Beeson Podcast, Episode #
Dr. Russell Levenson
Date

>>Announcer: 

Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your host, Doug Sweeney. 


>>Doug Sweeney:

Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I'm your host, Doug Sweeney, and I'm joined today by a very good friend, the Reverend Dr. Russell Levenson, a Beeson alumnus and the recently retired senior pastor or rector of St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, the largest Episcopal Church in North America. 
Dr. Levenson is the author of a bunch of books, but the one we want to talk about today is entitled, “Witness to Belief: Reflections on Faith and Meaning.” It is hot off the press. You can pre-order it now. I think the official release date's gonna be October the 7th. We're looking forward to hearing all about this new book and its bearing on our own faith, our ministries, our Christian lives. So thank you, Russ, for being with us again on the podcast today. 

>>Levenson:
Thank you, Doug Sweeney. 

>>Sweeney:
We've had you on the show a few times before. I'm not keeping track, but you're no stranger to the Beeson Podcast audience. But for the two or three people, or maybe prospective students who are tuning in, they live in other parts of the country, let's just tell them a little bit about you. Can you give us a couple of minutes on churches you've served, connection to Birmingham, and why you're retired back in Birmingham now?

>>Levenson:
Great. Well, I grew up in Birmingham, and I grew up in the Episcopal tradition, went through all the sacramental moments there, really came to faith in my late teens, and did not feel called to ministry at that point. This was all before college, so I enjoyed my college years. But throughout college, I began to think about ministry and full time ordained ministry and eventually entered the process here in the Diocese of Alabama under a wonderful bishop named Bill Stout, who's now with our Lord. And eventually went off to Virginia Seminary, I served at Christ Church in Old Town during my seminary years, got out and I was actually an undergraduate chaplain at Suwannee for a year. 
And about that time a great mentor of mine and someone known to the Beeson audience, John Claypool, called me and said, would you come be my associate here at Birmingham, coming back to Birmingham yet again. So I served with John as his associate for four years. I was called to be rector of a church in Louisiana, Church of the Ascension in Lafayette, Louisiana for five, moved on to Pensacola, served Christ Church Pensacola for five years and kind of thought I was going to retire there. I mean, who doesn't want to retire in Pensacola? And the Lord came knocking and made it very clear to my wife, Laura, and to me that we were being called to the next stop and what would be my last stop in full-time ministry, which was St. Martins in Houston, which was a wonderful, wonderful 17 years until my retirement. 
And then we began to wonder where would we retire. Most of our family is still east of the Mississippi. We have a lot of people up and down the I-65 corridor. And my father's still here. And he and my stepmother are wonderful friends. And I wanted to be with them in this season of life. And I have in-laws here. And I like those in-laws. And then there's a lot of folks in the church world here that we know in almost every denomination in town.

>>Sweeney:
Yeah. What were the years you were doing your doctorate at Beeson?

>>Levenson:
It was ‘90, I came back, it was those years I was at with John Claypool, so it was basically about mid-90s and had a great experience, I really did. Fisher Humphreys and Gerald Bray was here teaching and is still here and Fisher Humphreys was one of my keen advisors and I stay in touch with Dr. Humphreys. He's a wonderful, wonderful guy and friend.

>>Sweeney:
Marvelous. All right, let's talk about Witness to Belief. Maybe let's just start at the introductory level. What's this book about and why did you decide to write it? 

