Politics In The Pulpit Part 2 - The Gospel and Politics

Summary

In this episode, Bishop DeDe and Adam dive deeper into the topic of faith and politics, emphasizing the importance of humility, repentance, and understanding in discussions about faith. They discuss the complexities of political views within congregations and the challenge of addressing these issues from the pulpit without alienating parishioners. The conversation highlights the need for dialogue, compassion, and a focus on shared values in a time of division and partisanship.

Takeaways

-Repentance is a turning back to God, not just feeling bad.
-We need to seek common values rather than partisan positions.
-Jesus calls us to humility and understanding in our beliefs.
-Faith discussions can feel risky but are essential.
-We must align our lives with the teachings of Jesus.
-Preaching should invite engagement, not alienation.
-Creating space for dialogue is crucial in diverse congregations.
-The gospel challenges us to lay down our lives for others.
-Listening is essential in faith conversations.
-We are called to speak with love and humility. 


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Faith and Politics
02:54 Understanding Repentance and Humility
06:13 The Complexity of Faith and Political Views
09:05 Jesus as Lord: Challenging Power Structures
14:01 Navigating Politics from the Pulpit
19:56 Creating Space for Dialogue in Diverse Congregations

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:02.764)
Welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. I am DeDe Duncan-Probe. I'm the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York, Canada to Pennsylvania, Utica to Elmira, Finger Lakes, Thousand Islands, little tiny bit of the Adirondacks and just all those lovely places in between. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger, our Communications Director, and we're here to speak about faith. Obviously, as an Episcopal Bishop, I'm gonna be talking from a perspective of a Christian and from

our Episcopal tradition, but I invite you listeners, whatever your tradition may be, to bring your wisdom and knowledge to this topic as well. How do you understand your faith? And how do we talk about faith in this time? Last week I talked a bit about the difference between partisanship and political, that we often conflate those, but in our churches and in our teachings about Jesus, we have to start with an understanding that

that even Jesus was opposed by the religious and civic leaders of the day. And so the gospel of Jesus is calling us to repentance. And for some of us that can feel off putting this idea of repentance, especially if you might be one of those folks who has always understood repentance as you're bad or you need to change or you're just not good enough for God. The biblical real understanding of repentance is very different from that.

The Hebrew scriptures, repentance is a turning with sorrow back to God, a recognition of, you know, in the prophets, I'm a person of unclean, uncleanliness, I, and God, I want God to heal me. I want to turn back to the ways of God. Clearly, our human way of doing things is not effective. We see that in this time. We're so quick to hate, so quick to judge.

and so full of fear of one another that I think speaking of faith can feel so threatening. I don't know about you, but it can become very hard if people have different partisan views to feel that they have nothing in common. you're one of those. Well, I'm one of, excuse me, I'm one of them. And that feeling of either you're for us or you're against us. And we need to remember that when Jesus says you're either with us or against us,

Bishop DeDe (02:28.662)
to Peter actually, that he's talking about God's plan and God's work. I would hesitate to say that most of us would have the humility to understand that our opinion, that we understand we're not God. I hope we have that humility to know that there is a God and we're not God. And so we are seeking God's ways and seeking to know God.

Adam Eichelberger (02:44.07)
and

Bishop DeDe (02:54.184)
And so at any given point, what we may think or believe may not actually be true or helpful or good. It may just feel good to believe. And so for all of us to have the humility to say, well, I'm going to seek to understand before I assert power. And then also that I can be, I can talk about our shared interests and not just our positions. It's not about whether or not a candidate or a platform is good or bad.

I think what's more helpful when we're speaking of faith is what is it that's important? What is it that we're hoping for? What are the shared values that we can talk about and find commonality? We want our children to be safe. We want there to be integrity in our world. We want to know that when we go to sleep at night that we can rest knowing that everything is gonna be all right. So those shared values or shared understandings.

rather than insisting on an opinion or a position. And I think we've gotten very caught up in positions and partisanship. And as people of faith were called to something different, something higher, if you want to use that terminology, something that's more about what God is actually doing. So when we are speaking of our faith, it can feel, I want to say, it can feel very risky.

It can feel like if I say something, I'm gonna get attacked. I'm gonna get, I'm have people really threaten me verbally, hopefully not physically, but in this time, I mean, I think people are very heightened and there's kind of a fever pitch of, you know, people wanting to argue about positions. So as we speak about faith, I think about something we're doing tonight in the Diocese of Central New York.

we're actually having a de-escalation training, how to use our words to instead of further aggravate or further divide us, to calm down, to listen with better ears and understanding, and maybe find those places of common purpose, common shared understanding. It is important to recognize that people may disagree with us and still have good intent.

