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Greetings. I'm Dr. Crystal Selva McCormick. I am assistant professor of Evangelism and Missions and also director of Latinx study.

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I am the editor of Insights, the faculty journal of Austin Seminary. The lead faculty author for this issue of Insights is Dr. William Greenway. Dr.

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William Greenway is the professor of philosophical theology at Austin Seminary. He teaches in the areas of theology, ethics, and philosophy and is the author of newly scholarly articles and books, most recently, the book, In the Light of Agape, Moral Realism and Its Consequences. Professor Greenway has served as a fellow at the Oxford Center for Animal Ethics, as a member of the Ethics Committee at St. David's Heart Hospital,

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as a member of the Dell Medical School and Moody College of Communication, Center for Health Communication Think Tank at the University of Texas, on the board of Texas Impact as an ecumenical associate in the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, and as an elder in the Presbyterian Church USA. Dr. Greenway chose to focus this issue of insights on ethics and healthcare access. The title of this essay is Moral Realism, Theory, and US Healthcare.

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Let's welcome Dr. Greenway to this Insights podcast. We look forward to this conversation. Thank you, Crystal.

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It's good to be here. Thank you, and thank you for this incredible essay that gives us a lot to think about. Can you tell us about what brings you to this subject? Yeah.

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I've written and taught about all sorts of important ethical issues, but I've never written or really taught much about healthcare access. But it is an issue causing incredible pain and suffering and even death, right, for millions of Americans. And it's just so much of vulnerable pain and suffering. And it's a root issue.

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It's the root of many other problematic issues. It's due to bankruptcy, financial stress, so it's linked to divorce and domestic abuse, to suicide, and to homelessness. And it's also stressing other businesses, especially like mom and pop stores and churches.

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As Deaton say, it's an industry that's really become parasitic upon the overall economy. And it's also an issue that's hurting doctors and nurses and early health care professionals. At the think tank at UT that I'm at and at St. David's Heart Hospital, man, the doctors and nurses that are so caring, are so invested in their patients, but they're caught in a system where the prime directive is profit.

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And that comes down and compromises their care in so many ways. My own personal doctor, who is wonderful, who I love, I used to walk in and we'd have conversations and get back and forth. Now he walks in the room, has a little time thing. He switches on the wall to mark his time in.

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And I know he's got 15 minutes max before he's got to swipe that card and be out of there. And that he's only really got 12 minutes to talk to me, diagnose whatever it is, and he doesn't have time for chit-chat. And that's his whole day. And I think that's harmful to him.

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I mean, it takes the passion that leads so many doctors and nurses into healthcare and really alienates them from their passion and mission. As I say in the article and there's data to back this up, I think this is a major cause of moral distress in nurses, which is leading to a huge turnovers in nursing rates. And I also think it's a spiritual crisis for the country. I think a country where legal and economic systems are designed to exploit people when they're the most vulnerable and needy is in desperate need of spiritual and moral renewal.

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I think it was Gandhi who said, correct me on this, I think he's the one that said a measure of a people is its care and concern for the most vulnerable among them. And on that measure, I think we really come up short. And I don't think it's where most Americans are. I think most Americans, including most people who are caught up in the system, want to be loving and caring for those who are vulnerable.

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But we've created a system in which precisely the opposite is happening, and it's causing incredible harm. And so that's what made me decide to dedicate this issue, especially an issue where I had the ability to invite other voices in who maybe know more about this particular issue in some ways than I do, to also participate. And really with the hope to make the issue, to give the issue exposure among our leadership, which includes sorts of people who might be able in different ways to make a difference about this issue.

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I think a lot of people have a general idea there's a problem. I don't think a lot of people have a real specific idea of the magnitude of the problem and how much harm it's causing. And really, I mean, what's significant here is We know it can be done better.

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We have all sorts of other industrial nations like us, similar dynamics, similar all this. They're doing it better. It can be done. People want it to be done.

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It's not being done. It's causing tremendous harm. I don't think it's what most all Americans would want. So that's why I chose that for this issue of insights.

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Thank you. That really is helpful because what I see in the essay where I hear you saying is it's so multi-layered and impacts so many sectors of society. And I'm confident that our readership will see themselves in what you've written and what the other contributors have stated in their essays. But one thing that really stood out to me that you addressed is the massive gaps in cost production.

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And so I wanted to ask you, why you think that these massive gaps in cost production and cost to the customer exist? Yeah. So why such an obscene profit marketing, right?

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And I think the simple answer is greed. And you put that together with the fact that people will empty their savings and mortgage their houses to stay alive or to keep their loved ones alive. So greed plus incredible leverage. And I say that's a simple answer because I think while greedy players are certainly a problem, I don't actually think greed is the issue in terms of this being a problem right now that's focused on individuals.

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I think this is, people are familiar with the distinction and sociology between troubles and issues. The way to, if you have an issue, a trouble is a person is to blame. So if you want to take care of a trouble, you take care of that person. An issue is where you have an entire system which is to blame.

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And if you take care of one person, then another person's going to step in their place because it's really the system. which is the issue. And so the issue here, I think, is a system, and it's a system in which good people are co-opted at every level. And so that's why I think the greed is the simple answer, but it's often, it's not even, it's not even necessarily the correct answer on the individual level, because the way the system works, every person at every level could be good, and they'd still be caught up in a system which is doing this.

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because their legal and their fiduciary and their professional duty is inscribed within this system in healthcare industry, whose prime directive is not to maximize health, but to maximize profit. And so it's the thing to realize here is Again, I'm sure there are greedy players, but even if there were no greedy players, the way the system's designed, we'd still have this problem. And it's continuing to be an increasing problem, because you can keep figuring out ways to leverage even more money out of people who are so desperately needy.

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So greed is the issue, but I think it's essential to focus on the system and correcting the system. And so money matters. I don't want people to think I'm being unrealistic and idealistic.

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Money matters. Profit matters. Healthcare is a business. And you have to pay attention to costs and to money.

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But that doesn't mean that you have to make maximizing profit your singular goal. where you can be a company or a doctor or a researcher who makes a good living while also doing good. And I think that's where the, old Marcus Welby, that's where the doctors used to be. They were well off.

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They would do fine. I have friends in Germany who are doctors. They're well off. They are not, you know, super rich and healthcare there is provided for all at a very minimal cost.

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And so they're able to both, do well in terms of having a job in a real economy, but also has the satisfaction of doing good and the autonomy that comes with that. And we've got a balance here, right? So like I said before, even the doctors and nurses who are wanting to do good are in a system which alienates them from that in so many ways. So this takes us back to the, what I'm saying is a moral and a spiritual crisis in modern rationality that now kind of infects our legal, political, economic systems and even rationality itself.

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So for instance, now we have corporate citizens who live in that what I call the sphere of nature. So they're only designed, they're designed only to think about profit, right? And insofar as they have rights to lobby, rights for political influence, insofar as in that way, they're actually persons in the United States.

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We have collated super persons in the United States, which have kind of hired minds. They have the resources of all these people in their employer, they'd never sleep. They're so focused and they're the ones who are really making the decisions about the future of healthcare, not even the leaders within them.

