0030 - The Weight - Jason Vickers - Conservation in a Revolutionary Age
Shownotes:
As much as we value agreement and unity, we also heavily value our own opinions. The labels we ascribe to our fellow citizens block us from engaging in invigorous conversations with one another, believing that we cannot find common ground with someone whose views align on different poles than our own. Our shallow definitions of “conservative” and “progressive” keep us from understanding the world we are all striving to work toward.
Dr. Jason Vickers, Professor of Theology at Asbury Theological Seminary, is an ordained elder in full connection on the Western NC Conference of the United Methodist Church and the current editor of the Wesleyan Theological Journal. Vickers challenges conventional definitions of what it means to be conservative or progressive, claiming that we adopt these mindsets without truly considering what it means to be on either side of the spectrum.
He talks with Eddie and Chris about the way all of us value conserving certain traditions and progressing toward a better future. They talk about the American South and the way Southern culture glamorizes rebellion. They discuss how all of us can have healthier, trusting conversations by opening our minds to understand why we value what we do.
The Weight Afterthoughts
We've realized that a lot of great conversation actually happens AFTER we say goodbye to our guests and turn the microphones off. So, we decided to turn the mics back on (and a camera) and create a new segment called, Afterthoughts.
This will live on our new YouTube channel and you can find our Afterthoughts on this episode NOW!
Resources
Follow Jason on the web: http://jasonvickers.org
Learn more about Jason’s work at Asbury Theological Seminary here: https://asburyseminary.edu/person/jason-vickers/
Find Jason’s books here: http://jasonvickers.org/books/
Follow Jason on social media:
Full Transcript
Eddie Rester : 0:00
I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly : 0:01
I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester : 0:02
And you are listening to The Weight. We are glad that you're with us today. Today on the podcast, we have Jason Vickers. Chris, tell us a little bit about Jason Vickers. Who is he?
Chris McAlilly : 0:12
Jason is a theologian in the Wesleyan Methodist tradition. He is a professor at Asbury Seminary, and he has thought a lot about conservation and how it's different from preserving things just for the sake of preserving them. And he makes some provocative claims about all of us. He says, we're all of us are conservatives.
Eddie Rester : 0:37
And all of us are progressive. You know, one of the things that he really, I think, pushed for me was, how do we see this world, maybe, and understand that we don't have to choose a particular side to represent me, and I think that's important right now. We can, if we admit on the front end that there's a part of me that's conservative--I want to conserve some things--there's a part of me that wants to progress and admit that some of history isn't what it should be, then it allows me to be in a different space in the conversations that go on. We talk about land use, Wendell Berry, the American South, Statues,
Chris McAlilly : 1:15
Dukes of Hazzard,
Eddie Rester : 1:16
Flag.
Chris McAlilly : 1:17
Yeah, we talked about the larger American story and then the place of the church in our culture right now. I love this conversation. And I hope that you do, too. And if you love it, and you want to be sweet to us, you can share it or subscribe. And
Eddie Rester : 1:35
Or do both.
Chris McAlilly : 1:36
You can do both. That would be really awesome. So hope you like this one. Check it out. Let us know what you think.
Eddie Rester : 1:43
[INTRO] Let's be honest, there's some topics that are too heavy for a 20 minute sermon. There are issues that need conversation, not just explanation.
Chris McAlilly : 1:51
We believe that the church is called to engage in a way that honors the weightiness and importance of these topics for how we live faithfully today. We'll cover everything from art to mental health, social injustice to the future of the church.
Eddie Rester : 2:03
If it's something that culture talks about, we need to be talking about it too. [END INTRO]
Chris McAlilly : 2:09
Well, we're so glad to have Jason Vickers on the podcast today. Jason, how you doing, man?
Jason Vickers : 2:15
Hey, I'm doing great, Chris. Thanks for having me.
Eddie Rester : 2:18
So you're a professor at Asbury Seminary, is that correct?
Jason Vickers : 2:22
That's correct. Yeah. I started out with Asbury and had been at Hood Seminary in North Carolina, which is an AME Zion seminary, and then United up in Dayton, Ohio, and then started out with Asbury in Memphis, actually, for a few years before coming here to the Wilmore campus in Kentucky.
