Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / The Loneliness Epidemic: Why Modern Life Isolates Us and How the Church Can Help (Benjamin Matthew)

Transcript

The Loneliness Epidemic: Why Modern Life Isolates Us and How the Church Can Help (Benjamin Matthew) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: He called to make a difference in mental health.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Columbia International University offers graduate counseling degrees that combine professional
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: excellence with Biblical truth from associates. Through doctoral program, CiU
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: prepares you to bring healing and wholeness to others through
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: a biblically based framework of compassion and care. Whether it's
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: their k CREP accredited Masters in Clinical Counseling or their
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: PhD in counselor Education and Supervision, You'll learn from experience
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: faculty who integrate faith with real world application to cultivate
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: a Kingdom impact through disciples who counsel, teach, and train.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Whether you're starting your journey or advancing your career, CiU's
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: counseling programs equip you to serve others both professionally and spiritually.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Visit CiU dot edu.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: To learn more about making a difference in mental health
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: through christ centered education.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: That's CiU dot edu.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian on
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: doctor James Spencer, and I'm joined again by doctor Ben Matthews.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Ben is a professor of counselor education at Columbia International University.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And today we're going to continue our Faith and Mental
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Health series when we're going to specifically talk about the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: issue of loneliness and try to frame loneliness as a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: structural problem, not just a feeling. So the general idea
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: is that we're setting ourselves up to be lonely as
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: opposed to setting ourselves up to not be lonely.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Now, yeah, and this was punctuated not too long ago
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: by the then Surgeon General. This was under he is
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: either President Biden or Obama. I'm sorry I can't remember offhand,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: but he had mentioned how one of the largest concerns
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: that we are noticing in America today is the epith
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: what he called the epidemic of loneliness, because from that
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: flows so many other realities as much as we need
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: to talk about heart disease, we need to talk about diabetes,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: as much as we may need to talk about other
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: medical issues that rightfully the Surgeon General will understandably engage with.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: What he was trying to highlight is that often behind
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: is systematically involved in many of these other physiological mental
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: health issues. Is this larger sociological issue, this loneliness epidemic,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: which is not just remember hearing him say, loneliness is
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: not just being alone, not to confuse it with just
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: like right now, quite technically physically I'm alone, like I
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: have you on the screen. But loneliness is not just
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: being alone. It's the absence of meaningful participation in life together.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Right And so in some cases I can be by
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: myself in a room but not be lonely if I
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: have a shared sense of meaning. Or I can be
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: in a room with a lot of other people physically
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: there and be really lonely if there's no sense of
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: shared meaning. Hence the necessity of why loneliness needs to
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: be understood as an epidemic that actually fuels so many
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: other both physiological as well as mental health issues in
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: our nation and around the world. Today.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, some of the I used to do
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: some leadership coaching, and so some of the pastors that
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I would work with, they would express.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: This idea of loneliness.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Now they weren't alone, to your point, they weren't physically alone.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: What they were expressing was the lack of anyone to again,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: to use your word, meaningly participate with, in part driven
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: by this notion that the pastor needed to be above reproach,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that the pastor needed to be there was a different
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: standard for what the pastor was going through.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: So you couldn't have.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Sort of what let's call it casual friendships within the church, right,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and you couldn't have people you could just express a
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: problem to, like, you know, you and I work at
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Christian institutions, But honestly, we could complain to each other
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: about what's going on with those Christian institutions.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't be a big deal, could you know.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I could complain to almost anybody about it because I'm
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: not a pastor.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: But when a pastor is.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Complaining about the church, there's a very real sense in which, wow,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: you're you're actually talking about me as your congregant, like
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I'm a part your problem. Like you know, and so
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: there was this sort of weird dynamic that developed between
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the pastor and the congregation where the pastor probably in
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: a mix of sort of self isolation, but also you know,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: people putting him up on a pedestal created a structural
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: not a physical structure, but a real structural challenge for
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: him where he couldn't bridge and be in community and
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: meaningly participating community.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: He was constantly.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Standing above it and eating it, but never part of it,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: but never really part of it. Yeah, it's interesting, you know,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: he was constantly solving problems, he was constantly being there
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: for people, but he didn't have an outlet for him
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: to be taken care of, for him to be nurtured.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's that fracture of relational existence, right. Yes,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: that I've said this both when I preach or when
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: I teach. It can be some of the most loneliest things.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: And I remember either students are concruance saying like, how
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: can you be lonely when you're preaching, You're you're in
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: front of all those people. I said, that's part of
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: the problem is that I'm with people, and it just
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: exacerbates the fact that we're so apart that we're so
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: distinct from each other, because yes, I do think there's
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: times for that, but that's not where where growth happens
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: in the most context. And I wonder to what degree
