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Grace as Anarchy: Jay Baker on Radical Inclusion and Faith · Revolution of Purpose Podcast

0:00
Welcome to the Revolution of Purpose podcast.
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I'm your host, Jon Street,
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and each week we bring you conversations
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with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals
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who have aligned their life with purpose
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and created extraordinary results.
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So I'm gonna live through it and accept it radically
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with grace and hope and love.
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I mean, I would be proud to be in this house.
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It was an honor, I had so much fun.
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Tune in every Monday
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for the Revolution of Purpose solo show
0:25
and every Thursday for Revolution of Purpose Conversation.
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Welcome to the Revolution of Purpose podcast.
0:32
I'm your host, Jon Street,
0:33
and each week we bring you conversations
0:35
with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals
0:38
who have aligned their life with purpose
0:41
and created extraordinary results.
0:43
Today's guest is Jay Baker, a pastor, an author,
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a speaker whose life and message
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challenged the conventional ideas
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of faith, identity, and purpose.
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He is the son of televangelist Jim Baker
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and Tammy Faye Baker and grew up in the spotlight
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during one of the most well-known chapters
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in modern American Christianity.
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But rather than follow a traditional path,
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Jay's journey has been one of questioning,
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deconstruction, and ultimately rediscovery.
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Jay is the co-founder and pastor of Revolution Church,
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a community known for welcoming people
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who often feel excluded from traditional religion spaces.
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From Phoenix to Atlanta to New York City
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to Minneapolis and now based in Seattle,
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his work has consistently centered around inclusion,
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authenticity, and creating space
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for honest conversations about faith.
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He's also the author of several books,
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including Son of a Preacher Man, Fall to Grace,
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and Faith, Doubt, and Other Lines I've Crossed.
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Through his writing, Jay explores themes of grace,
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doubt, identity, and what it really means
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to follow Jesus outside of rigid systems.
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What makes Jay's message especially compelling
1:58
is his perspective on what he calls grace as anarchy.
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This is the idea that grace is not something to be earned,
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controlled, or systematized,
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but something that is radically free,
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something that dismantles hierarchy, removes conditions,
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and meets people exactly where they are.
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And that's what makes this conversation so powerful.
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Because today, we're not just talking about faith.
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We're talking about identity, transformation,
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and what it really looks like
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to live in alignment with your purpose,
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even when that path doesn't look like anything
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that you were taught.
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Welcome to the show, Jay.
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We're so happy to have you today.
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Oh, it's great to be here.
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Thank you for having me.
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You're welcome, you're welcome.
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I've really been looking forward to this conversation,
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not just because of your work,
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but because of the journey behind it.
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And before we even dive into everything,
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I want to just start with this one question.
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Who are you today that the young Jay Baker,
3:00
Jamie Charles, would be proud of?
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Oh, I'm a good father.
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You know, I think I would be proud of that.
3:08
You know, I learned a lot.
3:12
My dad and my mom were very busy during the PTL years
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when I was going more by Jay Baker,
3:21
or Jamie Charles, I mean.
3:25
But I learned a lot about connection with,
3:27
like I had security guards and things like that
3:29
back in the PTL days,
3:30
because we had all sorts of kidnapping threats
3:33
and all this stuff.
3:34
But a lot of those people were really kind and loving.
3:38
A lot of the folks that worked around my parents,
3:41
you know, always, you know,
3:42
reminded me of the importance of a hug
3:44
or importance of a nice word or a thing like that.
3:47
And, you know, and my mom, we always had a blast.
3:50
We always had fun going shopping together
3:52
since I was very little to, you know,
3:54
till she passed.
3:57
But I think that would be, I'd be proud of that.
4:01
We'd probably be surprised by that.
4:03
Probably be surprised that I have so many tattoos as well.
4:06
I think I would be like, whoa.
4:09
But I think, you know, I think that would be the big one.
4:13
You know, otherwise I don't think I could conceive
4:16
what else has happened in that world.
4:18
I mean, it was such a shock when all that stuff happened
4:20
with the scandal and everything and such a huge shift.
4:26
I think I'd also be surprised that I wrote three books,
4:29
you know, having dyslexia and learning disabilities,
4:33
especially we're kind of going unnoticed at the time.
4:36
I think that would have been, you know,
4:38
I mean, just even text messages alone,
4:40
I would have been like, what?
4:41
We're gonna have to send each other writing?
4:44
So it's silly, the things you think of, you know,
4:48
the things that as a kid,
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you would have probably been excited about.
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So still have my GI Joes.
4:53
I'd probably be happy about that.
4:54
I still have my GI Joes in the box somewhere.
4:56
So never abandoned my, never left a man behind.
5:01
That's awesome.
5:02
Yeah, I can remember those first Nokia flip phones
5:04
and you would have the text
5:06
and you'd have to hit the button three times
5:08
to put another in, you know?
5:09
Yeah, that was a simpler time back then.
5:12
Oh yeah, those batteries would last for like hours.
