Speaker 1hello everyone welcome to the esau macaulay podcast i'm your host esau macaulay we're joined as regular by our producer mike hey esau and we are joined by tish harrison warren and we can say a lot about her and all of the stuff that she's done but we need to break some news breaking news on the esau macaulay podcast this is where you come to get your news some people want to hear about the election but that's that's later no no breaking news this is a big
Speaker 2announcement of the day not the election yes this is the big this
Speaker 1is the one tish harrison warren is going to be joining the holy post media team as a monthly contributing writer whoa exciting so how do you feel what's going to be your first hot take
Speaker 2that you have well i just sent off a batch of pitches so i don't know yet yeah i don't am i i can give it away no no no no
Speaker 3we gotta wait so let's give some details to people okay so a monthly article by by tish uh this is going to be on the holy post sub stack okay but it's free yeah so you don't have to be a holy post plus subscriber where there's no paywall here tish is is for the people yeah
Speaker 1they'll be out in the streets yeah unlike the new york times who made you subscribe to read tish we're going to give you tips for free but let me ask you this question tish this is like a general question i would say that like if you have a friend or someone who you're close to you kind of give them like the friend booth you know i'm talking about you say you like something but you like a little bit more if they're your friend is that
Speaker 2fair to say tish sure sure i mean yeah yeah in general there can be some bias it's just yes or no
Speaker 1it's yes or no no no yes or no i don't
Speaker 2know i i have a lot of friends that are writers and we're just we're saying in
Speaker 1life because the reason the reason we said this is because me and mike we we were on the internet yesterday we were on the internet and we said i saw a post by tish we sure did and can you can you read the caption it's a post that you did tish you're with two random
Speaker 3dudes i don't know who they are not your best friends not not esau and me okay and you wrote this is hands down the most fun podcast i have ever done wow really tish wow
Speaker 1really we just hired you and you're coming on our podcast and you're you're ranking others above us as a friend i should get the friend boost but that's okay we love you anyway we hope that we will have you on the east summer podcast and we'll see you next time on the east summer podcast
Speaker 2there's a good explanation of that is that they took my entire family my son gus who is seven he was six at the time is is on the podcast okay and had they
Speaker 1taken you and gus and your husband and all of you all on a trip well we didn't take you on a trip together we can pay for it i guess it
Speaker 2doesn't matter well we didn't make a we didn't make a podcast okay we were at the beach yeah he saw his family and my we went to the beach but we didn't like stop the beach vacation okay we will let this
Speaker 1go this time what what is our first
Speaker 3story of the day mike all right well this is kind of awkward because we are recording this on election day on tuesday but by the time people hear this episode they will know the results yes it'll be thursday which we don't we don't but we are anticipating it sure seems like there's going to be a blue wave okay that's that's what all the polls are saying even kind of so i mean we'll see this might look make us look like fools but i thought we could spend a little bit of time let's see if we can get a little bit of time let's just assume there's a blue wave that let's even assume the democrats won the house and the senate yeah he saw how would that like what we've spent so much of the last two years critiquing the current administration critiquing the republicans in power how does life change over the next two years if the democrats now um have the house and the senate
Speaker 1well actually i think that two years might be a short window and i want to make a distinction between what i am and i am not saying i'm not saying that i'm not saying that i'm not saying i believe that the policies of this administration over the last 10 years if you want to put the i guess the 10 years they've been kind of struggling for power and the things they proposed and the way that the way that they behaved has not just had an emotional like impact on people in the sense that we see stuff on social media that we don't like but it's had a material impact on lots of people right there are people who are in detention facilities who aren't receiving the care that they need so like i want to talk i don't want to set aside the um real difference that people in power make for what it means for take culture in christianity so i want to but i want to talk about what i've seen happen over the last decade during the kind of trump era in in the church and i do think there's been almost the part of the identity of the church in this moment has been this witness against the particular evils that come from the right and in some sense it's easier to talk about those things the xenophobia the sexism you know the racism like the kinds of things that we see are easy to grab a hold of and that's been a way to cut to to expand our brand makes it seem too cynical but there's been a way of having an identity as a christian who's not that kind of christian we're not those kinds of christians and so what does it mean now once the democratic party is potentially in power does that mean that the the work of the christian resistance is done and we can kind of say now the democrats are going to usher in the king i want i have my take on that but i i think i maybe i i did a second a second setting of the table but i want to maybe give um because i've been talking a long time i want to give tish the opportunity to kind of weigh in first what would a christian witness especially to the christians who might be listeners to this podcast who would say theologically orthodox but have some kind of politically progressive ideas around helping the poor and caring for the immigrant what does it mean for us in this moment if the power shifts and we're no longer resisting like the trump administration we might be in the context of dealing with the democratic party in power do you have any wisdom in that regard for us i have some takes but i want to give you a chance because i've talked for five minutes in a row
