ChristiTutionalist Politics | Christian Perspectives on Constitutional Issues

CTP (S3EJanSpecial6) Faith, Fiction, And Real Talk

• Joseph M. Lenard | Christian Activist & Author in Politics • Season 3

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CTP (S3EJanSpecial6) Faith, Fiction, And Real Talk
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond   
We trade sermons for stories and talk about writing faith that feels lived-in, not lab-made. Humor, boundaries, and tough love take center stage as we explore how to meet people where they are and still tell the truth.
• doubling releases to clear interview backlog
• Chantal Deyoe’s background and homestead life
• faith as foundation for character and plot
• showing belief without preaching
• humor as a bridge to hard topics
• meeting people where they are
• practicing righteous judgment not condemnation
• boundaries, second chances and walking away
• Old and New Testament context and continuity
• Chantal’s series and where to buy
• inviting readers into conversation and feedback
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SPEAKER_00:

Hello, welcome to another episode of Pristitutionalist Podcast. I am your host, Joseph M. Werner. That's L-E-N-A-R-D at Look French. It's not it's wonderful down the O. Thank you for tuning in. As Graham Norton used to say on his show. Let's get on with the show. Morning. This episode contains some audio and or video glitches. It is not your equipment. Hello everybody. I just wanted to let you know this brief intro. I'm gonna double up two a week for the rest of January. Uh to get caught up on a few interviews I've recorded lately. They're kind of piling up. They're going a little too far in the future. I don't want to keep people waiting that long. So for the rest of January, I'll do two during the week rather than one midweek drop on Wednesday. So Tuesday and Thursday, the rest of January. Anyway, let's let's get some guests on, as Graham Norton currently says, and I'm borrowing. Joining me today is sh I didn't ask you before I hit record. Is the proper pronunciation Chantal? Are you there? That works for me. Okay. Chantal Dio. Yes? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, I can.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I think I had this problem.

SPEAKER_00:

Had this problem yesterday with an interview too. I think Zoom was acting up a little. There was a delay, a lag in the connection yesterday, too. So pardon people, that may be happening again. But I have a Chantal, uh, not a Chantal, a Chantel, uh La Fever, La Fonte. I I forget her last name on in 2023, a Valentine episode. You're not here to talk romance and Valentine's Day and all that. Your bio says faith is the foundation of your writing, how people come to it, struggle with it, accept or reject it. So, yes, let's let's talk about all that. But first, where were you born and raised? Where are you now? Some significant places you've been between those times, you know, that kind of nitty-gritty.

SPEAKER_01:

My husband and I now live in North Fairfield, Ohio. Uh, we've been here since the year 2000. We have a little homestead here with some animals and uh garden and all kinds of good stuff like that. Our boys are grown, so it's just us now. Um, and in between times, I know right here from home. I love it, love it, love it. So um yeah, that's that's kind of where I've been.

SPEAKER_00:

Sounds good. There's again a little freezing going on in there, but for the most part, I think people will have got it, and I will throw up a warning. Audio and video issues in this happens from time to time episode. Again, I don't know what's going on with Zoom, but didn't have problems before. At any rate, so indeed, uh, faith foundation of your writing, and but you know, people come to it, struggle with it, accept or reject it. What was being a Christian show, pun definitely intended, the genesis, huh? But um bump of that thought.

SPEAKER_01:

My kids are grown, as I mentioned, um, and I've only just started writing and publishing, but it's been a goal all my life, and I think part of that was you know, growing up and maturing, but uh I wanted it to be a a means of having a conversation with people about faith, um, because story is something that people relate to, and you know what people go to in a story, it can really resonate with people, and that's what I've heard. That's a lot of the response I've had. Building faith into um what I write, it's a soft and gentle introduction for some people, and it's a way for others to grow and learn in their faith and maybe consider aspects of it that they haven't before. And my goal is to show it real, not but real.