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Again, it's the system itself. So this is a systemic distortion, which is affecting modern rationality generally. And that's why I'm talking about now realism theory as a response. So it affirms and is attentive to that sphere of nature, right?

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Economic realities, selfishness, drive to survive, all those sorts of things. But it also wants to balance that with attention to the sphere of agape, to concerns to be loving and good, which are part of what is good for any person to flourish. And then also the sphere of politic eyes, where there's a degree of autonomy and freedom and self-determination. Right now,

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you can see it and it's kind of a wholesale emphasis on STEM, right? So I'm all for STEM, but STEM is equally sphere of nature. You educate people only in the sphere of nature, you're going to get a system in a society which has no idea. with how to deal with the spirit of agape.

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At the same time, agape is a real force those people feel. So that passion is going to manifest itself in all sorts of ways, which if it's disconnected from reason, is likely to be irrational and religious and secular enthusiasm. I mean, and similarly, I think we live in an age of secular enthusiasm. All this moral passion from people, heck, they'll kill you for disagreeing on an ethical issue and turn around and declare all ethics relative, right?

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Simultaneously, it is completely irrational. It is a recipe for extremism, for enthusiasm, both on the religious side and the secular side. That's what I'm looking to find a way to correct. Here we're seeing it in the field of healthcare, where it's become an industry focused on profit,

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Money matters, but healthcare should be primarily about maximizing health in an industry which also attends to, right, having a good business. Not just an industry that's about maximizing profit. Losing that balance hurts everyone. And that's why I think the gap exists and tends to increase.

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is because of a distortion in rationality, and then because of that, a setting up of a legal and an economic system which is out of balance and ends up harming everyone. And as long as profit remains the prime directive of the healthcare industry, this problem will not go away. It will continue to get worse. And that's why I think it will continue to increase.

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thank you. I mean, and what I'm hearing you say is profit, right, becomes the focus and not agape. So is that, I guess, could you say a word about if you feel that profit is very American or what is un-American about controlling prices? There seems to be that there is American policy that has values in one place and not another or in the spheres that you name in your essay.

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that undergird these policies. So could you say a word about that? Yeah. And of course, you're reacting to that exchange that I had with the guy who was the head of this progressive policy institute.

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And really, in some ways, it was that conversation with him, which for me was the, you know, it was kind of, it was like, you know, everything you've been thinking about this came together in that moment when he said that controlling prices is un-American. Because that's classic Republican rhetoric about socialized medicine, which is resistant to any meaningful care, any meaningful change in health care. And so when I had a progressive Democrat say that to me, it just I mean, it hit me in the gut because I was like, my gosh, there's no one.

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Neither major party is interested in seeing this change. And it just in that moment overwhelmed me. And again, that's when I decided, I went the next day and told Insight, this is the topic I'm going to do. And that was against all my fears of not knowing enough to do it.

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That's what kept me from doing it. And I was like, at that point, I was like, I've got to do this. And I'll invite people, you're an expert. And also, the article you're doing people will do things that

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I don't have the training or aptitude to do, that they'll make the moves to do it because I can't. But at that point, the desperation of it really hit me. So now let me say, what I say at the end of my essay, and let me quote this, is that I'm an enthusiastic that, let's see, in terms of is it un-American or is it American?

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So the person said, he said to me it was un-American. And in that, as I say, in the middle of the essay, I think that he's just objectively correct in terms of the actual policies, the economic policies we've had and the way we act. And so the way healthcare works as an industry today, it is in that sense, if that reflects what's American, then it is un-American.

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If I said the vast majority of Americans would not like this, then in that sense, it's certainly not American. right? It's, or rather, in essence, it's very American to want to control the prices. So, the city of England is enthusiastic agreement that curbing the excesses of unbridled capitalism for the sake of agape is the mark of a nation, realistic and idealistic, great and good.

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That's what I say is definitely American. That would be a mark of progress, because if people see that as definitely American. So what's definitely American and what would be a mark of progress, what I think might actually be definitely American for the vast majority of Americans, but not definitely American in terms of our actual policy, is enthusiastic agreement. that curbing the excesses of unbridled capitalism for the sake of agape is the mark of a nation realistic and idealistic, great and good.

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That's what I think. So in this sense, it is, this is not opposition to, this is not anti-capitalism. It's not about controlling prices about everything. That's why I cited Case and Deaton so often in the essay.

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They are two avowed capitalists. But they argue, in ways I'm not competent to do, so people should consult that book if they're interested in it. They argue that Free market cannot work in healthcare.

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For instance, in an emergency setting, limited availability of resources. You might not even be conscious when decisions are made, the opacity of things. There's the level of need. There's all sorts of reasons, they argue, that free market forces in the healthcare sector are going to lead to really awful injustices that they don't work.

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So they're not against free market. I'm not against the free market. I'm not even against people making a good living, right? Being doctors and researchers and all this sort of stuff.

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That's just fine. But to make it the sole focus of health care, that's where I think you get a problem. So Let me put this in a way using some real Christian frame, right?

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So this is the public sector. So what I'm saying, I think, is definitely Christian, but I think my appeal is greater than Christian. And my appeal to agape is, I think, an appeal to a reality, which is at the core of of Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism.

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I mean, I think what we're talking about is a moral force which all faith systems at their best are seeking to respond to and make real in the world. But in a way, what we're doing is the exact opposite of the Good Samaritan, right? And it's not even that we're seeing the person injured in the ditch and walking on by, We're seeing a person injured in the ditch and figuring out how we can leverage their need to make the most money possible.

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That's about as opposite of what a good Samaritan would do as one can imagine. And I think most Christians, Jews, humanists, Buddhists, Muslims, I mean, everyone, that is simply not who they want to be. That's not who they want this country to be. That's not what they want to be American.

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And so, you know, except for social Darwinism, I'm not sure of any ethic which would say anything different that's recognized. So So, for all those reasons, I think, as you kind of suggested in your question, there's a difference between what's American according to the policies and what's American according to the values. And based on what I've just said, I think in terms of what's American according to the values is Good Samaritan.

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You can be realistic, but you do everything you can to help. You don't look to exploit people in that condition. What we're actually doing is precisely the opposite. So in terms of our policies, it's American.

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In terms of our values, I think it's very, it's, let me clarify to get there. In terms of our policies, right, refusal of control prices is American. In terms of our values, I think it's very much American. And

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And again, we've gotten out of balance and we need to restore that balance between what's realistic, what's idealistic, sphere of agape and sphere of nature. Thank you. Yes. So for naming those contradictions.

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And, you know, that brings me to wanting to ask a little about the murder, killing of CEO Brian Thompson and the conversations that ensued after his killing. In your essay, you name his killing as unjustifiably evil. And I was wondering if the same could be said, unjustifiably evil, to describe the American way of doing healthcare access.

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So if policymaking elite know what they are doing, they know the consequences of the massive gap in cost production, for example, if they know this, does that not imply that they are knowingly committing violence against Americans? Yeah, yeah, that's another good question, Crystal. So first, my entire ethical system, and I think all the women ethics I just named as Good Samaritan ethics, a root in gracious love for any face of any creature of any kind.

