On this episode of the Faith & Clarity podcast, Dr. Mark Turman sits down with former Ohio Governor John Kasich to talk about his new book, Heaven Help Us: How Faith Communities Inspire, Hope, Strengthen Neighborhoods, and Build the Future. Together, they explore how local churches and faith communities can be catalysts for hope, healing, and renewal in our world.

Governor Kasich reflects on lessons from his years in public service, shares personal stories that shaped his journey, and explains why seeing every person as made in the image of God is essential for lasting change. The conversation also highlights practical ways faith can shape everyday life and inspire us to build stronger neighborhoods and more compassionate communities.

Topics

• (00:37): Introducing Governor John Kasich
• (04:27): The inspiration behind Heaven Help Us
• (05:39): The role of faith communities in society
• (10:05): Challenges and opportunities for faith communities
• (16:24): Encouraging stories from Heaven Help Us
• (17:53): Embracing compassion and community
• (21:39): Forgiveness in the face of tragedy
• (24:48): Starting community initiatives
• (26:48): Political polarization and redistricting
• (32:24): Religious liberty and political leadership
• (34:16): Conclusion and final thoughts

Resources

• Ask Us Anything: [email protected]
• How has Denison Forum impacted your faith?
• Heaven Help Us: How Faith Communities Inspire, Hope, Strengthen Neighborhoods, and Build the Future
• Zondervan: Heaven Help Us
• John Kasich (@johnkasich) • Instagram photos and videos
• John Kasich: Facebook
• John Kasich (@JohnKasich) / X
• The Kasich Company

About Governor John Kasich

John Kasich is a national leader who has spent a lifetime bringing people together to solve big problems and leave the world around them just a little bit better than they found it. Kasich served as the 69th governor of Ohio and ran for President during the 2016 GOP primary. 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. 

Today, he runs the Kasich Company and serves as a political analyst for NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC. He is the author of four New York Times bestsellers: Courage Is Contagious; Stand for Something; Every Other Monday; Two Paths; and It’s Up to Us. His most recent book, Heaven Help Us, is now available. He is married to Karen Kasich and is the proud father of adult twin daughters.

About Dr. Mark Turman

Mark Turman, DMin, serves as the Executive Director of Denison Forum, where he leads with a passion for equipping believers to navigate today’s complex culture with biblical truth. He is best known as the host of the Faith & Clarity podcast and the lead pastor of the Possum Kingdom Chapel, the in-person congregation of Denison Ministries.

Dr. Turman is the coauthor of Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design and Who Am I? What the Bible Says About Identity and Why it Matters. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, and received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He later completed his Doctor of Ministry at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco.

Before joining Denison Forum, Mark served as a pastor for 35 years, including 25 years as the founding pastor of Crosspoint Church in McKinney, Texas.

Mark and his high school sweetheart, Judi, married in 1986. They are proud parents of two adult children and grandparents to three grandchildren.

About Denison Forum

Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, the Faith & Clarity podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.

What role does faith play in building better communities?

TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited. 

Dr. Mark Turman: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Faith and Clarity podcast, a Denison Forum podcast. I’m Mark Turman, your host for today’s conversation. We want to help you find hope beyond the headlines and the issues of our day, and equip you to think live and serve in ways that cultivate build flourishing communities. So we’re gonna jump right in.

Our conversation today is about actually that building better communities. I had a wise mentor who said to me, if you live in a good community, be thankful, be helpful. Someone came ahead of you to make it good and you ought to keep it going. And if it’s not a good community, you ought to be the change that you want to see.

So to help us with our conversation today is Governor John Kasich. And we’re gonna talk about his recently released book called Heaven Help Us: How Faith Communities Inspire, Hope, Strengthen Neighborhoods, and Build the Future. Many of you are probably familiar with Governor Kasich. He’s a national leader for decades, has spent a lifetime [00:01:00] solving problems and bringing people together to solve problems.

He served as the 69th governor of Ohio, ran for president in the 2016 Republican Primary, and has spent his life unifying Americans rather than dividing them, helping people to mobilize as citizens to make positive impacts. In their communities and in other very important priorities. Today he is running the Kasic company and serves as a political analyst.

