Theology in the Raw - Raw Thoughts on Social Media, Trumpism, and Christian Resilience: Tish Harrison Warren

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Join the Theology in the Raw Patreon Community for extra episodes, Live Q & A's, discounted tickets and more! Tish Harrison Warren is a writer and an Anglican priest. She is the author of several books, including her latest book: What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience which releases on May 12.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The church in the United States is perhaps more messy and broken than I've seen in my lifetime, or at least recent history. But my response to that is like, we need repair. I'm trying to figure out how to be part of that. But it can't just be abstracted. It can't just be like me on the internet or on the New York Times saying like the way the church needs to change or what's wrong with the church. I think that we have to build things and make things that are like better and more true. and more beautiful.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in Iran. My guest today is Tish Harrison Warren, who is a writer and an Anglican priest. She is a wonderful author who's written several books, including her latest book, What Grows in Weary Lands on Christian Resilience, which releases on May 2nd. This is a free-flowing conversation, as only Tish could do. I just loved getting to know Tish, seeing what she's been up to for the last few years in hearing her story about how she

was led to write a book on Christian resilience. We even dive into a bit of politics and Trumpism and why I don't like it when people throw around the stat that 80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. You'll see, I guess, I don't know, I don't know if you'll agree, but you'll still, yeah, we kind of wrestle with

that for a little bit at the end of the episode. Hope you enjoy it. I also want to thank all of you who are supporting the show. Really grateful to my Patreon community. It is, is such a blessing to have people supporting the show. It's necessary to keep the show going. If you have been blessed, challenge, or angered by Theology to Ra and want to support the show for as little as five bucks a month, you can become a part of the theology and raw community by going to Patreon.com forward slash theology in the Ra.

Okay, please welcome back to the show. The one and only, Tish Harrison Warren. Tish, you are alive. I so I'm so excited to have you on for various reasons one because I have major respect for you as a as a as a writer as a thinker as a public figure and you're an exquisite writer which anybody's read your stuff would not disagree with and it seemed like you were doing you're kind of like I feel like you're kind of everywhere for a while on social media and books and, you know, your books got awards and everything. In the last few years, I feel like, maybe it's just my perception.

I'm like, where's Tish been? Is she, she doing okay, you know? And then, you know, we arranged this podcast. I was so excited to do it because I'm like, what's, what's been going on last few years? Is that a fair, fair perception? Yes. I do think you responded to my,

when to the email that I sent you as, you said, you're alive. That was like your first. So I am alive still. Thanks be to God for that. And yeah, I mean, I was, I wrote weekly for the New York Times on faith. It was the tagline was faith in public discourse and private life. And so I was very out there because, I mean, the New York Times, a lot of people read it.

I think it's one of the most read papers in the Western world. And I wrote on faith. And so a lot of people had a lot of feelings about it. So lots of people would comment on it. The other articles would spin off from things I wrote, both positive and negative, agreeing or disagreeing with me. And I left the Times in 2023. Okay. And yeah.

So I guess towards the end of 2023. And I have been pretty quiet. Things happened before then, too. So in 2022, because I had been on social media light and was a fairly common commentator on Twitter, had a lot of followers. I may still have a lot of followers. I haven't shut down my account. I just don't. I haven't looked at it.

Oh, okay. So, but I don't really taught. I don't, I don't, I'm not on. it anymore. And when I say I'm on it frequently, I mean, I know there are people posting like several times a day. That was never me. But I still was like regularly out there. And in 2022, and I write about this in my next book that's coming out. I write about this experience. But I have a group of writer friends that I jokingly call it the intervention. I don't know if they perceive it as an intervention.

But I was talking to them about spiritual struggles in my life. I was struggling a lot with working for the times and being a mom of three kids who were like very needy in different ways at the time. I mean, when I started working for the New York Times, which was a really intense job, my son was not yet too. He was still one. My youngest son was only one years old. And then I had a, my first, like in the process of being at the times during that season, my oldest became a teenager, which is a whole other world of parenting. Oh, yeah. And so, so yeah, I was struggling with being a working mom and a public figure.

And there are people that once you get kind of a large enough public platform on social, media will kind of make it their mission to take you down. And particularly because the algorithm really rewards that and it makes there, you can, you can build your career by kind of deconstructing other thinkers. And so. I know nothing about that, but I'll take it word for it. Yeah, I'm sure that's never happened to. Yeah.

So friends of mine, who, I mean, some of which are like also, public figures that you would know. But we met during COVID and we would, we'd meet online on over Zoom once a month and then twice a year we met in person. And from all over the country, these are Christian sort of thinkers and writers. And they kind of said like what we observe in your life, like you just need to get off social media. Like it's harming you. It's, it's, and my friend Andy was like it's not even time management it's like energy management that this is this is sucking your energy and your thought that you and you need that energy to be going to your work your church to your family to your embodied actual life right so I but I was pretty

addicted I mean in the sense that I had told myself I was not going to look at it and I just would always go back and end up looking at it and commenting. So they were like, you don't have the willpower to do this. So we devised a system where I have a colleague that has my credentials to my social media accounts. I do not even have them. And we use the same blocking software that we used for like porn, for like adults. I was going to say it sounds like a porn intervention or something. It's absolutely like that. It's so embarrassing that this was my, I mean, like a, I'm a 46 year old woman. I'm like, it was more respectable to just be like addicted to like vodka or something like that. It just feels like Twitter was my done for me.

And it wasn't, I was not ever like a jerk, like a big jerk on Twitter or I wasn't like doing, it wasn't, there was nothing bad about my, um, it just was taking. It just was taking. making me away both like mentally and emotionally, but also physically from the people around me, from my little baby son who needed me, you know, from my. And again, it wasn't like the kids were, there was no neglect, but it was spiritually harming me. And it was making me more cynical. It was making me feel embattled all the time. And I was, I mean, when you write for the New York Times, you get a lot of negative comments, especially if you're writing on faith. And I took pro-life stances and I wrote about gay marriage.

Like, I wrote about things that were intense. And so it's normal. Of course, you're going to have people yell at you. But it felt like getting online was this way to sign up for it. Yeah. It's like you're going, you're like fishing for it. You're inviting more opposition and critical feedback than you need. You're already getting elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah. And what I found is that the soul can only take so much criticism. Even true and right and good criticism. Like if you have, if you have a friend come to you with like a real, a real way that you hurt them or a real way you. you need to be criticized. You need to hear. Like, legitimate thing you need to grow in.

