Navigating Faith and Politics: A Conversation with Todd Deatherage

In this episode, recorded live at our Following Jesus in Politics Learning Event, Pastor Damein Schitter interviews Todd Deatherage, Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Telos Group. Their mission is to form communities of American peacemakers across lines of difference, and equip them to help reconcile seemingly intractable conflicts at home and abroad. In this interview with Todd, we are hear about his background from a conservative Baptist upbringing in Arkansas to the halls of power on Capitol Hill, encountering a crisis of faith along the way. Todd's story sheds light on how the deluge of information and cultural shifts push many towards an "us versus them" mindset for a semblance of control, and he explores how personal interactions can shatter these simplistic narratives, providing a path to more inclusive perspectives—even in fraught situations like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In our conversation, Todd shares how his conservative Christian background initially shaped his views and political engagements, only to be challenged by the diverse, complex reality of working in Washington, D.C. He reflects on the impact of conservative Christian ideologies on international conflicts and the struggle to reconcile a simplistic theology with the world's intricacies. Emphasizing the teachings of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount, Todd underscores the need for a theology rooted in peacemaking, advocating for a faith that evolves to meet new challenges and complexities.

Todd also insists on the importance of understanding media's role in shaping perceptions and urges thoughtful voting and civic engagement. From balancing personal frustrations with self-care to navigating the tension between respecting authorities and resisting unjust governance, we uncover how to maintain a consistent Christian witness while advocating for justice and human flourishing.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
All right.
So the first question that Ihave for you, Todd, thanks for
being here.
You're welcome.
Thanks for inviting me.
Yeah, so glad.
In all of your work andreflection, which you've given
us a small picture of that storyand how you've come to where
you are, what do you think is soattractive about binaries,
particularly things like usversus them in our current

(00:34):
culture and in this politicalmoment?
But in general, what do youthink is so attractive about
people finding themselvesfeeling safe there?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
You know, the world's complicated and it's fluid.
Change is always happening andwe're in the middle of some real
cultural shifts and other kindsof changes right now.
Some economic changes.
There's a lot.
You know, the world is smallerbecause of just technology and
information and all that, so itcan feel really overwhelming and

(01:03):
we all try to just live ourlives as best we can in the kind
of micro way.
But there's all these kind ofmacro things happening around us
too that are really complicated, yes, and so it's a lot to sort
out.
So we look for categories, welook for neat and clean ways to
figure things out quickly andfigure out, kind of, who the

(01:27):
good guys are, who the bad guysare, what's right, what's wrong,
in a really simple, shorthandway, because we don't often have
the time, yeah, to figure outcomplicated things and to do the
work that we would really needto do, and often that can be
okay, but it also cannot be okaywhen we have, like a power and

(01:48):
authority in ways and projectpower into situations where,
like it matters to other people.
We're actually, you know what webelieve, what we think.
So I think that there's anunderstandable reason and yet
there's a risk.
The other thing, I think,though, that helps us to embrace
kind of simple binaries, isthat we're all looking for a
bigger story, a bigger story, abigger story, some big story

(02:12):
that makes sense of the world welive in, especially when
there's a lot of things that areupside down and chaotic and
turbulent and whatever.
We're looking for a bigger,larger story, and what we're
seeing right now.
We're in a very ideological agewhere there are ideological
explanations for things.
There are these big, grandmetanarratives that help us make
sense of the world in prettysimplistic ways, and we all,

(02:36):
again, I think, we have thathunger built into us to want to
have a bigger understanding ofwhat makes the world work and
what doesn't, and the challengein that is there's a true story
and there's a lot of falsestories.
And so it's easy to embrace andbuy into a false story that
gives us some sense of we'repart of something bigger, we

(02:59):
understand something and we knowagain who's in and who's out
and who's up and who's down.
But if it's not based on thehumanity of everyone and the way
God sees the world, then it hasthe potential to be really
problematic.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, that's really good.
So what I heard you say wasthat there's a desire to
understand what story we're apart of in some bigger way.
And because there's so muchcomplexity in the world there's
so many things coming at us allthe time there's a desire to,
maybe out of a sense of controlor sanity or safety, to be able

(03:35):
to narrow your focus to just acouple of categories, and, of
course, we would always be inthe right category.
More often than not, it's usversus them in our own minds.
Right, you didn't say that, Isaid that part.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well, you said all of that way better than I did, and
in a more tight way, so thatwas great.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, I'm just working off what you gave me.
So, when we think about thatreality, one of the things that
we heard, I think, from thepresentation earlier tonight and
the stories that you shared andI think, if we really stopped
and reflected, we have our ownversions of those stories and
this is what I mean is that weall experience times when the us

(04:14):
versus them narrative breaksdown in our own experience, that
we meet someone and engagesomeone and the ways in which we
thought about them changesbecause of our experience with
them, and it can be surprisingand and I think that in those
moments we can tend to think, ohwell, that's an exception,

(04:36):
that's that's an exception.
But, of course, the way that Ithink about it is still true.
And I'm wondering for you, asyou, as you've invited people on
a journey to consider thatthere's a different way to see
the world than in simplebinaries.
What are some of the telltalesigns or some of the stories

(05:00):
consistently, that you see thatwhen a person is experiencing
the simple way they viewed theworld changing, what can that
often feel like to them, as you,as you watch that?

Speaker 2 (05:12):
yeah, I mean it's, it's always.
It's very disorienting when theyou know something we've just
kind of always believed oraccepted to be a certain way,
when, when that's complicated,when there's a story and a
person that personifiessomething we just never imagined
yeah, and we don't always knowwhat to do with that.

(05:32):
What it provides us is anopportunity.
The opportunity is to reallyexamine what we thought was true
and what we now areexperiencing and try to
understand what you know, whatthe differences and what might,
what this might claim on us andcall us to do.
It's still possible to again toexceptionalize and experience

(05:53):
and say, well, that's a, that'sjust one isolated thing, but I
still believe all these thingsto be true.
But it does give us anopportunity to allow our hearts
to open up more broadly, becauseI, you know, I think that's one
of the big challenges that wehave often faced in helping
people understand theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict.
It's it's not about just sort ofseeing the other.

(06:14):
It's it's about expanding your,your, your aperture wider.
It's like really trying tocapture a wider, more honest set
of experiences that then allowyou to get to something that's
more honest and true aboutindividuals and communities and
larger stories and things thatyou just didn't know before.

