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Walking into Sorrow: Andrew Root on Evangelism in the Age of Despair · Future Christian

0:07
>> Paul: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
0:10
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
0:13
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
0:16
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors,
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and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
0:21
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
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walk boldly into the future. Whether
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you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
0:30
of your faith community, this podcast is
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designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
0:36
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
0:39
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
0:44
>> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
0:47
Loren Richmond Jr. Is in conversation with
0:50
one of our Future Christian Favorites, Dr.
0:53
Andrew Root. Andrew is the Carrie
0:56
Olson Balson professor of Youth and Family Ministry
0:59
at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.
1:02
He writes and researches in areas of theology,
1:05
ministry, culture, and younger generations.
1:08
His recent books are Churches and the
1:11
Crisis of Decline, When Church
1:13
Stops Working, and the Church After
1:16
Innovation. Andy has worked in
1:19
congregations, parachurch ministries, and
1:22
social service programs. He lives in St.
1:25
Paul with his wife Kara, two children, Owen
1:28
and Maisie, and their dog. When not
1:31
reading, writing or teaching, Andy spends
1:33
far too much time watching TV and movies.
1:37
A reminder. Before we start today's conversation,
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of the church.
2:16
>> Loren: Hello and welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Lorne
2:19
Richmond Jr. And today I'm pleased to be joined by
2:22
Dr. Andrew Root. Hello and welcome to the show.
2:25
>> Andy Root: Hey, thanks for having me back. I'm, uh, really glad to be here.
2:28
>> Loren: Yeah. Looking forward to the conversation. So
2:31
Andrew has been on the podcast before,
2:34
so if you want to look, listen back and hear about his
2:36
backstory, if you don't know who he is, I'll link
2:39
past episodes.
2:40
But Andy, one, uh, thing I always like to ask you
2:43
is, like, is what are you watching
2:46
and what relevance? You
2:49
know, I feel like you're so good at, like, finding,
2:53
you know, the cultural vibe within
2:56
entertainment. So I'm just kind of curious, like, what are you watching and
2:59
what are you noticing?
3:00
>> Andy Root: I think I'm going to blow your illusion of me because,
3:03
like, what I'm in the middle of right now
3:06
is the Empress on,
3:09
um, Netflix. That's actually
3:12
a, uh, German, uh, biopic
3:15
series about, uh, Franz
3:17
Joseph the Habsburg,
3:20
uh, uh, Kaiser. So
3:23
don't I Seem super cool, like, very zeitgeist.
3:27
This is when you know you're becoming old, when you're like, I would like to watch
3:30
period pieces about the 19th century. Um,
3:33
so that's one I guess probably more
3:36
interesting, uh, is I'm forgetting the title of it now, but
3:39
the Steve Carell movie with the tech
3:41
Bros. Something, uh, mount, uh, with
3:44
Jason Schwarzman too. I watched that just a few
3:47
days ago and that is very zeitgeisty. I mean it is, you
3:50
know, these ultra rich tech guys,
3:53
uh, you know, like
3:56
in some, well, in some sense killing each other, but also
3:59
like, I don't know, you just see their moral vision of the world
4:02
and it's, it's very interesting and it, it fits my
4:05
bias. So I really liked it.
4:07
>> Loren: Did you ever read Atlas Shrugged?
4:10
>> Andy Root: No, I have never read it.
4:12
>> Loren: So several years ago I just like made it my mission
4:15
to read that thing. Yeah, Uh, I mean it was a
4:18
slog and I skipped over like there's a section
4:21
in the book where it's. I forget the character.
4:24
Just like it has a hundred page. Literally
4:26
there's a hundred page speech.
4:28
>> Andy Root: Oh, really?
4:29
>> Loren: And I remember reading a biography on Ayn Rand
4:32
and it looks like she spent like a whole year
4:35
if. Or some unworth
4:37
ungodly amount of time on that speech. And I just kind of felt
4:40
bad and you know, completely
4:43
skipped over it. But also like, I mean that was the theme of
4:46
the book is all the rich people were building this
4:49
mega city, which I don't know if you've seen
4:52
the news about, uh, the current
4:55
administration wanting to sell off public lands. That could be happening
4:58
again.
4:59
>> Andy Root: Yeah.
5:00
>> Loren: So that's, that's great.
5:02
>> Andy Root: Yeah.
5:03
>> Loren: I'm watching. My wife and I have been watching reruns of
5:06
Home improvement speaking of classic 90s
5:09
television. So I think it is kind of interesting for us
5:12
just kind of at least for me maybe to kind of see like
5:15
the cultural vibes of the 90s.
5:18
>> Andy Root: Yeah, uh, yeah, yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it?
5:20
>> Loren: Right.
5:21
>> Andy Root: And I can't tell if it's interesting just because I'm
5:23
old. And so I have like some
5:26
classic nostalgia for that. But I think it's more,
5:29
I think, I mean, I try to do this in this book. We're going to talk about like, I
5:32
think there's something about the way things were in
5:35
the 90s and uh, the way things are
5:38
now that there's a kind of contrast there. I mean
5:41
they're interconnected, but there's a major, I think,
5:44
moral contrast of uh, kind of
5:47
where we sit and how we even recognize
5:49
ourselves and see ourselves.
5:51
>> Loren: Yeah. Speaking of 90s television, I just saw something
5:54
on Facebook that I guess Family Matters is coming back.
5:57
>> Andy Root: Oh, really?
5:58
>> Loren: So, uh, I'm kind of curious.
6:01
I mean, I spent so many years. I feel like
6:04
watching Urkel and company.
6:07
>> Andy Root: Yeah, sure.
6:08
>> Loren: It's a good 90s memory.
6:10
Well, speaking of your book, let's just jump right into it
6:13
because there's a lot I want to talk about and I want to hear from.
6:16
So the title of the book is what? Evangelism in the Age
6:19
of Despair. What's the subtitle?
6:22
>> Andy Root: Oh, what is the subtitle? I think I do have it around
6:24
here. What it is, it's,
6:26
uh, Hope beyond
6:29
the Failed Promise of
6:31
Happiness.
6:32
>> Loren: There you go.
6:33
>> Andy Root: See how good I am at promoting my own book.
6:37
>> Loren: So I think the first thing I want to ask is just about the title.
