The Tim Ahlman Podcast
The Tim Ahlman Podcast is your go-to resource for inspiring conversations that equip leaders to thrive in every vocation, inside and outside the church. With three primary focuses, this podcast dives deep into:
Leadership: Learn from experts across diverse fields as we explore how their insights can shape and sustain a healthy culture in the local church and beyond. Over 60% of listeners expressed a desire for practical discussions on cultivating thriving environments—and that's exactly what these conversations will deliver.
Learn: Engage in deep theological discussions with scholars who illuminate how Christ is revealed on every page of Scripture. Together, we’ll bridge theology to the realities of a post-Christian America, ensuring practical application for today’s world. This segment aligns closely with the themes of the American Reformation Podcast and resonates with the 60% of you who crave more exploration in this area.
Live: Discover healthy habits that empower leaders in all vocations to become holistically healthy. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to lead not only with faith but also with physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Join Tim Ahlman as we navigate leadership, learning, and living with purpose, so you can lead with strength, wisdom, and a Christ-centered vision.
The Tim Ahlman Podcast
To Be Seen Fully and Loved Anyway
Pastor Gabe Kasper explores how our networked, globalized world has fractured into competing narratives about meaning and purpose—and why the gospel offers the transcendent perspective we desperately need.
• Aiming for happiness directly will never work; we must aim for something greater
• Modern culture offers four primary narratives: moralism, hedonism, therapeutic mindset, and nihilism
• Leaders grow through the books they read and the people they meet
• Pastor as curator—reading widely to serve people in an information-saturated age
• We weren't designed to know everything happening globally, which creates unmanageable anxiety
• Seeking identity in political tribes leads to moralism rather than gospel freedom
• Our deepest longing is to be fully seen yet fully loved—something only Christ offers
• The revolutionary concept that God cares about individuals, not just collective groups
• Finding the "second naïveté"—returning to simple gospel truths with deeper understanding
• In our extremes: to the hedonist, "you will die"; to the nihilist, "you will live"
If you. What we know is this if you aim for happiness, you will never get it. Like it's this thing where, like, if that's what you aim for, it won't work. You always have to aim for something greater than happiness, and then you find happiness gets thrown in, right, yeah, that's it. We know this man. It is a insatiable drive for people to say like, hey, pleasure at all costs, like all costs, and it's like we just can't learn this lesson.
Speaker 2:But to that point. It's not that pleasure, like Christianity, has a lot to say about this. It's not that our emotions, our feelings, our pleasure centers are bad, it's just that they're perverted. Yeah Right, welcome to the Tim Wallman Podcast. I pray. The joy of Jesus is your strength. I am so juiced by Jesus to talk with this younger than I leader, not by my, I don't know by too much, but Gabe Casper is in the house today. How are you doing, gabe? I'm doing well.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me, Tim. I'm honored to be with you.
Speaker 2:This is going to be great. So let me tell you a little bit about Gabe, and then he can kind of fill in the gaps. He's the lead pastor at ULC, university Lutheran Chapel. Sometimes I was confused and we were running the same circles. There's another. Yeah, this University Lutheran, this ULC, has been around for a lot longer than the United Leadership Collective. So University Lutheran Chapel he's been there for eight years. Prior to that current role, he spent five years as a church planner in Austin, texas. He has a passion for preaching, and teaching has led him to speak across the country on a variety of theological, philosophical and cultural topics. He has his Master of Divinity from my alma mater as well, concordia Seminary, st Louis Go preachers and a master's in Preachers preach baby Preachers. Gotta preach baby and shoot. Anyway, he has a master's in philosophy from Eastern Michigan University. In his spare time, gabe enjoys playing. Are you still playing soccer?
Speaker 1:Like you're still getting after it playing soccer. I sub for an over 30 team. So not too often, but probably once a month or so. Try to get out there Love that.
Speaker 2:He's a reader. He's into punk rock and cheering on his beloved Packers, Go Pack. He and his wife Melissa. They have three kids. How old are your kids now? We got 12, nine and six, All right, so you're just a handful of years behind me, with three in high school.
Speaker 2:I sent this email to get connected to you, gabe. I've admired you, your family. For those of you who don't know, rob Casper been a longtime leader in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and we kind of have this longer trajectory as leaders in our church, kind of multi-generational. But I loved your presentation at the gathering at Ann Arbor, just outside of Ann Arbor, a few months ago in October, and so I took copious notes. Some of our conversation today is going to be based on that and we're going to see where the Holy Spirit leads. That being said, let's start here. You have a learner's mindset. Leaders are learners, always digging in. I see on your bookshelf you've got a number of different books. I'm always working through three or four different books, different concepts, kind of molding me. How did you develop that learner's mindset over the years, gabe?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a couple of things. So one like quick story like when I was getting started in ministry I went to a conference, went to a workshop led by Don Christian, who I think has been on lead time, and it was a leadership one, and he just said this very simple sentence that kind of changed my life in this regard is he said, like your leadership will grow by two things by the books you read and the people you meet. And I was like just taught a seminary, I'm like all right, I'll read a lot of books and meet a lot of people. You know like let's, let's just go for that. And so that did just kind of instill in me that like leaders are learners, leaders are readers, like let's go.
