Full Transcript for Ben Daniel: Pursuing Peace in a Militarized World

02:06.992 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh. 02:07.152 --> 02:07.793 [SPEAKER_02]: That's my dad. 02:07.833 --> 02:08.553 [SPEAKER_02]: He won't stop. 02:09.333 --> 02:09.633 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. 02:09.673 --> 02:11.954 [SPEAKER_02]: Well Can't stop one stop. 02:12.134 --> 02:13.275 [SPEAKER_03]: Can't stop one stop 02:14.620 --> 02:15.361 [SPEAKER_03]: The cup. 02:15.521 --> 02:18.063 [SPEAKER_03]: All right, so you have, you have, that's all you have. 02:18.423 --> 02:20.844 [SPEAKER_03]: You drove all the way up to That's a lot. 02:21.145 --> 02:21.465 [SPEAKER_03]: That's a lot. 02:21.485 --> 02:35.534 [SPEAKER_02]: But with all the things we saw Buffalo and oh you guys you guys my dad I didn't see him today and when I don't see him he literally calls me like seven times just to be like, where are you? 02:36.194 --> 02:38.236 [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, I'm sorry about that listener 02:38.876 --> 02:40.136 [SPEAKER_06]: This is kind of fun. 02:41.057 --> 02:42.457 [SPEAKER_06]: I love this for us. 02:43.157 --> 02:43.917 [SPEAKER_06]: It's all right. 02:43.977 --> 02:44.557 [SPEAKER_06]: All right, thank you. 02:46.778 --> 02:52.839 [SPEAKER_06]: I did not visit locations as grand and glorious as Glacier or the T-Tons. 02:53.860 --> 03:00.381 [SPEAKER_06]: But I did go home for home is Minnesota where I grew up and my wife and I grew up there. 03:00.401 --> 03:01.661 [SPEAKER_06]: And so we took about a week. 03:02.402 --> 03:05.962 [SPEAKER_06]: Weeks vacation just visiting my family, visiting her family. 03:09.364 --> 03:11.085 [SPEAKER_06]: in Minnesota, which was nice. 03:11.125 --> 03:16.989 [SPEAKER_06]: The weather was very temperate, and yeah, the drive is long. 03:17.230 --> 03:21.853 [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, it was a nice visit. 03:22.033 --> 03:28.258 [SPEAKER_06]: My wife graduated from her mental health counseling master's program. 03:28.298 --> 03:34.222 [SPEAKER_06]: And so we took a little vacation there, and she has begun her residency. 03:34.863 --> 03:35.063 [SPEAKER_06]: So. 03:36.375 --> 03:41.581 [SPEAKER_06]: If anybody needs a mental health counselor, and you live in Indiana, you could see her. 03:42.182 --> 03:42.723 [SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome. 03:42.743 --> 03:43.564 [SPEAKER_06]: You have to live in Indiana. 03:43.984 --> 03:44.625 [SPEAKER_02]: To Big Deal. 03:45.606 --> 03:46.247 [SPEAKER_06]: It is a big deal. 03:46.327 --> 03:51.032 [SPEAKER_06]: It's kind of the end of an eight-year journey for us, and she went back to school. 03:52.054 --> 03:55.338 [SPEAKER_06]: She started going back to school eight years ago because she had to finish up a bachelor's. 03:56.189 --> 03:57.250 [SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, super proud of her. 03:57.670 --> 04:10.880 [SPEAKER_06]: She's a great counselor and this begun that thus begins a very new season of life for both of us, really, because her being in school, you know, as you can imagine affected our life together quite a bit. 04:11.440 --> 04:12.961 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's awesome. 04:13.462

--> 04:13.902 [SPEAKER_03]: That's good. 04:14.342 --> 04:16.204 [SPEAKER_03]: Deb is and is going to be a great counselor. 04:16.404 --> 04:17.144 [SPEAKER_03]: She's going to be awesome. 04:17.264 --> 04:17.465 [SPEAKER_03]: Yes. 04:17.985 --> 04:20.026 [SPEAKER_03]: My daughter, she's going to be so great. 04:20.967 --> 04:21.487 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, we haven't 04:22.368 --> 04:23.529 [SPEAKER_03]: We haven't done any journeys. 04:23.549 --> 04:27.010 [SPEAKER_03]: You guys drove hours and hours and hours with your family. 04:27.050 --> 04:28.311 [SPEAKER_03]: We haven't really done any of that. 04:28.371 --> 04:34.114 [SPEAKER_03]: But I was thinking, so both our kids were back in school, they're both in high school now, senior and a freshman. 04:35.955 --> 04:37.236 [SPEAKER_03]: Things were popping off around here. 04:37.856 --> 04:43.299 [SPEAKER_03]: We've got like either my son's girlfriend or my daughter's boyfriend over for dinner every day. 04:44.039 --> 04:46.160 [SPEAKER_03]: which is awesome. 04:47.320 --> 04:47.840 [SPEAKER_03]: It's awesome. 04:47.860 --> 05:00.124 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, when your kids are dating people that don't make your skin crawl, you know, like when you would wish those when you would, you know, they're like actually pretty good humans. 05:00.264 --> 05:00.944 [SPEAKER_06]: They're good today. 05:01.224 --> 05:04.325 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm, and they make, they make my kids better. 05:05.646 --> 05:06.346 [SPEAKER_03]: And that's great. 05:06.646 --> 05:08.967 [SPEAKER_03]: It's nice to be, it's nice that they want to be here 05:12.868 --> 05:14.169 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 05:14.389 --> 05:16.409 [SPEAKER_03]: We got a couple of things we're doing. 05:17.830 --> 05:18.530 [SPEAKER_03]: We're picking up. 05:18.910 --> 05:24.292 [SPEAKER_03]: We've got a class coming up, learning how to love as we were coming with power with Jesus. 05:25.172 --> 05:31.735 [SPEAKER_03]: It's about we're going to do a seven week class on Jesus and women, his interactions with women from the gospels and 05:32.575 --> 05:43.778 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's a Canaanite woman and the woman with the issue of blood and the Samaritan woman and the woman who shows up at Simon the Pharisees House during dinner and several other texts and I'm super geeked. 05:43.998 --> 05:53.540 [SPEAKER_03]: I've been wanting to do this class for a couple of years and I've just been lazy But now we're doing it No, we just have other things going on and now we're doing it and I'm excited. 05:53.580 --> 06:01.582 [SPEAKER_03]: It starts the second week of September I believe and Yeah, if you go to gravitycomas.com slash reconstructing you can sign up 06:02.562 --> 06:08.047 [SPEAKER_03]: For that class, it's either going to be Tuesdays at 12 or Thursdays at 8 p.m. Eastern. 06:08.087 --> 06:15.113 [SPEAKER_03]: We haven't decided yet, but if you register, it's a pay what you want to pay what you can, even free if you need it to be. 06:15.934 --> 06:16.734 [SPEAKER_03]: You'll get a recording. 06:16.794 --> 06:23.040 [SPEAKER_03]: So even if you can't join us live, I invite you to, yeah, we're going to learn from Jesus how to reckon with our power. 06:23.540 --> 06:25.162 [SPEAKER_03]: And super stoked about it. 06:25.864 --> 06:38.622 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and it could be this is the day that this podcast listener of your listening to this, the date and time may already be fixed and that will be listed at that website that Matt mentioned. 06:40.084 --> 06:42.087 [SPEAKER_06]: Gravitycomans.com slash reconstructing. 06:42.828 --> 06:51.873 [SPEAKER_06]: The other thing that is happening is that we're starting a new formation course cohort that Matt is going to be leading. 06:52.393 --> 06:53.894 [SPEAKER_06]: He's going to be the coach for that. 06:54.414 --> 07:04.899 [SPEAKER_06]: That again is a time TBA, or sorry, TBD because it's usually based on the availability of the people who are interested 07:12.423 --> 07:16.624 [SPEAKER_06]: In one way to talk about it is that it's a training in practical spiritual formation. 