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So if a root of this ethics is that gracious love for every face. And that means that any killing of any creature, and especially any human, is always evil, awful, painful. And that's why the phrase unjustifiably evil is so important, right? So I think it's always evil to kill someone, always awful.

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But sometimes I think it's justifiable. So self-defense, for instance, if it's the only way one can defend oneself or one's family, There's no good option, no lesser option, but to kill, defend self or family. There I would say it's still evil.

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It's still awful you had to do it, but it's a justifiable evil. And many people, if they're in that situation, they feel evil. They're so sorry they've had to do this, right? They have to deal with the fact that they've killed someone, even though it was justifiable.

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Allied soldiers, can we Nazi soldiers in World War II? Evil justifiable. I think this is not a bit of moral injury, not soldiers doing the wrong thing, but soldiers doing the right thing, which is simultaneously an evil thing.

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Because it's always awful to have to kill someone else, even if in the circumstances in this world, it's what we're forced to do. I had a student once who was a former police officer. He told me a story. He was

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The first on scene, the front officer at point blank relieves, gun drawn with a man who was crazed out of his mind on drugs. And he had a baby in one hand and a brick in the other. And he was threatening to brick, hit the baby in the head with the brick. And he went to do it.

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He started to go to hit the baby in the brick. And so this officer shot and killed him. But, you know, he's looking him in the eyes. He's a police officer.

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He knows that people in drug addled states are not themselves, right? He had to kill him. That hurt him to do. It was an evil thing to do, even though it was justified.

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So in those sorts of radical circumstances, it's justified. I lean here, too, on just war theory, right? So what you need is you need an absolute necessity The response has to be proportionate, right?

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Nothing more than what's absolutely necessary. And the result that's going to be achieved has to be clear and achievable, an objective which you know will obviously make the offer cost worthwhile. Never vengeful, never retribution, right? That's the frame for a just war.

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Very few actual wars have come close to meeting those standards, right, and are rightly critiqued. So in the case of Brian Thompson, you're not even close to a justifiable evil in terms of meeting all those criteria. For instance, we've already talked about the difference between the system and the people.

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You know, who knows what he was doing behind the scenes? It's just impossible to know who he actually was. Sometimes people in those positions are actually doing everything they can within their limitations to achieve change. Sometimes we find out later they're secretly donating to people who are actually in opposition to their careers and to their jobs.

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Sometimes you have people who turn out to be whistleblowers. And because of their insider knowledge, they can transition a main practice in their entire industry. Often those people, despite all the projections, end up bankrupt out of a job, isolated from all their former friends. But you don't know who those people are going to be.

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The one who said he was in a biomedical physics class is from an old insurance company executive. He rose to the top of his company, national company. very well known, made massive amounts of money. Eventually, I mean, years in the exam, but his conscience got the best of him, and he quits and writes A tell-all book, becomes instrumental in the Obama administration kind of writing the healthcare policy, although he thought it failed because it didn't have public option.

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But because of his insider knowledge, he was able to say what was going on, to see, know what could be done in a way that none of us on the outside could have known. I think often that Pope Francis, who early in his career, would be seen as someone who worked with and facilitated the oppression of the authorities, the dictators, dictatorial authorities in Argentina, right? So if the president goes on to become Pope Francis dies when he's 40, he's only going to be remembered as someone who aided and abetted oppressive forces.

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Instead, he goes on to become one of the most transformative popes in history. So, you just don't have any sort of enough knowledge of who the person is, what they're really doing, what they might be doing in the future, what's going to be accomplished concretely. In this particular case, I think it actually distracts from the issue. because it's so clearly unjustifiable.

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And even more, any sense of glee or happiness at this killing, it forgets the agape, which is motivating the whole thing. So that all becomes counterproductive in trying to address this issue. So it's both unjustifiable ethically and just in this particular case, I think politically and culturally, actually works against what we want to be working towards.

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And so I just would say, I can understand people who have even been harmed. I mean, so as a pastor, when I talk to people about being pastors and counseling, I say always leave space for bitterness and resistance and a desire for retribution and vengeance. Those are natural human emotions. And it doesn't help us to deny them or to feel guilty over them.

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But it's wrong to think they're good, that they're not good for the person, and they're not justifiable in terms of treatment of others. And an action which stems from those is also problematic action, not in a dynamic where the oppressed in one generation rise up, and because their motivations are wrong, they become the oppressors of the next generation. because they haven't risen up out of agape, out of rough for all, out of a sense for justice. They've risen up out of self-interest and a sense of vengeance.

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And even right now, I could point to leaders in Africa and in parts of the Americas who at one point were the leading freedom fighters and are now the dictators. is a dynamic we see over and over again in history. And that's where these kind of deep issues of motivation. So on the one hand, I want to be understanding towards people who have these feelings.

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But on the other hand, these, this is why forgiveness for others and for oneselves, why grace is healing for everyone on all sides. And so, So that's why it's unjustifiable evil. That's why I want to be understanding, but also to be extraordinarily concerned about expressions of glee, especially sustained expressions of glee about this sort of killing.

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There's just a basic lack of human empathy for the other in that, which I find troubling, even with those whom I disagree on issues. The other thing to be careful about here, which I kind of gesture towards what I want to say clearly is, because we've always talked about critical theory today, but I don't find a lot of people who have a really deep understanding of it. So the key with critical theory is to distinguish between system and individual. So it's vital, not at a critical theoretical level, to see a system is unjust, but then to blame individuals within the system for the injustice.

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That's a completely different issue. Again, there might be greedy individuals, but in terms of it being a system, systemic issues take systemic responses. And again, within this system, the individuals who are in it, even those who appear to be benefiting from it and might be benefiting from it, you don't know who they are. I've talked to executives who are about to execute massive cuts in their corporations.

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I have one executive in mind. It was a billion dollar cut. And I remember him, oh, he was so upset. He said there's going to be divorces, so people are going to lose their health insurance.

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You're going to die. He just went on. He was just broken up. But the bottom line was, if he spoke out on that, all they'd do is replace him with someone else.

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who would do what was the best business decision. And so his best move was to stay put, right, and to do everything he could to mitigate as much as he could what was going on, come up as much as he could. And again, this is the sort of person who donates to other causes against their interests, right? So we were sitting there in his beautiful house with the tennis court and the pool, which I don't think he enjoyed ever at all.

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I, you know, and more than that, he was distressed in his soul, right? But it would have been the worst thing in the world for him to have left. You know, so, and I think it was a really question I anticipated here, shouldn't these people leave? That's a recipe for asking only people who don't really care to be in charge.

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And this, as I said in my article, there's a reason to fear that's actually happening, that the people who have the least compunction about this have the smoothest loads to the top. But that's a recipe for desire. And so no, those people should be seen, they're benefiting in some ways greatly, right, in terms of money and all these sorts of things, but often at the cost of tremendous unhappiness, tremendous sense of participating and doing great harm. And that's why I think it's great in our churches, we have all those people.

