0:00

Welcome back everybody to You

0:02

Have Permission, the show that

0:04

aims to take both Christianity

0:06

and the modern world of

0:08

science and culture very seriously.

0:10

And we're going to get

0:13

to this in a minute.

0:15

I would argue, Josh Gilbert,

0:17

Joy Vetterline, team members,

0:19

thank you for being here,

0:21

I would argue you guys,

0:23

that there is maybe no public

0:26

figure. Very few public figures

0:28

of the last hundred years

0:30

or so that have

0:32

embodied taking Christianity and

0:35

the modern world of

0:37

science and culture. Seriously,

0:40

then the recently deceased

0:42

Pope Francis, may he rest

0:44

in peace. Quick agree, disagree

0:47

on that. Josh. Hard soft,

0:49

sure, barely agree, joy. I

0:51

think I'm a solid, if you

0:54

say so, I don't feel like

0:56

I know enough about his life

0:58

and legacy to comment on that,

1:01

but I, yes, it does seem

1:03

as he has changed the

1:06

stereotype of what a Pope

1:08

does significantly, even though

1:10

I have been pretty

1:13

removed from his specific

1:15

policies and changes.

1:17

Of course, here with Joy

1:19

Vedderline, our sub-stack and social

1:22

media, Guru and Josh Gilbert,

1:24

editor, extraordinary, occasional co-producer with

1:26

me on various projects, and

1:28

we are doing a couple

1:30

things today, a little housekeeping

1:32

up top, a little talk about

1:35

the Pope who just passed away a day

1:37

or two ago as we're recording this.

1:39

Then we're going to mostly use

1:41

this to talk about the results.

1:43

So we recently had that. episode

1:45

like where should we go from here

1:47

what what do you guys want to

1:50

hear about and we got a bunch

1:52

of results poll results feedback survey feedback

1:54

what's what number are we up to

1:56

joy can do you see the updated

1:59

results we got 166 responses. Thank you

2:01

to everyone who took the time.

2:03

Which I think is awesome and

2:05

a nice probably representative of the

2:07

listenership. It's a big enough number

2:09

that we can draw some good

2:11

conclusions from it and a couple

2:13

patrons of the show in the

2:15

Facebook group asked for like hey

2:17

could we do an episode where

2:20

we discuss those findings a little

2:22

bit and we had been kind

2:24

of talking about we need to

2:26

have a meeting and talk about

2:28

them so we're just gonna record

2:30

that meeting it'll be for patrons

2:32

it's gonna be a little bit

2:34

seed of our pants but but

2:36

we've been thinking about the especially

2:38

joy and I've been thinking about

2:40

and I've been thinking about and

2:42

looking through the results Josh I'll

2:44

be curious to hear what you've

2:47

been thinking about as well so

2:49

we've got some kind of preliminary

2:51

takeaways from it. And also I

2:53

think we get a nice picture

2:55

of the listenership. And so we're

2:57

going to talk a little bit

2:59

about who are you guys? Who

3:01

are you that are that are

3:03

doing this walking this road with

3:05

us? But first some housekeeping. So

3:07

I'm still in this doctoral internship.

3:09

It ends at the end of

3:12

July. And I would say for

3:14

listeners, you can expect things to

3:16

start picking up kind of around

3:18

then around July. By August September

3:20

I think we are going to

3:22

be doing another two or three

3:24

episodes per month than we're doing

3:26

right now So the current plan

3:28

is to have weekly full main

3:30

feed episodes like we did before

3:32

internship and then two or three

3:34

Patron episodes coming out on Thursdays

3:36

or Fridays I do have an

3:39

idea that I stubbornly am trying

3:41

to get to stick which is

3:43

to release episodes on Thursdays that

3:45

are called casual Fridays, the only

3:47

casual Friday to occur on a

3:49

Thursday. Can we do another survey

3:51

just to see what people think

3:53

of that idea? Because clearly my

3:55

opinion means nothing to you. Apparently,

3:57

yeah, I may just bulldoze my

3:59

way through with that. It rolls

4:01

right off the sun, no. And

4:03

also probably mid-summer, late summer, start

4:06

rolling out some of these ideas

4:08

that we discussed in that where...

