709: A Rabbi and a Priest Walk into a Podcast with Father James Martin

held says many don't understand one of its most important commands. He argues that scriptures

call to love immigrants was a moral revolution, and that the mistreatment of immigrants is an abomination in God's eyes. Today we discuss his editorial in the New York Times. Then I interview Father James Martin about his new memoir, Work and Progress, about his journey from the business world to the priesthood. We also discuss the link between Jesuit spirituality and Protestant theology, and we get nerdy about Jesus and Temple theology.

Also this week, the rise of non-denoms and Phil wants Cornhole in the Olympics. Hey, there's a ton of fun stuff happening over at Holy Post plus right now. In fact, the conversation over there is exploded in the last week because of my bonus interview with Joshua Harris, and the recent sky pod episode I recorded with Caitlin about Harry Potter. And also this week, I have a bonus interview with Father James Martin about his advocacy

“for LGBTQ Catholics. So if you're not part of Holy Post plus yet, you need to get over there”

now and join the conversation. You'll get access to all this stuff we make at Holy Post Media. You'll get to interact with other Holy Postors and you'll be supporting our work of creating smart Orthodox Pro neighbor content. You can sign up at holypost.com/plus. And right now we're offering a free one week trial. So head over to holypost.com and sign up today. Here's episode 799. Hey there. Welcome back to the Holy Post podcast. I'm Phil Vescher. I'm here with

Caitlin Chess. Say hi, Caitlin. Hi, Phil. And Sky Jitani. Hi. Hi. And they're both trying to research an acronym that Caitlin threw out moments ago thinking it meant something and we may be learning that it means nothing. And in pop culture, specifically the TV show Thunderbirds, FAB was used as a catchphrase for for message received or to just mean fabulous. What? That's not an acronym? I know. I had to be a list. FAB. FAB? I did think it was an acronym.

But I like it more now. Is it that much harder to say fabulous than to say FAB? FAB? But it's kind of stand for something. Thunderbirds, did you watch it? Yeah, oh yeah. I didn't think you watched any television. I thought you just read Little House on the Prairie Didn't Actually And Needle Point. I watched a lot of Little House in the Prairie. Oh yeah. Yeah, the good one, the good one, the good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On DVD.

Uh-huh. Oh, no, how's that Prairie on DVD? That's very educational misconceptions. Although not an acronym, it has often been incorrectly interpreted by fans as standing for fully advised and briefed fully acknowledged broadcast, fully airborne. So those are all false. I mean fully acknowledged broadcast. Like because you were asking should we start recording and all sorts in, FAB fully acknowledged broadcasts? And other themes going.

What's the news that you like the most? Who's your favorite podcast host? If it's breakfast, get your toast, it's Skyfield, Caitlyn in the Holy Post, Skyfield, Caitlyn in the Holy Post. And sometimes other people. This episode is sponsored by Blue Land. When our kids were little, keeping the house clean became really important. Why? Because they liked stuff. They put

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And thanks to A.G.1 for sponsoring this episode. That was a silliest thing ever. That's a silliest thing for me. Top 10 silly thing. Hey, let's talk about the news this week. What happened this week? Did you watch the Olympics? Yes. I watched virtually none. Yeah. Okay. Okay, boring. Okay. Caitlyn, you watch, do you enjoy? I am obsessed with Alyssa Loo.

“Is that her name? Am I your name? Yeah, I think so. The American figure skater who won, she,”

I just heard her routine was so fun. She was so fun to watch and then she was so happy and then her being so excited with, I think the bronze or the, yeah, the bronze metal winner, right after

where they were hugging, she picked them down. She was so cute. Yeah, she reminded me. I finally

liked over to my wife and said, this is what would happen if Jennifer Lawrence won figure skating gold. She's like Jennifer Lawrence. That's such a strange comparison. She reminded me, like she looks a little like her, but like her, just that completely like detached kind of goofy ness, you know. I see what you mean. I see her. And her whole story of how she retired because she was 16. I tried to retire at 16 and the social security department wouldn't. They were like,

they were not, we're not hearing it. No, not for you, pal. No. But the fact that she, like,

“get back to the coal mine, say said, the fact that she came back and she was like, I'm going to do this”

my way. I'm going to let anyone starve me. I'm not going to, like, that was like the the best story of

me. That was so. So many of the other potential best stories were disappointments. Like the guy who admitted to cheating on his girlfriend. Oh, yeah. There was that. That's right. And then the felt bad for the quad God. You didn't do so well. And then in the speed skater didn't do as well as people thought he would do. And there were a lot that didn't do so. They thought they would do. One the hockey. Yeah, we won hockey, but it was all NHL players playing against each other. It was

a contest just like reorganized by country which country has the best NHL players. And that is not as inspiring to me sky, but you didn't care and you didn't watch. Why are you not a patriot? Do you not like sports? Do you not like winter pick one or more of the above? I don't have a really good excuse. I just we are we were busy with for 10 straight days. You were. Yeah, it's okay. My youngest daughter is a high school senior. This was the end of her, she plays varsity basketball.

It was the end of the season. There was a lot going on. There's just been a busy season. Okay, you know who we should be asking them about this? He saw. Oh, sure. He wrote a piece about it that ended up in New York Times and then they just included him on a little round table. He was on a New York Times round table to talk about for you. People should read that. That was good. Yeah. But that's not what I meant. I meant our producer Mike who went curling with his wife recently.

No, he didn't know. He did for day night. I mean, you know what we're watching their boys. So they could go curling her salon. No, we went curling and it was really fun. Where did you go curling? The I task a country club in the winter time has curly lanes that you can rent similar to a bullying lane. Oh, that's crazy. I just wanted everyone to hear that because that's crazy. Did you notice what I did on Twitter that went viral? We're not on Twitter. I said, I tweeted because I just

watching curling because like every day there was more curled. There was a lot of curled. They curled the entire week away. There's more hours of curling than any other sport and maybe all the other sports put together. I can't tell. And so I just tweeted if the winter Olympics get curling, it's only fair that summer Olympics get cornhole. Because it's similar. Yeah. And it could be going on throughout the entire, if it's a kind of thing you can do on a date night that every day,

“you know, it's like, well, let's see how the cornhole is going in this. Honestly, I'm into that. And”

that got liked more than I think any tweet I've ever tweeted except one and when it hit 30,000 likes or 33,000 likes, NBC jumped in. What? And said, we'll get right on. Are you making this odd? You could be responsible. Yes. I am bringing cornhole to the summer games. Wow. I'm not, I wouldn't

international following it has, but it's such a portable sports. Such a totally no. Yeah. It works.

Such a wonderful. Is that what it's, is that it's proper name? I'm sure there's another name.

“Isn't it? I think that's the back yard name. But I think I was going to suggest this to NBC,”

but then I think they had already stopped listening to me and moved on. We could combine cornhole and gymnastics and it's a giant board and gymnast have to vault and then land in the hole or knock other gymnast off the board. And if you land on the board next to the hole, wow. You get a 5.duction and immediate medical attention. You wouldn't get it. Yeah. That would hurt. Or it could be a synchronized diving thing where you'd dive through the hole in the board

into the pool. There's so much we could do. But again, in the normal form of the game, you're trying to knock the opponent's bags off of the, well, do you, but you're trying to get

you're back through the hole? Yeah, but that's the first goal. The first goal of cornhole,

get the bag in the first rule of cornhole. We don't talk about cornhole fill. Do we have a leg in the Olympics? No. Because that all stuff feels kind of more like the summer, like the summer parallel. Yeah, I don't know why they pick what they pick for new things. There's a criteria. I was going to say they have to like propose it and then it goes. It has to be played by a certain number of

“countries. Yeah. Because like mountaineering, did you see what mountaineering is in the winter games?”