(06:34):
And so those experiences giveus a chance, give us an
opportunity, whether we take itor not.
What we do with it is still youknow, that's up to us.
But that gives us anopportunity, and I've seen
people beautifully lean intothat and really have incredible,
incredible transformations, andI and I've seen some people
really struggle with knowingwhat to do about that, because

(06:56):
the certainty that felt so, thecertainty they had felt really
good and safe, and that's notthere anymore.
Now, what am I going to do thatthis whole thing doesn't make
sense anymore, that I invested alot in.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
This, this uh desire forcertainty, uh, a commitment to
not feeling uncomfortable withthe complexity of the world, one
of the things that I've I'veheard you say before, and you
may I may be stealing yourthunder for tomorrow, but I've
heard you say something like wehave to deal with the world as
it is, not as we wish or want itto be.

(07:30):
That's right, yeah, and so whenwe experience the world as it
is, it's oftentimes a lotmessier than we want it to be.
Yep, and I know that you'recoming to that belief and
embracing it and giving yourlife to it over the past at
least 15 years doing this work.
It emerges from your own storyin many ways, and so, just for

(07:50):
some context for listeners heretonight, you shared a little bit
, but those who are listening tothe podcast, who weren't here,
can you tell us how this passion, this commitment, emerges from
your own story?
Can you tell us a little bitmore about that?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, I mean, this kind of work is generally done
out of some personal story,right.
I mean, there's a lot of otherways to spend your time that
allow you to have more friendsand probably more money too,
that, uh, than doing this kindof thing.
Yeah, I bet, um, but so you doit out of a because you kind of
have to, or you do it out ofcalling a conviction, and so

(08:23):
there's there's definitelybiography that's attached to
this.
I would say, for me, growing up, you know, in a more
conservative community, kind ofa very gently fundamentalist
Baptist world in Arkansas,washington DC, to work on

(08:47):
Capitol Hill in a very diverseand pluralistic environment in
which I really had a verysincere faith but a very thin
theology to make sense of thecomplexity of the world and I
didn't know what to do aboutthat, and it really ultimately,
by God's grace, led me into kindof a much deeper faith journey
and a deeper kind of theologicalunderstanding and a bigger and
truer story about what God'sbigger, truer story really is,

(09:07):
and that was really beautiful.
But it also really created sometensions in my old way of
seeing things, in myfundamentalist certainty about
things, right, but that's theworld I kind of come out of, and
so there's a lot of tensionpoints along the way in my life
and journey that are connectedto that a lot of tension points
along the way in my life andjourney that are connected to

(09:27):
that.
But I would say one of thethings that really gripped me
about the thing that drew meinto what we're doing at TELUS
right now was the way thatpeople like me again more
conservative Christians of acertain kind had helped to
create a reality for Israelisand Palestinians that was
actually making their livesharder and making vulnerable

(09:48):
people more vulnerable andmaking it harder to solve the
conflict.
Because we were attaching ourideologies and views and things
to American projections of power, resources, weapons, the whole
gamut of things, and we wereshaping a reality there in ways
that were well-intentioned butwere actually again making
vulnerable people morevulnerable on all sides,

(10:11):
particularly Palestinians, butIsraelis too and I felt a real
sense of implication.
I've been to some other places,I've studied other issues in my
work at the State Department andin government and I never felt
so personally implicated like ohwow, this is being done in my
work at the State Department andin government and I never felt
so personally implicated like ohwow, this is being done in my
name and it's being done in thename of Christianity, and it's a
kind of Christianity that I'mfamiliar with, but it's very

(10:35):
different than what I understandChrist's calling to be.
As I again engage in the Sermonon the Mount and I really try to
understand how Jesus calls usto live in the world and how to
follow him, and so that sense ofimplication was the thing that
really drew me, but also a senseof possibility, because it was
like I knew there were some badtheologies and some that were

(10:58):
informing a lot of bad behavior,but I also know there was a
beautiful story and there weresome good theologies that could
be brought to bear, and I keptwrestling with what would it
look like to take Jesusseriously, not just here, but
there, like in the place wherehe actually said these things?
What would it look like toembrace a theology of

(11:18):
peacemaking as we thought aboutwhat the reality was in the very
place where he said those words?
Right, and so that notion ofthere is a better, truer,
redeeming story that reallyneeds to be told and that was
also a part of what really drewme in is this desire to figure

(11:38):
out what that was and helpothers be on that journey too.
Like to be on a journey withpeople that were trying to
figure out what it meant tofollow Jesus as a peacemaker in
the world.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, I mean, there's so much that I love about that,
but I'll just pick up on onething, and that is it.
Even in the midst of doing thework you were doing at the state
department uh, years beforethat, working in government in
Washington DC, going there asChristian, and the thing that

(12:07):
drew you to where you are now,even in the place right where
people go because they haveideas, they have passion, they
want to see change happen, andyou were there.
You had this opportunity toserve in the ways that I think
it sounds like you reallydesired to.
And as you were doing that,there became a dissonance as
your faith grew.

(12:28):
And Esther Meek, who's aphilosopher she's a reformed
philosopher, she has this littlebook called On the Little
Manual for Knowing I think isthe title something like that
and she has this little line I'mparaphrasing her that whenever
we are at home in a certainposition and everything feels
comfortable and right, and thenwe experience reality in a way

(12:50):
that no longer lets that bepossible, we don't just
immediately fall into that newplace where everything begins to
make sense, but we live in thisvery uncomfortable time and
this very uncomfortable season,in this very uncomfortable time,
in this very uncomfortableseason and it can be in small
ways, like your favorite recipedoesn't work anymore because now

(13:11):
you've been diagnosed withceliacs or something like that
and you're like I don't knowwhat I'm going to do.
How am I going to redo that?
There's this pain, but, ofcourse, in much larger ways.
Whenever this reality where youused to think things fit
together in a certain way, thenyou realize they don't, and the
thing that requires your highestallegiance, which is this
deepening faith, was the lens bywhich you started to view

(13:32):
everything else, and I love theword you used implicated.
There's this reality where,once we know the world in a
certain way, once we know, given, who we are, we have to then
say what do I do?
Yeah, yeah, and I think all ofthose things are are powerful
for everyone in this room as wethink about whatever our various
callings are as Christians inthe world, where we're always