4:10

should we go from here episode?

4:12

Some of them are like a

4:14

little less labor intensive and I

4:16

might be able to kind of

4:18

get the wheels moving on that

4:20

even during late stages of internship.

4:22

So finally just a huge thank

4:24

you everybody who has supported me

4:26

and us through this insane year.

4:28

just a quick reminder like this

4:31

year is like I'm gone eight

4:33

to five 30 Monday through Friday

4:35

and we got two boys under

4:37

six to care for on either

4:39

end of that and so that's

4:41

why I've been recording episodes I

4:43

recorded a bunch before internship I've

4:45

basically taken two separate weeks off

4:47

of work and recorded podcasts all

4:49

week to keep up with even

4:51

just having one per week to

4:53

sort of that's the bare minimum

4:55

for the show so appreciate everybody's

4:58

patience there and support. So I

5:00

want to do. a few minutes

5:02

on Pope Francis. I will say

5:04

at the moment I'm thinking of

5:06

doing at least two episodes focused

5:08

on Pope Francis in the future,

5:10

like full length episodes. One, I'd

5:12

like to do with another Protestant

5:14

and I haven't emailed her yet

5:16

but I'm going to ask Bonnie

5:18

Christian for instance because she's got

5:20

this kind of global lens. She

5:23

writes about foreign policy, she writes

5:25

about sort of global Christianity for

5:27

Christianity and other outlets. I'd love

5:29

to kind of see what she's

5:31

thinking about this in terms of

5:33

what Pope Francis meant to Protestants,

5:35

and then I'd love to do

5:37

an episode with a Catholic. And

5:39

I've got a couple ideas there.

5:41

What did Francis mean to Catholics?

5:43

And I think that that's going

5:45

to be a different answer. So

5:47

that's going to be a more

5:50

robust and we'll have a little

5:52

bit more time to think about

5:54

it, but I thought it would

5:56

be cool to do some kind

5:58

of quick thoughts, some quick reaction,

6:00

and I thought we would start

6:02

with the two of you things

6:04

to share. So the question that

6:06

I want to ask you because

6:08

I understand that neither of you

6:10

have sort of read about him,

6:12

thought about him, kind of dealt

6:14

with him as much as I

6:17

have, and I have probably thought

6:19

about him more than 90% of

6:21

non-catholics or more in the world.

6:23

And so I want to turn

6:25

that into something that we can

6:27

use. So as people interested in

6:29

Christianity and religion, but not particularly

6:31

focused on the minutiae of Pope

6:33

Francis's tenure in the Vatican, what

6:35

was your basic take on him?

6:37

Like what was your basic sense

6:39

of what who Pope Francis was,

6:42

what he meant to the Catholic

6:44

Church or... the world more broadly.

6:46

Joy, let's start with you so

6:48

that we can really center your

6:50

voice and your opinions as important,

6:52

unlike for the casual Fridays thing.

6:54

Well, yeah, any time I hear

6:56

of someone passing, I want to

6:58

honor the life they lived. I

7:00

didn't have a lot of connection

7:02

to the Catholic Church throughout my

7:04

life, I think. like a lot

7:06

of evangelicals I was taught they

7:09

weren't the quote unquote real Christians.

