Holy Watermelon

The Hebrew Bible is not the same thing as the Imperial Christian Old Testament (though it's very similar to the protestant version), but there are many different ways people draw value from these books.

The Torah is not the same thing as the Old Testament: it is the 5 books classically attributed to Moses. For some who adhere to an Abrahamic faith, the Torah is the only scripture; for others, the testimonies of prophets and historians are also invaluable.

The Hebrew Bible is often called the Tanakh, which isn't a word, but an acronym  for Torah-Neviim-Ketuvim (Law, Prophets, and all the other writings). Calling it a bible is misleading; it's a library--a very small library of the greatest literature that defined a nation--a small Mediterranean nation that eventually influenced the entire world. 

To say that "the Bible" is the infallible word of God is to deny the obvious inconsistencies and material contradictions. To say that it is the complete word of God is to deny the obvious appeals to external authoritative texts. To say that it is the literal word of God is to deny the obvious editorial history and the skill of the genuine authors. 

We outline the various major textual traditions (the Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew Masoretic text), as well as the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Apocrypha (or Deuterocanon), and several pseudepigraphal writings. We look at rejected books that might hope to belong, and we cite books that were abridged into the biblical histories and have since been lost.

All this and more...

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The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most religiously important pieces of Indian literature, a segment of the longest poem ever written: the Mahabharata has 1.8 million words.

The origin of The Song of God is obscured a little by time, but it certainly predates the Christian scriptures, though its form was finalized after the Biblical Canon. 

Vishnu is said to have incarnated partially into the personage known as Krishna Dvaipayana or Vyasa -- the same guy who split the Vedas into their four parts, and authored other variably important scriptures for the people of southern Asia. 

Arjuna and Krishna have a deep conversation about everything that a man could hope for in this life and in the next -- kind of like The Legend of Bagger Vance, except on a battlefield instead of a golf course.

As we dive into the content of this short volume, we explore the principles of samsara, karma, reincarnation, cosmology, and the nature of the trimurti, and gods in general. We also begin to investigate the syncretic melting pot that gave birth to modern Hinduism.

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Every spring, we celebrate the return of greenery and migratory birds, and the blooming of flowers; most animals celebrate by having lots of sex. Some of us get really religious about it.

Easter is the celebration of fertility and renewed life, and every part of the secular observance reflects this.  Several gods through a wide variety of traditions enjoy individual worship in this time, many of them have a name that sounds vaguely like "Easter," including Eostre, Ostara, and Ishtar. They have been asociated for millennia with fertility, and in some cases, eggs.

At the same time, Christians reflect on the paschal sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, and the promise of renewed life. Under the influence of Imperial Christianity, efforts were made to associate the symbols so often seen during this holy season with Jesus and his mother. A lot of these combinations don't immediately make sense, but we'll dig up the details.

The accusation that Christian Easter is ripping off the "pagan" polytheistic tradition is far from true, instead it comes from Judaism in every ancient aspect--but modern traditions have incorporated ill-fitting cultural aspects of the people who celebrate it around the world.

Remembering when Easter will be two years from now is tricky, but there is a scheme to it, and the dates are predicted more than a century ahead of time. Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere). However, even among groups that stick to this scheme, there are some who don't observe the astronomical equinox, but instead rely on an ill-timed liturgy. 

The Springtime Lent also has a lot of tradition around it--especially around the beginning. The time for fasting is biblical, though the practices vary from one group to the next.

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[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: Hi, everyone.

[00:00:13] Preston Meyer: Hi.

[00:00:14] Katie Dooley: My name's Katie.

[00:00:15] Preston Meyer: And I'm Preston,

[00:00:16] Katie Dooley: And we're the hosts of...

[00:00:18] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:21] Katie Dooley: Thought we hadn't introduced ourselves in a while,

[00:00:23] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, it's not much of an introduction. You said your name, I said mine.

[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: Is that not what an intro is?

[00:00:30] Preston Meyer: It depends on who you talk to.

[00:00:31] Katie Dooley: Okay, well,

[00:00:34] Preston Meyer: I have a degree in religious studies,

[00:00:36] Katie Dooley: And I don't.

[00:00:40] Preston Meyer: And together we make a fun show.

[00:00:44] Katie Dooley: Together we fight crime.

[00:00:46] Preston Meyer: We fight hate crimes. I mean, not in a terribly vigilante-style way, but. 

[00:00:54] Katie Dooley: Maybe we could.

[00:00:55] Preston Meyer: Maybe we reduce hate crimes.

[00:00:57] Katie Dooley: I like that. Why aren't we talking about today? It's topical.

[00:01:03] Preston Meyer: Easter.

[00:01:04] Katie Dooley: Easter!

[00:01:05] Preston Meyer: And rabbits. 

[00:01:06] Katie Dooley: And bunnies.

[00:01:07] Preston Meyer: And why anybody would ever combine the two?

[00:01:11] Katie Dooley: Also, bunnies and eggs. Also, weird.

[00:01:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:01:15] Katie Dooley: Weird combo.

[00:01:16] Preston Meyer: Right? That's... Who decided that rabbits lay eggs? Chicken eggs.

[00:01:24] Katie Dooley: The Germans.

[00:01:26] Preston Meyer: We get to blame a lot of things on the Germans.

[00:01:28] Katie Dooley: Yeah, they're a pretty good scapegoat.

[00:01:31] Preston Meyer: Christmas is the way it is because of the Germans. Okay, okay. 

[00:01:31] Katie Dooley: Yes. This episode will take a similar format to rebranding the holidays. Our Christmas episode on the pagan origins of Christmas. We're going to talk about the pagan origins of Easter. Preston actually said before we started recording that he thinks Easter is just a pagan holiday, which is a pretty powerful statement from a Christian.

[00:01:57] Preston Meyer: We'll explore that in greater detail.

[00:02:00] Katie Dooley: That's a good starter for you. So, Easter was originally a pagan celebration of the spring equinox and has since morphed into the most important holiday in the Christian calendar.

[00:02:14] Preston Meyer: I don't know if morph is the right word, but here we are. It is. It is the thing. It is both of those things.

[00:02:20] Katie Dooley: What verb would you use?

[00:02:22] Preston Meyer: I don't know. Syncretism feels close, but obviously that's not technically a verb. Syncretized would be the verb form. But that's not really exactly it either. It's a little bit. You'll see what I mean.

[00:02:41] Katie Dooley: All right. Well.

[00:02:42] Preston Meyer: So, there are a lot of spring traditions that celebrate rebirth after a long, dark, cold winter. When we start to see plants and animals emerging from their slumber. Everything turns green. And the rabbits, especially more than everything else, are visibly getting busy.

[00:02:58] Katie Dooley: Huh huh huh huh huh huh huh. I imagine that's the same rabbits making just small and adorable and fast.

[00:03:05] Preston Meyer: Rabbits are fast. Yeah. It's it's a sight. Had rabbits for a little while when I was a teenager.

[00:03:16] Katie Dooley: Nice. I have some friends that own rabbits. Yeah, yeah. This idea of rebirth will eventually be tied into the resurrection of Jesus.

[00:03:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it seems like it should be a natural sort of transition, and yet it really never ended up being any reasonable, sensible transition. We just still have the old tradition and the new one. 

[00:03:25] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it doesn't blend quite as nicely as Christmas did.

[00:03:45] Preston Meyer: No, not at all. There was there was so much about Christmas that it's like, well, okay, let's look at the symbol. What can this symbol mean to Christians? Cool. Let's bank on that. They did try with Easter. Well, let's take a look.

[00:04:06] Katie Dooley: All right, so pagan things that are associated with Easter. Easter starts with Eostre, the Germanic goddess of the dawn or the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility and spring. This is all happening in the same part of the world, with different names and stuff.

[00:04:24] Preston Meyer: I mean to say the Anglo-Saxons are fully separate from the Germanic peoples is not quite right.

[00:04:30] Katie Dooley: No, it's not but I did see both.

[00:04:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, as they evolved separately, their theology changed, their cultural meanings changed but... 

[00:04:40] Katie Dooley: It's like Roman, Roman and Greek gods.

[00:04:43] Preston Meyer: Pretty much.

[00:04:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Records of Eostre are spotty at best to the point where people thought she was made up by Saint Bede.

[00:04:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Good old Bede.

[00:04:56] Katie Dooley: Uh, Bede Beedee, Bidet 

[00:04:56] Preston Meyer: He wrote a lot. Saint Bidet that's gonna stick. He was an English fella. So, the way we say it in English is pretty authoritative, but bidet is now my favorite way to say that name. 

[00:04:56] Katie Dooley: For our listeners, it's spelled B-E-D-E. Yeah. So, I guess Bede is appropriate.

[00:05:22] Preston Meyer: Bede is the way. 

[00:05:24] Katie Dooley: Saint Bidet. So, most people thought she was made up by Saint Bede, BD, BD.

[00:05:32] Preston Meyer: It's kind of a weird accusation that a Christian would just make up foreign gods. But yeah, you're right.

[00:05:43] Katie Dooley: I mean, yeah, there's even finding where people actually found out about her is it's not great. But we do have relics from that range from the fifth, first to the fifth century, in this part of the world that have inscriptions that would let us believe that she was a worshiped goddess.

[00:06:04] Preston Meyer: So, Saint Bede wasn't making it up.

[00:06:08] Katie Dooley: Other than that, we have Deutsche mythology by Jacob Grimm. Yes, of the Brothers Grimm, where Eostre is connected with the hare as her sacred animal.

[00:06:21] Preston Meyer: So, we've got a Oster bunny. 

[00:06:23] Katie Dooley: Or Osterhase! It's a Osterhase

[00:06:23] Preston Meyer: Right, because it's a hare, not a bunny.

[00:06:30] Katie Dooley: It's hare, not a bunny and it lays eggs, but we'll get to that.

[00:06:36] Preston Meyer: Yes, a lot of people connect Ishtar to Easter. The name similarity makes it seem like, oh, of course! It's unfortunately not to be. A lot of people have proposed it, and a lot of people have spent a lot of time arguing against this idea.

[00:06:54] Katie Dooley: Also, a lot of time you'll see memes on this. It's not true. That's where most of this.

[00:07:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. They've been memeing it really hard. Yeah. Mostly it comes from a poor argument by Alexander Hislop, a Protestant minister who originally made the argument because they sound the same. It is just that simple. I guess he just didn't like Easter? We'll talk later about more Christians that pretty much feel the same way.

[00:07:22] Katie Dooley: And he didn't have a good understanding of ancient Sumerian religion either.

[00:07:26] Preston Meyer: To be fair, most of us don't know. 

[00:07:29] Katie Dooley: That's true. I definitely do not. Ishtar was a fertility goddess that, like, kind of gave her some...

[00:07:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's not like something wildly separate. But to say that it's connected isn't entirely fair.

[00:07:44] Katie Dooley: Etymologically, it's not connected at all.

[00:07:49] Preston Meyer: Pretty much. Yeah, it starts from a different part of the world from where we get the word Easter. There could be a really distant etymological connection, just like the words, the way they're built. But culturally, we're talking about two different ideas.

[00:08:07] Katie Dooley: But the idea of eggs are actually associated with Ishtar. So, I mean, maybe we get the Easter egg tradition from her, but again, she's a fertility goddess and eggs and fertility are.

[00:08:21] Preston Meyer: Well, Christianity was born in the Fertile Crescent near Mesopotamia, where these gods were talked about. And so, the whole eggs thing, it could just be that simple of an adoption.

[00:08:35] Katie Dooley: So, this idea of eggs and Ishtar actually comes from ancient Babylonians and their fertility goddess Astarte. So again, this is, like we mentioned earlier, kind of the Greek and Roman thing where we have.

[00:08:50] Preston Meyer: Neighbors that talk.

[00:08:51] Katie Dooley: You know, we have. I was going to say Thor and Zeus, but it's not the... its...

[00:08:57] Preston Meyer: So, Thor and Zeus are you know, God's the same thing from very different cultures.

[00:09:03] Katie Dooley: The Greek and Roman would be Jupiter and Zeus. So, Astarte, Ishtar to two sides of the same coin.

[00:09:12] Preston Meyer: Pretty much.

[00:09:13] Katie Dooley: And her story was that she actually hatched from an egg that fell from heaven into the Euphrates.

[00:09:19] Preston Meyer: I mean, if you're gonna be ripping through our atmosphere, protective dome is a great way to come.

[00:09:24] Katie Dooley: Maybe she's an alien.

[00:09:27] Preston Meyer: Could be.

[00:09:27] Katie Dooley: That'd be a cool way... yeah!

[00:09:30] Preston Meyer: I mean, isn't that the whole premise of the entire Stargate series? All the foreign gods are just aliens.

[00:09:38] Katie Dooley: Oh, I don't know anything about Stargate.

[00:09:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they come in with great power to travel the stars, and so obviously they must be worshiped as Gods. When actually, they're just long-lived aliens. Yeah. Very often or almost always on parasites. I'm trying to remember. It's been a while since I watched Stargate. I might need to get back on that. 

[00:10:01] Katie Dooley: There are a few ideas behind why eggs are such a highlight of this holiday. Not just Astarte/Ishtar. Eggs were actually prohibited during the Lenten season for your fasting, so Easter to get an egg and your Easter basket was a was a treat. Sure, there's also the idea that a long time ago, we didn't have industrial egg production where.

[00:10:27] Preston Meyer: They're pretty easy to come by.

[00:10:28] Katie Dooley: Now they're pretty easy to come by. So, eggs would be scarce up until the spring season. So, ta da! Eggs, Easter, spring.

[00:10:35] Preston Meyer: Celebrating the renewal of life.

[00:10:37] Katie Dooley: Renewal of life.

[00:10:38] Preston Meyer: You know, skipping over the obvious thing of here's new baby, new life, new spring. It's kind of cool. Easter eggs were decorated. Historically, for a long time, they've been dyed. Christians have been doing it since at least the 13th century. The egg has been used to symbolize the resurrection. In Orthodox traditions, they may paint one or all of their eggs red specifically to represent the blood of Jesus. Differing traditions thereof one red one. All the rest are white. As you know, this is the blood that's going to wash over, clean the rest and the others is the blood of Christ covers everything. Not that they're competing ideas, but they are different manifestations of that idea.

[00:11:24] Katie Dooley: Oh, and I have even more information for you on that.

[00:11:26] Preston Meyer: Tell me more.

[00:11:28] Katie Dooley: So, my mom was raised Ukrainian Orthodox.

[00:11:30] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Pysankys are real work.

[00:11:33] Katie Dooley: Pysanka is huge work, and she was very good at it and so was my Baba. So, Katie story time. Buckle up. My baba had five kids, three daughters. My mom is the youngest of all kids and the youngest of the daughters. Yes, I know, the first two daughters learned how to make pierogies, but not pysanka. And then my mom learned how to make pysanka, but not pierogies. So, all of them are only like, half decent Ukrainian wives. And Baba knew how to do it all because she was amazing.

[00:12:06] Preston Meyer: Is that why your mom couldn't get a Ukrainian husband?

[00:12:10] Katie Dooley: Probably. Probably.

[00:12:13] Preston Meyer: Or came to a market where there was more options?

[00:12:16] Katie Dooley: Probably that. Uh. So, I have all of my Baba's egg books, though, and I've done it. I've never got as good as my mom or my baba, but so there is the red egg, but there's also a whole bunch of others that, if you're a good Ukrainian woman, will be in your Easter basket, representing, I think, different parts of the passion.

[00:12:36] Preston Meyer: So, all kinds of patterns.

[00:12:37] Katie Dooley: All kinds of patterns.

[00:12:39] Preston Meyer: It's pretty intense stuff. We'll have some really cool pictures in our Discord.

[00:12:42] Katie Dooley: I'll dig up the books and put them in Discord. And then you give eggs to bless people or to receive blessings. So, for example, the year Gito died Baba mean a whole bunch of eggs and would give them to people and say would say, say a prayer for Gito this year.

[00:12:59] Preston Meyer: Nice.

[00:13:00] Katie Dooley: So, and there's a myth that as long as Easter eggs are made, that good will prevail.

[00:13:07] Preston Meyer: I like it.

[00:13:09] Katie Dooley: It's kind of cute. It's about as religious as I get.

[00:13:13] Preston Meyer: Fair enough. The Catholic Church did officially adopt the Easter egg as a real symbol of the resurrection of Jesus in 1610, the year before the King James Bible was published.

[00:13:26] Katie Dooley: Oh, eggs have been around longer than the Bible. That's what I'm hearing. I mean, I guess, yeah.

[00:13:33] Preston Meyer: Longer than the authorized Bible of the Church of England.

[00:13:38] Katie Dooley: Which came first, Preston? The chicken or the Bible?

[00:13:43] Preston Meyer: No. Easy. The chicken. Of course, these eggs are laid by bunnies. So, the chicken question isn't even important? Because there's nothing more fertile than a bunny. That's probably not true, but it's a very important symbol all around the world,

[00:14:07] Katie Dooley: I think mice might be a little more prolific. But it's definitely a rodent. And definitely small rodents can just crank them out.

[00:14:15] Preston Meyer: Rabbits and hares are not rodents.

[00:14:18] Katie Dooley: I don't know where my phone is. Uh, are rabbits rodents?

[00:14:24] Preston Meyer: Pulling up the power of Google.

[00:14:26] Katie Dooley: Huh!

[00:14:29] Preston Meyer: They are close relatives to rodents, but they are not.

[00:14:32] Katie Dooley: Rodentia is a really weird word.

[00:14:34] Preston Meyer: It's the Latin rodent.

[00:14:35] Katie Dooley: Sounds like something oral. Rodentia does not include rabbits. Rabbits differ from rodents in having an extra pair of incisors and in other skeletal features. Moles and hedgehogs are also not rodents. I just learned something new. Huh! Sorry carry on.

[00:14:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So, rabbits and hares are lagomorphs. Which, if you're really into biology, is a thing you know about. And if you're not, Google it. But yeah, they're not rodents, but they're nifty. They breed crazy fast. They can have babies every month. And it's not just one at a time.

[00:15:14] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Their gestational period is like 30 days.

[00:15:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's crazy. So, they became associated with the festival of Eostre because of fertility. That's her thing, so it just seems natural.

[00:15:31] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Having that many babies is supernatural. Pew pew pew pew pew. Pew pew pew.

[00:15:38] Preston Meyer: And of course, there was a lady who gave birth to baby rabbits.

[00:15:42] Katie Dooley: Oh, right. I remember hearing about that!

[00:15:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, it was all a sham.

[00:15:46] Katie Dooley: Yeah, she literally put rabbits up her vagina, Those poor things.

[00:15:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And then squirt them back out again in front of an audience, yeah.

[00:15:54] Katie Dooley: Poor rabbits.

[00:15:55] Preston Meyer: Right? There's a lot of hygiene issues I have with this. In addition to, all of the other things.

[00:16:03] Katie Dooley: Animal cruelty.

[00:16:04] Preston Meyer: I just... Like if you're not worried about the feelings of animals and animal cruelty, how do you get to the point where you're also just comfortable doing that? Yeah.

[00:16:18] Katie Dooley: Let's go back to the Easter Bunny.

[00:16:20] Preston Meyer: So, before we get to that, okay, I want to say that everything we've talked about so far is the Easter that we know and is entirely based on other non-Christian celebrations. It's what we call the pagan stuff, except for the Easter Bunny, which you'd think just is straight up just a continuation of this idea of bunnies and eggs. But there's more. And it's just so ridiculous. The Easter Bunny was invented like the in-house Christmas tree by German Lutherans about 400 years ago.

[00:16:56] Katie Dooley: Were they just bored about 400 years ago?

[00:16:59] Preston Meyer: They had to distinguish themselves from the Catholics, I guess. So, this is a little while after the time of Martin Luther. And they just really got onto this idea of the Easter Hare, because culture doesn't die when you change national religions. Everything that is the pagan Easter stayed with the northern Germanic people, the Anglo-Saxons. Everything it's just, was still around. So, they decided, well, we've got Sinterklaas and he comes through in the winter. And of course, we can't forget Krampus, who also, in addition to blessing the good children, beats the bad ones, so Osterhase. The Easter Hare was basically springtime Santa Claus, judging children and offering colored eggs and toys to the homes of the good children while they were sleeping.

[00:17:51] Katie Dooley: I guess. Yeah, the Easter Bunny shows up when you are asleep.

[00:17:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah, because you wake up and the eggs are there.

[00:17:55] Katie Dooley: My parents just give me a basket now. I forgot about that.

[00:17:56] Preston Meyer: That was most of my Easter's with one-half of my family.

[00:18:02] Katie Dooley: We used to have to hunt. Then I moved out. And they're like, here's a basket of candy and I say thank you.

[00:18:09] Preston Meyer: Right. I have done a few Easter egg hunts. Um, some of my siblings will remember that we found chocolate eggs months after Easter.

[00:18:20] Katie Dooley: Oh, we have to. We have I there's a picture frame in my kitchen and it was like months later and I was like, sitting at breakfast and I was like, huh?

[00:18:31] Preston Meyer: So, we used to have this, um, brass unicorn in our living room next to the fireplace.

[00:18:38] Katie Dooley: That sounds amazing.

[00:18:39] Preston Meyer: It was cool. It was. It was big. It would like, take up my whole lap. It adds an adult today. It felt bigger when I was a kid. And at some point, it stopped having a horn. But there was this little divot in the head. And my either my dad or my stepmom put a little gold-wrapped egg on his forehead, and we did not see it for a long time. We looked everywhere. All around it. Parents were laughing like it's right in front of you. Well, it took forever.

[00:19:09] Katie Dooley: I believe it.

[00:19:11] Preston Meyer: So, Easter egg hunts. Definitely a part of our history. I don't know how this was the point where I got sidetracked from.

[00:19:17] Katie Dooley: It's fine. It was a good story. I told my family Easter story. Now you can tell yours.

[00:19:21] Preston Meyer: So yeah, Easter Bunny would come drop off colored eggs while the kids were asleep. It's kind of interesting, hares were often incorporated into Christian art of the medieval period. I think it's a little bit weird, but I guess a lot of people think it's perfectly normal. Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, and a whole bunch of other of the really big thinkers, kind of the guys who pushed science to start as we know it today. They were convinced that hares were hermaphroditic, just as a species. This is the way they are. This is really not typical for any mammal.

[00:19:58] Katie Dooley: I want to say something inappropriate, but I'm not. I'm not going to.

[00:20:02] Preston Meyer: Okay, and because self-fertilization doesn't take away your virginity. The hares get to be associated with Mary and so they just are often depicted in art with Mary and baby Jesus.

[00:20:18] Katie Dooley: Did you just call Mary a hermaphrodite? I think you did.

[00:20:22] Preston Meyer: There are a lot of people who think that maybe she was. And if you're leaning really hard onto some sort of scientific explanation for a virgin birth. This does it. I guess, it's tricky, but some people are satisfied with this argument, and we're not here to poop on anybody's faith.

[00:20:49] Katie Dooley: Have you listened to some of our episodes? Because we definitely have.

[00:20:52] Preston Meyer: We poop on scam artists. It's a little bit different.

[00:20:58] Katie Dooley: And Christian nationalist.

[00:21:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That's not pooping on their face. That's pooping on...

[00:21:03] Katie Dooley: Them, as people.

[00:21:11] Preston Meyer: Anyway, the Easter bunny. Is a Christian innovation. Out of all of this preexisting non-Christian cultural phenomenon. But within Christianity, it's kind of weird.

[00:21:27] Katie Dooley: It is weird. Now moving on to more religious or Christian things. I guess pagan is a religion.

[00:21:34] Preston Meyer: Sure is. Well, okay, kind of. It's religious.

[00:21:39] Katie Dooley: We've talked about this before. We're not going to dive in.

[00:21:42] Preston Meyer: Pagan is not a religion, but it is a religious category.

[00:21:47] Katie Dooley: The date of Easter is controversial.

[00:21:51] Preston Meyer: I have to Google it every year.

[00:21:53] Katie Dooley: I know how it's calculated, but that doesn't mean I know when it is. But I'll get into that. So, like with Christmas, Christianity grew in popularity and Emperor Constantine eventually converted to Christianity. And they knew they wouldn't be able to stop these pagan celebrations outright, so they just kind of absorbed them and created Easter.

[00:22:17] Preston Meyer: Kind of I mean, a lot of this is kind of.

[00:22:23] Katie Dooley: Easter's date is not only confusing, like Preston said, but controversial.

[00:22:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it took a lot of arguing. And I mean, we still have disagreements today on when and how we should calculate the date of Easter. It's kind of interesting.

[00:22:41] Katie Dooley: The first debate was whether Easter should always be on a Sunday or on the 14th of Nisan. Am I saying that right?

[00:22:49] Preston Meyer: That's a fair enough pronunciation in English.

[00:22:50] Katie Dooley: So, this is the first day in the Jewish lunar calendar where the Paschal lamb is slaughtered for Passover.

[00:22:59] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's a lot of people anciently, modernly, who really don't like the idea of Passover being the same day that we celebrate Easter. I don't know why that is.

[00:23:12] Katie Dooley: I don't know enough about Passover. That will have to be this time next year.

[00:23:16] Preston Meyer: We'll talk about it a little bit more. Okay. But there's a lot of people who think that's actually a really nice idea, very convenient and easy to track on a calendar that doesn't have the same fluctuations that we're currently experiencing with calculating Easter.

[00:23:33] Katie Dooley: So, Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. This was determined at the Council of Nicaea. And Easter can therefore then range between March 22nd and April 25th in any given year.

[00:23:53] Preston Meyer: I don't see the problem. If you observe the equinox and look up to notice the full moon. Easy.

[00:24:01] Preston Meyer: It's just like such a month. It's the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. It's a lot like a lot of boxes you got to check before...

[00:24:11] Preston Meyer: The beauty of the message of the soldiers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

[00:24:18] Katie Dooley: Wow. This is the first time you've sang Broadway on our podcast and I'm quite pleased. So, the controversies, the dispute was how the first full moon after the spring equinox was determined. So, people agreed.

[00:24:41] Preston Meyer: Do you just not look up and see?

[00:24:43] Katie Dooley: I don't know, um, but there's some days where it's like gray area.

[00:24:47] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:24:49] Katie Dooley: Anyway.

[00:24:49] Preston Meyer: But if you're looking at like the first Sunday.

[00:24:51] Katie Dooley: I guess, yeah.

[00:24:52] Preston Meyer: Is it close enough or are we going to put it off a week? It's close enough.

[00:24:56] Katie Dooley: So, I, I just I guess people way back then had trouble calculating it, but it was more or less solved by eighth century. Yeah.

[00:25:02] Preston Meyer: We've been doing it for a while.

[00:25:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so people just like didn't like how it was calculated. But the Council of Nicaea was in the three hundreds, I believe. 

[00:25:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah, 325.

[00:25:11] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So, we agreed since then that it was the first Sunday after the first full moon, after the spring equinox, but it was just how it was calculated. People didn't like how it was being calculated with the date to add extra layers of confusion. The Julian um, calendar, which is held by Eastern Orthodox churches, have it later, just like Christmas.

[00:25:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but so to make it more confusing. Julian, Christmas is two weeks after Gregorian Christmas. But Julian Easter is almost always one week after Gregorian Easter.

[00:25:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's always later. And you're right, it's about a week.

[00:25:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and that's because they still follow the same scheme, but their calendar makes it funky.

[00:25:57] Katie Dooley: Because the spring equinox and the moon doesn't change.

[00:26:00] Preston Meyer: You see, you'd think so. But liturgically speaking, there is an official liturgical equinox day that is not necessarily matched with the astronomical equinox. Yeah, it's frustrating. 

[00:26:13] Katie Dooley: And confusing. And controversial.

[00:26:16] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:26:17] Katie Dooley: How many times can I say controversial in this episode?

[00:26:22] Preston Meyer: Uh, we've talked about this a couple of times. We probably do need to have an episode about calendars. I think people listen.

[00:26:28] Katie Dooley: Maybe it's a bonus episode because it's not actually religious, but we talk about it a lot.

[00:26:33] Preston Meyer: That's fair.

[00:26:34] Katie Dooley: If you're listening, drop a line in our discord or on our social media if you want an episode on calendars, if you want a bonus episode on calendars. Let us know.

[00:26:43] Preston Meyer: We'll get it figured out.

[00:26:47] Katie Dooley: So, what does Easter look like as a Christian holiday if not bunnies and eggs?

[00:26:51] Preston Meyer: Well, that depends a lot on the various denominations. Most non-imperial Protestant traditions really minimize what Easter is. Just have the Good Friday/Easter Sunday thing. Recognize the death, recognize the resurrection, celebrate that he suffered for sins and that's what Easter is. That is the heart of Easter. And then it gets complicated because we find ways to celebrate things in fancy, fancy ways.

[00:27:21] Katie Dooley: Yes. So, the Eastertide season can, if you wanted to be celebrated for up to three months.

[00:27:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The liturgical churches, the imperial tradition churches, they've got a whole big thing. The first thing that I am able to find on regular religious parareligious calendars is Fat Thursday a full week almost before Ash Wednesday, which I'll get into a little bit later.

[00:27:52] Katie Dooley: We're going to go chronologically.

[00:27:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's observed in Poland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and places where people who have left those countries have emigrated to. In Syria, they call it Drunkard's Thursday. Basically, it's a great time to really dig in and celebrate that. You can eat before this month-long, fast.

[00:28:17] Katie Dooley: And it's fattening yourself up for a hibernation.

[00:28:20] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's basically the same thing with, uh, Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras.

[00:28:25] Katie Dooley: Which literally translates to Fat Monday and Fat Tuesday.

[00:28:28] Preston Meyer: Exactly. Um, some places you'll hear it called Shrove Monday and Shrove Tuesday and basically, yeah, continuation the very last days before you have to swear off all the things you love for lent.

[00:28:42] Katie Dooley: And I mean, I think most people are familiar with the New Orleans celebration of Mardi Gras as the biggest, most recognizable in the world. But yeah, you're supposed to just be bad and then you're supposed to be really good.

[00:28:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah, in England, they actually have a couple of very precise traditions. There's Collopy Monday. It's a day for bacon because you don't get bacon during lent.

[00:29:07] Katie Dooley: I feel like you would like Collopy Monday.

[00:29:10] Preston Meyer: I have had a Collopy Monday.

[00:29:12] Katie Dooley: I know you have. I know you have.

[00:29:17] Preston Meyer: Uh, that was not a great choice. But eh?

[00:29:23] Katie Dooley: Would you do it again?

[00:29:24] Preston Meyer: Long term? Would I do it again? Probably not. It may. Well, okay. I can't say it's contributed to specific health issues, but it might in the future.

[00:29:35] Katie Dooley: So, I'll remind me you were, like, gifted a bunch of bacon and needed to be cooked and eaten immediately.

[00:29:41] Preston Meyer: Oh, almost. Yeah. I waited till what was basically the end of the window before really committing to a thing, and it came time where I just didn't have anybody to come help me eat that bacon.

[00:29:54] Katie Dooley: I'm proud of. You.

[00:29:55] Preston Meyer: It was great. I, I believe it. And in East Cornwall this is like really localized. Uh, they do Peasen Monday where it's just pea soup.

[00:30:08] Katie Dooley: I could give up pea soup for lent, no problem. It's good, but it's not great.

[00:30:15] Preston Meyer: Uh, my first stepdad. Liked pea soup, and the whole house just smelled terrible when he made it. Oh, that's in the past. I will never be nearby when somebody makes pea soup again. If I can help it. I don't know why anybody would make pea soup today.

[00:30:39] Katie Dooley: Pea soup is not bad, but it's not like, again, I wouldn't gorge myself and then be upset I didn't have it for 40 days. My mom makes a really good bacon pea soup. Okay, bacon pea soup.

