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Speaker 1: Well, hi everybody, it's Steve Hayward here with a special

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holiday episode of the Ricochet Podcast. It's just me in

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conversation with Rob Long, one of Ricochet's co founders, well

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known to nearly all of you, of course, and I thought,

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who better to talk about Christmas and the meaning of

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religion than our own in house seminarian, And so without

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further ado, here's me and Robin. Well, I'm delighted to

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have one of Ricochet's co founders, Rob Long, joined me

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for this special year end episode. I have for the

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longest time been wanting to talk to Rob about this

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midlife change from Hollywood to theology, from the studio to

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the church, and partly because I mean a fellow Christian,

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of course, but also because it parallels the trajectory were

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a very good friend of mine who unfortunately passed away

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in his early fifties after deciding to leave a variousuccessful

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legal career to go to seminary and become more dane. So,

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in other words, your story, Rob sounds familiar to me,

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And yeah, the reasoning is interesting. But anyway, listeners, you

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won't be able to see this, of course, But at

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first I thought, what are you lighting up there, Rob?

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Is that incense sexual high Church?

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Speaker 2: Well, no, I'd be very very much in favor of

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it if it were incense. I do have incense in

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the house. I had to tell you.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, I am kind of an incense freak. This

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is a cigar. I was just wrapped up on.

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Speaker 2: Friday, exams and papers. I had a bunch to do,

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and I'm here to tell you it's very very A

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lot of a lot of school is harder than it

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was when I was a student last time. I was

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a student forty years ago. But it's easier in a

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lot of ways. And I am an unabashed fan of AI.

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You you plug in your sources, it spits out a

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bibliography that's perfectly but perfectly formatted.

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Speaker 3: It double checks your footnots for you. I could.

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Speaker 2: I sent in up, I uploaded my paper and I

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said make sure I didn't, you know, repeat any language

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from these sources that I didn't that I didn't cite.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know.

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Speaker 3: This is maybe boring to people, but I'm just telling you.

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Speaker 2: Among the other things i'm evangelizing, I'm evangelizing for AI,

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which is probably about That's what I mean that's what's

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going to get me into trouble more than anything else.

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Speaker 3: Probably.

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Speaker 1: Well, anyway, I'm tempting to joke that hopefully it can

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catch you from lapsing into any Armenian heresies or something.

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But well, right, well, all right, almost all of our

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listeners are familiar with you, longtime listeners of Ricochet and

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so forth, and that Martini shot and whatnot. But it

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just for you know, let's do a thirty second potted biography,

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which I think I can kind of do, but add

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in what I've left out. You're more and raised in

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the Baltimore area.

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Speaker 3: Born and then we moved. I moved around a lot.

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Speaker 2: So's we're born there, and I'm driving there right now.

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I mean, I'm not driving now, and I pulled away,

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pull over, but I yeah, I was born there. And

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then we lived in Europe and then northern California, where

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I kind of spent most of my sort of growing

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up times, and then and then went away to school,

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and then I was in New England.

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Speaker 3: And that's that, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, right, Yeah, I see, I didn't know that you

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moved around a bunch. I just remembered the Baltimore anchor

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and then you went to gale measured in fine arts,

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I think, or something like that.

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Speaker 3: Oh English, something even more more or less remunerative.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And then you stuck out for Hollywood, where

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you were a great success for a very long time,

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and then Hollywood got weird. We may come to a

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little of that here at the end, but you've certainly

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talked about how the industry has changed a lot on

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this show and on your on Martini Shot and so forth.

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So it's like a lot of things. It's no longer

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the fun it used to be. I can tell that

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from afar. Well, so here's the big question. You know,

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after all these years working in comedy, mostly in television,

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you just decided to go to seminary in middle age

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and to become ordained. And so the cynics and haters.

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Speaker 3: Wait, thank you, thank you for saying middle age.

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Speaker 1: Well, I you know, I'm a few years older than you,

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only a few happily, and I'm still clinging in the

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middle aged too. But so now the cynics and haters

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are going to say, ah, Rob, you know the rhino,

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the ones who think of you as a rhino. Is

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this a midlife crisis? What precipitated this idea because this

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is really a big thing to do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm trying to hold on.

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I have a little piece of cigar. I'm downside and smoking.

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So you know, I'm a writer. I was a writer

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for a long time. I still am a writer. And

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at a certain point, you want to write about stuff

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that's more and more important to you, more and more

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important to me. At a certain time, you kind of

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want to, especially if you write screen stream plays and scripts,

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you want to write about your SI and you want

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to write about what's you're thinking about, not necessarily a

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dialogue for somebody else. And then I think, I mean,

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this is a larger this is sort of a larger

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part of why I feel called to this. But these

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are big that the big things are still big, and

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just because we don't think about them, and or the

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culture doesn't think about them, or we trivialize them, doesn't

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make them any smaller.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: It's like they always say, like the I preached a

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sermon on Sunday, and one of the images I said was,

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you know Niagara Falls. There's like a forty million gallons

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of water go over the cliff of Niagara Falls every

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every minute, and it's like ninety decibels. It's like two

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leaf blowers going all the time. But if you live

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in Niagara Falls, you just don't hear it anymore. And

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I feel like that's kind of how we are about

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these big thoughts, like what are we doing here?

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Speaker 3: What's our purpose?

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Speaker 2: What's our what's our purpose to our our own potential?

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Speaker 3: And what's our purpose? What's our what are our.

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Speaker 2: What do we call to do with everyone else on

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the planet and those I don't know. The place where

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people think these things through for me is the Church

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and the and the figure that seems to have the

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most make the most sense and have the most impact

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was Jesus, So you know, start there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this may sound odd, but there are

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sent There's two things that most people don't like to

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think about. One is the abyss, you know, the terrible abyss,

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right right right. But then the other one is God

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and for the for the the inherent reason that, at

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least in the monotheistic faith traditions, God is unknowable by definition.

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We can say more about that if we want, right

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and uh and then plus I mean that's just on

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the what you might say the philosophical theological level. You can't.

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There's a reason we call it faith and reason or

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reason and revelation, right right, And yet theology is the

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attempt to reason and about God to the extent we can,

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and that you know, footnotes to one hundred different books.

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Speaker 3: To follow, right, right, right right.

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Speaker 1: I agree with you completely, By the way, I'm of

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that same disposition. I'm fascinated by both theology and philosophy,

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and they overlap a lot. On the other hand, I

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can see it's not for everybody. It's kind of a

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rarefied inclination. And it's one thing to go to church

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every week and read some good books and so forth.

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It's another one than to say I'm going to throw

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in one hundred percent like you have.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like I

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don't want to get I don't want to give anybody.

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Speaker 3: The wrong impression I am.

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Speaker 2: I'm not the biggest fan of theology and I and

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I reckon I see the irony there that I am

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in fact at a place called Princeton Theological Seminary. Uh,

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you know, sometimes I think theology is just a lot

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of words we wrote to solve a problem that we

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created with our own words. So you know, we're you know,

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basically getting ourselves out of a maze that we set

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for ourselves. And I think sometimes, you know, you could

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I could read have now. I do it now, not

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for a living, but I do it now as a vocation.

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Speaker 1: I read a lot of.

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Speaker 2: Theology, and sometimes I just find myself like, oh my god,

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I've read five pages of this and I have no

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idea what this person's talking about. And they're not even German,

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you know, they're like, this is actually something who speaks

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English is the first language.

