In this candid and wide-ranging conversation, I sat down with my friend and media commentator Andrew Donaldson to wrestle with one of the most uncomfortable questions facing American Christianity today: Is the public display of faith we're seeing from figures like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth genuine witness — or just performance?
This is a conversation about our failings, the danger of chasing validation over transformation, and what it really means to live out your faith when no one is looking.
Shownotes:
Heard Tell (Andrew's Substack)
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00:00:28 --> 00:00:32 Hey, everyone. Welcome to Church and Maine, a podcast for people interested
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 I am Dennis Sanders, your host.
00:00:38 --> 00:00:44 So, this episode is… I don't know how to describe it. Talk therapy? Bull session?
00:00:45 --> 00:00:51 It's with my friend Andrew Donaldson. Andrew kind of wanted to talk to someone,
00:00:51 --> 00:00:58 basically someone of faith, really about where faith intersects with the Pentagon.
00:00:59 --> 00:01:05 Actually, specifically, the religious musings of the Secretary of Defense,
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 and I am calling it Defense, Pete Hegseth.
00:01:10 --> 00:01:16 Andrew is an evangelical, and a lot of what we talk about is really,
00:01:16 --> 00:01:24 how is evangelicalism portraying itself in public, especially when it gets in
00:01:24 --> 00:01:29 bed with politics and what that means.
00:01:29 --> 00:01:36 So, before we go into this discussion, which is timely with considering the
00:01:36 --> 00:01:41 current situations in the Middle East, just to talk a little bit about Andrew.
00:01:41 --> 00:01:50 He is a frequent guest on Church in Maine, and he is a native of West Virginia,
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 the host of the Her Tell podcast.
00:01:54 --> 00:01:58 Don't know if he is still managing editor of Ordinary Times,
00:01:58 --> 00:02:05 a blog that he has been a part of for a long time, but he's also a widely published opinion writer.
00:02:05 --> 00:02:10 He appears on media, radio, and also as a talking head on TV.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:17 So, with all that out of the way, let's take part in this interesting conversation
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 on faith and politics with Andrew Donaldson.
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 Well, Andrew, it is good to have you back. It has been a while.
00:02:47 --> 00:02:51 Way too long. Way too long, my friend. I greatly appreciate your counsel and
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 talking, and that's probably why I'm not doing good on things.
00:02:54 --> 00:02:58 I haven't talked to you enough, so we'll fix that and do this more often,
00:02:58 --> 00:02:59 but it's good to see you, buddy.
00:03:00 --> 00:03:06 All right. Well, I got actually, you had messaged me because you wanted to talk
00:03:06 --> 00:03:14 about kind of what was going on, especially with, I'm going to call him the Secretary of Defense.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:21 Pete Hegseth, and some of the goings-on, especially his religious goings-on,
00:03:22 --> 00:03:25 and that we're both aware of,
00:03:25 --> 00:03:31 and I know you wanted to talk to me about that and kind of reason some things out.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:36 So, I'm going to let you start that off, and we'll kind of go from there.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:42 I, uh, I, I, I'm the world's worst Christian, so I'm not trying to tell anybody
00:03:42 --> 00:03:43 anything that they don't.
00:03:43 --> 00:03:47 I'm with Johnny Cash. I do, C-Modest is my good day of faith,
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 you know, um, to rip off the great
00:03:49 --> 00:03:53 Johnny Cash who had multiple personal problems that we won't get into.
00:03:53 --> 00:03:58 But he sang a good hymn, so I kind of hold on to that. Um, I,
00:03:58 --> 00:04:04 I, I don't want to be preachy with anybody, but I take my faith seriously and
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 my faith has been a mess a lot of my life and I've made a lot of mistakes.
00:04:08 --> 00:04:12 I look, there's plenty of people that will tell you all sorts of horrible stories
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 about me. Most of them are probably true.
00:04:14 --> 00:04:19 Um, I have failed miserably in many, many aspects of my own life,
00:04:19 --> 00:04:23 but I also take my face seriously.
00:04:24 --> 00:04:29 And I, whether you agree with me or don't agree with me or whatever, I take it seriously.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 And I take it seriously enough that I don't feel I need to put it on my profile
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 or put it out on my social media or whatever. I just go about it.
00:04:37 --> 00:04:38 And, um...
00:04:40 --> 00:04:44 We seem to be in this era right now with certain individuals and our elected
00:04:44 --> 00:04:49 officials, and it's a—look, it didn't—what's my core value in media?
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 It didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened in a sequence of events.
00:04:52 --> 00:04:58 In my lifetime and in my background and growing up in Protestant Christian,
00:04:58 --> 00:05:02 I hate the word evangelical, but for lack of a better term, you know my rant on that one.
00:05:03 --> 00:05:09 I is one, so we'll talk about it. But the way I've seen people in my own faith
00:05:09 --> 00:05:14 group evolve over the last 46 years that I've been alive almost here coming up in May, I'll be 46,
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 has really dovetailed with some of the changes.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:24 And I think we're seeing the end results of it where we can't have a DOD briefing
00:05:24 --> 00:05:26 without a prayer and a Bible verse.
00:05:27 --> 00:05:35 And we have, you know, government agencies sending out Bible verses on AI placards,
00:05:36 --> 00:05:40 you know, or, you know, what my blessed mother would call church cards, right?
00:05:41 --> 00:05:45 It's just a nice little border, some kind of flowery something in a Bible verse in the middle.
00:05:45 --> 00:05:50 Now that's an official government document, you know, which people are like,
00:05:50 --> 00:05:51 well, there's nothing wrong with that.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 No, there's nothing wrong with it, but it's like everything else.
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 What's the context of it? Why is it being used?
00:05:56 --> 00:06:01 You know, can we talk about rescued pilots without bringing up the entirety
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 of the Easter story? Um...
00:06:05 --> 00:06:11 I know a lot of my Christian brethren, especially conservative Christians,
00:06:11 --> 00:06:16 because so many of them have just gone all in on, you know,
00:06:16 --> 00:06:20 politics and faith and Christianity, and it's all one big thing all in the same
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 tube pointing at the sky like a missile.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:30 It bothers me. Look, I don't have an agenda for this. I'm just talking because
00:06:30 --> 00:06:31 I feel like I want to talk about it.
00:06:32 --> 00:06:38 But I think we've got to have some conversations and some honest conversations
00:06:38 --> 00:06:40 of, look, we're all failed people.
00:06:40 --> 00:06:45 So I don't want to do this thing where it's like, I don't want to drag up Pete
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 Hegseth's biography the way I'd drag mine up.
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 Because we've both got, he's got failed marriages, I've got failed marriages.
00:06:52 --> 00:06:54 You know, none of us are perfect. Yeah.
00:06:55 --> 00:06:59 I'm also not, you know, the secretary of defense at the same time.
00:06:59 --> 00:07:04 Where's that line? You know, President Trump. And look, if Joe Biden,
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 if he was president, I'd be talking about him.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 My first real political stuff was when Clinton was in office.
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 You want to talk about personal problems and personal wobbles and,
00:07:13 --> 00:07:17 you know, the affairs and the things that they covered up to try to protect Clinton.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 I'd say this if it was a Democratic president, too, so you can miss me with that.
00:07:21 --> 00:07:27 But I remember the clip, you know, Bill Clinton carried the biggest Bible in
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 the history of the presidency to church for a reason, because it looks good, right?
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 You know, is that really different than what we're doing here with the current
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 administration? I don't think it is.
00:07:37 --> 00:07:42 I think it's more tailor-made. I think there's more of a media ecosystem to it.
00:07:42 --> 00:07:48 But there's so many voices are like, okay, if you just put a cross on the front
00:07:48 --> 00:07:50 of it or slap the Christian nomenclature on it,
00:07:50 --> 00:07:54 it makes it good and we should cheer it because that puts it in the public domain
00:07:54 --> 00:07:58 and we should be happy we're in the public domain with it. And I'm like, no.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:03 And you get pushed back immediately, and people question your faith, or they think you don't.
00:08:03 --> 00:08:09 I'm like, no, we need to have some conversations about this,
00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 about the branding of the faith.
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 We need to have conversations about the context of the faith.
00:08:16 --> 00:08:20 And we need to have some conversations about what is and isn't appropriate to
00:08:20 --> 00:08:25 slap faith labels on. because if you really care about your faith and you care
00:08:25 --> 00:08:29 about spiritual things and you care about helping people,
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 you know if you're if your thing is america
00:08:33 --> 00:08:36 needs a healthy spiritual life then a
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 healthy spiritual life for the country has to be you know
00:08:39 --> 00:08:42 nurtured and treated as such
00:08:42 --> 00:08:47 and i don't see the way we're putting politics and faith and religion together
00:08:47 --> 00:08:52 as any kind of nurturing for the country right now i see it as a weaponized
00:08:52 --> 00:08:58 i see it monetized uh christianity if you put protestants and catholics and
00:08:58 --> 00:09:02 the Mormons all together in one bit, you're talking about a trillion-dollar industry, more so.
00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 It's like $1.3 trillion just on religion in America.
00:09:07 --> 00:09:11 You have those things, but if we don't have some honest conversations about
00:09:11 --> 00:09:17 it and be able to parse it out a little bit, it's going to get abused.
00:09:17 --> 00:09:21 It's going to be taken over by bad-faith people. It's going to hurt the country.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 It's going to hurt our politics. It's going to hurt our faith,
00:09:23 --> 00:09:24 and it's going to hurt each and every one of us.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:28 And I just don't see enough people having the honest conversation about it as
00:09:28 --> 00:09:35 like, we can struggle as people that are fallen in a fallen world that are sinful and still be like,
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 okay, I don't need to spout a Bible verse every other sentence just to talk
00:09:39 --> 00:09:43 about politics, because that seems like too far that way at the same time.
00:09:45 --> 00:09:49 But I just wonder if there's more people like me that are just frustrated with,
00:09:50 --> 00:09:51 like, I don't know how to talk about it.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:56 I don't know how to address it. I'm seeing it on my screen nonstop because people
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 are making a point to take it.
00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 And if you're on a podcast, I'm sorry, I'm using my hand to the camera.
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 They're putting it right here and going, here this is, and you have to deal
00:10:04 --> 00:10:05 with it whether you like it or not.
00:10:06 --> 00:10:10 I'm supposed to be agreeing with you, but I don't want to deal with it like this.
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 And I just wonder if there's more people like that. Like, we don't even know
00:10:14 --> 00:10:18 how to talk about it or push back about it or anything. So I'm coming to you,
00:10:18 --> 00:10:24 pastor, you know, talking head on a podcast, friend of mine for some time who I respect and love.
00:10:25 --> 00:10:29 What do we do with all this? What do we do when, you know, the DOD is having
00:10:29 --> 00:10:33 prayer services with people who are charlatans, frankly?
00:10:33 --> 00:10:37 I'll just use the word that is applicable to that individual,
00:10:37 --> 00:10:40 and I'm not going to use his name because he thrives off press.
00:10:41 --> 00:10:46 And that's not the business I'm in. You know, what do we do when people whose
00:10:46 --> 00:10:51 actions tell me completely different than their words, what they really believe?
00:10:51 --> 00:10:55 You know, what are we going to do with this? Because we have platforms and we
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 have responsibilities.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 How do we talk about this stuff?
00:11:02 --> 00:11:09 I think part of it is trying to share what we already believe,
00:11:09 --> 00:11:15 what we believe the faith demands of us.
00:11:15 --> 00:11:21 And what I think it obviously demands of us is not to just slap on a cross on
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 something and call it good,
00:11:23 --> 00:11:34 but to talk about this in a way that talks about the – especially in the role of defense secretary.
