A (5:10)

Right. We don't want to live in that world where people are taking off for their views.

B (5:15)

I'm reluctant to say we're living through the 1960s again, because I think there's some fundamental differences. And my biggest concern is we're not living through 1968. We might be in 1914. And I don't want to get grandiose on this, but I worry that the assassination of Charlie Kirk might look more like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

A (5:38)

Yikes.

B (5:38)

And I know that sounds powder keg. A powder keg, exactly. Europe at the time was so polarized because of allegiances and empires, and that act like a domino effect just triggered it snowballed, and it became unstoppable and led to World War I. And I worry at some of the rhetoric I'm seeing right now. And it's grotesque. You know, some people on the left celebrating this, saying, you know, he had it coming, and on. It's just awful and sickening. And then there's some rhetoric on the right now, understandably upset and angry, but saying this is war and vengeance and retaliation. It's like you can almost hear the avalanche gaining momentum, and you're going, where does this go from here?

A (6:29)

I was hoping it would be a moment of self reflection and sobriety. Let's tamp down.

B (6:33)

This gets to my other concern. For this moment, in order to stop that momentum, you need really virtuous, good leaders. And I'm not just talking about who's in the White House. I'm talking from the White House throughout the country, in our pulpits, in our universities and schools, in our media, in elected offices, at the state, federal, local level, all of that. We need virtuous leaders to say, we're Americans first, we're coming together, we're locking arms, we're denouncing violence. And I worry we don't have a critical mass of those leaders right now. And the algorithms don't help because they silence the leaders who are saying, we need to love our enemies. And they tap down the leaders who are using kindness and rationality and empathy, and they elevate the leaders who use inflamed rhetoric and retribution and all this. And so we're just. It feels. It feels really awful.

A (7:34)

And, yeah, it's a dangerous time. And you're right, I've seen that. I mean, now I will say the vast majority of leaders that I've seen, and it seems like everyone's making a statement, understandably, have been great responses, you know, saying, regardless of where you fall ideologically, this is unacceptable, this is tragic, this is awful. But I've seen that, too. I've seen people on the left saying, well, this is kind of what happens. It's chickens coming home to roost. That's not a great response. Regardless of what you think about someone's views, they don't deserve to be executed in public. Now, on the right, I've seen language that's like, they got him. First they tried Trump and now they got him. Today we grieve, tomorrow we fight. That's not helpful either. Right, because it's kind of broadly conspiratorial. We don't know at this point. We may know by the time this, this is who did this, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions, nor should we be kind of engaging in warlike rhetoric that the other side needs to pay for this.

B (8:31)

The story that comes to my mind, and I've written about this and I've told this story many times, is about Martin Luther King, Jr. He was only 26 years old. It was January 1956. He's leading the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. And he was getting death threats all the time. I mean, he's a. A Christian, black Christian leader in the south leading a bus boycott in the 1950s. He was the subject of a lot of very, very legitimate threats. And his house was firebombed where his wife and young daughter were. And he was at a church rally at the moment, and he and the congregation came down the street to find his house on fire. Thankfully, his wife and daughter escaped unharmed. But a huge mob of black citizens surrounded the house. And they were armed. They had baseball bats and guns and weapons, and they were ready to riot, somewhat justifiably, for this attack on their leader's home. Right? So, like, the powder keg moment was there, and the attitude was, all right, you're going to attack our leaders, we're going to attack back. And it was going to spin out of control. And in the middle of the night, as his house is still burning, King got on the porch and addressed the crowd. And he said to them, those who live by the sword will die by the sword. And I want you to love your enemies and make sure that they know that you love them. Because what we're doing is right, what we're doing is just, and God is with us. And the people drop their weapons, and they held hands together, and they began singing Amazing Grace. And there was. There were white police officers there that night, and they reported later and saying that if it hadn't been for King's speech, we would have all been dead. And that kind of leadership, that kind of strength, that kind of vision that says the way of Jesus is different. Like, that's the kind of leadership we need right now to stop this cycle. And I know that there are women and men out there who have that spirit, and maybe they're in positions of leadership, but, my God, we need them elevated. We need those voices amplified. We need that. It's Lincoln saying, with malice, sword, none and charity for all in the height of the Civil War, that's what's going to hold this country together. And I'm afraid that apart from that, this just continues. The centrifugal force is ripping us apart, and it's going to continue to rip us apart. And beyond the Personal tragedy that this is for Kirk's wife and children and the people who were close and loved him, like, this is a national tragedy. It is a national tragedy. And it's going to take national leadership to keep us from an endless cycle of this stuff. And so it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking for the personal tragedy that this is. It's heartbreaking because of what it represents for our country. And I fear we are now seeing a pattern in place where more and more people are beginning to believe that violence is justifiable. When my side is losing.