Speaker 2i mean to some extent i think it's the same task like the church uh does not believe that democrats winning will bring the kingdom of god will bring utopia we also do not believe at least we ought not believe that republicans winning brings the kingdom of god so it's still there is a sense of resistance posture of resistance and posture of you know affirmation to the extent we can for both parties i mean trump is still going to be the president for two years no matter what so there will still be you know he'll still say wild things and there'll still be stuff happening who knows what's going to happen with him the ice and immigration if there is a blue wave i think um i'm all i mean i went out last week and voted in early voting that said i think there i think the christian political witness always has to sort of um not neither be over exuberant about the hope we have in a coming party or over despairing like i i kind of believe i mean um i think leslie newb again said i am neither an optimist nor pessimist jesus has risen from the grave yeah and so i kind of feel the same way i mean it's i'm in texas so everything i'm in austin so everything is about taleri going paxton right now and i mean because paxton's so corrupt it will be grievous to me if he if that if he has no consequence i mean i don't know i don't know if he's going to be able to do anything about it at the same time i worry that it's like uh people will see talerico as like the great blue hope um and the rise of the religious left as some sort of answer to the rise of the religious right but i just think uh i think jesus will have um things to say about both i'll say that and uh and things things to judge about both and so i don't know i think to some extent i'm like well we just keep doing what we've always done which is be a prophetic witness and the church be the church and uh stand against um oppression and evil in all its many forms and it's right or left doesn't have a corner on the forms of of oppression and evil that we're standing against but i don't know i mean it'll especially because trump can will continue to be president i i think this i think that it's i think checks and balances are good um but i'm not sure it's gonna like i mean it will not i can say it will not bring utopia or the kingdom of god well
Speaker 1here's the thing that i think actually may be different and once again we're separating i think there will be policy differences that actually impact the lives of people but i want to say that if you're a christian especially being in a place like austin or if you're in a blue place like illinois out in the suburbs of chicago like to resist trump brings you somewhat close to your progressive neighbors you're like i'm not i'm not the kind of christian who you don't like and so there is a kind of cultural um cachet that comes with going with the people who are politically similar to you and the ways in which the christian church is different don't actually appear as clearly when you're opposing like the president like some of the politicians who are politically similar to you and the ways in which the christian church of the president. If the Democratic Party comes into power, power, then those differences become kind of clear. And then when you emphasize those, there is a different kind of political cost depending on where you are, right? If you're in a place where it's super rich, you can just kind of say, even though it's blue, Jesus is still in charge and you're kind of culturally comfortable in the resistance of the Democratic Party. But if you're in a blue place, when the Democrats are in power, you do have a different kind of witness. And let me give you like an example. Like I think we all agree to say, hey, what is happening on immigration is bad. We need to reform it. Okay. If the Democratic Party is in power, it will simply be to me dishonest to say, if I began to talk about the ways in which I disagree with the way the Democratic Party thinks, talks about, and teaches around sex and gender, that puts me in a different place. That puts me in the awkward place. That puts me in the category of the bad Christian. And so I do think that there will be, depending on where you're located, a different social cost for calling into question what the Democratic Party says. And I've talked about this a lot. Maybe I've said it in different places, but there are poor in cities that are both blue and red. And so one concrete example is housing. It is hard to get affordable housing built regardless of who's in power. And it's really easy to kind of have a slogan, like don't put kids in cages. But I think it's sometimes harder to get Christians to understand what are the long-term economic disadvantages that lead to the difficulty of having affordable housing. And how do we actually keep the Democratic Party accountable for doing things like that? And so it's not just the fact that there are no longer the slogans that might be easy to talk about. There's the concrete, tangible ways in which local elections and local politicians impact the lives of people. So I do think there can be a tendency to say, okay, the most clearly and easily definable evil that is happening, it doesn't cost me anything socially. I can oppose that. But am I willing to call out the concrete ways in which the Christian gospel, the Christian faith pushes up against what may be happening in the Democratic
Speaker 3Party? Yeah, I found it interesting last week when the New York Times broke that article about, or broke the story about the Alaska race and how the Democrats found a guy with the same name as the Republican candidate and ran him as well to try to cause some ballot confusion. And the reaction I saw on the left was essentially, listen, this is just old school politics. This always happens. Everyone does this. It's very common. Yada, yada, yada. And all that's true. And yet it just, I was alarmed at how dismissive people were of it. Because to me, it's like, well, no, like if the Democrats are trying to say like, we are actually the party with a moral backbone, unlike all of the corruption in the Republicans. And then they do something like this, even if we think it's small and normal, it's still corruption in a sense. And if we're not willing to say like, no, that's wrong too. That as Christians, as evangelicals, we just, we want both political parties to take the high road. We want to call them to a higher standard. And if we are so afraid of the right that we just, our instinct is to dismiss anything that the left does that's wrong, that's going to be problematic.