00:11:36 --> 00:11:41 I think your role is there is to help in the protection of the nation.
00:11:43 --> 00:11:51 It is not your case to go out and start proselytizing people.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:57 And that doesn't mean that you don't talk about your faith or that your faith isn't important to you.
00:11:58 --> 00:12:03 But I feel that the role that the Defense Secretary is doing is like,
00:12:03 --> 00:12:05 this is an opportunity for me
00:12:05 --> 00:12:12 to spout off my beliefs and what America should be like and all of this.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 And it's like, that's not in
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 the job description, or at least it shouldn't be in the job description.
00:12:20 --> 00:12:25 I think what it kind of boils down to is witness. How do we witness our faith?
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 And it's interesting, you talked about.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:38 What he said on Easter Sunday. And it was also interesting, on Easter Sunday,
00:12:40 --> 00:12:45 they were interviewing all of the astronauts aboard Artemis II,
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 and they talked to Victor Glover, who was the pilot.
00:12:49 --> 00:12:54 Yeah, that was outstanding. I saw that. And he is very public in his faith,
00:12:54 --> 00:13:01 but his message was not one that was unwelcoming.
00:13:01 --> 00:13:07 I mean, it felt at the same time very Christian and very inclusive.
00:13:07 --> 00:13:12 It didn't try to exclude people who may have not shared his faith,
00:13:12 --> 00:13:16 but it was also very much a representation of his faith,
00:13:16 --> 00:13:21 which is very different from Hegsa's view, which is, I think,
00:13:21 --> 00:13:29 very exclusive and I really feel tries to use the faith to kind of push certain agendas.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:36 And when you're doing that, I think it really makes me question,
00:13:36 --> 00:13:38 do you believe in all of this?
00:13:38 --> 00:13:43 Or is this just kind of something that you're using to feather your own bed,
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 to kind of promote yourself?
00:13:46 --> 00:13:51 Because I think that if you're talking about your faith,
00:13:52 --> 00:13:59 it should come off in a way that is genuine and that also understands when it's
00:13:59 --> 00:14:04 appropriate to do that and when it just comes off as smarmy.
00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 And a lot of times it comes off from him, very smarmy.
00:14:09 --> 00:14:14 Yeah, let me jump on the inclusion word because that's a loaded word right now.
00:14:14 --> 00:14:18 It's a loaded word, I know, yeah. Words like inclusive and diversity because people jump on it.
00:14:19 --> 00:14:22 Here's how I would define inclusivity of faith.
00:14:23 --> 00:14:27 And look, all my social media is under my own name, so you can go look all this
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 up. I almost never talk...
00:14:31 --> 00:14:36 Hardcore doctrinal stuff on my social media. You can go look very rarely what I do.
00:14:36 --> 00:14:39 You and me have had a few offline.
00:14:40 --> 00:14:44 I will talk to anybody about, and people that don't know my background,
00:14:44 --> 00:14:52 I have studied theology both academically at the college level and just personally,
00:14:52 --> 00:14:53 because I like it for over 20 years now.
00:14:53 --> 00:14:57 So it's something I study. I take seriously.
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 If you look at my bookshelf over here, these two bookshelves right here are
00:15:01 --> 00:15:06 nothing but theology, religion, religious history, church history.
00:15:06 --> 00:15:10 I've got bookshelves of it that I've been taking classes on this stuff for years.
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 I study it because I care about it, and I want to learn about it.
00:15:15 --> 00:15:22 The way I would say inclusivity of faith is there's people who want to talk
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 the hardcore doctrinal differences.
00:15:25 --> 00:15:30 You and me have some very, very east to west doctrinal differences between the
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 two of us, how we do things, how we view things.
00:15:33 --> 00:15:37 But we also have some things that are similar. But you and me offline can sit
00:15:37 --> 00:15:41 there and hash out that doctrinal stuff and like, okay, we can do this.
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 Doesn't mean I'm going to come speak in your church or whatever because we may
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 disagree on things, but we have a relationship and a conversation.
00:15:48 --> 00:15:49 We can hash that stuff out.
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 Inclusivity and diversity is one of those things where it's like,
00:15:53 --> 00:15:57 you got to know your time and your place. I don't talk doctrine on Twitter because
00:15:57 --> 00:15:58 there's zero point to it.
00:15:59 --> 00:16:04 I have friends of mine that I know that I love talking hardcore doctrinal.
00:16:04 --> 00:16:08 I'm talking debates like we will get heated, we will fuss at each other,
00:16:08 --> 00:16:13 we will, you know, it's, but, you know, push-pull healthy stuff because we know where we stand.
00:16:14 --> 00:16:16 That's not what social media is built for. That's not what the news media is
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 built for. So I'm not going to do it.
00:16:19 --> 00:16:24 Is that not inclusive? No, that's knowing the context of what I'm trying to accomplish.
00:16:25 --> 00:16:30 If I'm having a doctrinal debate with somebody, it's because I'm not just trying to prove I'm right.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:34 I'm trying to test what I know against what this person knows.
00:16:36 --> 00:16:42 You know, it's a push-pull, not just that I'm right, but to refine what I believe
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 to make sure I'm right. That's how I approach that stuff.
00:16:46 --> 00:16:50 Inclusivity in a church environment or in an environment like that is like,
00:16:50 --> 00:16:54 okay, it's not my job to fix people.
00:16:54 --> 00:17:00 That's God's job to fix people. My job is to make them welcome around the people
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 of God, which we call churches.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:07 I want to make sure that person feels so that whatever God's going to do in
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 their life, I'm not in the way at a minimum. Don't get in the way.
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 At a maximum, maybe I can help out a little bit.
00:17:13 --> 00:17:18 But whatever they're doing, wherever they're at, my job is just not,
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 you know, it's almost the do no harm in medicine.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 We could probably use a lot more of that in the Christian faith.
00:17:23 --> 00:17:28 Like, start with don't make it worse. Start there.
00:17:28 --> 00:17:32 And then whatever they're trying to get fixed in their lives by trying to find
00:17:32 --> 00:17:36 some faith answers to the things in their lives, maybe you will be in a position to help,
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 but you have to be in proximity to be in a position to help,
00:17:39 --> 00:17:43 and you have to be in a proximity where they'll reach out and help you, which is inclusive.
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 Does that mean I just, does that mean I, you know, validated all their life
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51 choices? Does that mean I believe everything they believe? Does that mean I
00:17:51 --> 00:17:52 think they're doing? No.
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 But what's your role in the grand scheme of things?
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 Like, you know, faith is a hierarchical thing.
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 There's God up here and you're way down here in number, you know,
00:18:03 --> 00:18:07 4.5 billion somewhere, right? Not to him, but in our human mind.
00:18:08 --> 00:18:11 You know, first do no harm. So if you're just starting out with,
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 you have to doctrinally believe everything I believe immediately.
00:18:15 --> 00:18:18 There's a time and place for that. If you're in a church, you want to have doctrinal,
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 you know, you wouldn't let them get up and teach if they didn't agree with you.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 But if you're just going to have a dinner, do you worry about that?
00:18:24 --> 00:18:25 No. Time and a place for it.
00:18:26 --> 00:18:30 Are you going to disclude people of other faiths? Well, that depends.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:38 You know, if we're having a pig-picking barbecue, our Jewish friends,
00:18:38 --> 00:18:41 there's probably no point inviting them to that, right?
00:18:41 --> 00:18:45 You know, if we're planning something for Friday, mid-morning Friday,
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 our Muslim friends are probably not coming because they're a little busy that day, right?
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 High holidays for other faiths. You know, pick whatever you want.
00:18:54 --> 00:18:58 Is it—do I be inclusive, be like, oh, you know, it's Passover,
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 so I'm just going to be respectful of what my Jewish friends are doing right
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 now. And, you know, I'll send them a little message, but, you know,
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 stay out of the way, let them handle their stuff.
00:19:07 --> 00:19:10 That's the kind of inclusivity and diversity of just, you know,
00:19:10 --> 00:19:13 basic manners we've seen to lose.
00:19:13 --> 00:19:20 And one of my little, you know, Occam's Razors for all of this religiosity,
00:19:20 --> 00:19:23 for lack of a better term, that we're seeing in America right now is,
00:19:24 --> 00:19:27 why are you bringing this up? Is this to help or hurt?
00:19:27 --> 00:19:33 Is this to divide or to advance what you think? because I will be told that
00:19:33 --> 00:19:37 people that are purposely dividing are doing that for the betterment of what
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 they believe in their faith and for the Christian faith and for God or whatever.
00:19:41 --> 00:19:46 But if you're the one doing the viding, that means you're the decider of who's in and who's out.
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 And again, if we're in a church environment, yeah, you have authority to do
00:19:50 --> 00:19:54 that. In a political environment, in a social environment, school environment,
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 community environment, we're at the grocery store.
00:19:57 --> 00:20:00 Do you really have the authority to do that? I don't think you do.
00:20:01 --> 00:20:05 I think some basic manners would go a long way. So one of those little locks
00:20:05 --> 00:20:09 and razors is, are you hurting or helping everybody else that may not believe
00:20:09 --> 00:20:14 you? or are you just playing to the in-group of your own folks and your own faith group?
00:20:14 --> 00:20:21 Because playing to the in-group is never—I'm going to say this very carefully—if
00:20:21 --> 00:20:27 you're just playing to your in-group of faith, that's not evangelism by any
00:20:27 --> 00:20:28 definition of the world.
00:20:28 --> 00:20:31 That is not progressing the faith. That is not showing the world how you believe.
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 That's just showing we're in an in-group and you're not.
00:20:36 --> 00:20:40 But I get told constantly, media,
00:20:40 --> 00:20:45 Christian media, the way people are living is like, oh, if we just,
00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 you know, project to our in-group how much we're in the in-group,
00:20:47 --> 00:20:51 that's going to make the world want to be in the in-group. That's not how it works.
00:20:52 --> 00:20:59 Why do you think people think that that's the way it works? Because it's easier
00:20:59 --> 00:21:00 because you're already in the in-group.
00:21:00 --> 00:21:08 So there's a lot of group psychology that—see, you're baiting me to get on the
00:21:08 --> 00:21:11 purpose-driven church stuff, and I'm going to avoid it. Nice try.
00:21:12 --> 00:21:18 There's a lot of group think philosophy and psychology that has gone into how
00:21:18 --> 00:21:21 to build up churches during the church growth movement era.
00:21:21 --> 00:21:24 That's not me saying that. The people that wrote all those books, that's what they used.
00:21:25 --> 00:21:28 There's good stuff in there to use. There's nothing wrong with using that stuff.
00:21:29 --> 00:21:33 But at the same time, there's supposed to be more to it than that.
00:21:36 --> 00:21:41 There's such a fine line of building up a community inside of a church.
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 Look, you're a pastor. You tell me. You probably know how hard this is.
00:21:45 --> 00:21:50 How do you build up a faith group that is very secure and safe as a faith group,
00:21:50 --> 00:21:54 but is also welcoming the strangers to come in and join? That's hard. That's really hard.
00:21:54 --> 00:22:01 You know how hard it is? it basically takes something supernatural to make it work. Mm-hmm.
00:22:04 --> 00:22:04 Yep.
00:22:07 --> 00:22:11 And the only way you can make it work without a supernatural element helping
00:22:11 --> 00:22:16 you make it work is to homogenize it so that there's no problems.
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 Because everybody thinks the same and looks the same and does the same thing
00:22:18 --> 00:22:22 and are all in the same socioeconomic stratus and you end up with sameness.
