710: Iran, Immigration, & the Trouble with Certainty with Carrie McKean

Phil, Caitlyn, and Caitlyn Bady discussed the administration's shifting justifications for war,

“and why Christians should be cautious of language that makes it easier to dehumanize our enemies.”

Then they turn to the mass shooting in Austin, and the predictable scramble again to turn tragedy into political leverage. Then, Caitlyn interviews journalist Carrie McCain about why distressed in public health and debates over immigration are often far more complicated than our partisan categories allow. Also, this week, don't take selfies with snow lippards. Well, skies out of town this week, but if he were here, he would want you to know that you only have two more days to take advantage of a one week free trial of Holy Post Plus.

This week, we have a bonus interview with Carrie McCain, where she talks about how returning to West Texas and living through the COVID-19 pandemic expose the limits of her own stereotypes and challenge her to hold her opinions more loosely. It's a great interview, you're going to want to check it out along with all the other fantastic content we have on Holy Post Plus. Go to HolyPost.com/plus to take advantage of the one week free trial. Okay, here is episode 710. Hey there, welcome back to the Holy Post podcast. I'm Phil Visher. I am here with no sky. No sky today.

We got no sky to time me down, but we do have not one, but two Kaylands. Two Kaylands, what a world. When you trade out, you lose the sky and you gain a double dose of Caitlyn. Wow, I would love if this was all prepping for just me talking twice as much because so far, it seems like double Caitlyn just means I'll just switch between these two seats back and forth. I'll impersonate sky. Yeah, that's a wow. That would be interesting. That would be wild. That would be wild. It would be sunshine and then sadness.

We're here with Caitlyn Shes, you know, Caitlyn Shes. And you probably know her. She hasn't been here in a while, but she's been on the show quite a few times over the years. Caitlyn, baby. Hi, Caitlyn, baby.

Hi, Phil, another Caitlyn. Good to see you, always.

Good to see you, whatever you're on. This happened at least once before when it was the two Kaylands and me, maybe twice.

“Yeah, I think a couple of minutes. It always confuses me for how to address one of you and not both of you.”

We'll figure it out at the same time. I'm easily confused. This will be good for you. Two women too. It doesn't really really happen on the show. I know. I know. I don't know. And that's good for me. I think occasionally two women is good for me, though. For you. Yeah, I think you could use some raining in. Yeah, okay. This will rain me in. Yeah, we'll see. Okay. Okay. You know, Drew, Drew Dick. Do you know Drew Dick?

I'm familiar. Yeah, he posted a story suggestion on a flat. Yeah, I know that. There are too many boys that I'm not even going to do. Thank you. Cause it's gross. Thank you. And I don't shoot gross. Good. Is it? Do you not do news of the butt? I occasionally, but I try not to do gross ones, but this was kind of a gross one and I wasn't going to do it. Cause I'm a classy guy. I do, I do classy news of the butt. News, new classy news.

So do you have like animal news or something? I do have an animal news. It's like one. Yeah, but first we have to play a theme song.

Most. And sometimes other people. Holy Post is sponsored by World Relief. As we've talked about immigration policies and the displacement crisis on the show,

“maybe you've been wondering, what can I do right now to come alongside refugees and immigrants for the long haul?”

I got good news. Alongside compassionate people like you are trusted partner, World Relief, is helping families who've been forced to flee their homes because of war, violence and persecution, providing food, clean water, medical care and emergency support for those who've lost everything. And here in the US, refugees and immigrant neighbors are receiving housing support, English classes and job training so they can rebuild their lives. World Relief is making a difference

through the support of compassionate people like you. And monthly giving is especially powerful because

families need steady support, the kind that shows up when crises hit and stays long after the headlines fade. If you want your generosity to make a real lasting difference, start your monthly partnership today at worldelief.org/holypost. Again, that's worldelief.org/holypost. The Holy Post is sponsored by Better Help. This month will celebrate International Women's Day. Women have a day! Who knew? There's an African saying that says, "Women hold up half the sky."

And in my house, it's way more than that. My wife Lisa supports me. She supports our kids.

If you're a woman supporting a whole lot, who's supporting you?

“Lisa and I have both benefited from therapy to resolve conflict, set healthy boundaries,”

and better equip us to help the people that count on us. Better help will match you with a license therapist that can give you the support you need. They're the world's largest online therapy platform with an industry leading match fulfillment rate. And if you don't like your therapist, you can change at any time. Holding up half the sky is a lot easier when you're being held up to.

You're emotional well-being matters. Find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/holypost. That's BetterHELP.com/holypost. Would you like some animal news? Sure. This is important and I think both of you could apply this to your personal lives. Because you're both on social media, you both take selfies, you both like this. I don't, I was gonna say, "When have you seen a selfie?"

Both like, "I'm making stuff up. Just let me go." Okay. Well, let me set up my story better. You both love to see celebrities or interesting things and run up to them and take a selfie with them.

“Okay. I think I've described you both to a team. Right. You should not do that to a snow leopard.”

Oh. Can I just say that? I wasn't going to, but I'd like to hear more. Snow leopard, malls, skier, who approached it for a selfie. Malls as in kills? No, did not kill. Did not kill. Just chewed on a little bit. Just chewed on a little bit. A woman's skiing in, I don't know how to pronounce this province of China was rushed to the hospital on the night of January 23rd after a snow leopard

attacked her while she's now in stable condition. There are photos and video of the attack from other skiers, service a grim reminder to admire wildlife from a distance. Well, if you see a snow leopard or a bear or a buffalo, why do so many of us have the instinct? She got within three meters of the snow leopard to try to get her selfie. Honestly, I feel like the most shocking thing about the story is that it was a woman. Because I do feel like I hear this all the time and I go,

I would never get close to that wild animal. And it's usually a man. I've heard stories of women

getting too close to buffalo. Because you look at everything, well, not you, because, you know, you're sensible. You're very smart. But you look at things like, oh, it's so cute. Oh, look at the cute. Hello. A lot of animals are bigger than you think. They are bigger than you think. And they're not as friendly as you've been led to believe by movies. A cartoon. Yeah. But if you watch a lot of Disney movies, you're pretty sure that every animal wants to hug you. Yeah, they're not

successful. Sing you a song. And in reality, that's not accurate. Caitlin, other Caitlin,

“have you ever had a run in with a wild animal that that frightened you that could have gone bad?”

Well, how much time do you have? I don't know. Have you ever been attacked by a squirrel?

