Podcast #95: A Tender Conscience in a Pluralistic World

59 May 2, 2016 by

95Episode #95 of Drunk Ex-Pastors begins with a voicemail suggesting that we may have engaged in a bit of gender stereotyping in a recent episode, but since the caller was a woman we immediately dismissed her as hysterical and emotionally out of control. Jason’s personality is then diagnosed, with the fairly accurate prognosis that he is utterly unfit for gainful employment. We then delve into the issue of the relationship between one’s own conscience and his responsibility to the public good, and afterwards issue an invitation to colonize with us a new nation should Donald Trump ever become president. We discuss whether robots could ever destroy humanity from a religious point of view, and speaking of religion, Christian introduces us to the term “ignosticism” and our “Dick Move, God” segment introduces us to a newly-made orphan. Christian is biebered by people who can’t intellectually walk and chew gum at the same time, and Jason’s bieber proves that only he can prevent forest fires.

Also, for the love of all things holy, can a black woman get diarrhea on TV just once?

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59 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. I really appreciate the discussion you guys are having on religious businesses. Even if you come to different conclusions, I thought it was pretty charitable. You will probably get calls from your progressive listeners…

    Oh, and I recently saw that KY changed the laws such that Kim Davis no longer has to have her name on marriage licenses. Also, you can now mark either bride, groom, or spouse. Seems like a nice compromise for both sides.

  2. You guys should definitely consider getting gay married, or at least civilly unioned. I’ve been in favor of civil unions for a while, however I never thought they should privilege only couples who are sexually intimate. If two close friends (even celibate) or close siblings (twins for example), who live together, have combined financial interests, and would desire each other to be next of kin in cases of emergency, why shouldn’t we provide some simple legal process for connecting the two? The law should recognize their friendship. It isn’t the government’s business if they are sexually intimate.

  3. • I’m so burnt out on politics right now. Which I think is why our presidential campaigns last for two years, so a general sense of fatigue will sink into the electorate and lull us into giving up or doing whatever it takes to make it stop.

    • I mean, being a white Christian male of middle class means, I’m probably going to be fine regardless of who gets elected, so that’s all that matters, right? So if I can’t have Bernie, I’m going to vote for Nader!

    • Look, I get all of my information about people from TV Sitcoms and movies, so I know that every woman over 30 wants to find true love, but will only find it after a series of improbable wacky events that make her realize that true happiness isn’t to be found in a career or friends or the arts, but with a man that she has spent the entire film fighting with.

    • Yeah, there may be more negative male stereotypes out there, but you can’t hurt me. I’m a white Christian male of middle class means.

    • People probably aren’t paying attention to you at all in the grocery store.

    • Eh, I’m pretty sure I’m an asshole.

    • Course that could be the low self-esteem from years of Christianity telling me that I’m scum and nothing I do is ever good enough to please God.

    • Or just splash a Jesus fish on your company logo and hang a few crucifixes in your lobby, and not the nice crucifixes, but the ones where Jesus looks very judgmental and angry. Place some Chick tracts out as reading material. Put up a Yelp review that says you’re ‘preachy and judgmental’ and I’m sure the gays will quickly avoid your business. The incredibly vast majority of gay people are not sitting in a chair petting a white cat cackling about how they’re going to get those Christians today.

    • Well, we used to think that black people shouldn’t use the same toilets white people did and killing people for blasphemy and heresy was cool, so the appeal to tradition isn’t necessarily a valid argument.

    • I’m not just worried about my daughter, which is why I’ve told both kids to avoid priests and youth pastors. Ba da dum…

    • Part of me thinks that there should be a law that if one runs or campaigns as a family values politician or lobbyist, you must consent to having your ISP and cellular service post your browser and text histories online. I suspect we’d see a lot fewer ‘defenders of traditional values’.

    • No, they will rally behind Trump. Their policy differences aren’t ones of substance, but of tone. Trump worries the GOP because he is saying the quiet parts loud. He’s removing the hidden code language that was devised to hide the racism and xenophobia.