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: and you would know this better, like to me, the
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: the ontology of the Trinity really plays into a lot
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: of this, the relational reality of the Godhead, that God
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: is fully, wonderfully, beautifully sufficiently enjoying community within himself, and
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: from that flows I think the desires of who we
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: are as humans. The one thing that's not good before
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: the fall is that man is alone, right, I gotta
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: imagine this then kind of plays itself out into this fracturing,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: this loneliness that we feel when we're not we're not
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: imaging the triying God in the ways that he experiences.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: And that's the hope that that's the reality of the fall.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: But the hope of what redemption brings is this recentering
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: with the other in a way that again gets back
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: to this greater truth of who God is in himself.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that you look back at
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: those early chapters of Genesis, what you see is interdependence,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and so man is intended to be dependent upon God
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: This is part of what it means to be made
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: in God's image, is that you can't be made in
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: God's image and be independent of God. You're supposed to
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: be reflecting him, and so it stands to reason that
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: there has to be something to reflect. Now, there's a
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: relationship there, right, And so that relationship flows where we
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: are dependent on God and we're executing God's authority within
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the context of the earth. And then you get to
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: that not alone passage, right, Well, what is that there's
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: a deficiency in man? The man alone can't do what
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: God has blessed all humankind to do, be fruitful, multiply,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: fill the earth, and subdue it. And so there's then
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a mutuality between the male and the female that is
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: created there such that they're both necessary to advance what
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: humankind is supposed to do. And so we have this
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to boil it down to like
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: a functional distinction, That's not what I'm trying to say.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: But there is a sense in which I love the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: way you put it, that participation in a shared meaning, right,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: a meaningful participation.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: That's what's going on here.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: There has to be this meaningful participation, and so we
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: have to find those matches right where certain aspects of
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: our lives we just need other folk around.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: I think this is why you have this whole.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Narrative of God bringing the animals to Adam to name,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people talk about that as you know,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Adam exercising his creativity or helping God to establish culture
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: or what have you.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: I actually don't think that's what's going on there. I
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: actually think what's.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Going on is God is bringing them before the man
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: so that the man understands that there is no match
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: for him in the world. He's now seen everything, and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: as he sees everything, he's realizing that he really is alone.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: And now when he sees the woman, you see the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: celebration he has this is bone of my blown and
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: flesh of my flesh. Right now, there's an immediate connection
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: with this being that God has created to match the man.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And so I think in those early chapters, what we
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: really do deeply see is are interdependencies. And you could
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: even talk about interpendencies with creation, you know. I think
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: it often escapes people that man was put in the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: garden to till it and to keep it. A lot
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of people talk about that in terms of worship of God.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: But the pronouns are it.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: It's to kill and keep.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: The man is put in the garden for the sake
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of the garden, and the garden is now feeding the man.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: The man is also caring for the garden. Yeah, there's
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: this mutuality with all of it.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And I think that you know, again, in that context,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: extremely embodied, right, Like we're seeing that embodied there. But
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: there's also a non physical structuring that's.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Happening right where we have God giving a.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Command to the man and to the extent that he
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: obeys it, this world is going to function as it's
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: intended to function, as God designed it, and so you
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: have this sort.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Of symbolic element there as well.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: But I do think that there's just a deep interdependence
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that we're supposed to be feeling with others.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, toward a meaningful end that tell us that we've
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: talked about before, this is a deeply embodied.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Sense that we are participating in something and we don't
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: really belong to ourselves.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: We belong to everyone else.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: And what a beautiful picture that is in Genesis two,
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: which then creates the tension and drama of tragedy in three. Yes,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: if Adam and Eve are given the good work to
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: both tend the garden and be blessed by the garden.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: You know, that first work of gardening, as it were.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: I was just talking about somebody about this last week.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: We were having this conversation about technology and the as
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: the cultivating of God's creation for human flourishing is a
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: good reason, and I think that's what he was doing there.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: He was engaging it in a human flourishing capacity as
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: an image bearer of God in all the right ways
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: and too. But then the first thing he does after
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: the fall is he uses gardening in all the wrong ways.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: He takes fig leaves and he covers himself up. The
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: very thing he was supposed to engage with as a
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: means of human flourishing and worship of God, he now
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: takes for inward protection isolation. And it leads not just
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: to individualistic response. I'm now going to use this good
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: work for myself, but it also creates a barrier. That
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: part of the frustration, then is when God comes asking questions,
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: what's going on here? Who told you you were naked?