Chris McAlilly : 2:44
A couple weeks ago, we were back and forth, kind of dialoguing on Twitter and then I actually gave you a phone call. You had posted about a big bipartisan deal that Congress had passed on land conservation. It kind of sparked a series of reflections that I was really interested in, particularly because this is a moment where it feels kind of revolutionary. And in certain ways people were talking about tearing down structures and systems and traditions. And I was really interested in your perspective on kind of the other end of the spectrum. Why is it that, what needs to be conserved? What needs to be passed on? Are there things that need to be torn down? And we, I'm so excited to have a conversation with you today about that. I don't even know where to start. I'm so excited.
Eddie Rester : 3:34
Gosh. When Chris gets excited, yeah...
Jason Vickers : 3:38
Well, you know, if I can jump right in and just say, I'm really glad you brought up the Wilderness Act that passed because that's sort of the biggest piece of legislation, the biggest, most important legislation in terms of conservation of land and wildlife and natural resources in the last 75 years. It's a landmark bill, and it's something that's been widely celebrated in conservation circles. So I know we're gonna talk about a lot of other stuff today. I'm actually glad that you mentioned that because I was really excited about the bill. And I think it's great for all sorts of reasons. And we certainly don't want to linger there. But yeah, I'm just glad you mentioned that. And certainly I do think that conservation, and you have a lot of conservation groups behind that bill who were pushing it. It has relevance for other topics today.
Chris McAlilly : 4:34
So what, for folks who are not familiar with that bill and what was in it, what was the Wilderness Act? Why was it so significant for this particular moment?
Jason Vickers : 4:45
Yeah, I mean, I think what will bring, or what will connect with most people is just that it funnels a lot of money in supportive resources to national parks, for example, that is long overdue. A lot of our parks and federal lands are in disrepair or just badly in need of upgrading and, you know, kind of oversight. And so that's probably the core of it. That's what I think most people will connect with, just because of the popularity of the national parks.
Chris McAlilly : 5:23
I think it's fascinating that President Trump signed it into law. But the bill was actually introduced by John Lewis, right, from Georgia?
Jason Vickers : 5:30
Correct, and had massive bipartisan support. I mean, it was... The numbers, the percentages, in terms of the support for it were just phenomenal, compared to anything else we've seen lately, but everything is so partisan. And this got something like 78% or 80% support from both sides of the aisle. So it was really impressive that way.
Chris McAlilly : 5:57
So why do you think, why is it that we didn't, you know, there wasn't a bigger deal. That's a huge deal! Why is that?
Jason Vickers : 6:03
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly : 6:05
I mean, that's not kind of clickbait and social media world to have, you know, that 80% bipartisan bill gets passed. It's like, it's just not the cultural moment that we're in. What do you make of that? I think that that was something that I, you know, we were kind of teasing out on Twitter. What do you make of that? Why are we so drawn to kind of the intense, extreme polarization and why is it that we have a hard time kind of lifting up and celebrating these
Eddie Rester : 6:37
These moments.
Chris McAlilly : 6:38
Yeah, those moments. What do you think's going on with that?
Jason Vickers : 6:41
That's a great question. I mean, polarization is right. We're living in a deeply polarized society and culture, polarizing society and culture. And it's hard to say what is driving that except, well, among other things, but, well, to back up for just a second. Certainly difference or division, disagreement sells better than agreement. So in terms of that, that particular act, that bill that we were just talking about, I don't think it was discussed much in social media, or even on mainstream news, not for very long, because agreement and unity, which we all say we want to work for, right? It just doesn't sell today. We have a much greater appetite for what divides us, for differences, than we do for agreement and unity. Now, having said that, you know, what causes that? I think part of it is, and now I think we can get into some conceptual analysis. We've allowed ourselves to kind of slide into a very shallow mode when it comes to the meaning of conservation or being conservative, as well as the meaning of progress or being progressive. We now kind of equate those terms with the Republican, Democratic parties and with a sort of list of positions that you're supposed to have if you're a conservative or you're a progressive. And we end up sort of falling into a non-reflective state, where we regard one another as enemies. We constantly demonize one another, rather than having a more mature and deeper discourse about conservation and progress, right? What does it mean to be conservative? What does it mean to advocate for progress or be progressive? I actually think most of us are both. And we allow ourselves to get drawn into a kind of civil war, if you will, between, you know, Republicans, Democrats, progressives, conservatives, when in fact, if we drill down just a little bit, it doesn't take long to figure out that most of us are for both conservation and progress.
