“Heaven Help Us” with John Kasich

by on June 20, 2025

If you like a good story, we think you’ll like this episode.

This week, we’re honored to welcome John Kasich—a national leader, lifelong public servant, and gifted storyteller. Throughout his career, he’s met thousands of people, and he’s here to share just a few of the stories that have stayed with him.

As the 69th Governor of Ohio (2011–2019), Gov. Kasich led with a focus on unity and problem-solving. He rose to national prominence during his 2016 presidential run and continues to serve today through his work with the Kasich Company, his role as a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC, and as the author of several New York Times bestsellers.

His latest book, Heaven Help Us: How Faith Communities Inspire Hope, Strengthen Neighborhoods, and Build the Future, is the heart of this week’s conversation.

John shares some of his personal journey—including how the sudden loss of his parents in a car accident became a life-altering moment. He also invites us into the deeply moving stories from his new book—stories of ordinary people in churches, synagogues, and mosques doing extraordinary work to serve their neighbors. These aren’t just heartwarming accounts; they’re powerful reminders of how faith can drive tangible, lasting change.

This conversation moves quickly—so we encourage you to grab a copy of Heaven Help Us and spend time with these stories yourself.

Join us for a conversation full of hope, challenge, and inspiration—about what’s possible when we come together, rooted in faith, to love our neighbors and build a better world.

About Our Guest:

John Kasich is a national leader who has spent a lifetime bringing people together to solve big problems and leaving the world around them just a little bit better than they found it.

As the 69th Governor of Ohio (2011-2019), John Kasich led the Ohio Comeback, restoring Ohio’s fiscal stability, diversifying the state’s economy with more than 500,000 new private-sector jobs, expanding health care coverage for low-income Ohioans, protecting vulnerable residents, and championing a number of reforms to protect the environment.

Gov. Kasich ran for President during the 2016 GOP primary. He was the last candidate to leave the race and finished third in the total delegate count. His message focused on unifying Americans rather than dividing them, championing the great potential of our citizens to make positive impacts in their own communities, a strong national defense and the importance of our international alliances.

When he served in Congress (1982-2000), John was Chairman of the House Budget Committee and worked across party lines to pass the first federally balanced budget since man walked on the moon. It hasn’t been done again since he left Congress.

Gov. Kasich also served for 18 years on the Armed Services Committee where he played a role in every major national security effort that helped end the Cold War.

Today, he runs the Kasich Company and serves as a political analyst for NBC, CNBC & MSNBC.

Kasich is the author of four New York Times best-sellers: Courage is Contagious; Stand for Something: The Battle for America’s Soul; Every Other Monday; and Two Paths: America Divided or United, which reflects on 2016 run as Republican Primary Presidential candidate and his hopes for America’s future. His latest book, entitled It’s Up To Us: Ten Little Ways We Can Bring About Big Change, was released in Fall 2019.

He is married to Karen Kasich and is the proud father of adult twin daughters.

Related Resources:

Episode Transcript:

Dan: Rachael, we have the privilege of course, of talking with some remarkable human beings, but I think we’re in a realm that we just haven’t had quite in the same way. I’m going to begin by saying, I’ll introduce this remarkable human being in a moment, but I want to start by talking about a passage in Isaiah 40. It says, Go up on the high mountain O Zion. Herald of good news, lift up your voice with strength. Now what I would say is we’ve had very few heralds on this podcast, and essentially a herald is someone in a royal position who doesn’t just deliver a message, but the very presence, the very person invites you into a level of understanding, in one sense, into knowledge, but also to something of a command that as an ambassador, you are inviting people usually in the context of war to know something that you didn’t know but need to know. So we have a herald on today, and again, that is in and of itself incredible honor. But this gentleman happens to have, after a first term in the Ohio Senate, served nine terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives, which in and of itself is almost like, it means that he’s like Methuselah, ancient and wise. He was the 69th governor of Ohio from 2011 to 2019 and ran for the Republican position of president in 2000 and 2016. And I will also say that though he did not run in 2016 for President, I wrote his name in. I don’t generally announce my politics, but I did write your name in. So to have John Kasich, Governor Kasich with us… Governor, it is a sweet gift and honor to have you with us. So do you think of yourself as a herald?

John: I actually don’t think of myself as any of the stuff you’ve been saying. You’re beyond kind. I’m sort of… don’t have anything to say that hasn’t happened very often. I mean, it was very, very nice and generous of you to just trying to do the best I can. That’s all.