That's so valid. If you have 100 friends come to you, eventually you're not going to be able to hear it anymore. It's too overwhelming. And so what I found is it was making me someone that I could sort of rise above it all, whatever, try to, like, shield myself from the public criticism I was getting. But the cost of that,

the cost of sort of growing a thick skin is it's really hard to take the skin off when you're with your spouse or your children or your, like, people who love you. And so then it can be where you refuse to receive criticism from like your husband or your daughter or like, you know, anybody has to be enthusiastically for you at every moment of your life because you've ingested so much poison, you just can't take any. Right. Your husband says something critical. It's like you've already watched 18 critical comments online.

He's the 19th rather than he's actually the first, you know. Yeah, he's the only one that really loves you. And that it comes out of this deep well of love. But it's hard not to then just be like, oh, you're like, you know, Billy in his mom's basement from Ohio trying to get fired, you know, like to make those emotional distinctions in your soul, of course. That's no what's going on. But I'm just saying, if you have a thick skin, you have a thick skin. And so I think, I mean, this gets us into a whole other, you know, cultural criticism. But I'm concerned that the sort of animosity, polarization, anger, vitriol,

disrespect, we show each other online, that the type of people that can succeed in that environment and not go crazy. In our attentional comments, the type of people who can like ingest that much sort of like vitriol towards themselves and continue to like thrive in that environment, you almost have to be a little bit narcissistic, oppositional. Like it takes, I guess what I'm saying is Like the type of character, or I don't know the word for personality, you have to develop to really succeed in that level of vitriol makes you kind of a terrible leader. And it makes you a kind of, it makes you like a worse person. So I worry, I think that some of the nature of our politics, the problem with our politics

is that to succeed in an intentional economy, you have to. be, it forms you into a type of person that is cruel. That is like not, it's really hard to stay empathetic and compassionate if you're going to be very, very online. And it's really hard to be a leader of institutions right now without being very, very online. And so, or, yeah, and so I think I'm worried about how that's malforming us. This is far afield from how I'm doing. sorry, but yeah. No, thanks to that introduction. I mean, it's probably true for political leaders.

They have to be online, maybe. But what, I mean, for the, for Christian public figures, writers, theologians, pastors, teachers. I haven't thought about this question. So I'll ask it as a question. Do they need to be maybe need is too strong? But it seems like they can not be online at all. kind of shield themselves from that whole world.

Do you think? I don't know. Well, I'm thinking pastors like a like a Eugene Peterson or like Francis Chan has, I don't think he has like a flip phone, doesn't, has never had social media or, you know. I mean, I, I love that. I had, and I, so I had an agent. I don't know. I mean, I'm not very online right now.

Yeah. Like I said. And it, and it was interesting because I, so I got offline and then I, but I was still in the New York Times. So there was still a lot of like Tish talking publicly. And then when I when I stopped the times, it's been, it was interesting, even just in Google alerts. Like I went from, you know, my name being mentioned online a lot to to maybe once a month to maybe twice a month.

And it felt like this sort of slowly, have you ever seen, oh, what's that movie? Back to the Future. and there's that photograph in it where the kids, where they're getting more and more transparent. Yeah, I felt like, oh, that's me. I was disappearing. Because you're a photograph of public thought.

And I just watched it happen. I just watched me slowly kind of disappear. And so I do desperately think we need leaders that are, that are very withdrawn. I think that those are, are the voices of wisdom we need. I had a Christian agent who knows the industry really well. This is not my agent, I should say that.

But someone I know knows the industry really well and said Peterson would not get published. No, he could not get published. Because the first thing they would say is, does he have a platform? And he didn't. And he would not develop one because he famously wasn't online. And so to be, I am not saying to be successful, you have to be online a lot, but I do think that the age of sort of like Tim Keller, Eugene Peterson, people who, that that all happened before the internet.

And I do wonder what kind of Christian thinkers, this is just something Christian thinkers have a really hard time navigating is like how much to be online how much to when to engage when not to and yeah i do think um online influence is diminished um like i i you know there there has been a number of people i think to have big social media following and then they write a book and it it might do good out of the gate whatever but it just doesn't it's just kind of false false false flat. And even things like, like promoting a book on Twitter does absolutely nothing. You put a link in that post and it gets 10 views. I mean, it doesn't do Facebook. Same thing. Like, it just doesn't, and maybe it's because these platforms are pushing people to pay for, you know, promotion and stuff.

But I don't know. Like I, and even needs to probably seem to stat, like, you know, something like 80% of people. Don't, don't quote me on this. This is. hugely ballpark, but it's something like 80% of people have a Twitter account, but only 5% of people, 5% of people are like on it every day. Like most people, it just doesn't do anything. So it's like it's a tiny person. Like you, you, for those of us who have, you know, familiar Twitter, you know, or have been on Twitter a lot, it feels like that. That's, that's pretty representative of, of people, the world. But it's actually representative of like 5% of people who are the most angry, vitriolic and are just like,

unhealthily addicted to Twitter. You know, like it actually isn't, uh, yeah, and Twitter is representative of what's, yeah, it's sort of died.

I mean, from what I hear, I'm not on it, but I heard it's kind of gone. It's kind of over. I mean, it's, it's always people,

I don't agree with the poll like, it's now toxic because Elon Musk took it over. It's like, oh yeah, it wasn't toxic before, like it was just a different kind of, you know, so I,

I just think a lot of people have left and it's, yeah, it doesn't get the same. kind of, I don't know. I'm not on it. It's yelling and screaming like it. Anyway. Yeah. This is what I've been doing. Yeah. I've been in the real world.

I was everywhere. You look happier. I've been like raising kids, writing a book, planning a church. And yeah, I think I do think there are, I don't know. I don't know about, I mean, I think we'll see if how much you have to sort of be out there and publishing. And it's migrated. Maybe it's not Twitter.

Maybe it's Instagram or substack or I don't know. Or podcast. I mean, I'm not really active on social media. Or podcast. But yeah, I do think, I mean, I hope this isn't the case. Because it tends to be, you know, the most successful Christian leaders now even are, you know, do speak out online often or have a lot of content, have a lot of content production, are, you know, telegenic or, you know, dynamic.