Yeah. That's a thing. Yeah. You ski uphill, like cross country skiing, but you ski uphill for a while, then you take off your skis and you run up a flight of stairs and then you put your, and you do that maybe one more time and then you put on your skis and you ski back down to the beginning. It's, it's skiing uphill and running upstairs. Oh, yeah. I stairs. I don't know. It's weird because they can't guarantee you to make any of other terrain. I don't know. It doesn't

make any sense. It's like why it is break dancing in the summer games. It doesn't. Well, they are really didn't they? I think maybe because they were such a disaster. And they're going to replace it with ballroom dancing. Is that true? No, no. I would watch that though. I remember as a kid watching ballroom dancing. I was watching ballroom dancing with my parents for some reason. And they were time at Vini's waltzes. Yeah. And I thought they said Vietnamese. Waltzes. And I was so confused with

the longest time why the Vietnamese waltzes. You don't think the Vietnamese feel allowed to waltzes? It didn't seem indigenous in the culture. That's really nice. I'm pretty sure that's offensive.

And if we talk about this for a second longer, we're going to get the cat. So I'm moving on.

Now, the other big news last week was there are no more tariffs. And yet there are tariffs are dead. Long live the tariffs. Yeah. It's confusing. We probably don't need to talk about that. I don't should be care. I mean, I think we should care, but I don't know that any of us are quite qualified to comment. Caitlyn Caitlyn Caitlyn Caitlyn. I've listened to a lot of people talk about them. Then what I learned was no one knows what's happening or what will happen. Caitlyn Caitlyn Caitlyn

Caitlyn, you seem to think we can only talk about things that we're qualified to talk about.

“I think we should know something. Do you know something? How liberal I am qualified to talk about?”

But you're fun. You know? I don't understand why this is that complicated. What? That's a stereotype. That's a stereotype thing. Oracle, one of the constitution says that the Congress has the sole power to let the taxes and tariffs. I just mean that the macroeconomic effects have all of this work out with the countries that already paid tariffs. I just said no, do I get my money back? I don't think you're going to get any of that. I think I paid millions of dollars in tariffs.

I'm pretty sure I can pay millions of dollars in tariffs. What tariffs got struck down? All of them. All of them. I mean, I was going to say no, because we just paid, I just bought my wedding dress and we paid a tariff on it because it's coming from Australia. So I would like some money back. There's now a 15% tariff on everything around the world. It was 10%, but then Trump went to sleep and woke up the next day. And now it's 15%.

Okay, but it's only in place for 150 days. Yeah, so you got 150 days. Well, shipping right now. So we can not wait 150 days cancel the order for your wedding dress. It's coming from Australia. Yeah, Australia is pain for that. Is it made of kangaroo skin? Why does it mean to come from Australia? You know, it's crazy when we were trying on a bajillion dresses because we tried on a bajillion dress. We, and who else was trying to dress? I was just me, but there were other people to watch.

There are so many wedding dress designers that come from Australia. I don't know what they're doing over there. But there are a lot of them. The Dingo dress company. Yeah, that would. We did not get to that. What? There's a lot of that. Anyway, that is so interesting. All right. You all at home fascinated by this

can I write it up at a rabbi? Shai, shai, shai, shai, shai held. Shai held.

“Isn't that from June? I think it's a wrestling move. I don't know. Do, uh, sure. It's from somewhere.”

It says, yeah, shai held is a president and dean of the Hater Institute. An author, most recently, of the book, Judaism, is about love. You wrote a piece in the New York Times, talking about the, uh, the entitled is one of the Bible's greatest more revolutions. And believe it or not, it touches on the popular topic of immigration. He says the Bible explicitly commands

three loves. The first and second many modern Christians and Jews cite easily. Love of God and love of

of one's neighbor. The third and most often overlooked is love of the gear. The why? Gear. Girl. Geer. No. You don't have the article in front of you. I'm pulling it up right now. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Geer. Hebrew word. Yeah. It's a Hebrew word. Yeah. It's a Hebrew word. And it's, and it's, uh, who we're supposed to love is the, geer.

“I think maybe we could just translate it. Well, that's the question. Several English translations”

interpret gear as sojourner. Someone born elsewhere who has come to dwell among the people most likely temporarily. Other translations render gear as stranger, alien or foreigner. Well, those are all similar. I guess sojourners a little different because they're just moving through.

Not vermin or poison to the blood of our culture. I think you're jumping ahead. The commandment to

love immigrants, um, he believes that immigrants is actually the most accurate. In fact, the 11th century Jewish biblical commentator, are you up on your 11th century Jewish biblical commentator? Dabbled. Dabbled. Rashi. Isn't he a children's music performer? That was Raffi. Raffi. Yes. Yeah. I explain that wherever Geer occurs in scriptures, it signifies a person who has not been born in that land where he is living but has come from another country to sojourn there. So it's close

to immigrant. The commandment to love immigrants is one of Bible's greatest moral revolutions. He

says. Other ancient Near Eastern cultures instructed people to care for widows and orphans.

The Bible expands the category of those who deserve special protection to include those who live among our community but are not quite of it. He says Rabbi Shai says there's no one to one correspondent between biblical mandate to love the immigrant and the question of how many immigrants the United States should take in over a given year. This is true. The Bible does not specify immigration policy but but and this is a big but. This does not mean that the Bible has

nothing to say to our present moment. On the contrary, the Bible offers an ethos and approach we might take in confronting immigration policy. Those of us who follow the Bible's moral guide can conclude that demonizing, mocking, or dehumanizing migrants, immigrants, let alone violently pursuing them, is religiously speaking and abomination, a director front to a biblical vision of what a good and holy society ought to look like. Zenophobia is then spiritually speaking and

illness, a failure to see people as God does to treat them as God demands they be treated. Okay, so pretty compelling argument that we can't demonize immigrants even if we don't like them. Even if they're touching our stuff. Even if maybe I could get that job I've been longing for of working in fields 20 hours a day, but I can't get it because there are too many immigrants. Even if I can't pursue my occupation, we can't demonize immigrants. Is this difficult for people

“to grasp? So here's my question. And I'm going to ask Caitlin because I think she might be better”

constitutionally suited to answer. Okay, that's a backhanded continent. What's the best phrasing of the argument against this? Oh, you're going to hurt for the maga point of view. Okay, not for it, but for the best attempt at a steel manning of why someone who takes the Bible seriously would say, I disagree with Shia Levoff. I think a couple of things. One, the argument he makes at the beginning about how to translate this word, I agree with the whole

of this article. But I do think we probably assume that. Yeah, yeah, I do. Just saying it before I say

come to a different position. I don't think is fair. And I don't think he's really saying that, but I think someone might read him that way. The real question is not how you translate this one word. The question is how you translate this moral guidance for a particular community that is governed

ultimately by God to a community that is governed, not by God, that is accountable to God,

but is not given directly from God the laws that should govern its its constituency. And I think the reply to this would be a couple of things. One, people would go to run 13 and say, you're supposed to obey the law. And so it's not wrong at all for a country to enforce its laws. And sometimes enforcing those laws when the law is, you are not supposed to legally be in the country, the way that you enforce that is by removing those people from the country. Now, I don't think that

“there is a good argument I can make for taking that argument and moving all the way to, you should”

mock dehumanize violently assault immigrants who have broken the law. I don't, I think the only way you get there is by believing that first point. And then marinating in media that teaches you to fear and dehumanize those people that you dislike. There is a biblical argument to be made,

possibly it's not one that I entirely agree with, but there's a biblical argument to be made

for immigration policy that is much harsher than the one that I would support. I would disagree and I would have biblical arguments for why I would want something different. But I think you can make a biblical argument for the whole kind of concept of the nation state that exists today did not exist when Israel was given these laws. So even translating, you know, gayer into immigrant or, you know, foreigner. That's not the only issue here. It's the issue of how do you translate

what it meant to be a foreigner traveling in another land at the time to what it means to cross national borders today. You can make an argument for why the Bible would say actually more than kind of caring for migrants on the level that the Old Testament New Testament speak to. More than that, what really matters for US policy is you're supposed to obey the law. If you obey the law, it's as in Romans 13, like God has given government the ability to enact with force,

those laws that they've put in place. People have broken the law when they've immigrated illegally and so they should face the consequences for that. Now, I think outside of scripture, most people should

