Peace, Love, & Understanding

Episode 1: I Smell Nazi in the Rain
Steve Dehner: [00:00:00] Intro with music: Peace, Love, and Understanding.
About three weeks ago I was invited by some dear friends, close friends, to the celebration of their son's graduation, a young man we've known since he was and this was an outdoor celebration and because it's Oregon, well, rain. Right? It rained on the celebration.
And that forced us to gather under a sheltered area at close quarters, many of us. And when I arrived at the party- a little late- with my wife and our housemate, I found that there were a lot of folks there that I hadn't seen in a while. [00:01:00] There were people who I used to go to church with. And I used to go to the same church for about 24 years.
And that church closed its doors a few years ago. And some of those folks were attending at the time and I don't see them very often anymore. And some of those folks had gone to that church years before and left a long time ago and gone to other churches. And at about the time that my wife indicated to me it was time to leave, she ran in the rain, through the rain and went to the car and asked me to fetch our housemate. But our housemate had just begun a conversation with one of the folks there and I was waiting for that to finish. And while I did a [00:02:00] man approached me, who I haven't seen in a few years, but who I have known for about 30 years, and I'll call him Ed for the purposes of the story.
Ed walked up to me and said, "What's your status as a Christian?"
And I said, "Well, I still am one."
And he said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm just wondering how you're doing. And he said, "Well, I heard that "You weren't in a church," or something like that.
I said, "I'm not currently attending Sunday morning services at a local congregation. That's true."
And he said, " I think the last time that we talked, you were kind of disgruntled with church."
And I said, "Well, I don't know if [00:03:00] I'm disgruntled with church. I, I don't think I would say that. But it's definitely been difficult to find my place in one of our local churches. I think that I hold some beliefs that perhaps wouldn't be welcome if I was open about them. But I would say, more than that, Sunday morning services began to grow less meaningful to me. I'm just one of ,like a lot of people, many people, just not getting very much out of it - I hadn't been, I don't. Don't really feel like I belong there right now."
I'm really not on the same wavelength with a lot of folks there. And really, we're talking about Sunday morning services, really. Because that's the most important thing at most churches, and most churches, regardless of what they may say about their [00:04:00] mission, revolve around Sunday morning. And I just kind of left it at that. I mean, I don't say much because people usually aren't that curious and they usually don't follow up with too many questions.
Mostly, most people assume that if you're not happy going to church or you don't love your church, or you're not looking for a church to fall in love with, you know, it's, there's something wrong with you spiritually. It's like, , "Well, I'm sorry you're not doing well." That sort of thing, not: "I'm sorry that the church has become so sick and, and full of itself and crazed with lust for power and influence that that you're not happy there." They don't usually say that. So I just leave it at that.
But I, what I'm used to, what I'm used to, is that it's followed up with, you know, "Hey," - some kind of story that says, "Hey, my church is awesome. My pastor's awesome. The sermons are awesome. The worship team is awesome. The [00:05:00] singing and music is awesome and we have outreach and the people are lovely, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's, that's what I'm used to. And usually, usually, followed with, you know, "Hey, you should come to my church." Right? "I mean, I know that you know every church in our area, including the one that I go to, but still, you should, you should come to my church."
And I always just say, you know, "Thank you, appreciate that. Thanks for the invitation." Aaaand, that makes the following conversation in retrospect kind of amusing, pretty ironic, because I'm used to the, "Hey, if you weren't happy in church, all you need is a different church. And my church is that church." But not Ed. No, not ed,
Ed, he had a completely different approach, you know. And he kind of out of the blue [00:06:00] -he didn't transition or anything like that, so he kind of caught me off guard. He started talking about, "Well, some lady came to the elder board and she's complaining that, you know, she had come before to the elder board --now she's complaining to everybody, in public and everything, Facebook, et cetera, et cetera, that she went to the elder board complaining that her husband or her ex-husband or whatever had abused her. He was an, he was an abusive husband. And the elder board didn't believe her and they dismissed her accusations."
"Well, then, you know, all of these, Me Too women come out of the woodwork..."
I said, "Well, wait a minute, Ed, are, are you talking about your church?"
And he said, "Yeah."
I said, "Oh, because I thought maybe you were talking about, you know, 10,000 other churches."
"No, no, no, no." And then he proceeded to tell me how a man that he [00:07:00] knew and loved for years and years, nine years, and who he had mentored and he'd met with and he knew so well was growing and learning, and he was developing this property with his wife. They were unhappy in their marriage. They weren't getting along. And Ed predicted, he told me that he predicted at the time that as soon as they were done developing this property, this woman would file for divorce.
