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Ep. 201 – We Can’t Build a Better World by Killing Other People’s Children w/ Shane Claiborne
329 Plays3 months ago
This week we’re happy to welcome back author, activist, and Christian thought leader Shane Claiborne! Shane is one of the founding members of The Simple Way, a non-profit serving people in some of the poorest communities in Philadelphia, as well as Red Letter Christians, an organization that promotes a progressive Biblical view on issues such as social justice, nonviolence, and human rights. Our previous episode with Shane focused on the culture of gun violence in America, but he joins us this week to discuss the principles of nonviolence, the triviality and horrific realities of war, dehumanization, and the ways in which American Christianity has perverted a Biblical perspective on conflict. We really appreciate Shane’s commitment to these principles and the good work that he’s done over the course of his career. For more information and links to his socials, visit www.shaneclaiborne.com!
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Transcript
Experiencing Shock and Awe in Iraq
00:00:00
Speaker
I felt very called and moved to go to Iraq on a peace delegation, but then that became bigger. It was veterans that were against the war. There were ah nurses and doctors, and it became known as the Iraq peace team. and We didn't know exactly what how things would unfold, but I happened to be there. It was March of 2003.
00:00:22
Speaker
So that's when ah what was known then as the shock and awe campaign, the United States and the coalition troops dropped over 900 bombs a day on Baghdad while we were there. And I mean, you know, that just shaped me. I saw the most horrific things I've ever seen in my life and and also came away with um and even even more deeply ah profound resolve that violence doesn't solve the problem of violence. It just kind of adds new fuel to the fire.
Introduction of Shane Claiborne
00:01:17
Speaker
Hey everybody, we are back with another episode of Growing Up. Christian, I'm Sam. I'm Casey. And we are joined today by our guest, Shane Claiborne. Returning guest. We're back at it. Good to be with y'all. You're a two-timer now. That's usually a bad thing, so we'll rephrase that.
Cultural Implications of Hairstyles
00:01:35
Speaker
I have a question real quick before we get into anything serious. I guess this is kind of serious. Oh, we're getting serious. Watching a couple of clips. You had dreadlocks back in the day. And Sam had dreadlocks back in the day. I have a feeling those two things are linked. And did you ever think about the, ah you know, the consequences of your actions and how that would trickle down to, ah you know, an influenceable audience like Sam?
00:02:04
Speaker
yeah ah You know, i but don't I try not to think a lot about my hair, which is how I ended up with dreadlocks to start with, but then yeah after 10 years, um I didn't really think through it too much. I was actually, it's just related to some of the things we're talking about. I was going over to the Middle East and um ah they told me just culturally it'd be a little better to cut off my hair, which was down to my buttocks at the time, you know? And so, um I just cut it all off and never missed it too much. More aerodynamic. I missed the sleeping pill on the airplane. Sam, you got the little, but nah, it's all right. Even though you could find a ah rock and make it comfy outside, it doesn't matter.
00:02:50
Speaker
I about that part of it. i I think I cut mine at the right time, Shane, because I think for a while it was just people didn't think too much of it, but there was a zeitgeist shift, and then there became conversations around cultural appropriation. So I like feel like I dodged that. ah No one's given me a hard time for it. but ah It just, it's easy. This is easier. Easier, yeah. Of that of the the serious conversations and controversies you want to be a part of, dreadlocks are probably not making the top of the list. Yeah. why Casey, if you had told me we were going to talk about dreadlocks, I might not have come on the podcast again, but ah I'm just kidding with you. now talking That's the thing that finally gets you canceled. Yeah.
00:03:41
Speaker
And it's funny because a lot of like the promo pics that are like that people post that go around is still some older pics, man. I mean, it once it's on the internet, man, it must be true. It must be eternal. Yeah. You sure you don't make them do it because you don't want people to see that you've aged? Is that?
00:04:00
Speaker
that's that's Use this photo of me from 15 years ago. It's very Mossad of you. oh yeah so i was the I was watching some some old interviews
Reflections on Pacifism and Nonviolence
00:04:14
Speaker
and stuff with you. and ah man as The last couple of years have just been like this just crazy escalation all over the world. And you're one of the people that I i just comes to mind immediately as like, uh, you know, God, who out there can make a good case for like pacifism or anti-war. It seems like there's just a vacuum out there. Like there's just nobody really talking about that in the, in the mainstream and it's puzzling.
00:04:51
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think we there's a rich there's a rich tradition of nonviolence that we we have to keep unearthing, I think. you know ah but so I mean, I'm i'm a obviously a disciple and student of the sweet Lord Jesus, the Prince of Peace. and i you know But also I've learned so much from Dr. King and um you know Gandhi and Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero. I mean, there's so many like champions and nonviolence. ah ah So yeah, we're in we're in good company over the centuries as we we pursue alternatives to violence and refuse to kill.
00:05:35
Speaker
i I feel like what's notable about the conversation around this, you know, even throughout my years, ah fluctuating in and out of different types of Christianity, like that one was always ah That idea was always controversial, it maybe be more so than some of the other things that you would have you would expect to have been more ah part of maybe everyday life. right like You go to your church and you get quite accustomed to like your vernacular and your norms. and um I just feel like having any conversation around nonviolence or pacifism, which are different,
00:06:17
Speaker
um was one of the least welcome conversations um or the the most fought again. like It was like it made made me feel 12 again. you know like When you're talking to like a church elder and they just tell you why you're wrong. it's just You just feel small when you like like you're just some idealist um who doesn't get it. you know I feel like that's the way it's often treated. and it's like You might as well be a libertarian being like, you know the Federal Reserve isn't federal at all, right?
00:06:51
Speaker
I mean, there's definitely something about idolatry, you know, and I think guns and as the old scripture says, some may trust in troiot chariots and some may trust in horses. And I think we've come to trust in um ah really idealize and, and the you know, guns, the flag, a lot of things that are, um you know, replace God and and what we put our trust in for sure. I think one of the things that also stands out about you, though, is ah you're very much in across the aisle. Like, so, I mean, your beliefs and and where you stand are is quite evident. um But I think it doesn't make
00:07:38
Speaker
It's not making people who don't share those views uncomfortable if they align with you your purposes. You know what I mean? Well, that's really kind of you. I mean, part of what I try to do, I think there's like ways that you relate and connect with different types of people. I mean, I can have a conversation around, um you know, what's happening in Gaza with someone that's not a Christian. But I also think we have common ground with folks that are Christian to talk about violence and to, um ah I mean, things like the death penalty. and And I mean, even like you said, people, people
00:08:19
Speaker
have a hard time with nonviolence. And even Jesus's own disciples had a hard time with it. They wanted to bring down fire from heaven on some folk, you know, they wanted to, Peter picked up his sword to try to stand his ground. Hallelujah. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of in us. it's It's in the world we live in. This goes all the way back to the ah original sin in the Garden of Eden. One of the first things that happened outside the Garden of Eden was Cain and Abel, you know, somebody killing their own brother.
