Derek: 00:28

Welcome back to the Fourth Wave Podcast. In this episode, I had the privilege of speaking with Philip Mast. Now, you probably don't know the name Philip Mast because he is just a regular guy like me. We connected over some episodes a little while ago and have had some phone conversations and Philip has really helped me to think through some of these aspects of simplicity. So I invited him to come and just kind of have a discussion with me and just lay that bare for you all to listen in on.

Derek: 01:07

Like a lot of this season, I don't think we really answer a whole lot of questions and in fact we probably end the episode with more questions than we went in with because there's a lot of ambiguity and difficulty in following Jesus and in implementing wisdom. In fact, I just listened to The Bible Project, one of their podcast episodes where they're talking about mammon that somebody shared with me and they talk exactly about this, you know, how there are these sayings that just seem so contradictory in Jesus, you know, where He's like, you have to hate your mother or brother and all that, but then there's this, there are these other times where Jesus critiques the Pharisees because they're not taking care of their parents, you know, when they're supposed to. They're figuring out other ways to use their money. You know, like, Well, what is it, Jesus? Like, is it this way or is it that way?

Derek: 02:13

So they talk about how a lot of these very black and white statements like, Go sell all of your possessions, a lot of times we think that that means there is no nuance in the New Testament. There's no nuance in Jesus or in the Bible. When really, the fact that there are these antithetical statements shows that there is extreme nuance. You know, Jesus says these things that seem contradictory and the point isn't that they're contradictory, the point is that He is highlighting two ways, right? You should be able to leave your father and mother and brother sister and follow Jesus.

Derek: 02:48

At the same time, there are contexts in which what is love and what is good is to stay and take care of your mother and brother and sister and father, right? And so the answer isn't this clear delineation but rather the answer is wisdom. Wisdom to know what to do in situations. So I'll go ahead and link that Bible Project episode in the show notes but that's kind of what you're gonna get today with Philip and I. It's just two guys talking about some stuff, saying a lot of ums, thinking about answers that never come to us and, just mulling things over and working things out.

Derek: 03:37

So maybe that's not, that's not up your alley and that's fine. But if it is, you can join in and hopefully it, helps to feed your soul.

Phillip: 03:47

Yeah. So my name is Philip Mast. I live here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I'm a conservative Anabaptist. I'm sure many of your listeners will be familiar with with us.

Phillip: 04:05

Yeah. So I guess what brought you and I together is our shared interest in pacifism and nonviolence.

Derek: 04:13

Yeah. So when you say conservative Anabaptist, because I know that, you know, when I when I think of that in my head, because I grew up, you know, in Lebanon, so right near Lancaster County as well, I had ideas of what that might have meant, like conservative Anabaptist. But as we were talking and you talked about some of the, you know, different theological points, I'm like, oh, I would have never thought that as being conservative Anabaptist. If you could have a succinct definition or parameters of what it means to be a conservative Anabaptist, what does that look like?

Phillip: 04:46

Yeah. I'm not sure that there's a real good agreement on what the parameters would be, but I think generally it's understood. Okay. There are Anabaptists in pretty much every walk of life. There's mainline Protestant Anabaptists.

Phillip: 04:59

There's kind of mainstream evangelical Anabaptists that have very little difference from Baptists. And then there's, you know, groups like the Amish and the old order Mennonites that are very different from society. Conservative Anabaptist, they're kind of in between those two. They the I I would say the two markers are well, I think conservative Anabaptist would be it would include all the groups that practice the head covering, the woman's head covering. And, so, yeah, that would those would all be conservative Anabaptists, but there's the conservative new order, which is what I would be.

Phillip: 05:45

The the ones that drive cars, they don't drive horse and buggies. They use, you know, some modern technology, Those would be conservative new order Anabaptists. So that's a a general rough definition of Yeah. Of the parameters there.

Derek: 06:00

Yeah. It's hard to define just about anything because, you know, there are, like, I'm at the moment I go to a reformed, like a Presbyterian church and but there are reformed groups, reformed Presbyterians who wear head coverings. There are reformed Presbyterians who like, you know, keep the Sabbath a lot more rigidly than other people. There are universalist Presbyterian. It's like, it's almost like sometimes definitions don't really have too much meaning because you end up fracturing even within those denominations.

Derek: 06:32

So but yeah, that's helpful. Okay. So you've been helping me as I try to think through, you know, the idea of simplicity. And particularly, I think we've talked a bit about like what simplicity looks like in relation to economics. And growing up, I know I was around a lot of Mennonites.