5:16
Oh yeah, they still are probably charged.
5:18
Yeah, and I remember though, like before that,
5:21
the big ones, and then my dad had like a car phone
5:25
and it was like, you could never really hear
5:27
what anybody else was saying.
5:30
You know, it was probably like $10 a minute
5:31
or something ridiculous like that.
5:34
So my dad would be like, call your mom,
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tell her we're doing late, but be fast.
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And he'd be like, you know, I'm like, dad, this is,
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it looks cool.
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I know, right?
5:45
Yeah.
5:46
So it's interesting because I actually grew up
5:50
in a family that was connected to your family's ministry.
5:53
So my parents were part of PTL.
5:55
We went to Heritage USA when I was a kid
5:58
and I remember the water slide, you know?
6:01
I remember it well.
6:02
And I remember watching your mom, Tammy Faye Baker
6:07
on Larry King when I was a teenager.
6:09
And she said to him, I believe the church
6:12
is called to be a hospital, not a courtroom.
6:15
Yeah.
6:16
And that one sentence, it just stayed with me
6:19
for the rest of my life, Jay.
6:21
Like it was so powerful.
6:23
And, you know, about 10 years after that interview,
6:26
I remember watching One Punk Under God,
6:30
that documentary about you and saw the way
6:33
that you were living out that same message
6:37
that your mom had said, especially in your advocacy
6:41
and your willingness to stand up for people.
6:45
And that came at a great cost too.
6:47
Yeah, it did.
6:48
It really did.
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And I know that, you know, that means something.
6:53
When you take a chance to speak up for the marginalized,
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I don't really think there's anything more Christ-like
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that you can do than that.
7:04
But sadly, it's usually the people waving the Christian flag
7:08
that seems to be the ones that abandon you
7:10
when you do that.
7:12
Oh no, I mean, yeah, I mean, definitely.
7:13
I mean, there was a few that were great.
7:16
I mean, I remember Tony Campolo, I'd said something on,
7:21
I'd had an interview with Larry King about being affirming.
7:24
And I remember Tony Campolo sent me a text message
7:27
saying like, you know, you've really done well
7:30
and I'm proud of you, you know.
7:31
And he wasn't even affirming at the time,
7:33
but his wife was.
7:34
And he just, he sent me this really great text message.
7:38
Now that was along with about 15 other ones
7:42
that I got, you know, yelling at me,
7:43
screaming at me, telling me, you know, how horrible I was.
7:47
So, you know, there were a few folks
7:50
that were excited about it,
7:51
but I was always amazed by the people who did push back.
7:54
I mean, when I came back from Open Door Community Church
7:59
in Little Rock, Arkansas,
8:03
and I had been working with Pastor Randy McCain
8:06
and just going through the verses and the scriptures,
8:08
LGBTQ, I'd always been kind of like,
8:11
I don't mind if, like, if I have someone on staff
8:13
and like, I'm gay, you know, and like, I don't wanna be gay.
8:15
I'm like, okay, well, that's up to you, you know,
8:18
just whatever, you know.
8:20
But then it became a time where I was really felt
8:22
like I had, when I got invited to Exodus,
8:24
I realized I kind of had to make a decision
8:26
of where I stood and make it public.
8:31
And it was through many conversations with Randy McCain
8:37
from Open Door Community Church in Little Rock
8:39
and lots of study.
8:42
I mean, now I look back at that,
8:43
I don't even know if I would have had to have
8:45
all that stuff, you know what I mean?
8:47
Even if I thought Paul was talking about homosexuality,
8:53
I would probably just disagree with him.
8:54
He's not, because that was just not a concept
8:56
in biblical times, but even if, you know.
9:01
But I remember going back from that church
9:03
where I just made the decision that this is the stand
9:05
I had to make and sitting with my board and telling my board,
9:08
my board was completely divided.
9:10
We automatically lost, you know, a $75,000 grant
9:17
we got every year that was pulled within 24 hours.
9:21
Within 48 hours, all my speaking engagements,
9:23
which that's really how I made my living,
9:26
was I would speak to all these festivals over the summer
9:30
and then churches during the year
9:32
and they all got canceled.
9:35
I mean, every single one.
9:36
And it was funny as they all gave me different reasons,
9:38
not like very few of them said,
9:40
well, we think you're a heretic.
9:42
You know, some were like,
9:43
oh, we realized that we can't have you two years in a row
9:46
or things like, because some of them had heard
9:47
that there was this documentary being filmed about me.
9:49
So they didn't want to be like, you know, look bad.
9:52
It was just crazy how that happened, you know?
9:56
And then within a few weeks, you know,
9:58
we had a staff of seven.
9:59
I had to lay off the whole staff, you know,
10:03
board members, a couple of board members resigned,
10:06
which was better than them voting me out, I guess.
10:09
But yeah, so it was tough.
10:12
And honestly, like revolution,
10:13
that would have been the peak
10:15
of what people would call success for us,
10:17
which I guess that would have been around 2005 in Atlanta.