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We have people who are cleaning the halls, we have people who are in the C-suite, all in the same pews. on Sunday. And that's just vital. One of the problems is size today.

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It was better than the day when people who owned the company and people who worked as janitors were all in the same pews every Sunday. When you have people in completely different communities, thousands of miles apart, who are isolated and close to spaces, never actually see each other, it just becomes easier and easier to make these devastating decisions and say it's just business. But the people here, they usually are people who are in the church, just because those are my circles, who are simultaneously people of tremendous wealth and power. They're not sitting there easily.

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And they're invested in the church, they're invested in our seminary, they're invested in other organizations because they desperately want to do otherwise. But they're caught in a system where to do otherwise means they'll simply be kicked out of the system. And I don't think that's, we want the, we want more of those people in those positions to be helping to affect change. And we don't want them to be getting out.

00:35:18.960 - 00:35:34.720

And as a pastor, I think, or others who are doing counseling, you've got to deal with all that ambiguity and help people to own it. Because sometimes that leads to denial. And that's not safe for those people or anyone else that are. So the policymaking elite, are they annoyingly committing violence?

00:35:34.960 - 00:36:05.600

Maybe some of them. And if they are in those particular people, that's evil if you're doing this at this level to exploit people. But it's impossible to make that judgment against those individuals from the outside, because you just can't tell. So that's why my emphasis is on, yeah, the system, clearly, I think as I laid it out, I'm arguing and suggesting, I think strongly, I'm not sure I actually quite say it in this direct way, but I am suggesting that, yes, this is an evil system.

00:36:06.240 - 00:36:23.040

because it takes something in the ditch and tries to figure out how to exploit them for maximum gain. But that doesn't mean that any individual in the system is evil, or even that any of them are. Again, they could all be individually good. They're still caught within the system.

00:36:23.040 - 00:36:48.560

And that's why it's so important with critical theory to distinguish between the individual, their culpability, and their potentials, and the system, and what's needed to do to transform the system. Those individuals are needed but not even the most powerful individually are in a position to change the system, which they are actually inscribed in. That's the significance of my point, saying it's not the people in charge, it's the corporations.

00:36:49.640 - 00:37:23.920

Now, insofar as this is now global, that this is kind of an international regime that's economic, that works this way, now what we have is people servicing this system globally. It's the system in charge in that sense. Thank you. Yeah, so I hear you rooting the conversation in the strong distinction between the individual and the systems that are at play and in agape love, which is something important for every human being.

00:37:25.320 - 00:37:53.600

And you did earlier reference, you know, that it is normal then to be outraged and angry at the evil that maybe these systems perpetuate, right? So could you say what you feel as an ethicist agape looks like when it is in the form of outrage or resistance or where if it comes from these places, what does that look like or what could that look like? Right.

00:37:54.360 - 00:38:14.560

And so, you know, so ethically, what I'm saying, what I was saying with The urge for vengeance, retribution, right? The psalm talking about the delight taking when, you know, other people's babies' heads are smashed against the rock. Well, you know, that is an awful psalm, but what I love about it is it's honesty.

00:38:15.280 - 00:38:31.040

And I don't think it's saying that's a good thing. It's just saying that's natural. But it, you know, the rest of scripture says, get beyond that or you harm yourself and others. So ethically, it's not ethical.

00:38:32.080 - 00:38:50.400

Psychologically, in terms of our human nature, it's understandable and it's natural. So we might have those impulses. So again, I want to be understanding in that sense, but at the same time realizing you cannot leave people there. It's not ethical and it's not good for them or others in the long run.

00:38:50.400 - 00:39:17.400

So what does agape look like in the form of outrage and resistance? And I don't know if outrage was your term, maybe, but I'll say it looks like love your enemies, right? Which means not personal enemies, but enemies of agape, enemies of what's loving and good. But it's love your enemies.

00:39:17.400 - 00:39:44.480

What's interesting about that is they remain enemies. that those are the enemies who you love, who you also resist for the sake of what is good, even as they remain enemies. And as you said, in extreme circumstances, you may even be forced to injure or even kill the enemy you love. But you never kill without that love.

00:39:45.600 - 00:40:17.760

So I'm not sure about the term outrage, But I'm sure about agape as, maybe I'd use righteous anger, would distinguish it from rage, because I don't think it's going to ever look like rage if rage includes hatred. The righteous anger, I think, is anger with love. And anger with love that's in the service of what's good and loving

00:40:18.320 - 00:40:51.800

and to resist and to fight against what's unloving, either the point of coercion, perhaps even killing, but never hateful, right? So if you're in that position, like my police officer I told you about, right, he killed because he had to, you could see the pain in his eyes. Now, I'm not sure if psychologically it's possible to kill what you love. But insofar as this love is a real force, right?

00:40:51.960 - 00:41:06.560

Again, this is where I think you have the heart of moral injury. Sometimes soldiers will talk about celebrating the kill right after they've done it. That is normal and it's human. And there shouldn't be guilt about that.

00:41:07.840 - 00:41:34.120

But the sense of guilt that's often felt about that is because the love is a real force. And over time, that troops. A favorite philosopher of mine, Leno Levinas, who was both a captive of the Nazis as a Jew, but before that actually was an officer in the French military, who was in the battle, an early battle. So someone with

00:41:34.640 - 00:41:53.440

battleground experience, right? A huge, fierce blitzkrieg of German forces in a massive battle, right? He said, you can never kill the face of the other. And what he meant by that is not as he says, obviously you can, you can make them die, right?

00:41:53.920 - 00:42:07.600

But I think the sense in which you can't kill a resistance in which that face always returns to you. You don't, they're not gone. They haunt you. because it's such a violation, right?

00:42:07.920 - 00:42:37.840

So in that case, again, the move is, on the one hand, understand that what you've done, hopefully, I mean, it's more complicated if what you've done is actually wrong, but if what you've done is right, but simultaneously awful, right, ethically good, but morally evil, but you can move into that agape and this is where the gracious love is so significance into forgiveness. But that is what angers us. So the killing, the resistance, it's never a rage with hatred.

00:42:38.160 - 00:42:53.320

It's always righteous anger. So it's not hateful, it's not self-righteous, it's not spiteful, it's not vengeful. It's not certain, it's infallible, right? So it's firm, it's resolute,

00:42:54.000 - 00:43:20.200

It's careful, it's measured, it's strategic, it's never more coercive or violent than it is forced to be, and it's open to correction. And it keeps track of areas of relative surety and ambiguity. Today we have too many people, it's just all in one way or the other. It's kind of it's fundamentalisms on either side, when really this range of ambiguity

00:43:20.800 - 00:43:38.800

And then areas of surety, right? So it's important not to let, to keep track of both of those. Some people, in some cases, they want to just say everything is relative, even as, you know, 2 seconds later, they're absolutists about something. Neither is right.

00:43:38.880 - 00:43:59.600

It's neither all nor all absolute. right? And here we don't, we can't appeal to objectivity anymore, but we can appeal to historically deep, cross-culturally wide, inter-subjective consensus. There's no religious tradition in the world, no major ethical tradition in the world, except for social Darwinism.