Speaker 1And I think I want to name something, and hopefully I can say this in a nuanced way that doesn't get, I mean, people are going to yell at me regardless. If you take basically any poll of the Democratic Party, the black, the black portion of the Democratic Party is centrist. It's not the most radical portion of the party. It tends to be in the center. And what tends to happen, and maybe this is the part that I'm frustrated about, is that the Democratic Party is sometimes judged over against like the Republican Party. And so we're often voting to save ourselves from like what we feel like is impending doom. And so because there's like, do you want to go into cage it? You know, like the distinction is so clear that sometimes we don't have the same negotiating power because it's like, there's the assumption that the black vote belongs to the Democratic Party. And so what I want to actually say is this, regardless of who is in power, it is incumbent upon the party in power to be able to say more, we're better than the worst alternative that you can imagine. And here are the positive goods that we can do. And economic policy is a reflection of values because money is a spiritual reality in the kingdom of God. And so how nations spend their money is, and because we vote and we get to choose this in a democratic republic, we can decide how people, how nations allocate resources. And so it is incumbent upon us to say beyond the, the broad stream, like slogans, what are the concrete ways we can make, we can make an engagement political process to advocate for those who are most vulnerable. And that includes like children, that includes moms, that includes babies in wombs, that includes people on death row, that includes people who are in prison who still deserve humane treatment, that includes the homeless. Like there are lots of places that won't go viral if you tweet about it, that I think are important for us to talk about as Christians. Did you have anything that you wanted to add? Well,
Speaker 2I just, I think that the point about, to some extent, like being willing to critique your own, own side. I mean, I, I genuinely do not feel like I am on the side of Republicans or the side of Democrats because I just don't think the church is. And, but I, I was at a Christian conference and I had just listened to the Tallarico, um, uh, Joe Rogan podcast on the way there. And this is the one in this podcast, he def- Tallarico. Tallarico defends abortion because he says- Mary chose. That Mary had consent. Right. Which is obviously like, it's a terrible theological argument because Mary hadn't conceived at the time. Uh, so it's basically like, I mean, I guess it's against rape if anything, ethically. But, um, I was in line and this woman was talking about Tallarico and how greedy he is and how we need to defeat Paxton. And she said, something like his opponents are making up this stuff that he said about Mary and abortion. And she, she basically said, he didn't really say this. This is the opponents making this up. Well, like 20 minutes before I had little, I, I was listening to the podcast and I was like, no, he said it. I mean, he did. And she was like, well, I don't know. And I was like, no, no, I heard him say it. But it, the thing that it reminded me of is, uh, MAGA folks I know who after January 6th or after Trump says some of the outlandish things he says, say, oh no, no, he didn't say that or just deny it. Like it was, that was out of context or the mainstream media is making. And I'm like, no, no, he said it. And it's on both sides. It's like an unwillingness to honestly name what is true. Uh, if it makes your side look bad in any way. And so I think, um, part of the prophetic witness of the church is like, we just actually have to be a truth telling people and be willing to let, uh, the candidate that we, I mean, I think we just, we, we can vote it's fine, but don't give your heart to like any of these candidates or these parties because, because the second you do, it's going to like work against your own ability to say that was wrong. They said something or they did that or the policy is wrong. I think Dorothy day is, is my political hero. And she was very politically engaged, but she all, she never publicly endorsed a candidate. She publicly endorsed policies. She publicly endorsed like, um, things that she felt like help society, help the poor. And she would talk about that, but she was, she never wanted to be fully owned by a particular candidate because she always wanted to be able to be honest about critique. Yeah. And we have to continue to do that. We can't, we can't just adopt the same tactics as the world on either side.