SPEAKER_00:

Not what there was a pause, not what but real, not fake or not forced, or not what were you saying? There was a gap there. Not oh yeah, not shallow. Oh, okay. There we go. Not shallow. Rose again, but we got it out now. Again, apologize, people, for the audio video issues. I you you don't know it, but behind the scenes, yeah, Zoom literally crashed the minute we were to start the interview. I had to recycle Zoom. Uh, thank goodness it did it before we started. Hopefully, right, knock on wood, I'm hitting my hollow head. Uh it won't happen during the interview. So, Andy, I'm myself being a Christian author, the same thing. But my concern a lot of times, like with movies, I love the Christian movies we're getting these days. Like one of my favorite Christian movies is the second or the resurrection of Gavin Stone. It's a comedy. People, we can have a sense of humor. We don't need to be the, you know, proverbial but um bum again, Christian show, pun intended. Proverbial beat people over the head with the Bible and saying, why won't this sink into your head? You don't get anything with that approach normally, a softer, kindler, gentler, more subtle way. And people, you know, freak out, oh my god, resurrection of a human. You can't it's a figurative, spiritual resurrection, people, not a literal resurrection, like with Christ in the resurrection of Gavin Stone. Great movie. I highly recommend it. Like with my books, I try to scale back the preachy, overburdening Bible something stuff. What's your approach to sharing the message?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I see things like that, like that movie that you're talking about, or my books as being uh a gateway to a conversation with people. It's not the gospel, it's not the presentation of the gospel, it's designed to help people have questions, ask questions, and have a conversation with me or somebody else. And I have to be open to that and willing to hear their concerns and their questions and what they want to talk about because it's through relationship that we come to know who Christ is as he shines through our lives. Now, in my books, I do have, you know, I have several Christian characters, and among themselves, they have those very direct conversations. But when they're talking with other people who are not Christians, their conversation sounds different because they're trying to meet them where they are.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, amen. There's the phrase, meet people where they are, don't assume, try to meet them where they're at in their journey. Nowhere, just starting part way there, or think they're full of cine hubris, think they've got the Bible memorized front to back, and they can parrot it, but they don't seem to understand it. So, yes, your approach has to be slightly different with each of the parties, and yours kind of like my uh my books try to be both for Christians that can enjoy, but also to my The Book of Kennedy, Project Carpe Diem. Like here, here's the hardcover copy of that, different covers for each version or edition. But I want an atheist to be able to read it also and understand you don't have to be a person of faith to understand kind of the philosophy and psychology and human nature of karma. And I often repeat Rick Springfield's song called Karma from his karma album, in which he says, every little bit of love I give to another, you know what I believe? It comes back to me. Putting out good, you're more likely to get good back. Putting out bad or being a mean SOB all the time. Don't be surprised if bad things come back your way, right? You don't have to be religious to accept the karma concept.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes? We can call it what we want. You know, you can call it karma, or you can just, you know, talk about, you know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You know, that's the same kind of idea. And and I can say this, you know, if I approached you with anger and negativity, you're gonna be like, yeah, let's shut this down right now. I don't want to talk to this person, you know. But if you and I can have a little fun together, we're gonna have a nice conversation.

SPEAKER_00:

