From Stoic Thought to Christian Action (with Mike Austin)

When minds converge over the profound intersections of philosophy and the Christian faith, revelations emerge. Mike Austin, a philosophy professor with a deft touch in character development and spiritual formation, joins me to unravel the tapestry of truth that philosophies like Stoicism weave with Christianity. Our conversation extends beyond the intellectual into the personal, sharing how our beliefs have matured and become more focused with time. We also raise a toast to the virtues of humility as outlined in Mike's latest book, savoring both the complex notes of our chosen wines and the rich layers of living a life modeled after Jesus.

A sense of divine connection can often feel elusive, but this episode pulls back the veil to reveal how community and silence are gateways to experiencing God's presence. We share stories of finding God in the quiet and among fellow believers, considering how relationships within the church embody Christ's love. As we touch upon the transformation of evangelical witness, we underscore the significance of authentic friendships and living out Christ's love in practical ways—a message reinforced by the inspiring legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his call to social responsibility.

Embarking on a personal turn, we tackle the poignant shift from supporting self-defense to advocating for pacifism, a transformative journey informed by the non-violent teachings of Jesus. Discussing the tensions between self-protection and the principles of turning the other cheek, we draw on historical figures like Bonhoeffer, grappling with the complexities of living out our faith. As we conclude, the conversation ventures into the broader challenges facing Christianity in America, from social media engagements to the need for humility in our spiritual journey. Join us for an episode that's not just a tasting of fine wines but also an invitation to savor the encouragement and growth found in our shared pursuit of a deeper faith.

Wines:
Chateau L’Hospitalet
Chenault Vineyards Cabernet Franc 2021

Mike's book: Humility: Rediscovering the Way of Love and Life in Christ
MichaelWAustin.com
linktr.ee/michaelwaustin 

See audio and video episodes at: https://communionwineco.com/podcast/

Find out more at: https://linktr.ee/communionwineco

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:46

Well, it's time for episode 17 of Cabernet and Pray. Today we're talking with a philosophy professor named Mike Austin and this is fun because I love philosophy and I don't know if you get into much philosophy, but I like to read a lot about Stoicism and to me, one of the premises that I operate in and you're gonna hear this mentioned in this episode is that all truth is God's truth. So if you find truth in somewhere outside of you know Christian circles or an overtly Christian place, it can still be true. If it's true, right. So if it lines up with who God is and what reality is, no matter where you find it, it's truth. All truth is God's truth. And I encourage you to keep that in mind as you listen to today's episode, because we're gonna explore not only the practical sides of Christianity and how to follow Jesus, but also throw in some philosophy there as well, and I think it's super cool. Today we're looking at Mike Austin. He's the Foundation Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University. He is the current president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society so cool, he's the senior fellow of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute. Mike has published 12 books. His writing and research is focused on character development and spiritual formation. His latest book is called Humility Rediscovering the Way of Love and Life in Christ, and this is the book we get into in the podcast today. I think you're gonna love Mike's practical way of getting into the nitty-gritty. What does it mean for us to look more like Jesus? Enjoy episode 17.

Speaker 1: 3:32

All right, well, as we begin our discussion, that sound means it's time to talk about what we're drinking today. I'll go first and then we'll see what Mike's got on tap. I'm drinking, I'm gonna. I'm just gonna attempt this. Chateau le Hospitale. This is a French bottle. Looks awesome, I don't know if that's how you say it. This is a GSM blend from France, which means you've got mainly Syrah with some Grenache and Mouvedre. As I am enjoying this so far, I'm getting Blackberry Red Licorice and then this is a. This is a Hardy wine, so I'm getting some Leather. And then I wrote Potting Soil, which is is just what I'm getting. And I you know, I realize sometimes when we talk about these wine flavors, people are like that doesn't sound appealing. But that's the fun of wine is you get all sorts of weird funky flavors in it. So that's what I'm drinking. Mike, what are you drinking today?

Speaker 2: 4:25

Yeah, I'm drinking and it looks like the bottles downstairs. It looks like Chanel, but because I'm in Richmond, Kentucky, it's Chinalte vineyards, cabernet, cavernet, cavernet, frond, I believe it is, and I haven't had it yet.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Okay, we got to. We got to get your official opinion on it.

Speaker 2: 4:45

Yeah, it's good. I mean I got it because it's local wine. So we have a. It's a local winery. And yeah, it's a local winery. I mean I'm not a big like connoisseur of wine, like I can tell the difference between two buckchuck from Trader Joe's and you know something that is better. But yeah, it's good. It's dry. I like dry red wines and I like sweet wines, so I'm good.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Nice. You know I appreciate the cab fronk. I am a huge cab fronk fan and I have a very hard time getting my friends to enjoy cab fronk. The other day we had a cabernet sauvignon. We were sharing it and there's four of us and everyone was loving it and so like, hey, let's get another bottle. You want a second glass. And I'm like, all right, and I'm like this is the setup for the cab fronk. They're going to love it and it didn't. It didn't go over as well. So cheers to you for pulling out the cab fronk. I like that move a lot.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Well, I had a chance to talk to read your latest book called Humility. The subtitle is Rediscovering the Way of Love and Life in Christ, and what I would say to our podcast listeners and those watching this is like a great how-to manual of like how to actually look more like Jesus. Like we talk a lot about some abstract ideas and sometimes I think we get lost on like what are my actually supposed to do? Like, how do I actually look more like Jesus? I think Mike's doing a great job. We're going to dive into that a little bit in our conversation, but before we do, there's a question I often like to ask people. I'd love to hear your answer to this. As a professor of philosophy, that's a fun niche you're in. How has your faith changed over the last 10 years?

Speaker 2: 6:30

10 years? That's a good question. I think, like I've never been too worried about, like about the philosophical aspect of the way my faith has changed. And I know I don't look at it, but I'm 54. I'm only saying that because a drunk guy in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago was shocked, which would normally feed my ego, but because of the drunk guy in New Orleans I didn't really do much more, maybe on the first second. But yeah, I think for me it's, and the reason I bring that up is like when I was 25 or even when I was 25, I was like I think I had more convictions than I do now. So I have more beliefs now, Like I've got more opinions about things, more beliefs.

Speaker 2: 7:11

But philosophers would like to be sort of picky about opinions, beliefs, convictions, you know kind of the difference of those things, and I think most people kind of get a understanding what that difference would be.