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: You know? Who told you this stuff? And the very
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: thing that Adam celebrates in chapter two now woman of bone,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: of my bone, flesh, my flesh. He's now throwing her
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: under the bus. Yeah, well, you know it was the
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: woman you gave me that really caused all this problem.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: And you see all the good work they were supposed
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: to do here. Now, can I say, James, in a
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: lot of marriage counseling that I've done, this is one
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: of the phrases that comes up a lot. How you
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: have these two people in a marriage, sometimes in the
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: same house, in the same bed, and sometimes one, if
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: not both are just saying I am just so lonely,
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: And sometimes one of the spouses may be like, what
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: do you mean lonely? We live together, and you can
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: just see the frustrations like then you obviously don't know
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: what I mean by how I'm so lonely. That living
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: in a shared space, while good, does not constitute shared meaning. Yeah,
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: and I can be in the same bed with you
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: and be incredibly alone. And that just harkens back to
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: what our first parents were doing in response of using
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: God's shared meaning of cultivating creation to now doing it
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: just to care for myself and the struggles that we
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: see even today. Like I said, even in marriage counseling,
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: that I work with with a lot of my clients.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a hard thing.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, I I can think back to jobs I've
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: had in the past where I knew in my mind
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: that if one guy left the organization, I would feel
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: completely alone.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: I forgot. I have some guys like that in mind
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: in my organizations too. Is right.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I used to phrase it, and
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: this probably wasn't the appropriate way to phrase it, but
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: it's like he's the only other sane person here.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Like, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Be here without this guy, right, And you just start to,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: you know, as you think about that and you contemplate
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: how lonely you would be without that person.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, because you then you fall again.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: We've mentioned for like that Elijah moment right where Elija
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: is like I'm the only one.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: I'm the only one doing this and is lonely.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Man. God comforts him, But there there is still a
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: sense that knowing that there are seven thousand people out
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: there who haven't bowed the need to bail doesn't really
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: help you that much because you don't know them. Yeah,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: it's like, I know there are other people out there
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: engaged in discipleship. I know, like intuitively and intellectually I
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: know that, right, and there is some some comfort in it.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: But there's a proximity issue, right that there has to
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: be a proximity you know that that that you can't
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: just know these other people are out there, some faceless
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: human is out there doing something that you really care
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: about and you're doing it actually with them, right. You
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: kind of need somebody in proximity to you to remind you.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh no, there are other people out there
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: and there's this person right right.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And to the degree I mean we've seen this sociologically.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: You've referenced things like bowling alone and things like that,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: as well as as an indicator how those those communities,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: those clubs, those social gatherings. And I think the research
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: that has kind of framed a lot of our discussions,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: highlighted particularly religious affiliation, yes and communal engagement, has this
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: corollary effect that the more we kind of pull away
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: from those realities because it is easier to do that, right.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, just earlier this morning, I ordered something on
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Amazon that'll be here today, So not only is it
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: now just not two days, I can get it same day,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: and I don't have to go to Walmart, I don't
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: have to go to AutoZone. I don't have to deal
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: with actual live parking lots and waiting in lines and
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: pulling up. It's just so much, so much less friction. Yeah,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: and yet the friction actually is what I need for sanctification,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: like need. I don't want it, but I need it
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: in a way that actually helps me grow up in
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: all the ways that I need. When it becomes a
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: frictionless society, as we know is the goal for many,
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: it creates a very lonely society and all the after