00:44:00.040 - 00:44:11.920

which says, exploit the person in the ditch. Every single one of them says, love the person in the ditch. So that's sure. That is not ambiguous.

00:44:12.080 - 00:44:42.160

That is profound, deep, cross-cultural, historically deep, inner subjective confirmation. And so in terms of outrage and resistance or in terms of righteous anger and resistance, that's what agape looks like in the face of an enemy who remains an enemy and who in the name of agape, that is the name of male interest, although male interest scout too, because agape loves me too. Right. But in the name of what's loving and good, I might be forced to resist others.

00:44:42.480 - 00:45:09.680

But in that way. Very nice. That's very helpful framing. And I think in rooting us again in Agape as we think about these things and, you know, affirming that you named the, I think, the normalcy of the feeling of righteous anger, especially as Christians and Christian ministers.

00:45:11.560 - 00:45:40.480

So I have another question. If executives are faced with choosing between the legal and the good, does this sort of, and I'll use the word out, righteous anger, mean that they should leave these systems? I know earlier you mentioned, well, that we need some of these people in these systems, especially ones that are trying to improve them or are in rooted in some way in agape love. But

00:45:41.560 - 00:45:57.440

Should they need these systems if they are benefiting so much, for example, financially? Yeah. And so what I'd say here is, you know, maybe it depends. The point, the point is not personal purity, I don't think.

00:45:57.800 - 00:46:12.000

Right. So if you're in the system and you're feeling guilty, so you decide to leave, so you don't feel guilty anymore. That, I think, is more about self-righteousness. more about dealing with one's own guilt.

00:46:12.640 - 00:46:34.240

So I don't think that's a good motivation for leaving. I think deciding to leave means deciding what is the way for you to move forward in the most loving and good way possible. And so some of them will be called to be prophets. You know, I think that's why Jeremiah talks about a burning coal on his top.

00:46:35.280 - 00:46:44.920

You know, so he knows that this is not going to go well for him. I don't know his personal circumstances. I don't know much at all. But I can imagine his wife at home saying, stop doing that.

00:46:44.920 - 00:46:58.480

You're going to get yourself killed and end up with a widow of nominee. And I just can't stop myself, right? So you have people without prophets and they can't help but just speak out at that radical level. And we need those people.

00:46:58.880 - 00:47:16.960

And so some people might be in this position and they just, at some point, they finally see what's going on. Remember, people set out to be doing this in a greedy way, right? They got a college, they want a good job, they get this job, they have a family, they have a voyage, they keep getting promoted up. They're pieces of a system, they may not even see the whole thing.

00:47:17.280 - 00:47:30.720

And then eventually they see the whole thing. But now the entire, you know, the well-being of their family, of their relatives, maybe they're huge supporters of a church. I mean, Now they're just super complex systems, and if they walk away, what happens?

00:47:31.240 - 00:47:52.000

Nothing changes. Except now they're not part of that system. So again, I'd say that walking away just for personal purity, that I don't think is actually an agopic response because it's too self-focused. Walking away because one day it just snaps and you can't do it anymore, which is kind of that insurance company exec who I told you about.

00:47:52.000 - 00:48:03.600

He just, there was a particular case and that was it. And then he just writes this tell-all book, alienates all his friends and loses his job. I mean, everything gets cut off. You know, he just, you know, that's what he needed to do.

00:48:04.560 - 00:48:20.720

That was a prophetic movement. It might have made some difference, but you don't want everyone to do that. You need also the people who have a way to stay in the system and use their access, their smarts. These are incredibly complicated systems.

00:48:21.120 - 00:48:53.480

You have to know a lot about the system to figure out how to change it. so these people are in unique positions to actually mitigate harms and damages to, again, use their resources, whether that's financial resources or just their ideas to help people who are trying to affect change. And again, that will of necessity be done secretly because of what's demanded of people in these positions. So it's impossible for everyone to know what people are really doing.

00:48:55.000 - 00:49:19.040

And so some people do some sequence, some people, do their time and then they become, prophetic. And there's just all sorts of different ways. I just think in all of those rooms, what I would say is that the folks and grant you ask this question is, you know, I hear this. People just walk out of the job.

00:49:19.920 - 00:49:36.080

If everyone did that, means the only people in these positions of power would be people who have no sense of agape whatsoever. And that's just a recipe for disaster, right? So there's no single answer. It's certainly not the case that everyone should just leave.

00:49:36.400 - 00:49:59.640

People should not leave simple out of some sense of personal purity. People should figure out where they are, what is strategically the best way that they can move forward, right, in order to help affect change in the system that's going to make things more loving, more good over time. And there may be all sorts of strategic secret ways to do that.

00:49:59.640 - 00:50:17.200

There might be some who do the more prophetic. What we actually need is a blend. And so one thing that frustrates me sometimes in advocacy communities is where everyone thinks everyone should be just like them, right? So the radical feminists hate the moderate feminists, and the moderate feminists do it.

00:50:17.360 - 00:50:26.720

Instead of realizing, we need people from all these sorts of approaches working together. We need the folks who are pastors. We need the folks who are profits.

00:50:27.360 - 00:50:54.720

You know, we need all of these different folks working. The key is to make sure you're alive to agape and to figure out, given your particular power and possibilities, what is the most loving way forward to you? And we can urge people to do that, but because of limits in our understanding, it's very difficult to judge from the outside who is who. And of course, that's the other thing that makes that the killing of Brian Thompson.

00:50:55.720 - 00:51:18.320

you know, so unjustifiable. It's impossible to know who he really was or who he may have become in terms of agape. That's what I mean about taking a system and seeing a problem with a system and assuming that an individual is, you know, a representation of that system as an individual. That is a massive confusion.

00:51:18.400 - 00:51:46.640

And so not only is it unjustifiable, but you might actually end up, doing great harm to your own cause because of whom you've heart and because you've engaged them in action, which now in some ways discredits the entire movement of protest, which is rooted in Agape. So yeah, so it's a complicated thing. And I think, again, one of the good things about

00:51:47.200 - 00:52:15.920

I said churches, but not just churches, churches, synagogues, mosques, sweat lodges, all these spaces where in this space what rules is love of neighbor, quinonia, and you get people who are in these different worlds in society, but they come to this space together on a weekly basis to reflect on how to be loving. They see each other's faces. that is essential. And the leaders of those communities, I mean, I think that's why seminary is so important.

00:52:16.400 - 00:52:54.400

And those need to be really educated, expert in all of these areas selected because of their aptitudes, right, and their abilities that have been trained, working with these folks, that is an essential part, I think, of a healthy society. If we're going to have a balance between the sphere of nature drive going for profiting, survival, and prosperity, money, and agape, as we have agape, concerns that the society be loving and just. And so, you know, everyone falls in that category.

