How to Survive Thanksgiving Dinner: Interview with Dr. Jim Vining

In this episode we talk with Jim Vining, a professor of communication and rhetoric, about the state of our current political and religious discourse in the United States.

The bourbon featured in this episode is Maker's Mark Cask Strength.

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Transcript

00:12

[Music]

00:14

welcome to

00:14

a pastor and a philosopher walk into a

00:16

bar the podcast where we mix a sometimes

00:19

weird but always delicious cocktail of

00:21

theology

00:22

philosophy and spirituality

00:28

well welcome to another episode of a

00:31

pastor and a philosopher walk into a bar

00:33

we're excited you're here with us

00:35

excited to share this time with you

00:37

whether you're

00:38

in the car cutting your grass trying to

00:40

tune out your kids whatever you're doing

00:42

we're excited to spend

00:43

this next hour together with you

00:46

kyle how are you i'm doing okay randy

00:50

yeah elliot how are you doing sir all

00:53

right well let's get right to it what

00:54

are we drinking tonight kyle

00:56

so i have pulled out for you something a

00:58

little bit more special this is the

00:59

maker's mark cask strength bourbon

01:03

uh i'm scared yeah that means it packs a

01:07

punch

01:08

uh so this was actually a birthday gift

01:10

from my lovely wife

01:13

and it is it is pretty wonderful it's a

01:16

weeded bourbon which means the secondary

01:18

grain after corn

01:20

is wheat which tends to make a bourbon

01:22

sweeter

01:23

which is what i like interesting all

01:25

right it does have a big nose right off

01:27

the bat yes

01:28

this this one will benefit from a little

01:30

bit of water uh

01:31

perhaps after sipping for the first time

01:34

so you can get the full

01:35

full effect i get in the nose i get

01:38

extra like

01:39

hay smell maybe that's from the wheat

01:42

yeah i i won't pretend that my nose is

01:45

that refined

01:47

all i know is that it burns and it's

01:50

like

01:51

delicious caramel candy it's nice and

01:53

strong but the sweet balance is it out

01:55

that burns going down yeah that's good

01:58

though yeah

01:58

it does finish caramelly this is about

02:01

111

02:03

proof i believe okay something like that

02:07

each barrel is a little different now

02:08

when they say cask strength for those of

02:11

you who don't know

02:12

your whiskeys it comes out of the barrel

02:15

and usually the distiller will cut

02:18

the the whiskey to the level that they

02:20

think is perfect

02:21

the level where they think it's not too

02:23

hot you can taste all the notes where

02:25

everything shines and this is not this

02:28

is uncut is what they would call it yeah

02:30

which means you can irritate yourself

02:31

again i would definitely

02:32

by adding however much water you want so

02:34

typically they're cut to around 40

02:37

ish percent uh so this would be

02:40

closer to 60. you know how if you have

02:42

like normal butter but then you get

02:44

butter that's fresh from the dairy like

02:46

that difference between normal butter

02:47

and extraordinary butter is

02:49

present in here it's good yeah i like

02:51

that

02:52

i'm gonna have to cut this though

02:53

because i'll be burping non-stop

02:55

throughout the whole interview no shame

02:57

this one was made to be cut this is fun

03:00

i'd recommend this i like makers anyways

03:02

but this is just a fun variation

03:04

for me this is a big step up from their

03:06

common

03:07

expression nothing against standard

03:08

makers but cast strength is

03:11

where it's at awesome

03:14

well maker's mark cask strength pastor

03:18

and a philosopher walk into a bar

03:20

approved

03:22

[Music]

