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September 19, 2025 13 mins
WHY DOES EVIL EXIST IN THE WORLD? A lot of people are asking that question. I've got Father Mike Tess on today to talk about it. This is a great column about spiritual warfare that people are finally waking up to. I'll ask Father Mike about this too.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Father Mike tests is my favorite episcopal priest. No offense
to all the other episcopal priests. I'm sure they're lovely,
but he takes my calls whenever I make them. So
he has joined us now to have a conversation about
the last week.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Father Mike. First off, welcome back.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
It's good to be back, Mandy. I was good to
talk to you well, and.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
There's a few things that I want to talk to
you about. One of them. I feel very hopeful about
this because.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Whenever we deal with some big, horrible in Colorado, I
feel like it's another shooting, you know, and all of
these horrible events. One of the things that I talk
about all the time is that, you know, one of
the things that I think would be best for our
country is if we had a spiritual revival where people
started to turn to God instead of the news networks

(00:46):
and turn to God instead of assuming that.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
You know, they have all the answers.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
And since the beginning of the year, sales of the
Bible have gone up dramatically. Searches on Google for churches
new or Me have gone up dramatically, and this past
weekend especially, churches announced that they saw a lot of
new faces in the pews they had never seen before,

(01:11):
and that they were excited about the possibility of people
exploring their faith in a more significant way. Are you
seeing that at your churches in Wisconsin?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
My numbers are up a little, not traumatically, but no.
I would love to experience that surge, but I have
not so far.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Well, I here's hoping that the surge makes it to Wisconsin.
But what are your thoughts overall about the Bible sales
going up? About people searching for churches in their area.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
So it depends on why. You've got to answer yourself
the why. So if they're buying Bibles to justify what
they already believe and they're not really calls us to do,
or if they're going to church to be surrounded by
people who think like they do and just by you know,
unchristlike behavior. I mean, the devil loves people going to

(02:04):
church who don't actually embrace the teachings of Christ. And
Christ said, I didn't come to boshe la, I came
to fulfill it. And there's two laws. Love one another
as I have loved you, and love the Father with
all your heartlind, soul.

Speaker 4 (02:21):
And strength.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
So when you talk about like people going or buying
a Bible to justify their viewpoint.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
What do you mean, so you can isolate phrases in
the Bible to justify your cause. So one of the
big cases where people justify either whether you're for or
against same sex marriages, you can make the Bible defend
your cause. You can ha make it say yep, homosexuality

(02:51):
is an abomination, and you can make it say, oh,
but the Bible said Jesus had a special place with
John it. I mean, so both sides can make really
shortcases to defend what they they've already believed is right.
Instead of letting scripture reveal truth as it always does.

(03:12):
If you're open to what it's saying to you, can you.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Hold oh, yeah, it does, it does. It makes a
lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
One of the things, and I don't know if you're
familiar at all with what Charlie Kirk was doing or
what he was saying, or any of that stuff, but
one of the things that I think has been really
interesting is that people are discovering that though he would say,
I believe, because of my faith that marriage is between
a man and a woman, but I welcome you in

(03:40):
this cause, Like I welcome conversations, I welcome fellowship, I welcome.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
All of these things.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
How do we get to a point where you can
say I have a strong Christian faith and these are
my beliefs, but I'm not necessarily going to try and
condemn a person because their life is different than mine.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
And see, I have no problem with people who are
in churches that have a lot of structure, in a
lot of rules. I think God has created all these
staffs because that's what it takes to get us all home.
But when you start using your paintbrush outside your own box,
when you start saying, well, everybody who doesn't do it
this way is not going to heaven or is damned

(04:23):
to hell or you know, that's when I get really uncomfortable,
because there is a judge and I'm not him, and
that I and I use that line when I have
people come through the door that I don't necessarily understand.
I mean, there's the world is shifted, and I'm the
last year of the boomers, and I don't get a

(04:44):
lot of the stuff that my kids just say, for granted,
but my job is not to judge. My job is
to love, and if they don't belong in my church,
where do they belong?

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, I think that's a fair point.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
But on the the other side of that is, if
you see someone making destructive choices, and I'm not even
talking about being gay, I'm just talking about destructive choices overall,
how do you, as a loving person of faith say,
you know what, I am not okay with.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
The choices that you're making, but but I still.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Love you, and you know, how do you how do
you strike that balance without being one of those really
judgmental people that is going to drive people away from
a possible relationship with God when they might need it
the most.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
So standing next to the person is the image I use,
and you can say, you know, if it's just, if
it's hurting themselves as someone else, you can say I
love you and I'll be here for you. But I cannot.
I cannot tell you that that behavior is acceptable.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
It just isn't.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
I don't I don't like to see you hurt yourself.
I don't like to see others be hurt because of you.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
Does that make sense, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
I mean it makes perfect sense.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
But I got to tell you, Mike, I've been working
really hard over the past couple of years on two
things to my own, like little journey here, right, I've
been trying to be less judgmental because to your point,
it is not my role to judge someone. Now, that
doesn't mean that I can that I will accept everything
that they're doing that I just think is wrong, because
I mean, you can look at various choices that people
are making and say that is not going to take

(06:16):
them to a good place. Right, that's a that's a
dumb choice, and it's a it's a dumb way to
go through life. And I've also been working on trusting God.
And over the last week I have been in a
herculean struggle, mostly on the radio, swinging between just really
really vicious anger and then trying to get that under

(06:37):
control and say, this is not my role to judge.
My role is to just what be better and provide
a better commentary, and that'll be It'll be that'll bring
people together instead of further divide people. Trusting God has
been hard this past week. It really has Why do
bad things happen to good people?