And I mean, that's not bad. Of course, you want dynamic speakers and engaged thinkers. But I think there is a tension with living. with living kind of an embodied life. And I mean, even it was interesting. I just read Kings North against the machine, which got a lot of attention. And there are parts of the book that I really like.

And yeah, I think it's a really important conversation to have. It's just intriguing to me because I'm sort of like, I mean, we're having this conversation. Like his, it's sort of all like kind of get back to nature, get in the real world, get, but like we are having that conversation because he is on substack, you know, it is people that are sort of interfacing with him in a, like the only reason we're talking about Paul Kings North is, you know, he didn't write this in the forest and give it to one person and they give it to a leprechaun. Right. And so it is hard to know, like how do you, how do you critique the machine? how do you critique consumerism even and without abandoning society? Yeah.

I still have faith that, and it could be wrong. I just, I don't always agree with some Christian marketing, publishing kind of world, how to perceive what could make a successful book, how to get it out there, what to do and stuff. Like I, I don't know. And maybe I'm totally wrong. What do I know? But I just, I've seen, sometimes I see methods.

It's like, yeah, that worked like five years ago. Like it doesn't, you know, I don't know. Like I remember one book. This was not my recent book, but a book before. Like they got me on all these like Christian radio stations, you know. And this one has, you know, 10.5 billion listeners, you know, two in the afternoon. and, you know, Springfield, Illinois.

And I'm like, first of all, those numbers are never, seem to match up, you know, whenever anybody says, I want to have you on my show. Here's my listenership. Just know, it's not, those numbers aren't true. Because I'll get stuff. I'm like, you don't have, it's not this many people don't live in, you know, Iowa, you know, like, but so that, you know, I'm like,

but are people, are the kinds of people that are going to buy and actually enjoy my book? Are they listening to Christian Radio at 2 in the afternoon? Like, is that, should I be doing all these, like, radio interviews and stuff? And so, I don't know. I think I'm not yet convinced that you need to be active on social media as a primary way of establishing a platform in order to get a book out there and sold. I'm just not, yeah, I'm not, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. But yeah. I think, I mean, if you had a really, I mean, if it's a really good book, it's hitting people where they're at and you get it and

the hands of enough people initially, they're going to tell others about it. Like I think sometimes social media promotion can be a little bit fabricated and thin. It gets the word out there, but a truly game-changing, life-changing, thoughtful, compelling book, you get into hands of a couple thousand people. Well, that's easy to do, especially, I mean, you already, you know, then those tell others and those tell others if it's a good book. Not that it will happen. There's plenty of good books that kind of for whatever reason die out. Yeah, word of mouth is still the number one way people find out about books.

But yeah, I don't know. I mean, and no one knows how to sell books. I mean, that's one of the interesting things that when you are in the industry, even in like I'm publishing with the New York House and you have a feeling like no one really knows how this is done now because the market is so fragmented. because everyone sort of consumes their little, whatever their little slice of the internet is. So it's podcast. Everyone loves podcasts now.

So there you go. You're in the right place, Preston. No, that I mean, enormous success. For my recent book, I probably did more podcast interviews by far than I've ever done. And that definitely, I could tell. that that so without me doing much of any kind of social media and I did a couple like I mean it's a few Instagram posts and stuff and but I have a guy that does that for me so um but my my person most

almost all of my direct marketing or whatever which I don't like um but I like doing I like having conversations so doing lots of podcast interviews because I enjoy that it's like long form it's thoughtful it's engaging and it's also good promotion for the book um so Anyway, we can talk more, but let's talk more about this. It's a, it's a discussion I'm constantly thinking about interested in. Like, what does, yeah, an author promoting their book, if that's even the right term, you know, what does that look like? What's effective? And like, who are Christian leaders?

Are Christian leaders pastors who have like, you know, the average church in America, I think has 75 people? Like, I feel like that, I feel like pastors. are really important Christian leaders. But they're, you know, they're not who the New York Times calls when they want, you know, like a Christian perspective as like pastor of, it's just like faithfully baptizing people and telling people about Jesus and bearing people and walking with people in life. And so, but I think I want, I want that to be our Christian leaders. And so, you know, is it, is it, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know,

people who sort of like use politics and, you know, faith as kind of like a platform for leadership. Is it, as it people with big conferences? Is it people with lots of followers? Like, I mean, what makes a Christian leader,

a Christian leader at this point? Is it selling lots of books? I mean, that's an interesting kind of question of like, who are, when we talk about Christian leaders, who are we even talking about? We often think about people at the public-facing platform, which may include a church, but it doesn't have to.

Right. I mean, who are the thought leaders, who are the thought leaders, who are influencing a wide number of people might be? Is that kind of like when you think of like, when people think about Christian, who are the Christian leaders today? It's people that have a accessible platform. Right. There are people who are not just pastoring a church and nothing else outside the walls. nobody would know about that person. Right.

But that almost sounds negative. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I still think the guy's been male or female, I was pastoring for 50 years out in the boondocks and is faithfully married and buried dozens of people and been at bedside with people who have lost loved ones and nobody knows who they are. And they've influenced 150 people over the period of 50 years.

Like to me, I would, I think the Lord would. and I think I would highly esteem someone like that beyond somebody that just has numbers or wide influence or something. Yeah. It was a really hard decision to leave the New York Times. I'll say it was one of the hardest decisions that I've ever made.

Why did you? Oh gosh. I've actually thought about doing like a series on it because it would be so many different things. It would be so many things that touch on cultural, I think larger cultural questions. But one of them,

like one moment. And again, it wasn't one thing. It was lots of things. And I had a, again, I had a little boy that I wanted to, like, be with before he went to kindergarten. So, sorry, it makes me sort of anti-feminist. But I did, I know it's like an excuse. I want more time with my family. But I did actually want more time with my family.

But there was this moment. I remember that I was writing about something about kind of what the church should be in America. I can't remember what it was. something about the church is this kind of redemptive community where we know and care for our neighbors in concrete ways that we stand against kind of the abstraction of the idea of justice or church or conservatism or liberalism and live in this like non-abstracted incarnate way of caring for our neighbors and knowing people and like preaching and living the gospel. where we are at in our place.