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Speaker 3: So you know, I think the experience of and I sometimes.

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Speaker 2: Feel like the other books, the theology, and all the

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language we use is a way for us to sort

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of navigate and negotiate the you know, the red print

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in the Bible and the New Testament, the stuff that

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Jesus says.

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Speaker 3: So he says these incredibly.

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Speaker 2: Impossible things, right, you know, love your nature, people say,

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he says, forgive your enemies. Now he doesn't say that.

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He says, love your enemies much harder. I gotta forgive

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my enemies. Yeah, they're forgiven.

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Speaker 3: I can't love them. Give to all who asks, you know.

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Speaker 2: All that stuff, give away your stuff if you have

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two codes give one away, and so those are pretty clear, right.

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So some of theology I think is designed for two

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thousand years to figure out what else he might have

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meant aside from those really difficult things. Because we're not

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doing those things, we're gonna we will try to come

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up with some.

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Speaker 3: Other things we can do.

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Speaker 2: And I look that that's a human that's a human impulse,

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that's a human invasion, which just fine, But I kind

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of feel like the just to be a slightly Christian

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chopiness here for a minute. The singular thing about Christianity

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is that Jesus says that you are important. Your unanus

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is important, your steveness is important. You will leave the

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thought for you, steve for me. Rob Not because we

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belong to a tribe or we belong to a culture,

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or because we have a dharma or we have a

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rank that we need to live out. It's because of

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who specifically we are. That's a that is a radical,

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earth changing concept. There is that changed human nature, that

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changed the way human beings think of themselves.

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Speaker 3: And I don't know that seems worth.

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Speaker 1: Ah.

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Speaker 2: I got a couple of years to spend just learning that,

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and then if I'm lucky, you know, God willing and

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the people consenting. I would like to spend the rest

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of my little summers that the Lord is giving me

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to to talk about that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean, and it's taken up. Actually, I

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think we're still figuring out the implications of what you

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just said, because I mean I tend to run off

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because you know, my backgrounds and political philosophy to the

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political dimension, which was the New Testament teaches that our identity,

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our worth does not depend on the nation we live in. Right,

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And it takes a long time. You know, Machiavelli comes

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along and you know, thirteen hundred years later says, well,

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well wait a minute, that's really bad, right, that's part

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of his complaint.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: And then but then you know, in a certain extent

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we call the liberal tradition grows out of all that. Right, Okay,

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that's that's the subject for another day. But you have

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been I think a life along episcopalian.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which which you know with all the intensity of

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that that that entails.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well look, I know the jokes are are our

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friend Andrew Clayman, who you know, converted from Judaism to

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evangelical Christianity. Someone said, or are you an Episcopalian. He said, no,

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I'm a real Christian.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, but he said, the way you put

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it to me, he goes, well, you know, call me

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when you are joining a religion with that believes in God.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Right, Well, the reason I brought that up is

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it does seem to me that liturgical denominations, you know, Catholics, Episcopalians, Anglicans,

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or Eastern Orthodox, they tend to be a much more

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part of because of the liturgical form of worship. They

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tend to be much more or put much more emphasis

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on serious, in depth theological step. I think I think

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that's fair to say.

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Speaker 3: I think that's probably fair. Yeah. I mean, also they

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have a they are.

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Speaker 2: They come out of the early Church tradition of doing

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exactly that, So they aren't. I mean, you could you

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can make the cases of Anglican and some mainline Protestants

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are a reformed, but even by being reformed, you're still

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choosing the foundation of the suirt So you're going back

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to the time. I mean, all the reformers, even the Anglicans,

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said well, we're more Catholic than they've lost their way

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and we're back to what you know, so less capture. Right,

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you don't really not non a nominational churches which are

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incredibly vibrant, don't They don't.

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Speaker 3: I don't think they have that as there you know

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the DNA.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, now you use the word. I want to go

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back and ask you what is uh? I guess this

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is a deeply personal question. You used a keyword to

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me anyway when you said called, this is a calling.

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Now there's you know, a couple of ways of thinking

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about that. One is and I've had a clergy friend

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of mine who said, from an early age they felt

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they had received the call of God in that you know,

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spiritual transcendental sense. By the way, one of them are episcopalian.

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Who went into this bishop and said the bishop said,

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why do you want to be a priest? Who said,

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because I've been called by God? And he said most

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of his friends said, you told the bishop what. But

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but there's also, I mean, the other way of thinking

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about it is it's a it's a consequent logic. And

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so you know when when you said called, yeah, how

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do you mean or what is that? How is that?

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Manifested itself to you?

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Speaker 4: Well?

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Speaker 2: As a good episcopalian, I am uncomfortable talking about these issues, right,

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I mean, then you know, how do you make it episcopalia?

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And look at his shoes you mentioned you mentioned Jesus

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or money, like that's how you get it. So so,

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but I do remember going and talking talking to the

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rector of the church I went to in Manhattan I

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still go to, and I was talking to her about, uh,

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my first time in that church and not not my

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first time, but the first time I went to that

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church sort of just to go to his service because

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I've been there for weddings and stuff, and uh, you know,

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the candles were lit on it was a night. It's

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a six pm Sunday service. It is beautiful and I

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sort of walked in there for I don't know why.

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And she said to me, said, so you think maybe

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the Holy Spirit was guiding you into the church. And

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I said, looked at her, I said, I don't know,

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And she said, does that make you uncomfortable that I

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said that. He said, yes, it makes me uncomfortable. So

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I call the call. You know, Partly I think that

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if you can, if you want to deepen your experience

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with faith, or you want to eat your experiences as

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a writer, you're going to have to get called to

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learn something about big stuff.

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Speaker 3: Also, I kind of feel like that.

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Speaker 2: The the great thing about one of the great things

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I should say about the Christian faith is that it's

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kind of a what now faith and.

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Speaker 3: That you you know, Jesus knows us so well.

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Speaker 2: And by the way, I don't think you even have

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to believe in the divinity of Jesus to be to

300
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say most of what I'm about to say. He knows

301
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us so well, he knows people so well that he

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knows what terrifies us deep down, as you put it, like,

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is this all there is? Am I unlovable? Am I unloved?

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If my people in the in my life who loved

305
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me knew who I really was, would they still loved?

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Speaker 3: Am I alone?

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Speaker 2: And Jesus says, okay, in order I'll take I'll tell

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you are not unloved.

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Speaker 3: You are the loved child of God. You are not alone.

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We are all. I am always with you, I know you,

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and I love you.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: The college for purity, which we say in the Piscopal Faith,

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is the God to whom all from whom no secrets

315
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are hid, to whom all all desires are known, and

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then finally you are an air to everlasting life. So

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I've taken you know, if Jesus is there, he said,

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So I've taken care of your big fears.

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Speaker 3: Now what so if you.

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Speaker 2: Accept that, even if you accept that that is a

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destination of a journey that you're on, that full belief experience,

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the question is still.

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Speaker 3: Is now what?

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Speaker 4: Okay?

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Speaker 3: Now are you going to do with all that?

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Speaker 2: And for me it was like, okay, well, if I

327
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believe all that, I guess I should do something with it.

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Speaker 3: I guess I should put it into practice.

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Speaker 2: And I know you people could put into practice a

330
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million different ways, but mine was like, I want to

331
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write about this, I want to preach about this. I

332
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want to celebrate the foundational prayer of the Eucharistic prayer

333
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that we have, which is kind of all of.

