Theology in the Raw - 791: #791 - What’s Wrong with Calling it the “Chinese Virus,” and Other Controversial Topics: Eugene Cho

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

Oh boy, are you in for a good one! Preston and Eugene talk about politics, so-called “Chinese viruses,” multiethnic churches, and much more in this controversy-laden podcast. We also talk about Eugene’s latest book Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk, which helps Christians navigate the cesspool of partisan politics with truth and grace. Eugene Cho is a pastor, speaker, author, visionary and humanitarian. A son of Korean immigrants and a natural entrepreneur, Cho spends much of his time circling the globe speaking about the intersection of faith, justice, and leadership. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If the coronavirus chaos has not completely tanked you financially, and if you have a generous heart and have been blessed by the show and you desire to support Theology in the Raw, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw and support the show for as little as five bucks a month. And in return, you get access to premium content, stuff like monthly podcasts, monthly blogs, and just entrance into the highly esteemed Patreon community, where you can join 250 plus other contributors to Theology in the Raw, and just feel really good about yourself for supporting the show. Aljinderah and just feel really good about yourself for supporting the show. My guest on the show today is a, oh man, well, you already know who it is because you clicked on the, you

know, the little thing that loads the next podcast. So you already know that I have Eugene Cho on the show. If you don't know who Eugene is, he is, well, you're going to find out. You're going to get to know him in this episode. He is amazing. I just, I've admired this guy so much from a distance. I've only met him once really briefly in person. We've exchanged, you know, some social media back and forth here and there. I love this guy's heart. I just, I mean, he's, yeah, I would, I would, I would, I could easily join arms in ministry with Eugene if God would open up the opportunity. So Eugene is the president elect of Bread for the World, a prominent nonpartisan Christian advocacy organization, urging both national and global decision makers to help and end hunger, both in the United States and abroad. He's also the, was the senior pastor and founder of Quest Church in Seattle, Washington,

which is an urban, multicultural, multi-generational church in Seattle. He was a pastor there for 18 years before he stepped down. He also started One Day's Wage, One Day's Wages, a grassroots movement of people, stories, and actions to alleviate extreme global poverty. He's also the author of two books. His first one is titled Overrated. Are we more in love with the idea of changing the world than actually changing the world? That came out in 2014. His most recently published book, and the one, the main reason why I wanted to have him on the show is,

I'm just so excited about this book. It's titled, Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk, A Christian's Guide to Engaging Politics. Oh, my word. Yeah. And he, you know, as you can imagine, anytime you're a Christian who speaks into politics, you're just going to get attacked. And so we talk a lot about, you know, the controversy that he has had to weather. We talk, well, we talk about multicultural churches. We talk about politics. We talk a lot about politics. actually spend a bit of time on something related to the coronavirus, specifically President Trump's labeling of the coronavirus as the Chinese virus. We talk a lot about that

because Eugene actually called out President Trump on Twitter in a very, I think, forthright, but very gracious manner. And I don't know, It might have been one reason because it got really – it kind of went viral and he ended up writing an article for the Washington Post and I don't think Trump calls it the Chinese virus anymore. Anyway, we had a great conversation. You're going to absolutely love this. You're going to be challenged by it. Please welcome to the show the one and only Eugene Cho.

All right, welcome back to Theology in the Raw. I am here with a pastor, a leader, a writer, a voice that I've just so respected over the years. And I'm so excited about this conversation. Eugene, thanks so much for being on Theology in the Raw. Hey, man, it's a joy to be able to be with you. Well, I don't know if you remember, we sat in the same room together in Chicago at an ECC meeting and unfortunately didn't get a chance to really hang out really. But yeah, that was, we have physically been in the same room together. But this new book thou shalt not be a jerk, a Christian, a Christian's guide to engaging politics. I,

when I saw this and knowing kind of your just dna your tone your perspective i was like okay that that's a book that i was planning on writing that i don't have to write anymore can you give us this the gist of the book and then that's going to probably launch us into all kinds of different possible conversational avenues yeah man again i want to just thank you for having me uh similarly i've really appreciated your voice from afar. There's a handful of leaders that I regularly follow. And so it's been encouraging to see your faithfulness trying to live out with integrity. Yeah, you know, for the book, this is a book that I am still very nervous about.

It's been out now for a couple of months, but it's a book that I quit writing four times as I was writing it. Because I was hoping that as I'm turning 50 this year, I thought I would get to a point in my life where I wouldn't be so afraid of criticism. And as I was writing it, I could just imagine all of the pushback and criticism that I was going to receive from all various sides. And sometimes I feel like for some, I'm just too progressive. To others, I'm just too conservative. It's hard to win when you don't side exclusively on one particular spectrum. But I wrote this book because maybe like you and others, I'm just really concerned around Christians' engagement with politics. There's three, I guess, main groups of people that I

envisioned when I wrote this book. There's one group of folks that have altogether abandoned any sort of engagement with politics. Maybe they're just exhausted, they're paralyzed, and I get that. But I think there is a group of people that see politics as being unspiritual. And so as a result, they've chosen to just abandon it altogether. There's another group of folks that I had in mind, and they're the folks that are obsessed with politics. They might not know it, but it feels like it's become the idolatry of their times. And as a result, we justify everything or everything that we say because of our ideology and politics.

And I think there's another group that I just deem as cultural Christianity. And there's some danger in that where we pepper Jesus on top of our already formed agendas. And I feel like there's a good chunk of American Christians that are kind of captivated by a vision of cultural Christianity, where it's our politics that shapes our theology, as opposed to our theology and Jesus shaping our politics. So that's kind of the framework behind this book. Now, would you say it is truly – and maybe you're not even going for this, but would it be considered a nonpartisan book? Or do you or does the book, for lack of better terms, lean slightly left, slightly right? You know, because I'm sure it's going to be accused of probably – people are going to read it through a certain lens.

So from you, where do you come from politically? Yeah, you know, it's a question that I name and I try to answer in the book itself. As much as I want to say that I am a perfectly bipartisan, non-affiliated Christian where I make Jesus Christ the center of everything that I do, I have to acknowledge like every human being, we have a particular lens that informs the way that we see things. So for myself as an immigrant, as someone that experienced poverty and hunger growing up, as someone that experienced different challenges, it obviously shapes the way that I see things. But the first thing that I want to say is I just want to acknowledge, I think for us as Christians, it's a great question for us to ask so that we can be honest with ourselves and then keep trying to move. How is Jesus Christ, the scriptures,

the Holy Spirit, how is it formative on a daily, regular basis as we engage not just the political conversation, but all things. Now, having said that, I consider myself as an independent voter. I don't have criticisms for those who side Republican or Democrat. I will say that what I'm concerned about is when we pledge blind allegiance to a particular party. And as a result, we stop thinking. And it's kind of like the whole identity politics where we're just going to subscribe to the platform of that party, even as Christians. That's what really concerned me. And so when people practically ask the question, and I've been asked this question hundreds of times since the book came out, are you a Republican or a Democrat? Answer the question. And honestly, I'm not trying to be circuitous. My honest answer is on what issue?