He is also a New York Times bestselling author and this recent book recently released in the Spring. And some of you also remember that he is married to Karen and they are the proud parents of two twin adult daughters. Governor Kasich , welcome to the Faith and Clarity podcast. 

Governor John Kasich: Thanks, mark. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Mark Turman: Appreciate it. We’re glad to have you with us. It’s a real honor to have you as a part of our conversation just to give your give our audience a little bit of framework for our conversation about faith and faith communities. Talk a little bit about your own [00:02:00] faith, how it inspires, motivates, and guides you in the work that you’re doing today.

Governor John Kasich: I mean, you know, it’s How does it, it’s just part of my life, I guess is the way I would say it. Mark, it’s I mean, I think about it all the time. I read, I study I, in fact, it’s funny, I have a, an Old Testament scholar who’s a friend of mine by the name of Trumper Longman. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that name.

But Trumper is like the Old Testament guru. I mean, which is really amazing. So I can call him up about anything. I asked him the other day, not that he doesn’t know about the New Testament, but ’cause he did a, a commentary on the book of Revelation, but I said to him, I’d like to have your counterpart in the New Testament area.

’cause I always have so many questions and I have friends that I talk to, but I, I wanna have somebody that’s really spent a lifetime studying. And so I’m hopeful, hoping to speak with this gentleman next week. And I always have a million questions. You know, and they’re important to me. These questions are important [00:03:00] because it has to kind of all fit in my head as to how everything works.

And but you know, I’ve tried to be humble. I fail. I wanna slow down when somebody speaks to me and listen to them. Mm-hmm. I want to help people whenever I can, even if it’s, you know, even if it’s not easy or something that is natural in terms of how I can give them a solution, but I want to help them and, you know, it’s, it’s all connected to my faith.

I mean, it’s kind of say, I, it’s hard to say that, you know, there’s this part piece and this is faith and that piece, but that’s not, and I think it all becomes part of you if you are interested in making it that. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Hmm. Yeah. Ly. Does that make make sense? Yeah. Not separating Sunday from Monday and just yeah, and I think, 

Governor John Kasich: I think it’s, I think it’s hard for a lot of people to I think it’s hard for a lot of people to get that.

I’m not sure that they, I’m not sure that those who are [00:04:00] believers have been very compelling. About convincing people they need to move from Sunday into Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. Yes. I, I, they gotta understand why and I’m not so sure that, that they actually hear why. And that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a lot of people that do that.

’cause I think we do. But there prob there can be more 

Dr. Mark Turman: for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. How do we integrate faith into every part of our lives? Yeah. Not compartmentalizing it. Let’s talk about this book a little bit. I believe it’s your sixth book, right? Which is pretty significant and I’ve had a little bit of experience in writing and books don’t just generally come easy.

But what is the backstory of this book? As we get into a little bit further, I, I could have seen how a faith leader or a pastor might have written a book like this. What was the backstory that inspired you to write it? It’s 

Governor John Kasich: my second faith book. My first one was called Every Other Monday.

It was a bestseller as well, which is, was kind of shocking. And it was a story about a Bible study that [00:05:00] I was involved in starting back in 1987. By the way. It’s called Every other Monday, and that study still goes to this day, every other Monday. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Fantastic. 

Governor John Kasich: Yeah. And but during COVID, I found out that preachers were being really deloused with their parishioners, trying to tell them that they need to get involved in political discussions.

And I didn’t like that. So I gathered some theologians to see if we could come up with a statement as to what it meant to be faith driven. Got all these theologians together and couldn’t agree on the first word, let alone the whole, a whole statement. And one of my friends involved in the project said, why don’t you just go ahead and write a book?

And so that’s. What led to this, and then I, I also felt that this is a handbook really for how people can navigate today. I mean, people we’re polarized as a country, we’re frustrated, and I saw this as a playbook for people to overcome their frustration, get involved in doing something [00:06:00] significant of which they have passion about, and using the faith institutions, which are not looked upon as favorably as we would all like.