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Speaker 3: Those things all wrapped up in one thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's kind of and I and I wish

336
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I could say now listen, I really felt the Holy

337
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Spirit guided me. A God came and like I was,

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you know, Jesus sat next to me the bus stop

339
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and told me, here's what you got to do.

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Speaker 3: But I haven't. I don't, I don't.

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Speaker 2: That is I haven't had that experience, but I definitely

342
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have been led somewhere by something somehow. And I you know,

343
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I turned sixty in June. I'm not gonna I decided

344
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to stop. I've decided to stop tuning that part out.

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Speaker 1: Well. I mean, look, I'm all one for theological modesty,

346
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even that even if I'd heard a voice from the

347
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wilderness or from the bush or something, I think I'd

348
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be reloved to say so openly or directly myself. So

349
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I certainly get that. But it's that's one of those

350
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mysteries of faith, right that we have to live with

351
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and and and and accept that we are not going

352
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to be able to conquer that one hundred percent.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, if you, if you, if you believe

354
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the first step, which is that you know he's everywhere,

355
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he's inside you, and he's a part of you, and

356
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you just tuned it out, you just need to tune

357
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that part back in, you know, Like I know, you

358
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could be a classic Freudian and still believe that's the case.

359
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I happen to think that it's something more universal, but

360
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the practice of it is the same for me, and

361
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that once once I crossed that line, I'm like, Oka, well.

362
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Speaker 3: What I'm really going to go? I mean, look, I

363
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would love I've told you this before.

364
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Speaker 4: You know.

365
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Speaker 2: I I have a friend of mine who's a who's

366
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a rector of a church on Cape Cod and he's

367
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an old guy's you know, he's grew up in a

368
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Roman Catholic family in Rhode Island, like niney thousand brothers

369
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and sisters and wanted to get married. But he also

370
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wanted to be a priest, so it's really only one

371
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one path for him, which is piscical priest. And he said,

372
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he said, well, why do you want to do this?

373
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And I said, you know, I gave him all those

374
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reasons and I said, you know, and also look, I meant,

375
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I gotta be honest. There's a ten percent of me

376
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wants to wear that collar into a Network comedy.

377
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Speaker 3: Pitch meeting and pitch a show and see what they do.

378
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Speaker 2: And he goes, okay, well that's not as bad as

379
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what I thought you were going to what you should

380
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he said, you should also know this that when you

381
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are gained, they give you a card that you can

382
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put on your dash and you could park anywhere. And

383
00:18:32,039 --> 00:18:34,039
he said, that is not a reason to do this.

384
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But it's not not a reason to do this, like

385
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you know, so all these you know, fuck, I like

386
00:18:40,039 --> 00:18:42,039
to think that's a small portion of my call, but

387
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it's not.

388
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Speaker 3: It's not nothing.

389
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Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to look at tordienda. I want to

390
00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:49,240
come to Hollywood in the world of the clergy, because

391
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I forget who said it. It might have been Churchill who

392
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said a joke is a very serious thing, and so

393
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I'm trying to But yeah, but I do want to.

394
00:18:55,559 --> 00:18:57,319
I do want to linger on theology what you're doing

395
00:18:57,400 --> 00:18:59,480
right now, and do stay a little bit in chronology.

396
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:03,000
So like you say, I totally get it when you

397
00:19:03,039 --> 00:19:05,079
say that theology can be kind of off putting in

398
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:10,759
dance and all the rest of that. So tell me

399
00:19:10,759 --> 00:19:12,759
a little bit about you know, your first year of studies.

400
00:19:12,799 --> 00:19:15,839
Is it what you expected, either academically or theologically. Has

401
00:19:15,839 --> 00:19:19,759
it been hard to learn different languages in Middle Age,

402
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:21,680
which you know you say you know you can't run

403
00:19:21,720 --> 00:19:24,000
a language after you're eighteen or something. True.

404
00:19:24,039 --> 00:19:25,720
Speaker 2: Well, I'm here to tell you that is that is

405
00:19:25,759 --> 00:19:30,160
absolutely true. You can't, you should not do it. I'm

406
00:19:30,279 --> 00:19:33,960
I'm on Friday. I was sort of like my direct midpoint.

407
00:19:34,079 --> 00:19:35,640
So it's a three year program. I've been in a

408
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year and a half. So Friday last, the fall semester

409
00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:42,319
was over on Friday, and I spent some time struggling

410
00:19:42,359 --> 00:19:46,720
with Greek, and I thought, okay, well, you know, if

411
00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:51,880
you Princeton is a Presbyterian school basically started by Presbyterians

412
00:19:52,079 --> 00:19:55,559
who are incredibly impressive intellectually. And if you are a

413
00:19:55,599 --> 00:19:57,960
Presbyterian and you have a Presbyterian pastor, buy him a

414
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:00,799
drink or something, because he really he really know stuff.

415
00:20:01,720 --> 00:20:03,160
Speaker 3: You have to know Greek and.

416
00:20:03,079 --> 00:20:06,519
Speaker 2: Hebrew, and to be an Episcopalian you just kind of

417
00:20:06,559 --> 00:20:07,440
don't have to know those.

418
00:20:07,599 --> 00:20:09,400
Speaker 3: You have to be familiar with him. But that's about it,

419
00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:10,640
Like they don't zo test.

420
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Speaker 2: So I struggled through Greek, and I think I might

421
00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:18,000
do Hebrew in an intense short class at some point

422
00:20:18,079 --> 00:20:19,920
between now and the time I graduate, just so I

423
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:22,680
know a little bit about it and I can look

424
00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:26,119
stuff up meaningfully. So there was that part, and then

425
00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:28,960
there's the other part, which is sort of the classic

426
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:37,720
dance you know call Karl Barth style theology, which is

427
00:20:37,839 --> 00:20:42,480
interesting and in many cases really compelling and arresting. I

428
00:20:42,839 --> 00:20:45,960
tend to squirrel my way around, so like the you know,

429
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:51,000
the occasional Karl Barth writings and letters are great, and

430
00:20:51,039 --> 00:20:53,279
I kind of like, oh, maybe I'll just stick with those,

431
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:57,359
you know, I won't pick up this big book. The

432
00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:00,519
history of the church is fascinating. Of course, that's been

433
00:21:00,559 --> 00:21:04,680
really fun to study that, mostly because it's just an

434
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:07,640
early church anyway, is just a series of gruesome tortures

435
00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:11,920
and two hundred years of persecution then followed by a

436
00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:14,279
thousand years of political power.

437
00:21:14,559 --> 00:21:14,759
Speaker 3: You know.

438
00:21:14,799 --> 00:21:16,640
Speaker 2: It's like it's fun to read how quickly they all

439
00:21:17,079 --> 00:21:19,640
they all change the minute Constantine said okay, you're I

440
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:25,240
want to you suddenly suddenly they got very different. But

441
00:21:25,319 --> 00:21:27,720
I but my classmates, I've been I've been really surprised

442
00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:28,480
by my classmates.

443
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Speaker 3: They're young.

