Speaker 1: You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
Speaker 1: so good to see you in person, so to speak.
Speaker 1: As they said down South, we're glad to be seen
Speaker 1: and not viewed. Well, you know, those viewers can be
Speaker 1: quite entertaining a lot. Yeah, Well, you know. I went
Speaker 1: to one viewing where I don't know exactly what happened,
Speaker 1: but a leg shot up. Yeah. She was clearly no
Speaker 1: longer of this world, but there was something that caused
Speaker 1: that leg to go up. That's right. And I bet
Speaker 1: just some league went out the doors and out the
Speaker 1: window too. That's right. Help help, that's right. I'm Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton and this is You and Me Both, where I
Speaker 1: get into some of today's biggest questions with all kinds
Speaker 1: of amazing people. Some of them I've known for years,
Speaker 1: others I'm meeting for the first time in front of
Speaker 1: this microphone. Today, we're talking about faith. For me, it's
Speaker 1: a deeply personal subject, but it's also something that informs
Speaker 1: my politics. So I wanted to speak to three people
Speaker 1: who are exploring questions of faith in powerful ways. I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk with Krista Tippett, longtime host of a
Speaker 1: public radio show that I have listened to for years
Speaker 1: called on being and I'll also be talking to actor
Speaker 1: and comedian as If Manvi, perhaps best known as the
Speaker 1: Daily Shows quote Muslim correspondent. And now let's get right
Speaker 1: into it with my friend, the Reverend doctor William Barber.
Speaker 1: So I am absolutely delighted to welcome the Reverend doctor
Speaker 1: William Barber the second. He's not only been a pastor
Speaker 1: in North Carolina for a lot of years, but he
Speaker 1: became even better known for organizing the Moral Monday Movement.
Speaker 1: He serves as president of Repairs of the Breach, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite Biblical phrases. He co chairs the Poor
Speaker 1: People's Campaign, which is intentionally a reminder of the work
Speaker 1: that Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Was doing when he
Speaker 1: was murdered. He was awarded, you know, one of those
Speaker 1: MacArthur Genius Grant while I was in jail. Can you imagine, Hey, Barbara,
Speaker 1: you gotta call But I was in handcuffs, sitting on
Speaker 1: the bus byway. Yeah. They started talking on the bus
Speaker 1: and said, what well, your life has been one interested
Speaker 1: and challenging experience, my friend. But I want to start
Speaker 1: really at the beginning. Both of your parents were ministers,
Speaker 1: weren't they? And In addition to their faith work, they
Speaker 1: helped to desegregate schools in North Carolina. How did your
Speaker 1: childhood shape your faith? Well, thank you so much, Secretary Clinton.
Speaker 1: And that's my Southern way coming out. You know, we
Speaker 1: talked to say, yes, ma'am, Secretary Clinton. I might get
Speaker 1: around the same Hillary, But it's just the thing my parents.
Speaker 1: My father was a minister, my mother was a minister
Speaker 1: of music. She's a concert pianist who's spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time training young students. She's still living, just retired
Speaker 1: recently from the school she'd be segregated after more than
Speaker 1: fifty two years of service. She's a real feisty woman.
Speaker 1: She I asked her at after fifty years, why don't
Speaker 1: you retire? She said, first all mind your business. And
Speaker 1: the second thing is, she said, when I came here,
Speaker 1: they didn't want me here. Now I'm gonna stay here
Speaker 1: until I feel like leaving. And you know, my parents
Speaker 1: accepted a call to come from Indiana back home, my
Speaker 1: father's home. They were actually called on by a black
Speaker 1: principle who was trying to prepare for desegregation. Now this
Speaker 1: was in the mid sixties and schools it's still not
Speaker 1: disegregated in eastern North Carolina, so actually we were living
Speaker 1: in violation of the law. I was taught that there
Speaker 1: was no separation between Jesus and justice. Now, having said
Speaker 1: all of that, my father was more progressive than a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the church, like Dr King, he
Speaker 1: faced some isolation and I decided at an age I
Speaker 1: didn't really want to have anything to do with ministry.
Speaker 1: I would be in church, but not ministry. I told
Speaker 1: my dad, I might be a good deacon, but I
Speaker 1: want to reserve the right to tell people just what
Speaker 1: I feel. And oosters can't always do that because we
Speaker 1: still have the minister. And so I went to school
Speaker 1: to be a lawyer, and in my junior year I
Speaker 1: received a real sense of calling. And when I told
Speaker 1: my father about it, he said, come home, let's talk.
Speaker 1: And we went on a four hour drive and just
Speaker 1: talking about whether or not I could do better inside
Speaker 1: the formal church or outside the former church. And wrestled
Speaker 1: through that, and then I preached my trial sermon. Uh
Speaker 1: in March of nineteen eighty four. The day I preached
Speaker 1: my trial sermons, some people can't and said, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: you're such a great preacher, our church has an opening.