6:41
I think the title really struck me like that despair
6:44
word. It really feels like an apt
6:46
word for a moment. I mean, I think. I don't know if it's just
6:49
from reading your book or even
6:52
broader, like, the sense, I feel like in society of
6:55
nihilism and defeatism. Like,
6:58
it feels just like across the spectrum, like, even
7:01
certainly amongst the left, but I think there's. There's somewhat
7:04
of it to the right too, amongst the political right.
7:08
And I'm curious, kind of what. What sparked
7:11
that concept or that framing for you?
7:14
>> Andy Root: Yeah, I mean, so this is. This is the second book that
7:17
I've written. I wrote a book a long time ago called the Promise of
7:20
Despair. So now I have a book with two
7:22
books with the word despair in the title. So you can see,
7:25
maybe. You can see maybe my psychological, uh,
7:29
dispos position, but they actually are quite different. I mean,
7:32
the despair here came from the publisher. So Jeremy
7:35
Wells at Baker, I think, came up with this, and I was very
7:38
happy to go with it. But really, I mean, there's a sense where you
7:41
could see despair in more of a kind of Kierkegaardian vein, a kind
7:44
of existentialist perspective, which you can hear in the
7:47
Promise of Despair. There's this sense of
7:49
despair opening up, but here it's more kind of
7:52
direct, I think. And, um, when we use the word
7:55
despair in the title, it's simply maybe
7:58
shorthand or maybe a kind of
8:00
punk rock version of just this
8:03
malaise of unhappiness that's fallen on people.
8:06
And that's really what I wanted to point to here, is that I think we're
8:09
in a moment and in A time where
8:12
people just feel really fundamentally
8:14
unhappy. And, uh, that these
8:17
have been really hard three decades of the 21st
8:20
century. And we see the
8:23
symptoms of that in multiple ways, from mental health
8:25
crisis to huge senses of economic
8:28
inequality, to what feels like
8:30
a daily kind of political cris. These
8:33
things are just everywhere. And people kind of are just sitting,
8:36
looking at their screens, scrolling through social media,
8:40
outraged and depressed and anxious. I mean,
8:43
my gosh, we have 11 and 12 year olds who are
8:45
overwhelmed with levels of anxiety.
8:48
Um, so here despair really
8:51
just kind of means this malaise of.
8:54
Yeah, unhappiness, I guess is the best way to say
8:57
it. And as the subtitle says, part of the reason I think
9:00
we're just so damn unhappy is because we're so
9:02
hell bent on being happy. You know, we're
9:05
so sad because we just want to be happy so badly.
9:08
And, uh, it just might be that happiness isn't
9:11
a good that actually can provide what we
9:14
yearn for. And it, it, the more you chase
9:17
it, the more it disappears from your hands
9:19
and the more unhappy it makes you.
9:22
>> Loren: I was curious if you came across this when you're
9:25
writing your book. I remember. Gosh. What's the
9:28
podcast now?
9:30
>> Andy Root: Shoot.
9:30
>> Loren: It's an NPR podcast. I'm blanking on the title.
9:34
Um, oh, my
9:36
goodness. This is for me not getting
9:39
sleep last night. Um,
9:42
Chankar Vedantim. What's that podcast?
9:45
>> Andy Root: You're asking the wrong guy. I only listen to hockey
9:48
podcasts.
9:51
>> Loren: Folks who know it will listen to it, will recognize
9:54
it. Um, npr, Shankar
9:57
Vedantam. Um, I'm forgetting the name of the podcast, but anyway,
10:01
some months ago, he did an episode back where he talked about
10:04
chasing happiness. It's like this thing. If we
10:06
keep trying to push down. I
10:09
remember them using the image of, uh, a seesaw. If we keep trying
10:12
to push down on that happiness button, that side,
10:16
it inevitably kind of boosts up
10:21
the sadness or the despair button.
10:26
Yeah, so.
10:27
Well, I do want to ask you because I think one thing
10:30
that really struck me when I first started reading the book, and I don't
10:33
know if this was intentional or not, but I'm curious. Like,
10:36
I immediately came to mind of chaplaincy and pastoral care
10:40
in your work early on. I'm curious, like,
10:43
was there inspiration there? How did that. Was it just.
10:46
Is that my reading into it?
10:48
>> Andy Root: No, I don't think it's your reading into it. Um, there wasn't
10:51
like a direct kind of connection to,
10:54
to pastoral care, chaplaincy, but I think the
10:57
ultimate kind of theological construction
11:00
and even more so than theological construction, the kind of
11:03
ministerial, kind of drive of
11:06
practice is similar to that. I mean,
11:08
this book, the title of it is about
11:11
evangelism. That's the first word in its title. But in some ways
11:15
it's mislabeled because it's not evangelism
11:18
book where I'm giving you your six models of
11:20
evangelism. Pick one. Here's the pluses and the
11:23
minuses of each one. Um, you know,
11:26
it's more of a book really, where I think the constructive edge of
11:29
it is a theology of consolation.
11:32
Um, and so, you know, there is a connection that
11:35
I think you're rightly reading to chaplaincy
11:38
and to work with people in deep grief. And
11:41
even the story that I tell throughout this book about this
11:44
congregation and this way that these kind of lay people reach out
11:47
and essentially, I'm really, essentially making a case for how
11:49
we live evangelism more than think of evangelism as some kind of
11:52
strategy, you know, that we. That we leverage on
11:56
people and that that becomes all the more necessary in this
11:59
time where people are deeply sad.
12:03
Um, that people don't need a kind of
12:05
instrumentalized strategy to convert them towards an
12:08
idea. They need somebody who will accompany them and
12:11
walk with them through really moments of grief
12:14
and sadness and loss. And this has been a culture
12:16
that's really been built,
12:19
uh, in a hyper way, taken its form in the last
12:22
three decades where you really are alone. Competition
12:25
is everywhere. And there are certain illusions that you're
12:28
connected. Social media sites that say you have friends
12:31
and, uh, that you have connections. But these are all,
12:34
for the most part, like utter
12:37
illusions. And so when you do have a situation
12:40
happen, like you go through a miscarriage
12:43
or your father dies or something
12:45
like that, I mean, you will get a lot of responses
12:48
on social media. You post that, which in
12:51
some ways feels weird in itself, that this incredibly sacred
12:55
moment of grief you have, that you're going to, you know,
12:57
uh, disclose it on the. On the Internet.
13:00
But we do that. I mean, that's the way we are. Um, and
13:03
you will get a lot of responses, like you will get a lot of
13:06
sad face emojis on Facebook.
