Building Relationships for Change

What does it actually cost to talk about faith right now?

In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe and Adam take an honest look at how difficult—and necessary—it is to speak about faith in a world shaped by division, polarization, and deeply entrenched opinions. When conversations quickly become debates, and debates become battlegrounds, how do we remain rooted in Jesus?

The heart of this conversation is a call to love with courage. That means approaching difficult dialogue not with a desire to win, but with humility, dignity, and a genuine commitment to understanding. It also means recognizing our own complicity in the brokenness around us. Before we point outward, we are invited to look inward—to examine where fear, comfort, or silence may be holding us back from living the Gospel fully.

Taking up our cross, they reflect, isn’t abstract. It involves letting go of ego, defensiveness, and the need to be right. It requires naming sin honestly—including racism—and refusing to tolerate systems or language that diminish the image of God in others. Faith is not performative; it is transformative. And transformation often begins in personal encounters that challenge us, stretch us, and change our hearts.

Throughout the episode, Bishop DeDe and Adam emphasize that compassion and empathy are not optional extras in Christian life—they are essential. When we engage one another with dignity, especially across disagreement, we embody the redemptive love we claim to follow. Seeking understanding rather than rebuttal becomes an act of discipleship.

This episode ultimately invites listeners to see themselves as agents of change—not through force or argument, but through patient, courageous, Christ-centered love. In a divided world, the witness of our faith may be less about what we say and more about how we love.

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 (00:07.478)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith, something that's very hard to do in these times, I think. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York, Canada to Pennsylvania, Utica to Elmira, all the beautiful people and places in between. And I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger, who is our Director of Communications. And we're here to talk about our faith, which I want to just say from the outset is a

brave, courageous thing to do. All of us, when we speak about our faith, I think have a little bit of a hesitation, may worry that we don't know enough, may be concerned that what we're gonna say will upset people, because all of us were told for all of those years, don't talk about religion, politics, or money. And so the good news is that really worked. The bad news is that that really worked.

And so we have a hard time talking about our faith. We have a hard time knowing how to bring things up. And so our subject for today is going to be about how do we talk about things with people with whom we don't agree and not only maintain our integrity, but also recognize how we may be complicit in all that is happening in the world. Now I feel certain that in this podcast at some point I might offend some people.

But I invite you to send me your questions, your comments, and your feedback. This intentionally is to be a conversation. And so to ground our conversation, I want to refer to the Gospel of Luke chapter nine, verse 23, when Jesus says to them all, if any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. And so that invitation,

If we want to follow Jesus, it's going to involve denying ourselves and taking up Jesus. It's going to involve saying no or setting boundaries for our own self in order to live the way Jesus is commanding us to live. You remember Jesus commands us to love God with our heart, our soul, our mind, to love God with all that we are. And then the second commandment is likened to it.

Bishop DeDe (02:33.1)
to love our neighbor as ourself. And we're all aware that loving our neighbor comes at a cost to affirm and recognize the dignity of our neighbor. And we talk a lot on this podcast about dignity and honoring one another. But I wanna point out that some of us, it's really a struggle to figure out how to articulate our faith in a way that is

authentic to us and then to recognize that we just don't agree with our neighbors. We just don't believe the same things. And the tendency and the habit today is if we don't believe or agree with someone, then we isolate from each other. We separate. We allow algorithms. We allow conversations to center around what we're supposed to think or not supposed to think, what group we...

align ourselves with or don't align ourselves with, in this day and age, it is such a temptation always before us to take a position against something. And so I want to start out by saying that when we speak of our faith, a real marker of that is what are we for? Not just what we're against, but what we're affirming. That if we want to,

take up our cross and follow Jesus, whatever that, you there's a lot that we can say about what it means to take up our cross, to take up our pride, our desire for comfort, our dislike of a particular thing, our adamant insistence that a certain thing is right or wrong. Taking up our cross means that which has kept us bound and kept us rooted in one place to

pick it up and follow Jesus and to let go in some ways of what is keeping us back from following Jesus. And then the other passage that's really been on my mind a lot is from 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And especially starting with right off the top, St. Paul writes, if I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels, but do not have love.