Speaker 1I think that maybe I would say it's my goal. And it's so much of that tiny little podcast has some influence is to, it sounds weird to put it this way, but to make both Democrats and Republicans see at least a version of Christianity that feels phone that feels most authentic to me. And let me give you an example. If you talk about something like, like you say, you say I'm pro-life and then they will say like, well, the people who are pro-life don't care about healthcare. They don't, they won't fund like tax credits for, for people to be able to, um, have childcare, which actually leads to the reduction in abortions. And I want to say, actually, I support every single one of those policies. If there's any policy that you want to put forward that you think may help the poor, give people a chance to, um, um, progress in life and feel comfortable bringing those babies to term, engage that argument. And what tends to happen is that we're still in this place where it's a reductionist argument. These Christians don't actually, you can say, oh, you need to be pro-life from the womb to the tomb. Well, like, you know what I'm like, I'm like, don't butch three, um, death, anti death penalty. So like these types of Christians, we actually exist. And I think that sometimes it is useful for political parties to pretend that we don't exist or they can criticized it as, this is just both sides and this is like the refusal to take a stand. This is not a refusal to take a stand. I'm saying this is what I believe. And there are very few social policy that you could put forward that I'm not willing to at least try and then say, OK, I've granted all of those things. Now, let's talk about the underlying moral issues. Or maybe we can cooperate on some of these social like ideas that we think are going to help the poor. But that doesn't mean that the other things that I'm concerned about is rooted in some kind of rampant bigotry. It's possible that I just simply disagree. And so when you when you're in those places and maybe what I'm hoping for in this moment is the kind of ethical courage to push into the nuance in the midst of cooperation. And maybe that's if we can do that, that may be a victory to me.
Speaker 3Before we move on, should we entertain the possibility that the polls are on and that on Thursday when people are listening to this, it turns out, oh, there wasn't a blue wave or maybe they took the House, but not the Senate. Yeah, that the Republicans did better than we anticipated. How would you respond to that?
Speaker 1I think the same thing. I think that, like, it's funny when people tend to turn to the sovereignty of God when their party loses. So, like, Jesus is only on the throne when your guys don't win. Like, oh, we lost, but Jesus still reigns. Or people say, and this is I'm sorry, I just like I'm so I'm already grumpy in the election. Or people will say, now that the election is over, let's put aside our divisions and come together. You just say that when your team won. You're tired of being divided after your team won. And so I think that what Tiz said earlier is the work remains. And I do think that, like, even if the Republicans win, the work remains. I am so I think that votes have consequences and policies matter, but nobody can bring in the kingdom of God. And so it's our job to bear witness. And if our job is the ongoing witness against the excess of this administration or the beginning of the critique and affirmation when necessary of whoever is in power. Then I think that's what we would have to do.
Speaker 3Should we go on to our next topic? OK. I don't have a good transition this time. OK. We're just we're going to talk about churches because you all are kind of high church people. Yes. You like fancy church sanctuaries and buildings and the smells and bells and all of that.
Speaker 1Well, everybody that you don't. Do you have incense?
Speaker 2Oh, yeah. OK. We have a lot. We have like a splash.
Speaker 1You get ponchos to people in the front row. It's so funny because I know that Tish isn't the senior pastor, but it's her husband. And I think Tish thinks there's too much. It does seem like it.
Speaker 2The Anglican word we're introducing. I know that not a lot of listeners, but my husband is higher on the candle than I am.
Speaker 3So she's going to she's going to post on Instagram a picture of her at a different church. And it's going to say this is the best smelling church I've ever been at.
Speaker 2He's a little more Anglo-Catholic. Just a little. But, you know, I got to tell you, you can
Speaker 1feel the tension.
Speaker 2I've been converted on the incense. I like love it. I mean, I do think there needs to be. There's like people with respiratory disorders that need a space to escape.
Speaker 3I love it. I just wish it was.
Speaker 1We may have to cut it out of the podcast. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 2Go ahead. I do love it. And my again, like with the way that our bodies disciple. That's my little boy, my little six year old. When they like the incense, he goes, it's the prayers of the saints rising to heaven. You like he like knows it. So he's his that his smell is a factory sense that was called is going to like make him think about prayer.
Speaker 1That's great. We may have to cut this out of the podcast. But we when we first rented our building, we rented it from the Methodist. And we didn't tell them that we were going to use incense because we didn't think about it. Like it was something that we so we were excited because I said we can have open flames because we were in a theater. And I said we can have open flames now. And that was great. And when he heard that, he thought he meant the torches that we walked in. No, I meant we can like do the incense. And so we had been meeting for like eight months, 12 months, for a year or whatever. You had that instance. So the first time I loaded it up, I like give me five scoops. It was like sitting like the Chicago. Kind of glory and they they worship after us and they walked in like, what did you do? And they had to open the doors to try to get the instance out before they started. So we had to reduce it so that it kind of dissipates by the time they get subtle.
Speaker 2But anyway, the same thing happened to us with the
Speaker 1Baptist, the Baptist. It's like, what are you doing? We're going to keep going. But nobody has it in their policy. You can't smoke us out. So go ahead. I'm sorry. All right.
