Latest / A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast / Praying for Seoul, Vote!, & The Discourse Around Violence w/ Ben Daniel

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Praying for Seoul, Vote!, & The Discourse Around Violence w/ Ben Daniel · A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to a Matter of Faith, a Presby podcast, the podcast where we respond to your questions and comments on issues of faith, social justice, and church life.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Don't be afraid to write in and ask your question, because if it matters to you, it matters to us, and it just might be a matter of faith,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Whether it be faith in God, faith in others, or faith in yourself.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: We are brought to you by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and Unbound the interactive journal on Christian Social Justice for the Presbyterian Church usa.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I am your host, Lee Cato,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm your host Simon.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Do.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Without further ado, let's dive into today's questions.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, this is really exciting because this is our 100th episode of a Matter of Faith a Presby podcast, and we are so grateful to you all for listening and going on this journey with us, and we look forward to bringing you more exciting faith-based podcast content.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I cannot believe that we are at a hundred episodes, Simon.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: That's world me world.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: And yes, thank you all so much.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: And in celebration of a hundred episodes, a matter of fate is releasing what we like to call listening guides.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: And those are available now.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: And a link is going to be put in the show notes at the footer of the episode.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: So now, at every episode, you could find the link to the listening guides at the foot at the bottom of our show notes.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: And so you just click it and each listening guide is divided up into themes.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And we pick some of our favorite episodes to put under those themes and, and provided y'all reflection questions.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: So if you wanna find a way to kind of take in all these episodes, it's a great way to do by yourself.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Or if you wanna do it with friends or a faith community, it's a great way to kinda start listening to the content if you haven't, or to listen to it again in a new way with our reflection questions.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: So we're excited to celebrate a hundred episodes with our listening guides.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: And so yeah, check'em out.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're interested in issues of, for example, race or church leadership or climate change or gender, we have listening guides about all of those different types of issues.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: And, uh, it also includes timestamps to the guest portion of the episodes where we talk about that particular issue in that episode.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: So be sure to go and check those out.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: And without further ado, let's get to our main podcast show content.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Well, hello everyone, and welcome again to a Matter of Faith, a Presby podcast.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I am joined as always by the lovely Lee Cato.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Lovely Lee.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Lovely Lee, You remember that game?
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: How you doing?
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: You used to play where it was like, Oh, you had to tell your name and then, uh, an adjective with the same letter as your name.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: , that made me, that reminded me of that lovely lee, which
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Kids like to say
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Tested to my name.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: So
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, kids like to say inappropriate things with my name.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'll just, I'll just leave that to the imagination of our, our listeners,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: .
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Y'all can, Yeah, y'all can think about that.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: But how are you, Simon?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I'm doing all right.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Uh, I went and got my additional covid booster the other day, and so I'm feeling some of the effects of that, and especially because I got my flu shot with it, and I did not make the same mistake that I did the last time I, I got, uh, a covid vaccine or booster and the flu shot, which was last time I got the shot in both arms.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: So one in each, The problem with that is that you get sore wherever you get a shot, right?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: And if you get a shot in both arms, it means that when you go to sleep, you can't turn onto either side
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Of your, of your body in the bed when you're trying to sleep.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So this time I was like, All right, I'm only gonna get it on one side.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: But then it just so happened to be that last night, for some reason, my body really wanted to be on that side, but couldn't do it because every time I turned over, it would feel sore and stiff.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Ugh.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So I'm a I'm a little sleep deprived today, but that's okay.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: It is worth it to be, to be boosted.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: You are boosted.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: We're all about getting boosted on the pod.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I am in the midst of packing.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I am in the midst of preparing my heart and mind to go on a trip.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And some of y'all may hear about it, and if you don't, you should look at it.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: It's the Mosaic of Peace Conference with the Peacemaking program, and that is the program that Simon does a lot of work with and who is a partner of the podcast.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: And I will be going on the trip to Israel Palestine.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And so I will be headed there on Saturday.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: You will hear me from there whenever we record our podcast and giving y'all updates and just telling you about the trip.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: And you should check it out online.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: And we may even put the, we could put the link for people to kind of check out if they wanna follow along.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: We're gonna be doing some writing.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: We're gonna be doing some, some video and some a lot of photography, so y'all should check it out.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: But I am preparing to go to Israel, and yeah, it's gonna be a long trip, so it's just a lot of work, and I'm gonna be gone a time, which I'm gonna miss Will, and I'm gonna miss the dog.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: And
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: And they'll miss you as well.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: But it'll be good.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: It'll be good.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: I'm excited, but, but traveling that long is never fun, but it'll be good.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: So I'm preparing, and yeah, it was a good weekend too.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Had a lot of good food, which I was nice, good about.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And as a, as this past weekend was the weekend right before Halloween?
