Biola University
We regularly host episodes speaking with people who are doing civility right. These “Reports From The Front” provide insights and illustrations from people who are practicing civility and conviction in the day to day. On this episode, Tim and Mark Muha, Vice President for Student Development at Biola University, reflect on a recent learning experience they went through that involved engaging their political opposite. Tim and Mark discuss and unpack some of the stigmas people have with “conservative” and “Christian,” the need for nuance and humor, and leading with curiosity when listening to another’s personal story.
Transcript
Tim Muehlhoff: Welcome to the Winsome Conviction Podcast. I'm one of the hosts, Tim Muehlhoff. Dr. Rick Langer is moving to Colorado and is in the midst of all that craziness. If you have ever moved, you exactly what he's going through, but he'll be joining us again in future podcasts.
I'm kind of flying solo today, but the fun thing about this podcast, you get to have friends on. A brand new friend, brand new to Biola University, Dr. Mark Muha. He is the vice president of student development here at Biola University, but forget all that. He is a diehard Detroit Lions fan. We are, at least at the time of this recording, eight and one, Mark.
Mark Muha: It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Yes, that is the important thing. Ignore my title. It's all about the Lions right now, baby. Yeah. It's been fun. My first year cheering was the O and 16 season.
Tim Muehlhoff: Are you serious?
Mark Muha: Yeah. I grew up in a different state, moved there for college, and I decided, hey, this looks like fun. I'll get into the NFL. I feel like I'm in for a penny, in for a pound, but this is the first year where it really feels like this is 17 plus years of finally coming together.
Tim Muehlhoff: Listen, let's scrap civility. If you want to hear other podcasts, go to our archives.
Mark Muha: There we go.
Tim Muehlhoff: Winsomeconviction.com. We need to talk about football.
Mark Muha: [inaudible 00:01:19].
Tim Muehlhoff: [inaudible 00:01:19]. We're not going to mention Michigan. We have a moment of silence for Michigan. Oh my goodness.
Hey, if you've listened to our podcast in the past, you know one of my favorite segments, People Doing it Right. Here's the cool thing, there's people who are doing it right all across the United States. It just doesn't rise to the level of headlines.
We have found people doing absolutely remarkable things in their backyards and parks. It's just so cool because Mark and I have gotten a chance ... You're listening to this as post-election, but there's a guy named Simon Greer, who we're big fans of. He's the national Director of Bridging the Gap. If you've heard us talk about the Pomona Dialogues, that is all Simon Greer. If you've heard about my trip to Israel, that is all Simon Greer.
The cool thing is he's not a Christian. He would say he's a secular Jew, but God's spirit, Mark, is at work in this country in powerful ways.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Bringing together people that we just normally would never think would even sit down and try to talk it out. Simon put together this group of roughly 27 people. He was sick of hearing Americans can't talk about politics. He was just sick of it.
He sent out a call to people and said, "Let's do it. Let's meet two months before the election every Wednesday via Zoom." I love what he says, "You don't need to pull back from your convictions. If you're an ardent Harris supporter, God bless you, we love you. If you're a huge Trump, love it. If you don't even know what you think, let's all come together and talk."
You joined in. Why make that decision as you're making this huge transition to Biola? Why make time to do something like this?
Mark Muha: Yeah. I actually heard about it ... I think you were talking to a group of faculty here at Biola about this experience that ... I think you had just kicked off the night before.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Muha: It resonated with me. I went to you and said, "Hey, let me in." I kind of was the one who was begging to be part of the invite.
For me, it comes down to I've seen how talking about these issues is so important, because we as Americans, it's what ... It's the fabric of our nation, so we have to be able to move forward and make progress on these things and unite around them.
I've also seen firsthand how they can be so divisive. They've splintered relationships in my own life. They've splintered relationships in the communities I've been part of. They've splintered entire communities. I think that, to me, speaks to the fact that there's something under the current that needs to be addressed. Not the issues themselves, but the how we talk about the issues.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: When I heard you talking about it, it immediately made me go, "Okay, I need to be part of that. I need to sit in that room. I need to learn from people. I need to watch how some of these people are just approaching this conversation with some level of conviction, and also just a lot of grace." That ability to have it in a structured setting really mattered to me, so that's why I sought you out on it.