Speaker 1:But then, secondly, I do think our cultural context like demands it, broadly speaking, in that like it's just like an absolute information deluge, right. And so you know, if you think back to like seminary days, like pastor as educator, pastor as counselor, I think we need, like pastor as curator, where I want to read widely and I want to read deeply for the sake, hopefully, of serving my people. So it's just like something I can do and I like to do and so I want to be able to do that. And then, third is, like my unique context. Depending on you know what magazine you read, ann Arbor is often cited as the most educated city in the country, and so I mean, you know it's percentage based, right? We're a smaller city compared to like San Francisco, right? But nevertheless very, very well educated. And so, like I, just like I kind of have to, contextually, to just stay on top of my world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. Here's one of the things to piggyback or go back to what you'd said about Don. It's great words of wisdom. I want to be able as not just a leader, but as a pastor I want to be able to meet anyone and ask certain questions that get to know them, that express curiosity about their perspective, their worldview, their vocation, and I want to be able to have an intelligent conversation with almost anyone about anything. That doesn't mean I become an expert.
Speaker 2:Far from it, you actually realize how little you know about a variety, a wide variety of topics. You know just enough, like the questions to ask that make connection and that you get to. You get to learn from this person in their different contexts. Say more about that I that. That's the humble journey. There's always more to learn, right, gabe A hundred percent, a hundred percent, no, I think that's it.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's the whole, like you know, the like, the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is okay, okay, so it's like this psychological sort of phenomenon. Uh, these two psychologists, dunning and kruger, dug into it. We're like take your, like I don't know, 19 year old freshman in college who takes their first, let's say, like sociology class, and all of a sudden they are an expert on sociology and like they think they know everything and so they're at the peak of this.
Speaker 1:But then the more they learn, the less they realize they actually know, right, and so it goes down to they're like man, I barely know anything. And then it starts to curve up again once you're like a PhD. But that's like it's complicated, right, and so so all that say is like I don't ever, um, I don't ever want to fall victim to that right. Like I want to have a certain epistemic humility about me that says, like there's always more to learn, there's more than I can grab hold of. But to your point, I think, just in terms of connecting with people like man, like I want to be able to talk with a student who walks through my doors, who's like into studying physics Well, like I didn't even take physics in high school, all right, but like can, can I at least reference something like that that can be a gateway towards conversation, a gateway to learning more about them, and so I want to try and do that. Yeah, amen.
Speaker 2:Have you, have you ever heard of the kind of going along with the Dunning? Is it the Dunning effect?
Speaker 1:Dunning yeah.
Speaker 2:Dunning Kr. Is it the Dunning effect? Dunning, yeah. Dunning-kruger effect yeah, I'll have to look at that.
Speaker 2:Have you ever looked at psychologists kind of looking at the first and second half of life? There's a lot of literature written about this, but the first half of life is the ego being built up and this positive sense of self, and humans need this. They orient themselves in the world. I can contribute. I'm not a worthless mass of cells just bumbling through life, right.
Speaker 2:So you need to have this sense of self, but there gets to a point and hopefully it comes sooner than later and I think probably late adolescence, early 20s, in terms of the formation of a Jesus follower, is probably the right amount of time. You need to have someone in your world that speaks positively to you but also mentors you around a posture of humility that opens doors, that says and this is like my grandpa. I think everybody needs a grandpa Tim, you're not that big of a deal. Don't get the big head, you don't. Who even gave you the gifts? Who even gave you the mind? Who even gave you my grandpa?
Speaker 2:I think everybody needs a grandpa Tim. You're not that big of a deal. Don't get the big head you don't. Who even gave you the gifts, who even gave you the mind, who even gave you, you know, the physical, like it's all God right, it's all gravy. So the second half of life, the second half of life is just realizing how joy filled life can be when you sacrifice, when you go on this adventure, when you ask a lot of questions, when you recognize, when you don't have the answers. That feels, I feel way more alive when I acknowledge that than I do by trying to pridefully position myself as the guy in our organization or the guy you know. Making this decision Like pride feels so gross to me, like like leading from a place of pride, like Tim's way. Well, like that, what are we? Even?
Speaker 1:talking about. We're all just trying to make it up.
Speaker 2:We're all just making it up as we go, trusting the Holy spirit to work in and through us. So any kind of comments on the first and second half of life, gabe, yeah, a bunch.
Speaker 1:I mean one when you were speaking there just reminded me of a certain interview with the theologian Stanley Harawas a couple years ago where he was asked like, hey, what sin are you wrestling with in this interview? And he said, oh, it's always pride. And he said he's like I think the whole of the Christian life is learning to live out of control. That, like that's actually the path of sanctification is learning to live out of control of myself and to trust and rest and be dependent upon God and his grace and his goodness. Right, so I think that. And he, of course, is very much in the second half of his life. So that's right on.
Speaker 1:I think there's also one of my favorite ways of thinking about the sort of spiritual life and our growth and development is Paul Ricoeur is a French theorist and he talks about spiritual development in like three phases. So and he's not the first one to do this, but I like his way of doing it and so the first is what he calls the first naivete, which is just, you're like, did you receive this faith as a kid? Or if you came to faith as an adult? It's like, whatever church you're at, you're like my pastor knows everything right, so you just like take this stuff in, and then, and then there's this, this middle part where he calls the critical distance, and that's where you're like science explains everything or you know whatever your sort of existential issue is with the faith you received.
Speaker 1:you kind of go through that and it looks different for different people but it's pretty common, like even for those of us who are pastors. You went through some level of this sort of critical distance. But then you come to the other side of that and that's where he calls the second naivete, which is where you look back on that faith you received and you maybe dismiss some of it, maybe not, maybe you grab hold of all of it, but either way it's, it's in a more profound and a deeper and then almost a more, uh, relaxed way.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's quite the right word, but it's just like yep, you know, like I'm not, I don't have to defend it, it'll defend itself. Like you know, like I'm, like, I'm okay, like it's fine, yeah yeah, well, I think you're pinging on something here.