Derek: 06:56

My grandma wore a head covering. She wasn't Mennonite, but like our church, the United Christian Church was, you know, we had a lot of like maybe ex Mennonites or association with Mennonites and stuff. And so they were very well known for being pretty frugal with their money. And so that's just kind of a stereotype that, you know, I think about them. So you've been helping me think through what it looks like, and you've given me some pushback too, has been really helpful.

Derek: 07:31

So I want to kind of start off by asking you to help us think through the issue of money by asking, you know, Jesus says a lot of really hard things. And some of the hardest things I think He says about money, like I think about the rich young ruler, you know, who says, Give up all your possessions and give them to the poor, right? And follow Me. He says, You can't serve God and mammon. And a lot of times, Anabaptists will take the pacifism route seriously.

Derek: 08:02

Like Jesus says, Turn the other cheek, I turn the other cheek. But when it comes to money, a lot of us, I think it's harder for us to give up money than it is to be nonviolent in some ways. It's easier not to punch somebody back. It's harder to give up my money. What would you say Jesus means with teachings on money?

Derek: 08:24

What does it mean to live simply in relation to money? Does it mean that everybody has to give up all of their money? Give it to the poor? Like, what does that look like?

Phillip: 08:33

Yeah. So like you said, it's it's something that yeah. It's not quite as well defined. We can we can, you know, come up with a basic idea of what it means to be nonviolent, but what it means to obey follow Jesus' views on money is it's it's always gonna be hard to define.

Derek: 08:53

And why is that? Like, it seems like Jesus talks more about money, so why do you think it's harder to define?

Phillip: 09:01

Sure. So, like, with your issue of violence, I would I think pretty much everybody agrees what violence is. I mean, there might be a few gray areas where there it's okay to argue and, you know, use verbal verbal verbal accusations against somebody, whether that's violence. But, okay, for the most part, we understand that, you know, attempting to hurt somebody, that's violence. With money well, if we would just take it all the way and just do without money, then, yeah, that would be a clear place to draw a line.

Phillip: 09:43

But since it doesn't appear that's what Jesus was saying or at least that's not how Christians have lived in the past, that it's not very a practical way to live. We have to find a different place to draw the line than just in the absolute sense. And so because of that, it's it's just going to be difficult to to define exactly where the line is. It's it's it's the same if you've the philosophical question that gets asked is it's called the fallacy of the beard. How many whiskers does take it take to make a beard?

Phillip: 10:22

It's it's one of the things that we have we might have a a good idea of what it means in our head, but you can't just spell it out in so many words.

Derek: 10:30

So then, like, you'd said there there is no line in terms of, you know, relationship to money. It's it's not really a clearly defined thing. So then what are maybe some principles that might might help to guide us?

Phillip: 10:49

Yeah. That that that is a good question. One principle I use is Jesus doesn't bring this principle out when he talks about money that I know of, but he does use it when he's talking about nonviolence. He says, if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Because even the unbelievers do the same.

Phillip: 11:12

If you salute your if you salute your brothers only, well, what are you doing different? So I think that's a good starting point at least with Jesus' teachings on money is what are you doing that your unbelieving neighbors wouldn't do? Hopefully, it goes beyond that, but, like, that's maybe a good starting point to just say, hey. Are you does it mean does it really mean anything at all? Are you just, you know, applying Jesus' teachings in the way that makes practical sense like like an unbeliever would do?

Derek: 11:48

Sorry.

Phillip: 11:49

Yeah. A good starting point. We should at least you know, Christians should be known for giving and, I believe, living in voluntary poverty more than more than what is considered normal. That's a good starting point. There are several several things that are we we have to work with when we're trying to trying to do trying to live frugally.

Phillip: 12:20

I've I've heard the the principle of what's called the lifestyle ratchet, where there are certain things like, you know, air conditioning that we didn't have twenty years ago or more than twenty years, fifty years ago, and now it's considered a necessity. You could just decide, I'm not gonna have air conditioning. But if you do, there's gonna be social pressures. Your children will will feel that they're being heated if you don't have air conditioning, which I'm not I'm just using this as a hypothetical. Not it's not a hill to die on, I don't think.

Phillip: 12:56

So in a case like that, there's gonna be social pressures, and it's it's gonna be hard to do it on your own. And for a case like that, I think that is where it comes in helpful to have a social group, your own your own church or your own tradition, whatnot, that does it on a on a a community level instead of just on the individual level.

