Speaker 1: Well, hi everybody, it's Steve Hayward here with a special
Speaker 1: holiday episode of the Ricochet Podcast. It's just me in
Speaker 1: conversation with Rob Long, one of Ricochet's co founders, well
Speaker 1: known to nearly all of you, of course, and I thought,
Speaker 1: who better to talk about Christmas and the meaning of
Speaker 1: religion than our own in house seminarian, And so without
Speaker 1: further ado, here's me and Robin. Well, I'm delighted to
Speaker 1: have one of Ricochet's co founders, Rob Long, joined me
Speaker 1: for this special year end episode. I have for the
Speaker 1: longest time been wanting to talk to Rob about this
Speaker 1: midlife change from Hollywood to theology, from the studio to
Speaker 1: the church, and partly because I mean a fellow Christian,
Speaker 1: of course, but also because it parallels the trajectory were
Speaker 1: a very good friend of mine who unfortunately passed away
Speaker 1: in his early fifties after deciding to leave a variousuccessful
Speaker 1: legal career to go to seminary and become more dane. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, your story, Rob sounds familiar to me,
Speaker 1: And yeah, the reasoning is interesting. But anyway, listeners, you
Speaker 1: won't be able to see this, of course, But at
Speaker 1: first I thought, what are you lighting up there, Rob?
Speaker 1: Is that incense sexual high Church?
Speaker 2: Well, no, I'd be very very much in favor of
Speaker 2: it if it were incense. I do have incense in
Speaker 2: the house. I had to tell you.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I am kind of an incense freak. This
Speaker 3: is a cigar. I was just wrapped up on.
Speaker 2: Friday, exams and papers. I had a bunch to do,
Speaker 2: and I'm here to tell you it's very very A
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of school is harder than it
Speaker 2: was when I was a student last time. I was
Speaker 2: a student forty years ago. But it's easier in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways. And I am an unabashed fan of AI.
Speaker 2: You you plug in your sources, it spits out a
Speaker 2: bibliography that's perfectly but perfectly formatted.
Speaker 3: It double checks your footnots for you. I could.
Speaker 2: I sent in up, I uploaded my paper and I
Speaker 2: said make sure I didn't, you know, repeat any language
Speaker 2: from these sources that I didn't that I didn't cite.
Speaker 1: And I don't know.
Speaker 3: This is maybe boring to people, but I'm just telling you.
Speaker 2: Among the other things i'm evangelizing, I'm evangelizing for AI,
Speaker 2: which is probably about That's what I mean that's what's
Speaker 2: going to get me into trouble more than anything else.
Speaker 3: Probably.
Speaker 1: Well, anyway, I'm tempting to joke that hopefully it can
Speaker 1: catch you from lapsing into any Armenian heresies or something.
Speaker 1: But well, right, well, all right, almost all of our
Speaker 1: listeners are familiar with you, longtime listeners of Ricochet and
Speaker 1: so forth, and that Martini shot and whatnot. But it
Speaker 1: just for you know, let's do a thirty second potted biography,
Speaker 1: which I think I can kind of do, but add
Speaker 1: in what I've left out. You're more and raised in
Speaker 1: the Baltimore area.
Speaker 3: Born and then we moved. I moved around a lot.
Speaker 2: So's we're born there, and I'm driving there right now.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not driving now, and I pulled away,
Speaker 2: pull over, but I yeah, I was born there. And
Speaker 2: then we lived in Europe and then northern California, where
Speaker 2: I kind of spent most of my sort of growing
Speaker 2: up times, and then and then went away to school,
Speaker 2: and then I was in New England.
Speaker 3: And that's that, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right, Yeah, I see, I didn't know that you
Speaker 1: moved around a bunch. I just remembered the Baltimore anchor
Speaker 1: and then you went to gale measured in fine arts,
Speaker 1: I think, or something like that.
Speaker 3: Oh English, something even more more or less remunerative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And then you stuck out for Hollywood, where
Speaker 1: you were a great success for a very long time,
Speaker 1: and then Hollywood got weird. We may come to a
Speaker 1: little of that here at the end, but you've certainly
Speaker 1: talked about how the industry has changed a lot on
Speaker 1: this show and on your on Martini Shot and so forth.
Speaker 1: So it's like a lot of things. It's no longer
Speaker 1: the fun it used to be. I can tell that
Speaker 1: from afar. Well, so here's the big question. You know,
Speaker 1: after all these years working in comedy, mostly in television,
Speaker 1: you just decided to go to seminary in middle age
Speaker 1: and to become ordained. And so the cynics and haters.
Speaker 3: Wait, thank you, thank you for saying middle age.
Speaker 1: Well, I you know, I'm a few years older than you,
Speaker 1: only a few happily, and I'm still clinging in the
Speaker 1: middle aged too. But so now the cynics and haters
Speaker 1: are going to say, ah, Rob, you know the rhino,
Speaker 1: the ones who think of you as a rhino. Is
Speaker 1: this a midlife crisis? What precipitated this idea because this
Speaker 1: is really a big thing to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm trying to hold on.
Speaker 2: I have a little piece of cigar. I'm downside and smoking.
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm a writer. I was a writer
Speaker 2: for a long time. I still am a writer. And
Speaker 2: at a certain point, you want to write about stuff
Speaker 2: that's more and more important to you, more and more
Speaker 2: important to me. At a certain time, you kind of
Speaker 2: want to, especially if you write screen stream plays and scripts,
Speaker 2: you want to write about your SI and you want
Speaker 2: to write about what's you're thinking about, not necessarily a
Speaker 2: dialogue for somebody else. And then I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is a larger this is sort of a larger
Speaker 2: part of why I feel called to this. But these
Speaker 2: are big that the big things are still big, and
Speaker 2: just because we don't think about them, and or the
Speaker 2: culture doesn't think about them, or we trivialize them, doesn't
Speaker 2: make them any smaller.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like they always say, like the I preached a
Speaker 2: sermon on Sunday, and one of the images I said was,
Speaker 2: you know Niagara Falls. There's like a forty million gallons
Speaker 2: of water go over the cliff of Niagara Falls every
Speaker 2: every minute, and it's like ninety decibels. It's like two
Speaker 2: leaf blowers going all the time. But if you live
Speaker 2: in Niagara Falls, you just don't hear it anymore. And
Speaker 2: I feel like that's kind of how we are about
Speaker 2: these big thoughts, like what are we doing here?