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: , uh, we hope folks had a good and safe Halloween and trick or treating.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I think we had, let's see, we had a decent number of kids come out in my neighborhood, so I was, I was pleased with that.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I like giving out candy and it's different living in like a, a sub, well, I guess it would be more residential.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I say suburban because everything is suburban compared to like New York City.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Uh, which is a little bit different, but it's, it's nice to hand out candy in like a household.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Although I love seeing, uh, videos and photos of what different churches were doing for Halloween.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: That's always exciting.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Uh, but also speaking of, of Halloween, we do wanna get to our news segment and offer some prayers for the victims and the, and the families and friends of the people who were killed in a, a Halloween stampede in Seoul, in the ETA one district in Seoul, in South Korea.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: I think I was reading something about 150 people were killed, uh, because they were just completely crammed in this alley space, and you couldn't get out once you got in.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: And so people were trampled and they were like getting asphyxiated by the sheer volume of people, which is just very sad.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And it's a little bit surprising be because South Korea is known for having pretty civil and really good crowd control.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: And so a lot of people are wondering how this, how this could happen.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I've read different reports about the number of security and police being the same as in previous years, but they didn't expect the, the sheer high volume of people that turned out for this year's Halloween festivities.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Um, I'm sure there's probably other reasons as well, but prayers for those folks because that's, you know, that's sad.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: You wanna come out, you wanna have a good time, and no one, no one obviously shows up to that and expects a to be to die in a stampede.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: That's really sad.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: And yeah, again, prayers and we should all be sending up, sending up those prayers to our, our siblings there.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: And what people may not realize is that, you know, the Presbyterian church has a big connection with South Korea when it comes to mission and when it comes to partnerships, and when it comes to all that, all those things.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: So we are sending, we are sending prayers to them, and we're also sending prayers to all y'all in hopes that on November the eighth or before that, you will all vote.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: And if you're not registered to vote, we hope that you all go vote.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: I live in DC to where my vote is very interesting in that we, we are, we don't necessarily get a vote for a lot of things.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Uh, and, and so as I am living here and as I'm learning about the dynamics of what that means, I am just very much encouraging everyone out there that during the midterms this year, it is very important.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: We can't tell you who to vote for.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: We can't tell you what part to vote for.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: We can't tell you any of that, but we can tell you to vote and we can kind of push that and hope that you go register and get informed about the candidates who are running, because it's very important because those midterms are coming up very soon and a lot of things are writing on it.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Would you agree, Simon?
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: So, yes.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, they are.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: So go vote folks.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: And speaking of voting, we have a question written in about just that question for today.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Reads, you all have talked about why voting is a faith issue.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: What are some of your experiences parti participating in voting?
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And I appreciate this because, you know, it's funny, in the US you turn 21 and you are able to consume alcohol, and you're really excited about that.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know very many people that are excited about becoming old enough to vote.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Which really seems kind of backwards.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Because voting is so important, uh, to our country and to the political process and to making changes that we wanna see.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Even if you have issues with the process and the people totally understand that.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean you shouldn't go vote.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And I don't know about Yeah, go vote.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, Lee.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Um, I remember my first time voting because I was in college, so I voted absentee and I had to, you know, fill out all, print out the forms, make sure I filled it out correctly, make sure I sent it off.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: There were people on campus who were saying, If you're not registered to vote, let us help you.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: We have forms here so that you can register to vote here in Ohio, which is where my college was.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I voted absentee again when I was in South Korea as a young adult volunteer, and had to go through the whole process of how long is it gonna take to mail my vote to my home state.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: And then there was also the question about, uh, all of the absentee ballots would be counted, but they were only gonna be counted if there was, if it was close in the election, which it wasn't gonna be close.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Let's, in that particular election in, in Maryland Yeah.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Where I'm, where I was registered.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: But, so yeah, a lot of different parts of the process, and again, early voting, I'm seeing posts on Facebook from folks who are saying, early voting's great, because there's fewer lines.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: You're able to just go in, get it done, walk out, you get your sticker, and that's it.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: It's very simple.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: And we always have to, to talk about why we, I mean, we always get asked why we always talk about voting specifically in this context, within this church context.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: And I mean, it is the way in which you express your voice it in, in a system that may not always listen to your voice, but it is one of the ways in which you can express a voice about the issues that you are passionate about when it comes to the political sphere in our country.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And there are many things that we can talk about voting about voter suppression, in which some people don't want to hear your voice, and so they're gonna do anything they can do not to hear that voice.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: But I do think there are many ways in which it is ways to navigate through that.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: And we could even pop in some resources in our show notes when it comes to that, because a lot of people in the office, in our specific denomination are doing a lot of good work when it comes to, to kind of combating voter suppression.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: But it is a way for us to, to kind of express our, our morals and our values and, and who we elect.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: And so it is a faith issue, and it is something that we should all be talking about, not only during this time, but all the time when we're talking about local elections, because those are very, very important because that is, you, you have a direct impact.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: And seeing that in your own community, and if you wanna run for office, I think that's something that's also very important.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: But one of the best experiences that I've ever had in voting is, and I may have said this before, but there was one time where we were, we partnered with an organization in Nashville, Tennessee who would bus and take newly new citizens of the country.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: They had just taken all the, the tests and they had just done all the things they needed to do, and were now registered to vote.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: And I remember, you know, helping out like new citizens of our country who are from all over the world go and be able to vote for the first time, and who were very like, educated about who they were voting for and why they were voting.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: And that was one of the more powerful kind of voting experiences that I had ever been a part of because some, some of those folks had come from countries to where there was never an option to do that.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And some of those people were, took it very seriously, more seriously than a lot of people who were born here, took it that it was very important for them to, to vote and to, to share their opinion and voice in that way.