Episode 15: An Interview with Tim Whitaker of The New Evangelicals Podcast.

Today we interview Tim Whitaker host of The New Evangelicals Podcast. We discuss Tim's story and what led to him to creating The New Evangelicals community and non-profit. We also dive into the details of how they are working to support Christian who are deconstructing their faith and confronting mainstream Christian Nationalism. 

Links:
The New Evangelicals Website.
The Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart
Confession of a Former Fox News Christian by Seth Andrews
The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War by David Livingstone Smith

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Transcript

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Isaac : [00:00:00] 3, 2, 1. Tim, would you like to introduce our guest today?

Tim Thomason: Yeah. I hope I don't confuse everybody because we're both called Tim. But our guest today is Tim from the new evangelicals podcast. And my wife's been a huge fan of his for quite some time and we've been really looking forward to interviewing him. Welcome to the podcast, Tim

Tim: Thanks, Tim. nice to be here, Tim.

Isaac : Tim's all day long.

Tim: Yeah, exactly. Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It's great to be here. And, uh, cool to hear that your wife's a fan of the podcast. That's really awesome. So

Tim Thomason: Yeah, it's good. I'm still relatively new to it. So I've only listened to a couple, but my wife's way ahead of me. 

Isaac : That's great. Tim, can you tell us a little bit about your podcast and about the motivation behind starting your podcast?

Tim: Yeah, so really new evangelicals is actually a nonprofit organization. Podcasting is just one thing that we do. We exist on social media platforms. We have a Facebook community of about 5,000 people. So we are really more of a [00:01:00] digital community than just a podcast. Um, But essentially what led me to start it in December of 2020 was just the evangelical response to things like COVID or to Trump or to black lives matter.

And being someone who grew up in evangelical spaces and was always committed to Jesus, I just couldn't do it anymore. So I thought of the name, the new evangelicals launched an Instagram account and a year and a half later. Here we are as a nonprofit, I do this work full time.

And um, we spend a lot of energy existing for people who have been marginalized by the evangelical church, but still want to stay faithful and committed to the way of Jesus.

Isaac : Before 2020, did you have any conflicts with the church or the theology or anything that was going on or was this the initial conflict that you had?

Tim: Oh, no. 2016 was a watershed moment for millions of evangelicals who were in those spaces. When Trump came onto the scene and watching the evangelical [00:02:00] response become really infatuation and then really allegiance to Trump. One of the things that I cite often that really shifted my perspective in my own movement was when the access Hollywood tapes came out and Trump's caught in a hot mic saying that he likes to sexually assault women in way more crafts terms.

And I thought to myself, oh, this is a slam dunk then for getting Trump outta here, because evangelicals will never go along with this. Because even though I'm not that old, I'm old enough to remember when bill Clinton had an affair in the white house. Evangelicals like, Franklin Ram.

And I think Billy Graham at the time and others were really outspoken that we can't trust a leader who would cheat on his wife. I That, that was a really big part of their push to get Clinton out of office. So I thought to myself, oh if that's the evangelical standard, and again, I was raised in this culture, I was raised in purity culture.

They have a big emphasis on sex only inside of heterosexual marriage. No pornography, nothing like that. I thought, wow, this is a slam dunk, goodbye. Trump. And I almost had a moment of hopefulness where I thought [00:03:00] maybe we're gonna figure out a third party.

Like maybe it should be a third option. Because I understood why evangelicals wouldn't vote for Hillary at the time. A couple days later, Jerry Falwell Jr. Comes out and goes no. We need a commander in chief, not a pastorin chief. And then evangelical just fell online. And I thought to myself, oh, I have a problem here because the people who raised me on purity culture are now telling me to vote for the guy on the cover of Playboy magazine on his third marriage.

And now who likes to sexually assault women. And you're telling me that I'm missing it for thinking that you're crazy for telling me that. So that was one of the beginning moments for me that really made me go. Even though we shared at the time, a lot of the same theological convictions about God and the Bible our values were way different.

Our values were not aligned. So that was the big shift for me. That, that eventually led me to start this.

Tim Thomason: Awesome. I think that's interesting that you put it that way, because that was a watershed moment for me too. And I was, already several degrees detached from religion at that point, cuz I [00:04:00] deconverted probably, I'm going on, I think 12 years of it now. And so I was watching that and I was like, that's it, that's certainly gonna make people jump ship.

And my parents, my family, which were all into it and that, that situation came up and it was like, whoa. So that really made you pump the breaks. You were like, what is going on here?

Tim: That's right. That's right. A huge moment for me that made me think what am I really a part of? How is this happening? Why are so many white evangelicals just in the tank for Trump then? Of course, throughout his presidency the lies, repeated lies, propaganda, the harshness, the vulgarity the racism just totally overlooked by evangelicals, right?

Oh, no big deal. Hey, if you don't like the attitude, he's just telling the truth. He says how it is. And I'm like I couldn't even say damn as a kid.

Tim Thomason: Yeah, me too. Same kind of household

Tim: And here's Trump calling countries shithole countries. And it's like, well, Hey, you know, if the shoe fits, it's like what, what, it was that kind of thing for.

Isaac : Yeah. There was [00:05:00] a pastor that I used to know was associated with and he was online and he said at least we have a president that has a pair of balls it is just quite out of character. So this happens. And then I listen to your introduction to your podcast.

And one of the things that you said was that you're deconstructing your beliefs and you're reevaluating the church and what it means in your values and beliefs. When you started that journey of Deconstruction, as you said, was there anything else that you said this isn't right? I Obviously you saw what was going on with Trump and you said this isn't right, but as you've gone on this journey, has there been anything else that's kind of unearthed for you that, you say, Hey, you know what may in the past, I believe that, but I need to rewrite the book for.

Tim: It depends. There's really two congruent paths happening at the same time. There's the political ideology, then there's the theological [00:06:00] perspectives. And so I think almost see it was a little over a year ago when I started the podcast. And that episode of my introduction was really my first time.

And I was using the term deconstruction, which we, people still use. I'm not a big fan of the term overall for various reasons, but it essentially says, people who are. Or at least were Christian are rethinking what that means to be a Christian or they're taking the exit ramp and just saying I'm out all valid ways of deconstructing for me certainly a lot of my perspectives theologically have shifted, but yes, a lot of my political outlooks and political views.

And also just the waters that I'm in, where do they come from? A lot of things have come up that I've said, that's not right. That's not right. That's wrong. One example would just be learning about the history of white evangelicalism with Jerry Falwell and Paul Wyrick, and how so much of what we're steeped in was based on really not fighting abortion.

It was fighting school desegregation and Jerry Falwell and Paul being really against that, so looking at our history, being like, oh, this is way more racist than I thought. I didn't realize that white supremacy is baked to the cake [00:07:00] here of the tradition that I grew up in.

In fact, I don't think most pastors that, that, that would espouse even evangelical beliefs and conservative beliefs even know that. But when you start reading that, you're like, yeah, that is problematic.

Tim Thomason: Yeah, no kidding. Would it be fair to say you still feel like you're in a bit of a transitional phase and you're still like, because I've listened to a few in the interviews, you do great interviews by the way. And I you, you're talking to people with fascinating backgrounds and the one I listened to today, you were talking to somebody who's studying conspiracy theories, exclusively in how they work.

And so you're getting. You're out here on what I consider to be like a journey of discovering all this new information while also lending to helping hand the people who are commiserating with you or feeling the same way, which I think is particularly powerful and helpful. And people need that kind of thing.

We've ended up at least from my perspective, in a type of society that ends up being so adversarial all the time, for whatever reason and people don't, I, for one don't particularly migrate [00:08:00] towards that, it doesn't help me. And it doesn't make me feel like I'm helping people. So I just really like that aspect of where you're at, but it's also fascinating for me because I came out a little bit sooner and I've been deconverted for more than a decade now.

And so my problems with, my it's so funny, I tell people, I was like, my problems are with religion and faith, not with people

Tim: Sure.

Tim Thomason: it's, it all has to do with behavior and actions most of the time. But uh, yeah. So tell us a little bit about your childhood what'd you grow up in? What was your experience as a kid around religion and what brought you up to where you are now?

Tim: Yeah. I grew up fundamentalist evangelical homeschooled for nine years. my, yeah, cheers. My first church, there was no. Contemporary music. It was HIMS only my parents got quote unquote saved later on in life., my dad came from a very dysfunctional family, a lot of alcoholism in his family et cetera.

And listen being a parent now being 33, I have a lot more empathy right. For my parents and why they [00:09:00] even gravitated towards that lifestyle changed because the path that my dad was on, I think would've really taken his life early. If he didn't make a big shift. So I can't fault him for that.

But the church that they found was very fundamentalist in their theology. So they just took it as, okay, this is what Christianity is. We're gonna raise our kids up this way. My parents are amazing human beings. I They raised us really well. We were never abused, nothing like that, even though they held a more fundamentalist theology and more conservative political viewpoints, but I that's how I grew up.

And then eventually. We got involved with churches that were still very conservative and still very evangelical, but not so fundamentalist regarding like, uh, okay. We can have drums now at the church. I I started playing drums early in the church. I still play today, so I'm grateful for a lot of that.

And then eventually I just, I was always committed to being a Christian. I just was a part of that evangelical culture, my entire life. I often tell people that just like how Paul says that he was the Jew among Jews. I was one of those evangelicals among evangelicals. I have all the, all of the buttons, I have all the Awana stickers.

I, I did the VVS stuff. I did the [00:10:00] worship band stuff. I helped plant churches. I helped with the small groups. I did the youth group trips, I did the mission trips. So I was fully in engrossed in that culture. Always committed to Jesus. And that's really how I grew.

