But But, you know, if, if it's a real appreciation and discovery of what the church really is, I cannot possibly be anything but a good thing.
28:54 Yeah. That it's it's helping us realize the things we already knew that church isn't a building a single location.
29:03 Now, I can say that since I actually, you know, I'm not a pastor. Yeah, that's true. I did pastor for nine years back in the day, I might have a different, you know, set of concerns. Yeah. But if I was just concerned about the building, that would be totally understandable, but you don't want the real lessons to be missed. When this you know, and we could come out of this actually in a much better place. Yeah, really good.
29:31 I really, I really think we will. And even at the church community that I'm a part of, I've seen people actually grow closer together in connection because they've had to reach out to each other via social media, writing letters to each other phone calls. And, and it's actually maybe connected people more than just having a physical location where you go, and and i think that it is, when we are on the other side of this. I think as a church, we're going to need to be mindful For that, we don't fall back into that same rhythm, right? Just going to a location and then being like, Hey, I'm a part of this community, but actually being a part diving in, connecting with people, and, and then also looking out for those around us, right. So now, it's not just the church in church locations have been doing great. I know, even from our community, there's like a food drop off, that's been happening once a week, or a food handout. And other churches are doing really well at that. But I think this is also helping us realize that in my own home, isolated from everyone, I can then be the church so I can look for my neighbor, who is a widow, and and in her 80s. And I can ask her, Hey, do you need me to go to the grocery store for you? Or do you need me to pick up anything or the mom across the street who is like, if you see Ritz crackers, pick them up, because I can't find them anywhere. And my two year old only eats Ritz crackers. And, and that's a way for us to, to connect and help and, and I think that's the way during this during this pandemic man for the church to really show who we are. And and maybe this is helping us kind of reorient our focus and and, and get a better grasp on what is truly important. And I agree with you if we come out of this on the other end, with a better set of priorities, and a better understanding of what's really important. man that's only good for the church. It's only good for our nation and our culture. Right. I totally agree with you. I want to I think we can kind of maybe land Rex on on looking at this word, hope. And this idea of hope because I think during this time, for me, it's been a word I keep coming back to, like, what does it mean to have hope and I've always loved this quote from Henry now and, and every now and again. I've said it on the podcast for He's like, my number one spiritual writer of all time. He you know, in heaven, I want to be like, Jesus. Awesome. Where's Henry? Can we talk? I need to talk about some of these books. He didn't line right. Yeah, exactly. No, there probably be a long line number. But you have all the time in the world. Yeah, but we got time we got to. So but I love this. He always he does this comparison between optimism and hope, and how they're different. And it's, it's so it's been so just impactful. In my own life. He says this, he says optimism and hope are radically different attitudes. optimism is the expectation that things like the weather, human relationships, the economy, the political situation, a global pandemic, I'm adding that, and so on will get better. Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God's promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom. The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future. The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands. That's really good stuff. And I love that idea that it's easy in the middle of a of a pandemic to think about the future, right? A one day it'll get better. One day, we'll be back to normal. And and you can almost live kind of paralyzed. You're thinking about how it used to be in the past. And you're thinking about how it's going to get better in the future. But God is calling us to live in the present. Right. Right and live with hope in the present moment. And of Christ in the present. Yeah, so I just think it's so important. It's something I've been focusing on. Man How can I not miss this present moment, not just thinking about the future but man that God is in control all of life is in good hands, no matter what happens. And and I can focus on that. Yeah. Rex, thank you for joining me on the show.
34:09 Yeah, I have a question before we before we go, okay. Yeah, like I used to come zoom yet, Mark. Oh, man.
34:15 I am I am. today. crick in my neck. Actually. Exactly. I am. I think one thing that might happen to me after this is I may live the rest of my life just on zoom. I may just only zoom into places I'll never actually leave my house. Yeah. You know, as an introvert, there's kind of positives and negatives to experience. Right? I'm not afraid like I'm not itching to get out and meet people. But what I've also noticed is that, as an introvert now stuck at home with everyone like their introvert has no place to hide. Right?
34:53 So now the introvert has to become the extrovert because they're the only ones there to talk to. there's a there's a real life A lot of our stuff that probably is really necessary is happening right now. Right? If we'll just take advantage of the moment that, you know,
35:09 God has given us.
35:10 Yeah, right. Yeah. So yeah, let's take advantage of that moment and thank the listeners for tuning in. We hope you all stay safe. And we'll see you again. We're a marker across town from each other right now. Exactly. We got way more than six feet between us. That's right. You guys. Stay safe out there. We'll see you again soon. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
35:59 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex charge again into the dangerous territory of student questions. Without preparation or forethought, they attempt to answer a question drawn from a collection of theology students.
TRANSCRIPT
0:03 Welcome to Jessup tank. I'm your host Mark Moore
0:06 and your co host Rex Gurney. And I have a question for you. Oh, hey, we're just starting. So we're, we're, you know, a bit into a new decade now. Yeah.
0:16 2020 and 2020. I don't know about you. I'm a little older. But all I know is I was promised a flying car by now. And so what happened? That's true. I agree. Like the Jetsons was not supposed to be fiction by now. Right? We
0:30 were all supposed to be flying car. And then mine. I think grown up that I was really focused on was the hoverboard pocket from the Back to the Future. Where's that? Although, if I tried that today, I would break my neck. So
0:48 you can see the generational thing here, folks. And then he's talking about Back to the Future. I'm talking about the Jetsons and they're both still
0:53 wait. Don't be like, wait, what are the future on the Jetsons? Oh, yeah. I don't know. How do I know? There was on TV? Right now, but it was real boom, done an episode on that, where the rear end influenced? That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. And that's still happening. So
1:27 when I enter the future, new decade, we blast of the past.
1:31 Yeah, we got to look back, remind our viewers and today we're kind of, we've done a couple of you. We've done one other of these recently, but we're gonna have another kind of grab bag, grab a question. Now. Full disclosure, I've done a little bit of pre work, not pre work on the questions. Okay. But I pulled together some of the, you know, another semester has passed. Okay. I've I've asked my students again, for those kind of random questions. But before we even get to that, okay, I've got a question for you. Oh, this is this is just come to my attention. Okay. And I feel like we have to talk about it. That we haven't talked about it yet. is really my fault. So I have a future with the show. That's you do? You know, Rex, we need to have a conversation about your future here. Okay. We got some Strength Finders test. You're gonna, you're gonna have to. There's some struggle areas. I'm gonna rumble about it. I am reading a leadership book right now. I'm ready to go on the leadership side. But no, I have come to my attention that you had a pet monkey. Oh, yeah. So I have I mean, I have so many questions on So how old were you when you had the pet monkey.
2:46 So I guess we were around. I was, I don't know, nine. And my sister was seven. And somehow we convinced our parents to buy us a squirrel monkey. And they like did it. And they should be legally used to be used to be able to go into pet store, or spider monkey. Those are the kind of the two that you could you know, have sort of at your home and yeah, that was a row. So we bought Sam. Like I would have named him Sam now. named him Sam. And I actually have a picture that I showed my class. I had talked to the class about this and just dug it up actually a couple weeks ago. of Sam sitting on top of the TV. You know, this is this is back in the old days where you know, you have tube TV. TV was part of the room. Yeah, exactly. And indeed be warm on top because it get hot. Oh, yeah. So in the winter, Sam would go because we let him run around the house. So he's just free range. House Yeah. At night he go in his cage during the day we let him run around the house, which is also not a good idea. But we still did it for years. Anyway. And he would just sit on top of the of the TV while we were watching TV. And we we put a sombrero on him. What's so good. It's just so wrong. That you know that is great. Yeah.
4:10 Sam the Monday Yeah, yeah, Sam. I mean, how long did you have? Sam was I guess
4:14 for about four years, four or five years? Yeah, my sister and I wanted to start sort of the zoo. I guess. Guess what we already had? Like we're halfway there. Exactly. That is amazing, man. Yeah. Sometimes students will say I want a monkey I want a monkey. What can I get in a monkey? And it's like actually, you don't want them right. Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Yeah, but you don't want to I know Yeah, they're cute. They're cute but they can be a little feisty. feisty and it can be you know, a destructive destructive. Oh gosh, going
4:50 in your cage. Yeah. Now it is now was the time monkey Did you was he diaper? Did he have to wear a diaper or did you let him out or
4:59 no Wasn't diapered and so DNA wouldn't always do its business in the cage. Yeah, there was that. So yeah, so I don't know if you can say this on the air. If not, our trusty editor might write about this. But um, so I grew up in a motel on Route 66. And so, yeah,
5:19 the plot thickens. So you had a pet monkey and tow, motel,
5:27 a motel motel on Route growing up in Mexico, right. And so I remember one time we actually have a book, we actually lived in a couple of the units before, before we built a house on the property, right? Yeah. And so the office was kind of next door to our living room, sort of right. And so, you know, Sam would not only run, you know, where this is going away, not only just run around the living room, it also run around the office, right? So I remember this one customer came in, and he's filling out his registration, everything right. And I do remember this because the customer had bald head. He was kind of the Telly Savalas sort of thing before it was cool. Yeah. Anyway, he had it running around the curtain rods on the window. And so he jumped from the curtain rod onto the guy's head. So your monkey jumps on your head. And then of course, you know, does his business. And so we're mortally embarrassed. And you know, the strange thing about it, after he left off the whole thing, he still took the room. Yeah. He still stayed there. Yeah, but we tried to have no monkey in the office rules after that. Yeah. No monkey in the office. That's a pretty good rule. Yeah.
6:43 Wow.
6:44 So we just learned so much by Rex says, amazing. You had a pet monkey. in a motel on Route 66.
6:52 In New Mexico sounds sort of like a movie somewhere is moving. And this I could go there actually. So yeah, you can add door. folks might not know this, but you might Mark openindiana Yeah. So um, back in the day when the Indianapolis 500 was actually a big deal. Right, right. This family, extended family actually lived next door to us and across the street. And between the two generations, I think they won the Indianapolis 500 maybe eight times. Wow. And that was Bobby unser live two houses. Yeah, out onto the street and little owl going up, right. Actually, one day Annapolis 500 a few times before that, and one of my very, very few claims to fame. And it's actually not much of a fame but still very few claims to fame is that when we were kids, we would go racing on many bikes. And the only official race I did with little owl actually be them. Yeah. Even though he had a fancy mini bike to his fancy racing car family, but I just had this old lawnmower engine on two wheels and still still be awesome. I don't know how far you can go. 500 Exactly. In a race in a race. Right. That's pretty good. That did. I was like 12 and he was like seven doesn't much. still counting still at a cooler minibikes? Yeah,
8:21 that's true. Well, that is another one. I do. I knew the answer family from just I mean, for watching them
8:27 in Indiana. Yeah. As soon as they, Bobby and l won the Annapolis 500 the first time because they wanted multiple times, right? Yeah, built a new house. But instead of like moving to the cool side of town or whatever, because we did not live on the cool side of town. They just built a bigger house out where they were living. So they still stayed in the neighborhoods.
8:46 Yeah, that's great. Well, I'm hoping this year to learn even more about you 2020 is Marx has learned some some stories he hasn't told you. That's true. Yeah, we'll get to those. We'll get to those. But now we're going to move Okay, to these questions. Okay. And we'll, we may get to a couple I know, he said that last time, we only did the one but right but but we'll start with all of these. For me, I kind of curated a series of questions that I'm like, hey, these are good or good to think about. And I think it is good. We can let the listeners know, again, that we are there's not a lot of the pre work we've done for these rights will be our lives like our lives have been pre studied.
9:31 And folks, I have not seen these questions. I literally have
9:34 not seen these questions. And and so, so we are kind of going into this blind. But I think these are questions that are important to me. One thing that I like about this too is that I mean, these are questions that I have given my theology class the opportunity to ask at the end of every semester, these are real questions. These are real people ask right real things that are right and they're like, hey, how does this you know and in many of the studio Our seniors, by the time they take the class kind of a junior senior level class, and they maybe have grown up in the church for, you know, now 20 years, 21 years. And so I think it's nice in their perspective to have those type of questions of, hey, I've maybe grown up, I've heard these things, but I'm now getting to a place where I'm starting to maybe critically think about some things, right? I'm like, how does this make sense? Right? How do I connect this dots? How
10:28 can I own these things or not for the rest of my life?
10:32 Right? Alright, so we're, we're gonna, we're gonna hit the ground running. Okay, we're gonna come out swinging. But this is a, it's worded really interesting as well. It says if creation was made good, and without sin, how did Adam and Eve choose sin? So we kind of have this. And that's part of the narrative. And when we stressed it in, in class as well, you know, narrative that creation is good. Genesis narrative, right? God declares that seven times that this is good. It is without sin, then how you can maybe even ask, why did Adam and Eve to sin?
11:21 This question? Um, um, and I don't know, if I have, it was a definitive answer to this, then nobody would be answering this question you're asking is quite Yeah, yeah, perennial questions like this before, but this sort of comes up in my Christian perspective class, too. And there's some, you know, similarities between some of the things we've talked about, right? Right, we approach it a little differently. But so I get this questionnaire out at the beginning of every, every class, and it's kind of a worldview questionnaire. And it's anonymous, but the students do it in class, and then I tally all the stuff and a couple classes later, because sometimes it'll take a while for me to, to, to finish it up. We put it on the on the, on the PowerPoint, and we just sort of see where the class is right now about things, right. And one of the first questions is, are people basically good or bad? And, you know, the class is almost always split. And it always changes every time. But but one, one thing we we talk about, is that even among people that have grown up in the church, and are serious about their Christian Can, can commitment can sort of come land on different sides of this, depending on whether they're they're focusing on Genesis, one more Genesis two, because it was sort of it sort of says to diff, well, two, I believe complimentary things rise, I don't believe that, you know, the creation stories contradict each other right way. But if you focus on Genesis one and the good of God's creation, and humanity is the crown of God's creation and humanity as part of God's good creation being very good, that might land you in one square, sort of the imago day, if you focus on Genesis two and talking about the fall, and then the repercussions of the fall, yeah. And getting into chapter three, and then you filter that through a couple of 1000 years of the least for us as Christians a couple 1000 years of Christian theology. You know, and you know, St. Agustin sort of stands there, like a, you know, a great eminence over all of this. Yeah, kind of got to go through him almost can't go around him. Right. Brian, you might come to a different conclusion. But but yet I think both things are sort of affirmed in Scripture. Yeah. One thing that helps me with that, is believing that that free will is a positive good, huh. And so you know, because of the consequences of a negative choice that arises out of freewill, sometimes we can think of freewill as sort of a negative thing. Right? Would it be better if we didn't have had that? Because look at everything that has happened, right, to God's good creation, because of because of our, you know, our choices? Yeah. But the fact that we are free moral agents and we have choices is actually part of God's good creation. Yeah. At least that helps, you know, move the conversation along. I'm not sure it right, definitively, you know, into the discussion, but it can move the conversation along.
14:39 When this is tough, too. Because it's because like he said, there's there's been a lot maybe written on this and a lot said, and there's there isn't just the one kind of party line, right. Yeah. And, and so kind of tackling and I always try to encourage students that there's actually a lot of places in theology that are that way. There are there are kind of good arguments on both sides. And it depends on how you approach it. So I Calvinists and arminians are still fighting each other are discussing issues. Yeah, exactly. intently discussing the finer points of theology. And so I always encourage students like he kind of on issues like that. Now there, I feel there are some essentials that the church has, you know, has agreed upon and focuses on. But on some of these issues of maybe the finer details and the points, you may have to choose an interpretation that you feel best fits maybe the biblical narrative, and also raises the questions that you can live with, you can live with those unanswered questions. That's
15:46 actually a really good point.
15:47 But maybe on another interpretation, you're like, Nope, I can't live with that question. I need that answer. Can you live with Yeah, what kind of what kind of questions because because I do think, in this regard, it really is good to highlight in that narrative flow, when we kind of talk about that about I mean, in that it's kind of amazing, the rest of scripture in the Bible project does this really well. The rest of Scripture almost constantly draws you back to Genesis one through three. Like it's all through the New Testament, it's through like, it's always coming back to, hey, this is who we are as human beings. This is why we're here. And this is what has happened to get us here. And so kind of having this narrative of created as good. And then the fall. The one reason I kind of stress out in class, because then that gives us the ability to be restored to the good, right? And so kind of an important step like restoration can happen. But but it is interesting within church history, like what has been stressed, and what hasn't, is it and sometimes I've heard it described this way is the original goodness, stretch stressed, or Original Sin, right. And we've kind
17:06 of had some some iterations of kind of contemporary theology, we'll talk about original blessing versus Original Sin. And yeah, you kind of use that vocabulary. I think that's an interesting point, though, that I hadn't thought of before that you just sort of mentioned about the about the restoration of a broken creation and the restoration being sort of a source of our I don't know, hope. Yeah, you know, or something that would at least drive us to believe that there's something something better, but not different, better in a way that it restores something that should have been all along somebody that was broken? Yeah. And that eschatological hope is, is in itself a good thing. Right. And you can see the good in the world that has, it has come from that.
17:58 Yeah. Now some have answered this question. And it's they're saying, and I've talked with some students, and we've done some different kind of research and reading of credit, trying to see a lot of these different answers some, some theologians have answered this question by saying that there was at the time of Adam and Eve there was evil, like evil is somehow and this kind of gets into philosophy world a lot. Yeah, I guess in a lot of things, but kind of the ideas of dualism. And and kind of what we mean there, especially like, term we can throw out for the listeners metaphysical dualism, so meaning beyond just the physical worlds, which kind of good and evil would would be in that realm. But that there's an actual Good and Evil is an actual substance that is similar to the good
18:54 which is what a Gustin did not want to write, right, he did not want to go right, which Gustin speaks against
19:00 that. Right. And, and so some maybe have answered this like, Oh, well, they had two options, right? Evil was a thing. Good was a
19:08 call that Star Wars theology, actually, yeah, yeah.
19:12 Well, and that definitely, there's a lot of dualism happening. There's the
19:17 whatever it is, it can be used for the good or use for the bad. Yeah, the dark side, but it's sort of and, you know, people and even Christians have struggled with this sort of forever, right, you know, the manna keys were duelists some sort of get some of that from Zoroastrianism. You get some gnostic dualism in there. I know that one of the issues with the authority or the albigensian heresy, you know, back in though I don't know what 13th century 12th century, right. Yeah. Um, was that they were very dualist Mm hmm. too, right. And, and so it's something that say, and I get that Actually, um, you know, dualism. Even though I actually think that that's a real problem, I actually would not want to go there because I actually don't believe that the scriptural witness is dualistic. I do think, though, that we keep trying to make it dualistic which is another thing. Yeah, that is that we're sort of practical duelists even if we're not theological dude, right. But
20:28 yeah, cuz we kind of and kind of maybe what you are what you're saying there? Do we kind of that idea of practical dualism?
20:35 Make sense? Yeah, we'll just just just pick up the paper and read right, it looks like you know that we live in a world Yeah,
20:41 that there is evil and good. And they're locked in a battle. Right? And we're just hoping good wins. Right? And that seems to be Yeah, for me the kind of the issue where some kind of metaphysical dualism answers the question, hey, Adam and Eve, they chose sin because it was their evil evil prompted them right, there was this prompt from evil? That answered that, but for me, then that brings up other questions that I can't live right. So I answered one question, but now, right. And what it brings up for me, is it going back to that restoration, if good and evil, are together? In some kind of metaphysical dualism, and some type of eternal struggle? Right, then you don't necessarily land on any type of restoration back to the good? No, you don't? And that's where, you know, and that's where a Gustin came in, and, and kind of the idea of good and an evil being just a privation of the good. Right. Which, which still brings up other questions, it still brings up this question. Okay. Well, then if there was only good, why did Adam Adam and Eve leaving? Well, it's
21:55 interesting, though, because even when you go back to the the narrative there about what exactly happened in the garden, and what's the fruit and that whole story? You know, it's not like, we look at that as evil. I'm not sure that, you know, Adam and Eve would have seen what was offered them as evil, right. And as some sort of an alternative to the good because it seemed like it was good. Yeah. Who doesn't want to know everything and be like God, right. You know? Yeah, who doesn't want that? They say a bad thing. Yeah. You know, but but it, you know, obviously is, but yeah, it certainly didn't seem that way.
22:39 Yeah. No, that's a really good point to make. I think that is good. Because it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't a, like some type of obvious heinous choice. Even Adam are making of Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna do this. But it does seem to be and that seems to be in the biblical narrative that step up, right? The, they're kind of linked, you go from the, the eating of the fruit. And this knowledge gained to, you know, in the next chapter, cane killing, right, right. So you This doesn't take long to move to something that we could highlight as, okay, that's clearly evil. And, and I think the biblical narrative is, is trying to highlight that as well. So this is, but i do i do think that it is that first move from Adam and Eve, that's, that's kind of attributing that is it just highlighting as human beings. And as our representative, this idea of gaining our own knowledge, and maybe in and pursuing that. And, and maybe disregarding what God has for us, you know, which comes back to that idea of freewill. And that idea of if, in God's good world, our freedom was the good, which would come with it, the ability to to choose against, that would be actual,
24:11 actual freewill. And all that I would know if I want to sort of insert myself into that story is that if, if if I were choosing to be God, like in having the knowledge of good and evil and all of that, I know that it wouldn't be a good world anymore. Right? Right. It just wouldn't be Yeah. Because we're we're taking the place of God we are. We are contingent beings. God is not contingent on anything or anyone and what makes it contingent think they can do a, you know, supersede the non retention. I know we're using sort of philosophical language here. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really important point.
24:54 Yeah, it is because I think as you approach it to, if If there was no ability to choose, and it was all set, in some ways, I think we would also if we read that narrative like, again, today, if that was Genesis One, two, it would be for one completely disconnected from our experience of reality, right? And it's kind of like watching, I always am struck by this when I'm watching a movie or TV show, in Star Trek did a lot when they would go to a new place, and it was kind of a utopia. You're always like, This isn't good. It's not good, even though you shouldn't be like, this is great, this society is perfect. These guys do not come in peace, even if they are exactly. So it's like, I think we kind of know that as human beings, that it's like that, that that idea of some type of forced utopia wouldn't really be a utopia. And one
25:54 thing that could perhaps help the student once again, I don't think it's a slam dunk argument. But it seems like a simplistic one. But if you see, sort of, you know, the the most important attribute of who God is and and how God relates to God's creation, God's relational God is in some very profound sense. And scripture actually comes right out and says this plain Greek that that God is love. And so if love is sort of at the heart of all of this, I think we all understand how love is impossible without free choice, because if it right, we had no free choice, it would not be love. And if loves the ultimate good, then some sort of free choice has to be possible. Yeah. But then, of course, if it's a free choice, then that obviously opens up everything else, right?
26:47 I guess you could, you could attribute it to trying to think of other examples in our life. I mean, maybe maybe there were times. Even in a romantic relationship, you could be with someone who was quote, unquote, perfect. They were great. They were that but you just chose not to be with them. You're just there was something not? There. Right. The? I don't know. I've never had that experience. But I'm not I'm not necessarily. theory I pathetically.
27:20 Mark had the perfect woman. I ended up with a. Okay, well, God's gracious, God's good. gracious to me is good.
27:32 No, but that idea of that, that just because something is perfect doesn't mean as a human being, we choose to engage in it. And we, so just being created into a perfect creation if we have the choice, because really, the choice Adam and Eve made was a choice of self over God. Right? It wasn't the choice of one evil over one good. Like you were saying, I think that's a really good point to make. It wasn't like, yeah, I've never thought of murder, but now I'm going to choose to murder. Right. It's, it starts it doesn't start there. It starts with that choice of self right over God. And, and that leads into this. But I mean, I think this, I think this is a good question. It is to think about because it's one we don't often bring up in church when we're when we're talking about this narrative. And and I think it is helpful, because it does bring up a lot of the different philosophical questions that are out there. And and how you reconcile good and evil, and and what evil is. And I do think it's important for us to talk about that and so on. And I think I appreciate the influence that a Gustin has had and that I think we also have to realize some of the things right there, right, where he's been called into question. Like, I think it's good to good to understand those things. And one of the things in my life, that I think I'm starting to look at more and more, because for many of us, especially Protestants, post reformation, the focus has been on the fall. Right, right. And one thing I've been looking at more and more is that Genesis one narrative like no, there there is this original goodness. Now we have fallen and and that is Reinhold Niebuhr said, the doctrine of original sin is the most empirical, verifiable doctrine in all of Scripture. Because Yeah, you just look in anything outside your door, right? Even if someone said, we're mostly good, even even people who you know, today would say that that's a qualifier, but also admit, right, but we're not mostly good, and we're not. And that's just this recognition. And I think that's what Genesis 1123 are really highlighting for us is that we realize as human beings, we have walked away from the good We have walked in that good being, love and relationship and connection and because of walking away from that, and I think this is also an important point,
30:10 it gets hard to see the glimpses of the beauty of God's good, is very good creation that's still there. Yeah. Yeah, that's obscured by, you know, the right the blinders that we have on. Yeah. And I still there,
30:28 I think that's good, too. And, and in each other, too, is like, I don't know, the, the, the idea of total depravity and realizing, you know, I mean, like the and, and the old saying, are ruined by the fall kind of, out of that movement. And understanding that we are right, I mean, like we, we struggle with, with doing good. But there are those times when we, we do choose the good, right. And those are moments of grace. Right. Those are moments of grace. And, and I think they're glimmers of that good. world that God created good. Is
31:07 there to be chosen. Yeah. With our good gift of freewill.
31:12 Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and that hope, like you said, the hope of restoration, right? Is is highlighted there as well, that there is and I really do think that underlines the idea of Christian hope, of that there is going to be a restoration, right? There's, there's going to be restoration. I look forward to that. I,
31:37 you know, we may have talked about this before I'm colorblind. And my students, you know, love to especially I teach history. And so, you know, whenever I have a graph or a map, or it's actually it's more than two and the two are, well, if the two are green, and red, then I'm still in trouble. Right. But I literally can't, I can't tell what they are. But and so you know, I've never seen a rainbow. Like it's supposed to be I never have, you know, what I do see is beautiful. It's like, you know, this, you know, gray, horrible world? No, I'm still enchanted by this wonderful, enchanted world, but I just don't see a rainbow like apparently everybody else does. But, and I actually have thought about this, you know, at the restoration of all things, you know, a rainbow might not be anything to you, because you see it all the time, but it will really be something for me. Yeah, it really wouldn't be but it's not, you know, something new. It's just seeing something that was there and good. All along. Right. with new eyes.
32:41 Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. That is great. And that connection as human beings connection with God connection with each other, right, without having to be defensive without having to worry about yourself, right? Without attacking right. Now all or nothing to defend and to attack. Yeah, that will all be gone. And that will be our start. Well, that was a that was a good question. From Sundar, it's anonymous, I can't even track them down. But if you're listening to this podcast right now, we use your question, we use your question and and we did our best at dancing all around the question and answering I think we I think we got you know, somewhere. But there's a lot more to be said on that. And I'm sure even on the podcast, we're gonna bring up because good and evil and love. Yeah, not going away. Love God's justice, all those all those aspects of theology bring up questions. Right. And, and we're here to kind of wrestle with those, right? Because I think it's really important. And, I mean, now is just a full episode. I
33:45 mean, we got into philosophy. So once again, we just spent the whole time talking about one question.
33:50 Yeah. So we, you know, when you when you hit a good question, that was a good one strikes a chord, we could probably do two or three episodes on that question. Yeah, we got to do a little philosophy of metaphysical dualism, and a little bit of everything, ancient heresies, and we learned the Jetta pet monkey. Well, you know, in on Route 6666 on a set of a movie. Next door, the answers are you go, that's gonna be my first novel. Okay. Okay. People would think it'd be science fiction or fantasy. Well, we're looking forward to some more 2020 2020 feeling good so far. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
34:53 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier bully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go. Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Friend of the show Cynthia Shafer-Elliott joins Mark and Rex to discuss ways in which we misread the Old Testament. The three specifically look at the story of David and Bathsheba.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host, Rex Kearney. And today, Rex, we're excited to have again on the show Dr. Cynthia Shaffer-Elliot,
0:09 and she still agrees to come even though she hasn't got her t shirt. Yeah,
0:13 that's true. We're still working on T shirts. We're going to be talking today about how we get the Old Testament wrong. Sometimes some stories we read from the Old Testament, and we're maybe just reading them incorrectly. And so she's gonna shed some light on that, specifically the story of David and Bathsheba. And I'm really interested in what she has to say.
0:40 Well, Cynthia, we are excited to have you back on the show. I mean, official official friend of the show,
0:46 for sure, at this point, how many times you have to be on the show to be an official fries to be official, and you get the T shirt winner, but don't I get a mug or something? Yeah, we're
0:54 working to T shirt. T shirt. I am working on the design, oh, once I get the funding and placement, I can do it. Working on that, but excited to have you on the show because I've kind of thrown an idea out to you have ways that we we read the Old Testament wrong, like ways that when we approach the Old Testament, there seems to be certain passages that just come up again and again. And it's like, I think we might be getting that wrong. And
1:30 wrongs your word. But yeah. I will let the hate mail come to you. Okay.
1:37 Well, and kind of what I mean is, is sometimes you hear certain, it's like, wow, I think we're maybe missing the full story. Right. And, and maybe missing a full, full backstory. And I think one of those stories that actually has even I would say within this last year has has become more prominent. Is that story of David and Bathsheba. Right. And and kind of what is going on. And there's, it's interesting when you look at different sermons online, and and depending on maybe the angle the church is coming from, you have sometimes a very sympathetic, you know, point of view in terms of Bathsheba. then other times, you have a very kind of damning view of Bathsheba that she is. The temperature is right, that she wanted to be seen all of these things. And historically,
2:24 that's the interpretation that you get.
2:27 Yeah. And it's and yeah, no, seems like that. Yeah, even within church fathers and all that. And it was a reference, often not always looked at David as maybe the full culprit in this story. So as as we approached David and Bathsheba and the story, like what are maybe some things we need to know about the story to, to begin to maybe read it more correctly?
2:53 Yeah. If there's a wrong reading the right way? Well, I'm a big supporter of, of context. And that's kind of been a key word you're hearing a lot of people throw out there nowadays, which I'm really happy to hear because I've been beating that drum for a long time, right? And I'm sure people are like, Oh, my gosh, here she goes again. Yeah, but I really do believe that have looking at a contextual approach can really help us have a maybe a bigger view of the text and maybe the different? Maybe, I mean, we can never truly know, I think what original intent, the author's I mean, if we could travel back in time, that would be fantastic. I would be all over that. That would be great. But in our, with the sources and evidence that we have now, you know, as limited as that might be. So and I would always say that it's not just context singular, it's contexts plural, you know, and anyone who does history, or ancient literature or cultural context, knows that it's not just one context that helps open up the story in the context of the reader. All right, exactly. Right. And so for thinking about the past contexts, you know, you would look at historical context, geographical context, literary context, cultural context, and cultural context really informed primarily through archeology and ethnography and ethno archaeology and and so then you also think about k current contexts, like you just said, Rex, as far as the context of the reader, and what the reader is bringing to the text, right, like reader response. And then of course, you have reception history too, and how that text was received throughout time,
4:59 and why the text has been revisited now instead of 20 years ago, right? 30 years ago, I think you'd have to be an Einstein to figure that our context has changed.
5:07 Exactly. And so for me liking not only the current context, but the ancient contexts and what that could possibly help us, illuminate the story, the narrative better, and maybe we can see a little bit more deeply into it. So if we're talking about the David and Bathsheba narrative, you know, you're looking at Second Samuel 11. And so, you know, it really starts out we have this narrative phrase where, and I'm reading from the New Revised Standard Version, that's my English translation. Okay. Well, most people, I've
5:44 never, I've never been a hater the advice? I know, they I know they exist, but I've never been among a company. Yeah,
5:52 I would say most of my biblical scholar friends, you know, usually really liked the New Revised Standard. So and I really like it. But you get that you get that merit, you get that editor or narrator statement, the very first verse in chapter 11. And of course, it depends on how you translate it. But it talks about the time of the year, the spring of the year when the Kings go to war. And some translations will say, when a year after they've returned for more, but regardless of what the translation is, you know, again, if I'm looking at the New Revised Standard, talking about how when the Kings got to war, so there in the very first sentence we're getting, what time of year it is, you know, and that this is when the Kings normally go to war. But then the next part of the sentence, we see that we're the next part of the the line or the verse, we see that, but David remained in Jerusalem. So we're getting the win we're getting, you know that it's time what should be happening. But what's not happening is that David should be at the battle with against the Ammonites, but he's actually remained in Jerusalem. And then in verse two, we also get the timing. So whoever's telling the story, the narrative is of is a very good storyteller. So they say it happened late one afternoon. So we're again getting the time of the day. And we're also seeing where David is. So when I do this in class with my students, instead of me telling them what's going on, I have them get into their groups. And I asked to have them look at some basic questions. The Who, the what, the when, the where, and the why, yeah. Who is David? Who is Bathsheba? Who is Uriah? Where are they? What are they doing? What's their situation? And so we learn really quickly, when we're doing that, that we tend to know that we are familiar with the story. And without doing a critical reading and critical meaning a close, careful reading, and you have to make sure you say that to people, because they see hear the word critical, right. And they think judge, they think it's judgment time. And that's not what it means. It means within biblical scholarship, it means a close, careful analysis. And so when I have the students do that, and I'm asking them those questions.
8:13 They are. They're not reading it carefully. Because when I asked them the who is David, where was he? Who was Bathsheba? Where was she? They automatically state that Bathsheba is where David is. Right? So the question is, okay, whereas David, David, according to the text is on the roof of his palace. Hmm, no, he rose from his couch was walking about on the roof of the King's House that he saw from the roof. A woman bathing, the woman was very beautiful, right? We never get like physical descriptions from people unless that physical description in a narrative at least, is important to the story. Right? Right. So we don't learn about people by what they look like. We learn about them by what they do, at least in biblical narratives. So if they give you a physical description, like in this case, it's really important. So automatically, my students will say that Sheba was on the roof, right and that she was bathing on the roof, kind of being like, Hey, everybody, look at me, type of thing, right? But if you read the text, that's not what it says. The text says that David is on the roof, and that she is bathing. We don't know where she's bathing we can. Now this is when cultural context is comes in handy, because excavations in Jerusalem have shown, you know, you know, a lot Mazhar is excavations where there is a very large monumental building which is thought to be David's palace and the city of Jerusalem, at least in the early Iron Age, which would have been the Canaanite city and then when David took it over, was really just at the southern Tip is very small, it's very small, right. And so they call it you know, the old fell. It's kind of like this tongue that juts out from the rest of the mountain that Jerusalem is located. And so it's kind of that southern tip, and it's really quite sloped going from the north to the south, you've got kind of a, it's very steep terrain. And that the palace, this monumental building, which they think is a palace would have been on the top, you know, the heights, all the wealthy people live in the heights, and that you could see all of the houses that would have been on the slope and on the end towards the base, because Jerusalem is surrounded by valleys. So on the east side, you've got the kedron Valley. And then you have the Tyrolean Valley in the middle, and then the hinnom valley that comes from the west and connects with the kedron Valley. So it's surrounded by valleys, you've got all these buildings kind of going down the slope of the mountain and on the base of the mountain, with the big monumental building on the top. So for the text to tell us that David is on the roof of his house, and then archeology to show us that this monumental building at the top that could have been David's palace cut further indicates that he would have been able to see everything. It wouldn't have been hard. If he's on the flat roof of his house, which they were all flat roofed, and still are, you would have been able to see everything. And so she wouldn't the text isn't telling us that she was out on her roof. It's just that she was bathing and houses during this time period would have had a courtyard or for court in front of their house. And there weren't ritual baths yet. So the mikvah or MC vote, those ritual bath don't come until later Second Temple Judaism so at this time, there's none of these ritual baths that are public ritual bows, so she would have been doing this on the privacy of our own home.
12:01 So this this assumption, and it's a company misunderstanding. It's been around for a while, I was actually looking at some Renaissance late Renaissance art. And Beth she was on the roof.
12:12 Yeah, right. Right. Right. And it says that she was bathing he saw from the roof. A woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful. Okay, so there's there's that date, we've got the setting David's on the roof. It's a hot day, he can't take a nap. And on the roofs, you know, you get this nice westerly breezes in the afternoon in Jerusalem. It's very pleasant. So he sees this beautiful woman bathing. And he inquires about her. Now, this is really interesting, too, because he inquires about her, and it comes back to him who she is. So we learn her name. You know, she's Bathsheba. She is the daughter of lm. Now, normally, when you're married, you're not known for you're not told because you don't have last names here said okay. I'm Cynthia, the wife of Robert. Yeah. Or before I was married, I would have been Cynthia, the daughter of David. Yeah. But once you get married, you're no longer really affiliated with who your father is. Because you're part of your husband's household now. Yeah. And so the fact that it names her father first, is a real interesting
13:25 clue. And a clue that I have actually never thought about until this moment. All right.
13:32 Well, that's what I'm here for. Right? That's right. So aliem is thought to have been the son of one of David's advisors. I'll probably butcher his name, I hate TfL. So if he's the son of one of David's advisors, and she's married to him she belongs to a she is her father and her grandfather are well known in David's circles. Yeah, she comes from a distinguished family, but then also says who she's married to. So not only who her father is, but who she's married to. She's married to a man named Uriah, not just any guy named Uriah but Uriah the Hittite. Right. So he's not Israelite. But the other interesting thing about who her husband is, is that he is one of David's in our circle of soldiers. Some people might call it the mighty men, often referred to as the best, like 30 soldiers have David and you read about that in chapter 23, verse nine. He's listed in chapter 23, just after this as one of David's mighty
14:38 inner circle of soldiers. And so with this new realization, there are some questions that are already forming in my mind about what might happen next and why right. Different than what I have thought previously.
14:49 Yeah, right. So he knows her family. She knows her husband, he's intimately connected with both of them, right? Which makes what he's about to do. Even Worse,
15:00 right? Yeah, it's not still terrible if it's a perfect stranger it is. But there is this added element
15:08 added element who you're calling to. Sure. So he's he finds out who she is. And he still summons her. Now, the fact that we go back to that opening verse where he is supposed to be at war, right? But he's not. Yeah, he's not. So that kind of brings up some questions. Why isn't here at war? Is it? Is it because they don't need him? Is it because maybe he's in this is an clue that I kind of take after as maybe he's become too powerful and too important to go with them on this battle? Or are we simply trying to find some excuses? For right, David already? Right, exactly. And so why is he there? You know, well, he should have been there, but he's not.
15:58 Yeah. And there's even how the storyteller starts. This seems to be making the point right there and be exactly putting that that wouldn't have been included.
16:09 Right? If there was an important Yeah, cuz our biblical narratives are not overflowing with my newsha. Right. The details that are in these narratives are usually guys aren't being paid by the lender. So David finds out who she is, he still summons her. Now, if we go back to that powerful thing. People ask, okay, well, then why did she come to him? The question is, did she have a choice right? Now, a lot of times when you see these little titles in your Bible, or you hear people when they actually preach from the Old Testament, which is rarely you have no axe to grind, I know not at all. They will talk about the adultery of David. And a lot of scholars, including some feminists got a lot of feminist scholars and not so feminist scholars will point out that this doesn't sound like adultery. Right? This sounds like forced interaction with assault, assault, right? Or a bigger word, which, for the sake of your audience, I think we're tracking it. Okay, good. So he, he sends for her shake, she comes up there. They they have sex, and then we learn in a parent theoretical statement, that what she was doing while she was bathing, that she was purifying herself. Okay, so that's a really important clue that the narrator is giving us one indicates that a she's, you know, at the right time to conceive. And to it gives us a clue as to why she was bathing herself. She wasn't bathing herself to be enticing to David. She wasn't on the roof. She wasn't like, hey, look at me. It was it was devotion. She was a devout religious woman who was going through the Torah purity rules, after she was finished with her menstrual cycle, because after unclean the week of the week after you're also unclean, and then after that last week, you're supposed to do is supposed to bathe, go through the rituals, and then you're considered clean again. So the fact that she was going through the bathing ritual, however, that might have looked like, indicates her character, that she was not looking for this. She was not trying to entice them. him. She was not she was a devout religious woman. Right. At least that's the way I look at it. Yeah.
18:53 Yeah. And it seems like that. It's really interesting when you put all those pieces together, it seems to me as well kind of stand out in the text. But it's interesting that that hasn't been the narrative that's been picked up. Right. And that even in recent sermons, I mean, within I would say, the last five years, even when you look at some of the texts of those sermons from from some well known preachers, it's this idea that Bathsheba is, is at fault, because she is some way enticing day or is acting as the tempter. Right.
19:29 Because he's named after he's called, he's described as a man after God's own heart. Right. So he couldn't have done Yes, you know, there has to be some other explanation right, which I can understand why people might feel that way.
19:43 So I guess some of our listeners, our listener might be interested in in I guess the the why is this you know, story in here, right then question if we have to understand it differently. Because, you know, we all seem to gravitate there, we need to have the whys. Right? Things are in the biblical witness. Yeah. Especially if we have to re think them and we imagined them.
20:12 Well, this is if you think of Second Samuel is kind of having that classic narrative arch where, you know, it has the lead up, it has the apex, and then it has the decline or the resolution. And so this is the apex. So this passage plus the following passage in chapter 12. Actually chapter 13, that's a parallel passage. So this is considered like David's sin, that is really the reasoning for the decline of the house of David. And so, you know, but to make matters worse, in this passage, you know, when when Bathsheba sends word to him that she's pregnant, and that, you know, it has to be his because of the situation right. And so David comes up with this very calculating plan to send for her husband who is on Uriah the Hittite, one of his mighty men who is on the front lines of the battle that David's supposed to be at right sends him to come back, which is unheard of, because they have to take vows before they go into battle that they will abstain from, from intercourse that they will abstain from all sorts of other things, because war is considered like this kind of sacred duty. And so he calculates this plan to bring him back to have him go home to sleep with Bathsheba so then the child would be considered his but Uriah shows more loyalty than David does and refuses to go home to that he does that twice. And then David's like okay, I need a plan C. And so he has written out a plan for your lab to put Uriah on the front line, and then to pull back so that Uriah will die now and he has your Riot take those plans, yeah to yo AB and your I just handsome his death wish his death more and so the plan doesn't go according to plan, but your is still die. So when yo AB sends word to David with the bad news that the battle did not go well. He also says to him, so he doesn't get mad. But your servant Uriah is also dead. And so following though in chapter 13, or chapter 12, and 13 when we get to some time has passed, and David's children are now the center of the story where what David does in private. Nathan tells him the prophet Nathan tells them what you have done in private, it's going to be done publicly. And you have that parallel passage with David's children, the Crown Prince of non and then his half brother Absalom and Absalom full Sister tomorr. Where Amnon does assault tomorr. And David does nothing.
23:12 Yeah, I'm gonna actually kind of backtrack just a little bit. I think Cynthia, when you use that word calculate me meaning that is sort of a calculated act. And David himself is calculating. Somehow the story was always handed down to me, in the picture I always had was, you know, David makes a mistake in the heat of passion or whatever. And then he suddenly is sort of desperate to cover up his mistake. But it's like calculation on calculation on calculation calculation, which is a very, very different picture. Right. Very different.
23:49 Yeah. Which would have taken time. I mean, these narratives are written in a way that makes it seems like it's one thing happens right after another after another. Yeah, right. And the following day. Right. Hey, right. You come home from war? Yeah. So what is when I think about this passage, I think we Bathsheba is often blamed for David's fault, when it's really David's own fault, not hers, and that we do need to redeem some of these female characters who have been historically, you know, shown, whether it's through other texts or through media even today, right, as something other than what I think the text actually portrays them, you know, that if we do a close, careful reading, you know, don't take my word for it. read it for yourself.
24:43 Yeah. And and I think that's the important part. I think that's why maybe this story has been kind of even in the news over this last year. And I know I've just read an article that the Southern Baptist Convention just, you know, five, six months ago Did a conference on sex abuse and sex abuse in the church? And they, they talked about this story and whether to consider it assault or not. And how that and context of course, is everything there as someone who actually grew up Southern Baptist.
25:17 And when we were shocked to find out that, that I'll use the Wi Fi, because it's something I'm not ashamed of that or anything, but we always thought that, you know, the Catholics or maybe the Episcopalians always had a, you know, a sexual abuse and sexual predation problem in their churches only to find out that actually, you know, that's not true, right. And it's all over us, too. And so what do we do about it, then suddenly, these, our context has changed, too.
25:48 Yeah. And the story seems to follow a similar model, right? Someone, usually a man in a place of power, right? And Jews that place of power, right to right to assault, right? And then often the victim is blamed. And that's happened to Bathsheba. It does and has today. And so I think this, this re reading of the story helps us expose
26:13 the excess reading isn't, isn't, of course, you know, accepted by everyone, because there are a lot of apologists for traditional readings of these things, too. Which, of course, you know, just feeds into the problem.
26:26 Right, right. And, you know, when she and Bathsheba herself doesn't have much of a voice in the text. Right? Right, the when she, she has a very limited voice here. And so I think when we're looking at these passages, and we're reading them and interpreting them through our own lenses, you can't help but to do that, because that's just the nature of the rotation. But what if we can try to keep when we when we, if we can do a little bit of research, I promise you, if you do a little bit of research in two contexts, it's gonna be really helpful. A good study Bible is always good. There's also the the kind of newer cultural context and IV one that's very good. But whenever people have lots of questions about these things, I guarantee if you do just a little bit of digging into context,
27:25 but that sounds like so much work, Cynthia, I just, I just want to go here, you know, sermon series on how to have a happier life. I don't need these complications. Listen to this podcast.
27:38 But don't you think, though, that women or women and men who have experienced things like this service might make serve feels certainly like a little less of an you know, maybe they don't feel as I don't belong here. Sure. So I think there's lots lots here, and hopefully, it provides some insight.
28:00 Yeah, I think it really does. And I think it just helps helps us in the current conversation of what's going on with with sex abuse in the church, and I mean, sex abuse in our culture. Yeah, me too. Movement, definitely. And understanding these kind of power structures and how they, how even within the church, we have to be mindful of how we're reading passages how we're presenting women, yes. And often the retelling of this, in in looking at Beth Shiva as the temptress. And you can see that through other stories that we draw out from the biblical text. And I was at a conference recently, and they had a section on Bible and film and I went to one that talked about early silent films from just really from from the time movies were being made just up into the 20s. And it showed how all of the female characters were, were portrayed as the temptress. Yeah. And this source of lust, and it was always this temptress who was really tripping up the, the godly man. Right. Right. And many of them were biblical stories. And it was kind of funny that the presenter noted that that was a way for kind of movie makers originally to kind of weave in sex because hey, we can have a story. It's really the story of hope it's in the right. But he was talking about that movie specifically. And the subtitle was something to the effect. It was like Joseph's Jessamine Potter, his wife a story of temptation or something. He's like, you know, he was he joked, he's like, No, I'm no biblical scholar. He's like, but I don't think I had some of Joseph's story by saying like, temptation over. Seems like there's other things going on. But it was just interesting. And that carries on in not only within the church, but even within current film. And pop culture, it's still this view that that the victim and oftentimes victim being a woman, that they somehow were part of the problem. Right. Right. And and then that causes them not want to speak up right and not to have a voice. And so I think this is important that at the very least, we need to start being able to talk about these biblical passages and say, Whoa, hey, have have we been wildly Miss reading them? Right. And that's kind of also then fed into our general culture view of women being the temptress. Right. And, and, and not giving enough weight to Yeah, the when you when you start to add this up, I mean, this is very calculated from David from the moment he kind of has this. Maybe he sees her. Right. And, and the time that's involved there, that and then definitely the consent that she was not able to give that we need to be able to highlight who is really the perpetrator here. Right. And, and, and I think that's really helpful to, to kind of the current conversation, because I, I mean, I bet you if you went here on Jessup, if we just went out and started surveying the students, we just did like, yes or no, or just a question, Where was Bathsheba, just the students, the faculty, they would all say she was on the room we saw
31:32 happens. That happens every semester when I have them get into this small group. And I also had my women in Scripture class, you know, we have we, of course, did this passage. And, and but in the intro class to where they go, you know, it's it's an exercise in in, you know, biblical scholarship, as far as close critical reading of a text, but also as a way to kind of highlight, you know, help redeem Bathsheba in a way because, and then in the women in Scripture class, you know, we, we, we look at passages from the Old Testament, the deuterocanonical writings in the New Testament, you know, and as I say, in the class, it's the good, the bad, and the ugly, you know, we're not going to hide from it, we're going to, we're going to look at them, we're going to talk about them. And, and I think that's always like, the first step. You know, as far as, we don't need to check our brains at the door, we can still read these, we can still talk about them with grace and compassion and, and study them too. I mean, because maybe there's someone else has some insights that maybe I hadn't thought of, you know, and that's gonna be helpful, too. Well, this is really helpful. And I learned a lot today.
32:47 Actually, I'm just totally actually taking all this in right now. A million places because I'm one of the I'm exhibit a, of a person who has always had a traditional interpretation of this, right.
32:59 And it's not something that someone's gonna really preach about. Right. That's true, actually could be a great sermon, kind of connected with the whole modern.
33:10 All I know is I'm going to totally change the sermon. I was going to preach this Sunday on the temptress now, it's always a woman's fault.
33:20 Well, thank you, Cynthia, always a very wonderful friend. And we'll be back again, and we're going to explore some more areas over this kind of next season of Jessup think of where specifically in the Old Testament, hey, where were some passage where we could be reading this wrong and it's negatively affecting how we're maybe even approaching current issues? Sure. And there's lots of them. Lots of podcasts. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessica.
34:15 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Special guest Dr. Michelle Lee-Barnewell, associate professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology, joins Mark and Rex to discuss her recent book on the current status of the conversation on women in ministry and marriage. Dr. Lee-Barnewell pushes the listener to move beyond old ways of thinking about it to a new Kingdom approach.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup bank. I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex today on the show. I'm so excited that we have our eighth annual Faculty of theology spring lecture on the show. It's Dr. Michelle Lee Barnewell. She's an associate professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology Biola University. her recent book is entitled Neither Complementarian Nor Egalatarian: A Kingdom Corrected to the Evangelical Debate. And she just did an excellent job at the lecture, right. And we're excited to have her on the show. And we know that you, as a listener are really going to benefit from, from understanding this conversation in this debate in a new way.
0:48 Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for the lecture you gave last night to at our eighth annual Faculty of theology spring lecture.
0:59 Well, thank you. It's great to be great to be here with you. And it's great to be with everyone last night. Thank you so much for inviting me.
1:04 Yeah, it was so wonderful. We got such good response to so well attended, actually. I mean, yeah, I feel proud of the fact it was Yes, it was like, our last one. Exactly. That's encouraging.
1:15 I think it speaks to just how important the subject matter is and how interested people are in it. And they see that.
1:21 Yeah, that's exactly the truth that there's that this kind of conversation around gender roles, and, and women in ministry and marriage is is a hot topic in the church. And it has been for, you know, at least, we can at least say the last couple 100 years. We're gonna least go back that far. And that's why I think, yeah, that the the lecture was so well attended. And because people have real questions on Hey, how do we and especially in the 21st century, how do we understand this? And one of the things that you do in your book that I really enjoyed, and I know Rex enjoys, because he's a history guy. Is that you? You do a little bit of like a historical survey of Okay, how did the conversation end up here? So I was, I would love and this was something you weren't able to kind of get into in the lecture. But you gave a shout out to the podcast. So yeah, that was
2:20 a good promo.
2:22 So I'd love to kind of hear a little bit of those. What do you think are some of those kind of major or significant historical factors that have kind of led to the current evangelical gender debate?
2:36 Well, what I did in my book is I looked at three time periods and even telco history that I thought were very informative. And I started out with the turn of the century, around the late 1800s, early 1900s, and took a look at what was happening there. Then I took a look at the 1950s. And then the 1970s. And there are several things that I found out one was just looking at some of the trajectories that were there, but just also the contours of each period. So for example, the first period that I looked at in terms of the turn of the century, one of the things that I I found so interesting is I had this assume that when you look at history, it's going to be this trajectory of just increasing freedom for a woman in terms of what is a move towards a more progressive, but one of the things that really surprised me was that there was actually a lot of freedom for women to, to do public ministry. In fact, not only was there a lot of freedom, there was a they were actually compelled to go out there is actually they were acting out of a sense of duty, and obligation that the whole society was kind of expecting them to do
3:37 historically, even in the 1920s and 30s. If you sort of look at two of the most famous preachers in America, you have Harry Emerson fosdick, but you also have aimee semple mcpherson. And yeah, her role was just sort of accepted as one of the mouthpieces for Christianity,
3:54 right, because one of the things is that the expectations for gender are different. And one of the things that I found out during that time period is that, well, one of the implications were the impact of Victorian ideology. Now, when you think of Victorian ideology, we usually think of the really fragile delicate woman right here and delicate that she's going to faint a side of a mouse. And I don't know if you, you know, watch the TV show Victoria, about Queen Victoria. But one of the early in the one of the early episodes, there's a scene where it's her birthday, and she's sort of deathly afraid of rats and someone's went to one of the servants are kind of, you know, being a bit mischievous or whatever. And then they hit a lot of these rats, like run all over her birthday cake, and she's, she screams and she faints, and then her male advisors do sat there use that as like a reason to try to dethrone her because they're saying like, Look, she's not fit for this role. And so that's kind of the stereotypical image I think of the Victorian woman. But what's interesting is, there's a flip side to this idea that the woman were just, you know, really pure and delicate. And the idea is that women were very pure because They were in a sense sort of, there was so much emphasis upon their domestic aspect. But what happened is because they were domestic, they were considered to still be more pure and a sense more spiritually pure in that regard, and the men were the ones who were corrupted, because by the world out there exactly where the men were contaminated. They're the ones who are out in business and industry, this is part of the industrial age, that's here. But what happens is you get these women who are considered to be so spiritually pure, that it's their obligation to exert their spiritual influence upon society. And so some of these other, you know, tendencies about, Hey, what about, you know, the public and the private that we have, are really big considerations there. Because the whole point is that if women are more spiritually pure, they're the spiritual, there's a spiritual, more leaders. And actually, they really need to go out and exert their influence. And what you see during this period, is women taking the lead in a lot of social reform, like the temperance movement. Exactly, exactly. And one things I've found so fascinating is it's not just that they were allowed to do it, they were supposed to do it. Right. And there's so many things that happened in this era, just in terms of it's a very pragmatic age, there's a lot of emphasis upon doing, you have American expansionism the sense that it's America's destiny to go out and impact the world. So you have the golden age of mission, and all that kind of combines. And the other thing I found so interesting about this period is that, you know, women were considered to be the home, they're the domestic realm is theirs, but because of this more expansionist mentality, their home doesn't just end with their individual home, the world is considered their home, and therefore they're supposed to impact the world in terms of the whole world, because the whole world is our home. That's interesting.
6:51 Yeah, that is, and then we kind of get to maybe mid 20th century, and that starts to shift.
6:58 Right, right. And one of the, there various factors, but one of the factors that, of course, comes later is the world wars, right. And particularly after the Second World War, you know, everyone just is tired of fighting and right, there's really not this desire to go out into the world anymore, everyone pretty much just wants to come and stay home. And there's a real longing for peace and stability. And you also, at the same time, have the specter of the Cold War and nuclear war hanging over America. So there's a lot of instability that's going on. And the ordered home provides a sense of refuge for people. So what happens is, you have this sort of contraction of concerns. And the women are still, in a sense, considered the idea of of domestic and the home as being the center. But now it's not the world as being their home. Now, it's pretty much the individual home. And so you have, rather than the sense of being compelled to go on to the world, their ministry focus upon the individual, hopefully
8:00 the nuclear family that they pick into, right and use those use those words. Yeah,
8:04 exactly. And so it's a whole idea. It's like, it's the, you know, the the wife and the husband, and then the house and the white picket fence, and then kids and
8:14 social things, and actually government policy that actually helped that along the whole GI bill actually sort of changed the dynamic with breadwinners, and, and stuff like that, too. So yeah, other things going on, a lot of things go
8:28 exactly, because even during the war, the women were doing a lot of the jobs that the men were doing when they were overseas fighting, but now the men come home, and they have to have jobs. And so the government provides some jobs, and now it's the woman's turn to go back into the home and sort of keep up the home. And what you also have is a sense of there's a innocence of weakening, I think of the corporate responsibility that's there. Because earlier, it was a sense that, you know, women had the obligation to go impact the world, but now there's a focus upon individual fulfillment. And there's a sense in which women will find their fulfillment by staying at home.
9:05 Right. And it's interesting in Sacramento is really a military town. I mean, it's not as much anymore because a lot of the Air Force bases have shut down but there was a ring of Air Force Base. Yeah, even when we Yeah. And and, and it's interesting at the church where I work, the there's It was built in 54. So it kind of postwar and talking to some are the original, like the gentlemen who are here when they were building it, like literally building it with their bare hands. He said after the war, they kind of all came back. And they wanted to focus on like three things, building churches, building schools, and building homes. And and that and so they kind of built those but yeah, then that focus became your house. And that house I currently live in was right around from the church and it was built and now Same time period as. And it was really just that postwar focus on getting your individual piece of land, getting your family. And and yeah, and it seems like that also seems to be where that hierarchy started to maybe to be seen even more even though it's been present right before then. But it was Yeah, then culture of conformity also, there and yeah, to have a smoothly flows, nannies go out and we're right women take care of the home, take care of the children and and then that really kind of lays the foundation for the 50s and early 60s. And then the late 60s happen and just totally explode all of all of American culture. And so yeah, well, how was that? So then that third time period you looked at was the 70s. kind of move? What are some of the shifts that happened in the 70s, that that also add to this conversation?
11:00 Yeah, well, what you have is, in some sense, some of it is I think, response or backlash to what happened in the 50s. Because in the 50s, it began to have more of these, you know, structured gender roles, whereas in the 20th century, it's a little bit more fluid, they're still, you know, do you see these distinctions between men and women, but you don't have it quite as rigid as you'd have in the 50s. And so, in this, you know, in the 60s and 70s, the second feminist movement is often seen as being started with the publication of Betty for dance, the feminine mystique. And what she wrote about in her book was, you know, in the 50s, there was this idea that, you know, women are going to find their fulfillment, by staying at home and focusing upon, you know, raising the kids. And one of the things that she found in her book was that as she interviewed these women, including some of her classmates, is that a lot of them were actually quite unhappy with being at home, and quite unfulfilled. Right, exactly. You know, you know, in that and, and so part of what you do, she calls it the problem that has no name. And what you try to do in this as she kind of considers it in terms of like freeing women from the constraints of the thing, necessarily having to be homebound. You know, in that, and there's a lot of talk about letting a woman have a choice in terms of, you know, whether want to stay home, or this idea that you have to find fulfillment by being in the home. So that kind of sets the stage for a lot of that. And one of the things that's so interesting in terms of the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s, is the distinction between that and what happens in the turn of the century, after the turn of the century is often called the first feminist movement. But one of the things that's different is that in the 60s and 70s, you have a lot of arguments about women's rights, the idea that just women have these natural rights by simply by virtue of fence being human. But what's really interesting is at the turn of the century, the argument for let's say, women's right to vote did not really come from the idea that women had the right to vote. There were some arguments early on, that women should have the women should have the right to vote simply by virtue of having the right in that regard. But that argument was actually was not very successful, because in that corporate other centered era, it was seen as being selfish, and to focus on the individual person. So what happened is, the argument was changed to one that fit the era more, the more corporate era, and this idea that if women do have this superior moral and spiritual nature, well, then we better give them the vote, because they're the ones who are going to be able to vote and make the country better, you know, in this regard, that all these things are necessary for women to have the influence to make the society better. So actually, it's not that there weren't arguments for women's rights in that time period, it just, it didn't take, you know, in that it was pretty much rejected. But in the 1960s, and 70s, things begin to change, we do have to we do tend to focus a little bit more on individual aspects and rights. And you have the civil rights movements, which really paved the way for the argument for rights for the second feminist movement. And so what you do have is, you know, in some sense, the movements are a little bit similar, because they're talking about, like what women can do. But their motivations, and some of the assumptions behind it are quite different. And one of the things I found so interesting, and that is that, you know, they said, I thought that the director was going to be one of just increasing freedom for woman. But to me, the most interesting trajectory that I found was an increasing individualistic emphasis from the corporate, you need to go out and impact the world to focus upon the home, you need to take care of your home to now by the time we get to the 60s and 70s, that a lot of it is about the individual shrinks this fear every time. Exactly. And that itself I mean, as much as we have the debates like hey, you know, is that complementarian or gala? terian? And, you know, what can women do or and in this, but to me, one of the main concerns is, are we really focusing upon the fact That our concerns are becoming in some maybe intense for both, okay, becoming more focused on the individual, and how is that going to impact us?
15:08 Right? That was really fascinating to kind of see that, that, that transition to this focus on individual rights, and then even how we use that to reframe what happened in history, because, because I think up until now, I've always read, I've always framed the the women's suffrage movement as the right to vote, right, like this individual individual, right, that they have as human beings. And, and yeah, the sense of within that culture of our culture at that time of saying, No, we are a corporate right, or a unity, and women do have this place and role and they should be revolt, but it's not, it's different than an individual right. And grasping that. And that does seem, for me, kind of all of these kind of historical factors, do kind of lead up to a point in your book, where you kind of stress that, that those factors are also what has gone into shaping the current evangelical kind of gender role debate. And and we have to be mindful of that, that they didn't just that the general debate within the church didn't happen, unconnected from what was happening in history. And it seems to me a really strong connection, that the current debate is kind of guided by themes of individual rights, authority, power, status, and even equality, as as kind of, you know, a theme from the later transition right later 20th century. And you seem to I think you make a great point, that perhaps those themes aren't the best place to start this conversation.
16:52 Right. And in the book, I try to emphasize, it's not that I think that those themes are irrelevant, you know, I mean, are, are wrong in the park, but I do have a concern about what happens if we start from them. And, you know, if you're just to take an example, like, you know, when we're talking about the Christian life, you know, we really don't want to emphasize on, you know, just oh, what are we supposed to do? How often do we pray, how many times we read the Bible were supposed to do? Can I, you know, can I see this movie? Can I listen to the song? Should my hair be? Exactly because we all know what's going to happen if you do that. And yet, at the same time, when we frame the debate according to authority and equality, it really does lend us questions of what can women do? Can women priests, can women be an elder? Can women teach men? Things like that? And then, for me, the concerns become, how does that shape the way we look at gender? You know, is it's simply a matter of, you know, this is what people can do. But the New Testament talks about, it's more about, you know, what is the new life that we have that manifests itself in what we do as embodied human beings. So that's why what I like to talk about is that, you know, even as we think about things like authority and equality, are there larger things that frame the discussion? Are there as a larger context in which we might understand something, what authority looks like, or what equality might not be? Like? What are more important ways to orient ourselves in terms of how we're relating as men and women?
18:19 Yeah, I think that's an excellent way to to reframe the conversation to, to just to recognize, like, oh, wow, maybe we're starting with the wrong questions. Right. And, and we're starting and, and so it does seem like kind of these historical factors kind of lead into that right and shaped the church. And there also seems to be maybe other factors. And Rex, I know you have kind of a story, you have to confess. So I
18:47 grew up in a pretty fundamentalist environment. And then later on married to a very strong woman, very cultured, very successful, and I was very intimidated. And I hit the patriarchy thing pretty hard in the first few years of our marriage, and my wife actually grew up Baptist too. And so she she was familiar with all that stuff. And for some reason, which is sort of inexplicable to me now, she actually went along with it for a couple of years. But in looking back at what I was trying to do, using using that card, it really wasn't theological or ideological thing. It was actually helping me mask my own anxiety. And so I found that as a very convenient thing to actually mask what was going on with me. And so oftentimes, there's a lot of streams that flow into these these questions and these and these arguments, and I've reflected on that a lot over the years.
19:47 Yeah, that that these kind of themes of, of power or authority, that have been influenced by culture can also then be influenced by by our own experiences and our own like you're saying our own anxieties or insecurities. And so we may use, we may use it. And and again, both sides, right, both sides can use exactly. But I think that was Yeah, when you kind of shared that story of Brexit, it is insightful because yeah, it was not like, no, this is just theological. You know, there was some emotional some, some personal issues happening where I'm going to use this strong sense of authority, strong sense of power. But because I'm really masking my my anxiety or insecurity right now, because of you, and I think that's helpful. Of
20:37 course, I wasn't aware of that at the time, right post facto reaction, but at least I think it's a positive thing that I see that now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And
20:47 thanks for sharing that. Because I think that's a really good story, too. Because I think as we look at this, we really have to think about it in terms of personal sanctification to say, it's not simply that, oh, I've discovered this, okay, men are in charge, or we're all equal. And then there we have it. But as you as you mentioned, that there could be on both sides, you know, in the sense, how are we approaching this? Why are we approaching this? What way? Are we using this? And I think there can be a tendency, like, as long as I have the answer, things, I have my answer, and then this must be okay. You know, this is my personal sanctification, as opposed to how am I be using this? Yeah, yeah. To hide from other issues that I have going on in my life?
21:26 Yeah, if I just have the answer, I'm in charge. And then I can just appeal to that and think, wait, why am I Why am I holding on to this? How am I using this? In my marriage, in my own spiritual life and spiritual formation? I think it really does kind of bring that up. And so you kind of highlighted these themes, like the wrong kind of questions, maybe we're asking, and then I think you did a great job of providing, the more common and and the more stressed Kingdom themes that we see in Scripture? What are a few of those Kingdom themes that might help us kind of reframe this conversation?
22:04 Well, I think a lot of the kingdom themes revolve around a couple of things. And one is that if you look at the way God does things in Scripture, he does a lot of ways that mystify human beings. And the particular one is the idea of the cross, right? The whole idea that God uses a cross something that is shameful, that pitted me a weakness in the Greco Roman world. And ultimately, he uses that as the means by which he saves us. And this idea that, you know, this idea of it's sometimes called this or cruciform it to your cruciform perspective, the idea that just God does things that may, you know, look one way by the world's eyes, but looks differently when you look at it in terms of God's economy. So it becomes a matter of how are we looking at, you know, things in this regard? Do we look at it in terms of our natural human self? Or do we look at it in a way in terms of how is God going to work through things like human being like weak human beings. And so some of the themes I've come up with, and also the sense of just the corporate aspect, even from the beginning, as God works through Israel, and then you're coming back into the New Testament, in terms of the bride of Christ is always this corporate sense. And it's not simply our individual sense of salvation, but what God is doing as a people who are representing him in this regard. So some of the themes that I bring out and I apply to, you know, each position is for the complementarians, I kind of look at like, what do we mean by servant leadership? Because that's a key term. Now, a lot of people use servant leadership, but it becomes a really important term for the complementarian
23:34 leadership language here. But I'm not the only Christian school. We're not look at the look at Christianity today. Look at like the end where they have it like the college advertisement. It's like, wow, I thought we were the only ones that had that slogan, right? Everyone has it.
23:53 It is a really popular thing that you have for both. And but if you look at it, too, and one of the things is we tend to look at servant leadership, we often think about it as leadership that's done in the manner of a servant. In other words, servant becomes a modifier to leadership, but leadership is the main thing. Yeah. But really, when you look at it in terms of you know what Jesus says, he actually doesn't say to, for the leaders to be like a servant, he actually says to be a servant. And if you're thinking about it in a Greco Roman hierarchical context, because they were really big on status, and climbing up the hierarchical ladder, you can either in a sense, be a leader on the top, or you can be a servant or slave on the bottom. And so the idea of the leader, being a servant is not really a modifier as much as it's a paradox. How can you be both? Right? But it's the same idea with a cross, right? How can the cross be weakness and foolishness and at the same time, the wisdom and power of God, it depends on how you're looking at it. And so we really, I think we do need to look at it in terms of this sort of paradox in the way and what is being, you know, how are people being called to do this and The other thing I'd like to bring up to is he doesn't just say that leaders are supposed to be servants. He says leaders are supposed to be slaves. And I think if we did that, it brings out a little bit more the implications a little deeper, because we've used servant leadership so much, and I think it's lost a little bit of its punch in that regard. So I think it's coming back to what did it really mean, you know, in that context, and a lot of what Paul talks about, he talks about his sufferings. If you look at God's ways, God's always working in mystifying ways he chooses the younger over the elder, he uses, you know, 300 people to fight the midianite army rather than, you know, 1000s in that regard. And the reason for doing that is because it shows God's sovereignty, you know, so it's not really a matter of power and position for the individual. It's this idea that God is able to work through weakness, and I think that's something that we really need to investigate a little bit more, because maybe in our American mentality, too, we think of the leader so much as the upon person, they're really strong, and they're powerful, and they are leading us and everyone's following in that regard, which is certainly has its merits, but at the same time, if we're really focusing on that, how does someone really learn how to surrender all to God? And and what does it mean for God to lead to work in someone in that way? And I just wonder if we've really investigated that very much, because we have these, you know, automatic concepts of leadership, which I think is, you know, as Americans, we'd like to be leaders, right? Kind of what we're all about, and we're very good at doing that. I think we're not as good as understanding what it means to be a follower and what it means to submit. But ultimately, I think what the New Testament is talking about is that these leaders lead in the sense of really knowing how to submit, first of all, to God, but also to each other. And then the other thing I might think about as we're thinking about unity, and what is the role the corporate is in terms of, you know, gala, terian, stress, equality a lot. And certainly quality would be a noble goal. But equality does tend to focus a little bit more on, you know, what I get? What are my rights? Now, certainly, those are good things to think about, but they do focus on me. And really, what you think about in the New Testament more is this idea that we've all been included, in the sense we've all been included into the body of Christ. And therefore, if you look at Galatians, 328, sort of the famous passage, which says that you know, about two Greek, slave free male, female, it doesn't say that we are all equal, it says that we are one. Yeah, and the idea of oneness has different connotations than equality is a sense that we're all connected in this regard. And Paul, in First Corinthians 1226, right talks about the one body of Christ says, What's the result of the one body of Christ when one member suffers, all suffer when one member is honored, all rejoice? And so I think if we fought focus on equality, rather than this idea of oneness, we lose the relational implications that are there that really what it's about is everyone's been included these ancient pairings that normally would be indications of being separate, do Greek slave free, actually, now they're one brothers and sisters in Christ, no longer separated, no longer hostile to one another, but being willing even to die for one another.
28:36 Yeah. And it really, I think, changes the conversation completely, right, when you jump off of these themes of power and control and this strong view of a hierarchy in terms of those things, but rather than shift the conversation to unity to oneness, and I think your distinction between oneness and equality is really important because because it's easy to to just kind of make that other swing right you're like well, if I don't agree with complementarian view, then it's just a quality but but making us rethink like okay, we what do we mean by a quality and, and is the theme and scripture rather oneness or inclusion? Like you said, I think that's really important and it has implications for both views. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And that's and that's one thing that I really appreciated about your book and partly I think I appreciate it because I am a nine on the enneagram and so so my There we go. 99 I'm sorry, Rex, we don't have Do we know what you are? I have it on a card but I didn't memorize it. Carry it in your wallet just in case. You're like here it is. Check. Number right. This will help you understand who I am. Yeah today but I think as a nine one of our gifts, maybe is is being able to see both sides of an argument. And also, I think with that seeing a middle way that can actually help both sides. And, and it does seem that I think you've done a great job of kind of stressing if we're asking the wrong questions. Even if we answer them, we still aren't, we haven't gotten anywhere. Like if we're starting with just okay, who's in charge who can lead. Just by answering that doesn't mean, we actually saw that on one side or the other. Because it's still, it's still just a hierarchy based on power and status and authority, rather than this kind of reversal we see in the New Testament. And so I think that's, that's important for me to kind of, to shift to Hey, thinking about starting from a new place with these themes. And so I want to push this kind of, kind of as we land the plane gently. I know you made a confession last night, that, that scholars aren't always the best applicant, you know, appliers, right. Which is kind of the stereotype of us. And, and I can see that too, sometimes, like when I'm preaching like that application points for me are maybe the hardest points to come up with, rather than like maybe the historical background and these unique connections. So I can I can feel your pain on that. But I do think it's interesting to to maybe Wade out into the waters of application here at the end, because I know that seems to be people maybe finish electrolytes last night or even finished the book, or what do I do now? Yeah. And they're like, Alright, because you didn't tell me what to do? Or like, we want to be told what to do. And I know, and I don't think I really like your approach, because I don't think it's helpful to just say, oh, okay, so then this should be the case and be very prescriptive with it. But rather giving people maybe tools of like, Okay, how, if we reframe the conversation to these themes? What does that look like moving forward in, in ministry and in marriage?
32:10 Yeah, I think maybe we should also say to that not only am I a scholar, but also being a nine. Like, okay, let me just talk about I hear you, I hear the paralysis
32:23 of knowing every way to sing the complications of everything,
32:27 right. Yeah, I know, you're just like, well, this is so interesting. Let me think about a little bit more. Exactly. So well, maybe I can give a couple a couple thoughts here in terms of what what people can actually do with all of this. One of the things I like to say is the purpose of, you know, the book and what I'm trying to do is not necessarily to try to convert anyone, I'm not really saying that complementarian should be egalitarian or Gala. terian should be complementarians. Part of what I'm trying to do is just really open up the discussion so we can broaden it. If we do think that these categories are a little limiting, and then maybe even harmful for us in terms of like, limiting the way we look at gender, perhaps causing some other unintentional problems. I like to think that what I hope what I can do is make complementarians better complementarians and egalitarians, better egalitarians. And then perhaps somewhere in the process, we can move a little bit more towards Okay, what as what are we really, you know, pointing towards? And this because one of my concerns is that is that as we focus upon things like rights and positions and power, it does really focus on us. It sets us against one another. And also, we really, I do think we begin to lose our focus upon God. Paul talks about in First Corinthians three, six, he says, I planted Apollo's watered, and God gave the growth. And I just get concerned sometimes that we're really kind of forgetting or not integrating as much what does it mean for God to give the growth as we live according to this cruciform perspective? So just to give you some practical thoughts, in terms of how I might see this applying is that one of the things I think is that I do think there needs to be a balance between both the individual and the corporate focus, I'm not denying that I think it is important to to be aware that we are individuals and then God has individually gifted us that we have, you know, all made, you know, when we make a decision for Christ, that it is as an individual in this regard. But as we think about when Paul says in First Corinthians 12, seven to eat is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, there is both the to each and common good that is there. And part of my concern is so I might say, for the complementarians, if each is given a manifestation of the common good. I do think in Scripture, there is this general sense in which these manifestations are to be used for the entire church. And I think this is compatible compatible with a male leadership perspective, because Paul in Ephesians, four talks about, you know, God has set up in the church, you know, apostles prophets, you know, teacher shepherds, I'm in order to equip the saints, for the work of ministry. So I think within a male leadership perspective, you can still have male leadership. And what they're doing is they are equipping the saints. because really what it is, is the saints are the ones who are to be doing the work of ministry, right, and maybe not the sense of, it's only just the, quote unquote, leadership that is doing that. But everyone who has been gifted according to act two, is to contribute. So I think there is a way in which there can be more of a liberal leaf of the giftings for in the church, which I think is, is compatible with what you see in the New Testament. And so just as a practical concern that if you have a male leadership perspective, in this regard, it doesn't necessarily mean that the church has to be only male voices. That's her publicly or a predominantly male presence, or what I've heard also, too, is this idea of is it does it become a male culture, you know, in that regard, because I do think that church, as you have at San First Corinthians 12, has, you know, it's a gifting and I don't necessarily see a big gender difference in terms of the voices that you have in the assembly. And first Corinthians 11, does talk about woman prophesying in the assembly? So there might be maybe a little bit that is compatible, you know, with that, as we're thinking about that, and then I would perhaps say for the gal terrines, as we think about the idea of it's more of this oneness, inclusion, rather than mother than a focus on right, we might want to think about how does, how are we thinking about it in terms of a corporate concern? Because right does tend to put the focus upon me. And but the whole idea of inclusion? is, it is incense more, what do I give the whole idea of being in the body of Christ, it's not just that I have this right to do something. But the point is, now that we're in the body, I have an obligation, right, okay, to help there. So my focus is, is different. And not only that, Paul talks about demand, and my affections are different, you know, I now see that if someone is hurt, then that hurts me too. I'm called to love one another. And but if we're focusing more upon the things I'm not getting, and these are the things I want to get, it's just a different orientation. And I think we really need to be thinking about what does this sort of other centered focus mean? And in light of this,
37:17 yeah, and I think for me, as I was kind of reading your book, and listening last night, I was kind of getting this vision of Yeah, if we, if we actually lived in a kingdom, that was guided by these themes of humility, and unity and oneness, and really understood that that reversal theme of the New Testament, then it seems like we would be in a place where, no matter what side you're on, it would be a place of, of humility, where we could humbly like humble ourselves, to learn from one another right to hear from, from every voice to to be led by one another. And, and then ultimately to serve everyone. Right. Right. And, and, and that, and I think it is important for you to like, I'd like your examples, because it helps on both sides. So even if it's in a context of male leadership, that would still be this unity and love that would give a proper place for, for everyone's voice focus
38:25 on the kingdom and not on a theory of leadership or theory of rights and rights. Just it's a different. It's what we assume Yeah, written in the New Testament were supposed to be about anywhere. Right.
38:35 Exactly. And, and like he kind of said, and he ended last night, I think so powerfully. The idea that, if we just, we feel like if we answer and overstate if we answer that question of who can lead or who can do what we think the problem will be solved, and it won't. And and it's because those issues of authority and status and power are the wrong issues. And they're the wrong themes. And as the church is being guided by these greater themes of love, and humility, and oneness, that moves us into a completely different Kingdom than we're currently in. So thank you so much for for helping us I mean, helping us here, Jessup and helping me kind of broaden this conversation and and bring new language into that conversation.
39:26 Thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate the chance to meet everyone and to be here and to dialogue.
39:31 Great. And I'm also we've I've said on the show before, but I'm a Talbot grad and wonderful. Yeah, even better. grad. There we go. So we got a good connection, all the connections everywhere. That's good.
39:48 I knew there was something really special about you guys.
39:52 Exactly. That's right. Well, just thanks again, so much for being on the show. Thank you again for having me. Thank you for listening to Jessup thing. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes. These reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
40:24 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex get philosophical for an episode covering the powerful but tricky arena of existential philosophy. Questions of humanness and existence are covered, as well as a quick primer on key thinkers in existentialism.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Hey, welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And today we're going to talk about existentialism, existentialism, that's how many syllables is that? Yeah, it's a lot. It's a good Scrabble word. I think we're gonna be using a lot of multisyllabic words, we are you prepared? Yeah, buckle up, get your dictionary out. The Saurus. Get Google ready, because this is just a thanks, you understand is we're trying to make you think. But now really excited because I think that existentialist thought raises some really good questions that Christians and non Christians wrestle with everybody, Russ? Yeah, everyone wrestled with. And so we're excited to kind of explore and maybe learn a little bit about existentialism sounds good to me.
0:53 Rex, we're gonna be looking at a topic that I really enjoy, and I think you enjoy talking about and we'll see, we'll see if the listeners enjoy this topic. But it might be a topic. It's a, it's definitely gonna be a term that people have heard. But it often goes undefined. And there's often some
1:09 misunderstandings. Yeah, exactly. People are talking about when they talk about it,
1:13 right. Yeah. So we're going to talk about existentialism, that's the term with baggage. That's right, definitely has a lot of baggage in it. But it also this way, I like to think about it as it has a lot of potential. And it has a lot of potential because I think there's a lot happening within existential philosophy, that that bled into some existential theology and right, we'll get there.
1:36 But in existential philosophy, it kind of highlights a little bit of the human condition. These are questions, mark that, you know, not just eggheads in exalted institutions, each other, or in a cafe in Paris, in a cafe in Paris, while you're sipping your cappuccino, exactly. But they are questions that everybody if they live, perhaps they don't articulate it using some of the philosophical language that writers will use. But these are questions that are are human questions that? Yeah, I would say everybody in some way, Russell's with at some point in their lives,
2:10 right. Yeah. And so I want to kind of start with just throwing out a definition of existentialism because it's a, it's a term that once you know the definition of him, you can use it a lot. And then I noticed sometimes people look at me, they're like, wait, what, what does existentialism mean? And and so you can think of it this way is of a philosophical theory or approach. JOHN mcqueary, who was a Christian theologian, existential theologian, he calls it a style of philosophizing. So it's not just one school of philosophy. But it's a it's a philosophical approach different iterations, yeah. iterations, which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent, determining their own development through acts of the will. So this idea of of existentialism is really focused on our What does it mean to exist, right? And what does it mean to be a person who has freedom who has responsibility? And who is a decision maker? That that is one one line that I think you will really see. And we see kind of existentialism beginning with Kierkegaard. He's often called the father of centrism, although he probably be like, What? But as he kind of started these, these themes that are then more fully developed, kind of in Germany, and France and France, yeah, the 20th century, and, and this idea of the person as a decision maker, one way that I,
3:48 when I'm trying to kind of have a pithy phrase to try to, you know, articulate, existential isn't to my students, I'll use the phrase existence precedes essence. Yeah. And and if folks can't figure out what exactly that means, right. The other way to talk about it is perhaps saying something like, I'm here now what?
4:10 Right? And I talked about that a lot, actually. Right. Yeah. saying, Yeah, the design right means just being here, thrown this Yeah, thrown into this world. And yeah, I have to somehow find meaning make writing. And I think that that is really good. And that that seems to be I know that the one phrase and I wanted to talk a little bit about that, that existence precedes essence, because that seems to be really kind of one of the main mantras of john Paul Sartre. So So when you think of existentialism, you want to think of maybe some key players. So Kierkegaard would be one. Martin Heidegger, so German philosopher, then john Paul Sartre. And now bear Kumu. And, and then Simone de Beauvoir, right As a female, and she was kind of connected with Sartre, Sartre and that whole, but I've been doing more reading from her and really interested in her understanding of existentialism. Now, Sartre and Kambou are definitely coming from an existentialism that is focusing on coming from an atheistic rolling view, right. And obviously, Kierkegaard is coming from a Christian point of view, right.
5:24 There are two different streams of existentialism.
5:27 And then Heidegger really develops some of the language that I think we use with existentialism, and he influences then some Christian theologian, right, like Rudolf bultmann. Tillich, law was happening in Germany.
5:45 And one of my favorite theologians of the 20th century is actually a Jesuit and Karl rahner. And Karl rahner, actually, you know, I think, took some seminars with Heidegger, or at least, right, right, right, showed up at some of his classes, and actually did his doctoral dissertation in philosophy on Heidegger, and something else. But oh, on Heidegger and Thomas Aquinas. Really, yeah, really interesting. But, you know, you can actually kind of I don't know, Flunk your dissertation. But yeah, his, his advisor, or the person that was overseeing his dissertation and refused to accept it. So he never got that doctrine philosophy. Of course, he ends up getting a doctorate in theology and becoming one of the most famous theologians of the 20th century. And one of his books that he publishes, of course, is his reworked philosophy dissertation. Yeah, everybody thinks is genius. But his advisor did not like Heidegger just in so it's just like, you mentioned that name. I'm not gonna pass it. Right. It's, it's interesting, the games that are played sometimes
6:45 Yeah, that's true. And and, and it's interesting in terms of like, existential thought, some of these names you may have heard them, our listeners may have heard them be like, Oh, yeah, I was taught never to read anything from Sartre or read anything from Kambou or talk or write Yeah, artilleryman. Yeah, definitely. And, and but I think it's, I'm fascinated by it. And I'm fascinated by existentialism, because, because it is how you're describing it starts with these questions, that that seemed to be almost all I think, Heidegger and Sartre and commu were highlighting was, hey, these questions are, are present in our lives. And we need to know how to deal with them. And that that phrase, existence precedes essence. I always assume when you say that, that a cloud of smoke should be around you when you say it, because it is a very elusive I mean, I'm a sucker for definitions that need to be defined.
7:42 Okay. nebulous. Right? That's one reason why I always have to say something else after that, right? Because I just get stares back at me,
7:49 but that idea of I'm here, now, what is a good understanding? And you can think I've heard it described this way to that, like take a table or a bookshelf, the essence of the table exists before the table exists, right is going to be this flat surface that's going to hold books, if one Blacknest but yeah, yeah, well not like a true form, okay. essentialist. But like, the essence of a bookshelf exists, you know what it's going to do its function. And it can take many shapes, but it kind of right. But in human beings, the existential philosopher is gonna say, No, you exist before your essence, right? There's no essence that said, this is who Rex is going to be and he's going to like these things, and he's going to do this. And what that then existence does, means the now it is up to you to to discover your essence right? And maybe create right and build and, and searcher was, I mean, you do make your point, Sartre and many the existentialist were speaking against what are called essentialists, which essentially will be like there is this essential form. And then and so I, I've always been intrigued by that. Now, I've heard a variation of that okay. It actually comes from another Catholic priests got a major in buncombe, who was also existentialist and psychologist, but He rewards it this way He rewards or essence, his existence. So, so what it means to be a human is to exist, to be here, and to move and, and I kind of like that because I think maybe with the, I think there are some essential qualities of being human. Maybe one of those being made in the image of God, right like that is part of God's the fount of all existence, and there will be a link in there Yeah, with all the created order, but I also like the idea of, but existence is this development and This process of you facing the world and making decisions for yourself and for many people, it's a chronic source of anxiety. Yeah. And that's, that's the only thing. I mean, I think that until it brings us up a lot that he felt that existential philosophy captured the the anxious thoughts of the human condition. And I
10:23 think there's a lot to be said, for that. However, there have been a number of, you know, popular commentators, especially in our neck of the woods, right, right, who have, you know, looked askance at existentialism. Very, actually, I'm not going to say his name, very popular Christian apologist has this to say about existential as he says, so long as those who would be believers in God yearn for a faith that does not demand too much belief in the supernatural, or the accuracy of the Bible, then theistic existentialism would be a live option, which for this writer means essentially a cop out,
11:01 right? Yeah, that it's, I guess it's an option. But if you don't really want God to be real,
11:07 I have I have actually heard. I've had students that have said that they have been told, obviously by adjuncts that don't work here anymore. That you cannot be an existentialist and a Christian at the same time, you just cannot those things are mutually exclusive. Which in one soons case, was really bothering him a lot because he thought of himself and he had thought long and hard about his faith as a Christian existentialism. Yeah, many years I can can't be had you had to make a choice here.
11:36 One that seems to be a misunderstanding. Now, obviously, if you are an existentialist in the vein of Sartre, then you're you're making a clear statement, right? There is no God. And I'm sure this is coming. Right. Yeah, there is no ultimate purpose. And so okay, we I can agree with that. But I think we would also do a disservice if we would then just get rid of existential thought, because I think it does raise questions. And actually, I think kirkegaard, right, in many ways raises those questions. First of, and he uses phrases that are going to be very, they're going to be common to us, but they are existential phrases, right? And the phrase of authenticity and inauthenticity, right? Like, the authentic life is a life that is lived from the person, not because other people are telling you what to do, and you're not just following the herd. And
12:31 what's fascinating about that, Mark, is that I think that it would seem to me that that language would be very familiar to those who, you know, live and move and have their being an evangelical Christian, right? Yeah, I would posit that our language of faith is chock full of existential silvertips, in the church I was raised with and it just kind of goes back to Kierkegaard for Kierkegaard sort of against the the Danish Lutheran establishment. Right, right, you know, kind of a churchianity instead of authentic Christianity, right. And I've always heard things like, you know, going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than being in a garage makes you a car. You know, you can't get into heaven on the faith of your, you know, God doesn't have any grandchildren. He just says children, those are ways to articulate something like you have to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, or that relationship somehow is invalid. And I actually believe that myself, right. But, you know, that's using existential as language actually.
13:33 Yeah. When you really look at that it's that isn't an existential viewpoint. Hey, what it means to be authentic is for
13:42 a person engaged with something authentic in me or it's inauthentic, which is really interesting, that it's
13:47 that it's not just you following the crowd, are you following this? some form of cultural Christianity, which is what Kierkegaard was arguing against, right? This idea of understanding this has to come from you. And I stress that all the time to my students, you know, that, that faith has to come from you. It can't be your parents faith, it can't be Jessop's faith, it can't be my faith. It has to be your faith. Right? It really does. And that, yeah, when you really get down to it, that is an existential
14:19 point of I also think that and this is not original with me very, very little as originally, I read somewhere, and I've totally run with it, because I it's just really sounded true to me, that existential language, especially in whatever world we're living in right now, be it the postmodern moment or whatever you want to say postmodern, right? That that in this moment, on one of the few ways that you can actually talk about your faith with you know, educated folks, right realize using existential language because that's the only language that even rings as authentic to them, right. And it's really common for educated Christians and you know, the exam That sort of us is someone who, you know, born and raised in evangelical home, they go to a secular University State University right now. And they've taken into philosophy or you know, World Religions classes, or they've run into Bart Ehrman in a class or something, somewhere. And so they've heard all the arguments, you know, they know all about higher criticism, they know all about the, you know, all the stuff, right. And yet they graduate and they're out in the world, and they're still Christian. It's like, I still I know all this stuff. Yeah, I still believe it. I don't dismiss all the stuff that that all the arguments against it is mere nonsense. I understand where they're coming from. Yeah. But yet, when they're asked about their faith, it's like, Yeah, I know, I know, I know that. I know that Been there, done that. I've dealt with that. But still, all I can say is that, you know, I have experienced the reality of God in my life. And then you start to the existential language, but I don't see any other way. You can even talk about your faith, it's going to resonate with anybody, right, if you don't talk about it that way. Because, yeah, how can you argue with someone's experience? No, he did not feel that right. No, he did not have had experiences. Yeah, what? You know,
16:10 and there also seems to be a thing within existential thought. That is, and I feel like a lot of the existential theologians after Kierkegaard and even getting into the 20th century, they were really understanding how existential language and thought provides this common ground, right, between all human experience like we, we all experienced this. In existential language, it would be estrangement. Right? So talk to talk to me a little bit. Talk to us. about Paul Tillich, yeah, well, teleca, so is a German theologian in mid 20th century, who's most of his career was here. Yeah, most of the career, he did not agree with Hitler, and what was happening. And so he was gently asked to leave in 1933. And no, but luckily, he did get out and, and he was invited actually over to the US by Ronald neighbour to come to Union Theological Seminary. And then he spends greater, almost three decades at Union before doing a little bit at Harvard, and a little bit at a University of Chicago. And he really saw the existentialism of Heidegger, and this existential language as the best way to connect theology to human condition and human existence. And so he was kind of it was this kind of new model, a new way to do theology where he instead of starting with God, he started with the questions of, of humanity. He also reworked the language of some core theological concepts into existentialist language.
17:47 I mean, the interesting thing about that love them or hate them, we like it or not, whatever, at least within the framework of what he is doing with that language. It works, you can do that you can totally do that. And
17:58 it's a little tricky when you first start reading it, because you're like, Wait a second, what does this word mean? But even take that word estrangement? So this idea this, this existential thought that that we are somehow Yes, and we were, we are estranged from what Mark right from, from being around the ground of being
18:22 like, yeah, we need to put on new being and Jesus Christ, to somehow deal authentically with our estrangement.
18:28 It's like that stuff works. Right. And that's it. And I think we all kind of feel that whether you're Christian or not, you kind of feel this deep. And we would call it a deep existential, maybe despair of, yeah, what am I connected to? Right, that gives my life meaning it gives my life purpose. And by the time I mean, I think one thing that the existential philosophers understood and either even the atheist ones, and atheistic ones with Sartre and kemu, they understood that by the time we get to the middle of the 20th century, even early 20th century, we've kind of in the modern mind have erased God. Right. And so there is nothing to lean back on. And it kind of throws us into despair, right,
19:15 especially when you consider the, you know, geopolitical situation, right, all lived through right there. And, you know, come move, particularly he's Algerian, I mean, French Algerian, right, right. appeared Nah, I think is what they call them. And so he's got a double whammy there that he's dealing with.
19:29 Right. And he's experiencing this, this lack of meaning this is bear the same estrangement, and Tilak is picking up on that now. Now khemu would answer that differently. Right, Kimbo would say, yeah, we just have that feeling and all you can do in the midst of that is just kind of grin and bear kind of smile. Like you can move kind of uses this idea of Sisyphus smiling which there's a fear sort of listicle II Yeah, system. versus the you know, is in Greek mythology, he is condemned. Because he plays a trick on Hades. You're condemned Yeah, that'll get you gotta watch out for this condemned to, to rolling the boulder up the hill, and then it just returns and it's just futile. Right? And khemu says kind of he has this idea of Sisyphus smiling. That Yeah, we are in life is meaningless. We're condemned to this but you can you can kind of smile in the midst of it. And get grin and bear it from Yeah, it might be Yeah, like grant and push the boulder push the boulder up. And this this, this idea of Tillich would kind of come in and answer that and say now what we connect on this estrangement. But it's it's an estrangement from Yeah, well, we will call the ground of being until it uses that phrase to understand God is the ground of being for a couple of silicon antidotes personally. So I did my doctoral dissertation on Time magazine is reportage of Religion The United States is, it's one of those things. You can't actually, you know, talk about in a soundbite. But anyway, that's basically what it was. And
21:11 when Henry Luce was inviting all the folks that were on the cover of Time Magazine, this is like for the 25th anniversary, something like that. I think it was at the Waldorf Astoria in New York's his big deal. And and, you know, Time magazine had a had a more prominent place in American culture during that time, right. And so everybody had been on the cover, not everybody came here from her dad, anyway, whatever. Yeah. But he was looking for a keynote speaker. And he was looking for a speaker that he thought had something to say to everyone in that room. It is fascinating, because one of those people that was on the cover of Time, because they actually used to put theologians on the crime Time Magazine, yeah, go figure, go figure. And he was the keynote address. The person that gave it was Paul Tillich, because he thought that the guy actually has something to say to everybody. Second anecdote, I had to read his systematic theology when I was in seminary. And second time around, yeah, not at my first seminary. I actually, you know, was reading it, and I understood it, it was sort of resonating with me, but you know, good old Southern Baptist boy, I felt really guilty for understanding what was going on. And so I actually talked to my professors like I, I don't get the fact that I get this. I mean, so talk to me about that. And he said, Well, let me tell you a little secret. It's like back in the 50s. And 60s, Southern Baptist pastors would go into their closet, and they'd pull a sheet over them, and they get a flashlight, and they would read till it. Because there's something in that there's sort of that existentialist language that that was congruent a little bit with the way in using other words, right, we were talking about our faith experience all along. Yeah, we know whether we liked it or not. We got it. We got what he was doing.
22:54 Yeah. And so I think one thing for this cuz I could, I mean, I'd love existential thought and anxiety. I mean, I, we can do like 10 of these. Oh, yeah, we can just keep going. But, but to make this even, like, practical for someone who's like, okay, yeah, existential, I'm hearing some of these names. I think you can, for me, a couple of these handles are helpful that have been helpful in my own life. Okay. And, and it is kind of this this concept of freedom and responsibility, that that one of the things within existential thought and actually Sartre says this, Sartre says man is condemned to be free. Right, right. Right. So freedom, we often think of like, yeah, we're free, this is great. But freedom is can be a sentence, right? That condemnation and sense that you are condemned because you're thrown into the world and you're responsible for everything you do. Right? And, and that this is where within existential thought, that idea of anxiety comes in right there the feeling of anxiety of man, I am in this world, and I have all of this freedom, in some ways, I'm paralyzed by the freedom of choice, right?
24:06 Of what I can do with it has to choose actually tend to not choose I mean, to not choose it's actually toys. Yeah, and, and, and one thing such a desktop about that. I'm not particularly a fan of his conclusions, right, sort of, about finding authenticity, you know, and, you know, it may be just a random thing, but you have to somehow find, you know, some authentically find some authentic meaning for your life, even if the meaning is not actually, you know, a permanent transit translate. Yeah, but you still need it. And he talks about in authentic ways of dealing with that and what I don't like about that is of course Sartre actually thinks that like you know, religious answers are the most right answers are inauthentic answers and that's kind of where I jump off the right boat but right but yeah, What he's what he's actually getting at is that we do have that need to find actually have a book right here in front of me that we're not going to talk about right now. But it's an apologetic book, and I'll kind of wave it around. And one of my classes, yes, the language is kind of arcane enough to So for most of us, it's titled existential reasons for a belief in God. A defense of desires and emotions for faith. Yeah, fascinating. You can do apologetics that way also, right?
25:25 You really can. And that, that idea of I mean, I think that's something that we can really grasp, even in our in our lives is this idea that, as individuals, we have that unique gift of existence, to to be who we are. And that language is all over the evangelical world. Right. Right, to be who you are. And and really, it's, it's kind of interesting, because one of tilex most famous popular books was the courage to be right, the idea of the courage to be as oneself Brian, that's where he would he would add that a little bit more. And, and that really does I mean, it really does take courage for you to decide now. Now, for Tillich and other Christian theologians. This isn't separate from God, right? It is actually being connected with God, exactly. But in that connection with God, you, you get to find out who you are, right, and you. And so that's, I think, one reason why I've been kind of drawn to existential language and connecting it to theology, because I think we do function in that way. And it's better done. And it's really helpful to understand ourselves as decision makers, right? We're not King in the world, we're not King, but as an individual, I'm in this unique position, and I have the freedom and sometimes we can get paralyzed by that freedom and, and an inauthentic life is to just go along with everyone else, right? You can do that. In normal life. You can also do that in religions. You certainly can you can just go along like oh, I'm here at Jessup. Everyone's going to chapel I'm just I have to go to chapel so I go even more Okay, people raising their hands, I guess I'll raise my hands I'm here. And it still seems to be feeling something so I'll generate some sort of writing and and and and in authentic part of that is not the fact of a chapel required chapel even. We're not talking about hypocrisy here, which in authenticity is very different than in authenticity is just the fact that it does not originate with you. Right? It doesn't originate with you. But to be an authentic person is now this is my thought now, doesn't mean you have to disagree with everyone else. And
27:40 it also doesn't mean that you have to just deny all influences around you right right up owning them. I just finished reading the second part of the trilogy that Jamie Smith wrote about, about Christian formation, essential rights replete with philosophical language, that sentence bores me to tears actually, right. But But I understand why he's doing what he's doing, right. But part of what he's doing is talking about how worship and how Christian discipleship do sort of form us. And that formation, then can serve as, as, you know, something that does impact the way that he would feel. And what I would feel is the authentic meaning that we can write that we can that we can have. And that's really interesting, because he's going to suggest that, and this is maybe something for another podcast, or this is just like you said, we could talk about this stuff forever, right? But it's almost like authenticity needs to somehow be found in community and not in isolation. So it's not like me, you know, raging individualism, finding my meaning at the top of the hill, and then now I'm the grind, everybody comes up, but it's a community. And of course, you know, that's what the church is at its most authentic, authentic Christian community, which is right, meaning driven.
29:00 Yeah. And you find purpose in that you can be authentic in a community, right? And the community is at its healthy when everyone is coming in an authentic way. Right. And we long for that. And so I think that that theme of authenticity is really important, in existential thought and just our lives that even even like what we want to do with our lives and the decisions we make, we often don't do those authentically, maybe they don't come from us, they come from what other people want us to do what we think culture wants us to do. And and I think Kierkegaard and Sartre and kemu and Heidegger and Tillich would all join voices and say, No, you decide, right, you have to you have to play a part because God has given you know, until it can, especially in character, I would say, No, God has gifted you with this moment, and this existence, and it's your chance now, within that condemnation to freedom does come That feeling of anxiety,
30:02 because it's inescapable. Those questions are inescapable. Yeah. Look at that as condemnation, I guess is one way to talk. Right? Yeah,
30:08 it's one way. And I think that the possibility of that would be another way. But that that feeling of just anxiety of Am I making the right choice, am I? And even I think in the Christian community that that anxiety comes up a lot through a phrase of like, Am I doing God's will? So
30:25 do you think Mark that because I've often thought about this, and I'm thinking about it right now? Yeah, this is that, should I do everything I can to relieve this anxiety? Or is there something in that anxiety? That's actually key to my authenticity?
30:42 Yeah, I think I think it's recognizing that anxiety, recognizing that maybe that anxiety is coming from the fact that you are in a position to make an authentic decision. Okay. Okay. Right, that it, that it comes from that, okay. And, and, and that is like, and that's where, and that's where Tillich brought in this idea, that's where courage comes in. Like, it does take courage to be who you are. And, and man, I
31:09 think in the church, if we are, if we are being more of who we are called to be and as individuals and an effect, and it does take a certain amount of courage with that I often does. And I've stated this before, and I still think it's true. And the longer I live, it doesn't become any less true is that you know, my, my following Jesus, and my, my desire to emulate him and to, you know, walk the Christian road actually does not make my life easier. It makes my life much more difficult, right, not because of some imagined persecution, although sometimes that's there, whatever. It's not just because there's stuff I want to do that I can't do is actually stuff that I, I should do that I don't want to do. Right? That's what actually makes it difficult. It's like, Yeah, no, it's so it takes it takes a certain amount of, of that if I say this, it sounds self aggrandizing. But it takes a certain amount of courage for anybody to actually want to consciously, right, authentically walk that road. And I think Jesus talks about that all over in the Gospels.
32:18 Yeah. And, and with this kind of anxiety that we feel, and a lot of times you'll hear this, the term even use, like an anxious existential anxiety or an existential anxiety. So we use that term, one of the things that Tillich did, and this might be a good, good kind of landing place. One thing that Tillich did was to express this idea of acceptance, in the midst of our anxiety, that that he felt, one of the things we can do as human beings, is to merely accept the fact that we are accepted, that we are accepted by the ground of being
32:59 doesn't necessarily mean resignation. And norka guard actually, right, well, well, we'll talk about the difference between faith and resignation. Right?
33:07 Definitely. Yeah, it's not resignation is not like, Oh, this is, I guess, my cop out, or this is my crutch. But it's not if the, if this anchor is coming from this idea that I'm estranged from something that I should be connected to, right. intellicus saying, that thing, that ground of being which is God, right, and so Tillich would like whisper it, that's God, in a German deep German accent. He would say, No, and all you need to do is accept that you are accepted, accept that God is accepting you. And that's that place to start. But what I love about this and kind of what I want to bring it up on as a podcast, just for the fact for me and you to talk about existentialism because it's fun to talk about. And we can get deeper three people that are listening to this we have, they're gonna love it, they're gonna love it. Right. The but the idea that I think it does, it has a lot of experiences that we all write
34:04 that everyone feels and experiences and this is an exercise in demystification something. Yeah. Because we're not talking about something esoteric, we're talking about something that that everyone experiences.
34:16 Yeah. So so it might be interesting for people to explore a little bit more of these existential questions and, and highlight the existential questions they have in their own life of, yeah, why do I exist? What gives my life purpose? What gives my life meaning? Why do I feel this anxiety like when I'm by myself, and nothing's going on? I can just have this anxious feeling. Where's that coming from? And and that's just for one part of the world we live in right now. Right? And Tilak kind of noted these three ages of anxiety. And he actually notes that in the 20th century now 21st century for us. We are in that age of spiritual anxiety. We're in an age that's marked by a loss of meaning and emptiness. And, and yeah, if you if you're not connected to this ground of being this god, it's hard to find meaning right and hard to find that purpose. And and I love how Tillich uses those existential questions to to correlate and that's a big word for Tillich to correlate with this, this theological message, this message of God. Well, there's a lot more we could say on potentialism we get deeper into Kierkegaard maybe we'll do a little Kierkegaard de czerka Dr. Richard moelis, his he always says kirkegaard is his boy. Okay. Yeah. That's right. unruly Dane. So, um, so we'll Yeah, we'll highlight that some more. And and I hope that maybe you walk away, the listener walks away from this podcast, understanding maybe your role in existence that existence is this unique experience. Right? And that you have this this freedom in God to to decide on what you want on who you are and what you because you're not alone in that you're not alone. xiety or in the decision that will relieve that anxiety. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
36:44 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex charge into the dangerous territory of student questions. Without preparation or forethought, they attempt to answer a question drawn from a collection of theology students.
