WEBVTT - Why this Conservative Evangelical Pastor Changed Sides | NLP Replay 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.920 Native lampod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:09.239 Reason Choice Media. Nobody knows the troubles are seen? What 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:13.119 role do white males play? What role do white male 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.439 evangelicals play? One of the blessings we have about this 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:18.920 show is we get to talk about it, all right, 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.160 and so we have Reverend Shank here joining us on 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:23.440 the show. We're going to bring them in. It's kind 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:24.959 of like a fifth will. This is the way I 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.200 wanted to introduce you, Reverend. We found a video of 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.280 you actually testifying, and I wanted to play that clip 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:36.879 right here. It's testifying to Congress about your work influencing 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.320 the Supreme Court of these United States of America. And 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:42.000 then I got a question about Clarence Thomas on the 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:44.360 other side. I'm just joking, go ahead, and wrote a clip. 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.760 I am here to present facts as I know of 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.479 them about Operation Higher Court, a Christian mission that I 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.280 directed as part of Faith into Action for twenty years 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.600 to bolster conservative Supreme Court justices in the views they 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:07.840 already held. Operation Higher Court involved my recruitment of wealthy 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:12.920 donors as stealth missionaries who befriended justices that shared our 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:19.480 conservative social and religious sensibilities. In this way, I aimed 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.920 to show these justices that Americans supported them and thanked 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.600 God for their presence on the Court and the opinions 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:31.720 they rendered. Our overarching goals were to gain insights into 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:35.720 the conservative justices thinking and to shore up their resolve 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:42.319 to render solid, unapologetic opinions, particularly against abortion. I called 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:48.160 this our ministry of emboldenment. I believe we pushed the 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.560 boundaries of Christian ethics and compromised the High Court's promise 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:57.680 to administer equal justice. But I'm also conscious we were 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.680 never admonished for the type of work our missionaries did, 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:07.480 quite to the contrary. In one instance, Justice Thomas commended me, 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:12.200 saying something like, keep up what you're doing. It's making 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:12.880 a difference. 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.760 So the right Reverend Robert Shank, did I pronounce your 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:18.640 last name correctly? 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.440 Yes? But sometimes I am the wrong reverence. And that's 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:22.840 what that. 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:28.480 Was all about, I understand. So I just wanted to 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.160 start the conversation with I think the two most important 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:33.000 words in the English language, other words, thank you, and 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:34.880 then I nearly said enough, So thank you for your 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.000 time and thank you for the work that you are 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:38.720 now doing. Ain't the work you used to do, but 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.120 thank you for the work that you're now doing. What 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:46.400 role do white male evangelicals play in changing culture, changing society? 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.440 We talked about ice, we talked about jelly roll earlier, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:51.800 and sometimes you see a muted voice. I think it 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.639 all ties in together. What can we expect, what should 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.400 we expect? And what are we not seeing? 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:02.760 Well, what we're not saying is some of the change 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:08.079 that's happening right now, and a lot of it because 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:15.960 of Minneapolis. I just read a report from Christianity Today, 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:23.000 which has historically been the journal of record for American 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:31.920 white evangelicals, and there's a lot of a lot of 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:40.720 disruption in the in the positions of evangelicals in Minnesota 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.920 right now because of what they're seeing playing out in 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:49.080 the streets. H You know, I hate to say it, 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:53.320 but you asked about, you know, white evangelicals. I think 0:03:53.400 --> 0:04:01.200 white males in general get a little more attention from 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.840 white evangelical leader's keen sense of the obvious. They are 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.680 been happening for a long time. But the reason I 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:15.760 mention it is because, of course, the killing of Alex 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:21.480 pretty as compared to even the killing of Renee good 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:30.599 Renee Good was white, she would normally command attention, but 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:35.280 discounted by the fact that she's gay, that she was gay. 