← The SkyePod
The SkyePod
The SkyePod - Mailbag
00:24:53
Skye believes in aliens, fancy razors for bald heads, and a Jesus that makes us uncomfortable in this episode of the mailbag. How can Christians disagree if the Holy Spirit indwells and guides us? Why do Christians in North America have such an icy...
Loading summary
Transcript43 lines
- [00:00]
Sky Jethani
God is either for the Bears or he's for the Packers. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Sky Pod, brought to you by Holy Post and Holy Post Media. I am joined today by our producer, Mike. Hi, Mike.
- [00:26]
Mike Erie
Hey, sky, how are you?
- [00:27]
Sky Jethani
Good. We are doing an airmail episode where we, I, we, I, we, we'll see, answer questions that have been sent in by you, our faithful listeners and Holy Post plus subscribers. And we like to pick a variety of questions, some quick answers, some deeper answers, some theologically robust, some ridiculous and juvenile. So we'll see. Mike is here to both ask the questions and advocate for the audience. Hold my feet to the fire. Add your own input where there are gaps in my responses, but I always enjoy these because I love talking about the stuff that our audience wants to talk about. So, Mike, where are we starting today?
- [01:09]
Mike Erie
Sky, I've got a big one to start off with. It's deep. One could argue it's theological. Maybe the most challenging question you'll have to answer today. Here it is, from Rob. As someone who also has a bald head, what razor do you use? What's your habit for shaving? The people want to know.
- [01:29]
Sky Jethani
The people want to know. Actually, this is, it's December, it's the gift giving season. So for many, many, many, many years, I just used a regular razor because, you know, I'd use a regular razor on my face and I just keep going. And that, that's, that was a good shave. It's a little bit more labor intensive, but.
- [01:50]
Mike Erie
And how often, how often were you doing that?
- [01:52]
Sky Jethani
I mean, it was depend, it would depend. When I was working at home, I wasn't doing it as frequently. And when I didn't have a video podcast, I wasn't frequently. But generally when it was a razor, I did it like every other day, roughly, unless, unless I was speaking or had to look presentable. This fall, when was it? Early September, late August, early September, I went to Mexico for my dad's 80th birthday and my, my wife was with me and my brother and sister in law from California met us there. And my dad is bald, my brother's bald, I'm like, every Chitani is bald. And so we got into a conversation about like, what are you using on your head? And my brother turned me on to this electric razor and I bought myself one just because I've always been like, I've had a love hate relationship with electric razors because they're just, you know. But I have to tell you, this new electric razor I got is phenomenal. It's Made for bald heads. And, okay, I looked it up. It's the Wyclaus. W, Y, W, Y, K, L, A, U, S. I'm guessing it's German. The Y Klaus 7D head shaver. It has seven blades.
- [03:04]
Mike Erie
Seven. Not five, not six.
- [03:07]
Sky Jethani
Oh, no, it's the godly number, the number of completion. I also, I. Mike Erie texted me a while ago asking for, like, what do I use? And I sent him the link to this thing. It's got, like, 9,000 reviews on Amazon. It's well reviewed.
- [03:21]
Mike Erie
This is the thing that bald people. I didn't realize bald people were this passionate. I mean, conversational about what they're using on their heads.
- [03:32]
Sky Jethani
We are an underrepresented minority. We are an interest group that has special needs that we will advocate for. But if no one else is going to care for us, we will care for ourselves.
- [03:43]
Mike Erie
Clearly, when Jesus said to care for the least of these, he was talking about bald men.
- [03:47]
Sky Jethani
Yeah. You know, and when Jesus talks about how God counts every hair is on our head, it's not as impressive to me, that one. It's just not that big a deal. But anyway, I've been very impressed with it. You do have to. There's a little bit of maintenance involved. Just, like, because it gets clogged with whiskers and hair, you got to clean it out every once in a while. It's waterproof, which is great. You can use it in the shower if you're really inclined. I do oil it once in a while because it'll get noisy, but it's been great. I love it. It's. It's USB charger. So you just charge it up. Charge lastwhere. I just throw it in my suitcase when I'm traveling. Love it. So very happy with that. Highly recommend.
- [04:24]
Mike Erie
We need them to be a sponsor.
- [04:26]
Sky Jethani
Seriously. We should have a whole, like, sponsorship for, like, bald products, sunscreen, lotions, the whole deal.
- [04:35]
Mike Erie
Yeah, yeah. Hats. Yeah, Clearly. Sky. I mean, I feel like the majority of our audience is probably bald. So that would be. That'd be good, right? I will say this. We had Mike on the podcast, I don't know, a couple weeks after you recommended that razor to him, and it was before the recording started and you two were talking about that razor, and I've never seen two people so excited about anything. The closest comparison would be Taylor Swift fans talking about going to the AYS tour.