(13:55):
going to be faced withdifference, we're always going
to be faced with with challenge.
How do we navigate it,committed first in our
allegiance to Jesus and beingopen to that allegiance, shaking
us from the way that we'vealways seen the world,
absolutely.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
I mean, that's really a part of my story in a very
specific way.
I mean the way she framed, thatdefinitely tracks with my own
experience.
The way she framed, thatdefinitely tracks with my own
experience.
I came to DC in the mid-90swith a Christian faith and a
politics that fit together likea hand in a glove.
There was no separation.
I didn't understand how youcould be anything but those two

(14:36):
things combined and as I went ona deeper faith journey, it
really created a tension and itwas a tension that took me
several years to sort out andresolve.
And I kept feeling the tension.
Points like there were.
There were claims that my faithwas making on me that were
inconsistent with my politics,and it didn't ever.
It never made me switch parties, it never made me like join the

(14:59):
other team.
But ultimately I had a momentof clarity, and it was after a
few years of wrestling.
But I had a moment of clarityand this is after a few years of
wrestling.
But I had a moment of clarity.
I was on a camping trip with mylittle boys when they were
small and they were asleep in atent and I was just like was so
wrestling and I was journalingand it was late in the night and
it just this clear thought cameto me that it's like if your

(15:20):
faith and your politics are inthis much tension, which is the
most important, if your faithand your politics are in this
much tension, which is the mostimportant, and it was so when I
kind of came to that likeawareness, it was so obvious
that I'd been wrestling foreverwith this idea that they had to
fit together.
And the reality is that one hasto kind of flow the other, and

(15:47):
that if my faith and if thekingdom of God is as
transcendent as I claim it is,as it's relevant in every point
of history and it transcends,then it could never be reduced
to a political ideology in onetime and place, like it has to
be relevant and it has to informhow we think about these things
, but it can never getencaptured or encapsulated in a
particular historical moment orideology or political program or
national project or anything ofthose things.

(16:09):
And so it just was this kind ofliberating thing to say, well,
my faith is the thing, that'sthe central part.
And so I can hold this looselyand I can actually not just, I
can actually dissent at timesand I can actually be a
conscience against some of thesethings, and that was more of
the role I began to play.
And then that kind of playsitself out.
I love the line that MartinLuther King Jr had about that

(16:31):
the church should never be themaster of the state, nor the
servant of the state, but theconscience of the state.
And I like that idea, asChristians, that we don't need
to try to seize power so that wecan implement this Christian
agenda on a non-Christianpopulation and we don't need to
just be subservient to the stateand just salute whoever,

(16:52):
because we have our parties inpower and, whatever they do, we
endorse those views and we arecheerleaders for that.
We need to be a conscience, andso there are things we support,
things we don't support, but weneed to bring this voice in to
say these things actually won'tallow for the flourishing we
seek.
These things like this is notthe way we demonstrate love of
neighbor.

(17:12):
This is not the way we bringgood order into our communities.
This is not whatever, butreminding.
So sometimes we'll agree andsometimes we won't.
And ultimately in our system youhave to choose a side.
You have to pick who you'regoing to vote for you.
Ultimately, in our system, youhave to choose a side.
You have to pick who you'regoing to vote for.
You have to pick a party.
We have two that dominate, andso we have to do that, but we
have to hold it in some distanceand it took me a long time to
get to some clarity around that.

(17:35):
And then, when you do, you stillhave to live with this and
you're more in this.
Like it was easier when Ialways knew who I was going to
vote for and what I wassupporting.
That was an easy world to livein.
And this is like I'm alwayskind of like okay, but this and
this, and I'm having to weighthings and that's like, and I'm
busy.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
That's hard to do all the time right.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
But it is the claim that's made on us by the gospel
that we have to actually thinkabout these things in more
nuanced and complicated ways andallow the center thing to be
the center thing and then makeour best decision in a world
that is broken, but it still hasthe power of God moving in it
too.
And how do we do that?

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yes, yeah, absolutely .
It just makes me think aboutthe disciples in the gospels as
we read.
It's over and over they don'tget more comfortable as they
continue to follow Jesus, thatthings get more and more complex
.
Almost they think they have itfigured out and then they don't.
And then, ultimately, he goesto the cross and we know the

(18:33):
deep confusion and chaos thatthat ensued, until he calls them
back and says the word we weretalking about later in John 20,
he brings peace to them in theupper room and he proclaims
shalom over them in peace.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
One of my favorite books of theology and again, I'm
not a theologian, but in onlythe most amateur way, which is
probably a really dangerous waybut to engage in theology but
Fleming Rutledge wrote a book onthe crucifixion that's really
profound.
But she has this line aboutwhere the crucifixion wasn't
just something that happened toJesus on the way to the cross, I
mean on the way to Easter.
Sunday.

(19:06):
It's the central part of thestory and we love Easter Sunday
and we love to celebrate EasterSunday.
But in a lot of Protestanttraditions we've really tried
we've minimized the whole HolyWeek and the Good Friday and
that whole story and we just welove to get to Easter Sunday,
yes, but so much of theChristian life is this journey
through the whole process andit's a journey of descent and it

(19:27):
takes you sometimes to evermore difficult and challenging
places.
And, as we were saying earliertonight, you know, a lot of the
Christian discipleship journeycan feel more like a dark
Thursday night in a garden whenyour friends are asleep and
God's not listening.
Then that the beauty of youknow Easter Sunday morning, and
that's just something we have toalso wrestle with.
But be honest about too.

(19:48):
That it is.
It's that's not always going tobe easy to do what's true and
right, but that's that's part ofthe calling yes, yeah, so I
mean earlier we were at lunch.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
That's part of the calling yes.
Yes, I mean earlier.
We were at lunch, ben was withus and we were talking about the
reality that, in the Beatitudes, blessed are the peacemakers.
And we've talked aboutpeacemaking tonight and at New
City.
I'm sure those who arelistening who weren't at New
City or aren't at New Citythey've heard this before.
But when we most recentlypreached to the Beatitudes, we

(20:19):
engaged this reality thatpeacemaking and peacekeeping, as
a simple way to say, aredifferent.
To be a peacemaker is different, which is why, immediately
after what flows frompeacemaking is, blessed are the
persecuted.
And so when we think about thisdynamic and we think
particularly about our currentcultural moment in the United
States, political divides.