“say, okay, how do you hold those two things together? If the Bible says you should obey the law,”

but the Bible also says you should care for foreigners and the Bible also says in the Old Testament nations are judged by how they treat foreigners, not just individuals or churches, which don't exist in the Old Testament, but whole nations are judged that way, not just the people of God, but other nations. How you hold that together, then, is where you get the difficulty we're in now of, the Bible does not prescribe a particular policy, but I do think it requires us to have a better

system than when we have today, which both harms people materially and then is often propagated by people who explicitly want to dehumanize those that are harmed by it. Sky, do you feel constitutionally prepared to enter the conversation now? I do. Okay, you may enter. And I would like to point out that Caitlyn gave a very thorough nuanced and thoughtful reflection on this, which is precisely why you would not work well

in Maga media work. Sorry, yeah. The simple answer to your question, Phil. What your immediate desire to say something disparaging about Maga media world is why I asked her to do this. Yes, I know. I think the simple answer to your question of what is the steelman argument against this article is simple. The people that we are against, I'm speaking on behalf of that point of view, the people we are against are not immigrants, they are not

so-journers, they are not aliens, they are invaders. Oh, right. And therefore, all these Old Testament commands about loving them do not apply any more than they would have applied to the Philistines or the Hittites or Canaanites or all the other groups that ancient Israel fought wars against. So if they are invaders meaning us harm, then the appropriate thing for the government to do is to fight fire with fire, I for an eye, and they are just whatever evaders

“are saying. Because so many came in a short period of time. They are invaders, because that's what”

Fox News has said they are. Well, that seems like an underrock argument. I agree. Right there, but I'll let that. Well, okay. Well, one thing I just want to add is one of the real sadnesses of the whole immigration debate, which we've talked about so many times, is that there are often on offer in public such extremes. And whether those extremes are the actual positions of most people or not, the way that it's presented by both sides is not does not capture what most

Americans actually want. Most Americans really want fair, equitable, compassionate immigration policy, but the left says that the right only wants to lock up kids and cages, which some people do, and that's abominable. But a lot of people do not. And then people on the right say everyone

on the left just wants to let everyone in and never deport anyone. And most people I know on the

left want to deport violent criminals who have come illegally. And they want there to be requirements you have to meet to enter the country. But they also want there to be less of a horrifically complicated system that makes it impossible for anyone to enter legally in a good way.

this because they benefit off of all of the talking points of critiquing each other.

I also think it's important to what I would add. And this is a wonderful article from a Jewish point of view. And I think he's correct. The love for one another and then the addition of loving for the stranger or the alien among us is an innovation of the Judeo-Ethic from the Old Testament law. But when you get to the New Testament, it goes an even step further. And that is

“even if you want to believe the rhetoric that people coming to this country are quote unquote”

invaders. Even that doesn't get you off the hook if you are a Christian of loving them because Jesus calls us to even love those we consider our enemies. But but but but but but but but but but

that says individuals. No it is not when we all decide things together as governments. No it isn't

it's because this is why even secular nations influence deeply by Christian heritage in the West give human rights even to combatants and war and criminals and things like we we have laws on what is cruel and unusual punishment even for those who are guilty because we recognize that even criminals even invaders even our enemies in wartime have human rights and are worthy of dignity. But isn't that why isn't that how the West is committing suicide? Some would say so that we need to

“jettison these soft Christian ideas that human eyes and dignify our little less Jesus a little more”

I don't think you can do one without the other. But if you had to choose you'd rather

you'd rather be seen as a Christian as a label than be behave at the end of the sermon on

the mount as a Christian. Jesus said the one who hears these words of mine and obeys them is like the man who builds his house on the rock. So it's the one who actually obeys that matters not the one who has the label. When there's a whole parable about this right? Yeah. Brom is 13. The the parable that Jesus gives where a father tells two of his sons to do some work in the field. One says he will and doesn't the other says that he won't and does and Jesus says

which one actually did the will of the father. But he didn't. Now I agree. I'm just I'm trying to talk about how someone would twist it to justify not doing anyway. We don't need to give them any ideas.

“No we don't. So speaking of and there's there's I think some honest confusion and grain is about”

the role of government versus the role of individual versus the role like the spheres. Yes. Yes. The personal, the family, the church, the civic. And so some people complain that you know the federal government should be act still acting like they believe in Christian principles. Others say the federal government doesn't need to apply Christian principles but should protect Christianity. Okay. So because that gets me to my next story. Which is you remember when

USAID got cut up with a chainsaw by Elon Musk, US Department of Aid. According to an internal state department email obtained by the Atlantic just last week, the administration will soon turns out some parts of it weren't quite dead yet. So we're circling back to kill them. The administration will soon end all of the humanitarian funding it is currently providing as part of a quote, "responsible exit" from seven African nations and redirect funding in nine

others. Aid programs in all of these countries had previously been up for renewal from now through the end of September but one instead be allowed to expire. Each of these aid programs is classified as lifesaving according to the Trump administration. So the administration has already canceled the entire aid packages of two nations, Afghanistan and Yemen where the State Department said terrorists were diverting resources. The new email sent on February 12 makes no such claims about

the seven countries now losing all humanitarian aid. Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. Instead according to the email and this is the rationale. This is what I wanted to bring up. The rationale for canceling the aid humanitarian aid to these countries. Because, quote, "there is no strong nexus between the humanitarian response and U.S. national interests." Unquote. So a secular government or a nichean inspired government,

you would say, "Yeah, that makes sense." How is Trump's new ballroom in his giant arch national interests? Because we need one. Glory. Because glory. Because big countries should have

because it's, I mean, it makes sense. Hey, that's not in our national interests, so we're not going

to do it. Unless you say we're living according to the Christian inheritance of the West, which we say we want to defend, which believes in looking out for the least of these. I don't know if I'm with you. Okay. Where are you? Well, I mean, as a Christian, I look at these aid programs and I can see through a Christian lens why this is good. We are very wealthy country. We have the capacity to help people in need. We

“ought to do that. I'm not sure that's why we're doing it, though. And there's their self-interest.”

There is absolutely self-interest. And you could argue back in the 20th century, we were in a global PR battle with the Soviet Union and communism. And it was in our self-interest to help

these poorer countries with aid, so that they would be positively predisposed towards Western

values, our line with the United States. I think that well, we are still in a global competition, more so with China, and China's making massive inroads in Latin America, South America, Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and where the United States pulls back its involvement. And it's aid, and it's economic influence, and other China runs in. China runs in. We've seen it happen over and over and over again. So I think you can make a case that there's a strong

next, so they put it for national interests. So should Christians when they work all together through representative government justify everything with self-interest, or does a country ever

“do anything that's purely to help others, or is that not the role of government? I don't think”

you can segregate it that easily, because sometimes things can be of self-interest and be genuinely good for the poor, or so it's messy at times, and if individuals have different reasons for supporting something that we as Christians would say is good. And you can't separate it even in a kind of metaphysical sense. Like so many of the instructions in scripture about how you treat other nations, how you treat foreigners, how you treat the poor, teach not just a moral lesson about how the

people of God should respond. The ultimate very often is giving those kinds of instructions to nations that are not Israel, and are not doing this because they are God's people. But there is a principle that we are both interconnected and morally shaped by how we treat other people. So even if it's, there's not a clear separation between, it's in your self-interest in terms of foreign policy, and it's in this like self-interest to help other people, all of the things that

sky is talking about are proof that those two things are kind of like wrapped up together practically, but also much of America's history of thinking of ourselves as a Christian nation, or even this phrase that Trump has ironically been like the first president of very long time to not use very well. This shining city on a hill was not just, I mean it was very often ironically about being such a prosperous and moral place that other people wanted to come, and we wanted them to come.