00:08:48
Speaker
So Peter had a real Rittenhouse moment.
00:08:55
Speaker
what What is that? Kyle Rittenhouse. I'm not sure. Who's that kid that like? I know who he was. Yeah. OK. OK. No, I don't know. It was a bad joke. Casey makes fun equivalencies here and there. Not all of his jokes land. It's it's one of them his most in the air qualities. Yeah. works What, um, so yeah you were pretty involved in like protests going on during the, the lead up to the Iraq war, right? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Uh, sure.
From Bible Belt to Nonviolence
00:09:35
Speaker
Well, I mean, the backdrop of this is I grew up, uh,
00:09:38
Speaker
You know, in the Bible Belt in Tennessee, my dad was in Vietnam and all, I mean, all my family are gun owners. So, and I grew up really comfortable with God and guns and flagging country, you know, and next to my faith. and um um But the the the deeper I fell in love with Jesus, the more I, it became impossible to reconcile violence with ah my faith. and um But when, when the war happened, I mean, when, when, i so 9-11 happened, you know, I mean, this terrible event, over 3000 lives taken, and everybody's dealing with their outrage, their pain, their grief, ah their fear. And I can remember one thing that happened in Philly is someone hung a banner from City Hall, you know, our iconic building downtown that said, let's kill them all and let God sort them out.
00:10:38
Speaker
So there were those really terrible expressions. ah you know But then I remember hearing about another group, which was became known as the Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. And that group lost their immediate loved ones in 9-11. So these are spouses, you know parents.
00:10:57
Speaker
parents that lost their children. And they got together as a support group originally to grieve and and just recover, support each other. And then they saw the response of the violence and the war and their kind of mantra became our grief is not a cry for war.
00:11:18
Speaker
And I found that really powerful part of the credibility of their witness. I mean, these are the people directly impacted and whose names, you know, we're kind of doing all the the war. um But yeah, I got a call. I'd heard that some of them had gone on delegations to Iraq and Afghanistan to um be peacemakers to tear down the walls of hostility. They came back with these incredible stories of folks in Iraq that had given them presents to bring back to the other ah victims of 9-11. So that all looked really holy. And it looked like the kind of stuff that heals the wounds of violence oh that that refuses to kind of mirror the violence. And um
00:12:05
Speaker
And so a group of Christians in particular had felt very called and moved to go to Iraq on a peace delegation, but then that became bigger. It was veterans that were against the war. There were ah nurses and doctors, and it became known as the Iraq peace team.
00:12:23
Speaker
And we didn't know exactly what how things would unfold, but I happened to be there. It was March of 2003. So that's when what was known then as the shock and awe campaign, the United States and the coalition troops dropped over 900 bombs a day on Baghdad while we were there.
00:12:44
Speaker
And I mean, you know that just shaped me. I saw the most horrific things I've ever seen in my life. And and also came away with an even more deeply ah profound resolve that violence doesn't solve the problem of violence. It just kind of adds new fuel to the fire. So there's a million things that happened in the you know just a few weeks that we were there. But ah certainly,
00:13:13
Speaker
my own commitment to nonviolence and the conviction that, ah you know, we're not going to build a better world by killing other people's children um was was, you know, ah kind of hit me hard over there. I think what's ah interesting right now, because I mean, since the Iraq war, like, obviously, we've just had our involvements overseas. But I mean, the the escalations that have taken place between Israel and not even just Gaza at this point um is ever I mean, everyone's, I think 80% of the comments I have probably seen lately is just like, can we just get World War III started already so we can try to move past it? like There's like this bleak, grim outlook on where things are going, and it feels like this like hype for war, not hype is probably the wrong word, but like this like attunement towards it right now is ah reminiscent of what
00:14:12
Speaker
We were looking at back when we first invaded Iraq, which there was obviously a lot of support for being post 9-11 until everyone kind of was like, actually, this now that I'm seeing how this plays out, it looks kind of shitty. um So maybe we'll see some of that ah this time around. But all that to say,
00:14:31
Speaker
um
00:14:35
Speaker
with your involvement and with doing what you and your teams and the teams that you were involved in were doing ah during the war in Iraq. And then I so obviously have seen you have a ah lot to say about what's going on now. And do you feel like there's, um do you feel similarly like that there's like this expectation that things are all gonna go to hell soon or are you seeing something different?
00:15:03
Speaker
There's a lot of things to kind of unpack in that. And and um ah one of the things I would say is, yeah, when we look back, I mean, we look back at ah the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I mean, especially folks that weren't even born then are absolutely baffled, right? Because you go, whoa, whoa, wait, we know almost all the people who hijacked the planes were actually from Saudi Arabia, but the US just absolutely decimated Iraq and then Afghanistan and still sells weapons to Saudi Arabia. yeah None of this makes any sense, right? um Not only that, but the you know as you really take a look at history, the United States helped establish Saddam Hussein in power and gave him the 60-belt helicopters that he used to gas the Kurds. So when I was in Iraq, people were like, you know, we have some weapons because you've got the receipts.
00:15:58
Speaker
you know and And so there's a part of this that's like, yeah, there are people excited about war because they make a crud load of money off of it, right? Like companies like locku Lockheed Martin and Boeing, um these are the places that that love war because it's it's their stocks fly up. And that might sound a little glim, but you know it was, I think Henry Ford that said, if you want to know how to stop violence, figure out who's profiting from it. And literally this war,
00:16:25
Speaker
if you want to call that. I mean, I think it's it's it's much more complicated than that. But the occupation, the genocide in Gaza is ah being funded and sustained by the United States. So we can't really just call it Israel's war. It's the United States and Israel's war. And we're providing the weapons. And 9-11 is actually a helpful comparison, too, because people have called October 7.
00:16:53
Speaker
um You know, Israel's 9-11. That's all the more reason to like step back critically and think about this, right? like um right Because we we responded to the terrible event. No one is defending 9-11, right? like ah But we responded to that by killing tens of thousands of people and certainly not making the world safer.