- [05:08]
Sky Jethani
That's accurate. Yeah.
- [05:09]
Mike Erie
You know, it. It almost made me want to be bald just so I could have.
- [05:13]
Sky Jethani
Here's the great thing. About being bald, Mike? Yeah, it's. It's open to anyone. Oh, you can be bald. You could do it.
- [05:22]
Mike Erie
I'll pray about it, Sky. I will pray about it.
- [05:25]
Sky Jethani
We're not an exclusive club. Everyone's welcome.
- [05:30]
Mike Erie
Will. You know what? I will delay my entry into that club as long as I can. Our next question here. This is a good one. This is actually more of a serious one. Why is there such a big divide between Christians and the arts?
- [05:50]
Sky Jethani
All right, good question. I love this question. I've preached on this question. I've written on this question. I love this question. First of all, there's not a divide between all Christians and the arts. If you've ever been to the Vatican, there's a long history of Christians making really, really, really good art. So it's more selective traditions of Christianity. And if you're part of, like, white evangelical North American Christianity, yeah, there's. There's a big divide between Christians and the arts. So here's. Here's my explanation. Some years ago, I read a book about Eastern Europe under Soviet domination and found this interesting anecdote that I think illustrates the problem. So the Soviets had put in place different people to run different parts of the government of Germany and Czechoslovakia and all these countries. The guy they put in charge of, they had called the Ministry of Culture, who was responsible for artists, novelists, architecture, musicians, all of that. And they would allocate funding for these artists to do their work because it's a communist system and, you know, people, whatever, I kid you not. The name of the guy in charge of this division of the government was Alexander Dim Schitz. You mentioned this before on the podcast D Y M S C H I T Z. Alexander Dimchitz. But here's the part that's interesting. He had a requirement that if you were an artist, you would receive extra income from the state because they valued what you did. However, there was one strict prohibition. There was no tolerance for abstract art, because in their view, art had to serve the practical purpose of the state. So if you're writing a novel, if you're creating music, if you're designing architecture, painting, whatever it might be, it has to further the agenda of the state, in which case you're not talking about real art, you're talking about propaganda. And the problem with abstract art is there's no discernible message. And if there's no discernible message, then it can't serve the message of the state. So that was strictly forbidden. And the reason I bring that up is, I think that a lot of of evangelical Protestant Christian tradition has the same attitude as Alexander Dimshitz. I actually did a talk once called the Church is Full of Dim Shits.
- [08:26]
Mike Erie
And Any angry letters after that?
- [08:28]
Sky Jethani
A few. I got a few. But the idea was in a lot of Christianity, we really don't value art. What we value is propaganda. We value artistic creations as long as they further the agenda of the institution or the church or the mission, whatever it might be. And I'm not against that. I don't think it's bad to create music or novels or fiction or whatever that that has a explicitly Christian message to it. That's fine. But the fact that we don't value beauty for the sake of beauty is a problem. And it's rooted in the idea that especially Protestantism values practicality, that things have to be useful in order to be valuable. And there's a long tradition in Scripture going all the way back to Genesis chapter two, where it's clear God values things that aren't explicitly useful. And one of the places that early rabbinical writers got this is when the Garden of Eden is established. It says, I think it's in Genesis 2. 9, that the Lord God put in the garden every tree that was beautiful to the sight and good for food. And they make a big deal out of the fact that the beauty of the trees was emphasized before their usefulness as food, and that it wasn't just the plants that were good for eating that were put there, but just the ones that brought pleasure and delight because of their beauty. And this develops this Jewish theological idea that beauty is inherently valuable apart from its usefulness. And we don't have a lot of that in Protestantism. And interestingly, I think there's a link here between our failure to value beauty for beauty's sake and the evangelical struggle to come up with a theology of justice and social justice. Because the Christian ethic of justice is rooted in the idea that people have inherent value and worth apart from their usefulness. And when you only are taught to think of things as being useful, useful for the mission, useful for the kingdom of God, useful in this way or that way way, it's hard to come up with an ethic that values people apart from usefulness, and that's the foundation of justice. So if you don't get beauty right, you don't get justice right. And if you don't get justice right, you don't really get the mission right. And I think this is a bigger conversation that a lot of the Western church needs to wrestle With. Because I think we've become enslaved to an idolatrous form of usefulness, of practicality that infects and limits our artistic expression, and it limits our understanding of our mission in a significant way. So I think that's the underlying problem. And you see it pop up in all places atheistic, communistic, Eastern Europe. And I think the Church is a very similar dynamic.