But also that America was a moral exemplar, not just militarily powerful or economically powerful,

but that how we treated the poor and other countries was an example to other people, and that that that example, like living in a world where individuals, communities, and nations, help those that are vulnerable, is a world that everyone wants to live in. Like that's a better world for everyone. This is a weird metaphor. So you're saying Christians should want to improve the world. Hot take, yeah, I think so. But it's gonna burn. If you see an image of a, let's say a man,

late at night feeding a bottle to a baby. It's aggressive. Right. Okay. You don't know how. Is it called? She said you see this image. Okay. You don't know the motivations of that man. It could be the baby's crying in Hungary and then deep compassion goes and wants to feed that child. It could be that man is exhausted. It wants to go to bed. Yes. And the feeding that kid is going to help him go to sleep. So he can go to sleep. Now at the end of the day, I'm just glad that that baby's

being fed. Yeah. The deeper motivation sometimes I can't see or know, but it's a good thing in itself. And similarly with foreign aid and different things we do around the world, you could argue, well, that's in bad mode over. That's in good. Okay. But some things are just good.

“And I think it's really important. We've said this before in the show, but I think it's worth reiterating”

especially in the Old Testament, but it pops up again in the New Testament as well. Even though it's sometimes really hard for us to tell what moral teachings and scripture should apply to us personally. It should apply to our churches, it should apply to the government. There are some that it's very clear because the Old Testament has many prophecies, most prophecies are for the nation of Israel and their prophecies against their injustice and idolatry and mistreatment of people.

But very many prophecies, like a surprising amount of prophecies are not directed towards or really against Israel. They're directed against the nation that are not God's people that have not been given God's law that are not judged for failing to keep the sacrifices that

for that Israel's judge for that, for failing to keep God's law. The nations are not judged for

failing to keep God's law. They're judged for failing to keep the covenant that's made with Noah and all of creation, which requires that you treat those in God's image in certain ways, which is why all those prophecies are about, those prophecies against the nations are about

“enslaving people, mistreating the poor, mistreating the foreigner. So I think even if you want to take”

a real self-interest to take on this, like we should be, and I'm often, I often think this, like we should be concerned that we as a nation will be judged by God for how we treat foreigners or for how we treat the poor, which is how nations in the Old Testament are judged. In a similar way, you can't really separate what of that is a moral desire to keep God's commands and what is

self-interest because God has said he will judge us for failing to keep those commands. There's always

a self-interest component. Yeah, I think what I took away from that article was partly just the phrase, those of us who follow the Bible's immoral guide can conclude demonizing mocking or dehumanizing immigrants is religiously speaking and abomination when you put it in those terms because we like to throw around abomination when we're talking about social sins that we don't like. That other people are doing, you know, you, you, that is an abomination what you are doing, but to say,

it's that attitude that you have toward the Somali community in Minnesota is an abomination in God's nostril. Don't you think though, I mean, apart from the, they're not immigrants or invaders argument, the other argument for this or for cutting foreign aid is the presence of these immigrants among us or the sending of this money to foreign countries to help the poor there prevents us from caring for our neighbors here, right? It isn't that I hate immigrants.

It's that I want to love my neighbor better. It's not that I hate the poor people in Zimbabwe. It's I want that money going to help Americans here. So they pit one group against another or one love against another. I just challenge you to find someone who is making that argument that I want the money to come back and help people here and I find someone who makes that argument in support single payer health care or almost any other use of tax dollars to help. I'm obviously not supporting this argument.

“I think it's the one I've heard the most. I have found it to be a red herring. Okay,”

moving on. I'm glad we, we figured some stuff out. Yeah, solve that. I'm glad we figured out that dehumanizing immigrants actually isn't biblical. And America, you're welcome. We've solved that one. Let's talk about our friend Ryan Bird, she's on every now and then, and is the probably now the leading studier of data about Christians and the church. That's a that on his business card. I am a great studier. His sub sack is graphs about religion. Graphs about religion. He's talking

very often talks about nuns and we've quoted him a lot when talking about nuns. This is not about nuns and it's not about priests. This is about non-denoms. Non-denoms. People and non-denominational churches. Monamina. Did you do a non-denom? No, I was going to do that. I was going to do that. Were you really? Yeah, I was. You had that plant. I had that in my mind already, but thanks for really. I've been really binging on muppet stuff on Instagram. Did you watch the new muppet?

Sure, I haven't seen it yet. Oh, it's good. I adore pet only the King prawn. Oh, my gosh. Do you know what muppets are? Yes. Do you know what the muppets show? Caitlyn, then how can you don't know the muppet show? The thing that made the muppets famous. That was like the 1970s. I know you wouldn't. Do you know what Christmas Carol? Oh, you know the movies. They made it in the 90s. Do you know the muppets movies they made in the 90s?

“That's what I know. Okay. They had a hit TV show in the 70s.”

Second half of the 70s. Anyway, they made a new episode of it, but just one like a 30 minute.

But they're all over Instagram, like little clips of them doing weird stuff. Yeah, they do lots of social media. Yeah, they're pretty. They social media stuff is pretty easy to do with puppets. Yeah, it doesn't take nearly as long. We should do that, Phil. Or where would we get the puppets? You should do that. We're looking at non-denoms. Do do do do do. The share of all Protestants who were non-denominational in 1972 was just 5%. Today, about 30% of Protestants

are non-denominational. Now, in general, would you say that trend is because we don't like being under authority or being associated with big groups. And we don't want to be part of clubs anymore. I have a different theory. Oh, what's your theory? I mean, I think that's true. Everything you said is true, but I think the bigger motivator is, oh, there's a lot. I don't know, thanks. I think we are evangelical subculture in America, especially it's so personality driven,

in the past or on the platform. And if you are a charismatic and/or entrepreneurial personality,

you don't really want to be in part of somebody else's company. Yes. You want to start your own thing, Bingo. But now it's been, you know, if you look back to the founding of Willow and some of the other early big non-denominational mega churches, we've got multiple generations that have grown up without any knowledge of connection to a denomination, you know, where there's not a non-denom's at function like denoms. Do do do do do do. What do you mean multi-sight? Yeah, multi-sight works.

Our organization. Yes. Well, even like the Willow Creek Association, it's like, well, we're all part of, we kind of have a shared philosophy of ministry and outlook and all the resources that they kick other churches out right there. This is because they weren't found by theology. I don't want to be bound. This is the other thing because, I mean, the ethos of like, I don't like big institutions. I don't like someone telling me what to do. That's as old as America.

“Like, you could say, why did we have such an age of denominations in America? I think a lot of the”

story right now is also not only the kind of fundamentalist modernist split of like you've got two presbyterian denominations that are kind of the conservatives and the liberals. You've got two methods. You've got now even those are splitting more and more and more of our sexuality things and gender things. And like, so you've got when they're proliferating around and most of them seem like they don't actually do anything because there's only one church in your whole state that's part of this,

you know, very specific to nomination. All of a sudden, if you're trying to start a church or join a church, you're probably not trying to do it based off of these like very shrinking denomination. Right. And if you are an entrepreneurial leader who is charismatic in the pulpit, yeah, you're going to be able to build a good-sized church very quickly. And if you're new to an area and you've got kids and you just want, you want to be able to seg into something that's all set up

and looks like it's well-run. And yeah, I remember when I was at CT, we were looking at data about how people pick a church and I don't have it to site in front of me, but denominations used to be set up because if let's say you grew up Methodist and you move across the country, you go to a new town, you go to the Methodist Church, right, because you know Methodists all believe these things, they all practice them these ways. Nowadays, people tend to pick a church, they have no idea what

the doctrine of the church is. Yes. It's, do I like the speaking? Do I like the music? Are the programs good for my kids? And are the people around me in this church? My kind of people. And you have no idea what their doctrinal beliefs are or their heritage. So once you've eliminated the things that defined as denomination as being important for choosing a church, but get growth of non-denomination. You've got, and you've got a list of social and political things you're looking to make sure they

doctrineally believe more than a bunch of theological things. So the biggest denomination is now not.

In real numbers, that translates to roughly 45 million non-denomes in the United States.

For comparison, Southern Baptist Convention has about 12 and a half million members in the Catholic Church has about 62 million. So Protestants, biggest group of Protestants, are Protestants that are not in a denomination. And this is what is interesting as he dives into the data because he concludes that non-denomes may be the future of American Christianity. They have age on their side. Non-denomes are noticeably younger than many of the largest denominations in the United States,

and they have a substantial share of younger adults in their congregations who will help offset losses from the baby boomers getting older. Second, what, why is that so funny? No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was reading for their down, and he says belief in a literal Bible has crept up

“slowly over time. I think he means like biblical literalism. But I was like, is there a subset of”

Christians that don't believe that a literal Bible is there? No, you mean that, you mean that literary is a Bible? There's literally, it's not just a, I thought it was his or metaphor.

