I chat with Andrew Berg, who authored “Counterintuitive Arguments for and Against U.S. Support for Israel.” Andrew challenges conventional political narratives and examines the moral implications of U.S. support from both conservative and progressive angles. Andrew emphasizes the need for empathy toward both Palestinians and Israelis and advocates for a reevaluation of accountability in support discussions.
Counterintuitive Arguments for and Against U.S. Support for Israel
The Mainline Churches and Gaza with Todd Stavrakos | Episode 251
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[0:35] Hello and welcome to Church and Main, a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. As I'm recording this, this is the week of October 13th. A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which was brokered by President Donald Trump, came into effect. That means that the final 20 living hostages came home, and hopefully Hamas will return the remaining bodies of the hostages. Some of those have been returned. Those are slowly returning.
[1:17] Gazans are returning to what remains of their homes and are trying the best way they can to rebuild their lives. is this a lasting piece um probably not um, What this is, is that this round of fighting is over for now. Now, the debate over Israel and Palestine has, for many years, played basically along partisan lines. And what that means is that conservatives have been supportive of Israel and progressives have been critical. And now, there has been some change in recent years with conservatives becoming a little bit much more critical. For the most part, at least at this point, this has been where the argument has fallen.
[2:13] But what if we thought about things from the other side's viewpoint? How would things change? change. My guest today wrote an article on his substack that kind of took that approach. In September, Andrew Berg wrote an article entitled, Counterintuitive Arguments for and Against U.S. Support for Israel. And he took basically the best kind of conservative and progressive arguments and used them in ways that might cause both sides to really think about their views. Now.
[2:53] The way that he wrote this may not cause people to change their minds, but it actually might get people to think a little bit about why they believe what they believe. And I think more importantly, it might actually get them to understand why the other side believes what they believe. A little bit about Andrew. Andrew Berg is a staff member, along with his wife Elizabeth, for InterVarsity at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. They are both heavily involved in their church, New Life Community, which is a community hub for people facing addiction, homelessness, and poverty. Andrew has traveled along to three continents to help lead staff staff and students to further their spiritual and leadership development.
[3:46] Join me in this conversation on, which I think is a very timely topic, as we kind of discuss support about Israel with Andrew Byrd.
[4:22] Hi, Andrew. Thank you for joining me this afternoon. I wanted to first off get to know a little bit about you and know a little bit about your faith journey, kind of who you are and how you came to this point. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me on your podcast, Dennis. It's great to meet you. And yeah, so I mean, I don't know how many details you want, but I'll start. I'll give a little bit. I was raised in the Lutheran Missouri Synod church with my parents. Parents were believers, but I didn't realize that at the time, but my church was quite unique in that it had both the liturgical Lutheran Missouri Synod. It had the kind of conservative evangelical contemporary stream, but also had a charismatic streak. And apparently that was quite unique, which I didn't know at the time. To me, it was just my home church. And so I really feel like I was able to glean a lot of the best of some of those traditions. I feel like when I really made my faith my own was when I went to college. I attended Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It's a small liberal arts school. I was part of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, which is also my current employer. But just FYI for everyone listening, everything I'm saying today is my own words, doesn't reflect my employer.
[5:39] But that's really when I made my faith my own. It's also when I made a pivot to anabaptism. So I was re-baptized as an adult, became a believer in pacifism.
[5:52] You know, kind of all those Anabaptist distinctives and stuff, and happy to share more about that. But now I am 34 years old, got a wife, couple of kids, and living and doing ministry in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which is the middle of Pennsylvania. Out of curiosity, which branch of anabaptism are you a part of? Yeah. So, when I was in college, it was Church of the Brethren, and now I'm in Brethren in Christ, the BIC. Okay. So, if you're familiar with Messiah University, it's kind of a similar type of vibe to that. Okay. All right. Cool. I'm a little familiar with it more with the Mennonite branch of anabaptism, but okay. My wife and her parents were Mennonite USA growing up. Not so much like the conservative Mennonite, but more so the theologically and MCC and all that stuff. Yeah, so that kind of rubbed off on me as well. Yeah. Okay. So one of the reasons I have you on the podcast, because I kind of saw a post that you wrote on your substack, where you wanted to do a kind of a counterintuitive argument on the Middle East, and Lord knows there are a lot of arguments these days about what's going on, especially with Israel-Gaza.
