The Most Skippable Track on the Album

BUT NOT THE MOST SKIPPABLE EPISODE!

Krispin & Kevin Nye discuss "Day by Day" from Jesus Freak, and talk about the heavy weight of daily devotions, perfectionism, and more. 

Kevin is the author of Grace Can Lead Us Home: A Christian Call to End Homelessness

You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Krispin mentions Kevin's twitter thread about Gospel Rescue Missions, and you can read it here.

We’d love for you to consider joining our patreon community to support this podcast. 

You can find us on Twitter and Instagram.

Thanks so much to Bonnie Downing for providing transcription for the episode!

Krispin: Today I am here with Kevin Nye. He is the author of Grace Can Lead Us Home, A Christian Call to End Homelessness but also just a friend on social media and beyond. Cause Kevin was out in Portland recentlyish. Time is a jumble before the holidays, right?

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Krispin: You spoke at my church.

Kevin: I did. It was awesome.

Krispin: It's always great when it [00:01:00] goes, you know, like I know this person from online and we actually get to hang out a little bit.

And currently you live in what I think of as my old neighborhood in Minneapolis. We were only there, Danielle and I lived there for three years, but a really significant neighborhood in Minneapolis, in South Minneapolis. And I have like such fond memories except this time of year because I'm sure it's just freezing.

Kevin: Yeah, it's my first winter out here and everyone is really hoping I can make it through. Cause the odds are against me for sure.

Krispin: But yeah, welcome.

Kevin: I'm so glad to be here. This is like, oh, this, this is my bread and butter here. I know I'm very often known as, you know, the guy who talks about homelessness, but like if I, if I could write a book about DC Talk, I'd probably do that too.

It's just,

Krispin: Yeah. Hey, there is, there is, there's a book to be written about DC Talk, I think.

Kevin: Oh, several, I’m [00:02:00] sure.

Krispin: Yes. We've talked about how even just, just their engagement with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Kevin: Oh, yeah.

Krispin: You know, throughout the like, years and like, what does that mean? And, um, yeah, there’s a lot.

Kevin: What do they think it means? What does it really mean? Yeah.

Krispin: Exactly. Yeah. Before we jump in and talk about DC Talk, I mentioned that you wrote a book this past year, really great book about houseless folks and the church's responsibility. I think that's an okay summary. What do you do? What do you do day to day?

Kevin: Yeah, so I work in the nonprofit world for an organization that's tackling youth homelessness here in Minneapolis. As I alluded to earlier, I've only been here about six months, but prior to that I was in Los Angeles doing the same work, kind of on the, the front lines of [00:03:00] homelessness in a place where it's really, really bad.

So yeah, that's kind of been my career for the last six years now.

Krispin: I always love hearing your perspective on things. And like yeah. What that world is like, what it means to care for our houseless neighbors. Yeah. So, um, so that's a lot of what you get. You know, when it comes to podcasts, people are usually talking to you about those themes. But today we're gonna talk about DC Talk, and we're gonna talk about the song “Day by Day”.

And, first off, what is your history with Jesus Freak?

Kevin: Yeah. So I, yeah, I grew up in the church, very steeped in Christian culture. I think that, you know, prior to, so in 95 when it came out, I would've been six years old. So I don't think I was listening to Jesus Freak at six. [00:04:00] Right. I was probably getting it early, like youth group age, so like sixth or seventh grade is probably when I was catching up with that.

And I'm sure that I heard kind of the tamer songs on the album, like, so I’m sure that a lot of places were like this, but growing up in Phoenix, Arizona, there were two Christian stations. One was KLUV and one was Air One, right?

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Kevin: KLUV you were likely to hear like, “In the Light,” “Between You and Me,” maybe “Colored People” if you know it was, you know, later on in the evening or something.

But Air One was gonna have like Jesus Freak and like Skillet and you know, the more kind of like intense or aimed at a younger audience type Christian rock music. So I think I probably from ’95 to like 2000 [00:05:00] was probably pretty familiar with DC Talk for, you know, and Jesus Freak for the tamer songs.

And then when I was ready, you know, took on the whole album.

Krispin: Yeah, when you were ready, how old was that?

Kevin: Yeah. Probably like 10 or 11, maybe 12.

Krispin: First of all, this probably was some of your first like rock music or first like, you know, kind of something that felt like maybe, you know, like teenage music to you, even at like 10 or whatever, I'm assuming.

Kevin: Yeah. I mean, and this, I remember like this is back when, you know, Christian bookstores were a thing and around a lot, and I remember I would go and be looking for like, Newsboys, DC Talk, Audio Adrenaline, like the big three around that time and like a couple years later is when I would start like looking for the more, you know, like the Skillet, the Kutless and [00:06:00] Relient K and like that stuff.

