Jonathan P. Walton | Beauty & Resistance: Practicing a Life That Forms You

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I am joined today by a special guest. He's written a book that I really enjoyed, but the one we're going to talk about today, which I also enjoyed, Jonathan P. Walton. So we're going to be talking about his book, Beauty and Resistance, as well as maybe one of his other titles, which will be kind of cool. Jonathan is also the author of a book called, I'm trying to pull up my screen here so I can make sure I get the title completely right, 12 Lies That Hold America Captive and The Truth That Sets Us Free. And so I'm excited to have a conversation with Jonathan. Jonathan, welcome to the podcast, man. Thank you so much, James, for having me on. I really appreciate you, the work you're doing, and trying to push people to think. That would be great. We've got to have the space for it. And I think that's one of the things I really loved about your book. It feels like some of the themes that we've written on and that I've thought about, and it feels like we're going to have a really cool conversation because I think we are thinking along the same wavelength. So give me a little background, man. Like, where does your impetus to write come from? You know, you wrote the 12 Myths book. Now you've got Beauty and Resistance. Like, what is it about your life and your interests that lead you to write these books? Yeah, so writing for me started off when I was 16, 17 years old. So I was an angry kid, and I wanted to fight and do all the things. And my mama said, go play football, be as angry as you want to be on the field. And I did that to injury to myself and other people. And she said, you know, write these things down. And so, like, I started off as, like, poetry, slam, all that stuff. I remember the first time I came home and told her I was going to be a rapper, and she was like, your name is Jonathan, not whatever you're thinking about pitching to me right now. And so I'm still Jonathan Walton. There's no nickname or anything like that. So specifically with 12 Lies and Beauty and Resistance, we actually wrote, I had me and a team of students that I've been working with, we wrote those book proposals at the same time. Okay. And my wife told me, she's like, you know, I would not be able to do anything without her. She said, Jonathan, you could write 12 Lies whenever. She says, but you can't talk about what was at the time Emotionally Healthy Activists with any sort of integrity. She says, you don't live any of that. And so all of your interviews, any conversations you'd be telling, you'd just be bullshitting. Like, that's, you know. So you can write 12 Lies. You believe that stuff. You know that stuff. That stuff oozes out of you. She goes, you know nothing about spiritual formation. You're not, you're not, you don't Sabbath. You don't have rhythms. Let's be honest with people. And if that blew up and that's what you're known for, that would be a tragedy. That's what she said. So seven years later, Beauty and Resistance. So coming out of that lived experience. But I mean, I will say, having read 12 Lies and now having read Beauty and Resistance, I see a lot of commonality between the two. I mean, this idea of, to some degree, it feels like, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but like when I read 12 Lies or 12 Myths, what I saw was sort of the intellectual side, sort of the cognitive side, working out of a lot of what then you talk about ultimately in Beauty and Resistance. So you've got this, how do we think about these things? How do we frame them intellectually? You know, examine them from more of that academic kind of perspective. But then in Beauty and Resistance, now what does this look like as a lived experience? How do we go about actually implementing some of these things and avoiding those myths, those lies? How do we structure our lives so that we're not as susceptible to those things? Is that a fair? That is, that is exactly right. If I was able to, because a lot of people can't do both at the same time, right? We go and we watch a documentary. We understand the problem. And that's an hour and a half. And that's about all the space we have. And then we go pick up our kids or go out to dinner, right? Right, right. Like, we don't have the, like, here's the five-minute video. Now let's spend 55 minutes unpacking how you're going to address whatever hard thing just came up for you. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that, I think, to your podcast and its ethos, is like, that's what discipleship is. Like, I've been leading different groups for the last 15 to 20 years. And someone can say they believe that every person is made in the image of God. But then we go out and they meet somebody who's unhoused or homeless or a foster kid. Like, all of a sudden, all that theology goes out of the window and all of their baggage comes forward. You know? And, like, I think that's the fundamental difference between orientation, which is what most Christian content is, and then training and formation, which would just be discipleship in a Christian environment. And then formation would be that long-term deep work. It's like, why can't I do the thing that somebody asked me to do? You know what I mean? I do. Yeah. So Beauty and Resistance, I think, is the invitation to training and formation or discipleship. Yeah. I think it's something I've thought about a lot. I'll just get your take on it. When I think about discipleship and formation, I've had a lot of difficulty understanding how to do that with a book. Yes. So, like, the way you phrased it, that invitation to training and formation, I think is as close as I can get in a book form to really helping somebody do that work because it requires more than just thinking about it. It actually requires people to do something about it. There has to be an activity, a participation. Yeah. And books can nudge people that way, but they don't provide the sort of accountability and the, you know, the discipline and the structures like you were saying with your wife. Like, book's not going to tell you that. Your wife will, but a book won't, right? And so there's this sort of lived component that a book just can't reach. I don't know what your thoughts are on that. Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, I think, rising popular books about this. I think John Mark Comer's book, like The Ninefold Path, or even before him, like Mark Scandrett with Free. You've got, like, I think smatterings of that with Rich Valotis, his stuff. I think Pete Scazzero is like, he points at that, but, like, unless you're in the church and doing the work, it's hard to get, right? But everybody's kind of pointing to, like, we have, this has to be embodied, which is just Jesus. Jesus didn't say, like, believe in me and I'm going to leave you right here. He said, no, like, come and follow me. You know, so we are very far away from just the models of discipleship and formation that would have shaped the early church and obviously shaped, like, Jewish believers at the time in the life of Jesus. So, yeah. If there was a way to, and I have a thesis work around this, but, like, Jerry Falwell, because, like, that's like my, like, scholarly work was on Jerry Falwell and megachurches. Jerry Falwell, you know, in Lynchburg, Virginia, when he came out of seminary, decided that he was going to try to build an institution that took over the entire life of everybody involved, right? To his own ends, in many ways. And there are fruits of those things that, by God's grace, has happened. And then there's things that are really unhelpful that came from that, right? But I think what we're looking for is how can we have an all-encompassing way that leads to fruitfulness and wholeness as opposed to an all-encompassing way that leads to, you know, violence, exploitation, accumulation, and death, right? And that, because I personally don't think that, like, all-encompassing things are bad, right? You know, but like, the kingdom of God is all-encompassing and colonization is, right? And so, like, how do we lean into the kingdom in ways that are transformative and helpful and sustainable? And getting back to what Jesus experienced in the context of the disciples would be, I mean, just an amazing thing to experience if we were able to do that, you know? Yeah. It's a really interesting insight. I think I've sort of been playing around with that myself and sort of thinking about what's the appropriate constraint to put on our vision, right? So that we can, so that it enables us to do

Right, it's messy, all of it. Right. Yeah. It's sort of fascinating. And when I read your book, Beauty and Resistance, I'm sitting there thinking, like, you know, I've had conversations with people about the political realm, and again, having read your other book, I'm kind of sitting there thinking, yeah, like, the basic insight that I usually give people is, being a Christian means that we have to be willing to obey, even if obeying means that we take, that we suffer political losses. Right. Like, we're not out here for the politics, we're out here for the obedience. We're out here for the bearing witness. And so, when I read your Beauty and Resistance, I'm like, this is a recipe for suffering failure in a lot of ways. It, listen, yes, yes, yes. But it, but it's, it's also a recipe for, maybe it'd be better to say it, it's a recipe for reframing success. It's a recipe for understanding how we actually become more human. Yeah, I mean, it's, so the hard part about following Jesus, I was having a conversation about this in therapy, like, two weeks ago, because I, I got, I've been rejected from three conferences this year. So I've, I've been booked to speak, and then like a week before, they're like, hey, my bad, like, we don't want you to come. Then I talk, I did another conference, like, I've spoken there before, and they're like, actually, no, we can't do that. And then this last one, I went to the conference, spoke, and I was supposed to give a second talk. And in the middle of the night, I got a text message, be like, ah, no, don't come back. Right? And here, and here's what I think the gap was in all three places. Yeah. Is that if I am successful, right, and I say that, I say this everywhere that I go, like, take up your cross, deny yourself, follow me. That's what he said. And so let's figure out what our crosses are. What does it mean to deny yourself? What does it mean to follow him? Try to pull that into context, you know. And like, that is disruptive. Like, Peter left his father's business. He'd left, like, there's generational wealth that's being given up. There's influence that's given up. There's this place in society that's given up. Like, that's long-term provision. Like, his children may not have these skill... Like, there's a lot of stuff happening, and like, that's disruptive in a lot of church environments. If I say, if I start saying, like, hey, Jesus said that we're to honor our parents. So why don't, why don't we honor our elders? What would that look like? You know, I mean, I'm just, I, these are basic, difficult things that, you know, some places don't want to deal with. But if we incorporated it, it would be obedient and it would be successful. That's Philippians 2, right? Like, that's it. That's what I love. I like, I love Philippians 2. Like, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, and