Bishop DeDe (04:55.522)
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. I just think right there is when we have to stop and say, you know what, I need to take up my cross and follow Jesus. Because often what we want to say is, but I'm right. Those people should agree with me. I understand this and other people are wrong. When we have entered into that space of taking a position against our neighbor, taking a position against another human being,

then we've become part of the problem. And right now we see that. The idea of being against ICE agents or against refugees and immigrants, of being against people of color or against white people. These arbitrary positions we're taking are not working and are not helping us. And alongside that is the conviction that racism is a sin.

Institutionalized racism is a reality. LGBTQ plus persons should be honored and are beloved of God and so need to be beloved by us. We may not understand, we may have differences of opinions about lifestyles or different things, but fundamentally, when we oppose another person's agency, then we're opposing God.

And that is a hard thing for us because in this time, I hear a lot of noisy, gone clanging symbol behavior talking about those people. Well, if they, well, as soon as we start doing that, we've stepped out of the way of the cross because God is calling us to a place of forgiveness and building up and having conversations together. And I find it, I don't know about you listener, I find it very hard to do because there are non-negotiables for me.

There is no way that racism is okay with me. Any form of it, jokes, comments, habits, overlooking it, dehumanization, none of it. It's not okay with me. And those who engage in these behaviors are still beloved by God. And while I may have a really strong opposition and feel very certain in my understanding of something,

Bishop DeDe (07:21.62)
I also recognize that how I act in that certainty says a lot about what I really believe. Because if I really believe that dehumanization is wrong, then I don't get to mock that other person because they don't agree with me. It means I have to live what it is I believe. have to take up my cross daily, every morning starting over and saying, okay, Lord, I'm gonna offer a cup of cold water and whatever.

way that metaphor translates. I'm going to offer forgiveness instead of hard-heartedness. I'm going to let go of grudges and offer invitation to relationship, all the while being clear about what I believe, but not allowing those beliefs to get in the way of God's beloved people. And it's a very hard line to follow.

Tomorrow we're going to be going as a diocese to offer ashes to go and pray outside a detention center where refugees and immigrants are processed. And we're going to be praying for ICE agents and we're going to be praying for refugees and immigrants. And we're going to be praying and repenting ourselves of our own complicity and how we might be influencing our nation to disrespect the dignity of other people.

We're going to be standing for justice, standing for equality, and standing for the dignity of people, whether we agree with them or not. And then this Lenten season, we're having Bible studies and doing, learning, engaged in learning all across the diocese in ways where people are being invited to build up their discipleship to actually take on their cross, to learn more about Jesus, and then to follow Jesus.

And so that balance, that place where our ability to follow Jesus runs headlong into our passion about a subject. And it can be very hard to talk about it. And so I think when we're talking about one of the first things we have to acknowledge is we're not always right. Don't believe everything you think. I mean, those are good words to live by.

Bishop DeDe (09:37.174)
That there's four statements of maturity, really. I was wrong. I didn't know. I'm sorry. I need help. That the humility we need right now is for people of faith to stand up and say, you know what? I really strongly disagree with the way someone is being harmed. And I am standing here as an agent for something of importance, which is how we love one another.

And so in closing, in my part of this, before I open up the conversation with Adam, in this first Corinthians chapter 13, Paul goes on to describe what love actually looks like and is. And so when I read this list, I invite you listener to think about conversations we have around important topics that we're passionate about. And to think for a moment when we talk with someone with whom we disagree, is this paragraph.

describe how we are engaged in that conversation. So here we go. St. Paul says, love is patient, love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable. It keeps no record of wrongdoings.

It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Wow. When I think of conversations I've had with people with whom I disagree, I'm not sure I'm at that level yet, but I aspire to it.

because I don't want to be a noisy gong or a clinging symbol. I want to authentically and the whole of my being be engaged in loving Jesus and living as Jesus commands us to live. And so as people who have been commanded to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and then to love our neighbors ourselves, that we're invited in to follow Jesus by denying our own selfish ambition and pride in our opinion.

Bishop DeDe (12:04.692)
and take up our cross and follow Jesus in loving like this. What an important message for all of us in this time when it is so difficult to do. And so now I do want to open up the conversation with you, Adam, because I think we have to talk to each other about these things because it's so hard not to fight fire with fire, but rather to fight hate with actual love.

and to engage in being what we profess to believe. So jump in here. What comes to your mind and how does this strike you?