03:24

well let's get rolling towards our

03:26

interview randy has a personal

03:27

connection with this person so randy why

03:29

don't you

03:30

why don't you tee up who we're talking

03:31

to yes this week is my geek

03:34

my smart person i'm excited to welcome

03:37

dr jim vining

03:38

jim good to see you good to have you

03:40

here great to be here thank you

03:42

jim is a professor at is it governor

03:44

state university

03:46

in illinois a rhetoric professor

03:49

phd and um can you tell us a little bit

03:51

about yourself jim

03:54

well i am a former western new york

03:57

country boy

03:58

a former pastor i moved around all over

04:02

the country

04:02

my young adult years but i've been in

04:04

milwaukee for 13 years now

04:07

i am married been married for 18 years

04:10

i have two teenage kids one dog um

04:14

and like i said i'm a assistant

04:15

professor in illinois

04:17

but don't worry i i still wear a

04:20

brewer's hat when i go to illinois

04:21

just represent you wouldn't be on this

04:24

podcast if you didn't

04:27

jim can you tell us about what your your

04:28

field of expertise and uh your

04:30

what you teach and what you've

04:32

researched sure uh so i

04:34

um i teach communication studies and i

04:37

approach it from

04:38

a rhetorical angle uh so i'm a

04:40

rhetorician now i

04:42

you know first thing um that comes to

04:45

mind for most people when you say

04:46

rhetoric

04:47

is uh something negative like all those

04:50

politicians and their rhetoric

04:52

so rhetoric is it's kind of like a

04:54

haircut

04:55

um you know it could be good or it could

04:56

be bad so i teach rhetoric

04:59

how texts are created uh what makes a

05:02

text persuasive

05:04

that's how i would define it my

05:06

definition of rhetoric would be

05:08

would be really big some people just

05:10

define it as something

05:12

like a speech a politician gives i would

05:14

say that is rhetorical text

05:16

but basically my definition is big

05:18

enough that anything a human being

05:19

creates

05:20

communicates something it does something

05:22

so we analyze those because we believe

05:26

those messages make a difference and

05:28

then my my particular area of study

05:31

well it's kind of what what people say

05:33

not to talk about at parties

05:35

so i don't know about you but i grew up

05:37

hearing you don't talk about

05:38

religion or politics when you go to a

05:40

party incidentally i don't get anybody

05:42

to a lot of parties

05:43

but um there is no lack i think we go to

05:46

different materials to research

05:50

i'll invite you to some parties yes yes

05:53

what a what a fascinating time to get

05:55

into rhetoric and teach rhetoric and

05:58

research it when did you when did you

06:00

start your studies when did you start

06:01

your phd course

06:02

it started 2012 around there so

06:06

uh before that i was doing hospital

06:08

ministry for

06:09

14 years and had a lot of great

06:11

experiences

06:12

but also presented me with uh with some

06:15

real questions

06:16

questions of what makes what makes a

06:20

speech

06:20

or a sermon persuasive i mean i'm i'm

06:23

enough of a christian mystic to believe

06:25

in the role of the holy spirit

06:26

and uh that you know it's more than just

06:29

a preacher and a

06:31

and a congregation i believe that god

06:33

plays a role in the mix

06:34

but uh but wondering what else so uh and

06:37

maybe it was i was just a really bad

06:38

preacher i don't know

06:39

but um you know so i'd give sermons on

06:43

like the uh the minor prophets and they

06:46

would have

06:46

a real clear message from the text uh

06:49

things like

06:50

hey care for the poor don't oppress

06:53

people

06:54

and in in the uh the evangelical

06:56

tradition

06:57

expository preaching was a big thing and

07:00

so i'd

07:01

clearly teach from the text or you know

07:04

i try to show those connections from the

07:05

text and i was just

07:06

kind of shocked that if i got into

07:09

something that

07:10

perhaps aligned with a particular

07:12

political party

07:13

that people in the congregation weren't

07:16

connected with

07:17

uh they get furious and i'd get angry

07:20

emails

07:21

and it's like well we say we honor this

07:24

text

07:25

this is what the text says what's

07:27

happening here

07:28

what's the dynamic that we say yes this

07:31

is the authoritative text

07:33

but don't tell me that fascinating well

07:36

we've got quite a few questions for you

07:37

before we

07:38

dive into them we like to ask our guests

07:40

is there anything

07:41

you're drinking that you want to tell us

07:43

about oh

07:45

there is i mentioned that i'm from uh so

07:48

i love milwaukee been here 13 years

07:50

uh enjoy um milwaukee beers particularly

07:54

venture

07:55

uh near my neighborhood but uh i'm

07:58

a western new york boy at heart and uh

08:00

in what my hometown we have a little

08:02

place called southern tier

08:03

brewing company and i am currently

08:06

drinking

08:07

their double milk stout which i treat

08:10

myself to

08:10

on a special occasion and talking to you

08:13

guys is a special occasion

08:15

so nice cheers

08:18

cheers so jim what was it would you say

08:21

that led you

08:22

being a pastor to decide that you want

08:24

to become

08:25

a rhetorician i'm guessing that was a

08:27

momentous decision how did that come

08:29

about

08:30

i yeah i mean it's not the normal path

08:33

for rhetoricians um

08:34

so i wanted to uh i wanted to be a

08:37

pastor from about the time i was 17. 17

08:39

so i went to college studied for that

08:41

also did some some

08:43

divinity school for that after college i

08:45

was in pastoral ministry for about 14

08:47

years

08:48

in seven different places so if you do

08:51

the math

08:52

that tells you a little something about

08:54

how things went

08:56

so in most of those situations there

08:58

were changes in senior level leadership

09:00

that just radically changed everything i

09:03

was doing

09:04

so we were at a spot where we didn't

09:06

want to move again

09:08

so we so i went back to school at 25.