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 Might be able to make a sermon out of that. Just thinking.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:37 I could make a few sermons out of that. It is so hard to have a community of
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 people that are very interconnected in their lives and their service and their
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 faith, and it still be welcoming to outsiders.
00:22:44 --> 00:22:48 But that's what we're supposed to be doing as churches.
00:22:49 --> 00:22:58 And I fear that we've replaced some of that with the overall social aspects
00:22:58 --> 00:22:59 of Christianity in America.
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 Where it's, oh, I listen to the Christian radio station and,
00:23:04 --> 00:23:09 you know, my kids go to the Christian school and, you know, I go to the Christian
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 church and I have this Christian lifestyle.
00:23:14 --> 00:23:18 Okay, well, what's your church doing? What's your faith community doing?
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 What are you doing with that?
00:23:22 --> 00:23:27 Are you doing anything with that? Are you, is it helping somebody other than
00:23:27 --> 00:23:30 you, which it should be, or what's the point?
00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 And I think we have a lot of people. Look, I'm guilty of this,
00:23:33 --> 00:23:36 too. It's happened to me where it's like, I'm very comfortable in my church.
00:23:36 --> 00:23:37 I'm very comfortable here, and I'm doing this.
00:23:38 --> 00:23:42 I've had trouble when I've been between churches for various reasons where you
00:23:42 --> 00:23:45 lose it quick, and it's like, man, it's hard to get back in the habit.
00:23:45 --> 00:23:49 I don't want to find another church again. I don't want to have to find another pastor again.
00:23:49 --> 00:23:52 I don't want to have to open myself up to a whole bunch of new people all over
00:23:52 --> 00:23:57 again who's going to have to hear the whole story again. That stuff's hard. I get it.
00:23:58 --> 00:24:01 But it's not a social club, man.
00:24:02 --> 00:24:10 And, and we, because of the business side of it, it's a socioeconomic indicator now.
00:24:10 --> 00:24:12 And now it's a political indicator to too many people.
00:24:13 --> 00:24:16 And I think that's a bad spot to get with your faith. If your,
00:24:17 --> 00:24:22 if your point is to have faith that is useful, multipliable,
00:24:22 --> 00:24:27 and effective in a, in a world that's really in a bad spot right now.
00:24:28 --> 00:24:31 What well i think especially with
00:24:31 --> 00:24:34 some people there is a lot of a
00:24:34 --> 00:24:38 i think you said it earlier a religious religiosity
00:24:38 --> 00:24:40 that what's important is that
00:24:40 --> 00:24:44 you act a certain way but the
00:24:44 --> 00:24:52 funny thing is is that their actions betray how they act or how they appear
00:24:52 --> 00:24:58 um i just remembered recently in all the talk that we're talking about with
00:24:58 --> 00:25:02 the Secretary of Defense of the fact that...
00:25:04 --> 00:25:12 They had a picture of the joint chiefs um and i guess there have been a lot
00:25:12 --> 00:25:18 of replacements on the joint chief staff since um the new since trump has become president again,
00:25:19 --> 00:25:26 and the thing that is the interesting characteristic is that they're all white
00:25:26 --> 00:25:34 and male that was not the case a year and a half ago and there's been a lot of um.
00:25:36 --> 00:25:46 Promotions of persons of color and women that have been blocked by the Secretary
00:25:46 --> 00:25:48 of Defense, and that is unusual.
00:25:48 --> 00:25:54 And so it kind of then makes you wonder if all of this performative access of
00:25:54 --> 00:26:04 the faith doesn't really mean anything if you're not treating your sister or brother with respect?
00:26:06 --> 00:26:10 Well, I mean, we know the answer. Of course we do. I think there's a Bible verse
00:26:10 --> 00:26:12 or two about this particular topic.
00:26:13 --> 00:26:17 I think Jesus might have had a story or two involved about this once or twice.
00:26:18 --> 00:26:26 Look, I, at my stage of life and experience, I've really gotten to where,
00:26:26 --> 00:26:29 you know, I just really cleave.
00:26:30 --> 00:26:33 And the more media I do, the harder I grab onto this, just as the,
00:26:33 --> 00:26:37 it's the buoy in the middle of the lake when we had to swim across the lake
00:26:37 --> 00:26:38 and you can't keep over your friends.
00:26:38 --> 00:26:41 So we always did it where the buoy is. So if you got halfway and couldn't,
00:26:41 --> 00:26:43 you could grab the buoy. This is my buoy in media.
00:26:44 --> 00:26:47 You know, believe, believe what people's actions tell you, man.
00:26:47 --> 00:26:52 Like I, and I, I, I think I even snarkily said something about one of the,
00:26:52 --> 00:26:54 one of the DOD, you know, prayer.
00:26:54 --> 00:27:00 Oh, it was, Carolyn Levitt came out to do the press conference in the briefing room.
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 She said, did you hear how loud our amen was? We were just, we just got done praying.
00:27:03 --> 00:27:08 That was her exact, almost verbatim, what she said to open the press conference. And I'm like.
00:27:12 --> 00:27:19 You know, I got a Bible full of prayer closets and things they probably don't know about.
00:27:19 --> 00:27:29 But anyway, to your point, you know, again, I don't even know how to talk about
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 this because I don't want to get preachy because I fail too.
00:27:31 --> 00:27:37 But at the same time, if we're going to put that out front and center,
00:27:37 --> 00:27:41 like the Carolyn Leavitt thing or like what Hagseth is doing,
00:27:42 --> 00:27:47 if you're going to put it out front and center, your standard just went way up.
00:27:48 --> 00:27:56 Glover, what Glover said in the space capsule, the dude is the best of humanity.
00:27:56 --> 00:28:01 Like he's 1% of the 1% of the 1%. Like go read his bio.
00:28:01 --> 00:28:06 You cannot get a better quality human being professionally, ethically, personally.
00:28:07 --> 00:28:11 He is just the best among us, which is why he's there.
00:28:12 --> 00:28:16 And our friends that like that sort of thing, when he had his shirt off,
00:28:16 --> 00:28:20 that really blew up social media. The guy is excellent in every possible way, right?
00:28:21 --> 00:28:25 He's who you would hold up to an alien and be like, this is what a human being
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 should be and what they should be able to achieve. This is as good as we get.
00:28:28 --> 00:28:34 So when he says it, it hits a certain way because he has everything about that
00:28:34 --> 00:28:36 man just screams excellence.
00:28:37 --> 00:28:42 His whole life, how he carries himself, how he talks, and everybody else on
00:28:42 --> 00:28:47 the crew too because the quality of human being, you have to be there. So people listen to it.
00:28:48 --> 00:28:51 When you act, and I'm just going to say this and go ahead and get mad if you
00:28:51 --> 00:28:55 want to, when you act like a caricature of the role you're in instead of just
00:28:55 --> 00:28:59 doing the role you're in because you're good at it, and then you put the faith
00:28:59 --> 00:29:02 on it, people are going to put them two things together.
00:29:03 --> 00:29:10 So if you're going to put that front and center, if that's the first thing in
00:29:10 --> 00:29:12 your Twitter bio, great, fantastic.
00:29:12 --> 00:29:16 But you just set the terms for our entire viewpoint of you through the rest
00:29:16 --> 00:29:18 of your bio, you better live up to it.
00:29:19 --> 00:29:26 I mean, how many of those accounts, like, I've gotten death threats from accounts with crosses in them.
00:29:26 --> 00:29:31 You know, it's just part of the gig, you know, because I got my real name on everything.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 And they'll call you every name in the book. I'm like, okay,
00:29:35 --> 00:29:38 so maybe don't put that first on your bio.
00:29:39 --> 00:29:41 It's not in mine. That's one of the reasons it's not on there.
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 You can call me a coward or whatever. Maybe you're right.
00:29:44 --> 00:29:50 But it's like, you know, are we going to have a faith where it's okay to struggle,
00:29:51 --> 00:29:54 and it's okay to work it out, and it's okay to not have the answers,
00:29:54 --> 00:30:02 and it's okay to not need validation from everybody all the time on everything
00:30:02 --> 00:30:03 that you're a person of faith?
00:30:04 --> 00:30:08 Because I think we're replacing authenticity with validation a lot here.
00:30:08 --> 00:30:13 I see it a lot. And I think some of the stuff you're seeing is,
00:30:13 --> 00:30:18 oh, it's okay that they're doing it because it validates what my faith is and
00:30:18 --> 00:30:24 it validates how I feel and it validates, you know, the in-group that I'm already in.
00:30:24 --> 00:30:29 We get validations like, well, no, we're not supposed to be in the validation business.
00:30:32 --> 00:30:35 We just did Easter. Easter is not a validation holiday.
00:30:36 --> 00:30:45 Easter is the opposite Oh boy, here we're going to go Good Friday was a validation
00:30:45 --> 00:30:46 incident How'd that work out?
00:30:51 --> 00:30:55 You know, Palm Sunday, oh, you're going to be our Messiah. And it was the exact same people.
00:30:56 --> 00:31:04 You know, I think there's something to that of you need to have enough of a
00:31:04 --> 00:31:07 faith where you don't need to constantly validate it by people who obviously
00:31:07 --> 00:31:10 have some holes in their faith game.
00:31:10 --> 00:31:16 To use a sports reference, if your faith depends on that real strong leader
00:31:16 --> 00:31:19 all the time, and you should have strong faith leaders in your life.
00:31:19 --> 00:31:22 But if your faith depends on
00:31:22 --> 00:31:25 that then that's that's not faith that's
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 followership you know and i
00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 i think we need to really deal in the
00:31:31 --> 00:31:34 social media age and news media age where we're having politics and religion
00:31:34 --> 00:31:39 mixed back together in a way we really haven't seen in a in a generation at
00:31:39 --> 00:31:44 least if not longer probably the 40s and 50s historically is last time we saw
00:31:44 --> 00:31:47 this but say what you want about the fundamentalists they they did separation
00:31:47 --> 00:31:50 and they meant and they stayed away they They didn't want nothing to do with any of this mess.
00:31:51 --> 00:31:55 This is different. I think we need to start talking more about validation.
00:31:56 --> 00:32:00 What validates your faith? Is it quietly working out your faith in your local
00:32:00 --> 00:32:01 church and your community?
00:32:01 --> 00:32:04 And then when you need to say something publicly and stand up for the faith,
00:32:04 --> 00:32:06 that's all good. There's nothing wrong with that.
00:32:07 --> 00:32:10 But if politics is validating your faith, you're going to wind up disappointed,
00:32:10 --> 00:32:14 man, because I love my country, but this ain't it.
00:32:15 --> 00:32:20 Like, that's not what I'm going to answer for. I'm not going to answer for what Congress did.
00:32:20 --> 00:32:23 Might answer for some of the people I voted for. So, you know,
00:32:23 --> 00:32:25 who knows? So y'all please behave yourselves.
00:32:26 --> 00:32:29 But, you know, I'm not, I don't think my judgment's going to involve,
00:32:29 --> 00:32:32 you know, the in-depth housing policies of wherever.
00:32:32 --> 00:32:34 I don't know that that's going to come up.
00:32:35 --> 00:32:41 I'm pretty sure how I treated my fellow man. I'm 100% sure that I have been
00:32:41 --> 00:32:44 blessed with this platform where I'm on TV and radio and writing.
00:32:44 --> 00:32:50 I'm 100% convinced I'm going to have to answer for all that because not everybody gets to do that.
00:32:50 --> 00:32:54 Very few people get to do that. I'm going to have to answer for that.
