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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly propicient at telling stories that

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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become

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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,

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Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the

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Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions

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Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto

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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody, welcome to this

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Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and I'm

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Speaker 1: joined by doctor Ashish Pharma, and today we're going to

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Speaker 1: do a follow up episode to a conversation we had

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Speaker 1: with David Van Dyke from Wheaton College. He runs the

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Speaker 1: Marriage and Family Therapy or marriage and family counseling program

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Speaker 1: there at Wheaton, and one of the things he talked

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Speaker 1: about in the episode was this notion of systems. So

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Speaker 1: when we think about marriage and family counseling, his argument

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Speaker 1: was it's best to think about systems is about their

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Speaker 1: relationships that are involved in a family and are involved

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Speaker 1: in a marriage, and how one responds to the various

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Speaker 1: relationships or other people within that system, the other factors

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Speaker 1: within that system. I find it interesting just having done

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Speaker 1: a lot of consulting over the years, you know, higher

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Speaker 1: education consulting is largely about managing multiple different stakeholders, multiple

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Speaker 1: different factors, and trying to help an institution understand how

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Speaker 1: they should respond to all those different factors. I also

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Speaker 1: find it interesting just from when we think through when

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Speaker 1: we've had conversations about this before on the podcast Systemic Sin.

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Speaker 1: How is it that we relate to the world differently

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Speaker 1: depending on how we're embodied in the world, our socioeconomic status,

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Speaker 1: various other issues. And so this system's thinking is actually

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Speaker 1: a pretty crucial thing that we need to get our

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Speaker 1: heads around. And I think that what we want to

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Speaker 1: try to you today is think about what does systems

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Speaker 1: thinking add to our understanding about what it means to

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Speaker 1: be the Body of Christ. How does this manifest not

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Speaker 1: only in a local congregation, although that's sort of a

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Speaker 1: primary space for it, but also as the Body of

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Speaker 1: Christ as a whole. And so we're going to start

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Speaker 1: off a little bit and in one of Ashisha's wheelhouses virtue,

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Speaker 1: and there's an interesting book equating virtue and addiction that

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Speaker 1: we kind of want to summarize here, and so unless

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Speaker 1: you have anything else to add I'll turn it over

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Speaker 1: to you and we can kind of dive into that.

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Speaker 2: No, that's good. Before I mentioned that what Kent Dunnington

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Speaker 2: is doing in his book Virtue and Addiction, it's worth

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Speaker 2: setting up what this is coming out of. From David

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Speaker 2: Van Dyke's articulation. One of the things he said that

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Speaker 2: that especially intrigued me. I think it intrigued you as well.

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Speaker 2: And Dave Vandyck spent some time I'm responding or explaining,

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Speaker 2: but he made a comment about how when he has

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Speaker 2: a family in the room, he might have a child

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Speaker 2: and parents that are coming at things from different perspectives,

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Speaker 2: and what he's less concerned about is what the story

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Speaker 2: is that they're telling, And that one struck me as interesting,

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Speaker 2: not least because I thought, well, stories often help explain

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Speaker 2: what's going on. But his point was not that the

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Speaker 2: story is unimportant so much as he was trying to

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Speaker 2: gauge how people are responding to those stories. So, in

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Speaker 2: his example, there was a teenage kid who saw himself

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Speaker 2: as disrupting the environment, and the parent's reaction to that

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Speaker 2: analysis was to sort of grimace as I recall to

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Speaker 2: sort of show exasperation, and the son's response was to smirk.

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Speaker 2: And that was especially interesting because what it showed was

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Speaker 2: not that the stories are different, but the stories that

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Speaker 2: the two groups were inhabiting were coming out of different

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Speaker 2: places with different sorts of reactions. Yeah, that do speak

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Speaker 2: to as you're getting out systems, and I think that

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Speaker 2: that system is something that's hard at times to grab

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Speaker 2: a hold of. Systems can be scary to us because

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Speaker 2: they're often invisible to us, invisible to the point where

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Speaker 2: we react within them and can get defensive if someone

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Speaker 2: tries to call it out. We, especially in Christian circles,

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Speaker 2: I find, have trouble wrestling with that reality of systems.

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Speaker 2: It's much easier to talk about individual right. I can

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Speaker 2: take responsibility ostensibly for something that I'm doing that I'm

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Speaker 2: aware that I'm doing, that I'm choosing to do. But

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Speaker 2: how do I take responsibility for being in something that

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Speaker 2: have less control over? And so we grab towards probably

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Speaker 2: two extremes, and this is where Dunnington comes in, and

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Speaker 2: the two extremes can often be on one side. Everything's

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Speaker 2: wilful choice, right I choose to eat ice cream or

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Speaker 2: I don't I choose to play basketball or don't. And

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Speaker 2: on the other side there's the concept of disease, something

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Speaker 2: like cancer or something like heart disease. I don't choose this.

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Speaker 2: It's just something that happens to me, and it happens

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Speaker 2: to me, perhaps for genetic reasons, perhaps from environmental reasons,

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Speaker 2: but it's something that I'm in some sense a victim of.

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Speaker 2: And so what he wants to say is that often

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Speaker 2: the way that we tend to think of something like

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Speaker 2: addiction is in one of these two ways. And it

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Speaker 2: can be contentious, right those who want to say, well,

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Speaker 2: it's your choice. The alcoholic has chosen to drink, and

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Speaker 2: the alcoholic has chosen to be subjected to those forms

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Speaker 2: of life patterns that just keep going back to it destructively.

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Speaker 2: And the other side says, no, this person is a

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Speaker 2: victim of a disease and can't help help him or herself. Right,

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Speaker 2: And Dunton wants to say, it's not quite either. While

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Speaker 2: he understands both extremes, and what he wants to do

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Speaker 2: is he con compares it to virtue. So not to

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Speaker 2: rehash what we've talked about in the past in terms

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Speaker 2: of virtue, just quickly. Virtue has to do with character formation.

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Speaker 2: It's less concerned about the precise response or action that

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Speaker 2: one takes. It tries not to give moral content to

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Speaker 2: particular actions, but rather tend to give ethical content to

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Speaker 2: the dispositions that are formed. Why am I doing?

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Speaker 1: What am I doing? Right?

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Speaker 2: So that what I'm doing might be different. If I'm

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Speaker 2: throwing a surprise party for my kid, not telling the

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Speaker 2: truth about what's coming is very different then if I'm

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Speaker 2: I'm hiding some sort of sin that I'm involved in, right,

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Speaker 2: some sort of misadventure that I'm undertaking. If I'm hiding

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Speaker 2: a person in my basement who's being searched for by

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Speaker 2: the state in order to arrest and to persecute in

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Speaker 2: some ways think Nazi Germany and comparable actions that might

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Speaker 2: speak on the present. My choice to hide the truth

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Speaker 2: is very different than if I'm stealing something and I

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Speaker 2: want to protect my own autonomy in that sense, right,

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Speaker 2: And the virtuous is concerned about what is it that,

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Speaker 2: what is the disposition within myself for why I'm doing

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Speaker 2: what I'm doing, And we often then tend to think

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Speaker 2: of the opposite of that virtuous behavior as vice. But

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Speaker 2: Dunnington wants to say, that's probably not the most helpful

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Speaker 2: way to think about it, right, because the virtue is

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Speaker 2: fundamentally about dispositions, the forming of habits, the character that forms,

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Speaker 2: and acting out of that character in a way that tends.