[7:16] And the thing about those arguments is that nothing seems to change. It feels like no one's minds are changed in those arguments.
[7:29] And I think your essay is fascinating because it does do it from a very different perspective. And I'm kind of curious, what led you to kind of come at this from a counterintuitive way, and I see that you've also done this with other topics. Mm-hmm.
[7:49] Yeah. Yeah. So I want to, you know, first off, like being counterintuitive just for the sake of being counterintuitive isn't necessarily the best thing, right? Like devil's advocate is like sometimes helpful, right? Sometimes it can help people sharpen their arguments and stuff. But, you know, there's a lot of people that just do that for fun. It's actually not beneficial to anyone. So for me, I did debate. I was on the debate team for all four years of high school and all four years of college. So I'm doing some policy debate as well as some parliamentary debate and, you know, learning to really argue well. I enjoyed it. Learning to be able to argue both sides of an issue or multiple sides of any number of complex issues. But to me, what I find appealing about counterintuitive arguments, or another way, maybe countercultural or unexpected angles on arguments, is the opportunity to go beyond just the normal. It's like, all right, here's the left, right. The right always says this, left always says this, and they never persuade the other side. But to take, actually take the other side's arguments and be like, well, actually, according to your logic, this is the way it should be. And meeting people where they're at. I mean, to me, that's a lot of what I value about evangelism for that matter, too, of like, hey, I see you have this value, or I see you have this. Have you considered this angle on it as well?
[9:07] To me, that feels it's hospitable to the other person, perhaps. It actually offers some chance of kind of breaking through the noise. And I actually think that a lot of what Jesus says and does is counterintuitive as well. You know, love your enemies being probably the best example. I think it's the most disobeyed command in all of scripture, or at least in the New Testament. And, you know, but that's when Martin Luther King and the civil rights marchers, it's like, hey, when you get beat, do not resist. Like, that's really counterintuitive. It's really countercultural. There are a lot of people who thought he was wrong about that, but it actually worked. It paid off in the long run. And so that's kind of like, I feel like there's something there. Just because it's counterintuitive doesn't mean it's right. But I do, it just feels more interesting to me to think about arguments in that way. Do you think that it also opens someone up to seeing things from another person's perspective in a way that, you know, that person may have not seen it?
[10:06] That's part of the hope, I think so. Yeah, yeah. So one of the articles I wrote a number of years ago is just, it was kind of laying out some of the facts that the abortion rate has been steadily declining ever since I think the 80s or 90s, steadily declining. And then as soon as Trump came in office, the abortion rate started increasing. So we're talking about the rates per 100 or whatever. And it's just very interesting to me that the most pro-life president ever, you know, quote unquote, oversaw a massive increase in the abortion rate. And so if abortion is a truly terrible wrong, I would say, well, pro-lifers might want to take a look at that and say, well, what was happening before Trump? Can we go back to that? Because it seemed like we were going on a good track and having fewer abortions. And, you know, and stuff like that to kind of help people think a little bit doesn't persuade a whole ton of people. I haven't, you know, made lots and lots of converts or whatever. But again, at the end of the day, I, you know, it's not always about that. Sometimes it's just about having a more worthwhile conversation than just talking points.
[11:12] So what led you to do this on this issue? I mean, part of it, it seems like is because you've actually been to that part of the world. Could you kind of talk about your time there? Yeah, absolutely. So I had the immense privilege to study abroad my junior spring when I was in college. So I studied abroad in East Jerusalem at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
[11:38] And that was in spring of 2011, which was also the Arab spring when there was revolutions and rallies all around the whole Middle East. There were some rallies in the West Bank, but not a whole lot. But it was a very interesting time to kind of be there.
