Pints With Aquinas - Why I Had to Become Catholic (Georgia Howe) | Ep. 594

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Starting point is 00:00:40 When you're fully surrounded by people who have a completely different worldview, they think you're crazy. It is very easy to second-guess yourself and wonder if you are. I can actually remember, I think, the precise moment that I decided I'm not just interested in being Catholic. I don't want to spend another day not Catholic. Some people are attracted by the beauty, some by the truth, some by the community. Sometimes I'll hear outsiders speculate about why Catholicism is having a boom right now. We have to be catechized by someone.

Starting point is 00:01:07 We all have an authority that we turn to. There's no escaping it, so who am I going to choose? I was very surprised by how moved I was at my confirmation. Oh, I'm going to cry. There's something about taking communion. Can you tell me about it? Um. Are you introverted?

Starting point is 00:01:34 I think I'm what they call an omnivirte. Okay, tell me about this. So I would say I recharge through introvert means, like I like to relax, but I really enjoy being with, you know, my people. Yeah. You know, I think it would, I need to gear myself up to, like, go to a party where I don't know anyone. But I love to have a party where I know everyone. Okay.

Starting point is 00:01:58 Yeah. Yeah. I like intense conversations with a few people. Yeah, I like that. But I detest a hundred trivial conversations. That exhausts me. Yeah. Good.

Starting point is 00:02:10 I'm glad we've got this sorted out. Thank you for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. So the first time, it's funny, when we met, I told you and John, I love Morning Wire. And your response was, really, you listen to it? And I thought, why are you so surprised? It's a great show. Well, so John and I joke about this a lot, that sometimes we produce the show and it almost like goes off into the ether.

Starting point is 00:02:32 And it is genuinely surprising when we meet people who listen. And we do know from the numbers that a lot of people do. But, yeah, we're not super active on social media. And, you know, obviously this being my first interview, we haven't always been getting out and meeting all of our fans. So, yeah, it's an interesting experience when you learn people listen. Yeah. And it's wonderful to meet people in real life.

Starting point is 00:02:56 Yeah. And you may have that experience, too, when people come up and say they're a fan. I mean, it never ceases to be shocking. Well, what I find is when you live online, there's just a lot of sarcasm and trolling. Yeah. And even when people are just joking, it's hard to tell because text is tone deaf. Yeah. And so I find that when I go out and speak somewhere, like I was just in Lithuania, isn't that wild recently?

Starting point is 00:03:20 And a lot of people who would come up, I was sort of like waiting for the trollish comments. You kind of get accustomed to it. Or you imagine that how people respond in the comments is how the real populist reacts. But everyone was just so beautiful. And I was like, wait, what's happening? Yeah. Have you dealt with it? How has that been for you?

Starting point is 00:03:36 Gosh, I've never had anyone say a nasty comment in real life. Okay. I think you've got to say in the comments section. You are the only one on the internet. So there is always discussion about whether I should have bangs or not have bangs. If there is anything on my person, a skew, I will be told in the comments. So there's that. But for the most part, I would say Morning Wire commenters are probably the friendliest of, you know, the shows.

Starting point is 00:04:01 Oh, really? I think so, yeah. And what was this you said about people wondering whether you were an android? So when the show first launched, John and I were so careful to be as neutral as possible. And we wanted to be as professional as possible and speak as crisply as possible. And it came across, I think, a little bit wooden in some ways. And sometimes I'm actually kind of proud when people are like, wow, you're a real person behind there because it makes me think, okay, that, wow, we're really convincing them. that were these super professional newscasters.

Starting point is 00:04:35 I wonder if Morning Wire released today, if people would just assume it's AI then. Yeah, I know. It's crossed my mind because occasionally someone will comment that that they think it's AI. And it was a response to NPR, right? It was like Daily Wire's response to a... Yes.

Starting point is 00:04:52 So we listened to many NPR episodes and we took notes on what was so good about it. And then, I mean, I don't know if we want to include this part, but it is certainly our shameless answer to NPR. Yeah. Good. So when I met you, though, you also said that you had heard of Pines with Aquinas. And I was also stunned.

Starting point is 00:05:12 So I just said you. I was like, what? Really? That's amazing. Yeah. So I don't always listen to the whole long episode. I mean, I can probably say I could count on one hand how many I have, if probably not a whole hand. But the breakouts all the time.

Starting point is 00:05:27 Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. I somehow got into the Catholic Algo, like. a year or two ago. And yeah, you're prominent there. Well, I hope it's helpful. Okay, so I want to back up a little bit because you have a video somewhere online. And it was one of those, why I left the left. When did you record that and what was that about? So I recorded that in September of 2020. I was an emergency department nurse at the time in Los Angeles. And I was observing all the things going on

Starting point is 00:06:00 the summer of 2020, we all remember. And as just a regular layperson, not someone who works in media, and especially living in California, I was becoming increasingly concerned about the things that I was seeing and the fact that no one was speaking out. Things are different now, I think. We've had the vibe shift that, of course, we've all heard about. But if you take yourself back, maybe five years, there was a real fear at that time that no one was going to say anything. and, you know, freedom doesn't end with a bang. It ends with a whimper.

Starting point is 00:06:35 And my fear was, shoot, if no one's going to say anything, at least I'm going to be at least one of the people who's saying something. And I kind of looked at myself and my resume and I thought, you know, they don't necessarily, people aren't necessarily going to care about my story, but I do think I'm a very good messenger for an important message, which is you can be a compassionate person who looks at some of the, you. these left-wing policies and sees some of the damage that's wrought from them and really be thoroughly concerned and explore conservatism just as a reaction to it. So what was it specifically that you said you were afraid no one was going to speak about that? What is this thing? I mean, I, there was a day that I saw drones hovering in the street in my neighborhood where I was living in Los Angeles.

Starting point is 00:07:25 And I thought myself, those aren't toys. Those are not civilian toys. this is surveillance. This is surveillance of, I think, are we wearing our masks? Are we staying indoors? So COVID and those restrictions specifically is what you're referring to. And you say people weren't going to speak about this. Yeah, I mean, I would say the whole umbrella of the George Floyd.

Starting point is 00:07:45 This was post-George Floyd. I think that was the thing that really, you know, and I can go more into this. Certainly it was the black squares on the Instagram that were the final straw for me. But in terms of worrying about people not speaking up, I think it was seeing the drones in the street and feeling like, okay, I have a reasonably stable job. I'm a nurse. If I lost the job, I think I could probably find another job, but I'm going to say something. And so what did you do? So I put out this video.

Starting point is 00:08:18 It's about, I think it's like 46 minutes long. And it's a story of how I came to become, you know, one of those dreaded, Trump voters. You know, I, I didn't technically vote for Clinton because I, did I, no, I actually did vote for Clinton in 2016. I think I forgot to vote in 2012. But I wasn't terribly involved politically, but I was garden variety lefty in Los Angeles. And over the course of the eight, and I guess it would be, from 16 to 20, it would be four years, but even in the few years before, the Clinton election, I was noticing things and observing things and going through some changes in my values. And did you hold lefty positions? Like were you pro-abortion and all the rest of it?

Starting point is 00:09:13 So I would say not all the rest of it. I was socially liberal of things like abortion, gay marriage, but I never was socialist. I, you know, I always identified as, you know, I always identified as the person who carried more than their load on a school project. And I never was interested in redistribution of wealth. And I definitely reacted strongly against some of the woke stuff that I was seeing when I was previously a teacher. But certainly I was secular. And I stood by abortion, even though I had some misgivings about it. And I at that time probably had no misgivings about it.

Starting point is 00:09:57 gay marriage. So I would say I was a social liberal was probably more fiscally conservative. Was your video, I forget, was it called Why I Left the Left? Or was that the thrust of it? I think it's called I was wrong about the Democratic Party. Okay. Yeah. So what kind of blowback did you get from friends and colleagues, if any? Um, oh gosh. I mean staged interventions. Oh, you have to tell me about that. Yeah. So I'm actually, I'm very protective of people in my life. And so I, you know, I certainly would not tell a story that made anyone look silly or unreasonable. But I have close relationships that I have not seen since then. So years ago, a husband and a wife in Lithuania sent me one of their handmade rosaries, and I was so struck by it, the weight, the quality, the care in

Starting point is 00:10:48 every detail. It was seriously the most beautiful rosary I'd ever seen. Now, in collaboration with Thayotokos Rosaries, I'm making two of their hand-crafted rosaries. available to you over at dailywire.com slash shop. Italian olive wood, gold, plated brass, micro-braid cord built for a lifetime of prayer. Each one made by hand in Lithuania. These are not just beautiful rosaries. They can be family heirlooms that you would pass down.

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Starting point is 00:11:38 people's privacy, but when you say staged intervention, what did that look like? There were multiple close relationships that sat me down and wanted to get me to take the video down, recant what I said, wanted me to see the error in my ways. they were really disturbed that I might double down. And I wasn't really doubling down. I mean, it took a lot out of me. Every day I wanted to pull that video down because it was snowballing and snowballing.

Starting point is 00:12:07 I mean, when it hit 100,000 views after a couple days, I mean, the pit in my stomach was intense. And then it was like into the million range. And at that point, it's out there, whether you took it down or not. Right. Damage has been done as it from. Right.

Starting point is 00:12:21 But certainly there were people who wanted me to take it. down and there were people who were concerned about me that one they disagreed and they wanted it to come down but also they didn't want me to lose future jobs or have things taken out of context and what I kind of said in response is like who are you afraid of you know who are you afraid is going to come after me is it evil right wingers or is it bully left wingers and if you want to protect the people you're trying to protect me from, then now you see why I have to speak out against them. You know, if you're really afraid that some of, you know, these left-wing online bullies are going

Starting point is 00:13:09 to make my life difficult, now maybe you understand. That proves your point. It proves why you posted it. Now maybe you understand why I have to take a stand. And yeah, you know, if it comes to that, it comes to that. But someone needs to say something. And so I'll be one of the people that does. Were you friends with other conservative people who were talking about these draconian logglers?

Starting point is 00:13:31 No. And what's interesting is for a few years, I actually didn't know that I was conservative. Because I think when a lot of people in the right wing sphere don't know how siloed a lot of America is. if a lot of people really just get their news from the main five networks. And, you know, occasionally I would see an article float by in my Apple news from Daily Wire. And I would think, geez, I really agree with these people. Finally, someone's saying it. But I never really had a full understanding of even what the conservative position was because it's so caricatured in the mainstream media.

