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how. Welcome

2:30

back everybody to You Have Permission, the

2:32

show that aims to take both Christianity

2:34

and the modern world of science and

2:36

culture very seriously. Returning

2:38

to the show after

2:41

a just depressing four and

2:43

a half year absence. Jim

2:47

Wellman of the University of

2:50

Washington. Jim, you were back

2:52

talking with me late December

2:54

2020. So right around the

2:56

time we got the

2:58

vaccines. We were talking

3:01

about mega churches. The

3:03

episode is called the surprising value of mega

3:05

churches. And you had done some collaborative research

3:07

and published a book on all of that.

3:09

So if people want to hear that, we'll

3:11

have a link to that in the show

3:13

notes. That's not what we're talking about today,

3:15

but just kind of that was a really

3:17

fun conversation. And I don't know, it'd be

3:19

interesting to revisit it now on the other

3:21

side of COVID. Yes. I do

3:24

want to say this a little editor's

3:26

note before we begin here. This is

3:28

my third straight recording today with with

3:30

no more than 30 minutes in between

3:32

any of them. I am making the

3:34

most of my quote unquote spring break

3:36

by working my ass off. It's fun.

3:38

I'm having actually a lot of fun

3:41

today. But I do reserve the right

3:43

to at some point go, OK, this

3:45

I'm getting too loopy. We got to

3:47

go to the patron only. We got

3:49

to turn this into a patron only

3:51

second half where we are shielded as

3:53

a city might be from a levy.

3:55

or a harbor from a breakwater, a

3:58

little bit by some

4:00

more privacy to work out

4:02

our quirks in safety. Anyway,

4:06

you have been working on this class

4:08

and we've been talking about it for

4:10

a couple of years. It's

4:12

called a life worth living. I

4:14

want to start here. We're going to

4:16

mostly we're going to talk about the

4:19

class and you sent me the syllabus and

4:21

I have questions about sort of like,

4:23

what is the project that you are walking

4:25

these undergraduate students through, but

4:27

it's a very popular class and

4:29

it's not the only class of

4:31

its type popping up at, especially

4:33

from my perspective, more elite universities, your

4:36

Stanford's, your Yale's. I keep

4:38

hearing about these classes that sound

4:40

to me like dead poet

4:43

society. It's like old school, you

4:45

know, liberal education, like, let's

4:47

really get into what makes life

4:49

meaningful. This is not just

4:51

information to get a job to

4:53

make money. Do you know I'm

4:55

saying? Like, have you noticed a

4:57

trend like this that you are

5:00

taking part in? I

5:02

really haven't looked at the broader

5:04

view of this, what I'm doing

5:06

in my class. I've

5:08

really focused on the

5:10

class itself and It's

5:12

such a fun class

5:14

to teach. I'm not

5:16

as interested in making

5:19

some big statement or

5:21

thinking of it as

5:23

starting a movement or

5:25

whatever. I just kind

5:27

of focus on my students and

5:29

what will help them, not to coin

5:31

a phrase, but to make a

5:34

life worth living. And in

5:36

the process of doing that,

5:38

when you see students' lives come,

5:40

you know, when they come

5:42

alive in front of you, which

5:44

is, you know, pretty common, but

5:47

it's a real blessing

5:49

just to be, to witness

5:51

it. And you get

5:53

the sense that the common

5:55

culture has no place

5:58

for this kind of type

6:00

of thinking. It's

6:02

just not going on. Now, I

6:04

think in part that's because Most

6:06

of my undergrads don't go to

6:08

church. Don't go to any places

6:10

where you would maybe think about

6:12

the purpose of life. And

6:15

just don't have any access to

6:17

thinking about, you know, what would

6:19

be the purpose? What does life

6:21

mean? And all those great questions,

6:23

which always stimulated me from the

6:25

very beginning, you know, when I

6:28

was at the University of Chicago

6:30

or Princeton. I was an undergrad

6:32

philosophy major, so I am in

6:34

this small percentage of undergraduates who

6:36

are specifically wanting to talk about

6:38

a lot of these questions. But

6:40

even in philosophy, you know, my

6:43

friends who are now professional philosophers,

6:45

you know, professors and published writers

6:47

and stuff, like, you know, they

6:49

will sometimes bemoan that philosophy used

6:51

to be about a way of

6:53

life. It was certainly that way

6:55

in the early Greek period. And,

6:58

you know, at various

7:00

points since then. You could

7:02

even argue that Jesuits

7:05

are sort of like an

7:07

Ignatius' version of what

7:09

Epictetus was doing, Epictetus, and

7:11

whatever. There have been

7:13

those movements where digging into

7:15

the deepest and thorniest

7:17

concepts was paired with an

7:19

actual way of structuring

7:21

your day -to -day life to

7:23

increase virtue, to sort

7:25

of maximally imbue your life

7:27

with worth. and meaningfulness. And

7:30

of course, that's not where we're at. Like, that's not

7:32

really what college is for anymore. And there's

7:34

some good reasons for that. And there are

7:36

some things to be bemoaned as well. But,

7:39

you know, and I appreciate you're not

7:41

wanting to sort of soapbox about a

7:43

national movement or whatever. But I'll just

7:46

say, I think that

7:48

you and whoever else is

7:50

organizing sort of similar classes. um,

7:53

are responding to something that you could

7:55

at least speak to what you're seeing

7:57

with UW students. You don't have to

7:59

speak for everybody, but so they're not

8:01

going and getting that they're not going

8:03

to church or synagogue nearly as much.

8:05

So they're not engaging in that. I

8:07

imagine some of them are listening to some

8:09

podcasts and maybe reading some books and

8:11

I don't know, just can you give

8:13

us a little bit of like set

8:15

the stage, set the scene? What kind of

8:17

interactions with students led to this class?

8:19

Like, what were you seeing? Where

8:22

did this come from? What

8:24

need is it responding to?

8:26

Yeah, the first time I taught it, I

8:28

don't know, eight years ago, I think, was

8:31

a smaller class. And

8:34

I think partly because

8:36

people had no idea

8:38

what I was... this

8:41

course could be about. It's been a

8:43

while since I thought about this and

8:45

talked about it, but several

8:47

things happened during the

8:49

course where the aha

8:51

moments of the students

8:53

was so kind of

8:55

shocking that I knew

8:57

the students were going,

8:59

whoa, what is happening

9:01

in this class? And

9:04

in the middle of the course, a

9:07

professor came in. I

9:09

think after the course, after

9:11

one of my lectures, and

9:14

he looked at me said, something's

9:16

going on in your classroom. What

9:18

is it? I mean, literally,

9:20

that's what he said to me. Wow. And

9:23

honestly, I had no

9:25

idea what he was thinking

9:27

or what he had

9:29

heard. I mean, I didn't

9:31

try to find that

9:33

out. There was a

9:36

young man from Africa, Jacob.

9:39

And I realized he was coming to

9:41

the course, not because he was

9:43

a student, but because

9:45

he just heard what was going

9:47

on. He was auditing it unofficially. Unofficially.

9:50

Wow. That's a good sign. You

9:53

know, there were several times where I

9:55

walked out with him after the class and

9:57

began to kind of have a relationship.

9:59

He was a taxi driver, long

10:01

story, you know,

10:04

tough time in Africa. Yeah. His

10:06

family had kind of rejected

10:08

him and He was just a

10:10

loner, man, and he said

10:12

that. I'm nothing. And

10:14

I said to him,

10:17

no, no, no. They

10:19

gave you a name, Jacob. You're

10:22

very special. That's a very special

10:24

name, and you're a special person.

10:26

And it's sort of like his whole

10:29

being sort of lit up. And

10:31

I thought, I

10:34

suppose I'm sort of

10:36

doing ministry. but

10:38

also kind of lighting the

10:40

fire of young students

10:42

to think that the world

10:44

is bigger than just

10:46

making money, you know,

10:48

gorging yourself on whatever

10:50

Netflix has. What

10:53

you can do with your

10:55

life is so stunningly

10:57

amazing. Why not try

10:59

at least or at least think about

11:01

it? Think about the possibilities of

11:03

it. And so, you

11:06

know, I found myself basically

11:08

being a cheerleader for

11:10

the deeper desires in each

11:12

student's life. And

11:14

because I think the

11:16

culture just sort of flattens

11:18

everything and basically tries

11:20

to see us as, you

11:22

know, merely

11:24

consumers. I was just

11:27

going to say consumers. It's

11:29

really a grotesque picture of

11:31

what the human what the

11:33

human project is. And I

11:35

see that a lot. And

11:39

so students who want to go into

11:41

business school, you know exactly what they're thinking

11:43

and what they're wanting to do with

11:45

it. But so I don't poo poo that

11:47

or whatever. I just say, hey,

11:50

let's look at some really interesting

11:52

examples of people who have done

11:54

great things, etc. And what great

11:56

thing is in you, you know,

11:59

kind of going back to that whole

12:01

idea. is what's

12:03

the spark? I

12:05

mean, there's nothing revolutionary

12:08

about it, but the

12:10

old stuff, the good

12:12

stuff from our religious

12:14

traditions, our spiritual traditions,

12:16

our humanistic traditions. Why

12:19

shouldn't we want to be

12:21

full human? I

12:24

just don't get it. To

12:26

me, it's like a duh. You

12:29

know what I mean? So anyway,

12:31

that's kind of... I'm not going to

12:33

try and answer the question of

12:35

why people might not want to pursue

12:37

an on its face meaningful life

12:39

from a psychological perspective. I think that's

12:41

a really interesting question. But what I

12:43

want to talk about is the

12:45

class because you kind of break it

12:47

into, you know, like I sort of

12:49

got like five basic themes here

12:51

that come up in the syllabus to

12:53

talk through with you. And you're kind

12:56

of you're kind of team me

12:58

up for the first one, which is.

13:00

which is meaning and identity. And

13:02

there is a real overlap

13:04

here with not just therapy

13:06

and psychology, but even existential

13:09

psychology, which is a part

13:11

of my own frame combined

13:13

with cognitive kind of a

13:15

cognitive approach. I

13:17

am really drawn to the existential

13:19

questions. I really love working

13:21

with clients who are struggling with

13:23

making meaning out of their

13:26

life and wondering who they are,

13:28

what's their identity, what are

13:30

they here for, what do they

13:32

care about. That stuff never

13:34

fails to like get my motor

13:36

revving in the room, like

13:38

get my wheels turning. And

13:41

so I just, I really

13:43

recognize that, but the therapy

13:45

room is maybe where you'd

13:47

more expect that work to

13:49

be done in 2025 than

13:51

in the university classroom. Right?