To provide a platform or a clubhouse or changes involving, you know, foster care or homelessness or human trafficking. I mean, it’s a place where you can go hopefully, and you can get the leadership there to say, yeah, I’ll, I’ll help you solve this problem. What happens with, you know, with autistic children as they, as they age, where are they going to be when mom and dad are gone?

Hmm. I mean, these are all things that I think. Churches at the local level and synagogues and mosques can participate in and sort of renew where we are. ’cause all change comes from the bottom up. And we are a strong country when we are, when we are engaged, 

Dr. Mark Turman: when we keep the faith. Right now, let’s, let’s go down that road a little bit further.

You’re talking about all gatherings, religious faith communities can be important. Infl influential, even [00:07:00] though churches and faith communities, like almost every other institution in our country is being questioned and challenged. But I, I just, as I was reading your book, I thought it was a unique approach because there’s so many books that try to inspire and instruct us built around an individual.

You know, I think of Wil Wilberforce and the slave trade and stories about him. Yeah, that’s a great man. What a hero, huh? And, and so many things about a hero who is kind of the epitome of a movement. But I love this idea that you really built upon about, hey, walk into your faith community, be it a church, be it a mosque or synagogue, and ask.

Ask these people that you do worship and that you do life with to, to help you solve a problem. Yeah. What, what kind of started you down that idea as opposed to just telling stories of heroes? You know, 

Governor John Kasich: I, I don’t know, mark. It’s just, I mean, I don’t know why it, I didn’t even, I never thought about any other way to do it.

[00:08:00] I mean, I, I believe in bottom up, I believe that, people themselves can have real value and sometimes they doubt their ability to achieve significant things. I can’t, there was no one moment where, you know, I said, oh, I gotta do this. I know there was a discussion early on about just really kind of separating those who do great things from faith institutions.

They’re like wait a minute. What if they’re not connected? I said that’s for another book, but for this book, I want to. I want to talk about the partnership that really can make a difference in terms of how our communities function. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And really does a great job of unpacking that. You mentioned a little bit earlier about, you know, you know, mark, the way it 

Governor John Kasich: works is, I mean, when you write a song, when you write a book, I don’t haven’t written any songs.

I would try to write, one of my wife laughed at me, so I gave that up, but it’s you know, writing a speech or writing a book or whatever. Things kind of come to you, you know? Yeah. I mean, mm-hmm. You know, you were a pastor, you know, at a church [00:09:00] for 25 years, and so you’ve gotta deliver a sermon.

Okay. How did you know what you were gonna do? You could look at what the scripture was for that week or whatever, but your best ones, I will. I bet were be ones that sort of came to you. Yeah. You went, oh, I think I wanna do that. And so I don’t know if I’ll ever write another book on Faith.

I’ll tell you this. I find it to be really cool that there are people who are like really recognized theologians. What’s his name? Lato. I forget his first 

Dr. Mark Turman: name. Yeah. Max Lato. 

Governor John Kasich: Yeah, max Lato. I mean, I’m on this list with faith leaders and he’s six, and I’m like 12. Not that I’m, you know, I’m flexing my arm talking about how great I am.

It is just, I thought it was really cool that, that I could have connected to some people. On this subject. You know, I mean, who am I to write? Yeah. But then again, who is anybody to write? 

Dr. Mark Turman: Sure. Yeah. And just great that God puts you in places where he wants you to have a voice. Yeah. You know, and you, you can [00:10:00] never in imagine that that might have been a place that you would get an, an opportunity or a voice, you know?

One of the things 

Governor John Kasich: that I’m really concerned about is the issue of of objective truth and whether you are, you know. Wherever you are politically, I think the one thing that can unite us rather than discussing, you know, what your politics is or who you like or what issues are or whatever, I think it’s this question about as a society, how do we do and we don’t have a objective truth.

When all truth becomes subjective, when anybody’s behavior can be rationalized by them, when there are no standards, when there is no excellence. And to me this is a, this is the biggest challenge it faces our country today. And how do we restore the sense of objective truth? And I guess this is I guess this is what what Pilate asked Jesus, right?