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: effects of that.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: No, I mean I work from home, so I have
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: a basement office. I'm basically there are days I don't
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: go outside all day, right, I haven't been outside all
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: day to day. And so I even have a home gym,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Like I can just walk through my office door and
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: be working out in like five seconds. Right, So I
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: have a pretty self sustained, like you know, bomb shelter
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: sort of a setup going.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I know where I'm going when they drop, just so you.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Know, like I just walked downstairs.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: But I will say I I grew up my family
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: never really stocked groceries. So I just got used to
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: going to the store every day, and I try to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: go to the store every day.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I'll go out and buy whatever.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: We're gonna eat for dinner tonight, right, just so that
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I have some sort of human interaction during the day
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: that's not on camera. But actually, even if it's just
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: in a checkout line, yeah, right, it's just it. The adays,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I don't but I need it, you know, we don't.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: We don't watch church on Sundays, like we go to
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: church on Sunday, those kind of things. We just do
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: those kind of things. And so I think, you know,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: if I didn't have that, if I didn't have those
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: touch points with actual other humans where I'm seeing them
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: in the flesh, not in you know, on a screen,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: I would probably go a little nuts. But I would
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: also be extremely lonely. Yeah, it's not fun just to
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: sort of sit around and do productive work by yourself
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: consistently only interacting with people through screens or phones or.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: What have you.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Right, Like, there has to be some other connection there.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: And I think as we just think about that sort
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: of not only the physical embodiment that needs to happen
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: in order to curtail loneliness, but also that structural element
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: that we kind of talked about with the lonely pastor
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: where you know, you do get in these times where
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: you just feel sort of you can be in the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: same room, in the same group with these other people,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: but you know that if you really told them what
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: you were thinking, you would be alienated in some way.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, or at least you think that.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I think those two pieces are really crucial for us
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to be thinking through when it comes to loneliness. I
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: think some people probably have a paranoid delusion that if
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: they shared who they really are, they're going to be shunned.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: And maybe that's not true, but I've been around enough
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: to know that some of it actually is.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and some of that research that you know, again
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: we're basing some of this discussion on highlight it again
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: this you could have right belief, but when participation collapses,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: when when when loneliness increases, participation collapses that put it
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: put it in belief alone is not enough. Belief is
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: a good place to be. I mean, orthodoxy is important
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: and we would celebrate that, but the research also highlighted
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: that they may have all the right beliefs, but without
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: an actual connection to others. That's intentional, that's that's relational,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: that's part of a rhythm. That those are buffers, those
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: those are safeguards in both physiological health, mental health, all
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: those realities of what goes into human flourishing in ways
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: that I think again, because we are confessional, we as
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Christians are confessional people. We we we affirm the creeds
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: and the orthodoxy and the truths we earnestly contend as
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: it were, for the faith that's once delivered. So I'm
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: especially in a post modern epistemology, we need to we
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: need to be willing to recognize it's important to have truth, yes,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: and that just having truth can make you really loathly.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Well, And I think to your point, there's I think
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: we could make a heuristic distinction. I don't want to
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: make a philosophical distinction that would take way too long,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: but a heuristic distinction between shared knowledge and shared understanding.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: So when we think about shared knowledge, you have the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: doctrines of the Church, Like I believe that Christ came
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: to earth and became man. I believe in the incarnation.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: That could be a that's a shared knowledge that most
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Christians would have. Ye Now, what's the meaning of it?
