Pastor With No Answers: The MIXTAPE Era
Pastor Joey Svendsen and a community of podcast hosts from all walks, many holding to the Christian faith (some reluctantly), coming together to de-tribe tribalism, defeat hate with love, find common ground with our fellow man and have some fun doing it. Join us and our guests as we learn more together about God, life and how to come together. Love will win. Might as well join now.
Pastor With No Answers: The MIXTAPE Era
EP31: Worth Fighting for (w/ John Pavlovitz)
[This Episode: Hosts, Hayne Griffin, Matt Oxley, Joey Svendsen and guest, John Pavlovitz]
Any one want more courage and compassion when cruelty is trending? Can we get an amen or two? With guest and author John Pavlovitz, we navigate themes of judgment, emotional reactions, and the delicate balance of maintaining hope within societal systems. Together, we uncover the transformative power of breaking down preconceived notions through genuine human connection.
Navigating social media's treacherous landscape, we delve into maintaining personal authenticity amidst contrasting communities and trending cruelty. Through insights from John's poignant book, "Worth Fighting For: Finding Courage and Compassion when Cruelty is Trending," we discuss strategies to remain compassionate and genuine, even when faced with pervasive negativity. The episode wraps up with a discussion on redemptive anger, political divisiveness, and the moral dilemmas in voting, culminating in a testament to resilience and advocating for justice in an often unresponsive political landscape. Join us for a heartfelt and thought-provoking exploration of hope, authenticity, and the quest for a more inclusive world.
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Theme Song and Intro Music: Stoy Prioleau (aka: Riggy Rock): Apple Music
Closing and intro music by Derek Minor.
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Host and producer, Joey Svendsen also hosts and produces other podcasts. Here's one, coming more from the church world:
Seacoast Church's Things You Won't Hear on Sunday Podcast
Other podcasts affiliated with co-hosts of PWNA:
Jed's Church & Other Drugs
Matt's The Great Deconstruction
Hey Matt, how are you? Blessed and highly favored? Blessed and highly favored. Well, we just had a really cool experience. So before we got in this interview, we were suspicious. Yeah, I was yeah yeah, unpack that a little bit.
Speaker 2:I just I didn't know the guy, the name or anything, and so I had to look him up and see his social media presence and it just felt very corporate. You know like, yeah, I agree, I don't know it didn't feel like a real person was behind it. So I was like what is this? Um? And I read some of his stuff and I kind of didn't really change how I felt a whole lot. But when I met him I really liked him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, likewise. Yeah, maybe a couple of weeks before we this interview had to be rescheduled. We had planned it for earlier and we had some technical difficulties that caused us to push it back and Matt and I were texting back and forth about, uh, just some of the content that we were reading and we were I wasn't very suspicious of it.
Speaker 1:I don't know that was either yeah, we were both pretty harsh uh yeah, that was harsher probably, but yeah surely once we, once we connected with them, we put a face to a name, just an incredibly warm, kind personality, and it became really clear really quick that this is a guy that deeply cares, he's deeply compassionate, and we just got into a really cool conversation about kind of the state of being everything from social media to just the incredible amount of anger that I think everyone's feeling all around about all of these, these topics. So, yeah, we walked into it suspicious and walk out of it really moved. At least speaking for myself, I walked away super moved, a hundred percent agree, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm glad that that delay happened because it gave me time to chill. Sometimes I'm just an ass. Yeah, I'm trying, I'm working on myself all the time.
Speaker 1:I know for myself too. You know, coming from such a conservative background that I grew up in, to make such quick judgments. It's kind of almost programmed in me to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I tend to like, if I have an initial gut reaction, heart reaction, whatever chest you know, some feel something. I, I consider myself a way too emotional person and that's it's why I avoid worship music and avoid really attending church a whole lot because I don't want to be moved by my emotions so much. But I just am, it's just who I am, my emotions so much, but I just am, it's just who I am. So I have to stop myself a lot and reevaluate once I've gotten over that emotional moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Do you feel like also that emotional Because I know for me it can be a negative emotion that drives me really quick. Do you find yourself falling into positive emotions a little bit too quick that you would wear rose-colored glasses?
Speaker 2:absolutely sometimes I some people think I tend toward the negative, but I actually have a lot of hope, very hopeful, about the future. I just think that there's a pretty period between now and then. That sucks, yeah, but yeah, you know, I really think it's all going to be OK in the end. Yeah, no matter what. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even if I'm not here, you're not here Like it's still going to be fine yeah.
Speaker 3:I think the only difference between myself and John is that I think he has a lot more hope in the system as it is and I have none in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but I can't decry someone that's. There are people that need to be doing that work, so Absolutely, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm in the same camp with you. I feel like that the system we're currently operating in is, um, both sides are kind of kind of doomed to fail at some point. It's just a. It's just a slow, it's been a slow death. I just can't imagine this being sustainable in the long haul. But John brought so much hope and, just like you said, I'm in the same place. I'm very hopeful for the long haul, whether that means that America exists or doesn't.
Speaker 2:Not that we're plotting, no plotting.
Speaker 1:Nobody get on Reddit and start looking for codes in this little conversation. There's no, nothing's coded here. This is just straight up. Are you the real Q? Maybe Joey's the real Q? Holy shit, I like demanded, pleaded, called God on promises and was like you have to show up or like I am done and he did, and he did.
Speaker 2:And he did. That's something to really think about. What does it mean that the God of the universe loves me? Are we saying that our God is bigger than their God, or what, man? You got my mind going crazy right now. I just think that that is evangelical bullshit.
Speaker 3:And I don't fit in their box anymore.
Speaker 2:So feeling rejected from the church makes me feel far away from God.