What is truth? Sure. In a world where we can’t, not only are we [00:11:00] having our own subjective truth, but at the same time, all of us can’t figure out what’s true and what’s not. When we look at the deep fakes and the, and the use of technology to, I mean, it’s, this is all serious stuff as we head, as we head forward, so to some degree, yeah, I have my political thoughts.

And I can argue for them, but what I hope will connect me with others is this idea of we somehow have to all of us begin to talk about this issue. And I don’t think you can get objective truth that’s separated from from really the, the faith you know, the, basically the old and the New Testament lets us know.

An awful lot about truth. Absolutely. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Even though we can 

Governor John Kasich: argue about that too, pastor. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. We do argue about it quite a bit. Yeah. But we’re, we’re definitely experiencing the chaos of what it means when everybody decides that truth is their truth. Yeah. And that there is no [00:12:00] such thing as the truth. Yeah, that’s right.

That’s right. And, and we’re also seeing that technology. Is in some ways becoming less and less reliable because we’re not sure that what we’re seeing is truth. I, I, I mean, think 

Governor John Kasich: about what that means for a society. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. 

Governor John Kasich: Think about the chaos, the confusion that, that it can create. And so this is a really interesting one That is absolutely, that is really a unifying question.

Yeah. More than a dividing 

Dr. Mark Turman: question. 

Governor John Kasich: Right. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yep. Yeah. If we can’t, if we can’t get to some understanding of what reality is which is another way of talking about truth, then it’s gonna be hard to find ways to move forward. As you were gathering up stories, governor and you, you mentioned earlier that churches, faith communities are being pressured to become more politically engaged.

Were you encouraged that churches and religious communities were standing up to this pressure? Do you feel like, oh, I think it’s divided. I don’t know, mark. They get 

Governor John Kasich: drug in further and further. [00:13:00] Yeah. I don’t know. It’s up to the, but I wanted to, I look, I just want let, that was a different question than the book.

What the book is, and I’ll give you a good example. There’s a woman that I know who’s got a autistic son, and it has been very, very difficult. For this lady and she is trying to figure out what the future portends and she doesn’t know what’s gonna come of him and what’s gonna come of her. And I said to her, you know, look, I’ve written this book and in this book as a chapter about a lady from Long Island who took this issue on and she’s created some safe space for the adult autistic.

People who you know, have challenges and where they’re gonna live, whatever. And I said, if you look at it, then I said, do you, do you have a church? I never really kind of got the answer out of her. I said if you don’t, then go find one. And when you go in and you talk to the leader of [00:14:00] the church, if the leader of the church doesn’t want to help you to figure this out, then go find another church.

And I think they’re open. I think, I think a lot of it is you just have to ask, and it’s hard for people bullying into some building and saying, Hey, you know, I’ve got this problem, can you help me? But I don’t think it’s as hard as we think it is. You tell me, if somebody would gone into your church, what would you have done on these issues?

Dr. Mark Turman: What we tried to do thanks for the question by the way appreciate you turning the tables. But what we tried to do is say, Hey, look, if you have this problem, it’s likely that other people have it as well. That you’re not the only person to have ever encountered this kind of a challenge. So let’s see if we can find those other people and see if we can find a way to come up with a, a collective answer.

What we also talked about was, is we used a little phrase, we said, you don’t get to drop off your monkey. That is, you don’t get to walk in here, drop off your pro problem and tell me and other people to fix it. You need to be a part of that answer. 

Governor John Kasich: Absolutely, [00:15:00] yes. I like that. I like that. And I think. What it does is it breathes life into the institution.

And what I really like is when you said there’s other people. Because if you try to do a, my first book was called Courage is Contagious, and it was about individuals who did remarkable things that no one ever heard of, and they did do some remarkable things. However, if you do things with more than just yourself, you’re gonna have a lot more, I think satisfaction.

You’re gonna have a lot more progress and you can accomplish something. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, and that’s where, you know, people talk about launching a movement. I’m not sure that any movement that ever got launched, the people that launched it knew they were launching a movement. But that’s really where movements start to happen, is when people that have similar types of problems start coming together and they start working to figure out how to solve not only their own problem.