Speaker 1: My daddy looked at me and took me home. He said,
Speaker 1: you better not even think about it. He said, you're
Speaker 1: going to seminary. So I finished my senior year at
Speaker 1: North Carolina Central, the student government president and so forth,
Speaker 1: and went straight to seminary Duke University Seminary in nineteen
Speaker 1: You know, to say that Jesus and justice are the
Speaker 1: same thing, it seems to me to be. So this,
Speaker 1: I mean, how can you be a Bible reading person,
Speaker 1: a church attending person and not understand how profoundly true
Speaker 1: that you know simple phrase really is. And yet you've
Speaker 1: spent decades now preaching and being an activist. How are
Speaker 1: you trying to open up people's minds and hearts to
Speaker 1: understand what Christianity should mean and what should be expected
Speaker 1: of us who claim to be followers of Jesus. Well,
Speaker 1: let's prosecute case a little bit and do a little
Speaker 1: little theology and admit, from at least Western culture and
Speaker 1: American culture, we have two great problems that have affected
Speaker 1: and infected theology in a bad way. Um, and that
Speaker 1: is the genocide of First Nation people and the enslavement
Speaker 1: of African Americans. That were all rooted in race is
Speaker 1: and interestingly enough, the exclusion and oppression of women. Right now.
Speaker 1: To do those three things, there had to be a
Speaker 1: misinterpretation of scripture, because you're right, if you read the Bible,
Speaker 1: there are over two thousand scriptures in the Bible to
Speaker 1: talk about how you should do justice, how you should
Speaker 1: treat at least things, how you should treat the poor,
Speaker 1: the sick, the children, the women, and the immigrant. Jesus
Speaker 1: started his ministry to the poor, his public ministry. His
Speaker 1: first sermon, the spirit of the lords upon me to
Speaker 1: preach good news to the poor. And the word for poor,
Speaker 1: that is protacos, is one of three words in Greek.
Speaker 1: That word protacos literally means those who have been made
Speaker 1: poured through political exploitation. Then, when Jesus is dying or
Speaker 1: preparing to die, he said, the nations will be judged
Speaker 1: by when I was hunting, when I was sick, when
Speaker 1: I was an immigrant, the text I said, did you
Speaker 1: welcome me right now? How is it that so many
Speaker 1: for a claim then to be quote unquote Christians, but
Speaker 1: then have been anti immigrants, anti the freedom of black people,
Speaker 1: anti the liberation of women, anti treatment of indigenous people right. Well,
Speaker 1: in order to do that, somebody had to twist the scriptures.
Speaker 1: So one of my professors said, to be a Christian
Speaker 1: to be born again, sprinkled, whatever you call it, and
Speaker 1: to claim the Holy Spirit is to have a care
Speaker 1: with the world's systems of injustice. And if whatever you
Speaker 1: claim you have doesn't produce a choir with injustice, then
Speaker 1: your claim of it being the spirit with the big
Speaker 1: is suspect. When you think about the very deliberate, concerted
Speaker 1: effort by one political party to basically try to own Christianity,
Speaker 1: and it overlooks the role of the African American Church,
Speaker 1: It overlooks, as you say, a lot of theology, a
Speaker 1: lot of history. It also overlooked this moment in time.
Speaker 1: You know, black lives matter. I view, as you know,
Speaker 1: very profoundly, a theological statement is uh. And when you
Speaker 1: think about what's happening in our country right now, do
Speaker 1: you see that maybe we are finally going to have
Speaker 1: the moral reckoning that has been distorted and perverted and
Speaker 1: postponed for so long. M You know, I'm thinking a
Speaker 1: lot about that question, because, first of all, historically, you know,
Speaker 1: not we had slaveholder religion, but we also had Frederick Douglas,
Speaker 1: we had the religion of the slave, we had the
Speaker 1: religion of the abolitionist. Let's not forget that the first
Speaker 1: people coming together to fight against racism is not new.
Speaker 1: You know. Yes, you had the racism in the South,
Speaker 1: but alongside that you had Doc King and so many
Speaker 1: others who preached the gospel of justice and liberation, so
Speaker 1: that we've always had these two streams, if you will now,
Speaker 1: I hope so when you say that about this moment
Speaker 1: that we're in, and I think it will be a continuation,
Speaker 1: because in every age has their emmons. Pettis Bridge right,
Speaker 1: every generation has their moment. We've had two reconstructions, one
Speaker 1: between eighteen sixty eight and eighteen ninety six, and then
Speaker 1: we had the second reconstruction nineteen fifty four to nine eight.
Speaker 1: And I think America needs a isn't the third reconstruction?
Speaker 1: I think this is the birth pains of it. When
Speaker 1: I see all of the organizing, the things that are
Speaker 1: happening in climate, the Black Lives Matter, poor People's campaign,
Speaker 1: the women's movement that's standing, all of these things coming together.
Speaker 1: But in this moment when George Floyd was killed assassinated,
Speaker 1: strangle lynched on a sidewalk. That young girl that kept
Speaker 1: that camera is the real hero because she forced us
Speaker 1: to see it, just like Emmett Tiel's mama forced us
Speaker 1: to see his death. Now, the question is, though, is
Speaker 1: all that we see in the street just about that
Speaker 1: and I see it respectful? I don't think so. The
Speaker 1: reason is because that happened also during a time of COVID,
Speaker 1: when we have a lot of death going on and
Speaker 1: we find out seven or eighty percent of people didn't
Speaker 1: have to die if we've done the right thing. On
Speaker 1: top of that, we have seven hundred people dying a
Speaker 1: day from poverty even before COVID, so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of hurt. So I think that when people saw this death,
Speaker 1: and they saw it in act that are carried out
Speaker 1: by the state, the state is not supposed to kill you.