7:11

We were. So, but just getting

7:13

out of that and realizing just

7:15

the global impact of the Catholic

7:17

Church, it's massive. And I remember

7:19

when he came up just hearing

7:21

that he was more progressive than

7:23

a lot of previous popes. And

7:25

I want to say that when

7:27

that was happening, I'm not sure

7:29

that I was somebody who identified

7:31

with the word progressive or necessarily

7:34

thought that progressively good. I don't

7:36

remember that quite the timing, but

7:38

my very vague takeaway of this

7:40

is just, yeah, I think that

7:42

there... I think of him as

7:44

someone who made progress in areas

7:46

that really needed some progress and

7:48

that there were some areas where

7:50

he didn't make as much progress

7:52

as many people wish he had.

7:54

There are still some things where

7:56

he was kind of sticking to

7:58

maybe some old traditions that felt

8:01

a little bit. Yeah, less freeing

8:03

for... certain members of his church

8:05

population. So I think my question

8:07

now is seeing so many shifts

8:09

around the world, not just in

8:11

our country's government, but in other,

8:13

I think they're calling it populist

8:15

movements. What does that mean for,

8:17

you know, who's the current? makeup

8:19

of the people who will select

8:21

the new. I'm wondering about that

8:23

too. Were there people there who

8:25

appreciated what he was doing or

8:28

felt like he was going too

8:30

far, is there going to be

8:32

a reactionary, you know, not, I

8:34

get, I don't even know that

8:36

dad this is not. Here, let

8:38

me, well I'll pick up that

8:40

thread, I'll pick up that thread

8:42

because I thought about it too.

8:44

And I don't know if I'm

8:46

just like, if it's a defense

8:48

mechanism. to like assume that there

8:50

will be a conservative backlash within

8:53

the papacy and who is selected.

8:55

My understanding is that it's maybe

8:57

not generally quite as much of

8:59

a pendulum ping pong as like

9:01

the United States political system tends

9:03

to be where every time we

9:05

get a new administration we blame

9:07

them for the problems and we

9:09

go to the other administration. Like

9:11

it's not quite that, also because

9:13

it's not that quick. Popes tend

9:15

to serve for decades, right? but

9:17

that there is sort of analogous

9:20

tensions within the Catholic Church that

9:22

there's a sort of conservative, trad

9:24

Catholic revival going on right now

9:26

in the West and that that's

9:28

kind of implicated in all the

9:30

cultural changes that are related to

9:32

Trumpism and all that stuff and

9:34

certainly kind of JD Vance and

9:36

sort of his worldview. And so,

9:38

you know, that's concerning, but I

9:40

also don't know if I'm just

9:42

like, I really don't know. So

9:45

am I just like predicting the

9:47

future in a way that... reduces

9:49

my eventual pain, probably, and I'm

9:51

probably speaking out of my ass

9:53

if I make any kind of

9:55

prediction, but it will be interesting

9:57

to see what happens there. Yeah.

9:59

Have you guys seen, they're a

10:01

little distasteful, but there's some mean...

10:03

lately about like the Pope meeting

10:05

with JD Vance and saying like

10:07

he was so upset by how

10:09

JD Vance represented Christianity that he

10:12

felt like he needed to go

10:14

apologize to God in person. I

10:16

have seen some jokes about it.

10:18

I'm trying not to give it

10:20

too much air. He made us

10:22

laugh at that life. Jeff Maurer.

10:24

Maurer. Maurer. I don't know how

10:26

to pronounce his last name. M-A-U-R-E-R.

10:28

He's like a former daily show

10:30

and certainly last week tonight, kind

10:32

of main writer who's now doing

10:34

this like the news with jokes

10:36

like solo sub stack thing. And

10:39

he did a piece, he did

10:41

a satirical piece written by JD

10:43

Vance about like, hey, it's just

10:45

a coincidence. It isn't that my...

10:47

depiction of Christianity was so awful

10:49

that the only thing Pope Francis

10:51

could do after seeing me was

10:53

to die. Like that can't be

10:55

really what happened. You know, these

10:57

are just coincidences. Anyway, it's really,

10:59

I'm very split on whether to

11:01

enjoy and laugh at that stuff

11:04

or just to be sad about

11:06

it and about the whole situation,

11:08

but yes, I have not escaped

11:10

them. Yeah. I will just note

11:12

that if anybody else is cringing

11:14

at these jokes, I'm... cringing and

11:16

representation of anybody else cringing at

11:18

these. Even though there was a

11:20

little giggle, you're cringing. Yeah. Exactly.