Speaker 3: What's our purpose?
Speaker 2: What's our what's our purpose to our our own potential?
Speaker 3: And what's our purpose? What's our what are our.
Speaker 2: What do we call to do with everyone else on
Speaker 2: the planet and those I don't know. The place where
Speaker 2: people think these things through for me is the Church
Speaker 2: and the and the figure that seems to have the
Speaker 2: most make the most sense and have the most impact
Speaker 2: was Jesus, So you know, start there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this may sound odd, but there are
Speaker 1: sent There's two things that most people don't like to
Speaker 1: think about. One is the abyss, you know, the terrible abyss,
Speaker 1: right right right. But then the other one is God
Speaker 1: and for the for the the inherent reason that, at
Speaker 1: least in the monotheistic faith traditions, God is unknowable by definition.
Speaker 1: We can say more about that if we want, right
Speaker 1: and uh and then plus I mean that's just on
Speaker 1: the what you might say the philosophical theological level. You can't.
Speaker 1: There's a reason we call it faith and reason or
Speaker 1: reason and revelation, right right, And yet theology is the
Speaker 1: attempt to reason and about God to the extent we can,
Speaker 1: and that you know, footnotes to one hundred different books.
Speaker 3: To follow, right, right, right right.
Speaker 1: I agree with you completely, By the way, I'm of
Speaker 1: that same disposition. I'm fascinated by both theology and philosophy,
Speaker 1: and they overlap a lot. On the other hand, I
Speaker 1: can see it's not for everybody. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: rarefied inclination. And it's one thing to go to church
Speaker 1: every week and read some good books and so forth.
Speaker 1: It's another one than to say I'm going to throw
Speaker 1: in one hundred percent like you have.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like I
Speaker 2: don't want to get I don't want to give anybody.
Speaker 3: The wrong impression I am.
Speaker 2: I'm not the biggest fan of theology and I and
Speaker 2: I reckon I see the irony there that I am
Speaker 2: in fact at a place called Princeton Theological Seminary. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes I think theology is just a lot
Speaker 2: of words we wrote to solve a problem that we
Speaker 2: created with our own words. So you know, we're you know,
Speaker 2: basically getting ourselves out of a maze that we set
Speaker 2: for ourselves. And I think sometimes, you know, you could
Speaker 2: I could read have now. I do it now, not
Speaker 2: for a living, but I do it now as a vocation.
Speaker 1: I read a lot of.
Speaker 2: Theology, and sometimes I just find myself like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I've read five pages of this and I have no
Speaker 2: idea what this person's talking about. And they're not even German,
Speaker 2: you know, they're like, this is actually something who speaks
Speaker 2: English is the first language.
Speaker 3: So you know, I think the experience of and I sometimes.
Speaker 2: Feel like the other books, the theology, and all the
Speaker 2: language we use is a way for us to sort
Speaker 2: of navigate and negotiate the you know, the red print
Speaker 2: in the Bible and the New Testament, the stuff that
Speaker 2: Jesus says.
Speaker 3: So he says these incredibly.
Speaker 2: Impossible things, right, you know, love your nature, people say,
Speaker 2: he says, forgive your enemies. Now he doesn't say that.
Speaker 2: He says, love your enemies much harder. I gotta forgive
Speaker 2: my enemies. Yeah, they're forgiven.
Speaker 3: I can't love them. Give to all who asks, you know.
Speaker 2: All that stuff, give away your stuff if you have
Speaker 2: two codes give one away, and so those are pretty clear, right.
Speaker 2: So some of theology I think is designed for two
Speaker 2: thousand years to figure out what else he might have
Speaker 2: meant aside from those really difficult things. Because we're not
Speaker 2: doing those things, we're gonna we will try to come
Speaker 2: up with some.
Speaker 3: Other things we can do.
Speaker 2: And I look that that's a human that's a human impulse,
Speaker 2: that's a human invasion, which just fine, But I kind
Speaker 2: of feel like the just to be a slightly Christian
Speaker 2: chopiness here for a minute. The singular thing about Christianity
Speaker 2: is that Jesus says that you are important. Your unanus
Speaker 2: is important, your steveness is important. You will leave the
Speaker 2: thought for you, steve for me. Rob Not because we
Speaker 2: belong to a tribe or we belong to a culture,
Speaker 2: or because we have a dharma or we have a
Speaker 2: rank that we need to live out. It's because of
Speaker 2: who specifically we are. That's a that is a radical,
Speaker 2: earth changing concept. There is that changed human nature, that
Speaker 2: changed the way human beings think of themselves.
Speaker 3: And I don't know that seems worth.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: I got a couple of years to spend just learning that,
Speaker 2: and then if I'm lucky, you know, God willing and
Speaker 2: the people consenting. I would like to spend the rest
Speaker 2: of my little summers that the Lord is giving me
Speaker 2: to to talk about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean, and it's taken up. Actually, I
Speaker 1: think we're still figuring out the implications of what you
Speaker 1: just said, because I mean I tend to run off
Speaker 1: because you know, my backgrounds and political philosophy to the
Speaker 1: political dimension, which was the New Testament teaches that our identity,
Speaker 1: our worth does not depend on the nation we live in. Right,
Speaker 1: And it takes a long time. You know, Machiavelli comes
Speaker 1: along and you know, thirteen hundred years later says, well,
Speaker 1: well wait a minute, that's really bad, right, that's part
Speaker 1: of his complaint.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And then but then you know, in a certain extent
Speaker 1: we call the liberal tradition grows out of all that. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's the subject for another day. But you have
Speaker 1: been I think a life along episcopalian.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which which you know with all the intensity of
Speaker 2: that that that entails.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well look, I know the jokes are are our
Speaker 1: friend Andrew Clayman, who you know, converted from Judaism to
Speaker 1: evangelical Christianity. Someone said, or are you an Episcopalian. He said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm a real Christian.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, but he said, the way you put
Speaker 2: it to me, he goes, well, you know, call me
Speaker 2: when you are joining a religion with that believes in God.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right, Well, the reason I brought that up is
Speaker 1: it does seem to me that liturgical denominations, you know, Catholics, Episcopalians, Anglicans,
Speaker 1: or Eastern Orthodox, they tend to be a much more
Speaker 1: part of because of the liturgical form of worship. They
Speaker 1: tend to be much more or put much more emphasis
Speaker 1: on serious, in depth theological step. I think I think
Speaker 1: that's fair to say.