Tim Muehlhoff: It was so great to have you. Rick Langer joined in as well.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: It was really fun to see the three of us representing evangelical Christians.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: There were some really interesting surprises along the way. One of them was, we all took a New York Times quiz.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: That said, "Hey, let's imagine there were six political parties, not just two."
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: One of the parties was conservative Christian party.
Mark Muha: Yep. Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: We all took the quiz. You, me and Rick were not placed in the conservative Christian party.
Mark Muha: Right. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Why do you think that happened?
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: How do you think that played with the group when they learned, hey, our three most conservative Christians aren't even in the Christian conservative party?
Mark Muha: Right. Yeah, I think it's because those six still had some level of polarity to them where you could almost map them out on a spectrum. I think by virtue of how ... As I've gotten to know you and Rick, by how I've tried to engage, recognizing few things in the political sphere are as black and white or as binary as we are often led to believe they are.
I think our ability to look at the world of politics through that lens, and hold some level of nuance, allowed us to really sort into one of those parties that was a little bit more towards the middle saying, "There's something to be found. There's some wisdom, there's some prudence to be found in a not explicitly far right or far left perspective."
When I got it, I wasn't ... I guess I wouldn't say I was surprised, but I think a lot of the group members were. A lot of the group members I think just when they heard that we work at Biola, when they hear that we're evangelical Christians, right now there's very much a stereotype.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: Almost a caricature of what it means to be an evangelical Christian in America.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: I think we were able to help broaden that perspective for some of those members of the group.
Tim Muehlhoff: It's so great to be able to surprise people.
Mark Muha: It was, yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: It was really funny. We were surprised.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: I have my stereotype of what the average I think Harris supporter would look like.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: The average Trump supporter. I was surprised a couple of times by what people said. I think you and I wound up in the same party.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: It was called new left.
Mark Muha: The new liberal party.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, the new liberal Party.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, yeah.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Here's what was really fun because ... I think I pointed it out to the group that the three evangelicals were not in that conservative Christian party.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Simon's comment, if you remember, Simon said in front of everybody, "Well, maybe that means you three aren't exactly conservative evangelical," which I responded, "Or the bias of the New York Times."
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Because a couple of those questions were really ... As we were answering, I think you could say, "Okay, this is" ...
Mark Muha: I know where this is sorting me, where this is directing me based on how I answer.
Tim Muehlhoff: Can you remember any ... I can remember two. Can you remember any that you just looked at like, "Oh, come on. Is this really trying to get me to answer it this way?"
Mark Muha: It's been a bit, so none are coming to mind. What two stuck out to you?
Tim Muehlhoff: Okay, the two stuck out to me was something like science and facts don't matter.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Science and facts don't matter I think was the statement.
Mark Muha: Yeah, I think that was it. Yeah. You had to agree on a range, yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: That's ridiculous.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Come on, we're at a university.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Clearly we both have some level of affirmation of epistemological truth.
Tim Muehlhoff: I had that thought in the back of my mind. I wondered if that canceled my ticket right away. I wondered if that alone canceled my ticket.
Mark Muha: Right. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: It was the second one that maybe is a bit controversial. Obviously at Biola University, we're unabashedly pro-life. Right? Faculty, we sign that statement every single year. Unapologetically, we say that we're pro-life.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: The way they phrased it, if you remember the abortion one, was "Abortion. Always wrong, always right."
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Then, in the middle with something like, context is taken into consideration, something like that.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Okay, so do I think abortion is wrong? 100%, but if the health of the mother is at play ...
Mark Muha: I think this is where that nuance comes into play. The medical term abortion carries such a broader definition than what I think often we unfairly lump it into. What about a non-viable pregnancy, like an ectopic pregnancy, that does not stand that chance, right? There's no chance of it ever coming into fruition as a fully formed life. It does immediately affect the life of the mother. There's a question to be answered there, and I don't know that I'm willing to say I have the answer.
Tim Muehlhoff: Right.
Mark Muha: But I'm willing to say there's a fair question. I think that level of nuance is what I think surprised a lot of our group members who really just said-
Tim Muehlhoff: Goodbye, conservative Christian party.