00:32:55 --> 00:32:59 So do you want to do validation or do you want to do the things that actually
00:32:59 --> 00:33:03 matter that we may have to answer for down the road if you're in the Christian
00:33:03 --> 00:33:05 faith and believe in a judgment, which I do?
00:33:06 --> 00:33:09 A loving judgment. There's forgiveness in it, but it still ain't going to be
00:33:09 --> 00:33:12 pleasant. Mine's going to take a while. Don't come right behind me.
00:33:12 --> 00:33:12 You're going to be waiting.
00:33:14 --> 00:33:20 I think this validation piece is bad because it's bad for the practice of your faith.
00:33:20 --> 00:33:23 Validation is always bad because it takes you down the wrong path because you're
00:33:23 --> 00:33:27 not getting the constructive criticism. You're not getting the feedback.
00:33:27 --> 00:33:30 You're not getting the pushback like we talked about those doctrinal debates
00:33:30 --> 00:33:33 where you get push and pull and you have to reconsider things.
00:33:34 --> 00:33:40 You know, validation always leaves you exactly where you are doing exactly what you were doing.
00:33:40 --> 00:33:43 And that is the opposite of what your Christian faith is supposed to be,
00:33:43 --> 00:33:47 which is you're supposed to be always working on it, always pushing it,
00:33:47 --> 00:33:49 always trying to learn a little bit more, always trying to get a little bit
00:33:49 --> 00:33:52 better, always trying to get a little closer to God,
00:33:53 --> 00:33:57 trying to have a little bit more spiritual stuff and a little bit less flesh
00:33:57 --> 00:34:01 stuff until you die, and then you get made perfect in the next world because you can't do that here.
00:34:02 --> 00:34:07 Validation is a poison to that process, in my humble but accurate opinion.
00:34:07 --> 00:34:10 So if you're chasing validation...
00:34:11 --> 00:34:14 Not only is it not going to work out very well, and you're probably going to
00:34:14 --> 00:34:20 look silly on social media, you're just wasting the precious time you have,
00:34:20 --> 00:34:22 which is a freaking vapor.
00:34:23 --> 00:34:27 I mean, you and me are both middle-aged. I'm talking to my children are all young adults.
00:34:27 --> 00:34:31 My oldest is pregnant right now, getting ready to have our first grandchild.
00:34:31 --> 00:34:34 And the youngest is getting ready to graduate college. And she went on a trip,
00:34:34 --> 00:34:37 and she called me homesick. She's like, it's too long. It's too long.
00:34:37 --> 00:34:38 I'm like, you're going to be home Friday.
00:34:39 --> 00:34:43 I was like, this is nothing. No, it's too long because that's her perspective.
00:34:43 --> 00:34:47 I have mornings I wake up and think something happened yesterday and it was 20 years ago now.
00:34:48 --> 00:34:54 Life is a freaking vapor, man, and it's gone. Don't waste your time on validation.
00:34:54 --> 00:35:01 Use it on people and use it on the good things. And I think the entire social media, political,
00:35:01 --> 00:35:07 news media dynamic of faith right now goes in that validation direction,
00:35:07 --> 00:35:12 and that's the end of your authenticity, and it's a sucking chest wound in the
00:35:12 --> 00:35:14 middle of American religion right now.
00:35:15 --> 00:35:21 Well, I think it's not authentic. It becomes just a mask at some point.
00:35:22 --> 00:35:27 I mean, we're all hypocrites. Let's lay this out. We all have our hypocritical things.
00:35:29 --> 00:35:32 I know I do. I'm a very fallen, broken person.
00:35:35 --> 00:35:39 What is wrong with starting out with, okay, we're all hypocrites,
00:35:39 --> 00:35:42 let's all hypocrite in the same direction, try to get a little better.
00:35:43 --> 00:35:46 The opposite of that is what we're doing with a lot of faith leaders,
00:35:47 --> 00:35:51 which is like, when you're perfect and you have no obvious sin in your life,
00:35:51 --> 00:35:55 or you have obvious sin in your life, but you use the right buzzwords and we're
00:35:55 --> 00:35:58 going to pretend like it ain't there when it's, you know, on video and we can see it,
00:35:59 --> 00:36:02 which is happening in politics right now, as long as you say the right things.
00:36:03 --> 00:36:05 You know, what are we doing?
00:36:07 --> 00:36:08 What are we doing?
00:36:12 --> 00:36:15 Can we have a faith in America where it's still okay to be broken?
00:36:15 --> 00:36:19 Here's the thing. It's okay to be broken as long as you're not trying to get
00:36:19 --> 00:36:22 money and power. As soon as you need money and power, broken don't fit that model.
00:36:24 --> 00:36:29 And the church is supposed to be the place for broken people to get better and
00:36:29 --> 00:36:34 to get support and to get healed up, to go back out and do something productive for everybody else.
00:36:35 --> 00:36:40 But power and money, man, you're not allowed to be broken. And then it turns
00:36:40 --> 00:36:41 all the way the other way.
00:36:41 --> 00:36:45 It's like, well, I know this leader is imperfect in his personal life,
00:36:46 --> 00:36:49 but we must have him in charge because of X, Y, and Z.
00:36:50 --> 00:36:53 And that's not a Trump knock because I heard the same thing about Clinton.
00:36:53 --> 00:36:56 I've heard the same, you know, Democrats told me the same thing about Clinton.
00:36:57 --> 00:37:01 And Obama. I've heard it from everybody. So that's not just a Trump knock.
00:37:01 --> 00:37:04 But if, you know, the hat fits, that's not my problem. That's your problem.
00:37:04 --> 00:37:09 You know, I'm frustrated. I don't have good words for this.
00:37:09 --> 00:37:12 I don't have good sound bites for this. I don't have a nice,
00:37:12 --> 00:37:15 clean narrative sheet for this discussion. Because there isn't one.
00:37:16 --> 00:37:20 I just want to see some people be honest about it.
00:37:21 --> 00:37:24 And maybe it's just me and I'm not a good enough Christian to hang with the
00:37:24 --> 00:37:30 American Christians anymore, but can we just have a conversation about American
00:37:30 --> 00:37:32 Christianity ain't hacking it right now.
00:37:33 --> 00:37:36 There's a lot of comfortable people. There's a lot of people that can sing along
00:37:36 --> 00:37:40 and do the songs and clap at the right spots, but there's a whole bunch of people
00:37:40 --> 00:37:43 that are getting left behind, turned off, and don't want anything to do with any of it.
00:37:44 --> 00:37:48 So if that's the case, maybe there's some problems here we should have some
00:37:48 --> 00:37:51 honesty about it and I don't think politics is going to fix it.
00:37:52 --> 00:37:55 And there seems to be a lot of people that think if we just get the politics
00:37:55 --> 00:37:58 of it right, we're going to make everybody else see how awesome we are.
00:37:59 --> 00:38:03 I'm like, well, tyranny usually doesn't breed love, but good luck with that.
00:38:06 --> 00:38:12 What I see a lot of faith these days,
00:38:12 --> 00:38:18 especially where it comes in context with politics, is a lack of grace,
00:38:18 --> 00:38:29 a lack of understanding that we are people, well, we sin, we fall short,
00:38:29 --> 00:38:33 we don't say the right things or do the right things all the time.
00:38:33 --> 00:38:38 And there is this sense of appearance that there are certain people that have
00:38:38 --> 00:38:45 attained perfection in a certain way, and that can come in many forms.
00:38:45 --> 00:38:51 But it feels like that's kind of what we're dealing with a lot and not dealing
00:38:51 --> 00:38:55 with enough understanding of
00:38:55 --> 00:39:04 people and people themselves as needing grace and to receive that grace.
00:39:08 --> 00:39:11 Maybe that's, do we need to just go back and teach what grace is?
00:39:12 --> 00:39:18 Yes. I mean, have we just buzzworded that thing to death that nobody knows what it means anymore?
00:39:19 --> 00:39:23 Yeah, I think we do. I think there's some fundamentals to the Christian,
00:39:24 --> 00:39:28 the American, Christianity Worldwide is doing really good. American Christianity is in a crisis.
00:39:29 --> 00:39:33 Why is that? Well, obviously there's something about how we Americans are doing
00:39:33 --> 00:39:37 it that isn't working correctly. That's not my opinion.
00:39:37 --> 00:39:39 I mean, we've got all the data in the world about it.
00:39:40 --> 00:39:45 The Christian church is doing fabulously in really diverse places under horrible conditions.
00:39:45 --> 00:39:49 We got more money than anybody in the history of ever, and we can't get it right. Why is that?
00:39:50 --> 00:39:52 It's not just because of the money. It's not just because we're wealthy and
00:39:52 --> 00:39:54 comfortable. It's what we're choosing to do with it.
00:39:56 --> 00:40:01 So maybe we just don't have a generation that understands some real foundational
00:40:01 --> 00:40:05 principles like service before self. Like, great.
00:40:07 --> 00:40:10 I'm not bashing people. These are people that if you came up to them with a
00:40:10 --> 00:40:12 pressing need, they would probably
00:40:12 --> 00:40:14 give you the shirt off their back if it was right in front of you.
00:40:15 --> 00:40:18 They would give you any amount of money they could possibly give you.
00:40:19 --> 00:40:21 They would take you for food. They would help you with your family.
00:40:22 --> 00:40:24 Whatever you need, if you went to these people individually,
00:40:25 --> 00:40:26 they would help you with it.
00:40:28 --> 00:40:31 Somehow, collectively, we haven't figured out how to upscale that.
00:40:32 --> 00:40:35 Because then we start getting into personal prejudices or
00:40:35 --> 00:40:38 we start getting into um you know
00:40:38 --> 00:40:43 our own issues or parents are
00:40:43 --> 00:40:46 the worst like well i'm for that but i don't want my kids around
00:40:46 --> 00:40:51 that you ever heard that one you know that kind of stuff um people's integrity
00:40:51 --> 00:40:56 starts getting real real flexible when it comes to um getting uncomfortable
00:40:56 --> 00:41:03 you know and um so i don't know maybe we just need to teach grace.
00:41:04 --> 00:41:09 We need to definitely, I don't want to get on a rant on this.
00:41:09 --> 00:41:11 I really don't because a lot of this is personal preference.
00:41:11 --> 00:41:14 I think we should have different kinds of churches because everybody needs a
00:41:14 --> 00:41:16 different kind of church. I don't think there's a one size fits all worship
00:41:16 --> 00:41:17 style. I don't think there's one size.
00:41:18 --> 00:41:20 I think we should have more and more churches. I think they should be smaller
00:41:20 --> 00:41:22 churches. I'm not a big fan of
00:41:22 --> 00:41:25 mega churches, although I've attended and been members of a few of them.
00:41:25 --> 00:41:29 There's nothing wrong with them, but that model don't work for everybody.
00:41:29 --> 00:41:32 You need country churches, you need fancy churches, you need,
00:41:32 --> 00:41:37 you know, high faith and order churches, you need really, really non-traditional
00:41:37 --> 00:41:40 churches for non-traditional people sometimes. I think we need an all of the above on that.
00:41:42 --> 00:41:44 But having said that, one thing
00:41:44 --> 00:41:49 we, all of those need is a basic understanding of mission and purpose.
00:41:50 --> 00:41:56 Is the purpose of your faith just to have an in-group where we're all comfortable,
00:41:57 --> 00:42:01 and we do this one thing on Sunday together and maybe do a small group during
00:42:01 --> 00:42:02 the week since that's the new thing.
00:42:03 --> 00:42:08 And we're just all very comfortable and we, you know, donate here and there
00:42:08 --> 00:42:10 and we do a meal here and there and we feel good about it all?