Tim Thomason: Yeah. Yeah.

Isaac : When you started this new community, did you find that when people found you and started communicating with you, was there at all, like just a sense of relief from people that joined your community? Were they like, oh, thank you know, finally, or or was it more of a, maybe a timid interaction where it was like, okay, you know what I don't buy that either.

Yeah. I, I don't really buy that either, and then building up what was kind of the response from people as they were joining your community?

Tim: Overwhelmingly positive. And that first perspective of, oh my God, I'm not alone. Oh my God. There's someone else. Oh, there's people I can talk to. That's by far the biggest response that we get even still today There are definitely some people who are like, Hey, I'm not sure if this is for me.

Some, a few of them are pretty hostile. No problem. I get it. People kind of perspectives. We have a very big [00:11:00] value of not dehumanizing folks, even ones that we strongly disagree with. So we always try and be courteous and cordial even among severe disagreements or, being told F you whatever it is.

But the majority of our interactions are thank God. This thing exists, which again, a year and a half ago, I had no clue what this was gonna become. I had no clue. I didn't even know the term deconstruction. It was not in my dictionary right in my head. I discovered this whole world when I started that account.

That's what kind of threw me into all of that.

Isaac : So when uh, when you started this process and you kind of went on this, self discovery and we're in the, the beginning stages of creating this community, was your wife at the same place as you were you both experiencing the same frustrations or did you guys process this in different ways during the process?

Tim: Yeah, my wife and I are very different in that way. She quote unquote deconstructed way before I did. She was affirming before I was et cetera. And now she would identify as more agnostic than like Christian. But also we have two little kids and [00:12:00] she's just like, listen, I, we have two kids.

They want me all the time. I'm not thinking about this. Like how you are Tim. I'm not, it's not in my, it's just not like in my head to think about these things. So her and I see those beliefs, I think different, but we share of course the same values. That's why our marriage works so well because I'm not concerned so much these days as she believes the right thing is about Jesus.

I'm concerned about are we align on how we're gonna love our kids? Are we aligned on how we love each other, et cetera.

Tim Thomason: it that's so awesome. I have to share this with you. So my wife and I just had our eight year anniversary. We've been together for, probably nine years more. We had about year dating period. when she met me, I was already identifying as an atheist or a nonbeliever. And I had left Christianity and that had been a real challenge for her.

And then we, of course, we end up in a relationship where our ethics all lined up and we date and we end up getting married and stuff. And we went through the ringer, man. My family loved her cuz she was gonna quote unquote, bring me back to Jesus. And then [00:13:00] her family were really concerned about me and we've had a fantastic relationship.

We're not perfect people, it all worked out. Okay. Cuz your ethics line up at the end of the day. And that's really great, but that's so fascinating for me because you guys are like inverted

Tim: We are inverted. Yeah. I, Sarah, we talk about this every now and then she's yeah, like Jesus is somewhere in there. I just, I'm not thinking about it. I'm like, Hey, cool. It's fine. Do your thing again. She is the mom here. She breastfe. So she has kids who want her all the time and she's just yeah, I have no mental bandwidth think about deconstruction or whatever the hell Charlie Kirk is talking about on turning point.

Like she's not thinking about that at all, like how I am. But our values line up and we love each other. We celebrate six years this Friday, actually. 

Tim Thomason: Ah, congrats. That is really awesome. And that, that just to me is like one of those things that we kind of wanted to be a little bit of the center of the podcast here with you today. And it's something that we talk about all the time. It, because our audience, at least audience that we're aiming for are people that have already deconverted as in they're no longer [00:14:00] religious or they're on the fence or they're getting there.

And one of the things that we wanna do is just to provide support, but also encourage 'em that like this isn't like drawing lines in the sand where you have groups of people that you're with, or group of people that you're against. It's you can get along with people who disagree with you, you can be dramatically different and still foster friendships and relationships.

And I think that some people, at least I know that I did when I deconverted, it became very difficult, but that was mainly attributed to just how I was getting treated,

you 

Tim: a second. Hold on. Are you telling me that I'm on a podcast with atheist right

Tim Thomason: Yes you are, sir.

Tim: You know what that means, I have to start izing. So lemme get my Bible out here. I have it right

Tim Thomason: Hey be careful. I know it real well.

Isaac : Oh 

Tim: the Bible has to say.

Isaac : So someone grabbed the God delusion

Tim Thomason: oh, a done gotten real well. That would lead.

Isaac : fun about that is, is I was in the exact same position as Sarah until I started talking to Tim about this, when we decided to do this project, I was just very LA Zaire about it. I'm like, man, I'm just trying [00:15:00] to, Make money and start this new business.

And, and I have my values and beliefs and, I want to improve the, the lives of people that are around me. I definitely relate to that. And I'll tell you what, at the beginning of really digging into this, I was a mess because I was just getting angry or frustrated or, the injustice of a lot of things.

And it's definitely been a, an adventure of doing this podcast and making this subject on the forefront, because there's a lot of amazing things, but there's also a lot of tension, a lot of frustration. There's a lot of, you can get defeated very quickly in this realm of conversation.

Tim: mean, there's no doubt about that. I was thinking, as you were talking that I don't wanna say this in a, in the wrong way, but. I understand why a lot of people who would grow up evangelical in my circles would quote unquote deconstruct and then take the exit ramp at some point and say, I'm done with the whole thing.

I actually, I think it's very valid, right? Because I, if your theology is like Calvinism, right? If your theology, as God has predetermined before the foundations of the world [00:16:00] who's in and who's out and you have nothing, no say in that at all , or even if there's like a free will evangelical version of God gives you a choice between what burning in hell forever or heaven.

How is that a choice? Those are very valid, like critiques of the evangelical framework that frankly evangelicals don't have good answers to like the whole apologetics industry. It just runs itself in circles all day, because they're so stuck in how they look at the Bible and how they look at the world where it's We can't concede the point.

We have to create like other arguments to convince you that like the atheist has no moral framework, right? Those are just not good arguments. So I understand why people would go from where, go from fundamentalism all the way out to a view that said, you know what? No, like I'm just, I'm gonna reject the whole thing.

I, I think for many, it could be a very valid way of living their life.

Tim Thomason: and where I feel like I kind of landed up on the other side of it. A lot of people, something I battle against all the time is stereotyping because, that's, what groups tend to do is that they look at [00:17:00] whoever's on the outside of the group and they stereotype it.

They put it into a box, they think how it works and then that's it. And it's way more complicated than that. And it's my, my non-belief is less of, I know there is no God, and it's more of I, when I get to a point where I don't have good evidence or facts, I say, I don't know. And I just stop and then I wait for better information.

And then I, what I do believe I hold loosely so that I can augment it if I get better information. And I find that position is what's most rewarding for me. I know that some people, and I imagine maybe like yourself and like my wife has at times is that there is something about spirituality that gives you some answers or makes you feel comfort in light of not having an answer maybe.

And I can, understand that to a certain extent. It's just, I don't have to do that. And so it's, it's an interesting realm that you get into, but it's hard to take people who think that atheism is nothing but a declaration of your personal selfishness that you want to be your own God that you make your own morals, that, or that you're [00:18:00] angry at God, all these stereotypical things.

And it's like,

Isaac : Yeah. If you're not a Christian, then what's gonna stop you from raping and pillaging the village. I mean,

Tim: Right.

Isaac : I'm exaggerating about 2% from

Tim: Nevermind that Christians have done that historically, but like

Isaac : yeah. I was just gonna ask since you've started this project and started this community, what's been the most rewarding part of it.

What's or it doesn't have to be the most rewarding, but what's been one of the most rewarding parts of this project for you. 

Tim: That we are helping people. Disentangle their faith. That's what we call it. And just find better ways of being committed to Jesus that give life and don't destroy their lives is incredibly rewarding for me. Uh, Probably whenever I, we get those DMS, it's just rocket fuel just keeps me going.

Our community definitely primarily has people who want to remain in their Christian tradition somewhere, but they found that the basement of evangelicalism is just so stinky. It's so moldy. They just can't be there anymore. And when we were able to help [00:19:00] people discover other ways of interpreting the Bible and looking through the lens of just different world views and perspectives from a Christian, like traditional aspect, meaning Hey, the Christian mistakes, or like the Eastern Orthodox church where the Catholic there's other ways of looking at these things, people go, wow, like this is really saved my faith or helped me just, have more peace at night or just be, or it's helped me love my neighbor better or become more inclusive or more affirming.

Those were all in my books just like major wins. So that by far is most encouraging.

Isaac : yeah, that's awesome. What's been the most challenging.

Tim: Not becoming a fundamentalist all over again,

Isaac : That's interesting. Can you elaborate on. 

Tim: yeah, we're coming out of fundamental spaces. Absolutism is a big thing in these spaces, how do I put it? You just grew up being taught that this is it. There's only one way to heaven.

It's Jesus. And by the way, by Jesus, we really mean the evangelical framework, the evangelical white Jesus, not any other Jesus, not James cones, black liberation, Jesus like none of those, just this white Jesus, but they don't say that. And so when you come out of that and you discover, like not only are there other [00:20:00] ways of being as a Christian, but in the world with like different religious views or nonreligious views that actually work and can function successfully, you can get really angry and you can become.

Almost so certain that there's nothing good there. Okay, all of my evangelicalism is absolutely objectively terrible, and therefore I'm gonna spend all my time just critiquing it and destroying it and telling people how wrong they are and how right I am. And before, you know, it, you become the very thing that that you left in the first place, this sense of certainty and absolutism and othering of people. No, now they're wrong. And our tribe is right. And so certainly it's a balancing act because. Especially for us, we are obligated to clap back. So to speak to that basement that is still yelling up the stairs for us and saying you're a heretic, you have bad theology.