Speaker 5 (06:58):
You know?

Speaker 3 (06:59):
And God do that? Or did a corrupt and sinful
world which God allowed to have free will and make choices?
Does God stand with us the other other part is
that the chicks are on the clock. Everybody has a
role to play. Now, did God want that man to die?
I don't believe that that was like a part of

(07:22):
a plan, but.

Speaker 5 (07:25):
He had.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
But nobody knows why it was his time. And nobody
knows I mean, so the hard finds what it's looking for.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
And you can see.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
All of the nasty parts of that father, the two
children not having their dad, the wife not having her husband,
people who found hope in his message, you know now
not having that.

Speaker 6 (07:52):
But you know, is it is it a chance to.

Speaker 5 (07:57):
Spark a real conversation.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Is it a chance for people to say, you know
what my comments on the Wednesday after it happened was,
this is what we've come to. We don't talk, we
don't listen, We just shoot each other.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
I mean, is that where we are that.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
We can't even you know?

Speaker 3 (08:17):
And from Proverbs I quoted to that in the text,
the wise man seeks to understand. The foolish man just
tries to be heard. So, you know, I so the
image I use with myself because I'm a talker. You
might not know that about me is talks are really

(08:41):
good hunters. Because ninety percent of their life they are looking.

Speaker 5 (08:46):
And listening, and so when they go.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
To hunt, they are very effective. And so I'll be
sitting in a circle off stape. Be the hawk, eat
the hawk.

Speaker 5 (08:54):
Because I'm just have you ever just held on to
your silence until you bust into the conversation.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Because you have something so great to say that the
world needed to hear it.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
I don't do that. Now, I'm just kidding. And then
I don't do that. No, I'm just kidding. No, I
but let's do time.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
But let me here's the issue that I'm having, Mike,
is that after and I wasn't like a Charlie Kirk
super fan. I've watched more Charlie Kirk content in the
last week than I had watched in the last ten years, right,
I mean, I wasn't in his demo. I was impressed
with the way he seemed to connect to college students.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
But since his.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Death, some of the people in our society it's not
enough for them to not be at all concerned about
the two children and the wife that are left behind.
They've been downright gleeful and nasty and awful about it.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
And that part for me, I wish I wish.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
I could be shocked about it, but I'm not, And
so I find myself matching that level of anger, and
then I have to try and ratchet myself back because
that's just not who I want to be and not
who I am naturally.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
So how do you sort through that?

Speaker 5 (10:06):
How do you?

Speaker 1 (10:07):
How do you deal with people that have shown themselves
to have no humanity in this situation?

Speaker 6 (10:14):
Yeah, you know what Christ would do is not not
justify them and not give them credence, but he would
love them and pray for them and.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Try to walk with them, be there, not walk towards
them and not accept the behavior, but never ever cut
them off so that the pathback wasn't open. And the
other thing I thought about when you've said.

Speaker 6 (10:40):
How do you?

Speaker 5 (10:40):
How do you do this?

Speaker 4 (10:43):
We need to spend.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
More time And I've been on this bandwag It for
a long time being very articulate about what is really
important to us, what are our values and what do
we believe? Because if not, when stuff like this happens,
we get sucked down the rabbit hole. Now, someone he
was gleeful over.

Speaker 5 (11:01):
A human being losing his life and leaving.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
A family with old a husband and father. That is
uncrazylike behavior, and that is not acceptable.

Speaker 5 (11:10):
Chriate would have never condoned, celebrated someone else's.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Despear and hurts, Challenge them, push them, walk away from them,
but never celebrate their pain and their suffering.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Great advice. I'm trying to take it to heart. And
today I've been actually a lot less angry.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
I've been a lot less angry than I have the
prior week because, honestly, after watching so much Charlie Kirk
content where he had respectful debates with people that he
disagreed with, and the part about his life and Mike.
I don't even know if you've ever watched any of
his content, but talk about a guy who was open
about his relationship with Christ in a way that in

(11:54):
our culture has not been accepted over the last decade.
I mean, I know a lot of people of strong
and deep and abiding faith who don't talk about it.
They don't talk about it in public because it's not cool,
it's not acceptable, right, You're going to be shunned as
some weirdo.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
So that part of it, the scene him talk.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
About it, and I thought to myself, that's what I
want to take away from this, That it's okay to
be open about your relationship with God, and there's a.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Thousand ways to do it, and his way should be acceptable.
I mean, you can listen or don't listen. You have
you have a choice in there. I mean to kill
someone and said so, I mean, so absurdly overreact.

Speaker 6 (12:40):
It's just it's not how is that okay?

Speaker 3 (12:44):
On any level?

Speaker 5 (12:46):
You You may not agree with him, it may make
you super angry.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
But when did we get to the point where we
do these ultimate acts and retaliation for disagreeing with some.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well that's the bigger question.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
And you talk to the main man upstairs and find
out and let me know the answer.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
Okay, you ask, I get right on that. I know
you have a direct line. Pick up the bat phone
and just call God right now, Father.

Speaker 5 (13:15):
My test, I got a question for you exactly.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
I appreciate your perspective.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
As always, and uh and and and I'm sure that
people listening who are just trying to make sense of
everything that's happened over the last week appreciate it too.

Speaker 4 (13:27):
Man.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 6 (13:29):
All right.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Thank you for having me on

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