Adam Eichelberger (12:45.58)
Well, it's interesting that you said that right there, Bishop, that you said fighting fire with fire. And I mean, I'm going to be the first to admit listeners. I have no degree in fire science and I am not a firefighter, but it seems counterintuitive to me to always take a position where when someone is doing something that I fundamentally disagree with or standing for something that I fundamentally disagree with to blast back.

Bishop DeDe (12:57.186)
you

Adam Eichelberger (13:15.146)
You know what I mean? It says, you talk about it all the time, we don't meet hate with hate. And the only way to extinguish that flame that we seem to get so consumed by is by putting it out with water. And I think that that's what Paul is trying to get at with this. I guess for me and listener, I don't know if you're anything like me, I am going to ask Bishop's advice on this to kind of help start stirring up these thoughts within us. What does it look like?

Bishop DeDe (13:15.458)
Hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (13:44.428)
When we engage in these conversations about so many difficult things happening specifically in our context here in the United States, how does it look for us to start having conversations about all of these hard things with patience and kindness to not be arrogant or rude, to not insist on our own way? You know, like all these things that Paul is talking about, how do we start that conversation? Because

I don't know if you listen or anything like me, when I see everything that happened in Minneapolis with the involvement of ICE in Minneapolis or these things happening across our country, even in our own region in central New York, we see people being picked up and separated from families and loved ones. I get angry. And I think that it's a reasonable reaction for us to get angry. So then how do we start having this conversation?

Bishop DeDe (14:18.462)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (14:31.138)
Hmm?

Bishop DeDe (14:35.874)
and

Adam Eichelberger (14:39.543)
framed in this context that Paul gives us. Cause I'll be the first to admit there's sometimes that Paul says things that I don't agree with. I think it's hard for me to deal with Paul sometimes, but I think he's kind of spot on in this. So what does that look like for us as we have these really hard conversations?

Bishop DeDe (14:47.19)
Ha ha ha ha.

Bishop DeDe (14:55.008)
Such a good question and as always listener, how would you answer that question? Because I think we all in our own hearts and minds, we have to figure out how will we engage in living our faith? What does it mean to us? And you said it Adam and I wanna just say amen to that. Righteous indignation is a holy thing. To be righteous and indignant and say no, no, no. Jesus in the temple, Jesus with the disciples,

You know, Jesus gives an illustration of no being the right, righteous thing to say. No, our neighbors are not to be harmed. It is not okay. It's not acceptable. And conversely, it's not acceptable then for us to turn around and act in exactly the same way against ICE agents or other people. If we're saying that we're people of faith, then we are to be.

people of faith. And so sometimes it means raining in our tongue that, know, mouths want to fire off and say the first thing that comes into our minds. Maybe it's taking a moment to be reflective and say, you know, this is really hard for me. When you say that, it makes me so angry. And yet I understand that you have, you know, I want to honor that you're a person of integrity. I, and especially when you're some of these conversations.

with family members, which often is the case, or someone we know well. And we know that this person is a person of integrity, that they are trying hard, that they are living their lives as best they can. Some maybe not, but that isn't for us to judge. So to start off with humility and curiosity and maybe ask a question. And not the question, know, often we want to say things like, why do you hate those people? And that isn't a very good question.

Because when the person starts answering it, they kind of start convincing themselves why they hate people. The question is, when did you stop believing in love? That love is the answer. Why does love seem weak to you? In what way do you see greed as building up anything? And how has your life been helped by harming someone else? These questions that get more at the root of

Bishop DeDe (17:20.392)
what the conversation's really around can sometimes open up a much better dialogue than just asking a question to change the person's mind. You know, and especially, of course, you why are you such a goofball? Not a good question. Not a question. how did you, you know, when I read the Gospels, I hear Jesus saying, compassion, forgiveness,

of mercy, helping those who are in trouble or vulnerable, the widows, the orphans. Where do you see Jesus and what's happening? I'm not seeing Jesus in this. And to have those conversations, we may never agree where we're seeing Jesus in this. But by having the conversation and allowing ourselves to listen with an intent to understand, you know, one of the keys, some of the keys,

Listen to understand, not listen to rebut, but listen to actually understand, to ask questions and to seek to get behind just the blanket statement. Often I've had people say something to me that sounds terrible on the outside to me. It's something that's hard-hearted or difficult. And then when I've said, tell me more about what does that mean to you?