Dan: Yeah. I’ll just say that very few people accuse me of being nice. You are a herald.

John: I don’t believe that.

Dan: Sometimes kind. But lemme just promise the gift of what you have given us. And we get the privilege again, of talking about your new book, Heaven Help Us. And if there is a statement for our day and our generation, that alone is enough. But, how faith communities inspire, hope, strengthen neighborhoods, and build the future. So we get the privilege of chatting with you, but talking about this really brilliant and sweet new book. You are a herald. You’re bringing us stories, not just of individuals who in and of themselves inspire, literally just I wept over many of the stories, but more importantly than mere individuals. You’re inviting us to understand how faith communities invite, inspire, but also are the ground from which inspiring human beings call us all, not only to more faith, but to living out the goodness of God in the land of the living. So first and foremost, tell us a little bit about how you came to write this book. And again, it’s also a follow up in so many ways of some of your prior work. So how did you get into Heralding?

John: Well, it’s actually Dan, it’s actually my second faith book. My first one was called Every Other Monday, and it was a story about some guys that come together and kind of talk about life as it can be kind of interpreted or guided through the scripture. I started in 1987 with a friend of mine, and we are now still doing it. So we’re almost 40 years doing this. And so I had to recharge a little bit because some of our people who participated are dead, so we had to bring some life to it. So I got some younger people involved. Now it’s small, it’s only seven or eight of us, and some come and go, but it’s been good. So I wrote about that. And then this book you were asking before we started this about Tremper Longman. So I talked to Tremper and a great friend of mine named John Palafoutas, who I have now hooked the two of them together, and Russell Moore had been telling me that the pastors were under pressure to take politics into the pulpit, and I didn’t like that. And so I gathered some theologians, Tremper being one of them, and a bunch of others, including N.T. Wright. And we tried to get Bishop Baron, the Catholic, but he was always too busy. And there were others who participated. And first of all, I don’t know if they thought that I had the standing to call them together. When I think about it, I’ve never said this, but I think that might be part of it. The second part of it is I couldn’t get them to agree on a sentence, let alone a whole paragraph about it meant to be a believer. That’s what I was trying to do, come up with sort of a statement of what it meant to be a believer and then give it to the pastor so they could resist. Well, we didn’t get very far. So Palafoutas says, why don’t you go ahead and write a book? So that’s where this book came from. And it’s interesting, I did write a book called Courage is Contagious, and that was a story of individuals who had done amazing things. But I wanted to do this because I wanted to say that these institutions, if you go into politics, you need a clubhouse so people can gather. If you’re going to try to change something big, it’s better to have a clubhouse, which can be your church or synagogue and your mosque, and you can ask the leaders to help you in realizing your purpose, whatever it is, helping the homeless, feeding the hungry, all these kinds of things. And so there was a push among people to say, oh, what if I found somebody who was doing this alone? I said, no, that’s disqualifies. I want ’em to be connected to an institution. Now, there may be somebody in here if I thought about it that we kind of cheated a little bit. But basically it’s pretty faith driven. I believe, look, if you have a great idea, you may start all alone. People may think you’re crazy, but if you keep at it and you have a little support, it’s amazing what can happen to you.

Dan: Well, you see toward the end of the book that it’s crucial for faith communities to actually trust and have faith in their members as well as for members to trust something of the process of letting individuals follow dreams and passions. And it’s an intersection. A lot of communities are reluctant to let odd people start things. And generally everyone you’ve got in this book is an odd human being, which obviously includes you. So a little bit more about how you came to write and think about these matters, why does it matter to you?

John: Because I’m a herald.

Rachael: You’ve got a good sense of humor too. It’s refreshing.

John: No, I mean, it’s just why, I don’t know. I guess Dan and Rachael, I guess I’ve been given a lot in my life. It’s been really, I think the Lord’s been very good to me, and I just seem natural to do this. I have a great interest in the issue of faith, and let’s just be clear from the onset. I’m a hypocrite. I’m just a goofball. And it’s funny because when I talk to people of faith and I say, I’m a hypocrite, they quickly chime in and say they’re in the club too. And I don’t know, I’m trying at times to kind of do good. I fall off, but then I get screwed up, get distracted or whatever. But I love this book because what has happened with this book is I actually feel as though there’s some air underneath my wings. I actually feel when I talk about this, it just makes me feel good. It makes me feel sort of energized to talk about it. Now, in the beginning, I wanted to sell a lot of books and all that, but not because I wanted to make money, but I just wanted the message to get out there. But then I finally figured out that, and I don’t know this, you never know where these messages come from, but it’s sort like you got to stay at it, kid. Just keep talking about it and do what you can do and we’ll see where it goes. I like it to be a good success because I’d like to do more, but if I’m done, I’m done. What the hell? I dunno.