Derek: 13:23

Yeah. And I guess that maybe that kind of correlates with I think it's Paul. He kind of has the undue offense principle where it's kind of like, hey, the gospel's hard enough as it is. Like, we don't have to bend over backwards to make it more difficult and like make up all these rules and stuff. So, you know, air conditioning is probably an amoral thing.

Derek: 13:48

Like it's not right or wrong in and of itself. So unless there's some standard that, like unless there's something that clues you into some immorality associated with it, then like if that's kind of part of the culture, then maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe it would be undue offense to be like, hey, you know what? We're gonna because we're Christians, we're just not gonna do air conditioning as kind of like a, you know, this thing that we pat ourselves on the back to do to just because we're opposed to culture.

Phillip: 14:20

Right. Yeah. You wouldn't wanna do it just because you're opposed to culture. Like I said, air conditioning is not an example that I would use. I I do think that, like I said, if you're going to practice if you're going to practice voluntary poverty, it it is good to have actual things that you do different from the rest of society.

Phillip: 14:46

Not not that it's I don't think it should be really well defined. There are actually some anti veb restrictions that do define exactly how it's supposed to look like and exactly how much you're allowed to spend on a car and stuff like that. That's not that's not normal. It does happen sometimes. But in general, I think it can be helpful if you have a community that the values are that they wanna do they wanna live with less money so they can give more.

Phillip: 15:13

So I think that is a is a good value.

Derek: 15:15

Yeah. And I guess, I mean, having a community not only helps you to be able to fit in and have a standard, but they can also hold you accountable and they can also provide wisdom. Because a lot of times it's hard to be objective making financial decisions because we can fool ourselves into thinking that we need something pretty easily. But when you've got a bunch of other people who are in solidarity with you holding you accountable and also speaking truth, that it makes it, you know, easier to be truly objective rather than just self interested. So talking about, I don't know if they're technically Anabaptists, but you know, the Hutterites is a group that comes to mind when I think about simple living.

Derek: 16:05

What do you think of groups like the Hutterites, and maybe their more black and white sort of lines in the way that they live. Do you think that's something that's wise, unwise, or just, you know, or necessary, unnecessary, or just something that maybe is a good iteration of Christianity, but maybe not for everybody?

Phillip: 16:30

Yeah. I think I would I would probably go with it. It's a it's a good iteration of Christianity, but not for everybody. There's there's three groups that I would think of that just just take the the idea of sell all your possessions and give it to the poor a little more radically. The the first one would be it's called the Jim Roberts people, the road ministry.

Phillip: 16:53

I'm not sure if you ever heard of them. They they're probably the most radical. They yeah. They just sell that they have. They live on the streets to go wandering around, hitchhiking places.

Phillip: 17:08

I think maybe they do have some possessions sometimes, but, yeah, they are kind of almost in some cases, are literally homeless, just homeless going around preaching the gospel, and that's the way they live life. So that would be one group. Another group would be the Buderhof and the Haderais. They're both very similar groups. I visited a Buderhof colony, and I was I was fairly impressed with what they have.

Phillip: 17:39

Like, in some okay. So one criticism people have with the Hutterites is that, yeah, they do they do give away all the stuff to the community. But the thing is then the then the community just is wealthy, and they, in some cases, live a fairly lavish lifestyle. When I visited the Butohof, it did strike me that these guys are really trying to live simply, at least at least in their home furnishings. I mean, the Buduhof ground is sort of like a park, and it's it's good kept up landscape outside.

Phillip: 18:10

But as far as their their personal furnishings inside the house, it was, they did seem to have a have a concept of voluntary poverty there. So, yeah, I think for me, that is something I I value. I I think there's value in it. There's certainly detriments as well. But

Derek: 18:32

So one of the things that's maybe hard for some people is that I think when you when when we say things like, yeah, you know, that that's okay for some people, but it's not for everybody, I think there's fear of like moral relativism that people have. Because it's like, well, if Jesus said to give up your possessions, you should give up your possessions, and if He didn't, then you shouldn't make it something that's that's revered. Like, why like, is that moral relativism? Or what does it mean that, yeah, some people should do it, some people can do it, and other people don't have to?

Phillip: 19:14

Yeah. I don't think yeah. That's maybe we'd have to think about that a little more to give a real good answer to that, I guess.

Derek: 19:27

Sorry. I didn't write that one down. That just kinda came

Phillip: 19:29

We yeah. No. That's a good question. So first off, I think we have to be honest. There's a lot of things we don't know.