And I remember, so it was this like kind of lofty idea of what the church is. And I had a friend who was sick and I wanted to bring them soup. And I was under deadline. And I, so I didn't, I didn't have time. Like I was writing about this and had to do stuff and had to do work and had to get my kids. And I did not bring my friends. And my friend's fun. No soup for you.

They didn't know. They didn't know I was going to bring him soup. Like their life is fine. But I just, there was this moment if I was like, I can't care for my actual neighbor. I don't have capacity for that. I don't have capacity to like be the church in this situation because I am writing about what the church should be. And that cognitive, it felt cognitively dissident to me. Like it felt there was dissonance there that felt so.

uncomfortable to me that I felt like I'm writing about this abstract idea, but I'm not, I don't, the space this is taking up keeps me from like being who I am, the actual practice of this. And so that, that is, of course, it wasn't like, and the next day I turned in my resignation. But, but that was part of it is just like, I don't, I, I, well, I really believe. I'm just by nature, kind of not a tear it all down kind of person. I think the church is in perhaps the most desperate kind of like the church in the United States is perhaps more messy and broken than I've seen in my lifetime or at least recent history. But my response to that is like, we need repair.

Like we desperately need repair. And I just, I'm trying to figure out how to be part of that. But it can't just be abstracted. It can't just be like me on the internet or on the New York Times saying like the way the church needs to change or what's wrong with the church or the way that it needs to, like I want to be part of not just deconstructing, but really constructing something. but that takes, you can't construct without time, without skin in the game, without capacity to do that. And so some of that is one of the many, many reasons that I, that I sort of left. And there was, yeah, again, I mean, we, and I'm fine if you want to, but we could spend

the rest of our time talking about kind of what went into that decision. Because it was the top of my career in many ways. So you enjoy, yeah, you, I was going to. say you enjoyed what you were doing. It was more for your own health or congruence with what you were saying, aligning your life with what you were. I enjoyed parts of what I was doing. The New York Times itself institutionally was great. I mean, they super positive, supportive. Like they've, they never told me not to write anything. When I came to them, I said, you know, like, if you're looking for, so they, they approached me about writing for them. And I said, if you're looking for, you know,

a column on religion where you're doing comparative religion or talking about kind of, you know, if you want like a piece on dwali or something and comparing it to Christianity, like, that's totally fine. I think that's really actually something I would read and really helpful, but I'm like, I'm not your girl. Like I'm an I am an Anglican priest. I'm coming from this particular place and confession. I am seeking to be Orthodox, at least, hoping.

hoping to be. And I, of course, will not assume my reader holds those views. I mean, you shouldn't at the New York Times. The majority of people that you're writing to probably have different beliefs than mine. So I will include people. I will, I will not use Christian language that people don't know. I will, you know, I will speak to this audience, but I will only speak out of who I am and what I believe. And they were like, yeah, that's why we're asking you. You be you and do what you do in the time. So they were, I mean, not perfect. No, no, I would have, I could make critiques and no institution as perfect. But I think they were great. And it was, it was a good experience for me. there's they're certainly biased

there's certainly bias within any news organization but they were recognizing that and trying to fight against their bias so it wasn't like they were blind to their own you know bias and that was partly why they were trying to have ideological diversity

and so but the public the public response was super hard and intense. And I mean, like threats, like harmful wishes on my children, like really intense, like dark, dark stuff. And is that stuff you have to read? Or would you be able to write an article and just not look at the comments?

Or is that? I would try not to look at the comments. And I, some of this is my own fault in doing that. But I, we made a valiant effort. People can find you. I mean, they like would like, like. put something on good reads. So I'm reading good reads about my books. And then there's something about this article I wrote. Or they would, I mean, I had people that, like, I knew in high school,

like, DMing me. I mean, there was, like, they get people find you. And, and then there were times, particularly if there were threats where my assistant who did read all the comments. So, thank you for her. I mean, thank God for her. Because she kind of, she would, she would sort of, let me know. If everyone on Twitter was screaming at me, she would kind of let me know. Especially if it was like a famous person

or whatever. So I definitely do not know all that was said. And then I tried, it was blocked. I mean, it is still blocked. And I really tried to keep away from it. And I would get these sweet text

from well-meaning friends that were like, oh, we saw what so-and-so said praying for you. And I'm like, well, this is the first thing. I'm hearing. I'm like they would write me to tell me that they were praying for me and that would alert me. Yeah. Something's up if they're praying for me. I've got I've got that so much. And I just want out if I've ever said this publicly. If you're listening to your friend of mine,

please don't do that. Like I purposely mute, shield, block, don't read comments, whatever, because of all this stuff we're talking about. So when I get a text saying, how are you doing? I saw what the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah said about you. I, I, I, I, I purposely. I, I, I, I, I, I, I purposely don't know what they said about me because I want to keep my sanity. So now that you've told me about that, now you've opened up that. What are they saying? Now, you know, in my moment of weakness, I'm going to go check. I'm going to unmute them.

Do I could read their comment and then like, oh, my gosh, you know. Yeah. So, yeah. And it, they do pray, do pray. Pray. Yes, please. Oh, sure. But don't tell us.

Don't tell me you're praying for me. Yeah. So I think it got to the point where I just, I think that part of, and I've said this elsewhere, but I think part of writing and reading is I think it is kind of a mutual relationship of trust, not that you can't disagree, but the reader is kind of making themselves vulnerable to the argument of the writer, trusting in good faith, the writer is doing their best, you know, trying to find truth and goodness and beauty in this world as best they can.

doesn't have a hidden ulterior motive. But then the writer, I think, has to believe that they have readers that will read them in good faith and that aren't kind of reading as predators just looking to attack. And when that breaks down and you're not sure you can sort of trust the reader, it makes it very hard to write. And granted, I mean, I got much more positive feedback than negative. So I had great readers. But when you're sort of like hearing the arguments before you've written the piece,

it's harder to write. And it's harder to write week after week after week. I mean, when I left, my piece would come out on Sundays. And I noticed it took six months before on a Sunday morning that my body felt normal. Because I just had over years of doing this had developed kind of a that my body would tense up on Sunday mornings, kind of getting ready for like a punch. So just because it was different, I mean, I got attacks when I wrote for Christianity today or when I wrote for smaller outlets, but the Times is millions and millions of people.