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Not hypostatic union one hundred percent God one hundred.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Percent man like. Yes, those are aspects of it, sure,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: but what's the meaning of it? Well, the meaning of
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: it that we find in something like a Philippians too, is.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: That the incarnations serves as a paradigm for the way
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: that we are to interact with one another. Now there's
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: an understanding of that, a depth of understanding of that
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that influences the way the posture we adopt toward one
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: another and the way.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: That we now interact.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And so we have to start moving from shared knowledge
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: just having the same belief systems that other people have,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: to a shared understanding of how do these things work
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: themselves out in practice and what does it entail for
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: me and you to have these shared beliefs, and how
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: does that influence them the way that we the way
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: that we position ourselves in the world. It's not exactly
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the same as orthodoxy, orthopraxy right right belief right practice,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: it's not quite it. I think it's an in between
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: stage where we sort of say, we don't always know
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: what right practice is going to be, and so we
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: need to orient ourselves toward it. And that I think
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: is what I'm trying to get at with that shared understanding.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: It's a posture.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's yeah, it's the orthopathy, that's right, hearts.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: And that's a shameless plug for CiU here, but it's
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: actually it's actually been a lot of what we're discussing
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: here in the School of Counseling. We want to give
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: our students right information, right knowledge, not just theological but clinically.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: We want them to have good techniques. We want them
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: to know how to do assessment, we want them to
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: understand how to do that. But a big part that
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: we're realizing that is, if not missing in most programs
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: that we need to champion, is how do I help
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: develop this to use your word, understanding that is more
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: than just this, but it's deeply here. Yeah, right orthodoxy, yes, orthopraxy, Yes,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: orthopathy right heart. And again, I don't want to be
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: your holy Spirit. I don't. That's way above my pay grade.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: That is not for me. But I do want to
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: provide a construct a community that at least asks those questions,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: how is it moving from here into here in a
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: way that affects there?
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: That and you probably know this better than I do
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: that even when I think of something like Philippines too,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: if I understand it, it was perhaps even a hymn
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: in regards to the person and work of Christ. And
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: whenever I think of hymns, I think about singing, and
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: more often than not what Paul admonishes to sing with others.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: The whole point of taking that good theology of who
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Jesus is fully God and fully man. Yeah, you should
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: make you sing man, like you should. You should be
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: wanting to just share the joy of it, not just here,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: but like Lewis says, joy is incomplete until it is
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: shared with another right When he talks about this in
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Surprise by Joy, he recognizes that the joy I experience
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: internally is not fully fully felt, fully consummated until I
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: can kind of like when I go out to dinner
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: with my wife and I take a bite of something
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh, my goodness, this was really good,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: and then I scoop some for her to eat. Right now,
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: I could just give her information, but it's it's almost
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: like I need for her to experience the joy, not
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: just hear the joy coming from my mouth, but I
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: want her to partake in it. Lewis calls this praise. Right,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: praise is the communal activity, and this is the shared
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: meaning that I'm often trying to get at with both
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: my clients, if not my local church myself. Is how
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: do I find this greater joy that goes beyond just this?
