Reviving the Golden Rule (with Andrew DeCort) | Ep. 53

August 13, 2025

In this episode, we dig into why the most famous command in Christianity has become more of a coffee mug slogan than an actual way of life. We’ll explore how we’ve domesticated Jesus’ radical ethic into something polite and toothless… and what it would take to bring its wild, world-flipping power back. We’ll look at what happens when faith stops being about certainty and starts being about curiosity. Pour a glass, pull up a chair, and let’s talk about how to actually live the thing Jesus said was the point all along.

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Links:

https://amzn.to/4ouvZbf - Preorder "Reviving the Golden Rule"
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andrewdecort.substack.com - Andrew's series "Reframe"

Episode Transcript

Reviving the Golden Rule
===

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: [00:00:00] Well, today we are sitting down with my friend Andrew DeCort,

to talk about his upcoming book, coming out in October. Although as we get into the episode, evidently people who are pre-ordering it now. Are starting to get copies, so I'm not sure how that works, but something you may be interested in.

Andrew is a friend. He's a writer with a deep commitment to love, and you are going to quickly see that from his posture throughout this episode. He founded the Institute for Faith and Flourishing, and he co-founded the Neighbor Love Movement in Ethiopia, which have reached over 20 million people with the invitation to Nonviolent spirituality.

He received his PhD in theological ethics from the University of Chicago, and he has taught ethics, public theology, peace and conflict studies, and Ethiopian studies at Wheaton College, the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology and the University of Bong. Andrew is the author of four books. The latest is [00:01:00] Reviving the Golden Rule.

He Has Blessed are the Others Flourishing on the Edge of Faith and Bonhoeffer's New Beginning. Andrew just started a substack called Reframe, which focuses on reading hard headlines through the lens of Jesus's beatitudes. This is a guy that oozes the love and the presence of Jesus, and I'm so excited for you to get to hear from him today.

This is episode 53, reviving the Golden Rule.

I have never shared this with anybody publicly. There's so many things happen in this conversation right now, thousand years from now, people are gonna be looking at this podcast saying, so this was the breakthrough. If this was SportsCenter, that would be like such a hot take. Skip Bales would've no idea.

Stephen A. Smith would've no idea what to. You drop that down. That is so good. The joke I always say is like, how'd you learn so much? You gotta drink a lot. The power of food and beverage to [00:02:00] lubricate an environment, resistance to change is hurting the church. I'm not in the camp that God has a penis or a vagina or a body at all.

I mean, the camp to God is at Universal spirit. This is the strangest podcast that I've been on. I don't even know what to do. I'm kind of geeked up about this wine. So this is my second glass and it delivers a little more of a punch than I expected. So if I get a little loopy, it's your fault. You tell me to drink and I just show up.

I'll also say as a confession, I am a lightweight, so I've had like three sips of this wine and I'm already feeling it, so this is fun. You've uncovered the mystery, you've exposed the formula. You've just duct taped together a number of things that aren't normally hanging out together, and I'm here for it.

We're gonna sit down a table, we're gonna have a glass of wine and some food, and we're gonna talk about the beauty of Jesus. Thank you for the, the hospitality that this particular podcast. Provides folks like myself and I know others to, to be curious around their faith practices. [00:03:00] I really appreciate this venue, what you're doing.

It is fun, and yet you dig into the deep stuff. I've heard about your podcast for a long time, and I love that you're a pastor and that you explore the world of faith through wine that's very unique. I will never forget the first time I bought a bottle of wine. By myself, which was yesterday. If you're familiar with Drunk History, I thought it's like drunk theology, so I, oh, I got a little spicy there.

It's the peach wine early. The wine is, here we are. Here we are. Beer, we are, no, it's wine. Jeremy. By the way, drinking this Pinot Grigio at three o'clock in the afternoon is making me even more direct in my communication than I normally would be. I know why you have your guest drink wine. Makes sense now.

Yeah, I get it. A little bit of liquid courage. You really unleash the beast. I think you've got a good podcast throwing the wine bit in there. That's nice, doesn't it? Cabernet and Prey. Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: [00:04:00] Welcome to the podcast, my friend Andrew DeCort.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: It's good to be here. Jeremy. Thanks for having me on. Never done this before with, The setup.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah. And an Andrew is, is a very smart guy who I'm, I'm bringing down to our level, today, so this is gonna be fun. So, We already had a wardrobe change. He's Got a beverage. He's, he's ready to go.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: go.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I'm excited for this. This is, this is gonna be good.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: to roll.

It's gonna be good.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Andrew and I. We, we've never met in person but the last time.

I talked with you, we were just, we were just talking.

There was no, it was not for anything other than just, just Two dudes talking about life and Jesus. And I walked away from that conversation and I told my wife this. I said, There's like a handful of, people that when you talk to them,

you feel like I'll use a, I'll use a wine analogy here. Like they are uncorking something in you.

Like just the act of that conversation almost like guides out. parts of You [00:05:00] that, that you know, are there, but sometimes you don't always know how to access. And that's literally how I would describe my last conversation. with you. And I Wish we would've recorded it 'cause it. would've made a Great episode.

So then I learned from that and I thought, well let's, let's Have another conversation. And this one we will record.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Amazing. Jeremy, I am so honored that that was an uncorking conversation for you. I felt like I was meeting someone that made me feel seen and sane as.

Somebody who kind of lives in between worlds and seeks to build deep relationships between communities and convictions that are sometimes pulled apart. So this is super exciting.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Well Let's talk about what we're drinking. That's, that's the fun part. So I'll, I'll, I'll go first. I'll, I'll share mine and we'll see what

you got in your glass today. I'm going.

To the old world of wine. I've Got a

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: 1,020

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Chateau De [00:06:00] La Chappelle.

which is super exciting. And This is from Bordeaux. It's a Bordeaux blend.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: bo.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: This has got 85% Merlott, 15% Cabernet Souvignon. And I'm a big fan of Bordeaux. I had a chance a few years ago to take a trip to Bordeaux And just got hooked on that whole region. what they're doing with wine making these guys have been doing it literally is is like long as anybody. So if you talk. Who who has dialed in the wine?

The, the winemakers in Bordeaux have figured it out. I'm getting notes

of black cherry plum, graphite, cedar. And what's fun about this one So

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: one so,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: just so, so any listeners know who you're into wine. We often. Look at years and you can tell a lot about what happened that year. That's what makes wine interesting. 2020. I'm gun shy for a couple. reasons. One is there were fires. in Oregon that year. and I Lived in Oregon that year. and so The Oregon pinot

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: [00:07:00] Peanut

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: 2020. is Not good.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Not good.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: So.

if you see an Oregon pinot from 2020, probably is gonna taste a little bit like a campfire. And you don't see many of those in round anymore because they didn't age well. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm skeptical of that Then obviously it was a pandemic year A lot happened, Everything was crazy, but fun fact for the listeners today, 2020 was actually.

a good year for Bordeaux. So if you have any of those thoughts that I have, but

you see a Bordeaux blend from 2020, don't be afraid. It was actually a really good year.

So I'm really enjoying this, this is a great. sipper for a deep conversation And I'm excited to, to enjoy it as I talk to you.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: you,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Andrew, what do you got in your glass today?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: glasses? I've got a Villa Maria, New Zealand Sauvignon blanc from 2023. Jeremy

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: New Zealand [00:08:00] Souvignon Blanc is my fav.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Really?

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Oh, I love it.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Ah, enjoying it too. I think this is probably the earliest in the day that I've ever had a glass of wine. So this is, this is a lot of fun here.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Oh, Love it. Welcome to day drinking.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: cheers to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr. Behind me in the presence of this wine. And to you, my brother. This, this is good stuff.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: All right. Cheers to you. Yeah. Souvignon Blanc from new Zealand, they're known for high acidity, which I really like that high acidity. I, I, it's fun to drink and I like the flavor of it. And so if you get souvignon blancs from elsewhere.

in the world, they often have lower acidity. But man New Zealand knows how to Let it rip.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: rip.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: the acidity scale.

So there you go.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: when I'm, when I'm tasting this?