11:22

Thanks for letting us know because

11:24

your laughter, your automatic bodily responses

11:26

indicated that you thought it was

11:28

funny. So I'm glad that you

11:31

explained to us that you didn't

11:33

really. Yes. Yes. It's funny and

11:35

I know better. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

11:37

Okay. So Josh. Same question I

11:39

asked Joy. Like what was your

11:41

basic take about... Pope Francis. This

11:43

sort of ties into the survey

11:45

because there were two five iron

11:47

frenzy references on the survey, which

11:49

I love to see, Reese Roper

11:51

and the band itself. They have

11:53

a song called Superpowers where Reese

11:56

says, I don't want to meet

11:58

the Pope, I just want to.

12:00

to share with you how we

12:02

got this peace and hope. And

12:04

so the hope growing up in

12:06

my evangelical days was always this

12:08

like symbol of like, sort of

12:10

like commercial, like, I don't know,

12:12

power within, you know, christened, whatever.

12:14

And so this Pope seemed to

12:16

be the exception to that in

12:18

that, I mean, yeah, I don't

12:20

really know much about the Pope.

12:23

I was thinking about you, Joey,

12:25

and how you were saying last

12:27

episode that after your. deconstruction, there's

12:29

been kind of like, you've released

12:31

yourself from sort of analytic theology

12:33

discourse. And so I think when

12:35

it comes to the Pope, that

12:37

to me is in the same

12:40

little domain of like, I'm not

12:42

really thinking about the Pope. I

12:44

don't have much to say about

12:46

him. I feel like what the

12:48

headlines that I've read over the

12:50

last five, ten years felt like

12:52

he was doing something actually that

12:54

I cared about and agreed with.

12:57

So it's sad to see a

12:59

progressive leader figure in that sense

13:01

move on. But. I don't know

13:03

too much about him. So I'm

13:05

going to just share kind of

13:07

one thing and then I'll get

13:09

into more in those future episodes.

13:11

But for me, the kind of,

13:13

the main thing with Pope Francis

13:16

is the connection through the Jesuits.

13:18

I've talked about this, maybe not

13:20

in a while, but you know,

13:22

there was a time when I

13:24

got pretty close to becoming Catholic

13:26

and I was spending a decent

13:28

amount of time with a Jesuit

13:30

named Father Paul Federer, Paul Federer,

13:33

up here in Seattle. late 80s,

13:35

like way overdue for retirement. You

13:37

know, you could not keep the

13:39

dude down. And he had been

13:41

formed by the Jesuits in a

13:43

way very similar to how it

13:45

appears to me that Pope Francis

13:47

had been formed by the Jesuits.

13:50

Now Father Paul was just a

13:52

local Jesuit working at a Jesuit

13:54

high school and Pope Francis became

13:56

an archbishop and eventually Pope. So

13:58

they had different paths, but they

14:00

were within the same, what are

14:02

those called? Like the Benedictines, the

14:04

Dominicans, the Franciscans. What are those

14:06

called? Oh my gosh, well whatever.

14:09

Whatever those things are called. They're

14:11

like their own wings. They're their

14:13

own sort of schools in a

14:15

sense. And they actually run, many

14:17

of them, run schools and educational

14:19

programs. And they have kind of

14:21

their own internal structure. They're like

14:23

their own little government within the

14:26

larger umbrella of the Catholic Church,

14:28

but they have some autonomy. So

14:30

I sort of make some assumptions

14:32

about. Pope Francis, based on what

14:34

I experienced with Father Paul, because

14:36

there is a lot of overlap

14:38

and a lot of Francis' public

14:40

statements and his like main encyclicals,

14:43

the stuff that he would write

14:45

and publish. Orders. Orders, there are

14:47

orders, there we go, Jesuit order.