But the, the first couple years, those were the three. And of those three, yeah, of those three.

Krispin: The Holy Trinity of Christian rock.

Kevin: DC Talk is definitely the most like rock of all of those.

Krispin: And little did you know then that DC Talk would eventually take over Newsboys and Audio Adrenaline.

Kevin: Yes. Uhhuh. . Yep. They, they didn't stop , those two.

Krispin: Speaking up, growing up in that, in that context, like so many of us did. Did you know that this song, “Day by Day,” is actually, the chorus is borrowed from a song in the musical Godspell?

Kevin: I would've, no, I would've had no idea back then at all.

Krispin: Yeah. I just recently found this out because I kept on like Googling or like putting in Spotify “Day by Day,” and this Godspell song kept on coming up.[00:07:00]

[Clip from “Day by Day” from Godspell]

And listened to it and I was like, oh, actually, which is something that DC Talk has done with a variety of songs. Yeah, exactly. But it's so funny cuz when you grow up Christian, you're like, no, this is just a DC Talk song. And then like later on you're like, oh, I had no idea, but this was like, this was a surprise to me.

This was like this year that I realized that it, they had borrowed it from Godspell and, you know, repurposed it.

Kevin: Interesting. Yeah, no, I remember being like, wait, DC Talk didn't write “Lean on Me”? What are you talking about? [Clip from the DC Talk version of “Lean on Me”] “Sock it to me sock it to me” wasn't [00:08:00] in the original?

Krispin: Just those words like, you know, if you know you know. Um, yeah. And so this song.

[Clip from DC Talk version of “Day by Day”]

And so this song is… it, I mean, it…

Kevin: Terrible?

Krispin: Yes. And also it's just so like, it's so evangelical. Like it just like summarize, I mean every, it feels like most songs on this album really do that, but this one really does like [00:09:00] summarize for me what it was like growing up in the church, especially like as a teenager, just this like day by day, like you're walking with God, it's focused on your walk with the Lord.

Like are you doing the things you need to do each day? You said it was horrible. What stands out to you as the worst part?

Kevin: Yeah, I mean, I  feel like it's the most skippable song on the album that's actually a real song and not like “Mrs. Morgan” or like the reprise or things like that. Like, and actually, I listen. . I listen on Apple Music because I'm a thousand years old and I don't have Spotify. And as you look at the album, you know there's a star next to the most popular tracks and it literally goes like, star, star, star, star for “So Help Me God” through “What if I Stumble” and then skips “Day by Day,” skips “Mrs. Morgan,” and there's another star on [00:10:00] "Between You and Me.” It's like literally like everybody skips this one. And like, and I think like, so I was, you know, before I started thinking about the lyrics, I was like trying to like, just take it in musically. And I think like Toby Mac is at his most insufferable here, on this album because he is like doing that whisper rap thing.

And then at some point there's, there's a point where he actually is just whispering where he's like, “day by day.” [Clip from DC Talk version of “Day by Day”] And you're just like, what is going on? I kind of, and I think I felt this as a kid too, that like DC Talk was better the more that Toby Mac was in the background. Like, like I kind of think of him, like I think of Lin Manuel Miranda now on Hamilton. where it's like, [00:11:00] where it's like, I know that none of this would be possible without you, I know you're doing a lot of the writing and orchestrating, but like we're good with just leaving you there when you come out and sing and like ruin “Dear Theodosia,” we're like, we appreciate your contribution, man, but like, just stick behind the scenes. You're at your best.

Krispin: Uh huh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The weak, sort of the weak link. And that's funny to think about. Like they took this, you know, song from this old musical and they were like, all right, like, how do we make it modern and cool? And it's, it's Toby Mac, whispering “day by day.” I do think that like, the reason it's skippable, I think, you know, the chorus is, is… It's not a great song, but the chorus does get stuck in your head. And the intro, the beginning is just like so lackluster.

Kevin: It's so slow.[00:12:00]

[Clip from DC Talk version of “Day by Day”]

Krispin: It just asks you to skip it. I think that's the issue, like the, like if you can make it to the chorus, you're like, okay, I can like jam with this song.

Kevin: Yeah, I agree because I mean, there's, besides the Toby Mac stuff, like, Michael Tait is getting to do some like rock singing in a way that he doesn't always [Clip from DC Talk version of “Day by Day”] and like Kevin Max was literally just put on this earth to do high harmonies and like vocal runs and, and he gets to do that on here. So like when it gets going, like [Clip from DC Talk version of “Day by Day”] [00:13:00] it works. But yeah, the intro is like, this sounds like a song I do not wanna listen to.