It's a very jensey, we have speaking. Ah, Ryan. We've got you, Ryan, second. Okay, let me repeat.

First, they have age on their side. Second, non-denomes are more racially diverse, especially among young adults. In many ways, non-denomes already look a lot like the future of America. So the Catholic Church is more racially diverse, although most of that diversity is Latino, Catholics, whereas non-denomes have much more black and other racial minorities and actually less Latino. And then finally, when it comes to attendance and belief, it's fair to say that non-denomes

are moving toward the evangelical median. Attendance has risen significantly and the share who believe in literally believe in the Bible, not the Bible is a literal thing, has increased in a meaningful way over time. In short, the future of American evangelicalism may not be found in the Southern

“Baptist Convention or the assemblies of God. It may be non-denome. Is that good? Bad? In different?”

Pick your poison. I think it's messy. Okay. And now for a point of view, not shaded by cynicism,

you're a Presbyterian now and so. I mean, I think I've ever been here. No, I don't think that,

but I, which is after pick which of the 12 Presbyterian variants. Yeah. Well, that's a whole other thing. I mean, I, to possibly articulate skies, just like grumbling's over there. I don't want to say

“that one way or the other. I believe their groanings of the Holy Spirit. Okay. Okay. I don't want”

to say that one way or the other is like better for the church with certainty because I don't know and the spirit can move in lots of ways and typically moves in ways that are not the ones that I would lay out in advance or the ones I would prefer or guess. But I do think it has been good for many Christians and for many churches for them to belong to a visible church that is larger than themselves. We all belong to the, to the invisible church that's larger than ourselves,

that spans the world and time. And yet, many people have pointed out the more connected you are

to a particular church and I would say a particular denomination or tradition, actually it's often easier from that place to be connected to the wider broader church because it's not just this big abstract idea. Like there's, there was a lot of hand-ringing for many generations over denominationalism and the ecumenical movement was very focused on kind of getting

“over our differences. And I think it both is a harm to us that we don't care as much about some”

of these theological distinctives. We care more about political or cultural issues. But I also think it doesn't help our churches be healthier or stronger or Christians be more, you know, more connected to and obligated to their churches for us to increasingly have no larger denominational accountability,

no larger denominational structure for using money well, no larger denominational structure for

for guiding the theology of a church. Like it can go wrong in very significant ways. There can there have been, you know, abuse canals in the Catholic church, one of the most hierarchical, you know, Christian traditions. And yet, there are real gifts to a denomination as a whole saying from within the kind of portion of Christianity that we inhabit, the tradition that we're a part of. Let's work out some of the theological questions that are specific to our

tradition. Let's really kind of proclaim to the larger church, the goodness of some of our distinctives. That maybe they don't agree with or maybe they don't emphasize as much. They're real goods to be in with other Christians that share some really important distinctives and being shaped by each other and from that place of belonging interacting with Christians and non-Christians who are coming from a different place than you. And I think we lose something the more that we

are apart from those denominations and to sky's point, the more that we are shaped by kind of personality-driven churches and networks that don't have a lot of accountability to them, or don't have a lot of theological distinctives holding them together. There's pros and cons, but I just think I increasingly have seen in my own life have seen the way that non-denominational churches can lose a lot, both theological and accountability wise. Here's the metaphor.

I would use idea to sky-pod recently talking about the value of redundancy and the metaphor being commercial aircraft are engineered with a lot of redundant systems for safety reasons, multiple engines, multiple pilots, multiple hydraulic systems, all those kinds of things. Any plane can crash, but a plane that doesn't have redundancy is a more fragile aircraft and it's more susceptible to catastrophic problems. So I'm not saying if you're part of a denominational

church, you're going to be just fine. It can be abused. Terrible things can happen all that. A non-denominational church has fewer redundancies, fewer backups, which makes it an inherently more fragile system that is more prone to abuse and calamity. That's just in. Also, it's the future. Yes, which is very fragile. Which to be fair? I mean, right where just making a good argument in terms of demographics and age. But what this tells us is what the numbers are. It can't tell us

I don't know what's going to happen. We can't, we both can't tell us to really pay us what God will do. Because once upon a time, demographics were the future of the Democratic Party. Yeah, it was an evidence. It was just going to happen. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. I do think this whole trend. I would love to talk to Ryan about this more, but this, this is an interesting little glimpse into American Christianity, but it's a much larger trend. And that is,

I don't know if it's the last 40 or 50 years. America overall has so emphasized efficiency in all of our institutions. It has made our entire society more fragile. We see that in government. We see that in economics. We see that in corporations. We see that in our in the stock market education. And here you see it in denomination or non-denominationalism. Everything's more fragile because it's easier and more efficient. And we will pay a price for it. And they put on a better show.

“Yes, at the end of the day. You have to admit it's pretty until it explodes. Until it explodes. Okay.”

Hey, everybody. Fun week in the news. Who knows what's going to happen next week? We just don't know.

Thanks for supporting us. Go to holypost.com. Check out holyposts. Plus, there's new stuff. Scott, you guys just did something on. What did you say? Skye did something on redundancy. You guys, together, did something on Harry Potter. Harry Potter? Harry Potter? Yeah. There was kind of like a hundred responses just on the holyposts. Plus. Okay. We're going to have to follow up. Did our people mad? They don't like me. You know, Harry Potter's been out for a while.

Yeah, it's been out for a while. It's been out for a while. It's been out for a while. It's been out for a while.

“It's been out for a while. I just discovered it. I just recently read it. That's why we talked about it.”

Wow. You got to become a member just to find out what Caitlin thought of her first exposure to Harry Potter.

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“I've been following and reading Father James Martin for years. I think I first discovered”

him through his book the Jesuit guy to almost everything. I was drawn to the book because I've been intrigued by Jesuit spirituality since my college years. And James Martin has been one of the most visible Jesuits in the US as the editor at large for American magazine. He also serves as a counselor to the Vatican's dichastory for communications. Basically, that means he's someone who often represents the Catholic Church in secular media. You've probably seen him on many news programs

or on the late show with Stephen Colbert. His new book is called Work in Progress. Confessions of a bus boy, dishwasher, caddy, usher, factory worker, bank teller, corporate tool, and priest. It's a coming of age memoir about Martin's journey through his teen and young adult years.

The links between Jesuit spirituality and Protestantism, and we both geek out a little bit about the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. I've also recorded a bonus interview with James Martin exclusively for Holy Post Plus subscribers. In that conversation, I ask him about his advocacy for LGBTQ Catholics and the differences between how Catholics and evangelicals have approached this issue. So if you want access to that, you gotta get yourself signed

up for Holy Post Plus. Go to holypost.com/plus to learn how to do that. Here is my conversation with James Martin. Father James Martin, welcome to the Holy Post. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I'm delighted to have you. I've wanted to have you on for a long time. I've read many of your books and fan of your work. Your latest is Work in Progress. Confessions of a bus boy, dishwasher, caddy, usher, factory worker, bank teller, corporate tool, and priest. The book is on the New York

Times Best Sellers list. Congratulations on that fascinating read. It's more of a memoir than your previous works have been. I'm going to talk a little bit about your childhood and the home you grew up in and what kind of faith you practiced as a kid and how that will get to how you

“entered into the priesthood and changed. But what was your faith like growing up?”

Yeah, I would say that I was a number of a family of what St. Paul will call lukewarm Catholics. I know he said he'd spit anything out that lukewarm. But my family were Catholic. I was

baptized. I was Catholic. I had my first communion. I was confirmed all that. We went to Mass.