Speaker 1: Life is what the state is supposed to protect. And
Speaker 1: when he said I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I
Speaker 1: think internally and spiritually a lot of people took that
Speaker 1: as shorthand for how all many people of theater, those
Speaker 1: workers being forced to go into work in lethal environments
Speaker 1: without protection. I can't breathe. People who are dying in
Speaker 1: hospitals that shouldn't even be dying one are the problem
Speaker 1: of their last words, I can't breathe. And so there's
Speaker 1: a sense in which Secretary Clinton at the country that
Speaker 1: all this movement in the street and all of this
Speaker 1: coming out is like the democracy trying to breathe, establishment
Speaker 1: of justice, trying to breathe, provided for the common good,
Speaker 1: promoting general effort, trying to breathe, saying something's not right here.
Speaker 1: And I think this moment can be a moment where
Speaker 1: we come to terms not just with systemic racism as
Speaker 1: it affects Black people, but systemic racism and all of
Speaker 1: its manifestations against brown people, against First nation people, but
Speaker 1: also systemic poverty and ecological devastation, and the war economy,
Speaker 1: and the false mold narrative of religious nationalism. This is
Speaker 1: a moment. If we don't miss the moment, if we
Speaker 1: match our policy decisions to the morning we see in
Speaker 1: the street, and if we don't treat this as a
Speaker 1: spectacle event rather than recognizing this is a call for reconstruction.
Speaker 1: This is a moment that we can fundament the ship.
Speaker 1: But it's gonna require a lot of ship. That's gonna
Speaker 1: require politicians the ship. It's gonna require people that may
Speaker 1: run for office to be moderate, to recognize we're not
Speaker 1: in a moderate moment. We're in a reconstruction moment. We're
Speaker 1: in an FDR moment. We are not in normal times.
Speaker 1: And God help us if we blow this moment. That's
Speaker 1: where where I feel about, we're taking a quick break.
Speaker 1: Stay with us. How do you see now what the
Speaker 1: church should be doing, because a lot of people are
Speaker 1: leaving the church. A lot of young people are leaving
Speaker 1: the church in part because the way they understand what
Speaker 1: Christianity has become is you know, so judgmental, so alienating
Speaker 1: that they think to themselves, well, I don't need that.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be part of that. So this
Speaker 1: should also be a time for the church to take
Speaker 1: a hard look at itself and try to figure out
Speaker 1: how it can be a real partner in this moment
Speaker 1: of more awakening. So there's a book that I when
Speaker 1: I studied my doctoral degree at through University, it was
Speaker 1: in pastoral care in public pots, and one of the
Speaker 1: books I was read said that you do not care
Speaker 1: about your people from a pastoral perspective if you are
Speaker 1: not willing from a prophetic perspective to challenge the systems
Speaker 1: that make them have the problems that need pastoral counseling
Speaker 1: in the first place. So in this moment, we have
Speaker 1: to stop separating the two. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: young people are leaving so called white evangelical list. And
Speaker 1: I was told when we started working with young people,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not gonna be able to be a
Speaker 1: preacher because they're not. They don't like that. I said, no,
Speaker 1: I said, what they don't like is this bland form
Speaker 1: of religion that tells them all religion is about is
Speaker 1: just praying and wishing for stuff. Young people are very
Speaker 1: open to faith that is about transformation, about love, about justice,
Speaker 1: about equality, about the essence, the essence of what it
Speaker 1: means to be people of faith. And I think we
Speaker 1: have to be engaged. There's no way in the days
Speaker 1: in which we live, the church can stay quarantined inside
Speaker 1: of the four walls, because that's never what it was
Speaker 1: intended to do. You know, I've made a pack with
Speaker 1: some pastors, for instance, and we've said, if anybody in
Speaker 1: our church dies from the lack of healthcare, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do just like Emmett Till's money called the media in
Speaker 1: and said this is what bad government policy looks like.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna say, how in the world can you
Speaker 1: claim to follow Jesus who if he did anything, he
Speaker 1: healed everybody free and he never charged the leoper cope.
Speaker 1: So how, I mean, really, how how do you claim
Speaker 1: to follow? And and I mean it makes absolutely no sense. See,
Speaker 1: and I'm moving into poor People's campaign. What's attracting people?
Speaker 1: There's three things. The counterintuitiveness of it. People coming together,
Speaker 1: cold models from Kentuck get black folk from the delta.
Speaker 1: Number two that we are showing the interlocking connection of
Speaker 1: the injustice and young folk get this. They love it.
Speaker 1: They love the moral fusion when you connect the dots
Speaker 1: because they understand that. And then number three'sn't attracting them
Speaker 1: is the teaching. Another word I mean by that is
Speaker 1: when we go in the room and say did you
Speaker 1: know they are hundred and forty million poor lowwell people?
