Speaker 1: Father Mike tests is my favorite episcopal priest. No offense
Speaker 1: to all the other episcopal priests. I'm sure they're lovely,
Speaker 1: but he takes my calls whenever I make them. So
Speaker 1: he has joined us now to have a conversation about
Speaker 1: the last week.
Speaker 2: Father Mike. First off, welcome back.
Speaker 3: It's good to be back, Mandy. I was good to
Speaker 3: talk to you well, and.
Speaker 2: There's a few things that I want to talk to
Speaker 2: you about. One of them. I feel very hopeful about
Speaker 2: this because.
Speaker 1: Whenever we deal with some big, horrible in Colorado, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's another shooting, you know, and all of
Speaker 1: these horrible events. One of the things that I talk
Speaker 1: about all the time is that, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think would be best for our
Speaker 1: country is if we had a spiritual revival where people
Speaker 1: started to turn to God instead of the news networks
Speaker 1: and turn to God instead of assuming that.
Speaker 2: You know, they have all the answers.
Speaker 1: And since the beginning of the year, sales of the
Speaker 1: Bible have gone up dramatically. Searches on Google for churches
Speaker 1: new or Me have gone up dramatically, and this past
Speaker 1: weekend especially, churches announced that they saw a lot of
Speaker 1: new faces in the pews they had never seen before,
Speaker 1: and that they were excited about the possibility of people
Speaker 1: exploring their faith in a more significant way. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing that at your churches in Wisconsin?
Speaker 3: My numbers are up a little, not traumatically, but no.
Speaker 3: I would love to experience that surge, but I have
Speaker 3: not so far.
Speaker 1: Well, I here's hoping that the surge makes it to Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: But what are your thoughts overall about the Bible sales
Speaker 1: going up? About people searching for churches in their area.
Speaker 3: So it depends on why. You've got to answer yourself
Speaker 3: the why. So if they're buying Bibles to justify what
Speaker 3: they already believe and they're not really calls us to do,
Speaker 3: or if they're going to church to be surrounded by
Speaker 3: people who think like they do and just by you know,
Speaker 3: unchristlike behavior. I mean, the devil loves people going to
Speaker 3: church who don't actually embrace the teachings of Christ. And
Speaker 3: Christ said, I didn't come to boshe la, I came
Speaker 3: to fulfill it. And there's two laws. Love one another
Speaker 3: as I have loved you, and love the Father with
Speaker 3: all your heartlind, soul.
Speaker 4: And strength.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about like people going or buying
Speaker 1: a Bible to justify their viewpoint.
Speaker 3: What do you mean, so you can isolate phrases in
Speaker 3: the Bible to justify your cause. So one of the
Speaker 3: big cases where people justify either whether you're for or
Speaker 3: against same sex marriages, you can make the Bible defend
Speaker 3: your cause. You can ha make it say yep, homosexuality
Speaker 3: is an abomination, and you can make it say, oh,
Speaker 3: but the Bible said Jesus had a special place with
Speaker 3: John it. I mean, so both sides can make really
Speaker 3: shortcases to defend what they they've already believed is right.
Speaker 3: Instead of letting scripture reveal truth as it always does.
Speaker 3: If you're open to what it's saying to you, can you.
Speaker 2: Hold oh, yeah, it does, it does. It makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense.
Speaker 1: One of the things, and I don't know if you're
Speaker 1: familiar at all with what Charlie Kirk was doing or
Speaker 1: what he was saying, or any of that stuff, but
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think has been really
Speaker 1: interesting is that people are discovering that though he would say,
Speaker 1: I believe, because of my faith that marriage is between
Speaker 1: a man and a woman, but I welcome you in
Speaker 1: this cause, Like I welcome conversations, I welcome fellowship, I welcome.
Speaker 2: All of these things.
Speaker 1: How do we get to a point where you can
Speaker 1: say I have a strong Christian faith and these are
Speaker 1: my beliefs, but I'm not necessarily going to try and
Speaker 1: condemn a person because their life is different than mine.
Speaker 3: And see, I have no problem with people who are
Speaker 3: in churches that have a lot of structure, in a
Speaker 3: lot of rules. I think God has created all these
Speaker 3: staffs because that's what it takes to get us all home.