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Speaker 1: To be wise.

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Speaker 2: Vice is not the opposite of that. Vice tends to

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Speaker 2: be doing things out of love, just like virtue is,

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Speaker 2: but just out of a misplaced love. Right, So, if

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Speaker 2: someone has a love of money, they do things based

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Speaker 2: upon a love of having that money, compounding that money,

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Speaker 2: and if that means screwing over other people as a result,

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Speaker 2: that's okay, because I got my money right, and may

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Speaker 2: the best person win. Doesn't even want to say more.

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Speaker 2: The more the more that you look at that, the

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Speaker 2: less it seems like an opposite, and the more it

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Speaker 2: seems like a foil. Right.

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Speaker 1: But the true.

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Speaker 2: Opposite, he wants to say, is to put addiction into

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Speaker 2: this category, because addiction runs on systems, systems that can

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Speaker 2: be invisible to us. And so he especially analyzes alcoholism,

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Speaker 2: and he especially out and analyzes the people and the

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Speaker 2: work the people involved in and the work of alcoholics

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Speaker 2: anonymous a and what he notices after looking over you know,

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Speaker 2: numerous many hundreds, as I can understand interviews and data

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Speaker 2: points from within this is that there's a commonality that

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Speaker 2: flares up and that people who find themselves in Alcoholics

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Speaker 2: Anonymous find themselves there because they've started to come to

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Speaker 2: the realization that they have a problem, and that problem

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Speaker 2: is not something that they have any choice to overcome,

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Speaker 2: not because their willfulness is not entailed in their choice,

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Speaker 2: but because the addiction that they're now in is something

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Speaker 2: that they do despite the fact that they don't love it.

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Speaker 2: So he recounts that these alcoholics don't actually want to

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Speaker 2: be drinking. It's an automatic response that's habituated in them

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Speaker 2: based upon some other trigger. Right. That other trigger was

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Speaker 2: often things like a rough work environment, rough family situation,

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Speaker 2: something happens at work. They spiral and the well well

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Speaker 2: made path, that groove that is formed by their actions

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Speaker 2: that we tend to think of as habits, directs them

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Speaker 2: to now I'm going to go to the bar. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: they get to that fight with their spouse, and now

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Speaker 2: they're going to go to the bar, or they're going

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Speaker 2: to go pick up that drink, right, and just despite

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Speaker 2: the fact that they hate it, because they hate what

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Speaker 2: it does to them. They hate their dependence upon it.

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Speaker 2: Their body is now dependent upon it, and they have

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Speaker 2: to be they have to go to it. And so

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Speaker 2: the work that makes alcoholics anonymous so so influential, so

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Speaker 2: helpful to people. What don need to notice was the

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Speaker 2: fact that they treat alcoholics as sort of that inverse

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Speaker 2: a virtue, that habit formed addictive reality that they have

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Speaker 2: to recreate pathways, They have to avoid those sorts of

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Speaker 2: pathways in the first place. If the groove is there

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Speaker 2: based on habit, then how do we avoid getting to

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Speaker 2: that groove? If the trigger is my boss at work,

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Speaker 2: how do I sit in that particular situation at work

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Speaker 2: and not find myself slipping down into that groove? Perhaps

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Speaker 2: it's the path that I take home. Perhaps it's the

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Speaker 2: options that I now close.

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Speaker 1: Off to myself.

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Speaker 2: Because what he's doing there is he's recognizing that while

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Speaker 2: willful choice is certainly involved and was involved in the

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Speaker 2: formation of the practice, WillFull choice doesn't simply get one

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Speaker 2: out of it because it's a system. It's a structure

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Speaker 2: that has pulled us in. And I think the parallel

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Speaker 2: here that we're talking about, or that we want to

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Speaker 2: talk about, is that these systems, these structures that pull

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Speaker 2: us in, that have us often unconsciously begin to form

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Speaker 2: the way that we think about situations. They form the

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Speaker 2: way that we identify ourselves within those situations. Right, Perhaps

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Speaker 2: I have a tendency to consider myself a victim. I

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Speaker 2: fall into that groove where it's now an automatic response

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Speaker 2: something bad happens to me, I'm a victim, and I

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Speaker 2: begin to dwell on those processes and there's no reflection

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Speaker 2: on my own part within it. Right, Yeah, thoughts on that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really interesting concept.

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Speaker 1: So as we think about virtue and we think about

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Speaker 1: virtue formation, I think part of what we have to

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Speaker 1: recognize is that oftentimes when we're trying to form virtue,

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Speaker 1: there's a fake it till you make it sort of

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Speaker 1: moment that you do right, And that is part of

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Speaker 1: that habit forming aspect. You don't wake up one morning

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Speaker 1: and have virtue. Virtue tends to be, at least in

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Speaker 1: my understanding of it's something that is a desired state

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Speaker 1: that's down the road, and you begin to live into

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Speaker 1: that desired state. On the addiction side, what you're really

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Speaker 1: I think, if I'm understanding his argument and the way

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Speaker 1: you're articulating it correctly. What's really happening is there may

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Speaker 1: very well be a desired state, but the path you're

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Speaker 1: taking is always going to short circuit you getting there,

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Speaker 1: And so there's you know, I think of it like

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Speaker 1: one of the things I was thinking. You know, my

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Speaker 1: wife and I used to have to go to Vegas

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Speaker 1: on business fair amount. I had conferences out there or whatever,

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Speaker 1: She had conferences out there, And if I ever went

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Speaker 1: through the casino, I just know I really like playing cards.

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Speaker 1: I like doing that kind of stuff, and so I

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Speaker 1: never took cash or a debit card. Now, I didn't

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Speaker 1: feel like I was ever going to be in danger

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Speaker 1: of like sitting down at a table and blowing through

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Speaker 1: our bank account. But I also didn't even really want

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Speaker 1: to waste my time on it, and so I just

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Speaker 1: wouldn't carry cash and I wouldn't carry a debit card,

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Speaker 1: and so I effectively have no way that I can

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Speaker 1: anything in a casino other than walk through it. Like

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Speaker 1: that's the sort of behavioral change that it sounds like.

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Speaker 1: Alcohol economis is trying to get people to do right.

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Speaker 1: If you eliminate some of these factors that are going

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Speaker 1: to enable a bad choice then you can't make that

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Speaker 1: bad choice, or at least it's much more difficult to

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Speaker 1: make that bad choice. Conversely, if you're pursuing virtue, there

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Speaker 1: may be certain practices that you put in to say, no,

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to do this. I'm going to do

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Speaker 1: this on a daily basis, right, and I'm going to

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Speaker 1: structure my life so that I do this on a

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Speaker 1: daily basis. And in doing this on a daily basis,

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Speaker 1: eventually it's going to form in me this sort of habit.