And so we owe it to our community to advocate and say, no, Pastor. So, and so this is not a good take or in, in the terms of Christian nationalism right now [00:21:00] that we're seeing, we feel an obligation as former evangelicals to really sound the alarm bell, and to say, Hey, we have a problem here, but we have to do it in ways that are non dehumanizing in our, in ways that are inviting for those people to think about things differently.

Because for me, I'm not sure how it was for you, Isaac or Tim, but I was changed not through people yelling at me. My, my views of queer inclusivity were not changed from people saying you're just a horrible homophobic moron. It was the, it was my gay friends who said, have you heard my, a story?

Have you heard the story of when my youth pastor called me in abomination at 13 years old? And I'm still recovering from that. And you go, no. And that makes you think differently. So again, I'm not saying we do this perfectly. I'm not saying sometimes our rules aren't hot takes but we, that's a challenge for us.

I think that I'm always thinking about.

Tim Thomason: That's fascinating to me because what you're talking about is fighting an extreme. You don't want to end up landing in the extreme of anything. And that's a position I've held for a long time. I have. And [00:22:00] Isaac, if you get to know us a little bit better, which I'm hoping we all get to do this.

You're gonna find out that Tim have what all of my close personal friends refer to as my evangelical atheism. And I, and looking back on it, it is very much of the same, what you're describing. It's that I did this transition. I left and I've often described it as coming to one description. I give about like dealing with my family with it is it was like going to your family and your, your value member of the, and you're, you're a a value member of the family and you're on the Titanic and you go to tell 'em, Hey, I was just downstairs and there's a leak in the ship.

We got a problem going on. And instead of having your opinion heard out or valued, or really considered, they're like, Nope, everything's fine. You don't know what you're talking about. And my gut flinch reaction to being treated like that and being close with my family was that I lashed. I got upset.

I became a uh, you know, social media junkie and fricking doing quippy things and arguing with anybody. I could get my hands on the internet. [00:23:00] And that was not particularly beneficial for me or my relationships. And so that was something I found that it's one of the things when I meet somebody who's done and out, and deconverted, I talked to 'em about, Hey, make a safe space for yourself.

open up your mind, read books, take time for yourself, rethink ideas. That's fine. But don't lash out because it just doesn't benefit anybody. And you need to represent your ideas with integrity and learn how to do that appropriately. If you wanna move the dial in any direction. So it's I went through the same thing you're talking about because I was like, I'm going way too far over here.

And I didn't like what I found over there either. It's just, there's scumbag on that side too. You know what I mean? So you end up moderating and coming back to the middle where you can talk to people and have open conversations and then you learn new things.

Tim: I think what I struggle with honestly, is that it seems like in our cultural moment, politically, there is like this unprecedented thing happening with Trumpism. We had a sitting president legitimately try to overthrow our [00:24:00] election. That's documented, but there are people in these conservative, evangelical and conservative pundit spaces that are telling people like, no, it's not as bad as you think.

And that's when I feel like there is a reality here that we're all living in. And the fact that some people, especially some conservative evangelicals still would say, no, Trump never did that. Or I just actually found a pastor the other day, who said Trump actually was elected. You just don't believe it.

And God has put him on. I mean, I'm, I'm not that that's, I'm serious. And when that's where I struggled the most, because it's like, There is in this context, an objective reality, right? And this pastor is essentially saying, I reject that objective reality. And then if I say you're a, you're rejecting that, and this is the reality.

It can come across as fundamentalist, but in that culture, in that moment, there is a right, and a wrong now that's not a blanket statement for everything in life, but that's what I struggle with the most is in those kinds of moments where it's like, 

there is no middle here for me. 

Tim Thomason: Yeah. You're and what you're talking about to me is that [00:25:00] there's this thing that we struggle with, which is objective reality versus fictional reality. Okay. I think that there is a, an understanding what's actually going on is difficult. It's multifaceted. You're not, and you can be wrong about it at times, but we collectively like will follow some of these things.

And I have always said, and I'm not, I'm not gonna put any of this out here. Well, I'll be honest. I'll put it out there to challenge you a little bit this is how my brain thinks about it. Is that faith. First of all, the way that I define faith is believing in something in the face of a lack of evidence or facts for it.

You just believe it anyway. And a lot of people tend to attribute faith with hope and I consider hope a completely separate thing from faith. Faith is a type of belief in something that you don't have evidence for, you just believe in it. And so what I viewed the current political system what's happened, especially with the right wing, going hand in hand with evangelical Christianity, which is it [00:26:00] started in the late nineties where it started getting really ramped up.

And then it really took a hard turn. And what it is is it's a blending of that faith type, thinking to me, which is believing in things without evidence melding with political idealism. So now the faith isn't that Jesus came and died on the cross for your sins and that you're gonna go to heaven and that there's a hell or there's original sin.

Any of these things that are all docturnal that you believe on faith now it's the election was stolen and you don't have evidence to back it up. You believe it on faith because of the person that you trust. And when you take that away from spiritual and you apply it to the world that we're living in, you get really dangerous stuff.

Like what we're what we have found ourselves waiting into right now. And that's why my argument oftentimes goes to the, what I believe to be the root of the problem, which is believing things on faith. And I, and I know a lot of believers feel very passionate and strongly. I can hear my sister right now in my ears.

She's I, she believes because she's [00:27:00] had personal experience and the, there are things that have happened to her that validate her faith that are evidence for her. And that evidence to me is not. The type of evidence that I consider to be good. It's very personable. And part of the problem with religion is it is so impressionable.

It depends on how someone interprets it. And what we have got now is a melding of that type of thought process with politics. And it's very, it gets dicey fast. And that's why I think our, when you talk to the author of the founding myth Andrew. So, So I, yeah he, he cite that the founding fathers put this unspoken boundary in line , for a reason to keep that kind of stuff from going on.

Tim: Yeah.

Yeah. 

I was gonna say that it's interesting because I would agree with you on all of that. And that's precisely why I think our theology and how we view the Bible matters because there's actually a really good book by a scholar named Matthew Bates, where he talks about how really the word [00:28:00] faith can really be translated to mean an allegiance, not so much just like empirical blind trust, but it's the idea of allegiance who's your allegiance to, and I was like, that really fills things out for me better because I wonder, and again, this is what I would say in response to that is I don't believe, I think that I can, I could defend this argument from different theological scholars and biblical scholars that that the Bible was written in a post enlightenment context.

Meaning the author gen Genesis one does not know what gravity is. They think that the stars in the sky are the heavenly hosts. Okay. Now, objectively speaking, they're not correct about that. Their balls of gas, but that's because their mindset doesn't. All speak to our worldview. Like John Walton, their great scholars says the Bible's written maybe for us, but not to us.

The idea being like it's written into a different audience. And we have to be very careful through our own interpretation when we start taking words and just assuming B, C or D is possible. And I think that, that what you said is actually, so is soup because you're right, especially in evangelical spaces, there's this idea of faith is just believing without evidence.

You just have[00:29:00] you trust that even though, even if you can't prove it objectively by the scientific method. It's still an objective reality. It's still camp quarter footage. And I think that as I've been digging into just how the Bible functions and just how the gospels were written and how they don't line up together.

I used to think that was really problematic and so I discovered that a Hebrew mind doesn't write history, how an American mind would write history. There's something deeper happening here that has helped me reconcile some of these things, because I agree with you, Tim, on that point where what we're seeing is the fruit of this blind faith, being applied to a political ideology that really I think is is dangerous and really wants to take over America with this kind of Christian fanaticism uh, in the January 6th election. Our the January 6th insurrection is great evidence of that. 

Isaac : And then it's reinforced with social media and it's reinforced with news. One of the things that I'm doing is when there's something new about the January 6th hearings, I see if Fox news is talking about it and they're not, and so when you have [00:30:00] an algorithm reinforcing what you believe, and then, you solely get your information from one news source that doesn't care to mention that you just, you get in this self-created environment, what that is completely disconnected from the reality of the situation, which is which it can be really hard.

One of the things that we talked about Tim a lot is critical thought and having critical thought and how. How Tim growing up in the church and me being in the church for a little bit, how there was this disconnect for critical thought. It was very much listen to your elders, listen to the pastor.

If someone was up on the up on stage, what they said was absolutely true. And that was something we were considering was a part of what's going on today. But is there anything within the culture and the mindset or the just the belief systems or values within church within faith or that is creating this political [00:31:00] conflict right now?

Tim: You're asking like is the church influencing this rise in Christian nationalism that we're seeing? Is

Isaac : Yeah. Is it a better way to ask is, , have you recognized, or do you think there are any mechanisms within the church that. That mechanism is a part of the reason why we're having issues in our political climate.

Tim: Oh, yeah. For sure dominion theology is one that comes to mind right away. It's this idea that Christians are called to rule over every part of civil society. It's, there's a, another attached version of this called the seven mountain mandate. That again says that Christians who are God's ambassadors are called to infiltrate every part of society, the arts.

Politics education, et cetera, in rule to actually take over and rule the government. And yeah, so yes, there are definitely several, this is also tied into our eschatology. It's tied into the end of the world, how we see how the world ends. A lot of Christians, thanks to John Nelson. Darby is the father of dispensationalism, which pretty much says that, the world will get so bad and God will come back and reign think of of bluff [00:32:00] behind books, for those of you out there, this idea that

Tim Thomason: I know those.

Tim: zapped up to heaven and everyone else just, pretty much burns down here forever.