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: And I think that was probably one of the best experiences that I had, you know, in that, in that time period of, of kind of being able to take them to, to their voting polls or showing them where it was.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: And so that was very powerful for me.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And I remember the first time I had ever voted and I was in college, and that's when Barack Obama was elected.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: And being a part of something like that was so powerful for, for our generation in particular.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: But I think seeing, seeing that happen and being a part of that was, was a great experience.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: And of course, like we all have had interesting ideas about voting.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: We're hearing it now with our election stuff.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: But I would, what we can say is we can say to vote, but we can also say that there's a lot of misinformation out there.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: And I think that now more than ever, we should vote.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: And we should also trust our processes where, yes, those processes may be imperfect, but I do think they're not as imperfect as some information misinformation has, has portrayed out to be.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: And we're seeing that right now in this election cycle.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, there's the question of reality and lies and all those are questions of faith.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Why are people lying
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: ?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And I also think that it's very easy to just say, Oh, well, I don't really know these people.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I don't really know anything about these issues.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: But a lot of this is stuff that you could look up and probably have a decent idea about what the issue is that's under up for debate or discussion that you're voting on, or the candidates that you're, that you have the option to vote for.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: A lot of that you can look up and it doesn't take a, a whole long time processes probably could be improved to make that information more readily accessible.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: But again, yeah, be careful about misinformation too, because an unfortunate part of the political process is also just throwing around misinformation about other people who are also running.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Um, so we pray for the folks that are out there who are going to vote.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: We hope that you have a smooth experience and exercise that right.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Because yeah, it's important.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Hit that sticker if they have stickers.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I went to vote once and they ran outta stickers.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, well that would put me off voting forever.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: No.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: stickers are great.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Stickers are great.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: We might even have stickers one day.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: If y'all go vote, you'll get a matter of fate sticker.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Let us know.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Let us know.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: You voted we'll send you one.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Well, we are so excited to welcome our special guests to the podcast this week.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: We are welcoming Ben Daniel, who is the pastor at Montclair Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: And Ben, we are so excited that you are joining us on the podcast today.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: So welcome.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: It is, it's great to be
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Here.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: And Ben, I'm glad to have you, uh, with us because we have a question that I, I think that a lot of Christians kind of struggle with related to nonviolence and conflict resolution.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: And I'm, I'm grateful to have you with us to help think through it.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: So the question reads, we hear about how Christians are called to be peacemakers and how pacifism aligns with Jesus teachings as opposed to violence.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: But is violence or war ever justified to resolve a conflict or situation?
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: How should we navigate this as Christians?
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: It's a big question.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts, Ben?
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: My thoughts are that it is a very big question.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: I think there's, there's been a range of answers to that question over the years.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: On the one hand, you have, you know, you have people like Leo Tolstoy, who was an absolute pass, uh, absolute pacifist, rejected war and violence in all of its forms.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: Uh, on the other end you have re neber who called himself, uh, you know, a realist and believed that though war is and violence are lamentable and and regrettable, sometimes they're necessary.
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: Those are both, you know, great Christian responses.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: And, um, I think Leo Tolstoy and re neber are both thinkers and writers that I admire quite a bit.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: I tend to align myself more with Leo Tolstoy, though, uh, because it, at the end of the day, if I'm being a realist and I wanna think of myself as a realist, I don't think war ever actually really works.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: The, I've spoken to a few historians about this, and these are, these are friends of mine, uh, who are historians and tried to, to, to get them to share with me examples of war that, that have worked where war has been a successful means to writing some wrong or preventing some evil.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: And, and I should say that neither one of these, uh, uh, scholars, historians are pacifists as I am.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: What I have been able to come up with in, in sort of doing my own, I hate to say doing my own research.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: Cause that sounds like I'm gonna say that I'm against vaccinations or something, But, but for my own, my own reading, uh, and study and, and then from consulting historians personally, it seems that that violence and war only ever have two, two results.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Those results are, are either the complete destruction of an enemy or a situation where war leads to other wars.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: And examples of that would be complete destruction of enemies.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: The United States wars against Native people.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Uh, and I know particularly in California led to, I mean, in California, the wars against Native people led to, uh, a 90%, uh, decrease in the population of native peoples in California over about 60 years.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: So those, there's an example of war that leads to, you know, near complete destruction of a population.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: The other wars, I mean, if you look at say, you know, World War ii, World War II is a, is a war that, that people often suggest is, was a necessary war.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: And yet World War ii, if it was necessary, it was only necessary because of the wars which preceded it, the Spanish, this the Spanish Revolution, World War I, the, the, the Franco Oppression wars.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: And, and after World War ii, you had this whole host of wars, which happened during the, uh, the, the, the Cold War.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: And we lived under the shadow of complete nuclear, uh, nuclear annihilation.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: And in some ways, many of the problems we face today, uh, as, as a world, uh, many of the, the, the, the wars that are happening in the, in the, the global south, uh, I would say the war in Ukraine, uh, even issues like, uh, the, the, the, the migration patterns that are happening from, from Central America to the United States, these all happened because of World War ii.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: So World War ii, though it was successful in stopping Germany's expansion in Europe, and it was successful in, in, in stopping the expansion of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific Theater.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: It ultimately, it, it only led to more wars.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Ultimately, it didn't, If, if, if, if the goal was peace at the end of the war, it did not happen.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: And so I know that Reinhold Neer's discussions about the necessity, the unfortunate necessity of war, because he was a realist, those arose in the aftermath of World War ii Well, and lead up to World War ii and after World War II is when Reinhold neer developed and expressed his, his idea of, of, um, realism in, in his approaching to war.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: But I, I think it ultimately, history has proven neer wrong about that.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: I think, I think what what has happened realistically is that war has led to more war, or war has led to complete annihilation.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: And I don't, I don't know of any examples, uh, where that's not the case.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: There may be some, I I, I, I hope that there are some people listening to this podcast who can send me an email and, and point out the war that actually solved a problem without leading either to the annihilation of the, of the enemies or to, um, or to more war.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: I, I, I would like to know about that.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Cause I'd like to learn from