[11:56] To be in a land that, as a Christian, was just to see the sights. It just really gave a sense of perspective on a lot of ways. Like, Israel is really small. Israel-Palestine is really small. We did a weekend hike. We were able to hike from the Mediterranean Sea all the way to the Sea of Galilee in a matter of a few days. and it's like, oh my gosh, this is really, you know, and people talk about Gaza. I think it's only 30 miles from top to bottom. It's like, well, that's some of these ultra marathon runners can run that in the course of a day. That's not, you know, this is not a big land. And yet it's also a land that has a lot of significance, has a lot of history. So yeah, getting to see that up close and then to meet a lot of people, a lot of Jewish people. So it was interesting being in the minority, you know, as a white man, I'm usually not in the minority, but in Israel, I was because I was a Christian and not Jewish. My last name's Berg. It's a stereotypical Jewish name, but I'm not, I'm not actually Jewish whatsoever. But yeah, to get to learn from different rabbis, from different people, but to also learn from people who were more on the Palestinian side of things. So whether Palestinians or people working with Palestinians or had a group of friends who were, who all spoke Arabic and had been in Cairo and then came over to Jerusalem.
[13:10] So, yeah, it was just very eye-opening to me. I think I walked away just feeling a lot more knowledgeable and also a lot more... With a lot less hope that there could be an easy solution it just felt like this is really, intractable in a lot of ways and i think that's even more true um today i think a lot of the things that were problems back in 2011 are even bigger problems now um so yeah but it was it was very eye-opening to me being there so from that experience and then from in this paper or i'm or from this essay, you basically have these two arguments, and you basically take it from,
[13:53] I guess, the best progressive viewpoint and the best conservative viewpoint. And so, I guess it's probably the best way to look at this is from the first counterintuitive argument. So, it's kind of the best conservative argument for the U.S. To end support to Israel. here is moral harm so what's that and how would you explain that.
[14:24] Yeah. Yeah. And again, this is my personal, you know, opinion of, you know, thinking that I was like, if I had to try to convince someone who's conservative, like what, what's the best argument for them to rethink their, their support for Israel? Um it's something to the along the lines of it's not right to be providing someone the tools and materials to harm someone else um you know and so i think conservatives we see this a lot and that they're wanting to put work requirements uh for people who are getting medicaid or getting food stamps or stuff it's like well maybe they're abusing it you know um kind of not wanting to have um needle exchange programs for for people addicted to to drugs it's like well because then it's just going to enable their addiction and stuff. And so the concept of moral harm is kind of like, we don't want to be complicit in this thing that someone else is doing that's not right. And so we look at what Israel is doing now, and it's like, conservatives, are you really happy with everything Israel is doing right now with the weapons that they're buying from us and the weapons we're sending? It's like, if even some of it's not right, we should talk about that. We should withhold that or put checks on it. I mentioned in my piece that Donald Trump did something very similar with Ukraine, I want to say back in March of this year. He said, President Trump said, hey, Ukraine, I'm not happy with this. So we're going to put a pause on some of our arms shipments. Now, that only lasted for a couple of weeks. They hashed things out.
[15:53] I think I had some, you know, Zelensky put on a suit and tie and, you know, was a little more impressive maybe in his next visit. I know the first time he was a little more casual and worked it out. But it feels to me that conservatives could be a little bit more, have some conditions on support for Israel.
[16:10] That's kind of the, yeah, so I thought that was the strongest argument. There are, of course, conservatives who have other arguments for ending support for Israel. There are some very anti-Semitic and far-right conservatives. I don't think those are good arguments, so I didn't really address those. But there are, of course, conservatives who have that perspective. But that's not a good reason in my opinion.
[16:30] And, you know, when it comes to things like moral harm, it's, you know, basically you don't want to do something that's going to enable or hurt other, hurt people or hurt themselves and things to that. But how would you help someone who might be someone that's very much set in their ways in that argument to see how that could hurt or be hurtful?
[17:02] Yeah, I mean, I think it's different at an individual basis or one-on-one basis versus at a nation-state basis. the church I attend here has a lot of folks that are experiencing homelessness. And kind of our church does a really great job of kind of walking alongside them, of helping them find transitional housing, shelter housing, and kind of, but, you know, if someone walked up and says, hey, I need a place to stay, it probably, it might not be the best thing to just hand them a thousand bucks or something, you know, right off the bat, just because that might, it's probably not most helpful over the long term. Now, when we're talking at the level of a nation state, right, so the American government vis-a-vis the Israeli government. It becomes a little bit more complex, right? Because there's different constituencies. And I think really at the end of the day, a lot of what's driving Israel's behavior right now is one man. It's Benjamin Netanyahu, who's beholden to his constituents on the far right, that if he loses their support, he's out of power and he's in trouble then and so it's it's I'm unsure how many levers America really has to to influence him but I think there has to be some right like that there's you know of course withholding support we can talk about sanctions economic sanctions there's you know just kind of the moral support the moral moral pressure that America could put on and even just the relationships of like.