Bishop DeDe (05:15.928)
People voted for Donald Trump because they believe something that they felt is positive. People voted for Kamala Harris because they believed in something they felt was positive. They may not agree with the entire platform of whatever party they're aligned with. We have gotten pretty susceptible to this thinking of all or nothing, that either you're all one thing, you're all another. And that has never really helped us as human beings.

We are not all one thing or all another. We are complex beings, but as people of faith, first and foremost, we're people of God. Now I've been talking lot with the clergy and with you and with others about that we preach the gospel of Jesus. And one of the things that I've thought about this week is there, we need to be honest with ourselves that there's a lot of different understandings of Jesus. There's a lot of different ways that we

can talk about Jesus that may sound very antagonistic to one another. For some of us, Jesus is our best friend and our companion. For some of us, Jesus feels more like our Lord and our Savior, and it's very, there's different words we would use. But all of us are speaking about a relationship, I hope, that we have with God, and that God is calling us to a relationship with God and one another. As Jesus says,

to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, to love your neighbor as yourself. So when we're speaking of our faith, to begin with what, with the foundations. What is it about belief that is compelling for you? What really matters to you about your faith in God? What do you believe prayer to be? To talk with one another rather than about platforms. Are you for this or against it? To say, well,

I don't really want to talk about that, but I'd love to talk about when have you seen God at work in the world around you? When have you experienced God's love and mercy? Let's talk about those things and how we might invite each other to speak about love and mercy in new ways. Right now, it's certain that there are people who are feeling very afraid and feeling really uncertain about how to be.

Bishop DeDe (07:37.58)
I think of people who are vulnerable, whether it's LGBTQ +, elderly folks, people of color, people who are impoverished, people who are suffering illness. You may, all of us may be at different places with what we're able to really think and speak about. And so to return to the basics and talk about prayer and faith, to talk about scripture, to read scripture together and be willing to hear someone else's perspective.

without there being that fear of either rejection or fear of being involved in something that feels uncomfortable to us. I think we have to remember our power. In this time, I hear a lot of people speaking as if their power less. And so part of speaking our faith is to feel confident that we don't know it all, but we have a faith and we wanna talk about what we believe to be important and true.

And so for you, dear listener, to think about how is that for you? What would you like people to understand about your faith? What in the last week when you've talked with someone, what has sort of given you excitement about how God is with you? Those are things that I think we can share. Now, Adam, I've said a lot of different things, all kind of around a similar topic, but what are some thoughts that you have or questions that may come to mind?

Adam Eichelberger (09:05.232)
Well, one of the things recently Bishop over the last several weeks, I've gotten to have a lot of conversations with folks in our diocese, specifically our clergy and the people who attend on Sundays, the people in the the congregations, parishioners, and they have a lot of different thoughts and a lot of different questions and even concerns about these topics. So as always,

Bishop DeDe (09:17.091)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (09:28.782)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (09:31.852)
listeners as you listen along if you want to ask us questions we get them from you directly if you go to our website cnyepiscopal.org slash podcast there's a form where can ask questions of bishop deity and I can be your voice on the podcast but these are some questions that I had in some conversations with folks and the first one starts with something that you have mentioned a lot on this podcast it's a phrase that you've used quite often it's this Jesus is Lord and I think that

Bishop DeDe (09:45.314)
enough.

Bishop DeDe (09:59.33)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (10:01.518)
one of the things that I've heard a lot from our parishioners, the people in the pews is how, what does it mean for us to say that, to say that Jesus is Lord in a way that can kind of be a challenge to power structures that we see because especially in this time, we, as we've talked about on the podcast with Christian nationalism and the way that Christianity can kind of get twisted and used to promote even a partisan agenda, how can we,

Bishop DeDe (10:29.506)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (10:31.462)
faithfully make that proclamation as people of faith that does challenge these power structures that maybe fly in the face of that statement or like you mentioned in the face of the gospel

Bishop DeDe (10:42.286)
And that's such a great question. And I think all of us, you know, wrestle with and need to wrestle with the answer to that. How do we speak about these things and call ourselves apart from it? It can be very, it is very tempting. It's not that it can be. It is very tempting to get caught up in groupthink when people that you agree with in a partisan manner are saying words to be like, yeah, and sort of join in the rhetoric.