Speaker 2: 7:23

So fewer convictions, but the ones I have are just I would say they're deeper, kind of go all the way down, and so that's the way my faith has changed and that there are some things, and so when I see something this is part of the impetus for the book when I see things were in myself and others that don't line up with those kind of core basic convictions, I just think you know then. Then I get, I get motivated right to do something with her. So my life, or the speaker, to pray or to. Sometimes it just means go have a glass of wine because I can't do anything about it, but that's, you know. So that's that's the thing that jumps to mind for me, Because so many you know it's not news to people the way so much, whether it's online or in real life. So many people they seem to have convictions about everything, Anything they think about. They've got even just an opinion and they're convinced of it all the way down. Right, it's a very deep conviction, all of them.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Yeah, exactly yeah. I'm always amazed how often you know if you're to ask.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Christians like, what do you think the essentials are? You know, if you're to ask Christians like, what do you think the essentials of Christianity is? You know, I, more than what we would come up with, I'm more intrigued with how many are on your list, you know, like, are there eight, are there 20? Are there 100? You know, because that kind of shows you the scope again of of how you are holding your beliefs and how you know you make sense of women. Truly, they become aligned and that everybody has to cross. You know how many, how many of your beliefs do other people have to agree with in order for you to say, yeah, you're welcome in here, versus hey, we see the core. You know the same versus a number of these other topics. So I love that.

Speaker 1: 8:56

All right, a few things. I want to read some quotes that I loved in your book and I always love when I know that I'm going to interview an author of a book, I read that book with like an extra eagerness because I know anything that stands out to me, anything that's interesting I get to ask you about. So, right out of the gate, the thing that just jumped out at me is you said this and I quote I think alcohol can be a good thing, received with gratitude from the hand of God.

Speaker 1: 9:27

There, you go, that's right.

Speaker 2: 9:30

I didn't even know it was going to be in this podcast then, but it was written just with this hour in mind.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Don't even have a question with that, I just just wanted to celebrate that you wrote that line in the book, and then we get to talk about the book with alcohol.

Speaker 2: 9:42

So that's, that's fun, that's right, I was talking to a friend of mine actually about that and we were talking about this and I thought, you know, I almost took it out because it's not like it. I mean it fits in the flow of the chapter, it's not a big deal, but it's something we noticed like we live a group in Kansas City, we live in LA, boulder, colorado, and then you go to the south and there is this sort of weird among a lot of you know a lot of Christians here thinking about alcohol. That was just totally not totally new to me, but just how prevalent it was and how big deal. You know, people get worried if you drink a beer but you can, you know, violate seven or eight other like actual commands in the Bible, and you know I'm sorry. So anyway, yeah, little one of those little soapboxes for me, because you know I that's one of my convictions let's not make up rules, things that aren't there, and you know that would be one.

Speaker 1: 10:32

Well, mike, we join you in that one. We applaud that. Yeah, there we go, Okay. Another thing you say is the goal of discipleship is not intellectual certainty or moral perfection, it is union with God. God isn't waiting for us to become morally perfect so we can be united to him. He offers that union to us now, just as we are. But union with God is itself morally transformative. As we go further up and deeper in, we will be changed. Love this idea. What does this look like in your experience?

Speaker 2: 11:07

Yeah, I think there's an element of you know, as I mentioned in one of the chapters, like several different spiritual practices or spiritual disciplines or whatever people want to call them. Those are things that we can do, but I think we should view those things as a means to I wouldn't even I mean, I want to say like cultivating or deepening our union with God. I think that's true, but also it's it's, it's a God has to do something like. It's kind of like with my wife, you know, or with you know. You can I don't know when I was, when we were engaged, you know read a book like about preparing to get married, and then you get married and you realize, oh yeah, I'm married to a person not to like somebody that responds to some manual. You know, you do these things and your wife will be happy, or whatever it is, you know.

Speaker 2: 11:51

So I think, the same thing with God. There's some mystery there and I think in my mind I'm thinking a lot of people think of Christianity maybe as a moral, self-help or self-improvement project, but a lot more people think about union with God and having like a religious experience, you know, or a deeper spiritual experience, which I'm all for because it's a relationship. But I think those, I don't think you can separate those two things out Like I think if to be more deeply united to God over time means I'm becoming more like Christ and having those intellectual and moral virtues, you know, the something you can find from not just the Bible but the ancient Greeks and others. They actually having those kind of traits helps me see and understand reality more fully, more deeply, more accurately. So I think the same thing applies with God. So the mystery there is, it's a, it's great God's grace I can do all the quote, unquote right things and maybe God is, you know, as the Bible talks about.

Speaker 2: 12:44

God hides from us. Sometimes he's got some other thing in mind, but yeah, it's that I want to move away from the. Let's just do these things so we can have this experience of God for the experience sake, because you might not feel close to God and you might be closer to God, or I might be closer to God in those moments than when I feel like I am just like with my wife. We might be really close in the moment of conflict because there's actual kind of I was going to say brutal honesty and sometimes it's like that, you know, just a more bare open honesty between each other. That doesn't always feel good, so those are kind of things I had in mind. I mean, that's really the big picture of the book, that humility is one of those traits that are central and how we relate to God and others, but that he does. I mean someone looks at that love that idea right.

Speaker 1: 13:33

Okay, I want that. How do you have union with, with a God you can't see, you can't hear, you can't touch? What have you learned in your journey of following Jesus that's helpful in that regard.

Speaker 2: 13:45

Yeah, that's one of the hard things, for sure, you know, and I still sometimes. I mean, I'm a philosopher, but I think we all think this thought. At least sometimes I'll just sit and think, am I? Just, there's none of this true, and I'm just going to rot in the ground and be warm food and there's going to be the cold, long, dark sleep of death. That's not funny, but you know, for philosophers it is Very philosophy. Yes, yeah, that's right, but yeah, I think. No, I do this in class. I lost my train of thought. What's your question? I haven't had any wine before.

Speaker 1: 14:21

This is great. So someone talking you talk about union with God is itself transformational. You know the idea that God's got to do something too, but someone might go. I want it, but I can't see God, I can't hear God, I can't touch God. How do I, how do I, how do I humbly right Go before God with that experience? And again, I think this is where your book is offering something tangible to people. It's not, these are not just ideas. You might expect that from someone who spends time in philosophy, but this is very practical. So how do you practically do that with someone you can't see, you can't hear?

Speaker 2: 14:52

Yeah. So I think I think it can be different for each person. I think, like certain ways of approaching God, or at least opening ourselves up to God to move, can be different, like. So for me I've found in recent years being like times of solitude and just being quiet have been the most helpful, because I think I meant I just regret the book, turned my myself of what I wrote because you know it's been a while since I actually wrote it from when it comes out.