Eddie Rester : 9:38
So say a little bit before we... I really think we want to push into some of that conserve-preserve conversation, but give us a broad definition of what, in your mind, a conservative or progressive would be that's a healthy way for us to think about that. Because you tweeted earlier today that we're all conservative, we're all progressive. So help us, for folks who, when one of those terms is said, they kind of pull back or start balling their fists or their head starts to explode. How can we understand that in a fuller sense that leads us deeper rather than in the shallow end, throwing mud at each other?
Jason Vickers : 10:20
Yeah, I mean, one way to get into it is to think about how you feel about or how you think about the past. So a conservative tends to be someone that views the past in very positive ways, that thinks about our ancestors, people that have come before us, traditions, in mostly positive ways that we've inherited, that we are the inheritors of all kinds of things: ideas, traditions, practices. And that, you know, that are good, and good for us and for our children, our grandchildren. And we want to conserve and care for those things and pass them along to the next generation. The progressive is someone that often tends to see the past in at least more complex or complicated way, as not simply a whole bunch of good stuff that we want to pass on to our kids. But as having problems. Things that need to be fixed, things that we need to address. So that the past is a little more of a mix of good and bad, frankly. And sometimes, now I think, working that from both ends, I think if you spend some time, if you're in a more conservative orientation, thinking about the past, most conservatives would acknowledge, "Yeah, there are things about the past that are not, that were not good and that we need to change as we live into the future." So that would be kind of one way to come at it. And if you did, you could shift a bit and kind of think about in terms of the future and whether or not, you know, do you mainly approach the future worrying about losing things that are old or that you've inherited and wanting to see continuity? Or do you approach the future and say, "You know what? The past wasn't all that people think it was." So you approach the future longing for change and for development. So that would be how I would think about these things.
Chris McAlilly : 13:01
Yeah, there's I think a range of, I guess, both kind of church and cultural examples that come to mind. But I think it's helpful just to start with that basic orientation towards the past or the future, I think. You know, for folks in the American South, it's complex in a different kind of way. You know? So, I think when I grew up in Mississippi, and then moved away, and just assumed I would probably be moving away, and not coming back. And a certain point, I discovered Wendell Berry. And Wendell Berry, for those of you unfamiliar, was a Kentucky, he grew up in Kentucky. He was a writer. He was making his way in New York, after having gone, I think, out to California for his MFA.
Jason Vickers : 13:54
Went to Stanford.
Chris McAlilly : 13:54
Yeah, he went to Stanford, and I think under maybe somebody like Wallace Stegner, I think is who he trained under. And then he ended up coming back to Kentucky and taking over the family land. His father and grandfather had worked that same plot of land. He came back and both worked that land and also wrote about it in fiction and essay and poetry. It gave me a way back to kind of embrace... so I don't know, I think had kind of inherited a desire or maybe learned a desire through the broader American culture, that being Southern was somehow not...
Eddie Rester : 14:35
Less than.
Chris McAlilly : 14:36
Yeah, less than what you should desire to be or aspire to be, right? And Wendell Berry kind of gave me a way back in, you know, to say, actually, the American South has inexhaustible riches both kind of land, art, and culture that need, ... kind of it gave me a way back in, I guess. I guess for you, I know you grew up in Georgia, and you've kind of probably, you know, you've made made some of those similar kind of, you know, you've thought a lot about what it means to be conservative from the American South, the things that need to be kept and the things need to be discarded. I guess, how do you think about that? And what would you offer for somebody who's kind of struggling with that?
Jason Vickers : 15:25
Yeah, I'm able, if I can, let me say just a couple of words about Wendell Berry, but as a way of extending my earlier remarks about being progressive, being conservative. You know, there's a sense in which Berry is addressing in a lot of his work what is often thought of as progress in agriculture, progress in food production. And he, in doing it in a kind of critical way, saying that everything that flies under the banner of progress isn't necessarily progress. And you mentioned that we have this rich heritage, and part of Berry's lifelong work has been to say yes, you can get more yield out of a field by plowing it all the way to the edges and by farming it relentlessly year after year, not doing crop rotation, just being obsessed with how much you get in terms of volume of a crop, for example. He says, but eventually you'll destroy the field. And Berry's drawing on generations of farming knowledge, about the way agriculture works and how it works best. And there are things that the old ones, the old farmers, knew and understood and practiced with respect to the land that are being ignored now in the name of progress. And so, all of that just to say that it's a good example of how these things can be very complex, because when you turn around, there are people that view Berry as opposed to or as a kind of almost a socialist in a way. He's not just for capitalism and making as much as you can all the time. So in that sense, even though he's trying to conserve and pass along knowledge that he's received from his ancestors about farming, he's viewed sometimes as being progressive in other ways, right? Because he says, look, there are things that are more important than how much money you make off of the land each year. There's a long term picture that you need to care for. So these Progressive, Conservative, right, it kind of depends on where you're standing. Now, as far as the South, and I'll shift to that quickly here and see where you want to go with it. You know, yeah, I grew up in Georgia. And I grew up, I mean, one of the things for me that's really fascinating about the South--and we're seeing it in a lot of ways right now with the COVID stuff--the Deep South, that is Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, there's this spirit of rebellion and rebelliousness that kind of permeates the Deep South and at certain levels it simply boils down to, "you're not going to tell me what to do," you know? And so you see that a little right now with the response to COVID in the Deep South where there's this "I'm not wearing a mask," you know, "no matter what. If it kills me," right?