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:44.239 So but here we go, white male of a certain 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.880 age and a gun owner gets the attention that others 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:54.000 don't get. So I think that's part of the reason, 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:58.240 but not the whole reason. I think a fair number 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:04.520 of white evangelical leaders are now feeling uncomfortable with the violence, 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:15.640 the threats, with the behavior after the shootings, with the 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:20.800 abduction of children and their imprisonment in cages. It's starting 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.640 to trouble the conscience. Not enough to tip the scales, 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:31.000 not anywhere near, but it's changing. And I'm sorry for 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.880 such a long answer to your short question, but I'll 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.359 just add this. I do think it's critically important now 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:46.080 that white male evangelical leaders start airing their conscience and 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:49.279 their descent. And I know there are many of them, 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:53.120 but they are silenced by fear. But they have to 0:05:53.160 --> 0:06:00.039 find their courage. And the reason they do is be 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:05.000 because this administration will pay attention to that in a 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.320 way they won't pay attention to anyone else. They'll write 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:12.000 everybody else off. They're black, they're socialists, they're leftists, they're communists, 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:18.120 their nutcases. But suddenly when when white males like me 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:23.560 start speaking, I know from my contacts in the administration, 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:26.400 I maintain friends who are working for Trump right now 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.479 in the White House, and they will say, I got 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.120 a little attention here that bothered some people. Not for 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.000 the right reasons, but it bothered them. 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:43.960 So if I could ask you, you know, there's a 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:48.800 conversion moment biblically speaking, where Saul is converted to Paul. 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.720 You're talking about finding your courage. I want to know 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.200 what helped you to find your courage. And in this 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.080 moment where you're talking about having friends in the White House, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.000 knowing now which you understand to be their agenda, how 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.159 they choose to move forward, how are you maintaining those friendships, 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.400 and how do you intend to help them to convert 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:09.840 from Saul to Paul. 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:15.080 Yeah, well, thanks for framing it that way. I talk 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.760 about three conversions in my own life. My initial conversion 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.080 to the Christ I saw in the Sermon on the 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.640 Mount who blessed the poor, who blessed the forgotten, the 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:31.960 margin lies, the lonely, the grieving. Then in the eighties 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.120 I was converted to what I now call Ronald Reagan 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:40.720 Republican religion, which is distinctly different from Christianity, and I 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:45.920 spent thirty five years in that religious stream, doing the 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:50.720 kind of work I'm now repenting from. Then I had 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:55.840 a third conversion reading the work of church leaders in 0:07:56.040 --> 0:08:01.640 nineteen thirties Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler and 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:08.280 his racialized dictatorship, and that was the first crack. 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:09.520 There were a. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:17.160 Few little, tiny threads before that, but it was really 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.960 confronting that history and seeing that what I was engaged 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:26.480 in for thirty years was identical to what the Ivan 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:30.520 gaelicche Kirche, the Evangelical Church of Germany was doing in 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:35.440 that era. In fact, it would be evangelical leaders who 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:41.400 declared Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party a gifted miracle 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:48.000 from God. Well, I was seeing the same, and so 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:52.679 that was part of it. The other substantial part of 0:08:52.720 --> 0:09:02.000 my third conversion out of that right wing cult was 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:11.040 my wife, who made a late in life professional change 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:17.280 from being an occupational therapist to a psychotherapist. And when 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.360 you're married to a psychotherapist, you can't escape the therapy 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:26.040 no matter how hard you try, and that was a 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:31.000 huge huge help for me, and I would enter my 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:35.840 own period of therapy, which helped me face myself in 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.839 a way I ever had and the realities of what 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.520 was going on around me. So that was a lot 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.320 of it. There was more. It was a long and 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:50.040 complex formula equation that got me to the other side. 