[18:26] Some of our key leaders sitting down with their key leaders and saying, hey, this is not helpful. This is not good. You're creating more problems for yourselves and more problems for us in the long run. This is, yeah, it's wrong. So yeah, it's not always easy just to kind of stop these things, immediately and flip a switch, especially when there's such so much pain and hurt kind of in embedded in this situation and a lot of interests. But that would be my gut, my hope, I would think, for what Trump could do or what the Trump administration could do in this moment.
[19:02] And so you have then, let's go to the other side, the progressive argument for support of Israel, and that is reparations. How would you describe that one? Yeah, yeah. I kind of have been thinking about this argument. I mean, historically, the Democrat Party and the left in America has been fairly supportive of Israel, but that's really changed, I think, in the past couple of years since October 7th and Israel's response in Gaza.
[19:32] A lot of times I see people online saying, well, we need to look further back in history than October 7th. We need to look at 1948. And I agree. I was a double major in history and political science. And I'm like, yeah, let's always look back further in history. I think from my perspective, as a white Western Christian, the legacy of harm that has been done to the Jewish people is centuries old. It's not just the Holocaust. It's been an ongoing thing that, you know, I don't know if you, I am a quarter Italian, so you could trace it all the way back to the Roman Empire. You know, you read the crucifixion of Jesus and they're beating up on him because, and making fun of him because he's a Jew. I was like, is this anti-Semitism like 2000 years ago? I don't know that they didn't have concepts quite like that. Back then but they were definitely mocking him for his ethnicity um, But certainly, and more recently, you know, in the Middle Ages.
[20:26] Jews would be blamed for all types of things, and they'd be robbed, killed, forced into ghettos. That's where the word ghetto came from in the first place was for Jews that they're forced into. Again, this is all Western Christian nations. And then leading up to the Holocaust, there was boats and boats of Jewish refugees trying to come to America, well, to Britain and America. And most of these countries said, no, go back to Europe. Some very well-known pictures. I'm forgetting the name of the one boat. St. Louis. Thank you. St. Louis. Yeah. They had to turn around, went back to Europe. And I believe most of those Jews ended up in concentration camps.
[21:07] And so to me, there's reparations in the progressive lens. And I use the word progressive, not liberal, because I do think I was focusing more on the progressive side of it. It might be slightly different anyway that's that's a whole other discussion about the distinction there but that like reparations are harm has been done by by us or by our ancestors to you or to your ancestors um so there needs to be some sort of um recompense whether payment whether it's respect whether it's some sort of discretion and some extra level of just favoritism, I suppose, shown. I mean, favoritism, not quite the right word, but it's something that feels owed to that group. And so to me, that's the strongest argument in general for a progressive to say, yeah, I think there is some support that is owed to the state of Israel. Now, I don't think that would mean that a progressive has to approve of what Israel is doing in Gaza or, you know, I don't think like just, oh, just saying reparations means, you know, carte blanche, everything goes. But it's more just the.
[22:20] Because there are some progressives who believe the state of Israel shouldn't exist at all, that the ideal would just be kind of wiping it off the face of the map. And I don't think that's right for a lot of reasons, but I also don't think that that's a good move historically, given just the historic harm, again, that Western Christians have perpetrated upon Jews in the past. And obviously, you know, using the word of reparations, you're likening that to African-Americans, which is, even though, you know, we are.
[22:57] You know, the history of slavery and all of that is in the past, the past doesn't end. And it's not something that, you know, there's a joke that I always think about from the show Family Guy that there's a gag that they always do those gags where they show an African-American being freed and a white guy saying, well, now you're free. And it's like, so we're cool, right? And it's like, no. But, you know, it was trying to convey that. It was like, you know, that doesn't end. I think it's the same thing here. It's, you know, that doesn't, that kind of history doesn't end. And even with this very complicated situation, you still have to remember that. And I think that, in that argument, was something that really...