TRANSCRIPT
0:09 Hey, welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And today Rex we are. I'm excited. And I'm nervous about today's episode, 0:19 we are going where no podcast has dare to go before, which is probably not true. But 0:25 we have not heard. And we definitely have not gotten there yet. But But today we're coming in with no topic. That's right, no direct kind of question. But rather, we're 0:38 coming in with a collection of questions, and we are just going to answer them on the fly, but profoundly 0:43 profoundly on the fly. And, and these are questions that actually have come up in my theology class. So I teach a Christian theology class, that's all students have taken here. Jessup, no matter what their major is, and I love classes like that. For one, everyone has to take it. So it's kind of job security. But B, I really like just hearing questions from different perspectives, not just maybe from the Bible majors or theology majors. And, and so the last, we cover a lot of different categories of theology, kind of the traditional ones. But then last class of every semester, I kind of take a page out of Reddit, and I just do an AMA and asked me anything, so I can just write down and they can do it anonymously. So I just give them a half sheet of paper, they write down question, I do a similar thing, you know, and I kind of answered them in class. So I've, I've seen some of these questions, depending on what I randomly grab, okay, and this is random. desk right here, right now, this is, you know, in terms of magic, we are trying to be fully transparent, at least in the studio, studio. You can trust us at home, you can trust us. And, and and so I've I've seen them on a side know, some different categories, but I'm excited Yeah. Like to, to highlight because a lot of these questions represent the deep questions, right? We have right, and people have 2:15 these questions is, yeah. 2:17 And I think it's so important for the church for Christian universities, to, to handle and talk about the questions that people actually have, right, like, often, right? We don't, we're like, oh, that's great. But I really had this question. And, 2:38 and what we're hoping is that these if you hear some awkward pauses, then we came up with a question that is unanswerable on the air at least suggested think that's right. And right, and I'm hoping we don't have too many of those. I remember when I was in college, I took an Edgar Allan Poe class. And one of the few stories that I really remember by Edgar Allan Poe was this story called The imp of the perverse, where of the perverse, which is, I guess, this little, I don't know, creature that sort of purchase on your shoulder and makes you do things, inappropriate things that you know, are going to ruin your life, but you can't help but do it anyway. And sometimes, when I was in college, I would almost have to grasp the desk, because I would feel after I read that story that I needed to ask a completely inappropriate question that had nothing to do with anything and was a distressing question in class knowing it would ruin my semester and, and yeah, not only get me kicked out of school, but it's like, I just almost had to ask that question. Fortunately, I never did that. 3:38 I never said come to the verse But is there I mean, this is this kind of like, you know, an angel. Is there apparently there was angel of the nonpreferred I never did ask those questions. I hope we don't get there we go. Yeah, I'm sure there's you know, some students out there that have that same. Alright, I pulled one okay. Out of the pile. I'm not sure I'm nervous. It's good. It's good. never hurt me a little bit. We're going totally on the fly here are all right. Okay. Um, and I guess we can just kind of go like I'm seeing that Rex has not seen it yet. So I have not seen here. Okay. And and actually, I think this is a an interesting one. I'm trying to think of an answer while you're equivocating? No, I just, I just you know, and we may have time, you know, for a couple questions that you never know. Okay. But here we go is what does the Bible say about using swear words? What is your mother say? 4:49 actually thinking about what my mother was, actually, and my mother proud graduate of Bob Jones University. So that should pretty much there we go. I'll place her on. The theological spectrum right there. Yes, I would say that. That is basically what the commandment in Exodus 20 is talking about when it says do not take the name of the Lord in vain. Yeah, although half the swear words, I know don't mention anything particularly religious in them might be a stretch, but that's how it was. That's how it was explained to me when I was growing up. 5:25 Right. And, and we had growing up, I grew up also in the Midwest, and so and they had, they had kind of added so there's like your list of traditional swear words. 5:41 Right? And they're probably ranked right right in there, right? Oh, yeah. top one, y'all know what that is? I'm not saying I'm not saying anything. 5:52 But we also had like a, I would say, a secondary list. Okay. And maybe even like a tertiary list of words, you could not say that weren't on any of the main lists, but in our house, there was still like, okay, like, you couldn't even say the words that also may be reflected. Those are other words. So it was like, three steps of removal from, from even getting close to those words, but for me, this is an interesting question. Because I think it I think it may be exposes how we, how we approach our faith, and maybe how we approach morality in that sense. And in the idea of, and we've had a podcast we actually had Porsche on and, and we talked about language and theology, we talked about how language affects us. And, and I do think it's interesting of our use of language and how it affects us now in one instance, these swear words, especially and I'm and I'm assuming with with this student, and and this question, they are talking about swear words in English, right? We know Right, right. And, and so it's already 7:16 the running through our own minds right now. So yeah, we've got them we've got them, right. 7:22 But it's already kind of localized, right? I mean, it's in English. And one thing that I think I've come to realize like okay, these are words that we have created like there's no biblical list of words. That says knives this word 7:38 I guess, I guess maybe there is one remember a sermon on the mountain where it says do not call your brother What is it? Raka Yeah, maybe that is one that's like the the one and forget like that word. I like that. Which is interesting because that I've never said I have never said my life either. However, if it means I think the translation often in English is like fool, right? Right. But we we tried to ban the word stupid in our house because our my two sons would always be calling each other stupid. Stupid was like the real swear word. Yeah, that we pretty unsuccessfully tried to ban but actually, maybe we were trying to avoid the rocker Yeah. syndrome in our house. I 8:18 think so. Well, and that's, that's, I think the bigger issue too, right? It's not the word itself. But it is the spirit behind right right, what 8:28 comes out of your heart 8:30 and how we are using those words. I mean, often sometimes we use words to to maybe build up our anger maybe to express our anger maybe to express our emotions. And, and I think that's the key. I mean, I know you know, if you've grown up in the church, sometimes you can be like, Okay, what is the list of words? Right and anytime you do that all it does is make those other words more fun to say exactly like it's kind of like the whole Parental Advisory sticker on CDs right? Like once that came in all those CDs sales shot through the roof because people were like, Oh our parents don't want to listen don't right 9:10 I'm gonna like trying to boycott something is actually the very worst thing you can do. I want to actually you know, punish the China boycott 9:20 now and I and I heard a read a really interesting story about this is it's actually came from his a secular Jewish writer came AJ Jacobs. Oh, I know. He's living biblically living, living living, which is, which is a really interesting read. I read that years ago and excellent read. He's a great writer. And, and it was it was interesting to hear him talking about all the different rules that he had to you know, and he does a frame by frame picture of him every day for you know, 365 9:58 years with him having to like up stones in the park. So, how do I do that? Yeah. On the adulterer pick up pebbles and life throws direction doesn't specify what 10:09 size of rock. So he had a little handful of pebbles. Yeah, but he talked about cursing. So I'm gonna, I'm assuming he's kind of understanding this maybe this question or that passage in Exodus in that similar way, right? So he was like, Okay, I'm gonna not gonna curse I'm not I'm not going to say these words. So he replaced different words. He was like, Well, I'm, I know, I'm gonna say something. So so he, he got a list of replacement, and he made the replacement words. Just ridiculous, right? So and, and he's like, Alright, and he's and he noticed something though. That was interesting. Like when he would, he lives in New York City. And so he'd be, you know, late to catch the train or the subway he missed, or he'd walked new run down the station in miss it. And he'd be, you know, in past he would be furious, right? Like, because he's gonna, now he's putting maybe a half hour on him getting somewhere that he needs to go. And so he started to replace those words of just being like, all Fiddlesticks Oh, shucks, Uh huh. And he started saying them. And he then he started laughing to himself, because the word is just is just ridiculous. And then he noticed something really interesting, though. He wasn't angry about missing his train anymore. And he noticed diffused the anger. He noticed that when he is interested, 11:38 because a lot of people will use those words to actually escalate, escalate. switches, switches. Interesting. Another thing that, and this has been remarked a number of times, you know, when we're talking about the the use of of these words, that we all know what we're talking about right now, I've noticed a lot of people will use some of these words, as I don't know, punctuation, which is really interesting, right? So instead of almost saying like, um, or in Spanish quests or something like that, they'll they'll toss an F bomb. And they'll just, you know, yeah. Which is really interesting. But I think on a number of levels, that's interesting, one of which is sort of a coarsening of our society in a way. Yeah, 12:20 no. 12:23 Which kind of almost diffuses the language in some ways, right. But one thing I've often thought about is a lot of, you know, these curse words and such have sexual connotations. Yeah. And, and if if it courses, everything, it can't help, but in some ways, I don't know. corson. You know, human intimacy, right. Yeah, I'm just kind of, I don't know, dumbing down everything. Yeah. And and I think that is actually something to be alarmed at. 13:03 That really is and, and I think it's something to be aware of. Now, I think there's also been a, I would say, a movement within the church and maybe even a movement within even evangelicalism. And part of it is, I think, been reactionary, right. Probably reactionary to the the cussing preacher. I 13:25 think we all know who we're talking about. Right? Right. 13:27 Right. Right. Well, ours. It's kind of like, it's a reaction against maybe an ultra conservative and the legalism. Yeah, Anna. legalism is like saying, Oh, you have all of these words, I can't say. And there's almost been the pendulum swing, and like now to be a cool Christian, right? I use these words. And, and, and I understand that reaction. And because because the legalism doesn't help, either. It's not like, Oh, I don't use those words. And it's like, Well, yeah, but you still want to murder someone in your heart. So you're not off the hook. Right? Like, right, you're still calling someone to fall in your mind. Exactly. And which, you know, I 14:07 think Jesus had a lot to say about and that might actually be worse. 14:11 Right. Right. And so so I, I really understand that that it's like, This word is not the problem. It's our heart is the problem right? Then on the other side, it also we need to be aware of how language affects us how language affects our belief how language just can't like you say couldn't just corson things or thumb down 14:37 and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. That's one of the most untrue statements Yeah, I've ever been said. It's turned into a cliche. It what really will hurt you and what you do remember the things that people said to you? Yeah. 14:53 Very true. That's why in the message translation, so Eugene Peterson paraphrase And Proverbs, I love how he handles this one verse about words. He just says words are either poison or fruit. 15:09 One thing I really love about Peterson is that he is a craftsman of language. Yeah, he really is really is. Yeah. 15:18 And you can see, and I've always loved that. Yeah, words are poison or fruit, like they either have the power to give life, the power of killing you you choose? Yes, I guess. 15:29 Before we go on to the next question, there's a couple of things that you can say about this, that are just sort of running through my head right now. One is, and I don't really know what to think about this one of the, and I'm going to try to deliberately make this vague. One of the best books on apologetics that I've ever read, that I've often thought would be really helpful to some of our students who are just, I could never use in class. And I could never officially recommend because the author, for whatever reason, you know, tosses an F bomb, and almost every page, right? And I actually, outside of that really love that book. It's an excellent book, but it's the language makes it you know, on difficulties, at least I can have in class. And the second thing is, is so both of us grew up sort of very conservative, right. And we probably came up with alternatives to the words that we were not supposed to write. So I have my Baptist cuss words. Yes, actually, we'll go around the house grumbling them sometime, right. Yeah, I just wonder what's yours. I'll start right. Wow, like? I don't know. I don't know. But it's pretty bad. But it's okay. Because you Okay, yeah, discussing it. I've never actually used any of those words. Right. Right. I just have the thoughts behind them, which once again, puts me in the same predicament. 16:56 Yeah, yeah, I had a, I played on a traveling baseball team in high school. And I was one of probably the only Christians on the team or that the coach knew of Cosmo, my friend and I were came from a Christian school and we were playing on the team. Okay. My, I think my maybe my friend had already proven to my coach that he he did not need to be worried around this friend. Okay. But the coach, like, really nice and really respected. Like he knew I was from there. And I never talked to him about anything. Like, he just no, Christian maybe knew, you know, maybe. Certainly, well, I didn't I wasn't at all but like, he would come out like I was an infielder. So he would, you know, he would come out, talk to the pitcher, we'd all be together, and he would yell at us, like, you know, get our heads in the game. And then he would curse and he would always like curse and then go sorry, Mark. 17:49 thinking the same thing right now, Pastor that would have people all the time. It's like, yeah, forgive me, preacher. But right. So you know, I don't know, I'm so delicate. I've never heard that word before, right. It's just, 18:01 that's how when I, when I when I meet people, like if like, especially when the boys were in younger soccer. I mean, you know, meet families, we'd be talking and then we're just be talking like normal. And then the dreaded, you know, what do you do for a living question, right? And I was like, I'm a pastor. And it was kind of like, Oh, I'm so sorry. If I said anything, you know? And I'm like, Hey, no, it's fine. I just, I took down note, it was five words, I wrote it in my journal, and I'm gonna, you know, like, but it's interesting that, that that has become such a part of culture, right? That even outside of the church, people still think, okay, they are the church. I can't use those words. 18:43 I'll notice it now, when people actually don't use profanity in their language as punctuation, right? Because it's so common, especially the gym. I mean, I go everyday. Right, right. My gosh, yeah. And I'll just sort of some folks won't do that. And, and I actually, you know, appreciate it. You know, language is really important. Yeah. And some language is problematic. It just is. 19:04 Right. And I think another thing he said that, that I think is interesting, is, maybe in this, we've talked a little bit about this on the podcast, but this issue maybe kind of comes up more in the area of the arts, in movies, books, and, and, and there is kind of, oftentimes a reaction maybe against it, you know, or like this book, or this movie, uses this sort of this song uses this type of language. And I think it's really important for us to kind of walk through that because it's not just a thing of like, Oh, yeah, if anything has those words in it, they're on the blacklist. 19:51 There are some, well, let's just say Christian websites that you can go to that are movie review web, right, right. And they actually will have You know, lists of counter of these words how many times you're using it, which is interesting, because someone actually has to sit there with a, you know, with a form and watch the movie and the only thing they're watching for is this language. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, I can, I can understand how those lists might be helpful for what you would want your kids to see or not see. And, yeah, and, you know, I think we've already established that some of that language is problematic, right? But where to where it gets really interesting in the arts, and where these questions really come in as well, a second movie, for instance. Um, so the movie has, you know, some depictions of, of gratuitous sex in it and, and language that, you know, we hear all the time, but isn't a movie. Right, right. And so some folks would say, Well, you know, the movie supposed to be a realistic portrayal of what actually happened. So we have to listen. And I know, some Christian, like, you know, people that are involved in the industry really struggle with this. It's like, you want it realistic. But there's another flip side of that, too. Yeah. Like, it's like, so are you reflecting culture? Or are you like, causing culture? Are you perpetuating culture in that? And that's, you know, that's a difficult question. I mean, yeah, you can make arguments on both sides of that. 21:18 And I definitely, and I agree, and I kind of maybe lean more towards, like, of art, having that authenticity, and you're not going to have maybe a character, you know, be like, oh, shucks, Oh, darn. You know, it's like, right, Mayberry anymore, like, and so I can see that. And I think sometimes maybe we get so caught up, though, on that language that we may be missed, then the bigger the bigger picture, right? And right. And even with, you know, you kind of brought up like, kids. Yeah, I mean, with our boys, like, obviously, there are words, I don't want my boys to say, here, or if they're I walked by their, you know, room and they're listened to a song and I hear like just a barrage of words and like, turn it off, you know, or find something new. But I'm also trying to really be intentional of coming back in and saying, hey, it's not just about those rights, right? You give a reason. Yeah. It's your, hey, how is that song? Like, that's really low. What is that song saying? Like, how is that really helpful? Right? How is that right? How is it? 22:23 About people? Yeah, and definitely the way you interact with people. Yeah. And, and right. 22:29 And so I do think it's, it's been an interesting, I mean, for me, one of my, maybe one of my fears is that I don't want like my my sons, or, or just any kind of new Christians to be like, okay, Christianity is where I can't say those words. And I can't do it's like, well, that's not the checklist, Christian is because you could not say those words at all, and still not have Jesus in your heart and be changed at all. Totally. And so, I think part of probably why this question would come up in a in a college theology class, is that the student is probably struggling with like, Man, I've heard my whole life Don't say this, don't do that. Is that really a part of the mesh? Like I think that's even what the question is saying. What does the Bible say Booker's right so that that expose a lot like they're saying, okay, Bible, they're they're grasping this idea of Bible is normative, right? rival is? What does it say? And we do have to be careful about what we add to the Bible. And and I think in this instance, the Bible does speak in more generalities, right, it doesn't have a list of English. I mean, it doesn't have a list of English words. And so it's giving us these principles. Right, right. Right. Like, and, and I know, I know, the whole principle of like, only think of things that are pure and good, you know, that, you know, is running is right, you know, because then that's, you know, that's kind of like what people would tell me, like, therefore, why you can never read Hemingway or Steinbeck. Like, only think about things that are nice. It's like, Well, 24:20 you know, that were submit that that verse has meant to me and I actually have it written down several places. No three by five cards, not because I necessarily have a cursing problem. I'm pretty puritanical. Actually. You know, that's maybe it's the Bob Jones stuff sort of rubbed off on me. It's hard to but you know, I I can get very cynical, huh, yeah. And I can think the worst of people. Yeah. And I think that that, you know, that verse in Philippians, does speak to that too. And so these think that things are pure is more of a, you know, think of the the image of God and people right as much as what words I can or cannot say all the times. They're linked, you know, 25:00 Sometimes they are going Raka. And you're saying something. And that's what? I think we need to highlight that for maybe the swing that has happened now, right? It's like, hey, words do they can be linked, okay? We don't want to link them to legalism, right? But but they can be linked. And just just to be aware of that aware of, how is this? How is this language? Yeah, helping me see the good and other people or 25:28 I've always thought when, when I'm looking at that Pinnacle on that pendulum that's just sort of talking about, you know, moving from, you know, very puritanical, don't use any of these words, because of whatever. And then you swing all the way over to the other side, because, you know, you want to be free to do all things in Christ basically. Right, right. It's a factor. It's it's a, you know, a drag being looked down on by all your friends. But anyway, right. But both extremes, I think, are actually missing the point. both extremes are right. And sometimes I think that following Jesus is like, a knife edge middle. And not because it's just sort of the Aristotelian golden mean, or something between two things. That's not what I'm talking about, is sort of like if I'm walking a tightrope between falling off into legalism or libertinism, which is easy to fall off, right? The only way I can walk that rope is is, is by looking at Jesus and holding his hand on me honestly, because I cannot walk that road, right? Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing anyway? 26:31 Right. Exactly. And I think that's, that's really good advice. Because it's a it's a balance, and it is a balancing act, then, of not falling off on either sides. And so if we can't do ourselves, not at all, yeah. Well, I think that was a good question like that, you know, just came out of the grab bag. And that actually kind of filled up our time. Okay. For the for the guys, but we know that we're going to do this again, right, this is we have a stack of questions that could take us many years to go through and looking at that stack. Right. And, and it's, and it's just, there's just gonna be more questions added to it from not only my class, but also we want to give kind of you the listener has chance, right, as well, right? We would love to interact with questions you have. And so kind of some obvious ways to hit us with some questions would be through Twitter or Instagram. But also, like, if you want to go maybe a little old school, and you want to email us, you can email us at Jessup. think@jessup.edu you can email us and we'll have a an episode in the future. Right. And 27:43 we'll have a third party look at these questions. So actually, it will be the same sort of general setup. Like the questions are before and so you know, you'll we'll be testing our mettle. 27:53 Although today, uh, we've had years of of homework on cursing. Yeah. It was. It was 28:01 right. That's it? That was an easy first question. And it was drawn from the middle of the pack. And it was, it was not nice. Mark is a magician. I set up today, 28:10 I had it up my sleeve. And I learned how to deal from the bottom of the deck. Okay, I would be terrible at that. I would be so nervous. And maybe one of those other questions actually deals with gambling. Now what, but I think that that was, it was helpful, because it is a lot of different areas that that that can reach. And so you may have been listening to this. And we do we're probably speaking to people on both sides of the extreme. So some people were listening to me like, you need to be more definitive on Right. Right. And then other ones are like, what's your believe they're even talking to us? Right. But 28:52 if the question was a real question, and yeah, I'm up and those sales continue to come up. 28:56 Yeah. Does and and I think it is, like, really exploring not just writing things off one way or the other. But hey, let's really explore 29:04 and we take all these questions seriously. Yeah, there's no little facetious question. 29:09 Not at all. Well, I'm excited to end the show today with our fun reoccurring segment. Student becomes the teacher becomes a student. I know over these, these episodes that we've released these little easter eggs at the end, that I've really learned a lot. And I'm excited to have Matthew Todd back on the show. It's good to be back on the show guys just for you know, the official maybe turn it into a third co host for Jessup thing that said I'm hoping lots if I play my cards, right, yeah, plan. Right. You can you can get there. But I had a question for you. Man. That is that is a little more Jessup oriented. kind of looking at Jessup for sure. But it might. Yeah, it might might be interesting to I want to get your take on this. But now being a sophomore so you kind of been here for going on a couple years. You've been around. You've had Had some family who's been here before? Yeah. And so coming to Jessup, what's the one thing that has surprised you about Jessup? Like you got here, you may had preconceived notions of what Jessup would be like, what are we to do? What's the one thing you got here? And you're like, oh, wow, that kind of surprised me. I didn't see that. And see that coming? 30:20 It's a great question. There's so many answers I could think of for this because honestly, just anything about college in general is very surprising and shifting with Jessa. Specifically, I'd say it is the strange combination of how quickly and how slowly things can get done. So right. I came in, I just signed up like, first day, I or not first a first week, they had, they mentioned that they were doing student government, basically signups but you would run, but my sister encouraged me to run for a position that was unopposed to that I would have to There you go. Yeah, that's a great strategy. I know, I was gonna run against my friends to basically spite her. But then I decided, you know why, right? do that? Yeah. Why? Why be that guy. Exactly. So I got on it. And within the first meeting, or two, we had already proposed a change to Jessa policy for when the policy I've called, like, open hours, where it's like the hours that guys can go into girls dorms, and vice versa, we'd already changed a policy to fix that and make it a little bit longer so that people could have more time to hang out earlier day. And we got it done. We got it move through the process so quickly, and it felt like it was just like, as long as you just care about something enough, and you push it right. Can't get it done with that kind of stuff. Wow. 31:30 So what you might be saying is here, Jessup students do have a voice. Yeah, I like that. 31:36 Yeah. Especially because in the government too. It's funny people under utilize it to like the Student Government. I'm not on it anymore. But I'm like the go, they actually need usually agenda items. So like, what do people want, and people will complain about things a lot behind the scenes. But I wish this would be changed. But they don't take these the meaningful step you can take is just to email the government and then they can have does a document of Oh, this is an actual complaint. People actually wish there was a pool or something like that. 32:01 Right? Hey, yeah. Where is that pool? Let's make that happen. Well, that's cool. Yeah, that is that I mean, I have appreciated that too, about Jessup is that the ability to kind of have an idea have someplace and also then the freedom to explore what implementing that would look like. And I'm really glad to I really do think that this does highlight Jessup is the involvement students get to have in that process and their students can play a part. And students can even be on podcast there they can start their own podcast Think about that. That's crazy. Exit 311 over here hosts 32:38 I know and just think friend of the show 32:41 friend of the show Yeah, I mean, think about that. Yeah, well, that's cool. What what's maybe something that you've been you've been wondering about that? You know, you're like I need to wait till this segment and I can ask Mark I have 32:54 to wait this is my time to understand things so I asked is not as a spokesman in my generation but as a your your unofficially spoke Exactly. So for those of my generation, I know some of you specifically who would get almost malic acid question, but I don't get it. Why must ask. Okay, so what is the deal with the Beatles? I get I get it, they make music? It doesn't sound so like so much. The League of like the major. Yes, they did. Okay, but like so I listened to other content. Like I like the Beach Boys better than the Beatles. I listened to them. I'm like, I like this better. And, but like the Beach Boys, even though they usually treat is like pretty good. are not like the Beatles are like this icon. It's like lead right? Oh, yeah. And like, you can look up like on Time Magazine, whenever they have like the list of the Greatest Artists of All Time and the Beatles. It's not like, you know, like classical music or anything of that. It's like the Beatles and I want to know if I'm missing something like if I'm not just diving into music enough for what 33:55 and fun fact the Beatles were really only together for like six years, which is crazy. I mean, like, some bands like YouTube rolling stones have been together for 150 years. Exactly. before you were born. Yeah, they are basically just walking skeletons. They are in life. Right? But the know the beat Okay, so here's the here's because they are really a band that has been able to span these generations and and have an influence. And and here's really why I think one of the I mean, I think their music is amazing. And they're in songwriting specifically, right. Paul McCartney and john lennon being able to write songs and then even Pearson And then Ringo Starr even be able to write even though Ringo just has kind of like yellow submarine. And so yeah, but he still has like these ideas that that can hook. But the ability to write some of these songs, that that's stand the test of time, I think is really what sets artists apart because they are performing And there are bands and I love the Beach Boys too. Actually the first band I was ever in was in an air band in like, third grade and we played badminton rackets to Beach Boys songs, and we performed in front of the classroom. And so I love the Beach Boys, but the Beach Boys kind of have like one sound and one style. Hmm. And that's it. But the Beatles, The Beatles really evolved with culture as it evolved. I mean, the Beatles started out moptop. suit and tie. Yeah, she loves me. Yeah, yeah, right, like, and then as culture exploded in the 60s, and mid 60s, to enter the late 60s, The Beatles didn't just stick with that same formula that sold them a bunch of records at the beginning got them on The Ed Sullivan Show. They change in fact, they kind of led to culture a little bit. So when you think even like late 50s going into earlier, maybe like at this point, you're still early 60s. And you have an album like revolver come out. And it's like, Whoa, Mike, you need to listen to this. This is somehow capturing this cultural anks as I yeah, there really is the Zeitgeist as capturing that. And it's putting into words something that maybe a bunch of people had thought but didn't know how to express it. And then, man, you have these, and even if you disagree, or this or that with their theology, and then they'll be a different class, right theology, The Beatles. Yeah, that would be, but I think that they captured it. And that's why I think they have such a lasting impact. Because they, they not only evolved with culture, but I think in certain areas, they were out on the front end, and they put music and words to experiences. Our culture was having generations were having at that time, that they were like, yes, that's what I'm feeling. And it kind of moved culture. And then they just been able to, like, hang with that. I mean, especially looking at Paul McCartney, still, even Ringo was just in town recently, just here. And and and being in early 80s. And still having that influence. still having that songwriting technique. And, and so that's really I mean, for me, the Beatles are not just because they're, they're other songwriters. And maybe you could say, Are there better songwriters out there? I still think that we would have to debate on that. Because there's something about writing a song both lyrically and melody. And something that they were able to capture they were able to capture melodies that just last right. And then they were able to just capture that the zite. Guys, they really did. And I think that's what made them like a band that is always on the top because they were just a part, especially this pivotal part in US history and American and world history. Yeah, coming over from England, but really capturing like, what happened in the 60s, that just totally changed. I mean, it literally changed. Civilization. That's crazy. 38:18 That's incredible. There you go. So maybe, maybe go back and give, you know, give the Beatles another lesson. And then in the mindset of the 60s, not like the full like, right mindset of the 60s, but 38:29 you know, yeah, yeah, we're Yeah. Not full 60s. Right. Yeah. Just in the mindset of, of culture changing just just the john lennon glasses, right? Yeah. Maybe they could be like, pink or purple haze. Right. So you can kind of see through that lens. Yes, he's the lens. But that that will now I think that will help you see why the Beatles are so important. Okay. And then I think too, with maybe generations why they've been is that parents have been passed them down. Yeah, definitely. No, it's what's interesting for me is my parents. were a part of the early Beatles kind of generation. So the records I got passed down to me were moptop. suit and tie Beatles. Yeah. And it really wasn't till college where I started hearing like, oh, wow, Sergeant Pepper's, and then revolver later, you know, like, yeah, that that type of movement. And, and I think it was interesting to see that, that cultural change. So cool. So yeah, give the Beatles another nother Listen, I could, I could preach for another half hour if I may. Yeah. I'm gonna like I should go and actually they say struck a chord and content chord. Thanks for that. All right. Well, hey, thanks again. I look forward to having you back on the show. I look forward quest bags. Yeah, of course. I'll get some good ones. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection. And deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes. These reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup. 40:13 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.Mark goes rogue and delivers his first solo episode. Don't tell Rex.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And today on the episode, I am going rogue.
0:13 going solo, this will be our first entry into the solo podcast. But I really had a topic that I've been wanting to talk about wanting to do a show on it and haven't been able to kind of find a guest maybe who's willing to talk about it or, or who's maybe as excited as I am about the topic. And so I wanted to take this opportunity, just you and me just just the listeners in me to talk about an experience that I think is common to us all. I think it's something that we all experience. But we don't necessarily maybe have words for it or have a description of it. And and I think putting a description on it is going to maybe help us understand what exactly is going on with that experience that I want to talk about today is that experience when someone tells you that you can't do something, why do you immediately want to do that? Right? Like you, you may not have ever even been thinking about it. You were never wanted to do that. But the minute someone says, You can't do this, you have that sense of Oh, yeah. Well, you can't Who are you to tell me? And, and and even if it's something you haven't talked about, or haven't even thought about, you still have that kind of desire. And I kind of kind of note that desire as a pre reflective desire. And what I mean there is, you don't think about it, it just kind of happens. someone tells you, you can't do this.
1:52 You You can't drive over 55 miles an hour new lingo really, what about 56 157? What about 85? If you live in California, and so, but you just have that desire, and sometimes I think it's good for us to then take those pre reflective desires, and really examine them, like, wow, Where is that coming from? Like, I didn't even want to do that thing. But when you put a limit on me, are you telling me No, I now want to do it. And so to illustrate this kind of experience, I want to tell you a story about the Parental Advisory stickers. Now the Parental Advisory stickers occurred during a time of American civilization, when people still bought CDs and cassette tapes. So for all my listeners, maybe under the age of 30, will say CDs are these circular things, they are mostly silver, and used to put them into a CD player. And a lot of cars were equipped with CD players, cassettes, the more the little rectangle, got tape in there. You may have seen them in your grandpa's collection, maybe. Now, here's you could also think about this. This Parental Advisory sticker was also on vinyl was also on LPs, which I'm really excited that that has made a full comeback and the sound is so much better. So maybe for all my listeners under 30. It's a CD is kind of like a record just smaller, and sounds worse because it's compressed. But but they would have been on on both. And it's really interesting, kind of the story behind the Parental Advisory sticker because even now with a lot of our streaming services, we have something similar in the sense of well known songs as explicit, right explicit language or explicit content. And that was the purpose behind the Parental Advisory sticker and it all kind of started actually with a group called parents music Resource Center and this was co founded by tipper Gore. And so in some ways, they became known as the tipper stickers, but tipper Gore. So she's the wife of Al Gore, if you have some political American history, and she was a little bit concerned about albums that her daughter had. So in the early 80s, this group got together the pmrc with tipper gore and others, and they put together a list of songs that had explicit content explicit language and they took that to the Recording Industry Association of America that are are ay ay ay ay ay. and said, Hey, we we really feel like we need to have stickers on these to let parents know the type of language that's being used. You know, we can come kind of a warning and This actually went all the way to a, a Senate committee hearing in the Senate Committee on Commerce did a hearing in in 1985. To talk about this and it's really fascinating hearing because you have tipper gore and others testifying. But then you also have notable musicians like Frank Zappa, Dee Snider, from Twisted Sister, which, you know, actually, when you take the face makeup off, and the leather pants, he's pretty eloquent person. And he spoke quite well. Also, john Denver spoke out against the sticker. So the musicians kind of spoke out against the stickers, and the sense that this was some type of censorship and was, was against them. And was was restricting their freedom, which that will come back out. But then the parents were kind of like, Hey, we need this. And then the senate committee kind of passed this, the ri started putting on those stickers. And then by by the 90 by the 1990s, that black and white Parental Advisory sticker became kind of ubiquitous it was it was everywhere. And, and stores would even promote that they were using, right like stores that wanted to promote themselves as family friendly would say we have the stickers. So parents will look for them. And it was really an interesting experience in the 90s. Because
6:27 this, the stickers didn't end up restricting the freedom of the artists, right, the artists could still record what they want. And it was just a no and in fact, it didn't do anything to discourage album sales. And Some even say, it helped bump album sales up but in fact, it drew in younger buyers. And and and I remember that, you know, experience, even when I was you know, a young kid in the 90s. And you would have a friend now these were friends not me right now I had only the edited version. But when you would have the edited version, friends would say like, Oh, this is the edited version, not the real one. So it became this kind of edited versus real. And people were drawn younger people were drawn to get the real one they were drawn to get the one that had the sticker on that said your parents probably don't want you to have this. And so it it drew them in and in different genres benefited from it. Greg Beto from reason magazine kind of noted this in the 90s that if a hip hop album didn't have a tipper stickers, what he called a tipper sticker on it, it was actually looked as as kind of maybe artistically suspect, like, Whoa, what is this about, it doesn't warrant it. And then there became a lot of parodies, bands, like Guns and Roses would put their own Parental Advisory sticker on it kind of making fun. And it did not interfere with ticket or with record sales at all, but in fact, kind of made it more desirable. And I've always found that fascinating. And, and psychology actually gives us a term for this. And I think it's really helpful to, to kind of note this term, because we've experienced, we experienced this. And the Parental Advisory sticker is kind of a good picture of that, right? someone saying, Hey, your parents don't want you to buy this, like, whoo, I want to buy that now, for some reason, right? Like, they could have just come out with an album that was already the quote, unquote, edited and I wouldn't have thought anything of it. But if they have the option, I'm kind of drawn to get the one that the maybe authority figure doesn't want me to have and psychology has put a term to that and that term is reactance. And psychology defines reactance this way. reactance is an unpleasant motivational arousal, which is another way to say reaction, an unpleasant motivational arousal to offers persons rules or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. And I think while that is kind of a very technical definition, I think it highlights a few things that are important right the reactance is this unpleasant kind of motivation is this reaction. When we feel that someone or something is taking away a freedom that is taking away a choice or limiting maybe my my range of alternatives and our I think that idea of freedom is really key when we feel like our freedom is being in infringed on, we have this internal reaction to that, again, a pre reflective reaction, kind of Who are you to tell me, I can't do something. And it's kind of this individual organization, maybe instead of saying like, hey, I need to speak out against that. And I remember also when I was when I was a child, is when we first started having seatbelt laws. And this is, again, fascinating to me, when seatbelt laws first came out, I remember, the reaction was negative for many people. You can't tell me what I can and can't do inside my car, even though it was proven that wearing your seatbelt was safer. And now it's kind of you know, that one has passed, we've all maybe realized and accepted, hey, it is smarter to wear your seatbelt than not. I remember when those they weren't always laws on the books. And when those became laws, people had a reaction to it, even though it was good for them to do it.
11:20 And so we have this kind of psychological reaction, when we think a freedom is is is being infringed upon. I think that's one way to look at this experience. And one way to think in our own lives, when we have this, you know, when we have this pre reflective desire to do something, because someone said we couldn't, it's a good idea to maybe stop right there and say, Whoa, am I am I having this because I'm feeling like some of my freedom is being taken away. And, and we'll explore me what that means. But I think also along with this, the apostle Paul has actually a lot to say about this experience. Because in many ways, the law given to us by God also did the same thing. The law given us, to us by God has has occurred or are incurred the same reaction, this reactance. And, and Paul kind of highlights this in in Romans seven. He He's making the distinction that the law itself is not sinful, right? He's trying to help the reader understand that. But he also is, is maybe helping us understand that, that I wouldn't have known what, and he uses coveting as the example. I wouldn't have known what coveting was, if the law had not said to me, You shall not covet. But once I have learned what coveting is, whoa, now I now I, I can recognize that that's happening. Not necessarily that now I just want to go out and cover it more because COVID is a really interesting reaction, right? COVID is another one of those pre reflective desires. You don't wake up and premeditate coveting, right, you know, wake up and say, You know what, today, I'm going to covet my neighbor's car. I'm just going to no one can stop me. But you might find yourself seeing your neighbor and a brand new car, and you're jumping into your early nine to an early 90s. Still very effective Honda. And you might be like, Oh, I want that. Right. You you you feel that? And I think what Paul's saying is, we we wouldn't even maybe know how to put words on that if we didn't have the law. But just because we had the law doesn't mean we stopped covering. Alright, just because Parental Advisory stickers were put on CDs didn't mean up. Well, now, kids don't buy them anymore. And just because we have the law you shall not covet doesn't mean Oh, well, we just won't cover it anymore. check that off. Because coveting and those other things happen before we before we contemplate them right before we and then we have to then take the time after that experience to say wow, where did that come from? One thing that Paul says that I think we would need to unpack a little more as he says right, he says, sin seizing the opportunity and the commandment produced in me all kinds of covet toughness, which is a tough word to say.
14:51 But, but even in that verse, I think we can it can be a little tricky because when we say sin seized an opportunity and produced in me, it almost we can read that. And we can separate sin maybe too far from ourselves. But I think in this experience, we have to realize the culpability that we have, right? The part that we play, that sin is not isn't this outside force that somehow swoops in, and we gotta, we have to just kick it out. But that is coming from us, right? It's coming from our heart, that when we hear, hey, you can't do this Whoo, inside of our heart, just as Whoo, I want to do that now. When we hear, you shall not covet. Sin takes that opportunity to produce in us all kinds of coveting, it doesn't. law doesn't take away that desire to covet. What law does is help us recognize what we have already been doing and recognize what's wrong with that. Like, hey, it's not healthy, it's not good for you or good for your relationship with your neighbor, to be coveting, to be jealous of what they have. Now you can be motivated maybe by what they've gained, and you can be like, Oh, this makes me want to work harder or go to school. Do these things right? Like there can be a motivation there. That isn't bad, but but the coveting the desiring is bad. And that happened before we even think about it. We don't premeditate that. And so these experiences, one thing that I wanted to talk about reactance is that, I really think it's an experience that helps us understand other things that we do, that are pre reflective. And we need to take the time to think about them after they happen. And to question the source. Why do I want to do this. And in psychology with reactance, they talk about that, oftentimes, we may do something just because we think the authority doesn't want us to do it, right? Like we want to, and it's a part of us expressing our freedom. And there are there are many aspects in in our lives where we do need to be an individual. And we do need to guard our freedom, right and use our freedom right to to be who we are. But we also need to recognize there are moments where I'm, I'm drawn to this, and that should draw me deeper into my heart to say, Hey, what's really going on here? What's really going on? Where is this, this desire coming from, that I'm not even thinking about, and then it happens. And also wanted to frame it in another way. And I really liked that the psychological definition of reactance talks about freedom and personal freedom, because that really is the key. We often react against people when we feel like freedom has been taken away from us. I think one of the things that Jesus is trying to teach us in the idea of what it means to lay down our own lives, is that there are moments Now, not all the time, there are different times when you have freedom and you need to use it. But there are times when you need to lay down your freedom to actually gain your life, right, you need to lose your life. You need to gain and obviously in connection with God. There are times when you need to lay down that freedom to learn from him and to be connected with him. So I hope that next time that you that you have that experience that that if when someone tells you maybe it's a teacher, I don't know, you know, why would teachers tell you to do things or you can't do things or a parent, or a co worker or a boss
19:12 when you have that experience of someone telling you, oh, you can't do this and while you feel that in your heart rise up like woman that is what I want to do. Take a moment to explore that explore where that comes from explore why you would be upset that that may be some type of perceived freedom has been taken away from you and allow that to draw you deeper into your heart to to set with God and to explore Hey, what's really going on in here and in the center of who I am and I like to cover that up a lot. I like to hide it from our friends hide it from even myself. But God explore that with me. And and and use those opportunities and then obviously Don't buy CDs with Parental Advisory stickers on there just bad for you. That's the real key to this podcast. All right, we're in the episode today again with our segment of the student becomes the teacher becomes the student. And welcome back. Matthew Todd, it's good to be back. Our student and resident official student front of the show. Yeah, he's official student from the show. Well, we also have, Matt, we have a guest, along with you. We do a we have the producer of Jessup. Think Brendan Stewart, who is a former student and graduate of Jessa. That's right. Thanks for having me. Now works here in media services. Yes, I do. And slaves away as producer of Jessup think the only one who gets paid to do these podcasts. Right. So thank you for your work you're doing on the show. We love you. I love you too. Good to give you some mic time.
20:52 Yeah, it's good to be on this side of it. Knowing that anything that I say may or may not actually make the error, because that's my call,
20:58 right? Yeah. You can edit it, you can edit that out. You can also edit us to make us say things we didn't say no,
21:06 I don't even have to edit you sometimes.
21:07 Yeah, that's true. That just comes out. Just happens. It just happens. But I have a question. I mean, like, Matt, but Brandon, you may have to think back to times when you were in school and not to, you know, it's not too far. Yes. Yes. In History recent graduate, right. Yeah, recent graduate. So what I want to know in this as a teacher, what do what do students really talk about when I send them into group discussion into group? Talk at your tables about this deep theological concept?
21:37 Exactly. So when they really talk about so many things, you can tell them? I think that's against the code. Yeah.
21:45 Yeah, to help me out, you gotta help me out, because I need to have something so I can kind of throw it back at him.
21:50 I'll give you some brief insight. It's, it's normally see a group of three is ideal, right? Because especially depends on who it is, you usually have one person who has a very disinterested in talking about whatever the actual content, which is very, very common. And then you have two people who are at least sort of interested, typically, if at least one of them expresses interest. The other one would be like, Oh, yeah, we're supposed to be talking about this. We'll talk about the Gospel of Matthew. Yeah. So one person would be like, man, I can't believe the capture and chicken again. Or what a specific example I remember was, we should get Mark more to come see endgame with us, which we succeed. we succeed and succeed. I did. So I hate to say that. I hate to say it wasn't fruitful. In fact,
22:32 it was fruit. So sometimes, yeah. And that and I, as a teacher, I know that sometimes these conversations aren't on topic, but it doesn't mean they're bad conversations. It's brutal. It's still good for students to to get to know each other to maybe get to know students, they don't know. So I'm not you know, I'm not too worried. But it is always interesting. Because then when I throw it back to the big group, and say, Oh, so what did you guys talk about in terms of, you know, doctrine of creation, or gospel, Matthew, and then everyone just stares at me? Like, like, oh, which was a total time?
23:06 I know. That's why Normally, I tried to have like at least one answer for that one. And then you'd be like, Well, good. I will call on someone else now. Like, right,
23:15 I think it depends on the group too, because especially if you're gonna let them pick their own groups, just with the different learning styles of all the students, some students that typically sit together may completely be three disinterested students. Oh, absolutely. Nothing. Yeah, they want to contribute. Meanwhile, like you're serving the students that thrive in a little bit more of a small group environment, maybe who like three or four students together, and they're going to be the ones that answer, maybe regardless, right, so it's kind of casting, at least my opinion, I'm not an educator at the moment. But just catching are casting a large enough net that you're able to, like really pull these answers out of the groups that want to and just know that the people who aren't paying attention aren't going to pay attention. I've got come to that, despite being in college and like, wanting to pay for his level, and just not
24:10 now this made me think though, maybe I could maybe I should have all of the disinterested students raise their hands. If you're not interested, as carnation, raise your hand if you need to pair up with these two who are interested. So then I'll pair
24:26 up the disinterested to maybe more more fruitful for you to ask the interested people. Okay, that's true. That's very true. Yeah. A lot easier to hide that
24:34 actually. Yeah, cuz I feel people be less likely to admit it. You just got to go by test scores at that point. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Hey, everyone with these tests near over segregate the classroom. Yeah, what could go wrong?
24:47 What did branwen Did you bring in a question for us?
24:50 Yeah, I did bring in a question. All right. And this is a little bit more cultural, because I know we do have three different generations kind of represented here. That I'm A lot closer to Matthew Todd being the kind of end of the millennial generation why Matthew toddy being Generation Z, Gen Z. And Mark more you being Gen X prehistoric? Yeah. The bc Yeah. Bc Yeah, Gen. But I'm sure I'll take it. I'm curious because music is something gray is a crown of glory. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Amen. Amen. Amen. All by myself. Right? So hi fi for anybody that didn't hear. Back. That's what sounds like what is the song that you feel like most symbolizes? Like your generation? Like, what was the big cultural shift? Because of this one song, at least in your opinion, which is very different than somebody else who may be a Gen X or Gen Z or Yeah, is a great question. Or wants to take that first. I
25:53 mean, I think with kind of Gen X and mine and and I'm on the I'm on, I'd be kind of like you at the moment I'm on the tail end of Gen X shark Bear Bear Talon because like millennial starts kind of in the 80s. Like, tail into the 70s was a wonderful decade. Yeah, exactly. And it was really Nirvana, who was really Smells Like Teen Spirit. I mean, when Nirvana came in, it was kind of captured the anx of Gen X, right? We were all mad. We ripped our sleeves off of our flannel shirts. We weren't boots with shorts. I still do that when I'm mowing. So don't don't wait. Oh,
26:31 I suppose where you just wear the same, like gray jacket. I wear a gray suit jacket. When
26:36 I mow. I saw your vacation pictures and what you packed in that luggage? That's
26:40 exactly the same. It is just 80. But the but yeah, it was that really fundamentally it kind of took us out of the hairband rock and into this grungier rock. And it really did I remember when that kind of came out. It was like, wow, all those bands ever listened to yesterday. They're suddenly not cool. Yeah. And this bands cool. So it was kind of interesting to live through that. That type of cultural shift. I mean, because I'm fascinated by cultural shift. Yeah, absolutely. That would be fascinated. Yeah, like Gen Z. I mean, what is be like a post malone song
27:16 is hard to answer, because I'm not very entrenched in modern music, but that one I was thinking of would be, it's very interesting. It's a lot of like, the songs I know, my friends listen to a lot our songs like Africa by toto. Yeah, they're coming back. Coming back on vinyl, too. Yeah, the two were like a thing, right? People are repressing on vinyl. Like, it's just hilarious. I used to think that vinyl had like, someone's gonna hate me for saying I don't care. The nice thing I like a better sound quality. And I bought like, I spent money on these finals. And I got a record player. And then I got it. I'm like, this really does not sound any better. In fact, it's a record player. And that's your record players fault. Nothing right here. Here's a broken, that's probably sure. But uncompressed, I was like, look how beautiful. This is. I have to
28:00 hope every five minutes for that is true. It is. It's more. It's more like you're a part of the tangible.
28:07 I'm not totally disenchanted. I mean, I still participate in the whole ordeal.
28:12 But that's so that's interesting. Like, yeah, I think maybe with Gen Z. And I've noticed this too, because I do a lot of summer camps. And, and I work with sound and that and and when I play songs like summer camps that are older 80s like even older than Nirvana. 80s kind of anthem rock stuff. The 1213 year olds know every word to them. Yeah, she's crazy. And so it is interesting. Like, I think, like culture has shifted so much with the internet, because you gotta think to, like Gen X we were when when Nirvana kind of comes out in the early 90s. And it is really like the internet is it's kind of there, but not really and like, no one's really using it. No one's listening to music on it. It's through Napster. Right? Yeah, it is. Exactly. That would be another question later. Yeah. Okay. But there was a clear because everyone was listening to similar radio stations. Sure. You guys remember what radio was like you? Yeah, he just got in a car wreck. Hasn't radio on it. So you look at that. Yeah. So yeah, I think with your generation, it's different because you're listening to music all over the place, and you have access to not just what some, like disc jockey is yes. Choosing to play. Yeah. But you can play anything on YouTube, Spotify, any of the streaming services. So yeah, I do see a lot more older music coming back. Which is interesting. I mean, I love it because I'm like, I love this music. So it's also interesting that you don't have to
29:47 own it anymore. Right? You know, you pay a subscription to the song that's hosted somewhere else, right?
29:54 Yeah, you don't have to buy an album. Like if you want to check out an artist. You can just listen to one song, whatever. Yeah,
29:58 yeah, I mean, I still dude. Just in case you know, the internet dies one day and I want to listen to music. I know I
30:03 buy fewer than I used to because yeah, I have access to them. But yeah, if it all goes away, it's like, where'd
30:09 that music? I cancel my subscription. Now I have to start over again. Right? I'm still back in the DC talk era. Exactly. You're like, okay, Brandon, for late millennials. Yeah, you say it was there? Yeah. Well, I mean, you kind of have the same with a lot of like, whatever your parents listened to, you kind of start you they almost like have to introduce you to the music a little bit, you know? And I'm gonna have people that hate me no matter what my answer is. Don't worry about the haters. Yeah, it's like the tail, the tail end of Generation Y. I can't really like begin to say how much the work of YouTube and Coldplay has done especially in our worship music right? Oh, yes, everything is Oh, completely the edge
31:03 I was gonna say I'm pretty sure there's there has to be like at like worship. Worship central calm. Yeah, you can go there and you can just buy the edge guitar pedal. And there's I mean, if you're gonna need this for all the worship songs, you
31:15 definitely have it. You can download it. You can download the edge. You can download the booster. Alright. Yeah, like, Yeah, I'd see that where you want to be you got your Van Halen set right here and yeah, hey, there
31:26 you go. Now we're talking. The Yeah, that's interesting. Like and and it really like I think you see YouTube's influence on coal play. And then coal plays maybe influence on on kind of that mid millennial. Yeah, later millennial
31:42 cool. Yeah, plays definitely a band that's evolved. Like with the culture, I feel like they had like, their alternative, like rockets with that, that was popular to the early 2000s. And as like, just like generation has shifted more pop like with like music that's playing play on the radio. Yeah, they're newer stuff. I feel like sounds more like other bands that are being played. And so whether or not they're starting to trend or following the trend, it's still like they're evolving with culture. That's why they're still so relevant. Right? So much after they've started as a band when they're first single came out for ghost stories. I
32:14 think it was and I heard it was so like, tech known for in house like, they're going away from their core, like what's gonna happen? And now it's like, one of my favorite albums of all time, so right.
32:24 Yeah. Well, that was a great question, Brandon. Like, I love kind of looking at the like, kind of cultural movements. Yeah, and what causes them? And you know, for Matthew Todd, you we may not have enough time to look at what happens in your like, you almost need like distance. Yeah, historically removed, you know, to look back and say oh, yeah, when that when that post malone Song 21 pilots changed. Yeah, when when 21 pilots was singing about bleach. I mean, my my generations life. Yeah. Which Yeah, think about that's your generation. It is. It's my people thinking about bleach. What is happening to Paul and his generation before he even tried to just hide from Nickelback? Yeah, that's true.
33:12 I will pause it just before we go. Just one guess as to what the song that song could be that changes it. And if it not 20 DPI that to something that I think it'd be like old town road, honestly. Oh, wow. That is had some, like it's my own sleepy mad, but it's had that much cultural significance.
33:28 I suppose. We will look back and was definitely like, it definitely showed the power of social media. It's like a meme song. Right? That's, that's part of why I'm so powerful of social media to then move into the music industry. Like, it is fascinating. Well, hey, I learned a lot in this segment. And thank you guys for joining me on the end of this show. Hope you guys enjoyed this little easter egg at the end of this episode. Have a great week, guys. Bless you guys. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
34:23 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is a premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Beloved psychology professor Erin Ambrose joins Mark and Rex for part 2 of their discussion on sex and Christian culture.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And Rex. This is part two of sex and Christian culture. Right. And we have an expert guests with them, right? We've brought in an expert, Dr. Erin Ambrose, who's in our psychology department. And it was it was such a good conversation. It really was slides. So we hope you enjoy it. And we hope you, you gain the knowledge that she that she has to offer that can help us in this really important topic. 0:37 We're excited. I am excited for this episode. So this is part two. And I'm really excited because we have a special guest, right? 0:44 We figured we needed an expert after, after our last podcast. Exactly. We were looking around and we realized we had one in our midst. That's right. 0:51 So we're really glad to welcome Erin Ambrose. Hey, I'm so glad to be here. Yeah. So and you're part of our psychology department. 0:58 I teach psychology here. And then I also have a private practice. So nice, both sides of psychology that academia and also their how to practice 1:06 and actually put it into practice. That's great. And how long have you been Jessa 12 years? Oh, nice. Beer. So we got we got a good crew here. We got a crew. That's almost all in the decade of being here and longer racks. So like you started as an adjunct and then worked my way in. We've done the same journey. 1:28 Yeah, sorry. Yes, I drink too. But this time, we're way back in San Jose, when we were just on the quarter system, actually. And oh, wow, I almost didn't last pass my last my first sajak. But then here I am, like 16 years. laters. Right. There you go there and a lot. Right. Yeah, 1:42 going, right. I have a way of like, drawing us in one class at a time. 1:50 Exactly, exactly. We're really excited to have you on because last last episode, we did kind of part one, and we touted sex and Christian culture. And we really kind of looking at, there seems to be maybe two extremes happening within Christian culture. So you kind of have the purity movement of like, 80s 90s into the early 2000s. And we even talked about how that could be characterized, somewhat characterized as the sexual prosperity gospel was kind of like if you wade into all this, then when you get married, dubs will descend from the hip, and like almost any iteration of the prosperity gospel, there are issues. Right? Yeah, exactly. A lot of probably that happened. Oh, my goodness, yes. And then there seems to be on the other side, kind of maybe a reaction against that to kind of a kind of a disregard of the sexual biblical ethic, like, Oh, that is, you know, seen as prudish or seen as, and we're talking within Christian culture, too. I mean, right. Right, both of those within Christian culture. Right. Right. 2:55 And so we're trying to figure out how, you know, with those, you know, with that happening, how we can possibly reframe the conversation. 3:04 And we certainly need to write because neither of those things work. Oh, yeah. They I can tell you from the therapeutic PR side. They don't work. Right. 3:15 Yeah, they really don't. And and I think that is the heart behind this is how do we start to because we it's a topic we need to talk about. We need to talk about more. But we also need to talk about it in a way that's going to be helpful. Be great practice goals. Yeah, just just heaping on more guilt or shame, doesn't help or yelling louder. Yelling louder. I 3:37 talked about that last time. Or disregarding it or just ignoring it. Boy. Yeah. I think I mentioned this last time I had kind of, you know, avoided the elephant in the room for years in my Christian perspective class, and finally started feeling really guilty about that. It's like, one of the most important things we're going to talk about here actually, like my Christian perspective, and your lives, like right now, is the thing that we're not talking about. Right. And so I've just been searching for different ways to talk about it. Different ways to frame the conversation. Sometimes it's like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. Yeah. And honestly, you know, I'm still in process with finding more things to throw at the wall. 4:20 Sure. Well, I can tell you this, though. You tell students about you're going to talk about sex, and everybody shows up that day, right? Yeah, there you go. 100% attendance. Yeah. I was giving a quiz this morning. And when I mentioned I was going to be finishing that and then coming here and talking about sex. Everybody looked up everybody stopped paying for a broadcast. I did I did I did a little commercial. I did. 4:43 I did. That's great. Yeah, it is interesting how they're, you know, eyes will go from whatever they're doing on the paper. What did you What did she just say she's gonna do later go talk right? When I think Yeah, and that one reason why wouldn't the heavy on Erin is that from appealing to That kind of expertise and kind of the both from academia to, to therapy. And also I heard you do a chapel, chapel message here, Jessup, and it has stuck with me. So if anyone listened, I listened. So I appreciate that. And because I thought it was such a good way to frame this conversation, and you kind of talked about how we connect with others, right? And use read heart and body. Right, right. Yeah, I 5:27 talk about it, as keeping our body in alignment, right, our head is on top, and then our heart and then you know, like the rest of our body. And what can happen, if we get out of alignment is it's really hard to get us back in alignment. You know, I liken it to if your car tires are out of alignment, they don't just on their own, right, your car's gonna pull to the left or whatever. And it's just going to keep doing that until I mean, you have to take maybe some price specific measures to correct that. 5:58 That's the problem with my 93 Honda is gonna fix itself, if I keep driving it long enough. It won't shake at 50 miles. Like that goes on this is something's wrong with the car. It's gonna just 6:11 go away. Well, I mean, absolutely. And we start then if our if our cars out of alignment, we start driving it according to it's out of alignment. Right? Right. We start like I, I've done this myself, where if my car is pulling to the left all the time, then I mute when I'm driving. I'm constantly pulling it to the right, 6:29 right, since I think we're supposed to be talking about sex, but we're starting to talk about mechanics right now. We're avoiding the subject. Listen, listen, listen, 6:41 listen up. This, this makes sense. So if we are driving our car, specifically pushing it to the right, because it's wanting to pull to the left, we end up moving everything out of out of whack, right? And the same thing can happen. Yeah, when we get our body out of alignment or attachments out of alignment, then the same thing can happen in, in my experience, as a therapist, I have never seen a couple break up because the relationship was going too slow. Never, never ever in my over 20 years of their eyes, right? Have I seen a couple go? We just can't we just it's just we're just going too slow. Right. But I have seen, it's just taken it through slow. Never. But I have seen numerous people devastated by relationships when they break up, because they went too fast. Or they went out of alignment. Yeah, right. We need to if we're going to have safe relationships really connect with our head first. Mm hmm. 7:41 And of course, that's not the cultural message that we get not so this is right, deeply countercultural. 7:46 Right. And not only is it is it biblical, but it's also our brain chemicals, which I can get into a little bit too, but but you know, if we connect with our head, that means getting to know someone, their value systems, their beliefs, their their thoughts on on life, and, and what's important in life. It's, it's that whether or not somebody can be compatible in their goals, and in their values, that's really what we need to do first, right and, and that happens kind of organically, when we get to know people, you know, if you're hanging out with someone, you're gonna, you'll and they are maybe spending more or not spending or, you know, they have an interest. And so you learn about someone just as you get to know, you are learning about those things, the values, the things in their head. If if you're you know, moving towards a dating relationship, and you have that head connection first, and there's a lot of respect there I respect with this, I respect their values, I can connect with them, doesn't mean you have to all have the same hobbies, but you can respect each other in there, then you can safely move towards safely slowly move towards the heart. 8:54 And it's interesting when we sort of, you know, objectify sex, which we kind of do, we also end up objectifying people. Absolutely. That totally works against everything we're supposed to, you know, find in a relationship, 9:08 right? If we, if our head is safe, and our beliefs are the person is we can respect each other, we can slowly move to the heart, which is the emotions, how does this person hear my emotions? Are they able to connect with me on an emotional level, and that takes time to do to, if our emotions are safe, if our heart is safe, then later we can move towards again, if this is a dating relationship later, we can move towards considering how our bodies will connect. But again, that's countercultural, you know, and this hookup culture anyway, it's, you know, you're attractive. Okay, cool, right? And that's all there is to it. And there's a connection with the body first. But the problem is, there's lots of problems but but one of the problems with that is what happens in our brains, you know, yeah, our neuro chemicals in the way that God designed us. It's fascinating when when we are attracted to someone what happens in our in our neuro chemicals, 10:08 dozer pill we can take to avoid complications. Problem solved right there. Well, it's interesting because there happened where there have been studies done on rats, but i'm gonna i'm not gonna go towards that. Like, we're not gonna go down that road 10:31 probably a market for the other pill to to like make that happen to we can make money 10:39 exactly like 10:39 I said, and there's been lots of studies on like, you know, anyway, let's talk about humans. Okay. sidetracking darn it, darn it. Let's get back Rex's fault this time. So when we first are attracted to someone, meet someone, they're new, they're kind of mysterious. Dopamine is a neurochemical that gets really revved up in our brain with novelty. So we meet someone and we're attracted to them. We have this rush of dopamine, which helps us become infatuated. It's part it's the infatuation brugg in our Yeah, it does lots of things. But that's one of the things that it does. It gives us our focused attention when we are first starting to connect with someone and meet someone increased energy loss of appetite, all sorts of things that go with like falling in love or being infatuated with someone that's dopamine what's going on in your brain. But we can be fooled by that by thinking it's love when it actually is just really novelty and dopamine it's not necessarily love. It's what it's what first gets us wanting to be around someone that greeting 11:45 card industry. No, this 11:46 is a hallmark would not like what I'm going to be talking about homeowner channel wouldn't like it. Yeah, exactly. So dopamine explains kind of that loves struck feeling that right get when they first meet, which is good, 12:01 right? Because we don't have it, we probably wouldn't connect with people. 12:04 No, no, again, God, God created this brain that we've got, right. But again, he also gave us a thinking brain. Which means we can't just be like, dragged around by our brain. We should also be using our prefrontal cortex, the decision making part of our brain to help us which is why we go slow. That first part like said connecting with the head first. Yeah, right. Like, like, how does this person's values line up with mine? 12:31 One is this is this a brain chemical thing too? Because I kind of jotted down some notes that it seems like to connect with someone intellectually first takes longer than to connect with them bodily. Oh, for sure. And it seems like that even brain chemical wise, it maybe takes longer to create those pathways maybe in Right, yeah. So the taking it slow taking it is also a body thing as well. Right. Right. 13:03 And interesting. Like I said, dopamine gets revved up with novelty. So when people are first starting to date, and they want to spend time together, and they have all this lovestruck feelings of I can't, I can't stop thinking about them. And all the novelty would diminish with time a little bit does, it does, like 12 to 18 months, actually. So if a relationship is going to last and really should last, we need something more than just dopamine doing that. Right. Right. But again, in this hookup culture, that's not really what people are paying attention to. Right? Yeah. But But then the body with touch that has a whole other element that we need to pay attention to if we want to be safe in our relationships, because not only is dopamine going on when when we are attracted to someone and first like kindling a relationship. With touch, we have oxytocin and we end with sexual touch, specifically, sex, intercourse, there is vasopressin so so we have a couple different other chemicals that are also released during during touch and during sex, which are bonding chemicals. So those chemicals are meant to help us stay attached to who we are. 14:18 And that also explains a lot of the wreckage that the hookup culture leaves so much wreckage, 14:23 that's exactly right, so much wreckage. So we need our thinking brain to help our heart slow down. We also need our thinking brain to not have us connecting physically all over the place, which is going to cause all that bonding that we you know it another thing with oxytocin is it helps us feel safe. Well, if you haven't already connected with someone, intellectually to know that they're safe, your body wants to feel safe with the person you've been sexual with. Yeah, that is the way our brain works the way God created our brains to work, but of course It's a false enough, but it's a false sense of safety, right? Which is, again, why we need that thinking brain, and we need to slow down and use the intellectual part of our brain first, 15:09 before the body, right? And then when you find out that person isn't safe, yeah, just but then 15:13 there's already all this connection, you know, something I, I've heard many years ago, and it really held on to it that, and I've seen it true in my practice, and just in my, my life with people I know, sex before marriage can do one of two things. It can take a good relationship and make it much more challenging. Because sex is powerful. Right? So once you introduce that, in a relationship where there hasn't been the commitment, it's like, all the energy goes towards either wanting sex or trying to stop it. Yeah. Right. And so it takes what is the naturally progressing relationship, and now, like, takes it off course out of alignment, right. And so there's a lot more complications in trying to get that relationship in a healthy way. So it can take a good relationship and make it much harder, or it can take a bad relationship and make it last longer. Right, because of that bond. Right? So I mean, it's just, it's just not great. And, you know, God talks about that. And, unfortunately, and kind of our current culture, everybody wants to think that was something from back in the day, right? Instead of now, 16:24 right? But, you know, God knew that was doing something for the Puritans. Right. And I love CS Lewis highlights that a lot. He uses that word a lot. In screwtape letters, he has screwtape use that word Puritan, he's like, remember that word like that can. And he also loose is another thing in and through the through the voice right through the voice of screwtape. But he's helping Wormwood has the tempter has his nephew. He's helping him understand the patient better. And he says, humans forget that they are amphibious, that their spirit and body right, and what's your body does affects their spirit, right? And so, you know, he's kind of helping woman like, don't worry about necessarily messing with the spirit side, mess with the body side. And that's going to and I always stuck with me, because so true. I mean, this this issue, and I think sex and the issue of sex, highlights it more than maybe any of the other issues, that we are both body and spirit. We're not just spirit, partially inhabiting a body. And we're not just body. But we're both. And so what our body does affects our spirit. And 17:34 I think we've been really fed that lie that they're not connected, right? So do what you're right. It doesn't matter. Yeah. And oh, my goodness, it's so matters. It's so matters. It matters. It matters. It matters, it matters, it matters, we're connected, we are one system, body, mind, soul, spirit, we are one system, and you can't really mess with one without the rest. 17:52 So question that I have Erin that would help me and maybe trying to communicate or use this information. You know, when I talk about this with students, and, folks, I know, one thing we talked about last time is the fact that culturally, people are entering into marriage later. So the average age of a male 28, average age of female 27, something like that. And I totally see this in my own kids. I mean, yeah, totally. And, and it may be a little different in some conservative Christian circles, but still even in in, you know, Christian circles that that's and there's some reasons for that. But of course, this means that there's a lot of time between the time that you know, your first release sexually over the potential for being sexually active, and then marriage. And so how can this knowledge maybe I'm trying to find something else to throw at the wall and say that will stick here? How can this knowledge help? You know, in that lengthy time that I'm saying it's easy? Right, if I never said that, right. I understand that. And we all know that. But I'm just I'm just some what in this might. I don't know even how to say this, make it easier and understanding. It's not easy, but at least make it easy. You're right, you know, because we don't want to abandon the traditional Christian sexual ethic, right? But we are in other cultural realities here that and it's not just, you know, the media, you know, trumpet sex, so we're captive to that. That is true, but but you know, just the way people live their lives now is different with all the economic drivers and all sorts of things. And so you think 19:42 knowledge is power. And so if people do understand, this is what happens in my brain when my body is engaged in no physical connection in any way, right? Because even I mean, it starts with even kissing dopamine gets revved With with like kissing an oxytocin get wrapped up with like kissing. So it's not I mean, and I'm not saying I'm not I don't want to go down that whole road about how much touches too much touch. But I'm not gonna do that too far right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, free camp for all time. Yeah, right? No. But I do think knowledge is power. And so if someone can understand this is what's happening in my brain This is what's happening in my neurochemicals, and it's affecting the way that I feel about myself. And it will impact the way I feel about myself and others. Yeah, moving forward. That it's not we aren't dissected from our soul. Our body is not dissected from our soul. If somebody can understand that, that may give them at least pause. Yeah, right, which is what I'm hoping for just just to give someone pause, at least recognize what's going on inside of you. Right, you know, and we think this is maybe going to be a weird analogy, but you think, you know, years ago, smoking was, was supposed to be sexy and right. And so all you know, you saw it on in movie. 21:05 Ad the other day, it was like going on Instagram, and it was like history photographed, right. And it was a from the like, 40s. And it was advertising cigarettes for pregnant women. And it was like the best cigarette for pregnant women. Like that was the person who was pregnant in the thing. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, but our knowledge 21:24 that our knowledge has changed right now we know oh, my goodness, this is what it does to your body. Right? It's terrible. So I think it's the same thing here, right? If we can just give people some knowledge to give them pause, you know, people are going to make their make their choices, right? But give them pause, at least they can understand this is what's happening in my body and my brain and my soul, when I choose to be, you know, physically connected to another person. Right. Okay. Again, they're gonna make their own choice. Right. 21:54 And I think one thing we noticed in the last episode, and is that just giving someone a Thou shalt not? Doesn't, doesn't give them enough pause. Now, and move on why, 22:06 right? We can explain this is what happens in your brain. This is what's happening in your body. This is, this is what might happen. If this continues, and this is what will happen if this continues, right? Because you can't tell your brain chemicals. Okay, well, I don't want you to release. Yeah, I mean, right? don't connect to this person, right? We're just gonna relax, but don't connect, right. But what you can do is use your brain like when if somebody is starting to get in that obsessive thought, because in addition to dopamine, we and we also have low levels of serotonin. When when there's this kind of attraction happening. Yeah. Which is kind of kind of makes that obsessive thing go on when somebody so we can't tell. You can't tell your brain, which I love. The fact that God created our minds is why we can use our minds to control our minds, right? We can't Yeah, we can tell our brains No, stop. No, I'm not gonna do that. Right. We have the ability to do that we have even though maybe, maybe physically, there's this attraction, maybe physically, there's this draw, we still can use our brain to say no, 23:11 right? We're not slaves to our physicality necessarily, right? Or free moral age. Exactly. Exactly. So with knowledge, I think we have a little bit more to them. Okay. 23:22 Yeah. And I think that is scamming we, and we talked a little bit about last episode that focusing on the Why is going to be so, so much more important, right? Because just telling someone something is wrong. doesn't doesn't help. And it doesn't cause anyone to be like, I mean, there's maybe a 1% who are like, Oh, it's wrong, I won't do it. Yeah. And it seems that the other 99% of us. Yeah, exactly. Right, that it's and I think the Why does help and, and I think that is a good analogy, actually, with the smoking because once you start learning, like, Hey, this is this is not good for my body. And and I think the why also gets to what people are actually looking for, like the fact even maybe in hookup culture, we're looking to connect with someone, right? We want intimacy, 24:07 and we're meant for it. Yeah, I mean, it's not a bad thing to want, it's a great thing to want it is how God created me. 24:15 We talked a little bit last time about how we've changed kind of a sexual ethic of commitment to a sexual ethic of consent, and how that just really skews the conversation. And somehow i think that you know, commitment needs to be framed as a good thing. And and if that is something that that is good and a moral good, then maybe I will use this new knowledge that I have about the chemicals in my brain and how this sort of happens in service of something that is good, 24:51 right? Yeah, it were meant to connect right? This this is not us at war with our brains, right. This is us. The brain and understanding what our brain does, to our best good and to the best good of our, of our future, you know, spouse, maybe, right. But I, again, I think we need, we need more knowledge. You know, you mentioned earlier the the kind of to like, you know, sex is bad don't do it or sex is good. Everybody doesn't doesn't matter, right? And if or if sex is bad before marriage, then it's amazing after marriage, so you just have to wait, right? Everything, everything's gonna be perfect. Again, not so much. Right? We I think, again, knowledge is key. And what I've discovered over, you know, a lot of years of working with couples is most couples don't know enough about their own sexual response cycle. And they don't know anything about their their spouse's sexual response cycle, right. So when we're not doing a great job in the church, about helping people understand what what God meant, when He created us as two separate genders, right, and how those two beautiful differences can come together in a great experience, sexually in a committed relationship. But we're not giving people the tools or the knowledge about that, right. And so it doesn't always just, you know, after the wedding line, everything is great for from here on out, you know, again, if people don't have knowledge, and I think, I think the church, maybe in response to how the world has kind of hijacked sex has just instead moved away entirely. Instead of recognizing Wait, this is something that God created, we need to equip people with, why and how and how it works even. 26:41 So I don't say I'm a youth pastor, and I have, you know, a bunch of 1516 year old. And I'm trying to communicate this to them in some way. What would be the best way for me to do that? What this are you talking about? The chemical, you know, the the head, heart body sort of issues and how the chemicals that are released when these actions happen, do have implications? how can how can I communicate this in more layman's language? If you're talking to a 15 year old, up to a 15 year old that anything 27:35 15 year olds maybe a little bit more credit. I think that if I say, you know, explain to a 15 year old there, there are neuro chemicals, there are chemicals that flood your brain at different times during depending on the things that you do the actions that you do. And with this action comes this chemical and with this chemical comes this action. 27:57 I think they could understand that. 27:59 Yeah. Good. I like that approach. I think I think we do need to to give 1516 year olds more more credit for their ability to be able to, to understand things. I mean, I think in a lot of areas, I think specifically in the church, we've we've not talked about it or when we have we've kind of kept it on a surface level. And we haven't gotten to details. And it's almost like we're afraid to talk about the specifics. But we have to realize like they're getting specifics elsewhere. Right, exactly. They have 28:33 they're getting the specifics wrong. Right. Right. They're getting a miss information. Yeah. Right. So sex is depicted in culture very differently than what it what it can be and what it should be right. And something that that happens frequently is, especially, you know, now with the just influx of pornography everywhere, right? pornography is is specifically created with male sex in mind and not female sex in mind in terms of like the sexual response cycle, right? And so men, even even committed Christian men get into marriage with this understanding that sex is going to look like what pornography depicts. And that is so inaccurate, right? Because it does not take in the other half of the equation, which is the woman's sexual response cycle. Right. Right, which is just kind of ignored and and, you know, fabricated in pornography. And so again, I think it's so important for people just to get like actual knowledge, like real knowledge is power, right? Just power. Knowledge is power. Understood? 29:42 Yeah, really is. And I think what's interesting is, even within culture, I think culture kind of has two paradoxical kind of comments happening at the same time. They say, sex is great. Like, do whatever you want. pornography is great. You should watch it and learn But then also I think you hear in culture, like, hey, what what is going on with how we're using sex and how we're abusing each other with it? Right. So there's a recognition that man that that sex isn't jerky, you know that it can be damaging. And then even pornography can be damaging in there. I mean, there's, I think there's more of it, because it's more out there, not just drag the can, is Yeah. And I think there are cultures recognizing that recognizing like, hey, it can be and so we need to, and even hearing secular psychologists, and I'm talking about the fact that our, you know, eight 910 11 year old boys are watching hours and hours of pornography, right? It's probably not good for our culture. Right. Right. Yeah. 30:44 So yeah, you're absolutely right. There's a lot of secular psychologists, who would recognize that pornography has impeded a person's ability to have a healthy sex life later, what what our brain does with pornography, it wires in a certain way. And so I unfortunately, I've worked with couples where the they're not able to have a healthy sex life, because the one of the people have been typically the male have been, you know, so connected physically with pornography, that they can no longer find pleasure in I mean, just doesn't work. You know, they got busy oddly, doesn't work anymore. Because of the connection of the neural pathways. Right. Right. So again, I mean, that's not that has nothing to do with whether or not someone has faith or not. It's just like, outside of morality, right. But again, as we said, before, you know, our bodies and our brains and our souls, we are all intertwined to the way God created us. So you don't have to be a Christian to to have the experience of the way God designed your body to be. Right. Right, there does so true. And psychologists are recognizing that that the body doesn't work well, when this happens. sexual response doesn't work well, when we do it in ways that are basically anti christian. Right, even though they're not Christian psychologists. Right. 32:10 And they're, yeah, recognize that. And I think, maybe this been a great conversation for me. And I think a good place to land is I want to go back to the car analogy wasn't a distract me because I have a real affinity for this analogy, because I do drive a 93. Honda and it often has, I mean, it's been a great car, and then it's going to go forever. Like I want to drive it until it just dies on the freeway. And then I just keep walking, and I'll just leave it there. But it with that, like, I liked how you said this, this head, heart and body alignment. And when you get out of alignment, just like when your car's out of alignment. You just learn to to pull to the right if it's fallen to the left. Yep. And, and then you Yeah, you compensate. And then you get to a place where you don't even realize it. So I have my car every day. So I don't hear the knocks and I don't hear. And it's so funny when people get in the car with me. And they're like, does it always sound like that? I'm like, yeah, it's fine. But then my wife drove the car one day and she's like, What is wrong with your car? Like I had to steer the opposite direction to go straight. But I was like, oh really my god and I hadn't even thought about it. Because 33:26 I had that same problem with my car when it finally got corrected I finally took it in I got the alignment. I was now driving the I had to retrain myself to drive straight cuz I was so used to pulling to one direction to make it drive. So absolutely we compensate and everything else around us. In our in our in our whole system compensates too. And it seems like we're doing that with sex, right? And in our culture, and especially the hookup culture, we're now we're just like, well, this 33:55 is how it is when we we connect with people bodily first, and we just live our life compensating, compensating. And then yeah, and I think what people do one is if they could experience this true alignment, right, and, and again, not that you have a trilemma and you have no problems, right? No more knowledge still need, I still need to know what to do. But that that, and perhaps maybe like for me with the car analogy is when my wife drove it and then she was like, Hey, what's wrong? So sometimes maybe we need other people speaking to us saying, hey, maybe it seems like you're compensating there. Right? And, and you've been leading with the body to connect with people. And and that's not going to be a way to actually get what you want, which is true intimacy and true connection. Right? Yeah. So thank you for that. Thank you for your No, this was really yeah, this was good conversation. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me on. You're very welcome. And you will you will Be back. Okay, and when you come back, hopefully we'll have the T shirts ready. Ready? Once you come back, then we can call you a friend of the show. Oh, okay, on the show first time, I'm 35:12 just a visitor. Here twice, and I'm a friend. Oh, I'm waiting for that invitation. Now we'll figure out all the prizes and everything else. That's true. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. 35:28 All right, we're gonna finish today's show with a reoccurring segment that is called the student becomes the teacher becomes a student. And I'm glad to welcome back Matthew Todd, it's good to be back. Host of exit 311 s. Jessup podcast, student extraordinare. Just now a friend of the show, friend of the show officially Oh official says more than I have achieved in a great many weeks. So I'm getting well now you can tell your parents you've become a friend of the show. I'll be proud. You will get the T shirt t shirt will be made. Yeah, I can guarantee it. I know the guy who's on it. Who's making that T shirt he he follows through. That's right. That's right. He does follow through. Yeah. So I do I have another important question for you. Because I just have a lot that I need to learn. And this is kind of, you know, I know you're being a sophomore. You're just now maybe being a part of this culture. And and this will definitely be probably your future in the next, you know, two to six years like is half hopefully to hopefully do and for two. Yeah, amen. Well, we act graduate, but I mean, like, just life after life after post grad. So here's the question, why? Why is everyone getting married in barns these days? Why is anyone getting married? And like, what, what's the barn attraction because I grew up in the country, like I grew up around a barn and never grown up as a kid was like, you know, I want to get married here one day. I think that's actually why so nowadays, we have a lot of people especially who come to a private Christian school who are not growing up around Barton. So like, okay, the idea of like, the simplicity that a barn in vibes is kind of like, foreign almost, it's like, wow, look how drastic that is. That's so, so neat. Like, wow, look, how quaint. That is. There might be a simpler times. Yeah. And so they want to and also, I bet cheaper. There you go. Well, I don't know man. The barns I've seen. They're like nice barns. Oh, they're not even used barns. They're like like wedding barn wedding barns. Yeah, they literally are wedding barns. That's crazy. But I kind of like that. I like that idea of I do think it's kind of a harkening back and maybe in the midst of our craziness of our culture of our technologies. Yeah. That they're like, you know what, let's go back to that simpler time. Maybe we met on the farm. We're both farm hands. We met and we got married. And we had each other I know, and then you're and you just, you know, you just work on the farm every day milk cows and make back right, the kids Little House in the peristyle. Yeah, I think okay, I can see that. Like, yeah, that makes sense. It might I mean, to get a little deeper here and my I have a connection to the fact that like, there's a lot of people millennial age who are very into, like, liturgy, they're getting more and right into like those. I'm a fan of that. I'm, I'm away. I heard on the podcast. Yeah. See? Yeah. You your listener? I am one of the That's right. That's right. You are I am one of them. And that is perfect. We thank you for your listening. Thank you for that. That's why now your friend of the show. That's I'm glad I made it there. So I feel very proud. Okay, so now I think Okay, I understand a little more about maybe the drawl to barns. But now I have a question for you to follow up. Okay. Okay. This is something I feel like I should know, but I definitely don't. And my parents mentioned in the day and I'm, I'm lost. So I want you to know what it means to call someone collect. 38:52 A collect. 38:54 So but it's like a phone call. Right? collect? I don't quite right. Okay. Yeah. So So here we go. This is a history lesson. This will go way back. We're going back before the time of cell phones what we do? Yeah, there was there was a time in the recent past where we did not have a phone with us at all times. I can't imagine it right. Yeah, I just you can't fathom that. Like, this is even way before the internet like it is. And so there used to be payphones in establishments or a high school. I grew up and we had one payphone in the lobby. And it was like 25 cents, I think to make a call, so he had to have a quarter. But if you didn't have a quarter, you could call someone collect, which meant they they got a message when they pick up the phone and says Will you accept a collect call from and then it would be my voice like Mark. Dad picked me up at school. And so then your parents would be like, okay, I accept it. So now that quarter gets charged to my parents phone bill. So they pay for that phone call. Because you had to, there was no free calls. There was no just calling. Yeah, this is land before cell phone. It's kind of I've heard a follow up kind of question to this, you know, from people but again, considering land before cell phone is like, how did we ever meet each other, like meet people? Like if we were like, hey, let's all meet somewhere, like without cell phones without texting? Yeah, like, that was like you wrote like letters. Right? And we literally just had to audibly say to each other in person. No way. I will see you on Tuesday at 4pm at the mall to get I like your daily planner. Yeah, write that down. Exactly. I'd write down and then you just show up to the mall. And if no one showed up, you're like, well, I guess they're not coming. That's rough. He just went home. I will say it's one of the hardest things to go somewhere and then like not know, people would be there. But then also sometimes I'll get there. And if I don't have my phone, it's like, the mean the mall near here is ginormous. Right? So it's like, where are you going to meet right? How are we ever gonna see each other? And so if you if you just said when I was like, Let's meet up somewhere, you had to be like, specific? Yeah. Like let's meet in front. So like that hard. But yeah, the wetzel pretzel, thinking about how like, I've been enabled to be lazy about just like, Let's meet at the mall, which is not fair of a place to meet, because that's ginormous need to say, yeah, you know, three quarters left of the web tells you exactly to that kiosk right there. And we couldn't even say now all those kiosks or fix your iPhone screen kiosk. didn't exist. So we didn't even have those kiosks nearby. Exactly. Go to the fix your iPhone screen one right here. Which Which one? There's 17 on this row right out front of apple. That is a collect call. I'm glad. I'm glad that I learned a lot. Why did I learned a little more about barn culture? I kind of like that kind of yearning for simplicity. Yeah, I appreciate that. So thanks for teaching me that. Matthew Todd, and I look forward to having you back on the show to answer some more questions. Thank you for letting me be on here again. I feel like I've learned a lot. It's a privilege. Really. Thank you. 42:07 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessupthink we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup. 42:33 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go. Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.Mark and Rex wade into the delicate waters of sex and Christian culture. On one hand the church has been labeled as prudish and uptight but on the other hand, statistics show that sexual practice matters little whether you are inside or outside the church.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Hey, welcome to Jessup. Think I'm your host, Mark Moore and
0:04 your co host, Rex Gurney.
0:05 And today, Rex, we are talking about a topic that we may be approached with fear and trepidation is a topic that
0:11 I avoided for a long time dealing with until I got convicted that I couldn't
0:15 avoid it. Right. And it's a topic we need to talk about. And we definitely need to talk about it without fear and trepidation. That's something we need to talk about. So we're going to talk about sex and Christian culture. And I hope you enjoy. So I hope you stick around for for the show, it's going to be part one or part two. And in this episode, we're going to kind of talk about maybe statistics within the church right of of our use of sex and abuse of sex. But then also, yeah, culturally, how that how we can frame the conversation. Yeah,
0:49 and talk about it in a redemptive way. In our community. That's right.
0:53 So hope you enjoy. Now, Rex, yeah, today we are, we're going to be talking about a topic that that is one that you kind of brought to our kind of brainstorming session. Oh, my God. Yeah, you know, I have to right away, I'm distancing myself
1:16 we are going to go for at least our own podcast has not gone but yeah. So we're boldly going where no podcasts right. Gossip has gone before?
1:26 That's true. Yeah. As as the only podcast. That's right. But we do, but I think it is an extremely important topic, right. And we want to talk about sex and Christian culture. So and not just and we I think we want to kind of why I've been kind of titling in that is, is to make a distinction between we're not talking about just sex in our culture, or our culture's view of sex. But we actually want to be a little bit more pinpointed on, on on how sex is maybe viewed within the Christian culture, how is it how it is expressed within the Christian culture, and, and things that we are maybe noticing trends that we are noticing, we're gonna, I really think we're gonna look at the good and the bad, and try to parse just
2:11 gonna try to reframe the issue in a way that especially millennials, and younger Christians, um, will actually understand and pay attention to, actually because, you know, there is an issue that we sort of don't talk about a lot. And it is the fact that there's a significant percentage of young adults who view themselves, even as evangelical Christians that simply reject part of the traditional Christian sexual ethic, and particularly the part about premarital sex. Right? It's not that they're ignorant of the teaching of the Bible. They simply reject it for one reason or another. Yeah. And I think we can both agree that the biblical eminent admonitions and and teaching on this has been pretty consistent through the past 2000 plus years, Ram hasn't really changed much. So how can we maybe reframe the conversation so folks would would take the traditional Christian teaching more seriously than apparently a lot of Christians do. Right. And I've heard that we just need to yell louder at people. That doesn't seem to be working now. Yeah, no. So are there other ways we can talk about it? Are there ways we can address this problem?
3:28 Yeah. And it seems like that there's might be a good place to start is kind of look at why it has been rejected. I mean, I think it's kind of noticing the stats, maybe behind it. Although it's kind of interesting. It does seem like maybe within millennials, and even in Gen Xers, there was kind of this move against the biblical sexual ethic, but also kind of seeing some recent stats where like, Generation Y is having less sex than predecessor. Right, right. Engaging in even drug use less all those things. And so so that'll be another side topic. I think maybe one of the reasons why kind of my I kind of from the Generation X world, which were like a small little sliver in between the boomers and the millennials, right? Yeah. We're a sad little grungy group.
4:26 I'm right smack in the middle of the boomers. Yeah, you're right in the middle. Already retiring and writing right, America. Yep.
4:33 Yeah, you keep going forward. You keep going forward. You got plenty more. Yes. Because we also think we're 40 Exactly.
4:39 This is a problem.
4:41 That is true. But I think like for maybe Gen Xers and and maybe early millennials on that scale. There seems to be maybe a rejection of the biblical ethic, in some ways is, is maybe a rejection of how the church has presented it. Cool. It'll be true. And and it does seem like and this kind of starts maybe very early on definitely, definitely in the Middle Ages, but maybe kind of post Augustinian, you know, kind of does flow out of Augustinian thought, is, in some ways this kind of demonizing of sex, right? That that sex is bad, don't think about it, and try not to do it and only do it to procreate. And then and a Gustin has been very, very influential
5:25 in Christian theology. For a lot of the right reasons, I think, but Brutus is not one of them acts, right. He has bequeath something, particularly the Catholic Church, but also with Protestantism that has kind of not been helpful. As far as tying sex with original sin and all sorts of stuff, right? That's not really helpful.
5:46 And it and it kind of is interesting, just looking at a little bit of his background, too, for sure. came from a background of having a mistress.
5:55 Right, Lord, man, give me chastity, but not yet.
5:58 Yeah, that was his, his prayer. And so I think in some ways, maybe his move later in his theology was maybe a reaction against sure against that. And then it does become fairly deeply ingrained, right, in the chart, right. Typically, the Catholic Church at the time, but I think, yeah, it spreads to Protestant movement. And, and so there seems to be, but there seems to be maybe two swings to this pendulum, right? There's the demonizing of sex, then there's also the glorifying of set, right? That happens in our culture. And And honestly, that's been every culture from all time, right? I mean, they uncover things, you know, and Pompei. And the first thing they find is frescoes of naked people, right? Like, it's it's not a new thing. It's
6:48 not that death and taxes are the only two constants that probably have to say death, taxes and sex are
6:55 right. Right. And so, but it seems to be this this interesting swing of a pendulum from demonizing sex to then
7:03 over glorifying, especially in our in our Christian culture. So over glorifying married sex. Oh, yeah. Right, that can get really interesting, too, right? Um, you know, if you if you just if you just wait, it's gonna be great. Right? And that course causes its own issues. Yeah,
7:20 no. I've actually heard that described as the sexual prosperity gospel, which is a really interesting phrase, because it's kind of like you're sold a product, right? And then that product doesn't work the way the commercial says it would work. And it can leave you being like, Well, why did I wait?
7:44 And I think one issue with that, and it's really understandable is because the hyper sexualization of our culture, right, this is a reaction to that. It's like, you know, this is all around everywhere. I mean, sex sells, sex advertises sex is everywhere, right. And so we understand the power of that. But we guarantee that if you, you know, wait until marriage, then that sex is being sold everywhere will be better, actually. Right. Everybody else?
8:13 Yeah, that's, that's, yeah, interesting, that has been sold as it'll be better. Right. And I think what we mean, by better is we take maybe the hyper sexualization that we've received in culture, and we just be like, Oh, yeah, I'll get that, just without the guilt or without the shame. Right. Right. And, and it's still in a weird way being influenced by the hypersexuality of our culture, I certainly and, and so we do have to, and so I, I really want to, to be not, I don't know, for open is the right word, but I really want to be cautious of, of the, of just on the other way to kind of demonizing that too, because it's a great is, it was a it came up in the church and maybe purity movement. And there's always been kind of a purity movement, but kind of the one specific we'd be talking about would be almost 80s 90s, early, early 2000s. And, and it was trying to help maybe Christian young people understand was a reaction to the sexualization our culture, understand the nature of sex, understand the importance of sex, the commitment that goes along with sex, right. And so I think that there was a lot of good that that obviously, came with it, and a lot of good intention. But we also just have to be careful about the caveats that can also come with it. Exactly. Exactly. And overselling something doesn't help and there's been too many like, are able to be a part of kind of couples counseling and things like that. And there's just had too many stories of, of where it does it doesn't work that way. Right? And and so now honestly, when my wife and I do premarital counseling, we always try to warn, especially the Christian couples that we work with that, hey, this they sex is more than just Oh, wait, and then everything is perfect. Right? So. So I think maybe part of reframing this issue is recognizing the two polls, the demonizing of sex that the church has taken part of and being like, hey, that's not helpful, right? But also the overt glorification of sex, right? And then maybe you I like how you kind of looping it in there, the over glorification of married sex, you know, because that's not that's not necessarily the point of, of Scripture and a biblical sexual ethic isn't if you follow this, you will have an amazing sex life, right? That's
10:47 somewhere
10:50 where your your neighbor who's secular is going to have lesser sex life? Because on the other side, they're also saying the same thing. They're like, why religion is keeping you from having a good sex. Right. Right. So it's some ways it's the same argument.
11:05 It's interesting how we had we were, yeah, what happens in culture, we want to have a good sex life. And that's actually another good, good podcast about you know, Christian culture being being a reflection, right? Oh, yeah. Just being a mere like a culture in America. Well, I want to kind of broke this back, though. Yeah, we can sort of the topic du jour here is actually premarital sex. Because, yeah. You know, it's no, it's no secret that significant numbers of Christian young people are sexually involved before marriage. Right. And it's not that they don't understand the teachings, or they've never heard it before. Right. They've heard it a lot. And they simply choose to go another way. Yeah, and choose to go another way without feeling they're necessarily compromising their core Christian conviction. Yeah. Which is an interesting phenomenon. Right. And so there are some drivers in this actually, and and, you know, there are some changes in our culture and in our society that complicate this question, I think, and, and one of them is, of course, the fact that many young people are waiting until their late 20s to get married. Yeah. And that's in our society. Right. And it is it is in Christian society to actually outside of maybe some Christian school. Right, right. Right, right. That's asking a lot of a lot of people to basically say for like, the 1015 years that you, you know, or at least that that culture will say you're in your sexual prime, we're asking you to abstain. And 15 years is a long time. Right, especially in a culture that's hyper sexualized. And that's a that's a complicating factor. With this. We're asking a lot of folks. But yet the biblical teachings still pretty clear. So how can we talk about it in ways that folks will take seriously Yeah, give give reasons, more, waiting until marriage reasons even if you're going to be married in your late 20s?
13:10 Yeah. And that reason has to be better than like, it will be better if you wake up. Right? Exactly. You can fall into that trap of right of just trying to sell like, actually, it's gonna be better for you to wait. And, again, it is better, right? The biblical narrative would say it is better to wait, what that doesn't mean is that then sex is easy peasy. And everything right? Is is all fun and games after you get married. But yeah, it does seem so understanding that we kind of waiting longer, and that seems to be culturally overall. Exactly, exactly what we're a secrecy culture is just mirroring that, yeah, we seem to be postponing a lot of those, maybe markers of adulthood that are happening later that that right in their 70s happened in early 20s. Now are happening in early 30. And
14:01 so one solution to that, I guess, would be you know, just I mean, what's the issue, just get married early, ring by spring, and then you're married and then write all these issues? Right? Um, but of course, we're not. We're not really avoiding anything with that. Right? Yeah. And the, you know, the data is still out about what happens with that. And so it's a complicated thing. It's a really complicated thing. But what we we you know, I guess both of us in our, you know, pastoral hats, right, and such would wish for and what is actually in culture sometimes aren't the same thing. And so right, we would need to somehow be realistic and deal with integrity with what is actually out there. And that's something I've grown more and more convinced about, and I don't have the silver bullet for this. I've just been trying to find in the Christian perspective class that I talked about, it was sort of the elephant in the room that for years I didn't talk about Yeah, but it's the biggest elephant in the room right now with a 10 foot pole, but yet I just felt like it was dereliction of duty if we didn't talk Talk about that, and talk about that in an honest way and try to reframe the conversation
15:05 well, and, and, and when you're in a hyper sexualized culture, everyone else is talking about it. And so the church does have to talk about it. Right. And, and so I think maybe like, let's, I'm just trying to picture Yeah, like maybe a young millennial or even Generation Y, coming to us and be like, okay, okay, Mark, and Rex, you know, try to explain to me why I should wait. Right. Right. And, and I think that that is, it's good to frame it through that of like it because they know and maybe they know the Bible verses and that maybe speaks to like a different podcast on the role of Scripture plays in our lives, right, and the role of scriptural authority like that is, but I think even beyond that, like the way I've I've began to approach it and and what approaches someone and even had to wrestle with it in my own spiritual walk around of like, hey, what, what does scripture say about because there isn't to like that one verses says, Thou shalt not have sex before marriage. There's, it's kind of a conglomeration of verses that highlight, this is the best way, right? And maybe the best expression of our sexuality, the way God has created, although some
16:13 people would argue difference, they would they would say that actually, what fornication would be right? Yeah, the sex and adultery is, right. Is extramarital sex.
16:22 It's kind of it's kind of a elusive word. Right? Right. And we have it, we have to add some definition to it. And so I always like to kind of start with the why. Because even even just knowing something is wrong, doesn't mean you're like, Oh, I know, it's wrong. I'm not gonna do it. And, and in fact, I in another class, and I even in a rogue podcast episode that I did that you weren't even a part of, kind of talk about that. Usually, when we find out something's wrong, it makes us want to do it even more, right? Like, we're like, oh, and that's part of maybe this whole idea of personal freedom. And so maybe the solution to this is we just shut the podcast down right now and just talk about all this. Yeah, we don't know. But I think I think talking about the the why not just saying hey, it's wrong, don't do it, which which I feel like maybe the church did for a long time. Just it's wrong, don't do it. Don't think about it. And, and then what happened is, people were still doing it, it was just in private, and then no one was talking about it. And it just had, like, heap loads of shame. We're just, we're just piled on to the topic to where we couldn't even really talk about it. So. So I think us as a church talking about it, talking about the why more than just hey, these are the verses that tell you don't do it.
17:43 And also, I would add something actually on even more than the why cuz I think the Why is essential. But yeah, you have to have reasons to go against the culture, because you're getting cultural messages. Yeah. And we need to have compelling reasons to, to somehow, you know, go against or ignore cultural messages that are pretty attractive and enticing. There's a lot of stuff going on with it. Right. I mean, sell sells, and it sells because it's sellable. Right. And the reason it right? And so giving the why, but also, you know, letting letting people know that we understand the context, we understand the pressures, we understand, you know, some some changes that have happened in culture that that impact this whole thing. You know, I think it's helpful that if I feel like I'm understood, then I may be more open to what you have to say,
18:41 there you go. Yeah.
18:42 And that you understand what's really going on. Right? You know, instead of instead of not, that's why honesty in this about, yeah, what's happening, I think is really, really important.
18:52 Yeah, that's so important, because I think when the church took a stance of kind of demonizing sex, it kind of didn't speak honestly, to how we are created as human beings, that we are sexual beings. Sexuality is a part of our lives. It's not the main goal. It's not the focus, right. But we are sexual beings. And so, if the church demonizes that, then the person is like, You're not even talking about real life.
19:21 One thing that Richard foster said, actually, that I thought was really helpful in dealing with this issue is that not only have we like demonized it, but we've actually narrow cast at it, you know, to, to just talk about sex. I mean, and I'm just gonna go ahead and say this genitally right, and not talk about the fact that we are sexual beings and it actually affects almost every area of our lives, right. And, and so if we can broaden that conversation, that sort of demystifies some of it and it also opens up for people to have at least to entertain the possibility that they that their sexual expression, they can be sexual beings and have a legitimate and healthy sexual expression without engaging in genital sex, right. So it's not a false dichotomy with right. And and so far, we haven't been very good about talking about that either. Right? Because of the demonization of it. And yeah, you know, let's let's be honest, it's it's powerful stuff, this is powerful stuff we're talking about right? And not talking about it does not make it any less powerful,
20:33 right. And that seems maybe to be one of the the first steps is just the church being better at recognizing and being able to talk about us as human beings as sexual beings, not only sexual beings, but but like, well, Foster was saying that it is something that is a part of being human that can affect all areas of your life, it's not just a small part of your life. And, and so recognizing that we're sexual beings. And then maybe Yeah, recognizing that, that God has spoken to us about, hey, this may be the best way to express that. Thanks, Ronnie. Right like, and, and I often like to frame it through that lens of, of, of wisdom, okay, and, and through the lens of wisdom. And it can maybe, you know, when I think about it, it can almost sound like, this is the better option, like the better but I don't mean it's better, like, Oh, your sex life will be just as affirming as what you saw on the friends episode, you're watching or whatever, the which I'm glad friends has come back. Because now I can make those references to cultural
21:42 phenomenon. People actually, it's
21:46 like that it comes back does once once podcasts on that, but when they see that, so it's not that but it's better in the sense of it actually is maybe more in line with how we are created as sexual beings. And that, that our sexuality and how we express it is maybe not just about us. Right, and it involves others, and we can use it to abuse other people. Exactly. Exactly. And I think I think the reason why God was maybe concerned about getting this message about sex to to humanity, through the Hebrew Scriptures through the New Testament, was to say, Hey, this is a part of your existence. That's also a part where you can really hurt each other, right? And you can hurt yourselves, right? And so maybe having maybe having a different view of this will be a view that says, Let's, let's wait until this act can be aligned with commitment and love. Where, where if you even those two things, right, aligning it with a deep commitment and love, you could say marriage, right, right. But what's funny, there is even in marriage doesn't always come with commitment or love. That's really, really interesting. I
23:14 mean, and you know, folks actually sort of talk about that about actual, like, sexual abuse in marriage. And it's like, well, how can that possibly be? Well, it actually can be yes, if it's not hooked to commitment and love. And the commitment piece is really, really interesting. I am in you know, trying to find every angle that I can possibly talk about this for for my students and seeing what sticks. I mean, I'm just tossing stuff. And just seeing, you know, what sticks and what might, you know, cause somebody to, to, you know, reevaluate their behavior. And there was a guy named Gary cutting who talked about the fact that the dominant sexual ethic in our culture now, which is sort of reinforced everywhere, and we even see it in our politics, we see it in in the metoo movement, we see it in everything is trading a sexual culture of commitment to a sexual culture of consent. Now consent is not a bad word, right? Yeah, this is not like like you know, commitment good consent bad commitment. Both good both are good when you're exchanging one for the other. It does change the playing field a lot. Right? And it really, you know, makes it a lot slippier and in are also simply devalues I think the the why that we've been talking about biblical injunctions, you know about the correct place of sex. Yeah. Which is always tied to commitment and yeah, and really lifetime marital commitment, right. But that's sort of devalued in the culture right now like it sex is. The only way it can be wrong is if it's not consensual. Right? Well, you know, once you start getting to that It's really hard to even sometimes to figure out what's consensual. Right? And, you know, we've we've totally, you know, on college campuses, the whole culture is just huge. never happens to Jessup. But on college campuses, everywhere else, send your kids to Jessa. It's huge. And there have been a lot of people, even in Christian colleges, just wondering, what do you do about it? How can you, you know, talk about that? Yeah. And, and part of the, I guess the ethos of the hookup culture is the ethic of consent. But you know, once you start talking about that, since a lot of this is so heavily driven by alcohol consumption, everything else is. So what is the line there? Yeah.
25:39 You know, and the lines shift? Yeah. And you can end up consent driven by peer pressure, or by cultural pressure, like, Oh, this must be something I should do.
25:50 How many drinks Can you have before you lose your ability to write to actually you don't have consent about something? Right. Yeah. And that's, that's an issue when these things kind of go together? Yeah. And we just sort of see that everywhere? Well, nuts,
26:03 I think it's been an interesting thing within culture, is currently with all the things that have been happening and and in a really good way, shining light on the right use of exact right, we're seeing that all over again. And it's the abuse of sex in power positions and things like that, which is really good. And it also highlights that, even within our culture, there's this recognition, hey, sex can be misused, right? Sex can be the sex is is can be volatile. And so it's not just, oh, hey, yeah, if two people consent, everything's fine. Assessing
26:36 me just in the scandals, any the stuff that's happening right now, right, it's kind of everywhere. Right. Right. So so they all hinge on whether the sex was consensual, or whether it wasn't a power and abuse of power or something. But the fact that we would even have that conversation, and that issue is that the whole ethic of consent, apparently, is not the silver bullet that makes everything okay, right. Right. And we've abandoned, you know, the biblical view of sex and commitment. Yeah. So the cultural, the conversations changed, and it's not helped us any, it's not helped us at all.
27:14 And it seems to be that, then that culture of commitment that we're maybe talking about of of going back to is, is a way that it frame sex as as an expression of being human and being a sexual being in a relationship that is that that starts with commitment first, that doesn't lead with the body. And, and within that, that maybe sense of security
27:45 and durability safe.
27:47 Yeah. So that when you can actually then be vulnerable with someone, you're now vulnerable with someone in in the midst of a committed relationship, right, that you're devoted to each other, to love each other to figure each other out
28:01 is fascinating. So people know, don't even know what that would be.
28:04 Right? Yeah, that ended and it is good to point out that that just because you get married doesn't mean that happens exactly exact. So this the same, it's kind of funny, the same crystal Christian sexual ethic applies to marriage, right? It's not that marriage is the Oh, just wait to your marriage. And then it No, the same thing that that sex is not to be used selfishly and not to be abused. But it's really about being vulnerable and committed between two people and, and, and strengthening that commandment through that. Right. And, and for me, that's where I come back to right of why, why it is the best and and, and honestly, a lot of people in in our stories that who have had sex before marriage, they may come to realize I yeah, I really didn't gain anything by that. Right, that, that if I was in a relationship where I was committed and loving, and then especially that that flies in the face of any type of hookup culture, right. Like you said, there's, there's so many factors that go into that part of it is that if hookup culture is just expected, then people are like, Oh, this is just what people do. People do as expected. Right. And, and then that that's not
29:22 helping anybody. It spreads, as someone once said, two incompatible myths about sex in the first place. Right? That that it's nothing, right. But it's everything. You need to do it right. And so but that actually does not compute,
29:37 right? Yeah, that's that's so amazing, right? And the idea that maybe within culture, and maybe you could say even within the church on how we always talk about it, but yeah, there's like these two myths that that hang out together, but actually a paradox right there, that sex is nothing so doesn't matter. As long as it's consented. Just just it's fine. But also then sex is everything and you should sell your life around. I'm
30:05 a young person, I'm not going to get married until I'm 28. I'm convinced believing Christian, but I get involved in this relationship and it has a sexual component. But then it doesn't work out. Because honestly, a lot of them die either goes to marriage. Oh, yeah, right. Right. And it doesn't. Yeah, um, then what am I left with? And is there any way that I can be recovered?
30:27 Oh, definitely. You know what I mean, right. Yeah. And that's, that's to where the where the church is message needs to be careful and worded with grace, because it's not like, Oh, you've met your Sacco there. Yeah, you're sorry about you're out of the club, right in the club?
30:44 Because there's a whole lot of people can be at the club before just
30:47 Oh, yeah. Club, right. Yes. A whole lot of the church, you're gonna be, we've already talked about that. And, and so yeah, I mean, I think we have to be able to speak that. That message of restoration and a message of redemption. Right, that that. And that's where that idea of maybe taking shame away from it as one I understand, right? Because I think that is meaning like, overly shameful that, that sex is not shameful. But what that doesn't mean is just a glorification of of sex. But But taking that away, so that, yeah, people can can find that and, and I, and I think couples coming together saying, hey, that sex as a part of our marriage is going to be a place where we show our commitment and love and, and, and our loyalty to each other. And, and this is a place where we want to foster that vulnerability, but what happens is often we come into marriage.
31:51 All right, sexual wounds. Yeah.
31:53 Right, with our guards already up so high, right? That, man, it just it, it creates a lack of intimacy. And that's the other thing I think, as as human beings, I think we're we're driven towards sex not just biologically or physically, we're driven towards sex because we we want intimacy. Right. Right. It's connection. And, and, and one of the things I think we find out and I think our culture knows, because as you see it in literature, and in film, Oh, for sure, TV shows that, that an overuse of sex doesn't lead to intimacy, right. I mean, it's they kind of we already know that, right? I mean, like a character like a Barney stimpson on How I Met Your Mother, who was just known, or Joey on friends, who's known for this being a ladies man. And that's kind of it's kind of praised. But I think that shows also kind of show. Yeah, there's not a ton of fulfillment that happens, either. Right, right. That doesn't seem to be intimacy that comes from any of those experiences.
32:56 There's an interesting quote that I that I once read, um, from a pastor, Catherine wills, Percy, so we're not going to get involved in argument about women's ministry. Right. And that's a different podcast. But we, she basically is trying to find a way to talk to her parishioners and her church. Yeah. And, and give reasons for, you know, abstaining from premarital sex when she herself didn't in other relationships, because that's just pretty common. Right? How did she talk about isn't just do as I say, not as I did? Or is there something for that that can be useful? Yeah, actually, in helping people to actually in reserve sex or marriage. And so she says, I don't know how to encourage my parishioners, let alone my own children to consider saving certain intimacies for the wedding night without descending into the same sort of supercilious finger wagging, that contributed to the calcification of my shame. Interesting. She uses that word, amen. And then there's the hypocrisy angle. How do I preach abstinence when I myself have failed to abstain? Do I say, not as I did, but as Paul cautioned, every other centered person commits is outside the body. But the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. And then she quotes First Corinthians 618 I know this firsthand. So perhaps I hold up my pain. All that fooling around before marriage ever did was give me a world of hurt. Yeah. And and I don't know if you'd like our next statement here. Maybe it's actually pushing too far on the sex is great when you're married. Okay, angle, but she does have another sentence here, which I think is is a good one, she says, but I can't hold up my pain without also lifting high my joy that all that fooling around within marriage ever did was give me a world of healing. Yeah. And I this is a really powerful, powerful. Yeah, it is that this hurt and the shame before but the healing when it's right, and it's good, and it's worked out to be
34:48 Yeah. And I think that I think that we can present it that way without falling into some type of sexual prosperity gospel. Right. Right. That that sex in in the right In the right way, has that ability to heal and bring a couple together. And it has the
35:08 Marvin Gaye never even imagined for
35:10 exact some harvesters, right. Oh, yeah, there we go, you know, Marvin Gaye, that yeah, that this there has that ability. And, and, and so yeah, to, to not overly I mean, I think, you know, place maybe to land our conversation here. And then we are going to pick this up with a part two, right? And bringing in someone from our psychology faculty, and really excited about that to kind of get into because there's, there's more than to the act of sex than meets the eye. Right. And there's so much more. It's not just a physical act. It's a logical
35:45 and emotional and spiritual. Yeah. I want to talk about it that way. And so heavy stuff here.
35:52 Yeah. And so I think it's important because that, that seems to me to be also more reasons of why Hey, the biblical sexual ethic. Yeah,
36:03 there's a reason for it,
36:04 of guarding our sexuality, not like guarding it with never talking about it, but by protecting it from being wounded, protect protecting it, from wounding others, right. Right. And, and growing into a whole unhealthy person. And I think maybe as we as we land here, it's just a recognition for one that the church has always been good, maybe an understatement, has always been good at talking about sex, and demonizing it does not help anyone over glorifying it doesn't help to help either, right? Because it just leads to more hurt. And, and, and more issues that we can see in our news right now. And culture right now. Right is basically an example of the abuse of sex. Right? And, and recognizing that scripture highlights us as sexual beings, right? This is a part of us, and that God cares about our sexuality, just like he cares about whether we believe in his existence, or he cares about other issues. He cares about our, the sexual side of our nature, and we could we get into some deep theological waters even thinking about that, and what do you mean, I don't know, being created in the image of God, not that necessarily God is a sexual being right. This means we are we are sexual beings because of that. But if, if sex is actually an intimate relational, healing, whole thing that we have created for to be relational, yeah, in the deepest and most sacred relationships,
37:48 you know, in the God given economy have a sexual component. And that's a good thing.
37:53 Yeah. And yeah, and that does kind of bear that image of godness. Right. And, and so, yeah, as we talk about it, I agree with you. It's not just yelling louder. You shouldn't be having sex before marriage. Try that. That's for one half of us would then be hypocrites, right? Full disclosure,
38:13 I don't know. I'm not gonna
38:17 be hypocrites.
38:18 And the other half of a lie,
38:19 right? Yeah, and the other half be lying. And, and that's not helping, because just telling someone something is wrong, doesn't doesn't help anyone understand? Why, right? But just to understand, hey, we are sexual beings. And, and sex is good. And it was a created thing. And, and God wants us to enjoy that. And there's also some caveats that go along with that, that it can be misused, and it can be abused. And that's within and with outside of marriage. Right. Right. And, and highlighting it as a place of commitment and a place of love. Not just a way to hook up or not just something to do, because that's what culture does. And not even something to do, because that's what the Bible says, You know, I mean, I can see where it can be misused there as well. But it's an important part of our lives. It's an important part that we should be talking about. And it's an important part of our faith. It is. And so talking more about it is going to be better. And so I'm excited to continue this in our next episode. Sounds good. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
39:51 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian you University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go. Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex reflect on the holiday season while addressing the true war on Christmas.
TRANSCRIPT 0:05 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Maher and your co host Rex Gurney and racks it is Christmas time. I
0:11 am so excited. You can feel the crisp air outside. Here the jingle bells and hot cocoa. Oh my gosh, yeah.
0:19 fireplace in
0:20 the studio is the most wonderful time of the year.
0:29 I do love Christmas, though. I mean, if you know me, then you know that I do have a Harper
0:36 really all things Christmas. You're not one of those guys that starts playing Christmas music on July the fourth. Oh, no, I
0:41 have a very strict Thanksgiving. Okay. Okay. Okay. But I do have a two step process to get me into the Christmas spirit. Okay, so after Halloween, November 1 starts what I like to call Sinatra season. So just kind of the standards, not Christmas music, but still Martin Sinatra, Tony Bennett, like, the classics, but just their standards. And then it kind of gets you into that. I don't know for me Why? Like,
1:15 probably because this association with nostalgia. Yes, some ways. And Christmas is a very nostalgic season. Nothing bad about that. It's just
1:23 yeah, I think it is. And I think you have something. And I was like, yeah, just some about that. Maybe the way the mid 20th century captured Christmas. Even if it was artificial. I still am nostalgic about the way they you know, and
1:38 speaking about the mid 20th century and artificial things. Mark, what do you remember with your family of origin when you're growing up about what was just one of your favorite Christmas traditions in your family when you were growing up?
1:50 I mean, I think the one that I remember the most is that on Christmas morning, and I'm the youngest of four. So I had three older siblings, older sister and two older brothers and there's you know, there's kind of a about seven or eight years in between all of us have span. And so when I'm kind of young Elementary, my oldest siblings are kind of high school, so and I could never understand why they would still be asleep on Christmas. Oh, yeah. Like how are they sleeping? We have presence but one thing that my family did is before we could open any present my dad had to read the Christmas story. Okay, out of Luke two okay. Out of the King James Version. And
2:37 did you have a Charlie Brown music on I know I wish
2:41 we probably having like Sinatra record. And that was back in the day when houses you had it wasn't retro yet. It was you still just had a record player in your rights right? There. Right. The you know, I try to tell people tell students now like my parents and grandparents were cool before cool even happen because they just had a record player that's right in their living room. That's right there. That's right. And so my dad would read it and I'm pretty certain that he read it as slowly as possible. I get fidgety. Like, I would just take forever guy. But it was also something that I really appreciated. And now even kind of carry that on with our family kind of make, you know, I've got it, you got to pass on the suffering. You can't just Okay, you got to extend that. But what about you? What are some?