07:17.484 --> 07:30.107 [SPEAKER_06]: Essentially you learn a framework, a set of assumptions and tools and a framework for learning how to pay attention to how God is at work in and through your life. 07:31.087 --> 07:37.929 [SPEAKER_06]: And if that is a surprise to you that God might already be at work in your life and through your life, 07:43.571 --> 07:54.217 [SPEAKER_06]: That's the assumption, and so listen to if that sounds good to you, if that sounds like, you know what, I would love to grow in my awareness of how God is at work and in through me. 07:55.697 --> 07:59.079 [SPEAKER_06]: I would encourage you to sign up, or at least, look, get the information. 07:59.600 --> 08:03.182 [SPEAKER_06]: There's a lot of information at gravity commas.com slash formation. 08:04.042 --> 08:07.245 [SPEAKER_06]: and you can look at the information there and fill at the form. 08:07.665 --> 08:17.434 [SPEAKER_06]: You can also just email Matt if you're interested, because usually the first step is just to have a quick conversation, where, you know, just hear a little bit about your journey. 08:17.714 --> 08:25.902 [SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, hey, does this seem like the right thing for you to grow in your next season with God and with others? 08:27.303 --> 08:49.620 [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, Matt at gravity commons.com or gravity commons.com slash formation to get a little bit more info about the course and how it works, but yeah, that's a bit longer commitment, that's like a 12 month commitment to be on a call and kind of bring those reading assignments, you know, it's the whole deal. 08:50.658 --> 08:52.799 [SPEAKER_06]: Totally worth it though. 08:52.819 --> 08:53.419 [SPEAKER_02]: 100% worth it. 08:53.439 --> 08:53.619 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 08:53.879 --> 08:54.139 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 08:54.219 --> 08:55.340 [SPEAKER_02]: That's that's why I'm here. 08:55.800 --> 09:00.402 [SPEAKER_02]:

Y'all that is why I'm here Because I did it and then I told Matt I want to do it again. 09:00.482 --> 09:01.822 [SPEAKER_02]: He was like, we don't do it a second time. 09:01.862 --> 09:09.225 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, yes You do So now that's so then I did it a second year and that was I don't know 15 years ago or something Yeah 09:14.913 --> 09:28.358 [SPEAKER_02]: I know that the Lord uses all sorts of stuff to open up our eyes and teach us, but I am telling you, this is one of those things that at least in my life was very transformative so. 09:29.399 --> 09:29.639 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 09:29.879 --> 09:30.039 [SPEAKER_06]: Yep. 09:30.419 --> 09:31.360 [SPEAKER_06]: I encourage you to check it out. 09:32.180 --> 09:32.420 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 09:32.980 --> 09:35.361 [SPEAKER_03]: And while you're here, you should check out our interview with Ben Daniel. 09:36.082 --> 09:36.182 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 09:36.202 --> 09:37.002 [SPEAKER_03]: Just coming up next. 09:38.325 --> 09:44.949 [SPEAKER_03]: Coming up next after these commercial messages no, I'm going to read I've been I've been I'm going to I know we've done this so I'm going to read a spy. 09:44.989 --> 09:50.772 [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and then I'm going to yeah yeah, and then there's going to be a little music buffer that your brother puts in and then he's going to start talking. 09:52.373 --> 09:52.773 [SPEAKER_03]: Perfect. 09:53.033 --> 09:53.373 [SPEAKER_03]: Go ahead. 09:53.393 --> 09:55.775 [SPEAKER_03]: Let's you just say that then you said they're quite late. 09:55.795 --> 09:56.295 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to do this. 09:58.084 --> 10:03.692 [SPEAKER_03]: Ben Daniel is a Presbyterian minister, peace activist, and award-winning author living in Oakland, California. 10:04.052 --> 10:11.342 [SPEAKER_03]: His faith-based social and political commentary has appeared in a wide variety of local regional, national, and international publications and broadcasts. 10:11.903 --> 10:15.087 [SPEAKER_03]: His books include neighbor, Christian encounters with legal immigrants. 10:15.708 --> 10:23.095 [SPEAKER_03]: the search for truth about Islam, a Christian pastor separates fact from fiction and thoughtful Christianity, faith in action in the way of Jesus. 10:23.596 --> 10:26.559 [SPEAKER_03]: Today we're talking about his latest book with him. 10:27.019 --> 10:33.406 [SPEAKER_03]: Grace, over guns, pursuing peace in a militarized world, let's get into it with Ben. 10:52.003 --> 10:54.364 [SPEAKER_03]: Ben Daniel, welcome to the Gravity Commons podcast. 10:55.004 --> 10:55.324 [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you. 10:55.344 --> 10:56.905 [SPEAKER_05]: It is really a pleasure to be here. 10:57.165 --> 11:00.427 [SPEAKER_05]: I'd happy to meet all of you and look forward to this conversation. 11:01.047 --> 11:03.228 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's too. 11:03.388 --> 11:05.909 [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe as a way to introduce you to our audience. 11:05.989 --> 11:07.550 [SPEAKER_03]: I wonder if you could just talk for a bit. 11:08.668 --> 11:23.626 [SPEAKER_03]: about how you became interested in the topic of peace and war and where their specific moments in your life or in the world that maybe maybe catalyze that interests to write a book about it. 11:25.247 --> 11:27.589 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean, I think I come by it, honestly. 11:27.629 --> 11:36.034 [SPEAKER_05]: I was raised in Northern California, grew up on the North Coast behind the Redwood Curtain and it's a town called Mendocino. 11:36.054 --> 11:39.957 [SPEAKER_05]: There were a lot of broken stocks and homemade granola in my childhood. 11:40.697 --> 11:47.942 [SPEAKER_05]: And then I married somebody who my mother-in-law, I didn't marry my mother-in-law, but my wife's mother is from, 11:49.143 --> 11:50.564 [SPEAKER_05]: the Anabaptist Tradition. 11:50.664 --> 11:56.927 [SPEAKER_05]: She is something called, she grew up in an introduction called the Brethren and Christ, which is part of the Anabaptist World. 11:57.067 --> 12:13.816 [SPEAKER_05]: And so our family, you know, because I grew up among hippies in my wife grew up around Anabaptists, we really have a lot of sort of natural inclination towards being anti-war, being pacifists. 12:14.536 --> 12:15.637 [SPEAKER_05]: But you know, I think that 12:16.789 --> 12:28.800 [SPEAKER_05]: What got me interested in the topic as something I might want to write a book about, probably happened when I was in seminary, and it was that I was in seminary during the first goal for during the early 90s. 12:29.781 --> 12:40.831 [SPEAKER_05]: And when I went to church, where I had an internship at a large suburban church in New Jersey, and I went to church on the Sunday after the ground war began in that war, 12:42.801 --> 12:45.062 [SPEAKER_05]: that the pastor didn't say anything about the war. 12:45.122 --> 12:48.164 [SPEAKER_05]: No one said anything about the war during the church service. 12:48.464 --> 12:51.506 [SPEAKER_05]: And that felt like a real missed opportunity to me. 12:51.526 --> 12:57.509 [SPEAKER_05]: So I vowed that I would talk about the war, the next time we were happy. 12:57.529 --> 12:58.770 [SPEAKER_05]: And I wasn't a pass of this yet. 12:58.790 --> 12:59.791 [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, not officially. 13:01.192 --> 13:08.176 [SPEAKER_05]: But the next time I was in the pulpit this Sunday after the beginning of the war in Iraq, 13:13.074 --> 13:17.658 [SPEAKER_05]: And I watched people get up and leave my church in the middle of the sermon and some of them never came back. 13:19.219 --> 13:24.403 [SPEAKER_05]: And looking back on that, I realized that it was a pretty good sermon, but it was too late. 13:25.324 --> 13:29.767 [SPEAKER_05]: If you wait till the war is actually started to preach your anti-war sermon, it's too late. 13:29.787 --> 13:33.370 [SPEAKER_05]: You need to talk about war before the war start. 13:34.291 --> 13:41.096 [SPEAKER_05]: And so that got me interested in the topic of what I actually believed about war and what makes war