Speaker 1: And they said what? And did you know the sixty
Speaker 1: or six million? And my wife, did you know about
Speaker 1: Joseph Stickley the book The Cost of Any Quality? Say,
Speaker 1: remember the cost of any problem, not what does it cost?
Speaker 1: To fix it, but what's the cost of leaving it
Speaker 1: the same? And we folks start hearing those numbers and
Speaker 1: realizing that it doesn't have to be that these are choices,
Speaker 1: then they are actually empowering, and they're drawn in because
Speaker 1: if it's a chance to do it, then we can unchoose.
Speaker 1: I absolutely we can choose something different. You know, this
Speaker 1: year has been a tough year for so many of
Speaker 1: our fellow Americans. There's so much that has gone wrong,
Speaker 1: not only the ravages of the pandemic, but the economic devastation,
Speaker 1: the lost jobs and livelihood, some of which are not
Speaker 1: going to come back, a terrible sense of just confusion
Speaker 1: and loss at the core of our national identity. Would
Speaker 1: you just say a few words to all of these
Speaker 1: people who are struggling, you know, how can they keep
Speaker 1: the faith? How can they regain the faith? How can
Speaker 1: they understand that you know, Jesus and justice mean the
Speaker 1: same thing, if only we are liberated from a political,
Speaker 1: short sided, oppressive religion. And once again, you know, our
Speaker 1: fellow seekers, how would you, you know, address those who
Speaker 1: are really hurting right now? Well, I think that several things.
Speaker 1: Number one is I'm reminded of the words of Frederick
Speaker 1: Douglas when the dread Scott decision came down in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifties and everybody said it was over. That's it, there's
Speaker 1: nothing we can do. Slavers is going to be what
Speaker 1: it is. And he was invited to speak to a
Speaker 1: women's group in May and Frederick Douglas said, this decision
Speaker 1: is monstrous in all of its considerations. But you need
Speaker 1: to know that every attempt to alie our movement as
Speaker 1: only served to embolden and intensify agitation. And what at
Speaker 1: this moment of pain is unnecessary link in the breaking
Speaker 1: of the change of oppression. I think we have to
Speaker 1: remember that people have come through some very very despairing
Speaker 1: situations before. And when people ask me about optimistic, no
Speaker 1: and my hope for yes, but it's the hope that
Speaker 1: has to come through the despair. I think the third
Speaker 1: thing is to recognize that a lot of what we're seeing,
Speaker 1: even with COVID, is not God made, is human ineptitude.
Speaker 1: And if humans, as James Balbin said, messed it up
Speaker 1: our path phrase, then then we can fix it. The
Speaker 1: next thing is remember in history that it was after
Speaker 1: the swine flue, after all that pain that track LA
Speaker 1: down the roads that in the new deal that isn't
Speaker 1: after after this. So I say the fourth in this moment,
Speaker 1: don't give up, Join up, Join the movement, Join LA
Speaker 1: the four Things campaign. Because every time people have come
Speaker 1: together in the most difficult moments, whether it was Frederick Douglas,
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman, Lucretia Mott, the coming together, they were able
Speaker 1: to fundamentally shift the direction of history. History is not set.
Speaker 1: We can affect history. Is it hard? Yes, it is
Speaker 1: gonna be childing. Yes. So some of us have decided
Speaker 1: to say this claim that if if right now, in
Speaker 1: this moment, but than forty eight hours, any one of
Speaker 1: us could be on a ventilator breathing our last breath,
Speaker 1: if that's the possibility in this moment, then what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do with it? Well, one of the things
Speaker 1: we can do with it is say, if I knew
Speaker 1: I only had two days to breathe, what kind of
Speaker 1: world would I fight for with my last breath? What
Speaker 1: kind of love, what kind of greats? What kind of truth?
Speaker 1: And then start living like that all of us we
Speaker 1: might live forty eight more years, But in this meantime,
Speaker 1: and I do mean meantime, in this means right that
Speaker 1: we decide that we are not going to join with
Speaker 1: the meanings, that we're going to use our last breath
Speaker 1: and everything we have, our activism, our voting, our conversation,
Speaker 1: our building community, because I don't have any breath to waste.
Speaker 1: And if I'm going to honor the people who have
Speaker 1: died and lost their breath, then the only way I
Speaker 1: can honor them is to use the breath. I have
Speaker 1: to fight for a better world that would not have
Speaker 1: cost them their life. And I think if we do that,
Speaker 1: we can, in fact, you out of this great moment
Speaker 1: of despause King was, says Stone of hope. We can
Speaker 1: be repairs of the breach. We really can be repasitive breach,
Speaker 1: and we can be a movement. Now it's going to
Speaker 1: mean we must push, push, and sometimes that's gonna mean
Speaker 1: your friends. I'm not gonna like it necessarily, but it's
Speaker 1: better to be pushed by our friend to be made better.