10:21
And I went to New York after that,
10:24
but, and thank goodness I went to New York
10:26
because it was just more, you know,
10:28
our congregation shrunk down in Atlanta to like,
10:30
I mean, I was saying my goodbyes to like six people,
10:33
you know what I mean?
10:34
They just couldn't handle it.
10:35
And when I went to New York,
10:36
that kind of revived the work a bit.
10:40
But yeah, it was tough.
10:42
And at the same time I had like the ELCA,
10:44
the, you know, the Lutherans calling me and asking me
10:46
if I would come speak at their churches
10:48
and speak at their youth event.
10:50
Their big, they had this big youth event
10:51
where I spoke to like 30,000 people,
10:53
but they were just about to vote on being affirming.
10:58
And so I was like coming to some of their churches
11:01
and meeting with some of their people
11:02
and doing things like that.
11:03
So it was a, you know, it was an interesting time.
11:07
I think the hardest part was, is that my mom was dying
11:11
and, you know, and then I found out my wife at the time
11:15
was having an affair and all this stuff kind of
11:19
was just awful.
11:21
And I seem to have more people concerned about my theology,
11:24
even people saying that my theology was the reason
11:26
that my marriage and my mother was dying, you know,
11:29
and the cruelty of that was just ridiculous.
11:32
But yeah, so I'm proud of what I did.
11:35
I'm glad I got to talk to my mom and dad about it
11:38
before my mom passed.
11:39
And I remember sitting, having a conversation with my dad.
11:42
That was a tough one, but he was, I think,
11:44
impressed with the fact that I knew the scholarship
11:49
behind the Bible and the history and the philosophy.
11:51
And I think I have a little bit of a deeper education
11:55
when it comes to biblical understanding than my father.
11:58
So I think he was, that calmed him a little bit.
12:02
You know, I remember I was telling my mom,
12:04
we talked about my mom, we were at Chick-fil-A
12:07
of all places, but yeah, it was a tough time.
12:09
It was a strange time, but I just knew what it,
12:12
I've just always had this kind of,
12:15
and I think I got it from my mom, you know,
12:17
this kind of love is a trump card,
12:19
this kind of idea that, you know,
12:22
if I'm not following the convictions, my convictions,
12:27
and the convictions that I see biblically,
12:30
and that's the problem I think too,
12:31
is people told me to take the Bible seriously.
12:33
And when I did, they didn't like what I found out,
12:36
you know, so it was one of those things where I just,
12:39
you know, my parents always kind of taught me,
12:41
both of them, to follow my convictions.
12:43
And I felt like this was a conviction
12:45
and not just a personal conviction,
12:47
but I felt like it was a spiritual conviction
12:49
and that would lead eventually to reformation in the church.
12:53
And a lot of people later who became affirming,
12:55
I remember having conversations with at the time,
12:57
they were all terrified
12:58
because they didn't want to see what happened to me,
13:01
happened to them.
13:02
I mean, it was really a strange time.
13:05
If I just named the people that I was talking to,
13:09
you'd be like, what, what?
13:10
You know, like people we're always just,
13:12
we think are just, you know,
13:14
it was a really strange time in the church, you know,
13:18
but I'm grateful I did it and I don't regret it.
13:21
And, you know, life goes on.
13:24
And you say, like, anchored you through those moments,
13:27
you know, I mean, because you're,
13:29
I mean, that is the last time you want a documentary crew
13:33
following you around.
13:34
Your mom's dying, you find out your wife has an affair,
13:36
you're losing your ministry.
13:39
Like when they came to me,
13:40
when the documentary crew came to me,
13:45
I told them like, you know,
13:46
this is gonna be a waste of time.
13:49
You know, guys, I study, that's what I study.
13:52
And I'm in a community
13:54
and there's gonna be times where I don't want you there,
13:56
you know, and I'm like,
13:57
so it's just gonna be me sitting in a bar studying
13:59
and then me speaking.
14:00
It's not gonna be anything exciting.
14:02
I didn't realize that all this stuff
14:03
was gonna happen at the time.
14:05
It was like, as soon as, I mean,
14:06
we talked about it for months and months and months,
14:08
cause I wasn't sure I wanted to do it.
14:10
And I had other people offering me to do other things.
14:12
And, but they had done the Eyes of Tammy Faye.
14:15
And so as soon as I signed,
14:18
it was just like, everything went crazy.
14:22
What kept me anchored?
14:23
I mean, I would say probably people like Stu Damron,
14:27
who was working with me at the time,
14:29
who disagreed with my stance,
14:32
but was like a father figure
14:34
and was a total type A personality,
14:37
but we could argue about anything.
14:38
When my mom died and he found out about Amanda,
14:41
he flew out to New York.
14:42
He was running revolution for a while.
14:44
And after I left in Atlanta and he came out
14:47
and just was just with me.
14:49
We just went to movies and we ate
14:51
and we just, I just grieved.
14:54
You know, Vince Anderson,
14:57
my co-pastor at the time was there.