Speaker 3: I think that's probably fair. Yeah. I mean, also they
Speaker 3: have a they are.
Speaker 2: They come out of the early Church tradition of doing
Speaker 2: exactly that, So they aren't. I mean, you could you
Speaker 2: can make the cases of Anglican and some mainline Protestants
Speaker 2: are a reformed, but even by being reformed, you're still
Speaker 2: choosing the foundation of the suirt So you're going back
Speaker 2: to the time. I mean, all the reformers, even the Anglicans,
Speaker 2: said well, we're more Catholic than they've lost their way
Speaker 2: and we're back to what you know, so less capture. Right,
Speaker 2: you don't really not non a nominational churches which are
Speaker 2: incredibly vibrant, don't They don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think they have that as there you know
Speaker 3: the DNA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now you use the word. I want to go
Speaker 1: back and ask you what is uh? I guess this
Speaker 1: is a deeply personal question. You used a keyword to
Speaker 1: me anyway when you said called, this is a calling.
Speaker 1: Now there's you know, a couple of ways of thinking
Speaker 1: about that. One is and I've had a clergy friend
Speaker 1: of mine who said, from an early age they felt
Speaker 1: they had received the call of God in that you know,
Speaker 1: spiritual transcendental sense. By the way, one of them are episcopalian.
Speaker 1: Who went into this bishop and said the bishop said,
Speaker 1: why do you want to be a priest? Who said,
Speaker 1: because I've been called by God? And he said most
Speaker 1: of his friends said, you told the bishop what. But
Speaker 1: but there's also, I mean, the other way of thinking
Speaker 1: about it is it's a it's a consequent logic. And
Speaker 1: so you know when when you said called, yeah, how
Speaker 1: do you mean or what is that? How is that?
Speaker 1: Manifested itself to you?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: As a good episcopalian, I am uncomfortable talking about these issues, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, then you know, how do you make it episcopalia?
Speaker 2: And look at his shoes you mentioned you mentioned Jesus
Speaker 2: or money, like that's how you get it. So so,
Speaker 2: but I do remember going and talking talking to the
Speaker 2: rector of the church I went to in Manhattan I
Speaker 2: still go to, and I was talking to her about, uh,
Speaker 2: my first time in that church and not not my
Speaker 2: first time, but the first time I went to that
Speaker 2: church sort of just to go to his service because
Speaker 2: I've been there for weddings and stuff, and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the candles were lit on it was a night. It's
Speaker 2: a six pm Sunday service. It is beautiful and I
Speaker 2: sort of walked in there for I don't know why.
Speaker 2: And she said to me, said, so you think maybe
Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit was guiding you into the church. And
Speaker 2: I said, looked at her, I said, I don't know,
Speaker 2: And she said, does that make you uncomfortable that I
Speaker 2: said that. He said, yes, it makes me uncomfortable. So
Speaker 2: I call the call. You know, Partly I think that
Speaker 2: if you can, if you want to deepen your experience
Speaker 2: with faith, or you want to eat your experiences as
Speaker 2: a writer, you're going to have to get called to
Speaker 2: learn something about big stuff.
Speaker 3: Also, I kind of feel like that.
Speaker 2: The the great thing about one of the great things
Speaker 2: I should say about the Christian faith is that it's
Speaker 2: kind of a what now faith and.
Speaker 3: That you you know, Jesus knows us so well.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I don't think you even have
Speaker 2: to believe in the divinity of Jesus to be to
Speaker 2: say most of what I'm about to say. He knows
Speaker 2: us so well, he knows people so well that he
Speaker 2: knows what terrifies us deep down, as you put it, like,
Speaker 2: is this all there is? Am I unlovable? Am I unloved?
Speaker 2: If my people in the in my life who loved
Speaker 2: me knew who I really was, would they still loved?
Speaker 3: Am I alone?
Speaker 2: And Jesus says, okay, in order I'll take I'll tell
Speaker 2: you are not unloved.
Speaker 3: You are the loved child of God. You are not alone.
Speaker 3: We are all. I am always with you, I know you,
Speaker 3: and I love you.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The college for purity, which we say in the Piscopal Faith,
Speaker 2: is the God to whom all from whom no secrets
Speaker 2: are hid, to whom all all desires are known, and
Speaker 2: then finally you are an air to everlasting life. So
Speaker 2: I've taken you know, if Jesus is there, he said,
Speaker 2: So I've taken care of your big fears.
Speaker 3: Now what so if you.
Speaker 2: Accept that, even if you accept that that is a
Speaker 2: destination of a journey that you're on, that full belief experience,
Speaker 2: the question is still.
Speaker 3: Is now what?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 3: Now are you going to do with all that?
Speaker 2: And for me it was like, okay, well, if I
Speaker 2: believe all that, I guess I should do something with it.
Speaker 3: I guess I should put it into practice.
Speaker 2: And I know you people could put into practice a
Speaker 2: million different ways, but mine was like, I want to
Speaker 2: write about this, I want to preach about this. I
Speaker 2: want to celebrate the foundational prayer of the Eucharistic prayer
Speaker 2: that we have, which is kind of all of.
Speaker 3: Those things all wrapped up in one thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's kind of and I and I wish
Speaker 2: I could say now listen, I really felt the Holy
Speaker 2: Spirit guided me. A God came and like I was,
Speaker 2: you know, Jesus sat next to me the bus stop
Speaker 2: and told me, here's what you got to do.
Speaker 3: But I haven't. I don't, I don't.
Speaker 2: That is I haven't had that experience, but I definitely
Speaker 2: have been led somewhere by something somehow. And I you know,
Speaker 2: I turned sixty in June. I'm not gonna I decided
Speaker 2: to stop. I've decided to stop tuning that part out.
Speaker 1: Well. I mean, look, I'm all one for theological modesty,
Speaker 1: even that even if I'd heard a voice from the
Speaker 1: wilderness or from the bush or something, I think I'd
Speaker 1: be reloved to say so openly or directly myself. So
Speaker 1: I certainly get that. But it's that's one of those
Speaker 1: mysteries of faith, right that we have to live with
Speaker 1: and and and and accept that we are not going
Speaker 1: to be able to conquer that one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, if you, if you, if you believe
Speaker 2: the first step, which is that you know he's everywhere,
Speaker 2: he's inside you, and he's a part of you, and
Speaker 2: you just tuned it out, you just need to tune
Speaker 2: that part back in, you know, Like I know, you
Speaker 2: could be a classic Freudian and still believe that's the case.
