Speaker 1Hey there, welcome back to The Holy Post Podcast. I'm Phil Fisher. We are back in studio. Last time we recorded, we were in New York City, sitting on a stage surrounded by a few of our closest friends and some of my family. Yes. That was fun. It was fun. It went pretty well. Do we think it went pretty well?
Speaker 2I think so.
Speaker 1Mike, did we get any negative comments on the live show in New York City? None, at least that I saw. Yes. Great. That's the goal. If anyone has something negative to say, then I just, I collapse into a puddle. I can't take it. I can't go on. So we're the holy people pleasing podcast now? No, no, no. We're the holy please don't disagree with me podcast, which is also my persona on Twitter. Now it's time for the theme song.
Speaker 3What's the news that you like the most? Who's your favorite podcast host? If it's breakfast, get your toast. It's Sky, Phil, Caitlin, and the Holy. Holy Post is sponsored by World Relief.
Speaker 1When election season often feels like information overload, how do we approach key issues like immigration with clarity and confidence? World Relief's newest guide, Beyond the Ballot, was designed for exactly that, to equip you with relevant facts, tools, and resources to engage immigration and the world. And beyond the ballot, you'll get a breakdown of immigration terms, facts, and myths, as well as key policy areas to watch to help you better understand the issues that are relevant for this election season and beyond. You'll also find practical tools to take action all year long, including advocacy tips and prayers. You don't have to navigate this journey alone. Explore opportunities to engage, advocate, and pray today. Get your free guide at worldrelief.org/holypost. That's worldrelief.org/holypost. Holy Post is sponsored by Rocket Money. I remember when I got my first checking account with a paper checkbook and a check register for recording all my spending. Life was so simple. Now I've got money flying around from Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, and then there's the credit cards, retirement accounts, a rollover IRA. I can't keep track of it all. But that's okay because Rocket Money can. Rocket Money is a great way to help you get your money. Rocket Money gives me one place to look to see my entire financial picture. What's even better, it actually helps me save money. Rocket Money pulls together checking, savings, loans, and investments in a single dashboard. It categorizes transactions across your accounts and will even help you set up automated savings with adjustable amounts and frequency. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com/holypost. That's rocketmoney.com/holypost. rocketmoney.com/holypost. Holy Post is sponsored by Hiya Health. It's hard to get kids to eat well in a fast-food drive-through world. Hiya Health can help with kids' vitamins that taste great with zero sugar, zero gummy additives, just clean nutrition. And here's something every parent needs to hear. If getting your kids to eat vegetables feels like an impossible daily battle, Hiya's new Kids Daily Greens Plus Superfoods is a total game-changer. It's basically chocolate milk stuffed with veggies. It's a greens powder designed specifically for kids that's packed with 55-plus whole-food sourced ingredients. Just mix one scoop with milk or milk alternative and watch them actually enjoy something that's secretly fueling their growing bodies. We've worked out a special deal with Hiya for their best-selling children's vitamin. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal, you must go to hiyahealth.com/holypost. This deal is not available on their regular website. Go to h-i-y-a-h-e-a-l-t-h.com/holypost and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. Hey, America! Caitlyn has a new podcast! I'm so excited to hear from you! I'm so excited
Speaker 2What? Yeah, it's true. When did it start? I wasn't prepared for that. By the time you listened to this yesterday. Tomorrow in our time and yesterday in your time when you're listening.
Speaker 1What's it called?
Speaker 2It's called The Better Question.
Speaker 1Ooh, that sounds good. What's the elevator pitch? We're in an elevator. I'm a very important influencer. You got, you got.
Speaker 2Who are you?
Speaker 1I'm Allie Beth Stuckey. You got two sentences. You got two sentences to pitch me on your podcast.
Speaker 2The Better Question is a podcast where we take the questions that people are already asking about faith and culture and life and find the better question to ask, i.e. the deeper question, the more theological question, the question underneath the question. Okay. What's the first episode?
Speaker 1How does this play out?
Speaker 2The first episode, you're going to hear later me and Sky talk all about this, but the first episode is with our friend, friend of the podcast, Kelsey McGinnis, about GLP-1's body image and a Christian way to think about our bodies. Oh, cool. Yeah, it's, I'm, I'm biased, but it's a very fun conversation.
Speaker 1And you're the guest on this episode. Yes. The one that we're having right now.
Speaker 2The one, in this episode later, I will earlier have talked to Sky about this, but you'll hear it tomorrow. Yeah. Yesterday. Yeah, yesterday.
Speaker 1So if you want to know more and you should, you should want to know more, listen to the interview. And you'll hear all about it, but also we need your help. Here's what we need you to do. We need you to go to the Apple podcast right now. Look for the better question and hit follow, like, subscribe, all the buttons, whatever the buttons are, hit the buttons. Cause then, then the, the algorithms that Apple will say, and they'll look over with their unblinking eye, their single siren, like unblinking eye and say, something is stirring in the shire. And then they will elevate Caitlin's new podcast.
Speaker 2Help us beat the algorithms into submission.
Speaker 1Yes. Marching on more door.
Speaker 4Yeah. All right, Mike. That was excellent. I mean, maybe leave a five-star review after you listen to the episode. Oh yeah. Write a review. I think it's great as well. Yeah. Share it with a friend. Hey, Hey, like subscribe and review.
Speaker 1Okay, cool. Um, we're starting. To put up written content. We've always, we've done a little bit in the past, but it's been very irregular. Very irregular. And now we're going to do regular written content, like a real, whatever. Like a news outlet that
Speaker 5is eating its fiber.
Speaker 2Eating its fiber.
Speaker 1Yeah. More regular, more regular.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1Yeah. See Sky did a news of the butt and Caitlin was, I wasn't even.
Speaker 2I know that was a jump scare.
Speaker 1You didn't see that coming around at all. I didn't like that at all.
Speaker 5Yeah. So we. No, tell me about this guy. So I've talked about this on the sky pod, but drew Dick, who I wasn't there. I know, I know. But drew who does the Drew's newsletter. Yeah. Former colleague of mine from my days at CT, uh, is a good editor. He's joining us on a part-time basis to help shepherd more of our written content. So we're, we are writing our own stuff. Caitlin's writing, I'm writing Esau's writing. Other folks may be filled. Someday we'll write again, but it could happen, but more. More importantly, or just as importantly, we have a lot of friends in orbit around the holy post, regular guests on our shows, people we know well, who are also writing regularly. And so we are posting those writings on our sub stack page and allowing our, our, and these are all in front of the paywall. So you don't have to, you don't have to be a holy post plus subs paid subscriber anyone
Speaker 1read these. At least for now.
Speaker 5Yeah. Oh my gosh. So if you are looking for content, that's thoughtful, that's fun. That's well thought through. Wise and brilliant and engaged in current topics and issues, head over to the holy post sub stack page.
Speaker 1And we will guarantee the brilliance of each and every one.
Speaker 2Yeah. Those were big words.
Speaker 5I know, but we, we do care that they, they match what you've come to expect from holy post media. Yeah.
Speaker 1Okay. What's, uh, what's this week's article. It looks interesting.
Speaker 5It is this week's interesting article we have. It's coming from in my brain somewhere, I'm not in the zone yet either. But it was a
Speaker 1little, okay, Yoda, tell us more about it.
Speaker 5I might be having some kind of health issue right now. Interesting article is. Well, I, I wasn't prepared to pull it up right here. Um, Hannah Miller King, Hannah Miller King, Hannah King Miller, Hannah Miller King, the triple names always throw me off. I know. Hannah Miller King has written a really interesting piece for us about the immigration debate, but more specifically what's happening to pregnancy. Pregnant women who are taken into ice custody and it's, it's very, it's concerning. It's concerning. It's concerning. And so her argument in this article is essentially wherever you may be on the immigration issue, whatever you think about ice as a Christian who cares about human dignity and life, including the preborn, we should be carrying that women who are pregnant and with children or infants that they are cared for humanely. Right. And there's a lot of evidence that that is not happening.
Speaker 1And it would appear that the hastily set up detention centers are not equipped to handle women that are pregnant and or have just given birth and have the needs that you have when you're pregnant or have just given birth and it's causing harm.
Speaker 5Yeah. So there's sort of a cognitive dissonance among those who feel very strongly about deporting undocumented immigrants, but also care deeply about pro-life issues. Moms and babies. Right. And what do you do when your politics bring those two issues into conflict?
Speaker 1Yeah. Interesting. Okay. How do they find it? Where is it?
Speaker 5Yeah. You can go to holypost.substack.com.
Speaker 1Okay. And we'll probably publish it on our socials. Yes. So maybe you'll see it. If you don't follow us on Instagram and Twitter and where else, where else should they follow us? Yeah. Instagram, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, but we don't publish written stuff on YouTube.
Speaker 5But the link to it there. Okay. And just to folks should be aware that like we're publishing, we're trying to get to about two articles a week. Wow. Original articles and that does not include other things such as With God Daily. And that's about the same publishing
Speaker 1rate as like the New York Times. Clearly. So we're really, we're ambitious. Scott, do you want to say
Speaker 4these are free articles? I did say these are free. And they're free. Did we tell you they're free?
Speaker 5They're in front of the payroll.