But the whole problem, and that can make something really impactful because one of my mentors said, you know, we can get overwhelmed and we can get paralyzed. [00:16:00] We ought to pray globally, but we need to act locally. We need to figure out what we can do right outside our own front door and make things better.

We’re gonna take a break for a couple of minutes and grab a cup of coffee and we’ll be right back to continue our conversation with Governor John Kasich.

We’re back with Gov Governor John Kasick talking about flourishing communities. This book, governor Kasick, is about all kinds of great stories. Great collaborative efforts. Is there one story that you always go to when you are asked about this book? Is there one. I, let’s not use the word favorite. Mark.

And I’ll, and I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you since I didn’t write the book, I do have a favorite in the book. Look, 

Governor John Kasich: I 

Dr. Mark Turman: mean, you have 

Governor John Kasich: two adult kids and three grandchildren. Now. Mark, which one do you like best? 

Dr. Mark Turman: They all know. So let me, let me tell you what my favorite is. Which one? My favorite one is the [00:17:00] story about the group that adopted their local DHS office to try to help the workers in that.

Community that are already in that office. They decided, you know what? We’re not gonna gripe about what they’re not getting right or what they’re not getting to. We’re gonna go and try to build them up, give them encouragement. You mean the foster care story? Yeah, the foster care story. Yeah. Where they said, you know what?

There’s already good people working on this problem, and we’re gonna try to help them be better and more encouraged in their work so that they will then. Be better for the people that they’re serving. You know, it’s, I just love that story. 

Governor John Kasich: Yeah. What’s funny about it is it’s spreading across the country because the foster care system needs a lot of improvement.

Hmm. And I’ve encouraged them to take this and look what all they’ve tried to do is to say, Hey, you folks have a tough job here. Let’s brighten up the, the building. Let’s, let’s love the kids more. Let’s, let’s recognize and respect the parents and the adopters. And, and, and it’s [00:18:00] caught on. And, you know, how often do we ever say to somebody who works in the government in what can become very bureaucratic, oh, you’re doing a great job.

Yeah, most of the time we don’t do that. And that’s a, it’s a really, really, it’s a great story. Look. I would say that I, I, I’m gonna tell you about the Convoy of Hope, which is the, I think, 27th largest charity now headquartered in in Springfield, Missouri. I went there and this whole operation got started after a guy who was a writer, met Mother Theresa, and she asked him what he was doing to change the world, of which he didn’t have a good answer.

And so he went home with his buddies and they took a couple bags of groceries and passed ’em out in the community. And today they’re pa they’re feeding 640,000 people all over the world. They’re at every, you know, down in Texas when you had the floods, they were down there. I mean, they go everywhere where there were natural disasters.

And it’s amazing. And the [00:19:00] hesitancy I have is, as one of my friends said after we read the book there’s no way I can feed a half a million people a day. And so I said, okay, that’s, but hell started feeding like 10. And so you don’t wanna just take the big stories and what you’re saying about the foster care is something we could all do.

My wife has a little mission. It’s kind of flaming out a little bit now because people are leaving it. And that is, she adopted her olds. These are people who were old and alone, and she would go and visit them. Hmm. And the reason it’s flame, it’s flaming out is because. Some of the people she visits aren’t around anymore.

But she still, they still became old, but she she is, you know, kind of verif changing that a little bit. But to make a long story short, I mean, I think every one of these stories is such where we can, we can really get, we can get hope and we can realize that we don’t have to change everything, just change the block we live on.

Dr. Mark Turman: [00:20:00] Yeah. But that’s a good one. 

Governor John Kasich: How about the other one where the guy in Omaha had a dream and 15 years later he converted it into a purchasing land? Yeah. You like that story where there’s love it. There’s a mosque, a synagogue, and a, and a church and, and, you know, and he, he just he, he was a guy, he was a leader of the synagogue.

He’s a lawyer. He understands real estate. And he just went about, and now this, this exists over there and it’s really cool. 

