Deifying Politicians, Hearing God's Voice, and Age Gaps in Middle-East Views

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In this episode of Church Potluck, we dive into three thought-provoking themes with Dr. Christy Snider and Dr. Michael Bailey. First, we explore whether it is fair to say that some Republicans are deifying Trump, drawing from Thomas Edsall’s New York Times piece, "The Deification of Trump." Next, we question the trustworthiness of religious callings based on hearing God’s voice, drawing upon my own spiritual call to ministry. Finally, we examine the generational divide in understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, highlighting the shifting perspectives in today's world. Tune in for a rich conversation blending faith, politics, and cultural insights.

The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is Dale McConkie, your host of Church
Potluck.
We had some episodes lastsemester that we recorded, but I
never edited them anddownloaded them for your
consumption.
So we're changing that now andwe're making them available to
you.
The information might be alittle stale, but hopefully it's
not spoiled.
So go ahead and dig in.
All right, everyone talk realquick into the microphone so I

(00:21):
can see your voices go up on themonitor.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm talking in the microphone.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Okay, that's good, how does my voice sound Like?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Michael Bailey.
All right, very, you know,radio-like Aww.
All right, so here we go.
Welcome everyone to ChurchPotluck, where we are serving up

(00:51):
a smorgasbord of Christiancuriosity.
I'm your host, dale McConkie,sociology professor and United
Methodist pastor.
You know there are two keys toa good church potluck Plenty of
variety and engagingconversation and, I guess for
this episode I might say, justshowing up once in a while as
well.
This is exactly what we try todo here on Church Potluck

(01:15):
Sitting down with friends andsharing our ideas on a variety
of topics from a variety ofacademic disciplines and a
variety of Christian traditions.
And welcome everyone because weare back, yay.
Well, my apologies for theextended hiatus last semester.

(01:36):
We have dropped two episodesrecently, but those were ones
that were recorded last semesterand I didn't get edited to
share, so I hope that you'lllisten to them, but I do feel
bad about being here.
And allow me to explain myself.
Michael Christy, do you haveout your little tiny?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Christy, you're excellent I didn't know you had
this I know you play the bass.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
I play the bass.
This does not sound like a bass.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
No, you're way up on the neck.
I guess it would be down on theneck, is that right?

Speaker 1 (02:07):
So viewers feel sad for me.
I overextended myself way toomuch last semester.
I had four classes, threepreparations, one of them
totally new.
I didn't even know that I wasgoing to be teaching that until
a week or two before thesemester began.
Oh the woes, the trouble I had.
Actually, don't cry for me atall.

(02:29):
It was my own doing and my ownchoice and I actually enjoyed
teaching that class.
But I don't want to have totake such a long break again.
So we are exploring ways tomake sure that the podcast stays
can I say that properly?
Stays sustainable.
One of you try to say that afew times fast.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
See if I Stays.
Yeah, it's not easy, it isdifficult, isn't?

Speaker 1 (02:49):
it.
Now your turn.
I said it perfectly.
All right, Stay sustainable Inyour mind right, very well, but
anyway, all of us or at leastmost of us are having a great
time doing this podcast, and sowe committed to keeping it going
, so hopefully we won't havethose extended hiatuses as we
did this past time.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
I just I do want to say that last semester you were
busy, as you pointed out, as areyou this semester.
You were really always a goodcheer and I knew that you're
busy just because you had notime at all, but that didn't
really affect your dispositionand I don't know if I approve of
that or not.
Yeah, that was good.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Thanks.
Thank you very much.
We could elaborate there, butwe have so many other things to
talk about today.
Moving on, we've got two gueststoday and I'm just going to let
them introduce themselves.
First of all, we have ChristySnyder Dr Christy Snyder.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Hello, my name is Christy Snyder.
I teach in the historydepartment and I've said it
before, I'll say it again myfaith tradition is Roman.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Catholic.
I thought you said your fifthtradition, what?

Speaker 3 (03:49):
is that first story?
That's my story.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
All right, thank you, chrissy, it's good to see you,
and next we have Dr MichaelBailey.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Greetings.
Thanks for having me.
I think I could probably comeup with five faith traditions
that I've adhered to at somepoint.
Very quickly, go oh goshUnitarianism, pentecostalism,
christian reform, first Pres, Imean PCA, and then Methodist,
united, methodist, no All right,there's a lot of overlap

(04:18):
between reform and PCA.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
You Catholics don't bounce around like that right,
chrissy.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I'm pretty straight and narrow.
I'm kind of a closet Catholictoo.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
They don't accept me, but I love them.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
This is part of church potluck right.
Just appreciating the diversitythat's out there and each
offers kind of a different partof the meal for us to be
nourished by, that's pretty dangeloquent for not having that in
my notes, All right.
So my first question to both ofyou is are we here to talk
about JC or Casey?
Oh, Casey's cool with me Forthose of you who don't know,

(04:49):
we're talking to two very bigKansas Chiefs fans, Kansas City
Chiefs fans.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
I would say to talk about one is to talk about the
other.
I don't want to say which one.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I am actually very worried about this weekend's
game against the Ravens.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
We'll need JC.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
All right, maybe we can come back next week and
celebrate another upcoming SuperBowl appearance, or we can just
wallow in the misery of defeatwhich you all are not very used
to lately.
But on to the show.
We are actually having a newformat today.
Usually, when we get togetherlike this, we have four guests,
one topic with an expert, andhere we've got three guests,

(05:30):
including myself, but no experts.
We are going to, from time totime, do church potlucks where
we don't have one master theme.
We're going to have each personcome in with just some little
ideas and not even necessarilyan area that they are experts in
.
I would say that none of us areexperts in the things that
we're about to talk about, butjust things that we're curious
about.
It's almost like a real churchpotluck when you get down and
you just start chatting and yougo into areas that you're not

(05:52):
very familiar with.
We're going to do that.
And our topic treating Trumplike a deity.
A pastor mishears God and thenfinally, solving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
All together, all together.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
We'll resolve it here .
Let's see when do we go.
Listen to the end.
What Listen to?