[23:56] Stuck with me there. Yeah, I'm glad. And yeah, and there's been times in American history where we have done reparations a little bit better than others. I think the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, I believe within 40 years, there were some substantial payments that were made, apologies made. There's been some work done with some Native American tribes and stuff. And I mentioned, you know, there's, you know, I wouldn't say it's nearly equal to the harms that were done. Um, as far as I know, not really any systemic reparations done for African-Americans or descendants of slavery, um, beyond a few like narrow jurisdictions or cities, um, as far as I'm aware. Um, and, and again, I don't, for, for the case of, um, you know, Jewish oppression, it's like, okay, yeah, there's been 2000 years of oppression, but how do you trace that? Who, who's to blame? Whose ancestors, you know, America didn't exist 400 years ago when Jews were being persecuted in Middle Ages Europe.
[25:01] I don't think you can draw a one-to-one exactly, here's what would this look like, but just a sense of, hey, there's some sort of ownership here and we just have to be a little cautious. And I would say this is especially true for Christians because Christians have been the premier oppressors of Jews you know yeah the Romans yeah but then then the Christians after that and so especially a lot of the discourse after after October 7th you know I think there was you know conservative Christians were like go Israel do whatever you want and I'm like that's not quite right but then there's some left-wing Christians that are like.
[25:36] I think, verged on a lot of stuff that would be close to historical antisemitism, kind of blaming this other group that doesn't really fit in our categories. There's this concept that is called supersessionism. Supersessionism, where you're probably a little more familiar with it, but just like, all Christians have replaced Jews, and so we don't need to, they're kind of like this group that doesn't matter anymore, and honestly, they're kind of an annoyance. I think like there's so much for Christians to learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters, cousins, maybe our brothers and sisters is a strong word, but cousins in that that's where, you know, we get the Hebrew scriptures. Jesus was a Jew. And, you know, so many of our problems in America, maybe if we had a bit more Jewish insights into it could be helpful. The concept of Sabbath, for example, or Jubilee. It's like, yeah, if we actually had some more input from, especially, you know, whether, especially Jewish Christians, Messianic Christians, I think a lot of times we have a purely European kind of Gentile view of scripture, which isn't always wrong, but I think it's incomplete when we're not having this perspective too.
[26:48] Similarly, we're missing out if we're not hearing the perspective of Palestinian Christians, of Arab Christians, right? They're some of the oldest Christians in the land. I just, I had a book here. I was doing this for a different essay I'm working on, but you've probably seen it. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey. Yeah. Yeah. And it's great. He just, he had this scholar and pastor, I believe, professor lived in, I think, Syria for a while. And just scripture came alive because there's different insights into the culture there that he was able to grasp, having lived there and talked to the people there about his own, you know, about our own faith.
[27:27] So I think that's, I just get so hesitant. I have a really close friend who's Orthodox Jewish. I've learned so much from him. But another close friend who's Palestinian and, you know, and they're like afraid of like going through the border back and forth, you know. And it's like, this is, um, it's just like complicated. I just am trying it through my piece was trying to help people think through like, okay, even in my own existing framework, what might be some ways, some arguments that, that could kind of jostle things around. Not expecting to convince anyone necessarily, but just to, as you said, build some empathy, have just a different perspective. Well, I think that maybe that's the whole point of, I feel like that's the whole point of this essay is maybe to build empathy. Maybe that it's not to find a solution as much as it is to build empathy. Because I think that has been the frustration that I've noticed over the last two years is that I don't sense a whole lot of empathy on this whole thing. You know people focus on on on their side but then not on the other side and so.
[28:36] There's a lot of focus on the suffering on one side but not the suffering on the other side and they're suffering on all this all the sides it seems to me and i think what's been important to see this is that they're suffering all around and how do we see that And I don't know the solution here. If I did, I'd probably win the Nobel Prize, which would be nice because then it wouldn't be Trump.
[29:12] But, you know, I don't think that this is a hard issue. I mean, it's just a hard issue to solve. And as you said, you saw it and you were there. It was intractable 15 years ago. It's probably even worse now. Yeah. And it's probably going to be intractable 10, 15 years from now. So, I don't know how it gets solved. Yeah. And something else too that I've learned over time, especially through books like Kenneth Bailey's. And I think this is true. So the problem in my mind, or one of the problems is Israelis and Palestinians, it's not that they're too different from each other, but in some ways that they're very, very similar.