Phillip: 19:38

We're we're just, you know, in some ways, we're humans wandering around trying to find truth. And maybe maybe one of these groups I mentioned is objectively better than the rest, and it's just that we don't know it. And because of that, I think both of us would advocate you'd be you'd be gracious if somebody else wants to wants to sell everything they have and go on a move of it, even though it's not gonna be something that you believe you should do. I guess, secondly, there are there are fundamentally different concepts of what a church is supposed to do. There are some people who like so the Catholics, they have the idea that it's it's okay for a person to join himself to a certain monastic order and just live by those rules even though it's different than what other people are doing.

Phillip: 20:38

The Anabaptists, I would say they have a a little bit of a different view where yeah. They they recognize that certain churches have expectations that really they're not obviously derived from scripture, but it's it's how they choose to how they choose to practice the Christ's teachings. So then there I think it's more common among, especially fundamentalists, but also a lot of evangelicals. They have the idea of the church. It's it's just supposed to be the basic teaching of Christ's commands and not go or teaching based on the Bible and not going anything beyond that.

Phillip: 21:25

So, yeah, I'm not sure how much to go into that. That's I think there's there are fundamentally fundamental difference opinions on what the church is supposed to do there.

Derek: 21:34

Yeah. Yeah. I guess, you know, as as you were talking, it reminded me of, like, Paul saying, you know, this this command is not from the Lord. It's from me. Or it's not a commandment from me.

Derek: 21:46

It's just, you know, I wish that you could all be like I am, single, right? Not married. And so he's like, this is a good thing, but it's not a necessary thing. God equips people differently to do, to represent Him in different ways. And so it, yeah, I guess there are, you know, there are a variety of instantiations of what it looks like to live like Christ.

Derek: 22:16

We just all want those solid parameters for it, it seems. And so, it seems like the Bruderhof and the Hutterites and all them, they have some beautiful instantiations of one aspect of what it looks like to live simply in Christianity. I think the hard part there is that's an easy out for me because I'm gonna like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That that's a beautiful instantiation of Christianity. But God didn't equip me to do that.

Derek: 22:49

So, you know, I don't have to give up my stuff. So how do you what are some what are some indications if God doesn't call us all to be in those types of communities, what would be an indication or some indications that maybe we're walking away from kingdom territory? If the kingdom is a big kingdom and, you know, there's a lot of land, but you can still leave the territory, what are some indications that you're outside of the parameters of what it looks like to be living simply in the kingdom?

Phillip: 23:27

Yeah. So I I mentioned the principle of what are you doing more than others? So that would be one. Aside from that Yeah. The things that you could look at I guess I guess the simple answer would be you you just you just think about what you are doing, think about why you're doing it, and think about, is it something something that we could just as well do without?

Phillip: 24:04

Could we could we serve Jesus better by living a more simple lifestyle both in both in our time usage and in our money usage?

Derek: 24:16

Yeah. So so speaking of that, this is, I think, one of the the biggest things that we had talked about last time. You know, when when you think about the way that you use money, you can look at it in two ways. So we'll address both of those. You can look at it in terms of how you help people, and you can look at it in terms of, you know, how you do harm to other people.

Derek: 24:37

So we'll end on the how you help people because I think that's the area that you've maybe done the most thinking and reading about. So like in terms of harming people though, you know, one of the one of the discussion points that we had is as we talked about how we think through using our money, we talked about like should you buy things like fair trade products or should you buy locally? Do you think globalism is good? What about, you know, slave labor from other countries that's tied to the clothing that you buy? What do you think about those sorts of principles in terms of trying not to do harm through the spending of our money?

Derek: 25:21

Do you think that those are good things like boycotting sweatshop labor products or buying fair trade? Like, do you think about that type of stuff and trying to not do harm?

Phillip: 25:34

Yeah. That that's a hard question. Think I think it can I I support the concept of trying to trying to trying to help the poor through your buying habits? I'm a little skeptical sometimes that the consumer activism things that come up such as fair trade really are doing what they're supposed to. So to get into the fair trade thing a little bit, I I I'm by no means an expert on it, but from some things I've read is that it's a little bit expensive to get certified as for fair trade.

Phillip: 26:22

And so because of that, it's generally the, slightly more wealth we call it slightly more wealthy. The not as poor countries are the ones where growers are doing that. And then, you know, they can sell the stuff for more expensive, but then they have to keep up with the paperwork of staying certified. It's more complications. They have a smaller market to sell to, and maybe not maybe they don't end up selling all this stuff Fairtrade.