I've never been attacked by a squirrel. I haven't been attacked by birds before. So I'm a bird

watcher. So in the spring, I love going out and, you know, looking for migratory birds. Sure. But one thing you learn quickly is not to get close to an area where birds are breeding or have their nests because they certain species become very protective. Understandably, it's their instinct to have a texture young. And so I have been dive-bombed by birds. Oh, it's very interesting. Did you hear about the guy who trained harassed crows in his neighborhood while

wearing a MAGA hat to train the crows to attack anyone. I don't, I don't think we should do that. I don't think I'm happy to go on record. Yeah. Yeah, just put this in an interesting idea. It's an interesting idea. It's a head like Dylan News and Dylan it. We should not train animals to attack people based on their ideological views. Yeah, hot. Although neonazi, maybe neonazi, like, you know, I don't. I just, I gross. It's the instrumentalization of God's creatures,

even more than the harm of the human. Like the harm of the human concerns me, but it's also the like the method. So you're worried about the crow. The crow didn't ask for that. And in any emotional damage that would be done when the crow wakes up to realize he's been in, let's get his channel partisan battle. Okay, I hear you. Wait, Phil, you have you ever been attacked by a wild animal?

countries. Oh, wow. That's not true. No. Although I do have a scratch on my arm from my dog.

So there we go. Okay, we have to, um, the little kitty light would be blinking if it was working, but it's not working. So it's not blinking. So, but I sense it now. Yeah. I've internalized. I've internalized. I suppose he's trained you. The little kitty light, so that I sense it when Mike wants it to be blinking,

“to tell me, to move to the next story. And it's a great story. We're at war. Did you hear about this?”

Yeah, yeah, I did. I've been here for over the weekend. It's Monday. We're now we seem to be, did you think that like this was a foregone conclusion that we were going to attack Iran? Trump had said it, but it didn't seem like the kind of history. He's not a man of his work, but it did seem in the direction of the kind of thing he would do. Like it was something that he wanted to happen. Yeah. There had been reports for the last several weeks about this military build-up.

Yes. And so, and it also seems to be the case, and I'm not a foreign policy expert,

but the Trump administration in its second term is really focused on things happening abroad,

much to the chagrin of a lot of Trump's space, because part of the platform for both of his

“administrations has been kind of America first. Why are we spending all of these resources?”

Foreign entanglement, it's not in our interest to have. This is a, you know, foreign entanglement of a large magnitude. Yeah. And I think whether you think, you know, the attack was well, reasoned or not, it seems like we don't quite know, even the Trump administration doesn't know what the fallout will be or is not prepared to address the fallout on a on a more ground level. So there are a lot of expat Iranians in the U.S. that are celebrating, because this is

guy is a bad guy. And he's the reason sometimes their parents had to flee the country and, and, you know, travel around the world and start new lives. So there are a lot of people celebrating and so you have mixed feelings, you know, like, well, it's good that he's not there anymore. And there's a chance for, and look how happy these people are. So maybe that's a good thing,

“but at the same time, how often is this, the business we're in?”

Of, you know, it just, we, we did it in Venezuela less dramatically, but I remember when, when we took out Maduro and Venezuela, that's the guy's name, right, Maduro? I think so. I think so. That other Caitlin, you think is Maduro? Yes. Yeah, okay. Thank you. And it wasn't, you know, it's, I just tweeted, regime changes back on the menu, I guess. But they're saying this isn't regime regime change. There's, so I don't, but they're also saying,

hey, hate Iranians rise up and change your regime, right, right? Yourself. And I, so I don't really know how to think about it. And we still haven't heard a compelling rationale for why it needed to happen other than some that were blatantly false, like one member, the, the administration saying they were two weeks away from enough nuclear material, which is that they're not or that they were close to an ICBM that could hit the US, which they're

not the best we know their years away from all that. So I don't know. I don't know. And a lot of people on the right are like feeling very ambivalent. Yeah. I thought we were against this, but I don't want to be against our guy. So maybe I'm for this. Yeah, I mean, particularly the vice president is now facing a lot of, got, uh, screenshots from, he wrote an op-ed in the lawsuit journal in 2023 saying,

basically no more foreign wars. So, um, I think it shows the length to which Trump's loyal

supporters and members of his administration will go to support and justify things that they are previously on record as not supporting or justifying. Yeah. I mean, there's also the very, I don't know if we want to, you know, we're talking about war and I, you're on if we want to get even darker, or as dark we can talk about is this a distraction from the Epstein files. Yeah, my wife asked me that.

to continue picking through the, you know, 3.5 million documents that were released a couple

“weeks ago, but I think the Trump administration can expect some people to kind of look”

a scant at big consequential decisions like this and say, is this supposed to distract from something else? Right. I don't know what to do with that. Do you just ignore that or do you take it seriously? How do you, I don't know. How do you assign motive when they started bombing boats in the Caribbean? It was reportedly because internally they decided they wanted to take action and it needed to be kinetic meaning it needed to blow things up. Yeah. That was that not diplomatic blow things up action.

And it, and it seems like the people in the administration really like, you know, those shows of force. Let's say there's a, there's a kind of focus on the optics of something. How something looks how the optics of and loud something looks. Yeah, the optics of seeing

“your cabinet members bench pressing rather than reading books on. And that's an image I'll never”

be able to get out of my mind. Yeah. Yeah. This is like a very exaggerated version of something we've

talked about a million times, which is there was so much rationale in the, in every election that

Trump has been a part of to say, well, we just need to get things done. The character of the person who gets it done doesn't really matter or their methods or their temperament or their posture and doesn't really matter as long as they're for our goals. This is a great example of things that we said in the lead up to all of those elections, which was you have no idea what kinds of catastrophes or risks or dangers will end up being central to a presidency. If you don't put

someone in there that has the kind of character where you're not at least constantly. I mean,

every presidency has the issue of is this distracting from something else or another. When you put

someone in office, who is that, you know, fickle and unprincipled, you're going to end up in a situation where you both don't, you both don't know what they will do for what reasons and you're not at all wrong for assuming some of the worst motivations for those things. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. In reaction to that, there was a what appears to be in reaction to that. There was a mass shooting in Austin. Day before yesterday, a 53-year-old Senegalese immigrant wearing a

property of Alah shirt shot up a bar popular with University of Texas College students, two people were killed and also the shooter, who was 53, been in the U.S. for 20 years, was a naturalized citizen, had no criminal record. But immediately, of course, people, every time there's a mass shooting, we try to figure out who, who, how can we work this to our, yeah, we fit it into our preconceived political ideas. Chip Roy, Texas representative immediately called on Congress to pass legislation,

the he wrote that would halt nearly all legal immigration, Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas called for no more Islamic immigration. Senator Kornin of Texas, said radical Islam, has no place in Texas and our country, Governor Greg Abbott didn't call for a blanket and on immigration, but he urged an end to the current open immigration policies. Now again, this is someone who had been here for 20 years, came legally and naturalized as a citizen. Democrats in Texas,

of course, called for more gun control laws, past efforts have failed with Republican leaders instead loosening fire arm regulations. Oh, you are more gun control laws. We'll give you less gun control. Yeah. Laws, ha, ha, see if you make that mistake again. There's been so much and, you know, I'm on Twitter somewhat. I didn't know if you knew that. That was a weird about me. But there's just an immediate blaming of Islam overall, the entire religion, all that there should be

no Muslims in the US, you know, particularly Texas, which I guess has a growing Muslim population and locals successfully voted to block the construction of a new mosque. They didn't want it,

“so you can't build it here. Kailin, other Kailin. Yeah. Do you, are you, do you follow this at all?”