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: It.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: And I often, I'm really, I'm often on the fence about this question all the time because just in history, when it comes to, I mean like slave revolts and other types of, of violent stemmed from the oppression of others and stemmed from injustice.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: And, and in many ways, some of those, some of those people were free.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: But it also then kind of created a domino effect of, of more violence against people who were enslaved too.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: And I know there were a lot of Native American instances where those were revolts based off of oppression from people coming over and the colonists and things like that.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: And so when it comes to the, for violence, not necessarily when we're talking about war as in institutionalized nations against nations and things of that nature, but as, but I often, I'm often really iffy when get asked this, because we see it in, even in now where, where many marginalized folks do go that extra step of what violence is because of so much oppression upon a certain demographic, or when it comes to our black siblings or when it comes to native siblings, there are, there are times where that is a re a result of oppression.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: And so I wonder as Christians that maybe we are called to be passivists, but it, but in those instances where it's completely justified because of the oppression that is placed upon somebody, I wonder about that, in which, when we're talking about violence and not necessarily war, and we had these conversations, violence always gets like, Oh, we don't do that.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: But when it comes to people who are oppressed on a, on, on the reg on a daily basis mm-hmm.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: , sometimes I, sometimes I wonder what the Christian response to that is.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Like, there is always no violence, but because of the systems in which people are in, that is what comes of it.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: And, and we've seen it throughout history.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: So I wonder, and I don't know if there'll ever be an answer, but it's something that I struggle with often in these conversations of, of what is peace and what is pacifism and what is necessarily violence in a certain sense.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: So I wonder, I've always wondered about that.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I always wonder about it in these conversations.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: And I think that if you're not wondering about it, you're not paying attention.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, I honestly, I think that, that that's a, those are really, you know, when I say I'm a pacifist, those kinds of situations are, are serious challenges to me and to my pacifism.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: And, and, and for good reason.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: It's, it's very understandable.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: What I can say, you know, about that is that as far as I know in history, there has been one successful uprising of enslaved people that actually worked.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: And that was the Haitian Revolution.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: And in response, the, you know, it, it's, well, I mean, it's, it's, I I will not sit in judgment of those who, who engage in, in, in, in armed uprising against the French in 80.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Um, but for the, for the most part, things have never gone well when oppressed persons rise up with, um, you know, with military arms, it, it, it almost always ends up being much worse for the oppressed people.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Um, when people rise up and are proactive and engage using the systems or, or the, the tech that using, uh, nonviolent practices like the, the, the, the, you know, India finding its independence under Gandhi or, uh, South Africa throwing off Apartheid or Eastern Europe coming out from underneath the Iron Curtain, there's a much better track record there.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: That's not to say that I, I sit in a whole lot of judgment of people, for example, that, that, that the people in Haiti who, uh, or other, other revolts by enslaved people or by seriously marginalized people.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: I also know that when I was in high school, I knew a lot of, there were a lot of people in my community, sort of, I grew up in this kind of behind the redwood curtain among a lot of hippies.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: You know, there were a lot of Birkenstocks and homemade granola involved when I was growing up.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: And people from around there were going down to Nicaragua because the Santa Isa rebellion had happened, and the, and the, the Santa ISAs and the Contras were fighting each other.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: And, and so people from my church, from like teachers from my school, friends of mine went down to participate in the Santa Anisa revolution.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Not bearing arms, but doing things like building schools and, and, uh, building houses and, uh, water systems, things like that.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: And they came back and painted a picture of Nicaragua and of the San Anis that was really rosy.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: And then I went off to, to actually went to, lived in the Dominican Republic as an exchange student, became fluent in Spanish and came back to California and started talking to immigrants.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Some of them from Nicaragua, uh, visited, uh, Central America, not Nick Rowell, visited Costa Rica and, and found myself in a United Nations sponsored refugee camp full of people who had escaped the, the brutality of the San an ISAs.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: And I, and I, uh, met some people in my town who had been absolutely brutalized by the San an ISAs, these people who were being presented as just, and good.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: And, and, you know, I think their, I think their cause was good.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: I think, I think they were right.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: I understand why they overthrew the, the, the, the, the samosa regime and Nicaragua, and yet they became the oppressed became the oppressor pretty quickly.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: The victim of violence became violent pretty quickly.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: And I think that is part of the nature of warfare as well, Um, that even people who fight with good cause can become monsters, um, because that's part of human nature and it's part of what happens in violent situations.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: So that's, I mean, that's a, I don't think that answers the questions you raise you raised, because there are no answers to the questions you raised.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's part of the, the painful, painful, ethical and moral decisions that we have to wrestle with as people of faith.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: And it's never easy.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Mm.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: So, in some ways, one of the, one of the things that you said usually happens in war is it could be the annihilation of the enemy.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Um, but it also can, and, and often when resorting to violent means, we also run the risk of losing ourselves.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Along, along the way.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: And I think that's important to, to keep in mind, especially if what you're thinking about when we're thinking about what the, I guess, goal or purpose of conflict or war actually is, um, and, and how it should be resolved.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Because I don't know if the goal in the beginning is anni the enemy.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: The goal is usually achieving some kind of objective.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: But as you, as you and Lee have raised it, that gets really hard when an oppressed people really wants change, wants, wants rights, wants respect, wants equal treatment.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: And it's difficult to not then become and take on characteristics of your oppressor when you finally get there, or in the process of trying to get there.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I, that is, I think that is important to keep in mind.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And something else I've been thinking about, Ben, you and I, I wanna say like a year ago we were on a Zoom call together, and you used a, uh, an analogy that I thought was really interesting as we think more about, not just like systemic violence, but also very specific ideas about how we think about conflict resolution.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: And I believe the example you provided was, let's say there is a, a criminal, a criminal on the street, engaging in bad activities, and a police officer shoots the criminal.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Is that conflict actually resolved or is it just ended?