One way that we keep our identity as people of faith and really see Jesus as Lord is to take moments along the way, along the journey to say is what I'm saying, is what I'm advocating for, is what I'm agreeing with. Does it agree with the gospel of Jesus Christ? We very easily can separate out.

how we feel, whether it's partisan or in our habits or whatever it is in our daily lives, we feel very comfortable with that habit or those ways of being. But when we look at the gospel of Jesus, the text of the scriptures is calling us to repent of our selfishness, our greed, our avarice, it's calling us to self-control, calling us to love. And so if what we're proclaiming does not line up with that, the way we...

really live as if Jesus is Lord of our lives is we change. We change our mind, we return with sorrow to God's ways, we do the work of repentance. We turn off the news or turn off the whatever habit it is and we say, know, this feels good emotionally, but it isn't really in line with what Jesus is calling me to be. And to proclaim Jesus as Lord of our lives is to say,

I seek that all my life will line up with what Jesus teaches. I've used the illustration before of like a house and Jesus is coming to your house. For some of us, Jesus is sitting on the front porch still. For some of us, Jesus may have gotten into where the kitchen is, where we hang out, where we're really habitating, but there are those closets and those upstairs bedrooms that we keep Jesus away from because those are hidden spaces that we think God can't quite see.

Bishop DeDe (13:03.884)
those habits or those ways we feel. For Jesus to be Lord of our life is to welcome Jesus to the entirety of the house, metaphorically, of who we are, that Jesus has access to all the rooms and all the hidden spaces. And we realize that there's a cabinet we've been keeping, that we change our minds, we open it up, we say, here, seek your forgiveness. I'm going to change how I relate here.

For Jesus to be Lord is for Jesus to have full access to our lives. And whenever we find a place in our lives where what we like doing or like believing or like being about isn't in accordance with the way Jesus teaches, then we change to the gospel. We have to be very careful here not to change the gospel to us. Sometimes we're like, Jesus said my Mac, because he threw out the people in the temple. So we're allowed to be really angry.

Adam Eichelberger (13:53.776)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (14:01.718)
We have to be careful that we're adapting to the gospel and not adapting the gospel to us. So I think first and foremost for me, Jesus being Lord means that I'm aligning my life with the teachings of Jesus. And so listener, as you speak about your faith, and I hope you'll take this opportunity with this podcast to talk with someone about this that's a friend or trusted person and say, what does it mean to me that God is Lord?

Adam Eichelberger (14:30.428)
So this one actually kind of came from a conversation I had with some priests. We recently in the diocese had a clergy day gathering together. We prayed and we talked about what it is that kind of was like our first love, the thing that our clergy like led them into this call to ministry. And several folks that I spoke with had these really deep concerns, especially lately, about how we can actually address politics from the pulpit without.

alienating folks. You talked in our last episode when we started this conversation around politics in the pulpit about how we are called to do that and that it's part of our tradition to offer that charge to folks and especially in the light and you even brought it up Bishop of everything that happened surrounding Bishop Marion Buddies comments towards the president that seemed to get people really worked up.

Bishop DeDe (14:59.394)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (15:07.021)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (15:10.753)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (15:22.563)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (15:22.66)
And so the question I heard from several of our clergy is how can we responsibly address political issues without alienating parishioners?

Bishop DeDe (15:33.674)
If you figure it out, let me know. I mean, think, you know, call in, don't bring in your questions, bring that answer to me. Because I have to say, I don't think we can. Jesus couldn't. And I feel very much that if when Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees or Sadducees or to Pontius Pilate or to the woman who with the bleeding disorder, any of these places where Jesus is talking and is

Adam Eichelberger (15:35.586)
ha ha ha ha!

Adam Eichelberger (15:42.224)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (15:47.324)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (16:03.496)
speaking truth is inviting people to transformation. The thieves on the cross. Anytime Jesus is teaching, there's someone who is feeling either alienated or mad about it, who doesn't like it. And I think that's hard for us because when we're preaching, we've come from

Most preachers that I know, and especially I can speak with the clergy in this diocese, come with a heart where we've read the scriptures, we've looked into the history of the scriptures. A lot of us look at the Greek and the Hebrew, and we do our work to really be good stewards of preaching the gospel and the whole of the Bible with integrity. And then when we open our mouth to proclaim God, it's a very vulnerable act.

because we're open our mouth knowing that we are sinners saved by grace too, that we're doing our best to honor what God has put on our heart to say. And that in saying that, it may not be the happiest thing for some people in the congregation. Because most of us don't really like that feeling of repentance. I mean, I don't know about you listener or you Adam, but when I was growing up, one of the worst things you could say to do is to be wrong.