09:11

okay i wasn't really 25. um

09:15

um but uh i wanted to study how people

09:18

talk about

09:18

religion and politics uh how those

09:21

things intersect how they interact

09:23

and and so some of that was because of

09:27

experience in pastoral ministry there

09:30

were

09:30

good people people who would claim that

09:33

the bible was their authority

09:35

wouldn't um be receptive to certain

09:37

things that the bible clearly talks

09:39

about

09:40

you know so we do we do a bible study

09:43

and i'd say you know hey what'd you get

09:45

out of this text and it would be

09:47

nine times out of ten well you know we

09:49

need i need to pray more

09:50

or i need to read my bible more or i

09:52

need to talk to more people about jesus

09:54

and like i'm all for those things but

09:57

that's not what

09:58

the text says um so i had questions

10:01

about what makes that

10:02

what makes that happen how do people

10:05

view text through certain ways

10:07

and then um why do they reject certain

10:10

things so if

10:11

we say the bible's the authority then

10:15

it seems like we should take what the

10:17

bible says over

10:19

uh say our our cable news source or

10:22

our uh our talk radio shows that we

10:24

listen to

10:25

uh but my experience is that that's

10:28

really tough

10:29

and uh i know a lot of pastors who

10:34

they stay away from certain passages

10:36

because they know the pushback they'll

10:38

get

10:40

and so i wanted to understand that

10:41

better so i

10:43

research those intersections of religion

10:46

and rhetoric and politics so that's

10:48

interesting you

10:50

talk about how people would not see

10:53

just innately not see something that was

10:56

in the text that you're

10:57

you're highlighting that's right there

10:59

and i would

11:00

look at that that reality i've seen that

11:02

reality a million times but i usually

11:04

just blame bias

11:05

i blame ideology and you made that jump

11:08

to

11:09

rhetoric where's that where's that jump

11:12

i'm not seeing that

11:14

that connection yeah uh great question

11:17

well i would say that

11:18

uh i think my understanding of rhetoric

11:20

is those things

11:22

all interact together we i mean you've

11:24

heard people say that we

11:26

we view the world through a certain lens

11:29

they may or may not use that analogy in

11:32

a helpful way

11:33

but we we don't come to a text you know

11:36

clearly objective

11:37

um as much as we would like to

11:40

as much as some uh perhaps some

11:43

inductive bible study

11:45

uh methods claim that they can lead you

11:47

to

11:48

but that is i think a text is more rich

11:51

and nuanced than that

11:52

and in the human being engaging with

11:55

that text

11:56

is also uh more complicated some people

11:59

will take that

12:00

they'll they hear those um

12:03

really ambitious truth claims of you can

12:05

objectively know all these things

12:08

sorry i had a pastor uh a pastor boss

12:11

once

12:12

who said that nuance was the enemy

12:16

he wasn't joking it's like

12:19

no no no no i mean you get fired

12:22

um if you lean into nuance and mystery

12:25

i'm like you we're dealing with human