[00:30:50] Preston Meyer: I mean, this. I could give it another shot. It's been a while.  It does have negative memories attached, but maybe I can get over that.

[00:30:59] Katie Dooley: Okay. I'm just saying it's a thing people eat, and that's fine, but not so much that you need a whole day.

[00:31:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I'm willing to recognize that. Sometimes you need to try a thing a second time from a second cook and sometimes admit that, yeah, you were right. It was bad the first time, but it's the chef's fault.

[00:31:24] Katie Dooley: Following Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is Ash Wednesday. This is the first day of Lent, and you'll often see folks with marks of crosses on their foreheads done in ashes. These ashes are collected from palm leaves burned from Palm Sunday the previous year. I also I couldn't find any record of this, but I remember I didn't grow up religious, but I grew up Irish dancing, and there's a lot of Catholics in Irish dance. And so, I remember going to dance class on Ash Wednesday and everyone would have crosses on their forehead and then they sweat them off. But I remember one of the dancers and again, this is like decades ago, telling me that when you're not supposed to like, wipe it off when it comes off, then you have been forgiven of your sins.

[00:32:14] Preston Meyer: That feels weird,

[00:32:16] Katie Dooley: But I didn't see any record of it. But I distinctly remember that conversation because I went looking for it, so I don't know.

[00:32:23] Preston Meyer: It feels like a thing that people would say, I don't know. It's also not a thing I've heard before.

[00:32:29] Katie Dooley: If you're Catholic and listening, let me know.

[00:32:32] Preston Meyer: Every year, without fail, I am always a little surprised to see somebody with a smudge on their forehead. I always lose track of the fact that it's Ash Wednesday that day, and then you see people with a mess on their forehead and I was going to a Catholic university a couple years ago. Right. So, I was surrounded by people with this ash cross on their forehead. And there was even one year where I had completely forgotten that Ash Wednesday was a thing at all. And like, what's going on? And then slowly, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is a thing. Because, you know, didn't grow up doing the Catholic thing. I went to Catholic school for a couple of years as a kid, but the Ash cross isn't usually done to elementary school kids.

[00:33:21] Katie Dooley: I was going to say I didn't know about it until, well, then I went to secular school. I went to public school. Uh, yeah. I didn't know about it until I was dancing with kids who went to Catholic school at all. I mean, I still, I mean, I guess I work from home, but I still don't see it that often out in public, except for, like I said, the handful of times dance class would fall on a Wednesday.

[00:33:42] Preston Meyer: Well, there's a very good chance you're going to see it more in public in coming years. There's this growing movement of taking the priests out of their parishes. I don't know why that was a hard thing to remember and the priests leave and don't only do this ash forehead thing in church, they do it in town squares, transit stations. They're doing it all over the place. They're calling it Ashes to Go.

[00:34:14] Katie Dooley: I saw something about that.

[00:34:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And it's getting more and more popular because everyone's so rushed to get everything done that it sure would be handy if I could get my ash cross while you wait for the train. It's convenient.

[00:34:29] Katie Dooley: I guess so. Then of course, Ash Wednesday starts Lent. Imperial tradition Christians observe Lent as a time to try really hard to be good Christians to make up for the rest of the year, like kids in Santa Claus.

[00:34:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it does feel that way because you got to get those eggs on Easter.

[00:34:50] Katie Dooley: Got to get those eggs. It's a 40 day fast, and it is modeled after Jesus's 40-day fast in synoptic gospels.

[00:34:58] Preston Meyer: I thought it was really interesting. I've been wondering for a while, though. Never enough to look it up until recently for you, dear audience, I needed to know finally had the time dedicated to it, the word lent is just the Dutch word for the spring season.

[00:35:15] Katie Dooley: Oh, that's anticlimactic.

[00:35:17] Preston Meyer: Right? So, it was the same meaning in Old English. It's just almost completely fallen out of our language, apart from the people who celebrated as a religious thing. So that's kind of nifty in other languages. Most people call it the fasting season or the 40th. For those 40 days, 40th feels weird, but that's what I was told is it's not just the 40, but the 40th. Yeah, I'm sure there's probably a language out there where they just say the 40, but most seem to be the 40th. And nobody can really say without controversy when the Lent tradition as we know it today began. But it was definitely firmly in place by the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE.

[00:36:02] Katie Dooley: All right. That brings us to Palm Sunday. This is Jesus has seven days left, guys. No, five days left.

[00:36:10] Preston Meyer: Math is hard. Five is the magic number. 

[00:36:13] Katie Dooley: Five is magical. He's got five days left. Clock is ticking. Commemorates his arrival in Jerusalem. And it's called Palm Sunday because his followers laid palm leaves on the ground to welcome him into the city.

[00:36:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:36:25] Katie Dooley: And these are the palm leaves that then get burnt. Yeah.

[00:36:27] Preston Meyer: You save them for a while.

[00:36:29] Katie Dooley: For, like, a whole year to dry out.

[00:36:30] Preston Meyer: Exactly. Yeah. Because you don't want to burn something that's not ready to burn to ashes. Way too smoky. There are a few other minor days in between. So, the next big part of this week is Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday. The celebration of Jesus Last Supper. There have been a lot of papers that I've read that argue, like, was it really a Thursday? Does the math add up?

[00:36:59] Katie Dooley: Well, I read something that said that he was almost definitely crucified on a Wednesday. I don't again, I don't know how you'd figure that out with any definitive answer, but much like his birth. Sorry, I interrupted.

[00:37:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So, this the day of the Last Supper. Then he goes to trial that night and the following morning, and then he gets crucified on Good Friday. Skipped over what Maundy actually means. It refers to the ceremonial washing of feet of a poor person in commemoration of Jesus washing his apostles' feet, which a lot of churches are happy to reenact. Usually, you'll see the Pope go and wash somebody's feet that day. Just an interesting tradition and the word Maundy comes from the Latin word for command, because he commanded people to go and serve and.

[00:37:51] Katie Dooley: And look after those different and less fortunate than you.

[00:37:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Which is a pretty great tradition.

[00:37:59] Katie Dooley: That lots of Christians choose not to do.

[00:38:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That's not the subject of today's discussion, but it is a thing that is real. Good Friday is a pretty good day.

[00:38:12] Katie Dooley: What? Well, I was I had to Google this. I always wondered, and much like Preston wondering about lent and never knowing, I was wondering why it was called Good Friday. What makes it so good?

[00:38:26] Preston Meyer: Well, there's a few things. It's good that Jesus suffered for us rather than suffering generally, that he did this great act for us. And so, this idea of piety is really important rather than, oh, yeah, good thing he died.

[00:38:46] Katie Dooley: Yes. And this good means pious as opposed to. Or the other word I saw was holy good as in holy or good as in pious as opposed to like, glad he's gone!

[00:38:58] Preston Meyer: We could just flip a couple of Friday's names. Maybe this could be Black Friday, the day the sky went dark when he died versus the Good Friday when everything's on sale after Thanksgiving.

[00:39:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I like it. I don't know who you got to pitch that to, but.

[00:39:12] Preston Meyer: Oh, I got to sell it to the whole world all at once. Everybody's got to be in on it, or it won't work.

[00:39:18] Katie Dooley: Okay. Share on Facebook.

[00:39:19] Preston Meyer: Like communism, it doesn't work if not, everybody's committed to the idea.

[00:39:24] Katie Dooley: Okay, I like rant, went on a mini rant and then Preston didn't explain it to me, so then it is followed by Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is the day he is resurrected. This is what we celebrate, but other records say he was resurrected three days later. So, let's say he died on a Friday afternoon.

[00:39:49] Preston Meyer: See, so the error you've already made is the assumption that the important basis for this timeline is the date of death. So, everything should be calculated from what we know is the day he was raised from the dead because the Bible does explicitly tell us on the first day of the week, they showed up to an empty tomb, which is Sunday.

[00:40:11] Katie Dooley: Correct? So? So, then he wasn't. 

[00:40:13] Preston Meyer: Friday could be the problem. It could have been a Thursday.

[00:40:16] Katie Dooley: Maybe that's why I saw that he had to be crucified on Wednesday. It still doesn't math right.

[00:40:23] Preston Meyer: So, the people who argue for a Wednesday crucifixion are looking for three complete, clear days in between the crucifixion and raising from the dead.

[00:40:34] Katie Dooley: And I have no problem with them saying Sunday, but then ditch the three days.

[00:40:38] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:40:39] Katie Dooley: Because now we have Easter Monday, which I'm pretty sure is just a bank holiday.

[00:40:43] Preston Meyer: It is. Easter Monday is only a bank holiday, and we've talked about this before. The religion of our banking system. Very powerful, but not actually important to the faith community of Christianity.

[00:40:58] Katie Dooley: So, my question goes unanswered.

[00:41:02] Preston Meyer: Repose your question.

[00:41:04] Katie Dooley: When did he die and when was he resurrected?

[00:41:07] Preston Meyer: Okay, so he definitely was resurrected either right at the beginning of Sunday morning or at the end of that night before Sunday morning, somewhere in that.

[00:41:18] Katie Dooley: So that they could find an empty tomb on a Sunday.

[00:41:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So, there's a lot of arguing among every kind of scholar in this field on what day would have been the correct date of crucifixion.

[00:41:36] Katie Dooley: And is it, you know, numbers in the Bible. That's probably an entire episode for us. But are they just saying three because three is so symbolic in the Bible, even though it makes all of these dates very screwed up?

[00:41:50] Preston Meyer: That's an interesting question. Generally, it was expected in Judaism at the time that if somebody were to hit their head and go into a minor coma. A couple of days, they could get back up and you'd think maybe they're dead, but you give them a few days to know for sure. After three days. I mean, you need water in that time, or you'll die. So, it was basically the three days is enough to know that somebody is dead. And if they get up after that,

[00:42:23] Both Speakers: It's a miracle.

[00:42:25] Katie Dooley: Okay, so, uh, what I'm hearing is that the three is mostly symbolic.

[00:42:30] Preston Meyer: No, it's for what they had of science at the time. It was pretty scientific,

[00:42:36] Katie Dooley: But I mean... Or one of these is a lie, though, is what I'm saying, right? Either he wasn't crucified on a Friday, or he wasn't resurrected after three days, or he wasn't raised on a Sunday because the math doesn't work. I just want to know which ones the lie, Preston.

[00:42:51] Preston Meyer: That's a really tricky thing. We're very sure. The Bible says he was found at the empty tomb on Sunday.

[00:43:02] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:43:02] Preston Meyer: The rest is fuzzy. And like there's even arguments about how to interpret the way they describe what would typically look like a Friday. Paraskevi is the word for preparation, which is the name for Friday in Old Greek. He was crucified on Paraskevi, but from the Jewish perspective, this could be the traditional day of preparation for the Sabbath. Or it could have been the preparation for a special Sabbath, because Passover does that. It's tricky business.

[00:43:39] Katie Dooley: Okay, as long as I'm not misunderstanding anything, we just don't know.

[00:43:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are going to be. Of course, this is the sure thing, but there is so much scholarship that says it's too complicated to know with real certainty. It's very frustrating.

[00:43:59] Katie Dooley: As long as my math is right that Monday is three days after Friday.

[00:44:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah, okay. The math adds up. Monday is three days after Friday.

[00:44:08] Katie Dooley: Not crazy.  Not being gaslit.

[00:44:11] Preston Meyer: Right. But like there's the question, does it need to be three clear full days in between plus the half day on either side or is it the whole 72 hours is enough kind of funny business. It's all up to interpretation.

[00:44:30] Katie Dooley: So again, we said Easter Monday is just the main colony.

[00:44:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but it's nice to have that holiday.

[00:44:35] Katie Dooley: It's nice to have the holiday. And then the last celebration is Pentecost Sunday, also known as Whit Sunday. And this takes place 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus.

[00:44:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so like Passover, Pentecost is not an originally Christian idea. I mean, very little of Christianity is original to Christianity, but so Passover celebrates the idea that God delivered Israel and by connection and extension, all of his covenant peoples in the eyes of the Christian interpretation of Scripture. And so, this idea is not just saving the covenant people from slavery in Egypt, but slavery to the devil and sin and negativity in general around the world through all time. And so, Christianity is really happy with this idea. It works really nicely. It suits it. And then Pentecost is seven weeks later and another Jewish holiday. It's about the giving of the law in the desert and a little bit of we're still in the desert.

[00:45:50] Katie Dooley: That's Shavout.

[00:45:51] Preston Meyer: It is Shavout. Well done.

[00:45:53] Katie Dooley: Thank you.

[00:45:53] Preston Meyer: Because you're not even reading it?

[00:45:55] Katie Dooley: No, I just know things now, Preston.

[00:45:57] Preston Meyer: The Christian use of Pentecost celebrates the day that Jesus ascended into the heavens, leaving the apostles to lead the church on their own. And there's an important part of the story that an awful lot of Christians forget, and we'll use, well, the absence of this passage in their personal theology to say why this fella named Jesus is actually Jesus reborn and is the Messiah. So, the passage in the book of Acts has Jesus going up into the heavens, like just ascending.

[00:46:35] Katie Dooley: Pew! That's the visual in my brain.

[00:46:38] Preston Meyer: But not that fast. It's a spectacle to see him elevated into heaven. But without the hum of an elevator. And then a couple of angels are talking to the people nearby. Like, see that? That's how he's going to come back. It's in the Bible. If you believe the Bible is authoritative, you don't get to believe that a baby is Jesus come back.

[00:47:03] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:47:04] Preston Meyer: But it happens all the time. And then as after he's ascended, then there's a great outpouring of gifts of the spirit that the Holy Ghost has been bestowed upon the church. And they're speaking in tongues, not like weird gibberish like you'll see in a lot of modern evangelical traditions.

[00:47:27] Katie Dooley: This is where we get the term Pentecostal Christians, because the gifts of the Holy Spirit are on these Christians and no one else.

[00:47:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So, if you read the story, which you'll get to in our Bible study soon, these people are like speaking in Greek and every other language under the sun to all of the people who happen to be visiting the city at the time. And so, everyone's like, this dude's speaking my language, wouldn't have expected that. That's almost exactly what it says in the book.

[00:47:58] Katie Dooley: Like in Quantummania?

[00:48:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and so it's weird how this really important passage for Christian theology gets ignored by an awful lot of Christians.

[00:48:14] Katie Dooley: I want to say something mean.

[00:48:17] Preston Meyer: Some people are bad at the things that they think are important.

[00:48:22] Katie Dooley: I was just.... So, speaking in tongues is made up is what I want to say.

[00:48:28] Preston Meyer: I mean, Shamala Hamala oh yeah.

[00:48:31] Katie Dooley: As we see it today.

[00:48:33] Preston Meyer: That's Eastertide. It's a few months, really.

[00:48:37] Katie Dooley: 90 days if you go from the beginning of Lent to...

[00:48:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, 40 days before, 50 days after. It's convenient round numbers. We like that.

[00:48:46] Katie Dooley: I love a good number in religious studies. Um, can I get 90 days off of work?

[00:48:52] Preston Meyer: That'll be tricky. Okay. Most of these 90 days are not their own holiday. But you can try. You are your own boss.

[00:49:01] Katie Dooley: I am, but can anyone get 90 days off?

[00:49:05] Preston Meyer: Oh, it's tricky. I would say try it. And if you can do the three months without work, the other nine months might be more work.

[00:49:16] Katie Dooley: Don't lose your job because of us.

[00:49:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there are Christian groups that don't celebrate very much of what we've described as at all. Famously, I would say the Jehovah's Witnesses are pretty prominent in this list of groups that don't do that. They do a special Saturday mass that they call Passover. It's the one day where they pass around the emblems of Christ's atonement, the bread and the wine. And I mean, that's basically the deal. Most Evangelicals, Restorationists, Adventists don't really do the whole liturgical deal. It's just here's our Easter Sunday thing or Saturday and some of the Adventist groups like the Seventh Day Adventists, I guess specifically. A lot of these churches that refuse to do an Easter and they'll call it Passover, to avoid any confusion, is because they do see Easter as a strictly pagan holiday. And I mean, to be fair, after everything that we've talked about today, it feels like they're not wrong.

[00:50:29] Katie Dooley: I mean again, like you mentioned at the top of the episode, it is a very distinct split between secular and religious for Easter. And I'm sure people some people do it both, but Christmas is a much nicer blend of things. 

[00:50:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I well, I think it's funny that our secular Easter really leans hard on the pagan Easter. And yet the only real difference is that we don't send kids out with the hope that they're thinking of being genetically prolific.

[00:51:10] Katie Dooley: Now, I don't know. Okay. I mean, I guess you were kind of raised non-religious, too.

[00:51:17] Preston Meyer: For a long time, yeah.

[00:51:19] Katie Dooley: And so, I think of, like, I'm thinking of Charlie Brown.

[00:51:22] Preston Meyer: Okay. I don't remember the Charlie Brown Easter.

[00:51:25] Katie Dooley: So, there's Charlie Brown Christmas and at the very end, Linus quotes passages from the Bible. But it's all about making this tree nice and stuff. But it is like a. I'm pretty good blend of secular and religious.

[00:51:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:51:41] Katie Dooley: And we can even see that in something. An old secular novel like Charles Dickens, uh, Christmas Carol is mostly a secular story, but there's little bits of Christian stuff in there.

[00:51:54] Preston Meyer: Just a little bit though.

[00:51:55] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and so we have that. And then it's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. Is the Easter one. And it's I mean, Snoopy's the Easter Beagle. They're waiting for the Easter Beagle to show up.

[00:52:06] Preston Meyer: That's fantastic.

[00:52:07] Katie Dooley: And there's zero religion in it.

[00:52:10] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:52:11] Katie Dooley: And is it? I remember when I first learned about the crucifixion of Jesus. I was 11 and it traumatized the fuck out of me.

[00:52:21] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's pretty gruesome part of history.

[00:52:23] Katie Dooley: And I think and so I wonder if that's part of the reason it's so separated, because the religious Easter, like we said with our friend Jack, is not a happy story. Whereas the birth of a little baby is.

[00:52:39] Preston Meyer: It's a happy story.

[00:52:41] Katie Dooley: Right? And so, I wonder if that's not part of the reason that we have such a like, how do you blend a crucifixion in a little bunny?

[00:52:50] Preston Meyer: Well, you don't. It doesn't make you it doesn't even make sense to try. 

[00:52:54] Katie Dooley: That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying is that that's why we have this hard line. Because it almost can't be. It can't be. I'm doing a thing with my hands.

[00:53:04] Preston Meyer: They can't be meshed.

[00:53:05] Katie Dooley: They can't be meshed.

[00:53:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's I think it's really interesting that over hundreds of years of the imperial tradition church trying so hard to crush so many ideas, the Easter Bunny made it through. Well, okay, the Easter Bunny came after.

[00:53:25] Katie Dooley: Relatively new.

[00:53:25] Preston Meyer: The Easter Bunny as the Easter Bunny is a Lutheran invention which feels so weird.

[00:53:32] Katie Dooley: They were weird people. I'm kidding.

[00:53:33] Preston Meyer: But the Osterhase the Easter season's special Bunny

[00:53:41] Katie Dooley: Hare.

[00:53:41] Preston Meyer: Hare is such an old idea that we've just always had, and we could never get rid of it. And then eventually some new group came and made it full on official.

[00:53:53] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It is an interesting holiday. Well, I hope you all got lots of chocolate.

[00:54:00] Preston Meyer: Right. Maybe a little bit of some good healthy egg protein.

[00:54:05] Katie Dooley: Um.

[00:54:09] Preston Meyer: I think it's really interesting. I remember a lady that I used to visit occasionally when I lived in New Jersey. It was the tradition to have cold ham on Easter. Now, this was strictly forbidden in the Passover tradition. And all of the people who celebrated Passover anciently, because ham is not known to eat. But it was kind of this idea that you don't cook during Easter, so you'd get a cured ham and dice it up and mix it into a salad or something, or...

[00:54:40] Katie Dooley: I should have talked to my mom before this, but yeah, like they like her mom was an immigrant to Canada from Ukraine and they like very much observed Ukrainian Easter and Ukrainian Christmas. And yeah, they used it. I won't say weird traditions, but they were strict about, like, what you were allowed to eat. And remember, fish was a big thing. m. Yeah, they were very strict. And like I said, their Easter baskets, they were really strict on what you had to give the priest. Um, my mom knows Ukrainian enough to pray in Ukrainian and to thank a priest for an egg. And that's kind of all she knows. But enough that it was that traditional but...

[00:55:27] Preston Meyer: Right and I think...

[00:55:29] Katie Dooley: There's a lot of ritual around Easter.

[00:55:31] Preston Meyer: Sure. So, after I got back home and spent holidays with my family again, I noticed that we pretty often have ham for Easter, and I think that's a pretty common tradition that it's not a bird or a beef roast. It's a ham, very, very often.

[00:55:48] Katie Dooley: I'm going to talk to him. We have turkey at Easter. Yeah, okay.

[00:55:52] Preston Meyer: I mean, I'm not saying everybody does because my family does. That's a perfectly good reason.

[00:55:58] Katie Dooley: We don't Like ham. 

[00:56:00] Preston Meyer: But it reminds me that there was a vision that Peter had. That makes sense. Connecting the ham to Easter a little bit, that Peter had this vision that Jesus came to him with a sheet full of all these animals that weren't supposed to be eaten pig, lobster, whatever. And Peter's like, no, no, no, don't eat that. That's gross. That's dirty. And Jesus said, no, no, I cleaned it. It's good to go. And three times Peter's like, no, no, no, not for me.

[00:56:33] Katie Dooley: Peter's really good at denying things three times!

[00:56:38] Preston Meyer: You could say that. And eventually, he's like, okay, I'll eat. And then ham is officially fine for Christians to eat.

[00:56:50] Katie Dooley: I think pork gives me nightmares.

[00:56:54] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. Tell me more.

[00:56:56] Katie Dooley: I've had some incredibly violent dreams. And then when I wake up, every time I've had pork the night before for dinner. And the first time, the first two times, I thought it was because you can't. You can eat all Alberta pork not well done

[00:57:16] Preston Meyer: Right? Cause we're super clean.

[00:57:17] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So, the first two times they were not well-done pork. And I thought it was just because it wasn't well-done pork. I don't I don't know how your brain works with the food you digest, but I literally had pork this week, and I had a very violent dream. And Bryant, my husband, our sound guy, is like, maybe it's because you think every time you eat pork, you're gonna have a nightmare. And I was like, no, I didn't even think about it until I woke up from the nightmare, huh? And was like, oh, I had pork for dinner.

[00:57:50] Preston Meyer: Well, now I'm curious if anybody else has had this experience.

[00:57:54] Katie Dooley: It might not be pork, but I'm pretty sure your food can give you nightmares.

[00:57:57] Preston Meyer: I know that there is this weird connection between your brain and your stomach. I do know that much. Do I know anything enough about it to explain it. No. I'm a religion dude, not a biology dude.

[00:58:09] Katie Dooley: And so, I don't mind a good pork chop or a pork tenderloin, but now I don't. I don't like nightmares.

[00:58:15] Preston Meyer: I need more data.

[00:58:18] Katie Dooley: Like what? Kind of like, do you need me to eat more pork?

[00:58:21] Preston Meyer: Oh, okay. So, more data from you is good. But I want to hear from our audience. If any of you have any comparable experience with pork, I need to know.

[00:58:31] Katie Dooley: Or I just want to know any food-related nightmares.

[00:58:34] Preston Meyer: Sure. Yeah. Let's open it up. I need data.

[00:58:36] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:58:38] Preston Meyer: This is a thing I want to know more about.

[00:58:40] Katie Dooley: Okay. This has turned into.

[00:58:41] Preston Meyer: Could you imagine if there was? It wasn't the whole pigs are dirty because they sleep in their own...

[00:58:49] Katie Dooley: But because everyone.

[00:58:50] Preston Meyer: But because they become violent when they eat ham. Could you imagine if that was a thing back then that they noticed.

[00:58:55] Katie Dooley: Maybe we feel like you're like a demon because you're getting bad visions?

[00:59:01] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:59:02] Katie Dooley: Like, literally one of my dreams a lady was stoned to death, and I was like, that's fucked up.

[00:59:07] Preston Meyer: Sure, I need to know more.

[00:59:12] Katie Dooley: All right, you got very passionate about that.

[00:59:16] Preston Meyer: I'm very curious.

[00:59:18] Katie Dooley: The end of our Easter episode again. I hope none of you have pork nightmares and you all get some Easter candy, whether you observe it or not. Thank you to our patron, Lisa. Follow us on all our social media and be sure to DM us or post in our discord about some of the questions we've asked today. So, DM us on Facebook or Instagram. If you want to support the podcast monetarily, which we would love. Um, you can join our Patreon. We have a bonus episode here and we have our book club tier. And if you know, like any of that, which I don't know why you wouldn't, we also have our Spreadshop where you can buy some sweet, sweet, Holy Watermelon merch.

[00:59:59] Preston Meyer: And all the links are in our show notes. Thanks for joining us.

[01:00:04] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

Dr. Wes Thiessen isn't just a great storyteller, he's a conflict resolution expert, and he's here to tell us about Sharia Law, its history, its real world function in Muslim communities, and why it shouldn't make anybody nervous.

Islam is not monolithic, and neither is the study of law. The Golden Rule is extremely important in most legal cases, and the way it's applied in most cases deserves credit, as we'll hear Wes explain.

Living and working throughout the "Muslim World," Dr. Wes has a lot of experience that we find useful for "understanding the other," and building better relationships across what many prefer to see as boundaries.

We also look at the legal background of the extremist groups that are causing trouble for Muslims and their neighbours all around the globe.

This interview continues on Patreon

You can WATCH this interview on YouTube

Connect with Dr. Wes on Instagram or Facebook, or check out his website: UnderstandingTheOther.com

Find Holy Watermelon merch at  Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Get more great religion facts in your feed on Facebook and Instagram

Other links for Islam in Alberta:

Al-Rashid Mosque, Edmonton

Islamic Information Society of Calgary

For other Islamic connections local to you, we'd be happy to connect you.

[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: Hi, Preston.

[00:00:12] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.

[00:00:14] Katie Dooley: I am very excited for today's episode of

[00:00:17] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:21] Preston Meyer: That was not a great. We always try and sync up and it always fails over Google Meets.

[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: Because we're not together. But I am excited because we have Dr. Wes Thiessen here to talk about Sharia law and probably a bunch of other religious studies topics too, because he knows a lot of stuff. Welcome, Wes.

[00:00:41] Wes Thiessen: Well, thanks, Katie, I'm delighted to be here. This is so exciting to be able to meet with you and talk about these things.

[00:00:47] Katie Dooley: I mean, we like having religious conversations, and anyone who's willing to join us is a friend of ours.

[00:00:53] Wes Thiessen: I like having religious conversations, too. So it's going to be pretty exciting. And I don't very often have them with people that are outside of my current circles.

[00:01:06] Katie Dooley: Okay, well, this is going to be good. I'm just going to quickly read Dr Wes's bio so that we can get into the meat of it. Dr Wes Thiessen is a conflict resolution practitioner and a certified mediator. Born and raised in the city of Calgary. Dr Thiessen began his mediation training in BC following an undergraduate degree in psychology and theological studies and a master's in Historical Geography of the Ancient Near East, and studied in Jerusalem. He worked both inside and outside the justice system to resolve conflicts in many forms family, spousal, assault and property crime. He later completed a PhD in Islamic history after spending over another decade in North Africa. This life experience and education assist Wes in better understanding conflict with cultural and/or religious elements. In this practice, he assists families in conflict, employment conflict, and neighborhood disputes. He especially loves to help people resolve their differences to build better relationships with us. Wes has four children and five grandchildren and is also a part-time pastor of a rural church.

[00:02:10] Wes Thiessen: Katie, I should have read that whole thing over because it's actually outdated.

[00:02:14] Katie Dooley: Oh well, tell us what's the update?

[00:02:17] Wes Thiessen: I have six grandchildren, not just five.

[00:02:21] Katie Dooley: Congrats.

[00:02:21] Preston Meyer: Congratulations.

[00:02:23] Wes Thiessen: Yeah, the last one was born in September, so obviously that bio hasn't been updated since September.

[00:02:29] Katie Dooley: Well, now now it's updated. He has six grandchildren. Everyone. So first question Preston had is what was your master's and PhD?

[00:02:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I'm always curious about that sort of thing. What brought you here?

[00:02:46] Wes Thiessen: So yeah, the subject of my master's thesis a long time ago was called, it was called "The Altar of Burnt Offering in Light of Recent Archeological Excavations."

[00:02:59] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:03:01] Preston Meyer: Okay. Interesting.

[00:03:02] Wes Thiessen: Yeah, I spent two years. I spent two years studying in Jerusalem at the Institute of Holy Land Studies. If you look for it now, it's probably listed under the name Jerusalem University College. It's a graduate school that's located geographically on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, outside of the Old City walls, but in a very historical area. It is run by a board that is based, I think their charter comes out of Minnesota, but most of the administrative work, I think comes from the state of Illinois. But it's a graduate school that is run mostly by Americans but has an international student body, usually fairly small, but they have short-term programs and the longerterm programs. And I went there with the idea in mind that I was just going to spend a semester there, but ended up being there for two years because the learning that I experienced there just changed so much about my experience with the Bible. I went there on the suggestion of a professor of mine when I was doing my undergraduate work. He taught Old Testament studies, and he said that if I was thinking about working with the church, it would be excellent for me to go to the school for a semester to learn more about the land, language, and people of the Bible. And after six weeks, I decided to stay for a couple of years. And finding a topic for my master's research was just a matter of what's interesting for me. The program focused on history, archeology, language, Hebrew, and also archeology, and I went and participated in a dig for a few weeks in the land, and I was really interested in the intersection between what archeology discovered and how we understand the Old Testament, because there's always people who are looking for evidence to prove what they read is actually true. And I was looking more for what have we found and how does it change, how we understand what we read. And that's why I ended up with the topic that I did. Digs at the time were uncovering sometimes cultic objects, and it was helping us to better understand and interpret what we read in the Old Testament about the altar of burnt offering.

[00:05:24] Preston Meyer: I do love your angle that you're coming at it, looking to learn more about what you're reading, instead of forcing what you're reading onto what you're finding.

[00:05:34] Wes Thiessen: Well, I don't think I was always of that mindset though, so I think I experienced quite a bit of shift in that while I was living in Jerusalem. And as I was reading the texts and understanding our interpretation is like everything else, we filter what we read through what we already believe, and somehow we need to try and come back to the text with a little bit less bias, and see if it's possible for us to incorporate other possible interpretations, or at least relax our interpretation to the point where we can widen the circle a little bit, if that makes sense. Maybe some of your listeners understand what that means.

[00:06:26] Preston Meyer: I think so, we got some pretty clever listeners.

[00:06:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Our, uh, our listener base is all ready to, to learn, and they're very open. I don't think we'd attract anything else. And what about your PhD?

[00:06:41] Wes Thiessen: So my PhD is entitled "The Formation of the Mudawana."

[00:06:45] Katie Dooley: I don't know what that is.

[00:06:47] Preston Meyer: You're going to have to tell us more.

[00:06:51] Wes Thiessen: You can tell that that subject obviously is made for people who already have kind of an understanding of Islamic studies.

[00:06:59] Preston Meyer: That's the case for a lot of PhD work.

