Please note that due to the software used, not everything in this transcript will be accurate.

Faith Factor

Media – Amazing Grace

John Dickson – Studio

That’s a clip from the 2006 film Amazing Grace, starring Ioan Gruffudd as William Wilberforce, and in that particular scene, the late, great Albert Finney as the hymn writer, minister, and former slaver John Newton (he wrote the song ‘Amazing Grace’). Wilberforce – as many of you will know – was a British politician who spearheaded efforts to outlaw Britain’s participation in slavery. He was a Christian, but after converting at the age of 25 in 1785, he considered quitting parliament altogether. Newton convinced him to stay and use his platform to work towards the abolition of the slave trade. Wilberforce took his advice. “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners,” he said.

That reformation of manners doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s the total reformation of the way people treat each other in society. Despite his position as an MP in the House of Commons (the UK equivalent of Congress or the House of Representatives in Australia), Wilberforce needed the support of others if he was ever going to make an impact beyond the occasional speech. So, in 1790, he joined the Clapham Sect – a group of activist evangelicals who, among other things, were also passionate abolitionists. The group was centred around Holy Trinity Church of Clapham, in South London, and was supported by its rector, John Venn. With the support of his friends, Wilberforce spent the next decade and a half campaigning in parliament and had extra support from William Pitt the Younger, who was the Prime Minister at the time. Between 1789 and 1806, he presented an annual bill for the abolition of the slave trade … but it wouldn’t be until 1807 that a bill outlawing Britain’s involvement in the trade finally passed. The Slavery Abolition Act, which ended slavery in most of the British Empire, passed its crucial third reading in the House of Commons just days before Wilberforce died on 29 July 1833. It received royal assent and became law a month later. The abolitionists’ eventual success was hugely dependent on the support they had from institutions, including their faith communities. The abolition of slavery is one of the great legacies of the modern evangelical church, with efforts to put an end to the practice beginning back in the 17th century. The story of slavery and Christianity is complicated. It deserves its own episode — Christian attempts to subvert slavery go back to the second century. But this is not that episode. Way back in 2021, we did an episode called ‘Mental Health’ – that’s episode 38 – with Tyler VanderWeele, Lyn Worsley, and Karen Pang (we just released an Undeceptions Rewind on it in preparation for this episode). In that show, we looked at how being a part of a faith community is good for you, both mentally and physically. Since then, Tyler has been part of a significant five-year study on what makes for a flourishing life, and the first batch of results has just been published. One surprising finding was that countries with higher levels of religious belief experienced more flourishing across the board. That’s because religious people are more likely to roll up their sleeves and get involved in bringing about change. That’s not to say agnostics or atheists don’t do important work – they do, thank God. But the data doesn’t lie. Marx thought Christianity dulled people to the troubles of this earth because they were hoping for heaven – that’s the whole idea behind ‘religion is the opiate of the people’ thing. But he was badly wrong — both at the time, and today. Practising Christians are 40 per cent more likley to give to charities, and in America specifically, one recent study found 90 per cent of charity donors were Christians. In a separate study, the Pew Research Centre found that Christians were more likely to volunteer and donate money or goods to people in need. That’s the US. The data for Australia is identical. As William Wilberforce found—and as my guest today demonstrates—strong faith communities are crucial for empowering individuals who want to make a difference. Faith communities aren’t just good for our health – physical and mental – they’re good for society. I’m John Dickson, and this is Undeceptions.

Undeceptions theme

John Dickson: 
Okay, wonderful. Um, governor Kasich, you, you were a, a two time governor of I Ohio and a presidential candidate, and I have to ask you, do you miss politics?

John Kasich:
No. No, I don’t, I do

John Dickson:
Next question.