Speaker 2: 15:19

But yeah, my job I mean my job and my, even my sort of personality it's so much about words right In the classroom it's saying the right words and grading whether people have the right words or not, and it's speaking the right words. And when I'm speaking outside of the university, said in thinking the right words, writing the right words in philosophy, and then in this kind of book it's really a spiritual formation book, not a philosophy book, and so for me just to like set that aside, I mean just kind of be quiet, that helps. One thing that's really made a difference to me in the past few years, specifically to the God not being physically tangible, is this idea from Bonhoeffer and Life Together, who I talk about a decent amount in the book is that other believers in my community, my church, they're a physical sign of Christ, like that's the way that Christ is actually physically present to me, and I think I'd experienced that before. But having that someone say it that way and think that's actually correct, you know, I can be with, you, know some people I trust that have deeper relationships with and sometimes just being with them, and like my outlook changes and we haven't done anything that we haven't done a Bible study together, necessarily, or you know any, or you know all the different things we do great, all that stuff's great, but just just friendship, right, a deeper kind of friendship. And then I come away encouraged and like have a sense that God is real because I'm around other people and he's present in that group physically and that believer. So that really I would say that was one that helps the most.

Speaker 2: 16:46

And I think that's important because right in the, if you think about the sort of classic spiritual disciplines, the spiritual formation movement of the last 30 years or so, at least in my perspective, I often thought of it as like this sort of monastic and individual, but it's, but it's much more than that, and so I kind of had this idea in my mind. I just sit alone in a room and have these incredible like epiphanies of God and Rick that does once in a great while happen. Wine helps with that to you, by the way. Yeah, that's true. Just don't question the cause, right? Whatever you get, just be grateful. Yeah, actually does help, right. And when you're hanging it, sitting down with other people why I'm in Kentucky, so you know some bourbon or whatever it is, but, yeah, I think so that's what's really helped me actually is just a word of encouragement from other, from others, or just time with other people, that God's physically present there. And yeah, look, that's, and that's just the nature of. Aside from that, though, that's just the nature of whatever reason, the way creation is set up at this moment, right, god's not physically present in those ways, and so the closest comes.

Speaker 2: 17:53

I guess I would say this too. Maybe one last thing about this is that we tend to think of communication, like we're having right now. So I've got content in my mind that I'm relaying through speech to you, and you know, through that speech you're hearing and interpreting and we're understanding. So, in a way, and people listening, we're transferring ideas in our minds to others in that way. But God's not limited to physical speech to do that right. God can communicate with us so we can think his thought, he can share his thoughts with us and by that means or other, you know other ways as well. So I think that that's one thing, to just realize that God's not limited by the physical in that way that we are, and so that can help. God can speak through the word, through the spirit, through other people, directly communicate thoughts to us, so anyway, so I guess I'm a mystic, and those were. I was surprised to be when people act like mystic is a bad word and like it's not, it's actually a pretty good one.

Speaker 1: 18:48

No, and in fact the older I get, the more I'm drawn to that. You know, as when I was younger I think it did look kind of weird to me, but you get to a point where you're kind of like there's got to be more, there's got to be, you know, things that that go beyond just the senses. But I actually love your definition of how you view other people, as you know the expression of God, and I can't help but think, you know, if churches focus more on that, like, hey, here's why being in this community matters so much, not because you get a star for attendance or because you know you're somehow holier if you're here. You know, it's that. Let me literally, you're gonna you have greater chances of experiencing Jesus in this type of a space because of the believers and not this, you know, not the building, not the preaching, just I mean the very fact of believers. I just can't help the thing.

Speaker 1: 19:37

That would be like like a lot of people who have, you know, deconstructed quote, unquote, would be like oh yeah, how do I find communities like that, how do I find spaces like that? And obviously it doesn't have to only happen in a local church context, but you know, when you have people coming together, that is a huge advantage, you know, to see God in that way, so I really think that's a beautiful idea. You say this is an idea that really jumped out of me. You said we are not merely followers of the way, we should also be preparers of the way to the way, and this is a really cool idea that we don't hear as much talk about that not just we're experiencing, but we are preparing the way to the way for other people who have not experienced it. Can you elaborate on this idea? What does it look like to prepare the way for others and do it well?

Speaker 2: 20:25

Yeah, so I think like so I was in. I became, I guess, an evangelical without knowing it, when I was a senior in high school. I kind of grew up in Roman Catholic Church and kind of like, like you, with sort of the mysticism, I've come to appreciate the Roman Catholic Christian brothers and sisters more than I did initially, just because my own experience you know there's some good and bad about it, but but yeah, so I guess I'm bringing it up because initially I was like in the 80s and the 90s, right, so this was sort of that time of evangelicalism in America, and of course that was before you had to qualify what that meant, like like I would do today about 50 different ways to still accept the label. But yeah, I think it just means it doesn't mean like then, where you're just going up to people and you know, sharing the poor spiritual laws which I actually did as an involved with crew for a while or kind of having these like big programs and there might be there's some good in those things maybe, and maybe not so much now compared to even then. I think that was sort of at the end of its usefulness in certain ways, those methods which.

Speaker 2: 21:34

But anyway, I think so it's not just like how can I like get some I think we think of it people in my generation and kind of our background. It was often like, well, how can I share my faith with somebody Right? So you've been friend people. Now you not just to share your faith with them, but really that's kind of why you're doing it. I mean, you know not. And now I'd say, just be their friend is to be their friend right and love them. And that's actually where you prepare the way and you can have conversations and you know people might actually ask you if you've experienced some of this transformation like I talked about in the book, like people have experienced over this the millennia or the centuries in Christ, like someone might really ask you for the reason that the hope that you have. You know that first Peter 3 verse that people use in apologetics, but in many ways it's what it's really focused on his character and on who you are.

Speaker 2: 22:22

So to me, being a prepare of the way to the way is, especially in our time and our particular culture. It's a lot of it has to do with well, it's related to deconstruction. It's like a lot of the stuff that people are deconstructing from is stuff that's not really a part of the way of Christ. It's subconsciously, sometimes intentionally, imported in right to our teaching or books, the sort of what some people call the evangelical industrial complex and, even more broadly, just American Christianity. Right, you see them in other parts of the Christian church, and so it's.

Speaker 2: 22:53

It's trying to get rid of that junk and, like, help people see who Christ really is, trying to manifest or exemplify these traits of who Christ is. Of course we're going to fall short because we're human and all jacked up, but I mean, yeah, we can be better. And then the other part of that, I think, is this is again stuff from Bonhoeffer, but it just has really gripped me. He's talks about, you know, if the, if the poor person who doesn't have bread in your community can't come to Christ and you've got extra, that's in a certain way it's your fault, right? So I mean, because of course they can't see God's faithfulness, because if God's body right which is, you know, christians in the world isn't doing what God would have them do, then how are they going to know who God is? God can work beyond us, but I think that's a big part, right?

Speaker 2: 23:45

So it means all these cultural issues get turned instead of being cultural, or issues that become like well, how can I help the 17 year old girl who's pregnant and doesn't know what to do Her parents are going to kick her out of the house.