Speaker 1 (06:07):
the very end.
That's right.
That's where you're going toreveal all there, dr Michael
Bailey.
That's the goal, all right, soyou know what I did not download
.
I'll have to take all this out.
Reason I was doing this was todownload a certain thing and
it's not there.
Oh.
I'm sorry.
It's not a big deal.
It was a little swish sound inbetween our, in between the oh

(06:30):
you know what I do.
Have it All right, christy, whydon't you get us started on
this meal?
What would you like to talkabout today?

Speaker 2 (06:42):
What I brought in today was a New York Times
opinion piece written by ThomasEdsel, and it was titled the
Deification of Trump Poses SomeInteresting Questions, and what
Edsel basically does is hestarts off giving some what I
think he considers evidence thatsome of Trump's supporters see

(07:03):
him as a kind of savior-likefigure.
Most recently, I guess, on TrueSocial, there was a video
posted called God Made Trump.
I watched it.
It was a short little video andjust this is why God has given
us Trump to.
You know, save America from badthings, america from bad things

(07:28):
.
And then he talks about howwhich of the religious
supporters of Trump really dotalk in this kind of language of
former President Trump savingAmerica?
And he pointed primarily toevangelical, especially
charismatic, and what is it?
charismatic and Pentecostal,yeah, and what is it?

(07:49):
Charismatic and Pentecostal?
Yeah, evangelicals, and not somuch that they see him as you
know, the messiah, but they seehim more as they compare him to
King Cyrus, who, as a Catholic,I had never heard of.
King Cyrus.
I do know now that he's in thebible.
He was a ungodly, apparently,man who saved the Jews or
released them from Babylon, andso Trump, with all of his
problems then, can be like KingCyrus, still doing good work,

(08:13):
protecting, in this case,christians from all of their
foes, whether that beprogressives or socialists or
liberals.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
So let me go ahead and start off.
Let me start off with just aninitial pushback and maybe I'll
push back in a few other placeson this article.
First of all, for this to be aNew York Times piece to put in
the title the Deification ofTrump.
There's not a single example inhere where you are calling
Trump a god, and so I think thatis a little not muckraking.

(08:45):
What's the word when you overhyperbole to the point of being
incorrect in what Pentecostalsand charismatics are doing with
Trump?
And so for some place asprestigious as New York Times
that often gets criticized forhaving a blind eye to the right,
I think that this is probablynot a good title.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
I would agree that I was looking through it, for you
know evidence of thisdeification and you don't see it
.
You do see they quote MarjorieTaylor Greene who is, you know,
the congressman of our district.
Congressperson of our districtand she did say that you know,
similar to the way that theRomans persecuted Jesus, Trump
is being persecuted by thegovernment.
But that was like the only realkind of comparison.

(09:27):
I think to Jesus.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
And I don't think it's wrong to look for evidence
of, you know, thinking of Trumpas a savior, but just not deify.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
The savior right.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Maybe, but okay, I'll just ask you in your pushback
to this is your understanding ofdeification?
Does it have to be sort ofChristian in nature?
There's an omniscient,omnipotent God, but if you think
about Roman gods, who were theleaders, I don't think people
thought that they created theuniverse.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
I don't think the Roman Pete, but they did deify
them.
There was a time when they hadto go in and worship the
emperor's genius I think is whatit was referred to which was
his divineness.
There was something distinctlydifferent about the emperor
compared to the rest of humanity.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
And you would suggest that Trump followers, or a
portion of them, are not doingthat already, that they don't
see Donald Trump as somehowdifferent in kind than, say,
other leaders and other people.
I think that's just a given.
That's the case nowadays.
Other leaders and other people.
I think that's just a given.
That's the case nowadays.
So, whether I mean no, no onein the Christian faith is going
to say that he was there at thebeginning, you know, before day

(10:32):
one.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
But the idea that he has a special role, but that's
an anointing and everybody andespecially Charismatics and
Pentecostals will use that termvery loosely for tons of people.
So I do think that this personprobably has a bit of a blind
eye to the way Pentecostals andCharismatics talk.
So, for example and we'll getyou back to this article they

(10:53):
said that they often pray bylaying hands on Donald Trump as
a way of giving him a specialkind of anointing.
I lay hands on folks when Ipray sometimes and I would be
surprised if a church service inPentecostalism or charismatic
traditions that there isn't aworship service that goes by

(11:16):
where someone's not laying handson someone else to pray for
them.
So it is yes, you're important,yes, you're special, yes, we
are commissioning you forsomething or we're trusting you.
But to toss around these terms,as this author did, I think,
does nothing more than to showthe right.
Look at how much you'remisunderstood and look how much
they're going to take and twistyour terms into saying things

(11:37):
that you do not mean.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
It might be that a careful parsing here of his
language to suggest that he'snot the author is not as steeped
in theology as you would havehim, but I think the bigger
picture is that he's getting ata phenomenon that needs to be
discussed.
That is interesting andarresting and, I think,
unsettling, and there does seemto be some sense that this man

(12:01):
is perceived as chosen and hasqualities that others don't have
.
For example, even MarjorieTaylor Greene said I will follow
him, no matter what.
I mean.
That sounds who do you?
I mean, yes, you can followrulers right and follow leaders,
but that sounds very much likewhat someone might say about
Jesus is following Jesus.

(12:22):
I think that he's getting atsomething that is genuine and
real and about their laying ofhands.
I actually took that particularsection to talk about the
fervor that people have abouthim with religion that he
himself actually doesn't share.
So I thought it was moretalking about the oddity that
this guy, who is pretty secular,doesn't know the Bible very

(12:42):
well Donald Trump doesn't seemto be a participant in a church
does have these people whosurround him and then involve
them in their own religion.
That's what I thought it wastalking about, not to say that
there's something wild or uniqueor strange about laying on of
hands.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, and I would say that they are definitely
treating him as a charismaticleader who is worthy of devotion
and following in a way that wehaven't seen in previous
presidents, but I do think thatyou weaken your argument when
you use some of the terminologythat he was.
So that's my point.
Thank you very much, chrissy.
Let's go on to our next topic.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
So I was going to.
I just wanted to add to thatthat this kind of sent me down a
maybe it's a rabbit hole, butthere was an earlier New York
Times article by Ruth Grahamwhere it was called Trump is
Connecting with a Different Typeof Evangelical Voter.
That was published in January8th.
And these are like people whosay that they are evangelical

(13:35):
right, they're self-claimedevangelicals, but they have no
church, right, they don't go towhich you think of evangelical
as the most church-going.
And so these are people whoprobably maybe because they are
populist, that you know theyhave embraced evangelicalism,
seeing in that something thatgives them, I don't know some

(13:56):
sort of maybe link to the pastthat otherwise they don't have.
And I think those are the oneswho might really be deifying
Trump.
Perhaps I think those are theones who might really be
deifying Trump, perhaps so notthose who really, you know, kind
of understand more of thetradition.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
The article did point out that the creators of the
you know God said Trump videothat in particular, the leader
of that group calls himself aChristian, calls himself, does
not belong to a church andclaims no real knowledge of the
Bibles.
But increasingly, that is justwho we are as a country.
So to hold to it.
By the way, I mean, it's gonnabe the editor who comes up with
the name of this title.
It's not gonna be the author ofthe piece itself.