John Kasich:
No, I, I, I mean, look, you do it for a while, uh, you know, you do it for a while, then you, I’ve been in and out. So I was in the, uh, Congress for 18 years and. I left and then I was out for, I don’t know, about 10 years, and maybe it was, I don’t know, somewhere along that, um, but maybe 10 years. And I, um, then ran for governor and got elected governor. And, you know, now I’m out again. And, uh, so, uh, I have a, I 

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s John Kasich – the former Governor of Ohio. He’s had a remarkable career, first entering federal politics in 1983 and serving until 2000, and then again as Governor of Ohio from 2010 to 2018. He also found the time to run for president twice, entering the Republican nomination race in both 2000 and 2016. Governor Kasich has been very open about his Christian faith throughout his career, as well as the importance of his faith community. He wrote a book a few years ago about his Bible study group, with whom he’s met fortnightly for nearly three decades – it’s called Every Other Monday: Twenty Years of Life, Lunch, Faith, and Friendship. His latest book is all about people who’ve changed the world, with the help of their networks. It’s called Heaven Help Us: How Faith Communities Inspire Hope, Strengthen Neighbourhoods, and Build the Future.

John Kasich:
I kind of believe that you can have as much influence out if you do things right, as you can have in. Because if you were in a House of Representatives right now, I don’t know what you’d be doing. You know, you’d probably be having to follow a script or something and I don’t have to do that. But no, it’s really a, I think it’s a gift that I never have missed ’cause I don’t think about going backwards. I always think about, you know, what’s next? How am I gonna move forward? And um, so that’s a really good question

John Dickson:
You are exercising influence in a new book. Um, and it’s really not about politics. Uh, it’s, it’s about faith communities and human flourishing. Um, may I ask why you’ve written this book at this time?

John Kasich:
Right. Well, you know, first of all. Maybe in a way it is like about the politik as opposed to politics. You know, it’s the, it’s the strength of community, it’s the strength of gathering. It’s the, um, and you and the faith institutions are that that can project and magnify what you want to do, whether it’s affecting homeless, the unemployed, uh, the hungry, the, you know, the, uh, the autistic and what’s gonna happen with them. I mean, so I wrote it at this time because I actually was getting concerned that the politician or the preachers were being deloused with requests about being in politics. And I didn’t think it should be in the, uh, institution. One of my friends said, why don’t you just go ahead and write a book? And so I did. And I, the purpose of it, I guess is to, I mean, there’s probably multiple purposes, is really to get people to understand that having faith is not necessarily all about judgment. It’s about coming together. It’s about positive results. It’s about the, the strength of communities. It’s about getting over polarization. It’s recognised the value of others. I mean, all those things are the reason why I went forward with this book at this time.

John Dickson:
Now some more skeptical listeners and I have a few, uh, might hear, oh, here’s a clear Republican writing about faith. It’s all that God and guns crowd.

 John Kasich:
Yeah.

John Dickson:
How might you respond to that?

John Kasich:
Well, I would say that God bless ’em, but they certainly don’t know who I am because it’s very hard to put me in a box and define me as a guns and God guy. I’m I’ll, I’ll say that. I’m a God guy, you know, a, a failed and falling God guy. But yeah, I, I, I think faith’s important. I mean, you know, as, as, uh, what Jesus said to Peter, you don’t have to stay. And Peter said, ‘Well, where do you think I’m gonna go’? You know, so, uh, yeah, I’m sure there are people that are cynical say, how can a politician, but you  know what? I, I’m not, it’s my second faith book, by the way. My first one was written right when I was running for office. And, uh, I never think about things like that, John. And those are, if people want to think that that’s God, you know, good for them, but –

John Dickson:
But do you think there’s a necessary connection between the conservative side of politics and religion? I mean, that is the cliche.

John Kasich:
I sort of think that it’s universal. I mean, having faith is not re, you know, relegated to some political movement or some ideology. I mean, it, it doesn’t work that way. I mean, could you imagine asking Jesus that question, what he would say?

John Dickson:
Yeah. You couldn’t, you couldn’t pin him left or right could you?