Just the, the kind of the, the moods against various out groups and which one, which one should we

Unfortunately, just given the high rate of mass shootings in the US, it is become axiomatic

that anytime there is a mass shooting, there's an immediate attempt to discover this person's motives, but also discover their identity. In this case, you know, the, the shooter

“was kind of explicitly stating their motives. I think from their, they're clothing, but in”

other cases, we don't, we don't have a clear motive, or the person doesn't fit into neat ideological categories, or they're not necessarily, don't seem to be ideologically motivated. I do have to kind of do some self-reflection regarding that impulse, because I remember in 2018, there was a shooting in Texas where the shooter had been found to espouse all sorts of kind of Trumpy mug-a-fueled hate toward immigrants at some of the things on the internet.

Yeah, the El Paso shooting at the Walmart. And yes, and immediately, I, you know, took to the social media and drew a link between our current president's rhetoric toward immigrants and this person's

actions. And I don't always know if it's that, and I got a lot of pushback from Trump's

“supporters saying, like, how dare you blame the president for these actions. So I don't, I don't always”

know what meaningful connection we can or should draw between someone's beliefs and someone's actions. Yeah. I will say for Texas Republican leaders to call for a ban on Islamic immigration, or immigration from Islamic countries, is this intention with their pretty strong commitment to gun rights and gun ownership? Yeah, Kaylin, do you guys actually studied world religions more than I have? Me too, it's a bummer that it's a bummer. Thanks, Kaylin. He's on a busy lane with his wife

somewhere. He's at a point. He's in a nursery. He wants somewhere warm. Yeah. Kuwait, I think. That's probably a mistake. It's funny reading this. And hearing y'all talk right now is making me think, no, and I have been watching the West Wing. He's never seen it. And I have watched it a bajillion times. And we

just got to the first episode. I've never seen it until and truly you have. I have not seen the

West Wing. It was a TV show. It was just another TV show. You hadn't seen Star Wars till like a minute ago, so I'm really still. I really don't want to hear it. Anyway, you. Yeah, I love the West Wing. The start of the third season, the first episode is so weird until

“you remember that it was their first episode to come out post 9/11. Because you've got this”

whole trajectory with the president, whether he's going to run again, there's all this drama, the season ends in a cliffhanger. And then the first episode is like this very like somewhat dedactic like kind of cringy lesson about religious toleration and terrorism. And then you go, oh, they had to do something. They're doing a political show. The thing that I actually found really moving about it that relates to this is they're trying to hold this kind of moderate line.

That whole show you remember how we used to be able to say like the right hasn't pointed about something, the left hasn't pointed about something like that whole show in somewhat an overly optimistic kind of sentimental way. That was the critique of the show that's often true. But it is also true that like I appreciate the kind of just sincerity of like what if we just tried to do good things and politics and we you know. And in this episode, one of the things they're doing is they're

trying to say like yes, religious extremism and terrorism are a threat to people's lives. We should take the seriously also. Don't blame all of Islam and every Muslim person you know for this violence and they compare it to to say that that extremism is the same as all of Islam is to say that the KKK is all of Christianity. So they're doing all of that. But one of the things that I thought was really Christian actually about that episode is that when they're pressed on the

violence and in this episode there's a bunch of college students kind of asking these folks that work in the in the White House you know all of their policy questions about terrorism and Islamic extremism. And one of the things they say is at the end of the day, all of this evil and violence is nonsense. Like you can't make it make sense even with a religious or an ideological doctrine. And that's a

forget is that to KKK on this point like yes, you you can find some lines but you always want to be

kind of humble and uncertain about how to bring you know the policy or the ideology straight into this kind of violence. But at the end of the day Christians, many Christians throughout history have said on some level if creation is good and violence is the corruption of creation or the absence of being then it's core evil and violence is nonsense. Like trying to make sense of it

“is to give it a dignity that it is not owed. It is always absurd for it to actually happen. And I think”

there needs to be a dose especially when politicians are always picking like how do I fit this into the preconceived political ideology I already had for Christians to say we should respond with some analysis it's not you know like we can't wonder what policies or conditions or cultural things are making this more or less likely. But at the end of the day there needs to be some amount of throwing our hands up and just going if you go and shoot people willy-nilly on some

level don't try to make sense of that it's impossible. Yeah okay when when Trump says in describing our new our new war that we're killing wicked men and our cause is righteous. So when that

language has never been misused. Yeah and and for Christians American Christians that almost

you know instinctively has a positive not like makes me feel good about America. Right. You know yeah our cause is righteous because it's freedom and stop it's freedom and not not getting shot at by bad guys like the bad guys are always wicked and there's all the bad guys are always wicked. And we're always righteous. Yeah. We're always the good guys so so other Caitlin um what how did you how do you react when you hear that. Skeptically I mean. Skeptically you think he believes

it or is it language he's adopted from his. Phil you're asking me to discern the mind of Trump. Yes please. If I could have successfully done this I would be a billionaire by now. I would have published that thing. Yeah. Anyway just you know send comment Trump's brain to get a

“DM link to my article explaining it. Um yeah I mean we I think it's fair to point out that”

most US presidents Democrat Republican have used moral even religiously. Evil viewers. When when when Bush picked up evil doers to describe our enemies in the Middle East and how much was how much is that idea influenced by our our association and affiliation with Israel because Israel is obviously the good guys because their God's chosen people so it's very easy to make a case that they they can't be wicked because their God's chosen people and if we know anything from the Old Testament

was going to say the Israelites never did anything wicked. The Bible's got something to say about that. But

but that feeds into this Christian narrative that you know we have to those are wicked people because they oppose God's people and we're the friend of God's people so our cause is righteous. That makes sense. Right that only make that's just logic, Katelyn. Well I just don't think any US president would of course the US president is going to offer moral rationale for going to war. Putting aside like the causes of the um of the conflict or the historical contacts or actions

from the US government that has precipitated the conflict that's currently happening overseas in some other country. So I don't think it's a Republican or Democrat like I don't think it's a Republican only thing. I'll say that to kind of offer vaguely Christian certainly moralistic framing to justify going to war. Yeah exactly. The Iranians talk about us. You know that they're it's a holy war against the great Satan. We're the evil one. I just think you know

“is everyone right just in their own eyes? It's I think I've read that somewhere. Like really early”

on in this long book that I picked up a while ago. It's like one of the first things that the author says. No I think that that language makes me squeamish just because of how easy it is to think that our nation is always doing the right thing and how good it feels for us from an ego

that language for actually unholy or like at least morally imbivalent or ambiguous. And it makes it so much easier to dehumanize your enemy when you simply describe them as wicked or evil.

