35: A Better Way at the National Cathedral with Randy Hollerith

Dean Hollerith:      We have felt at the Cathedral in the past year or two years that one of our most important roles is to be a voice for what we’re calling a better way. That there’s a better way for us to deal with one another as Americans. There’s a better way for us to deal with politics, you know, lifting up the values of civility, of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, of seeing each person as a beloved child of God, while at the same time calling out the values that need to be called out. 

B:            Hi. I’m Brandon Nappi.

H:           Hi. I’m Hannah Black. 

B:            And we’re your hosts on The Leader’s Way, an audio pilgrimage from Berkeley Divinity School, The Episcopal Seminary at Yale University. 

H:           On this journey, we reflect on what matters most in life as we talk about all things spirituality, innovation, leadership, and transformation. 

B:            Hey, Hannah.

Hey, Brandon. How’s it going? 

B:            I love September. September? 

H:           Well, isn’t there an Anne of Green Gables quote about that? No. Sorry. That’s October. I’m so thankful to be in a world where there are Octobers. We’re almost– sorry. That was not good September content. 

B:            Earth, Wind, and Fire is the September quote of choice. 

H:           “Do you remember…”

B:            We do remember, and we love it. I love the warm days. I love the cool nights. 

H:           I know. Well, New England is the place to be in late September. 

B:            It is. You know, I think this is actually kind of part of my theology and my pedagogy. Like, I appreciate balancing opposites. Right? I feel like if my theology leans too much one way or the other, I feel like it’s it loses its health. It loses its vibrancy. Right?

H:           The mystery of God, Brandon, is found in paradox. 

B:            It’s the mystery of God. And so I’m feeling most balanced with my weather needs in September. My humours are balanced.

H:           Your humours? What century are we in?

B:            Isn’t that like nineteenth century? My feelings are balanced. And when they’re not, I go to the seashore. 

H:           I prescribe for you one trip to the sea.

B:            Oh, gosh. 

H:           Oh my goodness. Well, speaking of place, here’s my Hannah Black Pivot (TM). Let’s talk about the National Cathedral. Have you ever been?

B:            I have. I was there just about a year ago and it is just a treasure. I love it. 

H:           Let me tell you about some of my favorite little bits and pieces of the National Cathedral. This is like very low-brow favorites. Of course, there are highbrow, deep, and mystical favorites, but lowbrow favorites: the Darth Vader gargoyle, of course. I feel like that in and of itself is worth traveling to see. 

B:            So I feel like we need to have the artist who created the Darth Vader gargoyle on the podcast. Bucket list.

H:           Well, you know, my sister just sent me the Instagram profile of, like, the lead stonemason at the cathedral. He has a pretty good Instagram presence, so he could talk about gargoyles. 

B:            Let’s chat gargoyles. Maybe Gargoyle chat. Maybe around Halloween.

H:           So another one of my favorite things, and I almost texted you to see if this could be a work expense, like, under “office supplies,” is they sell gargoyle squishmallows. Do you know what that is? They’re all the rage. There’s you know, sometimes there’s, like, a brand of stuffed animal that’s really cool, like Beanie Babies or Build A Bear. These days, it’s like Jelly Cat, Squishmallow. I’m here to report the hard hitting facts of stuffed animal trends. 

B:            Friends, watch the millennial educate the generation X. Thank you. Okay. I’m here. I’m here for it.

H:           So it’s a very … amorphous kind of, like, sphere of a stuffed animal, but then it’s a gargoyle, so it sort of has, like, little scraggle wings that come out the side. And I thought, like, that would make a really good Berkeley-centered decoration because if anyone is with gargoyle aesthetic, it’s probably us. But, yeah, I was tempted. I was tempted to buy the gargoyle Squishmallow. 

B:            Yeah. I wonder if the Yale accountants would approve the squishmallow. 

H:           How many eyebrows would be raised? Yale is very gargoyle-y though. So 

B:            Yeah. That’s true, right? Mhmm. Wouldn’t it be neat to have, like, a gargoyle, at your office door?

H:           It would. 