Speaker 1You don't, in fact, we may even pay you to read them because we're trying to start something new here.
Speaker 5Last week, Shane Claiborne wrote a piece for us about the death penalty. Yeah. Oh, that's a thing. And Caitlin's got some brilliance that she's working on. Oh, tell us more.
Speaker 2TBD. I can't share any trade secrets.
Speaker 1That's fine. Okay. So check all that out. Okay. You're gonna, right? You promise? You're going to check it all out and you're going to like and subscribe and do the things that help. And all of this is happening because of you guys that support us on Patreon and Substack at Holy Post Plus. So thank you. And also when you listen to my dog food commercials, it helps pay for all this good stuff that we're making. It's for you though. It's all for you. It's not about us. It's about you. Am I right? Yeah. Okay. Next week, midterms.
Speaker 2Midterms, November 3rd. I
Speaker 1like always have to have
Speaker 2a part of my brain that remembers we're talking about an election because I've been in school for so long that I hear midterms and I'm like exam.
Speaker 5Yeah. It is kind of an exam. Yeah, that's true. Is that why you startled? Yeah. I always
Speaker 2have a split second where I have to remember.
Speaker 5Do you guys have any traditions? No. Ooh. Do you? Yeah. What is it? We always get Chinese food.
Speaker 2Like after you vote.
Speaker 1Like the whole family gets Chinese food and watches the election. Amanda and I do.
Speaker 5Amanda and I do. That's cute. Because the Chinese restaurant we order from is called Lou's and it's election night and someone has to lose.
Speaker 1Oh, wow. Are you guys- We're very clever. Clever. Yeah. And pessimistic.
Speaker 2Wow. Well, there's
Speaker 5not a Chinese place called Winds Nearby, so I can't do that.
Speaker 1We go to a Chinese place called Midterm Elections. So we take it more seriously than you do. Stuff is happening. Here's the question. Is this midterms? It's looking like there could be a blue wave. There's a lot of talk and it seems to be increasing as we get closer over the last couple of months. Like more and more races appear to be possible. So it appears likely and or at least very, very possible that- It is. Trump is going to have his wings clipped somewhat by the outcome of next week's election.
Speaker 5Correct. That's what most people are anticipating.
Speaker 1Yes. And many people are hoping for. His support among independents has dropped pretty radically.
Speaker 5I think his approval rating by most polls is in the low 30s, high 20s even in some cases. So even those who voted for him in 24, a lot of them have soured.
Speaker 1Yeah. So we've been, we started podcasting in 2012. Correct. It was just kind of a thing. And then, and then Trump came along and we kind of found our audience and the audience was a lot of evangelicals who were saying, well, how did this happen? And why can I still consider myself an evangelical? So like for the last 10 years on the podcast, part of our identity has been, how do we help people who want to know how this is happening in America? And a lot of it was related to evangelical support for Trump. So what happens if we are now, let's say we're now at peak Trump, like he's, he's not getting any bigger. He's probably going down and, and, you know, it's like two years and he's at least out of power if he goes away. What becomes of conservatism? What becomes like, what happens next? What are they talking about in two years? Or are we going to wrap it up and send everybody home?
Speaker 5I heard someone say more or less that both the constitution and cardiology are not on Donald Trump's side. So he's going away one way or the other as a, as a political phenomenon. Okay. And what, yeah, what comes next or what?
Speaker 1Yeah. And that's why I wanted to talk about this last week, but it didn't fit into a live show in New York very well. Marco Rubio gave a speech in Athens in front of the, Parthenon. And it was really something. It was really something because here's the question is, okay, can we be optimistic and say that conservatism in America will return to Reagan principles and, and John McCain and the Bush family and Normie Republicans. Will Normie Republicans reemerge? And I don't know how likely that is. I don't think it's very likely. So then the question is, what does conservatism look like? What does the right look like post Trump?
Speaker 5I, I, if I can stand up for conservatives for a second, like, I don't think a lot of conservatives I know would call the Republican party under Donald Trump, a conservative movement
Speaker 1anymore. Yeah. So, but, but there are a lot of people who are saying we now represent conservatives. We are conservatives. So you can't just say, no, you're not. I mean, am I the one who decides what I don't know, but conservatives believe it's the right. Okay. We'll say the right there, the political right in America, what direction are we headed in? How does it involve Christians and how does it involve the church and us? And what do we do for the next 10 years?
Speaker 5So you think Marco Rubio has the answer to that?
Speaker 1I think, well, we're getting clues because he's obviously a 2028 candidate. He either, he or JD Vance is going to say, I'm the next, you know, I'm the heir apparent. And so they're both or Don Jr. Yeah. He's, he's not, doesn't seem to be trying very hard right now. I think he is. Okay. Sure. I don't think that I'm, I'm less worried about that happening. I think you should be. Oh, that's not what I want to talk about right now.
Speaker 5It's a different conversation.
Speaker 1Both he and JD Vance are kind of staking out positions to say, you know, this is the future. And by the way, it's me. Marco Rubio gave a speech in Athens, which I'm about to pull up because I should have had it up, but I didn't because I'm not quite here today. I'm just not quite here. Here's what he said. All right. I got, actually, I cut and pasted some of the quotes right here, so I didn't even have to pull it up. Here in Athens, and this was an appeal to the West for the West, it wasn't about America, it was about the West. Because we're all very, very concerned about Western civilization. Which Athens represents. Yes. Here in Athens, we found the first full realization of all the essential traits that would come to define the West. All. All of them. All of the essential traits that define the West. Fierce individuality and relentless ambition, daring exploration and invention, a yearning for discovery, for adventure, for risk, and for glory. A great deal of excellence with the notion of impossibility, chafing at all boundaries and limits, straining to peer into the depths of the unknown.
Speaker 5What college freshman wrote his speech?
Speaker 1For the Greeks of antiquity, the pursuit of excellence was the very principle of man's existence. We exist to pursue excellence. They organized all of civic life around contest, ambition, and competition. The classical Greek city was an arena for great men to test and prove themselves, to hone their potential. Through perpetual struggle to be the best, the strongest, the most beautiful, straining to inch ever closer to perfection. Now, hadn't you read this? Yeah, but it's different
Speaker 2hearing you say
Speaker 1it. Now I know to modern ears, this was the turn, I know to modern ears what I just described, this way of life may sound odd, or it may even sound cruel. Too often these days, we build downward. We design our standards to adapt. To ensure no one will lose. We give everyone trophies. We preoccupy ourselves with more the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre. Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional. We felt embarrassed that our achievements set us apart from the rest of the world. Our prosperity somehow became a source of guilt. We no longer believed we deserved and had earned. our greatness. And now today we find ourselves at a crossroad. I'm condensing the whole speech down into like the beginning, middle, and end.
Speaker 2Yeah, you picked some good parts.
Speaker 1The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world or resigns itself to a future of atrophy and servitude and decline. Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice. We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power.
Speaker 5I can't think of a more pagan speech. And I mean that in the technical sense.
Speaker 1Here's what the headline for the Wall Street Journal was simply this. The pagan nationalism of Marco Rubio's Athens speech. The secretary makes serious arguments, but he leaves out Jerusalem.
Speaker 5Yeah, I'm sure Caitlin can speak to who are the sources, but forever in academia, there has been. There has been this debate about Jerusalem versus Athens. I don't know who started it, but they represent two fundamentally different ways of understanding reality. Jerusalem being obviously the source of Judaism and Christianity versus paganism in Athens.
Speaker 1Right. It struck me both because I first read the Wall Street Journal piece, and then I went and read the whole speech because I tweeted about it and said, according to the Wall Street Journal, they've reached back pre-Christian to find the greatness of the West. And people said, no, you didn't read the whole speech. You read the whole speech. He mentions Jesus, which he did once as a segue to Christendom, the great empire of Christendom. Jesus got us there.
Speaker 5And the funny part is so many theologians, Christians, Bible scholars would argue that Christendom in a lot of ways was a perversion of the message of Jesus, not its fulfillment. Hold on, Caitlin, I just triggered her.
Speaker 2Well, no, I just, I was thinking about how just a minute, you and I were talking about the fact that we both have, oh my gosh, why am I blanking on what it's called? Where have we both been?
Speaker 5Oh, Ephesus. Ephesus.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. That was wild. I was about to say Thessaloniki, but that's not it. We both have been to Ephesus. And I don't know if you did this, but when I was there, we went to this one museum that had this like multimedia presentation walkthrough museum. Did you do this? No. It was the wild, the technology was incredible. It was like you walk through this whole very like 3D description of the history of Ephesus. But the wild, the technology was incredible. The wildest, most fascinating thing about it is that it has a moment. It's all about Artemis and like the worship of Artemis and the grandeur of the civilization that was created around the worship of Artemis. And then it gets towards the end. And then it goes, basically Christianity is the bad guy that destroyed all the military strength and power and goodness and prosperity of this nation. And then that's the end. And it's like, oh, Christianity killed it. Like we're rebuilding, but basically like this, it literally ends with like the spirit of Artemis lives on and will one day rise again to restore what Christianity is.