just. 13:43.450 --> 13:57.116 [SPEAKER_05]: I was reading some window berry in around 2009, and I decided I was a pacifist, and I've been wanting to read, I've been wanting to write a book about pacifism, anti-war book, sense about, 13:58.134 --> 14:09.541 [SPEAKER_05]: I started pitching it to my publisher about 2010 maybe a little later, but my publisher always said no if they couldn't sell a book on piece. 14:10.182 --> 14:23.250 [SPEAKER_05]: And even the book that I ended up publishing, it's a long story about this book's grace over guns journey to the publication, but the publishers we spoke to all said the same 14:26.430 --> 14:28.230 [SPEAKER_05]: But we can't sell a book about peace. 14:28.270 --> 14:30.891 [SPEAKER_05]: We can't sell an anti-war book in American churches. 14:32.072 --> 14:35.012 [SPEAKER_05]: And finally, the menonites published my book, which was wonderful. 14:35.372 --> 14:36.333 [SPEAKER_05]: They've been a great publisher. 14:36.453 --> 14:40.834 [SPEAKER_05]: But it took the menonites to publish a Presbyterian's book on Passivism. 14:42.274 --> 14:44.535 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they'll always sell a book on Passivism. 14:46.555 --> 14:47.156 [SPEAKER_03]: God, I hope so. 14:49.273 --> 15:05.706 [SPEAKER_02]: We mentioned the word grace, the word grace and Christian spaces often functions as a theological technical term, but it most exclusively uses kind of meaning describing an unmarried mercy of God to forgive our sins. 15:06.266 --> 15:13.912 [SPEAKER_02]: But you have a deeper, more expansive understanding of grace in this book, and I wonder if you could just double click on that for us a bit. 15:14.353 --> 15:15.053 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I... 15:16.074 --> 15:24.016 [SPEAKER_05]: what grace meant to Paul, I think, was maybe a little different that it means to us. 15:25.576 --> 15:29.817 [SPEAKER_05]: For us, it does mean that unmarried favor, which I probably meant that for Paul as well. 15:30.577 --> 15:35.158 [SPEAKER_05]: But it's not a concept which is original to Christianity. 15:35.898 --> 15:38.418 [SPEAKER_05]: It is original to Hellenistic theology, 15:43.379 --> 15:49.943 [SPEAKER_05]: And it refers to the power that comes from God to make us righteous. 15:50.303 --> 15:55.906 [SPEAKER_05]: What the way in which God empowers us to be righteous and to be good people. 15:56.126 --> 15:59.989 [SPEAKER_05]: And whether that, you know, the stoics sort of said that was Zeus, Paul, 16:01.878 --> 16:05.299 [SPEAKER_05]: You know, establish the concept of grace and a Christian context. 16:05.999 --> 16:10.380 [SPEAKER_05]: I think a phyllo of Alexandria talked about it in a way which made sense to Hellenistic Jews. 16:10.980 --> 16:16.102 [SPEAKER_05]: But that is a concept that is really important to me. 16:16.142 --> 16:24.664 [SPEAKER_05]: I think the idea that God's goodness doesn't just save us from our sin, but it also makes us strengthens us to be better people. 16:24.684 --> 16:25.364 [SPEAKER_05]: And then,

you know, 16:26.833 --> 16:30.818 [SPEAKER_05]: Christians often do talk about salvation and sanctification. 16:30.898 --> 16:33.161 [SPEAKER_05]: We get saved and then we get sanctified. 16:33.642 --> 16:45.356 [SPEAKER_05]: And so I think that concept of grace is not disappeared in the Christian church, not even in like evangelical churches and things, but understanding grace. 16:46.192 --> 16:50.456 [SPEAKER_05]: to mean this empowerment to live well. 16:51.457 --> 16:56.302 [SPEAKER_05]: And that part of Grace is also present in the him amazing grace. 16:56.863 --> 16:59.866 [SPEAKER_05]: You know, it's grace that's brought me safe, that's far and grace will lead me home. 17:00.686 --> 17:09.115 [SPEAKER_05]: It this idea that Grace strengthens us and makes us able to live righteous lives is important. 17:09.135 --> 17:09.815 [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's neat. 17:12.537 --> 17:24.431 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, talking about peace, like you said, this kind of brought up as you were talking about an anti-war sermon. 17:25.112 --> 17:28.976 [SPEAKER_06]: So the military is often, you know, I've obviously connected with 17:30.798 --> 17:38.244 [SPEAKER_06]: thoughts about peace and war, but also then obviously it's the United States military and so it's often associated with patriotism. 17:38.364 --> 17:50.033 [SPEAKER_06]: So supporting the troops means supporting whatever the troops are doing and so patriotism is very closely aligned with supporting the military. 17:50.754 --> 17:58.099 [SPEAKER_06]: But you can tend that in this book that we can love our country non-violently and be patriots of peace 17:59.561 --> 18:07.049 [SPEAKER_06]: I'm wondering if you can just name some of the things that you have in mind for how we can be peacefully patriotic. 18:07.932 --> 18:08.532 [SPEAKER_05]: Well, right. 18:08.693 --> 18:25.023 [SPEAKER_05]: I think that probably the most important way we can demonstrate a love for our country is by being good citizens, going out and voting, participating in public conversations, engaging in our communities. 18:25.844 --> 18:33.508 [SPEAKER_05]: To me, that is a peaceful way to be truly patriotic, truly to make 18:36.622 --> 18:39.404 [SPEAKER_05]: United States or any other country make them better places. 18:39.424 --> 18:41.665 [SPEAKER_05]: I think so citizenship is really good. 18:42.065 --> 18:48.509 [SPEAKER_05]: Strengthening our democracy, strengthening things like our free press, participating in the free press. 18:48.529 --> 18:54.252 [SPEAKER_05]: I think living well economically by which for me really feels like it's important. 18:54.732 --> 19:03.276 [SPEAKER_05]: for me to shop in local stores, it's important for me to support businesses that are doing good things, so being a good economic citizen as well. 19:03.896 --> 19:10.639 [SPEAKER_05]: And I think also being a good ecological citizen, so living well on the earth, preserving the earth. 19:11.979 --> 19:19.821 [SPEAKER_05]: making sure that our water

sheds aren't deforested and our streams and rivers aren't polluted and our air is clean. 19:21.021 --> 19:23.322 [SPEAKER_05]: Making sure we're doing what we can to address climate change. 19:24.062 --> 19:30.783 [SPEAKER_05]: Those all feel like tangible ways to love our country that don't everything to do with the military. 19:31.643 --> 19:32.764 [SPEAKER_05]: And I think that's important. 19:34.264 --> 19:34.544 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 19:34.584 --> 19:34.744 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 19:36.177 --> 19:46.159 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm just, as you're saying all this, I'm thinking, yeah, that's obvious, but man, that is not the dominant images we have of what it means to be patriotic or what it means to live our country. 19:46.219 --> 19:56.582 [SPEAKER_03]: And it maybe just circle back to your comment about why so many publishers demured when you presented this book to them that they couldn't sell a book on pacifism. 19:57.022 --> 20:02.943 [SPEAKER_03]: I wonder if you could talk for a bit, and you talk about this tangentially in your book, but I wonder if you could just speak to us a bit about. 20:04.784 --> 20:13.194 [SPEAKER_03]: Why do you think there's such a compromise in the American white Christian church with violence? 20:14.475 --> 20:19.561 [SPEAKER_03]: How did we get so syncretistic with that? 20:20.576 --> 20:21.536 [SPEAKER_05]: that's a great question. 