it's like, okay, what is the joy set before me? Right. Okay, that's going to help me endure. And that doesn't look like, you know, house, a dog, kids, and all the time. You know what I mean? So... I do. I do. Yeah. It's interesting. I'll tell my, I was a jerk story. And so I was kind of a younger, you know, seminarian finishing up my PhD, still hadn't sort of knocked the rough edges off of all the arrogance. And so my church at the time, I was going to, they were having this big campaign, and they wanted to grow by, I don't know, 5,000 more people, right? And so they said, we would like testimonies. You know, you go decide how much you're going to give to this campaign, and then we'd like testimonies about, you know, your decision. And so I went to our pastor, and I said, hey, you know, we, we thought about this. We don't, we are not going to give anything to the campaign. We don't feel like this is the appropriate direction for the church to be going. Can I share? And again, this is my jerk story. But I mean, it illustrates something. It really does. That what we're, when you're talking about that disruptive moment, right? If you really do feel like you're not going to go along with everything that's happening in your church, that's everything that's happening in the Christian community, at some point, you become a problem. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's true. And, and I, let's, let's, let's lean in, Jay. Let's leave it. All right. So, like, the people who become a problem, right? So, like, I've, I've had pastors sit down with me, and, you know, someone came in, they're large givers to the church. They sat down for coffee, you know, and the person goes, What you're preaching about, I don't come to church for. I come to church to, like, get my, you know, get my hour and a half, get my fellowship, and go home. And like, you're messing that up for me, essentially. Yeah. And so the pastor said, I hear you, and I appreciate your role in our community, but this, these are the issues in our community, and we're going to go this way. And then they left the church, right? Yeah. Now, this per the pastor then has to deal with the fact that they took 20% of the church's ties with them. Right. Right. And so then the pastor has to decide, OK, what's going to go, right? Like, all these different things. And so I, I literally, I literally had a conversation with someone that came up to me, and they said, Hey, Jonathan, I just want you to know, I am not a pastor. Let's be clear. I'm in churches. But they came up to me, because I had been preaching a six-week series there, and they said, Hey, Jonathan, I just want to let you know that I'm, I'm leaving the church. And I said, Oh, OK. God bless you. Like, there are many believers. Like, I hope, I hope things go really well where you're going. But can you tell me, like, what, why, why you're going there? And she said, Well, you know, I just think there's like too much emphasis on the poor and the marginalized here. Like, we really have to figure out, like, just some other priorities. And I was like, Oh. Great. I hope you have a great, have a great day. Like, I didn't, I was not expecting that. Like, it just wasn't expected, you know? I thought she was like upset about something. Like somebody's, I was like, Oh, you're upset at Matthew 25. Oh. All right. Yeah. Have, God bless you. You know, because, because at the end of the day, like, that is not successful in 2025. It's not. Right. Because those, and I mean, another writer I love is Ocean Boam. He's a, you know, poet, Vietnamese immigrant. And he has a book called The Emperor of Gladness. Gladness is a town in Connecticut that it's kind of based on. And he's like, his brother works at Dick's Sporting Goods, and he will work at Dick's Sporting Goods for the next 35 years. Yeah. And he loves it. And he will probably die working at Dick's Sporting Goods. He's in this town of 10,000 people. And he goes, that is not the American story everybody wants to hear. But most people are just normal, loving, kind people. And, and that, that doesn't rub the thing. That doesn't get on YouTube. It doesn't get the likes. It doesn't get the money, you know? So I, I think, yeah, being a Christian means you will be insignificant and exceptionally kind. Yeah. And that would be great, you know? But anyway, I just talked a lot. No, it's really helpful. I think, you know, my mind goes a number of different ways because if I'm, you know, I've read your two books again in tandem, sort of, I read them at different times, but thinking about them in tandem, you just think about the, the cultural narratives that we've got that we have to deal with and overcome in order to sort of move into, we could call it the success of the gospel, right? What does it really look like to live that life? And it isn't trivial. Right. I had a couple of guys on, they wrote a book called, shoot, I'm going to forget the name of the title. They were talking about kids' sports. Away game is the name of the book. And so they're talking about, you know, this whole sort of movement that's gone into travel sports and how parents can deal with it, right? And my, my daughters play lacrosse, so we're dealing with that. But, you know, you get down to this point where it's like, okay, if the tournament's on Sunday, what do you do? Yes. They were really helpful in kind of navigating some of that. I actually learned a lot from their conversation, but for a long time, I was just kind of sitting back like, you know, if you, if you land it in the either or scenario, you're either skipping church to go to a tournament or you're telling your kids that they can't have