Speaker 2: I happen to think that it's something more universal, but
Speaker 2: the practice of it is the same for me, and
Speaker 2: that once once I crossed that line, I'm like, Oka, well.
Speaker 3: What I'm really going to go? I mean, look, I
Speaker 3: would love I've told you this before.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I I have a friend of mine who's a who's
Speaker 2: a rector of a church on Cape Cod and he's
Speaker 2: an old guy's you know, he's grew up in a
Speaker 2: Roman Catholic family in Rhode Island, like niney thousand brothers
Speaker 2: and sisters and wanted to get married. But he also
Speaker 2: wanted to be a priest, so it's really only one
Speaker 2: one path for him, which is piscical priest. And he said,
Speaker 2: he said, well, why do you want to do this?
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, I gave him all those
Speaker 2: reasons and I said, you know, and also look, I meant,
Speaker 2: I gotta be honest. There's a ten percent of me
Speaker 2: wants to wear that collar into a Network comedy.
Speaker 3: Pitch meeting and pitch a show and see what they do.
Speaker 2: And he goes, okay, well that's not as bad as
Speaker 2: what I thought you were going to what you should
Speaker 2: he said, you should also know this that when you
Speaker 2: are gained, they give you a card that you can
Speaker 2: put on your dash and you could park anywhere. And
Speaker 2: he said, that is not a reason to do this.
Speaker 2: But it's not not a reason to do this, like
Speaker 2: you know, so all these you know, fuck, I like
Speaker 2: to think that's a small portion of my call, but
Speaker 2: it's not.
Speaker 3: It's not nothing.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to look at tordienda. I want to
Speaker 1: come to Hollywood in the world of the clergy, because
Speaker 1: I forget who said it. It might have been Churchill who
Speaker 1: said a joke is a very serious thing, and so
Speaker 1: I'm trying to But yeah, but I do want to.
Speaker 1: I do want to linger on theology what you're doing
Speaker 1: right now, and do stay a little bit in chronology.
Speaker 1: So like you say, I totally get it when you
Speaker 1: say that theology can be kind of off putting in
Speaker 1: dance and all the rest of that. So tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about you know, your first year of studies.
Speaker 1: Is it what you expected, either academically or theologically. Has
Speaker 1: it been hard to learn different languages in Middle Age,
Speaker 1: which you know you say you know you can't run
Speaker 1: a language after you're eighteen or something. True.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm here to tell you that is that is
Speaker 2: absolutely true. You can't, you should not do it. I'm
Speaker 2: I'm on Friday. I was sort of like my direct midpoint.
Speaker 2: So it's a three year program. I've been in a
Speaker 2: year and a half. So Friday last, the fall semester
Speaker 2: was over on Friday, and I spent some time struggling
Speaker 2: with Greek, and I thought, okay, well, you know, if
Speaker 2: you Princeton is a Presbyterian school basically started by Presbyterians
Speaker 2: who are incredibly impressive intellectually. And if you are a
Speaker 2: Presbyterian and you have a Presbyterian pastor, buy him a
Speaker 2: drink or something, because he really he really know stuff.
Speaker 3: You have to know Greek and.
Speaker 2: Hebrew, and to be an Episcopalian you just kind of
Speaker 2: don't have to know those.
Speaker 3: You have to be familiar with him. But that's about it,
Speaker 3: Like they don't zo test.
Speaker 2: So I struggled through Greek, and I think I might
Speaker 2: do Hebrew in an intense short class at some point
Speaker 2: between now and the time I graduate, just so I
Speaker 2: know a little bit about it and I can look
Speaker 2: stuff up meaningfully. So there was that part, and then
Speaker 2: there's the other part, which is sort of the classic
Speaker 2: dance you know call Karl Barth style theology, which is
Speaker 2: interesting and in many cases really compelling and arresting. I
Speaker 2: tend to squirrel my way around, so like the you know,
Speaker 2: the occasional Karl Barth writings and letters are great, and
Speaker 2: I kind of like, oh, maybe I'll just stick with those,
Speaker 2: you know, I won't pick up this big book. The
Speaker 2: history of the church is fascinating. Of course, that's been
Speaker 2: really fun to study that, mostly because it's just an
Speaker 2: early church anyway, is just a series of gruesome tortures
Speaker 2: and two hundred years of persecution then followed by a
Speaker 2: thousand years of political power.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like it's fun to read how quickly they all
Speaker 2: they all change the minute Constantine said okay, you're I
Speaker 2: want to you suddenly suddenly they got very different. But
Speaker 2: I but my classmates, I've been I've been really surprised
Speaker 2: by my classmates.
Speaker 3: They're young.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm the oldest person in the I'm the
Speaker 2: oldest person in the room, mostly because my professors are
Speaker 2: younger than I am too, So so this's that experience
Speaker 2: is kind of weird. But it's really fun because they
Speaker 2: are If you if you're feeling pessimistic about the future,
Speaker 2: you should just come and sit in on a class
Speaker 2: because they're sort of thoughtful and compassionate and struggling to
Speaker 2: make it all make sense, which in an incredibly Christian way.
Speaker 2: I mean capital C and SAC, which is interesting. It's
Speaker 2: really kind of I find them. I really admire them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I I occasionally will dust off some
Speaker 1: Carl Bart to try and read and then give up
Speaker 1: after a while. But there are two things about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's the most famous work, is
Speaker 1: that what six volume Church Dogmatics, right, Yeah. But one
Speaker 1: of the fun things about that is is that he
Speaker 1: since somewhere something along the lines of systematic theology is
Speaker 1: an oxymoron, and that's why he wrote dogmatics instead of
Speaker 1: systematic theology. So that's sort of in clients to I
Speaker 1: think what you were saying. And the other thing was,
Speaker 1: you know, in German, nothing that matters except we all
Speaker 1: use a German word sometimes to make us sound more sophisticated.
Speaker 1: He said God's was gone's onder meaning holy other meaning
Speaker 1: because God is one, He's not intelligible the normal human ways.
Speaker 1: And I've always taken that to heart because that's what
Speaker 1: set him at odds against Saint Thomas, Coins and Catholics. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't want to keep out too much on particular things,
Speaker 1: but he vacation yeah, I know. Well, all right, me
Speaker 1: let me pose the question to you this way, I say,
Speaker 1: I actually put those guys down. At one point in life,
Speaker 1: I was sort of passingly familiar with some of the
Speaker 1: leading theologians who were controversial, like Rudolph Boltmann thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: and so I sort of wondering, I'll ask this question
Speaker 1: two or three different forms and grab whichever one you want.