(14:34):
I don't know what the authorwould have suggested the name
should be, so maybe it was ablunder on the editor's point to
use that particular word.
That's a good point actually.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
But I think that the overall thrust here is that
something different and odd ishappening.
That, I think, is verytroubling.
It should be troubling forChristians.
Yes, if you haven't seen thevery short video God sent is it
God not?
God sent Trump?
God made Trump.
God made Trump.
It really is striking andthere's no doubt that there's a
sense of anointing.
There's no doubt that there's asense of that and in many other
respects that God has.
This is a special moment thatGod has sent a special person to

(15:12):
set things right, and so Itotally agree with that.
And if you haven't seen thevideo, it really is depending on
your attitude toward Trump juststriking.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
either way, and I did think that it was very I mean,
it was kind of funny becausethey talk about you know, trump
was not notorious for his longwork days, but they talk about
by Tuesday he's put in his40-hour work week and then he
adds another 72 hours to it.
To you know, make sure to getall his good work done during
the week, which I thought wasfunny.
But all right, my final commenthere was to link this back to

(15:45):
the past, so I'm going to throwthis out there to you guys.
Is Trump's you know kind of useof religion any different than
William Jenning Bryan, theDemocratic candidate who gave
the Cross of Gold speech in 1896?
Is it?
Is his populism?
Is his use of religiondifferent than what Bryant was

(16:06):
doing way back when and you maynot know much about?

Speaker 1 (16:10):
I will totally confess that my knowledge of
presidential speeches does notgo back to 1896.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Sorry, cross of gold type of speech.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
So let me I'll just read you.
This is an excerpt from thecross of gold speech.
It says if they dare to comeout in the open field and defend
the gold standard as a goodthing, we shall fight them to
the utmost.
Having behind us the producingmasses of the nation and the
world, having behind us thecommercial interest and the
laboring interest of all thetolling masses, we shall answer

(16:40):
the demands for the goldstandard by saying to them you
shall not press down on the browof labor a crown of thorns, you
shall not crucify mankind upona cross of gold.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
A few analogies in there.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, so that was kind of what made me think about
this, I mean my understandingof Brian is that he was himself
profoundly evangelical.
He really did believe, hebecame a Presbyterian.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
And I believe that he was defending the six-day
creation in the Scopes MonkeyTrial and I think one difference
is he was himself a believer.
I find that language is kind oficky and over the top and sort
of an equation of theexperiences we're having here
with God's will, which I justnever have that kind of
confidence that you can withgreat specificity know what God

(17:25):
would have us do on a publicpolicy.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Just wait for my article.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Okay, yeah, I mean I think he might be more over the
top than Trump personally, butless cynical somehow.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, so he actually believes what he is saying.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
That's the sense I have of him.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Here's another point I would make is, if you listen
to the Jennings quotes, it'sabout the religious language is
directed toward the policies.
It's not the person per se.
He's not holding himself or, asfar as I know, his followers.
Maybe they are, but the peoplewho were agreeing with him were

(18:00):
not using that language abouthim.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
He was a very spellbinding speaker and he did
end that speech with that crossof gold imagery, with his hands
extended like he was on a cross.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
And just the whole fact like I'm not fighting for
me, I am fighting for you.
I think that also resonatesyeah.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
And as soon as you read that first line and he's
talking about, we will fightthem, at least in this day and
age, I do think I wish bothparties, everybody, would hold
back on the warfare and theviolent imagery in their
speeches.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
But I'm sure that's American populist and Trump is a
populist, and populism tends tobe ranks higher in terms of
willingness to use non-orthodoxviolent means to get what you
want, because they believe thatthe system is corrupted.
So going through the ordinarychannels of process is not

(18:54):
always going to work.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Great, thank you very much.
All right, so I want to talkabout my article now, and I this
article is about aColorado-based online pastor,
and so hold on to that onlinethought for a second.
I want to talk about this, andthis person's name is Eli

(19:19):
Regaladot.
Sorry, let me just try thatagain and I'll edit it out, eli.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Regalado.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Regalado, regalado, regalado, regalado this person's
name is Eli Regalado and hiswife, caitlin, and they have
been I don't know if it's beenformally arrested, but they have
been given notice that there'sbeen papers filed against them
in the Colorado courts fortrying to sell cryptocurrency

(19:55):
that is essentially worthless.
But their motive for sellingthe cryptocurrency was because
God told him to that he wasgoing to sell cryptocurrency to
his congregation, and $3.2million of cryptocurrency has
been sold supposedly.
And when he was told that hewas committing fraud by this

(20:17):
currency that he knew wasessentially worthless, his
explanation was he thinks thathe may have misheard God and
that God had told him.
He told his congregation thatGod had told him to do this, to
go into this, that God was goingto provide for his ministry
this way and that maybe he hasnow misheard God.
And I'm not so much interestedin the details of this

(20:39):
particular case as I am kind ofthe implications of some of the
things that came out of this,and the first one is the source
of religious authority.
I'll just start there with youall.
This is an online pastor andI'm sure there are amazing
people who say amazing thingsvery devout, and I know Eli, I'm
not going to try to say hisname again, I apologize, but

(21:01):
might be a very sincere, devoutperson.
But where does his source ofauthority to be a pastor?
Where does his source ofauthority come from?
And from what I can tell, itcomes from his own desire to be
an online pastor and, from whatI can tell, it comes from his
own desire to be an onlinepastor.
And I think about this a lot,and I talk about this a lot in
my classes, about where does theauthority come in order to lead
people as a pastor.