Krispin: Right. Yeah. It was, yeah. It's hard to even, I mean, I'll put, I'll put a clip in so that people get a picture of what it is, but, and yeah, it is funny like looking at that, the beginning of this song, it… the lyrics go, “I live a simple life. I take a day at a time. I spend my mornings with God before I hit the grind.”

[Clip from DC Talk version of “Day by Day”]

And when I hear that, it sounds like the… like they're trying to paint this picture of like, cool guy in the nineties with this like cool NIV Bible. Like, you know, I'm a simple guy. I [00:14:00] like, you know, take it a day at a time. I wake up and read my Bible and then I get to work and like I can imagine him holding coffee or something.

Kevin: Yeah. It’s exactly what you were saying earlier, that this, like, this idea that then kind of pervades the whole song of like, really like constantly thinking about. God and your relationship with God just absolutely dominating every corner and aspect of your life. Right. And it's kind of a bummer because like the phrase like, “day by day” makes me think of like, like recovery where it's like, you know, just take one day at a time and like, I feel like that's a helpful message, but it's, it's like, it's actually like, no, it's not really like take it day by day. It's almost, ugh, another day where I have to like be constantly like diligent [00:15:00] about, you know, my responsibility to God. I feel the same way about “What if I Stumble,” which is like, could be a very good song about like forgiveness and like what's possible for when we like don't meet up to like expectations.

But the song when you actually listen to it is actually like, it's not that at all. It's just more like shaming.

Krispin: Uh huh. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Cuz the chorus of this song is, day by day, three things I pray. Um, I have the lyrics. Okay. and it's a, it's an old, it's an old prayer from like the 13th century and then a hymn. And it's “to see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, to follow thee more nearly.” And I think like what you're saying is in this [00:16:00] context, it's this like reminder of like, you gotta try so hard every day. Like you gotta be right on it. Like there's not a chance to slip up. Right. Kinda like, what if I stumble? There's so much riding on the line that you really have to, you know, keep pushing.

And so even this idea, even though, you know, he's singing in this kind of cool voice of like, I live a simple life. We know if you grew up evangelical, like there's so much pressure to do your daily devotion, to like take that time to like always be… not only go throughout your day and deal with all the stress that comes with that, but also to like have this like spiritual thing in mind that you're striving for.

Kevin: Yeah.

Krispin: I wanted to ask you about, you know, the, when you were listening to the song as a teenager, maybe even, you know, later than that, thinking about that, you know, taking it a day at a [00:17:00]time, that quiet time or prayer time, or I don't know what term you used.

Kevin: Yeah. Well, when I was skipping this song as a teenager, I, no, I mean, but I was getting this message elsewhere, right. Yeah, I definitely never, I never found a routine that worked for me, you know, but I sure found all of the shame needed for having not done that. Right? Like, you know, coming home from camp, you might make it a month of reading your Bible every day after that, and then, but the shame definitely lasts longer than the devotional practices do.

Krispin: Yeah. What do you think got in the way for you? Like what stood in the way of doing that regularly?

Kevin: Um, well, I think for one, [00:18:00] it's partly the relentlessness of it, right? And that it comes back to like the day by day thing because, you know, if you… again, there's a way to do this song that's like, you know, every day my goal is just to, you know, be thinking about how I can love a little more, like draw closer to love. You know, there's, there's a nice way to go about this, but it just, it actually comes across like every single day, you have to be better than you were yesterday and get closer, deeper, following, doing more and more, more, more. Right. And I think that that pressure was part of it also, like, if you're trying to read the Bible, especially in ways that like this whole like kind of perfectionist, completionist thing, like it's so boring. Like,

Krispin: [laughs]

Kevin: Oh my goodness, if you're, [00:19:00]  because there's so like, oh, I read the Bible in a year. Every year. It's like, all right, I'm gonna start at Genesis and I'm gonna make it to Genesis 13, and then I'm washing out because it's. unreadable, like

Krispin: Right?

Kevin: Large, large chunks of scripture are not meant to be read and are not written in a way that like 12 year old Kevin is like walking away from it with life changing wisdom, right?

Krispin: I have this visceral memory as you talked about how boring it was. I was like, oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that part. I was like, yeah, I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read the whole Bible. Or like, I was that sort of like, wanted to be spiritual kid, where I was like, nobody ever like talks about this obscure book of the Bible. Like, I'm gonna be the one to read it. And like this, this message of like, you are going to go in and you're going to get, you're gonna hear something from God. [00:20:00] Or like you said, like you're gonna walk away with something that's helpful. And I remember being like, that didn't feel helpful. Like I just feel lost and now I feel like for one, it didn't add anything to my life and for two, am I doing something wrong or am I not understanding this right?