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:51.839 But I'm so glad it did. 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:55.320 When you think about the dates. I was just trying 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.720 to help me understand some of the time periods of 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.800 your third conversion, just so I understand where to where 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:06.000 to sort of place my question. 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:15.520 Well, it's been a kind of ten year progression for me. 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:24.840 Those versed cracks appeared in oh nine, ten, twenty ten. 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:33.960 It was particularly jarring when when I attended the eightieth 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:40.839 birthday party for the now late televangelist Pat Robertson, who's 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:46.000 built a right winging religious empire that continues to this moment, 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:51.240 and his guest of honor at this big banish where 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:57.520 virtually every e white evangelical luminary in this country was 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:03.640 in the ballroom celebrate with Pat, and his guest of 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:08.280 honor in twenty eleven was none other than Donald Trump, 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:11.720 and I was shocked by that. I didn't think of 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:18.720 Trump as part of our our culture. In fact, in Bible, 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:27.920 yes exactly. And when I was in Bible College what 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:32.840 we call our seminaries to prepare for ministry, way back 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:38.760 in the early eighties, I was told that Donald Trump 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:43.079 was the classic example of everything it meant not to 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.920 live that say, Christian, and that he makes a great 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.280 sermon illustration for that. And I had used him as 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:51.800 that over the years. But there he was at Pat's 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:57.080 birthday party, and I asked one of my colleagues, a 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.920 name well known in the white evangelical world, why is 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:05.440 he here? And the answer was because he and Pattern 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.480 now part of the same billionaire's club. Pat had just 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:14.520 sold the Family Channel, his family became the heirs in 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:19.520 the process, and now they were billionaire pals. And that 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.320 was distressing to me. And it would be at the 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:27.840 twenty sixteen Republican National Convention that I finally made the 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:33.040 break left the movement. Theoretically, it took me two more 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:38.400 years to extract myself legally and financially. 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.959 But wey, I'm sorry. Can you say more about the 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.679 financial piece? You said to extract yourself financially to what 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:49.240 does that mean? 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.640 Yeah? Well, first I was running an organization I had 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.480 spent thirty five years building, which had fifty thousand donors 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.920 spread across the United States, hundreds of churches. We were 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:07.000 raising millions and millions of dollars, and I had legal obligations. 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:11.679 And you know, I've lose nothing by being candid and 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.640 completely honest these days, and that's what I was trying 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:21.720 to do in Minneapolis. But I wasn't. I wasn't fully 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.760 courageous all at once, and and I'm not even at 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:29.480 this moment. I was afraid of donor lawsuits. I was 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:41.640 afraid of contractors suing me. So I carefully deconstructed that operation. 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.080 It took two years to do it, and to safely 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:49.560 extract myself. Once I did, I left all of that behind. 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.080 Every bit of that went for a little while I 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:57.360 was driving Uber to pay my bills, all the cost 0:13:57.440 --> 0:13:57.800 of it. 0:13:58.080 --> 0:13:58.600 That's right. 