Father Mike tests is my favorite episcopal priest. No offense to all the other episcopal priests. I'm sure they're lovely, but he takes my calls whenever I make them. So he has joined us now to have a conversation about the last week.
Father Mike. First off, welcome back.
It's good to be back, Mandy. I was good to talk to you well, and.
There's a few things that I want to talk to you about. One of them. I feel very hopeful about this because.
Whenever we deal with some big, horrible in Colorado, I feel like it's another shooting, you know, and all of these horrible events. One of the things that I talk about all the time is that, you know, one of the things that I think would be best for our country is if we had a spiritual revival where people started to turn to God instead of the news networks and turn to God instead of assuming that.
You know, they have all the answers.
And since the beginning of the year, sales of the Bible have gone up dramatically. Searches on Google for churches new or Me have gone up dramatically, and this past weekend especially, churches announced that they saw a lot of new faces in the pews they had never seen before, and that they were excited about the possibility of people exploring their faith in a more significant way. Are you seeing that at your churches in Wisconsin?
My numbers are up a little, not traumatically, but no. I would love to experience that surge, but I have not so far.
Well, I here's hoping that the surge makes it to Wisconsin. But what are your thoughts overall about the Bible sales going up? About people searching for churches in their area.
So it depends on why. You've got to answer yourself the why. So if they're buying Bibles to justify what they already believe and they're not really calls us to do, or if they're going to church to be surrounded by people who think like they do and just by you know, unchristlike behavior. I mean, the devil loves people going to church who don't actually embrace the teachings of Christ. And Christ said, I didn't come to boshe la, I came
to fulfill it. And there's two laws. Love one another as I have loved you, and love the Father with all your heartlind, soul.
And strength.
So when you talk about like people going or buying a Bible to justify their viewpoint.
What do you mean, so you can isolate phrases in the Bible to justify your cause. So one of the big cases where people justify either whether you're for or against same sex marriages, you can make the Bible defend your cause. You can ha make it say yep, homosexuality is an abomination, and you can make it say, oh, but the Bible said Jesus had a special place with John it. I mean, so both sides can make really shortcases to defend what they they've already believed is right.
Instead of letting scripture reveal truth as it always does. If you're open to what it's saying to you, can you.
Hold oh, yeah, it does, it does. It makes a lot of sense.
One of the things, and I don't know if you're familiar at all with what Charlie Kirk was doing or what he was saying, or any of that stuff, but one of the things that I think has been really interesting is that people are discovering that though he would say, I believe, because of my faith that marriage is between a man and a woman, but I welcome you in this cause, Like I welcome conversations, I welcome fellowship, I welcome.
All of these things.
How do we get to a point where you can say I have a strong Christian faith and these are my beliefs, but I'm not necessarily going to try and condemn a person because their life is different than mine.
And see, I have no problem with people who are in churches that have a lot of structure, in a lot of rules. I think God has created all these staffs because that's what it takes to get us all home.
But when you start using your paintbrush outside your own box, when you start saying, well, everybody who doesn't do it this way is not going to heaven or is damned to hell or you know, that's when I get really uncomfortable, because there is a judge and I'm not him, and that I and I use that line when I have people come through the door that I don't necessarily understand.
I mean, there's the world is shifted, and I'm the last year of the boomers, and I don't get a lot of the stuff that my kids just say, for granted, but my job is not to judge. My job is to love, and if they don't belong in my church, where do they belong?
Well, I think that's a fair point.
But on the the other side of that is, if you see someone making destructive choices, and I'm not even talking about being gay, I'm just talking about destructive choices overall, how do you, as a loving person of faith say, you know what, I am not okay with.
The choices that you're making, but but I still.
Love you, and you know, how do you how do you strike that balance without being one of those really judgmental people that is going to drive people away from a possible relationship with God when they might need it the most.
So standing next to the person is the image I use, and you can say, you know, if it's just, if it's hurting themselves as someone else, you can say I love you and I'll be here for you. But I cannot. I cannot tell you that that behavior is acceptable.
It just isn't.
I don't I don't like to see you hurt yourself. I don't like to see others be hurt because of you.
Does that make sense, Yeah.
I mean it makes perfect sense.
But I got to tell you, Mike, I've been working really hard over the past couple of years on two things to my own, like little journey here, right, I've been trying to be less judgmental because to your point, it is not my role to judge someone. Now, that doesn't mean that I can that I will accept everything that they're doing that I just think is wrong, because I mean, you can look at various choices that people are making and say that is not going to take
them to a good place. Right, that's a that's a dumb choice, and it's a it's a dumb way to go through life. And I've also been working on trusting God. And over the last week I have been in a herculean struggle, mostly on the radio, swinging between just really really vicious anger and then trying to get that under control and say, this is not my role to judge. My role is to just what be better and provide a better commentary, and that'll be It'll be that'll bring
people together instead of further divide people. Trusting God has been hard this past week. It really has Why do bad things happen to good people?