Speaker 2: 23:56

Or the 20 year old you know, gay college student whose parents don't want want them to come home for the holidays because they're embarrassed or because they're kicking them out of the house, or I mean you know all the stuff that people like to make noise about. So it's not luring people or manipulating people emotionally or intellectually, but it's actually just, yeah, it's looking at the barriers and trying to walk with people through them and show them that there really is I mean, for me, using philosophy language that really is goodness, truth and beauty in the person. That Christ and all the other stuff. Yeah, I want to throw it away too. And then, when you're on the way right, you're on that path of Jesus. Followers of the way, the capital W, Like they talk about an axe, its humility and love and a bunch of other good stuff too.

Speaker 1: 24:45

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I want to. I want to get into something you you reference vaguely and then you kind of you back out of it. So we're gonna. We're gonna go into it, because what you can do on a path, that's right. You say this line I am not a pacifist, but I'm very close to being one, which I found a very interesting way to phrase that, mike.

Speaker 1: 25:08

Yeah, so a little bit of setup for me here on this question. I went from, you know I was, I was born in Arizona, grew up in Arizona. This is still the Wild Wild West. We love our guns in Arizona, you know maybe only second to Texas perhaps but I was raised as a gun owner. I owned guns, you know, as a young adult myself. I even went so far as I had my concealed carry permit because I was convinced, you know, I was gonna be ready to take down a bad guy with a, you know, with my gun, for all of this.

Speaker 1: 25:40

And had a moment with with one of my mentors where we were working through some teachings of Jesus and just felt like this, like this moment of I haven't seen this the Jesus way, and Did a full 180 and I literally tell the story of like I remember where I was when I became a pacifist. I was sitting in a hotel room chair and, yeah, I remember just like having this conversation with God of like I don't really know many pacifists, what does this mean and what do I do with this? And very scary. Well, that's been, I don't know, 10, 15 years now Since I've made that move and here's what I have found. People are intrigued when I talk about my views of non-violence and why I get them from Jesus. Very intrigued by it, and usually In an encouraging way, like really love, that, that's great. Very rarely do people ever say, yes, I want to believe that too, and I want to be a pacifist too, and there's just something that I'm like I don't.

Speaker 1: 26:40

There's some hurdle there, and you wrote a book called God and Guns in America. I haven't had a chance to read that one, but you, you're also Somewhere near a pacifist. I'd love to get. What have you landed on this? How have you worked through it? Are you still a work in progress or you feel like you've got it dialed in?

Speaker 2: 27:02

Yeah for sure, work in progress. But yeah, the way that that happened was through writing that book. So I, I grew up in outside of Kansas City on the Kansas side, but my, so my dad, we grew up there a gun case in our house. I mean it was a safe and later years of the early years, it was just like a chintzy sort of wood glass case with a little tiny, I mean, a lock. That really didn't do much. So I was just used to being around guns. My dad's, a big still is loved to, unlike traps, keep Sporting clay so we would hunt growing up for like pheasant and geese and that's pretty much it. No, he had some other guns to go to the range.

Speaker 2: 27:38

But primarily, you know, is that gun culture, I guess, what they sort of called gun culture 1.0, which is about as a sport, as hunting right, and then gun culture 2.0 became the self-defense kind of Armed citizen kind of thing. So for me I always had those intuitions, like a lot of people, that yeah, violence isn't good, but in this world you just have to. Sometimes you need to. So being a just worthier, it's right. In warfare, yeah, we have to have my. If you don't fight, the Hitler's gonna the Hitler's, the world will win. You know that, which you hear a lot, and yeah, if I kind of came home, you know, and somebody's like beating on my Children, are trying to kill my wife, I'm gonna you could use violence or shoot them. I don't have a gun, but you know that I carry, but I never have carried. But. But yeah, then it was really in that, in the process of writing that book Parts. Sometimes you write a book like the humility one, like things that have been marinating in my mind, some of them for like 20 years, and you're just like I'm just gonna finally Get a bunch of this stuff out that I think might help people and it'd be good for me to sort of coalesce my thoughts. The guns book was almost I had some intuitions, but it was like what do I actually think about this stuff? Cuz I would see people quote Bible verses, like usually on the probe gun side of it, so to speak. I was just like I just that doesn't. How did you get from there to there, you know? And so I, as I started doing the reading, reading people's arguments, looking at scripture more with that question in mind.

Speaker 2: 28:59

I say almost a pacifist because I just can't quite just say I am. You know, there's something like Dietrich Bonhoeffer Someone called. He's been called a conditional pacifist, meaning it's a pacifist, but but there could be a few exceptions. So I think that's probably where I am. I mean, that might be more accurate, and I'm actually teaching a class, a upper division of class, in the owners program we have right now called guns of the culture of violence, and so we just read a bunch of pacifist stuff and as I read it I Feel like I identify. You know, when you're teaching something, some stuff to you, I've got this is I resonate, this resonates with me to teach other stuff and it does it, and so I don't know what it is.

Speaker 2: 29:38

Maybe it's because I'm afraid just to say I am, but I'm about as close as you can be and not just accept the label, because yeah, there's just, especially as you just read, not just the passage in the sermon on the mount, but a lot of other stuff in the New Testament. It's just like and just the whole picture of the Christian life that we're given. It's really Hard to say, yeah, this is justified, or for sure not as justified as many Christians in America think it is and not as justified as I used to think it was. So, yeah, so I'm sort of I would say I'm still a work in progress, but it wouldn't take much for me just to like take that last little half step over the line.

Speaker 2: 30:16

I feel like I'm sort of straddling the line Maybe is the best way to put it with like half of my foot still in that violent yes, violence is sometimes permissible camp. But I've just was recently thinking about this, just thinking Maybe it's just such a hard teaching and I'm just not willing to totally take it yet. But that I mean, that's something very to think of, very about. Maybe I should take it. First year seems much more like the way Christ lived and Todd and the teachings and pictures, the way the disciples and the apostles and the early Church for sure lived was with that teaching, and it's probably not a coincidence that it became just worth it come on the scene After Constantine and Christianity became a lot of politics and violence and those kind of things.

Speaker 1: 30:59

Yeah, well, when you have, you know, the nations or the country, the world's largest military, you got to justify how you use it. You know you got to come up with some theology to explain.

Speaker 2: 31:09

I remember a.

Speaker 1: 31:11

Class you'll probably appreciate this for my master's program it was a class on Bonhoeffer, so the entire class was Just on. You know the writings and the life of Bonhoeffer. In Fascinating class we got to dive into all of his works and you know really, his theology lived out. You know the way he did. But remember one, one class in particular, you know, because Bonhoeffer is known collectively for being a pacifist, but you know he obviously got himself involved in this assassination plot, you know, to try to take down Hitler, which backfired, went really bad. And then you know, kind of the, the aftermath of, like, well, did Bonhoeffer Lose his way? Was he? Was he, you know, intuitive? Did he understand a nuanced, you know, view?