00:52:54.880 - 00:53:29.440

The people who are profiting the most in the one sense, they're also the people who are trapped in another sense the most. Thank you. I mean, in that respect is, you're naming that all sort of approaches are needed, or we need profits, we need priests, you need these different roles to bring about change. So then could you say more about what you said in your essay about a wholesale turn to the sphere of agape could lead to a devastatingly vulnerable sphere

00:53:30.920 - 00:53:52.080

of nature, could lead to a sphere of nature dynamics. Could you say more about what you mean by that? Right, so the whole, the three spheres, which I argue for, this is the realism theory that I've been arguing for in all my books. And its distinguishing characteristic is its affirmation of agape as a real force.

00:53:52.120 - 00:54:31.120

And I think agape is the force at the heart of Christianity. I think of Jesus as agape in kind. But I also think that, when Confucians talk about Oren, or Bruthists talk about Maitri, or Jews talk about Hesed, and on and on and on, they're talking about the same reality, that faith traditions are all attempts to take this force, the spirit of agape that they've encountered, and to make it real in the world. And so that for me is what I talk about, the vocabularies that are anchored around agape, about having been seized by love for every face.

00:54:31.600 - 00:54:47.800

Those vocabularies constitute the sphere of agape. But I think there are two other spheres as well. One is the sphere of nature. And that's those system of vocabularies which is anchored around a notion of causation.

00:54:48.560 - 00:55:02.960

And it's really what sociology and chemistry and physics and biology, all these sciences in that sense are part of of that, as we usually think of them. It's survival of the fittest.

00:55:03.520 - 00:55:16.360

It's Darwinism. It's self-interest and social Darwinism. It's survival of the fittest as the fittest of the ones who should survive, if it's only in its own right. So that's how you get social Darwinism.

00:55:17.040 - 00:55:30.440

It's selfish. It's concerns are for prosperity, profit, and for power, and for satisfaction of desires, right? That kind of names that whole sphere, the way it thinks.

00:55:30.440 - 00:55:49.760

There's no space in that sphere for free will or for moral reality. But we have these vocabularies because this names real forces in the world, right? So we have to attend to the sphere of agape. And there's one other sphere I talk about, and that's the sphere of poetic eyes.

00:55:50.720 - 00:56:11.400

And that's the sphere which is indexed to our freely willing to being authentic in the sense of creating who you will be. Not being just a product of nature or nurture or genes or memes, right? So we're all overwhelmingly products of nature and nurture, memes and genes. But the idea is not completely that.

00:56:11.480 - 00:56:27.040

This is existentialism, right? There's a degree to which I actually can create myself. I can actually freely choose within parameters who and what I'm going to be. And that gives us a place for creativity, creative self-expression, a sense of authenticity and personal responsibility.

00:56:27.200 - 00:56:52.560

This is another set of vocabularies, right? It's a little bit of three spheres that I think of, the sphere of nature, the sphere of product eyes, and the sphere of agape. And that goes along with three rationalities. The predominant rationality among intellectual elites today, globally, is known as naturalism or materialism, a metaphysic.

00:56:53.120 - 00:57:18.880

And if you're a naturalist or a materialist, that means that the only thing you think is ultimately real is completely described in the vocabularies of the sphere of nature. So most elite philosophers and intellectuals globally, they think that, which means they don't think there's any such thing as free will, and they don't think there's any moral reality. That's why for them, it's obvious all ethics is relative, right? They think there's ideas of free will.

00:57:18.880 - 00:57:32.000

They think we think we have free will. We just don't. And they think we want ideas about morality, but they understand it's just a brute causal flux at root. And then there's another form of rationality, which is maybe

00:57:33.280 - 00:57:48.560

more widespread, but not amongst intellectualities, but more in popular, which is secular rationality. And this is the classic rationality of the Enlightenment. And it both affirms the sphere of nature. I think science can explain everything.

00:57:48.760 - 00:58:11.040

And simultaneously and inconsistently, it affirms free will. and thinks there's nothing more significant but deciding who you're going to be, to dare to think for yourself, to be authentic, right? Not to be just a product of outside forces, but to actually create yourself and be, you know, your own creation. And that's, but they don't have any space for agape.

00:58:12.560 - 00:58:45.280

The sphere of agape, what distinguishes that, again, as I've said, is the moral realism theory affirms the sphere of agape as a real force, as real as gravity, I'd argue, right? And so, and there, of course, that's where you idealize communities of love, people who are prioritizing concern for others, building coinonias, acting not with self-interest, but out of response to lovingness, right? So what I mean about a wholesale term to the sphere of a bape, which I talk about in reference to socialist utopias, right? So let's take Marx.

00:58:46.280 - 00:59:14.880

Marx's idea of from each according to their ability and to each according to their need, right? So that's a beautiful vision. But it presumes that somehow in this world, abilities and needs match up in such a way that if we give to each according to their needs, and we take from each coordinate, or we give to each coordinate ability and give to each according to needs, we're going to have a nice, neat system.

00:59:14.960 - 00:59:28.200

It's all going to work together. Plus, it assumes everyone is going to work, right, in this way. This is a loving way to give to others, right? But that wholly forgets the dynamics of the sphere of nature.

00:59:28.960 - 01:00:08.000

that actually people are going to work selfishly. They're not just going to work out of what's most loving and good, right? The Christian way of saying this is that Marx is devastatingly naive with regard to the doctrines of sin and the fallen character of the world, in which things do not line up, in which you have all these conflicting forces that can't be resolved, in which you can expect people not to work for the good, but to work out of self-interest, like the sphere of nature tells us so. So if you go just to a sphere of a gap A and you try to construct a utopian system out of there, that's what I mean is you are devastatingly vulnerable to sphere of nature dynamics.

01:00:08.320 - 01:00:33.240

So then within that utopia, you're going to get all the sorts of people that are going to work within it, right? So pretty soon you're going to have these people creating not a great, wonderful system but new forms of oppression in which some people in the power and vast majorities are major alarmist and suffering because they have no recourse against all this power, which is exactly what we've seen happen in the Soviet Union and in China. Right?

01:00:33.600 - 01:00:46.520

It's every other place is tried. Again, the socialist utopias will fatal because they forget sphere of nature dynamics. We're at the other extreme, in some of what I've described here with medical care. We're not being the sphere of nature.

01:00:46.520 - 01:01:10.720

And grouping is not socialism, which is triumphant. Right now, most every international and national regime, right from China and the Soviet Union to our transnational economic relationships, WTO, European Union, you know, and social regime here, The bottom line is the bottom line. And this goes together with the background rationality, which is dominant with intellectual elites, which is naturalism.

01:01:11.200 - 01:01:23.840

There is no moral reality. All ethics is relativism. All secularism is moral reality and free will, but no ethics, right? So it's an extraordinarily dangerous systemic distortion.

01:01:24.080 - 01:01:54.320

In this sense, the enlightenment is an enlightenment in the sciences. And it's been accompanied by a massive darkening, or at least more advance, in the realm of ethics and morality and spirituality. So we're ending up in a place where we have the technological capacity of gods and the wisdom of three-year-olds. It is an incredibly dangerous situation for us, right, on multiple levels.