"Well," Ed tells me, "It turns out I was right. And soon thereafter, the allegations of abuse followed."
I'm like, "Yeah?"
"And of course, you know, it, it follows that, you know, she wants a divorce, and she wants to be in the right, and she wants the property, and sure enough, she's taking the property and he's left with nothing. She didn't just want half of his property. She wanted a hundred percent of his property, you know, and, she accused him of having an affair, and he [00:08:00] said, 'She's crazy. I'm not having an affair!' And then lo and behold, you know, she wants all the property, and lo and behold, here comes the accusations of abuse."
And Ed says, "You know, well, I've known him all these years and it's just not possible. It's impossible that that would be the case that, that he would do that, you know."
Yeah, I'm thinking. Yeah. I mean, you know everything that happened behind closed doors over at their house, right? I mean, you know all of that, you're, you're, you're like a, a hundred percent on that. I mean, it's not possible that anybody could be, you know, secretly doing something that you didn't know about, cuz people in churches are completely transparent and everybody's exactly as they appear. Yeah. Just couldn't be the case. That's what I'm thinking.
I kind of had my hackles up a little bit at this point. Also: super puzzled about how this would follow from the, "Heard you're [00:09:00] disgruntled with church, but let me tell you a story about my awesome church," --which this clearly was not turning into.
You know, normally in these situations, if you thought you could have a conversation with the person , you would just reply to what they were saying, like, , "Well, that doesn't sound like you guys handled that very well." But, you know, honestly, what I'm thinking is to have a conversation like that, you know, the other person has to be kind of interested in what you're saying. They they'd have to listen. And honestly, if they were listening, they'd be listening to these other people, like the woman who came to the elder board, and not only would they be listening, but they might even believe them. But instead it was like, "Yeah, I, I don't even remember her, but, I don't, I don't remember believing her one way or the other."
I have to admit that I, I did let that pass.
And I said to him, because he talked about hearing this woman in an elder meeting, "So you're still an [00:10:00] elder at the church?"
And he said, "Oh, probably not for long. "
And I said, "Why is that? "
He said, "Ah, well, I read this book, I've been talking about this book that I read."
And I said, "What, what book is that?"
And he goes, "Well, it's, it's called 'The Synagogue of Satan.'"
I'm pretty sure my face dropped. I didn't know the specific book, but as soon as I heard the title, I was pretty sure what it was. And I was dumbfounded ,because in the world of antisemitic literature, that is the sort of title that you get on books explaining why Jews are evil.
And I... I just waited for him to say something more about it because in my mind, I'm thinking, Oh, this conversation [00:11:00] is just about to go off the rails.
Aaaand it did, it did, it really did. He started explaining to me how the book lays out in a very factual way the history of Jews. And, "Did you know that there's two kinds of Jews? There's Ashkenazi Jews, and there's Sephardic Jews. Did you know that?" And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Because I have some familiarity with antisemitic literature and the sort of claims that are made and the sort of history that's laid out by these people. And I, I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. I've known this person for 30 years.
We had started at this church in the town that we moved [00:12:00] to in 1992, and we knew Ed and his wife. And then, 11 years later we lost our son in an automobile accident in 2003. And Ed and his wife were important people to us, because about a year after after we had met they had lost their son who I think was 19 years old. And of all of the people that we knew who really, I think, understood what we were going through -- there weren't very many people who understood it as well as these two people. And I loved them. I cared about them. I respected them. And they, they left our church and went to another church. This is the church that they're still in and where Ed is still serving as an elder. But we had, we see each other every now and again over the years. And I think maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago, maybe less, I had seen Ed and, and he had said something to me, he had gone off on, on a rant that made me [00:13:00] think, Oh, he's been listening to some talk radio or something and, and he's taken in some right wing conspiracy theories. And I had just, thought, Oh, man, really? Ed, come on, seriously? And so, the respect there had kind of wavered, kind of, kind of got knocked down a few notches. I don't remember if it was the birth certificate or Obama's a secret Muslim, or something like that. Anyway, so, you know, I'd kind of thought that he had been listening to, to probably, probably talk radio or something like that and, and reading weird stuff on the internet.
But I was not prepared for the full- on, all- stops- pulled, antisemitic garbage that he was starting to bless me with. When I got [00:14:00] home, I looked up this book and the title of the book is, 'The Synagogue of Satan : The Secret History of Jewish World Domination.' Well, that kind of says it all, right? The author is Andrew Hitchcock. And it's, as I suspected, based on what Ed was telling me, it is just a rehash of all the old lies about the history of Jewish people and how they, form a secret international cabal that controls the world and starts all the wars, and causes all the economic collapses, and works everything to their ultimate ends in successfully controlling world events, according to their evil plans. Well, I, I don't know about you, but I've heard it all before and dead is like laying it down as if , this is the first time he heard anything about it. And [00:15:00] he was pretty surprised to learn that it's all based on facts and true history, that we weren't taught in schools.