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: You can Kind of feel like a little

tingle of of, of it in the back of your mouth. [00:09:00] It goes really good with food too, 'cause of that acidity. So a lot of wines get dwarfed by food, 'cause they just can't keep up. But if you have a wine with high acidity, it can usually hang. So if you, you know, eating chicken

or pasta or something, you get a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

That is a nice pairing together. Not that you have an entire meal in, front of you right now, but just for the future.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: it's behind the screen. You can't see it, but

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah, there you go.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: and pasta and salad and bread.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yes, that, that would make the episode more fun. Although I suspect our listeners wouldn't, wouldn't enjoy all the chewing, but we'll save you from that.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Right on. Right

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Okay. Andrew, I want to ask you a question about Yeah. Cabernet Yeah, there you go. We, we add, add an element to it each time. I wanna ask You a question about your journey, so

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: so

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: can get a little bit of context of who, we're talking to today. a little bit of where you come from, and it's a question. I love to begin with. to give each guest kind of a recent journey of where [00:10:00] you've been. If you were to look at the last, 10 years of your own journey, your own faith.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: faith.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: would you say that your faith?

has changed in the last 10 years?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Wow.

So 10 years ago I was graduating from the University of Chicago, with my PhD in theological ethics. And I think over the last 10 years when I finished that, Jeremy, I was preparing to move to Ethiopia with my wife Lily, who was born and raised in Ethiopia and began living and working there for a new chapter of my life.

I think my, my faith has changed in becoming aware of how little I know. Grounding in an ever expanding sense of mystery and the radical humility that comes with seeing faith as being a deep conviction rather than a possessed or grasp certainty. I think I have, [00:11:00] my faith has changed and expanded in seeing like the presence of Jesus and people I never may have expected.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: incredible Muslim neighbors that I've met in Nala refugee camp in Palestine, in, Hara in this city in the far east of Ethiopia, a man named Abdi, meeting Jesus and people who may not even recognize Jesus as being a revelation of God's presence or God's face. been a really wonderful surprise in my faith over the last 10 years.

Jeremy, you know, I often go back to that verse in Genesis. I think 28 where Jacob says God was in this place and I didn't know it. I think I've seen this expansion of, wow, I built these walls around the presence of God. I thought maybe God was here in specific places or in specific people, and God keeps surprising me and being [00:12:00] present in and through all people and places and the presence of creation.

I'm, I'm looking out this window at this just beautiful tree whose trunk is so firm and whose branches are dancing in the wind. Seeing the presence of, of Jesus in that, in that creation. So definitely an increasing sense of, of how little I know, of how faith is really grounded in humble conviction rather than a kind of arrogant slash insecure certainty.

This

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: sense of surprise and anticipation of. Meeting God everywhere and seeing that from start to finish. faith is about love. It's about a life of meeting beyond ourselves and connecting and seeing the precious value of others and the precious value of myself and the precious value of all that God has been made.

So in so [00:13:00] many ways, my faith, my faith has become, grounded and expanded in, in love, love, not as just fuzzy feelings. Jeremy, like love could be so painful, so full of grief, so full of loss. man, 10 years ago, Jeremy, I didn't know that love going to be part of my journey of working in a civil war and seeing so many people that I deeply care about watching their community.

Experience mass killing and mass displacement and mass rape and love saying like, oh, you can't look away, stay engaged, because there's precious value in every person who's suffering. There's precious value in the people who are perpetrating this suffering. So the love that I'm saying is not, you know, just, you know, kind of sugary, sweet, superficial, like, [00:14:00] fine.

It's this invitation to see precious value, even where there is deep pain, deep disagreement where we wanna like cut people off or even cut myself off. So my faith has done a lot of, a lot of expanding, deepening, it's simplified and complexified at the same time. My friend Dave likes to use the term complexity.

I, feel like my, my faith has become more simplex, more simple and complex at the same time of maybe like this wine that we're drinking. I'm not sure.

So,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I love that It it sounds like you

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: like you're

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: a posture of

being,

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: of

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: more open to, you know, you, you had an idea of what love was. You had

an idea of who God was, and yet your lived out experience.

of [00:15:00] that has, has broadened it, and you're, you're more open to seeing God in ways that you, you didn't anticipate.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Big time, man. Big time, and, and seeing God in ways I didn't anticipate that like maybe before would've seemed threatening and now just seemed wondrous and beautiful and

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: yeah, that's, that's God. God doesn't. God doesn't respect the walls and the barriers and the barricades that we set up, but is always present with us.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I love that.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Well, You have a book coming out. in October, your latest book, and I had the chance. to read it. It's fantastic. You're very

smart, Andrew. I don't know if you know this, you're very smart, and so I had, I would have to take breaks and just, just catch up to where you, were and, and process some of your ideas. but

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: you,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: you, you, you write, the way I would describe it, is it feels like you, you've read 10 books if you've read one of yours [00:16:00] because you're, you dive so

deeply into other material. So deeply into other thinkers, which is really, it's really a profound gift to, to go on a journey. with you. And So even as I was coming up with some questions for this, I'm like,

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: this, I'm like,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: so many of these

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: many of theses

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: are so big.

I can't even formulate them into like, quick questions.

You know, it's like these are whole side discussions, But I picked a few.

that I think are easy enough to, to put our hands around. But one of the, the words that you use throughout the book, and I really appreciated the way you use this word, and I feel like it, it gave me a

tool

and, and perhaps will give our listeners a tool of describing what we see happening in real time around us.

And it's the way that you use the word othering of, of how we, we other, people and you know, that's when we create this us versus them. and you you really unpack a lot of that. And you say this in the book in many ways.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: ways.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: othering

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: othering

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: the fundamental. [00:17:00] crisis of our humanity. What do you mean by that?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: do you mean by that? Yeah. Well, thank you for reading the book Jeremy, and thank you for giving your attention to it. Live in a time that is. Demanding our attention at all times, for you to pause and spend time with my book is a precious gift.

I wanna say thank you for it. By othering, I mean seeing other people as unrelated or less than ourselves. So unrelated might just mean like, I don't see myself as having a connection to you. I don't know who you are, we've never met I don't really need to care about what's happening in your life. Less is when this becomes a little bit more pernicious, a little bit more dangerous.

Maybe I think that I'm more intelligent than you. I think I'm more moral or righteous than you. Maybe I think that I am, know, hi, closer to God. I'm higher than you with some kind of hierarchy [00:18:00] of human value. Or, you know what? people have called the great chain of being, you know, I'm, I'm more up there and you're down here.

Or I'm more at the center of things and you're, you know, more at the periphery. Just not as important as what's happening in my life. And I think othering is, perhaps the greatest crisis facing our humanity because it sets up the conditions for the injustices that destroy human life. So if I see you as unrelated, to me, that's, that's the, the basis of indifference.

I don't really care if you are, if you're suffering, if you're lonely if you're misunderstood and misrepresented, like Jeremy, like I've experienced a lot of character assassination in my life. I've mentioned the Ethiopian Civil War, and that unleashed a flood of representations of me as [00:19:00] like. A CIA agent or like an assassination who had like orchestrated the plots to kill people, like being misrepresented.

I think everybody knows it's just extremely and it's injurious, it's wounding to our sense of who we are. If I'm say, you know, Jeremy, like you're actually a liar and a cheater you, and you're cheap, you just, you don't matter. So I don't care what happens in your life othering. If I see you as unrelated to me, then I, I begin tolerating those types of experiences and the people around me.

If I see you as less begin seeing as needing to be punished. Like maybe I need to wake you up by. you suffer. That could be physically or psychologically, again, where I'm degrading you, I'm demeaning you. I am you, making you smaller [00:20:00] you are. And I, you know, I often use this example, my wife and I love the Lord of the Rings.

We love the Lord of the Rings movies. And you know, I bet Jeremy that like few people have like cringed when they see like leg list, like an orc when, you know, you see like a, an arrow go through like three orc heads in a row, like you just laughed. And we see it as comical. Why? Because we don't see the orcs as connected to us.

We don't

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Totally.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: equal in value. So what happens to them doesn't matter. And like this othering process. Begins unleashing dehumanization, where I don't just see you as less than me. I don't, I don't see you as part of me and part of the larger human family. And dehumanization gives way to [00:21:00] what this philosopher, Judith Butler has called Grievability.

And I think this is an extremely important idea. Jeremy, and I'm, I'm gonna try to make it practical. Grievability really means that if you're grieving, I don't care that your pain doesn't matter to me. how do we see this? For example, in the Ethiopian Civil War, this is likely the deadliest civil war that's happened in the 21st century.