Speaker 1:If I'm living out the love of God, love of the divine, then in some ways we're unoffendable.
Speaker 2:It's wrong to marginalize anybody for any reason. Sometimes we can just have some things about our perspective.
Speaker 1:That's off until we encounter someone who can challenge our thoughts, have conversations with us and we just continue to grow and evolve.
Speaker 2:I got them with you there. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3:That sounded like womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, womp.
Speaker 2:My hardcore gospel lover. I do love the gospel. I just think we get it wrong. Girl I was so highly medicated.
Speaker 3:I don't even know if you got it. Oh, I got my people.
Speaker 2:Alright guys, this is Matt with the Pastor With no Answers podcast with Hayne yeah, I'm here, I'm prepared. What are you talking about With Hayne Griffin and a special guest named John Pavlovitz? Did I say that correctly? Pavlovitz?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great Pavlovitz. Did I say that correctly? Pavlovitz, yeah, pavlovitz, I've been stressing over that.
Speaker 2:I'm very southern and we just don't have a lot of names like that.
Speaker 3:No, and I say my mom gets it wrong sometimes, so it's okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. Yeah, so the most stressful part of the podcast is now done.
Speaker 3:We got your name right? We're in the clear. We're in the clear.
Speaker 2:It's all good from here. Well, john, it's good to have you here. Go ahead, wayne, you're ready.
Speaker 1:Oh no, Just kind of breaking the ice here. So you're in North Carolina.
Speaker 3:I am. I'm in Raleigh.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, gotcha. I live in Asheville, so I'm just on the other side of the state.
Speaker 3:Sure, I was just over in Boone yesterday, so I was on my way there. Oh nice, oh nice. What are you doing in Boone? I have a son who's finishing up first year at App State.
Speaker 1:Oh, very cool. Yeah yeah. So I'm a professional. I wear a lot of different hats, but I work for the Asheville Fire Department and one of my firefighters I'm a captain. His daughter just finished his first year at App State and had an amazing, amazing first year. Was his good?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. It was eventful, as all first years are, but ended really well, so it's been great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if I've met a single. I'm sure it exists, but a single student that's attended their graduated there that just didn't have an amazing experience. Yeah, it is Great place. It's beautiful up there as well, Cool, so are you from?
Speaker 3:Raleigh originally. No, I grew up in central New York and then went to Philadelphia for college, spent about 20 years there, met my wife there, and I've only been in North Carolina I guess, well, only for about 20 years now, in Charlotte and here in Raleigh. It goes by quickly for sure.
Speaker 1:Gotcha Gotcha. And when you were in Charlotte were you in ministry at that time? Give us a little brief history of your ministry background.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I grew up in the Catholic Church. So I always tell people I was raised on gluten and guilt in a Roman Catholic setting and I had no aspirations to be a pastor. I was an artist and wanted to be an artist and went to school in Philadelphia for graphic design, illustration and I ended up taking a job as an art director, was in my field, doing my thing and started volunteering for a local church there in Pennsylvania and life just changed for me. I was sort of drafted into ministry slowly but surely, and so I had been in ministry for about 10 years when I first moved to North Carolina to start working at a fairly large megachurch there I'm assuming it's not Catholic, it is not, it is not. I ended up.
Speaker 3:You know, the church where we were we found in Pennsylvania was a small Methodist church, probably I think it was the second oldest in Pennsylvania really small community, probably 100 people. But we really, my wife and I, really experienced the kind of community that we thought we would have growing up and I had sort of drifted from my faith up until that point and that sort of pulled me back into my faith story and so it was just this long and almost imperceptible journey of going from drifting from my faith tradition, being pulled back into it and then, as a minister, feeling the conflicts that come with that, which we can talk about as much as you'd like.
Speaker 1:Oh sure. Well, I would like for you to touch on that just a little bit, because there's a lot of folks that are listening to the podcast that are either in ministry, they're deconstructing, kind of even out of their faith, some are completely out, some are still very, very conservative in their faith, and I'd love for you to just kind of share your story. I think that really connects with a lot of folks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think for me, since I didn't have the ambition to be a pastor growing up, when I entered into that sphere it really I felt I had imposter syndrome. First of all because I thought, well, I don't know how a pastor is supposed to talk, I don't know how this even works. So it was always this learning curve. But because of that, I think I entered ministry with very different eyes than many pastors or people who wanted to be pastors early on, and I was always hypercritical, I was always questioning, and I think at times I realized well that curiosity was actually a liability, because as I leaned into questions that I had, or disconnects I was seeing with the way we were doing things with the church, I started to realize that that is not always seen as an admirable character trait in certain systems, and so it began this journey of trying to figure out how authentic can I be as a human being and still be the pastor that I'm expected to be, and so that really brought me more and more into this space where I started to speak more explicitly on matters of sexuality and race and gender. And so that's been my journey for two decades now a little over two decades.
Speaker 3:How did that go? Yeah, I was about to ask that. Well, I tell people, you know, it worked fairly well for a while, because I had an equity of trust built up, I had relational capital. I was in the church in Charlotte for almost 10 years, and so I was able to nudge the community, but I was fully aware that there were certain places I couldn't go, and I had to. You know, being a writer, we learned to wordsmith, though, carefully, so that we can say what we want to say without saying too much, and it went.
Speaker 3:it went well, even though there were tensions. But I say I started at a new church in Raleigh and five months into that time I heard God calling me to leave that church and it came in the form of my pastor's voice saying you're fired. And so it went as well as I expected.
Speaker 1:I'm assuming your pastor wasn't God.