Speaker 1: Who are in your mind are some of the more
Speaker 1: notable theologians writing today or recently who have been If
Speaker 1: there are any influences on you or are you I'll
Speaker 1: say myself, I'd like to say I'm a C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis Christian who is not a theologian. He was an
Speaker 1: apologist and interesting guy. But also, you know, I used
Speaker 1: to and still do read Thomas Merton and some of
Speaker 1: the contemplatives some oh yeah, right, And so anyway, what
Speaker 1: are some of the influences on your religious thinking, whether
Speaker 1: you know whether gear drive theologians or more contemplative writers.
Speaker 1: Do you have a list?
Speaker 2: Well, I have a list in formation, I would obviously
Speaker 2: see us Lewis is there. And it's interesting that people
Speaker 2: they I've heard this kind of thing.
Speaker 3: People say, well C. S. Lewis.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're not a theologian obviously, and people always
Speaker 2: say things, well as if is this somehow that well
Speaker 2: he doesn't have a license to practice theology, like he's unlicensed,
Speaker 2: you know, he just does it in his living room. Uh.
Speaker 3: But C. S.
Speaker 2: Lewis has had I think more of a.
Speaker 3: Profound religious effect on people. I think J. R. Tolkien
Speaker 3: probably has too.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm not really I mean I struggle through
Speaker 2: those books that are not really my thing, but uh,
Speaker 2: you are talking about somebody who was deeply, deeply committed
Speaker 2: to the story and.
Speaker 3: To the timelessness of the story.
Speaker 1: I liked.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's some Anglican ones that I can think
Speaker 3: are really interesting. Standy Howard ass is pretty interesting. He's in.
Speaker 2: At Duke I think, yeah, And then I like, I might,
Speaker 2: And then there's like the the more recent Anglican writers
Speaker 2: are Rowan.
Speaker 3: Uh. I always gonna say, rohaka sent it. It's not
Speaker 3: mister Bean.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: I I don't mean yeah, yeah, just I went out
Speaker 2: of my head. Anybody who's trying, anybody who I think
Speaker 2: is thinking. Fleming Rutledge is an American and she's written
Speaker 2: a wonderful book on on Uh.
Speaker 3: The Crucifixion.
Speaker 2: Uh so all these all this stuff is great.
Speaker 3: I also I also love.
Speaker 2: The the historians with faith. So you know, Tom Holland's
Speaker 2: dominion obviously, if you like, if you like, uh.
Speaker 3: The rest is history, Tom Holland's dominion is really wonderful.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: Also there's a guy, Jeffrey Kreipel, who has written this
Speaker 2: book which is.
Speaker 3: Bananas by the way.
Speaker 2: It's called How to Bleed, how to Think Impossibly, and
Speaker 2: he it's a very interesting, very it's not dense, but
Speaker 2: it's just like it's all over the place.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful, it's.
Speaker 2: Funny and witty and smart and erudite, but it's it's
Speaker 2: all over the place.
Speaker 3: And there's a guy named Michael Edwards who is such
Speaker 3: an incredible show off.
Speaker 2: He's an American, I know, he's an English guy who
Speaker 2: speaks French and occasionally writes in French, which is like, okay,
Speaker 2: get out of town as far as I'm concerned. But
Speaker 2: he wrote a wonderful book called the uh, the the Poetry,
Speaker 2: the Poetry in the Bible or the Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: it's called Poetry in the Bible or something like that.
Speaker 2: And it's a it's really really brilliant and I'm sweeping
Speaker 2: and I like that. I also, by the way, I'm
Speaker 2: also like, I think Raymond Brown is great.
Speaker 3: I think and to you right is great. Those are
Speaker 3: like more New Testament scholars.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: I just finished the paper, actually just turned it on Friday.
Speaker 2: That I use Raymond Brown and Boltman together talking about John.
Speaker 3: Because yeah, because I think they I think they're right.
Speaker 2: I said this better the paper, But I think they're
Speaker 2: right about the historicity of it and how the text is.
Speaker 2: You know, what what parts of the text work, what
Speaker 2: parts don't, what parts were should have shoved in, and
Speaker 2: what parts weren't.
Speaker 3: But I I.
Speaker 2: Don't think any of that matters because I think the
Speaker 2: story is fantastic and the construction of the story is
Speaker 2: a masterpiece. And the fact that whoever was the final
Speaker 2: redactor of that gospel took pieces and put them together.
Speaker 3: There were some are floating around, like the Adulterous Woman
Speaker 3: was a piece that was flowing.
Speaker 2: It was in Luke for there there you know, their
Speaker 2: manuscripts of Luke where it's there, and took it and
Speaker 2: put it right where it belongs.
Speaker 3: Is kind of astonishing. Anyway, that was my theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, uh, by the way, I've heard of I mean,
Speaker 1: some of these people I've reel like, come holl on
Speaker 1: an empty right, and I'm actually reading Stanley Harwiss has
Speaker 1: a memoir called Hannah's Child that I'm actually a third
Speaker 1: of the way through reading right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean his book of sermons. I don't
Speaker 2: know if it were all sermons or just essays, but
Speaker 2: it's really good. I mean it's really good. I mean, yeah, look,
Speaker 2: there's some stuff been there and you're like, Okay, I'm not.
Speaker 2: Here's the phrase I usually use because I think it's
Speaker 2: the least inceentiary I can easily I can get a
Speaker 2: lot of value and meaning out of a lot of
Speaker 2: those writers without having to agree with them that the
Speaker 2: Paris Climate Accords would have saved the earth.
Speaker 1: Of course, Yeah, that's right. I can overlook that stuff too.
Speaker 1: Let me go back, though, we were just saying prompts
Speaker 1: this question, which is it took about, you know, moving
Speaker 1: the story around to put it in the right place,
Speaker 1: to what extent is your long experience as a scriptwriter,
Speaker 1: as a person constructing shows. How does that help you
Speaker 1: understand these things? But also is it don't say to
Speaker 1: your classmates, notice that you have to bring this different
Speaker 1: background perspective to things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm Yeah, they notice everything I do because
Speaker 2: I'm so weird, so strange, this.
Speaker 3: Old man is here.