14:59
He was really great.
15:00
I even think that New York community
15:02
was just very graceful and very understanding.
15:08
The Polk family has always been there for me, D.E. Polk.
15:11
You know, they allowed us to do the memorial at my mom,
15:13
my mom's memorial at their church.
15:17
But at the same time, it was kind of like, you know,
15:20
a ship being tossed in the wind, like, you know, in a way,
15:23
like, and it wasn't my theology, it was just my life.
15:26
Everything was just going, you know, just kind of,
15:31
so it was tough.
15:32
I mean, it was just, you know, I mean,
15:34
the emergent church kind of reached out to me
15:37
and more at the time.
15:38
And I was working with them.
15:39
I'd already always been included in them
15:41
and that under that umbrella, you know, called emergent.
15:46
But I started, you know, hanging out with people
15:47
like Tony, I believe Tony's last name
15:52
is escaping me right now.
15:56
But my friend Tony and Doug and, you know,
16:00
all these people were just kind of like there for me
16:03
at the time.
16:04
And yeah, so it was, there was just,
16:08
there was a few people who showed up.
16:10
I mean, Brian McLaren had me come out to his house
16:14
for a few days when all that stuff happened
16:17
and just let me relax and hang out.
16:22
And like, you know, he has turtles.
16:28
He has a backyard full of turtles and I fed turtles.
16:33
I went to the, I went, where did I go?
16:38
I went to the mall with his wife.
16:40
Yeah, I mean, it was just simple things like that
16:42
that just kind of kept you going.
16:44
And then the next thing I know, the next thing,
16:46
sorry, I was just looking up something here
16:47
cause I wanted to share it with you.
16:50
But one of the next thing I know was the, it's Tony Jones.
16:53
Gosh, Tony Jones was just fabulous.
16:55
Tony Jones was just a rock for me all through.
16:57
Like even when I lived in Minneapolis,
16:59
he lived in Minneapolis.
17:00
It was one of those great things.
17:01
So Tony Jones was just a rock for me for a long time.
17:03
And he also type A.
17:04
I am not a type A personality, just to let you know.
17:07
So to have type A people kind of help you
17:11
through things like that, it's very awkward
17:13
when you're like, especially then
17:15
I was not so secure in myself.
17:17
But yeah, it was, then the MCC reached out to me
17:22
and MCC was the first affirming church I'd ever gone to.
17:24
And I'd gone with my mom before I was affirming.
17:29
So you can see my mom laid a little bit
17:31
of that groundwork there for me.
17:33
They reached out to me, GLAAD gave me an award.
17:40
I ended up working with Soulforce
17:42
and meeting with like mega pastors about being allies.
17:45
I met one-on-one with, what's his name out in Texas?
17:52
TD Jakes?
17:53
No, not TD Jakes, the happy pastor.
17:56
Olsteen.
17:57
Joel Olsteen.
17:58
I met with Joel Olsteen.
17:59
So I kind of went into the work.
18:02
And so kind of having that purpose helped me a lot.
18:05
And I was having a lot of tough conversations
18:07
with a lot of big preachers,
18:09
even though I was never a big pastor.
18:12
I was never seen in that light,
18:13
but I was having conversations with these people.
18:16
And so I think kind of just continuing to focus
18:20
on the work of the ministry and being inclusive.
18:23
And then also having like that small church in Brooklyn.
18:26
Those are just, all those things were just kind of like,
18:29
but I would go home and sob.
18:31
I would go home and be alone and I would be sobbing.
18:35
One of my friends from Florida just said,
18:38
hey, we'll pay for you to come out here.
18:41
We'll take care of everything.
18:42
Just come out for a couple of weeks.
18:43
So there were people like that that really helped,
18:46
but it really did.
18:47
I really lost connection with all the Christian festivals,
18:52
all that kind of stuff.
18:54
Now they're all gone.
18:55
So it was just kind of like I was ahead
18:56
of the curve a little bit.
18:58
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19:01
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And now let's get back to this podcast.
20:09
So, I mean, just from what I know about your life,
20:12
which is, you know, not a lot,
20:14
but I know what most of the public knows,
20:18
but it seems to me like you've gone through
20:21
two massive periods of loss.
20:23
So you have that period, you know,
20:25
where after One Punk Under God
20:27
and all the loss you had there.
20:29
And then of course the first one, when you were a child,
20:32
growing up in an environment that was so public,
20:35
and then a scandal that had nothing to do with you.
20:39
And, but as you already mentioned,
20:42
experiencing kidnapping threats and other things,
20:45
like I can't even imagine that type of stress,
20:47
but do you see parallels
20:50
in those two periods of loss in your life?
20:53
I mean, yeah, you do.
20:54
It was, you know, a strange thing was 87
20:57
when all that happened.
20:59
And then it was 2007 when, you know,
21:03
all that stuff happened.
21:04
So that was strange.
21:07
Well, the parallels too is like how unreliable the church is.