Starting point is 00:14:14 And I always was actually very curious. as to why half of America could have a set of values that, according to the news I was reading, were so unreasonable. And so that always actually rubbed me a little wrong that, you know, I'm watching the CNN and I'm thinking, okay, the choice is clear here when it comes to your morals, how you would vote. Hitler or freedom? Yeah, exactly. And yet we have half of America rejecting the values that seem obvious. to me, but that actually made me think, okay, they must have, they must have additional information that I don't have because there's no way half of America is stupid and evil.

Starting point is 00:14:59 Interesting. And, you know, we'll get into this, but I've always had a little of that feeling when it comes to religious people as well. Because when you grow up on the secular side of the tracks, it seems legitimately crazy because we're given a very neat and tidy explanation about the Big Bang and evolution and all these things are explained, you know, ancient peoples just didn't have scientific explanations for things and they were just very gullible. And that's just the neat and tidy story. And so when you have that story that everyone around you believes, it actually does seem crazy when people take a

Starting point is 00:15:35 sincere religious stance. But I saw that some of the people who were sincerely religious were also very intelligent. And so I knew there had to be something else. to it. And so some of these things, they just percolate in your mind over the course of years because you're focused on other things. You're focused on like school and building your career. And sometimes these bigger questions can sit on a back burner for a long time, especially when you're young and you're worrying about paying rent and everything else. It's really remarkable that you were able to take a stand without having other conservative people in your life at the time reassuring you that you weren't crazy.

Starting point is 00:16:15 I thought I was crazy for... Did you have like one or two people who were like, here's what I'm seeing? No. Wow, that's so bananas because, you know, our... Well, actually, I have a couple of my uncles are conservative, but... Good conservative uncles. Yeah. And my family is in some ways a bit diverse ideologically, but when it came to me sitting in my apartment in California, no, I would say I didn't have certainly no...

Starting point is 00:16:45 peers or friends. But you were watching things online perhaps that helped. Yeah. So I would say in about 2018, I mean, any kind of process of like mind evolution happens in so many small increments that it would, you know, certainly it happened over the course of many years. But I would say in 2018, I somehow broke into what I think back then was called the intellectual dark web where you feel super guilty.

Starting point is 00:17:15 about watching these subversive videos, and there's a part of you that thinks, oh my gosh, like, I am going to the dark side. And then there's this other part of you that's thinking, no, this is the only damn thing that makes sense. I'm very concerned about all these lemmings that are falling off a cliff in front of me, and I don't want to be one of them. So, yeah, there was definitely a lot of push and pull within myself at that time.

Starting point is 00:17:43 but on some ground level of my being, I'm a bit stubborn. And if I believe something, like, I'm going to stick by it. And were you raised in L.A.? No, I'm from Massachusetts. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm from a Boston suburb. Okay. So what was your opinion of Christianity when you were a nurse?

Starting point is 00:18:02 Were you a practicing Christian before becoming Catholic? Yes. So, well, I'll back up a little bit. I would say I began to have interest in Christianity. Well, even as, so I grew up in a town called Belmont, Massachusetts, and we actually have a Mormon temple there. And the people I was exposed to who were sincerely religious, really living a religious lifestyle, were predominantly LDS. And even when I was young, I had a very close friend whose family was part of the church. I saw a lot of value in the way they lived their lives.

Starting point is 00:18:42 I admired the religious lifestyle. But I didn't think that that was necessarily the answer, but I understood why someone might pursue joining that community. It did confuse me a little. I didn't know whether everyone fully believed, And I certainly think in every religion you have people who are there for the lifestyle versus there because of sincere belief. But I think it created an idea for me that you can live this really nice, wholesome religious lifestyle, but it will require turning off some portions of like your critical thinking. Or you can stay true to your let your curiosity go wherever it goes.

Starting point is 00:19:33 and that unfortunately might mean like living a more worldly life. And so I think just by nature of the precise little town that I grew up in, I had more of the sense that it was in either or than some other people might have had. It wasn't until I was a little older that I met evangelical Christians who were quite sincere in their faith. What about during the new atheist movement when atheism was cool for 10 minutes? Yeah. So when I was in 2008 or something. Yeah, when I was in college, they were very cool. And I definitely think, I mean, I was in the soup of all of that, you know, cultural movement,

Starting point is 00:20:13 even though I wasn't very interested in philosophy as an undergrad. I look back and I think, oh, my gosh, I had all these opportunities to take philosophy classes. But I just, you know, I. What school did you go to? University of Colorado. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:20:26 Do you know who Dr. Peter Craft is? He's a Catholic philosopher. When you said Massachusetts, you need to know who. Dr. Peter Craft is. He's actually coming in today. He's written over 100 books. Is he from Massachusetts? Yeah. Yeah, Boston College. That's where he teaches. But all right. Colorado. Anyway, so I think because, you know, you get wrapped up in your worldly life where you're pursuing your degree and then you're on the career path. And I have had like a crazy career path. So that was all exciting and good. But I was not focused on, I think, some of these backburner

Starting point is 00:21:01 issues that over time feel more weighty and they start becoming almost like your very front burner by the time you reach a more mature adulthood. So certainly it was a long path for me to become a Christian, but very glad I finally arrived there. I would like to help other people get there faster, but I also, you know, I think people can come to it at any point in their life and sometimes you need to have these winding paths. But in Colorado, during the height of the new atheism, did you not adopt that? I would seem to validate what you believed about religious people when you were younger, huh? I would say I was never a hardcore atheist.

Starting point is 00:21:43 Certainly, I entertained the idea, and I turned it over in my mind on many occasions. I mean, even in high school, when I first learned what atheism was, of course, every 12-year-old, when they learn what atheism is, they think, oh, my gosh, I just discovered this cheat code for life. I mean, I was not in an atheist home, just not very religious. And I've always been opened the idea of God. But definitely, you know, the new atheist movement was in my cultural milieu as a young adult. And it impacted me the same way it impacted everyone. But you, for the most part, stood on the sidelines. I would say that was as a whole topic was very peripheral for me as a young person.

Starting point is 00:22:24 So I wasn't standing firmly on any side of the fence there. It is interesting that the new atheist movement, as well as online apologetics, tends to be predominantly male. Yes. And I do think there is something gendered about the way people approach spirituality. There's something definitely male about needing to take a hard stance, especially a hard stance that is sort of oppositional. Yeah, and wanting to argue about it. Yeah. Wanting to show others to be wrong.

Starting point is 00:22:56 the combative nature of online apologetics, which was essentially what the new atheist movement was in many respects. Certainly. And to give a more direct answer, it wasn't until I was doing prerequisites for nursing school when I was in my mid to late 20s that I had to check a box for a philosophy class and a religion class.

Starting point is 00:23:18 And I thought, I'm going to be so smart. And I'm going to do philosophy of religion, two birds, one stone. Truly, I mean, I was just like cranking out these prerequisites And I ended up in this community college class, philosophy of religion at Santa Monica Community College in Santa Monica. And in some ways, the teacher I found very frustrating. It was me in my late 20s and a bunch of 18-year-olds who didn't give a shit about this class. But I had reached this point in my life where I was suddenly, I was starting to get actually interested in some of these topics in a way that I couldn't really approach as a teenager. And I recognize that when I saw my classmates.

Starting point is 00:23:57 They're just, this is not where they're out in their journey. But I am here. And so I was so interested. And I read every word that was assigned to me. And for people who haven't taken philosophy of religion, for the most part, I think the way the course is arranged is you read the main arguments for and against the existence of God. And then you learn the main tenets of the major world religion. Was the teacher, even though you said it was, he was, you were frustrated with him or her. Were you, uh, yeah, not even worth going.

Starting point is 00:24:30 Was he into it or she into it? Like, where they were, even if your other classmates weren't, yeah. Yeah. So I didn't realize I was having a formative life experience at the time. Yeah. You know, I sometimes was like, oh, I have to go to this class and I have to read all this. But then when I'd be reading it, I'd get really into it. And it got to the point where, you know, I was the only person raising their hand in the class because I was, uh,

Starting point is 00:24:53 I was genuinely interested in a lot of the kids. It was like, I think, 8 in the morning. And at any rate, I remember being in that class and vaguely maybe standing on the side of the fence of like kind of cheering for the atheist arguments, like thinking, okay, like these are good arguments. But over the next 18 months or so, after I left that course, the arguments for the existence of God were just. a pebble in my shoe. And I spent many months, I had these long commutes because I lived in California. And over many months, I'd be turning these arguments over in my mind. And one essay in particular really was a light-balled moment for me. It was actually just a chapter. I don't remember which C.S. Lewis book that it was from. It was this chapter essay titled Horrid Red Things.

Starting point is 00:25:51 Okay. Have you read Horrid Red Things? Okay. So I'll just tell you a little bit of what it was. So Lewis opens this up talking about how when he imagines the city of London, he imagines Houston Station. And even though Houston Station isn't one in the same with London, that's just his image he has in his mind when he thinks of London. And it's not incorrect. It's just extremely incomplete as an image. and he goes on to talk about how human language and the way we symbolize things in our brains are very incomplete, very crude and almost incorrect in how and how nonspecific they are to the thing to which they point. But later in the essay he says, you know, if you were at someone's house and you were reaching for a glass of water on the table and a child in the room said, oh, don't drink that. There's poison in there. And then you said, what do you mean there's poison in there? And they say, well, there's horrid red things. And they say, what do you mean poison is? What is poison? Poison is horrid red things. And you think, well, I'm looking at this glass. There's no horrid red things in there.

Starting point is 00:27:10 basically Lewis says even though the child's description of what poison is is wrong it's actually incorrect and it's more than just crude it's just it's not an actual description of poison you'd still be wise to listen to that child's advice because

Starting point is 00:27:30 what they're describing they may actually know more about this glass of water on the table than you do anyway all of this is set up his argument that human language and some of the instructions that we've been given from our forebears, the instructions are good, even though the signposts are extraordinarily crude to that which they point. So in the Bible, you know, you read these stories that are devoid of almost any detail. They are very crude descriptions, very simple descriptions. When many of the stories, you read them, you think, this sounds like, I mean, I need more details to really understand. what happened here because none of this is making sense, but, you know, I have the broad

Starting point is 00:28:15 strokes of what transpired here. Basically, what Lewis was trying to say is the Bible is conveyed in human language, and it's necessarily crude, and it is necessarily incomplete because it's going through this funnel of human language, and it's going through the funnel of these simpletons who were writing with our simple human communication tool. And so just because their description is in some ways false on its face doesn't mean it doesn't mean it's actually false. There might be a truth beneath it that's actually very profound and worth listening to. And that was.