Speaker 3DT has this great article by Rebecca Henderson. Goodbye, Sam's Club Mega Church. Hello, stained glass. And it features these two churches that recently did a renovation. And instead of a boxy and boring sanctuary, they built a sanctuary with pointed arches and ornate windows and stained glass and something that resembles a church out of the late 19th century rather than the 21st. And as they interviewed the pastors, they talked about one senior pastor said this, that. Worship Hall epitomizes truth, beauty and goodness coming together in a physical space. Biblical images and themes are nestled within the design, like carved waves at the entrance, reminding worshipers that the same God who parted the sea rescues us from sin and death. And so essentially the argument they're making is that, oh, their architecture is theology, that we are helping people. We are pointing people to God through the way we are designing these buildings. And it turns out they're not. This is becoming more popular. The studies are showing that people. Are having a desire for churches to look like churches that that right now there is a there is a new trend that people want these kind of high church practices and these high church looking buildings. Here's my question to you all. Do we think this is because, oh, high churches are inherently better, or at least in their architect, that this is this is objectively a better thing than the megachurch boxes? Or is this like fashion where there's just trends? And so this is popular now, and in 50 years, the big box churches will be popular again.
Speaker 1I'm going to try my best not to let my Anglican snobbery just take over and derail the podcast. I want to say that architecture often reflects our theology and different forms of theology can result in beautiful architecture. So historically, the reason they created the huge high ceilings with the soaring pillars and these things, they wouldn't. They wanted to look like heaven. And so the grandeur and the awe that you experience when you walked into a building was reflective of the glory of God. So even if you walk into those old churches and the altar was in the center, it was saying at the center of the church's worship, it's a celebration of the crucifixion, the resurrection, well, actually the Last Supper and communion that creates beauty. I also want to say there was a response to some of that at the Reformation, and maybe my one of my favorite versions of this is. There was a response to some of that at the Reformation, and maybe my one of my favorite versions of this is. What we had sometime during the rise of the megachurch movement, this is where I'm going to be slightly negative, is that the idea was that all of this religious accoutrement was off-putting to people, and it made it harder for people to kind of consider Christianity because for people who had never been in the church, those kinds of things are off-putting. And so they removed all of the things that felt like church from church architecture as a means of evangelism. And so the pragmatism of those spaces reflected the theology, even like this where people talk. They talk about the smoke and the light shows and the things that made it feel like a rock concert. That's because the theology was, if it is less off-putting to people, the people will like. It was more accessible. More accessible. So I think then, if I can put those three things out, what you're having is the generation of the people who were raised on that kind of church. Because the church does feel a little bit like the grocery store, because it was a grocery store. And those places that were built for consumption, it's kind of hard for the architects not to reflect that consumer mentality. And so there are people who are beginning to say in a culture where everything is changing all of the time, I want something that feels like church. And so they're almost nostalgic for something they never experienced. And so I do think that what you're having here is a response to a particular phenomenon that was happening in the United States, probably from like the 80s up through like today. And so I think that in that sense, if it is a turn towards reverence over commodification, and I'm not saying that every megachurch is commodifying. I got friends who pastor megachurches. They do good work. But that could be what we're seeing here. What do you think? Did I got it wrong, Tish?
Speaker 2No, I think I actually was like, oh, Esau and I are too similar to me on this podcast. Because the first thing I thought of was I was like, I'm going to bring up Gothic cathedrals and I'm going to bring up New England Protestant spaces. Because I love those New England, you know, congregation, Puritan kind of churches that are stark. And there is a beauty to that. But the thing they both have in common, so I was literally just going to say what you're going to say. But the thing that they have in common is that both of them are very intentionally thinking through the way that the architecture communicates their theology. Even things like the, the altar or the, the, yeah, the communion table was traditionally in, in medieval Catholic churches, the center. And, and then the pulpit was like off. Yeah. And then there's Anglican churches that intentionally fuse them that made the, the sacraments, like the baptismal literally. Attached to the pulpit to make this theological statement of you cannot separate word and sacrament. Like, and so what I'm saying is these, each of these traditions is making real intentional, thoughtful choices about how theology is communicated. They are also after beauty, like beauty itself is something that they were seeking. There was a movement in mid centuries. In the 19th century in the United States and, and other places where I, it's, it's two things. It's like evangelicals in particular stopped believing that, that theology is communicated through architecture. Yeah. I mean, deciding, Hey, we just want this to be a place that people feel like could be an office park. That's a theological statement about what a church is, but they're not thinking. About it theologically. And then secondly, the, there was a emphasis of pragmatism over beauty. And so there was, instead of wanting beauty, we need a place where we can have a screen so that we can have the, whatever, the cool new 1980s PowerPoint or, you know, slide projector that within 10 years is no longer the cool thing. But there was this pragmatism to it. Um, I mean, to. Some extent, and this would be, if I had a pushback on this, I mean, I, we, I don't think the church that we worship in is particularly beautiful. It's just a church that was kind enough to let us rent it for an affordable price. Um, and, and we're very, very grateful for them, but the, so there is, I mean, it is just more expensive to build the beautiful spaces and Gothic cathedrals and whether it's just expensive. And so that's the pushback that said, I mean, it, I don't think it's trendy or just fashionable that people want beauty. Like, um, I'm talking too long, but I'll share this one brief story is yesterday I was on a prayer retreat at a Catholic retreat center and they've been building this, uh, chapel there, this worship space there for like years. Like I've been going for years and I haven't, they've. It's been roped off and they've been building it. And I, so this is the first time I got to see it and I walked in and it's small, it's, um, simple by Catholic standards standards, which is not necessarily simple, but it's simple. And I walked in and just started crying just immediately. It was like, uh, my natural response to that space was just to be overwhelmed by beauty and to be drawn into worship and awe. So, you know, I. I think that's more than just fashion. I think that's like a human response to something transcendent and beautiful.