13:53

So that's me. That's interesting.

13:55

And I'm wondering, you know,

13:57

so what are some of

13:59

the identity and meaning questions

14:01

that you see students asking?

14:04

And then I'd love to also eventually hear

14:06

like, what kind of answers do they

14:08

seem to find compelling? And from what sources?

14:11

Yeah, I really do think they come

14:13

in sort of blank slate and not

14:15

really knowing what the class that I

14:17

get a lot of. students at the

14:19

end of the class saying, I had

14:21

no idea what this class was about.

14:23

Why would they have signed up for

14:26

it in that case? Would it be

14:28

through a recommendation? They

14:30

heard good things from other students. Yeah. You know,

14:32

and that's always the way it is with

14:34

classes. You know, hey, what's

14:36

well -mint like? Well, especially

14:38

if it's any kind of an elective, right? Like

14:40

where there's really some choice, it's not a major

14:42

course. That tends to be

14:44

the like word of mouth, very helpful

14:46

in that scenario. Yeah, totally. So

14:48

that's what it comes about.

14:50

The best way to explain that

14:52

is like a kid from

14:55

India was in my classroom, and

14:57

there's certain students that

14:59

have the light, but

15:02

it's not yet been turned

15:04

on in a way that

15:07

they can understand how it

15:09

could relate to their real

15:11

life practice. And

15:13

this kid would

15:15

sit in the front row or

15:17

second row every class and I

15:19

could tell he was just like

15:22

eating it up like you know

15:24

it was he was like chugging

15:26

it and by the end of

15:28

the class he had come to

15:30

me and he said Professor Wellman

15:32

this class changed my life I'm

15:35

going to leave the universe Washington

15:37

but because it doesn't have what

15:39

I need And I think it

15:41

was some sort of engineering project

15:43

that he was working on. So

15:45

it's not like just humanistic stuff. But

15:48

it was a way

15:51

in which he was totally

15:53

turning on to these

15:55

deep desires and deep interests

15:57

that were kind of

16:00

muddled inside him. And

16:02

he said, oh man, this is the

16:04

shit I really want to study. And

16:06

now I'm going to

16:08

ignore I think this is

16:10

the case in this, in this case,

16:12

I'm going to ignore what my parents

16:15

want. And I'm going to go do

16:17

it. And I know exactly where I

16:19

need to be now. And

16:21

it's in his face, Dan,

16:23

his face was so, there's

16:25

something so as a teacher, you

16:27

just look into it and you

16:29

just go, oh man. I

16:32

mean, it's almost makes me want to cry. That

16:35

really for the first time, the

16:37

kid had found what he was looking

16:39

for. I think that happens a

16:41

lot. It brings

16:43

up a very difficult, kind

16:45

of messy dynamic, which is

16:47

like, and therapy does this

16:49

too, by the way, when, you

16:51

know, I'm at a university counseling

16:54

center at the moment, right? So

16:56

I'm also working with college students

16:58

and, you know, we have international

17:00

students, for instance, who come from

17:02

collectivistic cultures and they get here

17:04

to western Washington state and they're

17:06

like, you know, in sort

17:08

of the height of individualism, you

17:11

know, our particular university is

17:13

known for really supporting like diverse,

17:15

like queer populations and, you

17:17

know, we have higher, higher, like

17:20

about a double self -identification

17:22

rate for LGBTQ students

17:24

versus the national average. So,

17:27

and that's a word of

17:29

mouth thing as well. People know

17:31

that they'll be supported. And

17:33

there is a real clash of

17:35

cultural values sometimes between No,

17:37

your fucking job is to do what

17:39

your family would like you to do.

17:41

And then when you have children, it'll

17:43

be their job. And that's how this

17:46

whole thing works. And the

17:48

American version of that,

17:50

the frontier ethos, the

17:52

like possibly the most

17:54

individualistic culture of all

17:56

time thus far in

17:58

human history. And yet

18:00

to just sort of

18:02

Camp out in on one of

18:05

those sides and fire a

18:07

cannon at the other side to

18:09

me seems stupid There's obviously

18:11

value in both of those things

18:13

and it is not obvious

18:16

how they will be reconciled in

18:18

any individual case So it's

18:20

fascinating it continues to be fascinating

18:22

but like Maybe I'm Western,

18:24

maybe I'm too much of an

18:27

existentialist, too focused on the

18:29

experience of the individual, uncertain human

18:31

before reality and potentially God. But

18:34

like, what is he going to

18:36

do with his one wild and whatever

18:38

life, as the poet says, like, he

18:40

does only get one. It's not his

18:42

parents' life. They have their own lives. Like,

18:44

there's a kind of mathematics to it

18:46

that I can't shake. I could never be

18:48

a true collectivist, I don't think, in

18:50

part because of that. But it's ethically weird.

18:52

It can get messy probably more so

18:54

for a therapist than for a professor like

18:56

you don't have you're not held to

18:58

the same kind of standards around that stuff

19:00

for good reason. But yeah, I just

19:02

wanted to flag that because I find it

19:04

fascinating. I guess what I would

19:06

say to that is that I'm not necessarily trying

19:08

to break him from his culture. I'm

19:11

not trying to break him from his

19:13

family. No, of course

19:15

not. I'm just calling forth

19:17

the better angels of his

19:19

character and and watching. You

19:22

know what I what I love

19:24

to see is is a face just

19:26

turned on Yeah, and a mind

19:28

thinking this is possible and most of

19:30

my students are You know, I

19:32

think our students are fairly conservative in

19:34

a strange sort of way They're

19:36

just trying to get a job Well,

19:38

and that's it's so interesting like

19:40

not to get too into so so

19:42

I'm at Western Washington University and

19:44

you're at University of Washington in Seattle

19:46

and and like so we're in

19:48

the same state school system right and

19:51

and it's just like the California

19:53

school system that I knew about growing

19:55

up. I'm sure it's the same

19:57

in Ohio and everywhere else like UW

19:59

is the Ivy League of Washington.

20:01

So if you are on that track,

20:03

you try to get into UW

20:05

and Eastern or Central Washington universities, those

20:07

are for partying or agriculture or

20:09

whatever. And of course, this is not

20:11

exactly true. And where I am

20:13

at, that's for like the art kids,

20:15

the queer kids. You know, that's

20:17

the culture place. That's where you want

20:19

to go live in Santa Cruz

20:21

for a year and let your freak

20:24

flag fly. That's, of course, not

20:26

everybody there as well. But you do

20:28

get this self selection. to some

20:30

degree in the student body. And that's

20:32

interesting to consider you being at,

20:34

this is the highest performing school in

20:36

the state. This is our closest

20:38

thing we have to Stanford, right? And

20:40

so that's gonna draw a certain

20:42

kind of student. And I do think

20:44

that that student who wants to

20:46

succeed, wants to get a good job,

20:48

they aren't going to be, they

20:50

might be a bit more conservative, small

20:52

C sense, right? The kind of

20:54

general, like. they are there to follow

20:57

a path. And it's funny because

20:59

we've been talking about this student from

21:01

India and we can make assumptions

21:03

about what that family probably wants of

21:05

him. But now that I think

21:07

about like an Ivy League track for

21:09

a well -heeled, you know, moneyed family

21:11

in the Northwest or on the

21:13

East Coast or whatever or in San

21:15

Francisco, I think how different is

21:17

that? Right? Like they're on in terms

21:19

of being on the track for

21:21

the family's expectations. That part

21:23

is totally constant. That's interesting.

21:25

You know, I know. And I think you're

21:27

just a little more cynical than I

21:29

am. What I have them do

21:32

is they they have to go into the.

21:34

you know, what I call the wilderness, you

21:36

know, which is usually just

21:38

a trail outside their house. But

21:41

they have to spend, you

21:43

know, like four hours in the

21:45

wilderness, just kind of reviewing

21:47

their life, thinking about it, trying

21:49

to get them into the

21:51

wilderness. And then the second outside

21:54

project they have to do

21:56

is they have to go and

21:58

serve somebody and, you know,

22:00

do it for four, four, five

22:02

hours. So in a

22:04

certain way, I suppose

22:06

I'm trying to turn

22:08

them into people with

22:10

a deeper sense of

22:12

responsibility, not just to

22:14

themselves, but to

22:17

the culture, to those who

22:19

are in trouble in

22:21

our culture, or at

22:23

least expose them to

22:25

the possibility that they

22:27

may want to engage

22:29

their lives in goodness.

22:32

Right. Christianity as a religion

22:34

may or may not

22:36

be like capital T true,

22:39

you know, in whatever its central claims are. I don't

22:41

know the answer to that. I'll never know for

22:43

sure. But it's very

22:45

interesting to consider whether the

22:47

individual teaching of Jesus that

22:49

you must lose your life

22:52

to gain it. Is that

22:54

true? And in what sense?

22:56

Might it be true? And

22:58

I would say I think I

23:00

think that I could I might want

23:02

to like work on it a

23:04

little bit and do some extra research

23:06

to firm up the case. But

23:08

like, I think that I could make

23:10

a strong case from psychology, from

23:12

the most careful psychological research that some

23:14

version of you must lose your

23:16

life to gain it is just true.

23:19

that there is some altruism is

23:21

built in to the human person,

23:23

the human cake, it's baked in

23:25

there. And if you're not utilizing

23:27

that, you are missing out on

23:29

a source of fulfillment that is

23:32

among the most pure of having

23:34

helped someone else. Yeah, I totally

23:36

agree in the sense that it's

23:38

been a, we just moved back

23:40

to Bainbridge a couple of years

23:42

ago. You're out on the, yeah,

23:45

you're out on the ferry system,

23:47

which is beautiful and constantly fraught.

23:49

in Washington. Yeah, it

23:51

is a problem. But it's also a

23:53

beautiful place to be. I look

23:55

out on the Olympic mountains. And

23:58

then we became a part of a church. And

24:01

my wife is, I mean,

24:03

we've been together for about

24:05

10 years now. Two

24:07

small kids. She's lovely. She

24:09

chose the church.

24:11

And it's a more

24:13

conservative Christian church. The

24:20

senior pastor is one of

24:22

the great preachers I've ever heard.