I would say most Sundays. But if we miss Mass, it wasn't a big deal. But we didn't pray at home. We didn't talk about God. I didn't go to a Catholic school. We didn't do a lot of the devotional practices that Catholics do. I'm, you know, developed Catholics. So, you know, just kind of lukewarm. And then, you know, that continued through my teenagers and colleges until, you know, I started to take it more seriously. But it wasn't from one of those families that said, oh,

you know, my son, the priest. Right. In fact, they were kind of upset when I entered. So it's, you know, one of the things I'd say in the book is that it's a reminder of how God can work for anybody's life. I resonate with that. Obviously, I'm not a priest. But when I went into seminary, it precipitated months of arguments with my father. It was not something that was welcome and it's early. You talk in the book about your, on the title. You talk about being a

corporate tool. You worked, you went to business school and you worked for GE in the 1980s.

“Talk about that experience. I think you described it as soul crushing. What was so soul crushing”

about that as a young man? You know, it's funny. That's the phrase that, um, the people of us that have keyed in on, you know, businesses are real vocation for a lot of people. I want to start out by saying that and probably a lot of your listeners work in some sort of business. Right. And many of my friends at general electric, formerly great company now sort of split up and, you know, more or less, uh, atomized into several different parts, uh, continued with their careers

at general electric for years, you know, and just right through their retirement. And, um, you know, contributed to the common good and live fulfilling lives. And, but it just wasn't for me. And, uh, you know, I talk about, um, episodes in the book where I ran into situations where, you know, people were pretty immoral. And again, that doesn't mean everyone was immoral. Most people were great people and very kind, nice, and moral. But there was enough immoral behavior

and emphasis on the bottom line. Sometimes cruelty that it made me question, you know,

what I was doing there. And eventually, I thought, I can't stand anymore. This is not for me. And that same season you intersected with the work of Thomas Merton. Was that your introduction to

“the thought of a, of a deeper spiritual Catholic life or, or was that percolating beforehand?”

That's a good way of saying that. Uh, I would say that as I say in the book, the book's pretty lighthearted, um, to the summer jobs kind of fun. But the book takes a bit of a turn when a friend of mine was killed in a thought of a bill accident. Uh, when we were, I, what we were both juniors and, um, college at the University of Pennsylvania. And I stopped believing in God, or to stop going to church and just said, I'm not going to believe in God that kills my friends.

Until I ran into a friend of mine who was evangelical Christian at the time. And I told her sort of with some anger that I didn't believe in God anymore. I remember exactly where it happened. And she said, uh, well, I've been using the last few months to thank God for Brad's life, not was the name of our friend. And you know, to be honest, that was kind of the ship from me,

from an evangelical Christian who basically, uh, without saying it this way,

invited me to move from a transactional understanding of God. Right. If I do this, God will do that. Into an understanding of God, as I said, uh, believe in a God that I may not understand.

Martin, the Travis month, it was a invitation into, I would say a sort of, uh, a sort of

serious adult Christianity thing. No, because I think when I was at least when I was young, it was all about, you know, if I do the right thing, if I'm a good boy, God will reward me.

“Right. And so that I think life is a little more complex than that.”

Yeah, I think a lot of folks listening to this are going to have had a similar experience, maybe not as tragic that awaken them, but a realization that the, the transactional faith, or in some evangelical circles, we might talk about the, the prosperity gospel kind of posture, eventually breaks down. It just doesn't work. And you enter into a kind of holy agnosticism, where there's a sacredness who put you're going, I don't understand this thing anymore.

And I don't know where to go with it. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, we see so many examples of good people who suffer, right, and good people who suffer. We talk about prosperity. I mean, sometimes it's connected to simple financial gain, but we see plenty of situations where very good people very developed, very fearful and very faithful people all on hard times. And it's not because they did something. I, you know, there's that great, uh,

“scene. I think it's John nine, where, you know, who's sin lord that this man was born right. He says no one.”

So I would say that's that's that should be enough of Jesus is telling us that that should be enough. So when I was a college student, I started a comparative religion in history at a state university, and I was kind of wandering in my own faith at the time, having come from more of a Baptist sort of evangelical background. And through a philosophy professor, I started reading more Catholics beginning with, I think Henry now and was the first one that I kind of found. But that

led me down a whole strange trail of Saint John of the Cross, Ignatius Loyola, Thomas Acampus, even more contemporaries like Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II. I was a great expansion of my understanding of things. You end up as a Jesuit, which is a tradition that I was super intrigued

by even as a college student, although I never considered converting to Catholicism or entering

the priesthood. What was it about Jesuit spirituality that drew you? Well, you know, that makes it sound like I sort of did some sort of search. But it was kind of providential. I came into contact with the writings of Thomas Merden. I was miserable at GE, and that sort of gave me a way out, and I thought, my gosh, maybe I'd like to be a priest or a monk or join a religious order. And I talked to my local parish priest, to I had never talked to.

I mean, I listen to his homilies and said, nice homily on the way out. But I went up to him one day,

“and I said, I think I'd like to be a priest. And he said, you should talk to the local”

diocese, the local, you know, Catholic, you know, geographic organization, where there's a seminary. And he said, you might as well talk to the Jesuits at Fairfield University, which was up the street, I was loving in Stanford, Connecticut. I mean, that was just in the side. You know, you might as well talk there close by. And I met them, and they seemed to, it seemed to click with me. Now, in a lot of other situations, Catholics who join religious orders do an extensive

search. They look at the Franciscans, the Benedictins, the Dominicans, these are naming some Catholic religious orders. And then they discern with them. I just found the Jesuits clicked with me,

and, you know, really never look back. So, really was providence. Now, what drew me was that Jesuits

can do lots of things. So, I'm the writer, I work in a magazine, and I'm a priest as well. I celebrate mass, and, you know, the sacraments and all that and preach. But it's kind of a priest slash this friend, who I have a friend who works, he's the Catholic Chapel, and it's saying funson. I have another friend who works with the refugees on the border, I'm a refugees of migrants. So, I like that, that they did. What keeps me, though, is who they are, and our spiritual

reality of really finding not in all things. Yeah, your journey, though, very different than mine, I went to seminary, became a local church pastor, but always loved writing, ended up working at Christianity today magazine for 11 years, and right? Great. And so, I get the idea of wanting a form of faith that it can express itself in different forms, and you're doing a lot of great communicating. One of the things that intrigued me about the Jesuit order, and still does,

and loyal, and some of the things is not just the mystical spirituality side of it, which is meaningful, but in a weird way, it struck me as kind of Protestant. Yeah, you know, that's kind of great. I love that. Well, because when I read the Protestant Reformers, a lot of what I was reading was a desire to break down the divide between the sacred and the secular. To see all things, as holy, all calling as vocations, true callings from the Lord, that the creation itself and all the

Evangelicalism, there was this kind of weird, strict bifurcation between sacred things and secular

things. And when I read the Protestant Reformers, I know they're breaking that barrier down a lot, and then I read some Jesuits and going, well, yeah, they had this kind of integrated vision of the spiritual life that didn't bifurcate the world into these buckets. So is that, am I accurately reflecting Jesuit? Well, you're doing right now. You are kind of blowing my mind in a good way. Okay. And a good way. Let me tell you why. Ignatius said Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits,

the 1491, the 1556, started the Jesuits to help souls that was the kind of general way we looked at it. But they are often miscategorized as starting the Jesuits or Ignatius is often miscategorized. It's starting the Jesuits to counter the reformation. Right. And so when you talk about the counter reformation itself and the Jesuits, the Baroque, all this kind of stuff. And just as an aside,

he never saw himself as doing that. I mean, he opposed Martin Luther and all this stuff.

“But, you know, it was all the graphics that back then. But I think you're right.”