Speaker 5Right. Because Christianity brought things like dignity to women and slaves and equal rights and
Speaker 1giving trophies to everyone. So they all feel good about themselves. So Tom Holland has argued, the historian has argued quite a bit that the best aspects of Western civilization have their roots in Christianity more so than in ancient Greece, because the ancient world was actually extraordinarily cruel. And a lot of Christians have said, oh, we love this. You know, we, yay, we want, we want Christianity to get more credit for the West. And then here we have the next generation of wannabe leaders saying, actually, the best parts were before
Speaker 5Jesus. Well, the way you do that then is you take a God like Artemis or Zeus or pick your pagan deity, and then you just change their name to Jesus. And you say, oh, no, no, no. Jesus is all about cruelty and power and strength and domination and nationalism, which are all pagan ideas, but you call it cruelty. Jesus is all about cruelty and power and strength and domination and domination. And you say, oh, no, no, no, Jesus is all about cruelty and power and So you can feel okay about being a Christian.
Speaker 1It's concerning to me. Well, many things are concerning to me. But one of them is how often I'm hearing self-professed Christians saying it may seem cruel, but we have to do it. We have to do it for the good of, you know, that we're making a lot of greater good arguments to justify cruelty.
Speaker 2And I think a lot of people think, well, we would never do that. We would never get to a point where we just said, no, cruelty is fine. The strongest should win. That's just like the law of the world. But we forget, going back to Rubio's speech, that I think some of us imagine that pre-Christianity, everyone knew that all of that was bad, but they just did it anyway. And it's like, no, that's the rest of the history. The rest of the history is a lot of people doing it anyway, but knowing it's bad. It was celebrated to be like, if you are strong enough to just like dominate other people, that's good. Orally good. And that's the order of the world. And so we have to imagine if that has at one point been like a dominant ethic for many humans. It is possible if you start from cruelty is justified because the ends justify the means to end up back all the way in a world where we're not just kind of embarrassed of the fact that we believe this. We just believe it and celebrate it. And that is not a possibility that's like out of our imaginations.
Speaker 5It has happened in the past. It hasn't happened in the past. But I'm thinking back to maybe what you could consider the high point of American power, which is at the end of World War II, the United States is unquestionably the largest, most dominant superpower in the world. Because of the strength of the United States, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are defeated. The Axis powers are completely brought to their knees. And if America was primarily governed by the pagan values that Marco Rubio just articulated, what would we have done in 1940?
Speaker 1What Trump wants to do now is take all their stuff.
Speaker 5Is we should have them all as vassal states. We should take over Japan. We should have taken over Germany. We should have taken over Italy. We should have taken over most of the world. We get the oil. And we should have gotten all the resources because that's what every prior empire has done. When you defeat someone, you take over their resources, their land, you dominate them and you humiliate them. That's not what the United States did. For the first time in world history, the superpower said, we're not going to dominate. Instead, we are going to help contribute to the rebuilding of these societies. And we're going to create what was called the new world order where we are going to integrate our economies to make sure that nobody would want to wage a world war again because it would be so detrimental to yourself that you won't do it. And for almost a hundred years now, we have lived in the most prosperous time in world history because of the United States using its strength, not from a position of domination like a pagan power, but of service to the world like a Christian power. And I'm not saying America is a Christian power, but the values that have governed our foreign policy have been more aligned with Christian values and pagan values. And to say all that needs to be thrown away now, and we just need to take whatever we want, we should get Greenland, we should have Panama. It's the antithesis of what made this country great since World War II. And for us to turn our backs on that because of a few really deranged people that have been elected is to squander our inheritance as Americans and to betray our values of those Americans who would consider ourselves- Well-
Speaker 1Christians. Okay. It's not just the few people that we have elected though. Because a couple of weeks ago was also the National Conservatism Conference, which is organized by Yoram Hazony. Hazony? Hazony? I'm going with Hazony.
Speaker 5Like Zamboni? Sure.
Speaker 1His Edmund Burke Foundation and the Herzl Institute. And there were speakers there this year like Rod Dreher and William Wolfe, who likes to attack me on Twitter. He's a Southern Baptist agitator who's trying to do a new conservative resurgence because the conservative resurgence in the SBC wasn't conservative enough, so we need to double conservative it. And he's also very MAGA. Also included speakers like Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and Bezalel Smotrich. If you don't know Smotrich, he's one of the right-wing voices in the Netanyahu government and is responsible for some pretty nasty stuff happening in the West Bank. Not that he did it himself, but that he's in charge of settler. Yeah. It's how Netanyahu stayed in power by forming a coalition with the far right in Israeli culture that previously was considered beyond the pale and are now inside the Netanyahu tent. Anyway, Hazoni's book, The Virtue of Nationalism, published in 2018, argues that nationalism is preferable. It's a preferable political arrangement compared to the alternatives, which would be having imperialism, top-down government, or anarchy. Those are the only options, apparently.
Speaker 3Well, and how does he define nationalism?
Speaker 1How does he define nationalism? Nations solve the problem. They solve the problems of imperialism or anarchy because nations arise from the natural ways human beings interact with one another. By a nation, I mean a number of tribes with a shared heritage, usually including a common language or religious tradition and a past history of joining together against common enemies. I'm reading this as a piece by Jake Meador. Meador? In mere orthodoxy. Can I just.
Speaker 5One little thing there. Which I highly recommend. This word nationalism gets thrown around a lot. And I actually think the way he's defined it is. It's pretty accurate. But just so people understand the etymology of this, the word nation or national or nationalism comes from the same root as the word natal like prenatal postnatal it means birth wow so it's
Speaker 1it's a it's a world of babies it's a world
Speaker 5of baby no it means people of shared birth okay it's that you come from the same ancestors you're the same people group you're the same but biological people group it's not so when you talk about nationalism you're saying people of the same race the same ethnicity the same ancestors often same culture religion language that kind of stuff that's the core idea that you should define a people based on their shared biological backgrounds okay i hope people can see where what's the problem with that well look at movements that have defined themselves that way we just talked about world war ii and the nazis we've talked about white supremacists we've talked about race-based cattle slavery and all the chattel slavery cattle slavery chattel slavery like these are all things rooted in nationalism uh-huh they say that my group is superior to your group and i have the god-given right to dominate your group because my group's better and i shouldn't care about that other group because i only care about my group right that is not only antithetical to american values it's antithetical to christian values right
Speaker 1so jake points out there's a tremendous amount of overlap between hazoni's uh vision of nationalism and what stephen wolfe argues in the case for christian nationalism which is a book that hazoni endorsed and wolfe describes it wolfe uses the term ethnicity and nation interchange changeably he says though i use the former term ethnicity to emphasize the particular features that distinguish one people group from another since every people group has internal differences like class-based differences nation is used to emphasize the unity of the whole though no nation is composed of two or more ethnicities right
Speaker 5that's exactly it so you can have economic differences but you cannot have biological differences which is why intermarriage is the fundamental sin of nationalism because you're diluting the nation by mixing with another nation
Speaker 1so it's it's a it's a long and interesting piece but he goes into what concerns him about hazoni's view of nationalism is that he recognizes that when you have a nation meaning people that are bound by religion and birth in some sense um you could have minority groups living in that nation the question is how do you treat them and um he says for sure you don't want to like just horribly oppress and mistreat them because it will produce anarchy not because they're
Speaker 5worthy of dignity and respect yeah
Speaker 1right because they will be so resentful that they will reject you know the nation and then you'll have anarchy within the nation which then leads to imperialism when you have to crack down on it or just a complete breakdown so ideally um and then you may need to actually respect the rights of minority groups within that nation unless they are so disharmonious with the values of the nation and then you may need to actually repress them with force
Speaker 5how about how about here's an alternative idea what if everyone is seen as being made in the image of god and worthy of equal dignity and respect regardless of their identity
Speaker 1yeah we'll get to that
Speaker 5about free speech for everybody freedom of conscience freedom
Speaker 1jake meters summarizes uh hazoni's principles of nationalism thusly first nations are collectives of people who share common culture heritage language and usually religion second nation states are governments set up to protect the common heritage of the dominant nation within their boundaries third how they choose to protect and promote that culture is the affair of the nation state and other nation states should not meddle in these matters in other words if a nation is conducting is treating an internal minority the way they think is necessary and you don't like it that's none of your business which obviously raises some pretty serious issues about how the germans were treating the jews or the south africans you know treating the the black population even though the black
Speaker 5population was actually the majority
Speaker 1yeah fourth in cases of minority groups within nations the dominant nation should attempt to tolerate them so as not to undermine the broader national state order or provoke anarchist violence but in some cases national states must use quote rigorous measures to suppress minority groups now where he gets concerned about this where jake gets concerned about this is when you look at the speakers that speaking at hazoni's conference some of them are pursuing exactly that some of them uh like smoltrich you have pursued extreme measures against palestinians against hamas against people in gaza and in the west bank others another speaker was a political leader from india whose party has pursued oppression of christians and muslims in the name of preserving the hindu character of india um so and and jake raises the point which is very valid does that view of nationalism eliminate missionaries does it eliminate evangelism yep does it eliminate even you know even the work that we we praise the church for doing over the years of christianizing pagan europe if they were they were messing with other people's religious heritage and beliefs and that's bad and you should you shouldn't do that and there are christians appearing at his conference saying we promote this kind of nationalism and that this is the future of yeah the right i don't know why this
Speaker 5is difficult this is incompatible with biblical christianity uh-huh
Speaker 1period uh-huh so what do we do what do we do i think this is fascinating because of well i think it's scary we've been concerned in the past about the post-christian nature like like of some of the black lives matter protests you know where african-american pastors wanted to march in the protest alongside the younger more activist leaders and the younger activist leaders said no we don't want you here this you know go go home grandpa we're not doing it that way anymore so we've been concerned about the left in its kind of post-christian you know we love martin luther king but we like his activism not his christian faith but it seems like the right is is saying you know hey wait for us we want to get there too you know we don't want the pastors in the front talking about uh the dignity of all humans you know and uh farid zakaria wrote a piece about um uh rubio's speech just saying he completely skips over the the universal dignity of humans that is the centerpiece of western thought which the west got from christianity yeah and we just skipped that entirely right so are we headed towards a world where um both extremes have moved past christianity basically the ethic of jesus and where the the healthy church is a remnant in the middle somewhere trying to hold on to something i mean
Speaker 2there's literally studies that have been done that have shown that you are more likely to tend towards political extremism even if you identify as religious once you've left a religious community yeah so yes that happens on the left and on the right along the lines that you described and going back to rubio's speech it's like we've talked about this in the podcast so many times but we just don't know what we're throwing out until it comes back to bite us it seems inconvenient to include all of the specific beliefs i think even rubio
Speaker 1would say what we're preserving the christian west but but it's more a reference to christendom it's
Speaker 2an identity not a set of theological right but
Speaker 5that's my point in saying you can take artemis or zeus and call him jesus
Speaker 2right it's
Speaker 5still artemis or zeus even his
Speaker 2point about like we're not going to be embarrassed anymore it's like where did we learn to be embarrassed we didn't live up to the ideals and values that we professed because we said things like we're not the value of people right
Speaker 1about what the west has done to other cultures and peoples through the years we're not going to feel ashamed because it was a sign of our greatness that we engaged in a competition and we won yeah the other way
Speaker 5of framing this is there is a segment both on the right and on the left that wants to be post-liberal and i mean liberal with a lowercase l western liberalism was this idea of universal human dignity and universal human rights and the value of the individual and the freedom of speech freedom of thought freedom of religion freedom of persuasion all those things freedoms that are built into the american system and into our constitution and into our bill of rights that's all liberalism and there is a segment that says that hasn't worked it's not right we want to go back to an earlier time where my group had preference and other people were tolerated maybe but they weren't given equal dignity and rights and there's some on both sides that want to do this and i don't think those of us who actually value liberal democracy have been stirred in the right direction and i don't think those of us who actually value liberal democracy have been stirred and awakened to what's on the line and maybe the the fault line that's coming is between those who are post-liberal and those who want to maintain the liberal West. And we'll see how that shakes out.