24:25

I've been blown away

24:27

and we've gotten pretty

24:29

involved. As a part

24:31

of that process, I

24:34

decided, oh my gosh,

24:36

for the last my sabbatical,

24:38

which is this year, I

24:40

decided I'm going to do

24:43

a course on Jesus, a

24:45

global biography, and make it

24:47

for undergraduates. It might

24:49

to be its own episode next year, by

24:51

the way. I like that idea. Let's redo

24:53

it. Let me know, listeners, if you would

24:55

like us to redo this on the Jesus

24:57

syllabus, I'm in. Yeah. But

24:59

anyway, just to kind of

25:02

get at that one little bit,

25:05

I think I've, and I've

25:07

always known this, but I

25:09

felt a conversion process happen

25:11

in me, which

25:14

I think allowed me to think

25:16

less of myself and more

25:19

of the other. And

25:21

that is just kind of a

25:23

primary, I think,

25:25

aspect of Christianity at its

25:27

best, which allows you to

25:29

get over yourself and free

25:31

yourself from the basic self -interest

25:33

of life. No, I love

25:35

it. And it's like, here's,

25:37

you know, because when you

25:40

say you're, you know, attending

25:42

a conservative church, like there

25:44

are a lot of bells

25:46

that ring in me. You

25:48

know, we're recording this in

25:50

March of 2025, like late

25:52

March. And J .D. Vance

25:54

is engaged in his program

25:56

of redefining Christianity for an

25:58

American audience. And like, you

26:00

know, there's just a lot

26:02

to be quite concerned about.

26:04

But like I was thinking,

26:06

well, I could frame it

26:09

this way. from the perspective

26:11

of a liberal Christian who

26:13

is also a psychotherapist. Okay,

26:15

so just pick a client

26:17

of mine or a listener

26:19

of mine or whomever, a

26:21

person, a positive person. And

26:23

you say, okay, Dan, they're going to

26:25

go every week to a church that

26:27

is conservative. And sometimes the

26:30

pastor is going to repeat Fox News

26:32

talking points and sometimes he's going

26:34

to directly quote RC Sproul and John

26:36

Piper and all your least favorite

26:38

theologians. Okay, he is going to do

26:40

that. But how many times in

26:42

every six month period does he need

26:44

to do a sermon based on

26:46

the sermon on the mount? For it

26:48

to be worth the other weeks

26:50

where all the rest of that will

26:53

happen, right? Like it might be

26:55

a pretty low number I think if

26:57

you could get a person to

26:59

think about the Sermon on the Mount

27:01

a few times a year like

27:03

that's what is that worth and That's

27:05

worth a lot. I would only

27:07

say that None of that happens at

27:09

our church. I mean, none of

27:11

that conservative. But I didn't mean

27:13

to imply that, but I just mean, even in such

27:15

a situation, how much

27:17

I love the Sermon on the Mount and its

27:19

ability to help someone like think about their life

27:22

and the way they move through the world. Having

27:24

lived through it for

27:26

these last two years, it

27:28

sounds goofy, but

27:31

falling kind of falling in love

27:33

with Jesus. once

27:36

again, right? And I've done it

27:38

many times, right? It's not it's not

27:40

something new. But I

27:42

just I love the

27:44

human humanization of my

27:46

world. That's kind of how I

27:48

see it. What do you mean by that humanization

27:51

of your world? That

27:53

that that the object of

27:55

my care is for

27:57

the other. Oh, the

27:59

like, yeah, making your world

28:01

into like humans. Right?

28:03

Like humanizing it in that

28:05

sense, like it becomes about them.

28:08

Yeah. It's really beautiful. And

28:10

then, okay, so what

28:12

I mean by that

28:14

is that there's times

28:16

when I feel the

28:18

love of Christ as

28:21

a way of pushing

28:23

through me or coming

28:25

through me, and I

28:27

get to feel love

28:29

for the other. when

28:31

you see people

28:34

in need. And

28:36

I guess a part of this too is,

28:38

and this gets back to the class, is

28:41

I think these students are just in great need.

28:45

And so there's a way in

28:47

which I think sometimes I'm

28:49

doing ministry, although I

28:51

wouldn't call that. I wouldn't call

28:53

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Hawaii. So

29:34

the second of the

29:36

five themes is spirituality and

29:38

science, right? So I've

29:41

done a lot of episodes

29:43

on the sort of classic

29:45

like they're in opposition to

29:47

each other model, which obviously

29:49

you're not claiming. I am

29:52

curious how you talk about

29:54

spirituality and religion and things

29:56

like contemporary neuroscience and like

29:58

cutting edge science. Yeah, the

30:01

book that I'm using is

30:03

Lisa Miller's Awakened Brain. Yeah.

30:06

And she's a little bit ooey -gooey

30:08

for me. She's a little woo -woo,

30:10

a little bit. Yeah. But

30:13

she knows her stuff. She

30:15

knows the... Well, I think she

30:17

has a bit of a

30:19

woo -woo, probably personality or whatever. But

30:21

like, she started as like

30:24

a neuro -imager. Like, her data

30:26

is extremely empirical. And I

30:28

think it serves her well to have that

30:30

like hard science background to sort of now

30:32

she has found her purpose kind of in

30:34

the way you're talking about with maybe the

30:36

student from India and some of these other

30:38

students like she's found a way to kind

30:40

of find there's an engineer in her and

30:42

then there's also this other part of her

30:44

and she's able to do both. It's one

30:46

thing I love about her work. Yeah,

30:48

well, I think there's a way

30:50

in which her work to help heal

30:53

her. And and and

30:55

dealt with their their inability to

30:57

have children and And and

30:59

she kind of moved she was

31:01

doing her work as she

31:03

was having existential crises Yeah, and

31:05

yeah, and I think that's

31:07

interesting really quick for listeners Lisa

31:09

Miller I've talked about her

31:12

before the awakened child the awakened

31:14

brain and she she talks

31:16

about sort of like all the

31:18

empirical benefits of spirituality and

31:20

she makes a pretty A

31:22

pretty bold claim that I'd love

31:24

to see like how well it

31:26

holds up to really serious scrutiny,

31:29

but that like the from her

31:31

data, the most negatively correlated with

31:33

depression, with clinical depression, sort

31:36

of DSM quantifiable

31:38

depression is spirituality.

31:40

It's basically feeling connected to a higher

31:42

power that is loving and guiding

31:44

that that performs better. on, you know,

31:47

it's sort of efficacy with depression

31:49

than other things you might think of

31:51

like happiness or, you know, they

31:53

have scores for those things too. She

31:55

says it's spirituality and it's something

31:57

about meaning and it's something about, it's

31:59

kind of like secure attachment, right?

32:01

So anyway, that's, that's Lisa Miller. I

32:03

haven't talked about her on the

32:05

pot in a while. In essence, I

32:08

was, what you just described

32:10

was my experience in my

32:12

church, secure attachment. feeling

32:15

of unconditional acceptance

32:17

and love from a

32:19

trusted other who

32:21

is Jesus, right? Who

32:23

most people can

32:25

trust had good intentions

32:28

in mind. But

32:30

anyway, I use

32:32

Lisa Miller because she's

32:34

Jewish. That's helpful

32:36

for me in the sense

32:38

that I'm not pushing Jesus on

32:40

anyone. with a

32:43

spirituality. I don't

32:45

think I could do that.

32:47

I wouldn't do that. That

32:49

would feel uncomfortable. And

32:52

I don't say that

32:55

she's... I don't say that...

32:57

How would I put

32:59

it? I simply say that

33:01

spirituality connected with something

33:03

higher than yourself tends, as

33:05

you say, to create

33:08

happiness, goodness, care

33:10

for others. et cetera. And

33:12

I say something, something

33:14

to consider. Because

33:17

in our common culture, we

33:19

more than not hear about

33:21

all the bad eggs in the

33:23

pot. Yeah, that's a part

33:25

of the way that media works.

33:28

Yeah, and media tries

33:30

to find that. There's

33:32

a way in which

33:34

I think the media

33:36

is complicit in sort

33:38

of the downsizing of

33:40

spirituality and faith activities. Yeah,

33:44

I mean, I don't blame the

33:46

media for that insofar as like

33:48

I... don't the alternative of not

33:50

having a media that reports unflinchingly

33:52

on the worst things that like

33:54

I don't want the opposite of

33:56

that. I think it's more a

33:58

function of the way that mass

34:00

media and new technologies are interacting

34:02

with baseline human psychology. That that's

34:04

sort of how where I would

34:06

put the the causal mechanism. But

34:09

media is implicated in it

34:11

and the different ways we consume

34:13

media are implicated in the

34:15

whole process. Well, I'll do one

34:17

pushback with you. I simply

34:19

would say that in the media,

34:21

you never hear, more or

34:23

less, of the goodness of what's

34:26

going on in faith communities across at

34:29

least I don't hear it. There

34:31

are a few publications, I'll largely agree,

34:33

there are a few publications that

34:35

have recognized that and have made, like,

34:37

in my world, kind of splashy

34:39

hires. I'm thinking of Emma Green, the

34:42

Atlantic. There are a few

34:45

places that are trying to do a

34:47

better job of that, but those are

34:49

notable for being exceptions to the rule.

34:52

I don't think the Trump years have

34:54

helped. I think the Trump years have

34:56

only dug that in. Trump

34:58

is a disaster. That's

35:00

why I can't even think about it

35:02

or think about him at all. Yeah,

35:04

we're not going to talk about him

35:06

right now. But it's obviously played into

35:08

that. But so to your students, here's

35:10

something I'm really curious about. When

35:12

you show them, Lisa

35:14

Miller is an example of many

35:17

possible examples you could choose

35:19

from of very serious thinkers, scientific

35:21

thinkers, who are talking

35:24

about what spirituality does at

35:26

a at a neurochemical,

35:28

biological level, and they are

35:30

coming out with a

35:32

very rosy, almost prescription. Try

35:35

this. When your students

35:37

hear that and absorb that,

35:39

are they surprised? Or

35:42

do they expect that in a

35:44

way that maybe my generation, especially secularly,

35:46

were kind of primed to think

35:48

that would be weird to find out

35:50

that that's true? I

35:52

don't really know. You know, I

35:54

think they just get a

35:56

taste for it, and they don't

35:59

really have much background in

36:01

that kind of work. So

36:03

there's not much context they

36:05

can bring to it. So

36:07

it's really hard for me to

36:09

know what they're thinking. And I

36:11

do it just as kind of

36:13

a tasting. As

36:16

to say, like

36:19

I said before,

36:22

For most of

36:24

us, spirituality and

36:26

religion has a

36:28

negative connotation. And

36:31

I just want to

36:33

say that in my

36:35

experience and in my

36:37

reading, that's not necessarily

36:39

true. And I'll just give

36:41

you an example. And the Lisa Miller

36:43

is the example. And we go through

36:45

it. And I

36:47

do it really not because I'm

36:49

trying to sell religion,

36:52

I'm doing it because I

36:54

really actually believe that it

36:56

is a way out of

36:58

our conundrum. Oh, no, I

37:01

totally agree. What's funny to

37:03

me, actually, and like I'm

37:05

in a professional psychological setting

37:07

in a very liberal area,

37:09

you know, like you can

37:11

imagine the kind of ideological

37:13

makeup of my current workplace

37:16

and you'd probably be right.