- [11:18]
Mike Erie
I love it, I think it's great. But I think there's another side to it. Or at least I have a question. It brings up a question. Most art is very expensive. So, like, my wife and I went to the Vatican years ago. You know where I'm going with this. And it's beautiful. I mean, the art in there, the gold, I mean, the. And many people would critique the Vatican for spending huge sums of money for all of these beautiful rich things. And that money could have been spent on the poor caring for people in need. So what's the line? Obviously, we're not saying no art, but what is the line of like, oh, it's good to have beautiful things. And the practical reality of like, oh, a lot of these things are very expensive, or it's not like the best. Roi.
- [12:14]
Sky Jethani
Yeah. Interestingly, there's a story about exactly this in the gospels. Mark, chapter 14, when the woman pours out the ointment on Jesus feet. And Judas, interestingly, of all people, is the one who gets upset and says that money could have been used to care for the poor. And Jesus rebukes him and says, she's done a beautiful thing to me. And what she's done will be remembered wherever the Gospel is preached. I don't have a clear answer to your question, but I do think we need to be careful that we don't measure devotion or worship through a metric of practicality, because that, in a weird way, leads to an idolatrous understanding of things. And the flip side, I don't believe we should neglect caring for our brothers and sisters who are presented to us. I mean, Jesus talks about this in Matthew 25. You know, I was hungry, you fed me, I was naked, you clothed me, I was in jail, you visited me. When did we do that? That which you've done to the least of these, you've done to me. So it's not an either or. But I think the bigger issue, rather than debating, well, how much money should we spend on beautif art in a church, I think the more interesting question should be how do we validate our sisters and brothers who have been given a vocation of creating beauty in the world and how do we validate that as an expression of God's nature? And how does that awaken for the rest of the church? The lesson that we need to learn to value things apart from their usefulness in an interesting way with that story of the anointing of Jesus is it echoes a lot of the same ideas as the story of Jesus welcoming the child. When the disciples are like, no, keep the children away. And Jesus is like, no, no, no, no, let them come to me. A child didn't have usefulness to them in that culture. And Jesus is like, no, I value the unusefulness of this child. In fact, you need to become like this child if you're to enter my kingdom. And we can't lose. I think we've lost a lot of that in a lot of evangelicalism because we are so pragmatic or so about roi. We're so about, you know, mission and effectiveness and reaching the loss and all that, that we have neglected this kingdom that values the unuseful.
- [14:36]
Mike Erie
Yeah, I think it's great. And I also know, I've heard, you know, mega church pastors use that same story to justify their private jets or their fancy sports cars. So like everything, there's, there's a line there. But I, I mean the question you posed there of how do we validate those who have been gifted? I mean that's, I think the best way to look at this. That's, that's such a good answer.
- [15:00]
Sky Jethani
All right, well if I have such a good answer, let's move on before I talk myself into a bad answer.
- [15:10]
Mike Erie
Hey sky, this is from Christian. What are your thoughts about a multi planet future? How should a Christian consider and think about exploring and living out in our solar system, caring for God's creation and a future where people might be born on Mars someday and not Earth? Maybe. This is actually from Elon Musk.
- [15:33]
Sky Jethani
Right. Let me answer it in two parts. First, let's go like way into the future, like the fully redeemed heavens and earth kind of the new creation idea. I think it would be fascinating to speculate that in that reality where I still believe there will be technology and there will be science and there will be exploration that could redeemed humanity as the image bearers of God. Explore more of this amazing universe. Absolutely. And I think that will be intriguing to speculate about. However, in this age where we are still in an unredeemed, unfuly redeemed creation, I don't think it makes a ton of sense to spend the amount of money and energy and innovation to create habitable environments for human beings when we could take that energy and innovation, creativity and money and fix this planet. So it's a. The analogy that comes to my mind is like, you hear about some of these people who are working on ways to. What's it called? The singularity, where you can upload your brain into a machine.
- [16:47]
Mike Erie
Well, isn't that even, like when AI would take over to the point. Yeah, that I thought the singularity is when AI is basically taking control.
- [16:56]
Sky Jethani
Maybe that's it. I could be getting my terms mistaken. But there's something. You know, that whole idea of you can upload your consciousness and live eternally by putting your mind into a computer. Like, you could put tons of effort and energy and scientific research into doing that. Or we could take that energy, time and scientific innovation and be like curing cancer and solving heart disease so that the bodies we currently occupy actually live longer. And that's kind of how I feel about this question. Like, God has entrusted us with this planet and we are his representatives on this planet, and we are supposed to steward it and rule on it as his representatives. And rather than going, well, let's work on that other planet over there. Let's figure out how to make Mars more Earth, like, why don't we try to make Earth more Earth like and more hospitable to the species, species, our own included, that live here? I would. So that's kind of my take on it. I'm not against the idea of exploration and innovation and wondering about the grandeur of God's universe and exploring it, but in this age, I think we're doing a pretty crappy job with the one we've got. And maybe we should work on that.