Speaker 2I think another way to put this is a lot of the ugliest political projects currently from lots of different perspectives, not just this one, are essentially deeply misguided, sometimes evil attempts to avoid the problem of difference. Because even people who would say they are hypothetically in support of liberalism in terms of its values often have moments when they come up against what that actually means. If you're going to live in a society where people don't just, as might have been true in America's own past, have isolated examples of difference of opinion, but constant difference over very serious issues. I mean, this is like the sexuality in public schools debate. This has a lot to do with the immigration debate. So much of that is people from lots of different perspectives going, I am so deeply uncomfortable with the reality that I have to find a way to live in community with people who are very different from me culturally. And with the food that they eat and the language they speak, but also so different from me in terms of values and ideals and the story they tell about the world, that is so deeply uncomfortable. And it is. Even if you're not going to go to the ugly political projects that are trying to avoid that difference, most of us struggle with encountering very serious difference in the world. People don't have, I think, the resources for handling that even on a small scale civic level. And so they start out, and Jake talks about this in his piece too, they start out looking for someone or somewhere that will give them an out to that difference, out of the community they're living in that has conflict over language difficulties, has conflict over religious stuff, has conflict over values. And they're trying to find some way out of that. And they don't start out going to the ugliest political project. They start out going on the internet and saying, who's also uncomfortable like I am with this difference? And then it might not even be this version of the political project. There's other ways to do it. But lots of people, are trying to find a way to essentially say, how can I get rid of all the people who are different from me? Because it's really hard to live with them.
Speaker 1So what? Oh, yes, I agree.
Speaker 2So we should still live with them?
Speaker 1Yeah. So, okay. So you're a pastor.
Speaker 2Nope. I'm pretending?
Speaker 1No. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. So in our audience are pastors, people who work in Christian ministry, what can you do to try to be not part of the problem and maybe even part of the solution?
Speaker 2I don't have a super pragmatic answer to this, but I do think it is really important on a really small scale level for us to find ways to practice being uncomfortable and being okay with that difference. I mean, I have been in some church conference, interfaith conference kinds of settings where I've seen this play out more often actually on the left, not in this violent, horrible way, but just in a really small way where someone will go, I am hypothetically. Very on board with being in community with people who are very different from me, religiously, culturally, et cetera. And then they just actually meet those people. And it's not even that they do anything horrible. It's just, it is so deeply uncomfortable that either I might end up seeking out this really ugly political solution, or I might just withdraw. It is so uncomfortable to even have a conversation with someone that different from me. I'm going to be really polite about it, but I'm just not going to do it. And I think there might be opportunities in the church. And I think there might be opportunities in the church, but I don't know. I think there might be opportunities in the church through partnerships with other churches or other religious institutions, through community events to just say, how can we externally, and then also prep people internally to try and build the muscle for that level of discomfort? Because it's easy to see these really dramatic examples of seeking to squash or exclude any difference. It's a lot harder to see how we over time become a nation or smaller communities that are ripe for abuse by those political projects, because we never exercise the muscles of just being like, actually, difference is not as life or death scary as this politician or this leader is trying to convince me that it is.
Speaker 5I think church leaders, amen to everything you just said, Caitlin, I think church leaders need to remind their people that this is the essence of Christianity. Yeah. And what I mean by that is whatever uncomfortable differences of identity exist in your community that are really challenging, you know, what's infinitely larger a difference? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that we need to think about as we move forward. And yet God chose to send his son to come and dwell among us, like how Eugene Peterson said that God took on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. Jesus came and dwelt with us and shared in our sufferings. And if he, in his love, is willing to overcome that infinite divide to be close to us and redeem us, and then we who are sent in his name, and as Jesus says, as a Father sent me, so I send you, we are to also be bridges in the gaps between differences of people. So as you look around your community and you realize, I don't share the same beliefs of all these people. I don't share the same culture, the same background, the same values, the same food, and it's really uncomfortable. Welcome to your mission. You are called to love these people as your neighbors. And if we, the Christians, if we, the church are not going to be willing to do that, then who will? This is why we are here. So pastors, remind your people of their calling in Christ. Remind them what he has done for us and remind them that the gap that he transgressed, that sounds bad to say Jesus transgressed, transcends, the gap that Jesus transcends is infinitely greater than what he's calling us to. And we can do it with his strength
Speaker 1and power. Yeah, but there are a lot of Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, and there are a lot of Hindus showing up in parts of Texas. And God loves them too. I got to do
Speaker 2something about that. It's awful for people. It is really scary. This is not me being handholding about this. If you've ever really been in a position to encounter deep difference, the example I was thinking of earlier was an interfaith organization that I was at a conference for. And I saw a bunch of people, Christians like myself, that were like, I'm really excited to build relationships with some of the Muslim leaders that are coming to this conference. Then they discovered that the imams that were at this conference wouldn't shake their hands because they're women and they don't touch women. And it was like short circuit in their brain over like, I don't, like literally withdraw. Because it was like, I can't do that. And I understand why. I'm not trying to make it sound ridiculous. It is like a really uncomfortable thing. And we are increasingly living in a world with technology and with the conveniences that technology gives us, where we have found ways to avoid all sorts of relational discomfort. This is a huge one. But the hope I would offer people, and I think churches can be good witnesses to this because they can show that it's true, is that it actually is long term that hard. And it doesn't actually take that much time to at least begin to overcome that discomfort. Like it feels huge in the moment. And it doesn't actually take that many instances of it not being life or death scary for you to realize, for your body even to just go, oh, I'm not actually at risk here. Like this is not going to destroy me. I'm not going to fall apart because this conversation is hard or uncomfortable. Or it really doesn't. It feels like an insurmountable thing. Like for a church to hear what we've said, they might think, okay, now we're going to have to learn how we need to become the church that does all these interfaith things and invites all these people. And it really does not take that many interactions with people who are different from you to learn that you're not actually going to die. And then that is the muscle that slowly builds over time. But the beginning step actually doesn't take that long for your body to chill out.
Speaker 5I would argue, yeah, I agree. But I think there's even a step before that, which is if you're going to even find the positive impulse to want to bridge those divisions, you have to start turning off the voices that are telling you to be terrified,
Speaker 2media consumption, or even people
Speaker 5in your life who are saying all, whatever it is, immigrants, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, whatever, they're all there to destroy you. They're all invaders. They're all going to kill you to take my stuff. Fear is never gives birth to love. So if you're marinating in those voices all the time, you shouldn't be surprised that you don't want to bridge those divides or be curious or engage people. So I would stop listening to the voices that are using fear and certainly fear in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1Because that is not the spirit. Have you seen many political ads in the last few weeks?