What are we talking about? Because I just can't imagine subscribing in totality to one particular party's platform. And so it depends on the conversation that we're having. I would go on to say that I just think that for some Christians, when we think that a particular political party has a monopoly on the kingdom of God, that statement sounds so blasphemous and dangerous to me. And I hear evidence of that. I heard it when I was a younger Christian, all Christians must vote Republican. And then nowadays living in the Northwest in Seattle, I hear the absolute opposite. If you're a true Christian that really cares about

justice, then you have to vote Democrat. And I'm saying, you know what, these binary perspectives really aren't helpful, I think, in the big picture. So you would say you're an independent then. I mean, and maybe your values would depend on what issue you'd cross over. I think I would probably put myself in a similar spot like most, I guess, white American Christians. I was raised staunch Republican. You couldn't be a Christian Democrat if you claim to be, you know, you couldn't be a Christian, a Democrat. If you claim to be a Christian Democrat, then you're clearly weren't a Christian, you know? And now I just, yeah, I echo everything you're saying. It's like, well, what, what issue are

you talking about? I, that question that was raised to you, it seems terribly unfair because it's not like those are the only two parties. I mean, those are the two dominant parties and, you know, but I mean, there is, there are other points of view that wouldn't fit in either or category, right? I mean, well, I would agree with you. But I do think that for many, because we're dominated by a two party system here in the United States, it feels as if you have to choose one of these two, It feels as if you have to choose one of these two, even if you may have some nuanced views. Yeah. And so it's challenging. And I think, again, depending on who you're with and who you're speaking to and where you might be speaking to, you know, you hear those extremes that good Christians, faithful Christians, right Christians, woke Christians will only vote this particular way.

Now, I'm not suggesting that as Christians, we shouldn't have convictions and views. And I have strong convictions about a variety of things. But within those strong convictions, there isn't a party that is able to fully encapsulate kind of my imperfect views and convictions. encapsulate kind of my imperfect views and convictions. Here's my struggle with the political landscape in 2020, or not even 2020, let's say last few years, is that because everything's so polarized, that even our information we're getting on certain candidates, whatever political figures, political figures, policies, it comes through such a biased lens, a distorted lens that, you know, it's hard to even form an accurate opinion about a lot of different things unless you were literally there in the room hearing the full two hour speech or whatever, or really got to know the politician and who they are behind closed. And it's like, because everything comes

so distorted. I'll read two different news outlets talk about the same issue and you you think they're on talk about two different planets you know um so it's hard to even i don't even trust most media outlets anymore you know and and they seem to be i don't know drifted so far in one direction or the other i mean how do you navigate that i mean yeah, yeah, no, I think, I think that's fair. It's a fair assessment. I think in the same way that you asked me the question, you know, like, where do you lean? Because obviously our leanings will impact how we see things and communicate about things. So certainly with the media as well, I think it would be nonsense, naive and ignorant for any person to assume that a news outlet gives us unfiltered

news because that's no longer the day that we live in. The news that we consume and actually enjoy isn't just reporting on the actual facts of that particular event, but we're also asking for commentary. And so that's where I think a lot of news sources make tons of resources, right? I mean, and I talk about this in the book that when our culture runs on the currency of clickbaits, runs on the currency of fear, runs on the currency of division, we're actually kind of commodifying and adding to that. So I'm not suggesting that people altogether abandon news and media. I think it's important for us to do that. I think it is important, though, that we're intentional about not placing ourselves in the echo chambers that we can find ourselves in. And I, again, can easily find myself in that,

while I might not necessarily particularly enjoy, let's just say Fox News. Every now and then, I watch Fox News just to get a different perspective. In the book, I talk about this thing called Make America Dinner Again. And it was started by two Asian American women in the Silicon Valley after the last presidential election. And to their credit, they were devastated by the results of the last presidential election. And they wanted to process it with people who voted for the other party, who voted for President Trump. And as they began to think about this, they realized they didn't know a single person in their life that voted the other way. Now, I actually think if we're honest in our own lives, we end up intentionally or unintentionally, because of

that implicit bias or our kind of particular lens, we end up surrounding ourselves with only people that look like us, think like us, feel like us, worship like us, and even vote like us. And so they put out an invitation to anyone that said, hey, we want to create a safe space. We'll have a meal together. We'll all bring a plate to share. But would you be willing to share with us and with others your views about certain issues? And it's kind of spurred on this movement where around the country, people are getting together over the table, breaking bread and talking about why it is that they have their particular views.

I joined mine in Seattle. It was intense. I don't think anyone's views were changed per se, but I think it was important again to humanize beyond the network news. And I'm not here to vilify journalists or the media, but it's easy for us to have like this big grandiose perspective of media. And yet in our own lives, we actually aren't forming relationships and conversations. That's so good. Do you know Scott Sauls? Almost our mutual friend. I guess I don't know if you know Scott Sauls. Yeah, I do know Scott. You guys sound very similar on this. I mean, his goal is that his church would be split down the middle 50-50 Republican Democrat. If it's too slanted one direction or the other, he feels like that's just an unhealthy

that if it's too slanted one direction or the other, he feels like that's just an unhealthy church. And he's largely, I mean, not he, but I mean, the church is really kind of emanates that. But yeah, you know, as far as news outlets, I've turned more to some podcasts. I try to listen to podcasts across the spectrum because number one, they're not nearly as, well, the ones I listen to aren't nearly as clickbaity. Two, they have long, they can unpack things. They're not just so condensed, you know, and they're typically not dependent, like the financial, you know, a lot of media outlets are so financially dependent upon clicks and views and all these things and the podcasts typically aren't. So I, you know, I'll mention three that I listen to, and somebody's going to get really upset at one of them.