You know?
And God do that? Or did a corrupt and sinful world which God allowed to have free will and make choices? Does God stand with us the other other part is that the chicks are on the clock. Everybody has a role to play. Now, did God want that man to die? I don't believe that that was like a part of a plan, but.
He had.
But nobody knows why it was his time. And nobody knows I mean, so the hard finds what it's looking for.
And you can see.
All of the nasty parts of that father, the two children not having their dad, the wife not having her husband, people who found hope in his message, you know now not having that.
But you know, is it is it a chance to.
Spark a real conversation.
Is it a chance for people to say, you know what my comments on the Wednesday after it happened was, this is what we've come to. We don't talk, we don't listen, We just shoot each other.
I mean, is that where we are that.
We can't even you know?
And from Proverbs I quoted to that in the text, the wise man seeks to understand. The foolish man just tries to be heard. So, you know, I so the image I use with myself because I'm a talker. You might not know that about me is talks are really good hunters. Because ninety percent of their life they are looking.
And listening, and so when they go.
To hunt, they are very effective. And so I'll be sitting in a circle off stape. Be the hawk, eat the hawk.
Because I'm just have you ever just held on to your silence until you bust into the conversation.
Because you have something so great to say that the world needed to hear it.
I don't do that. Now, I'm just kidding. And then I don't do that. No, I'm just kidding. No, I but let's do time.
But let me here's the issue that I'm having, Mike, is that after and I wasn't like a Charlie Kirk super fan. I've watched more Charlie Kirk content in the last week than I had watched in the last ten years, right, I mean, I wasn't in his demo. I was impressed with the way he seemed to connect to college students.
But since his.
Death, some of the people in our society it's not enough for them to not be at all concerned about the two children and the wife that are left behind. They've been downright gleeful and nasty and awful about it.
And that part for me, I wish I wish.
I could be shocked about it, but I'm not, And so I find myself matching that level of anger, and then I have to try and ratchet myself back because that's just not who I want to be and not who I am naturally.
So how do you sort through that?
How do you?
How do you deal with people that have shown themselves to have no humanity in this situation?
Yeah, you know what Christ would do is not not justify them and not give them credence, but he would love them and pray for them and.
Try to walk with them, be there, not walk towards them and not accept the behavior, but never ever cut them off so that the pathback wasn't open. And the other thing I thought about when you've said.
How do you?
How do you do this?
We need to spend.
More time And I've been on this bandwag It for a long time being very articulate about what is really important to us, what are our values and what do we believe? Because if not, when stuff like this happens, we get sucked down the rabbit hole. Now, someone he was gleeful over.
A human being losing his life and leaving.
A family with old a husband and father. That is uncrazylike behavior, and that is not acceptable.
Chriate would have never condoned, celebrated someone else's.
Despear and hurts, Challenge them, push them, walk away from them, but never celebrate their pain and their suffering.
Great advice. I'm trying to take it to heart. And today I've been actually a lot less angry.
I've been a lot less angry than I have the prior week because, honestly, after watching so much Charlie Kirk content where he had respectful debates with people that he disagreed with, and the part about his life and Mike. I don't even know if you've ever watched any of his content, but talk about a guy who was open about his relationship with Christ in a way that in our culture has not been accepted over the last decade.
I mean, I know a lot of people of strong and deep and abiding faith who don't talk about it. They don't talk about it in public because it's not cool, it's not acceptable, right, You're going to be shunned as some weirdo.
So that part of it, the scene him talk.
About it, and I thought to myself, that's what I want to take away from this, That it's okay to be open about your relationship with God, and there's a.
Thousand ways to do it, and his way should be acceptable. I mean, you can listen or don't listen. You have you have a choice in there. I mean to kill someone and said so, I mean, so absurdly overreact.
It's just it's not how is that okay?
On any level?
You You may not agree with him, it may make you super angry.
But when did we get to the point where we do these ultimate acts and retaliation for disagreeing with some.
Well that's the bigger question.
And you talk to the main man upstairs and find out and let me know the answer.
Okay, you ask, I get right on that. I know you have a direct line. Pick up the bat phone and just call God right now, Father.
My test, I got a question for you exactly.
I appreciate your perspective.
As always, and uh and and and I'm sure that people listening who are just trying to make sense of everything that's happened over the last week appreciate it too.
Man.
I'll talk to you soon.
All right.
Thank you for having me on