And I said to Ed, "E d, this is all bullshit and lies. You can't believe this stuff. This is, this is not true. This is stuff that's been made up over the last 150, 200 years in order to malign Jewish people around the world, but especially in Europe, and to scapegoat them with every bad thing that happens in history ,and to persecute them, and shut them out, and steal their property, round them up in camps, and ultimately murder them."
"Oh, well, you know, listen, you know, he's got all these [00:16:00] facts, you know, and he's got everything documented."
And I said, "It's lies , Ed, it's lies. And it all leads to Auschwitz."
"Oh, well, you wanna know, you want to know why Hitler really hated the Jews and wanted to wipe out the Jews?"
And I said, "No! I do not want to know. I do not have any curiosity about that whatsoever. I, I couldn't be less interested. I said, "You really have been deceived. You've been deluded. This is not true. This is false, and I, I'm just shocked that you have fallen for it."
"Yeah. Well, you know, a lot of people aren't familiar with, all the, all the information and everything behind it, you know?"
So, I, I really let him have it. I didn't beat around the bush. You [00:17:00] know, I said, "This is, this is bullshit and lies and you should not believe it." And , he's like a lifelong student of the Bible. I said, "I, I think, you know, better. I know you know, better." I said to him, " Ed, so how's this working out for you? I mean what, what kind of ,how is this benefiting your life? This so-called information that you've gotten from this book, this has really helped you out? I mean, tell, tell me--" because, in my mind I'm thinking people's lives do not become better when they start buying into conspiracy theories and, and hateful, racist beliefs. That is not something that makes people happier. So I was like, "Yeah, so how's this working out for you? Do you feel like this is really beneficial to you?"
And he said, "Well, I guess it's good to know where you stand with people, like, just knowing what's really going on and, and who's responsible. So, when you see people in the world and you know what they're up to."
And I said, [00:18:00] "You mean Jewish people?
He said, "Yeah, yeah. "
Oh, man. Okay. Well, my housemate was sitting right behind me and he is Jewish. I said to Ed, you know he's Jewish, right?"
And he said, "Yeah. Well, there are some Jewish people that, could be my friend."
" Oh, some? Some? Not all, just some?"
At that time, I think, I was probably red in the face. We were very crowded. We were crowded into a small space and it was a party, you know, for a friend and, and I didn't, I didn't wanna make a scene. So, I didn't raise my voice. I, I spoke very intently, you might say. But I didn't raise my voice. I didn't wanna make a scene. But I was obviously upset. I was probably red in the face and, and when he said that he saw how upset I was and [00:19:00] he said, "Well, I guess we should just talk about something else."
I just turned and walked away, got in the car, waited for my housemate, and we drove home.
To my way of thinking, if you pick something up and it smells like Nazi, do you really investigate further? Like, Hey, this, this might be good. I think maybe I'll sniff some more and see if it still smells like Nazi. And if it still smells like Nazi, I think I might actually eat it whole, right.? That just doesn't seem sensible to me.
It's just unbelievable. Really. Which is the same as saying, I guess, that I just didn't know Ed. Like I didn't know a lot of other people. I really didn't. That's on me, I guess, that I [00:20:00] didn't know these people that have just gone off the rails the last few years with things that I would actually like to talk about, because I think they're real problems --problems for me and problems for other people and a real problem for the church --major, major problem. In fact, this one conversation sort of embodied so much of what's happening right now in our society, in our culture, and at least the wing of the church that I spent the last 30 years in. We could start with this whole idea that somebody's asking me about my status as a Christian, checking up on my status as a Christian, when it will be revealed in the next five minutes that this person isn't interested in [00:21:00] hearing about women who say they've been assaulted and raped, not interested, not interested, just not, not curious about that at all. "That could only be a false accusation against a good man, like my friend." And then to further reveal that he is a full-fledged anti-Semite who believes in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to rule the world through their evil schemes.
Gosh, there's just so much to unpack here. We don't know who to listen to, and we really don't know who to ignore. We don't know who we should pay attention to and believe. And we don't know who we should send packing and completely disregard as having any validity or credibility at all. Like this seems to [00:22:00] be lost on a lot of people right now, this ability.