Dr. Mark Turman: I kept trying to get a picture in my mind about how that laid out on a piece of land where those three faith find communities. Could 

Governor John Kasich: I it just, just Google it? Yeah. You know, I think you’ll, you’ll be able to see it.

I mean, it’s a, it’s really funny and he’s very, very humble about it. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. 

Governor John Kasich: Even though he’s a big cheese over there, he’s, he’s something else. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Great. Just great stories. I was wondering as you, as you learned about all of these stories. Did you learn anything unique about how God calls people into these kinds of actions or, or is every one of these stories just unique unto itself?

Governor John Kasich: One of the things that I did [00:21:00] learn is it is possible for the faith community to interplay with the government, and as long as you’re not proselytizing, you can, you can engage yourself and you can bring about change, and maybe in the course of it you are proselytizing. You’re not doing it with words, you’re doing it with action.

And that doesn’t mean you’re gonna convert the government. I don’t, that’s not what we should be doing, but people can see what you’re doing and it could inspire them. That was, that was a big thing that jumped out at me. And in terms of, you know, this is, this is really something that I’ve always believed, which is you just keep plugging and you keep plugging.

And two stories that I put in here that are, and you know, as you know, mark, the first one is about the, the church down in South Carolina where people were shot. Ask you about that, and yet the family forgave them, or the story about the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh. Those are bookends and I put ’em in there because they’re there’s so much in my mind.

But everything [00:22:00] in between is about, is about these individual actions, and it just means people are great. Just take the bull by the horns a little bit, even if you’re shy. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Yeah. And having had a chance to visit the Mother Emmanuel Church a couple years ago and just like I said, how was that?

Tell us about that. Yeah. Just so profound such a beautiful city, right in the heart of a beautiful, beautiful city. And then, you know, having been a pastor and sat in those circles and led those kinds of Bible studies with 10 people sitting around, I just I, I guess, can’t imagine the brutality of that.

And then the Tree of Life synagogue as well. These. These shootings have just become normalized in some ways for all of us, and just realize that they are a terrible commentary on where our culture is. 

Governor John Kasich: And, and here’s the thing that’s so interesting about that. I, it inadvertently have concluded this and that is that the church in Emmanuel a ME in, in Charleston, [00:23:00] it’s about forgiveness.

And you think about, I mean, as a pastor for so many years, right? And you’re once a pastor, always a pastor. Yeah. How many times have you seen people come in that had a, a real anger and a hatred towards members of their own family, which was, doesn’t even make any sense. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. 

Governor John Kasich: You know, and you didn’t take care of dad as much as you should have.

Or why did you get that extra money that I didn’t get and, or I had a friend and he looked at me the wrong way or he. You know, we, and happens to all of us, me included. And what we begin to realize is it doesn’t cost us a lot to forgive. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. 

Governor John Kasich: Yeah. And I bet you had to counsel people to that. I have no doubt that you had to.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And it’s, you know, it’s one of the biggest challenges of it doesn’t, in one way it doesn’t cost us anything. And one way it cost us almost everything is to humble ourselves. Not only to receive forgiveness, but then to be able to [00:24:00] extend it. And that, that’s just a big challenge that we face continually in the Walk of Faith.

Governor, how have you seen, I let just tell you one 

Governor John Kasich: little story about this ’cause I have a friend who, he and his brother didn’t get along because his brother felt as though he had carried the load as his father was dying and my friend didn’t do enough. And they did. They were really split for a number of years, and I was talking to my friend who will go unnamed here, and I said to him, just call your brother up and tell him, you know, you wish you could have done more and you’re sorry you didn’t.

Voila. It’s all, it’s, it’s all healed. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. 

Governor John Kasich: Yeah’s healed. Isn’t that amazing? 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Just the acknowledgement, right? Yes. Just, just the acknowledgement. Yes. And hey, I wish it could have gone better. Absolutely. Somebody listening to our conversation, they pick up your book. How would you suggest they get started?

They think, Hey, I see this problem. I, I have this problem, I see this problem. Maybe [00:25:00] I’m connected to a faith community, a church. Maybe I’m not. Where would I start? What do you suggest? 