But for the right, I listen to Ben Shapiro. For the left, I listen to Pod Save America. And for somebody who just doesn't fit any box, I listen to Joe Rogan, who would be very liberal on so many issues, and yet he values very much free very much, you know, free speech and has Ben Shapiro on, he gets criticized for that. So he's kind of, you know, hard to pin, but I feel like, you know, when I listened to all three, I get my more honest evaluation from a particular point of view. Um, and I, yeah, I don't know, but whenever I go to the news outlets,

I just like, gosh, I just, there's some that are better than others, you know, but I just, But whenever I go to the news outlets, I just like, gosh, I just there's some that are better than others, you know, but I just it's just hard for me. But let me let you that first group you identified, the one who is kind of disengaged from politics. Yeah, I would probably struggle to resonate. I want to get you that I resonate with that perspective. And yet I understand the concern there. Can you talk me off that ledge there of falling into that first camp of saying, because I do kind of have kind of Mennonite leanings and kind of like, you know, all politicians are Babylonian leaders and we're in exile. So let Babylon do Babylon.

Talk me off that ledge. Sure. Well, again, I can certainly resonate and empathize with that sentiment, especially when it's so exhausting, especially in our climate today. I think even for that reason, about mental health and sanity, I can see that there is some wisdom to kind of not necessarily altogether abandon it, but that we need to also engage the reality of self-care and mental health. And so I would encourage people, we've got to take that seriously. Think about the last month with the reality of COVID-19. Like if you're not careful, you're just sucked into it 24-7.

It builds up fear and anxiety, and we're not out and about caring for our neighbors, caring for our family, walking out in the streets, caring for our bodies, worshiping God, even in the midst of these times. But when it comes to politics, I probably have heard this critique about politics more than any of the other ones in the last 10 years. And it's this. Politics, when it's all said and done, it's just not important. It's not part of our spiritual mandate as Christians. Let's just focus on Jesus. Let's focus on getting as many people into heaven as possible. Now, for me, as an evangelical Christian, I'm all amen to that.

Now, for me, as an evangelical Christian, I'm all amen to that. I just think it's really dangerous when we reduce our theology of the kingdom of God only into ensuring a person gets a ticket into heaven. So for me, it's more about the theology that frames how we engage things like politics. So for me, I actually think that's a dangerous false theology. While I believe in it, I believe that's part of the gospel. When we say that's the totality of the gospel, making sure every single person that we encounter gets into heaven. So I love that part. Jesus saves. I will preach that gospel until my last breath. But I also believe that in the same way, here we are recording this podcast. I hope it's okay for me to name it. We're in Holy Week right now. And so Jesus doesn't just go straight to the cross on Golgotha.

In his last week, there are so many other things that he does. He confronts hypocrisy. He flips over tables. He washes dirty feet. He does healing. He teaches all of these things, including the climax of him dying for us on the cross, gives us this beautiful, compelling, profound portrait of the whole gospel. So going back to politics, I would push back for those who say politics is absolutely important or it's the only thing that matters. It's that extreme, one or the other. It matters, but it's not the most important thing. But I also believe it matters and Christians must engage it because politics informs policies that influence and impact real human people. And the last time that

I saw and read the Bible, people clearly matter to God. I'll just give an example of how Christians engage politics. Think about the women's suffrage movement. Think about the abolition of slavery in the United States. It wasn't just Christians, but we would be, I think, doing a great disservice to history if we didn't note the Christian women who, because of their faith in Jesus, both white and African American women that were pivotal in fighting for the suffrage movement. And that's an example where I think had they not engaged in the affairs of policy and politics and governance, man, we would be in a radically different space than we are today. No, that's OK. I can get on board with that. I mean, yeah, that's super helpful. What I usually say is like, you know, the gospel is profoundly political. It's just not partisan.

is profoundly political. It's just not partisan. And so maybe my concern, when I say, and sometimes we conflate those two, when I say I'm kind of like, I don't say anti-politics, but like nervous about politics, I'm really saying like, I'm nervous about tribal partisanship or investing kingdom advancement in a particular political party, but I'm not at all. I mean, I ditched the whole go to heaven when you die gospel, my mini, when I read N.T. Wright 20 years ago, right? But it is more thinking like, no, the Democrats are really nailing this, or they're the ones that really love the poor, and they're not after power, and they're honest, and the Republicans are the problem, or vice versa. I'm like, at the end of the day, Babylonian leaders are pretty Babylonian and largely, not exclusively, largely it's one big grasp for power.

And I don't know. So I'm a little bit cynical when one party is kind of seen as kind of way more morally superior than the other. And again, it goes back to, I would say, on what issue? You know, from my vantage point, yeah, I'm very, very adamantly pro-life. I'm also very adamantly non-militaristic spending and advancement. So does that make me Republican or Democrat? Well, it depends on the issue. I'm very much about, you know, honoring and valuing and delighting in, and the immigrant, you know, and anything that smells of racism is a disdain for me, which, yeah,

I mean, one political party might err in that more than the other. And I think it's okay for us to name it and to speak truth to power. I think when we begin to get into this identity politics where we feel like only one party is able to encapsulate the moral ethics of the kingdom of God, then we end up sleeping with that political party and we're unable to speak truth to that particular power. And that's, again, one of the things that I cite as one of the Ten Commandments in the book that I mentioned is don't go to bed with political parties. It doesn't mean that you can't enter into politics. It doesn't mean that you can't vote for a particular political party. I think we should engage the system. But when we go to bed with political parties, I just think we lose the ability to speak truth to power.

ability to speak truth to power. And I think we're seeing evidence of that, which is part of the reason why there is some fair criticism of white evangelical Christianity, where we're unwilling to acknowledge, hey, there are things that you are saying or doing that don't seem consistent with kind of what we believe as followers of Jesus. Yeah, that's good. I can get on board with that. So let's turn things just slightly though. You know, we're in the midst of this coronavirus chaos and we're recording this on April 7th. So, you know, depending on when this is released, we could be an all out apocalyptic warfare

or we're like, oh, I think we're kind of, you know, moving past this. But Chinese virus, you have a few things to say about this. And you have said some things. And what are so Trump, several weeks ago, kept referring to the coronavirus as a Chinese virus. Now, I don't, I think he was using Chinese as a geographical designation, which is most viruses are named after the geography where it started, the Ebola, Spanish flu or whatever, even though that was wrongly named. However, Chinese also has primarily an ethnic kind of designation. Talk to us about this.

What are your concerns with St. Colin at the Chinese virus and what have you done about it? Sure. Man, so, you know, some of your listeners might not know this, but I live in Seattle, which was the epicenter of COVID-19 here in the United States. It was incredibly intense. Even as you and I are speaking right now, there are hot spots all around the country. So this is a real, real health pandemic issue, life and death, New York, Louisiana, Detroit. So I'm just thinking about all of these places as you are lifting up communities, lifting up all of our essential workers, not just our health professionals. I'm thinking about, man, bus drivers, grocery store workers that are making, farmers that are making our nation function during this time. So it's been really, really intense.