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: And that's a very fine difference and a distinction for people to think about.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: And what would be the ideal way that that situation actually is resolved?
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: And actually, cha, that could lead to change, that could lead to, I'm not saying everyone can be rehabilitated by any means, but that could lead to a, at least a more peaceful outcome.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: .
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: And I wanna, Yeah, I wanna know if you had any more thoughts about that in terms of thinking about actual
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Conflict resolution.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that, um, the use of violence to resolve conflict, right?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I think it maybe ends the, the moment, but really we have to look beyond.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: So let's say a person is acting violently in the, in the streets.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: There's a guy in our neighborhood who sometimes walks around and, and acts in ways are inappropriate and makes us all scared.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: And we wish he would stop, right?
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: If we call the, the police and the police shot him, that would end the conflict.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: But a better thing would be to live in a, to live in a society that actually made public health services available to people.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: And cuz we don't, I mean, it's, it's, it's, uh, you know, as a, as a pastor, I can tell you that when members of my church have mental health crises, it's super hard to get help.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: And we're like, we're really privileged people in my congregation.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: And, you know, similarly, again, and in my context, there's a lot of home homelessness.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: People are unhoused.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: So, and, and so what we, you know, there's, and there's a lot of, there's been a huge shift in the, the economy of the region, such that used to be, Oakland used to be a city where there was a lot of jobs for, for people who didn't need an ed, you know, didn't need a degree to get a job.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: You know, there were, there were, there were factory jobs, there were industrial jobs, blue collar work, um, lot of opportunities for people who didn't grow up going to the best schools, jobs for immigrants, jobs for people who come here through the, during the great migration after World War ii.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: All of that has changed and all that has changed and that, that has destabilized our, our communities.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Well, and, and to a certain extent there's been a rise in crime as a result of that destabilization.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: What if we stabilize the communities instead of shooting people?
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, it seems like a, seems like a pretty good answer now, connect that to military violence.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: And it's not just the police shooting one person who's committing a crime.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: It's, you know, it's, it's in the case of the United States invading, uh, Iraq, it's it that's, or Afghanistan, it's, it's the most powerful military in the history of humanity.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: Dropping carpet bombs that kill children, you know, that devastate communities that destroy the destroyed neighborhoods that in such a way that they won't be rebuilt for, for decades.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: Probably destroying infrastructure, things like so that people can't drink clean water, that they can't access healthy food.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: It's, it's a complete annihilation of society.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Done for, well, for no real good reason as far as I can tell.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: And so what if instead of responding to, say, nine 11, which happened, you know, now quite some time ago, 20 years ago, what if instead of sort of invading Afghanistan and then Iraq, what if we engaged with the world that was thinking of us with really good will directly after that?
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: And what if we'd tried to address some of the root problems that were creating nity between the United States and certain communities that didn't appreciate us?
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: You know, we, we had some opportunities to, to behave peaceably and to do the things that actually lead to solutions.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Whereas what we did gave us no real good solutions.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think about the war in Afghanistan.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: We spent, we were there for more than 20 years and spent, I don't know how many hundreds of billions of dollars and we left and we're right back where we started.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: The Taliban's in control and the region's unstable and the, the, the condition of women is really, really dire.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: So what did war accomplish as far as I can tell war accomplished?