00:17:17
Speaker
um I mean, I even had soldiers that were on inactive duty in Iraq that said, I went there because I thought i I was told I was getting rid of terrorism, but it was very clear that we were creating it, right that we were just adding right justification
Parallels Between 9/11 and Current Conflicts
00:17:34
Speaker
for hatred. right um and and and terrorizing young people that are growing up with this expression of the United States and Christianity, right the theology that's baptizing these bombs. So our faith is also on the line. That's what I felt from many Iraqi Christians right that are like, how in the world is the Christian church not
00:17:58
Speaker
against this war. Why aren't you going to jail, you know, like standing in front of the tanks? And in a sense, I was like, that's why I'm here. You know, we're risking 12 years in prison being here. But anyway, um you know, like that. um But you look at that, and then you fast forward October 7, and you go, every single person says that is evil and wrong. I don't know anyone.
00:18:18
Speaker
um especially that claims to be Christian, that is going to try to defend Hamas's attack on you know on on October 7th. We have to be outraged. And we were. You know, at Red Letter Christians, on all my social media, we grieved those 1,200 lives lost. When I walked through the Tel Aviv airport a few weeks ago, ah you know I just started bawling because you look at all those the faces of the hostages and the trauma of their families. And yet,
00:18:47
Speaker
Two wrongs don't make a right, right? Like we that that pain became became transmitted and in and new expressions of evil and violence, unimaginable. I mean, it's it's just the the bombing of shelters and hospitals and churches and mosques and refugee camps and schools. Yeah, all of it, right? So what I do know,
00:19:14
Speaker
is no one and you know I don't know people defending Hamas, but I know a whole lot of people that are trying to defend Israel and that have a theology that justifies that, that have um sort of theories and philosophies of of like even just war theory that they're trying to kind of twist. And I don't think even the most ah robust,
00:19:40
Speaker
ideas of theology like just war theory can even remotely ah tried to defend the things that we're seeing in in Gaza right now, the forced starvation of folks, killing thousands and thousands of of of children and women. um So, you know, we can have boundless compassion for Israeli lives and also insist that every Palestinian life is just as much made in the image of God. um so So that's why I'm so grieved is that we
00:20:14
Speaker
You know, you look at 9-11, we haven't learned anything, you know, and and and I think especially for Christians, um we we have this idea that we we've, you know, as Jesus said, you've heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you this, you know, there's a better way. You don't have to return harm for harm as scripture says, you can repay ah evil with good. So I think that's, um as a Christian, I don't think there's any way to justify the violence of Israel.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah. Go ahead, Casey. Well, I i think i what what's scares me about both this this conflict and i think like the I think the perception a lot of times is that like you know the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was largely like a right wing movement.
00:21:12
Speaker
But it really wasn't. I mean, we we tend to really come together both sides of the aisle when it comes to killing people in other places.
Dehumanization in Conflicts
00:21:20
Speaker
And I feel like the same things can be said for the the you know support for Israel during all of this. But I think whether you you know you look at like – I guess – more so people on the right side of the aisle when it comes to, you know, Hamas and Hezbollah and and Iran, and then people on the left side of the aisle when it comes to Russia, you know, and the Ukraine war. What's scary to me is like though the level of dehumanization that we're just prone to indulging. And I i feel like that's not a Christian problem. That's a people problem.
00:21:59
Speaker
that I don't know what the answer is to it because I think a lot of the the ugly things that you see said about um you know Hamas and Hezbollah, quote unquote, you know which I mean – Some people are more than happy to categorize anyone in Gaza as Hamas, you know but also on you know on the other side of the aisle, the way that they view Russia. I mean, go look at a ah post on like northern provisions or something that you know it's a it's a ah tiny drone you know dropping a payload on ah a couple of Russian soldiers cooking dinner next to a fire.
00:22:33
Speaker
And just the most disgusting things in the comments coming from people who I think are I think a lot of them are opposed to what's going on in in in gaza I don't know. It just seems like it's a symptom that that It it does it's not bound by those those political boundaries like ah we sometimes think they are Well, certainly our our infatuation with violence is not a partisan problem. um I mean, I think on so many fronts, I mean, just look at militarism in the military budget. ah Obama raised the military budget before him, um and then you know um ah Trump raised the military budget ah before him, and Biden raised the military budget ah before him. So, you know,
00:23:24
Speaker
we we Democrat, Republican, they um are all um spending more and more billions of dollars on military and on the idea that um that violence is is is the solution. so you know Dr. King is such a powerful voice when he says,
00:23:43
Speaker
Uh, we tell our young people violence won't solve your problems, you know, uh, but then they ask us, why does our government use massive doses of violence to try to bring the change that it wants? And and Dr. King said, you know, you can't do both. you If we're going to, you know,
00:23:59
Speaker
Call out the the violence of our young people we've got to equally call out the violence of our government and he called America the greatest purveyor of Violence in the world and I don't think he was exaggerating then and I think you would say it all the more now um We've dealt weapons all over the world 150 countries have had arms contracts with US companies like Lockheed Martin so you know, it's it's this it's kind of like And then they say they're upset when they use them. you know It's like if i'm I'm selling guns to all the young people in my neighborhood and I'm like, don't shoot each other. you know or We're really mad that you killed someone, you know but if you need any more guns, we got some back here. I mean, that's exactly what the US is doing. you know um so
00:24:43
Speaker
ah Yeah, that that's that's I think what a lot of the on-looking world sees too. It's not just with that, it's with the death penalty, it's with our gun violence. um And they're you know there's a cultural violence, there's violence in media and all that stuff. but unique the the ah There is a certain exceptionalism to actually use deliberately use that word about America. um And that's not the good exceptionalism that some people think of, but our our addiction to violence, you know, and it goes back to the very founding of our country. Can we actually imagine America
00:25:20
Speaker
without guns? You know, how do you take other people's land and subjugate, you know, enslaved people you took from their countries? And so I think we've got to reckon with that, that um kind of the the blood that cries out to God from the ground, as scripture says. Okay, I think one of the things that sits in the back of my mind a lot, and has over the years, and is more prevalent now whenever something like Um, like what we're talking about now is in play, right? Where there's a ah big divide, um, between maybe not that big right now, but anyway, when you can divide, like when you can kind of just assume and divide up like Christian group think, right? So I feel like, you know, there's just that stand with Israel type of theology that a lot of us grew up with. Um, and.