    • From what you’re describing of your ideal community, Jason, if you ever leave Catholicism, you should become a cult leader. Sit at the top making pronouncements while everyone works in their own isolated community.

    • All hail the Robo-Pope!

    • You must turn over your system error logs to your priest to take part in Mass.

    • “I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt. ‘Cause it says like, I wanna be formal but I’m here to party too. I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.” Amen, Cal. Amen.

    • Put in your 1989 Batman movie DVD and you’ll recognize six Prince songs.

    • I do like the “Well, he knows he’s wrong now… cause he’s in hell…” it really does lay bare that for some people the strongest attraction to Christianity isn’t the love of God, but the idea that God hates the people they hate and will hurt them.

    • Ah, but you said the magic words “good deeds” and that means he was really lost, because it’s not what you do, it’s what theology you adhere to in life.

    • “…or the one.”

    • Ann-is. It’s pronounce ann-is.

    • The Bible Code: Cookbook edition…

    • Jesus: Dad, have a Snickers.

    “Why?”

    Jesus: Because you get all smite-y when you’re hangry. Remember the plague of snakes?

    “Fine.”

  9. It’s Rasmussen, champ. Considering they were predicting President Romney would be running for re-election, I still have hope in the American people.

  11. And its also the first poll to show anything like that out of like 18!!! Haha I’m no Trump fan, but I think Bernie has really hurt her. I have many many liberal milenial friends that aren’t going to vote for her. We will see.

  13. “I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt. ‘Cause it says like, I wanna be formal but I’m here to party too. I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.” Amen, Cal. Amen.

    Reminded me of this meme I saw the other day. Picture of Jesus with thumbs up, “throws a party for 12 people…The world still talks about it 2000 years later”

  16. Guys, please stop using “evangelicalism” as a synonym for american fundamentalism or dispensational pre millennialism. I know most of your own experience with evangelicals was in the calvary chapel context, but even NT Wright self identifies as an evangelical. Yes those folk make up quite a chunk of the group using the term— and they sure think they define it—but a great many us of think differently.

    I do thank you for making a fair distinction many times in the past. I guess over the past few episodes it’s just been gnawing at me.

    Jason, you should have taken the outs Christian kept offering, ENFJ or no, you just don’t know enough to properly start a fire. 🙂

  17. Awww dude just wait. Its a really fantastic series! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Logen Nine Fingers is the shit.

  18. I’m not of the opinion that he hurt her. I think most of the people Bernie brought out of the woodwork who say they will not vote for Hillary are people who wouldn’t have voted for her anyway. I’m back where I started, being forced to vote for someone I don’t like all that much to keep people like Trump and Cruz away from The White House. I actually think Bernie may have helped her a little bit by pushing her more to the left on some issues, but I’m not sure she ever had any kind of overwhelming support from the left before Bernie came along.

  20. Evangelicalism has a colloquial meaning that is most likely different than what NT Wright means. My guess would be that people like him would even make a distinction between themselves and what people mean when they say “evangelicals.” Besides, I usually say “evangelical fundamentalists” so that I don’t lump Catholic fundamentalists like Kenneth in with that group. 😉

  22. If by “hurting her” you mean “showed people her record,” then yes, he hurt her. But then, mirrors don’t make people ugly….

  23. I use “evangelicalism” to denote non-liberal Protestantism. It’s a meaningless category, of course, but that’s usually how they themselves use it.

  24. Yes, thats true. But its one thing for a Republican to be holding up that mirror. Its another thing for a Leftist to do so. Many people holding up the mirror with Bernie arent going to forget what they saw. They might vote to try and stop Trump, but then, they may not.