(20:42):
One of the things that I foundso helpful on the trip was
getting distance from our owncountry and seeing something
that was so poignant.
It was almost impossible abouthalfway through the trip not to
see how these exact samedynamics that were so clear when
I was looking at them as adistantiated person are dynamics

(21:06):
that we experience in our owncountry in various ways.
It was almost like the prophetNathan when he comes to David
and tells him the story of thisman who was poor and a rich man
took his sheep and took his wife, and David is angry and he says

(21:28):
how could this be?
This is unjust, essentially.
And Nathan the prophet stopsand he says you're the man.
And it took that.
It took David, looking at acase study in a sense, to
understand.
And so by you sharing examplesfrom a conflict that we're
familiar with but is, but isdifferent, especially for those
of us who were there we I hadsort of that similar experience.

(21:48):
It was almost like a case study, and then I could see our
current reality more clearly.
So, and when we think aboutthat in the context that we're
in right now, are thereparticular historical moments or
movements in America that youbelieve could offer valuable
lessons or even warning for ourpeacemaking efforts now, in the

(22:10):
midst of this political climate?

Speaker 2 (22:13):
That's such a good question, frederick Douglass,
the last few years.
And Frederick Douglass is thisincredible American hero that
we're not as familiar with as weshould be, because he believed
enough in the American promiseto claim it in the same way that
Martin Luther King did ahundred years later.

(22:35):
He wasn't arguing against it,he was saying let's actually
make these words mean what yousay.
They mean, not how they getlived out for people like me.
Um, but when you read frederickdouglas, he was wrestling with
so many of the same issues inthe 1850s in particular, that
sounded familiar today,including issues like um.

(22:59):
Is violence an effective tool?
Like is?
Is that like, if the moralstakes are so high and if the
you know, can we use any meansnecessary to bring liberation to
people who are suffering?
Right, and that's such aconsequential thing.
And ultimately, the way weresolved that was a civil war in

(23:21):
which, you know, nearly 700,000Americans died in an effort to
free and save people, and that'swhat it took.
But, like, there was this, therewas this opportunity through
the 1850s for us to to deal withthis without bloodshed.
But it couldn't happen withoutjustice and I think, if you look
at that period, we had the most, the worst leadership probably

(23:46):
in all of American history atthe national level were in that
period of the 1850s and peopledid not understand the times or
were not willing to do what wasrequired, yeah, including right
up to the Civil War.
I mean, the last presidentbefore Lincoln, james Buchanan,
was absolute feckless in thoselast days and even at that point

(24:07):
Civil War might have beenprevented had he acted
differently in the last fewmonths he was in office.
But the point in all that isthat there was this whole moment
in time which we really hadthis brewing, this know, issue
that people wanted, some peoplewanted to resolve, some people
didn't, and but you had at thecore of it was a deep injustice

(24:30):
that people weren't willing to,yeah, to effectively deal with
as a way to get out of it.
And so there's like lessons ofwhat could have happened that
might have averted the war.
But one of them is not that youcan't ignore real issues of
injustice to to avoid that, butone of the other issues is that
the use of violence really islimit, has limits, and how much

(24:53):
it can actually achieve.
That that's good and redemptivetoo.
So we have to be really honestabout that.
So all of those questions werereally more like some of the
things he was wrestling with andothers in the abolitionist
movement and others in politicsat that time were wrestling with
.
The 1850s were like that.
They sounded so familiar Nowand I'm not saying that to say

(25:13):
we're on the cusp of anothercivil war I'm not saying that
like we're about to head there,but I'm saying that we have a
history where we've done thatbefore and I'm saying that there
are things that you can learnin other contexts or in our own
story, outside of the currentcontext, that can help us
understand how to navigatethings differently and better
maybe than we are right now.

(25:34):
Folks who are involved in inthese kind of strident political
, you know, voices and movementstoday are really not
appreciating how risky thisbehavior is, because once these
political disagreements slip outthe bounds of just rhetoric and
turn into actual like violence,that's really hard to get to

(25:58):
get back, you know, get thatgenie back in the bottle.
One of our trip programs we'vedeveloped is to Northern Ireland
and we see what happened there,where you had a Protestant
minority that created a theologythat said Catholics were
inferior and in every way.
And so then they create apolitical program to enforce
that inferiority anddisenfranchise the Catholic

(26:19):
population in Northern Ireland.
And these justice issuesultimately led to this time of
the troubles where lots ofpeople were killed and there
were bombings and all this sortof thing.
That happened for a number ofyears and just average and
ordinary people who let thiskind of disagreement, the
failure to resolve the justiceissues, but at the same time,

(26:41):
just the incendiary rhetoric, novision for a better future,
dehumanizing people, and at somepoint it starts expressing
itself in violent ways.
And once that happened theycouldn't get it back under
control and it took them yearsand years to finally get a Good
Friday agreement that finallybrought an end to the violence.
Yeah, that finally brought, youknow, an end to the violence.

(27:03):
And so there's these otherstories that we do need to look
into, because sometimes we can'tsee our own situation.
We have to get, you know, can'tsee the water we're swimming in
and we have to see it somewhereelse, hear someone else's story
to understand.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, so helpful.
So you have the distance.
That helps, like NorthernIreland is another one you just
mentioned.
We've been talking aboutIsrael-Palestine, the distance
in geography, also thedifference in time period, so,
to go back, we can get someclarity.
We look back to certain timeperiods and think how did they
miss that?
And we just we assume maybe wedon't, but I do that 20 years

(27:33):
from now 30, my grandkids aregoing to look back on my
generation, this generation, andsay how did they miss that?
And so the key is how do welook back and learn from that?
And I think one of the keythings you said which is so
important in the differencebetween peacekeeping and
peacemaking, is that peacemakingis committed, is committed to
justice, seeing justice happenfor this mutuality that you're
talking about.

(27:55):
And justice sometimes requiresthe peacemaker to sacrifice for
the sake of justice, which endsup making them less comfortable
in some instances, and that's ahigh call from Jesus, but it is
the call as we engage it.
And so when I think about whatwould make us want to live that
way, it's because we live in acertain story.

(28:16):
This is what you talked about.
We live in a true story.
We live in a larger story ofthe kingdom of God, and the
stories we tell ourselves have aprofound impact on the way that
we perceive the world.
They have a profound impact onthe way we live into the world.
You think about the story youlive in I heard someone say
recently is the story you livefrom.
So whatever story you thinkyou're in, that's how you see

(28:38):
the world, that's how you liveinto the world.
So, with that being true, I'mwondering how do you think our
current media landscape, withits emphasis on conflict and
polarization, is influencingpeacemaking efforts?