Starting point is 00:28:57 That's really good. So like if a child is taught by his, say, uneducated grandma that essentially God is an old man up in the clouds. Yes. This is clearly inadequate and false. But what she's communicating may not necessarily be, isn't false. Right. And Lewis's argument is that much of Christianity in the Bible functions in that way. And so you have some of these very haughty new atheists that point to the Bible and they're just like, this is obviously false.

Starting point is 00:29:28 You know, look at this. This is so simple, like on its face, this can't be true. But when you look at it through the lens of, you know, just because it's false on its face doesn't mean. Right. What is it missing the forest for the trees? Is that the same? Yeah. Something like that.

Starting point is 00:29:42 Yeah. I mean, it's, it, that would be like a neighboring kind of description. But anyway, so that one essay for me. I have to read it now. Thanks for telling me about it. Yes. It's very short and it's interesting. Many people will read different CS Lewis essays and their mind will be opened.

Starting point is 00:30:01 I've never heard anyone else say horrid red things was the essay that really reached them. But what it did for me was it just unlocked an open. to listening and sort of an openness to this signage in the Bible and not writing it off for being kind of, yeah, as it crude or like false on a surface level. Yeah. It's interesting that that's really interesting because I feel like in a way that is the sort of progression that took place from the new atheists to Jordan. Peterson. Like, I feel like Jordan Peterson was able to take the book, the Bible, that these new atheists had mocked because they were just taking low-hanging fruit and weren't trying to understand it. And he was able to show a ginormous community online, not a community, but a

Starting point is 00:30:54 ginormous amount of people, that there was a lot here to take seriously. Yeah. So that was the, that one essay, I would say, was maybe the biggest takeaway from that course. But what I ended up doing over the next couple of years, because I had these really long commutes when I was in nursing school, I listened to many of the great courses. Have you ever listened to those? So yeah, I'm like a nerd. I don't really listen to music in the car, but I went through probably at least five or six college semesters of these philosophy classes. And I wasn't listening to Christian philosophy. I was more listening to. I got of into the metaphysics realm and just trying to understand what the greatest thinkers were thinking about reality itself. And I mean, whether that's physical space or some of just broader philosophical ideas. And what I noticed was, just to give one example, they would often bottom out with, and therefore there's no free will. And I remember at the end of one semester, They build on the ideas typically throughout the semester. So they'll start with some of the basic premises and then they'll build on, they'll build out those premises over the course of a semester. And then they'll kind of take it to the logical conclusion of those premises. And I remember there was the final lecture where they were talking about how probably doesn't make sense to have prisons because there's no free will.

Starting point is 00:32:34 And I remember listening to that and thinking, you know, I'm on the wrong train. Like somewhere, like somewhere this train went off the tracks. Oh, 100% I know what you mean. And so I started thinking, I need to trace back to where we went off the tracks because it logically made sense as they were unpacking it. But I know the conclusion is false. Can I offer a story that speaks. to this, I remember being at a pub in Houston with my wife. And at one point, for whatever reason, I was outside. And there was a gentleman out there and we got into a conversation. And about

Starting point is 00:33:14 seven minutes into the conversation of really trying to follow his train of thought, I realized he was drunk out of his head. That must be how you feel with me right now. Not at all. No, but that's, but that's, I think, what you're talking about. Because like, there's individual things he was saying. I'm like, uh-huh, okay. All right. Yeah. And then at some point, something clicked. And I went, Oh, you're off, you're off out and you're gone. Yeah. And to me, that's what it's like listening to the secularist who offers these arguments. And you're, okay, okay.

Starting point is 00:33:44 And then they say, and therefore we can kill children in the womb. You're like, oh my gosh. Why have I been listening to you? What's interesting is this is actually a thought that has been that it tapped into something that has bothered me for years, or at least up to that point had bothered me for years, which was the idea of physical. determinism so that there was a big bang and, you know, the shaking up of various molecules and, you know, unfold days, years, eons of time later, now those molecules are comprised in my brain and they're moving and shaken in there and my thoughts are the result of that.

Starting point is 00:34:23 And therefore, how can I trust my thoughts if they are just the results of continuously unpacked, yeah, a big bang shake? So I had already had some concerns about determinism, and I noticed I kept arriving at determinism from different avenues from these different philosophical courses. And then that thought that I just had haunting me for probably since college about determinism and physical determinism. And it definitely triggered something in me where I was like, I think there is this foundational truth that we do actually have moral agency and that matters. And so whatever my worldview is, I do think it actually has to include free will. And I am now going to try to investigate where I can find that being discussed in an intelligent way.

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Starting point is 00:37:20 go to hallow.com slash Matt Frad right now and get three months for free. Okay. So how did, okay, so how did you move from there to? Gosh. Christianity. I actually don't know your story. So actually, I'm not sure. Did you end up becoming a Protestant of some stripe before?

Starting point is 00:37:37 Yes. So I'm trying to think of the exact order. What's funny is sometimes, and in my case, certainly this is the case. And I think maybe there are other people who've had this. You can have a lot of this unfolding. as like a behind the scenes track that doesn't feel important and it doesn't feel like it's your main focus. But you can have some evolution going on in the back of your mind while you are focusing on something else. I was going through nursing school.

Starting point is 00:38:07 I was doing my first few years as an emergency department nurse. I was very busy. But I had this little task looping in the back of my mind that was going through some things. And there were moments along the way that I look back on now as being formative that at the time I would not have said, oh, that's when I became a Christian. But one of those moments was I was on YouTube and this old lecture from Tim Keller who love Tim Keller. Terrific. Love Tim. God bless him. Rest his soul. Yes. So for people who aren't familiar, he's a Presbyterian minister who recently passed away. but he was an incredible apologist, and he planted a church in Manhattan, New York City,

Starting point is 00:38:53 and his main ministry was with young secular professionals, people who very much resonated with myself and my peers. He actually did this years before I found him. The video that I somehow fortuitously served up to me on YouTube was, I think now it's 18. years old. I recently looked it up when I realized I was coming on this show. It was 18 years old. It was a talk that he gave at Google back when Google was posh and they took care of their employees. They would bring in these great speakers for some intellectual stimulation for their employees. And they brought in Tim Keller to talk about his book. I think it was his book, The Reason for God. He did a subsequent talk maybe nine years later at Google about his prequel, which was making sense of God, both excellent books. I've read them. both many times. Anyway, so Tim Keller opens up his speech. Why I clicked on this, I can't even tell you. Like, it was this like grainy video of a Google talk.

Starting point is 00:39:58 This guy Tim Keller I'd never heard of. But I, for whatever reason, they must have had a great title, and I clicked on it. And Tim Keller has this wonderful disarming way about him. And he basically says, listen, I know I'm in a room full of skeptical people. and I'm thinking, yeah, I'm a skeptical person. And he says, all I want you to do is just for the next hour, apply a little of that skepticism to the doubts you have about Christianity. Beautifully put.

Starting point is 00:40:29 Beautifully put. And I thought, okay, that's a really interesting challenge. I'm going to think on that. I love having my mind blown in a new way. So I'm going to listen to this guy. And I mean, it's only, because there's a question and answer at the end, the whole video is maybe 40 minutes. It's very short. He does not come anywhere close to going over the full survey of his book.

Starting point is 00:40:53 But his book, the reason for God, is an apologetics book where it goes over the main reasons why we believe that the resurrection story is true. And he could hardly even get into the core reasons in this speech. But what he was able to unpack in that short amount of time was so compelling. to me that I bought that book and I read it and I think I read it at least twice. I might have read it three times. And, you know, his arguments were compelling. I couldn't, you know, delineate them off the top of my head for you now, but there are many of the classic evidences, for example, you have women discovering the empty tomb, which wouldn't have been legally advantageous at the time, etc. There are just many different arguments of that nature.

Starting point is 00:41:47 And I read this around the same time. Actually, no, this would have been, I think, a year or two before COVID. But something about that book really resonated with me. And certainly I wasn't willing to give up my entire secular worldview. But I thought, you know, this. man is giving some very, very solid arguments for why just that one simple fact of the resurrection could be true. And, you know, I have, it's not, it's not making a case for why the Bible is the word of God,

Starting point is 00:42:30 and it's not making a case for Presbyterian theology writ large. It's just getting you to the doorstep of mere Christianity, which, I mean, there are many, I would say evangelicals in general have been so successful with that one task of bringing in some outsiders and secular people and bringing them to the doorstep of mere Christianity. And so to answer your question, because Tim Keller himself was Presbyterian, I didn't necessarily become Presbyterian, but I arrived at mere Christianity and I read the book mere Christianity as well. well, multiple times. And I think the default was you just assume that you don't even think about if you're Protestant. You just think, okay, like, I might be Christian or I might be on the verge of being a Christian.

Starting point is 00:43:27 And that's like your first step in and, you know, you have to kind of like feel it out for a little while while you're there. It took me several years later. I mean, at least, gosh. And then Lewis's point at the end of that book is bringing you into the hallway. And that stuck with me for a very long time of that image where you've entered the hallway and there's many rooms. And it's gracious of him. I mean, you hear different things about Catholicism from Protestants.

Starting point is 00:43:56 But he says, you know, you could be Roman Catholic, you could be Anglican, which I believe he was. You could be Baptist. And yes, that image lingered with me a long time of being in the hallway and needing to choose a room. So are you in nursing school at this point as you're reading Lewis and Keller and deciding you're a Christian? Is this before you made the video or after? This is all before. Okay. So being a Christian was one of the like undergirding reasons, probably the undergirding reason of why I made the video.

Starting point is 00:44:31 But I very specifically struck any reference from the video because of who I wanted to reach. And people would write you off, right? She's just a crazy question lady. Did you have Christian friends? Did your parents like the idea that you were becoming a Christian? I think at that point I did begin to have some Christian friends. I mean, living in L.A., I also had many of the friends that I'd had for many years. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:44:53 I would say my family's not hostile to Christianity, but it's not... Right, front and center. It's not front and center. And I do have some Catholic family members, but of the people I'm quite close to, and particularly the people I was quite close to at that time, no, I would have been kind of an odd duck. and especially when you have just arrived to something where you're still in the camp a little bit of thinking, I might be the crazy one, you know.

Starting point is 00:45:18 It takes a long time to get confidence to even know that you trust yourself on this, let alone, you know, blaring it out to everyone and trying to convert them. That takes a while. A hundred percent. When did you start attending a church? So I would say it was right before COVID because, I went to a church called Hope Chapel in Hermosa Beach, California, and I actually really liked it. Why did you choose that one?