12:27

beings and we're dealing with

12:29

like the eternal um

12:32

so anyway anyhow um and people wonder

12:36

why evangelicalism is becoming

12:37

irrelevant

12:38

it's yeah i mean it's and i think for so

12:41

i think even

12:42

even those claims there's philosophical

12:45

ideologies that are behind that so when

12:48

people

12:49

people make a claim that oh i'm just the

12:52

bible says so i believe it and i'm going

12:53

to do it

12:54

you know it's kind of like when people

12:55

say i like a politician who just tells

12:56

it like it is well

12:58

well you know what do you it's not that

13:01

simple and so some people hear that

13:04

that those kind of simplistic truth

13:06

claims aren't true

13:08

and so they just go the other end of the

13:09

spectrum that well just

13:11

then we can't know any truth and they

13:13

kind of become like yeah

13:15

you know some kind of nihilist or uh you

13:17

know some kind of radical

13:20

relativist and i don't think that's the

13:22

answer either

13:23

i think that there's a lot of nuance and

13:26

texture and flavor

13:27

in text and in in in truth and our

13:30

understanding of truth

13:32

but but i think we can make some

13:33

judgments about you know validity

13:36

and um and you know what's a better

13:38

reading of a text

13:39

and what is a real stretch in a text so

13:42

i

13:42

you're kind of touching on this a little

13:44

bit already but let's make it a little

13:46

more concrete if we can

13:47

so what trends would you say that you've

13:49

seen

13:50

with how rhetoric works inside the

13:52

church versus outside the church

13:54

are there marked differences in how how

13:56

rhetoric works yeah

13:58

certainly i would hope that some of the

14:01

content

14:02

some of uh the the framework for

14:05

understanding things

14:06

is going to look different in a

14:08

community that

14:09

is shaped by a particular uh

14:12

faith tradition that being said i think

14:16

big picture how rhetoric functions

14:19

is very similar whether it's inside a

14:22

religious community or what we call

14:24

a secular community and i don't mean

14:27

that

14:28

in a way that is meant to um diminish

14:31

religious rhetoric or to make it less

14:34

spiritual

14:35

i'd say quite the contrary for me it

14:38

would be more of

14:38

pointing to the spirituality of all

14:41

rhetoric

14:42

how we communicate and connect with one

14:44

another i don't think

14:46

it's somehow more spiritual

14:49

when we say religious words as opposed

14:51

to what we consider

14:54

non-religious and some of that is some

14:56

of that's the way i understand

14:57

rhetoric and some of that is the way i

15:01

like where i'm at theologically

15:04

everything's god's if it exists it's

15:07

it's

15:08

it's i mean again this is theological

15:11

but uh

15:12

for me that it certainly matters that's

15:14

a part of my understanding of rhetoric

15:16

there's not the sacred secular divide

15:18

that it's

15:19

that's a fairly modern european

15:21

construct

15:22

sacred and secular so i um that's one of

15:25

the things that

15:26

i do it in my work is i push back for

15:28

some of that divide

15:29

[Music]