Speaker 1: 31:51

And I'm other, forget our professor, there's only like eight of us in this class and he put some quote on the on the screen that was basically defending why Bonhoeffer made the right call and, you know, choosing to do what he did with Hitler. And so he put this on the screen. He has us all look at it and he goes. I want to go around the room and just I want to hear from you guys, like, do you agree with this quote? So I'm like, second to last he goes on the line. You know, do you agree? Yes, yes, yes, yes, everybody's a yes. He gets to me and I say no and he goes to the last guy and he goes wait, did you say no? I was like no, I don't agree with that. And he's like what? And I had this moment where I'm like something's wrong with me, like everybody else can see this but me, and I just have felt this, like it, there's this like lonely, there's a lonely position. I can think of few other things where you are as lonely.

Speaker 1: 32:46

If you say yes, I adhere to this ideal, then saying you know pacifist and I get all the. Also, you're telling me you know, someone brought, you know all the stereotypical things. But for anybody who cares, the book that got me there is a book called a faith not worth fighting for. I don't know if you're familiar with this book. No, I don't think I am. The collection of authors, so it's it's not one author, but it's looking at all the reasons why people aren't Nonviolent, why they're not pacifist, and then it tackles each one, and that was the book that intellectually and Theologically helped me to work through ago. No, I, you know and again.

Speaker 1: 33:24

I finished the last chapter sitting in a hotel room in Knoxville, tennessee, on a trip, and that's when I was like, shoot, I just became a pacifist. But I think it's so passing and I appreciate even your Transparency and the way this has been.

Speaker 2: 33:38

You know an ongoing journey for you and and yeah, I think what's interesting about Bonhoeffer I read his ethics last summer. I tried to read a few of his works just to get to know his thought more and he talks about like, like that I think what I appreciate about him he struggled with their that ethics wasn't ultimately about principles and these like abstract rules. I mean like that ultimately we have to make decisions in Faith, risking it will sin, and been trusting God's grace anyway. And so I think Me, you know it's easy historically to think I'm sure that's what he was going, what he went through when he made those decisions, because I think you Minders, you know he did seem to be oriented towards pacifism, right, and he's trying to think in these sort of extra. I think that's why and maybe maybe I am one we have to check that book out. Maybe I'll just sit and be sitting in a coffee shop in Richmond, kentucky, and I'll have the same story. But I guess what I liked about that is so much of ethics, like the philosophy is about Whether it's a virtue ethical approach. But in general it's like these principles or rules or virtues and kind of clear algorithmic sorts of moral reasoning and Bonhoeffer's wrestling with the what does it mean to try to live, to follow Christ in my context, and, of course, nazism, the radical, difficult, evil context. And so how do you not become evil and yet resist evil? The other thing too, which I've really pressed with my students and I think that I was not aware of, as most people are, it's just all the successful, so to speak, nonviolent movements over the centuries. I have it's about that thick so I haven't read it but it looks good on my shelf a book just full of sort of Historical ways nonviolent resistance, sometimes with an in nation against, you know, a desperate or unjust government, and the other times In international conflict, including a world war two. There are some things that people did, resisted Hitler and non-violent, and it worked. So it sounds foolish and I'm like you people also. You know Hitler comes and you're just gonna let you know. We'd all be speaking German and saluting Swastika now, or yeah, you know it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 35:38

You mentioned the thing about coming home and your wife or I mentioned that too. But Tolstoy has a great take on this. We read this with my class and he just talks about everybody talks about Coming home and someone attacking your wife, but it never happens. Now, of course it does happen. But but his point is, you're building your whole a view of violence on you Like very rare occurrence, generally speaking, in the world. See pumps and intuitions that people have. Above course I'd fight then. And then you open the door to well, here's a bunch of other ways that it's justified. Then all your, like you mentioned, you start using the only just fight, what you want to do anyway, which we're all tempted to do, but man Just don't see. I mean what the way is, the way of the cross and as a friend of mine I think I said it's a book to you as we read it today the way of the towel right, the washing of feet. It's not the way of the sword.

Speaker 1: 36:28

Yeah, that's a great. It's a great metaphor. All right, let's get into a little philosophy. When I thought I'd be a professor, I got stoked because that is.

Speaker 1: 36:39

I don't know if I call it a hobby, it's a love of mine, in addition to other things that I read and I would say last few years I've been getting more and more into stoicism and and finding, you know, a lot of really interesting ideals in socialism. Again, I wouldn't define myself in any philosophical terms but I have found, probably like you, that philosophy helps me make sense of all of these things and have some nuanced thoughts. In your book you talk about making a memento mori playlist and this kind of triggered that, because a lot of stoicism talks about this idea of memento mori and I've never heard of like a playlist. I saw that that was like very morbid at first. I'll be honest, my first man, that's gotta be super depressing playlist. Well, I was like, okay, that's kind of cool and it's a cool application of the idea. But I'm curious, as a Christian professor of philosophy, do you find value in things like stoicism and, if yes, how can Christians incorporate some of these ideas?

Speaker 2: 37:41

Yeah, so I Absolutely do. I think you know stoicism? I didn't. I hadn't really read much about it until I mean a little bit enough to teach it for a day. You know that kind of thing. But I read some more of Marcus Raylius and Is the other big stoic? My mind's going blank, you probably know there's like another. Yeah, yeah, all three of them. That's right, thank you, yeah, yeah. And just they remind me like and Christians ask about philosophy in general for me, I think of them Aristotle, who had some really bad things to say, but a lot of, I think people like Aristotle to a degree play though the stoics, like some of the ancient Greeks and stoics they got really far, like not as far as you can get, but they got really far off of just General or natural revelation.

Speaker 2: 38:34

Like these. These people thought about the world deeply and yeah, there's just a Christian tradition for as far back as Christian thought goes, yeah, there's the book of the Bible and there's the book of the world, right, so, reading a book of world, thinking about human nature, so it is really interesting. These Like stoic practices. Some of them can become extreme at. Some of them kind of fit within, you know, a sort of a Christian Spiritual disciplines kind of approach to spirituality. So yeah, I would say yeah, I mean I think of someone like Aristotle if you sort of set aside Some of the morally objectionable stuff and just take his ideas and apply to all humans, instead of just kind of him and people like him, which is what he wanted. I mean, yeah, just, it's a. It's incredible the amount of insight into human nature and how we ought to live. So I think it can be useful because it's yeah, if that sort of old adage that all truth is God's truth and I find truth in and I have found that in the stoics and the ancient Greeks that has been really helpful as I bring those things into conversation with stuff in scripture or other Christian thought. Yeah, it does add a depth and a richness and to it knows me understand.