3:31 Well, um, so I grew up in New Mexico. And one of the things that was no, it depends, but often often there's snow, especially in northern New Mexico, right? elevation, right. It's mainly elevation. But there's sort of a tradition, it's kind of gone almost semi nationwide now, but it really sort of started in in northern New Mexico. And it's of lighting luminarias on Christmas Eve. Oh, and it's kind of an old Spanish tradition, basically, or at least Spanish American tradition. And what you do is you only do it really, one night of the year. Um, sometimes they'll do it on New Year's Eve. But that's seldom mismanages Christmas Eve because no electric lights are allowed on this to do it the right way. Right. You take the brown paper sacks, you fold them over, there's an art to that you fill them with real sand and you put a votive candle in it takes forever to set it up, just set it up one night, and then you light all the darn things, but outline your sidewalks and your houses and everything. And then whole neighborhoods will turn their lights off. It is just absolutely that. It's so cool. It's just so cool. And so what we would do is every Christmas Eve, my family would just go on the luminaria Tour, which is kind of something you do in Albuquerque and just kind of go around those neighborhoods and you drive by or walk around or stuff and it's great. Anyway, current tradition is that so my wife's Latina and so this is all Something I've learned that more people are just doing is we will have after we get home from Christmas Eve service will have Pistole my wife we working on it all day. Okay, we'll have it the Model S, and she'll be making the guacamole and her great salsa and we'll just have kind of a Mexican feast on Christmas Eve. Everybody totally looks forward to that.
5:20 Oh, yeah, I was gonna say
5:23 it's a wonderful thing. So we can do the, I guess, American thing on Christmas Day, but on Christmas Eve, it's a Mexican thing. And however, lately, the episode has gone cold. And the tamales aren't tasting like they should have in the past. Because I don't know if you have heard but there's a war on Christmas. Ah, and it's just, it's just the other day, I was actually at one of the big box stores. And instead of you know, saying Merry Christmas to me, they they said Season's Greetings. And I heard that that happens more and more. There is a veritable war on Christmas, which I guess is a war on Christians because it's our holiday. All right. And somehow, you know, there's a there's a there's a war on AI Pretty soon, we won't even be able to sync Christmas carols from what I understand. So I'm, uh, I'm really concerned.
6:15 our listeners are very like, wait, what just happened? And we just turn a corner. But no, we did. We didn't want to bring that up. Like because it is. You know, we've heard a lot, especially in the last Right. I mean, five years at least, this is kind of war on christmas that's become kind of this culture war, right. been described as a secular versus Christian war. right and right. And there's been kind of attempts to maybe reclaim a holiday,
6:46 right? boycott a store that won't say Merry Christmas,
6:49 in it. And it seems to be Starbucks cups that don't have right right on him. Right. Oh, my gosh, we wanted to kind of talk about it. Because in some ways, I think you and I agree, although coming into it. I didn't know as I thought maybe we were going to wrestle on this one, you know, they, but it for me, it seems like it's a it's a perceived war. And in in many ways, it kind of misses the point. And kind of misses the point of, of maybe even there are some things maybe we'd lost with Christmas, right? lost focus. But it kind of is maybe an easier way out to put the blame than on secularism, or add on that, that one of maybe take a look back and say, Okay, what what, What part do we take part in, in in a secular rising Christmas?
7:40 What way? Can we reclaim what it is that perhaps we think that we either lost ourselves or has been stolen from us? with that? And of course, you know, as a as a history guy, I guess, you know, I have to remind folks that that Christmas has always been sort of a suspect holiday. In the last 2000 years of Christendom, it's really only been in the last couple of 100. Well, yeah, a couple 100 years. Some people you know, will actually blame the Victorian era, or maybe Charles Dickens or something for inventing the modern, nostalgic sort of Christmas. But, you know, the Puritans wouldn't celebrate it. The pilgrim fathers when they came over, you know, there literally was a war on Christmas, but it was by the wrong people. It was actually it was by the Puritans, right. It was a good guys who did it right. And, but I've often heard, and I think that there has always been something to it. And I understand and resonate with some of these common complaints about the Christmas season. It's too secular, you know, somehow Santa Clauses has, you know, taken the place of Jesus, like, put Christ back into Christmas. Right. You know, and I understand that Christmas is to pagan, you know, it has it has all these pagan accretions onto it, right? Christmas trees, Hollies, all this kind of stuff? Right? Or, and this is one of the most common is Christmas is to commercial. Right. And, you know, if it wasn't for the Christmas season, I mean, half of our retailers would would be in, you know, right. The red. Yeah, you're wrong is really true. And unfortunately, because of Christmas, you know, half of our households are in the red for at least six months of the year. Right. So So I guess one thing that, you know, I'd like us to, at least think about is, are there some ways for those of us that see those as actual problems that we can do, if not necessarily in our culture, although maybe there are ways we can influence the culture. I think that's an important thing for Christians to do, but at least in our own families, and our own spheres of influence in our own communities. Are there things we can recover? And I think that's one reason why we started this whole podcast before it went off into left field. Turning on talk radio before turning radio on traditions. Because I think traditions are really important. Yeah. And and I think both of us with our families have have at least tried to be with more or less success. Proactive on non family traditions, you know, right. You know, what are the things we remember with a warm glow in our heart? When What do we want our kids to remember? You know, with a warm glow in their hearts. Yeah, might not necessarily be the same thing. But But there's something good about that.
10:26 Right? And it doesn't have to be this like sharp, secular Christian divide, right? That that we can I mean, I, I love Christmas movies, and I have a list of ones that I watch every year during that, and I've been able to kind of pass that on to the boys to where the boys even be like, Oh, hey, we haven't watched that yet. You know, and I start crying. So
10:49 what's your favorite Christmas music? movie movie?
10:52 Oh, probably favorite. favorite Christmas movie? Definitely It's a Wonderful Life is up there like always as part of the classic. And then the the 1966 Grinch. So Dr. Seuss Grinch the cartoon version although the Jim Carrey Ron Howard version it you know, it is what it is, and it does. But then, probably, but the main one that I always come back to is A Christmas Carol, and particularly the 1954.
11:25 We have a real connoisseur of
11:28 Allister sim plays plays Scrooge and I just think he captures it. And so that's one it's still in black and white. I just want to always go back to now also like Christmas vacation and all those kind of more modern classics,
11:44 little plug for literature. I guess one of my favorite novel novels is actually on by john Irving called a prayer for Owen meany. Right. And one of the best set pieces in that whole long book is a school version or church version of the Christmas carol going horribly wrong. Right? It's just hilarious. Yeah,
12:05 it is. Again, so I usually I usually tried to even read A Christmas Carol and then watch cuz the other one that's on par with the 1954. One would be the Muppet Christmas Carol. For some reason the Muppets just capture, capture it. But I'm able to pass those on the boys and also my love for Christmas lights. And so in Sacramento, we love going down to the fab 40s. And just the whole streets that are street line. So we're trying very hard to be a destination cul de sac
12:35 we want to get into Sacramento Bee is one of the places you're gonna go. But unfortunately, we can't get the cooperation I want from the neighbors. Everyone gotta get everybody on board. But we're trying to do the Griswold thing a little bit more every year until literally myself is that the true spirit of Christmas? That is that is something folks you can do. You can just can just go for it.
12:56 Right, just decorate your house. But I mean, you can have that right and also have the the more sacred element Ryan that I think for our family and for our church really has been the Christmas Eve service. Okay, like the and you and I have talked about this before that, especially in the evangelical world. We haven't always had a Christmas Eve. We haven't embraced that.
13:21 Yeah, the church. I grew up in a large Baptist Church in Albuquerque. We never had a Christmas Eve service ever, ever. And I remember my first pastor when I was kind of appalled that they'd never had a Christmas Eve service Baptist Church. I was pastoring I suggested one and we had it because you know, new pastor, you need to kind of you know, let him do it. But I remember the deacons basically saying nobody's going to come to this. This is whatever we never had a you don't do this kind of thing is to Catholic right. Yeah, whatever fear and, and of course, the room was packed when we had it because everybody wanted to come down. They had just not had the permission. So Christmas Eve service.
13:59 Yeah, come heap service, and some
14:01 more or 30 of them starting back like Thanksgiving, like some churches that we know.
14:07 That's different. That's it, that's a different thing. Okay. But within that, like I think within like a Christmas Eve service, especially for our family is like kind of taking part of the candlelight. I mean, it's something that we can kind of really just good family time. And so I think we try to make this dichotomy in in some ways. We set up the war, right? Like we set up the battle we set up the us versus them, right. And in within it, like I feel like there is room for for all of that. I mean, there's room for some of the commercial things of Christmas that are a part of our culture, but also in the sacred. We can also though, maybe take a step back and say hey, what have I just been maybe mindlessly going along with and maybe be more intentional, more thoughtful,
14:59 and you You know, there are some things, you know, practices that have traditionally practiced in the church. And still, although that's changing with globalization of American culture, but But until very recently, it's still been practicing in in some of the countries, particularly Latin American countries is a little bit different way of looking at Christmas. These are the some other days in what we would call the Christmas season. So I often will ask my students when we're talking about this, it's like so there's this song, the 12 Days of Christmas, right? So how many loads? Right? And so when does the 12 Days of Christmas start, and you can just see the the math going on in their heads? It's like 25 minus 12 equals 13. Carry December, December 13, is when it starts. And it's like, No, actually, that whole song and that whole tradition, the 12 Days of Christmas start at Christmas, and one goes through epiphany. And it's really interesting, because in a number of cultures, the kids didn't get their gifts on Christmas, they got their gifts on epiphany, and so that made Christmas just Christmas. Just religious holiday. Hmm. Yeah, you just take all this other stuff. I mean, you said the whole season stuff and everything right. But But Christmas itself is not when necessarily you have the feast. You have the family thing. Yeah. You go to church. you're celebrating Christ's activity in the incarnation. Yeah, but the gift stuff is going to happen 12 days later. In fact, in Spain, up until recently, they didn't send Christmas cards. Nobody says Christmas cards anymore anyway, but they didn't send Christmas cards. They sent a data set off re smuggles, which is like wise men cards, because you sent them at a Pippin had epiphany, because that's when you did it. And so it's the idea of race Margot's is the day that the kids get their gifts and say, it's just a whole totally different thing. But now, you know, don't try this at home with your family. Because there's no way in the world you're going to convince your kids that they're not going to get they gotta wait till. But at least, you know, there are some examples of how you can just look at it a little bit differently.
17:07 Right. And it seems like the church calendar can help us Right, right. Yeah. So you have the kind of the 12 Days of Christmas, but then you also have the Advent season. Right, leading up right. And, and now and we've really at our church, we've kind of started to implement that the last kind of 11 years since I've been there. In the idea of, hey, this season after Thanksgiving, and leading up this is a time for us to prepare, right for for all of these kind of rituals that we have come Oh,
17:39 Come Emmanuel is actually not a Christmas. Advent him.
17:43 Yeah. And it's this waiting period. And I really feel like that that time is helpful to kind of have that extended time of being like, Hey, what do these Sundays of Advent represent? Right, that that culminate in Christ, this peace and love and joy. And, and some have the candle of faith. I mean, there's different names for the candles. Now, we've kind of evangelicalism a little bit, but kind of having those traditional candles and say, Hey, this is the Sunday of a candle of hope. Right? And
18:19 what does this represent? What is what is Christ's incarnation represent? And it's a great time to get families as family units involved in this because you know, what we will do at our church is one of the well, we're what we try to do at our church works, right? Yeah, we have a family come up and one of the kids will like the Advent candles or depending on when they're, you know, what Sunday they're at, and the parent will read the Scripture or say the prayer. So it's kind of a family sort of thing. Right. And you know, we're all about family. And that's a good thing. Yeah. It's interesting, though, I didn't grow up with Advent. Even though I grew up in the evangelical church. And I had a hard time in my, actually, in both of the churches that I passed her they had never celebrated Advent before I came. And it's interesting, the rationale behind it. Um, you know, some of it was, and literally, I'm not making this stuff up. It's just what it is right? Advent, that means candles, can have candles and church because you have candles in church, that's to Catholic and so we can't do that. It's just, it's just amazing. Some of the stereotypes are in place. heads when actually it's not a Catholic or Protestant thing. It's a Christian thing throughout the centuries and the church calendar, right. Like the Christian year does not start on January the first. It starts on the first Sunday of Advent. Yeah. And the last Sunday, the Christmas here is what Christ the King Sunday. I mean, it's an amazing thing if you'll follow it. Right, right.
19:50 Yeah, it really is and it and I think that's important. It creates this patterns of, of a way that you can keep and maintain cane these holidays that also have have secular celebrations as well. It maintains the sacredness of them
20:08 if you do it if you if you're intentional with it right. Now, it's interesting, right, since since now, it's interesting how we can rack up anything and everything right. You know, as a human problem, it's not a sectarian problem. But yeah, I've seen advent calendars that they'll sell now, you know, and what they are suggest the time leading up to Christmas, but what they are is you had the kids come and they open the door, and there's a chocolate treat, you know, but the whole thing's just chocolate tree. Right. There's no religious anything with that, but that's somehow celebrating Advent. advent calendars like that. It's Whoa, we've been destroyed. Turn it into that.
20:48 And yeah, and, and yeah, and I think maybe, with that, because that's, I mean, like, and that is, that's, that's a, a, a tradition that we have in our house. And, but also with that, I think what I hear you saying too, is how can we be intentional with that? Right? It's okay, yeah, we have the chocolates. And that's great. Like, that's wonderful. But with that, like, hey, how can we represent like this Advent season,
21:16 though? We do this hearing We do this because of that. Right? This is Yeah, this that we did in the this that we do happens to be preparing the way the Lord
21:26 one one thing that I've always really appreciated on my may why I love Christmas, and maybe why I love Christmas, Carol, the book and then read all the movie versions, is it, I think it does capture this spirit of Christmas as a time where people can change. When when there's a time that that people are a little bit more aware of how they treat other people, they're a little bit more aware of people in need. There may be a little bit more aware of their own brokenness and their own inability to look out for others. And and I think that story of a Scrooge is that story of someone in the story of the Grinch as well, right is the story of someone growing into that.
22:14 And it's really interesting, if it wasn't for, you know, Christendom and the Christian faith and the Christian year and Christmas being no matter how it started off, right, at least now a Christian holiday. Yeah, even when you try to secularize the holiday and still celebrate whatever Christmas becomes, you still have that sort of giving sort of thing. And that does not arise in a vacuum. It arises from the Christian faith.
22:39 Right. Right. It's, and I think that's something that we can highlight without right without it becoming this culture war, right. Or Christmas or war on Christmas. Rather celebrate that man, there is a literally international holiday, that whether you like it or not, it comes back to the Christian faith.
22:58 Exactly. And you're doing hopefully, Christian. Well, Christian virtues are highlighted.
23:05 Yeah, Christian virtues are highlighted. It's like, hey, let's use that as maybe a starting point as a as a jumping off off point. Instead of just being like, Hey, you need to put this back in, say, hey, yeah, well, can we this Christmas holiday that we all love? Man? How can we highlight these Christian virtues? And like you said, even just being like, Hey, you know where that comes from? It does come from right. And Christ really does embody those virtues. And
23:32 so you feel this way because of the season. But the the seasons, feelings come from somewhere. And so even if you're not aware of why there's joy in the season, well, it actually is the joy of Christ. That's where this comes from. And if it wasn't for that, it would not be here. Yeah. However, we all know that for many people, Christmas is a very, very difficult time to Yeah,
23:55 that's the truth. And,
23:58 and I've actually not fully, you know, try to figure out if the way we look at Christmas, even as Christians is partly culpable for the dark side. And the downside of that. Because for many people, Christmas is the most depressing time of the year. Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, a lot of that has to do with broken families and stuff. But right, but really the season. I mean, I'm not saying this is just an example. Yeah, the season itself carries its own healing, if you will allow it to. So my mother died a few days before Christmas. And her funeral was on Christmas Eve. And I remember this is years ago, I was in my 20s when she died. Yeah. And I remember thinking at the time, oh, no, this is going to ruin Christmas Eve forever for me, right. Yeah. But of course, that's not what happened. Hmm. Because it has its own healing in it. Yeah. You know, and that healing actually comes from God. I really believe right? Yeah, and so on. There's just something about about it. That's powerful. And we know what that is.
25:03 Right. And I think that's why it's important for the church, to be very mindful of the Christmas season and to be looking for those who need help who need family who need community. That's, I think that's a place that a role that church can fill in those seasons of like, we can be family together, and us as individual family units and Christians. Are we mindful of the people on our streets, on our blocks, our neighbors who might be widowers are lonely who are might live just alone? And they like, are we mindful of including them? Or how
25:47 many people at our Christmas Eve services, maybe even in our own churches? That after the service come home to an empty house? Yeah. We're we're all going home to the bussola and the tamales. Right, you know, right. And, and, you know, the only you knows, talking to them and getting to know them, and then right, you can always invite them over to your house. Right. So it's a wonderful thing. We've been the recipients of that kind of generosity.
26:12 Yeah, we have to and and that was something that I think my parents really set an example for me that we always had, it seemed like we always had a random person at one of our holidays. That was someone from church who needed community for years. We, we and this actually, this is my wife's doing not mine. So I can't take credit for this. But we knew somebody was involved with
26:37 ministry to international students in the area. And so um, we would ask if there's some that are here that don't have any place to go, Rasmus right, you know, and so we've had them over for Christmas Day, several times. And actually one of the one of the students, we're still in contact with It's been years and years and years. He's living in New York now, whatever, but still, you know, where he remembers that, and we did for a couple years with him. And so that's, that's a good thing, too. Right. So I do have one more question. Okay. At least one more. So I can
27:12 talk about Christmas. Oh,
27:13 I know. I know. I want to get back to the commercialism ankle here. Okay, let's start. So, um, did you overdo it? The first time that your first kid was conscious for Christmas was
27:27 I do feel like that almost every time I feel like man, are we overdoing it Han
27:33 on we totally did with our with our oldest son. He was his like, he's when he was two is actually before Josh was born. So he was almost three and two and a half. Gosh, it's been so long.
27:50 Oh my gosh.
27:52 Anyway, it's like he knows what Christmas is. He's a little taller. But he knows what it is. And we can actually give him real gifts now. Correct. Right. Right. And everybody can so I look back on pictures, right. And I see a picture of him by a Christmas tree that we have. And like it's the whole floors littered with these gifts we got for him, right? Yeah, no. We swore after that Christmas, right. Never again, never again. And when I really learned about about that was, we were living in Virginia, and it was during the first wave of the Jurassic Park. craze. Yeah. And so of course, we had to buy I think it was my oldest Carl, we had to buy him one of these $40 Tyrannosaurus Rex pushes the button and like each thing. Yeah, thing that I mentioned $40 $40. And this is back. This is back in like 93 or whatever. And we're kind of impatient. So Oh, my gosh, right. So anyway, and I remember so he unwraps it. And of course, immediately that trying to source rikes tries to eat his younger brother. Right, right. And of course, within an hour, it's busted. Yeah. And so that was another one of those never again moments, right? So we kind of did. And I mean, I'm not saying this to be virtuous, because you can do these things, all kinds of different ways. And there were probably a number of things that reasons why we got to this place, but it's like, you're gonna get one gift for Christmas, it's gonna be a good one. And you know, your grandma's always gonna send you stuff and stuff and whatever, but it's like, your socks, you know? You get one thing and it's not like, you know, we, you know, we buy you stuff all year long. Right? Right, and what you need we give you and we give you gifts or whatever, it's just that you're just gonna have this one thing. And what we've tried to do instead of things like this Tyrannosaurus Rex, they just bus within an hour is try to give them experience, right, instead of just things. Yeah. You know, because the things always break the experiences are with them sort of forever, right? So we've really kind of worked hard doing that. That's and you have to be proactive. Right? You know, and yeah, and so we would just do things with them that, that they'll remember. Yeah. And use the money we would spend on things. You know, they get their thing. And it's a good thing. Yeah. So it's not like, you know, we're ignoring the Christmas thing, but right. But, um,
30:20 anyway, yeah, kind of use that. I like that kind of giving experiences. And then also, and and honestly, we haven't always, I haven't always been good at this. But I think also teaching your children generosity during this run, right? How are we, with our blessings giving to others in need? How are we volunteering our time? How are we just giving back to the community and Christmas is not a quid pro Pro. Right?
30:52 Which, you know, I would find out exactly how much money my sister was spending on mine. And I would make sure that I didn't spend a cent more. Like who was I? Thank you. Yeah,
31:01 right. Oh, my God. It become Yeah, this Yeah. Okay. Well, now they give me I have to ride my bike. How
31:07 did how did it get that way?
31:09 Just maybe letting letting generosity lead but also wisdom lead, whereas 28 million gifts at break in an hour, and you're still paying for him in? July?
31:20 Right? And right. Yeah, but that's another web. That's another webcast. podcast. Oh, we're expanding. We've been talking about getting. That's That's it? That's another podcast? Yeah. One 2x. Right.
31:36 Well, I'm glad that we at least one we won the war on christmas today,
31:40 I feel so much better.
31:41 I think we want to I really do. It's ours again. But not hope we just you know, made you as listeners and even ourselves to just think about this season, that it is such a wonderful season. And, and it's a season that we need to be intentional, that we need to be intentional about maybe keeping in balance, the secular and the sacred, and, and loving and exploring all these traditions. And understanding that man, all of this does come back to who Christ is and what he's done for us. Right. And the love, joy, and peace and everything that comes from this season comes from him.
32:23 I hate cliches, and I hate bumper stickers, but it is actually in the end true that Jesus is the reason for the seasons.
32:30 And it is true, it is true. And I think that we can keep that in a way that isn't an us versus them. Right. Right that we can just embody that and embody the the generosity in the life and the love of Jesus. And that's a way to remember the season, right? So we do from Rex Nye, we hope that you have a Merry Christmas. And we hope that you watch all of the Christmas movies, eat all the cookies.
33:00 And you know to try some petroleum tamales. You know, you don't have to be Mexican to eat that.
33:06 Hey, sign me up. Right. So we're gonna end the show with a segment I like to call the student becomes the teacher becomes the student. And I'm really excited to have Matthew Todd, one of our students here Jessa It's me. Yeah, it is Matthew Todd. And Matt, What year are you here?
33:26 I'm a sophomore here. Okay,
33:27 sophomore here. Let's go. Yeah, second year. You've got everything under your belt. You know how you run this place? I know. I'm on the I'm on Jessup. Think That's right. You are now I think he made it not quite a friend of the show yet. We're working on it working on it. But I'm excited to have you cuz I got some questions for you. Matthew Todd, I know you like the full name. So Matthew Todd. Thank you. Now Matthew Todd, you are also a podcast host here at Jessup. It's true. Yeah. What's the name of your podcast?
33:54 That podcast is called exit 311.
33:56 So nice. Yep.
33:58 I run that a couple of my friends. I always talk about Jessup life from the perspective of a student
34:02 says great so you got we had two pod two Jessup podcast colliding to gargantuan that's right over the podcast seen. Wow. Wonder Twins unite.
34:13 Right. That's why they cast us artists.
34:16 Yeah, that's right. Are you getting paid? Who hired you? Oh, no,
34:20 I don't I suppose.
34:21 Yeah, you were Yeah, I renew my contract my age. All right. So here's here's the question. Okay, the question for you. Because I do need I need to learn this. Like, I don't understand this. Why does Instagram have both? Like posts and stories? To go question? Like, why? What because people ask me all the time. Did you see my story? I'm like, was it in the thing? I'm
34:45 scrolling through the feed, right?
34:47 Yeah. Like why? Why would you? Why would you post some things on your story and not just want it to be on your feed? It makes no sense. Why isn't your feed just your story?
34:57 There's why the two out of three ish reasons I think for the Okay, yeah, so three, one of the reasons is that you want to talk about something. And but you only wanted to show it for like a little bit of time. So like maybe it's like a birthday post, for example, and you don't want your feed to your feed is like basically like, this is me. Like it should be like an art gallery of feed stays with you forever. Yes. And so the idea is that you would not have to go back and delete posts. Ideally, that's like the ideal world is you can keep that stuff. Okay, so wait, I want learning. So, stories go away, stories go away 24 hours, and your story is gone. So you post that you can never pick up on it again. And now it's gone. You can archive it and you can, it will give you memory. So a year later, it'll be like, remember this story? Like,
35:43 is that how it sounds?
35:45 Yeah, goes remember? Like? That's one time your headphones and most people don't have? Yeah, you have to
35:51 have the sound on?
35:53 Exactly. So that's a little.
35:54 That's pretty good reason. Okay, that's making more sense. I was unclear. That was the first reason.
35:58 Second reason is that some people for their feed, they like to have a certain look to it. And so sometimes like they want it to have like sometimes people do like, they'll do like rows or so yeah, like a row, you do three posts in a row, which will make like, basically like a row of your feed to be like matching all orange stuff or something like that, where it's all like matching. with you. Yeah, it's called their aesthetic, right. So you want to you want to fit the same mold there. That's great. So if you want to post something else, and you don't want to ruin the aesthetic, you can put it on your story. Just show it to people.
36:32 Well, that I feel like I've learned something. Matthew Todd, thanks. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Now, this also so you've taught me now maybe here's a chance. Here, I think you have a question for me, you
36:45 have a question for you. I want to understand more about those who have preceded me. And there was something specifically you mentioned, when you were talking about this opportunity, you said something that I might want to know is why a bunch of older guys walk around with cell phone clips. But what that made me wonder is, what is a Cell Phone Clip? Because I haven't even reached that. Yeah, you don't even have the question. Yeah, my understanding is that it's obviously so some kind of clip, right? That hold yourself. Right. The issue with that being? Don't you have pockets?
37:15 Right? So you do you do have pockets? Okay. But I think as you get older, there's something called convenience that you like. Okay, so you want? So a Cell Phone Clip? If you haven't seen that yet? Yeah, there's a clip that your cell phone can connect to, and it goes on your belt, I'm showing you Oh, can't see this on the radio. But yeah, it clips to your belt, and then is easily accessible. There's not in your back pocket, sometimes, you know, things can get lost in your pocket, and hard to get out. And you know, cell phone and sometimes Cell Phone Clip, you can have kind of wallet cell phone combo thing going on, right on your hip. And for some reason, I think is as you get older, and I'm entering right into those years where you're like, sure, you know what, that's just practical. Yeah. What are you trying to say? But that's just practical. It's kind of like, it's kind of like the minivan, right? Oh, like the Cell Phone Clip is like the minivan of of life.
38:12 So not optimal by a longshot. But very practical, and it comes with a sigma factor,
38:19 but it's very practical, right? You're like I can fit a lot of kids in here. That's true. Yeah, and so she was educated on Yeah, pictures every kid so Cell Phone Clip right there. Boom. Ready to talk? Yeah, that's, that's why so one day, you talk about it now but one day you will have a cell phone clip. Oh, standard issue. No. Get it till they work with smartphones. They do that distance they do. They definitely worked better with like the smaller flip phones. They were just like, bam. Yeah, there's my phone. Kind of like a holster.
38:48 I understand. Yeah. With like, you got your BlackBerry just sling.
38:52 Yeah. Good old Blackberry.
38:54 I barely remember Blackberry. I was I was awake. I was like calm j or conscious. You have some vision of the world at that time. Exactly.
39:02 Well, I hope that you learned a little there and I definitely learned about Instagram. Thanks for being on the show. And I hope to see you again,
39:09 man. See you again. It's been good.
39:11 Thank you for listening to Jessup Think. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
39:37 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss An episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex examine whether theology should be considered a science. The pair surveys the historical and linguistic issues surrounding the question.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Hey, welcome to Jessup think I'm one of your hosts, Mark Moore
0:04 and Mark's co hosts Rex Gurney.
0:07 There we go. And today I'm really excited about this episode, I could have talked for five hours on this episode. Maybe even more, there'll be subsequent episodes that come out of this episode, I feel sounds good already. I can already see it happening. But we're gonna be we're excited to look at theology as a science and kind of pose like, Can theology be considered a scientific endeavor? Should it be considered scientific endeavor? What does that even mean? And what the implications
0:35 are? If it is,
0:38 so we really hope you engage in this, there's going to be some German names. There, there is going to be some even spelling and
0:45 spelling tests at
0:48 the end. So hope you enjoy. So I've been working on a journal article, actually, uh huh. And it was a position paper. So I was invited to write this. Write the article, and it was covering a question that I thought was interesting. And so to kind of bring it up on the, on the show, get your thoughts on this, but the question was, whether the study of theology could be considered or should be considered a scientific endeavor. And so I was I was intrigued by that, you know, I'm not a scientist by any means. And Rmi. Yeah. Hey, very cool. That's close. It
1:36 totally has skipped a generation, if not more. There we go.
1:40 Yeah, I could, I could probably even say I didn't go very far in science at all. In schooling,
1:46 it was really bad. My father was a chemist, and I got a D high school chemistry to class did you have to hide that? Well, I went to him for help wives. And he just looks at me and he takes his old college textbook out, blows the dust off of it, and just slams it down in front of me. And I go, this is not helping me. But I know I need to be an English major.
2:07 Right? Yeah, that's, that's I had two key moments in my life. And it was physics, and then calculus. And when I was in both classes at the same time, in my senior year in high school, and I was like, yep, this isn't for me. This is not my world. I'm gonna go. Right? That's right. Yeah. So yeah, we get we get English and theology and history. That's why we get, but
2:33 the very fact that we can even do this podcast is because there are people that actually pass calculus, right.
2:38 Physics and Exactly. So we are indebted to them. Yes, that's right. We support him. 100%. Exactly. But when you when you kind of hear that question, what are maybe some first things that come to your mind? Like, can should the study of theology be considered a scientific endeavor?
2:54 Well, I'm actually I think it opens up some broader questions in the role of science and faith and in the academy right now, pretty much right, you know, used to be even land grant universities, even state universities back in the day would have theology departments that didn't last very long, but in the 1800s, they would Yeah. And now you rarely will find the theology department in anything but perhaps some faith based colleges. And what you will find a religious studies departments, yes, you can study religion as a social science. But theology is not considered in the realm of whatever sciences, I don't know, if science deals with what's real, then apparently, theology, people's mind doesn't deal with what's real. airgo It's not a science airgo. Right. And that, that just opens up all sorts of things about what you can teach, and even public schools in high school now. So this has a lot of really broad implications.
3:58 Yeah, it does. And it's kind of it's kind of interesting. I, you know, when I meet different people, in different areas of my life, you know, outside of the school, you know, I'm like, I teach it with just mirrors and always like, Hey, what do you teach? And I'm like, theology, and they're like, Oh, it's kind of like a lottery game, you know, because it does kind of expose this difference between what you can maybe study and know, and I think sometimes they have questions like, what do you teach about, like, how do you teach about theology? Right, and right, and so when I kind of approached this question, you know, when I was asked, I kind of saw that same thing where it was, does bring up kind of broader questions. And it also feels like there's a little bit of a motive behind the question, like, in that mode of being, that our culture has a stress on science and scientific knowledge. And we'll talk linguistically because we're using that word in a certain way that hasn't always hasn't always been that way. That's
4:59 Five vocabulary is really important. What do you mean by what you say? Exactly?
5:03 Very important, especially when you're in a conversation with your wife, I encourage you to bring that up. I always that's where I get into trouble the most. I'm like, No, what do you really mean by that word, and choosers, like don't even don't even go there? I'm like, I'm sorry. I can't help it. It's just what I do. But with that, yeah, like, so that word, we're using it. But for me, the question kind of exposes that dichotomy between what we would call scientific knowledge and face right or religious,
5:35 how does one actually encounter knowledge or discover now, right? Yeah. Is there? Is there a way that you can, you know, there's metaphysics give, you know, or theology give you any access to real knowledge? Or is real knowledge circumscribed by discovery through the scientific method, which is what a lot of people think right now. And that has all kinds of implications all over the place.
6:00 And it really does. And what is interesting for me when I started kind of digging into this question, to find that this isn't the first time this question has been asked. Right, right. Like, it seems like because of the tension between science and faith, and and what's happening now, it seems like all this is a very timely question. But when you look at it, wow. Since really, since the 13th century, right, this question has been raised and and Aquinas raises in his Summa, raise it kind of in question one right. I
6:35 noticed that in your excellent paper.
6:37 Thank you. Thank you. That he did well, you know, on all see, we'll see how excellent it is. You know, when you're writing some you go through those waves where you're like, Hey, I think this is work. And then you're like, this is the worst thing I've ever done in my life. I think this actually makes sense. Yeah. So I'm on one of the up waves right now. So let me stay there. Stay up wave. I
6:58 was completely on ironic mark on our mission. That's true. Thank
7:02 you. Thank you. But yeah, so Aquinas tackles it right away. And he kind of clearly affirms science, theology should be considered a sign. Well, if Sciences
7:15 is, I guess, in the 13th century use of the word, sort of learning the rules of nature and codifying them then. Yeah, if in Aquinas his viewpoint and mine, actually, and I'm sure yours if the God of nature is behind the rules of nature, then Ergo speaking about the God of nature, can can be a scientific endeavor, right? It's the difference between principles and secondary causes. But they're linked there. So yeah, so theology can be you can use scientific language for theology.
7:51 Yeah, and, exactly, and even language wise, when Aquinas is using the word science, he's, he's kind of coming off of that latin word, scientists, which means knowledge. And that's, that is the root word for our English word science, right? But when we we use science now, we mean, what are also called in the hard sciences or natural sciences, chemistry, biology, or anything studying the observable world. Right. Right. And, and so that was, for me, really interesting that so when Aquinas is asking this question, it's really a question of knowledge. Right? Can the study of theology be considered knowledge, gaining knowledge and and Aquinas, very much influenced by Aristotle said yes. And based it on Aristotle's view of science, science as a system of kind of logical deduction of, of kind of first principles received. And so for Aquinas, it's a derived science. And it's derived from those first principles. The first principles, though, for theology happened to be given by God and divine revelation, not something we observe. And and, and so that's where he was. And it is also noted that even when Aquinas said it was debated amongst his, his, you know, cohort as well, but I thought it was Oh, that's interesting. That question is popping up. And actually before Aquinas, kind of our earlier church fathers, a Gustin actually separated theology or and he wouldn't have used the term theology that is kind of a medieval terminology. But I guess in the study of God, he separated it from science, and he viewed it more as wisdom, wisdom or suspense. Yeah. And, and so he and he thought
9:55 science studied that temporal world, but God was the eternal world, right, the greater. And so Aquinas kind of comes in and changes that a little bit where it's both wisdom and knowledge and wisdom, I would assume would would be related to first principles and knowledge to secondary causes, which which are observable and Ryan can use. I don't know if he would use this language, but what later in the Enlightenment, and after the scientific revolution, they would call what we would call the scientific method. But both things are legitimate with Aquinas,
10:31 right. Right. And
10:33 somewhere along the line that that actually fractured?
10:37 Yeah. It really did. And at least in the academy, yeah. And that's, that's the other thing that is because you kind of jumped from the 13th century to the 19th century. And you jump from France to Germany. Right. Right. And in that the context is the same, though, because Aquinas is having this conversation as the French universities are being formed University. Yeah, University of Paris. And and that was the question of, should theology be a part of the university? Same thing in 19th century Germany? with guys like schleiermacher, which I heard you have a good slap actually
11:20 have a great slide Microsoft. So when I was getting my PhD, I actually had to take a one whole semester seminar on schleiermacher. Nice and, and I had never actually heard of him until I went to Union in Virginia. It did. Yeah. Yeah. Just anyway, Baptists. That's
11:39 a lot of schleiermacher. Neither did my Wesley.
11:42 But since I was using that word a lot because I was having to read his I forgive him forgot what the glob and something or other in German his his systematic theology. Yeah. The Christian faith, I think, is the English translation. And since I was using sly marker so much, and so my son, Carl, who at the time was maybe four, head had made this picture of this really elaborate little fish. And my wife asked him, so what kind of fish is this, and he looks at her and I was in the room at the same time, he says, This is my beautiful schleiermacher fish. So at least he thought the word was interesting enough to tell officious like, Oh, my gosh, that is awesome. I did not tell this story to my professor.
12:35 He would not find it. Right? That is a great schleiermacher schleiermacher fish I need to I need to invade is a great name.
12:43 To be able to spell it
12:45 right. Oh, man. I know it is.
12:47 There's a lot of levels as bad as Nietzsche. But
12:49 yeah, just give up. Yeah, I and he and I actually
12:54 will sometimes just put in, and it's like the end guy like you get it. You know, I'm talking about
13:01 before schleiermacher. The question was the same thing it was it was actually the formation of the University of Berlin. And he was he was asked along with some other guys to kind of give their opinion on Hey, what should and so he kind of vouched for theology should be a part of the Academy, it should be considered a science, again, science in a broad term, right. So Aquinas is using it in the broad for schleiermacher. That that German word right. vison shot, right, is is a larger view of science, not just the hard sciences, or not just the natural sciences. And and so his argument was, and I love the title, and the English translation of the title of his kind of treaties about this was occasional thoughts on universities in the German sense. People used to have a long
13:57 title as if she knew what the books were about, right? Yeah,
13:59 you're like, Hey, I know exactly what this is about. He's not hiding it. And for schleiermacher theology was a science. And he called it a positive science or practical science. Right? Right. And that it was a critical inquiry that cultivates human knowledge. So again, we come back to that knowledge.
14:23 Part of human knowledge has practical implications. Yeah. For individuals. Yeah. for social groups. Yeah.
14:28 for society, and, and theology, and God is a big part of society. And so he's like, we should be studying this and studying it well, and training. Right.
14:42 And he knows that argument doesn't need at least him.
14:44 Yeah, he does. Yeah. And he becomes the Dean of
14:48 theology, you know, somewhere in the midst of my education that near the end of the 19th century, I think at the University of Berlin was laid off on her neck, and so her next kind of day, Interesting kind of hybrid character because he makes a theological pronouncements. However, he's really a church history guy. Yeah. And so you see, even by the end of the 1800s, how, how the, I don't know, studying observable history and coming up with some conclusion starts to sort of overcome making Rhino positive theological statements.
15:23 Yeah, yeah. And that's really, it really does shift. And actually schleiermacher is a little bit a part of that, in the sense that he, he knew for, for theology to be considered a science, it had to play by the rules of modernity, right, it had to end and so part of it, he kind of tries to insulate faith from, from modernity. And you know, it kind of separates faith a little bit from historical fact. And it's all about the fool, or the feeling of utter dependence to God consciousness. But that's
15:55 interesting, though, because I always thought we schleiermacher once once you actually look at the theological edifice that he builds in his systematic theology, yeah, it looks I mean, you know, except for, I guess, some quibbles around the edges, it looks fairly orthodox, right. But he's sort of known as the father of liberal theology and sort of under a lot of suspicion, the reason why is a Baptist never heard of him, right, was because of his starting point. So instead of starting with a divine revelation in Scripture, I starting with and I think this is key, he's starting with that feeling of absolute dependence. But that's an observable kind of, you know, quite I don't know, it's an observable.
16:38 Yeah. You know,
16:40 part of human nomina observable phenomenon. Yeah. And, and so you can study that. Yeah. And then he builds this whole thing on top of that, so in some sense, he's, he's, I guess, basing his systematic theology on on, on something that we would call a social science. Yeah. Which, which, which is interesting. Maybe that's the way he thought he could sort of smuggle that in. Anyway, right.
17:07 Yeah, I think yeah, I think it was, I mean, it's interesting, as I've been kind of diving into these guys, and especially that, that transition of theology during that 19th century, and post enlightenment ran and kind of how we got where we are now. And, and so many of them like, schleiermacher, and then even Kierkegaard, and, and after, we're really trying to protect Christianity, they were trying to protect Christianity, with all of these changes. And they, they were, they agreed with the changes. I mean, they agreed with the firm and in some ways, but they were like, so how can we how can Christianity stand up to this interesting schleiermacher? Because, in, in whatever world we are living in now, if indeed, we're living in a postmodern world, a number of people are fro sort of what meta modern, whatever the hell
18:09 out in the world, a more elusive Exactly. But even amongst some, you know, fairly conservative evangelicals has been sort of a reappraisal of schleiermacher. Right, especially in his approach, because what he was doing, he did write this treatise, talking about, I don't know, trying to reach the culture despisers he thought of himself as a missionary right away.
18:31 Yeah.
18:32 Yeah. His first and and we find ourselves in a very similar world in some ways. And so, you know, can we at least appreciate what he was trying to do? And if we don't like the end result, right?
18:43 Yeah. Cuz he was trying he was kind of in that salon scene in Berlin, right? Yeah. He was trying to sell religion to right to its culture, despise the rice,
18:55 which honestly, some people think that's what we are having to do. Right in the present moment.
19:01 Yeah. And, and, and I think, maybe some of it is yeah, being able to respect what they were trying to do. Even if we like would disagree, like or, or now looking at the outcomes. We're like, Oh, yeah, you kind of when you gave away kind of historical grounding. Yeah, that never didn't, there was nothing to grounded on and as just and then on the other side, so then many of those theologians like you're saying been harnack afterwards, then they became like, the historical method became Okay, this is how we legitimize right, biblical studies or theology. And, and actually then called Bart who was a student of on hardneck that he kind of came in and he started to realize, wait, you in theology, you're now because of this kind of history. A method of biblical criticism that you have, you're not placing yourself above the object of your study. you're placing yourself above God, like, Oh, I can know this about God because I know this about the Israelites and what they thought about and they were only doing this because their Babylonian friends were also saying that right. And he came in with, I think, another good move in this conversation to remind everyone that, again, he stressed the ology as a science, he would use that word. And I remember when I read that first time in Bart, that was kind of the first time I had I heard someone considered theology of science. And I'm like, wow, they're interesting word for now. But it's a science, but he calls it a free science. And so it's a free science in the sense that it has to respect the freedom of its object of study, okay, that we have to respect that God is holy other, and that God can be God no matter what we think we know about him. And, and that then in turn frees us from our presuppositions. And so I thought that was an interesting move in the conversation is that it's still it's still this, this body of knowledge is the discipline of knowledge, theology as science. But just a good reminder. And I try to remind our theology students this, that when we're studying God, God is someone who is wholly other
21:36 right and right. And, and we've spoken about this, I think, Ryan, our podcast before about difference between sort of a via negativa and via positive about what you can say and what you can't say about God. Right. And speaking about podcasts, so we've already had a little Yeah, fun fact here. That I think Vaughn harnack live like, what two or three doors down from the bond hofers Oh, nice. Because Dietrich Bonhoeffer his father was, like, I don't know ahead of what passed for a psychology department at the University of Berlin. And apparently, for a while, they would meet on the way to catch the tram into into school. So you have you know, an old Harry von harnack. There. Yeah. And then a young wet behind the ears, Bonhoeffer sort of walking down the street together, right? Yes.
22:23 That's cool. Yeah, I knew that. Yeah, I do. Remember, there's like a family friends, too, that they would
22:29 they would hang out. I don't know what that says. I think it says more about class than theology. But right.
22:34 That's a different podcast. Right. So so for me kind of maybe wrapping, wrapping up this. I know, for some of our listeners are like, well, I'm still trying to pronounce mission shaft maybe. Right. And don't get Don't try to. Yeah, exactly. Like, try to just Google schleiermacher.
22:54 You got to be able to actually Google.
23:00 But I think I think this, for me, it was interesting to know, okay, this isn't the first time we've asked that question. I do think the question for us now has some similarities with these older conversations. For one, I mean, for many of the earlier ones not like before Bart, because Bart would, Bart didn't want theology to try too hard to fit into the Academy. He was like, Hey, we don't want to try to prove ourselves, like, you know, that, that has only led us to some bad places. But for schleiermacher Aquinas, like it was like, hey, should should this be a part of the academy? I think for us that that ship has sailed
23:41 it pretty much. Yeah, pretty much as
23:44 but but now I think it's more maybe the the motive behind the question is, should theology be something that people consider a source of knowledge and truth? And, and is it something that should have a place in the wider conversation?
24:02 What can be known? Right?
24:04 Right. So really, it? It is a question of epistemology, right? So the epistemology is the study of what you know, how you know, and, and it really is the study of knowledge, because scientific knowledge in the sense of the natural sciences has taken the highest seat at the table, right? in our, in our current conversation, and you see it a lot, even in advertisements I was telling you about, like, just an ad popped up was like an ad kind of kind of one of those ad articles where you're like, Is this an article or an ad and then you find out Yeah, they're getting good. They're getting really good. The, the podcast that is Yeah, well, I'm a whole focus on Don Draper. The whole advertising world. The but it said something it was about like, Weight Watchers, and it was just like, eight reasons to try weight loss. And then in parentheses, he says, besides the fact that it's scientifically proven, and Matt just I was working on the article when that and, and I was just like, wow, can you imagine if it is said, besides the fact that it is theologically proven? Right, right. Like, it's like when
25:16 in the public imagination, I mean, it's just, it's just two completely different sources of authority and one is privileged. And when is it right? I remember the movie Nacho Libra, when it skelet, though, believes he believes in science as if science is something that you can. Well, actually he was, his name was more truthful than he thought, actually. Right. I came up in the, like, I believe in science.
25:39 Yeah, I believe in science.
25:41 Yeah, it's the source of what you can know and not know, as opposed to whatever, right jack black was representing. Right,
25:47 right. Yeah. And it's interesting how it does come back to that idea of knowledge, like I can. And so we do and it's that's from the naturally bright days interesting language, right belief in
26:03 exactly
26:05 that believe
26:06 faith language? or How can you even investigate anything? That's true. I think one of the, one of the issues we struggle with now with, for example, not just getting, I don't know, theology back in as a legitimate discipline in the academy, but even getting some some things like the Intelligent Design movement into science classes and public schools. And and, you know, one of the arguments that sort of surrounds that is the difference between deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning, and the scientific method is inductive. Yeah. And for some reason, in a lot of people's minds, that's the only way you can ever really approach anything that's, that's valuable. If you think about anything deductively right, then you've already sold the game. We you know, before we even start, and yeah, and that's been a that's been a real hurdle for ID people. Because in much of the scientific community, they consider it a deductive theory and not an inductive an inductive argument. And so is it there's problems all over the place with this?
27:11 Yeah, it really is. And, and I think one of the one of that wider, maybe the wider issue too, like you said, is just in like, our culture's mine or people's mind of being so separate, and science data even within the church, even Christians, I think, in many ways separate those two.
27:33 It's interesting in in I think we were we were talking about this before the podcast even in the pH, my Ph. D. program, I had to I was church history, but I had to take some of the classes with some of the theology guys and they were all guys actually say men and women but at that time, they were all guy. But times change is exactly this is back in the in the in the dark ages. But the only way even at this seminary that I went to it was kind of a mainline seminary, but But still, the only way you could say anything about theology was actually to talk about ethics. They talked about practical theology. Yeah, as if everything else was relegated to I don't know, I'm counting angels on the head of a pin or something. Right. Which is interesting for a seminary.
28:18 Yeah, actually. seminary
28:20 struggled ratios. How can we say anything about guys has gotten into the academy?
28:24 Yeah. And and that trickles down into into the greater culture right? It really does trickle from the academy into greater culture. And I think and so kind of my maybe my, my position in the paper is that I do think theology we do need to start maybe changing our language a little bit and I and maybe understand theology as a science in that broader sense of the word science and and maybe if anything, it just helps expose Oh wow, yeah, even like I believe in God but I put more weight in if something is scientifically proven, right, even if it's subconsciously in my mind that that is Oh yeah, that's that has more weight, more proof that theology is a source of knowledge, a source of knowledge and truth. Now we don't God is holy other we don't know God exhaustively. And this is the Guardian in me coming out but like, and we only know what he has told us about himself. Right? Like it's a revelation. Yeah. And but but we can
29:41 know something. Yeah, God and about this world. Yeah. What's important?
29:46 We can and and that way, it is a scientific endeavor and, and within the marketplace of ideas, it's given a voice and actually, that voice for theology is the same. For what are what would also be considered humanistic sciences? And along with maybe the social sciences, that have also been kind of marginalized,
30:10 or hard sciences. It's true. It's true. This is a very deep, very deep argument.
30:15 Yeah. And I find a lot of disciplines, I think, getting them back into better dialogue as as equal partners, we need to find a way to get back to our seat at the table.
30:27 Yes, very important. Yeah. And if we've been regular, relegated by, I don't know, the Enlightenment or postmodern lineman, rationalistic thinking about, you know, what's scientific and what's not? What gives you access to what's real and knowledge are not, we've got to find a way to get back in that conversation. And that's why in some ways, if we are in the postmodern moment, that actually is not necessarily a bad thing, because some of those arguments that have isolated in exile dusts, really, you know, increasingly, in some people's minds don't hold as much water as they used to. Right. So why can't I have a place at the table?
31:05 Yeah. And, and I think, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that how we go from here. And now that I do think that many of them it could be in a wave, and that that seat will come back to the table and, and be not hold my
31:22 breath for a theology department you frankly, not 20 years, but definitely know, who knows,
31:28 who knows? And, and just being a part of that, and I think even just for us, and maybe for our listeners, having them think about Yeah, what role does maybe theology play in my own life? Now? I mean, in some ways, theology has been even excluded from the church
31:46 in a really interesting way, like sometimes churches, a theology three freezone, right. It's and,
31:52 and, and bringing that back of, and really looking into, what can we know about God? What do we know about God? And then, and this is, I think, the big connection? How does that knowledge then does change the way I live? Just like when I learn something scientifically, it does change like, Oh, hey, like getting
32:15 back to schleiermacher. Again, what you think about God and what we've can say about God does have real implications and how we as individuals, and we as communities, go about living our lives.
32:25 Yeah, it really does. And it's something we need to continue to think about and to think deeply about. Well, I could talk theology all day, I can talk schleiermacher and maybe we'll just have a whole wormhole. schleiermacher episode. So off the
32:39 top of your head mark, you spell Slimer Okay, Yes, I
32:43 can. s c h, l. e, i, e, r. m a CH er schleiermacher Beautiful fish. Hey, does the slacker fish go to go to your local butchery fishery and ask Do you have any other schleiermacher fish? Very nice. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
33:37 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us@jessup.edu William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup thing.
Dr. Daniel Gluck joins Mark and Rex to talk about his experience with the African church. Rex also shares insights from his time pastoring in South America.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host, Mark Moore, and your co host, Rex Gurney. Right. And this is part two of our global Christianity series. And we really looked at kind of theoretically last time. And so today's storytelling time today is storytelling with Mark and Rex. And we have a special guests, we have Daniel Gluck, he's professor of Christian Leadership, and just has extensive experience with church in Africa and working in mostly East Africa. So we're really excited to have him on and to kind of hear those stories, hear what he has seen happening in the church, right. And then we also get to hear some stories from you, Rex have
0:43 spent several years in Latin America,
0:45 yeah, in Colombia, and Ecuador.
0:47 And you yourself have to have extensive experience with the church in Asia and
0:51 East Asia. So we got a little you know, combo of all the churches. So we hope you enjoy this episode, and we hope it kind of pushes you to, to see the church in a bigger light, right, and to see the church as the church universal.
1:15 But no, yeah, no, Rex, and I last week talked about global Christianity and really highlighted just kind of that shift that is, is happening, and then obviously projected to, to really take an effect in the next, you know, 25 years. Yeah, really just that shift from the center of the church being, which traditionally has been in the global north. So European, North American, to the global south. And we also highlighted that, that part of that terminology, is tied to, to geography, but it's also tied to economics as well, that that global north to global south, is that transition to churches in the global south that have traditionally been among the developing countries in sub Sahara Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. And, and so we just kind of highlighted that that shift is happening, and what that kind of looks like that, that maybe power center or the center of Christianity is now shifting over and and what does that that look like? What does that mean?
2:27 Should we be like, even concerned about that? And why should it make a difference in the way we
2:32 look at the faith? Right, and, and we knew and, and rexton had talked a little bit in the last episode about some of the experiences in Colombia, and we're gonna get more into that. We also want to do on the show, too, because I know your experience with the African churches. Sure. In your work in Kenya, what where all in Africa? Have you worked, particularly East Africa, so
2:54 I'm not as knowledgeable on South Africa, West Africa, you know, North Africa, they actually usually consider the Arab World Rally, right? So because it's very Muslim influenced and stuff, but yeah, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, especially in East
3:08 Africa. And with that kind of work, like what are what are some of the things you saw within the African church? And maybe some of the changes that have happened even in the last 10 years?
3:16 Yeah, certainly, there's a couple of key themes that I would note, you know, from my experience, and study, one, you know, and this fits with this whole topic, which I think is a fantastic one is really a shift from, you know, sort of Western denominational movements to African indigenous movements. And there's actually a term for that call, there's actually a denomination called the aiic. In Africa, which is a separate thing that's African inland church, which was a splinter off of China inland mission that Hudson Taylor started, but also we talk broader about AI sees, which are African indigenous churches, and that's where the greatest growth statistically, in Christianity is. These are very Pentecostal, Pentecostal influenced movements, and they're starting congregations here actually, in the United certainly, some are actually growing. And they're thriving, because I think I think it stems from some of the nationalism that's also happened in post colonial Africa, where they're saying, you know, my friends who are pastors are saying, Hey, thank you for bringing Jesus to Africa back to Africa, really, because Jesus was in Africa before Europeans came, right? not physically, but obviously through the movements of Coptic Christianity and all that kind of stuff. Thank you for bringing him but we're not sure we want to keep running with this denominational brand of Christianity. We want to take our take ownership of Christianity and read the Bible ourselves and interpret the Bible and have theologians and all this stuff. And so that's where the church is absolutely exploding in Africa. So that's a big theme, that I would certainly Notice we get into this conversation.
5:01 Yeah. Which is a really a really interesting observation. And also I feel like it's something that the the North American or European missionary movement, desired, right? That's true. Or at least they said, Yeah, I said they do. Yeah. And that might be that might be the better kid. Yeah. And then when they see that happen in like, wait, wait, you want to do that and act from Yeah, our denomination you want to? And and yeah, it does seem to be obviously so important for for African churches for Latin American churches to be growing from within. Yeah, it's huge. And, and seemingly growing to a point where obviously they're outpacing, yeah, in North America. We talked about that last time with some of the stats. And in by 2050 2060, you know, Phil jingan kind of highlights that Africa will be the center of Christianity. Yeah. Right. By 2050. And then obviously, large numbers growing in Southeast Asia, and Latin America. And even now, those churches are sending like you're saying, Rex, there's a I see God congregations in Sacramento,
6:15 I was at our they are already sensing kind of missionaries like they are they are transitioning from receiving missionaries to sending missionaries when I was pastoring, in San Jose, that before I started teaching with Jessup. There was an abandoned movie theater on, I think, East Santa Clara Avenue. And suddenly, one weekend, one of these, I think there were from Brazil, but it was sort of the same theological family as these African initiative churches, or, and they set up shop in this movie theater. And for about a year, it was a huge going concern. And both Protestants and Catholics in San Jose were kind of worried about it. Because they were taking folks from Yeah, from from everybody. Yeah. And then they kind of disappeared after a year, which was just sort of strange. I never really knew what was going on. But if I had not been familiar with some of these Brazilian movements, I would never have put two and two together and got four. They were setting up shop. Interesting enough ministering in Spanish instead of Portuguese. It was a going concern for a while they got the crowds I tell you,
7:26 and then it's interesting that it would be a concern. Yeah, you know that it well. What's the concern?
7:33 Well, the concern was, yeah, we have we have no control over what's going on. Yeah. What if these people go here? It's fascinating. It's sort of, I have to do my little church history thing here. It's sort of like when aimee semple mcpherson was. Building Angela's temple in LA and kind of starting the Foursquare thing, right. Yeah. What happened is her main services were like on Sunday evening, and so what happened was people would go to their churches, you know, Methodist, Baptist Presbyterian on Sunday morning. And then they go to sister Amy show at Angela's temple on Sunday night. Yeah. And then kind of bring back stuff from that experience into their churches. And you can imagine what happened with the pastor's of you know, these upstanding churches in LA they did not like that at all written. Yeah. Very threatened by it. Yeah.
8:22 Yeah. Kind of threatened and that maybe they used to that word control is, is
8:27 and that's an interesting word. Of course, her you know, she she founded a Pentecostal denomination, and many of these African and kind of developing world churches are very, very Pentecostal. Yeah.
8:41 There's another interesting paradox I would point out in Africa, at least that I've seen, which is, although the indigenous churches are separating from these Western dominations. What I've seen, and especially in rural Kenya, is that the indigenous pastors who are wonderful men and women of God, are highly influenced by Western media, Western Christian media, let's call it so they listen to the televangelists on TV, and they they mimic them and they have the same tone of voice and the same phraseology and all these little things. And so it's like the trying to push away but they're also trying to you know, that's that's
9:19 their own piece of really an interesting phenomena. I remember when back in the summer of 87, and that was when several Jimmy swaggin Jim Baker, but I remember when that when you know that it seemed like the televangelists are falling like dominoes, right? Yes. Right. Which was really scary to me because that was when I first pastor my first church. And I was like, no. I The good thing about that, and the bad thing about that is that people have short memories. Right? And it's both are happening again. Yeah, but what was interesting is even after some of these folks fell in love, Lost part of their media empires here in the United States. They were still going huge, strong overseas and folks down there had no idea about the scandals in the state. Yeah. And, and so they just sort of shifted, you know, their their power base, which is, you know, problematic, right all over the place here. But you're right, you're right. You're right.
10:24 And that highlights the, the influence maybe of the American church through media and global media, and theological influence, though, especially theological, we correct with hope you don't want. Right, right.
10:39 And that leads us to another big fear, I think of the Western church, which is that, you know, what I've seen in, especially Kenya again, is, you know, most of my friends who are rural pastors in Kenya, and I'm talking small churches, you know, it sounds crazy, but still churches with mud walls, and tin roofs are sometimes roofs. 102, you know, 200 is big. And in rural East Africa, they, you know, they're doing the ones I know, that are the most educated have a high school degree, you know, like a high school diploma, they don't have any formal theological training whatsoever. So there's this tension of, at least in my heart, it's like, I love seeing the African indigenous church rise up and the African continent, you know, especially Sub Saharan Africa, take ownership of Christianity and press into the word and stuff. But we get threatened sometimes in the western church, oh, these people don't have the right theological education and all this kind of stuff. So I wonder, you know, what is the role of the Western church when it comes to? Do we still have a role in education? Is that something we should have tried? So it's a huge issue right now? Yeah.
11:49 That seems to be where it gets tricky, too. Because we, we probably have to resist the temptation of still wanting to be the troll. Troll, the theology or the the the theological police, right? And especially, not be some type of modern or even postmodern theological police to have maybe a pre modern a God
12:17 of Christianity, the subtitle of one of Jason's books was, I think, believing the Bible in the global south, which is a really interesting subject just south because as we talked about last time, what happens when you have a Christianity that hasn't gone through the enlightenment? Right, we have, and we view everything through our enlightenment lens. I mean, I can't not do that. Yeah. Right. And we've been trained in it. Exactly, exactly. But, you know, I guess the worldview of the Old Testament, particularly, and then a lot of the New Testament is sort of a pre enlightenment. Yeah, it's like, we try to explain the miraculous away. I mean, even if we believe it, we don't, you know, we live in it, our hands around, we live in a disenchanted universe, right. But in, in a lot of places, it's an enchanted universe. And so they'll open up, you know, the Bible, and it's like, you know, these aren't just stories about stuff that happened 2000 years ago, this
13:12 happens all the time, it happened last week, I experienced it. And that's really interest. And that's absolutely true of Africa. Because by nature, you know, in all the research I've seen, Africans are spiritual, they believe in the supernatural, whether or not they believe in the Christian narrative, you know, of angelical Christian narrative or whatever they believe in the spirit world, they believe in ancestors and influences and omens and all these things, they get it, it's not something you have to explore, right? You know, or you have to wade through the hole, the wrong way. To fix that.
13:47 But and what's interesting is, is when, right when the maybe the full shift in the center shifts in the next 25 years, 50 years, and Africa and Latin America become even more of maybe the main centers of missionaries. Yeah, it'll be interesting if, as they send missionaries, if they will, if those missionaries will then come to America and and be like, Hey, you guys.
14:14 Yeah, yeah. And I've often thought about that. I have, because, you know, I spent two years doing missionary work in Colombia. Yeah. And, you know, I remember feeling nothing about going to some of the barrios in foreign key in Cali and knocking on doors trying to, you know, present the gospel of folks and get them to our church. Right. Right. Right. And, you know, I, but because, of course, I had something that I was bringing that they needed. Yes. Right. That Yeah, no compulsion with that, but honestly, I'm wondering about, you know, my cul de sac and West Roseville. If someone from a Nigerian aiic comes and starts knocking on our doors. Yes. Just like call the police. Yeah, right. Right. But why not? I mean, they have every everyone Right. And and yeah, it's a lot of interesting cultural dynamics,
15:04 I have a no soliciting sign. So I
15:08 might I just make my boys answer the door. Okay, that's good. That's good. You know, it's it makes, you know, cuts the conversation shorter.
15:17 I will say, though, you know, like when it comes to what the western church can offer, you know, in the indigenous movements in Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia, you know, East Asia, Southeast Asia. I do think, you know, education. This is a, you know, it's a little bit complex, but I think education plays a role I think it has, we have a great resource of knowing, you know, methods for studying God's word, and all this kind of stuff that we can share with, you know, these wonderful men and women who are pastors and have no biblical training whatsoever. Yeah, it's, I think it's the how we do it, that's probably important, which we do it, I think we've got a present, you know, and I've seen some really healthy models of this presenting wonderful biblical training. But also, making sure that at the center of that biblical training is space for the indigenous leaders to contextualize that approach to their given culture and sort of apply it through, you know, their cultural context and maybe welcomes a dialogue instead of a monologue. Absolutely, because it has the questions I asked a lot to my Christian perspective class, and we talk about global Christianity. And, you know, most of them have never even thought about it before. Sure, I
16:36 try to make them think about what is Christianity and other parts? But But the question is sort of the I mean, literally the so what question Yes, like so. So what should this matter to you? You know, is there anything that you can actually learn from from these folks? Yeah, why should I share is it just gonna be a one way sort of thing and and in my experience, I've seen good and, and less good way, diplomatic way. So I was in repasser, First Baptist Church, Quito, Ecuador for a summer, and it was an international congregation mainly made up of expat Americans and embassy people and different things like that. Don't ask me how I ended up with that. It was a great gig anyway. And I really enjoyed our time. My wife took a leave of absence from her job, they give a house in the car, the whole shootin match, right. But since I was interim pastor of, of one of the churches there, I got to attend, like the national pastors meetings, and so on. Right. And I remember once, in one of the meetings that one of the national pastors was speaking about something that was almost like liberation theology. Like, I mean, it wasn't even the full on Gustavo Gutierrez or anything, right. But I do remember one of the missionaries that was there standing up and shutting this guy up, basically using a financial club. If I hear you that kind of language, you'll not get another cent support from and the sad thing was the guy sat down. Yeah, yeah. And another thing I saw, and I loved my time in Colombia. But one thing that really saddened me there was some of the most successful national pastors, they had these large churches in Bogota, or maybe, you know, Cali. You know, I mean, 1000s of folks, right, and really vibrant ministries, really doing a great job for the kingdom would would leave those churches and end up pastoring some storefront in Miami somewhere, and thought that that was actually like a good thing, graduation, the graduation and yeah, after seeing that happen time, and time and time again. And knowing that these guys all went to, you know, got their theological education there. I'm just wondering what kind of subtle message was given to them? Yeah, in the theological education, and like, it wasn't just, you know, Bible and theology, it was also sort of this subtle America as the promised land kind of right, which was not the message there. In Africa, it was just really sad and losing a lot of the best folks because of that, yeah, that just should not be.
19:13 And that's maybe where some of the, you know, Western media influence, I would say, particularly of prosperity, gospel kind of influences can, I think create some very negative patterns of Hey, you know, what it means to be a successful Christian or if God blesses you, you're gonna end up,
19:30 you know, and from what I understand the prosperity gospel is like a major sort of part of some of these African indigenous videos. Yeah,
19:39 absolutely. And it, you know, there's a connection to liberation theology of, you know, true and so how are we right, right away?
19:50 Exactly. Yeah. And there's been some, you know, it's not quite what we sort of think of when we think of prosperity, gospel or neighborhood and climate rule. Agenda there. There was some studies done. I read about years ago about, you know, what happens to family incomes and family structures in some of the bottles in Santiago, Chile, when the men end up getting converted to some of these sort of prosperity gospel movements, right. And, of course, what happens? And this is just you, I mean, you know, it's empirically verifiable to say that, you know, the, the family, economic situation improves drastically, really, now. Now, there's a bunch of explanations for that, right. Is, is, you know, the guy's not spending all this money drinking. Okay. And you know, so yeah, it makes sense. So there's this sort of this moral reformation, and therefore, there's more food on the table, you know, and so, if you want to look at that, just that way, I guess it works. Well, I was looking for something that works, you can prove it work. But the question is, what is working
20:59 there? Yeah, that's liberation from you know, these vices and sins that are holding them back and create a
21:07 fascinating that we tend to have a sharper dichotomy between the prosperity gospel and liberation theology then happens in some of the churches in Latin America. Absolutely. Right. And so the liberal conservative divide is not quite as cut and dry down there as we try to make it right. Because the categories are different. Yeah. And that's a fascinating thing.
21:27 And that's, I mean, the categories being different, I think, is a really interesting part of, of missions on both sides that often sometimes in mission work, we, in theological mission work, we export the issues that our culture is going through to the new culture, and they might not, like those aren't our issues, you know, there's, and, and even from some different, even from differences from Europe, to America to even Australia, like, issues like inerrancy, or something you hear theologians, you know, like Michael Byrd, who is very evangelical, very, in Australia, he's like, inerrancy, is not the issue that we're going to talk about in Australia. Like we're in some ways, they're, they're beyond that, right like that. But I think, yeah, like we've maybe export some of our issues, theologically, and, and then in in those countries and be like, those aren't even
22:29 the whole question on IRC makes no sense at all in a pre enlightenment way of looking at, it makes. Why even why would that even be an issue?
22:36 Yeah, yeah. So even trying to explain it as a segment,
22:40 isn't it? Exactly. You're making a problem that doesn't exist? And then trying to solve that problem? Right, which is, you know, I guess worth the mission dollars that somebody's paying for you down there with and please don't misunderstand me. I loved missions. That was some of the greatest times in my life. I married an MK I mean, the whole shootin match. I'm a real believer in that. Quarter of that. But yeah, but there are complications with it.
23:04 Right. And there are within the kind of going back to the education aspect, like I think there are some good movements that like you were saying, they're not the spirit with which we do it that there does seem to be still a role within Washington Church of educating and and maybe providing resources. I mean, I think of like the Bible project, who've been doing a great job in North America on YouTube, like, making videos that really helping people be able to read the Bible better. Yeah, one of their pushes over this last year, and that is translating those, not for the sake of controlling theology, but like, hey, how can we get these and they have, they have, you know, kind of promo from people in China, people who haven't been like, thank you so much for these videos, because they're helping us. And so yeah, I think there is a way to do that. That doesn't have to feel like well, we need you know, you you don't we don't want you to believe this believe this. But it's providing resources. Yeah. And, and then definitely making it a dialogue, not a monologue. I think that is for me, these last couple episodes has has centered on that. Like, how can it be a true dialogue? How can we shift from thinking us taking the gospel to them? Yeah, to shift now to hate it is to Jesus together. Yeah, we encountered us together and, and and in a few short years, it'll be them bringing the Gospel to us. True and understanding that get us back to Christianity for me, honestly,
24:41 we are a mission field. I tell you, there's no reason why somebody from Nigeria shouldn't be knocking on doors in my in my subdivision. Yes. totally true. Yeah.
24:50 I heard a wonderful pastor who's a pastor in Nairobi, his name is Oscar Moody, oh speak about the set of bigger band a conference one year and he said, You know what? We as Africans, I'm, I think I'm quoting him accurately. You know, we are so grateful for the western church bringing to us, you know, resource and church trainings and structures and all this kind of stuff. Thank you. And, you know, certainly the western church plays a role financially, which is a whole nother topic, right? You know, how do you have healthy financial influence and support? That's not not. That's for sure. But then he said, there's one thing Western church more or less, that you've kind of missed, this is a two way street, that African church can teach you something about family and about marriage and about African collectivism and how to, you know, support each other and see things holistically and all this stuff. And I was so moved, because I thought, Man, we need a shift in the growth of the global church in that it will be a two way street, we're not like the story, you told Rex, we're not holding the financial carrot in front of them and leveraging that or manipulating with that, but rather doing it in a way that's truly empowering to these indigenous movements.
26:10 And maybe we can kind of learn to foster that, that. Look at the Bible that comes from that more and chanted lens to Okay, you know, I'm saying, Yeah, getting that back of like, being able to read the Bible, like, like that subtitle would say, right, believing the Bible, and they're,
26:35 like, why do you should write that?
26:38 And, and, and I do think the, that, that, for me, brings up interesting aspects. And I saw this a little bit, just I've been in East Asia kind of the last couple years, and in going from a very individualized society in America, and then going to a very collective society, how that affects faith, too, and, and how we can learn from that, and how viewing faith as that more community oriented and collective, not just, what am I individually getting out of this? What is my individual salvation status, you know, maybe they say the Lord's Prayer with more integrity than we do. Yeah.
27:22 Right. Could be, or when I'm thinking when the, you know, the gospel, say, Jesus was sharing or whatever, on a hill, and then the man and his household were saved, you know, and we go, ha, how did the whole household get saved? But that's a collectivist mentality, that's, we're making this decision together, we're embracing this as a culture or a family versus an individual, like from the western lens. So
27:46 well, this has been really good. I think these two episodes have have combined Well, just to just maybe for for us and for some of our listeners, too, just to realize the shift that has been happening that we've seen, but to realize like, this is not these are no longer like way far out projections right? around the corner. 2050 is not not speculation, right? Yeah. And it's not speculation. And seeing even I mean, those numbers, we looked at what happened in Africa just in 100 years, I mean, from 1900, having less than 10 million Christians in the continent, to having, you know, by 2050, having over 700 million animals. Yeah. And, and just that, that shift, and, and, and I think getting to a place within the western church, of moving from that role of, of controller of center, but to partner and Sunday, we want you that we're talking about like a Western church. Yeah, Eastern, Southern church. Yeah, I'm talking about, you know,
28:54 the Navy, that alone is an indicator that we still haven't quite figured out the shared thing, one that
29:00 and that's what's interesting, it, and that, in some ways, gets us back to the early church. And, you know, I was talking to a student and he was talking about the, the creeds and, you know, he was like, why didn't any of the Creed's make any statements about like, racial equality or things like that? You know, and we were talking, I was like, when you look at those councils, those councils were extremely diverse. Like those councils didn't have to make a statement like that wasn't an issue built them I mean, that those councils were people from North Africa, people from the Middle East, people from further out into Europe as as forming and, and yeah, if we could get to an end at that time, they viewed themselves as the church. Now they're obviously splinters and it doesn't take long for it to to, for it to fracture. But yeah, maybe this movement are The power center shifting can help us move back to a place of looking at the church as the church not just the church in the West church in the global south, like there has the church. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessica.
30:39 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Mark and Rex discuss the explosive growth of Christianity in Africa, Latin America, and Southern Asia.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your hosts are one of your hosts, Mark Moore, and your co host, Rex Gurney. Our occasional co host, occasional, you know you're on you're more reoccurring co hosts are sure. And today, we're starting kind of part one of a two part series that might turn into an 18 part series and easily do that of global Christianity. And talking about how the numbers are just exploding in the church outside of Western Europe and America. And we've kind of we've noted the decline in Western Europe for a long time. But I think it's really good for American churches to start recognizing, hey, The kingdom of God is so much bigger and so excited to In this episode, just kind of talk about that shift that's happening. Right, right. And then looking forward to part two, we'll be looking at some more stories from African churches, and Latin American churches. Right, looking forward to it. So hope you enjoyed this part one as we kind of dive into global Christianity.
1:09 Well, no, today on there, on the episode, we're going to be talking about global Christianity. And we're going to kind of with that we're going to be defining some terms and defining maybe exactly what we mean by global Christianity. And I'm excited and maybe some other episodes, we're able to pull in some other faculty to kind of talk about their experience exactly with the with the global church. But I think just kind of maybe I think what brought this issue up with you, Rex, and kind of why how you brought it kind of to the table. And and I think something that I've seen in my own life is, it's really easy to view your own faith, kind of through only the lens or simply the lens of your culture. Right. Right. And maybe not just your culture, but your country. And I think that that is particularly a part of maybe American Christianity.
2:04 And, you know, I guess one of the reasons for that, as you could probably make a historical case that for around 100 years or so, probably, you know, the most vibrant, you know, center as far as numbers and money and yeah, theory endeavor and things like that. Were from here, right? That is actually no longer true. Maybe the money thing is
2:24 right, but is, is Yeah, is the United States still the the number one on population of country? I think it still is still is. But yeah, the numbers are shifting, they're showing those numbers are really radical. I guess, when we bring up that term global Christianity, what do we mean by that term?
2:46 Well, I think we've already kind of sort of answered the meaning of it already. Yeah, Christianity is not the, you know, property or, or it doesn't belong to anybody. You know, it's interesting. So when you look at the geographical sort of center of Christian vibrancy over the last 2000 years, it's always shifted. I mean, you start with Jerusalem, you know, then you end up I don't know, Antioch, then somehow gets to Rome, sort of sticks with Rome for a while, then we start talking about Christendom. And when we start talking about Christendom, we're really talking about Western Europe. Right. And then, you know, you could make a case that it kind of jumped the Atlantic, and then North America became a real center of Christian vibrancy. And now that train has already left the station and it is gone somewhere else. And yeah, a lot of us really aren't aware of that. And and I guess it's just sort of important to know and and to understand what that might or might not mean for us as Christians here in the United States. Yeah. And a lot of the kind of studies in the statistics you look at talk about the center of the of the, of Christianity shifting from what is termed the global north to the global south. Well, I was just looking at some stats just recently and in 2010 of the 10 countries with the largest Christian populations and you know, you can always you know, bicker with what you mean by Christian and all this kind of,
4:22 right. Yeah, like, it just got to me is that maybe a little bit of a Baptist Sunni to me, like, is that true Christian? I got enough to take
4:31 ugly but you know, with with a fairly broad definition of Christian and Christian, you know, adherence of the 10 countries with the largest Christian populations, only three were in North America or Europe. But if present 10 trends continue, and I think it's even accelerating actually. Right. Um, by 2050, only two will be and five of them in the top 10 population wise will be in Africa. Yeah. Which is which It's really interesting. And that does sort of say something about the center of gravity of the Christian faith moving to the global south.
5:08 Right? And it's really, really interesting. Yeah, when you start looking at the numbers and that shift, and, again, Pew Center did a research in actually in 2010. So we're another decade removed from that. But they showed it was a really interesting graphic where they showed kind of Christian population in 1910 versus 2010. And then, you know, in 1910 60%, of Christians were in Europe right now. And they put 27% in the Americas. And so including North and South America, and only 1.4% are in sub Sahara Africa. And right, no longer the case in 2010. There now, there were 23% of Christians in Sub Saharan Africa. And I think in this this last decade, and like you're shown with those numbers, they trend trend is accelerating. Right. And and Africa is definitely the the has the most Christians of any other continent when you separate continent out. And and yeah, that shifts that I like how you word that, that it shifts gravity, right into, into the global south, which I think is also including South America and South America and
6:27 perhaps Southeast Asia. Yeah. So I mean, it's a it's a kind of an omnibus term, as long as we're tossing out statistics here, not Hey, it's good. I have a full of our research. I have a few of them here. 1970 116 million Christians in Sub Saharan Africa. I could say Africa because almost anything above the Sahara is gonna be Muslim. Anyway. So would you write Africa right? But 2025 which is only six years from now? 628 million in Asia 92,000,019 74 75,002,025. Europe, however, we'll have 20 million less Christians. Yeah. 2025 then in 1970 we're probably holding our own here in the United States, but that's slipping too. I remember you know growing up in the in the denomination I grew up in I'm trying not to say Southern Baptist, but I guess I've already been out at that ever, upward ever outward. I mean, honestly, that's right. And then something strange happened about six or seven years ago. It's like, you know, baptism started going down. Gross membership started going down, and we thought that would never ever, ever happen. Yeah. So um, you know, shifts are changing.
7:51 And that's, that's interesting, too, when you look at the issue denominationally right, especially kind of medium sized denominations or that, that have had some type of missions focus in many of those denominations. The the church outside of America out numbers. Exactly.
8:10 Exactly. Even some large ones. Most Anglicans in the world actually are not in England. Wow. They're in Sub Saharan Africa. Yeah. Which is really interesting. And and that has really had some effect on the worldwide Anglican Communion. I think in the last decade, worldwide Anglicanism has something called the Lambeth conference, which you know, I guess bishops from all over the world meet it with the Archbishop of Canterbury in England and they just do whatever they do with worldwide reaganism. Yeah, well, I think the Lambeth conference, either the latest one or the one before that, was boycotted by most of the African Anglican bishops for the very first time, they basically said if American Episcopalians are going to be there, we're not going to be there. Wow. And and so even the Anglican Communion sort of breaking apart because of the difference between me You know, a lot of theological and even moral teachings in the American and European versions of Anglicanism versus the sub Saharan African version. Yeah, much more conservative, much more conservative.
9:22 And that seems to to be maybe a trend with with global Christianity and Christianity outside of of America and this shift with that gravity shifting. It also then affects what we would call maybe power structure within the church you know, we like it used to be these conferences were were maybe controlled by this right Mahler few right in this one country telling other right countries what to do. And now as those numbers change, the African churches, the Latin American churches, and wait What exactly why are you telling us what to do what to believe? Right?
10:04 Right? And so we'll just not show up. Yeah. And you can't make us. And that's just fascinating from a historical standpoint. And it's probably happening in a number of other comedians, too. One thing that's really interesting in Sub Saharan Africa is that a lot of the crew Christian growth are actually in denominations, and many of them have these names, which just sound really, really foreign to our European or American ears, you know, the church of the seraphim and cherubim, and things like that. Yeah. It's like, what kind of cult is that? Well, you know, I don't know, but it's a huge church in maybe Nigeria, right? And a number of these very fast growing Christian denominations, because that's what they are, actually have no organic connection to European or American missionaries. They actually started themselves, let's Yeah, how dare they? Right. They started themselves. And there's a lot of different names, give these things. They kind of go under the rubric. aiic, like African initiated churches, African indigenous churches, African independent churches, African institutional churches, however you want to describe them? Yeah. They don't really have a connection with with us. And that. That's really interesting. Yeah, because some of the things that are taught in these churches, I know that a lot of European and American theologians and just regular Pew sitters might have some issues with, but they're not asking us.
11:35 Right. Well, that's what's interesting about the missionary movement. I mean, part of these numbers, I think, really shows the effect of missionary move. Right. And that's how it got there in the first Yeah. And the effect. And it also maybe then highlights the the purpose behind the Miss Sherman was was the gospel spread, so that then we could control how the gospel you know, I mean, I brings up those issues, I think, right, right. Especially if you're British, it brings up a whole lot of, yeah. That's a whole other project that is as a different podcast, but it it, it was kind of it was kind of blended for a long time, kind of the politics and the religion. It definitely was, and, and I think that it was paternalism and colonial right, and a lot of things. Yeah. And, and I think that may be one of the the things to note from, from this shift, and the center shifting is, is not just looking at the global churches or churches in Africa as Oh, yeah, that was where we sent people and they, but now looking at them as, as having a rightful seat at the table. Right. Right. And, and a rightful part of the kingdom of God and
12:53 sending missionaries to Europe and America, which is really fascinating. It's like, you know, some of these churches already have, you know, congregations in the United States, but we just sort of always assumed that they're with, you know, African expats, you know, right. But actually, that's not necessarily true. They are out knocking on doors, because they consider a lot of, you know, I don't know, Americans, sub Christian. I mean, we need evangelize. Yeah. Which is very different than when I grew up with.
13:25 Yeah, it was I mean, they're, and they're probably right, I'm right, honestly, probably, right. Yeah. With this with this kind of shift, and maybe some of those differences. What, what do you see as maybe some of those differences within the global church that has maybe caused tension?
13:44 Well, it's interesting. Um, let me read a quote by Philip Jenkins, who has actually written a number of books on global Christianity. And the subtitle I think of one of his books is not the title, but the subtitle is believing the Bible in the global south. Because this gets really, really interesting once we start trying to talk about what beliefs are biblical or not. But anyway, Jenkins says, at least by the 1970s, churches were acknowledging at least in theory, that concepts of mission had to reflect changing realities. That mission can no longer be seen as a blessing bestowed by Europeans and Americans upon those less fortunate dwellers beyond the pale. But for all the well intentioned, egalitarian talk of mission in six continents, we still find people asking, semi humorously, whether someday we might even find African or Asian missionaries coming to evangelize Europe or North America, as this as if such missionary efforts were not already widespread and thrive right as to the intellectual effects of the epochal southward movement of Christianity. No less a celebrity that Andrew really once said, we will depend on them for vitality, but they will continue to depend on us for the ideas. And then Jenkins says aha I somehow doubt that the global selfs contribution to theological inquiry will be confined to rhythmic dancing or hand-clapping. Yeah, we're already seeing that now. Yeah. For example, in some of these thriving and growing African initiated churches, a fairly common phenomenon or practice in these churches, looks to a lot of us, like ancestor worship, honestly. Yeah. Which, which, of course, is sort of, you know, pre Christian cultural accretion from, from indigenous African societies, right. And I know that that bothers a lot of North American and European theologians, because they would consider that sub Christian, right, you can't have these pagan sort of, you know, carryovers, into into Christianity. But two things are really interesting, but that, first of all, they don't need our money. And they don't need our people. And so you know, they don't need us telling them what to do. But okay, we'll just bracket that on the others. Right, yeah. But then they'll also come back with another theological argument. And they'll basically say something like this, and it often happens. It's like, Well, you know, we just believe the Bible more than you do. So what do you think, you know, the author of Hebrews is talking about in Hebrews chapter 12, about this great cloud of witnesses that surround us. It's like, we believe that, yeah, and they're here, and they've always been here, right? And then of course, we'll say, Well, no, no, no, that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about, but they'll say, Well, that seems to us exactly what he's talking about. And so he goes around and around with that, and I'm not trying to say these aren't important questions, because they aren't right. A lot of it, though, brings up some interesting sub questions as to who gets to determine, you know, what is or what is not theologically kosher? And of course, I want to say I do, because I know I'm educated to seminary degree, you know, theological award winner, apparently. That's right. That's right. Right. And, but they're not asking me, darn it, they're not paying my way to Africa. Right? What's the right way to interpret that verse, right. And it brings up even even more things about, you know, about the miraculous and the supernatural. And we were talking about that just a little bit before the podcast.
17:22 Yeah, that that definitely, when you look at Latin American churches and African churches, there is a much more openness to the movement in the Holy Spirit. And, and the supernatural. Right. And, and it's interesting to, to, to maybe correlate that with growth, and decline, you know, in Western Europe and America, that's a fascinating, fascinating question, the idea that there's this more dependence or, or more understanding, or reality that God is here and is moving, right, like, in this world, it's
18:00 interesting, supernatural way. So even even those of us that are, you know, conservative Bible believing Christians, you know, we'll read the Old Testament. And, and we will believe that this is, you know, God's inspired word. All this stuff happened, I believe all these miracle stories, but I don't exactly expect them to be happening now. That was then this is now Yeah, you know, and we'll even do that with some of the New Testament stuff, right? But but then you get, like, for example, you know, on an African believer for the first time opening up the Old Testament, it's like, this just describes life, like, real life, because they live in an enchanted universe, and we have disenchanted it after the enlightenment. Yeah. And that's sort of fascinating. It's like, it's like, so we live more in, I guess, a biblical world than you do. We expect this stuff to happen, because we've always believed that happens all the time.
18:57 Yeah. And, and that, that is a claim being made by the church in the global south or African churches of, of Yeah, of, and that's a really interesting claim of, actually, we're just trying to be more biblical, and live in this world. That is still enchanted. I think that's really interesting use of language.
19:19 I didn't come up with that word. But several people when they talk about the global south and world Christianity will talk about disenchantment and chin, you know, and the Enlightenment did a job on us. Oh, the issue is, though, I can't go back. You know, I'm on the other side of the Enlightenment, right? And I read things and I think things through an enlightenment lens, it's a Christian lens. It's a conservative Christian lens, right. And enlightenment is is affected by this. And so and, you know, I guess if you just sort of looked him poorly, it's like, well, aren't they just on the other side of the Enlightenment to what happened like 300 years ago? Well, actually, no, right because it is not a phenomenon that happened in the global south. If it was with the global north, right, and and it, it has implications and repercussions about how people both read the Bible and believe the Bible and what the expectations are of how God works in the world.
20:13 And I think one of them implications for us then could be, how can we learn from the churches in Africa and Latin America and Southeast Asia? That can be viewing it from such a different lens than reviewing it? And and what can we learn about that experience and learn about a you know, not what can we go and correct in their theology? Right, but what can we learn to be able to see Christianity through this lens that is that is maybe completely different than ours? Right. And it's so important. And it's so important. I mean, and that's why we I think that's one of the reasons why we send people out and and why even here, Jessup we send students out because we want them to engage in different cultures and to learn from them.
21:01 And that is a very good thing. You know, we do. One thing I do when I teach Christian perspective, when we're talking about global Christianity is we'll kind of go around, and I'll ask a question to all the students. Have you ever attended a worship service in a church outside of the United States? And so you know, if I had asked that question, like, 40 years ago, it's like, maybe a couple of people would have right, but now it's like three quarters of the class because of the mission trip phenomenon. We've all been on mission trips, right easily. It's like, you know, Mexicali, or something? That still sounds like mission II does guarantee and I think that's a good change my life. That's totally it's a good thing. Yeah. And it does send it does engender more awareness as to the global church. But yet still, I think, in a way, that's not quite the experience we're thinking about, because we always go to our places that we sort of found it in these other places. And so what we expected, because I'll also ask them, like, so what was different? Well, it's like, well, it was longer and they sing louder. Right? And that's kind of it. Yeah, they still saying the same stuff? Because our missionaries taught them to sing these right? Yeah. cetera. Oh, yeah. And
22:06 I'm not knocking that that's better than nothing. I really believe that. Brian really didn't. But but it goes deeper than this whole question goes deeper. Yeah. It really does. It goes deeper to kind of how you fundamentally see the world. Exactly. And, and to be able to learn from brothers and sisters who, who view the world just differently, who don't have that. When they read a miracle in the New Testament. They don't have maybe that same skepticism that just creeps into even if even if you affirm right miracles and experience Well, yes. Yeah, it's still really easy to, to not expect that that is a reality that we live in. Now.
22:54 And I'm not trying to suggest, because I think it's easy to go there with this, with what can we learn? And you know, how can we explore the differences? And, you know, between, I guess, Euro American Christianity and Christianity in the global south? Yeah, I'm not trying to suggest that there aren't any questions. All right. Questions. All right. Horton. Yeah. It's not like everything goes or anything goes. It does, however, bring up really interesting conversations about what is core? And what is cultural about the gospel. Yeah, you know. And I will often say, and sometimes students will have to unpack it a little bit before they try to figure out what I'm talking about. Christianity is not a cultural religion. And then we keep on trying to make it one. Islam is Islam as a cultural religion. Yeah, Christianity is not and never has been, although we try to make it right. Right. And that's what then the questions get really interesting about what's, you know, what's core to the gospel? And what's just cultural? Yeah, you know, what's okay and what's not okay. Right. You know, and I know, we can point to a lot of things in some of the churches in the global south, especially with these independent churches, and we can say, you know, you're messing with the core. And I do think that there's some legitimate questions there. Right. But they'll also put the finger back at us. Yeah, say, well, you messed up with the core A long time ago. Can you just have normalized it? Right? You know, but yeah, not Christianity. It's something else. And so I think we can learn from those
24:26 right you know, those and that's the give and take of the dialogue, right? You learn and and maybe areas where you'd be like, Oh, I don't know about that. They also can look at Christianity in America and be like, whoo, I don't know about that. And, and we can and and learn from that. I do think the Korean culture is really important. And we've kind of recognized that I feel like in kind of maybe recent missionary endeavors, we've started to recognize like, Hey, we don't need to go into and change this culture. We need to fix You're out how the core, but that still always is apart. And it's hard in is to not, you know, do that even if it's subconsciously.
25:10 It's fascinating. So when I was in Colombia for a couple of years, there was a, I guess this is in the 1960s. There was this, I think he was a shoe store magnate from the south or something that, um, decided that he was going to build a bunch of huge Baptist churches in the major cities in Colombia. Okay. Because to sort of compete with the Catholic cathedrals, right, because he was just
25:41 saying he was a shoe magnate from south in North America. Yeah, yeah.
25:47 This is Southern Baptists. Yes. All right. Anyway, anyway, I'm trying, I'm tracking and assessing because his, his, his, you know, whole idea was, if they build issues, churches, when people are going to come to them, because you know, the architecture is going to make it feel like it's more of a church. And so we call them German churches, because that was the guy's name. Okay. And almost all of them are empty. Now in Colombia. It's not, you know, he just people want the gospel, not necessarily, let's build buildings as big as the Catholic buildings, and therefore, people will all leave the Catholic Church and become Baptist or something. Right. And then he got mad at something. So we stopped doing it. But that's, you know,
26:24 yeah. Which also maybe seems to highlight another issue within within global Christianity, in the sense of that, the divide between Catholic and Protestant, sometimes caused, I think, Protestant missionaries to, to not only spread the gospel, but try to maybe spread some type of anti Catholic message, you know, or that, like, it's totally happened. Yeah. And it was, I've seen that in different mission fields. And I'm like, I don't think you need to convert them from like, I think the gospel Now, again, there's core issues, and we can talk about those core issues. Right. But that seemed to be also a misstep.
27:10 But a very common one. Yeah. Very, very calm. And then understandable. One, I mean, I think, but yeah, that has sort of limited effect. It is really interesting. I remember talking to people in Colombia, it's like, in the end, it's like, you know, I really resonate with this, but you're, I'm, I'm Colombian, I'm, I believe in Jesus, I'm Catholic. But you're trying to say I can't be those things if I really want to be a Christian and right conversation goes into really interesting places with that. And so, you know, there's plenty people that need Jesus. Yeah,
27:41 yeah, definitely. One, I think this is such a good topic. I mean, and it's only going to get more and more of a topic, obviously, not going away, not going away. And and I think it's important for the specifically American church to recognize the power shift and recognize how can we be working with right, the church globally, not working against or working just to spread our kingdom in that sense? And I think that's, that's really important. And so we're excited. And another we're going to do another episode on this. And we're going to have Dr. Daniel Gluck on who's who's done a lot of work with African churches, right. And excited to hear some stories from him. And some stories from here are some more Colombian churches. Yeah, have some
28:28 Ecuador experience. Yeah, you know, we can we can tell missionary stories for
28:33 and and i think i think on this one just kind of land a want to kind of end with this is actually a quote, it was in a Philip Jenkins article. He's not the only one that writes on daily, but it was it was interesting that we both were read by him. Right. And he's actually quoting Vincent DePaul, and in 1640, like, it was a really dark time when he was writing. And, and he just made the recognition Vincent DePaul made the recognition in 1640 that Jesus promised the church would last until the end of the time, right to the end of the ages. But he never mentioned Europe. Right. That was where the Paul points out. Forward Yeah. And and I think that that's really important and maybe global Christianity can help us and America recognize the church. Like God's kingdom God's people on earth is so much bigger than one country and always has been Yeah, it'll be bigger than the African church right
29:34 like It Will the Lord Terry then I'm sure it'll shift again Yeah, some way and and recognize now, but you're right, people would have laughed about some of this stuff hundreds of years ago they really would have
29:49 they really and and and I think it's getting that like, global Christianity should help us get a bigger vision for the kingdom of God.
29:59 I know that that Two years I spent in Colombia going to just kind of local body or churches, not a missionary inside except for me, I guess. Friendships missionary, but I wasn't Yeah, or anything really changed my life, about everything you know about who Christian is and what, you know, what it means for God to bless and bless and how one looks at that. Yeah. And it's so important, really important thing to happen to me.
30:29 Yeah. So important. And at the end of the book of Revelation, we have this scene of, of the kingdom of God kind of worshipping right and coming together. And I love the phrase, right? every tribe, every nation, right. And, and I feel like that picture like if we could put that to an image looks so different than many of the times that the church we have in our head that is maybe very homogenous, and and the same in it. And it will be it's so important for us to think to start to capture that vision now, of the Church of God, global Christianity, being so diverse in and really seeing the beauty in that and, and, and trying to reach for the unity in that and think is really important to to kind of bring this topic up and kind of expand, expand our vision. I totally agree with that. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
31:54 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go. Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Mark and Rex discuss the growing and vocal movement of ex-evangelicals and highlight key causes for this movement away from the evangelical label. They also discuss the postChristian leap that many make, especially some recent high profile figures within the evangelical community.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And today on the show, we're going to be talking about, I think, a really important issue, an issue of people leaving the evangelical movement and leaving it publicly Yeah, leaving it publicly. And then and then a group that has left now identifying themselves as ex Benjamin tells, and kind of forming a community is saying, Hey, we were all part of something. And now we're not right, and finding community in that. And so we really wanted because there's this, this is a an issue that I think is really important. And there's been recent, recent people kind of publicly leaving a faith leaving the church, I think it's important for us to talk about it. So I really hope you enjoy the show. I hope you keep an open mind as we kind of walk through this and kind of look at this phenomenon that's happening, and maybe what are some of the reasons and what are some of the reactions we can have? It's an important conversation.
1:06 Alright, Rex, we are what I really love about maybe where this episode can go. Okay. Is and I have no idea actually. That's true. I mean, you know, topically, well, I know, we've talked, we've we've talked about this, but but I think it's just something for us to to really discuss and kind of explore I want to kind of take the next 30 ish minutes right to, to explore and really to exploring this kind of recent phenomenon, but not really and won't will highlight that. Right. But kind of a recent phenomenon of, of people leaving the evangelical movement, right. And some have put terms to that, like the x Van jellicle movement, or even x Bs, right. Like, and, and there's been a community that has formed, right, right. around that, like, and, and I think that that area is really interesting to me, right?
2:05 levels of levels, the fact that it actually is kind of a, what some people will call a hashtag community. It's also really interesting. And yes, seeing the advent of a lot of those the whole Black Lives Matters. And you know, just you just name it.
2:19 Yeah. And kind of make use of social media, to connect groups of people, right, and to find community, right. And there's been this kind of community forming of saying, Hey, we were in the evangelical movement, but now we're not.
2:34 And that not means different things for different Yeah, yeah, that's true, which makes it really interesting phenomena and also
2:41 there. And I think with that, there's been kind of then kind of high profile people who've been voiced that right, and that adds another layer. And not, not all of those more recent ones have been necessarily just ex evangelical, some of have been been moving to post christian right, saying, Hey, I don't think I can call myself a Christian anymore.
3:06 Some are atheists, some are agnostic, some are I don't know what I am some right into what they feel are more progressive forms of Christianity, some sort of stay on the margins, right, and feel that they're being prophetic on the margins. And so the sort of, I don't know, xx fees still, you know, on the outer edges of the camp.
3:27 Right. Right. And I think that's one thing that I've I do appreciate about, I think the community because I think there needs to be room for people saying, Hey, I think you're getting this wrong. Right. Right. And I think that's important. I mean, that's, that's kind of what the prophets did. And they weren't always well liked for it. Right. Right. And so I'm always, I always want to be careful about any type of knee jerk reaction. Right.
3:52 Right. And, and as you mentioned before, this is a phenomena that that, you know, has actually a long history is just that we are sort of in a different phase of the phenomena. Now who right makes it really interesting and really interesting to talk about. There's always been, well, not always, I guess, well, there's always been folks that are like ex Catholic, but in the past, you know, 20 years or so there are folks that will refer to themselves as recovering Catholics as a right, you know, growing up Catholic is something you can recover from, right. I'm sure there two or three that are orthodox, but I don't even really know what an ex orthodox would be done with it. Yeah, I really know that. That is a dad joke. I'm sure some folks around I'll have to do some research on that. But right, um, as with the whole lot of things, and I remember, you know, growing up in, you know, very conservative iteration of our faith. Yeah, that we thought that a lot of these things that other folks had to deal with, we would be insulated from and we would never have to deal with it. But of course, that's not true, right? It's always going to come around and we're dealing with the now and very publicly Right, very publicly because of the social media aspect of the movement,
5:04 one that you and that's really interesting, because I would say like, even within our church, there were several people who say, I grew up Catholic. I walked away from faith. And now I'm, I've come back to this community, but I couldn't. And I think maybe Yeah, that story could now change maybe in 20 years would be like, I grew up evangelical, I walked away from faith. And now I'm, you know, interestingly, that has happened. Right. It definitely has helped. Right. And, and so I guess, kind of with this, I'd love to kind of explore your thoughts and kind of interject my thoughts on on why maybe this movement is is happening, and especially now maybe why it is as vocal maybe now? As it has. So what are some maybe initial thoughts of? Well,
5:51 I mean, there's some obvious and literal elephants in the room with this is true, and you can't talk about this without that. Right. But I guess an easy one, first would be the kind of the, the social media aspect of this, you know, and and which is LinkedIn to sort of, you know, Christian celebrity, a lot of these people, right, you know, Josh Harris and Marty Sampson, and some of these folks, you know, that have recently, I don't know, come out or come away. It's been very public, right? It's done on Instagram. Yeah. And they have 1000s of followers, and they consider themselves or other people consider them to be influencers. Right. And so this thing's playing out in a in a way that, you know, there's always been people that have left by evangelicalism or any right type of Christianity, that right, totally, but but it's playing out in a different way now.
6:47 Yeah, I didn't know not quite, you know, front page news way to write just an average on average guy in his community is like, I'm not going to church anymore. I'm going to watch football pretty much and right. But yeah, your time doesn't pick that up and who exactly is no longer going?
7:03 And what's really interesting about this is that some folks, I mean, you know, Josh Harris, particularly because he's associated with a, you know, a very explicitly Christian phenomenon, right, in a very specific, you know, iteration of the faith, you know, with his true love weight stuff, right. Yeah. And the character culture, he has all of that. Yeah. And so, so there is some celebrity with that. And I could go on forever. Almost going to, but yeah, and, you know, a different Samson. He's, he's a Hillsong. Guy. Right, you know, and honestly, though, I mean, a lot of us would have never heard of Marty Samson. Literally. Yeah. If he hadn't have done this publicly, and then suddenly, because he does, right. You know, and, you know, I think a lot of, you know, media sometimes feeds on itself. And it's just sort of the, I mean, it's occupational hazard of the whole thing. And so, right. So it gets picked up in ways that it wouldn't before. Mm hmm. And you know, whether you're an influencer or not now you are right, right, you know, yeah. And that's an interesting phenomenon. Yeah. And that's a new thing.
8:12 Yeah, actually, and, and that kind of seems to highlight, it seems like I think one of the reasons and it does seem to be there's maybe, distinctions between what was happening with Joshua Harris, and then what was happening with Marty Sampson, right, we'll kind of pick up on those distinctions. Right, but I think maybe too, like, with with Joshua Harris, I think one of the reasons that they are that they are being like a he is being vocal was because he's using that celebrity to say, hey, these are things I disagree with, right? And so because of these things, I don't think I can call myself a Christian anymore. And so in some ways, Joshua's represents kind of even a different class than ex evangelicals. Right? It's kind of this movement to post Christian. I can't use that label anymore. Right. Right. And
9:03 it's very interesting, at least on his initial long post, you know, by any definition of Christian that I am familiar with, I can consider myself a Christian. And, you know, obviously, there are a lot of other definitions of Christian that one could use, right, but you do grow up in a subculture that there is one and then you find yourself not agreeing with it anymore, for whatever reason, then I guess your options are limited. You know, but he's not stepping away quietly. Yeah. And he does have a celebrity platform. Right. And it's being used. Now, interestingly enough for further celebrity. Right. Yeah. And you have to be careful about noticing the phenomenon here and how it plays out and then you know, wanting to you know, honor person, right reasons for Yeah, you know, I'm even with him. This cannot be an easy thing to do.
9:57 No, not at all. And I do think we have to Be really careful in our reactions to people. Right? That it doesn't doesn't do anybody any good. I don't know if that's good English that I just use. It's enough. It's good enough. That's right. I like that. But it really doesn't. If If people will then voice these, and they're just hammered right away, or they're, you know, because they're not in many ways that kind of reinforces because you were spamming people respond to it. Right. And then you have articles posted on other forums that will write to that. And we know some of those too. Right. Right.
10:30 Interesting enough, if you know, with Marty Samson's case, you know, he since walked back some of the stuff, the reaction? Yeah. And and I guess, in some ways, I'm glad for the walking back. Because, you know, he's, and that's the second thing we can talk about. He's still troubled with a lot of things that a lot of these folks are troubled about, and the common thread there, right. But in walking back, I'm, I wonder sometimes if if he's walking back, because the criticism and not walking back because he actually is having second thoughts about his second thoughts. You know, what I mean? Right, right. And and yeah, public environment like this. Yeah. How do you find the space to be able to actually really deal privately with some stuff that can only really be dealt with privately when you're living it out? publicly? Yeah. It's an issue.
11:23 Yeah, it really is in it. And I think it is good to keep that in mind. Right? Every everyone who who kind of voices that and and everyone who is still within the evangelical community? Or Torres, we're all people, right? It's not just an Instagram post or a Facebook person. And there's so much more going on. It does seem to me when you kind of see those and from kind of stories, even beyond, those are kind of more of the more recent rise. But But beyond that, there there does seem to be kind of specific issues. Right, that that that are mostly like driving people to say, Hey, I
12:07 don't think I identify as an evangelical anymore, right, to kind of move out of that. And then if evangelical is the only type of Christian, real Christian, then it's not a big leap to say I don't identify as a Christian.
12:19 Right. And that, that is really fascinating to me. And I've seen friends do that. Right. Right. Right. And I think it's important then for the evangelical community to, to, to recognize into to analyze, maybe how we are presenting certain things, and how we we often do like to present ourselves with this is the way right, this is the way and and and I think we have to we have to be able to talk about that. And and it seems like these kind of specific issues are ones that are that are known to us. Right. It's a constellation of issues here. So
12:58 I'm have been around some of them are exacerbated by current cultural climate and political climate. And rightist is, yeah, and that's, that's, you know, adding an extra thing to some of these issues that have been around for a little while. What do you think a couple of those issues? Oh, yeah.
13:13 I mean, I really think those issues when you when you look at them, I mean, one of the main issues would be human sexuality, right? And how they do things. Yeah, and how the evangelical community approaches the LGBTQ community. And that was really, I think, Joshua Harris, you know, that was one of his enemies, like, Hey, I'm sorry, for the damage I've done with with that kiss dating Goodbye, and the party he played, but he attached it into that kind of treatment of the LGBTQ community. So I think that's a big one, when you read a lot from the ex angelical movement, it's really voicing a lot of a lot of hurt in that area. A lot of and I think that, that we have to be able to talk about that. Right? We do. And we have to.
14:00 And, you know, it is obviously a very sensitive and complicated issue. And, you know, I just remember, you know, talking to some folks that had, you know, not been in church for a while, and then once they find out, I'm an evangelical Christian, and I'm not making this up, oh, you're the folks that hate gays. Right. And it's like, Whoa, that's the very first thing you think. Yeah. So that has, that's what you think we are, then. Then we need a conversation. Right? Right. And we somehow need to be able to talk about this in a way that we're not just known for that. Right? There's a pushback with that. It's like, you know, if you're right, and everybody else is wrong, and you're just capitulate in the culture then you're not really you know, right, right. But um,
14:48 but yeah, but those those have been come kind of, they become kind of these identity markers. And they've kind of superseded other identity markers, right, like, right and And those seem to be that sticking points. And so human sexuality, and then even like, bigger gender role issues within the medical community have have some feeling is very patriarchal and a focus there and understanding gender roles. And so and that distinction. And then kind of that blend of conservative politics and evangelicals and One prominent xv has said, I mean, and I quote, x evangelical is inherently a political position. Yeah.
15:34 You know, which, which could cause people to just cavalierly dismiss the whole movement? Because Oh, well, it's just right. Yeah, it's just X, Y, or Z. Right? It's just politics, actually, you know, trying to think of it, what drives that too. And there's some, there's, there's a lot of things that drive that. Yeah. And they're complicated things to talk about. And I know that, you know, if polls have remained steady, that about 80% of white evangelicals are supporting the current administration. And if you have a certain amount of people that feel that some of the things in the current administration are not Christian. Yeah. But yet, they're identified as the Christian position. Right. And, you know, you dis identify, or you describe this construct that yeah, that that is a phenomenon. And it's, for better for worse. For richer for poor, it's an increasing phenomenon. Right. And millennials?
16:29 Yeah, point. And that, and that seems to be maybe probably why it the issue, even though it's been around forever, people kind of leave in the evangelical movement, and people leave in the Catholic Church, you know, like, it's right. It's always happened. But it does seem to be maybe it is at its loudest point, because there is such a cultural moment, a cultural moment. And, and the Pluto aspect. And so, again, got to be able to talk about that. And it kind of made me think of when you look at kind of like, the early fundamentalist movement. And as it was a reaction to what was happening within modernity, kind of what would be called the liberal church kind of different than conservative liberal politically, like that term
17:16 criticism, the whole of Darwinism, the public rise, kind of first round of all, yeah.
17:20 And fundamentalists said, Hey, we got to come back to these fundamentals, which I think in theory is is a great move, because I kind of like I did my dissertation on creedal theology, right, I think there are these these fundamentals. But then it seems like in that moment, they also tacked on some fundamentals that were like, yeah, you have to view eschatology in a certain way.
17:44 I think I've mentioned this in another podcast. Yeah. It's it is an interesting phenomenon. Um, when I was teaching apologetics and evangelism freshmen section, which I did for years here, one thing I would do you know, about halfway through the semester, it's like, so this is on apologetics and evangelism. So if we're going to go out and share Jesus Christ is somebody what are the like, the core things they need to believe to be a Christian? Yeah, let me get out a whiteboard marker. And let's, let's put them down. Yeah. And what's fascinating is that after you know, that list gets longer and longer and longer and longer. And then I step back, and it's like, Whoa, that list is like, 35 things long. Mm hmm. And you mean, I have to agree with all of that, or I'm not a Christian. Yeah. And, and, of course, you know, it's, it's, the conversation is deeper and broader than that,
18:31 right? Yeah. And it's really interesting, because then you're like, Oh, wait, but the apostles creed is like, eight articles long or 12? Or, you know, and it's looking at the core. But I think one thing too with me with the, the fundamentalist movement, the early fundamentalist movement, is this idea of, of aligning, saying, our view on this is the only way to look at it. And if you're not, you're not Christian, and then Well, it's interesting kind of leads people to go Whoa, film, not that, then I'm not a Christian either. And this just this tends to,
19:09 you know, flow into the conversation about Christianity and culture, and Christianity and subculture because during the fundamentalist modernist controversy, as As you know, there are different ways you can look at that different lenses, you can look to what was happening there. One would be the theological lens, and there were some legitimate theological issues there. Right. But what's fascinating is that a lot of people actually didn't look through that through necessarily a theological lens. They look through a cultural lens. Yeah. And and, you know, it's it's interesting that, like, the scopes trial ends up being the the, you know, primary marker for the fundamentalist, modernist controversy. That was not a trial about the Bible or theology. They entered into it, but it was about something else, and a lot of people interpreted it as a small town America versus urban America and Ryan, the South versus the North, right had all these wider cultural ramifications. Yeah. And and I think there are some of those wider cultural ramifications in the XV movement as well.
20:13 Yeah. Yeah.
20:15 And yeah, and I think one of the reasons why I kind of wanted to talk about this as because point it is kind of so prevalent and people are, are being more vocal about it. And you could, you could think to like, if you're a part of a movement, and a bunch of people are jumping off the Chevy, like, Hey, what's going on? Right ship? Yeah. And and I think it's important for us to talk and also talk. What are some things leading up to that? And right, if there's Okay, we were seeing some specific issues. And like you said, one thing, Marty Sampson said in his initial post was like, Hey, we're not talking about these things. And I think that's helpful to be like, and I know that that's not the complete story. Right? Because it doesn't mean, it means the community he's in exactly.