A lot of us haven't heard about it, but it was estimated that maybe over a million people were killed and tens, if not hundreds of thousands of women experienced sexual violence. And you know, million people subjected to extreme food insecurity. And you ask, okay, this is a really, really religious society where almost everybody's going to church or to mosque.

They're wearing [00:22:00] religious symbols like God is being spoken about regularly. How is it possible that this level of of people not that far away, could not only be like tolerated or accepted, but as seen as necessary?

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: This happens through othering when we're like, well, those people, if we see them as people, maybe we see 'em as weeds or as cancers or as devils.

They need to be punished or they need to be eliminated order for us to be safe, for God's will to be done, for things to be right now. I would say, Jeremy, that we're like seeing a similar emergence of perspectives and vocabularies here in the, the United States. We hear more and more public leaders, and I'm not just gonna pick one, that'd be too [00:23:00] easy because we hear these patterns across, you know, Democrat, republican, conservative, liberal, Christian, secular.

Let's just, we could name endless groups. Those people are monsters. Those people are insane. Those people are evil. those people are demonic. we begin seeing people like that, then we need to ask, well, how do we treat demons? Traditionally in, you know, religious culture, you drive demons out. How do you treat a weed?

You yank it out of the soil and let it die or burn it. And what do we see happening in our society? Increasingly, we see people being uprooted from their families, from their communities being [00:24:00] arbitrarily arrested or deported. We see a rising tide of fear in our society. Jeremy, it's incredible.

It reminds me so much of the time before the Ethiopian Civil War, I, I have more and more friends who are asking like, should I post that on social media? Or is saying you know, saying that. Human beings in Gaza should not be subjected to bombardment and starvation and constant fear. Can I say that or is that gonna come back around to hurt me when I'm applying for a job or when I want my church leaders to recognize me as like follower of Jesus, or I'm trying to advance in my academic path or career?

This is a kind of level of self-censorship that

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: that I've seen in these other contexts that we're on the brink of really [00:25:00] dangerous, devastating conflict. And it started with, well, I can't really associate with those people because they have been marked not connected to us, not equal to us.

If I show compassion to them, I might be seen as As betraying. I'll tell you the truth, Jeremy, when you asked me at the beginning of this conversation, how has your faith changed in the last 10 years? And I started, well, I've, I've been meeting God and Muslim people. I started thinking, oh man, I wonder if there's some Christian listeners to this conversation that we're about to have who are

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: turn me off because I said that, and really all that I said was, I experienced a sacred sense of connection with people of another faith.

But when othering is operative inside of our faith and we say, well, we've [00:26:00] got all of the truth, we've got a monopoly on, a faithful connection with God. So if Andrew's saying he had some kind of connection with those mu Muslim people, like he's probably lost his way. Those people are unrelated to us. So I think this is the danger of othering Jeremy.

It can be super, super subtle where it's just like, yeah, I don't care what happens to those people. I'm not paying attention. It's indifference, but it can ratchet up to, resentment, bitterness, the desire for people to suffer. And I think we see that more and more with our American discourse of, well, those Republicans fill in the blank.

Well, those Democrats fill in the blank, and we assume that those people are all the same and that they're overs simplistically, they're bad, they're stupid, [00:27:00] they're malicious in their intent. And then we just, we begin people inside. But when we start eliminating people inside, that's the basis of eliminating people in general.

So. For me, othering is not meant to be, you know, some kind of like clever academic term. It's just a little, a little handle, a little tool to talk about this. This, I call it a tendency and a temptation that I think really lives inside of all of us

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: to either say like, we're separate, like we don't have a connection or, or we have a superior superiority, inferiority difference.

And of course, we don't usually admit that, that, well, I think of myself as superior to you, but man, I think that that stuff lives inside of us and that we feel inferior, like can [00:28:00] also be done to ourselves. Like I'm experiencing a fresh round of this in my own personal life where I can see myself as.

Less than others. It's unrelated. It's kind of, you know, not a real participant in the belonging that matters. So othering can also be done inside and to ourselves. I think when we begin this alienation we get into the danger zone of incredible loneliness, which we know is an epidemic in our society.

For me, you know, loneliness it leads to an incredible sense of, of worthlessness, and then it can, of course, can lead to things like genocide where armies and militias and communities are literally, raping and killing and trying to destroy an entire group of other people. We, we see these patterns in our world today, so.

Ooh. I [00:29:00] went on and on there, Jeremy, but I care a lot about, I care a lot about othering because I think we were made to be together and to see one another's value and, and othering is the antithesis of that.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: No, I think that is so powerful. So well said. And it is interesting you bring up Lord of the Rings 'cause you're right when you, when you see it. When you see it displayed like that.

here, here's what I think is Brilliant. When when a show,

does, you know, orcs are the bad guy, or zombies are the bad guy, or aliens are the bad guy, we can feel pure joy when the bad guys get killed without Any of the, any of that, like I probably shouldn't, like this as much as I do, right? Because we do completely other them. They're aliens, they're zombies, they're orcs, they're not us. But The moment you start to.

have human enemies, I think there's a little tinge inside most of us, even if we deem them, they're the bad [00:30:00] guys, right?

There's this little tinge and you know, I don't know if you ever watch Game of Thrones, were You.

ever a Game of Thrones fan?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: I have not seen it at one of the few.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Okay, so they did a twist on this and this is not like a plot spoiler or anything, but the original series I always thought was a fascinating, way of playing into this othering where basically there was the this is gonna sound so nerdy, but humor, me, for a sec. there's these white walkers.

that are like the undead, but the, the, the kicker is if they kill you, you become. one of them.

So Not only are you then dead, you cease to be who you are, but then almost you become this, this distorted version of who you used to be and I remember there's a few, you know, key people that would would you know, they would throughout the show

would be killed by these white walkers and then they would become these bad guys. But you remember them as

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: as

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: who they were and it felt like such a betrayal. [00:31:00] As just emotionally invested. Like no they're not that they were us. and as I was, as I'm listening to you, it's like they were, they were playing with

the emotions of other ink, right? Of you used to be one of, us and now you've, you've been poisoned or distorted or, you, know, and, and it's a powerful visceral kind of reaction we have to that because we very much. function in this Othering mentality.

And you know, it's one thing to say,

okay, we, we watch, you know, legless shoot a arrow through an orc, and we go, yeah, that's cool, but I'm thinking in real time, the example. Most of us are seeing of this on our, on our news feeds are, you know, these ice raids that we see nonstop where you have nameless, often faceless ice representatives who, you know, it's as de personal as we can make that And then we have created this category

of This phantom immigrant who is this, you know, hyper [00:32:00] criminal,

and is the bad guy and is the boogeyman and we can deport them without any checks and balances. and any rules. And what has shocked me is that good, good people are like, yes,

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: let's get

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: those. Let's get those bad people outta here. And it, it. is Such a stark example of Othering. You go WW What is, I mean, there's so many things breaking down in this example of, okay, yeah, we can talk about, hey, what is a healthy way for a government to have immigration? Sure. That's a that's a Nuanced conversation.

But when you Have masked people showing up in

unnamed vehicles and taking, you know, to undisclosed places we have fully bought into, othering. and I just think that's a, you know, as I'm listening to you explain this, I'm like, that is literally on our doorstep right now and. I loved what you said,

about how you're learning from Muslims now, and I think I'll go out on a limb. I think most people listening to this podcast at least, are probably on board

with [00:33:00] that.

You've, they've made it through a whole bunch of other stuff,

to be here today, so they, they probably can hang with that. but I just recently wrote something in a blog post that, that, you know, is right. What you're saying is, I wrote something.

to the effect of, I have realized these days I connect far more with an open-minded.

atheist than I do with a closed-minded Christian.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Mm-hmm.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Like that atheist. and I will have a fantastic conversation. Now. I'm not gonna other, the Christian. but That's going, to be, there's going to be a rift there. A divide there.

It's, It's, not gonna be a, a, a, you know, a, a seamless kind of conversation. You go, well, yeah. But you and the Christian theologically agree. and I would say, Yeah. One level we do, but our posture Is so different. that I would rather, much rather spend

my time with people of any faith who have an open-handed posture. And you know, this to me is what Paul writes in Galatians five, six. Like, this is faith expressing itself in love. It's not about circumcision or [00:34:00] not you know, that's an easy thing for Paul, to say like, that was a big deal, Paul and we wanna say all these other things are a big deal. But I, I, I just think where, where this book is so Timely.

is when people realize, holy cow, this tendency to othering is, is consuming us unless we fight against it. I mean, Have you, have you learned any, any warning signs?

any like, hey, if you feel yourself doing this, or How does someone who's going wait, I, I may be stuck in this, or I may be deep in this? How do we

come up for air a little bit?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Yes. Yes. I think the simplest warning sign is when we begin accepting others being treated in ways that we don't want to be treated. And that sounds ultra elemental it is, but it's elemental in the sense of foundational. How would I feel if [00:35:00] masked men and unmarked vehicles showed up where I was?