John Kasich:
I, well, I’d be wanting to run. If that question was asked, I’d try to get as far away from any thunderbolt that may come my way, you know, but, uh, no, I, look, faith to me is for people who are listening. It’s, it’s really kind of simple. One, love God, which brings about humility ’cause we’re not great and in charge of everything. And secondly, love your neighbor as yourself. Some people could say that’s more left-wing than it is right-wing, where we gotta love everybody. Right? I don’t, I don’t like to characterize it that way. Um, I believe as I was talking to a, a woman last night and something that I think that young pe – everybody should hear, but young people in particular. I hate to quote an old song, but you have a friend in  Jesus. When you know that there is a higher power, if you can come to believe there is a higher power that cares about us, that forgives us, and in and in at some point holds us accountable for who we are as humans on the basis of what we’ve been given it gives you a sense of security. It’s like building your rock, your house on a rock and not on sand. And we know the inevitable ups and downs of life come, we know that it’s inevitable, and it does not mean that everything’s okay. It just gives us perspective. 

Studio – John Dickson:

Back in 2016, John remarked publicly, “I don’t go out and try to win a vote by using God. I think that cheapens God”. But his faith has driven his politics, even causing him to break with his party at times (Researcher Al has linked a profile on him from a few years ago, which Politico ran, and it goes into all the specifics; check the show notes.) Governor Kasich’s journey to faith was turbo-charged by tragedy when, in 1987, his parents tragically died in a car accident. This traumatic event led him to ask big questions and to see if church had answers. He bumped into a faith community that transcended political lines. PLUS subscribers are about to hear the full story (head undeceptions.com if you want to join the PLUS community). For the rest of us, here’s the Governor on how that his experience influences his approach to life and leadership. 

John Kasich:
So yesterday I was on a call. With a young woman, (I think she’s about 23 or 24) and her father. Her mother died five months ago. Devastating for dad, devastating for daughter. My interest was not just to help her guide herself professionally, but I’m like, so how you doing kid? You know, how are you, how do you feel? Well, it’s only been five months. I said, well, you, that’s a blink of an eye that’s. You got a long way to go. I said, but you know where your mother is, right? She said, yeah, I know where my mother is. And, and so does it me mean that there’s no pain or any hurt? No. But if you have the perspective that her mother who was a believer is safe in the arms of God, that’s a nice thought. Now, somebody would say, well, you just make that up. Well, no, you can’t get there by making it up because it’s not real then. My story was, I was, you know, kind of involved in faith and all that when I was a kid, but went to college and became like any kid that comes out of uh, uh, Sydney. And I start, you know, running wild and forgetting all that. And then there was a tragic accident that affected my parents. They killed him, the drunk driver. And so I decided to try to figure out that I even believe in God and. And, you know, where am I vis-a-vis my eternal destiny? And that was in ‘87. That’s 13 and 20, that’s 38 years ago. And I’m still exploring. But I mean, you know, when Bono sings, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. It’s not about his car keys, right? I mean, for me, I, I know what I’m looking for and I found a lot of it, but it doesn’t ever end. It’s a constant journey and a constant replenishment. And so. It’s not left or right, John. It’s, it’s, it’s a depth, it’s a relationship that you want to build with the greatest power that ever existed. That’s kind of the way I look at it. So I want people to hear that, you know, I want ’em to hear it. If and if they like it, great. If they don’t like it, that’s fine. And I’m not converting them or convincing them anyway. That’s, I, that’s not my job.

Studio – John Dickson:

Of course, we’ve got a whole episode on the matters of eternity (Ep 64 ‘Kingdom Come’). Governor Kasich’s book is about the practice of faith this side of eternity. He takes us to asome very dark places.

Media – President Barack Obama press conference

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s former US President Barack Obama giving a press conference in June 2015, the day after a dreadful mass shooting at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The night before, a self-proclaimed white supremacist attended a bible study there, and after an hour of sitting quietly, opened fire on the group. Nine people were killed, including the senior pastor (who was also a state senator), Clementa Pinckney. As dreadful as that event was, though, it was what happened next that made the Mother Emanuel Church famous around the world.

Media – clip of victim statement

Studio – John Dickson:

It’s powerful stuff. Buff and I got to visit this church when we were in Charleston last year. There’s a poignant memorial set up there now. It’s haunting, and lovely. To be clear, saying you forgive someone doesn’t alleviate the consequences of an action.What the Charleston community tried to do – publicly – was begin the process of moving forward from a horrible event, and that involved letting the perpetrator know they forgave him. In his book, Governor Kasich highlights the work of Rev. Eric Manning, who assumed leadership of the church a year after the massacre and helped guide the victims through their journey. But … how does forgiving mass murderers help anyone?

