SPEAKER_05: And make plans and give it the way to organize.
SPEAKER_05: But to me they have gone against what Jesus uh uh did because he welcomed women into his ministry and discipleship and so forth, and here they are setting up a system of patriarchy which is modeled on the pagan world way they option rather than what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_05: So um, but other than that, uh that's my one criticism of it, but other than that, I think so I think that there is really a call to oneness with God in there and to pay attention to who they are.
SPEAKER_05: Do I call them somebody?
SPEAKER_09: Please.
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
SPEAKER_05: All righty.
SPEAKER_05: Well, let's see, how about Lauren Kenton his wife?
SPEAKER_05: Looking right at me.
SPEAKER_06: I always suggest interested in how things develop and how we got to we were talking about different beliefs in the church, in the in the structure, and the different areas of the different cities and the different and how things develop.
SPEAKER_06: And then it all ends up that we're all in these different denominations, and I just find that um historically and socially very interesting in how different people interpret.
SPEAKER_06: And I found that quite interesting.
SPEAKER_09: What was there anything in particular for you, Jan, uh, into Timothy or Titus?
SPEAKER_06: Um difference in the rules that we're setting down.
SPEAKER_06: And and uh I found it very interesting about um teachers and how they were developing uh some guidelines for teaching.
SPEAKER_06: And then the other thing that was of interest I don't know what even uh um I'll come back to it.
SPEAKER_06: It'll come back.
SPEAKER_05: May I make an add in a note here, please?
SPEAKER_05: Yes, please, Meg.
SPEAKER_05: Well, one of the things about uh women teaching uh is that uh some of the credit system uh of uh women uh not wanting women to teach is because they can't follow the model of women being according to the social norms of the time if they're gonna let them teach too.
SPEAKER_05: And uh that that really was not what I intended to say, but um for some reason it came out anyway.
SPEAKER_05: But um one of um I'm just gonna be quiet.
SPEAKER_05: I'm misspelled, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_09: You're you're okay.
SPEAKER_09: Can I can I ask you one other follow-up um question, Jan, which is having taught yourself, were there any of these guidelines that either you know appealed to you or or that you bristled at?
SPEAKER_06: Um I don't have my book in front of me.
SPEAKER_06: Um anything that limits the role of women, yeah, that makes me bristle.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_08: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_08: No, please, please.
SPEAKER_09: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_09: Well, no, no, let's let's let's all take our be we'll we'll be good.
SPEAKER_09: We'll take our turn and then invite the next person.
SPEAKER_09: So if we want to share on somebody else, jot some notes down, and when it's your turn, then we'll respond.
SPEAKER_09: Is that does that seem like a fair way to play?
SPEAKER_09: And I'm being bad too.
SPEAKER_09: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_09: I'm just I'm just curious because again, like you're you're a gifted teacher, and um and you mentioned teaching guidelines, so that that was all.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: Um honestly, I'm gonna yield to to Tim and Graziella.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_08: Well, well, I'm I'm a I'm a retired teacher and principal.
SPEAKER_08: Uh and and I think I I what what made me think about this when I read this, what I thought about was my dad as my teacher and my mom.
SPEAKER_08: They put us in Catholic school because he felt that the best education was gonna come from, I don't know if it was because he thought nuns weren't married and so they were living in the con they came from the convent.
SPEAKER_08: I don't know why, but anyway, he thought that was gonna be the strongest education.
SPEAKER_08: And uh it turned out to be quite important actually to me as a little girl, because they became my models as to what I wanted to become.
SPEAKER_08: Um, and and if and they were nuns with investments and all that, they but they were very kind and fun, and they played baseball with us and all that.
SPEAKER_08: But then when we started to go to church, my parents didn't go, they would send us.
SPEAKER_08: And until my dad and my mom started going with us, and I can't remember when all that happened.
SPEAKER_08: Did going to church really make a big difference for me?
SPEAKER_08: Where it really began to mean something?
SPEAKER_08: So there was something about them being the main teachers and the main people that we followed as an example.
SPEAKER_08: I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but um the rest were what the two of them did was of greatest importance.
SPEAKER_09: Thank you.
SPEAKER_02: And and the other thing we were talking about this morning was what's the difference between the pastor and the teacher.
unknown: That's kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, that that from a from a teacher's perspective, I I thought what's what's to me I saw them as having distinct and different roles, but I I don't know.