14:49

Would be quite similar and like

14:51

Father Paul would make similar arguments

14:53

and would sort of express agreement

14:55

and Paul was just... such a

14:57

wonderful, I believe he's still alive,

14:59

but he was in retirement now,

15:02

but he was just such a

15:04

lovely, lovely presence and just had

15:06

been formed morally into just a

15:08

beautiful, beautiful human being. And so

15:10

that gave me this kind of

15:12

personal angle on the Pope, where

15:14

I was like, well, he seems

15:16

kind of like Father Paul, and

15:19

Father Paul is the shit. I

15:21

mean, Father Paul is like, I

15:23

would trust him with the government.

15:25

You know, he's, he is like,

15:27

the kind of man I want

15:29

to be in many respects. And

15:31

they saw the world very similarly.

15:33

And so that's, that's kind of

15:36

the main thing. And so I've

15:38

always had a lot of positive

15:40

feeling toward Pope Francis. Joy, like

15:42

you, there, there were issues where

15:44

I would have hoped he would

15:46

kind of go further towards especially

15:48

inclusion around sexuality around sexuality and,

15:50

and all of that, but he...

15:52

He went farther than any other

15:55

Pope. I mean, so it's kind

15:57

of hard to, and it's a

15:59

global, you know, it's a global

16:01

institution and Americans and Europeans are

16:03

like broadly speaking to the left

16:05

theologically from the rest of the

16:07

world. And so we could expect,

16:09

you know, like logistically expect that

16:12

that it wouldn't quite. match exactly

16:14

what I would want it to

16:16

be, but kind of undeniably progress

16:18

to me, sort of, it's really

16:20

sad to have a major public

16:22

figure who was unambiguously on the

16:24

side of the poor and suffering

16:26

and marginalized the immigrant, you know,

16:29

he's the guy for our upcoming

16:31

crisis of climate refugees, you know,

16:33

Francis is the guy, not Vance

16:35

and Trump. and we'll see who

16:37

we get and I'm hoping that

16:39

it won't be somebody with that

16:41

kind of string of populist kind

16:43

of hatefulness. I don't think it

16:46

will be anybody really bad in

16:48

that respect. I mean this is

16:50

a weird prediction to make with

16:52

very little information. But even Pope

16:54

Benedict who preceded Francis, like, there's

16:56

people who have their critiques of

16:58

him, but like he also like

17:00

helped bring down the Soviet Union.

17:02

And you know, like he did

17:05

a lot of really beautiful great

17:07

things too. So the Pope has

17:09

been like a kind of a

17:11

moderating influence in global socio politics

17:13

and religious politics for most of

17:15

the last 50 years or whatever.

17:17

That's my kind of rough understanding.

17:19

Hopefully that will continue. I think

17:22

there's a lot of really interesting

17:24

stuff. to potentially cover around this,

17:26

but we will, again, we'll save

17:28

that for some later episodes. So,

17:30

should we move on a little

17:32

bit to the survey responses? Yes.

17:34

Okay. So what we did was,

17:36

you know, we had mentioned all

17:39

these particular. like episode series ideas

17:41

and we had everybody vote on

17:43

which of those they wanted but

17:45

we also asked a bunch of

17:47

other questions while we were at

17:49

it we were like hey let's

17:51

let's get some good information here

17:53

about our listenership there were questions

17:55

that we wanted to ask and

17:58

that this helped us to answer

18:00

and so I guess I just

18:02

want to start off with like

18:04

a quick shout out to a

18:06

couple of the homies who are

18:08

not going to get their way

18:10

Like out of the 166 responses,

18:12

I think there were like two

18:15

people who were like, don't talk

18:17

about therapy. Sorry guys. I am

18:19

gonna talk about therapy. Was there

18:21

anything else like that, Joy or

18:23

Josh, that you guys remember seeing,

18:25

which was like, I'm sorry, you

18:27

just might need to find another

18:29

podcast? There wasn't a lot of

18:32

this. Oh, I'm trying to think.