John Dickson:
You start the book with the amazing story of the Charleston, um, the horrible Charleston. Can I ask why you started there?

John Kasich:
Well, you know, John, first of all, it’s not, why did I start there, but why did I even cover it? Because most people know about the nine people who were murdered and the fact that they went to an arraignment of trial and said that they forgave the shooter. Um, and we know that the forgiveness is kind of an up and down sort of a thing. I think we all need to either have forgiveness or give forgiveness. You know, I mean, think about how many families are torn apart because of stupid things, because somebody’s not forgiving. And, uh, I just think it’s relevant today for the hurt and the division, the polarization that we feel. I think, I think that it’s really a good thing, uh, to think about forgiving, and so I can’t tell you exactly why it was the top, but it it’s such an amazing story that I felt that it needed to be there. And you know, the close on the other end is the murder in the synagogue in Pittsburgh. Both of them, uh, in a way have been seared into my mind.

Studio – John Dickson:

He’s talking here about another horrific gun massacre, this time at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, which saw 11 people killed. The Charleston and Pittsburgh shootings bookend Heaven Help Us.

John Kasich:
I remember where I was when I heard about the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. I was visiting my daughter, uh, in college. The, the story of, of Charleston is just like, wow. You know, how, how could you forgive like that? 

John Dickson:
And it really could have blown up, couldn’t it? I mean, there, there, there were, uh, tensions rising in the community and, uh, from what I understand, faith leaders stepped in and tried to harness that spiritual power to produce a sort of community reaction that was extraordinary.

John Kasich:
Yes. And and think about. Think about how deep the faith of those people had to have been. The fact that. You know, we talk about, okay, well somebody, a believer if they go to church, I’m like, who cares if you go to church? It’s your relationship. But think about the relationship that these people had. I mean, people should go to church, okay? I’m just saying … I’m not gonna measure how you think by how many times you checked in. But think about how deeply the power of the Lord, the power of Jesus … think about how deeply it affected those people up to that incident. It wasn’t that they found it afterwards; they were embedded in it. That’s powerful. That is, that’s just like, wow. You know what I mean?

Studio – John Dickson:

The decision of the Mother Emanuel Church members to show grace to the shooter was a tragic – but beautiful – piece of public Christianity. Anthony Thompson, grandson of 59-year-old victim Myra Thompson, gave one of the many speeches to the shooter over videolink, urging him:

“Confess. Give your life to the one who matters the most, Christ, so he can change your ways no matter what happens to you, and you’ll be OK.”

It’s all pretty extreme. But what do faith communities have to offer in more normal contexts? Well, it turns out, quite a bit. Stay with us.

Reading

Perhaps this sounds familiar: A church group spent a week in a developing country, building houses for people most Americans would consider desperately poor. Although proud of their work, some volunteers also voiced that, despite their many material needs, their hosts seemed to enjoy a deeper sense of happiness than many Americans living in affluent cities and comfortable suburbs. They were generous, with deep commitments to their faith, families, and communities.What’s going on? Are the perceptions of greater happiness or generosity merely a tourist’s fantasy, or are these reflections of deeper realities?

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s Director Mark reading the introduction to a fascinating article titled ‘Measuring the Good Life’, published recently by Christianity Today. It’s a report on the first wave of findings from the Global Flourishing Study, a research project carried out by a team of researchers from Harvard and Baylor Universities, and co-directed by Undeceptions alumni Tyler VanderWeele. It’s a massive undertaking, following 200,000 adults across 22 countries over five years to get an in-depth understanding of what contributes to human flourishing (“flourishing”, by the way, is measured across six categories of well-being: happiness, health, meaning, character, relationships, and financial stability.) The first findings were recently published in the journal Nature, based on responses to a survey where participants were asked to compare their lives as adults to those when they were twelve years old. Some fascinating patterns have begun to emerge. Middle- and low-income countries, like Indonesia, Mexico, Kenya, and Tanzania, scored higher on average in the composite flourishing index than more affluent countries, like the US, Sweden, Germany, and Japan. Richer countries scored well for financial security and educational opportunities, obviously, but poorer countries scored higher for positive emotions, a sense of meaning, and strong relationships. And – here’s the thing – the data reveals a ​​strong association between religious identity and flourishing. Having material possessions isn’t necessarily a factor in a flourishing society, but it looks like religion is.