00:26:19
Speaker
i I guess what I find challenging and frustrating and and hard to communicate with people because i I do try, I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, right? I want to assume that they're an honest player in a conversation if it's a real if you're having that conversation. Obviously, Facebook doesn't count, things like that. um It's inflammatory. but when
00:26:40
Speaker
When you think of like your faith and how it informs your belief, ah that's something I can identify with too. My shift in my beliefs was based on an evolving understanding of of my faith at that time in my life. And now that, I mean, that was 15 years ago, I guess, but And now I have a hard time identifying with that same faith. It doesn't feel like a good descriptor of anything or anyone just because of what that word could just mean so much, right? So it doesn't have a lot of meaning for me anymore. But I think where I find myself getting a little like tripped up is
00:27:24
Speaker
The Bible is a big book with some various opinions and voices within it. And when you see so many Christians fall in line with what seems to be clearly bad theology, um and i would just as I would say that that bat that's it's clearly bad theology because of what, and i obviously the outcome is just calling everyone in Gaza a terrorist and endlessly supporting Israel's quote unquote right to defend themselves, right? You see that.
00:27:53
Speaker
And it feels like it almost feels like it's you could say that their belief the beliefs that they have and their dispositions that they have politically are more informed, um inform their faith and their reading of their scriptures than the faith does inform their beliefs. And that was a big part of why I felt like I couldn't i can't really identify with the a word that is so malleable um and inconsistent. And I'm just curious as to like, cause you're pressing up against these people and and having these conversations with people in Christianity more than I am at this point, especially. So I'm just curious your take on that and like where you see, like in how you see people's faith informing their beliefs or you know the other way around.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, so the the the thing that I you know i sometimes think about is like, If I, if I go, I was going to name a band, but I won't name a band, but I was going to say, like, if you go to a concert, just no.
00:29:06
Speaker
Okay. We, we get, we get a, I have a skillet story actually, but I'm not going to tell you right now, but anyway, like oh my god anyway, i'm writing yeah asking let's just say um, hypothetically, you go to a really bad concert, right? I mean, really bad. but still skill it That doesn't mean you walk away and go, man, I never want to listen to music again. I mean, you might feel like that for a minute, right? Or you might feel like that for a while. but Or you might feel like that over and over if you keep going to the same concert or if you keep going to um the same genre.
00:29:44
Speaker
I was gonna say country music, but there's good country music. I love Dolly Parton, right? So anyway, if you don't get outside of that little world, then you never experience all the beautiful music. And I think Christianity is a little bit like that. And seriously, white evangelicalism, to be very specific, white American, US evangelicalism, has disproportionately kind of colonized the whole spiritual landscape. And that's because some people are really loud. They got big megaphones. They act like they represent all of Christianity. And then as you get outside of that white evangelical world a little bit, there's something much more beautiful and much deeper. And for instance,
00:30:28
Speaker
When I go over to Palestine, when I'm when i'm in the West Bank, like with ah there's a powerful conference called Christ at the Checkpoint that celebrates all these incredible Palestinian Christian leaders and theologians. And I mean, I've got chill bumps in my arm just talking about it. it's It's this ancient, beautiful faith. It's rooted in nonviolence. It's centered around Jesus. It's also um deeply um ah the whole worldview is occupation and living under the the the foot of empire, right? um and And then Munther came here, Munther visited us in Philly and he offered to baptize our baby, Elijah, you know? And I'm like, that's the kind of faith I want him to see, right? I want him to experience that. Not only is it like really old going all the way back to the sweet Lord Jesus, like born in Bethlehem, that's where Munther
00:31:24
Speaker
you know, pastors, but it's it's holistic, right? it' It holds things together that the U.S. church has kind of dissected and created these false binaries and, you know, it's it's just we weve we've we've exported some of that too. So it's not that it's just here, like we kind of commercialized that and exported a certain really toxic version of Christianity. But one of my friends says like the answer to bad theology isn't no theology, it's good theology. And that's why you know we keep amplifying all these really beautiful voices at at the Red Letter Christians, you know our little movement that we we we celebrate these really um powerful, diverse voices. um But where you sit, the old saying goes, where you sit determines what you see.
00:32:15
Speaker
And we have become far too accustomed to listen to voices of privilege and specifically of white dudes, you know, that are framing a certain narrative and even a certain priorities of which issues matter and which ones don't. ah But when you listen to other voices outside of um the white dudes, there's some amazing, amazing stuff. And that's where I'm leaning into these days. Which is something I I agree with that largely. I agree with the fact that there are beautiful expressions of Christianity. I don't feel like i don't want that's so i don't i definitely don't take like umbrage with the idea of being Christian. it's just the the word is you know if you go like If you're trying to describe something with a word, that word should have some way of indicating what
00:33:08
Speaker
maybe what you are, right? yeah I'm a metalhead, everyone knows what that means, right? But you go, I'm a Christian, and everyone's just like, that's the most useless information I could have gathered from you. Because it could literally mean anything across a spectrum of belief that fits into any political category or camp, any social category. like it just is see It feels like it's like the word has just diminished to the point where it means nothing. And that's, I guess, what I'm... ah Call me one, don't call me one. It just doesn't matter. because people i mean i I think that's what's interesting and challenging. kind of like ah you know i'm i'm i'm I'm not here to try to...
00:33:49
Speaker
Chris and you or something, man. I'm just, I think it like the music thing is is interesting though, because um I mean, you know, maybe you go to a skillet concert or Nickelback or something, you're like, that's not music, that's just noise, you know? Or you go to Milli Vanilli and you're like, that's not actually your lip syncing, dude. You know, like, ah whatever. You know, but I think like, what I would say is, i' I'm not ready and to concede that. I'm not really interested. I'm not, I'm not, um I don't want to give Franklin Graham the power to colonize and hijack ah label the label of Christian. Yeah. That makes sense to me. That word I'm less concerned about, like even though it means the good news, it's the heart of the gospel. The word evangelical um to me is much clunkier, so I might be in a similar place to you, Sam, on that. you know like But Christian means Christ-like.
00:34:45
Speaker
And I do like qualifying it. That's why we like the language, red letter Christians. Cause you know, of the words of Jesus in red, we're saying we're we're not the January six kind of Christians, you know, we're the love your enemy, like red letter, like let's live out the sermon on the mountain kind. um But then I go to somewhere like, when I'm at Bethlehem Bible College in the West Bank, I'm like, this is this is what it is. you know This is beautiful. So I want everybody to experience that. I want folks to see the historic black church that like really only started because white folks excluded them. They didn't set out to be a homogenous church. you know They set set out to be a church for everyone. But they survived.
00:35:25
Speaker
the twisting of scripture to to like do terrible things, including justifying slavery and racial terrorism, you know lynching and all this by Christians that were, or folks, ah the um one of the folks that was with Christopher Columbus used the language, pretending to be Christians, because he said that colonizers were pretending to be Christians, like Christopher Columbus. um So I think there's a lot of people pretending to be Christians.