37:18

And it is not

37:21

controversial among them, all

37:23

of them therapists, working therapists, the

37:25

value of religion and spirituality for their

37:27

clients. It's not controversial at all.

37:29

Like when I kind of came in

37:31

and then people learned like, oh,

37:33

you spiritual abuse research and like working

37:35

with religious issues, like it became

37:37

as we're introducing ourselves like, hey, that's

37:39

my specialty. Eventually that stuff comes

37:42

up. And most people are like rad,

37:44

you know, like totally, you know,

37:46

and, and yeah, it gets such a

37:48

bad name. You know, like, so

37:50

because the evidence is not lacking in

37:52

the psychological literature, it's

37:54

not. It isn't just maybe

37:56

that's not true. No, no,

37:58

no. Psychology students right now

38:01

should be being taught. Those

38:03

were false assumptions coming from

38:05

wherever they're coming from. But

38:07

when we look at the

38:09

research, this stuff is good

38:11

for people on average, and

38:14

it's pretty uneniable. I think

38:16

I told you, Dan, that,

38:18

you know, going through this

38:20

process of my first wife's

38:22

Death and having started into

38:24

this research. Yeah, I realized

38:26

Especially on evangelicalism. I realized

38:29

evangelicalism there's you know politically

38:31

I disagree with some some

38:33

sides of evangelical the conservative

38:35

sides, but the you know,

38:37

the left -leaning side of evangelicalism

38:39

is is a place where

38:42

I can see myself. Yeah,

38:44

I totally yeah, and And

38:46

why? It's vanishingly small these

38:48

days. Because they're whole,

38:50

whole, they're happy. Yeah. I married

38:52

my wife because in part she

38:54

was an evangelical Christian, she's a

38:56

happy person. Yeah. You

38:58

know, my first wife was not.

39:00

And I probably shouldn't say that.

39:03

And yeah, she just wasn't. And

39:05

I wasn't, I was looking for happy. I

39:07

was looking her bad, but she wasn't happy. No.

39:11

Yeah. No. No. You

39:14

know, I mean, it was sad,

39:16

really. It was a sad, it's

39:18

much more complex picture than that.

39:20

But anyway, I mean, so when

39:22

you're doing this work, you're thinking

39:24

about your own life. It's not,

39:26

not just for your academic life,

39:28

but. You know, that's actually one

39:30

of the great privileges of being

39:33

a therapist is that I literally

39:35

can't help. sometimes taking my own

39:37

advice. Not that I give advice,

39:39

but like, I don't really give

39:41

advice, but I, but you know,

39:43

living into the principles that I

39:45

am trying to help my clients

39:47

live into, right? Like I do,

39:49

I absorb enough of it through

39:51

osmosis that I can't ignore it.

39:53

And I really like that. I

39:56

think it's a genuine benefit. Like

39:58

sometimes therapists will joke with each

40:00

other about like, if we

40:02

have a client, like some therapists will always

40:04

do breathing exercises with all their clients, like

40:06

at the beginning of a session. Frankly,

40:08

I think that's a little indulgent. That

40:11

sounds wonderful. I

40:13

don't know that that's the best use

40:15

of time for all my clients. I probably

40:18

could do more of it. But like,

40:20

when I do do a breathing exercise with

40:22

a client, like, am I also happy

40:24

I get a few minutes here to just

40:26

breathe and center myself? I am. It

40:28

feels great. And honestly, good. I should be

40:30

experiencing that too so that I'm more

40:32

likely to model it. So, you know, it's

40:34

great. You're probably calmer and more able

40:36

to listen. Yeah. Okay, well you

40:38

understand what's interesting about that, but

40:40

let's let's move to let's move

40:42

to the third theme here Yeah,

40:44

but I'll just put a pin

40:46

in that for listeners if you

40:48

have ideas send me an email

40:50

about this because I do think

40:52

there's really a I think that

40:54

What seems plausible to us about

40:56

God and religion and all that

40:58

stuff? I think there's a massive

41:00

generational component to that because of

41:03

what world events we were exposed

41:05

to at what stage we were

41:07

developmentally, right? So we know that

41:09

people tend to keep their sociopolitics

41:11

from of age 18 to 20

41:13

or whatever. Right. You tend to

41:15

like if you're going to really

41:17

break from your family, you've kind

41:19

of done it by college and

41:21

most people don't really move. Not

41:23

they don't totally cross sides after

41:25

that point. Why wouldn't it be

41:27

the same for what you find

41:29

plausible about ultimate reality? And so

41:31

I am genuinely curious if a

41:33

19 year old today is surprised.

41:35

on average at all to

41:37

hear that there's really robust

41:40

scientific frameworks for thinking about

41:42

spirituality. I wonder if they'd be surprised.

41:44

My guess is they'd be less surprised than

41:46

a 50 year old. That's my guess. Yes,

41:48

really important. I

41:50

would just say, you know, kind

41:52

of going back to James's radical

41:54

empiricism. That's that's one of the

41:57

that's one of the lenses I

41:59

go go to. Yeah. Is that

42:01

go to get radical about your

42:03

empiricism. assumptions and

42:05

really find out for

42:07

yourself. What is

42:09

really going on? And

42:12

science is one of

42:14

the great ways of

42:16

clarifying and really erasing

42:19

to some extent your

42:21

prejudices, your pre -understandings,

42:23

whatever those are, and

42:25

allowing you to be

42:28

free for Christ's sake. Right.

42:30

This is exactly how I think

42:32

of cognitive therapy, Jim. Yeah. There's

42:34

so much of that in what I do

42:37

with clients. Science and Christ,

42:39

I think, are on the same

42:41

wavelength and the same, hey, you are

42:43

free. Wow. You

42:45

are free. You are

42:47

free. You're saying the message

42:49

of Christ in a very straightforward

42:51

Christianity and the message of

42:54

science at a real commitment to

42:56

following good science with all

42:58

the uncertainty and everything baked in

43:00

and really like almost like

43:02

committing to that way of life

43:04

the way that people commit

43:07

to a monastic way of life

43:09

a little shade of that

43:11

like that both of those approaches

43:13

are they're saying this is

43:15

about breaking free and being free

43:17

to like be in the

43:20

real world. and be your actual

43:22

self and look at yourself

43:24

with some clarity and the world

43:26

with as much clarity as

43:28

you can. Man, I,

43:30

wow. Another way to put

43:32

it is self -transcendence, which

43:35

is, you need self -transcendence

43:38

to get to the

43:40

objective truth of a matter.

43:43

And self -transcendence is, I think, is

43:45

the story of the Christ, right?

43:48

You know, you have to...

43:50

believe yourself to find yourself.

43:53

And what is it for?

43:55

Forgiveness and love. Forgiveness

43:58

and love. Forgiveness and love. Reconciliation.

44:01

Caring for the least, the last,

44:03

the lost. And it. I think

44:06

in that sense, I can never cease to be

44:08

a Christian. Like,

44:10

if that's what we mean, I

44:12

don't think it's possible. think

44:15

it's extremely unlikely that I

44:17

would ever hear someone say exactly

44:19

that and go, yeah, I'm

44:21

not I'm not there anymore. I

44:23

can't imagine myself not being

44:25

there. There's a lot of other

44:27

trappings that I'm really struggling

44:29

with mightily these days. I totally

44:32

understand. And I get when

44:34

people don't believe. I just

44:36

feel, wow, there's there's a lot of

44:38

good things there. Don't don't don't throw

44:40

the baby out with the bathwater. For

44:42

me, it's more like I am going

44:44

to practice as if that's true. That's

44:46

what my life is going to look

44:48

like. And what I struggle with is

44:50

like my cognitive confidence level in certain

44:53

things. And you know what, that might

44:55

just be fine. And maybe that's just

44:57

the way it is. And and that

44:59

is like a cost that I pay

45:01

for having such a cognitive orientation as

45:03

a person, which, by the way, like

45:05

I'm a cognitive therapist, not because cognitive

45:07

therapy is superior to other forms of

45:09

therapy, but because it matches me. It's

45:12

natural for me. I'm going to be

45:14

better at that than another form. I

45:16

really found my way into it very

45:18

organically. And it's important

45:20

because a lot of therapists are

45:22

not smart enough or or not

45:24

willing to stop fluffing themselves enough

45:26

to look around and see that

45:28

there's pretty good evidence of efficacy

45:30

for a lot of different ways

45:32

of doing this work. And in

45:34

fact, the best evidence repeatedly points

45:36

to it's the rapport between you

45:38

and your client. There's something human

45:40

that's happening here. Right. So get

45:42

off your and high horse. So

45:44

obviously it's not that cognitive therapy

45:47

is true and the others aren't

45:49

as true, but it just

45:51

matches me. And there's a naturalness to

45:53

that that that seems wise. So

45:55

far, seems to be working such that

45:57

I have a choice. We like to think.

45:59

I like to think. I like I

46:01

like working with the content of thoughts with

46:03

my clients. We end up working with

46:05

ideas. We talk a lot about evidence. We're doing a

46:07

lot of logic. I'm framing that

46:09

in a therapeutically sensitive way, right? In

46:11

a way that avoids doing unnecessary harm

46:14

by being overly harsh or et cetera,

46:16

and making sure people feel supported that

46:18

I have positive regard for them, which

46:20

is easy for me to do. It's

46:22

not that hard. Once someone tells

46:24

you you got to find someone to

46:26

like in every person, there are

46:28

only a very few clients for

46:30

whom that is really difficult at all.