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: Well, it, it killed a lot of people and, uh, destroyed a lot of lives among the, those who survived it, uh, both in Afghanistan, in and in the United States.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: So I, I'm, I I think that, you know, using the analogy of a, of a, of a crime in progress, um, I think if we, That's absolutely right.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: We need to solve the problem, not just in the crime.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: And what war does is it maybe ends the crime, but it usually doesn't do that very well.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: But it never solves the problem as far as I can tell.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, and it often creates a lot more problems than it does.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: And yeah.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: And I al and I also think about, I mean, we use the analogy, you know, with the criminal and, and all that, which is hard because specifically in this country, when it, when, when that situation intersects with like mental health, but it also intersects with race and it intersects with economic class.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: And we are all in this conversation very privileged.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: And so it is hard to kind of step into, Yeah.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: And to think and to think about some of these things when, in many cases, especially like us being as two white men standing here and like talking about in ways that like violence may or may not inflict our lives directly because of what we represent, like what we embody because of our privilege in society.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: And so it's often in these kind of conversations too that it's the understanding of also where the violence is coming from as it intersects racism and systems of white supremacy.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: , because you often hear like, Oh, why are people doing this?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Or why are people doing that?
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: And it's all about the action.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: And it's all about kind of like the optics of it, instead of, like you were saying, going deeper into understanding where this is coming, where things are coming from, what are the systems at play, what are the dynamics in a specific context as so how we understand it and, and how we aren't coming from it from a sense of judgment, but also having all of these things where we sit back and say, we can understand what is going on because of these dynamics and this is what's happening.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: And not, not saying that we should all just say, Oh, it's fine that you're doing these things, but also saying that this, these systems are so messed up that we are all impacted by them and the oppressed are impacted by them the most.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: So much so that even in, even when people are seeing the violence erupting from the oppression itself, they are then going to be implemented into a system that is against them that will then enue more violence upon them in very different ways, whether it be imprisonment or whether it be, you know, you'll never get housing because you have a record and you'll never get this.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: And so it's, there's all these other types of violences too that I think we often may not see.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: And that comes with war too.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: It's not just the guns and it's not just the bombs.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: It is economic violence.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: It is all of these things that are implemented in there.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: And I say all that to say it is very complicated.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Um, and, and who even talks about it, it's even complicated to even in this space.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: And so I didn't want to go away with that.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Not saying that cuz we try to be as honest as we can on these pod on, on these podcasts and saying this is complicated.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: So much so that even when people are talking about it, we often have to check our own kind of selves even thinking about it is what I'm trying to say to people who are listening in that.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: And I would say even like you're, you're talking about sort of the systemic issues of, of race and economic injustice and all those kinds of things which exist certainly in the city where I live.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: One of the only really, the only solid pathways that, that, that folks are given to escape poverty in Oakland right now is the military.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: And, and so what, what we, we as a society are doing is we're looking at people, and this is also, this is true in the, in the cities, um, but it's also true in, um, in, in the rural communities like the, the places where I grew up, uh, cities around where I grew up in, where there's a lot of rural poverty and, and urban poverty, the militaries that like held up as being your ticket out.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: So what we do is we say, we'll get you out of this violence by giving you another kind of violence.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: We don't ever offer people a way out that involves peace.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're, those, they exist.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying they don't exist, but, um, you know, if you go to high school right now, I've, I've got a, um, my, my youngest child is just in his last year of high school, but as my kids have been in high school, we've had to opt out of military recruitment.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: And it's hard to do.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: And, and there's always, there are always military people in the hallways at job fairs.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: My son's a a soccer player, the military as you towards the end of the season, like if you make the playoffs that the military sponsors the playoffs.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: And so there, there's this big recruitment pitch at the playoff games, uh, at the end of the soccer season.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: So it's, it's, um, we are a militarized military, uh, country and I, and in some ways I think that we, you know, I I think there's this, because of our need for violence, uh, military violence, we almost aren't, there's, there's almost an incentive, us incentive for us not to fix the issues of poverty and, and, and, and, you know, various economic disparities and mental healthcare issues and whatever, all those things, because that becomes a source of, of, of cannon fodder, of, of people that we can, of people whose lives, frankly we consider to be dispensed, spendable, expendable rather, who we will will send over seize to, to fight our wars.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: For us, it's, it's a, it's horrible.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: And, and, uh, you know, there's, we, we have a huge need for people who can do the trades.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: For example, in our country, when you have a huge need for electricians and plumbers and, you know, carpenters because we have a, a huge problem with a housing shortage, but we don't have the, the, the carpenter's union or the plumber's union or the, the electricians unions sponsoring our, our soccer games or sitting in the hallways of the school recruiting people.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: That would be a wonderful way forward for a lot of people good paying jobs.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Uh, but we're not doing that.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: We're, we are, however, spending a lot of money and a lot of effort, putting a lot of time and energy and effort into recruiting people to carry guns and to kill for our country, uh, which breaks my heart,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Honestly.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: That's how it was where I'm from, so, Yeah.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: And they don't, and then you have veterans that Right.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Don't get taken care of, so.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: So it's just a cycle.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Right, Right.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: And I think that another part of this, of this part of the conversation is that what we're doing right now is we're critiquing a system.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: We're not critiquing individuals who choose to go and serve, who do engage in that per se.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: And I think that's something else that people sometimes start to, and they start, there's a tension there as well when thinking about pacifism and versus like war.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: It's like, so does that mean that you are, uh, you know, condemning people who do choose to serve in the military?
