Tim: I grew up in Sparta, raised in the Methodist Church, very kind of traditional family life. I was the oldest of three brothers. Around our dinner table, we always had conversations about local politics. So, my mom was a township treasurer, my grandpa was a village treasurer, and my great-grandmother was the first woman on the Cedar Spring School Board. When people vented about work, it was vented right around the local politics of the day. Married my wife about two and half years ago. She definitely doesn't have that kind of upbringing. She’s like, oh no, I don't talk about elections. I don't talk about politics. It's been interesting.
Phil: I was born here in Grand Rapids and I moved to Dearborn, Michigan when I was in first grade, went through high school there. I went to Calvin (University) after that and then I moved to Los Angeles. As far as upbringing, I kind of grew up in the Christian Reformed Church. I had a good family life. You know, one sister, parents stayed together. It was pretty normal childhood. But I also wanted something to kind of rebel against and so as soon as I could leave town, did.
Tim: I see Los Angeles and worked in film and oh, it's going to be Brad Pitt on the call. Then of course, like the film industry means a whole lot more than just the actors and actresses.
Phil: Yes, I'm Brad Pitt. This is what I look like without makeup. I did an internship through Calvin. You can do a semester out there doing internships with film companies. And out of that, I got a job, and I ended up working for the Wachowskis who did the Matrix trilogy. And I worked with them, first as their assistant and then as their producer. So yeah, I did that for a long time. And then I tried writing my own stuff for a while. It was pretty cool. But the thing about working in film is you’re routinely working, you know, 18-to-20-hour days when you're in production. I kind of burnt out on that. I was intrigued when you said you got a theological degree. How are you using that degree and how it made you more open and eager to meet people?
Tim: I'm not a pastor currently. That's why I originally went to seminary. I was planning to become a pastor, but halfway through I realized that wasn't what I wanted to do at that point in my life. So, I switched from a Master's of the Divinity to the Master of Arts in Theological Study. So, the classes are almost identical, except I didn't have to take an Old Testament Hebrew class that I struggled in because you had to learn Hebrew and I just barely eked by the Hebrew class I took. Very much more for the philosophy and theology. So, I work at a community bank, so I've been here 11 years and work in their financial technology department. So, I head that up. Incredibly blessed to have an opportunity to go all around the country talking about financial technology and how AI plays with it. Before I left, very much kind of that West Michigan, traditional, we have it all figured out. We'll just practice the systematic theology and if everyone just got on the same page, we'd all agree. When I went to seminary, I learned about the rich history of Christianity and met people from all over the world that all professed to believe in the same God, but they believe it differently. And it just kind of opened my eyes that there's a lot to learn and we don't have it all figured out yet. A lot of the time we just need to have these types of conversations to learn from one another and to hear people's stories and experiences before we get into the details of this black and white systematic theology that people try to have.
Phil: I can relate to that coming from the CRC and going to Calvin and then moving to Los Angeles, people didn't think about the minutia of CRC doctrine. Some people didn't have any time for religion. It strengthened my own faith, also broadened it.
Tim: Could you describe your personal political values?
Phil: My parents were big Reagan/Bush people. I kind of just went along with that as a kid. When I was at Calvin, I kind of started to lean more liberal, especially more when I got out to Los Angeles. I just didn't have much time for the Republican party anymore. I think the first time I voted was for (Bill) Clinton. I just found it more in tune with how I interpreted my faith. Concern for the poor, concern for the needy, the environment. George W. Bush, my dad actually, he switched at that point to be Democratic as well. So, we bonded over that in his later years. I feel like the Republican party has taken a turn for the worse since then. You know I can respect conservative values and understand them, but I feel like that party has really lost its way.
Tim: I would say I'm fairly similar to you. Didn't make the journey nearly as quickly as you did. Grew up in a very Republican family, but I guess the one exception is my grandparents were both teachers. So, they were very strong in the teacher’s union and very much Democrats. But I very much grew up a Republican and in Sparta, if you're going to run for election, you kind of have to run as a Republican otherwise, you're not going to make it. Very much like you disillusioned by all of it. Don't really like the direction it's going. Probably the biggest eye opening, I had the opportunity to go to Washington D.C. and we saw representatives in Michigan, and we talked to them about banking issues. The first time I went was back in 2019 and the number of times that I had to kind of stop myself and go, wait, was that the Democrat or Republican? I'm not sure which one it was because I wasn't familiar with all of them, and they all want to do the best for the country. I mean, there's a handful of exceptions. The people that aren't in the news all the time, they're really trying hard to work. And I realized that it wasn't good to be kind of that polarized. It's us and them. So, my son's 13 and one thing that I keep kind of drilling into him is the idea of “the other.” And I always say like, love God, love people. It isn't love God, love people, except for those other people. And because he was 13, he was trying to grasp all these like big kind of weighty philosophical questions. And he's like, well, dad, why do people treat people this way? Well, that's because they treat them as the other. They don't see them as part of their in-group. They don't see them as part of their tribe. He's starting to pick up that same language where he's like, oh dad, are they treating them like they're others? It's like, yeah, it kind of looks like it.