Starting point is 00:45:49 A young woman that I knew from the gym was a Christian, and she recommended it. She said it was great. And I drove by it many times. Was that scary going to that for the first time? I'd be afraid I was going to meet a lot of very enthusiastic Christians who were going to try to pull me into the orbit. Yeah, I mean. Nice thing about the Catholic Church is no one will talk to you or look at. Yeah, that's so true.

Starting point is 00:46:15 I think on some level I was excited because there is too this. I mean, for many years I'd admired the religious lifestyle. And so now I'm like, now I can actually participate if I can really believe this, which the jury was still out at that time. Because I was still thinking I might be a little crazy. because when you're fully surrounded by people who have a completely different worldview, and they're not necessarily rude about it, but they think you're crazy. It is very easy to second guess yourself and wonder if you are. Still, once in a blue moon will happen to me on various issues. But anyway, I walk in.

Starting point is 00:46:56 I was by myself, but I think it's non-denominational, Hope Chapel. They're very welcoming. And I don't recall at all what the sermon was about. I think it was perfectly fine. But, and I don't remember if it was the first time I was there, maybe the second or third. I remember there was, maybe it was like an altar call or something where they, you know, ask you to basically feel the Holy Spirit present in you. And there was one of the times, it could have been the first time I was there.

Starting point is 00:47:30 It could have been later. I remember like my eyes like immediately filled with tears. And I was like, what's going on? But what is happening to me? Because up to that point, you go to a church and you think, you know, we'll see, like, we'll see what this is about. We'll see if this feels phony or if it feels legit. And I don't know, like something happened to me there. So, you know, shout out to Hope Chapel.

Starting point is 00:47:56 Holy Spirit's there. I can tell you. I've had a moment like that myself where someone prayed over me. And I thought, oh, this is awkward. I guess I'm supposed to react or something. Yeah. Like this is going to, I feel bad. Because you don't know what you're supposed to feel.

Starting point is 00:48:07 Yeah. But then what happened to me was what just happened to you. So as I'm having that thought that this is going to be awkward for them when I go, okay, thank you very much. And I walk away. And I opened up my eyes. And to my surprise, my eyes were gushing with tears. And it shocked me. Right.

Starting point is 00:48:20 I had a feeling like that. And what's funny is Hope Chappell was shut down by COVID shortly after all of this. So my Christian journey, unfortunately, was a little bit. it stunted because I was kind of just arriving at wanting to really participate right at the time that all the church is shut down. But there was one sermon where I remember the pastor was up there and he made a comment about, you know, and the devil's greatest trick was convincing everyone that evolution is true. And I remember thinking to myself, like, I was like, ah, it might be in the wrong place. But anyone who knows me well will laugh hearing me say that because years later,

Starting point is 00:49:01 I'm totally like, anyway, I'm open to denying evolution. Totally open. And so all of this actually dovetailed with, so I have a variety of curiosities and sometimes they converge in interesting ways. Yeah. So I know you had Stephen Meyer on your show recently. I'm like the biggest Stephen Meyer. Stan?

Starting point is 00:49:21 Yeah. Like I've read all of his books. I've reviewed his books. He's come on Morning Wire, all this. But I got onto the Discovery Institute train. probably right around the time that I was interested or that I had started going to Hope Chapel and then I think it shut down.

Starting point is 00:49:37 Actually, I think I was reading these books during the time that none of us could go to church in California. And I don't even think it was a religious impulse that made me interested in his book, I think Darwin's Doubt was the first one that I read. I just kind of like contrary explanations and I just was curious. And as I was reading it, it was just like another little thing that opened up of like one of the major bricks, possibly the cornerstone of the secular worldview is evolution and that things happened in an unguided way.

Starting point is 00:50:17 And if that cornerstone is taken out, that has serious implications for the whole, you know, structure built on top of it. And I was already having some doubts about that because of the philosophy courses that I'd taken and now this new interest I had in Christianity from Tim Keller. And now this central pillar has been knocked out if I'm to entertain some doubt in evolution, then like we are in a whole uncharted territory now when it comes to just a foundational outlook on the world. So all of this was a big shakeup of multiple prongs that were related, but at the time felt a little bit disparate to me. Okay. All right. I want to get to how you started looking into Catholicism, but how did you go from L.A. to working in Nashville at the Daily Wire, or were you working for the Daily Wire in L.A.? No.

Starting point is 00:51:12 I was an emergency department nurse, and then I dropped that video on YouTube. I think, I mean, I don't know how much. I think it has like two and a half million views now. but it had a lot even back then and Daily Wire called me and that was when I lived in that was when they were in L.A. And so I

Starting point is 00:51:30 thought maybe they would like want to have me do an interview for an article and Jeremy asked me to like if I would read off of prompter they already were thinking about casting

Starting point is 00:51:44 morning wire. This was like yeah I went in and I met with them and I realized oh they're interested in me not just a random reporter talking to me. Yeah. And that was, of course, very confronting because I realized I have already done so much damage to my. People are so angry at me already.

Starting point is 00:52:03 So I've already really rankled some people by keeping this video up and not agreeing to take it down. But agreeing to do any kind of co-lab with Daily Wire would just be like beyond the pale. Yeah. So I actually, I met with them. on a few occasions and I told them I would need to get through the holidays. I wanted to see some people before I agreed to take on any job. So did they offer it? Do you right away? Unlike the second meeting.

Starting point is 00:52:36 Oh, wow. Yeah. So, and it's, it's not that I recognized immediately that it was an amazing opportunity, but it came at very steep personal cost. So I kind of needed time to think about that. And then around after New Year's, they're like, okay, you need to decide. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. I gave my notice at work.

Starting point is 00:52:57 I drove across the country. Wow. How did your friends and family respond to that, if I can ask? Well, I had one very close friend who, after I published that video, I learned she was conservative. So that was, I mean, she's not super political, but it was just nice to have someone who doesn't hate me. And she was actually furloughed from her job during COVID. And so I let her move into my apartment with me. And so because she was staying with me, I said, listen, you want to come to Nashville?

Starting point is 00:53:29 And so, yeah, we road trip out here together. And that's how I ended up here. It was crazy. That is wild. All right. So you're in Nashville. Do you consider yourself a Christian? Yes.

Starting point is 00:53:42 And actually, something I kind of alluded to, but I'll return to something that was always a sticking point for me with Christianity. I could get to the mere Christianity of like Jesus resurrecting. But some things that were always challenging for me and felt a little bit provincial. And a foxy was some of the talk about the devil and Satan. And I remember seeing the day I saw all those black squares on Instagram. scrolling through and just seeing black square after black square, there were something in my mind that clicked where I was like, I think this is what they're talking about. The how the devil will disguise this something virtuous and good.

Starting point is 00:54:40 And here we have all these people who are trying, they're trying so hard to do the right thing and be loving. but this is, to me, like even as a secular person, this seems demonic, like black square after black square, there is a physical literal darkness that I'm seeing unfold in the name of something good. And that that was very jarring to me. And that was actually, I think, the moment that I was like, okay, maybe I can, maybe I can take on this Christianity thing, like, completely.

Starting point is 00:55:14 Instead of just being at the doorstep and believing, okay, Christ rose. we should probably listen to what he says, that maybe all this other stuff in the Bible that they're describing is pointing to something real, that there were moments in the real world that we can see it and moments of lucidity where we can see that's what they were pointing to with the crude signage. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:55:36 Okay. What was your opinion of Catholicism, let's say, when you moved to Nashville? Just at that point in your life, did you not even think about Catholics? Were they just in the same category as other Christians? I mean, certainly I, I counted them in the broad category of Christian. I was baptized Catholic very young. My parents

Starting point is 00:55:55 left. Part of that was they were more progressive and they wanted a church that was more in alignment with their values. And then, of course, there was the Catholic Church scandal. In Massachusetts, man, that hit hard. And so I didn't have, I would say, negative feelings toward the Catholic Church. Well, I'll put a pin in that. Maybe there were some, but broadly I considered them part of the general Christian tree. And I think there is something also uniquely American about there's sort of a default position where you become Protestant. I don't even think I considered myself Protestant.

Starting point is 00:56:47 And I think I considered myself non-denominational because there's something that feels very like real and raw about being like just a Christian, you, your Bible. And one, it feels more trustworthy, which I later would withdraw from that. But also there's something that feels almost like crunchy about it and wholesome. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. You're not tethering yourself to this old institution, be it the Lutherans or whoever. Yeah. And I certainly saw Christian behavior, like in a admirable way among people who were just living as Christians, no labels, non-denominational.

Starting point is 00:57:35 Was there any point during this time that you thought about the LDS, given that you grew up and had some positive experience? No, because of the, I mean, I've read under the banner of heaven years ago. I always admired Mormons and like still do. But like the Joseph Smith section of the story was not appealing to me. Okay. But I really, I mean, they were the largest religious group that I encountered as a young person. And no doubt I recognized they had a good thing going in a lot of ways. Okay.

Starting point is 00:58:13 So then how do you start getting down to the Catholic rabbit trial? So... Because the day I got here, I just started. And I had to tell you that I was a Catholic now. Don't I tell you that? When were you confirmed? Um, March of this year. Okay.

Starting point is 00:58:29 Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, because when I met you, you were an OCIA. Yeah. And I was proselytizing the Daily Wire offices and I think I gave you a rosary. Yeah. Ah.

Starting point is 00:58:40 So... Funny. Okay. So one of the things, I think especially men love, but women as well, is Apollettizing. apologetics. Well, one thing's for sure. We love men especially, love to argue. But it's entirely possible, Fulton Sheen once said, to win an argument and lose the soul. This is why, for a long time now I've loved and I've promoted the St. Paul Center. They have courses that help you move beyond isolated proof texts that you might use in a debate or something into the

Starting point is 00:59:12 richness of scripture. So your faith becomes something lived, not merely. defended. You can know Christ and share Christ. And I highly recommend start your 30-day free trial today at St. Paulcentre.com slash pints. Or you can become an annual member and when you do, they will send you a free copy of the complete Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. Go check them out. I have become convinced that one of the reasons so many people struggle to believe in God isn't because they've encountered too much beauty, it's because they haven't encountered enough of it. And that might sound strange, but we spend so much of our lives in strip malls, airports, office buildings, and staring at screens, it's easy to forget that human beings once built things whose sole

Starting point is 01:00:00 purpose was to lift the mind and the heart to heaven. That's one of the reasons I'm very excited about a new documentary from Bishop Robert Barron called Heaven in Stone and Glass. It's a cinematic journey through five of France's most extraordinary Gothic cathedrals, including Notre Dame, Chartres, and other names that frankly I can't pronounce, but they're very, very beautiful. Bishop Robert Barron unpacks the incredible symbolism, theology, and craftsmanship woven into these sacred spaces, revealing why they continue to move believers and skeptics alike. If you love beauty, history, architecture, or simply want to deepen your appreciation for Catholic imagination. I think you'll really enjoy this. Heaven in Stone and Glass is coming to

Starting point is 01:00:46 theaters nationwide on Sunday, September 20th and Wednesday, September 23rd. You can get your tickets now at Heaven in Stone and Glass.com. And if you'd like to bring your parish, youth group, or a larger group, visit Heaven in Stone and Glass.com slash group to reserve an entire theater. So yeah, how did you start looking into Catholicism? So to the extent that I had an aversion to Catholicism, I think, so when I was a kid, I was assigned to read for school. If you ever read A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester? No. So I was assigned this, and now I'm looking back thinking like, oh my gosh, public schools.