About, I don't know, 10 days ago, two weeks ago, President Trump in one of those daily briefings referred to COVID-19 as Chinese virus. And I think you summed it up really well. as Chinese virus. And I think you summed it up really well. The reason why it was problematic for me is while there are some, and it's not always, I think it's actually some viruses, diseases have connections to a geographical area. I think Chinese virus is different in this way, is that it also basically labels an entire people group. In the beginning, as some of you might know, is that it was referred to as the Wuhan virus. So that feels a little more acceptable in my opinion. Different news stations called it either Wuhan virus or the Chinese Wuhan virus in the beginning. And even then, I got really nervous about it because we know historically that when you connect a deadly disease or a virus to a

people group, it's inevitably going to have impact on how people interact with that particular people group. And so even in late December, early January, we began to hear stories of Chinese people around the world, including people of Asian descent. Now, obviously, we know that Chinese people are different than Japanese, Singaporean, Malaysian, Korean, but this is the painful reality that I still have to name a lot of folks can't tell the difference so their bias or their animosity towards chinese virus chinese people it began to impact people of asian descent all around the world i'm not talking about like handful of people we're talking about thousands of documented, physical abuse and harassment and violence.

Has there been? I mean, weren't there? Oh, man. Yeah. Just three weeks ago in Texas, there was a story of someone that took a knife and began to slash an Asian, a Chinese family, slashing a two-year-old and a six-year-old in that result as well. year old in that result as well. And so just two weeks ago, three of my personal family members, not my immediate family, my relatives, LA, Toronto, and another relative, they were verbally accosted out in public as well. So for me, it's not just people criticizing, hey, Eugene, you're being soft. This is the world that we live in. Clearly, President Trump meant that to speak to the Chinese government. I get that. I get that there's a political context behind it.

But when for months since January, when the World Health Organization and almost universally, everyone's calling it the coronavirus and COVID-19. I think he could have done a better job separating those two things out and saying, hey, we know that it originated from Wuhan, China. We have some disagreements with the Chinese government. But then to call it the Chinese virus, I think it almost, I don't want to blame anything in terms of the violence or the harassment on Trump. What I would say is it didn't help. And I think during these times, we need pastors, citizens, leaders. We need to realize that there is a real danger for Chinese and Asian people around the world. It is a little, oh, you made a statement kind of in passing about how people don't separate the different countries of Asia. I mean, a little inside scoop from

white evangelicalism. I mean, this happens all the time. People in my tribe would use Chinese and Asian as synonyms almost, you know. And what's so ironic, I mean, you're Korean, right? You're from Seoul. What's so ironic is Korea is like the one country that's kind of killing it. That's a bad metaphor. It's doing really, really well with how to respond. And the U.S. has done, you know, has had a questionable track record in how it's responded.

So to equate, you know, to be yelling and screaming out of Korea just for so many reasons is just it just shows how how much ignorance there is here. I anyway, just for the record, I resonate 100 percent with what you're saying. resonate a hundred percent with what you're saying. It's not, I wouldn't, I get nervous when people use the term racist in such a broad way. I think people who have endured genuine racism, I think when we diminish the potency of that term. So what I'm trying to say is I don't think Trump was in like being racist when he said it. I wouldn't say that. I think he was being very sloppy, insensitive. And while he may have intended it as a geographical designation, goodness, you have to be, I mean, just the basic understanding of language is words can, you have to think not just what do I mean by this,

but how are people going to take it? And you have to be at least self-aware as Donald Trump, that you do have a following that is racist, that is going to take this in a direction you don't want it to go. And you need to go out of your way to speak aggressively to that branch to clarify what you mean by it. Well, let me add this to it. I mean, I think I, you know, in my interview with the Washington Post, they saw a tweet and the Washington Post. Explain that, though. Explain the tweet because we haven't. Sure. Yeah. So, you know, President Trump referred to in one of his many tweets referring to COVID-19 as a Chinese virus. And again, this is a couple of weeks ago in the context of thousands of already documented

verbal and physical abuse and violence. I'm talking really things that are just kind of painful. When you hear, see videos of like Asian people being screamed at in the subways and accosted. When you hear, see stories of like people chasing after elderly Asian grandmas and grandpas, spraying Lysol sanitizer on them as a way to mock them. And so again, I want your listeners to know like this is, it's been documented and it's been happening now for a few months. So when he came out and tweeted that, I wrestled with it. And as respectfully as I could, respectfully as I could, I want to model what I wrote in the book. I don't want to be a jerk and just say, hey, you're horrendous, blah, blah, blah. I just responded to him and said, using it,

calling it the Chinese virus is not acceptable because of these reasons. And so the Washington Post picked it up because that tweet went viral on my Twitter feed. And the Washington Post did an interview with me and I tried to name, I said, hey, I'm not saying that what he said was racist, but I think we have to realize that in a racial divided society, it's possible that that could actually flame as opposed to speaking wisdom into that situation. And man, the responses I got on my Twitter feed from the Washington Post comments, it was pretty brutal. I mean, there were a lot of really harsh comments about you're being too soft, you're being racist, on and on. But here's why I'm still talking about it. And I'm going to get a little serious here. This is why I'm still talking about it.

It's because I think about 1982. In 1982, we're introduced to a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin, 27 years old. And he lived in Detroit, Michigan. He lived in Detroit, Michigan. And during that time, there was real intensity, intense kind of rhetoric between the auto industries in America and the auto industry in Japan. The American auto industry was crumbling. Jobs were being impacted. People were being laid off. The reason why I'm making this connection is I actually think the worst is yet to come.

I'm hoping, like you, that the coronavirus will be under control. But in terms of jobs and economic stability, right, we're in a recession. People's employments are going to be impacted. People's retirement plans are being impacted right now. And so as a result, the reason why people are abusing and harassing Asians is because they're upset, they're angry. And so I go back to 1982. Here's this guy, Vincent Chin, at a bar in Detroit because of his own bachelor's party. He's accosted by a couple white workers who worked in the auto industry, and they take it out on Vincent Chin. The fight begins at the bar, spills out to the parking lot, and then later on, they find him, and they beat him with a baseball bat. He dies four days later.