Speaker 2: 39:48

So you know, thinking about moral development, aristotle, basically his advice you want to become, like, more virtuous, to just work hard at it. So you want to be honest, go do honest actions. And there's something to that right there, like if you want to be good at anything, it requires time and focus and effort, and whether it's learning how to, you know, hit a 95 mile an hour, fastball or acquire self-control, but as Christians to them, we, you know, we know You're gonna run into a wall, because I've got this view of human nature that we can't do it on our own right, even if we are a noble, independently wealthy citizen of Athens, like Aristotle was, and those are the people that could be virtuous. Nobody else could rip him, the males, and but yeah, if you expand it to all humans, and then and then we have, like this, what we talked about the start of the, the discussion here, this transformative union with God that can, where things can happen that you can't explain just by your own power.

Speaker 2: 40:44

And I've definitely seen that in my work, in my character, in my relationships, and of course I'm there still fraught with Issues and as I am. But yeah, I think that's that's the benefit, is it can help you see things that you can't see, because the Bible it's pretty thick book that doesn't cover everything, right. So God speaks through All kinds of ways and all kinds of people.

Speaker 1: 41:05

And I think you know, if all I had was stoicism, I would probably be Pretty depressed. I think, truthfully, you know, if all I had that but and I would say this is, I found this true with like Buddhism as well Is, if you use some of these ideas, they actually set up the truths of the gospel really nicely. They they make you aware of human conditions in some you know holistic ways which then when you go to Jesus you go oh, I see a knee that's being met there, and I found that with socialism there's also a ton of overlap. And I'm curious if you've seen in this, but just in my own reading recently I was reading that when John's gospel talks about the word Logos you know being with God and identified with God One of the books I was reading saying that John is borrowing stoic philosophy here, that that the logos was a very stoic idea of Understanding the creator.

Speaker 1: 41:57

Right like this, this logos. And then the same argument was made with the word Numa, right, which we use for often, the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, the spirit of God. Do you see connections there, even in language that's used in some of the Greek ideas, and then what the New Testament writers were doing.

Speaker 2: 42:14

Yeah, that logos term is. When you mentioned stoicism, that's the first thing to jump to mind, because I remember when I was reading through some of the things a couple years ago or I guess, well, four years ago now, like 2018 to 2020. Yeah, they talk about that right, that there's this rational or logical principle, but you know, of a divine nature, yeah, and so that same word. So I think I'm not like I don't know enough about the history in the overlap, but I but I've heard that those claims being made, but regardless of that, they're in terms of actual appropriating it, I don't mean it makes sense and even if he wasn't intentionally appropriating it.

Speaker 2: 42:52

It's the same ideas at work, to a degree right that at its basis, reality is, there is a rational undergirding, there is this lot, you know logos, rational, principle, logical, you know, and for us it's a person we care, it's actually, you know, the Trinity, persons we can interact with. So reality is that it's based both rational and relational. For Christians, and I think for Stokes, it's rational and they had, they want to try to like, live their life according to the way reality is, you know, and that's that's exactly. I mean, that's an exact parallel to what we're trying to do, right, right. So yeah, I think, from my understanding, yeah, they're, because I've read recently I think there was sort of some cross pollination there, but that just makes sense. You know, I mentioned the book.

Speaker 2: 43:40

Dallas Willard shows up a lot. He's one person really influential in my own thinking about Christian air, not just I mean a little bit philosophy, but mostly his spiritual writings. But it sometime in the past month or two I think I was Watching or listening to a talk on youtube he gave and he said something like it would be really surprising if God would create a world like ours and he wouldn't communicate some of his truths through other religions like Buddhism, or it's like true. Why would God like not work any avenue to get to people, to reach people, to help them see reality and ultimately himself? So I think that's something that when I was 20 or I mean, well, no, that's not, those are all false religions, so it can't be anything good about that. You know you just sort of. Then you realize, well, actually they a lot of them. Of course there's differences, but I mean, compassion is kind of a big deal, not just in Buddhism but in Christianity too. They're both places. So that's just reality, for an easy example. But yeah, I think that's really helpful too.

Speaker 2: 44:41

I had a friend ask me.

Speaker 1: 44:44

He was saying through Jesus and, you know, trying to make sense of Jesus. And he asked me this question. He said do I have to be a Christian to believe in Jesus? And I thought it was such an interesting that that was really a hang up for him, because he said I don't, I don't really want to be a Christian. You know, the way you know and he doesn't live in America, but the way he sees it and his experiences but he's drawn to Jesus and he wants to he wants us to live to Jesus, but he's going.

Speaker 1: 45:09

Do I have to adopt all this other stuff? And we had a fascinating conversation Very similar to this, of like, no, like, follow Jesus, follow that which is true and measure it by Jesus and let you know wherever that takes you. And I said, I think there are people following Jesus in all religions of the world and you know, it's like what. Like I think there are people following Jesus in Islam. I think there are people following Jesus in Buddhism, right, and in Hinduism, like, I think there are people trying to follow Jesus as they have experienced him. And it looks very different. If you travel, you see this of like, oh, I've met these people, you know, and you know they may not have the Christian title or moniker, the way that you and I might be comfortable with, but you go. Oh, they're actually trying to follow the same person and it is very interesting to take a step back and go all right, what is actually pointing us to truth and to God here?

Speaker 2: 45:57

Yeah, yeah, I think I always get these guys mixed up. I think it's Frank Laubach. He was like I read some of his spiritual writings recently and he talked like he was a missionary but like lived in, like in a Muslim nation and did a lot for literacy, but he talked about how have a spiritual life was helped so much by, in a sense, practicing Islam that when the call to prayer came out, it is like you know, engage in prayers or Christian, but he just talked about, like the discipline and the faithfulness and some of those things. That that's rather than just sort of that New York reaction. It's like you know, god's grace, god's truth, present all kinds of places that you wouldn't expect, like you know Carpenter's son from Palat, you know ancient Near East 2000 years ago, that kind of stuff. So it's one of the things I've liked, that I've liked about Christianity over the years.

Speaker 2: 46:51

Yeah, it's, you wouldn't expect it to be that guy, shouldn't he? Like shown up in Athens and like just wowed everybody with his views about the good life and you know, aristotle bowed down and worshiped, like there's a harmony that would. That would be way cooler than also like actually kind of like it fits the humility right, and it came in this time and a place that was not expected for the Messiah, so you wouldn't expect the King. The King is to show up, so and rule in a different way. And this goes back to the pacifism thing, right, his kingdom is a lot different than the Kingdoms of the world and those things are built on violence or the threat of it, and his is built on well, as I argue, in the book, humility and love.

Speaker 2: 47:28

So, and just arguing from what I think you know, it's not my original argument kind of in the New Testament and these great Christian thinkers over the centuries. Yeah, so it's really good and God's humble enough to work through those means. It doesn't have to be the official Christian means, yeah, All right, let's lighten this up a little bit.