Governor John Kasich: Yeah, I, I think maybe in a way that was one of the weaknesses in the book as we should have given about how to do it.

Yeah. So if you’re in a church, you gotta just, or a synagogue or whatever, you gotta approach the leader and ’cause what you have to do is view it as a clubhouse. You know, if you wanna get into politics, you need to have a clubhouse, right? If you want to change the community, you gotta gotta have a clubhouse.

And I think that’s the first thing. The second thing is for those that have no affiliation, don’t go to church, do, don’t go to the synagogue or whatever. You need to look at this as something that can really transform your idea about whatever it is that you feel passionately about. And the Lord obviously put it in your heart.

And so I think it’s a matter of, look, I I want to be realistic, mark. I mean, are people gonna do it? Some will and some won’t. [00:26:00] Some will see it as too hard. But maybe if you see it as too hard, then you talk to one of these, do-gooders who you know, who you roll your eyes at about, you know, and say to them, Hey what about, what about where you go?

You got all this religion stuff? Okay, let’s. Let’s put your money where your mouth is. Let’s go and see if we can yeah. You know, let’s, let’s see if we can get something done here, because most people when asked will help. I mean, I think people are pretty good. They, the capability to be very good and the capability to be very bad, and I think we need to take advantage of the good.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And, and give them good places to use their time, energy, and effort. Absolutely. Exactly. Yeah. Governor, we hope that people will be helped by the book, but before you get away, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you a few more broad questions about the place where we’re living in now. We want people to live in civil ways, in uncivil times.

We talk about that a lot around here at Denison Forum. You know that we’ve got redistricting battles going on here in Texas where we’re [00:27:00] based. California’s heating up around that. Heard one politician describe this, this is war. Where do you think people on the right and left are missing each other?

Where are they misunderstanding about each other? 

Governor John Kasich: Huh? They’re not, I think first of all, there may not be seeing each other made in the image of God. Hmm. So therefore I’ve demonized you and I can treat you any way I want to because you are the evil force on the other side. I mean, is there really anything?

Yeah, I guess people would argue there are things, but there are things to argue about and talk about, but to try to, in your mind, eliminate that person to, to, to just dismiss them as a human being isn’t good. So what I would say to people is. You know, you can have your argument, but don’t demonize other people.

Come on. You wouldn’t want your kids to behave that way. Don’t you behave that way? And I think when it comes to this [00:28:00] redistricting, it is the ugliest thing that goes on for a politician. I went through redistricting, I don’t know, one time, maybe twice, and that’s where they keep coming to take your territory away to give it to somebody else so you can’t get elected again.

And it creates more enemies that you can even believe. And it’s, it’s nasty. And I think this idea that, you know, you’re gonna do it in Texas, they’re gonna do it in California, they’re gonna do it in Illinois, they’re gonna do it in, you know, in Nebraska with, it’s just, again, another race to the bottom, which creates more cynicism.

And I just wish they would leave it alone. I mean, where you have to redistrict, you should I think redistricting itself, gerrymandering is just a terrible thing. It all comes from the notion that why are we in this and why are we look at people that hold a different point of view? Why do we look at them as being evil?

They’re not evil. They’re just people who feel strongly about another way of doing things. So what? 

Dr. Mark Turman: Right? 

Governor John Kasich: Yeah. [00:29:00] Get over it. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Don’t be Bo 

Governor John Kasich: don’t be boring. And 

Dr. Mark Turman: maybe do 

Governor John Kasich: a little more listening. Yeah. You know, that whole, you know, we were, we laugh around here. Here’s a couple things we haven’t heard. Oh. You know, I never considered that point of view before.

Maybe you’re right, or, you know, I’m not sure I agree with you, but I like you anyway. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. 

Governor John Kasich: I mean, why can’t we bring that back, 

Dr. Mark Turman: mark? No. Yeah. Where is that spirit gone? You know? Do you think, you think we’re ready as a country Elon Musk and the whole third party conversation, do you think we’re ready for a third party?