SPEAKER_08: I I wasn't sure about that.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: Thanks.
SPEAKER_09: I appreciate that very much.
SPEAKER_09: I'm not gonna answer that question until it's my turn.
unknown: Do I pass it on?
SPEAKER_09: Please.
SPEAKER_08: Well, I'll pass it on to you then.
SPEAKER_09: To me?
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
SPEAKER_09: Well, uh Um, you know, I I um as a as a small I guess there were a couple things that stuck out to me.
SPEAKER_09: Uh in Titus, there's a verse I memorized really early on, which is the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to everybody, which I think is continuing that theme last week that Christ died for all, and believers have the benefit of it now.
SPEAKER_09: Now, not you know, only.
SPEAKER_09: So it's this interesting thing to think that God's grace is ubiquitous, and we get that claim in Titus.
SPEAKER_09: And uh boy, if I could just live into that, it would be great.
SPEAKER_09: Um, the other thing I think that that stuck out to me is this is the first book where you get to hear the difference between an elder and a bishop.
SPEAKER_09: So this is like the word presbyter, and then we also have episcopas, the the bishop, and um you know, I guess I once had somebody tell me that a the difference between teaching and preaching is that teaching is when you make a point, and preaching is when you rub it in.
SPEAKER_09: And I decided that's really wrong and terrible, and that was one of the worst preachers I'd ever heard, actually.
SPEAKER_09: Who said that?
SPEAKER_09: Um so I think um I think this is one of the things my wife took in seminary that was really transformational for her, was a way of teaching um the studied teaching methods.
SPEAKER_09: And so um the traditional way of teaching, I think, is the banking method, which is that I make deposits into your intellectual account from my own.
SPEAKER_09: Um, and if you know a lot of things, you can put factoids in other people's accounts really easily, right?
SPEAKER_09: You just sort of say, this is what you do, this is what you do.
SPEAKER_09: And then, of course, there's like other ways in which you you sort of you learn together, and this is supposed to be the seminar style.
SPEAKER_09: If you really practice it, is that instead of teacher being the expert, the teacher is the curator of the information and of the web of relationships, and the teacher is not above the web but within it.
SPEAKER_09: So the teacher sort of helps unroll this process and then grows with the students.
SPEAKER_09: And um, to me, that's probably what pastoring really ought to be like.
SPEAKER_09: Um, you could call it guide by the side, but I think the dangerous thing is when you say there's a guide by the side, the teacher is the guide and is different from everybody else.
SPEAKER_09: So it seems like pastoring really has to be like helping curate a process that you hop within yourself, if if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_09: I never ran my math classroom that way, and I wouldn't.
SPEAKER_09: I would not do that, teaching algebra too or um pre-algebra or um even differential equation.
SPEAKER_09: I was not gonna be a guide by the side kind of teacher because I was the banker.
SPEAKER_09: I knew how to do the math, and if they could discover some things that you know sort of enriched me, great.
SPEAKER_09: Um, however, I I I think again that's where pastoring is really different because uh the older I get, I'm still struggling to live this out.
SPEAKER_09: I want you to know, because having taught math, I like banking and I've studied a lot, so I really like banking.
SPEAKER_09: Um but but I think really the difference is between um knowing it and trying to get it right.
SPEAKER_09: And sometimes like I get into the no, I I know mentality instead of I'm I'm curious about how we might make that more right.
SPEAKER_09: And to me, that's sort of the difference between those those two mindsets.
SPEAKER_09: Um let me invite Tim Brown to share.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning, morning.
SPEAKER_01: So I I I mean, my my initial impression reading all of this is like, boy, he was really angry at a lot of different people.
SPEAKER_01: And uh it was just kind of laying down some guidelines, and a lot of the guidelines are uh really if you're truly gonna pick somebody that's gonna live up to all that, I don't know how many people you could actually find to run anything.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Um but and then but the other verse that really jumped out at me for for whatever reason was uh was the the line uh all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, wow.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of that kind of implies that if you do things right, you're gonna get picked on.
SPEAKER_01: And there's so many people going around whining about being picked on because of what they believe.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing.
SPEAKER_01: Get over yourself.
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that that was kind of my my big takeaway from all that.
SPEAKER_01: There's just a lot of very familiar verses in both of these that I was like, wow.