[00:07:03] Wes Thiessen: Yeah. I mean, there's not even a subtitle for my, my, my dissertation. So people have to at least know what the Mudawana is or, or be able to figure out what that word means. And the Mudawana is one of the two legal texts that's at the foundation of the Sunni classical school of Islamic law that was prevalent all across North Africa, which is the Maliki school. And just as in the way when people study under a particular PhD supervisor, they might be highly influenced by that particular supervisor. Maybe they will even be put into a particular box because of the person who they studied with. In the same way, in the early parts, in what we call it the formative period of of Islam, there were schools of thought. People were schooled by certain scholars and then by their disciples later on. And eventually these schools of learning became known as classical schools of Islamic law. And in Sunni Islam, there were four classical schools of Islamic law. Because I lived in the Muslim world, in North Africa, I was surrounded by people who had been versed in the Maliki school, and the Maliki school is simply named, like the other three schools, by the founder or what later Islamic scholars recognize as being the founder of the school. His name is Malik, and so it's called the Maliki school, just like we have the Shafi'i school, who is called after Shafi'i, and we have the Hanafi school, which is by Abu Hanifa, and so on. So the names of the schools are really named after people that they recognize as having founded or started or being the impetus for that particular school of thought. And the Mudawana is a text that eventually was gathered together, I suppose we can say, by people who followed the teachings of Malik, but were centered in the city of Kairouan in Tunisia, where I lived for 15 years. So I chose a topic based on the places where I lived, because I wanted to better understand the people around whom I was living. I wanted to know why do they believe the things that they believe? How was Islamic law formed? How did this law get created here in this particular place, and why did people follow this particular teaching? So the Mudawana is one of these books of law that was created in that area, caused me to ask these questions, and I wanted to know, how was this book made? So I started down some rabbit holes.

[00:09:52] Preston Meyer: Makes perfect sense. Learn about the people that you're with. That's half of the motivation behind the Holy Watermelon.

[00:09:58] Wes Thiessen: I'd love to taste that, by the way. Yeah. So that was that was a little bit about my dissertation. It's a little I don't know, it's it's a pretty deep rabbit trail like most dissertations. 

[00:10:12] Preston Meyer: Well, if it's not really long, is it even going to get really carefully observed.

[00:10:19] Wes Thiessen: Uh, yeah. I, you know, another scholar really encouraged me to try and publish my, my dissertation, but I knew that was going to be another project. As I try and decide to edit and decide, what do I want the focus of the book to be if I'm going to publish it. And because I never ended up going into teaching in academic circles, I didn't end up pursuing it. Even though I did start a couple of relationships with a couple of publishing houses. But I really don't think that it gets many hits. You can download it for free now from the university where it's archived, but like I say, it's great for people who have insomnia.

[00:11:01] Katie Dooley: Maybe we'll link it in our show notes and then people can read it.

[00:11:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that'd be great.

[00:11:06] Wes Thiessen: Yeah, sure.

[00:11:08] Preston Meyer: So I'm curious, have your studies in Islam affected the way you approach your Christian faith?

[00:11:14] Wes Thiessen: You know, I think, Preston, when I consider that, I would have to say that any interaction that I have with any other faith has impacted what I believe, really. I remember reading a book that somebody wrote about how the five pillars of Islam have changed my Christian faith. And I think that as you investigate other people's religious beliefs and their life and their practice, it's going to impact. It's going to influence how you think about your own. It's going to make you stop and think a little bit more about what is it that you do. Provided, of course, that you can just get over that little judgment piece. You know, a lot of a lot of people have this judgment piece that their religion, of course, is the right one and the best one. And, you know, I'm sure that a lot of your listeners are way beyond that. But until you can sit down and just have a conversation with another person because they're a person and not put them into the box of they believe something different than I do, therefore they don't have the same value that I do.

[00:12:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a struggle that a lot of people are still working with.

[00:12:28] Wes Thiessen: Let me give you one example about how studying or learning about Islam has impacted me. So if we talk about the five pillars of Islam, one of them is salat, which means prayer. And you know, there are different practices depending on what kind of Muslim you are, whether you're Sunni or Shia or Sufi or Ismaili or whatever your branch is. But in Sunni Islam, which is probably the branch of Islam which is most well known and quite well defined or boxed. In traditional Sunni practice, Muslims should pray five times a day. And I was just watching a movie the other day. Interestingly enough, somebody brought a drink. A waiter brought a drink to somebody who was at a in a lounge chair by a swimming pool at a hotel in Beirut. It was obviously morning because the waiter said, good morning. He hands him his drink and the guy is drinking the drink. And in the background you can hear the call to prayer. And I said, well, that was that was really poor scripting because the call to prayer happens before sunrise, and then it happens at noon. And so that period where he's lounging by the pool isn't a period when it would be expected that somebody would hear the call to prayer anyway.

[00:13:51] Preston Meyer: Maybe he's saying, good morning at 1158. Maybe.

[00:13:57] Katie Dooley: Preston.

[00:13:59] Preston Meyer: I gotta try. Right.

[00:14:01] Wes Thiessen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How can we make it work? Just when you stop to think about the fact that Muslims who are dedicated to what they believe will spend time performing particular acts of devotion in prayer on a five times a day is pretty committed. And they will do particular gesticulations with their body. You know, they have to bend and they have to kneel and they have to bow in their forehead, has to touch the floor. So there's there's a lot of guidelines that you have to follow in order for your prayer to be acceptable and for somebody to be that committed to do it. You can see that that religious belief is going to permeate a lot of who they are. And Christians who balk at the idea that I don't want to do something that's so prescribed and so mechanical. Kind of like the debate that might happen in in worship circles between liturgical churches and non-liturgical churches. You might say, well, Muslims, you know, they're just they're just performing something out of habit. But even for a person, any kind of person, to perform a religious action, even if it's not very well defined or prescribed five times a day religiously, if we can use that word, that's pretty committed, that's going to impact your daily life. It's going to change how you think and it's that's going to impact your beliefs. And so I was just challenged as a Christian to think about, well, do I pray? Okay. I don't pray in the same way that Muslims pray, but that's pretty dedicated prayer. Are we dedicated to what we believe to the same degree? So questions of reflection on my own Christian practice based on what I've seen experienced in the Muslim world. And when you hear the call to prayer, if you hear the call to prayer living in the Muslim world, that's also another reminder. You know, it's it's a part of everybody's life that surrounds you. You're a part of that community which has its positives and its negatives, because you're either in or you're out right, or you're out right. You're pretending you're in or you know, you're out and everybody knows you're out, and then you're really out.

[00:16:27] Katie Dooley: I feel like this is a weird question. What do non-Muslims do during call to prayer? Like, if you're a Canadian tourist visiting Dubai.

[00:16:35] Wes Thiessen: You just carry on doing whatever you're doing. It's like it's like the music playing at the at the shopping mall. You go to the shopping mall at Christmas time and it's Christmas carols. And you know, you don't believe in Christmas and so you just sort of ignore it. You carry on doing whatever you're doing, okay? But you could walk into a shop and the person who owns the shop isn't standing at the counter. He's, uh, at the back on his prayer carpet, performing his prayer. And you just wait there. You wait until he finishes and he comes back, and then life returns to normal.

[00:17:09] Preston Meyer: Have you ever joined in the prayer?

[00:17:13] Wes Thiessen: Um, so I have joined in the prayer in the sense of being present. Physically present. Muslims don't make it a habit in the circles that I was in. They don't make it a habit of inviting non-Muslims to perform the prayer with them. And so they would expect somebody to do the other pillar of Islam, which is the shahada, or the testimony of faith. There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. They would wait until somebody makes this testimony of faith before they would invite them into prayer with them. So I've been physically present while people have been praying, but not being invited to pray with them. And at different parts of the Muslim world, non-Muslims, the practice of whether or not non-Muslims can even come into a place of prayer will change. So, for example, in Turkey, non-Muslims are permitted to enter provided that they're dressed modestly enough. But in Tunisia, where I lived, if you're not a professing Muslim, you're not allowed to come into the prayer hall at all. So you have to look into the mosque from the door of the mosque.

[00:18:20] Katie Dooley: Interesting. What's it like? I've we've talked about going to a Muslim service here, but I haven't looked into it. Would it depend on the dialoguingmosque or is it pretty open here?

[00:18:33] Wes Thiessen: They are very open in Canada. In fact, if you're looking for a mosque to visit in Edmonton, I can set you up with somebody there. I've got some friends who work in the mosques in Edmonton. If some of your readers or listeners are in Calgary, I can also connect them with a couple of mosques here in Calgary, where they would be welcome to go and visit, meet the Imam, ask questions. I find that the Muslim leaders in Canada are very open to telling people about what they believe and dialoguing with people about their faith, and there are some branches of Muslims here in Canada who actually do proactive open house days where they advertise open house at their mosque on a particular day, on a Saturday, and invite people to come and have conversation with them, see the mosque, do a tour, ask questions, that sort of thing.

[00:19:26] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I'd love those resources and we can put them on our social media and in the show notes.

[00:19:32] Wes Thiessen: Yeah. Okay.

[00:19:33] Katie Dooley: Now we do have a specific topic in mind for this interview, which we discussed with us. But because you're you have your PhD in Islamic studies, we want to talk about Sharia law today, because that's one of those topics that scares a lot of people and probably for no good reason. From what I know about it, it's not that scary.

[00:19:52] Wes Thiessen: I think you're right on the money.

[00:19:54] Katie Dooley: Okay. So how was Sharia law developed historically and how were these rules selected, sorted, established? You talked a little bit about the school you lived in. That sounds like it has its own rules and laws. Yeah, let's start there.

[00:20:16] Wes Thiessen: Sharia law is very different than most people in North America conceive of it as. And that is because of how our laws are organized in North America or in the West in general. There's been a completely different development of law in our societies. And so when we think about somebody else's system of law, we naturally take our own template and we just overlay it on what we think theirs must be. And the trouble is that you can't actually do that. You can't take Western law and the way that our laws are written and designed, and how our whole law system works, and lay that as a template on top of Islamic law, because they were formed at very different time periods and in different ways and for different purposes. First of all, I feel really inadequate talking about Sharia law and its development only because as you study anything to a deeper and deeper level, you start to realize how little you actually know about something. But I suppose I probably know more about it than most of your listeners. And when I told people in Tunisia that I was studying about Imam Sahnoun and the Mudawana, many people would say to me, oh, you probably know more about Islam than I do. And I would have to concede, well, maybe that's true. I'm not a practicing Muslim, but maybe I do more do know more about your your historical development. But Sharia law is really it's a system and it's not a code. In the West we have a code of laws. So for example, in Canada we even have a, you know, a legal document that's called the Criminal Code of Canada. And in that criminal code, it tells you what you're allowed to do or what you're not allowed to do. And if you do this thing that you're not allowed to do what the punishment is going to be. And it doesn't work like that in Islam, because in Sharia, Sharia is a system of how law impacts life. And like I said, I'm not the best person. So if people are listening to this, let them know that they should listen to other people's perspectives and that maybe they will get a deeper and a wider perspective, that they listen to other voices as well. And this is just, you know, just a sliver into looking at what the subject is. But Sharia law means that I'm going to go back even a little bit further, and I'm going to draw back in something else from my Old Testament studies this last Sunday when I was preaching to my congregation. It's Transfiguration Sunday this last Sunday. So we're on the 21st of February. That was what the 19th and Transfiguration Sunday ,they celebrate the transformation that Jesus Christ experienced on Mount Tabor when he took his three disciples up and to talk about Transfiguration Sunday, I also brought in the text from Exodus, which is when Moses was invited to go up the mountain where he was going to meet with God, and in that going up the mountain, Moses went up the mountain with Joshua. And he told the Israelites as he was going up the mountain, you have Aaron and Hur here who will help you as I go up the mountain. Well, why did he need to do that? He did that because he was telling them. Me, Moses, your judge, the person who is helping you decide whether you can do these things or you can't do things, I'm going to go away. But even though I'm gone, these two people are going to help you. Now, that's really useful if you know that information from Old Testament studies, because that idea is also found within Islam, that Islamic law is based around somebody who guides you, somebody who judges, somebody who teaches. Because most of Islamic law is based around the idea of somebody going to talk to the judge, knocking on the door and asking him, I've got this situation. Is it permissible for me to be able to do this, or is it permissible for me to be able to do that? And so a lot of Islamic law developed out of hypothetical situations or even real situations where people would bring their questions to the legal expert and they would ask the legal expert, is it permissible for me to divide my property in half so that my son can build on this property, even though the property was given to me by my father in law or something like that, and then the person who is making the legal opinion will draw on all of their experience, and other judgments that have been made will explain those, and then they will make a judgment. And so you, some of the listeners might remember somebody by the name of Salman Rushdie, who wrote a book called The Satanic Verses, and then there was a fatwa that was put out against Salman Rushdie. So a fatwa is like a legal ruling and in order for a legal ruling to be made properly within orthodox Sunni Islam, the person who is asking the question asks the question, and then the judge or the decider is going to have to go back, and they're going to have to see all of the times in Islamic history that they're aware of, that this particular topic has been brought up before, who the judges were, who ruled on something. And what they ruled on and why they ruled on it before they're able to make their judgment. And so basically they use precedent to be able to make modern decisions. But in addition to that, they also have to go by the Quran, which is the written expression of the direct word of God, revelation of God for Muslims from God through the angel Gabriel to Muhammad, who then learned all of these things, and some of them were written down on scraps of bone, and some of them were written down on scraps of leather. Eventually, it was all recited and written down on scrolls and gathered. By the time of the fourth leader of the Muslim world, at least, this is the narrative that we understand about how the Quran develops. So the Quran is very important. This is one thing that Islamic law has to line up with. The second thing that Islamic law has to line up with is the Sunnah. And the word Sunni Muslim comes from the word sunnah. And Sunnah means the behavior or the actions or the life or the speaking of the Prophet Muhammad. So Muslims all recognize that God's direct revelation was given to Muhammad, and Muhammad then became the Messenger of God or the rasul of God. And this messenger lived out what God's law was more perfectly than anybody else did. And so his life and his sayings become a model or a template for Muslims to follow. So Islamic law must line up with the Quran, it must line up with the Sunnah. And then, depending on the Sunni school of jurisprudence that you belong to, there's two other parts of it as well. One is called the ismah and ismah means the consensus. And so many people, probably in Christian circles, would be familiar with the idea of consensus. If they come from a congregation that follows a consensus style, which is where everybody in the congregation, and for Muslims, this would be the senior leaders, where they would all sort of agree together. Yes, this is the right way. Yes, this is the good decision. Yes, this is the good thing to do. And then the last of the four considerations of Islamic law would be called in Arabic prius, which means analogical reasoning. An analogical reasoning becomes important because the Quran is a book that was revealed and then recorded at a specific period and context in time. But there are some subjects that the Quran doesn't deal with directly, and so in order for us to understand how the Quran relates to those things, like for example, using a computer, somebody might come to an Islamic judge and might ask the question, is it permissible for me to use a computer? Is it right or is it wrong? Can I use a computer? And so then the judge would go back and in their analogical reasoning, they're going to look for something in the Quran that talks about something similar to what the idea of a believer using a computer means now, and apply that information to the current situation. So we have these four different streams that any idea that you're asking about, or anything that you want to rule it on has to be filtered through the Quran, the Sunnah, the consensus of the leaders, and then analogical reasoning. Of the for this is a really long answer, Preston. Of the four Orthodox schools of classical Islamic thought, three of those schools follow those four as being the help that they need in order to determine legality of any particular question somebody will come to somebody with asking. However, there is one school of thought which, instead of following those four, only follows the first two, the Quran and the Sunnah. And what happens when you reduce the perspective when you're asking religious questions? When you reduce, when you reduce that perspective? If I can loosely say you become more narrow-minded and it is out of this school, this classical school, that we now have many more of them, of the extremist interpretations of Islam, because they only access the Quran and the Sunnah, and they have a very conservative view of interpreting the Quran and a very conservative view of interpreting the Sunnah as well. I'm not sure if I even answered the question, but I gave you a lot of information.

[00:30:33] Katie Dooley: I think you answered multiple questions in that answer that were coming up, so that's great.

[00:30:40] Preston Meyer: I'm looking at our list of questions and seeing that the next one has, in fact been answered. So the idea of what is criminal versus what is civil law is. It's a pretty soft line in between those two categories.

[00:30:59] Wes Thiessen: Yeah, I'm going to make a comment about that, Preston, without you even asking a question.

[00:31:03] Preston Meyer: I think you know what the question is. Go for it.

[00:31:06] Wes Thiessen: I think Islamic law, from my understanding, Islam touches on everything in life. It tells you about civil society. It tells you about politics. It tells you about social interactions. It tells you about your personal life with your spouse. It tells you about how to relate to your relatives. It tells you what happens when you die. It tells you when you should, when you should wash and how you should wash. It just covers everything. So to say that Shariah only covers criminal is not correct. And this might be one of the reasons why people in the West get concerned when the topic of Sharia law comes up, because Islamic law filters into everything that you do in society, it has something to say about everything. And if you can't find a specific answer, then you just go to this person who interprets the law for you and ask them, is it permissible for me to do this? And they'll give you the answer.

[00:32:08] Preston Meyer: Right? And it's really not terribly different from the large codex of laws that we have in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Bible, that it does cover your civil stuff, your what we would call criminal activity. So it's interesting to see the parallels there that it's so different from what we are familiar with today.

[00:32:29] Katie Dooley: Well and we have this conversation last episode press and the difference between Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy and I think that's Judaism and Islam are very much orthopraxic religions where what you do really matters. Is that fair?

[00:32:46] Wes Thiessen: Definitely, definitely. Yes.

[00:32:50] Preston Meyer: So how is the law typically enforced in communities where it's the predominant way of life?

[00:32:58] Katie Dooley: I'd also even add to that what does it look like in Muslim communities in Canada? To compare.

[00:33:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:33:06] Wes Thiessen: You're going to need another guest to ask about the Canadian Muslim communities, because I haven't lived in Canada long enough understanding what I do about Islam or its communities to know how they cope with it. And I'm not an insider, so I'm not going to have those answers either. I could connect you with somebody if you'd like, but but that question, how is Islamic law governed today in the Muslim world differs depending on where you are in the Muslim world. It's not the same across the board as you probably would have guessed. And that difference is dependent on the region of the world and the history and the current government in that particular region. So. You know, the Muslim world is not homogenous. Sorry to break somebody's bubble. Muslims themselves are also not homogenous, just as in the same way there's all sorts of Christians. There's all sorts of Muslims. And meeting one Muslim doesn't mean that you have met everyone else and that you understand everything about everybody else. I learned this quite quickly in Tunisia, because even marital customs differ from one area of Tunisia to another. And so going to a wedding in the city where I lived didn't mean that you knew what people would do at a wedding in another city of the same country. In this in the same reference frame of reference, where you are in the Muslim world is going to change how Islamic law is regulated. So after the breakup of the Turkish Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, there was a breakup by international powers of taking those that region and dividing it up and putting it under mandates by other countries. So the region that I was in, in North Africa was under French rule, including Tunisia and Algeria, and the Italians took over Libya. And I think the British Mandate was in Palestine and in Egypt, and the French were in Syria and in Lebanon. And those Western nations had a huge influence on what happened in civil law in those countries. And so because they went there and like, for example, there was a, you know, a almost, you know, Arabs would call this like an occupation. But the French colonized Tunisian Algeria. They actually dealt with them both differently, to one point where the nation of Algeria was actually considered France. It was French territory, whereas Tunisia was like a protectorate or under colonial power by the French. The French would bring their law. And I'm only speaking about these areas because I know these specific geographical areas better than others. But the French brought their civil law, and they would regulate what was happening in Tunisia at that time period by French civil law. And when the Tunisians gained independence in 1956, much of the French civil law continued to be practiced in the country. Whereas now Tunisian law is basically based on French civil law, it's not based on Sharia. Now there are other countries in the Muslim world like Afghanistan and Pakistan and even further afield, where they didn't have this same influence by their colonial powers, and so their traditional laws would have carried over a lot more than in other places. So now in Tunisia, they don't talk so much about Sharia as they do about what's the law? What does the law say? Uh, this is French civil law now morphed into something modernized in Tunisia. And then depending on how each government, how progressive they are, uh, how interested they are in trying to reform something or move things in what they believe is a modernizing way, they will completely change the legal system. And so when the revolution happened in 2011, in Tunisia, there was a religious party that came in and they wanted to rewrite the constitution, and they wanted to rewrite the Constitution in more of a religious milieu. They didn't want to institute Sharia law as part of civil law, but they wanted to emphasize that their current form of law could be more Islamicized than what it had been because of the French influence. So that's a partial answer to your question. But I want to push the issue a little bit more, because I know a little bit more about Islamic law than I think that the two of you do. And sometimes when you don't know about something, you don't actually know what questions to ask, right? You don't know what you don't know. And so I want to talk for a minute about something called hadd punishments. And it's, um. It had punishment is kind of like you can sort of relate to it. If you understand the Old Testament idea of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, right? If he stole this from me, then I should be able to get this from him, right? If they murdered somebody in my family, I should be able to murder somebody in their family. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And when people talk about Sharia law in the West, they get they get this really concerned sense because it means all of a sudden, if somebody accidentally does somebody kill somebody, then the only way that we're going to get this taken care of is by revenge, by killing somebody else in their family. And the other famous ones that a lot of people in the West are familiar with is if you steal something, then the punishment is that we're going to cut off your hand. Right. And if one hand is gone already and you're still stealing, we'll cut off your other hand. And then they move to the feet. And eventually you might have somebody with no hands and no feet. And the idea behind that, I think, is, is the concept. If you're missing a hand, it's going to be much more difficult to steal. But what people don't realize is that cutting off somebody's hand when they steal something is considered a hadd punishment and hadd actually means like a border, an end, a maximum. So it would be the equivalent in our code of the maximum penalty that when somebody comes before the law, if they get convicted of drunk driving, I don't know what. Does anybody know what the maximum penalty is for drunk driving now in Canadian courts?

[00:39:53] Katie Dooley: No, but I can Google it.

[00:39:56] Preston Meyer: I've while she Googles it, I've always understood that it as exactly that, that the maximum punishment is this thing. When talking about the whole eye for an eye thing in the Hebrew Bible, where it's this is a new law, a new limitation on what was before a situation of revenge, where, yeah, sure, he stole my sheep and now I get to kill his family. Nope. That's way too extreme. You get exactly what you lost.

[00:40:24] Wes Thiessen: That's exactly right, Preston. That's exactly what the Islamic idea is, that there is a boundary on that and hadd. Another form of the word hadd, a cognate of it in Arabic is hudud, and it means boundary, like the boundary between Canada and the United States. And so a hadd punishment is giving you a maximum. This is as much as you can have, and no more. But the idea also in practice is that we don't go for the maximum. That's not what we start with. Usually we start with something much, much less than that. Because the idea behind Islamic law at its heart, is actually the idea of reform, that we want to change the individual, that we want the impact of what we're going to do to have a positive outcome, and so that our society is going to be better. And the best understanding that I have of this in a modern context is, is what happens in First Nations communities when people are convicted of something, that they bring a circle around them, of leaders in the community, and that circle is there to try and help bring positive impact and positive change on the person who's responsible for the crime.

[00:41:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's an excellent parallel. Katie, did you find what you're looking for?

[00:41:46] Katie Dooley: I did. A summary conviction carries a two years in prison. An indictment has a maximum of 14 years. And if you kill someone, you can get life in prison.

[00:41:56] Wes Thiessen: Wow. Yeah. But I'm sure if you have any experience or you've heard stories, people are convicted of drunk driving. And, you know, they don't. They don't spend two years in jail. Yeah, they might get their license taken away from them.

[00:42:12] Preston Meyer: And even that's not a sure thing.

[00:42:14] Wes Thiessen: Yeah, yeah.

[00:42:16] Preston Meyer: So that principle of, you know, hopefully we can get them to reform is present in our tradition too. Though, it feels just a tiny little bit different because we have different expectations of what we count as the other. Plus, we like telling stories of people getting their hand cut off.

[00:42:35] Wes Thiessen: Yeah, but like the media, people are always attracted to the extreme. They're always attracted to the bizarre. And we like to lift those up as we think of them as being the norm when they're not. You know, you hear about somebody who's stoned in Afghanistan or somebody who's executed in Saudi Arabia. These are these are not the norm. They do happen, but they're not the norm.

[00:43:03] Katie Dooley: The stories of people going to their leaders to ask how to deal with their mother in law. Never make the news.

[00:43:10] Wes Thiessen: That's right. Yeah.

[00:43:12] Katie Dooley: Going to their mediator? Wes.

[00:43:17] Wes Thiessen: Thanks for the plug, Katie.

[00:43:19] Katie Dooley: Important work, but probably not newsworthy.

[00:43:22] Wes Thiessen: Exactly right.

[00:43:23] Katie Dooley: Unfortunately. So that is a good context to put it in. What are. Do you know any interesting or surprising laws that Sharia has? The example I put in our questions you might have read. We did an episode, a bonus episode on abortion and abortion is permissible in Islam if it benefits the mother and the family. But if you're a devout Catholic, that probably looks pretty barbaric. So that one surprised me.

[00:43:52] Wes Thiessen: So, you know, if you read a compendium of Islamic law, which is similar to the book that I studied for my PhD dissertation and just, you know, a disclaimer out there, I didn't read the entire book. It's so long. And but I looked at sections of it and I translated a very small portion of it. It's very intense. And I'm not a specialist in Islamic law. But when you look at those compendiums, they will all have very similar section titles. And those section titles relate to the really important aspects of life that Muslims in the formative period of Islam were dealing with. And so, for example, at that point in Islam, the religious expectations of prayer were beginning to be codified. I don't like the word codified, but sort of formed. And what people were expected to do. And it changes again from one classical school to another classical school, like, for example, the way that you kneel and whether or not you have your back feet so that they're both equally on the carpet, or if you have one foot on top of the other foot, which foot that should be, whether it's the right foot that should be on the left foot or vice versa. And then when you stand up, there's also a discrepancy between two schools of thought, of how your hand position should be when you're standing, whether both of your hands should be overlapped on on top of each other, on your belly, close to where your belly button is, or if they should be down at your side. And so each particular school of law will have a different form that's important for them. And these compendious chapters that they have that are relevant to the time of Muslims in the formative period of Islam. One of them, for example, that is always curious for people is about purification. Because for Muslims, before they pray, they go through a ritual purification to make themselves clean in order to enter into the mosque and to perform prayer. And as most Westerners I think probably know, when you go into a mosque, the first thing you do is you take your shoes off and you leave your shoes at the entrance to the mosque because nobody goes into the prayer space in your shoes. And this comes simply from the, the background that people when they came into a space to pray, during the time of early Islam, people wore open shoed, open-toed shoes or sandals. Their feet would get dirty because they were in a dusty space. Islam, you know, it's it's formative areas in the region of Saudi Arabia and and the Middle East. So it's hot, people are sweaty, it's dusty. And you take your sandals off before you come in, and then you go and you wash. And washing was really important actually to make sure that people were clean. And the washing would include the area around their feet, up to their knees, depending on the particular school you come from, and then carrying your hands over your head with some water to be able to wash that, and then around your ears and, and in your nose and around your mouth. Because with your ears, your nose and your mouth, you're actually cleaning the orifices of your body that takes things in sound and smells and speech and food. And so there is a figurative purification, but also a literal purification. We're cleaning the dust off, but we're also metaphorically cleaning the parts of our bodies, our faces, our eyes, the senses that bring things into our bodies. And then, of course, your hands and up to your elbows. And in different schools they will have different regulations about how many times you have to do this. And I think for people from the West, this is one of those things that's interesting or surprising. Why is it that there is so much, maybe you could say perseveration on this kind of a ritual purification, and it's really important to understand what the background is and the context to be able to bring you to a place where you can see, well, why did this develop and and why was this important? And now tradition has carried this on. And tradition is extremely important within Islam because as you can see, when I talked about the Quran and the Sunnah, which is what the prophet did, that tradition of what the prophet did is very, very important for people to follow because they recognize that as being the best way. And so they want to make sure that they imitate the best way.

[00:48:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I think it's interesting that different schools of thought have different precise rules on the exact method of what counts as purification that somebody went to, the one who gets to make the judgment. And he said, you got to be really clean. And somebody went to a different judge and said, you got to be really, really clean. And apparently that's different. And it's of course, became more detailed.

[00:49:24] Wes Thiessen: Right. It's important to remember, too, that those schools developed in different regional areas, um, around a personality. And there's, there's, you know, uh, of course, academic argument amongst scholars as to whether or not it developed by a region or if it developed around a personality. And so that debate is still ongoing about the formation of Islamic law, but geographically and by those schools, you can see that they moved in this direction. And maybe in the same way that language develops, because we have regional accents as a result of language developing in one area differently than it does in another. We have a similar thing when Islamic law developed that it formed in a particular way and this particular region like this, for this reason, and it formed somewhere else for this reason. And there there wasn't the same. You couldn't just Google or or, you know, do a VoIP call to somebody to check with them about how they dealt with this. And so you get different schools moving in different directions, generally the same. But you know, some some details that are different.

[00:50:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Dealing with back to specifically cleanliness. It's going to feel a little different in the jungle versus the desert. I feel like that that question of geography versus personality, I feel like uh, depending on which aspects you're looking at, you're looking at a combination of the two.

[00:50:53] Wes Thiessen: Yes.

[00:50:53] Katie Dooley: I think I'm going to combine these last two questions. So obviously talking about Sharia law, I think we have to talk about ISIS and the Taliban. But also people are scared of Sharia law. And we're seeing a lot of Christian nationalism, especially in the States. But here as well, what should we actually be scared about?

[00:51:13] Wes Thiessen: You know, I think if I stop and think about that for a little while, I might actually be more scared about Christian nationalism than I am about Sharia law.

[00:51:22] Katie Dooley: I would in North America. I absolutely would be.