01:01:54.640 - 01:02:20.960

Health care gives us one instance of this. Some theory is we are trying to apply it to health care, but it's really about this related systemic distortion, which I think is right now a massive global threat. The Hebrew prophets, they were really wise in this regard. So the utopias, right?

01:02:21.280 - 01:02:32.800

The lion living with the lamb, the first creation account. But the Hebrew prophets' utopias are always paschalological. They're never in history, right?

01:02:33.120 - 01:02:45.920

And people think that's magical thinking. I think it's actually hyper-realistic thinking. That's their way of saying, this ain't never happening here. This is what perfect love would have.

01:02:46.840 - 01:03:00.800

This is being utopian, a world in which everyone is in harmony and doesn't live with each other. Marx is, you know, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need, that one's way better, right? That's fine there. Not in this world.

01:03:01.400 - 01:03:15.040

In this world, it's a disaster. The Hebrew prophets didn't make that mistake. So they had their utopian visions. They kept something for us to try to aim to even hands we knew would never achieve it.

01:03:15.280 - 01:03:33.200

Right? So nowadays you get lots of people who let their realism defeat their idealism. What the Hebrew prophets did was they mean idealistic and realistic at the same time. They are continually calling to a balance, right, between sphere of nature and sphere of agape.

01:03:33.600 - 01:04:06.160

And their concrete prophecies, right, always revolved around, this is the Deuteronomic history, you know, if you don't do this, if you forget God, you're going to fall. And the Deuteronic history looks over the course of Israel's history, and it says, when Israel forgot God, by which means forgot agape, which means, you know, it's Castillo Gutierrez who reminded us, it means you forgot the widow, the poor, the alien, right? So forgetting God is not about forgetting rituals and prayers which don't please God. Forgetting God is about forgetting the poor, the widow, the alien.

01:04:06.640 - 01:04:33.280

And what they say is, over this course of hundreds of years, when the country has forgotten God, it's fallen. When it's remembered God, it's prospered. That's not magical thinking. That's saying when you forget the poor, when you forget agape, you're going to rot from within in multifurious ways is going to make you fall and just implode or being vulnerable to attack from without.

01:04:34.080 - 01:04:50.400

If you remember those, that's your best chance to flourish, right? Gucciios was going on this because he said you should have your utopian visions, But you should think the fact that you're in history, that you're always working to them, that they're always constantly receding. So you're keeping them in play.

01:04:50.560 - 01:05:07.520

You can keep to correcting them, right? Gutierrez himself says, you know, early on, I really wasn't attentive to women in the way I should have been. I really wasn't attentive to indigenous people in the way I should have been. I'm not sure he quite ever got around in some other issues, but he was open to that, right?

01:05:08.400 - 01:05:25.000

But you move forward always towards that vision, but Whenever you're thinking you are able or have the knowledge to bring about the so-called end of history, so you know what the perfect society will look like. That, again, is a recipe for disaster. None of us can know enough for that, to do that right.

01:05:25.600 - 01:05:47.680

And we're dealing with these forces. So we're called constantly to the struggle. But the idea that we don't build balance, this would be the recommendation of moral realism theory, in which a nation is great, in terms of its economic and military and other sorts of power, but it's also empowering of its people.

01:05:47.840 - 01:06:01.240

It respects autonomy through part archive. So it's empowering of people, maximizing space for them to be creative and generative, and it feels good. It remembers the spirit of Agape. and works to make that.

01:06:01.240 - 01:06:36.160

And what I'm saying is that we've got to work to balance all of those to have the most flourishing moving forward. I don't think it would be accomplished, but we can still get better. And we, in any concrete moment, can work to cope imbalances, especially right now where I think the imbalance is radically due to the story of nature. and to an emphasis on being great and a forgetting of, unfortunately, I mean, really, a forgetting of God, forgetting of agape, which is, again, tremendously dangerous.

01:06:36.160 - 01:07:00.080

Okay, thank you. So in that respect, if change can or should come by having this sort of balance, engaging the three spheres, Does that mean that incremental change is really the best or most viable option for bringing about change? Yeah, I think viable is the word, right?

01:07:00.160 - 01:07:20.960

So if, let's go back to healthcare, right? So we're dealing with massively complex social, economic, political, cultural, ethical realities, right? I mean, All these different areas of this, and this would help for other all sorts of other issues as well.

01:07:21.520 - 01:07:58.000

If I could snap my fingers and deliver it, deliver it, but the reason is none of us can. And because the realities we're dealing with are so complex and because the forces are so deeply inscribed in society, right, it's really difficult to know for sure what the consequences of any radical move are going to be. Let them be assured you're going to end up with something better on the other side. That, given the complexity and the embeddedness, the strength in all the various forces,

01:07:58.760 - 01:08:27.840

But the odds of 1 doing that, and again, historically, all the regimes that have tried these radical changes, snapping to what's better, they typically are horror stories. So you get horror on one side, you get massive resistance, you get horror on the other side. And so I think in that sense, incremental is what's realistic. Again, it's kind of like the, you know, the knee jerk kind of

01:08:29.680 - 01:08:50.480

desire for vengeance. There is, there is, I mean, it's so easy to want things to change immediately, especially if you're seeing the author of suffering that's happening and during, right? You just, you know, justice, the one need is justice denied that line, right? That has power to it.

01:08:50.880 - 01:09:16.480

The problem is, attempts, and you don't rinse that. That's why that utopian vision, you have a constant movement towards it. But the problem is the instantaneous transition of entire civilizations, or at this point, entire world orders, right? Just like that, with all, that just cannot be done in a way which we have, it can have any assurance it's going to lead to something better.

01:09:16.800 - 01:09:27.760

We do know that the attempt is going to be extraordinarily violent. disruptive just by definition, right? So yes, incremental changes. Now, that doesn't mean not major changes, right?

01:09:27.760 - 01:09:50.240

So I think the National Nurses United Plan for Medicare for All, right? That is a great vision. I'm not expert enough to know if it's a doable vision, but it looks like one potential realistic vision. But even if that's your vision, and that would be, you know, for some people, a pretty radical change, you've still got to figure out how to get there, right?

01:09:50.640 - 01:10:11.280

So you need all the incremental changes to be in order to get that vision to become a reality. And most likely that vision will be realized over time. So sometimes you get incremental changes which lead to kind of a what do I want to call it, a pivotal point, right, where something, there's an epical shift.

01:10:11.520 - 01:10:39.520

But even in that case, you haven't gone from nothing to the shift, right? You've gone from all these incremental changes, which are, you know, allowing you to do this in a way which is reasonable, makes sense, which is cautious, which is, you know, test and see things that don't work, and then allow what looks like an instant dangerous transition in some way, but it's actually built on incremental changes, right? But so I understand the desire in a way, the righteous demand for change right now.

01:10:40.400 - 01:11:09.600

The problem is in the real world, that's just not possible. So I think we can own and affirm the urgency of that cry and the passion of it. But if that becomes the demand and it's like, or some people either we have that or we're just going to muck everything up, you know, mucking everything up, Situations of chaos are even worse for those who are weak and dispossessed than situations of relative order.