46:32

Yeah, and I actually think people

46:35

would be surprised how easy it is

46:37

to find something to like if

46:39

you had a good professional moral reason

46:41

for doing it. If you thought

46:43

this is how I can really help

46:45

this person, it's not hard to

46:47

do in its rewarding. I wonder there's

46:49

there's probably a book in there.

46:51

There's probably a book of like helping

46:53

lay people find unconditional positive regard

46:55

for people that are difficult in their

46:57

lives. I mean, that's that's kind

46:59

of fundamental. Yeah. Maybe I'll

47:01

write that book. Okay. I thou, I thou,

47:04

brother. Well, I'm not going to write

47:06

as good of a book as Martin Boober

47:08

did, but maybe I could do some

47:10

sort of shitty modern American version. We need

47:12

more at Boober. All

47:14

right. Should we go to the

47:16

next one? Yeah. Yeah. Go

47:18

ahead. Ethical and moral development. Okay.

47:21

So you're, you're emphasizing helping

47:23

these students develop a personal ethical

47:25

framework and then that they

47:27

can apply practically. to life's

47:29

decisions. First thought, Jim, straight out of

47:31

the gate here. If

47:33

my clients had more formation in

47:35

this, maybe 50 %

47:38

of them, what they're dealing

47:40

with, they would have

47:42

an incredible set of tools to

47:44

work with. Not everything. It's

47:46

not everything that people are coming in with. I

47:48

feel like that would be to overstay.

47:51

It's not like these are moral failings. I'm

47:53

not implying that at all. I'm just

47:55

saying that like... also their age. They're at

47:57

the age where they are developing. This

47:59

is a perfect thing to be doing with

48:01

college students developmentally, right? Let's just start

48:03

there. Well, no, I mean,

48:05

it's, you know, basically, I use

48:07

kind of Kantian ethics, right? I'd

48:09

kind of... By which you mean?

48:12

By which I mean that to

48:14

treat the other as a full

48:16

human. Well, his categorical imperative is

48:18

the closest thing in straight -up philosophy

48:20

to do unto others as you

48:22

would have them do unto you.

48:25

Exactly. He just basically formalizes that

48:27

teaching of Jesus. Exactly.

48:30

But to lay it out as

48:32

clearly as he does is

48:34

helpful to, I think, students. It

48:36

was actually great. I learned

48:38

that as a freshman, and it

48:40

was really great. The other

48:42

thing I think is it's shocking,

48:44

because basically, you know, he's

48:46

saying, that if you

48:48

don't do this, this is

48:50

a form of irresponsibility.

48:52

Yeah, immorality. You are truly,

48:55

you are unethical. Yeah.

48:57

It also stops the person

48:59

from saying, only

49:01

my thoughts are

49:03

important. No, no,

49:06

no, no, no,

49:08

no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

49:11

You know, taking the other as seriously

49:13

as one takes oneself, you know, doing

49:15

to the other as you would do

49:17

unto yourself. So, you

49:19

know, and I give them

49:21

a very crisp, maybe two lectures

49:24

on it. And

49:26

moving it towards kind of this

49:28

humanistic, you know, we're really

49:30

trying to create the well -being for

49:32

all, you know. You

49:34

know, it's a moral

49:36

and Kant is so clear

49:38

that it's really helpful.

49:40

You know, so many things

49:42

are swirling for me

49:44

around this. The developmental lens,

49:46

which I didn't have when I was

49:48

learning this stuff because I was too

49:51

young to understand and I hadn't, didn't

49:53

have a psychology graduate education at that

49:55

point, of course. But like, you

49:57

know, I learned Kant at 18

49:59

as a freshman, my first quarter in

50:02

undergrad as a philosophy major at

50:04

Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California.

50:06

And with Ken Walker, former

50:08

AAA pitcher for the Los

50:11

Angeles Dodgers and overall badass, my

50:13

favorite professor of college.

50:16

Professor of ethics. It was a professor

50:18

of ethics. He did teach the ethics course and I took

50:20

the ethics course with him, but this was actually just

50:22

like Philosophy 101. We did

50:24

some Plato's Republic. We

50:26

did some Kant's Metaphysics of Morals

50:29

and we did some Nietzsche Genealogy of

50:31

Morals. Oh, yeah. Those were the

50:33

three things we hit. And

50:35

I mean, honestly, pretty

50:37

good greatest hits. little setup there.

50:40

And I learned the con

50:42

stuff at 18 and it fit

50:44

in very well with my

50:46

Jesus Sermon on the Mount sort

50:48

of evangelical basic life ethic,

50:50

right? So we were pretty heavy

50:52

on that growing up. It

50:55

fit in with that. It fit

50:57

in with learning John Rawls. The

50:59

veil of ignorance argument that like

51:01

if you were setting up a

51:03

society and you were allocating resources,

51:06

you would want an equitable one because you don't know

51:08

what's where you're going to be born into. And

51:10

Zinger, that's how your actual life is. You

51:12

don't know where you're going to be born. Yeah,

51:15

that's so, you know, we don't

51:17

teach ethics. And I think, I

51:19

think really there should be

51:21

a religion and ethics course,

51:23

maybe separate, maybe put together.

51:26

But that every student should

51:28

have to take at the

51:31

university. It's just, it's a

51:33

sham. If someone has been

51:35

paying attention to American public life in

51:37

the last 10 years, and you disagree with

51:39

that statement, then you're on drugs. I

51:41

don't know what else to say. We

51:43

like, you when,

51:46

you know, when, you you

51:49

know, when, you know, you

51:52

Your reference, you you you know okay, because this

51:54

is not going to come out right afterwards.

51:56

So this, we're talking about having Jeffrey Goldberg from

51:59

the Atlantic in the group chat and sharing

52:01

attack plans, right? And

52:03

so what I'm saying

52:05

is that he made

52:07

a gargantuan mistake and

52:09

he's in the highest

52:11

form of responsibility in

52:13

terms of politically as

52:16

you can go. And

52:18

so for him to deny

52:20

that it was important, and

52:22

Trump apparently going along, is

52:24

one of the

52:26

great ethical breaks that

52:28

you can possibly

52:30

make. And because

52:32

you're saying that responsibility,

52:36

I refuse to take

52:38

responsibility. Therefore, I

52:40

am not a mature adult.

52:43

And that is one of the worst

52:45

things that you can communicate to your

52:47

young people. You know, where

52:50

else has been coming up

52:52

for me is going through

52:54

the process of becoming a

52:56

licensed psychologist because in no

52:58

shade to my master's level,

53:00

brothers and sisters who do incredible work.

53:03

And I've benefited from their work

53:05

as my own therapists, right? So I'm

53:07

game. I love it. But there

53:09

is a there's this additional thing that

53:11

we have to go through that

53:13

I actually think ends up trickling down.

53:16

It ends up still applying to

53:18

to people in the master's

53:20

world in terms of sort of

53:22

the ethical codes and guidelines

53:25

of of, you know, the counselors

53:27

of America, whatever that one's

53:29

called. And, you know, there's like

53:31

all these professional bodies, they

53:33

they agree on the ethics. But

53:35

what's interesting is like you

53:37

got to really know it because

53:39

you when you get. professionals

53:41

like doctors or psychologists, you

53:43

end up dealing with people

53:46

at very sensitive points in

53:48

their life, both times in

53:50

their lives and points within

53:52

their life, right? Their mind,

53:54

the way that their organs

53:56

are working, like just very

53:58

important things in tough times

54:00

in people's lives. You

54:02

do not want to fuck with them anymore.

54:04

You don't want to. hurt them because if

54:06

you hurt them, then no one can come

54:09

to you with confidence that you will help

54:11

them and not hurt them. In

54:14

order to do that,

54:16

you have to have the

54:18

most like robust, ongoing conversation

54:20

with a bunch of adults,

54:22

all agreeing to be adults

54:24

and take responsibility and

54:26

minimize harm. My supervisors have

54:28

embodied this at a level,

54:31

a professional level that I

54:33

have never seen before. I've

54:35

never had to. I've never had

54:37

to be behind the curtain to

54:39

see that. And even if we

54:41

have disagreements on certain things, like

54:43

their commitment to the students of

54:45

our school. It's fucking

54:47

inspiring, dude. And and like

54:49

that is what it takes. It takes

54:52

work to get to be able to

54:54

do that and set your own shit

54:56

aside to be able to think of

54:58

the welfare of someone else with all

55:00

the complexities. Like it's honestly kind of

55:02

heroic. That's what a

55:04

mature adult does. You know what? It

55:06

shouldn't. It's not heroic. It's only

55:08

heroic because of how bad it's gotten.

55:12

And that's probably not that's probably we

55:14

are actually probably responding to media

55:16

more than people, right? Like I bet

55:18

you just plot me into a

55:20

town in Ohio and there are probably

55:22

a bunch of pretty awesome people

55:24

doing awesome things. But at the sort

55:26

of like collective consciousness level, certainly

55:28

at that level, that that would be

55:30

considered heroic is kind of wild. They

55:33

wouldn't call it heroic, of course. They would

55:35

just say, I'm just being and I and if

55:37

anyone ever calls me heroic, I will also

55:39

deny it. It is just being mature. But

55:42

I love so I just

55:44

I'm gushing. I just love the

55:46

focus on that. What tell

55:48

me what have you been surprised

55:50

by from your students in

55:52

this arena as they grapple with

55:54

the ethics stuff? I

55:56

haven't been surprised or I haven't.

55:58

I think they think of it

56:00

as as almost strange. Right.

56:02

This is like a

56:05

strange vocabulary. Yeah. And

56:07

and then you have to

56:09

give them, you know, antidotes.

56:11

that back up the reasons

56:13

why this is really important.