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Because we have, there are people who serve in the military and veterans in our congregations and in our communities, and that there, there's a difference between critiquing systems and judging a person or saying that what they do is, is, is bad per se.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Um, I think that that would be, make it a little bit overly simplistic.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: And I recognize also that to some people it would be like, yes.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: And some of those folks that have served will may even say, I really, I don't want others to do what I did because I suffered a lot.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: And others may have other feelings about that.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: But just to recognize that that tension and that, not ambiguity, but that it's a very gray area and that, that it exists and that that's not easy to walk either as people of
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: Faith.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: You, you know, that's true.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: And I have, you know, it's, it's been a challenge for me as a pastor of a church which has explicitly claimed that the title Peace church, you know, we're officially opposed to warfare.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: And there are, there are people in my congregation who, uh, have served and, uh, what, what I wanna say is there is the very fact that we have to say that whenever I talk about passivism, whenever, as a Christian, whenever folks have these kinds of conversations publicly, we all have to say, But I wanna make sure you all know that I, I I I support the troops or I'm not anti people who make those decisions.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: And that's true, but I think we need to examine the pressure we feel to say that all the time.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: If I critique the education system, for example, and, and there's a lot of problems with the education system in, in California, for example, the way California funds schools is completely messed up.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: It's totally racist, it's totally, uh, in inequitable all these things.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: Uh, I, I could talk for days about how bad it is the way California funds public schools.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: I would, in saying that, I would never feel the same pressure to say yes, but I want everybody to know that I like teachers and I support teachers, right?
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: Somehow when we critique the, the american com, like military fetish or we, we, we critique the violence of warfare.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: We feel a pressure and an obligation to, to say that we affirm or we, we don't condemn veterans or people serving in uniform.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: And that that happens to be true for pretty much all of us.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: And yet I think we need to examine the pressure.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: Why do we feel like we have to say that?
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: And I think the reason we feel like we have to say that is because the military, our attachment to the military is so deeply ingrained in us that we are trained reflexively, reflexively.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: I gotta figure out how to talk reflexively.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: We're trained reflexively to consider military service to be among the highest services to the, to the community, to the country.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: And I don't know, I just, I just, I think that it would be good for us to, to enter into a time of reflection about why do we feel like we have to say that, um, when we don't have to say that for when we critique other, other systems, other organizations.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it's just something I think that I, I'd like to see some of us struggle with that sometime.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: And it's not gonna, it's not gonna, we're not gonna come into that conversation on this podcast, but it is something that I think would be very interesting to, to reflect on prayerfully.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: And, and I think it really does depend on the context.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: And I think as this podcast has progressed and, and the progressiveness of the denomination in which we're in and kind of our audience out there, I do think oftentimes we do critique the military.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: And I think on the other side, the people who are amongst and within that are ignored.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: I think on this part, we talk about the system a lot.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: We talk about militarism a lot, and the people within that system often get ignored or often are not asked or invited into conversations.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Specifically veterans, specifically veterans who are dealing with mental illness because of the military comp, uh, complex within this country and the military system.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: And when it comes to a lot of different things when it comes to health reasons and, and all those sorts of things, I do think in some progressive circles it isn't talked about enough.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: And, and I think that's why we often feel that we have to kind of say, Well there are people involved in this.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: It's not justice of this broad concept of we have to get, like we have to critique the system.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: It's, it's also there are people impacted by it.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: And I think often in progressive circles where we are pretty anti militaristic, those people within the system often do get ignored.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, I had to remind somebody the other day that, you know, there are veterans and there are veterans within this conversation that we're talking to here.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: And nobody ever brought it up really.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Nobody ever said, Well what about this?
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: And I've had conversations about education and the medical system and we have teachers and doctors and nurses who are in those conversations.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: So I do think it depends on the context too, in that these progressive circles, I do think we need to critique why, but I also think we do ignore that part of it.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Sometimes even within the policies of the church that veterans and veteran affairs and people who are implemented are often not even consulted.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: Now, I will say, from where I'm from, there are many things that veterans do that I, I don't agree with.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: And they do perpetuate the military complex, but there are also teachers and doctors that perpetuate those systems too and keep those things going.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: And so I think that's where that comes from, is that, and progressivism, we often ignore that voice sometimes.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: And I think, I think that's why we often have to be like, Well, have you thought about a veteran?
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Or that kind of thing?
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: And their mental health and their physical health and, and all those things.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: So I think that's, yeah, that's kind of where I'm coming from in the context of always having to bring it up because it gets ignored, I think.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Well, it's fine to bring it up and it's, it's good.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: I just, I mean, so in my, my experience has been sort of the opposite.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: Like, cuz when sort of, I put myself out there as a past this quite a bit and just about every conversation someone asks me that like, and it's, there's almost an accusatory edge to it.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: Um, and not, I'm not saying I got that here from, from that, this, this conversation at all.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: Um, my younger brother builds robots that, that have been used to greatly improve medical laboratory exams, you know, uh, handling of of medical specimens and laboratories to, to is greatly enhanced the accuracy of, of the lab results.
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: One of my younger sisters is a, is taught for a while in the inner city.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Uh, you know, and, and my, my other sisters a um, hang on a second, I got another one of my sisters is a, um, you know, is a, a vet tech and, and is also is a musician who, who's done a lot to support the cultural life of our community.
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: So I feel like we have served our country quite a bit, my family.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: Uh, and, but in our, in American society, you may be saving people's lives.