(21:22):
And just with that little bit,you all coming—Michael coming
from five traditions, christycoming from a very long one.
What would you say to thatquestion?

Speaker 2 (21:29):
So it's obviously the pope right.
The pope grants you theauthority to—no, but I mean,
there does seem to be like youknow, I don't know, and that
would be traditional authority.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah right.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
It comes down from.
You go through training and youlearn the literature of the
Bible, you learn how to ministerto people and, yeah, there are
a series of steps you take,although I know that is not
every tradition.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah, I mean something about the Catholic
Church is getting it right.
Apostolic succession has beenworking for 2,000 years.
How would you?

Speaker 1 (22:04):
describe this Actually two ways.
I've been taught apostolicsuccession.
How would you describe that?

Speaker 3 (22:10):
for our listeners.
My understanding, which couldbe incorrect, is that that was

(22:36):
passed on to other other leaderswho essentially got the receive
the imprimatur from that, firstfrom peter and then from his
followers moving on down.
I expressed that terribly, butI think I I was following it, so
I think so.
I think his idea is thatauthority is sort of transferred
from one generation to another.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
So every pastor now or every priest in the Catholic
Church can trace back theirordination to the previous
generation, to the previousgeneration.
There's like a family tree thatgoes all the way back to Jesus
through Peter, right, and sothat's the apostolic succession
when it comes from by positionand some people, and that tends
to be the one that's supportedby Catholics, high church

(23:19):
traditions, catholics andEpiscopalians and, I believe,
lutherans as well.
I could be wrong about that,but lower church traditions
emphasize apostolic Callings bycalling, but also by doctrine,
that this person was true to thedoctrine and was passed on and
there was a group of people whorecognized that this person was
being true to the doctrine andtrue to the doctrine and trace
it back that way.

(23:39):
But it is interesting, I dothink, in this day and age.
Let me take a step back.
And so that tradition wouldvery much be in line with.
You know, max Weber said there'sbasically three ways that we
establish authority, right, soit can be through traditional
means, that this is the waywe've always done it and so we
do it.
But you also mentioned thatCatholic Church also very much
emphasizes kind of rationaltraining, right, that reason is
very important and there's aprocess by which you are

(24:01):
identified as someone who'slearned it enough, who is called
enough, and you have thatprocess.
It's kind of more of a rational, often referred to as rational
legal process.
And then the third way is justcharisma, right, and people ask
Jesus by whose authority are youdoing this?
He says my father's.
It's come straight from there.
I didn't study under a rabbi.
And today, especially in modernday society, if you want to

(24:27):
refer to yourself as a pastorand develop a three-year DC or
I've said that, all wrong, butanyway, if you set up a
nonprofit and go online and sayyou're a pastor, you can be a
pastor, kind of with all thelegal recognition as the
Catholic Church does, massiveglobal church and this one guy
saying I'm a pastor.
So, to find ways to trust, howdo you trust right, and how do

(24:48):
you determine whether somebodyhas the authority to make these
kinds of decisions?
I find that to be aninteresting question in this day
and age where we increasinglyrely on charismatic authority
that the people that we trustare— In the realm of religion
right.
Realm of religion and everywhereelse too right.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
Because what?

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Because expertise is now in question, because I would
have guessed thatrationalization is still pretty
important, but— Well see, I'dsay we've gone post-rational now
or post-modern, in whichinfluencers right who was I just
talking to that said thatsomebody was asking if Taylor
Swift could come and visit achurch because then church
attendance would skyrocket likeSuper Bowl viewership I mean not

(25:28):
Super Bowl, nfl viewership hasgone up.
Just think about all theinfluencers say, hey, look at
this, my product, and even inpresidential elections.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
You know it's much less about rational
argumentation now, as it ispersona and Kind of connected to
them being part of a post-truthworld, it would seem, yeah,
where you don't have specialauthority on the claim of your
expertise or your position oryour voice.
Right, I mean the CatholicChurch definitely correct me if
I'm wrong they own theconferring of that position in
whole.
I don't know the answer to this.

(26:02):
I think that's a really triedand true method.
I think if someone claims tohave special authority, you're
really just kind of relying onsigns at this point.
And I think if someone can holdup a staff and part a sea, I'm
going to follow them.
It's really true.
Or they can strike a rock, andwater flows out.
I was like, yeah, okay, you'vegot something you know that's
really important.

(26:22):
Short of that, then, I thinkthat an attitude of skepticism
is not unwarranted.
That's my own opinion.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
So I just recently watched the.
There's a mini series on DavidKoresh in the Waco siege.
That's a great example, he'sjust, yeah, very kind of, you
know, starts off as this guywho's dyslexic, has trouble
reading, learns the Bible reallywell though, and can quote it,
and it's just a charismaticleader and, you know, appealed

(26:49):
to the people in this communityand who I really do believe.
They, you know, I think theyreally believe that he had been
given a calling.
Even more than that, since, Ithink, towards the end, he was
also believing that he was maybethe second coming.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah, and many of these streaming services.
That was a great example.
Many of these streamingservices are just it's not at
the same level as true crime,but it is just these cults that
arise and many of them aresecular.
Many are not Christian or notreally any particular religious
tradition, but just they dodeify their leaders sometimes,
and it really is quite strikingand sometimes it's very

(27:27):
well-educated, veryknowledgeable people just
seeking something different thanwhat life is offering them and
willing to follow this person tovery extreme measures you know,
not quite Jonestown measures,but very much.
This is something that'sfascinating me is that how are
people trusting religiousauthority these days?
But we can also ask it of otherareas, not just religious.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
I mean your whole example here opens up the
question of, it seems to me, howa sort of self-critical,
self-scrutinizing person shoulddetermine whether they have
heard the voice of God orwhether I mean.
What kind of test should you?
How do you discern that?
I don't know, dude that's mynext question.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
That's exactly where I was taking it.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
You took us there.
I don't have an answer, Sinceyou were going to pose the
question.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
I mean no, you got to flip.
I pose the question you providethe answers to it Love early
yeah.
This is something that DrJeffrey Lickey and I are going
to explore in an episode comingup that he and I both have had
these religious experiences.
His was not necessarily Godspeaking to him, but it was a
profound religious experiencethat he had.
And I became a chaplain atBerry College, and specifically