15:30

so tell me tell me this then if if it's

15:33

uh

15:34

if there's that much commonality between

15:35

them and the sacred secular divide is

15:36

something you want to push against

15:38

then maybe you can explain this

15:39

phenomenon that i've noticed why

15:42

why is it and correct me if you've not

15:45

noticed this or if you have

15:46

better evidence it seems to me though

15:49

that conservative

15:50

american christians particularly

15:53

evangelical ones but conservative ones

15:55

in general

15:56

have a really hard time being understood

15:59

and a very hard time being compelling

16:02

outside of their own spheres despite

16:04

their best efforts

16:05

so a great example of this would be

16:07

evangelical cinema

16:08

right so you have film franchises like

16:11

god's not dead parts

16:12

one two and eight or whatever and

16:15

yeah they're they're just punch lines i

16:17

literally watched that video and live

16:19

tweeted it for all of my

16:21

liberal christian friends uh i hate

16:24

watched

16:25

okay and it was fun it was great fun

16:28

but it was clearly not the intention of

16:30

the producers of that film

16:32

to be great fun for a bunch of atheists

16:34

and liberal christians so why is it that

16:36

they have such a hard time

16:38

being taken seriously outside of their

16:40

own context

16:42

so i think there's a couple different

16:43

things a rhetoric is kind of built

16:45

together with the community of people

16:47

but also um the other things we bring in

16:50

as well as like the tradition that comes

16:52

that we're coming out of

16:54

or i should i shouldn't say the

16:55

tradition the traditions

16:57

um so it's not purely a religious

17:00

thing it's not purely coming straight

17:02

from the bible because that's

17:04

not really a thing right i mean there's

17:06

we're we're complex and it

17:08

say it all belongs to god maybe not in

17:10

the way the bible is the word of god but

17:13

um you know we're all impacted by

17:14

culture so even the idea to have a movie

17:17

certainly that's a

17:18

cultural thing but we're shaped by

17:21

our uh by our logics the the way we

17:25

understand the world

17:26

and so a religious community like any

17:29

community

17:29

elements of the way they understand the

17:31

world is going to be unique to them

17:34

so so if you go to a new church that's

17:36

maybe from a different

17:38

uh tradition than yours people will talk

17:41

and every once in a while i hear this

17:42

what are they talking about at my state

17:43

university i have people say hey what's

17:45

your burden

17:46

what's the burden that i can that i can

17:48

bear for you my brother

17:50

you're like wow bbb um you know and

17:52

that's a sweet thing and i'm not making

17:54

light of it

17:55

but but that's just there's a yes you

17:57

are it's okay

18:00

no but it's it's a way of talking and

18:03

when people hear they're like i don't

18:04

care what you're talking about that's so

18:06

foreign so we form our own ways of

18:08

talking in our groups and you can see

18:09

this in different

18:10

um in some activist communities uh they

18:14

they're so enmeshed with what they're

18:16

doing that they develop their own ways

18:18

of talking it's kind of insider talk

18:19

that that's part of the issue there's

18:21

insider talk

18:23

uh for this conservative uh religious

18:26

community which isn't just their local

18:28

church

18:29

i mean there is probably even larger

18:31

influence

18:32

of for-profit or i guess maybe sometimes

18:34

it's non-profit but

18:36

they make a big profit christian media

18:38

that

18:39

they have just like just like any media

18:42

they have their

18:43

there's playlists and their songs and

18:44

the speakers that come on

18:46

and there's the bookstores so

18:49

it may not even their ideology may not

18:51

even really reflect the religious

18:53

tradition of the church they're from

18:55

it's more of this hey here is

18:58

mcmainstream or mcconservative

19:01

evangelical culture and if you're not a

19:04

part of that you don't know the insider

19:05

talk

19:05

so then my other my other part of the

19:08

answer so that's maybe my um

19:10

hey we all have those problems i think

19:13

what makes it particularly difficult

19:16

for many conservative evangelicals and

19:18

certainly for fundamentalists

19:20

is part of their ideology that they

19:23

understand the world through

19:24

is this culture war narrative and even

19:28

more so it's it's us versus them

19:30

and so a conversation isn't particularly

19:34

a conversation to connect with another

19:36

human being

19:38

which i think if we step back and think

19:40

about that theologically

19:42

communication is connecting with a human

19:43

being is this

19:45

sacred thing but if you view if you're

19:48

through a culture war standpoint it's

19:50

it's a battle and it's me versus them

19:54

and i'm going in more recently as

19:57

as uh it's gone beyond culture war two

19:59

like victimization

20:01

mentality it's you know i'm gonna defend

20:04

myself

20:04

from these bad people who are attacking

20:06

me and take away the things that are

20:08

sacred to me

20:10

then then for some others like a less

20:12

angsty version of that

20:14

is my main purpose here is to

20:17

change the entire way they think about

20:19

the world

20:21

and again i i'm all for people thinking

20:23

about the world in a more jesus-like way

20:26