- [18:09]
Mike Erie
Because I was going to say, Scott, I don't know. How do we validate people who've been given the gift of space exploration and planetary new inventions to. To create civilization on different planets?
- [18:25]
Sky Jethani
Well, I think there's a difference between people who are scientists and they're exploring our universe to try to better understand it. And those who are like, no, we want to actually leave Earth, okay. To have human civilization on other planets, that's a different undertaking.
- [18:41]
Mike Erie
So you're saying we should. We should maybe just invest the billions of dollars it would take to do that into our own Earth?
- [18:49]
Sky Jethani
Well, it, it seems like a really. It's sort of a fool's errand. It's a bad investment to go back to the ROI kind of stuff to try to turn Mars into a place that's inhabitable to human life when we could make this planet, which seems already, you know, designed for human life to work better and maybe pollute it less and fix the things that we've screwed up and make it more habitable for more people that find it uninhabitable and difficult in the places they live because of famine or drought or whatever else might be going on. That seems like a better use of our scientific creativity.
- [19:27]
Mike Erie
Far too reasonable. Okay, before we move on, I just want to know where you stand today. Aliens, Are they out there or not? Let's.
- [19:34]
Sky Jethani
I'm saying, updates.
- [19:35]
Mike Erie
I'm saying, yes, you heard it here, everyone, you should. Everyone should see the eye rolls in the office when sky gets on slack or interrupts us working, doing important work to talk about the latest he's heard on UFOs and life out there. It's. It's a thing. But we love him for it. All right, sky, let's move on. Let's get back down to earth here and instead talk about Jesus. Mike wants to know, not me, a different Mike, but great name. Regarding Jesus comments on requiring his disciples to hate their family. It seems odd that he calls his people to hate family but love their enemies. Are these ideas meant to be separate to demonstrate different realities of God's kingdom? Or is it a translation issue?
- [20:28]
Sky Jethani
Yeah, these are. It's not a translation issue. But they are. Context matters. So the love your enemy saying, at least it occurs in multiple places in the Gospels. But where most famously occurs is in Matthew, chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount. And the hate youe family comment is not in the same text. It's not even in the same sermon. And it's in the context of Jesus teaching. And there's a large crowd, and he's told, hey, your. Your mother and siblings are outside. They want to see you. And he says, well, who are my mother and who are my sisters and my brothers, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven? And if you do not hate your mother and father more than me, you're not worthy of me. So it's a different context, but what they share in common is there was a very strong sense in the ancient world of kinship, who are my people? And that could be biological. Very often it was biological your immediate family. But even among the Jews, there was a sense, if you're a descendant of Abraham, if you're a Jew, then they're your kin, they're your people. And there was a strong sense of Jews defend other Jews. You were part of the Same family of Abraham. And you love your neighbors who are Jewish, and you hate your enemies, you hate the pagans, you hate the Gentiles, you hate the Romans there outside. And Jesus comes along with the message of his kingdom and he kind of obliterates this established value of kinship to say that actually God's love extends even to the people outside your nationalistic sense of identity. It's not just for Jews, it's for Gentiles as well. Love them as your heavenly Father loves them. Love your enemy. And then he takes this idea of the real tight kinship of family and he's saying, if you love your biological kinship group more than me, you're not worthy of my kingdom. I demand absolute allegiance and your, your highest loyalty even beyond that of blood. And so in God's kingdom and in Jesus family, he's redefining who are brothers and sisters, who are kin, who are enemies, who are neighbors. All those earthly categories get reconfigured in his kingdom. And that's the link between these two commands. It's not that you love your enemies and hate your family, it's you now belong to the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ is your king, your ultimate allegiance. And that redefines the way you see your biological family. And it redefines the way you categorize those who had been considered your opponents or enemies. All of that changes. That's the link here between these two ideas.
- [23:08]
Mike Erie
Okay. I mean, really good. And I think that's a great interpretation of the, the passage about hating your family. Why Jesus says that. What I'd like to do is spend a little bit more time on because I think the reason why this question was asked is people struggle with how do we reconcile all of the loving and grace filled things that Jesus says with some of the harsher teachings that he has at times, you know, and so, so what? And it even reminds me, just in the office the other day, we were talking about the Chosen. Now, sky and I haven't watched the Chosen yet, but Caitlin, Phil, I've seen some of it. I've watched one episode, but Phil's watched it all. Caitlyn has watched a season or two and we were talking about like it's.
- [24:01]
Sky Jethani
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.