[29:58] Yeah. I think that they're probably very similar. That's the issue. It's almost like a sibling rivalry, a cousin rivalry in this very geographically small, compact land. And they have culturally, and it's a beautiful thing. We don't really have this in in the West, but they have very long memories and very, but the downside to that into a great knowledge of history is that it takes a lot longer for trauma to heal, right? And that's, so it's not just individual trauma, but it's communal and generational trauma. And so to what extent that gets passed down genetically, I think there's biologists that have done some study on that, but certainly culturally and communally and socially, and not only just the, you have these traumatized communities living side by side, but they're also communities that have a much stronger sense of honor, shame, right? So in the West, we have more of, in white Western culture, it's more of, you know, innocence guilt, right? And then there's some cultures that are power versus fear. In Middle Eastern cultures, it's oftentimes honor, shame. And so I think what.
[31:03] Palestinian experience a lot is shame and powerlessness. And they're like, you know, they're forced to go through these checkpoints. It's like going through the TSA every day on your way to work. And it's like, that's kind of humiliating and without pre-check. And then October 7th, I think felt like kind of the ultimate shame, or maybe not the ultimate, but a big shame for the Israelis. It's like, wow, these terrorists, you know, penetrated our borders and did all these terrible things to our people. And we still don't have the... An incredibly powerful nation that was just brought down by.
[31:35] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Brought down by a handful of guys, you know, in this, in this, what you think is a, you know, containment zone. And so I think to this day, I think a lot of the soldiers and Netanyahu, and there's this sense of like shame and, and even a shame of the hostages still aren't home. The bodies of the hostages still aren't, aren't back home. So it's like this sense of like, um, and I think that shame could play out of like, well, How do you, you know, and I think that's that, that honor shame, it can lead to a cycle of revenge, which is one of the things in, even in, you know, the Hebrew scriptures, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. That was actually like to limit the, the revenge cycle, right? Like, it's like, if someone takes out your eye, you can't kill him. You can only take out his eye. You know, he takes out your, your tooth. You can only take out one of his teeth. Of course, Jesus, you know, totally even goes beyond that of like, actually you need to love your enemies. You need to bless those that persecute you. So, you know, that's now most of the people in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are not followers of Jesus. There are some, I think, and they're doing really beautiful work that are there. I have received some newsletters of some of the folks that are trying to do not just ministry in the different groups, but also together and having that multi-ethnic of like fellowship, seeking shalom together, seeking peace together. But it's just really, really hard.
[32:59] So, you kind of end this, you basically say in all of this that you ultimately turn to Christ, you know, and that Jesus kind of has things that fit the conservative paradigm and some that fit the progressive paradigm, but there are just some things that they don't fit anything. Things like loving your enemies and blessing persecutors.
[33:29] How should, especially Christians, as we are sitting here and we're all dealing with this issue, how can we look at this issue? How should we process this issue? Because I think that there are a lot of voices that are telling us that we should pick these sides. Yeah. How do we look at this? How should we look at this and look at this really through Jesus' eyes?
[34:00] That's a great question. I'll give you one initial thought that's been something I've learned to practice over the years. For me, one of my defining moments in my life was 9-11. I'm from New York originally and saw it happen live on TV. And I hated the Taliban for the longest time and still professed the name of Christ. And, you know, eventually, I think when I was in high school or early college, God convicted me of like, well, you're supposed to love your enemies and pray for them. So I started praying for Osama bin Laden, you know, up until his death, praying for the Taliban. You don't pray for them to be good at terrorism. You pray for them, for God to bring them to repentance, for God to shower his love, for, you know, all the things that you can pray, not in an enabling way, obviously. So, and that has stuck with me. And as I mentioned, you know, I am a pacifist and I think that maybe that's the most controversial thing about me. You know, at the end of the day, a lot of Christians aren't going to agree with that. And I respect, you know, just war theory and all those people who have differing thoughts on that.
[35:09] But I want to take Jesus' words as literally and seriously as I can. And love your enemies is one of the clearest. So when I'm starting to get really mad, when I see the news and I see Israel doing stuff, I pray for them. Well, I try to, that's what I'm supposed to do. And I encourage others to do that. Or when you see the videos of the Hamas militants killing people in Israel on October 7th or any other number of atrocities, to pray for them, just to think, who is the bad guy here? Who feels like the enemy? And then to pray for that, person or that group.