Kevin: Did you ever try to open the Bible to a random page and get, like, some kind of like important wisdom for that moment. Like, like, like tricking God into leading you to the passage that you need.

Krispin: Uh huh. Definitely. And then it was like, then I got into this habit of like, oh, that's like the wrong thing to do. Like I'm not just gonna cherry-pick. That's where you go into that, like perfectionistic or completionist, like I gotta read it all.

Kevin: Yeah.

Krispin: Yeah. Yeah. It's, oh my gosh. Like it is, I remember, especially if you, for me, I really wanted to be that like spiritual kid and [00:21:00] so I remember just like reading, reading stuff, like whether it was the Bible or like books that like I felt like I should understand, but at like 16, I'm like, I don't actually know what this means. Like whether it's a theology book or whatever is like laying around. Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah. I mean, when I was, it was in sixth or seventh grade when I believed I experienced a call to ministry, so kind of just on top of the like normal youth group kid stuff. There was like this notion of like, no, like I, I need to be on this trajectory to like, understanding this and being an authority on this and being like the most spiritual amongst my peers. Right? Because I'm gonna be a pastor one day and I told everyone that at the beach trip.

Krispin: Yes. That is very [00:22:00] relatable. And so then, like going forward, I think, along these lines, there's this, um, it says "the subtleties of darkness never cease to amaze as a physical world creates a spiritual haze, blinded by distractions, lost in matterless affairs, reaching through the darkness, trusting you will meet me there.”

[Clip from DC Talk version of “Day by Day”]

You know, it kind of sounds like Christianese-y gobbledygook, but maybe… maybe you have some interpretation on this, but I do hear in there like this idea of like, there are things in the physical world in your everyday that don't matter that are distracting you from what your true purpose is.

Kevin: Yeah, I kind of, actually this one like really [00:23:00] stuck out to me, this verse is kind of the ethos of this song, right? And it kind of comes back to what we were talking about earlier, that like, we grew up in a time where there was like Christian radio, Christian music, Christian bookstores, like we had our whole own, like if you were to put those things like all in one place, we could have like a little Christian ecosystem, right?

Like, and the notion that like, if it's. . If a thing isn't explicitly Christian, then it is opposed to Christianity or it's like of the world or of darkness and like, it's actually pretty brilliant of DC Talk to like do that, right? Because they're sort of appealing to the worldview that allows for them to be successful within their like target audience, right?

It's like, it reminds me of the, like those [00:24:00] posters that were like, oh, do you like Aerosmith? Here's the Christian version of Aerosmith and it's like, I don't know, like Relient K or, yes. Yeah. It's someone, someone terrible, right?

Krispin: Right? Yeah.

Kevin: And yeah. And so I, to me, when I was reading that, I was thinking like, yeah, this is that. Like there is everything is either explicitly Christian or explicitly anti-Christ, right? There is no like middle ground. And that's what was always so hard for us as teenagers. Cause it's like, man, I really liked that, like X-Men movie I just saw. And like, but am I allowed to like that? Because like, there's nothing like explicitly Christian about it, like, you know, and it's, it's just so… wrong and [00:25:00] unfair. It made me think too of kind of, you know, all of us on our, like, whatever you wanna call it, deconstruction journey. Right? Have like particular milestones. One of the like really big early milestones for me was reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, right?

Krispin: Yeah.

Kevin: Cuz there's something he says early on in that book where he's talking about like, you know, missionaries that go somewhere with the idea that they are bringing Christ to these people, right? And Rob Bell kind of flips it the other way and says, actually what they're doing is they're going and like, seeing where Christ already is or like what Christ is already doing and naming it, right? And I think I would put way more nuance on that now and have much more mixed feelings [00:26:00] about Rob Bell. But like at the time that just exploded. Like the idea that this song is trying to push, right? That there is like stuff that is Christian and there's the stuff that isn't, and you need to immerse yourself as much as possible in the Christian stuff so that you can spot the evil or like walk through the rest of it unscathed. It's really more of a fear-based theology, I would say.

Krispin: Yeah. What was that vigilance like for you as a teenager?