00:42:11 --> 00:42:16 Or are we going to have something that actually shows up as an effect on the world in a positive way?
00:42:17 --> 00:42:21 And when you start, if you take the politics part and you lose the grace part,
00:42:21 --> 00:42:25 I think you make both of those things worse at the same time.
00:42:26 --> 00:42:32 I really do. I think elevating the wrong people politically under the name of
00:42:32 --> 00:42:37 faith it hurts the country, number one, because now you've got unfit people in high power.
00:42:38 --> 00:42:41 But it really hurts the faith because you just put the faith label on the people
00:42:41 --> 00:42:45 that you know is unfit, and then we're going to act all shocked and shaken when
00:42:45 --> 00:42:47 the unfit people fail and make a mess of things.
00:42:48 --> 00:42:50 And then everybody's like, well, all the Christians said that was okay,
00:42:50 --> 00:42:53 so clearly they—so now you're going down with them.
00:42:54 --> 00:42:57 Like, I don't understand how people don't see those two things.
00:42:57 --> 00:42:59 That doesn't mean you only vote for Christians. That'd be insane.
00:43:00 --> 00:43:04 You know, I don't, you know, I vote for the best person for the job possible.
00:43:04 --> 00:43:07 If there's nobody worthy of the office, I don't vote for them.
00:43:07 --> 00:43:12 That's from president to dog catcher to HOA board, whatever. That's the standard.
00:43:14 --> 00:43:21 I don't, I just, I'm very frustrated at my fellow Americans and especially my
00:43:21 --> 00:43:25 faith group cohort that I'm in, even though I don't like the particular label.
00:43:26 --> 00:43:32 American conservative evangelicals need to stop as a group collectively.
00:43:33 --> 00:43:35 And I is one, so I'll put myself in there.
00:43:35 --> 00:43:40 Quit having this inferiority complex thing that's going on where you think you're
00:43:40 --> 00:43:44 persecuted and you think the world's against you. We're the most blessed.
00:43:45 --> 00:43:48 You'd have to go to the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages to find somebody
00:43:48 --> 00:43:52 that's got a better money system of religious faith than what we got economically right now.
00:43:52 --> 00:43:55 We're the most blessed people in the history of the planet. it.
00:43:56 --> 00:44:01 With a religious label on them. And yet we've got this inferiority complex where
00:44:01 --> 00:44:05 we need the politics to validate us, and we need this to validate us,
00:44:05 --> 00:44:08 and we need people to tell us how great, like, what are we doing? Just don't do that.
00:44:08 --> 00:44:11 Just have a little courage, man.
00:44:11 --> 00:44:15 Have a little gumption. You know, this is supposed to be hard.
00:44:16 --> 00:44:19 Quit thinking it's got to be easy or it ain't right. I don't know.
00:44:19 --> 00:44:25 Now I'm rambling, but I just, it hurts my heart, and it's hard to And I'm trying
00:44:25 --> 00:44:26 to raise up adult children.
00:44:27 --> 00:44:30 And they have these questions because they've seen failings in church,
00:44:30 --> 00:44:34 and they struggle with their faith because they see people that they're like,
00:44:34 --> 00:44:35 I don't want nothing to do with that.
00:44:36 --> 00:44:39 I've had that conversation with my children. They're like, well,
00:44:39 --> 00:44:42 they act like that, and they say that. I don't want anything to do with any
00:44:42 --> 00:44:44 of this. Are they wrong? No.
00:44:46 --> 00:44:51 Do I have to explain it? Yeah. But you know how that conversation starts with,
00:44:51 --> 00:44:59 well, your dad who you love has a lot of failings to start with that and work and work up from there,
00:45:00 --> 00:45:03 because you know i don't want them to ever think because if if you're if you
00:45:03 --> 00:45:06 think your parents are perfect and then you find out when you're 21 they're
00:45:06 --> 00:45:09 not now you got a big psychological bill from therapy you're gonna have to work
00:45:09 --> 00:45:12 through so my kids don't have that problem they know i'm very flawed they were
00:45:12 --> 00:45:18 there for it but it's the same thing with faith it's like can we just have honest conversations,
00:45:18 --> 00:45:24 and just when somebody's on the TV screen spouting a Bible verse and their lifestyle
00:45:24 --> 00:45:28 doesn't match it, we can just go, maybe you shouldn't spout the Bible verse
00:45:28 --> 00:45:30 till you get your lifestyle in order.
00:45:31 --> 00:45:34 Or preface it with, look, my life's a mess.
00:45:34 --> 00:45:39 I'm not the best person for it, but I find solace in this. Maybe you do too.
00:45:39 --> 00:45:41 Here's a Bible verse. What's wrong with qualifying it?
00:45:43 --> 00:45:47 Would anybody care? No. Did it take away from the verse? No.
00:45:47 --> 00:45:49 Does people think a little better of you? Yeah.
00:45:50 --> 00:45:55 If you demagogue it, though, it's, you know, words are two edges of a sword, man.
00:45:56 --> 00:45:58 And that's the example. It's how you use it.
00:45:59 --> 00:46:06 And if your life and your works don't match it, you know, it's a problem.
00:46:07 --> 00:46:11 It is a problem. And now you have otherwise intelligent people like you and
00:46:11 --> 00:46:16 me fumbling with words trying to explain it because I don't know what the answer
00:46:16 --> 00:46:21 is other than some individual responsibility and then some – maybe that'll trickle
00:46:21 --> 00:46:22 into some collective responsibility.
00:46:22 --> 00:46:24 But I don't like what I'm seeing, man.
00:46:24 --> 00:46:29 I don't like church – I don't want to talk politics in Sunday school class.
00:46:29 --> 00:46:31 I mean, if something big is going on. You shouldn't have to.
00:46:31 --> 00:46:34 I mean, I get it. If something big is going on, you know, like,
00:46:34 --> 00:46:36 you know, elections coming up, whatever.
00:46:37 --> 00:46:40 Every Sunday? No, man, what are you doing?
00:46:42 --> 00:46:48 How's that get me from Monday to Saturday? Like, I got kid problems, health problems.
00:46:49 --> 00:46:51 Like, we're supposed to be all in this together, you know?
00:46:51 --> 00:46:58 How's this feeding the hungry and clothing the needy and rescuing the dying, you know?
00:46:58 --> 00:47:01 The problem with getting rid of all the hymns, you lost all the challenging words, right?
00:47:04 --> 00:47:10 I mean, what do you think is going to be the—or how is this hurting the faith?
00:47:10 --> 00:47:16 Especially from your branch of evangelicalism, how is it hurting it?
00:47:16 --> 00:47:18 Because I think there is a danger.
00:47:21 --> 00:47:26 And we've seen it on my side of the ledger with mainline Christianity when it
00:47:26 --> 00:47:30 gets a bit too cozy with politics.
00:47:30 --> 00:47:37 You know, what is it, what is this, what do you think that this is doing with evangelicalism?
00:47:37 --> 00:47:41 See, this is the thing is, it's popular right now. Mm-hmm.
00:47:41 --> 00:47:45 And you can make this whole parallel little world where it's,
00:47:45 --> 00:47:48 we have our Christian radio stations and we have our Christian schools and we
00:47:48 --> 00:47:50 have our Christian, we don't have Christian bookstores anymore.
00:47:51 --> 00:47:53 Because Amazon put Lifeway out of business, but you get the idea.
00:47:53 --> 00:47:58 You know, you have this almost parallel society, and it's very comfortable.
00:47:58 --> 00:48:07 I grew up in churches, and I've had religion and doctrine and theology classes studying this.
00:48:07 --> 00:48:14 I wrote a paper on this about 15 years ago for Theology 350.
00:48:14 --> 00:48:20 50, we would, our little clan of Christianity, we would study the mainline Christian
00:48:20 --> 00:48:26 faith and how in the early 20th century it got heavy on social issues and it killed it.
00:48:26 --> 00:48:31 Well, not killed it, that's too strong, but it rapidly declined doing that, inarguably.
00:48:32 --> 00:48:33 It's not arguable.
00:48:34 --> 00:48:40 Mainline Christianity lost a lot of its influence because of socio issues that they were championing.
00:48:40 --> 00:48:43 Many of them correctly, by the way. I'm not even knocking it.
00:48:44 --> 00:48:48 It wasn't like they were some conspiracy theory. They had some correct theories.
00:48:48 --> 00:48:50 They had some stuff they were very wrong on, too.
00:48:51 --> 00:48:56 But they leaned heavy on that, and they lost people, and they've never really got them back.
00:48:57 --> 00:49:01 You know, a hundred years later, we're sitting here. And yet the people who,
00:49:01 --> 00:49:06 some of the same people, the guy that taught me in that class is a name you would know.
00:49:07 --> 00:49:10 Because he wasn't that big then, but he was teaching that class.
00:49:11 --> 00:49:15 Taught us that, and now they're doing the exact same thing, but they just think,
00:49:15 --> 00:49:20 oh, but it's our socioeconomic issues and our social issues that we're pushing.
00:49:20 --> 00:49:22 That makes it different, and it's going to work this time.
00:49:23 --> 00:49:27 And it's not. It's turning, we've got the data. It's going to turn people off
00:49:27 --> 00:49:34 because there's nothing wrong with the church being socially conscious. It has a mandate to be so.
00:49:34 --> 00:49:37 There's nothing wrong with the church being politically conscious.
00:49:37 --> 00:49:42 You could argue it has a mandate to be so because everybody in your church is a voter. Get all that.
00:49:43 --> 00:49:47 But you also have other mechanisms to do things in those spheres.
00:49:47 --> 00:49:51 The church is supposed to be the church first and then dabble in that occasionally.
00:49:52 --> 00:49:55 And when you have churches that are all in on that, they're not churches anymore.
00:49:55 --> 00:49:59 They're social organizations that also say a prayer once in a while.
00:50:00 --> 00:50:04 And that's not my opinion. We have the historical precedent of it.
00:50:05 --> 00:50:08 And yet, you know, that's the problem.
00:50:08 --> 00:50:14 You asked me, is it hurting? I mean, most conservative evangelicals in America
00:50:14 --> 00:50:16 don't think it's hurting them because they don't see it.
00:50:17 --> 00:50:20 Churches are full. Music's never been better because, God bless them,
00:50:20 --> 00:50:23 a lot of the gigging musicians figured out they could make a real nice steady
00:50:23 --> 00:50:27 living working two days a week at the churches and have a lot of money in their pocket.
00:50:27 --> 00:50:30 God bless them. I'm not judging them. I've done the same thing.
00:50:30 --> 00:50:34 The music's never been better, man. Live music quality in church is excellent right now.
00:50:34 --> 00:50:38 Top-notch stuff. In fact, if you don't have it, you're considered a lesser church.
00:50:38 --> 00:50:40 But that's another language.
00:50:40 --> 00:50:43 I need my buddy Brady for that one because he's a real musician.
00:50:43 --> 00:50:44 We talk about this all the time.
00:50:45 --> 00:50:48 You know, quality of church has never been better. The show's never been better.
00:50:48 --> 00:50:50 The seats have never been more comfortable.
00:50:50 --> 00:50:54 My church just spent six figures on new air conditioning because the air conditioning didn't work right.
00:50:54 --> 00:50:57 Never been more comfortable. You just got to because it's a big building.
00:50:57 --> 00:51:02 You know, it's 67% of the electric bills at AC. It's brutal, right?
00:51:03 --> 00:51:08 We've never been more comfortable. So they're not going to see the problem.
00:51:08 --> 00:51:13 It's the old Titanic thing, right? Oh, we missed the iceberg. We're good.