I think that one of the things that Ignatius came into sort of trouble for was just that, you know, that the secular and the sacred were sort of together, that you could communicate with God without going through a priest, right, which is really interesting just to think about. So I think he did have a lot in common with the reformers. And essentially was in a sense reforming the church, you know, kind of from the inside out. Right. But yeah, the spirituality of the Jesuits is

finding God in all things. And that means not simply in church and in the sacrament setting the Bible, but in relationships and nature and music and art, in work, right in family, of course. And yeah, I think that I think that's a really interesting insight that you just made. So you kind of blew my mind in a good way. Well, it's part of why I've enjoyed your writing so much because you and you do this for so many, you are this, well, you're a priest, you're a bridge between

the church and the world or between Jesuit thought and people outside of that tradition and you do a great job at it. I'm going to talk a little bit about your functioning in that role as a mediator of sorts for the church in our culture. We've had Ryan Burgeon this podcast a lot. He's a friend of ours. He's a sociologist of religion and former Baptist minister. And he writes in the New York times all over the place about, is there a religious revival happening or not? And he and I've talked

endlessly about this. And he keeps saying to me, there is no data that shows any movement on this front. There's no increase in church attendance. There's nothing that we're seeing yet in the numbers. And yet I've talked to a number of people who anecdotally say, there's something happening right now. What's your take on that? It's so funny to bring this up because everyone talks about this. The young people are going to church, they're flooding churches.

And anecdotally, I see it. And I hear especially from my Jesuit brothers who are working in Catholicologists who are saying, oh my gosh, the 10 o'clock mass on Sunday is packed. And I just talked to someone last night who said, you know, up at Columbia University, they're baptizing like 18 Catholics and whatever the number was. It was a lot. And so anecdotally, I hear that. And then I just yesterday, I saw this study that said, no, Gen Z, are not going back to church. That's

completely false. Here's the data. So hi, I don't know what to believe. Maybe it's

“maybe it's sort of geographic. Maybe it's confined to colleges and universities. And that's why I'm”

hearing it because Jesuits do so much working colleges, universities. I would say anecdotally, I hear it a great deal. I have a good friend who works in campus ministry of Georgetown University at another one that works at Boston College, both Jesuit, outfit schools. And they tell me this, that, you know, 10 years ago, it was not packed, right, at mass. So maybe it's just colleges. But again, I literally just saw yesterday this thing saying, that's baloney. Here's this statistic.

So who knows, maybe it's maybe it's in particular places and among particular people. I certainly think there's a hunger among younger people. I call it, um, someone mentioned this to me, a scholar,

post-secular. I really love this. So first we had sort of, we could take, you know, post-faith,

or post-religion, where people kind of felt fall it fell away. You have the nuns, people who don't

“have any denomination. Then you have the nuns, people have just done what everything. But I think”

it's kind of post-secular now. People are finding that secularity or secularism doesn't really do it for them. If you have a little bit of finger on what it is about secularism that is coming up empty, or maybe in conversations you've had either with young people or priest, what are they hearing? Yeah, sure. And I don't mean to be glib at all. This is going to sound like a

a fundamental desire for God. And I think when that is not satisfied, you know, as Lugaspins said,

"Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord." And, you know, there's a reason why I always

say that the crowd for pressing it on Jesus. It wasn't simply his preaching and his healing. It was it was him. There's a desire for God. There's a desire for the divine. And so I think that's the main thing. But then I also think that two things going on. I think people are craving identity. I

“hear that word a lot. They want an identity. And that's why I'm on Catholics. It's often more”

traditional ways of expressing the faith. More of sort of outward going towards churches and parishes that foster that more of outward signs of identity. They're, they're looking for community. And then also I think in kind of difficult times, not to get, I'm not going to get political all, but you're welcome to have tough. These are all tried by Vesna too. These are, let's say, divisive times. Yeah. And people are really looking for something that is solid and that is

grounded. And then finally, I think they're looking for a sense of awe and mystery. That's

what I hear from young people. But they want, you know, for the Catholics that are joining, it's like, I want something that goes back to Jesus. I want something that's firm. I want something that's clear. I want an identity. I want a community. So those are kinds of things I'm here. I agree. I think that, and this is all anecdotal as well, the lack of guidance that secularity offers, I think, as a factor. In a world where there are, it's moving so quick. And

there are endless decisions that people have to make all the time far more than there used to be. There's a desire for some wisdom or guidance maybe from the past and religion offers that to a lot of folks. But on the flip side of that, I'm sure you've seen the data. And this is not unique to the Catholic Church. It's just as prevalent in Protestant and evangelical traditions. People come in for various reasons. But then they do the cafeteria thing and they decide which parts of

this they want and which ones they don't. Is that, is that counter the benefits if people are just coming and going, "Well, I want some structure to my life and my spirituality and my sense of meaning and purpose, but I don't want that part." But I want that. Yeah. This is a great conversation because I think that's part of it, right? I think that to a certain degree, all of us are in my faith, cafeteria, it happens. There's some things that we don't like. If you're a conservative,

you don't like this and that. If you're progressive, you don't like this and that. So I think it's a struggle for Catholics to accept all of it. Now the fundamentals, we all accept, you know, the creed, we all stand up and say the creed every Sunday. But I think there's also something else that's a challenge, which is this. I think that sometimes when people enter the church, at least the Catholic church, looking for black and white answers, right? It removes a sense of

mystery to the faith. And also look, the faith is an encounter with a person with Jesus Christ, right, who's risen through and we encounter Jesus, the risen one through the spirit. That's how I say it. And that's a mystery. And so to say that, you know, to be Catholic or even Christian, means just ticking all these boxes. You know, like if I believe this, this, and this, then I'm Christian.

“I think removes the mystery. And I think that's what we see a lot of online, which is this,”

I see you're helping me kind of formulate this in my mind. What we see online is, well, if you don't believe in these 50 boxes that I take, you're a bad Catholic or you're a bad Christian. Versus, like looking at it as a relationship, right? I mean, there's some fundamentals we have to believe, but I think it's can sometimes get oil down to just these sort of statements of belief.

And I always say to people, you know, Jesus, you know, Jesus didn't come out of the, you know,

like Nazareth as a book. He's a person, it's a mystery. It's a reason for that. And I think that sometimes it's hard for people to kind of accept that. And the other thing is that even sort of more difficult to understand is the spirit. And then the Holy Spirit's still here, right? And so what's the spirit? And that's frightening. I think to people who want to just just for black and white. That's the challenge, I think. Oh, entirely. In my tradition,

one of the besetting sins is we tend to exchange a communion with the Holy Spirit for engagement

“with the Holy Book. And I think the scriptures are inspired and an incredibly important gift that”

God has given us a window through which we see him more clearly. And, you know, I'm I'm proud of sitting in my approach to the scriptures. And yet, I know so many people in my tradition who know chapter and verse, know the doctrines, know the teachings of scripture who lack a genuine communion with the Holy Spirit. Yeah, and what does that mean to you,

me. Well, I, to your point, it's not about intellectual agreement with a set of beliefs

it's about communion with God through his indwelling Spirit. And that fostering of intimacy with God, that is a mystery. And, you know, there's that wonderful scene in John 4 where Jesus is interacting with the Samaritan woman by the well. And the Samaritans and Jews had a fundamental disagreement

“of doctrine and theology of, do you worship in Jerusalem or do you worship him out gears him?”

And Jesus says, Hey, Father wants you to worship him in spirit and truth, not on this mountain or that mountain. And when I was a younger man, I was foolish enough to think that what Jesus meant by truth there was doctrinal truth. Like you got to get your doctrine figured out. And that can't possibly be what he meant because they had a doctrinal difference with Samaritans.