Rachael: Well, what was fun for me is a few of the people that you mentioned, I was like, oh, I know that person. Oh, I’ve encountered that person’s work. Well, Rich Nathan, you mentioned a Vineyard pastor, former Vineyard pastor in Columbus. I was a part of

John: Always a Vineyard pastor.

Rachael: Yes, right. I was a part of the Vineyard for a long season, so…

John: Really

Rachael: Many opportunities to interact with Pastor Nathan. Scholar Nathan.

John: He’s an amazing guy. And that’s how I met Hal Donaldson was through Rich Nathan. And here’s the interesting thing. He is brilliant. Now I’ve got these brilliant friends. Okay, let’s exclude Tremper. Who knows that he’s brilliant. And has a title that’s 18 million miles long, right? We know that about him. But anyway, I was talking to him the other day and I was just going reading, I’m working my way through the Old Testament, and I said, to Tremper, so the Old Testament Jews didn’t believe in the afterlife. He said, no, they didn’t. Not until we get to Daniel. Do you see any hints of that. Now, of course, I was in church on Sunday with my wife in Florida, and they were doing Isaiah 65 or seven or whatever it is, and it was about the new creation. So I don’t know what that was about. Now, if you got Isaiah writing about the new creation, and we say, we don’t believe that the Jews in that era didn’t believe in the afterlife. I don’t know how to swear that. So anyway, when I heard this, I was so depressed. I’m like, wait a minute, how did these people deal with all their trouble. If they didn’t believe in an afterlife? And I called Rich Nathan because I don’t like to bother Tremper too much. And so we had a chat and he told me something I never realized, which I then passed on to my Bible study. And that is the Jews of the Old Testament believed that their lives were carried on by their children. And I went, oh, that’s why Leah, who is one person described in the scripture as unattractive, was so popular. She had all these kids. And Rachel the beauty couldn’t have any kids for a while. And I was like, oh, now I get it. So you have to look at it in a different way. And these people are so smart. Rich Nathan is just brilliant. Tremper’s brilliant. Palafoutas is not brilliant, but in a way he is, but he’s just common. But he has such insight. These people are valuable to me, and I have no idea why this stuff drives me crazy. Dan, you’re a psychologist or whatever the hell you are,

Dan: Whatever the hell I am…

John: Explain it to me. I don’t understand. I really don’t know why I care about this, but I do.

Dan: Well, the fact that it makes your heart beat faster, there is something of life that comes as you engage these people. And certainly what I knew about you and why I put your name in as a write in for the President is you’re very human. And in that, your foibles and your strengths combined in a way in which, in your knowledge of your hypocrisy, there’s a level of honesty. That’s rare.

John: It’s true, because I don’t want to set myself up. I’m going to tell you guys a story. So when I was… you don’t mind, do you?

Dan: Look, this is fabulous.

John: Okay, so here’s the story.

Dan: This is like the phone call we had when I met you in DC, right?

John: That’s right. So I’m in the fourth grade and I’m going to the Catholic church, Mother of Sorrows, and I’m looking for something to do when I’m in church and I see these altar boys, and I think, well, wait a minute. So I don’t know how old are you when you’re in the fourth grade? Not very old.

Dan: Nine? Yeah.