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:04.720 You know, I'm appreciative of your transparency, even with us 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.640 now and our audience. And we didn't get to say 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.360 welcome home at the start of this interview, but that's 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.640 something we say to our guests when when they make 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.160 themselves available to this community. I am I work for 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:17.680 a long time on the other side of some of 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.160 your court work at People for the American Way, which 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.000 is also known as the House of Bork because we 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.680 led the effort to defeat Robert Bork's nomination to the 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.640 to the High Court. So I understand that that space 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.280 very well, I am. I don't understand as well the 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:42.280 space of white evangelism, mostly because if we subscribe to 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.080 the same Jesus, the same God, the same scripture, and 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:50.440 I know scripture can be used creatively by whoever wills it, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:56.440 but we miss each other at that intersection of what 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.800 scripture seems to say to white evangelicals and then what 0:14:59.880 --> 0:15:04.480 it says and in the black tradition of the Christian faith. 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.760 And it absolutely shows up differently in our politics, certainly 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:14.760 in American and society and culture. I just wonder, on 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:19.000 the other side of this of of your evolution, where 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:25.440 you now where and how you now carry the message 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:31.800 to other white evangelicals around how they see the lights 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:37.920 come to evolution, come to transition. Because by and large, 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:39.880 we're kind of we're kind of on the right track 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:42.120 on our side, and it's still fighting to stay on 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:45.000 the what we believe to be the right track. Yet 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:48.560 a lot of our brothers and sisters on in the 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:56.160 Christian evangelical side still tolerate outrageous forms of hate and 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:01.920 terror uh and cruelty by the administration and what their 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:08.160 politics often produces. How do you how do you sort 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:12.240 of theorize the best way to move other white male 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:20.200 evangelicals closer to the truth of the faith and away 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.640 I think from some of the cruelty in devastating, destructive 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:28.160 politics of the far right. 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:35.520 Well, it's not easy, although I did retain thousands of 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:40.400 just those sorts of folks on my social media platforms 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:46.280 which I use as my pulpit these days, and I 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:52.160 remind them of their conversions, what drew them to Christ. 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.840 And you know, there's a passage in the New Testament 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:01.760 Book of Revelation where the resurrec that Christ is speaking 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.359 to the church from the heavenlyes if you read it 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:09.919 that way, and he says to a particular church in 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.760 a particular place, you're doing everything right, but I have 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:19.040 this one thing against you. You have left your first love. 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:27.320 So I try to remind evangelicals of their first love, Jesus, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:38.120 who I regularly reintroduce as the dark, complexted Middle Eastern 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:43.199 man of the levant who had very dark skin and 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:49.960 afro textured hair, wool hair exactly, and I put him 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.280 out there and I just let them sit with him, 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:57.200 and then I remind them of what he said. And 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:03.840 I do get folks numbers, but regularly who come, usually 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.320 through a direct message because they're afraid to go on 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.960 the page, and they'll say, you know you've got me 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.520 on that, You've got me thinking, and yes, that was 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.480 the reason I gave my heart to Jesus all those 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:23.479 years ago. It's still small numbers. The other task I have, 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:28.080 which is the larger one, is to expose this as 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:37.560 not just un Christian, but anti Christian. So I try 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.359 to do that through my writing, through you know, on 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:46.840 social media platforms and elsewhere, and then in conversation with leaders. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:55.280 I just invited a unabashed self identified Christian nationalist leader. 0:18:55.400 --> 0:19:00.719 He heads a small denomination in the United States with 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:06.960 progressive leaders up in Boston. In two weeks. He accepted 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:12.480 the invitation to a dialogue with them. We'll see what happens. 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.800 But I want to do more and more of that. 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.760 That's part of the repair work. There's far more than that, 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:24.679 and it's much closer to people who have suffered because 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.119 of what I did. But that's some of the work 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:29.800 that I that I try to do. 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:37.359 Nobody knows. 