Phillip: 26:53

And, also, sometimes the Fairtrade organization does not keep up with the changing inflation or just the fluctuations in the coffee prices, whatnot. So that that is some things I've read have been a problem with fair trade. I don't know know if enough know enough to say if that is enough to not do fair trade. One thing I'll mention is there's also direct trade that where some people would just buy their coffee beans directly from growers themselves, or or, basically, they have they they set up small coops to be the importers instead of relying on a corporation to import coffee beans. So that's an alternative that I don't know.

Phillip: 27:43

From the little bit I know is maybe something I would be be more prone to. Yeah, could you maybe repeat the question of

Derek: 27:54

Yeah. Yeah. So that's, I mean, maybe the fair trade aspect, but then there's also the like, if if you find out that a product that you'd normally buy, like, let's say some shoes or clothes is made in a sweatshop or, you know, uses that kind of labor or maybe we'd consider exploitative because they pay their workers extremely low wages, Do you think boycotting, like refusing to do harm, like is that really truly refusing to do harm by not buying those sorts of products? Is that a good action? Is that the type of thing?

Derek: 28:31

One aspect of what it would look like to live simply is I'm gonna buy the more expensive shoes that are not made in, I don't know, China, Vietnam, where wherever in a place that I know that they're exploiting people.

Phillip: 28:49

Yeah. That's a good question. Yeah. I think it'd depend on the situation. That's not something I have personally done.

Phillip: 28:59

I don't know. I I think it for me, I I guess I would find it too hard to know all the causes and effects of of what I'm doing, and partly because maybe it's just not something that's been on my radar. Maybe it should be. But the thing is, I guess my concern would be is if you are boycotting labor in China because it's too exploitative, well, then you're gonna buy from Japan where, you know, the people already have enough the people are already better off, and it would become affirmative action for the rich is what I would call it instead of maybe if enough people buy from China, then there will be demand for workers, and they'll have to start paying the workers more in order to in order to get workers. Hopefully, that's that's the way capitalism is supposed to work.

Phillip: 29:48

But, yeah, obviously, it doesn't always.

Derek: 29:50

Yeah. There's a lot of supposed to supposed tos in capitalism that don't seem to to work out that way. Yeah. That's that's maybe one of the hardest things for me too. Because yeah, like you said, okay, so you don't buy from China, now you buy from somebody who it takes a lot more money to start up fair trade types of things or businesses that don't exploit labor.

Derek: 30:14

So those people probably had more capital to begin with, more connections, more social connections, more investors. So now you're just gonna support them, and now the people who lose their jobs in sweat shops go back to the, you know, the farming, the rural farming where they're susceptible to famines or whatever. Like, is that really any better for them? But at the same time, if they're being exploited, am I complicit if I participate in that knowingly? And you brought up another thing.

Derek: 30:50

You said like, how do we know all the causes and effects? And I think that's what's that's maybe one of the hardest things in a global society is I can get products from China, but I can also get news from China. Like, I can can know what's going on there. And in some ways, it's like, yeah, I don't want to play God by thinking that I have to overanalyze every action that I do because I can't control everything. I can't think everything.

Derek: 31:20

Like, I'm not omniscient. I'm not omnipotent. Like, I can't do that. But at the same time, if I can go to the store and I can look at two things and I can look at prices and I could just as easily get on my phone and just look up, there are tons of places that will give you a rating of, you know, is this exploitative or not? Like, it's super easy to find out.

Derek: 31:43

So if affects my pocketbook, I'll look it up. I'll research where's the best place to buy these shoes or what shoes are gonna last and what shoe like, I'll spend a bunch of time researching things to save me money, but I won't spend time researching to avoid exploitation. And so that that's where it feels hard. I don't feel like I'm playing God by saying I should be responsible for thinking of those people because the access to thinking about them is very easy.

Phillip: 32:15

Right. Yeah. I I would I definitely wouldn't call call it playing god. Yeah. I guess my only concern is is that I believe it's it's very commonly commonly said that sometimes helping hurts, and sometimes I think that that type of helping is maybe one of the more likely ones to to hurt.

Phillip: 32:38

Although, I agree, can be a benefit if it's done right.

Derek: 32:43

Yeah. I don't think last time we talked about this, don't think we came to a resolution either. It's a it's a very, very difficult thing to think about, for sure.

Phillip: 32:52

Definitely.