First Katelyn you have any thoughts? I agree with all of that. What we do about that.

I mean it's to Katelyn's point it's it's both universal like I think of Biden you know quoting here I am Lord send me to talk about the US military like it is it's universal across the political spectrum. There's also a not horrible like human impulse at the heart of it which is like like sky has said before no one wants to be I forget what he what phrase he is but like no one wants to be the big bad evil guy like everyone wants to believe they're doing the right thing and if you

find yourself in a position where you feel whether it's because of your loyalty to the president or

“because of the position you hold in the government that you have to be in support of something”

the way that you like you on said feel better about doing it is to say well this is what's justified under these circumstances they're the big bad and we're the good guys and and it's easier to see that in very exaggerated circumstances than it is in my own life but I am prone to do that in all sorts of ways and it's a lot harder to figure out what it would look like to genuinely have the kind of humility that says it is ambiguous like and even in terms

of our participation in the political system like we've talked about on the show a million times

whoever we are electing whatever policies we're supporting there are some that in in particular historical moments will just be stark moral choices yeah slavery is wrong like the abolitionist

“who said I'm not really compromising on that those are good things but most of our political”

choices live in this space of ambiguity and it's it's really hard to consistently have the posture of I'm not the unambiguous good guy my opponents are not the unambiguous bad guys I'm going to have to try and work with them I'm going to have to figure out what the best you know compromise in the situation is it's really hard to do that it's even harder when we're in an administration that has not announced of the human ability to try and not do what can we what can we do to help the

groups that the administration keeps painting as evil or dangerous or garbage or you know less deserving like I mean we can argue with the administration and we can argue with people on Twitter that are supported the administration but like we could not do that or we could not do that also but then who would if not me Lord send me someone's wrong on Twitter and no one's there to argue with them were they really there awesome was there an argument um like our our our our Muslim friends you know

are a small American friends our Latino friends we have so many groups that are being targeted by the administration uh being other you know so that they're not us they're not real Americans how can we help them what are what are your suggestions other Caitlin what how can we help you've lived in some very diverse areas what what's it like on the ground and how do you help people know that you're you're with them okay I'm solving all yeah division and conflict

“in this understanding that's why we invited you on to that well I don't have I don't have an”

answer that could be applied to all times in all places in part because I think the answer is probably

contextual and locally we did me a more nuanced I don't unfortunately I know how fun it is to argue with people on the internet it can be real fun yeah and feel really good but I am convinced more strongly than ever that it I think it only just solidifies people's prejudices and as you know fill there are some bad actors on the internet we will take any kind of pushback and actually use it to either like sick their supporters on you or anyway yeah I think this is just an example

that came up in church yesterday morning I live in a really religiously diverse neighborhood in Pittsburgh now and there was an announcement during the service about a fundraiser that the church is doing to help support local mosques if tar meals they are expecting so many more people to come to these

synagogues in my neighborhood it's a heavily Jewish neighborhood to raise money to buy food for all

the like predominantly Muslim people who are coming to the mosque to to eat and I just think yeah that you might think like oh great what is that kind of do it's a one-off thing but I actually do

“think that yeah I think that's what actually does something like feed it helping to feed your neighbor”

yeah you're your Muslim neighbor you're a Jewish neighbor you're not a Christian neighbor like it doesn't it doesn't really like the our call to care for people and to reach across aisles is actually not based on whether they agree with the theological prayer or not

or whether we have different views of God or Jesus or scripture like at the end of the day

feeding people who need to eat yeah what we're all to do so I thought that was really encouraging I was like I was moved by that and I think it's probably starts there I don't think it starts in this disembodied digital space yes mm oh that means I'll have to go outside sorry oh I don't like it okay it will be interesting to see how all of this unfolds in the next couple of weeks and what it means for the fact that the our attack on Iran inspired and attack

in Austin which is now inspiring us to be even more anti-immigrant which is what we were thinking about before the war started was being anti-immigrant is like ever we have like we have like three

“ruts and everything we have to throw into one of those ruts because that's what we're about right now”

what if we um we're just going to talk about one more thing to cleanse our palettes did you here Hannah Neilman is pregnant with baby number nine I like how the way you said that makes it sound like it's your friend like our mutual friend Hannah yeah just like you hear my cast do you hear my Hannah she's chair she's pregnant with her ninth baby yeah that exciting I listen I am not above a Tradwife Instagram influencer deep dive deep dive

I love it actually so yes I tell us who Hannah Neilman is and why I should care okay I'm probably knows more okay you'll and tell us who Hannah Neilman is and why I should care so Hannah Neilman is the co-owner of ballerina farm which is probably the most

“is that where they grow ballerina's she I think it's named that because she studied it”

Julia as a professional ballerina and she is one of the most prominent if not the most prominent Tradwife influencer what's the Tradwife Tradwife is a social media influencer who's aesthetic and content promotes a kind of return to traditional womanhood so a lot of it focuses on domestic life baking cooking caring for someone you know for one's family that's tied to having and raising lots of children like there's kind of a so what's the difference between

Tradwife and Quiverfall what's it different interesting yeah well it's not and uh the ballerina so not all the Tradwife influencers are explicitly religious in their content I think if you probably dug you could find religious beliefs or affiliation for a lot of these women but um unlike the Quiverfall folks like Hannah Neilman does not post you know scripture

passages in scripty fonts like her gorgeous kitchen with a three million dollar stove like

you know these people have money not all the Tradwife folks but she certainly does the ones that they're successful at Tradwifeing is is Tradwifeing the way to make money it can be you're good at it now Hannah Neilman is also married to the son of the founder of Jen Blue so like she's doing okay yeah matter what that makes it easier to have but so she's a Julia trained ballerina she was crowned Mrs. American 2023 well 20 weeks pregnant with one of her

nine children is she the kind of person that people that women look up to or that make women jealous that you can have you can be on your ninth segment seat option yeah I feel like that's also like

yeah what is the third option? She's inspiring because she can do amazing things

that you can't it was interesting to go look at the pregnancy announcement post on on Hannah Neilman's Instagram page yeah she posted it on it was a ad for her company was her pregnancy powder their protein powder I actually came here to the podcast to make sure that both of you are getting enough protein oh thank goodness yeah and if we subscribe to the that with your protein powder program the PPP then you'll get it yeah yes so she announces this

in the midst of this like ad for ballerina farm protein powder packet the PPP um and you know some of the comments are like how do you have so many babies kind of in this oh my gosh are you

basically out of the hand the hand made yeah like do you have agency or you being forced