Amen. That's the other thing. I I have a piece at the Liberty Beacon. Need to keep a sense of humor. And what I said about the resurrection of Gavin Stone film. There's another great one, mom's night out with Trace Atkins. Uh the A Christmas pageant that just came out last year. Great, fun, bunny film. Keep us, you know, things are so serious in this fallen world. We've got to keep a sense of humor. Sounds absolutely like you're on the same page with me. Again, authors, pun intended, same page, bum, bum, right, same page as me with that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yeah. If God had not created joy and laughter and a sense of humor, we wouldn't have it. You know, and the very fact that that is a human trait that is shared across the board, it's just as a Christian, you know, I believe that God created that for us to enjoy this gift of life that he gave us. And so, you know, if if if humor is one way that we can reach others for him, for his kingdom, then all the better.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. I I absolutely uh uh agree with that. And uh I wasn't planning on asking this, but I don't script shows, I didn't research much about you because not because I'm lazy, but because I want my shows to be natural flows, and whatever rabbit holes open, whatever pops into my OCD brain at the time is where we'll go, right? I am learning about you just as the audience learns about you as we go. That to me is honest and natural that way, but I forgot where I was gonna go with that. I just completely caused my brain to go off the rails there. That's right.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe it'll come back to you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Oh, we were talking about humor and uh well, yeah, maybe it'll come back to me. But uh yeah, it's it's it's gone now. That's all right. Hey, no pretense here. I'm human, I'm frail, I'm flawed like everybody else, right? Yeah, this is raw. You get me and the guests, the way we are, no heirs, no pretense, no pompous. Indeed, though, we're talking about being positive or being negative. I coined the term mass holes that I go into that in the book of Kennedy, right? People who are miserable and they want to spread their misery, misery, like I it I I don't get that. So we need to try to tell people to understand everyone's entitled to a bad day, right? If you're having a of the negative anything, right? If you're hostile to me, then yeah, I'm likely to be hostile back. Well, if you're a mass hole and you're always miserable and always negative, again, it's the karma thing. Why would you be surprised if you get all that back all the time? And our point is being at least, while we're all entitled to bad days, remember Martin Luther King Jr., content of one's character, that may not be who they are. They may be having a bad day. That's why we as Christians believe in second chances and that to remember that and try to, even when we're not feeling it, fake and force a smile. Try to be nice, try to put more nicety in this fallen world. Yes?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and you know, I think when you are um and we have a lot more contact with way more people nowadays through social media, through video conversations like this. And so we run into people who are in all different um um points in their lives, and um, you know, I have somebody who's fairly close to me that um struggles with negativity. Um but this is a person who's very important in my life, and so over the decades, and I do mean decades, I have worked at how do I preserve this relationship because it's important to me, in spite of that difficulty. And it has not always been easy, and I have not always been successful, but I have never given up. And um sometimes, yeah, sometimes it's a matter of of taking a moment to try to focus on what's what's really important to talk about here. Can I let some things go? Do I need to address some things? Sometimes we do need to address some things, sometimes we don't, and trying to discern when it's the one and when it's the other can be kind of hard. But I think it's something that's that's important to continue to try. And also, I'd like to say, in other circumstances where these aren't people who are part of your life on social media, for example, I think we need to let a whole lot more go than we do, and just because there are there are people who are having a bad day, as you say.

SPEAKER_00:

Not having such thin skin and snowflakes. Um, I'm offended by everything. Oh my god, I need a safe space. Please, people. So I'm glad you said that and are saying this. And what comes to my OCD mind is remember, you know, what part are we playing? What self-reflection? I have a listener feedback show on that. Self, our need to self-reflect, right? Remember, when pointing the finger, how many of your own are pointing right back at you? And I mentioned the Springfield song, the Michael Jackson tune comes to mind too. Man or woman, not to be genderist or sexist here, in the mirror, right? I'm looking at the man in the mirror and I'm asking him, me, myself, to change my ways. What can we do better?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, going back to that, you know, like the people that you come in contact with there, what can we do better? We can address the issues and and overlook, you know, the behavior, you know, because like you said, sometimes somebody might be having a bad day, but other times people are just agitating and you have to just let that go. And you know, if it's a place where you need to be engaging, engage maturely and respectfully and wisely and and deal with the the issue that you're talking about and leave the rest of it go. And if you can't, walk away.