It's such a next level of just amount of feedback that you get. That even not looking at the comments, again, it just kind of like you just, It's hard to explain, but it's almost in the atmosphere. You still know it's out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And then there's always a, there's always a response. I mean, we did get emails. And so sometimes you'd get that literally thousands of emails. And that's kind of important to keep on top. I mean, part of it is me trying to not have too thick of a skin. Like if I made a mistake as a writer, if I made a stupid argument, like I need to hear that. to some extent. And I want to hear that. But but then you also just get people yelling at you for yeah and calling you really bad names and women, possibly women worse than men. So I don't want to cry

too much of a sob story here. I'm just telling you honestly that was part of why I left. Part of it really was my son was four years old and um he was starting I knew it was my last, this is our last child last year with him. And, um, I was just, there was almost a feeling of desperation of not wanting to miss it, not wanting to miss this last breath with him before he went to school. And I just, yeah, I just wanted to be with him. But then it was, yeah, and it was also this, I mean, I could talk a lot more about this too. I also was really burned out, really weary. This is where the book came from.

And so it wasn't at all that the times. like made me say, I mean, they were, they in fact kind of goaded me often to like write more controversial pieces. They just wanted me to like represent. They didn't need like another person that said whatever else was saying. They were wanting, they were wanting the fullness of who I was in a really beautiful way. But I also just noted that if you want to kind of criticize the, um, the, right. It's just there's fewer edits. There's fewer having to like prove, you don't have to

work quite as hard to prove it than if, if you want to criticize the left. And so absolutely, I could totally criticize the left. I just knew that it was going to be like a lot more nuance, a lot harder work, a lot more edits. And, but that's what good writers do. They do it anyway. But I think I was in such a place of tiredness personally that I was worried that just to sort of, if I didn't fight the current, then it would just be so much easier to just constantly talk about how Christians need to support gun control and Christians need to care for refugees. and, you know, things that my average reader would agree with me on at the times and never talk about, I don't know, biblical authority or sex before marriage or, or assisted suicide, like my opposition to that. Or like, so I think I wasn't worried about the times sitting me down and saying like,

Tish, you need to be more of, you need to be lefty because that's what we are. I was worried about my, when you're already burned out, it's so easy to just start saying what is easy for your audience to hear. Right, right, right. And when you already feel like maybe part of your audience wants to get you fired because they have started a website devoted to getting you fired, it is just easier to be like, I just don't want to, I don't, it's easier to just kind of only state one part of who I am.

And just to be clear, I, like, absolutely believe. Like, I, I did pieces on gun control, not because I thought the Times wanted me to, but because I, like, convictionally, deeply believed that. Like, and I did pieces on, like, racial justice, because I did a whole series on racial justice and economic justice because I, like, really, really believe that, not because I'm trying to, like, I don't know, curry favor with the times. But I also, you know, really, really believe in, like, traditional views in sex and gender. And I really, really believe in the authority of scripture.

And so I just didn't want to, out of my own exhaustion, sort of drift where I was only ever punching left or punching right instead of punching left. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a common critique. I think I've gotten that. It's funny because I don't,

uh, well, at the very least, I equally am very critical of both the left and the right. Sometimes almost more the left. I would say, well, nah,

it's pretty equal. I don't know. Like it's, but it's funny because for some reason, people think you always punch right, not left. Like, oh,

if you knew what was going on to my mind and heart. Like, I don't, uh, to me it's, I don't know, This could open up a whole. I mean, that, this is me, not the Lord.

But I feel, I mean, I'm a listener of your podcast and I feel like you do a pretty good job of trying to punch multiple ways. Okay, okay, yeah. That's good. Yeah, yeah. That has not been my experience of you. I'll just say that. My experience has not been that you're constantly punching right and never left. Which I've tried to back off.

I don't know. There's so much to punch these days. It's kind of like, I know. Did you see what Trump tweeted? I'm like, he's been doing that since 2016. Like he's like, I understand why that made you upset. But I just don't get the shock of it.

Like, can you believe Trump said that? I'm like, yeah, actually. If I had a million dollars right now, I'd put it all on Trump saying something like that. Right. So I mean, it's like, yeah, it was kind of shocking in 20. 2016, 2017, whatever. But it's like, and then when he stepped back and it's like, can you believe a politician lied and wants power and has oligarchs around him nudging him to do their bidding because they give him millions of dollars and there's stuff going on behind the scenes that's wrapped up in the military industrial. Can you believe that? I'm like, yeah, dude, it's been around since the book Revelation. Like I don't, it's, it's bad. I'm not going to minimize it. But it's like, it's super bad. But it's, it's super bad. But it's, it's. It's, it's super bad. It's not shocking. Yeah.

I said this to you earlier, but it is hard to know how to write these days because especially if, you know, in 2016, 2015, 2016, 2017, I wrote a lot of kind of anti-Trump like pieces being like, you know, I care about religious liberty, but don't, it's not worth the cost. Like, don't vote for Trump, just for religious liberty, whatever. But at this point, I'm like, what else can I say? Like, I, there's, we're talking about basically the same guy that we've been talking about for over 10 years now. And I, I just, I mean, it, is it helpful to be like, come on, guys, he's like, seriously now?

Like, seriously, he's bad now. Like, it's kind of like, okay, well, I mean, people know it. Like, if, if you did not know who Trump was going into 2021, I don't know what to do. Like, I don't, I do not know what more information. that I can give. Maybe that's, I don't necessarily mean that in a despairing way. I actually just think that like I think the repair we need is probably deeper than just like yelling that this is bad and someone should do something about this.

Like I think that we've had that conversation. I think that we have to build things and make things that are like better and more true and more beautiful. I don't know. And I don't know. It isn't interesting. Can people in our culture still be persuaded? I think so.

But I'm just not sure it's going to be from, you know, like a hot take on the latest insane thing that, you know, Pete Heggseth said or whatever. I just don't know if that's going to be the thing that changes people's. minds. I don't know. Yeah. Well, I wonder what's going to happen now that Trumpism is pretty much gone. I mean, there's a few stragglers that are committed or whatever he says or whatever, but like you think about the sheer number of massively influential people who pretty much got him elected in 2024, who have all not just, I don't want to say, turned on him, but now said, oh, this is not the guy I voted for.