SPEAKER_09: Thank you.
SPEAKER_09: And then Tim, you get to invite our next sharer.
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a good morning.
SPEAKER_07: Can y'all hear me?
SPEAKER_07: So what really jumped out at me in this time, and I know if I read it ten years ago, it would be something different, and ten years from now, something different.
SPEAKER_07: But what stood out to me was especially in Second Timothy two, but I think it happened throughout.
SPEAKER_07: What I heard Paul say repeatedly to Timothy is don't get caught up in these arguments.
SPEAKER_07: Don't participate in arguments and debates and controversies with others.
SPEAKER_07: Um that's what I seem to hear over and over again.
SPEAKER_07: And the word specifically that jumped out at me is don't let your passion lead you into quarrels and debate.
SPEAKER_07: So normally, or maybe at another time in my life I would have thought of you know your passion as something else.
SPEAKER_07: But at Timothy's point, what I heard him saying is it sounds like Timothy had a propensity or a tendency to fight and argue and debate about things that he was very passionate about.
SPEAKER_07: It sounded to me like Paul was saying, don't waste your time with that.
SPEAKER_07: You know what you know, stick with what you know, take that.
SPEAKER_07: That's what jumped out at me.
SPEAKER_07: But I do have a question later if we have time for questions.
SPEAKER_09: Please, thank you.
SPEAKER_07: For now, I will invite Well, uh I don't there's a lot of y'all don't have your first names up there.
SPEAKER_07: So the name that's on the screen is Linton.
SPEAKER_00: That's Sandra.
SPEAKER_00: My husband, because I use his when he sends me on.
SPEAKER_00: But I I because I haven't been coming, and so you're you're sort of talking about weird things that have come through the uh as you've been studying.
SPEAKER_00: But every time I uh read this, I uh have I have a curiosity about to why people do things.
SPEAKER_00: And I I was very curious about this when I read it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I first heard about the incident which resulted in Paul's arrest, and that led him to be able to go because he could ask to go to Rome.
SPEAKER_00: Because we we learned when we read that Timothy too, we know he really needed to go to Rome, and Rome was really good because he could do so many things before his time was passed.
SPEAKER_00: And so, but I heard it on a podcast, and it was sounded really violent, really surprising.
SPEAKER_00: But this is when apparently the the Jews he converted the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: There was the arguments about the Gentiles weren't real Jews, and he let them, as an experiment, I think, go into the synagogue or the the holy place, and it was a big uproar because that was not to be done.
SPEAKER_00: And then that led to his arrest and then his visit to uh Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And that's interesting that I think do you think that's why he did it?
SPEAKER_00: Because I I just wonder if that's what he did because it was so violent that what happened, and I don't know if he was expecting that.
SPEAKER_09: Do you want me to answer that really briefly?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_09: You know, in in in Acts, that's the accusation against Paul that gets him arrested.
SPEAKER_09: But Paul says I didn't do that.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, Paul says, no, I did not encourage uncircumcised people to go into the temple, far from it.
SPEAKER_09: I told them stay in the court of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't that but that in Tempty 2 doesn't it mention it, sort of?
SPEAKER_09: Um I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why I looked, but but anyway, that uh that's that that's what I I I just couldn't let that go because I couldn't figure out for sure if that's why you'd done it.
SPEAKER_00: And um so I'll I'll call him a tie.
SPEAKER_02: I had read it, but I got here I got here late.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna be a big listener today.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
SPEAKER_09: Um how about Polly Steele Hey Polly?
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, gotcha.
SPEAKER_04: Because it sounded um typically tall.
SPEAKER_04: Um the idea about women um be patient, but I'm gonna talk about um these other people, and you shouldn't, but I am.
SPEAKER_04: So it you know, it was just I didn't get a lot out of it.
SPEAKER_04: Is that terrible?
SPEAKER_09: No, it's honest, that's all we can ask for.
SPEAKER_09: Um does that leave Bonnie then?
SPEAKER_02: Well, Bonnie shared at the top, so I think I'm gonna pass today.
SPEAKER_02: We can Oh we make a missed it.
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
SPEAKER_09: Well well, Gina, you said you had a question to return to.
SPEAKER_07: Okay, not because because I don't want to stir up controversy or get into I really but um it came up in 1 Timothy and it came up in 2 Timothy, and I think even in Titus.