A (11:46)

Yeah, it's so shocking to me, too. Maybe it's because I'm a Gen Xer, but that Voltairean principle of I'm going to fight to the death for your right to say things that I really disagree with seems to be lost. And I don't want to speak totally generally, but on the younger generation, that kind of idea has fallen out of fashion. And that's very dangerous. We don't want to go down that path. So I do hope this leads to some self reflection.

B (12:10)

Yeah, but, man, we might be moving towards a scenario in which sounds strange, in which the Second Amendment ends up attacking the First Amendment. And what I mean by that is Charlie Kirk again, he was exercising his First Amendment rights. He was engaging in free speech. Judge that speech however you want. He was engaging in that speech and a gun took him down. And I worry that has a chilling effect. And fewer and fewer people are gonna feel like I'm safe saying what I think in a place like a college campus. Cause I don't know if. If 34% of college students say it's okay to use violence to stop someone from saying things you don't like, that's a chilling effect. On the flip side, I can't even.

A (12:57)

Imagine how we're going to have public events like this anymore where people engage in.

B (13:01)

But on the other side, we're seeing a pattern develop here. When your side loses, violence is justifiable. We saw this on January 6th. My side lost or was perceived to have been stolen. I can attack the Capitol. Roe v. Wade gets overturned by the Supreme Court. There was an assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh and his family from someone on the left. And now right now, the left is out of power. The right and MAGA seems to be ascending. And we don't know the motivation of this assassin, but Charlie Kirk represented the right. And so you, like, this cannot be how we function as a country, that when my side loses, violence is justified.

A (13:47)

When you try to Silence someone with violence, usually you end up. I mean, Martin Luther King Jr. Is a great example. You actually give their ideas more traction with your violence. So I. Yeah. So it's not only morally reprehensible, but it is, from a strategy standpoint, it's probably the least effective thing you can do. Whoever did this didn't succeed in. In making his ideas less popular, let's put it that way.

B (14:14)

Right. It's. Yeah, we could go on and on about this, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot more said, and hopefully we find out more about the person who did this and they're brought to justice. But I worry about the trends that are in motion, and they predate this horrific event, but they're accelerated now. And it's going to take very intentional, very virtuous leadership to turn that momentum away from its current trajectory. And I don't know if we currently possess that in this country.

A (14:51)

Yeah. So it's scary. I can always go back to Canada, though.

B (14:57)

All right.

A (14:58)

All right.

B (14:58)

With that said, I'm sure there will be more coming from some of my colleagues here at Holy Post. I think Esau is going to be doing some stuff later that they address this as well. And next week on our regular show. Hopefully we know more by then. But for everyone who cares about this country and who's grieving this horrible event, we'll be praying for Charlie Kirk's family and for our whole country in this. It's. Yeah, I'm worried and heartbroken at the same time. So, okay, let's transition to sort of regular Drew's news. Not all of it, because it wouldn't be appropriate to. To be completely slapstick in this episode. But, Drew, what have you found around the web prior to this awful event that you wanted to bring to our attention?

A (15:55)

Well, I don't know if it's somber, but it's not a super fun topic. But talking about this idea, there's an article on. It's actually a review at Christianity Today about a new book that's out that's called Mid Faith Crisis. So, like, it sounds like it's a play on midlife crisis, but talking about this phenomenon of people at midlife, we kind of know what that's about, don't we? Running into a bit of a faith crisis, whether it's just going through a period of doubt, maybe deconstruction. They put their finger on this and try to help people navigate that.

B (16:34)

Yeah. I obviously haven't read the book. I did read the review that you that you gave to me. But a lot of it seems to hinge on this idea of expectations.

A (16:43)

Yeah.