You really wanted to be right about everything or you'd be made fun of or you'd be told you weren't good enough or there would be a price to pay for being wrong. So there was a lot riding on getting it right. And one of the truths in the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we are not right. It's assumed we're sinners who need salvation. Peter, the rock, the, you know, all that said about Peter and yet every time Peter speaks in the gospels.

He's a day late and a dollar short. He never gets it. I mean, he kind of makes us feel good because he's just like, you know, we'll make tents, we'll put booze, and Jesus is like, boy. How long do I have to put up with you people? I love that in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus actually says that. Because we come to the Gospel through repentance, through admitting we're wrong and we need Jesus more than we need to be right.

Adam Eichelberger (18:02.076)
You

Bishop DeDe (18:29.322)
And that is hard. And so when we're proclaiming in the pulpits or in our we're speaking with our family or friends and we talk about the love of Jesus, automatically people are going to take offense and say, well, what about murderers or what about this person? Well, what about God's grace doesn't reach to here? And and we don't understand it either because we want to say, well, you know, you're right. I don't think God's grace should reach to there either. And yet we are not.

the people who make that decision. That's a God question. And so humility, curiosity, a willingness to be wrong, these are prerequisites really to be a person of faith and for Jesus to be Lord. And it's hard for us in this time because I feel it too. There's such a pressure to get it right. There's such a pressure that if you don't get it right, there's threats everywhere, everything, there's fear.

There's anxiety. I think some of that comes from having been through the pandemic, knowing loved ones who died and knowing people, so many people who died of COVID and that vulnerability of life. And so it feels like there's a lot riding on being right. And I think we have to invite all of us to a place of safety to set down being right.

to hand that back to God, to repent of our self-righteousness and yield to the work of Jesus in our midst. And as it was with Jesus, it is now, it's hard to do. It's hard for us.

Adam Eichelberger (20:09.222)
Hmm. And I love that you talk about how it's there isn't really a right answer for that. And I feel bad because I wasn't trying to entrap you into an impossible question. But we're called it calls to mind when you talk about the Gospels. How many times Jesus teaches something to a group of people and they get mad and they walk away. You know, how many when he talks about what we call the bread of life discourse.

Bishop DeDe (20:16.066)
No.

Bishop DeDe (20:30.126)
That's right.

Adam Eichelberger (20:34.97)
when he gives this teaching that is so hard that so many people, crowds walk away. And Jesus himself even says to us, I'm reminded of, says, remember, before the world hated you, they hated me first.

Bishop DeDe (20:47.138)
That's right. That's right. And they crucified Jesus. I one of the things that I think is people of faith that we shy away from is we're we're the crucifixion. talk about the crucifixion of Jesus, but we don't want to talk about the crucifixion of Christians because Jesus actually commands us to take up our cross daily and follow him. Now, there's all kinds of we won't get into the biblical studies because I could we could be here a long time.

Adam Eichelberger (20:50.8)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (21:03.782)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (21:16.076)
But this understanding that we take up the call of Jesus and take up the cross and follow Jesus, which means there are gonna be times when we are reviled and persecuted. There are gonna be times when we are misunderstood. There are gonna be times when people dislike what we've said because it burns in their heart. And I especially think of the road to Emmaus with the travelers with Jesus that when Jesus is talking about

the history of faith and here is the resurrected son of God, Jesus talking about faith and they're mad because they think who is he to tell us about this? And then when they realize who Jesus is, they repent, they say, you know, and there we were being mad about this and they jump up from the table and rush back to say that they have seen the Lord. That pattern of salvation,

is alive in our time. That pattern of movement from feeling hard-hearted to being freed of our pride is alive in our time. so being patient with one another, coming from a place of understanding, being patient with our own brokenness, when we find that we've been wrong to say, I'm so sorry, I repent of that, I didn't, know, I want to make amends.

to live in a place of a willingness to be saved. And in a time when there's so much sense of threat, I think it's very hard to yield to that.