SPEAKER_07: What is your interpretation of must be husband of one wife?
SPEAKER_09: Oh, I'm so glad you asked that.
SPEAKER_09: And I hope it's helpful to hear that there's a couple of options, and you probably know some of them.
SPEAKER_09: One of the options is you can only be married one time.
SPEAKER_09: And in fact, I want you to know that there's this Princeton scholar um who argues that um you can only have one marital covenant period, and if you ever enter to a second for any reason, that's called not polygamy, but polygyny, and in fact, it's wrong.
SPEAKER_09: The first covenant is the lasting one.
SPEAKER_09: And and I just have to, sorry, call that bullshit.
SPEAKER_09: I I have to.
SPEAKER_09: Because if you're married when you're 18 or 21 or even 40, and for some reason your spouse abuses you, in my personal opinion, the covenant's over.
SPEAKER_09: You can recoven it if you choose to.
SPEAKER_09: And I don't think that you always have to like leave permanently, but I would tell anybody who came into my office, you leave the house, guarantee your safety, and then what you do next is up to you.
SPEAKER_09: But there's no way, in my opinion, that God's going to say, yeah, you should go back to an abuser and risk life and limb and your spirit.
SPEAKER_09: So, what happens if you get married young and you both change?
SPEAKER_09: What happens if you get married even middle-aged, and your spouse becomes a drug addict and you say, I just can't do this anymore?
SPEAKER_09: Does that mean you can't be intimate with somebody the rest of your life?
SPEAKER_09: That just seems preposterous to me.
SPEAKER_09: So I think another option is to hear this as a one-woman kind of man or a one-man kind of woman.
SPEAKER_09: Um, the idea that um the the person should be in a monogamous relationship, not in a polygamous relationship.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_09: I think the argument is more about monogamy than it is about one marriage.
SPEAKER_07: Well, I guess what I was getting at is do people use this as a way to keep active homosexuals from being in clergy?
SPEAKER_07: Like if the man woman as opposed, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_09: People use people use scripture to beat other people up as often as they can.
SPEAKER_09: And let's just be honest about that.
SPEAKER_09: And um, as a as a Southern Baptist, if you wanted to be a deacon, but you'd been divorced, you could not be a deacon in the church I grew up in.
SPEAKER_09: So it wasn't even about uh gay straight, it was about you could never be divorced.
SPEAKER_09: And and I'm sorry, if you're Roman Catholic and you're divorced, you cannot receive communion unless you've had that annulled.
SPEAKER_09: But this is a tough thing, and I'm not beating up the Catholic Church here, but if you were married and you had children, and then the relationship with went wrong for whatever reason, how can you annul your children?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, this is really, really difficult.
SPEAKER_09: It's a lot to ask.
SPEAKER_09: So I think like one of the things uh we always have to hold on to is do we take this so literally we forget to take it seriously?
SPEAKER_09: And where's the life in this passage?
SPEAKER_09: Um I I think um to be honest with you, this was another another struggle, and I still want to talk about polygamy just for a second before I talk about gay marriage.
SPEAKER_09: Um I had a teacher who was a missionary to the Mossai in Africa, and the custom was uh actually very similar to the times we're reading in now, where women couldn't own property.
SPEAKER_09: So chieftains had multiple wives.
SPEAKER_09: And some of the missionaries would say, you have to get rid of those multiple wives to become a real Christian.
SPEAKER_09: Well, if they did that, the women would become prostitutes, their parents would disown them, they would likely be killed.
SPEAKER_09: So if you take this this particular culture that we have, and you require somebody else to have our culture in order to have a relationship with God, this seems like a huge disservice.
SPEAKER_09: Um, and I think that's part of the struggle here, Gina, is like to winnow out how much of this is cultural, how much of this is a one to one application to us, and essentially where's the life here?
SPEAKER_09: Now, I think the same thing has to be true, honestly, with with gay relationships, people who don't want People who don't want to get behind them are going to find any reason they can not to get behind them.
SPEAKER_09: And I think this is, if you didn't mind me saying, like the biggest problem with the COVID-19 discussion.
SPEAKER_09: I see people read and quote facts all the time, but at the end of the day, what they've decided is what they already believe, and then they look for the facts to support what they already believe.
SPEAKER_09: And if the fact pattern doesn't support it, then it's fake news.