[00:51:25] Wes Thiessen: Yeah, yeah. But that said, I've also travelled to other parts of the Muslim world. I, you know, I was in, uh, eastern Turkey and northern Iraq in 2019, and I went back to northern Iraq this last August and September, and I went because I was distributing eyeglasses to Muslim. Well, actually, not not Muslim necessarily, to refugees and to internally displaced peoples. And it was especially poignant to me in 2019 when I was in a refugee camp in Turkey and I met some I met this guy there who had heard that I had been around and wanted me to come and help his uncle, and I met him at outside of barbershop, and so I made an agreement that I'd come and see his family in a day or two, and they were living in a refugee camp. That they had been forced out of the region that they were in because of ISIS and the family got special treatment because this uncle that I had come to see was handicapped, and because of his handicap, he was given the best housing in the refugee camp, which was a cement box. It was a building with four walls and a roof, but it was a cement shell. And people in North America would just recognize it as you know, this is a building that's in development. But and it wasn't very big, you know, maybe like somebody large living room. Well, I shouldn't say large, an average-sized living room in North America. And they had carpets on the floor and we were welcomed in. I was with a couple of friends, and they had pillows around the corners for us to sit on to make us more comfortable. And the door didn't shut all the way, so you could see through the crack in the door what was going on in the courtyard outside. Or at least, you know, a sliver of activity. And there was a washroom that was connected to this building. But again, it was just four walls and then a Turkish toilet, if people knows what those are in the floor. That was and this was, this was the deluxe accommodations. Everybody else was in tents. And I could see while I was sitting in that room through the crack in the door, people were going back and forth, lots of movement, back and forth, going out of the yard and back into the yard, and people coming back into the yard carrying bags. And I could sort of tell what was in the bags. And then I sort of figured out what was going on. And a few minutes later, they brought in this enormous silver tray decked out with roast chicken and lots of food. And I knew that the amount of money that they had spent in order to try and bring me a meal that they thought was worthy of who I was as their guest, completely unnecessary in my mind, but that the hospitality in that region of the world is just unbelievable. And the honor that they give to guests puts us to shame. I'm just trying to create a little bit of a context in order to set up what I'm about to describe, when you talk to these people who have been displaced about some of the experiences that they've gone through and what it's like now. Your heart breaks and there's there's no words that you can say that bring any kind of a sense of empathy or good feeling to this person as they describe. We were living in our home, Christians and Muslims together in the same village, getting along fine, no problem for centuries. And all of a sudden this group comes in and they tell us that we have a choice to make right here and right now, that we can either bow to ISIS and sign on to what their theology is so we can choose their theology at that moment, or we're welcome to leave our own home and they will occupy it. Or, uh, we can pay a tax. I don't even know if the tax was instituted by that time in ISIS, when they were making their way across this particular swath of Syria. And, of course, because it's my home. I don't want these people here, and I'm going to do whatever I can in order to protect my family and my my home but the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to tell them, get out. This is my house. You don't belong here. Only a couple of minutes later to see my brother's head rolling on the floor beside me, helped me make the decision that I was going to leave with the rest of my family because my life was worth more to me than staying in that home and almost wanting to be sick. When you hear this kind of a story where the ideology of ISIS comes and forces people to do things that are inhumane. Now I say that because I also want to make sure that I honor any of my Muslim brothers and sisters as brothers in humanity that might be listening to this, to say that these actions do not represent Islam, they represent an extremist form of Islam. And I hope I've set that up a little bit by talking about those classical schools and saying that there was one particular stream that had a much narrower interpretation, where they only used the Quran and they only used what they understand as the traditions of the prophet. And, and over the centuries, that was like 800 years ago when that was solidified. Over the centuries, they have had even more extremist and conservative interpretations, where it's developed into Wahhabism, which is the modern term that's used to understand the theology of the people who follow this very conservative form of interpretation of Islam. More and more interpretation comes out of power and control, and these forces change people's ideology, so much so that they're missing the main idea of what this is about. And that Islam. Now, if you talk to you, talk to scholars, you will understand that Islam is a is a difficult word, as many words within Islam are actually difficult to understand what their etymology and their background is, they've been borrowed from other languages or they've come in from other ideas. But one of the roots behind Islam is salam, which develops into the other cognate salam. Some people might be familiar with that word salam, which is also related as a Semitic language to the Hebrew word shalom, which people are more familiar with, meaning peace. And that is Islam in the minds of many people who are practicing Muslims, is a religion of peace and not a religion of war and not a religion of extremism. And yet, like Christianity, which is also understood by many as being a Christian, a religion of peace has also developed into places of extreme conflict. Easy for us to turn to the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and what's gone on for centuries. So much conflict now that if you go to Ireland and you visit people and talk to them, they're some of the people will say, I don't even know what we're fighting about anymore. And this unfortunately, this happens with the human race. We get caught up in things. We lose our perspective. We miss the main idea because we're so focused in on trying to prove that we are right, that we're the holders of truth, and that we're the ones that get to decide who else is right and who else is in and going to other countries and learning about other cultures and languages and other faiths. All that's done for me is to expand my mind and help me realize that people live differently because they've been brought up in a different context, in a different place. Does that mean that what I believe or how I live my life is better than theirs? No, it just means that it's different. You know, I still have very firm beliefs of of spiritual value and nature, but I have come to the point where I respect and honor other people in the beliefs that they've chosen. And there is so much that we have in common between ourselves and the Muslim community. I would really encourage Christians, if they don't know Muslims, to go and seek one out and just say, hey, I've never met another Muslim before and and I'd like to I'd like to just meet one because I want to know more about Muslims. Why don't we want to know more about somebody?

[01:00:40] Katie Dooley: Uh, Wes, one last question for you. Is there anything you want to promote? I know you have a business. I know you do some volunteer work that you alluded to. Where can people find you? Pitch yourself.

[01:00:53] Wes Thiessen: Well, thanks for that opportunity, Katie. So I work as a mediator. I love to help people resolve their conflict. Uh, I work in all forms of conflict. Uh, especially love to work with couples that are struggling in their relationship, but they don't want to go down the road of divorce. Although I do do divorce mediation as well. Uh, I love to help couples figure out what their relational difficulties are and try to resolve those. I also work with organizational conflict. So if there are churches or even mosques where they have conflict within their organization and looking for somebody to facilitate something or help them untangle what the conflict means, they can always reach out to me. My my website is understandingtheother.com. Uh, and you can email me if somebody wants to send me an email. [email protected]. And I also mentioned my eyeglass ventures in eastern Turkey and northern Iraq. I might be making a trip to Tunisia this year, I'm not sure. Still in the planning stages and people in Iraq have invited me to come back again and maybe do an eyeglass clinic in the region of Mosul or the Sinjar, which is the region that ISIS came to and drove so many Yazidis out of that region. So I'm thinking about that as well. And if people are interested in what I do with eyeglasses and eyeglass distribution, they can find me on Instagram at 2020. So that's 2020. The word vision v-i-s-i-o-n and the number four and the word refugees @2020vision4refugees. That's my Instagram handle. People are welcome to connect with me there, follow or even send a message if they've got questions.

[01:02:38] Katie Dooley: Awesome. Thanks, Dr. Wes and Preston, what about us?

[01:02:42] Preston Meyer: Well, we've got a little bit of merch ourselves. I don't think we have eyeglasses on our list, but maybe one day we've got our Spreadshop. Uh, we've got a great online community on Discord, as well as Facebook and Instagram and Patreon. If you want to support our show, Patreon is the way to go and thanks for joining us!

[01:03:06] Both Speakers: Peace be with you!

What qualifies a man to lead the Ummah? Islam, like any religious tradition, is not monolithic. Let's explore the history of schisms and the personalities behind them in the early Islamic period.  After Muhammad's death in 632 CE, there was a succession crisis; for some, it was a bigger crisis than for others. 

The first to be elected to take over leadership was Abu Bakr, the prophet's father-in-law. For decades, the followers of Muhammad were fairly united, until one of his sons-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib, took over as the fourth caliph. This was followed by a great schism between what would come to be known as the Sunni and Shia Muslims.

The Shia have splintered further since the 7th century: The Ismailis adhere to inheritance of a lost son, and the Twelvers  hope for the return of a mysterious claim of a hidden child.

Despite the many schisms that established the disunity of Islamic thought, there is much that they retain in common.

We also explore the traditions that fuel the authoritarian fundamental extremists that so many are rightly worried about.

All this and more...

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Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Sex and sexuality among believers isn't as monolithic as you might think, and of course there's the outlying "bad actors" to keep this spectrum broad.

The Torah has some strict rules about who Jewish men should avoid, but isn't too quick to prescribe punishment for premarital sex. The Christian New Testament has some rules about minding your own business. Islamic tradition has some strong words about oral sex. And so much more....

The word 'abomination' gets a brief exploration, the sort of thing you might not expect.

Marianismo is a growing problem among religious communities, though it's been around for a long time, too. We also explore "purity culture" and the "Madonna-Whore" complex of Freudian fame.

The Dharmic religions have another angle on sexuality, and the Buddha encourages the faithful to avoid such attachments. 

The sexy theme of the month wouldn't be complete if we didn't take a quick look at the Kama Sutra.

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[00:00:00] Katie Dooley: Hey everyone, trigger warning on this episode there will be some sexual assault content.

[00:00:18] Preston Meyer: You also don't know how to start this episode.

[00:00:20] Katie Dooley: Nope. Sure don't because it's awkward. It's like that sex talk with your parents, but it's that sex talk with your friend.

[00:00:28] Preston Meyer: That's fair.

[00:00:29] Katie Dooley: I'm Katie.

[00:00:30] Preston Meyer: Hi, I'm Preston.

[00:00:32] Katie Dooley: And this is... 

[00:00:33] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon podcast.

[00:00:36] Katie Dooley: We're kicking it up a notch. We talked about Saint Valentine a couple weeks ago. Now we're talking about sex.

[00:00:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we're done with the courtship, and now we're into the exciting bit.

[00:00:46] Katie Dooley: But not with each other.

[00:00:49] Preston Meyer: Yes. Important details.

[00:00:52] Katie Dooley: We're just friends, listeners, if you've ever wondered.

[00:00:57] Preston Meyer: Both married to other people.

[00:00:59] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:01:00] Preston Meyer: Well, it's there's there's a lot of people that that's not a barrier for, but...

[00:01:05] Katie Dooley: Fair. It is for our monogamous Protestant relationships.

[00:01:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:01:13] Katie Dooley: But nonetheless, we're gonna have a sex talk.

[00:01:16] Preston Meyer: Yep. A lot of religions are very strict on sexual purity. Of course, there's a spectrum. You've got some Christians who are way into free love. Don't get too close to your pastor. If he's really encouraging free love. Um, you're probably in a danger cult.

[00:01:40] Katie Dooley: Um, yes. Most religions think that sex should only be between a married man and his wife. Female wife. Yeah.

[00:01:51] Preston Meyer: Wife does imply female, but.

[00:01:53] Katie Dooley: Well, you know.

[00:01:54] Preston Meyer: You know, there's some, uh. Ambiguity now, and that's people are going to do what they're going to do.

[00:02:01] Katie Dooley: And people going to fuck what they want to fuck.

[00:02:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, but there are rules depending on who you hang out with.

[00:02:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah, depending on what your sky daddy says and the people that interpret that.

[00:02:14] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:02:19] Katie Dooley: Uh, wow. Well, I feel like a kid again.

[00:02:22] Preston Meyer: Let's let's take a look at the the judaist tradition, that premarital sex is really not a huge deal according to the Torah. There's no strong verbiage banning it. Obviously, it's not encouraged. That's just not something we find in Scripture. I guess. 

[00:02:45] Katie Dooley: But You're not going to burn in hell forever for it.

[00:02:47] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, the idea of burning in hell for having sex feels fully ludicrous. But a lot of churches are happy to teach that we're not there yet. We're still talking about Judaism. The more Orthodox you get, the more it is discouraged. That's basically the deal.

[00:03:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah. If you remember from our Judaism episode very long time ago, you have your like reform, your conservative and your Orthodox, and that would kind of be the exact scale of liberal to conservative.

[00:03:22] Preston Meyer: Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah. In Exodus chapter 22. So just very shortly after the Ten Commandments block, which is, of course, more than ten commandments all on its own, and there's hundreds more. There's a little explanation that if a man seduces an unmarried woman, he is expected to marry her later, or at least pay her for the privilege, if the father forbids the marriage, which may look a little bit like prostitution.

[00:03:55] Katie Dooley: Yeah, that's sounds... especially the way you worded it, preston. Paying for the privilege.

[00:03:59] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Generally, this payment is expected to be the value of the dowry. And that's just the deal. They lived in a culture where very often, um, if a woman was not a virgin, um, at the with the new definition of virgin, then she would remain a definite. She would remain a virgin in the old definition of virgin for a very long time.

[00:04:26] Katie Dooley: If she wasn't a virgin and a very good liar. Looking at you, Mary.

[00:04:35] Preston Meyer: A lot of people like to find fault in the code that, through faulty interpretation, requires a woman to marry her rapist, which is, yeah, really problematic way to read that. A legal code would never reward somebody for committing such a terrible crime.

[00:04:54] Katie Dooley: So this is like consenting teenagers that are misbehaving.

[00:05:00] Preston Meyer: Offer that first part. Yeah. If you seduce an unmarried woman, that's what that situation is, generally speaking. For the cases of rape that kind of fall into this category is taking a real loose definition of seduce, of course, the man can be required to marry the woman, not the woman is required to marry the man. It's more or less up to her and her family. Does she have a chance of getting married after this? Then she's not going to go and marry the rapist. But if she really doesn't have great prospects, she can force him to support her financially for the rest of their lives.

[00:05:45] Katie Dooley: I like that.

[00:05:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it seems perfectly reasonable.

[00:05:48] Katie Dooley: That should still be a thing.

[00:05:49] Preston Meyer: But on the books it is technically a marriage, one that can be annulled. Not really a big deal. If her prospects change in the future. She doesn't have to see her rapist again, but he must continue paying to support her.

[00:06:07] Katie Dooley: What else does the Torah say, Preston?

[00:06:10] Preston Meyer: Uh, the Torah does explicitly demand that sexual partners both consent to the activity. Rape is one of the most serious sins. It doesn't get rewarded with, "Oh, yeah, now you get to keep her." Nonsense. Okay.

[00:06:26] Katie Dooley: The Torah also likes people to make babies.

[00:06:30] Preston Meyer: This is true.

[00:06:31] Katie Dooley: This one gets quoted a lot. Also in fundamental christianism.

[00:06:36] Preston Meyer: It's the first commandment. Adam and Eve are told, go and replenish the earth, which means fill it with babies. 

[00:06:44] Katie Dooley: So everyone's a-cozyin'

[00:06:46] Preston Meyer: Sure. I. I've seen so many memes in the last month of people who just deliberately misunderstand the Bible. There's no way this is an accident or a failure of intelligence. They're deliberately misunderstanding it. To say that adam and Eve only had three sons, and so something hinky is going on there, either magical between the brothers or they're having sex with their mom. Not only is it strictly forbidden in the Bible, but it's not a major leap to just believe that they had sisters.

[00:07:25] Katie Dooley: Or to take what it's worth and know that it is a fictitious story. Genesis 1:28, a classic! I put in brackets. Classic. "And God bless them. And God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth."

[00:07:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So, um, the bad thing that comes out of there that later needs to be clarified expressly is that bestiality is forbidden, and this passage does not encourage it.

[00:08:06] Katie Dooley: Oh, subdue it does not mean have sex with it?

[00:08:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That's it's bad. Not just because it's, you know, an unclean thing. No, it's an abuse of an animal. And in fact, there's an awful lot of relationships that are forbidden in the Bible. Generally, they're worded as do not have sexual relationships, or slightly more euphemistically, but these also do apply to who you can marry. Every single one of these laws is addressed to men, and just expected that women are going to follow pretty much the same laws. First, incest straight-up forbidden. Now that we don't need to marry brothers and sisters because, you know, there's more than eight people on the planet. It's a bad idea. It's been proven to be a bad idea.

[00:09:04] Katie Dooley: Most of the royal families.

[00:09:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Bad times.

[00:09:10] Katie Dooley: It's why Charles isn't a very attractive man because his parents were cousins.

[00:09:15] Preston Meyer: This is a on paper, true fact. According to the Torah, your cousins are fine. Even first cousins. But aunts, step-moms and half-sisters are off limits. This also includes your in-laws, which is actually why the whole category of in-laws exists is because they are now legally your family.

[00:09:40] Katie Dooley: That's what in-law means.

[00:09:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but we don't treat it that way when we talk about it in regular conversation today. Right? It's just, oh, this is what we call the family that we married into now without actually considering the ramifications of it that. 

[00:09:55] Katie Dooley: I can never. I'm not even going to say it on air.

[00:10:00] Preston Meyer: Way too many people. Cheat on their significant other with their in-laws. It happens all the time and it is really just embarrassing for the whole family.

[00:10:15] Katie Dooley: I hate Uncle Jamie. Love, Actually. Happens in Love, Actually.

[00:10:20] Preston Meyer: Okay. I didn't watch it.  I think I saw the last five minutes of it once. I'll probably get around to it. Maybe not. Who knows? Homosexual anal sex is, legally speaking, disgusting. That's the verbiage that's used. And that just doesn't feel like divine communication to me. That feels like somebody added their own personal commentary, right?

[00:10:46] Katie Dooley: I mean when you have creepeth in a few books before, now you're talking... Creepeth. I like that a lot.

[00:10:54] Preston Meyer: Uh, the animal that creepeth there actually specifically talking about reptiles.

[00:10:58] Katie Dooley: Don't fuck a lizard.

[00:11:02] Preston Meyer: I mean that's definitely on the list. You also don't eat lizards if you're following the the Jewish dietary code.

[00:11:11] Katie Dooley: All right.

[00:11:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean most of the world's not super concerned about that. Most of the world doesn't follow those dietary codes anymore.

[00:11:20] Katie Dooley: I literally thought you were talking about sex.

[00:11:22] Preston Meyer: Nope.

[00:11:25] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:11:29] Preston Meyer: Thanks for that. Bestiality is forbidden. Sex during menstruation is bad, technically, making the man ritually unclean for seven days. Menstruation already makes women ritually unclean for seven days. This doesn't mean that they're sinful or, like, awful or bad or any moral judgment. It's just you should bathe before you go to the temple. And here's the time to make sure that you're not gross. That's basically the deal, because some people smell bad and it's very often the men.

[00:12:04] Katie Dooley: So often the men.

[00:12:06] Preston Meyer: That's basically the deal. So this just means that he needs to clean himself physically and wait a week before he can go to the temple, as we had talked about a few months ago in our talk about how celibacy came about in the Catholic tradition, normally he would just need to wash after sex and then wait for sunset, and then he's good to go again to the temple. He could do whatever he wants alternatively too. Generally speaking, Jews are forbidden from having sex with Gentiles. Depends on who you hang out with on how strictly they follow that rule. And to be fair, that's true of all of these rules.

[00:12:50] Katie Dooley: It's a spectrum.

[00:12:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And priests are also forbidden from having sex with divorcees or converts. Yeah, I don't know why I stumbled through that word.

[00:13:01] Katie Dooley: I just don't. That's an interesting rule.

[00:13:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The idea is that if she has a baby, is it his? If she's a new convert, then it's possible that she wasn't following all the expected rules before being joined to the priest. Um, but for somebody who has been a divorcee or a convert for a long time, I feel like that rule is less necessary, even with this specific thought behind it. There might be more thoughts about it. Who knows? And I'm sure there's different expectations among different groups there too. Not that there's a whole lot of Cohens doing their temple duty anymore anyway. But there are definitely some people who will expect the rabbis to live up to these standards as well. Which makes some sense. They're not the same thing, but I get it. It's also forbidden to have sex with anybody who is born from parents while they were found to have been cheating on their partners, which is a really worrying thing.

[00:14:08] Katie Dooley: It is like that took me a minute to wrap my head around and also unfair for that poor child.

[00:14:14] Preston Meyer: So. Yeah, they. Yeah. So these bastards get a pass if their partners are also bastards. Or if one of your parents cheated on the other and that's how you came to be then.

[00:14:30] Katie Dooley: You gotta find another one like you. Wow.

[00:14:34] Preston Meyer: And. Theoretically. Your child, if born without that stigma, will be able to be free and be with whoever they want.

[00:14:47] Katie Dooley: Okay, cursed for a generation.

[00:14:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah, just the one generation. Also, we find a lot in the Bible. Talk of concubines. Concubine is literally somebody who lives in your house that you get to have sex with.

[00:15:07] Katie Dooley: That you're not married to them.

[00:15:08] Preston Meyer: Right? That you're not married to.

[00:15:09] Katie Dooley: I was like I have a concubine? No. 

[00:15:11] Preston Meyer: You don't.

[00:15:12] Katie Dooley: I have a husband.

[00:15:13] Preston Meyer: You used to have a concubine. You no longer do. And that's all the word means. People have come up with all this kind of. Well, she's tied to him in some way. That's not technically a marriage. I mean, usually that's what we call slavery. Usually, if a man had a female slave, she would be a concubine. That's kind of the deal there.

[00:15:41] Katie Dooley: I found a cool Jewish term called ona. Ona is a Jewish law that states a husband must satisfy his wife's sexual needs. I like that.

[00:15:53] Preston Meyer: It's a good rule.

[00:15:54] Katie Dooley: And this is regardless of whether or not they can or want to get pregnant. So that's pretty cool because a lot of religions say only for babies.

[00:16:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that causes all kinds of problems.

[00:16:05] Katie Dooley: Like the Duggars, I said it. Check out our bonus episode, "Josh Duggar is a Creep" on Patreon.

[00:16:17] Preston Meyer: Yes, that was some fun.

[00:16:20] Katie Dooley: No it wasn't.

[00:16:21] Preston Meyer: There was some fun. It was also a lot of ick. But there was some fun.

[00:16:27] Katie Dooley: You think this episode has a trigger warning...?

[00:16:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, men cannot force their wives to have sex. So it's actually a lot less of an obligation the other way around for women to satisfy all of their husband needs. There's a lot of social pressure, historically speaking, but it's not a law. But, we've talked about the the nature of the Bible and in our Patreon exclusive Bible study where Katie goes through the Bible for the first time, learning all of the weird and wonderful things in there. There is porn.

[00:17:08] Katie Dooley: I read some of it researching this and that's my comment in the notes I wrote nothing else: is the Song of Songs is a horny old book.

[00:17:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the The Hebrew Bible is the collection of all of the literature that's important to the nation. It includes fiction. It includes philosophical musings.

[00:17:30] Katie Dooley: Temple instructions.

[00:17:32] Preston Meyer: And porn. Well, I mean, it's not really graphic porn. Even the best euphemisms for penis are really well coded so that a lot of people don't even think it means penis, which I think is just really creative poetry. 

[00:17:51] Katie Dooley: Like Jesus's urtleneck. Does that come up in Song of Songs?

[00:17:55] Preston Meyer: It does not.

[00:17:56] Katie Dooley: Does someone's turtleneck come up in the Song of Songs? Come up!

[00:18:04] Preston Meyer: The protagonists through a big chunk of this poem is King Solomon. That doesn't mean he wrote it. It just means he's the protagonist of the story, even though a lot of people are convinced he wrote it for some reason.

[00:18:18] Katie Dooley: Is this King Solomon fanfic?

[00:18:20] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:18:21] Katie Dooley: Like erotic fanfic. I love it.

[00:18:24] Preston Meyer: It is extremely erotic fanfic. 

[00:18:26] Katie Dooley: I just love that someone wrote erotic fanfic 2000 years ago. 

[00:18:29] Preston Meyer: In poetic form.

[00:18:31] Katie Dooley: Man. It's a Tina Belcher move.

[00:18:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but it was so well written according to the people who decided that it got to be in the book, that it got to be in the book forever.

[00:18:43] Katie Dooley: They cut out a lot of gospels of other people and kept a horny old poem.

[00:18:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, because it was so popular in the nation, presumably at least among the upper class who got to make the decision anyway. But the best euphemism where they talk about his big veiny penis. They describe the blue sapphires in his loins. I mean, a lot of versions will say his thighs or whatever, but.

[00:19:17] Katie Dooley: They mean his big veiny dick.

[00:19:18] Preston Meyer: That's a translation choice to distract from big, veiny dick.

[00:19:24] Katie Dooley: Oh, boy.

[00:19:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, somebody else said it and I love the wording. And I'll repeat it forever without remembering who's first said it. But while Christians like to sing about how great it's going to be to be dead, which has its own implications, Jewish music and poetry for thousands of years have been man, it really rocks to be alive. And it's hard to disagree. And sometimes that celebration includes some very specific, explicit talk of...

[00:19:56] Katie Dooley: Dick references.

[00:19:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Good times.

[00:20:01] Katie Dooley: Well, let's move through the Abrahamic religions to Christianity, which is, as it always is, a mixed bag.

[00:20:09] Preston Meyer: Yes. There's nothing you can say about Christianity that actually encompasses all of Christianity.

[00:20:16] Katie Dooley: Even saying that Jesus of the son is the Son of God. Yeah, there's a handful, very few, but there are a few that don't think he's divine anyway. But we're here to talk about sex.

[00:20:31] Preston Meyer: So, you know, split opinions all over the place.

[00:20:35] Katie Dooley: Traditionally, though, most Christian leaders will tell you that sex should only happen within a marriage.

[00:20:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's pretty much the standard.

[00:20:43] Katie Dooley: Mostly between a man and a woman, though some Christian denominations are getting more accepting.

[00:20:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Diversity is interesting. 57% of American Christians are okay with premarital sex in a committed romantic relationship, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Um, which does fall in line with the standards that we found in Judaism, where as long as you're interested in pursuing a long-term relationship, you're going to be fine.

[00:21:14] Katie Dooley: Though I bet if you asked church leaders, you would not get a 57% consensus on that. That's just Christians who are being bad and pretending they're not being bad. I don't think it's bad. You do you, boo.

[00:21:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Not everybody can agree on what the rules are. So not everybody's going to follow the same rules. That's the deal. A lot of these beliefs are influenced by the Hebrew Bible, and there's not a lot written in the New Testament about sex, particularly, um, there are talks of adulterers like the woman caught in adultery who Jesus was perfectly fine, saying, well, unless you're actually perfect, mind your business. So that was nice.

[00:21:59] Katie Dooley: Is that the he throw the first stone.... good one Jesus.

[00:22:05] Preston Meyer: The tricky bit about that particular section of scripture is that it is not found in any of the oldest versions of the Gospel of John.

[00:22:14] Katie Dooley: I was going to say I remember reading somewhere that that I think it was the Reza Aslan book, Zealot that even the wording of it was kind of weird. So they believe it was added after. Not actually a...

[00:22:26] Preston Meyer: The oldest manuscripts we have don't include that story. So it's interesting that it got included when it was a time when people were very happy to say, you're the wrong kind of Christian, go away. It's just interesting bit of history.

[00:22:41] Katie Dooley: I think it's a good story.

[00:22:42] Preston Meyer: It's a positive thing to include in this story that, you know, the whole deal of Jesus is that we forgive people and we can be better. So if it fits the narrative really well. And we also have another part of the story where he says, if you're going to lust after somebody, you've already had sex with them in your heart.

[00:23:03] Katie Dooley: This will cause problems in some fundamental Christian groups later, which we'll talk about. Women cover up now. I'm kidding.

[00:23:14] Preston Meyer: Get that thought out of here.

[00:23:16] Katie Dooley: I mean cover up your bodies because men are visual creatures. I don't know what that makes women, but men are visual creatures. So anyway.

[00:23:27] Preston Meyer: It's weird that so much of our culture includes this story, that men and women are coded so completely differently.

[00:23:35] Katie Dooley: I mean, I read a lot in this research and I didn't put anything in it, but like talking about different levels of sexual desire, I'm like, are we still talking about that? Because Turning Red talked about how horny teen girls are and I loved it.

[00:23:52] Preston Meyer: I never watched it, but I'm glad somebody addressed it. Yeah, because I was a teen at the time that this film is set. I am aware of that much.

[00:24:00] Katie Dooley: I know that's why I loved it. I was like, this is about me. Only ten years ago...

[00:24:06] Preston Meyer: It's not about me. So it's not drawing me in with the same power, I guess.

[00:24:11] Katie Dooley: But it talked about how horny pre-teen girls are, and I was like, yes, accurate.

[00:24:15] Preston Meyer: Which, I mean, you're not selling me on it that I need to watch it, that it doesn't feel like it's for me or about me.

[00:24:25] Katie Dooley: It's heartwarming. They just at least there's lust after a boy band, which we all did.

[00:24:31] Preston Meyer: I mean, not me, but. Not all men, Katie.

[00:24:41] Katie Dooley: Anyway, as I was saying, um, we're not coded that differently. Women have eyes. Yeah, and, like, looking at. Henry Cavill, if you're listening, please be on the podcast.

[00:24:59] Preston Meyer: Speaking of how we are coated, not terribly differently. There is this idea that's called Marianismo, which is basically just the alternative, the well, the exact opposite of machismo, which I thought was really interesting.

[00:25:16] Katie Dooley: I've never heard the term before.

[00:25:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it doesn't come up terribly often in regular conversation. It is the ideal feminine. In their book The Maria Paradox, therapists Gil and Vasquez recorded the beliefs they found among many of their patients that they claim are the core of Marianismo and they are all just awful. I mean, differing degrees, but they're not good news. The first. Don't forget the place of a woman.

[00:25:47] Katie Dooley: Where is that?  

[00:25:49] Preston Meyer: The kitchen?

[00:25:50] Katie Dooley: Get out of my house.

[00:25:52] Preston Meyer: The bedroom.

[00:25:56] Katie Dooley: Well, you know why I can't cook as good as my husband.

[00:25:58] Preston Meyer: The home broadly, I don't know. So, tricky business in the workplace. You got to establish what you mean.

[00:26:07] Katie Dooley: Wherever the fuck they want to be.

[00:26:09] Preston Meyer: Right. That's the real truth of it. But these ideas persist. Next on our list. Don't give up your traditions, okay? I can. How about thoughtfully evaluate your traditions. Not everything needs to be kept going. Like if you're cutting the tips off your roasts before you throw them in the oven. Just because you watch your mom and your grandma do it. There might not be a reason. If the whole thing fits in the roaster, throw the whole thing in without cutting it.

[00:26:46] Katie Dooley: Preston likes his roast tips.

[00:26:48] Preston Meyer: Why not? Uh, next. Don't be an old maid, independent, or have your own opinions. Don't do it. Katie, it's not worth it.

[00:27:00] Katie Dooley: Ah, I wanna say something, but that's an opinion.

[00:27:06] Preston Meyer: Uh, yeah. Why is that a healthy way to live your life?

[00:27:11] Katie Dooley: Well, that's good that you want an independent wife with her own opinions.

[00:27:15] Preston Meyer: I think it's really, really useful. Um, next on your list. Don't put your needs first. I mean. I understand the social utility of taking care of the people around you, but sometimes you got to take care of you.

[00:27:31] Katie Dooley: There's a reason that the airplanes say you put on your mask first before your kids. Always put your needs first. I mean, within reason. If you're not picking your kids up from school because you're at the spa, maybe you need to reevaluate. But, um put on your airplane mask first, oxygen mask?

[00:27:53] Preston Meyer: I was just thinking of way worse examples than the spa to keep you from picking up your kids. They don't need to be aired publicly.

[00:28:01] Katie Dooley: Join us on Discord to see how perverse Preston is.

[00:28:05] Preston Meyer: I was just thinking of drugs. Not anything terribly perverted. Just, you know, crack. I don't know why. That's the thing my friend jumped to from spa. But here we are.

[00:28:19] Katie Dooley: Don't wish to be anything but a housewife. I mean, to be fair, I did ask Bryant if I could be a housewife today because I was really sick of work but...

[00:28:30] Preston Meyer: But you also have other aspirations and they don't make you less of a good person. They don't make you less of a woman.

[00:28:40] Katie Dooley:  [00:28:40]Thank you. Yeah. [00:28:41] Also, ladies, don't forget sex is to make babies, not pleasure.

[00:28:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's a problem. We've already addressed that.

[00:28:53] Katie Dooley: I was scrolling Instagram Reels because, as one does. And I came across this comedian who was clearly like a doctor or a gynecologist or a former one, and this pregnant lady came in and she was freaking out and she didn't know what was wrong with her. And she had an orgasm, her first orgasm, and she was pregnant and she didn't know what was wrong with her. Isn't that the most depressing thing?

[00:29:17] Preston Meyer: It is depressing. I mean, it's a little funny, but it is depressing.

[00:29:22] Katie Dooley: How'd they make a baby? I mean.

[00:29:25] Preston Meyer: I think, you know, at this point, I think, you know.

[00:29:29] Katie Dooley: It's so sad.

[00:29:31] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. Some people become horse girls. Other people go a long time without ever knowing. Oh well.

[00:29:45] Katie Dooley: Moment of silence, please. I said silence. Carry on. Don't be unhappy with your man, no matter what he does to you, ladies.

[00:30:02] Preston Meyer: This is extremely problematic.

[00:30:06] Katie Dooley: Incredibly problematic.

[00:30:08] Preston Meyer: Oh well.

[00:30:09] Katie Dooley: I wonder why rates of abuse are so high in some of these fundamentalist communities.

[00:30:14] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Don't ask anyone other than your husband for help under any circumstances. Because of course, really what's behind that is you're not allowed to talk to other men. Which is a huge problem.

[00:30:30] Katie Dooley: So for our listeners, my husband works out of town like quite frequently, and if I didn't have Preston and a whole slew of other men, that sounds terrible. Um, nothing would get done around this house. The number of times press has moved heavy shit for me. A++ friend.

[00:30:48] Preston Meyer: Thanks. Uh, yeah. It's it's okay to talk to people of the opposite gender or whatever. You don't have to be isolated to a tiny group of the population around you. You can spread that out a little bit more.

[00:31:05] Katie Dooley: Don't discuss your personal problems outside the house. Don't get therapy or call the police.

[00:31:11] Preston Meyer: Right? What could go wrong? There's a degree to which I agree with this. But there comes a time when you need to seek outside help. And the last on the list don't change.