Speaker 1: 47:52

We're getting too, too heavy with the philosophy. So there's a question I love asking people is totally, totally different here. What is it? If you think about enjoying a glass of wine and what? I've gotten all different answers to this question Is there a moment if I think, if you think back and I go what's the best glass of wine you've ever had, where you think of it? Was that moment with that person? Or maybe you think of a bottle, maybe you think of a location, whatever. Do you have anything that comes to mind that you go? That was it for me and we'd love to hear about it.

Speaker 2: 48:26

Yeah, I don't even remember what I know it was a Cabernet Assignment, young, I don't remember what it was, but it was was in grad school at University of Colorado in Boulder. So, yeah, we all we have all our kids are like elementary or preschool age, but it was just an anniversary and we should my wife and I like to share the bottle of wine. Yeah, I just remember that night like just the celebration and like you know, when you've got young kids the freedom of when they're all finally in bed to sleep, I don't even we may have gone out for dinner. I don't even think we did. It was probably one of those nights we just stayed in, made dinner and yeah. So I'm sure it was like a $20 bottle of wine and that's not no incredible thing, but it was. Yeah, it was more about the occasion and who I shared it with. That it was, it was, it was taste good and we enjoyed it. It was just. Yeah, well, it was a fun night, so that's great.

Speaker 1: 49:19

Yeah, you talk about in the book that you've changed your posture on social media since 2015. And as I thought about a book that's helping people practically look more like Jesus, the way we use social media probably should be a key part of this discussion Any insights that you can share with people. What is it meant for you to change your posture on social media?

Speaker 2: 49:44

Yeah. So one and I kind of realized this in retrospect I stopped expecting people to like have conversations there Unless I know them for the purpose of like engaging each other and trying to figure out what's true. It's just that it's more of a dumpster fire, especially with strangers. So when I'm trying to ask a question or say something and somebody just comes back with an insult, I think I don't think I would never insult people back, but I just would engage them and try to like I don't know if I was trying to make them engage me authentically, but I guess in a way I was instead of just like okay, I kind of changed. When somebody does that and say, okay, have a nice day or nice night, that's sort of my amount, but I think for me it's realizing that it has to do with this stuff. So I tried to what does it mean to do this? Like? How would Jesus engage? I don't think you'd ignore it, I don't think you would spend a ton of time on it, because it's just the relational part. Growing just the face to face is so much better than anything media through a screen.

Speaker 2: 50:49

But you know to be curious with people I disagree with, or if people are people. If someone's just going to be a troll like there's actually just listen to somebody, talk about this, psychologically don't interact with them. You're just giving them what they want. And actually, if it's a sibling in Christ and they're doing that, I'm just I'm actually like a stumbling block to them by keeping engaging right, because that's not what they want to do. So I've tried to like be firm and say what I think and why, but with people that disagree with me, not just about like sort of Trump and politics stuff, because I was just very this is not a good idea from the start and I never really talked about politics online before, but I was like I can't, like I just can't handle what's happening. In nine years later, here we go again, but but for me it's like being curious, right. So this is one of those, one of those things that has stuck with me. This was actually on Twitter several years ago.

Speaker 2: 51:45

I don't even know how I got in this Congress back and forth, but as a woman who was was gay and people were kind of attacking her and other people were defending her and I just said I'm a Christian, you know, kind of evangelical background, but I'm just sorry the way that you've been treated and the way the church has treated you and her response back and you could feel the honesty and through it was like no one has ever said that to me before, like no Christian has ever just apologized for the ways that I've been treated by community. And so, yeah, just start just to see someone as a person and coming to realize to a lot of the, a lot of people that I've had, people who have sort of, I guess people that I know have mutual acquaintances, who are like a really attack oriented, and I guess I just air jerks, you know, online to me and other people and I stop engaging. But also as I start knowing some of their backstories I'm not excusing this because I think we're all still responsible for who we are and how we act, but a lot of them are just have gone through difficult stuff or just they're acting out rather than processing their pain or their disappointment or whatever it is, or just like venting it in those ways. It's so and it's so easy to do so.

Speaker 2: 52:57

Trying to engage people with questions, trying to engage rather than sort of face to face with opponents. Let's engage shoulder to shoulder, looking out, trying to figure out what's true together. And if somebody doesn't want to do that, that's fine, but I'm not going to keep engaging them, because then it really is. Not only is there no good point, there's a lot of like bad things happen as a result of that and because and just the way I'm built, because I would never like say things like that to people, when people do to me I'm just like I just starts churning for like a day and I just like I don't. You know, I don't need to be obsessed about some random person on social media that I barely know or that I don't know at all in real life, but that's just not a good use of my emotional energy.

Speaker 2: 53:40

So so I've learned to disengage but to engage, yeah, really just trying to do this. Engage and, you know, need love. What does that look like here, stopping and thinking about that, which means a lot of times I just don't engage at all. Other times I might ask a question, or especially the other Christian philosophers. I'll challenge them, but try to do it in a non confrontational way and by asking questions and not like the obnoxious question that's not a question but like really asking the question. So I want to know what they think. Yeah, the question, that's really kind of a in soldier, you know, just setting myself up to how stupid. Yeah, I thought you're smart, your philosopher, I guess not. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 1: 54:19

All right, I guess you're not really. Some some quick questions. Get your your take on what's something that's blowing your mind right now.

Speaker 2: 54:31

That was a good question. I'm trying to think of a light one. I mean, okay, I already mentioned this, so it is blowing my mind that we're that it's Trump versus Biden again. Everybody, nobody says that we're happy, but it's really blowing my mind that so many American really it's white evangelicals they could have picked a number of other conservative people and it's not. It's not a hold your nose thing, it's like we're all in with this guy, this is our guy.

Speaker 2: 55:05

That blows my mind. I still can't wrap my mind around that and I know they're historical and sociological explanations, but when I think about the way of Jesus, the way of Trump, both as a person and just sort of this, the whole all that stuff, it blows my mind that people will I'm her people say you're morally obligated to vote for this guy if you're Christian. That blows my freaking mind, because that, yeah, just can't wrap my mind around it. And I'm not like. I'm actually registered independent because I've been registered Republican Democrats are not like a. I voted for people on both and even third party since 1988, my first election. So I'm not sort of a partisan person in that way. But this is just one of those cases where, yeah, just mindboggling.

Speaker 1: 55:55

What do you see as the main issues facing Christianity in America today?

Speaker 2: 56:03

I think there is sort of this boiling point of what does it look like to engage in in America from our faith in the political realm. Even as much as I just want to, and I could do that because of who I am, I can ignore politics and it wouldn't really affect me, you know, and life goes pretty well for me, got a good job and not rich, but I'm not worried about making my house payment. 53, 54 year old white guy, you know I don't have not really worried about a lot of things in our society has kind of set up for me in certain ways. But tell me the question again, starting to get concerned about my brain. But yeah, I get my thoughts, I get over my skis and I can't remember what the point, what the question was.