Speaker 3: But when you start using your paintbrush outside your own box,
Speaker 3: when you start saying, well, everybody who doesn't do it
Speaker 3: this way is not going to heaven or is damned
Speaker 3: to hell or you know, that's when I get really uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: because there is a judge and I'm not him, and
Speaker 3: that I and I use that line when I have
Speaker 3: people come through the door that I don't necessarily understand.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's the world is shifted, and I'm the
Speaker 3: last year of the boomers, and I don't get a
Speaker 3: lot of the stuff that my kids just say, for granted,
Speaker 3: but my job is not to judge. My job is
Speaker 3: to love, and if they don't belong in my church,
Speaker 3: where do they belong?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's a fair point.
Speaker 1: But on the the other side of that is, if
Speaker 1: you see someone making destructive choices, and I'm not even
Speaker 1: talking about being gay, I'm just talking about destructive choices overall,
Speaker 1: how do you, as a loving person of faith say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I am not okay with.
Speaker 2: The choices that you're making, but but I still.
Speaker 1: Love you, and you know, how do you how do
Speaker 1: you strike that balance without being one of those really
Speaker 1: judgmental people that is going to drive people away from
Speaker 1: a possible relationship with God when they might need it
Speaker 1: the most.
Speaker 3: So standing next to the person is the image I use,
Speaker 3: and you can say, you know, if it's just, if
Speaker 3: it's hurting themselves as someone else, you can say I
Speaker 3: love you and I'll be here for you. But I cannot.
Speaker 3: I cannot tell you that that behavior is acceptable.
Speaker 4: It just isn't.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't like to see you hurt yourself.
Speaker 3: I don't like to see others be hurt because of you.
Speaker 5: Does that make sense, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: But I got to tell you, Mike, I've been working
Speaker 1: really hard over the past couple of years on two
Speaker 1: things to my own, like little journey here, right, I've
Speaker 1: been trying to be less judgmental because to your point,
Speaker 1: it is not my role to judge someone. Now, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that I can that I will accept everything
Speaker 1: that they're doing that I just think is wrong, because
Speaker 1: I mean, you can look at various choices that people
Speaker 1: are making and say that is not going to take
Speaker 1: them to a good place. Right, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: dumb choice, and it's a it's a dumb way to
Speaker 1: go through life. And I've also been working on trusting God.
Speaker 1: And over the last week I have been in a
Speaker 1: herculean struggle, mostly on the radio, swinging between just really
Speaker 1: really vicious anger and then trying to get that under
Speaker 1: control and say, this is not my role to judge.
Speaker 1: My role is to just what be better and provide
Speaker 1: a better commentary, and that'll be It'll be that'll bring
Speaker 1: people together instead of further divide people. Trusting God has
Speaker 1: been hard this past week. It really has Why do
Speaker 1: bad things happen to good people?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 3: And God do that? Or did a corrupt and sinful
Speaker 3: world which God allowed to have free will and make choices?
Speaker 3: Does God stand with us the other other part is
Speaker 3: that the chicks are on the clock. Everybody has a
Speaker 3: role to play. Now, did God want that man to die?
Speaker 3: I don't believe that that was like a part of
Speaker 3: a plan, but.
Speaker 5: He had.
Speaker 3: But nobody knows why it was his time. And nobody
Speaker 3: knows I mean, so the hard finds what it's looking for.
Speaker 4: And you can see.
Speaker 3: All of the nasty parts of that father, the two
Speaker 3: children not having their dad, the wife not having her husband,
Speaker 3: people who found hope in his message, you know now
Speaker 3: not having that.
Speaker 6: But you know, is it is it a chance to.
Speaker 5: Spark a real conversation.
Speaker 3: Is it a chance for people to say, you know
Speaker 3: what my comments on the Wednesday after it happened was,
Speaker 3: this is what we've come to. We don't talk, we
Speaker 3: don't listen, We just shoot each other.
Speaker 5: I mean, is that where we are that.
Speaker 4: We can't even you know?
Speaker 3: And from Proverbs I quoted to that in the text,
Speaker 3: the wise man seeks to understand. The foolish man just
Speaker 3: tries to be heard. So, you know, I so the
Speaker 3: image I use with myself because I'm a talker. You
Speaker 3: might not know that about me is talks are really
Speaker 3: good hunters. Because ninety percent of their life they are looking.
Speaker 5: And listening, and so when they go.
Speaker 3: To hunt, they are very effective. And so I'll be
Speaker 3: sitting in a circle off stape. Be the hawk, eat
Speaker 3: the hawk.
Speaker 5: Because I'm just have you ever just held on to
Speaker 5: your silence until you bust into the conversation.
Speaker 3: Because you have something so great to say that the
Speaker 3: world needed to hear it.