  26. Jason and Christian,

    I think that your discussion on gay weddings/religious liberty has been interesting. Do you guys think that it is wise to pass federal laws before convincing the vast majority of your neighbors that said law is a good idea? Say there are four people in a tiny neighborhood HOA. Two muslims and two christians. Lets say the Christians want to increase fees so they can build a massive cross in the middle of the coldesac. The two muslims refuse, and nothing is bult due to the gridlock. But now lets say six more people move into the neighborhood. Four Christians and two muslims. Now the Christians have a majority. A 6-4 vote. Fees are increased and the cross is built big and shiny. The problem is the four muslims are going to be supremely pissed off! To have their money taken away to build something they find horribly offensive is something that would upset most of us. This block could be in big trouble soon!

    This is whats been happening to conservatives, and I think it will soon come back to haunt the left. Our government is designed around the idea that a federal law should have universal, or near universal, support before being passed. Which is why we have separation of powers, veto pens, 2/3 majority rules, etc. In modern times, certain branches have found clever ways to side step this design and legislate to the masses without said support. Roe V Wade. Executive orders (illegal amnesty). Same Sex marriage rulings. etc. The idea was that the government will just make the law of the land and the general public will eventually get on board. But that hasnt happened. Roe V Wade was a long time ago now, and the population is still deeply divided on the topic.40% of Americans dont want same sex marriage AT ALL. They doubly dont want to bake their cakes, plan their weddings, and take their pictures.
    In my opinion whenever federal laws are passed in this way civil unrest, and even violence, become serious possibilities. Leftist may be right on all of these things, but until they have convinced their neighbors in the marketplace of ideas, prudence demands leaving said issues to the States. When you dont, you run a serious risk. Conservatives have been pushed around for a long while now in this way. Many of them are ready to start pushing back. Hence, Donald Trump. But Trump is relatively benign compared to what will surely come next if things keep proceeding in the same way. The big ideas need to be settled via discussion and uncoerced persuasion as much as is possible before we introduce force. Remember that even while Obama CRUSHED Romney in electoral votes, the popular vote was only a five million person difference. 65-60.

    Your thoughts?

  28. Its a great example. A few things to point out about that period…

    1. Force was used, and a civil war erupted. So basic argument seems to be solid.

    2. Could things have actually improved more quickly, efficiently, and peacefully if the the issue remained with the states? I think so.

    Most of the world had already jumped on board at that point. US goods would have been boycotted. The British Navy made it clear consequences were coming down the pipe. Racism didn’t end anyways and blacks weren’t very much helped by the entire episode for another hundred years. The bittness in the south from losing a bloody war probably significantly slowed down the civil rights movement.

    3. Something can be a bad idea in principle even if we allow for specific exceptions. If the South had won the war the move to use force would have been remembered as an enormous mistake. We got lucky. But you don’t play with fire too many times without getting burnt

  29. Ahhh, Kenneth, you never fail to disappoint. 🙂

    1. Some things are worth fighting for.

    2. So let enslavement continue because things may get better on their own?

    3. A just war shouldn’t be set aside because you may lose.

  31. One could point at the civil war and justify any cause. All you have to do is assume that you’re on the right side of history. Abortions kill babies. Some things are worth fighting for. I guess bombing clinics and sniping physicians is the way to go. See how easy that is? You don’t really think Malcom X is a better moral example than MLK do you? If not, you’ve got some splainin to do. Because he would most emphatically agree with your second point, while calling Dr. King an uncle Tom

  32. I didn’t say all things were worth fighting for. I wouldn’t go to war over segregation. I would over human enslavement though. I would over abortion as well if I believed it to be murder. However, you seem to be conflating war and murder. Fighting in a just war at the command of your king/president is worlds away from sniping an abortion doctor because you don’t like what he’s doing.

  33. What’s the difference between slavery and the period that followed? They got to be called “free”? That freedom was bullshit until MLK. It was a facade. They may not have been sold at an auction, but blacks were not truly free until the 1960s by any honest standard.

    This is all really a side question. Which is the more desirable option? Force by simple majority or dialog until consensus. You don’t get to pick and choose when you would like what. Bush started the executive orders and Obama ran with them. By your standard, as soon as the GOP takes a slight majority we should just ram shit down the federal pipelines and force our view on society even though the argument hasn’t been won? All gay marriage federally illegal. No matter what the states say. All abortion federally illegal. No matter if 90% of New York wants it. That’s what you like? Yes or no?