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Well, one thing we can agree on probably across all
lines of difference in Americais that everybody hates the
media.
So that's an easy kind of thingto say, yeah, it's their fault.
But there's a huge problemright, and one of the things I
think we have to be honest aboutis that there is a

(29:16):
profit-making model that existsin cable news in particular.
That exists in cable news inparticular.
The whole way they actuallymake money is by keeping us
inflamed, exercised and divided.
That is the model, and theymake a lot of money doing that,
like one of the very prominentanchors no, he actually wasn't

(29:36):
that prominent because I'dactually never heard of him but
he is an anchor on one of thecable news networks and he sold
his house in Washington a yearor so ago and the price tag was
like it was some astronomicalthing like $20 million.
This guy just reads the news ona cable news program, but he
has a $20 million house.

(29:57):
And my point is there arepeople that are making a lot of
money by keeping us angry,inflamed and divided.
Yeah, and that has been goingon for a generation now.
So that's been going at leastsince the 90s.
So that's when you reallystarted to get this kind of

(30:17):
cable news approach.
That was like the crossfirething on cnn where and so
there's no.
It was never an attempt to likecan we find agreement.
It was like can I destroy, youknow, can I destroy my political
opponent in front of tv?
Can I throw them the you knowthe most incendiary barbs and
say the you know the theharshest things?
And it was really mild and tameback then compared to what's,

(30:39):
compared to what's said now.
And then, this democratizationthrough um, through social media
, that allows us to live inthese silos of like we only get
through again.
Or social media companies makemoney off creating algorithms
that feed us what we alreadythink to be true, and we only
get those sources, and thenthere's no journalistic standard

(31:01):
that's upheld in terms of ifsomething's fact-checked or
right or you know there's.
So all of that's out the windowand so.
So there's a lot of ways toblame the media itself,
journalists and all that, butI'd say this the way in which we
have both like cable media andsocial media that have built
into their models, the way theymake money, is to keep us angry

(31:24):
at each other and divided, andthat's that's a huge part of the
problem, yeah, and that isreally hard to fix, but it
really.
It calls on each of us to knowthat we're being manipulated and
not allow ourselves to livethat way and not like,
understand that these people aredoing this.
They may believe this, they maynot, it doesn't matter, but

(31:47):
they are doing this, they'retrying to enrage me right now.
What do I do and how do Iactually learn to listen to
different stories outside mystream and outside my channel,
things I don't agree with, so Ican at least see how my
neighbors are seeing this andwhy they're angry and like, why
they're feel the way they do?
Yeah, and so what we reallyhave to do and we'll talk about
this maybe tomorrow, tomorrowbut one of the things we do in

(32:09):
peacemaking is talking aboutcultivating curiosity to combat
condemnation.
It is so easy just to condemnthe people that don't, don't
follow our media, you know like,they don't live in our
algorithms, and these people areinsane and they're dangerous
and they're just whatever, andit's easy to condemn them.
But could we be curious for aminute to understand why they

(32:30):
got there?
What is their story?
How did another person, made ofthe image of God, loved of God
as much as I am, get to such adifferent place on something
that seems so important to me.
How'd they get there?
Being curious about that, yeah,and and doing it in the context
of not just like media, but also, really it's more important to
do it in the context of honestrelationships, yeah, people you
know, people in your family,people in your workplace, in

(32:51):
your community and your churchthat you have these, just that
you're on different sides ofsomething like leaning into
those conversations in a curiousway.
That's a big like.
So we can't fix the whole thing, but we can work on our piece
of it and we can start to notsubmit ourselves to that project
and try to rewire how we engageinformation and news and our

(33:12):
neighbors in a way that's moreagain, more based on curiosity,
and not allow ourselves to getso exercised and alarmed by
everything we hear.
Not that there aren't bad newsstories that should alarm us,
but again, there is a whole wayin which people make money off
of this, off of us.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yes, yeah, so important.
What was that documentary a fewyears ago?
The Social Something, socialDilemma?
Yeah, so it's so interesting Toyour point.
A few years ago I don't knowwhat year that would have been,
maybe three, four it seems likea pandemic, so who knows how
many years ago.
Yeah, that's true, it's like atime warp, but I remember there

(33:52):
being this, this sense of ofheightened awareness of what
you're saying, that oh, wow, Uh,my attention is a commodity,
and the way that I'm beingcommoditized if that's the right
way, I think that's rightcommodified.
Thank you, I knew that didn'tsound right.
This is why we're doing thislive, so that you guys can

(34:12):
correct me.
Is that to keep my eyeballs onthis reality?
And the way to do that is toshock me.
The way to do that is toinflame the basis parts of me
and to keep doing that.
And yet the reality is is whatwe said earlier, is that we
don't have a ton of time and sowe want to be informed.

(34:33):
We're not sure where to go, andthese things can be in tension
with one another, but I thinkthat's why what we're going to
talk about tomorrow is soimportant, these practices that
shape us into certain types ofpeople.
To be curious, to engage, isreally important.
All right, so I'm going to askone more question, so get ready
for you guys to prep a questionfor Todd.
But, Todd, I'm wondering, ifyou were to teach a course on

(34:55):
the formation of you, whatpeople, books, experiences et
cetera would be on the syllabus.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
What people books experiences, et cetera, would be
on the syllabus.
I don't love that questionbecause a course on me is really
uncomfortable, but I love thequestion of what it makes me
think about.
So I would say you wouldprobably start with my dad.
My dad passed away about twoand a half years ago and as I
was writing the eulogy that Igave at his funeral, it really

(35:25):
just struck me in such a clearway.
We had a really goodrelationship and we talked
almost every day for the lastseveral years of his life.
But we were very differentpeople in a lot of ways too.
But I realized how much his wayof living in the world shaped
mine, how much his way of livingin the world shaped mine.
I mean what he did with hislife, the job he had and the

(35:45):
place he lived and all that.
You know he was born and diedin the same small town, you know
, and was an amazing man, familyguy, neighbor, guy at his
church, all that.
But he just always created thisinvitational way of living.