Kevin: I mean, I think it's just, it's just being afraid, you know? And like I remember, much younger than than what we're talking about, but like, I very often would pray the sinner's prayer or whatever version of it, like, again, because, and I would like say in my prayer, like, God, I know we've done this before, but like, [00:27:00] just in case, like, I messed it up, or like, or like, I heard this preacher say it this way, and I just wanna make sure like, I'm in, you know, I'm covered? And I would do it again. And I think, yeah, on top of that, just like the song, the, like, day by day, more and more, like, I definitely in church and in a lot of other areas of my life was receiving the message of like, more, more like, cool, but do more, like, it's, it's never, never enough.

Right. Okay. And I think that's a pressure that I felt, I think more acutely maybe than like fear of like losing my salvation, but just like the expectation, like the bar always moving further and further up and away, right. Just, yeah, that was, that was more of a, more crushing than anything.

Krispin: Mm. What were the [00:28:00] impacts that that had on you?

Kevin: Oh, I mean, I could talk about 'em today. Like this, the perfectionism, like saviorism, right? Like, and in my line of work, right? There's, there's never a shortage of like, work. There’s, there are more unhoused youth on the streets in my city than our organization can help, right. And so there's always like that pressure that existed back then, even though I've dismantled a lot of the, like, the theology of it, like it's in my bones, you know, I still, like, I find myself being like, I work my 40 hours a week, but like, what am I doing in my off hours, like where should I be volunteering? Like how should I be voting? And like, these are not bad thoughts or impulses, but when they become aligned with the [00:29:00] sense of like constantly feeling like you're never doing enough and that the weight of expectation on me, wherever it's coming from, whether it's coming from God or peers or like the person you follow on social media that seems like they're doing it all the time. Like it just, oh man. It just, you just feel constantly exhausted, burnt out and feeling like you're, you're a failure even though you may be doing so much, you know? It just, yeah, it always feels like, no, there's always, there's always more. You're failing by not doing more every single day, day by day.

Krispin: Right? Yeah. Day by day, no weekends.

Kevin: Yes. Right.

Krispin: I really appreciate you sharing that part and your own experience and how that shows up in your life today.

Kevin: I'd be really interested to see like a survey or study on [00:30:00] like people who grew up evangelical and how that aligns with imposter syndrome.

Krispin: Mm.

Kevin: For this exact reason, like, because the culture that says you're never doing enough, you're never doing enough. And also like, it doesn't necessarily even matter what you're doing, but what your heart is behind it.

Ooh, what a wicked combination of like, like more, more, more, more, more and, it better be real and you better mean it.

Krispin: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that is such a good point. I was thinking as you were talking earlier, that my teenage self would've judged your teenage self because, here's why I know this would've happened. Last, last month, we have like a Patreon only episode that we do for our Patreon community,[00:31:00] so this is a little plug for that. But I read my online magazine that I wrote when I was a teenager. I read some like snippets of it. And at one point I specifically am like, are you like a teenager that just goes to school and like goes to sports practice and like, you're not doing the real kingdom work?

Kevin: Oh man.

Krispin: Which is just so telling to be like, okay, yeah. It's not like in my mind, surviving adolescence, going to school, going to like, you know, your extracurriculars and like, you know, church, but like that even isn't enough. Like I think back then I had an idea of like, even like, okay, so if I'm going to church, but if I'm not, of course, if I'm not reaching out to my non-Christian friends, then what does it matter? I'm not doing the real, you know, kingdom work. Oh yeah.

Kevin: Well, I'll have you know, teenage Krispin, that I was [00:32:00] co-president of my Christian club in high school and, when I took sociology with our most liberal teacher at high school, I was very vocal about my Christian beliefs. This actually kind of relates… So for the sociology class, God help me and forgive me for how I tortured this man who was our sociology professor.

He wanted to spend a class session talking about love and like what love means culturally and differently to different people. So he is like every, for a whole class session, everyone's gonna bring in like their favorite love song and they're gonna listen to it and then, we'll all listen to like everyone's favorite love song and we'll talk about what love is and like, and I was such a, such a little a-hole, like I knew, I knew real love songs. Like I was at home like boppin’ to like, [00:33:00] “one, you're like a dream come true.” You know? And like that would've, that would've been perfect for this class. But I was like, no, this is a chance to make everyone in this class learn a little bit about Christian love. And so I got up, I made everyone listen to, Stellar Kart, “Me and Jesus,” where the chorus goes, "someone loves you even when you don't think so. Don't you know you've got me and Jesus?”

Krispin: Oh my gosh. That is amazing.

Kevin: That's a real thing that happened. So you know what, teenage you is gonna have to reconsider.