Where are they at? Justin Early wrote a book called Habits of the Household. Yeah, yeah. Great book. Great book. And so I, you know, gleaned some things from that. And I remember having conversations in our own house, right, when we're dealing with these tensions. And so my daughter, my older daughter, she started gymnastics three and a half years ago. And we just made a decision. You're not going to compete on Sundays. And if we do compete on Sundays, we've got a Sabbath or have some time with other people. And she goes, okay, right? Because she was six at the time. Right. You know what I mean? And so here's what I want to push forward for that, right? So like, we've been having those conversations since she was a kid. Oh, she's still a kid. She's nine now. But like, having those conversations. So she's listening to us make purchases. She asks why. She has conversations. When we pray, when we, you know, the prayer that we pray when we eat food is in the book, right? So we're like, you know, bless us food to our bodies and our bodies to your service. Be with those who don't have food, God, would they experience the same freedom, fellowship, community that we have today, right? And so we're praying those things. When we do that, our kids are going to ask hard questions, even of us. Yep. So now we can't pass people on the street without my daughter saying, we have to go back. Didn't we pray about that? You know? Now my daughter doesn't bring up competing and doing events on Sundays. Nice. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? Like, there's a thing that can happen where all of a sudden we get formed differently. You know what I mean? I do. And so my, I won't say her name for security stuff. But so she's like, oh, we just don't do that. You know? Like, so it's in her already. Like, oh, we just don't do that. And then we move on. You know what I mean? So there's, I think there's, there's beautiful things that we can do and then our kids will get it. And the loss that we think they're going to experience, they actually won't because they know what gaining is, you know? I do. Talk a little bit about your journey, because I mean, when you read the book, you, you know, you came out of a pretty difficult situation for you, right? Where, where all this is coming out of sort of a man, my life's breaking apart. I, you know, there's obviously something wrong here. So just talk a little bit about that and then maybe give us a, I don't know, you don't want to do spoiler alerts, so, you know, just give people a little bit of a teaser of the book and what you're talking about there. Yeah. So like, oh man, there's a lot of hard stories in the book. But if I'm gonna go back and get one that's not in the book, like within four years, so me and my wife Priscilla got married. Her dad was fighting cancer at the time. I didn't know my mom had cancer at the time. And we lost my mom, her dad, we had a miscarriage, her aunt and my aunt, and my sister had disappeared, but has since like re-entered our life. All that happened in a span of five years from 2012 to 2016. And that was deeply disorienting, but I had no skills to deal with those things. No skills. Like I dealt with things with more effort. Like I will just be super human. Like that is, that is what we do. We double down, you know? That's, that's not possible when there's no reserves there. And that, that's not even talking about the social unrest at the time. Like, we're not even talking about like the ascendance of Trump and Black Lives Matter and just all of a sudden recounting police shootings and the ascendance of like, you know, racialized violence. We're not talking about any of that. Right. So like I burned out before COVID. I burned out before, like. And then you had COVID. And then we had COVID and a second child. Like it was, it was, none of this was helpful. You know what I mean? And, and so I remember, and I did write about this in the book. Like I remember holding my kid, being on sabbatical and protests are happening. I get this phone call that Jonathan, can you come lead this prayer meeting in times square? Like we're all marching from these five points and meet there. And like, we need these leaders on stage. And I said, no, I'm on, I'm on sabbatical. And I hung up the phone and I went back to holding my kid. And I was like, what the Jesus, you know, like, if this is a draft, I just got put on the bench. I'm not going to get signed. My career is over. That's the story I'm telling myself. Yeah. Which is just not true. But I, but I deeply believed that, that if I would, am I, if I'm at home holding my kid, being faithful to being a dad, being faithful to being a husband, being faithful to, to my lot today, that somehow I'm missing out on something else. And like, when we follow Jesus, we don't miss out. We have God. And like, that is, that's just, I learned a lot of that during that time. And we had another kid in 2020, another non-eventful year. So my kids are born. I can't remember anything happening in 2020. Yeah, yeah. My kids are born in 2016 and 2020. Just fun times. And so like writing and processing that stuff, you know, death, loss, and then collective death and loss. Like, I think there's, there's something deep within us that's unlocked when we grieve and, and, you know, empathy. I have this like hierarchy where it's like pity, sympathy, empathy, compassionate incarnation. And like, God is not calling us to incarnate everywhere. We're not omnipresent, you know? Right. But we, like when we hear and see something, we should be sparked to mourn. We should be sparked to rejoice. So just pity, like, just feel sorry, you know? And like, and that, I think when, when we actually get in touch with our own grief and incarnate around us, that actually unlocks it for anybody around the corner, around the world. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I think that would be the thing that isn't in the book in like a huge way. But man, like when you can actually enter into grief and suffering in your own life, it actually allows you to do that with, with, with other people. Yeah. I've had a number of people on the podcast talk about Lament in scripture. So a lot of Old Testament, I'm an Old Testament geek, so I have Old Testament geeks on. And they, when they talk about Lament, you know, one of the things we try to process is, you know, what's the practice of Lament today? And when we see Paul talking about, you know, one member of the body hurts, all the members of the body hurt. We don't really practice that. We tend to be a little bit more distant with our emotions and with others and say, well, that's not affecting me. And so I guess it doesn't really matter to me. The reality is that when we see brothers and sisters in Christ mourning, whether we agree with why they're mourning or not, or whether we think it's a big deal, like those things sort of, should probably go out the window and just sit back and say, I feel bad that they feel bad. You know, at the minimal level, I feel bad that they feel bad, right? Yes, yes. And, you know, if we're going to, like, put that into a disciple. So somebody just heard that and they're like, oh, I don't know how to do that, right? So, like, let's break it down, right? So I am able, by God's grace, because I'm in touch with my own pain, to empathize with my enemy, right? So I was on, I was online a couple days ago and I wrote something and someone posted, oh, like these, like, they were talking about Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham, Senator in the United States, was talking about something. I don't remember what it was right now. But, oh, it's Israel and Gaza. So Lindsey Graham was explaining that, you know, whoever curses Israel will be cursed by God. We must support Israel. And someone in the comments just came for him and they said, this stupid, ignorant, boneheaded person, da-da-da-da-da-da. And I'm like, Lindsey Graham's not a bonehead. Right. He's deceived. Yeah. Like, that's, like, and if, because I've been deceived before. Like, I lived, I lived in patriarchy. Like, I've exploited people with my purchase. Like, I'm aware that I'm complicit with lots of things. And so I am no better than Lindsey Graham. Yeah. If I really want to live out Romans 3.23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If I really want to jump into, you know, what it looks like to love my neighbor as myself and literally the Sermon on the Mount to bless my enemies, then I can't dehumanize Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz or Tucker Carlson or, you know, that article was highlighting them. And I can't do that. If we're going to show empathy, we've got to break

How are you going to build around that? Oh, okay. Like, I got to set aside an hour to check in with this person. Okay, what meditations are you going to do? I'm going to read these three scriptures. Okay, what two things do you need to remember? And then what's your step? You know, like we help people do that. So then empathy moves from an idea to like how you're exercising it in your life, which then your spiritual formation, you moving towards wholeness, actually means you have a more fruitful community. That's what my hope would be for people reading the book and any concept that you're bringing up. Like, we just brought up empathy. Like, how do we make it practical for people? Because that's the work of discipleship. Yeah, I actually liked, it was dope, right? It was your... Yeah, Dope Day. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was imminently practical. And, you know, I sat there, I read through it, and I'm like, I wonder why I don't do this. It seems like it would be really helpful to do, but I, you know, I don't think that way. I mean, I kind of plan week to week, I suppose. But yeah, so explain it a little bit and just give it a, you know, give that practical approach you've got. For sure, for sure. So, like, I'll tell you why you don't do it, because I don't want to do it. My wife is like, I'm not interested in planning anything out, you know? But she's like, I think she mitigates the chaos that my life would be by planning. So she can literally say, Jonathan, like, you said these were the four weekends we're going hiking. You can't do anything other weekends. She can always go back, and I'm like, you're right. But she, you know, we all, we all carry different gifts and liabilities. And my wife, one of them is planning. And for me, it's like, I'm totally fine with chaos, right? And so, dope day basically came up because Priscilla was like, Jonathan, we need margin. And I'm like, well, let's take Savins. She goes, no, no, no, no, no. Like, she's like, Sabbath is the minimum. And I'm like, what? There's no command. Oh, okay. I hear you. She's like, Sabbath is the minimum. Like, how do we, like, build in these rhythms? She goes, go read your own stuff. I'm like, all right, I hear you. Go read. You know? And so, so we built out these rhythms before work, right? Like, literally setting out the Sabbath, setting out family vacations, setting out birthdays, setting out all these different things, and then putting everything else around it. And that is a hyper reversal for me of like, like, yeah, I'm like, I don't, I don't like to hike. Like I grew up in the country, right? A farm in the south side of Virginia. She was like, we're gonna go hike, and I'm like, why are we walking outside? Like, that's work for me. I'm like, walking