00:35:52
Speaker
But, you know, as Jesus said, a tree is known by its fruit and an apple tree doesn't need a sign to tell you, you know, and somebody can be like, they can look at an apple tree and be like, oh, that's an orange tree, you know, or whatever. You're like, no, I know that, that's an apple tree, you know? So, yeah. um On the other side of that metaphor, you could hate the particular kind of fruit growing on that tree while other people love it.
00:36:18
Speaker
So that's you can only eat the leaves too go in a lot of different directions But I get it I do you think uh, go ahead kasey well, so there's they're absolutely point taken about um pretend christians and it's funny like uh So there's a lady that I follow on on instagram and I can't remember what her name is But she pops up once in a while. She popped up last night on there. And she's like kneeling somewhere. She's got a real strange red hair that's like parted down the middle. And she's like, I want to pray for the ears out there. If you are suffering from ear infections, ear rake, excessive ear hair, ear wax buildup, I rebuke that wax buildup and I and i command it to be gone in the name of Jesus. and
00:37:11
Speaker
She's always got like a real specific like thing that she's pointed at that she's like trying to heal through, uh, you know, ah Instagram real real on a broad scale. And I, I feel like it's a stupid example, but like, it feels like a lot of the Christianity, like that we're talking about, like the pretend Christian deal is very like self centered.
00:37:37
Speaker
Like most of what we're really concerned about, it's either very centered around me and my experience and how I'm getting around in the world, or it's like, you know, tangentially centered around like a very abstract problem that doesn't really actually affect you. Like, you know, people who are, abortion is their most important thing and that dictates everything that they care about and vote for. Not to say that you shouldn't, you know, that it's not important or whatever, but Is the, do you think that there is there, cause we're also watching the church numbers fall, right? Broadly for a long time. Is there fulfillment to be found in fake Christianity? Well, so first of all, I think like when it comes to miracles and stuff, I kind of feel like I don't want to go on record to say, I believe in that stuff. I believe in like healing and.
00:38:33
Speaker
things that are God uses that are supernatural and transcendent. I've even experienced ah some of that. I don't even doubt that some televangelists and wild Instagram folks may have started with a genuine authentic miraculous encounter that became exploited or um It became the focus rather than God or whatever, you know, I mean, I think there's all kinds of things that people like we we One of my friends said if you want to see miracles, then you should pray that you would be safe For God to trust with that to see those kinds of things so I mean there's just a few times in my life where I felt like I've experienced that but I mean I was an event in Europe and I
00:39:19
Speaker
ah something happened you know i and and people started flooding the altar and there was all these prayers and one after another there were people telling stories of being healed from different things and I can't explain it. I mean some of it may even made me uncomfortable when this young woman that said she was you know ah um did self-harm she had all these scars on her arm and she said I came forward and prayed and they they disappeared. I don't I mean, what do you do with that? What do you do with the person next to her that didn't have the same experience? You know, those are things that like, I just kind of step back. And I mean, this other dude, he's a barber now, but he was a punk rocker, anarchist, like crazy, you know, like out out ah using a lot of drugs. He said, I could never, i never in my life, I wasn't able to use my um arm.
00:40:06
Speaker
And then I had this really powerful moment with God that I got healed. And he said, I started being able to move my arm for the first time. And that's when I knew I was called to be a barber because it's kind of even better than a pastor. I get to cut people's hair and I get to listen to them. And we're not talking about a guy with clown tattoos, are we?
00:40:24
Speaker
what Okay, good barber. Yeah, we're safe. That story it was is incredible. You know, I can't explain what happened to us. You know, I mean, ah so anyway, i I leave a lot of room for um The transcendent, you know some some would say it the mystical to happen um And I think part of the problem with a lot of the constructs that we have for God is that they're just too small you know a lot of people I mean if your only theology has been so constrictive that a 12 year old girl gets raped and you're like
00:41:02
Speaker
God must have had that happen for a reason. like That's really messed up theology. yeah And so I really grateful that people began to reject that. But as I listen to a lot of people deconstructing, sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes I go, oh, you didn't you didn't reject Christianity. You just rejected Calvinism.
00:41:22
Speaker
And I'm with you on that. Like, let's have a better, bigger theology that, you know, for me, I think God works through the cracks of everything. And there's room for people to do really, really terrible things um ah like David and Bathsheba. David raped Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah killed.
00:41:40
Speaker
that that wasn't God's will. you know That was David's like womanizing, and getting real whacked out. you know and so like But God worked through the cracks of that, and actually the lineage that leads up to Jesus comes out of that. you know So I think um that that's kind of my... you know One of my theological... I don't don't really have my own theological brand or anything, but I do think God works... You haven't put out a systematic theology book yet, Shane?
00:42:05
Speaker
I think part part of the problem is the systematic beyond. It's the certainty, right? It's like, God's got to be this way because this is how I can wrap my mind around it. And that's part of the problem. We don't have room for theological curiosity, right? And and and even doubt or darkness, you know, the point where Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
00:42:28
Speaker
That's why I go, man, this is God's most profound act of solidarity, where even God felt the absence of God. And that like is good news to everyone, including people in Gaza who right now are going, why have you forsaken
Critique of Christian Nationalism
00:42:44
Speaker
us? And as my friend Munther says, God is underneath the rubble with all of those who are grieving over their babies right now.
00:42:52
Speaker
i ah One of the things that you're pretty vocal about these days, and I think this kind of ties into the the current conversation of ah aspects of Christianity that have been bastardized is like as Christian nationalism. And for the I feel like for the ah ah a long time ah in your public life, you you really um We're careful about how you called out things in politics specifically. And I'm sure you're still careful, but you've ah but you've shifted since like Trump and and gotten very vocal and outspoken about him and ah Christian nationalism and
00:43:38
Speaker
I think all that's great, but my favorite thing is when you make a post, I go straight to the comments, Shane, because I'm interested in what people are saying there. Oh, was this this is that time where I get to, you know, like, what is it? I wish it was. I don't actually come prepared, but I could write at least 50% of the comments like with it. They'll just fall into these parameters of, oh yeah, but what about, you know, what about the bad things on this side? What about,
00:44:06
Speaker
And people aren't very good at just like, dealing with like, the shit in their own lane, right? They just have, they have to justify that shit by just calling out stuff other people do and making false equivalencies. And I think that's the, that's the current conversation, right? It's like, yeah, um there's plenty of problems everywhere. But you're board operating under false equivalencies here. So when you when you get that all the time, when the pushback is always, yeah, but what about the left? I thought about um Brian McLaren recently ah within the past couple of weeks. I know a friend of yours has been on the show. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. He's been and exceptionally influential and in my in my spiritual evolution. um And I have absolutely no shade to throw at him.