I think what he means there and this is backed up by other stories, I think he meant honesty

telling the truth about yourself to reveal before him who you truly are. And then, of course, he goes on to have a conversation with this woman, how she was hiding the truth of herself and all the different husbands she'd had and things like that. And so I know people who know doctrinal truth and will confess those doctrines, but are unwilling to admit the truth about themselves and come before God. And I think the Catholic Church has a great advantage in this area because

you regularly practice the discipline of confession, which is admitting the truth about ourselves. And in many Protestant traditions, we've ignored that well, I confess my sins once and I'm

“forgiven. I don't have to deal with that anymore. I think that's a short-sighted vision of what intimacy with”

God requires. But anyway, let me respond. Yeah, please. Really, really interesting. I want to say

two things. Really interesting. First, when you think about the Samaritans and woman,

you know, Jesus sits, it's Mount Garrison for the Samaritans and it's the temple for for the Jews, of course. And of course, for Jesus, right? I also think he's saying, you know, I'm in front of you, right? And so I'm here now, right? And so I don't abrogate the Old Testament, but it's me, totally, you know, I am the living, I am the living water. So I think that's fascinating, too. So it's another reminder that it's him, that we're that we're supposed to worship. But you

think, you know, in my tradition, I would also say this about the Holy Spirit that without an understanding of the Holy Spirit at work, we fail to discern the signs of the times. Like, what is the, just to say, what is the Spirit asking us to do to convey about the realm of blank? And if you just have sort of blank or white answers of things, you sort of are unable to discern what the Holy Spirit which is alive. I mean, there's a reason why Jesus sends it on Pentecost, alive with us and encouraging

“us to do things. And I think that's what's challenging. And in the church, in the Catholic church,”

this might be a little too incite-based, but, you know, Pope Francis was really big on discernment and where's the Spirit? And one of the pushbacks to Pope Francis in the Catholic church was, boy, boy, way to, way to, why do we need all that? We have all these rules already. And the critique against him was, oh, you're just saying anything goes, right? And his point was no more listening to the Spirit, which is active in alive in the church, which includes being active in alive in everyone,

not just the Pope and Cardinals and Bishops, but everyone. And that was really threatening to people. So it's been, I think what you're raising is really important. And of course, by the way, can I tell you something funny, one of my college professors or theology professors used to say, we have a, in ploverished understanding of the Holy Spirit, you know, which is the primary way, we, that I believe that we encounter God today, in the Spirit. And he said, I'm sure you've heard this.

He said, in those Catholics, think of the old man, Jesus and the bird. And we need to get past that, you know, old man, Jesus and the bird. Yeah, we do need to get past that. Going back to John four in the Samaritan woman in the whole, I love that you brought up the fact that Jesus say, no, I'm here. I, because I've been writing about, I write a daily devotional online called with God daily. And for months and months and months, I've been doing a series on temple theology,

from the Old Testament, into the New Testament. And John four is a brilliant text where, you're right, Jesus is essentially saying, I am the new temple. I am where God dwells on earth right now. And you know, so it's, it's such a rich, beautiful theology. And then you get into the epistles and seeing how the Spirit comes in the church now, the people of Christ are his temple. And the presence of God. And it's a whole world, at least in my Protestant communities,

we don't think about that in any meaningful way. And I think it leaves us with an impoverished vision of both of the Holy Spirit. And our vocation and calling is God's temple in the world now. Well, and the other thing I love about that story, that's one of my favorite stories. And one of the things I love about it is that he's saying this to someone who's completely on the march. That's right. And I'm sure you know this, you know, she's at the well at 12 o'clock,

the hottest time of the day, not with the other women, probably because she's been ostracized because she's been married five times. So he's saying this. And of course, then the

love is that he's saying this is someone who's been above the ounce. And he's bringing her in his sense into the new temple, right? This woman who is on the ounce from the Jews and on the ounce from her own people, which is just great. It's just, it's just such a perfect story. I love that we're geeking out together about a Bible story. And to riff off of that, when Jesus talks in that same text about how he's spring of living water, he's quoting from Old Testament

prophetic passages about a new temple coming about the temple, right? And that waters will flow from this new temple and fill the earth and bring life wherever it goes. And here he is bringing himself the new temple to this woman outside of Israel. And welcome you here into this new fellowship that is being grown through his presence. And it's just, there's so much rich theology there, including the very practical reality of we as his followers are to be reaching out to those

on the margins, which brings me to another topic. I want to get to you before we run out of time. There's a lot going on in our world right now. There's, there's a lot of Christians who are at least

“Christian and name in Voking Jesus and scripture and the church to advocate for things that I think”

you and I would agree are antithetical to the way of Jesus. Despite the anecdotal evidence that more young people are wanting to come into faith and seeking the church, how are you navigating your public role in having to advocate for the values of the church and the faith at a time when so many seem to want to be doing the opposite without just becoming political and combative and divisive by focusing on the gospels. And so if questions come up about people in the margins

by focusing on truly the woman at the well, for example, or the Roman centauri, or Zacchaeus, or someone with leprosy. And Pope Francis had this really great line that I go back to all

the time. And one of his gifts, he was the Jesuit, like I am. The first Jesuit Pope, I'm probably

the last, that's the joke, because he kind of shook things off so much. He said that we are called to form people's consciences, not replace them. So I just love that. And that is what Jesus does at times with his parables. So what does that mean? That means when you were an eyeer talking about the woman at the well and talking about Jesus of the living water and saying that he appeared to someone or he encountered someone who's on the margins, right? I think it's enough to say that and

to let people draw their own conclusions about what's going on politically today. Rather than me, or you saying both for this person are don't vote for that person, that's replacing consciences. And also Jesus did that. And how did Jesus do that? When he is asked to his my neighbor, right? He doesn't say you're the ten things to make up a neighbor. He doesn't give like a power point presentation. He tells the story, right? The man goes down to Jericho. He tells the story,

“you know, the good Samaritan. He's helping people form their own consciences. And so that's what”

I try to do. I try to stay away, but you know, so I'm not going to say names or parties or whatnot, unless I may ask it for us, right? But I think it's about just focus on the gospels. And you know, that should be powerful enough, right? I am really, I think Jesus is like, I think Jesus is words, I know I'm more important than mine or yours. Amen to that. I'm impressed when I hear folks like you and others who are public facing Christians who often have a platform in secular media.

When you do get into those environments and talk simply about there's what Jesus said.

Here's what Jesus did. Here's what we see in the gospels. How your interviewer or the

secular audience that's engaged in it, like they lean in. People are genuinely drawn to the beauty and goodness of Christ and the gospel. And when I see so many others in the culture or on social media, especially who are hammering them over the head with what they think is Christian truth, they lean back and they're just like, I'm not. Well, that's really insightful. You know what

“I think is going on. Number one, I think whoever the interviewer is or the journalist is, I think”

as you and being, they themselves have a desire for even if they don't recognize it and they instead of themselves atheist or agnostic. It's there. Second, I think that many of them are Christian.

And so they can't do that. And they understand that and they know those passages. And third,

I think it's refreshing for people, right? To not say, you know, this person is whatever is terrible as evil. Just to say let's focus on Jesus and it's refreshing, I think. So it works spiritually. It's the right thing to do. But I think it also works, works strategically. To help people to invite people and said, Ignatius Loyola, one of the great lines from a founder

to be spoken to and as they can understand it and then bring them at your door. So encounter them

“where they are and then bring them out and talk to them about the gospels. You know? I mean,”

people where they are, which is what Jesus did. Indeed. Yeah. And then to echo what you said about Pope Francis's line about how did it go? We want to form. We're not meant. We're meant to form

conscience is not replaced them. It seems like such a hospitable and gentle approach. Chance.

Right, rather than, you know, the authoritarian. Well, look, you know, I and I love talking about

“Jesus as you can tell. I mean, Jesus says, I was like this, you know, Lord where do you stay,”

right? And, and, and, and, and John and Jesus says, come and see. He doesn't say, come and see.

Or I'll punch you in the face, you know, or come and see. Or I'll, you know, you know, eradicate

your village. He just, it's an invitation. Come and see. And, you know, like the rich young man, they can come or not. So it's very gentle. Jesus is very gentle in his invitation too. Well, I want to gently invite you to stick around for a few more minutes for a bonus conversation that I want to have you. You, you, you've done a lot of advocacy for LGBTQ folks within the Catholic Church. I want to talk about what that looks like and why it looks so different in the Protestant and

evangelical traditions. And, and I have a lot I want to ask you about that. So thanks for being on our main show here. If you're a Holy Post plus subscriber stick around, we're going to have that bonus

“conversation coming through to you soon. Dr. James Martin, Father James Martin, are you a doctor also?”

I have honorary doctorates, but I don't think they're really. Oh, no, we'll Dr. Father James Martin. Thank you for being with us. The Holy Post podcast is a production of Holy Post media, produced by Mike Straylow, editing by Seth Gorvet. Help us create more thoughtful Christian media by subscribing to HolyPost Plus at HolyPost.com/plus. Also, be sure to leave a review on Apple podcasts, so more people can discover thoughtful Christian commentary, plus ukulele,

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