Krispin: We would've been two peas in a pod. I mentioned 4Him earlier. I don't know if I've mentioned this on this podcast before, but for music class in sixth grade, I brought in a for him song, printed out all the lyric sheets and everybody had to sing [00:34:00] along , like to this 4Him song. But I mean, I think, I don't know, yours might be worse in part because, you know, I was like, only in sixth grade and

Kevin: Yeah, no, I was well above the age where I should have known better. Um, yeah, I was probably like 16, 17. Yeah. My senior photo, so I'm like, probably 17, 18. I'm wearing a Kutless t-shirt. I carried that energy into college just in time to be taken down a few pegs by Velvet Elvis.

Krispin: Yeah. So yeah, this message, right? Like we've been talking about this whole time is like, it is just demand of more and more and more. And it's like an internal thing, right? It's like what you're saying. It's like it's this external expectation that we really took internally. And cuz you're [00:35:00]the only one that knows your heart, right? Which means you have to be the constant evaluator.

Kevin: Right. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's that combination of like, not just the extra work or extra initiative, but the intention.

Krispin: Mm-hmm… Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I think in some ways, maybe the most, I don't, for me, it felt like the most exhausting part was almost like checking all the time, internal checking.

Kevin: Yeah. No, and I think still that's, that's the piece that haunts me. Like when I was talking about like imposter syndrome, like still in my head, I'll get to the end of a day of like doing the work I do and being like, am I just doing this because like I'm supposed to, or I feel like it makes me look good, or something? And it's like, if I'm being very, [00:36:00] if I'm actually like thoughtful and, and honest and in a good place with myself, like, of course I know why I do this, but like that, it just still creeps back in where it's like, are you sure that you're doing that for the right reasons and that you're not doing it… it’s for your own glory or, and you know, and it's like, man, that this really did a number on me.

Krispin: Yeah. Yeah. Well we can't do like actual research, but if you're listening to this, hit one of us up, both of us up on social media if you're like, yep. The imposter system is, or, imposter syndrome is real with me. We'll just do like a show of hands, um,

Kevin: Yeah. And then we'll treat it as conclusive data.

Krispin: Exactly right.

Yeah, I mean I think that it's so true though, like, because really just as humans, we have mixed motivations on anything, on everything [00:37:00] and and this expectation of like having one pure motivation I think is unrealistic and really creates a lot of shame.

Kevin: Yeah, and I actually just dropped this too, cuz this is something that I only like came to terms with maybe even like less than a year ago, I read a really thoughtful tweet thread about intrusive thoughts that completely normalized intrusive thoughts for me in a way that I was like, oh my God, I thought that was just me.

And I thought that that was like the real me, like breaking through, you know, versus like, turns out everybody experiences thoughts that are like antithetical to what they believe in or antithetical to what they actually want to do or who they are or what their, you know, what their values and goals are. But that just, just happen because we have complex brains, right?

But even long [00:38:00] post-deconstruction, like it was like, oh, I just had that thought. Was that who I really am? And everything, like the 99% of what I think is like, fake. And this was like something like coming up through the cracks, you know? And that was just so helpful for me to read about and understand and like, I'm still kind of reckoning with like, oh no, that was just an intrusive thought, it doesn't have to be like, oh, that's like my sin nature, like rearing its ugly head or like, oh, now I have to repent and like turn away from this whole thing, you know, like, yeah. It's just, I feel like that's mixed in there too.

Krispin: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I'm so glad that you mentioned that. I think that's so important because as you know, as a therapist, I'm like, yeah. We mostly just have control over our actions, you know, in a sense like, we can, we decide what we do, but there are [00:39:00] lots of thoughts and impulses that come into our heads.

And to have that be the hallmark of like, whether you really love God or not, which I think is what this is getting at, right? Like, I wanna love you more, is like, I want to have this like pure thought. Or like, I want, you know, my, my thoughts to all fall in line with what I think it means to be a good Christian, which just doesn't happen. It's not gonna happen.

Kevin: Yeah, and we missed a small lyric too. That's also pretty telling. That's, “day by day, all day long, three things I pray,” that it's, again, it's that pray without ceasing thing that like, literally, like, it's not just like every day I remind myself it's every minute of every day I'm praying to get closer, like love more.

You know, all these three things like this. Again, it's just that, it's vigilance, and so like something like an intrusive thought or like [00:40:00] taking a break to like take a nap, you know, is like somehow not participating in like, all day long. I'm striving after this.

Krispin: Oh my gosh. Yeah. So much pressure. The second verse says, “you cruise around the corner. You watch your back, you sweep your feet down alley streets, sometimes you creep. I never see you coming Monday, man. You're on my back like a nap sack strapped with my heavy burden. No, you cannot condemn me. I won't buy your bag of goods. You've got nothing for me, anyway. That's why I pray.”