Derek: 32:53

Okay. So I think the last thing that I'd like to pick your brain on is instead of the refusing to do harm or trying to avoid harm, like thinking about altruism and trying to help people with our money. Peter Singer, totally not a Christian, like a philosopher, ethicist who is known for having some pretty wild ideas, at least, you know, that Christians don't like. One thing I appreciate about him is that he's extremely consistent. And so one the thought experiments that he had talked about was, you know, he asked this question about there's this kid drowning in this, you know, shallow pond.

Derek: 33:39

Like, let's say it's it's three feet deep, so you can stand up in there easy. Right? But this this little kid's drowning. You're walking by, lots of people are just looking at the kid. You can swim, so even if it was deeper, you'd be fine.

Derek: 33:50

But it's three feet. Would you be immoral for just walking by and letting the kid drown? And of course, everybody is like, well, of course, that's immoral. Like, if you can save him and you're right there, save them. Well then Singer applies this to finances, right?

Derek: 34:10

There are people that are homeless in pretty much everybody's local community. There are people who need money for food or shelter. And certainly because of that globe because we're in a global economy, very easily, with a push of a button, I could send money anywhere in the globe. I could get food for pretty much anybody, you know, maybe not in Papua New Guinea, like in the middle of the rainforest and the Amazon, whatever, but I can get resources to people very fast all across the globe.

Phillip: 34:43

The one detail I remember from that that Peter Singer's shoes thing, didn't he say that that isn't part of the framework that the shoes cost $3,000 and you're gonna ruin them by wading in into the wading into the puddle? So I guess the concept in there is that it takes $3,000 to save a life. I think that's that's that's how he was framing it.

Derek: 35:05

Yeah. It it very well could be. So, yeah, there's some there's some cost to you, right, whether that's time or resources like ruining your shoes. But, I mean, that's the question. If we'd

Phillip: 35:21

all

Derek: 35:21

say that we ought to save the drowning kid because we have access to that kid, we have immediate access to them to help them and save them, I don't know what those commercials are. Like, for $5 you can provide a meal for one week for this kid in, I don't know, Ethiopia. Like, we could all save a life for at least a day, right, one day. We have immediate access to people who are drowning, starving, whatever. Like, can you help me think through what simplicity and altruism looks like if you're, you know, you're talking about helping others, not hurting others.

Derek: 36:07

What is our obligation there and what would simplicity look like for the Christian to live not above our means, to live in a way that's going to seek the good of others?

Phillip: 36:18

Yeah. Yeah. To start off with, so, like, you said that you talked about it being a moral duty. I think that's very much in in Jesus' teaching that it's a moral duty to help those in need. In Matthew 25, it, I mean, it I think it's pretty clear that this is a salvation issue to help the least of these, my brother, and which I think is referring to to poor Christians.

Phillip: 36:48

But, yeah, obviously, helping anyone is important. So, like, what does it look like to to be altruistic and to to try to live a life of altruism? Yeah. So there's there's many ways of looking at it. You mentioned Peter Singer, and he's he's what what you call utilitarian.

Phillip: 37:22

And there's the effective altruism movement, which is based on a it's based on a utilitarianism. I'm I'm somewhat familiar with it even though it's a secular movement, so I wouldn't wanna wouldn't wanna be a part of it. But they they try to be very scientific about understanding well, I think they call it applying the scientific method to altruism, where they have try to have a metric of how much how much good they're doing. They have a metric of helping people, and they try to use scientific studies to observe what their efforts are doing. I think that might be an extreme case of being data oriented with your giving, but I think a lot of the critique of effective altruism is that it's supposed to be something that comes from the heart.

Phillip: 38:24

You're just supposed to be a compassionate person. And if you see the kid drowning in the pool, well, obviously, you'd have to be pretty hard hearted to walk by. But to let the child die in the jungles of South Sudan wherever, that's not so hard hearted because like, yeah, you might read about it in the news, but it's it's still it obviously is for for the move because, yeah, you don't have an obvious channel to help him right away. And even if you do, you have so many things all around you that it becomes kind of noise instead of information. But, yeah, I would have I I guess I wouldn't take Peter Singer's view that or I shouldn't say it is his view, but kind of the the the spectrum that they go to is they they do land on the side of saying that, yeah, you are responsible to to help in in the capacity that you can.