13:09
But what we don't really have in this society anymore are the
13:12
kind of practices where people walk with you,
13:15
where people sit with you. Um, you know,
13:18
that we don't even really have funerals anymore. We have
13:20
celebrations of life, you know, um, and
13:23
so there is definitely a kind of overtone
13:26
of thinking about these people who
13:29
walk in console with their presence,
13:32
which I think chaplains and uh,
13:35
pastoral care folks do every day of the week. There is a
13:38
way that I'm trying to get into that kind of
13:41
theological and practical dynamic.
13:44
>> Loren: Yeah. I found the podcast
13:47
Hidden Brain. Hidden Brain is the podcast recommended.
13:51
So I think something that struck me, again,
13:53
reading the book, and I'll read a quote here from. From your book.
13:56
You write, consolation can never be theoretical. It must
13:59
be fundamentally practiced, is always
14:02
pastoral. Consolation is one of the
14:04
tradition's deepest forms of doing theology,
14:07
and it is never disconnected from the
14:10
practice of ministry. So, uh, I took
14:13
from that, this. This idea that real theology happens
14:16
on the ground. And I've often felt,
14:19
and I don't know, again, I think something from your book
14:21
defined it.
14:22
So I'm curious, your perspective. Do you think,
14:25
like, I think you suggest this, right.
14:28
That pastors and chaplains can be better theologians than
14:31
academics? I'm curious if your wife's role
14:34
as a pastor, seeing her do
14:37
this ministry work, does that influence your view?
14:40
>> Andy Root: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know if I've said this
14:43
on your podcast earlier, but I think one of the ways you could,
14:46
uh, in many ways, you could kind of reduce all
14:49
my work, which. All these books, one after the
14:52
other. I promise people there'll be three volumes and there's six volumes.
14:54
And, you know, essentially, this could be the seventh
14:57
volume. Yeah, we didn't label it that way.
15:00
Um, but in many ways you could, I think, reduce all my work down to
15:03
really, um, kind of, you know, giving.
15:06
I don't want to say justification, but essentially in a vision to what
15:09
my wife does as a. Um. My wife Kara does as a
15:12
pastor to a small congregation in South Minneapolis. So
15:15
there. There's no doubt. I mean, I don't ever want to
15:18
confuse or have anyone confuse me as a. As a
15:21
practicing pastor. I'm not in that. I'm an academic,
15:23
but I have a pretty direct seat to watch
15:26
this. And it's not at a megachurch. It's at a
15:29
little fragile church of, you know, of
15:32
less than 100 people. And it is just, you know,
15:35
finding a way to continue year after year.
15:38
But there are these incredible moments and incredible
15:41
needs of giving consolation and, you
15:44
know, walking into that fire. And that's what
15:47
a pastor does. A pastor walks into,
15:50
you know, instead of running away from the grief, they walk
15:53
into the grief. And they walk into the grief. Not to fix
15:56
it, um, not even, you know, not even as maybe
15:59
like a therapist would do, but simply to be present
16:02
within it, um, and to testify to God's
16:05
presence, um, in the midst of that presence. And I
16:08
find that to be in a profoundly sacred
16:11
reality. So the stories that I see in the
16:13
places where I see, you know, Cara does this beautiful. It really
16:16
lives out of theology, is in these kinds
16:19
of moments, you know, where you, you know,
16:22
prepare a, uh, woman in her 40s to
16:25
die, you know, as. As the doctor says, there's
16:28
no other treatment here. And then help her, her
16:31
husband and her daughter live
16:33
after this incredible rupture and loss and
16:36
live in the grief. Like, uh, having a
16:39
congregation, forming a congregation who can do that kind of
16:41
consoling work, and then, you know, doing it yourself as
16:44
a pastor again, you know, to say. To say it again,
16:47
it just feels like such a sacred act and
16:50
one that's just so deeply needed in this cultural,
16:53
um, that we've just kind of lost. And I think
16:56
we just have a bunch of lonely, really sad people
16:59
who are, um, in some ways,
17:02
uh, anesthetizing themselves with just more and more
17:05
social media that makes them more and more outraged.
17:07
Um, and that the outrage is some ways, uh, a
17:10
distraction from the pain that they live
17:13
with of the sorrow they have. And, uh, maybe
17:16
the church's great testimony and witness in this moment, the
17:19
great ministry it could do, is simply to walk with people and
17:22
be formed by practices of consolation.
17:26
>> Loren: Yeah. I think that's so important.
17:28
It leads me to another thought I had
17:30
reading the book. And this is the idea that
17:35
I think you tease at this, and I think this is, um, certainly something
17:38
I recognize as well, that there's this feeling in society right
17:41
now that sorrow is contagious. It's like, we don't want to get
17:44
too close to it. It's like a sickness or disease.
17:47
We know someone's got a cold, so we want to necessarily get up in
17:49
their business. And we kind of treat sorrow like the same. Like, we'll
17:52
come and give you a hug, you know, pat your
17:55
back within. Like, we don't want to. We don't.
17:58
We don't want to. We don't want to catch it. But I think, like, there's.
18:01
There's some truth that, like, it kind of is contagious. And what I
18:04
mean by that is like. Like
18:07
when we. When we go and truly enter into the sorrow
18:10
of another, like, we feel it. Like we feel their sorrow.
18:14
But also, I think, like, it kind of, like,
18:17
builds up our immunity.
18:18
>> Andy Root: Again, this is.
18:19
>> Loren: I'm playing kind of with this metaphor.
18:21
>> Andy Root: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:22
>> Loren: And strengthens us to be able to handle
18:25
sorrow in our own lives and the lives of others.
18:28
>> Andy Root: Yeah.
18:29
>> Loren: Is that fair?
18:30
>> Andy Root: Yeah, no, I think that is true. I mean, I
18:33
do think that there's a kind of mystical reality
18:37
to sharing this. I mean, in many ways, like the tradition,
18:40
I do want to kind of point out to the reader here,
18:43
and again, maybe this is completely self indulgent, but,
18:46
um, that there's a long tail to this in the history
18:49
of Christianity. It really goes back to the patristics
18:52
era. And there is a kind of deep sense that
18:55
there's a, uh, mystical reality that when
18:58
you. When suffering is
19:00
shared, there's a certain way that it's.