SPEAKER_09: So this I think is actually related to what you said about arguments and quarrels and debates.
SPEAKER_09: The question is, do we really make room with curiosity for somebody else, or do we only want to listen to what somebody else says so that we can be the banker and say that's a bad investment, you're wrong?
SPEAKER_09: Using this against uh gay folks is to me just as wrong as using it against somebody who was married and divorced for a good reason.
SPEAKER_02: Well, let me ask a question.
SPEAKER_03: Were the Jews or the Greeks polygamous or were they monogamous?
SPEAKER_09: Depends where you lived.
SPEAKER_09: You know, I mean it really depends where you lived.
SPEAKER_09: And I would tell you, for example, like Abraham was a polygamist.
SPEAKER_09: Uh real polygamist, Solomon, not only did he have wives, but he had all these concubines, which are like had fewer privileges than wives.
SPEAKER_09: Polygamy is really kind of running out.
SPEAKER_09: But you have to remember that um this is kind of spreading not just in a locality, but Christianity is spreading at least around the Mediterranean.
SPEAKER_09: And so you know, polygamy can you can see a little bit uh more, I would tell you, in places like Africa.
SPEAKER_09: Uh, and that's again still tends to be uh where you could find it today, although you could just as well find it in Utah.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I just got through reading a book about the Commandant Empire, and I was a little stunned to learn that most Indians in the I in the Americas were with English.
SPEAKER_03: I just I guess I just never thought of it.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, when women are are truly treated as shadows, polygamy tends to kind of come alongside it.
SPEAKER_09: Because again, the question is who's gonna support the women?
SPEAKER_09: Who's gonna take care of them financially um or proprietally?
SPEAKER_09: And and so that's you know tends to happen because uh, you know, there tend to be more women than men.
SPEAKER_09: Like something like 53% of births versus 47, and particularly when you have wars, right, then you've got a reduced male population.
SPEAKER_09: Uh, by the way, I'm not supporting the practice.
SPEAKER_09: I I will tell you, I cannot imagine having a second spouse.
SPEAKER_09: Because one is plenty of work, you know.
SPEAKER_09: Uh I don't know how anybody does it, but you know, you can watch these shows about Mormons uh who do this, like, and I'm not picking on the Mormons, but they do this, right?
SPEAKER_09: In in and and these are not mainstream Mormons, by the way, right?
SPEAKER_09: And and and you can watch where there's like 17 wives, and the truth is they just have very different relationships with each other and with their husband.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, so to say, like, ooh, that's wrong because we don't do it that way, is a little bit imperialistic.
SPEAKER_09: I think the real question is, you know, we always have to stop back and say, where'd that come from?
SPEAKER_09: How is that functioning?
SPEAKER_09: For me, I couldn't function with it.
SPEAKER_09: And to be honest, like one of the most dangerous things for me in my relationship would be something like an affair.
SPEAKER_09: I just don't think I'm I'm fit to say, hey, you know, I'm really um a liberal guy, and so open marriage is a great idea.
SPEAKER_09: I just I can't I don't think I can do it.
SPEAKER_09: If other people can do it, I you know, I'm not in the place of judgment.
SPEAKER_09: I just I just can't do it.
SPEAKER_04: Like this whole thing about homosexuality and polygamy.
SPEAKER_04: Polygamy.
SPEAKER_04: The number of people who accept polygamy as opposed to those who accept homosexuality.
SPEAKER_09: I I think Polly Is I I think we have to be careful where the Anglican Church accepts it.
SPEAKER_09: I think there are branches in the Anglican communion in which polygamy is a cultural norm, and it hasn't been a differentiating factor between, say, um, you know, the the church in Rwanda and the church in England.
SPEAKER_09: The Anglican Church, the Church of England, has no acceptance of polygamy at all.
SPEAKER_09: Because you can't legally do it in England.
SPEAKER_09: So it's important to remember that there's the Anglican Church and then there's the Anglican Communion.
SPEAKER_09: Now, the Episcopal Church is a member of the Anglican Communion, but we've been censured by the Anglican Communion because we accept uh gay marriage as sacramental and gay clergy.
SPEAKER_09: But I think you raise a really important argument, I mean a really important point, which is in some of these places like in uh in Rwanda, polygamy is actively being practiced.
SPEAKER_09: So, where's the censure of the Anglican communion against the Rwandan um member?