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Speaker 1: Not habit in a sense of, you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: an unthinking reaction necessarily, but habit in terms of a

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Speaker 1: component of myself that now just begins to make sense, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: this is now part of who I am. And I

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Speaker 1: think that individually we can get we get a good

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Speaker 1: understanding of that. I think where I would push in

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Speaker 1: is say, I feel like it works very similar for

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Speaker 1: organizations groups. When I've worked with colleges in the past,

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Speaker 1: what I tend to see are a series of interactions

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Speaker 1: that tend to lead to the same place, right and so,

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Speaker 1: and then there are there are points where bad behavior

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Speaker 1: is being enabled that keeps the whole institution from moving forward.

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Speaker 1: There are points where the institution is trying to do

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Speaker 1: good practices, but then those things may get short circuited

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Speaker 1: by various other you know, whether it's financial resources or

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Speaker 1: technological system problems, or just you know, sort of loud

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Speaker 1: mouse within the organization who don't want something to go

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Speaker 1: a certain way. And so you kind of see these

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Speaker 1: dynamics within an organization. And part of the diagnosis that

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Speaker 1: you do as a consultant as you walk in and

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Speaker 1: you say, well, what's hindering you from heading to your

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Speaker 1: desired state? Right? Where do you want to be and

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Speaker 1: how how do you get there? Now you have to

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Speaker 1: look at what would help you get there and what's

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Speaker 1: hindering you from getting there, and how do we maximize

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Speaker 1: what's going to help you getting there and minimize what's

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Speaker 1: hindering you from getting there. And so I think my

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Speaker 1: intuition is that this concept, this system's concept, this virtue concept,

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Speaker 1: the addiction loops, that these can be applied within organizations

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Speaker 1: and that they might be interesting to think through in

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Speaker 1: terms of what happens at the church.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Anecdotally. One can look to sports cultures, right,

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Speaker 2: we see certain organizations and sports that every other year,

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Speaker 2: every third year, their general manager and their coaches are fired.

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Speaker 2: How do they blow the team? And they bring someone

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Speaker 2: new in who has this great pitch, and things start

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Speaker 2: over and we end up in the same loop three

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Speaker 2: years later. And what you start to realize is that

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Speaker 2: you do have organizational cultures. Right, they're coming in and

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Speaker 2: perhaps these people, these new people come in and they

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Speaker 2: find themselves slowly slipping into and adapting to the organizational

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Speaker 2: culture that is itself. You know, in sports terms, toxic, right,

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Speaker 2: may not have moral detriment, but can't seem to get

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Speaker 2: to the point where they move to new ways of

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Speaker 2: thinking and build contender teams, or they themselves find themselves

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Speaker 2: unable to push past certain barriers. Right, Maybe they notice

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Speaker 2: these things, but they can't push past certain barriers that

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Speaker 2: just exist organizationally. And what you end up finding is

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Speaker 2: that these teams just get stuck there. They can't get

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Speaker 2: out of it. And after the third or the fourth

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Speaker 2: court coach change and the general manager change and the

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Speaker 2: player overturn, you start to allies, oh, this is an

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Speaker 2: organizational problem. Yeah, and sometimes you overcome that by the

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Speaker 2: organizational heads realizing it. You know, it takes a lot

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Speaker 2: of humility and firing someone and hiring someone else that

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Speaker 2: is able to break through that barrier and create a

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Speaker 2: new culture. And sometimes it's just you know, I think

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Speaker 2: about my beloved Chicago Blackhawks, where it took there, you know,

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Speaker 2: the previous owner passing away in the early two thousands

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Speaker 2: to now allow a new culture to seep in that

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Speaker 2: built what ended up being a Stanley Cup, you know. Culture.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think a Goo Bears too, that revolving

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Speaker 1: door of quarterbacks that the Chicago Bears have.

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Speaker 2: In Chicago Bears. Can't we get this unfortunately, you know, right,

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Speaker 2: Chicago Bulls unfortunately.

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Speaker 1: And I think it is.

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Speaker 2: Owner, top down sort of dynamics.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And you see same owner with the White Sox and

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Speaker 2: using the same problems right right, Not to make this

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Speaker 2: about Chicago sports, but you see those dynamics, and I

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Speaker 2: think those transfer to church dynamics right where there's certain

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Speaker 2: structural hindrances that are in place that keep us from

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Speaker 2: being able to see other sorts of things. Perhaps those

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Speaker 2: things are We've had centuries maybe not centuries that's too long,

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Speaker 2: maybe decades long of social social issues that we elevate.

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Speaker 2: It's above anything else that prevent us from being able

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Speaker 2: to look at other issues or to look at those

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Speaker 2: issues that we have from other angles. Right, maybe the

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Speaker 2: problem isn't so much that our position is wrong, but

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Speaker 2: the way that we look at it, the way that

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Speaker 2: we should seek to engage it, are problematic. If I

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Speaker 2: could be so bold, One of the major issues that

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Speaker 2: have dominated conservative churches since the late seventies early eighties

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Speaker 2: has been the abortion issue. In fact, it's been the

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Speaker 2: issue now it's I think it's a more complicated issue

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Speaker 2: than we've often allowed it to become. But if what

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Speaker 2: we want to say here at the baseline is is

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Speaker 2: that God values life, specifically the life of his creatures,

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Speaker 2: human life that He's made in his image, and that

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Speaker 2: we need to value it as well, that's a fair position,

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Speaker 2: and I think that's at its heart what has driven

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Speaker 2: the desire to uphold, you know, single issue voting sorts

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Speaker 2: of things. But the thing that gets in the way

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Speaker 2: is that it has resulted in such a deep embedded

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Speaker 2: structural way of thinking that there's a failure to be

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Speaker 2: able to understand what the other sides are trying to say.

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Speaker 1: And it is sides.

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Speaker 2: It's not one side or trying to say what might

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Speaker 2: animate what they have to do and what they want

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Speaker 2: to advocate also to see the complexity of the issue, right,

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Speaker 2: which is now is not the time to get to do.

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Speaker 2: But then finally a simple reality that often simple partisan

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Speaker 2: politics has not yielded the sort of results that the

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Speaker 2: common sense thinking within that structure has wanted to say,

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Speaker 2: you know, and to be blunt with it, the common

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Speaker 2: sense thinking is is if you have a particular position

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Speaker 2: on abortion and that's tied to a particular party that

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Speaker 2: says it champions that that you would therefore find that

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Speaker 2: fewer abortions happen when that group is in power. But

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Speaker 2: the numbers actually don't back up that stats. Ironically, the

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Speaker 2: numbers work in the opposite direction, and so that's prevented

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Speaker 2: thinking through more thoroughly. Maybe there's other ways to address

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Speaker 2: this conviction that might otherwise be a good conviction.

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Speaker 1: Right right, And I would say part of the challenge here,

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Speaker 1: and I think what that issue particularly helps us to

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Speaker 1: understand is that the how over the last since the

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Speaker 1: seventies or eighties, you know, like whenever this really got going,

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Speaker 1: the how has always been a more politically oriented how

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Speaker 1: that's been the dominant how. How do we address the

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Speaker 1: abortion issue? Will we address it through legislation, appointment of

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court judges, and you know, political lobbying groups. That's

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Speaker 1: how we do it. There's obviously other ways. There are more.