Speaker 3:That's correct, yes, correct, and yeah, it wasn't in my quiet time, it was at a Thursday afternoon at a Starbucks, and I realized that you know what I was treasuring as the best parts about being a minister were not really welcome there, because it was the kind of system that we run into a lot, where control is a huge part of it and steering the narrative and really in a lot of those environments, as you know, doubt is seen as a moral flaw and certainty is worshipped, and so when you begin to ask questions, there are certain environments where that's just not possible, and so that's what I ran into. But it turned out to be that sort of beautiful juncture for me where I realized I have no expectations now on me. I don't have to represent anyone else's faith convictions but my own, and that's what I began to do just speak and write from that place, without all the baggage or the weight of the collective expectations of a congregation, and that changed everything for me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so that Starbucks meeting. Did you walk away feeling free? Did you walk away angry, worried?
Speaker 3:Yes, I mean, I think, going into it, I knew in this new environment and the kind of pastor that I was going to be and that was be someone who spoke with clarity and specificity that I was probably going to be either an authentic pastor or an unemployed pastor. Had some really great people around me who said this is probably not going to be a good fit for you long-term because you have outgrown the system where this community is, and so it wasn't a surprise maybe the speed at which it devolved, because for me I was still doing work that I loved, that I was working with students and hundreds of students and really feeling like we're doing some great work. So on that I grieved that, but I wasn't surprised. But I walked out in the Starbucks and thought, okay, but now what? Now that that is a reality, do I want to try and work at another church? Do I want to start a church or do I want to leave altogether?
Speaker 3:And that took some time to grieve that. And I remember waking up that first Sunday morning thinking, you know, I was like in tears, thinking this is the first time in 17 years I don't have a local community to go to a group of people to pastor. And then suddenly I had this voice in my head that sounded like my own, that said but wait a minute. The great news is, you don't have to go anywhere and you can spend Sunday whatever way. The great news is you don't have to go anywhere and you can spend Sunday whatever way you want, and you don't have to believe what you you know. You can believe what you believe and not believe what you don't believe. You can ask anything and say everything, and that turned out to be just the pivot point for me. So, as disheartening as it was, it was a new beginning. And that was how long ago? That was about a decade ago now.
Speaker 1:Okay, gotcha, had you written anything? I'm sure you'd been writing, but did you have anything published at that time? Was there a springboard for you, or did you just kind of start from scratch?
Speaker 3:right then, well you know, I had this blog that I had been writing and that started back in Charlotte and at the time it was just written as sort of an insider blog for parents of teenagers, for other youth workers and other pastors. And slowly I began reaching an audience outside of that and, and at the point after I was fired, what I found was there was a new freedom to my writing and because I could speak more explicitly, I could say exactly. What I found was there was a new freedom to my writing and because I could speak more explicitly, I could say exactly what I wanted to say. And I wrote a piece called If I have Gay Children a way to try to humanize the issue of sexuality for conservative Christians.
Speaker 3:And it went viral and I, you know, found this nationwide audience and then was just fortunate enough that I was able to build on that and keep going and then, shortly after, was offered the opportunity to write my first book. But the writing aspect, like much of this, was completely unexpected. But for me it was a lesson and you know I always joke. The next day after I published that piece I was on CNN and I'm being interviewed and uh, it says on the banner you know John Pavlovitz, pastor, and I say it could have said unemployed and currently despondent you know, and you see the whole cause.
Speaker 3:I had no marketing campaign, I had no people behind me, it was just a few hundred words that mattered to me. I put those words out and those words did the work. And so, and I saw that, and I saw the the sort of ridiculous nature of social media and and platform, because a day earlier I was in just a tremendously low place and now suddenly people were seeing me as some sort of authority on on issues. And so I've always had, I've seen the humility, I've tried to hold onto the humility of that and realize I'm very fortunate to have this platform, and also some of it is artificial, as all kind of public forums are.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, absolutely, I I'm. It's interesting to hear you say that because I've kind of I've been following you for like a couple of weeks now since I heard Right, Absolutely. But you know, every year you have a very polished Facebook and Twitter persona, I guess, and I was whenever. Whenever you first came on, I was like, oh, he's a real guy, he's actually a real person. Ok good.
Speaker 3:Because it's very, it's very. I don't know how to describe it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's on Facebook. It feels it doesn't feel as real, as personal. But getting to know you, I'm enjoying it quite a lot.
Speaker 3:Oh well, thank you man.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to hear you mentioned how social media feels and how it kind of sometimes doesn't feel real, and I kind of feel a lot of things for sure, and I've had, you know.
Speaker 3:I remember having a woman come up to me at a retreat I was giving and she said you know I love your writing. She said I've read everything you've ever written and I said well, now you know 100% of what I choose to share with you. Yeah, yeah, because that's the nature of social media, of the internet. We're all seeing this partial images of people, and so that is a challenge and realizing to whatever perceptions people have of you, you have to figure out how to make sure they're seeing the most authentic version of you. And you can even become beholden in my case, where I was beholden to a conservative, you know Christian environment or mainline Christian, you know community. Being beholden to a conservative, you know Christian environment or a mainline Christian, you know community being beholden to them. You can also be beholden to a progressive following who rejects that, that system, and it's how do you stay authentic even in that? And so that's what I get up every day, trying to make sure that I'm doing that.
Speaker 2:That? That sounds very tough actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like a huge challenge. One of the big reasons that you're here today, we're interviewing you, is we're plugging your book Worth Fighting For Finding Courage and Compassion when Cruelty is Trending, so kind of jumping off that platform. We're talking about social media. If cruelty is trending, which it obviously is in social media, how do you navigate that? I've been reading portions of your book and you're so humble and honest to say that you've gotten in the food fights at times on the social media pages. You own that so beautifully. How do you personally, because I think that the book is really needed right now, in a time where it is a just nasty food fight. It's a roller coaster that people are jumping on, yeah, and when the roller coaster rides over, everybody's just covered in vomit yeah, that's right. How are you navigating that? Well, john.