21:04 evangelical communities that are talking that are right.
21:07 And I think that that's the important part, right? Is is the evangelical community engaging in the conversation rather than separating from the conversation? And that needs to happen? And yeah, and one thing we, you know, try to do here at willing justice University is provide an environment. And this is not just PR, we actually,
21:28 well, we will send you an admission packet if you want to, and by the way, have you contributed to the fund X, Y, or Z? Yeah, exactly. Anyway, we do have places that are deliberately built into our curriculum that are supposed to, you know, be able to talk about these things and talk about these things. And some of the exact same things, right, xx fees, are concerned with biggie. Yeah, those issues are also issues of many, many of our students here just said, yes, it really right. And so right, we want a place where we can talk about this and have honest conversations with integrity. Yeah. You know, not avoid the issue, not set up straw man. Right. But in an environment of faith, because if you don't do that, like said, Those questions are going to be asked, and they're going to be asking other environments, we're going to be answered. And they're going to be answered in other environments. And yeah, and, and the whole full range of ways of dealing with that are not going to be explored and, and ways of remaining, you know, convinced and convicted Christian, even if one disagrees with some of the things that certain iterations of Christianity hold as, right core culturally, particularly, right? doesn't mean you have to necessarily sell the ranch. But if you feel you have no choice, and you sell the ranch, yeah. And you're already an XP, right. And towards your community. Yeah, with that, it's so it's a hard thing. It's hard to if you've grown up in the church, and then the church gets identified with a certain political position, or certain economic position or certain cultural position, and that's not your position. Yeah. And sincerely, it's not just, you know, because, you know, out there in the world, it's not their position, and I want to be accepted by everybody. There's a lot of folks that just, you know, these are real questions. Yeah. Then you know, if you feel you have no choice, then you're gone. Yeah. You know, and that's a hard thing. It's just a hard thing. It really is.
23:24 And that's when you when you read from some of the writings of of x evangelical movement, it does seem to be one of the reasons why they're trying to create this community is is it can be really isolating to leave a community you've grown up in exactly and so I've kind of formed this and I think that that we could do that we could just do a better job when the evangelical community to be in conversation and to be talking with and saying hey, I hear and maybe we can't come to an agreement on that we're gonna stay in the same tribe right? But we can be talking about it and it's not right not someone who has just been shut out and and that's with with kind of and I thought the Marty Sampson thing was really interesting, right sir Hill song you know, songwriter row oceans right? You get pride Tear Tear up right now listening to it, I can see it I can see it Rex and he had this any kind of just put out some questions, right. Like he put out some questions. And then it was kind of this immediate kind of backlash, and I was actually really impressed by William Lane Craig. So as Christian apologist he might be one of the smartest Christians on the planet. I don't know. I think he's a robot too. I've ever met him and I'm like, taking over the world. He just has a vast amount of knowledge is amazing. But I really love to actually on his his podcast, he kind of talked about it. There are other podcasts. There are I don't You know, obviously we're in that top all year, there are other podcasts. But he kind of spoke to the evangelical community and said, Hey, now's not the time to condemn Marty Sampson, now's the time to, to be in relationship with him right to be like, hey, okay, let's talk about those things. Let's talk about like, when, and I think this is part of that idea of when you have questions when you have doubts. The evangelical community hasn't always been the greatest at being able to walk someone through what those doubts so we just we have tended often to circle the wagons and just, it's really interesting. We, you know,
25:42 I guess the Amish have this. And it's more complicated in the caricature of the Amish. But yeah, their whole shunning thing, right. And, and, you know, with the LDS church, too, when you leave the LDS church, there's just huge ramifications with your eye, but we sort of do the same thing. You know, it's like, I don't know, are we gonna stop singing oceans? Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know, I still, you know, I, it's, I do remember that, you know, people who sing a lot of gunk or stuff. And suddenly, Ganga disappears. Yeah. And those were great songs. Right. Right, you know, a written with integrity when they were written and still spam, but we can't sing them anymore. Right. Because of that, which is a really interesting place to be we just, yeah, you know, it's like, yeah, you just airbrush people out of the picture,
26:28 right. And I think that's really unfortunate. And, and would need to be able to be in community and be able to talk and walk through doubts and especially when you know, and not and we have students right come to us all the time and they might bring up an issue. And, and think, okay, if there's one way that the church views it or movement views it and I don't view it that way than um, I must be out right, I must be out and, and there's the issues are talked about, but even like, issues of hell and what hell was I mean, a lot of students are like, I'm trying to in like, in a lot of times when they say hell, they have Dante's Inferno in mind, because that's kind of magician, it's like, well, hey, let's talk about that. Let's explore what, biblically has said, and, and we don't have to be like, because I don't affirm kind of medieval version of hell, then I'm not a Christian anymore, that that, for me, kind of speaks to that. And I think I think Ganga is a good name to bring up there. And with the liturgist podcast well, but that move from x evangelical, through like her within the Evangelical Church hurt within kind of celebrity within the Evangelical Church. But that move, I think, does kind of often open itself up to that transition to post Christian like, if that is identified. And and I think a lot of it is, from a lack of being able to be in conversation. I think one of the writers within this kind of whole question that I think has done a good job with this is Rachel held Evans Ryan, and it is sad that she had passed away. But I but I always appreciated the the spirit with which she said, Hey, like, I was raised in this I, but I'm questioning these things. And and she moved to not a post christian right, but she moved to a more progressive Christian movement. She did not have the family, though. Yeah, she didn't. And and she was able to, I think, help a lot of people walk through questions. And and I think that that, in many ways, could kind of set an example for us. Like, when people are having doubts and questions. You know, do we shun them? Do we just write them off? Like, oh, Marty tweeted this? Or, you know, put this on Instagram? See you later, Marty? Or do we enter into that dialogue?
29:02 And honestly, you know, on on Twitter, and even on Instagram, there's really not much dialogue? Because some of these Yeah, these are these are major deep, important questions, right, that can't be resolved. And yeah, you know, 23 words or something, they just can't. Yeah, and they take the conversation, and they take a lot of give and take, and they take time. And you know, we live in a culture. And this is interesting. I think this this kind of feeds back into the celebrity thing. You know, Andy Warhol saying we're all famous for 15 minutes. Well, what what if, you know, I mean, you know, I guess I need to deconstruct while I still have my 15 minutes, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, maybe that'll extend it to 30 minutes. Right. You know, and I don't want to be cynical about this. It's a different ballgame. Yeah.
29:50 And it adds it adds a different layer to does when it is and, and that's too I mean with with William Lane, Craig's response to On his progress to Tamara Samson, he said, Hey, Marty, I would love to walk with you through some of these questions. Right. And that is, that's more than a tweet. That's more than and that's, and that's, that's where I really see maybe the role that we can play that people can play within the evangelical movement is when when students are having doubts when we ourselves have doubts, like, okay, let's have the conversation in order to have the conversation and really with integrity and be able to address the issue that students and other folks because, you know, it is a I mean, the statistics are not good right now, right?
30:37 They just really right? And I remember that, from a sociological standpoint, and one reason why mainline Protestants kind of, you know, bled to death in 1960s, but evangelical and fundamentalist were able to keep their young that was actually the term right to socialize them more to the church. And that's kind of true. I Right. Yeah. When I was in high school, you know, we had this humanities class saying and, and our class was taught by interesting enough, an ex Catholic monk who left the faith and was now an agnostic and married an ex nun anyway, for somehow that qualified him to teach our class. Right, right. What he did ask this experience happened, right, and as a private school, so they could it wasn't a Christian school, it was a college prep school, you could talk about religion, right? And so he asked us a question. It's like, you know, so how many guys go to church now will have the classrooms their hand because you know, our parents make us, right? And then he said, Well, how you know, as soon as you are away from home, or in college, or whatever, am I gonna see what church and I was the only one in the class, there was my hand, not because I'm Mr. Light, pious, good. I was telling the truth, because I was the only one that actually went to an evangelical church. Yeah, the interesting thing is, I know some of my former classmates in there, they're, you know, that many of them are have already are evangelical Christians now, but that was because of life experiences later, yeah, later, but it's like, yeah, I'm socialized into it. I like my youth group, we have a great, you know, right. And, you know, you know, right. Um, and so we were able to, to, to hold on to our folks, at least in greater percentages, but that has changed now. And even the nomination that I grew up, and that was really proud of holding on to their folks. It's like 50% are leaving. Once they leave that youth group, yeah, they're never darken the doors of a Christian church again, right. And these are folks that grew up the church. These are like, you know, your friends, kids from school that just come for the girls or whatever. Right. And that's a new phenomenon. Yeah. And there are various reactions to it. You know, we can I don't know, isolate the more right, you know, or or something. I guess that's one. Yeah. But we could talk about these things, honestly, might be another with Marty Samson. Right. It's like when I read that post it almost I mean, he says nobody talks about themselves, they would actually people are talking about this, I just really feel bad that nobody in your circle, right is talking about them. Right. And that's the sad thing.
32:48 Yeah. And that's maybe what I would encourage encourage the the evangelical community there that we would identify as being a part of, to, to be open to having those conversations to be to be even more active on looking like and not having the conversation to win the conversation. Right, right now having the conversation to even keep someone right, but having the conversation. And and then also, if you've been a part of the evangelical community, and you've gotten to a point where you're like, man, I don't I don't think I can identify with this tribe anymore. And I think I would also encourage you to, to not just leave, but to be like, Hey, can we talk about this? I mean, that's, that's one, I think I do find it fascinating about the ex Ben jellicle movement, especially kind of the hashtag movement. And all that is, is they still want to talk about it, right? Hey, let's talk about this. And there and in a lot of ways they've been ignored. So they have to be even louder, and they have to. And I think it's, it's time to say, Okay, let's talk about this. And let's really, let's really get to the root of why right,
33:57 not just talk about how we can fix this phenomenon, right. Talk about the things that have led to this fun. Yeah, and that yeah, those are two different questions.
34:05 Yeah. And definitely want to know, want to stress the, the, the move from maybe x men don't go to post Christian. And that's, that's where my heartbreaks is in that post Christian because it's like, Well, okay, let's really talk about that.
34:22 And there's actually a number of stopping places you could stop at if somebody had told you before you hit post Christian. Right. Yeah. But if you don't know that, then you don't know that.
34:30 So true. Right. I think the conversation will continue. Yeah. Yeah, very important. Important to keep that line of communication open. Thanks. Thanks for thanks for chatting with me on this. Sure. It's important. Good man the studio. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further flexion and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes. These reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup Think.
35:14 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Dr. Cynthia Shafer-Elliot joins Mark to discuss her role as a field archeologist. Dr. Shafer-Elliot has been digging in Israel for over a decade and is currently part of the archaeological excavation team at Tell Halif, Israel. She just might be Mark's hero.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore. And I'm privileged today to sit down with Dr. Cynthia Schafer-Ellot, our resident Old Testament professor and Professor of archaeology. And today we're going to talk about her role in archaeology and the digs that she's on and the exciting and fun and maybe boring to some people, but not others, things that she's finding and the work that she's doing. So I hope you enjoy this episode as we kind of dive into archaeology of ancient Israel.
0:44 Alright, Cynthia, I'm excited to have you on the show. This is second time, second time the show. So you're now officially a friend of the show. Yay. Oh, he's been a friend. But now a friend of the show actual friend of the show. Because the show is like this impersonal you know, third party thing. Yeah, that, that I just get to be a part of and then now your friend of the show. So once we start, you know, getting merchandise, then we'll be able to send you as a friend of the show. You'll get merchandise, but we don't have any merchandise yet. When you do. Let's get to work on that. Yeah, I've got some ideas. I got some ideas that I think could go work. They may involve a T Rex. That would be great. And a coffee cup and a coffee cup. Or or a gray blazer? Yes. There we go. I think maybe a T rex integrate. blazer
1:34 There you go. Being with his tiny arm with the tiny arms a little coffee silver coffee
1:39 mug? Yes. That's what's happening now. I wouldn't be you exist. I would be the first to jump on that bandwagon. Right? We'll make it happen. Okay, whoever if you're listening, and you can make this happen, contact me. And we will we'll do it together. We'll make that a faculty of theology. Yeah, like, first thing to do? Yeah. We're getting on merchandise for just think we got some good ideas. I love it. But no, I'm excited to have you on and kind of talk about all the exciting things, exciting things that you've been doing in the field of archaeology, and been doing every summer you've been going on digs? How long have you been doing that?
2:18 Well, um, I started as a master's student. Okay. I won't tell you how far long ago that was. We're not doing math. Now. Now. So I've been I mean, part of what I do is I, you know, I teach Hebrew Bible and I teach archaeology. And I'm interested in the historical and cultural and social context of ancient Israel, right, as is reflected both in the Hebrew Bible and in the actual Earth. Right. So not just the text, but the artifact and everything else. So in order to do that, it's very important that you do what you teach. Right. So but I love excavating. So yeah, I've been excavating since. Gosh, I think my first full season on a dig was in 2001. And I've been doing most summers. So I've been on staff on several digs. am on staff on a couple of digs? And yeah, it's, it's great. I can handle being getting up at four in the morning for like, four weeks. Yeah. And that's, that's about it. For weeks, that's all I got. And then I turned back into a pumpkin. So
3:28 hey, I hear you. I I like getting up early. And then in the afternoon, I turned to a pumpkin. Early morning and a late night person. Afternoon. Well, then you would do well on a day. Yeah, I see. I think right. Well, you are like living my childhood dream. Really funny. I grant was one of my three things that I wanted to be showing up. One was third baseman for the Cincinnati Reds. There you go. And, you know, pursued that as long as I could. And then the second one, strangely enough, was a botanist, which a botanist deals with plants. Yeah. And I think I read it in the, you know, Encyclopedia Britannica that we had in our house that was basically our reading material.
4:15 Are you still really into plants? Not really. Were you ever you just read about it was
4:19 for a little like a short season. And then I did my one claim to fame as I saved my mom's one of her plants from a fun guy that had like, started to wilt and that and she's like, I don't know what's wrong with it. And so I did some research and and saved it. Wow. And that was my one stint as a botanist. I do not have a green thumb. Yeah, I did not good with plants. California is hard. Like, you have water to have a great water when you don't water. There's there's not going to have That's true. And the third one was archaeologists. I mean, now obviously greatly influenced by Indiana Jones. Right? Usually is what was. And maybe that even kind of led me into the teaching profession to like, even though you just see him briefly in class.
5:11 Yeah. And he is, of course, sporting the very, you know, academic male, uniform, the the tweed blazer and the bow tie and everything, which nobody, except when you go to conferences actually wears.
5:30 So we've put a costume on. Yes, do that. But yeah, that was what I was intrigued by, but, and I think like, obviously the exciting part of that, and the, and we'll maybe talk about that. But that's kind of like this glamorous vision of archaeology, and maybe what real archaeology looks like. But I think one thing to like, was that idea of finding these artifacts, like it's not just something in a text, but then it is, Hey, this is something that is really holding our hand. Yeah. And we draw that information from so you've been doing digs since 2001. Women mind childhood dreams and just keep keep dreams through you.
6:12 You're welcome.
6:12 Anytime I know, well, that we need to we need to get my family there you go on board with this. But that would be great. And so you've been doing digs, and you're currently on staff at a dig? Yeah, what is what does that mean? So
6:32 when you're on staff on it, so you have people who volunteer on digs, and we accept any kind of volunteers, you don't have to have any background, any degrees, any knowledge, you really just have to have a good attitude. Yeah, really, that's how it is, it's very helpful. And just have a, you know, a willing heart willing spirit, you know, that you're going there to learn. The conditions are hard, it's hard work. So if you say someone's on staff, because you have kind of this hierarchy. On a day, you have the at the top of the pyramid, let's say, a very appropriate I'm here all day is are the directors, okay. And so the dig directors have oversee everything. They're the ones who get the permits, they're the ones who are, you know, they're usually professors at different universities. They find the funding, they're the ones who have, you know, expertise in the area and the type of archaeology because there are lots of different types of archaeologies. And, of course, where you are digging, and the time periods you're digging greatly affect how you conduct your actual field archaeology. Because where we are in Israel, if you're in Israel, or Palestine, or Jordan or turkey anywhere, kind of that Southern levant area, that which would also include southern parts of Syria, you have what we call tels. anatel is an artificial mound, that is basically layers of a buried city. And so there's it's really hard work and you have dig directors that are we're all experts in, you know, different time periods. So you have some people who are experts in the late bronze and maybe iron two or Persian period, but you have these big directors on, they're the ones that oversee everything. They're the ones that find the funding, do the permits, they're the ones that basically run the dig, and who tell you based on the strategy of the site, what the goals are. And they're the ones that basically what they do all day is they go around to the different areas that are digging, because when we're digging, you don't dig the entire thing. We have areas that we open, depending on the survey and the aerial photography, we say, Oh look, it looks like over here, there might be a city wall, we're going to open up Yeah, center and do some digging over there. And over here, we might think we might have an Acropolis, which is where usually, you know, official buildings would be like a palace or temple or something like that. So they kind of go around all morning, all during the dig day to see what's going on. And then below them are the supervisors of those areas. So that area supervisor is just in charge of everything the big picture that's going on in that area, and then below them so at Holly for I normally dig. I'm an area supervisor at leaf I'm not a dig director, nor do I want to be but then underneath those people you have, square supervise lasers, because the area is made up of lots of squares that you dig in, you're trying to squares certain size.
10:08 Yeah, they are. So usually they end up being about five by five meters, but then we rope in about 50 centimeters in from that work, we rope it up as to five by five meters, and then we rope in another 50 centimeters. And we leave that 50 centimeters as kind of like a we call a bulk. And that ends up being the fake dirt wall that we leave up between one square and another square. And that serves as one as a catwalk between the areas. But more importantly, it serves as the as the record of what we're digging through. Because when you dig, you're actually destroying even though you're uncovering, you're destroying the situation in life. It's leaving from from where it's been sitting for 1000s upon 1000s of years. Yeah, so the square supervisors supervise one or numerous squares. And then you have in your area, you'll have maybe someone who is a dedicated registrar. And it depends on the digs. Each dig does things a little bit differently. But summit's digs, have a dedicated person in each area, who is in charge of documenting and keeping track of things and drawing things on the top plan. And then you have your volunteers. And your volunteers could be the first timers they could be returning volunteers. A lot of times they're students. And so in Israel, at least what we do is our digs are usually as field schools. So we purposely are there to train students who are interested in ancient history, archaeology, Biblical Studies, theology, anything kind of related to what we're doing there. Because it's really important for students to not just study it in the classroom, but actually do it, right. Because you have students who say, Oh, I want to go into archaeology. And then they actually go on a dig right? Get up before Yeah, and get up at 4am. And it's, if you're in Israel and the southern lawan, or, you know, it's it's really hard work, because those tells that I was telling you about, they're made up of a lot of dirt. And you have to move that dirt. And so there's a lot of
12:29 down Do you have to dig to before you start seeing some action? It depends.
12:35 It depends on the site, it depends on how many layers of occupation that that site has. So yeah, so if it's us, if it and how long those layers of occupation, how long that occupation lasted. So some sites, you can just dig below topsoil and start to find things and then other sites. And it depends also on what your your purpose is, because you don't just start digging. Right, you have a purpose. You have a research question. Yeah, you have time periods that you're interested in. So for us, we're interested in Israel during the Iron Age. So that's the main time period reflected in the Hebrew Bible. And our listeners the parameters. Yes. So I mean, each time period can be further subdivided into smaller time periods. But let's just keep it easy and say, the whole Iron Age is roughly from about 1200 BCE, or BC to about 586 BCE. So 586 is when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and kind of fun times. Yeah, bad times. Definitely. So that's what we're interested in. But you know, your your town, your city that you're digging or tell. It didn't, most of them didn't cease to exist. Cities on top of cities, right cities on top of cities, and it's basically goes backwards. So if you're standing on top of the towel, and you're start digging, you're going back in time, from the most recent to the latest. Yeah. And so it really depends on Did someone come back to this site? How long were they there? So a site could have really modern period like, you know, the Ottoman period.
14:28 It could have,
14:31 it could go have Roman it could have Greek, it could have Persian, it could have, you just keep going, but what you're interested in is what you're interested in, right? However, you still have to treat those other time periods that you dig through to get to the period you're interested in. You still have to treat them as if you're super interested. Because someone else will be right and someone else will come back and say hey, we want to study what you You excavated from this site. We want to study the different time period of material that you have. And so you have to document everything just like you would if it was the time period you're interested in.
15:14 So your area supervisor at belief, right, and whereas belief,
15:19 so belief is is a tell. So tell belief, it's down south in Israel. So it's in a, it's kind of in between, if you're familiar with the topography of Israel at all. It's kind of in between what we call the Shayla and the Negev. Okay, so it's way down south. It's about it's not far north from bear Sheva, which is a major city in southern Israel. And it's a small site, it's really compared to other towns, it's only about 10 to 12 acres. And so it's small. Yeah, there are smaller, but there were, a lot of them are quite large. So belief is an Iron Age site. That's what we're interested in. But we have been in steady season mode for the last few years. And what that means is, you have to stop digging. Right? You have to stop digging and actually analyze the material when you excavate, right? Otherwise, it doesn't do anybody any good. It just sits in a storage room. And we've said, oh, look what we did. Yeah, that's it. And so we analyze it, we write about it, we publish it. And so that's what we're in right now. So this last summer, though, I needed to take Jessup students to dig and had invitations from other friends who were leading digs. And we chose a bell Bates maka, which is way up north. So he went from way down south to Way up north. And it is basically it's right next to the Lebanese border. Okay. And it's also Iron Age site. And it's much larger. I can't recall how many acres it is, but it's much larger.
17:07 No, I believe being in study season. What what are the types of things that you found?
17:13 Oh, holy, yeah. So belief, what we're, we have a pretty specific, pretty narrow focus at belief. We're interested in daily life in ancient Israel during a specific point of the Iron Age, primarily the eighth century. So the eighth century is, is basically when if you're familiar with your biblical kings, and prophets at all, of course, it's the time period of King has a caya of Judah and the prophet Isaiah. Okay, great. Yeah. So we are interested in daily life, and her belief has some great houses. So we're doing what we call household archaeology. We're very much focused on the houses and the domestic architecture, the domestic artifacts, how these people lived their lives, because these houses how leave, like about 45 other towns and villages and Judah, was destroyed by the Neo Assyrian campaign, led, at least in the southern part of Judah, led by King synack rib of Assyria. And we read about that in the biblical texts in the Book of Kings. We also hear about it in Isaiah, and where, you know, synack crib after the Neo Syrians destroy the northern kingdom of Israel and 721 there's a changing of who's in charge and Sacra becomes in charge. And then Judah also rebels against the Assyrian Empire. And so they turn their attention to Judah. Yeah, and has a khaya decides, oh, I changed my mind. But it's too late. They're already on their way. And snacker up destroys even in his prison, he talks about how he he shuts King has a kind of like a bird in a cage. He doesn't destroy Jerusalem. But he does destroy many about 46 other towns and villages in Judah and halifa is one of those towns Yeah, so we have those houses from the eighth century were destroyed which means we have a nice sealed Yeah, destruct what we call destruction that seals the the level the eighth century level the houses, so it's pretty cool. So it's kind of sad their destruction is, is what we're happy about. It sounds a little morbid, but Yeah, I know. It's sad, but sorry for you. Yeah, so halifa has a great little site.
19:53 Nice. Yeah. And with that kind of daily life, are you are you finding just even maybe how the house They're laid out like, yeah, room wise, or
20:04 so, household studies within Biblical Studies in ancient Israel has been a thing since probably about the 80s, but really has started taking off. Within the last, you know, 1015 years or so maybe 20. And people who are interested in daily life, you have to shift your attention from the monumental things like the palaces and the temples, you know, all the things that are monumental, it's all great things. But that doesn't reflect daily life, right? If you want to learn about how your average ancient Israelite and judahite lived, we have to shift our attention to the home. Yeah, so houses have a very typical outline. We, they're often called the pillared house, or the four room house. And then and they have a very similar kind of layout with some differences, but very similar during this Iron Age, and then of course, the features that go along with the house. So features would be permanent things like ovens, you know, a cistern you know, anything that's permanently Yes. And then the artifacts to serve a lot of domestic artifacts, you know, cooking pots, storage jars, you know, none of the we're not going to find the Ark of the Covenant there. This is if we really want to learn how people lived, this is what we do.
21:36 Yeah. No, and barring, like, ark of the covenant and all the things. What what's like the most interesting thing that you have found or that you've been on a dig that has been found?
21:49 Yeah, we I get that question a lot. personally. I do like the because daily life is one of the areas that I work in a lot. That of course is really interesting to me when we found a really pretty grinding stone, an installation and like a permanent installation. I was really excited about that. Yeah. But you know, finding figurines, female figurines in particular. Little seals are also really cool. One year, I was in an offseason, I was digging at a site called oxy Eve. And it was a Phoenician tomb on the coast of Israel, and it hadn't been looted. Yeah. And it was full of really fascinating things. And that was just that was really special. Yeah, tomb intact will ruin you for working on a towel ever again. Yeah, that was that was really special. But one of my very first season digging as a master student, this the last week of the dig, which they're usually four weeks now, we found this really interesting. They call a model shrine. And it was a something that people would use in their houses for worship. Yeah. For incense offerings, libation, offerings, things like that. And at the top of it was really weirdly shaped it looked like it looked like a like a breadbox or like a kitty litter box. You know, that was the lids I have that are kind around the cats, all the cat lovers, right, they all know what I'm talking about. And kind of around top, over like a tray like bottom. But on the top of the lid was carved into or molded into the clay was a lion with an N much better than I could ever do. So I'm not going to pick on their artistic ability, not the best artistic ability line you've ever say, but much better than I could do. So this face of a lion with its paws out in front of it, and underneath each paw was a molded into the clay of a human face. Whoa, that looks scared like they were in trouble. Like that line was hurting them. Whoa, it was freaky. And I'm really proud to say though it's in the Israel museum. Oh, that's so I go visit it. Yeah, every summer and say, that's my My name is not on it, but it's mine. Yeah, you can claim it. Yeah. My friend Mandy and I found it when we were excavating that area. And that was that was really cool. That is very cool. Yeah.
24:49 What does it feel like? Well, I feel like within the field of archaeology, that finding these artifacts would seem like it makes the biblical text be more real, right? Yeah, that it's not just these stories were reading about, you're like, hey, yeah, these were real people who lived in a real time, right? Who were really trying to understand how they interacted with God, how they interacted with their neighbor who kept coming and trying to kill them. And they had cooking stones and all I mean, they did all the things that we have to do today.
25:27 Right and a lot more difficult. Yeah, it is there. And I think that was one of the things that drew me to, because this unlike you, this was not something I planned on doing. Yeah, as a kid. I was just wanted to make it through school. That was not a good student. But I had always loved history. And I'd always loved reading my Bible, and but I liked reading my Bible for more historical reasons. I mean, if you if I could find my kid Bible, the things that were underlined and still are underlined are very odd. Not not, yeah, definitely abnormal. So when I first went to Israel, as an undergraduate, I went on a historical geography class. And we did a dig for the day. And we didn't find anything. There was nothing special was just the caves of Moravia, we found a lot of pigeon bones. I remember, there was nothing special about it that made me go, wow. Yeah, but something made me go. Wow. Yeah. And I think it was exactly that. I think it was my love for history. This was physical history. This was history, I could put my, my hands on, right that I could, that I could see that I could touch. And I found that very exciting. And when you're excavating it, you are the first person to see it, and touch it, right for 1000s of years. And there's something very profound about that, that this person's, whether it's a broken cooking pot, or a complete cooking pot, you know, it doesn't matter that broken piece, or that full pieces that belonged to somebody, somebody made that somebody used it. And if we keep with the cooking pot, you know, somebody used that to make food for themselves, for their family, for their household for strangers, right, for who, when, what did they cook, and how did they cook and why did they cook and what kind of stories Did they tell as they were eating that meal? Right? So for me to be part of an excavation and be you have people who are interested in the more scientific side, and yet people who if you're breaking it down very generally, people who are interested in the social and historical side, I'm definitely more the social historical side. But there was something about seeing it and touching it and saying, I'm the first person to uncover this. And when you put your hands on it, and you can feel sometimes so let's say you have a handle, and you can feel where the potter's hands were that molded that handle onto that pot. Yeah, and sometimes, sometimes you can even see a finger or thumbprint. Yeah. And that just blows my mind every time it still does, right. I've just I just get really excited. I go Look, look, look and go Wow, I didn't realize that that it makes it become more real. Yeah, more that physicality of it makes it makes it seem more it's not so abstract.
28:43 Yeah, that's very well now I'm definitely gonna have to go share it with you because you've sold okay. Anybody can say I'll be sold listeners. I hope so. Yeah, I can take a whole trip over Yeah, we do. We do every year so I will. You know, I can't my allowed to wear a leather jacket. Yeah, you could. You'd probably be really hot. You got to go with the stick with it. It's dumping a whip just don't bring away Yeah, I would say probably. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. What about a motorcycle with a sidecar? Could I do that might have trouble getting up the towel? Maybe just from the hotel there that would? Yeah. Okay. Okay. My dream right. That'd
29:28 be awesome. Well, thank
29:29 you so much for having that really is it's so interesting to me. I love it. And and I think it is so important for our understanding of the Bible. It is more we understand about what was actually happening. I understand what's going on behind the stories and by what we read, right? You know, because the what we read don't always doesn't always fill in the blanks,
29:50 right? Because the Bible is not interested in in everything. Right? Right. It's not interested
29:55 not to use this type of pot to crave There's no recipes in it.
30:01 There's no, there's a lot of things that aren't in it. And so we have to use other things to help us understand and archaeology is one of those things important. Well,
30:10 thank you. You're very welcome. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessica.
30:39 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is a premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
PhD Candidate and Adjunct Professor Mikel Del Rosario sits down with Mark to discuss current issues in historical Jesus studies.
TRANSCRIPT
0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and our co host Rex Gurney is off traveling the world. So I'm in studio by myself, but I'm excited to be joined by actually a fellow adjunct professor. I teach in our online program now at miquel del Rosario, and he is actually in Dallas at Dallas Theological Seminary working on his PhD. He is the host of the table podcast there with Darrell Bock, coming out of the Hendricks center. And he also has his own website called apologetics guide calm, but McHale sits down with me and we discuss kind of current issues in historical Jesus studies. I think you're really going to enjoy the conversation. Well, Macau is great having you on the show. All the way from Texas. That's right. The Big D Dallas, Texas. Oh, thanks so much for having me on the show. Hey, it's it's it's a pleasure. And you have a connection with Jessup.
1:07 Yes, that's right. I actually used to teach on campus here. Teach apologetics and world religion on campus. And before I went out to Dallas Seminary to do my th M. And now in the Ph. D. program there.
1:20 Oh, that's great. And what year did you What year? Did you start here? Just
1:23 2011 and 12. I was teaching on campus here and then right when I left is right when Jessup started Jessup online. Oh, right. And so there are there were a number of adjuncts to got to start courses and put together content for that. And I was one of them. So I kind of got it and right on the ground floor.
1:41 Hey, that's great. And you're still teaching with us online? That's
1:43 right. Yeah. I've been teaching every semester since since I left California in 2012. All the way to now. So there you go.
1:49 That's great. And just keeping you busy while you're doing. Yep. So you did your th m, and then you're working on your dissertation and your PhD. So I heard through the grapevine that you finished coursework. Yes, that's right, which is a beautiful experience. So when you come out of that door, right, the dubs started flying. I played. I remember my last class, and it was kind of a weird experience. It was like, Okay, I think I might be done with school for my life. I have all the classes. I've taken them all. I can't I can't take any more. Like, that's what my wife tells me. I'm not allowed to take anymore. But you got a lot of things going on in Dallas to that you. So you. So you've finished up PhD work. And you're also working at the Hendricks center. Yes, they are and what is what's the role of the Hendricks center there, Dallas.
2:39 So my title there is Cultural Engagement Manager. And we have a podcast called the table podcast. And it's a podcast that runs every week. It's a video podcast. And I produce that I get the guests on the show. And I'm also one of the hosts. We have four hosts. My mentor, Dr. Darrell Bock is one. Bill Hendricks, our executive director for leadership. And then one of my other co workers, Kimberly cook. I mostly do the apologetics shows. But I've also done faith and work kinds of shows and other shows. But that's a big part of what I do. And I also write cultural engagement and apologetics articles for our seminary journal called Bibliotheca Sacra. Nice. So those are the two major things that I do at the center.
3:21 Okay, that's great. Yeah. So your, your podcast veteran, so yeah. So it was it was a no brainer having you on the show today. And we're glad you're just here in California for a brief time. Yeah. So happy to be here. We could sit down and, and, you know, we're kind of talking about the the focus of your dissertation looking at kind of historical Jesus studies. And, and you've been, you've started a little bit I mean, you know, when this releases, it'll be okay, you know, to share this. I know, you've already started on some chapters, unofficially. Around, unofficially, but that's the good thing about your dissertation is you can start writing it whenever. Yeah, I mean, you can write and then you turn it in. I even tell students that sometimes when they're doing homework, like they can write their papers whenever they don't have to wait till the due date. Now, none of them take me up on
4:15 a wait for any of our college students who are listening here or any students at any school whatsoever. One thing I've taken away from my PhD work is that if you get started super early on something, it makes the seemingly impossible actually doable,
4:27 yes. Or no question. Like when when you when you sit down to a computer to a blank page, and you have five hours to get something done? Yeah, it's not as too much stress. But yeah, if you work on it, and chip away at it, I agree. That's, that's what something that dissertation taught me as well. That's right, a little bit at a time goes a long way. And the good thing about I think the dissertation is there's no way you could write it in a night no matter what. So you can't wait till the last minute so it kind of forces you. So we're just teaching students life lessons. That's right. That's That's the that's the side takeaway of the podcast. Yeah. But but one of the reasons why I was really excited to have you on is to, to kind of look at maybe some of the research you've been doing just for these first couple chapters of your dissertation, looking at kind of contemporary historical Jesus studies. And are there some current issues that you're kind of noticing in scholarship that are maybe a change from maybe the last 20 years? And maybe what what direction is kind of historical Jesus studies headed in there you can see,
5:35 there are a couple of things, probably a dimension. The first one is discussion around around the whole concept of the criteria of authenticity. The different thing is that we look at to say, How do we know that what's in the Bible is actually based on a true story, right? And these are the rules of the game, so to speak. And these rules were not written by the church. This is not like how you might hear the Bible talk about insurance. This is more how you hear the Bible talked about in scholarly circles for people who are Jewish scholars, atheist scholars, people from all walks of life who want to take a look at the Bible as historians. Yeah. And so some people are pushing back on the criteria of authenticity. These are, these are different ways that we can say, well, this, this thing is most likely historical, or increases the probability that this thing is a historical event. Because we've had historical Jesus studies for quite some time from the late 1700s. The quest for the historical Jesus, all the way through third quest and 80s. And yeah, 90s to today. And there's so many different views of who Jesus is using these tools. Right. So maybe these tools are just banca we just no amount of good is not helping anybody, you know? Yeah. So one example is double dis similarity. That's something where people say, Well, if you get Jesus saying something that's not like Judaism, and not like Christianity, that's probably legit. You know, because it's like, the Jewish people made that up. Or it's not like the Christians made that up.
7:12 Yeah, it's not a later Christian. Right? Oh,
7:14 but the problem was in Jews mouth. The problem with that is, yeah, you can find things like that. But it's a very tiny sea. And you're divorcing Jesus from his own culture that influenced him. You're divorcing him from the movement that he actually started? Yeah. And so while that might be a really good, first pass, maybe? And certainly, certainly, he said, these kinds of things, you know, you love your neighbor kinds of things, right. But certainly, we can know more about Jesus than just that. And so the, the response to this whole push back on the rules are like, well, what else do we have? If we just abandon this criteria? Then how is a Christian going to be able to talk with a Jewish scholar or an atheist scholar about Jesus? If there's no, we have no rules to play the game together? Right? And so, rather than just throw it out, we need to nuance these things. So rather than say, not like Judaism, not like Christianity, you could say not quite like Judaism, not quite like Christianity. So the Son of Man for example, Jesus used the Son of Man not just in a generic way. Or even the the apocalyptic Son of Man right it's kind of really no seven Yes, man. He's he's using that stuff. Yeah, cuz he's influenced by Jewish culture. But he is he's nuancing that and developing it into something more where you can say here's, you know, a character who is who is believed to be a human with divine characteristics as well. I'm going to take that I'm going to run with that because it's in the culture Yeah, what better way to begin to reveal who I am through this cultural discussion that's already there. Right and you look at Son of Man I mean, how many times have you here you know worship song with Sena man in it or in the read of the New Testament Son of man it's on the lips of Jesus his favorite way of talking about himself and yet nobody else does it
9:03 right and that's that's been one of the things over the last kind of year in my kind of studies for classes teaching here. That's something that has emerged that that son of man is is the most used title by Jesus to describe himself but yeah, we as a great point like there are probably no worship songs that say Son of man and and it's even kind of a pretty elusive title right? I mean, when you when we hear Son of man and maybe the just average person in church here Son of Man, we don't necessarily know the the, the weight that comes with that. We don't even necessarily know the Jewish weight that comes with and so even adding that and that's something like guys like Tim Mackey and the Bible project have been doing a great job of highlighting that about Son of man really highlighting the the Jewish roots, but also like, how you're kind of pointing out that as he as Jesus nuanced it as well. Well, it also then becomes a really interesting historical claim by Jesus, you know that, that yeah, this is, this couldn't be just a, an early Jewish writer putting this idea into this character Jesus, but rather, it does give a little validity to now this is this is a historical Jesus who is taking this, and he's building upon it. And and it's not quite jasm but it's not quite Christianity. And
10:36 that makes total sense because that he's the bridge between Judaism and Christianity. Where did Christianity come from if there's no Jesus? Where did it come from? If Jesus his teachings aren't the basis of the whole church, you know? Yeah, so son of vans a great one.
10:52 It really is and, and kind of with these, maybe with the, the rules that you have to develop, and that seems like in all of kind of historiography right now is people are trying to decide, how do we know something as historical Right, right, what are those ground rules we can all agree upon? And, and I know, you've had some connections with a guy named Gary Habermas and, and I was able to study under him took a couple classes with him that that Liberty during my dissertation, and and he's a great guy, a great guy to have a seminar with. He's a good, he's basically like a hockey coach who knows a lot about theology and philosophy. Yeah, and, and just a good kind of good, maybe Eastern Michigan accent. And so he's really, really good guy, but I've always really appreciated his kind of minimal facts and fringe.
11:49 Yeah, that really turned me on to historical Jesus studies. Actually, he came to Biola University where I did my MA in apologetics. Yeah. He presented that minimal facts approach. And I read the case for the resurrection of Jesus with Mike licona. That he he co authored with him write that book I recommend to all my students in apologetics that really got me excited about doing resurrection studies. And then also just in general, historical Jesus studies. Yeah. And we were pleased to have him on the table podcast for Easter. Oh, that's great. Darrell Bock talking about the evidence for the resurrection.
12:25 That's so great. And so I'm, I'm having a little bit of a revelation. So. So you were I also went to Biola and get a ma in apologetics. Okay, how did I not know that? And I also sat in on a class that Gary Habermas came out again, and so what years were you at? This may make me feel old? Or maybe we're the similar age 2001 to 2003. I did my MA in apologetics. Okay. Yeah, I was. I started in fall of 2001. So we were there. We may have literally been Wow, the same room because it was kind of the where Gary, where he spoke it was in that was kind of like stadium seating. Yeah. It's like the weird room on by always campus. Yeah. And he just did the weekend thing.
13:16 Right. And so we there was defending the faith. One, two and three as required. Yes. Right. Yeah.
13:21 So we were ago, we were literally probably in that same day. It was a pretty big space. There were a lot of
13:28 or we might have sat next to each other.
13:29 Yeah. Hey, that's right there. This isn't the first time on this podcast with a host or with a guest that I have made a Biola connection when we've been there around the same time.
13:43 I'm always conflicted when whenever Jessup plays Biola for basketball,
13:48 although now you know, it's full Jessa Well, hey, yeah, you know, it's full. Jessup got to my my paycheck required. That's right. But no, and for me, it's very similar, like Habermas, his approach to historical Jesus and his approach by using minimal facts. So, so for our listeners, if you don't quite know what his minimal facts approach are, do you want to kind of give them a little little background?
14:13 Sure. Gary Habermas popularized a view that's now called the minimal facts approach that basically takes data that everyone can agree on whether you're a Jewish scholar, an atheist, scholar, Muslim scholar, looking at historical Jesus, what are some things that we all can agree on? And then from those, those facts like Jesus crucifixion, the disciples really believe that they saw the risen Jesus, the conversion of Paul and James and the empty tomb, which is 75%, which he will say it's four plus one, right? These things are strong enough to present a positive case, but also strong enough to defend the resurrection against a naturalistic challenges.
14:55 Yeah, because when you take those four, so you take for events that also Scholars would agree, hey, that happened. This guy named Jesus existed. And that's even a precursor. Yeah, he was crucified. The disciples definitely at least you could say at bare minimum, you could say that they believed base, they had experiences with the risen Jesus and weren't lying about it. Yeah. And they weren't like, and at that point, they've had no reason to make anything up. I mean, there wasn't any money in it. gold plated rooms, yet. There was nothing, in fact, that just cost them their lives. So that was, and then yeah, the conversion of Paul and conversion of James. And what I always liked about how harmonics approach is you take those four, and then the plus one with the empty tomb, and you talk about, okay, then what's the best explanation? So obviously, you know, when you look at all of those, an explanation that Jesus maybe didn't die on the cross, but he only like passed out. And then, you know, and it's like, well, when you highlight that, like, if he would have come to the disciples and would have just like, he probably wouldn't have had any strength and the disciples wouldn't have been like, Oh, this is the result. We need a doctor. Yeah. Yeah. And so I've always loved that approach to to, to highlighting apologetics and that sense and historical issues of saying, okay, we have these things we can agree on. Now, what's the best explanation? And then that's, I think, a great conversation starter of, hey, how do we explain this? How do we explain? Is it an a hallucination, right, for a group hallucination? I
16:38 love what Habermas does with that to them. Yeah. The rarity of a group hallucination where everyone sees the same thing. And and auditory and visual hallucinations simultaneously rise required for that. Yeah.
16:50 And and so I've always appreciated that, because I do think that is a helpful place to, to begin the conversation for one What I like about it, is that it It forms common ground with your dialogue partner. Yeah. And I think that's so important in apologetics. I mean, a lot of apologetics can be kind of attack oriented. Right. And there's mode. Yeah. And debate mode. And there's not a lot of dialogue. There's not a lot of friendship. Yeah. And, and I really did appreciate that where it's like, okay, let's, let's start with some common ground. And then let's hear all the arguments. Let's and let's really see, what is the best explanation for this?
17:35 Yeah, I'm a big fan of apologetics as conversation. Yeah. Because truth matters. But tone matters, too. Yeah, that's so good character of who you are, you know. And so when I when I speak in front of audiences, where I know there are skeptics there, and there's Christians who brought their friends. Yeah, I'm like, Look, I just want to make sure that you have all of the data, you have the whole story so that you can begin your own investigation, not just reading what Bart Ehrman has written in his books. Yeah, some Bart Ehrman, things are really good, actually. Right. Did Jesus exist is a great book. Next, Mr. Herman, but that you have all of the data? And who's going to say, oh, you're just close my eyes, because you want me to have all the data. Right. Right. Exactly. And that's a way to be a minister. It's a way to serve somebody so that instead of walking into a spiritual conversation and debate mode, because you're, you're thinking like an apologist, quote, unquote, to say, I want to serve this person, yeah, I want to care about them. And this is a ministry right now. Right? So it's about the content. Yeah. But your character matters, too.
18:32 Yeah, it really does. And I think that it's been, it's been great to see that movement within apologetics as well, that movement of it's not about winning the argument. But it's about content and tone. And so important, I saw in Reno, we're kind of emailing back and forth on on on this. Within your dissertation. You've also made I think, a really interesting move from so kind of doing what you have to do and dissertations of kind of surveying the recent scholarship and but then also moving into the historicity and uniqueness of Jesus claim in mark two to be able to forgive sins. And and that's been something partly from my training days at Biola and interaction with Habermas, that that mark to passage for me has been really pivotal and understanding who Jesus was claiming to be himself, not what other people were saying about him, but what claims he was making. So I would love to explore that a little bit more what what is the, the uniqueness of this claim? What's the power of this passage to help us understand maybe what Jesus was claiming about himself?
19:53 Well, the second development that I was going to mention actually ties right into this oh perv, which is in 2011, a guy named Andrew Chester I found that there was a consensus, basic consensus around the idea that Jesus was believed to be divine very early and in a Jewish context. Now, as a historian, you're gonna go, Well, how on earth did that happen? Yeah, right, in a monotheistic Jewish context, right, you're gonna start worshipping this man, Jesus, how does that happen? So, as a historian, you could say this, there's a spectrum here. It's either related to something Jesus said about himself, or this belief is entirely unrelated to anything Jesus said, or did. Yeah, the answer is somewhere on that spectrum. Right. I want to tip the scales more to say, Well, certainly he had to say something. Yeah, right, say something to give people a reason. Yeah. And so this claim to possess divine authority, I think has a really good chance of being very close to historical bedrock. Or at least I can make a case that based on historical bedrock, you can say Jesus really said this, and it was unique. So for example, Jesus being a miracle worker, everyone's going to give you that, yeah, everyone's going to give you that the Jesus seminar people, you know, john Dominic Crossan is going to give you that right. Marcus Borg would write that as well. Yeah, he Sanders had a list of 12 things that we know about the historical Jesus, that he was a miracle worker, is bedrock, right. But he was certainly more than a miracle worker. And I think he was a unique kind of miracle worker. And I think the data can show that in mark two, he claimed to forgive sins. No one else does that. Right. So I looked in Greco Roman sources, I looked in Jewish sources, Greco Romans, they believe that the gods could forgive. Hmm, interesting. The gods could only forgive things you did against them. They couldn't forgive what you did to like another guy. Another guy, yeah. But no human person could do it. Right? Only only a deity could. On the Jewish side, of course, only God forgives sins, and God revealed himself as the God who forgives an exodus. Yeah. And so that is really all all sin is ultimately, an offense against God's only God can forgive that sin. Yeah. But I looked at all these humans that some people have brought up like, well, maybe what Jesus did really wasn't all that unique. And if it wasn't all that unique, then mark too, isn't telling us the whole story or the true story. Yeah, because the scribes wouldn't go. He's blaspheming. You can forgive sins except God alone, if what the scholars are saying is true, right. And so Tobias hageland is a guy I'm reading and working through his suggestions that prophets or priests could forgive sins. So I looked at priests, for example, priests, they could pray for you. They could do the atonement, rituals, the atonement rites, but that's different than forgiveness, right? Tell them it's more about purification. In fact, if a woman was menstruating, for example, there's rights for that. That's not forgiveness. There's no sin involved, right? That's not forgiveness. So you're linked to purity? Yeah. And there's another letter of aristeas says that the Jewish prophets would sacrifice in total silence. So how are you going to proclaim someone's sins forgiven, if you're not saying anything, and, but then profits as well. And there's a whole slew of them that I went on. But bottom line is what I found, when Jesus said, Son, Your sins are forgiven, that's unique. No other miracle worker ever did that. Right.
23:26 And we definitely see claims of miracle workers in Greco Roman history, right. I mean, with Emperor's and that being able to perform and so that's not the uniqueness, right. That's not the unique claim. And that's why I think it's it is really great to make to bridge that gap. Jesus is not just miracle worker, but he's a miracle worker who make made a unique claim about who he is. And in that claim, is something that could have sparked a belief in him at a very early time. And and I think that is really, that seems to be a really important piece within historical Jesus studies is what did people believe about Jesus? Very early on, right? Because if you can, and I know Bart Ehrman, that's that's one of his kind of axes to grind right now is okay, if you have a different Christology, and then somehow it morphed into the Caledonian creed that we have. Okay, that, you know, hey, that's shifted, and now we're worshipping Jesus that didn't actually exist. And I do think it's so important to man look back. What What were the earliest beliefs of the Christians?
24:42 And the Mark chapter two, this is the earliest miracle story in the earliest gospel, right if you take mark and priority Yeah, I do. Yeah. And so for Bart Ehrman to say something like the johannah and Jesus is really different than the Synoptic Jesus, where you can see the kernels of that high Christology Yeah, The synoptics, right? Because when Jesus says to the paralytic son, Your sins are forgiven. He's making a claim to do what only God can do. Yeah. And that is why you have this scribal response that this is blasphemy. Right? So that is sometimes historically contested because of well, maybe all these other people could forgive as well. But I looked at these things, Daniel, supposedly Samuel supposedly, right, forgive sins of the Bible. No. And Josephus says retelling of these things, maybe there's a little question. Yeah. But if you actually look at it, all they're doing is praying for people, right? So only if you expand your definition, which is what I think Tobias hageland is doing, expand your definition of forgiveness, to include praying for people, well, then Okay, sure, then you can find that all over the place, right. But this is a really unique thing. And I think that Jesus claimed to forgive sins, makes him a unique kind of miracle worker. And now you have to wrestle with the claims of the historical Jesus. Yes. If Jesus really said this, now we're gonna do that.
26:00 Yeah. Yeah, you have to, you're kind of faced with that dilemma. That kind of lewisian dilemma, right? Hey, if he's claiming this, then that's, that's leading you to make a decision about who Jesus is. about who the historical Jesus. Yeah, you're in what you think about.
26:19 They're alluding to the liar, lunatic or Lord for CS Lewis, the New Testaments, a little more simple than that. Actually, the New Testament says you only have two options. Yeah, he's either from above. Or he's from below, right? No one ever contested that Jesus was a miracle worker, and that he had powers. Yeah. What they contested was where the powers came from him from above, or below, right? celsus actually says he went to Egypt to learn Egyptian magic, and then came back home and wowed everybody with these powers. That's not a denial that he was a miracle worker, right?
26:50 Yeah, trying to explain it. They're trying to again, it comes back to the Habermas, what's the best explanation? Yeah. What's the best explanation for Jesus being able to perform these miracles? And he's Yeah, from above or below. I think that is great.
27:04 And so in that Mark, chapter two, he is showing you something you can't see my something you can see. Right? If you say to someone, hey, Your sins are forgiven. The guy looks the same. Yeah, yeah. How do we? How do we know if that even worked? Right? And that's why he says, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on her to forgive sins, I tell you, he says that the paralytic get up and walk right. And in all three accounts, on the Synoptic Gospels of this one event, everyone praises God, and they're all amazed. Right?
27:34 And, and that really, it really does portray a different experience, then a priest or prophet, praying for forgiveness, or even doing a ritual that would bring about forgiveness, right, that the priests in no way and it doesn't seem to be in the literature, either, that the priest is making a claim by making this sacrifice that the priest himself is forgiving the sin. Right. And, and it would be maybe a very different story if Jesus sacrificed a lamb and then turned to him and said, Your sins are forgiven.
28:12 Yeah, because of this right? Then it's now the forgiveness is coming from that ritual, right? He's not even in the temple, right? This is part of the huge offense there. There are certain ways that God says or deny maker of heaven and earth says human beings can be involved in this process, right? in the temple, with sacrifices, with a repentant person and all this, this, Jesus brings it up out of nowhere. Yeah, guy comes on a stretcher. He wants to be healed, obviously. That's why he's interrupting this whole thing, right? And Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven, like one. Yeah. Where did that come from? Right.
28:46 And the guy was probably like, okay, but can I get healed?
28:48 Yeah. Another similarity thing is because salvation is the more more of the emphasis in the early church, not healing. Right. And he uses the phrase, son of man here again, as well. Yeah, another, another handle that we can say. This is probably based on a true story. Yeah. Jesus was known as a miracle worker. Certainly, he was known to heal laying people. Certainly, he was known to have clashes with the Pharisees on because of the kind of authority that he seemed to claim he had. Certainly, all these things increase the probability that this is a really, this was a true story.
29:24 Yeah. And would you say that the, the purpose of historical Jesus studies especially maybe within, you know, evangelical community, the purpose of historical Jesus studies is to maybe find common ground in scholarship like, hey, okay, let's really look at this. We don't want to just close our eyes, unplug our ears, and, and say, well, we think this about Jesus, but let's look at the data and then allow people to respond To that data and respond to what is that best explanation? Because I've really felt like I've, I've seen that and even in my my own life, I think one of the reasons why I went to Biola and did the apologetics program was because of deep questions I had in my own life and my own faith. I grew up in the church, I grew up with Jesus. And I came to a point where I wanted to know, is this true? And, and I think that for for as much as as truth is muddy, right, and culture, I think that's there's a desire within people to know something is true. I think maybe that's our draw to the natural sciences. Right, right. Well, if I can study it, and I can prove it in a lab, then I know it's true. And we've kind of separated faith from from that type of truth. Yeah. And and I think, in many ways, maybe historical Jesus studies brings those back together, like, hey, let's look at the data. Let's look at it in an in as much as an unbiased way as you can we all we all come from our own point of view. But we can look at that data and say, Hey, if Jesus making this claim, and this were the experiences of those around them, these are the things that had happened, then maybe that does bring us to a place that then we do have a decision to make on our own what what do we then think about Jesus? What do is that? How, how do you kind of position historical Jesus studies?
31:47 Yeah, as an apologist, I felt very prepared as a generalist coming out of Biola. But then I had this desire to specialize in Jesus studies, because, in my experience, having conversations with people about arguments for existence of God, the problem of evil, these kind of worldview, right questions, yeah, eventually end up at least in conversations I've had in end up going back to the text to Jesus in the Gospels. Yeah. And that's what I wanted to specialize. And I was inspired by habra masses, work on on minimal facts. Yeah, by Mike like on his work. Darrell Bock as well, who's my mentor now about the authority of Jesus, and who he claimed to be. And then the vindication of that in the resurrection, we hear a lot about the resurrection of Jesus and apologetics. But very few people at apologetics conference will give a presentation on the claim that Jesus made. Yes, is what fills the resurrection with meaning, right, and the earliest Jewish apologetic for Jesus as as Messiah, and as the Lord had to do with his vindication via resurrection and ascension that he's seated at the right hand. Yeah. So I think for me, apologetics is the is the the vehicle that I'm taking New Testament studies, and using it to help the church through apologetics. I think it can help increase our faith. And like you, I grew up in the church, lots of questions about the faith, we think we're right, everyone else thinks we're right, right? Everyone knows you. Right? Right. Everyone else thinks they're right. I should say, Yeah. Can we all be right? is nobody right? You know, how do I know the Bible is something I can really believe in. And so I remember when I was in college, too, I came to the point where a lot of Christian college students do, you know, where I said, Is this religious, my parents faith versus my faith. Yeah. And at Biola, they were talking about things and my New Testament class, like, there was no such thing as religious truth on one side, and regular, everyday truth on the other side. So I said, I decided, you know, what, if this is really true, if truth is just truth, you know, if Jesus really rose from the dead, and time and space and Christianity is true, and that's no different than the fact that you and I are sitting here right now, you know, this has to change my whole life. Yeah, it has to impact everything. Right? So if it's really true, it's worth believing and living and dying for if it's not true, why even bother? Right?
34:04 Yeah, that's so true. And I think that's just a really good point to make as we kind of land the plane here on the on the episode like that, that I think we are with us having similar experiences and and I do think that a lot of Christian college students have that experience and I'm always encouraging the students, that there has to be that step from the faith you grew up in and the faith that has become your own and and only you can make that step right. Like we can't make that for a student no one can make it for me when I was in college. And and I appreciate the foundation that was laid in my life and with my family and but I had to kind of seek that and and and that's why I'm so encouraged by kind of the apologetics movement within the church as well. As because there with with All of our questions, there are people who are thoughtfully who are respectfully who are scholarly, pursuing those questions. And, and it's not just about answering the questions, right. But they're pursuing, how to explain these, how to talk about these, how to look at all the data. And I think that's so important. And so I always encourage the students I'm with and and the listeners of the podcast to do if you have questions, don't hide those questions away. Ask them and get into a community where you can pursue the truth because I agree with you again, like, truth is truth. And so we can never be afraid of the truth. And to pursue that. And and I do agree that I think almost every question we have in faith is going to come back to Jesus in some ways, and and how you handle the historical Jesus. And and if the historical Jesus is a certain way, then that changes everything. Yeah. And and that changes our lives. And for me, and times of doubt, and all that I've always come back to Jesus, what he claimed about who he was what he did in the resurrection and ascension. And, and then then that raises questions about my doubts. Yeah, like, Well, what do I do with this? And and I think it's, it's so important. So just thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for the work you're doing. I'm excited to to see the dissertation when it is fully written. And, and I know you'll be happy for that to be happening, too. Yeah.
36:46 Well, thanks so much for having me on the show.
36:48 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection in deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessica.
37:14 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Professor Matt Godshall joins Rex and Mark in the studio to finish out their series on ancient Christian practices. Matt discuss the importance of Lectio Divina in his own spiritual life as the three attempt to demystify contemplative prayer.
TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore.
0:04 And I'm your co host, Rex Gurney.
0:06 And we are closing out our series on ancient Christian practices, part three, part three. So and our first part three, Part three series. Yeah, I think our first of many, and I think it was appropriate that it was three parts Trinitarian feel okay to, you know, I'll just make sure we cover that I think we can do
0:26 theological justification for three or seven
0:29 part series. That's all we had. So we get within the the theological world. But now we're really excited to kind of wrap this series up. And we've actually invited guests with us who's been on the show before is a friend of the show, Professor Matt godchaux. He's a New Testament and theology professor here. And we just kind of brought him on to to share some of his experiences with ancient Christian practices, and how they have formed his own spiritual life. And I think you'll really appreciate what he has to offer to our conversation. We hope you enjoy this series and enjoy the closing out of this series. And we hope you sit back and enjoy the episode.
1:18 Well, this is kind of part three of our ancient Christian practices series. And Mallard is excited to have you kind of, kind of with us and bringing in your expertise, and throwing some some questions at you, but just kind of bring you up to speed and maybe our listeners with within this series, we've really looked at the need for structure and discipline in the in the Christian life. And it was something that both for Rex and I was something that was actually very personal. There were stories in our lives, where was it moment in my life when I was in college, and, and I was just kind of tired of not really being a Christian, or not really living, you know, not not having a be a part of my life. But just kind of an add on even though I grew up in the church and, and so for me, disciplines and practices really made my spirituality real. It gave me something to focus on something to do that, that helped it become more a part of my life. And and so we kind of highlight that. And then we really took a dive a little bit deeper into some some of the practices that have been helpful for us. For us some,
2:34 I think the last our last episode, we talked a little bit about ignatian spirituality and the prayer of examine that mark does and working through the spiritual exercises for the second and hopefully, successful time. And anyway, it's all it's all trial and error. That's right. That's right. And you know, there's probably a moral lesson in that too, that at first, you know, it doesn't work for you, it might work for you again, at another time in your life. Yeah, and, and I've certainly found that true.
3:04 That's really true. I think a lot of times people try practices, and then it just doesn't hit them, right. And then they feel like, oh, maybe I failed at it or, and it might just be that that moment in your life. That wasn't the right practice, write and write and move and they're different, and maybe coming back to it in a different time in your life, different amount of maturity, or just even life experience, things like that. Akin and we kind of write those off. One thing I like about the ignition exercises, if we can talk more a little more on those as is I kind of like I think nowadays, we could maybe play off of the the knightly aspect of it. Like it just when I read through it, I feel like there's these, this band of knights that are getting together with, you know, chainmail on and
3:56 yeah, I'm actually at that point of spiritual exercises. And that's something I'm having a struggle through. But he's sort of like, you know, the, the, the two banners, right, the banner, and the banner of Christ and, and it sort of had to work my way through that medieval imagery, but I can see that battle, and I can all around right in my own heart too. So if I can just sort of translate that into something more accessible to me. The principle behind it is is very, very helpful.
4:24 Yeah, it is. And it's and for me, I don't know, to you, Rex been historian just like that historical side of that. Medieval times. And yeah,
4:35 which is kind of strange, actually, because Ignatius is actually sort of post medieval. Yeah, I think Yeah. But you know, one of the things that kind of led him really to Christian commitment was the fact that he was looking for these medieval romance night books and couldn't find it in they had to darn it read about Jesus and the saints. Yeah. You know, I think some of this stuff in the spiritual exercises is is actually kind of anachronistic. Little bit even for him. Yeah, even for him. But still, you know, classic.
5:05 Yeah, definitely. And so one of the reasons to man we wanted to kind of have you on the show is just to hear from you, if they're in your life if there'd been a moment or time when, when the practices or specific practice kind of deepened your spirituality or have played kind of a formative role in your in your spiritual life.
5:26 Yeah, I'm definitely not an expert. So, Crump take that out earlier.
5:30 That's why you're here.
5:34 In the intro,
5:34 that's right. That's the title here. No, definitely not that. But I think one of the vivid moments was that on seminary at Talbot, introduce them a big spiritual formation component to all their courses, which is kind of shocking and new and a struggle for me at first to kind of understand what's going on here. But yeah, but the one of the practices that stuck, and I still try to do regularly is the lectio Divina. I don't know if you've talked about that, in the past episodes.
6:07 Yeah, but actually, that'll be great tie in for the episode. Sorry, I'm
6:11 an expert.
6:16 So that that's been something that as just a discipline, intentional method, with the silence and the different ways of reading the texts and the prayer that comes from the texts, even contemplation I need, and I found that not just a good thing to do, but something that's become essential for my own connection with God, and an ability to just pause. So you probably have covered this, but part of the beauty of these disciplines is it forces you to do things you know, you should do but really have a hard time doing so right? Slow down, get away, be silent. And the luxio way of doing it is personally helpful in something I love sharing with my students in church even we even practice a little bit modified version in our church services. Yeah, that's so. So yeah, that's, that's probably for me. pretty significant practice. Yeah,
7:14 that's great. I knew and I were actually we, we've talked about this before, we've tried to connect it over you and I were at Talbot at the same time. But I was commuting from San Diego and in a different program. Yeah. And I was actually in the spiritual formation program. But they had, I remember that they were kind of making that a school wide initiative. That's right. And, and I remember at that time, too, and this is kind of maybe insightful for now. That for the seminary as a whole, it was kind of a struggle, like, Hey, you know, which, which seems, which sounds interesting now, right? Like, having seminarians do spiritual formation, groups and work and then being like, Hey, what do I'm here for seminary? Not that trained to be a pastor?
8:02 I just want to know the Scripture.
8:04 And I think it did kind of maybe highlight that tension between the need to do something or am I learning something, as is helping me exegete better is, is helping me preach better? Or is my education simply mercenary? So I can get the degree so I can get it? Right. The real work of God. Right. Yeah. And and then, kind of kind of forcing the the seminary students to do the spiritual work on groups and practices. I think it made everybody kind of pause and be like, Oh, yeah, we're
8:35 also here for another reason. That's right. And we can't really do the end goal without this piece. Yeah. So yeah, that was like, like I mentioned, it was eye opening, because it forced, what the spiritual formation piece, there's a lot of self knowledge. Right? Going on that right? I'd much rather ignore that. But that doesn't go so well, if we're trying to have a relationship with God or people.
8:59 We talked about that last last last episode, right about going through the ignatian spiritual exercises for me now, if I'm taking it seriously, which I'm determined to do this time is forcing me to deal with stuff that I don't want to deal with. Which has been kind of painful, but yeah, good way.
9:16 Yeah. Yeah. And that's really, I think, what taking that moment to pause, and to reflect and even contemplate, and we're going to kind of one of the practices I want us to look at today is is contemplative prayer. And contemplative prayer really connects with lectio Divina, I mean, that contemplation aspect is is a key element to it. And I think even in that moment, of, of really quieting yourself, mostly what it does, and when I when I've talked to people who've who've attempted it as well. It starts to bring up everything that's inside that when you're busy, you can easily ignore it. But when you take that moment to be quiet and to be quiet before God, then all that starts rushing out of your heart and, and it is good to recognize that spiritual formation is as much about knowledge of self as his knowledge of God. And connection and,
10:19 and connection with with the wider community. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Before the podcast, Matt was talking about that. That's there's sort of three elements in this.
10:27 Yeah, there they are. And I think we can highlight all those three that it's not again, the practices aren't just for our own righteousness, right around piety. Yeah, they connect us to our neighbor. And, and and so with contemplative prayer. It's kind of probably a word. We don't use that often in the evangelical flag when I was going, right, because contemplation
10:51 sounds to like meditation, which sounds too much like Zen Buddhism, and we just don't write it anyway.
10:57 Right? Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure there was. I mean, there was a long list of words that couldn't say, as a kid, but I'm pretty sure meditation was one of those words, I just didn't talk about it. Right. And, and really, and we kind of highlighted Richard foster in the first episode. And really, with his book celebration of discipline, it brought in that idea of meditation into kind of back into the evangelical community
11:24 is fascinating. I remember when it kind of first came out. I mean, I'm that old. It was like this, this sort of new frontier for evangelicals. Of course, this stuff's you know, 1500 years old, right? Yeah. It's like we find it discovering it for the first time and don't really know what to do with it. Yeah. That was the sort of unique joy of discovery back then.
11:47 Yeah. And you can see that in, in when that Yeah, when reading about when that book was published, even reading kind of, in its early edition, right? him explaining meditation, he's, he's really cautious and Amen, but he kind of really, really lays it out. And it is this kind of new thing, quote, unquote, thing, right? And, and so when we, when we look at maybe contemplative prayer, a lot of times people might say, well, what's the difference between just contemplative prayer and prayer? Right? Why do we have to have another adjective in front of prayer? Now, what's funny is, even if you ask someone what prayer is, they might be like, I don't exactly know, you know, I mean, like, we can maybe boil it down to conversation with God, talking to God. But contemplative prayer is really meant, I think, to help us understand what prayer is, in general as well. And it's, and it's this idea of not just bringing requests to God, not even just bringing praise to God. So it's a little bit different than the examine prayer. But there are contemplated elements of the examine prayer. And and so I think that contemplated part of this prayer is really, of contemplate of prayer is trying to move yourself, from your headspace into your heart. And guys like Thomas Merton, Henry now when and really they're playing off of a really kind of more of the Eastern fathers way of prayer, which was called the prayer of the heart. And it was it was a has a Catholic prayer, so prayer, the heart, and it was to move into the center of your being rather than just in your headspace. And And to do that, you had to first set with silence, right? And you had to remove those words are those petitions and, and too often, our prayer is just for like, hey, God, I need this. I need that. Can you help these people?
14:03 There's a couple of phrases in kind of classic of contemporary prayer, sort of an anonymous book called The Cloud of Unknowing, which I'm kind of going through now because I've never read that book. And before I die, I at least want to read the spiritual classics in cases on the multiple choice. Exactly. Have you read cloud, but as a world class failure and contemplative prayer I am it's a struggle getting through it. I actually am reading it in tandem with sort of an explanation by a Trappist monk named William manager called the loving search for God where he just kind of takes chapter by chapter of the Cloud of Unknowing and sort of updates the language and just it's kind of a running commentary or midrash. On the whole thing. Yeah, I'm seeing that in tandem is pretty helpful. But one, actually two things from the Cloud of Unknowing that are, that appear really early in the book talks About the difference and the necessity of the Cloud of Unknowing and the cloud of forgetting sort of two different things, right? And right, and the cloud of forgetting is basically trying to, you know, quiet your mind. And you know, forgetting all this stuff that you just carry around with you, in order to really be able to address the presence of God that's always there. You You declutter, so that you can actually hear the Cloud of Unknowing, which is the title of the book. I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with that. So that might be because I just don't quite understand it. But yeah, basically, it really is this getting from out of your head and into your heart. Because, you know, in order to sit in contemplation, I don't even need to sit there and content. If you're contemplating the attributes of God, you've already got it wrong. You're right, because you're still in your head. Yeah. And as someone who lives in my head and apparently doesn't have a heart, I struggle with that a lot.
16:08 Prayer, the heart and like, Where's the heart?
16:11 What's the difference?
16:14 Yeah, and that, and Thomas Merton really kind of, I think plays off of that. And when he's kind of defining, and he has a book called contemplative prayer, and he's writing it, particularly for the monastic. And, but but it is helpful in terms of understanding prayer, he kind of notes that as a prayer of the heart, interior recollection, the abandonment of distracting thoughts, and then the humble invocation of the Lord Jesus with words from the Bible, in the spirit of intense faith, and how he and and really one of the, one of the elements of contemplative prayer that I think that I've been drawn to, and that has helped me is the moment we talk about kind of quieting, and trying to move from from head to heart, it gets hard, you know, because now you're thinking about it. And you're like, Well, how do I. And so, um, one, one of the practices is to maybe, and this is where lectio kind of connects. Maybe in reading scripture, there's a phrase that stands out, and you return to the front, you just return to that phrase, and you repeat it. Or there's a prayer, there's a lot of kind of short, simple prayers in church history. One of the more famous ones being the Jesus prayer, right. So just, and it comes in variations, but one of the variations I use is just Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.
17:48 I did that to actually do that almost every day at the gym, while I'm on the elliptical, to quiet myself down so that I can actually get my eyes off of like CNN and Fox News and get into a better place. Yeah. And I find I need to do that before I can even like, pray. Right, even the petition in the intercession stuff. One interesting thing about the Jesus prayer is, you know, once again, coming from a Free Church, evangelical background, that just sounds a little bit too strange for us, um, you're repeating this sort of like a mantra. Right, right. And I've read the way the pilgrim and all of that, yeah, but, um, one thing I have found when I actually do do it, is that once I stopped doing it, it does kind of go on autoplay. And I noticed later on that I almost breathing or Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner, if it kind of catches me when they're so if I have to have something on autoplay, I'd rather it be that in some of the other, right things that I think, you know,
18:52 no question that, to have that as, as just a repeated theme.
18:59 It seems to be the purpose one of the purposes of right discipline. So you you do these things, so they become part of how you think and how you feel and see the world. So it's, yeah, that's really, really good example that.
19:13 Yeah, and And so with that, within contemplative prayer, it can be in that moment of silence, and maybe in that repetition, that you begin to meet God in the heart rather than in the mind and allow God and, and here to I would also maybe as a point of guidance, and Merton is really helpful here and Henry now and for me has been really helpful in those moments. You and when it says kind of abandonment of distracting thoughts, it doesn't mean that you're not going to have distracting brides and you're not right, it means recognizing them.
20:00 Not letting them distract you.
20:01 Yeah, not letting them distract you.
20:03 So how do you guys, since you guys are the experts on magic, I just I've always, you know, what ways have you found helpful to actually, you know, let go of those distracting thoughts, which is sort of always there. That's something I struggle with, right?
20:20 For me the ones that sometimes there may be thoughts that continue to come up, and those might be a recognition of Okay, God, I, we need to talk about this. This is something that is obviously and then sometimes for me, those those simple phrase things or the phrase from from Scripture, or the Jesus prayer will help me, like if I catch myself, and now been two minutes down a rabbit hole of these thoughts, and I'm worried about grading and what am I gonna get done? And then I'm like, you know, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me centered like, like, bring me back to this space, where I can hear from you where I can listen.
21:04 Yeah, I think what you said, First part of that mark is really helpful. Because those moments it's exposing, really where our hearts at. And if we take time to actually be still, we're seeing what what's going on inside of us, which our buisiness can easily just suppress, and we just move on. So it's there. But that and that is the hard part I have with any contemplative or even centering prayer, I've just began to read a little bit more about which sounds very similar. Yeah, very similar. But it is that how do you actually let go? How do you how do you and as someone who is in my head way too much,
21:45 right? That's sort of a occupational hazard. Right.
21:49 So let's go ahead. Yeah,
21:51 one thing that I think I may have mentioned this on on the last podcast, but, um, one thing that my pastor in Virginia, when I was getting my doctorate, he was really into contemplative prayer, and always trying to get it. This is a Baptist Church, too, right? So yeah, uphill climb. But I tried to get us to do it. So it's like, you know, five minutes, just five minutes a day, or 10 minutes a day, whatever. And so he he probably gotten this from somewhere that he his prescription for getting rid of distraction distraction was, so imagine you're on a riverbank on the side of a river. And, you know, once a distracting thought comes you just, you know, there's boats are just going by you just take the distracting thought, put it in the boat and let it just keep on going down the river. Which of course doesn't work for me, because I'm actually just sitting by a river watching my distractions. I guess it worked for I
22:43 definitely never worked on the boat becomes a distraction. Right? Yeah.
22:48 Everything, right.
22:52 They really is. I mean, it's a, I think, a personal thing of, of how to understand those distractions. And maybe that first part is just realizing, wow, all of this is going on in my heart, right below the surface. And I took five minutes to be quiet, and it's boom, all here. And
23:13 this happens a lot when people go on personal retreats. I've heard that over and over again, you try a week long retreat somewhere, it takes you three days to even calm down enough to where you can, you know, start retreating, actually,
23:26 yeah. And one of the things that that I like that Thomas Merton says about contemplative prayer, is he really stresses that it is more of an attitude than a method. So I mean, and one thing and probably one area where I would fall is if I'm trying to learn something new. I'm like, Alright, what's the best? Like, what's the practice? And that's what's interesting about some of the disciplines that there's no, there's no clear method. It's, it's this attitude of prayer. It's this attitude of prayer that is, that is slower. that relies on silence, that relies on openness of heart to hear from God that that tries to, to outlast those distracting thoughts. Yes, that's a good that's a good way to put it, and and then finally be in a space. And one of the things he says too, is to not view. And this could be really any of the disciplines to not view them as a means to an end. But to view them as an end in and of themselves in the sense that within them, you meet God, right? The end is to meet with God. So it's not like I'm praying to meet with God, but he would say in your prayer, you meet with God,
24:48 I want to do this so I'll be a better person or I want to die so I'll be more effective in another way of my life. Yeah, I want to do this because just hanging with God is actually a good thing in and of itself in and of itself. Yeah, another one of my struggles.
25:04 Hey, we all have, we all have struggles, but you can be kind of like the the main struggle or okay for the show cast all of our struggles on you,
25:13 that makes me like Jesus.
25:14 Oh, there you go. That's important. Boy. One of the things that I really wanted to kind of wrap up this whole kind of three part series with is, and I've hope and and I think our hope from this series has been just to, to pique people's interests into the disciplines. And I think I talked to so many students and former students and and parishioners at the church, who, who desire a deeper spiritual life, they really do. And they have moments. And they and they are looking for what what are some practices that I can do. And I think when you, when you talk about a deeper prayer life, when you talk about some of the things, it really does connect with people, because they're like, Yes, I want that. But we don't always know how to get there, right. And so even just the few practices, I mean, we could do a whole years worth of highlighting different practices, just a few that we've thrown out. I mean, we hope that you, you look to try and you experiment with and even from the first episode we talked about, it's not a it's not a one size fits, all right, that is that there are certain practices that may not just connect with and so move, there's plenty others to choose from. One of the other things with that, so we will hope people get interested in actually participate in the practices. But we also don't want people to, to engage in the practices just for their own sake. Right. That the the purpose and this is something from from Henry Nolan, who that I has always stuck with me. And he has I appreciate one thing I appreciate about Henry now and as always, books are very short. For like being able to read a book in an afternoon and be like, I read a whole book today. Yeah, yeah, pat myself on the back for that. Be as a small book called out of solitude. And, and kind of in in all of his writings, you see this theme come back up is we do the disciplines, so that we not just for our own personal piety, but we do the disciplines, let's say the discipline of solitude, not just so I can be alone with God, but so that I can come out of solitude and be with my neighbor
27:42 in community and actually map our book here into the studio. They may speak to that and come so can you speak a little bit about the book?
27:50 Sure. It it's practices of love by Kyle David Bennett. And it's basically that very theme, though, he probably takes it a little further than now. And I'm with Kyle, our Bennett's point here is all the disciplines, the seven classic disciplines are intended to form us to be neighbor loving people. Yeah. So he, he goes a little further maybe then I would feel comfortable to say that the end goal is the love of neighbor. Yeah. So really emphasizing that horizontal piece, which I found helpful. Though I as I've read the book, and even interacted with students about it. There's that question of the vertical piece that seems to be lacking, but he's definitely over and he's correcting this This lack we've had and the discussion of the disciplines so he points to like Isaiah 58 for example when he talks about fasting Yeah, and and God there is critique in Israel they practice fasting and yet they neglect justice. Right then he says type of fast and I want is do justice. Yeah. And love your neighbor basically and and so that's really where he's coming from to say the end goal is to become the kinds of people who have space to listen who have minds that are thinking about neighbors some that's the goal of meditation. So yeah, it's a great, great read. It's not a day read, like Allen's book, but I can't. That's right. Yeah,
29:26 we brazos press that's probably like a month read for me.
29:31 It's a good good read though. And it's got that horizontal Yeah, he's to at least in my life has been missing and I've
29:38 seen that actually in people that I've known or often not personally but just have observed when I've been on retreat, for example, at some of the Trappist monasteries I go to that in these amongst look like the most useless guys in the world because, you know, they're just sitting there and they have their their, you know, daily office that they have to do five to seven times a day times a day, right and and But they actually have more space for other people. Yeah. And almost anybody I've ever known is just something about that, that opens them up to the world. And so I really think that that's the fruit of real contemplation is always that.
30:21 Yeah, it really is important is that good balance between the, the practice itself, and then the result of that practice of being able to have space and go out to others. And so important, I was reading just as last couple weeks, guy named David Torrington, he said this about, about Jesus, actually, Jesus being this model for Christian action, and showing us how to go out and reach people how to be compassionate. But he says this, he says they often fail. People who present Jesus as the model for Christian action, they often fail to realize that he was only able to be open to all people, because he was first open to God. It was only because he had exposed himself without restraint to God's love, that he was able to be filled with the fullness that he could communicate to others. Without the hidden years, the desert, the lonely garden, or the inner room, there would be no compassion for the needy, no love for the loveless no healing for the sick. And I love that balance between action and and, and the vertical, right being for people. But actually, it's the space we create with God then allows us to connect with others, right.
31:43 But it's tricky though, because especially with with contemplative prayer, because if you end up doing it just sort of for mercenary reasons, you know, I can be a better minister if I miss the whole process down. But yet, if you if you actually participate in the disciplines, and they become a discipline in your life, then that's the fruit of it. And so it's always that,
32:05 yeah, yeah, you know, if, if you do it, you will be a better minister, but you shouldn't just be a better man. Exactly. Be A Better Christian, or, yeah, that's true. Well, I would, I would love to kind of wrap up this episode, and really the whole series, with a prayer from does written by Thomas Merton, and has been a prayer that I've, I've kind of come back to at different times. And, and I love his honesty in it. And, and, and, and I hope this connects with people, especially people who, who desire a deeper Christian life, or desire a deeper spiritual life. But, but realize maybe their shortcomings, realizing, and and we've recognized through this, our own shortcomings in our own failures in that. And so I just want to kind of kind of finish with this message, he says, My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going, I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I'm following your will, does not mean that I'm actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you, and I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear for you are ever with me. And you will never leave me to face my perils alone. That's great. Yes, love that prayer. And that idea that it's sometimes talking about practices, we can be like, Am I doing it right or my this and, and it comes down to, if your desire is there to please God, he recognizes that desire, even in the midst of our own ignorance, our own failings. He recognizes that desire and and, and and I really want to zero in on that middle part of prayer like, man, I hope then that I would do nothing without that desire, even even if I'm not doing it correctly or not. But if I have the desire, man, I want to please God. And just having that desire does in fact, please Him and brings us and so we hope that you that you engage in the spiritual life.
34:58 And I think in our next podcast, aren't we Going to just sit for half an hour and just repeat the Jesus prayer. We are
35:05 going to practice exactly that space that we give you. In order to be a good that'd be our side podcast,
35:12 like a side contemplative prayer podcasts
35:17 spin off podcast.
35:19 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
35:45 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
In Part 2 Mark and Rex zoom in on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola and his Examen prayer.The pair explore how the practices of a 16th century Spanish monk are more relevant today than ever.
TRANSCRIPT 0:08 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore
0:11 and your co host Rex Gurney.
0:12 There we go. And this is part two of our series on ancient Christian practices, right. And I'm really excited today because we get to kind of dive into a couple of these practices, particularly kind of going to kind of spend the episode with St. Ignatius,
0:27 right. And he's someone that actually has informed the devotional life of both of us and so right.
0:33 Yeah, really has and so it'll be nice. And so we kind of want to, you know, connect with, like, on last episode, we kind of talked about, yeah, what had informed our spiritual lives, the way disciplines came in the way these ancient Christian practices kind of spoke to us. And particularly Ignatius as spiritual exercises. Right, right. You know, we're a part of that, but I think it'd be great to for the listener to kind of, because we maybe have heard about St. Ignatius. You know, probably if you've been in the church, someone has maybe said it, you may have even heard, like the ignition exercise, especially if you've dabbled in disciplines, right. But we might not have kind of that backstory,
1:15 and you know, stuff about church history is actually kind of confusing anyway, because one of the early early early church fathers was St. Ignatius, too, right? That's
1:24 what Yeah, you're like Now which one? Which one? So, so, Rex, tell us which one are we talking about?
1:30 We're talking about Ignatius, number two, not Ignatius. There's about 1500 years between the two of them, right, actually. And so Ignatius of Loyola is a Spaniard. And we were actually talking about this right before the podcast started that if you want an image in your head of the young, saying, well, he wasn't a saint. He had their young, Ignatius Loyola, um, think of the Princess Bride and Eagle Montoya because that actually was what the Loyola wanted to be born in a fairly wealthy Spanish family, kind of minor nobility. And he spent most of his early, early adulthood or, um, as sort of a co ta in the Spanish court. And he was one of those guys, you know, looked good ladies, man. All are really felt. really had a high opinion of himself. Yeah.
2:29 I also read in his kind of a biography that he was of short stature. Exactly. So you appreciate that. I appreciate I aligned with Okay, St. Ignatius, and maybe even more vain. I don't Yeah, that's true.
2:43 I understand, actually, to talk about his vanity. One thing that kind of was a major turning point in his life. It's sort of turned this vein cotpa into the founder of the Jesuits, actually, was the fact that he was at the siege of Pon Plummer. I think the French were actually be French. Yeah. And he was actually one of the main folks officers that the defenders of Pamplona were rallying around, and at least that's the story I've heard.
3:17 Right. And this is around 1521, certain length
3:21 and, and his leg is shattered by Cannonball. Oh, and Yeah, that'll slow you down pretty powerful. And it really did slow him down. And actually, I guess it's providential that is slowed him down, because he ends up surviving that but he goes into a long convalescence, basically at his sister's house, which is interesting, right. Yeah. And before we get to the only reading material that was available to him in his long convalescence, and he understand he wanted to actually get better and get back in the game, that was his whole purpose. Right with this. He had no idea that God was going to get a hold of him.
4:01 Yeah, he was gonna get the same title later, man. He had no I was looking for other
4:05 title. He was looking for other things. Exactly. And he actually had his leg re broken and reset, because he felt that it wasn't healing, right. And then even after that, because there was a protrusion in one of the bones and it kind of poked out a little bit on the skin and he was so vain that he actually without Anastasia. Yeah, anesthesia had to hope he saw it off, if you can just imagine that so that he would look at entice. I mean, literally. It's like, this is the kind of guy we're talking about. Right, right. Wow. Yeah, that's all you can say. Yeah, that's not me. No, but he's looking for reading material because he's bored. He's in bed, right? Yes. He's bedridden. Yeah, exactly. He can't do anything. And so the only two books really that are in his sister's house are a life of Christ and the life of the saints. And so he reads them because that's the only reading material there. And, you know, God starts getting a hold of him. And he ends up, you know, wanting to be in sort of late medieval terminology kind of a night for Jesus instead of a night for the Spanish crown. Yeah. And, and that really, that really changes things for him. But of course, you can't start at the top, he understands he has to start at the bottom. And so he kind of goes on a, on a, I don't know, he sort of does a hermit thing for a while, and ends up taking his sword, which is a big deal for him taking his sword to Montserrat, to the monastery of Montserrat, which is kind of outside of Barcelona, and just offering the sword up, and just basically retreating to a cave, the Cave of mon Raisa, or for a period of time, and that's when he first starts reading the spiritual exit first starts writing the spiritual exercises, which is possibly the second most famous thing he's known for, besides being the founder of the Jesuits, right. And even after that, he realizes he needs to give some education. And so he understands that he doesn't even know Latin. And so he has to learn Latin. And so he makes himself as a, I guess, a personal humiliation, or attend school with kids with just little kids learning language learning is like 20 years old, and anybody in the classroom. And he does that for months, basically, to to
6:37 such a turnaround from Oh, having your legs re broken and shaved off so it looks nice and tight.
6:44 And then he decides he wants to go to the Holy Land, because why not? Right, right. Yeah,
6:47 at that time, it was everybody, right?
6:48 And so he actually goes there on his own and wants to, I think, become a Franciscan, but the Franciscans literally kick him out of the hole. So he has to go back and train. And then he goes to the university, he gets kicked out of one university, he's put in jail, some I mean, it's just a really crazy kind of thing. Yeah. And not a straight line. No, it's not a straight line with him. And then he ends up going to the University of Paris, and that's where everything changes. He gets some companions around him, and they formed the Society of Jesus, they get that recognized, sort of officially by the Catholic Church, and some of those initial friends of his like Francis Savior, and people like that end up being famous in their own right, right. And it all kind of takes off from there.
7:35 Now sort of amazing story. It really is, it really is, is just fascinating, because when you just hear St. Ignatius, and you just maybe know his the exercises. It's so so much more interesting to know the backstory. Exactly. This is not someone who started out as St. Ignatius and
7:55 he actually started off thinking about what ends up becoming the Spiritual Exercises pretty early on in that right sessions. Right. He, he was still in process while he starts to write it, which is good for people like me. Yeah. You know, currently in process as I'm reading it,
8:12 yeah, who's still in process? And I
8:14 think that's one thing that makes it so powerful that, you know, through the analysis made it so powerful for almost anybody that's actually really tried to go through it
8:24 any seems to have kind of captured the, the zeal he had as a young man, it does just get transferred, right? It doesn't go away, it gets transferred to a spiritual life. Exactly. Exactly. And I think it's just such a good way to express it. Because a lot of times, I think, now we we approach spiritual life as Oh, that's my old life. And my spiritual life. I'm a completely different person or that right, but he still kind of brought in that personality that that zeal and then applied it to
8:56 which which, of course we all do, anyway.
8:58 Right. Right. So with the, with the exercises, can we go? Let's go a little bit deeper in I'm sure. So I'm actually not
9:09 an expert on the spiritual exercises. And actually, the first time that I tried to do them, I was a failure at the spiritual exercises. And so what what this is, is basically, it first sort of starts off with something if you ever wanted to join the Jesuits, they would make you do and then it ends up being just something that is sort of open for anybody and everybody, you don't have to be Catholic. Many Protestants have found a lot of spiritual succor in these two, it certainly has has been instrumental in my faith journey lately. But it's supposed to be basically kind of a four week retreat, where you just basically immerse yourself in the Scriptures, which is really interesting, the whole thing. It's just very bibble bibble centric. Yeah. Scripture centric, right? It really is. And just meditating on the scriptures and actually immersing yourself in the scriptures and just sort of going through a rhythm, right? Sort of a four week rhythm. But most of us, you know, can't go away for four weeks and do this and have this rational director who knows how to help us in that. And so
10:19 find me.
10:21 I know, my wife
10:22 might be like, Where are you going?
10:23 Before we Exactly, exactly. So, for example, the version of the exercises that I'm going through right now, basically, I think it's like 6045 weeks. Okay, yeah, thing like that. So the weeks aren't actually a calendar, things are just sort of movements. Yeah. And the first one actually, is where you just spend time thinking about God's blessings on your life and incur in creation and just just being grateful, just realizing how much God has done for you and, and God's activity in this world and in nature, and in people and in history, and, and particularly in your life and your relationships, and just just being grateful for that, realizing God's action and present. And that's sort of preparation for the first week, right. And the first week is where it really starts getting right. Interesting, because the first week is kind
11:22 of so you were kind of talking about, like, preparation preparation before you even get to what is called, quote, unquote, first week, exactly.
11:30 There's weeks of preparation before, it gets really confusing. So
11:34 when you hear weeks with spirit drives, don't think normal weeks and also,
11:37 you know, the word Spiritual Exercises is kind of a, you know, anachronistic sort of thing to it's not like, you know, biblical yoga or right, you're
11:46 not actually like stretching. Exactly, exactly. Maybe we could do that. Maybe we could have our own like, I think spiritual exercise exercises
11:55 and yoga. In the park
11:56 or something, people come to the park, all wearing suit jackets.
12:00 Yeah. And maybe we can,
12:04 Hey, I'll put it in our idea. But
12:07 anyway, the first week, you ended up basically doing almost like a one at the first week, you're looking at all the goodness in God's creation and in your life. And then the next thing that you really need to get in touch of is your own sin. Yeah. And the ways that you fall short of God's glory and God's God's goodness in his, his, his his will for your life. And you spend a long time on that. Yeah. And then after that, on the second week, you just get into the life of Jesus. And so the second week is just basically immersing yourself in the gospels, and immersing yourself in the stories. Do you
12:47 think people on give they have, like an interest in the exercise, and maybe they get to that official first week, and it becomes this focus on sin? thing? A lot of people halt? They're like it? Well,
13:02 yeah, actually. Because if you're going to take it seriously, you have to take it serious, right? And the first time I ever did it, I didn't take that seriously. Yeah, I really didn't. But I decided, I'm going, I'm doing it now doing the Spiritual Exercises now. And so I figured, you know, I need to take it seriously. They don't do it. And so that means I actually have to take this sin in my life. And in my past, seriously, and honestly, taking it seriously. It got pretty brutal. It really did. But that's the point of it. Right? And then, of course, you know, once you just admit these things, and really confront these things, yeah. And not try to even take your memory around these things, or excuse these things, or, or I'm a different person now or something like that, then then, then you can go forward because it just aren't these roadblocks in your path. Yeah, there's not this unfinished business. It's really psychologically and spiritually brilliant. The way that Ignatius actually works this out. Yeah.
14:05 I think maybe sometimes we, in our current, like, kind of time, we don't maybe focus on her sin. Because we have we have maybe a little bit of a because we still talk about sin a lot in the church, evangelical church, all the other people so yeah, yes, yes, definitely other people outside of the church for sure. But we maybe kind of have like a little bit of a bad taste in her mouth from kind of Jonathan Edward. Right. Right. And so we we don't I kind of our messages now are more inspirational. Right. And I understand
14:39 that right.
14:41 And that was that was a good kind of transition from from Jonathan Edwards. And now he has something to add and offer but, but it was and so I think Yeah, for me, when I first was getting into it, I was like, oh, man, spend this much time on my sin. I want to, like look at God's love and His grace. Exactly. But I do think Yeah tilling the ground, though, right? It really you have to and you do have to seriously and it's not a it's not a such a warm is not for me. It's not I'm a terrible person, right? Hey, look at this in my life like yeah, like this is something that maybe I continually come back to consistently pops up, right. And, man, this is a time to let's let's deal with it and it brings you to a point of, you know, remorse and asking for repentance, because and that's kind of hard, you know? Right. you confront it. Yeah. But you have to actually really feel sorry. Right? And that's those are two different things. Yeah, it is. And there's so much in our life that we're like, yeah, I'm sorry, but right. Not sorry. Really. Right. And to spend more time contemplating it does not meant to bring you down? No. But it is meant to make you honest. Yeah. Make you honest.
15:53 And so the second official week is just getting into Christ's life. And it's very Christmas centric, and just immersing yourself in in in the stories really immersing yourself into the stories, the sounds, the smells, the colors, the
16:06 you're there. That's, that starts to make evangelicals a little scared.
16:12 But no, it is so important. It really is. I mean, we have to use your imagination, right? But it really makes it makes things come come alive. Yeah. And then week after that is Christ's passion. And you spend a long time basically, you know, yeah, on that. And then the final week is really, you know, Jesus's resurrection, and, um, what that means in your life and the new life, and then you start to, you know, there's been a lot of navel gazing, you know, in the last few weeks here with this, and your focus is out, out into the world go out. And it's really interesting, because that focus is even more in focus, because of all the stuff that you've had to do to get there. Hmm. You know, and right. It's, it's really powerful stuff. It really is. and stuff I was obviously never introduced to when I was growing up Baptist and stuff I was afraid of, it's like, if he's me know, what's this gonna do is this is great stuff. But honestly, it's nothing but Jesus stuff. That's all it is.
17:16 Yeah, when you really look at the weeks or guide, it is christocentric I'm writing to worry very much in and understanding maybe where we fit in and where sin and what takes us away from from being able to be like Christ. Be, I think to a lot of times when when you hear and you maybe listen to a podcast about his projects are just like, oh, man, I want to try it. And you see, maybe you Google it, or you try it. And, and sometimes, and I did this too now now with the exercises per se, because because you were a helpful guide for me on pointing me to, to write guides. But for me, it was kind of Book of Common Prayer, right? You know, I was like, oh, man,
18:01 this is one or the other ad, right?
18:03 And then and and then when you kind of grabbed the book comprare if you first get to it, you're like, this is kind of confusing, because it's not all it's not linear, per se. It's like, Oh, you check here for this read. And we're really big on the shirts
18:16 here is probably
18:16 Yeah, and so it was a big learning curve for me. So I and I end up finding a guide that helped me. And that's what I think is so important for for approaching these type of exercises is finding the right is the right
18:30 book. Actually, I actually went last last fall, I actually spent a weekend at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos, which is a beautiful thing on the hill up there. And it was just sort of an introduction to you know, this stuff, and it was a, it was like a firehose, pretty much right. But it really, it really helped me be able to approach at least the spiritual exercises, but you know, there's a whole lot more to, to ignatian spirituality than just the spiritual exercises. That's what he's known for. But there's some other stuff that's very, very powerful, and that a lot of people use, and one of them is the examine, and I know, mark that you have some experience with that. And so why don't you help us understand what that is? Yeah.
19:19 And it kind of is is something that Ignatius used within the exercises, right? It flows out into it without the the Yeah, you can do it on on your own. And really, it is just a it's a it's a way to approach prayer. It gives you some some steps. And and I think it's really important to kind of approach it that way of like, Okay, how cuz I think I've talked to a lot of students, man, and that camps in and we talk about prayer a lot in the in the church, but we often don't, and even when we define it, and there are great definitions of it. Hey, it's just a conversation. With God, I think sometimes then people have like, Okay, then what am I gonna say,
20:04 to talk about this conversation
20:06 about conversation with a person? Maybe I haven't met? Like, you'd be the same thing. Like, okay, I need to know.
20:13 So So should I start? Why is it called the examine? And what is it a conversation about Mark?
20:18 Yeah. And the examine is really about you're kind of examining the day, you're examining yourself and your experiences in the day. And and and it really is, I think it's, it's best used as that kind of a daily look. And, and so we can just kind of quickly go through the kind of the five steps. And again, just like the four weeks, there are entry and outro steps that aren't the actual steps. Right. But I, but it's hard.
20:51 I mean, I have to have my 10 minutes.
20:54 Exactly. Oh, darn. And this is something that yeah, that that is like, once you know, the steps, you could do it in 1015 minutes. It's, it's something that it could give you a guide right? To a rhythm of Yeah, once you get into rhythm of it. And and, and the first one is, and I'm actually using one of my the books that was a guide for me is called the examine prayer, ignition wisdom for our lives today by Timothy Gallagher. And, and he he kind of outlined it this way that was really helpful for me. So you kind of start with a with what he calls transition. transition from life to
21:38 your hairy to where you are
21:40 examining your day. And it's it's so important, because I often like within within church, right, we talk about quiet time, and it's like, yeah, you're busy, busy, busy, and then you sit down and it's like, okay, now I must pray. Right, right. I mean, it's like anything, you're busy at work, and then you pull into the driveway, and you're like, now I'm home right now this, you know, and, and so this transition is becoming aware of the love of God of which he looks at us with. So before I even go into this prayer, before we go into looking at my day, I'm just gonna recognize, hey, God loves me the loving gaze of your life, I'm gonna recognize that and help that transition me into this prayer. And step one is very, very similar to the pre weeks of, of the exercises, in the sense that it is gratitude. It's looking at your day, and noting what God has done for you that day. Right. And that's just so
22:37 important. I am about 10 years old, gosh, I've been doing this now for longer than 10 years, probably about 15 years. I just got convinced one day that I was just a really cynical person. Because, you know, our spiritual gifts should get to us and and, and I did not like that person that was cynical all the time. And so I started keeping a gratitude diary. And I've done it now for about 15 years. And I have all these volumes. Yeah, that's I've kept and you look back on it. And you know, I just picked one thing at least every day that I'm grateful for. And and it's amazing. It's just amazing. I don't you know, I'm
23:15 not helpful. Yeah. And that's such good advice to like, as you're examining your day, it doesn't have to be like okay, I woke up at 630 now in my write me up. He gave me bro like, but
23:25 yeah, let's not reading God, your diary, right
23:27 is looking at me and one or two things during the day, because often we don't take that time to just stop and say, Wow, what did God do for me today, man that was such that 15 minutes was such a blessing from God or the way God spoke to me through that conversation with a friend. And just being able to recognize that is is so important. So to start, which I which I feel like is a common theme with Ignatius it is this idea of gratitude of before doing anything, recognizing what God has done, right. And that's, it's such good. I mean, in my prayer life for most of life, it is, hey, God, you know, thank you for the day. And then I've got a list. I need you to help me here here. And to spend a good amount of time on looking at my day and be like, wow, look what God has done. Right?
24:23 It's amazing. When you do that.
24:26 Yeah. And then step two, you move to petition, you move to asking God, and again, it's not petition of like, Oh my god, I need a new car. It's it's petition of asking God for insight and strength. Within this prayer of examine, right, like God, as I'm, as I'm moving into this prayer, I want you to help me see right what you have what you've been trying to teach me today, right? What you What lessons I can learn from the events of the day? And so it's it's not, it's not the time to pull out your list yet, right? It's the time to actually ask God, hey, give me insight in this time of prayer actually makes it a conversation. It really does. It really does. And, and I think what's interesting about having five steps, actually, if you add the two transitions, seven steps, right? It makes this prayer long, longer and more robust than just a quick ham. It's now these are these are phases, right? These steps of, I've have gratitude, God give me now insight into what you want to show. And, and step three, really is that time of, of reviewing the day with God, right. Looking for times during the day when you had a stirring of your heart or thought of God?
25:56 Or the opposite, because right.
26:00 Exactly, yeah. And that's the, in those times when, man Yeah, we're where God was not. On your mind, he sort of uses terms that that
26:10 I certainly didn't grew up with things like desolation and consolation, right. But what he means by that is times where where, you know, there's something in the day that that you know, you're anxious about or, or was not helpful, or you were angry about or cynical about or whatever. It's, it's really trying to look at your day and see where those thoughts would lead if you followed them, right. And they always lead to less of a conscious relationship with God. And the constellation would be the opposite. These are things that would lead you more into God's presence. And Brian being able to tell the difference,
26:47 when it's funny with like language to write because we use constellation as like, you get the consolation prize, which is lesser exactly,
26:54 but yeah, for some consolation,
26:57 yeah. That is those those times when Wow, that was, that was maybe God speaking to me, right through a friend and what what would have happened if I would have took that for if I would have pushed a little more into that, right and less into that moment of desolation. Right, right, right. Because often we we get spiraled. And when we were view our day, we may review it and be like, oh, that person said this, and I'm so mad, and they don't realize I do this and that. And that's not this prayer, right? It's not that prayer is to, is to note that and say, Man, look how, how that sidetracked my whole day of what maybe God wanted me to do today.
27:38 And it's following that thought goes nowhere good. And, and part
27:41 of this too, right? Is is the recognition. Okay, that day is already over, right? And that's really kind of step four is forgiveness, right? The, the, hey, I look at my life and say, Yeah, I got I realized where I didn't follow you in these moments today. And so the the exercises and the PARCC exam, and it's, it's about the long game, right? Right. It's about recognizing, oh, and the next night recognizing man and so you can get into that habit of or that moment where man now during the day, if you sense it, you know, I need to action here and
28:18 both the exercises and the examine our, you know, you can modify them to what works for you. And actually almost any, you know, Ignatius spiritual director will say that, I mean, you don't have to follow this stuff slavish Lee, you just need to find what works in that for you. Yeah. And then stick with that, because right persons different, right.
28:39 It's so true. There's all of these Yeah, it's not a cookie cutter spirituality. It's not, they're not at all Yeah, that all of these ancient Christian practices are some that you can modify, and adjust. And then with step five of the examine prayer is, is labeled as renewal. And it is just, okay, I've asked God for forgiveness. And now this one is kind of like the week for is, okay, God, how do I then take this and live this out? And in in a concrete way, right? How can I concrete live what I'm learning right now? Next day? How can I love that? And? And how can that kind of loving desire, keep building? And then you transition out of that with the awareness that you're not going into the next day alone? Right? God will be with you. Right? And that's how you conclude
29:34 the exam, sort of like brother Lawrence, you just you just right, you're just aware of the presence of Yes, and with you, right, and everything you're doing right, and be very mindful that Yeah, I have actually a copy of the examine on my bedside table. But that's probably not the best place for it. Because if I do that too late at night, I never get to step five. Right? Right. Never do when I do that. And I'm actually not as adept. As you are. And in doing that, and with the examine, but sometimes I'll do it, you know, when I first get home from work, right? And so it's not the whole day, but it's 24 hours after. Yeah, I did it last and I'm just, you know, not not falling asleep.
30:16 And that that really is the key is I think, and this is for any of the ancient practices or any any spiritual discipline that you've finding the right time, right in your rhythm, Mike, because you might see someone else and they get up at five every morning and you're just like, oh, they're so spiritual. And you're like, I could never do that. And it's, that's okay. Like that. Five might not be your time. Exact like, midnight might be your time. And that person could never do midnight. Like I could never start. Yeah, I couldn't start the examine at 930. I'd be out. I've already been asleep by 930. So, so but it's finding that time and then, and then making that time, right, and just sticking with it. Yeah. And and again, even if it's not, even if it's not every night, right, right. But even can you think like how your life would be different? Even if once a week? You took a half hour in and followed these steps and say, Wow, what has got down in my information? Even once a week? Right? Yeah, it would. And I think it would cause that hunger to to do it more. Right. Right. And because really what this is, is an unintentional stop in your day in your life, to reflect on what God is doing. Right? What he has been doing, and maybe you've just missed, but now taking this moment, you can say, oh, man, I totally want for you to Yeah, future and you set yourself up to be able to see that you're aware of it and be mindful. what's what's interesting for me, like kind of my life phase, I see it so much. When I do this, I can look back and see. Oh, man, that moment with my son, I could have. I could push more there, right. I could have like I was I was busy. I had stuff I had to do. But then you'll have those
32:05 moments in the future. Yeah, yeah. And that'll be aware of Right, exactly. Right.
32:09 That moment with my wife, man, I could have I, I went this way. And I could have gone the other way. But that's Yeah, that's prep for the next day. And knowing that, and those are moments that that got to speaking so. So for me, I just want to kind of as we wrap up, because we're going to be we still have a part three that will come in and we're excited to have Matt Gosh, all right. Professor of New Testament and theology. He's been on the show. He's a friend of the show, right? He's going to be finally
32:37 get an expert in on it.
32:38 Yeah, exactly. He's gonna come we're gonna hear from him kind of what practices and we're definitely going to be looking at more prayer elements as well. Maybe some contemplative prayer. Really, the examine prayer is a good way to understand what contemplative prayer can be right. Right. And, and it's prayer and this this more robust fashion than just Hey, God, thanks for the day. These are things I need, right, you know, helped me to have a good night's sleep.
33:05 That's wrong to me that stuff
33:06 again, right? Again, praying and deeper and wider than Yeah, it is. And and, and so I just want to kind of review for for the listeners as we end kind of the guides, the book guides that we've used so for me, the book was the examine prayer and nation wisdom for our lives today by Timothy Gallagher. And then for the nation extra as I know, you found one right
33:30 finally on what really works for me and honestly, there are hundreds of books on the spiritual exercises on the examine on other things. So it's a matter of just finding the one that speaks speaks with you, but I finally found one called the Ignatius adventure, if it has adventure, and it captures me but experiencing the spiritual exercises of Ignatius in daily life, and it's by Kevin O'Brien and is really, really well done. And in bite sized pieces, and in contemporary language. Yeah. I found that really helpful. Certainly more helpful to some of the books I had when I tried it before, right. I just got all caught up in you know, yeah, language that just I didn't read it anyway.
34:18 And that's, I think that's helpful advice. Right? If we if you're interested in you get into something and is not jelling. Look for another source Samantha's time I think we try to force we're trying to force through it, because we think we should now he did it. Yeah. And it's, I think one thing with the practices is that there's so much in so many options. Exactly. I think our purpose with this show is just to show you two examples,
34:42 right? From one person. Scores more
34:46 Yeah, there's so many but these are and so if you've never tried any, maybe try these and then see what happens. And they may they may,
34:53 they're not mutually exclusive, either. I mean, you can you know, you can be informed by ignorance. Spirituality and still, you know, read, you know, whatever contemporary evangelical author you want to. Yeah, exactly. They're not mutually exclusive.
35:10 And so I think our hope with with this kind of three part series is just that we would perk your interest. If you haven't gotten into these practices are disciplines, you would choose one to try
35:21 to demystify Yeah, right. Right. And I don't know, growing up, you know, Baptist, and anything, you know, that comes from a Catholic tradition was just off limits. And so right, you know, you have to sort of get over that hurdle to when you find out this stuff, just all about Jesus. Yeah. All about all it is is all about Jesus, then, then it's like, why didn't somebody tell me about that a long time ago?
35:45 Exactly. Yeah. So that I have purposes to tell you about it now. Exactly. Now, you know, now, you know, and the more you know, we can get maybe we get credits are on them. But thanks for your insight. And thanks for. I mean, just for me, personally, you've really impacted the way I view the exercises and how they can fit. And I'm excited to jump in to the exercise and
36:08 maybe I need to be more disciplined with the exam and you're
36:11 there we go. All right. Perfect. All right. Well, thanks for Joe looking for part three. Right. Yeah. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
36:45 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex begin a three part series on ancient Christian practices by discussing how the great disciplines of the Church have played a pivotal role in both of their spiritual lives.
TRANSCRIPT 0:08 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore
0:10 and your co host Rex Gurney.
0:12 That's right. And today, it's just you and I, Rex? Yeah.
0:14 It's the first time in a while.
0:16 It's good. It's good. We can just have a conversation. Yeah, yeah. And we're actually doing something a little bit different. We're doing a three part series, right? It'll be part one of a three part series on ancient Christian practices, right. And today, we'll
0:30 basically be talking about how these practices have sort of import, you know, impacted our own spiritual life and our own devotional practices and kind of the learning curve that we had to have in order to start incorporating some of this stuff into our lives. And yeah,
0:47 yeah. And then with the next couple of episodes, we're going to then dive into some brackets, right? Yeah. Right, give you some more kind of details of those practices, if you want to try to add them to your own spiritual life as well. Exactly. So we're going to be looking at the ignition exercises, his prayer of examine
1:06 contemplative prayer, look at spiritual retreats, and when and where you can go on them and how accessible they are even Yeah, if we if we're not cognizant of that right now.
1:17 Exactly. Yeah. And, and hopefully, maybe to kind of demystify some of exactly,
1:23 exactly,
1:24 exactly, that they can either be held with like, oh, only the spiritual giants.
1:30 And and that's actually really appropriate, because we have one spiritual giant here. And Mark Moore. That's right, like an expert in these practice sizes. And I've had a really steep learning curve. And so maybe some of you will be able to identify with the struggles that I've had Mark has to go right. Yeah,
1:45 I will play the role of the spiritual giant here, I'll take it, I'll be fine. That's fair, it might actually be the opposite of latency. But in my own kind of faith journey. By the time I was a junior in college, I was just really like, honestly, just tired of being a Christian. I grew up in a wonderful Christian home. And I went to Christian Schools my whole life. So I went to the same private Christian school from preschool till High School and apparently watched some Christian TV
2:19 along Yeah.