B:            To ward off …

B:            Evil spirits. 

B:            … All the things that need warding off. 

H:           And maybe evil people. 

B:            We have none of those.

H:           So those are kind of my lowbrow favorites of the National Cathedral. Also, the coffee shop. Highly recommend the coffee shop to anyone who’s in the area. Yeah. 

B:            I missed the coffee shop.

H:           Oh, it’s really cute. It’s in this little building next to the Bishop’s Garden, which did you go there? 

B:            That was my first visit. Yes. Yeah.

H:           I figured that. I mean, like that screams “Brandon Nappi.” And then right next to that, there’s a building that kind of looks like Hagrid’s hut called Open City Cafe at the National Cathedral. Very legit. 

B:            Alright. Pilgrimage. Everyone, send your pictures from the National Cathedral. We’d love to see them. 

H:           Yeah. Tag us, The LeadersWay.Podcast on Instagram. My third favorite lowbrow thing at the cathedral, which is actually genius, is their thing where if you donate money, you can add LEGO bricks to their LEGO cathedral. 

B:            Wow. That is so cool. 

H:           Yeah. It’s humongous. It takes up … I mean, it’s like the room it’s in is, like, half the size of my apartment. There’s, like, a manual that somebody has made for how to add bricks so that it eventually makes a full cathedral. It’s amazing. 

B:            That’s so cool. And, Hannah, is it totally random that we’re talking about the National Cathedral? 

H:           It’s so not random at all. And all of our listeners with more than one brain cell have noticed that the title of this episode is alluding to our guest for today. Take it away, Brandon. 

B:            Well, our guest for today is the Very Reverend Randy Hollerith, who is the 11th Dean of our beloved Washington National Cathedral. He was named the Dean in 2016. He is a graduate of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and we’re so proud of the work that he and his team are doing there in D.C.. He has spearheaded a new strategic plan for the cathedral, highlighting four core priorities: welcoming, deepening, convening, and serving. And there has been a $150,000,000 capital campaign to go along with it to make sure that the … all of the wonderful work that they do is sustainable and can live on for many, many years into the future. 

               I love this conversation, because Dean Hollerith shares his vocation story, shares with us about his experience, his wisdom, and his vision of how the church can be a source of grace, inspiration, and meeting space–a convening space, really, in the midst of political strife. And I think we all know a little bit about political strife. Don’t we? 

               So, I’m really thankful for this conversation and to have such a unique perspective into the life of the church, but into the life of a church that has an identity as gathering space politically in the heart of our capital. 

H:           Well, Randy, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today.

R:            Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you all for having me. 

H:           Yeah. And, for our listeners, I feel like it’s just a little fun fact that yesterday I attended the National Cathedral to worship and got to see Dean Hollerith, Randy, in person. So it’s nice to meet again virtually for our listeners.

R:            Glad you came by. 

H:           It’s just so beautiful. So yeah, with the National Cathedral looming large in my mind, I imagine that it’s hard to not talk about politics in this day and age. You’re in a position where you’re in a place where literally politics feels like it makes the world go round. And I can imagine being a priest somewhere less political by nature and thinking, gosh, how do I lead my congregation through such political times leading up to this November’s presidential election? So I just wonder, first off, what advice you have from your learned experiences at the National Cathedral for people who are leading churches and not quite sure how to address the political elephant or donkey, or both, in the room. 

R:            That’s a great question, though. I wish I could say there was one good answer for it. There really isn’t. The way I look at it is that the gospel is political, and there’s just no way around it. You can’t say, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you …”  I mean, that has political overtimes. Right? I mean Loving your neighbor does. All of that has political overtimes. 

               But at the same time, I don’t think that the gospel is partisan in that sense. And so, what we try to do here at the cathedral is to speak about values, to always be speaking about the values that our Christian life points us towards, and not often about specific issues on the political landscape or ever do we try to talk about specific individuals, but the values that we think are important. And the rest of it kinda speaks for itself, if you know what I mean.