00:51:13 --> 00:51:18 Yeah, for about two hours until the holds fill up with water that you can't see.
00:51:19 --> 00:51:26 You know, and when you go hard on the social stuff and you become exclusive
00:51:26 --> 00:51:28 to everything lining up right...
00:51:30 --> 00:51:33 Iceberg already went down the hall and punched all the holes.
00:51:35 --> 00:51:41 And I think the, when you're, the economics of Christianity, keep it floated up.
00:51:42 --> 00:51:47 Evangelicalism alone, just conservative evangelicalism is worth like $400 billion to the GDP.
00:51:48 --> 00:51:53 It's massive business. So you have to be very, and there's nothing wrong with
00:51:53 --> 00:51:55 making money. You gotta have money for the lights.
00:51:55 --> 00:51:57 You gotta have money for the van. You gotta have money for the dinner.
00:51:57 --> 00:52:00 Gotta have money for the coffee shop because every church has to have a coffee
00:52:00 --> 00:52:04 shop now apparently I don't drink coffee guys that's an end joke nothing wrong
00:52:04 --> 00:52:05 with the coffee shop I'm picking on you,
00:52:06 --> 00:52:11 nothing wrong with money but is that your primary purpose is the business and
00:52:11 --> 00:52:14 keeping it going and keeping the building big or getting a big is that the primary
00:52:14 --> 00:52:17 thing or do you need a bigger building because there's more people coming in
00:52:17 --> 00:52:18 and you want to help more people,
00:52:19 --> 00:52:20 those are really finite.
00:52:22 --> 00:52:26 Gray area you don't know until you're there working on it kind of things and
00:52:26 --> 00:52:29 that's where our that's where the majority of the focus of our faith needs to
00:52:29 --> 00:52:30 be on those sorts of things.
00:52:31 --> 00:52:35 But it's easier, oh, this is going so well, I'm going to fix the entire country
00:52:35 --> 00:52:37 and make everybody exactly as comfortable as we are.
00:52:39 --> 00:52:43 And I think that's where a lot of that projection and a lot of that stuff starts
00:52:43 --> 00:52:45 coming from projecting your politics out.
00:52:45 --> 00:52:48 Well, I'm good, so if everybody else is like me, we can all be good together.
00:52:48 --> 00:52:50 And they don't even mean it in a bad way.
00:52:51 --> 00:52:54 I've heard people say that, and it just shocks me.
00:52:55 --> 00:52:59 Maybe I'm just old. Look, I'm old. This will be a great clip for them to clip out.
00:52:59 --> 00:53:02 Maybe I'm just old and cynical and a bad Christian and bad faith and lived a
00:53:02 --> 00:53:04 bad life and all those things have some truth to them.
00:53:07 --> 00:53:10 But man, just the all good, all the time stuff,
00:53:12 --> 00:53:17 it not only wears on me, it gets fake in a hurry.
00:53:18 --> 00:53:25 Like, can you worship, can you, I had this conversation with my pastor a while
00:53:25 --> 00:53:30 back, and he just kind of sly looked at me and goes, yeah, you're grumpy, but you're not wrong.
00:53:31 --> 00:53:34 I was like, we need to be real careful with this whole thing about we can only
00:53:34 --> 00:53:35 worship when we feel good.
00:53:35 --> 00:53:40 No, biblical worship overwhelmingly was when things were really, really bad.
00:53:43 --> 00:53:47 Those Psalms were not written in the sunshine. Nope.
00:53:50 --> 00:53:55 But we've got this happy, doesn't make us feel good thing, and that's a doctrinal
00:53:55 --> 00:53:56 discussion for another day.
00:53:56 --> 00:54:02 But, you know, again, I'm just rambling on this topic because I don't have a
00:54:02 --> 00:54:04 good answer, but it hurts my heart.
00:54:05 --> 00:54:10 My children are going to grow up in a country where evangelical Christianity
00:54:10 --> 00:54:13 is looked down on because of the political decisions they've made in the last 10 years.
00:54:15 --> 00:54:18 They're not going to grow up in the country where I grew up,
00:54:18 --> 00:54:23 where you could tell somebody you're a faith in group, and for the majority
00:54:23 --> 00:54:26 of people, they had a positive connotation of it.
00:54:26 --> 00:54:30 That's not the country. And they can't see that yet, but I can see it coming.
00:54:31 --> 00:54:34 I can see this change after what's getting ready to happen, and it's already
00:54:34 --> 00:54:39 starting to happen, where they're going to get the sins of their fathers,
00:54:39 --> 00:54:41 not me particularly, but of the faith group.
00:54:41 --> 00:54:44 If they decide that that's their faith group, they're going to have to deal with that label.
00:54:44 --> 00:54:50 I don't think Christianity understands how evangelical conservative and they're
00:54:50 --> 00:54:52 fine with it by the way they don't even see this as a problem,
00:54:53 --> 00:54:57 how they're going to deal with this dispensation of history the last 10 years
00:54:57 --> 00:55:00 and how they conducted themselves they don't understand that that's going to
00:55:00 --> 00:55:01 be a hindrance going down the road,
00:55:03 --> 00:55:06 they don't, I see it maybe I'm wrong, if I'm wrong I'll come on here and say
00:55:06 --> 00:55:12 I'm wrong but I don't I don't think I'm wrong I don't think you're wrong either,
00:55:13 --> 00:55:16 I wish I was wrong It upsets me.
00:55:17 --> 00:55:20 People talk about outrage. This is the stuff that outrages me.
00:55:20 --> 00:55:25 It's like, it's a self-inflicted wound on the people who should be doing the
00:55:25 --> 00:55:29 most to help the most, but are doing the least because we're so myopic that
00:55:29 --> 00:55:33 we think, and I'm using we because, you know, I is one.
00:55:34 --> 00:55:37 If our politics and our church don't line up, then there's something wrong with
00:55:37 --> 00:55:38 both and we got to fix it. Like, no.
00:55:40 --> 00:55:43 Gets your inner faith—I'm going to quote my father here.
00:55:44 --> 00:55:48 Here's how it works. Your inner self has to be right.
00:55:49 --> 00:55:54 And then that helps you make your family unit, whatever that looks like in your
00:55:54 --> 00:55:57 home, your family unit, that makes that right.
00:55:58 --> 00:56:01 And then that'll make your community right. And at the same time,
00:56:02 --> 00:56:05 your church or wherever you worship, whatever your faith group is,
00:56:05 --> 00:56:08 then you can fit into there and that's right and your community's right and
00:56:08 --> 00:56:09 then your nation's right.
00:56:09 --> 00:56:13 But we want to fix the nation, and nobody wants to start with the inner them
00:56:13 --> 00:56:14 and their own family unit.
00:56:15 --> 00:56:17 We've got this thing all backwards, man.
00:56:20 --> 00:56:27 But national sales, you know, syndicated Christian radio is making a lot of money.
00:56:27 --> 00:56:31 It's a lot of sameness, but it's making a lot of money. Same six people are
00:56:31 --> 00:56:34 writing all the songs right now. That's not healthy.
00:56:34 --> 00:56:36 And people are going to be like, oh, you're just a curmudgeon.
00:56:36 --> 00:56:40 And I'm like, no, that's what's happening, and that's not healthy.
00:56:41 --> 00:56:44 That's not healthy. I know it's good music, and people like it,
00:56:44 --> 00:56:48 and there's nothing wrong with that. But that's not how we did it for thousands of years.
00:56:50 --> 00:56:53 You know, local control is not a bad thing. Maybe we should take it back.
00:56:53 --> 00:56:56 I'm rambling again, but it does upset me.
00:56:57 --> 00:57:03 Because my children and my grand—I got a grandchild. God, just sometimes it
00:57:03 --> 00:57:05 hits you. You don't think about it. I got a grandson.
00:57:07 --> 00:57:10 September, they're going to grow up in a very different America.
00:57:12 --> 00:57:15 And it's a very different America how they perceive evangelical Christianity.
00:57:16 --> 00:57:22 And it's not the left's fault, and it's not the devil's fault,
00:57:22 --> 00:57:25 although he, you know, if you hand it to him and he hits you with it,
00:57:25 --> 00:57:26 that's your fault, not his fault.
00:57:27 --> 00:57:29 It's not the world's fault.
00:57:30 --> 00:57:34 It's primarily going to be evangelical Christians' fault, how they're perceived
00:57:34 --> 00:57:37 for this next generation that's coming up.
00:57:38 --> 00:57:42 And it's a self-inflicted, self-festering wound.
00:57:43 --> 00:57:50 And I just don't, a lot of those folks don't see it coming because I sit in church with them.
00:57:51 --> 00:57:55 Well, my pastor's pretty confrontational on matters like that.
00:57:55 --> 00:58:00 He's not afraid to make you mad, but I know a lot of them, they don't see it
00:58:00 --> 00:58:03 coming and they're going to take it as victimology and they're being picked on.
00:58:03 --> 00:58:10 It's like no we we did this to ourselves we did this to ourselves and it makes
00:58:10 --> 00:58:12 me very sad and it makes my heart hurt.
00:58:15 --> 00:58:21 You know, I remember back maybe in the, this was in the 90s,
00:58:21 --> 00:58:28 and there was a lot of talk, and at that time, I think that there was a lot
00:58:28 --> 00:58:35 of more curiosity about evangelical culture and wanting to understand it more.
00:58:37 --> 00:58:44 There might be a little negativity but not a huge amount but I think you are
00:58:44 --> 00:58:50 correct that maybe within the last 10 years that has changed and it's become much more darker,
00:58:51 --> 00:58:59 and I think the question I have I don't know if you can answer it but is why,
00:59:01 --> 00:59:05 why throw that away because i think maybe 30 years ago,
00:59:07 --> 00:59:12 there was kind of a good thing there wasn't perfect but there was something
00:59:12 --> 00:59:17 where people were interested and it seems like that has all been thrown away,
00:59:19 --> 00:59:23 this is going to sound again these are not political terms i'm using these as
00:59:23 --> 00:59:24 religious terms, so understand non-clature,
00:59:25 --> 00:59:31 the 90s evangelical Christianity, which was very imperfect, and we can look
00:59:31 --> 00:59:33 back on it with hindsight now with some of the stuff that's going on,
00:59:33 --> 00:59:37 some of it very publicly, very recently, some very big names have had some real
00:59:37 --> 00:59:38 issues that we could bring up.
00:59:41 --> 00:59:45 There was a lot, I'm going to use this word because this is the word we started
00:59:45 --> 00:59:47 with, there was a lot of diversity to it.
00:59:49 --> 00:59:55 There was a lot of inclusivity to it. There was this explosion of,
00:59:56 --> 01:00:00 I'm going to go back to the music, because art tells you where people's hearts are.
01:00:01 --> 01:00:07 You know, music, graphic arts. Art gets you to the soul a lot faster than,
01:00:07 --> 01:00:09 you know, words you got to work on.
01:00:09 --> 01:00:11 You know, songs and art will get you there faster, right?
01:00:12 --> 01:00:16 If you take the music piece of it, everything on Christian radio sounds the
01:00:16 --> 01:00:18 same right now. And I'm not knocking it.
01:00:18 --> 01:00:22 But it all, it's very, Christian music in the early nineties,
01:00:22 --> 01:00:26 mid nineties, late nineties, there was a little bit of everything.
01:00:26 --> 01:00:30 There was this creative explosion because it was the first time that you could
01:00:30 --> 01:00:33 take a drum kit in the church and everybody was getting excited about it,
01:00:34 --> 01:00:36 you know, in, in real conservative circles.
01:00:36 --> 01:00:39 I know people would be like, God, you guys are behind the top. Look, it was different.