Speaker 3:It's a daily, almost hourly endeavor, really, because I think the question I have to always ask and I encourage other people to ask is what is my motive?
Speaker 3:Here, in the middle of a conversation, you know, am I trying to show someone something that I think they need to see? Am I trying to help them develop a healthier outlook on their spirituality, their politics, or am I trying to humiliate them and put them on blast? And it's hard to know when you kind of cross that line. And so, really, it's about, you know, a lot of self-awareness, having good people around you to process the things that you're feeling, because ultimately, we're all dealing with a level of elevated urgency that we haven't had to sustain, that most people shouldn't have to sustain, and we've done that for the past eight years. There's just continuous emergency, and that's by design, and because of that, we're always in this state of adrenaline and outrage mixing together, and since these are things we care so deeply about, they're fraught with, you know, emotional overload, and so it's always trying to figure out hey, am I at my best right now? And if I'm not, how can I course correct?
Speaker 1:Sure Is it tempting, with the emotional overload, like you said, because it's a huge part of your ministry, it's a huge part of just your livelihood to generate posts, to generate things that will bring in more viewers, because the clickbait is obviously a huge, a huge whirlwind within social media. How do you navigate or walk that fine line?
Speaker 3:a huge whirlwind within social media. How do you navigate or walk that fine line? Yeah, I, you know, hayne, I've been cognizant of the fact that I write about a lot. I write about politics and grief, and I write about religion and family and mental health and all sorts of things, and what you realize is that, because people are so exhausted and they're so kind of affected by the tribalism that we're immersed in, they're looking for something that makes them feel seen. And so, because of that, if I write something that's very confrontational to the church or something that's really critical of a political movement, people will embrace that, and so it's hard to deny that.
Speaker 3:That's part. You know. I want that. I want people to to feel seen and heard by the writing, but you also don't want to be generating that in anticipation of that. So it's do I get up and say am I still in this posture? Am I? Am I trying to put forth anything that's redemptive or offer solutions? And so you have to mix that up, and I try to have a variety of ways to express these things that we're talking about and not just play to a certain one certain emotion, and that being the outrage or the resentment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in your book. I grab pieces of it and I love this question that you ask how do we transform this near-paralyzing sense of sadness into something redemptive, and maybe kind of adjusting that a bit to how do we transform this near-paralyzing sense of chaos that we see on social media, the sadness that we feel, into something redemptive? What would be your answer to that to the listener that just feels kind of lost at sea and drowning?
Speaker 3:I think what I ask people to do is I want people to embrace their anger to some degree as sort of an involuntary prompt that tells us something is not right, and then to say, now that I feel that I have a decision to make, what am I going to channel that into? What am I going to transform it into? Is it tangible? Is it something that's positive? Is it life affirming? And if I can do that, if I can realize that the, the, the anger, was a propellant, then that, then that's okay, it's. If I only am still in that place of anger and simply posting about it and brooding, then it's going to grow toxic within me and I'm going to be as miserable as the people that I look at and say how are they so miserable? So it's almost like a.
Speaker 3:It's a, it's a challenge to not become exactly what you're concerned about. And I think the way you do that is by saying okay, I know I feel these things, but I have to transform that into work, whether that's individual work or being part of a collective. And once you feel that agency, then I think that takes away some of the toxicity of your anger.
Speaker 1:You had a whole piece in your book about anger. I'm going to read this. I'm just quoting you here. So I think there's so many things that you wrote that I thought were really, really important. I think that an unappreciated part of Jesus that tends to not get featured in needlepoints and memes is his anger, his righteousness and redemptive pissed-offness, his passionate objections to seeing the powerful preying on the vulnerable, watching the religious hypocrites pollute the system, witnessing the self-fed living close-fisted towards the hungry. I couldn't agree with you more. I think that the harshest words he had were for the religious. It was the poor, it was the vulnerable, it was the marginalized. We just saw this incredible piece of love. So what are ways that you and we can? I'd love, because I tend to buzz with anger, usually 95% of the time yeah I'm just always trying to trying to dial it down a little bit, dr banner
Speaker 1:trying to, yeah, yeah, to try to exactly. We well put my. My son, who's 14, is very similar to me in that regard and we just watched it was guy ritchie's uh version of king arthur, which had charlie hunneman. I don't know if you've seen the film I have not but it's a beautiful film, but it's. It's the story of king arthur and pulling the sword from the stone.
Speaker 1:But in guy ritchie's version, at the beginning, king arthur, when he realizes who he is, because he is using that every time he uses a sword for his own selfish gain, for his own anger, it destroys him. But then he learns through community, through friendships, to start using that anger, using that sword, as the metaphor for the benefit of other people and he becomes King Arthur. So I love that metaphor and that's a metaphor I've been using with my son. It's like your anger's not bad, it's just what context are you using it in? And I love the piece that you're highlighting the anger of Jesus, because it's so true. What are your tips, what are your tricks to harnessing anger for something redemptive versus something destructive?
Speaker 3:I think it's looking at. You know, we joke about the term righteous anger. People often say that to me, and I said well, that's problematic, because everyone who's ever been angry thinks their anger is righteous and their cause is just and their motives are pure. And so I have used the word redemptive anger to say what are the results of my anger. The word redemptive anger to say what are the results of my anger.