Phillip: 39:33

I don't know that I'd go that far, but I I do believe that we have the opportunity, obviously, to help in various ways, and I do believe that definitely brings some responsibility. As far as how to do it, yeah, I think probably the method I use more is I try to one thing I have done is I have gone to conferences where nonprofits kind of have an expo of and show show what they're doing across the world, and I can talk to them. I can engage with the leaders of these nonprofits, and, you know, I can decide which one is is doing the best work. Obviously, I'm gonna I'm gonna get it wrong sometimes, but we have we have to choose choose something, obviously, or else we'll end up doing nothing, which I think is too often what happens is we we end up doing nothing because we don't know what to do.

Derek: 40:31

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. It's yeah. And I totally agree with you that the utilitarian argument of, like, you know, just assessing by what does the the greatest good, It seems like there comes a point where you do try to play God in a sense where you take on the responsibility of being omniscient, of knowing everything.

Derek: 40:55

And I think there's just not freedom in that. And I don't think generosity I think generosity should be freeing. It shouldn't be something that, like, we fret about getting wrong. If you're giving your money away to something that God lays on your heart to a need, that's a good thing. It might not be the best organization, the organization over there might be more efficient.

Derek: 41:23

But yeah. You know, I've thought of that in relation to I remember vividly, I was in Romania, we were eating at a restaurant and we met this other American family that was there. I forget what they were doing, but they they like talked about how they, I don't know, like ran some animal shelter or something. And I'm I'm sitting there eating this burger that I spent a bunch of money on, and I'm like, man, what a waste of money that these people are like helping animals, you know? And I'm thinking to myself like, I like animals and everything, but think about all of the human lives that you could save if we stopped helping animals, you know, if we stopped spending all this money.

Derek: 42:08

Or when I go into Target, and it just it still kills me. Like, I just I feel like it's wrong that there's all this, like, organic refrigerated dog food. And I'm like, I have two cats. We spend, I don't know what it is, like $50 in cat food or litter and stuff. I don't know how much, but we spend money on animals.

Derek: 42:33

And I'm like, what waste. Like, I could be helping I could be doing something better than helping animals. But at the same time, I think God is the God of all creation. He created all things. He loves His creation.

Derek: 42:48

He loves animals. If there's an animal injured on the side of the road, don't I think it's a good thing that there's somebody who takes care of God's good creation and tries to heal animals and stuff? Like, that's a good thing. Am I going to say that we should be as efficient as we possibly can and save, you know, send all of our money everywhere across the globe and try to save every human being. I I don't know.

Derek: 43:11

I struggle with that. And sorry. I was rambling there. But does does any of that, like, make sense, that kind of that difficulty within me? Did did that make any sense?

Phillip: 43:21

Yeah. I get the difficulty. Yeah. I I I feel very much the same thing of there's endless complications that we have in in today's world. We just have to do the best we can at at at developing a framework of how to work with it.

Derek: 43:44

Yeah. And I feel like we talked a lot about trying to develop a framework, and we still have no idea. We still have no idea. Just kind of love justice and love mercy and try to walk humbly and live as best you can as God guides you. That just doesn't I think that's true.

Derek: 44:02

It just feels like I want I want an answer. Like, give me a formula.

Phillip: 44:08

Yeah. One thing I might mention that I've also thought a lot about I I guess I'm gonna just gonna raise a question here instead of giving an answer. You're not

Derek: 44:17

allowed to do that. I haven't thought through.

Phillip: 44:21

Yeah. You invited me on here, so I'll just go ahead and do it. Like, the issue of gaining wealth for yourself in order to give. You know, the way I'm living life now, I can give. I, you know, I live frugally.

Phillip: 44:38

But at the same time, if I would gain up wealth, start my own business, and try to or maybe buy properties to rent out, just, you know, amassing capital, I would maybe I would just do that my whole my whole life and never give, but there's a possibility that I would be able to reach the level of a super giver. You know, I I give to some organizations. Some of them are pretty big, but none of them are anywhere close to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, because the unfortunate truth is that most of the world's giving is done by supergivers. So, you know, that's something I've had to think about is how much should I focus on trying to come up with a pragmatic way of gaining wealth so that I can give, and how much do I just focus on the here and now and just giving what I can? I do think Jesus speaks to some of that with when he talked about the poor widow that threw in her two mites.

Phillip: 45:41

He he seems to be on the side of just just give what you can.

Derek: 45:44

And and not building barns for your stuff.

Phillip: 45:47

That's correct. Yeah. Maybe he would have been different if the man would have said, I'm gonna build barns so I can give it to the poor when when it's wintertime.