John: Yeah. And I think, well, I ought to be one of them. That would be really cool to come and do that. So they said, we have to learn all this Latin. That was when we had the Latin mass. So I went and learned all the Latin in a couple days. But when you’re a Catholic boy, a lot of times you’re just like, and it passes. You’re okay. You get approved. So I started being an altar boy, and I got good at it. I mean, I knew what these priests were doing, and one of them said to me one time, you know more about this stuff than I do. Now of course that wasn’t true, but now here’s what else happens, so I think I was in the 9th grade or the 10th grade, I don’t remember exactly when at the 12 o’clock service, Guy Perro, who was the ultimate commentator, he would go down and read the readings and direct the people and all that stuff. He doesn’t show up. So the priest tells me to go down and do it myself. So I go down and I get up, and my mother was in shock about what I was doing. And that started me being a commentator and all that in church. And my friend nicknamed me “Pope” of all things. And then it allowed me to speak at many different places. I started speaking, and then I went away to college, and I just didn’t think much about it, I don’t think. As a young man, I was probably either taken with myself or God was grabbing at me somehow. I’ve never talked about this ever before, anywhere, but there was something going on. Lemme just put it to you that way. But when I go to college, it’s sort of like, nah. And then when I run for office, it’s like, okay, God, you’re my rabbit’s foot. So then I was doing all this stuff and going about my life and being very aggressive and everything. And then in 1987 when my parents were killed, that’s when people said to me, I’ll never forget today, being in the hospital room with my mother and Stu Boehmig, who is another great one. I have more stories about him. He’s a pastor. He comes in and tries to comfort me. I said, you don’t have a clue. He said, I know one thing. Your mother would rather not be anywhere but where she is right now. And then a couple days later, he said, well, there’s a window of opportunity. And Dan, I’m sure you have talked to people about this in your practice, you have a window of opportunity to go through and discover some things about yourself and your eternal destiny. And I went through that window and I opened myself up completely to self-analysis and spiritual analysis, and everything started to change. And that’s where I am today.

Dan: Well, and while you…

John: Do you like that story?

Dan: I love that story because again, you’re owning that your life was working well, you’re an articulate and brilliant man, you know that. But the ability to have gifts when you don’t know the gift giver is almost in and of itself, not just pointless, but empty, and you have…

John: But I was doing great, Dan. I didn’t feel empty. I felt great.

Dan: No wonder, I mean, you’re a young man already in significant power in the lovely state of Ohio.

John: Well, think about this. I go to Washington, first of all, I get elected to the state Senate. It was the most remarkable upset. And at this time, I take office. I’m 26 years old, and I had worked for these guys. I’m now one of them. And then I run for Congress, and at the age of 30, I get elected and I’m going to Washington to work with Ronald Reagan. I mean, so things were coming, and then I get down there and things started happening and good things were happening. And so I was just kind of buzzing along. I didn’t feel empty at all. And then that accident happened, which was my greatest fear as a kid, that something would happen to my parents in a car accident. And then it happened. And I was, Dan, you’ll understand this. I don’t know if Rachael will, but my world was totally black except for one little speck of light. Do you know what I mean by that?

Dan: I do. I do.

John: Yeah. Everything was black and one little speck of light, and then people started showing up and helping me, and everything started to change. And I’m happy and I’m free, and it’s great.

Dan: Well, and as a herald, what we want to do is, and Rachael , you do this first, pick a story from this stunning book that moved you. I have one, and John, we’re going to ask a terrible thing of you, because all 12 stories are people you love, people that you have gotten to know, interview, and engage, and it’s wicked to do this. But I’m going to ask you to pick one story that you want to talk about. But Rachael , what story for you held your heart as John’s describing what his own heart felt in the midst of feeling that level of something moved?

Rachael: Yeah. Well, I want to get to that, but the first thing I want to say, just thinking about that speck of light, and I do know something of that is just, that’s part of what I love about the whole of this book is it’s really showing us, it’s the mustard seeds that turn into something more. It’s the ways of the kingdom of God to give us a dream, an imagination, a way to bring heaven to earth, to pull something in, and how we might have some idea or imagination, but it grows when we gather with others, when we bring our resources together. And that’s one of the things that I love. I did actually, well, I’m just familiar with Convoy of Hope. I think the two I was most struck by Sister Mary Scullion, because I live in Philly, and so imagining her on the streets in Philly, I’ve met a few nuns in my life that are just ferocious, won’t take no for an answer, fierce women. So I could imagine her, but I think Hal’s story in particular with Convoy of Hope, I loved how in some ways there was a redemptive arc to his story. It didn’t bring his parents back. It didn’t change the heartache of that suffering, but it gave him an imagination that when we rise up to meet the needs of others, powerful things happen. And I think in some ways, knowing how big Convoy of Hope is now, but that it started really organically. It started with people just doing the next right thing, responding to need, believing it’s possible, paying attention to where resources are coming together, saying yes, the people who have the capacity to make a dream come true in bigger ways, being provided. So I think especially for my generation, I’m an elder millennial. I watched the presidential nomination.

John: Well, you don’t look that old.