Speaker 3:If I look and rewind a little bit, okay, I found this thing that set off an alarm in me. What did it do in me? And then, what did I do as a result? And so, is the world any more compassionate than when I got angry? Is it any more just? Is there greater diversity? Are more people feeling seen and heard? And if not, then I have a problem and that I'm really not doing anything that affects the world, because I got angry and I call it Jesus' ferocity for humanity, and I think, whether you're religious or not, that's something we can all tap into, because all movements of human and civil rights progress have come from something that we knew wasn't right and there was an outrage attached to that, and so then it's about getting into a community where that outrage can be expressed in a way that it that builds something or that tears down something that needs to be torn down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, reading your stuff, you're definitely connecting with a demographic that I definitely have an affinity with, for sure. But I've realized that I've had to be really careful when I'm communicating that for those that don't agree with me, that I'm not making them defend themselves. I'm not making them defend what they believe, what they think, because when I do, their ego or their pride or hubris will never allow them to think beyond it. Even if they even think I may be wrong, they'll never say it out loud. How do you navigate that space? It's hard for me to do that. How do you navigate that space?
Speaker 3:Well, I think it's realizing that people have come to their present theological and political conclusions, the same way that I have, over time, a great deal of wrestling and discovery, whether it's prayer or thought, and so I want to respect someone's road, even if I don't agree with their convictions, that they've reached to their conclusions right now, and so the most dangerous thing I often do for someone who's in a faith system that they question is I question it from my perspective and I invite them to, you know, share the questions with me.
Speaker 3:And that's often enough to get someone really uncomfortable, and because we're talking about stories that are really that we treasure. You know our faith story, whatever we grew up in, that was the thing that held everything together, and I always say no one has time for an existential crisis, and when you begin to ask questions of your faith or your politics, a a turbulence that comes with that, and there is often a grieving of the old story and then a decision what am I going to do now? In response, and most people don't want to do all that. So we're having a conversation with them and they're in their heads trying to make sure they don't have to step into that place where everything could fall apart.
Speaker 1:Matt, you got anything.
Speaker 2:I've been listening, I've been an audience member and I've been really enjoying this. Hey, your question just made me reflect on myself so much. Um, uh, last night in fact, cause you've been talking about anger, my partners just said you just seem so angry about the world and politics and I just I broke down for hours and and realized, yeah, I am, I'm pissed off and I'm, I'm mad that not everybody else is as mad as I am. And uh, there's just so, so much turmoil in the world and in me over the state of the world. So, um, yeah, I'm, I'm struggling. I'm struggling with the purpose of the book, you know, is it worth fighting for?
Speaker 3:I don't know I'm struggling to figure that out.
Speaker 2:Um, so that this, this whole conversation, brings up a lot for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, matt, you know I I remember being in um. I was in Minnesota and I was speaking at a church and a woman stopped me in the in the sanctuary there for and I was speaking at a church and a woman stopped me in the sanctuary there and I was getting ready to speak and she said could I talk to you for a minute? And I said sure, and of course she starts crying and that happens a lot to me lately. I try not to take it personally. But she said you know, I'm so angry all the time. She said I hate how angry I am. That's not who I used to be and I really I can't stand how angry I am. And I said well, you may be angry, but you could be something else. I said you could just be grieving. Have you ever considered that you're in mourning right now? And that she began to say, well, I never thought about it that way. And she could then process yeah, I've lost friends, I'm grieving.
Speaker 3:You know my idea of the church and my place in America, and I think that's a lot of what we and so many others are dealing with. The anger is some of. It's a symptom of the amount of loss that we are reckoning with, and so it's something that I want to. I never want to feel badly for that, because that grief means that my heart is like working properly, right, and so, um, I'm almost, I tell people, if you're angry and you're grieving, celebrate, because that really means that you still, you know, give a damn enough to keep going. And I think so many people are just exhausted from all this that they check out and because of the work we do, we're always there and we're yeah, we're fighting with and for something, and that's a that's a hard place to live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, reading your work, it's it's, in a way, very, very political and very politically driven, and and I'd love to to jump into that and just a little bit Me personally, I tend to lean more towards democratic socialism, even beyond the current scheme, for lack of a better term that we have in politics, and I'm going to put some words in Matt's mouth and let him you know Matt's more, very attracted to communism. Even so, we're coming from some very different spaces than probably most folks that are interviewing you, at least our own political leanings. In terms of that anger, because we have the anger and I'm more sympathetic to the anger and I'm more sympathetic to the anger that I'm seeing and probably the camps that you're speaking with and you have an affinity with. Can we talk a little bit about the anger on the other side, because I think that there's a lot of anger there as well. Yeah, sure, and how do you, or what do you think is fueling that anger?
Speaker 1:There's something that I wanted to also read in your book that I thought was so good. It reminded me of a book written by Anne Applebaum. I don't know if you're familiar with Anne's work. I've heard that name. She released a book in 2020, the Twilight of Democracy the Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. And Anne Applebaum. She's interesting. She's an American, she's a Polish-American. She has her Polish citizenship now that she was born and raised in America, but she married the foreign minister of affairs in Poland. He's a former foreign minister of affairs, but I listened to her interview with Ezra Klein. Anne had a very fascinating observation because she's lived the last 25 years in Eastern Europe and she's seen the rise and fall of these personalities all the time.
Speaker 1:You said in your book it's easy to blame Donald Trump for the collective heart sickness we've seen here in recent years, but he didn't create this cruelty. He simply revealed it and leveraged it to his advantage. Anne Applebaum, in her interview, said Donald Trump's not interesting, which is fascinating. She said he's a dime, a dozen. There are people like that all over Eastern Europe that are looking. What they're looking for is the right demographic to hook into and then bring them to power. They are really uninteresting people. They're two-sided, there's nothing about them. And then bring them to power. They're really uninteresting people. They're two-sided, there's nothing about them.
Speaker 3:What is it in our culture that you think has created the anger that the other side feels so fervently.