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Speaker 1: You know, my wife and I are part of a

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Speaker 1: because we out involved with foster care. Same group also

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Speaker 1: helps single moms, right, gives them shelter and homes and

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Speaker 1: those kind of things. And so those activities also go on.

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Speaker 1: But what we often hear about what seems to be

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Speaker 1: better funded, right, are these bigger political movements. And so

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Speaker 1: we have to then ask ourselves a couple of different questions,

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Speaker 1: which are, like, what is continually participating in politics in

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Speaker 1: this way and really only focusing on politics in this

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Speaker 1: way or focusing on it to such a dominant in

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Speaker 1: such a dominant manner that the other things sort of

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Speaker 1: diminished in comparison. How is that forming us? In other words,

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Speaker 1: if we're talking about this in terms of virtue, formation

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Speaker 1: and habit, do we really become political animals as opposed

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Speaker 1: to people conformed to the image of Christ? Now the

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Speaker 1: two aren't in my mind, the two are not isolated

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Speaker 1: from one another. The difficulty is in the way I

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Speaker 1: would sort of think about it is it's a primary

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Speaker 1: aspect sort of problem. If I become primarily a political

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Speaker 1: animal and also a Christian, I'm missing something somewhere. This

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Speaker 1: is not the road to conformity to Christ. This is

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Speaker 1: being a politically effective within a given nation. If, on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, I'm pursuing Christ and conforming to his image,

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Speaker 1: I think there's ample room for us to participate politically,

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Speaker 1: but that will then be shaped to the degree that

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Speaker 1: we are also conformed to the image of Christ. And

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Speaker 1: so it's a difference in pursuits and how we go

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Speaker 1: about practicing these things. But I think part of the mistake,

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Speaker 1: and part of what we see in systems theory is

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Speaker 1: that participating in a particular system usually is not a

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Speaker 1: neutral activity. These things that we do, the practices that

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Speaker 1: we engage in, they have a formative effect on us.

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Speaker 1: They shape us in very particular ways and in ways

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Speaker 1: to your point, that we often just don't notice, right,

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Speaker 1: And so there's a sense in which I think that

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Speaker 1: that's really part of that whole conversation that needs to happen,

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Speaker 1: is not, Hey, is life important? Right? To a degree

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Speaker 1: of view, yes, life is important? So now what do

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Speaker 1: we do about that? How does the church respond to

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Speaker 1: life being important, and how do we allow our desire

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Speaker 1: to be like Christ shape those responses as opposed to

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Speaker 1: allowing the mechanisms that we have around us in the

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Speaker 1: United States and in our democracy to shape the way

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Speaker 1: we respond to those things. Again, they may not be

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Speaker 1: mutually exclusive, but I think the one has to come

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Speaker 1: before the other. Otherwise we're inverting an authority structure, and

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Speaker 1: we're changing our desired end really or desired end state

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Speaker 1: to something other than conformity to Christ. I don't know

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Speaker 1: whether that made sense, but I'll leave it there and

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Speaker 1: let you respond.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it does make sense. It signals me to something

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Speaker 2: else that David Van Dyke was talking about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he was.

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Speaker 2: I can't remember the exact terminology he used, but the

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Speaker 2: idea that he was trying to put forth was trying

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Speaker 2: to show when he's in that family family therapy setting,

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Speaker 2: trying to show people on all sides the sort of

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Speaker 2: the boundaries of themselves, which included the boundaries of their agency,

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Speaker 2: included the boundaries of what they can know, what they

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Speaker 2: can understand, in order to then to begin to appreciate

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Speaker 2: that the other people in the room also have boundaries

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Speaker 2: that are not identical to mine that include ways of thinking,

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Speaker 2: ways of being that are not identical to mine, to

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Speaker 2: then be able to pull back from what can be

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Speaker 2: too easily habituated in us, which is someone thinks or believes,

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Speaker 2: or acts differently than me. It is therefore an affront

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Speaker 2: or an attack upon myself because my personhood is under

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Speaker 2: assault from difference. He wanted to help pull back from

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Speaker 2: that right now. Part of his intention was to be

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Speaker 2: able to help people recognize their own boundaries in order

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Speaker 2: to let go of certain things right in order to

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Speaker 2: be able to say I can't control that. I'm not

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Speaker 2: going to let that make me anxious.

435
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:01,120
Speaker 1: That's right.

436
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 2: I want to extend that a little bit to say

437
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 2: yes that and recognition of those boundaries hopefully helps me

438
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 2: understand my finitude and the ways that I think, the

439
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 2: ways that I understand the things that I'm aware of,

440
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,439
Speaker 2: so that maybe I can begin to think in terms

441
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 2: of what is it that I can learn from you?

442
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 2: How can I begin to understand you? How can there

443
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 2: be you know? The German hermeneutical theologian or sorry philosopher

444
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:36,440
Speaker 2: Gottamer would say the fusing of horizons. It's the recognizing

445
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 2: of the boundaries of my horizon, recognizing that there is

446
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 2: stuff outside of it, to begin to expand the expanse

447
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:48,120
Speaker 2: of my horizons so that I can begin to understand

448
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:49,399
Speaker 2: things in a new way. Now, the way that I

449
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 2: understand it when I'm talking to you inevitably is filtered

450
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 2: through some of these both conscious and unconscious categories of mine,

451
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 2: these structures. But hopefully in that process that makes me

452
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 2: aware enough to begin to understand my structures at least

453
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 2: a little bit more, which will enable me, hopefully to

454
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 2: begin to, in the most generous sense, question them right,

455
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:18,879
Speaker 2: not to chop off the limb that I'm sitting on

456
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 2: or the branch that I'm sitting on, but to recognize

457
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 2: the limitedness with which I'm approaching things.

458
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: Right.

459
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 2: I think of someone I once worked with who would

460
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 2: amusingly say every time he learned something and say, well,

461
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 2: I learned something new. I guess I can go to bed,

462
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 2: And he would say it jovially, and the thought process

463
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 2: behind it was, you know, every day I should learn

464
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 2: something new. And I appreciated that about him, and I've

465
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 2: sort of adopted that both in its jovialness and and

466
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 2: I think the practical life lesson than that of yeah,

467
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 2: I should be. If I think I can approach a

468
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 2: day without learning something, then that's a me problem and

469
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 2: probably more specifically, a structure problem that's invisible to me.

470
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 2: What can I say about that? Am I taking? Am

471
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 2: I taking it too? Personally? When these young people think

472
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 2: Lebron James is the best basketball boy that's ever played,

473
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 2: Maybe I should But yeah, maybe I should back off

474
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 2: a little bit.