Physically detained me, no arrest warrant, no evidence brought, of what I had done to violate the law. No due process of the judicial system. How would I feel if that happened to me? I, I would be terrified. I would be enraged. I would feel like my dignity as a human being had been violated, not just as a citizen.

And this is important to say because citizenship really mean that your value comes from holding a piece of paper gives you legal representation in, in a political community. For, for people here who are following Jesus, you know, the value is rooted in being created by God. [00:36:00] Whoever you are. So if I'm being treated in a way that's violating my human dignity, that's gonna express itself in, in grief, in anger, in fear. And if I see other people being treated in that way, and it does not evoke in me that sense of there's something deeply wrong there that person is being treated in a way that belittles them, that treats them as something less than a neighbor.

And we'll probably get into this, but in, in the book I talk about a neighbor is someone that you see as morally connected and equally precious to yourself. doesn't mean that they live, you know, next door. It doesn't mean physical or geographic proximity. It means that sense of, oh, there's a moral connection between us you matter just as much as I do.

When I [00:37:00] stop seeing other people that way and like, well, yeah, no, they probably deserved it. Well, somebody said, well, Andrew probably deserved it, that wouldn't be good enough for me.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Or if so, you know, he was wearing a hat that had this symbol on it, those are bad people, so he must be part of that group.

I was like, well, wait a second. Like if somebody treated me that way, 'cause I just happened to like that hat and I wore it, and they're like, well, he must be one. I would never accept that. I don't think any of us would. So a warning sign of othering is when we become flippant or indifferent to the conditions in which other people are, living and being treated that we would not accept for ourselves.

That means that we have accepted a double standard.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: see them as unrelated or less than ourselves. And I would say a really significant warning sign. Jeremy. Is in our language.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: we start using or [00:38:00] dehumanizing language, people are dogs, they're demons they are psychopaths. When we start using this kind of language, we're in the danger zone treating people as less than human talk.

And treatment often go hand in hand. When I'm talking about people like they're less than human. I easily begin treating people like they're less than human. and I would ask all of our listeners, and I ask myself, where is there insulting language in my vocabulary? Where am I consuming media? Where it's accepted that you talk about people in insulting, degrading, belittling ways.

Who are the leaders that I'm following? Religious, political. otherwise who have a habit of talking about other people, in ways like they're evil, they're stupid, they're [00:39:00] dangerous. People may do evil, stupid, dangerous things, but labeling people as such in these ways is an expression of othering.

And it's, it's very dangerous. And you know, if you study things like, you know, the German Holocaust where the Rwandan genocide or the Ethiopian Civil War, a commonality that you'll see in all of these cases that the other group or the other groups begin to be talked about in these demeaning degrading ways.

So in the German Holocaust, Jews were being talked about as rats and rats have to be caught, they have to be exterminated in the randan genocide. The other was taught, talked about as a cockroach, we know how cockroaches are treated in the Ethiopian Civil War. the other group was talked about as a cancer, we know about how cancers are treated.

If we hear or [00:40:00] participate in language that is referring to other people in these degrading ways, it's a real danger sign that we're, we're very vulnerable to immor immoral destructive behavior. And we're seeing, we're seeing that in our society. so yeah, this, this double treatment thing is crucial.

This, this language thing is a crucial sign of othering. And I, would just add again, that notion of re ability.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah. That's so good.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Do I really care when others are suffering? Like for example, like in the, in the Israel, Gaza, or, you know, I've talked to a lot of people who say, well, Israel has a right defend itself.

Okay. We could talk about that, like you said about immigration, that's a really complex and subtle topic and, and it's an important one to discuss, but does [00:41:00] self-defense justify starving children? destroyed infrastructure. the displacement of 2 million people, the deaths of 60,000 people, but probably far more.

You, know, this is a horrific situation. If that doesn't grieve me and there's, there's not something in me that just says, the start of this was, that should not be happening. If that's not happening, if that grief is not turning on inside of me, a sign that there's some.

There's some kind of othering inside of me that's blocking me from seeing myself as connected to the people of Gaza saying like, yeah, they're equally precious as I am. So these are some cues and some clues that that kind of program of othering is probably running inside of me or inside of my group

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: And that's my goodness. When you start looking in the language, you, you're gonna see [00:42:00] it everywhere.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: every.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Raising kids, I, I think how often they come home and they'll tell me, you know, conversations that, that they get in with their friends. And I, I'll have to say like in a, we're not even talking these extremes, just.

Subtle nuances of tearing people down with words and this and that and, you know, it's so common.

And to them, they, everybody talks like this and it's like you have to retrain them to go, okay, but think about what that language is doing. And you know, you're using a joke at this group's expense that you're not in that group.

You know, and just simple things you realize. I love that you, you pointed out the language. You, you Added a, a a twist to this that I think was also So profound and is really worth noting

to anybody that's going, yeah, I like this. Let's, let's do this work. 'cause you, you, you tell some fascinating stories in the book about your time in Ethiopia and why you're not there currently.

I mean, just a, a lot of of amazing things that, that you talk about and amazing.

people you met and you really bring them to life. In the [00:43:00] words of the page, You also talk about some really scary stuff and some stuff that you go, holy cow, that. That's hard to even imagine,

And then you have this line that it was so good.

I just kind of sat there and sat with you from, afar as I read this line. and just went, wow, you said this. I, I learned a power. A profound but painful lesson. When you love the other you often become the other. and that one is, that's loaded. Unpack that.

for us.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Yeah, I, I feel emotional you read that, Jeremy. 'cause it's, it's really personal and I, I think that it's also a global pattern that has so much at stake in it. I was teaching at a graduate school of theology in Ethiopia and I [00:44:00] had a colleague whose office was just, I could see it from desk and we would give each other hugs in the morning.

We would have at the, at the cafeteria together. We would go out of the office to share lunches together. There was, there was a sense of affection, of trust, of connection, of being colleagues. Between us and, you know, not only were we working for the same institution, we were also Christians and we had a sense of being a professional and spiritual family.

And once this, the Ethiopian Civil War began there was, was more than one group, but there was a primary group in the north of Ethiopia, the, the Ians that were marked as the enemy in this war. [00:45:00] And I was very public in my advocacy that the solution to the conflict in Ethiopia could not be one group domi, dominating and destroying the other.

there needed to be a non-violent solution where the, the questions and the grievances and, and the demands of. Different conflicting parties were heard and were discussed and were negotiated for an agreed upon solution that wouldn't involve, you know, bombing and invading and raping and starving people.

My colleague you know, that we used to, to hug and, to work together and just encourage each other. started writing publicly that I should be deported from Ethiopia. And that I was like a colonizer, which, you know, in the African continent, in the African context, you need to understand as a, as a [00:46:00] very loaded and rightfully so, very loaded accusation.

The colonizers were people who came to try to, to steal resources to other and dehumanize African people to abuse women, children to extract resources, to treat people like they weren't people. And this colleague was saying that about me. Now, nothing had changed between us other than the fact that I was saying as followers of Jesus and human beings, we are called to have compassion for the people who have been marked as the enemy.

We cannot that destroying them is how we can move forward in this conflict. And that enough, just that expression of compassion for the other made me the other. And now I was a colonizer who should be deported from the country and [00:47:00] literally treated like I was unrelated and less than his community.

I think that this pattern, Jeremy, is extremely powerful like. I know with certain friends, like if I express some sympathy for people that are associated with the Democratic party or more liberal leaning, progressive leaning are you one of them or? It was incredible, Jeremy. Incredible. Last Sunday I, I drove to Indiana to meet one of my dearest Ethiopian friends from Ohio, we met for lunch at this playground.

And as his daughter played, we caught up and he was telling me about how he had moved to, you know, he had recently moved to Ohio and he had these neighbors that were just so full of. Kindness. And had given him this beautiful dining room table, and they looked after his daughter when he needed to go to work, and they invited him to be part of their prayer group.