(36:05):
So when you came to, you know,to my parents' house, you know
you were just.
Everybody was welcomed in andthey were just welcomed in as
they were and they didn't make abig fuss out of you.
But there was no, there was nojudgment.
They were just like this is awelcome space, you're, you're
welcome here.
And there were just so manyways I realized that his way of
generously thinking about others, generously living in the world

(36:34):
, you know, would just they'reso shaping of who I am.
So to know me you would have toreally know my dad, I'd say so
that I would put him very highon the list.
Others who shaped my life, ohmy gosh, there have been so many
, but I was thinking more ofpeople than even you know, books
and movies and things like that.
And there's a woman in Israelnamed Robbie Damlin who is a

(36:58):
force of nature.
She's a real bulldozer in life,jewish-israeli woman whose son
was killed by a Palestiniansniper, and we'll talk more
about her experience tomorrow.
But her way of seeing andengaging the world is so shaped
me.
I often think how would Robbierespond to this moment?

(37:19):
Because she's the one who, whenthe when Israeli military
officers came to tell her thather son had been killed by a
Palestinian sniper, the firstthing she said was you may not
kill anybody in the name of mychild.
Just came out of her because ofwho she is and how she had
formed herself and I think thatway of living in the world has

(37:41):
really struck me, and who she isand the power of her spirit and
her humor and all those things.
She's been a very shaping forcefor me, I'd say.
I think, more recently, justsome of the reading.
Like I talked about spending alot of time in Frederick
Douglass, but reading FrederickDouglass, the life of people

(38:03):
like Fannie Lou Hamer and MedgarEvers, people in our own
American story whose storiesaren't often told enough but are
such American heroes but suchglobal heroes, such amazing
human beings.
But Fannie Lou Hamer was such adevoutly Christian woman.
You know, sharecropper'sdaughter from Mississippi, who

(38:24):
was brutally beaten to the pointof near death during the civil
rights movement, had so manyhorrible things that happened to
her as a result of her activism.
And yet, you know, someoneasked her about how she could.
Didn't she hate thesesegregationists and these people
who abused her?
And she said how could I everhate someone and hope to see

(38:47):
God's face?
And there was just this deep,deep faith, but wisdom born of
that faith about how to live inthe world that, in spite of
everything else, just emanatedout of her.
So people like that really haveinspired me and I mean I could
go on.
But that's been one of the greatbeauties of this work I've

(39:10):
gotten to do for the last manyyears is just being able to meet
some of the most incrediblepeople I've could ever.
You know.
Just I mean it's been aprivilege just to get to know
these people and not to just tokind of get to know them in a
meeting one time, but really tobecome friends and get to know
them more deeply.
Some of the people that youmeet, that you've met in Israel,

(39:32):
palestine, some of the peoplewe meet here in the United
States, people I've met in otherparts of the world, have really
shaped, have shaped how I thinkabout um things and about about
god's love for everyone, I mean, and the like.
You know, um, no one has a fullum, a full claim on all that's

(39:56):
true and right.
Um and god's movement happensin all sorts of places and
cultures and national projectsand all that and just to see the
sort of global humanity get alittle window into the spirit of
God moving, the image of Godshining out of people's lives in

(40:16):
different parts of the world isreally a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, I love that.
Thank you for sharing that.
All right, I'll open it up Acouple questions.
Yeah, I love that.
Thank you for sharing that.
Alright, I'll open it up Acouple questions.

Speaker 5 (40:24):
Yeah, jd, so when I observe the context and tone of
people online in various formatsor I talk to strangers or
voters in person.
A theme I've noticed recentlyis that it feels like more
people feel immensely frustratedwith what they see in our

(40:45):
political spaces or in ourcountry as a whole, or just in
our local communities, and thatfrustration has led to a level
of isolationism, escapism oreven just outright resentment.
So what do you believe it lookslike to engage with that

(41:07):
especially?

Speaker 2 (41:09):
when?

Speaker 1 (41:09):
hmm, yeah let me try to recap just quickly.
So the question essentially wasum, in jd's experience, as he's
seen other people engage inthese realities there's
increased frustration, and thatincreased frustration has
produced various responses, mostof them not positive.
So isolationism, what were theother two that you said?

(41:33):
Escapism, yeah, and just andjust resentment.
So, insofar as that's ourexperience, which I think we all
have, these experiences um, howdo we engage that?
And then the twist at the endwas uh, how do we engage that in
others?
And then what about if we findthat in ourselves?

Speaker 2 (41:49):
yeah, well, you know there's, there's.
It's important to remember thatwhen people are expressing a
lot of resentment, frustration,frustration, anger or demands
for something to be made rightthat's not right, or when all

(42:10):
these anxieties that we'rehearing, usually there's another
story behind it, and so,especially in the context of our
relationships, if we can find away to let people be heard, to
give space for people to reallyexplain what's going on, to ask
the kinds of questions thatallow them to really say what's

(42:31):
underneath all of these, youknow, these sort of negative
emotions that we're hearing, itdoes create space for us to
figure out if there's somethingwe can do about it.
What happens often is that alot of people who are either,
you know, again, again fearfulof what's happening in the world
or concerned about theinjustice that they are

(42:54):
experiencing or theircommunities experiencing, what
happens is they get shut down,they get like, like people tell
them it's not appropriate, likethey sort of feel that there's
this kind of elite voice thatsays you it's not appropriate
for you to be saying thesethings, for you to be feeling
these ways, you're and andthere's no space for trying to
figure out what are the what's,what's actually underneath all

(43:17):
this and is there something thatactually could be done about it
?
Because there are extremistideologies out there and people
who hold them and they can behard to persuade, but a lot of
people who get drawn into theseextremist positions and
ideologies don't actually havethat.
They just that's the.
That's the place where they canfeel understood and heard.

(43:38):
But if you create a space forpeople to actually to be
understood and heard, you cancreate a possibility for people
to not go that way, and that'swhat I was saying earlier.
Even in the is Israel-Palestinecontext.
You don't defeat a bad ideawith violence or force, but you
don't defeat it by just tellingpeople to shut up either.
You defeat it with a betteridea and you give people a space

(44:00):
to gravitate toward.
But sometimes you actually haveto listen to what their
anxieties and fears are.
What is the injustice thatyou're seeing or experiencing?
Can we address that?
What is this cultural shiftthat's happening that you're all
that's making you fearful?
Can we like is there a spacefor us to talk about what that
is and understand?

(44:20):
Maybe like, is there somethingthat could be done about that or
is it something you know?
So at least giving people aplace to be heard and understood
is better than just trying tosilence people.
Um, is that?
Is that getting more to yourquestion, or are you?

Speaker 5 (44:33):
were you asking something a little different, I
would say the only second pieceof that is that's what we
observe in those around us.
But then what would werecognize that within ourselves?