Adam Eichelberger (22:54.492)
And you know, it's, hard for us to you talk about, You talk a lot about, like you talked about taking up the cross and following Jesus, which is what we're, we're compelled to do. I heard a priest say one time, you know what, every once in a while when we wake up in the morning, when we carry that cross, we get to be Simon the Sirenian and we just get to carry it and then put it back down. But really the call is for us to, if I'm hearing you right, Bishop is to take it up and be willing.

Bishop DeDe (23:04.408)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (23:24.006)
to go to the end of the road with that journey. And I'm not saying that we're necessarily, I know that there's a lot of fear mongering in American Christianity that's centered around like being martyred for your faith. And I think that that's not the conversation we're having here, but being willing to accept the hardships that come along with being a follower of Jesus.

Bishop DeDe (23:26.35)
That's right.

Bishop DeDe (23:37.197)
Mm-mm.

Bishop DeDe (23:44.942)
Yeah, it really, and I think especially for those who are listening who might be preachers or who were leaders in churches and who were engaged in the work of really conforming and Jesus being Lord, we tend to be, know, we often are people pleasers or we're often people who are really.

wanting peace and working for peace and working for justice and that's where our heart is. And when we're confronted by the brokennesses of the world within ourselves and in others, it breaks our heart. And that is with Jesus, we see the same reality of a broken heart. And I actually am always encouraged.

by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And I talk about this a lot when it comes to callings and different things, because Jesus in the Garden isn't saying to God, bring it on. This isn't saying, finally, all this time, I was incarnated, I've been teaching, I've been doing other things, finally we're getting down to the real thing, let's go. Jesus is saying, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me. And if Jesus is in that holy place of,

Adam Eichelberger (24:42.918)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (25:00.856)
questioning. It's a holy place and it allows Jesus in that text you can see Jesus say, it be your will let this cup pass through me and then the conviction and the commitment to follow it through to the end. All of us who have been called either to you know priesthood or diaconate or as a lay person there's been a moment when we thought let this cup pass through me.

Adam Eichelberger (25:03.9)
Mmm.

Bishop DeDe (25:29.428)
And to recognize that as holy, because we don't want to go, you know, jumping into in front of trucks, you know, to prove that God is God. We want to follow Jesus in the ways we are called to follow Jesus and to trust Jesus that whether it works out just the way we want it to or whether we're surprised by, you know, some kind of resistance that God has got it and that always resurrection is coming.

and whatever this present moment may be, to give it over to God and recognize that God is bigger, God is greater, and we're not called to be perfect, we're called to be faithful, because God is faithful. And so I do think that that taking of the cross, we are called to lay down our lives for Jesus, which sometimes has meant and does mean to lay down our lives. And that is...

Adam Eichelberger (26:09.734)
Hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (26:23.142)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (26:26.39)
That is a hard thing, but it also needs to be entered into with that questioning, with hesitation, because we are not called to go seek being a martyr. We're called to follow Jesus in the path of our life as we're called, and then to accept that whatever it is, we're going to know that God is with us and is walking with us, and we'll resurrect all things.

Adam Eichelberger (26:39.964)
Mm.

Adam Eichelberger (26:55.388)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (26:55.406)
And that's the promise of the gospel too, which we may not fully see. We may like Moses not cross over. We may not see the full resurrection, but by faith, we offer it to God. The life we've been given, that's a gift. We didn't, you know, ask to be born. We didn't, we're not focused today on our heart speeding or our lungs working. It's a gift of life. And so we're going to use this gift.

to the best of our abilities and accept that God is with us and is greater than death, greater than suffering. it's, that truth of the gospel is daunting. It is daunting.

Adam Eichelberger (27:39.173)
Really is. So the last question, excuse me, the last question I had for you, Bishop, and again, this is something that came up kind of organically in conversations. And I feel bad because I feel like again, I'm lobbing, I feel like I'm lobbing another grenade at you. And this is going to be one that maybe we don't. And that's OK. So some folks that I've had conversations with and a lot of these folks have come to me and talked about how

Bishop DeDe (27:51.534)
That's all right. I'm pretty good at just saying I have no idea. And I really...

Adam Eichelberger (28:07.12)
their congregations have, they seem to have a lot of differing opinions on partisan ideas in their congregations, from who they voted for to where they land on certain issues that are very important in our culture. They asked this question, how can churches create space for dialogue when people in the pews hold such diverse political views?

Bishop DeDe (28:12.302)
Mmm.

Right.