You [00:48:00] know, and at the end of this story, he told me that they had a flag for a political movement in the country that he and I both deeply disagree with.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I think we can use our imagination.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: I think we can. I think we can. It was, it was, was hilarious and beautiful that he told me, like all of these stories of how these human people were lovely and thoughtful and generous and kind and trustworthy. And then, you know, the cherry on top was they, they are clearly supporters of, of a movement that he and I both think know, should be seriously, seriously questioned.

And, I know that for some of my more progressive or, or quote unquote liberal friends, that if I told a story like that, you know, and being like, well, some, there's some really good people with serious integrity who, who feel like they need to support that movement. Some of those friends would be [00:49:00] like, Andrew, you lost your way, man.

Like, you're no longer credible. You're no longer one of us. So when you love the other, you become the other. It's, it's this issue of how groups so often form around othering Jeremy. And the way that I know that you and I are in the same group is that we both have suspicion or we have dislike, or we completely dehumanize those people.

For me growing up it was Muslims, it was gay and queer people and, and now especially trans people. It could be Jewish people it could be Catholic people. If you and I, you know, can tell the joke about those groups and we both laugh, we both know, oh yeah, we're part of the same group. He thinks that's funny.

I think that's funny. He doesn't feel guilt. I don't feel guilt. This is okay. But if, if you begin to say, you know, like, not trying to be self-righteous. not trying to be the morality p police like you with your kids. Like, I'm not trying to be holier than thou, but [00:50:00] I don't think it's funny to make a joke about people who are, are hungry or having their rights eliminated when you start saying, let's pause that and reexamine the way we're talking, the way we're laughing, the way that we're organizing our group.

so often you'll start being seen with suspicion you may be seen with hostility and rejection. So,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: The challenge that you're Talking about is so often these,

communities and let's, we can pick on Christian communities because you and I are, are, are talking from within, within the building, right? So let's, let's talk about Christian communities are often drawn together, held together, if you will, by a shared set of beliefs, right? So we, in this, community, we believe X, Y, and Z about God. And this is how we understand, God. And because we all understand God, that way, that's why we're here.

Well then a lot of people that I work with, [00:51:00] you know, the, the reason they end up you know, on my podcast or at a communion event, or, you know, deconstructing something is because they raised their hand at one point and said okay, on the X, Y, Z, if I don't believe the Z can I still be a part of this, like I still like everything else, but I don't know that I agree with the Z anymore.

And they're most often told. no. Like, no, You don't, you don't belong here anymore This is what we do. And So people begin to realize then the choice is you either shut your mouth and if you really want to be a part of the community. You go along with X, Y, Z.

Even if you Stop believing that a long time ago, and I know as I

suspect you do, so many people who live their life with that reality

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: mm-hmm.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: they are in a community of things they do not believe because they, they, want the, the community aspect. And when I read that line from you, I,

realized this is another layer of that where you can be in a tribe, in a community and say, Hey, [00:52:00] actually, I don't,

think the way that we are treating them or that person is, is very loving.

And I think maybe we're, we're off on that. And all of a sudden that your group right turns on you. and goes, Whoa, whoa, whoa. We all agreed that we're gonna make this.

joke or that these are the bad guys, or that these are, you know, the, the whole scapegoating idea, mimetic theory, it's like that is so Deep. We Need to have somewhere to aim it. And when I read that line from you. I

just had never heard it articulated as clearly as you connected those dots where when you stand up against othering, you invited on yourself.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: mm-hmm.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I just think that's

probably a reason why more people don't wanna do this work to battle it, because it comes at such a cost.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: big time, big time. Jeremy. I mean, that gets back to the question you asked me about how I've changed over the last 10 years and how love is not just this kind of fuzzy feeling or [00:53:00] this, this kind of pleasant, you know, floating in the air. Everything is fine. means that I see you as morally connected to me and equally precious, and I'm gonna treat you that way.

I'm gonna talk about you that way, whether you're in the room or not, whether you're in my border or not. And gonna be costly if part of what makes my group's identity, what it is, is that we don't like you, we make jokes about you. We treat you in a way that we don't want to be treated.

That's gonna take a lot of courage. And courage means consciously facing fear and choosing love, though it's costly. Yeah. And I, I agree with you that I think that's why we see othering being so tolerated in a lot of cases. It's, it's not because, you know, we're all, know, just so terrible. We wanna belong, we want to be part of the group.

We don't want to be othered. And we, it [00:54:00] makes us feel safer if like, well if at least if I'm part of this group, maybe I'll be protected against what I don't wanna suffer.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: What's so hard is you, you then Talk to people who

because of their, you know, intellectual understanding of God couldn't go along with the beliefs of their community or their community was trying to other, a group or

a person, they went, Hey, I, I just can't be a part of this anymore. But then their greatest need. their Greatest desire is, for community, right?

They're,

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: yeah,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: they, they are then looking around going who, who can I rally with, And that's where

you know, we need to create space for people to say, it's not about all of us agreeing on all.

of the nuances and. And I'm just amazed how many Christians just cannot Tolerate that idea of we, no, we have to agree on all these things.

And if that is your assumption, you're going to be in these very small, tight-knit.

little communities where everybody thinks alike or at least pretends to think alike. And yet that is an environment to [00:55:00] other, because it just inherently produces 'cause then you, you other, the person who didn't agree with you and they become, you know, less than or Whatever. And I think That's the work that you're doing and you know, that I certainly am, am trying to do as Well, but how do we, how do we,

create space for encouragement to do this work? To say, you don't have to villainize people. You can, you know, but we, we acknowledge, you know, it's certainly cost you, it's cost me these, these journeys don't come without scars.

And you go, yeah, you might lose your tribe, you might lose friends that you thought were, were with you

And yet one of the coolest things is when people find each other. Out of that season. and the encouragement. That's how I think, you know, you and I when we first talked, we're like, oh, I like, I like this guy.

You know? It's like we immediately felt That

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: is so powerful. And So I just encourage you today, if you're listening to.

this and you're like, I feel so discouraged. I feel like this has been my story. There are people out there, there are people working to create [00:56:00] something beautiful that won't require you to other, they won't require you to sign a doctrinal belief sheet.

It's, it's possible. At least I've found that and I, I would suspect you found that as well.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: yes, I have. I've certainly found that with you, Jeremy, and I've found that with other really cherished friends and I found that with atheists and Muslims and with Hindus and with all expressions of humanity. You know, what you're saying is bringing up something for me, Jeremy.

Towards the end of the book, I have a section called the Perennial Wisdom of Neighbor Love, and I try to distill some of about 1515 of the lessons that I observe from looking at the history of where did this movement of seeing and treating other people as neighbors come from. And the first one that I mentioned, this first lesson is that othering is ironic.

Othering again, it's, we're different, we're [00:57:00] better, we're superior, but it always unleashes this behavior that is cheap, that is shabby debasing and that's destructive. Think about, you know, here in the United States, our history of racism and slavery, where you had communities of white people saying that they were, you know, closer to God, more civilized, more moral, more intellectual, et cetera, et cetera.

Justified treating human beings like tools, like animals, slaughter. That's a, that's a really, really bittering and, and toxic irony. But the second, the second observation is that neighbor love is paradoxical. And what I meant by that is that if you look at Jesus Manifesto for his public movement, he has his teaching where he says, love your enemies.

So that you may be children of your father in heaven. I think this is such a, a, it's such a, [00:58:00] a tight and profound paradox. If you want full belonging with God, if you want to be part of the family, love the people that you think that you are justified to hate. That's what an enemy is. The Greek word literally means like a hated one.

If you want to be fully in with God, love the people that you think you have a right to other. And the paradox of neighbor love is that we only exclude ourselves from full belonging with God when we exclude others belonging with God. And in the book, I try to trace this through, you know, the, the, the thinking and the practice of many, many recognized and respected throughout.

What I call the neighbor love movement, the history of this movement that Jesus started, where he said, go into all the world and teach everybody to obey what I commanded you. What did Jesus command [00:59:00] love the enemy as a neighbor? The book tries to unpack every passage where Jesus talks about this and where his followers about this.

So when I think about how we've set up Christian culture the way that that's created, the discouragement and the loneliness that you were naming Jeremy, I, I hope that this book reminds us of this paradox of neighbor love. That if we wanna think seriously about what really distances us from God, it's when we refuse to love even the person or the group that we think is most validly rejected.