Speaker 2: I don't do that. Now, I'm just kidding. And then
Speaker 2: I don't do that. No, I'm just kidding. No, I
Speaker 2: but let's do time.
Speaker 1: But let me here's the issue that I'm having, Mike,
Speaker 1: is that after and I wasn't like a Charlie Kirk
Speaker 1: super fan. I've watched more Charlie Kirk content in the
Speaker 1: last week than I had watched in the last ten years, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I wasn't in his demo. I was impressed
Speaker 1: with the way he seemed to connect to college students.
Speaker 2: But since his.
Speaker 1: Death, some of the people in our society it's not
Speaker 1: enough for them to not be at all concerned about
Speaker 1: the two children and the wife that are left behind.
Speaker 1: They've been downright gleeful and nasty and awful about it.
Speaker 2: And that part for me, I wish I wish.
Speaker 1: I could be shocked about it, but I'm not, And
Speaker 1: so I find myself matching that level of anger, and
Speaker 1: then I have to try and ratchet myself back because
Speaker 1: that's just not who I want to be and not
Speaker 1: who I am naturally.
Speaker 2: So how do you sort through that?
Speaker 5: How do you?
Speaker 1: How do you deal with people that have shown themselves
Speaker 1: to have no humanity in this situation?
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know what Christ would do is not not
Speaker 6: justify them and not give them credence, but he would
Speaker 6: love them and pray for them and.
Speaker 3: Try to walk with them, be there, not walk towards
Speaker 3: them and not accept the behavior, but never ever cut
Speaker 3: them off so that the pathback wasn't open. And the
Speaker 3: other thing I thought about when you've said.
Speaker 6: How do you?
Speaker 5: How do you do this?
Speaker 4: We need to spend.
Speaker 3: More time And I've been on this bandwag It for
Speaker 3: a long time being very articulate about what is really
Speaker 3: important to us, what are our values and what do
Speaker 3: we believe? Because if not, when stuff like this happens,
Speaker 3: we get sucked down the rabbit hole. Now, someone he
Speaker 3: was gleeful over.
Speaker 5: A human being losing his life and leaving.
Speaker 3: A family with old a husband and father. That is
Speaker 3: uncrazylike behavior, and that is not acceptable.
Speaker 5: Chriate would have never condoned, celebrated someone else's.
Speaker 4: Despear and hurts, Challenge them, push them, walk away from them,
Speaker 4: but never celebrate their pain and their suffering.
Speaker 2: Great advice. I'm trying to take it to heart. And
Speaker 2: today I've been actually a lot less angry.
Speaker 1: I've been a lot less angry than I have the
Speaker 1: prior week because, honestly, after watching so much Charlie Kirk
Speaker 1: content where he had respectful debates with people that he
Speaker 1: disagreed with, and the part about his life and Mike.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if you've ever watched any of
Speaker 1: his content, but talk about a guy who was open
Speaker 1: about his relationship with Christ in a way that in
Speaker 1: our culture has not been accepted over the last decade.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know a lot of people of strong
Speaker 1: and deep and abiding faith who don't talk about it.
Speaker 1: They don't talk about it in public because it's not cool,
Speaker 1: it's not acceptable, right, You're going to be shunned as
Speaker 1: some weirdo.
Speaker 2: So that part of it, the scene him talk.
Speaker 1: About it, and I thought to myself, that's what I
Speaker 1: want to take away from this, That it's okay to
Speaker 1: be open about your relationship with God, and there's a.
Speaker 3: Thousand ways to do it, and his way should be acceptable.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can listen or don't listen. You have
Speaker 3: you have a choice in there. I mean to kill
Speaker 3: someone and said so, I mean, so absurdly overreact.
Speaker 6: It's just it's not how is that okay?
Speaker 3: On any level?
Speaker 5: You You may not agree with him, it may make
Speaker 5: you super angry.
Speaker 3: But when did we get to the point where we
Speaker 3: do these ultimate acts and retaliation for disagreeing with some.
Speaker 2: Well that's the bigger question.
Speaker 1: And you talk to the main man upstairs and find
Speaker 1: out and let me know the answer.
Speaker 2: Okay, you ask, I get right on that. I know
Speaker 2: you have a direct line. Pick up the bat phone
Speaker 2: and just call God right now, Father.
Speaker 5: My test, I got a question for you exactly.
Speaker 2: I appreciate your perspective.
Speaker 1: As always, and uh and and and I'm sure that
Speaker 1: people listening who are just trying to make sense of
Speaker 1: everything that's happened over the last week appreciate it too.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 6: All right.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me on