  34. Force by simple majority or dialog until consensus. You don’t get to pick and choose when you would like what.

    Really? You don’t think different situations require different actions?

    Pretty sure most black people would take hardship over being owned as property.

    Executive orders have been used for a long time. Obama used less than Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, and Johnson. Heck, he used less than 10% of the amount FDR used.

    By your standard, as soon as the GOP takes a slight majority we should just ram shit down the federal pipelines and force our view on society even though the argument hasn’t been won? Yes or no?

    Depends what it is. If the GOP believes abortion is murder, they should take action immediately. I lose respect for them every day they don’t. Good luck with that though.

  35. Really? You don’t think different situations require different actions?

    Sure, but no government gets to operate that way unless its some kind of monarchy where one person gets to decide what calls for what. If you want pure democracy thats what we get. But you can’t say I want democracy ONLY whenever I happen to be in the majority. Or only whenever your opinion is that we need a pure democracy. That’s utterly arbitrary question begging. Political systems are built upon ideals. They are not malleable ever-changing amoebas lol

    Depends what it is.

    Only if civil war, violence, and riots, are values of yours. Humility says let’s work it out. Arrogance says “I’m right and you’ll will figure that out some day. How fundamentalist of you liberals!

  37. From FiveThirtyEight:

    “So what happens to Cruz voters now? According to recent polling by Morning Consult, 62 percent of his supporters said they would vote for Trump in a general election against Hillary Clinton, while 13 percent said they would back Clinton and 25 percent weren’t sure what they’d do.”

    LOL. 13% to Clinton?

  38. Kenneth, if you fight in a war because a group of people is enslaved or genocide is happening, you’re not fighting because you value war, but because you value life. If Texas starts committing genocide against all the Mexicans that live there, and won’t submit to laws of the U.S., I wouldn’t want to wait and legislate our way out of it. Like I said, some things are worth fighting for. You seem to not be grasping any nuance whatsoever in this discussion.

  39. Been hanging out on the Lew Rockwell and Mises sites, eh?

    Let’s not mince words, it was the South that started the Civil War. They demanded concessions from Lincoln on slavery before he even took office. They threatened secession if they did not get their way. They refused to take Lincoln at his word that he would not interfere with slavery, and they passed the secession acts listing slavery as the chief cause of their discontent. And they fired on Ft. Sumner.

    Our government is designed around the idea that a federal law should have universal, or near universal, support before being passed.

    Considering our Constitution limited the franchise to white men who owned property and they immediately split up into two opposing factions, I think we can safely dismiss this statement as simply wrong.

    The founders wanted checks and balances precisely because they were divided and wanted to make sure the other guys couldn’t steamroll an agenda through. Which, carry it forward 240 years, and you have a president who is continually stymied by the opposition Congress who continually challenge him over executive orders. The system is working as intended, political bellyaching notwithstanding.

    It’s also why any judicial decision I agree with is constitutionally correct while any decision I disagree with is a travesty and judicial activism!

  40. Bah!

    Lets try this a different way because i dont want to get caught up going through the intricacies of this or that cherry picked case in history.

    1. I completely agree that some things are worth fighting for.

    2. But how do we know what those are? Was Korea worth fighting for? Vietnam? Depends on who you ask! This is the reason it takes an act of congress to declare war. IN PRINCIPLE, (granting that there may be exceptions to the rule) you would only want to fight a war where there was universal or near universal agreement that we should be fighting. Right? The wisdom here is obvious to me and its frustrating that you dont see it.