21:11
You know, I mean, this concept,
21:12
it's so easy to scapegoat Christians
21:14
and I don't like to scapegoat anybody,
21:17
but I mean, the truth was is that, you know,
21:20
in both instances, it was,
21:23
I saw people who follow Christ being people of blame
21:26
and people of judgment and not people,
21:29
there were some great ones,
21:31
but it was the minority of people who were embracing
21:35
rather than, you know, the majority of the church.
21:38
So that was, you know,
21:39
that was something that went through it.
21:41
You know, and then like years later,
21:42
I rushed into a marriage
21:44
and thought I needed to get married again.
21:46
I'm gonna have kids.
21:47
And then, you know, me and my wife at the time
21:51
are completely just can't relate to each other.
21:53
So I went through another divorce.
21:56
And so there's just, you know, life is tough.
21:59
You know, and thank gosh,
22:00
I'm not an assemblies of God pastor.
22:01
I'd never be able to preach again.
22:04
But yeah, so my life hasn't been perfect.
22:06
It hasn't been easy.
22:09
I think the one consistency in my life has always been
22:13
since I was about 19, 18, 19 is doing this church
22:17
and doing revolution and doing this work
22:20
and growing in my knowledge of theology, scholarship,
22:26
now philosophy and psychology,
22:29
and just, you know, trying to better myself
22:33
and be comfortable in my own skin.
22:35
But that's also required a lot of psychiatry and analysis
22:42
and counseling and therapy, you know, to get where I'm at.
22:48
You know, I'll say, Jay, just from somebody who,
22:51
you know, has read your books,
22:53
somebody who saw your parents' ministry when I was young,
22:56
somebody that also got hurt by the church,
22:59
but, you know, I can remember, you know,
23:02
seeing One Punk Under God
23:05
and Through the Eyes of Tammy Faye and all those things,
23:08
even in the midst of your loss,
23:12
your light still is bright, you know?
23:15
And I'm such a huge believer that, you know,
23:19
I love that scripture
23:19
that all things work together for our good.
23:21
And that's my mom's favorite, too.
23:24
Yeah, that makes so much sense.
23:25
You know, I can totally think about it.
23:26
I read that at her funeral, yeah.
23:28
Well, and I can always,
23:31
whenever I'm having a rough time,
23:32
there are times that I'll just think, you know,
23:34
don't give up, you're on the brink of your miracle.
23:36
You know, there's, you know,
23:37
I grew up hearing your mom's songs
23:39
and my mom's, you know, my mom's record player,
23:42
but I mean, I really believe that things can happen to us
23:48
or things can happen for us,
23:49
and we get to make that decision.
23:51
And so looking at all these things that happen to you,
23:55
just the fact that you're letting people in on that,
23:59
that you are so vulnerable,
24:01
that you are such an open book,
24:03
right there lets it be something that's happening for you,
24:06
because it is happening to help other people.
24:08
I mean, people who go under, you know,
24:11
go through huge amounts of loss,
24:13
either with their employment,
24:15
even if they're not in the ministry,
24:16
or, you know, people who lose their parents
24:19
and people who lose their marriage and all of this,
24:22
and you're still standing
24:24
and you're still in the midst of it,
24:27
telling people that grace is anarchy
24:30
and now agape is anarchy.
24:33
Like-
24:33
Yeah, yeah, that's the new one.
24:34
Stay true to your purpose, you know?
24:37
Yeah, it's, I recently was diagnosed with ADHD
24:41
and I mean, it's funny,
24:43
because now when I was diagnosed,
24:45
I started looking up different stuff online
24:47
and following like meme pages and Instagram pages.
24:50
And there's this funny thing,
24:53
it has always been something I've experienced,
24:55
but I guess it's kind of normal for ADHD folks,
24:57
is that often when you're in the midst of a crisis,
25:01
you're a little bit more calm,
25:03
you're a little bit more focused, you know, and like this,
25:05
but when you're not in a crisis,
25:07
you're kind of in crisis mode
25:08
that anybody else would be in.
25:09
So everything's kind of like,
25:10
oh my gosh, what's going on?
25:12
You know, it's like, nothing's going wrong,
25:13
but you're still kind of like, you know,
25:15
how am I gonna do this?
25:15
And how am I gonna do that?
25:16
And how do I get, you know, the grocery list done today?
25:19
You know, it's really weird.
25:21
And I've kind of was raised and born
25:23
within that kind of system anyway.
25:25
So that's kind of how I live.
25:28
I mean, and think, and I'm always better in a crisis.
25:32
And I feel like in some ways,
25:33
that's why my work is important
25:36
and why revolution is important
25:39
and why I'm able to do this work
25:41
and stay consistent in a time
25:44
and not scapegoat people,
25:46
not fall into the right or left way
25:48
of just falling into kind of, you know,
25:51
how can I get more followers
25:52
or how can I be more influential type of thing,
25:55
but to always kind of speak the truth
25:58
and continue to work towards peace
26:00
and reconciliation and that type of thing
26:02
through those times and stay a little bit more calm
26:06
and less angry,
26:10
unless I'm on Facebook.