Speaker 3:Well, I think the worst of politics and religion leverage, fear, phobia, prejudice and the evangelical system really runs on the need for an enemy, an encroaching danger or some terrible adversary.
Speaker 3:And so I think, when you begin to be immersed in that through your churches and your media and your politicians, you're perpetually afraid, and so I always believe that, regardless of what our theology or politics are, none of us are at our best when we're terrified. And so when you see people that are continually in that state, and then let's add to that the fear of God sending you to hell for not hating the people that he hates, so I think it's people addled by fear, and so, yeah, there are things too that they're seeing in the world and they're trying to make sense of them. Like we are, we all have a story we tell ourselves, and so I think it's just the, the, the worry that we are, that the side is feeling that we're under siege, and how can we help ourselves? Well, we can't, but this powerful authority figure they'll help me, even if they created the fear in me to begin with, they don't think that through, or they aren't able to see that, so I think that's a huge part of it.
Speaker 1:Are there things that you would touch on 10, 15 years pre-Trump that really set the stage for that type of visceral, collective tribal anger?
Speaker 3:Well, I think, you know, we had an African-American president which, really, while many people saw that as a sign of progress and took sort of an exhale, others were doubling down and they were alarmed by it and they were infuriated by it.
Speaker 3:And so, having been in that world, seeing what the response was in the church, and knowing that because of this, it has stoked this sort of this racism and this misogyny and this nationalism that were really there but concealed due to decorum, and so once they sort of lost the desire to conceal it, and then you have someone like Trump that says embrace the worst of yourselves, then it became much more fashionable to express those things. And so, you know, the anger is a complex thing, because we all imagine ourselves as decent human beings and so we all believe that we're angry because it's a just cause. And how do you get through to people and find some? Where's the reality in that? You know, and that's the that's one of the biggest challenges right now it's what is the reality? That that person is working from within, about the systems, about the politicians who they admire, and all that.
Speaker 1:Personally, I'm a very big proponent of the separation of church and state. What if campaigning was illegal in religious institutions? Because I feel like they really capitalize on religious institutions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, technically, 501c3 isn't supposed to be permitted. Right, 501c3 isn't supposed to be permitted.
Speaker 1:But they've obviously dialed into Christian universities. I mean even on both sides of the aisle. You know my father and I were talking about it. He's way more conservative than I am. It's like you know. The Republican candidates are in these evangelical white spaces. The Democratic candidates are in usually African-American, even Jewish, settings. They're connecting with groups that are religiously tribal because they want that tribal vote. Would the volume be a lot lower if those candidates were not allowed to campaign? A in those places and B how does the church, let's say a pastor who's listening to this, who's trying to navigate? I don't want to get political in the pulpit but at the same time, reading your work, there's a lot of politics to it. How do you navigate? This is getting a very complicated question. How do you navigate that?
Speaker 2:separation. That's a silly question.
Speaker 3:It is. Well, it's a complicated dilemma. I think. For me one of the dynamics is that I think more progressive liberal people of faith have slowly over time seeded the conversation on spirituality to a conservative religion, and so it's much more natural for conservatives and in this church and politics to to naturally align and to see that as as, not as not see it as abnormal, and so I think progressive spirituality has been sort of on the periphery so it hasn't had that overlap. It's much more in political organizations that maybe are left-leaning, but I think for churches that are conservative, it's realizing that I as a pastor, when I started out I wanted church and state to be separate.
Speaker 3:Now I can't separate my personal morality from my personal politics. However, I don't want to legislate that for someone else and I think that's what the right doesn't understand is that it's actually antithetical to your own faith story, because the story of Jesus is him offering invitation and people choosing whether they wanted to follow or not. So compulsion was not part of that, and that's what you see when you begin aligning. The church and the state is mandated theology, not just for myself but for other people, and that's not something I think any genuinely spiritual person wants their belief system imposed on someone else.
Speaker 1:Where are the areas because you are highly critical of the right and where are the areas where you see divisiveness in liberal politics? You see divisiveness in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3:Well, I think you see it as just sort of now it's the, because of what we've been immersed in for almost a decade now is this sort of knee-jerk response that says there is no place to meet, to even begin to have a conversation on the, on the hows of getting to a solution.
Speaker 3:It's simply the battle posture, and and then the and the screaming from a distance. So I think progressives are as as in danger of doing that, and with one another, I think, because the progressive politics is, by nature, welcomes more difference. It's difficult to navigate that difference. Where, though it's not completely true of the right, the right is more monolithic in that conservative evangelical belief system, and when you get a group of people who might be theists and non-theists even, how do you find common ground to perpetuate something that you agree on? And so I think the left has a definite problem with internal fractures and an inability to say what is the greater good we want to accomplish, and how can we? But we're all completely tribal and reactionary right now because of the systems that we're working in.
Speaker 2:Haynes said earlier that, yeah, I identify as a communist. I'm as far to the left as you can pretty much get. So I struggle with the Biden thing, like defending Joe Biden because he seems like a part of the problem to me. He is perpetuating violence in the Middle East. He's continuing the policies of our state that kill people, that destroy lives all around the planet right now, and from our relatively comfortable positions, it's hard for us to realize the impact that our country has on other people Right. So, as a leftist, I'm extremely opposed to those things and I'm trying to.
Speaker 2:While I agree with a lot of what you say and there are some morsels in your writing that really hit and I think are great for a lot of uh, there are some morsels in your in your writing that really hit and I think are are great for a certain audience I struggle with it because I can't see myself voting for Joe Biden. I can't make myself do it because it feels like I'm choosing an evil when I'd rather not choose the lesser or the greater, and you have a whole piece about that, but I just I can't get there. I haven't been able to get there. I know I can't get there. I haven't been able to get there.