Speaker 2: What I'm surprised about the story stuff is that you.
Speaker 3: And I listen. I mean no disrespect to these brilliant scholars.
Speaker 2: They know more than I do, and they certainly read
Speaker 2: the Greek and I haven't it. Sometimes I find them
Speaker 2: struggling with something that is obvious to me, because this
Speaker 2: is how you make a story work. So the awkward
Speaker 2: jump in John specifically about like, okay, get all this theology.
Speaker 2: It's like high flute language. And then there's and then
Speaker 2: suddenly he's you know, he's changing.
Speaker 3: Water to wine, and like, well, why is why?
Speaker 2: And John does he go, why is the temple scene
Speaker 2: where they're overturning the tables? Why is that in the
Speaker 2: first act? Basically right, that's like a and why, Like
Speaker 2: it's and people have all these reasons for it. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: in the story, you want the story of the person.
Speaker 2: I mean not to be Joseph Campbell about it, but
Speaker 2: but actually you can be like you have to, you
Speaker 2: have to burn the boats, you have to you have
Speaker 2: to there's no turning back at the first scene, he's
Speaker 2: turning over tables.
Speaker 3: That means the end is in motion.
Speaker 2: And if you're constructing a story, that's where you want
Speaker 2: it now.
Speaker 3: The other the other synoptics have it.
Speaker 2: At the end, right, and that makes sense too, But
Speaker 2: that's just a different way to tell the story. And
Speaker 2: we have four Gospels for a reason. It's not so
Speaker 2: we get to pick one. It's because all are true.
Speaker 2: And that's also really hard. The the the you know,
Speaker 2: the when they go they call it historical historical textual
Speaker 2: criticism or something where you're trying to figure out is
Speaker 2: this is this the Q source or the P source
Speaker 2: or all that stuff. And then, and I was in
Speaker 2: my Old Testament and New Testament classes last semester that
Speaker 2: was a big part of trying to explain to people
Speaker 2: what how to wrap their head around.
Speaker 3: Teasing in one.
Speaker 2: Text who wrote what? And I was like finally had
Speaker 2: a raise my hands, say, this is what. This is
Speaker 2: called a Writer's Guild credit Arbitration committee.
Speaker 3: And I've been on a million of them.
Speaker 2: Man. What they do is they send you every script,
Speaker 2: every version of every script, every version of that story,
Speaker 2: every every outline, every every draft that was ever written
Speaker 2: by and that with nobody's name on it, and then
Speaker 2: the final draft, and you've got to decide who gets
Speaker 2: the credit, meaning who gets the money. Basically, and unfortunately
Speaker 2: for the Gospel writers, and for the certainly and for
Speaker 2: the Hebrew Bible describes there's no money.
Speaker 3: You know, they're not gonna get any money. But it's
Speaker 3: not that unusual.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I see this bit comes from that like
Speaker 2: it makes It makes total sense to anybody in show business.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure the idea must have occurred to you
Speaker 1: that your pitch meeting and your caller will be a
Speaker 1: sitcom of the writer's room for the four Gospels. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Believe me. I thought of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I figure you want to right, I want to say,
Speaker 1: I want to ask more about that. But before we do,
Speaker 1: let's do one last thing from your present moment. You
Speaker 1: said you just preached your first sermon. So now is
Speaker 1: that something all the students are expected to do as
Speaker 1: part of their course of study or is it something
Speaker 1: you want to do? So tell us about and then
Speaker 1: tell us what you preached.
Speaker 3: Well, there's always a year.
Speaker 2: I think everyone has to do a year of working
Speaker 2: in a church, so you have an internship. So I'm
Speaker 2: the world's oldest intern at the local Episcopal church in Princeton,
Speaker 2: which is right basically on the campus. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: I go it and I do little Bible study stuff
Speaker 2: when it comes up, and I do morning and evening
Speaker 2: prayer when it comes.
Speaker 3: Up, and I help lead a little.
Speaker 2: Monday night conversation sometimes and I just fill in it,
Speaker 2: you know, And then you got to preach.
Speaker 3: And so I think I get to preach next semester two.
Speaker 2: And this was the fourth fourth Advent you know, no, sorry,
Speaker 2: third Advent, a third Sunday and Advent, which is you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, waiting waiting, waiting patients, patience patients, that's advent,
Speaker 2: you know. And so that's kind of what I said.
Speaker 2: It nicer, but that's kind of where I was, you know,
Speaker 2: And it was kind of it was fun. It was
Speaker 2: like a like it was fun.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't. I mean, you know, it's not that different.
Speaker 2: You know, you got an audience and you know they
Speaker 2: they have to be there, but they don't have to listen,
Speaker 2: and you you got to grab them with something and
Speaker 2: you got to tell them something they haven't heard.
Speaker 3: Or something they've heard but in a different way.
Speaker 2: And so it's really it's that I've tried to explain
Speaker 2: this to the rector, like about running a church and everything.
Speaker 2: It's like, like, you know, you know, I've been on five
Speaker 2: oh one c three boards, right, and I've also run
Speaker 2: TV shows. That's kind of what running a church is,
Speaker 2: big sprawling thing where you don't you think you have
Speaker 2: a lot of power, but you don't really and you
Speaker 2: kind of need all this consensus all the time, and
Speaker 2: everybody's staring at you, and uh, you know, a good
Speaker 2: major portion of it is just walking around like you
Speaker 2: know what you're doing. And he goes, yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker 2: So it's not you know, it's there there. There are
Speaker 2: real similarities too. But I suspect that that is true
Speaker 2: for many people in many jobs, and I think it.
Speaker 2: You know, i'd say this to all my friends and
Speaker 2: the people I meet who are my age or younger.
Speaker 3: Some of them like, oh, you know, I asked, I
Speaker 3: always kind of wanted to do that, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: Do it because the church, your church needs you, whatever
Speaker 2: church that is, so.