Those things all have huge implications for how evangelicals advocate for certain politics and policies. And it's important to recognize too, the term evangelical the term church. Those are very broad. Terms. And they are hard to define. That's why we're try and say for our context, the American evangelical church, because maybe some people in the Catholic church wouldn't believe this, or people in the black church wouldn't affirm some of these theologies or progressive spaces. So it is important to recognize that a lot of the problems we're seeing today do unfortunately, stem from white conservative American evangelical spaces. That is the source for this stuff. They don't agree on theology.

Kenneth Copeland, John MacArthur, they two opposite ends of the theological spectrum, but they agree on not masking up during COVID. They agree that vaccines are dangerous. They agree when it comes to their perceived persecution of the government overstepping its bounds. So we are seeing more of a political unity than a [00:33:00] theological unity in these spaces tied to really, I wouldn't say anymore, it's more of just a far right ideology that unites them.

Tim Thomason: Yeah. I, I would like to ask you this, because this is something that like, is just, it's impressive. And it's something I'm getting just from listening to your podcast and talking with you, is that okay? So given all this stuff that we're talking about, everything that you're talking about makes sense to me.

Okay. Nothing new, even though you are very well read on it. Is that we've got this huge problem. All this stuff is going on. And you are very fired up and passionate about it, and you're passionate about it. You built a huge community of support, of not only support, but community to that.

I think in your mind, you don't only want to provide support. You want to build a bull work that does something about this and stops it from its eventualities, which don't look so hot over the hill if they come down the pipe. So , what do you feel like needs to be done to, to [00:34:00] affect this kind of thing and to stop it?

Because for me the, let me reword the question. What do you see Christianity? Transforming into that would be a positive thing. That would not be this because for me, the root of the problem being faith and belief for me, this, everything that's happening right now is the eventuality of where that stuff leads.

. And what we talk about all the time is we get these segments of people that are getting conflicted with this, their morals run up against it, or they feel like they're being drawn into hypocrisy or double standards. And then they rethink their beliefs and they either shift over here to the side.

We talk about people creating their own home groups and small churches and those kinds of things, or maybe even their own denominations in some situations. And then you have people that go and take further and they leave the religion entirely like we have. And I'm in a position where. There's no way you're gonna tear down and get rid of religion on our world.

It's just not gonna happen. It's part of our culture. It's part of [00:35:00] human nature to a certain extent for me. But what do you see in the future happening? Where would you like Christianity to go and how do you fight against what's going on right now?

Tim: Let's dial us into evangelicalism, cuz the reality is even in even globally, evangelicals are not what we see here in America. The average evangelical is much more progressive, not a nationalist. I hear all the time from people in our DMS, I'm in the UK and I promise you, we're not doing this, like we're not trying to take over our

Tim Thomason: that's encouraging. Maybe we should all go to the UK.

Tim: so be encouraged, however, what America's exporting certainly is finding homes in places like in Australia, there's a movement, but I do wanna be fair and I'm very critical of my own tradition. I think you guys know that, but also I do feel like it's important to say that any belief system, whether it's.

A a religious one or a non-religious one, can be used as a tool for good or a weapon of oppression. We can look through the Christian tradition and see Christians who did amazing things, hospitals, science, all that kind of stuff. We can also see Christians who did some very bad things race based child, slavery to fighting [00:36:00] against integration of schools and the crusades, et cetera.

So I, I think that I think that's important to recognize, okay, is that we have tools. The Bible is a tool. Our faith can be a tool. How do we use those tools? We all know. We can make the Bible say whatever we want and all you have to do for those of you who are really curious to see if you look up, I have, I actually have an archive.

There's a Bob Jones sermon from the 1960s where he makes the argument that the Bible is clearly for segregation. Like it is biblical. It is absolute. And anyone who says otherwise is a liberal. That's pretty much what he says now. Thankfully, most evangelicals would not support that view and why?

The Bible didn't change, but certainly how we interpret it has thank God in that case. But I say that as an example of religious sex can be abused and they are, they absolutely are. So for me, the issue, isn't so much religion. It's more about what humans do with these ideals and what they do and how they use it for power or for liberation.

I You can look really on, on both sides of that coin for me [00:37:00] I, I really wanna see American evangelicalism repent. That's like step one. We grew up in church circles, right? So when you become a Christian, what's the first thing you do. You say, you're sorry to Jesus.

You ask me to forgive you of your sins but not just say, sorry, Tim, you turn and you go the other way from your sin. And I would like to see American evangelicalism own their shit. If I can say shit on your podcast

Tim Thomason: please do we curse all the

Tim: Great. I would love for them to say, you know what? As American evangelicals, specifically white ones, we have been complicit all too often on the, and on the wrong set of history in American politics, time and time again, from race based child, slavery to Jim Crow laws all the way up.

And we have to rethink the theology and the perspectives that have gotten this here. That is for me, step one, just acknowledging that, Hey, without you guys, Trump never happens. That's on you without you guys. There is no insurrection. Okay. It wasn't flags to Buddha or it wasn't flags to, to ALA it.

Wasn't flags saying we don't believe in God. 

Tim Thomason: time? it. Wasn't a bunch of armed [00:38:00] atheists.

Tim: It wasn't yes. Saying godless America or bust, it was people who had Jesus flags, the Christian flag, Jesus saves banners. That's what that was, there was a prayer to Jesus in the God capital building by that, that QAN on shaman saying in Jesus' name.

So can we just acknowledge that? That's 1 0 1 for me. It's okay. Let's just acknowledge that we've really messed up, like severely. So I think that's the beginning of change for me, but I don't think. That's gonna happen in particular with white evangelicalism, there are great Christian groups, Christians against Christian nationalism, the freedom for faith coalition.

There are definitely Christians out there who are resisting this in doing everything they can to say, we're raising the alarm bells. We have a problem in our own circles. I admire those people. They fight for social justice. They fight for a better society. That's there. Okay. But we have to call it out.

And the reason why I'm passionate about this is because unfortunately I know I'm ranting here. White evangelicalism is the most powerful religious [00:39:00] sect in America. They are the most well funded. They're the most militant and they have the audience of the entire conservative pundit machine. Okay. So even if statistically they're not the dominant.

Think group, right? Like theologically, there are only about 20, 25% who think that Christian nationalism is a good idea. Their power is way over that. That's how they were able to sack the court and overturn Roe V. Wade, because of their power and influences in those systems. If, for anyone who wants to resource on this, there's a great book by .

, Katherine Stewart called the power worshipers that documents this. But anyway, so I think that's the way forward is admit we have a problem, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Tim Thomason: No. And then in the meantime, people like yourself are getting locked in with all of us. Non-believers as just being back, slid in Christians that just don't get it. That are you're wishy washy you're. 

Tim: cultural Marxist. That's what I, this point,

Tim Thomason: I've been called to communist and I'm not 

Isaac : yeah. Have you and that leads to a great question. Have you gotten some grief from different religious groups? Has there been any [00:40:00] backlash for your message in any backlash for you taking on this project?

Tim: Only in my own conservative evangelical circles, but nothing from other

Isaac : Gotcha. , I personally appreciate how well read you are on the subject. Something that Tim and I talk about often is that we have the luxury of being able to have time to read the books, have the conversations, do the research, have conversations like we are right now, there was a good time in my life where man, it was paycheck to paycheck.

Or, paycheck to every other paycheck it was just trying to get to work and, figure out a ride. Cause my car broke down and I couldn't pay the tow bill. And so there, there is a little bit of a privilege and Ture to have these conversations and something that I've noticed.

And I don't know if you've noticed the same thing is that it doesn't take too much of a conversation for people to kinda, I don't know, wake up or go, oh, you know what I was in this weird hypnotic state of just going through the motions. Wait, what did you say again? [00:41:00] And then, people seeing on a hold to be very reasonable, but. In your community, what has been some of the hardest challenges for the people that you've talked to? They've you know, they say, oh Tim, thank God we found you guys. This is great. This is awesome. I've been dealing with blank. What, are there any kind of have you seen any patterns in people's struggles?

Tim: Definitely. There's been a, there's been a few key ones. We have a lot of folks from the queer community who are trying to say, I have not admitted to myself that I'm gay. But I think I am, and I'm afraid God's gonna hate me for that. What do I do? That kind of stuff.

We get a lot of indoctrination, still, a lot of people who are like, Hey, I'm new to this, but you're make, this is making so much sense. Not just me but the work that we're doing. And I'm like angry at my church and I'm still serving at my church. How do. Move forward, right? As, as someone in these places how do I stay Christian?

I want to stay a Christian, right? It's not a matter for us. We're very passionate about not forcing people to stay anyway. If the exit ramp is there, you wanna take it, please by all [00:42:00] means, take it. But a lot of people wanna stay committed to Jesus, but they just can't do it with all this political far right ideology.

So we get a lot of those kinds of struggles. People are just new to the process for the first time of waking up and being like, oh my God yeah, it is crazy that I believe that maybe God might burn me in hell forever because I didn't pray the right prayer. <laugh>'s yes.

Luckily again, luckily in the Christian tradition, there are much better answers than just the evangelical ones that people can find, but they don't know where to start looking. So we try and help them in that way.

Tim Thomason: that's awesome. I think is interesting. I find myself today when I mainly, when I engage and I talk to people, whether they're of my disposition or they're not of my disposition, is like most of my conversations revolve around just one. I try to point out the extremes of the environment we're in, because we both have this little device next to us, our phone that's literally measuring how long you look at something and it wants to pull you towards whichever extreme you already lean to lean towards.