Governor John Kasich: I think third parties are very hard to do, and the reason is how you build the infrastructure where you get the money. And in addition to that, if you, if I have a. A lady who works with me who said, who has investigated this, she said, people are more willing to give up their the re the religious inclinations they have from their parents than they are to give up their political affiliation.

Oh [00:30:00] wow. We clinging to what we are and it, it was okay that we did it before, but now we look at the other side as having absolutely no value, and that’s just nonsense. We’re, we’re good when we’re a collection, when we’re a pot por of opinions and we can learn from one another. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It seems like my whole life, maybe our whole lives have been in a, an environment where we’ve had what I would generally describe as an anemic congress, a celebrity, a, a, a long run of celebrity presidents, and now we’re kind of into what feels like questionable judiciary in some ways.

How do you think is that, is that the way we’re always going to be from now on? Or is there a pathway to rebalancing the three branches so they work better together? 

Governor John Kasich: You, you wanna have all three branches and the legislative branch has kind of turned all of its power over to the executive. And and we don’t want the judicial branch to be viewed as, you know, what’s your party?

And then you get picked. [00:31:00] But Mark, I, let me ask you a question. Who would you miss more if they went on vacation? Who would you miss more? Would you miss the uni, the Secretary of State, or your trash man? 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah.

Governor John Kasich: That’s the whole purpose of this. That’s the question. The whole purpose of this book is to realize that we have to drive the change we seek from the bottom up.

Politicians are never leaders on this. They are, they’re always followers and they follow what the people want. And that’s basically what’s happened in politics today. Whether you, if you’re on the right or the left, if you deviate from that, then these people yell at you. Okay? And it, and it, it scares you and then you’ve cave in and all that kind of stuff.

But on the positive side, change can be generated from the bottom up on any number of issues. There’s a book called The Upswing, written by Robert Putnam that shows how America went from an I society to a we society [00:32:00] in the very beginning of the 20th century. It’s instructive. If we wanna change things, if we wanna knock it off, it starts with us and we drive the change up.

I’m not voting for anybody who’s a hardcore, you know, ideologue on either side. And you know what? I look for character. Who’s got character. That’s who I will give my 

Dr. Mark Turman: vote to. Yeah, that’s a good word. Do you have, as you’ve been involved in so many different levels of government, so many different levels of community what’s your perspective on religious liberty?

Do you feel like it’s at risk in our culture significantly? No, I think we’re 

Governor John Kasich: doing, I think we’re doing fine. I think the wall is strong. Oh yeah, I think we’re doing just fine. And I don’t like the idea that the government should, somehow, government should not be interfering with it. And and we shouldn’t try to get government to promote what we want.

My opinion, they’re two separate things. But at the same time, for all of us who are motivated you know, by our faith, it influences [00:33:00] what we do in our everyday life if we’re doing it the right way. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. 

Governor John Kasich: I’m not worried about religious liberty. I think it’s a red herring. Hmm. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Okay. One last question.

Yeah. Then we’ll let you go. All right. Which is how close do you think America is to embracing a political leader who is not from a Christian orientation or a Christian faith?

Governor John Kasich: I don’t know. I don’t know how I would answer that question because, you know, as you notice more and more our political leaders, I was just reading an article about a guy running for Governor of Iowa, and he’s quoting a Bible all the time.

He’s a young, rising Democrat. I. I think you see, you see the expression of faith coming more and more out of our athletes and a lot of times out of our politicians. [00:34:00] Hopefully it’s not a code word, it’s not a right. But no, I think when people vote, they’re looking at character and they’re looking at the, the totality of the men and the women and, and the fact that they have faith in a higher power, I think matters to Americans.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Yeah. Really, really helpful. Yeah. Governor, thank you for your time today and for mark. Thank you. Your investment in all of us in so many different ways. And folks can find the book on all of the major book providers. Heaven Help us by Governor John Kasich. And we just wanna thank you for being a part of the conversation today.

We want to thank our audience for following along with us today. If this has been helpful, please rate and review us on your podcast platform, and we’ll see you next time on the Faith and Clarity Podcast.

Governor John Kasich: Alright, Mark. Thank [00:35:00] you.