Speaker 5Yes, I have.
Speaker 1During football games. Are they all encouraging you to love your neighbor and think highly of people that think differently? Sadly, no. No, no. At least they could be like this. There's a man named Brady Rogers. He's 33 years old. He was running for a city council seat in a town, Kelowna, in British Columbia.
Speaker 2Oh, I saw this.
Speaker 1His campaign, he started by launching a website that said, "Do I enjoy politics? No. Do I know what I'm doing? No. But am I qualified? Also no." Then he set up street signs, yard signs. One read, "Brady Rogers for mayor," before clarifying, "Just kidding, city council." Another said, "Just trying to pay my rent." A third said, "I barely want to do this," and noted that he was under 60. And another sign said, "Don't worry, I'll fix everything," and then had a disclaimer, "Terms and conditions apply." And he won.
Speaker 2I'm sure, yeah.
Speaker 1He's now on the Kelowna City Council. And obviously you don't
Speaker 5know anything about this guy. I hope he's a really good mayor. Yeah. City council. Oh, I'm sorry. Councilman. I hope he's really good at the job. I hope it was all kind of sarcastic, but he's actually a person of character and competency in this role, and not just a performance artist.
Speaker 1He said, when they interviewed him, he said he's not enthusiastic about becoming a politician. He said, I don't like meetings. I don't like having to be certain places at certain times. And I'm allergic to stuffy offices.
Speaker 5It sounds like he doesn't want to be an adult.
Speaker 1But unfortunately, I happen to like Kelana, and I think I can help do some good. So we need more people in politics that don't want to be in politics.
Speaker 2I also think we might need more people in the church who are not.
Speaker 1Who don't want to be in the church.
Speaker 2No, no, no, no. We need more people in the church who want to be in the church and who are bored or dissatisfied with politics in the sense of the media firestorm of politics, the media about politics. When I'm saying to a pastor, find ways for your community to just encounter people who are different from them, that to me is actually doing politics. That's building a community where there can be real difference and it not fall apart. That doesn't sound very serious to people. It sounds like sidestepping. It sounds like they're not doing politics because they've been told politics is getting angrier and angrier about the biggest scale issues that they see on the internet. When in reality, to Sky's point, if it was like you actually watched less political ads and you had dinner with someone who was different from you, that would be a more truly political way of being a Christian in the world than just consuming lots of media that makes you angry.
Speaker 1Okay. There you go. I think we solved it. So over the next few years, what are we going to see in America? It will be interesting. Will we see. More Christian identity, but less Christian value? Or can Christian values make a comeback? I think it's up to us. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting us so we can start writing more content and producing more videos. Maybe we should produce videos on the role of Christianity in shaping classical liberalism. Ooh. That could be fun. Mike, write that down. I'm on it. Okay, thanks. And stay around for. Caitlin, you like Caitlin. We got more Caitlin. It's the All Caitlin Show. She's interviewed by Sky. And. Who is also there. Who is also there.
Speaker 5And you. I'm just an. I'm an appliance.
Speaker 1You get a lot of Sky already. There's a lot of Sky. A lot of Sky to go around. See you next week.
Speaker 6Bye. Hey, this is Matt Sorens with World Relief. For this month's immigration policy update, you know, we're less than two weeks before the midterm congressional elections. So I want to talk about voting. In fact, one of the. One of the questions that I've gotten recently from friends and people who know me is, well, who should I vote for? And I'm not going to answer that question. World Relief is very intentionally a nonpartisan organization. We don't endorse parties or candidates. But I do actually want to encourage you, if you're eligible, if you're a citizen and have registered, to vote. My first job at World Relief, more than 20 years ago, was here in the World Relief Chicagoland office working in our immigration and citizenship program. Basically, helping find local churches to host naturalization workshops for people who'd had their green cards for the record. That was a period of time. We would help them make sure that they qualified and then help them through that process, filling out the application, getting to the point of an interview and this test on civics and history, and eventually taking their oath of office as a newly naturalized U.S. citizen. And one thing that has always stuck with me was that many of those new citizens, the first thing that they would do right outside of their oath ceremony was register to vote. Because many of them were coming from countries where they didn't have real elections, where they didn't have a well-functioning democracy. Voting was not possible or doesn't really matter. But here in the United States, it does. It's actually an important way that we engage. And again, so I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but I do want you to be an informed voter. And I also want you to be a voter who takes your faith into account as you vote. I think about Philippians 2, where we're told that we should do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, value others above ourselves. And it's a fairly radical idea to take that attitude with us into the voting booth. To think about how do I vote in ways that will look out for the interests of others, especially those who are particularly vulnerable. I think about Proverbs 31, verse 8, where we're told to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all those who are destitute. And I think one way that we can practically put that into effect in our context is to think about those who don't actually have a voice, or at least whose voices are not heard in our system of government. Non-citizens, for example, who aren't eligible to vote. Whether they're here in the United States, as recently arrived for refugees, or other immigrants, or people around the world who are not citizens of the United States, and of course, don't get to vote in our elections, but who are directly affected by public policy decisions that our lawmakers set. I think it's actually a unique opportunity to be stewards. You know, we think about stewardship sometimes in the context of, well, am I going to tithe? Am I going to give to my church or to a nonprofit organization or ministry? And that's an important part of stewardship. But another element of stewardship is being a steward of the influence to which we have been entrusted. Now, I didn't have to take that. I didn't have to take a test to become a U.S. citizen. I was born in this country. I did actually nothing for that privilege besides being born here, which I had no say in whatsoever. And yet, I think that comes with some responsibility. So, we want you to be an informed voter as you think about going to the ballot box in the next couple weeks. And towards that end, we have a tool at World Relief called Beyond the Ballot, Navigating Immigration Issues with Clarity and Courage that you can download for free at worldrelief.org slash holypost. And part of the point of that guide is, yes, to be an informed voter, but also to be an informed advocate beyond just when you're going to cast your vote. Because ultimately, advocacy is not just something that we do every four years or every two years. It's about how we engage with our neighbors who are vulnerable to public policy decisions in between those elections. It's about how we engage our churches and help our fellow believers to think about public policy issues across a range of issues in ways that are informed by our Christian faith. So, again, I'd encourage you to go to worldrelief.org slash holypost. And download that free guide, Beyond the Ballot, Navigating Immigration Issues with Clarity and Courage. Fall is probably
Speaker 5my favorite time of year. The weather here in Chicago is beautiful. Football is back underway. And life feels like it's back on a regular routine. But there's one thing I don't like about this season. There's less daylight. It can feel harder to get up in the morning when it's dark. And less sunlight can really mess with my energy. That's another reason AG1 NextGen is part of my daily routine. AG1 NextGen supports steady energy production with superfoods and B vitamins, so the shrinking daylight doesn't automatically mean a dip in how I feel or a crash in the afternoon. That's important as we head toward winter and shorter days. Of course, AG1 NextGen has many other benefits, including enriching your gut biome, it's formulated to support immune health, and it's clinically shown to meet 94% of nutrient needs with a proper diet. And right now, for a limited time, visit drinkag1.com. And you'll get a free immune support bundle, including omega-3 fish oil and vitamin D3 plus K2 with your first subscription of AG1 NextGen or AG1 Pro. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash holypost. And thanks to AG1 for sponsoring this episode.
Speaker 1Holypost is sponsored by Bearskin. I've lived in the Chicago area most of my life, and the one thing Chicagoans can always predict is that they're going to be able to get a drink from me. So I'm going to go ahead and get a drink from you. And that's why I'm really intrigued by Bearskin hoodies and rain jackets. Bearskin hoodies are made from their own custom micro-fleece, so they're warmer than your average hoodie, but surprisingly lightweight. They block wind, retain heat, and look great. With 12 pockets, yeah, 12, including a secure inner pocket for cards and cash. And when the weather changes, the Bearskin rain jacket zips right onto the hoodie. It's a system. It's a system. I need one. And here's the best part. Right now, if you buy any two Bearskin hoodies, you'll get the rain jacket thrown in for free. All you need to do is text HOLYPOST to the number 36912, and Bearskin will send you a link directly. That's HOLYPOST to 36912. If you're on the move, they'll hold that deal so it's there when you're ready. Text HOLYPOST to 36912. Bearskin. Caitlin Schuss,
Speaker 5welcome to The Holy Post.
Speaker 2Thanks, Guy, for having me.
Speaker 5So you are the guest today, obviously, because you have new things to talk about.
Speaker 2Yeah, I got married.
Speaker 5We're not talking about that. You will share later about where you're going to be talking about that. You are launching a new podcast. Yeah. Here. We are. As part of The Holy Post. Well, yes, we are. Collectively. But you are hosting this new podcast. So we're going to use this opportunity to talk through why, what it is. Why would we do that? Why would you do that? Give people a preview of what they can expect. But let's start off with this. Your previous show, which was- Curiously, Caitlin. Yeah, I was going to say Getting Schooled, because normally when you and I sit here, it's- It's for Getting Schooled. We record at Getting Schooled. Curiously, Caitlin. Curiously, Caitlin, was focused heavily on theology, doctrine, Bible. It incorporated wonderful questions. It included questions from kids, including some kids closely in orbit around Holy Post
Speaker 2media. Some of my favorite kids.