Speaker 2:Identity is the thread right. Recognize is my identity in me or is it in the death of me? And the elevation of Christ, and that always comes about. The second stage. There you say critical distance. There's a sense of the dark night of the soul. There's an existential crisis of some. What used to give satisfaction no longer gives satisfaction, and the more we acknowledge that rather than fight against it, the more we're just like surrendered maybe is a good word.
Speaker 2:And then moved in to the second season, the second naivete with I love that word there's a relax. I don't have to defend, I don't have to fight. I don't have to fight anymore. I can live in the freedom. Maybe this is good as Lutherans, but I can live in the freedom that comes in my identity in Jesus Christ. Anything more around identity as it relates to those three stages, Gabe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot to that, because there's man, how do we put it?
Speaker 1:If we could live in our identity, in in Jesus Christ, like all the time, like I mean in one sense, okay, we might say at a sort of I don't know ontological level, we do always exist in that way, right, Like incorrect, great, but experientially, if we could live in that right man, the amount of freedom that's there is incredible.
Speaker 1:It's just so hard to stay there and like live in that and rest in that continually and and I don't know the solution to that, other than it seems to me like time and suffering, like I like I think that's maybe it, but that's where I mean I look at my grandma who passed away several years ago, but she's like the most mature person of faith I know and it was like she's like small town, wisconsin, like no one's going to know her, no one's going to know her name, but what she did to bless her neighbors, what she did to love those near her, what she did, you know right, and the, the sort of depth of faith she had in Christ, it's like dude, that's what I want. Like who cares if I'm leading, if I'm writing, if I'm speaking whatever, like let me be that kind of a person, right and and like lean into that yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, god honors that and that's like. That may seem small, gabe, that's really really big, your grandma passing on the faith. I think a lot of times in the American mind, like we're big, I'm known, I've got a stage, I've got a platform, you know, I've got a podcast or what I like, in our different world we think that that's significance. The ultimate significance is passing on the faith to our family, to our neighbor, being the hands and feet of Jesus, when no one really cares, there's no applies, it's just the steady. It's a steady move in the Jesus direction that bears fruit across generations. Like that appears, especially when we're in such a hyper individual, you know, consumeristic, celebrity, infatuated culture. Like that long move in the Jesus direction with no very little notoriety by the wider world that feels insignificant. It appears as if the kingdom of God is a small thing, like a mustard seed that then burrs up into something that's significant beyond generations. Is that right? I mean we have to.
Speaker 1:Someone said that once.
Speaker 2:Someone did. Yeah, he's pretty significant, by the way. Pretty significant, yeah. So, yeah, I mean that is the Jesus direction. It's losing everything and then out of that surrender to the Father's will, all the way to the point of death on the cross, resurrection, life comes, and it's way I think Jesus left us. Let's go to Jesus. Jesus left us that kind of a model. It's going to be good for you. If I go away, Then I'm going to send the Holy Spirit and this thing is going to move in very small ways, but it's going to have multi-generational impact. You will be my witnesses Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. That is the way of Jesus. It was a very, very small thing that became very, very big. And so, lest we go back to this kind of celebrity, you know, status, power, pride, move, that's not the way of Jesus. Anything more to say about the way of Jesus being small Gabe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I mean you're like, I just seem like here in Philippians to come through here, right, and it's like what's? Uh? I mean Tim Keller has this line back in the day of like, uh, you know, the way of Jesus is you go down to come up, right, you go down to come up and that's, that's everything. And I think there is something to that in terms of like, I mean, it's weird, like being a pastor in the american church in the 21st century.
Speaker 1:It's like weird like it's just it's totally weird and and I think like acknowledging that because then it's like you know, because we can say like all right, it's small, be small, but then like, uh, you know, we're doing a podcast right now that's going to be public on a platform, right, and it's it's like, well, do you actually believe what you're saying?
Speaker 1:It's like, well, I do, but it's like I also have an opportunity to help people and to serve others and I want to do it from that place, right. So it's like it actually reminds me of Bonhoeffer and discipleship he talks about like all right, so, jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He tells us, like all right, so, jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He tells us like hey, when you give, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And simultaneously Jesus says do your good works before others so they may give glory to your father in heaven. And so Bonhoeffer's like what the heck, are we supposed to keep it hidden or not?
Speaker 2:Right, like what do we do with?
Speaker 1:this and Bonhoeffer says the solution is to keep it hidden from yourself. That's it Right, Like that's the solution. It's hard, but that's the solution.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a very unique day in which we live, where technology's radically shifted the church shifted the church and it's really easy easier, I would say, than maybe a few generations. Pride is ever knocking at your door. How many views, how many likes, what did they say? Right? The reason I love long form podcast is to mirror healthy disagreement, debate around or just ideas kind of interacting, and I love it because you can't, or it's very hard to be disingenuous over a long conversation. You can give a sound bite and have a shadow side, you can have a reel and it come across. But like I've been doing these now for so long and I learn how little the reason I do it is, I have one a lot to learn and I realize how inadequate I am in this whole thing and so I've got to have other people that.
Speaker 2:I'm serious about that. I've got to have other people that I'm bumping up against, that are going to press and challenge and come from different contexts and perspectives the biggest. So I'm going to just dip my toe into the political waters of the LCMS we do that from time to time, right.