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: My marriage needs to have these elements as related to
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Gotman's study, Well, yeah, I guess that's true, but so
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: much more than that the check mark the to do
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: list of what constitutes a good marriage. What does it
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: mean when Adam just responded out of pure joy, this
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: now is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: That it wasn't just we're gonna do this work together,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: but we're going to do this work together. Right, This
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: sense of communal context that then can engage in the
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: work together. We need all elements of that to for today.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean if you think about the way
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: that that would actually combat loneliness, right, this this structured
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: shared joy, not just shared mission.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Like I'm all on board with shared mission. I think
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: shared mission is great, right.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Y awesome, great, But there's also a way to do
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: shared mission in a very sort of militant, unjoyous fashion.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, where it becomes.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Drudgery, you know, the worst sort of obligation, right right,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I think I think obligation is an appropriate theological category.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I think we have a lot of obligations, but there's
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: also a drudging, you know, a drudgery to obligation if
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you let it become that where it's like, oh no,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I have to do this, yeah right, That to me
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: is not a theological obligation. That is a rote behavior
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: modification strategy. Real, true biblical obligation involves more than just
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: doing something and involves our whole selves. And so that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: to me is where we can connect in with joy,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: where a lot of these things that it's a shared
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: zeal for as some one too talks about, you know
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: we delight in the law of the Lord.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Well, here we are. We're gonna delight in this.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: This isn't just something we do because God said so,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: and if we don't do it, we're going to get
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: in trouble.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Sure that factors in, but at the end of the day,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: we delight in it.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like that's the that's the state we're trying to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: get to. And I think that delight would be infectious
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: and would draw people in who may feel lonely. But
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: it's hard to feel lonely when when you're around people
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: who are feeling deep joy that you.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Can actually participate in.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're about, you know, your wife
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: giving her a spoonful of the food.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: When we can help people participate in the joy we're feeling,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: that is the sort of guard against real loneliness.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the invitation of the other into the joy
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: you experience is a combatant against that loneliness factor that
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: I think it was. It was now in his book
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: on the Prodigal Son where he talks about that the
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: tragedy of that story is that the older son was
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: still outside the party. Yeah, thats as we often focus
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: on the younger son and all his licentiousness, his bringing
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: back into it. The heartbreak is that the story ends
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: with the older son so insular. I never got a
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: fat a calf? How come you never threw a party
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: for me? And it ends with him outside. Yeah, that's
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: the real tragedy is that we think we can kind
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: of muster up our own, you know, pull myself up
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: by my own bootstraps. I'll just get get it done,
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: you know, mark off the to do list, and I'm
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: doing everything right? Like why am I feeling this way?
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: But that's part of it is because you think it's
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: actually all about what you can do and the whole.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: I think Keller would highlight too, that the story is
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: actually about the father. Are we willing to enter into
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: the relationship with the father who has already done the
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: work in a way that we can actually find joy
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: and rest into? And I don't want to give this implication.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: I try to do this a lot with my clients.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: I don't want to give the implication that joy looks
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: like this, that it has to be loud and explosive.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: I'm a kind of person, you know what I'm feeling.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: I'm terrible at poker because I can never bluff my
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: way for anything. So my kids often claim, we know
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: when dad's happy, and we know when dad's matt. I
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: get that I'm a little bombastic. That's I don't want
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: to give the impression that joy only looks one way, right,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: But the question does need to be asked, to what
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: degree are we experiencing it that we can't help but
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: want like the father, like come in the party, like
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: you're missing out, dude, it's not worth stand out here
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: it's and it's not about the party, it's about being
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: together in the party that is really trying to be
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: the antidote to the loneliness that is so plaguing our
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: communities today.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think part of it is, you know,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: in that story, what we see is the brother who
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: is unwilling to even enter the party. Yet there's an
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: orientation within him that just says, no, this is not
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: this is not what I want, this is not what
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to accept.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not doing this.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so's there's an individual sort of agency and
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: responsibility that we have to take on to ourselves to
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: enter into that joy. But then I think there's also
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: a communal sort of notion where are we creating these
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: spaces where where people could be invited in to chair
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: It's it's the twofold thing. You know, If the father
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: never throws the party, there's nothing for the son to declimb,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and he's still stuck in the same place. Now, within
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the context of the story, there is a party, So
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the father's created this.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Context and the sun declines.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: But I think sometimes we're in the opposite situation where
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the nobody's throwing the party.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting. Yeah, and so.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: It's just a I think, you know, we we think
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: about that on multiple levels and we start to recognize why.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I think I would argue loneliness is in part a