[00:31:28] Katie Dooley: Very vague and also impossible.

[00:31:32] Preston Meyer: Right? Like, yeah, I get it. A lot of people end up disappointed when the person they married changes in the wrong way that they weren't expecting. And then you're not the one I married. Sure, you can't expect people to not change, though.

[00:31:49] Katie Dooley: She will get haggard and old that is guaranteed. Especially if you treat her according to this list.

[00:31:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:31:58] Katie Dooley: She'll stay younger longer if you give her orgasms. Facts.

[00:32:02] Preston Meyer: Sounds good to me.

[00:32:04] Katie Dooley: Facts.

[00:32:06] Preston Meyer: And that's marianismo. The opposite of machismo. That needs no explanation at all.

[00:32:13] Katie Dooley: So now we're going to talk about Christian purity culture. I think we could do a whole lot on this. There's a lot I left out.

[00:32:18] Preston Meyer: I mean we'll get the heart of it here, we'll see what happens.

[00:32:21] Katie Dooley: I was going to say, if you want a full episode on purity culture after this little tidbit, drop a note in our discord in our Christianity channel.

[00:32:29] Preston Meyer: Hmm'hmm.

[00:32:31] Katie Dooley: So Preston's kind of alluded to it with the marianismo. But there is this idea of biblical womanhood that to do God's will, women need to submit to their husbands in every aspect of their life. This includes what to wear, what their schedule looks like, and being ready and willing to satisfy his sexual needs.

[00:32:54] Preston Meyer: I mean, somebody's a winner here, and it's not the woman

[00:33:00] Katie Dooley: The Duggars allude to this in some episodes of like. Preparing for marriage. And this is also why she is 37 Children.

[00:33:07] Preston Meyer: That's too many.

[00:33:09] Katie Dooley: I don't think it's actually 19.

[00:33:11] Preston Meyer: I think that sounds more correct.

[00:33:13] Katie Dooley: But there was a lot of women out there with a lot of kids because of this.

[00:33:17] Preston Meyer: Was it 19 and counting? Was that the name of it?

[00:33:20] Katie Dooley: I think by the end it started at like 14 kids and counting. Pew pew pew pew pew.

[00:33:27] Preston Meyer: Ah. The good thing about that is that it gets easier with time.

[00:33:31] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I think that's just the thing. It's just like a slip and slide by the end.

[00:33:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I think.

[00:33:36] Katie Dooley: The whole uterus comes out by the end and you gotta take.

[00:33:40] Preston Meyer: There comes a time when the whole thing just collapses and says, please, no, more.

[00:33:44] Katie Dooley: Like a cow. You take like a broom handle back in.

[00:33:48] Preston Meyer: It's a terrible image.

[00:33:50] Katie Dooley: I know, but I'm pretty sure that's where she's at now. Anyway.

[00:33:56] Preston Meyer: Thanks for that.

[00:33:58] Katie Dooley: Whoa. So I figured this is a type of grooming. It starts at a young age with purity culture. There's purity balls and purity rings and purity vows and Jesus. And this is very important, is that Jesus is your boyfriend. So boys don't have an equivalent. Jesus is your boyfriend. So there's no dating, only courtship.

[00:34:23] Preston Meyer: Um, what?

[00:34:24] Katie Dooley: No dating, only courtship, which is just like, basically the young man is trying to impress your father on chaperon dates so that he will. Your father will sell you to this boy.

[00:34:34] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's what it adds up to. Yeah, sure. Not cool.

[00:34:39] Katie Dooley: So, I mean, obviously there's a lot, like you said, go turn on the Duggars on TLC. Lots of Christians still like purity culture. But now purity culture really became a thing in the 90s. And now we're starting to see all the negative effects of, like, people hating themselves.

[00:34:54] Preston Meyer: And everyone around them.

[00:34:56] Katie Dooley: And everyone around them.

[00:34:57] Preston Meyer: It's just not healthy.

[00:34:58] Katie Dooley: 20 years later, it's more like 30 years later. Ew.

[00:35:02] Preston Meyer: Time is terrible.

[00:35:03] Katie Dooley: I was a child of the 90s, I'm like, no, but, uh, there are lots and lots of articles on how bad purity culture is, which is where I think we could do a full episode, because I didn't even have the gum analogy, which now I'm going to have to explain the gum analogy.

[00:35:18] Preston Meyer: I think we've talked about that before on the show.

[00:35:20] Katie Dooley: Well, if we haven't, Preston, would you want a piece of gum that's been chewed by someone else?

[00:35:26] Preston Meyer: I mean, in truth, that depends on who the person is.

[00:35:32] Katie Dooley: Yeah, so you wouldn't want a woman who's had sex with another man.

[00:35:36] Preston Meyer: Is that the same as chewed-up gum?

[00:35:37] Katie Dooley: It's exactly the same as chewed-up gum. Ew! It's not.

[00:35:41] Preston Meyer: Gross. That's a gross analogy. It's not okay. Especially if you know you're into the Christian context that this comes from where forgiveness is actually a far more important doctrine.

[00:35:56] Katie Dooley: It's like these people don't know JC at all.

[00:35:58] Preston Meyer: Yes, that's the reality.

[00:36:01] Katie Dooley: Um, so I don't I don't anyway, purity culture is a set of beliefs that emphasize the importance of sexual purity. And again, this is really popular in fundamentalist evangelical communities. Premarital sex: bad.

[00:36:16] Preston Meyer: Terrible sin. Like the idea in these groups is that the only thing you could do worse than that is commit murder.

[00:36:25] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:36:26] Preston Meyer: And some people are still willing to get really angry at people for having sex outside of marriage and then go commit murder.

[00:36:37] Katie Dooley: Right. Yes. So basically, you know, they're very much that you'll hear is that like the greatest gift of oall is giving your virginity your husband, and you're taking that away from him. 

[00:36:51] Preston Meyer: It's not healthy.

[00:36:52] Katie Dooley: Like Preston mentioned, men and women are definitely held to different standards here. Women are expected to be chaste and modest, and men become these protectors of virginity. And it's really weird and gross that.

[00:37:06] Preston Meyer: Men are still expected to be chaste and modest, too.

[00:37:09] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. But... 

[00:37:09] Preston Meyer: It's not a double standard but there there's a little bit more forgiveness for them.

[00:37:15] Katie Dooley: They can get away with it, with it, without anyone knowing.

[00:37:19] Preston Meyer: Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, that's if they get caught. There is the public shame thing sometimes depending on the group, but mostly the rules are still the same. It's just one gets forgiven a lot more easily.

[00:37:33] Katie Dooley: Uh, and again, this is a lot of like where men are visual creatures and don't lead your brothers into sin and all that garbage.

[00:37:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah. What did Jesus say on the subject?

[00:37:44] Katie Dooley: JC said, if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.

[00:37:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So don't go shouting at other people about how they're dressed. Just pull your eyeballs out.

[00:37:53] Katie Dooley: I forget Matthew 5:28.

[00:37:56] Preston Meyer: I am so terrible at citations, I don't remember exactly.

[00:37:59] Katie Dooley: That's one I try to remember unless.

[00:38:01] Preston Meyer: Unless it's written down.

[00:38:03] Katie Dooley: Oh, I'm super close.

[00:38:04] Preston Meyer: But that is the context of the point.

[00:38:09] Katie Dooley: I'm real close, but I don't actually see the quote.

[00:38:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah, 5:28 was, uh, the hole in your heart business.

[00:38:16] Katie Dooley: Anyway, that's a good one to remember, everyone.

[00:38:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Jesus said, if you can't stop looking at a girl, pull out your eyeballs.

[00:38:26] Katie Dooley: Love it. Yeah. Good job. Good guy, Jesus. Yeah. So like you said, we know that there's lots of negative mental health consequences, guilt and shame. And, um, we know part of this is we know abstinence only sex ed doesn't work. That plays into this a little bit.

[00:38:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's only failed everywhere. It's been done.

[00:38:47] Katie Dooley: Terribly. Yeah. It's bad. And there's a lot, like you said, a lot of these pieces of, like, states that often have abstinence only sex ed have really high pregnancy rates and no abortion laws.

[00:38:59] Preston Meyer: When you say no abortion laws, you do mean anti-abortion laws. 

[00:39:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah. As in abortion is not protected by the law but you're right. I said that backwards.

[00:39:11] Preston Meyer: Um, it's a problem. Yeah.

[00:39:13] Katie Dooley: Purity rings, uh, were very popular in the 2000 with the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato all wearing purity rings. Guess how many of them kept that pledge?

[00:39:29] Preston Meyer: Zero. 

[00:39:30] Katie Dooley: Zero is correct.

[00:39:34] Preston Meyer: Uh, there are less famous people who have kept that pledge. Probably not lots and lots, but there are some.

[00:39:41] Katie Dooley: I mean, there's something about being a celebrity and having attractive people throw themselves at you. That the average human... I couldn't pay someone to have sex with me. Until my husband came along. Oh, boy, that was a personal overshare.

[00:39:57] Preston Meyer: Thanks.

[00:39:58] Katie Dooley: Thanks, Bryant. Uh, also purity balls. Super creepy. Super creepy. Have you watched a purity ball?

[00:40:08] Preston Meyer: I've seen a video of one, and I am so glad that's not part of my experience growing up.

[00:40:14] Katie Dooley: So to paint a picture though, there are some great YouTube videos. And maybe if we remember, we'll pop some into the Christianity discord when this releases, today. They're like kind of 10 to 12 year old girls. They're very young.

[00:40:31] Preston Meyer: So not really worried about sex at the moment.

[00:40:33] Katie Dooley: No, probably not even fully understanding what sex is probably.

[00:40:37] Preston Meyer: I mean, considering where these are happening, very likely.

[00:40:41] Katie Dooley: So also creepy that like, you know, we talk these people talk about drag queens grooming children and you're having a purity ball. Anyway, they wear little white dresses and they walk down an aisle with their fathers. And they make a vow to each other...

[00:41:00] Preston Meyer: Because you wouldn't cheat on your dad, right?

[00:41:02] Katie Dooley: You wouldn't cheat on your daddy. And so you promised to your daddy that you're not going to have sex before marriage. And then he promises to protect your chastity and dignity, and he gives you your purity ring. And if that's not the creepiest fucking thing you've ever heard.

[00:41:23] Preston Meyer: Okay, so I can I can get on board on with the whole father's side of what his pledge is of protecting her. With my preferred interpretation, protecting her from things she doesn't want to have happen.

[00:41:40] Katie Dooley: I like that.

[00:41:41] Preston Meyer: And I think that's okay, but, beyond that, you get into some really sticky problems.

[00:41:51] Katie Dooley: Yes. Also, I just like to note that these purity balls also typically have just the biggest fucking crucifix you've ever seen. And I just think that adds to the creepiness.

[00:42:04] Preston Meyer: That's fair.

[00:42:05] Katie Dooley: That's just me.

[00:42:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah. What's really unfortunate is how very frequently these men who pledge to protect their daughters, fail to protect their daughters from family and sometimes themselves.

[00:42:22] Katie Dooley: Oh, you mean like the Duggars?

[00:42:24] Preston Meyer: That's a good example.

[00:42:25] Katie Dooley: Thank you.

[00:42:28] Preston Meyer: It's weird how often they come up today, but we got what we got.

[00:42:31] Katie Dooley: They're just the perfect example of all that is wrong with this.

[00:42:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, and kind of connected to this whole purity culture thing is what Sigmund Freud liked to call the Madonna-Whore complex.

[00:42:47] Katie Dooley: Like a virgin touched for the very first time.

[00:42:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Madonna really played up this whole complex thing that that was her bit.

[00:42:58] Katie Dooley: But you do meet the Madonna, Mother Mary, not the singer.

[00:43:03] Preston Meyer: Well, now we're on both.

[00:43:04] Katie Dooley: Now we're talking about both. I love this. See how my singing has brought us all together?

[00:43:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And I feel like purity culture is actually really influenced how Madonna-Whore complex comes out and becomes visible in the world. It's it's been a thing for a while, but. And purity culture has too. It's just not the same as it was 200 years ago or whatever. But it was originally labelled the Madonna-Whore Complex by Sigmund Freud. And though he's wrong about a lot of things, including his explanation for where this all comes from, it's still a reality that is seen all over the world today. The idea is that men see women as one of two feminine archetypes that are pretty much the same ways we see women in the Bible, unfortunately, is that you have either the saintly mother or the dirty whore.

[00:44:02] Katie Dooley: Women in the streets but a freak in the sheets.

[00:44:08] Preston Meyer: Ah, and such a thing is a problem for people who have this complex. People who see the world through this lens refuse to acknowledge that the people they admire are sexual beings, and they refuse to acknowledge the people who satisfy any sexual appetite are worthy of love, and said they think that they're unworthy of love. It's really a problem when you start just having this harsh dichotomy in the world and most harsh dichotomies are a problem. Let's be real. Freud had all this idea that it's connected to how every man has an Oedipus complex and ridiculous things like that.

[00:44:52] Katie Dooley: You don't want to have sex with your mom?

[00:44:54] Preston Meyer: No. Um, but there are still a lot of people who struggle with this way of looking at the world that obviously, if you are interested in sex, you're a whore and you're a terrible person. And I could never have you in my family to raise my kids. Or the alternative of now you've married somebody that you've been chasing for a while, who's lived this whole purity life that you're told is supposed to be great. And once you have sex with her, you lose interest in her romantically because now she's a whore and has no value. It's terrible.

[00:45:35] Katie Dooley: Yeah, well, I mean, that's another thing we didn't even talk about for purity culture is that there's so much pressure on the wedding night that often it's really bad.

[00:45:45] Preston Meyer: I mean. It's an unfortunate reality that most people have really bad sex. Their wedding night, whereas this could have been solved with better education, maybe a little bit of practice.

[00:46:04] Katie Dooley: But then they also feel kind of like you said, but they feel shame on their wedding night, even though because they've been told it's bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad bad, and signing a piece of paper all of a sudden can't change 20 plus years of.

[00:46:17] Preston Meyer: Sex is terrible, 

[00:46:17] Preston Meyer: Sex is bad you'll get pregnant and die! Mean Girls.

[00:46:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Ah. Of course, this complex is not limited to men. Women also have been known to see men in this same dichotomy. It seems to be a lot less common, but it's out there. It happens because men and women aren't coded that differently.

[00:46:44] Katie Dooley: Gentlemen in the streets but a freak in the sheets.

[00:46:51] Preston Meyer: Thanks.

[00:46:51] Katie Dooley: I don't even know what I'm saying.

[00:46:53] Preston Meyer: So contrary to Freud, modern suggestions connect this in the two ways women are described in Christian Bibles and also popular southeastern European mythologies. It's more about the stories we keep telling are part of the problem. So tell better stories. Live better lives. And maybe the next generation would just be a little bit less messed up. That'd be nice, right?

[00:47:19] Katie Dooley: So moving on to Islam. We unpacked a lot with Christianity.

[00:47:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, to be fair. Everybody in our Western hemisphere has to be exposed to the pressure of the Christian norm. Making it the norm feels weird, but that's what we have. But you're also going to be exposed to Muslims if you live on this planet at some point. 

[00:47:47] Katie Dooley: Like the other Abrahamic traditions, Islam, likes sex to be confined to marriage only. Uh, Muslim women are only permitted to marry Muslim men. But Muslim men can marry a woman of any Abrahamic faith.

[00:48:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's this is a pretty good example of a weird double standard. Uh, the idea is that a child must follow the faith of the father. But this gets tricky, because in Judaism, your mother has to be a Jew. So if a Muslim man marries a Jewish woman, you do have some conflict.

[00:48:27] Katie Dooley: You've had a Christian!

[00:48:30] Preston Meyer: That has happened. It's not like it doesn't cause problems.

[00:48:35] Katie Dooley: That sounds quite problematic.

[00:48:36] Preston Meyer: Islam does discourage celibacy, unlike some Christian traditions that we've talked about before. And much like in Judaism, Islamic tradition dictates that a person is ritually unclean after sex. This means that they're forbidden from touching the Quran or participating in the salaat those mandatory prayers until they have cleaned up that which is good. Yeah, clean up after sex. It's the healthy thing to do.

[00:49:04] Katie Dooley: Don't touch things in your house when you're covered in milkshake.

[00:49:12] Preston Meyer: Thanks for that.

[00:49:13] Katie Dooley: Well, you're welcome.

[00:49:17] Preston Meyer: Ah, yay discord chats! For those of you listening carefully, this may be a clue to what day this was actually recorded. Uh, and the same also applies during menstruation. Just clean up, and then you can participate in salat and actually touch the Quran to read it.

[00:49:38] Katie Dooley: Of course we know Islam is quite a modest religion, and people are quite familiar with the hijab, which is worn by some Muslim women. And so the only men allowed to see a Muslim woman's hair she chooses to wear the hijab are her or her husband and men that she can't be married to. So her brothers, her uncles on her mom's side. That's kind of it.

[00:50:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And on some parts of the Jewish world also live by a very similar rule. We got good old Moira Rose and her many wigs as a pretty visible example. In popular culture.

[00:50:14] Katie Dooley: Uh, men, though in Islam, also have dress requirements that encourage modesty. There are parts of their body that they're not allowed to show. Public nudity is haram.

[00:50:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That's fair. It's also forbidden for partners to share details of their intimacy with others. We talked about this in Marianismo could be problematic, but you know.

[00:50:39] Katie Dooley: Only if he's bad to you but if he's good to you, then that's something to share over a chai.

[00:50:46] Preston Meyer: Sure. While it must be prefaced that there is diversity of thought on the subject, many imams are happy to tell global audiences that if a man has no beard, he is womanly and is inviting others to sin by committing sodomy. Not everybody agrees on this. That's a good thing, because a beard isn't what makes a man.

[00:51:11] Katie Dooley: Nope. What if you can't grow a beard? What do you mean, just grow a sad, patchy thing?

[00:51:18] Preston Meyer: Then you flaunt it. You let it be weird and patchy and you keep that hair on. That's the rule of the law that a lot of Muslim subcultures really enforce in really unfortunate ways. Anal sex is also strictly forbidden in Islam.

[00:51:39] Katie Dooley: Even between a man and a woman. No anal sex?

[00:51:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, oral sex is also a huge no, no. Uh, well, okay, this there's some variety on that that some schools of thought say it's okay as long as you don't swallow anything, but others are like, no, the whole deal is haram.

[00:51:59] Katie Dooley: Can you make the noise for our audience? That probably has never been in a real episode, but we sound check with it all the time.

[00:52:09] Preston Meyer: Is that everything you wanted it to be?

[00:52:11] Katie Dooley: I guess so we'll see what kind of complaints we get this week.

[00:52:16] Preston Meyer: Uh, well. It happened.

[00:52:18] Katie Dooley: How do you write that out? That'd be a good episode name.

[00:52:21] Preston Meyer: I have no idea how you would spell that. Uh, but so far, we've just stuck to the Abrahamic faiths. That's not a great global representation. So let's take a just one step further to the east.

[00:52:36] Katie Dooley: All right.

[00:52:37] Preston Meyer: So the dharmic religions also have something to say, generally a lot less sex-positive with some exceptions.

[00:52:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I was actually just thinking we're going to have to do an episode maybe next day on religions that are more sex positive because the big ones aren't.

[00:53:01] Preston Meyer: I mean, the fun part of that is most of the most sex positive religious groups are danger cults.

[00:53:10] Katie Dooley: That's true.

[00:53:11] Preston Meyer: Not all, but definitely most.

[00:53:14] Katie Dooley: Well, we'll find some. This time next year, guys. Sex cults.

[00:53:22] Preston Meyer: Perfect. Uh, so generally speaking, Buddhism is really not such a fan. Any sort of craving is the cause of suffering. That's what the Buddha said. Not in English. So it's not a perfect word for word what he said, but you get the idea. There aren't really strict laws that universally apply to all Buddhists, but monastic traditions do have strict laws against sex of any kind. No exceptions, not even for procreation. So I guess the idea is, if you're really committed to getting off this rock and escaping the reality is we know it. And becoming one with Brahma that you just wouldn't be trying to repopulate the marble. Masturbation is also counted as serious sexual misconduct. There's only four things that generally will get you kicked out of most monasteries. There's probably some that have additional rules. These are the big four for the vast majority. There's also, you know, having sex to start with, also murder, theft and falsely claiming a superhuman superhuman ability.

[00:54:34] Katie Dooley: Okay, but if you truthfully claim a superhuman ability, you're fine?

[00:54:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah. If you can prove it. The rock on. All right. But if you claim that you are so pious that you can float above the ground, you better show that off. If you can't prove it, you're out of the monastery. Yeah. Uh, in one Japanese Buddhist tradition, sex isn't so bad. I thought it was actually kind of interesting to find that there is this particular exception to the norm. As long as you don't think about it all the time. Because, of course, craving is suffering, so you should avoid it. But sex isn't so bad. Many such Buddhists live long-term relationships with prostitutes and geishas, which I was surprised, like once you got a relationship, you've got a bond, you've got an attachment. Attachment is the problem. Yeah, but we still have it. They're avoiding the attachment of marriage. They just keep going to the same prostitute and whatever. If your religion doesn't say it's bad, what else is there to say that it's bad? Also, some groups make distinctions, generally between the bad that is sex in general and a more specific, worse homosexual activity. Most don't make that distinction, but some do. I mean, just don't have sex at all. End the species that's that's the goal.

[00:56:09] Katie Dooley: In Hinduism, sex is broadly expected to be for procreation, but sex for pleasure is also generally expected, especially within marriage. Extramarital sex is taboo. Most people agree with that.

[00:56:22] Preston Meyer: Well, I mean, extramarital includes premarital. Yeah, like any sex outside marriage. Yeah. Adulterous adultery is definitely part of that and is worse than taboo, that's straight up. You're going to have a really bad time and it's not going to last very long.

[00:56:40] Katie Dooley: While it is expected that a woman's hymen should break and bleed on the wedding night, that flood is seen as destructive, so a Brahmin is called to bless the sheets in the union after the fact to ensure a long and happy marriage.

[00:56:53] Preston Meyer: What a weird thing to do.

[00:56:54] Katie Dooley: They've done that all over the world for a very long time. I just... Feel so invasive.

[00:56:59] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. Oh, well, in a way somewhat similar to the levirate marriage of Judaism. When a woman is united with her brother-in-law to raise children to belong to her dead husband, the common Hindu expectation is that the bride belongs to the family of her dead husband, and will either remain unmarried or will be united with a near relative to raise children for her dead husband's family. Similar but different.

[00:57:27] Katie Dooley: Yes, but I added this even though it doesn't have too terribly much to do with sex, but the practice of sati. Have you heard of this?

[00:57:37] Preston Meyer: I'm sure I have.

[00:57:38] Katie Dooley: But it is the practice of self-immolation for a widow, she would throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre to die with him.

[00:57:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That doesn't make things better.

[00:57:51] Katie Dooley: Yes and no. Like, really bad for the woman. Yeah, but the practice started to remove the woman from the inheritance. But then also with widespread poverty, nobody wants to look after the widow and being a time when women just stayed at home and raised kids and looked after the house, she had no skills to make money. So it was just removing "a burden" air quotes, not a real burden. People have value, um, from society. So while there were lots of problems with the British colonizing colonization of India, they did actually put in laws to prohibit sati.

[00:58:30] Preston Meyer: Not that it doesn't happen. It's just. 

[00:58:32] Katie Dooley: I think it's pretty uncommon now. But they also have a billion people. So I'm not saying we should bring it back.

[00:58:40] Preston Meyer: Didn't India just surpass China as the most populous nation?

[00:58:44] Katie Dooley: I think so.

[00:58:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Not that one thing is connected to the other. It's just a novel thing.

[00:58:52] Katie Dooley: But let's get into what everyone's really here for. Preston, the Kama Sutra.

[00:58:57] Preston Meyer: Ooh, the sexiest book of all time.

[00:59:00] Katie Dooley: Sexiest book in the world. So a sutra is a writing. Yeah, and kama means desire or longing.

[00:59:10] Preston Meyer: Hmmmm, sexy book.

[00:59:12] Katie Dooley: Sexy book.

[00:59:13] Katie Dooley: Uh, sorry Preston, contrary to popular belief, the Kama Sutra is not entirely about sex.

[00:59:17] Preston Meyer: I mean. It is sex only penile/vaginal interaction.

[00:59:25] Katie Dooley: Um, no. But it also includes details on how to find a partner, how to court that partner.

[00:59:32] Preston Meyer: Throw a rock. You'll hit somebody. They'll make a noise. You found her.

[00:59:36] Katie Dooley: Wow. Is that how you landed, Amanda? 

[00:59:41] Preston Meyer: Uh. No.

[00:59:45] Katie Dooley: Also how to keep them happy, some of which is sexual, but it also includes chapters on the philosophy of love and self-care.

[00:59:54] Preston Meyer: That's an all-encompassing book more people should read. You can also get it as a manga. Yeah, you probably shouldn't, but you could.

[01:00:05] Katie Dooley: I want to now.

[01:00:06] Preston Meyer: Okay, I actually spotted it in, uh, one of the used bookstores.

[01:00:10] Katie Dooley: Ew, don't get it from a used bookstore. Buy it new.

[01:00:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:00:14] Katie Dooley: Spend the extra $20.

[01:00:17] Preston Meyer: If the pages are stuck together, that means they learn something.

[01:00:19] Katie Dooley: No. Buy it. Let's do this. So. Wow. So as I mentioned, kama means longing, desire or wish. And it's one of the four goals of life in Hinduism. While it does typically refer to sexual desire, it can also broadly refer to any sort of passion, affection, or love. The first mention of the Kama Sutra dates back to 900, somewhere between 900 BCE and 700 BCE and it's a mixture of poetry and prose, and it incorporates Hindu mythology.

[01:00:56] Preston Meyer: The stories that you need to get you there. It's not like it's. I'm not throwing shade. Shade. The Bible's got it, too.

[01:01:09] Katie Dooley: I know. I know. Uh, and if you'll remember from our Religious Posers episode, the Kama Sutra uses asanas, the physical poses, Just like yoga.

[01:01:22] Preston Meyer: If you're looking for a new idea, this book might just have it for you.

[01:01:27] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So the Kama Sutra is like this. Yeah. It's also a physical side of yoga. 

[01:01:37] Preston Meyer: That's great.

[01:01:38] Katie Dooley: Maybe we should do it for our book club. No.

[01:01:42] Preston Meyer: That doesn't seem like a good choice.

[01:01:44] Katie Dooley: That doesn't sound like something we should share. Uh. But, Preston, what if someone did want to get in on our book club? Not about the Kama Sutra.

[01:01:55] Preston Meyer: Well, definitely our Patreon. That's the number one way. Also, if you want to maintain a discussion with us about what you want to read. Discord is a great way to connect so we can talk about that rather than just signing up to our Patreon. Valuable. Helpful helps us pay for all of this, but we want to hear from you!

[01:02:19] Katie Dooley: Also on our Patreon we have bonus episodes and early release for everything. Um, and if the subscription model isn't for you, we have some sick merch on Spreadshirt.

[01:02:29] Preston Meyer: So much fun, great things.

[01:02:31] Katie Dooley: And we'd like to thank our patron Lisa for supporting the show.

[01:02:36] Preston Meyer: Thank you, Lisa!

[01:02:38] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

It's the season of love, but the man we know as St. Valentine is a bit of a mystery, lost to time, and almost certainly an amalgamation of two or more men. Valentinus was a big fan of romantic love, as the story goes, but there's more to be unraveled. 

Valentine's relics are scattered all over the planet, many of them in wax-sealed paper bags, which isn't much of a thrill for the average tourist. There's naturally some doubt on their authenticity, but that doesn't  seem to stop anybody anymore.

More anciently, the middle of February was celebrated in Rome with the feast of Lupercalia, a great festival where the various cults of Rome would gather to purify and renew their city, and remember their furry heritage. This event also featured a romantic element--as long as you only asked the young men. Galatin's Day also celebrated the love of women among the Normans, and may have been a touch more civil by modern standards... Today, the only purification widely celebrated in Rome in February is that of Mother Mary, a carry-over celebration in Christianity informed by the Jewish tradition of faithful motherhood.

All this and more in this not-so-romantic entry.

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Sometimes it's hard to know who to believe, sometimes it isn't: Do you believe the person who has studied the finest details of physical health and wellness for upwards of a decade, or do you trust your pastor who thinks that God couldn't possibly reveal those secrets to anybody willing to test such principles? Unfortunately, that's the dichotomy we find in the world today. Christian Nationalists have actively led the crusade against medicine for most of the last two centuries, but there's some interesting nuances among the more moderate groups that we're happy to explore with you this week. 

Hospitals were a Christian invention, so why do so many distrust them? Maybe part of the problem is that most of our history has us going to our priests/shamans/knowledge holders to get healed....

President Richard Nixon was the subject of a lot of satire. Relative to his predecessors, he's an outlier in many ways, not least of all was his membership in the Quaker community. This informed his decision to protect parents from legal repercussions for medical neglect. 

We also have some data from Pew Research Center that makes a lot of religious groups look bad, relative to vaccine hesitancy.

Unleavened Bread Ministries has taken the lives of several children in the name of being "Pure Blood," including 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann, who simply needed a regular insulin supplement for diabetes. 

So many people are calling vaccines a secret poison masquerading as a cure, if only they read their Bibles (Mark 16:18).

The faithful among "Jehovah's Witnesses" avoid blood transfusions, the Amish avoid heart transplants, and "Christian Scientists" typically avoid medicine in all its forms. Muslims avoid medical products derived from swine, and Hindus tend to avoid medical products derived from any animals. Interestingly enough, Seventh-Day Adventists still run hospitals, and the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a retired heart surgeon.

We dive deep into the story of Doctor PP Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy, and how mesmerism burrowed into the "Science of Health."

From Tim Minchin's “Storm”: "Alternative medicine… Has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine." 

Watch  Dr. Glen Fairen's discussion of COVID-19 vaccines and the Apocalypse on YouTube

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Episode Transcript

Katie Dooley  00:12

Hi, everyone. My name is Katie. 

Preston Meyer  00:14

Hi, Katie. I'm Preston.

Katie Dooley  00:18

And this is.

Both Hosts  00:19

The Holy Watermelon podcast,

Katie Dooley  00:22

I thought an intro would be like an introduction. Would be nice. Occasionally.

Preston Meyer  00:27

All they know is our names. We haven't described who we are and why we're here.

Katie Dooley  00:32

Oh, I got to go back to the trailer for that.

Preston Meyer  00:35

Should we introduced ourselves a little more often?

Katie Dooley  00:37

probably. Join our Discord. I mean, sure. It's the end of January 2023 Already, which blows my mind. 

Preston Meyer  00:49

We've been doing this for a couple of years.

Katie Dooley  00:50

Couple years. I'm a resident atheist.

Preston Meyer  00:54

And I'm a Christian and graduate in this exact field of studies 

Katie Dooley  00:59

and an all-around great guy.

Preston Meyer  01:00

Thanks. I am glad you think so. You're pretty good for an atheist too. Most atheists are better than most Christians.

Katie Dooley  01:11

Oh, wow. 

Preston Meyer  01:12

Wow. Okay, that that could be an exaggeration, but probably not by a lot. 

Katie Dooley  01:15

You know one reason atheists tend to be better than Christians is that they don't just let their children die in the name of the Lord.

Preston Meyer  01:22

That specific detail is true.

Katie Dooley  01:28

Wow I just said it. Today we're talking about religion and medicine, and how religion and religious beliefs affect your belief of science.

Preston Meyer  01:39

Yeah, man, what a roller coaster. There's some interesting things we've been able to uncover. And definitely lots of bad news, which we cannot cover every news story that falls into this category. Of course,

Katie Dooley  01:55

there were some, there were some really sad ones.