Speaker 2:So my biggest struggle it is my biggest struggle is people in leadership positions. When there's a public debate that's taking place out in the marketplace, out in the public square, and leaders will not come on to have honest, long conversation around a point of disagreement, that is a gap for us right now. I don't know what else to say. You're fearful about being exposed. I don't know what your identity is in Jesus. Why wouldn't we have longer form conversations about areas of disagreement? Politicians, this is okay. Now I'm really going to go there.
Speaker 2:One thing I love now, I don't love everything about President Trump, but what I appreciate is you know what you're going to get Like. The guy is just shooting from the hip like all the time. Does he make mistakes? Is he bumbly? Is he a broken, selfish, prideful sinner? Yeah, but he at least talks in the public square right, he's at least talking, so leaders need to talk.
Speaker 1:Anyway, let's go there. No, but you're like tapping right in. So it's interesting, like today. I don't know when this will be released, but if I can say the date, we're recording it on february 25th. Uh, on the the ezra klein show. Uh, if you know him, new york times columnist, um, okay, he has. He had on there today. Uh, martin gurry, who is like this guy, who's deeply influential for me as far as thinking about like information theory, media theory, and martin gurry makes this exact case that you made. And again, he's not like pro-Trump Actually, I think he is maybe now, but he wasn't for a long time and like whatever. His point is not political. His point is like, dude, this guy has adapted to the new media landscape, whereas back in the day, in sort of a institutional industrial model of work, of industry, of media, whatever. Yeah, then if you're in leadership, you can hide all your skeletons. It's easy to do it, buddy. The skeletons are all out of the closet already, so you may as well just like walk around with them, right?
Speaker 2:Just acknowledge it.
Speaker 1:And have the conversation with folks. Uh, cause otherwise we know you're hiding stuff, like we just know. It's just like, uh, it's, there's too much information now. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think you're right and I think it is on leaders, whether it's us in congregations or synodical leaders, whatever, to be willing to just enter into the mess and have the long conversations in public. Not maybe, not necessarily everything all the time. We don't have to be reactive, we can be reflective, but, like transparency builds trust, transparency builds, builds community. So yeah, it does, it does All right?
Speaker 2:Hey, let's get into your talk. This is so much fun. Um, I knew, I knew this is the way we'd start, so let's talk let's talk globalization. So you talk globalization in your presentation and people orienting themselves around four main hubs. I'll highlight them for you Moralism, hedonism, therapeutic ism. That's not an is anyway. And then a anyway, and then nihilism. So let's go there, Orient us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a real quick, like summary. So, if we go so, the argument I made in this talk and I'll summarize it real quick is that we've shifted from an age of institutions and industrialization to an age of networks, and so power and information was once consolidated centrally and now, due to what I argue, and this is from Martin Gurry globalization and the internet, due to these two combinations, we live in a decentralized age in which power has decentralized throughout a vast network. Now, it's not to say there aren't hubs and nodes that are pretty significant and influential compared to others, but still there's no just central like. So again, the easiest example is media. You go back what time is hard. 70 years now, walter Cronkite is the most trusted man in America. Why? Because he's part of an institution that has access to all the information, right, so we're going to trust him. Well, now we all have access to all the information all the time. So there's no trusted voice in America, like because I can get whatever info I want from whatever.
Speaker 1:Okay so but this is just true across different institutions, across different industries. So what this does, including the church, universities, whatever, what this does, then is it sort of fractures us up into these different nodes, these different hubs in a network. Does, then? Is it sort of fractures us up into these different nodes, these different hubs in a network? And I would argue, then we, at least in Western culture, there seem to be sort of four dominant narratives that show up, and I got these four again to show my sources here from Mark Sayers, who's a cultural commentator and pastor who I value a lot, and so he articulated these first I'm borrowing totally from him Moralism, hedonism, therapeutic and nihilism.
Speaker 1:And, if I can speak to that real quick before I get into each of them, what's significant about this for me just in terms of ministry and Tim I imagine you'll relate to this I have this thing that I call my groundhog day, where I've literally had this I'll have someone come into my office, meet with me and be like Pastor Gabe, love you, love this church, but I'm not sure I believe that this church believes anymore. I just think it's kind of regressive and backwards and we just really need to get with the times in regards to, let's say, sexuality, gender, whatever, okay, and I'll be like, okay, we talk, hang out and then off they go, next person. Like literally the next person comes in. Pastor Gabe, love you, love this church, but I'm not sure we believe anymore. I just like, I think we need to start doing the Latin mass and I need to start wearing a veil to worship and we're just not traditional, right, it's like, yeah, exact opposite.
Speaker 1:It's the exact opposite, but it's like two sides of the exact same coin. And so I and I highlight this because I think we there's no monoculture anymore and so, like there's no one size fits all approach to, I think, evangelism, there's no one size fits all approach to, like how I walk with different people, because we kind of unite ourselves to these different nodes or these different hubs within this fast network. But four of the big hubs for the big narratives that I think have emerged is our therapeutic hedonism, nihilism and moralism. So real quick. Moralism would be the like the most important thing in this world is doing what's right, what's just being on the right side of history. Hedonism that one's pretty self-explanatory. Most important thing is pleasure. Therapeutic most important thing is feeling peace and having an inner sense of calm. Nihilism is like dude, everything's a mess, it's all broken, let's just burn it down, right. So those are these big four. Do you want?