but i think that approaching a

20:27

conversation with another human being

20:30

trying to sell them something like that

20:33

being the primary goal not to connect

20:35

with them as another human being created

20:36

the image of god

20:37

i think that changed the dynamic of of

20:40

the uh

20:41

of the relationship

20:49

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21:25

so speaking of insider lingo jim you

21:27

made me think as you were talking about

21:29

how

21:31

groups on the extremes in particular

21:33

fundamentalists of

21:35

of sorts maybe you could say have these

21:38

words that they say that mean something

21:40

to them

21:40

yeah and then all of a sudden it a

21:42

switch happens and it becomes

21:43

almost like a a dog whistle for the

21:45

other side where if you hear

21:47

a word or phrase you know you should be

21:49

suspicious about this person so yes

21:51

conservative christians have that where

21:53

you talk about the authority of the word

21:55

of god or

21:56

original sin or even talk about human

21:59

sexuality in certain ways the

22:01

marriage being between one man and a man

22:03

and a woman and instantly

22:05

the other crowd tunes them out right or

22:07

on the other side you have words like

22:09

stay woke

22:10

or words like white privilege phrases um

22:13

where

22:14

then a person on the other side hears

22:15

that instantly

22:17

i can be in conversation use that word

22:19

white privilege or that phrase white

22:20

privilege

22:21

and somebody on the other side will

22:23

instantly be suspicious of me

22:26

it tells me are those buzzwords are they

22:28

useful actually or do we need to figure

22:30

out a way to create

22:32

rhetorically new ways of engaging so

22:34

that we don't

22:35

trip each other's triggers all the time

22:36

or is that just impossible

22:38

yeah great question so i don't think

22:39

it's i don't think it's impossible

22:41

i think some of what needs to happen is

22:44

reassessing what is our goal in this

22:47

communication act

22:48

if it's to stake out my ground for the

22:50

fight then

22:51

i don't think that heart is going to or

22:54

that you know kind of that logic of the

22:56

world

22:57

is going to is going to want to change

22:59

the way they talk

23:00

because for them that way they talk is

23:02

more than just the word

23:04

it's the thing behind the word and the

23:06

thing behind the thing

23:08

behind the thing is really their

23:09

identity so could it be that in

23:11

our politically charged world that we

23:13

find ourselves in

23:15

if pastors when they're preaching we're

23:17

a little bit more thoughtful about the

23:18

words they're using or if we

23:19

as we're in dialogue and i know that one

23:22

my sister

23:23

is a conservative republican and i know

23:25

that my

23:26

uncle sitting over on the other side of

23:27

the table at thanksgiving is a

23:29

blue-collar

23:30

die-hard democrat and i'm somewhere

23:34

in in that spectrum could it be that in

23:36

order for

23:37

us to have a actually constructive

23:40

conversation over thanksgiving without

23:41

regurgitating our meals

23:43

we actually need to think about the

23:44

words and the phrases that we use

23:46

and possibly a more loving way of of

23:49

acting would be

23:50

a more christ-like way of acting would

23:51

be to just set aside words that are just

23:53

really familiar and normal for me

23:55

so that i don't trigger that or is that

23:57

kind of just is living in a way like

23:59

that just kind of

24:01

false fake what are your thoughts on

24:03

that i mean i have tons of people like

24:05

this right good friends and

24:06

and family who are in very different

24:09

spots

24:09

uh politically and even and even uh even

24:13

theologically yeah some of it is knowing

24:14

when to have the conversation

24:16

another um helpful thing that i found is

24:18

you know for all the for all the values

24:20

talk

24:21

and how kind of one side has tried to

24:23

claim that they're

24:24

the values people the reality is we all

24:26

have values

24:28

uh we all you know every year it drives

24:30

me crazy when there's the values voter

24:32

summit and i'm like no man we all vote

24:34

our values

24:34

now we may not be honest about our

24:36

values but we all

24:38

we all we all vote them we all act on

24:39

them we share

24:41

most values maybe not all but we we

24:44

share most values now we might

24:46

define them differently again because

24:48

terms are

24:49

i mean there's some ambiguity in terms i

24:51

don't think they're no i think terms

24:53

have meaning they're not meaningless but

24:54

there's ambiguity in exactly what they

24:56

mean

24:56

so like freedom it can mean like we all

24:59

would say we value freedom

25:01

but it means something a little

25:02

different to different people

25:05

and there's value hierarchies

25:08

so so in in the uh

25:12

in the arguments about uh the safer home

25:15

orders

25:16

you know it's not like it's not like the

25:18

people who think we need to

25:20

have a strict federal guideline or state

25:23

guideline even about um state safer home

25:26

orders and what we should you know

25:28

putting restrictions on us it's not that

25:30

those people don't value freedom

25:31

they they value freedom it's just that

25:34

in this particular instance

25:36

public health you know they because of

25:38

the public health risk that trumps

25:43

[Laughter]