Mark Muha: Exactly. Yeah. At that point in time is where I think I pretty much diverged from being lumped into that particular group label.
Tim Muehlhoff:To me, Mark, it's so good to do it the way we did it.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Just to show, listen, there's nuance among evangelicals, because, listen, I don't want to become callous towards a woman who is now pregnant because of incest, rape.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: Those are pretty deep ethical waters. I at least want to communicate to the group of 27, "Listen, I'm as horrified by that as you are.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Quite frankly, I'm not ... There's not a quick answer to that one.
Mark Muha: There isn't, yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: I at least wanted them to know that we don't check our brains and we say "No, it's always black and white."
Mark Muha: Yes. What I really found ... The one exercise, if I can jump to this one exercise.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: Where they asked us, "If you were to ask a question to someone who's voting for a candidate other than you," and then we would sign up for one of the questions posed to someone, that was a really fascinating exercise.
I don't know if I explained that well, but essentially, if I knew I was going to vote for Trump, and you were going to vote for Harris, then I would write a question and you would sign up for it as a Harris supporter.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes.
Mark Muha: What was really fascinating was they were sincerely asked questions. Then the way the exercise was structured, it was, okay, give me a sincerely prepared response.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: It encouraged us to sit and listen to each other and also back up some argument with facts. Let's be candid, not everyone did.
Tim Muehlhoff: Not everybody did. No, you're right.
Mark Muha: That was a revealing moment. I think at one point in time someone used an end justifies the means kind of argument. Someone used a lot of ad hoc, kind of this is something that just kind of comes to me in the moment. It was very emotional.
A couple people had really well-prepared factual arguments. I think it spoke to the fact that we still had a lot to learn.
Tim Muehlhoff: Right.
Mark Muha: As people who are sincerely motivated to engage well, we still were struggling to always do that in a way that felt like we were approaching it from the same starting point.
Tim Muehlhoff: The beauty of that, Mark, and what a lesson for our communities today, is communication is content relational.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Content, those would be our answers.
Mark Muha: Yep. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Why I'm voting this way, why I'm not voting this way. The relational is the amount of respect between individuals.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Cohesiveness. I love the fact that you, me, and Rick, whenever we would answer a question or jump in, we would always ask the question, what is good at this stage for the cohesiveness of the group?
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: We have stopped asking those kind of questions today. You even said that you know of communities, family members that have just blown the whole thing up.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Remember, 33% of respondents Pew Research ...
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Said based on the 2016 election, I've stopped talking to a family member. Cohesiveness is out the window.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Let me make a couple quick ... As a communication professor, it was really fun to sit there, and as the co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project, and let somebody else do it.
Mark Muha: Right? You get to be the follower, not the leader. Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: How great was that to just sit back and say, "Okay, Simon, let's see how you do this."
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: I thought he did such a good job.
Mark Muha: He did.
Tim Muehlhoff: We started right after the debate between Harris and Trump, but this is what he had us do. Imagine you are a Harris supporter. What was her best moment?
Mark Muha: Yep, I remember that one.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. What was President Trump's best moment? Then reverse it. I thought that kind of perspective taking is so good.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: What does that say about me? If you say, "I got nothing. I got nothing. I don't think they had one good moment in that entire debate"?
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: That's an interesting diagnostic.
Mark Muha: I think we ought to reserve that kind of posture for the Green Bay Packers alone.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, without a doubt. I would add the Duke Blue Devils.
Mark Muha: Apologies to all of our listeners from Wisconsin.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, no, no. Apologies. I'm so sorry. I loved ... We all went around. We did breakout sessions. 27 is just too many. I mean, it's just a lot of people. We went and we did breakouts, but early on those breakouts were not let's jump into the issues.
Mark Muha: No, it took us a few weeks. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: It took us a few weeks.
Mark Muha: By design.
Tim Muehlhoff: By design.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: I think there's ... Boy, just that alone, I think it was really good.
Mark Muha: The one prompt was like tell a story.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes.
Mark Muha: With no additional guidance.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yep.
Mark Muha: I was sitting in a Zoom room with I think one other guy. It ended up being a smaller group. It was just he and I. He and I both had tears in our eyes by the time we were done with that five minutes, just from listening to each other's stories that it had-
Tim Muehlhoff: And these weren't political stories.