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.119 Rama Shane, I can I ask you. You know, you 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:46.000 talked about some of these folks that you're in relationship 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.919 with and how they have looking at all that's going on, 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.840 and particularly Minneapolis, they've changed, their hearts have changed in 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.159 some ways. Do you think that that means they're going 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:58.400 to show up at the polls differently? Are they going 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.479 to vote different Are they talk about that or do 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:03.959 you think because you know, one of the challenges that 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:07.040 I have faced in working with white women. You know, 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:08.960 I was one of the leaders of the Women's March. 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:14.080 I have been on the streets of America organizing, marching 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:19.800 with galvanizing thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of women, and 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.840 oftentimes the numbers, the math doesn't math. As we say that, 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.280 you know, they will say we're with you, We're with you, 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:27.800 We're with you. And then when we look at the 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.800 numbers after an election, it is very clear that some 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.720 people either weren't telling the truth or they definitely didn't 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.640 go and do the work at home of organizing not 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.359 just us out in the community, but being there to 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.080 organize their mothers, their aunts, their sisters, their friends, their 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:47.560 you know, their family members. So how do you see 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:52.920 this translating to as we are approaching the midterm elections. 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:59.800 Yeah, that's a great point, and it reminds me of 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.760 the work I have yet to do to organize white 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:11.680 evangelicals of conscience as I call them, or dissenters. M hum. 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:18.320 I'm hopeful that a fair number of them are troubled 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.879 enough that they just simply won't vote. They'll they'll just 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:27.760 sit it out. Hoping they'll vote for a Democrat is 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:32.560 probably too too great of a leap of faith for me. 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.600 But maybe they'll we'll take them sit at home. Well, 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:39.200 they can stay home, and I think that's more likely 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:44.160 what they'll do it, and it would be a good choice. 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:47.560 And I will be saying that to them. I'll say, 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:52.360 if if you just can't, here's one way you can 0:21:52.520 --> 0:22:00.600 preserve your conscience in this. Sit it out. So that's hosibility. 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.520 I do know of some already who in the last 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:09.520 election voted for a Democrat for the first time in 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:17.199 their electoral lives. I voted for Joe Biden, first vote 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:24.959 for a Democratic candidate in how many years, was it? 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.240 Because the last time I voted for a Democrat before 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:35.119 Biden was nineteen seventy six, So it was a long time. 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:42.960 Is that forty four at Carters for Carter? Yeah, so 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:46.720 it was forty four years. And there are others. I'm 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:51.800 not unique. I am not unique. There's a lot. I 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.159 didn't vote for Trump either time. By the way, I 0:22:55.280 --> 0:23:00.200 voted for other Republican for another Republican in twenty. 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:08.040 Sixteen, I if I can ask you, Reverend, there was 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:15.119 just an arrest civil arrests made of nine Pea individuals 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:18.199 who the Department of Justice is calling defendants on the 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:21.440 other side of a protest at a church city's church 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.480 in fact in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where one of the pastors, 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:30.080 David Easterwood, serves as an icefield director. And I'm curious 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:34.520 to know if you think there's ever an appropriate time 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:38.240 to protest in church one and two, if you think 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:44.040 that journalists should be exempt from any type of criminal 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:47.679 indictment for covering said protests, Well, I did it. 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:53.440 I did it at the Washington National Cathedral back when 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:58.400 I was a leader in the national pro life anti 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:05.560 abortion movement. I confronted Bill Clinton in the sanctuary during 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:11.159 a communion service, and I was applauded for that. I 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:16.879 was made a hero in the conservative Christian world for 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:24.119 my disruption of a communion service on Christmas Eve. By 0:24:24.160 --> 0:24:28.920 the way, on Christmas Eve. So I'd like to say 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:34.280 I did one better event these folks did on a 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:37.480 comment Sunday morning, and I was made a hero for it. 