Speaker 1: 56:52

To repeat it for me, sorry main issues facing Christianity, the church, yeah.

Speaker 2: 56:58

So that thing, yeah, what is the vision of? What does it mean to that that line and Lord's prayer, your will be, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, is that isn't heaven. What does that mean for Christians in the political realm? Because I'm 100%, like all the way, convinced it's not a Christian nationalism, a course of use of the state. I'm also not convinced of sort of the Anabaptist approach, even though there's a part of me that was strong to that, like, I think we. So I think that is.

Speaker 2: 57:26

What is that going to look like? And not just politically, but just more broadly, culturally. How are we going to? I mean, we're just going to keep doing this culture, war, stuff that we've done since, maybe since the 70s, but for sure the 80s and 90s, where there's just a, you know, and it's a lot quicker, you know, for I mentioned this in the book, right, it was relativism, postmodernism, then it was the emergent church, you know which, and then, and then it just speeds up its CRT, its wokeism, its progressive Christianity. It's like, oh my gosh, what are you know? What are we for?

Speaker 2: 57:59

You know, instead of everybody's worried, this is like going to take down our country or the church, and first of all, I don't know, I mean the country's, the empire's fall sooner or later.

Speaker 2: 58:07

America will probably fall hopefully much later than sooner, given the good things about it. But the church we're kind of told the church isn't going to fail. So I think what does it look like to engage with people we disagree with on fundamental moral and political issues in ways that reflect the love of Christ? That, to me, is the pressing issue, because so many people are leaving the faith, and they're leaving a faith that I don't. They're leaving a Jesus that I don't think is the real Jesus, and so I want, we need, to give people that Jesus, or prepare the way to the way, so to speak, using the language of the book. That, to me, is what sticks out, and part of that's because of what I do and who I am, but it sure seems like that dominates when you ask people about Christianity or certain kinds of Christianity in America. For so many that's what comes to mind, and it shouldn't, shouldn't be that. It should be something else.

Speaker 1: 58:57

That's a problem you're trying to solve.

Speaker 2: 59:01

Yeah, I'm trying problem I'm trying to solve, I mean, I think in my own life, sort of the continued faithfulness right to the way, in the midst of like, there are times where I just yeah, I mentioned this earlier where you just think, is this really true? And I still make my choices as if it is. But it's sort of like, how do you live in that gray area? Like I believe, kind of the, I believe how my unbelief sort of thing, and that I'm just not getting in the way in certain parts of my life and that that's okay, like that's a big part of the spiritual life, is not having to get my way. But then, more broadly, I am trying to like contribute to solving this.

Speaker 2: 59:44

This sort of politics thing in our country and the nationalism, the Christian nationalism thing, it doesn't seem to be going away and it seems to be gaining a bit of traction, at least on certain parts of it. And yeah, so I'm trying to like both speaking and writing, trying to like say, well, this is not, this is for sure not the way of Jesus. And I've read some of the books by these guys and it's they're awful in terms of like what they're calling for. So I'm trying to push back against that co-opting of Christian language and symbols and faith.

Speaker 1: 1:00:17

Yeah, what's something you're excited about right now?

Speaker 2: 1:00:23

That the Kansas City Chiefs could three Pete Super Bowl. I'm like this is the yes, this is the worst ever. So I mean, for me, like I grew up in Kansas City, I still remember being at Irrathad Stadium, probably in the late seventies, early eighties, and it was. It was third and 56. Like I remember that because I just remember it third and they were horrible for so many years, like, and then good enough to make the playoffs never really make it all the way, and so I'm actually I'm excited about that because it's it's not just the, the team, it's like all that means kind of my hometown, where I'm from.

Speaker 2: 1:01:02

But yeah, it's funny. So I'm, I'm a chief fan, cause I grew up in Kansas City, I got my PhD in Boulder, so I walk into the grocery store here in Richmond, kentucky, in the fall and there's like Travis Kelsey T-shirt and like some CU Boulder thing because of Dion Sanders. I'm just like I like I'm not a bandwagoner Like these are, these are like I have loyalties here that pre-date, you know Taylor Swift and Dion Sanders, so you and everyone else, yeah, that's right. So, but yeah, that it is pretty funny though, cause I'll walk around when she's death and like I just want to say no, I'm. I'm like. I've suffered for decades. I deserve this joy.

Speaker 1: 1:01:46

That's for real fans. Like been through it. I need this.

Speaker 2: 1:01:51

Yeah, that's right, you know, ride it out while I can till the homes is done, and then, you know, go back to mediocrity. But that's okay, there you go.

Speaker 1: 1:02:01

Well, Mike, is there anything else you'd like to add that I have not asked you about?

Speaker 2: 1:02:05

That's a good question, I think. I think I would like to add the in the midst of this stuff, because there's in the book and in my some of my other work like I'm really focused in on character development and spiritual formation how those two things go together. That's what this book is and I'm trying to work on some other stuff. But in speaking to myself and others who have that been, I think sometimes we can. We can be like overly harsh or self-critical, like some people are way too easy on themselves. I tend to be, personality wise, too harsh on myself.

Speaker 2: 1:02:35

And so I want to say that all this stuff rediscovering the way of trying to grow in humility and love, seek out God, transformative union, all of it, like it just has to be permeated through and through with grace and mercy and that if I'm more humble or loving in a year than I am today, right doesn't change God's love for me like one iota, right. That's the the through line. So I think that's what I want to say, because it's so easy to talk about this stuff and then you can kind of get lost that it all happens in the midst of this. Yeah, sort of the father, the prodigal son, walking us back, no matter where we go and what we've done.

Speaker 1: 1:03:14

Love it. Well, hey guys, you can check out Mike's new book, humility. You can get this, I mean, anywhere books are sold, I'm assuming. The website if you want to find out more about what Mike's doing is michaelwaustincom. I just want to say I have appreciated I think you're our first philosophy professor on the podcast I love, I love what you're doing. I love the arena in which you're doing it. Grateful for your book. We need more, more encouragement for people like, hey, let's actually do this stuff, let's actually look more like Jesus, and obviously, as you write, humility is a great way to to unpack that and to focus on that, and so I'm grateful for this. Thank you for taking the time to to talk more about these ideas with us and explore with us and some and drinking some nice wine with us. We really appreciate all that you're doing for the kingdom, but obviously just for for us as well. So thanks for taking the time today, mike. Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:04:16

I appreciate it and enjoyed the discussion.

Speaker 1: 1:04:20

Awesome. All right, everybody. We will catch you on the next episode of Cabernet and Prey. Thanks,