And

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: is not because there's any other ring in God. It's not because God's like, okay, I can't accept you anymore. I've gotta get rid of you. I've gotta trash you. I've gotta, I've gotta other you. The reason is because at God's core, God is love, if [01:00:00] we find love threatening, repulsive, unworthy, then there's gonna be some kind of block between us and God because this, this is the very heart of God.

So I hope part of what this book does when it looks at the problem of othering, is to remind us of this paradox of neighbor love. That if we, if we want to go back to what Jesus said about what really connects us to God or separates us from God, it goes down to this issue of are we willing to love across every boundary?

That's when we, when we are like, yeah, fully part of God's family. Like there is this spiritual DNA that is alive. And flowing through us in that love. And that's different than a list of doctrinal state statements. And I, I think that for me, like, I have a, a particular atheist in mind [01:01:00] who actually endorsed this book.

His name's David Livingstone Smith, and he's one of the world's leading experts on dehumanization. I have some of his books are right here. He's written books called Making Monsters Less Than Human, on Inhumanity. And David doesn't believe in God, I believe passionately in God, but

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I love that he endorsed your book. That's amazing.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: it was so humbling, you know, he said said, do you wanna make the world a better place?

Start here. He's an atheist. I'm a

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: That's so cool.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: believer in God and follower of Jesus. What we share is this passionate commitment to the value of human life. And I think that David is, as an atheist, is living into the paradox of neighbor love in ways that some of us who may feel like we're so orthodox, we're so, right in what we believe and how we relate to God [01:02:00] may not be able to go across boundaries to love.

And the way that Jesus says, look, this is the marker of, of, of a family relationship with the divine

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: What a, what a beautiful way for you to practice, not othering by literally having an

atheist endorse your Christian teaching from Jesus on neighbor love. I mean, that is, that is so beautiful.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: beautiful. I thought, you know, who could be a better what's the word I'm trying to find? This kind of like inspector. Of the authenticity of what I'm writing than someone who has deep disagreements with me. Like he

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Sure.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: like, you know, is, does this book sound good to other Christians?

But if you're not a Christian, like there's still othering laced all throughout it. I wanted David to read it and to tell me what he really thought and to make sure that this book wasn't, you know, passing, [01:03:00] passing mustard a Christian audience or Ibu Patel. You know, IBU Patel is a Muslim and he wrote an endorsement for this book.

I wanted Ibu to, he's the founder of Interfaith America. I wanted him to read it and sniff it out and see, you know, is this book actually talking about authentic love of the neighbor or is it still this kind of pious game that Andrew's playing? So that was essential for me to get these kinds of for the book to be tested by people who are coming from very.

similar but very different perspectives.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Well, if our, if our good news is only good news for people who agree with us, it's not the gospel.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Amen. Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: And that's, that's what you're, you're Showing Is this is good news. Even if you don't follow Jesus, because Jesus is offering literally a way that changes the world, that, that remakes the world, that a Muslim can recognize, that an atheist can recognize and say, yeah, [01:04:00] I don't, I don't get there the way?

you get there.

But the conclusion is really good.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Which, What a, what a

what a testament to, to it being meaningful.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: yes, yes, yes. Big

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Whew.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: brother. Big time. I, I'm, I'm still, I'm, I'm kind of really, really moved by this final message from Jesus at the end of his movement where he says, go into all the world and. Make disciples of all people learner. A disciple is a learner, a practitioner, someone whose way of life is, is shaped and defined by what they learn.

Jesus goes against othering here. He's saying, cross every boundary, interact with every group of people and do two things. Baptize them in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything that I've commanded you. And of course, at the beginning of Jesus' [01:05:00] in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is baptized.

what happens in that baptism experience is that Jesus has this kind of psychedelic experience where heaven is open and he sees a vision of God as this dove of peace, this nurturing safe presence. And he hears God say, you're my beloved child. I delight in you. He hears this expression of unconditional acceptance and and pleasure in God, in his presence.

And when Jesus says that we are meant to be baptizing, I think that he's alluding to that primal experience in his own story where he encountered his own belovedness. And he says, wow, like when, when the heavens part, like when you really get it, when you see through, all of the facades and the veils and the packaging your [01:06:00] loved and accepted, and there's precious value in in you.

Like that's not extending beyond our Christian community, then we're not following this commission, this invitation that Jesus gave. And then when he said to, to teach people to obey, to hear, to practice, to take seriously what I taught you. It's again, this paradox of love that we find what truly matters when we love across every boundary, including with the person that we've marked the enemy, the ultimate, the ultimate other, the other

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: find, you can feel fine about hating.

Well, they're the

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: whatever happens to 'em doesn't really matter. If that's not, if that belovedness and that practice of radical love isn't, isn't crossing every boundary like Jesus said, then we're, we're no longer extending the movement that Jesus himself launched.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: there's been a significant misunderstanding, Jeremy, of like what, what we [01:07:00] call the great commission actually is this kind of final invitation from Jesus to continue his work on earth.

I think it was all about neighbor love, baptism and belovedness, and an invitation to actually embody and practice what he taught across every boundary of identity and difference.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Love it. That's beautiful. Well, I think you've, I think you've sold us. I'm sold. I'll read the book. I'll, I'll, I'm in.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Alright,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I wanna, I want to spend a, a few moments that we got left transitioning you to some questions that I like to ask each of our guests.

and then we let the listeners compare your answers to everyone who's come before you.

So We'll start with a fun one. This is, This is always. very open-ended. I get lots of different answers to this one. If I were to say to you, Andrew, in your entire life, if I were to ask you, what's the best glass of wine you've ever had? Is there a moment that comes to your mind? Is there a story? Was [01:08:00] it a particular bottle? Was it a Setting, was it who you were with? Do you, do you have anything like that? that comes to your mind of just the best interaction you've ever had with wine?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Lauren. Alright. What came to mind, Jeremy,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yes. Give it to us.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: was more about the person than the bottle.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Okay.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: gonna, you're gonna have to forgive, forgive me for

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Nope, that, that, that is, that, we accept that answer.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: All right. All right. Awesome. The, I have not been othered, the paradox of love is, is operational here. I, I love it. I receive it. So, yeah, on when Lily was turning 30 we were living in Ethiopia. And Ethiopia is about a five hour flight from Rome.

And you know, Lily and I have had a pretty frugal, modest life. That's still the case now. And we hadn't been able to travel very much in our marriage. And so for her 30th birthday. wanted to take her to Rome to surprise her and to [01:09:00] just say that I love her and that I just wanna spend time with her and for us to discover this other part of the world together.

And I'll never forget that we were this tiny, of course, Italian restaurant in Rome, like on this back alleyway with this just simple table with candlelight and a bottle of wine and glasses and a meal that we enjoyed. And can see Lily's face in my mind, you know, as we're talking now, of just how beautiful she is as a human being, who lives with incredible kindness, with truthfulness, with radical commitment to me across the different seasons of my life.

And I mean, at that time, Jeremy, we didn't know that a civil war was gonna erupt in Ethiopia. There was, there was a lot ahead of us that we didn't know. But the, the love, the commitment that unconditional, promise to one another was, was alive and well. And so sharing, sharing that wine at that table on that night, on Lily's 30th birthday, the beginning of a new [01:10:00] decade really, really special.

And I think we had red wine. I don't remember the exact kind.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Love it.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: love it, but it was really special.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: That is a great answer. Andrew. Well done. I, I love that story. Okay. Which member of church history would you Trust to pick a bottle of wine for you and who would you not Trust. and why?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Wow. Well, I, I always, I always heard that that Martin Luther was a beer guy and that John Calvin was a wine guy. So, so. Calvin may have some knowledge of wine, but I, I, I have some critiques of both of those, the dear brothers.

Who would I trust to pick out a bottle of wine? You know what I'm gonna say is, is, is Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich, he's

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Okay.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: me there. Written a book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a [01:11:00] guy who really loved life and he thought that an authentic Christian faith wasn't about rejecting the world.

It was about embracing the world as made and loved by God and really caring for it. And Bonhoeffer was a guy who enjoyed nice things. You know, he was from a really educated upper class German family. Bonhoeffer didn't allow that background and that belief to separate him from other people or to remain detached from people who are suffering.