18:34

Yeah, that was. Definitely the one

18:36

that we actually got quite a

18:38

few people saying like I'm so

18:40

sorry, but I don't I'm not

18:42

interested in music We're definitely gonna

18:44

talk about the media stuff that

18:46

yeah, that's that's a big takeaway

18:48

Yeah, I think it's fair to

18:51

say Dan that we that statistically

18:53

based on this the comedian series

18:55

did not go over well. It's

18:57

not a fan favorite Not a

18:59

fan favorite. Yeah, so let's talk

19:01

about a couple kind of big

19:03

big takeaways and then we'll get

19:05

more into the weeds on the

19:08

second half for patrons only. So

19:10

one of the, yeah, one of

19:12

the kind of, maybe a slight

19:14

bummer of a takeaway is that

19:16

much as I and actually all

19:18

three of us really value sort

19:20

of discussing movies and TV shows

19:22

and music and sort of popular

19:25

culture and connecting that to religion

19:27

and spirituality. It is not a

19:29

fan favorite topic and I think

19:31

the data is pretty unambiguously clear

19:33

on that. I'll cite some numbers.

19:35

So one of the things we

19:37

asked was like what kind of

19:39

what sort of discussions do you

19:41

like hearing the most? So it's

19:44

like authors and writers comedians and

19:46

actors musicians theologians and philosophers scientists

19:48

and researchers and psychologists and therapists

19:50

and therapists and therapists and therapists

19:52

and therapists and therapists and therapists

19:54

and therapists and therapistsists and therapistsists

19:56

and therapists and therapists and therapists

19:58

and therapists and therapistsists and therapistsists

20:01

and therapistsists all 70% basically or

20:03

above. People were like, yes, I

20:05

like those episodes. Comedians and actors,

20:07

24% musicians. 32% and you've got

20:09

to think that John Mark McMillan

20:11

is responsible for half of those

20:13

because he's been so good on

20:15

the pod and his episodes do

20:18

you tend to do well? Yeah,

20:20

he was actually one of the

20:22

ones people mentioned really appreciating those

20:24

episodes. So there's going to be

20:26

standouts and outliers to all of

20:28

this. Of course, there are. But

20:30

like, those numbers don't lie. Those

20:32

are both less than half of

20:35

the next of the lowest of

20:37

the high items. And so a

20:39

takeaway for me there is like,

20:41

I'm going to have to convince

20:43

a different group of people that

20:45

this is a really interesting way

20:47

to think about our world. And

20:49

I plan to. I am going

20:51

to try. I'm going to try,

20:54

but maybe the relieving thing. for

20:56

you have permission listeners is, you

20:58

guys are not gonna primarily be

21:00

my guinea pigs. Maybe a little

21:02

bit here and there on the

21:04

patron feed, but basically this show

21:06

is going to not lean heavily

21:08

into the kind of media criticism

21:11

looking at media through a psychological

21:13

lens that I am still totally

21:15

enamored of and really find very

21:17

interesting. And I'm gonna do my

21:19

best, but. it's going to probably

21:21

be elsewhere. It'll be on our

21:23

casual Fridays. So casual. It's a

21:25

Thursday. So casual. It's Thursday. That's

21:28

better. That's better. That's better. You've

21:30

just punched up the bad original

21:32

idea and made it better and

21:34

made it more likely to happen.