SPEAKER_09: And and I don't have a great answer for that.
SPEAKER_09: I I really don't.
SPEAKER_09: To me, honestly, when an American church, when an Episcopal church leaves the Episcopal Church and becomes a member of the Anglican Communion, what that means for for all of you who are watching is that they're under the direction of an African bishop.
SPEAKER_09: So there is no member of the Anglican Communion in the United States except the Episcopal Church.
SPEAKER_09: The way these places work is that they have a bishop in Rwanda or Burundi or something like that.
SPEAKER_09: And my question is, um, and I think this is a really good one: why would we prefer issues like female genital mutilation and polygamy to consenting behavior between two adults?
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
SPEAKER_09: Um, but I don't want to be negative about that.
SPEAKER_09: I just I just it it is puzzling to me.
SPEAKER_09: And I think this comes back to one of the key messages that Gina mentioned, which is really about um how do we refrain from foolish arguments and quarrels and debates as opposed to meaningful dialogue.
SPEAKER_09: And to me, the difference is dialogue is when I'm actually willing to listen and curious, not just so I can sabotage your propositions, but so that I have room to be converted.
SPEAKER_09: I'm gonna tell you honestly, I will never be converted to polygamy, at least not at this point in my life.
SPEAKER_09: The best I can say is like, hey, we're gonna agree to disagree on that.
SPEAKER_09: Or we're gonna transform how we disagree about that.
SPEAKER_09: Like, I don't want our relationship to have to be at stake here, but know that that is like an inexorable difference.
SPEAKER_09: So I'm I'll tell you, I'm not ready to enter into dialogue about that.
SPEAKER_04: Um I I think that's probably the what can what bothers me about it is that on the one hand it's okay to be the one dialogue or the other one to be the homosexuality or the polygamy.
SPEAKER_04: But it seems like the whole reason is money.
SPEAKER_04: And and the number of people.
SPEAKER_04: It doesn't I don't know.
SPEAKER_04: I'm getting all confused in my mind.
SPEAKER_09: Well, I do I think it's fair to say that there might be something other than money going on, and and I'm going to reframe it if it's okay, from uh a debate I heard on the floor at the General Convention in 2009 when ordination of openly gay clergy was being discussed in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_09: And the speaker I heard, they had two minutes before the microphone gets turned off, and they said, Listen, you know, it's great that the American church is thinking about making this step.
SPEAKER_09: And we want to bring the rest of the world, you know, our brothers and sisters in Christ, with us.
SPEAKER_09: So the question is, how do we bring people with us?
SPEAKER_09: Is it by flying way ahead of them so that they have to catch up, or is it possible that we fly so fast that we lose the wings to the plane?
SPEAKER_09: Now let me tell you, um, that was when I knew I could be an Episcopalian because it was a compassionate reason to think about dialogue.
SPEAKER_09: I'm really proud with what we did as a church.
SPEAKER_09: To be honest, if we have to wait till everybody agrees, we'll never do anything right.
SPEAKER_09: I'm positive about that.
SPEAKER_09: But just naming that tension between how do we do it and um it's not just about being right, it's about righteously pursuing what's right.
SPEAKER_09: And it's sticky.
SPEAKER_09: I don't think there's a real clear answer.
SPEAKER_09: Partly, I'll just tell you at this church, I was absolutely surprised, surprised, and grief-stricken that two of our families left the church because we decided that we could have gay marriage here in the sanctuary, which by the way still hasn't happened.
SPEAKER_09: And when it does, those families weren't going to be invited anyway.
SPEAKER_09: But I I loved both of those families.
SPEAKER_09: I had done things for them pastorally, like baptize grandchildren, married children.
SPEAKER_09: Um, they were very involved in ministry.
SPEAKER_09: And um, do I think we did the right thing as a church?
SPEAKER_09: Personally, yes.
SPEAKER_09: Do I always wonder, could we have done it in a way to keep them?
SPEAKER_09: Of course, I wonder that.
SPEAKER_09: Is the the loss of them uh affect my heart?
SPEAKER_09: It does.
SPEAKER_09: And I think all of that's mature.
SPEAKER_09: The problem is when we disagree and leave, then we tend to have nothing to hold us in the middle.
SPEAKER_09: And this I think is the scary thing, right?