And that the first step in [00:43:00] a conversation is to realize that we are operating in these bubbles that pull us in these directions and that you need to recognize that and then come to this middle ground and trying to. Trying to have mod moderate conversation, even if you disagree. And I did it the other night with a close friend of mine at the house I hadn't seen in several, probably like three or four months.

And we sat down and had a political conversation. He leans right on Eileen left. And I was just, the whole time was an effort to just get right down here to the middle where we could recognize that bad stuff goes on both sides. But the fact that we're getting stalled out by doing that while the major forces are just sweeping through and doing major things, it's it can be discouraging

Tim: I don't know.. I don't wanna show my cards too much, but I don't know, man, like this right left dichotomy and like the middle thing, I just don't know if I really believe it where we're at right now. Joe Biden is a center, right? Eisenhower, Republican.

Okay. He is not some far left radical, despite what, Sean H or Tucker Carlson might say Donald Trump was a far right. [00:44:00] Like ideolog, populist, borderline fascist. These are not the same things. And I feel, I even feel weird saying that because I know it makes me sound super partisan, but I'm not a Joe Biden allegiance guy.

Like I don't have a flag in my truck of Joe Biden, but it just seems like what we're dealing with is not the usual. Oh, we all agree affordable healthcare. But how do we do that? Republicans say this and Democrats say this, we're talking about oh one side is trying to overthrow our freaking democracy and then lying about how that never really happened.

And the other side is Maybe we'll pass student debt relief, maybe. Oh my God. They're so far left. It's I just, I don't know, man. I'm just telling you how I think about this stuff. I do not. I have no allegiance to the democratic party. I don't think Nancy Pelosi or Elizabeth Warren, or like great politicians saving America.

They have plenty of problems, but my gosh, at least not trying to overthrow the freaking democracy of the us or trying to gerrymander by taking away people's voting rights. So I do get stuck in that space because is there a middle ground there I [00:45:00] is there really I don't know how I would not have a middle ground and not sound fundamentalist or have a middle ground, and then also ignore the suffering of real people, particularly minority and marginalized groups.

Isaac : And that, and I think the thing that's difficult is having labels, it, is it this, or is it this, or is it this, or is it this? And it's it very much feels like we need, we need a new camp, we need a new group. We need to be able to label something. And I think that's a part of the problem, but you were talking about, how you evaluate things.

And you've obviously read on a lot of different people and you've pulled a lot of references of, people that have given sermons and used the Bible this way. How does your personal. Thought process work. How do you contemplate things? How do you allow yourself to, read a book and say, you know what I think this has changed my opinion a little bit, or you know what this book has reinforced my belief.

How do you go through that process

Tim: politically. 

Isaac : [00:46:00] Yeah. Any topic? Any topic?

Tim: I try and read as often as I can, obviously with two kids and doing this work, that's hard to find time to read a full book, but I'm always going through audio books. I, I, I I like, for example, I have a book here by a guy named Vodi Baum. Who's a pretty far right. Fundamentalist reform type who wrote a book called fault lines, dismantling critical race theory and stuff.

I read the whole book and I tried to have like, okay like, like, you know, what's the smoking gun here that he has, that proves that this is not biblical. And it would, I just thought it wasn't a good read. I, but I do try and read and really watch videos from various perspectives just to try and understand the arguments.

You know, I think At this point. When I approach someone in the Christian nationalist perspective, I'm not looking to be converted. Okay. I've already made the decision. Like these are not good views. They're not healthy. They are not democratic.

They lead to a theocracy, but I should at least understand the arguments so I can better refute them. I'm just being honest. Like I'm not, I grew up in that world, right? It's almost like when someone tells me whenever I talk about Calvinism, sometimes which again, for your audience is that [00:47:00] God predestined some people for heaven.

Some people for hell, essentially people. Yeah, predestination. Some people will say Tim you're just not, you don't know what you're talking about. It comes to Calvinism and you haven't read of, and you're not sharing like like an equal perspective about the other side.

What I wanna say is I grew up in Calvinism, , I've read so many books on Calvinism. I don't need to read another book about, from a Calvinist to understand the perspective, cuz that was my dominant perspective. That's what I came from. So when it comes to Christian nationalism, it's the same thing.

I grew up on a steady diet of talk radio. I don't need to re-listen to Sean Hannity tomorrow to understand what he's advocating for. Cause I grew up on him for almost 20 something years. That being said I do try and take their arguments seriously, just so I can understand them to better re.

Isaac : you said, 

oh,

I'm sorry, it just goes with it. So you said, Hey, I've been absorbing this for 20 years. Was this always a challenge for you throughout your life? Were you being exposed to this and going, ah, this is frustrating. This is frustrating. Or did you buy into it? And [00:48:00] then something happened and you went, wait a second, I'm reevaluating, everything.

And then you create a new creed. How did that process.

Tim: Yeah, definitely more of the second. I was never like a militant. Christian nationalist, but I listened to Ben Shapiro for years. My dad grew up in, he owned his own business. So we had talk radio on whenever we, we were in someone's house painting. So it was rush limb ball, Sean Hannity, mark Levi.

You know, you, I, I knew the whole lineup. Yeah, exactly. So I just, you just kind celebrate listening to yeah. Like people just worked harder. They could make more money. Yeah. People who are on the government welfare, are just lazy. You just absorb it. But over time you do start thinking like I remember specifically having this thought I was painting with someone's room and I'm listening to Sean handy.

And I'm like, this is when Obama was in office. I'm like, I don't know if Obama's never done anything. He we're still here as a country. We're still we're surviving. It. Can't just always be this negative. Obama, can't always be doing everything so terribly or else we have no country to live in right now.

Right. It would be [00:49:00] terrible. I remember specifically Glen Beck when he was on the radio crying, crying, legitimate tears. When Obama got elected saying, I'm not sure if we're gonna have a country in four years and there's gonna be nothing here. Just rubble literal rubble. And then four years later, I'm like, oh, but we're also here.

Those little moments nudged me to be like, are these guys, are these really truth tellers? Or is there something deeper going on here? So I was brought up in that world. I accepted it. Then I started questioning it. Then eventually I rejected it. That's like the arc

Isaac : Did you have any other aha moments?

Tim Thomason: yeah.

Tim: With that.

Isaac : Did you? Yeah, just with yes, with that.

Tim: As you keep listening, you just keep on wondering is that true? Or there were moments where I would be like, actually I know this story they're talking about. That's not the full story. So the little I did know, when I can't give you any, I can't think of a specific example now, but there were definitely times where I'm like, actually I read that full story recently on this website, the whole thing, and this person is intentionally [00:50:00] misrepresenting the story to not be exactly what it is.

So it was like those kinds of moments, time and time again, of I don't know if this talk radio stuff, it's really here to give me news and to gimme the data more than just to spin everything with a conservative slant that makes the Republicans look good. And Democrats look bad almost every single time.

Tim Thomason: Yeah. It's like the era of Walter Cronkite is over, like I don't, I, I don't want to just listen to an opinion when I listen to news, I just want the news and the facts. And I certainly hope that they're following some journalistic integrity to gather those facts, instead of giving me hyperbole, I just want to get that.

And then I can make the conclusion myself. I don't need to go through people doing that. And that's, I grew up on the same diet of what you're talking about. Rush Limbaugh, Sean H. Fox news, Glen Beck, blah, blah, blah. I don't know if you follow any of Seth Andrew's stuff. He's the guy who runs the thinking atheist, but he has a book that's called.

 I was a Fox news Christian, and and it's whole it's way too close to home, but I suppose okay. Everything that you're describing. I tell people like when I deconverted it, [00:51:00] I went through a series of I basically was like trying to renew my faith.

I was like I remember I went on a hike with a Christian group to the mountains and I did a lot of praying and introspection. I was also in college studying criminology at the time. So I was also knee deep in studying like crime scene investigation. So I'm being hammered principles about how not to bank poor judgment calls, how to weigh evidence and how to do this.

And I never really connected with this hyper spiritual thing, cuz I grew up in the deep south, lots of jumping up and down, praying in tongues, very charismatic churches. And I never understood that. I always had a problem with that. I always had a problem with the clicky culture and all that kind of stuff.

And so I separated from that when I was like 16, 17 years old. And then when I started to question stuff, something clicked in my brain and I was. Maybe I need to think about this critically and look at it. Certainly. And my martial arts teacher here was like have you ever read the Bible for yourself?

Just read the whole Bible from beginning to end. [00:52:00] And to this day is still one of my rallying causes. If you read the Bible, you'll, it'll turn you into a nonbeliever. But I went through that period of questioning and like running into all that kind of stuff. And then I went looking for answers inside the church first, and those answers were dissatisfying or it was deflection, or it was problems with me.

And people still probably think it's just rebellion or something, but I call it self-confidence and I was like, no, this is not making sense. Those are not good answers. And they're not giving me good rebuttals. They're deflecting. Or they're making it about things that are not relevant.

And then continued on that path until I, this leads me to my next question, which is like, you've gone on this journey and it sounds like you're still at this place where you, again, like our ethics are like align and write up everything you're concerned about. I'm concerned about things that need to be done about that stuff.

But like I got to this point and then I was curious, have you ever read counter argument to the formal we call 'em [00:53:00] the four horseman of atheism, but there's there's Richard Dawkins. There's Daniel Deni. There's Christopher Hitchens. And Sam Harris. The, those are the, like the four, the big ones.

Have you ever read, like counterargument to that stuff? That's just a curiosity of mine.

Tim: I haven't read necessarily, but I watched their debates. Like I watched some Christopher Hitchens debates before. I listened to Sam Harris quite a few different times on his podcast, et cetera. Just explore just outta curiosity. Okay. How do they see the world? How do they look at the Christian tradition, et cetera.