444
00:21:30,559 --> 00:21:32,400
Speaker 2: You know, I'm the oldest person in the I'm the

445
00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:34,960
oldest person in the room, mostly because my professors are

446
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:38,960
younger than I am too, So so this's that experience

447
00:21:39,079 --> 00:21:42,599
is kind of weird. But it's really fun because they

448
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:46,119
are If you if you're feeling pessimistic about the future,

449
00:21:46,319 --> 00:21:48,400
you should just come and sit in on a class

450
00:21:48,799 --> 00:21:55,640
because they're sort of thoughtful and compassionate and struggling to

451
00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:59,680
make it all make sense, which in an incredibly Christian way.

452
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:03,039
I mean capital C and SAC, which is interesting. It's

453
00:22:03,039 --> 00:22:05,759
really kind of I find them. I really admire them.

454
00:22:06,200 --> 00:22:09,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I I occasionally will dust off some

455
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:12,440
Carl Bart to try and read and then give up

456
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:14,359
after a while. But there are two things about it.

457
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:16,319
I mean, you know, it's the most famous work, is

458
00:22:16,319 --> 00:22:20,680
that what six volume Church Dogmatics, right, Yeah. But one

459
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:22,400
of the fun things about that is is that he

460
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:25,759
since somewhere something along the lines of systematic theology is

461
00:22:25,799 --> 00:22:29,559
an oxymoron, and that's why he wrote dogmatics instead of

462
00:22:29,599 --> 00:22:31,799
systematic theology. So that's sort of in clients to I

463
00:22:31,839 --> 00:22:34,000
think what you were saying. And the other thing was,

464
00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:37,039
you know, in German, nothing that matters except we all

465
00:22:37,119 --> 00:22:40,359
use a German word sometimes to make us sound more sophisticated.

466
00:22:40,839 --> 00:22:44,640
He said God's was gone's onder meaning holy other meaning

467
00:22:44,680 --> 00:22:47,960
because God is one, He's not intelligible the normal human ways.

468
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:50,440
And I've always taken that to heart because that's what

469
00:22:50,559 --> 00:22:53,559
set him at odds against Saint Thomas, Coins and Catholics. Okay,

470
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:56,279
I don't want to keep out too much on particular things,

471
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but he vacation yeah, I know. Well, all right, me

472
00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:03,519
let me pose the question to you this way, I say,

473
00:23:03,519 --> 00:23:06,160
I actually put those guys down. At one point in life,

474
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:09,559
I was sort of passingly familiar with some of the

475
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:14,000
leading theologians who were controversial, like Rudolph Boltmann thirty years ago,

476
00:23:15,039 --> 00:23:17,960
and so I sort of wondering, I'll ask this question

477
00:23:18,039 --> 00:23:20,200
two or three different forms and grab whichever one you want.

478
00:23:20,599 --> 00:23:22,880
Who are in your mind are some of the more

479
00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:27,240
notable theologians writing today or recently who have been If

480
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:30,759
there are any influences on you or are you I'll

481
00:23:30,759 --> 00:23:32,440
say myself, I'd like to say I'm a C. S.

482
00:23:32,559 --> 00:23:34,960
Lewis Christian who is not a theologian. He was an

483
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:38,920
apologist and interesting guy. But also, you know, I used

484
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,720
to and still do read Thomas Merton and some of

485
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:45,519
the contemplatives some oh yeah, right, And so anyway, what

486
00:23:45,519 --> 00:23:48,000
are some of the influences on your religious thinking, whether

487
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:52,240
you know whether gear drive theologians or more contemplative writers.

488
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:52,880
Do you have a list?

489
00:23:53,279 --> 00:23:56,359
Speaker 2: Well, I have a list in formation, I would obviously

490
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,599
see us Lewis is there. And it's interesting that people

491
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:01,319
they I've heard this kind of thing.

492
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:02,480
Speaker 3: People say, well C. S. Lewis.

493
00:24:02,519 --> 00:24:04,799
Speaker 2: I mean, you're not a theologian obviously, and people always

494
00:24:04,799 --> 00:24:07,559
say things, well as if is this somehow that well

495
00:24:07,559 --> 00:24:11,160
he doesn't have a license to practice theology, like he's unlicensed,

496
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,400
you know, he just does it in his living room. Uh.

497
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:15,799
Speaker 3: But C. S.

498
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 2: Lewis has had I think more of a.

499
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:22,759
Speaker 3: Profound religious effect on people. I think J. R. Tolkien

500
00:24:22,799 --> 00:24:23,519
probably has too.

501
00:24:23,519 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 2: I mean I'm not really I mean I struggle through

502
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:29,480
those books that are not really my thing, but uh,

503
00:24:29,799 --> 00:24:32,559
you are talking about somebody who was deeply, deeply committed

504
00:24:32,599 --> 00:24:34,680
to the story and.

505
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 3: To the timelessness of the story.

506
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:39,400
Speaker 1: I liked.

507
00:24:39,519 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 3: I mean, there's some Anglican ones that I can think

508
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:45,240
are really interesting. Standy Howard ass is pretty interesting. He's in.

509
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:51,480
Speaker 2: At Duke I think, yeah, And then I like, I might,

510
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:57,640
And then there's like the the more recent Anglican writers

511
00:24:57,799 --> 00:24:59,039
are Rowan.

512
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,079
Speaker 3: Uh. I always gonna say, rohaka sent it. It's not

513
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:04,759
mister Bean.

514
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:06,799
Speaker 4: Uh.

515
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:10,519
Speaker 2: I I don't mean yeah, yeah, just I went out

516
00:25:10,559 --> 00:25:14,279
of my head. Anybody who's trying, anybody who I think

517
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:17,680
is thinking. Fleming Rutledge is an American and she's written

518
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:21,279
a wonderful book on on Uh.

519
00:25:21,319 --> 00:25:22,039
Speaker 3: The Crucifixion.

520
00:25:22,839 --> 00:25:26,799
Speaker 2: Uh so all these all this stuff is great.

521
00:25:26,839 --> 00:25:28,519
Speaker 3: I also I also love.

522
00:25:28,519 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 2: The the historians with faith. So you know, Tom Holland's

523
00:25:35,519 --> 00:25:39,680
dominion obviously, if you like, if you like, uh.

524
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 3: The rest is history, Tom Holland's dominion is really wonderful.

525
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:44,839
I think.

526
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 2: Also there's a guy, Jeffrey Kreipel, who has written this

527
00:25:48,039 --> 00:25:48,799
book which is.

528
00:25:48,839 --> 00:25:50,079
Speaker 3: Bananas by the way.

529
00:25:50,079 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 2: It's called How to Bleed, how to Think Impossibly, and

530
00:25:54,079 --> 00:25:58,599
he it's a very interesting, very it's not dense, but

531
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:00,000
it's just like it's all over the place.

532
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 3: It's beautiful, it's.

533
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 2: Funny and witty and smart and erudite, but it's it's

534
00:26:03,759 --> 00:26:04,480
all over the place.

535
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:09,559
Speaker 3: And there's a guy named Michael Edwards who is such

536
00:26:09,599 --> 00:26:10,640
an incredible show off.

537
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 2: He's an American, I know, he's an English guy who

538
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:17,079
speaks French and occasionally writes in French, which is like, okay,

539
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:19,240
get out of town as far as I'm concerned. But

540
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:23,480
he wrote a wonderful book called the uh, the the Poetry,

541
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:25,880
the Poetry in the Bible or the Yeah, I think

542
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:27,400
it's called Poetry in the Bible or something like that.

543
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:32,559
And it's a it's really really brilliant and I'm sweeping

544
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:34,799
and I like that. I also, by the way, I'm

545
00:26:34,839 --> 00:26:37,160
also like, I think Raymond Brown is great.