Starting point is 01:01:24 But I was assigned this and it unpacks a lot of the bad behavior of popes and it's very delicious and entertaining on some level. But I definitely painted the Catholic Church as a very worldly and. institution and of course, you know, corrupt. Yeah, it had many moments of that. Mm-hmm. It still does. Still does.

Starting point is 01:01:49 So on some level, I thought, you know, anything with a human leader is going to be a little bit, is going to be a little bit alienating to me as a new Christian. Let me think. How did I? Certainly, when I came working. working here, I was surrounded by a lot of Catholics, and that gets your mind going a little bit. But at the same time, you know, I felt like I was fine. I felt like I just needed to find the right church. And I think a lot of people go through that phase where they've arrived at mere Christianity,

Starting point is 01:02:33 and now it's just a matter of finding the right church. And I have been to— You have a lot of options. A lot of options. I've been to many of them. and there was a feeling of unsettledness I had not because the churches weren't great. There were great churches in Nashville. But I felt like the onus was on me to find the right fit for myself.

Starting point is 01:02:58 And I was needing, I was simultaneously needing to make sure that the pastor was staying true to the Bible. But at the same time, I was constantly having to check reference. is to make sure I was correct. So I was realizing I'm not qualified to determine if this man speaking up there is qualified. It took me a long time to actually come to that realization. But and for a few years it was just a vague sense of this might not be the right fit or like I don't fit in here. I'm not like I'll never be like one of this flock here and feeling like, oh, there's something about me that's not that's, I don't know, for whatever reason, not cut out for this community or not fitting in

Starting point is 01:03:48 or not feeling fully tied in. And it's easy, I think, for anyone joining any kind of religious organization or group to have those feelings about yourself where you feel like, oh, I'm never going to fit in. It's a me thing. It's like there's something wrong with me that I, that I'm just, I don't I can't click like these other people are clicking here. I began to notice that as I was reading, and throughout this time I was also becoming more serious, more deepened in my faith, reading the Bible more.

Starting point is 01:04:23 And I realized I am constantly referencing how I should be interpreting each of these passages. You know, you'll often hear in Protestant circles that the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things. Just real quick. I don't think that's true at all. Well, I was realizing, oh, my goodness, I must be,

Starting point is 01:04:44 nothing is plain to me. None of these things are plain. But just pause there a moment because I had Russell Brain on the show recently, and he said that. I'm like, where are you getting that from? The main things are the plain things? To me, that's a necessary consequence of adopting Solar Scriptura. In other words, if Soliscriptor is true,

Starting point is 01:05:01 then it has to be the case that the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things. And yet nowhere in Scripture does it teach that the main things will be the plainstructural. things. In fact, we have many evidences of people misunderstanding scripture, needing scripture explained to them. Peter says that many things that Paul writes are difficult to understand, which the ignorant leads. There's many references to things being difficult to understand, requiring more explanation for the parables, et cetera. Yeah, so I was finding that things were not exactly plain. And what I think they are referring to is I do think you can arrive at the doorstep of mere Christianity by reading the New Testament. To the extent that you believe it, it becomes clear

Starting point is 01:05:45 that Jesus rose from the dead and if that's all it takes. Sure. But. Yeah, but yeah, it's funny though, because then you have to, like, there's nowhere in scripture that gives you a list of what the main things are. Right. Who's coming up with what the main things are? And as you say, if it's just, well, God exists, Jesus existed, Jesus is God. Sure, those are main things, but why think those are the only main things? Well, any, I was spending a lot of time feeling like I was spinning my wheels and that, okay, maybe this is, again, a me thing that I'm just not, for whatever reason, able to discern the correct meaning.

Starting point is 01:06:23 But then I thought to myself, I'm not a stupid person. That was a lovely realization, isn't it? Yeah, I'm not the brightest, but I'm not the stupidest either. And, you know, wouldn't the church, the church that Christ created be accessible to everyone? Something that's always, I've always thought is, you know, Christianity needs to be accessible to intellectually disabled people, to children. The philosopher and my grandma. Yes. And so if there's a requirement to either do copious amounts of research into ancient text,

Starting point is 01:07:02 That's excluding people. You know, you can say, oh, that they're just not devoted enough. No, you're excluding people if you're requiring heavy lifting, intellectual lifting that intellectually disabled or children or illiterate people can't do. And so I realized, you know, whatever church is the true church, whatever gospel is the true gospel is going to be accessible to not just me, but everyone broadly, every member of humanity. And so I thought, I don't, I don't think it's necessarily right that I'm, I don't, I don't think that it's a normal expectation that we should be researching these ancient texts and going, I mean, I enjoy reading some of the church fathers, but it's, I was spending a lot of time trying to figure out what the truth was. Yeah, that you had the right theology that your pastor was being faithful to scripture. Yes. And I was starting to feel like. You know, I don't think that this is the path that would be the most welcoming to the most.

Starting point is 01:08:11 And I know it's a narrow road. And you think there's all these counterfactual phrases where maybe it is a narrow road. And we have to just work really hard to understand this stuff. And that's part of it. But to me, that felt like a work. You know? Interesting. I mean, it is a lot of work to, you know, do lots of back research.

Starting point is 01:08:37 And then, of course, I would find conflicting explanations for different verses. And I found myself having to decide which authority to go with. I was increasingly interested in Catholicism because of their social stances on things. I couldn't help but notice that they, were rock solid on certain things that were unpopular with the culture, but were proven right over time. You know, some of their social teaching is unpopular. Even not just with like liberals when it comes to abortion and gay marriage, but you

Starting point is 01:09:20 also find, you know, the giving to the poor and... I mean, that's what kind of makes me like an odd duck here. It's like, you know, I think the dropping of the A-bomb was an evil act. perpetrated by America and that I Yeah, I mean It puts me in weird odds with these pro-American Daily Wire employees who I love. In other words, there's just enough in Catholic teaching

Starting point is 01:09:40 that's going to piss off the liberals and the conservatives. Yes, and there is something unique about that that I observed about the Catholic Church that they hold these stances that are almost universally unpopular with someone. And they've held them steady for many years and over time I frequently would find that they're probably right. Even the ones that go against my impulses, I would sort of have this inclination that,

Starting point is 01:10:08 no, I think my impulse might be wrong there. And I think... Can you think of a specific example? The one that comes to mind sometimes that I really struggle with is their stances on immigration sometimes. I mean, I'm not a fan. Anyone who's listening to Morningwear, we're not, I'm not a huge fan of mass migration, certainly not unlawful migration. Open borders, stupid idea.

Starting point is 01:10:29 Terrible. But, you know, when there are people who are facing serious, serious persecution in other places, yeah. Wealthier nations have an obligation. I do feel that, yeah. I don't know what that looks like on a policy level. Right. And certainly I'm not a policy wonk, so I'm not the person to even ask about that. But I just had the inclination that, you know, my own natural tendency to be like, shut the door.

Starting point is 01:11:02 You know, we have to, we have to protect what's ours. I did feel like, okay, like that probably needs to be softened or I should consider softening that. It's so good. It's almost like the Catholic Church prevents you from violently flip-flopping or seesawing, right? Because often what we're doing in politics is we're reacting strongly to things. And so that might be true even as so-called gay marriage was being pushed down our throat, right? Like there's a tendency to want to lash out against that or against LGBT people or something. And then you've got the church saying, like, we have to love people made in the image and likeness of God.

Starting point is 01:11:40 Okay, yeah, that's right. I have to do that. And I appreciated and respected that about the Catholic Church that has a moderating force on people in that regard. And I can actually remember, I think, the precise moment. that I decided I'm not just interested in being Catholic. I don't want to spend another day not Catholic. Whoa. And that was, I think it was maybe September or October of last year.

Starting point is 01:12:06 And at the time, I actually, it was only in retrospect that I looked back and I was like, why did I? I went home. So it was, I think it was the day that John MacArthur died. The preacher who was so formative for so many people. And I think it's another one of those moments that was like something percolating in the back of my mind that clicked something together. But I had this realization that we have to be catechized by someone. We all have an authority that we turn to. A tradition that we turn to when we are interpreting the Bible.

Starting point is 01:12:48 And so if I need to choose an understanding. an authority that I'm going to put myself under, okay, there's no escaping it, so who am I going to choose? And that's when I realized, okay, having a pope isn't the craziest thing, a structure isn't the craziest thing. And there are many other reasons why I believe that now. But the idea of like being a free-range Christian, I realize that was not viable for me, at least. And I'm going to need to choose like my guiding authority for how I'm going to interpret some of these sticky passages. And certainly I have no negative feelings towards John MacArthur.

Starting point is 01:13:35 It was more just the high profile nature of his death and realizing that he was that guiding authority for so many people. And I realized, okay, even as a Protestant, there are still authorities. And it's not that John MacArthur was their religious authority, but. But, of course, he was a conduit for some of the statements of faith for his denomination. And anyway, that was, I think, the precise moment that I realized I wanted to come onto the authority of the Catholic Church. And since then, I was more open to even just looking into it further. And since then, I realized there's so many more reasons to be Catholic even than just that.

Starting point is 01:14:21 But that was the like breakpoint moment for me. And then, I mean, even just in the months since then. And these were some things I observed even earlier. But there are many, many reasons why the Catholic Church, I think, shows the markers of being Christ's church. The 2000-year legacy, it's the oldest institution in humankind. It's not even close. I mean, I think there's some businesses in Asia that were like six or seven hundred years old. but the Catholic Church is like

Starting point is 01:14:52 That's cute The Catholic Church is yeah 2,000 years old and still going Yeah Despite the knuckleheads Who have helped run it and tried to ruin Yes Despite all of the corruption

Starting point is 01:15:02 And the things that no doubt Truly did happen I forget who it was It says the Catholic Church has been on its last legs Since Pentecost Yeah And even by You know there are some people

Starting point is 01:15:15 Who will say that the Catholic Church Didn't start until say 300 BC or 80 or 600. There's many different things you'll hear tossed around. Even under those parameters, it's still, yeah, it's still the oldest. What an objection. It's not 2,000 years old. It's 1900. Right. Okay. Right. Which isn't true. What were you reading or what videos were you watching as you were beginning to open up to Catholicism that helped convict you? Oh gosh. I'm so bad at recalling. details like this, you know, in later.