“to do this right because I think the implication is that any woman who would have nine kids is”

probably not choosing to do it but I think and then there are other comments that are like this is what this is what feminism should be about it's women getting to do whatever they want and why is it that like the school the old time you feminists are shocked when a woman chooses to have any children when it should be about choice is she a rorschach test if your views of feminism and I don't know what else yeah I certainly think your response to Tradwife content

kind of it maps neatly onto some pretty strong like ideological jumps yeah but I can't look at Tradwife content without thinking about the performative nature of it right like I think it's if you just think about all the lighting and camera work that it takes to get a really beautiful shot of a woman making sourdough bread in her kitchen yep look there's there's none of this is kind of casual or it wouldn't exist without social media it wouldn't exist without a platform

“and and like highly curated content yeah right I do I think that's really significant I also think”

most of the Tradwife content you can't read apart from a consumeristic framework like there is there is often something being bought and sold here there is the attempt to turn this content into like a way to make a living and sometimes like you know a lot of money yeah is it is it that different then like back to the woods folks who are have a YouTube channel about how you build a log cabin and set up your own off the grid power supply is it that different than that like you mean

survivalists yeah or just off the grid folks like you just say goodbye say goodbye to city life and we'll show you how to you know make your own race bees there's definitely a kind of through line and a lot of the Tradwife content a kind of assumption that the modern world

“is due it is not good for us on a human level like we're not meant to live at this pace”

we're not to live meant to live in front of screens what is this doing to our children tune in tomorrow for my next update like and subscribe there yeah there is a sense that like something is off with the modern world and so if we just kind of return it to there's yeah

the Tradwife content is always like an attempt to harken back to up time that was supposedly

simpler and better does it look more like the 1950s or does it look more like the 1920s well there's actually both like you there are so many sub genres within the Tradwife there's a kind of like romance no almost fetishization of a 50s housewife wearing like cute heels while vacuuming but then there's also the kind of refart like returning to farming and growing your own tune isn't that so beautiful to go back to the land so there's whatever kind of

Tradwife content you want you can find what did you just discover I was I was playing around on the ballerina farm website because along the lines of what Caitlin was saying I'm so fascinated by this because of the conversation we had a few weeks ago about gender and kind of the right on the left her obsessed with gender we didn't spend a lot of time talking about the specifics of some of this but one way that the right and left in different flavors our obsessed with gender

options for men too like we've talked weeks and weeks ago about kind of the the day and the

“life or the get ready with me or the weekend habit you know routine of a bunch of men on TikTok show”

and that there's never a child or a wife in those videos but it's like very disciplined and

regimented and it's all kind of oriented towards efficiency and like the constitution of your body and we live in a world that is both obsessed with gender and very confused about it few people fully inherit or feel like they want to inherit the ideas that their parents or grandparents had about gender or they want to go back to their great grandparents I do about gender but because there's so little inherited local ideas people feel rootless and they just don't know what to do

and so instead of what I would prefer which is like we have lots of contextual conversations about what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman in a particular town in place we want rules we want structure ballerina farm will offer you that the the dude on Instagram or TikTok will offer you that but the thing that just shocked me well I was looking right at the ballerina farm website because there is a promise there of like you can buy the sour

do kit you can buy the protein powder you can buy and the the kind of appeal is if I don't know what it means to be a woman or I don't know what it means to be a wife I can go on ballerina farm website and I can buy a bunch of the stuff and buy your way to meaning including an 85 dollar every day bowl it's a single bowl like a giant is it like a giant for well for could you it is 14 inches wide so that's kind of big it's apparently best for flower arrangement salots

fruit or for making sourdough bread but it is always with the sourdough so it's

costly what you get traditional food yeah one tradition mold doesn't come cheap it doesn't not today no poor people have to be modern they can't be traditional they don't have the money okay last question and this is one that everyone is dying to know if I were talking to two women who are both engaged which one of you is more likely to become a trackwife wait what does that have to do I did not know where you were going I will I do here came both on a path to be

a wife I was gonna say if you're confused about how to be a wife ballerina farm will tell us

“yeah if you if you want to be a tradwife the first step is probably getting engaged so since”

you have both done that recently the next question is which of you is more likely to end up on YouTube talking about sourdough I mean I'd like to think neither of us are headed in that direction okay I know but if one of you it had to be one of you it had to be one of you I don't know how

much sourdough bread if you made in your life to literally made a never never never never never never

rea bread low okay how often do you learn to cook something new I actually enjoy cooking itself yeah okay okay I'm happy to cook dinner for my fiance when he comes over for dinner okay I don't have any problem with that we typically do take turns oh okay not very trati no okay what about you I do cook for Noah a lot more than he cooks yeah for me but I'm concerned about his health like I just I'm like I want us to live long lives and so I just cook all right Katelyn 2 has to go

she's got other things to do we appreciate you filling in for sky anytime oh there's a lot going on we'll have to talk about it next week we'll come back and the new things will have happened

“and I'll tell you how this 85 dollar bowl works yeah yeah give us a you could you should do”

a non boxing video it's sold out actually oh of course they can't make him fast enough they better charge more to get the demand down a little bit hey everybody thanks for tuning in go to Holy Post learning about Holy Post plus lots of content there people are making almost every day that you will enjoy and take care yourselves we'll see you next time this episode is brought to you by public good generation the center for Christianity and public lives summer civics program for high school

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at first press peterian church in midland she recently reported the story of a Venezuelan mother deported without her children and the Trump voting pastor who stepped into care for them and help get them home. Carrie has spent the last few years writing for outlets such as the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Free Press and Christianity today about what it's like to live in a deeply conservative community while resisting the easy categories of both the right and the left.

her work on immigration and vaccine hesitancy challenges the caricatures we build about one another and reminds us that most of our neighbors are far more complicated than our politics allowed. Here is Caitlyn's interview with Carrie. Carrie McCain thank you so much for joining me today. Yes thanks for having me this is fun. Yeah I'm so excited to talk to you I have I mean you have written so many things we could talk

about so many different articles that you've written before we get into any of that why don't you just start with tell us a little bit about yourself how you came to write about topics like this well like I said we're gonna cover a lot and typically I mean we have a lot of guests on the show who are academics or who are pastors you are neither one of those but like give us a little background and like how did you come to be writing about public health for the New York Times or about immigration

for Christian evening today yeah it's a weird and wild story and when I still don't know that I can