SPEAKER_00:

I I go into that in my book, right? Some people make it so hard for you to love them. And loving them doesn't always mean being able to deal with them. Sometimes loving them from afar is the best thing, right? Hope for them, pray for them, but no, I can't be in your orbit. You're bad for my mental and physical health, right? In indeed, uh uh those you kind of alluded, right? Do I have there are some people you have to interact with? Do I have to? Do I need to? Or is this I want to, like the case you gave of the relationship, you want to maintain it, even though it's difficult, versus those I don't need this in my life. I'm just moving on, moving on to others. I can make an impact in my and their lives. Yes?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and when you think about um Jesus and his time on earth, what did he do? He preached the gospel to everyone and he spoke difficult words when he needed to, but he did not run after people and beg them to follow him. He offered that invitation, he gave them the truth, and then it was up to them to decide.

SPEAKER_00:

Very important point and distinction. And I talk about it all the time on this show. The Bible in full context, not just the kumbaya singing around the campfire, Jesus, all love and honey and roses and no, the tough love parts of the Bible matter more in many uh cases than the love parts. And Matthew 23 types as Jesus spoke to then as now vipers, snakes, blind guides who just Want the all thing who by Jesus. You're not serving yourself or anyone else. Well, by not dealing in the tough love parts, we all need to hear, trying to cut those out. You're a fake Christian if you do that, yes?

SPEAKER_01:

Without that hard truth of why we need Christ, we don't have any reason to need Christ. We have to understand that we are sinners in need of a savior, and he is that savior. And if uh if if we don't understand the the the justice um you know that balances out that love or that joins with that love, then why would we even need to go there? And why why did he even bother dying on the cross if we don't need that from him?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm and I'm glad you said that. Again, just the way my OCD brain works. Uh nothing you said led me to this other than uh well, whatever it is you said kind of triggered this thought. The anti-Semitism, oh, Jesus dying on the cross, the final blood sacrifice, which eliminated the animal sacrifice of the Old Testament, but Matthew 5, 17. I have come to fulfill the scriptures and the prophecy, not eliminate and supplant it. Jesus didn't erase the entire Old Testament. That's why it's part of our Bibles. The Torah and the New Testament. Yeah, like turn the other cheek is supposed to be applied as best we can over an eye for an eye, but an eye for an eye wasn't erased. If it If turn the other cheek did not say, Jesus did not say always be a sucker. People who want to abuse you, just let them abuse you over and over and over. No, he didn't say that. That's the context of the whole and full Bible, which leads me to the point. Anti-Semitics, right? Anti-Semites. Jesus was born a Jew, Jesus raised a Jew, Jesus fulfilled the Jewish scriptures, the king of the Jews. We as my began his official ministry at 30 under Judean rabbinic law, right? So to blame Jews for Jesus' death is stupid. To blame God because it was God's plan. It was God's will. Those few Jews who did put up with Jesus to punct Pilate, just like Judas, were required to do so as part of God's plan. Otherwise, Jesus wouldn't have been that final blood sacrifice for us. Yes?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, as Jesus himself said, if I had chosen to, I could have called down, you know, 10,000 legions of angels or whatever and and saved myself. And you know, he prayed in the garden, you know, uh, Father, uh, if it be thy will, uh, you know, release me from this, but not my will, yours, because he knew it needed to be done. He knew it did. And I wanted to say something about the Old Testament you mentioned. Um we have a Bible study, weekly Bible study, and a uh uh lesson that we just recently went through made the point for us that um in the old testament, all the furniture was there, everything we needed. But when we got to the New Testament, the lights were turned on in the room and we could understand and see it better. It was all there in the old testament, but the new testament is what brought light and understanding for us.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, oh, you you're triggering me in a good way, not in the emotional, hysterical snowflake way, but yeah, you triggered right better. You said better. The New Testament did not give us all the answers, and that's part of the sin of hubris. It drives me crazy when people say, well, exclusion does not preclusion, or preclusion does not mean exclusion. I don't, I still haven't figured out the best way to say that. But just because Jesus or God doesn't tell us something in the Bible doesn't mean it's not possible. Like alien life. What are the Nephilim or humanoid but non-human creatures that were on the planet? Genesis tells us that, but yet God doesn't owe us all the answers. Genesis does not say, and God created life on earth, on only on earth, life created He doesn't say that. So not saying, oh, there are ant people, there are bird people, there are grey aliens. Right? Sort of thing. So when Jesus returns, we may be told and learn more. We are all but children, right? You don't have a six-year-old war and peace. You give them a Dr. Seuss book, and I know people get upset with me when I say it, but sorry, not sorry, the Bible is a Dr. Seuss book for us children.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. You know, um, so many times, like even when we're studying, we say, we always want to know the rest of the story. We want to know more of what happened, but God, in his wisdom, gave us what we needed to have in order to know him to have eternity with him. And uh, we so many of us say, Oh, when I get to heaven, I am gonna have so many questions, so many questions. We all that's and he made it that way.