>>Levenson:
Yeah, let me go with why. And you very kindly said, this isn’t my first rodeo with you. And a few years ago, I wrote this book entitled, “A Witness to Dignity: The Life and Faith of George H.W. and Barbara Bush,” because they were members of my church in Houston. And for the last 11 and a half years of their lives, I got to watch and I was a witness to their faith. Everybody knew them to be leaders of the world and the nation and certainly in Texas. But there wasn't a lot written about their faith. And I would say that book is mostly about their faith. And I had no intention of writing a book about their faith. I didn't take notes in our years of getting to know each other. But given the political tenor of our world right now, they are wonderful, gentle, kind people.
I was with both of them when they died. I did their funerals, officiated, preached at their funerals. So about a year after their death, I just approached the family. I said, I think I'd like to do a book on your mom and dad. And got their support, they wanted to see the final version, and it came out and was endorsed by a lot of people you would know in all kinds of vocations. 
But what surprised me, which brings me to this book, is that I began to get emails, letters from all over the world, really. I kept a lot of them. I wrote every person back, personally, saying how impressed they were to find out that the people they thought the Bushes were, were the people I described them as. And I didn't fake anything. I didn't describe them as saints and perfect, but I described them as wonderful, loving Christians, and they were.
And I was really touched. And basically, you know, if they can do it, I should be doing it. If these people who are so busy and have complicated lives and full of the world's riches, really, in many ways, and yet very busy serving other people, loving the Lord, going to church, staying in the Bible, then I should do that. And that was basically those letters. 
So I did what you do with books. I've been touring with that book for a while, for a few years, and I actually have another event on that book in the fall. And then I began to think, given the world in which we continue to be in, where social media and media in general, I guess, is so focused on wealth, power, fame, influence, success. And I, fortunately, for whatever reason, my paths have crossed with people in that world a lot. Sometimes because of my friendship with the Bushes, sometimes just because I'm good at stalking. 
I tell one story about my stalking and one of these folks here. And I thought I want to pick about a dozen people who the world does know through their various vocations, none of them are ordained, but actor, sportscaster, politician, admiral, and I know them to be Christians, I know their faith journey, and I want to spend a year sitting down and having conversations with these 12 people. 
I should say, I stopped at 12 because for every one I asked, I had five no's. I mean, for every one who said yes. And most of the no's were very kind. They were, you know, “I'm busy” or “I'm right on the beginning of something,” but these 12 did say yes. And I will say, Doug, it was life-changing for me. Here I am. I'm 63 going on 64. I've been in ministry my whole life. But I purposely chose people who were from different denominations, different perhaps even theological perspectives. I did do that. Different ages, different life experience, many of whom have been through some tough times, but this commonality that they all made a decision to follow Jesus. 
And I thought I want people who fall in any of those categories. I may not have a denomination. I may not even be a believer, but if this guy I've watched on television for the last 40 years, if he's a believer, if he prays every day, if it matters to him, maybe I need to look into it. And I follow, and I'm sure you do too, I follow a lot of the cultural interviews of people who have run dry with all the things that the world has to offer. 
There's a fascinating interview with David Letterman a few years ago, and I didn't include it in the book, but I would have if I had more room, in which he says, “I used to think that was the most important thing in the world. Now that I'm older and away from it, it's kind of, I kind of wondered why I spent so much time doing that silly work.” I don't include this quote, but I often carry this quote around with me and I have it. It's Douglas Copeland who coined that phrase Generation X. 
And he's a believer and I don't know if people know, I mean he's well known as a social cultural student, a few years ago, he wrote this, he said, “Now here is my secret. I tell it to you with an open heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again. So I pray that you're in a quiet room as you hear these words, as we human are. My secret is that I need God. I am sick and I am no longer able to make it alone. I need God to help me give because I can no longer seem to be capable of giving, to help me be kind as I no longer seem capable of kindness, to help me love as I seem beyond being able to love.”
And if this fella who's known for that little phrase is reaching a point in his life where he says, oh, I need God. And I think most of us walk around with that need. Maybe we don't scratch it or we don't take enough time to search it. But in a very real way, I'm hoping the book is an evangelistic tool that will help people see, again, if they can do it, maybe I ought to do it. And if they can do it, given some of the heartache they've been through, you know, that was an important piece for me. 

>>Sweeney:
So let's tell our audience about some of the people who are interviewed in the book. I don't know if you want to name all 12, but can you name a decent number of them so people get a feel if I get this book, here's what I get to hear about?

>>Levenson:
Yeah, I would say I've become, I do say in the book, I think it's safe to say I've become friends with these 12 people. They certainly put up with me a lot. But Dr. Francis Collins, the scientist and head of NIH all the way from President Clinton to President Trump, head of the Human Genome Project, has a fascinating conversion story.
And I would say in several of these interviews, we would be in tears just when I would hear the earnestness of their faith or their experience. It's just powerful. And he has some of those moments. Condi Rice, who of course grew up in Birmingham, Secretary Condi Rice; Gary Sinise, actor, but now almost completely gives his time to service of veterans, Wounded Warriors, first responders. He's become a close friend. Ambassador Nikki Haley. And we talk a lot about her experiences throughout life. She grew up in a Hindu family and converted to Christianity and made that decision. And yet, at the same time, the way her mother approached bringing their children up to be open to everything. And she said, I think that helped me be open to faith in Christ. The way she prays is fascinating. The way she got through, well, I will come back to that in a moment, but Denzel Washington, Admiral William McRaven, who was in charge of lots of things, but he was responsible for, of course, the end of Osama bin Laden - he oversaw that operation. But also Saddam Hussein and Captain Phillips. He was over all those kinds of operations. Fascinating. Amy Grant, who most everybody in our world knows. But Amy's a wonderful person, has become a good friend. And she's had a tough couple of years. We'll come back to that. James Baker, the former Secretary of State, he was a member of my church in Houston, has become a very good friend. Jim Nance, sports commentator for CBS. 