546
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 3: I think and to you right is great. Those are

547
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:40,599
like more New Testament scholars.

548
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 1: Uh.

549
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 3: I just finished the paper, actually just turned it on Friday.

550
00:26:44,279 --> 00:26:48,839
Speaker 2: That I use Raymond Brown and Boltman together talking about John.

551
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 3: Because yeah, because I think they I think they're right.

552
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:57,319
Speaker 2: I said this better the paper, But I think they're

553
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:01,319
right about the historicity of it and how the text is.

554
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:03,039
You know, what what parts of the text work, what

555
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:05,240
parts don't, what parts were should have shoved in, and

556
00:27:05,279 --> 00:27:05,960
what parts weren't.

557
00:27:07,279 --> 00:27:08,880
Speaker 3: But I I.

558
00:27:08,799 --> 00:27:10,839
Speaker 2: Don't think any of that matters because I think the

559
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:14,839
story is fantastic and the construction of the story is

560
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,559
a masterpiece. And the fact that whoever was the final

561
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:22,920
redactor of that gospel took pieces and put them together.

562
00:27:23,039 --> 00:27:25,559
Speaker 3: There were some are floating around, like the Adulterous Woman

563
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:26,400
was a piece that was flowing.

564
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:29,039
Speaker 2: It was in Luke for there there you know, their

565
00:27:29,039 --> 00:27:32,160
manuscripts of Luke where it's there, and took it and

566
00:27:32,319 --> 00:27:33,680
put it right where it belongs.

567
00:27:34,039 --> 00:27:36,839
Speaker 3: Is kind of astonishing. Anyway, that was my theory.

568
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:41,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, uh, by the way, I've heard of I mean,

569
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,359
some of these people I've reel like, come holl on

570
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,640
an empty right, and I'm actually reading Stanley Harwiss has

571
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:48,960
a memoir called Hannah's Child that I'm actually a third

572
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:50,319
of the way through reading right now.

573
00:27:50,839 --> 00:27:53,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean his book of sermons. I don't

574
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,160
know if it were all sermons or just essays, but

575
00:27:55,279 --> 00:27:58,799
it's really good. I mean it's really good. I mean, yeah, look,

576
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:03,440
there's some stuff been there and you're like, Okay, I'm not.

577
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:08,279
Here's the phrase I usually use because I think it's

578
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:13,440
the least inceentiary I can easily I can get a

579
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:16,000
lot of value and meaning out of a lot of

580
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:18,680
those writers without having to agree with them that the

581
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:20,480
Paris Climate Accords would have saved the earth.

582
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: Of course, Yeah, that's right. I can overlook that stuff too.

583
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:27,160
Let me go back, though, we were just saying prompts

584
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:29,839
this question, which is it took about, you know, moving

585
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:31,599
the story around to put it in the right place,

586
00:28:32,279 --> 00:28:34,880
to what extent is your long experience as a scriptwriter,

587
00:28:35,079 --> 00:28:37,880
as a person constructing shows. How does that help you

588
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:42,400
understand these things? But also is it don't say to

589
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,960
your classmates, notice that you have to bring this different

590
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:47,440
background perspective to things.

591
00:28:48,119 --> 00:28:50,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm Yeah, they notice everything I do because

592
00:28:50,599 --> 00:28:54,119
I'm so weird, so strange, this.

593
00:28:53,839 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 3: Old man is here.

594
00:28:56,079 --> 00:29:02,119
Speaker 2: What I'm surprised about the story stuff is that you.

595
00:29:01,039 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 3: And I listen. I mean no disrespect to these brilliant scholars.

596
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:06,359
Speaker 2: They know more than I do, and they certainly read

597
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:13,279
the Greek and I haven't it. Sometimes I find them

598
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:18,839
struggling with something that is obvious to me, because this

599
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:22,480
is how you make a story work. So the awkward

600
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,279
jump in John specifically about like, okay, get all this theology.

601
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,400
It's like high flute language. And then there's and then

602
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,920
suddenly he's you know, he's changing.

603
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 3: Water to wine, and like, well, why is why?

604
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 2: And John does he go, why is the temple scene

605
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:39,720
where they're overturning the tables? Why is that in the

606
00:29:39,759 --> 00:29:44,400
first act? Basically right, that's like a and why, Like

607
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:47,079
it's and people have all these reasons for it. It's like, well,

608
00:29:47,079 --> 00:29:50,680
in the story, you want the story of the person.

609
00:29:51,279 --> 00:29:53,400
I mean not to be Joseph Campbell about it, but

610
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:57,319
but actually you can be like you have to, you

611
00:29:57,359 --> 00:30:00,319
have to burn the boats, you have to you have

612
00:30:00,359 --> 00:30:03,759
to there's no turning back at the first scene, he's

613
00:30:04,039 --> 00:30:05,160
turning over tables.

614
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 3: That means the end is in motion.

615
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 2: And if you're constructing a story, that's where you want

616
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:13,200
it now.

617
00:30:13,319 --> 00:30:15,119
Speaker 3: The other the other synoptics have it.

618
00:30:15,079 --> 00:30:16,799
Speaker 2: At the end, right, and that makes sense too, But

619
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,039
that's just a different way to tell the story. And

620
00:30:20,079 --> 00:30:22,039
we have four Gospels for a reason. It's not so

621
00:30:22,079 --> 00:30:24,160
we get to pick one. It's because all are true.

622
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:32,960
And that's also really hard. The the the you know,

623
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:37,359
the when they go they call it historical historical textual

624
00:30:37,359 --> 00:30:39,559
criticism or something where you're trying to figure out is

625
00:30:39,599 --> 00:30:42,839
this is this the Q source or the P source

626
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:45,079
or all that stuff. And then, and I was in

627
00:30:45,279 --> 00:30:47,920
my Old Testament and New Testament classes last semester that

628
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:50,279
was a big part of trying to explain to people

629
00:30:50,319 --> 00:30:54,279
what how to wrap their head around.

630
00:30:54,759 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 3: Teasing in one.

631
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 2: Text who wrote what? And I was like finally had

632
00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:03,039
a raise my hands, say, this is what. This is

633
00:31:03,079 --> 00:31:06,839
called a Writer's Guild credit Arbitration committee.

634
00:31:07,799 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 3: And I've been on a million of them.

635
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 2: Man. What they do is they send you every script,

636
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,680
every version of every script, every version of that story,

637
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:17,440
every every outline, every every draft that was ever written

638
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:19,960
by and that with nobody's name on it, and then

639
00:31:20,039 --> 00:31:23,880
the final draft, and you've got to decide who gets

640
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:30,559
the credit, meaning who gets the money. Basically, and unfortunately

641
00:31:30,559 --> 00:31:32,640
for the Gospel writers, and for the certainly and for

642
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:35,240
the Hebrew Bible describes there's no money.

643
00:31:35,319 --> 00:31:37,119
Speaker 3: You know, they're not gonna get any money. But it's

644
00:31:37,119 --> 00:31:37,799
not that unusual.

645
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,079
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I see this bit comes from that like

646
00:31:40,559 --> 00:31:44,279
it makes It makes total sense to anybody in show business.

647
00:31:44,759 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure the idea must have occurred to you

648
00:31:46,799 --> 00:31:49,640
that your pitch meeting and your caller will be a

649
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,519
sitcom of the writer's room for the four Gospels. No,

650
00:31:53,599 --> 00:31:54,039
I mean, I.