21:36

Okay. And I want to say

21:38

this as a caveat to anybody

21:40

listening to this and thinking, I

21:42

didn't vote for those things. I

21:44

love it when you guys talk

21:47

about that like. I will still

21:49

be here representing the outliers because

21:51

there still is those 25% of

21:53

you that do really like that

21:55

and so you're still wanted here

21:57

and as long as I am

21:59

around they will just be a

22:01

little bit of that inside here

22:04

because that is just like core

22:06

to who I am. But also,

22:08

if you disagree with these results,

22:10

vehemently, please do let us know,

22:12

you know, if we have missed

22:14

a swath of people. Yeah, we're

22:16

going off the, we can only

22:18

go off the data we have,

22:21

but if you, you know, if

22:23

you have disagreements with any of

22:25

these conclusions, you know, let us

22:27

know, persuade us otherwise, but we've,

22:29

we've, we've got to work with

22:31

the data we have. And really.

22:33

I think I speak for all

22:35

of us when I say it's

22:37

because we like our listeners, your

22:40

listeners. I feel bought in, but

22:42

yeah, we like the listeners and

22:44

we want to keep creating things

22:46

that, you know, add to your

22:48

life. And so this was really

22:50

valuable information to receive and yeah,

22:52

it's so that we can keep

22:54

creating stuff that as to your

22:57

life and makes it better. Yeah,

22:59

it's safe to say that this

23:01

of the 166 responders, this is

23:03

like a core part of the

23:05

audience, like to listen to it

23:07

carefully enough to give, you know,

23:09

answers on the survey. It's funny

23:11

thinking about that because I was

23:14

like, I kind of just want

23:16

to like make jokes and like

23:18

tease a lot of these responses,

23:20

but I think that's not the

23:22

best practice considering that this is

23:24

like, you know, They did us

23:26

a service by telling us the

23:28

answers. Yeah, no, they totally did.

23:30

Another thing I thought would be

23:33

maybe one more thing before we

23:35

switch over to the patron feed,

23:37

Joy, you spent some time just

23:39

kind of soaking in all the

23:41

responses and you kind of synthesize

23:43

that in your own mind and

23:45

kind of wrote to me like

23:47

a sort of an average listener

23:50

composite. And I like these. I

23:52

like these kind of composites. They

23:54

of course don't capture everybody. I

23:56

know that you are the voice

23:58

of the outlier joy and so

24:00

I appreciate that. But in Sherwood,

24:02

we used to joke that the

24:04

median Sherwood voter was a male

24:07

Mormon in a polo shirt from

24:09

Utah or Idaho. And that really

24:11

kind of was like the. most

24:13

Sherwood fan, Sherwood fan that there

24:15

was, and it can be useful,

24:17

like to know that about yourself.

24:19

Like, it was useful to know

24:21

that about our band, that we

24:24

were not pulling the rebellious, you

24:26

know, goth kids, like we were

24:28

pulling the suburban 20-somethings and teenagers

24:30

who would go on to have

24:32

comfortable middle class careers. Like, that's

24:34

who we, that's who liked our

24:36

band. I'm okay with it. And

24:38

so I kind of like thinking

24:40

about who are the listeners? Like

24:43

who are the people who tend

24:45

to find this content helpful? So

24:47

Joy, can you share some bullet

24:49

points of that composite picture? Again,

24:51

it's not going to be true

24:53

for everyone. So these are generalities

24:55

and again, as the sole woman

24:57

in this conversation, I'm already an

25:00

outlier because 75% of your audience.

25:02

It's 70 as more came in.

25:04

Okay. 70% identified as male. Sorry

25:06

64% 64% it's it the early

25:08

early early respondents were more predominantly

25:10

male 64% the ballots came in

25:12

percentage we counted after we counted

25:14

all of the mail in ballots

25:17

it's 64% which by the way

25:19

is is an outlier in the

25:21

sort of. faith deconstruction world. I

25:23

think there are a lot of

25:25

male podcast hosts and like writers

25:27

and stuff, that makes sense, especially

25:29

coming out of an environment where

25:31

only men generally could be ordained

25:33

and get that kind of education.