56:16

And that, you know, like

56:18

you're saying basically is that

56:20

a ethical society or group

56:23

is almost heroic, you

56:25

know, because it

56:27

doesn't just seek the

56:29

goodness of one's own

56:31

desires, but the goodness

56:33

of the whole. And,

56:35

you know, that's you know

56:37

what's missing out and of course

56:39

right now but in our

56:42

federal government but you know and

56:44

it is a real problem

56:46

this the if if we choose

56:48

as a culture to give

56:50

up a moral ethic um that

56:52

has tremendous consequences on on

56:55

every stage of the of our

56:57

our society so yeah it

56:59

does i don't not to make

57:01

dour predictions and I'm not

57:03

I'm not really predicting anything like

57:05

cataclysmic but it does feel

57:08

like we we desperately need some

57:10

sort of moral awakening like

57:12

and you know and it's really

57:14

sad that it's not going

57:16

to be your generation Jim like

57:18

it really could have been

57:21

like you guys did a pretty

57:23

good job with Vietnam and

57:25

we're grateful but you really you're

57:27

really Look at us on

57:29

this one. You

57:31

guys are drinking more of the Kool -Aid

57:33

than anybody. That's maybe

57:35

not true. Now I'm really, take all

57:37

that with a giant grain of salt

57:40

and a joke. I have not, I'm

57:42

sort of giving up on our culture

57:44

and our society a little bit as

57:46

I get older. And I

57:48

just, I wonder where we're going for sure. And,

57:50

and, you know, 2025 does feel

57:52

like it would be better to

57:54

be like 70 right now than

57:56

30. Like, okay, you can

57:58

kind of just figure out, you're going to

58:00

write it out like, okay, I don't

58:02

know where this is going, but I'll probably

58:05

be able to write it out. I'd

58:07

like to apologize for our group, but that

58:09

wouldn't be, I don't know. It's shocking

58:11

and it's weird. Yeah. Well,

58:13

Americans are Americans are concerned,

58:15

number one, about dollars in

58:17

their jobs. And everything else

58:19

can go to hell. And

58:22

they think that Trump

58:24

will bring them dollars and

58:26

jobs. You know

58:28

what I mean? Yeah, I

58:30

mean, let's be brutally honest

58:32

about it. So people respond

58:34

to incentives and they respond

58:37

to fear and there's a

58:39

scarcity mindset that that major

58:41

media, some of the biggest

58:43

media companies in the world

58:45

have been purposefully inflaming for

58:47

30 years. and they know

58:49

what they're doing and they

58:51

are hopefully going to be

58:53

responsible to God for that.

58:55

That's my fervent hope. Let's

59:02

get back to a lifer's living. I

59:18

wanted to tell you guys

59:20

about the Patreon campaign and also

59:22

give you a slight update.

59:24

I am now over halfway through

59:26

with my doctoral internship, the

59:28

end of which I can graduate,

59:31

become a doctor, and then I can

59:33

study and take the big exam

59:35

and become a licensed psychologist. So that's,

59:37

I'm on my way there. I'm feeling

59:39

good about it. The light is

59:42

at the end of the tunnel. I

59:44

appreciate everybody's patience this year. especially

59:46

I have been not as quick to

59:48

respond to messages, emails, things like

59:50

that. I appreciate your guys

59:52

patience there. I appreciate Josh and

59:54

Joy so much for keeping the

59:56

lights on, keeping the trains running

59:58

while I've been incredibly busy with

1:00:00

this full -time job and then of

1:00:02

course two little boys at one

1:00:04

and five years old. So

1:00:06

we got our hands full and

1:00:08

that is why I especially appreciate everybody

1:00:10

who contributes at patreon .com slash Dan

1:00:12

Coke, where for seven bucks a

1:00:14

month, you can get access to at

1:00:16

least two full length, patron only

1:00:18

episodes per month, as well as ad

1:00:20

free versions of every episode. You

1:00:22

get your own RSS feed that you

1:00:24

can put into your player and

1:00:26

it just takes all the ads out

1:00:28

for you or rather it never

1:00:30

adds them in. It's technically how that

1:00:32

works. Also,

1:00:34

I'm gonna be planning some

1:00:37

more benefits for patrons. Currently,

1:00:39

you also have the Facebook group, which is

1:00:41

for patrons only. But

1:00:43

there's, I think there's gonna be

1:00:45

more to come. Maybe some Zoom hangs,

1:00:47

things like this, as the schedule

1:00:49

opens up for me really starting in

1:00:52

July. So thank you guys

1:00:54

so much. This is probably longer than it needed

1:00:56

to be. Patreon .com slash Dan Coke. That link

1:00:58

is in the show notes. And

1:01:00

I appreciate you guys patronage

1:01:02

and just listeners. Thank you

1:01:04

so much. Cross.

1:01:08

Here's number four, cross

1:01:11

cultural literacy. So this

1:01:13

is this is connected, right? Being able

1:01:15

to thoughtfully engage. I mean, this is,

1:01:17

you know, there's a lot of social

1:01:19

commentary these days about bringing this back

1:01:21

to universities. This is really kind of

1:01:23

a hot talking point right now. pluralism,

1:01:26

disagreement, you know, exchanging

1:01:28

of ideas, all this stuff. Yeah,

1:01:31

Chris Seiple and I worked

1:01:33

on it and he wrote the

1:01:35

kind of the key article

1:01:37

on it. But I think

1:01:39

it's one of the most

1:01:41

powerful ways to think about

1:01:43

comparative religions, but also comparative

1:01:45

societies, comparative cultures, comparative

1:01:47

whatever. And that

1:01:49

is, you know, to

1:01:52

recognize that everyone has one.

1:01:54

a culture. Yeah, you kind

1:01:56

of, you're handed one to start. Yeah. And

1:01:58

it's one of our duties

1:02:00

as a citizen, really, is

1:02:03

to understand

1:02:05

differences, understand yourself,

1:02:08

understand the other. And

1:02:11

so, but

1:02:13

if that's not taught, or

1:02:15

that's not given priority, then

1:02:17

you get stuck in

1:02:19

this game of, well, You're

1:02:22

stupid. I'm smart. And

1:02:24

whatever you believe is ridiculous. And

1:02:26

I'm not going to even think about

1:02:28

it. It does. It does really need to

1:02:31

be taught because this is an example. I

1:02:33

actually think that like

1:02:35

multiculturalism, pluralism, sort

1:02:37

of peaceful pluralism of some

1:02:39

sort, which by the way, I

1:02:42

mean, Jesus is talking about this with

1:02:44

the Good Samaritan. So this is not a

1:02:46

new idea. But this kind of thing,

1:02:48

I do think I would say this, it

1:02:50

is not. evolutionarily

1:02:52

natural for us. It

1:02:54

is, it's cultural evolution. Biological

1:02:57

evolution did not produce the

1:02:59

ability to be pluralistic. Cultural

1:03:01

evolution did. Passing down knowledge

1:03:03

and ways of interpreting the

1:03:05

world through excessive generations, right?

1:03:07

So if you don't teach

1:03:09

it and you don't continue

1:03:11

to teach it, it won't

1:03:13

be there because naturally, you

1:03:16

know, Trump and Fox News have

1:03:18

the advantage. They have the limbic advantage,

1:03:20

we might say. They

1:03:22

are playing with a more

1:03:24

reptilian, Permian deck of

1:03:26

cards, right? They're going

1:03:28

deep down into our fear and

1:03:30

our anxiety, our fire flight shit,

1:03:32

and our tribalism, which literally got

1:03:34

us here, literally physically got us

1:03:36

here. I talk about this with

1:03:39

clients all the time. You know,

1:03:41

oh, you don't like that you're

1:03:43

in hyper -vigilant threat mode. Where

1:03:45

do you think you learned to

1:03:47

do that? Like the tribe that's

1:03:49

like, all these other tribes must

1:03:51

be cool, right? They're not going

1:03:53

to give us their genes. No,

1:03:57

it's been selected for. And so that

1:03:59

stuff's powerful and it keeps us safe.

1:04:01

And it used to be really, really

1:04:03

adaptive, but nowadays it's a lot less

1:04:05

adaptive. And we have to sort of

1:04:07

teach our ability to go beyond it.

1:04:09

But, you know, it makes life so

1:04:11

much more interesting. Yes, and it's better

1:04:13

on the other side of it too. I

1:04:16

mean, you know, I've been to Israel twice.

1:04:19

I've been, you know, I've gotten a chance

1:04:21

to visit a lot of different cultures and religions.

1:04:24

And just sort of the effort

1:04:26

of understanding the other, right, is

1:04:29

so critical here. And

1:04:31

so beautiful. Yeah, so beautiful. So beautiful.

1:04:33

And you realize, you know, I mean,

1:04:36

what are we talking about when we're

1:04:38

talking about Jesus? He wasn't a Christian.

1:04:42

He was a Jew, you

1:04:44

know, which was

1:04:46

creating a new covenant,

1:04:48

right? And all the

1:04:50

language is Jewish. And

1:04:52

all the thinking is more or less

1:04:54

Jewish. So you're saying even

1:04:56

in a Christian context, we are

1:04:58

engaging in some cross -cultural literacy, at

1:05:00

least with Judaism. If you don't

1:05:02

think that, then you're just, you

1:05:05

fully are ignorant. You're utterly ignorant.

1:05:07

And so why not widen that, right? Why

1:05:09

not see what else we can learn and

1:05:11

be exposed to? You know, I teach the

1:05:13

Western religions course. And you

1:05:15

know, honestly, I

1:05:18

teach Christianity and Judaism,

1:05:20

Christianity and Islam. And

1:05:23

for each unit, each

1:05:25

of those three units, I fall

1:05:27

in love with, what happens? I

1:05:29

fall in love with them. Yeah, you're

1:05:31

like a Sufi by the end

1:05:33

of the Islam section every year. Totally.

1:05:36

And I think a lot of

1:05:38

people would, if given the

1:05:40

chance to read the beauty of

1:05:42

these traditions, right? The

1:05:45

beauty of these traditions

1:05:47

is so lovely. Any

1:05:50

worldview and whatever that can get

1:05:52

that big, it has to be

1:05:54

pretty good, you guys. It doesn't

1:05:56

get that big unless it's really

1:05:58

capturing the breadth of life for

1:06:01

people. There's times where

1:06:03

I could think of being

1:06:05

a Muslim. Yeah. In the midst

1:06:07

of doing this comparative religious

1:06:09

work, we've gotten a chance to

1:06:11

go to Islamic cultures. And

1:06:14

I tell you, you know, when you're there, it's

1:06:17

just it's a lovely experience.

1:06:19

So it's a communitarian experience.

1:06:22

I could use a little

1:06:24

bit of the temperance and

1:06:27

self -discipline of a good Muslim.

1:06:30

I could do with more of that

1:06:32

for sure. That's

1:06:34

funny because that is

1:06:36

so true. There's a

1:06:38

lot of quietness. It's

1:06:40

a very self -disciplined

1:06:42

tradition. Quiet. Now,

1:06:44

of course, the flip

1:06:46

side of that is at the political

1:06:48

level, it is then an other

1:06:50

enforced discipline. And that's where there's as

1:06:53

with all religions, there's problems. Yeah.