20:23.257 --> 20:39.561 [SPEAKER_05]: My first answer is maybe a little too simplistic but I'll give it to you anyway because it's the one that came to my mind and that is we are the religion of the empire and empires are inherently violent. 20:40.590 --> 20:52.777 [SPEAKER_05]: The empires are expensive, so in order for empires to work they have to conquer and insubjugate and exploit people and places. 20:52.797 --> 21:01.082 [SPEAKER_05]: So if we speak up too strongly, if we white Christians speak up too strongly or peace, 21:02.470 --> 21:19.981 [SPEAKER_05]: uh, then the empire loses some of its religious foundation, uh, and so I think it's it's that that may be a little too simplistic, um, I also think, uh, just outside of, um, you know, the religious institutions. 21:21.230 --> 21:30.336 [SPEAKER_05]: white Christians are white Americans and white Americans are by nature very violent people. 21:31.377 --> 21:32.658 [SPEAKER_05]: We are history. 21:34.459 --> 21:41.144 [SPEAKER_05]: Our our our outlook in the world our position are the power we currently hold in the world is through violence. 21:41.324 --> 21:43.606 [SPEAKER_05]: Our history is profoundly violent. 21:44.486 --> 21:45.167 [SPEAKER_05]: The United States 21:47.009 --> 21:51.272 [SPEAKER_05]: has a genocidal history that I don't think we have done enough to talk about. 21:52.653 --> 22:07.646 [SPEAKER_05]: It was a shock to me to learn that one of the worst genocides in human history if by that, if you measured by the percentage of a population killed, happened in the county where I grew up in Northern California, then

to see no county. 22:08.366 --> 22:08.566 [SPEAKER_05]: So, 22:09.615 --> 22:25.972 [SPEAKER_05]: But we're not talking about that, but that violence has certainly shaped us and the power we have in the world, both economically and in terms of security, if you want to call it that, is all profoundly violent and. 22:27.394 --> 22:29.536 [SPEAKER_05]: We have a hard time letting go of that. 22:30.036 --> 22:33.218 [SPEAKER_05]: I think there's a way in which it feels like something of a security blanket for us. 22:33.258 --> 22:35.380 [SPEAKER_05]: And we don't want to, we don't want to set it aside. 22:36.061 --> 22:46.028 [SPEAKER_05]: Because we have been told, and I think it's a lie, but we've been told that this is what keeps us safe, and it's what keeps us economically secure. 22:46.348 --> 22:51.172 [SPEAKER_05]: And I don't think either of those are true, but that's what we have, we have come to believe. 22:52.933 --> 22:56.436 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, what I hear you saying is violence makes religious claims on our lives. 22:57.476 --> 22:58.396 [SPEAKER_03]: Yes. 22:59.217 --> 23:13.864 [SPEAKER_03]: It puts itself forward as sort of a divine power that that secures us or brings us provision or the kinds of things that we hear talked about a lot in the scriptures even. 23:18.465 --> 23:26.091 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, Ben, I was looking forward to this interview because in this book you identify as a pacifist. 23:26.331 --> 23:28.573 [SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like, I live in Colorado Springs. 23:29.233 --> 23:30.894 [SPEAKER_02]: There's three military bases here. 23:31.135 --> 23:33.736 [SPEAKER_02]: And I feel I'm letting the cat out of the bag. 23:33.757 --> 23:35.478 [SPEAKER_02]: I think I'm a closet pacifist. 23:35.518 --> 23:37.299 [SPEAKER_02]: I haven't come out of the closet, so to speak. 23:38.740 --> 23:44.885 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm interested for you to share like what are your core theological values or beliefs 23:48.992 --> 23:49.973 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. 23:51.013 --> 24:00.439 [SPEAKER_05]: My conviction is, I suppose this is a theological belief or a conviction, but I just don't think it's okay to kill children. 24:01.540 --> 24:03.381 [SPEAKER_05]: And, and, and, and war. 24:05.461 --> 24:06.782 [SPEAKER_05]: always kills children. 24:06.822 --> 24:07.563 [SPEAKER_05]: It always has. 24:08.223 --> 24:09.084 [SPEAKER_05]: I don't think it's engaged. 24:09.685 --> 24:12.047 [SPEAKER_05]: It's, I don't think it's right to engage in sexual violence. 24:12.347 --> 24:16.811 [SPEAKER_05]: War has always been about sexual violence ultimately. 24:19.093 --> 24:27.259 [SPEAKER_05]: I also, well, and I don't believe that we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be harming people who have no connection to the war. 24:32.829 --> 24:43.615 [SPEAKER_05]: Any justice, if it were just to wage war in another country, then it would have to be just for wars to be waged in my country. 24:45.056 --> 24:58.643 [SPEAKER_05]: If it was just to fire bomb cities in Germany during World War II, then it would be just to fire bomb Oakland California where I currently live to stop America from doing the things that we're doing in the world. 24:59.613 --> 25:03.055 [SPEAKER_05]: And I, because, and that's, you know, that's basic teachings of Jesus, right? 25:03.096 --> 25:07.318 [SPEAKER_05]: What you, what you do to others, you treat others as you would have them treat you. 25:09.039 --> 25:09.860 [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm just not ready. 25:09.920 --> 25:16.004 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm just not ready to say it would be just to bomb my neighborhood because of something the Trump administration's doing. 25:16.124 --> 25:18.065 [SPEAKER_05]: It just doesn't, it doesn't feel right to me. 25:18.566 --> 25:25.050 [SPEAKER_05]: So for that reason, I don't think it's okay for anyone to bomb Russian neighborhoods because of what Vladimir Putin is doing. 25:26.899 --> 25:36.197 [SPEAKER_05]: And so I just think that we have to follow the teachings of Jesus here, this sort of basic ethical principle of Jesus. 25:42.409 --> 25:50.691 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, in this book, you talk about some of the American, the history of America's military influence around the world. 25:51.932 --> 26:04.235 [SPEAKER_06]: And that was some of the eye-opening, you know, I grew up in kind of a relatively conservative evangelical background with sort of a bland affirmation, you know, of American, 26:05.155 --> 26:10.200 [SPEAKER_06]: military activities, you know, fighting for freedom was kind of how I thought about it. 26:10.220 --> 26:15.526 [SPEAKER_06]: But you talk about some of the actual history of our military influence around the world. 26:15.546 --> 26:25.916 [SPEAKER_06]: I wonder if you have a favorite story or like a quintessential story of how this influence has shaped our national politics and identity? 26:26.617 --> 26:26.757 [SPEAKER_05]: Oh. 26:27.518 --> 26:27.738 [SPEAKER_05]: Well. 26:29.888 --> 26:43.961 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean, a lot, but I think, you know, I think for example, the one that comes to my mind right away is the Monroe dock from right we we I guess starting under James Monroe whenever that was that early 19th century. 26:46.935 --> 27:06.768 [SPEAKER_05]: we decided that we would create a hemisphere, the Western hemisphere would be free of European colonization, and that the United States would reap the benefits of that, we would be enforced that this freedom from European colonization. 27:06.788 --> 27:10.811 [SPEAKER_05]: And as a result, we would be the most powerful people in the 27:11.934 --> 27:21.616 [SPEAKER_05]: Western Hemisphere, and so we've created a lot of really a great deal of misery in Central America and South America. 27:22.277 --> 27:24.297 [SPEAKER_05]: I know more about Central America and the Caribbean. 27:24.717 --> 27:31.239 [SPEAKER_05]: I know that South America, but we created a great deal of misery in our hemisphere, sort of promulgating 27:37.517 --> 27:54.846 [SPEAKER_05]: that the