00:44:54
Speaker
but he did, he recently put out his, ah like a video where he was like, did an endorsement for Kamala Harris. And I found that strange. um I thought even some of the things that he said about, you know, today whatever, trust, decency, all these kinds of things. I i know that's, um you know, advertised and faked a bit in the political arena, but I was just surprised by that. um But I don't really know. ah Then I started thinking, like, I don't really know what the difference is or what the line is for people within the Christian world.
00:45:31
Speaker
um you know speaking out against a particular person or thing or Endorsing a particular person or thing and I don't know. Where do you what what do you think about that? ah endorsements versus just calling out problems or Not calling out certain problems in exchange for others. And how do you navigate that in your public life?
Church's Role in Politics
00:45:55
Speaker
Well ah I like how Dr. King said, that he said specifically the church. The church is meant to be not the servant of the state or the master of the state, but the conscience of the state. um that That resonates with me. um and
00:46:14
Speaker
so i I believe that we should be the conscience of our politicians and leaders. And that means that I am very hesitant to endorse anyone because I think what I've, I've already put all of my faith and my hope and my allegiance in Jesus.
00:46:34
Speaker
That frames how I think about immigration, right? When Jesus says, you welcome the stranger, you welcome me. I don't think that should be a Republican thing or a Democrat thing. That should be ah a Christian thing. I mean, maybe bigger than Christian, but it should certainly, you cannot be a Christian and not care about welcoming immigrants and ah folks. I mean, it's one of the common threads all through the entire Bible, right?
00:46:59
Speaker
um And with Kamala Harris, I think there's things I agree with, things I don't agree with. um So I try to be honest about those. um I cannot believe that We can't get an arms embargo on Israel or at least conditioned arms embargo to stop giving them the bombs. um um Things like the death penalty. Biden switched his position. He used to be for the death penalty. We're trying to get him and Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, to tear down the federal execution chamber.
00:47:32
Speaker
where the federal government has, it's only designed for one person purpose, which is to kill human beings. It's in Terre Haute, Indiana. Tear it down. Commute the death penalty sentences that they can commute on federal death row. We can't get them to do that, right? That's disappointing. The DNC took the death penalty abolition off of their official party platform after like a decade of having it there. We fought hard to make that a priority. um so i'm yeah i'm i'm really I think a lot of people are really disappointed, you know ah and and yet, these are not equivalencies. you know These are not equally disappointing possibilities, Trump and Vice President Harris or Cornel West or Jill Stein.
00:48:17
Speaker
um and so um I see voting as harm reduction, damage control. I'm trying to harness the principalities and powers. I'm trying to to vote in the person I think will kill the least amount of people. And then it is our job to protest them as soon as they get in office and to persuade them. So I'm not looking for a savior.
00:48:43
Speaker
um'm I'm voting to try to find the person that I think we might have the best ability to persuade and to hold it accountable and that they will do the least amount of damage. But ah that that's exactly how I would think of it. And I think that's actually historically, that's a faithful Christian posture. The problem is when we kind of get fully in bed,
00:49:04
Speaker
with one party or candidate, or we think that they're going to you know solve all the problems of the world. like we We kind of lose that prophetic um conscience, you know which is, I think, the vocation of the church. What types of responses do you get when you have these conversations around the death penalty at like a higher like political level? or your like Who are you like when your organization or you or your allies are making these like who is who is even being taught because it feels like our systems really big and everyone feels like it's inaccessible and from like our couches.
00:49:42
Speaker
like we're just like yeah whatever I could write my senator who like that doesn't feel like it does I know on a mass scale it can shift things I know that but it as far as there being access to the people who represent you there doesn't seem to be any uh so like how does that work for you when you're doing that kind of work a couple thoughts on that one of them is um ah that i know um ah One of the reasons I like to talk about the death penalty is that
00:50:14
Speaker
it opens up a myriad of other issues that are very related and racial justice and even theology, right? Of like, um well, this is this is what scripture says, you know? um and And so to me, it raises a really important question, is anybody beyond redemption? um Even outside of all the brokenness of the system, right? So that's why I like to engage on it. um and And this is the other thing is that on the death penalty, one person has unimaginable power. A governor actually can kill or not kill almost single-handedly. Some places definitely single-handedly. And so like in Pennsylvania, we have the death penalty, but we have a governor who changed his mind
00:51:03
Speaker
and said, i'm I'm going to fight for the abolition of the death penalty now. i'm not I'm no longer for it. And I won't kill anybody under my watch as governor. So, you know, ah on the other hand, in Tennessee, a governor who claims to be Christian and is worshiping the executed and risen Savior, the one who said, blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy on Sunday and then signing death warrants on Monday. So for him, bill lee Governor Billy in Tennessee, we're asking him like, go visit death row before you kill anyone else. Just listen to the stories of these men and pray with them.
00:51:43
Speaker
ah because many of them have tasted of the the the the the grace and mercy of Jesus. and we think it would I mean, I obviously think it would would move his heart and maybe change his mind on, ah you know, on killing people, but um but ah but proximity makes a big difference. so And with Biden, it's very similar. um I mean, before he was against the death penalty, he passed the crime bill that put a lot of people on death row. It expanded the death eligible crimes on federal death row. So he's got, I think some major repair and some major reckoning to to do that. That's why I think it would be really great if he would um do what we're asking him to. And on him, we're talking to like,
00:52:27
Speaker
People that work directly with the this administration so senior advisors on policy that have told us that tear down what's up like a wet nurse
00:52:40
Speaker
Like like ah the the folks that know whether or not Biden can tear down the death chamber, right? So like that's what that's what we're doing. like Abolish and demolish. Tear the thing down. And Governor Newsom in California, he did exactly that. California still got the death penalty, of but he's like, man, I'm done with it. And and most like ah people don't want to more killing. you know And so they he ah tore down the execution chamber in California. So some of this is state by state, ah but then we're also working at a federal level with Biden. you know But all of this I would say is like the big brush for this, in case you were saying this earlier, the anecdote I think for our
00:53:22
Speaker
prop pin like like our our Our addiction to violence is the declaration that every human life is sacred and precious and made in the image of God.
Sacredness of Human Life
00:53:34
Speaker
If we could just say that, every Palestinian life is just as precious as every Israeli life. That's part of why why the Black Lives Matter movement was so problematic for people just to say, well, all lives matter. and you're like yeah Until you can say black lives matter, you can't mean all lives matter.
00:53:51
Speaker
Um, it was like, uh, was it Michael Shea, the comedian? He goes, if my wife comes up to me and says, honey, do you love me? I don't say back, baby, I love everybody. yeah so yeah yeah He also had a good joke about settling on matters. He's like, we're not even asking for much. Just matters. Matter. yeah like that's right And he just keeps saying, it's he's got ah a lot of good bits around that.