And also similar, like their arguments, but I haven't, I haven't like read a book and honestly, it's one of those things where for me, just the way I'm wired, even when I was like in the thick of like my crisis and really deconstructing, I was like, okay, can I accept that?

Maybe there is no God and. I'm still fumbling through the language of this, but essentially for me, like I, I use the term divine. There's something like be beyond me that I just can't maybe put my finger on and I'm comfortable knowing that some people won't see it as Jesus or yawe, and [00:54:00] there's a lot of problems with yawe in the whole Testament.

I get all that, but for me, it's just there's something beautiful that brings me back to Jesus. And I have a good friend trip four. He's a great, he's a process theologian and he's really great. And one of the things that he told me that really changed me was like, listen if you believing in whatever it is brings you closer to the center of the universe that is love, then believe it.

I was like, okay I like that. I, that helps me as a person. Just be like, yeah, what am I being drawn to? And frankly, I do think. Honestly, just being transparent. I think that applying our cultures scientific method, our enlightened perspective on the Bible is only is a fools errand to make sense of the Bible.

Meaning like I find that like when an apologist is like, look objectively speaking, it's ah, wrong category, wrong lens. I it's never gonna work. It's if that's your application, you are gonna find yourself saying the Bible is junk because it's the it you're, it's the wrong cipher on the wrong thing.

And so that has helped me a [00:55:00] lot by just saying well, for, if you don't mind, I'll just lay out some of my 

thoughts on this. But one, one thing I've always thought about is yes I can read parts of the Bible and be like, this is crazy. It makes no sense. But clearly to someone at some time, it made a lot of sense.

Why. Why, and I don't accept the idea of they were just idiots and we're smart now because the way that the Bible is even compiled, the way it's even edited, even it's even in the original manuscripts, forget the language translation. Like it is pretty brilliantly done. They're riffing off each other.

They're linking the things. There's there's these themes that we just missed out due to our cultural perspectives and our language barrier. And it's like, huh? Like, there's something I'm not for sake of our time. Let's say it's not even divine. I'm just saying like these biblical people who wrote or who said these things that then got written down and translated.

There's something like, like fascinating and very complex about, about, about tracing these themes through the scriptures. So that has helped me so much. Instead of going okay is this cam quarter footage is the flood narrative cam quarter footage of an angry God [00:56:00] who just wanted to kill everyone except Noah, or is the lens I'm looking at this through just not the lens that like that, whoever wrote this story down was trying to communicate something deeper and that or something different that maybe my culture just doesn't value as much as their 

culture does. 

That's helped me a, ton. 

Isaac : do you, cuz I, I was really interested in what you said like that's not what this book's used for. So is it like the difference between a book of poems compared to a user manual? 

Tim: Exactly. J just for sake of our argument, Genesis one and two, right? What are we taught about them? Oh, look, it's a creation account of how God formed the earth in six liberal days. That is not what Genesis one or two are even trying to communicate at all. Like a whole different mentality.

Hebrews are considered about order out of chaos. There's a whole different theme happening here, but to my lens, right? I'm taught look, just read it. And God said, let there be. And therefore he created it. Therefore God created the earth in six little old days. Despite what the science says.

I don't think that whoever wrote down those two accounts, had our mindset of, yes. Now I'll tell you children how [00:57:00] the earth was formed out of nothing. That's not what it says. It says that, God is ordering something, there's something deeper happening. So that's just one example for me of like how my modern lens, I was taught by evangelicals, right?

Oh, just read it through the scientific lens, see how, whatever, you know, it doesn't match up. Uh, It doesn't really help us when it comes to your approaching the Bible that way.

Tim Thomason: see. And what I would, my, my like light rebuttal to that would be something along this line, which is that you said through the lens that you're seeing it. And I think that, there's nothing wrong with the interpretation that you just gave. And I like completely understand where you're coming from and how this is how it's resonating and making sense to you.

But from a, from like my position where I feel like I'm stepped back from it, I feel like the overall impact of religions throughout the course of history is a, in my opinion, is a split bag. There's some good that's come out of it. It would be undeniable be wrong to say that there wasn't, but I think it's severely slanted [00:58:00] the other way.

Isaac : And I wanna, I'm gonna interrupt Tim for just , one little second. So one of the things, and I think this is important for other Tim to know is we've talked about values and principles, and Tim's always said, I've gotten a lot of my principles from my upbringing, from the Bible and you've pulled from those.

So that's just been a constant theme. That's come up and I'm like, oh, Tim's been there for a long time, but anyways, I'm sorry.

Tim Thomason: Yeah no. And he's absolutely right. It's undeniable that some of the framework for my life, comes from the Bible and principles , but it's the way that my parents read it and interpreted it. And I think that's a key problem with religion on a whole is that it's so subjective.

It's all based upon who's got it in their hand and how they choose to look at it. And I think the way you look at it is perfectly fine. I think that's the way that very much in the vein of how my wife thinks about it. It's very much in the vein of how my older sister looks about it. My family's gone further and is more in the more traditional sense, but for me and where I sit as like part of the problem with the whole system.

And from my [00:59:00] perspective of what's led us to this current state of affairs, is that. All based on how people choose to look at it. And if the majority of people that are looking at it are making these other conclusions from it and all they have to do to undermine you in your position is point to you and say , God's not speaking to you the right way.

You're not viewing it the right way. And I think that for me, that speaks to the underlying problem, which is always something that I'm trying to dig and get to. And I'm not very, I'm not always the most articulate at getting down to it, but for me in our current state of affairs and everything that's going on, I feel very strongly about trying to seek out what that is.

And it doesn't mean I particularly have a good solution for it. It's just, I'm trying to identify what causes this stuff.

Tim: Yes. Listen, I think those are all fair critiques. I what I'm trying to say is that when specifically when it comes to the Bible, I don't really critique other religions. It's not my, it's not my lane to be in.

I don't understand a lot of them.

Tim Thomason: we, 

We don't have that much

time.

Tim: right. Exactly. But what I'm trying to say is it is a weird paradox, right?

Because we all live [01:00:00] in a culture, we all live in a context and we all do our best to interpret the world through just the waters that we're swimming in. What I'm trying to say though, is that, there are some amazing,

Tim Thomason: Yeah.

Tim: Scholars of this work who have spent their life doing the research based on what we have to understand the Bible in its own context.

Meaning like for forget the moral applications, they're looking at it through a purely scholarly, academic lens of okay, Genesis one and two, what is happening in the near, in the ancient world that causes this? That's what I'm making the point of is like, when you hear from those people who are like, neck deep in the language, in the culture, based on what we know empirically, et cetera, that's when you're just like, oh my God, like maybe this book that we have is communicating some very different realities or different stories and different pieces of wisdom than how I was taught.

The Bible is saying it. Does that make

Tim Thomason: Uh, Yeah, absolutely. , it speaks to me in a very specific sort of way. There are things that I still really like in the Bible. [01:01:00] I've also, I've done a cursory dive through other things like the book of Mormon and the Koran and all these other documents. And the thing is there's stuff in there that I like too.

And then there's also stuff that makes absolutely no sense. And it's it all depends on how 

Tim: But, but what I'm saying is that at some point, that made sense to someone, right? So what, and that, that's what I'm saying is the fun part for some people is okay, I know to me, this is gibberish, but to someone at some point, this made a lot of sense, enough sense to write this down so someone can learn from it.

So that's when I would say okay, I'm not saying I have to take it as moral gospel, but what am I missing in my cultural context that this person. Had that I just cannot fathom right now. And that and that's the difference for me, is I'm not saying you have to read the Torah and be like, okay, what's the moral objectivity of the Torah.

But what I am saying is when you read a weird law, don't boil a goat and it smell's milk. Why the hell was that in there? It's obviously at some point important for someone, but why? And that helps me with a little more I think J I'm [01:02:00] not saying you're this way, but it just helps me have some humility.

When I approach the text saying this I'm not the forgive the pun. I'm not the God of this text. Something else is getting going on here. What could it be? And what can I learn from it? That's the perspective.

Isaac : How do you connect divine intervention or dity, or answers to where we go when we die? How do you connect that with. With the Bible and the way that you're looking at it, cuz one of the things that I thought about when you were saying that was, I was thinking, what would be the difference between that and then like thes of Marcus Israelis and stoicism or maybe the the art of war.

So , is there any connection between, Hey, someone at that time had enough enlightenment to write something down that my life could really benefit from a really great lesson to, there being a divine, God, it, how do you connect?

Tim: Yeah. Let's just because the Bible's so vast is so different. It's written over a thousand years. You can, each section might [01:03:00] have a different. Reality to that question. So let's focus on like maybe the gospel accounts, the ones that have Jesus for just for our conversation, I don't know all those answers, to be honest with you. I can't give you some like iron cloud oh, here's the incontrovertible evidence, but what I can say is that. Somehow some way, at least four people or peoples were impacted enough by this Jesus person to write down these accounts for various reasons.

And those got circulated around enough, those stories that eventually got written down and then it got passed around to early churches, cuz they were so impactful. Something happened that helps me a little bit with okay I don't know if God is this personified being, I don't know if it's this presence.

I I, I can't give you those answers. John Shelby spun on the Episcopalian is like the deity of God out the window. There's something deeper going on, and then some theologians are like no, this person of God or yawe now incarnate in Jesus. There's a lot of ways you can look at that stuff.

But I do think about what impacted these people enough that they would [01:04:00] say, we're gonna write this down this way. I don't think that they were just trying to lie to people personally. I think that like that that their lives were changed. So

Isaac : so does that mean that there to understand you that there was a person named Jesus who was in the world at a certain time, that was making such an impact or such an impression on people on such a large scale that something had to be going on there, that there was a man of that much influence or.