[35:48] Because today's terrorist could become someone very different. That was the case for Saul. He was the biggest terrorist of the earliest church. He was dragging them to prison, killing them. And he had a remarkable encounter with Jesus. He had a remarkable encounter with Ananias, who had to overcome his fear and hatred of his enemy to pray healing for him and love him. And then Paul went on a very changed and different man.
[36:15] The rest is history, as they say. So I think that's where it has to start for Christians. I think for Christians who don't know what to think or don't know where to begin, I mean, there's so many different resources. There's so many different books and podcasts. And, you know, there's even like TV series that can help get you a little bit into that mindset. You know, like The Chosen is one. There's a new one on Prime called the House of David that, you know, they're kind of retellings of these Bible stories, but it helps you enter into that culture a little bit more so than just what we're used to in American Christianity, which is often very devoid of that culture. Those would be some initial thoughts. I honestly think just prayer and I think being willing to have the conversations and have empathy with those on the other side. That's the thing that I think distresses me the worst, that distresses me the most, is when I just see Christians that seem to not have an empathy for those on the other side, for their enemies, right?
[37:18] You can't just conjure up empathy, but I think by the power of the Holy Spirit, and as you reflect and talk to other people and listen to their experiences, I think that's where empathy can be built.
[37:30] If people want to know more about you or read some of your articles, and I have been reading a lot of your articles, where can they go?
[37:40] Thanks. I'm glad you've been subscribing. Yeah, I write mostly on Substack and exclusively on Substack now. And it's called The Dreamer and the Realist. And so, yeah, my name is Andrew Berg. And is there maybe a way you can put it in the show notes or something? I will definitely. Yep. So that's my main publication. That's where I talk about faith, talk about Christianity, talk about politics and Star Wars. I've been doing some pieces on Star Wars in there. I also have a secondary blog, which might be of interest to some of your listeners. And it's called Yes in My Spare Room. And it's kind of a take on the not-in-my-backyard, yes-in-my-backyard housing scarcity, housing abundance debate that's been happening in a lot of liberal political circles. And my wife and I have had the honor and a great experience of hosting a number of long-term guests in our home. People that we've known, some of them acquaintances, some of them friends, for months at a time in our spare room. And it's so joyful. And I'm like, more people should do this. More people should know about this. And, of course, historically, most people did live a lot more. You know, more people lived in a house, you know. So I've been writing reflections on that. It's called Yes in My Spare Room, also at Substack. Oh, that's fascinating. So that is something that people used to do, that they would have spare rooms and they would rent out rooms and, I mean.
[39:01] I mean, maybe I think that has kind of went out maybe about 50 years ago or something. I think that's what it was. Once the zoning kind of kicked in and it became like single family dwellings were the thing, then I think Americans got more and more used to a sense of privacy. But I also think we're seeing higher rates of depression and isolation and people not having friends. It's like, well, one way to get around more people is to literally have them in the house with you. Same house. Yeah. That might help, man. It might help make people not less angry. So, you know. Yeah. Which I would like, because I think we're too angry right now. Yeah. Watch news and everything. Agreed. Agreed. Well, Andrew, thank you so much. I think this has been a really helpful and a really great episode, especially about an issue.
[39:54] Not an issue to solve, but I think a way of looking at this issue and maybe how we can better look at this issue. So thank you. And I hope to have you back on the podcast again soon.
[40:06] Thank you, Dennis. I would love that. All right. Take care.
[40:40] I'm always curious to know what your thoughts are on the episode and your ideas. As usual, send me an email, churchinmain, all one word, at substack.com. I will include links to Andrew's article so you can read it for yourself. I will also include a link to my most recent episode with Todd Stavrakos that was also on Israel-Palestine, so that you can listen to that one as well.
[41:17] So, also, if you want to learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes, or donate, visit churchinmain.org. You can also visit churchandmaine.substack.com to read related articles. You can subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app and leave a review or leave a rating. That can help others find the podcast.
[41:45] Also, if you want to make a donation, you can do that. There is a link in the show notes. Donations do help to pay for the cost of the podcast to keep producing great content like this episode. There is also a link if you want to receive new episodes in your email inbox. So there is a link there for that as well. That is it for this episode of Church and Main. I am Dennis Sanders, your host. As I always like to say, thank you so much for listening. Take care, everyone. Godspeed, and I will see you very soon.