[Clip from DC Talk version of “Day by Day”]

Kevin: Yeah. No, and it's that like the devil's around every corner, you know? I'll be honest, I, and you can edit this out if you have to, [00:41:00] but when I was reading that, I couldn't stop thinking about the John Piper tweet, where he said, every morning I wake up and the devil is sitting on my face. Which unfortunately, like this DC Talk lyric doesn't have just like a ridiculous, you know, sexual overtone. I can't even call it an undertone like a lot of their music does in previous albums. But what I think he was trying to get at was like, man, every day I get up and like evil is ready to like come at me and it's like, it's near, it's right at my doorstep, it's on my face, and like, I gotta wake up and be ready and like, that's what I was reading.

Krispin: Yeah. And it, I mean, again, it speaks to this, this piece of like, okay, you have to try really hard, and if you don't, the devil's gonna get you.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. More, more, more. Because if you don't like, it'll catch up.

Krispin: [00:42:00] Yeah. So, I wanna, just looking at this, one of the themes here is this like spiritual, physical binary. And so you know a little bit about this I think because you work with houseless folks and part of that means seeing what ways the church has been helpful, what ways the church has been hurtful.

So that line, “as a physical world creates a spiritual haze." Not exactly sure what he means by that, but I get that sense of a binary of like the physical world is fading and you have to focus on what really matters. And I wonder how you've seen that theology show up in the communities that you're involved with.

Kevin: Oh yeah, I mean all the time. I mean, so I told you earlier that I was, you know, called to ministry in seventh grade or so, right. And I pursued that. Like I went [00:43:00] to Bible college, I went to seminary with the intent of becoming a pastor. And then, long story short, I didn’t, and ended up doing homeless services, right. Every homeless services nonprofit I've worked for has been not faith-based. And so a lot of people who were in my life for the like call to ministry through seminary part, look at what I do now, or when I talk to Christians about doing homelessness work and I focus on like housing or you know, policy and resources. I get this very common question, which really isn't a question, it's more of a statement. It's like, okay, like that's all, that all sounds good, like housing and all that, but what are you doing for people's spiritual needs? And again, Rob Bell, early Rob Bell, very helpful. Everything is spiritual, right? Like, [00:44:00] that idea helped me, like, recognize that like this binary, this divide, it’s not real. Like even if you are a Christian who takes scripture very seriously, like you can point to scripturally, that's not very real. Right? And for me it's sort of, it's helpful to kind of like flip it back.

And so something I do in my book and that I talk about a lot is the idea that housing is spiritual. That, so it's not just that, there's not a binary, but like everything is everything , right? That like when we talk about housing, like we're not just talking about four walls, a roof and a door. We're talking about like safety, security, like the ability to like put one's life together.

All of the, you, know. [00:45:00] All the things that we mean when we say home and we're not just talking about the house or the apartment. Right. So yeah, it comes up a lot because we're just so quick to like, treat spirituality as something totally separate from physical reality and then rank them and that's just not how humans work. That's not, it's not anything. It's wrong. It is incorrect.

Krispin: Yeah. Well, I really, I like the, you said that that's not the way humans work, right? It's not, that doesn't lead to health and it doesn't lead to flourishing. Whether it's a approach to houseless neighbors or like thinking about us as teenagers, right? Like we didn't just need to read our Bible more.

Like we, like I needed therapy as a teenager for [00:46:00] sure. You know, I needed a lot, like, I needed emotional support. I needed, you know, I obviously needed like my physical needs to be met, which they were. And it seems like there's this, um, piece. When the binary in the song is, when we focus on like, I just need to be closer to God, then we end up dismissing our own needs or our own, like what's healthy for us.

And I think like we can see this like, you know, internally and then also externally like what you're saying, which is like where people want to bypass the actual needs of people in favor of the, what they perceive as the spiritual needs.

Kevin: Yeah, and it's something I was thinking of when you were talking about like, yeah, your physical needs were met and it's like, yeah, mine were too. And amongst people who don't really worry about that stuff, it's very easy to then rank [00:47:00] something else above that right.

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Kevin: And then reinforce what is actually like, you know, probably white privilege that's providing that, to equate that with like spiritual blessing, right? So a big reason that people are always asking, what am I doing for unhoused people's spiritual needs is because they believe that unhoused people have some kind of spiritual deficit, right? And if they were in a better, healthier relationship with God, then they wouldn't have these material needs because God would be taking care of them.