25:46

um the freedom for them at the time and

25:48

at the same time it's not like

25:50

people who are you know out saying

25:51

freedom freedom it's not like i mean the

25:54

vast majority of them you know that they

25:56

would not

25:57

you know they stop at red lights right i

25:59

mean they they're willing

26:01

to have some of their freedoms infringed

26:03

upon for safety

26:05

we have the same values uh we may define

26:07

them differently

26:09

and we clearly we we have them at

26:12

different um

26:13

points in the hierarchy but uh

26:16

we can you know that gives us some hope

26:19

like we can find some common ground

26:21

and i say that being helpful i don't

26:23

mean as like

26:24

a money-back guarantee thing right not

26:26

like a particularly not like a method

26:28

for winning either helpful in the sense

26:30

of building

26:31

a space for community man yeah yeah yeah

26:34

when you look at jesus the person of

26:36

jesus tell me about

26:38

the rhetoric that um you find out of the

26:40

person of jesus in the gospels

26:43

so one another one of the things one of

26:44

my uh philosophies of rhetoric

26:47

comes comes straight from jesus like out

26:49

of

26:50

out of the heart come become a person's

26:52

words

26:53

and what so when i talked when i talk

26:55

about like we all communi we all see the

26:57

word through a

26:58

lens or we we understand the world and

27:01

we speak through

27:02

a particular logical framework or

27:06

narrative framework that's how we

27:07

understand things that's

27:09

that's another way of saying what jesus

27:12

said there

27:13

um that our words our words aren't just

27:16

accidents

27:17

so so one of the rules in my house years

27:20

ago when i first started studying

27:21

rhetoric was i didn't let my kids say

27:23

well i'm just saying he's like oh no no

27:26

no you're not

27:27

just saying because your words

27:30

come from someplace and your words have

27:32

an impact

27:33

they're not neutral so even if i reject

27:36

a person's words

27:37

i'm still interacting with those words

27:39

i'm still engaging with those words

27:42

so i think jesus has all kinds of wisdom

27:45

uh in that in that one statement you

27:48

know some of the the text

27:49

where he you know if he was if he was a

27:52

contemporary uh social science

27:55

communication scholar he'd say here's

27:57

how you clearly communicate your message

27:59

and sometimes like jesus is not trying

28:02

to clearly communicate his message

28:04

uh it seems like he's stirring the

28:06

waters up and really making people think

28:09

and not making it easy to understand

28:12

what he's saying

28:13

that stuff that fascinates me i was

28:15

listening to another podcast

28:17

a day or two ago where a myth writer

28:20

was being interviewed and myth is a

28:23

scary word to a lot of christians

28:24

to to the idea that their some of these

28:27

ancient bible stories could be

28:29

myth mythical is very very scary to a

28:33

large amount of people but this

28:34

myth this modern myth writer in the uk

28:37

said

28:37

the reason that he wrote about certain

28:39

experiences through mythology

28:42

is because there are some experiences

28:43

that are so deep and rich

28:45

the facts actually don't tell the story