2:21 Yeah, we had some steady stream of Christian television happening in our in our house in rural Indiana. It was the only thing that really came in on and, and with that, you know, and then I went to a Christian College, very similar to William Jessup University, similar size, similar focus. And by the time you know, as I was, you know, 20 years old, I was in Bible classes. I knew the right answers. I could easily affirm that the core doctrines I wasn't I wasn't having a crisis of faith in that sense. You weren't feeling it, but yeah, no, just wasn't feeling it. And, and I realized it was actually on a cold Midwest afternoon. Oh, wow. There's
3:08 actually a weather component. Yes, story. Oh, my God, it's always
3:11 cold.
3:13 Music, we could Cue the music right now. Perfect, okay.
3:16 And it would have to be like some type of 90s. Some sad, Alanis Morissette are happening in the background. And, and I was in an off marine on an off campus apartment living with some guys and I, I just remember, kind of in the quiet of my room, just just kind of asking myself like, Okay, what am I doing? I call myself a Christian. I have this great Christian heritage. But there's nothing in my life right now, that makes my life any different. Right? than someone who's not a Christian, right? There's, there's nothing that structures my life around my faith. My faith was always just kind of like an add on. And then you had real life, right? You kind of had spiritual life. And then real life, and, and there wasn't that many practices. Now we have and we were going to talk about this, you know, you kind of have the classic maybe evangelical
4:11 rasa plan right? Time. Exactly. Which is a really interesting phrase, because we aren't really quiet during that time.
4:19 Yeah. It doesn't necessarily have to be. Exactly. And, you know, I had that And with that, I guess I never and this is I do a lot of youth camps still. And that's a big question. You know, students have and I had the same question is like, Okay, well, what do I do during that, you know, and, and, you know, you try to read and maybe at a camp, you make that commitment. I'm going to read my Bible right here, right? And you get to Leviticus and
4:49 you get off
4:50 the mountain and you know, right there you go. And it tails off and, and so I was really I think at that moment in my life looking for some some structure Sure, and also looking for some, some history, right some time tested practices, that that wasn't just like the the new devotional that everyone is doing. Because those, those ones usually never would hit me. And it was kind of in that that moment that I realized I wanted more out of my spiritual life.
5:23 Unfortunately, there's a lot of things that we just sort of weren't aware of when we were growing right, at least growing up Baptists, I certainly wasn't.
5:30 Yeah. And and it was, it was kind of in that moment that I was I was introduced to the spiritual disciplines, okay, introduced to these practices that could could add structure, you know, right. And, and started to and so as we get into one of the big ones for me was was daily, the daily office or daily liturgical prayer,
5:56 right. structuring your day.
5:58 Yeah. And it helped structure my prayer times as well. And I think so often, and I talked to so many students, you know, they're like, okay, I come in, I sat down, and I want to do something, but then I'm like, What do I do? You know, and maybe I'll read a verse, and sometimes the verse hitches, sometimes it doesn't, right? And, and I think that's what happens maybe more times than not like you, you start to do something, it doesn't always feel maybe like what you wanted it to. And then it just that habit kind of tapers off, right. And we'll at the end here, we want to give some advice on Hey, how can we start? Right? But what was your kind of
6:40 Yeah, my pilgrimage, sort of is, is I guess, a little bit different, because I didn't sort of I mean, I grew up in, I guess, our version of a Christian bubble, but I did not go to Christian Schools. And
6:54 we won't hold that against you how
6:56 I think I would do it like I did, it again, actually, really helped when I was going to seminary, because it's like, you know, when I was there, it's like, in my Bible classes and stuff is like, I don't already know all this stuff. So I guess I'll pay attention and learn something. And there you go. All right,
7:09 yeah, you were the one,
7:11 the one student 30 that was paying attention, right. But it was really fun. I was at the University of New Mexico, and, you know, a state school and involved in a Christian student organization there. And the director, who I actually did not get along with, personally, it was his sort of strange thing. So for whatever reason, I ended up being elected President of that group, right? My senior year. And so I think he felt the moral obligation to try to, like, you know, have these monthly lunches with me or something. And I remember just sitting across a table at a restaurant, and we'd be there for like, a half an hour, and neither one of us would say a word because we had nothing in common and nothing to talk to each other about. But one thing that he really did emphasize was the concept of spiritual discipline. And I'm really glad that he did. And later on in my life, when I was sort of searching for something that would that would just, you know, help me on my day to day walk with with Christ, I sort of remembered that I don't remember much about what he said about it, but I remember him just, you know, emphasizing the fact that it was really, really important. And so um, and, you know, the quiet time, of course, was the thing that, right, yeah. And I remember, you know, I mean, I kind of always did it, right. But it's sort of dutiful. And, and right, you know, rote routine, but I always kind of start my day with it, you know, and I guess we were encouraged to like, go five minutes, or, you know, if you're really spiritual 15 minutes, yeah. And, you know, it was I'm glad I kept that discipline. But it wasn't till later in my life, that those spiritual disciplines became not just something you do, as a as a religious duty or something, or, you know, I do it because a good Christian is supposed to do it, but they became something I needed. Like, I really needed that, like I needed oxygen to breathe, and it took years to, to come to that point, right. And I'm really glad that I at least knew where to look when that time came. And so, you know, at this time, not because I'm anything, because I definitely am not an spiritual exemplar in any way. But I guess my quiet time now is about an hour every morning, but it's like, if I don't do it, I don't even know how it can make it through the day. And that definitely was not what things were like, for most of my life. Right? And how are you going to fill up an hour unless you have some of these historical Christian disciplines? Because honestly, exactly. And so that's really helped that knowledge of that. And of course, I'm a church history guy, right. And so just in my study of church history, I obviously kind of came across these practices. And so that's what kind of introduced me to them. Just my study of church history. There's there's a Rich vein of resources that are just as important today, as they were, you know, hundreds of years ago when when this stuff was new and.
10:10 Right. And there has been a shift. I feel like within the evangelical community there
10:15 has been
10:16 there has hordes, you know, and so probably many of our listeners have I have a familiarity with a lot of the practices, right, that right. And that's been a really good thing.
10:25 I think so too.
10:26 I think so. And Dallas Willard has a quote that I use a lot in class to the disciplines, yeah. disciplines. And he says this, and it, you know, I caught this after I was already into the disciplines, but I feel like this was so true of my experience. He says there's much Magical Thinking going on in evangelicalism that if we just hear good teaching long enough, and believe it, it will transform us. And that's
10:54 sort of the rational kind of rationalism that we've inherited from some parts of the Protestant Reformation. Right. And getting it from your head to your heart. Yeah, really? Is that really important?
11:05 If we just hear and so that focus has been the teaching time on Sunday morning, right. And, and that, and it didn't always play out into right practices, you know, but it's like, how do I go from Sunday morning? And what I hear even again, a good sermon, right? A good sermon on maybe patience, right? Or a good sermon on how to control anger. How do I go from that sermon? Right, exactly. Practicing. Right. Right. And and for for Willard, right. That's where the disciplines come in.
11:37 Another, I guess, really influential person in introducing the evangelical world to spiritual disciplines was Richard Foster. I remember when his stuff first came out, celebration of celebration, every chapter pretty much has a link into something that that I mean, this is not something that he just thought up himself. Obviously, I have links in to, to Christian history. And so yeah, this is stuff people have been doing for a long time. Maybe we ought to pay attention to it.
12:05 Exactly. And his so celebration of discipline, Richard Foster, first edition came out in 1978.
12:13 Yeah, well, there you go. I mean, college heroes born Oh, wow. Oh, my gosh, before I graduated from college, if you guys don't know this, like, you know, we're intergenerational.
12:25 diverse, that's what we're into. And, and but yeah, and that was, and when he was doing research for that, he noted that there was in his research from, he said, from like, 18. I don't know the exact I have to look it up. But it was like, late 1800s to 1950. There wasn't one evangelical Protestant book. Well, no,
12:51 I did not know that.
12:52 Yeah, like in his research that it was just, it was just something that didn't or wasn't talked about. So he really, I mean, he really in this movement within the Evangelical Church, yeah, Richard Foster, and then Dallas Willard, along with him, have been those pioneers of bringing it back. And I think we are at a good place. Now.
13:12 I think we're in a better place. 40 years from that release,
13:16 right? Again, giving
13:18 my age, I actually haven't thought about this for a while. But I remember the same student organization that was involved with in college, we were going to be like fasting for missions or something we were supposed to, but nobody had any clue as to really what that was all about. And so I just assumed that, you know, I would I like not eat all day once because I was just supposed to, because of course, we're fasting, right? So I just was not eating. And I remember, oh, gosh, about three o'clock in the afternoon. And I was working all day. And I was just getting hungry and hungry and hungry. And I decided, well, what the heck, I have no idea really why I'm doing this. So I went out and I bought, you know, two hamburgers and Wolf them down. Yeah, I felt guilty for about a half an hour. Yeah. And then figured out that I actually have no concept of still what the spiritual discipline is supposed to be, is really exactly pointed towards, and the purpose and this is pre Richard foster by a couple of years. Right. There you go.
14:11 Yeah. Yeah. Now, that book really did start helping people it did, and bridge that gap, too. And you're not made a couple jokes to each other personally, like bridging that gap between what had been maybe considered part of the Catholic tradition right into the Protestant evangelical tradition?
14:29 Well, you know, historically, if any of this stuff in spiritual disciplines is more than like, 500 years old, I mean, I don't know where else it was supposed to come from. This stuff has been around for a long, long time. And yeah, some of us are just like, you know, discovering it now, which is interesting.
14:49 Yeah. Yeah. And for me, like the, the idea of then adding disciplines so so getting and I'm excited for our next episodes, right to really dive in. Because I think you'll, our listeners will be very intrigued and be like, I wanna I want to try that. And then we'll just kind of get more specific on where this stuff comes from, involves in more detail and but I think the just in general that idea of having a rhythm or discipline to your life I mean this is in all areas of our lives. But specifically in the spiritual life that in Paul gives us a Paul uses three metaphors that I that I use a lot in the class as well. From his his second letter to Timothy, he uses the metaphor of an athlete, a soldier, and a farmer. And when you really look at all three of those, like you don't, there's discipline involved and you don't accidentally become a good farmer, right? Without discipline. And actually farming is probably the one where least, you know, associated with now and depending on it, but there
15:56 are it's like rhythms to the season. Yes, there's rhythms to the church here. There's rhythms to our own spiritual life. And I and
16:03 I actually was, you know, kind of had the I called it a privilege of growing up in rural Indiana and my grandpa was a fourth generation farmer had his own little known fact, James Dean was born the same and we have a billboard that says where cool was born. So they say I was born where cool was born. Wow,
16:23 wow, wow, that's better than living in cool.
16:27 Much better than living in cool. And, but I was able to watch him, he had his own, you know, his own farm is like, hundreds of bankers, but it still be very small farm. And we're not talking about
16:40 James Dean, we're talking.
16:42 My grandfather, okay. And there was no employer no one telling them when to wake up, no one telling them when to plant things, no one telling them when to service or maintenance, his tractors that were all from the 60s and 50s. And every day, he woke up with a son and he worked in in the winter, when you're not out farming, he was working on his equipment. And he was and so it was just amazing to see that rhythm and disciplined life. And in the afternoons, he would come in and take a nap on his chair, and then he would go back out and work till sundown. And and it was just it for me then seeing Paul use that metaphor. Now he's speaking to probably primarily agrarian society, or they'd made shifting into bigger cities. But they would have known Yeah, like it takes work and dedication and intentionality. Right now, for me intentionality was, was, I think, the big word in college that I was like,
17:41 and I think that's a real key to the spiritual disciplines today, in our lives. I mean, it's not something that for many of us comes really naturally, you really need to train yourself into these rhythms, just like an athlete will train himself right or herself. Yeah, to be successful.
17:55 Yeah. And that that's really what the practice is trying to practice is that training to develop a habit, right, to develop a habit of the heart. And my, one of my kind of spiritual mentors down at Biola. JOHN CO, he's the head of the spiritual mission Institute. And he often defined spiritual disciplines that way, he defined them as, as a as a practice of the that you can do, right? Which is like you can fast you can set aside time to pray Exactly. You can do those things with with the spirit, right, in cooperation with the Spirit, in order to develop a habit of the heart to be able to do things you can't do, right. And those
18:45 habits can actually carry you on during the times when you you really, really need them. Right. I mean, right? There was a point in my life where, you know, the spiritual practices sort of transformed from just something I did, because, you know, literally, I was a professional Christian I was churches. There you go, right. Yeah. So you have to do these things, to, to a point to where there was a time in my life where I really, you know, just depended on on those disciplines to to get me through the day, actually. And what I found out is those disciplines were there. I knew where to turn, I knew what to do, because I had been doing it so long. But it was sort of a realization to understand what exactly they were for. Right? And right, that I think I needed and they were there.
19:36 Yeah, right. That is the key of understanding what they're for. It's not just so you check it off the list, right? Yep. I'm a Christian. I had my quiet time, right, moving on with the rest of my life. Right, right. But it is, man. If you develop that habit. Then you get in a scenario that tests your patients. Right, you've now you've now learned a little bit of how Your body and impulses work and and that may be that first impulse isn't going to be anger now it's it's it's that has been a again all this is within the power of the Spirit right and in cooperation with the spirit. What is yeah I think I think once we get past the obligation of a disciplined life within the within the spiritual life once you realize now this is the benefit and what it's actually for exactly. And that's when it becomes like yeah
20:30 is really powerful. Yes. Yeah,
20:34 I think it would be actually the one the one thing is I have another quote from Henry now and and then and then I have a three point sermon
20:42 where I need to be preached that today I'm on now I know his
20:45 appeal to your Baptist background. You will never turn down a sermon.
20:49 Yeah. Let's see some fish belly down on the teeth.
20:52 right we got if we had a puppet in here,
20:55 up all up be a thumping, right? That's
20:56 right, I would. Before we get to that Henry now in, in in one of his books is actually a posthumous book that was that was published, called here now. He was he talking about a time. And this would have been like in the probably the mid 80s. He was in Calcutta working with Mother Teresa. And he had got a chance to go there for an extended period of time, and to learn from Mother Teresa. And he asked her, you know, he was gonna ask her like, Hey, what's the key to the spiritual life? What's the key? And? And her answer is, is is really amazing and simple. Her answer was spend one hour a day, adoring your Lord, and never do anything which you know, is wrong.
21:43 And that kept her going for decades and decades and decades, because it fascinating after she died, they found, you know, letters that she had written to her spiritual advisors in just about the, you know, years long, dry times in her life, but you would have never known it behind industry. And I know it was this the spiritual practices that kept her going even when she didn't feel it. Yeah. And, you know, the rest, as they say, is history. Right? It really is. And it was interesting, you know, now in for me as one of those spiritual giants I look to, especially for the disciplines as well. And he just remembered as you know, as as a young pastor, hearing that. And at first he wanted, like, more like he was like, oh, and then as he thought about a hit just resume, you know, I
22:28 just like, yeah, if I really set aside an hour, it's obviously going to spill into all of my life, right? It's going to be a part, right?
22:37 You don't do it for this reason. But it actually is true that the longer you spend in what some people would think is unproductive time, like at the beginning of the day doing your your spiritual disciplines, right. Actually, the more productive you are, yeah. Right. The rest of the day. It's it's totally true. There's there's almost, there's a direct relationship there. It's not why you do
22:59 it. Right. It's true. But yeah, it It definitely organizes your day and sets up your day. And there are, there are Yeah, there are practical benefits. Exactly. But I think we can highlight that, again, it's not why are you doing, but they are and they're even health benefits that come. That's true, that come from mental and physical high. Right. And I think that it's important to note those.
23:25 So Mark, I know that you know, we are going to be talking sort of historically and more in detail with sales practices in the next couple of podcasts. But I'm interested in in what practices you practice now that have been helpful. Just, you know, that,
23:42 yeah, well, the the, and then I can share mine be the dedicated time and actually, I kind of I've been trying to space it out. But time in the morning at least 30 minutes. That is a mix of kind of spiritual reading, and contemplative prayer. So prayer, and we're going to we're going to spend an episode talking about because contemplative prayer can kind of sound like Whoa, what's going on? Right? I
24:10 know, especially if it's like you say contemplation or meditation growing up Baptists, I was like, yeah, so what Buddhists do as well, we don't do that. We don't do that. And,
24:21 and really, it's it's this extended time where you're focusing, you might focus in on a phrase, you might focus in on a verse,
24:29 you might like to Divina,
24:31 you might, you might focus on one of one of the ancient prayers like the Jesus prayer, and you might focus on that, and allow it to in what's interesting is in the midst of that, and Whoa, I don't want to get into any details, because we'll get there but that your mind is going to go a million different places.
24:49 You know,
24:50 that's part of it. I mean, it's part of it is recognizing, Whoa, look at all of this stuff in my brain, right? And I've always
24:57 struggled with that actually. It's continued Because I have, you know, I have a monkey mind, I'm always leaping to the next tree for the next banana. And you know, taking my half eaten banana and tossing it always been that way. And and I remember, a pastor I had years ago was really into contemplative prayer, right. And so he was always trying to get us to do it. And he was offering these little helpful hints as to, you know, how to be able to sit in silence so that you can actually hear the voice of God because we have to sort of silence these other voices to be frank, we can God speak, it's so true. It's the exact opposite of, I guess, some Eastern meditation practices, which is to basically, you know, you get a void or you're empty or empty yourself, this is to empty yourself, but so that you're you can be filled with God's word as a very different thing. very dumb, but I remember he was giving us all these little helpful hints, like, you know, imagine you're on the bank of a river. And every time that, you know, this thought comes in, you know, just place it in the boat and let it just go down the river. And and I've tried that, and it's worked for maybe 30 seconds, right? Yeah. And I'm jumping in the boat. And yeah, and going down the river. But I'm interested to see how Yeah, have you been able to do this? Because I, I've been a failure, I contemplative prayer, at least in that way.
26:14 I know. And it is, yeah, it can be in what's great. And one thing that I think that we'll we'll find out through this series is that there's so many yeses, so it's not, I think, sometimes you can listen, to even listen to this and be like, Oh, I need to do that practice. And it's like, you find one
26:31 more God uses to impact your life and right doesn't
26:33 there's so many. And that's, that's kind of one of my, my advices for people who are starting to, like, explore the variety, right? Like, if if you and that's the one thing that I think that has been the problem within the evangelical community is we just have quiet time. Right? And if quiet time doesn't, doesn't hit you. That's all we got.
26:52 Except for gotta hear another sermon.
26:54 Yeah, exactly. That's right. And so man, exploring those practices, I would say, fasting has been another one that I've been trying to try to weave into my life and try to understand what what does this mean spiritually? What, what is this right type of practice?
27:11 Right, I think I'm understanding a little bit better. I actually try to practice fast on Wednesdays. Yeah. I'm not really successful at it that much. It just happens to be that that's the day everybody's like brain round donuts or Yeah. Or lunch or something here is, like, no free face. Like I know, I'm fasting. Yeah, that just sounds so spiritually arrogant. You can't say, the spiritual character. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. But um, what
27:36 are some practices? Well, I
27:39 actually the practice of retreat. Now, it's not something I do every day. But this is something we can talk about more, you know, maybe in the next episodes, but for the past, gosh, 15 years, maybe even longer than that. Most of my Christmas presents for my wife has been, you know, making the arrangements for me to go on a spiritual retreat for a week or so. Right. It's great. And maybe she's trying to get me out of the house. Maybe there's that but but still, it's a it's an act. It's an act of love. I know that. But you know, and for us Protestants, that can be sort of an issue. Do I just, you know, go to a I don't know, a cheap motel somewhere by a beach. And is that what I'm supposed to do? or whatever, because we just don't alone with God, we right. We don't have those spaces. But, you know, Catholics do. Right. And a lot of folks don't understand that. You don't have to be a Catholic to go to a Catholic monastery, right and spend a week in their guest house. Yeah, don't have to be sort of open to everybody. Right. And most of them feel that it's a ministry of the of the monastery the retreat house. So um, I actually started going to a a Trappist monastery called Holy Cross Abbey, it was right on the banks of the Shenandoah River. This is when we were living in Virginia. And, you know, I know it's just sounds so like cliche or Baptist to say this, but I got some of the best praying I've ever done in my life there. It just, you know, and I've carried out the practice here in California, because there's a number of places that are actually close to where we are right now. Yeah, that you can do this. I was actually one of them three weeks ago.
29:16 That's great. Yeah. Yeah, that is such a good practice. And and there's something too about those spaces, right, that are dedicated and sacred. They're set apart. And in some sense, I know holy, because they're set apart is what the that's what the word mean. And it does it. It changes your experience and the way you and that, and I was actually just reading during this Lenten season, I was reading a small snippet from Desmond Tutu. And he noted he tried to do a weekend retreat every month, once a month, and then a week every year,
29:50 and that was one of his rhythms. And speaking of Lenten season, there are some, you know, advantages to following the church calendar actually, that aren't just congregational Personal. Right. Right. And you know, the New Year doesn't start in January the first it starts the first Sunday of Advent. And so if you just sort of get into an avid discipline, or a Lenten discipline, and I think both of us are trying to do that now that it's not just giving up something it's it's, it's it's taking on cycling on. Right, exactly. And that at least is a time of year where, you know, you're least reminded of the importance of these disciplines and practices.
30:28 Well, hey, I'm I mean, if anything, this conversation has got me excited for the next couple episodes. Right. So we'll start digging deeper and dad's right, definitely be sure to tune back in, we're going to be looking at some ignition practices right in the next episode, and I think that that you'll be intrigued enough to try them.
30:44 I'm actually going through the Spiritual Exercises right now. And so maybe Tune in next time to find out what those are and how I've really been impacted by it.
30:54 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
31:20 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Professor of Christian Thought Brad Swope joins Rex and Mark to explore violence as entertainment. Does the Christian faith influence the way we consume violent sports, violent video games, or violence in television or film?
TRANSCRIPT 0:00 Welcome to Jessup Think, Jessup's official podcast. That's right. And this is your co host Rex Gurney.
0:07 And I'm Mark Moore.
0:08 I think you'll find today's topic. Fascinating.
0:10 Yeah. Today on the show we have one of our professors here Brad Swope, he's also a pastor, he's
0:16 actually my pastor. Oh,
0:17 there we go having your pastor on exactly. Really watch what I say, exactly, you have to be on your best behavior. Exactly. And he's going to be talking about the topic of violence as entertainment, and how we consume violence. And especially within the church, we've we've done a good job within the church of not consuming sexually graphic content. But violence has been another conversation, violence in our movies and TVs violence in our sport, or a conversation
0:47 that actually hasn't happened. And it's a conversation that we really need to have.
0:51 It really is. And so we hope you enjoy this episode, and I think it will be thought provoking. And you might might even be a little upset sometime. Okay, that's good.
1:06 Well, Brad, we have you on the show today, because we want to kind of talk about the research that you've been doing. Recently, research in your doctoral studies on kind of the effect of violence as entertainment, and especially within the church, maybe churches, consumption of violence, as well as our culture. And you kind of know, our culture's love for violence. And that has bled into the church a little bit, you kind of noted as an evangelical blind spot. So would you mind kind of as we begin here, just maybe summarizing your kind of research points and, and maybe particularly how it has an effect on the church.
1:48 Yeah, near the end of your doctorate, you're going to have to pick a focus area, and I'm in a coffee shop. My final for my final project, and I'm listening to two pastoral interns from a local church, talk with great joy about this MMA fight that they had just watched, and the vicarious thrill in the blood in the and at the same time, I'm reading primary sources about the early churches response to gladiatorial contests. And so I'm thinking, how is it that were the Christians had such a strong voice to end a form of violence? Now? If Of course, it doesn't end in killing, here is a Christian community that supports it now. And then you just blow it up and you think, Well, I know of churches that use MMA fights to support their men's ministry.
2:39 Then there's actually a documentary called fighters fight church, Pastor versus pastor Well,
2:45 there's also be good at that.
2:49 There are churches that set up outreach programs to youth that set up essentially MMA training. Right, right for kids. And so it just made made me think about the question, how is it that what was something we were so against and actually help stem the tide? The early church? We have no voice. There are the Christian Avondale community has a loud voice on lots of issues. But this is one that we have absolutely no voice in. In fact, what I found is just by asking the question, should we consume this? Typically, the pushback, especially for men was what are you a pacifist? Right?
3:24 What are you a weakling? Right? They didn't say that to my face, because I need that.
3:29 But obviously, I wouldn't, but you're violent, exactly. But let me teach you how non violent I am by beating you up. Now. The idea is, it's almost like, you're less of a man by just asking the question, should we be consuming this as a product of entertainment?
3:45 Right, which is a problem I mean, within the church to to stop that conversation before it even begins? We just say, Hey, I'm just asking him a question. Should we you know, what is our because the violence is there in our culture is not within the church. And then the question is, hey, we're a part of this culture.
4:06 Well, this is why I call it a blind spot. It's it's almost a taboo topic, actually. It is. And it's, it's an area that is we are not reflective on. Like, the whole purpose of my teaching. Ministry is almost never to tell people what to do. It's to get them to engage in their own life, kind of following that Colossians idea, whether in order D do it on the name of Christ. So even your entertainment choices, somehow should be a product or a reflective product of my value system that comes from my Christianity, it should inform even that activity. So now, what do I What am I not reading even in the scriptures that make me not take seriously this? What am I not seeing? So we all have filters when we read write the scriptures, right? There's things that we so obviously we we are blinded to are even asking the question, is this a healthy activity? Is this a Christian activity? Should we have a counter voice on this part of our culture, not that not not to the condemn and run away to the hills, but more like, let's, let's be a part of a healthy conversation.
5:11 Yeah. And just get to see, hey, how has this been affecting us and how within our culture has it been affecting our culture.
5:19 One thing I just sort of, in kind of looking back at my seminary, seminary training, I remember a book that I read, gosh, 35 years ago now by Kraybill, I forget his first name. It's called the upside down kingdom. And we actually have a copy of it in our library. And I actually checked it out, just to kind of reread it for nostalgia sake. And so I started looking at it, it's like, I need to reread this for my own sake right now. But if we as Christians are to be countercultural, I think we really need to reflect on sort of the the myth of violence in American society, you know, sort of cowboy is iconic, right, you know, image of the of the, you know, rugged American. And instead of instead of, you know, responding in a culture count, counter cultural way, we tend to just take our cues from culture, and I think one of the keys in our culture is violence.
6:13 Well, you could say that we have and Joe coils have taken fairly strong positions on graphic material in terms of sexuality.
6:21 Yeah, we have
6:22 down to the point I was thinking right, strong positions on life with it. So it's, it's not, that we're unthinking and it just this one area is largely not reflected in our literature. It's not. So when I reflected on the question in my entire 50 year journey, I couldn't reflect one professor or pastor who had ever asked me to think about it. Now, I've been in the church my whole life. So it's how is it that because you're never you're not a Mennonite? Right? Well, I mean, that's, that's the body of Christ, right? There are parts of the body of Christ, this would be present to them. This isn't present to us, it's not a pressing concern. So this led me in my my project to look at three areas largely violence in our movies and television violence in our video games and violence in our sport. And each one I tried to unpack what attracts us to it, what's the science behind it? What's the sociology behind it? And then then look at perhaps what's the what scripture Do we need to be reflecting on and meditating on? And then a proposed solution in terms of our lack of engagement on that issue?
7:32 And so would you find out? Yeah,
7:34 well,
7:36 first, let me just say, I always have to say on this conversation, we're talking about violence as entertainment. We're not talking about police or army, we're not talking about self defense, these, these are issues that need to be thought through, we are only talking about what we're putting before us as a form of entertainment. Because I'm not, I'm not actually advocating for pacifism, I'm advocating for us to think, should I be consuming this or not? I found that there were there just lots of, you'd have to say which of the three subjects you want to explore. I mean, there's been lots of conversation about violence in our media. What we know is that every generation is consuming more of it, and more and more violent acts, shooting guns. So it's, what if you go back to the 1970s, we're seeing so much more graphic violence in movies and television as normative, right? Not for shock value, right. So just the degree of what we're watching has a lot more in it. There's long term, there's debates as to what's the short term versus the long term, in just watching it passively. So this is one of those passive instruments. Video games is different because it it works with the brain differently. Because you're engaging, you're part of the storytelling or the when you're watching movies and television you're just receiving. So it's a passive receptive of kind of worldview and ideas and values, as what is normative. What we can't say is that, oh, because I watch these violent movies, I'm going to be more violent person. Right? We think that has a large effect on D sensitization to violence, perhaps effects via empathy. I, there's at least really interesting store of scientific study about people coming out of movies, there was a sociological test where they had people feign, needing help injury or something. The folks that went to non violent movies were almost twice as quick to respond than the folks who went to violent movies. So like in the short term, it seemed to affect people's ability to recognize real need and respond to it.
9:51 That is really interesting, because you'd almost think it would be the opposite, that if you just saw a violent movie, you might be like, I'm gonna go help. I'm gonna go right You,
10:00 but you're pounding on these images and an artist in some ways, taking them as less real. So, but I think probably the largest correlation that I would draw from the amount is actually fear. So I think it raises the level of fear in people's imaginations as to things that could threaten.
10:28 So like that could happen to them.
10:30 Yeah. So I, I wonder if if it, it makes the world a more fearful place, because you're seeing so much violence
10:38 implications all over the place, culturally, politically, to put
10:42 up their policy at all, literally, right? But if you think about, so this is a classic that we all kind of the old days, you'd let your kids go play outside and right, they'd be gone for 12 hours, and you call him back inside? That was my childhood, right? Nobody does that anymore. Why not? why we're so afraid of people perpetuating violence taking their kids? Well, statistically, it's less than it's ever been. Right? Yeah, the fear of it is greater than it's ever been. Yeah. Because now if we hear a story in Tennessee of an abduction, it gets to us, we would never heard that story before. Right. So now, if most of our entertainment has this violent content to it, you're thinking this is the world that we live in. So is it possible that raises levels of fear in people and their responses to how they're going to live? So security systems and right, so all the rest of this stuff, so it's pretty interesting and thoughtful way of thinking about it.
11:37 One that's interesting with fear and desensitization, because of how they would maybe play off of each other or not, you know, it's kind of like, being more desensitized to violence, but also others for others, right, but also then having a fear that this could happen and, and even in my own children's lives, so I have kind of two middle schoolers, and we live in Sacramento, and a little rougher part than most in Rocklin. And just just recently, there was we were going to church, my son was actually riding his bike behind me. And we, we passed to like at six houses over two police cars, and then like five more showed up, and that we're like, what's going on? And a person had just got shot. And, and it was interesting that it was like, it was like, wow, that's like seven houses, right? But even my children were kind of like, oh, but they weren't that afraid. Yeah. Like it was really interesting. It was like
12:42 this. It is interesting that we do we do I do a survey before I teach my Christian perspective class for the students. And one of the questions that you actually were the one that introduced this first this survey, but
12:53 it's a rural safe life.
12:54 Yeah. Is the world a safe place? And invariably, the vast majority say No, and I say to him, now, I want you to think about that. You are in one of the most the safest places on the face of the earth. Rocklin, California, right. Yeah. You think of the world as being an unsafe place. Right. So where does that come from? Because it wouldn't correlate to their experience necessarily, right. Yeah, they're not experiencing gallons. So where does that fear of violence or the fear of being in the world being unsafe come from? Well, it's perhaps a culture of fear. I mean, our news is built around fear, right? Our entertainments built around, exploring these topics, that kind of stuff, horror movies, the whole bet. So.
13:34 So just to kind of try to reel this in a little bit towards towards the church. You know, we mentioned earlier, I think that this is, I guess, an evangelical blind spot. And so why, why an evangelical blind spot? Why not a blind spot of you know, other Christian traditions or perhaps, you know, it's it's sort of everywhere outside of the Amish.
13:57 I would almost want to throw it back to the church historian here, the person who has more of a view of church history. I wouldn't call my
14:05 favorite on Constantine. Yeah, there you go. That's my answer right there. It's everything we got. What
14:11 I will say is that I went outside the Evan jellicle. tribe, to get some responses to this. And one of the most interesting was Walter wink. And he proposes in one of his seminal works, that what we're talking about is the myth of redemptive violence, then, in our storytelling. There is sewn into us deeply this this myth, what he calls a myth that violence is not necessarily a bad thing. It can actually bring peace. It can heal, it can restore. So you think well, how is that true? Well, I'll give you a couple quick examples. If you think about Karate Kid, right? This we raised on Karate Kid now, essentially, what what do we learn your ability to do violence to those who do violence to you actually He brings restoration to your identity. Right? Yeah, you are now prepared to be a real person and not a person that lives in fear. Or a more recent example is Suicide Squad I told you about, it was a really terrible movie, I made myself watch for this. But they have these rogue violent criminals, all these maximum security. And they're brought together to become one fighting force against this other evil. And as they do violence, they're healed because they finally find family, like this joint violent exercise. So if you just step back, and you think, yeah, so much of our story, I'll give you one other quick example, I think is really, it's it's less obvious, but the movie The Help, where the maid serves the person that she hates the pie, right, right. And you will just love it, you cheer for it, you're so glad that she got over my serving her human excrement in this pie. So you begin to you're prone to root for right all the ways that we can do violence. And it begins to be conditionally the actually the narrative that you operate your own life from. So for example, we learned that violence is of a very effective way of getting what we want. Let's say you're at a store, and you want to return something, but it's passed to write the receipt. Yeah. And you get the customer service person that quickly to the manager, and through face tone, body expression, you are actually exhibiting violence. I'm going to report you blah, blah, blah. And then they give you what you want, and everything goes down. Totally, totally, totally. Oh, you're calm down. Oh, I'm sorry for getting upset. It's just that and now you're now you're explaining it, but you just reinforced the violence works. Yeah.
16:43 I was actually told to do that this weekend. I know my wife's not gonna ever listen to this podcast. So I think I can I can actually mention that. But let's edit that out. Well, maybe not. Yeah. I'm supposed to yell at the at the cable people. Right. I was like,
16:57 Oh, yeah.
16:58 Actually threatened them and yell at, you get away, like
17:01 I come out of that conversation paying more.
17:05 Exactly, exactly. Well, wink
17:07 proposes a counter story, the story of Jesus, death and resurrection, as one who chose not to use violence, who, even Jesus with Pilate saying, Don't you understand I could do something different here, I'm choosing something different. If this is going to be the key Christian story that's supposed to color our imaginations for how we follow Jesus into the world, right. And if thou you examine the way he teaches in the sermon of the Mount, in terms of how it's a countercultural way of thinking about enemies, it's not found in his own tradition, he rises out of his own tradition to speak back to it and saying, You're justifying your treatment of these people in these ways. I'm going to I'm going to ask for something different. If this is our Rabbi, this is our teacher, and this is the method he used, and that we would say, change the entire world, ushering in the kingdom of God, why is it that we don't want that to be the story we live from? And that feeds our imaginations for how to be Christian in the world? Why is it that we're using this other dominant motif? And that leads us actually a how we live in the world, which is we would have to say, when we're at that counter yelling at that manager, I can't see us being Christ there. Right? I, I can't I can't see how in the world we're doing that in the name of Jesus. So if we stand back, we say No, we're not. So then where does that come from? Well, we have to think about that counter example, as being pivotal to reforming our imaginations for how to live in the world,
18:39 when there seems to be this kind of connection from our movies, and then what we're kind of taught and how to use it, this connection between violence and justice, how to get justice, through violent violence, and we root for those who will mean we even the good guys in our stories have to use violence. And and yeah, that picture of Jesus that is this affects all sorts justice.
19:03 It really does he with the death penalty, all sorts of stuff,
19:08 right? Well, then you bring it into another kind of modern day examples. Martin Luther King, Jr. The lasting impact. We have a day in our national counter named after Brian, why is that we don't have black panther week doing we
19:20 don't except in Oakland, where I lived. I think they still did.
19:23 But the idea is you had two stories, simultaneous two narratives going on Black Panthers, and Martin Luther King, and even though he's a hero, and now kind of a saint, this was the minority position, and he was severely critiqued for it, right. Yeah. By his own community, right. It's not going to work. Except for it did work. Mm hmm. So he follows the path of Jesus, and at great cost to himself, of course, right. And that may be what we're talking about. We're not prepared to pay the cost of following Jesus in the world. But we would say it's a counter to the culture and it has lasting impact for peace and healing. Reconciliation, but it was the costly path of Jesus. And we, you know, rightly so we say, I would like to be more like that.
20:09 Right. And it seems, in both cases read Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr. That, that they, through their sacrifice, they exposed the violence of our world, right. They
20:20 exposed it what we want is and that changed people's hearts. You watch those videos of the the fire hoses and the dogs. Right. Right. And you're, you're shocked by it. And it's like the the non violent proach exposes how despicable the violence really is. Right? And if you'd let you absorb it, you're like, it really. Violence really, doesn't he? I think that was kind of I don't remember the exact quote. But he, Martin Luther King says something like that
20:51 You don't remember? Yeah. Healing,
20:53 healing, something like healing for always, or I'm sorry. Violence always perpetuates violence. Yes. Right. Yeah. There's, there's something about I do violence to you. And I make it my well, but it's I'm living in a world where violence gets its way. Right.
21:07 Right. It'll just
21:08 cause more violence. Right. And and I think another example of why we're so you know, just numb to that. Oftentimes, in my Christian perspective sections, when we talk about entertainment and contemporary media and stuff, we talk about that. I think we already mentioned that here about why we are so much more upset with with sex and movies than violence in movies, at least as evangelical Christians. Right, right. And so I'll throw that I'll throw that topic out to the class and I invariably get the same answer. It's like, Well, you know, I can, we're more upset with sex, because sex is like closer to us than the violence is we can imagine ourselves, you know, in that sort of situation as this would be a temptation or something. Right, right. I cannot imagine myself actually like doing violence when we like do violence all the time. We just are so numb to the ramifications of it. Yeah,
22:01 I want to sorry, go ahead. No, you go.
22:04 One of the things that came out in my research is that for Christians, part of our participation because there are things that are taboo, that we cannot see ourselves doing. We actually participate. imaginatively, yeah, your entertainment mee, mee mee carelessly, and through our sports in some ways. So even though so we think that there's largely even though this is slipping a bright line for, you know, sexual graphic sexual material. I always wonder what what's the stimulation? Why do Christians what's, you know, the secret pleasure of watching something like Orange is the New Black. It's a world that can never really experienced themselves, right. So it's a way of experiencing and a kind of a taboo form. So I wonder if that plays a little bit with most of us are not violent people, nor do we like violence, nor do we like to experience violence, most of us for violence, it's a very negative memory. So as a way to participate in violence, explore violence a little bit, without actually having to have violence done to us.
23:15 As a point, I really do I think that yeah, that's illuminating,
23:19 I think it is, and maybe too, it's also connected to this idea of violence without consequence. The the you can kind of watch it from afar and even sometimes, in watching it you don't see the consequence of the violence.
23:35 It can we use that as a pivot point here to determine the MMA because of the three subjects I felt most passion for. It wasn't entertainment or video games, though, there were some concerns for both. It was actually the MMA because, again, non reflectively. I wanted to go study what's actually happening in terms of head trauma to these athletes, right? Because we are paying our $15 or $20, for a paper preview package or to go to the event. And we are watching this event for our entertainment vicariously, and then we're going home to our house. That athlete goes back to his house. He has a career. So we're starting to understand brain injury at a much further level. Right? So what we know is that concussive events are very damaging. But the perhaps the more damaging are the subconscious events, so not the knockouts but all the jarring blows. So we know that there's something called CTE. It's kind of mysterious. We can't predict it. We don't know you have it until after you die. It's not tasa there's no way to prevent it. And we think that there's perhaps as many as 10% of the population who seems to be prone to it. So it could cause some events releases a certain kind of protein called tau, that tau correlates in the part of the brain. It changes brain function, memory impairment, muscle, the whole bed. It's terrible. It's terrible. So you see it. It's in the NFL, I hope so. So let's just say there's 1010 flights, that's 20 fighters, two of those fighters are going to probably get CTE through their career. You are paying them to expose themselves terribly to these events, for simply your entertainment.
25:34 at an event about the application, Now, think about a family, you know, thinking
25:38 about in 10 years, that guy's probably not gonna remember his kids names, right? You had a vicarious though, so I use this example. There's a fight last year, Daniel Franco. Small flight fight in Iowa, 1000. People there gets knocked down twice, you know, ends the fight, people cheer leave the building. 30 minutes later, he collapses, he has brain blade, still basically not functioning to this day. Not one of those 1000 people know that happened to Daniel Franco. They got their money's worth. So what's the implications of a sport? So then you say, Well, you know, they're choosing to do it. So I say, Okay, well, where's your line? Let's say I put now two guys into a ring with two by fours, or baseball bats. Right. So is that that's wrong? What what would make it? How do I know when or the line is? The problem? The conversation is people want to leap backwards from ma to now football. Right? So and that's the that's the sacred cow. Right? Yeah.
26:36 Yeah. You're
26:38 not preaching Brad. Yeah, so.
26:40 So. So the idea is, we know somehow that we can't have two guys with two by fours in a ring. Yeah, we're uncertain about MMA, but we're certain that that the NFL is fine. Yeah. And I'm actually not trying to take the NFL away from anybody. If if there's a response to this, I would say to you, let's be cheering the loudest. For every innovation for helmets and safety for players. You figure out for yourself, whether you can participate in the NFL in terms of watching, I'm just talking about the act of me getting my entertainment by somebody else suffering real, real harm to the body. This is not fake harm. So just statistically, in a normal fight 70% of all MMA fights end with because of head trauma. Usually they get knocked down. And the last part of an MMA fight is somebody trying to cover up, right, because he's been hit really hard, right? with it. That what they did all this and within 3.5 seconds, there's an 18.5 extra blows to the head after the guy's already been knocked out. Yeah. So and I'm telling you, if you've ever rented these things, everybody is getting what they paid for. Right? But what you're getting is someone literally having brain injury in front of your eyes. So the idea is, is can we start thinking about this as less of a first of all, let's let's move it from a benign thing.
28:06 It's almost like the dystopian futures like arrived.
28:09 Yeah. Right. It is it is and anything you think, and it's so similar to gladiatorial contests. Now, people are dying in front of your eyes, and you're not given the thumbs up or thumbs down. But there is real harm being done to the body for your entertainment. And, and I'm with my class last night, there's 10 or 12 of them, and there's middle aged women in that, that just seem like the gentlest people who say, Yeah, I watch MMA with my right.
28:40 Yeah. And you're like, it's a bonding experience.
28:42 It is and it's like, how is it that we don't question this? What is it about it? That we say this is a benign or neutral activity? Can Can we move it towards the I actually have to take a very strong look at what that what's happening here to see if it's a moral activity or not? Is my entertainment my voice my vicarious thrill of this? Now there's really interesting science as to why attracts us. So the idea is surrogacy that violence has survival value. sex and violence is Why are your brains are hardwired to pay attention to it, you can't really help yourself. So for those of you who face temptation, when a pretty woman walks by, essentially your your brain can't not pay attention to it. It's the same reason why. When there's a fight in middle school, there's a crowd together. I said there's a fascination with it. There's a vicarious, but there's survival value for it. And largely when we get to MMA, it's it The idea is surrogacy. So the idea is an alpha male in any pack, right? becomes the surrogate for the pack. Right. So here we pick our fighter. We are not in the ring, but we are chemically In our brains experience the same thing as if we were in the ring. And chemically, the reward is ours to if we win. So all the same chemicals are being released in the rank. There's identity, deep identity markers, aligning ourselves to strength. So we send our surrogate into the battlefield for us, and we without facing one bit of violence are experiencing chemic biochem, chemically the same sorts of things. Well, that's just fascinating. Yeah, it really is. So it's like, you're just thinking, that's okay. So I can say, I'm not a bad person for being attracted to it. But we as Christians believe you can rise above your natures. So if this is a part of your nature, then you have to examine, is this what feels like a very normal response to this thing? Do I choose it? Or what are the value systems that have informed that choice? So does Christ now speak to my choices as to what I will put before my eyes? So nobody should feel guilty about being attracted to MMA? Nobody should write you. Right? Right. There's real science as to why you're attracted to it. You know, it's just now what do you do with the fact that seemingly, you could see this as, as a moral choice as to whether it's right or wrong to watch such things? And now I have to choose well, out of my faith, as to whether I participate, or can participate or not. And so again, I get that, I'll just say again, people have come to me after I've done these public seminars. Does that mean I can't train and do kung fu or muy Thai? No. Personal Fitness, Personal safety, identity issues? health, fitness? Great. Let's just don't have spectators. Why do we need to have spectators? Oh, I want let's say I want to test my skill against somebody else. Great, do it. Why do we have to watch? Why do we have to set up ticket sales? So that so really, my issue here is only the more activity around spectating in places where we already know, real, real hurt and harm has happened to the people in front of us. And people will say, Well, what about soccer? What about baseball? People are suffering concussions? Yes, but the point of the sport is not to suffer a concussion, right. That is the point of the MMA and the boxing is to concuss a person till they cannot get up any longer. Yeah. So it's incidental to those sports. And I tell you, those sports are taking those injuries seriously. They're designing so they don't experience them. So they're not viewed as a good thing. And you're not cheering for somebody to get hit in baseball with a ball to the head, wrap your head around. You don't cheer for that. Right. You're concerned. Everybody stops. Oh, right. But in MMA we cheer for it. Yeah. So that's, it's a passion for mine, for us to examine that sport in that way.
32:46 Yeah. And it's interesting, even culturally, that kind of shift from boxing to MMA that happened within the last 20 years. And when MMA first started was even more violent, more prone, is now with less rules, and hair pulling and eye gouging, and all these things. And I remember, I was kind of in college when that started. And it was like, what is happening like it was, and we were drawn to it, and drawn to watch it. And I remember watching it, leaving just sick with a guy having a chunk of someone else's hair and skin and flesh in their hands and was like, wow, this may have taken it to
33:24 may have to.
33:26 Certainly they put new roles in the whole bit. But I think we don't need to have hair pulling and parts of scalp to to say if I know If so, that was really said something really interesting one time about why gambling is immoral. He said because you are you are not using reason. You are You are suspending reason, right. So in the same way, I would say if you if you really think that that person is not really being irreparably harmed, you are suspending reason. It would be a violation of your human person to suspend reason to the point where you can come to the conclusion. I don't even know if they got hurt. We know enough. They're getting hurt. So it's like, we cannot go blindly into it and just say, Well, I don't know, you know, and they're choosing it. That's your profession. Who am I to say? Well, you are somebody because you are creating the market. Mm hmm. You pay for your ticket, you create the market. If there's no market, I guarantee you that guy's not doing that for a living. He'll find something else to do, right. That's just simple market economy, economics. So I think that that is where I'd like Christians to thoughtfully engage on that subject.
34:42 And that seems to be we're coming from kind of the kind of the reason one you're on the show too and kind of landed here on this episode is I think the big thrust is having us be more thoughtful in what we are viewing as Entertainment and realizing the implication, right? We've kind of done maybe a good job in the medical community on like, hey, graphic sexuality, not good. It's not helpful for us. It's not helpful, but we've kind of left violence in a different category. And we just want to take the blind spot.
35:18 Yeah. So the horse, the blinders, and they look and see it. And so if we see it, then we'll figure out what's your response to it.
35:25 Right? And I think that'll be a really good conversation. I mean, I can, I can already know, several guys in my church and friends who were like, what, I can't watch MMA now and what and it's like, hey, well, let's talk about it. Let's let's talk about and like you said to with NFL and the sacred cow, and how everyone complains about rules that are implemented for sale during the game this game, right? can we can we at least engage in that conversation thoughtfully. And by thoughtfully we mean, bringing in that biblical narrative, right, when that example of Jesus and say, hey, yeah, how does? How does Jesus speak to violence and the violence in this world? And how does violence as entertainment and our our consumption of it, also then affect real violence in this world, and how we view real violence? And I think it's a really good conversation to have and, and I was just wondering, you know, as we kind of end maybe in this in a final segment here, where we get to know the guests even more. Have you ever been a part of a fight? What was your was there a fight in middle school, high school?
36:36 So I grew up, I was I was in a Christian, private Christian school. And then that was integrated with inner city, Kitty's kids. In seventh grade. day number one,
36:48 no, wow. seventh grade,
36:50 I got knocked out in the boys bathroom over a kickball incident. Wow. The I'd never experienced violence like that before I hadn't been prepared for you know, we would wrestle and put people in headlocks. Before that, as good Christians would, you know, Jesus only wrestled right here. know, he's so then we moved to almost right after that. I, I had recurring dreams about that. Yeah. It really formed my identity falsely. In fact, I went into high school, and I probably had maybe four or five fights. Where I was looking for it. Yeah, because I didn't want to feel cowardly again. Definitely afraid of every one of them. But I would not posture myself any longer as afraid. Yeah. Because my memories of myself in that moment was Oh, look at you coward that we're on. you're prepared to defend yourself. Yeah. So yeah, I would say it was formative in a negative way that makes right. So I got suspended from high school number two, if my boys are listening to this, please. Yeah. Yeah, I saw
38:00 that violence begets violence.
38:02 Violence begets violence and formative and the nature of violence is it harms harm Psychology at harms in your psychology and your your mental and emotional frame and thanks
38:14 for thanks. On a light note, yeah.
38:17 What about you Rex's? Yeah,
38:19 you know, so, I, in seventh grade again, since you're telling seventh grade stories, yeah, this is so I'm going to it almost completely. School of another ethnicity. And I'm a little white boy, and chubby and have glasses. And I don't know why or how and I probably would have beat myself up to if I saw myself in seventh grade, but I carried a briefcase to school. Yeah. And so you can imagine my experience in seventh grade at john adams Middle School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Gotcha. Carrying the briefcase. Oh, my gosh,
38:57 your story's better than mine. Yeah, that's
38:58 good. That's good. I mean, looking back on mine, I've never been punched in the face. I've never been in a fight. That not on a sporting field. Right. And the times that I took something to Vegas was in the middle of play was never like after a play. But yeah, it would have been the most because you're such an intimidating person. Exactly. Like I'm not fighting, guys, actually. Because I can I can. I'm wiring and I can I can get out. Quickly, Bob. Exactly. Okay, thanks. Thanks a lot for being on the show. It's a really good topic and really thought provoking. Like, you're welcome. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes These reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
40:07 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us@jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup thing.
English professor Portia Hopkins joins Mark and Rex to discuss the role language plays in theology. They note that all theology is shaped by language and it is extremely important for the church and the Christian today to be aware of the theological and social implications of language.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and Rex Gurney your co host. That's right. And on today's episode, we're joined by, by a heavy hitter,
0:11 Portia Hopkins, former chair of our English department, and still a mainstay of it.
0:16 Yeah. And we have a conversation that covers theology and language and specifically how language affects theology. And it's a fascinating conversation. And so we hope you enjoy. Yeah.
0:36 Well, yeah, and today, we really do want to talk about the topic of language in theology, and specifically how language affects theology. And for me that this, this kind of idea, or this topic was really illuminated by a radio lab episode. So radio lab comes out of W. NYC. And they were kind of, I would say, they're kind of pioneers on that hybrid between radio shows and podcasts. And I actually have my theology class, they have to listen to a segment. So there's nothing on the screen Actually, we had to put like a moving picture on the screen just because I'm like, I know you need something so like, is that hard for them to do? They like squirming? Yeah, I know, like, we're gonna well up all of our maturity. And we're gonna listen. I also have to, you know, explain to him what the radio is. You know, it used to be a thing where you didn't get to choose what was on it, you get to choose the channel and turn it on or off. But But radiolab did a an episode, actually, it was an episode on color, and how we see colors where they came into, or you know, as we started to kind of denote when they came in the language, things like that. And they do a segment on the color blue is just fascinating. So they kind of start with looking at ancient writings. So ancient Greek looking at Homer specifically. And they realized through it actually, it's actually through a guy named William Gladstone. So he was like a four time or five time Prime Minister of England, he just loved Homer. So he wrote, like a three volume, like, just the epic tome on on Homer. And he started to notice when he was doing that, that Homer used color in really weird ways. And then he came to that really shocking conclusion. He doesn't use blue at all, like not one time, which is really amazing. I mean, I think and even when I heard that, I was like, well, we I mean, blue is many people's favorite color. So yeah, you know, and, and within the episode, they switch, they kind of start with that, which that was intriguing. They switch to he's a professor of neuro psychology, and he's working with a tribe in Namibia. And, and they don't have a separate word for blue. And so he showed them a screen with 1212 squares on it. And 11 of them are very well, we would call green. I mean, they they look green, and then one of them is blue. I mean, it is the blue is blue, you've seen and that tribe members as they would look at the screen, couldn't didn't notice a difference. Like he would ask them, did any of the squares look different to you? and not do you can you know, a difference just and they double check that none of them are colorblind? Yeah, like that does as an issue, like some of our friends that we may remain nameless. But, but they didn't have that word. And so that's kind of like the, and they kind of noted like, it wasn't that they couldn't physically see it, they were seeing it. But the word somehow unlocked their ability to see it right. Or to see the difference in man, that concept of me just was like, wow, that like that really brought to the forefront like Oh, how language and it made me think of this the word God. I mean, many times we don't realize this, but God did not give himself the name God, that God is, is a word that we use, to to help us signify this, this person is being who we're trying to relate to who's trying to relate to us. And so we've used that word God and and that, that word now Now we can all then be like, okay, okay, we have gotten now I know now I know something to call that. And it does start to then differentiate that, that being right now that we've given a word, associated a word God, now we can start to make that distinction. And if the word is basically the signifier and well God because I need a word To use
5:02 for God is the signified, then we begin to just pack a whole lot of meaning into the word God, which may or may not have much to really do with who we're actually talking about. One thing that's sort of interesting. And I was really introduced to this kind of late in the game, but in one of my classes when we're talking about God's attributes, and you're always kind of in an interesting place when you start doing that, too, because of the anthropomorphic issues with that, but before we start doing that, I start talking a little bit about apophatic theology, which is, you know, has always had a little bit more traction in, in Eastern Orthodoxy, where you're actually on sort of safer ground talking about who and what God is not than what God is. And so I have the class, I'm just, you know, I hand out some three by five cards, and let's just talk about who God is not. And some of them have a hard time putting something down, they're actually right, or they just basically think of the opposite of whatever they signified there, which is actually not what we're doing. Yeah, but, but it's interesting, it's just interesting how freighted that word gets,
6:15 I don't think that we realize that there's kind of a cycle through to this, we have this sense that there is this being and that's pretty universal, right amongst all cultures, all people all times. And then we need a word to talk about this. And so we would use the word God to talk about this. And then, as we narrow our definition of what that word God means, then we are narrowing our concept of what God means. And so in a way, the word is creating God, rather than rather than God living into the word. And I don't think it's an accident that john begins with the Word made flesh. I don't think it's an accident, that the word word is used for that, because there is this idea that look, you can, you can weigh this word with all sorts of things. But here's what it actually looks like. And, and you can't weigh that with concepts, in the same way that you can this God word that can mean all kinds of different things to different people.
7:24 Right? And that's so good. And that as a great connection with john, and then idea, literally, the Word became flesh, and it is God speaking into our word, God, it's hard to talk about God without using the word God, yeah.
7:41 Do it. But then they end up with the ineffable essence or something so abstract that it is almost meaningless, right? I think the funny thing is that we sometimes don't realize that the word God is just as abstract. And, and not loaded with meaning because we think it is. But a lot of that is our own cultural, individual. theological ideas that again, we're putting back into that word. When I took my systematic theology sequence. A time ago, there was a period of time that I had trouble praying, because I thought, I'm using the word God, I'm praying to God, but I didn't know what I meant. That's the trouble with too much education. It confuses you. And I thought, what what do I mean by this? And, and I worked through that, but it was a good working through, I had to realize that for many, many years of being a Christian, I'd use the word God, and I'd prayed to God, and I'd never actually stopped to think about what that word meant. And with whom I'm agreeing or disagreeing in my use of that word, right?
8:47 And that's where I think that's what's interesting about let's even even broaden it out, we could say the last 200 years, maybe of, of development of language and our understanding of language, we've started to have that conversation. Now, you know, before we we didn't, most theologians didn't stop to think about Oh, wait, how is language affecting?
9:08 And one reason for that was because kind of what the Enlightenment, there's a real sort of turn into what you can and cannot talk about. Philosophically, right? Right kind of metaphysics was really important before the enlightenment and then suddenly epistemology becomes important afterwards. What's really interesting right now know is folks are trying to slip trying to kind of make a turn back towards metaphysics, right, you basically are doing that through this 200 years of epistemological thinking, and that's kind of redundant actually. Like, you know, how language totally plays into that language totally plays into that right.
9:48 Cuz Yeah, the conversation quickly goes from how do you know what you know, and kind of maybe the content idea, and then, well, how do you express what I know the Language What is expressible? and what isn't?
10:01 Yeah? And
10:02 how do you try to ensure that the person who is receiving your communication has some commonality with what your intention is? Right? It's complicated.
10:12 It is complicated. And I think that's what, for me, that's what's been exposed over the last 200 years is that okay? language is complicated. And, and we do need to take a step back. And for those who have never thought about the word God, and, and the meaning we've given it, and maybe the meaning we've given it that is different from what God would give it. And again, I think we can't get it,
10:37 I think I can't possibly grasp it. So whatever meaning God would give God, our human brains are too puny and finite to be able to take it in. So all we can ever do is is trying to do the best that we can with the shadow or or the image or the bit that that we can get. But there still is responsibility that we have to do that work.
10:58 And I I know that mark really wants to smuggle vidkun Steen into this conversation. One thing that it can seem does talk about is sort of the limits of language, but beyond the limits of language lies mystery. You know, so he would say I'm not exactly on board with this. But I totally understand why he's saying it that you really can't say anything about God that what you would talk about when you talk about God is meaningless. But that doesn't necessarily mean that there is no God. It's just that it's mystery beyond what you can possibly say, which is really interesting.
11:34 Yeah, it is. And it I mean, it's a recognition that our words are an attempt to describe God. And that's, that's one thing I always appreciate about call Bart's theology is that he recognizes, and he always said, he says, it's a lot that all theology is an attempt. Like, we just have to recognize it. It's an attempt for us to try to grasp and understand God, and we have to recognize our limitations. And I think the conversation of language helps us right, that starts right there that even within language, it is limited. And and I do think Vic and Stein really kind of maybe got the ball rolling on, on thinking about language, and he came up with kind of the phrase language games, which is actually kind of unfortunate, because he wasn't trying to be flippant with her, or he wasn't saying this is all a game, and we can, but he meant this is serious and how we use it. But it kind of spun from him to I think, as he started it into maybe more literary criticism. And and so how does that I would love to talk just a little bit about that about, you know, so we have kind of postmodern literary criticism coming in and jumping off of language, and kind of the language games that Vic and Stein kind of brings to our attention. How did how did the postmodern literary critics start to approach language? And then that's that started to affect the ideology? Yeah, exactly.
13:07 Well, there used to be kind of an unacknowledged sense that a word and the concept it was referring to were the same thing. And so if I say something, the word and the concept, have a congruence. And then in the 20th century, folks like Jacques Derrida came along and said, actually, not so much. There isn't, actually, I mean, Derrida said at various points, things like there's no correlation between the word and the signifier and the signified, which is an overstatement. But Jared also loved to overstate things. But nevertheless, he has a point. So sometimes when I when I've taught on this, this is an example I use to sort of talk about that we, we assume that a word sort of means is if we, if we understand the language, if we if we have concepts in common, we're going to understand the same thing by the same word. But what we don't realize is we don't even always mean the same thing by the same word. So think about the word Cal, we assume that we know what casual means. So if I am dressed to go to a barbecue, and I am dressed casually, there will be a set of clothing that I'm wearing to that, if I'm dressed to go to something formal, and I'm wearing and I'm and I'm going to be on the casual side, I'm going to be wearing a very different set of clothes, so we can kind of grasp that. But then think about the word formal. If I am going to something formal, then I if I am dressed formally at something formal, it's going to be very different than being dressed formally. It's something casual, so does the word formal or casual have any meaning at Absolutely has a meaning. And if I know the context of the word, then I understand the meaning. If I have no context, then the word has no meaning. And casual has no meaning without context, the word formal has no meaning without context. And so does the word correspond directly to the way that I'm dressed? Well, not really, the context, under which I understand the word corresponds somewhat to the way in which I'm dressed. So does the word have no meaning? Well, no, it doesn't have no meaning. It has many meanings. It has multiple meanings. And it's a bundle of meanings. And we have to understand that context is an important part of understanding the meaning of words. And when you start smuggling in culture into it, it even gets sort of interesting. I just thought about this. I hadn't thought about this. In years, when I was living in Colombia, I was invited to a quinceanera once and it was formal. And so I just didn't in the only suit that I brought down there. And I remember asking if when are we going and the guy was going with basically said, I'll read I'll read that, which to me is like right now right now. Well, right now meant four hours later, right? So I'm sitting on the couch in a coat and tie into suit waiting to go to this qingsiya netta, which was supposed to happen right now, but
16:15 was only happening four hours later, which was right now to him. Yeah. And so yeah, yeah.
16:22 Yeah. Well, and and i think that that, yeah, it it kind of has exposed the complexity of language and in the context of language and the cultural context, specifically to and I think that is really important. I think one of maybe the, the missteps or that's maybe happened within the church is we kind of hear about Derrida through the grapevine.
16:46 Yeah. And we set him up as a straw man, right?
16:49 Want to poke holes, because he's responsible for all cultural relativism, Doggone it, right? And we hear that overstatement of words have no correlation. And we think, well, that's not true, you. And sometimes I've heard it presented that, that it is, you know, a devaluing of words or meaning. And, and actually, it seems to be quite the opposite. It seems to be saying, No words, word tomorrow. Even and the connotations, and yeah, we need to do more work because of how valuable we are. And, and because we need to do that work so that we can find commonality, so that we can communicate. Yeah. And, and I think that that, you know, that's one of my hopes with my students when I bring up language. And that is, again, not to totally take away any meaning from language. And then they're like, well, now I can't say anything. Yeah, no, it's like, well, that's not the point. Yeah, it was never the point. But to start to think about, okay, theologically, how do we use language? And how does that language, it affects us? It affects how we think, you know, and in one conversation, I think, that has been going on in the church, especially, you know, the last maybe decade or a little bit longer is kind of gender inclusivity and language and, and the the all elusive, you know, gender neutral personal pronoun. Yeah. And, and so how have you How have you guys kind of seen that? And I even said, Guys, right there. So right. I've already I'm entrenched,
18:27 although culturally, contextually guys tends to be a gender inclusive term, whereas gals is not right. Gender inclusive term in which women can be included with men, but men cannot be included. Right. And that is so true, that
18:43 I could share at least my journey and sensitivity to inclusive language, you know, growing up in a very, very, almost fundamentalist, you know, faith, tradition, amen. Anyway, I just, you know, just assume that, you know, male pronouns for people and male pronouns for God used me, you know, ad nauseum was just the way to go. In fact, you almost were sort of proud of it, because other folks were, you know, the liberal does, we're trying to, we're trying to get you to change your language. And when I pass on my first church, I just became really sensitive. The fact that there was so much diversity in my congregation, and and the way I spoke about things, really did have sort of an impact on how people would would would hear and and so for a pastoral and actually almost an evangelistic reason, I started changing my language, you know, because I wanted to remove whatever barriers might be between someone hearing the good news of Jesus Christ, and if overuse of masculine pronouns is going to be a barrier, well, then it's an easy thing to change. And then once it changed, I'm just sort of used to it now that went, I don't Use that I'm really aware of it, it's almost like a little, it's like the opposite red flag kind of comes up in my mind because it's not hard to, to do. Yeah.
20:11 This comes up in both when we're talking about human beings and when we're talking about God, right, and they might be two different issues. When we are using gender inclusive language, when the Bible really intends all you people, and we might use the word he, and what we're really not talking about is something gendered at all. There are other times though, when we really are talking about men, or really are talking about women, right. And so that is sort of hampered by the fact that English does not have a gender neutral pronoun. And so if we had one, we could just plug that gender neutral pronoun in where we needed it, and it would solve a lot of problems. So in some ways, it's a, it's a, an embedded language problem. For us. It's a really different issue when we start talking about gender and God. And there are different probably pastoral implications for what we do with gender and God, totally my journey, surprisingly, even as a woman is not that different than Rex's. I grew up in reading in the 60s and 70s. And I just always assumed that when there was a male protagonist in a book that I could read my story into that story, I could read, kidnapped or something like that, by Robert Louis Stevenson. And I could identify with a male character, I could also identify with female heroines that just didn't bother me. Although what I've realized later on, is that it's tends to be easier for girls to identify with male protagonists and young adult books. I was actually thinking about that right now. Right? identify with us. Yeah, female, so so you know that again, it's that, okay. Men can include women, and I was probably socialized into that kind of thinking to produce. Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure we were. Right. And so it didn't bother me to pick up a Bible and read in the 70s or 80s, that everything was gendered male, that everything was a he. And, and we would say brothers, and not brothers and sisters, because I just assumed that I was included in that group. Part of that's a function of my age, I'm 57. And I don't think the same thing is true anymore. of somebody who's 17 or 27 years old, right? They've grown up in a world where we had a sensitivity to the fact that that language is fair. In that it it again, is in women are assumed to be included with men, men are not assumed to be included with women. So there are going to be things that are true for all human beings, male or female. And then there are things that are going to be only true for women. That's not right. There are things that are that that are more true for women than for men, there are things that are true for all human beings. But if our language doesn't let us separate that out, we norm to male expectations, right? And we assume that the male way of going through things in the world is normative.
23:05 masculine subjectivity. I've heard all my life.
23:08 Yeah. And and so what a lot, a lot of what has happened, that gets the the label as being Oh, that's feminist, that's radical. A lot of what that is, in my mind is just women saying, Well, how about if we just re ask the questions? How about if we don't norm to male expectations of things? And maybe we start by using gender inclusive language, it's a small step in that direction. But it lets us rethink just like if no word for blue exists, how do you have a concept for blue? Right? If If you don't have a word for something that is that is not gendered? How do you conceptualize it is not gendered, if your word for what is not gendered is always male, then you're always conceptualizing everything as male. And again, I grew up with this, it still doesn't particularly bother me, as a human being I've become adept at developing a hermeneutic, through which I can read what I think is about me as a woman about me as a human being about a guy that isn't me all the time. But that isn't what I sort of had to deal with in the culture. And what younger women today have been brought up to expect aren't the same thing. And so I have become very conscious of my use of language because I don't want to wound other people. I have had, I can't tell you how many women say to me, that aren't Christians? Well, I just don't know that I can be a Christian. It's a very patriarchal religion. It's it's all about male dominance. And while I will converse with them, because I do not think that that's true. They have a point in that the way that we've enacted this space, marriage often does look male dominated and patriarchal and where they define themselves in girls that say, I can't I don't find myself in this story. And so what is it like for us to be There's some really good work done retelling the stories about women in Scripture. They're actually some some stories that we assumed were about men and that now scholars are saying that was probably a women, they were probably women in the stories. And so we are, we are beginning to do some of that work in a scholarly fashion. But how each of us individually chooses to use language, we can be weaponizing language, we can be holding back things and protecting ourselves with language. Or we can try be trying to be generous with our language. And I would prefer to be generous with my language, not because it, I'm gonna get angry if it doesn't go my way. But because I do see the way that language has has contributed to the wounding of other people that I don't want wounded, especially people that I don't want wounded by the faith that I hold dearly, right? I do not want that to happen. So not only with people, but then when we start talking about God, and use male pronouns for God, that becomes very fraught for some, especially women and for some men as well.
26:06 And I think that it recognizes something that has been recognized over the last, you know, 50 years or so that when we use language, we're doing something Yeah. Right. That language does something. Yeah. Right. Right. And part of what language does then can wound. And, and and unintentionally, unintentionally. Yeah, I
26:28 mean, we can we all know about wounding intentionally. When James says, you know, watch what you do with your tongue? I don't think that we often use that to say, Well, you know, be gentle and sweet and don't, you know, be super critical or or verbally abusive? Yeah, it's all of that. But how about we pay attention to the way in which our language might have the best will in the world, our language might wind
26:52 up, it's also possible to sort of change the wounds that are deliberately inflicted by language and trying to think of, you know, just different religious groups that don't call themselves certain things. But other people call them that like the shakers like the Quakers, like the Mormons, who actually don't refer to themselves that way, they actually have another name for their particular faith. But interestingly enough, they have taken these words and almost taken, which were actually pejorative words, and first, and they sort of own them and sort of re rephrase the words in a positive way. And actually, I think, you know, all of us have an excellent example of that with the word Christian. Yeah, it was negative, it was a negative pejorative thing that was called that we sort of just changed the whole meaning of and ran with it. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
27:47 Yeah. Yeah, not really. Yeah, those those first followers in Antioch. And, you know, people started calling them Christians too, too. So you embrace the negative and you make a positive. Right, right. Yeah. And I think that it is just a really good understanding of, Okay, now within the church, and maybe even past orally, starting to be aware of how language is how it does affect people. And, and especially, and I think some people kind of push back and say, Well, hey, if the Bible uses this, you know, this type of pronoun, and I think, what scholarship or where scholarship is going, and they start to recognize, even within the biblical texts, it's clear the intention of the author is to talk about brothers and sisters, not and, and that's, again, another language thing where the Greek word has a little bit more openness and English words, it's, you know, every time you translate, you're interpreting, and, you know, there's often not a one for one,
28:51 I've actually, I've actually never thought about this before, but you know, we have in English, so many loan words or borrowed words from other languages and and just, you know, that we use all the time. And I just wonder if there's something in another language that is a gender neutral term that, that we can co OPT and borrow and just sort of agree to use, I don't know what that would be off the top of my head, but
29:15 the three of us trademark it, and the Exactly, exactly. people follow you around. I go, that's one sec. Darn it. I shouldn't have actually said that. Someone's gonna start working on we've got to put that application. Mark here, here soon. No, I think this has been a really good conversation about about language, and there's so much we could talk for hours, and we'll definitely have more more episodes that kind of broach this and looking at specific words and how they've been used and and the freight that has been put on God as Father, right. Yeah. And we can, there's so many and I just think it's great. I think this has been a good introduction, and might just get people thinking, Oh, yeah, I use language obviously, all the time. And obviously, language is important. Yes. Right. Right is important to communicate. And one of the objections against Vic and Stein is, was that if you start worrying about every word, you say you actually stop talking about the issue, and you just start talking about language. And and I do think it's important, right, and theology. It is our words are really important. And we don't want that conversation to miss us actually talking about God. So we do, but I think doing the work of language then helps us talk about God in a better way. Yes. And, and and it simulates
30:44 theological, you know, reflection, and that's, like, really important to do.
30:49 Right. So important, right. And, and, and yeah, that this, that words are not meaningless, and that they actually have more meaning than we can even understand. Yeah, and take the time to really think about how we're using them. And what we're saying. There's so many words we use within the church that we never define. And we just kind of all agree, and it's kind of like we get to the point where we can't even ask what that word means. Because we've used it too many times. Yes. It's kind of like after you've met a person, like for the fifth time, you can't ask their name anymore. Like you're beyond the point. Yeah, you have to ask someone else was using my wife, I'm like, Can you go get their name, or you just keep on talking to them and hope they drop their own.
31:38 Another cultural initiative, all people wear name tags all the time, I'd be down for that. Wonderful tattooed on our forehead. Whoa, that's a different that's a different issue. Different podcast. That's
31:50 right. All right. Well, thank you guys for for just diving into this conversation, and using your words and using language. And we'll have many more to come. But we'll kind of we'll kind of finish today. On a completely different idea is I'm just throwing this at you guys do not know about this. But we're gonna closing every time over section. Yeah, I just, I just want to I want to learn more about about our guests. Okay. And about our faculty here. And so this is just kind of a it's a new segment. I'm just just calling getting to know you, and just getting to know you. So it'd be for both, and I'll answer it as well. But if it's right now, if you walked out of this studio, and could get on a plane and go anywhere in the world, where would you go today? Barcelona, Oh, nice. We're actually going to Barcelona in about two months.
32:51 I was in Barcelona, it for the first time ever in December. And it it captured my imagination in a way that few other places have. And I was there in the winter. I wasn't there in the spring or the summer and it was so colorful. The the Sagrada Familia, the Catholic Cathedral there is this amazing, overwhelming amazing spaces. And probably the downside would be that I actually kind of want to move there, instead of just visit may never come back. Yeah, kind of never come back again. But I think that's where I'd go. That's great.
33:27 Well, um, as much as I love Spain, and for a long time, we wouldn't go to Barcelona actually, because my wife grew up in Madrid. And so you know, totally with the Let's deal between Madrid and Barcelona, you just kind of we would avoid it, actually. But she didn't change her mind. It's like Barcelona is okay now, but I would, as much as I love Spain, I actually would love to get on a plane and go down to a national park right on the tip of South America. A plane probably wouldn't go there. So it had to drive after that. But it's called tourists, Alpine, a national park and it is one of the most spectacular places in the world. It's like at the top of my bucket list and probably will never go there. It's just so far away. Anyway, I'd love to do that.
34:09 That's great. For me, I am I love crystal clear water. And and I could so I've never been there. But I would love to go to Turks and Caicos. And and when I'm in a place like when I was in Hawaii, we my wife and I and family have been to Belize. A lot. And I could be in the water 12 hours a day, like and and particularly clear water. I don't like murky water because that's when jaws attacks. As long as I can see jaws coming up to me, you got to know Yeah, at least I know what to do. But yeah, that's for me like I love and I just love being in the water. Just watching all of the fish and everything. happening. So it's I grew up in Indiana, so there wasn't a lot of going into. Well, thanks again. And Until the next episode or next podcast, we talked about some some fun stuff. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
35:42 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Jackson Arnett sits down with Mark and Rex as the first Jessup student guest to discuss Moral Therapuetic Deism. MTD was coined by researchers studying the spiritual life of the average American teenager to summarize their majority belief that God exists but is not necessarily involved in day to day life. Goodness is the goal. The trio see if this research has stood the test of the last decade with some surprising ans insightful results.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 Hey, welcome to Jessup think and I'm your host Mark Moore. Joined by my esteemed co hosts Really? Yeah Julius don't go Julius. Okay. Rex Gurney. Okay, the third Julius. I have to I just can't and and excited to be with Rex but also to to welcome our very first student guest Jackson Erna, welcome to the show. Thank you. And this is your last semester. Yes. So Lord willing, yeah, light is at the end of the tunnel. If we speak it into your life, yes. Speak. Yes, this is your last semester. Although we will we will still take your money if it's kind of a catch. 22 like we're not that sad one of those if they have to see you again. But we
0:53 will actually always taking money because you're gonna get the Yes, right.
0:57 Yes. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So you can't escape. You can't escape. It's gonna keep coming.
1:03 But we've both had you in class before and, and then Rex, you may not know this, I wanted to kind of throw this out. You know, Jackson, I have done a couple speaking gigs together. That's true. And, and from that has kind of spurned maybe a side project, you know, it's a side, maybe a side podcasts, you know, coming out in about 2029. Maybe, but we're gonna it's gonna be kind of like a coming of age Podcast, where we talk about really just kind of intense stories of middle school. So let The Wonder Years. Yes, exactly. Okay. And we're gonna call it awkward transitions. Okay, so it's gonna, it's gonna be perfect. We've already trademarked it. We're already practicing for that today. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. And that's the other part of the packet is we're only going to use one microphone, so we're gonna have to so it's just gonna be built right in. It's just gonna be awkward transitions are already there. Yeah, it's just a currently Yes. And, and that's kind of middle school, that it is just so well. Awkward. And, and it doesn't get maybe less awkward into high school. But, or even adulthood. Maybe you
2:14 just learn to cope with what makes awkward transitions universally relevant. Yes, that's
2:19 true. It's just there. That is part of our byline. Yeah, right now we're writing it. We're creating a podcast on a podcast. Wow. Yeah, it's inception podcast happening. But we Bri on the show. We want to talk about a topic that I love the title of the topic. But it does actually connect with middle school and high school students in their maybe beliefs about God and in general. And that topic is called moralistic therapeutic deism. And the listener may have just done a double take and their phone or their car radio. Do you know what a radio is? Jackson? I'm familiar. Okay. Music, museums, cars. You used to have radios. You weren't even allowed to choose what was on them. Like you could choose a station just happened this video station, they say also, that's true. That's true. But yeah, so you may have you may have taken a doubletake and say, Wait moralistic therapeutic deism, I think maybe I understand all of those words separately. But what? What do those words mean together? So Rex, why don't you give us a good definition of Sure.
3:30 Sure. Um, this actually comes from a study that was done in 2005, about the religious views of just sort of teenagers in America, I assume some of them like youth grouped, and some writing just from the general population. But the findings of that were really interesting and they kind of go here around five sort of core beliefs that these these youth have about have about God. And whether fortunate or not, they came up with the title, moralistic therapeutic deism for this, and these are sort of the five beliefs. A God exists, who created an order the world in watches over human life on earth. And this God wants people to be good, and nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and in most world religions, right. Yeah, that's the essential goal of life is of course, to be happy and to feel good about yourself. God doesn't need to be particularly involved in your life, except when God is needed to resolve a problem. And good people of course, go to heaven when they die.
4:42 Yeah, these these five kind of capture the the general beliefs of of those who were surveyed. Right, right,
4:49 which, as you've probably already noticed, is not exactly Orthodox Christianity. Right, sort of something else.
4:55 Right. And, yeah, and with editor is really interesting because when you hear those five, you probably think, okay, I can kind of maybe see where especially in in America, right, so this study was done out of UNC Chapel Hill, right? And, and looked at 3000 High School students and kind of ask them these questions about God and they kind of summarized it with ease. Right, right. And then they gave it the term Right, right. moralistic therapeutic deism, I
5:28 guess the moralistic because God wants you to be good. Yeah. So because you know, God wants you to be happy and deism because God's not particularly involved except when you need God to be involved. Right? And actually, that that moniker for this moralistic therapeutic deism is kind of unfortunate. It might be better, to say moralistic therapeutic theism, actually, because people get confused a little bit when with that term deism because they think, oh, I don't know is that like, you know, sort of come from the Enlightenment is this, the founding fathers is as Voltaire is, is people like here, you know, like them that were deists. And when I think of deism I think of this clock maker God that sort of winds up the universe and just goes off to lunch or something and never comes back. Right. And the universe just sort of just keeps on going along by this natural laws. And what it looks like these these, these kids believe is at least a God that, you know, you can listen and he'll come back from lunch. Not too far away. So you know, he's sort of at your beck and call kind of divine Butler. I've heard God called them Right, right. So we're in genie of sorts, yeah, or cosmic ATM. There's all kinds of ways you can talk about that, right? But in some ways, though, I guess, you know, I'm speaking as a historian here, but there there is some little connection, I guess, with the deism because what most enlightenment rationalist and I think you can say some of the founding fathers who had deistic tendencies, and believed is that God not only like order the natural laws of the universe, but God sort of encoded moral law to the universe to and so these are not relativists, you know, moral relativists at all and you can sort of see that little bit in this God wants you to be good, there's good and evil, right right now and so there may be a little bit more of a connection with old time deism than then might appear at first. Anyway,
7:31 I think that's a good distinction. Jackson, I we're kind of talking about the when you think deism and if you think it's a view of God being so far away, that he's no longer present. You might think, Oh, well, then Wouldn't that lead us to be less moral? Right, right. The cat's away, the mice will play like, and and it is helpful thinking that even the deism of the enlightenment and that was was more of a God who instilled right laws and part of those laws were moral law. There was right or wrong. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And and with that, and so Jackson, we kind of we brought you on as an expert. In the first time ever. Yeah. First. Tell that to your parents. Yeah. That's a resume booster. Yeah, it is out there. And we have it on tape. Yeah. I mean, it is on record. Check out Jessup think I am an expert. Boom. There you go. There you go. Mom and Dad. Yeah. And maybe even wife, although I would encourage you not to. Don't call that. Yeah, don't call it because there's a lot of areas. You're probably not an expert. Yes. And those will be brought comparison. But you're in youth ministry right now. How long have you been working with youth?
8:41 I've been working with youth for a while. I mean, longer. Yeah, yes. But I've been working with the youth group for literally a year to today.
8:50 Oh, sorry. Today, we seem Wow, we're gonna get you flowers. Yeah, we didn't know this. Hope that after today. You don't get fired?
8:58 Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, we want to keep it all for many more years
9:04 to come. So like junior high in high school, in a church setting for that time, but then I've been working with I was I started as a junior high youth pastor at my church, my senior year of high school. So I've been working with youth kind of ever since then then worked at summer camps and stuff like that. So it's been a while that I've kind of been in youth ministry at this point. So so we just got Jackson here because he was available but looks like we struggle. He's actually an expert.
9:35 Yeah, but he is a little bit of time. And that definitely is longer than Rex and I have been in youth ministry over the last four years. We you know, we both we both did our time. rite of passage today,
9:47 although as I like to say in it's actually not an exaggeration, I was the world's worth youth pastor, but I sort of didn't know what I was doing and I didn't go to Jessup and so you know, they don't have the foundation. Yeah, the foundation so,
10:01 but we can get t shirts the world's worst worst. That would be great. It would be good irony to you. I like Yeah, I'd like to wear it currently, you know? Yeah, that would set the bar low heavy expert then on the back Yeah, exactly. Exactly. come and go. Yeah, that's right. But with with kind of working with youth, yeah, these kind of four years. When you hear something like this, right, when you hear moralistic therapeutic deism, what are you kind of seeing in students right now? Or do do these five things kind of maybe capture where students are at now? I know, we got about 14 years. Yeah, study?
10:41 Yeah, it's kind of it's odd, because I almost feel like the reason why this is such a perfect or maybe core belief for junior high or high school students right now, and especially high school students is they're at the stage, where they're still at home. And probably many of them, their parents are still like forcing them to come to church. And so they're at the stage where they, they have this, like, parental influence, that there is a God and that like, we're, you know, whatever church we go to, you know, like, this is kind of what we're associated with. But they might not have actually had a, like, legitimate experience with God. And I. And that being said, they're like, yeah, like, there is a God, but I don't know that much about him. And he seems kind of distant, and he seems kind of far off. And, and a lot of that, I think has to do with the fact that like, even with how youth ministry has been set up for so long, which is something I've really been like, pondering and trying to kind of alter in how we're doing youth ministry now at my church. But youth ministry has been like, catered so specifically to the student for fear that the student would be bored or, you know, whatever it is fill in the blank. But then you're not preparing a kid to like actually go to actual church when they graduate. Yes, churches never catered to you. Yeah. So um,
12:08 yeah, we were like, that's big church. Exactly. Yeah.
12:11 And you're in like this, like little like fun church, right to play games and like a 15 Minute Message, you know, and so we like, divvy it up that way. And the message is always gonna be hyper relevant to your life and what you're in right now. But then you like actually show up to church, and the pastor's, you know, talking about something specific to young families or marriage, and you're single, and you're in college, and then it's like, oh, this doesn't apply to me at all right? And you have the tendency to be like, well, if it doesn't apply to me, then it's not good for me, because that's kind of what we're instilling. So, you know, there's a lot you can say about that. Yeah, there really is. Yeah, so I'm a big shift for us. And kind of like our mission, youth, group wise, where I'm at right now has been to this idea of meeting Jesus, because I'm kind of I'm working on the premise that a lot of our students are yet to meet Jesus actually in their life, just because they know things about Jesus, you see Jesus encounter a lot of people in the gospels who know some things about who he supposed to be as a Messiah, and knowing things does not quantify the effect of actually meeting Jesus. And writing Jesus is the life altering experience. It's not like, knowing things about Jesus. So you, you see, like kids who have grown up in church or been around the Bible enough to like, know things about Jesus, or even to say, like, yeah, I believe, like, God's creator. And he's, like, pretty, like he's there sometimes. And he shows up, and he cares. And he, like, wants me to be a good person. But it's actually in meeting Jesus, that not only the conviction of like, I need him is there, but like, the experience of His love is there as well. And so then the person of God and the person of Jesus become very, very specific. But a lot of the way that we do youth ministry isn't catered to meeting Jesus. It's catered to facts, and you knowing more and growing in your knowledge, not in your experience.
14:05 So another thing actually, that kind of dovetails with that. And Mark and I were talking about that before the podcast is sort of trying to answer the question of where does this come from? It's like, if folks actually think this about God, it's not what they're hearing from the pulpit. Really? Usually. Yeah. Right. But But somehow, you know, they've got this idea. And, you know, so we look at the, you know, the villains in culture or whatever. I think there is some of that, but it kind of struck both of us that actually, probably, and I think you already mentioned this, Jackson, that this is kind of what all other parents believe, actually. Yeah. And so the, you know, it's not just a youth of America thing. It's sort of, you know, it's more widespread than that.
14:48 Yeah. Yeah. And maybe you could say about, not just teenagers in the church, but also a lot of people who go to church and know facts about God. Maybe have get to meet Jesus. And I think that is a really good distinction to make, like this isn't you can go to church, you kind of know about God, you obviously have a sense that you should be a good person and kind and, and we see that all throughout culture, right? When and that's, and that in some level is a good thing, right? It would be way different if we were in a culture where it was like, you should be mean everyone. And like, we would be like in a bard room right now, you know, like, maybe the studio is protecting us. But it's like, so there's a general moralism like within within our culture, and a general concept of God. And so I could have that and go to church. And no matter what the pastor is saying, in, in the sermon, I could have this disconnect,
15:54 and what the pastor probably is saying, and we talked about that, too, is sort of the therapeutic part of the moral therapeutic deism. Yes, we are. So you know, that into that as a culture, but also in our churches. You know, I remember being taught, I guess, in seminary, and maybe some books I read that, you know, we have to preach to felt needs, you know, so so it's like, you try to figure out what your congregation feels they need and you cater to them? Well, it's like, you know, nobody seems to actually like need Jesus, they just need to feel better. And so you make them feel, right, yeah. And you know, nothing wrong with being happy at all. But it's like, it's not exactly the gospel.
16:36 Yeah. And it would be super easy to turn nearly any sermon to a Oh, like, you know, you can like filter out the need for Jesus in a sermon and be like, well, that's what it looks like to be a good person. So I'm walking away with a better understanding of what it looks like to be a good person. And all of a sudden church just becomes class on being a good person. Yeah. Which then feeds this mentality all the more
17:01 and then you you come to the conclusion that well, if that's all it is, then I actually I can be a good person without going to church. Yeah. There you go.
17:09 Right. And then once I graduate from class, you know, yeah, exactly. Right. from church once I learned this, yeah. And, and it does seem to be there's, there's this connection, maybe between the, like, moralistic view of I need to be good. And then that therapeutic, I think it is really important that they brought that in to the right. Happy, good and happy and yeah, that they are different. Right? And right, and we're supposed to be good. We're happy because you're good. Like me? Yeah. It's like, the idea is like, my happiness stems from being in and if the, if the church then becomes a place where that's reinforced. Right, then then you do have you got God kind of slapped on top of of that. Goodness. And, and one of the things that I've found in in ministry, both the youth ministry way back in the day while this study was happening, before it was a very successful youth pass. That's right. Yeah, I was. My, my first, my first position in youth ministry was janitor of the youth center. Yeah, nice. So I have that shouldn't make you an expert. Right? That is, well, here's what I'm an expert in. I'm an expert in the way Skittles get crushed down into carpet. And then you have to integrate it out and get it out. You have to scrape it out. So I have sure prepared you for parenting. did help, you know, and that's where I you know, maybe speak that into some youth ministry classes here. Just like hey, what you need to do is crunch a bunch of Skittles down on this carpet and classroom and the whole class. They just have to get it out. And they have to clean everything. Yeah, stack the chairs. unstack them. Yes. And then set up the sound one more time. Yeah. And then that's you're ready, you're prepared. The things they don't teach you. That's true is really true. We could have a whole separate class on the things you HAVE to code. Yes, ministry practical, the loving with that you've been sure and even being in the church. One thing that I've realized is you can like off all of these five, you can hold these things outside of the church. There's so many families that I connected with that are good, and they're relatively happy. And they don't have God in their life. And so, if this has if this in any way has been a message that has been even just caught from the church, maybe not taught, you know, like, or sermons are probably more specific, but if it's just caught from us in our in our normal lives, then it really does come down to like, Okay, then what, what do we have to offer them right? Like, if they're like, wait, I am good. You know, I'm generally kind and I'm trying to be nice to my neighbors and relatively happy with my life and my family. Show me how show me where this God who Yeah, I think God exists. But, you know, not a part of my daily life and maybe when I get that crisis, right, I will come to church and oh, yeah, right. And yeah, I think I think it then does, it's helpful for us, within a church to start thinking about that, because I often had to think about that with my, with friends, and maybe parents of my children's friends being like, and actually they're good, and they're pretty happy. Okay, what, how is the gospel different than this?
20:37 Sort of what what they call it the kind of 911 phenomena, you know, after 911 for, you know, a few months, you know, church attendance went up and stuff, but Brexit kind of knew what was going on knew that that probably wouldn't last, actually, because it was just a reaction to crisis. And then you just sort of get back to, you know, this therapeutic deism. Yeah,
21:00 that's part of the tension too, I think is the question of is what we're doing in the church feeding this? Like, is it something that we're doing? Or is it that it's like, it's in the intention of people who are coming to church with this mindset already, that God almost becomes this puppet for why they're being good? You know, they're like, I feel like I needed to be better in my life, but I need a reason to be better because I can't just like, you know, I can't just like rally myself to be better. That'd be like, a weird thing. Right? Right. So instead, like, I'm gonna, like, show up to church for a couple weeks, and that's going to like your, your, your, you know, your appointment with your therapist. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
21:38 Are you like, trying to rally to eat healthy? Yeah, man, you know, I just have ice cream. Exactly. Like, yeah, you need,
21:45 you need a reason to be good. And God made it plays that role becomes this, like, you know, this, like stringed puppet that's like, Oh, he's the reason but he it's really like, you know, I'm pulling all the strings and running God who I want God to be. But you know, it gives me a reason to be good.
22:02 Yeah, like, helps feed that sometimes to maybe this. I'm good. Therefore, God better make me happy, right? Like, hey, God, I've done all these right things as transactional? Where's Yeah, and oh, yeah, exactly. Now, kind of where maybe, so this was, you know, the study was 14 years ago. So, a lot has happened in 14 years. And, and I still can't believe it's been 14 years since 2005. Because 14 years ago, should be the 1970s in my life, right? Like I should know not 2005. But with time has passed, and this kind of my question for all of us to look at. I know, deism may not be may not be the best word, but even theism like I think of say, if we interchange that with theism. So moralistic therapeutic theism? Do you think that they did that study now? Would the theism part still be there? Or would they have to qualify it at all? In in America, do you? Do you feel a shift? Maybe with students, you're reaching or friends of students? Is there a shift even away from Yeah, God exists? to maybe a god exists? I don't know if a god exists,
23:20 you know, the fastest growing and we've already talked about that the fastest, fastest growing religious persuasion, if you can even call it that right now are the nuns. It's, it's like, you have to actually, you actually have to think about God a lot to be an atheist in some sort of strange way. Right, right. I agree with that. I really, but it's like, you know, I can't even Rouse myself to think enough to be an atheist. So I'm just kind of nothing, you know? Yeah. And, of course, the big question is, you know, what has happened if something has happened in the past, you know, 14 years to make that, you know, to make this change into sort of something else? I, you know, I'm not sure. But then I actually, you know, don't work with youth right now. So it's been a while, even when I was pastoring years ago, I still did some, you had lot more, you know, connection with that. But, um, I think probably most kids would still sort of have a vague theism right now. You know, I think it may change once you go to college. I think that that, you know, right, is, you know, to where the vague theism becomes a vague agnosticism. And I think everything's vague right now. Right? Yeah. It's, it's vague on both sides. You know? Yeah.
24:42 Yeah. And you see that Jackson, do you see that in maybe youth or especially then even in college, right. Yeah. Even Heaven forbid at a Christian College.
24:50 Yeah. I mean, I would say if this study was applying to, you know, people in their 20 somethings then you would have to qualify the deism or theism and say like, This is kind of what we're meaning by this. And it's very loose. And but I mean, I think it's, it's hard to avoid, like, it's almost like Rex is saying, like, as a high schooler, who's growing up in a home that either you're Christian, you're like, parents are Christians, and they are a church for some reason. Yeah. And they like hold this or you show up to church with your friend every now and again, or your parents don't show up to church, but they still hold this kind of a view, then you just have to think about God a lot to begin to question it. And I have a student right now, who, when I first showed up to the church was like, really questioning, doubting her faith was like thinking about rejecting it, and is like, deeply into philosophy. So she, like really cares about this. And and then she like, it ultimately led her to like, No, I think I actually believe this stronger than I ever have, which is cool. But then she had this whole issue that she keeps talking to me about that every time. She's like a very deep thinker. And every time her parents are like, What are you thinking about? She'll tell them? And they'll say, well, it's something about her faith. Yeah. And then they say to her consistently, you are overthinking that, and she looks at them. And she goes, I think you're under thinking it. And that's like, the really interesting thing is like you've got parents who are under thinking it. And so I think the only way you would be able to qualify it in a high school setting is if you had a student who was, quote, overthinking it. And so you're like, you really do have to care as a student a lot about gun to really start questioning that. But I think it's more in your 20s when you're like getting into college and things like that, that. And you're starting to separate from your parents. I think that's a big part of it, too. But then you're becoming like this own identity religiously, as well. Yeah. And you look at this, and you might say, like, you know, my mom banked way too much on God to show up in these like different crises that we thought God was going to show up in and he didn't. And so now I'm kind of like rejecting that. So then, like the theism deism starts to kind of lose way, I think, in that age range.
27:08 Yeah. And I think that is important to kind of know, that does seem to be within American culture in our 20s that we start even even growing up in the church, I think in your 20s, you start to to just even question like, Okay, what have I believed my whole life? What do I still believe? What do I know? And yeah,
27:26 I mean, it's just sort of a natural. Yeah, making your own way, sort of thing.
27:30 Yeah. Which still brings me back to the youth ministry question to have, are we setting kids up in the way that we do youth ministry? Because we're like, catering everything to them. And then things aren't catered, and then they start? Yeah, you know, it's really interesting that way, too.
27:44 Yeah, it really is. And I think that,
27:47 so I guess the solution is just really hit them with better apologetic arguments, right that way than they'll never never, never doubt. Yes.
27:53 Well, no, yes, you're right. Yeah. Take the phone go back to when we were kids. We had to be in big church where we are in town. And that's where we drew. Yep. And that's when you think, how is time moving so slow? How is it not 12? Yet, like, and then you get older? And you're like, how is it already? 12? What is happening? How am I already at nine years old? Mike, this just flew by? Yeah. Well, but I think that's a good place to kind of land to, in the sense of maybe thrown out some ways like, Okay, how, where do we go from here, like, this is? I think this does capture not only for teenagers, but it probably captures for a good portion of, of people in America, this idea that, okay, a vague theism that God exists. vague, he wants us to be good. And wants us to be happy. Yeah. And I'll call him when I need him like, and so I think you've brought up some good points your accent of, of, Hey, how are we approaching this? Even in our youth ministry? And I love that idea of like, hey, let's actually meet Jesus, like, and that's maybe the difference too, like, you can have a vague theism. And then you have Jesus, here's a very specific, yeah, a specific version of theism. And I think that shift is really,
29:17 really, if we make the goal not that God's gonna make you happy and fulfill you and all of those things, but like, the goal is just for you to meet the person of Jesus.
29:25 What because it is just sort of, you know, teaching of atheism, then you really don't need to go to church, which is historically I know, I'm going to push it back. Yeah, well, yeah, that's why you're here. But, you know, I, in my first church that I ever pastored, I noticed something really interesting after a while, so it was a small church in Oakland that had been founded in the late 50s and early 60s, sort of at the height or of the, of the 50s, revival of religion or whatever. And now those were the glory days. of the church, and obviously to hire someone like me, they were way past the glory days. And so when I first went there, you know, I mean, literally, the average age in the church I think was 80 or something. God did an amazing thing while I was there totally got not me. But when I got there, it was like that. And a lot of those folks had had started going to church in like the 50s and 60s, and now there were adults, and I'd noticed something after a while, it's like I could I could talk about God. And that was cool. But once I started getting too much Jesus in there, people started getting nervous. And that just really surprised me. Yeah, it's like, isn't that why we're here? Right. But I sort of noticed that actually, they kinda, you know, had been sort of what's hot? Yeah, it's sort of just a theism sort of thing, you know, and, and then I can see why, you know, the kids that went to Sunday school in the 50s, left the church in the 60s, in droves, because, you know, who needs a vague theism? Or at least who needs to go to church for vague theism? Because I can have that anywhere?
31:02 Yeah, yeah. And, and when you really start to focus on the person of Jesus, but I don't want you to ever lose that thought, right? Because that's another podcast episode right there. Because I'm fascinated by the transition from 50s and 60s, and the influence that still has on American culture. But as you focus on Jesus, I think it starts to maybe put into a better light, what the moralistic side is supposed to look like, right? Like that God does is calling us to be good and does have, but it's positioned in a much different way with Jesus,
31:40 right? And it's understood outside that when you look at Jesus, it's so unattainable, right? moralistic standard. Yeah. It's not like this, like super vague and loose. Good.
31:49 Yeah, I can kind of maybe do this. On my own is he even takes it to this level? Yeah, he takes it into a deeper level, when you learn it's like and that you can't actually meet? Yeah. Right. And unless you have you
32:03 thinking about when I was thinking about, well, what do you do about this? If this is a phenomenon, and what do you do about it, and I'm no expert on what you do about it. But the word that kept coming up, in my mind actually is very similar to what you guys have been talking about sort of incarnational Jesus is His incarnation of God in flesh and, and somehow, you know, incarnation in fleshman of God is, isn't seems to me it is a good antidote to something as vague as moral therapeutic deism.
32:33 Yeah, that's so good. Because he's sure in the incarnation, he shows us how to be good. And as a different type of good or good, we can't do on our own. He shows us maybe the difference between joy and happiness, right? that not everything is not everything is going to go as planned. And you might actually end up on a cross because he walks like, depressed all the time, too. And, and so it kind of puts a spin on that. And then obviously, the deism or fake or vague theism this idea that no God is here, right? I mean, he is, he's literally here and moving among us. And I think that that is a great, great thing that the church can capture. And if we can become this our incarnational model, right of who God is, and I think is important. And again, coming back to Jesus in meeting
33:30 Jesus, right, which I think has to totally change or impact our gospel presentation. Yes. I think our gospel presentation right now is this very loose. Like, if you raise your hand, all of these promises are like coming to you, right? Yeah. And it's like lineup? Yeah, this super vague, like theism that can come out of that. Yes. Our Gospel presentation is
33:52 Yeah, and loose. Actually, I'm thinking of I don't know if this is actually gonna make into the podcast after the editing. But I was actually thinking of a quote that I, I actually have on a slide when I teach Christian perspective, somebody said, if, if, if you if you follow Jesus and don't end up dead then then there's something wrong. eventually be great is just it's if you're reading the book of Acts, it's a serious thing. Yes. A serious thing. Yeah, it's a serious thing.
34:21 No, and that's good. And that's a good good place to kind of land. Thank you guys for again, being on the show. Jackson. Thanks for being the first ever student. Yeah, be more. You know, boys are here. That's right. Happy to have you back. As you know, we can celebrate your graduation. we all we all actually thought that Jackson had already graduated. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're in that together. Remind yourself Oh, wait, I still have class still have class. All right. Well, I want to end today's show with a new segment. And this segment has is made possible because you're here Jackson, right? So we have we have a student and so this new stuff This new segment is called the student becomes the teacher. And we just want to give you a platform Jackson to teach us, you know, Rex Nye as as professors. We are lifelong learners, right? And we want to keep reading, keep knowing. So we're also totally clueless as to exactly yeah, like most things, a little complicated culture. So we want to learn and we're clueless. Perfect. That's great Convo. We're good. So maybe, maybe Yeah, like a phrase or something from youth culture or pop culture right now that that maybe we wouldn't know that would be helpful for us to know. Okay,
35:37 well, well, one of the things that I was thinking about because even you and I were talking about, like maybe even like, what kind of reinforces moral therapeutic deism in culture for these and stuff like that. So there's these things that happen on YouTube called vlogs. If you didn't know that, okay, yeah. So a little familiar, a little familiar with YouTube so, so on YouTube, these vlogs happen, which is like a daily blog, but it's a video so it's blog and video How to like combination there in the name so it's a vlog vlog. Yeah. And so the whole point of a vlog is like you splice your day together so that your day looks awesome. And you know, then you become this like social media influencer, because you are like, you're like living in this moralistic therapeutic like lifestyle, where you're being good, everything's happy. And so like, people like really envy that because they want to live that kind of lifestyle. And these people don't have jobs somehow, you know, and they travel the world. So sign me up. Yeah. So what do we how can we get a video camera? So um, so anyways, vlogs happen, but then on top of vlogs different people who like do these vlogs will do this thing called vlogmas, which happens around Christmas. And so then now it's a video blog has now had a combination with Christmas and on vlogmas they will release a vlog every single day of December from December 1 to December 25. And on top of that, they will give away all of this like cool merch because another deal that these like, vlog people have is that they will, people will like companies will send them stuff for them to unbox on their vlogs. So then they just get a bunch of stars. Yeah, so they get a bunch of viewers like advertisement, but then they get free stuff. So they'll give away all their free stuff for the month and so definitely got to get it free. So vlog vlogmas you splice your life together, you make it look awesome. People send you free stuff, then you are a good person and you give that difficulty that mark shouldn't have much of a list for Hey, no, I
37:48 actually think your blog would be I would tune into your vlog. Right? Well, that's that gives me actually insight into my 14 and 12 year old and what they're doing all the time. And who they watch because I'm like, how did you even find this person? Like a random person with a video camera in Ohio? Never have to give them a Christmas present again. That's true. Exactly. I get this tune in for vlogmas tune in for vlogmas Alright, so vlogmas you know this I think this episode is actually gonna be coming out in the summer so we'll have to wait. Yeah, like six months before blobbies. Eager to maybe find someone to follow. Yeah. And then experienced for the first time in 2000. A lot of dedication that's 20 blogs. That is that is that's that's amazing. Well, thank you. I feel I actually feel smarter. Yeah, you're welcome. And maybe with my kids Tonight, I'll throw it out like Hey, did you guys straight away? Yeah, no, I was thinking this year we could do some vlogs family vlogs family vlogging and they'll be like, Dad, please don't. Probably Yeah, probably. All right. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
39:19 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Brian Lucas, founder of Adams Avenue Bookstore, sits down with Mark to discuss the importance of reading well. This episode looks to inspire us to put down the remote and pick up a book now then to truly feed our souls. The pair will discuss views of CS Lewis and Dorothy Sayers on this topic. Mark will also reveal a very interesting connection in the opening section of the show.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 All right. Well, welcome to Jessup. Think and I'm your host, Mark Moore. And I could not be more excited to have my good friend on the show, Professor of Greek is CS Lewis, Master, German scholar, Brian Luke is Brian, thanks for being on the show today.
0:25 It's a pleasure and you've already gone over the top.
0:28 Yeah, I've already you know, I've said too much already. I've said too much. But how long have you been with Jessup? Brian,
0:34 this is this is my 12th. Year. Okay, you're right. Yeah, I was 19 2007 that I started. adjunct thing and also working in running the bookstore back then, when Jessup had the bookstore on campus. Okay. Yeah, that's great. and nice. campus was about, I think, a fourth of the students that we currently have.
0:55 Right? Yeah, it's grown so much in these 12 years. Yeah, it's been, I've been nine years now. Here. And yeah, just I mean, it's growing every year. It's really great to be a part of that. And, you know, it's interesting, you brought up that you worked with the bookstore here, because I want to kind of start with a story that I think is I think, is really interesting, if I do say so myself about my story that I haven't said yet. But but it was in 2001. I moved from the beautiful state of Indiana. cornfields as far as the eye could see breathtaking sunsets, because you could actually see the sunset. I'm over the horizon. I moved from there to a to a slightly, maybe a slightly more beautiful city in San Diego, California. Some may, some may say it's more beautiful than Indiana. I'm, I'm on the edge there. I like them both. But I moved there to go to grad school, and also to work at a church. And while I was working at the church in the college group, some of the students knew I was going to school knew I was, you know, academically minded. So they were like, Hey, you have to check out this bookstore that we just found. And I was like, Yeah, I'd love I mean, I loved old books, ever since I was a kid I loved collecting old things even and just in and we use books and, and so went with them and quickly fell in love with this bookstore called Adams Avenue bookstore in, in San Diego. And it was so amazing is that it appeared at first to be just a just kind of a normal used bookstore, with, you know, shelves of fiction and art history and some cookbooks, some travel books, a couple of cats roaming around. And then I went upstairs and entered this magical world of theology and biblical studies and spirituality. And it was just a it was the largest section or selection of used books in theology and bib studies, and, and spirituality that I had seen in any used bookstore that I've been in before. And so I just quickly fell in love with it, it became still is my favorite bookstore of all time. Fast forward. A few years, I've moved back to after grad school, moved back to Indiana for a little bit, then came to Sacramento in 2008. I started teaching here in 2010. And that's where I met you, Brian met here on campus. So we will you know, we can ask the audience. We have never met each other before William Jessup universe. That's right. There was no connection. There's no connection beyond that. But when we were talking just in that one, a couple of first conversations we had just getting to know each other. You mentioned that you lived in San Diego, and that you own a bookstore in San Diego, they own a bookstore in San Diego. And I asked you Oh yeah, what was your bookstore name? And when you said, Adams Avenue bookstore, I swear, fireworks went off in the background. And it was just such an amazing connection that I was meeting, the founder and the owner of literally my favorite bookstore of all time, my I, I would patronize you with compliments anyway, just because you're a guest on the show. But that's not i'm not patronizing here. It literally was my favorite bookstore of all time, and have way too many books on my shelf that came from from your store, and it was just so cool to meet to meet you. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you got started with the bookstore down in San Diego and what maybe your love for, for books have been in your life.
5:12 I appreciate that. Of course, the the end of that has come as we as we know, just last summer, I spent the summer in San Diego having to close the store down after 32 years. Wow. 32 years, but it was in the it was in the late 1980s. And I'd wanted to go into business for myself for quite a while I've been exploring that. And and I'd always been interested in reading and in books and in working with people. And and having a bookstore seemed to me The more I thought about it and talk to people to be a good way to be able to do both of those things at the same time. Yeah, so it was about a two or three year process of getting ready talking to people I traveled talk to as many dealers as I could and and we purchased the existing store in in one of the older communities east of downtown San Diego, that had already been there since 1965. So I'm actually that I was actually the third owner of the of the store. And our hope had been to not just create a bookstore, but create a place and environment for people to interact with each other and to connect with the best books that we could provide. So I mean, as you said, was a general store, people would come in and buy a science fiction book or cookbook or ARB, we had a lot of children's and young adult books. That was one of our largest sections that did very well. But we our focus ultimately was on scholarly material. Part of that was our audience, you know, in San Diego with numerous universities, San Diego State and UCSD and USD and private colleges, Christian and non Christian, we're all around us. And so over the years, we had a very great and close relationship with academic students and faculty and staff of all these institutions. So that was for me, very, very enjoyable. That was a great opportunity.
7:06 Yeah, that's so great. And how did you how did you go about kind of amassing such a great selection of biblical studies and theology? How did you how did you get those books?
7:17 Well, when we, when we started, the there was only one floor. And when we started the books, okay, and then we have the two storey building, and then we subsequently about two or three years later, had access to the person leasing the building allowed us to occupy the entire phone to the second floor. So and at that point, there was like two shelves about three feet wide was the total Biblical Studies in religion section. So but our that was our commitment to, over a long period of time, really developed the best store we could in scholarly areas at the center of humanities education, so that we had a great and, you know, we really worked for a long time in our history area of American history, ancient and medieval history of theology, Western philosophy, you know, religious studies in general, plus our Christian theology and Biblical Studies.