Preston Meyer  01:58

But yeah, generally, problems have come up.

Katie Dooley  02:02

Yeah. Which is so weird. Because historically, the hospital system as we know, it is a Christian invention.

Preston Meyer  02:10

Yeah. Hospitality. And I mean, even the word that we have for hotels now, all of that this is, comes from the need to take care of people who don't have somewhere else to be, especially the people who straight up can't take care of themselves at all.

Katie Dooley  02:28

Yeah, so the first hospitals were kind of an amalgamation of both hospitals as we know them, but also hostels and food banks and or soup kitchens, and yeah they just take care of everyone that couldn't. That needs some extra help. And then obviously, we started segregating those things. And a lot of healers, or medical people were priests to begin with.

Preston Meyer  02:53

Well, anciently, if we look at the biblical tradition, and this was pretty standard for most societies around the world, your healers, your medical practitioners, were the priesthood. Those are the people that could read who were keeping notes on things that worked and didn't work.

Katie Dooley  03:12

Because they could also write 

Preston Meyer  03:13

Yeah,

Katie Dooley  03:13

most people couldn't. 

Preston Meyer  03:14

Yeah. Yeah. The the craft of literacy and, and writing was all practically magic to the layperson.

Katie Dooley  03:24

Yeah. So then things somewhere along the way, went horribly wrong.

Preston Meyer  03:30

They sure did. 

Katie Dooley  03:32

Yeah. So there's a lot of Christian groups that and I mean, Preston I'll get your hot take on this. But there are science deniers, and I know a lot of that stems from having to reconcile evolution with what's written in the Bible. So it feels like they just are like, Well, science isn't real, because how can Noah work then? Good enough. So they deny science. And then by extension, things like medicine, and most recently, with the pandemic, things like vaccines are being denied for their efficacy.

Preston Meyer  04:08

Imagine this just for a moment. 

Katie Dooley  04:10

Okay?

Preston Meyer  04:11

Do you you live on this planet? 

Katie Dooley  04:14

I do. I don't need to imagine that kay.   No, I don't like that.

Preston Meyer  04:16

So far, you're with me, right? All right. Now imagine going through life, not ever being able to predict the outcome of any action ever.  No, that's absolute nonsense. You know that when you put one foot in front of the next one, it's going to meet the ground that you can see, and that as you shift your weight, you can propel yourself forward. That's science.

Katie Dooley  04:45

That just reminded me of a really bad joke.

Preston Meyer  04:48

If you're going to pour yourself a glass of water, that's science. We have reliably proven that the exercises to accomplish these tasks work.

Katie Dooley  05:00

Yeah. And I mean, we can go go back to our early episodes, but there was a time when things couldn't be proven. So we use religion to prove them

Preston Meyer  05:11

All kinds of fancy hypotheses for all sorts of things we didn't understand. And then we studied them,

Katie Dooley  05:17

Then we figured it out which is awesome. But yeah, but would I be right to say that a lot of this anti science comes from trying to reconcile the Bible that if you're a fundamentalist and believe is true to the word, even though there are stories we know are not true stories, then you have to cut out science?

Preston Meyer  05:32

You don't have to

Katie Dooley  05:35

But then how did Noah work if you have science?! It doesn't!

Preston Meyer  05:41

Yeah, things get complicated when you try and make stories that are primarily symbolic.

Katie Dooley  05:48

Doesn't work.So if you do the literal truth, then we Yeah,

Preston Meyer  05:54

you're gonna have a hard time.  Yeah. And so it's weird that the and this is definitely throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If you're just Oh, science disproves this one thing that I believe really strongly, really effectively, then I'm gonna have to stop believing literally everything under the banner of science. Weird choice.

Katie Dooley  05:55

Gonna have a hard time. You think so? But again, a lot of people let their kid die over this. So  Yeah, we found a whole bunch of Christian denominations that do this. The followers of Christ in the early 2000s, this group had a child mortality rate 10 times higher than the state average of where they were located, which was the state of Idaho, because they liked faith heailings... 

Preston Meyer  06:25

yeah.  Yeah,

Katie Dooley  06:46

instead of real doctors. 

Preston Meyer  06:48

Yeah,

Katie Dooley  06:49

one thing that was also really terrifying that I guess benefited, benefited the followers of Christ. Also, we're going to talk about Christian scientists later also benefited Christian scientists, is that President Nixon actually made a ruling that required states to pass exemptions to child medical treatment based off of a religious exemption. So basically, parents couldn't go to jail if their child died, because they made a medical choice based off of their religion, so you can charge them with like, neglect, or murder. So that was really cool.

Preston Meyer  07:24

So I'm fully on board with the whole the government won't impose laws on what you believe. But the government has an awful lot of laws on how you can act in our shared society. And our actions are founded on the things that we believe about the world around us. So we need to convince people to change their beliefs.

Katie Dooley  07:49

Well, you know, comes back we've done a lot of episodes on this everything from our parody religions episode to atheism, and Satanism of like, that's great that you want to kill your kid but like, I can't just like make up a rule for religious religious exemption. 

Preston Meyer  08:05

Right.

Katie Dooley  08:06

Right. If we can just do things because we say but I'm religious like it would, everything would become chaos.

Preston Meyer  08:12

You just gotta stop telling the government you're an atheist. And then you get all kinds of fancy freedom. 

Katie Dooley  08:17

Cool. Okay, well, I believe in Russell's teapot and Russell's teapot tells me I get to be naked 24/7 in public, so I cannot go to jail for public indecency. Like, you can't just do that Preston.

Preston Meyer  08:31

That depends where you live.

Katie Dooley  08:35

I mean, I know

Preston Meyer  08:36

I mean, full nude still prohibited in most places, but

Katie Dooley  08:40

Handful of nude beaches you can go to

Preston Meyer  08:41

but you can be fully topless in most parts of Canada. I mean, we also have the weather that discourages that

Katie Dooley  08:51

like right now, right but you just can't have your wiener hanging out Preston.

Preston Meyer  08:56

Noo.

Katie Dooley  08:58

And you can't... You know, if everyone just said, Well, it's because I'm religious.

Preston Meyer  09:03

Well, though, okay. We do know that members of the clergy have definitely been caught with their wiener in places where it does not belong and get away with it because they claim religiousness. There had been way too many times where somebody who has been a pastor for a while diddled a couple of kids went, went to court and got a reduced sentence because he's a man of faith. When clearly his actions say he's not

Katie Dooley  09:37

anyway, we just hopped on a soapbox for a minute there. This was eventually repealed in 1983, which I guess is good, but it was around for a while where you couldn't go to jail if you killed your kid. So A+ President Nixon,

Preston Meyer  09:53

right. Yeah, that was that was interesting. Christian Nationalism is a little bit of a problem.

Katie Dooley  10:01

Yeah. I mean, you were on I was just remembering the other day you were on a podcast talking about some of this stuff progressive versus... 

Preston Meyer  10:08

Yeah...

Katie Dooley  10:08

Not progressive Christianity.

Preston Meyer  10:12

Yeah, it was a little while ago now, actually. But it was good time.

Katie Dooley  10:15

I'm the villain. 

Preston Meyer  10:17

Yeah,

Katie Dooley  10:17

check out Preston. 

Preston Meyer  10:18

Man that was... it feels like so long ago.

Katie Dooley  10:22

Yeah, real scary stuff, especially when it came to the pandemic.

Preston Meyer  10:27

Yeah, I mean, Christian Nationalism has been a problem in North America for almost a century. But things got really weird over the COVID crisis, and all kinds of people shouting about their rights to avoid this poison. I want to get a little bit more into that later. But it's just crazy that 45% of white evangelical adults said they would not be vaccinated. That is a staggeringly large number. And this idea is not just in like a couple of weird little nationalist groups, either it had spread through a lot of Christianity. But the nationalists got really gross about it.

Katie Dooley  11:15

And like bizarre about it, one of the articles I read that Christian nationalists have said that the vaccine is the mark of the beast, as prophesized in the Revelation of John, because it prevented people from buying and selling, air quotes, "without the mark".

Preston Meyer  11:33

Yeah. Our recent guest, Dr. Glenn Farron has shown up in other shows, examining this exact phenomenon, it's really fascinating.

Katie Dooley  11:44

And terrifying. 

Preston Meyer  11:45

Yeah, it's weird. 

Katie Dooley  11:47

Okay, as because we introduced ourselves as our resident Christian, why do you think it's taken such a hold on Christianity,

Preston Meyer  11:54

we have this frustrating problem where there's been this prediction of a whole bunch of signs that will mark the coming of the Savior. And it's been many, many centuries, where it's kind of been a building tension. We've got all kinds of apocalyptical groups popping up more and more recently, but they've been around for a while. And when we see anything that can fit into that framework that's built to be a thing of interpretation, rather than a one for one obvious comparison kind of deal as something that people really latch on to. And so when you see this part in the scripture that says, without this mark, you won't get to participate in the economic part of society, then you, you fear that maybe this is a parallel to what is happening with oh, you need your COVID passport to go into a store. Instead of recognizing, oh, I have a civil responsibility to do my best to take care of the people around me. And that's why I'm being shunned. But because I don't want to help out. It's so much more fun. And self aggrandizing to see everyone else as the villain, rather than admit that you're the one causing harm. That's the problem.

Katie Dooley  13:24

Mormons believe in the Second Coming, yeah? 

Preston Meyer  13:27

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  13:27

Okay. Is there any piece of this, that's like, people wanting it to happen? 

Preston Meyer  13:32

Oh for sure!

Katie Dooley  13:33

Yeah?

Preston Meyer  13:34

Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  13:35

They just want to be on the bleeding edge. So Jesus takes them up.  

Preston Meyer  13:40

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  13:40

With them

Preston Meyer  13:41

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  13:42

They don't want to be wrong. 

Preston Meyer  13:43

Hey?

Katie Dooley  13:43

They don't want to be wrong. They don't want to take the mark of the beast, and then Jesus will be like, No, sorry.

Preston Meyer  13:48

Yeah, you don't want to do anything wrong. Because what if this is the end? What if this is the trial, I don't want to fail.

Katie Dooley  13:55

Okay.

Preston Meyer  13:56

I need to be as faithful as I possibly can. Even if that means I've screwed up. It's okay to make mistakes, you're forgiven for mistakes, as long as they're genuine mistakes, and not me skipping out on opportunities to be better. But I mean, all it takes is a little bit of extra thinking.

Katie Dooley  14:19

It just anyway, goes back to love your neighbor. We've talked about this a lot this month, actually.

Preston Meyer  14:25

And so many people have a hard time realizing that that's the number one thing. Jesus wasn't ambiguous about this. But it's hard to love your neighbor sometimes. Especially if your neighbor is anti-Vaxxer.

Katie Dooley  14:44

You know, I realized during this podcast, I like Jesus a lot more now and Christianity a lot less. 

Preston Meyer  14:50

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  14:51

Like if you asked me three years ago, if I like Jesus would be like, like, like, no, like, I don't know, but I actually kind of think he's a cool guy.

Preston Meyer  14:58

I appreciate that you have, in your head, separated the man from the fan club.

Katie Dooley  15:02

Yeah. And the the more I learned, the more they're getting very separate in my head.

Preston Meyer  15:07

They are very very different I mean, yeah, there's more than one fan club, most of the fan clubs suck.

Katie Dooley  15:15

So what we should do is start our own fan club! I am kidding, that doesn't solve the issue.

Preston Meyer  15:19

What more parties?!?

Katie Dooley  15:24

more denomination Okay. In the United States religious conservatism, including the evangelical and born again Christianity movement is associated with lower levels of trust in science, rates of vaccine vaccine uptake, vaccine knowledge and higher levels of vaccine hesitancy.

Preston Meyer  15:44

Yeah, research has found that religiosity is negatively associated with plans to receive the COVID vaccine, which is a huge bummer. And one religious worldview, especially hostile to science and vaccines is the Christian nationalism movement. It's caused a fair bit of problems, distrusting the government is fair to to a degree. So not the same thing that sees a rebellion a whole year ago, or a couple of years ago now, January 6. But, you know, fun

Katie Dooley  16:24

Is it fun? One of these groups I found and just because they came up in the news for killing a child, and I put an asterick Preston I will let you guide me on how much we actually talked about this group was the unleavened bread ministries, and I'm big Asterix in our show notes. They say, I barely want to give this man any attention, because he's fucking crazy.

Preston Meyer  16:46

I mean, that's fair.

Katie Dooley  16:48

So I'll probably just not say the pastor's name.

Preston Meyer  16:51

I think that's the right way.

Katie Dooley  16:52

So in 2008, an 11-year-old girl, Madeline Cara Newman died of diabetes complications that were very manageable, and very treatable. She literally just needed some insulin, which is really sad, but instead her parents opted for prayer.

Preston Meyer  17:11

Yeah, it's not the only headline, but it happens. And I don't know why people want to deny that, medicine is a gift. If you believe that God gives us all the good things, and we've studied the universe to understand creation, which is the way a lot of religions do look at it. Knowing that, oh, now that we know more about this thing, we can help people. Why not jump on that?

Katie Dooley  17:42

So we're, so her parents were part of this Unleavened Bread Ministries, and so I decided to go to their website. I really hope I'm not retargeted for anything, because that was something that was not pleasant. You can tune into their radio. 24/7 they actually say tune into our radio channel, 24/7 Which implies they want you to listen to it 24/7.  Not that it's on 24/7, which was scary.

Preston Meyer  18:09

I mean, that's how you get your ad revenue. Right?  I think if you were to listen to us 24/7 right now

Katie Dooley  18:13

I guess so. You should listen to the Holy Watermelon podcast 24/7  you just have five days

Preston Meyer  18:23

Yeah, just couple of days of content, and then you're on repeat. 

Katie Dooley  18:28

That's fine.

Preston Meyer  18:28

I mean, 

Katie Dooley  18:29

I'm okay with it.

Preston Meyer  18:30

You know, maybe some people would be better for it.

Katie Dooley  18:32

So basically, this pastor tells to pray away COVID and others other diseases, but he also recommended Ivermectin and hydro hydro ox so Chloroquine hydro- 

Preston Meyer  18:47

hydroxychloroquine?

Katie Dooley  18:48

that one that makes you go blind or whatever, as well which was insanity. To me, it's like you should pray but if you don't feel like praying, take something that will kill you. 

Preston Meyer  18:58

The vaccine is poison, but

Katie Dooley  19:01

Ivermectin is totally fine...

Preston Meyer  19:04

So-

Katie Dooley  19:05

So I have in my notes I wrote "not sure if grifter or cult leader"

Preston Meyer  19:10

it's, it's problematic. What's interesting to me, is there is a reasonably common belief among these Christian extremists, let's call them what they are, that the vaccine is poison. And I've heard several times that all these people who took the vaccine they're gonna be dead in five years or less.

Katie Dooley  19:35

Did you see this quote? "Fully vaccinated people-" this is from the pastor again, his name I won't say fully, "vaccinated people are now suffering from what looks like the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, better known as AIDS. Their immune system is fading as many have warned." so both Preston and I apparently have AIDS.

Preston Meyer  19:54

Apparently.

Katie Dooley  19:57

Most of our friends also apparently have AIDS.

Preston Meyer  20:01

Yeah. So what I was getting to this idea that this vaccine is poison. And remember, the vast majority of us are taking the vaccine to either protect ourselves, or to protect the people around us because we care about them. So they're here. Here's a passage from Mark chapter 16. Gospel of Mark, it's Jesus speaking, it's after he's been resurrected, he's teaching the remaining apostles because Judas is gone. He's not with them. And he says, Those who believe in Me will be able to drink poison without being hurt. I mean, there's a bit about snakes in there, there's, there's all kinds of little bits I skipped. But I added the beginning and the end together to give you the good bit, that if you believe, and if you do actually believe you want to help your neighbors and protect them, then it sounds like the Lord says, You got nothing to fear from this vaccine. 

Katie Dooley  21:00

Yeah, well. 

Preston Meyer  21:03

But to be fair, that is a personal interpretation of Scripture, that is at least as valid as the opposing argument.

Katie Dooley  21:18

So one of the arguments I wrote in, in these, nothing short of crazy articles was that, and this kind of goes back to the Nixon thing is that some of these groups have argued like, well, if a doctor, someone dies under a doctor's watch, the doctor doesn't get charged. So just because we weren't successful in our prayer circle, doesn't mean we should be charged.  Oh Preston... Preston's face is gold right now.

Preston Meyer  21:47

So while it's very tricky to charge a doctor- 

Katie Dooley  21:54

Unless it's malpractice.

Preston Meyer  21:55

Right, and it's very tricky to sue a doctor, they have training to do the things that are they're expected to do. And the rest of us are told with, I would say, a close to equivalent value of repetition of take your people to a doctor. So when we fail step one of the process to not even give the doctor a chance to screw up or do the great thing that we need. Wit and it's usually a success, that is neglect. And I would say in an awful lot of situations a criminal neglect.

Katie Dooley  22:38

I just had a weird thought- 

Preston Meyer  22:39

Yeah?

Katie Dooley  22:40

that's not in our notes. America in particular, and I mean, Canada, to some extent, as well, prides itself on being a Christian nation. 

Preston Meyer  22:50

Yup

Katie Dooley  22:51

Christianity started the first hospitals to help people. Yeah, that couldn't help themselves. And America doesn't have free health care.

Preston Meyer  23:00

Nope

Katie Dooley  23:01

Those things don't all go together, do they? 

Preston Meyer  23:03

No, they don't.

Katie Dooley  23:04

Okay.

Preston Meyer  23:06

It sounds like you understand perfectly.

Katie Dooley  23:09

I do, I do. I understand the pieces, but the why? I am perplexed by because Jesus would have wanted public health care.

Preston Meyer  23:20

So we've already talked about the prosperity gospel-

Katie Dooley  23:22

we have,

Preston Meyer  23:23

and nothing on this planet is more American than publi-

Katie Dooley  23:28

Grifting!

Preston Meyer  23:29

Than grifting! Yeah! Maybe the the next best thing would be mass extermination, which I mean, is connected to this in some sort of way.

Katie Dooley  23:45

All right. Well, I feel like we're being very critical today. But

Preston Meyer  23:50

sometimes you got to be and that it comes with the territory and today's subject. 

Katie Dooley  23:56

Totally. Then there are groups that have very specific rules around medicine. Not necessarily, these sort of broad-

Preston Meyer  23:57

Yeah,

Katie Dooley  23:59

don't believe in science.

Preston Meyer  24:05

A lot of groups generally like the idea of science. Oh, yeah, I guess this thing has been proven. Let's go with it. With exceptions.

Katie Dooley  24:14

So there's the Jehovah Witnesses are almost famous for it, they do not accept blood transfusions. So overall, they're pretty cool with medicine and science, unless you need a blood transfusion.

Preston Meyer  24:28

Yeah, Prince was a pretty well-known star, and almost as well known that he was one of Jehovah's Witnesses. And he had some wicked hip pain for a long time. And it is speculated hard to confirm things now that he's gone, that it took him a while to get the hip surgery he needed, because hip surgery almost always comes with a major blood transfusion. Cuz, you know, open up pretty high traffic area in the body. 

Katie Dooley  25:04

Yeah.

Preston Meyer  25:05

And so it's a big problem. So it's generally discouraged that because of the blood transfusion hip surgery is a tricky thing to try to navigate as a Jehovah's Witness.

Katie Dooley  25:15

Yeah, I, this is ages ago, and I didn't find them for this. And we'll do a full episode on Jehovah Witnesses one day, but the number of parents that when their kid needs a blood transfusion, start to question their faith pretty

Preston Meyer  25:32

it's a healthy perspective.

Katie Dooley  25:34

Totally! But it's interesting, like, I didn't pull up blood transfusion statistics, but especially probably before 50 Most people do not need a blood transfusion unless you're, you know, touch wood in a car accident or something. But I'm learning a blood transfusion and presume you never need a blood transfusion. So it's pretty easy to be like, oh, yeah, fine. I cannot accept someone else's blood until you need to accept someone else's blood. 

Preston Meyer  25:59

Right? Well, and I think it's really interesting that I've, I've heard stories of people who say that after a blood transfusion, my brother-sister-loved one is just a totally different person. And so obviously, it's because the spirits in the blood, and that's now, now they are a different person. The weird thing about that is they totally ignore the possibility that a incident that requires a blood transfusion is a life changing experience! He's probably traumatized. It's things like cancer and major accidents, while recognizing your own mortality. Sometimes it's all it takes to really change how you want to deal with the world around you. It's a weird thing to hear people say, but I mean, the facts are the facts. They behave differently. Sure, fine. Or maybe you're reading more into it than is real, and they haven't changed as much as you think. But you expect them to be different because there's this idea of a different soul in the body. 

Katie Dooley  27:02

Sounds like...

Preston Meyer  27:03

it's a spectrum. I can't say that it's all one thing or all the other, but I bet you it's a mix of the two

Katie Dooley  27:09

Totally. So there's three Bible passages that Jehovah's Witnesses cite for not accepting blood transfusions, so I'm gonna read them so we can get Preston's hot take on them

Preston Meyer  27:19

Perfect

Katie Dooley  27:19

first- and who knows how-

Preston Meyer  27:20

I like it. 

Katie Dooley  27:21

So Genesis nine "for you shall not eat flesh with its life. That is, its blood."

Preston Meyer  27:28

All right. So part of the context that we have here is, this is a document of how the Lord's people should be different than their neighbours. What makes them different. A lot of the people around them their neighbours, would ritually consume blood.

Katie Dooley  27:48

That's blood in the mouth?

Preston Meyer  27:50

Yes, eating blood.

Katie Dooley  27:52

I think we need that to be clear.

Preston Meyer  27:54

I have eaten blood, or a blood adjacent substance, on a, on a few occasions. It is delicious.

Katie Dooley  28:06

As someone who enjoys a good black pudding, yes. I prefer white pudding though, which doesn't have the blood. But I won't say no to the black pudding. 

Preston Meyer  28:14

Right. So you can take my interpretation of this however you want, I suppose. I don't think that there is a spiritual reason. I think this is more of a this separates the people of Israel from their neighbours. Just another way to mark that we are different from them kind of deal. 

Katie Dooley  28:35

All right.

Preston Meyer  28:36

And I mean building an us versus them philosophy isn't the healthiest choice. But here we are.

Katie Dooley  28:43

In Genesis, what makes a Jewish person a Jewish person, right?

Preston Meyer  28:46

I mean, that's really what Genesis and the tour of the Tanakh are all about.

Katie Dooley  28:51

Alright, so the next one is Leviticus 17:10. "If anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut that person off from the people." 

Preston Meyer  29:07

So-

Katie Dooley  29:08

that God speaking? 

Preston Meyer  29:09

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  29:09

Wow.

Preston Meyer  29:10

So the short version of this is, if this person insists on eating blood, they will be excommunicated. Or exiled, depending on whether or not the church has a monopoly on national politics. Excommunicated if they're out in an area that's diverse like ours, exiled from the nation if you have a monopoly.

Katie Dooley  29:37

And again, this is blood in the mouth?

Preston Meyer  29:39

Yes. Do not eat blood

Katie Dooley  29:41

Okay, because this is where I-

Preston Meyer  29:43

and it doesn't actually mean human blood. Cannibalism is an entirely separate law. This is don't eat the blood of the cattle and the livestock and the pigeons and everything else that you bring in for sacrifices,

Katie Dooley  29:57

Right, which is part of the kosher process. 

Preston Meyer  29:59

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  30:00

That seems super fun. Acts 15:28 to 29. "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials. That you have seen from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourself from these, you will do well. Farewell."

Preston Meyer  30:22

I mean, I like having such a short list very convenient. Don't eat things that are sacrificed to false gods. Easy. Generally speaking, though, there are other parts where Paul does specifically say you know what? It's okay to eat something sacrificed to idols, if that's all there is to eat. Just remember, the gods aren't real. But be grateful that you have something to eat. So, even in these essentials- 

Katie Dooley  30:55

There's still an asterisk!

Preston Meyer  30:56

There's an asterisk yeah. But again, don't eat blood is still on the list.

Katie Dooley  31:03

So again, blood in the mouth. 

Preston Meyer  31:05

Yes. Do not eat from these animals that you need. And then of course, there's don't eat anything that's been strangled. Which

Katie Dooley  31:19

the meat would be tough.

Preston Meyer  31:22

It's better to quick kill rather than choke. Because then it's got fight in it.

Katie Dooley  31:27

Yeah. All the muscles not-

Preston Meyer  31:29

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  31:30

I'm gonna be plugged meat. And then don't have sex.

Preston Meyer  31:35

Which Yeah, totally unrelated to the previous three things. While fornication isn't just sex, fornication is extramarital sex.

Katie Dooley  31:45

Oh, specific.

Preston Meyer  31:46

Yeah, fornication is dirty sex. I it's, it's specifically that sex which is unapproved by society.

Katie Dooley  31:55

Well, wait till next episode.

Preston Meyer  32:00

Yeah, we'll get a little more details there for you. But yeah, so in Old and New Testament for the Christians who are super concerned about it. That's the deal, is that you should not EAT ANIMAL BLOOD.

Katie Dooley  32:15

So they don't let you take any blood. Even if it's not in your mouth.

Preston Meyer  32:21

Yeah, life-saving apparently not that big a deal. If it's your time to go. It's your time to go kind of philosophy. Which sucks if you could have survived with the tools available to you.

Katie Dooley  32:32

Now there are bloodless surgeries and blood alternatives.

Preston Meyer  32:40

Which sounds really weird. 

Katie Dooley  32:42

I mean, I'm kind of that person. Like, if you can have the real thing. Why wouldn't you have the real thing? Like if you're not allergic to milk? Or lactose intolerant. Why would you squeeze the shit out of an almond?

Preston Meyer  32:54

Right?!?

Katie Dooley  32:56

Like, you know, and I mean, I get lactose intolerance is a thing. Don't get me wrong.

Preston Meyer  33:02

I'm lactose intolerant. I have- 

Katie Dooley  33:04

I didn't know that!

Preston Meyer  33:05

way more dairy in my diet than I should.

Katie Dooley  33:10

The fact that I didn't know that you're lactose intolerant until this moment tells you that you do.

Preston Meyer  33:15

I'm lactose-sensitive, not lactose intolerant. I correct that there are times when I am way more sensitive than at other times. The night before I got married. 

Katie Dooley  33:28

Ohno, ohno!

Preston Meyer  33:29

We stopped at one of the great drive-throughs and got the classic, real good, absolutely delicious milkshake. And I was ruined by the time...

Katie Dooley  33:41

Ohhh you, noooo!

Preston Meyer  33:45

So everyone else is setting up the chapel for decorations and the tables and everything. And I was just camped out somewhere else. But this week, I've gone through a whole litre of eggnog and plenty of milk and no issues. 

Katie Dooley  34:04

All right, well. So yeah, I mean, I guess like I said before, it's great to say you don't accept a blood transfusion until you're one of the 4.5 million people a year in North America that needs one.

Preston Meyer  34:16

I'm curious because I haven't been able to find anything. And maybe I just need to talk to somebody who's got specific religious authority to make such a declaration, how they might feel higher up among the witnesses about synthetic blood. I don't know how they'll feel about that.

Katie Dooley  34:38

Members that willingly and knowingly accept blood transfusions are often disfellowshipped. And generally, like I said, they when witnesses are encouraged for medical help other than this weird blood thing, which I feel like they haven't run by God ever but what do I know?

Preston Meyer  34:54

Right. And a similar limitation for some reason the Amish and some other Mennonites but not all Mennonites believe that the spirit specifically lives in the heart. And you know, if you're watching a movie and you get to a real emotional part and you feel a twinge in your heart, I can see why they might come to that conclusion. 

Katie Dooley  35:18

When you see your husband who I haven't seen in three weeks!

Preston Meyer  35:22

Right?! When you feel that in your chest, it does make sense that you can believe your spirit resides in or near your heart fine. Feels a little bit weird, but I get it. So specifically, the Amish, while they have a tricky relationship with modern medicine, they do specifically avoid anything that would be even close to a heart transplant, because that's the soul. And yet, there's sometimes exceptions to that...

Katie Dooley  35:55

Asterisk! It's a spectrum!

Preston Meyer  35:59

Yeah. There have been children who have been born with heart defects that are so severe that before baptism, because as an Anabaptist, you are baptized later in life instead of as a child. Like in the Catholic tradition. They are okay with a heart transplant in a young child... sometimes.

Katie Dooley  36:23

Asterisk. I was born with a hole in my heart, maybe that's why I'm an atheist.

Preston Meyer  36:28

Is it a Jesus-shaped hole in your heart?

Katie Dooley  36:29

I don't... I don't know. I, that was 32 years ago.

Preston Meyer  36:35

Is the hole still there?

Katie Dooley  36:36

No it healed up.

Preston Meyer  36:37

It just healed up? 

Katie Dooley  36:38

Yep. Sometimes they heal up on their own. Sometimes they need surgery to make the switch.

Preston Meyer  36:41

Well see that's the weird thing about making people from a clump of cells is that when you're born, you still got a lot of growing to do.

Katie Dooley  36:51

So apparently, I looked into this like a million years ago, apparently, like when you're born and finally get oxygen. It is supposed to just like happen. The chambers in your heart close up to what they're supposed to be and mine didn't.

Preston Meyer  37:03

huh!

Katie Dooley  37:04

Yeah!

Preston Meyer  37:05

So that's the thing I don't know much about. But that is cool.

Katie Dooley  37:08

Yeah. Science!

Preston Meyer  37:10

Check out our bonus episode on abortion!  right. It's, it's weird how many churches insist that the Bible says that a baby is a murderable person, before they're born, when the Bible was pretty clear on the detail of, "And he breathed and became a living soul." Now, you're allowed to take that symbolically. But when you do that, you no longer have the Bible backing you up when you say that a baby is alive from conception, or from six months in or whatever. Whatever your arbitrary time is. The Bible doesn't have your back, for any point before birth! Yeah, we get into a lot more detail there!

Katie Dooley  37:51

The next one we're going to talk about are Christian scientists or the Church of Christ, comma scientists is their official name. 

Preston Meyer  38:08

This, this group-

Katie Dooley  38:10

and guess what Preston they hate science.

Preston Meyer  38:14

So this, I've run into a couple of these people over the years that we've got a Christian Science Center downtown. And I've been trying to figure out for a while, how they can get away with feeling comfortable using the word science, and that they call themselves scientists, and absolutely deny the scientific method! The scientific collection of knowledge that we've amassed. I don't get it. 

Katie Dooley  38:51

We will eventually. Again, just like Jehovah's Witnesses we will do a full episode on Christian scientists at some point, but we're just gonna dive into the medical stuff for today's episode.  The Church of Christ scientists was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in the 19th century. And it can actually be traced back. For more if you remember our last episode to Phineas Quimby, the mesmerist!!

Preston Meyer  39:00

Yeah.  Yeah, so she was a patient of his! 

Katie Dooley  39:18

Oh, cool!

Preston Meyer  39:19

Yeah! So that's where this connection comes in. So I did a little bit of more research on this Quimby fella and oh what a trip! So oh...

Katie Dooley  39:31

so Phineas Quimby... I'll let you read your your research but finance can be started that new thought movement which turned also into the prosperity gospel that name it and claim it

Preston Meyer  39:41

Yeah, Dr. PP Quimby which I didn't make up to make this humorous. This is how he styled himself

Katie Dooley  39:52

This is amazing! And I love that we both are so mature that we can just laugh at Dr. PP!

Preston Meyer  39:58

I'm not sure he was a real Dr.

Katie Dooley  40:01

WHAT?!?