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: structural problem that we're just the way we are arranging
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: our lives is conducive to loneliness.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: This is this is a natural outcome of the systems
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: and structures we've developed.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, just like you know, obesity seems
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: to go along with fast food somehow, Yeah, right, Loneliness
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: seems to come along with with some of the ways
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: that we have set ourselves up. And I think there's
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: a reorientation that needs to happen, of restructuring. And again
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the church is just crucial for that.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And that's and that's why it's so acutely
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: surprising for some people when they talk about the communities
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: that they're part of, and I think they are, whether
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: it's at work or family, maybe the local church, maybe
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: it is a bowling league, And yet there's this growing
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: angst of loneliness, right, because we're falling into all the
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: other systems, all the other structures that we've created that
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: give a false impression of connection, right, when I when
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I see how many likes I have here are when
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I see certain you know, views on a certain thing,
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: I feel connected to certain degree. Yeah, and it feels
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: like it's enough, but it painfully we have this gnawing
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: suspicion it's not, and we're feeling it as a society
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: and it's having all the corollaries that come with that.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: And that's why when I was thinking about how the
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Surgeon General talked about loneliness being the epidemic that is
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: fueling and he has I mean the actual studies to
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: kind of highlight that as well. As much as we
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: look at all these other problems physiologically unpacking, it needs
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: to be done also within a relational context that, yeah,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: we can provide really healthy food and good exercise regiments
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: and maybe even medication manage it to help you know,
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: heart disease yep. But if we don't deal with these
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: other relational constructs, we're just making really healthy people who
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: die alone. That's that's not really flourishing.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: No, And I'll say, I mean kind of close this out.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I'll close with the death of Despair article that sort
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: of inspired the direction we took this. But if you
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: look at that what's happened, Well, the repealing of the
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Blue State laws and the opening up of retail on
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a Sunday.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Gives people a choice.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a structural shift, and that structural shift allows
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: people to now choose to step away from religious institutions
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: that were, even unbeknownst to them, doing something good for them.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: And as they step away from those things, then we
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: see this correlative sort of movement of deaths of despair.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: It's a structural issue. Now does that mean.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: That we can just go back and put the Blue
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: State loss back in place and.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Finished?
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: No shot, right, There's no going back, not at this point.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: But I do think that it's important for us to
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: recognize that's a structural problem that was created, and it's
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: then human agency that chooses to step away from some
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: of these things, not realizing I think in many cases
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: how important it actually was to be within these religious communities.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: And that I think is my biggest concern with technology
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: as well, is that we have no clue what this
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: is going to do to us.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: And so we need to step carefully.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not an anti technology guy at all, but at
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the same time, I think we have to have a
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: pretty good grasp on what it means to be human
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: in the first place, so that we can be aware
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: when we're using technology, when we start to feel like,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: oh wait, I'm giving up too much.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And the reality is, like you said, we're just
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: now in terms of social science, we're just now starting
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: to scratch an understanding of the effects, yes, of what
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: prolonged engagement, both technologically physical as well as social media
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: is having on us as a as a culture. The
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: reports on the front end are not the greatest in
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: terms of that, and I agree with you. I don't
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: think the answer is to take all my devices and
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: just you know, start throwing them into the river. But
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: but woe to us we don't tread lightly. And more so,
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: how do we build other systems that not just counteract it,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: but actually give us flourishing, give us. To me as
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: a Christian, it's not just enough to say what's wrong?
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: What we need to break down? And we do. We
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: do need to deconstruct in some ways that I think
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: is healthy. And how do we actually get back to
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: some my opinion, ancient truths that continue to have meaning
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: for us today in ways that actually build us in
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: all the things that are deficient in our realities as well.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: To me, that's the the both and we're pushing towards.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's a good place to sort
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: of end, because I think our next episode is going
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: to be.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: The search for relief.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: What are some of the things that we can constructively
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: do in order to move past where we are now
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: or to bear faithful witness in this moment? And I
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: don't think like you, I don't believe it involves throwing
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: my devices in the river, right. I think it means
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: that we don't need to change our situation in order
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: to bear faithful.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Witness to the Lord.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I think that's what First Corinthians seven kind of Paul
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: is conveying there. Yeah, we don't have to change our situation.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: We can still do this. We just have to be
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: reflective and thoughtful and really wise about the way we
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, And so yeah, as we jump into
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: this next next episode, Ben, thanks again for being here,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Thanks everybody for listening, and come back from the next
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian, where we'll be talking a little
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: bit about the Search for Relief. Take care, everybody. I
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: just want to take a second to thank the team
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.