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: You may be teaching people to read, you may be, um, you know, improving the cultural and artistic life of your community, but that's not considered service to your country in the same way that picking up a gun and being willing to kill someone is considered service to your country.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: And I just, I think that's worth examination at some point.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Well Ben, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast to give us some ideas and to interrogate and challenge the idea of what is conflict resolution, what is service, uh, to our country and to our communities and what that really means, and I've been really appreciative of, of this conversation, and you mentioned the word and the term Peace church earlier with regards to describing your own congregation.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: And I did wanna let folks know that there are resources available from the denomination about how your congregation, uh, could become a peace church, which is a congregation that takes its commitment to peacemaking, um, farther than a, what we might call a peacemaking congregation in the denomination interrogates some of these larger questions around pacifism and nonviolence and the purpose of war and, and the military in our society.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: It includes an inventory of conscience to sort of help you see where you fall within the spectrum of, I guess, uh, extreme pacifism all the way to, for lack of a better word, War hawk to see where you are currently.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: And it gives you a lot of reflectional material to think about with regards to these issues.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: And then you could take that survey again and see if your positions have changed.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: And so we'll have links to both How to Become a Peace Church, as well as, uh, the curriculum that can help you think about some of these things in the show notes.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Now, Ben actually was a part of the team that helped to put that curriculum together.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: So Ben, thank you for, for your work on that.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: It's, it's a, it's a good, it's a good curriculum.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: I feel really good about it.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: And, um, even if you think you would not like to be a Peace church, I hope you'll take a look at the Peace Church curriculum so that you'll get a better understanding of what we're about and uh, so that our conversations can be richer and fuller and hopefully, uh, uh, lead us all, uh, deeper into the realm of, God,
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: This one's rich and full.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: Maybe we can be an example.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, I hope so.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Uh, Ben, I think it's, I think this is much needed to continue the conversation cuz it is hard depending on the context, so I really appreciate this conversation.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I, I appreciate it too.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: I realize that especially, um, as we talk about how we address the issue of supporting veterans and people currently serving how we address people who may not have many other options, um, Right.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: Those are, those are difficult conversations.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: And I don't, I wanna make sure that we don't end this with a sense that I don't kind of get it.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, I get that it's, it's really hard.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: And yeah, for those that have gone and risked their lives and those that have gone and, and, uh, put off maybe more lucrative kinds of careers to, to serve the country, it's hard, it's hard to have someone like me come along and say, Yeah, but I don't like War.
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Um, and, and I get that, but we do need to have these conversations.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: These are, these are really important conversations to have, especially when we, we realize that war, as far as I can tell, simply doesn't work.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: It doesn't, it doesn't work.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: It doesn't ever solve anything that I've ever known about.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: And, and again, i I I hope that anybody who has an example of a war solving something will, will send it my way because I, I wanna remain open in my mind, uh, we haven't even talked about yet that the situation in Ukraine really, which is that, which is another real challenge.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: And I think that we have to wait, I will, I'm waiting for history to render some judgment, but there are challenges and there are, there are aspects about the questions of, of pacifism versus realism, which really are challenging.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: And, uh, any and one of us who's involved in these conversations, whether you're a past like me or you're more of a realist, standing more of the realist tradition, or you're a warhawk.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: Although I don't know if many warhawks would, would, would tune into this, but, but maybe so, um, we're
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: Not I'll say that.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: I, I assume
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: We're not
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: One.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: But I hope that all of us will keep open minds and I hope all of us will allow ourselves to be challenged.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: Even if we don't change our mind.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: I hope all of us will gain an appreciation for the complexities, um, the rich complexities sometimes, sometimes the horrific complexities that are part of this conversation and part of these, these things that we have to think about.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Because it really is, it really is complex.
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: And if we go into it, uh, it can be deep and mysterious and this wonderful combination of horrific and beautiful that, that, um, that accompanies us on journeys into the spirit and into the places God places us.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: You know, the Kingdom of God meets the realities of the world.
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: And it's a, it's, it's a wonderful journey even if we don't end up on the same destination.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: These moments where our paths, you know, join up on the journey can be really rich and, and and wonderful.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: So I appreciate the opportunity to be part of those conversations here and elsewhere.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: And we also wanna just let folks know that as of the time that this podcast comes out, there will also be a webinar that will be hosted by the Presbyterian Church S USA's, well I think we call it Militarism Working Group, which will be focused specifically on moral injury in relation to military militarism and military service.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: That will be on November 9th, um, at noon on Zoom.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Again, it's a webinar style format.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: We'll put a link to that in the show notes so that folks can check that out because that relates to this conversation as well.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: And finally, Ben has some books that he's written and we'll be sure to put those in the show notes as well.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: And Ben, thank you again so much for joining us for this conversation and for coming on the podcast.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: It was a real pleasure to be here and good to, good to, uh, see you again, Simon, and good to meet you, Lee.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: This has been the matter of Faith Podcast, brought to you by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and Unbound.
• 58:25
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• 58:32
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• 58:33
  Speaker 1: See you next time.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: See you next time, y'all.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks again everyone, for being with us on our hundredth episode.
• 58:48
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• 58:56
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• 59:06
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• 59:09
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• 59:14
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• 59:23
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• 59:25
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• 59:38
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