the land to make sure, like, cows are good. Like, I'm 100%. Yeah. I've been, I've been working my whole life to be comfortable indoors. Right. So, anyway, all that to say, we sit down in January. We try to, try to get, we get childcare, you know, we get, you know, can we get our budget for the year straight? How much are we going to give? Because, like, that's the other thing. We say no to a lot of things with no plan. Like, so that's the cool thing. Right? Yes. If someone says, like, hey, can you give $100 to this? I can't tell you that without a budget. Otherwise, I'm really just telling you based on how I feel, you know? So, like, I know we're going to tie at 10%. I know we're going to give this amount of money. I know the extra money that we have. Like, so when I say no, I feel like I'm being obedient, not just impulsive. You know what I mean? Yeah. Same thing with impulse buys and all those kinds of things. But dope, dope day helps us set our priorities for the year. Yeah. And we've done it three years straight, which has been really good. So, yeah. It's good. I will admit I am not a planner either. But I've gotten kind of good at, and I say kind of good because it isn't without difficulty. But, like, you know, I decided for a while there, I'm like, I'm not going to miss any of my girls' lacrosse games. Like, I only have them for four years. Now it turns out they're going to play in college. So we'll have them for another four. But basically what I do when their schedule comes out, I just sort of put it all in my calendar, block it all off, and just say, like, I'm not going to take meetings. I'm not going to be gone. I'm not, you know, like, these days are just off for me. I can't do it. So, you know, I'll still work, but I'm not going to be in a place where I have to miss those games. And so I've been getting better at those kind of things. And I think I've also had the practice, you know, you mentioned impulse shopping. Amazon's rough for that. But what I started doing was, you know, if I really feel like I got to click something, I just put it in my list. So now I have a list of books, and I go back to them. I'm like, why would I have ever wanted that book? Right. You know. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Like, oh, like, did his book sell more? Like, all those things could happen. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. But I literally have to layer in, in the book, we talk about scaffolding, like my thoughts, my actions in these daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual times that will help ground me when my feelings come. Because our feelings are not reality. Right. Like, I may feel apart from God, his word says he's never left me. You know, I'm made. So I think layering those things in has helped me immensely. And I have started to change. So one of the things I talk about in the book is like, yeah, I don't know how to say this in like a cool way. Like, I peed blood in 2023 and we could not figure out why. And I couldn't figure out why. Yeah. And over this, in like maybe four or five months ago, my stomach just started hurting really, really bad. And I was like, what is happening? And so then I asked myself, I was like, oh, in 2023, I had this thing happen. I didn't know what it was. I was really stressed out in 2023. And so I'm like, oh, okay, is this stress? I just, I had hip surgery six months ago in May. So I was injured before that. Like the pain to walk around. The work that I do within a varsity, I'm fundraising. We're shutting down a publishing company that wasn't as successful as we wanted it to be. Me and Priscilla, man.

They have cycles. There are things that go really well, then there's things that go stuff. And so I'm like, oh, I'm stressed out, right? So the, like, I was in 2023, my brain went haywire when these things happened. In 2026, I'm not the same person. Yeah. It's like, oh, OK, something's off. Let me go look at our schedule. Let me go figure out what's happening. Let me take the time to go to the doctor. Let me actually take my vacation days. Let me actually step back. You know what I mean? Right. Because I'm a different person. Yeah. Like, we can't, like, the reason we say, like, when pigs fly is because we know pigs don't fly. You know what I mean? And so one of the stories I tell in the book is, like, when I first started getting serious about Sabbath, my alumni, one of them was there at our program, and he came to me. He pulled me to the side. He's like, hey, it's like the middle of the day, the third day of the program. Like, y'all taking a retreat of silence? I'm like, yeah, it's the hinge of the week, so they're going to reflect for, like, six hours and we'll come back together. They're like, but there's so many people, Jonathan, you just said there's 50,000 unhoused people in New York City, 3,000 people on the streets right now, like, and we're going to pray and sit? And I was like, yeah. He goes, he goes, that was just, he goes, that just wasn't what we did four years ago. I said, I know. I was a different person four years ago. And I said, I'm really sorry that I passed on that, like, toxic cocktail of theology to you. You should take a retreat. Do you have six hours? And he stayed with us. You know what I mean? So it's, we have to become different people because Ephesians 2, we're being worked on so that we can be these living stones, these living witnesses that Jesus calls us to be. I'll say, man, it really resonates with me. It's one of the passages I've been reflecting on lately is Hebrews 5.14. It's that one, it's usually translated, you know, we've been trained by constant practice into maturity so that we can discern good and evil. But in the Greek, it's