SPEAKER_09: When liberals and conservatives disagree and they stop talking, liberals become more liberal and conservatives become more conservative, and they don't have any kind of nexus to say, like, hey, compromise is really important.
SPEAKER_09: Making room for the other side is important because they've already ripped the relationship up.
SPEAKER_09: So I don't know how we navigate this.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, for me, there comes a point where like the ship has sailed and the genie's out of the bottle, and maybe you didn't do the right thing, but there's no way we're gonna go back to our um same-sex couples and say, well, we shouldn't have done that.
SPEAKER_09: You mean just that that ship has sailed, you know?
SPEAKER_09: And the American Episcopal Church, that ship has sailed, I hope, for good, because to go back would be so damaging.
SPEAKER_09: How we ameliorate the tension, I think, is actually like the work is the pastoral work.
SPEAKER_09: And this is where I think coming back to Gina's question about teaching and preaching, or the tension between those, is really, really important.
SPEAKER_09: The teacher can rest on what's right.
SPEAKER_09: But I'm not really convinced that that's very life-giving.
SPEAKER_09: There's a great quote about by Gregory uh Nazaranzius that says concepts create idols, only wonder really knows.
SPEAKER_08: Only wonder.
SPEAKER_09: But I'm gonna tell you at the same time, so I don't sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth.
SPEAKER_09: Um, I really struggle with wonder because concepts are easier.
SPEAKER_09: I know who's right and I know who's wrong, and I really like being right.
SPEAKER_09: I really do.
SPEAKER_09: And sometimes I confuse being right as the goal of where all this journey is instead of being righteous.
SPEAKER_09: Righteous isn't about about piety as we normally do it.
SPEAKER_09: Righteousness in the Bible is about God's version of justice.
SPEAKER_09: So I didn't think to be righteous means, hey, if you're not ready uh to make this social stand, I won't go with you, because that's not just.
SPEAKER_09: I think the question is, how do we make these stands?
SPEAKER_09: And are we able to try our best to keep the relational nexus together while we make these really, really tough choices?
SPEAKER_07: I think what Tim said to say about um compassionate reason a compassionate reason on the dialogue.
SPEAKER_07: A lot of times when you go somewhere.
SPEAKER_07: They just want to hear stuff that they cannot agree with.
SPEAKER_07: But at the same time, if you're gonna hear something really cannot be one step beyond what they already agreed with.
SPEAKER_07: And if you go beyond that, you're gonna you can't get there.
SPEAKER_07: So I like that idea that it takes compassionate to do, you know, just like that.
SPEAKER_07: Like, okay, I'm only willing to maybe see this far out of what I could have agreed with yesterday.
SPEAKER_07: You see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_09: I do, and I think there's something really critical in remembering, like for myself, I've been on a particular academic spiritual journey for 20 years, and if I require people to make all the steps I made over 20 years in one, I mean, that's not even being true to myself.
SPEAKER_09: So I I get that.
SPEAKER_09: And then the question is, how do I invite people into a journey?
SPEAKER_09: And part of that I think also has to do with um difference between teaching and preaching, is that preaching uh I think requires us to be very upfront with our own vulnerability and our struggles, and if we're not willing to do that, then we're just bankers and we set ourselves up on pedestals and sort of tie into narcissism and idolatry.
SPEAKER_08: Well, teaching does the same thing to me.
SPEAKER_09: Good teaching does.
SPEAKER_08: Good teaching exposes your vulnerabilities, absolutely.
SPEAKER_08: Uh, as a as a retired 30-year-old with 30 years of teaching, there's a big difference, for example, between teaching mathematics and teaching social studies.
SPEAKER_08: Because mathematics, there was a there's a place in math where it's either true or one is two more, you know, math things sometimes like the same.
SPEAKER_08: Doing social studies and literature and all of that, those are much broader and religion, those are much wider, they're much more coming out of experience, also, as well as how who you are and where you come from, and and there's so much more, and uh and it becomes uh much much more exciting to work with that to me, that that's it was like that.
SPEAKER_09: So I I want to because I'm a mathematician, I just want to say, right, that there's there's this different approach to math that I think there is in everything that you mentioned.
SPEAKER_09: And the question is, do you dwell on facts or do you dwell upon the concepts that underlie facts?
SPEAKER_09: So I can tell you, I was super good in college at working problems.
SPEAKER_09: I didn't understand like why it worked, but it didn't matter because when I saw the problem, I knew what to do.