Mark Muha: Nope. Had no political implications.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: This was we both shared stories about growing up. Ironically, we both picked the same kind of theme growing up, camping with our fathers up in the ...
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, man.
Mark Muha: For me, it was northern Minnesota. For him, it was like Northern Montana, I think, and how those places still resonate with our soul today. We both are emotional as we're listening to each other's stories and seeing some part of ourselves and our value system in each other.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, so good.
Mark Muha: It was brilliant.
Tim Muehlhoff: Let me drop some rhetoric on us real quick. There's a guy named Kenneth Burke who really changed how we think about rhetoric, persuasion. He said what has to come first is identification. It's got to be established first. I love that, that you both told camping stories.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: We can't rush past that. What are the identifying moments as Americans, even though we voted vastly different from each other, what are the common rituals even that keep us together and we need to fight for those?
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: One thing, I thought this was so good, I would type out my notes after every week because I just respect Simon so much. He had us fill out a sheet entitled Roles and Goals, the Highs and the Lows.
Then we break out into this breakout session. Before we even discussed politics ... I want to read to you what some of the participants said. It really was powerful. One gentleman said this, "I've spent all my time being a top tier lawyer. I think I was pretty crappy as a father, and I'm trying to make up for it by being a kick swear father, grandfather."
Another participant, "My father is a brilliant scientist, but he is now showing signs of dementia." Another participant. "I'm tired. I have two teenage children from my first marriage, and now I got a toddler for my second. Help." We, mark, we burst out laughing.
Mark Muha: Yeah. I bet.
Tim Muehlhoff: Dude, take a nap. Right now.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Just curl up and take a nap. I said, "It occurs to me upon the death of both my parents, I'm no longer a son, that I don't have that role anymore." By the way, one of the guys, very last guy who went, was wearing a MAGA hat.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: You know what I mean?
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: The whole time I'm looking at this MAGA hat.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: And yet he shared a very tender story about his father.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Now, here's the cool thing, every time after that, when I would look at one of these guys, I'd go, "Oh, that's the tired dad." "That's the guy who thinks he's a really crappy dad and trying to make up for it. Good for him."
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: That's a really cool lens to start with.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: And then you get to the politics.
Mark Muha: Yeah, I love that one as well. It also was really cool to do some deep reflection, like you said, about your own realization as a son. As a father, I have a six-year-old daughter right now. As I'm sitting there listening to these women who are sharing, to the perspectives that are being shared in this room, it made me think about how right now I'm still in a season where my six-year-old is largely blissfully unaware to everything happening.
I did school drop-off the other day, and I'm watching as she's in her line of first-graders. They're all so innocent and having fun with each other and just talking. I'm looking a little further down the road. There's like 40 rows of kids as they all wait to start. I'm looking at the third and fourth and fifth graders. It's a different perspective. It's a different demeanor. It's almost a different aura.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: It brought me back to these kids are showing me something about human nature that I think we as adults have lost, that Simon was trying to help us tap back into that, that when we're younger, we largely just look at people as an opportunity to be a new friend.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, yeah.
Mark Muha: We don't start with this tell me your values, tell me how you vote, tell me about your allegiances, and then I'll decide if we can hang on the playground together or not.
Obviously there's a lot more nuance, and life is more complicated than that, but maybe we should be aiming to get back a ... Maybe Jesus was onto something when he said we had to have the heart of a child.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: I think there was something that Simon was helping us tap into of, let's go back to some of your childhood memories. Let's think about some of your more pure roles that you serve in life, because those help us identify the humanity within us and in the other person that allows us to just bond. Then we can start talking about issues and topics and things that matter.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, it's so good, Mark. The laughter, too.
Mark Muha: Yes.
Tim Muehlhoff: Man, we've lost laughter in today's political climate.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: That's what really struck me about this group. Now, tonight, actually, I have no idea when this is going to air, but we kind of agreed as a group that two weeks after the election was going to be our last time.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: The one prior to this last time is the election had happened, and it was a sweeping victory for President Trump.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: You could not imagine a person running ... I think he took all six swing states.