H:           Yeah. Yeah. So what would some of those values be? This is really interesting. So we had Jonathan Hargrove-Wilson on the podcast a while back, and he was talking a lot about values as well. So that’s helpful language. 

R:            But you know, that’s not always easy in a parish. I mean, I’m at the Cathedral with this big pulpit and there’s some expectation of some of that from who we are. But, you know, I served a parish in Richmond for 16 years and that was very much a purple parish. As rector, one of your first–I think one of your first–responsibilities is just to protect the integrity of the community. So, you know, there are times there, I think it’s really important that you also spend some time discerning what should be said from the pulpit and what should be said from other venues. Right?

               I mean, when Gene Robinson was first elected oh, so many years ago now back in ‘93, that was an event that really polarized my parish. Although I had a very specific view on it, God bless Gene, I did not think it was something that I ought to get up and pound people with from the pulpit. Rather, we spent time in forums doing that or in one-on-one conversations, or in pieces that I would write for the parish. And that was a way of trying to honor everyone within that space even though I might disagree with, you know, a significant percentage of it.

H:           Yeah. That’s really smart. Well, and this is also reminding me of something else I’ve heard you talk about on the National Cathedral podcast, which is kind of a … the Way of Love, if I can put it that way. Could you kind of just talk about that a little bit, how unity and politics go together in the church? 

R:            We have felt at the cathedral in the past year or two years that one of our most important roles is to be a voice for what we’re calling a better way. That there’s a better way for us to deal with one another as Americans. There’s a better way for us to deal with politics. You know, lifting up the values of civility, of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, of seeing each person as a beloved child of God, while at the same time calling out the values that need to be called out. Going to point people away from the, for lack of a better word, hatred that has become so prevalent between political parties and individuals. And so that’s been some ongoing work for us at the cathedral. And, of course, it all does come out of Michael Curry’s Way of Love, right? That points us all towards the life of Jesus. And so I think the cathedral has a role, like every church has a role to be a foil for our culture to, not only lift up what’s best about our culture, but to push back against those things that are corrupting. 

B:            I presume that that this perspective evolved and grew over the years in your ministry as you developed, you know, experience and maybe even made some mistakes. You know, as you’ve navigated our faith and political life, what has been your own biggest learning or leadership challenge as you look back over the years? 

R:            To come up with the biggest challenge is a big challenge. I’m not sure I can pick out the biggest one. One of the things that is uniquely complicated about the cathedral itself which leads to a leadership challenge is that this place has so many different identities. And to have those identities be authentic and at the same time balancing the constituents who claim one of those identities. For example, we’re the cathedral for the Diocese of Washington. We are the seat of the presiding bishop. We are one of the top ten most visited sites in Washington DC. We have this funky relationship with the federal government, which really isn’t a relationship. It’s just the cathedral is where major services or events tend to happen around the city.

               And at the same time, we have a parish of about 2,000 people who call the cathedral their own church home. And so all of those different identities plus several others bring about a great challenge about how to lead there effectively and honestly and valuing each of those identities. As a matter of fact, when I came to the cathedral, there were a number of people who wanted me to do away with some of those identities because they thought it was too much. And I disagreed. I think each of them is important to the cathedral. I think each of them is authentic to the cathedral. So we try to live into all of them as best we can. And sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don’t. 

B:            Yeah. I wonder if for those who maybe have never visited, I wonder if you could share a little bit of the of the history of the National Cathedral. It’s such a unique place. And you mentioned some of those identities, and maybe you could share a little bit of the history and maybe a few, favorite memories, some examples when some of those identities were really on display and you were sort of living into them? It must have been really surreal in the early days. 

R:            Oh, gosh. Yeah. I was a deer in the headlights forever, kind of. There’s no way to prepare for being, the dean of a large American cathedral because … So, there’s very few large American cathedrals in the first place and there’s no prep for it. So, you know, when you’re elected a bishop, you –at least you get baby bishop school for a year, right, where you learn the do’s and don’ts of being a bishop. But there is nothing like that for a role like mine, which was exciting but also a real challenge. 