19:04
That, I don't know, call it. Its
19:07
demonic, isolating force
19:09
is broken. And yes, it is
19:12
legitimately held by another. But I
19:15
kind of like your metaphor of that. We
19:18
actually have a stronger immune system or something to do
19:21
to deal with it in some say. I think what
19:24
it ultimately is, and I try to use Blaise Pascal in
19:27
the book to show this, is that Pascal actually thinks
19:30
you can only really be in touch as a human
19:33
being with your spiritual depth, with the
19:36
sense of being, of course, material and
19:38
embodied, but that also having a kind of sense of soul to
19:41
it by surrendering in some ways
19:44
to your sorrow. Um, because the only other option is to
19:47
continue to distract yourself from it or to try to think
19:50
yourself out of it. And neither of those are
19:53
very good. And his great wager is that if
19:56
you fall into your sorrow, if you'll admit
19:59
that you're filled with sorrow or that there's something
20:02
within you that can't kind of complete yourself, that you need something
20:05
from outside of you, that he thinks that you'll find a great
20:08
presence there. And, you know, Blaise Pascal
20:11
is one of the great converts of the
20:14
Christian church who, uh, uh,
20:17
found a great presence there that he found fire
20:20
in. Um, changed him.
20:23
>> Loren: Yeah, I want to come back to that,
20:26
the illustration you made about the demonic. But the other side of
20:29
that interesting thing about, like, the
20:31
contagion of sorrow that struck me
20:34
is I noticed this, like, a few months ago, I
20:37
started working again as a chaplain. And I felt like once, like, I
20:39
started, like, uh, essentially willingly
20:42
started walking into the sorrow of another person.
20:45
Like, I feel like it's found me more.
20:47
Um, and I'm curious, like, if you thought about that.
20:50
>> Andy Root: Like.
20:51
>> Loren: Like when you step into another sorrow, like, you become
20:54
more. I don't know if it's like, more attuned or people
20:57
have the sense that they. They know you're someone who will
21:00
bear their challenges with them.
21:04
What do you think?
21:05
>> Andy Root: Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting Thought like there uh, like in some
21:08
sense there's a kind of we'll get real nerdy here but
21:11
right. Almost like a kind of
21:14
uh, ontological mark on you in some
21:17
way that you can go
21:20
to the place of nothingness. See now we're, now we're really
21:22
sounding um, nuts here. But I do think
21:25
there's something to that. I mean
21:28
I just think of people who've had to live
21:31
through these incredible experiences of grief. Like they have
21:34
seen something, they've had a
21:37
deep experience that um, forever
21:39
marks their being, their way of being in the world.
21:42
And I think that those such ah, that journey with people
21:45
this way. I think the pastoral
21:48
practice is one where you do become marked
21:51
by the sorrows of others and
21:54
no one can really bear that unless being marked by those
21:57
sorrows is also for them
22:00
to be sacramental in some way, for them to bring you into
22:03
the very marks of Jesus Christ
22:06
and to have this kind of vision.
22:11
So maybe this is also a vision perspective too. From your
22:13
side you're attentive more but there is this sense of
22:16
like Jesus Christ is found in sorrow.
22:19
And I think it's kind of both ways that we become more
22:22
attentive to follow and look for Jesus Christ in
22:25
sorrow. Um, but also I do think that
22:28
there's something that you're right about. There's a kind of mark that
22:31
you've seen, something that you've been to a depth
22:34
that leaves you forever
22:36
ever changed. And I think particularly
22:39
people who find themselves up against that thinness
22:42
of being, um, can, can
22:45
recognize that, can, can sense that in some way.
22:48
Um. And yeah, I don't know, I'm willing to say that that has
22:51
something to do with the fact that we are these strange
22:54
embodied creatures who
22:57
nevertheless are, are filled with
23:00
spirit, long for spirit, um, and yet can never
23:03
get outside our bodies in yearning for that.
23:06
>> Loren: Yeah, I think it's interesting because like
23:09
I work very part time as
23:12
a chaplain so I tend to work these on call
23:15
overnight shifts and it's, it's not fun at all getting
23:18
called you know, at 2:00am M. In the morning
23:21
or right in the middle of dinner time which is
23:24
similar for some reason when people seem to need a
23:27
chaplain always, never conveniently at like you know,
23:30
6:37 at night. But
23:33
I like, it's interesting like for me like
23:36
I found like. I don't know how else to describe it as like there's an addictive
23:39
nature to it because like I know like when I'm
23:42
in, in like when I'm in it with
23:44
Somebody like, it feels like I can,
23:47
it's tangible, like, I don't know, like I can sense
23:50
God's presence. And to me, like, there's this,
23:53
uh, I don't know, whatever better used word to use,
23:56
like, except addictive. Because like, I sense like I'm
23:59
gonna, I'm gonna experience God's presence
24:02
there. And it's so powerful,
24:05
um, that again, it, it's like it overwhelms
24:08
the fact that, that I'm waking up at 2am or
24:10
whatever that next day.
24:13
And I'm also reminded of
24:17
going back to the point about
24:20
finding suffering or being more aware. Again, I
24:23
don't know how to say it exactly, but I bought
24:26
something from somebody on Facebook Marketplace and just happened
24:29
to set a word, just
24:32
set a comment about the item I was buying.
24:35
And the woman paused and was like, my husband's dying of brain cancer.
24:38
>> Andy Root: Wow.
24:40
>> Loren: And I just kind of like stopped and paused
24:43
and stepped in and listened. And I think
24:46
that's literally the metaphor
24:49
of your book. It's like just stepping in.
24:52
Um, yeah.
24:56
And that's why again, I found the book so powerful and
24:59
so precise of what I feel like the moment is right now.
25:02
>> Andy Root: Yeah, yeah. And who knows, I mean, now we're projecting
25:05
onto this, this woman, but you know,
25:08
from a larger kind of ideal types
25:11
perspective, I think, you know, we could say she represents
25:14
a larger society who has no one to carry
25:16
that kind of confession.
25:18
>> Loren: Right.
25:18
>> Andy Root: So here it comes, you know, to someone that is
25:21
embodied, um, at her door,
25:24
you know, just uh, the smallest little
25:27
opening is the sense that they
25:29
need someone to carry this. And you know, that we just,
25:32
we just don't have anymore. We just don't
25:35
have those kind of interactions. And even
25:38
when we have, you know, this person having other interactions with
25:41
neighbors or whatever, life is so accelerated
25:44
so fast and people are quite
25:47
frightened that,
25:49
um, they can't slow down enough. I mean, here's
25:52
the reality of, you know, uh, as you well know
25:55
in chaplaincy, work and others is that like you just
25:58
kind of said it never happens nine to five. You
26:01
know, it always happens outside of it. I mean,
26:04
it always is an interruption. And I think kind
26:06
of in a weird cultural way, we are
26:09
absolutely offended at being interrupted from our own
26:12
pursuits of making our own happiness.