Preston Meyer  40:02

I mean, as you learn more about this fella, you'll see why that could have been a problem.   But Dr. Phineas PP. Quimby was a clockmaker. You don't need a doctorate to be a clockmaker-

Katie Dooley  40:09

Yes.  No you don't to be a clockmaker

Preston Meyer  40:21

I mean, you do need tools. Yeah, for sure. And he was convinced that he had found the key to the science of health. This is where the Christian scientists adopted the word and never validated it ever again. The science of health, which of course, is, it's all in your head!

Katie Dooley  40:47

Yet it's it's not. Your feelings and physical ailments are all-

Preston Meyer  40:53

Yeah, this gaping wound in my leg that's making a huge mess of the kitchen is all in my head.

Katie Dooley  41:03

No, it's all on the kitchen floor!

Preston Meyer  41:07

Anyway, Quimby's theory was that there is no intelligence, no power or action in matter of itself. That the spiritual world to which our eyes are closed by ignorance or unbelief, is the real world that in it lie all the causes for every effect visible in the natural world. And then if the spiritual life can be revealed to us, in other words, if we can understand ourselves, we shall then have our happiness or misery in our own hands. That sounds really nice.

Katie Dooley  41:42

Oh, and I believe some of it-

Preston Meyer  41:44

Sure!

Katie Dooley  41:45

we talked, again, we talked about this for prosperity. If you're a positive person, your life will feel more positive. 

Preston Meyer  41:50

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  41:51

But this does not account for gaping leg wounds!

Preston Meyer  41:55

No, or viral infections, bacterial problems! There's a lot of things that you can't control with positive thinking. And this is a proven fact.

Katie Dooley  42:06

Yes.

Preston Meyer  42:07

So, interestingly enough, he was a very busy man. Quimby was treating several patients every day, almost every single day for years, which would be normal if he was a doctor. But he wasn't really a doctor. He would sit next to his patients and explain that their ailment was just in their minds, and that they could control it just by thinking really hard about it. Just convince yourself that everything's fine and it will be! If it was easy to convince yourself of something that wasn't so easy to believe. And then it got weird. Sometimes he would rub their heads with his wet hands. 

Katie Dooley  42:50

Ew! Why were they wet???

Preston Meyer  42:52

Oh, he would dip his hands in water too, and just rub their heads. He later explained that it was the words that did the help. Not the contact with the wet hands. So presumably he was just rubbing their heads with wet hands for his own enjoyment?

Katie Dooley  43:10

That is a very specific fetish, but we don't kink shame at the Holy Watermelon Podcast.

Preston Meyer  43:15

True story.

Katie Dooley  43:16

But we do fake Dr. shame! So carry on!

Preston Meyer  43:20

cause people are weird!

Katie Dooley  43:25

There's various fetishes and rubbing.

Preston Meyer  43:28

I'm okay with if that's your fetish. That's fine. Our-

Katie Dooley  43:32

Is there consent?

Preston Meyer  43:34

That's my question! Are these people participating with informed consent? In what is probably a sexual fetish.

Katie Dooley  43:44

Probably not because it's the 1800's.

Preston Meyer  43:47

Yeah...consent was a tough discussion back then-

Katie Dooley  43:49

Actually still a tough discussion, but that's a different episode! 

Preston Meyer  43:52

But at least it's becoming more mainstream. Now.

Katie Dooley  43:54

Did you know 55% of Canadian men don't actually know what constitutes as consent?

Preston Meyer  44:00

That's an alarming statistic

Katie Dooley  44:02

Yeah. A study came out recently.

Preston Meyer  44:07

Members of Congress are outing themselves all over the place right now saying, Oh, if we have the liberal wrought laws of consent, I would be a sex criminal!

Katie Dooley  44:17

That means you're a sex criminal!

Preston Meyer  44:19

Why would why would you say that?

Katie Dooley  44:22

That means you're a sex criminal. Carry on.

Preston Meyer  44:27

Anyway, Quimby met Mary Baker Eddy in 1862 when she became his patient. And she was already into the the weird spiritual thing. Yeah, which is fine. It's what she started doing with it after she met Quimby that makes it easy to label her as full crazy.

Katie Dooley  44:49

So Eddy basically thought the world was the matrix and the only real world was the spiritual world. And we've created this physical world in our minds.

Preston Meyer  44:59

Neil deGrasse Tyson talks a little bit about how the world is, and the universe is probably just a simulation. So is that really all that different? They both sound crazy.

Katie Dooley  45:11

They both do sound crazy. I mean, we're getting into philosophy, and it already hurts my head is trying to formulate this sentence, but like,

Preston Meyer  45:21

The trick is, it's really easy to believe that the world isn't. The world is as concrete as it looks and feels. But I mean, the things that we found out by just scoping down on to the molecular level is even solid rocks are mostly empty space. 

Katie Dooley  45:39

Yeah.

Preston Meyer  45:41

So it gets pretty easy to say, wow, yeah, there's there's a lot of magic going on here. What is what? Who knows? But it feels like, we're getting some pretty interesting fictions.

Katie Dooley  45:56

Yes. So Eddie also wrote a book called Science and Health, which in addition to the Bible is considered a holy book in the Church of Christ scientists.

Preston Meyer  46:06

Yeah, it's pretty normal to have the founding person's literature as part of your Canon.

Katie Dooley  46:12

It seems like there isn't a lot of Christ in Church of Christ scientists. 

Preston Meyer  46:16

Well, they still have the Bible.

Katie Dooley  46:17

Yeah.

Preston Meyer  46:17

It's just secondary to you have the divine power yourself to heal all your problems.

Katie Dooley  46:25

This goes back to my earlier point, is that I am starting to like JC-

Preston Meyer  46:29

not the fanclub. 

Katie Dooley  46:30

Not the fanclub, all right.

Preston Meyer  46:33

That's fair. 

Katie Dooley  46:33

Okay

Preston Meyer  46:35

Yeah, it's interesting that members of the Church of Christ scientists aren't strictly prohibited from seeking medical attention, but they do avoid it an awful lot. Instead, they just pray. And it's not like your regular prayer. That's like, it's never do the Lord's Prayer, and everything's gonna be fine. It's kind of a, you need to go find a place where you can argue with yourself for a while, just like Mary did with the Nez Marus

Katie Dooley  47:04

Yeah, not even. Yeah. You like, it's weird. I read some instructions on how to pray. And basically, you just like, fight yourself to not feel sick anymore. 

Preston Meyer  47:14

Yeah!

Katie Dooley  47:14

So I am like to Jesus or God, it's like "Don't be sick Katie!"

Preston Meyer  47:19

Right?!

Katie Dooley  47:20

Don't be sick!

Preston Meyer  47:21

which sounds like not just counterproductive, because you're not getting the help you need. But you're tiring yourself out more. So if you were fighting an infection, you're probably worse off than if you hadn't had this internal conflic

Katie Dooley  47:37

I just watch Fraggle Rock when I'm sick. 

Preston Meyer  47:39

Yeah. Does it help?

Katie Dooley  47:40

Yeah.

Preston Meyer  47:40

That's good. Filling your life with positivity is helpful. And there's there's a lot to be said about the placebo effect. That doesn't mean don't seek actual help when there's something wrong that needs help.

Katie Dooley  47:57

Absolutely. There are reports though, even though they aren't specifically prohibited from seeking medical treatment, that members that do opt for medical treatment are often ostracized.

Preston Meyer  48:09

Yeah, but you can hire somebody from the church to come and help you out. You can get a healer, which is like a doctor, but they're making money off of lying to you.

Katie Dooley  48:22

It's actually a Christian Science practitioner, and they're very good at praying!

Preston Meyer  48:27

Are they?

Katie Dooley  48:29

That's what they're trained to do!

Preston Meyer  48:32

So I'll just 11 years well, 12 years ago, now, I guess. There was a practitioner named Frank Prince Wonderlic. If I'm not writing that pronunciation, I'm at least close. Put his his name in the show notes. He said... "all healing is a metaphysical process. That means that there is no person to be healed. No material body, no patient, no matter, no illness, no one to heal, no substance, no person, no thing and no place that needs to be influenced. This is what the practitioner must first be clear about."

Katie Dooley  49:08

It sounds very Scientology.

Preston Meyer  49:11

A little bit yeah! So, I mean, the problem that I have, right off the beginning is, there is nobody that needs to be healed or influenced. When your job is to heal people. Maybe that's not the thing you should be saying.

Katie Dooley  49:28

What are you charging for?

Preston Meyer  49:31

Right? I mean, basically, he's standing here saying, either you don't exist, or you do but nothing else does. So you got nothing to worry about. Which I mean, it may be an extreme interpretation of those words, but that feels really weird when you say there's nothing that needs to be influenced. You're either saying there is no disease at all, or it's not a problem and there is a disease and it is a problem. It's frustrating. And at least 50 Christian scientists have been charged with murder after the children died of very preventable illnesses. Now, of course, it's not first-degree murder that requires premeditation. And the situation is a little premeditated, but not to the degree where it actually counts as premeditated murder.

Katie Dooley  50:29

Then it would be manslaughter in Canada.

Preston Meyer  50:30

Exactly.

Katie Dooley  50:31

Where I think it's third-degree murder in the States is our manslaughter. 

Preston Meyer  50:35

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  50:37

LDS!

Preston Meyer  50:39

Yeah, the LDS tradition is a much healthier place relative to this issue. I'll admit it's a mixed bag, there are a lot of converts to the church who come from a wide variety of backgrounds. A lot of people have believed that you really should just pray and not see a doctor when something is wrong. That if you're having mental health problems, or physical health problems, pray about it, eat your vitamins, get your essential oils, and maybe talk to the bishop for counselling. Most of those are not very good choices, including the last one, your bishop is very seldom a properly trained therapist. But there are cases where he is, and he deserves to be paid for that.

Katie Dooley  51:31

But talk about these elder blessings, because I've heard about it in passing, just being your friend.

Preston Meyer  51:36

Yeah? So while there are encouragement to seek medical attention, there is also encouragement to get a blessing from an elder of the church comes with an anointing of virgin olive oil, and all that fun stuff. And typically, we laid- lay hands on somebody's head and give a blessing of whatever is needed. Very often, there's a promise that you'll be healed. But this does not take the place of seeking medical attention. It is very explicitly stated over the pulpit regularly from the very top that it should not take the place of seeking medical attention.

Katie Dooley  52:17

Well, that's good.

Preston Meyer  52:18

Yeah. Even though some people have a hard time with that. Spectrum! No, church is monolithic. I've given lots of blessings, and that's not because I believe that it's going to fix everything and that you need to go, just pray afterwards. No, sometimes you should get medical attention, depending on what the situation is. Yeah, I don't know. The president of the Church throughout the COVID crisis was a world-renowned heart surgeon, we've got a serious commitment to actually making sure people are healthy, that we can stick around for a long time. The Latter-Day Saints are in some communities longer lived than average. So

Katie Dooley  53:01

Because you don't drink do drugs or anything!

Preston Meyer  53:03

I mean, that's probably a bigger contri-contributor, though, we have our own vices. There's a there's an awful lot of Latter Day Saints who eat a lot more sugar than they ought to.

Katie Dooley  53:15

That's gonna say from the ones I know. Yes. You all feel personally attacked now, I'm so sorry!

Preston Meyer  53:25

But to be fair, the entirety of North American culture with a handful of specific localized exceptions, we eat way more sugar than we really should. So are Mormons to stand out there? Not so much.

Katie Dooley  53:40

Well Okay! Seventh Day Adventists. Again, another Christian denomination, they are typically vegetarians.

Preston Meyer  53:49

Pretty often.

Katie Dooley  53:50

And so they're comfortable with seeking medicine and modern medical and health practices, but they have know, have been known to prefer holistic medicine, kind of in line with that vegetarian thing. So they've been known to follow holistic medicine, which is a phrase that has been used by people who oppose medical treatment, but good doctors also talk about the necessity of keeping the whole body healthy, which is holistic. So

Preston Meyer  54:18

yeah. Dr. Mike even talks about it sometimes.

Katie Dooley  54:22

Is that the YouTube one? 

Preston Meyer  54:23

yeah,

Katie Dooley  54:24

That's kind of cute? 

Both Hosts  54:25

Yeah.

Preston Meyer  54:26

He's a handsome man.

Katie Dooley  54:27

He's very handsome. An Adventist family hit the news in 2014 for failing to get their son proper medical care after being diagnosed with rickets. 

Preston Meyer  54:36

You don't hear about rickets very often!

Katie Dooley  54:38

That's what Tiny Tim had or they speculated it, it's not actually written the book.

Preston Meyer  54:42

I mean, it's it's a work of fiction, so

Katie Dooley  54:45

and then in it's always sunny.

Preston Meyer  54:48

Rickety Cricket!

Katie Dooley  54:49

Rickety Cricket!

Preston Meyer  54:52

Yeah, you know, but, I mean, we put vitamin D in so many things now. 

Katie Dooley  54:56

Yes

Preston Meyer  54:57

Like we encourage children to have cereal with a bowl of milk and all of our milk that you get at the grocery store today has vitamin D in it.

Katie Dooley  55:05

Yeah. So rickets is preventable with vitamin D. 

Preston Meyer  55:07

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  55:08

So, yeah, it's pretty easy to get. So that's really bad.

Preston Meyer  55:13

Pretty easy to not get rickets.

Katie Dooley  55:15

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty easy to get vitamin D Yeah, it really is not easy to get, rickets. So it must be known that they got sucked into the anti medi-medic trap despite warnings from their church.

Preston Meyer  55:30

Yeah, this is not a normal thing within this religious community. There there is even a network of Seventh Day Adventists hospitals where they actually perform real medicine. So it's, it's weird to see this kind of news hit where a family within this religious community just doesn't want to get involved in medicine.

Katie Dooley  55:31

Yep. Now we've been pretty hard on Christians. This episode, specific Christian denominations. 

Preston Meyer  56:03

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  56:04

Spectrum, we know it's not all Christians. But

Preston Meyer  56:06

one, it's not even all people within the dominant denominations we've talked about.

Katie Dooley  56:10

Right, like I said...

Preston Meyer  56:12

Nothing is monolithic.

Katie Dooley  56:13

Yes, so on your deathbed, if you need a blood transfusion, you might change your mind real fast! And people have. 

Preston Meyer  56:19

Yeah!

Katie Dooley  56:19

But we also see it in other religions.

Preston Meyer  56:22

Yeah, the Hindu tradition is kind of interesting, where generally speaking, medicine is favorably talked about. In fact, when we talked about Hinduism, in our introductory episode, there is a whole part of their religious philosophy that deals with different kinds of medicine. How that translates to the modern things can get a little bit fuzzy. But generally speaking, it's pretty positive, because the Vedas were written 1000s of years ago. But it's kind of cool. But there is, of course, a lot of prejudice against doctors from overseas coming to North America. Do they live up to the same medical standards? Investigation always has to go into it, and they usually end up becoming taxi drivers or literally anything else that's easy to get into. Because getting into the doctor's office again, it's really complicated. 

Katie Dooley  57:12

Yeah, there needs to be some better international cooperation there. Because

Preston Meyer  57:17

well, and we do have some doctors who make it and become doctors here

Katie Dooley  57:20

Oh absolutely! 

Preston Meyer  57:20

-relatively quickly. But it's yeah, it's not 100% thing. It's really frustrating. And the interesting thing that I think is worth bringing up here is that while they're cool with medicine, they actually do have an issue as... If they're really into their Hindu faith. Of they have an issue with using animal products in their medicine! Any animal juices! 

Katie Dooley  57:27

Gelatin often quite-

Preston Meyer  57:47

Yeah, we use a lot of different animals stuff in our medicine, which sounds really weird until you actually know a lot about it. And it's like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a natural choice. I'm not an expert. I just trust the people who are.

Katie Dooley  57:59

Fair.

Preston Meyer  58:00

Sihks follow the same Hindu principles. This comes with the whole vegan vegetarian thing that care for the animals. It's not about keeping the body, non animal keeping it pure. It's about respect for the animals. So of course, our First Nations people here in North America are more positive about using the whole animal respecting the animal, but take what you need, and be responsible and respectful with what's left make find a use for it, if you can. So really different way of looking at the world there. Yeah, Islam is interesting that they have similar restrictions to Sikhs and Hindus, but not the same. That you absolutely cannot use any material that comes from swine. swine is haram. But animal products from cows, for example, is fine.

Katie Dooley  58:53

Medical Products from cows. Yes, you said animal products from cows. Which that's true, that is not untrue! 

Preston Meyer  58:59

It's not what i meant-

Katie Dooley  59:00

Its not specific enough

Preston Meyer  59:01

medical products in cows. So I thought that was really interesting. Because you would be haram if you were part pig, I guess. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm haram anyway. According to their laws.

Katie Dooley  59:14

I mean, yeah, I own a dog so

Preston Meyer  59:17

Oh yeah, there you go. 

Katie Dooley  59:17

Already

Preston Meyer  59:18

Troubles.

Katie Dooley  59:19

Yeah.

Preston Meyer  59:21

Of course, there are exceptions life or death emergencies are validation enough to ignore these prohibitions. Of course, there are a lot more available here in the West, where there's not preexisting prohibitions. Some people like their books more than they like their children. So

Katie Dooley  59:38

I was gonna make sassy comment, but I will refrain for once. I like books better than children. I said it, I said it.

Preston Meyer  59:47

That's fair, but they're not your children.

Katie Dooley  59:49

That's true and I have no interest.

Preston Meyer  59:51

Do you like your books more than Paige?

Katie Dooley  59:53

No, I would save Paige in a fire but not my books. 

Preston Meyer  59:55

See? That's how it goes.

Katie Dooley  59:57

Fair

Preston Meyer  59:58

And that feels like the right choice. 

Katie Dooley  59:59

Thank you! 

Preston Meyer  1:00:00

And Paige isn't even human.

Katie Dooley  1:00:03

But she is real!

Preston Meyer  1:00:04

Yes. She is real!

Katie Dooley  1:00:06

She's a little dog. Yeah, I'll post the picture in Discord just 'cause I like her.

Preston Meyer  1:00:11

Yup. And a few years ago, I heard this great poem from Tim Minchin who we actually mentioned ever so briefly in a, in our most recent interview episode. Storm is the name of the poem by Tim Minchin, and this, this little snippet is just perfect. "Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine!" And that's the deal. It's, I can't think of any better way to explain it. I couldn't get a doctor to say it in a more beautiful way

Katie Dooley  1:00:49

Judas would say something like that... Yeah, so we were pretty hard on people today. But that's okay.

Preston Meyer  1:00:59

That's okay. I don't think we've alienated anybody. 

Katie Dooley  1:01:02

No I think it's, I mean, that's why we exist, is to have conversations about religion, and maybe push some boundaries on beliefs, because no group will get better if we don't.

Preston Meyer  1:01:16

Right. Whether you're Christian, Buddhist, or just really into snails, or atheist. Generally, the best way to run through this life is by caring about each other as people and wanting the best for each other. And that means saving lives when we can in the effective ways through proven methods.

Katie Dooley  1:01:42

You know, what, everyone? In addition to following us on Discord and our Instagram and Facebook this week, I encourage you all to go and donate some blood!

Preston Meyer  1:01:53

I think that's the best civic thing that we can all handle. Unless, of course,

Katie Dooley  1:02:01

unless you can't. 

Preston Meyer  1:02:01

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  1:02:04

You can also support us on our Patreon, where we have early release and bonus episodes and our book club. Thank you to patron Lisa for supporting our podcast. And if the subscription model is not your thing, you can also check out our spread shop where we have some amazing Holy Watermelon merch to make you look fancy in this new year.

Preston Meyer  1:02:26

Thanks for joining us! 

Both Hosts  1:02:27

Peace be with you!

There might be nothing more American than the emergence of Capitalist Jesus and the Prosperity Gospel. This episode explores the men behind the phenomenon, and the scriptural passages that are abused to defend it. 

Not all Pentecostal Christians fall into this trap, but these pastors have millions of followers around the world. Many of them are fundamentalists in some ways, though radically anti-scriptural in other (more important) ways.

Mesmerism and the New Thought Movement are significant stones in this foundation, and Televangelism--especially the Word of Faith ministries--has brought a global audience to these hateful preachers, including Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, and Creflo Dollar. 

Oral Roberts led a tremendous empire, including a whole university (more successful than Trump's), and he was the personal mentor of Kenneth Copeland, who raised big money for Angel Flight 44, only to refuse to fly relief to Haiti. Of course there are high profile prostitution scandals, and preachers who later admit that they've never taken the time to read the Bible until they were locked up with nothing but time and their 'favorite book' after fraud convictions. Some of these men will demand you go into debt to pay tithes, others later claim that tithing isn't biblical (Creflo Dollar).

All of these preachers, and more, are comfortable asking you to fund their lavish lifestyle, while their fancy words let them off the hook for any return on your investment. Senate financial probes, and fraud charges aren't enough to protect the most vulnerable people among us. Only education can fix this problem; Holy Watermelon is here to help.

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

In this episode, we also mentioned John Oliver's take on televangelists, and PreachersNSneakers

In this episode, we interview Jack Hopewell, who stars as Jesus Christ in the 50th Anniversary Tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. 

When Jesus Christ Superstar came out 50 years ago, it was controversial: the musical doesn’t depict the resurrection, it's sympathetic to Judas, it takes the position of predestination (Judas was required to betray Jesus). While the controversy has died down in the last 50 years, some audience members still get their feathers ruffled. 

Jack Hopewell speaks with us about his Roman Catholic upbringing, how he brings humanity to the character of Jesus Christ, and the physical and mental toll of performing the Passion eight times a week. Jack also gives us an insider's look at how such an emotional and physical production is done consistently and impressively in theatres all across North America. 

Katie (our resident atheist and Broadway nerd) considers Jesus Christ Superstar to be one of her favourite musicals. What makes this musical accessible to religious and non-religious alike?

Whether you’re interested in theology or in a behind-the-scenes peek at what it’s like to be part of a major Broadway tour, this is an interview you don't want to miss.

You can watch the uncut video of this interview on YouTube

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Find Jack Hopewell on Instagram , YouTube, and his official website

Check out Jesus Christ Superstar on Instagram, YouTube, and their official website 

Transcript:

Preston Meyer  0:13  

Hi, Katie.  

Katie Dooley  0:14  

Hi, Preston. Happy New Year.  

Preston Meyer  0:16  

Happy New Year to you and to everybody. And happy new year to our special guest, Jack Hopewell.  

Jack Hopewell  0:24

Hey Happy to be here.  

Katie Dooley  0:26  

So on this episode of  

Both Hosts  0:29  

The Holy Watermelon Podcast

Preston Meyer  0:32  

It never really syncs up as well when we do it remotely. How did that sound to you, Jack?

Jack Hopewell  0:37  

Sounded great.  

Preston Meyer  0:39  

All right.

Katie Dooley  0:41  

Yeah. So we're joined by Jack Hopewell, which the musical theater nerd in me is way too excited for this. But Jack is playing Jesus Christ in the second national Broadway tour of the 50th anniversary of Jesus Christ Superstar.  

Jack Hopewell  0:57  

You folks saw me I think it was Edmonton or...

Katie Dooley  0:59  

I saw you in Edmonton on opening night. Yeah.  

Jack Hopewell  1:02  

That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. Good stuff.  

Preston Meyer  1:05  

I must admit, I'm not as big of a musical theater nerd as Katie is, but I do enjoy musicals. And when I went through the list of projects you've done, I was actually really quite surprised and pleased to see that you had played Snoopy a little while ago.  

Jack Hopewell  1:19  

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Big, big fan of You're Good Man, Charlie Brown. My two my two type casts God and then off the walls like animal. So Snoopy? Yeah. It works.  

Preston Meyer  1:34  

Rock on.  

Jack Hopewell  1:36  

Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.  

Katie Dooley  1:37  

That's awesome. So I mean, we start with all our podcasts and all our guests asking what your religious background is. What you were raised? What are you now? Because that will influence some of the questions we ask today.  

Jack Hopewell  1:49  

Yeah, absolutely. So I was raised Roman Catholic, I was born. Not all my family's Roman Catholic. But my my mom's side is, but a fun little fact. My, my grandfather was a Catholic priest, at one point. My grandmother was a Catholic nun, at one point. They left that service before meeting each other, I have to give that disclaimer, but they felt they were called to raise a family. So my, and my grandfather disagreed with some policies of Rome at the time. And so he received his papal dispensation had my had my mother, with my grandma. And, yeah, so I was raised Roman Catholic, I wouldn't say that I'm super practicing Roman Catholic, I still consider myself a Catholic, but more of a like salad bar Catholic, in which I pick and choose some of my beliefs and some of my attitudes. So yeah, that's, that's that's how I'd classify myself now as a as a semi-practicing Catholic with some disagreements towards the church, in certain areas.

Preston Meyer  2:57

I like that metaphor of the salad bar.  

Jack Hopewell  3:00

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Katie Dooley  3:04

I mean, I think most people are probably followed by religious.  

Jack Hopewell  3:07

Yes. Right. Right.  

Preston Meyer  3:09  

Generally speaking, belief is a tricky thing, though. Sometimes we, we feel like we just can't believe a thing that's presented to us. And sometimes, it's helpful to just hold on to the bigger thing while letting go of the little thing that we don't agree with. I think that's a healthy choice.

Jack Hopewell  3:31  

Thank you. Thank you.

Katie Dooley  3:33  

As you mentioned, you've played Jesus more than once. In this tour. Is there something I mean, now, you've told us you're Roman Catholic? Is there something about Jesus or the story that draws you to these roles?

Jack Hopewell  3:45  

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's in the simplest way, it's really it's really magnanimous, it's a magnanimous character. It's it's Jesus. You know, I mean, a simple answer is, I just keep getting cast. As Jesus, I, I was not surprisingly, seeking this, this tour out, I, it just kind of the, I ended up going to an audition. And this, you know, kind of ended up happening for me, but at the same time, I, I think, really what draws me to to play, Jesus is fleshing out and discovering his humanity. Because at the end of the day, even in looking at the Gospels, and in the really Biblical sense of Jesus, aside from being a god, he is human. And I just think it's fascinating to be able to play somebody whose personhood and godhood are almost diametrically opposed in that way. So it presents a challenge, and it's also really fulfilling at the same time.  

Preston Meyer  4:46  

So what would be your key to meeting both of those points together?

Jack Hopewell  4:50  

I mean, I find the more that I play the humanity the the godhood in playing Jesus, the godhood kind of presents itself. Because I think the more you know, the more human Jesus seems the more the more magnanimous his actions seem to be, I guess, if that makes sense. While he's, you know, in pain on the cross, fearful for his life and dying, you kind of take a step back and go, Oh, wow, he's sacrificing himself for us. So yeah, I guess that's, that's the way that I would try to make those to meet.

Preston Meyer  5:30

I like it.  

Thank you. Thank you.

Katie Dooley  5:33  

How does your How does being Roman Catholic affect how you approach the last days of Jesus?

Jack Hopewell  5:39  

Yeah, I mean, going back to the previous point, I think it motivates me to think about him playing in more than just the strictly Biblical sense. Because I was raised, I went to Catholic school for a bit. And I think a lot of people just have this notion of who Jesus is. And I feel while while they while people can feel really connected to the idea of the godly savior, Jesus, I think there's still a disconnect from who he really truly was. Which is a person, which is a human being as much as he was the son of God. So, yeah, I think thinking about my Catholic upbringing, really makes me wants to play into his humanity and his fears, his doubts. And, you know, it really, it helps me appreciate certain moments, a lot more, I think, like his, like his crucifixion, like his pleas in the Garden of Gethsemane. I mean, there's really, really big moments in which he has his doubts, which I think a lot of people gloss over. Even even Catholics or really religious people. And the the final text in in the show is is pretty accurate to the end of most of the Gospels in his seven phrases that he has, while he's dying on the cross. One of those being, you know, my God, why have you forsaken me? Or it's sometimes another, it's why have you forgotten me? Why have you abandoned me? It's like a rough transliteration from the Aramaic. But yeah, it's moments like that, where I'm like, Wow, I feel like these are really glossed over, even in Bible study. And I want to play into this, I want to play into his humanity and his flaws and his doubts. So, yeah,  

Preston Meyer  7:35  

So has the musical influenced your relationship with your faith at all?

Jack Hopewell  7:41  

Um,

Preston Meyer  7:43  

Or maybe even any other times you've played? Jesus? Let's open it up just a little bit more.  

Jack Hopewell  7:48  

Yeah, um, I guess, it's, I think beforehand, the idea of Christ was a bit more intangible for me. I think, especially, again, going back to being in Catholic school, you're just given this, like, you're just looking at this statue, this figure on a cross, this icon, and it's hard, as much as you're told to appreciate this sacrifice, and this you know, his actions and all that it's hard to truly appreciate it when you feel so disconnected from this iconography, I guess. And doing the show, and connecting with the humanity has really, I think, helped me connect with Jesus himself as a person, but also his message. His messages throughout the gospel of compassion, and forgiveness and love for one another at its base, you know, all of his all of his Beatitudes, I think, I've connected a lot more with that, because I can relate to it a bit more. It's coming from an actual figure, and actual person as opposed to this figure. So, yeah

Preston Meyer  9:07  

You didn't use different words, but I know what you mean.

Jack Hopewell  9:13  

This figure as opposed to this figure, yeah, right.  

Katie Dooley  9:16  

For our listeners. He's making arm gestures because the visual medium.

Jack Hopewell  9:23  

Forgot about that.  

Katie Dooley  9:23  

I know. We do that sometimes. Descriptive Video, right. Or Yeah,  right. How's the reception been to you playing Jesus from friends family?  

Jack Hopewell  9:36  

I mean, are you are you wondering from an audience a general audience perspective as well?  

Katie Dooley  9:39  

Or even? Yeah, yeah all of the above.

Jack Hopewell  9:42  

I mean, with family, it's been pretty positive. So far, a lot of them haven't seen it yet. And I'm a bit concerned for some of my more conservative family members. Because it's a bit of a bit of a progressive take on on the gospel. But that being said, family wise it's been, it's been positive. And audience wise, I'd say 95 to 99% of audiences have agreed with it. It's always been a controversial musical part, because there's a lot of reasons. But one of those big reasons is there's no resurrection depicted at the end of the show. And some Christians take great offense to that, because they feel that that is what this whole story is building up to. When really, I think it's a story about humanity. It's a story about the relationship between Jesus and Judas and two men that are, have everyone's best interests at heart, but are diametrically opposed in how they proceed with those goals. And so there have been some upset people, production does get some letters, here and there, about, you know, of them being upset about the resurrection, or about the way in which I'm crucified sometimes or, you know, things of that nature. But I'd say for the most part, people are really, really touched by this show, there really moved people that people of the faith and people that are not religious, they have seen lots of people from both sides of that coin moved to tears at the end of the show. It's it's very emotional, regardless of your religious beliefs, watching a man be crucified and sacrifice himself. It's, it's, it's a lot to take in. And I think, especially for those that are Christian and have those beliefs. It's, it's really visceral for them. And they're, they're very emotional by the end of it. And lots of them are, you know, you know, at the stage door in tears, like, Thank you. Thank you for this. That's, it's really sweet. It's really, it's really nice to see,  

Katie Dooley  12:03  

My mom didn't watch from 39 lashes onward.  

Jack Hopewell  12:06  

Oh!

Katie Dooley  12:08  

She was llike, I just looked around, and I was like, that's fine.  

Jack Hopewell  12:11  

Yeah. Was it was that more of a, like, not wanting to see the, the blood and everything else  

Katie Dooley  12:19  

Yeah neither of us like gore. And then she told me that you it's weird dreams when she's like about things in general. She was like, yeah, it wasn't gonna dream about that. I was like, that's fair.  

Jack Hopewell  12:30  

That's fair. I get it.

Preston Meyer  12:34  

I can appreciate the choice to not show the resurrection, in addition to keeping it more of a story of a man instead of a story of a god, that makes some sense. But also, Judas's experienced, according to the Gospels doesn't include any resurrection experience.  