>>Sweeney:
Yes, and we already know you like golf.

>>Levenson:
I do! And Sam Waterston, who again has become a friend, actor in lots of things, most notably known for Law and Order, I think, but very devoted Christian man. Brett Hume. And then Dr. Jane Goodall, who most people know as ... she said, “I'm not a scientist, I'm a naturalist.” But she too has a deep and abiding faith. She's 91. And I actually began, Doug, with Francis Collins, because he kind of came to faith as a scientist through studying science and creation. And he looked at the human DNA strand and he went, “It's got to be a creator.” Very much the way C.S. Lewis did. I'll give you there's a creator. Okay, I'll go that far. And then one day he was talking to a patient who was talking about her faith and how much it meant to her. And he said, I used to hear it all the time, I just kind of blew it off. He said, I grew up an atheist and it didn't bother me. And this elderly woman looked at me and said, “So, Dr. Collins, what do you believe?” And he said, I suddenly realized I was on thin ice. Here I'm a scientist that studies evidence and I never considered the empirical evidence of a creator. So much like Lewis, he kind of got to theism and he is a fully regenerated Christian. And so he said, but the problem was I saw God as holy and perfect and I know I was not. And I said, so how'd you bridge the gap? And he goes, that's when I met Jesus. It's just a great, yeah, just a great story. 
And Jane Goodall I ended with because in recent years, probably just the last year or two, she has begun talking about life after death and how that will be her next great adventure. And I thought, what a great way to end.

>>Sweeney:
That's a great concluding chapter. Well, you've already started teasing us with just with a few of the stories we might encounter as we read through the book. Any like two or three that would stand out as maybe potentially intriguing to be some listeners?

>>Levenson:
Yeah, honestly, I walked away changed by each conversation. But in many ways, I felt so inadequate. I mean, as a person who gave their life to ordained ministry, you kind of think, well, I've done a lot of service in my life. These are people who are not ordained. And when I heard the way, the devotion in their prayers or the time they give to other people or the way in which they've allowed God to guide them in their lives.
So, yeah, I mean, Dr. Condi Rice was one of my first ones and I was a little starstruck and she immediately called me “pastor.” So we talked, and she was very upfront about how God had guided her. She said, “I wanted to be a ballet dancer or a concert pianist, and look where I am now.”

>>Sweeney:
She's a long-time Christian.