1:06:55

But but when you're still in the

1:06:57

kind of realm of the self

1:06:59

and, you know, it's submission, Islam means

1:07:01

submission, submission to God. And

1:07:03

yeah, like, I

1:07:05

think I recognize that

1:07:08

I have a

1:07:10

rebellion in my personality and I get

1:07:12

it from my mom. I know exactly

1:07:14

where it comes from. I

1:07:17

think I would really struggle

1:07:19

with Islam. I think other religions

1:07:21

feel more palatable or more

1:07:23

likely to be palatable to my

1:07:25

personality. You might be surprised.

1:07:27

You might be just shocked. You

1:07:30

might be... When you go to

1:07:32

a Muslim culture, it is so lovely

1:07:34

that it makes you feel at

1:07:36

peace. I can't explain

1:07:38

it other than... feel

1:07:40

peace. I mean, honestly,

1:07:42

to tie it back to your church

1:07:44

and kind of re -entering evangelicalism, I

1:07:47

bet there's a part

1:07:49

of you that we could

1:07:51

say is fundamentally conservative

1:07:53

that likes the staidness of

1:07:55

it. And I say

1:07:57

that completely morally. I just

1:07:59

mean that is at

1:08:01

home. But you're this

1:08:03

like liberal intellectual. Yeah.

1:08:06

And that those two things have

1:08:08

not meshed very naturally in the world

1:08:10

where you've happened to live your

1:08:12

life. No, they don't. I mean,

1:08:14

but I'm also a strange duck. I

1:08:17

can be at home in a

1:08:19

lot of different places. I

1:08:21

think just later in my life,

1:08:23

I've kind of come to this. I

1:08:26

would prefer peace now.

1:08:28

You know, as you age,

1:08:30

I think, unless you're

1:08:32

a really crazy person, I

1:08:34

think I would prefer

1:08:36

peace between all differences or

1:08:38

within differences. So, you

1:08:40

know, that's just me. The

1:08:43

only thing I would say,

1:08:45

I could never work in

1:08:47

a place that was I'm

1:08:49

much better working in a

1:08:51

liberal context. Yeah. And

1:08:54

then you can be the conservative guy versus.

1:08:56

Oh, the other is would be the

1:08:58

worst. Yeah, I would

1:09:00

never go. Yeah. Yeah.

1:09:04

That wouldn't work. This conversation feels like old

1:09:06

school. You have permission to me. I

1:09:08

wonder listeners, please tell me if you agree.

1:09:11

This just feels like a vintage

1:09:13

episode in some in some ways.

1:09:15

Maybe it's just having it with

1:09:17

you. I mean, when I started

1:09:19

the show, we were talking a

1:09:21

lot more because I was. Oh,

1:09:24

I had just decided not

1:09:26

to do the masters with you

1:09:28

and I had just just

1:09:30

a few months prior applied for.

1:09:32

applied for the psychology degree. But

1:09:35

we had over those kind of previous years

1:09:37

been in more touch because I was going to

1:09:39

do this program with you and you gave

1:09:41

me some reading materials and we hung out a

1:09:43

few times and I think you were on

1:09:45

depolarized too, the old podcast before this. Anyway,

1:09:47

so maybe it's just that, but there's

1:09:49

like, I don't know, there's something, there's

1:09:52

something, it's also like affirming, I

1:09:55

don't know, we're spending a

1:09:57

lot of time affirming the aspects

1:09:59

of Christianity that

1:10:02

I have that I have the

1:10:04

most regard for and Sort of

1:10:06

some of the fewest problems with

1:10:08

I think that might be part

1:10:10

of it, too But also like

1:10:12

my spirituality like when you were

1:10:14

talking about just that real basic

1:10:16

ethical vision of Christianity or like

1:10:18

what what the sort of basic

1:10:20

theology of Christianity means about the

1:10:22

world You know that stuff is

1:10:24

like that stuff's like going home

1:10:26

like that's that's the really good

1:10:28

shit. Yeah home So

1:10:30

that part has felt old

1:10:32

school. I think I've kind

1:10:34

of come home to it

1:10:36

in my spiritual life and

1:10:38

my religious life. There's a

1:10:40

kind of combination. And

1:10:42

in my family life, it's

1:10:45

all kind of going like

1:10:47

this. And towards

1:10:49

the end, maybe

1:10:51

you start to think,

1:10:53

what is really true? Not

1:10:56

just what you want to bullshit about,

1:10:58

but what's really true? And so that's

1:11:00

what, that's what, you know, I'm trying

1:11:02

to kind of really shave that off

1:11:04

and go, yeah, what's, what's the, I

1:11:06

think I, I think it's good for

1:11:08

me to be hearing that right now.

1:11:10

I think it's good for me to

1:11:12

be hearing that. All right. We got

1:11:14

one more, one more category. Human

1:11:17

flourishing. This is kind of a

1:11:19

summation of the other four. I

1:11:21

thought you might think to say,

1:11:23

and that's kind of how I,

1:11:25

is that how you think of

1:11:27

it? Or just, just when you

1:11:30

say it. you know human flourishing

1:11:32

a little like it just gives

1:11:34

me a little goose you know

1:11:36

just like I just know and

1:11:38

I'm being kind of serious here

1:11:40

in the sense that that's what

1:11:43

I want that's what you're actually

1:11:45

after that's the north point that's

1:11:47

what I want humans to flourish

1:11:49

I you know and and they

1:11:51

flourish you know individually of course

1:11:53

but they also flourish you know

1:11:56

as groups. And

1:11:58

right now, and you know this

1:12:00

better than I do, because you hang

1:12:02

out with real people, is

1:12:05

that the group,

1:12:07

the whole idea of

1:12:09

being together is

1:12:11

deteriorating. And organizations

1:12:13

that help bring those

1:12:15

things, bring people together,

1:12:17

are being slept off. And

1:12:20

that is such of my clients, that's going

1:12:22

on for them. That is such a disaster

1:12:24

for human beings. And

1:12:26

and, you know, so because

1:12:28

we we need groups, we

1:12:30

need others, we need

1:12:33

exemplars, you know, whoever they

1:12:35

may be. We

1:12:37

need to serve each other. We

1:12:39

need to love each other. You've

1:12:41

never I've never missed 90s evangelicalism

1:12:43

as a whole cultural thing that

1:12:45

I do right now that you've

1:12:48

really accomplished something if you've made

1:12:50

me feel that, Jim. At

1:12:52

least we knew what we were.

1:12:54

aiming for like that's like that's

1:12:56

kind of what's going on. Part

1:12:58

of me is feeling that like

1:13:01

at least we and and that's

1:13:03

you know, that's from where I

1:13:05

happen to be and whatever. But

1:13:07

like it was the basic goals

1:13:09

were agreed upon. Yeah.

1:13:11

And there was like an understandable multi

1:13:14

-generational pathway to sort of become that

1:13:16

kind of person. I should also say

1:13:18

I did have a. quite a

1:13:20

healthy church that I grew up

1:13:22

in. Most of the weirdness that I

1:13:24

experienced was in Christian schools and

1:13:26

there was some weird

1:13:28

stuff going on there. But I had

1:13:30

a really good church. And so,

1:13:32

you know, that's probably a lot of

1:13:34

what it is for me personally,

1:13:36

Jim, is like, you keep encountering the

1:13:38

type of evangelical people like your

1:13:40

wife and churches like your church that

1:13:42

are the good ones from my

1:13:45

past. And then there were others. And

1:13:47

then the others got way more

1:13:49

famous and started controlling the conversation. But

1:13:51

I remember those people. I still

1:13:53

know them. They're still in my life.

1:13:55

You know, for your audience to

1:13:57

understand. Remember, I've written two, maybe three

1:13:59

books on religious violence. So

1:14:02

I'm very aware

1:14:04

that religion is

1:14:06

a mixed package.

1:14:09

And so, and I

1:14:11

also realized after I

1:14:14

wrote those books, is

1:14:16

that, okay, I've got

1:14:18

theories for why we all hate each

1:14:20

other. But where's

1:14:22

that getting me? Now, okay,

1:14:24

I could go from there

1:14:26

to becoming cynical and saying,

1:14:29

ah, this shit is just

1:14:31

for morons and people that

1:14:33

don't have enough to do

1:14:35

with their time. But

1:14:37

anyway, so I just kind of, I

1:14:39

want to make a life worth living, right?

1:14:42

And not just in terms of religion,

1:14:45

but also just say, hey,

1:14:47

life is a beautiful,

1:14:49

majestic, It's a supremely

1:14:51

valuable thing to hold on

1:14:53

to and to try to create.

1:14:57

In terms of raising

1:14:59

children, four

1:15:01

girls, and my

1:15:03

oldest just had her first

1:15:05

baby. Congratulations,

1:15:08

dude. Yeah, man. You have to

1:15:10

be on the side of life. we'll

1:15:16

be taking the wrong way to

1:15:18

i know you don't mean and

1:15:20

i believe in choice choice choice

1:15:22

yes choice for sure but i

1:15:24

believe in life most of all

1:15:26

most of all i believe in

1:15:28

life and and then human flourishing

1:15:30

is is what i want to

1:15:32

be i this that's what i

1:15:34

want to be known for is

1:15:36

somebody helps us flourish anyway I

1:15:40

love it, man. This is, yeah, I

1:15:42

mean, human flourishing. The thing that

1:15:44

comes up for me around human

1:15:46

flourishing is I thought I would

1:15:48

be in ministry at one point

1:15:50

in a much more straightforward way.

1:15:52

I felt a call to ministry.

1:15:55

Yeah. What I've had to do

1:15:57

is figure out if that's still

1:15:59

really kind of my overarching mission,

1:16:01

my kind of overall job. So

1:16:03

I've had to think about, well,

1:16:05

what do I mean by God's

1:16:08

love? Like, what's that? How

1:16:10

does that look in the world? And

1:16:13

the traditional ministry way of

1:16:15

looking at it would have been,

1:16:17

well, dude, it means salvation, obviously,

1:16:19

because those are the real stakes.

1:16:21

But I've long since rejected

1:16:23

the logic of eternal heaven and

1:16:25

hell, I think. I think

1:16:27

even if those are realities, the

1:16:29

logic still sucks because you end

1:16:31

up doing it. deceitfully. There's

1:16:33

just no way that God, I

1:16:36

can believe that there's

1:16:38

hell more easily than I

1:16:40

could believe that what

1:16:43

God would want is falsity

1:16:45

and like lying. Like,

1:16:48

no, that can't like non -reality.