(28:36):
chaplain at Berry Berry College,from what I consider to be a
calling.
It was a one-word callingprepare, but it really felt this
was from God, and I'll just seewhere this goes and I'll go
into much more detail anothertime.
But I thought my training wasgoing to take five or six years
because it was more of arational line.
And five or six weeks later Iwas asked to serve as chaplain
here at Berry College and so Ijust but I still ask myself how

(29:00):
do I know for sure?
How did other people affirmthat?
Mostly because I didn't tellthem that God spoke to me out in
the woods.
But it really is a fascinatingquestion to me how do you know
when God speaks right?
One of my go-to lines in mysermons when I talk about God
speaking to us is the line whereit's not in the fire, it's not
in the earthquakes, it's in thegentle whispers sometimes.
But I also know friends who aremore along the Pentecostal

(29:21):
charismatic where God will speakto them three, four, five times
before they brush their teethin the morning that they just
feel like there's an ongoingconversation between them and
God, them and God, whereas Itend to think you know, in fact,
that one word that I will saywas I felt like God was talking
to me was really the only timethat I felt this kind of
certainty to really change mylife based on it.

(29:42):
So I think it's a difficultquestion to ask, especially in
an era where we have so manydifferent truth claims or maybe
that's always been the case.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
I think it's one thing too to believe it yourself
, right To feel like yourselfthat you've been touched or been
, yeah, that God has talked toyou.
But to hear somebody saythey've been touched, you know
that's got that is alsodifferent.
It's not that I don't believeyou, I believe you believe it,
but yeah if I didn't know you.
Why would I trust you right?

Speaker 1 (30:11):
That's a stinging line.
I, if I didn't know you, whywould I trust you?
Right?
That's a stinging line.
I believe that you believe it,and I do get some cynicism
hearing about this story that westarted off with, because he
did use a significant amount ofthe money for a remodeling of
his house that he said needed tobe done by God's will.
But so people are upset anddoubting whether he actually

(30:34):
heard God and then misheard, oreven misheard God.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
I mean it seems like scrutiny and determining,
tracking as things go.
I mean I'm going to just backup and say to be completely,
let's say, you're a person offaith, and to be completely
dismissive of any time you thinkthat you hear the word of God
seems to me not to be veryfaithful.
I mean, it seems like thereshould be some sort of you, have
some sort of orientationtowards being receptive to the
Word of God when you think youhear it.

(30:58):
But you should also.
That would strike me is try toinspect the your own motives and
ask yourself is this asking meto do something that I would
know otherwise to be immoral orwicked or wrong?
How is this affecting otherpeople where I have actual
obligations?
I took a vow to my wife beforeGod.
That certainly has some sort ofongoing weight, and so if this

(31:23):
is calling me to do somethingthat would hurt her, I probably
would have to be more dubious.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah One of the things I would add to that is I
kind of teased that I didn'ttell people.
I did tell people.
I just didn't immediately openup the conversation with
President Kali with oh God spoketo me and said I should be, you
know and present it that way.
But there should be, I thinkand I got this from the church I
studied for my dissertationjust this affirmation that if
you feel like God has spoken toyou, that there should be fellow

(31:50):
believers that are getting thatsame kind of sense of calling
rather than it being.
God rarely works totally soloand one person hears it and
nobody else has that same senseof calling.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
You may not remember this about that story, but you
told me right away or very soonand I was super excited for you
and took it very seriously.
I'm not saying that I don'tthink I was, did not have much
of memory for you, but Iremember the not the occasion
when it happened for you on theday but you told me pretty
quickly thereafter and I had nodoubt about your sincerity as

(32:21):
well as the possibility thiscould be and also it just seemed
.
It seemed like an exciting newpossibility and direction and
good for the college as well.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, thank you very much.
We'll end on that nice highnote, dr Bailey.
We have saved the easiest forlast.
Nice little resolution here.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
I've learned not to say aloud what the title of this
article was, because I don'twant to.
No, actually I don't even knowwhat the title.
I saw a poll from this lastweek from the Economist-UGov
Institute I guess EconomistismMagazine in Britain just dozens

(33:05):
and dozens of different topics,but what caught my eye was the
difference of opinions, the gapbetween young people and old
people in their own posturetowards the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
And so just some data.
I just.
They have the entire spectrumof ages, but I'm just going to
take the youngest grouping andthe oldest and for the simple

(33:25):
question of anIsraeli-Palestinian conflict,
are your sympathies more withIsrael or the Palestinians?
For 18 to 29-year-olds it wasnot quite two to one in favor of
Palestinians.
About a third of the peoplesaid that it was about equal.
But about 30% of young peoplefavored Palestinians and 18%

(33:46):
were more sympathetic towardsIsrael.
For those who are 65 and older,it was a dramatic difference.
Only 8% of those who are 65 orolder are more sympathetic
towards the Palestinians and 56%claim that they're more
sympathetic with Israel.
That is a giant gap.
That sort of is consistent withthe size of gap that you have

(34:08):
with partisanship and itprobably is linked to some
extent with partisanship.
It's probably linked with otherof the sort of famous variables
that affect how we feel.
So it's sort of in alignmentwith who's more sympathetic to
Israel in general Republicansand males and conservatives,
people who live in rural areas,all of those sort of reinforce

(34:29):
one another.
But I again was reallysurprised by the difference in
from ages.
And then a similar question,sort of probing a certain thing.
Was the question an empiricalquestion with obviously a lot of
judgment behind it, which is isthere a genocide going on in
Palestine, presumably the GazaStrip, and among young people?

(34:50):
By a ratio of two to one theysaid yes.
So 49% of 18 to 29 year oldssaid yes and 24% said no.
There was not a genocide.
But for older folks, 65 andolder, it was about two and a
half times more likely to say no52% thought there's not a
genocide taking place and about21% said yes.

(35:11):
So that's what I wanted to sortof bring to the table, an idea
that probably is not going to govery far in this.
How do we account for this?
For one thing, probably thatvariable is mingled with the
other ones I mentioned.
It's mingled probably withincome and it's probably mingled
with party and partisanship aswell, but even within the
Democratic Party.