01:00:39 --> 01:00:44 Like just people were excited about it. And there was this creative explosion of stuff.
01:00:44 --> 01:00:48 I don't see that right now. There's some of it. I'm not knocking everybody's art.
01:00:49 --> 01:00:53 But there was an inclusivity to it because everybody was excited about it and
01:00:53 --> 01:00:55 there was a diversity to it.
01:00:55 --> 01:00:58 And a lot of it was, you know, generational.
01:00:59 --> 01:01:03 A lot of it was the beginning of the internet. You had the MTV kids that all
01:01:03 --> 01:01:05 of a sudden are like, we want that for us too.
01:01:06 --> 01:01:08 There's some of that. Excuse me.
01:01:08 --> 01:01:11 I've been doing media for five hours straight. My voice is gone.
01:01:11 --> 01:01:18 Um, there was, there was just this perfect storm of the, the peak of the TV
01:01:18 --> 01:01:22 era and then the start of the internet area at the same time,
01:01:22 --> 01:01:27 right as you had this generation of basically my generation,
01:01:28 --> 01:01:29 because I'm a little younger than you,
01:01:29 --> 01:01:35 my generation of those Christian kids who's like, okay, we grew up a certain
01:01:35 --> 01:01:37 way, but we want our faith to look like this and we're going to,
01:01:38 --> 01:01:39 we're going to make it happen.
01:01:39 --> 01:01:41 And you saw a lot more of that now.
01:01:44 --> 01:01:47 You know, it's almost like the before time of that again, before my time.
01:01:47 --> 01:01:51 It's very, this is what it's going to look like. This is what it's going to sound like.
01:01:52 --> 01:01:55 This is what it's got to be. This is our, this is how we're going to do it.
01:01:55 --> 01:01:59 We're going to have our, I'm sorry if you get offended. We're going to have our TED Talk sermon.
01:02:00 --> 01:02:03 And then, and it's going to be exactly 35 minutes.
01:02:05 --> 01:02:08 And nothing wrong with 10 minute sermons. Sometimes you go an hour if it's good,
01:02:08 --> 01:02:14 but you don't have, like, less is more, guys. Less is more, including my father,
01:02:14 --> 01:02:15 who, God bless him, great preacher.
01:02:16 --> 01:02:21 Less is more, Dad. You could trim 10%. I'm guilty, too. I need to take 20% out
01:02:21 --> 01:02:22 of every piece I ever wrote. It'd be better.
01:02:23 --> 01:02:27 But you see what I'm saying? It's the evangelical. You're still mainline,
01:02:27 --> 01:02:29 so you guys do it a little bit more formally.
01:02:30 --> 01:02:35 You can go in pretty much every non-denominational church, which is hard to
01:02:35 --> 01:02:37 tell because we're not allowed to put church names on anything anymore for some
01:02:37 --> 01:02:38 reason. I don't understand.
01:02:39 --> 01:02:42 You can go in any church in America, and you know what you're getting.
01:02:43 --> 01:02:46 That's good in one way is that really healthy.
01:02:49 --> 01:02:52 I don't does does does the first community church
01:02:52 --> 01:02:58 of of tulsa have the same spiritual needs as you know rockfish baptist church
01:02:58 --> 01:03:05 in rural north carolina as you know times square church in new york city as
01:03:05 --> 01:03:12 the villages in suburban dallas has as you know mount rainer Methodist church in Seattle,
01:03:12 --> 01:03:18 I think homogeny is bad in the Christian faith.
01:03:18 --> 01:03:23 Not doctrinally, not faith-based, not, you know, the things that we have to
01:03:23 --> 01:03:28 agree on, you know, the deity of God, that kind of stuff.
01:03:28 --> 01:03:32 I'm talking about the technical of how we're going to do it in churches that
01:03:32 --> 01:03:33 we can have some wiggle room on.
01:03:34 --> 01:03:39 There seems, we have somehow figured out in evangelical conservative Christianity
01:03:39 --> 01:03:41 that we're going to have church this one way every time, no matter what.
01:03:42 --> 01:03:47 And I think my kid's generation is going to rebel against this really hard because
01:03:47 --> 01:03:49 I'm actually watching it happen in real time.
01:03:49 --> 01:03:55 Yeah, it's already happening. It's starting to happen. And we've become the
01:03:55 --> 01:03:56 boomers, man. Let's just go there.
01:03:57 --> 01:04:01 We've become the boomer. We're having boomer church, except we have drum kits
01:04:01 --> 01:04:05 and electric guitars, but it's the piano all over again. It's the same.
01:04:05 --> 01:04:08 Well, we want to do that. No, we're having church this way.
01:04:09 --> 01:04:12 But we still think we're the cool hip people, even though we've been doing it
01:04:12 --> 01:04:15 for 25 years now, and we don't realize the world evolved a little bit.
01:04:16 --> 01:04:21 We've become the boomers. We're going to have our church service just like this.
01:04:22 --> 01:04:25 Man, these kids are going to rebel against it. I'm kind of excited for it because
01:04:25 --> 01:04:28 I want to see what they come up with because our 90s Christian music had some
01:04:28 --> 01:04:29 really interesting stuff happening.
01:04:29 --> 01:04:33 I liked it. I don't want to be that guy of, you know, my generation did it better.
01:04:33 --> 01:04:35 Well, we dropped the ball after that.
01:04:36 --> 01:04:40 But I'm anxious to see what the church becomes when this new group gets a hold
01:04:40 --> 01:04:45 of it, because they come from a very cynical place, that COVID generation,
01:04:45 --> 01:04:48 the generation that we told doesn't matter.
01:04:49 --> 01:04:54 That's a core—people—I was the at-home parent during COVID. I'm not just talking
01:04:54 --> 01:04:55 about my own kids. I'm talking about their friends.
01:04:56 --> 01:04:58 They believed what we told them.
01:04:58 --> 01:05:02 Their education didn't matter. We told them they didn't matter.
01:05:02 --> 01:05:04 They're more cynical than us, and it's going to show up.
01:05:05 --> 01:05:10 They're going to, when they come to their faith, they're coming from a cynical
01:05:10 --> 01:05:14 place of very high media literacy.
01:05:15 --> 01:05:18 They have a very honed antenna for nonsense.
01:05:19 --> 01:05:24 They can snoop out hypocrisy faster than anything you can possibly believe.
01:05:24 --> 01:05:29 I'm telling you, these kids that are like 25 and under, of course,
01:05:29 --> 01:05:31 there's the political sycophants and that sort of thing, but a lot of these
01:05:31 --> 01:05:36 kids, they've been on social media so much, they can sniff out fake really fast.
01:05:37 --> 01:05:42 If they walk in your church and they even whiff inauthenticity, you're done.
01:05:44 --> 01:05:50 You're done. I think their rebellion against the current church model is going
01:05:50 --> 01:05:52 to be very exciting to watch.
01:05:52 --> 01:05:55 And then they're going to do the cycle all over again. They're going to have
01:05:55 --> 01:05:56 this revolutionary thing.
01:05:56 --> 01:06:00 It'll become that thing, and then they will beat that horse to death to the
01:06:00 --> 01:06:01 point that their kids have to rebel again.
01:06:02 --> 01:06:05 You know what? I don't think that's unhealthy.
01:06:06 --> 01:06:12 Not to get biblical, but if you read your Bible, Jesus didn't just go do his own thing.
01:06:12 --> 01:06:17 He went to the existing religious structure and started working from the inside
01:06:17 --> 01:06:19 out and saying, this is what's getting ready to happen.
01:06:20 --> 01:06:23 Flat out said it, you're not going to understand it. You're not even going to
01:06:23 --> 01:06:25 understand it when you see it, but this is what's going to happen.
01:06:26 --> 01:06:27 I'm preparing you for it.
01:06:27 --> 01:06:30 Worked with what had, they rejected it, and then the new thing came.
01:06:31 --> 01:06:32 This is all healthy stuff.
01:06:33 --> 01:06:36 But it threatens people's power bases and it threatens
01:06:36 --> 01:06:39 people's money bases and it threatens people's comfort base so there's going
01:06:39 --> 01:06:42 to be pushback on it but it's a natural thing so i'm excited to see what the
01:06:42 --> 01:06:45 next thing of evangelical christianity is hopefully we get a better term because
01:06:45 --> 01:06:50 i hate the term evangelical christianity in america i hate saying it i i'm excited
01:06:50 --> 01:06:54 to see what my my children's generation does with it because i think,
01:06:55 --> 01:06:58 you're going to see it probably it's going to be gradually then suddenly i think
01:06:58 --> 01:07:02 in the next couple years you're going to see a real change happen and i'm looking forward to it Thank you.
01:07:06 --> 01:07:10 I think that helps us to kind of conclude this on a good note.
01:07:10 --> 01:07:13 You're tired of hearing me talk. No, no, no, no.
01:07:13 --> 01:07:17 No, let me ask you one quick question, because this has been a lot of me talking,
01:07:17 --> 01:07:21 and that's never healthy in a church environment or otherwise.
01:07:23 --> 01:07:28 Because you come from the mainline tradition, and I've watched your sermons
01:07:28 --> 01:07:31 in church services many times, frequently do.
01:07:33 --> 01:07:37 I I'm wondering your perspective on it because and I've had you on my program
01:07:37 --> 01:07:42 so just to cross it up a little bit you know you're you're in Minneapolis St.
01:07:42 --> 01:07:45 Paul y'all been the epicenter of a lot
01:07:45 --> 01:07:52 of crap socio-politically um recently and now you know we had the we had all
01:07:52 --> 01:07:57 the you know the George stuff and riots and now you've had the ice stuff and
01:07:57 --> 01:08:02 all of that let me ask you because you're my go-to on this kind of stuff a lot of times,
01:08:03 --> 01:08:07 like not just your own church, but you're in that community walking around.
01:08:09 --> 01:08:14 How does, when it's that palpable, the political environment where it's not
01:08:14 --> 01:08:18 just on Twitter, it's in your streets, literally on your street,
01:08:18 --> 01:08:20 and you can't get away from it.
01:08:21 --> 01:08:25 How is that affecting people's faith right now? Is it driving them from it?
01:08:25 --> 01:08:27 Are they questioning their faith?
01:08:28 --> 01:08:31 Or is it one of those things where they bring it up at all, and they're just
01:08:31 --> 01:08:32 like, why is this happening?
01:08:33 --> 01:08:38 Or do you see it as like, man, they're doing some of this bad stuff with Christian nomenclature.
01:08:38 --> 01:08:42 It's not good. Is there a wrestling of it there? Because y'all really are in
01:08:42 --> 01:08:43 the epicenter of it there.
01:08:46 --> 01:08:50 That's a good question. I think there has been— And give two examples. It's an essay question.
01:08:51 --> 01:08:55 Yeah, I mean, I think that there is a lot of wrestling. I think the way that
01:08:55 --> 01:08:59 I described it, especially after –,
01:09:00 --> 01:09:07 Alex Creddy was shot and killed, is I think that there was a lot of,
01:09:07 --> 01:09:09 and maybe still is, a lot of lament.
01:09:11 --> 01:09:17 You talked earlier about the Psalms and that the Psalms are not all happy-go-lucky and things.
01:09:17 --> 01:09:24 And I've learned a lot about the Psalms of lament and what that means,
01:09:25 --> 01:09:32 and even to an extent the imprecatory or cursing psalms that kind of deal with
01:09:32 --> 01:09:38 that sense of injustice, that things aren't right, while yet believing.