John Dickson:
Tyler VanderWeele, uh, from Harvard University, uh, who’s been on the show before and has focused on social capital and community building and all those. Great things. He’s just, I think like a couple of weeks ago, released a massive study on human flourishing and religious communities that where there are good religious communities, uh, humans flourish. And it doesn’t have to do with money, uh, or power. Um, it has to do with community. Now that sounds to some people like a cliche, but your book is, is giving that flesh. What’s going on? How do, how do religious communities, in your view, foster this flourishing?

John Kasich:
Because we’re together. People do well when you know, look, one of the great scours in America today is loneliness. And when you can hang out with other people, find something in common and something good, it makes you feel good, means you’re not alone, you’re not lonely. 

Studio – John Dickson:

According to the World Health Organisation, a 1 in 4 adults experiences social isolation.
The organisation considers this a public health crisis, because the effects of isolation are comparable to the effects of smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity.

John Kasich:
The other thing is the shared belief in something that is on another plane. It’s not believing in, uh, something. That is just right here on the earth. It, it, it’s elevate, it’s elevating, it’s elevating you to a level above the din of what pulls us down on Earth. So when we think about earth, I always think about this and I know you have two that, you know, we got one foot in here and we got one foot in the world yet to come. But how am I supposed to navigate these worlds? Because this world, while it doesn’t matter as much as we sometimes think, but yet it does matter because we’re here for a purpose. That’s why we are here, and God’s given us a purpose. But I also know that the, uh, that the gravity or the, uh, the, the pulling down of us to, to a lower state as opposed to thinking above the little, the things that we run into. And that’s why we’re all failures ’cause I can’t get above it too much of the time. I’m drawn, you know, whether, what is it? Ego, envy, wealth, power, influence, all that stuff. I mean, but we have to be in the world, but we can’t be of the world. And so when people hang out like that, they’re thinking about things on a, on a much higher plane.

Studio – John Dickson:

The findings of VanderWeele’s team are preliminary. But the early results fit with his and others’ previous studies which suggest that many first-world countries could benefit significantly from stronger faith communities. Faith communities empower individuals to help everyone flourish. 

Reading

“I believe Jesus wants to help the poor and suffering more than we do. You can do so much more when you bring others along with you on the journey. And in our case, those have been congregations. They’ve provided the workforce that really fuels what we do, and they number over one hundred thousand each year.”

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s from Governor Kasich’s book. He’s quoting Hal Donaldson, the US philanthropist who started the non-profit organisation Convoy of Hope. The charity currently feeds an estimated 571,000 children daily, and has distributed $2.5 billion worth of food and supplies in 130 countries. It was baby steps at first. The first convoy was just Hal and a few of his friends, delivering groceries off the back of a pick-up truck in Northern California. But, with the help of donations from local businesses and churches, Hal and his crew were soon holding huge charity fairs, staffed by volunteers from local churches.

Reading

“You didn’t have to motivate their people to join you in something worthwhile, because everybody had a Bible, and the Bible already says, ‘Love God,’ ‘Love your neighbour.’ But you did have to give them a track to run on. That’s where we came in. We were able to show volunteers what needed to be done and to explain how to do it”.

Studio – John Dickson:

But here’s a question: What’s the result going to be for a society that, in some quarters, seems like it’s turning its back on Christianity? That’s after the break.

Media – The great ‘de-churching’

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s a clip from an episode of the Australian current affairs program Planet America, with Michael Graham, co-author of the book The Great De-Churching, and there he’s talking about the apparently alarming drop-off in church-going in the US. We’ve discussed on Undeceptions at length about how the apparent decline in Christian believers in the Western world represents a cultural shift, as much as a spiritual one. People seem happier to tick the “agnostic” box on the census, as opposed to the nominal faith of their childhood home. But, there are some serious potential consequences to this de-churching.