Tim: I would say that the 12 people as supposing that's a liberal 12, we can debate that, but the people that that he discipled as a Jewish rabbi, which it's pretty well understood that Jesus existed as a person somewhere. It's not it's debated, but not widely debated.

Tim Thomason: might argue with you about

Tim: I mean, Dude, you can argue with bar Irman about that. The

Tim Thomason: yeah. Okay. I love, who bar Irman

Tim: But you know what I'm saying? Like even in academic circles, the wide view is that Jesus existed. So we can, for sake of our argument, we can go with that. I would just say that whoever he discipled, however, that happened, whatever happened when he died, impacted them [01:05:00] enough, to wanna say something has changed really in Judaism. Cause that's what they're doing here. They're riffing off of Jewish thought and Judaism in light of who this Jesus Messiah figure in their minds is.

And so for me, that makes you go, huh? That's interesting. And then you read some of the teachings that they have of Jesus and it's this is fascinating. This speaks truth to power, okay. This idea of whatever could be this God's kingdom, we all are reconciled.

I like that. 

Isaac : Like rising three days later, there was enough activity. I mean, I'm just trying to understand your point of view. There was enough activity, there was enough miraculous documentation that there was something of some type of divinity to this character.

And that's where the connection is for you.

Tim: Yeah, I would say that's true. I'm not saying every miracle literally happened the way that it says it did in the text. Again, there's great debates about that. But I would say for me personally, I do affirm, I know it sounds crazy, but I do affirm a resurrected Jesus, but I also understand why that's a crazy claim to make.

Like I'm not gonna, you're not gonna see me like die on that hill of. Oh my God. How could you not believe that [01:06:00] I know in this conversation, the irrational thought is the guy who believes that someone 2000 years ago, rose again from the dead and one day will come back to reconcile all things. I totally get that, but that belief helps me aim for a better future for humanity of okay, is this possible where we can help being a part of making the crooked in the world that we all agree on as parts of the world that are crooked, we can make them straight and better.

That promotes human flourishing and helps people be reconciled back to their creator or just even to themselves, their family, the planet, et cetera 

Tim Thomason: I can seriously speak for myself and say that, wherever we may have some disagreement on that kind of stuff. And again, it's like disagreement and having conversations about this stuff is like a pastime to me. I freaking love doing it. It's interesting stuff. I get to know so many interesting people when I do this kind of thing, but particularly with you and your community and your podcast, the thing that is encouraging to me, having gone through the Trump era and everything that's going on and feeling like.

I was going insane, watching [01:07:00] Christians like bat pedal on what I would consider the ethics with which I was raised. It's nothing but a breath of fresh air to see somebody that openly rejects where some of that goes and then moves over here to a cent space where you get locked in with people like us.

Tim: well, it is fascinating. Sorry, Isaac, if I could just say one thing about that, if you don't mind, it is fascinating because if you just read. The letters of like the four gospel accounts and read like the sermon on the Mount. It doesn't really jive well with current evangelical culture.

These aren't, I'm not making up things like I, in a way, I think I'm taking Jesus more seriously when he says that he came to bring liberation to the oppressed and good news to the poor okay. Or when he says in Matthew 25, if you don't take care of the poor and the oppressed you're guilty of judgment.

I think I'm almost more radical in that way of Hey Evangel have you read this part where Jesus, the guy that you claimed is the son of God, God incarnate says this. And they're like, eh, that sounds Marxist to

me. It's 

Tim Thomason: I've always, I always find it funny because I was [01:08:00] like, by my reading of Jesus he's a little bit of a socialist you guys, if you hadn't noticed, I was like, he's not exactly the bare chested blue eyed white guy with a fricking AR 15 on him. I was like, I don't know where that Jesus came from, but uh, 

Tim: Well, and, And that's the point is like, when I say I'm a follower of Jesus, what I'm trying to say is I believe that through the person of Jesus, there's like this ability to participate in a new kind of way of being human, that promotes human flourishing for all. And obviously there's a lot of questions there.

A lot of, I get all of that. But I think you can make it a very easy case by looking at the four gospels and saying, yeah, something about this Jesus person, what he advocated for the verse will be, or the last will be first, et cetera, speaking truth to power. There's something that I think if.

If maybe I'm not gonna use the term follow cause that's a little too narrow for me but some of these ethics that we're seeing from this person of Jesus and also what's happening in his moment can actually be part of really an a healthier way, a healthier society that takes care of the orphan, the oppressed and the marginalized.

So I think [01:09:00] there's good arguments to make, even if you and I would disagree completely on who Jesus is, if he even existed, if he resurrected. Sure. I would hold to all those things.

Right. But there's a bigger theme happening 

Tim Thomason: yeah, and at the end of the day, I talk about this with with drew all the time and with my wife's like, at the end of the day what is that? All that matters is how you treat people. And how you behave. And are you helping people? Are you being a benefit or are you not?

And that's where, I don't see a difference from landing there and our differences on theology or belief. It, that stuff is for fun conversations while we're having beers. 

Because when we go to work and we're doing our activities and we're in our day to day life, and when we meet people and we talk to 'em, it's not gonna affect how we

Isaac : Yeah. So I just wanna be cognizant of time, cause I know you said you had you needed to be gone by four and I feel like we could just keep going and going.

Tim: I got about 10 more minutes. Probably. I

Isaac : Tim 10 more minutes. Okay. So one of the things I just wanted to say and I said this to [01:10:00] you when we talked the first time without recording was that it is a really important thing for Tim and I and this has been something that Tim's established is that we represent our ideas with integrity, and we feel like you represent your ideas with integrity, regardless if we agree with those or not they're still represented with integrity.

And that's something that we're struggling with is that we feel like we're seeing with everything that's going on. We're seeing a lot of ideas being shared without integrity. So anyway, so we just wanted to recognize you and thank you for that. The other thing is, is I like to end the podcast and asking both of y'all, but, and it can be something that can be possibly long-winded.

That's why I wanted to give ourselves time, but Tim. Not atheist Tim other, Tim. Tim, can you tell me what you hope? This podcast does for people someone's listening to this podcast and has a chance to positively affect their life? What do you hope that impact is?

Tim: Maybe that there are ways forward with [01:11:00] two different worldviews regarding theology, but it can be still centered on the same values. I hope that for maybe some atheists out there, they can hear a Christian who acknowledges that some of the beliefs are a little out there, but still can be devoted to Jesus and not a misogynistic homophobic, racist, white evangelical uh, right.

And I think hopefully for some of the Christians out there, they can understand that atheists can also have morals and love people really well, shocker, and that it's possible to coexist without dehumanizing each other and even do work together at some point to promote human flourish,

Isaac : Awesome, Tim.

Tim Thomason: I love it. He stole my line.

Isaac : Yeah, you stole 

Tim Thomason: that that that's the, that's exactly what we talk about all the time is just, and particularly for people who are new to non-belief, you can quickly Wade into communities, particularly online that are very antagonistic in, in, towards believers or, and listen I can I like to poke fun at belief in the church, plenty, and I'm sure you do too, frankly, Tim.

So, There's a place for humor [01:12:00] and to laugh about this kind of stuff, but at the end of the day, when you're talking to people, you don't get anywhere by making fun of people's beliefs, you get somewhere by having thoughtful conversation. And I always talk about active listening, turning your brain off and listening to what the other person has to say and absorb what they have to say, and then mingle over what you would like to respond.

Don't think about what you're gonna say while they're talking

Isaac : Yeah, listen to understand.

Tim Thomason: Listen to understand. And that's what we encourage our audience to do if they arrive on this other side of the road and they're struggling with, a lot of people who deconvert end up as we're learning from our community, they end up losing relationships.

They end up losing family members. They lose their church community. There are lots of different things that they go into that can be catalyst for getting all these emotions stirred up and reconciling those usually has to do with finding good community and not letting that develop into something toxic where you're not representing your ideas with any form of [01:13:00] integrity.

You're just angry and upset. And we want people to be very careful of those kinds of things. And people can learn from that, because if we can sit here and have a conversation, 

Tim: Absolutely. 

Isaac : our motto kind of our catchphrase is leaving religion to live an authentic life. And I know I said this, I, it's not like leaving your belief systems about Jesus or leaving any hope that there might be a God or, I, I keep telling him that we're gonna, be recar needed and we're gonna, trip out on mushrooms and learn the secrets of the 

universe.

So, yeah. Yeah. But having the courage and having the framework and having the environment in the safe place. I run a restaurant culture and leadership course. I really break into the psychology of what makes a high performance culture or positive culture, but just creating that safe place for people to be genuine.

Like you said earlier, people of the queer community, saying, I feel this way, but I'm scared or I'll feel like I'll go to help. They're not being, they're not living a genuine life. And I feel like you've created a community or, and at least a a [01:14:00] sounding board where you have said, you know what, you can be genuine.

You can live an authentic life. And so I just really appreciate that. And I think anyone who's listening to this, I hope that they understand that they can have. Degrees of differences, on their theology or their doctrine or their creeds, but still live an authentic life and be authentically a good person.

I just hope everybody in both camps or all camps can do that. Cause I think that's, what's gonna move the needle for our society.

Tim: So I have one question for both of you.

Tim Thomason: Sure

Tim: So I think it was earlier in our conversation, Tim you mentioned, the idea that in, from your vantage point, like religion's just been the culprit of a lot of bad, a lot of conquest and power abuse and stuff. Which obviously we can all trace that.