651
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 3: Believe me. I thought of it.

652
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, I figure you want to right, I want to say,

653
00:32:00,839 --> 00:32:02,440
I want to ask more about that. But before we do,

654
00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:05,440
let's do one last thing from your present moment. You

655
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:08,359
said you just preached your first sermon. So now is

656
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,480
that something all the students are expected to do as

657
00:32:10,519 --> 00:32:12,119
part of their course of study or is it something

658
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,200
you want to do? So tell us about and then

659
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:15,119
tell us what you preached.

660
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 3: Well, there's always a year.

661
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 2: I think everyone has to do a year of working

662
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,799
in a church, so you have an internship. So I'm

663
00:32:21,839 --> 00:32:24,680
the world's oldest intern at the local Episcopal church in Princeton,

664
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,839
which is right basically on the campus. And so, you know,

665
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:30,799
I go it and I do little Bible study stuff

666
00:32:30,839 --> 00:32:33,160
when it comes up, and I do morning and evening

667
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:34,119
prayer when it comes.

668
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,279
Speaker 3: Up, and I help lead a little.

669
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 2: Monday night conversation sometimes and I just fill in it,

670
00:32:40,119 --> 00:32:41,960
you know, And then you got to preach.

671
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 3: And so I think I get to preach next semester two.

672
00:32:45,559 --> 00:32:48,599
Speaker 2: And this was the fourth fourth Advent you know, no, sorry,

673
00:32:48,599 --> 00:32:52,720
third Advent, a third Sunday and Advent, which is you know,

674
00:32:52,799 --> 00:32:55,720
it's like, okay, waiting waiting, waiting patients, patience patients, that's advent,

675
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:59,319
you know. And so that's kind of what I said.

676
00:32:59,319 --> 00:33:01,359
It nicer, but that's kind of where I was, you know,

677
00:33:02,799 --> 00:33:04,079
And it was kind of it was fun. It was

678
00:33:04,119 --> 00:33:05,759
like a like it was fun.

679
00:33:05,519 --> 00:33:09,799
Speaker 3: But it wasn't. I mean, you know, it's not that different.

680
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 2: You know, you got an audience and you know they

681
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,359
they have to be there, but they don't have to listen,

682
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:21,000
and you you got to grab them with something and

683
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:22,400
you got to tell them something they haven't heard.

684
00:33:23,079 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 3: Or something they've heard but in a different way.

685
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,799
Speaker 2: And so it's really it's that I've tried to explain

686
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,279
this to the rector, like about running a church and everything.

687
00:33:34,279 --> 00:33:36,519
It's like, like, you know, you know, I've been on five

688
00:33:36,519 --> 00:33:40,079
oh one c three boards, right, and I've also run

689
00:33:40,119 --> 00:33:42,640
TV shows. That's kind of what running a church is,

690
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,319
big sprawling thing where you don't you think you have

691
00:33:46,359 --> 00:33:48,319
a lot of power, but you don't really and you

692
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,720
kind of need all this consensus all the time, and

693
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:53,440
everybody's staring at you, and uh, you know, a good

694
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:56,480
major portion of it is just walking around like you

695
00:33:56,519 --> 00:34:00,000
know what you're doing. And he goes, yeah, that's exactly it.

696
00:34:01,839 --> 00:34:04,640
So it's not you know, it's there there. There are

697
00:34:04,799 --> 00:34:08,480
real similarities too. But I suspect that that is true

698
00:34:08,519 --> 00:34:12,400
for many people in many jobs, and I think it.

699
00:34:12,559 --> 00:34:15,920
You know, i'd say this to all my friends and

700
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,360
the people I meet who are my age or younger.

701
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:20,039
Speaker 3: Some of them like, oh, you know, I asked, I

702
00:34:20,039 --> 00:34:22,519
always kind of wanted to do that, and I'm like,

703
00:34:22,599 --> 00:34:23,000
do it.

704
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,519
Speaker 2: Do it because the church, your church needs you, whatever

705
00:34:28,639 --> 00:34:30,039
church that is, so.

706
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:33,760
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, in politics, I often remind people of

707
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,719
you know, Ronald Reagan saying, I don't know how somebody

708
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:41,079
could do this job as president and not be an actor, right, right,

709
00:34:41,159 --> 00:34:44,119
And and you know, some of Winston Churchill's friends and

710
00:34:44,119 --> 00:34:46,239
many of us critics said, Winston, you missed your calling

711
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:48,599
in life. You should have been an actor. Right. So

712
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:51,880
in other words, I argue that the most successful people

713
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:54,159
on the global station politics are people who have a

714
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,719
good instinct and ability to understand the dramatic or theatrical

715
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:03,280
aspects of human life, especially political life. So yeah, so

716
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,440
you know, some churches overdo the production, you know, like

717
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:09,440
Robert Schure's Crystal Cathedral. All that leads me leaves me

718
00:35:09,519 --> 00:35:12,880
very cold. But that's why I like liturgical worship. But

719
00:35:13,039 --> 00:35:16,000
what I'm trying to get closer to here is, well,

720
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,320
I've use it as a transition to religion in Hollywood,

721
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:21,199
and there's two or three ways that can go. One

722
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,199
is are there many religious people in Hollywood? I think

723
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:30,079
more interesting is the challenge of sub self consciously making religious,

724
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:35,559
religiously themed films. And you often hear, especially conservative Christians, saying,

725
00:35:35,559 --> 00:35:38,079
why can't we make movies about Bible stories? And sometimes

726
00:35:38,119 --> 00:35:41,119
people will try and they're really bad. Yeah, you know,

727
00:35:41,159 --> 00:35:43,360
and C. S. Lewis used to say, don't concentrate on

728
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,760
self consciously doing a religious message to good art, and

729
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:49,440
if it happens to incorporate, that's what works. Right, So

730
00:35:49,519 --> 00:35:52,559
as Narnia books for example. Yeah, and then you can

731
00:35:52,599 --> 00:35:55,159
think of there have been some religious movies over the

732
00:35:55,199 --> 00:35:57,800
years that have done extremely well. Ben Her maybe he's

733
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:01,480
one of the great classics, right, Yeah. And then sort

734
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:03,760
of out of nowhere, Mel Gibson does The Passion of

735
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:08,159
the Christ and it's this monster seller, right, a big

736
00:36:08,199 --> 00:36:10,519
box office hit at a studios say we're going to

737
00:36:10,599 --> 00:36:12,599
do something like that, and they try and they flop

738
00:36:12,639 --> 00:36:15,119
at it. And so I don't know what the question

739
00:36:15,199 --> 00:36:16,920
here exactly is. You can see where I'm going with

740
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:21,079
all this is, Yeah, religion a special problem for Hollywood?

741
00:36:21,159 --> 00:36:23,239
Or how do you make sense of all this? Well?

742
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think it's so many, so

743
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:31,360
many complicated strands. I think one of them is that

744
00:36:31,559 --> 00:36:37,679
just jeven just culturally ethnically, the scrappy entrepreneurs who built

745
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:43,440
show business bill Hollywood, we're you know, Eastern European Jews.