01:11:10.560 - 01:11:29.360

It is not to the benefit of the people who are most vulnerable and most in need to have more chaos. In chaos, people with power and resources will build them. You know, that might be unstable. They may fall out and somebody else comes and takes it, but you're not going to get better justice that way.

01:11:29.440 - 01:11:55.080

And the process is going to be even more devastating, usually, than what you reacted to. So, yeah, so I don't say incremental because that's what the three steer says. I'm not saying it because that would be what I would I want to close a quote. I'm just saying that because I think that is, again, this goes back to agape being strategic, resolute, you know, deliberate, you know, all these sorts of things.

01:11:55.080 - 01:12:10.720

So there's no There's no loss of passion here, but that passion is turned into an action which can be as most productive as possible. And again, I want to affirm not everyone does it the same way. So there might be some profits, right?

01:12:12.360 - 01:12:30.000

And there might be others who are going to be working in great complicity, right? So there might be people who are along the scale, but they're all working to the grid if they're all moving in this direction to make things better than would be otherwise. And that way too, don't fall into the trap of thinking if things aren't perfect, you failed, right?

01:12:30.000 - 01:12:36.800

So I hear people, the Great Society programs failed, right? Because we didn't get rid of poverty. Well, no, we didn't get rid of poverty. Who thought that would happen?

01:12:37.040 - 01:12:51.200

How many millions are better off in so many ways than they would have been without it, right? That's success. So don't let this kind of perfection stuff, it can not move ways, can be used against you. demand it, and people will say, but you didn't get it, right?

01:12:51.600 - 01:13:28.640

The whole thing is to make as much a difference as possible, to respond to agape as faithfully as possible, to remain realistic about what's possible in the real world, and to attend to those dynamics. And everyone at their place to think in a strategic, careful way how they can engage in furthering the sphere of agape in the world. And this is why I think it is actually, let me use just Christian terminology again. And again, I've used largely more generic terminology because I want to be inclusive of, you know, humanists and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Wiccans and everyone else.

01:13:28.880 - 01:13:47.680

But this is definitive meaning Christian. So, you know, to do this concretely in the world is how you confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Anyone can say those words. You don't take up your cross, you don't follow Jesus with words.

01:13:48.480 - 01:14:16.600

You do it by working in the world in fidelity to agape while remaining realistic so you are effective. And that's my hope for what this essay might make some little tiny contribution towards among the readers out there who read this. And again, this is why I have such great hope in religious institutions, faith traditions, because they're full of people who actually have real work and knowledge.

01:14:16.960 - 01:14:40.880

We need people in finance and in law and in politics and in medicine and in history and in ethics and we own them. We need all of these people to be working in their ways to get these sorts of changes for all sorts of things. And, you know, that's where this is a, you know, the essay is in this sense kind of a, itself a, a scream into the dark, hoping that people will hear it and respond.

01:14:41.040 - 01:15:03.440

Because obviously, I can't do a thing about this. You know, that's, I think, the hope. You know, so many of us who were scholars or pastors, these are people that were engaged and be inspired and have a utopian dream, awaken to agape, and then begin to act in their daily lives to make things better rather than worse. Thank you.

01:15:03.440 - 01:15:21.520

Well, I hear you kind of saying a little about what is maybe what you hope to accomplish with this essay. So I was wondering if you could expand on that. What did you want to accomplish? And then if there's anything else that you didn't get to say in the essay that you maybe want to share with people listening.

01:15:21.840 - 01:15:31.760

Yeah, and those are great questions. I don't have a lot to add. And the reason your questions were so good. I want to just end by saying they were crisp.

01:15:31.840 - 01:15:49.760

They covered an array of material. I think they asked things that people might say in challenging the essay that would be maybe common risk perceptions of what I'm thinking. So I'm so grateful for you voicing that so I have a chance to respond. Doesn't mean people will agree with me, but at least it takes us at a next step of the conversation.

01:15:50.720 - 01:16:09.080

And goodness knows I've been wrong before. So the disagreement may be good, but it's great to be able to engage and have your questions stimulate really, I think, in advance on what I was said in the essay. And you're like, what you just said is my hope for the essay.

01:16:09.280 - 01:16:32.120

I'm just, the many ways in which people are harmed by the lack of access to healthcare, by the way a healthcare industry is working. And as I said in the beginning, this is not just people who are sick, but people in the industry. It really hurts everyone.

01:16:32.320 - 01:17:12.560

And it really speaks, I think, to a moral and spiritual need for awakening, which I'm hoping, you can't get an awakening which is undisciplined and reactionary and fundamentalist, and that's not the sort of awakening I'm looking for. I'm looking for one which is loving and realistic and careful, all the things we've. talked about. And I think that, it was partly the book by Case and Deaton, which I'd highly recommend, although, it has its limitations.

01:17:13.360 - 01:17:51.600

the footnotes, the articles in the footnotes people can explore as well to see where this goes. But it just feels to me like this is one of many, but a significant issue which just speaks so clearly to systemic distortion in modern rationality itself, and in our political and economic systems, which we desperately need to address if we're going to flourish as a society, which is good and great. I often go to the call of Abram and how the call of Abram says that Abram's going to be made blessed, but also be made a blessing to all nations.

01:17:52.320 - 01:18:24.160

And to say that's what the call is, that you can be a great nation, maybe for a short term, but the call is to be a great nation and a good nation. And so you can be pro-American if being pro-American is simultaneously being for Canadians and for Russians and for Chinese. And you can be pro-Christian if being pro-Christian is also being pro-Muslim and pro-Jewish and pro-Buddhist and pro-Wiccan.

01:18:24.560 - 01:18:55.200

Insofar, as each is faithful to agape. So it's not a relativism, but there is this common appeal. The idea of today that's so common in academia that the different religions live in these silent, you know, competitive, isolated spheres, and they're all opposed to each other, that protects this sphere of nature and dominance, and it allows it to triumph over

01:18:55.480 - 01:19:36.880

what is a massive global interfaith consensus about what is essentially loving and good and just. And so every day on global terms, we make decisions which look reasonable and are reasonable within the sphere of nature, which are not, it's not, they are clearly a violation. of what every faith tradition and every major religious, every major ethic, including humanism, except for Dutch social Darwinism, would say is love eating good. So that's what I'm looking for in terms of the concrete issue of healthcare access,

01:19:37.120 - 01:20:02.080

but also in terms of this deeper, more widespread issue of what I think is a massive systemic distortion, which is affecting, at this point, global irrationality, and which is marginalizing the force of agape in ways that are really harmful for all of us. So that's my hope. Thanks again, Crystal. for your great questions.

01:20:02.480 - 01:20:30.440

No, thank you so much and for your essay. I want to remind people listening to read the essay in Insights, More Realism, Theory, and US Healthcare, and to also check out Dr. Greenway's book, A Reasonable Belief for the Love of All Creatures and Agape Ethics. the challenge of evil, reasonable faith for a post-secular age, and in the light of agape, which is what you've rooted us in this conversation and agape list.

01:20:30.440 - 01:20:34.240

So thank you so much for your work and for the conversation. Thanks, Crystal.