Media – same clip

Studio – John Dickson:

It’s statistics like this that drive home just how important faith communities are, for all of us. I asked Governor Kasich what he thought about the reported decline in Christianity and its social effects. He had a mix of thoughts …

John Dickson:
So there are some people, I mean many who distrust institutions and they might hear you talking about, you know, being involved in a faith community as just getting involved in an institution.

John Kasich:
Well, the institution was important, John, because you know, if you wanna run for office, you need a clubhouse. And if you want to like change things, it’s great if you have a clubhouse. And the clubhouse can be the church, the mosque, or the uh, or the synagogue. And when you’re in there, you can get psychological support, uh, material support, you get other people to help you. It’s easier to tackle a big problem together than it is to do it alone. And so I wanted to emphasize these institutions so that when people drive by them, they don’t roll their eyes or just ignore them. ’cause there’s a lot of cool things happening in there. And that’s why I, because I wrote a book many years ago, 25 years ago called Courage is Contagious. And it was about people who did amazing things who we’d never heard of. Well, I. This is like, this is like the 2.0 of that. Except I know that if I can connect people to an institution, we’re gonna have more excitement. We’re gonna have more magic that’s gonna happen if we’re working together on something. And that’s what the institution is. If you go to an institution, you don’t like it, go find another one! I’m not trying to, I’m not preaching this, I’m just trying to show something here. Right. I’m just trying to say, ‘Hey, take a look at this’. I’m gonna give you a really nice story here. Um, I was in the gym today and there’s a lady who’s been coming to this gym. I’ve known her for quite a while. She’s really close to my, my wife. She has an autistic son, and it has been really hard for her to deal with the ups and downs of that. Uh, I was doing an interview on CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network. And the sound man in this interview tells me that he lives in my hometown, the same place this woman lives. So when I got done, I was talking about her, never mentioned her name. He says to me, ‘Hey, could you put me in touch with this woman? Because I have an autistic son and it’d be great if we could work together to create a group home’. And I said, well, let me check.  

Studio – John Dickson:

A “group home”, by the way, is just a small, shared residential facility, usually for people with disabilities.

John Kasich:
So I saw her this morning. I said, are you guys talking? She said. We have, we have been texting and emailing regularly. We’re gonna get together. And I said, well, keep me informed. So could she do it alone? Probably. But if she’s doing something with somebody else, and I asked her, I said, do you go to church if you, and I didn’t even wait for the answer. I said, if you don’t go, go find one. See if you can get somebody interested in this stuff. Because that’s what these churches are and these institutions are supposed to do. They’re supposed to be healing forces. That’s what they should be about.

John Dickson:
There’s a lot of talk about the, um, drift away from Christianity in this country. Uh, some people are already predicting that America will be a post-Christian nation soon. Um, what’s your read on that as someone who’s like very much engaged, both locally and nationally?

John Kasich:
Well, young people are gravitating now more and more to faith because they think, I think they want an anchor after having gone through Covid. They were alone. They were lost in many cases, and so they’re like, ‘Okay, I need something to believe in’. Now what I, my hope is, I hope this is not a passing fancy, like, you know ‘I decided to get healthy, so I’m now going to the health food store, but a year from now I’m back into my ice cream parlor’. You know, I hope that when they get there that they find something that’s real. They find a relationship that gives ’em perspective and strength. Uh, so there is a rising, I’m told on the campus at Ohio State, they’re just exploding on Sundays with people who are seeking faith. I think, don’t you think John? I think these things kind of worldwide, I think these things kind of go in peaks and valleys. Uh, but what I do believe is that, you know, this Judeo-Christian ethic and our friends in the Muslim community, they’re an essential part of the building block of the United States at least, and the Western ethic. And so I think sometimes these faith institutions have not sold the story very well. You know, one of the problems I had is, or one of the things I thought about that I had to get corrected is, ‘Oh yeah, God loves me. He forgives me, he gives me grace. You know, I can fall down. I could do crazy things, but he still loves me’. You know, blah, blah, blah. Nice story. But you know, there also is an accounting at the end. There’s a judgment at some place, at some point, which you hate to sell judgment, but you know, maybe judgment gives it a little bit of edge, which makes it a little bit more interesting. Because I think there is an accounting, I don’t know if judgment’s the right way, but it’s an accounting for what we have and what we have and what we did!