Right? It's, it's basically, it's what I call the, like the underbelly of the prosperity gospel. Cuz prosperity Gospel says if you follow God, God will make you rich. It follows that if you are poor, it's because God's not making you rich because you're not making God happy. Right? And so we [00:48:00]associate poverty, homelessness with moral failure, with religious failure deficit, and therefore believe like we have for a century in the way we Christians do homeless services that like, okay, we’ll provide food, we'll provide shelter, but they need to listen to a sermon first because we really need to try to save them.

Bypass the fact that I'm sure a ton of people experiencing homelessness are Christians, are devout, probably read their Bible more than I do. And that has nothing to do with their homelessness. Right? But those synapses are so well-traveled in our brains that we just directly associate poverty, homelessness with being bad, whether that's religiously, morally, or lazy or you know, all these other [00:49:00] things.

Krispin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You recently put together a really good thread on Twitter that I will make sure to link, where you're talking about where this shows up in gospel rescue missions,

Kevin: Yeah.

Krispin: where that's the philosophy and it just, yeah. Again, strikes me, thinking about this song, right?

If the core is like spiritual and if I just strive enough spiritually, then all these other distractions, quote unquote right, will fall aside. I just think about how many of us tried that and it doesn't work because, you know, a lot of times those distractions are, you know, whether it's like that distraction is like an actual need of like social contact or like, you know, I think about me as a teenager being like, you shouldn't, I don't know if I was saying you shouldn't like go to soccer practice, but it was like, that doesn't [00:50:00] matter. That's a distraction. But you know, those are all like, just important parts of human development and part of what it means to be human, that when we do that binary piece, it just really separates us in this unhealthy way. And I think we can see that really clearly when it comes to houseless folks, or like, I mean, I think another, this is like really, really dark, a really dark part of our history, but thinking about like slavery and enslaving Africans and thinking like, if, like, you know, mistreating them, like being… violence against them is justified because of the spiritual good. And so I think we see the remnants of like, when we separate those things out, like there is actual violence that is done in you, in your Twitter thread and book talk about like policy, like how this theology has led to policy that actively harms and [00:51:00] oppresses people. So, I’m glad -

Kevin: Yeah, I mean the colonialism that justified slavery and the like, all but eradication of indigenous peoples like was absolutely based in evangelism, right? It was, we as Christians have the superior like civilization that's given to us by like our Christianity, and that entitles us to, you know, subdue people.

Krispin: Yeah, we'll just, we'll just end it there.

Kevin: Everyone pause the podcast, read The Christian Imagination by Willie Jennings. And then come back and let us close you out.

Krispin: Right. Yeah, exactly, yeah. It's so important. And that's, I mean, why we've looked at this podcast is, why we've done this podcast is these things that feel like, oh, this is like nostalgic things for my [00:52:00] childhood actually are perpetuating some really harmful ideology that lives on politically in, like you were pointing out earlier, lives on in our bones.

And it really deserves some interrogation. So, really appreciate you joining me, Kevin, to talk about this and reminisce about our adolescent evangelical years. It was really fun, really fun to talk about. I love that piece of like listening to the music and, and talking a bit about that as well.

So it's been been fun. Anything that you wanna like plug before we finish?

Kevin: I do. And this is especially exciting and I tried to make sure I had the plans somewhat in motion before I came on cuz it's so perfect. So, about a year ago, me and Megan Crozier, who's on social [00:53:00] media as The Pursuing Life, she, we put together a karaoke night on Zoom. Explicitly for people to come who are kind of deconstructing or post evangelical, ex evangelical, whatever, in some sort of like former relationship with evangelicalism, right? To come together and shamelessly sing contemporary Christian music from our upbringing. And it was amazing. It was so much fun. There was like, we were laughing at it together. We were poking fun at it. Some people were like reclaiming songs from like, it was meant this way but now, one person's like, now that I've come out as queer, I take these lyrics to mean this, and like, people were crying.

It was unreal. And we're doing it again. We don't have a date for it, but [00:54:00] we're gonna do it in February, so look out for that. There will probably be some songs from the Jesus Freak album sang that night, and maybe you listener could be the one to sing them, or not. Go get like a a drink while someone's singing that and come back when you're ready.

Krispin: Oh my gosh, I had forgotten about that. I remember seeing it. I almost, almost joined it. Like it just didn't work out schedule wise. So maybe this'll be the time, but I'm so glad that you are bringing that back around. This'll go up the beginning of February, so,

Kevin: Perfect. Yeah, we're looking at like third weekend of February probably, but tentative.

Krispin: Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks so much Kevin. And, yeah, y'all should check out his book, follow Him on Twitter. We're gonna, you know, post all those things in the show notes. But again, just thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.

Kevin: Absolutely, anytime.[00:55:00]