Starting point is 01:15:54 I mean, I like Trent Horn. Me too. Yeah, I really like him. And then, gosh, what's the other one that I, Joe. Ashmaier, come on. Yeah. I've had both of them in studio. Yes.

Starting point is 01:16:05 Aren't they terrific? Yes. And I, of course, I've watched clips of your show. I never have time for like whole episodes. Yeah. That's okay. I forgive you. That's all right.

Starting point is 01:16:13 No, but I love a breakout clip. Yeah. So you're watching these folks and you're like, okay, this kind of, this is reasonable. These people aren't idiots. This makes sense. Is that? Yes. And so part of the reason that I was gravitating toward Presbyterian churches in general was not just Tim Keller, but also that I really liked the intellectual approach that they took. I love a Presbyterian sermon to this day.

Starting point is 01:16:35 I mean, at least of the pastors, I've seen just beautifully crafted and they really hit home in a wonderful way. and they unpack scripture in a beautiful way. So I love the intellectual rigor that they bring. And I found that there are a few denominations that really focus on intellectual rigor. And I definitely recognize that Catholicism is one. Presbyterian is another. And I mean, there are many evangelical pastors and apologists online that I have great affection for.

Starting point is 01:17:16 Me too. Still really enjoy listening to their stuff. But I definitely knew I needed a church that was going to feed my mind as well as everything else. And so when I was choosing between what felt like, I mean, say, Presbyterian and Catholicism, it really came down to me becoming more aware that the PCA church is Calvinist. And I didn't, for reasons, even that trace back to things I've already discussed, I really, I need a church that recognizes free will and human choice in their morality. And there are things about Calvinism that I feel like to me erase that or give it more of a confusing backseat.

Starting point is 01:18:04 You know, it's sort of like you're a flesh robot that God controls as opposed to a flesh robot that is randomly, you know. moving atoms. But either way, you have determinism in some regard. And so what I liked about the Catholic Church is that it recognizes the human person as having agency. And I've just always felt that to be made in the image of God, I think agency is a foundational factor that it can't be missing. You had said earlier that you like contrary views. Sometimes, yeah. Were you afraid, or are you afraid now that part of the reason you became Catholic was just because it seemed like the most contrarian thing you could do in this in Nashville and among your friends and family? It's never really crossed my mind that being Catholic would be that contrary. I think it's actually

Starting point is 01:18:51 having a little bit of a boomlet in Nashville. So I've seen many people become Catholic. And that also put it on my radar as, oh, it's something I should consider. So it feels less contrary from my vantage point at the moment. I mean, definitely on some level with my family, although in a weird way, they actually, I think, are more supportive of Catholicism than evangelicalism, just because we have family roots with Catholicism and we've done many masses together. And also just culturally, I think evangelicals kind of irk secular people more than Catholics do. They just seem too enthusiastic. From a secularist point of view, it's like, just calm down.

Starting point is 01:19:37 Yeah. When actually Catholicism is the greatest threat. To your atheistic secularism. But it comes in under the radar. Was there a doctrine or a set of doctrines that you struggled to accept or still struggled to accept? So when I look back to the early days when I was considering Catholicism, definitely it was the papacy. The idea that you would have a human hierarchy and just the sort of base nature of having a human administration, especially when you have this history of pedophilia and, you know,

Starting point is 01:20:11 some of the popes that were just totally bonkers and off the walls, awful in the Middle Ages. I'm actually going to do a whole episode coming up where all we do is discuss the worst popes in history. And they were so much worse than you could. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's way worse than you think. Yeah, it's so crazy. So that one I think was hard. What's kind of interesting is I think many people coming from,

Starting point is 01:20:36 an evangelical background, they have a hard time with the Marian dogmas and some of the miracles that are claimed. Those I don't have a huge problem with. My feeling is, look, if God performs miracles, he performs miracles, who's to say that he hasn't performed them in the modern day? And if several labs are saying there's cardiac tissue in this wafer, who am I to say, you know, at a certain point. It's like you're being obstinate to not accept it. I totally understand why people would be skeptical of miracles. And it takes a very high level of proof for me, too, to believe the thing. But at a certain point, I mean, the Shroud of Turin is, that is like so beyond the stratosphere of proof that I need just in that one item. Yeah. So I kind of just accepted, okay, if this is the church,

Starting point is 01:21:31 yeah, you're going to have more miracles. What else? What transubstantiation? I don't know. If that's what they've been saying since the early days. Yeah, you have. Yeah, it's bananas. I've been a Catholic for 26 years now.

Starting point is 01:21:50 That's not true. I was baptized as a baby, so 42 years. But I came back to the faith when I was 17. And I know this just sounds like the sort of thing that somebody with a public Catholic channel should say to establish his credibility. but it is the fact that the longer I've been Catholic, the more I've grown in my faith,

Starting point is 01:22:07 the more I've looked into it, the more convicted I really do feel about it. Yeah. It's like when you're like, oh, this is true, true. Yeah. That kind of thing. Well, and part of what I meant when I was talking about which authority

Starting point is 01:22:21 are you going to fall under, it also comes down to who do you believe when it comes to those early days? Do I trust the first, So either someone in 1600 or 1550 or whenever it was has a clearer, more clear-eyed vantage point of the early church or those very first Christians have a better vantage point. I'm going to trust those early first Christians purely based on, you know, proximity. And I just, when you put yourself in the position of if you were there when the Messiah came and. died and rose again, just think about it. Even though the gospels are written in such a sparse way

Starting point is 01:23:05 with no details, you are so hungry for the details. You are asking everyone, you know, in the local area, people who came up with Jesus, his peers, aunts, uncles, you are like scrubbing them for every detail that you can get. And you were remembering those details like the most important thing you've ever heard. And so, of course, we're going to have this vast repository of knowledge beyond the very basic high points that are written down in scripture. And so I don't want to turn my back on that knowledge that those early Christians had. And that's captured in the church. And when we read the book of Acts, we see a hierarchy.

Starting point is 01:23:49 Yes. We see that Paul and Barnabas go up to the elders, which is crazy to think that Paul had an elder. if you were to ask where is the church, it wouldn't have been, well, we're all the church. Like, it's just the invisible bond of believers, which there's truth to that. But it's like, no, I know what you mean. And there's a hierarchy here. And what's funny is often I'll see Protestants appeal to the Bereans, you know, who searched the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was correct. And people will say, like, that's why they were praised.

Starting point is 01:24:18 We should be like them. But if the Bereans had of searched the scriptures and then disagreed with Paul, they would have been wrong and would have been condemned for it. So I just see that continuing. Yeah, so this idea of the individual Christian, first of all, that wasn't even a possibility in the early church, you and your Bible. And, you know, verses about in Matthew,

Starting point is 01:24:41 I think there's one or two, where they're given the power to bind and loose. And I kept having to look up, what does that mean? Yeah. So why else would they say that? I mean, there are many little things like that. But it's not even, truly it's. it's not even from my study and looking into various verses because I've certainly looked at all the verses that Protestants and Calvinists will point to. And I understand how they came to their point of view. And I've read the same ones from a Catholic point of view. And it comes down to who do you trust more because there is a great explanation for each. But that's a good point. It comes down to I'm going to go, I'm going to go with the ones that have had the oral tradition since the beginning.

Starting point is 01:25:23 and purely just based on, I trust those early Christians were faithful with passing forward the information correctly. I think it was important enough to them. If you truly saw someone die and rise again and perform all these miracles, that's going to be the most important information. You're going to commit every detail to memory and you're going to make sure your child hears it. And they are going to make sure their child hears it. With that level of proximity to the events, I think there is probably a high degree of fidelity of passing on those details. Or at least that's what I'm putting my trust in just because I have to choose. There was a book, it was against the Catholic Church.

Starting point is 01:26:06 I think it was called Roman Catholicism. No, I forget the author. But his argument was that the church started at the Council of Nicaea, you know, where all the pagan priests were allowed to come into the church. And that's where we get all of these aberrations. But when you read the earliest church fathers, even prior to that period, 325, you see that much of what the church teaches today was explicit there or in seed form. Like for me, one of the things I find compelling is baptismal regeneration is so clear in the early church. There's not one church father that I found who interprets John 3,5, unless you're born of water and spirit, as something different than you have to be baptized. Yeah, I mean, right, you'll hear people now say born of water as in like amniotic fluid.

Starting point is 01:26:52 Yeah, but that's just not the interpretation of the earliest Christians. So this, to your point, I'm like, well, who do I? Who would have changed it? And when would they have changed it? Why do you want me to go with Zwingli, you know, in the 16th century? Like, he's the one who, I think one of the ones who full on denied baptism regeneration, but it's like, because to your point too, it's like, it can be very confusing because we can agree that Prima facie, the verses the Protestant puts forth or the other Protestant who disagreed with this Protestant or the Catholic puts forth can. Like they all kind of make sense. Like I see what you're getting at.

Starting point is 01:27:20 Yeah. The question isn't that we don't know what the verses say. It's that what do they even mean? So having a church that can kind of make that decision for you, just that's nice. Right. I mean, we have a constitution, but we also have to have a Supreme Court that calls the balls and the strikes. Yeah. You can't just have a document that stands alone.

Starting point is 01:27:39 You have to have a living authority that can interpret it. Yeah. I'd like to know about like the practice of the faith. Like, what's that been like for you? So I was surprisingly moved when I really wanted to get confirmed just to like get my Catholic life moving forward. I just I see it as an investment in, I imagine myself being like an old lady who is still going to Mass. And I just wanted to set that foundation for myself for the rest of my life. And I wanted to get started.

Starting point is 01:28:12 And I was very surprised by how much. moved I was at my confirmation. Oh, I'm going to cry. Yeah, there's like, there's something about taking communion. Can you tell me about it? Gosh, I don't know what else to say other than it feels like that. I mean, that was missing for me. And as much as I loved some other church services,

Starting point is 01:28:42 and sometimes I really loved having a message feel tailored to me, I now the thing I look forward to most which is surprising is the Eucharist and getting communion at the end that that feels like an essential part of church to me now and what another thing I kind of just love about the Catholic church and you you kind of hinted at it because that no one will come up and talk to you is I'm not there for them to entertain me or to chase a certain feeling um like Like sometimes you go through the motions of Mass and you're like, okay, well, I guess I checked it off for this week. And then other times it's like extremely moving.