Speaker 1So I want to say, um, this is so funny cause I'm, I'm planning a church and this is not a fundraising project, but if anybody wants to give all saints, Nate, for being millions of dollars. After you
Speaker 2give Emmanuel Anglican and the two Anglican churches, because
Speaker 1I have said to our congregation so often that we want the theology of our liturgy reflected in this. And we believe in the evangelistic power of beauty. So I say to them, I point upwards and we said, we want big, I said, I want things that are beautiful just because the, when I started saying that, I had no idea how much that would cost, it is so expensive. And the reason I say that is because what you see is the kind of remnants of like the industrial boom into what is actually littering the landscape of America, especially as churches are coming into these places are all of these former. Grocery stores until as someone who's a pastor, we are, we're literally thinking right now is, can we, can I convince my congregation while talking about the evangelistic power of beauty for so long to embrace living in an office park for three to five years until we can afford to do something that's a little bit better. And so I do think that there is a value in one of the things that I've often said, and I genuinely believe this, I'm not a big fan of like legacies. I don't actually care about what people say after I'm gone. If Jesus, and like I treated my family. Well, and I love the Lord. That's fine. So I have no like concept, but what I do value is, and this is something that Tish might've been talking about when I go to a city and I go into the city and there's a beautiful piece of church architecture there and I can walk in there and pray. I feel a sense of gratitude to the Christians who added some beauty to the physical landscape. It's like a, it's like a marker and all that you ever need is like the right church to come back to one of those places. And that place comes back to life because of its beauty. And so I've often said that I hope that we can physically place beauty in a location as a testimony to the, to the glory of God, such that the God should linger people long after we're gone, even if it's a different denomination or tradition, they can come back there and find beauty. Let me say one more thing though, and this is kind of a pivot to what we were talking about earlier. I think there's something related to this turn towards beauty in architecture. It is related to the young people abandoning of the suburbs at the same time. If you think like the gender, like the, you know, if you think about parents or grandparents, the idea was let's move to a cul-de-sac. Remember the cul-de-sac was part of it, right? Cause you weren't a part of anything else. You're like off the streets. And so it was pretty safe and we're all isolated in our little homes and nobody, the kids who were there, they don't like it. And they all want to live in walkable communities with coffee shops in downtowns with brownstones. And so who can afford it? Obviously that's an expensive lifestyle, but gentrification is like, this was happening in Harlem now is they're like all the rich people are moving to Harlem because they want the Harlem aesthetic and they're pricing the people out. And so I do think that there is, as a part of this generation's kind of revolt against the commodification of everything where you can have a Starbucks, a Panera Bread, a Trader Joe's and a cul-de-sac. There are some people who find that way of life, not what they want in the mood to the city. And the architecture of the city is reflective of a spiritual longing that is happening in this moment that the church has an opportunity to capitalize on and effectively witness to.
Speaker 3Okay. Can the non-Anglican give his take? Okay. Give us your take. All right. Is this a safe space? It's not. If you're going to say Anglicans are
Speaker 1wrong, this is the place.
Speaker 2I think he's about to convert to Anglicans.
Speaker 1We have like, this podcast is secretly super Anglican. Well, I'm here. No, it's true.