Speaker 5Yes. But those things were like, that show developed because we were trying to think about what is uniquely true about you. You love theology. You're in school for theology. You're getting your doctorate in theology. And you obviously love kids because you talk about kids all the time. It's like, there it is. That's Caitlin's show. But you're pivoting in a slightly different direction. Yeah. So talk about why.
Speaker 2Why? I mean, there's kind of two ways to answer this. One is to say, as you mentioned already, Curiously, Caitlin, pretty narrowly focused. We took kid questions and answered them for grownups, kind of broadening out the question to say, what's some bigger theological themes that we need to cover here?
Speaker 5The kids are just a great vehicle for those questions.
Speaker 2The kids, we need, grownups need kid questions. That was the whole thing. But that makes it a pretty narrow range of topics, important range of topics and a lot of different theology to cover. But increasingly, I wanted to have a show where we could talk about the things that I want to talk about that are broader than that. And then the second way to answer it is to say, on a week-to-week basis here at the office at The Holy Post, we would record the flagship Holy Post podcast and I would record Curiously Caitlin. But then upstairs in the office, you and I and our coworkers would have all sorts of conversations about topics that were much broader than things that we would talk about on the podcast. And increasingly, I found myself wanting to take those conversations we had upstairs, conversations that would be about pop culture, movies, TV shows, like the book everyone's reading, conversations that would be about the church and, like, us upstairs with coworkers and friends saying, like, this is what I'm going through in my church. How do I respond? Here's something happening in my small group. What do we think about that? Conversations we would have about things that were happening in the news but that were a little more personal or relational, you know, stories about how Bumble changed its dating app profile, which we did talk about on The Holy Post.
Speaker 5After I was schooled as to what Bumble is.
Speaker 2After I pushed for that topic to be covered. Things that just kind of touched our regularity. Things that just touched our regular lives and we talked about them a little more personally than we would when we were recording down here. And one of our former coworkers at one point said, like, these are the conversations I wish you guys made a podcast about. And so the new show comes out of both my desire to talk about a broader range of topics than Curiously Caitlin covered and also, I think, our desire as a team to say, what is an avenue for us to discuss some topics that don't quite fit The Holy Post and that are more Caitlin-coated topics. Yeah. And how can we create something that kind of lets people get a little bit of a window into the kinds of conversations that we have when we're not recording and that most people listening probably have with their friends and their family, too?
Speaker 5Okay. Let's talk about the tomato in the room for a second. Because what people may not fully understand is when we record the flagship show, especially the news segment of the flagship show, we have a Slack channel company-wide and we all contribute to ideas. Like, oh, have you seen this story or that story, this thing or the other? Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day, and Phil's a collaborative piece of this, but at the end of the day, he's the one really picking the stories that most interest him.
Speaker 2Which is important because he's driving the conversation. So whatever he's excited about will make the podcast better. Right. But it isn't what he's excited about.
Speaker 5But he takes suggestions from us or whatever, but he's kind of making the final call on what those topics tend to be. And there was a time, I don't know how many years ago this was now, where I was like, man, there's some stuff I really want to talk about that I know Phil's not interested in or it's just in my wheelhouse. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where the SkyPod came from. Yep. Was I get to have guests on that I want to have on and I get to have the topics I want to talk about. And David French comes on once a month. We do all that. And it feels like that's kind of where you've gotten to is you're realizing there's a bunch of stuff that you want to talk about that either Phil doesn't pick in our news segment or even if he did, you don't want to talk about with me and Phil.
Speaker 2Yeah. That's been the way I've been describing the podcast to my friends or even to like, you know, callers. Colleagues. I was just at a conference on Monday. Someone was asking about it. And I said, you know, it's basically it's a range of topics. It's kind of hard to describe what puts those all into one category, but it's a bunch of different topics. But basically the best way I can describe it is it is just whatever I'm interested in. And it's whatever I'm interested in that I know Phil would probably say no to if I put it in a Slack channel. And increasingly, when I started realizing that there were topics that I wanted to put in that I didn't think would get picked, I had a moment when I realized, and I also don't really think I want Phil and Sky to be the ones I talk to. I mean, even when I made you and Mike Erie talk about Bumble changing its kind of algorithm for dating, however many episodes ago that was, it was a fun conversation. And I kind of enjoyed making you both a little uncomfortable by forcing you to talk about dating apps. But I have a lot of friends, people who've been on the Holy Post before, you know, people that we all love that I just thought might be a better conversation partner for those kinds of topics.
Speaker 5Here's what comes to mind is Jesus' words about don't throw your pearls before swine.
Speaker 2Exactly. And you're the swine in this situation.
Speaker 5We are the swine. I think it's Dallas Willard explained that text. It's not that there's anything bad about swine.
Speaker 2No, swine are great.
Speaker 5It's just that pearls are not useful to a pig. It has no use for them.
Speaker 2So you don't really want to talk about Taylor Swift's new album or Bumble or, you know, any of the things that we would talk upstairs with our coworkers about.
Speaker 5Yeah, but to be fair, okay, before we get into some of the topics that you already know you're going to be covering, I've seen some of the guests you're going to have on your show. They're fun. Yeah. Some of the topics you're going to cover. Yeah. And I don't, maybe with one exception, I don't see any that I'm not interested in.
Speaker 2Okay, that's good. I hope you'll listen.
Speaker 5I plan to. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about the name of this new show. Yeah. What's it called?
Speaker 2Why? Lots of reasons. The main one being, as we kept talking about, okay, what's like the unifying theme or concept for the show? Because on some level, it's just like whatever I'm interested in and my friends. It's Caitlyn's interest. It's Caitlyn's show. But we also wanted there to be kind of a concept behind it. And it's not totally unrelated to my interest in curiosity from Curiously Caitlyn. Like I, as a person, just think we as Christians should learn to be more curious, to ask more questions, to think about things in a different way than maybe we've been taught to think about them. And when we're thinking about more broad cultural questions instead of just the theological ones that we dealt with on Curiously Caitlyn, I realized one of the ways I wanted to approach these topics was to say, there's one question or frame of reference that the culture broadly, the internet, maybe even the church is using to address this topic. There's one question they're asking. And a lot of times it's a binary question. It's like, is this good or bad? Is this sinful? Yes or no? And The Better Question wants to take those topics that are sort of constrained by the question we're currently asking and then say, what's a better question to ask about this? What's a question that gets at what's really underneath the topic that we're discussing? What's a question that helps us learn something better than we would learn by asking the original question? Basically, and we talked about this right off the bat, we wanted to do what Jesus often does with questions, which is take a question on the terms it's given and ask a different one instead. To basically say, I want to engage with you. I want to be a part of the conversation you're having. I think maybe even the question you're asking is valuable, but you're asking it on the terms that are given, and I want to refuse those terms as they're given. I want new terms. So for a couple of examples. I just heard a sermon on this last weekend. One of my favorite texts, Jesus is asked, should we pay taxes to Caesar? He's set up as, you know, he's being given a trap by the religious leaders, and it's supposed to be yes, no. Yes, you're in trouble with the people who don't think that you should bow down to Caesar. No, you're in trouble with Caesar, who wants you to pay his tax. And Jesus responds by saying, whose image is on this coin? Which is not just refusing to answer the question, it's reframing the question entirely and saying, there's a better way to look at this than the way that you're looking at it currently.
Speaker 5Jesus does this all the time, like you say, but it's a very, your framing of the better question is a polite way, a very polite way of saying the question you're asking is wrong or dumb.
Speaker 2Well, really with this podcast, it's more saying you haven't been given a good question to ask. Right. The question is you've learned it from social media, from your church, from your community, from politicians even, like the people who are setting the terms. But the question is you've learned it from social media. And so the question wants to ask those kinds of deeper questions, not to avoid the question that maybe were being posed, but to say, we will answer that later question better if we've gone back and asked some better questions.
Speaker 5Right. Sometimes this is framed as the question beneath the question or the question before the question. What came to my mind, and I don't think this is, there's some doubt about whether Albert Einstein actually said this, but a quote that's widely attributed to him is, if I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem or the right question. So to your point, you're going to talk about all kinds of things going on in the news, in the culture, in the church, in society. And I assume you're going to start with, here's the question that you're hearing everywhere. Right. And then you're going to go, let's get behind this. Let's talk about the way maybe this is framed incorrectly. There's a better question.
Speaker 2Yes. And we're even going to end every episode by saying, with me and whoever I'm having the conversation with, what's a question you're left with? Because part of what we want to communicate to is not just the question. It's not just, okay, there's a better way to frame this. There's a better question to ask. It's also to say, these kinds of topics about our relationships, about our church life, about our dating lives, about our family lives, those are questions that really need to be ongoing conversations with our real communities. And so hopefully people, through hearing us say, okay, here's a question I'm still left with. I'm not sure I know the answer to this. Or actually, this conversation has made me reframe the question again. I kind of want to ask this now. Hopefully that sparks conversation for people to go, okay. it's not done. Like Caitlin didn't say here is the answer, now go live your life. Hopefully, me and the different people that we'll have on the show will help people have a different frame of reference to think about the question so they can continue to think about it in their real lives.