Japanese Empire created an identical doctrine or a doctrine which was rooted in them in road doctrine, which said that the Asia Pacific region would only be home to Asian people, but wouldn't be controlled by Western colonizers or Western power. 27:56.547 --> 27:59.449 [SPEAKER_05]: We got so upset about that that we fought them 28:01.107 --> 28:05.811 [SPEAKER_05]: We waged a war with Japan, and we killed them. 28:06.291 --> 28:08.813 [SPEAKER_05]: We were so object, I mean, we firebond their cities. 28:08.833 --> 28:11.415 [SPEAKER_05]: We dropped two nuclear weapons on their cities. 28:13.296 --> 28:21.162 [SPEAKER_05]: And part of that was because they were taking our colonies out of the Asia-Pacific regions, specifically most importantly, the Philippines. 28:22.176 --> 28:27.143 [SPEAKER_05]: And so the American hypocrisy there is stunning. 28:27.864 --> 28:34.814 [SPEAKER_05]: And we still consider that war against Japan to have been a good war when we were fighting 28:36.312 --> 28:45.160 [SPEAKER_05]: a sort of a copy of us, we were fighting an empire that was behaving in the same way we behave. 28:45.660 --> 28:51.605 [SPEAKER_05]: I think that's pretty interesting, and damning actually, it's a damning history. 28:53.910 --> 29:15.839 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, you have a whole section of chapter in your book on Central and South America and the work that CIA and Covert military operations did to destabilize governments there and so which led to economic and social and political instability which leads to migration which leads to a border problem. 29:17.355 --> 29:36.896 [SPEAKER_03]: right in the U.S. and so I think a lot of what I appreciated about the way you handle that Ben is that you, unless we know the history of how the military, the work the military is done, we interpret current events in a vacuum. 29:37.977 --> 29:41.959 [SPEAKER_03]: And then that vacuum limits the possible options. 29:41.979 --> 29:56.905 [SPEAKER_03]: That's something I kept thinking about as our major book is how the military limits the options we have to resolve conflict, because when you're spending a trillion dollars on something, you have to use it. 29:58.279 --> 29:58.440 [SPEAKER_03]: Yes. 29:58.580 --> 30:02.126 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, you have to use it. 30:02.146 --> 30:09.980 [SPEAKER_03]: I wonder if you could talk for a bit about those listeners who either heard or thought in the past that like pacifism sounds good. 30:11.400 --> 30:21.325 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, but it's too idealistic to handle the Russian Ukraine conflict or what's happening in Gaza. 30:21.525 --> 30:26.788 [SPEAKER_03]: It's just not practical, it's not realistic. 30:27.068 --> 30:36.073 [SPEAKER_03]: How do you respond to arguments like that that sort of set aside pacifism as something we could actually accomplish peace in the world? 30:39.419 --> 30:45.042 [SPEAKER_05]: It's an interesting proposition because actually passiveism works better than war. 30:45.102 --> 30:49.104 [SPEAKER_05]: Now, that this is not saying that passivism always works. 30:49.444 --> 30:50.105 [SPEAKER_05]: It's not magic. 30:50.165 --> 30:51.305 [SPEAKER_05]: It's often very messy. 30:52.066 --> 30:54.087 [SPEAKER_05]: Sometimes it fails spectacularly. 30:54.887 --> 30:58.549 [SPEAKER_05]: But I don't think it fails as much as war does. 30:58.649 --> 31:03.711 [SPEAKER_05]: War simply doesn't work in my opinion, my estimation. 31:05.872 --> 31:13.535 [SPEAKER_05]: And now, I will say that in my opinion, to say that a war is working for a war to work it has to achieve peace. 31:14.235 --> 31:29.761 [SPEAKER_05]: And the peace it has to achieve is something like Shalom or Salam, these concept of peace, which are not just the absence of fighting, but the indwelling of goodness and well-being for everyone. 31:30.161 --> 31:32.402 [SPEAKER_05]: As a person of faith, that has to be the goal. 31:33.720 --> 31:35.644 [SPEAKER_05]: and war doesn't do that. 31:35.724 --> 31:42.455 [SPEAKER_05]: War leads either to war, to more wars, or war leads to some terrible annihilation. 31:44.297 --> 31:45.660 [SPEAKER_05]: And pacifism, 31:47.690 --> 31:51.291 [SPEAKER_05]: actually has some success that where war doesn't. 31:51.311 --> 31:55.613 [SPEAKER_05]: So it's interesting that we consider pacifism or the military sort of the fallback option, right? 31:55.893 --> 32:07.177 [SPEAKER_05]: We'll try being engaging diplomatically and economically and morally, but if that doesn't work, then we have military violence as this fallback fail-safe option. 32:07.737 --> 32:09.217 [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's sort of the other way around. 32:09.437 --> 32:10.458 [SPEAKER_05]: I think that that 32:11.958 --> 32:21.645 [SPEAKER_05]: passive, you know, peaceful resolution to conflict geopolitically has a greater success rate than does military violence. 32:22.026 --> 32:36.797 [SPEAKER_05]: In my estimation, now, perhaps one of your listeners will come up with some really great example of a time when military violence brought true, chelome, true, aloha, true, puravita, whatever you want to call that, concept 32:41.884 --> 32:43.166 [SPEAKER_05]: there may be such a war. 32:43.186 --> 32:44.827 [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know about it. 32:45.308 --> 32:54.076 [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think that maybe one war that Costa Rica fought against American filibusters in the middle of the 19th century might have been a good war. 32:55.217 --> 32:55.758 [SPEAKER_05]: That's one. 32:56.719 --> 32:57.740 [SPEAKER_05]: But that's not very many. 33:00.386 --> 33:01.007 [SPEAKER_03]: We should get a list. 33:01.047 --> 33:03.728 [SPEAKER_03]: We should get a list going and see how it compares. 33:04.028 --> 33:04.228 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. 33:04.449 --> 33:05.969 [SPEAKER_05]: All you list is put it in the comments. 33:06.069 --> 33:09.091 [SPEAKER_05]: Are there going to be comments? 33:09.131 --> 33:09.311 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. 33:10.152 --> 33:11.132 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 33:12.333 -->

33:16.635 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I mean, I really want, I would love to just maybe ask one more question. 33:16.655 --> 33:28.642 [SPEAKER_03]: As we go, like you mentioned that pacifism works and that I think, and I mentioned like how violence compromises our imagination. 33:30.741 --> 33:31.762 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it really calling. 33:31.802 --> 33:39.171 [SPEAKER_03]: I heard somebody say once that they don't own a gun because they own a gun, they could possibly use it. 33:41.443 --> 33:48.267 [SPEAKER_03]: And I do the same thing with Cheetos, Ben, I don't buy Cheetos because if I buy them, I might eat them. 33:48.687 --> 33:57.053 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, but like the owning, having access to violence sort of limits the options we have to do anything but violence. 33:57.553 --> 33:59.994 [SPEAKER_03]: I wonder, like, who you've learned from? 34:01.322 --> 34:18.437 [SPEAKER_03]: who's what models of like creative good pacifism or peacemaking, where have you gone or what have you learned from that fills out your imagination for how peaceworks, the hard work of making peace. 34:19.732 --> 34:22.415 [SPEAKER_05]: Well, there's a number of people that I consider teachers in this. 34:22.475 --> 34:34.089 [SPEAKER_05]: One of them, I mentioned early, Wendell Barry, and Wendell Barry is really good at just kind of saying things and he cuts through the crap and just says things that are true and he says them in ways that are beautiful. 