746
00:36:44,199 --> 00:36:48,239
And they felt and legitimately I think they felt like

747
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:52,480
we better, we better be careful because this is not

748
00:36:52,559 --> 00:36:55,639
a country that loves Jews that much, and we are

749
00:36:55,639 --> 00:36:57,760
trying to do mass entertainment and most of these people

750
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,400
have never met a Jew in this country, and what they.

751
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:01,199
Speaker 3: Know of them, they don't like.

752
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:04,039
Speaker 2: Right, that's kind of what that's been around. So they

753
00:37:04,039 --> 00:37:05,480
were very careful when they did.

754
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 3: Old Testament and New Testament stories and they and they

755
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:11,800
did them very faithfully.

756
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 2: And some of there's are great, you know, the greatest

757
00:37:15,039 --> 00:37:18,360
story ever told her And some are great, right, there's

758
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,440
great old movies. But as that, so that was one

759
00:37:21,519 --> 00:37:23,880
I think strain, which I don't think you can deny.

760
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,119
I think that you have this other part of the

761
00:37:26,199 --> 00:37:29,199
idea that the people in in show business who are

762
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,840
successful they kind of deep down know they're weird now

763
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,679
that like there's something they however they grew up wherever

764
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:38,679
they grew up, it's weird now they're like they live

765
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:41,960
in a different world. And so all all the people

766
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:45,360
who go to church in America and believe are just

767
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:47,639
kind of strange to them, and they kind of know it,

768
00:37:47,679 --> 00:37:51,119
and they're it's not condescending, it's just an awareness that

769
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:53,159
these are people I can't really speak to because I've

770
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,440
just you know, I've got a little person running behind

771
00:37:56,440 --> 00:38:00,599
me handing me tiny bottles of water whenever I want them.

772
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:02,280
There's a great I don't know if you've seen the

773
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:02,599
movie J.

774
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 3: Kelly, but in J. Kelly was a really good movie.

775
00:38:05,039 --> 00:38:07,800
Speaker 2: There's a kind of a reard running joke where J Kelly,

776
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:10,079
so he says, you just you could never be alone,

777
00:38:10,559 --> 00:38:13,199
and he goes, I could be alone. And then the

778
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,679
minute he says that, somebody his bodyguard hands that you

779
00:38:15,679 --> 00:38:17,559
want to here's a water for me, thank you, and

780
00:38:17,599 --> 00:38:19,960
he gets he gets, you know, and so I think

781
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:20,360
there's that.

782
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:21,800
Speaker 3: I also feel like.

783
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:26,239
Speaker 2: I kind of feel like we've been running an experiment

784
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:30,719
in America definitely, but probably the world, the Western world

785
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:31,159
in general.

786
00:38:32,119 --> 00:38:34,119
Speaker 3: Uh, what would happen? What? What?

787
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: What?

788
00:38:34,119 --> 00:38:35,199
Speaker 3: What would happen?

789
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:38,320
Speaker 2: What would a generation look like in America that was

790
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:42,079
raised almost entirely in a secular culture, not just in

791
00:38:42,119 --> 00:38:46,440
a culture that repudiates or ignores religion, but our culture

792
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,079
that really has no connection to it at all.

793
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 3: So culture that doesn't read the Bible, it.

794
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:55,119
Speaker 2: Doesn't know the story, that doesn't even if it's to

795
00:38:55,119 --> 00:38:59,679
say it's all superstitious nonsense, doesn't even know isn't atheistic.

796
00:39:00,159 --> 00:39:03,199
To be the atheist means you're rejecting something that you

797
00:39:04,599 --> 00:39:09,480
looked at. What would that be like to have a

798
00:39:09,639 --> 00:39:11,880
bunch of people who are now sixty I was born

799
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:16,679
in nineteen sixty five, for whom it's not like they

800
00:39:16,679 --> 00:39:19,719
don't believe, or they believed, or they believed and they left,

801
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,719
or they just don't. They just don't have any mooring

802
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:27,880
at all. And and I'm sort of obsessed with that

803
00:39:28,119 --> 00:39:30,360
cohort because I think that cohort is like forty fifty

804
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:33,719
sixty years old, maybe even older, and they have lived

805
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:38,239
enough of a life to have felt things and to

806
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:45,639
have experienced things that faith is. It talks about the

807
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:47,760
faith addresses and I think there are a lot of

808
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:49,719
people my age and a little bit younger who are like, well,

809
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:51,800
what is this all been about?

810
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:55,639
Speaker 3: And where do I go to think about this stuff?

811
00:39:55,679 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 2: So, I mean, that's a long win new question, but

812
00:39:57,920 --> 00:39:59,639
a long whin answer to a question. But so I

813
00:39:59,639 --> 00:40:02,840
think that that's the third part, which is that the culture

814
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:05,519
in general just kind of I mean, if you were

815
00:40:05,519 --> 00:40:06,159
going to make a.

816
00:40:08,559 --> 00:40:12,079
Speaker 3: First of all, the Hebrew Bible is it's it's crazy.

817
00:40:12,159 --> 00:40:14,400
It hasn't been made. It's Game of Thrones.

818
00:40:15,119 --> 00:40:18,920
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I mean yeah, and it's the parts of

819
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:20,679
it that you like. Even the game, even the producer

820
00:40:20,679 --> 00:40:22,559
of the Game of Thrones would say, well, that's just

821
00:40:22,599 --> 00:40:27,199
too violent. We're not doing that, So I don't. I

822
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:29,400
just think it's a we it is. No longer people

823
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:31,840
were afraid of it. They're afraid of offending you if

824
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,440
they bring it up. They're afraid of I think a

825
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:36,440
whole bunch of different things. And they go, so why

826
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:39,639
if you're a show business you always take the easy

827
00:40:39,679 --> 00:40:40,000
way out?

828
00:40:40,039 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 3: Why why poke the bear?

829
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,599
Speaker 2: You know, like this just to We'll just talk about

830
00:40:45,639 --> 00:40:48,679
something else. And I think the culture helped them do that.

831
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:51,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with Uh. Well,

832
00:40:52,559 --> 00:40:56,320
put it this way. It's it's astounding how many what

833
00:40:56,519 --> 00:40:59,639
used to be household or you know, common cultural expressions

834
00:40:59,639 --> 00:41:02,800
derived the Bible and Shakespeare phrases. We is right, and

835
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:05,199
to the extent that we've now neglected both the Bible

836
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,079
and Shakespeare. You will bring up some reference and people say,

837
00:41:08,119 --> 00:41:11,000
what what is that? Or some of the Shakespeare phrases

838
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,159
are still commonplace, but people don't know that it comes

839
00:41:13,199 --> 00:41:16,320
from Shakespeare, right, So you know, I've long said that

840
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:18,559
you really just need to know three not free authors,

841
00:41:18,559 --> 00:41:21,559
exactly three books, Aristotle, the Bible, and Shakespeare, and you'll

842
00:41:21,599 --> 00:41:22,519
be fine in life.

843
00:41:22,599 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 3: Right yeah, I mean, actually that's that's true.

844
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:31,199
Speaker 1: Act I think, yeah, yeah, right, well, this has been fine.

845
00:41:31,199 --> 00:41:33,440
I could talk foreverybody. We don't want to attack the

846
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:37,159
patients of our listeners. So one last question. I think,

847
00:41:37,519 --> 00:41:39,840
although I should ask anything, I haven't asked you, I

848
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:42,800
should have or something else that you think listeners should

849
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:46,039
know about a theological and spiritual excursion you're making.