So for me, Vincent Chin is probably the most prominent Asian American figure in our modern history. And here's my fear. I pray that this does not happen. I'm afraid that I'm going to wake up one of these mornings to a Vincent Chin story. It almost happened two weeks ago with the story in Texas where an Asian family was slashed by a knife. So it's very complex, but I also want your listeners to know it's real and i'm not abdicating that responsibility just to president trump but i want pastors christians leaders to just name the

fact that hey we're living in a very tense time for me as an asian american i'm not just concerned about my physical safety as a result of COVID-19. I won't let my parents go outside for a walk by themselves. I just won't. I won't let my kids go out until I've had a conversation with them again. Hey, don't go out alone. Make sure you look all around me. Am I being, you know, over the top?

I'm just being realistic that in an unjust world, and we know that we've seen stories of injustice impacting other people. I just think as Christians, whether it's with this or with other things, we want to make sure that our theology of Jesus, who honors the dignity of all human beings, that we committed to it, in season, out of season, whether it applies to people that look like me. Because I want your listeners to know I care about this, not because it impacts just me and my family, but as a follower of Jesus. It's that theology that I want to shape how I live, including my politics. Eugene, thanks so much for all that. I was scrolling your Twitter feed to find the tweet. So it's on March 16th. You say, Mr. President, this is not acceptable, calling it the Chinese virus only instigates blame, racism, hatred against Asians,

which you're spot on there here and abroad. We need leadership that speaks clearly against racism, leadership that brings the nation and world together, not further divides. I think that's fantastic. And the article looks like it ran March 17th, titled Evangelical Leader. Yeah, nice clickbaity, you know, denounces Trump for calling. Yeah, not my title. I was actually pretty upset about that title because, again, it just kind of instigates the flame and, man, the feedback that I got from folks. But I think part of the reason why I'm open to talking about it is as tiring as it is, I feel like as leaders, part of our call is to help educate people.

I'm trying to educate people why calling it the Chinese virus. And I've gotten so many responses like well how about the spanish flu yeah and as you noted earlier didn't even come from spain i came from america i just don't think it's wise for us to compare what we know now in 2020 to what it was like in cultural context in 1918 the world has changed dramatically. And so we know more. Well, that's exactly what I was going to say. I mean, just because, I mean, yeah, we've lived under really blatant, public, acceptable, societally speaking, racism.

So you can't refer to things that were kind of pre-civil rights that we got away with. And I think today we are much more sensitive to not just racism generally, but even I'll say for the benefit of the doubt, I'll say unintentional verbs, words and language and speeches that can flare up racism. I mean, you know, my work in sexuality and gender related questions, and this is my starting point is let's understand language. And even though, you know, even though you might think the word homosexual is, you know, you're just using it in a neutral way, that word itself has a history, it has a very kind of clinical, a very unintentionally dehumanizing kind of connotation for a lot of people. So why not just use gay instead of homosexual, even if you don't mean it in a kind of homophobic way? So I just don't understand, Eugene, the pushback. I mean,

what you said here, again, you didn't say, you didn't call him a racist. You just said this can and does instigate race, you know, race, racial slurs and attack. What, what was the pushback you got? I mean, or was it. Oh man, it's there was a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff. And it's probably, there isn't enough time. I think, I think the fact that I made the point that calling it the Chinese virus would also impact other Asians. People said that's you're being racist. And I'm trying to, again, make the point that for some people it's very synonymous. How are you being racist by by that said you're equating Chinese with Asian or something?

Right. Right. I'm not lumping people together. I mean, people could could go back on my Twitter feed and see the responses that I got to that one tweet. I mean, there were probably hundreds, if not thousands. But yeah, it was tiring. I think for some people, going back to maybe the content of my book, like whenever you challenge authority, Like whenever you challenge authority, people talk about Romans 13 a lot, that we have to kind of yield and submit to our leaders. And I think there is such a danger when we interpret submission to blind submission, that we should simply just let everything go. And I think it's important for us as Christians to speak with conviction. important for us as Christians to speak with conviction. Yes, we need to be civil, but I think the call to civility should not be that we should altogether abandon and address things that we feel

like could be potentially dangerous to not just us, but to others as well. I will say this. I did highlight a couple of the criticisms that I got from people saying, you know what, I'm going to buy your book and burn it. I was like, you know, at least go ahead and buy at least a copy before you burn it. One of my more painful criticisms that I got, someone said, quote, it's perfectly okay to call it what it is, referring to as Chinese virus. And then this person goes on to say, also, this one really hurt. I'm just going to say it. Also, shave that sorry excuse for a beard. That one really hurts. All right, that got a little personal. That was a joke. But no, there were some intense feedback left and right. But I think it actually does, even though it was at times painful and heavy, it also reminded

me about the work that we have to keep doing on a daily basis about building relationships that, you know, like there are times I'm going to tweet, but I also have to do the hard work of listening and building relationships on the street, crossing the streets, having meals with people that don't agree with me or see eye to eye and all of these things. When I think about Jesus's ministry, and I want to sort of bring it back to just the scandalous nature of how Jesus conducted his ministry. But as much as we are and should be impressed by the big things that Jesus does, the big crowds, the big miracles, the big healings, we shouldn't lose sight of the profound ministry of breaking bread with people that didn't see eye to eye with him. I just think that's so needed and important in our time today.

That's so good, man. Yeah, I'm glancing at some of these comments. This one, this isn't really, well, it's intended to be a critique, but this one guy says, you know kind of give the impression that they're the moral superior ones. When, yeah, loads of different outlets call it the Chinese or especially the Wuhan virus early on. But they did stop, right? I think they saw that, oh, wait, this could be instigating things. But while we turn a corner here, let's go back to your days as a pastor, which have recently wound down. You planted Quest Church in Seattle 18 years ago. Is that right? That's right.

At the end of 2000. So I stepped down about 14, 15 months ago. So 18 years after my wife and I planted the church. Wow. 18 years after my wife and I planted the church. Wow. And it was truly a, your attempt was that it would be a multi-ethnic church, right? And can you talk us through that and how did it go over some of the challenges? Yeah, absolutely. I love talking about Quest. You know, I think there's still a part of me that's still grieving,

letting go of a baby that you love so much. I know it's not probably the healthiest analogy for church planners or pastors to call their church their baby, but it's an imperfect analogy. And my wife and I, we were serving at a Korean American ethnic church in the suburbs in Seattle, did that for three years and just felt called to enter into the city to plan an urban, multi-ethnic, multi-generational, whole gospel church. It's very slow going. I think we had about 20, 30 people in our first year or so. Was an unpaid pastor, worked as a janitor for the first year just to make ends meet.