Speaker 1: Black and white and brown and red and yellow and
Speaker 1: gay and straight. It trans whoever we are. We are
Speaker 1: this movement, and the last thing we can do is
Speaker 1: just that Cat, you are a man after my own heart,
Speaker 1: my friend. Yeah, I mean, that's how I feel every day,
Speaker 1: and I cannot tell you how much I have loved
Speaker 1: having this conversation with you. And for those who have
Speaker 1: listened who want to hear more from Reverend Dr William Barber.
Speaker 1: His sermons at his church are stream live on Facebook,
Speaker 1: but there are so many other ways you can find him,
Speaker 1: his writings, his speaking, his incredible work of purpose and
Speaker 1: mission on behalf of forming, as our mutual friend John
Speaker 1: Lewis would say, a beloved community, a community in America
Speaker 1: that finally lives up to our our values and our faith.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, my friend. It's wonderful having this
Speaker 1: chance to talk with you, and I look forward to
Speaker 1: continuing the conversation. Thank you so much. If you're looking
Speaker 1: for more wisdom from Reverend Barber, pick up a copy
Speaker 1: of his new book, We Are Called to Be a Movement.
Speaker 1: Nearly two decades ago, Christa Tippett recognized that most Americans
Speaker 1: have a hard time talking about religion and spirituality outside
Speaker 1: of places of worship. So she started a conversation that
Speaker 1: continues to this day, not only with religious leaders, but
Speaker 1: with everyone from poets to physicists. I am so excited
Speaker 1: to dig into this topic with her. It's just a
Speaker 1: sheer delight to have this chance to talk with you. Christa, Well,
Speaker 1: it's an honor and really a delight to be here.
Speaker 1: I particularly resonate to a saying of your describing your
Speaker 1: own work that I read, where you seek to address
Speaker 1: what you call a black hole where intelligent public conversation
Speaker 1: about the religious, spiritual, and moral aspects of human life
Speaker 1: might be. Krista talked to me about how you see
Speaker 1: this present time. Are we filling the black hole? Are
Speaker 1: we ignoring it? Uh? Where is the opportunity for what
Speaker 1: I think is a much needed spiritual reckoning um about
Speaker 1: what it means to be human and trying to be
Speaker 1: more focused in how we live the life we are given,
Speaker 1: both alone and in company. Yeah, well, I do agree
Speaker 1: with you that as I've watched this moment, I feel
Speaker 1: that it has brought into relief. It has surfaced that
Speaker 1: the questions before us have deep moral content and and
Speaker 1: in fact are about, you know, the soul of our nation.
Speaker 1: And we still have to develop the muscles and the
Speaker 1: language and the practices public practices to take those things
Speaker 1: on together. But I think more of us are aware
Speaker 1: that that's what we're called to do um, and theology
Speaker 1: does have a contribution to make as part of the
Speaker 1: human enterprise. Um. What does it mean to be human?
Speaker 1: How do we want to live? And who will we
Speaker 1: be to to each other? Those questions are so alive
Speaker 1: in our life together right now, between our pandemic and
Speaker 1: our racial rupture and awakening. I mean, I am really
Speaker 1: turning now to words and practices that I feel again,
Speaker 1: like I would say, have to are offered up to
Speaker 1: all of us as part of the human enterfries of contemplation,
Speaker 1: of repentance, of redemption, of healing, of I was talking
Speaker 1: to some rabbis the other day about lamentations, right like
Speaker 1: in that tradition that lamentations is supposed to be a
Speaker 1: public practice. And I don't know about you, but that
Speaker 1: word I land so um with relief in me. I
Speaker 1: want to lament. I need to lament, and I want
Speaker 1: to lament with others. And instead we're just so good
Speaker 1: at all the other We leap over lament and we
Speaker 1: point fingers and we blame and we yell and we
Speaker 1: get mad. And there are these other places in us
Speaker 1: that these traditions are the bearers are not the only bears,
Speaker 1: but I feel like they are great resources and companions
Speaker 1: for now. I wish there were a way as we
Speaker 1: think about the time we're living through right now, and
Speaker 1: how necessary it is for people to slow down, to
Speaker 1: take a deep breath, to think about their lives and
Speaker 1: the lives of those around them too, maybe explore some
Speaker 1: of the spiritual and religious practices and the and the
Speaker 1: and the great questions that haven't gone away just because
Speaker 1: we don't address them. I'm with you, I you know,
Speaker 1: my quick definition of spiritual life is befriending reality. Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: unpacked that for us, unpacked that that's great to be
Speaker 1: friend reality, which means all its complexity. Right, we are
Speaker 1: all so complicated and our life together is so complicated,
Speaker 1: and all of these challenges that we face are so complicated.