Eddie Rester : 19:17
That's right. "If Jesus told me to wear a mask, I would not wear a mask."
Jason Vickers : 19:22
Yeah, that's right. That's right. "You're not going to tell me what to do." Yes, I kind of grew up, I inherited, speaking of things we inherit, this appreciation for this, really the word is "defiance," a spirit of defiance and rebelliousness. And you would see it... I also kind of got it from outlaw country music. Where, you know, they were rebelling. Waylon Jennings and whatnot. Johnny Cash
Chris McAlilly : 19:56
God rest their souls.
Jason Vickers : 19:57
Yeah, the Nashville establishment, right? And saying to Nashville, "you're not going to tell us what kind of music to make or how to play or where to play." And they were, of course, folk heroes in many ways in the American South, especially before that. Which then brings me to the matter, and I'll touch on this for a bit and we can see where you want to go from there. It kind of brings me to the matter of the flag and some of the things that have been going on with that. And it's funny, I've always sort of thought of or understood the rebel flag or the Confederate flag or whatever you want to call that, to sort of symbolize that rebelliousness. Now, historically, of course, it has a very specific meaning. And I think that has to be taken very seriously. And what that tends to mean for how whole groups of people, especially African Americans, see and relate to that symbol, again, just has to be taken with utmost seriousness. But the thing to me that's just interesting is I grew up watching Dukes of Hazzard, and Chris you know, I think you know, I tweeted about this at one point. And here you've got this Southern white family, the Dukes, that run around in a car with the rebel flag on the on the roof of the car. But if you really think about the main narrative of the show, they are outlaws. They are trying to avoid the law or they are outsmarting the law. Every episode revolves around kind of their opposition to the law, the local law enforcement. And in that show, if you ask the question, "Who are the bad guys?" right? The bad guys are the cops.
Eddie Rester : 21:56
Those with authority. All those with authority.
Jason Vickers : 21:59
Who were, of course, corrupt, right. And so but this show was wildly popular throughout the American South and like I said
Eddie Rester : 22:09
I watched it every week.
Jason Vickers : 22:11
Yeah. And you kind of go wow, that sounds really familiar, that narrative. It's just that, when the protagonists cease to be white, you know, that suddenly we're not sure how we feel about rebellion. And I kind of wanted to say there's a sense in which the Black Panthers, they used to march and demonstrate with guns, right? They would display guns openly. And part of the point of that was to kind of claim Second Amendment rights. So I think I'm thinking of: you're for the NRA, you know, you're probably for the Black Panthers, too, right, because they're claiming those rights. Now in a similar way, I've often thought the rebel flag and so far as it symbolizes that spirit of rebellion against corrupt things could just as easily have been flown by Malcolm X, or as I put it in a tweet, there's one sense in which Malcolm X could have driven the General Lee, the car with the flag on the top, because he's participating in that rebelliousness against authority that is corrupt and against the enforcers of law who are corrupted, who use their authority to abuse people, and so forth. Now, all of that is a little bit of a stretch, of course, but the point is just that rebellion has to do with injustice and the perception of injustice in specific settings and contexts. And I think it's important for people in the Deep South to realize that, you know, we have a long history in the South of glamorizing rebellion and cheering for it. And that we have been--this goes back to kind of conservative and progressive--the progressive says," not everything is right in the world, and some things need to change." And that's, in a sense, part of that rebellious playbook, right, that we're here to bring about needed change. And I think we need to think in more complex ways about this in the American South.