This is terrible. What is he thinking? This is ridiculous. He's delusional. Like they're just going really hard after him. I mean, you think of like Tucker Carlson, Theo Vaughn, Joe Rogan, Tim Dillon, Candice Owen, whatever you think about all these people. But Alex Jones, who thought Alex Jones would be anti-Trans? You know, it's like you talk about, I mean, tens of millions of people they influence towards Trump who have,

and now they're all. I mean, what did we left with like Mark Levin and Lindsay Graham and Hengsteth? You know, it's like nobody values these. It's like, everybody now knows like these are just a bunch of corrupt people being controlled by the oligarchy and stuff. And, you know, people have an internet connection. They can see when what you said today directly contradicts what you said five seconds ago. And Epstein isn't going away.

Like we live in a post-epsyne political world where it's like, it's like, it's just. just waiting there. And, you know, it's so obviously a bipartisan cover up. It makes you wonder, like, why such the aggressive move to not release the files? And even when they release them, they're kind of not released, you know? And just based on the stuff we do know, it's like, this is way deeper and widespread that anybody can imagine. And we haven't seen the other three million. You know, it's like, that's all people like this doesn't, anyway, all that to say, it's like Trumpism is is I think it's it's it's collapsed it's gone marjorie taylor green another one you know because there's so many that um i'm curious what that vacuum is going to be filled with

because i mean i was just talking to somebody the day about this like people they're really anti-trump and thought he was the worst thing ever you know i think are going to celebrate his his downfall and he can't run again anyway and maga is whatever um but i'm like and you and i share similar political theological beliefs. I'm like, all right, there's going to be a little vacuum, but I'm not,

I'm kind of like not thrilled about what's going to fill that. I mean, I don't know. It's like, I'm quite worried about what's going to fill that. I mean, I think,

Trump is caused a lot of damage. But is also, as much a cultural symptom of dysfunction. Yes. Like the fact that, you know, whatever it is, 80% of evangelicals voted for him, which is thrown around a lot, but it shows... I can't stand that stat when people throw it around. I'm not saying I get to...

Why? Well, I want to hear why. But here's what I'm saying. To reconstruct a healthy political theology for both, evangelicals and mainline or post evangelical or whatever you say want to say there. Like it's going, we are not in a place where we have healthy political discourse, healthy religious discourse, thoughtful theological conversations as a culture. It's not getting better. Yeah.

So what I'm saying is like the damage has been done. And I don't just mean that like, oh, he's changed some policies and made executive orders that are going to be really hard to reverse, which is. true he has like the what this is done to say refugee ministries yeah it will take years to rebuild really that can't be quickly over overdone no because if you if if if you freeze all funding and they have to shut down offices it's it takes a while to rebuild an office and relationships and good people working there who have had to find other jobs right and so yeah it's really takes quite a lot of, like tearing down infrastructure.

It takes a long time to build infrastructure. Yeah, sure. And think about that. So that damage is done. But I more profoundly mean like a cultural damage in the way that we think about governance and the way we talk to one another and the way we, even just things like the fact that whether or not one should pray for politicians is now like in the last few years, 10 years has become like a controversial idea.

Like the fact that there's like a rise in Christian nationalism in really kind of strangely overt ways. And like the, I think the cultural damage is so deep that it really is going to take like, I'm sorry to keep harping on this. I don't mean to. But I think it does take, like, people sitting in a room, learning theology, talking to people that disagree with them. Yeah. Like, worshiping Jesus. Like, I think it's going to take this kind of, like, deep repair.

Because the damage is so significant that it's not like you take out Trump and, Alleluia. Right, exactly. We're back to a great political theology. That's my point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But oh, why do you hate that statistic?

You just, well, you just gave a good advertisement for the Exiles in Babylon conference, which by the time this releases might already be behind us. But yeah, Bobby, I just, I so agree. We desperately need curious, thoughtful, humble, humanizing conversations, especially across disagreement, like at the church, which has the resources to do this, can do a much better job of how we go about public discourse, how we go about talking about differences, how we work through,

you know, theological controversies and stuff in political controversies. Yeah. If we can't learn to do that, then I think it's deeply problematic. Yeah, so 80%. What's the stat from 19?

I think it's from the 2020 election? Or is it 2016? 80% of what? It's kind of similar for all of them. I mean, there was up and down. Yeah. It was like, whatever. let's say, I'm making these numbers up, but let's say it was 78% for Biden.

And then it was like 80. I mean, these are margin. We do need to keep in mind, these are millions of people. Like, so when I say the difference between 76% and 81%, that may be to someone listening, being like, well, what's the difference? Evangelical is largely voted Republican. But that's millions and millions of people that didn't vote. or show, like we're talking,

it's a large enough number that a small percentage equals quite a lot of heat. So my problem with this, so it's, yeah, let's just say 80%, it's white,

they always say white evangelicals voted for Trump, which isn't, I mean, you have to say 80% of white evangelicals who voted vote over Trump because already,

that's a big, I mean, what, like 50, 60% of people, whatever the voting is, even if it's higher among evangelicals,

you're still leaving off millions and millions, and millions of white evangelicals who are kind of baked into the statistic that that didn't actually vote for Trump. Also, it does it. It's just so... That people did stay home.

Yeah. I can't remember actually if it was Biden or Trump, but I remember Michael Ware posting about it. Oh, yeah. There was more people that just didn't vote. Right. Whether it's convictional or whatever. My biggest problem with that, it's just

so, it's like, okay, and So that's a discussion starter. Let's talk about, like, that opens the door to like several other questions. And people just like to throw that stat around, fold their arms and say, see how bad at that? It's like, well, hold on a second. Why did they vote for Trump? I mean, I know people, I mean, why people vote for a certain person represents a wide spectrum of Trump is the Messiah all the way to, I hate Trump. I just hate Hillary a little bit more.

and so I'm voting against Hillary. People do that. Nobody voted for Biden. They voted against Trump and Biden happened to be the only, you know, half alive candidate that was there. So, I mean, or same thing with, you know, Kamala. No one's voting for Kamala. They were just like, I don't want Trump in office.