B (16:44)

What causes a midlife crisis for some, if not most of us, is we're at a midpoint in our life. We had certain expectations of what that was going to look like. Some, maybe those expectations were met, some were not. But it causes that crisis of things haven't turned out the way I fully anticipated. But they're applying that to faith. That as a younger person, whether raised in the faith or you come into faith, you carry expectations. Some of them may be justifiable, others unrealistic. And by the time you get to mid faith or midlife, you realize that didn't pan out the way I expected, and you begin to question or doubt or reevaluate everything. I mean, part of me, it sounds just normal. Yeah, right. This isn't like a crisis if it happens normally. Like, I think of a crisis as something that's unexpected and unusual and unprecedented, I guess, but all seems incredibly ordinary.

A (17:46)

It's probably not a surprise to people that maybe look at these trends and go, okay, what are some predictable points of your life and your faith journey? But I think to a lot of the people that go through it personally, it might take them by surprise. And I like the reviewer they talked. I think the analogy was you come into a marriage with certain expectations, not all of them healthy from what you saw modeled growing up, wherever these expectations come from, and that can often lead to disappointment. And it's similar with your relationship with God. You come in with, like you said, expectations, some justified, maybe some that aren't healthy. And then somewhere along the line you go, wait, this is different than I thought it would be.

B (18:29)

Do you think the fault. This is a loaded question. Do you think the fault is in the faith itself or in the scriptures? Or is it the way we teach it and present it, especially to younger people?

A (18:42)

Oh, probably the latter. Right?

B (18:44)

Because I don't want to say it's probably, but I don't want to just dismiss the fact. I mean, you see this even in the Old Testament when you get to a book like Job or you get to some of the crises that happen in Israel with the breaking of the Davidic line and the exile. You can see even God's people in the Old Testament, like, hey, this isn't going the way we expected it to. And obviously they weren't in a youth group in evangelical America being fed a bunch of expectations about their faith. So this is a perennial thing. It's not unique to American Christianity. That's why I mentioned the scriptures. Some people selectively read parts of the Bible and it builds their expectations, but they're not really reading holistically the scriptures and realizing there are more psalms of disappointment than there are of celebration. You know what I mean?

A (19:34)

And I think it's all over the map because some of it is, especially if you've imbibed a sort of prosperity gospel. My life's going to be awesome if I come to Jesus. Everything's going to be roses. You're definitely set up for disappointment because life is going to punch you in the face. But some of the things that they listed that precipitate this midlife crisis is like doubt. Okay, well, that can happen for a variety of reasons. Or being part of a toxic church or experiencing abuse. Like real things that, that truly aren't your fault, that are just because the world is awful and Christians can be awful. And then that precipitates a crisis of faith that you have to work through or just unanswered prayer or suffering or those kind of. They're predictable but hard things that you go through. My question as I'm reading this, I actually do have the book. I've just started it and I know the authors, Jason and Catherine, great people and they do a great job with this. My question is how much of this just maps onto the midlife crisis? Right. Because you're familiar with the U shaped happiness curve, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically you start life happy, you're a kid, it's like, woo, everything's great, then it like declines. Your happiness declines. In middle age, I think the nadir is at like 47 or eight years. Great.

B (20:51)

Or Nader.

A (20:52)

Oh, man, I don't know. Maybe they say differently.

B (20:55)

Tomato, tomato, you know, zenith is the high point. Right.

A (20:59)

Okay. I thought it was Nader, like Ralph Nader.

B (21:03)

Yeah.

A (21:04)

I'll find out who's right in heaven.

B (21:05)

Doesn't that map. Doesn't that low point. Doesn't that map onto when you're raising teenagers?

A (21:13)

Exactly.

B (21:13)

Like, I remember reading something about that, that a lot of people find that to be the most stressful. It's usually economically stressful.

A (21:20)

Yes.

B (21:20)

Emotionally stressful. It's maritally stressed.

A (21:23)

You got aging parents that you're starting to worry about or even helping. So yeah. And you're like in the sandwich phase of life. So there's a lot of reasons. And then of course, you're midlife and you're navigating those things. Like, oh, I thought I'd be a bigger deal, or I Thought this would go better. Or maybe you're suffering with some chronic disease. Anyway, I'm going to get depressed here, but so I think just naturally, psychologically, you're probably predisposed to going through a faith crisis as well at this point of life, right?

B (21:52)

Well, especially if you've been taught that God, having God in your life is supposed to make everything better. And then you're hitting a really, really rough patch and you go, hey, God, why, why aren't you making things better?