26:11
I just, I do all my texts on voice.
26:15
So sometimes it comes off angry.
26:17
I don't mean for it to, but sometimes it does, you know,
26:20
but it's just one of those things that it's, you know,
26:23
I feel like for such a time as this, you know,
26:26
I feel like, you know, that my life has been a lot of down,
26:30
a lot of chaos, a lot of pain.
26:32
And, you know, I'm able to still operate within that
26:36
in some ways in a more calmer way.
26:38
And so I'm grateful to have that.
26:40
I'm grateful to have that kind of ability
26:42
and that gift of that.
26:46
And just being honest and transparent, you know,
26:50
I think a lot of people really fear that.
26:53
And I don't fear that.
26:55
I fear not being that.
26:58
I fear not telling the truth.
27:01
You know what I mean?
27:01
Like it's the opposite, you know?
27:03
And I've even had people tell me like,
27:04
oh, do you think you have some sort of like death drive
27:06
for your career and for your work?
27:12
Are you trying to destroy your work, you know?
27:15
And one time I had somebody who knew a little bit
27:19
about an analysis about, you know,
27:21
asking me that if it was an unconscious drive.
27:23
And I was like, you know, I don't think so.
27:25
Now that I've done analysis, I still don't believe that.
27:28
I just think it's that not everybody's used,
27:30
not everybody's called or not everybody's work
27:33
is to be transparent and super forward, you know?
27:38
Some people have work where they're wanting other people
27:40
to think through things or do things.
27:42
And I do want people to think through things,
27:43
but for me, it's just trying to be honest
27:46
and clear as possible.
27:49
You know, my mom has this book back here
27:51
called, I Gotta Be Me.
27:53
And, you know, I believe that full force.
27:56
I didn't read that until years, a few years ago.
27:58
And it just, I was like, oh, I am my mother's son, you know?
28:01
And like my mother never met an enemy.
28:03
And, you know, even when people say mean things to her,
28:05
she would always be so kind to people.
28:07
And, you know, I'm not as loving as my mom in some ways.
28:13
You know, my mom was just so full of life
28:15
and so full of love, you know?
28:16
But I do love people that much.
28:19
I don't express it necessarily in the most,
28:22
in the similar ways because I study philosophy,
28:26
because I study theology, because I study psychology,
28:29
because I study scholarship, you know?
28:32
So I have a lot of facts and concepts
28:35
and ideas that go along with that.
28:39
So it might make it more complicated, but it's interesting.
28:42
The more I've, you know, the more I study, you know,
28:45
I started studying Paul Tillich,
28:48
and then it went to Paul Tillich,
28:49
to went to like Hegel, and now it's gone from Hegel.
28:53
Then it went to Freud,
28:54
and now it's gone from Freud to Lacan.
28:57
And to Lacan, to some modern day philosophers
29:03
like Todd McCowan, and Zizek, and Richard Boothby,
29:08
and folks like that, who I'm learning a lot from the,
29:13
not like, I'm not with them.
29:14
I'm reading their books and listening to their lectures
29:17
and their talks and such, you know?
29:20
But as the more I study that stuff,
29:22
the more I realize how my mom really got it.
29:26
Like my mom really got it naturally,
29:28
or maybe supernaturally in a way of like,
29:32
I find that when you start to look at all these things,
29:35
all these different concepts and these ideas,
29:36
it really does come back to how do we act with the other?
29:40
How do we react to the other?
29:42
How do we work with the other?
29:44
And then the gospels is how do we love the other?
29:48
And you can learn that from Dr. King and nonviolence.
29:51
You know, I got accused the other day
29:54
of worshiping Martin Luther King Jr. rather than Jesus.
29:58
And I was like, you know, Jesus said these things
30:02
and was killed.
30:03
King said these things, but he also did these things
30:06
and gave us a great roadmap that always the hope
30:10
of nonviolence is a leading to reconciliation,
30:12
even with enemies.
30:14
The beloved community is what it's called.
30:17
And so for me, that's my heart and my hope, you know?
30:21
And I don't know.
30:23
I think I went on a tangent there.
30:24
Did I answer a question?
30:25
That's okay, though.
30:26
I love your tangent.
30:27
I think you almost forgot the question,
30:29
but I enjoyed the tangent.
30:30
And I mean, I have to say, you know,
30:34
I've already told you this when we first talked,
30:36
but you know, your mom meant a great deal to me.
30:39
And even, so my parents, you know, funny story,
30:43
met your mom and Ro Messner when your mom was doing,
30:46
I think a book signing in Birmingham.
30:48
Okay.
30:49
Am I right?
30:50
Is it Ro?
30:51
Yeah, it was Ro, yeah.
30:52
Second husband, yeah.
30:53
And their car had broken down
30:55
and they had to get to a book signing
30:57
in Nashville the next day.