475
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like a personal affront. No, I

476
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: resonate what you're saying. I think, I mean, these examples

477
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: are going to be individual, but I'll try to couch

478
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: them back into a collective understanding. So there was a

479
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: point where I was I had resigned as a dean,

480
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: and the faculty members were kind of coming into my

481
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: office and somewhere saying goodbye. Cordially, others were a little

482
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: less happy with me, and so they were pleased to

483
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 1: see me go. And one of the I was trying

484
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 1: to practice this I had gotten into Edwin Friedman. He

485
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: wrote a book called The Failure of Nerve and Nity,

486
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: talks about being a non anxious present, having this self

487
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: differentiate character. And one of the things that I noted

488
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: noticed is I started to execute that like tried to

489
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: really live into that was that it was easy for me,

490
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: just my personality, to become fairly callous to what other

491
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: people were feeling. And so by that point, I'd started

492
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, this can't become an excuse for me

493
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: not to care about other people, right, because that's not

494
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: really what I wanted to do. What I wanted to

495
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 1: do was was to and I decided on this was

496
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: to be recognize my own boundaries but also exhibit a

497
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: care and a curiosity for the person talking to me.

498
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: And so when I was sitting with this particular faculty member,

499
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: he said something like, I think your resignation was a

500
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: gift from God, and I'm so grateful that you're leaving, right,

501
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: And I think it's the sort of comment, right that

502
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: would elicit an angry reaction, But in the moment, I

503
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: just thought, to myself, I wonder what's going on in

504
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: his mind and like his emotions, his perspective that he

505
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: feels like A he needs to convey that to me,

506
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: and B that he's feeling that deep sense of angst

507
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: about it, right, Like, what is it What's going on

508
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: in him that this is such a crucial issue for him? Right?

509
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: And I think that not being defensive in the moment

510
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: helped that conversation go better than it would have otherwise, right,

511
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: because my response then was conditioned on, hey, why don't

512
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: you why don't you voice that a little differently, why

513
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: don't you help me understand why that is? Like, what

514
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: is it about something that I did, you know, or whatever,

515
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: you know who I am, that you feel like it's

516
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: great that I'm leaving. Help me understand it. And so

517
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: we had a really ten conversation, fairly awkward, where he

518
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: voiced some of his opinions, but I wasn't concerned about

519
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: it because I knew he didn't really want to know

520
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: the context in which some of the decisions I'd made

521
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,719
Speaker 1: had been made. And so it was like I had

522
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 1: a job and I exercised my responsibilities with integrity, and

523
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: I felt okay about it, and so I just really

524
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 1: wanted to understand his perspective and see if I could

525
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: learn anything from it. I say that it's sort of

526
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 1: like when we're looking out at the world right as

527
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 1: the church, sometimes I think what we want to do

528
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 1: is we want to insulate ourselves from the world or

529
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: say all the things that the world is doing are bad. Right.

530
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: I had a gentleman asked me the other day while

531
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: I was on Stand in the Gap, and the host

532
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: asked me why I thought that so many political candidates

533
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 1: have change oriented messages that they use during their campaigns.

534
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: And my response was, is this, Like, it's because people

535
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: are feeling a degree of pain and are looking for

536
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 1: a change that will alleviate it. Like, we need to

537
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 1: recognize that not everything is pernicious in politics. A lot

538
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:26,920
Speaker 1: of it is limited human leaders trying to figure out

539
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 1: how to alleviate the pain that society is feeling, and

540
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 1: doing so largely apart from God, apart from God's resources,

541
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: without really factoring God in the equation. And so the

542
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: decisions they make are reasonable from the perspective that they

543
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 1: don't have any other framework other than I have these

544
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: limited resources and I'm going to try to shuffle them

545
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: around to solve certain societal problems. I always use the

546
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: example of Pharaoh, and while I don't agree with his methods, right,

547
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: if you just look at the logic he's using when

548
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: he sees the multiplication of the Israelites, you can't fault

549
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: him for exercising his responsibility. He's basically saying that the

550
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: Israelites are multiplying, they're going to become more numerous than

551
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: we are, and if an enemy comes, they're going to

552
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: join with the enemy and defeat us. Well as a

553
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: ruler of a nation, that's sort of important to notice, right,

554
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: And so the way he responds to it, the things

555
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: that he does, we don't have to agree with, but

556
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 1: we can understand why he would do it. We can

557
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,800
Speaker 1: understand why he recognizes this as a problem as opposed

558
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:44,160
Speaker 1: to recognizing it as the blessing of God that he

559
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 1: should really work with, as opposed to work against. And

560
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 1: I think that there's a as we refuse to be

561
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 1: defensive about some of these things, I think we can

562
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: have more productive conversations, both within the Church and with

563
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: with non Christians about some of these more contentious issues

564
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: that tend to divide us as opposed to unitus.

565
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple of examples there, we're really helpful to

566
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 2: think through this. I want to take the last one,

567
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:26,239
Speaker 2: just in the interest of time, Yeah, and have a

568
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 2: bit of a thought experiment as to what could have

569
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 2: been the way that you describe Pharaoh. I think that's

570
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 2: a really helpful way to take a character in the Bible,

571
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 2: who might often be considered that other one whose boundaries

572
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 2: outside of mind that it's very easy to dismiss right

573
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 2: and just flatten out as the bad guy. But you've

574
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 2: helped us look at him and say, well, from the

575
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 2: framework of him being the ruler of a nation, his

576
00:35:57,480 --> 00:35:59,799
Speaker 2: interest has to be in the good of that nation.

577
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 2: I want to take that and think about that for

578
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 2: a moment and think, so, where exactly was the problem?

579
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:10,800
Speaker 2: Right on one macro level, we could say the problem

580
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 2: with his response was it was a failure to accept

581
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 2: the God of gods right as the Old Testament would

582
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 2: refer to Yahweh, Yeah, the God of Israel. But on

583
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 2: a micro level, he's not even necessarily thinking in that sense.

584
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 2: He certainly recognizes that that recognizes that these people, these Hebrews,

585
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:37,319
Speaker 2: were worshipers of another god. But he looks around and

586
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:41,720
Speaker 2: he sees a lot of different people worshiping different gods,

587
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 2: and he doesn't have the same reaction to them that

588
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 2: he has to the Hebrews. The fear of his and

589
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 2: I think it's important to describe in terms of fear

590
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 2: is that this is a group of people with the

591
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 2: different God and therefore a different set of understanding the

592
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 2: nature of the land that he was in, that was

593
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 2: inside his lane and right, so he's operating on the

594
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:05,839
Speaker 2: basis of fear. That's a great thing to recognize there,

595
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 2: and should he hopefully help us to stop and say,

596
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 2: how much of my reaction is on the basis of fear?

597
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:15,800
Speaker 2: What am I losing? What do I think I'm losing

598
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 2: when I draw these hard lines or when I react

599
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 2: emotionally to these structural attacks. Am I losing anything at all?

600
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,879
Speaker 2: Am I on the non important level? Am I losing

601
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 2: anything at all? When my brother in law tries to

602
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,439
Speaker 2: convince me that Lebron James is the greatest basketball player

603
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 2: of all time? No, I'm not really losing anything, right,

604
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 2: he doesn't convince me. But okay, yea, what so what

605
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 2: what then.