Rachael: Thank you, I receive that. But there’s a lot of cynicism. There’s a lot of betrayal and heartache of the faith that we knew and watching so many of our parents’ generation in some ways lose the story. And so there’s such a distrust of religious organizations and nonprofit organizations, and it’s good to be reminded that there is still so much good work happening. And people who even when it looks like why bother? What’s the point? We’re up against so much that can continue to lean in and to do good, not just because they want to help people, but because they believe in a higher power that’s going to show up to take the loaves and the fishes and make them more. I think my heart needed to remember something of this, even in my own… I have an MDiv. I’m laughing at your, why am I like this? It’s like, oh, yeah, the theologians not being able to degree on one sentence. Yeah, I know something about that in all of my studies, but I needed a reminder that even people I know, just common people doing the small, mundane, but necessary things being magnified and exponentially turning into something more. It gives me hope to say yes in places that sometimes I’m like, what’s the point?

John: Hey, Rachael, my wife started, she doesn’t even know it… I call it a mission. And it’s really cool. And that is, she has a group she visits, she calls them her olds, and these are old people, older people, elderly, and she goes to see them, and she’s just adopted a new one. And she says she needs to have some younger, because all the olders keep going away, but all she does is go and visit them. And they love it, and she loves it. And it’s such a simple thing. Loneliness is the greatest epidemic we have in America today. And imagine if people just all adopted one senior and just once every couple of weeks go, and how you doing? Cool. But yeah, one thing about the Hal Donaldson story, Convoy of Hope is, one of my friends read the book, he said, well, I can’t do any of these things. So you don’t want to let people read it and go, well, this is all beyond me. So I like the story of my wife and the olds.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. The simple point, again, of that mustard seed, I think of it in terms of how many people in the book, of course, if you’ve got a dream, it’s going to need to be financed. If you’re going to tackle significant social issues, you will need funding. But the only donor ever addressed in scriptures, the widow who gave the proverbial might, meaning the smallest coin possible in the Roman Empire. And you go, small matters, small matters at a level that so often we don’t actually believe, not just in small matters, but the God of small matters. So my story that took me…

John: Dan, lemme just say one thing. You’re right, we say that small matters, but we don’t really believe that small matters. It’s sort of like we all know we’re going to die, but nobody ever thinks they’re going to, anyway, the contradiction. Go ahead. What was your favorite one?

Dan: Well, my favorite, again, it’s painful for me because everyone in this heraldic book captured something of a dream, something where I’d go, oh my gosh, that is so good, so good. But when I got to , who engaged the issue of how you would adopt a government agency that deals with child welfare, and the reality of my life and work is in the realm of sexual abuse. And so many of the kids who end up in foster contexts have been abused. And then even more so tragically, a lot of my clients who have been foster parented have been abused in the context of a foster home. So when I got to that story, I was like, oh my God, what are you going to bring? And the wisdom of caring at the simple level of radical hospitality, the idea of going, we want to actually adopt a governmental agency and ask, how can we serve you? Could we bring you barbecue ribs for lunch? Could we come into a governmental building that’s in some sense 60s Russian architecture and paint the walls? I mean, I’m like, oh my God, I could paint. I’m not good at cooking ribs, but I could actually hand out food. The notion that indeed, the work they have done literally now across the country, it’s one of those where you go very small acts of kindness in ownership. I think that was probably other element of they went in and acknowledged the church has failed the system, and they were there to repent and there to serve. That was a level, both of humility and genius, genius to offer in one sense good care, but also honesty that the church has done poorly with regard to the least of these. And in some ways, often children subjected to terrible, terrible, terrible harm. So what was it like to be with them?

John: Well, all this took place in Portland, and there’s a guy who’s now doing literacy, Kriz… Tony Kriz. And it’s like they say, well, God doesn’t live in Portland, but it seems like he’s pretty present over there. Ben Sands, by the way, just contacted me and actually I need to send a back note back to him. I told him he should go to Kentucky because I think Kentucky would be very open to working with him. And he just sent me a note, and I hadn’t heard from him. And he goes, Hey, I’m in Kentucky. Things are coming along, which is really good. Well, they’re all, I mean, it’s like, who’s your favorite kid? So that’s not fair. One that always strikes me that no one ever talks about, but I like it, is the story of Paul O’Brien who’s up there in that town that’s been hollowed out, and he challenges all the people that are there. And he’s gruff and he’s lovely and at the same time, but when they start serving meals to the anybody who wants to come in, who’s hungry, and they get a menu and they have tablecloths and a setting, and he raised all this money through these jars selling these T-shirts, it really is, I don’t know why it’s, and I know he’s doing a lot more, by the way. I know he’s building a whole new school and he’s got benefactors now. I really like the story. The first story is on Charleston, that story of forgiveness.