Speaker 1: But resisting that complexity doesn't get us where we want
Speaker 1: to go. And I think when I say that befriending
Speaker 1: reality also, what I mean by that is that these
Speaker 1: traditions Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, they contain not just
Speaker 1: conversation and wisdom across time and generations about who God
Speaker 1: might be or what transcendence is, but this matter of
Speaker 1: being human, the complexity of being human, and so much
Speaker 1: of what the traditions have taught and cultivated is now
Speaker 1: being worn out in our disciplines of neuroscience and social psychology. So,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things we're learning is the
Speaker 1: corrosive effect that fear has. When human beings are afraid,
Speaker 1: we are literally unable to rise to our best selves. Right,
Speaker 1: it's literally too much to ask of somebody's The system
Speaker 1: is overwhelmed. Yeah, I can't do it. If you feel threatened,
Speaker 1: the feeling of threatened is enough. You may not actually
Speaker 1: be in danger. So that's reality. And so the pragmatism
Speaker 1: of these spiritual tools and practices and teachings is that
Speaker 1: it gives us the power to settle into our best selves,
Speaker 1: this move of not letting fear dominate, a finding ways
Speaker 1: to control that in ourselves, to step into our best selves,
Speaker 1: to transmit to others that that is possible, to move
Speaker 1: through the world that way. We cannot face the challenges
Speaker 1: before us. We cannot face how we have distorted ourselves
Speaker 1: with this construction of race. Right, I mean to name
Speaker 1: just one of the things that is before us, which
Speaker 1: which which kind of under has underpinned so many of
Speaker 1: the others. If we don't find ways to rise into
Speaker 1: the best and deepest and most complex aspects of our
Speaker 1: humanity and character, our moral imagination. Oh, I feel literally
Speaker 1: thrilled by that phrase befriending reality and your description of
Speaker 1: what it means, what it could mean. That really is
Speaker 1: just truly music to my ears. Christa. We'll be back
Speaker 1: right after this quick break, you know, I will say,
Speaker 1: since I'm here with you, I know and I've known this,
Speaker 1: but I hear it in your voice, even even though
Speaker 1: you're mostly just asking questions now. But I I know
Speaker 1: that this is a huge part of you, the tradition
Speaker 1: you grew up in, that there is a religious and
Speaker 1: and spiritual funding to your life that I assume has
Speaker 1: evolved because I think if if this part of life
Speaker 1: like anything, if if you're alive, it's evolving, and you
Speaker 1: have had an adventurous life, and um, I just think
Speaker 1: it must have been I have thought this before. It
Speaker 1: must have been frustrating for this, even this part of
Speaker 1: yourself to not be able to show because as we
Speaker 1: talked about, there's not a place where the complexity and
Speaker 1: richness and fullness of this part of us, it gets
Speaker 1: honored and has a place to show itself. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's a question, but well, no, but I
Speaker 1: take it as a question because it's one that I've
Speaker 1: thought about a lot. Um. I was raised as a Methodist.
Speaker 1: I was raised, uh, you know, going to Sunday School.
Speaker 1: I had a really influential youth minister who took us
Speaker 1: to a different level of thinking about why and and
Speaker 1: what it meant to be a Christian, what it meant
Speaker 1: to be a person of faith. Uh. He was the
Speaker 1: one who took me, as a young teenager to hear
Speaker 1: Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Speak um. And he was
Speaker 1: constantly challenging us, uh with art and poetry and different
Speaker 1: ways of thinking about the world than the ones we
Speaker 1: had grown up with in our suburb of Chicago. And
Speaker 1: so I always believed that faith was a constant in
Speaker 1: my life. You might hear the rain beating on the
Speaker 1: top of the roof of my my little, my little
Speaker 1: attic office where I am recording this, which seems kind
Speaker 1: of appropriate. Um, But it was really difficult to ever
Speaker 1: express any of these feelings or experiences, or even the
Speaker 1: questions raised by my own faith in my own upbringing
Speaker 1: in my own searching in my public life. For example,
Speaker 1: when my father died, I had given, you know, several
Speaker 1: weeks of my time by his bedside as as he
Speaker 1: passed away, and I was just totally overwhelmed by what
Speaker 1: we all experienced, that the death of a loved one.
Speaker 1: And I had promised to speak at the University of
Speaker 1: Texas before my father's stroke, and I was trying to
Speaker 1: get out of it. And the indomitable was Carpenter who
Speaker 1: had asked me to deliver the speech, and no, no, Hill,
Speaker 1: are you got to come? You know, we filled the
Speaker 1: field house tens of thousands of people. You have to come. Well,
Speaker 1: I had no idea what I was going to say.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel up to the occasion, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a dutiful Methodist person, and so of course I went.
Speaker 1: And it was an incredibly emotional experience for me. And
Speaker 1: I talked about meaning and life and I remember just
Speaker 1: being ridiculed by the press. Um, what right did I
Speaker 1: have to raise these issues in public? What was a
Speaker 1: quote first lady doing talking about issues of life and
Speaker 1: death and meaning and spirituality. It was a very very
Speaker 1: difficult um time in my life. And two feel that
Speaker 1: I had no public outlet for exploring these issues meant
Speaker 1: that I just became more personal, and so that was
Speaker 1: kind of you you then decided you needed to keep
Speaker 1: that in Yeah, and it's it in terms of a
Speaker 1: personal experience, it certainly has continued. But I have felt
Speaker 1: often that, you know, maybe if I could think of
Speaker 1: a better way of talking about it, a more oh
Speaker 1: understandable and acceptable way, I might possibly make a better impact.