606
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:46,439
Speaker 1: Is then?

607
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 2: The is the counter to this that I want to

608
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 2: say everything he said was garbage? Of course not. Of

609
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 2: course Lebron James is one of the greatest of all time.

610
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 2: Perhaps I had the greatest career, right, cool, Let's move forward. Yeah,

611
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 2: So that that that dynamic of fear is something to

612
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 2: recognize that I think transfers immediately. But then I think

613
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 2: we can take that to another level and say, what

614
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 2: did that fear cause him to miss? He failed to

615
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 2: recognize that these Hebrew people actually had a stakes in

616
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:20,919
Speaker 2: his land as well, Right, so perhaps they would join

617
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 2: with the outsiders. But why would they join with the

618
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 2: outsiders when they've been with these Egyptian people at that

619
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 2: point for generations?

620
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: Yeah?

621
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 2: Is there perhaps a way that they've been in that land,

622
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 2: treated in that land that would cause them to side

623
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 2: with foreign invaders that they don't know? What would what

624
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 2: would create that alliance? And so one might think that

625
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 2: rather than act out of fear, he could he could

626
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:46,400
Speaker 2: respond by saying, what is it that we can do

627
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 2: in this land so that these people don't think that

628
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 2: they have to join with other people against us? Perhaps

629
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 2: the answer is that they have to then worship the

630
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 2: gods of the Egypt. And if that's the case, Okay,

631
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 2: I understand his response that, well, that's not going to

632
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 2: ever happen. But it's not clear to me that he

633
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 2: had to have that response because he's had generations of

634
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 2: evidence that they could worship a different god and be there, Right,

635
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 2: So what is it that he could do to help

636
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 2: them feel like they belonged in that place?

637
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: Now?

638
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 2: If that seems like overly touchy of a reading of

639
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 2: the passage. I think just the implication here is to

640
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:29,879
Speaker 2: think now about the Church of I think we tend

641
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,880
Speaker 2: to have these fears that if I allow someone to

642
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,239
Speaker 2: question this point of mine, that's going to result in

643
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 2: some slippery slope that will eventually lead me into The

644
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 2: words we've used off air are liberalism, or the words

645
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 2: that I've heard are you'll be a postmodern or you'll

646
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 2: be a heretic, which those three terms, in my understanding

647
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 2: or my hearing, tend to be used a poorly and

648
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 2: b synonymously. They're all the same thing. But the basic

649
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 2: idea is they will reject what makes us who we are.

650
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 2: But if that's the case, and we're talking about people

651
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:13,400
Speaker 2: who ostensibly love Jesus, we have to ask ourselves then

652
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 2: to turn it back to our own question of what

653
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,919
Speaker 2: we can control. What is it that we think makes

654
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 2: us who we are. Is it a confession about Jesus,

655
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 2: Is it a confession about the nature of divine revelation

656
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:32,799
Speaker 2: that comes forth in the text, or is it a

657
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 2: set of interpretations that we've decided must and can only

658
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 2: be those interpretations? And I think, unfortunately it's often that

659
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 2: last thing rather than the first two things. And to

660
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 2: me that signals sort of what might be behind those

661
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 2: invisible elements that cause us to be afraid.

662
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:57,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's good. I think I actually don't

663
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 1: think this way of understanding the Exodus narrative is out

664
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:04,360
Speaker 1: of bounds. And so when we read the Exodus narrative,

665
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: what we find is that this is the Pharaoh who knew,

666
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:11,359
Speaker 1: not Joseph, and so he has no context for understanding

667
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 1: why this multiplication is happening. He has no context for

668
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 1: understanding how the Hebrews and the Israelites, and particularly Joseph

669
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 1: ended up blessing Egypt. And instead of asking a few questions,

670
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:29,240
Speaker 1: he lets his fear wall him off from these other people,

671
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 1: and he takes on a protectionist stance. And I do

672
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:37,319
Speaker 1: think that there's a real lesson there, even then when

673
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 1: he's confronted, right, So, I think people sort of sometimes

674
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:46,720
Speaker 1: mishear me when I say this, but I would say

675
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 1: his first acts against the Hebrews are done out of ignorance.

676
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: This is Pharaoh accidentally being against God. He's not opting

677
00:41:56,239 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: to go against Yahweh at this point. He just doesn't

678
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: know what he's doing. He misrecognizes the situation, doesn't investigate

679
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: it enough, and ends up going against the grain of

680
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: God's blessing. Then as we fast forward into the narrative

681
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:15,319
Speaker 1: and we see that, you know, even when Moses is

682
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: telling him, Hey, this is what's going to happen, this

683
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: is how things are going to go down, he decides, no,

684
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 1: I'm going to oppose this. This isn't actually going to happen.

685
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:28,319
Speaker 1: That's when it starts to get more willful. But you know,

686
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: based on the conversation we're having right now, there is

687
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:34,239
Speaker 1: a systemic sort of practice that Pharaoh was doing here

688
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: that ultimately he is He's doing the same thing over

689
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: and over and over and over and over, and even

690
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 1: after the Plague of the Firstborn, when he lets the

691
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 1: Israelites go, he quickly changes his mind and goes after him,

692
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:52,760
Speaker 1: and so he is sort of stuck in this interesting cycle.

693
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:56,320
Speaker 1: But I think to your point, when we're as the church,

694
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: when we're sitting back, we're afraid that we are going

695
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: to dilute ourselves somehow, and so we have to pull

696
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: back in and create like a hard boundary. I think

697
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 1: that is problematic in a number of ways. I actually

698
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: think this is the sin that we see God hold

699
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: against the church in Ephesis and Revelation, that they've abandoned

700
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: their first love. There are many commentators, myself included, who

701
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:28,239
Speaker 1: would argue that their first love. What's really happening there

702
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: is that Ephesis is pulled back from the world, isolated themselves,

703
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 1: and instead of compromising in the way that let's say,

704
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: like the Laodicean Church does right by, you know, sort

705
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:42,359
Speaker 1: of participating in all these different economic practices and really

706
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: becoming part of the Groco Roman world and all those

707
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 1: kind of things, Ephesis is pulled back and refused to witness.

708
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: They've refused to be that testimony that God calls us

709
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,479
Speaker 1: to be in the world. And so there's a there's

710
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 1: a polarity there that we should recognize that it is

711
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:05,280
Speaker 1: possible on that reading of Ephesus to be too closed

712
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 1: off in the world right to be absolutely right doctrinally,

713
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 1: to be holy, to be uncompromised in sort of a

714
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:25,319
Speaker 1: purity sense, but still deny ourselves the basic functions of

715
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: what the church is to do, proclaiming the Gospel out

716
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:32,359
Speaker 1: to the nations, making disciples. On the whole other end

717
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: of that spectrum, there's a possibility of being so assimilated

718
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:40,759
Speaker 1: into the surrounding culture that no one can tell the

719
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: difference between the church and the culture. Also a problem

720
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: in the middle. There's this interesting negotiation that has to happen,

721
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 1: and I think we're constantly sort of finding our way

722
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,919
Speaker 1: in understanding when are we closing ourselves off too much?