A (22:02)

You dropped your end of the bargain. Or either I messed up or you did, because it's not supposed to be this way. So anyway, and so this book, from what I've read so far in my conversations with the authors, they're really great. And I think what you want, if you're going through something like this, you don't want, like, I don't know, some expert guide to dispelling your doubts and getting. You want like a co sojourner, someone who's been through this themselves, who's got a lot of empathy, who can kind of show you the ropes. Now, you do want someone who's emerged from it or who's going through it with their faith somewhat intact as well. You don't want someone just to kind of revel in your angst with you. But, but I, and I am heartened to see more of these stories of people going through really tough times of doubt, deconstruction, but have leading to some kind of redemptive ending where their faith actually emerges stronger.

B (22:53)

But don't, I mean, I agree with you entirely. This is part of why intergenerational Christian community is so important. I know my wife and I have benefited enormously from being very close with a number of folks in a small group in other settings who are a stage or two or three ahead of us in life. And they have been through all of it. And they can both empathize with us, encourage us, pass along wisdom, and also just in their very presence and friendship, represent there's hope, there's ways through these things. But when you don't have intergenerational community, you lose that perspective.

A (23:38)

And the way we do ministry is so age segmented, right? It's like, okay, you're in youth group and then you're young married. So we actually, and it's well intentioned because it's like, okay, we're trying to cater to their needs specifically, but the, the cruel irony of that is that you isolate them from other generations and they desperately need that. I remember hearing a story about this 22 year old who is newly married and she was part of a group through her church of young married people. And then they're in it for a few months and they're like, we need someone like, who's even 10 years more into this journey than us.

B (24:10)

Right.

A (24:11)

We're dying here. We don't know what we're talking about. We're just pulling our ignorance. And then when you think of those, you know, you've heard that statistic, the number one predictive factor of whether a young person is going to retain his or her faith is if they have intergenerational relationships, like a connection to an older, mature Christian.

B (24:27)

Right.

A (24:27)

So, yeah, that's, that's absolutely crucial.

B (24:29)

Yeah. And I, I, I, I think what this book is telling us is that isn't just crucial for a young adult or a young person in the church, it's crucial for the middle aged adult to also have those relationships. And, and we need spiritual fathers and mothers.

A (24:43)

Yeah. That's why I hang out with you, sky, because you're like 14 months older.

B (24:47)

Than me and that so much wiser.

A (24:49)

Hey, that wisdom.

B (24:49)

It's not the years, it's the mileage.

A (24:53)

I have a shirt that says a T shirt that says 1996 on it. And I don't know why I got it for sale at the Gap or something. And people were like, oh, what does that mean? And I say, oh, that was the year I was born. And then they look at me with this profound sympathy. They're like, this guy must have lived the hardest life. Or he has a terrible disease, one of the two.

B (25:16)

Or you're like Benjamin Button and you're aging backwards.

A (25:19)

That's right.

B (25:20)

Yeah. All right, Drew, next story. What have we got?

A (25:24)

All right, another kind of sad one. We're keeping with this theme. The kids are not all right, at least academically. The US student scores hit new lows. Children in the United States score lower on reading and math than ever before. Well, math doesn't matter, but reading does. I say that because I was never good at math. Yeah, kind of depressing. The latest results show high school students across public and private schools backsliding in math, science and reading. This was as of 2024, which continues a decades, a decade long decline in student performance nationally.

B (26:04)

Yeah.

A (26:04)

What's going on, Sky? Who's at fault?

B (26:05)

Well, that's what's interesting. When I read the article. This is the kind of stat that everyone loves because they get to pick who to blame. Right?

A (26:13)

Choose your boogeyman. Yeah.

B (26:14)

So the right is blaming the federal government and the don't worry, this is not the end of the episode. There's actually plenty more. But to listen to the rest, you need to be a Holey Post plus subscriber. So head over to holeypost.com skypod and sign up for just $5 a month. Not only will you get uninterrupted episodes of the Skypod, which means you'll never have to hear this dumb announcement again, but you'll also get access to everything else at Holy Post plus, including episodes of Getting Schooled by Caitlin, Chess, bonus interviews, live streams, the Holy Post Book Club, exclusive merchandise, and a whole bunch more. And you'll get the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing that you're supporting our work of creating smart, pro neighbor Christian content. So head over to holypost.com skypod and subscribe today.