Yes. Like people have done that. My question to you is, do you think the source of that is the religion or is it the source is the source of that? The fact that man just wants power. Is it like, is there's a [01:15:00] human need to want to grow, maybe conquer, be abusive.

And then is religion the justifier of that? Or is religion for you? Oftentimes the source teaching people how to become that conquer. Does that make sense?

Tim Thomason: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. How we're gonna and on a, a good question. There's a fantastic book that I really enjoyed. That's called the the most dangerous animal and it's about humanity and about our propensity for violence. I think my view on like basics of morality of good versus evil.

Okay. Is that is a construct that has changed over time. That's not an absolute, it's just something that we came up with culturally, for us to be able to survive, interact with each other. Because if you go back in time, the culture changes and it was moral to do things that we do not consider to be moral now.

So we have that framework to consider. But when we look back on like antiquity and religion's impact [01:16:00] on the world, particularly I think about like the Catholic church and Catholicism and the broader impact of that church is. Religion is one of the things in the world that it's a justifier and it's an empowerer.

And I think that what it does primarily to contribute to human suffering is that it gets people to justify things with a flawed form of rationality. And I have always loved a great analogy that hitch put forward. I, you, I don't know if you've actually read a lot, Christopher Hitchins, but you've heard him debate, but 

he put forth a challenge. I think it was to William Lane Craig at one point and it was, he said, name me a moral action. That is morally good. That can only be done by a believer of the Christian. Or someone of a religion, a specific religion, a moral action that only you can do. He's I'll wait. And then he goes, now name a morally wrong action or [01:17:00] a Aroy that was committed in the name of a religion that could not have been committed without the religion.

And it's like, pull out your notebook. You know? So for me, it's a combination of human nature. But the thing is, is that it's the belief system and the manner of thinking that religion fosters it naturally has forms of authoritarianism running through most forms of it. Not all, but most Christianity and monotheism, particularly.

And I think that it nurtures the nastier parts of our human nature. I've always said it can make good people do bad things that they think are okay. So that's like where my brain lands on religion right now. And it's just a motivator, and I think if you look at it on the broad terms, we end up, talking a lot about Christianity on here. Okay. And we're in the us, we're dealing with everything that we have discussed and Christianity thing, we're not talked about Islam. Islam is a whole nother animal over there in the middle east.

And , let me tell [01:18:00] you, the people who are adherent to that are over there living in culture. That is not nearly as bougie as we are in the west. Okay. Those people are desperate. They really believe that stuff. It is not some joke. It's not something Lucy goosey and they would put you they'd chop your head off as soon as they chop my head off for apostasy.

And they do that because the culture they're living in they're way more reliant and they don't have anything else as a framework for them to structure what they're doing. And I just think that overall, it's not religion. Doesn't move us forward as a species. It doesn't help us discover new things or push things forward.

 We had a, we have podcasts. That's not out just yet where we talked about hypocrisy. And one of the challenges that we talked about in is Are we unfair at targeting religious people's hypocrisy because we're all hypocrites. We all do stuff. And our summarized answer that we gave to that is that [01:19:00] the reason we are really critical of religious people in hypocrisy is that they're the people standing on the hill saying, this is the way it's supposed to be done.

This is the way that it's supposed to work. They're up there saying this is it. So when they fly in the face of that to whether it's to pass Roe V Wade, or, how they phrase things and the rhetoric that they use, the ends justifies the means they're deserving of particular ridicule and contempt and being called out for it because of what they espouse. Does that make sense? I hope that's a, like a 

long rant on that question, but. 

Tim: What do you think in your mind? Cause I know atheism, as in general is not it's still a pretty fringe system of belief, right? I think is that fair to say? Because I I think like globally, most people are religious in some way.

Right. I mean, And historically I don't think it's ever been like like a

dominant perspective, but 

Tim Thomason: free thinkers. It's been around, it's definitely a more minor minority let, this might help you just a little bit because I like to throw this out there because there are so many connotations. Let me just [01:20:00] real quick for you. So you know what my position actually is when I think about God in an.

A nonspecific definition. I think of like how Einstein referred to God which is, this is not specific. It's not the God of the Bible. It's not the God of any other religion. It's abstract. I am agnostic about that because there's no way to know. It's certainly fun to speculate. I looked at those pictures from the new the new telescope the other day and I'm like, oh my God, dude, we don't know what the hell is going on.

Okay. 

And at the end of the day, that's the real position that I hold is that I don't know. I'm always waiting for more evidence. Okay. So that's the abstract, but I would say I'm an atheist for this reason because a agnosticism and atheism answer different questions, a agnosticism, whether you can or cannot know and atheism is whether you really think it's real or it's not.

And it's something specific. So when it comes to like specific gods, zeus Apollo, the, all the Greek [01:21:00] Pantheon or my particular favorite the north God's yawe falls into that category for me. So I'm an atheist about that, but I tend to turn myself as a nonbeliever, a skeptic and a free thinker.

Tim: So my follow up though, to that all I was gonna ask is do you think that there are, and I wanna be, you have to forgive me cuz I still only know evangelical rhetorics sometimes I'm trying

Tim Thomason: it's all good, man. Dude, I grew up in it. I'll be able to work around it. It's

Tim: good. Yeah. So just trying to filter what I'm trying to say here, cause I just still don't have other language yet for it.

Isaac : we know Christianize.

Tim: Okay, good. Given that. Everyone has a worldview. Everyone has a belief system of some kind. I think that's fair to say. Do you, what do you think are some of the potential warnings or pitfalls of your belief system? Like I think that we can both and all of us can articulate the danger of Christian nationalism or the Bible being used as a weapon of oppression.

We can document that throughout the century is really but for an agnostic or maybe an atheist point of view, do you think that that there are sometimes you're like, whoa, I feel [01:22:00] like this world of view, if we're not careful can also cause some problems down the road or has already, what are your thoughts on that?

Tim Thomason: would say that for, I can speak particularly to one negative thing that I, and this is something that I like spending time on the podcast addressing, especially people who are new to this position that I occupy is nihilism, which is the belief that nothing matters.

Tim: right.

Tim Thomason: And I, there is a line of that can run through non-belief that I also find it particularly attributed to religious people who have left religion, not non-believers who have been that way, their entire 

life 

most of my friends that have been atheists or nonbelievers, their whole life don't have this trend of nihilism that I developed as I came out and I really had to stop and look at that and really face that in order to like, get around it, because it can leave you in a depressive state where, you got promised a lot as a believer.

And then when you look at the real world, There are not a lot of answers [01:23:00] you end up in a lot. It's a it's I've also referred to it as taking your safety blanket off. Like your religion keeps you comfortable. You're here, it's warm, it's community, it's this. And then when you deconvert, you throw that away and you're exposed to the harsh wind of reality, if you will.

And , it's hard to deal with. And so that's a trend that I'm particularly trying to address with the podcast and people who are experiencing this, cuz there are ways to like work through that. And so that would be my number one as for other negative. I am hard pressed to think of them.

I've tried to identify a lot of people who are of the disposition of Christian apologetics. They like to argue like some of the worst atrocities , in world history are attributed to atheistic thought processes and they cite Mau and they cite Stalin and they do, they go down this road.

. But what you're talking about with characters like that in our history are mainly forms of totalitarianism [01:24:00] and they have religious followings, basically. Okay. They may not have had a formal religion, but they were a religion end of themselves. They were cults of personality.

Tim: Sure.

Tim Thomason: That to me, that's just an offset of human nature.

Just like we talked about, it's just that you can have that negative thing happen at the same time. It just is emboldened when it gets a religion P pecked up behind it. But for me in my life, in my lifestyle, I think it provides way more benefits than negatives. I we've talked about like having just critical thought and the ability to identify landmines and not step on 'em we had we had one girl who came onto our podcast who had come out of a Christian cult and deconverted, and we were talking about how, when you're really involved in that evangelical movement we were talking about purity culture and how just getting led into relationships that everyone's oh yes, that's great.

And they never kissed, they didn't even kiss until they got married and they go and get into it and they walk into a [01:25:00] landmine that they can't see and that their community literally walks 'em into it. And I feel like as a nonbeliever and a critical thinker, I am at an advantage to avoid that kind of stuff.

Not perfect. Doesn't solve all, 

but it helps. 

Tim: I appreciate you sharing that. I think that for me, and I think for a lot of people who deal in our community, like we wanna be honest, like we. I mean for me personally, I'm just like, there's something I would maybe even for sake of art terms, be more agnostic and I don't know what is happening here, you see the pictures of the telescope.

You're like, my God, like something is beyond me. Clearly. And I think that I've just found a lot of comfort and solace in like this Jesus person, as we read about him, given the fact that there could be problems. And so I, it's interesting. Cause I feel like there's a lot of the same ingredients here, but just express differently.

But anyway, I appreciate you sharing that with me and you know, it helps me just, just think about that from a different perspective of how would this work in this framework? So anyway I am way beyond my time. I'm

have to jet, but I appreciate you guys, making time for me.

Thank you for

Tim Thomason: [01:26:00] Absolutely. We loved having you. Thank you so much for coming on. We're hoping we can just stay in touch going forward. 

Isaac : I sincerely hope this isn't our last podcast. I think we could easily squeeze out enough content for a second one.

Tim Thomason: absolutely

Tim: more questions to ask, so

Isaac : Yeah, 

Tim Thomason: Think up some questions and have us on and we'll come and answer yours.

Isaac : yeah. Yeah. We would love to answer your questions. Let me rephrase that, Tim would just hang out.

Tim: all right, guys. Thanks for having me. I appreciate

Tim Thomason: Cheers brother. Have a 

great day.