               So the history of the cathedral, to be … not to give you too much here, when Pierre L’Enfant originally laid out his plan for Washington DC, he had down on the mall a church being built sort of equidistant from the different branches of government that he called a great church for national purposes. And he saw it as, in the very European sense, as being deeply connected to a piece of the state, so to speak. And with separation of church and state, appropriately so, that never happened. At the end of 19th century, the Bishop of Washington decided he wanted to revive some sort of a version of that, with no direct connection to the state, but a great house of worship that could play a national role. But instead of having it, seeing it being built down on the mall, which was L’Enfant’s vision, he found 58 acres at the highest point in Washington DC and had that notion of the church, this great cathedral sort of looming over, overseeing, overlooking the politics of the city. The cathedral was chartered by congress to be a house of worship and to create at least three schools, and to be a place for charity. And the cornerstone was laid in 1907, and the building was completed in 1990. So it took 83 years to build and was originally supposed to look like Saint Paul’s London, which is fascinating to me, that style of architecture and then the Dean decided he liked Gothic better. So we’re the funny combination of about 7 different English cathedrals. 

H:           Do you have any, like, little architectural details or spots or corners or windows that are particularly special to you after, you know, worshiping there so often? 

R:            Oh, yeah. I have a whole bunch of them. One of my favorite spots when I think about my role as Dean is, there’s this little tiny terrifying balcony right at the base of the rose window. So it’s way above the floor of the cathedral, even above the balconies of the cathedral, and it’s just– it’s scary because the railing, the wall for this little balcony, is very low. And so you feel like you’re just kinda hanging out there. But it gives you this amazing view from the west end all the way down to the east end. I’ll go up there from time to time and just try to get my perspective of the place and my role and what God may be calling us to. 

               And at the same time, there is a chapel at the cathedral which is the smallest chapel, it’s called Good Shepherd and it won’t seat more than 10 or 12 people. It’s very simple, it’s Jesus the Good Shepherd holding the lamb, on the altar piece. And it’s so quiet and small and intimate that I also retreat there quite often. 

B:            And I wonder as you look back thus far at your ministry, what are the events that come to mind that that are sort of emblazoned in your in your memory? 

R:            Oh, gosh. There’s so many of them. I knew that people came to the cathedral to visit. I used to come all the time when I was a kid growing up in Alexandria across the river with my family, but I didn’t know the extent to which it was a tourist attraction, so to speak. And I remember one day, walking through the nave and over the course of that day, there were thirty tourist buses that came and went. Loading and unloading. Watching all of those volunteer docents all over the place leading these groups of people through the cathedral, I kind of went, Well, you’re not in Kansas anymore. This is a different kind of place. 

               A second memory for me that was very powerful is when I realized that the cathedral has a very important role to play as a convener, as a convener of people for important conversations. And I’ve had this experience several times. Most recently, it was when we had Liz Cheney come and speak at the cathedral. She was part of our Better Way series of programming. And I really wanted to bring Congresswoman Cheney because of what I see as her bravery and integrity in literally laying her future on the line by doing the right thing. And so the that whole evening was focused around the themes of honor and integrity. I don’t agree with her on 95% of her political ideas, but I have great respect for her and what she did. 

               And so, you know, we invited her to come and she decided, she said she would come talk about her book, and John Meacham, our canon historian, was gonna interview her. I thought we’d get, you know, five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred 600, people. It was Easter in the cathedral. There were almost 3,000 people in person in the cathedral to hear Liz Cheney and another 4,000 or so online who were tuning in live to hear her speak. And that really blew my mind, but it also let me know that we were offering something that people needed and that was important. It wasn’t overtly religious, but once again, the themes and the values we were trying to lift up were there. 

B:            You described this role of convener, you know, church as a space for folks to gather. And I wonder … I suppose there’s probably ways of doing that really beautifully and gracefully and other ways of doing it really poorly. As you were thinking consciously about the National Cathedral being a place to convene folks for these conversations, were there certain particular values that were really important? Were there certain things that you were really, committed to not happening? Like, how did you create that space so that folks really believed it would be, a kind of, if not neutral space, that it wouldn’t be a kind of gotcha space or a bait and switch? 