01:09:38 --> 01:09:44 Because I think the things about the lament psalms is that sense of still having
01:09:44 --> 01:09:48 faith in God, but still wondering where is God in all of this.
01:09:48 --> 01:09:57 And, you know, you thought about that a lot, that the trust that you may have
01:09:57 --> 01:10:00 had, and I think especially here in Minnesota,
01:10:00 --> 01:10:07 there's always been, maybe because of the kind of Nordic Scandinavian heritage,
01:10:07 --> 01:10:12 more trust in the government or seeing government as a force for good.
01:10:13 --> 01:10:18 And here was a very blatant example where that wasn't happening.
01:10:19 --> 01:10:24 And so, there was that kind of loss of trust, and then a loss of wondering,
01:10:24 --> 01:10:26 where is God in all of this?
01:10:27 --> 01:10:35 And so, I think people have been lamenting, but I don't think that that has
01:10:35 --> 01:10:37 been a cause for people to lose faith.
01:10:37 --> 01:10:44 I think that that has been—it's a time of questioning, it's a time of a challenged faith,
01:10:44 --> 01:10:51 but it's still a faith, but it's a faith where people are doing a lot of questioning
01:10:51 --> 01:10:55 and searching of finding God in the midst of all of this.
01:10:56 --> 01:10:59 And I think it's something that we continue to do.
01:11:01 --> 01:11:06 But I began to think that it's something that we are all continuing to do as
01:11:06 --> 01:11:14 a nation, as we kind of see a lot of the actions that have been going on as of late.
01:11:17 --> 01:11:24 The loss of kind of trust in, not really just in institutions, in each other,
01:11:26 --> 01:11:34 that we kind of are seeking God in all of this, which is very different from,
01:11:35 --> 01:11:41 to go back to what we began with, the kind of peacocking way of talking about
01:11:41 --> 01:11:44 God, because that's not really seeking God.
01:11:44 --> 01:11:49 That's kind of using God as a product. But, um...
01:11:51 --> 01:11:57 But I do think there are people that are trying to seek and question and find
01:11:57 --> 01:11:59 out, where is God in all of this?
01:11:59 --> 01:12:02 But it's going to be something that's going to be more quiet,
01:12:02 --> 01:12:09 and it happens in churches where people will just kind of show up and even just
01:12:09 --> 01:12:15 be in worship or just kind of seek out someone at a time of need.
01:12:15 --> 01:12:21 And I think that that's kind of what I'm seeing right now i i did this on something
01:12:21 --> 01:12:24 a while ago but i just i keep thinking about it as like,
01:12:25 --> 01:12:29 there's too many people especially on the on the mega right and just call it
01:12:29 --> 01:12:34 what it is but there's there's progressives that do this too they they take
01:12:34 --> 01:12:38 render under caesar of caesars and then they just go why don't i just become
01:12:38 --> 01:12:40 caesar and then everybody can render to me.
01:12:43 --> 01:12:46 Like i'm that's that's what i'm seeing from these people it's
01:12:46 --> 01:12:51 all power like if all you want is the power of it then you've already told me
01:12:51 --> 01:12:57 everything i need to know and there's there's i can think of particular individuals
01:12:57 --> 01:13:06 they are all about the power and there is nothing in faith that is ever about power Oh,
01:13:07 --> 01:13:11 The Christian faith, like it's just the automatic number one,
01:13:12 --> 01:13:17 money's a little harder because you don't want to judge people on money and
01:13:17 --> 01:13:20 everybody's in different circumstances and some people are better money.
01:13:20 --> 01:13:23 A lot of money is just, you know, can you personally handle it or not?
01:13:23 --> 01:13:25 So money's a little harder.
01:13:27 --> 01:13:35 If you're a pastor and you have a mansion and I'm like, but the power one is an automatic one.
01:13:36 --> 01:13:40 That's the easy one it's like if you just want the power,
01:13:41 --> 01:13:44 then you're shining me on because this
01:13:44 --> 01:13:49 should never be a power thing this should be a working on a thing it's not that
01:13:49 --> 01:13:52 we don't have authority inside of our churches and we don't have discipline
01:13:52 --> 01:13:57 inside of our churches that's not what I'm talking about but that's that grace
01:13:57 --> 01:14:00 with love thing that's because you love those people and you're trying to help
01:14:00 --> 01:14:02 them it's not because you're trying to tell them what to do,
01:14:03 --> 01:14:06 and i think the power dynamic is the one i've
01:14:06 --> 01:14:09 really gone to with this one is like if if you're this
01:14:09 --> 01:14:13 christian nationalist nonsense virus
01:14:13 --> 01:14:17 of we're going to get power so that we can force the christian that's never
01:14:17 --> 01:14:21 going to happen it's never going to work people are going to reject christianity
01:14:21 --> 01:14:24 they're not going to come towards you because you make them they're going to
01:14:24 --> 01:14:28 run towards secularism or something worse every single time and number one is
01:14:28 --> 01:14:31 it tells me you don't understand it,
01:14:32 --> 01:14:33 and you don't really believe it.
01:14:34 --> 01:14:39 Exactly. You're only believing it. You're just using it. You're only there to
01:14:39 --> 01:14:40 get what you can get out of it.
01:14:41 --> 01:14:45 You have told me through your actions, not words, what you really believe.
01:14:46 --> 01:14:52 And this is why I'm thankful for social media because we have found people eventually
01:14:52 --> 01:14:56 over time on social media will tell you exactly what they are because money,
01:14:56 --> 01:14:58 power, alcohol on Twitter. Yeah.
01:15:00 --> 01:15:04 Like seriously it just it eventually you're going
01:15:04 --> 01:15:06 to use it enough that you let it out what you
01:15:06 --> 01:15:09 really are i've like i've had some
01:15:09 --> 01:15:12 stuff i had to delete i've had people mess like hey you might want to take that
01:15:12 --> 01:15:17 down which is good that means i got a good doesn't happen very often you know
01:15:17 --> 01:15:21 nothing malicious just i didn't they that means that if you're oh i didn't even
01:15:21 --> 01:15:24 think about it that way because i don't know it you know do you have people
01:15:24 --> 01:15:27 in your life like that but i think,
01:15:28 --> 01:15:33 the power one is the automatic and if you start doing politics non-stop,
01:15:35 --> 01:15:41 if you can it's almost always the power so to me I think I'll look at the power
01:15:41 --> 01:15:45 part of it every time it's like if you just want power to make other people
01:15:45 --> 01:15:46 do something instead of convincing,
01:15:47 --> 01:15:52 them to take a faith journey I think that's that's going to be the dividing
01:15:52 --> 01:15:53 line that'll hold up over time.
01:15:57 --> 01:16:00 This has been too dark, man. I'm sorry. I'd like to do something happy.
01:16:00 --> 01:16:04 I'm sorry to do my, you know, therapy session with you, but you know,
01:16:04 --> 01:16:07 mate, it's not fair to not talk about it.
01:16:07 --> 01:16:11 If we have these platforms, I don't think that's right.
01:16:11 --> 01:16:14 So I don't know if we're doing it the right way, but I think we should talk
01:16:14 --> 01:16:16 about it. And I appreciate you giving me a chance to talk about it a little
01:16:16 --> 01:16:17 bit, or at least talk through it.
01:16:18 --> 01:16:23 Let's keep talking about it. Cause it's, it's not until we stop breathing, it's a struggle.
01:16:24 --> 01:16:27 So I think we need to struggle together because if we don't struggle together,
01:16:27 --> 01:16:29 we will surely struggle separately.
01:16:31 --> 01:16:36 We might as well do it together, man. Well, it is dark, but I think right now,
01:16:37 --> 01:16:39 it's necessary to talk about it.
01:16:39 --> 01:16:46 And in the midst of the darkness, I think that this discussion is a candle and that's important.
01:16:48 --> 01:16:51 Yep. I mean, I just, this stuff, so, you know, we've been talking about Iran
01:16:51 --> 01:16:55 nonstop and we're going to talk about Congress here next week when they come back in the hot mess.
01:16:55 --> 01:16:58 And then we're going, you know, news, news media has a circadian rhythm to it.
01:16:59 --> 01:17:01 Like we got the midterm coming up. That's going to dominate everything.
01:17:01 --> 01:17:05 You got the end of the physical year and, you know, you can see a lot of the
01:17:05 --> 01:17:07 big stories coming ahead of time.
01:17:08 --> 01:17:12 And I just don't want to lose, I don't want to lose, this is why I went to culinary
01:17:12 --> 01:17:14 school, so I don't lose track with normal people.
01:17:15 --> 01:17:17 I get to work with a diverse group of people.
01:17:18 --> 01:17:22 I don't want to lose track of the faith part of this because it gets buzzwords
01:17:22 --> 01:17:25 so bad in the circles that I'm in all the time.
01:17:25 --> 01:17:26 And you can't talk about it on TV
01:17:26 --> 01:17:29 a lot and it's not appropriate to talk about it a lot in a lot of areas.
01:17:30 --> 01:17:35 But man, we need to. Because if we don't talk about it and we think we're the
01:17:35 --> 01:17:39 people of moderation and common sense, then the only voices out there are going
01:17:39 --> 01:17:43 to be the crazy makers, as my father would call them, because he's like,
01:17:43 --> 01:17:44 I don't mind having bad people in church.
01:17:44 --> 01:17:47 I was like, we got a lot of bad people in church. I don't want crazy makers.
01:17:48 --> 01:17:49 Can't do nothing with a crazy maker.
01:17:51 --> 01:17:54 Bad people can start becoming good people. Crazy makers just cause crazy.
01:17:55 --> 01:17:59 And we have a lot of crazy makers out there right now. We don't want to yield
01:17:59 --> 01:18:01 the field to the crazy makers, my friend, and you're not one of them.
01:18:01 --> 01:18:05 And I try not to be one on anything outside of Waffle House and WVU Sports.
01:18:05 --> 01:18:08 So it's all good. Yep, it is.
01:18:09 --> 01:18:16 Well, we need to do this again. Yeah. So definitely we'll try to do this and
01:18:16 --> 01:18:18 talk a little bit more about some stuff.
01:18:20 --> 01:18:23 Yeah. I got to hook you up with our buddy Brady for the music thing,
01:18:23 --> 01:18:26 because he can tell you all the Nashville piece of that.
01:18:26 --> 01:18:30 Me and him have a running joke of like, you know, 2 years,
01:18:30 --> 01:18:33 what really killed Christianity was Nashville. It couldn't survive Nashville
01:18:33 --> 01:18:37 Survived Rome Couldn't survive Nashville But that's another song I'll put the
01:18:37 --> 01:18:39 two of you guys together You can have that conversation.
01:18:43 --> 01:18:47 All right We will talk again soon Yes sir Thank you All right.
01:19:18 --> 01:19:27 So, I hope you were enlightened, had some good points to hear from my conversation with Andrew,
01:19:28 --> 01:19:35 and I will put links to his Substack for Andrew's Substack in the show notes for you all.
01:19:37 --> 01:19:42 As usual, if you want to know more about this podcast, check me out at churchinmain.org.
01:19:42 --> 01:19:49 You can also check out churchinmaine.substack.com to read related articles on
01:19:49 --> 01:19:52 religion, faith, politics, and culture.
01:19:53 --> 01:19:57 Subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcast app and leave a rating or
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01:20:00 --> 01:20:07 Also, you can donate on Substack or you can make a donation using the link in the show notes.
01:20:08 --> 01:20:12 That is it for this episode of Church in Maine. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host.
01:20:12 --> 01:20:15 Thank you so much for listening. Take care, everyone. Godspeed.
01:20:16 --> 01:20:18 And I will see you very soon.