723
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: When are we opening ourselves up too much? And that

724
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 1: isn't going to be just a straight line down the road.

725
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 1: It's going to sort of waver back and forth a

726
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 1: little bit. It's going to oscillate. I think our trouble

727
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 1: and the danger I see is that we pick a side.

728
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 1: It's either the side of isolation and closure or the

729
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 1: side of radical openness, neither of which does us any

730
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:31,439
Speaker 1: particular favors. One I think dissolves the boundaries. The other

731
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 1: makes the boundaries far too narrow and rigid and divides

732
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: the church. Either way, we're losing aspects of our identity

733
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 1: on either one of those sides of the spectrum, when

734
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:46,240
Speaker 1: where we need to be is together, united in Christ

735
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: managing our disagreements. One of my favorite passages, Roma's twelve

736
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: to ten out do one another in showing honor right

737
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 1: like this is the space we need to be in

738
00:45:56,880 --> 00:46:00,280
Speaker 1: because that's really who we are. It's not that dine

739
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's not that the content of our faith

740
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, but it's not the only thing that matters.

741
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 1: The way we execute that content, the way we think

742
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 1: about it, the way we dialogue with one another, actually matters.

743
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:18,319
Speaker 1: It's constitutive of who we are. And I think that

744
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 1: is that system's issue that we very seldom really deal with.

745
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. The only thing I'd want to add is that

746
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 2: the degree to which doctrine matters is always as a

747
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 2: pointing tool, right. It is what hermeneuticians would call second order,

748
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 2: which is different than the way that David van Dyke

749
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 2: would use it. But it's second order in the sense

750
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:46,759
Speaker 2: that it isn't. It's an interpretive grid, and so its

751
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 2: role is always to direct us. And the question is

752
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 2: to what well it's to direct us to life in

753
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 2: and with God in Christ. Yeah, heart stop. And if

754
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,440
Speaker 2: the doctrine itself becomes the stopping point, then the doctrine

755
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 2: actually is doing something as if it is first order,

756
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 2: as if it is the thing itself. Yeah, And I

757
00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 2: fear that that's the rut the mind, the habit of

758
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 2: the mind that we've allowed ourselves to fall into. Maybe

759
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:21,879
Speaker 2: that's a conversation for another time, but the historical theologian

760
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 2: Hans Fry actually makes this point that in some ways

761
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 2: the conservative and liberal trajectory as we think of twentieth century,

762
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 2: nineteenth and twentieth and twenty first century Christian theology and

763
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:38,320
Speaker 2: the Americas are two sides of the same coin. They've

764
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 2: both released the thrust of biblical narrative and replaced it

765
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:45,760
Speaker 2: with the second order things of On the conservative side,

766
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:48,880
Speaker 2: the doctrine as the thing itself, which is now no

767
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 2: longer open for revision because the thing behind it, the

768
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 2: biblical narrative, has lost its place as the primary reality.

769
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:03,120
Speaker 2: And on the liberal side things it's the ethical mandates,

770
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:06,800
Speaker 2: and now the ethical not surprisingly, also becomes lost and

771
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 2: very easily codified rights and wrongs that itself doesn't fit

772
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 2: the sort of dynamic that we see in virtue, which

773
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 2: is the dispositional behavior, the drawing close to the right

774
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 2: things to shape us dispositionally, and that's right. Thing that

775
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 2: we want to draw close to is the narrative. And

776
00:48:24,239 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 2: instead we draw close then to our structures, and the

777
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 2: structures become violent, even to the point where virtue has

778
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:33,799
Speaker 2: become violent historically because of the structures drawn near to

779
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 2: So I think that's where we want to make s.

780
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 2: You know, the rigidity happens partly because we we misinterpret

781
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 2: or mismanage these proximal goods, as folks like a Coitus

782
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 2: would say, these things that are good as secondary things

783
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 2: pointing to something else, and we make those proximal goods

784
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 2: the ultimate good.

785
00:48:56,600 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: What you're saying reminds me, Jeremiah said, Jeremiah seven is

786
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: one of my favorite prophetic passages, and it's the one

787
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:08,359
Speaker 1: where you have the threefold repetition of the temple by

788
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 1: the false prophets. And basically what we have in Jeremiah

789
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: seven is this condemnation of a group of people who

790
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 1: are are looking at the temple and saying, if the

791
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: temple is still standing, God is still with us. If

792
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 1: the temple is still standing, no calamity will befall us. Right,

793
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:29,920
Speaker 1: God is in some ways captive to the temple, and

794
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: so as long as the temple is still here, we

795
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:36,279
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about anything. And Jeremiah steps in

796
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:41,560
Speaker 1: and says, no, that's not true. Second order, right, the

797
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 1: temple is second order, And so I think that as

798
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:48,439
Speaker 1: we fetishize some of these things, right, as we look

799
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: at the temple and say, oh my gosh, there's the temple,

800
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 1: or as we do this with doctrine right a particular position,

801
00:49:56,960 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 1: what that can start to do is to distort our

802
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:04,320
Speaker 1: understanding of our relationship with God, our relationship with others,

803
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 1: and our relationship to creation. And that's what we really

804
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:13,160
Speaker 1: see in Jeremiah seven. It's Thomas Overholt wrote a little

805
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 1: book called The Threat of Falsehood where he deals with

806
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:18,800
Speaker 1: Jeremiah seven a good bit, and essentially what he's arguing

807
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:23,840
Speaker 1: is that these false prophets are creating a false narrative

808
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:29,359
Speaker 1: and enticing the people to attune their lives to that

809
00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 1: false narrative, which ends up putting them at odds with

810
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 1: God as opposed to cultivating allegiance to God. And I think,

811
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 1: honestly we see this in Act seven as well. Another

812
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:47,000
Speaker 1: chapter seven that I like. But in Act seven we

813
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 1: look at Steven's speech. So this is before Stephen is

814
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: going to be stoned. He's been condemned of speaking out

815
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 1: against the law and the Temple, and what he does

816
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 1: throughout this whole speech in Act seven is he highlights

817
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:02,279
Speaker 1: all the different ways that God has been with his

818
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:06,440
Speaker 1: people outside of the land and outside of the temple.

819
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: And what he's trying to get the Jews to understand

820
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:14,400
Speaker 1: is the category mistake they're making is that God always

821
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 1: works here in this little box. And what Stephen is

822
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 1: saying is, no, he doesn't just work inside that that

823
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 1: little box, and he never has. You're ignoring pieces of

824
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:28,560
Speaker 1: the story to make it fit this this box that

825
00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:32,399
Speaker 1: you've put God in, But he's not actually there. He's

826
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 1: all over the place. He's doing these things outside of

827
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 1: the land. He's you know, he's doing these things apart

828
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:40,799
Speaker 1: from the temple, apart from the tabernacle, like this is

829
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:44,479
Speaker 1: the God we serve. And so I think in both

830
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:47,439
Speaker 1: instances they illustrate the point we're trying to make, which

831
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:55,399
Speaker 1: is we can't pretend that we can close God in right,

832
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 1: put God in a box and say this is what

833
00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: This is what God is, this is how God op rates,

834
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:03,759
Speaker 1: and this is the only way God operates. What we

835
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: have are we have some guardrails, some soft guard rails

836
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 1: to keep us within a certain span of Yeah, we

837
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 1: know these things about God now as we live within

838
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: those guardrails, whether guardrails is the right analogy or not,

839
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: But we live within those guardrails. But that's all they

840
00:52:23,560 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: really are. They're guardrails, right, They're the bumpers and bumper

841
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: bowling right like that. We like they're just keeping us honest,

842
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:37,520
Speaker 1: but they aren't the thing that we're shooting for. And

843
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 1: I think that's sort of those two passages I think

844
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:44,480
Speaker 1: highlight a good bit of what we've been talking about.

