SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hello everybody, this is your host, Evan Marler, and today we will be interviewing my co-host, a fine young uh that's not right, a fine old, talented individual. He has trouble letting go of control, as you're all aware. He said that. This man was the host of the Dust Cast, in case you haven't heard, that's a great podcast. He is a scar connoisseur, uh podcast expert, and he definitely doesn't put deodorant on from what I've experienced. You've heard this man before, I'm sure. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduced you to my father, Jason Marlowe. Welcome to the show, Jason.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Well, thanks, Everett. That was a lovely introduction. I feel like when I introduced you on our first episode, I might have been more consistently kind. There were a couple of digs in there against me, huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

A couple of digs, you could say so. I would think them as heartfelt compliments. Okay. Well, what do you want to know? What are we gonna do today? Okay, so for this episode, we're doing your testimony, right? Your life story.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

My life story.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, I want I want the viewers to get to know you. So uh run it down for us.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

The Alright, well, so on episode one, you literally started with your birth, but I'm very old. So if I did the same thing, this could be like at least an hour and a half podcast, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Mm-hmm. So aside from your birth, I think I want you to start around middle teenage years, those start to get interesting because we're going through puberty.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Um didn't know that this was that kind of podcast. I'll try to find something interesting to say. All right, so I know this is a podcast about faith and music and testimonies. I was raised in the church. My mom started taking me and my little sister Casey to church when I was pretty young. And so I don't really remember a time that I didn't know God or Jesus. But my faith became more my own over time as I grew up. I remember the morning I decided to get baptized, and uh, so that was a big, big moment for me deciding to give my life to Christ that way publicly.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

And how did your faith become your own?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yeah, I mean, I don't think there was any one moment. I think it was kind of a gradual process. So as I got older and more mature and started thinking about things and all that, it kind of became more personal and more real over time. I remember going to some high school summer camps. There's one called Kaddish that was at a college, Abilene Christian University. You're actually going to go tomorrow to your very first ever Kaddish. It's going to be fun. I guess it's been going on for a long time because I was born in the 1900s and there was Kadish when I was in high school. But yeah, it was a really, really good camp. I mean, it's a very kind of deeply spiritual experience much of the time, uh, a week of no screens, not that I had a cell phone when I was a teenager, but no screens of any kind where you really wrestle with God and get to know a group of people that start out as strangers and you usually get pretty close by the end. And so that was that was important to me. I can remember once I got my driver's license and started driving, I would drive to the Christian bookstores and just find books to buy and Christian music to listen to. This was back when they would have like walls of CDs on the shelves and you would buy CDs. So um yeah, I listened to a mix of what I guess you could call secular and Christian music, and didn't have just one genre that I exclusively listened to, although as you let the listeners know in the introduction, I did end up very much into ska. So I grew up in Austin, Texas, and Austin has a pretty good live music scene. And one of the bands that I was kind of the most loyal fan of was called The Impossibles. They always started out their shows, hey, where are the impossibles from Austin, Texas? Sort of type of third-wave ska. They didn't have the big horn section that earlier ska bands had, but they had the same kind of upbeat guitar and uh some of the things that marked ska music, so I loved them a lot. And I did uh get into some Christian music as well, including Christian ska. Shout out to Five Arn Frenzy, they're still making music, they were one of my favorites. I don't know if we want to go there now or not, about whether Christian is even useful as an adjective like that. I think that Christian makes for a really good noun. You can be a Christian, but when we start trying to decide whether we're going to describe stuff like music or a band as Christian, that's a hard, I think, a hard definition. So the lead singer of Five Iron Frenzy is still a Christian, and I, you know, appreciate what I see of his faith. But the band broke up for a while and got back together, and at least one of the members of the band had become an atheist. And so yeah, they don't they don't define their band as being a uniquely Christian band anymore or sign with a Christian record label, but you still see the themes of spirituality and faith that you know that they weave into the lyrics. So so yeah, I still love what they do. And uh Reliant K, which Reliant K has been interesting because they've kind of shifted genres a little bit. So I used to be into punk rock, and that was how they started out was as a punk band. But they've kind of done some different things with alternative rock, or I'm not great at musical genres, I don't know exactly how to define them, but their style has definitely evolved as my tastes have evolved. And um, yeah, I think they used to be more explicitly Christian in their lyrics, more consistently talking about faith, and maybe to some extent a little bit less so, but I don't think it was a hard line in the sand for them to have changed. I think just the way they write lyrics has evolved a bit over time. They tend to be very witty and use a lot of puns and wordplay and figurative language in their songs, which I like. They're a very quotable band.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, as I've learned, but I I'm gonna have to stop you on your soapbox for one second. Uh you said that your faith became your own as you got older. My question here is anything like really impacted you and like anything was the final decision, final like final straw.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