And fact. Bonhoeffer's commitment to the goodness of the world. And, and the beauty of the other drove him to sacrifice his life in the German Holocaust on behalf of Jewish people. He said, our relationship with God is not an infinite, unattainable task, but the neighbor within reach in any situation, isn't that amazing, Jeremy, that we access God through the neighbor, not through this kind of unattainable So I

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah, I like that.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: who would combine like a really good taste for [01:12:00] wine without being too like snooty or elitist or maybe excessive. And he might like, he's probably laughing at his grave right now and he is like, Andrew, like, I would drink a thousand dollars bottle of wine like tonight.

But yeah, I think a Bon Offerer is a guy who thread the needle between really enjoying and also having a deep sense of

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I'm with you. That makes sense to me.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Okay. Who, who do you not trust from, from church history to pick you out a bottle?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Who this is? This is I've never been asked this question at all before. Who do I not

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: to pick me out bottle of wine. All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take this. So Jeremy. Hmm.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I'm so excited for this. answer.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: man. I'm like wrestling inside of myself. [01:13:00] Wow. So for the first 300 years of Christian history there's pretty. Pretty definitive evidence that followers of Jesus were pretty radically committed to non-violence.

They weren't willing to serve the military because they weren't willing to kill people because they thought that all people were made in God's image and were sacred. And our dear brother CEUs is a historian of the church. He's known as some people think of him as the father of church history.

CEUs gave this famous talk called the oration in praise of Constantine, and it's this

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: long message about why Constantine was sent by God and is like the greatest thing ever. And Constantine, as listeners may know, is the emperor who supposedly had this vision of the cross and in and heard in this sign conquer.

And this was the beginning of Christianity and the Roman Empire really becoming partners and Christians beginning to. [01:14:00] See the extension of the Kingdom of God through conquering and killing people. The exact opposite of what Jesus said with his great commission. So don't know if I would trust you seus to pick out a good wine for me.

I, I think that just, there might be something a little bit toxic about the wine, even as I refuse to other, that dear brother and he has a lot of good things to teach us. But yeah, I don't, I don't know if our tastes would be you know, if we'd have the same palette or not. I don't know if I'd be wanting to drink Constantine's wine and, and I think UCVS might be more, more cool with that.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Oh, that's great. I love that you're even in turmoil. Just I'm not othering him. I'm just saying I wouldn't want him to pick my wine,

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: just

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I love it. Yeah.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: That's,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah. That's all we're asking Just, just some people. You might say. You know what? I got it. You CBS, I got it. Don't, don't worry about it.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: I love it. Alright. What is something you used to believe that it turned out later you were wrong [01:15:00] about?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Oh man, there's so many. Which one do I want to pick?

I think that, I used to believe that the Bible was this simplistic book and every passage was saying the same thing.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: It was kind of like an encyclopedia where if you had a question, just go to the Bible, find the right text, pluck it out, and there is your timeless answer and for all. And. One of the definitions that I would give of repentance is the joy of being wrong.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: I [01:16:00] discover, oh, I thought it was like this, but it's not. It's like this, and it's actually better that it's not the way that I thought it was. So for example, Jeremy, in the book I talk about how you have passages where biblical characters are engaging in serious othering. example, Moses in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter seven says, there are whole groups of people that you shouldn't look on with kindness.

You should actually try to kill all of them. he will go beyond that and say, yeah, you should even kill their infants. Like not just adults, not just kids, like little babies. Kill them too. And I've come to see that part of God's wisdom in scripture is that God has given us this complex library of books that we have to wrestle with, that transforms us.

Because when you read, okay, there are these groups of people that have been marked out for [01:17:00] illumination. Don't show them any compassion. And then you, you know, skip forward a few hundred pages and you read, you've heard it said, love your neighbor, but hate your enemy. But I tell you, your neighbor so that you can be children of your father in heaven.

There's tension there, complexity there. There's the question of, wait a second. If what Jesus is saying is really the heart of God, then we are probably seeing instances where people are speaking in the name of God, but not representing what God truly desires for us. And then I have to start looking in a mirror.

Saying, how am I doing that? How am I so sure that I'm right? How am

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yep.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: sure that those people need to be separated, eliminated, and that this is God's desire for me and that this is proof that I'm right with God? how am I doing that still today? So [01:18:00] yeah, an area where I've, where I've definitely experienced growth in my worldview is the Bible is this complex library of books that's inviting us to get into it, to wrestle with the story to grow up seeing like, man, there's tensions, there's contestations going on in this book, and am I actually willing to follow the Jesus who says, okay, you've heard different things, but this is what I want you to see as essential across every boundary, including the person that you've been, feeling entitled to hate. And that's, that's really changed how I read the Bible, Jeremy, no longer as an answer book, but as a process of seeing what is it like to be human, where we're like, yeah, we're so sure that God says this and wants this. And what if there's an invitation to reconsider, to step back, to stop and think, to be like, oh, I've heard this.

But what God really wants is something that's surprising,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah,

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: that's more [01:19:00] costly than I imagined. Something that my community may say. Who? Andrew? I think you've lost your way.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: that's how you know in the spirit's doing something

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: who

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: you get that little, Little tingle.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: There's a little tingle. There's a little tingle. Like, I bring this up in the book, Jeremy, but I I love it that in, you know, in Luke chapter four, Jesus is giving his first public sermon in his hometown.

And, It says that people are hanging on his words and delighting in what he said. So he's like really eloquent and he's talking about there'll be freedom, there'll be favor. what everybody wants, freedom, favor. And he's quoting Isaiah chapter 61, but Jesus stops quoting the text the text becomes othering.

If you go back and you read Isaiah 61, the verses after the part that Jesus quoted, begin talking about how the community of Israel will basically be using other people as their forced labor and extracting their wealth for their own enrichment. And Jesus stops quoting that [01:20:00] text. then Jesus goes to these two other passages in scripture where you have prophets literally living with a foreign and healing a foreign leper.

So Jesus pauses that part of Isaiah goes to these other scriptures and says, actually, what I want you to focus on next is. These prophetic people who had literally made their home and their healing with people who had been marked as outsiders or maybe even marked for elimination. How does the community respond to that part of Jesus sermon?

They want to drag him out of town and throw 'em off a cliff and get rid of him. There's a tingle, a significant tingle. But that's how Jesus reads the Bible and it's co, it was costly for how Jesus read the Bible and it's gonna be costly for us today. But that's been one that continues to grow in me is seeing the Bible is this really complex dialogue between God and humanity.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Great answer. [01:21:00] What is something that's blowing your mind?

right now? What's Andrew Learning?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Learning? what's blowing my mind right now is

how sensitive and fragile human beings are and how important it is for us to foster relationships of real vulnerability we can share pretty raw fears, doubts, sorrows. We can, we can look incredibly strong, incredibly put together you know, incredibly knowledgeable and competent outside, and yet inside of that inner world of the human being, there can be such fragility and such a need for [01:22:00] gentleness patience.

Really, really careful listening. This is such a basic observation, Jeremy, this is, this is not a mind blowing insight by any stretch, but, you know, last night Lily and I were talking about patterns in American culture and it, it occurred to me that I think a basic assumption of American. Life is that American life basically makes sense.

And that if you just follow American culture with the way that we do money and the way that we do identity and the way that we do politics, that you're, you're gonna basically live a good life. I think so many of the cultural values that we've been raised with, especially around consumerism, around nationalism, around feeling like we have some kind of exceptional elevated connection with God and value in the grand scheme of things, is actually really, really harmful for all of us.

And it blocks us from entering into [01:23:00] these intimate, vulnerable relationships of, of radical honesty, about how much pain there can be in life, about how much suffering there can be in life. And, and again, this, this takes me back to wow, how profound that Jesus movement began in this moment of hearing your, my beloved child.

had a light in you. I mean, Jesus is whatever we think He's like 30 years old, which in his context, he was, you know, significantly advanced in age. And yet he's being talked to in this very affectionate, tender way by God as, as a son beloved and, and who's a source of happiness. I, I think we all need that.

And, and the more you know, people that I talk to Jeremy, who, whether they seem like they're, you know, they're brilliant or they're super successful at business, they have a lot of money, they're very influential. There's this core need inside for a very [01:24:00] honest, vulnerable connection with grief, with suffering, with trust and commitment in the midst of it.

I think I'm, I'm being freshly amazed by. How much pain can live inside the human heart

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: and how much we all need love again, not as this kind of this cheap fleeting feeling, but this enduring gritty commitment to being with and for one another.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah. I love that. What is a problem that you're trying to solve? I.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Ooh, what's a problem I'm trying to solve?