26:15
So, you know, there's a kind of sense like ain't no one got time
26:18
for someone to tell them that their husband is dying of brain
26:21
cancer. And yet what else is
26:24
human life, you know, and particularly what else is the
26:27
Christian story other than to
26:30
have something to say to that, and not even just to
26:33
say to it as a kind of rationalist knowledge, but,
26:36
uh, a say to it with a presence, with a
26:38
participation, even if it is only for those
26:42
two minutes to have a human response
26:45
that says, this is a great
26:48
journey and this is an
26:50
incredibly significant goodbye that you're going
26:53
to now have to live through.
26:55
Uh, and that there is something
26:58
sacred, um, even in its horribleness about.
27:01
About having to say goodbye. And there's no human life
27:04
that's not about saying goodbye. I mean, I try to draw this out in the book,
27:08
uh, of the French
27:11
mystic, um, and thinker, uh, uh,
27:14
Jerseau, uh, who says,
27:16
like, the Christian life is a life of pilgrimage, and the
27:19
pilgrim always does this ad diem to God.
27:22
But what I think, fascinating that the link I tried to make
27:25
is in France at this time to say adiem was an
27:28
idiom for goodbye. So the pilgrim also has to
27:31
say goodbye. They walk towards God,
27:34
but they leave something. And if you're walking in the medieval
27:37
period, you leave to walk 60
27:40
miles or something. Who knows if you're ever going to return and how
27:43
long that's going to take. So it is a walk in. To kind of
27:46
walk into death. And, uh,
27:49
his perspective is that this is what the Christian life
27:52
is. It's saying goodbye, it's
27:55
having to say goodbye. But you do that with,
27:58
um, within God's grace, within God's
28:01
mercy, within God's act. And I think that we're in a
28:04
culture that people are in denial that they have
28:07
to say goodbye. And when it happens, they haven't thought
28:10
about it. They have no rituals, they have no practices.
28:13
And worst of all, they have no persons
28:16
in communities to walk with them in this.
28:19
And so, you know, my real push here is to not think of
28:22
evangelism as an instrumental pursuit
28:25
or strategy, but to think of it as an awareness
28:30
that we walk
28:33
into sorrow with people. And even if it's just
28:35
while we're picking up our. I don't know. Did you say what you bought
28:38
on Facebook? Marketplace? Even as you
28:41
pick that up, I don't know what it was. Um, and
28:44
you get this confession that you at least hold it for a
28:47
few minutes. I mean, that's an incredible
28:49
testimony to, uh, God's
28:52
mercy and God's act.
28:54
>> Loren: Yeah, because it was just like I was buying. I
28:57
officiate lacrosse, high school lacrosse. And I was buying.
29:00
This lady was selling some officiating shirts.
29:03
Uh, and I'm just like, hey, do you have an official in your life?
29:06
>> Andy Root: Yeah.
29:07
>> Loren: And I just. I don't know, I'm gonna assume,
29:10
I'm gonna hope or. Or wish, I don't know,
29:13
that it was the prompting of the spirit. Right. That said,
29:16
say that line.
29:17
>> Andy Root: Yeah.
29:19
>> Loren: And then she kind of paused and started to
29:21
choke up, you know, and she said, my husband
29:24
has brain cancer and he's dying.
29:26
>> Andy Root: Yeah.
29:27
>> Loren: You know, and you kind of just like, let it
29:31
hold there for a moment, and then I stepped in,
29:35
you know, and it was, you know, maybe a minute, two minutes,
29:38
wasn't long, but, uh, I kind of just walked away, like,
29:41
said a few more things. And
29:44
again, having just read your book,
29:47
I said, you know, may God's peace be with
29:50
you.
29:50
>> Andy Root: Yeah.
29:52
>> Loren: You know, and it kind of left her at that.
29:55
>> Andy Root: Um, there's something really beautiful in that
29:58
because, you know, your prompt to her,
30:02
is there an official in your life? You know?
30:05
>> Loren: Right.
30:05
>> Andy Root: Um, it's really an invitation for her to
30:08
narrate, to tell a story. You
30:11
know, like, you didn't say, like, how much were these
30:13
originally? What was the cost of these originally?
30:16
Or, uh, is there any coffee stains on these? Or, you
30:19
know, like, you. It there. It wasn't a kind of
30:22
quid pro quo kind of framed by an
30:25
economic reality. You asked her to
30:27
testify to a person and, you know, is there an official
30:30
in your life? I mean, there's a. That's a deep story. And of course,
30:33
this husband she has, I would imagine, like a big
30:36
piece of his life was officiating, and now she's
30:38
giving away part of his.
30:41
His things. You know, this is very, you know,
30:44
Martin, uh, Heidegger kind of sense is that we have
30:47
our being in and around these things. We have our Daz design
30:50
in them. And so for her to give these up
30:53
either, because he can't use
30:56
them anymore, is
30:58
a big step of goodbye. And I mean,
31:01
what a sacred act for you to take these
31:04
things that clearly at a level
31:07
represent her husband to her and
31:09
essentially say, I'll treasure them.
31:12
Um, that they mean something to me
31:15
too. Um, you know, it had been very different if you looked
31:18
at them and thinks, oh, man, I'm going to flip these babies on ebay and I'm going to make,
31:20
you know, make 25 bucks per
31:23
shirt, you know, um,
31:26
to hear her story and then to
31:29
bless her is exactly, I think, in
31:32
very microcosm what I hope the church can be for the
31:35
world, you know, bearing the world's
31:37
stories and giving a word of blessing as
31:40
people have to say goodbye. Um,
31:43
you know, in. In an openness to journey with people,
31:46
even if it is just for that two minutes
31:49
on a porch. But, you know, um, I also try to give
31:52
stories in the book of people who journey much longer than
31:55
with the church. And, um. But we won't
31:57
journey for two minutes and say, do you have a. Do you have.
32:01
Do you have an official referee in your life?
32:04
And then hear that story. Um, because, you know,
32:07
another move anyone could make and we're would feel tempted to
32:09
make. I do it, unfortunately, all the time on airplanes is
32:12
when the conversation starts. You put up all the things like,
32:16
not want. This is too much for me, you
32:19
know?
32:19
>> Loren: Right, right.