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, in politics, I often remind people of
Speaker 1: you know, Ronald Reagan saying, I don't know how somebody
Speaker 1: could do this job as president and not be an actor, right, right,
Speaker 1: And and you know, some of Winston Churchill's friends and
Speaker 1: many of us critics said, Winston, you missed your calling
Speaker 1: in life. You should have been an actor. Right. So
Speaker 1: in other words, I argue that the most successful people
Speaker 1: on the global station politics are people who have a
Speaker 1: good instinct and ability to understand the dramatic or theatrical
Speaker 1: aspects of human life, especially political life. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know, some churches overdo the production, you know, like
Speaker 1: Robert Schure's Crystal Cathedral. All that leads me leaves me
Speaker 1: very cold. But that's why I like liturgical worship. But
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to get closer to here is, well,
Speaker 1: I've use it as a transition to religion in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and there's two or three ways that can go. One
Speaker 1: is are there many religious people in Hollywood? I think
Speaker 1: more interesting is the challenge of sub self consciously making religious,
Speaker 1: religiously themed films. And you often hear, especially conservative Christians, saying,
Speaker 1: why can't we make movies about Bible stories? And sometimes
Speaker 1: people will try and they're really bad. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and C. S. Lewis used to say, don't concentrate on
Speaker 1: self consciously doing a religious message to good art, and
Speaker 1: if it happens to incorporate, that's what works. Right, So
Speaker 1: as Narnia books for example. Yeah, and then you can
Speaker 1: think of there have been some religious movies over the
Speaker 1: years that have done extremely well. Ben Her maybe he's
Speaker 1: one of the great classics, right, Yeah. And then sort
Speaker 1: of out of nowhere, Mel Gibson does The Passion of
Speaker 1: the Christ and it's this monster seller, right, a big
Speaker 1: box office hit at a studios say we're going to
Speaker 1: do something like that, and they try and they flop
Speaker 1: at it. And so I don't know what the question
Speaker 1: here exactly is. You can see where I'm going with
Speaker 1: all this is, Yeah, religion a special problem for Hollywood?
Speaker 1: Or how do you make sense of all this? Well?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think it's so many, so
Speaker 2: many complicated strands. I think one of them is that
Speaker 2: just jeven just culturally ethnically, the scrappy entrepreneurs who built
Speaker 2: show business bill Hollywood, we're you know, Eastern European Jews.
Speaker 2: And they felt and legitimately I think they felt like
Speaker 2: we better, we better be careful because this is not
Speaker 2: a country that loves Jews that much, and we are
Speaker 2: trying to do mass entertainment and most of these people
Speaker 2: have never met a Jew in this country, and what they.
Speaker 3: Know of them, they don't like.
Speaker 2: Right, that's kind of what that's been around. So they
Speaker 2: were very careful when they did.
Speaker 3: Old Testament and New Testament stories and they and they
Speaker 3: did them very faithfully.
Speaker 2: And some of there's are great, you know, the greatest
Speaker 2: story ever told her And some are great, right, there's
Speaker 2: great old movies. But as that, so that was one
Speaker 2: I think strain, which I don't think you can deny.
Speaker 2: I think that you have this other part of the
Speaker 2: idea that the people in in show business who are
Speaker 2: successful they kind of deep down know they're weird now
Speaker 2: that like there's something they however they grew up wherever
Speaker 2: they grew up, it's weird now they're like they live
Speaker 2: in a different world. And so all all the people
Speaker 2: who go to church in America and believe are just
Speaker 2: kind of strange to them, and they kind of know it,
Speaker 2: and they're it's not condescending, it's just an awareness that
Speaker 2: these are people I can't really speak to because I've
Speaker 2: just you know, I've got a little person running behind
Speaker 2: me handing me tiny bottles of water whenever I want them.
Speaker 2: There's a great I don't know if you've seen the
Speaker 2: movie J.
Speaker 3: Kelly, but in J. Kelly was a really good movie.
Speaker 2: There's a kind of a reard running joke where J Kelly,
Speaker 2: so he says, you just you could never be alone,
Speaker 2: and he goes, I could be alone. And then the
Speaker 2: minute he says that, somebody his bodyguard hands that you
Speaker 2: want to here's a water for me, thank you, and
Speaker 2: he gets he gets, you know, and so I think
Speaker 2: there's that.
Speaker 3: I also feel like.
Speaker 2: I kind of feel like we've been running an experiment
Speaker 2: in America definitely, but probably the world, the Western world
Speaker 2: in general.
Speaker 3: Uh, what would happen? What? What?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: What would happen?
Speaker 2: What would a generation look like in America that was
Speaker 2: raised almost entirely in a secular culture, not just in
Speaker 2: a culture that repudiates or ignores religion, but our culture
Speaker 2: that really has no connection to it at all.
Speaker 3: So culture that doesn't read the Bible, it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't know the story, that doesn't even if it's to
Speaker 2: say it's all superstitious nonsense, doesn't even know isn't atheistic.
Speaker 2: To be the atheist means you're rejecting something that you
Speaker 2: looked at. What would that be like to have a
Speaker 2: bunch of people who are now sixty I was born
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five, for whom it's not like they
Speaker 2: don't believe, or they believed, or they believed and they left,
Speaker 2: or they just don't. They just don't have any mooring
Speaker 2: at all. And and I'm sort of obsessed with that
Speaker 2: cohort because I think that cohort is like forty fifty
Speaker 2: sixty years old, maybe even older, and they have lived
Speaker 2: enough of a life to have felt things and to
Speaker 2: have experienced things that faith is. It talks about the
Speaker 2: faith addresses and I think there are a lot of
Speaker 2: people my age and a little bit younger who are like, well,
Speaker 2: what is this all been about?
Speaker 3: And where do I go to think about this stuff?
Speaker 2: So, I mean, that's a long win new question, but
Speaker 2: a long whin answer to a question. But so I
Speaker 2: think that that's the third part, which is that the culture
Speaker 2: in general just kind of I mean, if you were
Speaker 2: going to make a.
Speaker 3: First of all, the Hebrew Bible is it's it's crazy.
Speaker 3: It hasn't been made. It's Game of Thrones.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I mean yeah, and it's the parts of
Speaker 2: it that you like. Even the game, even the producer
Speaker 2: of the Game of Thrones would say, well, that's just
Speaker 2: too violent. We're not doing that, So I don't. I
Speaker 2: just think it's a we it is. No longer people
Speaker 2: were afraid of it. They're afraid of offending you if
Speaker 2: they bring it up. They're afraid of I think a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of different things. And they go, so why
Speaker 2: if you're a show business you always take the easy
Speaker 2: way out?
Speaker 3: Why why poke the bear?