SPEAKER_09: And then I got up to try to teach, and I was like, wow, um, I've never really understood this conceptually.
SPEAKER_09: And and I think that might be part of the difference.
SPEAKER_09: You can teach history that way, you can teach history in terms of dates, and you can teach religion that way, memorize these verses of the Bible.
SPEAKER_09: But I think the real question is how do we put ourselves in in a dialogue such that the teacher starts the learning process and is willing to learn join students in learning and be taught by them.
SPEAKER_08: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_08: It's and uh I I I guess in some ways I was pretty straightforward.
SPEAKER_08: I taught fifth graders.
SPEAKER_08: So you know, I was teaching fractions, I found fractions so difficult, but if I followed the rules and taught them just the way we're supposed to teach them, then the kids understood fractions, I think.
SPEAKER_09: But yeah, yeah, well, I'm gonna tell you a really scary thing about math as a last closing bit, and I think it's really important to hear that um major studies say that the reason American students struggle with math so much is that elementary math teachers chose elementary ed because they didn't understand math themselves.
SPEAKER_09: And so they thought, I'll go do the easy math, and what they passed on to their students was a fear of really understanding concepts.
SPEAKER_09: By the way, I'm not claiming that about every teacher, but this is sort of the the deal.
SPEAKER_09: And I in my own program I was with a uh a fellow student who was a math major, and she switched from math to math ed because math was too hard for her.
SPEAKER_09: Oh, and that was and that was tough and scary.
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I will just finish by saying I chose the upper levels in elementary.
SPEAKER_08: I wanted to be in elementary, but I wanted to be in fifth and sixth grade and seventh grade because I didn't want to um necessarily be with this black and white kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_08: But when you got into that level with a kids, they were beginning to explore a whole lot.
SPEAKER_08: And um you can leave, you can work with that, and it was it was much more fun though to teach social studies, and uh, even science was more fun because there's a lot of black and white in science, but there's also a lot of questions and exploration.
SPEAKER_08: Um, I didn't mean to give takeoff on the teaching.
SPEAKER_09: No, I actually think it's directly analogous to what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_09: It's directly analogous, and I think the question is uh in our in our spiritual lives and our ethical lives and the way we interact with other people, be they polygamous or homosexual, southern Baptist or Catholic, are we stuck on grade level one facts or are we going underneath the concepts?
SPEAKER_09: And when do we know we can and can't do that?
SPEAKER_09: Again, there's people I can't do it with because I don't feel safe.
SPEAKER_09: There's people who can't do it with me because I know they're not going to listen to me.
SPEAKER_09: So, like when and how we get into discussion seems really, really important and uh part of the subject of these letters anyway.
SPEAKER_09: Okay, um, we're about to get kicked off, probably.
SPEAKER_09: I'm super sorry.
SPEAKER_09: Uh what I wanted to ask if we could before I close, um, would you um next we have one more week in the manual 32?
SPEAKER_09: It's a summary.
SPEAKER_09: Um would you sometime in the next week let me know if you'd like to do that or something else?
SPEAKER_09: If you you have been faithful going through here, do you want to start doing something different on Wednesdays, particularly because we're kind of isolated and being able to get together is good.
SPEAKER_09: There's another disciple study, there's other things I can do, but I'd be grateful for suggestions from you all because you're the ones who have been faithfully coming, and of course, anything we do new opens up to everybody else.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, please ahead of next week.
SPEAKER_09: Like if you could by week's end send me an email, and you don't have to, but you know, do you want to do week 32 in the book, which is a review?
SPEAKER_09: Uh I'm very happy to do it.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes people say, No, I want to move on.
SPEAKER_09: Um, or uh, and or what is there something you'd like to do next together as a group?
SPEAKER_05: Good idea to me.
SPEAKER_09: Thank you.
SPEAKER_09: Listen, I really appreciate you all.
SPEAKER_09: Polly, I'm sorry to lose you.
SPEAKER_09: Let's pick up next week, okay?
SPEAKER_08: Thank you.
SPEAKER_08: Bye.
SPEAKER_08: See ya.
SPEAKER_09: Take care, everybody.
SPEAKER_09: Thank you.
SPEAKER_08: Let's bless this, everybody.
SPEAKER_08: Be safe.
SPEAKER_08: Bye, everybody.