8:12 Yeah, well, you did perfectly on your you hit your goal, because you really did develop a place that was a community and where you could come and get good quality, scholarly works. When I was in grad school, I got several of my textbooks through their books that I was using for my master's thesis. I got some older, kind of even more like, first print ish, almost or first edition from you that were on this special back shelf that were protected from the general population. Southwestern, yeah, they were clustered on their own. And, you know, I had a little bit of a little bit of money I could throw towards books, you know, maybe it was borrowed money that I'm paying back now. But in my mind, you know, it was it was went to a good cause. Yeah, good, cause but it was just your great and it was just amazing.
9:07 Yeah. You know, another thing that comes to my mind is in terms of what drew me toward it, and and that that was the fact that I had the sense of, at that time of being a bookseller of joining a guild, you know, at that point, books essentially, were still sold, bought and sold the same way they had been for hundreds of years. Right. And, you know, the book community there was a real community. The booksellers association was an active group, we met monthly, you know, there was maybe 25 to 30 of us that would meet monthly It was a wild and quirky group, you know, but a great a great experience. And I really treasure that and over the years and the changes of the culture and the business community, everything they're almost all gone in the in the book as a community now the booksellers that's pretty well fallen to the wayside unfortunately. But for quite a while, that was a lively and really stimulating group to be a part of.
10:07 Yeah. And I think it's important for us to, to kind of, maybe examine the changes that have happened in culture, particularly regarding books and how we get books and the community, we're in reading books together, I think it's important for us to, to, to examine that and, and to know, maybe like, hey, here are some changes that haven't been the best, some some ease of access, and those things with technology have been good. And I can grab a bunch of different books that I couldn't before now, just on my iPad, but I think it's also one of the reason why I wanted to bring it on the show is just kind of talk about that importance of books, and maybe even the importance of holding something in your hand, and reading and how that influences us. And how it helps us as as a human race and how it is really important. And I hope today, we can kind of just inspire a love for the love for books, and particularly a mix between new books and old books that we're we're kind of reading both of those. And when I was in college, I read an article from CS Lewis, and it's actually his introduction to Athanasius is on the incarnation. And when I read it had completely changed the way I viewed reading, and the way I viewed what books I was selecting to read. I'll be I can, I can be honest here, I think we were good enough friends that I can be honest, that when I was actually younger, I wasn't much of a reader. And it's kind of mirrors. I know, I mean, some kids today who are like nine, and they've read every word of Harry Potter, and I'm like, That is amazing. I wasn't much of a reader. And it wasn't until college that I started to kind of late High School into college, that I that I started to develop a love for reading and then it became this decision, right of Okay, what should I read. And when I read this article, he talked about how we can't get caught up in just reading the new books. If we get caught up in just reading the new books, we're gonna miss the perspective. And like the time tested values of these older books, and actually, I just want to read a little bit of this article. To you, I'm actually that's I'm working on my other podcasts, it's on the side, and I'm just gonna read CS Lewis, and it's just gonna be a podcast of me reading CS Lewis. But that's a different you know, that's, it'll just be maybe that could be our podcast together, we can call it you know, the Louis hour or something. But this, in the introduction, I love how he phrases this. He says there's a strange idea of broad that in every subject, the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should contend himself with modern books. Thus, I have found as a tutor in English literature that if the average student wants to find out something about platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the symposium. He would rather read some dreary, modern book 10 times as long, all about isms and influence, and only once and 12 pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one for it springs from humility, right, like, and I think lewis is saying, There we, we sometimes fear like, well, I can't read Plato. I'm not I'm not gonna know what he's talking about. He's too. He's too high above me. So I read someone else, but I love how he notes like, and I think that still in currently for us, we often think about that, like, oh, the older the classics. That's for the professor to read. And then I may read someone who's telling me about them. And and Lewis goes on in the article to highlight, modern books are still on trial. They haven't stood the test of time, and even put himself in that category. And he notes He's like, well, I'm a writer myself. So I still hope people read Marty. But that we would gauge it with ancient books as well. And he actually gives, he gives kind of a formula. He says, You should read at least one old book to every three new books that you read. And I know you're familiar with this article, too. What's your take on on Lewis? Hear?
15:00 Yeah, I love I love the article, and I'm glad that you that you brought it up. You know, I think he does two main things in in that article. The first is, you know, as you're addressing the importance of our education and even just our own private reading, focusing on the on the original works, the original texts, which tend to be, as heaped says, typically better Britain. Right and, and, and more welcoming to us and we tend to, we tend to think that they're going to be off putting or that we won't understand them. I think the concern also that he's raising there indirectly is that so much of our education today, and certainly much more than when he wrote the article is from secondary literature, right, you know, it's very, it's very common now in, you know, education well up into, you know, college and even beyond, that people studying very seldom, really are reading extent, whole works of the original text, right. And increasingly, we're relying upon, you know, secondary and tertiary works to do that. And, and, and yet the other thing that that you also hinted at, which I think is the second emphasis of the article, is his his take that one of the things that reading older books gives us his vantage point, you know, we need a place to stand apart from where we are in terms of our points of view and our assumptions and all the rest of it, in order to evaluate who we really are and what we're, we're going individually and culturally and whatever. And, and the only way we can do that he says only two possibilities, the future in the past, while the future is not on the table, yet. We don't have those books. That's right. So the only place we can go is to the to the past. And you know, he's very straightforward. It's not a matter that people in the past were smarter or anything like that, right. They just during particular historical periods are in different cultures or times, they operated from a different set of assumptions. They didn't share views that to us, we take for granted. And he says that's they made mistakes, just like we do, but different ones. The key thing that we have to see that we can get into some of these other worlds, both in fiction, and poetry, and history, and all kinds of texts, and realize that we can begin to see ourselves through the eyes of somebody else. And in his, in his literary book experiment in criticism, he talks about that, specifically the that when we read through another author like that, and he's speaking there of the great books of poetry and literature, then the great gain is that we we see and feel what they see and feel, right, we come at our lives from a different vantage point. And I think he saw a huge value to that. And I certainly would agree with that.
18:00 Yeah, I love the way he brings that up that idea that we have in the modern world, we have our blind spots that we just can't see. And when you read ancient books, they had blind spots, they just have different ones. Yeah. So they Yeah, they're able to help us understand our time, because they're looking at things in a completely different way.
18:25 Yeah. And, yeah, and one of the frightening things and he that what he brings up as well, this is one of the things that we would find out perhaps is that, you know, for instance, in our time, and our just debates and arguments with people that we think we share nothing in common with, hmm, that actually, when we get outside of our time and read earlier literature, we probably are going to find that, that we have a lot more in common with them than we would often like to admit. Yeah, so where our intellectual roots come from,
18:53 right, that's so good that I think it's such a good benefit of, of reading older and in within the think within the church to like within kind of contemporary Christian spirituality, we can get really caught up in just reading the current devotional style words. And, and those are good and they serve a purpose. Amen. And if I ever write one like that, I hope you buy it. You'll be the first customer, right? But we also put it on my wish list. But we also need to, to tackle those deeper works of theology and the ancient works so that they, you know, and and just a lot of times within, I think the current church, we don't get those works. We may get them through other people. But yeah, it'd be great if we would. And I love what what Lewis says about that. This is right at the end of his article, and I've often said this to my classes. But Brian, if you have, if you have any say or choice and what goes on my tombstone, like if you're, you're in that conversation, I want you to, you know, bring up this quote and just be like, Hey Mark, at one point, brought up this quote. But Lewis says this as for my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books more often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books. And I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that nothing happens when they sit down or kneel down to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden, while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. And there's just such a good picture of, of Louis, and, and that that difference of having older weightier books that can help us with the current devotional books that help us connect, but it may also just be one side of a relationship. And I love how Lewis reminds us to bring in those, and he uses the word as well conversation,
21:16 you know, that when we pick up a book that that was written 1015 2025 years ago, and we're, we're reading the debates, and, and some of the questions that are being asked, and the reasons behind some of the arguments, you know, can be difficult for us to understand, because we have we forget that that's part of a conversation that was going on long before, right, you know, and the terms may change over the centuries, and the issues change. But so, you know, we're entering into a to a debate or conversation that may be centuries old. And and without the context of the earlier works, you know, we can really be lost or misunderstand what's, you know, what's really at issue with maybe not even being aware of it?
22:01 Right? Yeah. And that's just a reminder to us that we are entering a conversation that has been going on, for centuries, for millennia. And, and it's important for us to be aware of what has been said, so that we know maybe why people are bringing up questions now, or the direction we're going it so important. In the article lewis is listing some contemporary authors, you know, he says, Hey, we need to balance like a Gustin and Aquinas, with neighbor, or himself. And he also brings up Dorothy Sayers. And I know you and I've talked before about she has an article that's pretty similar. Yeah. And this what is what is kind of her take on how old books play a role in our
22:49 formation, that her article, I think, is an entitled or lost tools of learning. And that's a great, yeah, it's a great title. And that really tells what the article is about she goes in a little bit different direction, I think she's got, you know, different fish to fry in a way than than Louis does, specifically. But, uh, her concern at the root of her article is that, that she sees and had a fear now, this is decades ago, you know, this is written, we're, we're educating people without teaching them how to be educated. No, we're not giving them the tools that they need, at the appropriate ages. Yeah, of students, young boys and girls, in order to be able, as they grow and mature, to continue to learn on their own. And so her article is, is in a sense, a, and she uses the model, you know, for her argument as to put over against what she sees currently happening, the medieval approach to education, you know, that right, focuses essentially on the initial education of boys and girls being to give them the tools of being able to learn and the on the understanding and study of what we call subjects, you know, history and other things would come at a later time. Ryan, it's a very quite a different orientation to the way we see it. And she
24:18 was a really interesting character.
24:20 She was a character, you know, she is she was a good friend of a lot of the Inklings and Lewis and she corresponded quite a bit and, and she's a great model for education, I think, because she wasn't, in a sense, really an academic in the way that we would think of it. She had a great interest for instance, in Dante, and and so so much so that she learned she on her own Yeah, medieval Italian Okay, so she could read Dante in the weekend, probably yes. And and further because because of her passion, she ended up reaching the level of competence that she Get a translation of all three volumes of the Divine Comedy, and groped a number of subsequent articles that that have been published in academic journals on Dante's work. It's really, she said, to me, a fantastic example of someone at a passion, you know, just dedicated themselves to that area of study. Yeah,
25:19 that's so great. And well, yeah, what's her maybe in her influence of Dante and stuff kind of, for me, maybe brings up I look back in my life and think, man, what have been some books that have influenced me that really grabbed hold of, of my imagination grabbed hold of my curiosity. But I want to throw that out to you or there's some there's some books that you can look back to in life and say, Man, when I was introduced to this, it really drew me into the world of reading.
25:49 Well, for me, reading came serious reading reading of substance came fairly late from for me as well certainly wasn't part of mine. So we were hanging out part of my high school experience more likely, but so it, it's something that came along a little bit later, unfortunately, that happened, I guess, you could say, but, um, you know, in from college on, I mean, I had a great interest that developed out of my college experience in, in European literature. You know, my focus of study was Russian and Eastern European studies then in this is in the 60s, so, so it was a different world. And I was in Japan. So my head, my head, then, and continued to have a great interest in Russian literature and both 19th century classic stuff. And then some of my one of my favorite, or most important 20th century Russian writers is Vasily Grossman, not very well known writer, but a phenomenal Jewish writer, mid 20th century. And so I enjoyed that. That's really what opened the door for me and led to a reading it got me to reading more poetry, one of the authors, I got to know through that my study was a Polish poured, of course, I'd never heard of before, they mean a wash, who ended up coming to defected and ended up living in the United States and taught at Berkeley, Cal Berkeley for probably 25 years. Wow. But his writings on poetry and on the political scene, in Eastern Europe, then in, in the, under the communist regime, it's one of the intriguing things for me, the lines between literature and politics broke down in ways that are very different from our culture. And in Czechoslovakia, or the Czech Republic, after the communists were finally finally left, elected for president, a writer, a dramatist was you know, lots of hobble very unusual right of event, you know, so I can the interest there continues for me. Yeah, that's
27:58 so great. That's I mean, and I love when we can get together and we talk about the books we're currently reading and, and ones that are influencing us. For me, a couple of books that influenced me the most came from Adams Avenue bookstore, when I picked up a copy of Henry now and solitude, and it just drew me into that world of spiritual formation and an A, in a Christian spirituality that that I was longing for. Right, and one that had the disciplines as a focus, and one that had spiritual growth as a focus. And I just remember, I still have those, those copies and I love what I love about getting the used bookstore copy Is that it? It was from the 70s, and a great 70s cover. And whatever was happening in the art world in the early 70s, was happening on on that cover. That's right. And so and then even some bond comm books that I was introduced to him in grad school and never been introduced to him before. And at Adams Avenue, I found this little section that had five or six bond comm works and have one right here in the studio with me, which has still has my Adams Avenue
29:14 bookmark in it. He was he was an author that passed through the shelves often for a number of years. So yeah, and so
29:21 it was, you know, so thank you for, for stocking the shelves in for.
29:27 I mean, remember Louis was an important author, right to connect with and because not only for himself as wonderful as that's been, and maybe I value him even more as a doorway into other great books. You know, I mean, I first read him in 1971 mirror I came across Mere Christianity, I only knew his name, I really hadn't read anything of his, which which was a had a huge impact on me. And, and so I've been reading him ever since then. And he led me to to other people that I've also subsequently, and there I can see their life giving people to me. Yeah, you know, and one of them is George MacDonald, who is a 19th century Scottish writer who I started to read a year later 1971 72 only because of the reference in that I came across in Louis Right. And then the third that and they all connect to me, um, is the early 20th century Catholic writer, a Gk Chesterton, who Lewis referred to, and who he read Chesterton, even while he was still an atheist. And while Lewis was still an atheist, right and considered, I think he made a reference one time specifically he called Chesterton. This was when he was an atheist, one of the wisest people he'd ever read. Wow. And, and Chesterton has had a huge impact. I think his book Orthodoxy is one of the great books I've ever read.
30:54 Yeah, that's so good. That's such a good connection with Louis and McDonald and Chesterton. I actually just got to read. Georgia McDonald's, the princess and kurti over over break, read that and look forward to diving more into McDonald and it is amazing to see his influence on Louis before Lewis was a Christian. Yeah. And and the his love for McDonald and even says in that article, the Athanasius article that he tried to deny or ignore McDonald's Christianity. Yeah, as he read him, yeah. But then he got to a point where he couldn't and Donald becomes a great guide for him.
31:34 I can't say he read McDonald's the rest of his life. It's really interesting. Because Chesterton and, and McDonald and some others, Lewis resisted them, you know, of violently for a number of years, he fought against them, because at that point, he was an atheist. And he referred to their Christianity as he enjoyed their books. And he appreciated them as writers, but he hated the older. He used that terminology, that terminology that he saw that he experienced when he read their books. And, and, and then, and this is the other important thing connecting back to old books. Yeah, he had his feet, one of his main fields, obviously, was most of the English syllabus, you know, that went back to the earliest English writings, and even even beyond that to the Greek and Latin stuff, which was also an area of his study. Right. And, and he, he talked about the fact that he was began to be overwhelmed, because all of the great writers that he read and studied, it turned out that almost all were believers. Yeah, we're a Christian. It's just, you know, going on from from, you know, the first century on and at a certain point, I mean, it just began to be overwhelming for
32:44 Yeah, that's such such a good point to make that that is actually in lewis's own reading of old books. That's right. To faith, to, to recognize that, and that's, you know, one of the reasons why as we kind of wrap up here, and Brian, one of the reasons I wanted you on the show is, is just to maybe spark in people that that interest or love for man, I want to read more, and I want to maybe pick up an older book, and read and get into maybe some older Louis, or get into some other writers get into George MacDonald, if you want
33:24 to reach out get into Homer.
33:26 All right, yeah, let's, let's, let's take it out of the all time greats. And usually when when I think people and maybe this happens a lot around the, you know, first of the year, and you make new year's resolutions, like I'm gonna maybe watch less Netflix, and I'm gonna read more, and then you end up not doing that after January. But I think one of the reasons why people sometimes get see reading as a daunting thing even because because different people's personalities Connect, some people can sit down and read a book for an hour or two hours and have no problem. Other people need more movement. But I heard this, and I won't kind of finish on this. There's just someone who kind of recognized if you just read just for 15 minutes a day, they noted the amount of books you could work through in a year, just by reading 15 minutes a day, you can get maybe, you know, seven to 10 pages, and you could get 100 pages within almost 100 pages within that week. And if you just did that, like it would just kind of give you that taste of reading in and too often I think we want to read and we want to love that. But we feel like I don't have the time and I would just encourage people like carve out 15 minutes, set a timer and start there and I think once you once you start to develop that habit and you'll get you'll get drawn in it. And then you'll be spending all your money at Adams Avenue store.
35:04 And the thing to the thing there, too, that we're looking for is reading for pleasure. You know, which is something for a lot of people. And it's sad that it's so they never, that's something they never experience. So you know, if someone wants to, you know, to follow your scheme, you know, and try to read a little bit every day, read what you like, you know, and my sense is if you read what you like, and just do it a little bit each day that I think you'll find at the end of six months, or you'll be reading more than 15 writers, it'll be something that you're drawn into. Yeah, you're reading worthwhile and enjoyable material.
35:41 So great. Well, thanks again for being on the show. This is inspired me to go out and read today, even so, I'm gonna pull out some old books from the show. And don't miss class. Yeah, exactly. I'll still have to do my other responsibilities. But But thank you for that. And as we as we kind of wrap it up, I just have one more, you know, it's kind of a later, you know, a second episode, our section whom we're moving in a segment. I just have, you know, I've asked people on the show different questions at the end, Ryan. So we'll move into I kind of, I think I know what you would answer, but I've already said too much. So you know, and so this closing segment I've been calling nerdy Would you rather? So it's kind of like the game would you rather Would you rather go to Paris? Or would you rather go to London, right, would you? But this is the nerdy edition? Maybe I should call it the scholarly edition. That sounds better the scholarly Yeah, that's better. But would you rather Would you rather have dinner with CS Lewis, or talking? If you had to pick you had to pick you couldn't like set it on an inkling meeting?
36:54 I would I would probably opt for for Louis, only because I'm maybe more familiar with this work. And the other. The other thing would be although I love I enjoy thoroughly and love reading Tolkien's material and Lord of the Rings is a fabulous write. masterpiece. But the thing with Louis is, is I think, as a conversationalist, he everything that I've read, you know, letters and biographies and stuff. He was he's a masterful conversationalist. And he read very widely, he wrote in all kinds of genres of work. And, and he loved to debate, you know, he loved to engage. Yeah. And I think I think for that reason, it would be a wonderful experience.
37:41 And again, I've said this before to other guests, but I would love to be a fly on the wall and hear that conversation between you two. never regret. Well, thanks again for being on the show. Thank you very much and read well, out there. Thank you very much, Mark. The pleasure. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
38:21 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is a premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Mark and Rex tackle the topic of vocation or calling. There are many things that can occupy our time, but what are we called to do. Finding one's true vocation is the key to a fulfilling life. Rex and Mark will quickly note that this does not mean fulfilling our calling will be easy though.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 Well, welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and I'm joined by my esteemed co host. And it's Rex Gurney. Ryan Julius Rex Gurney the third I'm gonna say every time, every time on this episode Rex, we're gonna look at the topic of vocation. Okay. And when you start any conversation, I think it's really important to define terms. Maybe that's just part of, you know, the scholarship world. We're a part of philosophical world, even, you know, it's
0:38 always about defining terms, so much misuse of language right now that you know, right.
0:43 The only thing probably the only place in my life that I found it is not helpful is when I'm communicating with my wife. Okay. And you want to deliberately vague Yeah, you want to vague or in the middle of maybe like an argument. You don't want to stop and be like, let's define terms that hasn't gone over well, in my life, I can see that I see that, especially questioning how she's using a word right now. Is that what you mean? And then that doesn't go well. So I usually just shut up in my patio. Yeah, we can learn we got to learn these things. We got to. But But what's the words? So with the word, vocation, I think it's important to it's kind of a common word. In our vernacular, we hear it a lot, especially in the Christian community, right? You hear vocation, we also use the word occupation. And I feel like sometimes we use them interchangeably. Okay. And I think it's important to note a difference between those two words between vocation and occupation and between vocation and a job or whatever, right? Yeah. Yeah. Cuz it seems like when it vocation comes from kind of that root word in Latin Bokhari meaning calling, so vocation is calling an occupation really does come from that root word that means to occupy your time, right, that something occupies your time work occupies your time. And those two concepts are really different. Right, right. Calling and occupying your time. And, and and not all the ways do. Our does vocation and occupation line up right in our lives. And so I think it's, I think it's important to kind of know, that difference between my calling, and then maybe what my current occupation is, and, and I had a, you know, in college was in a 90s, college rock band, right, you know, it was a rite of passage. Everyone had to whether they could play or not, right, yeah, whether you could play well the beautiful thing about the 90s is you needed like three chords, power chords, and just turn up the distortions. Right. And, and you had it. So but we, there was this really great because yourself, the vocations is this vocations? No, we were actually call ourselves paradigm paradigm five, because paradigm fog, cuz we were in a worldview class, and we heard paradigm and our drummer was like, Oh, that's a good band name. So yeah, you know, it's a mixture. Yes. So we got to use our words carefully in class, because they might be best ones coming up. That's right, might be new, new bands, but there was a piano player at the church where we all went. And he was a great musician. And he was kind of a traveling musician throughout the 60s. And so we kind of as a band really got mentored by him and and they're, some of the guys in the band traveled with him and a different kind of conventions and things. And he just had really good little quips and advice on being a band and, and really kind of calling and vocation and he told us one time he said, he said sometimes in the music world, is that sometimes you play to live like you just play a gig to get money to live, but sometimes you live to play and and that was just that it was interesting when he said that that difference? Yeah, there are some times when you just have to do
4:19 well, that just reminds me that old, Dire Straits song saunter to swing you ever like it, like listen to the litany of different band members in that in that fictitious band that Mark Knopfler was talking about right some of them live to play and some of them were playing to live. Yeah,
4:35 there we go. And that was his that's always stuck with me that and translating that into life and calling like that, there are some times when maybe your vocation is at the forefront. But there are other times in life where you gotta have to do things and they may not always align right vocation and occupation may not align
4:58 with those this book that I actually Using Christian perspective class that I really wish I had read when I was in college or had come across this book like 30 years before I came across it, because I think it would have changed the way I looked at a whole lot of things. But it's called God at work your Christian vocation in all of life by Jean Edward veeth. And one thing that that he suggests in there is that it's possible with people and I've seen this happen, that vocations can turn into an occupation and occupations Yeah, turned into a vocation. Yeah. Which is just a really, really interesting concept. And, you know, I think we do a whole lot better right now, especially in the ministry with attention to burnout and things like that. Right. But I think we all know, folks, especially in Christian ministry, that that had the calling, and, you know, there's 30 years into the ministry and the flame stayed out, or they just don't feel the calling anymore. But you know, there have five years to go before the pension kicks in or something. Right. And, you know, yeah, you just have to sort of keep on keeping on in an administrative position when the when the callings gone, and so yeah, their vocation has just turned into an occupation. You know, and it's really sad when that happens. I think we all seen that happen in some churches, right? But then the converse is your occupation could turn into a vocation. Right? Yeah, I'm always thought of folks. Um, for example, you know, is it possible that, you know, you just start working at a fast food place, I'll keep this deliberately vague, and you're flipping burgers, I know, people don't flip burgers anymore, but deep fried chicken sandwiches, push the buttons on their butt. You know, you may just get that as minimum wage job because you can't find anything else. And whatever, whatever. But you find once you're there that you actually feel called to do this. And so you know, I think it's at least theoretically possible that just working in a fast food place can start off being just a job, but can end up being a vocation, that can work both ways.
7:14 Yeah, can end up turning into that calling, now is this kind of another phrase that that is used a lot now about, about work, right? And about kind of finding out what you want to do with your life is this idea of finding your passion, right? It's kind of been taught, you know, and I think part of it comes from, we maybe have witnessed a generation that necessarily didn't include passion with work, it was just like, you work and just you have to do that. And maybe saw the burnout or, or just the unpleasantness or unhappiness of life. And so there was a shift in maybe culture and pop culture of like, hey, find your passion, do what you love. I was watching a recent show on Netflix, and there was a girl character, and she was studying at Columbia. And they were like, what's your majors, like? My major is finding your passion. Like it was an actual degree at Columbia.
8:13 Sometimes I read on student evaluations, like, you know, he's just so passionate in class about the subject matter. And I think, I don't know if that's like, what does that mean? I like wave my arms around, or I don't I don't know if that's a good thing. I
8:27 see that I could see that. Just waving your arms around. being passionate. Yeah. But this idea of, and I think what's funny is sometimes, more recently, when I've heard people talk about that, I feel like they're actually saying, find what makes you happy. And do that for a living. And in some ways, it's caused a disconnect between maybe passion and work right? And, and it's caused a lot of people maybe to be paralyzed by why I can't do that, because I'm not passionate about it, or I don't want to do that.
9:02 Or if, for example, God calls me to do something, then that means I will feel this certain way. And exactly, and I let the feeling sort of drive the, you know, be the engine on here instead of kind of coming after the call. I struggle with that too.
9:19 Right. Yeah. So there's a so that we can even kind of make a distinguish or difference between calling and passion. Practice possible.
9:27 Yeah, that that. I mean, ideally, they call her with each other. Right, right. Well, ideally, your occupation, your vocation and your passion are all one thing. Ideally.
9:38 Yeah. And, but I think it's really important to note that that may not always be the case. And in some cases that may be what God has called you to is to have these different areas. The lead pastor that I work with is a full time architect. And that's been his occupation. He has his own firm. He's passionate about it. He felt called To be an architect, but he also felt called into the ministry and I would say his vocation. For the last 20 years, he did about 15 years. Now 25 years, he's been about 15 years of of volunteer youth ministry. But if you ask him his calling in life, he would say to minister, okay, but his occupation and he wants to keep those separate, and he wants to keep both of them. So his occupation, his job as an architect, doesn't distract, or doesn't drain him from following his calling to be a minister. And, and he's kind of purposely has both of those. And and there may be times, and he's talked about that there may be times if one gets busier, or the calling and ministry, he may have to not be an architect anymore to pursue. But it for me, it's been really interesting to see that, having that difference in knowing that in his job, it didn't stop him from following his calling,
11:07 what what might be, I guess, um, another way of looking at it is that, you know, our vocation is sort of, I mean, once you find what your calling is, you know, and, and I know that we have talked about that before the podcast about how we can actually maybe have multiple callings and folded into a larger calling, or a hierarchy sort of callings. If you just look at your life as a series of like, you know, disparate events, or just, you know, jobs that you have, and you just move from job to job. Which is, frankly, what most of our graduates are going to do, honestly, right. And so I think the whole concept of vocation is even more important now than it was before, because your jobs are going to change your careers are going to change. But if you can have a vocation that sort of spans that in ties and makes, you know, just sort of gives a coherent narrative to your life.
12:13 Yeah, it does seem like the the generation of someone working a job for the same job for 30 or 40 years. It just doesn't happen. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. And so it does make it more important to have if we can already see this statistics and know that someone may have two or three careers in their life, exactly five or six different jobs by the time they're 40. But they could have one vocation, or
12:40 one calling that sort of ties all that together. It certainly, you know, gives. It's really interesting. I'm not sure that and I could be wrong. I've never thought of this before that that occupation gives meaning to vocation. But I do believe that vocation certainly gives meaning to occupation. Yeah, I totally do. And so if you have your, your vocation that's portable, that means that location might be able to play out in these different jobs and different careers. Anyway, that's just a thought.
13:10 Yeah, I think and I think it will, would help be wondering, would it helped me when I was getting out of college? Oh, yeah. Cuz, you know, there's that pressure when you get out of college to get a job. Right, right. Money, pay back student loans. And, and there's also the the pressure of getting a job within your field, or within your degree, right, or within your passion, recalling? Well,
13:39 it's interesting, that book that I just previously mentioned, that I wish I had, you know, heard about or known about, or was written back when I was in college. One of the things that veeth talks about is he wants to expand the term vocation to actually speak to areas of our lives that we don't usually connect that word with, like our vocation as a citizen or vocation as family. And I guess another way that you can look at it is expanded to the very, you know, having a vocation as a student, and I often ask my Christian perspective classes, like would it make a difference? It's like, So would it make a difference in your college experience, if you viewed your experiences as simply preparation, or if you viewed your experiences, vocation, and I don't think those are mutually exclusive, but right, I know that I would have paid attention a lot more to things if I had viewed my college education as vocation You know, I'm called to be a student right now here and what does that mean? Because it was just purely Well, I'm not sure what it was. I sort of ended up just adding up units and deciding I was an English major because I had to declare some Yeah. Anyway, I wish I had Facebook back then. It's all been good because guy good, but it certainly would have changed the way looked at things,
15:00 but definitely does change when you think we mostly use the word vocation or calling when we're talking about what we're going to do with our life, you know, future work. And, and we often then view school and education just as a stepping stone, I may even view entry level jobs or careers as a stepping stone to what I want to do. But in some ways, it kind of makes us we live this kind of perpetual, what do
15:26 you exactly, exactly, and we're not paying attention to what God is doing with us in what we are doing right now. And we just miss a lot. We miss a lot.
15:38 Yeah. And it's, it's interesting to then bring that word vocation or calling into all of these different areas of our life of our present life, right? Not just right your life. And I think it would, I mean, I would have totally changed my college to view it as a vocation is my calling. Right? I like what you said before, to would be saying, calling as a member of a family, right, your vocation as a son or daughter.
16:06 Yeah, he talks about our family relationships, vocationally. And this is the first time I'd ever heard of that. Yeah, you know, I guess I can see how and you know, you can have vocation language apply to, for example, a marriage because we all know that might you know, making a good marriage Work is work, we even use that word like, you're right. It doesn't work for me anymore, or whatever. Yeah, but we all know that, yes, hard work. So at least I can, I can understand some of that language there. And I think I can understand it when you talk about maybe vocation as a parent, because I think, you know, some folks, I guess, can feel a sense of, I'm called to have a family, you know, right. And I totally, but he wants to expand it even further than that. And he talks about vocation, as you mentioned, as a child. And that was the first time I had ever thought about that. And I'm still not sure I know what to think about that. Right? These other relationships are at least sort of, you know, chosen relationships, right? I mean, you can choose to have children, you choose your spouse, but you know, nobody asked me. I was born and so what is it? What does it mean? And I think it there's, there's some real, positive things that can happen in thinking of that occasionally. I think that's a really deep thought, but I just never thought of that before.
17:32 Yeah, that idea of vocation as a child, as a child, what do you think it might, you know, if I, if I viewed myself are like my status as a son of my parents, and viewed that not just as something that just happened, and I'm stuck with it or right, but viewed it as a calling, then I would think okay, then what? What, as the role of son, what am I to do? Right? How am I to respect and respond to my parents? How am I even as as as you grow older, right? And as you become a parent yourself, you're still have that vocation? Oh, yeah. I have a son or daughter and what is that? Yeah, how
18:21 old is the son or daughter of someone you know, and I've often thought myself because my parents I was in my 20s my parents died in a spell a long, long time. So I've wondered if you know, I'm off the hook vocationally. Because, you know, there's there's no one to work that vocation out with, but I'm not sure that veeth would let me off the hook right that Yeah, maybe I don't know the way I speak about the inheritance that gave me maybe the way I speak about the way I was grown up maybe right you know, your the way I speak about them to my own children, you know, you know, maybe I still have a calling with that
18:58 sometime. And again, I think this conversation really important to expand how we use vocation that we often think vocation just in my job, but yeah, vocation as a student, if I started to view my current situation as a calling, not as a stepping stone, right, then I would be more intentional, be more engaged. And as a my calling as a son or daughter.
19:28 Well, the calling thing is really interesting anyway, because you know, I guess both of us in some sense are like, you know, have have been in what some people will call vocational Christian ministry. Yeah, no, I
19:39 say it all the time. I'm a full time paid Christian. And I say the same thing.
19:43 I totally say I'm a professional Christian. Which you know, can go off in some weird, right? Yeah, exactly that but I know that what I thought my calling was in word God was going to take me When I first went to seminary and envision what kind of professional Christian ministry I would or would not have, has gone in very, very different directions. I'm nowhere near anywhere I imagined to be back in 35 years ago, yeah. When I was when I felt called, I felt, yeah, I felt, I felt a sense of vocation. But, you know, we were going to be on the mission field. I mean, that was gonna happen. And then, you know, things happen differently, right? And I can see God's providential hand in that, and it's all good. And I think that same calling, still was on our lives. It's just that, you know, I guess you could be on the foreign mission field of what we used to call is Baptist for mission field. But then I pastored, inner city church in Oakland, and we had like, 20 different birth countries and people that regularly attended the congregation, it was like, so yeah, that's really yeah, the same thing is in Oakland, California, instead of you know,
21:02 we're right, somewhere in New Guinea. That was where all the missionaries were from now.
21:09 We probably wouldn't have 20 different birth countries in the church. Anyway, yeah, that's true. Maybe this was even more international ministry. Yeah, it'd been, you know, where we were, and so on.
21:19 Yeah, and calling is, is something that has a consistent string, but also changes and develops and grows as you change and develop and grow and as you experience, write new things and as as your life unfolds, that calling maybe helps keep it together, but it can go Yeah, in a lot of different directions where you thought it was going to go and there. You know, when I graduated college, if you gave me 100 chances to say where I would end up, Rocklin, California wouldn't have made it at all because I didn't even know Rocklin California existed. I didn't. I didn't know about William Jessup university, I knew I wanted to teach on a college level. I knew I felt called to teach on a college level. William Jessup University didn't exist when you were in college. Hey, I was a Christian. I was a Christian college right? Yeah, San Jose. But I didn't know those. I just had that general right call. Right and, and I followed that. And that led me to because I had that maybe primary call. And this is something where as a writer we've I've talked about on the podcast before name Adrian bond calm. And he talks about these different callings in our lives that we will have several vocations at once he calls them modes of existence. And he stresses that to bring all of our different modes of existence together to integrate them is the is the key of the spiritual life and just life in general to but to integrate them will mean that there's a hierarchy, that you probably have a primary call, and then all other callings are subordinate to that. And I can maybe look back and now know, when I graduated, that primary call in my life that I felt was teaching on a college level. So I knew that I was going to have to take different steps. So I knew graduate student was going to be a calling in my life. But that calling was subordinate to the primary call of teaching. And but I had to take those steps, I had to be intentional. It wasn't just gonna happen when I graduated college, but I didn't know where and how and when that would happen. And I had an internship right after college, and then saw program down at Talbot and jumped into that jumped into ministry, did those still had that calling to teach on a college level, but I didn't know but I had to engage in my calling as a student. During that time I met my wife so I have a new calling in my life, calling his husband, we had our first son now calling his father and and I had to integrate those and, and kind of still push forward with that primary call. Of that the primary call I felt of teaching on a college level when I graduated college. And when I first stepped into a classroom, it was almost 10 years before I stepped into a college classroom and taught and but that whole 10 years I can look back and see how God even when I couldn't see it right you know, so all of these added up right? Right that it moved to that and so and I think also bringing up and this something Vaughn calm brings up a lot when you bring up all those other callings too that happened along the way and are still a part of my life. Calling as a husband, calling you As a father, one thing that we can also get in the bad habit of is putting our primary calling right. And that's from ministry, widows and ministry, orphans, and right all the time when that gets out of whack that you still have to realize, within my calling as a college professor, my calling as husband is just as as strong, my calling as father. And if I neglect those callings, I will have a disintegrated life and have a dissonant life. And I won't be able to actually pursue my calling, because I'm not paying attention to the individual callings, the individual modes of existence. You know, sometimes I wonder
25:49 about the sort of difference between specific callings and sort of a general calling in sometimes, I guess I would assume that specific is better than general. But I think it might be helpful sometimes to think of it the opposite way. Because I know so many people, such as students whose people I mean, in all walks of life that, you know, I don't know what my calling is, you know, I've taken all these Strength Finders I've taken, you know, all this stuff to find out what my calling is. And I just haven't, you know, I've not had a burning bush experience. I just, I'm waiting for this voice from God to tell me exactly what I'm supposed to do. But I know what has helped me a lot in the fact that I have worn a lot of different hats through life. And I actually did not start off to be a college professor. I mean, that was not something that I even envisioned, I don't know. Anyway, I mean, I'm very grateful for the way God has worked in my life. But I'm not sure that that was a something I really sense when I was in college, but I did since the fact that sort of the earth calling or the you know, Primal calling that sort of underlies any specific calling is is the call to be a disciple. Right, you know, and how that plays out in everything that I do. I mean, it doesn't play out. Well, a lot of times. I'm not perfect at all, at all. But But you know, that that is a calling that that all of us that are Christian have. And I think if that's taken seriously, it may sort of open your eyes to some of these specific callings. I think sometimes some folks get it backwards. Yeah.
27:32 Yeah, that's so important. guy named Mark Talbot. He's a philosophy professor at Wheaton. He wrote a paper on that and he stressed that all of us as as human beings, and then particularly all of us as Christians have a common vocation. Right. And, and we do have to respond to that common vocation. And that common vocation then guides are specific locations or specific callings. But that common vocation to be a disciple of that right to love God. And, and that can be Yeah, that other I like that, that common vocation. Speaking of that, I
28:11 have a book in my hand right now. And this was actually recommended to me by a student. And so I put it on my little Amazon buy lists, and it's sat there for like, two years, I finally have once again, I wish I had actually read this a while ago, but it's called visions of vocation by a guy named Steven Garber. And the subtitle is common grace for the common good. And and you know, he kind of like veeth wants to look at life, vocationally. But he asked some really interesting questions here. One of the questions is that is at least in the part of the book that I've read so far, which is about a third of it. Will you be able to know the world and still choose to love it? God calls you into something and then you find out oh my gosh, you know, there's politics everywhere, and oh, my gosh, you know, and that can happen whether it's in a in any sort of job ministry, secular anything. Can you realize that, you know, we live in a broken world, and that stuff's going to happen and that all of our you know, perfectionism that we have about how our callings are supposed to, you know, play out I mean, if God calls me to do it, isn't the road going to be smooth enough? What's gonna happen to me? Right? And he asked the question, will you be able to know the world or I guess maybe know, your calling, and still choose to love it, even when there's sort of roadblocks and stuff there. And part of the advice he gives is learning to just pay attention to what matters and what doesn't. Mm hmm. Yeah. Which of course is easier said than done right.
29:47 But so important, especially for ministry to like, you feel a calling to ministry and it kind of feel like ministerial callings. feel like they have like an extra
30:00 intensity research I grew up in, there was like, you know, and I just accepted the language because it was the language was used, you know, there were different different ways that you would respond to the invitation. I grew up Baptist and we'd have altar calls. And I'm not knocking that I went right pastored I would give, not all the time, but I would give altar calls, I think anyway. But, you know, you could come forward to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you can come forward for baptism, if you you know, accepted Jesus in your room or something, or you can come forward for rededication this guy that would come forward every Sunday morning to rededicate his life. And all of us were like, make sure you well, but it was like, you know, wow, what did he do every week? I have another proud anyway, anyway. But But, you know, sort of the one one of the most important things that you would respond to is the your call for special services called special service. And I look back at this now. And that's just a really strange term in a way because that implies all sorts of things. Because we all know what Special Services right? You're called, you know, to be a missionary to be a pastor or whatever, whatever. Right. But that does imply just with the language, that you know, some of us have special vocations. And others of us have less special vocations. And of course, that's not what it is at. All right.
31:19 That's not right is at all. And then you you feel the call to special service. And you get into a special service. And then, oh, it's not all fun and games. It's not all happy. In that, yeah. For me, that quote comes back like can you see the world? And
31:40 that will play out on whatever God's called you to be? Yeah, whatever. Right? flipping burgers that
31:46 Yeah, any any vocation you can have in your mind? Oh, it's gonna be so great. And that's, too I think a lot what happens in college you have I want to do this with my life. Right? And then you actually get that job. And then you realize, Oh, yeah, there are some aspects that that don't make me happy.
32:02 So of course, we will just you know, get another job. Right. Right.
32:05 That we sort of deal with it or we you know, in the in the Christian world, we don't feel called anymore. Yes, we feel relief, feel released.
32:15 Calling goofy videos about you know, 20 different ways that people fire people in the ministry. Of course, you know, that sort of life. We release you to a greater Yeah, we have released you find your passion to find your passion somewhere else. Not here. Yeah. So So Stephen Garber actually has this quote that I just really, really love about vocations. that I think would apply to, to all of us, he says, you know, he's talking about things that can go wrong, not just in your vocation, but in life, because, you know, life has its ups and downs, it has his joys it has its sorrows. And then he says, He says, The story of sorrow is not the whole story of life. There's also wonder and glory and joy and meaning in the vocations that are ours. There's good work to be done by every son of Adam, and daughter of Eve all over the face of the earth. flowers to be grown songs, to be sung bread, to be baked justice, to be done mercy to be shown beauty to be created good stories, to be told houses to be built technologies to be developed fields to farm and children to educate all day, every day. There are both wounds and wonders at the very heart of life, if we have eyes to see and seeing and paying attention is where vocations begin. I just love that quote, that is so good.
33:39 And, and it's this, again, just an important topic that, that that calling isn't just something you're trying to find in college, but it's something you're going to deal with your whole life. Right, right and trying to understand what God is calling you to and in your work and outside of work. And, and all of those things kind of come together. And that is where you start to find your calling. That's where callings come together. And it's just really important and it's conversation that we can continue to have and we'll we'll have in an upcoming episode. But as we kind of land the plane here, want to transition from this really deep moment that we just had just into just into a small segment that we can kind of do here just it's called getting to know you just and I thought I'd make it kind of topic specific but but but maybe not on the side of calling Okay, just on the side of occupation or work. Okay, so getting to know you what was the first paying job you ever had? Oh,
34:47 my parents owned a couple businesses when I was growing up and basically from the time I was I say seven but it hadn't been eight or nine it was still when I was a kid. I was an elementary school actually. So you was like, no child labor laws. Anyway, it was like, so you can work in our, you know, family businesses and we can pay you or you can work in our businesses and we won't pay you once again. What do you guys, I actually was working and getting my little, you know, probably they would have been arrested if people knew how much they didn't pay me. But whatever, whatever I was, I was working, I guess paying jobs from when I was in elementary school. Oh, wow. What were the businesses what kind of well is so my my father had an elaborate you know, who would expect a little white kid right anyway, now my, my father owned a laboratory. He was in the uranium business, and a NASA office and my mother owned a motel. And so I grew up in a motel on Route 66 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And so I cleaned the motel rooms. So at the time, I was eight or nine years old, you know, especially on the weekends, because obviously, I was going to school and then in the summer so I can make I can make a mean nurses corner on a bed. Anyway, but you know, I felt I had no choice. Yeah. And looking back at it, you know, it was probably a good thing, actually. You know, yeah.
36:21 Well, there we go. I grew up in Indiana. And so I guess my first time I got paid for doing work, one of the my grandpa was a farmer. And he had fields my my house was surrounded by fields on all four sides. I mean, there was a street you know, no country road going in, in the middle of that. And he would pay my brother and I to walk out in the fields with a with a little hoe, and we would get the weeds we just we didn't and I don't know if it really needed to be done or he was just trying to give us something to do. And this is before the internet before Netflix. So you know, the summer times we really built your stories to tell did it and I still look back at helping him on the farm mostly probably getting in his way and jumping in the grain trucks and pushing my brother underneath the grain that's falling into the truck and helping them put it in the know. Yeah, we were always you know, the top of the silo. You didn't go out there and mess around. But we could we goof around in the back of the it was like a 1954 GMC truck. Wow.
37:38 1950s Willys pickup. Oh, that's great. Yeah, we painted a psychedelic colors. I don't know why he let us do that. But anyway. You know, I mean, late 60s 70s. Yeah, fair game. It was an explosion of color. We didn't even know what a hippie was. But we figured you know, they painted cars.
37:56 So we did it. That's all yeah, that's all you know. Well, hey, thanks again, for sure. Not only being on the show, but being being a co host. It's a real privilege and a pleasure. Looking forward to more conversations. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
38:35 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Julius Rex Gurney III, professor of History and voice of reason, joins the show for the first time in his role as an esteemed cohost. Mark and Rex are joined by friend of the show Derek Martin, director of the Theater Arts program. The three discuss the role of generational influence on pop culture and the church.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 All right, welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. Or should I say one of your hosts, but we will get to that in a second. But I want to welcome back on the show friend of the show, or you only have to be on the show twice to be a friend of the show. So you're now friend of the show. Professor and Director of our theater arts program, Derek Martin. Thank you. Welcome back. Welcome back. I wanted to fix a T shirt for that, like friend of the show. Yeah, we can we can start making started. That could be part of our merchandise. Okay. Okay. That'll be unfolding over this. Okay. Over there. I'll be on the lookout for this. Right. Yeah, be ready. Social media. It'll be out there. But Derek, I'm glad you're here on this episode. Because we do have is kind of a special episode. In many ways. Special in the sense that as as hosts, I've also convinced another friend of the show, to to be a reoccurring co host with me. There'll be a voice and and he is the the one in the only the voice of wisdom and reason. History, Professor of History and theological award winner always throw that in. Julius Rex Gurney the third. So
1:27 do I get my T shirt? Now? You do. Okay. Okay, I feel better about myself.
1:31 And I know, you go we know I mean, we'll mostly be calling you Rex, you go by Rex around the school. But if I had the name Julius Rex guarantee the third, I would have it on a T shirt, and I would wear it around. Totally. I'd be like, this is literally my name.
1:45 So you don't understand what being named Julius gonna be the third means on an elementary school playground. That's true. That's why I'm Rex. That's why I'm right.
1:54 I'm thinking purely college professor.
1:57 Okay, okay. That name is sort of too late now. Right? It's sort of, yeah, it was even on my high school diploma, bizarrely enough, because everybody knows me by that.
2:05 Yeah. Everybody knows you by Rex. So that's cool. That's awesome. That is amazing. One. Rex. And Eric, I wanted you on the show today to discuss an observation that I made recently. So I teach a class entitled scripture and pop culture, which is a really fun class to teach. Because my research mostly consists of watching copious amounts of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, video prime, HBO, YouTube, YouTube TV, which you do anyway. Yeah. I'm already. So in this way. It gives me a great excuse. Like when people walk into my office, sometimes on my iPad, I'm like, I'm research, research, research and for class, when my wife needs me to help out, I'm like, I'm really busy. Right now. So I'll get to the trash later. This is like the 15th time I'm watching the office. And I'm really it's about who's paying the bills around here. Yeah, exactly. I know, we can get sponsorships by Oh, by the big, the big five. But as I was kind of watching and over break, definitely kind of watching in preparation for the class. I just started to notice something. And I started to notice that within pop culture, there's a heavy amount of what what I've started to call generational influence. And I think often we think of pop culture as new and cutting edge and whatever other words, you want to add there, right? That it's out front of culture. And sometimes we're like, I can't keep up with pop culture type of thing. But what was interesting is I I started noticing, when you actually look at popular cultural artifacts, that they have a heavy amount of generational influence. So the culture creators, the writers, producers, directors, artists, who are kind of creating these really are bringing with them cultural values that they experienced when they were younger. And in a previous generation. Yeah, they're creating their own experience. Yeah. And so so for example, I was watching rewatching, a couple episodes of the classic late 80s, early 90s hit The Wonder Years. So hope you're both familiar with The Wonder Years. Yes, Kevin? Yes. Kevin and Winnie Cooper. Yes, that's right. changed my life. Because I was going into kind of upper elementary middle school when that show was released. So I could connect with Kevin like, I felt like Kevin Arnold like I was just like, this is mine. But as I'm rewatching it, I realized, this is there, you know, I'm watching it in the 80s and 90s. And it's really telling the story of a middle schooler in the late 60s. Hmm. And so Vietnam is a big theme, kind of that cultural revolution is a big theme, Kevin's older sister's a hippie, and they kind of explore how she doesn't fit in with the rest of the family, you know, and the dad and mom just don't understand, because they still are carrying kind of that idealistic age of the 50s and early 60s. And, and so it's, it's really interesting that those type of shows a lot of the shows, and then I started thinking more about a lot of the shows that premiered when I was in kind of junior high, even High School, were written or created by people who were really carrying on the themes of the late 60s 70s. And I was kind of learning about it through their lens. And then also looking back on my pop culture viewing habits as a child, which again, was before the age of the internet, even you probably for all three of us. And when there was like four or five channels available. But I watched a lot of classic reruns. I mean, I look at a lot of the shows I watch. I Love Lucy Three's Company, the monkeys, Laverne and Shirley. Like, those were the shows I watched regularly. And, and I was 10 1112. You know, watching those. And so the generational influence was not only within the culture of creators in the new shows, but also just that I grew up watching a lot of these old shows. So when you kind of look at your life, maybe Derek, how have you noticed maybe generational influence and pop culture in your own life? And
6:45 oh, yeah, well, in my own life, I mean, I feel like everything basically stopped at the 80s. I mean, I think that for my whole life. I love 80s Music 80s cartoons. I'm like, I just didn't think it got better than the 80s. But as you look through it, I think definitely. there's a there's a few things that drive kind of the pop culture bus. I think the past is one of those things. I think the past definitely people are looking back nostalgically. And and then you look at the producers, the age of the producers is often right. Older than the average pop culture. So there's an influence there between the producer you are Yeah, the viewer. Other things that drive it, I think our technology, I think technology has a tremendous influence on on pop culture, how it's delivered, what people are going through how they're engaging with it.
7:38 I think that's a really good point, right? Because like when I was chatting, there wasn't that many channels. So in some ways I had to watch I Love Lucy and Three's Company. Literally everything that had Anna grew up out in the country. So we didn't have cable, or anything like that. So there was the rat race. Yeah, whatever could come in through the rabbit here. And be like, Dad, you need to get back on the roof and change the antenna like this isn't coming in. For anyone out there who doesn't know what a rabbit ear is? It's an old antenna, though. Yeah. But you moved it around. Right? Yeah, we did. We're on the cutting edge. But now, like Netflix, and things are more available. And what I've noticed with students, is they're watching these old shows. Yeah, there's a retro, yeah, like those shows are coming back. And they're now available. And while there's, they can choose any show they want. Many of them are choosing to watch those shows from the 90s or early 2000s. So yeah, it's interesting technology does play what to bring this sort of into a kind of an academic II sort of thing, which I guess I'm here for that. Yeah. Anyway, the name like really
8:48 ordained and predestined that this would happen. But I was actually reading a book A few years ago, and I actually use this kind of rubric in my Christian perspective classes. There was an author, he actually I think, is the editor. First things right now are Reno and I always wonder what our R stands for. But anyway, he talked sort of about the difference between a modern vibe and a postmodern vibe by contrasting it to Promethean humanism, which is sort of a modernist kind of thing we can kind of utopian, we can sort of save the world through technology, etc. Yeah, but the postmodern vibe. He called it patrone, and humanism, which is really interesting, because that sort of has this ironic detachment about everything. You know, sort of jaded about, you know, truth claims and all this kind of stuff. And right in some ways, I'm wondering if some of this sort of, you know, recapturing of of earlier decades in pop culture by contemporary millennials istep just sort of an ironic vibe with it. Yeah, you know, which, which might be a little different than what you know, is What some people think is communicated through this?
10:04 Yeah, I think there is a little bit of irony involved with in some of the things that even come back better in fashion. Exactly like that. Exactly. Yeah, I'm wearing this is cool. But it's kind of ironic, right? You know, I walk around and some students are wearing the exact same glasses that I had in third grade. My God, why are you wearing those glasses like that scarred my third grade year, and you're choosing to do it? And yeah, it's, it's, it's a little bit, obviously, irony.
10:35 However, the values, though, that are, you know, taught and or, you know, brought brought forth in these artifacts of pop culture are still there. And so, I think the influence is still valid, then you're talking about?
10:50 Yeah, I also, I also think when you're looking at pop culture there, there are always two sides to the story, there is the direction that culture is going, which people are just just by being alive in the moment, are part of they have to take part in it? The technology, everything that's coming out right now, people have to do it. But then pop culture always moves in a direction, but usually has some stragglers that it leaves behind. Like, there's another side that is not engaging. And you'll that's where I find the interest in the retro and stuff, people are missing something or connecting with something that was from a different time, a simpler time, something where our current culture is not feeding that but a different time, a different era, it was was meeting a need that people see. So I think when they look at some of that, it's it's filling a gap that our current culture isn't filling,
11:45 right. And some writers about pop culture. romanovski, for instance, basically says that nostalgia has always been a driver of popular culture.
11:54 All right. Yeah. And in my life, it is a huge driver. You know, I mean, when I'm watching those, I'm like, man, I remember. Or when I see something, yeah, from even from the, from the 90s. Or that, and it reminds me of for sure. Oh, that's how that's how our house look like those. And my house was basically like a time capsule of the 6070 babies. And then in the 90s when I grew up, and I look back, I'm like, yeah, oh, yeah, I think our curtains were from the 60s. I think our couches maybe got updated in the 80s. And, and I can see those in shows. even see the humor, yeah, all that and, and you see that nostalgic aspect.
12:39 And that's just, I mean, that's just human nature. I think it's kind of embarrassing. The stuff I will listen to on my car, I have to roll up the windows in the summer, because, you know, nobody wants to wants to listen to stuff. Next to me, but you know, it reminds me a college and I'm sorry, you know, I want to be transported back there. So you I have a
12:57 I have a playlist on Spotify that is just as not public. And it's called moody college blues. And they were all like, the sad songs that I listened to they were all 90s except
13:10 speaking about appropriation of culture, though, some of the stuff coming back. You know, there's sort of a, at least among some millennials, kind of a reengagement with, you know, 70s, and 80s sort of stuff on its own level. I know, I know, I, you know, actually took my 13 year old son, he actually went with me to see the Smashing Pumpkins just last summer. But it's like, we went there for different reasons. And we actually had this sort of sociological thing where we were looking at all the folks it's like, you know, what age did you think people were going to be? You know, you know it, they get the concert. And, you know, for me, it was kind of just stuff I liked in the 90s. for him. It was stuff he grew up with in our house listened to in the 90s. Oh, yeah. And which is just really interesting to kind of noticed that about people that were there. Yeah. And that's just sort of one example, I would never think that he would actually want to go see them, because his musical tastes are very different. But it just brought back something.
14:05 It was a connection with you. And maybe a connection Yeah, with your childhood. And so looking back on those artifacts, kind of connects you back to that and, and I can see that Yeah, my own life and how, I think, for me to what what has been interesting. And if this was a a video podcast, the listeners would be able to see your wonderful t shirt racks, which is a T shirt, Fred Rogers,
14:33 the neighbor holding a trolley shoe and he has a halo trolley.
14:40 We'll post we'll post a picture on Twitter, but the trolley is kind of like the Sacred Heart, your heart.
14:46 Yes. And interestingly enough, there is a well reviewed documentary about him. Yes, a lot of people have gone to see and really moved there. And this is something from the start in the 60s actually talk about production values. But you know, don't aren't up to snuff now, but I sort of didn't matter. And it was sort of the point. Right? Yeah. And there's sort of people gravitating to that, in some ways now.
15:11 Well, and that, that what I find fascinating about Fred Rogers is he was a pop culture icon, who is very countercultural, right? Which was fascinating. Because I mean, if you even listened to the music, it wasn't like that music was hip or into the pop culture that and everybody was listening to it. And everybody of various ages would watch the show. It wasn't just it. Yes, it was predominantly a children's show. But I mean, I watched it off and on for years, long after childhood, it kind of started Right, right, you know, and now and now, of course, if that was reruns, I'm sure it would, it would do very well. Yeah. But it was not given an Oscar nomination. No, it was
15:51 time. Yeah. So we wonder where those Academy voters were doing. They're probably watching Sesame Street or something. Yeah,
15:58 no. But I think with that show, and Sesame Street does bring up for me a kind of another idea of that generational influence. Because Yeah, when we were younger, pride day, this was like, I mean, I remember watching Mr. Rogers, and that was the show as I was a kid watching and Sesame Street. Now I look back and realize they were Yeah. And well, I think it's a really good observation that Fred Rogers was counterculture of the time. They were really teaching us a new generation about the cultural values and stuff that they had just learned cemented, from the late 60s and 70s. Yeah, you know, in Sesame Street, hey, how can we not discriminate against people? How can we all be together? How can we understand that sometimes your neighbor is going to be crunchy or grouchy and live in a trash can, and we still need to be nice to him and interact? And, and so it was really this influence when I was a kid, again, coming from cultural values from the 60s and
17:01 70s. In some ways, I think Fred Rogers, who was doing the same thing just sort of differently. I mean, I don't think the value vibe in the two shows is that different but I wonder if, if Mr. Rogers Neighborhood has weathered better than Sesame Street?
17:16 That's an interesting, yeah. You know, what's fascinating about him? Is that what the difference between him and Sesame Street is he did all of the voices or All right, exactly. played the piano for the road, all the little songs, all the songs, everything. So I mean, that was he, you know, of course, had What was her name that was with him? Yeah, I know, there's that. But, um, but I mean, by and large, the show was him. It was amazing. And then his guests, right? That's such a difference, right? Just in terms of scope, and what he was trying to accomplish and what he was personally responsible for.
17:52 I assumed that mark wants us to move this conversation a little bit towards the church in our professional culture.
17:59 Hey, hey, daddy. Now, you can say, hey, as a co host, you have you have the right. co host thing? I'm waiting for the T shirt. Actually. No, it's in production. Okay, it's in production. But I get for me when I started thinking about generational influence. From one just recognizing it was big. I was like, Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm like, seeing some of these themes. Like when I was growing up, and in the Midwest, 80s and 90s. Vietnam was a big theme. Whether it was in a lot of shows, there were a lot of shows about Vietnam, a lot of people I knew were affected by
18:35 mash actually was not about Korea. It was about Vietnam, sort of everybody knew it at the time. All 100 kind of like a wink. Yes,
18:42 yeah. And so he's looking at that type of influence. Like, yeah, I didn't, obviously, I didn't realize that as a child. I'm just watching things now looking back. So for one, just recognizing it. And one, I think, for me, one of the implications of of noting generational influence, was the realization that actually pop culture isn't moving as fast as we think it is. Like we think it is. Pop Culture is what's new and and out there on the edge and pushing the boundaries and they are definitely shows that emerge and change the game. Right. Mr. Rogers Neighborhood emerged and changed the game at that time. Yeah. And so but for the most part, there a lot of a lot of pop culture is still dealing with the past 20 years. Yeah. And and I think that that has implications for the church, and then sometimes the church can get nervous about pop culture. Amen. Can we say that? Can Yeah, I mean, no, maybe nervous is an understatement. But, and, and the church is notoriously late to the pop culture party. And if you add the layer of generational influence, I think what that looks like is if we're already late To the pop culture party in pop culture is actually dealing with the last 20 years, then if we miss it by 10 years, we're now 30 years, maybe 40 years behind, where culture is moving and who we're trying to engage with.
20:15 And that might be, I mean, I can see how that can be both a good and bad thing. Actually, I think, you know, I think, yeah, I think it would it, would it take the monkey off the back of some of the youth ministers we have in the churches right now. Feel that they have to be cutting edge and everything, it's like, you know, perhaps you don't really have to do that as much as you think you do. And maybe in some ways, even your, your youth aren't even expecting you to do them. Well, I
20:42 think that's very interesting. I think that's true. I think there's something fascinating with the millennials and post millennials that's come out, which is a massive interest in authenticity. And I think it's very important to realize that offset what what often youth pastors and other people are dealing with is relevance. And they kind of use the term relevance and authenticity interchangeably. But the reality is, authenticity is always relevant. relevance is not always on.
21:12 observation, next t shirt, t shirt right there, right there. We know we're making some money. But that's so true. We do confuse those like, Oh, I need to be relevant. I need to be
21:25 current. And sometimes you can get into absurd situations when you do that. And I remember I was at a worship service at a large church, I'll have this remain nameless, because it's kind of a famous churches will be hard. I know, church will be harmed. But it was in Virginia, actually suburban Washington, DC, it was one of those large churches that actually had a lot of some congressmen and their families that went through, et cetera, et cetera. But they were trying to be all Khurana and everything. And I don't know if you remember, but in the 90s, for about 30 minutes, there was this sort of reappropriation of big band music in popular culture, oh, yeah. It only lasted for a very short time. And I remember I was I was visiting this church once and they had decided that, that the new wave of stuff that was going to reach everybody was big band music. And so they ditch their band, and they actually had their worship pastor hire a bunch of musicians standing behind stands looking like Tommy Dorsey or Lawrence Welk or something like that. And having the congregation sing along to these big band versions of, I don't know, crazy courses and stuff. And it was, it was the most absurd thing I ever saw in my life. And honestly, it only you know, it is as soon as they did it, the culture had already moved on, it was only going to be a 15 minute phenomenon anyway, and a whole lot of money and effort spent on kind of nothing, actually now, but they were they were really trying to be, you know, relevant and catch the next wave, but not students about what exactly what's happening with that wave.
22:55 Right. And that, yeah, and that, I think, is a great observation of being a student of realizing that everything that emerges in pop culture that is relevant to pop culture doesn't necessarily mean it's having a lasting impact on our culture, and needs to be mimicked or copied by the church or caught up, you know, and so now I do think I haven't really thought it that way, because I'm maybe more of a pessimist. rags, which might be I don't know if I get out pessimism you, but I'm gonna try. I'm just selling
23:29 this stuff. It's gonna be definitely edited from the podcast right here, just so y'all know that. But
23:35 I haven't thought of it as I didn't think of it through that lens of that this Yeah, this is a good thing of realizing, taking that monkey off the back of like, no, relevance is not what I'm trying to
23:50 write. And you don't it doesn't mean you don't need to be observant in your own dntp jokes and culture and stuff. But you don't really need to feel that pressure that you always have to be, you know, hit the next big this thing, because you probably don't even know what that is actually.
24:05 You know, what's amazing to me is we have the creator of the universe on our side, who is to me, if we're looking for the new thing. He's gonna be the one that gives us the new thing. And so why we're playing catch up to culture. We should be observant of culture, we should definitely take in we should know what people like and what where that where it's come from, we should understand the history. But if you're going to get the new thing, I think you've got to go to the source of who makes new things. I think that there's no reason why the Christian shouldn't be the cutting edge. And at one point in time The church was right, right. I mean, look back into the medieval period coming into the Renaissance. The church definitely led culture, popular lead pop culture, they were the pop culture. I think the funny thing is, I think sometimes church, the church makes it the singer sets where we're, you know, they talk about secular culture as if they're not part of it. Right. And that's kind of an interesting point, because I'm like, No, you are part of you are influencing the culture in some way you are part of the secular culture. And, and and to just kind of break that down a little bit. It's really important. The other thing is important is to realize that culture does, it takes 20 to 30 years for culture to shift anyway, substantially shift. Okay, it's a long process. So you have a lot of people invent to how can we change culture? How can we make culture I'm like, well, but better, you know, take relax a little bit and take because it's gonna be a little long game. It's a long game, it's not a quick, it's not gonna happen. Right off the back real quick. Well,
25:37 that's what I think, like, surveying and studying. And this is, I think, another implication that maybe the church can do a better as well as studying and understanding how pop culture shifts is really important and understanding? Well, it's a lot slower than we think it is. And it does take time. I mean, the reason why the shows in 80s and 90s, were still processing the 60s, because they were still processing Yeah, what just happened? And and then we were absorbing
26:08 that and, you know, Miss reading pop culture, what it means. I mean, some some artifacts are superfluous, but some sort of aren't. And I've seen people try to jump on a on a fad without even understanding what was going on with that fad. And just sort of missing everything about it. I remember when, you know, for a while every pastor worth his salt would would shave his head and grow goatee and bring in a stool and a water bottle and have a darkened sanctuary. And that was postmodern ministry. Yeah, this light was emerging, you know, you just, you know, have a black turtleneck and, and a goatee, really, you're basically not engaging in any other way than you would otherwise. And it was kind of silly and unnecessary, I think,
26:51 well, it's not great. You know, I think if you're, if you want to have an effect on culture, you need to be good at analysis, you can't just have a cursory view of what's going on out there. And if I shave my head, and I grow a beard, then we are relevant, we are all we're doing is just cosmetic, that's cosmetic, there's nothing what's under question. The real question is, you know, what's underneath every aesthetic choice is driven by a value or a belief. You know, this is you can actually and you can, you can reverse this what we call value theory, I teach value theory. And I say you can discern a person or a institution or something, their their values based on retrofitting, what, what the aesthetics are, start looking at it here, look, look at the difference between a contemporary nondenominational church versus a Catholic Basilica. Right, you can look at the aesthetics and kind of gather what the value is, based on that. And, and then what's a great conversation, as you say, Okay, so now that we have these two things, you find out, is this what you were intending to communicate?
27:58 Because then you can find it and perhaps how that how that continues to communicate, you know, generationally, I know that most, you know, contemporary mega church worship man is filtered down sort of everywhere, is actually driven by, you know, baby boomers, like people like me not, you know, and so in an effort to be relevant, they're really not. Well, most Millennials are not impressed. Yeah. Right. They're just sort of not if I want to go to rock concert, I'll go to a rock concert, I'd rather go to church. And it's an really interesting phenomenon. Yeah, I think a lot of folks sort of don't get that
28:31 one. What's interesting about it is often it is a previous generation, trying to guess what our newer generation like pretty much
28:39 pretty much and just baptizing their own their own desires and likes, right?
28:43 Yeah, absolutely. And I think as we kind of maybe land the plane here on this of trying to think, Okay, what can so it does help that we don't, we can take the monkey off the back of we don't need like to try to chase that next fad. We can we can take a step back. changing culture is the long game. Yeah. So we can look and start doing a better job as the church start doing a better job as leaders. And one of the things I think we try to do here at jazz is try to help people analyze their culture, right? analyze the culture and say, hey, yeah, what are these shifts? Where has this value come from? And oh, we can trace it back. This major thing happened 20 years ago, and it has completely shifted, and so understanding and then I think also, so so being good students of culture, being good students of the history and analyzing and understanding that difference between authenticity and relevance like that is on a T shirt near you.
29:46 Yeah, I think and also, the last thing I would say is fear. Like you got to we got to be afraid because we sometimes that I say the church as a whole or at least the perspective what the church does is responding in fear to a current pop culture kind of thing. Before fully understanding what's going on. And so I think I think being bold enough to say, hey, maybe
30:05 we don't we don't jump to the on try to capture it and try and tame it before it causes any damage. Yeah. Right. Which is interesting. Because Yeah, you can't do that if you don't understand what's going on. Right with it. Yeah,
30:18 yeah, sure. You're not responding in fear? And then yeah, I think, lastly to that is, and Rex, you've pointed this out before, is that actually, as a church and you're kind of hitting on this to Derek, actually, as a church, we do have something that is timeless that we can offer? Exactly that is exactly connected. And that is what many people are starved for. Many young people, most of the new generation isn't like, yeah, don't try to impress me with what you think I will like, right, right.
30:47 I've always I've always thought that, you know, Jesus can take care of himself. And he doesn't need a PR agent. Yeah. Somehow we feel he needs one. And it's us. And and, you know, all kinds of mischief is done because of that. Yeah, that's good.
30:59 Yeah, we can we can offer and know that the new generation is already used to looking back and looking back in time, they don't always want the newest thing. Yeah. Right. And then pop culture and as, as a church, man, yeah, we have that we have that we have something timeless to offer. And so let's be better students, let's analyze better. And let's offer that. That's good. All right, as we kind of shift towards the end here. I do want to I don't have a name for this segment yet. So maybe after you know, edited back in, but I do just want to I just want to get a feel of maybe how pop culture has impacted you in your life. So if you could, is there if you could name is there a show? A movie, a band that you could look back on and think, oh, wow, that really changed. The game for me, made me think about the world in a new way.
31:57 Hmm, that's a good question. show a movie, or an or a band, a play, play anything. Pop pop culture. I've been less influenced by play funny enough. I know I run the theaters but less influenced by plays then I have been through some other things. But I'm an avid guitarist. And so you know, it really was the 90s coming out of the 80s hair bands into the 90s grunge era that was very influential to my guitar background. So I think for me, one of the most influential bands early on, was Pearl Jam for me. They were there. They were kind of the thing I think they were writing. You know, I think he was, you know, Eddie Vetter was writing about challenging topics and really hard. He had a hard life and he was wrote about what he knew. And that was really influential. And I thought the double guitar work that they had going on in there was similar to some of the Allman Brothers kind of stuff. It was just a very influential band, and they've maintained that's been the shocking thing is of the grunge bands. Yeah, they're arguably and there's almost Yeah, yeah, that's still sadly alive, right? Being still together and producing music. Regardless of where you fall on him, I just they were they were incredibly influential. That's good for
33:15 I guess music and pop culture. I regrettably collected shirts, and I probably have, gosh, about 100 of them, which is absurd. And I can't really wear them while I'm teaching here at Jessup. And my wife thinks it's just a total waste of money. But there you go. Anyway, one of my favorite t shirts is one that says I listen to bands that don't exist yet. Ah. Like, yesterday, today. Exactly. Exactly. It's like, you know, my musical tastes you can't pass. They don't even exist yet. But they're in my head. In my head. I've always been a fan of movies, but apparently the movies that I like other folks don't like either when I was teaching high school, um, I was sort of in charge of the senior class trip and I remember making all the students go to see a local hero. You probably didn't even know what that is. Right. And they all they all they all snuck out of the multiplex and went to see Porky's too. And so it just shows what I know, which is about nothing.
34:24 What do you say local heroes are something that changed your life.
34:28 You know, we were in Scotland two years ago. And actually, we drove right by the beach where the beach scenes were filmed there. And so I just, you know, I mean, I think because of the irony and the ridiculousness of that whole thing, you know, maybe I should give it a try. Second, try with some students. They might actually like it. should it
34:45 go? Yeah, it's all coming back. Around Exactly. For me, it would be in the music realm too. And it was it was growing up and finding and my parents weren't like huge pop culture fans at all. I could say that sorry, mom, dad. But they had a small record collection that they had kind of kept with them. And and it introduced me to they had an old Chuck Berry record. And they had a Beatles record. Like early early beat a Beatles, right? Yeah. Yeah, they didn't go too far into stuff right? Yeah, they didn't they didn't follow the Beatles as culture exploded they, they, they stayed protected from that, I guess we can say. But finding those and finding an old record player cuz in the 80s everyone's still had record players in their houses and now they're coming back and cool. Exactly. Fine. vinyl. house like they were like, Oh, yeah, we haven't played the Hudson or eight tracks or we're gonna come back to these nine. I don't think so. I was okay. tossing Well, I actually have a track player in my graduate. I'm like searching for an eight track to see if it works. Jamie to know. They're worth a lot of money though. They were so horrible. That's like
36:03 one of those things that a collector would freak out about was like where the old eight tracks.
36:07 I wish I had kept all my old GI Joe stuff. Totally. Totally. Yeah, that and my kids attack packs. But sadly we threw them all away. No, we don't
36:15 you have to have foresight. Exactly. Like I need to keep this because you never know never know. Yeah, music was something that changed and I was young and listen to those ingest. And even though it wasn't the current music, right, but it was like oh, wow, this music speaks like yeah, and and music then played a role in my life and still does have of how I connect how I learn things, how I express moods, all that and going back to a moody college blues playlist.
36:48 What are some of your other places I'm interested in now? moody college blue. Well,
36:51 that's that's the only one that I've kind of I have a I'm a Christian Christmas aficionado. I'm really good. I like the old stuff. So Sinatra mahrez.
37:00 totally makes sense for someone who always dresses in shades of black and gray. Exactly. It totally works. I totally get it. I totally get I totally get it. I totally get it. Sinatra era is right up that pro jam stuff. We'll go with that too, actually. Yeah, great, great.
37:18 90s music changed my life to it definitely has laid the foundation for for where we are now, musically and all that. So it was a good, good shift. But we'll get we'll get into some more playlist later on another and we'll do an episode on playlists. Thank you guys for joining us today. It's been great. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
38:11 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is a premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think. Thank you.
Psychology Professor Richard Mullis rejoins Mark to discuss the role of originality in identity. Together Mark and Richard examine the writings of Adrian van Kaam, a mid-twentieth century, Dutch, catholic priest who wrote extensively on the topic of identity and spiritual formation. His unique definition of originality guides the episode and grounds a proper understanding of our uniqueness and our Divine origin in God.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And back on the show is Professor of Psychology. Richard Mullis. Richard, welcome back. Thank you, it's great to be back, you know, it's good to have you back so soon to so soon to, to kind of do a little, little part two of our, in our last episode together, we talked about identity in Christ. And we're going to kind of build on that today. But remind me kind of how we looked at identity in Christ, how do we define identity in Christ?
0:40 I believe that our deepest core sense of identity is as being made as a child of God being made in the image of God. And so that is, like, deep and fundamental, and, and irreplaceable, and other other forms of identity that aren't kind of grounded in that I'm suggesting might be problematic for the human person. And yeah, maybe we'll talk about some of that. But
1:05 yeah, cuz we did, we referenced kind of when you when you look at that identity at your most profound level, right, and grounding that in the imago, dei, the image of God, and understanding yourself as a child of God as your, as your most your most fundamental core identity, that also brings up that we have all these false identities, that that these false sources of identity that we find ourselves in and we referenced, are one of our favorite writers and renowned and he talks about kind of three false sources of identity that I am, what I do, I am what I have. I am what other people say about me, which every time I say those three, I realized that those are three that I still struggle with. Oh, yeah. That that even though I've read him and read that a million times from him, I can still read that and be like, yep, I still find my identity in all three of those things. Sometimes at the same time.
2:04 Yeah, that's right. And, and I think we briefly spoke about it. But sometimes we have to get clear on that. And almost like, say out loud, least for me, I have to say out loud or put it in a journal like okay, right? Well, these things are important, you know, what I do or what they're important, what people say, and etc, etc. But they're also not the deepest core fundamental thing. So sometimes I have to have renunciate or runouts. Yeah.
2:32 Yeah. And I think and you kind of we talked last time, either about those practices of either journaling it out saying it out loud, like really negating those things. And, and I think that's just so important. And it's something that you don't just do once, we have to keep, you have to keep doing, but kind of Henry now in will transition into kind of another writer that I want to focus on today. He is also a mid 20th century, Dutch Catholic priests, psychologists. Awesome. Yeah. Which is just bread and butter. I'm seeing a trend here. Yeah, just his name is Adrian Vaughn calm. And, and he's among like, numerous spiritual formation topics that he has written on. He writes a lot about identity and originality. And he has this great little book from the early 70s. It has a beautiful 70s cover to love oranges and yellows. Yeah, it's beautiful. And it's the title is great title is very good. Early 70s. Title two, on being yourself. Yeah, I love that. It's kind of you know, I mean, cuz I think a lot of people in the late 60s kind of lost their minds, and maybe lost themselves themselves. And so early 70s is like a is nice for this book to come on being yourself. And he makes a really good connection. And I think a really good contrast, actually, between what we mean when we talk about identity and Christ, and what we don't mean by that. And he actually uses a contrast of, of Eastern mysticism. And he says, I just want to read you this quote, because I think it kind of sets up where we're going to go specifically on the idea of originality. He says, Eastern mysticism aims at man's fusion with the sacred, his disappearance in the totality of all that is, right, so Eastern mysticism is going into the sacred, kind of losing yourself. Christian spirituality stresses the opposite. The Christian believes that he originates from God as a unique person. Mm hmm. So it's, it's kind of like this outward origination right like you originate from God as a unique person. And then he kind of notes this dragon important says to be sure Christian spirituality speaks about giving up myself for getting myself dying. The old man, this does not mean however, that a Christian should lose his identity or fuse with the Godhead. It means that as a Christian, I should distance myself from false self images,
5:13 which is exactly what now I'm saying as well. And then he says this, I must find my original self as hidden in God. Hmm. Yeah, that seems very congruent and consistent with what we were trying to say in that previous podcast is just that deepest core essential part of us, actually is a gift that comes from God. Right, his image imbued in us and, and that that is like the, the, the starting place for our originality is,
5:44 yeah, and this sound my stress to students all the time that that finding your identity in Christ is not losing your identity. But it is actually, in Christ, you find who you really are. And and I think some people view the Christian life as this kind of maybe stripping away of who they are, and they have to become someone else. And, and it's actually in Christ, you find out who you really are. I love that idea of finding your original self, and your hidden in God. Right. So you're still in God. But but there's this original self. Yeah, it's not this kind of losing that identity. Yeah. And becoming and maybe even losing your unique identity amongst other Christians, as well, you know, that it's not this just kind of coming together and everybody having the same personality. Same. Yeah, they're all that it's finding that true self in God. And it's really important now, like how he defines that, that, that maintains both that that we are our original selves, hidden and God.
6:57 Yeah, it's to pick up on what you were reading just a moment ago, that an Eastern religions or Eastern philosophy, the sense of like a drop of water being fused with the ocean, like right all individuality disappears. And in in western spiritualities. In general, I think we have a sometimes a hyper focus on the self, and contradistinction to all these others. And I think Christianity really embodies the virtues of both of those sides. Yeah. So on the one hand, we Yes, we are united with God, we have union with God, we will forever be participating with him in his divine life and in His Kingdom. So, yes, on union, but also, like you were saying, we we maintain our distinction, right, he knows us uniquely. There's nobody else like us. Yeah. So but in some ways, I think Christianity is, is, is mixes the best of those two traditions.
7:56 That's a great perspective of Yeah, of having both of us, because on the other side of maybe Western spiritualities, that hyper distinction can become a problem. Exactly. Yeah. That's some of those false identities maybe that we might get into. Yeah, yeah. So Vaughn calm goes on, in this book, in his very first chapter to, to define originality, and it's been a definition that has just blown me away. And each time I read it, I feel like I learned something new. And so I want to kind of explore this definition of originality with you. And because I think we use that word a lot. Sometimes, but we again, kind of like identity in Christ, but we don't, like understand maybe the actual definition or we use it. And we have that desire to be original. And I think it's a desire and we'll talk more about that desire, especially in the west to be an individual to be an original individual. And, and Vaughn calm defines it this way says this, he says, to be original means that I am the origin of what I think feel, say and do. I'm gonna read that again. Yeah, it was let it soak in, please do I want to soak that up to be original means that I am the origin of what I think feel, say and do. For me, I had never had a logically made the connection of originality and the word origin. Yeah. And so when he made that connection, I was like, Oh, that makes sense. originality, something originating from me. He goes on to clarify that because I think you could maybe hear that and sometimes I use this in class and, and even talk, you know, with other Christians about it. And I think one of the first things people are like, way, way way, we're not the origin of everything. That's true. We're not the origin of everything. So my income clarifies that he says to be original does not mean however, that I'm the origin of my inner and outer acts in an ultimate independent way, right? So he's always going to bring us back to our divine origin. In God. He uses an example of Lake Victoria as the kind of the origin of the Nile River. And, and it's really good analogy, because he says Lake Victoria is the Nile River comes out of Lake Victoria. But Lake Victoria does not originate itself. It gets rainwater against all these other sources, other streams coming into it, right. So but then, like, Victoria is the origin of the Nile River. And so really, this idea of originality is the idea that I'm, I'm are starting to try to understand I'm the origin of that which originates from me, right there. And so he uses thoughts, feelings, what we say and what we do. Yeah, really everything that we can do, right? I mean, that those four kind of encompass it. Yeah, that we're the origin of that. Yeah.
11:18 And just contextually, in the 1970s, there was a big movement in psychology, a secular movement that was really stressing this being, you know, being being original, owning what you think and feel and say, and not being unduly influenced by these external sources, right? I have a sense that he's writing in that context, when, when you have a theological grounding of being made in the image of God, and that you aren't the origin of yourself, you have a divine origins, right, man, now you're, like, totally freed up to like, really own, who you have been made to be. how you're going to flesh that out in the real world, with with how you relate to others, your right job, how you express yourself in or personally, or give some hobby. I mean, there's so much there. But But yeah, but that that is a really an important distinction, where he starts and what you're mentioning is like being grounded in God first. So you can discover your originality and then express it versus eliminate God from your life. Right. in, in, in in seek to be your own grounding. And that has some burst problems that come with that.
12:32 Yeah. And part two, maybe that the time period as well is flowing out of, I mean, the 50s. And it seems like maybe that stress on people should look this way, do a certain thing. And then the 60s comes in and just like bombs, right? I mean, just explodes that and I think a very good maybe, like, obviously extreme, but it was probably a good push back culturally of like, Hey, we are individuals. But then yeah, it's it's it, then I think we're still reeling from that cultural explosion of the late 60s. And it's, it's nice to have a voice that comes right in the middle of that and says, Yeah, this individuality is good. And originality is good. What we do have to remember our, our divine origin in God. And once we have that, then we can actually we are free to be original, like that, that we can then be the origin of what we think feel, say and do. And oftentimes those things are controlled by our maybe false selves, right? We say certain things, because we think that's what other people want us to say. Maybe to be funny, maybe to fit in maybe to look smart. Why do you get to pick on all my stuff? You know, I'm not I'm not trying. I'm looking in a mirror. I'm looking in and we're, we do certain things, because it's what other people maybe would want us to do. Yeah. And that can be good, bad or indifferent. Right? I
14:12 mean, yeah. And it can be conscious and unconscious, right? Like, consciously you might think, oh, what can I say? Or do or how can I dress or behave to fit in? Yeah, and then other times it's, it's, it's, it's at a deep, profound unconscious level that we've been kind of socially kind of programmed to sometimes to fit in or we're influenced by social forces, cultural forces that we just kind of breathe the air of those things. Yeah, without critically examining is that right congruent with either a who God has made me to be or be who I who I want to be. God and with others. Yeah. So I think there's a real need for being able to consciously discriminate or consciously make distinctions or consciously sift and I think I use the metaphor of being of stripping before being stripped of certain false identity, false conceptions of self or, or false or amram ways of relating to others. Like, sometimes we get back that stop back the truck up, examine it, look at it, negate some things, right? and clarify, who am I? Who do I want to be in this? And who is God calling me to be in this?
15:25 Yeah. And at that point, we can be original, we can, we can start to understand ourselves as as the origin of those things. Now, usually, though, culturally, when we talk about originality, what do you think most people maybe have in mind when they think of originality?
15:47 I think most people have uniqueness in mind. They want to be unique. They want to be special. They want to be different from others and different and valued. Different. Yeah, prized and write special. And
16:03 that's a good distinction because you can be different. And some people are like, I don't want to be different in that way. But different and valued like that.
16:11 Yeah, some, some people might say, Oh, yeah, I want to be different. And I don't care if people hate me or whatever. But right, that that can sometimes be short lived. We do need positive human contact, right, contrary to the phrase, you know, being an island, too, like we do need other people on this island with us. Right? That's helpful. But
16:36 yeah, and I usually bring this up with students, I bring this this definition up, because I'm trying to help them maybe change the way they've been defining originality, as this idea yeah, as a uniqueness or just a difference, like I want to be different. And one thing that that Vaughn calm notes is that you can be different, outwardly different, or outwardly, even, like, new and coming up with new things, and be unoriginal. And you can be outwardly very similar to everyone else, and be inwardly original. Yeah. Because those things you were doing are originating from you, even though they're the same things other people are doing and saying, but they're originating from you. Mm hmm. And I think it's so helpful to make that distinction. Because there is kind of a stress in, in most of our movies, most of Disney's movies, right, this idea of originality, and uniqueness and celebrating that, which I think is positive, right. I mean, it is, again, maybe a little bit of the carryover of, of the 50s. And trying to force people into certain images. And we've kind of exploded that and most people who maybe took part of that explosion are now maybe managers of a lot of the our producers, or directors. And so they're carrying those those cultural themes onto us. But then realizing that it's not just about being outwardly different. It's not just about coming up with the new thing. And there's maybe fear of doing the same things as others. Yeah. But actually, originality is about you being the origin.
18:26 Yeah. Yeah, I might frame it this way, is that if you think of like tension, or you know, the fancy word for this is kind of like dialectics. But on one side, you have the eastern on one side, you have the western or on one side, there are certain cultural manifestations, right? In some cultures of the world, there's more an emphasis on conformity and not standing out and not being unique, not being special, but being like the group, right and there may be certain strengths with that on certain things, but there might also be certain certain forms of hindrances also. Whereas in the West, we are stressing a lot about being unique, be special, your unique voice, your unique contribution, and again, also a lot of strengths in that, but there could also be certain hindrances or hazards with that. And so, in the 1970s, a lot of social theorists and psychologists were writing about a culture of narcissism that almost in the West, we almost promote this individuality and uniqueness so much, that it is leading to kind of a hyper individualism and a kind of a culturally inbred narcissism. So being so self focused, um, in some in some of our discourse in our culture today, like there don't seem to be a lot of ideas that are compelling about our, our responsibilities to others, because we're so focused on ourselves. Are you unique ideas or unique preferences, which can sometimes turned into unique entitlements, right unique pathologies, right as well. So, and I think in our late, you know, late modern or some people call postmodern culture, we kind of do away with history, and we want originality or uniqueness. And what's new the next Yeah, is if somehow we need to cut ties with all the good things from the past. Right, so, so there. So and then, just to summarize that, I don't think health is to be found and either one or the other on that tension. But I think we've got to be dialing that in and be consciously aware that sometimes stressing our calmness and connectedness can really be a virtue and other times stressing our uniqueness. And in that sense, that can be a virtue, but there may also be various vices that we also have to clarify and kind of dial in, in that spectrum. But I don't know what right,
21:03 yeah, no, that's, that's really good. I really like that idea of understanding the tension. And and understanding is not the one or the other of originality and uniqueness or kind of conformity to the group. And Vaughn calm, I think brings that up, actually, with the concept of envy. When he's talking about originality, he has a couple chapters on envy as being the, one of the main obstacles to the spiritual life, and one of the main obstacles to really being able to connect with each other. Because if I'm just looking at you, and kind of comparing what you have, what I have, what I don't have, and then I may feel the need to belittle you or put you down to, to kind of help myself feel better. And then now, we're not connected. Yeah. But if I'm an original person, and now he's defining if I find my grounding in my divine origin, and God, and also then what I think feel, say and do come from me, then I can see what you do gifts you have. And I don't have to be envious of that. But I just want to read a little bit of part because it it's really helpful, because I think this is another aspect of our social life and our spiritual life. That this idea of comparison and envy, yeah, especially in a in a hyper individualized society, where we see other people and we think, oh, why don't I have that? Why don't we have that? You know, the neighbors got a new car, what what's going on? And I then stress I like my old car. So yeah, I'm confident in my 93. I still run it. That's right. It's doing good. Yeah. But he says this, he says this about me. He says living in envy means that I'm not centered in my true self, my life becomes one of comparison. I'm forever asking what others have and what I am missing. When I find out that I have less than they do, I may try to diminish my sense of lack, by belittling what is theirs. As long as I live outside myself and envious observations of others, I cannot be myself. I can only begin to become myself when I accept what I am. I should not be preoccupied with the ways in which others differ from me. These differences Tell me what I am not. I need to come to an awareness of who I am in relation to my divine origin and God. And and I love that idea that that a life of comparison, a life of MB actually is telling me who I am not. It's not speaking to my identity. Yeah, it's not telling me who I am. It's telling me who I'm not what I'm lacking what I'm missing. And and that will always impede connection. Yeah. If I'm, if I'm comparing, and especially not just comparing, because you can note differences. But then being envious of that.
24:25 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my mind is exploding with reactions to what I've said. So in the four and a half minutes that we have left, perfect deck, I'm reminded of Cain and Abel and the Genesis story, right? In terms of envying, the sacrifice and God being pleased with with Abel sacrifice, right, Cain feels threatened by that. Yeah. Or contemporary social, cultural political situations that we're facing today where we have a hard time like celebrating the other celebrating otherness difference, right? Like We're threatened by it. Again, not to venture off into some all the details of that, but right now we care for our neighbor and celebrate Wow. Yeah, for you way to go as opposed to, I'm now less than you. Exactly. You know, I'm lacking something. And so, yes,
25:18 like a lot of maybe like a lot of people were in the late 90s in college, I was in a college band. playing rock band playing the spoons. spoons on my knee. I was doing playing bass. Yeah. But it was so funny. As a band, you know, there's like five of us guys. And we were, we were the best band out there. Right? No other and we would hear another band who was trying, you know, who was just like us just playing small gigs. And we could never ever say, oh, they're pretty good. We're gonna be like, Oh, man, that's terrible. And every band on the radio, oh, there sell out. This isn't good. And it's just like, you look back and you can't, we were so maybe not confident in who we were, that we had to. We couldn't say, oh, that bands really good. Or I like them? Because it was like, oh, then that would somehow diminish us. Yeah. And it's so fun. I just see that so often with young bands and college bands, this idea of you can't. You can't be like, Nah, celebrate it really good. Or, you know, maybe they are sellouts. But they got me they did what they were aiming to do. Yeah. So. And but yeah, that idea of comparison. We? We can't, because then we can't affirm them. Because then it somehow diminishes. Yeah,
26:37 it almost speaks to or seems like there's an assumption about scarcity. And then there's only a limited amount of specialness to go around. Right. And so if you have it, then I don't have it. As opposed to cash, maybe there's a lot of a lot of that to go around, you know, you think about very common social dynamics like in high school cliques, competition, these sorts of rating scales that we you know, consciously or unconsciously developing is, as opposed to maybe being able to transcend that in a way and have have a theological grounding, but also even just social cultural grounding for, man. There's a lot of really cool things out there. We don't have to write pair. And in also, we don't have to rank lower.
27:29 But, yeah, well, yeah. And that's what I like with that. I think that's what Vaughn comm is kind of saying is that I think for some our current definition of originality being different, unique, does seem to be limited. Only a few people can actually be original, if it's being truly unique, and doing something new and totally different. Because so many things have already been done. I think the way Vaughn calm is defining it, every single person can be original, because originality as being the origin of what you think they'll say, and not about being somehow culturally unique or different, or coming up with a new a new sound in music, a new thing and art a new thing in business, right. But it is you being original, and in that way, there is no scarcity. Right? Yeah, there is enough originality to go around.
28:25 Yeah, if if our the source of our originality is in our divine origins, this is a God of infinite supply of goodness and creativity and love, that if we were all continually drawing upon that, and he acknowledging he is forever uniquely noticing us like he noticings a kiss in the tree. He knowing all the hairs on our head, he knowing the deeper, more profound things in our hearts that we can't even know like, when we acknowledge that we are a part of his, his kind of divine origins like wow, there's plenty of room to celebrate our neighbor, even if we might disagree on certain fronts like but we can still celebrate there's something unique, valued the imago dei, human dignity, all sorts of things there. But But yeah, but on a different foundation. It seems like we could be on shaky ground in terms of if uniqueness apart from that divine origin, like oh, I might set up more competition. And this more scarcity mindset that we've been talking about.
29:34 That's great. Thank you so much, Richard, for coming on the show and exploring this topic with me and something that I've been really looking at over the last maybe 10 years. This idea of originality and identity. And I think it's so important. I think identity is something that we're always going to have to focus on. That in each stage of life we struggle with and that we have to keep coming back to And I think understanding originality in concert with identity can really help us the idea that, again, understanding our divine origin and God, being grounded in that, and then understanding that, then then God has been freed me up to be an original person to be the origin. Therefore I don't have to envy. I don't have to compare. I can celebrate my neighbor. I can love God with everything that I have. And I can love my neighbor as myself because there's no diminishing. And just finishing on that that stress that you've had, which I think is great, that there's no scarcity in uniqueness, originality, we can do that. So thank you so much for that
30:51 pleasure to be on the show. Pleasure to be working this out with you. I don't feel like I've arrived at this. I feel like I'm still growing. So I welcome your, your partnership and your friendship to as we work these things out. So thanks for having me on the show. very welcome.
31:12 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
31:38 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Psychology Professor Richard Mullis joins Mark to explore the often noted yet also often misunderstood concept of identity in Christ. Over the last decade the church has stressed finding your identity in Christ but it has not always clearly defined what is meant by the phrase. Appealing to their shared spiritual formation backgrounds, Mark and Richard look to define what it is and what it isn’t.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And today on the show, I'm really excited to be joined by a psychology professor Richard mullis. Thanks for coming on the show. Happy to be here. And we actually have a connection that maybe, you know, many of our listeners don't know about. Kind of a connection. We didn't know each other there. But I did my graduate studies at Biola, and Talbot, and I was a part of the second semester of the first year of the spiritual formation Institute. And you were also at Biola, Talbot around the same time,
0:42 correct? That's correct. Yeah, I was a graduate student doing my doctorate in clinical psychology. And I was teaching as an adjunct professor in the Institute of spiritual formation,
0:53 Hey, I know and I missed you, I missed we didn't even I missed you, man. We will, well, we're gonna we're gonna connect later on our Biola connection. Even more, so it's just it's all gonna be full circle. But I was really excited to kind of bring you on the show, based on that kind of spiritual formation background and that blend of formation and psychology and theology. And and I'm really want to talk about the topic of identity and identity in Christ. I think it's, it's really, maybe kind of like a buzz term. Now, if we can say that, like a buzz Mo's term. term. And, and I think we use it a lot. And I think it's been good that we've been kind of stressing that to younger generations. And we've really been kind of hyping that I think if you talk to a lot of maybe even high schoolers, your highs and about their youth groups, they've probably heard that phrase, identity in Christ, we'll see that within the church as well. But it's also we do this a lot in the church, we have phrases that we use, but we don't really define them. And we don't maybe know. And we all just kind of nod and say, yeah, I think I know what that means. And we don't maybe really know what it means. But it's kind of like when you've met someone, and you're past the point where you're gonna ask them their name again, right? Like, you've met him a couple times. And so we've all like used the phrase a couple times. So we can't ask now, what is this mean? Because then you play your cards that you don't know, you know, anything of what the identity in Christ, what it really means. I mean, I think we have a general knowledge. And so I want to kind of really explore that, you know, and I think identity is just a huge issue for not only young people, but everybody struggles with kind of identity and understanding who they are their role in the world. But particularly, I teach a freshmen class, and we spend our entire session on our week on identity. And it's, it's just really interesting to see, maybe lights going on of them realizing I've been finding my identity here or there, and just noticing that struggle. And as you and I know, Richard, it doesn't get any easier as you get older. It's not like you solve the identity problems. At 18. That's for sure. And then and then move on. And so I guess with this, for me starting it, and maybe starting to define it, I'd like to, to get a grasp on the terms too. And and so just when we say identity, what do we what do we really mean when we say identity?
3:40 Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think at its rock bottom core identity is that which you are most deeply and profoundly constituted by okay.
3:51 Yeah, like that deeply and profoundly constituted by Yeah. And I have to define constituted,
3:57 yeah, like, you know, like our Constitution. No, exactly. We the People, Conjunction Junction, like, yes, no, so yeah, it's like that, which most deeply in comprehensively like, forms us. Yeah. shapes us. Yeah. Kind of grounds, I would say even grounds us, helps us have a sense of in the deep, like who we really are. And there are a lot of things that are competing with, right, we really are. Yeah, and they tend to be I think we tend to use some of those other characteristics, and maybe even mistake them for our real identity. So right. I mistake them for the things that are really the deepest about us the most profound things yeah, to form us and shape us.
4:49 Yeah. What are some of those issues? I mean, why when we can list so many, even in my own life, but what are some of those issues that that maybe draw us away from identity in Christ as we get closer to that, but that those things that we can be drawn to identifying as our maybe deepest and most profound selves.
5:12 Yeah. I mean, it can be a whole host of things, both what we might generally think of as positive things, even crime take on a potentially a false sense of identity and even negative things. So, for example, I might think of things that we do. Like, I am a professor, I am a or Yeah, I'm a professor, I'm an athlete. I'm a reader. Right. So those I'm a live action role player or live action role player, yes. Find your identity, your identity. I am a movie watcher, right there. There's so many things that and those might be just, you know, kind of general garden variety things about Yeah, they're also you might think, might think in terms of functions, like things that we do. You might think in terms of, how about vices, or virtues? Yeah, if I'm kind, if I'm loving, if I'm, and those are all can be good thing. Right? Right. But there may be something even more deep behind all that, that we want to, that I would want to explore. Or that I think is kind of more fundamental. Because when it comes to functions, any one of our things that we do in the world, in any one of those things could change in a heartbeat. And that often leads to a sense of identity crisis, right? I mean, even something really good like mothering. Right, right. There's this empty nest syndrome, yeah, has poured so much of themselves into one activity. And there's a shift in that activity or that function that can lead to a kind of a destabilization. And so there are many good things that we would say that, you know, are part of that identity. But, but, but there's something even more profound, I think, something deeper, and the deeper that we invest in that, that thing. Yeah, I think the more that we can receive all these other things potentially as his gifts. Like in our culture, we have a lot of discussion right now about gender identity, right? sexual identity, yeah, or any of a number of other kinds of identity. And again, gender is a good thing can be is a gift, right? I think sexual. sexual desire is a gift, right as vocational desire, you know, hobbies, recreations, etc, etc. But, but to think of, to think of some of those things as our deepest, most core sense of identity, I think might be the miss something just like, that mistake my profession, right? My body type my good looks not good looks, my 401k the toys that I have the kind of what's a 401k? Some kind of kind of investment strategy?
8:04 What do you do with those? Do you have to put some into it? Yeah, there's some like, What's something like saving? You know, yeah, but all of those things that you could, that could be good or bad. That if you start to see as, as defining that deepest and most profound part of who you are, it can we can run into problems with identity. When life changes, maybe when those roles change.
8:39 Can I give a couple quick? Yeah, that would be great. So like, as a as a high school athlete, I remember how important my athletic ability or my allowance alleged prowess and and that was, that was fun, but I didn't quite have the skills to play in C to A at my, you know, division one university. Yeah. So had I grounded my identity in that I would have been completely shattered and shaken. Right? When I didn't make the team it you know? Yeah, vision was cool. Right? So So is a therapist, and somebody who does spiritual direction. I've met with a number of people who their athletics was so much a part of who they thought they were, yeah, that when they don't make the next level of competition, that they're shattered, in turn, right. They have to find a new sense of themselves. And so yeah, I think in a different way to go would be, let's work on the deepest sense of oneself. So then we can enjoy like, an activity, right? Various practices, hobbies, we can enjoy those things as gifts that we received but not confuse that gift. With our core essence, right, who we are, and
10:03 that may be like one of the main problems with adult recreation sports leagues is that everyone's out there reliving their identity. That's right. finding their identity. I'm like, Hey, calm down, everybody. Like we all have to go to work on Monday. That's right. Like, no one's winning the championship. Yeah, on this. But yeah, but it's part of you, if you found your identity, yeah. Especially in Yes, something you have done. And then life changes, or that talent isn't enough to get to a next level. It is, yeah, we see that. So, so many times. I think along with the athletic kind of analogy as well. Or, or illustration. I also see this in like musicians, as you watch, like, as you watch a popular band age, you can see that identity crisis happen. And what was popular 20 years ago, isn't popular. And where do you find it that has is that is your identity, and you see really tragic scenarios to where musicians who were popular in the 80s end up overdosing taking their own lives. Yeah. And, and it's, and you can imagine, like, if your identity was, I'm the lead singer of warrant. Right. And I have may have to explain to our younger listeners here Warren as you have to do you can Google it and do some research Google that. Yeah. But but the anna and i believe he did, tragically and his life you know, and it was because man look at I've had this and now I don't so it's this this this scenario where you're like, Who am I? That has been my identity? Yeah.
11:59 And again, a lot of good things that could be right. Right? I am I am I like being the lead singer. Warren Yeah. All right. I am my artistic ability. Yeah. How about I am my beauty. I am I the curves on my body or size of my
12:15 which I see if you looked at at kind of social media and culture right? We're going to talk about this. If you take a look at Richard's biceps, you can see why he would find his identity. But yeah, that if you look I mean then with the Kardashians and all that, that it is there such a stress speaking of biceps speaking. Yeah, such a stress on on beauty and external beauty. Yeah. And identity is so wrapped up into that. Yeah.
12:46 Or, or think about, like, how many likes you have if your identity is and the number of likes you for identity as in? How popular you are? Again, those could all be could be good thing, right? Yeah, just not bad. Not the kind of thing down to ground your existence on right. And, yeah, so yeah, but also, let's say, Alternatively, if hobbies and those kind of fun things or entertainment, things could be, maybe generally could be positive, or what about when people have certain struggles? If somebody says, I am an alcoholic? Yeah, I'm a drug addict, I struggle with porn, right, whatever those things are. But also like the, you know, I'm a big fan of the 12 step meetings, the 12 step moving, right. And a lot of really good, right in terms of recovery. But the opening statement, it's some groups and I am fill in the blank with your advice, right? I think is really problematic.
13:44 Yeah, the identification of I am in
13:46 that I am my vice I am my brokenness, I am my disease, I am my fill in the blank, whatever it is, and there's rageous thing. Those could be characteristics, things that describe certain things or brands, but there
14:00 may be part of it in the heart behind it is a reminder, like I struggle with this. And so I need to always be aware exactly that I think it's a struggle. Can we really help but separating that from identity? Yeah, yeah, it's really important. Do you think it also would connect with mental illness as well, like I, I struggle with anxiety, I struggle with depression, and maybe even in some ways you find your identity there?
14:31 Absolutely. Sometimes we find people literally develop a kind of attachment to their issue to the disorder to their illness, yeah, almost as a sort of replacement for other healthy things, right, or healthier things to which we can attach and bond with. And so sometimes even our own narrative about ourselves the spin, whether positive or negative, or mental illness or or just even healthy, functioning, Sometimes we get attached to that certain thing and and that can be problematic.
15:05 Yeah really can't well let me I want to throw some throw some stats at you about throw me some stats about Gen Z because I mean everybody loves to hear like some middle aged guys talk about younger generation oh man is just people tune in to but I think this is really interesting this is it was a Barna group study. And it's actually a part of an article that was in Talbots recent magazine so I'm alumni there. Yeah, a couple of times. Same here. I stayed around for two, it's not my identity, but it was like a fun thing I did. Yeah, it was part part of our history. But I really thought this was interesting. It was Barna group did a survey of American teenagers today and so they they surveyed almost 2000 and ask them about sense of self. And and I think it's really interesting over 40% indicated that professional slash educational achievements and hobbies and pastimes were very important to their sense of self. And 37% highlighted that their importance was their gender, sexuality, their sense of self 35% their group of friends, and then 34% you get family and religion. And, and less important to their identity was racing ethnicity at 23%, local region 21% social economic class, their teen political affiliation, like negative 20 knows 13%. But I just thought those were really interesting that especially they're over 40% their identities and their professional educational achievement or their hobbies pastime, right? In my athletic prowess, my musicianship, my artistic ability, my acting ability, or in my professional art, or educational achievement, as well. And one of the things this is comes from an article by Ryan Peterson is a theology professor there Talbot, one of the things that he noted that I think is really interesting is that it makes sense that that would be there in that top percentage, because if they looked at the adults in their lives, that would be how the adults identified themselves, what they have accomplished, what their hobbies or pastimes, what their occupation is, I thought that was a really interesting insight that we kind of, we kind of pass on this identity struggle, each new generation, we sure do, and we don't really set the best example of, of finding a core identity that is not connected those things that celebrates those things as gifts. And, and, and talks about him and engages ism. But yeah, if you if you just looked at our lives, if our children lived our lives would be like, Oh, I need to find my sense of self in the role as Professor or pastor. Or both. If you want to, you know, just get crazy. What do you got to pick up my stuff? critical? Well, I'm talking about myself, we're where I'm pointing at myself. Yes. But if you if you see those, now, it would make sense that that's what I need to do to, to define who I am. Yeah.
18:33 Yeah, I think a dimension of that is, yes, the models that we've had, and the degree to which those models or even mirrors are broken mirrors, right, then we're got the reflection it's going to give to us or what we're going to see back as is also going to have some distortion in it. So this is an eternal or this is an age old problem. Yeah. And, and with, I think, with mass media. I mean, you could be in a very small region of Indiana, or Iowa, or it, but I would prefer Indiana and you could still have the same access to all the same images and influences is somebody living in the heart of La? Right. And so but if we
19:18 Yeah, that has that has really changed for, for our experience, yeah, rather than 5060 years ago, where you'd be maybe less exposed.
19:27 Yeah, I would. Yeah, I would agree with that. I often disagree with you. But on that point, I think I'm gonna thank
19:34 you for agreeing. That's perfect. And so so with this now, I'm sorry, I cut you off. Do you know I'm sorry, I had a joke. But
19:46 it's developmentally appropriate that young people teenagers are working on and it's really important their relationships or social group, writing skills with which to use out in the world and create We're so there's some normalcy to those things. And yet, when you lose that job when you get bounced out of a social circle when you fill in the blank with whatever loss Yeah, again, a crisis can come when we've over invested in a certain thing. So, so and that might be a might be a segue to to talk about, well, what is that certain thing? Or what what other language will be used to describe? Yeah. And but yeah, you go Yeah,
20:31 I mean, I think that it is, I think looking at it as a problem. Now moving to so what does that mean then to, to maybe understand that those are false senses of identity, false senses of grounding, and move to this elusive identity in Christ? Like, how does someone make that transition?
20:57 Yeah, so I think we do this maybe by negation by negating or So first, that starts with acknowledging, so like an assignment that I give to my students, for example, I asked them to describe everything they can about themselves, in terms of their hobbies, their activities, their relationships, many would say, I am a son, I am a daughter, and I am a friend, I am a husband, a wife, a pastor. So you're describing functions and relational things. And then at the very end of that list, I have my students say, and, and even to pray, and something like, and, Lord, thank you for all those things. Those are great gifts that I have, yeah, but each one of those things can be stripped away from us. So getting to that core thing, that core thing, our identity in Christ is, as we're saying, and as we often hear, is kind of reminding ourselves that who we are at our deepest level, is who knows us, who is relating to us at the most profound level, and that, I think, is God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. So literally the Spirit that dwells us that lives inside of us. And if you think about this journey from birth until death, every thing we ever do, every relationship, human relationship we ever have, will slowly be stripped away from us. And at death. We come naked, just as we entered the world naked, right? I was trying to attract your younger listeners. Yeah. No, but people perked up there. Well, what are they talking about? Yeah, literally, naked, we enter the world, right and naked, we shall depart. And I'm so in some sense, in prayer and in our relationships with one another and with God. We can do this stripping, stripping of false sense of identity, or maybe using a better a better phrase. We can clarify god, this is my core. Yeah, you are my core. And these are good gifts that I can enjoy and express and and even really, like, connect with, like, passionate about. Yeah, but also acknowledging. This too may pass and yeah, doesn't mean that my identity passes, right means I'm, I need to continue to clarify, I need to get grounded and eternal things. And the eternal God and one who lives inside of us. Who love who knows. Yeah, my name knows the number of hairs on our head, right? Some of those passages that we maybe think of, but
23:39 yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts. One, I love that picture of the one of finding your core sense of self in in the one who knows you at that level. And realizing that no one else in the world knows you at that level. Not the closest people to you. And you yourself. Don't even fully know yourself at that level. But God does, and he not only knows us there, but he loves us completely. Right? Yeah. And so we can meet him there. One thing that I loved in the in the spiritual formation Institute, and I stress this too, to my students as well, is part of formation is knowledge of God and knowledge of self. Right, the more it's not just you don't come to William Jessup just to learn about God learn facts about God. And then that's how you grow closer to him. Part of it is you learn about who you are, you learn about yourself and the more you learn about yourself. I think the more you can see God meeting you in that most profound place. Yeah, and loving you and, and that's I've always been a huge fan of Henry now and Henry now. writings. I'm a sucker for Dutch Catholic priests, psychologists like it's just if you have that it's the Triple Crown. Right there.
25:10 Are we really like? twins in separated?