“answer completely co-hearingly but I guess the best way to describe I've always loved writing since”

that's a little girl yeah lots of journals but in 2020 during the pandemic I had had a blog for a lot of years and I wrote a blog post about how this is like a little thing that happened that a lot of people don't even know about but it was a big deal in my town and at the beginning of the pandemic the price to oil like a barrel of oil went negative and at the time that was sort of seen as this like among some on the more progressive left like the central AOC like tweeted

like don't you love to see it and I remember like thinking I mean I instantly tons of people and you had gotten laid off and businesses were getting like it was really scary for my community probably at that point in time more scary than the pandemic because of this was like an eight year before everything really started getting worse for a health tag but and I wrote a blog post

op-ed and pitch it to a national newspaper and I was like well I don't know how to do that so she

“walked me through the process and gave me like email address is to send it to and she just sort of”

guided me through the whole thing and I literally copied and pasted her instructions and worked my way through the process and pitched ten papers and you know within a couple days I'd heard back from a couple the Wall Street Journal in the New York Times and both of them offered to publish it and I ultimately went with the New York Times because it was sort of the audience that I more wanted to reach and and it was in a way it was it was very unique it was about that particular

situation but in some ways it's kind of emblematic of all the work I've done since then which has

been this person that's I mean I consider myself to be pretty moderate and I've but I've always

been in Texas like born and raised other than some brief years living in China which we could talk about if you wanted but and that other than that I've always been here but kind of culturally a little bit not I don't know not in the mainstream sometimes a little bit on the edge of that locally but then nationally probably considered pretty conservative and yeah I joke and so that that in between stays has always been where I've landed and I just find people interesting and I

I tend to find things that we have in common more interesting than the things that are different about us and so I I guess that's kind of what has happened is I've become I guess when you write not bed at that level for the first time then it's sort of open stories I don't need to be

coy but I just think at that point people will read your emails and so then it just sort of led one to the next

“and that's how I came to be writing about whatever's happening in the moment and I think for a lot”

of the more insofar as I've written for the more like progressive liberal outlets that some people would call them are the more mainstream outlets and it's been as a voice of somebody that's coming from the right of center but probably not so not so extreme that people stop listening like they're kind of curious about it as opposed to like putting up their their guard and so it gives me like but honestly in many ways I just I don't understand it myself like if you would have asked if

I was going to write about public health for the New York Times I'd be like absolutely not I'm about that so I don't even I'm not sure that that's kind of how it came to be used yeah I love that I mean carry one I think you sound like a lot of the people listening who I think feel similar like I've heard from many of our listeners who were like who are from Texas or from North Carolina and they're like in my town I'm the progressive one but when I'm thinking of myself like nationally

they think I'm so conservative and I don't really know exactly where I fit and I'm trying to figure out the other thing I love about your answer is you so well just embodied there what I see in your work which is curiosity about people and just like a willingness to look at what is there without jumping in immediately and saying like I already have the categories I know where to put

this I know but just curiosity and one of the places that I discovered this first and just really

enjoyed it was this New York Times PC wrote about the title is this is why my Texas Town lost trust in public health and this was March of last year and I love how you just you approach

“a topic that I think maybe even many of the listeners of the Holy Post would jump to a”

conclusion quickly about like they might know someone online or someone in their community that's hesitant about vaccines or it's not vaccinating their children I would do this I I have immediately negative connotations about those people sometimes quite harsh negative connotations and you approach it with some historical background and some empathy I'm going to read really quickly one of the things you said that I think describes this really well you wrote

there's a tendency to assume the worst about people who don't trust public health authorities advice about vaccines at best they're just missed as backward and stupid at worst selfish and unempathetic I feel the pull to dismiss some people as all of these things such as the pastor and fort worth who bragged that his church's school had the lowest measles vaccination rate in Texas but while smugness might feel good it doesn't help anyone understand the average vaccine

hesitant persons perspective and it doesn't solve our collective problem a roaded trust in our public health institutions harms us all and in order to get back on track we need to understand how we got here so give us some of the context carry for like give us an example we're talking about here of like how you would describe someone who experiences that or roaded trust to the point of not vaccine in your children or themselves how would you describe this other way of viewing

maybe even people that you know in real life who who are hesitant about vaccines I think that it often becomes like a political it's just a political trope in some ways it's like

that was actually part of it probably that allowed me to do a with sort of a neutral

and a little bit more of a neutral stance or a neutral approach in my own heart because I it wasn't really a topic that I felt like up in arms about I mean I would have a hard of timing measured in some other topics but that one it you know I had had a piece that I done for the New York Times before and they came by and they asked me because the measles outbreak happened pretty close to where I live and they came and asked me this question about why

people aren't getting vaccinated for the measles and I was chewing on that question I was like well

“I think it's a deeper question and that's what led me to that so that's kind of the first thing is”

I and it made me start to ask questions of my friends and neighbors that I had an actually talked about I I really have a little bit of a healthy you know I hate if I'm not going to ask you before I let my kid complete your house whether or not you vaccinated I'm just not really that's not my personality but that piece forced me to start having that conversation with some folks and I found myself and surprised in some cases of like oh this person's not vaccinating but

that they don't look the way I saw an anti-backster looked you know I had my mental category what those kinds of people look like based on my you know based largely on what I see on Facebook or X or in the media but then when I started talking to real people in my actual life about it I realized wait there's a lot of people here that have more complicated views about this than I had allowed and I realized that there's this huge a lot of times in our national conversations

there's really just two boxes that we can on any topic right your four immigration your against immigration your four vaccines you're against vaccines you're you're you're four giving your 13 year old cell phone you're you're allu died yeah extremely extreme but most of us live in this tension in the middle and when I started talking to folks about their experiences and taking seriously like there are attempts to best discern what's right for their family

and how few of those people were trying to project their own value systems on others they weren't really they weren't really saying like this is what everybody needs to do they were just saying that I'm doing the best I can here and this is what we've decided for ourselves and

“or when getting them to talk about it was hard because nobody you know I think the people”

that are willing to talk about it tend to be the ones that are looking to build platforms whether that's just being an influencer or an outrage whatever you call an outrage influencer um either way they like the attention a lot of folks are just kind of quiet about it and so if you get them to talk about it you begin to sense like this is something they've spent a lot of time thinking about and a lot of time even if I disagree with where they landed they weren't just flipping

about their decisions and I think yeah it's it's comes back to that curiosity which

I briefly mentioned a second ago that I lived in China for four years and that's really

in the weird way that was such a formation of time in my life because we didn't understand anything about what we were getting myself into like has been an eye we went literally of knowing like one word in Chinese and this was before you had translate apps on cell phones and all that and so we were learning everything afresh like how to get our groceries how to get clean water to drink we had to have people help us with I mean they even eat you know that they even eat bananas

from the office it ends that you and I would just not know that yeah like most most of my time history is like if if you picked up a banana I bet you start at the top where that's totally yeah they peel it from the other end interesting I guess they keep the handle that way that's kind