Speaker 5I think that's fantastic.
Speaker 2Thank you. However. Of course, you have a however.
Speaker 5Of course, I have a however. The broader Christian marketplace thrives on definitive solutions, answers. Here's your three steps. Here's your formula. Here's your alliterated sermon that gives you the answer to how to do X, Y, or Z. People feel like the world is spinning out of control. It's complicated. There's a lot of ambiguities out there. And they come to Christian leaders, voices, pastors, authors, theologians, wanting to know what's the right answer. And it sounds like you want to complicate things. Just recently, I shared this in our Slack channel. Just recently, I came across some pretty outspoken morphology. It's called the fundamentalist evangelical figures on social media. They've now coined the term the sin of nuance, which they would define as unnecessarily complicating things that are black and white. Right. So why are you creating a podcast that's guilty of the sin of nuance, Caitlin?
Speaker 2Oh, okay. Two things to say about that. One, I don't disagree with people who would say complicating things that are simple is often unhelpful and could even be sinful. Yeah. There are times when we want to overcomplicate things to obscure. Yeah. Like, you are the truth of something that's just uncomfortable. Like, no, there is a right and wrong in this situation. There is a demand of God upon you, and you're going to unnecessarily complicate it to avoid the moral demand on you. That's possible. Mm-hmm. It's also possible to go too far in the other direction. It's also possible to have the sin of making things black and white that actually just are gray in the world. And the topics that we are covering on The Better Question are never going to be topics where there just is an obvious yes/no answer. There are specific, like, smaller questions within The Big Question where we are going to, already in the episode we've recorded, said, "This is wrong and this is right." Like, there is teaching in Scripture that makes clear that some things are right and some things are wrong, and we're not wavering on that by saying, "Okay, these things are black and white. These other questions are much less clear." So I would say there's two ditches that you can fall into, and we're trying to be somewhere in between them. But also, in terms of, like, marketability, I don't want to sell my soul to just, like, get people to listen to a book or something like that. I don't want to sell my soul to just, like, get people to listen to a podcast. But also, you're right. People are looking for guidance. Like, the world feels very complicated, and part of what makes it so complicated is there are a bajillion podcasts you can listen to. There are a bajillion voices on the internet. There are tons of people that are very happy to tell you, "Here's the 10-step plan to fix your life." I think there are some people that are hungry for not just lack of clear answers, which is not what we're trying to do, but I think there are a lot of people who are hungry for a less anxious way of approaching those questions, because a lot of the "Here's 10 steps to fix your life. Here's the right/wrong black-and-white answer" is really just certainty that is trying to mask anxiety. And the goal for the better question would be to say, "The topics we are covering really matter. They're not trivial, even if they initially seem trivial. They're really important questions, and we have resources, both in Scripture and Christian teaching and outside of Christian teaching. We have people. We have people that we can go to that have studied this. We have psychologists and historians, and there's things out there to help us. But maybe the more important thing than just getting answers or information or a 10-step list to save your life is being in community with people who can help each other address those questions where it actually touches their real life. We don't want to make this super abstract and intellectual, but do it from a place of contentedness and a place of non-anxiety and a place of recognizing that the Holy Spirit will help us come to good
Speaker 5conclusions. It sounds like, in my experience, the Christian marketplace highly values certainty. Yeah. But the kingdom of God highly values wisdom.
Speaker 2Yeah, and trust. Like, trust that even if we make mistakes in all of this, God is sovereign and faithful to us, even when we make mistakes.
Speaker 5So let's talk about some of what people can expect. Yeah. With more specificity, because you have, well, how many episodes have you actually recorded? One. One. Seems a little premature to me.
Speaker 2We've got one down, and we have, like, tons planned, like, five or six that are planned out.
Speaker 5Right, you have guests lined up, you have topics lined up, so let's give people a preview of what they can expect.
Speaker 2The one that we have recorded is such a good example of this kind of reframing of a question we're trying to do. So Kelsey McGinnis, who's been on the podcast before, a friend of ours, she is talking about GLP-1s and other ways that we are seeking medical interventions in our appearance, primarily. GLP-1s can be used for other things. Primarily having a conversation about body image and weight loss and the meaning of the body for a Christian. And it's such a good example of what we're doing with The Better Question because we started at the very beginning talking about the fact that Kelsey has watched a lot of Instagram reels and TikToks from Christian influencers answering and asking the question, "Are GLP-1s sinful? Yes/no?" And we basically— What does the Bible say about GLP-1s? What does the Bible say about GLP-1s? Shocker, nothing. Yeah. And so we, throughout that conversation, move from, "Okay, that's not a super helpful question." It's a dumb question, Kaitlin.
Speaker 5It's a dumb question.
Speaker 2Okay, we don't need to be that aggressive. It is not a very helpful question. What are some more helpful questions? What does it mean to have a healthy relationship with your body? What does it mean to think about the various ways that technology can change our bodies? Where are the lines? How would you discern that in community? What are the underlying messages that we are tempted to believe about our bodies in a world where these kinds of things are not going to happen? So we have that whole conversation, and we end, like I said before, with saying, "What are the questions we're left with?"
Speaker 5Don't give it away.
Speaker 2I won't tell you what the questions are, but we both said at the end, "I have a new question now." A better question. A better question. Wow. I now have learned a lot through this conversation with someone else who cares deeply about this and has thought about it and read and researched. But also, I now actually think that I know enough to know that that original question was unhelpful, but I now have some new questions I want to continue to explore.
Speaker 5I like the fact that the episode one of "The Better Question" is about GLP-1s. Oh. Well done. Well done. Okay, so that's coming out soon. What else do you have coming?
Speaker 2So, a few of the other ones that we've got, we're going to have Beth Moore on early on, and she's going to talk about— The Beth Moore. The Beth Moore.
Speaker 5Not someone in a wig.
Speaker 2The honorable Beth Moore, not someone in a wig. Okay. The real life Beth Moore, who is going to talk about the value of women-specific ministry. Is there value to it? Like, what does it mean that we live in a church culture that very often says there's men's ministry, there's women's ministry? She is obviously someone with quite a bit of experience with women's ministry. A lot. So, I want to talk to her about just, is that how we should do things?
Speaker 5Okay, let me pause you right there for a second, because just these two episodes you've described already, these are episodes I want to hear. Yeah, yeah. And the GLP-1 one, you might think, "Okay, I get why Sky would want to hear that." "Why do I want to hear Beth Moore talk about women's ministries?" I've had numerous conversations recently with both men and women who have said they are so sick and tired of men's ministries and women's ministries, and they don't want to be a participant in them anymore, and they've had all these negative experiences and all the— So, I think—I don't—I obviously want to hear what you guys talk about, and the better question that comes out of it, I don't want to be somebody that just throws away gender-specific ministries, just as I wouldn't want to throw away age— Right. —life-stage specific— Even though we can take it too far. Right. But I do think we're kind of in this moment of people are rethinking the stereotypes around how those things have been done.
Speaker 2Right. And I kind of want to ask her, like, both what has she learned doing so much ministry, pretty exclusively with women, but also how does she think as someone who can hit some of those stereotypes, right? Yeah. Like, that's—if you were to throw out to a group of younger women in the church today, like, "What's your idea of 'women's ministry'?" many of them would say Beth Moore when they're describing it, and yet— I have to confess that, like, I, as a young seminary student, a little bit turned my nose up at Beth— this is before I knew her—and just thought, "It's 'women's ministry.' That means it's kind of shallow and silly, and it's tea parties, and it's—
Speaker 5Sentimental. It's sentimental.
Speaker 2And then I was required for a conference I went to to do one of her studies, and I was shocked at how theologically rich and challenging it was. And then now, you know, 10-plus years later after that, I'm like, "I also love tea parties." So, like, I have concerns. I have concerns and critiques of some of the ways we've used stereotypes about gender to fuel "women's ministry," but a lot of the things that those "women's ministries" do, I actually am the kind of person who really likes, and I don't want to be so against that that I miss the goods of that.
Speaker 5Right. Okay. I know Kelsey McGinnis a little bit because she's—I interviewed her for one of her previous books. I am a big fan of her writing. She's great. And I see her on social media, and everything I've encountered from her I think is brilliant, so I love that she's there. Beth Moore. I'm not her target audience.
Speaker 2Right. Obviously. But you love her, don't you?
Speaker 5No, I was going to say, like, we were talking about wisdom earlier and the better question idea of moving from certainty to wisdom, like, Beth Moore is somebody whose feet I would sit at. Yes. And just want to listen. She is so wise. She is wise and obviously theologically informed and biblically brilliant and all that, but she is just—she is hard-won wisdom. Yeah. So, good start.