And then they'll start talking and then I'm like, I get it. So you've been afraid and this seems like an answer because in an economy of fear, this seems like certainty. And then to reflect on that with them and say, can I share with you how I see this? And if the person is like, no, you're an idiot. Okay. But I'm not. And so we need to, we need to engage in a dialogue that has dignity. So going into a conversation with someone.

Pick the right time. That's always important in terms of we're gonna honor the other person. You don't ask somebody a question when it's rushed or it's late at night or early in the morning and they're not prepared for it. So picking the right time, listening, seeking to understand, using I statements, some of these basic communication ways that we've learned to talk before. And then to speak from a place of a conviction and say, you know, I hear what you're saying and I understand this is really important to you.

Bishop DeDe (19:44.956)
I feel just as strongly, but in a completely different direction. And so maybe for us, it's better if we don't talk about this thing that we really strongly disagree about. But there's also a lot of life that we could share time about. Maybe we continue to be running partners or pray for each other and just agree to disagree.

All of the world right now is trying to really separate us out into for and against. Whose team are you on? If you're not on this, then you're for it. know, if you're not for us, you're against us. And those are arbitrary because we are sharing this world. So I think we kind of bring to the conversation our best conversation habits. And then if we really just get too heated and we're just like ready to just let our mouths go to count to 10 and say, you know what?

I'm going to need to do something else right now because I just, I don't feel patient right this minute. And to sit back from it and pray for them and pray for us and have the humility and curiosity to realize we're not going to agree with everyone. And maybe, maybe we're just going to need to figure that out in a different way.

Adam Eichelberger (21:07.145)
Absolutely. And it kind of calls to mind that when we within the church, specifically within our context in the Episcopal Church, when we talk about sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with people, it's really easy for me, I'm going to speak for myself, to kind of say like, here is the soapbox on which I stand and I'm going to shout it. And it's a good reminder, I think, for all of us to hear when you kind of call out like,

Bishop DeDe (21:29.932)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (21:36.66)
seeking to understand where it is that somebody's coming from because when we see ourselves so opposed to somebody else, we have to remember that like, especially when it comes to honoring the dignity of another person, if we see that maybe somebody isn't upholding that dignity, it's coming from somewhere. It's informed by something, whether it's personal experience or something they've heard from somewhere else.

I think it's important for me to remember, like, I need to understand where this person is coming from. But then at the same time, be willing to trust in what God is trying to do in that person's life. And then with that understanding, take it to prayer. You know, we just spent a long time on the podcast talking about our baptismal covenant, talking about how we were going to keep up with things like the prayers and the breaking of the bread that also kind of keep

Bishop DeDe (22:16.95)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (22:21.686)
Right?

Adam Eichelberger (22:30.295)
brings to mind to me, yeah, I'm going to pray for this person that I disagree with in the context of the covenant. Yeah. The breaking of the bread is what we do when we are at church on Sunday or when we gather for worship, but also it is a reminder to continue in community with everybody around us. And we're going to be able to find that commonality, that common ground in that in when we are communal with one another. So then I guess the question looks like this because we're not going

to change someone's mind we disagree with at a protest. It's not happening. I, this isn't a perfect one for one example, but I have told people time and time again, that when it comes to inviting people to church, like to come with me, to come to a service or whatever, I have been doing this kind of work for over 20 years and I'm still batting zeros. Like I don't, like it's just, I've never cracked the formula of like, hey, why don't you come check out my church on Sunday or whatever.

Bishop DeDe (23:05.506)
no.

Adam Eichelberger (23:28.405)
and no one's ever really responding to that invitation, but it's the same thing when we're at a protest and we're being loud and we may be shouting against someone else. The in for that change that we want to see in the world comes in relationship. Like you said, around tables with family members or loved ones that we disagree with. How do we set the table?

to have those deeper conversations with folks. Because I think that that's maybe where the change that we want to see is going to happen. It's not gonna happen in crowds, shouting at one another. It's gonna happen face to face, one person at a time. What does that look like for us as we're trying to strive for that change that we wanna see in the world, informed by the gospel of Jesus?

Bishop DeDe (24:15.43)
So, so important and listener again, how would you respond to that? I think it is important to recognize that we are transformed by incarnation. We're transformed by experience of something. Words are seldom, you know, if you take a service, a Sunday service, it is not usually during the sermon that someone really is transformed. It's often during the music.