(35:31):
I don't have the data right infront of me, but I read that
even with the Democratic Partythere is a huge division in
terms of attitude towards Israeland Palestine, and it really
seems to turn on so even whenyou account for party
affiliation.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
you see, that's as we can see relationship continue
with age.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
It would seem to be the case just by looking at
within the Democratic Partyitself.
How does one account for this?
And I haven't really read aserious account for this.
I've heard anecdotally peopletalk about how young people
essentially take.
Their moral posture or theirmoral compass is oriented by,
essentially, the ethic ofvictimhood, and it's understood
that Gaza City, effectivelybeing seen as a kind of open air

(36:17):
prison for a number of yearsand in some degree or another
under occupation since the 40s,as the Palestinians are victims
and therefore essentiallythere's a lot more sympathy for
the response of October 7th andless empathy for Israel.
So that's, I think, a commonkind of narrative that's being
thrown out there.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
But what I and I don't mean to.
This might be the right andwrong term, but is that kind of
a recency bias?
Because you know you go back afew more decades and you have
some other issues with Israel.
And is it just that when you'vebeen talking like this, I've
been wondering does our youngergeneration really not understand
or empathize with the Holocaust?

(37:00):
Is it such a distant memory?
And maybe you as a historyprofessor might know from the
way people respond.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
I know you don't teach World War II warfare very
often, but yeah, and I mean I dotalk a little bit in when I
teach American diplomacy aboutthe United States role in
support of the creation ofIsrael, but yeah, it's very
brief.
I do think students do not knowa lot about that whole period

(37:31):
of time and they do see I thinkMike is right the Palestinians
as the victims of thatarrangement and yeah, so I think
that adds to it as well.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Like 24,000 to a little over a thousand.
You can see where especiallysomeone who is young, just
probably becoming moreknowledgeable about world
affairs would see this and justbe easy to say this is wrong.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean in my alternative theoryto the idea of just for lack of
a better word but wokeness, ofjust being understanding right
and wrong in terms of who hasbeen victimized, is exactly what
you said, but both of you said.
I saw another article in thelast week from the Washington
Post suggesting that there areprobably 240,000 or so survivors

(38:22):
from the Holocaust.
All of them would have been thetime and probably I think the
number was 30,000 to 40,000 arein the United States and so
there are not many survivors whocan tell kind of a living story
or an account of what that wasand bring home for lots of

(38:44):
people what that meant.
You know, in my childhood Igrew up in Kansas City and so I
learned basketball and I tookswim lessons and I went to
preschool at the JewishCommunity Center, and the Jewish
Community Center of Kansas Citywas really an important
cultural haven for lots ofEastern Europeans who were

(39:04):
displaced, who came to theUnited States after World War II
and I was born, you know, just22 years after the end of World
War II.
It was very relevant, that story, the movies and just the lives
of people, and Lincoln in one ofhis addresses talks about the
challenges of governing in hisyoung man's lyceum's address he

(39:26):
was a young man himself when hegave this but he talks about the
challenges of governing theUnited States as the founders
die off and not just thefounders, but as those who
fought in the war died off, andhe talks about how the living
history that's his ownexpression the living history
that populated the homes whocould talk about the war and

(39:47):
would bear the scars of thosebattles brought home the
sacrifice.
And he said as that goes away,we're going to be just much more
caught up in our self-interestand our own story and I'm
wondering whether young peopledon't have that keenly felt,
just kind of acute sense of thehorror of what happened to
people of Jewish faith in Europeand therefore the warrant for

(40:11):
Israel is supposed to be a safeplace, and how terrifying that
incursion was.
I mean so I just that's.
What I'm wondering is whetherthere is this, that lack of
history, that might account forthis lack of sympathy for Israel
at that time.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
And I do think that, especially like among our
students, those who are kind ofpro-Palestinian and very much
kind of seeing their pain, Idon't think they would see
themselves as anti-Semitic right.
I think they would seethemselves as being anti-Israel,
that the government is doingsomething wrong, but that the
Jewish people, yeah, they'recool and we're okay with the

(40:49):
Jewish people.
Yeah, I mean, that's just asense I have.
It's obvious that in some ofthe protests, that some of the
terminology that has been usedby protesters definitely did
sound like it was calling forthe extermination of Jews and
things like that.
But I would say, at least fromstudents at Berry, I haven't,

(41:09):
although I do think they it'svery much they lean more towards
that.
The Palestinians are the oneswho are being victimized in this
situation.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
I mean, I think that's just really good insight,
because I think one of thecriticisms that young people
have of Israel I think it's asound criticism is there might
be a conflation of Hamas withthe people of Gaza entirely.
So you have to keep a sharpdistinction between the decision
makers who are leading this andthe ordinary citizens who are

(41:36):
victims of it.
Yeah, to make a distinctionbetween, I think it's a tricky
one, to make a distinctionbetween Israel and Jews, and I
would feel very uncomfortablemyself making that it's
understandable analytically.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
So Am I a coward to say that I would be very nervous
to be teaching at some of theseelite colleges where the fervor
over this conflict is so muchstronger than it is here at
Berry College?
I feel like I would be sonervous to try to broach this

(42:08):
subject in any way.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
It's possible I mean, I've been really it's possible
that I'm a coward?
No, it's possible that there's areason more to be nervous.
I've been really surprised atthe response of some of the more
elite Ivy schools, of just theanger that's boiled up.
I don't know, maybe that putsme out of touch.
I'm sure that it does.
Yeah, in a way that I mean Iteach American politics and that

(42:31):
does require you have to bekind of savvy to, I think,
american politics and that doesrequire you have to be kind of
savvy to, I think, navigate thatin a way, and that's so much at
Barry, but you do but disruptedclassrooms and campuses in the
way that this topic has.
It's really touched theheartstrings of lots of young
people, but in ways that in someways are admirable.
But I think in some ways it maybe short-sighted or at least

(42:53):
differently sighted than the wayI view it.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Do any of us really know enough to be able to have a
strong opinion one way oranother?