“of smart like I mean I mean maybe that's how all of China but the proof that I was you're at”

and I remember thinking initially like my first feeling was you're doing that wrong

my second thought was well that's interesting I wonder why they're doing it and that whole shift that happened for me over four years of constantly having to react to my own internal you're doing it wrong um created a little bit more curiosity in me I think and so even in situations like that vaccine piece um I began to realize it there's a lot more that goes into people's perspectives here and there's a lot more history of of pain and sickness and fears and people they

know that suffered in some way I mean there's just there's a lot more in that decision making matrix than you know whether or not they agree with your politics I so appreciate that and everything you've been describing in terms of the like if I know one thing about a person I know everything in terms of the like if it's one if it's not one extreme it's the other applies as well to our conversation around immigration and we've covered for for weeks now the Holy Post we've

done many episodes where we've talked about some of the really heartbreaking things that are happening right now with the Trump administration with ice with with you know American citizens who

and afraid and and I think one of the one of the challenges of addressing the actual policy piece

of this like how do we make a better immigration system is there has been such great wrong doing and it does to him just to think anyone who disagrees with me about immigration policy writ large is one of those bad people in this bad box that I've created and again one of my favorite pieces that you have written in 2025 you wrote a Christianity today piece called Immigration's complicated costs for my town and my soul and you start out describing

what it's like to be in a place where there's a much higher percentage of immigration compared to some of the the other places in the country where people might have ideas about immigration but are not experiencing it so intimately and I appreciated similarly how that piece was was trying to at least in my mind trying to describe how people could come to differing positions on this not from a place of being evil or stupid but from a place of grappling with

their community changing and then sometimes having political leaders you know capture their affections and mobilize those those very fine motivations towards towards wrong ends but give us a little bit of of how you would describe how you have experienced people having this opposition

“to immigration that might be different than people listening expect I think a lot of people”

listen to the podcast go if you have opposition to what they might consider fair more just immigration policies or if you in general want there to be less immigrants in the US or less immigration into the US I think most people listening would go that's just wrong that's just wrong that's just evil give us some more sense of like complexify for us or humanized for us some of the other perspectives that you have encountered and have written about. I I love immigration writing I love immigrant stories

my my whole life I've spent like since I was in college has spent in mesh in either refugee work you know wasn't kind of an immigrant myself for a while you know in China at at least a experience of foreigners life with me I have a daughter that's internationally adopted so she's an immigrant I have a dear adopted daughter that's was a refugee that she's not officially adopted but like I have all these people in love that are part of my life that that's part of their story and so

“I think one of the main things I would say about immigration is that very few people understand it”

including the people that have the loudest opinion you know my favorite thing to get angry at is when people say well they should just come here legally okay tell me about that tell me what you think the process is for how to come here legally because I can assure you it is it is not what you think it is so broken it's so convoluted there is not a clear pathway for anybody I mean depending on which you know whether you're from Mexico or Canada you you qualify for vastly

different visas and there's all these loopholes and just it doesn't make any sense there's not a coherent immigration policy and wrestle more about Jeffrey Epstein and the culture wars and there's this one line he says in there maybe one reason is that Jeffrey Epstein figured out

“the deep dark secret of this moment the people who fight culture wars often believe what they say”

but the people who lead culture wars often don't and I probably would make a strong case that the people who fight for just immigration often believe what they say but the people who are leading the two political parties saying but they want to fix immigration they actually are both benefiting from the fact that it is remains in chaos and remains broken and so I

as the first thing is that everything is more complicated than you think and there's no pat answer

I I I I would believe that there needs to be more strict border laws because that's actually more just because what we've done instead through the past several years is allowing lots and lots of people into the country but not giving them legal permit to be here yeah and not giving them the protections of law to stay and as a result they are this almost indentured servant class that is abused and misused and basically exists one

step above human trafficking plus all the ones that actually end up in human trafficking so you know the the challenge I would give to my more progressive friends that that just sort of

want to say love is the answer is that this isn't love this is cruelty in a different form

here weekly or you know we we need to protect American jobs and like well who do I know that

signing up to roof houses right now and and are you wanting to go to the meat packing plan and butcher the cattle that you hope to have at a decent price in the grocery store because our entire as they're like we're all of our hands or dirty in this like we all whether we mean to or not we are all implicit complicit in a system that's taking advantage of people and their vulnerability in their human need we are taking advantage of them and leaping the benefits of their labor

and there's and and both ends of the political spectrum like to point to the other side

“and say that they are the ones doing it but the truth is here we are and nobody's actually”

working very hard to fix it there's a bill right now before Congress and the dignity act

which is a bipartisan immigration bill sponsored by a woman in Florida and it would probably do some of the most it would it would make both parties a little happy and both parties a little angry but it would actually do the most of anything in the last couple decades to six immigration and the last I checked there's only like 36 Congress people there's an 18 to Democrats 18 to group of Republicans and the last time I looked at it which was just last week that has co-signed it and so

it's like we talk a lot about wanting to fix this but nobody does and so as soon as one person on either the left or the right says well it's the problem with the people over there on the other side I'm like actually your side's not doing anything that's existing there and so that's kind

“of where I land but I think there's some really great I love telling complicated immigration stories”

that that break up this nonsense that one side is the problem yeah give us it you wrote recently a piece for the free press that I think it's a great example of a complicated immigration story so tell us a little bit about this piece was titled the mother deported without her kids and the heading under it was I'm gonna say her name wrong how should I say her name Marie B is the way

I've always been Marie B when Marie B Beleno was sent back to Venezuela she was desperate to

bring her kids instead they were left behind and ended up in the care of a Trump voting pastor with a plan to get them home which like I don't know anyone who's like scrolling and sees that is not like oh interesting that so tell us that story well it's it's crazy and I will say that one thing I think has happened uniquely I I put fault at both administrations or really beyond that like

“go back more 10 years 20 years for the chaos of where we are now but I will say that there seems to be”

more chaos at this moment yeah then I've seen in the past where we've just got to deport people and we're not you know if we if we chop a hand off or chop a leg off in the process looks easy you know we're moving on and that that seems to be happening or do a lot of evidence of that so that that is what I find most alarming about this and because yes according to the mother in the story that we interviewed and others I will say we I know of at least 10 other children myself

right now in the United States who are minors who are here in the U.S. whose parents and legal guardians have been deported without them they do not have legal guardians in the United States and as far as the federal government has released information to us the federal government does not know where these children are they are being passed between friends and family and in the case of some of the one that I know strangers but they the difference between them ending up in the house

of the safe stranger and a unsafe stranger is just happened stand through miracle or whatever you know someone wants to call that so that to me is unacceptable like we can have strong border policy and even deport people without without traumatizing children and I you know out well that's probably not for public sake but I the issue in this case is not that she was deported she shop lifted she broke some laws I have zero issues with her being deported to

honest with you the issue is that she was deported without her children and defiance of what the federal government's own policies say that they would do in these kinds of cases they have no they will not produce evidence that they followed their policies and so the children are left in this vulnerable situation and in this case it was literally she's in Venezuela not sure what to do the people that had her kids aren't going to be able to keep them much longer they weren't

ever intending to keep them permanently anyway and so she calls a friend who calls this pastor who lives in Midland and says hey can you go get these kids and he drives to Dallas and picks them up and brings them back and then takes care of them for several weeks while he's trying to figure out how to get them back and we have to read the story to find the whole and happy ending but he's

changed since then we're still trying to figure out how to get some of them home but the the

reality of of how broken that is I'm like we should all be able to agree this is not about whether or not you think it's good to be you know deporting people or not this is about protecting children and if we can't agree on that like we've really lost the plot right um so I don't I forget what you asked me but that's yeah that's the story a little bit talk a little bit