that the word hexes, which is usually translated and affiliated with training, it really refers to a mature state that we've already attained that allows us to discern good and evil. And so what Hebrews is focusing on is this mature state that we enter into that gives us the perspective to understand which way to go and which way not to go. So it's a slightly different nuance. And I think that just as I reflect back on my life, the spiritual disciplines have always sort of been a part of it, but I wouldn't look back and go, hey, you know what it was that really allowed me to mature? It was this time in prayer, this time in Bible study, this time in whatever. It wasn't that I worked myself toward it. It was that you have these moments where people say a word to you, you have a crisis, you know, of some sort, and it transforms you without you even trying to be transformed almost, right? Yes. Like you wouldn't have gone this direction if someone hadn't shoved you in that direction. Right. And I think, at least in my life, and it sounds like we have some similarities in common, right? But I think at least in my life, I needed those pushes to become sort of almost level up and become that different person who now is no longer going to be running, you know, 120 miles an hour with my hair on fire. Like, it's just not, I'm not doing that anymore. I don't think it's just age either. I think that, you know, I get that gets pinned on me an awful lot. Like when I talk about this, it's like, well, you've gotten older. Yes, I've gotten older, but the age isn't the problem. It's the experiences that are the issue. Right. It's the way life has unfolded that has sort of brought me to this new place. And over the next 20 years or 30 years or however many I get, I'm sure I'll be a different person then than I am now. And it's just sort of interesting to think about that way. Yeah, for sure. I, and so that was one of the pushback pieces that were in the book. And anytime we were doing justice work, even pre, pre the book, they'd be like, well, it's because you're in New York or it's because you're older, or it's because you have this, you have this, you have that. Right. And I was like, so I have a part of the book about delight. Right. And like, because I, I, I write about like, I had never taken a vacation until I got married. My wife was like, we're going to go here. And I'm like, what do you mean? Just show up. Yeah. Let's be clear. This should not have been a big deal, but it really was. I literally told her, I said, so you want like us to pay for this flight? Like you want us to spend money on it? Because like, I had, I had never been anywhere where like I wasn't going to work, you know? Right. And so I'm like, she goes, yeah, you like get a car, you get rewards. I'm like rewards. I was like, yeah, like people, but Priscilla, it's not free. Like I've only gone home or gotten paid. Like, I don't, yeah, it's ridiculous conversation. But all that to say, like, I had, I tried to make sure that there were like these expensive examples and then these like free, these free ones. Like, it's just like, you could go walk in the park. You could go and have a retreat of silence in like the, it's not the cost, it's the intentionality, you know? And I, and I think my mama taught me that, you know, I remember in 2011 to 2015, we were working on like what it looks like to fight sex trafficking and labor slavery in like a holistic way. And we were doing budgets like, okay, if you're going to get all organic food or all fair trade desserts, all these different things on a snap or food stamp budget, could you do it? You know? And so we're doing it in New York City. And then I go home to Brodnax and my mom was eating the same way on like $10,000 a year. And she was like, oh yeah, well, this farmer over here and that farmer over there. And like, I'm like, this is fascinating. Like her income allowed her to eat this way that I had to create a program for to teach people how to eat like in New York City. And so it's just like, and like, you know, people are like, oh, I got to go to this retreat center. It's like $299 a night or whatever. And I remember walking my mom and she was like, I said, mom, why is there a bucket like 50 feet in that path? And she goes, she goes, oh, I go sit on that bucket and think. And I said, what? It's like, and so I walk into the woods and I sat down. I was like, she sits right here and prays and talks. I was like, but that costs her nothing, you know? But it's the intentionality, you know, we, Deuteronomy says like we seek, we find God and we seek him with our whole hearts. And I think that's what you're talking about with hexes, right? Like there's a, you know, Deuteronomy second giving of the law, right? The first time the 10 commandments came out, it's like, this is what you should do, right? And then Deuteronomy is like, this is what we do. Like the tenses change and how they describe it. And in the same way, it's like, the thing that freed me from pornography was realizing that I'm not that person. Like, I just like, oh, I'm not like, I am not that person anymore. And I've always not been that person as soon as I decided to follow Jesus. Like my righteousness is hidden with him. Like he who knew no sin became sin for me that I might become the righteousness of God. Oh, I'm hidden within, in his righteousness, righteous people don't exploit other people. You know? And so like there, there's, I think there is something transformative about living out the maturity that we have been given as best as we consciously can on this side of, this side of heaven. So yeah, go sit on a bucket, people listen to it. We're getting kind of close to the end. I wanna, I wanna ask one more question because I just think it's interesting. I mean, you're involved in a lot of what people might call social justice or activist issues, right? I don't know whether those terms are the greatest terms ever. I almost try to stay away from them, but it's the ones we got. So as I was reading through your book again and kind of thinking through both your books, what, what was striking to me was how much of this could apply to a corporate level as much as it could apply to an individual level. And so I'm just wondering if you can kind of speak to that, because I think there's a sense in which, even just like you were saying, you know, I got to go to this retreat center for 300 bucks. We don't collectively have the will, it seems like to sustain places where