30:59
And my parents call me from, you know,
31:01
this bookstore in Birmingham.
31:02
They're like, hey, we may be driving Tammy,
31:06
Faye, and Ro to Nashville tonight.
31:09
And I'm just like, what?
31:10
You know, they're like, well, yeah,
31:11
they've got to get to Nashville with this book signing.
31:13
It turned out they didn't do that.
31:14
They did, however, help them get like,
31:16
found someone that could fix the car and everything.
31:20
But what was beautiful about that is that
31:23
then like your mom sent my mom like a thank you note
31:26
and they like wrote some letters back and forth.
31:29
And those were like prize to my mom.
31:31
My mom loved writing letters.
31:33
Yeah, and she did.
31:34
She was so kind.
31:36
And like that, just those simple, small ways
31:40
that your mom showed love and caring to people,
31:44
you know, were huge.
31:46
They were huge to my parents, they were huge to me.
31:48
And then the not so small ways.
31:51
I mean, hosting a show with Jim Jay, you know,
31:55
going on Larry King about it
31:57
and all the things that she did to, you know,
32:00
even in the 1980s, you know,
32:02
and I know in the movie, you know, about your mom,
32:05
it talks about how she had the interview
32:07
with the AIDS patient in the early 80s.
32:09
With Steve, yeah.
32:11
Yeah, and how amazing, like how sad it was
32:15
that that was not well-received,
32:17
but what my point in all of this is,
32:20
as she experienced and as you have experienced,
32:24
when we flow in our purpose,
32:26
we're not always going to be liked.
32:28
No.
32:29
But that's okay.
32:30
Because the more we give up the desire to be liked,
32:32
to instead do the thing that we're created to do,
32:36
the more powerful we are, you know?
32:38
And it's tough, you know,
32:40
because it does come at a cost, you know?
32:46
It's like our words may hold more strength,
32:50
but it does come at a, it does, you know,
32:52
it does come at a, it can come at a cost.
32:54
And that's tough.
32:55
I mean, I'm grateful because that interview
32:57
she did with Steve Peters,
32:58
Steve became like a mentor to me before he passed.
33:02
And he just passed away just recently,
33:04
a couple of years ago from cancer.
33:08
So he was a miracle.
33:09
He survived AIDS during that time.
33:11
He had done every medication.
33:13
He had gone blind for a while.
33:15
He had got, you know, the sores all over his skin,
33:18
couldn't be touched.
33:19
And they called him an anomaly.
33:21
He called himself a miracle,
33:22
but the medical community said he was a medical anomaly.
33:25
And, you know, so Steve became a big part of my life.
33:29
And like a granddad to the kids was sending, you know,
33:32
always send my kids gifts and presents and stuff.
33:34
And, and I'd say probably the hardest I've ever mourned
33:38
and wept, cried in my life is when my mother passed.
33:42
And then when Steve passed,
33:44
I was actually living in this house when Steve passed.
33:46
And I remember sitting in the,
33:47
have a stairway that goes up to my apartment
33:51
and just sitting in the, in the hallway,
33:54
just, just bawling my eyes out.
33:57
But, you know, even that moment,
33:58
cause that moment had an effect on me
34:00
because I knew my mom was doing something
34:02
that wasn't acceptable, but I knew it was quite amazing.
34:05
And so those affected my life.
34:08
That if those moments affected my life as well,
34:10
not just people outside, but my life
34:13
and seeing my mom in action, like, you know,
34:17
seeing her, how she reacted to people in person
34:19
when they were being cruel, spoke loudly to me.
34:25
And, you know, it's funny.
34:28
Cause I think when my dad went to prison and we were,
34:30
you know, I was going to high school
34:31
and I was a pain in the butt sometimes,
34:34
I'm not gonna lie, snuck out of my house.
34:35
My mom put a deadbolt on my window.
34:37
You don't want to see an angry four foot 11 Tammy Faye
34:42
at midnight when you're trying to sneak in,
34:44
sitting in the dark, asking you where you've been.
34:48
It's, it's terrifying.
34:49
I've seen a part of Tammy Faye, no one's seen.
34:53
But, you know, we would have like stuff like, you know,
34:54
we just did our best.
34:55
So like, sometimes we would just be having pizza for dinner.
34:58
Like we would just order pizza and things like that.
35:00
You know, she was doing her best to be a single mom
35:03
and raise a teenage son.
35:05
And, but we were, you know, it was these,
35:09
these weird examples of what,
35:11
what really was important were things like
35:13
seeing how she treated other people in public
35:16
or knowing that I could sit with her
35:19
at the food court in the mall
35:21
and we could talk about anything.
35:23
You know, when she found out I had lost my virginity
35:27
cause I got crabs, she called me and Jamie Charles.
35:32
And I told her I got it from borrowing somebody's shorts.
35:34
And she knew better than that.
35:36
And once she talked to the doctor
35:37
and sat down and had this conversation with me,
35:39
we were always able to have difficult conversations,
35:42
whether it was about my own personal life,
35:45
about drug use or alcohol use,
35:48
or about politics as life went on,
35:53
education, just different things like that.