Or what if we said 80% of white evangelicals voted for Hillary Clinton? I mean, she, you know how corrupt she is? You know how many people? I mean, millions of civilians, her decisions died because. of her, I mean, corrupt war mongering and her stuff in Libya and just the whole Clinton, like goodness goes back decades of just absolute corruption, the stuff in Haiti, which is just disgusting. And, yeah, throwing up, Steve and all it's like, would we be like totally fine if 80% of white Jogles voted for Hillary? Like, so the assumption that this. Okay, I see what

you're saying. And I, and I didn't even mention abortion. Okay. Yeah. I like you feel far less intense about voting than a lot of people do. So I don't tell people to vote. I don't tell people not to vote. I just, yeah. Follow Jesus.

But that said, I do think, I do think if we had more, if it was like 50-50 or if it was 60-40, I think that may speak to a healthier culture. I could be wrong there, but I do think that I'm very invested in the church not being politically captive. And if churches actually possessed some, possessed like political diversity, perhaps it would speak to less political captivity. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. And I also, you know, I also think there's things like, okay, so even taking that statistic 80%, I think I think I could be wrong about this. This is like a terrible thing to be wrong about, or lots of people will yell at me.

Again, I have PTSD from the time, so please don't yell at me. But I think that it was around 20% of African-American males. Maybe it was higher than that that voted for Trump in the last election. Yeah, it went up, yeah. I think a dub or like a significantly increase. But that there were so many things about, wow, like 20%, this is, is that, that's a, essentially that was this huge number. that was like moving towards the GOP.

In other words, they saw that 20% is really counting. Whereas in the 80-20 with white evangelicals, it's like, ah, 20% like, who cares? It's like, well, no, 20%, if you can get five more percent, I mean, that matters politically. And so I think, I don't know, I guess I'm saying that's going to be serious. I think that 20% does matter. That said, I don't know. I mean, don't you think it would be, I mean, I would be fine with just Christians being like in mass. Like we're going to vote third party or not at all.

We're going to vote convictions, whatever. But if that's not going to happen, like wouldn't some political diversity be good? Wouldn't it at least speak to the fact that we have churches full of people that are having these conversations thoughtfully and wrestling with things in ways that are. Yeah. I guess, no, I agree with. I guess it's the statement of that stat as a self-evident critique of white evangelicals. That's where I'm like, no imagination of exploring why people would vote for him. Again, you have, you're lumping together white evangelicals who on the one hand, some people might literally think Trump is the Messiah or a manifestation or on par of Jesus. all the way to people who are like 51% 49 coin toss. I'm going to hold my nose, I guess vote for Trump because I can't stand Hillary and they're both evil, but whatever. I'm just going to go this route.

And you're just kind of lumping them all together. Those are two vastly different categories of people. And also, I mean, if somebody said 80% of black evangelicals voted for Biden and stared at you like, can you believe that? Well, you love me, I mean, but I mean, I would be like, I would have like, well, why did then? Let's get underneath it. Let's understand that.

Let's talk, you know, like, let's, let's unearth. Let's open that up a little bit. Rather than just stating it as a self-evident critique. And also one more, one more thing, at least early on, what the one thing anti-Trump people don't understand because maybe they don't talk to enough Trump voters. I don't know. What they don't understand is one of the primary drivers of. Trumpism in the early years was he was going to drain the swamp. You have all these corrupt money

mongering, war-mongering politicians who are controlled by money. Trump comes on and says, I don't need money. I'm going to come and I'm going to get things done. Now, obviously, he ended up becoming the swamp, especially this last year. But I don't think people understand how compelling that message was when the Democratic Party is so corrupt. And so it was a Republican Party and people are like, and all of a sudden, here comes a guy that's just saying the stuff out loud that people are like, wait, he's not this typical politician. She's just playing the game and kowtowing to money and all this stuff.

And he, I mean, that message, if you go back and listen to someone's early speeches, and I say, this sounds like, obviously, I'm not, never voted for it, nor would I ever, know what I support Trump, do what I have many good thoughts about? about him. I'm just trying to understand the cultural moment of why people could be like, oh, maybe I'll try this, this guy out, you know? Wow, he's that your typical greasy, slimy politician. He says bombastic things, but at least he says what he believes, you know, whereas other politicians, it's like, you know, they're just like saying what needs to be said to get votes and stuff. So I think it was that symbol of protesting against government

corruption that was was compelling compelling for people i'm going to release the upsine files you know but but you understand what i'm saying like like i'm saying just at least understand the various reasons for why a white evangelical might have voted for trump and not voted for the other candidate you know i don't know i mean man this could be a big conversation, but I'll just say your basic point of like when we encounter a statistic, particularly when I think that if it makes us angry, we should be curious as opposed to using that statistic to dismiss a large demographic of people. I think that's right. And I think that goes for anything for mainland statistics. Like we, I mean, statistics are meant to make us

curious about the reality behind them. Yeah. They're not an argument in and of themselves. Right. And it's just that stats thrown around tip clip, it's always by people that kind of already have a beef with Republicans or white evangelicals or whatever, the white evangelical church.

As anybody who listens to this podcast more than five seconds knows, I would probably share those same same critiques. I'm just, yeah, maybe I'm just pleading for more thoughtfulness. and curiosity and yeah totally yeah and because i know you know i know a lot of people that voted for trump and they're definitely not all the same they're very diverse they're not most of the ones i'm thinking it wouldn't even be maga they would never go to a trump rally wear a maga hat um they are not raging racist or whatever you know like they're they're just good down-to-earth people who give a lot of money to missionaries.

They're adopting kids. They're kind. They're discipling people. And I just, when people don't, when they just become wrapped up in some negative statistic wielded without a lot of thought, it's just like, I don't know. Like you think that's not really helping. Like when somebody else hears that stat wielded like a broad brush against them, you know, they're just like, that just doesn't, I don't know, doesn't help the conversation.

We've spent way too much time about a statistic. and I'm going to have to run. My gosh, Tish, we need two more hours. Talk to us in the last minute or so about your book. This is nothing that I've been working on. Everything we've been talking about is like nothing to do with my life the last couple years. But I just got curious why you said you hated it.