Speaker 2Yes, yes. Who else have you got? Some other ones we have coming up. Later in the fall, we're going to have Andy Crouch on to talk about not just, again, the kind of questions that a lot of Christians are asking about AI or other forms of technology right now, which is just, like, yes, no, where are the lines, what can I use AI for, and what can I not, but instead moving back and saying, what does relating machines the way that we are learning to relate to them with ai what does that teach us about what it means to be human or what it doesn't mean to be human and he is such a thoughtful theologically minded person we could talk about all sorts of technological things with him and he's in that world enough to like really know some of the weeds of it but my favorite thing about him is that he is such a good example of the mentality we are trying to to show in the show which is don't take the questions as they're being framed right instead go back and say not just what's a better frame of reference what's a better question to ask but as christians we should have different terms to have these conversations like i've noticed with the ai conversation in particular a lot of people who are not believers are really struggling to come up with like what is lost when there's less humans involved in things they just are kind of they're like what's a study that could prove that it's better for humans to be involved christians can go we've got all these theological resources that say there is something that we can do to change the way that we think about ourselves there is something different there is something about the imago dei that changes a relationship a project a way of doing something and andy is such a good person to go he takes the tech very seriously he's really good on that and he goes there's always a more christian way to ask this
Speaker 5kind of question so some people may know that andy wasn't one of the people invited in by anthropic yeah this past year to to guide them in ethical and philosophical theological framing of the ai stuff that they're creating but that's not alone what makes him qualified to talk on this i mean he he was the author of the tech wise family that really helpful book that came out a while ago but going even back to the years when he and i were colleagues together at ct he wrote culture making phenomenal book that book
Speaker 2changed my life in seminary yeah yeah
Speaker 5and he wrote a lot about and it was in culture making but he wrote about in other places as well just the the dynamics of power in culture in our lives in our faith and so when you take all of that yeah knowledge he has about culture and power and now you apply it to technology and you apply it to the technology and you apply it to technology and then you apply it to the technology of ai he has been um he's been formed for decades to be prepared to talk about this moment we are in right and so i can't think of anyone better and one more thing to
Speaker 2say about him that's a helpful thing to know about the podcast as you said about the tech wise family andy is not just an intellectual thinking about these things abstractly he has written a book that's like what are ways that families in their habits and their practices and their ways of living and have a different kind of life and all the topics we've talked about so far the goal for the better question is to move from abstract culture analysis kind of ways of framing it to then go all of these touch our lives like people might not always realize this but going back to the glp-1 conversation just statistically you know someone who's on a glp-1 and most people i know are having conversations with their family and their friends about if that's okay and how they should think about it the same is true of obviously women's ministry that's what i'm saying this is like how we make decisions about the churches we attend and how we relate to the churches we attend this question about technology and ai that that touches like our work life our family life i everyone has questions about not just abstractly does this what does this mean and what does it how do we think about what matters it's also just well how do i actually live my life how do i when someone in my family wants to talk about this have something valuable to say that actually shapes the way we live our lives
Speaker 5there are certain podcasts that we all hear holy post media engage outside of our own our
Speaker 2extracurricular podcasts and there
Speaker 5are some we go to regularly and we sometimes we'll share these in our company slack channels or hey did you listen to such and such interview blah blah and just from what you've shared so far i hope others will see your show that way like yeah you know they're having a conversation three weeks from now with some friends colleagues whatever about glp-1s or whatever and like oh have you heard caitlyn's conversation with kelsey mcginnis about you got it yeah so it'll be a resource i hope for a lot of people um at least one more
Speaker 2oh what should what should i say next what's another what's another oh let's do caitlyn baby because we'll throw a little like fun in it okay because everything
Speaker 5you've talked about so far as great as it is i love it i'm like i'm there i'm in it and i'm partly a little disturbed that you don't think it's a topic that phil or i would want to talk
Speaker 2about i've got one that like you probably will not listen to which is our friend caitlyn baby friend of the podcast is going to come on for our wedding episode not our wedding
Speaker 5you two had weddings caitlyn got married
Speaker 2not too long ago i got married just a couple of weeks ago and i couldn't think of a better person to talk about this with partially because we both did just got married so if you have not gotten married quite recently you wouldn't know it is like with the internet especially you live in your own little like shadow world where everything is about weddings and everything is white and lacy and things start to seem normal to you and you're like oh my god i'm gonna get married i'm gonna get married i'm gonna get married that when you say them to people who aren't planning a wedding they're like cake costs how much like you're doing what for your photographer like it starts it's crazy making and caitlyn has thought a lot about this both in terms of she's someone who has planned a wedding also she is someone like the people we have already talked about who's just a sharp thinker about christianity and especially
Speaker 5another former colleague of mine from ct
Speaker 2yes um someone who's who's thought well about culture and theology and also has a good eye and this is important for the wedding conversation on just what like cottage economies do to someone like the the kind of consumeristic part of it she's got a good frame of going how have we sold our souls a little bit given up some things that really matter about weddings and marriage for the sake of instagram or for the sake of someone else
Speaker 5making money so it sounds like you're talking about the the culture and industry of wedding the wedding industrial complex but are you actually going to be talking about your own wedding yeah also
Speaker 2that this is why okay so this is a great opportunity for me to say two things that are true of this new podcast one some of the topics we are going to cover i imagine are the kinds of topics that some people not just grumpy old men like you and sky you and phil some people might think of those topics as trivial so whether it's things about weddings girly things about weddings whether it's taylor swift's new album whether it's some thing that happened on social media that's fascinating to the you know the conversations we have in the office we might think yeah that's office conversation that's not worthy of theological reflection on a podcast and the better question is partially because i want to dignify those topics and say not only is everything theological so there is something theological to be said about all of these things but also many of these topics that seem trivial are also things that shape our real lives in our communities and our families and i think that they need to be dignified and i think that they need to be dignified and i think that they need to be dignified in order for us to handle them better for us to live better more faithful lives we have to take seriously the things that are actually shaping our lives even if we're tempted to think that they're silly or
Speaker 5trivial okay you've been trying to find a topic that i will poo poo
Speaker 2yeah so i picked weddings and you did here's the problem you're into it because i said industrial complex now you're it's not just
Speaker 5that it's the fact that my son is engaged that's true and so i mean we are the parents of the groom not the bride it's slightly different but we're still in the midst of planning a wedding you
Speaker 2know something you're a little bit in that shadow i'm
Speaker 5a little bit in that now so now i'm intrigued to hear what you and caitlin have to say about the pitfalls of the whole wedding so okay so
Speaker 2my new goal now sky will be to come up with the next topic for a new episode that you will think is ridiculous
Speaker 5i i accept that challenge
Speaker 2yeah great
Speaker 5go for it we'll see yeah um but okay to be in all seriousness though it though it's this the fact that i am genuinely interested in all these topics and these guests means this is not just a podcast for women because because most days i'm not a woman it
Speaker 2is not i'm glad to hear that and no it is not just a podcast for women okay because you're dealing
Speaker 5with topics and issues that affect us all although from time to time there may be certain episodes that code more
Speaker 2feminine right and i would say one those are topics even if they seem like they're mostly for women that are very deserving of conversation and two even the ones that seem the most not for you i think are good opportunities to like learn stretch yourself challenge yourself a little bit it's kind of like how in in sermons for my whole life i've heard all these illustrations about sports and grilling and i still found a way to learn something about god through those sermons i think plenty of men increasingly with more women getting ordained are gonna have to learn how to hear some illustrations about taylor swift's new album and the new clothes for fall and the book that everyone's reading and still learn something about okay i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 5out you a little bit here speaking of office conversations earlier today we had a editorial meeting yeah it was you me phil esau uh-huh mike our producer i'm nervous drew dick yeah and before we got into the meeting where a bunch of us were talking about the bears game last night which was a phenomenal game that i'm sure it was esau was actually attended yeah so we're having this conversation and you leaned over and said what's a bear no
Speaker 2no no that's not what i said i said what
Speaker 5i'm talking about what sport are the bears like you did not know the bears were football no i knew
Speaker 2they were a sport i knew they were well yeah obviously because i live here and i hear you did not know they
Speaker 5were the chicago football team no and
Speaker 2aren't we in the right season where it's like multiple sports are happening yes like it could be basketball is basketball happening basketball could be football
Speaker 5baseball is also baseball okay but the fact okay i'm just saying like you're not joking when you're saying you've had to deal with illustrations your whole life that you just exactly
Speaker 2and you just learned to pay attention to the lesson at the end. And, you know, if men listen to an episode of The Better Question and it happens to be on a topic that feels a little more women coded to them, it might not just be that they learn some theological truth at the end, some spiritual truth. It might be that they discover we're talking about something that they also really like and are interested in and they just never knew before.
Speaker 5Again, you don't have to convince me. I'm in. I'm in based on what you've presented of the first four episodes, whatever it might be. So everybody go check it out. So here's the deal. You can get The Better Question wherever you prefer to get your podcast. Right now. Right now. But we have a special favor to ask you. Yeah. Because if you follow and subscribe to The Better Question on Apple Podcasts, that will help boost its visibility for new people. Because when a new podcast comes out and there's a lot of energy around it, Apple's algorithms do their thing. And so if you're a fan of Holy Post Media, if you really love Caitlin and want to help more people find her and this content, go to Apple Podcasts. Subscribe to it and then listen to it on Apple Podcasts or get it wherever else you prefer, Spotify or I don't know what else is out there.
Speaker 2Help us make more episodes so that I can find a topic that Sky will be uninterested in and then convince him that it's actually worthy of his attention.
Speaker 5As Jerry Maguire said, help us help you. That's what we're here for. All right, Caitlin, best of luck with the new podcast. I'm sure it'll be amazing. You've got great people coming along. So excited to see how it goes.
Speaker 2Thanks, Sky. Bye.
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