SPEAKER_00:

He made us to be curious, he made us and um but he I will I won't get past Saint Peter at the gate, I'll be chewing his ear off. I got questions, I got questions. Exactly, yeah. And he of the other thing was when he Jesus also said from the cross, Father forgive them, they know not what they do. That was referring exactly to that. These people had to put me up for death, they're playing a part, whether they know it or not. Forgive them. They really don't know what they're doing, but it's part of God's plan, and they needed to do it, yes?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's right. And the same with Judas, you know, and you go back into the Old Testament, the same with Pharaoh, you know, he had a role to play, you know, just like all of us do. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Well, I I feel like I've talked too much during this episode, and now the time has flown again. We're we're almost a half hour in. I try be I call it today's Twitter attention spans, right? To keep the shows down, you know, the 30 minutes because they get too long, nobody will watch or listen. It's like, just give me the headline, even the whole uh headline can be this misleading, or the TikTok soundbite, which also can be out of context and misleading. So back to your books, and for those viewing behind the scenes for the benefit of audio only and the transcript, I can see in her background on Zoom here the book, not what they expected. Chantal uh Diot. Yes, please tell us a little bit without too many spoilers about that book specifically and where to buy it.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. So that is the second book uh in my series. The first one you can see on the little shelf over there. It's called Right With Right Where They Belong.

SPEAKER_00:

And for those viewing the video, there's a there's a uh QR code, right? Yes, everybody loves those these days. You can scan that if you're watching on video. I'm sorry, go on.

SPEAKER_01:

That's okay, no problem at all. So these are um they are cozy small town romance by category, um, but they're not fluff and they're not um they're not Colleen Hoover soft core porn. No, absolutely not. They are not that, and they are not saccharin sweep either. They have real people and real problems and uh real difficulties, especially book two, um, the characters in there dealing with some pretty difficult things. Um, but yeah, these are available on Amazon, and you can also buy them on bookshop.org. So if you go to my website, you take my name and have to spell it out for the people who are just listening.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, S-C-H-A-N-T-A-L-D-E-Y-O-E dot com. Okay, I'm writing that down. And of course, in video post edit, I'll put that on the screen for those behind the scenes, but again, for those audio or the benefit of this transcript, it's Chantal C-H-A-N-T-A-L, D-O-D-E-Y-O-E dot com.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly, exactly. And you'll find the links there to purchase those books. And as always, I I love to have conversations with people and uh love to get the feedback through um, you know, um feedback on uh uh on uh Amazon or Goodreads or anything like that. So yeah, reach out and I hope you'll read. And I, you know, I hope maybe you'll hand the book to a friend and say, I think you would like this because that's what we're after is to have open up conversations with our our friends that are on the fence about faith.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And again, the way OCD is just one of my umpte million health issues, and it's uh Chantal has nothing to do with, but somehow, someway, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chantilly laced, and a pretty face and a blah blah blah popped into my head. Why in the world did that pop into my head?