R:            Right. That that’s a great question. First, I’ve gotta say, I’m not sure we are a space that would be considered completely balanced in that way. I’m not sure on the political right, far right, that we would be attracting folks who would wanna come and speak at the cathedral. So political center and then left of center is often who will come. I would love to have more of the other come, but Washington’s also a very liberal place in and of itself. I mean, 96% of the Washington DC voted for Hillary Clinton. So it is that way.

               But yes, I’ve always made it very important that it be a safe place. We never play gotcha. We’re never out to score points or clicks. You know, we take it very seriously that you come under that roof and you sit at the, foot of that altar in that building, that we’re gonna … We’re going to uplift and uphold some of the … our Christian values, just in how we talk with one another. And I wish everybody felt safe to do that because we would honor them coming there, but, not all do, unfortunately.

H:           So with all this talk about your amazing programming and with our listeners maybe becoming familiar with the programming for the first time, could you tell us a little bit about what might be coming up this fall in terms of being a space for convening conversations? 

R:            We have a couple of programs that are in the works that I don’t wanna … I don’t wanna jump out on, only because if they don’t happen, I don’t want to put somebody in an awkward position. But we have a couple of things we’re planning for the fall. I can tell you that we’ve got a series of liturgies that we’re going to be offering, as we approach election day.

H:           Oh, very nice. 

R:            And following election day. Offering the cathedral on election day itself as a place of quiet to come and pray. While it brings a vigil space within the cathedral, which was in 2020 was very popular for folks around the city who would come and they’d go vote and they’d come and find quiet space in the cathedral. So we’ll be doing a series of liturgies, which we are excited about and a couple of programs which I hope will come to fruition as we’re planning them. Sorry, I don’t mean to be so vague, but they would fall right under that same banner of a better way. They’ll all be about civility and deeper understanding of one another and also what does it mean to uphold truth, those kind of topics. 

B:            You know, we had a similar conversation with Rob Fisher, director at Saint John’s Lafayette opposite the White House not too long ago. And he talked about just how important it was for his community to keep the church doors literally open as often as possible so that folks could come in and just have a quiet and sacred space. Obviously, it’s the case at the National Cathedral, but it’s very often open. But I’m often so, so disappointed whenever I go to visit a city. I like to go downtown. I like to visit the churches whose doors are open, and fewer and fewer are, and I could just imagine what a refuge and respite the National Cathedral must be, especially in and around those election days. We all need a little … a little healing and quiet in those moments. 

H:           Yeah. Brandon and I are gonna be, like, weeping in the Berkeley Center’s new prayer chapel together and eating snacks or something like that.

B:            Either out of joy or out of sorrow. 

H:           It’ll be less pretty. 

R:            That’s great. 

B:            I wonder if you could take us back, Randy, a little bit in time. You’re a Berkeley alum, and I think you met your wife at YDS on the quad or at Berkeley …

H:           That’s what the listeners want to know.

B:            Give the people what they want. Can we hear your vocation story? Like, how did your priesthood evolve? You know, was it a pyrotechnic vision, revelation from God on a mountaintop? Or, you know, I’m often thinking of our, young seminarians or folks who are even just pondering coming here to Berkeley. Hearing other stories can really, be inspiring and and really help to demystify, you know, what that process of discernment and calling is really like. 

R:            Sure. Happy to. I will say that the best thing I did at Berkeley was meet my wife, Melissa. We met at the Episcopal Picnic on the August before we started classes in 1987. We were married by New Year’s Eve in 1988. 

H:           So … Oh my goodness. So you met at the Berkeley Center? 

R:            We met in the backyard of the Berkeley Center.

B:            Oh my gosh. We’re gonna have to send you a picture of the new space. 

H:           Yeah. The new and improved backyard at the Berkeley Center. Yeah.