Speaker 3:I want to give you the chance to do it, because you talk about that a lot. Yeah, yeah, man, I I appreciate you saying that, and and for me, I realized, you know a few, probably a decade or so ago, that I wanted, I needed to vote, sometimes strategically rather than intellectually or emotionally. Almost I needed to make sure that I was trying to avoid something that I thought was going to be more detrimental down the line. And so when I look at the, just the whole mega culture and the kind of people that are now in the Republican Party you know I grew up independent and still registered independent and I see the human and civil rights rollbacks for LGBTQ people and for people of color and for voting rights to vote in such a way that we prevent that, because people will say, you know, I hate this two party system and I agree with them.
Speaker 3:But I feel as though if Trump is allowed another tenure, we will be down to essentially a one party system and our options will be so few. Some people say, well, we blow it up and then, you know, then we'll kind of rebuild it. But that only works if the Republican Party were to step aside and say, okay, do that. I think we're going to find that they're going to be much more malevolent and much more violent given a second term, and so, simply, for me, I see all the flaws of the Democratic Party and of Joe Biden, but for me, it's about preventing something that I think is far beyond. If I look at project 2025, for example, I don't see the Democrats with any kind of plan that's as malevolent as that, and so that's what I'm going to choose with my vote. But I totally understand the conflicts, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it feels almost like a triage being in emergency medical services, emergency fire services, professionally. It just kind of reminded me a couple of years ago we went on a horrible car crash where we had five victims and we had to triage them One that we knew was going to die right then Others that we knew needed care immediately but were going to continue to suffer, and that we knew needed care immediately but we're going to continue to suffer. And others that were right on the brink and we had to write off the guy, the gentleman that we knew was going to pass, as people are screaming at us take care of this guy. And then we were having to pay attention to a woman that had a snap femur and possibly bleeding out, because she was, in that moment, the most important thing for us to to focus on as far as saving life, even though we're giving up on, uh, somebody that they're still alive, but we know the inevitable end for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for you, matt does that feel, or even John as well, does it feel like a triaging that is such a good description, and I think maybe the difference is, for me, the man that's already dying and that we have to give up on is this country and its system, this Western identity and this Western way of doing things Just feels like we already know it's failed us, it's going to continue to fail us if we continue to prop it up and, frankly, I think we should shoot it like a dog to save ourselves, and I that sure.
Speaker 2:And I feel like anything less than that doesn't feel like enough for me, but I'm also so tied up in my guts about just the way things are all the time yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, matt, and I I totally, I completely get it and for me, part of it is my job. I call myself a collector of stories. I like a war correspondent.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's so good John.
Speaker 3:And so I hear that all the time and hear stories all the time and I try to remember those stories. And so if I'm someone who, you know, is losing autonomy over their own bodies, and I see a group of people saying we're going to continue to make that a priority, then I feel, you know it's hard, because then you go. Well, there's the conflict in Gaza, there is racism in this country, there's economic disparities, all these things, and so we're trying to calculate what can we do the most good with our time here, and it does feel rather hopeless and it does feel like the system is irreparably broken. I think I want to give as many people options as we can, and I think that authoritarian leaning and seeing Trump putting his family in positions of power, it's just to me. I don't want to inflict violence on more people by being tired of the violence that already exists. So it's, it's, yeah, it's fraught with problems, no question.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's a it's a struggle to, to feel moral right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and to feel effective. Yeah, and to what I feel effective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to feel effective. I think the answer for me is going to be that I I probably have to vote for Cornell, uh, and hope and pray that somebody gets a third or 3% so that something can, uh, some money can, be unlocked for third parties. But that's probably as good as I think it can get as far as options for me, and I think a lot of people who are further left are really struggling to give Joe the vote this year. I think it's incredibly likely that Trump is going to win and that is concerning to me, but I think we've already shown ourselves our hearts when we let them win the first time. So it's a struggle for me. You seem a lot more hopeful than I am, but I also feel incredibly hopeful that eventually we'll shrug this thing off. That's holding us back as a species. That's holding us back as as a species.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and and and the other thing that that for me you know, speaking for myself as a cisgender, heterosexual white guy I'm I realized that I'm probably going to be okay and no matter what happens, it's realizing okay. I always ask people, you know, play them, play the movie forward 10 months from now. So Trump gets in. And even though we're saying, yeah, but you know, if that has to happen, it has to happen I try to imagine what the world will be like for people already under duress, and I don't think anyone's going to have it easier. Everyone, whether they're, you know, muslims or immigrants or women or people of color. They're going to be further assailed by Trumpism.
Speaker 3:And so I want, I don't feel like for me, I've loved Cornel West my whole life and I respect him deeply, but I, I question the whys of the timing and I just I feel, looking at my 14 year old daughter and saying to willingly place Trump in power over her life feels irresponsible, even with all the baggage. So, like you said, no answers. I mean, we really don't. And the other part about this is we're feeling this because you're an empathetic human being, I am and so we're trying to figure out like, yeah, I'm pissed off, I'm grieving and I don't know how to fix this, and that's it's the unfigurable nature of all this that it's almost impossible to carry.
Speaker 2:And we started off talking about the lack of certainty and I think we can see we're pretty pretty certainly there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, matt did. Did John just convince you to vote for sleepy?