SPEAKER_01:

My uncle, my uncle, when I was a little girl, he would always sing that to me.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's not abnormal.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm not just a weird one. Not at all. It's a good memory for me. Good memory.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm glad it is because I mean there's shit sexual implications in that which generally wouldn't want to go to. It's like, oh, there was a movie. Oh, I don't remember. Oh, oh, the oh god. The guy that was in Brothers was in the uh uh I could pick Stranger Than Fiction, uh, was in a movie with the woman from Illegally Blonde. I can't think of either of their names right now, but one of the things in that movie was he, as the father and the daughter, sang a very sexual induendo implication song. Uh, do you know what one I'm talking about? It was on Amazon Prime Prime. Oh, I can't think of the title of the movie either.

SPEAKER_01:

But vaguely, but you know, you you have to uh allow for um a different um context context, a different understanding, an innocent use of that, you know, because that was you know, there there's uh you know some other phrases that different people use, and when you're little you understand them one. It's kind of like cartoons. You watch cartoons as a child and you understand them on one level, and you get to be an adult and you realize there was a whole lot of stuff in there. The mom and dad. Oh my god, I can't believe that's in there. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, it has to be understood that way.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's why as an adult I still love to go to the theater to see kids' animated movies. There's a lot of stuff in there for adults that go over the kids' heads so the parents don't get bored while in the movie. Like I loved Barbie, the movie. People hate on that movie, and I, you know, because they think it's an ultra woke movie, an ultra fifth-wave feminism movie, and it's not, it's really well balanced. There's great jokes left and right. Barbie, uh pregnant Barbie, Midge, I think, uh, is in the movie. If it were a woke leftist film, they wouldn't be promoting pro-life Barbie in it. My favorite scene is oh, Will Farrell. Will Farrell is because he's in that movie too. That's who I was thinking of. Oh, the name of the Amazon movie is You Are Cordially Invited. So Will Farrell, you are cordially invited. With I still can't think of, I could picture her, but can't think of her name who was illegally. There we go. Thank you. But now I lost my train of thought again. But yeah, the Barbie Wolf Will Ferrell and Barbie, yeah. My favorite scene, favorite line is poking fun at left wokeism. He is the CEO. He's there with the rest of his board, all males, and says with a straight face, we're a feminist company. We have a woman janitor. Right. I almost fell out of the chair in the theater when they said that. That could it's a great film if people would give it a chance. But we all sometimes have preconceived notions, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, yeah, and and different tastes and different things like that, you know. But we we tend to bash what we don't like or don't understand, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

So we need to stop doing that, don't we? Yeah, oh well, you you you brought us back full circle and right, Matthew 7. Judge not lest ye be judged, is really condemn not lest ye be condemned, because there's more to Matthew 7 than just the first seven, and there's a dozen or more other scriptures that tell us we are to judge, but we are to judge righteously, biblically, not hypocritically, hold ourselves to the same set of standards as we do others. And indeed, we need to realize if we don't really know what's going on, should we be criticizing it until we actually find out what's going on? It's okay to be critical if you have an honest opinion, but you know you have facts on your again, back to emotional hysterical snowflakes, right? People reacting on the right emotionally to what they perceive the Barbie movie is versus what it really is. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, I again my OCD and all these rabbit holes that opened up. I am gonna wrap us up, and you already gave what usually is the last question. Where could people find you? It's chanteldio.com. Again, in post, I'll put it on the screen. Thank you for dropping by, Chantal. I appreciate you have you being here. Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed it. Yeah, and and the Zoom issues, knock on wood, seem to have cleared up. We only had them at the beginning. So with that, I'm gonna hit stop real quick before they I jinxed us. They're gonna act up again. So I need to hit stop and save this before I lose it. Thank you all. Take care, God bless. Love you all. Bye-bye. Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and Care Episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned in to another Christitutionalist podcast show. I really appreciate that you stop by. Again, please like, share, subscribe. We need you to help spread the constitutionalist movement. Thank you again. Take care. God bless. Love you all.

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Joseph M Lenard

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