Mark Muha: He did. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: He took a blue wall and made it red, so people were really hurting.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: We were in this side group. Again, the humor came back up. It's almost like gallows humor, because one of the guys who was really distressed that President Trump had won, just so happens he had set up his computer on like a work table, but there was a box cutter.
He actually put the box cutter up and showed it to us. The joke then was put down the box cutter, put down.
Mark Muha: Right.
Tim Muehlhoff: That became a joke.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: He was actually laughing. He goes, "I don't know whether laugh or to cry."
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: We said, "Listen, you can do either, but put down the box cutter." Right?
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: And that laughter ... I literally thought to myself as we were laughing ... Rick and I go to Capitol Hill. We've done it two years in a row. I can tell you there's very little laughter between Democrats and Republicans.
Mark Muha: Right. Right.
Tim Muehlhoff: To have that laughter happen, I thought, "Man, that is lightning in a bottle," to find ways to do it.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah. That levity ... I think I get that politics matters, and I get that there's real life implications, but I think we've also ratcheted up the intensity. The rhetoric that I have heard every election of my life is this is the most important election of our lifetimes. Well, then clearly, I would be remiss to laugh during this process.
Tim Muehlhoff: Right, right.
Mark Muha: I just think that that divorces us from a necessary human emotion that particularly bonds us.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes.
Mark Muha: Is that ability to just see humor in the absurdities of so much of what was happening in the conversations that happened.
Tim Muehlhoff: There's a great blog, but boy, you need to write for it, Mark. I think you'd love it.
Mark Muha: Okay.
Tim Muehlhoff: It's called the Christ Animated Learning Blog. It's out of Baylor.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Perry Glanzer
Tim Muehlhoff: Perry. Yeah. [inaudible 00:20:53].
Mark Muha: [inaudible 00:20:53].
Tim Muehlhoff: Yep. Do you know him?
Mark Muha: Yeah, we've met a couple times.
Tim Muehlhoff: He's awesome.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: This blog is amazing. I wrote one saying that we needed more Chesterton [inaudible 00:21:02] today because, remember, Chesterton was like 320 pounds, would dress up as a donkey. He'd have dinner parties and invite some of the great humanists of the day, H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kippling, Bernard Shaw.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: And be dressed as a donkey.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: I think there's something wonderful about that.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Of I'm not going to take myself too serious.
Mark Muha: Yep. Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: Let me tell you a story from grad school. I'm in this high-level feminist class. It is eight women. Brilliant. I get in because the woman leading it is my dissertation director, Dr. [inaudible 00:21:36].
Mark Muha: Okay.
Tim Muehlhoff: A top feminist theorist. I begged her to be in the class.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: She goes, "Okay, if you have enough hutzpah to be in this class as the only man, and a conservative Christian to boot, I'll get you in the class."
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: We're in the class. We would send each other these chats and emails. One woman sent out a chat, and this is what it was, so diagnostic of how people view us. Okay? She told a joke, how do we know Jesus was a woman? Because even after he died, he had to get up and serve people.
Mark Muha: Oh my word.
Tim Muehlhoff: Okay? I read it, I snicker.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: I get a private email almost instantly saying, "Tim, I'm really sorry, man. I don't know what I was thinking. I really hope I didn't offend you."
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: I shot her back. "Thanks. Are you kidding? My wife and I are still laughing."
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: But they think we can't laugh. We take ourselves so deadly serious. I think we just got to find ways of being able to surprise people like Chesterton did.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think you mentioned dinner, we had Simon Greer on campus here at Biola.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: He brought with him Saad Solomon.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes.
Mark Muha: And the three of you hosted a panel. It went phenomenally with our students. It was actually probably one of the highlights for our students of the entire [inaudible 00:22:54] Bible Conference. At the end of that, you ... The three of us went out to dinner.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes.
Mark Muha: The three of you joined me out for dinner.
Tim Muehlhoff: Right.
Mark Muha: We sat in the corner of the steakhouse and had the most ... I'm not kidding when I say this, Tim, it'll probably be one of the most memorable dinners of my life, because it's a secular Jew, a religious Muslim, two evangelical Christians sitting and having the time of our lives talking about everything and anything.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes. Everything.