Chris McAlilly : 24:55
I love that. I mean, part of what I appreciate about this country, it just makes it more complex. And I think not only does the American South glamorize rebellion, we also tend to preserve mindlessly, you know? We just kind of hold on and preserve things, because we don't want you to take them away or whatever. You know, I think there's also some of that going on.
Eddie Rester : 25:25
Or we like rebellion as long as it's our rebellion and not your rebellion.
Chris McAlilly : 25:29
No, that's right.
Eddie Rester : 25:30
I think, in the South, that a lot of times falls along racial lines.
Jason Vickers : 25:36
Absolutely.
Eddie Rester : 25:36
for us, and that as long as it's my side of the rebellion, we can glamorize it, but for you on the other side of the fence, you can't have your rebellion.
Chris McAlilly : 25:48
I think it's interesting that now we're kind of having this conversation about the way we tell American history. The 1619 Project comes to mind that the New York Times has been doing. And then also there's this conversation about, it comes back to what you were saying earlier, Jason, about how our relationship with the past, do we view it in ways that we have heroes back there? Or, you know, what is our inheritance? What are those ideas and traditions and practices and saints and sacred narratives? Which are the ones that we hold on to, and which are the ones that we kind of, you know, get rid of? The 1619 Project from the New York Times is really about kind of, in some ways, like challenging the conventional American narrative from the perspective of people of color, particularly people who are of African descent, who came here enslaved. And in that project, I wonder, kind of, how you think about not just the way the South deals with this, but I guess America more broadly. And I want to get back to the church. But I guess, part of the difficulty of being the church in America is that
Eddie Rester : 27:08
So tied
Chris McAlilly : 27:09
oh, this stuff is so tied together. And these concepts are so tied together in the way and we just, I think, get caught up in the in the larger wins of culture in ways that we don't even recognize often. So I think it's helpful to take some time to think it through. What about the larger American narrative right now? What's going on with that?
Jason Vickers : 27:29
Yeah, I mean, there's clearly a challenge to different kind of canons, if you will, canons of literature and historical narrative, in terms of who, what names and events are important and should be remembered and celebrated. That's obviously, there's a conversation going on about that. And I think that... Something you said a minute ago, another term I want to bring in, we sort of talk about conservative and progressive and that is preservation or preservationist. And if I can circle back for just a minute to the beginning of the conversation, you mentioned Wallace Stegner and there were some other really early conservationist folks that are important. And they, you know, the contrast of back in the early 20th century was between conservation and and preservation. And the preservationist impulse, they both agreed that land was important and of inherent value. Wildlife--wilderness, as John Muir would have put it--is of inherent value. And then the question is, how do you care for that, and what's the best way to to approach it? And Muir and some others were advocating for preservation, which is to say, you keep people away from it. You just leave it as it is. You don't try to interact with it at all. Whereas the conservationist route was the one that said, no, we need to. We can manage wilderness and wildlife. And that ultimately is the one that wins out. Now, where I'm going with that is that in both culture and church, whether this is statues, or whether it's doctrines in the church, that in some ways, I often think we take more of a preservationist stance toward these things. We want certain people, events to be memorialized. We want to take in the church, our doctrines--and if you're a United Methodist, this will make some sense--and put a restrictive rule around them that says no one can touch things. Right?
Eddie Rester : 30:08
Right.
Jason Vickers : 30:09
There will be no changes made to this tract of land, or, you know, extending the analogy, these doctrines. They're not to be changed. Keep your hands off. And ultimately, what happens is, in my mind, is yeah, statues stay up, doctrines don't change, but at the same time they don't really do any work either, and we cease to have a vigorous and invigorating conversation about people and events in the past, as well as our doctrines. We don't wrestle with them and work with them and bring them into conversation with the present until we reach these points of, kind of, the word I want is sort of crisis moments, where instead of having an ongoing, living conversation about these things, we end up wanting to burn things down, partly because we haven't been allowed to talk about them and to have a robust and vigorous conversation. So that would just sort of be one way I'm more of a conservationist in my thinking about everything from wildlife to game management to church doctrine, right. And not a preservationist where let's just make sure that no one can touch these things so that they, you know, that no change happens to the way we think about our past our history as a nation, or our doctrines, our theology. Sometimes in, just a quick footnote here, in the church, this is something that happens with as we wrestle in the Methodist tradition right now--not everybody listening may be a Methodist--but we're facing division in the church. And there are certain people that kind of think about what it means to be a Wesleyan in a way that's simply whatever John Wesley believed or taught or said, that's what we need to do. It's a bit of a preservationist disposition. And I'm sort of more inclined to see the tradition as a living tradition, where we have a long history of bringing our theological inheritance from Wesley; and before Wesley, the reformers; and before the reformers, the early fathers and mothers of the church into a robust conversation with all sorts of intellectual developments, moral crises, and having to really do the hard work of engaging our culture of the present age. That's I think Methodism at its best, is when we're functioning like good conservationists rather than preservationists.