Speaker 2:me to run it through the diagnostic quicker. Yeah, no, let's do that. Yeah, talk through the diagnostic, all the questions we need to ask, yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Okay. So, uh, and again, this is from Mark Sayers. Uh, you can look it up, he calls it his sin chart. Uh, but uh, so it works this way. So hedonism.
Speaker 1:The questions are what is the purpose of life? What is sin? What is the world? What is its attitude towards faith? What is the solution to the moral ills of the world? All right, so hedonism. In response to what's the purpose of life, it would say life is pleasure. Life exists for the pursuit of happiness. What's sin in this approach to life? Sin is anything that prevents pleasure, anything that restricts pleasure. What's the world? It's a playground. It exists as a conduit for pleasure. Mind in particular, what's its attitude towards faith? You know, faith is kind of the fuddy-duddies. They don't want to have fun, they can be too moral. What's the solution to the moral ills of the world? Chill out, less rules, more pleasure. If it doesn't hurt anyone, just do it, Experience the world, Right. So this is your kind of like libertinism. Like you do you, I do me. Let's just pursue the happiness. That's happiness that's it.
Speaker 2:Can we pause right there? Yeah, let's do it. I think it's more and more evident that hedonism is not a good choice, long term Right, that short-term pleasure can kill you Too much of a good thing and you go down the vices etc will eventually take your life, take your health and take, take your life. So I think we have enough runway now. Um, because and this is a lot of knowledge, a lot of research, etc.
Speaker 1:that that says hedonism doesn't work fundamentally, anything more there yeah, no, totally well, and I like here's the thing If you, what we know is this if you aim for happiness, you will never get it. Like it's this thing where, like, if that's what you aim for, it won't work. You always have to aim for something greater than happiness, and then you find happiness gets thrown in, right, but. But I do think, right, right, and even, as like we know this man, it is a insatiable drive for people, uh, to to say like hey, pleasure at all costs, like all costs, um, and it's like we just can't learn this lesson.
Speaker 2:But but to that point. It's not that pleasure, like Christianity, has a lot to say about this. It's not that our emotions, our feelings, our pleasure centers are bad, it's just that they're perverted. Yeah Right, yeah, so say more about that.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, yeah, and when here's the like how am I going to put it this way? Like we settle for lesser pleasures, right, it's the whole like CS Lewis line of like, it's like a kid playing in the slum who can't even grasp the concept of a vacation at the beach, right. And so we just settle for making mud pies, when in fact, there's deeper things. I, one of my favorite ways of thinking about this is um, oh man, what's his name? I can't remember who it is, but this guy, uh, john Eldridge wrote wild at heart, some dude, but he, uh, he has this thing where he talks about the shallows, the Midlands and the depths, and so he says these are the three levels to our being Okay. And so there's the shallows, which is just like our surface level concerns what are we getting for dinner today? Whatever. Level concerns what are we getting for dinner today? Whatever, okay.
Speaker 1:Then there's the midlands, which are actually relatively deep, like am I, am I doing the right thing that I'm called to do? Am I, am I being a good father? Am I being a good mom? Am I, am I a good friend? Like the, the sort of deeper anxieties we have about our lives. And then the depths, uh, he says, are like these deep, transcend, transcendent callings we have towards beauty and towards truth, and towards goodness and towards love. And what I think happens is we experience sort of the angst of the Midlands and we seek to solve the angst of the Midlands by going up to the shallows as opposed to pressing down into the depths, right, so, so pleasure is good, but it's you know, this is Augustine and disordered loves, and we just like seek to find it in the shallows. That will not deliver ultimately, instead of pressing down in the depths and actually finding a deeper and a truer pleasure and a more lasting one by connecting with that which is truly transcendent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, with that which is truly transcendent. Yeah, yeah, the older I get, the simple, deep truths of how infatuated the God of the universe is with me and with us, his fallen, rebellious people, and then the posture of God toward me in the face of Christ, the smile of Christ, the delight of Christ over me that I am his treasure. You know, I remember my dad in my early years, like even highlighting, like I get emotional even thinking about it, but highlighting Tim. You know there's no one exactly like you and that can be taken to the, you know, to an extreme. But you know God gave you all these gifts and I can't wait to see and God has delight over you and I want to pass that obviously onto my kids. But, like anytime, I stop and pause saying confirmation.
Speaker 2:We got parents that go through with their kids in fifth and sixth grade, sometimes seventh and eighth, but at that developmental season, whenever I talk about their identity and the pleasure of God over them, like these kids, just like there's like a depth to identity, Isn't that right? And the pleasure of God over me supersedes any other earthly pleasure, any other earthly affirmation that I could possibly have, and it's out of that you could say aiming upward that trajectory, up to the Father who is above me, who delights over me, that calls me into a life of self-sacrifice and service and humility and learning and love and joy, deeper joy than anything in this world can ever kind of offer. So I guess what I'm saying is, as we go up, up isn't going to satisfy the depth is maybe sometimes returning to the simple but now deeper truths of who we are in Jesus and God's delight over us. Anything more to say there, Gabe?
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I mean, it's like it's that second naivete all over again, right, it is that like, like it is weird, like the gospel is just true and it is the most important message in the world, and it's like, you know, and it's like it's like, and as soon as I think like well, well, surely there there's more, like I get it. Jesus died for me, god loves me. Blah, blah, blah, kumbaya. Like, what's the? What's the next level, spiritual stuff? It's like. No, actually, it's just coming back to this again and again. Like that's like, that's the thing, and I think I mean, but there is so much to that, like I I say to my kids every night when I put them to bed I got this from someone else too, everything I steal from someone else is but it's as I say I love you, I'm proud of you, I think you're terrific and I'm glad you're mine.