Speaker 2: You know, like this just to We'll just talk about
Speaker 2: something else. And I think the culture helped them do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: put it this way. It's it's astounding how many what
Speaker 1: used to be household or you know, common cultural expressions
Speaker 1: derived the Bible and Shakespeare phrases. We is right, and
Speaker 1: to the extent that we've now neglected both the Bible
Speaker 1: and Shakespeare. You will bring up some reference and people say,
Speaker 1: what what is that? Or some of the Shakespeare phrases
Speaker 1: are still commonplace, but people don't know that it comes
Speaker 1: from Shakespeare, right, So you know, I've long said that
Speaker 1: you really just need to know three not free authors,
Speaker 1: exactly three books, Aristotle, the Bible, and Shakespeare, and you'll
Speaker 1: be fine in life.
Speaker 3: Right yeah, I mean, actually that's that's true.
Speaker 1: Act I think, yeah, yeah, right, well, this has been fine.
Speaker 1: I could talk foreverybody. We don't want to attack the
Speaker 1: patients of our listeners. So one last question. I think,
Speaker 1: although I should ask anything, I haven't asked you, I
Speaker 1: should have or something else that you think listeners should
Speaker 1: know about a theological and spiritual excursion you're making.
Speaker 3: I think we have we cover all the heresies. You
Speaker 3: know that that is something that happens.
Speaker 2: Like you, you know, I'm in a Bible study and
Speaker 2: on Tuesday mornings, and I do this other thing called
Speaker 2: ef M, And there's sometimes people like, wait, can I
Speaker 2: am I allowed to say this or that or like
Speaker 2: and then every now and then it lapse into what
Speaker 2: would technically be considered a heresy. But I actually feel
Speaker 2: like at this point heresies are are It's a high
Speaker 2: class problem to have. It means it means we're talking.
Speaker 2: It means we're talking about it means it's part of
Speaker 2: the conversation.
Speaker 3: So I say, bring on the heresies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we don't kill each other for them anymore
Speaker 1: as much as we used to, so not as right, right, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So last question on a completely different subject, but it's
Speaker 1: on everybody's mind right now. And you seems like you've
Speaker 1: known or met everybody in Hollywood. Did you know Rob
Speaker 1: Reiner much at all? And I mean, this is such
Speaker 1: an awful story, but.
Speaker 3: It's a terrible story.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't know him really.
Speaker 2: I met him a couple of times and lovely, lovely guy.
Speaker 2: And then there was a period a few years ago,
Speaker 2: so I did this thing that I that people do.
Speaker 2: I think when a friend of theirs dies and he
Speaker 2: wasn't I'm not saying he's a friend of mine. You
Speaker 2: go into your email archives and you read your lastic
Speaker 2: changes and and I remember doing that when PG Orke died,
Speaker 2: like just having going back and saying, okay, what was.
Speaker 3: Our you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there were you know, and so he and I,
Speaker 2: Rob Ryder and I were like a part of a
Speaker 2: little group and we were trying.
Speaker 3: He really wanted to do.
Speaker 2: A TV comedy that touched on the kind of all
Speaker 2: in the Family's style, not you know, not a reboot,
Speaker 2: but like, okay, what did all the family do? It
Speaker 2: brought all of these things that people are arguing about
Speaker 2: in the home, and I put them on screen and
Speaker 2: and he, you know, he's a very thoughtful guy, and
Speaker 2: he knew that the strength of all the family was
Speaker 2: that the hero was Archie Bunker, and the hero is
Speaker 2: actually Bunker, because he's the one with a job, right,
Speaker 2: and who fought in the war and had two jobs right,
Speaker 2: and was like paying for all the food right, doing everything,
Speaker 2: and he kind of and I think he wanted to
Speaker 2: do it right. And so we were talking about it
Speaker 2: back and forth about what would be like and what
Speaker 2: what we have to talk about, and you know, he
Speaker 2: was extremely he was extremely sensitive to the idea that
Speaker 2: there were things that the people who run the networks
Speaker 2: and all those of the things that they were afraid
Speaker 2: of talking about, and there were opinions they just were
Speaker 2: afraid of, most almost entirely on the right, and that
Speaker 2: he just didn't want that. He wanted to make sure
Speaker 2: that we went forward with this. That I knew that
Speaker 2: he was he was going to fight for all of
Speaker 2: that the full truth of the conversation to unfold, because
Speaker 2: that's the only way all in the family, and I
Speaker 2: think that I admired that. I really admired that. And
Speaker 2: I know he was a partisan. I mean, you know
Speaker 2: that's what he was. But man, he made some great
Speaker 2: movies and he was in our my exchanges with him.
Speaker 2: He was a really lovely, thoughtful guy. And I think
Speaker 2: real tragedy did. I mean, it's just one of those horrible, horrible,
Speaker 2: horrible stories.
Speaker 1: You just you know.
Speaker 2: I think I made the decision maybe last week or whatever,
Speaker 2: within two days that you know what I knew.
Speaker 3: I know enough about it now. I don't need to
Speaker 3: know anymore.
Speaker 2: I don't I just skipped by those the stories I'm
Speaker 2: not I just don't want to know about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Well, let's not end on a total
Speaker 1: down note like that, but I have felt like I
Speaker 1: had to experience. It's important. It's an important story, I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so, and so Instead let me just uh
Speaker 1: then send us out saying God bless you, Rob, Merry Christmas,
Speaker 1: and you too, yeah, happy New Year, and uh well,
Speaker 1: I'll have to do this again after you're at the
Speaker 1: halfway point. We'll have to do this again at the
Speaker 1: end of year three, and see where you're heading.
Speaker 2: Next see see if I'm like, yeah, it's all I realized,
Speaker 2: it's all crazy. I'm a Hindoo now I'm a practicing Buddhism.
Speaker 2: I'll say that that that you know, you're around fussy Anglicans,
Speaker 2: which is pretty much a redundant I understand. But I
Speaker 2: I have my my you know, we have the big
Speaker 2: jokes in the in the seven about what your ministry is,
Speaker 2: and people go like, I my ministry is, you know,
Speaker 2: making sure that people you only use one font in
Speaker 2: their you know, presentations. And my ministry is to sort
Speaker 2: of scrape some of the fussiness off of the Episcopal Church.
Speaker 2: And one of them is like they you say Merry
Speaker 2: Christmas to a fussy act.
Speaker 3: Like, oh you mean happy at that because you know
Speaker 3: it's not Christmas, Like, oh, give me a break, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna say a Christmas Carol now too,
Speaker 2: just to drive you crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thanks, we'll see you soon, I hope.
Speaker 4: Hey, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1: B