Dan: Yes.

John: Everybody knew the story, but it’s so powerful that you can’t ignore that story. And the one that people really like is they like the one in Omaha where they built the try, whatever we call it, the Boston Church in the synagogue there. It was funny, I got, as the guy told, tells the story, Bob Freeman, as he tells the story, he reluctantly got his synagogue to support him, and then they got the Muslims, but they couldn’t get a Christian operation, right? But they finally got it. And what’s cool about that story is I found out about him as was laid out in the book from Susie Buffet, and she’s a very interesting person. Of course, the daughter of Warren Buffet. I know her brother Howard. He’s a really good guy. They’re good people, by the way, really good people. And so we’re at a U2 concert at the Sphere, and I was basically the man that I go there by Bobby Shriver and the Shrivers, you know Maria Shriver she has a great book out right now called Maria. And she’s really something that’s given me some insight into her. But Bobby Shriver, her brother is a remarkable guy, and I’m really good pals with him. And he tells some of the, he’s an amazing guy. And he was the guy that led Bono to Capitol Hill, and that’s where I met Bobby and Bono. And that happened through Bobby’s former brother-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger. So I mean, and Al Pacino told me, don’t be a name dropper.

Rachael: Let’s just put that in the podcast notes. Al Pacino told me, don’t be a name dropper.

John: Yeah. So anyway, that’s a classic line. And think about this. So here I’m with Bobby and Bono, right? And this is before U2 really took off and became an explosive, incredible band. And he was saying to me, why can’t we get more meetings here on Capitol Hill? And I said, well, look at you Bono, you’re wearing a black leather suit. You got those Prada boots on those glasses you wear. A lot of these people don’t want to be seen with you. And he looked at me and he said, well, John, it’s interesting because a lot of the guys in my band don’t want me to be seen with you, with you. So anyway, but here’s the beautiful thing. Well, a couple of beautiful things. I scheduled two, I’m gonna to tell you. One is I scheduled this meeting with Jesse Helms, who nobody would’ve thought on the liberal side that Jesse would care about anything. And Bobby didn’t really want me to take Bono in. I said, we have to go. So we go in there and Jesse Helms looks at Bono and he says, Mr. Bono, if I had done in my life, all the things that you have done, my life would be more satisfying and complete. And he started crying, and he went to a press conference the next day with Ted Kennedy. That’s an unbelievable story. And another part of it too, this is on debt relief to Africa. The next part of the story is I call Pat Robertson. I said, Pat, we need to have a meeting down there in the White House to talk about this. We have to have ecumenical meeting. And he’s like, well, I haven’t been in the White House, and I spent all my time attacking Bill Clinton. And I said, well, he goes, well, if you think this is important, then I’ll go. And the reason I knew him is my mother found her faith through Pat Robertson I mean her real faith. Anyway, so I called down to the White House people. They said, well, you can’t bring Pat Robertson in there. And Gene Sperling, who was a top, he’s still around. He’s a big economic advisor and Democrats. He says, I don’t know if we could have this meeting. I’ve got to go talk to Bill Clinton. He calls me back and he says, yeah, I went in to see the president. And I said, what’d the president say? He said, well, I told him that Pat Robertson might come to the White House. And he looked at me, he said, you think he might really come, which says something about Bill Clinton. And then the meeting occurred, and I’m standing in the back of the cabinet room or wherever we were with Gene Sperling, and there’s Pat Robertson and Clinton with their arms around each other, huddling in the front of the room. That whole thing on debt relief led to PEPFAR. And PEPFAR is what saved millions of people in Africa through the HIV medicines that were sent there. Now, I understand that program’s being dismantled, disgrace, but to make a long story short, that whole business of U2, and so I go out there to the sphere, which is a remarkable thing, and Bobby’s beating me up to go. And that’s when I run into Susie Buffet who tells me about Bob Freeman and says, you should call this guy. He knows about the Muslims. And the next thing I know, here we have the chapter. So very unusual way to go about it. And by the way, the sphere and U2 at the sphere was just, I don’t even know what to say other than what I saw when Roger Waters performed the wall in Pittsburgh. I have to put this above that, but those were my two favorite shows of all time. Now, you probably go to shows like that, Rachael. I mean, U2. And…

Rachael: No, I’m not cool enough.