Speaker 1:And so every night I say that, right, and my, my goal in that, of course, is that they'd experienced that from their dad. But, like, I also want them to recognize, you know, if our first image of God is our dad like and we kind of know this psychologically uh, if that's our first image of God like, that's what I want their image of God to be like now and forever, Right, and that's what I want my image of God to be now and forever. But I got to fight for it in a sense, right, Like cause I am so prone to believing lies, um, about who God is and what he thinks of me. Yeah, Amen.
Speaker 2:So we've gone into I love this. We've gone into hedonism. Run the other more, run moralism through the diagnostic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's go. Moralism, cool, all right. So moralism, what is the purpose of life? Is to do good, to be, just to be on the right side of history. What is sin? Sin is oppression that comes from ignorance. What is the world? The world is a good place. Ruined. The world is good, but ignorant people create ignorant structures that create oppression. What is this attitude? What is it? What is its attitude towards faith? The church is immoral. Of course it can get in line with my morals and then it's okay. What is the solution to the moral ills of the world? Virtuous education. Just fill everyone in on the new moral code and how to live that and we'll be good to go. Yeah, so that's moralism. Do you want to pause?
Speaker 2:there. Yeah, I mean, I think we've seen that in our culture today, I think in the political discourse. It's all moralism right On either side of the continuum, and then people finding their identity around, being good, you know, and and are. We think we have the ability, if the structure is just right and I think the church can kind of fall into this too Right, if we get the right people in the right place to do the right thing, blah, blah, blah then everything's going to go. No, it's God, it's God being elevated and we're going to mess it up like we got to get out.
Speaker 2:We got to get out the way. So, yeah, moralism obviously does not satisfy, it doesn't work. Long-term History shows us we're just a train wreck after generational train wreck after train wreck. There's nothing new. People try to put together their human structures and God's like, and that's why Jesus comes and he goes. Well, there's a new king in town. He's he's pretty old, he goes. Well, there's a new king in town. He's pretty old actually, he's been around for quite a while and he's going to establish a brand new kingdom that has an entirely different aim. And you need to get in line, by my spirit's power, with that new kingdom. That's entirely upside down, because your upward trajectory meaning pride upward trajectory is not going to be able to satisfy it. You better be listening to my voice and living by my way rather than the world's way, because, you see, moralism it just is so unsatisfactory, and people that are trying to find their identity in politics, in a party, et cetera. You're going down the moralistic path. Any more comments there, gabe? Yeah, yeah, totally no.
Speaker 1:And I think I mean maybe a uh. One caveat that I'm sure you would agree with is like and uh like, unjust systems exist and there's things that we need to work on and there's ways in which we right Like it's so like, and that's the whole tricky thing.
Speaker 2:We're always going to be working on them, that's right. We're always going to be until.
Speaker 1:Jesus comes back. Right, that's right. Like we can't like Christians, I don't. I think I can say this I don't think Christians can be utopians Like we. We just can't be like. If we recognize the reality of the fall, uh, there's just no way to be a utopian, and, and so to recognize our fallibility, our limitedness, uh, and, and to work within that, and this is like it's funny. I just okay, I said this.
Speaker 1:I met with someone not too long ago and they were talking about, hey, you know, there's some political concerns that they're like, could our church speak a little bit more to this?
Speaker 1:And they're very respectful.
Speaker 1:But they mentioned, like you know, sometimes, you know, I'm paying attention to the news during the week and I'm doing my thing and seeing all these big stories and all these injustices throughout the world, et cetera, and then I'll come to church that Sunday and we'll be talking about lying and it feels like so small, right, yeah, small, yeah, and right, and, and it's like, uh, but to me, like it kind of goes back to this mustard seed conversation where, again, it's not to say we shouldn't care about systemic injustice and there's a role for the church and all that, etc.
Speaker 1:I totally agree and there's something to be said for saying like dude I'm called fundamentally, first and foremost, to live as a citizen in the kingdom of god and to seek to conform my life to his will and to the, the life he's called me to um as a follower of jesus. And then from that place, yeah, I want to engage the systems of the world, but I can only do that first by recognizing and this goes back to that identity piece like who I am as a citizen in the kingdom of God and then from. So we always have to be recentering ourselves in that If we're going to have any hope of engaging the world. Apart from just a sort of crude moralism, that doesn't help anyone in the long run anyways.
Speaker 2:True, we're not meant to know as much as we know Gabe. So, true, human beings, right, and today, we just know way more about. If there were let's just use this If there were a war over in Ukraine, the other side of the world, nothing against Russia and Ukraine. Like, as a farmer, let's say, I was a native American here, like I, would have no concept. All I would have no concept. All I would be concerned about is the here and now hunter-gatherer, all of those types of things. There's a God. I hope he loves me, has a kind disposition toward me, but I wouldn't be crippled. This is what I think, and I'm speaking now as a preacher. We're both preachers. It's one of our vocations, right? Hopefully you have empathy If you're a lay leader listening to your preacher. Hopefully you have empathy for your preacher who just wants to talk about the Bible in the way of Jesus and he doesn't have to comment on everything taking place in the world.