>>Levenson:
Yes, oh yes. And her daddy was a pastor and loved, they grew up in that environment. But I asked her, and I didn't ask everybody this, but I asked, tell me a little bit about your devotional life. What's that look like? And she said, “Well, you know,” we were talking about prayer and she said, “Well, I pray in the morning, it's usually very fast because I have a very big job.” She's the head of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. And she said, “But when I get home at night, that's when I say my prayers.” And then she started giving me this litany of all these things she prays for. 
And I said, and this is nightly? She said, “Yes, this is nightly.” I said, so what does that look like? I said, do you, do you sit? Do you kneel? And she said, “I always kneel.” And she said, “Here's the thing, when I was in Washington, I had a very busy job.” I bet, I've heard. And she goes, “And I found myself coming in at the end of the day and having dinner, kneeling down to say my prayers. And I'd fall asleep while I was saying my prayers.” And she said, “So I changed it. So the first thing I do now, when I get home from work, I put my things away. The first thing I do is I go in, kneel down, and say a prayer.”
Amy Grant, who, as I said, has become a friend. We don’t hang out, but we talk from time to time. And she gave two wonderful concerts at my church in Birmingham. And she had a traumatic brain injury a few years ago, riding a bike. And it was pretty serious and shook her up. And she had memory issues for a good long while. I think she's about over ... I’ll give her a commercial. She's coming out with a new album and a new tour in September and October in just a few weeks. 
But so we did this interview at her house and we're talking and I said, you know, Amy, I've never asked you about what does your devotional life look like? We talked about her prayer life and then and I said, do you have a favorite scripture? And she said, “Well, here's the thing, since my accident, I have some trouble remembering those scriptures that were favorite to me.” And then she goes, “So, I sing them and I can remember them. And then she goes, can I sing for you?” Absolutely.
So we're sitting in her sitting room and she sings. She said, “This morning when I was taking a shower, I sang, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.” And when she got through it was just ... again, I was just in tears. 
Sam's an interesting guy. He's played all kinds of people and all kinds of roles. But he's grown up. As he said, “I never had a breaking of the clouds in the sky moment. But I've always grown up in belief in the longer he lives, the more he sees how important it is.” So I asked him about his prayer life. He's mostly retired now, but he's still doing little things here and there. And he said, “Oh, well, I meditate for 30 minutes in the morning. And then I meditate for 30 minutes at night, which is my form of prayer.” And he goes to church every week. And so I said, well, what does that look like? “Well, first in the morning, I'm just quiet. I don't say a thing.” I said, what do you say in the evening? He said, “I only have one word and it's Maranatha. Come Lord. So, for 30 minutes I pray, come, Lord.” 
And again, my wife and I were fortunate to go stay with he and his wife in their home for a couple of days. And we're in another part of the house and I get back and I'm telling my wife, I'm so far from doing that. Here's this guy who's an hour a day, you know, is quiet and still before the Lord and I've got to work on all this. 
So, just some really moving moments. Brit Hume, who everybody knows from his news days, and Brit's a very deeply committed Christian. I think he would say it was nominal for a while, for a long season. And then sadly his son killed himself, committed suicide. And Brit just was crushed, and Andy was his son, he said, “I absolutely did not know how I was going to get up and face the next day.” And he said, “Then suddenly, and this is the power of letters, I won't say emails, my mailbox became crammed with the letters from all over the country telling me that they were praying for me.” And he said that was the demonstrable manifestation, incarnation of Jesus that got me through that moment. 
And then I'll tell one more because this was quite powerful, Nikki Haley after the shooting at the AME Church. And there were some moments I said, you can pass if you don't want to talk about this, and everybody would go further. So I said that to Ambassador Haley. I said, you may not want to talk about this. She said, oh no, that's a turning point for me. And she said, “You know, the 12 innocent people killed and I had made the decision as the governor to go to every funeral. I did not know every funeral would be open casket. I did not know I was gonna be asked to speak at every funeral.” And so she said, “I got about halfway through that, those funerals. I had lost 30 pounds. I was doing everything I thought I should do. I was saying my prayers. I was going to church. I was seeing a therapist.” She said “I was taking some medication, all those things. But I just kept getting worse and worse.” And she said about halfway through that, “one night I came home, closed the door, got down on my knees and cried out, Jesus, I cannot get through this without you.” And she said suddenly the strength to continue to lead people through that moment came upon her.

>>Sweeney:
Wow. 

>>Levenson:
Yeah, I mean these ... Gary Sinise's son had just died when we did our time together. And Gary, his son was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer called Chordoma, and he fought it for a number of years. Mac Sinise, in the last year of his life, though he was really in many ways physically disabled because the cancer had gotten so bad, but he wrote some incredibly beautiful music.
And so I would encourage people to go to Spotify or wherever, you can actually buy the vinyls too, but just beautifully inspired orchestral symphonic pieces. He writes all kinds of things. But that was kind of his ... and the day Gary and I did our interview, he's in Nashville now, his office is in Nashville, as we were leaving the first batch of finals came in into the office and Gary was so excited about it. But he and Mac were very close.

>>Sweeney:
When we started talking about the book and you were listing all the people that you interviewed, my thought was, well, they all have Jesus in common, but what a diverse array of people. The more I listen to you talk, the more I think, well, they have a lot of things in common. So, I guess the question I want to ask is, when you read all of these interviews together and you're done with the book, what do you go away feeling or thinking? Do you think it's fascinating and wonderful that this wide variety of people all love Jesus and have faith in the Lord? Do you leave the book thinking, wow, what an interesting assortment of stories, but they don't have a lot in common, but I'm sure I'm glad I read them all? What's the kind of concluding takeaway for people, or is there one concluding takeaway for people?