34:34.737 --> 34:36.158 [SPEAKER_05]: And that's really important to me. 34:36.178 --> 34:43.245 [SPEAKER_05]: So when the window barrier has been really important, Chris Hedges has been really a great teacher for me. 34:43.345 --> 34:44.927 [SPEAKER_05]: I've read a number of Chris Hedges books. 34:46.428 --> 34:54.376 [SPEAKER_05]: And really, really like his work, admire his work, his bravery in some of the things he does. 34:56.919 --> 34:58.560 [SPEAKER_05]: Then there's also just studying 34:59.846 --> 35:24.486 [SPEAKER_05]: studying the world, I think that I really like Oscar Ares, he's the former president of Costa Rica who when the United States, and I write about this in the book, but when the United States built military bases in Costa Rica for the contrast, the contrast that we're fighting, the sand and east is in the Nicaraguan Civil War, that was happening in the 80s. 35:24.986 --> 35:27.769 [SPEAKER_05]: There's nothing Costa Rica could do about it, because Costa Rica doesn't have an army. 35:28.410 --> 35:29.090 [SPEAKER_05]: as any military. 35:29.110 --> 35:41.536 [SPEAKER_05]: So what they did is they got together, Oscar Rays convened the presidents of the Central American countries, kicked the Soviet Union in the United States in Cuba out of the room, which pissed off the Reagan administration to know when. 35:42.377 --> 35:48.380 [SPEAKER_05]: And the, and the, the, it goes to the, the Central American countries came up with a peace plan. 35:49.758 --> 35:57.160 [SPEAKER_05]: And it ended the wars in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in El Salvador in Guatemala, Honduras. 35:57.540 --> 36:01.881 [SPEAKER_05]: Those wars ended because of a peace plan that didn't involve the big empires. 36:01.921 --> 36:04.582 [SPEAKER_05]: It just involved the people who were directly affected by it. 36:04.602 --> 36:06.843 [SPEAKER_05]: And it's not, it's not been perfect. 36:07.003 --> 36:09.803 [SPEAKER_05]: You know, there's still problems in Central America for sure. 36:10.584 --> 36:14.505 [SPEAKER_05]: But I will say that for the first time probably in 200 years, 36:15.863 --> 36:20.405 [SPEAKER_05]: There's been 40 years of peace, or 35 years of peace in Central America. 36:21.766 --> 36:22.566 [SPEAKER_05]: Again, not perfect. 36:22.586 --> 36:23.827 [SPEAKER_05]: They've got problems with gangs. 36:23.867 --> 36:31.531 [SPEAKER_05]: And now, El Salvador has got a dictator and Nicaragua's democracy as fragile. 36:33.612 --> 36:39.775 [SPEAKER_05]: But there's not an act of war going on in Central America for the first time. 36:42.923 --> 36:43.763 [SPEAKER_05]: the 19th century. 36:44.224 --> 36:48.445 [SPEAKER_05]: There's been three and a half decades of peace, which is amazing. 36:48.965 --> 36:55.688 [SPEAKER_05]: And to me, that takes up that is a really amazing thing to read about and to see. 36:56.608 --> 36:59.469 [SPEAKER_05]: But there are other great writers, Josiah Royce. 37:01.530 --> 37:03.031 [SPEAKER_05]: You know, wonderful. 37:03.051 --> 37:06.032 [SPEAKER_05]: We will Leo Tolstoy. 37:06.092 --> 37:10.254 [SPEAKER_05]: Leo Tolstoy's work on anti-war workers is brilliant. 37:10.274 --> 37:10.634 [SPEAKER_05]: He wrote a 37:11.526 --> 37:25.573 [SPEAKER_05]: brilliant essay on against patriotism, where he talks about the, the, the pack between Russia and France, and now that was causing everybody to be all patriotic. 37:27.486 --> 37:46.882 [SPEAKER_05]: He condemned it and he was right because I don't know 15 years later 20 years later something like that World War I was happening in France and Russia were involved in a war that neither one of them had anything to do with But it was this pact all these packs that people were making all these alliances Created this massive bloodbath in Europe. 37:47.462 --> 37:48.863 [SPEAKER_05]: So it's I love told stories work. 37:49.104 --> 37:51.726 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, there's a there's a number of great teachers that I Did I have 37:54.169 --> 37:57.671 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I know you said that that was your last question, but I have one more. 37:57.751 --> 37:58.252 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, fine. 37:58.432 --> 37:59.552 [SPEAKER_02]: Can I ask my last question? 37:59.672 --> 38:18.324 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, because I met with a new friend of mine, just this week, who is a Russian Ukrainian American, and I was, I just had a lot of questions, like she was very willing to share and share part of her life and all that, but in this conversation, thinking about her 38:22.366 --> 38:24.907

[SPEAKER_02]: are like me where I want some encouragement. 38:24.927 --> 38:28.168 [SPEAKER_02]: I want some ideas of like, what do we do? 38:28.649 --> 38:36.652 [SPEAKER_02]: How do we become agents of peace in this violent world that we live in when we actually feel really powerless? 38:39.273 --> 38:42.474 [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm just curious if you maybe to conclude our time. 38:42.594 --> 38:48.757 [SPEAKER_02]: Just what encouragement or ideas would you give me and our listeners? 38:49.357 --> 38:49.557 [SPEAKER_05]: Well, 38:50.230 --> 38:55.014 [SPEAKER_05]: Um, uh, kind of give you a pious answer to that, uh, yeah. 38:55.594 --> 39:00.457 [SPEAKER_05]: My pious answer is that we need to tap into God's grace. 39:02.119 --> 39:05.541 [SPEAKER_05]: And sometimes God's grace is not, is not going to be easy. 39:06.522 --> 39:11.685 [SPEAKER_05]: Uh, sometimes it's going to cause us to examine ourselves, uh, and examine the world. 39:12.306 --> 39:17.910 [SPEAKER_05]: And start to feel pretty uncomfortable about what we see because it's not always easy. 39:18.558 --> 39:20.130 [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, Ukraine's a good example, I mean, I think. 39:21.023 --> 39:25.724 [SPEAKER_05]: Um, obviously no one thinks it's okay that Russia invaded Ukraine. 39:26.384 --> 39:33.685 [SPEAKER_05]: What we don't do is think about the massive, um, propaganda campaign that we were all susceptible to. 39:34.465 --> 39:38.786 [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, within within a few days we all knew what Ukraine's flag looks like. 39:39.246 --> 39:40.886 [SPEAKER_05]: I don't even know what Nevada's flag looks like. 39:40.906 --> 39:42.807 [SPEAKER_05]: And they're in the next state over, right? 39:42.887 --> 39:44.167 [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know. 39:44.187 --> 39:47.468 [SPEAKER_05]: We all knew that we weren't supposed to call it the value Korean anymore or Kiev. 39:47.508 --> 39:48.668 [SPEAKER_05]: It had to be Ukraine and Kiev. 39:51.022 --> 39:58.965 [SPEAKER_05]: We've all been sort of sucked into a propaganda machine. 39:59.005 --> 40:06.609 [SPEAKER_05]: We've all, and this is not, I don't mean any way to excuse the invasion of Ukraine, but there's a lot we don't know about. 40:06.629 --> 40:08.349 [SPEAKER_05]: I think that's important to know. 40:10.430 --> 40:12.431 [SPEAKER_05]: We also need to remember, 40:19.497 --> 40:31.082 [SPEAKER_05]: and live in Ukraine, not because they chose it because the Soviet Union was trying to rearrange the world to their benefit or the Soviet Union to their benefit, the population to their benefit. 40:31.502 --> 40:37.705 [SPEAKER_05]: And those people were suffering before the Ukrainian war and will suffer even more afterwards. 40:38.125 --> 40:44.307 [SPEAKER_05]: We need to think we need to be able to allow God's grace to open our eyes to the humanity 40:49.075 --> 40:52.857 [SPEAKER_05]: in the place of those who we've been told are our enemies. 40:54.078 --> 40:57.860 [SPEAKER_05]: When you see God's image present in those people in