25:36

But listener-wise, like Homberg Christianity, new

25:38

evangelicals, like my understanding of these

25:40

other podcasts, Rob Bell's back in

25:42

the day is like. It's more

25:44

like 60, 40 women, 70, 30

25:46

women. And I used to be

25:48

about 50, 50, and that was

25:50

rare, and I've gone more, now

25:53

65, 35, with a one or

25:55

two percent non-binary mixed in there.

25:57

And that's interesting. And I don't

25:59

judge that one way or the

26:01

other, but I'm curious about it.

26:03

Yeah. Okay, so majority is, I'm

26:05

not going to get into percentages

26:07

too hard, but majority identify as

26:10

male, Christian. And by the way,

26:12

we worded Christian as like Christian

26:14

or some version of Jesus follower.

26:16

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yes.

26:18

So most people identify to some

26:20

form of Christian or Jesus follower

26:22

adhering to Christian traditions, I think.

26:24

In the age ranges of kind

26:26

of millennials and Gen Z. Primary

26:29

interests were theology and philosophy and

26:31

not into pop culture at all.

26:33

Not really, not the average, no.

26:35

Which I don't know, in our

26:37

last conversation where we talked about

26:39

the survey after the patron break,

26:41

I was talking about just in

26:43

my own experience how like part

26:46

of me like, you know, getting

26:48

well after being sick on. religion

26:50

for a while has been a

26:52

sort of an intentional movement away

26:54

from some of a more academic

26:56

intellectual. more embodied, more kind of

26:58

wide lens. Like health has meant

27:00

like actually like getting to participate

27:03

in pop culture. So part of

27:05

me was like a little bit

27:07

sad that I was like, I'm

27:09

pretty much the opposite of what

27:11

all of these majority things like

27:13

I'm not a male, I don't

27:15

identify as Christian, I'm still barely

27:17

a millennial. Theology is in an

27:19

area of super interest. So you

27:22

know. I will still be here

27:24

though because I think that even

27:26

as we see majorities, Dan, you're

27:28

always going to value having like,

27:30

you know, devil's advocates around, perhaps

27:32

literally, and metaphorically, but no, just,

27:34

yeah, just good conversation. You need

27:36

a diversity of people, so happy

27:39

to keep representing the outliers. Obviously,

27:41

like, my kind of nerdiness and

27:43

overactive sort of abstract ideas mind

27:45

that I am so drawn. to

27:47

like naturally, there's an obvious connection

27:49

there between the way that I

27:51

am gonna choose to talk about

27:53

things, the way I think about

27:56

things and the people I choose

27:58

to talk about them with, right?

28:00

That's kind of the main. That's

28:02

the main determining factor of what

28:04

ends up getting covered on the

28:06

show. And so that part's not

28:08

surprising. If you want some maybe

28:10

more surprising things or just to

28:12

hear more, you can join the

28:15

patron. We're going to flip over

28:17

to the rest of this conversation

28:19

for patrons only. Patron.com/Dan Coke. If

28:21

you do the yearly subscription, it's

28:23

just like five bucks and change

28:25

a month. It's seven bucks a

28:27

month a month. And you get

28:29

at least two full length exclusive

28:32

episodes. But as we spoke, as

28:34

we spoke. the amount of content

28:36

not the price not the price

28:38

the amount of content is going

28:40

to go up the price is

28:42

going to stay the same and

28:44

I'm just going to try and

28:46

really make that patronage like even

28:49

more valuable for people as I

28:51

get a little bit more time

28:53

in my schedule to do so

28:55

that's been my goal all along

28:57

Again, thanks everybody for the support

28:59

up till now, so we will

29:01

see the rest of you on

29:03

the other side. Actually, we'll just

29:06

have Josh insert a clip of

29:08

Five Iron Frenzy to, you know,

29:10

transition us into the patron's hand.

29:12

Thanks, Josh. Paypal

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