Eddie Rester : 33:21
Let's talk a little bit more about that. I think, as I think about healthy conservativism in that way, how... Let's just take an example of the church right now. How, what does that really look like for us in some of our conversations that seemed to be leading us to division? Because I can clearly see in my mind just kind of multiple paths, the preservationists who are, "It is. It was. It shall always be. Stay away." Then kind of other end of, "Well, it was. It shall never be again." Where do we even begin healthy conversations around these? How can we get, and you talk about robust conversations... It's just hard for me to think of what that looks like in our world today.
Jason Vickers : 34:18
Right. And in the Methodist tradition, especially United Methodist, allowing for other Methodist denominations and other Wesleyan bodies of course, part of it is you do have to have structures, some kind of structures in which or through which you facilitate conversation with critical reflection, contemplation of the doctrinal, theological heritage, for example. So you've got to have people that are tasked with that. In the Catholic tradition you would think of the magisterium, of course. But, you know, in the Methodist tradition we, rightly or wrongly, our bishops haven't always--and I'm honestly not blaming them, because in some ways, I think they don't... it's not they don't have a clear mandate to facilitate those conversations, right. It's not part of the job. It's not line one in the job description. You have to have people as well as some kind of institutional structures that facilitate that conversation. And there has to be a culture of trust of those structures and those people, which I actually think is the deepest problem that we face in Methodism right now, is that there's very little trust, so that even if you tweak the the job description for the episcopacy and made facilitating and fostering lively dialogue about our doctrinal and theological heritage the first line of the job description. The problem is there's so much distrust. So it's a lack of any kind of trust really that I think spells the end of our of our tradition as a church right now.
Eddie Rester : 36:26
I think about, and it's not really this clear, but I think about 2016 when General Conference, kind of with a divided vote, really handed to the bishops, "Y'all bring us back together so we can figure this out." And then as they brought us back together to figure this out, people are like, "Oh, well, we really don't trust you to do that job at the end of all things, anyway." It was kind of that mindset. You know, I think that goes into the larger culture as well, this lack of trust. I think about some of the conversations here in Oxford, Mississippi, around moving statues, the Confederate statue on campus was moved to a Confederate cemetery, kind of off to the back of campus. And then a screen was put up so that you really can't see it. That news came out this week, so that football players really couldn't see it from football practice. There's another one in the center of town, that the conversation is still raging. And there's really not a place for good conversation. Let me back up another step, a trusting conversation to happen. It has to be done in a political sphere, or on the streets with signs. But there's not much back and forth.
Chris McAlilly : 37:41
One of the things I'm thinking, what are the things that prevent our ability to conserve well, or do the work of conservation through time? I think part of it seems to be scale, just the sheer size of the conversation. So, you know, the church, a church of 12 million people or, you know, I mean, certainly their structure, the Catholic Church has figured out how to do it at a massive scale. But in American culture, it's the democracy. It scales so hard. ... So that's one dimension, you know. I think that's one of the things coming back to Wendell Berry that I really admired. There's a kind of communitarian vision where the conversation about politics is happening at such a local level, that there's the ability to cultivate a certain kind of trust that would allow for the ongoing work of conservation and land usage and cultural adaptation and development to happen within a particular tradition. So I think that's one of the things. I think another thing that just hurts, that's really difficult, is kind of the commodification of traditions and just the way in which capitalism just tends to take a really strong and vibrant tradition and try to sell it to the masses in ways that just kind of make it ugly somehow. I don't know. Those are two things that come to mind for me. I mean, within the church, I do think that the trust issue within the church, even if you're not familiar with the kind of the inside baseball that happens within United Methodism, you're out there just trying to figure out how to live in this moment. How do I be progressive or conservative? Or what are these people doing who are progressive or conservative? I think that there is a kind of, like, finding a small group of people that you can trust to have the conversation with. It does seem like a starting place. What do you think, Jason?