I was on food stamps the first year, but really witnessed God's grace so profoundly in that first year. But we were just committed of wanting to plan a multi-ethnic church before I would say multi-ethnic, that model became a bit more celebrated and regarded within the larger church, which I think is great. And 18 years into it, it was just an amazing journey. It's probably one of the most, if not the most diverse church in Seattle. A few years ago, you know, we kind of outgrew our old space. And this is kind of a painful story in itself, but we ended up purchasing the old Mars Hill Church building in Seattle, moved into that space. And after a couple of years, finished the capital campaign. And just, I don't know, after that,

finish the capital campaign. And just, I don't know, after that, I just felt this release to at least have the permission to just seek a conversation with the Holy Spirit about what the future looked like. And so about, again, 14 months ago, my wife and I made that decision to step down, but an amazing experience, special church, and we're just so grateful for our time there. Yeah, I want to come back to what you're doing now in a second, but what are the core ingredients of a healthy multi-ethnic church? Because it has become, I mean, you started this before it was kind of, I don't want to say trend, that sounds negative, but I mean, there's a lot of people attempting to do this and there's, you know, debates about how well it's going.

But what would you say in your experience, what are some key things that you did that were like, man, I would advise somebody, here's the top things you need to do. And maybe what are some mistakes that you made or things are like, man, looking back, I wouldn't have done it that way. Sure. So I'll share three things that are, I think, absolutely essential. And I'll talk about some of the mistakes along the way. Now, number one, I think theology matters. You know, appropriately, you know, your podcast emphasizes the importance of theology, and sometimes I think in the church we have this negative view about theology. All of us engage in theology, even if we use that word or not, and so our theology of why multi-ethnicity matters, so that it's not a PC thing.

It's not a trendy thing. It's not because, you know, experts tell us, this is how we should do it. We should do it because as we read the scriptures, as we see and want to model the life of Jesus Christ, we see that this is absolutely critical to the kingdom of God and to this future vision of what eternity looks like. So theology really matters. Like we have to get it and be able to give a compelling, accurate, honest, faithful, biblical account why the multi-ethnic vision of the kingdom of God of the capital C church

ought to matter. The second thing that really I think matters is then you have to understand that representation matters. Again, not as a result of PC thing, but because it's like going into a church that says we welcome all people. But you look around the frames, the picture frames around metaphorically at the walls of your church. And all you see is pictures of people that don't look like you at all. You know, it's like when you come into my house, if my kids, if we tell our kids, hey, we love you. And yet there's not a single picture of one of my kids around the walls of our home, they would see a disconnect or a dissonance. So I would say representation matters, obviously in leadership, but not even just in leadership. I would say in all facets of our church, because we believe in empowering

women. We want to make sure that we're elevating women in all levels of leadership. If we say we want to welcome all people and respect all people, we want to make sure that we're representing people. But I will say this about leadership. Having diverse leadership doesn't guarantee a diverse church. But I've never seen a diverse church without diverse leadership. And I hope people kind of catch that nuance there. Because I don't want people to think, well, here's the shortcut. I'm just going to hire a diverse, tokenized person of color, and that's automatically going to produce a diverse church. That's a big mistake that sometimes people make. But if you're committed to it for the long haul, you're going to also have diverse leadership that will be a part of the process of helping people gather

together that reflect the diversity of your city and of the kingdom of God. And the third thing, and maybe it's as important as the other two, is this, is that when people, I get so many conversations from pastors around the country who said, hey, we've heard the story about Quest Church. How did you do it? Tell us what your services look like. Give me a formula, one, two, three. And my number one response to them is this. I say, thanks for calling. I appreciate your question. Let me ask you a question. What does your Monday to Saturday look like? That's more important than what your Sunday worship expression looks like. So in other words, like if you're not living this out Monday through Saturday, if you're not embodying this in your own

personal life, then it almost feels like we're just trying to put on an appearance of a multi-ethnic church for a 90-minute service on a Sunday. So we've got to live this out on a regular daily basis. And I would say, speaking to the question about mistakes, it's probably all three of these things where I've made mistakes along the way. But the one that I would say is the biggest mistake or the biggest seductive trap is that even good things like a multi-ethnic ministry, even good things, when we lose sight of Jesus Christ, the central aspect of our theology, if we lose sight of that, even good things can grow to become idolatrous. And so there were a couple moments early in the beginning of our church where I basically reduced the success of our church only on, only on are we diverse or not. And I realized that it had become so important to me. It had superseded everything else and became idolatrous in its

own way. That's good. Give us a picture of the diversity. What percentages of what kinds of people were there? Yeah, I mean, it's a fairly young congregation, although about 12 years ago, a church of 65 people, mostly in their 60s and 70s, decided to close down their church, give us their land and building, and then they joined our church. A bunch of Swedish, Norwegian, classic evangelical covenant church, an amazing church, and so we became multi-generational as a result of that. But I would say we're probably about, you know, when I was there, probably about 40% Asian, 40%, 30%, 35% white, 20% African-American, black and brown.

That's probably kind of our mix. But it was also just really diverse in terms of, again, its age factor. And the fact that we try to reflect that in our worship and preaching as well. Yeah, yeah. I've got two different directions I wanted to go. Here's my question. I always ask people that plant, for lack of better terms, successful. and I know you'd probably say, well, you know, we had our problems too, but successful multi-ethnic churches. What do you do when you're living in a space, a place, a community that just isn't diverse?

I mean, Idaho, we call it White-a-ho. It's 92, 93% white. And especially like Boise, you know, is extremely white. So most churches here, I mean, there's some churches where there might be two or three persons of color in a church of 100 or 150. It may be a little more than that, but I mean, it's very, very white. And it's, I honestly, it's kind of like one of my sad things from, I grew up in California and that was one of my hard things about coming to Boise, Idaho is like how white it was. Cause both my wife and I, you know, we just, I don't know, for various reasons, we just so value, you know, ethnic diversity. And, um, so yeah, what, what, what would be your, I mean, I'm not planning on planning a church anytime

soon anyway, but I mean, what, what do you do when a place is more mono-ethnic? Yeah, that's a great question. And FYI, man, I'm here to stay as long as you need me to on this podcast. Earlier I mentioned 1030, but let's go on. Okay, cool. This is really important stuff. I'm glad you asked that question because the last thing that I want is for Christians or for leaders or pastors that might be listening to this feeling like I'm kind of beating them up because their church isn't numerically multi-ethnic because that's not the reality of the context that they're in. So, A, we have to obviously reflect the community that we're in. But having said that, let's talk about Idaho for a second.