845
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, that reminds me of Augustine who speaks of the

846
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 2: path and in his work on Christian teaching, he says

847
00:52:54,239 --> 00:52:57,920
Speaker 2: the path is is there not because it is the

848
00:52:58,000 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 2: end and of itself, but because of where it's leading.

849
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:01,080
Speaker 1: So it is to work.

850
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:03,200
Speaker 2: Lass, Can you leave that path and still get where

851
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:08,439
Speaker 2: you're going? It said, yeah, actually sure, but how would

852
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:09,319
Speaker 2: you know where to go?

853
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:09,600
Speaker 1: Right?

854
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 2: If you get there? It sort of becomes an accident.

855
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 2: The goal of the path is to make sure you

856
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 2: get there. But the corollary to that that I think

857
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 2: we're trying to get out here is it's also entirely

858
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:21,280
Speaker 2: possible the one walks the path and then they stop

859
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:27,279
Speaker 2: and just start to adore the path, you know, and

860
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 2: they stop walking, they stop moving and become fixated with

861
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:35,719
Speaker 2: singing the praises of that path, being dedicated to that path,

862
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 2: defending that path, right when that was never really the

863
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 2: point of the path.

864
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:45,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was out. Maybe i'll close with this. We

865
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:48,520
Speaker 1: can keep talking. But I was at a coffee shop

866
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:52,480
Speaker 1: this morning and these gentlemen were sitting at a table

867
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:54,840
Speaker 1: over next to me, and they were doing a Bible study,

868
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: and so I got up to use the restroom and

869
00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 1: I asked him to watch my stuff for me. And

870
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:01,359
Speaker 1: when I came back, they most of them had left

871
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: and there were just a couple of guys there. And

872
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 1: that's this one gentleman. I just said, Hey, where you

873
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:07,799
Speaker 1: guys go to church at? And he his comment was,

874
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, we all go to different churches. And

875
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 1: so he's like, I went, I go to this Lutheran

876
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:15,279
Speaker 1: church just down the road. But you know, Bob's a

877
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 1: Southern Baptist, and you know Joe goes to the Presbyterian

878
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 1: church or whatever. And he said, we've been talking to

879
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:24,280
Speaker 1: him for such a long time, many years of getting

880
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: a Bible study together, and it doesn't matter what church

881
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 1: you go to. It doesn't matter, you know, what your

882
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:30,839
Speaker 1: doctrinal statement is. He didn't say it like that. But

883
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:33,600
Speaker 1: that's basically what he was saying. He's like, we just

884
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: all get together and we try to understand what gods

885
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: were to say. I was like, that's that's pretty cool, Like,

886
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's odd in a way and awesome

887
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:51,719
Speaker 1: in another right. And so I think it's good because obviously,

888
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:53,680
Speaker 1: and I listened in a little bit. It was hard

889
00:54:53,719 --> 00:54:55,399
Speaker 1: not to listen to him. I mean, they're there are

890
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:57,319
Speaker 1: like six guys at a table right next to me,

891
00:54:57,360 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 1: and so you know, you hear things, right, but they're discussing,

892
00:55:00,719 --> 00:55:02,399
Speaker 1: you know, one of them's got the King James open,

893
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 1: another one's got the NIV open. They're like actually discussing

894
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:08,759
Speaker 1: the passages and trying to figure stuff out and just

895
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:11,400
Speaker 1: having a good time together. They're not like there's no

896
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 1: there was no animosity at the table. There's no yelling

897
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:17,120
Speaker 1: back and forth. It was just like, oh, you know,

898
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 1: well I wonder what that is, and I wonder how

899
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 1: that would work, and I want, you know, like it

900
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:23,560
Speaker 1: was just a lot of deliberation at the table. It

901
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 1: was kind of fun to listen to. And I think

902
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 1: that that in that I would didn't really think about

903
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:32,560
Speaker 1: it at the time, but it's sort of like, that's

904
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 1: a great picture of what I think the church is

905
00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 1: supposed to be. Right, there are obvious disagreements at that

906
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 1: table to guarantee, the Southern Baptist doctoral statement looks different

907
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 1: than the Lutheran Churches doctoral statement one hundred percent right,

908
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:51,640
Speaker 1: like for sure, But it didn't matter. It didn't matter,

909
00:55:51,880 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: And you could argue, all maybe they didn't understand it

910
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:56,399
Speaker 1: well enough or they don't you know, and it's like, well, no,

911
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 1: I think they understand it well enough. I think they

912
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:03,799
Speaker 1: actually get what they're doing right, Like they have a

913
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:07,839
Speaker 1: vision for a unified church that transcends denominations and they're

914
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 1: getting together to do something about it. Great, right, So yeah,

915
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:19,279
Speaker 1: just an interesting picture that you don't always see, right,

916
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: You just don't always see it. We've gotten so fractured

917
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:25,839
Speaker 1: that sometimes I think we forget that we are all

918
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:32,120
Speaker 1: part of the same body. Indeed, any novel thought, novel

919
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:37,719
Speaker 1: thought right. Well, anyway, I found that conversation with Dave,

920
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 1: Dave and Dyke really compelling. I've always been interested in

921
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:46,000
Speaker 1: the systems theory, and so I appreciate it. I'm this

922
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:50,080
Speaker 1: conversation about it with us or with me, and we'll

923
00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:53,200
Speaker 1: close it out there. We'll probably revisit this some other time.

924
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 1: We're hoping to have some of the marriage and family

925
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:58,840
Speaker 1: systems folks from Weeting on and and do a little

926
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:02,440
Speaker 1: bit more with them. I think it's really a fascinating field,

927
00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:06,680
Speaker 1: especially as we think about ecclesiology. I've tended to approach

928
00:57:06,719 --> 00:57:09,840
Speaker 1: that through sociology, but I do think marriage and family

929
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:14,160
Speaker 1: systems cuts a little different than sociology usually does, and

930
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:19,360
Speaker 1: so I find their stuff pretty fascinating. But anyway, thanks

931
00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: for the conversation, and thanks everybody for listening. We'll catch

932
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:24,840
Speaker 1: you on the next episode of Thinking Christian Take Care.

933
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:27,040
Speaker 1: I just want to take a second to thank the

934
00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 1: team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on

935
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:32,919
Speaker 1: the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,

936
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 1: you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.

937
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:39,720
Speaker 1: They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.