those communities. 40:59.121 --> 41:09.447 [SPEAKER_05]: And if we follow that grace, then I believe that grace, I trust that grace will lead us to a place of peace. 41:11.789 --> 41:12.829 [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know what that looks like. 41:13.330 --> 41:16.071 [SPEAKER_05]: There are some problems in the world that seem interactable to me. 41:18.603 --> 41:31.013 [SPEAKER_05]: But I trust the God's grace will point us along the way of peace and that's what I'm putting my hope. 41:31.914 --> 41:33.715 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well said, Ben. 41:34.576 --> 41:38.959 [SPEAKER_03]: The book again is Grace Over Guns, pursuing peace in a militarized world. 41:39.260 --> 41:40.861 [SPEAKER_03]: Ben, thanks so much for being our guest today. 41:41.449 --> 41:41.769 [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you. 41:41.829 --> 41:47.313 [SPEAKER_05]: It was such an honor to be with you and it's fun having three people on a podcast with me. 41:47.333 --> 41:48.354 [SPEAKER_05]: This is the first for me. 41:48.374 --> 41:49.215 [SPEAKER_05]: So thank you so much. 41:49.255 --> 41:58.861 [SPEAKER_05]: It was really great to be with the three of you. 41:59.502 --> 42:03.885 [SPEAKER_06]: Well that was it was refreshing to meet a good old fashioned pacifist. 42:05.077 --> 42:07.298 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know why, I don't know why I think of them as old-fashioned. 42:08.699 --> 42:13.682 [SPEAKER_06]: I feel like I heard a lot about pacifism decades ago, and you don't hear about it as much anymore. 42:13.742 --> 42:16.884 [SPEAKER_06]: But, Chrissy, I want to ask you a question if I could. 42:17.324 --> 42:17.524 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 42:17.604 --> 42:22.727 [SPEAKER_06]: You mentioned in that interview that you were a closet pacifist, I mean, it's out now. 42:22.827 --> 42:23.628 [SPEAKER_06]: This is the internet. 42:23.648 --> 42:25.269 [SPEAKER_06]: Do you realize how the internet works? 42:25.309 --> 42:26.770 [SPEAKER_06]: This is public information. 42:27.330 --> 42:28.531 [SPEAKER_06]: Thousands of people now know. 42:28.591 --> 42:32.373 [SPEAKER_06]: Thousands, millions of people who are listening, they're going to tell on you. 42:33.793 --> 42:45.515 [SPEAKER_06]: No, like, and I was curious that, you know, it might be a question in the back of some of our listeners' minds of like, well, what does that mean to be a pacifist? 42:45.555 --> 42:52.716 [SPEAKER_06]: And so I wonder if I could ask you what that means for you, like, why do you think you're a closet pacifist and what does that mean? 42:53.937 --> 43:01.418 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well originally, even from when I was probably in junior high and high school, I kind of threw that word around. 43:02.570 --> 43:05.774 [SPEAKER_02]: because I hate war, I hate it. 43:06.835 --> 43:09.978 [SPEAKER_02]: And like when he says like, I don't want kids to die. 43:10.299 --> 43:13.022 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't want to, I don't want there to be sexual crimes. 43:13.342 --> 43:22.252 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, and I, and the reason I say I'm

a closet pacifist is because he said, you know, sometimes pacifism doesn't work. 43:23.077 --> 43:25.419 [SPEAKER_02]: just like, you know, war doesn't work. 43:25.859 --> 43:46.532 [SPEAKER_02]: But I do think that the reason I would say I'm a pacifist is because I do believe that pacifism works more and works better than war, holistically for our society and our world, but the reason I say closet is because there are times where it doesn't work. 43:46.592 --> 43:47.773 [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know what to do with that. 43:48.285 --> 43:49.326 [SPEAKER_06]: Hmm, yeah. 43:49.746 --> 43:52.007 [SPEAKER_02]: And so it just feels confusing to me. 43:52.027 --> 43:59.351 [SPEAKER_02]: And honestly, I think just personally, like I said, I live in a huge military town. 44:00.311 --> 44:10.197 [SPEAKER_02]: And so if that is like something that kind of comes up, I think people take that very personally and then think that I'm like anti them. 44:11.052 --> 44:11.233 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 44:11.473 --> 44:13.799 [SPEAKER_02]: If they're in the military and that's not true. 44:13.919 --> 44:14.902 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not anti them. 44:14.922 --> 44:19.954 [SPEAKER_02]: I just want there to be a better different way. 44:21.163 --> 44:21.463 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 44:22.584 --> 44:22.784 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 44:22.864 --> 44:23.165 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 44:24.406 --> 44:24.746 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 44:24.966 --> 44:26.788 [SPEAKER_06]: I feel those tensions as well. 44:27.328 --> 44:32.953 [SPEAKER_06]: I think, you know, and I have convictions that run along those same lines. 44:34.274 --> 44:46.444 [SPEAKER_06]: And there's some convictions that I have that I feel like I just came to very reasonably, you know, what did my homework and, you know, reading and talking and thinking, come 44:52.868 --> 45:13.675 [SPEAKER_06]: trigger issues for a lot of like I'll say Western, even white, even jellicalism, and sort of supporting the military is one of those where you say you're a pacifist and there are just 18 different objections or what abouts or what ifs or it's unfathomable to some people. 45:15.536 --> 45:18.597 [SPEAKER_06]: Christian universalism is another one, another one of those issues that just 45:19.737 --> 45:21.578 [SPEAKER_06]: really throws people for a loop. 45:22.418 --> 45:23.479 [SPEAKER_06]: If you start talking about it. 45:24.119 --> 45:24.299 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 45:25.340 --> 45:28.501 [SPEAKER_06]: And that, you know, yeah, it's as a lot to unpack there. 45:28.642 --> 45:29.722 [SPEAKER_06]: So thank you for sharing that. 45:30.322 --> 45:31.283 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah. 45:32.644 --> 45:34.965 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would go ahead, Chrissy. 45:35.405 --> 45:38.646 [SPEAKER_02]: I just was going to say I did make Paul get rid of his gun when we got married. 45:41.752 --> 45:47.734 [SPEAKER_02]: because it scares me, I just don't ever want it. 45:48.234 --> 45:51.415 [SPEAKER_02]: It does, I don't ever want it to be used ever. 45:52.376 --> 45:54.677 [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah. 45:54.817 --> 45:55.097 [SPEAKER_03]: Anyway. 45:55.917 --> 45:56.557 [SPEAKER_03]: I relate to that. 45:58.098 --> 45:58.338 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 46:00.348 --> 46:19.342 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, what I would I notice is like when he was talking about the situation you crane and how morally complex it is and how it's not monolithic there's not like it's not a 19 60s superhero movie, you know, where there's good guys and bad guys and it's super clear. 46:19.882 --> 46:20.202 [SPEAKER_03]: you know. 46:20.902 --> 46:25.223 [SPEAKER_03]: This is what actually the Marvel Universe explores in some ways. 46:26.103 --> 46:33.884 [SPEAKER_03]: There's like it makes super heroes more morally complicated and villains like sympathetics in some ways. 46:34.284 --> 46:38.345 [SPEAKER_03]: And I actually think that's actually the good thing for our moral compass. 46:39.305 --> 46:45.306 [SPEAKER_03]: Because we tend to demonize we want the world to be very simple. 46:46.807 --> 46:48.767 [SPEAKER_03]: We want Japan to be evil enough 46:50.294 --> 46:55.176 [SPEAKER_03]: Unilaterally, exclusively, that a nuclear bomb is a net good. 46:57.496 --> 46:58.757 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, that's what we want. 46:59.577 --> 47:05.939 [SPEAKER_03]: And what I was noticing is like, as he was describing grace, it just takes a, it requires way more from us. 47:06.939 --> 47:07.279 [SPEAKER_03]: Yes. 47:07.639 --> 47:15.902 [SPEAKER_03]: It's, it's so, it's so interesting even to say that out loud that pacifism costs us more than a trillion dollars. 