having said that, let's talk about Idaho for a sec. Now, Idaho, as you know, for some time, it was kind of like an epicenter of like white supremacy, along with other pockets around the country, right? I mean, it was a scary place to be if you were a person of color. I was always told, hey, when you're driving cross country, be really careful in Idaho. So I think as we're mindful of the context that we're in, having a numerically multi-ethnic congregation might not be, it's not doable. It's not going to be, it's not going to work. But a couple of things that we can do is this. I think one is think about the stories that we're telling. Think about the theologians and the pastors and the illustrations that we're citing. If we're not careful, oftentimes it's just

dominated by one particular segment of populations. As leaders, I think we have the opportunity, not again in response to being PC. I want to cite that again. It's not because we're trying to be PC, but because of that theology, that number one, because of our theological conviction, But because of that theology, that number one, because of our theological conviction, we've got to work a little harder to think about ways that we're bringing in a bigger picture of the whole story, if you will. I'm thinking about that Nigerian novelist by the name of Chimamande Adichie Ngozi, who gives a TED Talk called The Danger of a Single Story. It's a phenomenal talk on TED Talks. If people want to listen to it,

again, her last name is Ngozi, and she writes and gives this talk called The Danger of a Single Story. As preachers, we're like storytellers. And so we have the opportunity to give a bit more of a deeper perspective of our country, of our world, of the kingdom of God.

That would be one. And think about right now during this whole health pandemic, everyone has shifted into virtual and video ministry, and rightfully so. We have to shift. I'm actually excited about the new tools that we've learned as a result of this, tools that we can integrate into our ministry. So as an example, sometimes you might say, well, I can't get, you know, a particular person that I really admire because of their commitment to the whole gospel, they're African

American, they're Latino, they're Asian American. I want that person to come, but we don't have the resources, but we have access to like videos. We have access to things that we can show to supplement into the life of our church. Again, not because of PC, but because we care about the discipleship of our congregation. The reason why earlier I brought up the whole Asian American Vincent Chin thing, and I'm urging pastors to talk about it. It's because I'm assuming that pastors care about the discipleship of our congregation. It's a discipleship issue as opposed to, hey, this is just a social justice issue. Yeah, I wrote a book on discipleship a few years ago that nobody's read except for my mom and my uncle.

except for my mom and my uncle. But I have a whole chapter on, I forget the title, like multi or ethnic reconciliation as discipleship, that this isn't like, you know, you have becoming like Jesus as some separate thing. And then multi-ethnicity is kind of like, no, that's cool too. You can do that.

I'm like, this is part of discipleship because it's such in the DNA of the gospel from Genesis to Revelation. I mean, the whole, it's fascinating. you know, how many times I read the New Testament without seeing how profoundly central the Jew-Gentile, the ethnic tensions and how hard Paul fought for that. Like that was a primary part of Paul's missionary endeavors was to bring unity between two ethnicities, Jews and Gentiles, that were at odds with each other. He did not see, he saw this as a

gospel issue when he confronted Peter. And, you know, he retells the story in Galatians 2, he says, you are not walking in step with the truth of the gospel. And if you look at the point of what Paul's saying is because he, you know, feared the Jews. And so he kind of started giving the stiff arm to Gentiles again. And I mean, this is, it's fascinating. And maybe it's because of my ethnicity or whatever, my upbringing, but it's fascinating how many times I read the New Testament and just didn't see it. Once you start seeing it, you're like, this is just everywhere, you know? So I love your emphasis on theology, because I do think, especially for evangelical, biblically-minded Christians, they need to see some scriptural reasons for this. So how do I, as a majority person, avoid tokenism?

Because it's such a fine line sometimes, and sometimes I have a hard time seeing the difference. I know in my heart I'm not trying to have a Korean-, a Korean American on, you know, as a token, like I don't, I don't, but it could be taken that way. Like, oh, every so often he has a black guy on his podcast, whatever. He's just, you know, well, how do I avoid that? Like, or what's the, maybe explain what's the difference between tokenism versus genuine diversity and how do we, how do, how do majority people avoid doing that? Yeah, man, I think that's a great question. And it's a hard question because there's no one singular set structured, perfect answer. And this is why I think as Christians,

we have to have an extend a level of grace and kindness to each other. We're going to make mistakes. And so whenever we were having these conversations, it shouldn't be based on accusation on wanting to have a gotcha moment where we're trying to slam people on social media. And it just feels as if we're living in a gotcha culture where we care about justice. And this is what I mean by good things becoming idolatrous. Like, you know, you and I, we care deeply about justice, but if we're not careful, we'll end up worshiping justice and not a just God. We're wanting to trap people into these gotcha moments, including our brothers and sisters in Christ. And so again, I think our theology about our family, about the kingdom of

God, and acknowledging that if we create a culture where everyone needs to be perfect, if we create a culture where everyone needs to be perfect, there is going to be so much devastation, unhealthy, toxic spirituality as a result of it, including our unwillingness to engage in anything that's messy or has the potential to be messy. But we actually need to enter into messy spaces. So we have to also give ourselves some space and grace to make mistakes, to be able to ask the hard questions to one another in a spirit of love. I think that's the most fundamental thing that it feels like we're missing during this current climate and culture, not just in the larger culture. That's the reason why this book that I wrote, Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk, it's not a guide for the larger culture.

It's a guide for the church. I'm trying to speak to my brothers and sisters in faith who may have different views and opinions than I do, but to remind ourselves that what defines us ultimately isn't necessarily our views, but our commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'll just share this one thing that I feel like it's a really helpful analogy. You know, at Quest Church, the part that I love the most about our church was the Lord's table every Sunday, the Eucharist table. I loved it. It was the highlight for me. We did it from the beginning of our church 18 plus years ago, because even if the sermon bombed, and sometimes that happens, you know, you prep, you pray, you do all that you can, but sometimes, man, that sermon is a dud, right? It happens.