Derek: 45:55

Ezio, I don't build a barn. I'm just building a shed. Yeah. No. So as far as the super givers go, I think the hard part about that is, okay, so what if Jeff Bezos gives away or or what was the guy's name?

Derek: 46:13

Walton, the owner of Walmart. So what if he gives away like a billion dollars? Not only is that a miniscule amount compared to what he has, but it's also the things that some of them do pretty much, like, all riches come from injustice. Right? That's a I forget a quote from Cyril Clement.

Derek: 46:34

I don't know. But when you have that much wealth, you didn't get it without injustice. And so, like, I know you're not talking about being like Jeff Bezos or anything. Like, maybe you're talking about millions of dollars or hundreds of thousands. Right.

Derek: 46:50

But in my just from from what I've read from the early church, from other people, and my own experience, I think I think it's really easy to become utilitarian, consequentialists to justify. I think you become very blinded. Just a Just one example from my life, not of us becoming rich, but when we were itinerating to do missions work, you know, there's a thought process that goes through your mind. It's like, okay, I have to raise X amount of dollars to go to the mission field. So what churches do you naturally want to look at?

Derek: 47:27

You want to look at the wealthy churches, right? Like, okay, here's this church in our denomination. Oh, they're in this little church. They got like 30 people in Alabama. Nah, I'm not gonna ask if they want us to come there.

Derek: 47:40

Right? You've got this tendency to be like, nope, I'm gonna pass over them because they don't have money to give me. It's like, well, but shouldn't the gospel go there? Like, shouldn't they get to hear shouldn't that church of 30 people get to hear about the Kingdom of God at work in Romania or in China or wherever you are? And so we made a not a vow, but we, you know, we decided, we're like, look, we're gonna cast our net wide.

Derek: 48:09

We're gonna contact every church. I think we contacted every church East Of The Mississippi. And we're like, if they say we can come, we're gonna go. And it costs resources to go, right? Because you have to like, you know, gas money, hotels, whatever, costs you money to go.

Derek: 48:26

But we decided that we were going to go to any church. That's a hard decision though because it costs us resources and it costs us time, it costs us effort to go to a group of 30 people. But we did. And I'll tell you, that church in Alabama, and there's a little church down here in Georgia, They were it was just so beautiful, the relationships that we were able to make. And the big churches, they gave us money, but the times that we had there were just very different.

Derek: 49:00

I think there's that tendency when we talk about, you know, if I just make more money, I can do more good. And you're assuming that the money does the good and not just the not you are assuming this, but like, I think we as people assume that it's the money that does good when there's a whole lot of relational aspect that goes into it too. It's not just the money. But also we're assuming that we're not going to be corrupted by it. Like, I just need to make a little bit more so I can do good.

Derek: 49:28

There's not much difference between that, like I need to make a little bit more so I'm safe, and I need to make a little bit more so I can do more good. Like, you still end up justifying evils and making the same compromises just for slightly different reasons. That's my opinion, anyway.

Phillip: 49:46

Yeah. I think that's a good take on it. Sometimes I wonder when I think that maybe I'm just being lazy because for me, it is easier just to be a day laborer and you know, make a make a ordinary wage instead of taking risk. And but, yeah, overall, I do think it's also consistent with with what the New Testament teaches that going after wealth, even if even if you are doing it for a good cause, it's just not something the New Testament would promote.

Derek: 50:21

Yeah. It seems like if it happens and God blesses you and there are lots of stories of that throughout history of just, like, people who are just living faithfully and their business or whatever, like, they just keep getting blessed and they give. And, you know, that's great if if God provides that, but I don't think it's something that that you have to really seek hard after personally. But maybe, maybe like the Hutterites, maybe God does call some people to that. You know, there's with Ananias and Sapphira, they were like, Peter was like, hey, you could have kept your stuff.

Derek: 51:00

Right? It's your stuff, like you could keep it. But it's when you have these false pretenses and everything that you go along, that you create in order to make yourself look good or feel good. Alright. Well, thank you.

Derek: 51:18

I think those are all the questions I have for you, and you got to ask me a question. So do you have any any other questions or any things that that you'd like to just add or say in regard to the discussion?

Phillip: 51:32

No. I think that's everything. Thanks a lot for having me.

Derek: 51:35

Yeah. I appreciate all the ways that you've helped me to think through this. So thanks for thanks for doing this, taking time out of your day.

Phillip: 51:42

Yep. You're welcome. Thank you.

Derek: 51:44

That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to non violence and Kingdom Living.