Speaker 1: But you know, I feel very fortunate that I've had
Speaker 1: this grounding in faith, not just emotionally but intellectually. Because
Speaker 1: I have, I have fallen back on it, you know,
Speaker 1: time and time again. So it's it's it's challenging. If
Speaker 1: you're in the public eye and known for being in
Speaker 1: the public eye as a political person, there's an acceptable
Speaker 1: range to talk about religion. Uh, but if you go
Speaker 1: into these deeper questions, the press and and and certain
Speaker 1: elements of the public get immediately anxious about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We just we don't have that, We don't have the vocabulary.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't and and and don't think it's
Speaker 1: somehow appropriate to have right conversation in public, like don't
Speaker 1: talk about this in public for having's sakes. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: also think that word you use searching the crazy thing
Speaker 1: is that the religion that does get somehow sanctioned. It's
Speaker 1: the certainty, right, it's this, it's the doctrinaire. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that's actually not how people live this. I like you
Speaker 1: just you described it's been, it's your it's somebody dies.
Speaker 1: It's like these moments in life where it doesn't all
Speaker 1: add up and and and nothing else is there. This
Speaker 1: is where we are turned into our interior existence and
Speaker 1: these questions of meaning. That makes so much sense what
Speaker 1: you just said. And and if it's painful to me
Speaker 1: from before, it's painful to hear about, well, thank you
Speaker 1: again for spending this time with me. Thank you. You
Speaker 1: can hear Christo Tippett every week tune into On Being
Speaker 1: from Minnesota Public Radio and pr X. I want to
Speaker 1: turn now to someone else who has shed new light
Speaker 1: on the issue of faith, in his case through humor. Christianity.
Speaker 1: It's the dominant religion in our country. But did you
Speaker 1: know it's also in serious trouble. No, it's not gays,
Speaker 1: not science, not the rual Hollywood. According to Alabama, it's
Speaker 1: sharia law. Assif monv is perhaps best known for his
Speaker 1: role as the Daily shows senior Muslim correspondent, or alternatively,
Speaker 1: the senior foreign looking correspondent. He was also the lead
Speaker 1: actor and co writer and producer of the web series
Speaker 1: Halal in the Family. What a great name, they say,
Speaker 1: if you want to make people think, try making them laugh.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what Ossif does, all while confronting racisms
Speaker 1: and a phobia, Islamophobia and bigotry. And then there's the
Speaker 1: latest development this past march, Assip became a dad, and
Speaker 1: of course I wanted to hear all about that. So
Speaker 1: before we get started on all this other stuff, what's
Speaker 1: your son's name? His name is is Sean a mere Mandvi.
Speaker 1: My wife is Hindu and I'm Muslim. So we uh,
Speaker 1: Sean is a Hindu name, Amir is Muslim and his
Speaker 1: initials are i am, which is uh, you know, Jewish. Yeah, yeah, wait,
Speaker 1: So we got all the bases covered, you know, walking
Speaker 1: advertisement exactly, major religions exactly. It was. It was actually
Speaker 1: amazing because we had an interfaith wedding, Hindu Muslim wedding,
Speaker 1: and uh, we have to make it up because you know,
Speaker 1: there's a world in which Chifali and I would never
Speaker 1: have gotten married, you know, that's right. And how did
Speaker 1: you grow up? I mean, I know you spent part
Speaker 1: of your childhood in the UK, then your family moved
Speaker 1: to Florida. How did it feel to you growing up
Speaker 1: Muslim in those two settings. Well, you know, I did
Speaker 1: grow up Muslim, and I grew up in a relatively
Speaker 1: religious home. My grandparents were religious, you know, so Islam
Speaker 1: was always just part of the d n a of
Speaker 1: my childhood. You know, maybe not ironically, but interestingly. It
Speaker 1: didn't really become a thing until after nine eleven. You know,
Speaker 1: up until then, I had this religion that felt very private,
Speaker 1: and it felt like it was my thing that I
Speaker 1: did with my family. We went to the mosque, sometimes,
Speaker 1: we prayed at home, you know, we went to religious
Speaker 1: ceremonies of things. But it never became something that was
Speaker 1: looked on from the outside until after night eleven. And
Speaker 1: then suddenly there was a different relationship to it, and
Speaker 1: suddenly I was dealing with the explanation of it or
Speaker 1: having to somehow defend it or somehow, you know, Islam
Speaker 1: became politicized. But growing up, it just felt like it
Speaker 1: was a very personal, private thing, and I used it
Speaker 1: as my own way of connecting with whatever highest spirit,
Speaker 1: you know, gone universe, whatever that is. When you think
Speaker 1: about politicizing religion and then the Islamophobia that resulted after
Speaker 1: nine eleven, you have been one of the very few
Speaker 1: high profile people who have walked right into that. Uh you,
Speaker 1: and I want to I want to understand your thinking
Speaker 1: about it, because you know, I'm sure that there were
Speaker 1: people who said, you know, don't go there, you know,
Speaker 1: don't don't make it an issue. How did you come
Speaker 1: to grips with what you wanted to do to try to,
Speaker 1: you know, in your own way, combat what you saw
Speaker 1: as the politicization and the really demonization in so many
Speaker 1: different more of Islam. Well, you know it's funny because
Speaker 1: I was, well, this is gonna Sometimes life just happens
Speaker 1: to you, and what you do in that moment defines
Speaker 1: what happens in the next moment. And for me what happened.