Sometimes the worship set isn't quite what you want it to be. The worship leader speaks 20 minutes in a 25-minute set, and you're like, whoa, what happened to the songs? The announcements can be really bad. But the part that I loved about the Eucharist is that no matter how things may not quite be what you envisioned it in the service, it always ended on good news. It always ended in such a beautiful, profound way as we pointed to Jesus. And at Quest, where we had a lot of young people and probably a lot of people that leaned left politically, I think at the last election, 92% voted for, did not vote Republican, 92% in the city of Seattle. I had to remind our congregation that we didn't have a line for the left that served grape juice. We didn't have

a line on the right for our conservative Christians. And we didn't have a line for communion that served gluten-free for our soft independence. You know, like the communion table does something, going back to your point about Apostle Paul, Galatians two, Galatians three, it is so profound. And so I think it's a reminder to us as we're having these hard conversations about race, about tokenism, about representation, that we're again, reminded that we belong not just to each other, but to one another as well. Eugene, this has been awesome. I still,

I want to talk before we end about your new future. Can you talk to us just about, well, I guess I want to know quickly, I mean, you kind of mentioned it, but, you know, I was hard stepping down from church. I mean, it wasn't like there was no, I remember hearing about it from a distance. And of course, whenever a well-known leader steps down, you're like, oh, who did he have an affair with? You know, what did he steal? Or, you know, but you said there was no, it was a good, you left in good hands. It was a good separation of everything.

Or can I assume that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, the week I made the announcement, I think one of the Christian online magazines, I was so shocked by their headline. You know, Eugene Cho steps down, says there's no moral failure. You know, I said that in my sermon as a joke, the whole congregation laughed and they used it as the headline.

I should be honest and say, I think once I did steal one ream of printing paper from the church about 10 years ago, I was low on printing stuff for our kids' science projects, and I nabbed one. I took it away from the institutional church. You know, our next season, you know, this sounds really weird. I told the congregation that I felt like I needed to fire myself, that as a founding pastor, unless there was a moral failure, that the church would never fire me. They loved me. They respected me. And I just needed to take some really deep, introspective

time with God to ask, Lord, am I still being effective here? Am I still doing what you want me to do here? And as I'm turning 50 years old this year, my wife and I, we had this kind of moment where we said we have 15 robust years left. That's kind of our thought. We have 15 robust years left. Who knows how many years we have left to live. Could be five years, could be 50 years. But in terms of like robust years, I thought we had 15 years. And so I prayed, God, how would you want me to spend that 15 years?

And the option was to stay at quest, keep building that church. It's one of the more larger influencer church. And I'm using my air quotes with my fingers right now for those that see that as the definition of success. Or did God want us to do something else? And so we felt called to encourage the Capital C Church. And so we're traveling a lot, encouraging missionaries and pastors. I'm going to continue doing that.

I'm going to continue running our humanitarian organization called One Day's Wages. But starting in July, I've assumed a new position called president and CEO of an advocacy organization called Bread for the World. For those that might have never heard it, check out bread.org. And it's a Christian organization that seeks to equip and empower the capital C church to advocate for the poor, the hungry, the vulnerable in our nation and around the world. As an example, the last few weeks, it has been crazy at Bread for the World, even though I'm not officially on, I've been learning behind the scenes. But in the midst of all the stimulus bills that are going on in Congress, we've been working

around the clock to say we can't forget parents whose kids are receiving free meals at their schools. Schools are closed. We can't forget about those who are incarcerated. We can't forget about our farm workers who are particularly vulnerable during this time. We can't forget about those who are incarcerated. We can't forget about our farm workers who are particularly vulnerable during this time. We can't forget about those in the larger communities around the world who's going to be really, really impacted. So we know that policies isn't the full total answer, but we also do believe that it matters as we're advocating for others. What were your kind of day-to-day, what's your routine when you're, it's hard for people to kind of imagine like, okay, president CEO of a nonprofit doing this. I mean, are you speaking a lot? Are you writing? Are you in meetings all day long? Are you traveling the world or is it all of the above or? You know, I think it's all of the above, but I think along with those things, I think a lot of his theology is trying to teach not just the church,

helping, working with local pastors and leaders theologically, why caring for the poor and vulnerable matters, why advocacy matters. So I don't know about you, man, but for me, I never learned about advocacy. I learned about compassion as a virtue in Christian discipleship, which obviously matters. But I never really learned about the hard justice work, including the advocacy, including speaking up for those that have a voice but aren't often heard. It's also meeting with elected leaders. This will be a new muscle for me to learn, but

maybe in God's sovereignty and God's providence. I wrote this book long before this even entered into the picture. But come July, August, you'll probably see me a couple times a week meeting with Congress people, meeting with senators, meeting with staffers, meeting on occasion with the White House to say, hey, we need to care about these things, but to give them a Christian framework, a Christian lens. And as I speak, that I'm not just speaking for myself, but I'm speaking on behalf of Christians around the country who've decided to join their voices with Bread to Amplify. And it's a completely bipartisan organization where we really care about that commitment. And I'll just share this as an inside scoop. The reason why it has to be bipartisan,

you know, going back to the conversation, we have to be able to work with both parties. But over the years, what people have learned is that for any law or any legislation to have any staying power, it has to be bipartisan. Because when a new administration comes in, sometimes what they'll do is cancel everything and then do their own thing. But when it's bipartisan, PEPFAR and what President George Bush did with bringing medication and HIV AIDS medicine was a bipartisan effort that's still going on right now, impacting, saving millions of lives since its inception during his presidency. Wow. Did you have to move to DC? Yes, man. So I'm going to be commuting for one year because my son is going to be a senior next year. And it's one of the big decisions that we've made. It's hard because not only are we leaving Seattle,

it's the only home that we've known since we've gotten married. But we're also going to be leaving our kids who are becoming adults right now. I've got two kids in college. And so it's a huge decision to go from one Washington to the other Washington. DC is a cool city, though. I've been there a few times as a tourist. But it seems like, I mean, obviously,

there's just a lot going on, a lot of energy. You feel like you're at the, I mean, you are at the epicenter of world affairs, you know? Well, in addition to that, I am looking forward to taking advantage of my taxes and getting that free admission to museums there, man. And the food, are you a foodie? I mean, the food there is so good. So much diversity. That's what I hear. You know, like I got three kids who eat six meals a day. We can't afford to eat out right now. So hopefully in the future we can. Eugene, thanks so much for being on the show. Again, your latest book is Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk,

A Christian's Guide to Engaging Politics. I'll hold it up in case I release this on YouTube. Here's the book with the cool cover. We share the same publisher, by the way, David C. Cook. Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah. I've got a book coming out in the fall. Well, I published with them.

I published three books with them. And then I was with Zondervan for a while. And then now my last book I signed with Cook. They have a great, a great team, man. I'm really excited about it. Yeah. Good people. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, thanks for being on the show. I'll have to do this again sometime and best of luck and blessings on your new ministry adventure, man. Man, thank you so much, man. Blessings to you.