32:20
>> Andy Root: And you. And there is a certain, wow, there's just
32:23
a. There is a move of
32:25
discipleship that's just willing
32:29
to let. Let this occur. Um,
32:32
and it could get really weird. I mean, she could say, yeah, my
32:35
husband is, uh, not with me anymore because he
32:37
was a ufo. Took him.
32:40
I'm sure it was a ufo. And that, you know, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, what do I
32:43
do with this? Like, there's a certain way we want to avoid
32:46
all of that, so we don't even allow
32:49
for the uncontrollable moment
32:52
of this beautiful articulation.
32:55
Um, and so, yeah, I mean, I think she sees something in you, but I think
32:58
there's also an attentiveness and a kind of spiritual
33:01
practice you have that. That allows this
33:03
beautiful moment to occur.
33:05
>> Loren: I mean, it's kind of hilarious being on the
33:08
other side of how so many people just can't handle.
33:12
Handle grief. Like, I'm thinking of, uh,
33:15
something a month or two ago where I was called into
33:18
the hospital for a really tragic, really tragic
33:22
young man died unexpectedly. And, like,
33:25
there's a nurse, like, the family's literally
33:28
weeping over this young man's body, and the nurse is, like, walking
33:30
around restocking m the room.
33:32
>> Andy Root: Them.
33:35
Yeah, yeah, there could be. I. I think like a
33:38
very, uh. I don't know.
33:40
>> Loren: That's kind of how we treat it. Like, people don't know what to do.
33:43
Uh, Like, I was just in o' Hare in a
33:46
layover yesterday, and I just happened over here, like, right next
33:49
to me, this guy. I think it was a pilot, like, saying
33:52
on the phone, telling someone else that. That
33:55
I think the other pilot had trauma dumped on him, that his wife was having an
33:58
affair.
34:01
>> Andy Root: This isn't funny. I don't know why I'm laughing, but that just seems.
34:04
>> Loren: Yeah, well, it points to a point
34:07
you made in the book about people having nobody, and they have to, like, pay
34:10
somebody to share when they're Pain that
34:12
you talk about in the book. I mean, you don't call it, but it
34:15
is better help.
34:19
>> Andy Root: Yep. I will say I said earlier I only
34:22
listen to hockey podcasts, but I also do
34:25
listen to the rest is history. Um, and they are always
34:28
advertising. So that was the
34:30
inspiration for the pseudo.
34:33
Uh, I hid the
34:36
identity of BetterHelp with, uh,
34:39
a character, but the innocent. Yeah,
34:42
but I mean, I mean, you do think about better help. And this isn't like
34:45
the. To be negative towards therapy
34:48
or the psychoanalytic or,
34:50
you know, biological, uh, uh,
34:53
psychiatric practice or anything like that. But it is really
34:56
fascinating that, that now in
34:59
those commercials particularly, it's like, allow
35:02
you to quickly get what you
35:05
need. Like, there's a certain sense, like the app
35:07
allows for a frictionless, if you
35:10
will, like, therapeutic experience in
35:13
the way that they sell it on a lot of these podcasts, which I tried to play up,
35:16
uh, in the book. Is that it really is that, uh, way to help you
35:19
work on yourself? Have you ever been stuck? I mean, this isn't a kind
35:22
of sense like there's a
35:24
sickness that you have to deal with. It's kind of like
35:28
you just need someone to talk to to help you hack your way out
35:31
of these. These issues. And again, to
35:34
me, that, that just reflects how lonely we are, you
35:37
know, like that people's friends don't
35:40
have time to listen to them talk about that
35:43
or, you know, like. Yeah,
35:46
or people don't want to burden their. Their friends or their family with
35:49
that. Um, or that people are just utterly isolated
35:51
that way. So why not, you know, use
35:54
an app or a chatbot to
35:58
get, um, some advice on how to deal with, you know,
36:01
your tensions with the girlfriend you've had
36:04
for two months or something, or to deal with the
36:07
fact that you have a hard time with commitment and that you can feel
36:10
yourself already pulling away from this girlfriend. Like, you know,
36:13
um, and, you know, that has something to do with your
36:16
relationship with your mother. But, you know, you would dislike some
36:19
quick life hacks to get. Get to get through that.
36:21
And, uh, you know, people, even the kind of
36:24
long road of
36:27
psychotherapy, uh, like Freud just kind of felt like he couldn't
36:30
get better. But you could, you could talk this
36:33
out for a long time and kind, uh, of
36:36
stabilize yourself, but that you'll always have to deal with the kind
36:39
of existential tensions. We just want it to be fixed
36:42
in some way, and if big tech can
36:45
fix it for us, let's go that route.
36:47
>> Loren: Uh, well, let's take a quick break here. And let's come back with
36:50
some closing questions.
36:54
I do want to ask about the
36:57
demonic, as you call it in your book. And
37:01
the idea was intriguing
37:04
because I think you talk about, uh. There's
37:07
two things I want to explore here. Quickly here as we wrap
37:10
up the entering. Sorrow alone can be
37:12
demonic. And I was thinking about this similarly.
37:15
I don't know if you even thought to this as, like, suffering alone
37:18
can be demonic too. I don't know if you'd make that connection,
37:21
but that's what came to me. And then I was also thinking about,
37:24
like, I've heard it's weird, this,
37:27
like, renewed interest in the cult.
37:30
>> Andy Root: Yeah.
37:30
>> Loren: From different sources. And I'm wondering, like, if there's something there about
37:33
this despair of
37:35
folks wanting. Like, we've been so,
37:39
um. What's the word?
37:43
Like, this idea. There's any kind of transcendence. We've been so taken
37:46
away from transcendence right within,
37:49
like, Christian, even religious circles
37:52
that we've kind of written those things off as myth.
37:55
Uh, and we recognize, like, people recognize there's this despair
37:58
or hunger for something more, and they're finding, like,
38:00
paths of transcendence in these, like, demonic or
38:03
occultic paths. And
38:06
I'm just curious, like, do you. Have you made the connection? What
38:09
are your thoughts?
38:10
>> Andy Root: Yeah. Yeah.
38:11
Well, to take your second one first, I mean, I do think that
38:15
there is an odd kind of thing, is that
38:17
the more you push the kind of
38:20
the structures of disenchantment, the more people feel
38:23
disenchanted. I mean, there was a really. People
38:26
can Google this. There was a very interesting. I think it was an
38:29
Atlantic article. It's probably like, 6, 7 years old
38:32
right now. It was right around Christmas time it came
38:35
out, and it was about the, like, rise
38:37
of, um, uh, demon possessions.