Starting point is 01:29:26 And no matter what, the church is consistent. It's like you just keep showing up. And it's not about what the church can do to entertain you and leave you with this like feeling of worship. It's you keep going back to the well. And it's the job of the well to stay consistent. And it's your job as an individual that you have to be consistent in coming back to the well. And there are days that the service really hits. And then there are days where I'm like, where, you know, I don't have a tremendously moving experience.

Starting point is 01:30:07 But I just like the practice of, we're going to do this every week for the rest of my life. And like that's where the beauty comes from. Yeah, I see it as an analogous to my date night with my wife. Yeah, oh, I talked about this with you. Did you? Yeah. When we, we talked about that a while back, yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:30:26 Where, yeah, sometimes it's like. Moving and beautiful and meaningful and then sometimes it's not. And it's like, but I'm not disappointed when it's not. It's just what we do. Yeah. And that actually is one of the things that has convinced me that this is the way the church was meant to be. and a sign that this is Christ's church is it's set up and the traditions are set up in such a way that they meet regular people where they're at where a regular person can go to church every week. They can find it in their time to go to a mass every single week.

Starting point is 01:31:05 And that's on them that they have these instructions that really to participate. It's not your salvation that you're chasing after. It's like your instruction is to have a healthy spiritual hygiene. You show up every week and the church is going to be consistent for you with these procedures that we go through. I mean, even the kneel stand, the responses that we do when the priest says certain things, there is something meditative about it that you can. Sure, there are weeks that you're going through the motions. And then there are times that like some of those small motions they will call you back. and bring you to a place of really profound prayer.

Starting point is 01:31:47 And what's wonderful about it is it gives you this very clear blueprint of what you do as a Catholic, because we're just these immortal beings that we will get distracted and we will spin off into all our other activities. But the church says, okay, just do these things. This is what we do in a mass. And like, just show up once a week and do your confession, you know, at least once a year, ideally more. but it gives you a checklist of things that you have to do, which seems from like to the Protestant mind, oh my gosh, that's so workspace. That's so. That's liberating. But it actually meets the human person where they are in a really profound way because we kind of need those guardrails.

Starting point is 01:32:30 And it allows you to, I mean, even like I've talked about people who are illiterate or people who are. for whatever reason, can't access some of the more heady type sermons that you might get other places, it meets people on a very basic level. Anyone, whether you are Einstein or, you know, ravaged by dementia, anyone can go through the mass and go through the sit stand and the and the saying and then go up and get your communion. So yeah, I do feel like there's a beauty in that. love reading books to my kids. We read all sorts of fairy tales, the Russian fairy tales, the Brother Grins fairy tales. We've read some modern books as well and it can be difficult, honestly, to find a good modern book these days, one that's well written and has a profound

Starting point is 01:33:29 and beautiful story. But a lot of books these days, even ones that are written for a younger audience, involve immorality or bad language. And, you know, when I say, immorality. I'm talking about unnecessary immorality where it seems like the point is to flout Christian morality. Well, that's one of the reasons I wanted to tell you about Cazendale and the Admiral of the Air. It's a thrilling steampunk adventure filled with danger, mystery and memorable characters from monks and mercenaries to giant salamander poachers and a runaway aviatrics. At the center of it is Cazendale, a young man suddenly forced to leave behind his aristocratic life and navigate a perilous new world. It's a story where suspense, adventure and theology work together naturally.

Starting point is 01:34:17 Best of all, it's clean enough to enjoy with your favorite young adults or older children, because the only thing missing from this journey is, as I say, profanity. Look for Cazendale and the Admiral of the Air on Amazon or Audible, or visit loganhawoodauthor.com to learn more. I think it was Chesterton who said the church is shallow enough for a mouse and deep enough. You've heard that for an elephant. Yeah. Yeah, no, there is there's something nice about not having to feel, and I'm not accusing Protestants of trying to do this. But it's nice to not have to try to manufacture emotions during a church service.

Starting point is 01:34:57 Yeah, there's no expectation for you to feel something. No one asked you. You know what I think? Yeah. Even like I went to confession and Holy Mass this morning and it was such a grace and it was beautiful. But I mean it's like, you know, sometimes I'll go and it's like whatever. Right. It's moving to the point of tears and the point is just to do it.

Starting point is 01:35:16 What was your first confession? Was that your first confession? I'm not going to confess it here. Oh, good. But you were baptized as a baby. Did you have your first confession as a dog? Yeah, I had no. I had my first confession earlier this year before.

Starting point is 01:35:28 Come on. Yeah. What was the, that's, it's amazing. What was the preparation like and what was that experience like? Oh my gosh, I was so nervous. Yeah. Did you know the lifetime of things and also the guilt about, oh my gosh, and I've forgotten all these things. And there were things that I did that I had blinders at the time that I won't even remember that I did them.

Starting point is 01:35:46 And, you know, I still have some anxiety about, about, oh, my gosh, all those things I forgot to. Well, do you know that Aquinas addresses this since this is plants with Aquinas? Yeah. And in the Sumer, he says that if you forget a sin, it's forgiven. Something like if you. If you're withholding it. Yeah. If you're intentionally, I did this, but I'm not going to confess it because I'll be embarrassed or something, then the confession is invalid.

Starting point is 01:36:10 But if you walk out of the confessional and realize, oh, gosh, I totally forgot that I, you know, whatever, then it's forgiven. He uses the analogy of he who bears his wounds to the doctor can be assured that he has healed, something to that effect. So that's nice. You don't have to worry. Isn't that good? Yeah. Yeah, and that's another one of those things where I think I can understand from the outside. It appears very works based. But from the inside, it feels more almost like spiritual hygiene where like these are things that are helping me access fruits of the spirit. They're not, yeah, they're not like a checklist of, you know, trying to avoid going to hell. It's I'm trying to build fruits of the spirit. And these things are concretely. helpful to that end. And the irony is I actually felt more pressure to have like the right

Starting point is 01:37:08 intellectual feeling or stance of like a sufficient amount of repentance, a sufficient understanding of, you know, how violent, worthless I am without God. There's when you are coming from more of a Calvinist framework, there's almost like no amount of repentance will ever be sufficient. And as a flawed human, I have insufficient repentance. And I was very cognizant of that, that, shoot, I am not, I'm not meeting the benchmark for salvation here because I don't truly, truly believe in my own wickedness, even though, like, intellectually I know probably I am wicked. Anyway, I... There's a lot of freedom. Like, the sacrament of confession only requires you to have imperfect contrition.

Starting point is 01:38:10 And namely, if you're just here because you're afraid of hell, that's good enough. Just to confess and agree not to do it again. That'll do. You don't have to feel anything. You have to cry. You don't have to feel moved. Yeah. Right. And that's sort of the interesting. irony of having all these like little works that you have to do for Catholicism is they almost like unburden you in a way. Now I know some, I tell you what, I'm so grateful that I was born and raised a Catholic because it just feel like, it feels like it's in my blood.

Starting point is 01:38:42 I do see people converting with tremendous zeal only to start a YouTube account only to leave. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. I think that takes place with a lot of new converts, right? Because especially like it's not in the roots yet. It's not in your being. It's this thing you've adopted with great enthusiasm. And it ends up being like this internet phenomena where you don't actually insert it into a community of people you live with.

Starting point is 01:39:04 It's just like online aesthetics and aura or something. And that's easy to spin away from. But anyway, I do think there's some validity to some complaints I hear when people convert to Catholicism. They're very overwhelmed by how much is there. Lewis said famously that the Catholic views the Protestantism as a barren desert. Like, where is everything? And the Protestant views the Catholic church as an overrun jungle. Like, why is there so much stuff?

Starting point is 01:39:36 Yeah. So many different devotions, the Divine Mercy Chapel, the Rosary, this medal. It reminded me of Hinduism, actually, I remember a while ago, like how ornate and there was all this stuff going on. And you have, yeah, there was like parallels that I remember probably. 10 years ago I had when I was taking that comparative religion class I remember thinking there was like some comparison there where it just felt like almost busy yeah with stuff there's a lot going on so have you found that overwhelming like how is how have you adopted a prayer rule or have you you know and then I see it as a lifelong endeavor that I don't that's nice marathon yeah yeah it's a

Starting point is 01:40:13 marathon I don't know all there's all these responses that you say when the it's almost like when you go to a Preds game and like the players do this one thing and we have to like stomp or do what things that you have to learn. And Catholic Church is kind of the same where you have to know all these different responses that when the priest says this, you say this and there's all these different permutations. And I don't know any of those. I mean, I know a few. I know the ones that we use a lot. Yeah. But no, I actually don't feel any kind of strong urgency. This is a long game for me. Yeah. When I was confirmed and when I decided to finally return to the church, so even before I was confirmed, I had a very profound sense of feeling like it's a homecoming where, you know, I don't have to protest anymore.

Starting point is 01:41:00 You know, I'm going back to going back to the well. And I, yeah, I have no real interest in doing this for a little while and burning out. To my knowledge, you know, you can never predict life perfect. but I feel like I'm a pretty permanent Catholic. Praise God, but we're glad to have you. We need all the people, you know, my friend, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, I've quoted this analogy so many times that my audience, I'm sure is sick of it. But he had this great analogy, and maybe I've even shared it with you, so tell me to shut

Starting point is 01:41:35 up if I have. But he said that he doesn't see the church as a sort of pristine ship sailing across the oceans of time with the perfect specimens of Christian manhood and womanhood. And how that's often how Catholics want to see the church. You know, he's like, no, no, like, I see it as like the mast is broken and there's a cannonball through the side and you just met a sailor and he looks drunk and it's- But by some miracle, it's still here. And he's like, grab a bucket, like start getting the water out. We need all hands on deck in a way.

Starting point is 01:42:07 I don't know. I actually, maybe it's because I'm like a pessimist melancholic. I actually find that analogy really hopeful. Like, everything's on fire. Great to have you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. All right. And then, okay, so this is really interesting to me. Like, maybe I'm misreading this, but it feels like you're clearly a very independent sort of thinker. I mean, we've talked about several stages where you've kind of made a decision and it hasn't been strongly influenced by people around you. Is that right? And then do you have Catholics in your life who you're kind of journeying to the Lord? I have some friends that I go to church with every week.