Speaker 2:That's not his role. He's called to remind you who you are a sinner in need of salvation, centered in Jesus and he's called by the Spirit's called to remind you who you are a sinner in need of salvation, centered in Jesus and he's called by the Spirit's power to speak the word that shapes your heart after the heart of God. This is our primary and we use law, gospel and then Holy Spirit invitations in our vocations, from our home into our neighborhood, out into our wider spheres. We're not meant to know all that we know and it cripples, it gives anxiety I can't solve. So here's, here's a big thing for me and any kind of leader, release it. Maybe you need to physically just like open your hands. There's a lot going on. Stop listening to too much political commentary, for goodness sake. Like it's not good for your soul.
Speaker 2:I give myself maybe five minutes to understand. 10 minutes I get. I still get actually a paper. I want to know kind of what. What's going on? Old school baby, you know.
Speaker 1:I want to know what's going on, but then after I hear about Ukraine or whatever.
Speaker 2:I released it to Jesus and then release it to our government leaders who were having the conversations. I trust you, god, and at the end of the day, is it going to get harder before it gets better? Probably. Am I going to die, yes. Am I going to be raised again and jesus is going to make all things new? Yes, and he's calling me into my spheres of influence to be his hands and feet. Now I don't know that. I have to, like, make it that simple, or else it'd become I become too anxious about things, right, anything more to say there?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah I think that's right.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think I mean this to me like speaks to.
Speaker 1:It's a very real tension right now because, on the one hand, there's this way in which I think you're a hundred percent Like I, I as a preacher, as a communicator, like I can't, I can't be reactive to everything that comes through my newsfeed because there's just way too much, and in fact I mean all the more so these last couple of months, just kind of by design, like there's just so much that there's just no way I can respond to it all thoughtfully, helpfully, and like I'm not a policy expert, I don't know all these things, and at the same time I just like I never want to fully dip out because while something may or may not affect me, or I may or may not care whether or not it affects me, it does affect my neighbor, right.
Speaker 1:And so I have to figure out, like, how do I not get over, right Over? I have to figure out like how do I not get overwhelmed by this and run away and how do I stay in it in the right way to love my neighbor? But to your point, that's where I think, like dude, if I lived in I don't know Belgium in like 1300s. Like dude, I'm just going to. What am I going to know? I'm just going to love the person in front of me, hopefully.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like that simple and war would maybe knock on my door and I'd have to go fight because the emperor, or Caesar or somebody said like yeah, exactly, I was under. I was under submission to maybe shift a bit.
Speaker 2:I'll ping because I am aware of what's going on, just like you're aware of what's going on. Like the start of President Trump's presidency, the second go around has been fast and furious and everybody's commenting on Elon Musk and Doge, department of Government Efficiency. I actually, in a sermon just this last week, referenced Doge, you know, and how a number of you are like super excited about government efficiency and let you root out all the corruption and all that kind of stuff. But then the preacher's twist is like what happened if Doge came to your checking account?
Speaker 2:and you had a full-time audit of all the ways you're spending money. How would that make Like whoa, is everybody in here tithing? Is everybody in here perfectly utilizing the resources? Is there any frivolous spending in the Casper account? You know for sure, like the law convicts every single. So, anyway, that's just one handle for us. We need to be aware, but not crippled by fear or anxiety, I guess.
Speaker 1:So that's, why.
Speaker 2:I want to read the paper. I got to be aware, but I don't need to comment on absolutely everything, but some things that are in the public consciousness, yeah, I could maybe use it as a way to bring law and gospel to to the congregation.
Speaker 1:Any comments there, gabe, is that kind of what your approach is. Well, that's very similar to my approach and it will like. I mean there's certain inflection points where I feel like it's necessary to say stuff. You know, like, um, you're right, but uh, but oftentimes it is just like how do I put it?
Speaker 1:Because the other thing is just like it goes a little bit back to that epistemic humility, like dude, I'm just super not an expert on so many things Like there's so much I don't know. And so I mean, to your point, like I just like want to teach the Bible and proclaim the gospel. And what's funny is that, like it does seem I do I too often think about this too where it's like there is so much big stuff that goes on in our world and blah, blah. And sometimes I like look at the, the gospel or the work of proclaiming the gospel, and I think like this is kind of silly, like this kind of a silly solution to the problems of the world, like. And then it's like, yeah, but you know what man? What man Like Rome fell, hitler fell, mussolini fell and Jesus is still king. It actually somehow works. And so I'm just going to roll with the one who's eternal. And you know, the empires of the world are going to do what they're going to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have no choice.
Speaker 1:This is the only way, because he's chosen me right. Just is what it is, all right, cool, I have no choice this is the only way, because he's chosen me, right Just? Is what it is All right, cool.
Speaker 2:So what I realize now, because we're big, we have seven, eight, nine minutes left. Let's run through the last two diagnostics and see where the Holy Spirit leads, and we're going to call it a day and we'll have you back on. So run through the other two, therapeutic and nihilism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so therapeutic. What is the purpose of life? To feel peace. What is sin? The causing of mental or emotional discomfort or pain. What is the world? A dangerous place filled with pain, trauma and discomfort. So do whatever you can to avoid these things. What is its attitude towards faith? It can be acceptable as a tool for personal peace, but that's it. If it doesn't provide that, ditch it. What is the solution to the moral ills of the world? Harm minimization, create a place that is safe, where harm will not be done. All right, so that's the therapeutic. Finally, nihilistic, a quick one. What is the purpose of life? To feel nothing. None of the rest of these actually work. What is sin? Reality, everything is off. What is the world? A disaster? What is its attitude towards faith? Faith is corrupt, but so is everything else. What is the solution to the moral ills of the world? Escape, retreat into games, your bedroom, whatever. Just escape somewhere. It's depressing out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow. Well, thanks for closing with that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, chipper notes.