Yeah. Christian resilience. I love. Yes, Christian resilience. We never got to, yes, we need to talk about my book and side note. We never talked about your book. And I'm a female priest. And we never talked about.

I'm now okay with you, I guess. Thank God. Was it sure before? You had me on the podcast before you were sure. I've been having egalitarians and complementarians on for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So Christian resilience. Give us to. Christian resilience. Yeah. So, I mean, as I said, like I did leave the times pretty weary, pretty burn out. There was a sense, a pretty profound sense of God's distance in. my life and in my prayer life in particular. And I felt disoriented and disillusioned and not sure where to plant where I was kind of on a

map. I wasn't, I think there are a lot of great books. And I mean, I've written one book about this topic about like suffering and loss and grief, but this, that, it wasn't, I didn't have an overt kind of. grief or loss, but I was in this period that felt like spiritually desolate or dry or, and then things felt hard. Creative life felt hard. I think the, as we have been saying, the conversation in our culture felt really hard and, um, uh, my own sort of church life felt difficult. Um, like parenting, I had my first teenager, like parenting and marriage and fit, like things,

nothing was terrible, but I wasn't flourishing. And it felt like I was in this kind of, I didn't know how to keep going. And Stanley Harwis talks about learning how to go on when you don't know where you are. And so I was in this place of going, how do I go on when I don't know where I am? spiritually and kind of in life. And then at the same time, there was all this conversation happening about burnout and languishing

in our broader culture. People were talking about, like ministry burnout, which was at all-time highs, marital burnout, political burnout, social media burnout. We were using language of burnout much more than we used to.

burnout used to just kind of be like this like corporate executive thing for people that like worked 100 hours a week and had private jets but we were talking about this sort of like general sense of cultural weariness and that was all over you know the media and my friends and people just feeling weary and even as a pastor like I tell the story in the book that at conferences and stuff people would come up and talk to me about whatever I was talking about. And then, but it would end up in this place where they would kind of tear up and just say, like, I'm just exhausted.

I just feel exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was in that place. And it felt like there weren't great cultural options offered to me. And it felt like there wasn't a lot of resources I could find in the church on this. I had never, I didn't know what to do with a sense of God's distance. I'd never been told to expect this or that this was an inevitable part of the Christian life.

And then in the, so it sort of felt like, well, I kind of was worried I was doing it wrong. Like I was doing something wrong or so I just didn't have a lot of Christian resources. The general culture resources about burnout tended to be, I mean, somewhat helpful, but I felt like they were not scratching the itch that I was having. didn't go deep enough. They were like, have better work life balance, more vitamin D, exercise, you know, which are all helpful, but was not getting at this sort of like spiritual confusion and disorientation than I was experiencing. And so I landed, well, sort of accidentally, I came across these writings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers.

And I had known about the Desert Fathers and Mothers for people that don't know are kind of the earliest Christian monks in third through the fifth century. They didn't know they were going to be monks. They didn't know they were starting a global movement. But they did end up starting a global movement. But they moved out to the actual desert outside of Egypt. in Syria and gave their life to prayer and to work. And their sort of rhythms of prayer and work are a lot of what ended up creating, I mean,

people like St. Benedict read these people. And this was part of what shaped the Benedictine rule and eventually the whole Western church and practices of faith. And so I was reading these women and men, and there were, as many women and men, there are actually historians like there were more women than men, although we have more of the men saying saved, but still lots of women. And they were so contemporary in like crazy ways, being that they were from 1700 years ago. I mean, don't get me wrong.

There were things they said that are not contemporary, and I was like, I don't even know what to do with this. They were like wild stuff. But there were these other things, they would talk about boredom. They would talk about irritation. They would talk about conflict. They would talk about weariness. They would talk about like what we would now call burnout or depression. Or they, even like spiritual distance. They talked about like the sense of God's distance all the time and how to continue in prayer and they talked a ton about what they like historically in the church would be called fortitude. We would typically call that resilience because we used to use the word fortitude a lot these

days. But fortitude or resilience, perseverance, patience was huge. And so I just was like drinking the stuff in. And it felt like I wanted to. to sort of give these resources to other people that were weary. And especially because I think the culture, there have been a lot of books that have come out from women, not all women,

but often from women my age that kind of like hit this point in life and you feel disoriented. And the solution is like, divorce your husband, go pray through Tibet, you know, like kind of like reinvent yourself, find yourself.

You know, and I did feel very lost, but I wanted something deeper than like, I don't know, like finding a cool apartment in New York City and starting over, you know, although that's appealing. I mean, that was very appealing in this time of like, maybe I should just get a cool apartment in New York City and start over. And so I was looking for kind of spiritual resources to explain what was happening in me. but also to like help, like, allow me to have eyes to notice the work of God in the middle of what I was having. That it wasn't just a wastelands. Like, God is still at work. And so this book is very much like, I mean, like a field notes almost of like what I wrestled with and what I struggled through and what I found in kind of this desert of my own life. I can't wait to check it out.

What's the title again? It's what grows and weary lands in the subtitles on Christian Resilience. I love that. Love that. It comes out May. I'm not sure when this podcast really least. I think it's a writer on the time your book releases. I think May 12th, I want to say.

I remember looking it up. It's early May some time when it comes out. May 12th. Yep. May 12th. All right, cool. Well, Tish, man, I would love to keep chatting. I got to run, literally.

It's great hanging out. And yeah, I'm glad you're alive. glad to do well and thanks so much for all of your wisdom and yeah just I think how you've learned how to cultivate emotional spiritual relational health is is really encouraging and I think we could all learn a lot from that so yeah encourage people to check out your book thanks for being a guest again on Theology Narong yeah I love to be here and you know that and even though every time you end up getting me in trouble about something this time we talked about last time you were like Let's talk about hell.

What do you think about hell? Did I really? Yes, we did. And dazed and confused, which you made. Oh, of course. That was so funny. Yeah. So even though you're going to get me canceled, I really love being on your podcast.

My audience will probably agree more with your. I think we're saying kind of say the same thing, but I might have some people get, wait, it sounds like you're defending Trump, Preston. And they were like, you should listen to Tish, Trump's really bad. No, you are not being canceled. Yeah. We're very similar. We're very similar, very similar. How are Wasian?

Yes, Anna Baptist's influence people. Absolutely. All right, have a good one.