and get everybody into this court. And so he's like, I'm going to go on Facebook and he gets a Facebook group and ultimately it's like 40 people in this group. And he shows up to play basketball and all of a sudden it's like 10, 15 guys coming. And then I'm like watching. I'm like, oh, I need a place to go play basketball. And so for like a solid year, we played basketball. It was like 15, sometimes 30 guys just playing. And again, there's only 10 people on the court at a time. So then the rest are just talking because there's no kids in the neighborhood. And that was a season because then he had a baby and these other things happened. But every few weeks, that Facebook group pops up and says, hey, does anybody want to go play ball? Like it's still Phil is out of it, but there's a group there of people that want to do this thing. And so I think that most of us are afraid of folks saying no to doing something with us. And I think that we're afraid that we won't be able to sustain it. And so I think like Phil saying yes to, I think to a prompting from God, not just his own need to dunk on people. He can't dunk. I'm not gonna poop on Phil. Phil's great. But one of the things was Phil was enthusiastic and invited people and was like whimsical when he was there. Just like having fun. And he made everybody want to come and play every week. And that lasted for a year and still goes on. Right? Now, the example I just thought about at a larger level is like, we have words to describe our collective will not to do things. Right. Poverty. There's enough money in the world. We have decided that this neighborhood is going to have more and that neighborhood is going to have less. And like famine. We have decided that food is here and it's not there. Like just in the United States today, we grow enough food to throw 50% of it away in the field and 35% of it away in the fridge. We don't have a food problem in the United States. But we say like those people are food insecure. Right. Right. And at the exact same time, we can take 150,000 soldiers, put them in a desert and give them internet, showers, three meals a day and the weaponry necessary to destroy a country. Like we made some decisions. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I think we can model in little ways. And I would love for churches and faith communities to like champion these little things. Like, hey, Phil's getting a bunch of people together to go play basketball. Jackie is getting a bunch of kids together at her house every Friday night. Like this group over here is like, they just have dinner at their house and anybody can come. Like if we can champion what happened in Acts 1 through 4, then I think we could do some. It could be very, very different because Jesus did not change the world through the synagogue. He changed it with Phoebe and Lydia and all these people doing amazing things because they decided to follow him. Very cool. Appreciate you talking about that. I love that. Just one of those aspects I felt like was not completely implicit in the book, but definitely something to think about going forward. So appreciate it, man. For sure. For sure. Dude, this has been great. I've enjoyed the conversation. So thanks for being on the show. This is the highlight of my day, man. So I appreciate it. These are always the highlight of my day, man. Like I love doing these interviews. It's crazy. Hey, everybody. Check out Beauty and Resistance. I'll have the link in the show notes. IVP generously gives us a 20% off discount code. So if you order it off the IVP press website, which is where I'll link it in the show notes, you'll get 20% off. Just put in the code that's also in the show notes. And I'm going to link your other book in there as well. So if people want to read both, do both. I'd encourage that. I think they really do pair oddly well together, given the different topics that you're actually addressing. But I think they really do go well together. And your understanding and thought process kind of flows, I think, really well across both of them, even though you wrote them at different times and across a lot of different perspectives. So I appreciate that. You're a scholar. You read lots of books. You see the connections. I feel seen and known, which I appreciate. Cool. Well, thanks for being on. And thanks, everybody, for hanging in and listening. Hope you enjoyed this. And we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Hey, friends and faithful listeners, my name is Jen, the host of The Bible Explained. And I believe that reading the Bible shouldn't be a chore. It should be fun. Each weekday morning, you're going to hear me dive into Scripture, sharing insights from cross-references, ancient history, and even Hebrew and Greek, all in a simple, approachable way to help you see the Bible like never before. Grab your coffee and join me on The Bible Explained, now available on lifeaudio.com and your favorite podcast app.