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to be political. I wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: like be outspoken about it, even after nine eleven. Um.
Speaker 1: I was dealing with it on a personal level, but
Speaker 1: never in a public forum. And then the Daily Show
Speaker 1: happened for me. I got this job that I never
Speaker 1: expected to get. I never was I wasn't looking for it.
Speaker 1: It literally happened. I went, I went to this audition,
Speaker 1: John Stewart hired me, and suddenly I was now the
Speaker 1: Muslim correspondent on the Daily Show, much to the terror
Speaker 1: of my parents, who I remember saying, my dad saying
Speaker 1: to me, listen, if John Stewart ever asked you anything
Speaker 1: about Islam, you just haven't called your mother because you
Speaker 1: don't know a damn thing, and so like so they
Speaker 1: were terrified, and I was gonna be out there like
Speaker 1: just you know, saying all kinds of nonsense that didn't
Speaker 1: make any and then I what it did for me
Speaker 1: was it gave me this platform. And at that time,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, there were not a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of people representing in that way that
Speaker 1: felt like it was truthful. I mean, you had, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the terrorists on twenty four or you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I got so many scripts in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of nine eleven where it was literally the first scene
Speaker 1: of the movie or the TV show is the towers
Speaker 1: coming down and and Muslims cheering and praying every script.
Speaker 1: And so this was the first time there was something
Speaker 1: where like I thought, oh, this is a an actual conversation,
Speaker 1: like we're actually talking about this. And I think that
Speaker 1: when I got on the Daily Show, I ended up
Speaker 1: there and I thought to myself, Okay, this is what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna end up being. And I realized like, oh,
Speaker 1: there was a need for it. So I leaned into it,
Speaker 1: and then I found a voice around it. Then as
Speaker 1: I stepped into it further and further, I realized, oh,
Speaker 1: this is I'm actually finding a voice that I had
Speaker 1: not allowed myself to find. So sometimes it's just about
Speaker 1: being given the opportunity to express that. And then you
Speaker 1: realize like, I got a lot to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that I had this much to say
Speaker 1: around this. Yeah, and let let me sort of bring
Speaker 1: this back to both faith but also fatherhood. So here
Speaker 1: you are a new father, um, thinking about all that's
Speaker 1: going on in the world around you. How do you
Speaker 1: hope the world looks you know, in five years when
Speaker 1: he starts school, in eighteen years when he graduates from
Speaker 1: high school, and how do you see how raising your
Speaker 1: son at this moment is going to play out? Well,
Speaker 1: I feel I I do believe, And then and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe This is the glass half full guy in me,
Speaker 1: which is that I do believe that after a breakdown,
Speaker 1: there is a breakthrough, and if we're going through some
Speaker 1: kind of sort of profound breakdown, there is going to
Speaker 1: be a moment a breakthrough. And I also believe something
Speaker 1: that I discovered recently, which is the difference for me
Speaker 1: between faith and belief, you know, and belief is I
Speaker 1: believe something is going to happen. I believe that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get that job, or I believe that I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, be whatever it is. Faith is understanding that
Speaker 1: no matter what happens, I have the capacity to move
Speaker 1: forward and to be okay. And that is something that
Speaker 1: I feel like I want my son to understand. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a much more difficult thing to inhabit, which
Speaker 1: is this idea that like I'm going to be and
Speaker 1: we will be okay no matter why what happens, and
Speaker 1: that is faith and that that we cannot be destroyed
Speaker 1: because faith is larger than that version. You know. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love that, and I'm with you in hoping that
Speaker 1: you know, this breakdown leads through a breakthrough. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I just can't thank you enough. I loved love talking
Speaker 1: to you. I just wish the best for you and
Speaker 1: your wife and your son. Thank you so much. This
Speaker 1: has been such a pleasure. Thanks so much. When he's
Speaker 1: not changing diapers, Ossip Munby has his hands and many
Speaker 1: new projects, including a highly entertaining new supernatural drama series
Speaker 1: called Evil on CBS. Check it out. You and Me
Speaker 1: Both is brought to you by I Heart Radio. We're
Speaker 1: produced by Julie Subran and Kathleen Russo, with help from
Speaker 1: Huma Aberdeen, Nikki etur Oscar Flores, Brianna Johnson, Nick Merrill,
Speaker 1: Lauren Peterson, Rob Russo, and Lona Valmorrow. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Zach McNeice. Original music is by Forest Gray. If you
Speaker 1: like You and Me Both, don't keep it to yourself.
Speaker 1: Tell a friend. You can subscribe to You and Me
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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave us
Speaker 1: a review. I'd really appreciate it. We'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you, so send us your questions, comments, or ideas
Speaker 1: for future shows at You and Me Both pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. Come back next week when we're talking
Speaker 1: to some amazing women leaders, including the one and only
Speaker 1: Gloria steinhum