R:            So I … my brother is a priest, or actually he’s a retired bishop, as some folks may know. And we were talking the other day, not too long ago, about how this happened for us. Right? I mean, how did two kids in the same family become clergy? We did not grow up in a specifically, you know, seriously religious family. We said grace at meals and we went to church on Sunday and, you know, we were your classically frozen chosen Episcopalians, I would say. But my brother and I were both really blessed that in the schools we attended, we had some really fabulous chaplains. They were all men in those days, but we had some clergy presence of people who were authentic. They were open. They were progressive. They were thoughtful. They engaged you in conversation. And I found that I wanted to kind of be like them. And I thought that who they were and what they were offering was really neat. 

               So I had a … my wrestling match with God kind of began in my high school years, by my junior year in high school. I can remember sitting with my girlfriend and saying to her, we’re watching some TV show. I looked at her and I said, I think I’m supposed to be a priest. She gave me this look like … you know, as you can imagine. Right? This look. And immediately said, Oh, just disregard that. That’s the craziest thing I’m gonna say. But I do remember saying that. God and I had a wrestling match. I felt the pull beginning then, but we wrestled with this all the way through college. I went to Denison out in Columbus, Ohio–outside Columbus, Ohio. And I played football when I was there, and I was a philosophy major and I was a religion major. And I kept saying to myself, When I got all this religion stuff out of my system, philosophy would be the great major because it’s good for law school and I would go to law school one day. And, you know, the people of the football team thought I was crazy because I was studying philosophy and religion. The people in the philosophy department thought I was really nuts because I was in religion and they couldn’t get that.

               And the religion department, well, they just were they were. But, you know, that that wrestling match took place all through that time, but I kept feeling God pulling me, pulling me in this direction. And I think a sign of a real call for any of us is that when you try to go away from that call, you get pulled right back around again, whether you like it or not. I kind of, what did I say? Tapped out my first year after college. I had applied to Yale my senior year in college and deferred for a year, and spent that year working in an acute care psychiatric hospital for adolescents here in Arlington, Virginia. It was an inpatient hospital because I was still thinking about clinical psychology. And, it was through the course of that year, I had a fabulous experience with wonderful people that I realized that mental health for mental health’s sake without the religious component, the faith component was not enough for me. 

               And so that’s kindof when I went, Okay God, I get it. I know what I’m supposed to do. And so I joined in the process in the diocese of Virginia rather late, but started that summer and then headed off to Yale that fall. And you know, it’s been a wonderful adventure ever since. And one of the things I had in my life, which I will always treasure, is that one of my dear friend’s father was a priest, and he did his best to try to talk me out of it. He worked me over. He told me every bad story he could think of about being a priest. And at one point, I was really crushed. I was like, Gosh, he doesn’t like me. You know, he doesn’t wanna support me. Then after about three weeks of this, he finally pulled me aside and said, Look, you had to see the truth about what this job can be, what the role can do to you. And after everything you’ve heard me say, if you still wanna do this, you know, I’ll support you. But, you know, those kind of encounters were a huge gift.

H:           Yeah. That’s a special kind of love. Do you think you took anything away from that that you could kind of pass on to our seekers and listeners like, Beware of this or, you know, have your eyes open to that? 

R:            Beware of the romance that seems to be in by being clergy in the church. There’s not a whole lot of that. The romance fades away very, very quickly and the reality of … the honor, but the pain and struggle of caring for people and proclaiming the gospel year, day after day, year after year, takes on you. Okay? It’s important if you’re going into the process to go into the process with your eyes open, wide open. I worry sometimes folks get attracted to the priesthood for a variety of reasons, but sometimes it’s because they love the trappings of what they think it means to be a priest. And that will not sustain you whatsoever in that role. 

H:           I mean, now you’re just you’re basically asking your next question for yourself. What does sustain you? And you know there’s a priest listening right now who’s thinking, Oh gosh. Like, a withered out raisin, just trying to get up to the pulpit week after week. 