Speaker 3 (42:59):
I think we have lots of strong opinions.
I think they're contradictory,though, and to know how to find
a clear path out of the mess isbeyond me, but I mean, for me,
that initial incursion wasreally one of the most awful
things that I have read about inmy 56 years.
My initial incursion was OnOctober 7th, when Hamas came in

(43:20):
and murdered people and seemedto seek out civilians
specifically, individually intheir house and called them out
and all the rest of it.
It was mass murder at anindividual level.
That wasn't just sort of inquotations, collateral damage of
dropping a bomb and not reallycaring about the distinction
between leaders and civilians.
This was seeking outindividuals to kill families and

(43:42):
young people.
I really was just shocked byyou have to go back to almost
like Rwanda, on an obviouslysmaller scale, but I think yeah,
I mean that doesn't precludesomeone saying killing 25,000
people, 70% of which are womenand children, is also terrible.
I mean.
I think you can hold those inyour mind simultaneously.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
That makes sense to me.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
And I think you can be very troubled by Hamas.
I think that it's not anindicator of the entire
Palestinian people.
It's also troublesome thatHamas was elected in whatever
2005 or 2006.
So I don't know, I mean, I justthink it's yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
I was just going to say yeah, but you know what, if
we still had to have our sameleaders from 2005 and 2006 and
we weren't allowed to haveanother election until?
I mean, it is so much morecomplicated, I think, than most
of our students realize.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
Yeah, I think that's right yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Or yeah, and I also think Kelsey Rice, who is in the
history department here andteaches.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Christy Snyder, speaking for Kelsey Rice.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
I went to you know they did a panel discussion on
this and she told students, youknow, don't get your news from
social media.
And I do wonder if that is partof why young people feel the
way they do is just kind ofwhere they get their news from.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
It's hugely important .
There was a time back in the60s and 70s where young people
actually tested better forpolitical knowledge than older
people.
There just wasn't that same agegap.
But now young people know somuch more about older people,
about technology and certainkinds of entertainment business,
but when it comes to thepolitical world, it's almost

(45:27):
impossible to underestimate howlittle they know, he said.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
I am not going to second that, but you could be
right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
My last question at least this is called church
potluck and we haven't talkedtoo much.
Is there a religious angle herethat needs exploring, and
particularly, is there aChristian perspective, which the
answer is no, but is there.
How does religion fit into allof this, do you think?

Speaker 3 (45:52):
And to the Israeli-Palestinian.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, I mean evangelical conservatives,
fundamentalist conservatives,just conservative Christians in
general, have been historicallyIsrael's great supporters.
Yeah, we have bulletin boardsaround the community here in
Rome that support Israel, andpresumably by conservative
religious groups.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
And you know, younger people are increasingly
unaffiliated, as we've talkedabout before, and something like
40% of that very group that waspolled right essentially are
not affiliated with religions.
There's no reason, from anunaffiliated perspective, to
think of Israel as special,unique chosen.
It's just a group of people whoseem, in their opinion, to be

(46:33):
oppressors.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Yeah, that's a good point.
And so, with there being such aclear tipping of
non-religiosity, especiallyamong the young, which I think
I'm just repeating what you saidI think that's a possible
connection for why young peoplemore than older people.
Great, all right, we will endit there.

(46:54):
So, unless I missed anything,was there anything that we
needed to be talking about,anything we didn't catch?

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Okay, trump is God, no sorry.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
I'll tell you what.
Someone give me the keys to thegame on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Our offense.
We need our receivers to catchthe ball the way they did last
week.
I'd say that's key one.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Our offensive line has to be able to hold that
defensive line, which they arelike a tidal wave.
It's terrifying.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
They seem mighty good , the Baltimore Ravens.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
And I think, third, we need our defense to play
their best and not like they didlast week.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
I think if they win that game they have a decent
chance in the Super Bowl, but Ithink they may be blown out.
We'll see.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
I mean, do you think Baltimore is the prohibited
favorite all the way through?
Seem to be All right.
I want to thank our guests,christy Snyder and Michael
Bailey.
Thank you so much.
I've enjoyed the conversation.
I hope you have as well, andthe same thing for all of you

(47:59):
out there.
I want to thank our audiencefor sitting around the table
with us today.
I hope that we have providedyou with some food for thought
and something to chew on, and weprobably will have a little
conversation after this.
So if you want to tune in forsome leftovers, we will do that,
as we were doing last semester.
And just again, thank you somuch.
This is Church Potluck and also, actually I'm going to turn
this down for just a quickquestion, because my guests were
enjoying the music of this.
But I want to remind you thatwe are going to do a little side

(48:21):
project podcast called here.
I'm just going to tell you whatit's called.
Right here, michael Bailey isdoing a little orchestra
leadership there.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
We're actually the air drums Jesus Christ movie
star.
Sure, do we believe what moviessay?

Speaker 1 (48:58):
you are Jesus Christ movie star.
We're going to be talking aboutJesus movies and eventually
we'll talk about Christianthemed movies and such.
But first of all, just a littleproject I'm doing in terms of
doing over the past hundredyears how has Jesus been
represented in film and thedifferent personalities and kick
that off next week.
Definitely we'll be talkingwith John Huggins and Gabriel

(49:20):
Roes I hope I'm pronouncing yournew name correctly, Gabriel and
just I hope that you willlisten to that.
We'll post a few of those onChurch Potluck, but eventually
we'll give it its own littleplace to go to if you're
interested in those.
But thank you so much, and lasttime this has been Church
Potluck.
All right, We'll bring it rightback down.

(49:40):
Her voice is so clear, yeah, itis so pure.
I'm going to send her a messagetonight and tell you just how
much I'm really fond of her.
Yeah, no, I was so lucky, sofortunate, like I said, because
I was just, you know okay.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
And also you can hear just a touch of humor in her
voice.
I mean, you can hear a littlebit of the play.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
I don't know, that's fun.
I just hadn't thought about thepull and all these implications
as not touching upon religion,but it didn't have a
specifically Christianperspective.
No, it was good.
You know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Just hadn't thought about it, that I mean there have
been some religious leaderswho've come out and I mean I
believe the popes come out andsaid you know, we need to stop
the violence.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
And other religious leaders in the evangelical
communities and we need to knowand we need to support.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Israel.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
It has definitely become a rallying cry.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
It's just beyond awful the whole thing.
I mean when we sort of open ourimagination or moral
imagination to think that thosereally are thousands of children
.
I totally believe and maybethis is not the place to say it
I do think Israel has a right todefend itself.
This is not the place to say it.
I do think Israel has a rightto defend itself, but the
awfulness of the way they'reperceiving that is just so