1:16:50

No, like we're experiencing what that's

1:16:52

like at the highest levels right

1:16:54

now in America. And it's disgusting

1:16:56

and it feels like it makes

1:16:58

you feel like your brain is

1:17:00

unraveling. It's so inane. It's

1:17:02

so loathsome. And

1:17:04

so I have had to think about, well,

1:17:07

I think like I'm going to become a

1:17:09

psychologist. At some point I decided that. So

1:17:11

I was like, well, I'm not going to

1:17:13

be in ministry. What

1:17:15

am I? Am I still in

1:17:17

line with this calling? And I

1:17:19

thought, well, what's God's love look

1:17:21

like in a person's life? And

1:17:24

I'm like, well, I

1:17:26

mean, I think human flourishing is a

1:17:28

really good way of a good phrase.

1:17:31

For human beings, like

1:17:33

being in touch with God's love

1:17:35

in some way looks like flourishing.

1:17:38

And that has been the bridge

1:17:40

that's helped me sort of

1:17:42

connect the two ideas with what

1:17:44

I was feeling like I

1:17:46

was supposed to do and what

1:17:48

I'm doing. And specifically,

1:17:50

like just like doing regular

1:17:53

therapy with a regular therapy client,

1:17:55

you know, on this show,

1:17:57

we're talking about. religion and stuff.

1:17:59

So it's clearer the connection

1:18:01

there. But with just my regular clients,

1:18:03

like that's what I'm going to do for my job.

1:18:05

And if they don't want to talk about religion, how

1:18:08

is that connected? And

1:18:10

flourishing is the way. So

1:18:12

that's kind of where I go. Let

1:18:15

me finish this off with there's

1:18:17

a book I came upon that's

1:18:19

kind of blown my mind. Got

1:18:21

a book called Dominion

1:18:23

by Tom Holland. I have

1:18:25

been devouring his podcast and

1:18:28

I need to get him on at some

1:18:30

point. Yeah. And I need to read

1:18:32

that book too. That really

1:18:34

has kind of shredded

1:18:36

my thinking in terms

1:18:38

of the fate of

1:18:40

Christianity in some form.

1:18:42

Please put some meat

1:18:45

on that bone. Yeah.

1:18:48

And that is the

1:18:50

Christianity without our

1:18:52

really knowing it has

1:18:54

transformed our civilization. transformed

1:18:57

the West, made

1:19:00

possible the

1:19:02

possibility of the

1:19:04

LGBTQ movement,

1:19:06

which will blow

1:19:08

people's minds. Why?

1:19:12

Because Jesus says it

1:19:15

is the least of

1:19:17

these who I've come

1:19:19

for. Now, he doesn't

1:19:21

mean the least in the

1:19:23

sense of the worst. He

1:19:25

means the least. In any

1:19:27

class any any group deprived

1:19:29

basically any deprived groups that's

1:19:31

been being persecuted and so

1:19:33

our beloved lgbtq persons this

1:19:35

movement is a Christian movement

1:19:37

Their liberation is a Christian

1:19:39

movement. I would I would

1:19:41

argue. Yeah, you know, they

1:19:44

may not think that and

1:19:46

that's that's fine. I I

1:19:48

don't want to Upset them

1:19:50

but in in the wet

1:19:52

in the actual historical Western

1:19:54

in the history of Western

1:19:56

civilization And I don't I'm

1:19:58

not trying to throw that

1:20:00

around like right wingers love

1:20:02

to now. I just but

1:20:04

I mean in the history

1:20:06

of How we got here

1:20:08

that type of thinking comes

1:20:11

directly from the work the

1:20:13

written words of Jesus as

1:20:15

presented in the Gospels and

1:20:17

it is that That is

1:20:19

the like stated source of

1:20:21

like those political movements. And,

1:20:23

you know, that's just that's just

1:20:25

a part of it. So and

1:20:27

if Jesus is not for them,

1:20:29

then he shares health, not for

1:20:31

me. Yeah. Right. And

1:20:34

and so so I

1:20:36

think that's the beauty

1:20:38

of the LGBTQ movement.

1:20:41

It's it's it's it's made

1:20:43

possible because of Christ. Which

1:20:45

is a strange thing to say

1:20:47

in our warped world. It

1:20:50

is. Yeah, it's such an interesting. I

1:20:52

really, I want to talk. They're

1:20:54

the minority. And

1:20:57

the more minority is

1:20:59

invited to come to

1:21:01

the table every time,

1:21:03

every time, every time.

1:21:05

And it's and it is just,

1:21:07

you know, I don't. I don't want

1:21:09

to be the dead horse. But

1:21:12

our brothers and sisters, right?

1:21:14

It's it is so

1:21:16

sad that the Trump administration

1:21:19

gets this Christian label. Like

1:21:21

it is like his

1:21:23

entire philosophy is just the

1:21:26

opposite of that. And

1:21:28

it's branded as Christian.

1:21:31

And it makes it harder for me

1:21:33

to identify as one to have that

1:21:35

going on. But our job is to

1:21:37

speak against it. I know history is

1:21:39

long. History is long to paint the

1:21:41

true picture. And so. That's what I

1:21:43

would say. Yeah. Yes.

1:21:46

Jim, what a great conversation, man.

1:21:48

Thank you so much. Yeah.

1:21:50

I needed this. This is

1:21:52

very well timed for me.

1:21:54

You know, the end is

1:21:56

in sight for this internship.

1:21:58

Like my resuming an adult

1:22:00

life, not as a student

1:22:02

or intern is a few

1:22:04

months away. Oh, really?

1:22:07

And I just, you know. I thought you were

1:22:09

over all that stuff. No, I'm still in

1:22:11

it, dude. I am in it. This is spring

1:22:13

break. I am working.

1:22:15

I am recording three straight

1:22:17

podcasts on a spring break weekday.

1:22:20

You are the man. I mean, it's amazing what

1:22:22

you do. Well, I appreciate that. I

1:22:25

don't know if I love all your abilities. Thank

1:22:28

you. But this this is a

1:22:30

really coming at a good time

1:22:32

for me to like, yeah, I'm

1:22:34

my I'm sort of like feel

1:22:36

like I've batted down a lot

1:22:38

of hatches. during these intense years

1:22:40

and It's it's really it's a

1:22:42

really exciting idea to have some

1:22:45

space and to Because I really

1:22:47

do want to re -engage with

1:22:49

my faith In some unique ways

1:22:51

as a part of that But

1:22:53

it is gonna take some some

1:22:55

effort because a lot of that

1:22:57

stuff has atrophied Not that I'm

1:22:59

like really changed my mind a

1:23:01

ton. It's like it's just a

1:23:04

man. I've just been busy with

1:23:06

shit And I'm sure

1:23:08

doing some avoiding of my

1:23:10

own. Yeah, when

1:23:12

you read Dominion, it's

1:23:14

like learning from a

1:23:16

really educated person, but

1:23:18

who's kind of naive

1:23:21

and almost innocent about

1:23:23

the Christian faith. And

1:23:25

so it gives you kind of

1:23:27

like a taste of what it

1:23:29

was like when you first came

1:23:31

upon it and you thought, Oh,

1:23:34

Jesus, I love him. You

1:23:36

know, like when my first

1:23:38

taste of Jesus came through

1:23:40

Bonhoeffer, the cost of discipleship,

1:23:42

right? It was in the soup. It was

1:23:44

in my soup from birth, so I

1:23:46

didn't have that experience. Yeah, well,

1:23:48

okay, so yeah. Anyway, so when

1:23:50

I came upon Bonhoeffer, and

1:23:52

I just went, oh man, I'm

1:23:54

ready to die. Wow. But

1:23:56

the ultimacy stuff, I do really resonate

1:23:58

with that. That's kind of like, That's

1:24:01

more how it became real

1:24:03

to me as I came

1:24:05

of cognitive age enough around

1:24:07

17 to 20, where like

1:24:10

I read Endo and I

1:24:12

read Graham Greene and I

1:24:14

read, you know, I read

1:24:16

Deeper into C .S. Lewis

1:24:18

and Chesterton. And, you know,

1:24:20

I just started engaging in Kant and

1:24:22

Nietzsche and Plato and all that too.

1:24:25

And Kierkegaard, of course. And

1:24:27

that, and Kierkegaard was like, that he

1:24:30

was my guy. Like at 20, he was

1:24:32

my guy. And I

1:24:34

did name our oldest son after him. So

1:24:36

I guess he's still kind of, he's still kind of my guy.

1:24:39

But, but like, you

1:24:41

know, yeah, that's, that's

1:24:44

the closest thing I had to sort of like coming

1:24:46

to it as an adult. I didn't come to it

1:24:48

as an adult. Yeah. I think

1:24:50

we go through stages. I went through

1:24:52

a kind of cynical stage. So.

1:24:55

This is more an exhausted stage

1:24:57

than a physical than a cynical stage.

1:24:59

I think like it's more if

1:25:01

I had to guess I would pin

1:25:03

it first on it like my

1:25:05

capacities have grown but still what is

1:25:07

required of me during this 12

1:25:09

month period is is just orders of

1:25:11

magnitude over what has ever been

1:25:13

required of me in 40 years of

1:25:15

life. So I just I have

1:25:17

I have risen. Enough like I have

1:25:20

risen sufficiently to the occasion. I

1:25:22

am going to finish out. I

1:25:24

will have had a good

1:25:26

time and I will be very

1:25:28

grateful for it. But like

1:25:30

I didn't rise much above the.

1:25:32

I rose specifically to the

1:25:34

occasion and no further. Yes,

1:25:36

that's what I've done that

1:25:38

I'm doing and will have done.

1:25:40

Well, well done, good and

1:25:42

faithful servant. It's

1:25:44

no what's there's like a you

1:25:46

the C minus category, you know is

1:25:48

its own lane that I have

1:25:51

to get I get in second Like

1:25:53

you know the last shall be

1:25:55

first like I'm I'm either way I'm

1:25:57

in the middle so I'm still

1:25:59

gonna be in the the middle At

1:26:02

the end. Jim, okay, we'll it up. Thanks,

1:26:04

man. We gotta hang out in person, dude.

1:26:06

You're just - I know, I know. It's kind

1:26:08

of ridiculous. All right. It's kind of ridiculous.

1:26:10

is ridiculous. All right, man. okay