Mark Muha: They're all part of this group, so we've spent weeks online cultivating that sense of resonance with each other as humans, and then all of a sudden we're able to just immediately jump into the topics that matter.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: We're asking each other about the food. I'll never forget you offering your I think it was crab cakes to Simon, to a Jewish man.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Muha: You offered crab cakes without thinking about it.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yep.
Mark Muha: But to watch the grace with which he then said to you, "No, thank you. Did you forget that I'm Jewish?"
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh my goodness. Yeah.
Mark Muha: And then it became a moment where we could laugh.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mark Muha: Then he turns to us and asks us, "So, do you American evangelicals not care about greed? I thought Jesus had a few things to say about that." He wasn't being harsh.
Tim Muehlhoff: So good.
Mark Muha: I mean, there's a harshness to the truth of that question.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: But it immediately led to this great conversation. The entire night was filled with laughter. Nobody was trying to convert anyone else, but we were asking deep probing questions of each other. I know I have sat in the thoughts that generated from that conversation since that moment weeks ago.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, it was ... Something about it being over dinner.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: There's magic to that.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Because remember the great moment with Saad? Who I just love. I respect him so much.
Mark Muha: So funny.
Tim Muehlhoff: He's having a bourbon, I think, or a scotch. I said, "Hey, I thought Muslims couldn't drink."
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: As he takes a sip, he goes, "We can't." And I was like ...
Mark Muha: Do you remember what he said next? He was like, "It's a minor sin, so I'll repent of it later." Yeah, I love that.
Tim Muehlhoff: Right?
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Then we had a great conversation about, listen ... I said to both of them, I said, "Listen, Mark and I aren't being arrogant when we say we know we're going to heaven because it's all based on what Jesus did, but man, as a Muslim, talk to me because you don't have assurance."
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: He said, "No Muslim would ever say" ...
Mark Muha: Right.
Tim Muehlhoff: "Arrogant enough to say I'm going to heaven."
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Then remember Simon said, "Man, I'm a secular Jew. I don't even know if there's an afterlife."
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Those kind of conversations I thought were brilliant. Hey, let's wrap this up real quick with just a couple more observations, and then we'll share with a quote he shared that I absolutely love.
Simon ... On October 30 of Simon had us consider this question, can I share this country with you? Man, that is a great question.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Can we share the country when we have different religious, political, social views? Boy, that's an attitude.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Remember the lightning thing we did? It was done very quickly. You were paired with another person. You have to form consensus. Oh, you might've missed that.
Mark Muha: I might've missed that. Yeah. That ... Yeah. [inaudible 00:26:01].
Tim Muehlhoff: Okay. It was so interesting, so let's say you and I are paired.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: We have five minutes. We have to have consensus. If we disagree on anything, get rid of it.
Mark Muha: Okay.
Tim Muehlhoff: Because we're only coming with consensus.
Mark Muha: Got it.
Tim Muehlhoff: Our consensus was we value unity and climate change.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: We think is very important, and racism needs to be addressed.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: Okay. Now we bop into another pair.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: That have also formed consensus, but now the four of us have to form consensus.
Mark Muha: Wow.
Tim Muehlhoff: Anything you don't ... So mine was religious freedom. It got nixed by one of the people.
Mark Muha: Sure.
Tim Muehlhoff: Okay, fine. It's gone. Now, we went into a bigger group of six, eight.
Mark Muha: Wow. Until you're all back as a group. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: You were forced to do consensus. I think that question, can I share the country with you, is based on a prior attitude.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Do I want share this country?
Mark Muha: That's a better question.
Tim Muehlhoff: It's a better question.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Then here's another one. He said, "Let me give you my guiding principle." This comes from Simon. "How would I communicate if my kids were watching me right now?"
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Wasn't that good?
Mark Muha: Yeah. That's something that I thought about a lot because, again, this is the last election where I'll have the benefit of not having my daughter watch it all unfold. In future debates, I think it's important that she probably be exposed to some of that. In future election nights, I want her to be tallying electoral votes with me, because by the time the next one rolls around, she'll be almost 10 years old. I think that's the appropriate age.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: That's when I remember really starting to engage in understanding the world of politics.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah.
Mark Muha: I can't say that right now I would say that it's family-friendly viewing to put the debates, the election, a lot of the rallies ... I can't say that I'd be willing to just say, "Yeah, I'm going to put this in front of my six-year-old, my ten-year-old, and ask her to take her cues on anything."