(50:59):
disheartening.
It's all just sickening reallyin a way.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
My question would be without really knowing the
answer, because I do thinkthings are so complex and I have
not delved into it enough butis Israel's response
proportional to what happened,or do they need to go to this
extent to make sure it doesn'thappen again?
Like I said, I don't know theanswers, but I'd be curious to
talk to an Old Testament scholar, because I have heard multiple

(51:23):
times.
You know the adage an eye foran eye, a tooth for a tooth was
meant as a limit of violence,not, as you know, if they get
you, you get them back.
It's if they do this.
You may do no more than whatthey have done.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
The United States has never followed that, ever
remotely, anything like that, Ithink it's in 2 Corinthians.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
So did you both watch the video?
God Made Trump.
Yes, yes, yes, I thoughttechnically it was very well
done.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
It achieved its purpose.
Yes, you know I try to becareful because I want people
who are conservative to watchthis and not think that we are,
but any time you treat someonewith that, you know I'm about to
go against my main point.
It felt like they were deifyinghim right.
There is this, you know, madefor a very special purpose, for
a very special time, and this isthe man Made for a very special

(52:14):
purpose, for a very specialtime, and this is the man.
And God was just honed in onthis from the beginnings of
creation to know that this isthe man for the time.
But it was very powerful, itwas very well done.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
I also thought have you seen the photo or I guess
it's an image picture of Jesussitting next to Trump in the
courtroom.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
I don't think I've seen that picture, but again, I
don't want to belabor the point,but I am.
I see tons of pictures likethat right that Jesus is right
next to you, jesus is holdingyou up in a difficult time.
That picture, that image, isnot unique to Trump.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yeah, it made me think of like the footprints in
the sand analogy.
Although I did wonder would itbe Jesus carrying Trump, or
would Trump carry Jesus throughthe sand?

Speaker 1 (52:58):
I wish I had listened to the video clip from the
quote where Trump was saying hewasn't Jesus.
Right, oh yeah, that I'm notJesus.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
People are saying I'm I'm not as famous.
Yeah, I'm not as famous.
Oh, I'm not as famous.
Yeah, I'm not the most famous.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
That reminded me of the Beatles right that there was
a big uproar when the Beatlessaid that they are as well.
No, they didn't say they werebetter.
They didn't say that they were,but they said that we are
better known, More popular.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
More popular.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Okay, there you go.
More popular than Jesus Christ,yeah, so if you had to pick one
person in this room that wasgoing to remember the exact
statement Michael Bayley yeah.
I used to be a big Beatles guy.
I just way tapered off.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Not big enough.
Nope, nope.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Definitely not now, Not nearly big enough yeah not
now, so cool.
So have you ever you don't tapeyour services and YouTube them,
or?

Speaker 1 (53:45):
No.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Did you during the?

Speaker 1 (53:46):
pandemic.
During the pandemic I did itfor a little bit During the
pandemic.
It's only been like the lastsix months, maybe a year now,
that we've had reliable Wi-Fiout there.
The only Wi-Fi that they hadout there was very slow, very
terrible for streaming.
We have since, thanks to ElonMusk, we now have Starlink and

(54:07):
we have very good streamingservices, but so far hasn't
affected.
We're not getting rings in themiddle of the service or
anything like that.
It hasn't changed too much.
But when I first went out there10 years ago it was just
amazing watching these kids justoutside playing around throwing
footballs and nobody had theirhead down in their 10 years ago.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Where did you go?

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Mount Tabor.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Okay, was that 10 years ago?

Speaker 1 (54:27):
Yeah, I've been there for a little over 10 years now.
Yeah it's hard to believe I'venow been the pastor at Mount
Tabor longer than I was thechaplain at Berry College.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Yeah, I thought about that the other day.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
There is a little bit I think there was when you were
no longer a chaplain.
There's a little bit of achaplain emeritus type of
feeling to it, for a while, Ithink, for people who knew you
that way and relied on you.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Yeah, but I'm also very glad, you know John Huggins
, you know, stepped up and tookit as his own, and then you know
Aaron and Gabrielle.
I'm glad I don't get the sensethat when people are talking to
me every now and then they'll,you know, talk to me a little
bit like a chaplain, but notlike.
I'm just glad that the way that, I think it was a very good
transition and I think we have avery good chaplain staff now

(55:14):
that I just rave about all thetime.
But to very quickly go back toyour question, even if I would
have had the, it would have madesense for me to record during
the pandemic.
I may have during the pandemic,but when I do my sermons I want
to be preaching to mycongregation and if I'm knowing
that it's going to be heardpotentially anywhere, I can't

(55:34):
give certain examples, I can'ttalk to what they're particular,
or at least be worried.
How will that come over toothers?
So it's not like I'm trying tohide what I'm saying or anything
, but it would lose.
What I'm hoping to do ispersonally be preaching to the
congregation.
So I do a podcast insteadbecause I think I'm that
important.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
I need to be heard.
That's right.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
That's now with my sermon.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
Across the globe.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Yes, I was going to take it in a different direction
.
This is something totallydifferent, but you notice that
when Michael was asking you knowwhy do young people think
differently about this issuethan older people?
Nothing that we're teachingthem, right?
Nothing that they're learningin college, necessarily.
Yeah, I just do not thinkthat's the influence here.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
For some you know you'll hear them, I'm always.
I find it cool whenever I bringsomething up in class and they
say, oh, dr Snyder said this,you know, in a way that you can
tell that they have reallylatched on to some insight that
they had gotten.
Never, bailey, no, actually alot.
Bailey no, actually a lot,bailey, yeah, yeah, the one
thing I've said this before, butthis fits the theme of the

(56:39):
podcast that when I taughttheology as the chaplain here at
Berry College, I made anoff-sided joke in class
sometimes about nobody whobelieves in predestination,
believes that they are part ofthe retrobate, part of the
condemned.
And then one time I said thatin class and someone said in a

(56:59):
very loud voice Dr Bailey thinksso.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
I must be a truth guy , you know.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Just telling you what I feel.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
I was just trying to imagine what that class was like
.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
Oh, not to say we have to belabor that, but I do
remember believing in hellbefore I believed in heaven, and
so there was a little bit ofthe fear of the hellfire that
even pushed me in that direction, back in high school, way back.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
We need to talk about that sometime, but not right
now.
I think we'll go ahead and wrapup the conversation for today,
but thank you all.
That was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Thanks, Bill.