38:40
I mean, this was like, you know, this was a very strange thing, a
38:43
beautiful Christmas article. You know. Um, but one of the things that the
38:46
article said, and I guess one of the ways they found that there's
38:49
been this rise of, like, demon possessions and exorcisms
38:52
is because every Catholic diocese has someone who
38:55
does exorcisms. And. But
38:58
it's not like, on the website, because I think those people would just
39:00
be bombarded by Hollywood screenwriters if they were,
39:03
you know. So, um. But, you know, somebody talked to these
39:06
folks, and, yeah, they had all these experiences and told all these stories.
39:09
But one of the. And I think this. I mean, uh, as far as I know, this is
39:12
just kind of a secular journalist. Like, this is
39:15
wild that, you know that this this happens in our world.
39:18
But they do point out, and I think this is really true, is that
39:21
when you live in very kind of
39:24
disenchanted times, then all
39:27
of a sudden, to find meaning, people
39:30
start turning to the
39:32
supernatural. They start turning to certain,
39:35
you know, certain kind of, you know, UFO
39:38
sightings on YouTube. They start turning to all this
39:41
stuff. But of course, some of them then turn into things
39:44
like voodoo and other, like, legit,
39:47
you know, like, some just turn into, like, Harry Potter
39:50
fandom, um, whatever. But that also, that same
39:52
sensibility can turn you into going into some, you
39:55
know, very ancient, some very dark kind of
39:58
occult practices. And so their. Their
40:01
whole point is, like, there's a correlation,
40:04
like institutional disenchantment and then
40:06
individuals. Certain individuals turning and looking
40:09
at these. Um, so, you know, like
40:12
institutional disenchantment that undercuts
40:14
organized forms of religion from a society,
40:17
but people have to find spiritual
40:20
outlet. And when you relativize
40:23
organized forms of religion, then. And
40:25
it's just a buffet of spirituality. So then. Well, maybe
40:28
voodoo is just as well. It is. You
40:31
know, in some sense, it's just as legit as any. It's just as
40:34
legit as Judaism or it's just as legit as reading
40:37
the Quran or the Nicene Creed.
40:40
Well, that can lead to some
40:43
dark situations. Again, look at this Atlantic
40:46
article. It's fascinating. Um, and
40:48
so I think that's really true with the disenchantment piece.
40:51
But the way I use the
40:54
demonic perspective in this kind of
40:57
conversation around consolation is I do want to be very
40:59
careful because there's a certain way, and the Christian tradition
41:02
has fallen into this, where we start to glorify a kind of
41:05
masochistic suffering, you know, like, where we
41:08
end up starting to kind of whip ourselves, or
41:11
we tell certain people are being abused or hurt, like, oh,
41:14
well, actually, you're closer to God, and. And we don't have
41:17
to intervene and stop this abuse because, you know,
41:19
it's good. It. You know, and I want to stay far away
41:22
from that. But that does become a kind of
41:25
demonic form because it
41:27
thrusts people into deep, deep senses of isolation.
41:31
And one of the ways I want to protect from, I think an
41:33
overstatement that Pascal makes is where he says, you know, if
41:36
you turn in and fall into your suffering, you'll
41:39
find a great presence there. And his story
41:42
is one of himself, you know, like
41:45
in his flat, in his apartment in
41:48
Paris, having this experience of God's fire, you know,
41:51
and realizing it's not the God of the philosophers, it's the God of
41:54
uh, uh, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that comes to
41:56
him. Fire, fire, fire. But I do think that that's an
41:59
over an ass and it potentially is an
42:02
individualism that we should be careful of
42:05
that really to fall into
42:08
your suffering, to interrogate your
42:11
suffering for a great presence there. You're going to need other
42:14
people to join you in it. Um, you can't do
42:17
it by yourself. There's a communal dynamic,
42:19
there is a chaplain dynamic.
42:23
Um, I just do not think it would be good. I think
42:25
it'd be potentially demonic in
42:28
maybe a lowercase D way of demonic. If what
42:31
hospitals did or whatever was, well,
42:34
maybe this is coming. Just simply give you a kind of
42:37
chatbot to deal with this.
42:39
Um, and say you're on your own, but here's
42:42
a couple sheets or a website and
42:45
my gosh, a podcast to listen to and, uh,
42:48
good luck to you. I think that is
42:51
actually quite a demonic activity that thrusts people into
42:54
further isolation to face their great
42:57
goodbyes. The Christian church makes this
43:00
articulation that we will accompany you in your great
43:03
goodbye. We even have liturgies and symbols and
43:06
practices to say goodbye. And that,
43:09
that's what our funerals are. You know, that our funerals are
43:13
ways of having this great
43:15
goodbye. You have to tell, to put it inside of a
43:18
larger story, which is, you know, I threw
43:21
shade on, um, celebrations of life. That's what I worry about
43:24
is that a celebration of life actually steps
43:27
outside and becomes one last individualist
43:30
act of an individual. One last way to
43:33
perform yourself from the grave. You know, that everyone
43:36
celebrates instead of saying in
43:39
grief, this person is gone. But there is
43:42
this larger story that holds them. There are these
43:44
symbols in these rituals and human
43:47
beings have to make sense of that and, you know, to
43:50
connect these two points. If we don't have it, if we lose it,
43:53
if we devalue it, people will go looking for it,
43:56
it. And you know, you, you'll see, you'll see this at
43:59
funerals where people all of a sudden do all sorts of kind of pagan
44:01
occult, like kind of little practices to say
44:04
goodbye or, you know, imagine that
44:07
they would never believe in the Nicene Creed, but do believe that
44:10
fairies will come, you know, and uh, and visit
44:13
their mother, um, or something. You know, I don't know if that's true or
44:16
whatever, but you get where this is going, that it's really important
44:19
that um, we continue, I think, both
44:22
in, in our relationships, but also in our
44:25
practices and shared life to help people say goodbye and to
44:28
accompany them as they do. And big Goodbyes and
44:31
small goodbyes. I mean, it is a real poignant goodbye
44:34
to have to say goodbye to your kids. No longer being
44:38
5 or 10 or them leaving
44:41
high school. There's a grief that you go through
44:44
that is quite natural and beautiful, but it
44:47
also is a goodbye. And there's a kind of,
44:51
uh, an existential pain to that. And we need.
44:54
We need others to hold us in that. We need symbols and rituals to
44:57
help us through those moments.