850
00:41:46,519 --> 00:41:50,599
Speaker 3: I think we have we cover all the heresies. You

851
00:41:50,639 --> 00:41:52,719
know that that is something that happens.

852
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 2: Like you, you know, I'm in a Bible study and

853
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:58,840
on Tuesday mornings, and I do this other thing called

854
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:03,519
ef M, And there's sometimes people like, wait, can I

855
00:42:03,559 --> 00:42:05,320
am I allowed to say this or that or like

856
00:42:06,159 --> 00:42:07,920
and then every now and then it lapse into what

857
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:11,360
would technically be considered a heresy. But I actually feel

858
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:13,880
like at this point heresies are are It's a high

859
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:17,079
class problem to have. It means it means we're talking.

860
00:42:17,159 --> 00:42:19,199
It means we're talking about it means it's part of

861
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:19,800
the conversation.

862
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 3: So I say, bring on the heresies.

863
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:24,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we don't kill each other for them anymore

864
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:29,400
as much as we used to, so not as right, right, right, Yeah,

865
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:31,760
So last question on a completely different subject, but it's

866
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,519
on everybody's mind right now. And you seems like you've

867
00:42:35,519 --> 00:42:38,039
known or met everybody in Hollywood. Did you know Rob

868
00:42:38,079 --> 00:42:40,599
Reiner much at all? And I mean, this is such

869
00:42:40,599 --> 00:42:41,639
an awful story, but.

870
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 3: It's a terrible story.

871
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:43,079
Speaker 4: You know.

872
00:42:43,119 --> 00:42:44,559
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't know him really.

873
00:42:45,039 --> 00:42:48,119
Speaker 2: I met him a couple of times and lovely, lovely guy.

874
00:42:49,119 --> 00:42:51,119
And then there was a period a few years ago,

875
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:55,199
so I did this thing that I that people do.

876
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:58,760
I think when a friend of theirs dies and he

877
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:00,920
wasn't I'm not saying he's a friend of mine. You

878
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:07,199
go into your email archives and you read your lastic

879
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:12,679
changes and and I remember doing that when PG Orke died,

880
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,039
like just having going back and saying, okay, what was.

881
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 3: Our you know?

882
00:43:16,199 --> 00:43:19,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there were you know, and so he and I,

883
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:21,599
Rob Ryder and I were like a part of a

884
00:43:21,599 --> 00:43:22,920
little group and we were trying.

885
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:24,559
Speaker 3: He really wanted to do.

886
00:43:26,079 --> 00:43:30,320
Speaker 2: A TV comedy that touched on the kind of all

887
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:34,719
in the Family's style, not you know, not a reboot,

888
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:36,760
but like, okay, what did all the family do? It

889
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:38,960
brought all of these things that people are arguing about

890
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:43,639
in the home, and I put them on screen and

891
00:43:43,639 --> 00:43:46,280
and he, you know, he's a very thoughtful guy, and

892
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:51,400
he knew that the strength of all the family was

893
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:55,159
that the hero was Archie Bunker, and the hero is

894
00:43:55,199 --> 00:43:57,400
actually Bunker, because he's the one with a job, right,

895
00:43:57,559 --> 00:43:59,719
and who fought in the war and had two jobs right,

896
00:44:00,119 --> 00:44:03,079
and was like paying for all the food right, doing everything,

897
00:44:03,639 --> 00:44:05,519
and he kind of and I think he wanted to

898
00:44:05,559 --> 00:44:07,480
do it right. And so we were talking about it

899
00:44:07,519 --> 00:44:09,719
back and forth about what would be like and what

900
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:11,960
what we have to talk about, and you know, he

901
00:44:12,079 --> 00:44:17,440
was extremely he was extremely sensitive to the idea that

902
00:44:18,559 --> 00:44:21,840
there were things that the people who run the networks

903
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,800
and all those of the things that they were afraid

904
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:28,199
of talking about, and there were opinions they just were

905
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:32,079
afraid of, most almost entirely on the right, and that

906
00:44:32,199 --> 00:44:35,239
he just didn't want that. He wanted to make sure

907
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:37,679
that we went forward with this. That I knew that

908
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:40,559
he was he was going to fight for all of

909
00:44:40,599 --> 00:44:44,400
that the full truth of the conversation to unfold, because

910
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,760
that's the only way all in the family, and I

911
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:49,920
think that I admired that. I really admired that. And

912
00:44:50,039 --> 00:44:51,760
I know he was a partisan. I mean, you know

913
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:55,840
that's what he was. But man, he made some great

914
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:58,480
movies and he was in our my exchanges with him.

915
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:00,400
He was a really lovely, thoughtful guy. And I think

916
00:45:00,679 --> 00:45:05,000
real tragedy did. I mean, it's just one of those horrible, horrible,

917
00:45:06,199 --> 00:45:07,320
horrible stories.

918
00:45:07,039 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: You just you know.

919
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 2: I think I made the decision maybe last week or whatever,

920
00:45:14,119 --> 00:45:16,320
within two days that you know what I knew.

921
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 3: I know enough about it now. I don't need to

922
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:18,320
know anymore.

923
00:45:19,199 --> 00:45:21,559
Speaker 2: I don't I just skipped by those the stories I'm

924
00:45:21,559 --> 00:45:22,719
not I just don't want to know about.

925
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:25,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Well, let's not end on a total

926
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:27,039
down note like that, but I have felt like I

927
00:45:27,079 --> 00:45:31,119
had to experience. It's important. It's an important story, I think, Yeah,

928
00:45:31,159 --> 00:45:33,840
I think so, and so Instead let me just uh

929
00:45:34,119 --> 00:45:38,840
then send us out saying God bless you, Rob, Merry Christmas,

930
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:41,920
and you too, yeah, happy New Year, and uh well,

931
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,000
I'll have to do this again after you're at the

932
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:45,880
halfway point. We'll have to do this again at the

933
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:47,519
end of year three, and see where you're heading.

934
00:45:47,599 --> 00:45:50,239
Speaker 2: Next see see if I'm like, yeah, it's all I realized,

935
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:54,840
it's all crazy. I'm a Hindoo now I'm a practicing Buddhism.

936
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:58,639
I'll say that that that you know, you're around fussy Anglicans,

937
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:03,159
which is pretty much a redundant I understand. But I

938
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:04,920
I have my my you know, we have the big

939
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:07,079
jokes in the in the seven about what your ministry is,

940
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:10,199
and people go like, I my ministry is, you know,

941
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:13,840
making sure that people you only use one font in

942
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:17,960
their you know, presentations. And my ministry is to sort

943
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:21,039
of scrape some of the fussiness off of the Episcopal Church.

944
00:46:21,079 --> 00:46:23,039
And one of them is like they you say Merry

945
00:46:23,079 --> 00:46:24,400
Christmas to a fussy act.

946
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:26,519
Speaker 3: Like, oh you mean happy at that because you know

947
00:46:26,559 --> 00:46:29,079
it's not Christmas, Like, oh, give me a break, Merry Christmas.

948
00:46:29,159 --> 00:46:31,159
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna say a Christmas Carol now too,

949
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:32,400
just to drive you crazy.

950
00:46:32,679 --> 00:46:36,639
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thanks, we'll see you soon, I hope.

951
00:46:36,719 --> 00:48:09,119
Speaker 4: Hey, Merry Christmas.

952
00:47:24,519 --> 00:47:24,559
Speaker 1: B