35:56
And, you know, she, I remember when she,
35:58
when we sat down at Chick-fil-A,
36:01
I always think it's funny.
36:02
It was Chick-fil-A and I said,
36:03
mom, I have to speak out on behalf of my LGBTQ brothers
36:07
and sisters, I have to do it.
36:08
And she goes, well, can't you just do it
36:10
without saying anything?
36:12
You know, cause you just love people.
36:14
And I'm like, mom, I'm like, I gotta say it.
36:16
I, you know, I'm like, and I,
36:17
and there was this Dr. King quote that said,
36:20
it's not the words of our enemies we will remember,
36:22
but the silence of our friends.
36:25
And I said, and I'd seen that in a bar in Atlanta,
36:29
written on a piece of paper, hanging on a wall.
36:32
And I said, mom, I've been haunted by this quote.
36:35
And then I said, the other night I was thinking about like,
36:37
how many people do you think God called to fight for,
36:42
you know, civil rights before Dr. King?
36:45
How many people didn't speak up because they were afraid?
36:49
And I said, I don't wanna be the person who didn't speak up.
36:52
I wanna be the person who does speak up.
36:54
And she's okay, you know?
36:56
And I remember my dad saying, you know,
36:59
the Christians are gonna crucify you.
37:00
And then he was like,
37:02
of course everybody has to be crucified.
37:04
You know, he's very, very different way of doing it.
37:09
But, you know, I did get the sense
37:10
that my father respected me,
37:12
even though he didn't necessarily agree with me.
37:15
And that was, you take what you can get at those moments,
37:19
but having parents that I could tell were proud
37:22
of what I was doing was, was helpful.
37:26
And, and being able to see how my mom was as a human being,
37:31
it's such a big part of my life.
37:32
And when someone, you know, when your mother passes away
37:35
and it's been years, you know,
37:36
you start to see things that you took for granted
37:39
and to realize the power behind them.
37:42
Like you said, like you can make it.
37:43
And, you know, that kind of,
37:44
the stuff that she used to sing or say on TV.
37:46
And, you know, she always had this really positive attitude.
37:50
Like even when I wanted to be like, I'm just mad.
37:52
I wanna be mad.
37:53
I don't wanna be happy.
37:54
I don't want the happy news, you know?
37:57
And, but I think back to some of those conversations we had
38:00
when she was telling me certain things
38:02
and now those words mean something
38:04
completely different to me.
38:06
And they, they keep me going, you know?
38:09
And, and I'm grateful for that.
38:11
You know, I'm grateful to have that.
38:13
That's really amazing.
38:14
Yeah.
38:15
And you know, I'm not, I'm not one of these people
38:18
who is like, I know there are people
38:20
that you deal with probably who are like,
38:22
yeah, your mom's okay, but I hate your dad.
38:24
You know?
38:25
I hate your parents.
38:27
Yeah, I'm sure.
38:28
And they're still your parents.
38:30
And I mean, there are a lot of things theologically
38:32
I don't agree with your dad on,
38:34
but I still have respect for him
38:35
and we're all children of God.
38:37
And, and yeah, for no other reason, I, you know,
38:40
I'm a big believer in this whole us versus them thing
38:44
is not the way to live in love or purpose.
38:48
Well, I mean, the whole book of Galatians
38:50
is based on Paul trying to bring a group of Christians,
38:55
Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians together
38:58
into a community so they don't destroy one another.
39:01
You know?
39:02
So this us versus them thing is not a biblical thing.
39:05
Cancel culture is not a biblical thing.
39:07
But of course the church, you know,
39:09
forgot that they were kind of the ones
39:11
that started cancel culture a long time ago.
39:14
You know, they think it's a woke thing.
39:16
I'm like, no, I don't think so.
39:19
You used to, you know, the things that they accept about,
39:22
I mean, I'm shocked their acceptance of Trump.
39:26
Cause I'm just like, gosh,
39:27
I remember a time where it was like,
39:29
if someone, you know,
39:32
did something just remotely questionable,
39:35
it was, you know, your whole career was over.
39:37
And now it's like, well,
39:39
you know, now they start comparing them to David and stuff.
39:41
I'm like, oh, wow.
39:42
I hope you've enjoyed this first episode with Jay Baker.
39:45
This is such a long interview
39:46
that we actually do have this in two episodes.
39:48
So make sure to tune in on June 11th
39:51
when part B of this episode with Jay Baker drops.
39:55
He will be talking about more along the lines of
39:58
grace as anarchy and how really transforming lives happens
40:02
when we meet people where they're at.
40:04
It's a very powerful episode and I hope you'll join me.
40:06
Also this coming Monday,
40:07
don't forget that I will be dropping my next solo show
40:10
where we continue to talk about purpose, work, identity
40:13
and challenging those limiting beliefs.
40:16
Thank you again for joining.
40:17
I will see you next time.