Jack Hopewell  12:50  

Right.

Preston Meyer  12:50  

So it's just if it's more of a Judas story than a Peter story, that seems like a natural choice.  

Jack Hopewell  12:56  

Oh, and it is. And I, I'd say a lot of people, This story follows Judas even more as a as a protagonist, than I think it follows Jesus. And I love that, personally, and I may get people that disagree with me on this. But I do think that the traditional telling of the Judas story is a little bit a little too black and white. I don't I think people are more complex than that. And I think this show does a really beautiful job of portraying Judas as a man who has the right intentions but makes some mistakes along the way. And if you're going with the idea of predestination on certain things, I mean, there really wasn't a way for him to avoid doing what he was doing. He was destined and fated to do this. And I think the show asks that question, is that fair? Did he have the choice to do this? So  

Preston Meyer  13:52  

It's one of the great questions. There are some interpretations of the scripture that actually have Judas kind of not loving the position he's put in, as Jesus tells him, Hey, this is the role you're going to play. It's rough.  

Jack Hopewell  14:08  

Right? Well, and there's the question also, I've got I got into a heated discussion with somebody today about this, actually, whether or not Judas knew what was going to happen to Jesus when he turned him in. Because, at least in the show, and my personal interpretation, I don't think that Judas thought that Jesus was going to be murdered, murdered. I think, you know, talking to the to the priests, and everybody else, I think he was under the impression that Jesus is going to be turned in, removed from the public eye. Things are going to settle down a little bit. And because I think, at least in the show, Judas is very fearful of the mob rising up and becoming out of control. And then his people being oppressed even further by the Romans as a result. And so I think he thought it was in everybody's best interest. And also Jesus's best interest is worried about his health and safety, to remove him from the public eye, remove him as this icon. And I think he thought getting Jesus arrested was the solution to that. But then it gets out of control. He's beaten within an inch of his life and then crucified. And he, Judas, out of guilt, out of anger, out of rage out of all sorts of emotions, eventually takes his own life. So,  Katie Dooley  15:33  

I mean, it's not a happy story.

Jack Hopewell  15:35  

No, it's not by any stretch of the imagination is not but...  

Preston Meyer  15:40  

It's hard to imagine that with the relationship, they must have had, that Judas would have knowingly sent Jesus to his death.  

Jack Hopewell  15:48  

Right? That's what I that's, that's what I that's what I, what I feel what I believe, and I've had some people, because I think it's a somewhat traditional Christian, you know, education to be told though, Judas knew what he was doing. And he did this out of greed. And then he took his own life, because he felt guilt. He just felt guilt for what he did. And he realized what he did. But Judas is this evil character. And there's not really any redeeming qualities given about him. And I don't even think that's how Jesus would have wanted Judas to be remembered or recognized. So

Preston Meyer  16:27  

Yeah, the, the whole thing about Jesus that we get from the Gospels is that he's a loving, forgiving fella

Jack Hopewell  16:34  

Right?

Preston Meyer  16:37  

A moment of weakness like this is something relatively easy to forgive when you have a greater perspective.  

Jack Hopewell  16:42  

Exactly.

Katie Dooley  16:44  

While we're on the topic of the ending, other actors have spoken about how difficult it can be to get into a character, you know, read articles about playing Evan Hanson is very difficult. Is it difficult physically, mentally, to be crucified eight times a week or get lashed? Eight times 39 times  

Jack Hopewell  17:04  

1000, 1000%? It's yeah, it's not it's no easy task. I think. I mean, there's a lot of preparation for me that goes into it and doing all the things you should do hydrating, eating properly, and doing my little warm up before the show, in order to prepare my body and mind for the thing. But I think the most important for me is finding moments of levity and happiness throughout the show. You talk to other people backstage and I'm usually doing my best to you know, even as I'm being covered in blood and dirt and sweat and boot prints backstage before I come on for the lashes I'm dancin, I'm doing little dances with people getting getting prepped up. And then at the very last moment, I compose myself I take my Chekov breath, my get into my you know, hunched over, beaten, wounded position. And that is what I that is all I need to be able to get into that mind space. And then I go on with the lashes and the crucifixion and it's really physically and mentally taxing, but I've had those moments of happiness beforehand that I can hold on to and then immediately come back after but come back to afterwards. So  

Katie Dooley  18:29  

Awesome. And any like post show ritual besides shower? 

Jack Hopewell  18:34  

Yeah, I mean, the shower is honestly a big part of it, because I, I get that shower so hot that it like hurts. It is like steaming, and that just decompresses me so much. But then afterwards, now with the rest of the cast, I don't speak much and I don't drink or any of that. But, you know, if we're out I might be dancing in a corner doing a little doing a little jig silently. And if not that I usually decompress with some tea and a show. So, yeah, just kind of wind down for the night.

Katie Dooley  19:14  

It must be super tiring to live.

Jack Hopewell  19:17  

It's exhausting. It's exhausting. Yeah, and the travel is hard on top of it, you know, being in a different place all the time. But, but it's also fun. And I could do it while I'm young.

Katie Dooley  19:29  

I mean, yeah, that's the time to do it.  

Jack Hopewell  19:31  

Right. Exactly.  

Katie Dooley  19:33  

How much do those lashes suck?  

He doesn't. It's just glitter.  

Jack Hopewell  19:38  

Yeah, so I mean, it's still it's  

Preston Meyer  19:40  

But it's glitter.  

Jack Hopewell  19:41  

Yeah, right?  

Katie Dooley  19:42  

Have you gotten glitter in your eye? I was deeply concerned.

Jack Hopewell  19:46  

Yeah, yeah. All the time. In my mouth sometimes. Doing studies on like, microplastics in blood like I'm going to be I'm going to be like a shining example in in 20 years or so, but I yeah, I mean, it gets all over me. And I'm very safe the whole time. I never feel like I'm in danger or really in pain. But it is, it is an interesting position for me to be in to, like, have my arms over my, over my head and, you know, held on to buy a cable and be lashed and then have to physically react as though I'm being hit with with an actual whip. So it's uncomfortable, for sure. And I feel such a relief when I'm finally able to like fall and collapse to the ground.

Katie Dooley  20:37  

So that's real, that's not acting.

Jack Hopewell  20:39  

Oh, that's, that's 100% real. That's hardly, that's hardly acting at all. But I'm crawling across the stage. It's because I am. I'm beat I am beat. But yeah,  

Preston Meyer  20:51  

It's work to pretend that you're taking an injury?  

Jack Hopewell  20:54  

Oh, yeah. Well, because the whole the whole time. And this is, you know, something I learned, people that are in pain, your muscles are contracting, your muscles are contracting that whole time. And for me, a lot of that presents itself and me like doing a crunch, essentially, that entire time. And so I'm just doing a whole ab workout. And seeing, you know, thrown around and I can I can barely breathe by the end of it. So yeah,

Preston Meyer  21:23  

So you don't even need to hit the gym.

Jack Hopewell  21:26  

No exactly, exactly.

Katie Dooley  21:27  

I think how physical acting is. Especially when you're laying there. And you're like, This is amazing. And you just kind of get engrossed for 90 minutes.  

Jack Hopewell  21:37  

Right?  

Katie Dooley  21:37  

Then you're like, oh, wait, someone just did that. That's why I like theatre so much is like, you just did that for me! Great.  

Jack Hopewell  21:45  

Right. Well, yeah, thank you for saying that. Because it is. It's interesting. This roles really interesting to me because I was joking with somebody like it's it's a rock show. And like a rock concert until it's not. And I describe that, as it's, yeah, it's until it's really not. And for me that presents itself in very much like a vocal and, and acting show into a very physical show. And so, yeah, it's a fun challenge.  

Katie Dooley  22:18  

I was sitting with some ladies and they had no idea. They were like, we just like bought tickets to this. I was like, hold on to your butt because you're in, for a ride.

Jack Hopewell  22:29  

Yeah, the people that don't do that don't know anything about the show. Don't do research about the show beforehand. So that's wild to me. And that's those are some of the people that do get upset, I think, because they have an idea of what the show's gonna be about, because of its name. And then they that doesn't live up to their expectations. So they're a little bit disappointed by that. But yeah, that's it's always for the most part, though, it is really exciting. When the when those people have no idea what's going to happen. And they don't know anything about the show. When they see it. They're like, whoa, that's so cool. Yeah,  

Katie Dooley  23:05  

Sorry, back to the physical stuff. Do you have any battle stories? Any? Come on.  

Jack Hopewell  23:11  

Um, I mean, I do have a couple wounds here and there. I sometimes when I'm taking my post-show shower, I'll go to like, wipe off a bruise. And I'm like, oh, that's real. That's that's not makeup. That's or that's real blood. That's fun. I don't know how that doesn't happen all that much more the bruising than anything else. I guess it's you know, it's very physical show but I there was one time that our an understudy went on for our mob leader. So our original mob leader, I'm not sure who you saw that you were there but is Caroline Perry,

Katie Dooley  23:57  

Phenomenal, best I've ever seen.

Jack Hopewell  23:59  

Fantastic, incredible. And her the mob leader understudy Haley Huelsman, also an incredible, incredible dancer. And she she does such justice to the role but it was one of the first times she was on, and she's the one lashing me. If anyone lashes you it's very, I just love the idea that you know, the mob leader the leader of the mob is is the one lashing me It's so essentially all of these people are inflicting this pain upon me, but she's doing this for the first time and throwing so much glitter. Because it takes practice to know how much glitter you're supposed to throw on to me. And so she's just throwing massive handfuls on me and it's getting everywhere. It's getting all over me getting all over the stage. And that glitter when mixed with like, random precipitation from like the haze and then my blood that I'm just like, trailing everywhere. And everything else on that stage it is a slippery slippery mess. So the poor ensembles trying to do like dance this crazy, crazy number. They're, like, kind of slipping and sliding everywhere. I'm trying to crawl across the stage. And then I'm like, Whoa, you know, doing that whole thing. We're doing the flight where I'm being thrown around. And I'm genuinely just like, Spider Man slipping and sliding all over the place. So yeah, that was a fun time.

Spider Man musical. There's some real danger.  Yeah, right. Oh, true. Talk about talking about curse shows. Turn Off the Dark.

Preston Meyer  25:47  

Yeah. A little different. But so the very real danger for Jesus too

Jack Hopewell  25:54  

Right? Oh, go ahead.

Preston Meyer  25:57  

Sorry. Go ahead. No, I interrupted you

Jack Hopewell  25:58  

I think I have I have to say I've never once felt unsafe in the show. And our, our stage management team and all of our technical team do a fantastic job of making sure all of us are, like never in any danger. So never had truly any like Spiderman Turn Off The Dark moments. But

Preston Meyer  26:19  

Do you have a favorite song? Not necessarily one that you sing? Or maybe it is one that you sing?  

Jack Hopewell  26:25  

Yeah. It's hard for me to pick, I'd say if I can give you two answers in terms of ones I sing. There's a bit of a love hate relationship with it. But I love Gethsemane because it's Thank you. It's I so much of the show for me is is being the bigger person and the not revealing this grander plan that God and myself have for humanity. And some of that frustration comes out during the Last Supper and my argument with Judas. But finally, somebody has that moment where I'm able to really question God, why are you making me do this? There's most certainly another way for us to accomplish this. And you're giving me absolutely nothing. And so vocally it's it's, it's, it's a beast, but it's fun to sing. And it is an emotional roller coaster, acting wise and, like I've said a million times. It really showcases Jesus's humanity in his doubt of God, and himself and this grand plan. And then second answer, songs I don't sing Superstar. I love Superstar. It's I'm being thrown around the whole time. But Elvie Ellis plays Judas is incredible, he's just got one of the best voices I've ever heard. And he's singing the crap out of that song. And the whole ensemble is dancing for their lives. And it really feels like the number that this whole show has been building towards. And for me, it's terrifying. Because this mob that was you know, half an hour ago, singing my praises is now hell bent on destroying me. And the choreography and the way it staged really shows that and it it. It's it's really a song. I feel like in part about the birth of zealotry and fanatical faith around Jesus as they're putting me up on the cross. So yeah, I love it.  

Katie Dooley  28:46  

Speaking of speaking of Gethsemane I was my parents went on Saturday, which is also really cool because my parents are 70. So my parents saw it 50 years ago. 

Jack Hopewell  28:57  

Oh, that's awesome.  

Katie Dooley  28:58  

My mom saw the first international tour in Denmark.  

Jack Hopewell  29:02  

That's awesome

Katie Dooley  29:03  

Of all places. So yeah, they went on the Saturday. And then I had dinner with my parents and my dad had been like, singing it all week. And my mom was like, "You got to stop him". And I was like, No, we're gonna listen to the soundtrack instead. And we listened to the 1996 West End version and my dad was  

Jack Hopewell  29:20  

with Steve Balsamo right.

Katie Dooley  29:22  

But my dad was like, they were better on the weekend.

Jack Hopewell  29:26  

Awe! That's, that's one of my favorite versions too. So that's That's high praise. That's super sweet.  

Katie Dooley  29:34  

I mean, he's as much of a theater critic as I can be. But I'll pass it along um,

Jack Hopewell  29:39  

thank you. Thank you.  

Katie Dooley  29:41  

We talked a little bit about you getting the complaints concerns about there being no resurrection we know when it came out in the 70s. It was super controversial. I think a lot of that was partially how they portrayed Judas. What do you think Jesus Christ Superstar means to audiences today, 50 years later?

Jack Hopewell  30:01  

I mean, I think, at least for Christians, I think people are a lot more willing today to accept a more nuanced interpretation of the gospel than they were 50 years ago. I think people are less beholden to strict doctrine. And like, rote biblical beliefs, and they were half a century ago. So I think, I think a modern version of the show is, it really speaks to people. I think people really resonate not just with the style that the show is put on, you're reimagined for our modern era. Because as a side tangent, I think some people get a little disconnected from the some of the productions where it's, you know, set in Nazareth, and it's like period clothing and things like that. So I think people are able to connect with the modern staging and telling of it, but also, I think it's, I think it's moving for people and people connect with it, because it's nuanced. And like I said, before, people are less beholden to strict doctrine. So yeah,  

Preston Meyer  31:17  

So the one that I've seen most recently had Tim Minchin playing Judas.  

Jack Hopewell  31:22  

Yep.

Preston Meyer  31:23  

Pretty famously atheist.  

Jack Hopewell  31:25  

Yeah. The stadium tour, I think.

Preston Meyer  31:27  

Yeah. And is there a nice variety of believers and non believers in the current cast?  

Jack Hopewell  31:34  

Most definitely. Yeah. There's, there's a fair number of Christians in the show. There's a number of Buddhists in the show, atheists, agnostics all over the place. So there's a wide, I'd say, a wide range of beliefs in in the cast.  

Preston Meyer  31:52  

Cool. Does that come into play in the way you interact with each other at all?

Jack Hopewell  31:57  

Yeah, I, I think so at the top of the show, some of us will have, you can frame it, we have an open invitation could frame it as a prayer or just like a breathing circle, to get ready for the show, be together, and have this almost spiritual connection with each other before we go on this 90 minute marathon. And I I think, regardless of your of the person's belief systems, they can connect with this human story that's taking place they can, they can connect with the community that's forming on the stage, whether that's around this man, Jesus Christ in supporting him or suddenly not supporting him. So I think regardless, the show's been really, really great in helping us form a really diverse community among cast.

Katie Dooley  33:05  

So, to that point, and this is something I really wondered about a lot is that the arts have always been a really inclusive space. So how do how is it playing in a musical in a religion that's been exclusionary? Historically?  

Jack Hopewell  33:20  

Yeah. Well, I think, going back to the idea of doctrine, I think Christianity at its core is not an exclusionary, prac-, an exclusionary religion, I think what's been exclusionary has been organized religion, that's, it's always been the case that you know, what you'd take, these people will take the faith in its purest form, and then create an aristocracy around it, and then push people out, control people with it, and when, and that just completely forgets Jesus's original teachings. And I think that's part of the why part of the reason I've been somewhat disillusion from organized religion, and more, so just leaned back on what I believe Christian faith is. So I guess, to your to your question about, you know, inclusivity, and art and then inclusivity, and religion, I think, because this is more of a nondenominational show, in terms of its telling of the Gospels. I think it works really well in terms of inclusivity because it's, it's teaching those original, those original Gospel teachings, and it's incorporating some really high art at the same time. So,

Preston Meyer  34:42  

yeah. A lot of people really like making rules for other people.

Jack Hopewell  34:47  

Yeah.

Preston Meyer  34:48  

And I think the closest that Andrew Lloyd Webber gets in this, apart from showing the Pharisees being just awful occasionally, is writing a script, which you kind of need for a play anyway, but in doing so he remembers that Jesus wants people to love each other. That's the number one rule.  

Jack Hopewell  35:07  

Right?  

Preston Meyer  35:08  

Easy enough to get on board with.  Exactly, exactly. And I think people forget. I don't think, I know people forget that when Jesus preaches love for your neighbor. That means everyone that not like your as soon as you start saying, or using religion to exclude a set of people, because you don't think that they agree with your way of living or the your fundamental beliefs and you've you've, yeah you've lost the faith. So, yeah,  

Katie Dooley  35:44  

I saw great posts on Instagram, on our Holy Watermelon Instagram said, Jesus said, Love your neighbor, not love your religion.

Jack Hopewell  35:51  

Ding ding ding.

Katie Dooley  35:54  

I mean, art and theater are always pushing boundaries. And Jesus Christ Superstar has always been a modern interpretation.  

Jack Hopewell  36:00  

For sure,  

Katie Dooley  36:00  

Even  50 years ago, do you think this like super modern version is helping introduce it to new audiences? And does it allow you to push boundaries even further?

Jack Hopewell  36:12  

Absolutely. I mean, I spoke about that a little bit previously, I think people are able to connect with the non-period version of the show a little bit better. Because I think, at least for me, sometimes or for audiences, sometimes it's hard to make connections to modern life with something that is rigidly set in a in a pure time period. That's so far back, it's easier to kind of make parallels and connections with something that feels more modern. And so this, this ancient story that is still very applicable today is now reskined a bit, and people can connect with it a little bit more. And it does allow us to push boundaries a little bit. I mean, there I don't want to say pop culture references almost in it. But I think, you know, in certain numbers, there's, I think of Herod's number, for example, which is done in drag. And that's not, I don't think something that you would be able to do 50 years ago, let alone with, with a classical telling or interpretation of Jesus Christ Superstar. And so I really, I really appreciate how the show is able to do things like that, and push boundaries in that way, have all sorts of different characters. So, yeah, 

Preston Meyer  37:45  

So we're all young enough that we can hope to be around for the 100th anniversary tour, do you think that some of the language might end up being adjusted?  

Jack Hopewell  37:55  

Interesting. I mean, it's, it's very possible, the language is the language and the lyrics have adapted since 50 years ago, not by a lot, because I gotta be honest what Tim Rice wrote, for the show is incredible. It's so good, it's some of the best him and Andrew Lloyd Webber produced some of the best source material anybody could ask for. But it's adapted a little bit, make it mesh a little bit more. Lyrically, and, and for for performance. So I think there might be minor adjustments a little bit, but I don't think at the end of the day, it's going to be anything too wild, it's just going to be similar to 50 years ago, a word change here and there, you know, for example, 50 years ago, and in Gethsemane the line was, God thy Will is hard, but you hold every card, and now it's God, thy will be done. Take your only son. So I think it's an improvement. So I think I think it'll be I think the language won't stray too much from its original message, but I think there'll be there'll be lyrical changes here and there. So  

Preston Meyer  39:03  

You don't think we'll ever get rid of the thees and thys?

Jack Hopewell  39:07  

I don't think so. I don't think so. Although, I'm trying to think because that's it. I've never really thought about that until you brought that up. That's that's, I think the only time that a thy or thou is ever used in the show, because a lot of the a lot of the language is so is so contemporary. So but I think that's really cool that that moment has that in that more archaic biblical language because in that moment, Jesus is assuming his role. And you see this in the production he I go from having a man bun and this like very this bomber jacket and high top sneakers to a robe and sandals. My hair's a little bit more down to eventually my hair is down and I have fully assumed this Jesus role. And I think that that is I think that that thy is is probably important in assuming that. So

Preston Meyer  40:06  

I think it fits with the image pretty well.

Jack Hopewell  40:08  

Yeah, I think so too.  

Katie Dooley  40:09  

I also noticed that Judas doesn't call it a concubine anymore.

Jack Hopewell  40:15  

Yeah. Yes. Because originally the you're probably thinking of the '96 version of the Yeah, great. It's a great version. The originally the line was that a man like you could waste his time on women of her kind. '96 they changed it to man, like, you could waste his time on such a concubine. Now it has now it's back to women of her kind. And I feel like that's, for me at least, like concubine is definitely biting. But it's the women of her kind. So Oh, that's such a biting phrase. Another change that I am so happy for Ciaphas has a line during this Jesus must die. "One thing I'll say for him, Jesus is cool". Which is us? It's so it's so corny. And the best way like it just fits the tone of that song so well, and they changed it. I think in the 96 version, it's infantile servants the multitude grows or something along those lines. But are the multitude drools something along something along those lines, but it's back to one thing I'll say for him, Jesus is cool. Which I am so happy for.

Katie Dooley  41:35  

Yeah, that I mean, that is pretty modern language.  

Jack Hopewell  41:39  

So good. So good.  

Katie Dooley  41:42  

In one of our very first episodes, we talked about pop culture as religion, or it's called para-religion where people get so into their thing that it could be considered worship. What are you super, super nerdy about?

Jack Hopewell  41:56  

That's a good question. Um, I am very much a sci-fi nerd. Also fantasy nerd. But I really nerd about nerd out about sci fi, particularly the Dune series. That's always been a big like Frank Herbert's Dune has always been very big. Ever since I was young. My parents introduced me to that. And I, I just, I just really have loved the Dune books. I love the movie that came out. I thought it was I thought it was a really good interpretation of the books. But yeah, I just think it's, it's held up so well. And in terms of discussions about religion, ecology, about colonialism, and all sorts of other themes. I think it's just a really, really solid series.  

Katie Dooley  42:46  

Yeah.

Preston Meyer  42:47  

And good reasons to like it.

Jack Hopewell  42:49  

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I even one of my tattoos is of the desert mouse. From that series. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's it's, it's it's solid. It I think it I think it's I think it's a book that most people should should read. I think it's more topical today than it was back in the 50s when it came out. So.  

Katie Dooley  43:09  

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. The movie was good. I'm excited for the second half of that. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  43:15  

I really enjoyed it. I think that picked a weird place to break it relative to the way they've broken it before, but just feel good.  

Jack Hopewell  43:21  

Yeah. I'm um I yeah, right. Where it ends right after the sorry, spoilers for anybody who hasn't seen it, but it came out month's ago it's what Yeah, where it ended right after the duel with Jamis. I was, I was like, little little bit of whiplash there. But yeah,  

Katie Dooley  43:41  

I'm excited for the next one, be some of our listeners. And I also want to know what, what your day in the life of a Broadway superstar is, like.  

Jack Hopewell  43:50  

It's not always super exciting. I have to say, at least for myself, I've been working on it, my sleep schedule is terrible. So it's been a lot of getting up at like 11. And eventually getting out of bed by like, 1130, maybe getting brunch by that point. And then a lot of the time, especially when we're in a new city, our cast mates and our crew will, will go out and explore things, whether that's a restaurant, or we go to a museum, or a zoo, or go on a hike or something like that. We try to do that a lot of the time. And then it's I should preface this with saying I'm usually warming up throughout the day for this show, vocally. But then about two hours before the show I'm doing a more intensive warm up and usually steaming my voice voice with a with a personal steamer. And then by 45 minutes before the show. I'm at the theater. I do a fight call for that massive fight at the end I'll do a lift call sometimes if we're in a new city where the ensemble practices lifting me in the new space. And then half hour to show I get my costume, get my makeup put on somebody comes does my hair and that super tight man bun and then by 15 before show, I'm usually ready to go get myself psyched up might have a little bit of an energy drink right before going on. And then that's done. We'll come back from the hotel, and then or from the show to the hotel. Sometimes I'll get dressed up to go out, but usually I'm just like staying in sweats or something like that, and maybe going out, get something to eat. Or sitting with friends watching a movie, and then eventually falling asleep. The wee small hours of the morning. So yeah,

Katie Dooley  45:46  

I'm sorry, the weather was so shitty here because Edmonton's actually it's pretty cool.

Jack Hopewell  45:50  

It's okay, I had a blast exploring it. And I love the snow. I won't lie, it was freezing. But but I had a blast like walking around in the snow and finding things. I had some great food, had some great food. And I went to the we went to the West Edmonton Mall that was wild, the biggest mall I've ever been to, put like every American mall to shame  

Katie Dooley  46:18  

It used to be the biggest mall in the world. And then China built like four that were

Jack Hopewell  46:21  

Gotcha. Gotcha. I believe it. I was like there is a whole waterpark in here. There's a there's but it's a really well designed mall too. Because it I was like, Oh, I feel like I'm gonna get overwhelmed very easily. Because I do get overwhelmed in malls. And I wasn't overwhelmed. And it felt very manageable and walkable for as big of a mall as it was. So that was cool.

Katie Dooley  46:45  

Well, that's good because it was balls cold when you were here, and it's balls cold now.

Jack Hopewell  46:51  

I still had the I still had the weather widget for Edmonton brought up and I saw negative negative 11 this morning. And I was like, okay, that's Fahrenheit. It's  yeah, it's Fahrenheit. Sorry. Yeah.  

Katie Dooley  47:03  

Yeah, it's minus 25. Today, I think

Preston Meyer  47:07  

it's a cold one.

Katie Dooley  47:10  

Yeah, that's awesome. I can't imagine living on that sleep schedule, because I'm a morning person, even like going to the show and it ending at. What time did it start? It started at eight and ending at 930. I was like, this is past my bed time.

Jack Hopewell  47:21  

Yeah. Right? A lot of us like the night's young after that show. So sometimes, I will just like go and pass out. If it's like been a really long week, but usually on like two show days, I'm like, Okay, I'm not. I'm not not going out after this. But yeah.

Preston Meyer  47:41  

Yeah, I'm more of a night owl. The schedule works for me. So is there any part of the show that you find to be a real challenge to do consistently night after night?

Jack Hopewell  47:56  

Yeah, I mean, crucifixion, it's really hard, emotionally. And I have to, I have to be careful not to get myself into a place where I, you know, am really methoding it and believing that I am actually, you know, dying. Because that's not a safe place to live in. But even, you know, using different training methods and I mentioned, Chekov breathing before, like, I, I'm a big fan of Michael Chekhov, and his psychological gestures, in terms of acting technique, and using that kind of breathing and physicality helps me to feel those emotions, but not sink too deep into them that I like, can't get back out of it when I need to. So that's helped a lot. But it's still really difficult. Because it's to, to breathe like that, and to contort my body like that and to scream in agony like that. While I found a way to be sustainable with it, it, it takes a lot out of me. And it's hard. And it's it's agonizing, sometimes emotionally, to be crying out for my mother and to be asking why I've been forsaken, and all of that, but so I'd say that's probably one of the more difficult things to do night after night. But thankfully, I'm navigating it in a way that I think, is keeping me safe emotionally. So  

Preston Meyer  49:29  

That's important.  

Jack Hopewell  49:30  

Thank you. Yeah, I think so too.  

Katie Dooley  49:32  

Could you explain the Chekov breathing techniques for people who don't know? Because I don't?  

Jack Hopewell  49:36  

Yeah, yeah. So Michael Chekov is a is an acting teacher and has the Chekov philosophy from a la-- I think he's one of the original Stanislavski students. So a lot of it is rooted in Stanislavski and using your own experiences to inform your your acting but for Chekov specifically, and this is different. Michael Chekhov, I should say is different from Anton Chekhov and the you know, all of that that playwright but it a lot of it has to do with physicality and the way you breathe. And it's the idea that if you assume the physicality, or the breath of the character that you are portraying, that will help inform your emotions. And your not only your physical response, but your emotional response to it. So there's psychological gestures that Chekov talks about in his book. And those, those can help portray different different actions and ways you're trying to communicate with people or how you're currently feeling. So there's things like what I do before I go on for the temple scene, I smash, and I do a large motion in which I am moving down with a lot of force and having a quick breath, as opposed to before I'm on for the for the lashes and the trial. I am in my I'm in my cuffs, and I do a ringing what Chekov would call a ring, where I take the breath into myself, and I contract a little bit and everything gets very tight and inward. And I can barely breathe, but I've taken the breath into myself and it's at that moment that I'm ready to go on and experience pain for the next 15 minutes. So yeah,

Katie Dooley  51:33  

cool.  That's awesome.

Jack Hopewell  51:36  

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, no, people don't usually ask about that. So it's fun to talk about.  

Katie Dooley  51:42  

Yeah, I like I said, I watch it, but I don't have any talent. So

Jack Hopewell  51:48  

I'm sure that's not true. I'm positive. That's not true.

Katie Dooley  51:52  

Well I just listened to our upcoming episode to proof it, and I do rap a couple lines of Hamilton.  

Jack Hopewell  51:58  

Oh, incredible. Excited to listen.

Katie Dooley  52:04  

Yeah, Preston tolerates me. So

Preston Meyer  52:06  

we won't subject you to any voice tryouts today.  

Katie Dooley  52:09  

Yeah, Preston was like, don't think he might sign off the call.

Preston Meyer  52:16  

Is there a question that you wish people would ask in interviews that never gets asked?  

Jack Hopewell  52:22  

I mean, honestly, I was going to, usually my response to that would be in terms of this show, like, what are your thoughts on Judas? But you guys asked, you asked me, like Judas came up. We talked about it. So trying to think other than other than Juda

Preston Meyer  52:52  

So nothing on the top of your head?

Jack Hopewell  52:54  

Yeah, nothing off the top of my head. But I'm gonna say I'm gonna say for the most part, what people usually never asked about is my relationship with Judas and whether or not I think that Judas knew what he was doing, or whether or not honestly, people never asked whether I think Judas is the bad guy. And I don't think he is. I don't think he's a bad guy at all. And I think he's human being. I don't think he's perfect. I think he's flawed, just like Jesus is. But yeah, I think he's a man who thought he was doing right. And wasn't.  

Katie Dooley  53:30  

Judas is just as big a part of Jesus Christ Superstar as Jesus Christ. Yeah. So I agree. I think it's important to have this interpretation of him. Anything else? Preston?  

Preston Meyer  53:46  

I got nothing else on my mind at the moment. Is there anything else in your mind Jack Do you want to bring forward before we finish this?

Jack Hopewell  53:53  

Other than if you want to, if you want to check out our show, you can follow us on any of our socials. Usually, the tag is Jesus Christ Superstar. It might be like JCS musical on Twitter. But for most, for most platforms, it's Jesus Christ Superstar. Our website for the tour is you can go to UStour.jesuschristsuperstar.com There you can find a lot of our bios and get tickets for the show, see where we're going next. Find photos things like that. And for me personally can find me on most platforms usually @JackHopewell or jackhopewell.com. So

Preston Meyer  54:35  

Awesome we will be sure to include all of those in our show notes. 

Jack Hopewell  54:39  

Thank you. Thank you.  

Katie Dooley  54:40  

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy touring schedule to 

Jack Hopewell  54:44  

of course. Thank you for having me

Preston Meyer  54:47  

It was a pleasure to have you join us.

Katie Dooley  54:50  

And then for the Holy Watermelon Preston.

Preston Meyer  54:53  

We've got our merch shop on SpreadShop. We've got Discord for great religious discussions, some great memes were pretty safe space for religious humour. We've got Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and of course Patreon for those of us who want to support us and get a little extra content out of us.  

Katie Dooley  55:16  

Absolutely. And with that

Both Hosts  55:19  

Peace be with you!