>>Levenson:
I think there is. I do write a preface and a conclusion, as most writers should do with books. And I begin by referencing Jesus' invitation to “Follow me.” And I said, you're about to meet 12 people who made that decision in different ways. But I do talk about the cultural squeezes that are on us now where people are looking for that wholeness in all the wrong places, so to speak. And so, kind of as I unpack the story for people of each person, when I get to the end, I said, now let's go back to where I began. I began with Jesus' invitation to follow. 
Here are 12 people who follow. Where are you in your journey? Have you made a decision to follow? And maybe you'll follow like Jane Goodall. Maybe you're at the end of life and you're thinking about your next great adventure. Maybe you'll follow like Denzel Washington, who's moving out of movies into a career of ministry, which came out of our conversation. Maybe you'll follow into government. But you'll know that the source for strength in those places is the Lord, as it was for these people. And I do at the end say, well, we've got about six or seven common characteristics you will have seen here.
Humility. None of these people came across to me as pompous or look at what I'm doing. Gentleness, kindness, devotion, service. It's not just about sitting in there studying, reading the Bible. Almost all of them in some way are involved in service. Jim Nant started the Alzheimer's Foundation for his father. I mean it's just on and on and on. Everybody's committed in such ways. But again, the hope is, I'm going to pick up this book, because I watched Denzel Washington, and yet now I know what his story is. And now I know how Jesus has really helped him.
And I mean, I really was moved by so many words that these people offered. We prayed. I prayed with every one of them and that was moving. And in fact, I met with Denzel in his office out in California and we had been talking on the phone to set it up. And when I finally got out there and we kind of settled in and I've still got the recording and I usually closed in prayer and we're starting. He said, “No, we need to pray.” He leans over and takes both my hands and those beefy hands of his. And he said, “Pray for me.” So we prayed together and then we prayed at the end. And I hope people are re-invited into that relationship with the Lord. I said to somebody the other day, in fact I've begun to tell them what's coming out, I'm going to get you a copy, and I said, will you pray with me that this will help people come to know the Lord if they don't, and if they do, it'll just move into a deeper place. 
My three, we kind of tinkered with whether or not we needed endorsements. You've been kind enough to endorse a book of mine before and I appreciate that. And so they said, well you've kind of got 12 endorsements. But then a few weeks ago I thought, you know, I'm gonna be very diverse here. So I went to Jeannie Miley, who's a Baptist. You may know Jeannie is a spiritual leader, writer of women, mainly books for women in their faith. But Jeannie's a Baptist, my retired presiding bishop, Michael Curry, and then Greg Boyle, who started Homeboy Industries out in California, is a Roman Catholic. And all three of them sent back very kind endorsements to be included. So yeah, it's been an exciting work, it really has.

>>Sweeney:
Yeah. Thanks for coming on telling us all about it. Friends, Witness to Belief is the book we're discussing, Reflections on Faith and Meaning. You can pre-order it now. You can get your hands on a copy beginning October 7th, we believe. Before we run completely out of time, Russ, we want to end by praying for you. We'll pray about the book for sure. But what's going on in Dr. Levenson's life these days? You got another book in you, how should we be praying for you? 

>>Levenson:
Yeah, and actually they changed the title, they changed it to Conversations on Faith and Meaning. But Witness the Belief is the big part. And there will be two, three, four book events here in Birmingham in the fall. And I'm going to New York and Atlanta and Nashville and some other places around the country.
So, yes, I mean, you mentioned the golf book. My publisher and I have talked a little bit about doing a book entitled, “It All Begins with Love: What Tennis Can Teach Us About the Gospel.” So that's in the making. I'm toying with a little study. These are probably years out ... and that's the last project I'll tell you about ... I'm toying a little bit with Remember, O Christian Soul, which is a wonderful little ... just kind of what you are supposed to do with your daily life. I don't know if you've read that. It's in Augustine's prayer book. But it's about the length of the creed. But it's remember o Christian soul, today and every day you have God to glorify, Jesus to imitate, your salvation to work out with fear and trembling, sins to repent, virtues to acquire. And I'm thinking of just a little study book that goes along with that. It's a little prayer I've been folding into my own devotional time. 
And then I am working on a novel. I finished the novel and it's a little dark. I probably might not have written it during my full-time ordained ministry years. There's some darkness going on in the church, and the good news is God wins in the end. So, yeah, we'll see how it goes. It's finished, and I'm just kind of cleaning it up now before I start hitting the road and seeing if I can get a publisher.

>>Sweeney:
Great. Can't wait to read them all.

>>Levenson:
Well, thank you. You're kind.

>>Sweeney:
Folks, this has been Dr. Russell Levenson. Please pray for him and his book, Witness to Belief. It's available now. Please go and check it out. Thank you for being with us. We love you. We're praying for you too. And we say goodbye for now.


>>Mark Gignilliat:

You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast; coming to you from the campus of Samford University. Our theme music is by Advent Birmingham. Our announcer is Mark Gignilliat. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our Producer is Neal Embry. And our show host is Doug Sweeney. For more episodes and to subscribe, visit www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast. You can also find the Beeson Podcast on iTunes, YouTube, and Spotify.