00:54:17
Speaker
Yeah, Shane, I think we're like, there's just such a fatigue, um you know, like, when you would, for people like Casey and I at this point, we're like, I look, I'm with you with harm reduction, when it comes to voting, that's, that's what I'm doing. Some people think that, you know, they buy into this idea that, I don't know, you know what, at the end of the day, I think people, a lot of people are voting for their own personal like ah harm reduction, like harm reduction is a
00:54:49
Speaker
depends on who you care about, I guess, and who you want to harm the least that influences your vote. But um i but i i I largely agree. and i But I think what's so aggravating right now is like we watched Kamala do this complete 180 on immigration, right? And now she's kind of going hardline on like ah the the quote unquote immigration problem. When it comes to Israel,
00:55:15
Speaker
And the unwavering, I mean, she's already just like stated out her unwavering support, which kind of just gave them free license to keep doing whatever they want. And then I think those are such big things. And those are like the ultimate harms that people are looking at right now. And to see her kind of like,
00:55:32
Speaker
so like kind of maintain like the course on Israel and and flip the script on immigration. It's just, it's so, ah I don't know, it feels like ah defeating, you know? Yeah, totally I mean, totally. ah I mean, even like assault weapons, you know, last night in the the presidential, vice presidential debate. um ah yeah I mean, I just, you just want to hear like,
00:55:58
Speaker
Governor Walz be like, of course we're going to get rid of guns. We don't have grenades on our street, like the AR-15s, like the the, you know, the high capacity ah guns that are just designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Yes, we don't want them on our streets, right? um And yet they're, they're you know,
00:56:16
Speaker
walking on eggshells on really, really like no brainer stuff, which is why we call it common sense gun laws, right? um So yeah, it's disappointing. That's why I, I, I, I, I verge from some of the progressive folks that are really angry at Cornel West for running for president. I'm like, what the heck, man? I think I think there comes a point where you go, part of the problem is the two party options. Part of the yeah problem is campaign financing. like um I don't know how it's going to happen um at at the end of the day.
00:56:51
Speaker
um let there be no doubt that I think Trump would kill more people in um in Gaza and Palestine and probably try to annex the entire West Bank. like I think it would be catastrophic um on so many fronts. Military weapons, like I wouldn't let Donald Trump like babysit my kid, much less have nuclear weapons codes. right so i I don't want anyone having nuclear weapons codes. I'm just saying, like I think that like There is an element of harm reduction in all of this. And there's also fatigue, dude. like I wrote a whole little piece about how there's people right now that are saying we have to defend democracy now so that we can transform it later. If we if Trump gets elected again, this is a different country. you know and And I said to one of them, I said, um it's kind of like, you know I got this old antique car back here that I'm like,
00:57:45
Speaker
it's It's gonna work. It's gonna work, you know, and like I've been saying that for 10 years and you look at it and You're like, oh wait, like that thing doesn't even have an engine like the windows are busted out like it's got a hole in the fuel tank You know what I mean? Like I kind of feel like there are folks deconstructing faith and I would say yeah, maybe I'm a political Deconstructionist right now. Like I got some major um Concerns about the aspirations of America and the project the American project I think a lot of young people do to the electoral college when you look at where these things came from and stuff and you're like, yeah
00:58:27
Speaker
You grow up with this like i write this this ah sort of um fantasy of democracy, like every vote counts and we just elect them. Whoever wins the most votes, you're like, nah, man, we got Jerry Mandarin, we got like electoral, we got, yeah, so anyway. and And so that's where I would say, you know,
00:58:47
Speaker
Decade or so ago we wrote Jesus for president and I stand with a lot I mean pretty much everything that we wrote about kind of what it means to be um Exiles in Babylon as my brother Brian says, you know, yeah Well, I think a very important thing to talk about ah Is Casey did you watch the debate?
00:59:15
Speaker
No, I watch people talk about the debate. So you can't weigh in on this. Shane, who won the debate, man? Oh, man. The thing I like worse than the debates are the people commenting on the debates. I don't want to be one of those. There's like an hour of people talking before, an hour of people talking. It's like, I don't want to just listen to people talk about a movie, you know what I mean? But anyway,
00:59:41
Speaker
I was surprised by it. I think a lot of people were surprised by it. yeah i mean I think like when it comes to what I expected, um I expected um much less from JD Vance. I mean i yeah think I expected him um to not be quite as articulate. and um ah smart and kind, it seemed like. I also found so many of the things he said really, really um troubling.
01:00:13
Speaker
um and And I mean, ah the obvious tension is between like, even if you like you you like one of these folks, they're they're the co-pilot. So I think that um Walls has, he's got charisma. I like his humor. I thought that was missing a little bit, you know? um I mean, like when they were like, dude, we heard that you not only want to give public schools free lunches, but free breakfast too. And he's like, yeah, I'm the bad guy. I think kids should eat. So, I mean, maybe you can't be that winsome in a debate, but I miss that. It felt a little scripted and whatnot, you know? But I mean, there's stuff like, dude, Vance, no matter how like,
01:00:55
Speaker
like mushy and like, let's let's hug each other, this is. Like, dude, you said people in Haitians in Springfield eat animals. And like, people have bomb threats. My friends' lives were threatened. Like that kind of poisonous hatred, like, say you're sorry. Like, like, bring, like, that's, um yeah I can't, I can't watch that whole thing last night and just be like, oh man, let's, let's all hug now. You know, like, it's,
01:01:23
Speaker
So really difficult i agree i it it's yeah i think one of the things that was funny or interesting is that there is so there's a lot of talk about how we haven't seen that kind of civility in a debate in a while and then you have a lot of people going well where is really the place for that anymore when you're drawing these. Hard lines like people are like. hey oh Wall should have just really come after Vance Lamore. I don't know. but I didn't even well i didn't watch all of it i watched most of it, and i just was like i'm I was bummed out because Vance didn't suck as bad as I thought he was going to. and like I was like, oh shit, this guy is actually coming on.
01:02:01
Speaker
like he's actually coming off like like you said articulate and obviously there was some like point blank questions regarding some of the wilder shit that's happened like when walls asked him point in blank if if Trump won the like lost the election and he yeah that was not bad ti it was brutal to watch that was like brutal yeah yeah so dan di That was one of his shining moments when he just was like, ah yeah, we're looking forward. You're like, yeah, we all are, but you still have to reconcile some bad things that happened in the past. Yeah. And also I thought the other one was um when um
01:02:40
Speaker
I mean there's still, Vance did this last last night and Trump does it all the time saying like, you know, there's times where a kid's born and they just decide whether or not to kill it. Like he he still did that same yeah trope, you know, like that that sometimes, you know, this is what the abortionists believe that sometimes you might even have a kid.