Speaker 2 (44:45):
yeah, as individuals or in the church as a distinct
community, but specifically asyeah, yeah, so when we are
feeling like the resentments andthe anger, is that what you're
saying?

Speaker 5 (44:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, and that's a natural tendency.
And you can't always be on yourgame and you can't always be.
You have to.
I mean, jesus went out into thewilderness at times and said
I'm out of here, I'm going to doa little retreat, right, we
can't always be in the game andon the game, so we have moments

(45:28):
where we do have to check outand take care of ourselves and
reconnect.
At the same time, we have tolean in to these things too,
because if we really believe thethings we talked about tonight,
that my flourishing isconnected to my neighbors, then
I have to actually lean in torelationships.
I had to get proximate topeople who are hurting.

(45:51):
I have to listen to myneighbors and understand.
And you know, again, there'sall these things I have to do
because we're all bound uptogether and so I can't fully
just isolate, check out.
I can, but that's not a healthything for but that's not a
healthy thing for me, but it'snot a healthy thing for my
community either.
So that's how we stay trappedin these places.

(46:12):
When we don't engage, when wedon't reach across lines, when
we don't build relationships, wedon't listen to people, we
don't create spaces where peoplecan be heard and understood,
all those sorts of things.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Great, thank you.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
Yeah, John Knox was quoted as saying defiance of the
times is obedience to God,something echoed in Acts 5 of
the message of God around thecovenant, but also in Romans
we're told that the governingauthorities are put in place by

(46:45):
God.
So how do we best live into thetension that God is sovereign
without becoming too passive orapathetic?
But also be responsible.
Christians without taking ontoo much of that responsibility.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
I heard him ask you that question, Damien.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
I checked out.
I'm not sure what he asked.
I think you should take a firstcrack at it.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
I think it's a question that has perplexed
Christians for a long time,especially in the modern era, in
the post-Reformation era ofJohn Knox and forward, where
we're often more able to have avoice in our societies.
How do we do those two thingsright?
And I don't think there's aneasy answer to it, and I think

(47:33):
there have been, I know therehave been many books written on
it, many people who've thoughtdeeply about this.
I would just say, yes, we haveto.
You know we have to.
We're called to respectgoverning authorities and we're
called to understand that God isa God of order, and so there's
a way that that makes sense forus.

(47:54):
And we're also, in this verysounding, seemingly
contradictory way, you know,called to also resist and to
follow God's.
You know what God demands of usand not what some ruler or
government or state demands ofus, and that is really hard to
sort out, and it can be soabused in both directions,

(48:15):
because there are a lot ofpeople who want to demand.
We all have to support and prayfor the president if it's the
president that they voted forand supported, and they don't
seem to have that same.
You know that text doesn'tapply when it's not their
president, when it's thepresident that they supported.
That kind of thing happens allthe time.
Right, we have to figure outhow to be consistent across

(48:40):
these, you know, across thepolitical divides, for this
that's first of all, that's justa part of the integrity of our
Christian witness is like atleast being consistent across
the spectrum, no matter who's inpower.
But it does remind us if youread, I think, going back to the
Old Testament scriptures andlooking at what God was most

(49:02):
upset about was when those whohad power were not using it on
behalf of people who werevulnerable and so demanding that
people, that we take care ofthe widow and the orphan and
that we, you know the vulnerableand the poor really have God's
heart right.

(49:22):
And if you, you know, if youread Jesus's words in the
Nazareth synagogue, where he'squoting from Isaiah about what
he came to do, and if you readthe Magnificat of Mary, this was
a revolutionary thing, thatthis was going to be good news
of liberation for the poor andthe vulnerable.

(49:43):
And so when we have governmentsthat are not doing that, then
we have an obligation to speakinto that.
If we are feeling like ourprivileges are being, you know,
diminished.
That like if we're concernedabout ourselves and our position
, what the government is doingin that way.

(50:05):
That's where I think we reallyhave to be careful, because I
think that's what we often soundlike.
We care about our religiousfreedom and our rights, and
that's why I'm not saying Idon't care about religious
freedom, but we don't often.
We're not known for caringabout violations of those things
for other people, right, and weseem to be very concerned about

(50:27):
ourselves.
And so I think if we can shiftour focus to the again, to
people who are vulnerable,people who are marginalized or
oppressed or you know that's,and the government's not doing
what it should to protect thevulnerable, that's where we have
this prophetic calling to be aprophetic voice to say this we

(50:48):
should be the conscience of thestate, and that could even lead
us to be defying the state whenthe state is exercising its
authority against the vulnerablepeople in that kind of way.
Again, really imperfect, andand again my.
My biggest challenge is that thechurch has almost rarely
figured out how to hold thesethings in tension in a good way.

(51:10):
It's got to be possible,because it's in the Bible, so
it's got to be possible, but Ithink we've really not done well
with political power, or how tothink about political power in
general, and certainly in how tohold these things, these two
passages that you mentioned, forinstance, in tension.
Now fix that.
No, do better than me.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
No, I mean, I think that that's is a really great
answer.
I think that when you thinkabout all the passages, there
are really like three things.
The first thing is, it's clearwe're to submit, and you this is
Romans, the first, peter aswell we're to submit to the
governing authorities becausethey're ministers of God.
The word minister is the sameword as deacon, it's a servant,

(51:55):
it's a minister, and so we areto submit.
And you think about thenormative posture of exiles,
which is what Peter calls us, isthat of submission.
And what's amazing is bothPeter and Paul and Jesus when we
talk about submit, or you lookat Daniel in the Old Testament
or other examples, it's not likethey were in power and things

(52:16):
were going well.
Whenever they said this, theycast this vision that God is
sovereign to your point, thatGod is in control, while they
are being oppressed.
I mean, that is the right word.
They are the oppressed peopleand yet this is the response,
which is amazing.
But then, as Todd said, there'salso this dynamic where we see
resistance.
So you submit, but then youhold this tension of resistance

(52:40):
and resistance.
The church, especially in thereformed tradition, has talked
about reformation, notrevolution, and so there's this
idea where we lean in as theconscience, we speak to what the
Bible clearly speaks to, whichis justice, the widow and the
orphan, public morality, humanflourishing, things that are

(53:03):
summed up in the law, like theTen Commandments, for example.
These are things that when wego against these things, we're
going against the grain of theuniverse, and so we have to
resist that for the love of ourneighbor, because this is
reality.
But there's a differencebetween reformation and
revolution, and those are twodifferent things.
And then the final thing is Ithink we so, if we submit, but

(53:26):
we also resist, but we alsopersist.
And if you're wondering, like,how does he have this, it's
because I just preached thissermon in the politics series.
But the last one is we have topersist in public.
Holiness.
God calls us to live publiclives, to live our righteousness
for the love of our neighbor,and so this is going to shape

(53:49):
the way that we actually liveinto the world.
It's gonna shape the way wecommunicate with our neighbors,
it's going to shape the way wetreat our enemies, and there's a
public reality to holiness.
It's not a private faith.
It's personal, of course, butit's not a private faith.
It makes claims.