Phil: Yeah, I like that. I have a 13-year-old as well. I like that other thing. I try and, you know, instill those same kind of values in him, but it's always interesting what they respond to and what they don't. And sometimes you're thinking they didn't get that at all, but then they'll bring it up later. It's like, oh, they were listening. But it is hard. We have a lot of political discussions in the home as well. It’s easy to fall into that trap of looking at people like the other.
Tim: Do you think mainstream media or social media plays a role in shaping politics? If so, how?
Phil: I think it really does. I think the mainstream media is becoming irrelevant to a lot of people, which is a shame because I still think they're some of the best reporting. Social media really makes it hard to see anything that you don't already agree with. It just keeps feeding you whatever you clicked on. It becomes so hard to find anything that doesn't already agree with what you've already looked at. You've really got to seek it out if you want to see a differing opinion. I'll watch Fox News occasionally just to see what they're saying. And sometimes it's like, what? What are they talking about? It's just strange. It's like we're starting to live in completely siloed worlds. I think it's doing real damage. Like the QAnon thing. I don't know if you'd follow any of that? You know, I have relatives who got all into that, really started believing it. But it's like, you read one article and then you've got four more and they were posting stuff like the world is flat. Like they thought the world was flat. Are you serious with this? This is a cousin I've known since I was a kid and they like unfriend me. How did this happen to you? You're a reasonable person. But it was just the algorithms. They clicked on one and they just kept feeding it, feeding it, feeding it. And I think it's toxic to any sort of rational discourse about any issue, not just politics. You know, I've really got to seek out opposing viewpoints. I'll ask you the same question. Do you think mainstream media or social media plays a role in shaping politics now? If so, how?
Tim: It's completely shaped our lives. I think it's taking the place of kind of the regional cultures, the microcultures that existed previously. So, we did a destination wedding down in Florida. So, this would be back in 2022 in January and my grandma was 83 at the time. And I remember her just kind of looking around. And she's just like, this looks just like West Michigan, but with Palm trees. And because it lost kind of that microculture of stores that didn't look like us. She was like, there's a Walmart, there's a McDonald's, there's a Burger King. Like it's no different than here. Like everything's exactly the same. The microcultures of our region have been replaced with the kind of virtual microcultures that are extremely polarized. I used to run marketing at the bank. So, I had to be on social media, and I was very, very actively involved in it and even spoke about it and trained people on it. Probably about a year and a half ago, I completely gave up Facebook and Twitter.
Phil: How has that affected things for you not being on that stuff?
Tim: I really haven't noticed it. Overall, like I don't have that time suck. Now I spend time on YouTube instead, which I guess was kind of like social media. It just feels different. Overall, I feel better. You mentioned QAnon and all that, and I definitely fell down kind of that whole rabbit hole for a while. When you surround yourself with people that all think like you, it's easy to just keep going down that hole further and further.
Phil: I did a lot of research on conspiracies when I was working on a script about conspiracies. And it’s interesting that feeling that you've got access to secret knowledge somehow is really intoxicating. You become thinking I'm one of the few people that knows what's really going on. You know, and you keep getting fed more, more stuff like that I can see why people get wrapped up in it. That's again, why these algorithms are so damaging. After a point, you never hear anything countering it.
Tim: Is there anything you learned about me today that surprised you and what is something that you will take with you from this experience?
Phil: Yeah, I guess I didn't come in with real strong expectations. I just assumed they'd match me with someone who was very opposed to my political views. (Laughter) It doesn't sound like you are that much, so I guess that was surprising. I tried not to form an opinion of who you were going to be before I sat down with you. So, from your bio, it sounded like you were a fairly open-minded person and that sounds like what you are. It just reinforces these face-to-face discussions. You can caricature people and other them, like mentioned before, but once you sit down and talk to them, those caricatures fall away. You know a face-to-face connection is so crucial.
Tim: Likewise, I kind of was expecting someone completely opposite of me. It sounds like we started out kind of right and then drifted left. Then when I think about it, that kind of makes sense just with the polarized nature of the current environment. I think if you survey a majority of people, they're going to land in that middle somewhere, whether they start out left and drift right or start out right and drift left. They're going to end up in the middle. And it's only those extremes that I think are the differences.