John: Or the Foo Fighters, and they’re friends of mine too. But when Bono sings, when Bono sings, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. It’s not about his car keys. Bono is a very faithful man who’s using his platform to do good, and he really is a, and he and Bono are just he and Bobby Shriver. They, they’ve changed the world.

Dan: Well, and to say they require people like you who are wild enough to go invite Jesse Helms into a conversation that for most of us who know that name would think that that would be perhaps one of the last human beings on the earth to be interested in that conversation. So again, I’ll go back to why you’re such a good herald is you don’t look like a herald, but as one who functions as an ambassador of the kingdom in the playground, not only of politics, but remarkably strange and complex human beings, it requires one to know one, and you apparently are one. So as you have finished this true labor of love, what do you find yourself saying as a result of all the compendium of people that you’ve interacted with?

John: Well, there’s thousands more if you just look.

Dan: Well, that’s the complexity, is that you’ve chosen 12 out of thousands. So how does it make a difference for you as you wake up on a Tuesday morning?

John: I have to tell you what’s funny about all this is that Dan Paisner, who’s just played a role here, major role in this book this time, he had to do a lot of the legwork. He’s not a believer. He’s written four books with me, including Every Other Monday. And so I’m working on him, I’m pounding on him, and he’s getting a little weak. He’s weakening. And how do I feel? I feel like I’m just going to keep working on this, and I hope people continue to have, I hope people continue to have an interest in the book, and I’m willing to do these podcasts and all that kind of stuff. I’m not sold on going and doing book signings, those, that’s kind of a waste of energy. But as long as people have an interest, I’ll tell you the coolest thing though, Joe Mioko in the church in Florida, who they were wiped out and then even while they were rebuilding themselves, they were still raising money for their charity partners. And I was there on Sunday. My wife wanted to go to 8:00 AM service. I wanted to go to 10, but then I realized if I went to 8, I might be able to weasel a little round of golf in after, because it was just the two of us down there. Our kids were not there. So I go to the eight o’clock service, and Joe had my book, and he gave a sermon and he pointed to the book, and then when he finished, he had me stand up in the church and introduce me. That just took me way back to where I used to be like front and center in the church. And I’ve removed myself from that because I get all the attention that I need, let somebody else get attention. I don’t need to get attention there.

Dan: Well, but it was a rounding of being called into being an altar boy. And if you hadn’t been an altar boy, you wouldn’t have developed the capacity to, shall we say, not just speak publicly, but to speak in a way that you do. So again, stories always have at least to some degree, a rounding, a kind of return to something of the crime scene or a better way of putting it to the realm of redemption.

John: And what’s really great is my daughters have faith. It’s not like, look, there’s all kinds of ways to think about religion. It’s not like how many times you cross yourself or how many prayers you say, but they are in one Easter, my daughter, Reese, who likes to sleep in like her father, she said to her mother, she said, mom, I love Jesus, but I really need to sleep longer. I’m not going to go to church. But both Reese and Emma, they are strong believers and it’s great. And so is my wife. And unbeknownst to me, she’s studied the scriptures. She’s the one that pointed out to me the new creation in Isaiah when we were having breakfast, because I had a friend that kept shoving a new creation down the throats of the people who attended. But let me tell you, I want to tell you one more story about the new creation. Okay? So John Ortberg, you know him?

Dan: Yes.