01:03:01
Speaker
gets born and you decide whether or not you're gonna kill it like just like come on man you don't even believe that there's never been anything where that's happened so yeah anyway i know and it's tough when you doesn't feel like there's ah people like that kind of stuff it doesn't feel like anyone's operating in good faith anymore uh it's just there it's just saying the things that you have to say that i don't know to rile up your base I think what surprised me was Vance just feeling like he might have but tried to appeal to swing voters, which is something Trump hasn't done his entire career.
01:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would think they lost a lot of conservative white evangelicals though that do only think about abortion. I think it's becoming really clear that there's not a huge difference like they would want it to be between Trump and Harris on abortion. I think that line's becoming blurrier and blurrier. So when that's the only issue you can think about, this becomes a little more complicated, but I hope, I mean, this is what...
Broader Pro-Life Stance
01:04:00
Speaker
I came to a point where I didn't throw out the idea of pro-life. I expanded it. I care deeply about abortion. I also care about life after birth as well as life before birth. The number one cause of death of children in America, as they said last night, is guns. You can't be pro-life and ignore gun violence. Followed by things like food insecurity, food death, stuff that you can actually do something about.
01:04:28
Speaker
And then when you ask people the number one reason they have an abortion, it's because they say they can't afford to have a kid. So like we can make this better. Yeah, yeah, but you know that to to critique the other side a little bit that the language on the left used to be abortion should be legal safe and rare. Yeah. And we should all work to make it rare and rare. And they've abandoned a lot of that language um of making it rare and rare because i've I've actually heard people say it. It's a projection of a moral um and an ethical
01:05:03
Speaker
um Judgment on it, you know, and so like man like I would there I am Disappointed by the inability to be consistent with an ethic of life and there's a whole lot of progressive leaning folks that would like abortion to be rare and rare that have real concerns about you know down syndrome and the way that you know, like the the the abortion to take it so I think that like We've held two town halls, y'all you might have seen it, on abortion at Red Letter Christians. They've had like 30, 40,000 people that have watched them. And um I feel like it was ah it was a better conversation, you know, even like language like late term abortion. We heard from a friend of ours who
01:05:47
Speaker
lost, ah she had twins and one of them um was dying as she was still pregnant and um she was likely to lose the other one obviously but also die herself and so had that terrible, terrible decision late in her pregnancy um to ah technically the medical language would have been to have an abortion, you know, and and lost one of those twins and um And you go, this is what we're talking about, right? Like we're we're not actually talking about some, you know, parent that just nine months in is like, nah, change my mind. You know? Yeah. Well, I think maybe we're steadily trend. I think the left, I shouldn't say we, I won't let myself in with that, but steadily trending towards, um, you know, we first, we had to like, we, we, we now have divorce parties, right? When you get out of a bad marriage.
01:06:35
Speaker
I think we're trending towards abortion parties, and that's going to be a wild rise. If you could pencil in anybody, anybody at all, if you were going to write in anybody, who would it be? and I'll go first, Greg Abbott. Wait, is that your write-in for president?
01:06:59
Speaker
No, who would you put? Did it have to be alive? Yes. Okay. Well, we'll, we'll do both. We'll do a live person and a dead person. Oh, that's just too hard. Trick question. Jesus is both. jesus must jesus oh Yeah. sounds good yeah but yeah So no one, no one alive. Let me ask you all about this. Um, uh, uh, like w w what are you thinking on, on the, um, okay.
01:07:36
Speaker
if you had to wear a t-shirt of ah someone running for president, that actually stood a chance. Or, okay, you could you could wear a Jill Stein or a Cornel West or Kamala Trump. you gonna You got any of those you're going to wear? I can't i can't wear a Bernie shirt. That's that's out. Okay. Now, Bernie, that that's a good point. you know And this is part of why we're in the... this we could you know you You remember when you had like Choose Your Own Adventure? Yeah. like ah We could be on a very different trajectory of this narrative if the DNC had made different decisions, right? Anyway, yeah. I don't know. I think that's a lot of our biggest disappointment. I think the Democrats haven't actually picked a candidate since 2008.
01:08:23
Speaker
Feels that way actually. yeah I'm going to say ah RFK because I like his views of roadkill.
01:08:32
Speaker
Wow, that was an unexpected little throw to the the the Trump machinery. Wow, man. The whole Kennedy family. I know, that one. Wow. i And you know some of them are waiting on John Kennedy to come back from the dead. So it's like, I don't know what's going on here. you know don't Remember that when they were like,
01:08:55
Speaker
I you can argue and honor something they're waiting for john f. Kennedy to come back or something remember they were oh oh my god I forgot about that dude the art of day one islaria turn anybody into their theories like that's a play i play watched video a couple of videos of people like when it was uh you know the never-ending hunt for pedophiles and like everyone who's ever died was killed because they were going to expose the network. yeah And I watched this like lady go, you know, Chester Bennington was about to expose the network and they, they killed him for it. And not only him, but, uh, what's Chris Cornell was like, so everybody, everybody has ever died. anyone I like who's died was doing something important so I can analyze them even more.
01:09:46
Speaker
It's wild. The RFK thing was nice. I have a crying baby. Do I have to go with him? Is that okay? It is. I was about to get you out of here because I know we got you for an hour, so I appreciate your time. I should show him to you. I can't right now, but next time I'll bring my baby, Elijah, so you can see him. Love it. Congratulations on being a dad, by the way. Thanks. A 49-year-old dad. They call it a geriatric pregnancy. That seemed dramatic until we we did it and yeah, I'm feeling it so it's okay I'm okay being a geriatric dad. So there's a movie your testicles. There's a there's a movie on I think it was Netflix called old dads with Bill Burr that might may or may not be up your alley, but it's uh, I thought it was entertaining enough but
01:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it is going to keep me young actually because, you know, I got this whole I love the circus like Katie and I both love like fire breathing and juggling and all the stuff and I'm awake border. So I was like, man, will I bring kid? Oh, um I think it's going to keep me going. So I get injured, you know, i just get to which is a lot easier. ah so But, well, Shane, thank you. always a gift though Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah. Really appreciate you. i We talked about beautiful expressions of Christianity. You've been one of them as far as I've followed your work. So I have a lot of respect and appreciation for you and um and the work you do and all the red letter Christians. So just thank you. And again, thanks for joining us. Absolutely, bro. Thank you both. Thanks everybody for listening. We will see you next time.