    3. The civil war case is complicated. AT THE TIME, slavery was considered blase. It had been the practice of everyone since the beginning of human history. So, yeah, seems like an obvious “Hitler” case to us, but hindsight is 20/20. It was a legitmate dispute in this period of history. The idea that slavery was a moral wrong took a long discussion. The American south was one of the last places on earth to have said discussion. It ended in bloodshed. You say this war was absolutely necessary, I say that dialog and ideas could have got the job done in a more efficient way. In either case, according to Chris the South was completely responsible for starting the civil war and was just looking for a fight. If thats true (which is arguable), then the entire example goes out the window because dialog was impossible to begin with.

  41. Let’s not mince words, it was the South that started the Civil War

    Great. If that is true, then the entire case is thrown out the window. Its no longer an argument against my initial comments. If the South started it there was no longer any possibility of dialog through the open market of ideas. Thanks.

    Considering our Constitution limited the franchise to white men who owned property and they immediately split up into two opposing factions, I think we can safely dismiss this statement as simply wrong.


    Only if you dont have common sense. The idea still operates brilliantly in principle even if “persons” were counted differently in the past.

  42. PS,

    Aren’t I supposed to be the blood thirsty war mongering republican hippie boy? How did we switch shoes lol

  43. I might be in that group if no third party emerges. I’m a Republican so voting is in my DNA. But I think Hillary will hurt the GOP less in the long run

    Bernie is on his knees begging the FBI to hurry up its findings

  48. I’m probably in that 13% as well.

    “If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.”
    – Alexander Hamilton

  51. In May 2015, 60% of Americans supported “marriage equality” and 37% opposed it. I’d be willing to bet that if there was a proposed law that you like that had 60% support of the American people, you’d think it was fine to pass.

  55. Its interesting you picked the poll in may and not July. Two months later Pew found 55% supported and 39% against. The same poll only found 65% of democrats supporting. Which means the discussion was only just barely reaching a tipping point in your own party!!!

    Even if give you 6 out of 10 that is only a simple majority. The smallest imaginable majority out of 10. There were only 13 states that still had bans, and those states should have had the right to keep things that way until the discussion was over. 70% is near universal. You can’t wait for EVERYONE. But 60% is not enough in my opinion. Going from 50/50 to 60/40 indicates a swing, but not the end of the story

  56. Fine, let’s go with Pew’s current numbers. 55% for and 37% against. So for every 37 people against marriage equality, there is 148% of that number for marriage equality. Almost one and half times more people for marriage equality than against it. I’m sorry, but that is not the “smallest imaginable majority”.

    Regardless, we elect lawmakers who make laws. If we don’t like the laws they vote for, we vote them out. Our Constitution declares that a certain majority of the lawmakers votes will pass a law, and then there are further checks and balances (i.e. House to Senate, President’s veto, Supreme Court’s ruling, etc). The first I’ve ever heard about how there should be some system where laws can only be passed if 70% of the general population agrees with it is from the mouth of a Republican who doesn’t like the laws being passed.

  57. That’s some really incredible math!!! You made 5.5 out of ten sound amazing! Lol

    70% is just a number I plucked out of thin air. I think that it makes sense that laws passed federally (which impact us all) should have near universal support. The nations founders agreed which is the reason WHY they specifically penciled in the 10th amendment and put up so many checks and balances.

    So that it would take near universal support for anything to get done. When the judicial branch legislates from the bench it side steps the process which I believe is unwise.

    Contrast that with your view of a simple majority. If tomorrow 55% want to murder 45% that’s all fair because the people decided. If 55% want to strip away all safety nets, ss, Medicaid, medicare, food stamps, etc. too bad for the 45% that disagree.

    Democracy in such a crude form is idiotic. There is no reason for you to disagree outside of the fact that you happen to be in the slight majority.

  58. I do like the “Well, he knows he’s wrong now… cause he’s in hell…” it really does lay bare that for some people the strongest attraction to Christianity isn’t the love of God, but the idea that God hates the people they hate and will hurt them.
    According to Westboro Baptist church, Matthew Shephard has been in hell for 6418 days. Yes, they have a counter on their poorly designed website.

  59. I never got the memo that it’s Ralph and Steve now. I always thought it was still Adam and Steve.

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