Bishop DeDe (28:35.022)
Well, again, those of you who know the answer, just send that in. Yes, send it in, cnyfiscal.org. there's tender work here because a lot of it is about relationship. And the one thing I would caution and sort of not rolling back the preach the politics with a pulpit. But what I'm saying is you need to be talking to the people who are there.

Adam Eichelberger (28:40.284)
Yeah, go to the website, see in a way.

Bishop DeDe (29:02.792)
And for some people, they're ready. You know, this is very Paul, Paul, I'm some people are ready for meat and, you know, big things. Some people are not. Some people, it's it's it's baby steps. And so to be compassionate that and honor the dignity, the journey of each person. So preaching the gospel in one church may look very different from preaching in another. Preaching the gospel with one congregation that has certain viewpoints may look different than in another.

Not because the gospel is relative or changing, but because we preach that people may hear. And in order for people to hear, there has to be a relationship to hear. And so I think whenever we start preaching, because we're going to fix someone, that should be a sign that the preacher needs to repent. We're not preaching to fix anything. We're preaching to proclaim God's

redemption. It's not mine. It's not somebody else. It's it's this is God's redemption. And so when we get in the pulpit to have that humility of offering and and and offering the the gospel of Jesus with invitation, with engagement and with compassion, where it's for the benefit of the people in the pew not to punish them or hurt them and

I think we make the mistake sometimes of thinking, they needed to hear somebody say that. Well, how do you know? You're not God. Maybe they didn't need to hear somebody say that. Maybe they needed somebody to say God loves you. God loves you right where you are and everything's going to be all right. You just take that next step of faith. And I think the best preachers do preach a challenging word because the gospel of Jesus is always challenging.

Adam Eichelberger (30:41.436)
Mmm.

Bishop DeDe (30:58.06)
We like selfishness, we like greed, we're pretty good on self-indulgence. But the gospel of Jesus is a gospel of laying down our life, of sacrifice, of conforming ourselves to something that feels vulnerable. When we first love our enemy, it feels like it's an idiotic thing to do. It doesn't feel right. It feels scary and risky. But when we allow ourselves to both

Adam Eichelberger (31:19.857)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (31:27.414)
honor our dignity and not put ourselves in harm's way frivolously, but then invite the other person, we can experience a salvation that is so transformative for ourselves and the other person. So it is all gentle work. And I don't think there is an answer to it. I think it is like any relationship, it is building the relationship to have the capacity to do that. And not to get caught up in thinking somebody has to be right and somebody has to be wrong.

Because I do think that's a failed idea.

Adam Eichelberger (31:59.964)
Oh yeah. And it comes and it kind of comes back to the parable when we talk in the gospels about like where the seed gets scattered. If the soil is not properly prepared, those seeds are not going to take root and nothing's going, nothing fruitful is going to come from that. And I think that maybe, and please listener and please bishop, do not think that I have the answer for this, but if...

Bishop DeDe (32:18.754)
That's right.

Bishop DeDe (32:24.031)
You

Adam Eichelberger (32:26.094)
If like you said, we're going back to looking at the gospel and what does Jesus actually say? I think that maybe that's, that could be our first step because I know even in my own life, starting with the things that you talked about, that's my big takeaway from this is starting with, with what you talked about. It doesn't necessarily have to come down to what am I saying? That's going to convert somebody because I mean, and conversion is as a very, that word has very problematic history within Christendom, if we're honest about it, but our true conversion.

Bishop DeDe (32:45.282)
Mm-mm.

Adam Eichelberger (32:55.268)
of understanding who Jesus is starts from place of love. And it's like you said, when we have those conversations, now all of a sudden, when we're loving somebody, we're not as concerned about whether we were right and they were wrong. Now it's about the person rather than the ideal. So that's.

Bishop DeDe (32:59.02)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (33:11.182)
I think we get a lot more humble when we actually consider the other person. And I think the listening, the ability to listen, to be quiet, so essential. Well, listeners, next time we gather for speaking of faith, I do want to talk about when proclaiming Jesus goes wrong. When we realize that we need to ask forgiveness or backup when we have overstepped or taken a false move.

Adam Eichelberger (33:16.976)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (33:40.558)
And we'll talk about that next time because speaking of faith means we're probably going to get it wrong, but to speak with humility and love and invitation with the understanding that we must speak because it is on our heart to do so. So in the meantime, I hope you'll know that you are loved, that you will be blessed and be a blessing. And I look forward to seeing you, hearing you and speaking with you next.