Speaker 3Okay. I agree with like 97% of everything you all said. And I think it's to our detriment if we don't realize the impact our architecture can have on our theology. Yeah. And like, I just remember in college that all the freshmen, when they were deciding which churches they wanted to go to, it was pretty common that if you grew up in a high church setting, you were really attracted to the low churches near the college. And if you grew up in the low churches, you were really attracted to the high churches. So, oh, I grew up Reformed. Oh, the lights and the fog machines, that was cool. And those who grew up in those mega churches were like, oh, these kind of, this beautiful looking church with stained glass windows, like this is what church is. And I think, I just want us to acknowledge like, oh, every church model and denomination has a shadow side that like, even we can have this preference and recognize like, oh, there's a reason why churches started moving away from these kind of beautiful stained glass windows, these beautiful buildings. Besides just being wrong? There were real legitimate reasons. And sometimes I think we can trick ourselves into thinking that there is this like, it's almost like make Christianity great again, that there's this version of Christianity that like, oh, if we just went back to the early church model, if we just adopted these ancient church practices, if we just went back to beautiful sanctuaries, that will solve all of our problems. Yes. And the grass is not actually greener, that even in these other models that maybe they are objectively better, but they're not perfect.
Speaker 1Oh. I think, I think you might be hearing the positive side and we, we, we try to stay out of Ecclesial politics here, but me and Tish are definitely often grumpy about our tradition and the way that it kind of does things that we don't like. And we're often despairing of different things. So if you want to ask us, tell us 15 things that you don't like. And I do think that you're correct about this. And I don't know, this is where you want to go with this. There, evangelicals are very sensitive to the market. Yeah. And they tend. To like, if there's a strength of strength and weakness, evangelicalism, it is how they kind of can sense vibes and respond to it quickly. So I don't know if we're going to talk, are we going to talk about the prayer books now or later? Let's do it now. So for example. I think everybody's understanding that this kind of stuff and the Book of Common Prayer is becoming more popular. So what you're seeing in this moment is the production of a whole bunch of kind of pseudo, not pseudo, simplified or evangelicalized Books of Common Prayer that they kind of made for themselves. And you can also see it, and I try, we try to do our best here, right, to avoid like objectification and commenting on how people look because we feel like that's like a weird phenomenon. But you can even see it in the way that like, if you're talking about the architecture is one thing, like the way that pastors dress now in evangelicalism is different than the way that pastors dressed two decades ago. And not just in the sense of fashion changing, but like what is in the ascendancy. And so now there's kind of like, regardless, you think about when, what's the guy's name? Rick Warren. Like regardless where you look, you were, people are dressing in Hawaiian shirts, like they're from California. No matter where they are. And I think it's at least odd, worthy of note, that pastors from all over America are now dressing like they're in rural America and they're like down home. And so that aesthetic and that vibe, because it's popular basically in the Republican Party, has become to like dominate evangelical kind of dress as far as our clergy. And so you do see the ways in which, um, evangelicalism is sensitive to changes in the culture and changes in the mood. Because racial reconciliation was big under Obama. People were doing justice stuff. And then when Trump came, get rid of all of this wokeness. So I would imagine if there was like a blue wave and everybody moved to cities, we need to kind of, Tim Keller is going to be back popular again. And so I do think that there are all of the ways in which you see in architecture, in dress, in style, in liturgy, the responsiveness to like, the moods of the culture. And at its best, evangelicalism then is an agile tradition. At its worst, it's trendy. Yeah. And so you could criticize then the move towards liturgy as simply being trendy.
Speaker 3Exactly. And I just, I want like, what is the purpose of church? Well, it is to come together with a body of believers and worship God. And put on fancy. And put on, exactly. And like, you can do that. I'm not saying anything profound. Oh, you can do that in a big box church. And you can do that in a, in a beautiful sanctuary. Both will have an impact on you that it is, is good for you to be aware of the setting that you are worshiping in and the impact that setting can have on you. I 100% agree with that.
Speaker 1So Tish, do you believe that this is real or is this a trend?
Speaker 2So I just want to back up and say, I think it's evangelicalism in the United States. I mean, I'm talking about from Whitfield, like way back. Has been often market driven and trend driven. And I think it is, it's besetting sin. Yeah. I mean, one of it's besetting sins. And I worry about this. Like when we're talking about liturgy in general or spiritual practices, the spiritual formation movement. And I very much think I am, I am part of this. I am. I mean, my first book, Liturgy of the Ordinary, I remember. Get it.
Speaker 1Wherever books are sold.