(54:09):
Our faith makes claims on theway in which we are to live as
citizens and human beings, andso that's the.
That's what I would say.
I think it's very basicallywhat you said, but that's how
I'd sum it up better.
All right, so what?
Last question?
I think country.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
I'm just kidding, okay, just want to make sure I'm
tracking active in politics andcast a vote, or is there
biblical merit to don't like,either not vote?
And is there biblical merit tovote for the lesser of?

Speaker 2 (54:52):
three people?
Yeah, that is a great questionand I, I think you summed it up
well, I don't.
I, you know there's uh, there'sdefinitely some passion for
both candidates.
Now there wasn't any really forBiden, he stepped aside.
I think there's a, there's someenergy, but I'd say many
Americans, if not most, arewhere what you're describing,

(55:16):
you know this is neither ofthese candidates, is the
candidate they would like to getexcited about, like to vote for
, and so do we have anobligation to to vote.
In that context, I think votingis a, it's a, it's a right and a
responsibility, and so we allhave to kind of weigh our own
conscience on that.
So I, I, I can't be.
I can't just sort ofprescriptively say everybody has

(55:39):
to do a certain thing.
Um, on that issue, I think youhave to wrestle with your own
conscience.
If you're really feeling likeyou can't, in good conscience,
vote, but I, I do think we haveto get to a place where we have
to realize we do have aresponsibility to vote as
citizens.
Uh, we have the right to do it.
We have responsibility to do itbecause this is part of the way

(56:01):
that we care for our neighborsand we help to care for the
common good, the polity as youwill.
I know you guys, you've preachedon all this too, and we have to
remember that neither of thesecandidates, these two or any
other two, are going to be fully, in every way, the Messiah

(56:25):
right, and that's I mean.
We have a Messiah, we don'tneed one to lead us in politics,
and so we we have to rememberthat they're both of them.
Whoever they are, these two andany others are going to have.
They're all going to be madethe image of god and they're all
going to be sons of adam anddaughters of eve, so they're all
going to be able to reflectsome of god's image in the world
.
But they're all going to beable to do some self-interest to

(56:46):
things and they're all going tohave political programs that
are a mixed bag of things too,and we have to weigh all that
and we have to decide.
You know how to make our choice.
Do we make a choice just on aset of policy positions, issues?
Is character and integrity adefining thing that we have to
decide?
But we have to make, I think, adecision based on the fact that

(57:09):
we live in a fallen world andwe're not, and we have fallen.
People just they're just likewe are, in different ways, so we
have to appreciate that andthat should give us an ability
mostly to vote.
Some people still aren't ableto do that, but I think we
should be able to go ahead andchoose and even if we're saying
it's the lesser of two evils, westill have to figure out a way,
I think, to exercise that.

(57:29):
And I think that you know thechallenge of not voting is it
extends into lots of differentcommunities, whether but it is
kind of a privilege sometimes tonot vote because you think it
doesn't matter, because itprobably doesn't matter, like
either candidate can be electedand I'm probably going to be

(57:52):
fine, maybe one will make mytaxes go up and I'll pay a
little more money or whatever.
But but there are people forwhom the choice can be really
stark, like because policy,because they're vulnerable and
the policies or person of aparticular candidate might make
them even more vulnerable, andso it is like sometimes we love
our neighbor by casting a votethat even works against our

(58:14):
self-interest.
Let me give you an example.
I have a friend in DC whose sonis a professor in the
University of California system,so super educated, you know
teaches in an amazing school.
You know university system inthe United States, and so he's.
You know he in an amazingschool.
You know university system inthe United States, and so he's.
You know he's he.
He's doing all right and hisway of voting is this.

(58:34):
And it's not everybody's way todo it, but I really thought this
was intriguing.
He said that when the electioncomes around, he decides in my
network of people I'm inrelationship with, who is the
most vulnerable person I knowright now, like who's, and it
often is a black woman and he'llsay who are you voting for?

(58:55):
And that's who he gives hisvote to.
So he, he stewards his vote,gives it to someone else, even
if it's against his interest,even if the candidate she is
supporting is someone who'sgoing to raise his taxes or
whatever.
That's who he votes for.
So, because that's the way hestewards his responsibility, you
know, as a citizen and as avoter.

(59:16):
So I just thought that was avery interesting way to think
about it, because it's not goingto cost him much either way,
he's going to be all right.
So he gives it to somebody else.
But I think it's like holdingit like that.
And the other thing I would sayis that we spend a lot of time
in Selma, alabama.
We have some partners there I'mpart of one of our trip
programs goes there all the timeand this is where the voting
rights march happened in 1965,where black people had not been

(59:37):
allowed to vote for all ofAmerican history, basically for
a little window after the CivilWar, and then that got shut down
.
And so another hundred yearsafter enslavement, without
voting rights, and we meet withsome people who were in that
voting rights march.
They're still alive and forthem this was like people died
for this and it's reallyimportant that it be maintained
and that people vote.

(59:59):
And they're challenged by thefact that even people in their
own community sometimes don'texercise the right and this is
like something that people paida really high price for and we
really need to take seriouslyand we need to.
And it can be frustratingbecause think well, I voted
nobody and nothing changeswhatever.
But but that mentality is partof what keeps us kind of trapped

(01:00:20):
too.
And if we were more willing tobe thoughtful and exercise our
right to vote, even rememberingthat nobody is going to bring
everything that we want.
Nobody's the perfect candidatethey shouldn't be.
If they are, then we need tocheck ourselves.
If we've fully identified withsomebody and we're 100% for them
, then we have literallyprobably made somebody a

(01:00:41):
messianic figure and that'swhere we've really slipped into
a whole nother place.
When we're going to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's helpful.
Thank you, todd.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you, yeah, it's beengreat.