Starting point is 01:42:44 Oh, good. But our friendship actually flourished when I became Catholic. So I would say I didn't have any peers that I was going through this with. However, I would say I'm in a social circle where there are people at various stages of their Catholic journey. Many cradle Catholics who are one of my good friends is always wanting to get back in. And I have another friend who joined. She's just a few months behind. me and we kind of independently realized that we wanted to be Catholic and it was a kind of fun

Starting point is 01:43:19 surprise. It was like, oh, you too. Yeah. So I do have an independent streak for sure. But yeah, I've been really pleased to like find my people and have a have that as like an additional layer of friendship with with some friends that I already had. Yeah. Have you read Lewis's screw tape letters?

Starting point is 01:43:44 Oh, yeah. You know how he talks about telling, I think, is it a worm or screw tape? Who's the younger one? I forget. Screw tape, probably. I think. Telling the, you know, trying to put it in the mind of the Christian that everyone here at church, it should be somehow disagreeable, that he should have, like, in his mind this idea of people in Togas or something like that.

Starting point is 01:44:05 And that he should be really kind of quite repulsed by this prig and this woman and that kind of thing. And I thought that was brilliant. And I see something like that happening today because I think most of us spend a great deal of our time online. And so we follow those Instagram accounts or what have you with a certain vibe, you know, so like the Catholic or the Orthodox vibe with the beards and the incense and the cathedrals. And it's tempting to kind of live in that space where you're just sort of almost you kind of get addicted to the aura of Catholicism instead of the brick and mortar, flesh and blood, annoying people. just like you're annoying to them, I'm sure, in certain instances, and I am, I mean, and then having just to live in the messiness of Catholic life. Does that make sense? Yes. And actually,

Starting point is 01:44:53 the church that I attend now, something that was so attractive about it to me is truly I don't know what the politics of my congregation, how they lean. I would guess it's like somewhere in the realm of purple. It's not the most trad. It is the closest to my house. I can see it when I walk out. I walk out of my house and I can see it at the end of my street. And the most important thing about my church is that it is so close and I can get to it and I can knit myself in to the community there. And I love that it is so separate from politics because so much of life becomes polarized.

Starting point is 01:45:36 And so that's a long way of saying, I mean, yeah, maybe there are some trappings of the Catholic. aesthetic, but it's not, like, the specific church that I chose, it is regular people, like regular, like just Nashvilleians in town and families. That's all, that's all it is. So I, yeah, I would say I'm not averse or the Catholic aesthetic had a very small impact on my decision. And I know sometimes I'll hear like outsiders speculate about why. Catholicism is having a boom right now. I'd love your answer to that. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:46:18 So I've certainly read about this in New York Times, maybe even the Atlantic, but just several places. And I've heard even people from other areas of my life that are not Catholic discussing it and speculating about it. And they do talk about, some people talk about the, they like the aesthetic of it because it's anti-modern. I've heard people say, oh, it's the Pope. We have an American Pope. That's it. And I'm like, I don't think that's it at all. Or at least it wasn't for me.

Starting point is 01:46:49 I do think to some extent there is a turn away from modernity. And people want more of an analog lifestyle. And the Catholic Church is kind of the ultimate analog experience in this life. But I think the reason people are coming is because they're realizing it's true. through full stop. I mean, for someone like me, it almost is a direct line from study of science and just some, especially new developments with our understanding of cellular biology where I truly had to reject the modern lens that I had grown up with and realized, okay, maybe these Christians

Starting point is 01:47:37 have been right all along. And then once you reach that sort of stoop where you're like, okay, like Christians have been right all along, I don't, I don't want to rebel against them anymore. I don't want to, I don't want to turn away from authority anymore. I want to now turn back to that ancient authority that's been right that's been right this whole time. So I want to go back to the source, as close to the source as I can get, and that's how you end up Catholic. Yeah, I just had this vision or this idea, as you were speaking, of this ginormous, beautiful castle with like a dozen entrances, and each of the entrance is attractive for different reasons to different people, you know, so some people are attracted by the beauty,

Starting point is 01:48:26 some by the truth, some by the community, some by the, you know, the ancient, I suppose, patristic nature of the teachings. I was talking to a god. I'm talking to a fella recently. He's a Protestant YouTuber who's flirting with Catholicism right now. And he said something like he's afraid he's only attracted to Catholicism because of the beauty. And I said, well, good news. Most of our churches are ugly now. So that'll really help you. You don't have to be too worried about that. You know, beauty is, beauty is not nothing. You know, it's just one of many signs. Yeah. I had this image when I was just initially kind of flirting with the idea of Christianity and trying to figure out where it knits into my overall like worldview, including politics and some of my other stances on things.

Starting point is 01:49:16 And I had this image in my mind of like a bicycle with all these spokes. And I noticed that there were all these different spokes where the culture was running away. from something. So, for example, you know, you have abortion running away from the truth of when life is created, or you have gay marriage where you are rejecting some foundational teachings from our oldest tradition. Or, I mean, those are the two that come to mind. But I was observing there were all these different spokes where the main ambient culture that I was in in Los Angeles, they were all seemingly unrelated, but they had this common enemy, this common direction that they were departing from. And I was realizing, okay, I am increasingly

Starting point is 01:50:13 uncomfortable with all these different aspects of modern society, but all of those are departing from this one central source. So maybe I ought to explore that thing that they are all departing from. I see what you mean. So the hub being the church? Yeah, the hub being Christianity. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:50:35 Because I was noticing all these disparate areas that just on a surface level seemed a bit unconnected. But they all seem to have this common enemy. And I don't mean to say, yeah, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But on some level, it was like, okay, well, what is this thing that all these activist groups are rebelling against on some level? And I traced it back to Christianity, not necessarily a Catholic church at that time. But just like the nugget of there is an authority and the authority has valid dictates over humanity and we need to obey those. I think that the reason the world hates the church is.

Starting point is 01:51:19 because of its teaching on human sexuality. Yeah. And the dignity of life. Yeah. Those two are the big ones. If the church would just have nothing to say about that and let you make, you know, multiple choice, then the world would run out. And hell, probably the teaching of hell. But even there, maybe not.

Starting point is 01:51:34 They don't like sin. Yeah. But that ties into. Because I think we'd be, I think the modern world would be okay if you got hell for racism. So they'd be okay with it in that sense. Yeah. They're just, anything having to do with human sexuality and the dignity of the person and the sanctity of marriage. All of this, of course, is tied up together.

Starting point is 01:51:49 that we can know what the human person is and what the human person is for. There's a tell us to the human person. There's something that the human person is. It's not like a blank canvas upon which you can fashion whatever you want. There's meaning in the person. Yeah, we're beholden to certain real things. And that means you can go afoul of it and, you know, be wrong. There's a good line in the Second Vatican Council.

Starting point is 01:52:16 It says when God is forgotten, the human creature. grows unintelligible. I think that's what it says. Isn't that good? We don't know what we are or what we're for. Well, and you see that with the crisis of meaning

Starting point is 01:52:30 that I have observed this with I have many people in my circle who are still secular and certainly there is definitely lots of exploration of meaning and they're not

Starting point is 01:52:47 devoid of having things that they would call meaning, but there is, like, an anxiety and despair that I have observed in many of secular people in my world that I just, yeah, I don't miss that aspect of, I remember it, intellectually. I remember I think I had a flavor of that. but that's like the key thing that's changed is I don't have I don't have that despair anymore and there's sort of a piece that undergirds life now that I don't think I could have without without God yeah you couldn't praise God that's really beautiful what advice do you have to the man or

Starting point is 01:53:36 woman watching this who is considering Catholicism I would say keep following your curiosity you know, I truly think if you keep researching with an open mind, for me, I, all the roads led here, I can't guarantee that for everyone. And I'm so far from an expert that I can't, I can't say what's true. All I can say is like, this is the horse I'm betting on. And I put a lot of thought into it. And it's brought me so much peace. Even just coming home to the church. and realizing I don't have to search anymore, and I don't have to evaluate churches anymore. I don't have to worry about policing my priest or whoever to make sure. I mean, of course, to some degree we do still,

Starting point is 01:54:29 but to make sure they're really preaching the real thing, it's lightened my load. And now I feel like it almost is like my friend put it this way. It's like closing some tabs in your browser. I don't have to worry anymore. I like that. That's nice. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:54:49 Now I can put my trust that the people at the helm of the ship are doing right. And I can I can put faith in them. And I can carry on living my life in the things that I specialize in and that I do. Speaking of you mentioned Trent Horn earlier, I'd recommend people go subscribe to Trent Horn, Joe Heschmeyer. But Trent has an excellent book. Could Why Wear Catholic? So excellent little book. It's the number one book I recommend to people who are considering Catholicism.

Starting point is 01:55:17 Really? So I read years ago, before I was even really seriously considering Catholicism, I read Why I'm Catholic, the Chesterton essay. And I'd be interested actually to revisit it now after these years have transpired. But I will read that. Yeah. Yeah, it's great because it doesn't put the reader on the defensive. It's not called why you should be Catholic, although of course that's what he thinks.

Starting point is 01:55:45 But it's more like, look, here's why we're Catholic. And you might agree with it. Maybe you don't, but here's at least the rationale. And that's something I say to my friends who are Protestant who are looking into Catholicism. I tell them to read the catechism of the Catholic Church. And I think they hear that and they think it is a replacement for scripture. But once you kind of get the Catholic explanation for things, a lot of your immediate like knee-jerk reactions and

Starting point is 01:56:12 defenses are like, okay, no, relax. And the reason I say, read the catechism is if you're going to disagree with the church, you should at least know what she teaches. Right, as opposed to your idea of what. Yeah, or what some Protestant, well-meaning, probably Protestant YouTuber, thinks the Catholic Church teaches.

Starting point is 01:56:27 Yeah. I mean, I'm still learning what the Catholic Church teaches in some way. So it's, there's a lot to unpack and a lot to learn. So it's hard to write them off immediately without some real study. Hard to write what off? The Catholic Church in general, yeah.

Starting point is 01:56:44 Don't do that, yeah. Good. All right, well, thank you for coming on. Tell people about your beautiful program, which I watch, which I watch this morning on the treadmill. Yeah, so I'm the host of Morning Wire here at Daily Wire. It's a daily news podcast about 15 minutes, and we try to keep things really succinct.

Starting point is 01:57:02 You wouldn't believe it from watching me talk today, but we are a very brief, straight-to-the-point news program every day, seven days a week. Great. Thanks, Georgia. Thank you. What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire day? With pray.com, you can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the pray.com app today.

Pints With Aquinas - Why I Had to Become Catholic (Georgia Howe) | Ep. 594

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