28:48

and so he results

28:49

he resorts to myth and not resorts it

28:52

actually is the best

28:53

choice of communication and so that's

28:55

fascinating to me that god

28:57

this unknowable god he comes to us and

29:00

the rhetoric he uses

29:01

is myth actually that's his choice way

29:04

of explaining this

29:05

kingdom that he's trying to get us to

29:07

understand that says something right

29:10

oh man that is uh yeah that's that's

29:13

profound

29:14

but in in certain traditions you say

29:16

that well this is the myth or this is

29:17

the story about

29:19

as opposed to arguing that this

29:21

factually happened this exact way

29:23

and i'm not saying like a myth may have

29:25

happened you know that story may have

29:27

happened that exact way but that's not

29:28

the thing to fight about the thing to

29:30

fight about is inside me

29:32

that i would be transformed by the

29:34

truths

29:35

there not to try to give

29:38

evidence that demands a verdict jim

29:41

we've

29:42

spoken a lot about rhetoric in the the

29:45

state of rhetoric in our culture and

29:47

to me there's not a whole lot that's

29:49

more broken in our culture than the

29:50

state of

29:51

than our rhetorical state i don't know

29:53

if i'm speaking rhetorically correctly

29:56

i agree our public discourse our public

29:59

rhetoric is

30:00

i mean we're in trouble it's a mess yeah

30:03

so

30:04

so that being the reality that we find

30:06

ourselves in can rhetoric

30:08

help save us what in what ways can

30:12

rhetoric help us dig out of the hole we

30:15

found ourselves in

30:16

i'd really encourage people to really

30:18

listen to their own words

30:19

what are you tweeting about what are you

30:21

posting on facebook about what are you

30:24

talking to your friends about and your

30:27

your family about

30:28

what are the words coming out of your

30:29

mouth because like jesus said

30:31

out of your heart flow the words of your

30:33

mouth and so one of the ways that

30:35

i look at it from a rhetorical

30:37

standpoint is like what is the story

30:40

that's driving my words my words aren't

30:42

accidents they come from a certain story

30:45

and so good one of the real challenges

30:48

is how does this line up with

30:51

how i understand the gospel of jesus

30:54

christ

30:55

and and i don't mean do i throw jesus in

30:58

there every once in a while

30:59

or do i throw some christian cliche

31:02

words

31:03

like is is the motion of the story

31:06

does it line up with the motion of jesus

31:08

story well

31:10

can you imagine the difference on social

31:12

media in our world especially in the

31:14

church

31:14

if we just ask the question is the story

31:17

that i'm telling

31:19

with my twitter account with my facebook

31:21

page

31:22

is a story that i'm telling mirrored at

31:24

all

31:25

by the story that jesus told well dr jim

31:28

vining thank you for joining us

31:30

thank you guys really appreciate it

31:31

thanks jim

31:39

thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed

31:41

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31:44

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31:51

till next time this has been a pastor

31:54

and a philosopher

31:54

walk into a bar

32:03

[Music]