Speaker 2They came to me, IVP. I pitched a title that had liturgy in it. And they came to me and said, we really liked the book. We'd like to you to write the book for us, but you can't call it liturgy because evangelicals won't buy it. And then I wrote the book. And this is because this is the book's old now. It's like, but I wrote the book. And I gave them a thousand other, titles to choose from. And they came back and said, what do you think of Liturgy of the Ordinary? Which was almost exactly the title I first pitched. And I said, well, that's great, but you told me we can't have liturgy in it. And they said, well, we talked to the marketing team and they're all younger and hipper than us. And they told us that evangelicals like liturgy now. And I was like, well, this is great for me because that's what the book's about. But there is a sense. So I know I'm part of this and, but I mean, I promise I am not doing this to, to just promote my latest book. I promise. Part of the reason that I wrote what grows and weary lands is I wanted to introduce the notion of stability itself as a practice, because I worry that when we have this conversation around practices, whether it's prayer or Sabbath or liturgy, or, you know, any of this aesthetics in a consumeristic culture and market, it, it consumers and meets everything. Even the notion of like ancient faith. And so I worry that Thomas McKenzie, a former priest of mine, when, when he first introduced me to Advent, which I was not from a liturgical background, he said, Advent's really trendy now, but 10 years from now, it won't be anymore. And we'll still be keeping Advent. Like we have to. And so I, I worry that we see these practices as magic. Like liturgy doesn't change you magically. I mean, all of a sudden, all of us can look at all kinds of people who grew up in liturgical churches, whose life isn't appears that there's not a lot of fruit or that they're not walking with Jesus or whatever. So it's not this magic thing. It's a cumulative thing over time that forms us. And so I want, I, I wanted to push, I wanted to bring the idea of stability of like, of a cumulative relationship, with these practices as a training over a lifetime, not, not something that it will not work. If it's just a trend, if it's like the new thing that you're doing and next week, there'll be something else and a new prayer app or whatever. And so I think that we have to resist that at. Yeah. I also want to say about the architecture thing and all of this to pull out my Calvin and be really reformed. I really do believe our hearts are idol makers. And so you can make, an idol out of architecture, just like you can make an idol out of pragmatism and churches, not being beautiful. And so none of this is like the hope of the church. Jesus is the hope of the church. And that doesn't mean none of this matters because I actually do think, I think we're formed by all of it.
Speaker 3Do we think we should call a tissue's new blog on the holy post sub stack, the sub stack of the ordinary. Would that be good?
Speaker 1Why don't you allow, I mean, thank you. Yeah. They say, they say you do the compliment sandwich, you know, like, thank you for trying to help. We're going to let the writers do the right. Okay. Okay. You keep trying to try and I'll keep, but here's the thing. Here's the thing that will humble us. Maybe we'll close on this. It's funny because I think there's this weird thing that we actually, and I want to make sure I say this. Well, Anglicans believe that the church exists wherever the gospel is rightly preached in the sacraments are rightly administered. That means he says that any church that preaches the gospel, they'll people how to meet Jesus gives communion and baptizes. That's the church. So if you're Baptist, you Lutheran, your Methodist, your Anglican, we all think of you as a church, which is good because the vast majority of Christians in America do not go to liturgical churches. So like 95%, I know what the number is. 95% of people in on the Protestant side, right? If you had to say how many Protestants are engaging in the kinds of practices and have that kind of architecture, it's a really small percentage. And we can sometimes, because we're a literary tradition. And so we write articles saying that our stuff is popular. But the vast majority of Christians in America go to Mecca churches. They go to churches that are a vast majority significant number of Christians go to churches that were a thousand members. And these are people who, for whatever you might want to say about this mega church pastor here, most pastors, I would say are just simply trying to love their people. Well, care for them, disciple them and leave them as best they can. And so I don't want to get myself in the position where I want to say my little niche corner of Christianity does it wrong in? I don't want to say that any church that is bigger than my church, which is almost all of them, or any church that does the literature differently than us, that is all of them, including your church. Your church is both bigger and non-liturgical. And I want to say that you and your family can meet and grow in the likeness of Jesus without adopting these things. And as she said, simply adopting these things isn't a guarantee of spiritual growth. Yeah. And the exact same way, I think that's what we're talking about. And I think that's what we're talking about. And I wanted to say also, Tish, it has been great to have you back on the podcast. We miss you. And we're on the road to 2,000 likes and reviews. We're at like 1,155. And so if everybody's listening right now, every single person listening to this podcast, and you made it this far, liked it, we'd be at 1,000 by Friday. So help us to 2,000 by Friday. So help us on our road to 2,000 likes and reviews.
Speaker 3And become a free subscriber. Subscribe to the Holy Post sub stack so you don't miss Tish's first article, which I don't know when it's coming.
Speaker 1It's coming soon. Like a thief in the night. It's going to be like, it's going to be flashing hot.
Speaker 2I don't even know. I don't know when it's coming.
Speaker 1And we will see you all next week. The Issa Macaulay Podcast is a production of Holy Post Media, produced by Mike Stalo Stralo. If you know, now you know. Edited by Seth Gorvette, like a Corvette. Music by Rob Knorr. Make sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review so more people can find it. See you next time. I'm out. you
PodcastTranscript AI