John Dickson:
We all long for justice, don’t we?

John Kasich:
Yes, we do.

John Dickson:
Just not for me, justice for everyone else.

John Kasich:
Yeah, yeah. Well, there’s gonna be justice and you know, one of the things that somebody said to me the other day, when we see horrible things happening in the world, and we say that’s not just, and that’s not justice. The sense that there will be justice on the other side of the grave can, can, can get the scales balanced the right way and can give people hope that if I’m not seeing it today, I know it will happen later. I think that’s precisely what motivated those people down in Charleston.

Producer Kaley:

Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, The Netherlands.

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s producer Kaley, reeling off the top five spots in the latest edition of the World Happiness Report, published just as we were putting this episode together. We love talking about the World Happiness Report here on Undeceptions. It’s not nearly as robust as the VanderWeeler stuff, but it’s fun. And I often find myself pondering why on earth Finland consistently ranks number one (you’ll have to go back to episode 50, ‘Good Life’, to hear why I’m a little sceptical about that—no offence to my Finnish friends). What’s interesting in this year’s report is how far some of the most affluent countries have slipped, especially the US, which plummeted to 24th place, an all-time low since the report began. Our Mexican neighbours are a full 14 spots ahead, at number 10! There are heaps of metrics used to measure global happiness, but religion isn’t really one of them. It just gets this tiny (revealing) shout-out on page 177 of the report:

Reading

Religiosity is an important control variable because, in many cases, religions forbid suicide and discourage the use of drugs. Religiosity is also often associated with volunteering, donating money, and a high propensity to help strangers. 

Studio – John Dickson:

Ha!!! Talk about burying a headline!!! … “associated with volunteering, donating money, and a high propensity to help strangers” … like that’s not somewhat important?  VanderWeeles’ work out of Harvard does a much better job at explaining the importance of faith and faith communities. In the USA Today, Tyler lays out evidence that religion isn’t just good for us – it might actually be a “miracle drug” for society.

Reading

Attending religious services has been shown to increase the likelihood of a stable marriage, to elevate one’s sense of meaning, and to expand one’s social network. It leads to greater charitable giving and more robust volunteering and civic engagement. The effects are profound across numerous domains of life. This has important implications for the extent to which society promotes and protects religious institutions, the maintenance of their non-profit tax-exempt status, and how the contribution of such institutions is portrayed in the media, the academy, and beyond.

Studio – John Dickson:

Governor Kasich’s book puts a lot of flesh on this showing how faith communities help not just individuals, but entire communities.

With that in mind …  let’s press pause. I’ve got a 5-minute Jesus for you. In 379, one of the pivotal figures of history died, Basil of Caesarea. He earned the name Basil the Great in the history books … for good reason. His friend and fellow bishop Gregory of Nazianzus gave the eulogy. We have it preserved from the time. It’s wonderful, and part of it reads: 

“Others had their cooks and rich tables and enchanting refinements of cuisine, and elegant carriages, and soft, flowing garments. Basil had his sick, and the dressing of their wounds, and the imitation of Christ, cleansing leprosy not by word but in deed.” 