25:15 Yeah, I think we were and and I've always been struck by his writing on identity, and particularly the idea that we are the beloved of God. And and he highlights three sources of false identity. And we've kind of talked about them, right? So his three sources are I am what I do. I am what I have. And I am what other people say about me. Yeah. And, and he, again, and I just reiterate what you were saying, it's so important for us to acknowledge what we do. It's not saying like, well, I can't do anything. And I don't know, but acknowledge what we do. But then remind ourselves, that's not the core of who I am. That's not my most profound sense of self, in my possessions, and then particularly what other people say about me, which I don't care who you are, if someone says something about you, you kind of perk up. And if it's a negative comment, you feel that positive, you you get, you get built up and, and even there, you have to remind yourself, that is not who I am. Because it's so easy to chase that affirmation. Yeah. It's so easy to try to correct someone who has a incorrect view of you or have said some bad you want to prove them wrong. Yeah. And it's because it's that sense of identity and, and now and highlights those, and ends on that more common theme and all of his writing that, that we are at our most fundamental self, the beloved of God. Yeah, so he knows us and he cherishes us. And, and if I start to if I can even begin to slowly identify with that, then yeah, as things change in my life, I can it's not the this huge crisis. I mean, I think there's going to be the mini crisis, you know, where as things adjust, and as we're human beings, and when people say things, but the more you can identify that way, man, the the stronger that sense of self is than something that even good things that can change.
27:35 Yeah. No, I absolutely agree. And I really appreciate Nolan's insight on that, and you're bringing it back to mind. Yeah, just I couldn't agree with what you said more. And I'm not trying to be overly wise that you've agreed with me? Well, and I also use your name more. Oh, more. Oh, I see what you did. That's another level. Yeah, so yeah. So I am. So that would be, again, could be a good practice both for for young people and for old people, or middle aged or whatever stage is practicing. You know, maybe even on paper and your journal and a quiet time saying, you know, God, thank you for these things. Right. And yet, Lord, I want to negate that I know that my sense of identity is not and what I do, right, it's not and whether people say about me on social media, or in a classroom, or I in the dorm in the caf, and it's also not and what I have my possessions, my jeans, my car, my 401k, whatever that right, yeah, when we're gonna research that later. Yeah, but probably they're different. at different stages of development, we all have some different issues with those things, right? Talk to the 50 to 60 year olds in Newport Beach, from where I just moved a couple of months ago, like some of the temptations of that region are in status of what you have, right? What kind of car do you drive? Oh, what kind of glasses are you wearing? or things like that? When I go to DC? It's, there's some similar things, right? So I hear things like, oh, did you go to private school or public school more? Yeah, different ways. We have a rating and evaluating and, again, it's probably just human of us. And yet to ground ourselves at any one of those ratings. Yeah, or any one of those things that we do, or that we have, or that other people say is, is to kind of set yourself up for a fall. And you can you can tighten your grip on those things. And God will need to peel your fingers back from that false identity. Right? Right. Or you can freely and volitionally and willfully or in a willing sort of way you can open your hand and say Lord, I want to I want to release any false identities I have. Yeah, I want to be grounded in you. And thank you for the gift of a good friend and things Thank you for this class I get to study for and, and this excitement of my passion and my hobby and whatever that is. But Lord, I want to I want my identity to be grounded in you. Yeah. So I think that's a practice we could all engage in, in a very practical even kind of sometimes throughout the day, Brian, that guy Mark Moore said this about me and I'm still upset about I've got it. But let the Lord help me to let
30:28 that go. I'm going to do the same. Let go and those comments that you've made about me, no, I think that I think that's a, that's kind of a great place to land. Just with that, leaving people with that practice, that this is not a one time thing, not like you do that once or on a weekend workshop or seminar. But that is a daily practice, or at least weekly practice of acknowledging all of the things where you could be finding your identity that that grip is tightening on and negating those things, giving those to God and saying, This is not and that's for the 18 year old to the 98 year old have exactly. And I think that that was so valuable to me. And I think so valuable to the listeners of being able to do that and remind ourselves that we are at our most profound level known and loved by God. And that's where we find our sense of self. Yeah, and our our identity. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you for coming on the show. And and there'll be many more shows and other topics. We've already brainstorm some and so I'm excited to read that. But as we as we kind of wrap up, I want to move into another segment, a smaller segment, one that I've been doing, by surprise, maybe with all my guests. Oh, so it's a little bit of a game, a little bit of a game. But I like to call it nerdy Would you rather nerdy. So we've done we've done this thing on the first these first episodes, and it's just a way for us to get to know you a little better. And I try to make them specific to your field. So so some people may not know, names, but I think that that you can maybe explain so you have to kind of give me an answer and but you have to explain so you can't just choose one but nerdy Would you rather So would you rather have dinner with Carl young or Freud? There we go. Silence.
32:45 Yeah, I probably rather have dinner with Karl yune. Yeah. And why why? Carl Jung was both of them were geniuses of that era, by the way. So Ryan both had a lot of incredible insights, though. I have to integrate and critique them as well. But recall you didn't pathologize religious people, he actually thought there was a lot of interesting, good reasons to look at. Freud kind of thought if you believed in God, you were kind of was kind of pathological. Like, you're just projecting all your father issues and right. So I think frayed. Yeah, so I would like to have dinner with both. But yeah,
33:22 to start with. Okay. All right. What would you what are some things you would ask him? Maybe? What would you talk about?
33:29 Wow, what inspired him to write the red book? Yeah, he has this really, he had a breakdown in his life and did some journaling and painting and writing and things in a very interesting period. Wow, that's great, actually, is only as of late coming to coming to light. So. So. Yeah, so that'd be I'd like to ask him about that.
33:52 Would you? would you ask him to psychoanalyze yourself, Mike, would you? Did you want him to take a passage?
33:59 I would welcome that. I would, I would welcome him to Yeah. to, to spend time getting Yeah, getting to know me in the deep. Yeah, yeah. Both. Both. Both those fact both of those authors that you asked about nerdy as you are, right. What's nerdy? Would you read? In nerdy Would you rather? Yeah. But they they both can be helpful guide on uncovering our false senses of identity. Oh, yeah. I'm not sure that they either one has the gets us to the deeper core. Right. But they are really good at helping expose the false senses.
34:36 Yeah, it was maybe a start, start that helped us maybe be able to build on that, too, and be able to help society start to realize, Oh, yeah, I have these issues. Maybe, you know, yeah, I would like to talk about the issues before. Before that. Yeah. And at least now talking about the issues and looking at identity. Well, thanks again for being on the show. I'll set up that dinner between you guys next week. So we'll set that up. But Hope you have a great day and I hope that you find your identity today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good to be on the show. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup thing.
35:43 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is a premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
Bonhoeffer scholar and Christian ethicist Reggie Williams sits down with Mark to discuss Dietrich Bonhoeffer's experience in Harlem in 1930-31 which provided a foundation for Bonhoeffer's resistance of the racism of the Third Reich. Bonhoeffer has much to say to the church today regarding race relations and speaking out against injustice for the sake of others.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore. And today on the show, we're delighted to have Dr. Reggie Williams. Dr. Roger Williams is an associate professor of Christian ethics at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Williams was with us on campus recently as the keynote speaker for our annual spring theology lecture. He's a Bonhoeffer scholar, and has researched and written on Bonhoeffer his experience in Harlem in 1930, and 31, as a foundation for his resistance against the racism of the Third Reich, Dr. Williams and I explore issues of Bonhoeffer scholarship, and what the church can learn about race relations in the light of Bonhoeffer his experience, hope you enjoy the show.
0:49 Dr. Williams, it's been just excellent having you on campus for the lecture for our annual spring lecture. And I'm so honored that you agreed to sit down with us on the podcast on Jessup think in, and I think the topic of your lecture and the topic of your book are so important. And such an important conversation for the church right now. In 2014, you published your book, Bonhoeffer is black Jesus, Harlem Renaissance theology and an ethic of resistance, which I just have to say at the beginning. That is a brilliant title. It just jumps off the page. And when you're searching it on Amazon, can you see all these different Bonhoeffer titles? I mean, it just is illuminated. And and I think it's illuminated because it's an area of Bonhoeffer studies that we don't know that much about, or at least within the, I'd say, the white evangelical community, I think, and that's really interesting. Because it's Bonhoeffer is kind of a celebrity within the evangelical community. And and there's been a lot of writing about him a lot of biographies that have come out recently. And and I thought it was interesting, as we've been promoting your lecture and promoting the topic, majority of the students that I talked with, and the majority of others, were really intrigued by they had no idea that Bonhoeffer had an experience in Harlem with the black church that influenced and so kind of maybe a first question, why do you think this has been an overlooked aspect of Bonhoeffer studies?
2:34 First, Thank you, Mark, for having me here. It's been a good time on campus with you all and with the students. I would throw that wider than the white evangelical community, why, why, why evangelical church or community or so forth? This is just an aspect of Bonhoeffer studies. On one hand, it's also an aspect of the Western world. It's the Academy in general, right. So it's known it's been known for, you know, as long as people have been studying Bonhoeffer that he came to United States. But it's not been very clear. As to the impact of that time on him. Some may think that perhaps there isn't anything theological, substantial, that would come from an encounter with the black church. There is a biography actually a movie, a documentary, there's a documentary about haffer. I mean, I like the documentary is very good. When it gets to Harlem. It's a very popular one. And I feel hesitant to name him because he's a friend. Doing that documentary that's this one is a very popular one. When it gets to New York, it talks about the emotional impact of the church. So Abyssinian Baptist becomes a spot where Bonhoeffer kind of comes in touch with his emotions. interest. Yeah, and that's it. Yeah. And it leaves it just that's it. He, I mean, the quote is that Adam Clayton Powell senior taught his parishioners to be emotional in their worship. In Bonhoeffer comes into contact with his emotions. No mention of the Harlem Renaissance, no mention of him studying the Harlem Renaissance, no mention of there being anything else in black church life but emotion. And Bonhoeffer is a scholar. He's a theologian is a world class theologian, although in Germany, and some of the scholars are skeptical about him as that kind of theologian because he didn't write, you know, the massive volumes of no pen and Berg are boatmen apart, although they didn't really respect Bart at university Berlin at the time, didn't have his PhD, but You know, Adolf von hanok, or reynoldsburg? Are these these massive tomes he these others have written. But I mean, he can get some slack. It was there, right, you know, and he was doing some work in, in the confessing church movement. But he's but clearly recognized as a world class theologian. What could the black church have offered to a scholar of that stature? And clearly, it did quite a bit in there is more than emotion within the black church.
5:31 Right. And I think that you make that point really well in your book in the first couple of pages that for Bonhoeffer in his experience in Germany, and so many of his friends, so many of his colleagues, so many of his professors, and the gentleman that you've just mentioned, got it wrong, didn't see what was happening in Germany didn't speak out against it. But he did. And you kind of pose that question, meaning how did he, by himself Get it? Right? And, and when you get into the story, I think it is really easy to make that clear connection. He had an experience in Harlem and experience of American racism, that that gave him the knowledge, the language, the and maybe even emotion, right? emotion, to then speak into that. And I think it's, it's good just to kind of maybe remind our listeners, and Bonhoeffer is history. So he comes over to America in 1932 31. And he was at Union Theological Seminary, Sloan fellowship. And it's in that that he meets a student, Albert Fischer. Right, who takes him to introduces him to Harlem. And you you mentioned in in the subtitle, with the Harlem Renaissance, what what's happening in Harlem, at that time that, you know, maybe just before Bonhoeffer gets there, and that he experiences that that really does influence him. Sure. Well, to set the stage, there are a couple of things that are happening.
7:10 One very negative first 1929, stock market crash, the Great Depression hits, that happens before he gets there just before he gets there. With the turn of the 20th century, from the turn of the 20th century, black people have been migrating from the south to the north. Great Migration is about Wilkerson in her magisterial book, The Warmth of Other suns, Warmth of Other suns, details this whole thing. It's really kind of several great migrations, and this is around the first big wave, large numbers are coming to Harlem. So the Harlem Renaissance is a moment of awakening, or one might say, self defining that's happening in a global black world. Harlem is the destination of choice. It gets the name of the names the movement. So it's happening in literature, in music, in Visual Arts, politics, that's all happening at that time. Some of the names that come from that time, wb Dubois as a mentor, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, county, Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston. Palmer, Hayden, Lois, Mel, email you, Jones, there's a number of big names that are coming from that time of artists and Duke Ellington right back. Then some of the other major names are escaping me at the moment of the musicians, and so on. But it's a significant moment. That all happens before Bonhoeffer gets there. He gets to read roughly about the mid middle of the Harlem Renaissance. What's also important to know is that because it was really a western world phenomenon, that takes the name of Harlem because of ism as a moment, it's happening in Chicago, in in Washington, DC. It's actually this significant element of it happening in Paris. It's influenced Germany. So Bonhoeffer comes to the United States, after the soldiers fighting in World War One took jazz to Germany. And France, so he's familiar with some of the aspects of it, which I would figure is probably some of the reason why he wanted to be in New York. He could have gone to lots of different places when he was an exchange student, but he chose New York.
9:48 Yeah, I chose. Yeah. That's great. And for him to Yeah, to, to choose that location and to have that experience, and then to be able to speak in To what was happening in Germany. Yeah, and and I think it is really important for you to know that it was something that wasn't just happening in Harlem, but it was happening all over the US. And in many ways that was a response to the deep racism that was also happening sure throughout the US. And you note that that Bonhoeffer was when he came, he was deeply distressed by right the racism he saw, and, and even with his, with his friend, Albert Fischer, and that I read a story of them going to Washington DC, right and being refused at a restaurant. And he left with his friend. And he started to kind of see that in, and just even the events that kind of happened within America, in the, in the 30s. You note the kind of the Scottsboro nine that that Bonhoeffer was that he read about and saw and was was deeply distressed by and as, as I was reading that in your book, I kind of made a connection with my, my, my own childhood and a small country town in rural Indiana, where I grew up. And, and growing up there, I thankfully, I had wonderful parents and grandparents who were not racist and not prejudice and and taught me very well. But I knew the history of our of the city. And, and part of our history was that we had the last lynching north of the Mason Dixon line. So Indiana is in the north, as this small town called Marion, Indiana. And I knew that was a part of our history. And we talked about it that the town didn't talk about it that much. But as I was reading your book, I, I, I got intrigued by that. And so I went back and looked because I had always thought that happened, maybe early in the 20th century that Adam Smith, and I'm sure it was so and, and and when I read those names in your book, too. I was like, wow, this is and when I looked it up it that the lynching of you have Thomas ship enabled, isn't specified the that happened. I thought maybe 19 1519, even at the at the latest. And it happened August 7 1930. So within a month of Bonhoeffer arriving in America, actually, within a few weeks, yeah, within a few weeks, and and you note that that was and there's a very disturbing picture that that came from that event that was nationally publicized, and and does become kind of the basis of the poem, Strange Fruit and then the Billie Holiday song. And, and when I noticed that, I just, you know, for me that that connection with a small town, and rural Indiana that was in the north, that is predominantly conservative and Christian. And that's, that's a part of our history. And that's a that's a part of the history that Bonhoeffer comes into and sees. Right, and and experiences. And then takes that back to Germany.
13:21 Yeah. What's that? Thank you for correcting the damages doing that off the top of my head Thomas. Thomas Smith and even shipped the there was a survivor of that. Yeah. When who wrote he wrote a book about that whole experience, right. James? Cameron? Yes. Yeah. being locked in the prison as the white people came banging on the windows in the doors with their extra legal, extra legal procedures, right. I mean, there's a euphemism for lynching. Right. Yeah. Right. But that that whole history of lynching in the United States did not contradict the tradition of Christianity that gave rise to or that gave license to the transatlantic slave trade. Right. It didn't contradict it. It was very consistent, you might say. And so this is one of the things about one of the things about the broader themes of Christianity in the United States, popular streams of Christianity, United States that can continents or that can can tolerate massive amounts of cruelty and injustice, right. That it, it seems to it works along the lines of right belief of doctrine. You may know this, you may know the story that when enslaved started becoming pretty At first white people in the state before the days they were designated as white, they understood themselves as Christian. And they are their property, either enslaved property is or becoming Christians. The Christians hold Christians in bondage. They worked out in agreement that the enslaved would expect life after death. And that being a Christian didn't remove or change their situation on Earth, what it would have did was effectively disregard embody embodied conditions. Yeah, it's a Christianity about doctrine, right belief. So that once one will once one comes to a belief in the right kinds of things, they may be considered Christian and expect the reward in heaven. It is apathy about embodied encounter embodied life. That's all that's a tradition of the faith. Right? It's a very broad and popular tradition of the faith. But enslaved Christians took Christianity in another way. There's a wonderful passage in Toni Morrison's book Beloved, where she details this sermon in the clearing by a preacher on a plantation, called baby Suggs. In in the clearing, baby Suggs preaches this sermon, about loving your flesh, loving your hands, yonder, they just assumed cut off your hands, but you must love your hands, you know, love your your neck, love your inner parts, love your body. It pays attention to embodied reality. The conditions of life right now. That's another tradition of Christianity. That would be the kind of the kind of Christianity that Bonhoeffer encountered in that black church. It was also something that was familiar to him, because that was kind of the that was the content that he was arguing for. Contextual, historical, embodied reality, not right belief, because when you when Christianity is about belief, only, doctrine, belief only. You one can consider oneself faithful to God, or good Christian before you have any interaction with human life. And it's any daily encounter that Jesus says, Love your neighbor as yourself. He says to the lawyer, who asked him, What must I do to inherit eternal life? He tells him the story about the Good Samaritan says go and be like him, the man who actually did something about the person who was beaten and harmed and be like him. That's what she that's what? Your neighbor? Yeah, he's a neighbor. Yeah, he's who he is what God wants from him, you know, not about the priest and the Levi, who may have been justified by religious, you know, devotion. That's not what is asked for. These are very alive in the in the history of the United States, these traditions. So that's, this is one of our encounters with black tricksters that pays attention to embodied reality.
18:14 Yeah, and you and you make the statement. And this was kind of understanding the, the, the white church at the time, kind of in the 30s. But I think it's a statement that man that speaks to has, has extreme relevance for the church today said, at most liberal, White's failed to see white supremacy as a matter for Christian attention. And as a consequence, they ignored the constant dangers of daily life in America for black people. Right, but avoiding racism was not a choice for African American Christians who were subject to it on a daily basis. Right. And it does seem to be a really interesting aspect of that history that, that I think, speaks today that, that the Christians at the time didn't connect the to that, that they didn't connect white supremacy or our power structures that were that were bent towards making white keeping white and power. The they didn't connect that as a matter of faith. And and I think you make a really good distinction of when when you have just maybe belief or these without action. And and especially if something is not affecting you on a daily basis, you can ignore it as a matter of faith. But, but for the black community, it wasn't it wasn't something they could ignore what's happening,
19:42 right. I mean, think about what's happening even today. What may be happening on the border with families and children now being separated. The shooting that happened here in Sacramento And when it happens to him after he's been killed, and his History is brought up as justification for what happened, these kinds of things. How does one's faith in God speak to these situations? Does it say anything to them? If it doesn't say anything in one can move on, in the face of all of this happening around us on a regular basis, people being harmed as a result of rhetoric that dehumanizes them. Right. But we have a faith that's talking about what life after death? What does the faith say to us? What is within the realm of Christian responsibility? Now, these are an ignore, but they cannot be ignored these kinds of things, at least, the witness of Bonhoeffer, as he understood the black church speaking to conditions in the United States at that time, these are not just old traditions, they're contemporary ones as well. Yeah, what the So what, what folks in say, the Harlem Renaissance, at that time, were Christians, who were paying attention to harm to the harm of white supremacy. And then there were folks that were black folks who said, I don't wanna have anything to do with the church, you praying about heaven? While hell is happening on Earth, you know, Christians, black people recognizing that something has to be done about the conditions that we are living in? Is Christianity, something that just sedates us? Or does it move us to action. And Powell was one who definitely called for action, as a component of faith.
21:52 And I love the story you told in your lecture, of pow, riding down the street, in a nice new car in Harlem. And, and and seeing the effects of the Great Depression, right? And seeing that hunger and then thanking God, why don't you do something? And then hearing loudly that voice from God? power? Why don't you do something right? When are you going to do something? So good? And yeah, and you see that in him that move towards action, that move towards something must be done. And you describe kind of what Bonhoeffer learned in Harlem and then took back to Germany. You describe it as Christ centered, empathic resistance. Yes. Can you explain that? Yeah. Explain that for the listener.
22:40 So the term that I mean, describing in that moment is what Glen Stastny taught me, who was my mentor and Christian ethics, he was the one who trained me on Christian ethics. He's defining a word that Bonhoeffer developed called self retreating. This is who Jesus is and what Jesus does. Self retracting, is described when we in our sin and shame couldn't stand before God, Christ stands in for us, Milford shaitan is, as some scholars define it, vicarious representative action, Jesus is vicariously representing us before God before each other. For everyone we encounter self worth. Glenn took that a bit further, empathic representation as well, because Christ not only stands in for us, he enters into our situation, seeing the need for justice there and embraces us and encourages or actually guides us to do the same thing. To be a follower of Christ is to be as Christ is to do what Christ does empathically entering into the encounters of others. And so I was describing empathic resistance. So an empathic resistance of injustice is just that stepping into other's shoes, seeing the needs for justice, they're resisting, as a result of seeing the needs that someone else may have for justice, joining in with them to resist the forces that harm them. Right, so empathic resistance. I'm using a concept by a psychologist, Ernie Gani, Martin Hoffman, who describes this condition, he describes empathic distress and one way of this one way of looking at that is imagining a child walking with her mother. She sees the child's a five year old child sees a six year old boy crash on his bike, scraped his knee. The little girl walking with mom then grabs mom's leg and cries. She's feeling something that's more that is descriptive of what happened to that child. And it's distressing for her That has implications for the way we engage each other in society. Right? Does it distress me? When my neighbor is harmed by injustice? Do I it does it does it move me at all, I can see that in that be moved at all. There's something that is amiss within us. It was that kind of distress. That, you know, we I would say happens with a BA Hoffer that encourages growth in change in him. And it's that kind of distress that in can encourage growth and change in us. It's again pointing back to the to the Good Samaritan, the Compassionate Samaritan, he sees the man beaten and harmed in the bitch, and he can't pass him by. Right. It's he's distressed by what he sees. He has to go do something to relieve the condition that's there. I think if that is the way we imagine Christian life happening, that we are distressed by the harm that happens to people in our midst, we must act on behalf of their well being. We're doing something I think that this this descriptive of Love your neighbor as yourself,
26:16 right. And we usually stand up for injustice when it's against ourselves. Right? Like we're we're quick to point out when we've been wronged, right? But yeah, this whole point and then and what Bonhoeffer embodies is starting to speak out for injustice happening to my neighbor, yeah. And being able to step into their shoes and go that route. And that is that is such a good message, right? For us in such a good message for the church in America. And particularly, maybe the white church in America. Does that I think that's a great question to ask ourselves, does it distress you to see injustice happening?
27:02 are we concerned about right belief, right? problem with the with a Christianity of right doctrine, right? belief, righteousness, meaning hyper individual morality, is that we can just we can then blame someone for their condition for their situation, right? Maybe they don't believe right. You know, if they believed right, then maybe God would treat them better, or so or so forth. Right. It's a rich, it's a it's a, it's a Christianity, a retributive justice that God gives to each person what they deserve? Well, maybe the reason why I'm living a good life is because I've earned it. Yeah, in some some way or another. Yeah.
27:38 And it's really interesting within the within the evangelical community, that that in many ways prides themselves on salvation by grace, for salvation by faith. Often when we kind of peek into our ideology or our lives, we realize we kind of bring works and we've kind of make right beliefs a work, and if you have that you will prosper. And if you don't, yeah, you must be doing something wrong. And, and we don't take into account often the systematic injustice that is happening to others. And we don't view that as a as a part as a matter of faith. And we don't speak into that.
28:26 Yeah. What do we do with Jesus is claim blessing to those who mourn, right? Oh, bless it to those who hunger and thirst. We lay those things aside, perhaps as indication that none of us can do the things that Jesus asks of us that God asked is asking of us in Jesus breath. I have an idea on possible high ideals that demonstrate that we must rely on grace because Jesus went to the cross on our behalf and stands in. I mean, it's a distorted style for typing. But that if Jesus stands in our place, and that's work that's done for us by God, when in fact, those are that's, those are indications of what God is doing. In in with us those not high ideals. hungering and thirsting are people who are longing for the kingdom. Now this is, these are the one might even say that it's a is a kind of a virtue present in people who are expecting God's work. And then after the Beatitudes comes, of course, the sermon on the mount which are commands, expectations on our lives. Bonhoeffer recognize that that was in his book, cost of discipleship that he he lays out, Martha King Jr. Recognize that? I mean, even Gandhi recognize that there's others many others who are Clarence Jordan with a book called the cotton patch gospel talking about the Sermon on the Mount. As a man who led a village in France, and his name is escaping me right now he wrote a book called The War of the Lamb. It was loose. Shambo was the village, it'll come to me, trust me. Trust me, how was his name? His book is detailing how the Sermon on the Mount is commandments for us to follow. As folks who recognize how to live what Jesus is asking for us to do often. who passed the test is Glenn would say pass the test in the laboratory of history. So what let me explain that for a moment. One might be a wonder, then how do we know what to do? In troubling times, to discern the will of God? How do we how do we know what we're supposed to do? Well, there are moments in history where it hasn't been so clear for Christians in in many Christians passed the test, or should they fail the test and in some passed the test. And when we look back at them, we can say Okay, that was they they did the right thing. How do they know what to do? There are some indicators oftentimes. One is their Christianity was embodied. It wasn't right belief only. Right. Take for example, I was talking to a young man about this last night, after the lecture. The story of Harriet Tubman, a Christian woman in slaved in a Christian country, the church that she was, the Christianity that you might say she's devoted to, was the kind of Christianity that snuck away, to pray and worship. At their own risk. he snuck away to worship in his Albert rabbit, Tony's book, slave religion details, sometimes they hang wet blankets, to keep sound from getting out and put a lid it's just interesting. They put up a big bucket in the middle of the room, oftentimes in expectation that that would help to catch the sound was, there was some, some beliefs around how to keep things quiet. Sometimes they would kneel in circles with the preacher in the middle, they would whisper their sermon whisper their prayers. All of this as Christians worshipping in a Christian country and in Christian country. Yeah, the dilemma. I mean that the irony is amazing. But it was a different kind of Christianity in that tradition within that Christian community. They recognize that all of God's children are valuable in God's eyes. She was a fugitive with the Christianity was fugitive, stealing property and bringing that property into a community where they would be recognized as human life as God's people's God's children. Looking back at that, you know, I should say most Christians today say Harriet Tubman was right. No, people with them head on straight. Right? recognize that she was right. Right. How did she come to see that?
33:20 Andre truck me and leash on bunk was a village of French Huguenots. These are Protestant, French Christians, who historically were killed by Catholic Christians in France. When the Germans invaded France, this village have, you know, more than 300 people save one Jewish person, per each person that lived in the village, over 300 Plus, Jewish people were saved, knowing that it could mean their their death. How did they get that right? Well, the Huguenots had a history of persecution by the government. They knew that was what they needed to do. Now, Bonhoeffer is one of those as well. Christians in the civil rights movement. Christians in the south described Christians, like the civil rights movement as agitators. You know, breaking the law is immoral. How do you decide willy nilly which laws you're going to obey and which ones you're going to break? out? King and the civil rights movement recognized that not all laws are Christian or in obedience to the will of God? How do you discern that? Oh, laws like enslavement. You know, fugitive laws about slavery and so forth. Were not moral. They were not what we should have. As Christians, we listen to God. I mean, of course, not forgetting that Jesus was himself killed by the state as a law breaker, right? These moments are parts of traditions. There's a line one might draw between Harriet Tubman. Andre choke me more than the King Jr. With about faith and about adherence to the will of God and about following Christ, there's a clear line that's that points to embodied life, love your neighbor, go and do as the Samaritan did. That helps one to see clearly in in our moment right now. Which tradition? Are we? Do we find ourselves in? What tradition of Christianity? Are we within? Are we within that tradition of Christianity? That called Harriet Tubman, a fugitive and a criminal? You don't want to agitator or a saint?
36:01 No, that's such a good question to pose to the church right now. Again, and to ask ourselves that question, and, and I hope to, and we hope right that the church would get it, right. Yeah. And, and I do think that stress is really important, and really important for the evangelical community that does stress, belief and doctrine, right? That idea of embodied belief, right, embodied that it can't just be this belief, or a system that keeps you moral, and gets you into heaven, in this personal righteousness, but it must be embodied and when it is embodied, then you then you start to be able to realize that I don't have a choice, I need to speak up when others when injustice is happening to others, right, as a matter of my faith, as a matter of my faith actually living itself out in this world.
37:04 Yeah, in it, it's belief is important. Not to keep us devoted to tradition, not to keep us devoted to doctrines alone, what one might say, is orthodoxy, to keep us devoted to Orthodoxy alone, that's a missing Rep. This is people who mean they would read Paul, and and think that Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved as all that matters to be a Christian. But how one believes the evidence of one's belief is, is what's important. And it's important to recognize that we have our Christianity in the context of a nation that was built on in justice, to wrap one's mind around that as a truth of the story of the nation, is to recognize that we are in evidently inherently, within traditions that are part of the nation at its birth. We have to acknowledge this. I mean, it's easy, it's easy to say that, you know, I was raised in a family, my parents, my family, you know, we we live this kind of life and so forth. And which is how I become the person that I am today. I've had to address my childhood, you know, embrace my childhood, maybe break away from my childhood is old. The stories of my family that formed me, are still with me, somehow, some way and I make myself I make my life today, but I've had to address my childhood, either for good or for ill. Right. No choice there. Well, that family that I grew up in, didn't come out of nowhere, right? You know, that family was connected to other families connected to other families connect to other families and each of us through generations are addressing stories that formed us hundreds of years in the making. It's it's unfortunate for us to record to miss the fact for example, when doing the US History 16 1920 odd. Africans show up Jamestown for sale from 1619 to 1865. The laws were on the books that African people of African descent were property, not human life, three fifths human bought and sold 1619 to 1865 1865 to 1964 is 1964 overt laws, racial laws on the book overt on the books are discrimination. So that's from 1619 to nine pins 64k then you get from 1964. To one might say 2016 things look like some significant progress is happening. And then 2016 with the election of Donald Trump, now you've got this resurgence in, one might say, overt racial hatred, a resurgence in it. But if you taking a look at from 1619 to 1964. There, it was overt on the books. This is just the way it is in the United States. And then we come along, you know, I don't know exactly how old you are. But not knowing I like to keep it a secret keep it a secret. We come along with our little bit of time here. As though we can ignore the fact that hundreds of years of overt racial descriptions, overt racial laws, are part of the fabric of the country. There is no way to not be impacted by that. Right. It's just no way. Right? It is the story of the country. No one is accidentally anti racist, you're not it doesn't have an accident. Right? One has to be overt or intentional in this in for, for us the for from most folks in United States. It is a question of how you understand the way of Jesus West whether or not you see that as sin as a problem that must be in addressed, you know, within our understanding of salvation. It's it's, it's the question of hospitality, to some degree. Is hospitality. a requirement that one might say, for your eternal salvation? Is hospitality, a component of soteriology of salvation? The Matthew 25, Jesus as it is, right now, you might say that, we like to, like, skip that part, skip that part. Right, right. When when
42:19 a lot and his family came into Sonam people point that people try and make that a story about homosexuality. But in fact, a lot told those When the angels came into Sodom, a lot told the angels to get out the square and bring them to us, bring us to his family and bring him into his house. And it was because of lots hospitality. His family was saved. The stories and the words in there are numerous in the Bible, where generosity and hospitality are evidence of someone's of God's favor on someone. And it's clear in Matthew 25. Yeah, that you didn't take me in when I was a stranger, right? You didn't visit me in prison? You didn't give me something to eat, you know, you didn't clothe me. Hell is made for you. Right? Yeah,
43:13 there's a homeless shelter in Sacramento that I work with in their mission statement is the Matthew 25 passage, the firm. And that's exactly what they do. And it's really interesting that they could do that. And it would be like, Wow, this is so novel, what do you do? And it's like, this is like, exactly what Jesus said to do. This is what it means to be saved. Yeah, this is what it means to be a follower. Right? And to be a disciple. Right. And it's, it's really interesting to me, that that bond hoppers experience and kind of bringing it back to Bonhoeffer and his experience in Harlem lays that foundation for him to see that this is a vital aspect of the Christian faith.
43:57 Yeah. Yeah. He calls it status confessing on this. Yeah, that was a defining moment for us as Christians.
44:02 When he goes back to Germany, he sees this mix of race and nationalism, and, and enforcement and kind of, and he he says, No, this is wrong. And I have to speak out against it.
44:17 Right. Before he goes over there as a couple of things that are fascinating to think about, too. He. He's an expatriate. I mean, he's a pastor to an expatriate congregation in Barcelona, Spain, delivers three lectures and 20 sermons during that time that he's there's but a year and a half or so. One of the lectures he talks about war, and activity during war time, that murder could be sanctified. Killing can be justified for the sake of my people. Okay. And then when he comes back, he writes in his catechism I was mentioning last night because ethnic pride is sin against the Holy Spirit. In that Christians must act on behalf of their neighbor, meaning push back against polit political structures that are harmful. That stuff he gets in Harlem. In addition to this one, he says that the Christian prays only for peace, no war stuff any longer. And there is no question. I mean, this is coming right on the heels of him returning from New York, right, that time period was significant for him. So listening to what happened to him in Harlem, about violence, and racism. Now, given clear, concrete grounding in his understanding of the way of Jesus, and strong advocacy, for people harmed by racism.
45:53 When Dr. Williams, I could talk to you all day, literally, it would be nothing more to bring me joy than to stay in the studio, I'm sure you'd want to go home to your family, things like that. I do want to also be home to my family at some point. Yeah, I appreciate this, this conversation. And we're really excited with this podcast that we have one of our students here, and she's the president of a Black Student Union here on campus. Miss diamond. And she's actually got a question for you that will kind of end with this question from diamonds.
46:28 Yeah, so my question was, you guys have used the terms black church and white church? Is that something that we should be worried about when it comes to being relational? Or is there actually something good that comes about and gathering with your own race,
46:42 we can start from going backwards, there's, there's something good that you get from gathering with your own race. mean, there's lots and lots of studies on this. And people like to quote King on this at 11 o'clock on Sunday mornings, most segregated hour of the rank. It has been that way for a very long time. And I teach a course at McCormick about the on the mission of the church. It's a second semester for a year long study of incoming seminary students to orient them to theological studies. And some, there are a couple of ways of looking at this. Sometimes it's inevitable that a church is mano racial. Some of that could be its location. Some of my students may get called to pasture in rural Iowa. You know, it's a white church out there, or the church that I attend on the south side of Chicago. It's a black church, Trinity United Church of Christ. Sometimes these are the the natural demographics of the environment. In those situations, white church, for example, may just be the body's present. But it's also not absent of the ideologies of human difference that are present within those communities. That's not so good. When the ideology of human difference shapes strongly, the way we understand the way of Christ and the mission of the church, especially if it's mapped on the, onto the traditions that have been harmful within the country. What is whiteness? This is a question that the boys asks in an essay, the ways of white folks back in 1919? Or sorry, 1919 2993? No, no, no, no. I'm doing without my notes. He wrote this in 19, after he comes back from the meeting of the Treaty of Versailles, in 1990. Cases 1921 is whiteness that one should want it. If your tradition is white church is not in is not inherently working to a dress that is probably a part of the worship. But your question is, how should we be worried about this? And it's a tough question to answer on one in one respect. Yes. We should be worried about it. How do the how does that the historical realities of white, black racial demographics and so forth? influence our worship? And how we gather How do they influence that? black churches and I'll say this, this this this, I'm gonna use the language here that it's really nuanced to pay attention to what's going on. black churches are historically separated my one might say, but not segregating i n g. Do not practice. segregation as a political good. White Christianity has historically this kind of a problem with it. This is what started the AMA church, African Methodist Episcopal Church with Allen, Richard Allen and Absalon Jones, being pulled from their knees and a part of the church that have been designated as whites only. And they leave the church and start the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a black denomination, because of white supremacy, you know, black people sneaking away into the woods while enslaved to worship without the presence of white people who their Christianity was part of the political structure that said that enslavement is God's order. traditions of white and black church deal with that those historical realities that are that remain present today. While slavery is no longer part of the of the national order, the ideology that went to support it is not dead. So how does one's worship address those nefarious realities that are present? That's kind of what we see is white and black church? There's a long answer in your partial answer. But I would say both yes and no. to that. And so I mean, generously ambiguous answer.
51:31 Now, that's a really good question. I think it's a good question for for us on campus at Winn Jessup to begin to have a conversation about and to begin to talk and and just thank you again, Dr. Burns for coming here and, and really helping us maybe give shape to this conversation.
51:50 I want to just one more thing in response to that question. Something to be worried about inside of the question is also the concern about whether or not talking about race is a problem created as a problem? It's important to recognize No, right. Yeah, addressing the traditions and history are important. They have to be
52:13 yes. Yeah, they do. And that conversation is really important and is one that needs to be had in and it's one that that our nation needs right now. And thank you for being part of that conversation. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
52:55 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
Cynthia Schaefer Elliot, Professor of Hebrew Scriptures & Archaeology, joins Mark and Professor Libby Backfish to discuss how monotheism was understood in ancient Hebrew culture. Within the discussion it becomes apparent that our current English definition of monotheism misrepresents its usage in ancient Hebrew culture. Instead of stressing the existence of one God, ancient Hebrews were called to the worship of one God, a practice they greatly struggled with.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And today on the show, I'm delighted to be joined for the first time by Cynthia Schafer-Eliot, Associate Dean of Faculty of theology and Professor of archaeology and Hebrew Scripture. That's what they tell me. That's what yeah, that's on your business cards. Here. Welcome to the show. Thank you. It's really great to have you I know you're, you know, kind of a professional podcaster. So I just, you know, it's, it's good to have you on one of our shows. Now, I'm delighted to be here. Hey, that's good. And back on the show, friend of the show, we'll be back. Also a professor of Hebrew Scripture, so welcome back. Thanks for having me again. And when you when you come back a second time, that's when you become friend of the show. Okay, so it's not a friend of the show friend of the show mean to you, you've come back, you answered my email. That time just worked out. Yeah, exactly. fits in your schedule. But I'm excited to have you both on the episode today, cuz I want to talk about what I think is an extremely interesting topic, that of monotheism and ancient Hebrew culture. So maybe some people hear that and that's not as exciting to them. But when I hear that I get excited. And I want to kind of know more, because I feel like this topic has been maybe intriguing scholars of late or I've just been hearing more about it lately. And there seems to be a disconnect between kind of maybe our current definition of monotheism and the experience of the ancient Israelites in terms of monotheism. And so I just think it's maybe really interesting. And I think it actually exposes some some theological issues that I think are really important. And dealing with language. We're going to do a little language today. So So get your Hebrew ready. I did actually take so I was an English and writing undergrad, full disclosure. And as an elective, I took Hebrew because Good for you. I knew what to tell our state. Yeah, exactly. I will, I'll start I'll start preaching that you can take these as electives. But, but I think, see, I couldn't so language wise, it's going to, I think it's going to really open some things up maybe in theology. So when we look at that, and we look at the maybe current definition, mostly it is and probably like, the person on the street, if you ask them to define monotheism, right now. It would be similar to the to the definitions and Webster, not this idea of belief in a single God, or maybe even more strongly a belief that only one God exists. I think you hear that a lot. How does that definition maybe jive with the ancient Israelites experience of monotheism? It's a good question, hey, you know, do you want to go first or Yeah, I
3:17 think, Mark, you were getting at something. There's a disjunction between how we would define it, how they would define it. And also the questions we're asking and the questions they're asking. So we're asking how many gods exist? And I think they were asking, how many gods do we worship? So it's much more that's an issue really good to see. Yeah, much. Just borrow that. Free before you. So I think it's an issue more of praxis for the ancient Israelites, because they were concerned with who do we worship? And whereas now we think of it more theoretically. And I think we can learn a lot from the ancient Israelites, because I think sometimes we think that just thinking about God, theoretically is enough. Right? Really, we need to make good on those thoughts. And how do we worship Him alone?
4:03 Well, right. Yeah, just just that idea of, Hey, I believe our God exists, and we may be stopped. They're much different to say, worship of how do
4:15 you give him your exclusive worship? Yeah, I think right. That's important. And that's what was in the forefront of Israel's mind,
4:21 and how we're and so would they would they would have would they have used terminology like that or the idea of monotheism or meaning that is obviously a term we're maybe putting back on them?
4:35 Definitely a term we're putting back on them. It's a philosophical category. But we do have similar language, especially developing throughout Scripture. So especially in Isaiah, we have a lot of language about the Lord alone is God. Yeah. But we do and I'm sure Cynthia would agree. We see this developing. So it's some kind of in seed form and the Torah, and we have it in Deuteronomy. It's clear, but that may be a later editorial. And then we haven't really developed in especially a second and third Isaiah this very clear that God, you know, yawei alone is God. Right? But um, but again, I don't think they were necessarily thinking philosophically the Isaiah his point was, if God alone is God, worship Him alone. Don't put your trust in Egypt and Syria and yourselves, put your trust in Yahweh.
5:23 Yeah. And is that kind of where the Shema so I know you're referencing Deuteronomy and and even as even a maybe a later edition, that idea of the Shema kind of maybe points towards that to the idea of worshiping love, rather than Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God exists, he exists as one,
5:46 right that it's, it's not just about, as Libby was saying about as far as worship, it's not just about going and doing these proper things as far as your sacrifices and going to the shrines and going to the temples that worship of Yahweh and Yahweh alone, very exclusive worship of Yahweh, right, as opposed to Yahweh. And like we see in the archaeological record. And we see in the textual record, too, you know, we see over and over and over again, Israel and Judah really struggling with this idea of being just worshipping this one God and one true God alone, right, as opposed to being part of the wider kind of Canaanite, you know, pantheon of gods, right. So even when Deuteronomy and the Shema, when it talks about worshiping and worshiping God alone, it's, it's also trying to make sure that the people see that worship is not just about those high holy days, it's not just about the sacrifices, yes, it's a holistic, it's an everyday thing. It's when you lie down, it's when you get up, it's when you're home, it's when you're away. And so that's one reason I think that the Shema has become such an important piece within even Judaism today, because it's showing that more holistic nature of worship.
7:10 Yeah. And, and maybe, yeah, separating that from just the the worship experiences, and tabernacles, or shrines, but that this is all of your life. Right? And, and really that call to worship, besides existence. And I think maybe that's what makes people nervous today, talking about monotheism, an ancient Hebrew culture, because when we think if we define it as only one God exists, and then we say, well, Hebrew culture didn't really think that then we're like, so they believed all these gods existed, and it kind of makes us question, you know, and I've talked to people and students, and they were like, wait, what is? You know? And I do think it's, yeah, we're, we're asking and answering different questions than they were. And I think highlighting the idea that, that this is a call from God to worship Him alone. Right. And, and, and, and the fact that they really struggled with that
8:12 he did. And when you talk to students or people about it in general, and they think, Oh, no, Israel and Judah, will they'll sell, say, Israel, but I always makes sure Israel and Judah get confused. It really does. But that, you know, they say, oh, Israel, worship Yahweh, and you're alone. And I think well, and I get a little snobby. Have you have you read the Old Testament? Right, which most people haven't I was gonna say anymore answer that. Yeah. No, they haven't. they've read the parts of it that, you know, they read it, you know, Christmas or, you know, certain things or, but if you if you look at even just the text, even if you don't even take the archaeological record into consideration, just looking at the text you see over and over and over again. Israel and Judah really struggled with this. Yeah. And it talks about them worshipping these other gods, but they weren't supposed to.
9:11 Right, right. That's an important distinction to is between what they were doing, which is Yeah, Leighton constant, perpetual idolatry and apostasy and what they were called to do, right, so yeah, we have to be careful to distinguish what they were doing as something was wrong, you know, in contrast to what they should have been doing
9:32 and that this was something that they learned from you know, this was Yeah, if right if they're looking at the exile and thinking about Okay, well, why did we get here this is one of the conclusions that they came to was that they kept breaking the covenant by worshipping other gods, right? And so if you but if you take if people say, Well, no, they didn't worship other gods and I think well, then you first of all, you need to look in the text itself because the text itself says it often Right, right. But then also, if you take the archaeological record into consideration that you can't ignore that either you can't ignore the text or the artifact, and those artifacts are there. I mean, I've excavated numerous of these idols. We call them figurines, right?
10:15 Yeah. So you've actually excavated and seen some of the figurines from from a traditional Jewish Home,
10:22 right? They're mostly found in homes. This is you've got anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines. So zoomorphic ones are of course animals. We don't Zootopia Yes. I love that movie. Yes, it was a really good movie, but we find we find the zoomorphic ones and and they're not as common as the anthropomorphic ones, but the zoomorphic ones are usually you have kind of donkeys or horses. Some people say horse and rider but you know, horse, maybe more like a donkey. And then also, of course, the calf or the bowl. Right now. All right, all right, all symbol, right, yeah. And then of course, we have anthropomorphic figurines, which you've got that horse and rider figurine, and it's, it's supposed to be kind of a guy, but it's very bland, you can't really, you know, tell, but then we get these female figurines. And most of the ones that we find in households are more often than not these female figurines. And they're, they're almost always of women. And these women are usually in some sort of, you've got ones that look like they're holding drums or kind of tambourines. And then you've got ones that are kind of just pillar figurines where their hands are kind of at their side, but they're often nude. And, and a lot of them often have, you know, very large breasts, or they're some people would say, Oh, that looks like they're in some stage of reproduction process, or reproduction cycle. But that's, that's a big debate. We don't have to get into that. But if you find them, right, and almost every house, you they may not be complete, they might be broken. Yeah, but you do if you do find
12:15 them, what would they? What would be the correlation with those figurines? Would it be two or a Canaanite God? Would it be
12:22 right? Well, that's a big, you know, discussion. Some scholars would say that the figurines represent a Canaanite fertility goddess in particular Ashura. Okay. So and that the particularly the woman, the women of the household would use that figurine as part of their, their prayers to Ashura in order to secure safe conception and pregnancy and birth. Okay, right. So there's that connection with the reproductive cycle there. And some scholars think that maybe they are representatives of their ancestors, and that gets into the whole, you know, reverence of ancestors and within their culture. So there's a few different ideas out there. Yeah. But, you know, you find them in the homes and you find other things related to religion in the home. So to have that concept, that idea that the Israelites were going just to Jerusalem, to worship, right, once the temple was built, or once even the centralization of Jerusalem as the local play as the place to worship Galloway. It's not, that's not what the archaeological record is showing shows that people of course, they're not going to travel by foot, you know, for a week or so to get to Jerusalem to go offer a sacrifice, they're going to either go to a more local shrine, which we do have those. But then there's also a lot of evidence that they're conducting worship at home too.
14:00 Now, it within those with the figurines and stuff, do you also find items that are more associated with Judaism? I mean, like with were like, did they have a lot of symbols at that time? Um, well, I mean,
14:17 yes, and no, I'm trying. I'm trying to think of some examples. I mean, if you're in a household in a house, you're pretty poor. Right? Right. So you're not going to have a lot. Yeah, things related to Judaism. I mean, you might get some like little model shrines that might have some symbols on them. Like the date palm, of course, is pretty popular pomegranate. Later. There's one occasion I think, at cubit chiappa, where they found a model shrine that might have had an image of, of possibly an ark. I'm trying to recall correctly, but I'm, I'm not really sure about that one. But no, not not. Yeah, a lot of imagery
15:09 when I say and that seems like a bad thing to evaluate because they weren't supposed to be worshipping away with any kind of we're worshiping Yahweh along with these other figurines and idols, then we wouldn't have the evidence for that. Right? And they often do. And we know this from the second commandment, they would think of these representations as yawei. So Exodus 32, when Moses comes down, Aaron says, you know, he's talking to the Israelites, you saying, this is your Lord, this is your Yahweh. Yeah, right. The calf was they thought they were worshiping Yahweh. Yeah, they said, Make us
15:39 an image of this god that saved us, right? Yeah. And those those caps that we find, you know, people whenever you see these big pictures of, you know, the golden calf, and there's a huge golden calves. And it's like, well, when we find these cats, they're like, you know, just a couple inches, right? Yeah, they're like a zoomed in. Zoom out and it's on a desk. They're pretty, they're pretty little, you know, yeah. Even if you find them Calver, cuz they're usually made out of terracotta, you know, pottery, yeah, they're fired and all that stuff, but they're not, they're not big at all. And so when we see these artist's rendition of, you know, the golden calf, or like, the nightlife side of earrings to get that big Yeah, but then you get in places you do get inscriptions like I'm thinking of the inscription down at can tell it as rude, which was a kind of fortress down in the southern part of Israel near a rod like in in the desert where really not a lot of people live, but you get a lot of caravans for trade and stuff. And so they think this controller as rude place was a kind of almost like a truck stop. But for any stop. And, and there's, there seems to be a place for worship in there. And there's inscriptions that talk about yawei and his Ashura. Okay, yeah. And so if we're talking about syncretism, right, where, where people, you know, Israel, of course, is called to worship the one true God, but again, really struggled with it. And so if we're looking for evidence of that, you've got it in the text, and you've got it in the archaeological record.
17:26 Right? Yeah. And you and and it does seem to be that that story of God calling them to worship and, and then them working that out in their, in their experience and seeing their neighbors probably with figurines, right? And Ryan, do we find figurines and other maybe that we know are non Jewish homes,
17:46 you can't really tell if they're Israelite or Canaanite? Yeah, there's no way you can tell because their material culture is pretty much the same.
17:55 Right? Yeah. And that's really interesting gets into that whole right. Yeah, little debate there. But I think that's good for us to, to think about now, because we have so many maybe symbols of Christianity that could be in our home, that, you know, 1000s of years from now someone could find, you know, in a track home in the suburbs. This home that's been preserved, and crosses might be on and so some like, these kind of clear symbols, that would be like, Oh, this would be a Christian home. And we have to remind ourselves, yeah, that for their experience, for one they are they're going off of maybe him maybe they actually followed that commandment of not making an image of your way. But then we're still maybe influenced by the people around them. And that, I think, that desire to have to hold something, right. Sure.
18:54 To have their bases covered. I think it was physical, like you said, but so yeah, yeah, that's true. It was kind of like insurance. You know, we I'm pretty sure your way will protect us. But just in case, just in case, yeah, the other gods seem to have helped our Canaanite neighbors cover our bases.
19:10 Yeah. And that's kind of piggybacking off of what Libby just said, I tell the kind of analogy I give my students is, well, if you're, you know, you're just trying to survive, right? They're all agriculturalists and pastoralists, and trying to survive off the land is very difficult. Yeah. And if you're, you know, we know that, you know, Israel lived in the land, and so did the Canaanites. And yeah, and that if you're laying if your field of let's say, barley isn't doing so well, and your Canaanites neighbor field is doing really well. And you can imagine the commercial Hey, neighbor, why is field doing so? Well? Well, I worship I send us a prayer and libation offering to Asher every morning. Oh, okay, great. I'm going to say a prayer to your way and I'm going to say a prayer to Ashura, right and just like live He said, cover my bases.
20:01 Yeah, that just too and the seams that that that poll would be really strong to, to do that especially. I mean, we're on such a different end of the historical spectrum, right? We've seen that history, we now have all of those stories that we can read. We have Jesus, we have New Testament. And so for us, maybe we're less tempted to cover our bases in that way. I think we cover our bases in other ways. by Mike our bank account, and things like that, like we, we put our trust, and
20:41 it's always an issue of trust.
20:43 Yeah. And yeah, it really is. And this, the story of the ancient Hebrew people would be a story of learning, trust in this yawei in, in the midst of all of these other gods that people around them are worshipping, and are following, and either getting benefits from or not. And then that call is now worship Me above them. I'm above those gods. And, and, and I think we Yeah, it seems to be had to be that process of God. Continually showing his faithfulness. Right. And, and, and for them to, to experience all those times of walking away, and then learning from that.
21:26 Yeah. And imagine how hard it would be though to that if you're called, you know, to, to worship this one, this one God, and you're not used to that, and everyone around you is worshipping multiple gods. Yeah. And you can imagine, I try to imagine at least about how difficult that would be right to say, Okay, everyone around me is doing this. And I'm supposed to do this. Yeah, I think that would be really hard, especially
21:57 if it seems to be working for them. Yeah, right. It's easy, I think for moderns to look back and think about how just silly it seems to worship items, but what they represented and the practical benefits they have and the kind of peer pressure that you're talking about. Cynthia? Yeah, it would be very tempting. Yeah. I
22:15 mean, they they represented their livelihood and their, the mean the crops, fertility, right, all of that, right.
22:22 And God knew that would be a huge temptation, which is why he said, You've got to totally get rid of all those Canaanite practices when you go into the land. And they didn't. Yeah, they were a constant sneer throughout Israel's history. Right?
22:34 Yeah. There seems to be okay. There's so we've, we've understood the disconnect between our definition and their experience. And I think that is really, because I think actually, the way it's presented for the ancient Hebrew people is actually helpful for us today. And maybe it's like you're saying it's taking it out of the theoretical, and putting it into the the practice of worship, that call from God is the same. You know, don't just believe that I'm the only God who exists, but worship Me above, above. And and I think for for us, you know, and this is that transition for us. Now, you know, we don't have a lot of little figurines in our house that we're worshipping, or we're tempted to worship that. Maybe religiously, the temptation would be to not worship anything, right like that. But there are so many idols and things that get in the way of us worshiping God alone,
23:36 right. And I think the idea of trust is a good way to identify what those idols are in our life. Yeah. What are we trusting in along with God? Or maybe even sometimes more than God? When I get insecure? I think I'm pretty sure God's gonna help me through this. But I have all this, I'm gonna keep saving be a little bit less generous and keep saving, just in case, right? Or whatever that might be for everybody.
23:59 Yeah, I think trust is perfect there. And so I think we can maybe note, the ancient Hebrew culture was called to worship god alone, called to monotheism and we can put it back but weren't very good at practicing it. Right. They struggled and maybe the same for us today. Yeah. You just have to ask, what are our idols? Yeah. And it would be Yeah, it would be interesting, because I love I love to think of it through the lens of archaeology. So me too, you know, I know. I knew. So, you know, when I mean, when I was young, I had a long list of things that I wanted to do, or be one of them was a botanist. I don't know. I just, you know, somehow was playing that helped me for like, a six month period. I like my mom's plant had a fungi in it, and I made it healthy. I read an encyclopedia. And you know, and I was like, maybe I want to be a botanist. And then that faded, but archaeologists was always one that was on my list. Probably because of Indiana Jones. But that's not real. Hey, don't know you're not allowed to think about Indiana Jones? Day. That'd be great. I know, that would be great. I would, I would, I would. Can I have a bullwhip, like, on my side? Just
25:16 Yeah, you could but you would
25:20 be that guy. I'm not afraid. I'll come with the hat, the leather jacket. I dare you just go with it the whole time. But but right. I always found that interesting. Because especially thinking of our experience now. So thinking 1000 2000 years from now, what if someone excavated our land? What would they say about it? Right? Like, and even talking about our homes, with maybe having crosses up and all those things. But we also have so much other stuff in our house that our gallery would be like, oh, wow, but they had this maybe this this big rectangle box that was that was in there. Everything must have been what they worship, right? All of the chairs are facing? Yes, guys. There's even a view from the kitchen. Yeah, there's even have ones in multiple rooms. Yeah, like that would be really fascinating. To think I mean, that tears, because be a part of archaeology as you find these artifacts, and then you're piecing together how they use them. What what value they had in there, and yeah, and
26:32 what their what their context was, I mean, because if I find something in a house, versus finding something, you know, near a gate or something, you know, it's that makes a big difference in how its interpreted. But, you know, the joke is when you don't know what it is or what it was used for. It's all cultic it's all religion. Yeah.
26:53 There you go. Because we're all looking for that. Yeah. Right. When you don't know what it is. Oh, must have been used for worship.
26:59 Yeah, they must worship. And then yeah, if we could actually talk to someone, they'd be like, No, that was just it's just a game we play. Yeah. It's kind of like monopoly. Yeah. Yeah, it would be really interesting to to see that. Well, I think, for me, this conversation has been helpful, because, for one, it's helpful if I hear and maybe for our listeners, if you hear someone say, you know, ancient Hebrew believed in other gods, or that you can be like, okay, let's put this in context. Right, the, the ancient Hebrew textually archaeologically, definitely struggled with worshipping other gods. Right. And, and that was a struggle. And, and we see that, and I think the application to us too, is that we do the same thing. I mean, we may not call them gods, but we struggle with putting our trust in other things. And so in that way, we find common ground that we are monotheists Phyllis, philosophically, theoretically, but we also are bad at it. Even even people who are maybe like, paid to do it, right. I joke students all the time, I'm a full time paid Christian, I literally get paid to say these things. I get paid at my church. Right. And yeah, that was good. I appreciate that. But it's, it's, it's even in that I can realize in my own life, the struggle of putting God above everything else, right, trusting God above everything else. Like that is our call. And and that is our struggle,
28:41 as well. And where we struggle and where we fail, and where Israel struggled and where they failed at all points to our need to Jesus. So it's not like we have to go back and look at Israel's experience as an embarrassment, right to our theology. No, it actually is a crucial part of our theology. It's why Jesus came to reconcile his people to god
28:59 yeah, that's so great. All right. Well, we're gonna finish the show today with Libby's already done this segment. So I got a segment we'll make it. We'll make it specific to Cynthia but you've already kind of shot me I've already shot me down on this, so I'm gonna say it anyway. It's gonna say it anyway. So this is this segment called nerdy Would you rather nerdy nerdy Would you rather so kind of like the traditional, would you rather? Yeah, just the nerdy addition. And maybe it's nerdy specific to me, but I tried to make it a little more specific in your world. Okay. So would you would you rather have dinner with Howard Carter, or discovered King Tut, or Indiana Jones See I threw in Indiana Jones, but that's because that was my answer. The like the read the character Indiana Jones or Harrison Ford. That is a great distinction either one.
29:59 I take Harrison Ford. Okay, so yeah, the week but if it was Indiana Jones and Howard, I'd take Carter, our car. There we go. What would you talk about? What would you ask him? Oh, I asked him about when he found the tomb and what he was feeling and thinking and all those emotions of finding one of the most amazing discoveries, right? Just how I would be just amazing. It would be it would be amazing. I mean, I know how I feel when I find like little tiny things. But imagine finding something amazing. Yeah, that that would just be so cool.
30:33 To me, it would be a little bit like Indiana Jones find something and that
30:41 Indiana never found anything. He was always just
30:45 stolen. Yeah, he was a treasure hunter. Yeah. But it was pretty exciting. It's pretty exciting. I feel like he found the Holy Grail. I will I will lay that claim. The actual holy grail skull and the Crystal Skull. Well, that's it gets bad, right? It gets bad. It gets bad after the Holy Grail.
31:06 so badly. So that's a nerdy question for you, Mark. Would you rather if you turn into Yeah. Would you rather find the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail?
31:14 Oh, wow. Well, I would I would put it in a museum, Mike, it wouldn't I would sell it to a new. I would be I mean, based on my, you know, research from the movies. I would be terrified to find the Ark of the Covenant. If I found it, I would maybe cover it back up. Move on. No one looked directly. So the holy grail now I would. Yeah, I would be terrified to find the right cover. I would like to find the Holy Grail. Especially if there is like, you know, some type of 11th century Knight guarding it to who's like to the house. Like that would be amazing. Just to talk to him about his experience because I would how comfortable is that chainmail you're wearing? It has to be happy. Well, thank you so much for being on the show is really good. I love both of your expertise in this area. And you will be back on the show for sure. So and we'll be friends. Yeah. show you a friend of the show. When you return. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup Think.
32:52 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is a premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
History Professor and Theology award winner Julius Rex Gurney III sits down with Mark to discuss the reason for two different kinds of Protestants today. In North America, Protestants can be broken down into two major groups: Mainline and Evangelical. Mark and Rex discover that this division does not always follow strict denominational lines. Tracing the history of this division provides fascinating insight into today’s religious landscape.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore. And today on the show, I'm delighted to be joined by the esteemed Chair of the history department and award winning theologian. A little known fact about Julius Rex Gurney the third. So Rex excited to have you on the show. And just for our listeners, maybe tell us how long you've been teaching here at Jessup?
0:30 Well, first of all, I have to talk about that award. Yeah, award and $3 wanting to give me a cup of coffee. I don't I don't actually even put that on my resume. Hey, you can claim your award winning payload. That'd be on your book byline. Right. Right. Right. So I've been teaching. I'm here at Jessup for about 14 years. Wow. And so I'm actually came over with the school from San Jose. Oh, Graham, although I still sort of feel like a newbie because I was only teaching one year when we left San Jose. But every graduation I guess I creep further further up to the beginning of the line right now, which is kind of strange and and sort of depressing for
1:12 Yeah, you realize especially Yeah, when they line up you realize, Hey, I'm yeah, I've been around here a long time. Yeah, exactly. I know. When I first started teaching them about eight years ago, here, I used to be able to say to the students, we like kind of a communal we like we think this and and now eight years removed, I can no longer say we say you, your generation. Right? Right. My generation
1:38 clearly distinct at this point, I have to be very, very careful with my cultural references and my history classes because no one else gets them. I'm old. Right? There you go.
1:46 Yeah, that's the marker when you know, movie references. Okay, got it. gotta come up with some nobody's ever heard of any rock groups from the 70s? a, you know, there's a little bit of a revival of that. So we can always hope, you know, that's where Netflix is really helped me because they bring all these old shows back. And so okay, what's your keep anything long enough? It'll come around. Right? Yeah. And it'll be and actually one of my, one of my rules of fashion is, if you wore it when it first came out, you probably shouldn't wear it when it comes back around.
2:21 It's probably right. Yeah. My plaid, blue and yellow bell bottom pants with cuffs on them with my suit probably should have been retired. Right now. never come back.
2:34 Yeah, that comes back that you might be able to wear that again, because that would be amazing. And we have to, we have to see pictures of that will post pictures on Twitter that a long time ago? Well, I'm excited to have you on the show and one for the fact that I love history. And I think history helps us answer how we've arrived at a certain place, and covers the steps that have been taken events that have occurred, that lead us to where we are now. Right. And I love to, to look at that. And we neglect history to our own peril, right. Like if we don't learn from that, I think specifically with the church history is fascinating. I mean, there's concerned, yeah, there's been so many twists and turns, right. And you know, for just a little over 500 years now just celebrated the 500 anniversary. Last year, we've kind of in the West had this standard binary of Catholic and Protestant and, and then for maybe 200 years or so. And we can kind of talk about that kind of date. We've also had kind of another division amongst Protestants. Right. And and kind of a division into two camps, mainline Protestant and evangelical Protestant, right,
3:45 especially here in this country.
3:46 Right? Yeah. Especially in the West and specifically America. Right. It has been this, this really divide between the two. And so a lot of the conversation that I wanted to bring you on to kind of talk about that divide, why, maybe why it happened, what what that means for the church, okay, before we jump kind of right into that, I thought it'd be helpful to give a little bit of a framework on the reformation, or have you ever probably for most people, when they think of the Reformation they and they envision Luther in that, you know, big brown robe with his stylish monastic bowl cut, maybe the maybe the painting with his Bray Han kind of the floppy Bray. But but really out of the reformation, there seems to be several streams that happen. What were some of those streams?
4:34 Well, when when Luther nailed the theses on the church or wynberg, um, he sort of unleashed a division in the church that I don't even think he anticipated. Right. And basically, Protestants have been sort of dividing ever since. And so the four main streams of the Reformation most scholars consider the the Lutheran stream obviously, right, the reformed stream Which, you know, has its genesis with john Calvin and his associates, what's sometimes called the radical reformation, okay, which basically involves the Anna Baptists. I guess their descendants now would be the Amish and the Mennonites and folks like that. I like that the word radical was used. They were they were. Yeah, they were. In fact, some of the only people that actually both, you know, mainstream Protestants and Catholics hated were the radical reformers, right? Yeah. Yeah, they were persecuted by everybody. And then whatever Henry the Eighth was doing up in England is sort of the fourth stream and write. What's kind of fascinating is a lot of our current major denominations actually come from that stream of the reformation, the fourth stream Church of England and the the offshoots of the Church of England, which I think probably most Protestants here in the United States today would be in churches that were offshoots of the English reformation.
5:59 Right. That is fascinating, because yeah, when we think reformation we think Luther, but be it really, yeah, that many of the traditions, Methodist,
6:09 Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostals, greens, I mean, they all basically come off of splits off of splits off of splits of the Church of England. Yeah. And the Church of England, which Yeah, which is really, which wouldn't shouldn't surprise us since, you know, we were colonized primarily, by England, at least right coast of our country. Right. Yeah. So historically, that does make sense that, that, that we would have that kind of background and would have that in, in the colonies and in the early colonies. So So kind of out of those streams, you know, this overarching Protestantism, right emerges, right, and particularly here in the United States, mainly because really, Roman Catholic presence in our country didn't really become prominent until the the antebellum period in the 1800s. And that was due to immigration. I mean, Irish and then later on Italian, you know, Central, your rights, I reset, which kind of changed the religious landscape of our country. But before then we're primarily Protestant. And I don't want to say we were one big happy family because Providence have never been one big. Right. But there was sort of a generalized Protestant ethos. I think it's fair to say that Yeah, about our country. And that that ethos sort of held for most of the 18 hundred's and then it started to fracture during the 20th century.
7:37 Yeah. And is that when we kind of see that, that fracture into what we would consider the two camps sort of two camps
7:44 in the mainline Protestantism and evangelical Protestantism? Sometimes, you know, jokesters will call it mainline, the old line or the sideline. In a particularly since the 1960s. Many of the mainline Protestant denominations have really been bleeding members.
8:04 Right? Yeah. Not not growing and stagnating.
8:09 Other rights and and at least until very recently, most evangelical expressions of Christianity have been growing. So what's driving having is one stream of Protestantism losing influence and another stream of Protestantism, gaining influence in our country. And that really accelerated since the 1960s. But the genesis of that split actually lies in near the beginning of the 20th century.
8:36 Okay. Yeah. And maybe even before we get into the the split, because that's fascinating. Seeing that within the 20th century, the when we say mainline Protestant, what do we mean? Well,
8:49 so what did they call them? The five sisters or the seven sisters? I forget how many they can which is problematic in and of itself, right. Usually the denominations if you're just talking institutionally that are associated with mainline Protestantism are the elca Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, liberal Lutherans, right, right. United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, okay, the northern Baptist, the American Baptists, and the disciples of Christ, and then probably the pcusa, right and say, I would Presbyterian, right, right. And those are easily considered mainline denominations and I guess the reason why they called a mainline is to have considerable cultural influence. They really did right and most Protestants were probably more or less identified with those denominational streams for much of our history and still, really up until now. The last 20 or 30 years, they still were very, very prominent in the religious landscape. Right. Many of them still think they are but Right, right, they really have his heart's raw numbers go. Yeah, for example, the United Methodist Church, which is still the second largest Protestant church in our country, a lot of people don't realize that right. But they used to be the largest. And they started really bleeding members in the 1960s. And so they've probably lost three or 4 million members since then. Still a big church. Right. Right. You know, they they've they've experienced some really sharp losses since then. And all of the mainline denominations pretty much have pcusa. Right. And the losses are due to split off and conservative churches leaving the denominations,
10:53 right and now Yeah, Tim, recently that seems to been
10:56 happening within especially the Presbyterians. There's now more conservative Presbyterian churches that are more or less identified with evangelicalism that consists of churches that have left the pcusa. Often, I guess, a shorthand for the two different types of Protestants here are mainline churches are, I guess, considered liberal, theologically, evangelical churches would be considered more conservative theologically? I have to be careful with that. Yeah, it's it gets fuzzy eight gets fuzzy. There are conservative evangelical congregations in mainline denominations. Right, right. And there are more or less, they usually will call themselves liberal, but maybe progressive. In evangelical denominations, but more or less the divide sort of holds,
11:48 right. And yeah, and When, when, in my theology class, we talked a little bit about like, liberal theology versus conservative and I tried to help the students understand that, that those terminologies don't mean, bad and good, right, or evil and non evil, depending on how they're doing in some of the polemics. Right, yeah, and some, some ways that they're used, right. But some of the definitions that I've heard of those that have been helpful to me is that, like, a liberal theologian is going to give maximum acknowledgment to the claims of modern thought, right. So as science progresses, as, as even scholarship progresses, right, the New Thought is going to get put to the top right. And, and so and I've heard kind of mainline Protestant theology described that way as, as more a more modern theology than a traditional theology and evangelical, so then conservative theologian would give maximum acknowledgement to the claims of traditional thought and rights, and they would be suspicious of of, I guess, theological innovation, right.
12:57 And a lot of that actually comes from the early part of the 20th century, when when there was something called the fundamentalist modernist controversy, right, that really split denominations. I know, the northern Baptist split the northern, the Presbyterian split. It, it really wreaked havoc with a lot of denominations, especially in the north, not so much in the south. But as you would probably imagine, the South has been more conservative, you know, politically rajic. Right. Yeah. But what's really interesting is is denominations that are national denominations, now, but that still, you know, we'll have regional names like the denomination, I grew up in a Southern Baptist Convention, Ma, little church, they're basically we're a sort of isolated from this controversy back in the beginning of the 20th century, but they have sort of gone through their own controversies in the 1980s and 90s, that in some sense, mimicked what many other denominations underwent 4050 years earlier. Yeah, it's like nobody's escaped this, right. But it is hit at different times with different denominations.
14:13 Now, with the evangelical Protestants, what are like, how do we use that term? How do we define that
14:20 that seems like can also be elusive, and people throw it around? Certainly, in fact, there are many scholars of religion Now, most of them on the conservative side of the spectrum, they actually feel that the word evangelical has sort of lost its its meaning, right, you know, if, if I don't know, john Piper and Rob Bell could both be considered evangelical, some people think you need to get rid of the word. Yeah, it seems to be a wide wide divide, right. But basically, the evangelical movement as a self conscious movement, um, kind of grew in the late 40s and early 50s. Out of the fundamentalist movement, actual right
15:00 Yeah, so when we say fundamentalists, meaning that what would maybe be the
15:04 deception more so the word fundamentalist actually comes from a series of they call them tracks, but they're actually little booklets, okay? that were sent out in sort of response to me in a liberal German biblical scholarship and stuff like that. Right, right, in the early part of the 20th century, and they were sent to every pastor in the United States, Protestant pastor Sunday school teachers, it actually was all bankrolled by some wealthy folks, right? Yeah, actually, Okay, here we go. But they were called the fundamentals. It's like so if if the liberal theology and and what came to be called higher biblical criticism is going to erode the foundations of the faith, which many folks felt it did. Yeah, of course, we need to get back to the fundament. fundamental right. Okay. And so they're usually considered five things. And let me hope that I can remember all, there's a test right now. So the inerrancy of Scripture, right? The virgin birth of Jesus Christ, the reality of miracles, substitutionary atonement, right. And, you know, basically, what would be considered very, very conservative stances on on scripture and theology. And this would be in reaction to, you know, chipping away at that, then yeah, happened in a lot of well, in a lot of the seminaries at the time.
16:32 Right. And maybe a lot of the seminaries at the time were feeding the mainline? Well, sure, yeah, we're a lot of seminaries. One
16:40 way I explained this, when I teach church history is so for example, there's this new fangled degree that sort of invented in Germany in the late 19th century is called a get ready for this a PhD. It's really a European phenomenon, right? But yeah, aspiring intellectuals, and folks, for understandable reasons would be interested in this. And so, you know, they'll go to Germany to I don't know, you know, to begin or somewhere and they get this new research degree, this PhD. And, you know, while they're there, they sort of, you know, absorbed by osmosis, this German biblical criticism and liberal theology and stuff, and then they crack over to the States. And they'll teach in seminaries, most of which, you know, well, many of which were in the north, and would serve us to denominations. And of course, the seminaries want these guys, because, you know, they they represent the cutting edge of scholarship. But of course, seminaries are there to train preachers or to educate preachers, right. So because I ended the local church, for example, here's where here's, here's where it gets really interesting. So, so, you know, someone goes over to Germany, and they'll they'll, you know, learn over there that the Apostle Paul didn't write all of the epistles that that, you know, have his name have been attributed to have been attributed to him in the New Testament. So we'll take like, I don't know, if escience or something, right. Yeah, the one where there's a little more controversy. Right, right, right. Well, yeah, we'll just say that because we got to pick something, right, and so on. So they'll learn that and you know, you learn what you learn. And I don't know, these guys are smart, whatever, I grab back to the seminary, United States, and I'm teaching a New Testament class to bunch of aspiring pastors, they're going to go into the church as well, right? I'm going to teach them what I learned in Germany, right. Paul didn't write Ephesians. Right. So yeah, I guess if I'm, you know, at the seminary, and I'm trying to be a pastor, well, then I'll just nod my head too. And then I get on to the local church. And I'm preaching through Ephesians. And I say something like this during the sermon. So as the author of the epistle to the Ephesians said, and then, you know, so some ladies gonna actually tapped me on the shoulder, right? He's leaving church, and she's gonna say, but I thought the apostle Paul wrote Ephesians, and then you have some splainin. To do. That's where when he gets into the pews, that's where a lot of these church splits start to come to be just this real view, that this, you know, the seminary education in this European liberal theology started to corrode the fundamentals of the faith. And so there's a reaction, yeah, push a push back against that.
19:24 And that's within the fundamental and then evangelical movement kind of comes
19:28 out of out of that, basically, it's really not a it's not so much a theological thing, because most conservative evangelicals, who don't want to be called fundamentalist, still would probably agree with almost all of the fundamentals. Right. It's not so much a theological thing. It's more of a an ethos thing, revised thing or a way that you confront the world. Alright. One problem with fundamentalism as a move minute really was separatist? Yeah, it really kind of just kept to itself and separated itself from the world basically. Right. And so, you know, folks like Billy Graham, for example, in the late 40s. It's like, well, if I'm going to, you know, be an evangelist, then I guess that means that I need to, somehow at least relate to the world. I can't be separate artistic and share the gospel. Right, right. Therefore, they began calling themselves the new evangelicals or young evangelicals. Yeah, they had a more open attitude towards interacting with the rest of society in order to convert it. Right, right. Yeah, for the gospel. But right, still can't just stay in your in your corner. If you're going to do that. Yeah, you have to you have to engage. And it's really interesting. It's like, for example, Billy Graham himself, you can just see in his academic career, how this movement from fundamentalism to evangelicalism because he start off by going to Bob Jones University, right, which is, you know, one of the one of I guess, the premier fundamentalist, right, yes. And so, and very proud of it, actually. Right. Right. Right. And I mean, there's that in my family and my mother's proud graduate of Bob Jones. There you go. But, but he leaves that he quits it. And he ends up after, you know, a little, little journey. Going to Wheaton. Yeah, Wheaton sort of consider it, you know, conservative school theologically, but it's not Bob Jones. Right. Right. Yeah. And it's definitely more progressive evangelical school CCE even in Billy Graham's life is from Bob Jones to Wheaton. Right? And and it's not so much a theological move. But it's, it's it's a cultural move.
21:43 Yeah. Is there anything I was just reading something that was an interview with with Billy Graham in the late 80s. And someone asked him to define evangelical and in the interview, he says, I'm looking for someone to define it for me he can, because yeah, I was just kind of a term. Right that that was used, but it is interesting to note that that shift from fundamentalism to evangelicalism, right, right, and then that being now kind of the prominent umbrella.
22:12 Certainly, it definitely is the most vibrant kind of corner of Protestantism in it as far as, you know, packing people in the pews. Right. Right. There are different ways to you know, to judge all this stuff, but if we add numbers, definitely it's on the evangelicals.
22:33 Yeah, definitely growing and, and the historian David Bebbington, I think has helped me kind of get handles on on on evangelicalism by kind of highlighting four kind of primary characteristics. And they would be they very much flow out of the fundamentalism, right. So I mean, one of them is biblical ism, a high regard for the authority and inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. Right. And, and, and then a stress on the sacrifice of Christ for all humanity.
23:05 So we're on the right substitutionary atonement.
23:08 Yeah, exactly. And then conversion ism, the belief the idea of being born again. And that stress and that, that obviously, you really see when with that movement with Billy Graham was,
23:20 was to there's a point where you make a decision for Jesus Christ. Yeah. And it's just not. You don't get it by osmosis, you have to it has to be a conscious decision that the prompting of the Holy Spirit, right,
23:30 right. And then his fourth one I've always found fascinating is activism, which, which, I guess you could associate it with current and he describes it as expression and demonstration of the gospel in missionary and social reform efforts.
23:45 Well, I think you can't say that. Yeah, I'm in the evangelical community right now. It it's primarily conservative, but there is sort of, I guess, progressive or liberal wing, but what's really interesting is they both consider themselves activists. Yeah, man, they, you know, want want to see different policy. Things happen, but they they all agree that you need to advocate for that. So they're engaged politically.
24:15 Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and that's where Yeah, that idea of activism is involved on both sides. Right. Right. And right, and maybe how they're defining in the areas that they are being active, may differ,
24:29 but definitely activism is something that they have in common.
24:32 Yeah. And, and we're, and maybe some of this, too, so a lot of this is 20th century, are their streams of evangelicalism that mean kind of begin in the 18th and 19th century.
24:45 I guess, if you're looking at a historical juncture in American history, that's sort of the fount of what ends up I guess becoming evangelical Protestantism, is probably helpful to look at the Second Great Awakening which was sort of Right. It happened in both the south and the north that it was kind of a series of revivals of, of seriousness of religion that happened during the first three decades, kind of of the 18 hundred's? Yeah. And I mean this be Jonathan Edwards. No. So this is this is about 80 years later, okay. And I mean, there's individuals that are associated with it. I mean, people like Fannie and folks like that, right? Probably nobody of the stature really, of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, and folks like that right with the first great awakening. But I've always believed that is far as a awakening or revival that had real institutional impact in our country, the second writing was probably more important than the first. Okay? Because this is where Baptists and Methodists really began to grow. What's kind of fascinating is that during that whole thing, actually the ecclesiastical or theological stream that our our school William Jessup University actually comes from is from the Second Great Awakening. Okay. And in the camp meetings in the south, right, right. Are you where you would have like, for example, the cane ridge cap meeting, and I think 1802 was like the most famous one. And you have some people think as many as 20,000 people in Kentucky, and that must have been everybody bleary eyed, intend for for a week. Right? Right. And they have all sorts of preachers of all sorts of different denominations that will just set up shop and and it's almost like, I don't know, a state fair of preachers or something. Yes. And one, then you go listen to that another day. And you can just you know, and what's really interesting, though, is they all word denominational preachers, and so there were some folks. It's the I sometimes call the stone Campbell movement, that actually thought that what we need to do is really drop all of our denomination we're fighting and just call ourselves Christians. Yeah. And that's kind of known as the restoration movement. Right. And that movement, you can actually trace forward to the birth of our school, William Jessup University. Yeah. Through San Jose Christian College, back in the day, because a school that has deep connections with the restoration movement.
27:31 Yeah, it's interesting within that is still under the evangelical umbrella. Right. And that it's
27:38 right it at least now. It's really Yeah. Because there have been some conversations historically over the years as to whether you actually you can call restoration churches, evangelical or not, but most people think that those are just sort of academic picky arguments. Right. Right. That most
27:55 I mean, maybe most academic arguments are I know, we have to do something
28:02 to justify salaries. I think most folks that go to restoration churches now would consider themselves evangelical. Right. Yeah. would would they would we take that probably and our school basically when when is asked to sort of define itself theologically considers itself your broadly evangelical
28:24 Yeah. And what it's what it seemed like in America too, that a lot of our a lot of those maybe strong denominational divisions are being unified under that umbrella of evangelical
28:39 or subsumed under Yes, sir. Okay, sound, you know, it is true that denominational marketing, and denominational branding doesn't mean what it used to mean, right. You know, it used to be for example, if you move from one city to another, and you were, say, a Methodist or a Southern Baptist, you would you would check out the local United Methodist Church of Southern Baptist Church. And you know, even if you didn't really like it, you'd go there because I'm a Baptist. Right? That's, yeah, that's part of it. And what happens now is that, you know, folks don't really feel the necessity to do that denominational loyalty has really changed, right? Yeah. And so they'll go to the church that they feel feeds them and that they want to go to and it could be, you know, a different denomination than they grew up in. Right. Um, you go to the church so much, in fact, so much so that some of the largest churches of even our denominations right now don't have the denominational name and the church title. Exactly. Saddleback Church in Southern California is a Southern Baptist Church, but most people don't even know Yeah, that's it. They don't put it in the name. Right. Yeah.
29:47 Yeah. And, and as we as you're interesting that the that maybe with the, the new maybe marker identifier of evangelical, it has maybe Have role in, in kind of downplaying that maybe would people look for. If they moved to a city, they would look for a church that feeds them. And maybe they would look like is this in underneath the evangelical or if they were right, yeah, I would kind of look for an evangelical church or if they were mainline we made.
30:20 Exactly, exactly. And you sort of, you know, if you're, if you're a church person, you sort of know who they are and what they are. Right. Right. And And if you don't, he would know after visiting one Sunday,
30:31 yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. You would, yeah, you would get the feel. And and I guess, with that, with what's the divide, kind of maybe coming back to the divide between mainline and evangelical? The what what would maybe how do you foresee how they treat each other now, like today, cuz it's kind of fluctuated? I mean, time there was right, there was maybe animosity or just ignoring each other.
31:00 I think there still is honestly, especially with theological education. I, I've shared this with you personally before but I went to two different seminaries, one, that would be considered evangelical or yummy indev. And one way that would be considered, I guess, mainline that I got my PhD in, in church history. And honestly, they don't even talk about the same thing. Right. And, and, and that's okay, I guess. But they don't even acknowledge that the other exists, which is really interesting. And so instead of trafficking in, in, you know, dialogue or something, they pretty much traffic in caricatures. Right on both sides. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of unfortunate, but they don't even really talk to each other much. Yeah. You know, I guess, because they both think that they're right, that they're right about different things. And so there you go. Right. Right. Right. And, and I do think that, for example, the cultural I guess, influence of mainline Christianity probably peak mainline Protestantism peak probably in the 1950s. And, and since then, their influence has been retreating in the influence of evangelicals, as far as any of us have influenced right now. Right, which is a really interesting phenomenon, because a lot of folks think that we actually have have more in common with each other than we do with the culture at large in a way, so maybe we ought to stop some of the infighting. I don't see that happening much soon. Because, right. There's just this there's a theological rift actually, between the two groups there just says, and that's a hard thing to that's a hard thing to bridge. Right.
32:45 Yeah, it really is. And, and I think maybe one of the things for, for the church as a whole, and this would, would include Catholic, Protestant, orthodox, and I think we have seen a change, even in my lifetime from Protestant and Catholic relations. And it certainly certainly has been different. I remember, we wouldn't in the church, I grew up and we wouldn't have even have a Christmas Eve service, because it's like, that's what the Catholics do. Right? Yeah.
33:15 And now, you would hardly find a Baptist Church that doesn't, right. You know, it used to be when I was growing up that, you know, on Good Friday, all the Catholics would go to church, and on Easter Sunday, hardly any of them would. And and we would ignore Good Friday, and we'd all come for Easter. And now, you know, most evangelical churches will have a good Friday, service and well attended and in most Catholic churches will be packed out on Easter. So yeah, there really is a coming together on the Easter event sort of thing. Yeah, as far as that goes. I do know that conservative Catholics and conservative Protestants, despite the theological riffs and ecclesiastical rifts, there is much queasy asticus theological writing. Right, right. I really feel that it is far as dealing with a secular culture. They sort of have have a common cause against that. Yeah, so maybe, yeah, no, you just at least put down your swords for a while. So that you can actually both advocate against some things that are that they both feel are eroding. Right, our culture and our anti christian and yeah, yeah, and I guess what, I don't know, I guess once you get those things resolved, then you can start fighting each other. Yeah,
34:28 yeah. But maybe maybe like, or maybe not. To two Roman generals who have taken over and then they have each other left. Right, right. Right. Right. Yeah. The but I think, for me, it's been kind of a breath of fresh air to see that unity within the church, even even amongst those ecclesiastical differences amongst the theological differences. And I think one of the things here Jessup can may be coming out of the restoration movement and, and part of our core values that the value of unity in the church
35:00 Exactly if the if the restoration movement was initially founded to just bring unity among Protestants so that, you know, Presbyterians and Methodists and Baptists don't start fighting over the stuff they fight over. They just agree on the the vast things that they agree about. Yeah, the common man just call ourselves Christians instead of you know, right. Which is why, for example, you know, William Jessup University comes out of the independent Christian church movement, you know, where you just call yourself Christian? Right? You know, you don't have to have the denominational marker. And that is the stream that we come out of as a unifying stream, it tries to focus on the important thing. Yeah. And the things that are central to the faith, right, which are often more identified with with the conservative side of theological spectrum. Right. But but they're there. It's not argumentative. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and so it is more of a unifying movement. Yeah,
36:07 yeah. And that's, that's what's great being a part of that. And I think, even here at the school, to having students that come from all of these different streams, and faculty to faculty, yeah, right.
36:18 I remember when I first started teaching at at Jessup we draw from a broader base. Now, would you almost have to if you're going to grow as a school, and that's a great, that's a very, that's very much an evangelical, distinctive and yeah, right. Right. So you want to do that? But yeah, it probably means that you're going to have more people of different denominations that are here. And yeah, it certainly has been reflected with the faculty here. Right. When I first started here, I was one of just a few non restoration movement faculty, actually. Yeah. Which is interesting, because, you know, the restoration movement calls itself Christian. So I guess technically, I was a non Christian member of the fact that Southern Baptist such as sounds really strange, right, right. Yeah. Anyway, nobody would even bat an eye to that today, even 15 years later. You know, we still we still have ties to the restoration movement as still right? heritage is important. Definitely. That but we have faculty, you know, from all sorts of Protestant denominations. In order to sign our face statement, you probably would need to hail from a more conservative evangelical, right, theological place. Right. Right. But it doesn't necessarily have to be a Methodist place or a Baptist place or place, Presbyterian place, Pentecostal place or whatever. Right. Right.
37:47 And that's what I think I've really appreciated about being here is that it is the sense on unity. And it is unity in the midst of that diversity. And and I think that, that for me, my maybe hope with the church, and even the split between mainline and evangelical, Catholic and Protestant, orthodox, Catholic Protestant, is that we would find that unity, right, that we would find that unity, find that common ground, and we'd be able to celebrate that. And I do think it's important. Yeah, I do. And then we can talk about our differences, right. And we can debate about that, but in
38:31 a way that it doesn't necessarily mean conformity, and right doesn't necessarily mean that you just, you know, treat important differences as not important. You just focus on the fact that there are some major things that you really do share that are just as important, if not more important, particularly once again, in the culture that we live in. Yeah. Which is rapidly sexualizing. And right. And, you know, it's it's, it's hitting everybody. Yeah,
38:58 yeah. And then and I think for that, that idea of unity seems even more important and and seem to stress what it seems like Jesus talked about that a little bit. Yeah. You know, I think I think it's, you know, we could maybe say it's going to his core, right. And same with Paul, this idea of unity in the church in unity in that and well, it's been great having you on the show, ragged talk to you all day weekend, and there'll be many more to come from here, but he enjoyed it. But as we as we kind of end and wrap up the show, I do have we're going to move into just a short segment here at the end. And it's a game I've had other guests play. I'm excited about briefed on this. Yeah, this is not in the morning briefing. Okay. But this is I like to call it nerdy Would you rather so so it's kind of a game of Would you rather, but it's the nerdy edition. Okay. Just tried to go. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I tried to go with a historical theme, but not not necessarily just a church history theme, but just a broader historical theme or so go for it. So would you rather have dinner with Napoleon? Or your namesake Julius Caesar?
40:15 You know, I wanted one of the only things I appreciate and say this but one of the only things I ever remember from a Western Civ class in New Mexico was my professor saying that Napoleon never had an original thought in his head, but he had an opinion about everything. So I guess I go with Julius Caesar. Yeah. Just say you'd want to you want to hear an original thought? Yeah. He actually wrote his own copy. Right. So yeah, you know, something that our presidents don't even know like that.
40:45 Right? Yeah. Yeah. write his own speeches. Well, now, that would be a great scene there would be to Julius's. Julie is really high, setting a table. Although nobody knows me as Julius you do understand that? I do. I do. But I think more people need to because my real name exactly is Yeah, it's great. And so we're getting it out there. We're gonna spread the word. Okay. All right. Well, thanks again. JOHN. The show's been great. enjoyed it. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
41:39 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
In this episode Mark is joined by New Testament and Theology Professor Matthew Godshall to further discuss the topic of the New Testament authors use of the Hebrew Scriptures. Matt brings his extensive New Testament knowledge to the discussion as they explore the topic from the perspective of the NT authors. They also note how the NT authors actually provide a way for us to approach and apply Scripture in our own lives.
TRANSCRIPT 0:08 All right, welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And today on the show, I'm delighted to be joined by friend of the show and fellow member of our faculty of theology, Matt, gotcha. Hey, Mark, hey, it's good to have you back on. And that's why your friend of the show, I like the title. When you're returning guests, you now become friends. We're friends. Now.
0:29 It's so surprising you have me back.
0:35 So it's good. We had Libby, on the show recently talking about the way the New Testament authors use the Hebrew Scriptures. And Libby provided wonderful insight into the original Hebrew context of the passages. So I just thought it'd be great to have you on the show, to kind of look at it maybe from the perspective of the New Testament authors, maybe looking at the gospel writers looking at Paul thinking about how are they maybe specifically using the Hebrew Scripture? And, and, and what we can learn from that, and maybe what we can learn from that for our own, maybe hermeneutical initiatives are and what we're doing and, and in the episode with liberty, we talked a lot about Richard Hayes. And and that's kind of where I come from in it. And I think it's helpful to maybe define some of these terms as we get going. That's, that's one thing that we scholars like to do first, right is define define terms, which is helpful in scholarship, not as helpful in other things in your lives, right, like maybe in a conversation with your spouse, and you want to define terms, not the best time to define terms, then we got too close to home, right? Yeah. I know that home, I live there, my friend, I live there. But so with Hayes, he talks about, you know, the New Testament writers are kind of doing three things. They have direct quotations, and we see that throughout Paul's writings, we see that with the gospel writers where they directly quote, Isaiah, directly, quote, Deuteronomy. But we also have direct illusions, where the biblical writer is making a pretty explicit allusion to the Hebrew Scriptures, whether it's Paul talking about Adam, and Jesus being the new Adam, or john starting out his gospel by saying in the beginning, and he is he's assuming lightbulbs and sirens are going off. And we're making that connection, and then also echoes, and that's kind of, you know, Hayes has really played off of that word, echoes of Scripture. He has, you know, his work that goes with Scripture, and Paul, and then echoes of scripture in the Gospels. And I love his definition of echo. He defines it as different from a quotation or an explicit illusion, in the fact that an echo evokes the wider context of the text to which it alludes. Beyond which is even directly cited, it establishes an intertextual correspondence between two or more texts, allowing illuminating arcs of hermeneutical electricity to travel across the intervening spaces, as just so well,
3:26 so well written so well said something like, hey, it's only Hayes can say, right. And it actually makes sense when you read them. And then you step away, you're like, what is that?
3:34 Yeah, you're like, yeah, you're like an illuminating arc of hermeneutical electricity. Probably not too many people when they approach hermeneutics don't feel like there's any electricity involved in hermeneutics. But yeah, does such a good picture of this intertextual correspondence, and allowing, yeah, those illuminating arcs of hermeneutic electricity to jump from the pages of Genesis to the pages of Paul's writings.
4:04 Yeah. And even within that, metaphor, it, it's getting out. This goes both ways. And where it's, it's the new helps us to better understand the old and the old is absolutely essential for understanding the new so is that that electricity goes, it's not a one way current, I would imagine it's right, um, scientific thing would be right where it's going. Yeah, it's gone both ways to, and that's what the power of the Echo, though. I would, I think he would say that illusions and direct quotations have that power, as well. Right? But it's that echo. That's the subtle, it's subtle, but it shows the deep level in which the, that Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures is me quoting or idea or word is just in the mind of the author and When when he writes it, it evokes this whole context and just that's the power. Yeah, power of the echo is this electrical current,
5:09 right? Yeah. And that's so good to point out too, that it it goes both ways that it is the Hebrew Scriptures, informing the New Testament, and also the New Testament authors helping us understand better what was happening with older scriptures, especially specific connections that are being made and, and it's okay, I know you I saw you correct yourself on Hebrew Scripture Old Testament, we had that discussion with Libby. Yeah, we don't offend anyone until we will, we will bounce back and forth. And feel free to use my trademark. The vintage testimonial. So as you know, as Paul is referencing the vintage testament, think it just has a ring to it to get that going. Now we're, I'm I'm working with Zondervan on trying to get something we can get, you know, if you're listening, Zondervan, we can make that happen. Oh, come on. One thing that Hayes also notes is that within all three of those within quotations, within allusions, and within echoes, a certain literary technique is being employed. And he, he references that, that these are met ellipsis, that meaning, right, that, I think it's good to define that as well, that it's a literary technique of citing or echoing a small bit of a precursor text, in such a way that the reader can grasp the significance of the Echo, only by recalling the original context of the first touch, right? So it's, he's, it'd be the story. And, and I like that his notes that in all three of those, this meta ellipsis is happening.
6:47 Yeah, that's good to point out. And that's that electric current, kind of intertextual connection going both ways, but, and we're used to met ellipsis or intertextuality. Right, though we may not always be aware, but yeah, it's everywhere, right? I mean, this these connections, are music, there in commercials or in other literature, right? Definitely in movies. And so you get these allusions to other texts, or other movies or other songs that
7:21 when you make the connection, and can appreciate the original context, brings so much more meaning to this new text, this, this new, this new movie, and it sheds new light on what the author or the director or the writer intended, right, that's so true, yeah, when you hear something referenced in a movie, or a song, and you're like, wait, I know that this is referencing an older song or an older movie. And, and you can make that connection. And by remembering the first one, it helps you understand the power of how the new sighting of it is being used. And for that, and I think it's great just to, to remind ourselves that this is happening all around us all the time. And so it would make sense that the New Testament writers are going to do that they are going to, to speak into a culture and use these echoes and allusions and quotations in a way that is able to recall what was said before, and maybe provide a new context and a new understanding. But the only the new understanding only works if you understand the original.
8:34 Yeah, yeah. And they expect their readers to be able to make those connections. And they that's part of their way of communicating meaning in their message is for those connections to be made. Though, I think to be fair, we would say the texts ended up on their own have a level of meaning we can understand without making the intertextual links, right. However, seeing those links and appreciating those links bring so much more meaning and in significance to what what the writing or how they're saying it or why they're saying what they're saying just like with movies today or songs, you can appreciate a song without making some of the intertextual links. Right But when you do becomes all the more meaningful and powerful or something may make sense that didn't like what is that? What reference there? I don't know when right seems really confusing. Then you Oh, wait, okay, it's connecting there. Now. It makes perfect sense. Yeah.
9:35 Yeah, really.
9:36 We do it all the time. And for some reason, it's taken. Scholars like Richard Hayes and others Gk Beale, and there's a wealth of scholarship out there on this topic to kind of help us to see how this is relevant for the our New Testament hermeneutic or biblical hermeneutics. It's, it's kind of almost stating the obvious, but we've kind of missed lost sight of it. It seems like prior generations Yeah,
10:05 yeah. Yeah. And maybe, maybe perhaps like, do you think we've lost sight of it? Because in some of the, the usage of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially maybe the usage of prophecy, we're looking for that predictive capability of, of the prophecy. And so we were looking for that direct maybe connection, and and that fulfillment language, but but maybe that makes us miss some of the subtleties that the New Testament authors are doing. Mm hmm.
10:41 Yeah. I think for a long time, New Testament used to the Old Testament was done within the context of apologetics. Right? It's Look at all these prophecies that Jesus fulfills. He has to be the Promised Messiah and you know, a good, that's not a bad boy to come at it, right. But within that context, the end goal is simply showing that Jesus is the Messiah. So looking at all these prophecies, so it's this prophet, prophecy fulfillment, or prophetic fulfillment, right framework for for understanding the New Testament use of the old. And so it's valid, but it's not the only framework, right? That, that we should be looking at these texts. So if, if we think of the biblical testaments as a story, continuous, continuous story, it's really the continuation of the old in the new, but then the new as the climax of the old. And so then you're getting this this metal lips is electrical currents going back and forth, where it's more than just Isaiah prophesied. And here's the fulfillment. Well, Isaiah said some things that maybe weren't prophetic at the time, maybe he's accusing Israel of their hardness of heart. I, Isaiah six, nine and in the early chapters of Isaiah, and then Jesus comes along and applies it to his generation. Yeah, son of prophecy. When Isaiah spoke, it was a critique of his contemporaries. But now that the climax of the story comes, that critique has more meaning, more significance. And so Jesus saying, hey, what you all what you were doing to Isaiah in his day, you're doing to me in rejecting God's work and who he is and the message he's come to bring. And so it's not always prophetic fulfillment, but it's what Hayes would call figurative or type of logical, okay. The language I like to use with students is read contextual hermeneutics. It's, it's seen these vintage texts and their trademark. Yeah, that's right. Within this new context, it's the context of the climax of the story, the arrival of the kingdom, the age in which the promises have begun to be fulfilled. And now that forces us to see the old or the vintage light of the new. And that's and that's so much of the way New Testament writers and Jesus Himself seem to be using the Old Testament.
13:23 Yeah, like that kind of re contextual reading of of placing that, hey, you know, this story of Israel's hard heart, guess what this is happening again. And, and using that, in the story, within that kind of prophetic language, a lot of times the New Testament authors will use maybe the word fulfillment like this was done to fulfill what was written, how I've heard that maybe you, if we take just have a narrow view of fulfillment to be predicted that kind of maybe, you know, doesn't help us understand. How do you think the New Testament writers are using that word fulfillment?
14:08 Yeah, sometimes it is that predictive idea,
14:11 right. And that was something maybe for my summer living. And we, we talked a little bit kind of said this, at the end of the show, that this is not to negate the predictive power of prophecy, or the predictive nature of aware. And also even to note that it doesn't mean that Isaiah had to be conscious of something being predictive for it to be used as fulfillment, you know, later. And so it's not to negate that. But yeah, to maybe just try to understand, the New Testament is writers using the word fulfillment. They may be meaning something other than what we maybe assume or first think of when we think of fulfillment.
14:53 Yeah, I think I think that's, that's fair to say, um, and it's, I think, the idea or the image of filling Something up, take that idea of filling up a glass or filling up, you know, to something to where it's it brings it to its intent or where it was always meant to go since the beginning and so that that idea of fulfillment definitely resonates with some of the use of that word fulfilled, especially in Matthew's beginning of Matthew's Gospel, where he uses fulfilled many, many times right time. It is a main theme and predictive thing with the birth of the Messiah and Bethlehem that seemed to be predictive prophecy. But other times Matthew is using it to say this theme in the Old Testament story is being brought to its fullness. It's It's It's being brought to its tell us where it was always intended to go. Usually, it's the theme of God's relationship with his people. See, Think of the Matthew saying, Jesus and Mary and Joseph coming out of Egypt fulfills Hosea 11. out of Egypt, I've called my son. Yeah, look at the context of Hosea 11. It's clearly not predictive of Messiah coming out of right with his parents, it was actually looking back on God rescuing his people from Egypt. And and so it's Hosea looking back and kind of reflecting on Israel's history. And it doesn't have a predictive element in another self least it doesn't appear from the original context. But Matthew seen that theme of Jesus, or of God's relationship with his people, is being brought to its fullness with Jesus, who is the true Israel, who, who is the true son who brings who continues Israel's story but brings its to brings it to it's quite magic moment. So Matthew, there seems to be looking at Jesus as the new Israel, the true sun. And therefore, that Hosea passage has new meaning in this new context. He recontextualizes it, he fills up this theme of God and His people and God bringing his people rescuing his people from their plight. from Egypt. Yeah,
17:12 yeah. And the filling up, I think is a great is a great image of that, and helping, and Libby was offered the illustration of, you know, filling up a coffee cup, you don't want to like, hey, that sounds good. That sounds great. Right now, that's right of the full cup of a little a little, and then this fulfillment of it. And that seems to be really helpful in trying to, to understand, especially maybe what the gospel writers are doing, like, hey, know, Matthew really seems to be stressing this fulfillment. And and there are predictive nature that even if it's, and I think this is where Hayes goes, where Hayes would know that the, the, the Hebrew Scripture writer doesn't need to be conscious of something to be predictive within the New Testament writer to say, hey, wow, look at this connection. That's right. Look, and and it would be maybe much harder for Matthew, if Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem, and and he wasn't born to marry a virgin. He wasn't even within for Matthew to see all those things and make these connections like, hey, look, this is there. There is room in Hebrew Scripture for this. This is this is a completion of this story. Yeah. Now, you're maybe with that. And I've often thought about this, of how the New Testament writers are using, especially times when we look back at the original context. I mean, they will How did they get that? Yeah. You know, and sometimes we see that with Paul and with the with the gospel writers, what role do you think inspiration plays in their youth?
18:59 Yeah, good question. And I guess on the negative side, it's sometimes used this this topic is used to say the New Testament writers didn't care about the original context. They ignored it in somehow maybe even denigrate the Old Testament, Ryan's are just proof texting to get their points and Right, right. And that would undermine inspiration in that context or that interpretation.
19:25 Yeah, what I like how I like I like your point there because you're saying it would denigrate kind of inspiration of both Hebrew Scripture and you know, it would, it would maybe denigrate what the New Testament writers thought about the Hebrew Scriptures as inspired. You know, I like kind of
19:44 connect kind of how we think of, for honest, mean, the vintage testament of the Old Testament today, it's it's this, you know, we're kind of using it, how we want and, and in fitting within kind of using our context, then how All right, we'll pick and choose what we want. And that method in and of itself, could undermine this idea of a it's inspired Word of God, which Jesus in the New Testament writers over and over again saying this is God's word. So they, they didn't integrate it that way. But I think within this idea of the, the old and the new, both inspired, yeah, God's words can have meanings that extend beyond its original context, or even speak into new context. Yeah, that doesn't undermine or even alter the meaning of the original. It just shows it can be extended, to speak in new and powerful ways, which is actually what we hope for. Right? As we read the Bible today, right? We're not just reading ancient words for former people or this people way back then. But somehow, these words to these original audiences are words to us today. And so I think, when we look at the way the New Testament writers use, the old, it actually encourages us to say, God's word can still speak afresh, to our context. Now, you don't get to make it mean, whatever we want. We don't, I thought that was the fun. That would be kind of nice. Now, I actually wouldn't be right. But within kind of the hermeneutic, or the theological perspective of New Testament writers, we too can appropriate these texts and, and see the God's word extending to us today. Even new context, yeah,
21:38 yeah, it's funny, sometimes students, I've had students in Romans class, I was teaching and you really see Paul, using the Hebrew Scriptures all through Romans. And in many times, when you when you look up the original context, you're like, I need help on how this connections being made. And and I've had students, you know, who are writing their own kind of hermeneutical paper, exegetical paper. And, and if I, if I've marked them down for, for using something out of context, or using something just as a proof text, there, you know, that sometimes the cry is why Paul did this all the time. And it's so it's really interesting, because it's, it's not that, you know, and some people will be like, well, you're not Paul. So you know, he gets a pass. But I like what you're saying is that, that, actually Paul does provide a model for us on how we can approach scripture, I mean, that that hope is that scripture, will speak to us today, that scripture has an original context. But it also speaks to our context now,
22:46 partly because we're in that same story, right? We're not that different story, we need to know the act or the chapter of the story we're in, right. And that will influence how we see and maybe even apply some of the old testament to our own context. But it's, we think of our act as the church act, going from the resurrection and the return of Jesus, we need to look back at the Old Testament through the lens of the previous Act, which is Jesus, right. And so we read, in light of who he is the rival of the kingdom that he brought about his death and resurrection as the climax of the story, and that we're now continuing in that as we're connected to him. And so it's as the texts of the old applied to Jesus, they could even be extended in some ways to us as we carry on his kingdom work and seek to be his witnesses or his body, as Paul would say, in our own our own context.
23:51 Yeah. And, and it's still the same, right, that it's understanding the original context helps us. That's right, apply it to our the act right now. And so, I do like that, looking back through the lens of Jesus into Hebrew Scriptures. And it's understanding the context of both of them, you know, and that's maybe often where students run into trouble, where pastors run into trouble is when we miss, we maybe apply something and we completely disregard the original context. Again, it's not to say that scripture can't be saying a new thing to us in our context, but to connect the power, we have to kind of know that that original context and so in some ways, it is that kind of both and then there and we can, that that Paul does model something for us to be able to how we can use scripture. He also is stressing, you can't just while they misuse the the Hebrew Scriptures, you know, and maybe some well often need to remind ourselves that these these New Testament writers were steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures. They just knew them. And so they were able to make those connections. And, and so that they would be viewing them as sacred and something to use not just use for their advantage or use for their argument. But they were wanting to show that connection like, hey, look at all of these places where Jesus continues this story. It's not a new story.
25:32 Yeah. And then brings it to its fullness or its climactic moment. Yeah. It's like, if we think of Force Awakens, right, this is episode. There we go.
25:44 Which is canonical? Yeah, that's right.
25:46 So there are many who, for whom the Star Wars movies. That's, that's the world in which they live right there. They know, especially the original three and even familiar with the next three that come out. So by the time you get dark, there's a dark period in. That's right. Yeah, I guess I've heard that. But by the time we get the Force Awakens, this new movement in the story, these, the director, the writers are doing so much to connect back to the original Yeah, say, Hey, we're part of the same story.
26:18 How many echoes?
26:19 Yeah, that's right. And there's so many echoes, and you can appreciate maybe force awakens in and of itself, but right, it's, again, it when you see the connections, it makes so much more sense. And it's exciting and beautiful, and in most fans, I think, would appreciate those connections. But also, what Force Awakens does, it now provides a new kind of lens through which to look back on the old because we know how the story continues, right? The old gives new perspective, to the new or gives perspective or framework context to the new but now the new comes in kind of helps us to see the old and in a different way. It's like a mystery novel. When you get to the end. You see how it ends, and you're like, Oh, that's how it ends. And you go back and look at the story through that lens. And things start to you see things a little differently. And I think that's exactly what the New Testament writers are doing to say, yes, story continues. But it's actually reached a high point, which forces us then to go back and relook at some things. And Jesus said to the disciples on the road, do amaze for his disciples at the end of Luke 24. They're all talking about me and the scriptures are all about me. Doesn't mean every verse is about Jesus. But every every verse in every paragraph is part of this story that culminates in Jesus climax, right? And so we need to see it now, through this context, or through this new lens.
27:54 Yeah, not to the Force Awakens idea of it actually helps you, then this new lens helps you re understand the older lens or the original lens, right? You might Oh, that's it all makes sense. Now, it's all connecting. And so you do need the the new part of the story to help you read back. And, and, and the New Testament authors are, I think, just providing that for us. They're, they're helping us. And one thing that we said in the last episode that I just I think is still an encouragement for us, is when we see those quotations to take the time, or those illusions, take the time, to to go back to the original context and do some digging and say, Hey, what's going on? You know, one of the things and you and I both teach New Testament, one of the things that I know I encourage my students is that to really understand the New Testament, you have to understand the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament writers are assuming its readers. That's right, or going to know these connections. And so I think as a church, we need to really understand that, hey, this is a vital part of our story, that we need to know to understand this new lens. Now we need to, I think, read this original lens with the new glasses on Right, right. So we don't understand, but connecting them drawing that bigger, and and seeing to where, where God is taking us on maybe in the new story and and giving us that one other thing kind of before we wrap up. What I think is interesting, I've just started kind of noticing, this is particularly Jesus's use of the Old Testament. So it would be Jesus is used through the lens of of one of the gospel writers, right so Jesus's use of Hebrew Scriptures, through the lens of Matthew, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, and, and, and where he gives us the kind of familiar phrase Of Love loving your enemies that that teaching. So the end part of Matthew five. And Jesus all throughout Sermon on the Mount has been making kind of either explicit illusions or direct quotations like you've heard that it was said, but I tell you, Aaron, sorry, gives us a quote or a law from the Old Testament. And that one is always struck me as interesting. He says, you know, you've heard that it was said, Love your neighbors and hate your enemy. But I tell you to, you know, to love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you. When you look back at that original context, it doesn't say hate your enemy. And actually, when you look back in all the laws, you can't find a command in the Hebrew Scriptures that says, hate your enemy. And it seems to be I think Jesus is showing us how you can maybe take what was originally written, and we just subtly or not so subtly add to it. Yeah, and can we and mislead us that it might seem logical to go from love your enemy to Okay, then that means I'm, I can hate my, I mean, love your neighbor, to hate your enemy. Like, I've just I was only commanded to love my neighbor. That's obviously I don't need to. But I liked it, that Jesus notes, hey, we also within our teaching, within, maybe, for our context, within the maybe leadership or church or teaching a church or teaching, we can subtly add to, and I think Jesus is highlighting that. And so that was, for me, and really interesting way of how he was using the Hebrew Scriptures to show Hey, sometimes even us, in our context is first century context, we actually have forgotten the original context. Yeah. And he may be highlighting, hey, let's go back and look at that does does it say it without having to say it? He's kind of saying, does that really say hate your enemy? Like, if you really look back there, you'd realize, oh, it doesn't?