And it's, it's kind of crazy-making. But we need to talk about it. I'm gonna put it this way: I need to talk about it. So how's, how's my status as a Christian? Well, trust me, this person, who's been a weekly attender of a church that in our community is considered solid, has come to this. Somebody that I've known, somebody who's been respected, somebody who's been seen as temperamentally sound and discerning. And this is where he is, but he's checking up on my, my health. He's checking up on my spiritual health. So I have to talk about this. I have to talk about these things -- among other things.
I [00:23:00] should probably conclude with how the conversation ended with Ed. A few days later, I was at the hardware store and who should I run into but Ed. And Ed said that he wanted to apologize for offending me. I t clearly had offended me and I said, "Well, it wasn't you that offended me as much as the lies that you believe, and that, for some reason you thought that I might believe, too?"
I mean, really, like, it's one thing I could say: I sure don't know this guy-- I thought I did. But I can also say, he sure as hell didn't know me, to think that I might be in the least bit responsive --receptive, I should say --to any of that. Cuz I clearly wasn't. [00:24:00]
"No, it wasn't you, that offended me as much as what you've believed, this nonsense about Jewish people. And I don't really know why you thought it made sense to share that with me. Did you think that I might be interested?"
And he said, "Well, I don't know either, except maybe to be rebuked by you."
And I said, " You feel free to, to mull that over."
The truth is, in the last five, six years there have been times when my head was just spinning like a top, because I could not get a handle on what was happening to people around me who were falling in with the cult of the Orange One, [00:25:00] and who were making some kind of civil rights protest out of not complying with safety and health measures around the pandemic. Just saw things that were so nutty and , just a rejection of science , and an embrace of all kinds of conspiracy theories that I, I was like, Wait a minute. I, I thought we were talking about, I thought these were people that I thought were sensible and they're not sensible. Nobody had any problem with the idea of saying that, well, we know this person has very low character, but he's gonna, he's gonna fight for the things that we believe in, so he should be president. And then to not acknowledge what happens when you put somebody with no moral character to speak of in the most [00:26:00] powerful position in the world. I mean, to do that and think that it's not gonna be a problem --really, if you're still there, if you're still thinking that-- you need to listen to every single minute, or watch every single minute, of the January 6th hearings that the House of Representatives is now presenting. I mean, you really-- you're obliged to, if you voted for him, you are obliged to hear this evidence. And I know that me saying that you're obliged to do it, isn't gonna persuade anybody. But the truth of the matter is we're in a very dangerous place in our society right now. And people are not living in reality. They're not living in reality. And that is a problem.
But listen, [00:27:00] I didn't start this podcast just because there were problems. Not solely. I started this podcast cuz I'm very interested in helping myself and other people to hack their way out of this tangled wilderness of crazy that we're in right now.
And that's positive, because that's moving towards the light and it's moving towards love and it's listening and it's coming up with solutions and it's drawing people together, not driving people apart. I know a lot of people consider themselves very interested in driving people apart. And yes, this is coming from the guy who walked away from an old friend on his [00:28:00] antisemitic rant. That was really about not tolerating hate and lies. I just can't do that. And, and to see that as being anything other than that is not, it's not being truthful and I have to be truthful or I need to at least try.
Yes. I know there's a place for venting and getting things off my chest and so forth, but that really only goes so far, doesn't it? People want to know the way out and the way forward. And they want, I think, to draw close to people who are like-minded, who are frustrated or feel isolated or angry, or, or maybe afraid, too, and anxious. Let's pull together. Let's talk, let's listen to each other, and let's do our best to tell the [00:29:00] truth, to be honest with ourselves and each other.
So peace, love, and understanding is what the podcast is moving towards and it's gonna attempt to be about. It doesn't mean that your host is the embodiment of that because I'm not, but I want to talk about very serious things that involve the future of our society, this the one that we live in, but even broader than that, as a Christian, I consider that we're in a state of crisis right now with regard to the Christian faith.
I actually think that it's both left and right. Not left versus right. In other words, the whole church is in crisis because the whole church is under leadership that either [00:30:00] denies through their confessions or denies through their practice really basic, essential teachings of the faith. And that can't stand, that can't go on.
So yeah, I might be shaking a few things loose here. But I really want to talk about the way forward, because we are at a pinch point right now. We are very much at a pinch point. And so if you are interested in what I might have to say, and the people that I am going to talk to about these things, you're in the right place.
This is episode two , and my name is Steve Dehner, and we are going to carry on.
Outro with music: Peace love, and understanding.[00:31:00] If you like the show, please tap the FOLLOW button to subscribe. If you love the show, please consider supporting it at Patreon, and help keep the show ad-free. Learn more about yours truly on our Transistor page:
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