Jason Vickers : 39:39
Yeah, I mean, I love the way this is going, actually, the sort of the general direction that we're taking this. I think that in terms of the the culture, that our wider culture and our churches and their role, and you know. Earlier, the suggestion that there's no one facilitating conversation, there's no one that's kind of helping us to sense and appreciate one another's values, what, we care deeply about what it is we want to conserve. And that's whether you're Black or white or anything else, I mean, other categories there. Who's facilitating that conversation? Well, in some ways, what we have to have both within the church and then within the wider culture, as we were talking about the role of the bishops or perhaps some other... I've often said we need a standing Faith in Order Committee within the church. But it can't just be created and then immediately marginalized. It has to actually have a significant role in relationship to General Conference and others. But that's all Methodist inside baseball. Let's let's come back to just the church in a more general way, but especially the culture. We've got to have people who are willing to get to know and talk to all the players, all the people who have an interest in whatever it might be--a town, a city, in the case of Wendell Berry, the land and land management or farming in America, food production. You have to have people who are willing to talk to all the players, including the people whose interests are very different than yours, people that aren't like you and get to know them and come to a place of least understanding what their interests are, what they value and why. And then facilitate conversation among the players. I think that historically that's that's a role that pastors and the church in, again, any given community can play. But it requires time and patience. That's one of the things I love most about Wendell Berry's work and how I think he can inspire us a bit here is that he's never had any illusions about how long things would take in the way of conservation and land ethics. He's always said, this is a long game kind of conversation. It's going to require extraordinary patience. Now, where that comes into play, as far as the church and culture is concerned, is that a lot of times we've been very mobile in the church, our pastors move around a lot and they're never stationed somewhere long enough to get to know all the players, right? It's all they can do to get to know the players in their own church, let alone the whole town or the city or the community they're in. And I think that staying put long enough to to get to know people, but of course it really takes political will. I mean, you've got to be determined to go to the other side of town and get to know the pastor on that side of town if you're a pastor and really work to understand where they're coming from and to then facilitate conversation between your people and their people and other people. I do think that's a role the church can play, and our failure to play that role is, I think, evident in the crisis that we're now in our wider culture in America. That instead of any kind of structure for dialogue and conversation and working together, we are literally throwing rocks at each other and and burning one another's houses down. I mean, that's kind of where where we've gotten to. And so I guess it's not simply a plea for civility. It is a plea for conversation, and really conversation where we say to one another, "What is it that's really important to you here? Why do you care so much about this?" Or, "Why are you working so hard to preserve a certain thing?" Or, "Why are you on the other side? Why are you so adamant that this needs to change?" And then trying to hear one another. I mean, that's the kind of thing we need. And, frankly, social media I really don't think is capable of facilitating that kind of conversation. I think it's face-to-face conversation. And it happens best over a meal. In other words, maybe deep inside of the church, it has to do with the centrality of food and eating. And that's something that we get from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, of course. But to sit across a table from someone and to have a meal with them, and to discuss these things in local community, that's what it's going to take to make progress, if you will, in America.
Chris McAlilly : 45:55
I do think that the wisdom of the church being a place where there's an intersection of disciplines and, you know, it's a cross section of for-profit and nonprofit sectors and ages as well. And it's a place hopefully, hopefully the church can be a place where there is a kind of cultivation of wisdom and humility over a meal, where people are having face-to-face conversation. I think that if we could do that well, if we could embody that space, we could bear witness to Christ, I think in this particular moment and an interesting way of drawing people. Because ultimately Christ is both the preservation, the conservation, and the
Eddie Rester : 46:40
The progress.
Chris McAlilly : 46:41
Yeah, there's both a conserving and a progressive dimension of the ministry of Christ that I think has something to offer to this moment in America, particularly the American South. Jason, thank you so much.
Eddie Rester : 46:55
It's been great.
Chris McAlilly : 46:55
Yeah, there's so many different threads that we could go into. Maybe we'll have to do that again sometime. Thanks. Thanks for being with us today on The Weight, man.
Jason Vickers : 47:04
Oh, it's been great. Thanks for having me.
Eddie Rester : 47:06
[OUTRO] Thank you for listening today. Go ahead and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And go ahead and hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts.
Chris McAlilly : 47:17
This wouldn't be possible without our partner, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. We want to thank also our producer Cody Hickman. Follow us next week. We'll be back with another episode of The Weight. [END OUTRO]