You know, I think I'm starting to notice, Jeremy, that I had some really big dreams for my life, for [01:25:00] my vocation going into the Ethiopian Civil War and. That involved creating a center of imagination and learning and community building in Ada Sababa that would nurture this culture of seeing and treating others as neighbors.

And I'm discovering how the Ethiopian civil War was. It was an earthquake, it was a tsunami, it was a tornado. Pick your, pick your metaphor. that left a lot of, a lot of wreckage, literally and metaphorically, including inside of me. and a problem that I'm trying to work on is, is how can I continue expanding my imagination and dreaming when opening my heart to, to dreaming and things that may feel like they've been [01:26:00] flattened like they've been blown to pieces.

that feels really scary or silly or pointless. so this, this is a, this is a problem that I'm working on in myself, is how, how can the ma the imagination continue to open and expand after really, really painful experiences that have things like faith, hope and love, feel scary,

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Because they make you vulnerable to being deeply hurt.

And I, I think that this is a problem that many of us face and it's, it's partially how othering sets in. Like, yeah, I've tried to connect with people who are different than me. Like it didn't go the way that I wanted, so I'm not gonna get burned again. I'm not, I'm not gonna

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Sure.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: bridge again. Let me, you know.

Cut them off. So how, how do we keep the heart soft and open [01:27:00] and expanding in a world where there's so much potential for pain?

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Hmm. Yeah, I love that. What's something you're excited about right now?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: I am very excited about going to Ireland. Lily and I are going to take a trip for the very first time to Ireland together. Next month, Ireland, Jeremy is actually where my, my life as a writer began in 20 20 0 3, 2003. My dear friend Matthew Robinson and I students in college and we went to Southern Ireland and we stayed with a, a family on a farm with this old Castle ruin.

And we wrote our first book. The book was never published. But that's where I began book writing 22 years ago. And so it's gonna be really special after, after this baby, came out to return to Li [01:28:00] with Lily to that space in Ireland. She's gonna be able to meet that family and to just see the beauty of that landscape in a place of just profound spiritual reflection, like talking about seeing God and everything and everyone where we began this conversation, that's a very Celtic form of spirituality.

So I'm excited for Lily and I to head there together return to the roots of my writing and for us to see this beautiful place with beloved people where there's just a lot of invitation to a, larger love for God and people.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: That's, that sounds Awesome.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: maybe some

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Okay. As we wrap this up, or, yeah, you could get some whiskey, you could get some stout. Yeah, You can get all sorts of stuff. There's, there's options. You're gonna have options. there.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: All right. as we think about what we've just talked about, it's been incredible. conversation. Is there anything else you want to add? that I didn't get to all my questions. for the sake of time, but is there anything that you're like, look, [01:29:00] we can't Wrap this up.

until I, I address this.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Mm. You know, I think we've gotten to the heart of the matter. we really have, othering is a crucial problem that we're facing today. It's the gateway to places where we don't want to go. And the response to that problem is to see and treat other people as precious in value and morally connected to us.

And this is an ancient movement. I guess maybe this is the piece that I want to add, Jeremy, love your neighbor as yourself is not this kind of abstract, timeless, lifeless, moral dictum. You know this, this kind of dusty. ethical imperative. This is a movement that's been unfolding across thousands of years of, of history to see more and more people as, oh yeah, those people are equally connected and precious in value.

Oh yeah. Those people too. Oh yeah. Those people too. And I guess what I would ask is how can our listeners see themselves as participants in this movement? [01:30:00] And are there groups of people in our society today that are still safe to other and to not see as neighbors? And I would ask for each one of us to give special attention, special energy and, and, and risk taking to say, who are the people that are still safe to see as unrelated and less?

And how can we build relationships, just enter into relationship and listen and learn. For example I'm in a relationship with a, with a dear friend who's a trans person, and I'm just, I'm learning from their story I'm asking questions, and I'm just doing a lot of listening. I'm allowing a lot of my ignorance, you know, to be exposed and to be transformed.

And I'm so grateful for this friend's teaching and kindness. Who are these groups of people, whether you agree or disagree, that are still safe to other, and that you can enter into relationship with a relationship of, of love, of [01:31:00] connection, of care, of respective mutual service, of mutual flourishing.

So, let's see, neighbor love as a movement is still continuing in our time and that is still wanting to expand this moral circle in which we're called the Belong. And that's, you know, that's part of why this cover, Jeremy has these, these kind of swirling circles of this ever expanding movement of belonging that's getting larger and larger and being woven together.

And I think that it doesn't take a whole lot of reflection to see, yeah, there's a. A lot of people that we still think that we can write off and not care about what really happens to them. We've already named some in this conversation, so super grateful brother to be able to talk about these things and to have of wine with you today in the afternoon.

I think this, this is, is a, a lot of fun here.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah, well, it's, this, this is does not suck. This is not a, not a painful part of what I get to do every week. Okay. So if someone's [01:32:00] listening to you and they're like, man, I like this guy. I, I really want to connect more, what's the best way for them to connect with what you're doing? I.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: this? Yeah, they can go to Andrew andrew dash to court.com and a lot of my writings are there. My contact is there. I'd love to receive an email. I'm pretty active on Facebook. If people are there, they could jump on and read what I'm writing there and send me a message if that's easier for them.

And I've just started. substack that's called Reframe with Andrew D Court. And that's looking at the headlines and contemporary news through the lens of the beatitudes. What do we have to learn about the world as it is not as we want it to be through the lens of the things that Jesus said blessing upon so people could follow me on Substack.

But yeah, I'd love it if people would jump on my website, andrew court.com find my email just reach out and we can start a conversation.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: And when, [01:33:00] When is the official launch date for the book?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: So I've gotten my early copy here and the official launch date is October 2nd. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon bookshop IVP academic wherever books are sold.

And some of my friends who have pre-ordered the book have already gotten their copies, so it seems like some

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: What?

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: getting out early. So that's

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Oh.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: that's pretty exciting. But

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: That's that's redefining the concept of a pre-order.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Indeed. It's, it's, it's very pre. It's very pre, but that's, that's nice.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: You can Preorder this.

and we will pre give it to you before it is available. So that is, that's fantastic. All right, well, I'll, I'll certainly put a bunch of those links in the show notes. And Andrew, I just gotta tell you, man, I just so appreciate you, so appreciate the, the voice that you have that you are partnering with.

God, you, you are bringing more beauty into the world. And when the world feels heavy and evil feels like [01:34:00] it's never ending, I always look to like, how do we just bring a little bit more beauty into the world today? How do we partner with what God's doing today? And you just embody that so well, and just the, the.

The posture That you take. is, is so refreshing. So Thank you for spending the time with us. I know our listeners are gonna be tremendously blessed by this. But thanks for the work you're doing and I'm excited for

a whole bunch of people. to get to read this, this latest book.

andrew-decort_1_07-31-2025_150422: Thank you so much, Jeremy. I'm, I'm grateful for your kindness and my beauty abound in our world. Beauty is crucial to our healing, and I'm, I'm just grateful that I got to experience beauty with you today. And laughter, laughter is crucial as well. Brother, thanks for bringing out the joy.

jeremy_1_07-31-2025_130423: Yeah, the wine helps with that as well. So that's, that's our secret. Well, hey everybody, go Check, out Andrew, check out his.

book, reviving the Golden Rule, coming out in October or earlier. Evidently if you pre-order it now. So, you can support Andrew in that way. And [01:35:00] we'll see you on the next episode of Cabernet and pray.

Have you ever felt like you're on your own when it comes to asking honest questions about faith, like you are the only one deconstructing what you were taught, trying to make sense of who Jesus really is? Well, you're not alone. That's exactly why I created the Rebuilding Faith online community. It's a place for people just like you, those who don't fit in the mold of traditional church spaces, but who still believe that Jesus is worth following.

Inside the community, we dig deeper into the content. From this podcast, we process the stuff that doesn't always get talked about, and we wrestle together with what it means to follow a Jesus looking God. It's a safe, meaningful, and honest environment to grow with others who get it. As a member, you'll get my weekly newsletter, guided book studies, downloadable discussion guides, and early access to everything that I create.

You'll also be helping me create more of this content. Check out the link in the show notes to join the [01:36:00] conversation today.

Reviving the Golden Rule (with Andrew DeCort) | Ep. 53

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