Speaker 2:Joe, no, he didn't, but I I do. I do see where you're coming from. Yeah, I think a lot of that is. The reason why those things don't aren't compelling to me Isn't because I don't care about those matters. I'm a queer man and I have a trans partner, so those are all things I care about greatly, um and and directly affect my life. But um, I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't think that the democratic party is necessarily on my side either on that. I don't. I don't see them going out of their way to ensure that that my partner has the same rights as everyone else. Um, I don't. I didn't see them. You know, pack the courts, which was the solution to the abortion question. Um, there's just a failure to act that has that has occurred over the last several years? Um, that makes me think that the, that party, got really, really comfortable um, with a certainty that they couldn't be beaten by Trump and boy howdy um did they and I? I think, instead of waking up to the reality that this party isn't isn't really representative of the people we think we're representing, um, they kind of doubled down on it and I'm just it's. I don't know how I will. I will stop um positing my political view but, I want you to know where I'm at.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of in this. I feel in a rock and a hard place and squeezed, and also it's a moral question for me and I'm struggling with it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, it's funny because I remember I felt that way for the toward the church, my whole, you know, last 20 years of my life as a pastor. I'm fighting with and for my faith tradition simultaneously and feeling exasperated for it. And yet having this, this desire to fix it, and I think that's what we're feeling. I mean, this is a place we call home. We're not, we don't have a lot of options, and it's trying to figure out what is the best possible case scenario to give us the best chance at surviving. And so, um, I don't blame, you know, I'm smiling a lot, but my, my, my feeling distraught is a daily occurrence too. So it's just about, yeah, but I'm, I'm, I'm looking at the legacy of people, for, you know, decades before us and they were facing all sorts of stuff and they just said I'm going to do my best to keep going, and so that's all we can do, you know.
Speaker 2:And I appreciate how transparent you've been about that because just the following your social media, I was like, ah, this guy just loves Joe Biden so much. He just loves Joe Biden much.
Speaker 3:he just loves joe biden but he, they seem, he seemed, uh, not to be fully cult indoctrinated. So, no, I would hope I'm not, you know, I hope I'm not and uh, and it's really, yeah, it's uh. I see again, you know, I see it, I see a defense, a shield as and maybe, maybe that's something you know, we don't agree on that, but for me it's, that's, that's the instinct, at least that's the attempt.
Speaker 1:Moving into this election season. What's, what's the recipe? What advice would you give to someone to find courage and compassion?
Speaker 3:Uh well, hayne, I think, I think like we've been talking.
Speaker 3:I mean, this is, this is almost impossible stuff.
Speaker 3:So we just have to do our best to bring the best version of ourselves to these conversations, to make as wise a decision as we can, to advocate for the things that we care about, and to realize that November 6th, when we wake up, whatever the political reality is, all of the brokenness, all of the you know suffering and injustice is going to still be there. All the homophobia, of the you know suffering and injustice is going to still be there, all the homophobia, all the you know, the nationalism. So it's, it's about not realize, realizing that nothing, there are some things that are not going to change on November 6th, and we're going to have to get up that day and do all the same work we're doing now, um, and realize that half of the country probably is going to be emboldened and half are going to be despondent, and we're going to have to be aware of that, and so, whatever our politics and our theology and our moral code calls us to do, we're going to be more necessary than ever. So it's a long haul that we're in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is. How much hope do you have for the future?
Speaker 3:Uh, 7%, no, no, no, no, I'm kidding. After talking to Matt, matt knocked me down 10%. Way to go, matt. Here's what I'd say. I always feel hopeful, and the reason why is because you know, matt and Hayne, we've talked about anger and grief and all this and what that saying is, hey, we really care deeply and we know something's not right, and so as long as we, as long as enough people feel that way, that that's where the hope is right. It's in saying, yeah, this is broken and needs fixing. And if I recognize it's brokenness, that means I realize that humanity is tethered together, and so that's what we work with. I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. It feels like I think we even see this in the scriptures in the old testament gosh to the, to the credit of the jewish people, to give their history. We see these progressive steps forward, two steps forward, and we see a step backwards. Um, it's this two forward, one back, three forward, four back, eight forward, two back, and almost like a stock over history. You see this up and down, up and down, up and down, but hopefully we're on a trajectory moving up. Do you feel like that? That's that we're. We're moving up as, not just as americans, but just as humans uh, you know it's hard to say when you're, when you're looking.
Speaker 3:you know I have people say all the time well, historically, these things happen and and they have, of course, when you're in the dip, when you're living in the dip though it's like it doesn't feel like, oh, this is fine, I have perspective.
Speaker 3:I think you know it's a longer conversation, but I think the social media has really changed the way we interact, but also the way we perceive what's happening. Also the way we perceive what's happening. So years ago we didn't have this constant inundation of bad news that tends to it can artificially enlarge the threat that sometimes, or it can bring us so much pain that we can't hold it all. So I think there it's hard to assess where humanity is. In the grand scheme, I think we're more aware of the suffering now than we ever were, and that may be the problem, but it's not. The solution is not knowing less, it's about figuring out okay, well, what do we do? Knowing more?
Speaker 1:So yeah, right, john, I can keep talking to you for the next hour. This has been fantastic.
Speaker 3:I've enjoyed it and, if you know, if you ever want to do it again, we'll do it again after the election and we can say I told you so or I told you so. That would be great.
Speaker 2:I have a show, too, called the Great Deconstruction, so we should do one for that too. We're actually recording in that now. But yeah, I think that would be great. I'd love to have that conversation.
Speaker 1:What I just heard John say, Matt, is that you and I are cool.
Speaker 2:So I think we're feel cool, that's right, I mean.
Speaker 1:John, you are a super cool guy. Talk about where your book is, where people can buy it, the best places to reach you online to just check out your stuff, your sub stack.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my, my last name is Pavlovitz P-A-V-L-O-V-I-T-Z. There are not a lot of them out there, so if you find one, it's probably me and all the social media platforms. Wherever you buy books, I just love to connect on Substack, Instagram, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Perfect and Pavlis, that's Irish. Yeah, that's right. Outro Music.