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:42.600 I'm reminding people of that. You want to denounce this. 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:49.240 You applauded me when I did it, and that was 0:24:49.280 --> 0:24:52.760 I guess about nineteen ninety six ish something like that. 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:56.760 I have to go back and records. But in any case, 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:08.280 and ironically, the administration is using a law that we 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:18.640 decried and that anti abortion activists and other white evangelical 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:26.720 champions of religious liberty regularly denounced, and that is the 0:25:26.760 --> 0:25:32.000 Face Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:37.120 which we decried. We fought it in court, we raised 0:25:37.320 --> 0:25:41.840 tens of millions of dollars to oppose it, and now 0:25:43.119 --> 0:25:51.000 they're using it against Don Lemon, against the others. It's 0:25:51.040 --> 0:25:55.479 and I'm reminding my folks of that too, and hoping 0:25:55.720 --> 0:25:59.000 it will give some pause. Say wait a minute, what 0:25:59.440 --> 0:26:04.800 when we do here and Incidentally, this is a family 0:26:06.280 --> 0:26:12.320 issue in the church, and you know, families routinely disrupt 0:26:12.359 --> 0:26:20.720 one another's Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas celebrations with their differences, 0:26:20.880 --> 0:26:27.760 and that's what's happened here. So again it shows the 0:26:27.920 --> 0:26:35.760 hypocrisy that that I'm confronting my my family with. 0:26:36.840 --> 0:26:39.160 Got it, but carry I know we have to push. 0:26:39.200 --> 0:26:41.639 I did just want to ask this final question for 0:26:41.760 --> 0:26:44.679 me and that that's on the rev. Just sort of 0:26:44.680 --> 0:26:48.600 how in your in your most connected way, as you 0:26:48.720 --> 0:26:52.639 as you as you consider how some of your former 0:26:52.760 --> 0:26:55.280 compounderies and maybe even still Compoudreis might think about this, 0:26:55.400 --> 0:26:59.440 but just the hierarchy of threat that white evangelical men 0:26:59.640 --> 0:27:05.080 sort of consider when considering their politics. So for instance, 0:27:05.119 --> 0:27:09.360 if if we, if they, if the other side wins, 0:27:09.480 --> 0:27:11.480 and in there, if I'm them, the other side would 0:27:11.520 --> 0:27:15.520 be Democrats. I guess what is is it? Is it 0:27:15.600 --> 0:27:18.800 that they're going to promote black people above us and 0:27:18.840 --> 0:27:22.040 our sons and our children. Is it that they're going 0:27:22.080 --> 0:27:24.760 to make abortion free and available everywhere? 0:27:24.960 --> 0:27:25.200 Is it? 0:27:25.800 --> 0:27:28.920 Where do you when you get to the real crux 0:27:29.119 --> 0:27:33.920 of what barrier sits in the way of me being 0:27:33.960 --> 0:27:40.000 able to get over what coalition or alignment or agreement 0:27:40.000 --> 0:27:42.160 looks like with the other side. I mean, you can 0:27:42.200 --> 0:27:45.200 see bodies strown in the streets. You can see protesters 0:27:45.200 --> 0:27:48.840 mishandled disrupted. You can see even women who are approaching 0:27:49.040 --> 0:27:53.000 abortion clinics be railed against and cried and insulted and 0:27:53.400 --> 0:27:56.800 made to feel in fear, to watch children even put 0:27:56.800 --> 0:27:58.640 in cages. Because this isn't the first time the Trump 0:27:58.640 --> 0:28:04.000 administration has done that. They've done that before. But there's 0:28:04.040 --> 0:28:08.840 still these walls that exist that keep otherwise decent people 0:28:09.440 --> 0:28:12.679 from being able to make the leap to say Godly, 0:28:12.840 --> 0:28:14.800 that just isn't right and it is not just right 0:28:14.880 --> 0:28:17.399 because it happened to my wife. It's not right because 0:28:17.400 --> 0:28:20.480 it happened to another fellow family member of the human 0:28:21.080 --> 0:28:26.919 you know race, and it's indecent. What are I always 0:28:27.000 --> 0:28:29.199 try to think about, what's the thing that's keeping you? 0:28:29.600 --> 0:28:30.720 Is your fear of me? 0:28:31.000 --> 0:28:31.800 That big? 0:28:32.680 --> 0:28:34.320 Have you made me out to be that much of 0:28:34.320 --> 0:28:39.560 a threat, that that's keeping you from being a better human? 0:28:40.240 --> 0:28:41.800 But what is it? As you think about what that 0:28:41.920 --> 0:28:47.520 hierarchy of either threat or fear dislike I don't even 0:28:47.560 --> 0:28:49.080 know what to call it, because I don't know what it. 0:28:48.960 --> 0:28:55.480 Is well, I think fear is the best or at 0:28:55.560 --> 0:29:03.000 least principle way of understanding of understanding it. And I 0:29:03.000 --> 0:29:04.960 don't want to be Maudlin, and I don't want to 0:29:05.000 --> 0:29:14.280 turn your quality podcast into my confessional books, but I 0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:14.760 think it is. 0:29:16.160 --> 0:29:16.880 Yeah, we got the. 0:29:20.600 --> 0:29:25.440 Okay, okay, Well, no reason for you to associate in 0:29:25.480 --> 0:29:32.160 the first place. But you know, I'll confess that for 0:29:33.400 --> 0:29:40.080 uh thirty years, I did business with fundraisers who created 0:29:40.920 --> 0:29:49.320 millions of messages that went out across the United States. 0:29:49.320 --> 0:29:53.320 And I was a small, a bit player. I would 0:29:53.400 --> 0:29:59.160 send out five to ten million communic case a year. 0:30:01.400 --> 0:30:03.840 Many of my friends that I kept company with in 0:30:03.880 --> 0:30:08.040 those days would send out hundreds of millions of messages, 0:30:08.240 --> 0:30:14.400 mostly connected to fundraising platforms. And I'll describe those to 0:30:14.480 --> 0:30:17.640 you this way. In one exchange that I've thought about 0:30:17.800 --> 0:30:21.080 many times and I've written about, with one of my 0:30:21.320 --> 0:30:25.280 contracted fundraisers, he sat at a conference room table and 0:30:25.320 --> 0:30:29.440 he told me in nineteen he said, look, let me 0:30:29.440 --> 0:30:35.960 put it this way. The more fear and the more 0:30:36.120 --> 0:30:39.680 anger you'll give me, the more money I will raise 0:30:39.720 --> 0:30:43.840 for you. You give me a lot of fear and anger, 0:30:44.320 --> 0:30:46.560 I'll raise a lot of money for you. You give me 0:30:46.600 --> 0:30:49.080 a little fear and anger, I'll raise a little bit 0:30:49.080 --> 0:30:52.800 of money for you. So you decide. But let me 0:30:52.840 --> 0:30:56.080 tell you this, he said, I want you to think 0:30:56.400 --> 0:31:00.200