32:09 That's right. And this and this whole topic actually forces us to think if we let it creates the question, even the question, why is it the text being used this way? So it if we jump to media conclusion, hey, the wrong or Jesus got something out of context? Or Paul like, Alright, that kind of shuts the conversation or the thought process?
32:33 Yeah, didn't allow
32:34 us to explore it more. But if we let it kind of think, critically think why why is he using it this way? Is there a text that even refers to this? If not, what's going on here? Right? A little more hermeneutic of trust in the way the New Testament authors use the old, I think would go a long way than this hermeneutics of suspicion that would say, Oh, we know how to exegete Yeah, we've got you know, how are critical methods that right, definitely kind of do do better than they had at the time. And, and that, when we do that we miss out on right, on thought process, kind of thinking theologically, which is what the New Testament writers are doing as they use the old and or even forcing us to rethink, like you said, our own maybe presuppositions about the text or biases or even false texts that we've created think, right? Maybe not really isn't in the Bible. So yeah, that's that's fascinating example. Yeah,
33:37 yeah, we all have maybe so many that that we have created. And if you ask people on the street, they'd be like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that the Bible Yeah, might not be. Let's read
33:49 that. We all have those. Yeah.
33:51 Well, and I love I think that's a great place to kind of land. The plan that this approach to understanding how the New Testament writers use the Hebrew Scripture is really encouraging us to think, which seems fitting for a podcast called Jessup. Right is good time.
34:13 Sexual connection.
34:14 Yeah, we're having illuminating our hermeneutical electricity just happened. I felt it. Yeah, it was. I felt in the room. That's nice. The Yeah, is it doesn't it makes you think more critically with the text, or not, maybe critically of the texts, like your point that it's, it's maybe too easy to just say, Oh, they were wrong. Moving on, and like Well, no, what is what what is Paul doing? What are the gospel writers doing? Because as you explore that, it just opens our knowledge of both the Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament up so much and it makes these connections and it helps us actually show effort particularly for the gospel writers. it deepens that story of Jesus, that connection of who he is of making them. So thank you so much for coming on the show, and kind of combo in this with the episode with Libya, I think it's just so important for us to think about how we are approaching scripture, how the New Testament writers were approaching Old Testament net, and how we can maybe understand how the two come together, all the while, viewing it as something that is providing an example for us of how we can make those connections and what what God may be showing us now through the lens of the New Testament into Hebrew Scripture. And he's showing us that to speak into our context now, to continue in that at that word of God is continuing to speak today. That's great. Thank you so much.
35:58 Yeah.
36:00 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
36:26 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us@jessup.edu William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
In this episode Mark is joined by the Dean of the School of Christian Leadership and Faculty of Theology David Timms. David has taught and written extensively on the topic of leadership and offers a succinct and timely explanation of what a true transformational leader looks like. Much of the material comes from David’s latest book, Shape Your World: Transformational Leadership for Everyday Life.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore and we are in the studio today on the beautiful campus of William Jessup University, the sun is shining. And today on the show, we have the one, the only the Dean of our School of Christian Leadership and faculty of theology. David Timms. David, thanks for joining us on the show. Hey, Mark, good to be here. Hey, and I wanted to bring you on David specifically to talk about leadership, and really transformational leadership. A few years ago, the University updated its own mission statement to include that type of verbiage to include transformational leadership. And I know you've been researching and writing about leadership for the past three years or so. And you've recently published a book entitled shape your world transformational leadership for ever everyday life available on Amazon and other fine retailers. Just a little plug for you appreciate, you know, I try. I try. And And so with that, you know, and I think transformational leadership is very kind of particular languages seems to be shaping leadership in a certain way that some people may not be familiar with maybe how we're bringing those words together, and why it was important enough for the university to adjust its own mission statement. And so can you kind of just give us a baseline definition of transformational leadership?
1:34 Sure. Well, and this was really interesting to me, because two or three years ago, our president modified our mission statement, as a university and said that we exist in partnership with the church to educate transformational leaders for the glory of God. And it was like, so what is a transformational leader? Right? Yeah, right. We started talking with people about and we realized that most people just reduced it to Oh, these are leaders who, I don't know, make a difference. Yeah. And transform thing. They that's what they do the transparent stuff. And it was like, oh, okay, well, that's not very deep. All right. All right. So then we began looking at it more closely and realized that transformational leadership, as a theory has been out in the marketplace since the late 70s. Okay, that's 40 years old. Yeah, it's just the Christians don't know it. Right? The business place marketplace knows that well. And so we took some of the research that was done in the late 70s and early 80s, by a couple of guys, burns and bass. And most of their language just too hard for people to get their tongue and their mind around. Right. Okay. So a simple way of doing it. So add definition, transformational leadership, is producing change and building lives. And that's really what the leadership piece is, yeah, true. Authenticity, inspiration, empathy, and innovation. So you got two outcomes, and you got four ways of doing it. And these are what we call here, the six pillars of transformational leadership. And it's starting to shape our curriculum. It's certainly shaped the book I wrote. And we're realizing that that these themes are not things we're coming up with. We're really just capturing what is the latest and best research in the leadership field. And it's like, wow, okay. It's all right there in that definition that we've we've come up with.
3:32 Yeah. And it's interesting to know that it being maybe a new term for some people, or new way to describe leadership has been around since the late 70s, which for me, personally, was a beautiful and two decades, that's when I began so. So I may be as old as transformational leadership. But But with that, you like you're saying that that's been maybe in the marketplace, but the church hasn't understood that terminology. And I would say for, you know, me growing up, and even through my seminary years, it was more the kind of wording I heard was servant leadership. Yeah. And that's probably really familiar within the church. And so how do we distinguish what's the difference between servant leadership and transformational leadership?
4:19 Well, the neat The interesting thing is that at the same time that burns and bass are coming out with transformational leadership, Robert Greenleaf was coming out with servant leadership. Okay, this is all in the 70s. It was, it was a wonderful decades, a big decade. It finished with a bang when you were born. It did. So Greenleaf comes out and he's an at&t guy retires says What we really need is more servant leadership. He tries to define that. The problem is that most people I'm going to say 99% of people you meet in the church or on the street, don't have any idea what his definition of servant leadership was, right? And so the church has embraced this as a primary Because Jesus says he didn't come to be served, but to serve. And so naturally we just go, oh my goodness, then it's all about servant leadership.
5:07 I won't even noting that it didn't emerge from the church, but emerged from former at&t. Yeah, you know, it seems like Oh, how did this not emerge right within the church.
5:19 So the problem for me with servant leadership, and I've taught classes on servant leadership, so it's not like I haven't been immersed in that world, too. The problem has been that it gets very high on the server and very low on leadership. Okay. Yeah. Right. So people tend to burn out. And a quick anecdote, I was down in Chile, this last this last summer, teaching a course on leadership to pastors down there and talking about servant leadership and the fact that it's high on servant low on leadership, and this woman starts crying. And I don't speak Spanish, she doesn't speak English. So we're trying to have this communication, something I said, Is it the way I look? I'm sorry, I can't help that on this way. But the tears are rolling down my cheeks. And, and I sort of just have to pause and like, so what's going on for you? And she says, oh, my goodness, I've always thought that my role as a church leader, was just to do everything that people asked me or expected of me. And I am so exhausted, and I've been feeling lately. I can't go on. Right. And she said, that's what I thought servant leadership was, bless her heart, she's been absolutely driven to the ground, right? Because it's not a leadership model. It's an attitude that you might bring to leadership. And that's where transformational leadership is such a different beast for us. And and I love it, because it's not inconsistent with Jesus and the gospel.
6:53 Right. It's very different. Well, yeah. And I think that's a good difference to to make, because it's not that servant leadership is bad, right? transformational. transformational. Leadership is good. But it's understanding Yeah, that that servant leadership, and in trying to understand its definition, and that if its dresses one over the other, it can lead to burnout. And it can and and I think it's important to maybe find that find that balance now with those. So he said, kind of six pillars, but those before at the end, right, the four kind of characteristics through authenticity, inspiration, empathy, and innovation. What was kind of your inspiration for those for that I would steal that word?
7:40 Well, those four words are an attempt to capture what burns invested. Okay. Right. So they came out and they had, you know, individualized consideration, for example, was one of their phrases. It's like, What in the world is Yeah, we went? Well, that's empathy. Right? Yeah. So what we did was we took their rather convoluted phrases, and we simply tried to make them a bit more street savvy and street accessible. Yeah, they weren't, they weren't new with us. They were our attempt to just translate burns and bass work into simple language.
8:14 Yeah. And when you hear him, I think they really do just, I mean, they're like, in bold. For me, it's like, oh, yeah, like looking at a leader who would possess those right, or be able to do those. And for me, empathy jumped out, you know, I just thought it was really interesting. Because I think a lot of times when you approach leadership, we don't often talk about empathy, right? You know, when we look at different leadership principles, and all of that. And so for me, that just was like, Okay, now I'm interested. I know how, how does this help? leaders? Yeah, so how, how does empathy help someone be a better leader, and be a transformational leader, right.
8:56 So if transformational leadership ultimately is about building lives, then it's about not just building the lives if you're in business, it's not about just building the life of your customer. It's about building the life of your worker, your employee. If you're in a family and see leadership, this these principles apply in every leadership context. So in a classroom, in a business, in a family, perhaps even in a marriage, though I don't think of husbands and wives as leading each other. Right? The principles are still relevant. But the empathy piece then becomes core to how we how do we build lives? Because if you don't care about building lives, you just do it. Right, right. So what we began to realize looking at the research was that there's a lot of people saying that the most effective leaders who are transforming lives and communities are people who listen, care and respond. And really, they're, they're the key words for us under the empathy heading. So empathy isn't just As the man, I really feel bad for you that you're having a bad day, I hope it gets better. This is about listening. It's about caring. And then it's about responding as well as creating new environments. It's about being sensitive to the needs. And we're seeing this already in really effective workplaces where people say, Oh, so in your family structure, it's more important that you as the male be sort of a available to help with the kids. Okay, so when that when the kids are born, we're going to give you paternity leave, used to be just maternity, right? empathy says, actually, our understanding of family dynamics means that maybe we are a bit more sensitive to that. What about places offering grief leave? We don't do that. Yeah, some businesses are starting to do that. But when you lose someone you love, to be able to access grief leave in the workplace would be a real act of empathy on the part of your leaders. Right, that sort of thing.
11:02 Yeah. And I mean, for me, when I hear things like that, I can get behind that right. And I think, man, that's the type of leader I would want to be. And then I would follow right to, to really understand someone is listening to me and caring about my needs, like that, that draws me then into their leadership rather than kind of this positional leadership, right? Or are you kind of noted in the book, like, burns, looked at what he called a transactional leadership versus transformational leadership, idea of give and take, or a leader that focuses on the beliefs, needs, and values of their followers. And it seems to be a shift in leadership, huge,
11:46 it's huge, because a lot of us have, have had the transactional model modeled to us. Right? Right, right. So I'm paying you you do the job. I'm buying so much of your time, I want you to clock in, I want you to clock out. That's the way we've thought of leadership. And it's, it is so so distancing between people, it doesn't create a culture, certainly not an empathetic culture. Right. So the transformational leadership just is an entirely different environment. Yeah, it gets me excited. I love this stuff.
12:24 Yeah, yeah. And I think you're right to point out that, for me, those four I think jumped out to me because, because maybe we've seen modeled the other way. And and you realize that that type of leadership can only go so far, and they can only kind of demand maybe obedience out of position. Or that and so to see this type of leader, you know, I think it really does then build a culture and build a place where you would want to follow Yeah, leader.
12:56 You know, some some leaders get pretty nervous about this stuff. Yeah, I'm not naturally empathetic. Well, you fooled me, you have fooled me. Well, and it's something I've had to learn right with time. Yeah. Because not everyone's comfortable, then, you know, empathy is a soft word for some people, right? It's like, man, if I show you too much empathy, give you an inch or take a mile. You know, we'll never get the job done will fall behind. I don't want to walk on eggshells remember a passive one time, you know, in a very well known Australian church that exports music around the world. My name butcher, I'm picking up what you're putting down, I'm picking up but one time said to his worship leader just called her in and said, Hey, you just need to know I, I can't be walking on eggshells around you so I don't need your emotionalism in the office and around the office. And you know, that's the that's the opposite. Right to to an empathetic leader. And so important for for us to embrace empathy, but not always an easy thing for us to do.
14:05 Right. And it does seem to be like a sad some people could could view it as a soft word. And there does seem to be a stress maybe culturally, that the leader has to be strong and maybe even heavy handed. And, and definitely type a and and out there. And I feel like empathy does bring in just a different picture of that leadership and maybe helps us understand it didn't doesn't need doesn't necessarily mean that the leader is passive. Right, totally, but, but empathetic,
14:37 well, you bring this down mark, right down to family level. And you think about parents who are in fact leading their kids, right. I mean, I don't know any parent that would argue that, hey, I don't want to produce change and build the lives of my kids. Right, right. We're hoping that we will see the kids grow up and mature. We do want to see their lives built And these principles are the same. So, you know, there's a lot of talk about us because we're men, but a lot of dads who, for whom empathy is a soft word as well, like, you know what, that's what a mother does. She listens when they're having a bad day, she listens when times are tough. And I'm really realizing that a lot of our young sons in particular could really benefit from some empathy from their dads, who said, I want to be this kind of leader in your life, you're my son, I want to I want to listen, you know, I want to care. And I want to respond to what, what you're feeling and what you're going through right now. And families where that's present. We all know this, right? I usually thriving families, right? Yeah, we just have been able to put our finger on what's so different about you than about us. And in this case, empathy is one of those words.
15:50 Yeah. And that carries over into all areas of leadership. I love how in the book to you, you highlight that, that sometimes when we think leader we think just like head of an organization or that but leadership is in so many areas, and from the parental level to organizational level? And that But yeah, I think it's, it's important, then maybe for parents like to view like, Hey, we as leading, we do want to see them?
16:17 Oh, no. Well, in my wife and I, we talked about this all the time. But she's, for example, she's a mentor mom at mops at our church. But she'll see she'll be at tables with these young mums who are just desperate for connection. And she can talk about the leader of the table and just say, Oh, so and so did this. So well, but didn't do that. And we're realizing, oh, even a volunteer table leader at mops, right. It's still about authenticity, inspiration. Yeah, the and innovation it right. And if I grab those words, and I could apply them in that little setting, it would make a real difference to these young moms who are coming looking for help. Right?
17:04 Yeah, that's so true. And now in your book, you listed three myths of leadership kind of right at the beginning. And I wanted to bring one of those up, because it's a myth that I think I'm inclined to believe. Not that I'm going to fight you over it today. But it was the the myth. Leadership is all about character. Right? And so explain to me like when you say that's a myth, what do you what do you mean, cuz?
17:31 Okay, so. And I may have overstated? I don't think I did, because in Christian circles in particular, right, we, we've read the news going way back to Enron, and all of the business failures since then, and were fundamentally a failure of character. There's a lack of integrity, lack of honesty, there's a lack of all sorts of things. And so we've said, if we could just clean up the character of people, we would have a better lead country. I just think that's a myth. Okay. And I think it's a myth, because some of the nicest people I know, who are as sincere and true and honest, as the day is long, who are caring and thoughtful and gentle and forgiving. They're just not leaders. Right. And so, the myth is that character alone would make the leader clearly I want to have you know, I wasn't going to bring that. Yeah, but but if we're, you know, a lot of times what we've done is we've we've kind of defaulted and said, Oh, the real problem is a failure of character. So let's do character studies. And that will produce a generation of great leaders, and it just doesn't, because leaders are so much bigger than that. All right.
18:45 I think that's a good distinction. Right? The character alone, right. Does not and, and that is good, you know, because because I'm kind of inclined to look at that and think, yeah, you just have these qualities. But yeah, there there are leadership qualities. And I think maybe when you combine them with good character, offshore, you have you have the, you have the best
19:09 well, and that's really is what we've tried to capture in that word authenticity. The first of those four words. Authenticity is really integrity, humility, transparency, vulnerability. It's all of that right, Carrie?
19:23 Yeah. Yeah. Which is character. That is there's not I just started with Yeah, it was interesting when I saw that, because the other ones I was like, Okay, yeah, I see. And then I read that as a myth, and I was like, Oh, wait, I guy, especially, like you were saying, we've seen so many examples of failure of character. And, and often, there can be good leaders who also have character issues, right. And so there is a, like, maybe a tension between those two, where there are leadership principles you could be good at, but also have have some character issues. But then if you're 100%, on the character side, there may be leadership issues that you need. And no have in that, at least maybe in leadership roles in large scale or
20:13 Yeah. And I'm kind of careful Mark about the phrase good leaders. Okay. Because I think the word good is almost an ethical term. You know it right. Qualitative? Yes, yes. I think there are people who can get the job done, who lacked character, right? Whatever the job of the moment might, right, right, they can be effective in that, but I'm not sure that makes them a good leader. Yeah. And and, you know, chatting with you earlier this morning about just our propensity to honor people who who are productive. And say, if you can just get the job done, you know, whether that's at the political level, whether it's a church level, or whatever the level, right? If you can get the job done, we'll consider you a good leader. I'm thinking I'm not sure that it's all about getting the job done, because it's about building lives as well.
21:04 Right. I think that's a great distinction. And bringing that in that, that often maybe when we look at leadership, it is just whoever can get the job done. get the job done the fastest. Right, that, that gets that. Yeah, that may be characteristic of being a good leader. And, and I think it's important, and for me, and my life, and kind of my, my leadership role at the church. And then here at the university. You know, I've, I've been what maybe I like to call a reluctant leader, okay. And so where, where I've maybe kind of felt I've focused on maybe character side and those type of things, but have always been a little reluctant on maybe the leadership, position or qualities. So what what maybe advice would you have for the reluctant reader, or a person who maybe is in a leadership position, but didn't maybe strive for that? Right, right. And now find themselves?
22:07 Mark, step up? Okay, well, no, I think I think it's embracing the vision to produce change and build lives, and reluctant leaders. And I get that I see a lot of reluctant leaders, and at times I have been the same. Yeah. I've been reluctant when people have just asked me to do a job, Hey, could you manage this, could supervise that, could you get this thing done? Isn't there someone else that would do it better than me, right. And what I've really lost sight of is a calling to produce change and build lives. And when I realized, even here at the university, and my job is is not to run programs, is to produce change, changing the lives of students, which is ultimately changing society, culture and society. That's my, that's my job and to build lives. It's not just the students lives, but it's the lives of faculty, and staff. And when I realized that I've got this amazing calling into leadership, and my, my, my change producing and my life building is very particular. But it's what we all do. I do this at home with my boys. I've got three sons, right? So it's the same call. It's just lived out differently. And when I get that, it's like, oh, that's what this is all about. I'm a little less reluctant at that point. Right? I can lean into that.
23:37 Yeah, yeah. And I agree with that. When you when you frame it in the way of producing change and building lives instead of a task, right? I think yeah, that's where you can be like, Alright, I'm, I am committed to that I am. And and there may be tasks within the the job that you have, or the leadership position you have, that you have to get done, or are savvy enough to, to gather people around you who can help you and do that. And I'm definitely leaning into that idea of producing change in building lives. in your own life, maybe who or what has influenced you the most in terms of leadership? Oh, wow.
24:27 There have been a number of people at pivotal moments that I didn't know were pivotal moments. Right away, right? That's, like, Oh, I didn't know that was so important until later when I look back and wait, that was so important, right. I've had a lot of different people. Some people I can quickly point to and some I have slowly become aware of. I think one of the ones I've slowly become aware of frankly, is my dad. Yeah. You know, you'd think I'd be quickly aware but I've realized, just, you know, now, nowadays, as I'm going, oh my goodness, I have learned so much from him that I didn't realize I'd learned, right. He's a guy who's modeled faithfulness, I was model consistency, who's modeled integrity, and I can go on. But then there have been those people that have popped up at various moments in time. And you know, just that one conversation with somebody. And it's like, I think of a guy named Ben marold, who was a pastor of a church and he and his wife took me in when I first came to the United States, I lived with them for about a year. And he just would sit down with me from time to time, he was not a people person, he's still not. He's an introvert, but but a great leader, in every sense of that word. But from time to time, he'd sit down and he just, I just say, Ben, let me just get some pearls of wisdom from you. I want to talk to you, right, because I'm living with the guy. And I actually wrote notes in the back of my Bible that he would just just comments he would make about leadership. Very, very formative for me. A guy named john Thornhill in Western Australia, made a passing comment to me one time, that was just set me free. And a burden of I felt like I hadn't been pastoral enough with him and with the church. And he said, David, we didn't. We didn't come because you were pastoral. And at the time, I thought it gave me great liberty and freedom. I've learned I still want to be empathetic, right? Yeah. But you know, these are things that have been very formative. And they've been leaders in my life, in that regard has been great. But there's always somebody if I keep my ear to the ground. There's always somebody that God puts there at key moments to just say a word or or just have a comment that that will reshape or refocus me and I just have to live with my ear open like that all the time.
26:52 Yeah, I think it's so important to, to be able to look back and to remind yourself of what where you saw leadership modeled, how was modeled to you in those moments, where someone who maybe not even realize they were, where they were leading in your life, right, that they were speaking that, and you can look back and think, wow, that moment was so pivotal,
27:14 I can tell you, the people who haven't been key leaders for me, and they're the ones who have come across as authoritarian, dictatorial, demanding, insistent that they're not the strong personalities that have run over the top of me that they've not been influential for me. Right. So the people I'm describing have been transformational leaders in the sense that I write about in the book.
27:36 Yeah, it's so true. And and what's interesting is probably, if people on the outside looking at what have saw those others as the leaders right in your life, and to note that it is yeah, the ones who had maybe a quiet impact. paradox isn't right. It really is. And it's, it's kind of the paradox of transformational leadership, of being able to be a leader be able to be out there, pushing change, right, not just managing change, and producing that in building lives. But doing it in a way that has authenticity, inspiration, empathy, and innovation, right? It's so important. Well, I'm just so excited to have you on the show, or have had you on the show. And I'm really glad that when, when I read a book from someone, and especially It was about leadership, I'm here to say and I'm glad that I can say that you definitely model what you have written in this book. Thanks again. So it's always one thing to see a disconnect between what someone says and writes and how they are. But you've really modeled that and and so it's it's made I think the book even more impactful to see that that this is coming from a life that has lived this out and like you said have has learned this along the way and and still learning the importance of those those characteristics in your life. It was it was very kind of you appreciate that. I tried to be kind that's what I'm working on. But no, thank you so much. It was great having you on and we're gonna actually end this episode with a little segment that I've done with other guests so far right? It will surprise segment it's called nerdy Would you rather alright nerdy, which rather Yeah, you know, I tried to sneak it in do it and I try to make it I try to make it specific to maybe the different you know, research focuses and background so I kind of I came up with a leadership one right so again, leadership point and so it's nerdy, would you rather and you have to answer but then also explain maybe why and I I tried to pick two kind of key figures. Then maybe leadership in the last, you know, especially of the 20th century. Oh, Joe hope I recognize him. Yeah. As I think I think you will recognize them. Okay. But but they are they're not from Australia. So. So yeah. So there, but I think you will I think, you know, I had I had to go, I had to go World War Two right hand to go kind of mid 20th century. So would you rather, would you rather have dinner with Franklin Roosevelt, FDR, or Winston Churchill? Oh, I could get myself in trouble with this one, right. No, I think you have freedom you have freedom to?
30:44 I think I would go with Churchill. Now, because I'm an Ozzy, and you know, we're still part of the Commonwealth and all that stuff. I think I go with Churchill, because he's such an enigmatic figure. And he was dealing with such a depth of crisis in the country. Right. I mean, World War Two was a crisis for the world. Yeah. But, but the very existence of Britain was under threat. And at a time when people really needed vision and hope and leadership, because survival was on the line. I think he was a fascinating guy. I'm not sure he was a great leader. Right. Right. Right. But he certainly had to lead through crisis. And I think it'd be fascinating to have dinner with him, and just chat about that. And see what he had to say in terms of, you know, what was happening within himself? Yeah. What How did he decide to communicate with English people? I think it'd be really interesting guy to chat with, even though on this side of the pond, that there was a lot going on, too.
31:50 Right. Right. But now Yeah, he definitely, to me stands out as as an interesting figure in history and would definitely make a good and kind of controversial, right. And controversy. Yeah. And I'm sure at dinner, there would be several drinks, coming his way, you know, based on what I've read on his life, which is interesting in it. And it's interesting to note that he was he was at a pivotal time in history. Right. And he emerged and and was able to lead through that doesn't doesn't necessarily mean, if there wasn't a crisis, we would look back and be like, oh, wow, he was a great leader and probably wouldn't even have become Prime Minister, maybe if you hadn't, if that hadn't been going on his time. So it's interesting to know, maybe him not having some of those qualities before, but in the moment, was just able to step up and provided exactly what was needed,
32:47 especially in a crisis. Right. And he might be a great example of what we're talking about earlier, when we distinguish between an effective leader and a good leader. We might say he was very effective in that moment for that purpose. Right. But a lot of people would argue he wasn't particularly good. Before.
33:05 That's true. I have seen the movie is. Well, thank you so much for I would love to be in on that meal as well and just kind of hear, hear the conversation. But thanks again for coming on the show. Again. It'll be you know, many more shows to come with us guess I appreciate it. Thanks, Mike. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
33:54 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
In this episode Mark is joined by Assistant Professor of Hebrew Scriptures Libby Backfish to explore how we should approach New Testament authors use of the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly prophetic messages. The New Testament authors appear to be reading the Hebrew Scriptures in new and “out-of-context” ways. Libby helps us understand the meaning of fulfillment as well as the near and far nature of prophecy.
TRANSCRIPT 0:08 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And today on the show, I'm delighted to be joined by another member of our faculty of theology, Libby Backfish. So happy to be here. Thank you. Good to have you. And Libby wants to take a moment just to tell the listeners what subjects you teach here and what your research focuses. Yeah, so
0:25 I teach Old Testament subjects, I get to teach the freshmen intro courses I teach. Hebrew, I teach classes on certain books of the Bible. I'm teaching Isaiah right now, which is a lot of fun. I'll be teaching judges Joshua Ruth next semester. But my research my dissertation doctoral research was actually on the Psalms. I love Hebrew poetry. Yeah. And I looked specifically at how those Hebrew poems were translated in the Greek translation of the Septuagint. And how certain poetic features such as wordplay were rendered into another language. So I got to play with the Hebrew and the Greek and look at the poetry and then of course, look at all that rich theology of how God presents himself in Psalms.
1:05 That's so good, that's so good. And then it's gonna be so helpful for today for a conversation, because we really want to kind of look at because it's gonna deal with both kind of Greek and Hebrew, right? And we really want to look at how the New Testament authors are using the Old Testament. And that spans really the whole of the Old Testament, right from the Psalms to the Prophet, specifically, the prophets will kind of highlight. But before we get kind of into that, I did have a question for you. Do you prefer the Old Testament or the Hebrew Scripture?
1:38 Well, I think there I use different terms for different contexts. When I'm in an academic context where there are Jewish and agnostic. Scholars, I usually say Hebrew Bible, it's more of a neutral term. But as a Christian, I usually say Old Testament, it's what the church is used to,
1:52 right residents are used to, and I teach New Testament class. And I often tell my students, you know, by calling one Old Testament and New Testament is not meaning one is bad. One is good, right? It's not Oh, that one's old. I want the new one. Now, I have proposed that we change it a little. So I don't know if this will catch on now. So I propose that we keep New Testament. But if we change the old testament to like, the vintage test, Oh, that sounds very hipster. Yeah. readers. I could read the New Testament. But what about the vintage test? I like that. I think Zondervan could run with this. And we could have a vintage testaments do it by Christmas, we can do that. But no, but I agree, I also understand the wanting to broaden that focus of and actually maybe narrow our focus actually, on the original context of the Old Testament, right? reminding ourselves that this is the scriptures of the Hebrew people. Right, like, and I think that's helpful by by noting, Hebrew Bible, or by noting, you know, the scriptures of Israel like this, this helps us remind ourselves that, hey, this isn't just like part one of the Bible that is leather bound.
3:10 And it wasn't written directly to us, one of the mantras I say in my class is that the Bible was written for us, but it was not written to us, the old or the New Testament, which is why we need to get into that context and understand how those original readers and listeners would have
3:26 heard it. Yeah, it's so important. And I stress that to a New Testament. And, and I kind of stress it as this is why we we gently force you to take these classes, right? Because because we need to because it wasn't written for us, it is for us, but it wasn't written to us I like that and and we have to understand this original context and what then that actually creates a bigger meaning for us now, right? Like when you understand that, and I think that's going to be the same for understanding how the Hebrew Scriptures have influenced the New Testament. It's you know, when when I tell the students this and New Testament all the time to really understand the New Testament you have to understand the Hebrew Scripture. I'm so glad you tell your students testament now I do tell them there's a whole lot more reading in the Hebrew Scripture. So I you know, I take pride in that that in the New Testament, like hey, we're shorter here. Like we can read your the easy class, we can get this Hey, now easy. I don't know if I would say that. No, but but it's, it's helpful. Because when you read the New Testament, you see so many, either direct quotations or illusions, echoes, we'll bring that up later. You see those? And and if you don't have a framework, they just go right by you.
4:44 Yeah, even just the themes and the concepts like covenant law, right? All these ideas that would have been so understandable to the New Testament writers. We have to go back to the Old Testament and see what are those ideas they're pulling on and building on?
4:57 Yeah, and now in sometimes when When I've kind of traced down those old testament, or Hebrew Scripture, quotations or allusions, when you get to the original context, it kind of seems different. You're like, Oh, wait, like, what does this mean? Like this isn't? Maybe I've seen where Matthews coming from, but there's also this whole other context. And and so we're really want to kind of focus in on that, you know, maybe because sometimes that's a charge against or a complaint against the New Testament writers that they're taking it out of context, that they're being maybe opportunistic or haphazard with how they use Hebrew Scriptures. And and sometimes, I mean, not, not too many, maybe Christians do the work of actually looking up the the reference. But when you do, it can bring up questions like, sure. And what does the author doing here? When you kind of approach this topic? Where do you begin, like, how do you start to understand how the New Testament writers are going to be using Yeah, prescription?
5:57 Yeah, and specifically, we're talking about prophecy. I try to bring up the common misconception of how prophecy works. People often think that there's one verse in the Old Testament that directly points to and only points to one fulfillment in the New Testament, right right here. It's actually a lot bigger than that. So you brought up Matthew, and I've got a couple examples I like to use in glass. In Matthew quotes, Hosea 11. One and Hosea 11. Verse one says, When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt, I called my son and if you look that up in the whole context of Hosea, Jose is clearly talking about Israel, the nation of Israel coming out of Egypt in the exit and the exit, right, right. And if you have any question, verse two says, the more they were called, the more they went away, they kept sacrificing to the balls, and it keeps going to where it's clearly talking about sinful Israel. But then you go to Matthew in chapter two, verse 15, when he's talking about Joseph and Mary and Jesus fleeing to Egypt to get away from crazy King Herod, right. It says this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt, I called my son. And so we're kind of looking at Matthew, like, Matthew, Oh, come on, what are you doing? Right? Yeah, like, what's the original content? And is that a legitimate use of Hosea, but what Matthew is doing is he isn't saying Hosea 11, one was only talking about Jesus. He's saying this established a pattern that was fulfilled, of course, in Israel, but it was also in most fully fulfilled in Jesus now. So he's using it as a picture of what was happening in his experience there.
7:29 Yeah. Hey, is Richard Hayes out of Duke Divinity School, he kind of highlights that as figuring what is happening, right? It's like a prefigure and it helps, then Matthews readers Connect, make that narrative connection, right? Like, hey, Jesus coming out of Egypt. Whoa, I've heard that before, right? Like this is the children of Israel coming out of Egypt. This is now this freedom from slavery, right? So he's Matthews trying to connect all of these thoughts, all of these images are all of those patterns. I love that word pattern that are happening so that they can get this bigger picture. Yes, making
8:08 an analogy on of on the most important redemptive event that they know of in the Old Testament, right would have made a much stronger impact than if he just said, and they went there.
8:17 Right. Yeah. And then they went to Egypt, you know, and left it hit that, you know, and it was important. Yeah, he's like, no, this is now. Now I think there's also right and sometimes the misconception is to misread Hosea and say he's only mentioning, you know, Jesus, at that time. But yeah, do you still think it's fair for Matthew to make that connection? Because of what he's trying to do trying to just broaden this connection of these two events and saying, Wow, look at how this connects.
8:47 Yeah, and this is what I try to encourage with my students, I try to remind them, I'm not trying to take away any of the so called Messianic prophecies from the Old Testament. But what I'm trying to do is write think and hope the New Testament writers are doing is not just looking at a handful of proof texts that point to Jesus, but I'm trying to look at the whole Old Testament is pointing to Jesus. And that's what I see Jesus doing. And for example, in Luke 24, on the road to amaze, when two disciples are confused, and they're wondering what is going on? We thought he was the Messiah and he died. And Jesus, though they don't know what Jesus at the time, right explains to them not by using a few proof texts, but by showing them how all the prophets all the writings are pointing to him.
9:24 Yeah. And that's the I mean, I see. And we see that claim all through the Gospels, right that, that Moses was writing about me, right when he says it, right that this is, and so yeah, for the New Testament writers to connect it. And I like you're saying not just to proof texts, not just to Hey, look at these. It doesn't. Now Matthew does a lot of bringing in kind of that fulfillment theme. He's like, hey, look at this. Look at Jesus, right so we can really kind of deal with him. Yeah, it would be kind of we would miss Matthew, maybe the power of Matthew if we viewed it just as Matthew said. Hey, look at these verses. There's a Jesus, I can't believe you don't believe this, that this is, you know, there's a bigger story and there's maybe a bigger purpose of what Matthew was trying to do. One thing that we see in Matthew is the use of Isaiah so much. And I know you're teaching a class on Isaiah right now. So I wanted to kind of bring that up, like, for one kind of first question, why Isaiah, why why does Matthew rely and the other gospels to specifically Isaiah 40? They kind of a lot of time Mark starts with that. Right? And there's this reference of good news within that Isaiah 40. But why is there as a whole, do you think the gospel writers really drawn to, to him?
10:43 Well, I think Isaiah was important within the Jewish community, we see it copied so much at Qumran, and it was an important text that they would have known and Isaiah speaks so much of those dual themes of judgment and hope and looking forward to a Messianic age. And so I think it was quite easy for the gospel writers to say, here's the fulfillment, the ultimate fulfillment of those promises of that hope of that end of exile, that restoration that we see. And hey, by the way, all these figures foretold in Isaiah, be they kingly figures, or servant figures. They're all ultimately, and most climactic Lee fulfilled in Jesus. Yeah, even though that may have been surprising for the original audience to be like, Whoa, you mean the king that was promised in Isaiah 11 is the same as the suffering servant and 5253. Whoa, we didn't see that coming, right. Yep.
11:31 Yeah, like connecting dots, maybe was even in the text of Isaiah. And then connecting Yeah. And
11:37 then what's interesting, too, you mentioned Richard Hayes, because I know Richard Hayes looks at Paul's use of Isaiah. And Paul was less concerned with seeing Jesus and Isaiah and more concerned with seeing how Isaiah helps us understand ecclesiology and how the church functions now with the Gentiles being grafted into Israel. Yeah. So they're both looking at Isaiah for different different reasons. Yeah,
11:57 Paul's Paul's trying to say like, hey, Gentiles coming in isn't necessarily a brand new concept. In the plan, all right, yeah, that this fits in. And I think that's what Yeah, the gospel writers seem to be doing the same thing like Jesus coming, and the Incarnation and all of that, isn't this like wild, you turn right or left turn in the narrative, but that there's been these kind of categories, or patterns that are built that are going to help them then maybe see Jesus as that fulfillment?
12:29 Yeah. But I think it's important too, that when we look at how the New Testament writers are using Isaiah specifically, they're not saying Jesus is the first and only fulfillment. Right, we make. One of my favorite theologians on this topic is Paul Wagner. And he has a really helpful analogy about a coffee cup being filled. So any intrigued already? Yes. If any listeners know Mark Moore, he has this awesome stainless steel coffee mug that he always carries around stuck to my hand. Yes. So imagine Mark Moore going to a really nice coffee shop and see this and they offer several coffees, and he doesn't know what coffee he wants, and they've got like three or four? And they say, well, we'll give you a taste of each one. Oh, no, it wouldn't be good if they feel that coffee cup all the way to the top, because then you'd have four cups of coffee. Yeah, it would be over. So they give you just a taste, which is perfectly appropriate for the context. But then after you taste those four different than you choose, you know, I want to go with the dark roast and they feel it all the way to the top. Okay. And Paul Wagner says what a lot of times the New Testament writers are doing with these Old Testament prophecies or they're recognizing that they were fulfilled in their old testament context, okay. And in a way that would have been appropriate and understandable to the original context. But then now in Jesus Christ, they've been filled up all the way. Okay, right. Oh, all the way up to the Yeah, like that full cup of coffee that you chose.
13:47 Yeah, no, that's such a good illustration. For one now I want a cup of coffee. I have to stop the podcast and move on now. But but that is, yeah, that these tastes and now, the fulfillment in Christ isn't a first and only fulfillment, but it is the most complete fulfillment. And that's because yeah, when you read Matthew, like Matthew one, and he's gonna be referencing Isaiah seven, which I now want to talk to you about. But he says it that way says all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet right. And so I can see how sometimes you could read that sentence and think, Oh, this was just a predictive verse one to one correspondence, right dry. And and yeah, and thinking of fulfillment more in the lens of this is the most complete fulfillment, but it was fulfilled. And then we have that really familiar phrase, especially around maybe the holiday season, right? The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him a manual. Now in the original context, how should we understand that and Isaiah seven?
14:47 Yeah, I love bringing students to this passage because it illustrates this idea of filling up and patterning of prophecy so well. So if you look up Isaiah 714, it seems to be pointing directly to Jesus. Therefore the Lord himself will give you Sine and the U happens to be a he has who was a king of Judah and he was an unfaithful King. And the Lord is giving him a sign to buffer his strength and his faith and his trust the Lord because what's happened is the northern kingdom and the Syrians have all coalition against Judah, the southern kingdom, and he has is literally shaking because of this political upheaval running in 735 BC, long time ago, right? And Isaiah is saying, No, here's a sign that will show you that you can trust the Lord in the sign is that not a virgin actually a young maiden and
15:35 I did read that that the out of the Septuagint where we were just a virgin.
15:42 Yeah, and I'll mention that in a minute. But he's saying this young woman is pregnant right now not will be pregnant, the grammar is she is pregnant is and she's going to give birth to a son and that young woman could have been Isaias wife could have been has his wife so the baby could have been has a Kaia. Right, it could have been just a random woman. But the point is that that child is going to bear the name God with us. And that should give a he has trust. Yeah, God because all throughout Isaiah, there's this emphasis, trust the Lord, don't trust other nations. Don't trust a Syria don't trust Egypt. And please do not trust yourself trust
16:16 point. And so maybe sums up the whole testament, right? Like, trust the Lord.
16:23 Yeah. And so in the context, clearly, it's talking about a baby who knows what baby that was born in the seven hundreds BC. And then when Matthew says, after the angel of the Lord tells Joseph that Mary has not been fooling around, but she's actually been impregnated by the Holy Spirit. And he says, No, this was actually to fulfill or literally to fill up into complete fill that cup of this prophecy saying Behold, the end here, he says, virgin shall give birth. Right? So what's happened with that term, which in the Hebrew was just young maiden, and we know it's just young maiden, because other places that word Alma is used, it's used of a woman who's had sex, but she just hasn't had a baby yet. Gotcha. the Septuagint the Greek translation renders it with a word that by the time the gospel writers were writing meant virgin, okay, so it fits what Matthew was doing it early, because Mary, we believe literally was a virgin. Right, right. But 200 years prior, when the Septuagint was first translating that section, that word did not mean virgin. Yeah, young woman. So and this happens with language, right? Language evolves. So like, I like to give the example if my grandfather told my grandmother, hey, you look so pretty engaged today. Right? I would have just been telling her she looked pretty unhappy. Whereas right, if my husband tells me I look gay today, I'm gonna wonder if you were to divorce,
17:43 right? Yeah, like this. Yeah. Language and words are different. Yeah. different meaning. And, and it's really interesting to note that about that word, you know, because that could I could see that being used, again, as a charge against Matthew, like, oh, that word didn't even mean that maybe he's changing. But he was a part of the change in language that was happening. And that was seeing that in the Septuagint. And seeing that change. And then for Matthew, he's saying, whoa, hey, yeah, let's connect this guy. Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm he's doing nothing more than just pointing to the Septuagint translation, basically saying, hey, look, what's happening here?
18:22 Look, not only does this fill the cup perfectly, but hey, this kind of chance evolution in language. Right, divine providence, right.
18:30 Yeah. This is that this is helping us understand this passage in Isaiah even more, yeah, and the fulfillment. And I think it's helpful to, to make that distinction, that there is a an original context and even an original fulfillment of that child, right? That, especially noting the language that she is pregnant at the time, right? So Isaiah is writing about a contemporary. And it's important to know that because that helps us maybe understand that these prophecies are not trying to be that one for one prediction. But it will be more retrospectively, the New Testament writer looking back at that original event, and the event of Jesus and saying, watch this connection, right, look at this connection. And that seems to be what Hayes harps on the most this idea that for him, the New Testament writers are being more retrospective than they Hebrew writer being kind of prospective. right then. And, and so he often uses a phrase called figural. Reading, right, reading those figures and noting these connections. Yeah. and and the the kind of the key there for him is that that type of reading of figure reading doesn't presume that Isaiah is conscious of Acting of future Messiah or that, but rather, Matthew is using that to connect these two events and to show this wider kind of narrative that's happening. I think that's a helpful way to, to approach what, what Matthew is doing. Especially with with Isaiah. Yeah.
20:22 Yeah. And I want to be clear, too, that I'm not proposing that there's that there's not supernatural prophecy happening, right? It was giving a true prophecy of what no one else knew at that time. Right. And these prophecies were things that often happened in the future to confirm that their words from the Lord were true. So there's definitely a supernatural element. They are telling God's message. I'm not trying to downplay that at all. But often that message was relevant to the people in the immediate context.
20:48 Yeah, that's what and I was talking to Cynthia about this, who's also another Hebrew Bible professor here. And she was kind of stressing that at the profits were as, as diplomatic people, as servants of God, they were concerned with the present moment, you know, they were given God's truth in the present. And that it that again, has supernatural prediction that, but it also was concerned with that time, and yeah, and and I think, again, it's important, I think, sometimes we look at the Old Testament prophets, more through the lens of Nostradamus, and maybe what they were doing like this is someone just trying to write about something that they that isn't connected to their time. But yeah, the prophets were speaking a message to their setting.
21:39 Yeah, they were fourth telling much more than more telling, even though they definitely were foretelling the test of a true prophet was whether or not their prophecies would come true. Yeah, often those prophecies were just to confirm that the words God was giving them were going to be true to them. And most of those words, the vast majority, were repent. Right. Or have hope, like Isaiah 40. And following have right, you know, judgment is over. And there's restoration coming soon.
22:06 Yeah, that there's some good news. Right, yeah. Literally gospel. Right. Yeah, literally. And that's, that's so cool that that mark really does that right away. Like he draws Isaiah 40. And even Paul does that in his writings, when Paul uses good news. He kind of references Isaiah 40. Well, this, this idea that, hey, this concept of good news, while it has Roman, you know, kind of has as Roman usage, right, and the good news that, hey, we have a new Emperor, and he's going to provide all of these for us. There was also this Jewish understanding of from Isaiah of Hey, good news. Like, there will be a leader who will protect us, there will be and your way will be your salvation, and God will be with us. Yeah, God will be with us. And, and now then, for the New Testament writers to bring that in and say, hey, yeah, this is the good news. The good news that Jesus is here, this is the good news that fulfills Isaias longings and the good news that a Roman audience could understand as well. Yeah, we have this new king, this, this, this, this new Emperor who's going to provide for us? And in that we have, we have hope? What are some other ways? So we've talked a little bit about kind of Old Testament prophecy? What are maybe some other ways that New Testament writers are using the Hebrew Scripture?
23:36 Well, yeah, and not just quotations and also echoes like Richard Hayes has talked about, but also I would, I would argue, too, that the New Testament writers saw Jesus not just as a Promised Messiah, but as Israel as the perfect Israel. And so we see this continuity between the world and how sin entered the world. And so God chose a nation of Israel, a particular nation for his plan of redemption. And then from that nation who couldn't keep covenant, well, he, they look forward to an agent and Messiah. Yeah, someone could and Jesus stood there as perfect Israel. But in so doing, he then calls the church to be grafted on to Israel, who then are to extend that to the world. So we have this large scope of the world narrowing into Israel focused on a particular divine agent, and then again, extending out to include Israel, the church and then the world. So I think that's one way of seeing continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And I think one way that the New Testament looks back at the old
24:40 right Yeah, I like that stressing kind of Jesus as the new Israel, Jesus as as the faithful Israelite yes can fulfill the covenant keep the covenant light to the nation. Yeah, everything is real was called to do and be and yeah, and then expose that light To yeah everyone to the nation's to the Gentiles and, and is interesting throughout the New Testament we see the church then struggled with that part, right? They kind of maybe started to see Jesus and then they started to be like, but hey, what does this mean for Jindo? Oh, interesting? Yeah. And that's so it's interesting you brought up that's the way Paul then is like, No, no, this also right. So this is Jesus and he connects to the patterns, the Gentiles also connect to
25:28 it. So it's easy to look back at Israel and think, Wow, you are so dense, didn't you see you should have been a light to the nations and then the church. Right? Oh, dense?
25:37 nation, right? Yeah, I often tell the students I'm like, that's not ever look back at them and point the finger. Because, you know, we want to look at what we're doing and missing, right, missing God's kingdom. And also, like you're saying, missing that main kind of thrust of the Hebrew Scripture, and also the New Testament, which is, I am your God, I will save you trust in me, follow me, and we continually want to follow ourselves, or follow our own design are our own plans. And he kept reminding the Israelites now this is, this is me, I will be your salvation. And then with Jesus, he's reminding the church now trust in me, right trust in me. And and yet so helpful. I think it's, I think it's just really helpful as we approach New Testament, for one, to get a better grasp of the Hebrew Scripture, right and to get a better grasp. But it also this has been really helpful to to know how then the the writers are using the Old Testament, and maybe to look for those, Tim Mackey, from the Bible project, he calls them hyperlinks, right? He's like, this is a hyperlink back to a story, you got to click on that hyperlink, you have to click on it, because this is going to take you back. And and once you then actually learn the original context, it makes the the New Testament context that much more meaningful, right. And that really connects again with Hayes. And the idea of, of an echo, or are met ellipsis as well, this idea that you have two events that are flowing in, in the in the stream of time, right. And it's not till after the second event, that maybe you can see the connection. And, and but to know the importance of the second event, you have to know the context and the importance of the first event. Yeah. And Matthew, and the other gospel writers are saying, Hey, remember that event?
27:48 Yeah. And if you can't remember that event, if you didn't read the first part of the story, you're not going to get the fullest and Right, exactly, I like to you said one stream. And I like that analogy. I also like the analogy of a story. And I like to give an analogy in class about walking into a musical or an act in the middle, and missing the first part, right, you're gonna miss a lot of the background in the context. So for example, we're doing Beauty and the Beast at Jessup this semester. Yeah, so excited. Oh, excited. Now, if we walked in in the middle, and we saw Belle dancing with a beast, and they're in love, and he's sweet, we are going to miss the crux of the story.
28:23 I would have a lot of questions. Yes. I wonder what's going on here.
28:28 And he started out horribly arrogant, right? She sacrificed so much for her father to be there trapped in the castle with him. And we would miss so much of that same way. If we just jump into the New Testament. Yeah, it's great. We've got God coming in the flesh as Christ. But why did he even have to write you don't have three quarters of the Bible to tell us just how deep our sin took us, and how impotent we were in saving ourselves. Right? We miss how awesome it is that God saved us through Jesus Christ.
28:57 Yeah, it's so important. And I stress to students in the New Testament class. I mean, just showing them the Bible and showing them the difference. Like, hey, look, how much is the New Testament? And how much is the Hebrew Scripture? And if we miss that, and I think that oftentimes, like maybe Christians today are scared of the Old Testament, right? They're kind of scared to get because they've maybe they've read or they've tried, you know, the Bible in a year and they get to Leviticus and you're like, I'm done. Yeah, I can't. Or maybe, you know, numbers is the final killer. Sometimes I think that that they get there and they, they, they they are afraid maybe of how does this Connect? And and so you know, that may be just another podcast episode where we can help help listeners approach like what are ways to approach the old testament to be able to begin to read it, to know how to read it, to then know, hey, how does this Connect? You know, and because you really can't understand the New Testament without it and the New Testament writers are clear Merely expecting the readers to know or to be able to make that connection. And one thing like is interesting you brought up like going in in the middle of a play. I'm the type of person that I can just start a movie anywhere I can, like, just walk in on it. And then that intrigues me like that intrigues me like, Oh, I wonder like, and it makes me pay attention closer, and go so so hopefully, maybe people, as you're reading the New Testament, maybe be intrigued. And now start looking up those old testament references, and start diving into commentaries and saying, hey, what, what is the original context? And, and not to say, Oh, so Matthew is wrong, and he gets an F on his exegetical paper, right? But to say, Man, what is that original context? And how does that help me understand what Matthew is doing even more.
30:52 And I do not want to downplay the difficulty of the Old Testament. It is hard, I'm an Old Testament scholar, and there are still parts of the Old Testament that are challenging, as I imagine there are parts of the New Testament that are still challenging for you. But I
31:04 am always going back and forth. I'm always going to the new testament to help myself better understand the old and I'm doing the same. Well. Yeah, no, and that's a great point. And I often encourage people, students, and then people in the church, as they're reading the Old Testament, to read it with the New Testament in mind, right, not separate them completely. And that's good that it's a back and forth. It's both of them. Help to understand, you know, thank you so much for joining me today, tomorrow. And I'm excited for further conversation. Yes, about this topic, because there's so much that's interacting between New Testament and Old Testament. Thank you for your scholarship on this and just your attitude. Excited to be on the show. We're going to actually finish today. You're not through yet, though. We're gonna finish today with a segment. And it's a segment I like to call nerdy Would you rather? Okay, so it's nerdy with you rather. And I didn't give you any pre hints on this at all. So this isn't new, but I'd like to kind of hear from our guests. Yeah, particular question. So I'm going to make it specific kind of to your and I have a two part question on that. But it's a nerdy Would you rather Okay, I'm ready. So this is the nerdy dish. We could even say the Hebrew Bible edition. So would you rather have dinner with Isaiah? Or Jeremiah? Wow, I think Jeremiah might be a bit of a downer. Yeah. That's true. He was, you know, wasn't a real fun loving. He didn't have a lot of fun stuff to write about, though. Yeah, it was pretty. Maybe not his. No, no. But he, I mean, he could have been like, kind of he or maybe, like, I know Isaiah better to say, Oh, well, that makes sense to like, you feel more comfortable. like you'd have more to talk about? Yeah. There were awkward moments. Yeah. Now for me, I I didn't bring Zico into this conversation, because I feel like we have some questionable cooking practices happening. I'm glad you picked that up,
33:05 although I ran around naked in chapter 20. So I would have to have a caveat I not during chapter 20 not during those years,
33:13 not during the crazy years. Like that. All right, maybe a follow up to that, you know, just because because I think the major prophets, we hear those names a lot. And you know, in the church, even if we maybe haven't read them or gotten into them, but we've heard them but maybe the Minor Prophets, you know, Nia, so so I'm thinking like, you know, rather maybe have let's let's change to a cup of coffee. Let's say they like coffee. Yeah. Would you rather have a cup of coffee with mica or Zephaniah? Oh, probably mica. Mica. Yeah. Why? Why would you
33:48 contemporary advisor, so maybe we'd all hang out?
33:50 Oh, nice. The local Starbucks. Maybe? Yeah, maybe it would be there. Or maybe he'd be out on the street corner rolling around. I just like Miko What's happening? Yeah, yeah. Well, that's go Yeah, contemporary Isaiah. So again,
34:03 just that that time period is complex. In his message, he dealt a lot with social justice. And he also was looking forward to to a future restored time and yeah, right. Yeah.
34:14 I'd like to do more hope and more. Yeah, the restoration. That's great. Well, I would love to, to be in the corner of that coffee house, just kind of watching this conversation happened, and we would invite you to our table. Oh, no, I would, I would just add closer and closer until you noticed me and then invited me in. Now. Thanks, Libby, for joining and I just loved our conversation. I think it's gonna be really helpful for our listeners. Great. Well, thank you so much. Shalom, shalom. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by Leaving a review on iTunes. These reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup think.
35:09 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.
In this episode Mark is joined by Associate Professor of Christian Leadership Daniel Gluck & Associate Professor of Youth Ministry Fritz Moga. Together they explore the difficult topic of whether Christian parents should force their children to go to church. Many children associate church with boredom, uncomfortable clothes, and weird smells. When they begin to voice a desire to not go, how should Christian parents respond? Could forcing church on them only cause them to run the other direction when they are older? Could not stressing it diminish the important role the church plays in the spiritual life?
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore. And today on the show, I'm joined by Daniel Gluck and Fritz Moga. Daniel, tell the listeners a little bit about what you teach here at Jessup.
0:18 I have the privilege of serving as lead Faculty of our BA in Christian Leadership Program, undergraduate students who are going into ministry and have a heart for leadership.
0:29 Wonderful. And Fritz, what do you teach here?
0:31 I am the lead faculty for the youth ministry department. So work in conjunction with Daniel everything's going on and leadership. And this would be a very specific part that trains young people to go work with young people.
0:42 That's wonderful. It's great to have both of you on the show. And I'm extremely interested in the topic that we're going to discuss today. And the big question that we're going to be tackling today is this. Should Christian parents force their children to go to church? And it's funny, every time I pose that to people, they all have a similar reaction, which is like, ooh, oh, that's a good question. And some, some with younger kids are like, I want to listen to that, because I don't need it yet. And then others who are right in the midst of it, I can feel their pain. I feel their pain. Yeah. When we say I didn't, and to be fully transparent. With this question. I have a lot of skin in the game. So as you know, along with being a Christian parent, myself, father of two middle school boys, so pray for me. Yeah. For me, I pray daily. And a professor here at Jessup. I'm also pastor at a church in the Arden arcade area of Sacramento, right? Yeah. And yeah, just bring them all together. Yeah. And at church, we've been having this discussion lately, we're just talking with parents, mostly parents of middle school and high school students, the fridge, you can kind of connect there to ministry, and just kind of having this conversation of, hey, if my child right now, is, is voicing maybe a boredom with church? A Yeah, you know, I starting to be maybe even a little disgruntle. about going and just trying to tackle that of like, man, how do I approach How do I approach them? How do I, how do we, as a family kind of handle the church question and that Now, before we get into it even deeper, I'd love to hear kind of your backstories and experiences with church. So first, what was your experience kind of growing up with church?
2:35 Yeah, I grew up in a go into church was a little outside the Christian denomination kind of church. However, I'm intrigued. I just don't want to name names. But But we were, we were forced to go. We got up every Sunday, and we went to church. And I was, I was particularly bored with things that were going on. But I I rediscovered God a little later on, like in high school. Yeah. But I've always looked back and thought, you know, those were not wasted years, forced to go to church, write write stories, I could recall things. It wasn't ultimately life changing then. But then later on, when I really accepted Christ into my heart, I could look back and go, you know what, that was not a bad thing for me to be there with those times.
3:22 Right? Yeah, it's so helpful to look back and see that and yeah, you can't in the moment, you're not going to be able to realize No, they're the impact about what you do. You know, like maybe an age you were where you started to be like, Oh, this is just not
3:36 fun. I mean, we went from birth. Yeah. And when, at some point, my, my dad would just drop us off at church and then pick us out later. Okay, that's interesting. We'll come back to that. We'll go free babysitting. Right. Right. Right. And so I would think, yeah, it was it was definitely junior high. Yeah, definitely junior high when I'm like, I got better things to be doing and sitting around here.
4:00 Right. And that's before video games. Right? Think about it. Do right. outside and play, right. Yeah, that's that's a weird concept. That's weird. Yeah. Daniel, how's your background? Yeah,
4:15 I grew up in a Christian home as well and went to a very conservative small Baptist Church. And for our listeners out there, we used to actually have to go to church multiple times a minute, you're, you're thinking, Oh, I gotta go to church on Sunday. We regularly my family went to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and then always on when when God ordained the Bible. It is when we always went to church and yeah, I mean, I think there were probably some times in high school, especially maybe not junior high, but some of those formative adolescent years where I questioned it or you know, resented it to a level or had been Other things to do, like Fritz was saying, but that was our family culture. It was kind of a non negotiable.
5:05 Yeah. And family culture is a really interesting phrase. And I like that. And we're gonna keep that in mind. Okay. also kind of play off friends, your dad dropping you off, right? So there's, there's some things happening there. Dude, for me. Growing up, I really looked back and had a unique kind of experience. I mean, grew up in the church, I grew up in a strong Christian home I grew up in in the beautiful state of Indiana. A wonderful, wonderful, beautiful state of any way left. Why would you laugh at that? I'm Kelly center. Yeah, I know. You are. Center universe you are here. Now where is Indiana? I don't even know where we are. No, I don't even know, on the buckle of the Bible Belt. We are right there. And I grew up out in the country. My grandpa was a fourth generation farmer. And I went to a small country church, there was about 20 of us in the church, and I was probably blood related to about 19. So and, and yeah, and it was the youth group was just my brother and I, and, and went there from when I was very young, we kind of split off of a friend's church, actually. And then as a small country church, and there was no youth options, right? There was no children's church during service, you were in, in surveys change. And I remember, you know, those, those times have of being in the middle of service being like how this is the longest hour and a half of my life, you know, you watching the clock, like we usually stop at 12. Why is it 1215? Right. And, and I experienced that, but But yeah, first I had a similar experience of looking back, I see the value of. And so when we talk about this question, how do you like bridge? How do you first start to approach this question of should Christian parents for searching? Because I because I see the other side? I mean, I had a good experience. But I do see the other side of I don't want to make my kid hate church. Right, right. I don't want to force religion on them, and then have them reject it even stronger later. How do you kind of initially maybe approach this? Well, just background on that I've
7:22 been married for 38 years. Awesome. I have three daughters, and I was the youth pastor, when the oldest two were going through middle middle school, high school. So like you, I was involved in the church. So the choice wasn't? Yeah, there was
7:39 come with Yeah, there was no question.
7:41 But as I was thinking about this, knowing our topic was coming up, I think the first thing I want I thought about wanting to say was that each each and every situation is different, right? Each child is different. Yeah, there's a moment there, their tendency for rebelliousness, or even their ability to go deep spiritually, like that's different in every single kid. And so it has to be handled different. And even each parent each marriage is different. My wife and I are very different from one another. And, and she was more likely to let our children have a choice to do these things, then I would have bet, right, right. So that's where I was first thinking just about how we're going to talk about things like bam, bam, bam, but the reality is, it's all right, in each situation. Well, that's, that's so good to remind ourselves, right? And to remind the listener, that it's not just, we don't have kind of simple cookie cutter. Yeah, like solutions that that it is like you're dealing with children, you're dealing with other human beings who are growing and developing. And you do have to be able to react and respond in that moment, right. And know the child inside. That's a really good kind of place as you enter the conversation is to be looking, hey, like,
9:00 let me be really for one listening to my child. Right and hearing from them. But then also, we may have in this Daniel, when you said family value I really picked up on that, that that was something. It was just a part of your family. Yeah, we are going this is something we value as a family. Yeah. How? How has that maybe carried into your own life and your own family?
9:24 Yeah, I like what Fritz said too, about marriage because you bring two family cultures into a marriage and that shapes your family and right, my wife, my wife would be more the one who would enforce weekly church attendance, you know, this is our value and all that kind of stuff. Not that I wouldn't, right, but I might be the one to ask the question or to give more of an option of Hey, let's take a week off or whatever it is kind of stuff. And so, yeah, family culture, you got to think about a big framing thing for me is, you know, when you think about it from a philosophical higher level is, okay letter of the law versus spirit of the law. If God wanted us to be in community with one another, and all these things we have in church that will probably start breaking down here. You know, is it it? How do you questions we asked my wife and I, how do you enforce it as a family value? You know, how do you practice it as a family value? Hey, this is this is what we do, right? versus hopefully not communicating that it's some kind of ritualistic or religious activity that's not connected with the actual spirit. Yeah, we worship together, we, you know, we pray together, we serve together, we read God's word together. So that's a big question we're asking.
10:45 Yeah, as you're, as you're kind of teaching that to your family. Yeah. How does that? How does that become a family value? And, and again, I think I mean, for me, maybe the word force is what is the sticking point, right? Because when we hear for sports you to do anything, we're like, No, you can't force me to do anything. But when I really look at my, my children, right, there were a lot of things I forced them to do, like, brush their teeth, comb their hair, and again, I have two middle school boys. And so and we're still right before, they're really caring about what others are thinking when they see them. But But we stress that right? We stress eating healthy, we stress not too much screen time. And so yeah, if it's if then church is a family value of Brits, when you were saying your you got to a point where your dad would drop you off? Have you ever reflected on that, like, in your experience? Did you ever maybe Connect like, hey, why does he get a leave? And I have to be here?
11:50 I'm, I'm not sure I really did. Yeah, age, it's just what we did. There was a while he came, my mom never came with us. Okay, so we did not grow up in what I would call a Christian home. We were a religious home catch hearts catch. And so it wasn't about relationship with Jesus. It wasn't even really so much relationship with the church. It was formed. It was function. This is what you do. Right. So So for my dad, I guess I never really thought Yeah, why is he not? Sundays? He would show up Sundays. He wouldn't. Right. And it didn't really seem to matter to me much.
12:23 Yeah, that's interesting. Because sometimes I think it could be kind of a both and like, if the, if the child is also not feeling like this is a, this is one of our family values, then why why do I have to be there? Right. And I think establish I wasn't near that bright. I'm giving you credit. And intuitive. I that was tough. I just did what he said. Yeah, exactly. You're like Robin here. I'm not question. And, and, and I understand from talking to like, parents who have been kind of in discussion with about this. I definitely feel and understand that sensitivity to not forcing and maybe it comes from a little bit of a generation before us that there wasn't a question, right? Like, this wasn't a debate when I was when I was young. And and so I understand that sensitivity. But I also kind of in talking to them. ask a couple questions to you know, so let's say my middle schooler is bored and doesn't want to come. And and I want to be sensitive to him don't want him to hate the church hate Christianity after this. And so I say you know, what you can choose now and if you choose not to, I've often asked my wife and I've talked about this is then that middle school student, more likely to get back into church or to follow God or not, you know, like, I think sometimes we have a vision of Oh, if I give them the opportunity, and then then choose and let's say they don't go to church for middle school, high school, are they more likely when they're 2021 to then be like, Oh, wait, church and community are a vital part of my spiritual life. Or does that just reinforce Hey, this wasn't you know, this wasn't big enough because we've stressed brushing our teeth is important, right? My guess is there's not negotiable
14:28 or if I give my kid the option not to eat broccoli. Ryan, he's 13 How likely is he to begin eating broccoli? 100. Chad, he
14:43 was in Oakland Sunday. I want to give credit where credit's due Reed regeneration church and pastor Albert Lee was speaking great. And he's he's said some of the things you're mentioning said we would never just let our kids make all their own choices about diet, about education. about health issues. These are all temporal things, we would not allow them. Why would we let them decide what to do with the spiritual with the eternal part of their life? Yeah, at 13. Daniel, I'm with you. If at 13 if I was given the choice, I would only eat cake. I would make sure there was no math and screws included in mice, right? Yeah. And I would sleep all day, if possible, or go play with friends. The choices I would have made, didn't mention play fortnight, that's a big deal. Okay, gotcha. We would have built the Ford at night, right? It's
15:34 kind of like that's the original fortnight. Hmm.
15:36 So I'm glad even late school, my family was nowhere near perfect. But I'm glad that even in those areas, my parents were like, we're gonna set some boundaries. We're gonna Yeah, those areas. So why wouldn't we do it for spiritual?
15:49 Yeah, I heard a writer once. And he was giving a talk actually over in the Bay Area. And he kind of bemoaned a little bit of growing up in a Christian home, and he kind of bemoaned and he said, I wish I would have had the opportunity to, to experience Christ on my own. Yeah. And when he said it, I thought I was like, Wow, that's so interesting. Because it's kind of like, I think, a common maybe fantasy of like, oh, if as a show, I would have my own choice. And then I would choose to follow God, right. Or I would choose to do this. And one of the thing that's interesting is here at school, I teach of freshmen class or been a part of teaching a freshman class, and one of the assignments they have to do is called my story so far, they have to it's right now it's video. Right? When I first started, it was paper. Now it's a video. Yeah, but they have to tell their story, especially how God has included. And so over the last, you know, eight years, I've read hundreds of those watched hundreds of those. And not one video, did a person say I didn't grew up in a Christian home. But one day, I was just like, you know what, I think I want to pursue God. What's been interesting is every single one of the students who didn't grow up in a Christian home, their connection to church was a friend invited me to church, a neighbor took me to church.
17:15 Graham, right. Yeah, up on Sunday, it was important for me to go to church.
17:20 Yeah. And, and so it's, you know, I think sometimes we can think, in trying to be sensitive, and not trying to force. But yeah, we don't give them options and other things. And, and the church, just in all of those stories, it was amazing for me how the church, the local church, played a role in people who didn't know Christ, getting to know Christ. Right? The there was none that had some type of vision, or someone approached them in a dream, it was always a friend invited me a friend. And, and so I think, for me that that's where, like, I don't want to force anything on my kids, right? I don't want to force anything on them. But I also want them to know, hey, this is this is a family. This is a family culture, a family value that we have now, that that that church is a place where we have community, and we have spiritual community. One of the things I think this question brings up for me is that when we use the word church, a lot of us think, oh, we're all talking about the same thing. Right. But church can be more than I think sometimes we think maybe just Sunday morning. Yeah, Sunday morning for an hour. But church can be so. So more than that, right? Like this, you know, that if you're a part of a spiritual community? Yeah. That's devoted to Scripture, as devoted to prayer that's devoted to breaking bread, and, and taking care of each other's needs. Right like that. Is it that like, I don't think we have to define church as narrowly, sometimes as we do. But that is church. Right? That would be the community. And and are you presenting that as a cultural value? Right? Yeah. Is that something that you want your children to be involved in? Yeah.
19:19 Comment? Yeah, definitely. I made this little list. I was thinking about that idea. And this forcing, you know, letting them choose and I said, Okay, if your child doesn't go to church, or like a few, I think the fear of all parents is that they'll never eat broccoli, right? that they'll never go like, that's right. Bottom line, fear, right? Never go. So if a child doesn't go so you give them the choice, and they don't go to church or to youth group. What might they do with that time? Maybe some video games, we've mentioned those, maybe do homework, maybe spend time with family I mean, and not a bad list right? on Sunday. Sports right now. Let's say your child does go they're forced to go You make them go. Here's some potential outcome, some potential benefits. And I was at youth group on Wednesday night where Mr. Daniel Gluck sitting across from me and his boys were leading worship in the band. That's great. So here's some potential benefits if you even if you force them, learning to worship, find activities. Oh my gosh, the games were crazy the other night, new, deeper friendships, finding out leaders that could be mentors, older people, it could be mentors, opportunity to share about life with your peers, relevant Bible teaching, meeting God, Jesus Holy Spirit, like that's a pretty good list that could right potentially happen if they're there if they're in the building in the presence of people.
20:46 I might also mention, you know, here, I used to serve as campus pastor, Director of campus ministries here. And we would talk about whether chapel on campus we have rewired Yeah, right. Is that church? You know, what's your definition of church? Yeah, we have held over the years, and there's been some controversy and debate around it. But we have held that chapel is not church. And the reason why I think is also important as we think about church and establish establishing family culture, because I think some other benefits huge benefits are in you got this in your little church and yeah, intergenerational interaction, as I was talking with my wife about this, she said, I want my boys and my daughter, we have three kids, two boys and a girl that are, you know, we have a teenager now to suppress for me, the Myers prayers are going on and a couple younger Elementary, but we want them you know, there's probably going to be a time when my boys and maybe my girl, too, don't really want to listen to dad or mom or take the advice. We want other men and women who are
21:52 mentors in their lives speaking into their lives, older, wise people, peers, younger people that they can serve and lead in their lives so that the body of believers around them is raising up them up in, in a godly culture of Christ following culture. So it's like that it takes a village to raise a child thing. Right? Right. Exactly. And that's so important because even now, as a pastor, right, and with my children at the church, I see the role of our youth pastor speaking into their lives is so huge that that they know dad, right? And they know dad is gonna give them advice. And and when we're going to bed at night. It's gonna say that, but it's really important for them yeah, then to hear it from others and, and to have their youth pastor show up to their soccer game, right? Like, oh, wow, this this other person is speaking into my life and and speaking God into my life that you don't get Yeah, if you're not in church. And and yet, for me growing up in that small, small, 20 person, church, again, blood related to 19 and a half of them, I made up for that one girl who was adopted, right? Yeah, the only one not in the family tree. Yep. But it was, you know, and obviously, there were times when I was bored, and but looking back on it, those were times where I got to see my grandparents worship. I got to see them singing, I got to see them praying over people. I got to see my parents worship, I got to see my aunt and uncle's worship literally related to awesome. But I got to see that Yeah. And without that community would not have experienced that.
23:34 You probably got to see them experience pain and crisis. Through that, and how the church came together
23:42 during that, and how the church supported each other. And even statistically, it has been shown that kids who go to youth group and especially those who do attend big church, yeah, just do the whole youth group thing on the side, right? They've got all the lights and cameras and but they actually wander into the big church. Statistically, those kids will be in church at a later stage of life more than those who just go to you that don't tend anything at all
24:10 right. Oh, that's so good. Because it Yeah, there seems to be a divide in church right now. of youth ministry, children's ministry and big church, like what we call big church. That's another podcast. Right. And I think that's important point to make that it's that youth group is so important, and also big churches important, right? That that seems to be and statistically seems to be that that kind of further ensures this person is going to be in shirt like that church is going to be an important part of their life. I think with with the kind of forcing your child I've also had the question of, do you think maybe there is an age threshold, right? Like when they get to 1718 Yeah, and and I know, kids are maturing a lot faster. They're making a lot more decisions now than when I was 16. When you're 16, do you think there's an age threshold of when it does become a thing where you're like, you know, our family, you know what we believe. But you do get to make your choice. Now,
25:22 I wanted to mention, one thing I appreciate so much about my parents. And my parents are godly people. Even though we grew up in what I would now consider a fairly legalistic, denominational history or whatever. Yeah. And it had lots of beautiful things about it, and lots of good, and some bad. My parents would always tell me this, and I think it speaks to your question. You know, they would say things like, if I said, Dad, I don't want to go to church this Sunday, or why do I have to go to youth group when it's lame, or whatever, right? They would say, Daniel, right now, you have to abide by the rules of this house, right. But when you're outside of this house, and I think kind of the assumed age was 18, when you're an adult, and you can move out or you go off to college, or whatever this is, this decision is going to become yours. And they would say things like, we're trying to get healthy patterns in your life so that you know how to make the right decisions when your time comes. And I think that's a big deal. And I'm so thankful that they didn't even even the way they set it, they didn't paint it in such a way that God will judge you if you didn't go to church or something. They say, we're trying to establish these patterns. And then there's gonna come a day when you get to make a choice. And that really shaped me.
26:39 I think that does go to we got to throw out proverbs 22, six, Train up a child and the way that he should go and when they're old, they'll not depart from it. Yeah. And we don't have definition of child, I would assume at this period in the biblical time, it might be 12. thirds. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So I think there is that time, but again, I think it would just have to be so specific to each family to each child. And, and I love what Daniel says that, you know, if you've done your job early on that that's, that's what you can do, right? And at some point, you got to realize these are God's kids and not yours really. Anyway, they're just on loan to you. And so do what God calls you to do with them. Yeah. Can I mention someone else? Yeah. I saw I never thought of this. And as I was reading through this week, I was looking at Luke to Luke, Luke chapter two. And this is about Jesus. So Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the temple when he's a baby to be dedicated. Right? Like they didn't ask this little infant, hey, you want to they just brought him? But then it goes on. And later in that chapter. Jesus is 12. He's 12. Right? teenage for us. But right more man for him. Yeah. And his parents take them to the feast of the Passover, which they did says they did every year. Right. And I don't know this for sure. But I don't think they had the conversation home. Hey, Jesus, you know, we're going to that template again. Do you want to jail? Do you want to chill here? You
28:03 can do that? Are you? I don't think that I, it's what the family did. It was built into the culture, not only the family culture, but the entire Yeah, correct.
28:13 And then the chapter ends, Luke 52, right. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God. And man, his parents did the way they invested in him early. And of course it is Jesus. Right. Yeah. But but in strict human Jesus, he grew in his relationship with God, I think it has a lot to do with the family culture and the culture around.
28:39 Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. And that's such a good point of that, that Jesus was a part of a family who set those patterns of worshipping of going to the temple of celebrating the feasts, and growing in wisdom and stature, right and growing in favor with God. And and I think that's, that's our role as parents, right. Our role as parents is to, is to train our children to instill in them values and, and these patterns. And, and then trust in that, right trust in that, that God has them and when they are at their age of making decision, yeah, that we've done our we've done our job, right. We've done our job of, of teaching them that and so that's so important for me, thank you guys for, for joining, joining me on this topic and really exploring this, I think it's an important topic for Christian parents and, and I think we can see that sensitivity of not wanting to force anyone to do anything against their will. But also understanding the role of being a parent. Right. And, and speaking from, from kind of personal experience, just the way the church has impacted us, even when we were bored. Heaven forbid, or the record wasn't screaming, right? Yeah. But it's still we can look back and think, Wow, that was a valuable time. And I'm glad that was one of my family's values that we had those times.
30:19 Just one last comment. I just got to throw this in as a guy who is in charge of training teens to go to youth ministry and I was a youth pastor for almost 20 years. We need to recognize that the parents are the primary people responsible for spiritual growth. Yeah. So if you're, you know, what, if your kid doesn't want to go to church, your churches in the home, you are doing things you are having devotionals you are reading the Bible together, you are praying over it, and you're praying with your kids. And in so don't don't say it's not happening here. I'm going to drag them to a youth group. And hopefully they'll fix them. Right. Parents are the primary ones. So let's start there. Right. Yeah. You've mentioned that.
30:56 Yeah. No, that's so good that that focus comes back on on the parent part of that question. And and yeah, and parents have to play that role and be that primary role of teaching, and, and training and guiding. So hey, guys, this was helpful for me helpful for my family. And for the listeners, I hope that this helps you, as you kind of tackle these questions and you kind of explore with your own children, you know, how you're going to approach how what family values you're going to have and how you're going to teach those. And our our heart and our prayer is that church is a part of that because it's such a vital community of believers and of what they can learn and, and what will impact them for the long run. So thank you guys for being on the show. All right, we're gonna move to a segment now that I like to call word up, Word Up word up. And so I'm going to give you each certain terms. And if you don't know it, in fact, you will get major brownie points if you do know it. I'm nervous. But if you don't know I still want you to try to define it. Like how just hearing the word How would you define it? Okay, and then I will give you the recognized urban dictionary. definition. Okay? Right. So the first term is scum, bro. scum, bro. Come on, bro.
32:29 Come on, bro. I actually know this one. So maybe Oh, hey, there you
32:32 go. No, no, no, no, I do. prove you're in youth ministry. So you gotta be a tune right to the youth culture. And I
32:40 do a lot of urban work until this is just a standard phrase. Yeah.
32:43 How would you use scum bro in a sentence?
32:48 We told you to do this but scum, bro. You did something else.
32:52 Oh, I haven't heard it that way. Actually, I got another definition. Okay. That Yeah, like scum, bro. So how would you define scum, bro?
33:02 It's when you're going against the Brotherhood like bros are going this way. And you're going off the other way.
33:09 Oh, yeah, Bro. Bro, that's not it for it. So how would you? How would you think I know what it is actually. Here we go. I don't know if any of you are into sailing but when you keep your sailboat at the dock it begins to accumulate a lot of algae on the bottom and like you know if it's if it's hard or it's at the ocean or in the marina or whatever. And once a year you have to take your sailboat to a shop or special shop or hire divers to go under and clean off the scum bro. So it doesn't seal of your sailboat. I'm pretty sure okay, that's
33:49 pretty good cuz I was thinking maybe the guy who cleans it is a scum, bro. Okay, I got you that could be a good definition. So this is how I've heard it used and how Urban Dictionary defined scholar revolutionary urban dictionary is an academic dictionary. It is the evolution of normcore. This gumbo is a hypebeast who wears streetwear brands like supreme and Adidas, but also for ma mom brands like Rei and Patagonia. Why is it that I don't understand half of the words that endure might be Yeah, it's hard to understand the definition. We don't know. So this would be the style of Pete Davidson, Justin Bieber. This style of clothes they wear is called scum, bro. Wow. Bro. So you look at him. And they might do scum bro. Right like it just very. So the definition is Pete Davidson is wearing crocs with a supreme sweatshirt again. What is gumbo? What a scum bras cumbre. So when I do my skinny jeans with my numerals boom Oh yeah that is like a fanny pack and like a vans hat on I can do that and there we go so you can't believe fanny packs are coming back I got my same ones from my gosh now after one and I've and I found out this term because I kept seeing pictures of Justin Bieber and I'm just asking myself what are what are you hearing that yeah like wearing I there's no like yeah there's no categories right for what you're wearing I love that it is a mixture of hypebeast brands and Vermont mom brands like that is perfect as a perfect and I can Google Vermont mom brands and yeah from that website thank you I'm gonna go like that is my favorite and my favorite style right no mom mom.com there we go there we go. Calm all right purchase all right, second term. Second term other one is eat. Eat eat so eat is the word How would you define you?
36:03 Can you spell UY e t o changes everything he eat? eat fruits is not as confident on this. Yeah, I thought I had it a while. But oh yeah, why he g Daniel throw some.
36:27 Yeah, you guys thing that comes to mind is it's actually a part of Southern urban culture. Okay, and so if you were to walk into your home and Mississippi on the buy on, you might say to your family Hey, y'all ye sentences is a question. Okay. It's more of a dialect. You will know like that sound like
36:57 eat now. I like that. I've heard that actually before. Yeah. Well, you phrase you got any, any definition? Yeah,
37:03 you know, it's funny because I was thinking the same thing in terms of walking to a home. But this is actually like a style kind of like what you're talking about with a housing style. That's very eclectic. And so you can bring in all kinds of modern with the old that's a very contemporary thing. Yeah, mix them both. And style itself. You can walk and say wow, this is this is yeet
37:25 Oh, yeah, like this house. Yeah, this house is very neat. I like the style they are going on. Nice gumbo is eat right, right, right, right. It's like scum bro. With with furniture. Nice. It's gumbo with furniture. I like them grow. guys live in eat out. Okay, they might, they might. So here's, here's the official definition word on the street. Is eat is a versatile word that can be used as an exclamation, a verb or even a noun. As an exclamation, it can be used to express excitement. And so a lot of times I've heard that I coach a soccer team. And so here students are players and be like, okay, they just say I was gonna go there. And that seemed too obvious. No, yeah. So it's just this like kind of cry can also be used as an exclamation of victory. It was this is great. There's an urban dictionary. It breaks down the tensors of the word. So present tense as I eat. So it can be an action. Past imperfect. I was eating. I was eating I was eating past perfect. I yote. Right. Perfect. Which is everyone's favorite. I have yacht. I have a yacht. future I will eat and future perfect. I will have yacht. A yacht so if you want to be cool with the kids. I would use like the the past Marina Yo, man, I yo yesterday is yesterday I was yo this is the thing that we're gonna we're gonna make it is a thing. Well now thank you guys for coming on the show is exciting talking to you. I loved our topic today. And, and I think it's just so helpful for us. And so thank you guys for being on the show. You bet. pleasure. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessica.
39:40 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader. They are called to be As you go, don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup think.
In this episode, host Mark Moore, Auxiliary Professor of New Testament and Theology, is joined by the director of the Theatre program Derek Martin & Assistant Professor of New Testament and Theology Matthew Godshall. They explore the question, are cultural artifacts (i.e. films, television shows, books, etc.) that mention God in a bad or even sacrilegious way less dangerous than artifacts that do not mention God at all? Some “family-friendly” artifacts may actually cause more harm than good by excluding God all together.
TRANSCRIPT
0:08 Hey, welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And today on the show, I'm joined by two of my esteemed colleagues. Here. Jessup, Matthew, gotcha. Matthew, won't you speak a little bit about what you teach here?
0:20 Sure. Thanks, Mark. I don't know about a steamed but definitely. That's kind. I teach New Testament and theology courses. I'm actually the lead faculty for theology degree, to teach in historical theology, some comparative theology, but also getting stained in the New Testament with Romans and revelation and survey courses as well.
0:44 Perfect. Perfect. So we got theologian on board today, on board and then also joined by Derrick Martin. Derek, what do you do here?
0:51 You know, I'm the head of the theater program here at Jessup. I teach primarily the theology of the arts and faith in arts courses, as well as things like directing and Shakespeare some other stuff there I kind of vision cast for the program. I'm the functional leader. I don't know if I'd go status, because there's quite a few people that have a big say and how we move forward. But right, yeah, functionally, I think I'm ahead of the theater.
1:21 That's great. And it's been doing so well, the show's been going great. And it's been really good for the university. So and I'm just excited to have you both on the show. So we got two theologians and an actor. That's right. They there are two theologians and actor to Japan, right? Yeah, walk into a bar leading us into something. But really, what I want to kind of talk about today is how cultural artifacts approach God, how they talk about God. And when I say cultural artifacts, I mean, books, movies, music, plays, even plays in cultural artifacts, and how they, how they talk about God, how they view God, how they express gun, and have a particular kind of question. And that question is, are cultural artifacts that mentioned God, even in a profane light, right, even in a light that would make us extremely uncomfortable, maybe even angry, are artifacts that do that, more or less dangerous than cultural artifacts that don't mention God at all, that are silent on God. And I bring this up because I had an English professor in undergrad and full disclosure as an English undergrad, Major. So I moved, I saw the light and I moved to theology in my grad school years. But I was English and writing undergrad and my favorite English professor. I remember one semester, she was kind of receiving a lot of complaints about the books we were reading, you know, these works of mid 20th century American literature, and, and just the topics they were dealing with some unsavory topics, how they were presenting God, and I'll never forget her response to those complaints. She first responded by looking at Mark seven, which Mark seven is a passage that talks about where Jesus talking about what really defiles us, and it's not from what is on the outside, going in food we eat, maybe, conversations we have, but it's actually from within what defiles us so she's trying to maybe help students that, you know, it's already happening within our hearts. And she went from there to make the claim that artifacts that actually that worry her the most are artifacts that don't mention God that are silent on God. What do you what do you think about her argument there? That artifacts that are silent for her artifacts that are silent are more dangerous than artifacts that that deal with God even in a wrong or profane light? Yeah,
4:06 um, I it's kind of an interesting question. Because I think if you go to the source creator, if you go to God, he does not create using god. Oh, yeah. Okay. So I would I would argue, I don't believe you have to use God at all for God to be present. Nice. I like that. I like that. And and vice versa. When some you know, because you go sometimes you do mention God, but it's it isn't always in the greatest light. Right? Right. Yet a sunset speaks so much of the mystery and beauty of God and who he is as a creator. And and yet there's, there's no cross. There's no word of God and a sunset or anything. But yet it's undeniable, from my perspective, that God is certainly there and present in the sunset.
4:55 So there's a sense in which beauty in and of itself can pop can point to God, whether that's beauty and sunset or beauty in the arts or whatever artifact we're considering. So there's something there. Yeah, that in and of itself, there's something inherent, that maybe we have devised to see. Maybe, maybe there's something even more in and of itself intrinsic that can point us to God. But I think there it makes it Yeah. Like what you're saying to Eric about, in and of itself, there's some value in the beauty.
5:28 Yeah, and that, and there's, I think for, for me approaching it to it is, there's a tension within maybe the Christian artists, that is, we have to mention God in every song, every movie has to come back to a crisis point and someone. And so there's this stress to that. And and so for me approaching this, I agree with you that it's like, okay, it doesn't mean what I think what her argument does not mean is that every artifact needs to mention God, specifically by name, in that, and I think that's a really good point to bring up because it is seems to be a really tension within the Christian world, in our artists, and maybe the pressures we put on our artists to, to mention God. I think one of the things that I think of when, when kind of listening to her argument, and what I noticed is maybe taking it away from from books and literature, do they make books anymore? Do they? Do they print those? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't know. I, I tried to describe them to my students and like their paper and they're bound, you can hold them in your hand and read them, you know, my students are like, No, ma'am. No idea what you're talking about. So maybe even going from that to, I think it's interesting, like, if you look at our kind of network sitcoms that are kind of geared towards family geared towards a wide audience. Many of them don't mention God or religion at all. And, and I've always found that interesting. That they don't, and there's kind of this wide viewership, and we can talk about them and chat about them. But they kind of paint a picture of life. Without God, they kind of paint a picture of even the good life, maybe a group of friends who are supporting each other, hang out, and, and to me, just with no mention of God, or religion, even in a negative light. I feel like oh, wow, yeah. Are they painting a picture? That that allows us to view reality? Hey, God doesn't have to be part of the picture.
7:44 Yeah, I think that's fascinating. I'm not actually thought of it that way. But it can be that subtle portrayal of this is, what matters is the here and now in the moment, where I can see what I can experience with the senses. And obviously, relationships are a significant part of that. And those are good. But yeah, you're right, they can portray a godless world in those short stories, which then can imply or even shape our imaginations to think, all right, I can, I can live all right, without God, or I just need these things. And I'll be happy, I'll be satisfied in my life will have meaning. So yeah, that's an interesting way of looking at it to be subtle. But it writes, it's in that kind of subtleness that can have that profound kind of imagination shaping effect on how we how we see the world. And so that's an interesting perspective. Yeah.
8:46 And those are often artifacts, that within the church, we kind of welcome on because they're kind of middle of the road don't make too many claims. One or the other, so they're not offensive. But then one thing that I'm fascinated by is that so many of our, and I'll put it in air quotes for the listener, so many of our adult cartoons, because that's the thing they're cartoons for adults. So many of our adult cartoon shows like Simpsons family, Guy southpark they deal directly with God, often, oftentimes God is a character on the show. Yeah, that's right. And and I've found that fascinating there. What do you think our our cartoons are more apt to talk about God? Talk about religion, where some of maybe our other artifacts are a little silent, maybe not wanting to offend a larger audience?
9:46 Yeah, well, actually, it's two things one on the one on the last but I'll I'll go with this one. First. I think cartoons deal with there really is no boundary. physic The world doesn't have a physical boundary, right? That what the characters can actually do don't. So they are able to explore metaphysical ideas in a way that a human physical being on a show can't even with CG, right? the limitations of the human are still there, right? Whereas cartoons aren't. So it's interesting. The other side of it is our adult cartoons are almost entirely satire. Right? And so they're actually good point. They're literally looking at issues that we are dealing with in life and commenting on it both negatively and positively. I think all of those cartoons you mentioned, both comment negatively and positively about God. Yeah, I agree. It's kind of interesting, because they won't completely add in some more I Funny enough, I think South Park's the most fascinating because I think they are, you know, they, they're they've kind of got their thing like the elephant everybody, right? There's no hold on no boundary, there's no boundaries. But also they're very fair. Yeah, like you don't see them leaning one way or another of any of the groups, they don't lean any particular direction. So you really are getting kind of what is going on in people's mind right now. That can be satire, you know what they're what they're speaking to,
11:13 I think that's a good point. It's the reflecting not so much on God as revealed in the Scriptures, but caricatures of God, ideas of God pop popular views of God that are out there, that actually may not even be consistent with what the Scriptures tell us about, about God. So they actually can expose some of our own kind of wrong thinking about God in humorous, shocking, and kind of profound ways that I think can be helpful for us.
11:47 Yeah, one of my it was on a Simpsons episode. And Homer has skipped Sunday morning service, which is also again, fascinating, like the church plays a big part in The Simpsons like, life of the church, then going to church getting the whole family. And Homer has decided to skip Sunday mornings to watch football. footballs on Homer is sitting there watching football, and God reaches down with his hand and rips the roof off of the house. And he comes into the room, right? And here's a large guy with a big long white hair white beard. And, and he kind of kind of condemns Homer a little bit like Homer, why are you forsaking my house of worship? And Homer is honest with him? He's like, Oh, no, I don't want to go, you know, footballs on and and then there's a really interesting part where God walks in and sits down on the couch next to Homer. Yeah. And this goes, You know, I understand. He's like, sometimes the, it's boring for me as well. And it's just this really interesting picture of God. Yeah, that is, you know, obviously, when we first see really well depicting God coming in condemning, but then having him sit on the couch and have this conversation with Homer. Even if he's saying things that we wouldn't normally think God would say, like, you know, yeah, I would skip to because it's been boring, and who's winning the game type of thing. But it kind of was like, okay, they're dealing with God. Yeah, they're dealing with how God relates to us. And maybe questions that we have about God and, and church and, and the relation there as well. A lot of times, I love Derek that he pointed out with these that they are satire, right. So they're, their goal is to examine culture, and to make comments about it and to point out in consistencies to point out, and and they're often able to do that, because they're not afraid to offend. Yeah. And, and, and it's really interesting to see that and, and I think as Christians, we have to be able to maybe view those artifacts and learn from them. Yeah, right. Like, hey, Well, okay, what what are they trying to say about God? What are they trying to say about the church? I mean, often, I think most of the satire deals with God, but it's through the lens of the church, and through the lens of how maybe God has portrayed the church. And and so we need to be able to, to receive that satire. also need to be able to laugh at ourselves, right? Like we can, I think, just laugh, laugh with ourselves and laugh at ourselves. Sometimes,
14:39 I think something that I know and talking more art generally, but certainly this would go under the camp of artistry and cultural artifacts, a lot of that would be artistic in nature, right? Is is understanding something that I think gets misunderstood sometimes by Christians and churches and Christian audiences. Is what arts about. Art fundamentally is about humanity, because it's literally everything is filtered through the human mind to right now, the impulse to create, I think, is divine. And it was given to us by God. But I think you'd be mistaken to think there's no, there's no perfect work of art, because it's all filtered through the human mind and the human understanding. And so I think you're going to run it, we run into issues with consistencies and stuff like that. So I think what you're saying is, would be great to be open minded and look for the gold is actually more beneficial. Because oftentimes, there's, there's actually a lot of gold out there, right? It's just kind of, you just got to look for it. It's hidden. And there's a lot of other junk out there, too. Right. Right. We got it, you got to kind of keep your eyes open like that there is truth in some of these satires. Yeah, that we can learn about the church or ourselves, right, you know, in relationship with God.
15:57 And that doesn't mean we have to accept all the junk that goes along with the gold, right. But I like that I like that imagery. I'm searching for those, those nuggets of gold that that teach us about? For one, they might just teach us how culture views us. Yeah, how culture views and it's so important to know that like to know, hey, if a lot of our cultural artifacts are, are viewing the church as judgmental and closed and not not a safe place to go to find out about God, and as the church, we need to know that,
16:32 especially the idea of God is judgmental, right. I mean, is kind of his go to or default position that does seem to be kind of a broad cultural impression of God. Where does that come from? Well, it's because of his people genuine generally act and that reflect that. Um, so I think that's a good connection. It's, it's, it's exposing us. And you're right. We don't accept every all the critique, but should be humble enough to receive. Yeah, some of the critique for sure.
17:05 Well, that might be good. Maybe a way to approach it is these different satires on God, or views of God not view them through the lens of I can't believe they're saying about God, he's not like that. But rather, Oh, wow. Is that how we've presented? So actually, maybe they're making a comment about us? As as image bearers of That's right. Yes. I think that's insightful. Yeah. How can we learn from that? To to represent him better? Yeah, knowing that no matter the best, we could represent them, there's still going to be like, artifacts that don't agree. Sure. And they're still but our representation will never be perfect either. Right, exactly. Well, I don't know about yours, but mine. Well, okay. That's what I'm the.
17:55 I'm the artist. I'm not the Theologian, but remember that right, so I'm a little further.
17:59 Exactly, yeah. Sorry, you do have a long way to go. I keep hearing that. Telling me I want to kind of maybe move from that into the music world. And I've got some lyrics of a song that I want to read to you. And it's a song by a guy named Sam Smith. So current artists, and and Sam when he know his background, he's when you listen to his songs, he's had some connection with the church, right? He's had some connection with the church. And you can also tell that he's had some hurt associated with that. And, and in the midst of his last album that he released, there's a song called pray. And right away when I see things like that, I'm like, well, light bulbs are going off sirens on my way to Saget. He just said, Pray, like well, I, you know, I, I tuned in, like I want to hear, partly because I teach a class here at Jessup called scripture and pop culture. And so I'm always looking for artifacts to bring into class. And I'm always encouraging the students like when you hear a reference to God, when you hear a reference to a spiritual practice of praying or that like, tune in, like, what is what is what is going on. And so I actually want to start with the just going into the second verse, but the first burst, he just talks about, Hey, I'm young, and I'm foolish, I've made bad choices. I've blocked out the news. I'm also turned my back on religion like, but I'm also at a place now where I'm just kind of empty and and overwhelmed by what's going on in the world. And so the chorus is, maybe I'll pray. Okay, it is kind of a last resort moment. What's the Kind of desperation of man, I have nowhere else to go, maybe I will pray. And and the second verse, he says this, he says, says you won't find me in church, or reading the Bible. But I'm still here and I'm still your disciple. I'm down on my knees. I'm begging you, please. I'm alone, broken and afraid. And I'm not a saint. I'm actually more of a sinner. I don't want to lose, but I fear for the winners. And when do I try to explain the words run away? That's why maybe I'll pray. Hmm. And when I heard that line is like, wow, that there's so much going on there. Now, when we can initially hear it, we're saying, oh, he's not in church, what he didn't pray, well read the Bible. And obviously, those things are very good things strike one, like going to church reading the Bible. Those are good things. I'm okay with it. I support you. And, and to see, for me, what was interesting was the, maybe the disconnect from that too, but I'm still here, and I'm still trying to seek you. And, and that, like, being a light of, Hey, this is someone in our culture, who's maybe separated God from church from Scripture, but is still trying to have a relationship with God is still in a point of desperation of saying, Man, I think I will pray. Yeah. And well, how can we hear that and not maybe judge right away? No. But say, Man, I, let's have a conversation. I would love to, to talk about that, you know, and seeing and so, for me artifacts, when you read that, or you hear that, how does
21:50 this artifact strike you? Yeah, that's mixed. first thought that came to mind is NT, right? That tells a story of when he was he was working at Oxford. Some Chaplin, right. I don't remember exact context. But he was, he would meet with students. And his first year students It sounded like and they would come in and say, Well, this is probably the only time you'll ever see me. I think it must have been required for them to come in one time. And he goes, why is that? And they say, Well, I don't believe in God. So I won't be. Don't care too much for what you're offering. And his response was on tell me the God tell me about the god you don't believe in? Who is this God you don't believe in? And they would he According to him, they talk about this God? They don't believe in Yeah, he would say Actually, I don't believe in that kind of gun. That's either in a kind of then created that bridge to he would connect obviously to Christ, the guy who reveals himself in Jesus and all that, but but I thought that question was profound. Because there is that sense of, we assume the definition of God. Yeah. But the reality is a lot of us have very different meanings to that word, right. And so part of the conversation with this artists, I think, could be, who is this God? you're praying to your grind out to let's, let's, let's, let's just talk there. What is, what do you envision this God to be? And I think someone like this could teach me to has a lot to say about this honesty, before God that, you know, sometimes, especially in the world of New Testament studies, or I feel like, you know, I've got I don't have all the answers, right. I'm right. I'm right before students and you get paid. Yeah, that's right. I don't I'm job security. I'm in trouble. So there is that, you know, you could suddenly fall into that, like, I got this thing figured out, but you hear this and there's some the honesty, and the humility. Yeah, it's actually really refreshing. Something I feel like I need to hear Yeah, myself. Yeah. And sometimes it does come down to I don't have you figured out, I'm just gonna pray. Yeah, right. Right. But what else do we have some times because as much as I think I could have it in my head, good, good theology, it all fits together. And on the day, that can be just as much idolatry as something else. So we need to be we need to take that posture, even for us who are followers of Christ.
24:29 Yeah. And that, that question from NT rise. So good. I want to repeat that again, because that is gold. The idea that tell me more about the god you don't believe in? God? I think that's a question that we could pose to our culture. Yeah. And so these artifacts that are talking about a god they don't believe in, it might be helpful to know. Yeah, Hey, tell me about that. God you don't believe in because I love that contrast, because I probably We don't believe in that God either. Yeah, that's right. We have common ground now. Yes. Right, we're on this news. And maybe let me tell you about the god I believe in. Right? That's, that's maybe different from that you can, you can apply that to to different areas like, you know, tell me about the church that you don't believe in or go to. That's right. And what are those, and hopefully, we can stress, hey, we know that those type of experiences happen. And, man, the church is also not perfect, and, and is growing and drying and that there are, there are good men and women out there who are following Christ, who are trying to live that out, and, and trying to make those connections with them without such such a good quote from minty right on. And I really think that's what, how we approach culture. Yeah, that's really kind of a good approach of
25:58 Tell me more about it's almost that idea of listening. Brian Yeah. And then they don't do that. Well, when it comes to these artifacts or songs. I'm usually a little more inclined to be more judgmental, but I think, think there's that, what can I learn first, that should be our posture? One understand to what can this teach me? And then if critique is appropriate, then we can go there. But let's listen because something like the lyrics she read. There's some it's beautiful on one level, because, right, that's, it's the honest reflection of someone's heart, which actually would probably resonate with so many. Right, in our context today.
26:40 Well, I think that, you know, I totally agree. And I think that posture of, of listening is something where you, when I've talked to other artists, especially those who don't believe, you know, that they have a very different picture of God and of Christianity. Right, right. Very frequently. I mean, I think the arts world is one of the most untouched by the church kind of in our current in America. Yeah. And, and they have very much pictures of what that life is supposed to look like. But then you have the reality of what we're talking about, right? We'd love to, but that listening, from what I've heard people say is listening isn't often the first response. Right? from a lot of people in that, what I what I go, when I look at that is I go, Wow, what's fascinating about what he wrote there is, you know, there might be this idea that well, the world, the world's going to hell in a handbasket right now, right. Oh, my gosh, and I'm going well, but you have somebody who doesn't professed to believe who's sitting here talking about, they have nowhere else to go but prayer, right. I'm like that, that kind of speaks the opposite. The world isn't all necessarily. There's there's options, there's people are actually thinking about things that are deeper and bigger than themselves. If we're, if we're paying attention,
28:00 right, yeah. And I think that's the, for me, the big takeaway, I think, from the conversation is, is having that posture of listening? Yeah, first, right. Obviously, adding critique when it needs to be adding contrast when it needs to be have. And I think a lot of that contrast is, or maybe the critique is, hey, that's actually not the God we believe in either. Right? So it's, it's a critique, but it's a point of connection. There's like, Hey, we, we don't believe in that type of God either. This is but but yeah, having that posture of listening, hearing them, and, and also maybe then having a posture on artifacts that don't mention God at all, maybe being a little more skeptical. And like, Wait a second, again, not forcing every article here every artifact to to have God. But when you see one, that doesn't mean like, hmm, is there anything going on? That That is why they are being silent, is there more and, and again, listening there as well. They're listening and, and then learning from that, and then presenting Christ to our culture, right.
29:18 And I also think that, to that, I'd be like in listening really, to the whole work into the whole body and maybe to the artists body of work. Sometimes we know sometimes we pick out a singular work and like this, this person's terror, this artist, you know, blah, blah, blah, but you go in, but if you look at the body of work, you get much better picture of the artist as a whole in their perspective. And this is what Francis Schaefer was talking about. All right, as you can't judge on one thing, you can't judge an entire group of art or or an artist based on one artifact. It's good because how many times have we created something that then you know, later down the road? I'm like, Yeah, I probably would rethink that concept or recap. I kind of imagine it But, but sometimes that happens.
30:02 Yeah, I mean, it's just like, our own scriptures do that. Right. You couldn't pull out one of the Psalms that is more of the conservative or complaining against God and be like, I can't believe this psalmist wrote, darkness is my only friend. Right? Yeah. What terrible theology? Yeah, that's right. That's a picture of a moment. Right? Right. He's having an it's an honest moment. And that's why I love the book of Psalms because it shows all of these honest moment. Yeah, being able to cry out to God, being able to praise God, who he is, but also that freedom to say, hey, God, where have you been? Like, I've been looking for you.
30:37 Yeah, it seems to be that some of the artifacts you're mentioning earlier. That's the heart cries. We, there's a longing for God. Yes. This he's not or this God hasn't shown up, and is not doing what I expect. This God to do, which is this. You're right. It resonates with the solomos quite a bit. It's that lament that many people naturally like the artists, the lyric, Sam, Sam Smith. Yeah. That's what he's kind of. He's that's a very sound like,
31:10 lyric. Yeah. And I think I think the other thing is about stuff that doesn't mention God. Sometimes I feel like we maybe maybe we aren't listening deep enough to some of that stuff, too. Because maybe it is. Right, right. I mean, it you know, when we read the similar in Psalms, the sky is proclaim has, you know, the glory of God, the, you know, start plants handiwork. Right, you're going like, but but you have to really be listening to hear the proclamation to, you know, you have to be paying attention to can't take it in. And so sometimes, there's, there's truth there. It may not be overt. Right, be subverted, right. And then it gets into like, Can a can a non Christian create a Christian work of art? That's, that's a great question. You know, and I would think, like, well, Episode Two, that's Episode Two. Yeah, cliffhanger.
32:02 No, that's such a good. Yeah. That's such a great question. Right. Right. Yeah. The truth being there. And, and there does seem to be within the the Christian community, sometimes this dress for the overt, right, and to see an art that subvert and be able to listen to,
32:19 and, and find that our response sometimes to sin, it's like, we oftentimes are quick to deal with the overt visible, Sam, where things like pride or you know, fear and things like that are living in really deeply in a person's life. But, you know, you know, I'm not there's no judgment. I mean, that right? Trying to figure it all out. Yeah, there's no clean cut easy answer to any of this stuff, you know?
32:49 Sorry, Mark was married. But Reza, oh, wait, wait, wait. We're supposed to have all the answers. Where we're, we're in the theology world. And young man's Can I retract my strike that from now, but thank you guys, for joining me today. I think this is such a good conversation. And I think it just helps us frame, how we engage with culture, how we engage with cultural artifacts. And I think having that posture of listening, and listening to what's going on below the surface, even listening in artifacts that don't mention God overtly. No one's listening for what our culture is saying. telling us about that God they don't believe in and and being able to paint this picture of a God who's entirely different. I think that's such a gift, actually, that the church has right now. So thank you guys. Alright, we're gonna move to a segment that I like to call nerdy Would you rather. So if you have you heard of Would you rather maybe played that game in high school? But this is the nerdy edition. So it was appropriate? Yeah. So Matt, we're going to start with you. So have a question and you have to answer the question, then you also have to tell me why. I need I need some explanation. Okay. Again, this is nerdy, would you rather. So Matt, would you rather have dinner with Peter or Paul? I go with Paul. Okay.
34:27 Because Paul would probably just talk the whole time. Yeah, I think he would conversation would just be him and I would just enjoy hearing him talk, Peter. It seems like it'd be a little more work on my part to keep that conversation going. I
34:42 have to sometimes Peter would strike me as like the crazier one. True.
34:46 But yeah, guess what Peter may feel more comfortable eating. Like not worried about appearance with butter or something like Yeah,
34:54 that's true. I thought of that though. But with Peter, they would probably be no bacon. So So that would be that's where it pushed me to Paul. Well, I guess that actually fits me too. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Maybe you would like, I guess I'm maybe I'm changing my mind. So Peter, and we'll switch to like, Paul, as a high likelihood that you'd be in prison having your meal together to say that I'd bring bringing him Yeah, the meal eating it in real prison. Yeah, like the glass, or whatever. Yeah. However, that works to iron bars. Maybe they didn't have Plexiglas? Probably not. All right, Derek, you're not off the hook. You don't want to hear from me. So I tried to make it, you know, maybe distinct to your to your background. Or maybe just in maybe the acting world. So would you rather have dinner with Bogart? Or Kaplan? Oh, Chaplin.
35:51 Oh, really got a doubt. I like bogey. Don't get me wrong. Right. Right. Right. But I think Chaplin's fascinating. That is true. Yeah, that would be a very specific dinner. Because he was known for doing upwards of 150 takes of each time he he saw action. Well, of each scene. He did upwards of 150 takes the average is about between four and eight takes. Yeah, you know, sometimes he would do 150 takes a beat so it'd be a very specific dinner.
36:22 Probably. Yeah. Who knows? very lengthy, very lengthy dinner for repetitive Yeah. Can we do it again?
36:30 Exactly. I think he's just just what he was doing at his time is what he did for the art of filmmaking and comedy. Was was I just be so fascinated to sit down and have dinner with him. I think he would be an interesting
36:45 yet. That's so cool. I'm, I'm really drawn to Bogart just because if my if my life could look like Casablanca, like, literally Yeah, well, maybe minus like the World War. Yeah. My life could look like manga Blanca. I would. I would I would sign up for that. That's good. Oh, well, yeah. I can get the white tux. Yeah, yeah, exactly. If Yeah, if I could look like bogey. I think that'd be a different question, though. Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't be chaplet. Navi Chapman, although I did just find out that bogey had a hairpiece the whole time during Casa Blanca. You know, which is I appreciate that.
37:28 Yeah, he did. And he had really bad stomach issues, which is why you see him when you see him off and he like wipes his the sides of his lips. It's because he was removing the calcium carbonate. Tums? Oh, yeah. Cuz it relates that he would be using regularly. He was wiping off his face.
37:46 Awesome. Well, thank you guys for playing along with me. Yeah. And now we know we actually I think Matt was able to switch you Yeah, that's from Paul does Peter. Wow. No one, you know, be less meat involved with Peter. But Peter would be a pretty quick eat though. I
38:01 feel like he'd like scarf it down.
38:06 Immediately they went somewhere else. I love it. Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup.
38:36 If you're interested in learning more about Jessup, please visit us at jessup.edu. William Jessup is the premier fully accredited four year Christian University in the Sacramento area offering over 60 academic programs in undergraduate and graduate studies designed to see every student equipped and transformed into the leader they are called to be as you go Don't forget to hit subscribe and share so you never miss an episode. Thanks for joining us for Jessup Think.