Speaker 2:Nihilism is so dark man, I kind of have, and I don't know philosophically if this resonates, but I think the two ends of these four are hedonism, hyper focus on pleasure, hyper focus on self, and the other extreme is then nihilism and therapeutic and hedonism are somewhere, or moralism are somewhere in the middle. I'm just trying to make it, I'm trying to establish my identity. There is good in the world and I'm trying to attain toward that. And I recognize this internal wrestling that I can't find peace by anything external or internal, and so there has to be one. This is why I love being a Lutheran. There has to be a one who speaks, who proclaims, who preaches, who gives me a brand new identity and therefore a new mission in life. There's a higher voice, because these two extremes man, nihilism and hedonism they do not satisfy.
Speaker 2:It's so, so evident. Anything more to say and maybe this is the last question we can riff on this how this new way in the gospel of Jesus Christ changed the world, especially through the early church, who were willing to do their maximum pleasure was in Christ, their identity in Jesus and their mission to make him known, through death if necessary, was so compelling. Anything more to say about how the early Christians lived an entirely new way outside of around. But I obviously speaking to these four main kind of felt needs. Maybe that's a good way to orient it. Let's go off there, gabe, to close.
Speaker 1:Well, I think there's a couple of things. So one I mean, right, you speak of that like extra notes, right, this, this, uh, outside of myself, this righteousness outside of myself, this acting outside of myself, that is applied to me via the gospel, via Christ, um, and and sort of the need for that I think all the time is that I do think I mean here's, here's like the, I think, one of the deepest longings on human in the human heart that I think has existed for all of human history and definitely exists today, and that is to be seen fully for who I am and yet loved anyways. Right, it's like it is that and that's that's intimacy. Right is to be seen fully for who you are and yet loved anyways. Right, it's like it is that and that's that's intimacy. Right Is to be seen fully for who you are and yet loved anyways. And I man, if in my, you know, sometimes I'm just like a grumpy guy and just get mad about everything in the world, but in my like, when I have the occasional healthy moments, it's like, I think that's like so many people are just desperate to be loved at that level, and so it's this grasping to do it, and so, maybe, and honestly, I think part of this has to do with sort of socioeconomics, and so if I'm from a sort of wealthier background, I'm going to go for it in hedonism, because I actually can get pretty close to pulling it off. But if I'm not from a wealthier background, this is where nihilism is going to come in. If we look at these two extremes, and this is where we look at the overwhelming deaths of despair and we look at sort of the opioid crisis and how that hits in particular, sort of these sort of poor Appalachian communities, that sort of thing, and so, like both of these things are, I think these deep cries to be loved are these deep cries for a voice outside of me to tell me that I'm enough, uh, and, and that can only come, I think, from Christ, and so I'll, let's say, to root that in church history let me bring that here is like that's what's the I think the whole Christian revolution is is kind of amazing If we look historically is like, uh, there's one philosopher like John Russon who he argues that Paul really invented the individual.
Speaker 1:Like, like prior to the book of Romans. Like, if we think about religion, like, if you're Roman, you worship the Roman gods. If you're Babylonian, you worship the Bible like there's not. You don't have a personal relationship with God. God's not interested in the individual, the gods are interested in the corporate. And then you know St Paul's like, you got to have faith, you trust in Jesus right. So all of a sudden, the individual gets this incredible amount of dignity, this incredible amount of worth, this incredible amount of value because, yes, christ dies for the world. Uh, but we of course receive that subjectively, via faith and um and again. So that's why I think it changed the world 2000 years ago and it still changes lives today, because we're all searching for that.
Speaker 2:Dude, this has been so amazing. I got to have you back. Dude, I we only. I got so many other other questions, places we can go, I guess to to draw a closing word on the two extremes. For the hedonist, you will die. There's going to be an end to pleasure. And for the nihilist you will live. You live now and you will live, and that's law and gospel for people at those two different extremes. So, gabe, you're a gift. Do people want to connect with you and your ministry? How can they do so?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so, honestly, probably the best way. So I am on Instagram, I'm on Twitter. I take every other month completely off of them, but if you want to at Gabe Casper 1, you check that out, but really the best way is through my church. So ULC Ann Arbor. You can go to ulcannarbororg. Find us on YouTube, find us on Instagram. We have great comms director, so a lot of good stuff to follow that way. That's probably the best way to do it. Or you can email me my email's on our website.
Speaker 2:I was so much fun. The time flew and I can't wait. I'll send you an email. We'll get another one booked here in the next year or so. It'd be amazing to follow up. Praying for you. Proud of you, grateful. I know not everyone that listens to this is in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, but I'm grateful you're a leader in the LCMS and I pray your humble, articulate voice continues to move out into wherever out into the world to bring the love and light of Jesus. Man, you're a gift. It's a good day. Go make it a great day Wherever it is you take this in. Please like, subscribe, comment. That helps get the Jesus-centered, real-world conversations like we're having here on the podcast out to others who need to be encouraged. Conversations like we're having here on the podcast out to others who need to be encouraged, need to be called up and out into their new identity in Jesus and out into the mission to make Jesus known. It's a good day. Go make it a great day. You rock, gabe. Thanks so much, buddy. Awesome Thanks, tim.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me brother Appreciate you. It was a joy.