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. Just today, there was a beautiful moment in the Oval Office. President Biden sat down with President Trump and welcomed him.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: And said, "Congratulations." Welcomed him and said, "My commitment to you is we'll make his peaceful and smooth transition." This is what President Trump said. He said, "Listen, politics is a nasty business." It really is. We saw a lot of that nastiness. He goes, "But this is a good day." He goes, "Thank you so much for making this a smooth transition." Man, we'll take it.
Mark Muha: We'll take it.
Tim Muehlhoff: We'll take it.
Mark Muha: Baby steps.
Tim Muehlhoff: Baby.
Mark Muha: If I remember back to my what about Bob days. Baby steps in the office.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yep.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: Hey, and also my hope, here's my hope, and then I'll close with an Oscar Wilde quote that came from Simon. Man, I'll take that VP debate. You know what? I'll take it.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: I thought those were two men who knew how the country reacted to the presidential debate.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: They said, "You know what? We are going to make an honest try." If just for one night.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: I so appreciated JD Vance and Harris. Man, I just remember that human moment.
Mark Muha: JD and Waltz.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, yeah. My bad.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Remember ...
Mark Muha: When he discovered that Waltz's son had been in an active shooter situation?
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes. Yes.
Mark Muha: He paused and expressed his regret, and I felt it was a return to civility that I recall from elections past.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. To show how powerful that moment was, could you even imagine that happening during the presidential debate?
Mark Muha: No. No.
Tim Muehlhoff: President Trump wouldn't even look at her.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Man, we got to claw for this civility. Let's end with this quote. Oscar Wilde. Simon presented it to the group. He said, "Okay, according to Oscar Wilde, what is the essence of friendship?"
It was really cool to sit and think about that. Then he said, this is what Oscar Wilde would say, "Generosity, having a generous spirit."
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: Lead with curiosity, Simon would say, be generous in how much you ask questions. I thought that was really good.
Mark Muha: I love that.
Tim Muehlhoff: Hey, I was so pleased that you joined the group.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Thanks for having me in the group.
Tim Muehlhoff: It was so fun.
Mark Muha: And on the podcast today. You've been a great friend in my first 15 months of being out here in Biola.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, it's been fun.
Mark Muha: I'm grateful to get to know you.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, and the Lions thing sealed it.
Mark Muha: I think that might've been ... I think someone was like, "Oh, he's a cool guy," and then we met and discovered the Lions we had in common, and now we're tied for life.
Tim Muehlhoff: But we need to do our existential lunch.
Mark Muha: Yes.
Tim Muehlhoff: We both have discovered that we're fans of existential writers.
Mark Muha: Yeah. The Ecclesiastes chapter.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh my word.
Mark Muha: Chapters of the Bible are my absolute favorite.
Tim Muehlhoff: Mine too.
Mark Muha: Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: It really is a really weird way.
Mark Muha: Yeah. I think it's misunderstood.
Tim Muehlhoff: Okay, so let's do this. Let's do this.
Mark Muha: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Let's bring you back on.
Mark Muha: Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: Because I actually think Ecclesiastes can help in our civility and lower our expectations.
Mark Muha: A thousand percent. Yep.
Tim Muehlhoff: Let's do it.
Mark Muha: Let's do it.
Tim Muehlhoff: We're going to have our existential coffee, but we're going to do it live on the podcast.
Mark Muha: Perfect, perfect. Love it.
Tim Muehlhoff: Awesome. Hey, thank you so much for listening to the Winsome Conviction podcast. Please check us out anywhere that you get your podcasts.
Listen, if you want just one place to shop, just go to Winsomeconviction.com. You'll get all the archive of our past podcast, articles that we've written. We were just featured in Christianity Today piece on politics.
Hey, let me mention one other thing, endthestalemate.com. Endthestalemate.com. If you're wondering post-election, how in the world could a Christian vote for that person, go to the website and you'll meet two very articulate Christians, David French, Eric [inaudible 00:31:33], who voted very differently in this upcoming election, but they give really good reasons why, and you also learned a little bit about perspective taking. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Mark.
Mark Muha: Yeah, thanks for having me.