John: He’s a great… Dallas Willard was a great preacher. He preached about the new creation. I didn’t know anything about the new creation. So a friend of mine, Tom Barrett, who read the Bible studies down in Washington and was one of the healers of me back in the early time, he asked me, he said, have you ever heard of John Ortberg? And I said, no. I said, why are you asking? He said, well, he runs a church in the Silicon Valley, and since you go to the Silicon Valley, you must know him. I said, there’s like a billion people in the… What the hell’s wrong with you? So I fly out to California, and I’m in the Silicon Valley with this guy, his name was Dale Fuller. I haven’t spoken to him in years. We were having a meeting in his house and I said, Hey, have you ever heard of John Ortberg? And he said, he didn’t say much. He said, excuse me, I’m get you some coffee. So he comes back and he says, you have a meeting with John Ortberg at two o’clock this afternoon? I’m like, really? So I go to see John Ortberg, and he hands me this pamphlet about the new creation That had been put together by Dallas Willard. And I called up Ortberg and I said, John, do you believe this? He said, absolutely. And Dan, I’ve come to find that almost all the theologians I talk to believe in the new creation. And for those that may not know, listen, they probably all know, but this is the idea that we will heaven and the earth will be joined. We will get resurrection bodies like Jesus had. And it’s always interesting because when Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, she didn’t recognize him, but yet he was walking through walls with the apostles, and they all knew who he was. And then he’s eating fish with these guys, and they don’t know who. It’s just a weird thing. I don’t understand that. But anyway, the idea that we go through trials and God, I don’t want any trials. I just don’t. But we go through trials, and if we somehow can stay faithful, it helps build us for the kingdom yet to come. That’s hope, isn’t it?

Dan: Oh, it’s totally hope. Well, every time that we have the Lord’s Prayer, we say on earth, on earth as it is in heaven, that statement alone is a way of saying, this earth will one day be fully captured as eternity is what we will become as it’s, and I’ll just say again, you’re one of those lovely strange men who you go, you don’t fit. You’re not a good politician, you’re not a good Christian, you’re not a good author. And that’s why you are a powerful believer and politician and writer. And that is you don’t fit. And yet you have the ability to bridge as a herald people radically different people into a conversation where you go the image of the Omaha story of a mosque and a synagogue and a church all taking their own physical space, yet shared common ground. And it all began, when, shall we say, the wives of the Jewish men and the wives of the Muslim men basically sent food and said, if you’re going to have this meeting, here’s food to take. And all the men apparently, were like, why? And the answer is because somehow when we sit at a table, we are closer to the coming kingdom, closer to the new heavens and earth because that interplay of food and drink and then conversation. All I can say is I am looking forward to what Tremper indicated that there will be a good possibility that when we come to our 55th high school reunion that Tremper and his wife Alice, my wife Becky, and I may have a chance to be able to break bread. I have one last question before we end.

John: Wait, can I just say one other thing before we end?

Dan: Oh, you just keep talking.

John: You said something very interesting. And that is when I was trying to run for president in ’16, the media would try to put me in a box, Dan and my press, people would say, you just don’t understand this guy. And also the fact is, I remember doing an event down in Texas, the guy who’s been paying for all this stuff that Clarence Thomas goes on these vacations. This guy had an event for me, it was a luncheon. And I was down there talking about why we need to balance budgets, but why we need to expand Medicaid and take care of the poor and all this stuff. The thing went really well. And I said to him, when it was all over, are you going to be able to help me? He said, actually, no, because I can’t figure out who you are. And so there’s been a real, not having people figure out who you are makes it scary to people and probably has hurt me in my political career. But that’s okay.

Rachael: Well, I just want to say again, as an elder millennial who was watching the primaries, you were actually the herald signed that things were going very sideways because those of us watching him pay attention, were saying, this is the only reasonable candidate for the Republicans. And so to me, I would just say, I think there are many people who actually are drawn to those who defy categories and long for someone and not in the way we have today. Not in a reckless death, deathly destructive way, but in a way that says, says, yeah, we’re going to do the hard work of bringing heaven to earth because if this is a new creation, I really take that we’re looking forward to, it’s not some, this thing just burns and we go somewhere new. It’s like, no, it’s being restored. And Jesus says, while we bind on earth, will we be bound in heaven? And what we loosened will be loosened. And I just, to me, this work and this book and your continued work and our work with people is about that. That it matters. It really matters.

John: That’s very kind. It does. And it’s just, I don’t know, it’s really, I don’t know sometimes is the best thing you can say, right?

Rachael: That’s right.

John: Because a contemplative kind of, I just don’t know. And it’s kind of good. It’s positive.

Dan: Well, the fact that you love Pink Floyd already says you don’t fit quite that well with anyone or anything yet to fit that well with so many and to be a living bridge and ambassador’s a gift. I’ll say one last thing. Someone, someone of equal oddity needs to write your biography because your life is one of those lives that will give incredible encouragement to those of us who do wonder. Is there any sanity, any madness that is sane in the context of the political realm? And you are one of those people that has given many of us a sense of we have seen the goodness of God in the land of the living, and therefore we’ll not despair. So John, thank you. Thank you so much for being with us.

John: I love that. It was great. It was just great. Thank you.