Everyone in the church that day knew what Gregory was talking about. For the previous ten years, Basil had devoted his considerable intellect, resources, and persuasive powers to founding the world’s first public hospital. We’re going to do a whole episode on the birth of hospitals — its one of the greatest contributions of Christianity to our world — but all I want to point out here is the way Gregory explains what Basil thought he was doing in the 360s and 70s AD. “Basil had his sick, and the dressing of their wounds, and the imitation of Christ, cleansing leprosy not by word but in deed.” Basil urged those he led to imitate Christ with whatever resources they had at their disposal. Jesus himself had all the power of God to heal the leper with a simple word. Basil believed in the power of prayer, but he knew — as every Christian knows — that even our most earnest prayers don’t always have the same results as Jesus’ comprehensive ministry of miraculous healing. So, Basil urged people to heal the sick by ‘deed’ if they couldn’t by a simple ‘word’. Having studied Greek medicine in Athens when he was a boy, Basil had long wanted to combine pagan science with Christian compassion. When he had the right idea and adequate resources, he established a massive, multi-department, healthcare centre, complete with full-time physicians and nurses—all paid for by the church and wealthy local Christians. When we get to that episode on the birth of hospitals, I’ll point out that Basil’s idea took off like wildfire. Within a decade of his death, a Christian woman in Rome started another hospital, and pretty soon there were hundreds of hospitals springing up across the Roman world, all of them run by churches. Basil’s logic was simple. The ministry of Jesus in the Gospels shows us that the Lord wants to make individuals and communities whole—he came to save souls from eternal judgment (see last season’s episode on Hell for that one) but also to mend bodies and communities damaged by the ‘fallenness’ of things. So, with or without miraculous power, Basil reasoned, Christians know what their Lord wants: to promote the news of eternal salvation and to get busy in the meantime mending what is broken. It hardly needs to be said in this podcast that Christians haven’t always done this. They’ve done their fair share of breaking things. But the history is clear, and the contemporary empirical data is in: When Christian communities function as they’re meant to function, everyone flourishes. 

You can press play now.

John Dickson:
For those who are listening, who may be intrigued by what you’re saying, but who don’t believe, what, what, um, tips have you got for them to take just little baby steps in the right direction?

John Kasich:
Here’s what I would say. You say, you know, I was listening to John Dickson. I, you know, I like John. He has this guy on, you know, this guy Kasich. I have no idea about him, and he’s telling me that this is really a critical decision, not just about today, but my eternal destiny. And I, I don’t really know that I, um, I don’t, I don’t know what to think about it. So let me just try it this way. Okay. God, if you’re up there, do something. Send me a word, tell me something, do something. Now my view would be, you know, you might have to ask him four or five times, uh, but that’s okay. So I, and I have a friend who’s a, he runs, um, kind of the restaurant part of this club. And I gave him a Bible and I always say, have you heard from him yet? And he always said, and it’s been years. He said, Nope, haven’t heard anything yet. But I’m still reading. I’m not giving up. So I don’t know what that’s about, but that’s what I would say to get started. And secondly, get somebody who’s got wisdom and somebody who’s learned and say to them, ‘Why do you believe? What, what is it that, why do you care about this’? Those would be two things that I can think of off the top of my head.

John Dickson:
So finally, are you pessimistic or optimistic about faith and community, let’s say in America? And then more broadly in the Western world.

John Kasich:
Um, yeah, I mean, I guess I would say I’m optimistic at the end of it all because of the book of Revelation. I mean, I, I, I can’t predict what’s gonna happen, but I think, yeah, I think that it’s gonna come and go, but I think at some point all things will be, will be made right and the justice and the peace that we seek, we will get, and I don’t know what that’s going to look like.

John Dickson:
I’m asking because the divisions seem so fierce at the moment. Divisions between, I mean, political divisions, but the religious divisions, um, community divisions. I, I’m just wondering …

John Kasich:
Religious divisions come about because, you know, people are not really practicing their faith. In other words, I could stand in my garage and say I’m a Honda Civic, but that doesn’t make me one. Uh, because it’s all about loving God and loving your neighbor. In regard to politics, you know, if in fact people, if we have a little bit of revival and maybe you see a little bit with the new Pope, you know, in the way he’s conducting  himself … we’re all made in the image of God and you, you have a right to disagree with people, but you don’t have a right to kick ’em around and disparage them and hate them, and, you know, it’s crazy. So look, and we all have a job to do. You’ve got your, your show. I’ve got the job that I have to do. Uh, you know, I work at MSNBC in the last couple weeks they took a, you know, a politician like me and they have me on the air talking about the Pope and what it means. Yeah, I do my, I’ll do my thing. You do yours, and we’ll see if it can become contagious.

Undeceptions theme