It's often when at the peace, it's often when they've walked in the door and someone had said their name, or it's in those quiet spaces where the Spirit of God is moving. As humans, we find transformation when we experience something that's different. And so in this time, with so many talking heads and yelling people and separation and division and anxiety and all of the things that go with it, the fear-mongering and all of it.

If how we are proclaiming the gospel sounds no different, then what we're proclaiming is not a transforming message, because we're transformed by meeting Jesus in another person or meeting love in another person. And so for us to actually be helpful or useful in this world is to offer something that is compelling and different.

And not everyone can see the difference. Sometimes we feel that we're being loving and compassionate, but the other person doesn't feel loved. They don't feel compassion. They feel judged or sidelined or manipulated. And so to recognize that those, it may be that we're wrong. And we've all had the experience where we thought we were doing a good thing. And then in time we realized, my gosh, what was I even thinking? I mean, you.

you know, an easy illustration is usually junior high pictures in the yearbook. You know, what were we themed at with that hairstyle? But that translates to all of our life. We're all on a journey. And so someone today who has a belief, they may not have that belief in a few years because they may experience more. And if we're separated out only in tribes where, and I want to

Bishop DeDe (26:39.158)
recognize the appropriation of that word even. People talk about tribal partisanship, tribal politics, and I want to honor our indigenous siblings with where this comes from, this sense of place. But that aside, if we're so busy looking for only those people with whom we agree, we will suddenly and soon find ourselves all alone in a room and then have to leave that room because we'll have an argument with ourselves about something.

Sameness of mind is not the same thing as sameness of purpose. I can have the same purpose with someone else where we may have a different opinion about something because we're all growing, we're all walking each other home as the saying goes. And so I think it's really important in these situations to recognize that when we are starting to not be able to be compassionate, when we're not able to be empathetic, when we

aren't able to listen to someone else tell us what they think with a sense of kind of good differentiation. Just because someone says something that really offends us doesn't mean we have to act offended. It means we can listen and say, wow, totally disagree. I wonder why you feel that way. For me, this is so important to me and to recognize they may feel exactly the same way. I was a

in a parish at one point in my ministry where a real, there had been a real brokenness over the issues of homosexuality and leadership in the church. And there were people with very strong opinions on all sides of the issue. And often they would say to me, you need to take a side. And I would say, I'm going to take the side of Jesus. What did Jesus say? They said, well, I don't know that Jesus ever talked about this. And I'd say, well, then we're going to talk about Jesus.

Not take a side. And I learned to discipline myself. Sometimes people would say something to me. And in my mind, I would think, gosh, what is wrong with them? And I'd want to say, why, you know, don't you understand something, a different way of understanding this? And can't you even see this? I don't know why you have to see it this way. And I would make myself think they feel the same way about my opinion. They want to say, what's wrong with her?

Bishop DeDe (29:06.038)
Why can't she see this? Why doesn't she understand? Why can't she change her mind? And there are things about which we're not going to change your mind, but our minds might be changed by the experience and encountering true love that is redemptive. We will be changed by people who love us despite our differences of an opinion. And we can be that change agent, but sometimes we have to accept

in that person's life, we're not going to be the change agent because we're too angry or angered by their opinion that's different from us. Or in this other situation, we have the ability to be a bridge builder because we can maintain our differentiation. We can see their opinion, understand that they feel deeply about it, but then also be able to say, you know what? I see that that's important to you. I feel very differently from you now.

let's go on and do something different. Let's talk about something else. So it is all a negotiation. I think it's hard to do, easy to talk about, but very, very hard to do because it is different in each situation.

Bishop DeDe (30:21.568)
Well, friends, so those are the questions today. I hope that you'll send in your questions and you'll keep the conversation going. How do you talk about things that you're passionate about with people with whom you disagree? How might we better represent our faith by laying down our need to be right or have power and invite greater capacity for love? How might we?

engage in love that is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, but instead offer the compassion and redemptive love of Jesus Christ. In this season of Lent, may we repent, may we change our mind in those places in our lives where we've been hard-hearted and dehumanizing. And may we offer to this world truly redemptive love that helps us all heal. May you be blessed and be a blessing.

and we'll talk again soon. Take good care.