47:21.203 --> 47:24.024 [SPEAKER_03]: Because we have to, we need wisdom. 47:24.104 --> 47:34.229 [SPEAKER_03]: We have to, maybe suffer personally by, you know, yeah, it just costs a lot. 47:34.289 --> 47:37.210 [SPEAKER_03]: And we'd rather somebody else pay the cost for peace than ourselves. 47:38.491 --> 47:39.831 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think I, you know. 47:40.211 --> 47:40.411 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 47:43.174 --> 47:47.035 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, there's definitely a lot to explore there. 47:47.136 --> 47:58.620 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, it's even if you don't feel like, well, I can't get my hands around the Russia, Ukraine conflict or, you know, I can't do anything about what's happening at Gaza, you know, those kinds of things. 47:58.660 --> 48:06.163 [SPEAKER_06]: I think there is like one of the things that is available to all of us is to explore our own relationship to violence. 48:06.723 --> 48:09.444 [SPEAKER_06]: Even even like the violence of, 48:10.978 --> 48:21.400 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, maybe subtle forms of violence, like I might call like lying or withholding the truth from someone as a subtle act of violence. 48:21.420 --> 48:23.061 [SPEAKER_06]: I'm trying to get my way. 48:23.301 --> 48:28.262 [SPEAKER_06]: I'm trying to establish some kind of control over a situation. 48:28.282 --> 48:28.382 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 48:29.142 --> 48:31.883 [SPEAKER_06]: And sometimes, you know, the resorting

to physical 48:33.003 --> 48:35.725 [SPEAKER_06]: or other forms of violence. 48:36.486 --> 48:46.013 [SPEAKER_06]: It does feel like I have to do this, you know, otherwise all is lost, otherwise, if I lose control of the situation, then, you know, something bad will happen. 48:46.033 --> 48:56.381 [SPEAKER_06]: So I don't know, just confronting our own relationship to violence and fear and suffering, like that is something that all of us can do. 48:57.422 --> 48:57.662 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 48:58.005 --> 49:04.150 [SPEAKER_06]: that I think would be a good, you know, if you want to explore pacifism, yeah, explore, not getting your own way. 49:04.950 --> 49:06.632 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 49:06.652 --> 49:06.812 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 49:06.832 --> 49:07.572 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 49:07.612 --> 49:07.812 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 49:07.892 --> 49:16.139 [SPEAKER_03]: The other thing too that I'm remembering now is when I when I decided to become, um, was commonly called a pacifist. 49:17.039 --> 49:24.225 [SPEAKER_03]: Um, I remember thinking, um, this only makes sense if I can 49:26.159 --> 49:37.663 [SPEAKER_03]: that losing my life to an evil person is morally better than me taking the life of an evil person. 49:47.325 --> 49:47.566 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 49:49.126 --> 49:54.047 [SPEAKER_03]: And I realize, I'm, so like I had to confront my own cowardice. 49:56.953 --> 49:59.075 [SPEAKER_03]: because pacifism is fierce. 49:59.115 --> 50:08.563 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's like, you know, you have to override the amygdala programming. 50:09.063 --> 50:13.647 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, it really is. 50:13.687 --> 50:14.548 [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, that's, you know, 50:16.393 --> 50:20.814 [SPEAKER_06]: That's the ultimate sort of end of all of our efforts at control. 50:21.595 --> 50:33.578 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I think is ultimately what we're seeking is just not to die, you know, for, you know, all by all means, you know, make sure you don't die. 50:34.198 --> 50:40.160 [SPEAKER_06]: Which, you know, obviously it's a good thing, you know, there's good reasons why we want to keep living. 50:41.161 --> 50:42.281 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't want to die. 50:43.001 --> 50:43.221 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 50:43.941 --> 50:44.382 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 50:44.482 --> 50:44.962 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to die. 50:46.771 --> 51:10.857 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to die, but fear of death, fear of death, like, is it overcome by the resurrection of Jesus or not, and will I let the fear of death have dominion over me or the fear of of murdering, killing, that's really the question that I still 51:11.948 --> 51:14.870 [SPEAKER_03]: I understand, that's what's at stake in that commitment. 51:15.710 --> 51:16.291 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know. 51:16.931 --> 51:35.123 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and there's a, you know, that there's a, like you said, the resurrection of Jesus comes into play here for us as Christians at least, because that is, you know, part of what is overcome in the gospel is the fear of death. 51:35.543 --> 51:40.667 [SPEAKER_06]: That sort of runs all the violence in the world, all the violence in the world is based on the fear of death. 51:41.107 --> 51:41.267 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 51:41.287 --> 51:41.527 [SPEAKER_06]: Yes. 51:41.948 --> 51:49.331 [SPEAKER_06]: And so like reckoning with that at a personal level is part of working out our salvation. 51:49.952 --> 51:50.152 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 51:50.472 --> 51:52.113 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, with fear and trembling, I think. 51:52.573 --> 51:52.773 [SPEAKER_03]: Right. 51:54.634 --> 51:54.814 [SPEAKER_03]: Right. 51:55.554 --> 51:56.515 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I don't really have a joke. 51:58.156 --> 51:59.977 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thanks for not sharing a joke right now. 52:00.397 --> 52:01.117 [SPEAKER_03]: Fils a little bit. 52:01.537 --> 52:02.118 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't have a joke. 52:03.178 --> 52:03.418 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. 52:03.478 --> 52:08.041 [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's I think we'll just sign off and it's going to be back. 52:08.221 --> 52:08.801 [SPEAKER_03]: I know we took a few 52:10.957 --> 52:11.898 [SPEAKER_06]: Yep. 52:11.918 --> 52:12.398 [SPEAKER_06]: All right. 52:12.579 --> 52:17.283 [SPEAKER_06]: Good to have a few weeks off and good to be back and listeners will see, we won't see. 52:18.004 --> 52:19.525 [SPEAKER_06]: We won't even hear, but you will hear us. 52:19.966 --> 52:21.027 [SPEAKER_06]: Catch you later, cheese balls. 52:21.767 --> 52:22.368 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. 52:22.388 --> 52:23.569 [SPEAKER_06]: Let's see it. 52:28.934 --> 52:31.857 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for joining us for this episode of The Gravity Podcast. 52:32.625 --> 52:35.206 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're finding it helpful, please tell your friends about it. 52:35.546 --> 52:37.446 [SPEAKER_01]: Word of mouth is the best advertising. 52:38.166 --> 52:41.467 [SPEAKER_01]: Ratings and reviews online also help others find the podcast. 52:41.988 --> 52:44.648 [SPEAKER_01]: And don't forget to 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next time. 53:37.216 --> 53:37.277 [UNKNOWN]: You