R:            You know, I think, first of all, I’m not always sustained. There are days and periods when it is hard. It is just plain hard. And that’s just honest and I think any member of the clergy, priest, deacon, whatever, would tell you would tell you that. What sustains me is I’m fortunate enough as I’ve said to be married to Melissa who is also a priest. So she gets what I’m going through and I get what she’s going through and we, after 35 years of marriage, really understand what it means to support and care for one another. So she’s my rock in every way shape and form, but I’m really blessed about that. And that that sustains me. 

               What also sustains me is that I don’t that I don’t get to do a lot of these days in my role is pastoral work. I love sharing in people’s lives, the good and the bad, the joyful, the sorrowful, the ups and the downs. I love being a part of that in people’s lives. And that sort of sense of ministry is when I feel like I’m really living into my calling. Now right now, I have a very leadership-oriented, sort of administrative kind of job, which I do because it needs to be done, but I I can’t say that it always feeds me. 

B:            Yeah. It is one of those great acts of charity that comes with administrative work. So much of it is invisible. And I imagine in a role like yours, you’re often empowering other leaders who might get to be in the spotlight or have glorious moments of ministry, and you’re sustaining it and making it possible behind the scenes. It’s a special kind of ministry, that sort of invisible, but no less essential work. So thank you for doing it.

R:            Oh, thank you. It’s an honor. It really is. 

B:            As you look out in the world, and maybe this will be a way to bring us in for a landing, I mean, what are you worried about? And what ultimately at the end of the day gives you hope amid that worry?

R:            I worry about lots of things, as I’m sure we all do. I think on a geopolitical basis, as I look out at our country and the world, I do worry about the rise of authoritarian leaders and systems around the world, and we’re seeing a fair amount of that. And I think that is a very, very dangerous thing, and I think Christians have a very important role to play to counter that. If we should learn anything from our forefathers or those who have come before is that when we don’t stand up for those sorts of things, we can suffer terribly, as I think about 1933 or ‘32 or Germany and the German Christian church. 

               Now, I don’t think we’re heading to a fascist state in any way, shape, or form, but I am seeing movements in directions that that don’t seem to be echoing in any way shape or form what it means to love one’s neighbor, but the importance of the state more important than it should be. So that worries me. What gives me hope is that the kingdom’s coming. I mean, I don’t I don’t care what’s going on. The kingdom’s coming. It’s here and it’s coming still. And, whether we like it or not or whether we do what we’re supposed to or not, the kingdom’s coming. I just think it’s best for us to spend our energies promoting and building it rather than hiding from it.

H:           Yes and amen. 

B:            Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, I was speaking with a friend recently who was in the in the midst of a bit of a downward fear spiral around sort of the state of politics. And, of course, it’s really, really important to acknowledge, to be open-eyed, to tell the truth. And, ultimately, I’m not gonna give the majority of my energy to fear. I’m struck by your way of love and sort of centering loving your neighbor. And that’s where I wanna give most of my energy to. So, I hope that I’ll be in your neighborhood around election time, because I’d love to come to some of your programs and just to receive the grace and the healing of of the space that you and so many others have so lovingly created. So, Dean Randy Holler, we’re so thankful.

R:            I think it’s so important that as the church changes and the church is changing across the spectrum as we all know, whether you’re a Episcopalian or Baptist or whatever you are. But as the church changes, you gotta ask ourselves, where are people gonna get the values that they need in order to build a just society? And I think our numbers may be dwindling, but I think we have a hugely important responsibility to be lifting up and giving voice to those values, not only what we say but how we live because our folks in our culture aren’t gonna get it any other place. 

H:           Yeah. Yeah. 

R:            Well, I’d love to see you when you’re here. 

B:            Absolutely. We look forward to a visit. Thank you for taking some time out of your full and busy schedule. Blessings on all the ministry and work that you’re doing. 

R:            Well, thank you. I really am flattered to be asked to contribute. Thank you all for a good conversation. 

B:            Thank you for listening to the Leaders Way. We hope you were encouraged and inspired. To learn more about this episode, visit our website at berkeleydivinity.yale.edu\podcast. 

H:           Rate and review us and follow the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Follow Berkeley@Yale on Instagram for quotes from the podcast and more. 

B:            Until next time.

H:           The Lord be with you.