“about because I think part of what complicates the story if you're scrolling on social media and you see”

this is that the the heading includes ended up in the care of a trump voting pastor yeah scrolling you might be going I mean along the lines of what we've been saying you're they're

good guys and bad guys to a lot of people and the good guys or you know anti-deporting people

especially anti-deporting people separately than their children and those are the good guys and the bad guys voted for trump and support everything trump does and the world is neatly divided into those two categories you could flip it from the other political perspective right but like they're good guys and they're bad guys and a story like this kind of complicates that idea of the world so it does a little bit about that well I think that's I wrote a little more about that

particular angle I think in the all about piece I did for CT and where I actually think that's where this is what the church should be offering this cultural moment yeah and that we're not into many

cases and that is that we should be set apart from the culture we should be a you know a little bit

unable to be politically categorized and as you know my friends the pastries the center of the story is very very conservative politically more conservative than people looking for sure and some of the things he agrees with and votes for and believes in I personally don't like think they're I find them to be a little extreme in some cases however his politics are not what he's thinking about in that moment his in that moment he's thinking about what does Jesus say to do and his

he has this line because his work with migrants started before this with a migrant shelter he opened up in Mexico and his the his story of how God changed his heart and got him involved in that work was pretty profound but it really involves this this very clear call he heard from the Lord of don't ask me why they're here ask me or how they got here ask me what am I supposed to do now that they're here and that to him is separate from I support as a president that's going to have

strict for her laws and deport people who aren't here legally and you know he holds those political positions and he says I am supposed to care for the vulnerable in my midst those two things are not incompatible the world wants them to be incompatible the church can say they're actually not incompatible and if the church can't get back to allowing more people to hold those two truths but at the same time we're really kind of in a mess because yeah that's that's the complexity

that the moment demands right to be able to say I I fundamentally don't have an issue with following the laws and the laws of the land and she should if she's shoplifted she should be deported okay that that can be true and we should be sure that her children are protected and cared for and that's I mean that's as simple as it was like she's like this is this isn't that complicated

“that's what God calls me to do and that's what led him to do a lot of his other migrant work as well”

without ever really compromising his own personal political stance in fact probably a lot of the migrants he works with know that like probably pretty open with them about actually you know I don't I think this is not I think it's a broken system he also though learned that you know another common thing that people will say is well they shouldn't have come illegally they didn't come illegally many of these folks came through and requested asylum is the asylum process broken

absolutely yeah we should this should not be an open gate back door like that needs to be reformed but they came I mean they have a work permit in some cases that means the government knows they're here they're not illegal in the way that people think about it and so in his own journey of getting closer to migrants his own perspective on his political and stance has got more jumbled up and he began to be more aware of the complexity and self which then sort of softens

“I mean I think that's really that's why Jesus tells us to draw near to people like because the”

closer you get to people the last you're able to die have these absurd reductive stereotypes and think they hold in the water yeah I so I so appreciate that I I spent a lot of my professional life you know talking to people about what their faith means for their political life and I often

community should best function what you think God demands of us and then ask like how does that shape

“how I vote and the policies policies I should support but I often also tell people like I'm less”

interested I'm personally because of my work I'm interested in changing your mind maybe about some political questions but I often tell people I'm less interested in that than I am and you being a faithful Christian even if you still hold to the same political positions that I might just agree with that you hold to if you are confronted with along the lines of of this pastor if you are confronted with opportunities to serve the actual people in your neighborhood do you start with the

political box and then have that determine if you can serve them or not or do you go to what scripture

says I care more about that about you being the kind of person that can respond and serve them then

I do about changing your politics so you vote a different way even though I do care about that one of those is much more important than the other somehow we are almost out of time carry one more question I want to ask you you mentioned a moment ago you wrote this piece for the free press then you wrote a CTPs about the same story and in it you have this description of how Christians can respond to this political moment or in this moment where you know if I know how you

voted I know everything about you when I know the box to put you in when when my party tells me not just how to vote but how to treat the people in my neighborhood or how to respond when people are in need

and you give some description of like what a different Christian approach would be I'd love to hear

from you for just a minute about how you think the church can be more faithful in this moment where are we missing opportunities to as you just described have a distinctive witness that doesn't fit in

“the boxes that that people have for us especially politically I I think the main takeaway I've had”

just for the last few years is I because I pay more attention to these stories that I see of people doing it well has been a refusal to look at people abstractly it is a it is a people are not issues people are people and so that that doesn't mean I think so often the folks that say that often follow it up with some sort of like bleeding heart liberal you know stuff and as a result it sets people down from listening that doesn't mean that it doesn't have to mean that and I think

that's where we need to get more faithful with taking care of the people right in front of us and that's starts with our actual neighbors and our the people around us and unfortunately we all live in these bubbles of you know increasingly politicized neighborhoods where everybody's like minded but I think if we pray that God help me be you know help me be a person who restores this streets of dwelling here then we would find that he brings to our attention people that are complicated and messy

and difficult but that when we actually see them with our own eyes and we begin to encounter their stories we realize oh this is wait this is not what I'm hearing the pendant on Fox News or on CNN say about this this is this is so much more complicated than that and what and also what I have done the same thing like what I be in the same situation if you know the cards have been dealt a different way and you would I've made the same choices and I just think it's much harder to not

be engaged with real human suffering when you are sitting across the table from someone it's very easy so I suppose my main my main charge to people would be to sign off the internet to go touch some grass and to ask God to bring you an actual living neighbor to love and if it's somebody that doesn't vote like you or doesn't think like you or doesn't look like you or doesn't talk like you all the better like those are the kinds of relationships we

“really need to have and that doesn't mean you have to compromise your values or or you know suddenly”

shift to some other drastic position on something it how will we just start with listening and letting them talk and finding out more about their perspective and it's not world changing but I think it it's the only way we can change things so yeah yeah thank you so much carry for your your really thoughtful writing and work and for taking the time to spend with us today yeah thanks for having me the Holy Post podcast is a production of Holy Post media produced by Mike Straylo

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