45:00
>> Loren: Yeah. I want to read this quote from near the end of your
45:03
book 268. You write, Our goodbyes
45:05
are the place where God chooses to work,
45:08
electing us for life. Our sorrowful
45:11
goodbyes are the only sign that we are chosen and
45:14
therefore predestined for salvation by God.
45:17
Those who must say goodbye, which is of course all of
45:20
humanity, are those whom God promises to
45:23
be. For by being with
45:26
so powerful quote really struck me and it made
45:29
me think about. And I think you explore this certainly in this book
45:32
and then your last book about what the church
45:35
in the age of secular mysticism about
45:38
confession and surrender. Like, uh, I feel like that's something
45:41
that I just have re.
45:43
Recognized the importance of in my own life.
45:47
Last question would be this. Just talk about confession,
45:50
surrender and how. Yeah, how you understand that.
45:53
>> Andy Root: Yeah, well, I understand it exactly how
45:56
I want to explore the depth of it. Exactly how that woman,
46:00
uh, at the Facebook, uh, marketplace, your experience
46:02
through Facebook Marketplace with her is confession.
46:06
I mean, when she says, you know, when you, you ask a
46:08
question like, do you have a referee in your life? And she
46:11
says, my husband's dying of brain cancer. You know, like
46:14
that, that is a confession. And there
46:17
then is a call put upon you.
46:20
I mean, this is very much Bonhoeffer's,
46:23
uh, here's the call of Jesus Christ to follow.
46:25
And your follow is, do you surrender to
46:28
this moment and where it might take you and
46:31
what it might mean to walk with her even for these five
46:34
minutes, you know, you still get to have your boundary. You
46:37
still, you know, you don't have to sit with her for three
46:40
hours while your own children are in the backseat of your car,
46:43
you know, roasting on a hot day. You still get. Get to
46:45
say, you know, I, I need to go, but, you know, I've heard you,
46:48
but there is a kind of surrender of, can you have a. But
46:52
can you have a human moment with her? Um,
46:55
can you give a ministry of
46:58
presence to her? Will you surrender to where that might
47:01
take you? Will you risk the uncontrollability
47:04
of that moment? Um, but it really starts by
47:06
you asking a question that then leads her, in utter
47:10
bravery and beauty, to make a confession. And the
47:12
confession, um,
47:15
isn't what we would assume, like, I am a sinner. Can you
47:18
pray? Can we go through the four spiritual laws right now? No.
47:21
Her confession is, I'm at a loss.
47:25
>> Loren: Mhm.
47:25
>> Andy Root: I am grieving and I am
47:28
alone. I need someone to hold this with me.
47:31
And the question is, even for this two, three
47:33
minutes, will you hold it for her? And
47:36
will that be. Can the rest of the church, as a communal reality,
47:39
when we hear you tell that story, can we see
47:42
that, can we proclaim that that is a sacramental
47:45
reality? I mean, uh, at least with a lowercase S, that there's a way
47:48
that that event, that common
47:51
event that is so uncommon, especially in
47:54
our cultural moment of sharing each other's place in this moment
47:57
and bearing each other's confession and surrendering to that
48:00
moment was this woman coming up against
48:03
the very presence of Jesus Christ, who takes
48:06
all deaths and works life out of them. Yeah.
48:08
>> Loren: Because there's a surrender almost on her part too, right.
48:11
In that of I'm surrendering
48:14
some sort of
48:18
sense of pride or
48:21
appearance, you know, that I've got it all together.
48:25
>> Andy Root: Yeah. That you might just think, here's a crazy woman who's just
48:28
telling me stuff she shouldn't.
48:29
>> Loren: She has no idea who I am. And she's like, I could just. She could be
48:32
like, oh, this guy's gonna think I'm a nut job.
48:35
Um, yeah, I mean, again,
48:38
uh, certainly I feel like this is your book, the last
48:40
book. What, what? Secularism or.
48:43
>> Andy Root: Yeah, the Church in the Age of Secular Mysticism.
48:46
>> Loren: Yeah. Where you talk about.
48:47
>> Andy Root: I can't believe I knew the title of it.
48:48
>> Loren: I usually do not know the title, Confession and Surrender.
48:51
But yeah, there's so much, uh.
48:54
I feel like it's so transformative, these practices.
48:57
So I appreciate your work. I look forward. Do you want to tease,
49:00
like, because you got another one coming out with your wife, Right.
49:03
>> Andy Root: Yeah, we have a book that's, uh, will be a little
49:06
bit lower shelf than my other books, which are filled
49:08
with so many footnotes because I'm addicted to footnotes. But,
49:11
uh, yeah, this is a one that's going to
49:14
explore, uh, kind of parenting and pastoring, and we
49:17
were just talking about uncontrollability. It will kind of look
49:20
at uncontrollability and, uh, a kind of
49:23
release of control and the thinking about
49:25
pilgrimage as a way to think about parenting
49:29
and, uh, leading the church. So, um, that
49:32
comes out In September.
49:33
>> Loren: Well, I'm looking forward to it. My daughter is entering into
49:36
teenagehood this summer. You talk about
49:38
goodbyes and grief.
49:40
>> Andy Root: Yeah.
49:41
>> Loren: Uh, and anxiety. All
49:44
relevant. Well, anything else you want to say about where folks
49:47
can connect with you or anything else?
49:49
>> Andy Root: Yeah, ah, people can just find me. I have a website that's just
49:51
andrew.org and, uh, people can find me
49:54
there. And, uh, yeah,
49:57
uh, you can always email me too. I don't know if you'd want to do
50:00
that, but you always can find me on the. You can find me on the
50:03
interwebs.
50:04
>> Loren: All right. The book is Evangelism in the Age of
50:07
Despair. And, uh, give us the
50:10
subtitle.
50:11
>> Andy Root: Subtitle again. I gotta turn around and hope.
50:14
>> Loren: I'm trying to read it off my phone and find print.
50:16
>> Andy Root: It is called Hope Beyond Failed Promise of
50:19
Happiness. That's it.
50:21
>> Loren: And the COVID is just. Just super gloom.
50:24
So it really.
50:25
>> Andy Root: It is. It's, uh, very rainy and, uh.
50:28
Yeah.
50:28
>> Loren: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time. Really
50:31
appreciate the conversation and, uh, safe travels.
50:35
Leave you with the word of peace. May God's peace be with you.
50:38
>> Andy Root: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on the podcast too.
50:47
Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
50:50
The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
50:53
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50:56
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