No, I don't think there was any one final decision other than I mean, you know, I our tradition, we come from the Church of Christ, tends to place a big emphasis on believers' baptism. So deciding to get baptized was definitely a really important moment. But my faith becoming my own continued after that. So, you know, I mentioned going to the Christian bookstores because, you know, getting Christian books to read was uh, you know, one part of my faith, and those tended to often involve some level of like apologetics or like evangelism stuff. Um and then I went off to college and I actually went to school at ACU, the college we mentioned that does Kaddish. But at some point, I think it was freshman year, I don't remember the exact timing. I actually kind of went through was probably some of the most serious doubts of my life when it comes to faith. I mean, there was a period of three to six months or so where I might have called myself an atheist. Um, I mean, I didn't talk about it super openly, but I I had pretty meaningful doubts as to whether there really was a God or not. And I don't remember what brought me back to faith exactly. I think staying connected to community is really important. I'm a big believer in the importance of like embodied community, local churches and you know, faithful friends and all that kind of stuff. And um, I just sort of sort of found my way back to faith. I had some really good professors, took some philosophy classes that I loved. Um, I've always been a philosophy geek, and that sort of helped. But I think I became burnt out on the sort of modern Western Protestant evangelism apologetics kind of approach. I don't know. I just even when I came back to faith, I didn't love the same ways of doing apologetics and stuff. It's systematic theology that I had been doing. One of my professors, Randy Harris, that taught philosophy, said something, I don't remember the exact quote to me one time, that was kind of like the modern Western Christian view of the soul tends to be more Greek or Platonic than it does Hebrew. And I didn't really know how to interpret that or what that meant at the time, but it made me really want to understand the ancient kind of Hebraic worldview or the ancient Near East, like what was the real culture and philosophy of the Bible. So that was important to me. And then much later, I ended up going to Israel. We took a group trip from the church I was attending at the time, and my wife at the time, and still, I just mean we were married by then. My had been girlfriend in college, and now wife, your mother, uh, went with me to Israel. And that was a really impactful trip because it was, you know, like a holy lands trip. So we went to a lot of the archaeological sites where, you know, Jesus and the apostles had been, and even Old Testament stuff. I mean, we saw a Canaanite mud brick gate that might have been almost as old as like the time of Abraham. And so to go to these places and see where like that the people of the Bible actually walked and talked and did their stuff, and where like a stone was discovered that mentioned the house of David, or a stone that talked about what Pontius Pilate did, really grounded my faith in a new way. And seeing the land of the Bible, you learn a lot. You see things differently when you've actually been to like the Judean wilderness or the Sea of Galilee, and you can picture it more accurately in your mind when you read the biblical text. So I think that was kind of a turning point for me in terms of like really figuring out a little bit more about how to dig into the Hebraic worldview and the ancient Near Eastern culture.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

And this is why you started your first ever podcast, The Dust Cast?

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yeah, first and only until now. I love that you glazed me with some nice compliments about being a podcast expert and all that. But I've done a grand total of one podcast in my life. It lasted four or five months, I think 16 episodes. But yeah, it was a lot of fun because I got to actually talk to the scholars that I had been reading and hear them, you know, explain things to me personally when I ask questions and then put it out there in the world as a podcast. So yeah, it was called the Dust Cast. I have not made new episodes in like 10 years, but you can actually still find it if you want to search for the Dustcast on your favorite podcast uh platforms. But I um got to interview authors like Lois Deverberg and scholars like John Walton and Ben Witherington the Third and Gary Burge, and they are really great at explaining, you know, the ancient world and why it matters and how we can understand it better.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

I in my life, in my testimony, I usually said that I could like God speak to me through this, God gave me an encounter through this, I had divine interception through this. Any of that, like your story, because you seem to say I came to faith through logic, which I mean you can do that, but to me you have to have a bit of divine encounters to so any like divine Yeah, I think I I hear what you're saying, and I agree.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

I mean, I think logic is great. I still love philosophy, but I think logic helps like clear away certain hurdles and help people understand that you can actually be rational and intellectual and academic and and still take Christianity seriously. But I don't think that logic alone is enough generally. I don't feel like I've had really vivid encounters with God. I mean, we come from a tradition that is definitely not very charismatic. I believe that God can do all of that kind of stuff. I mean, I'm not a cessationist in terms of thinking that miracles ceased with the New Testament. I think God can do whatever he wants, and he definitely does appear to people and all that kind of stuff. But my personal faith story has been, on the whole, a bit more rationalistic, maybe, if that's an okay word to describe it. But I definitely still attribute my faith in my journey to the Spirit. I just think I can see the Spirit's actions better in hindsight than I can in the moment. I don't trust myself to say what God's will is for the future or to interpret it even really in the moment. I feel like I can see it better when I'm looking back on my journey. But there were a few times that felt more powerful. There was a time in college when a group of guys were hanging out around a campfire, but it was also a somewhat more spiritual time. I don't remember exactly what we were talking about, but one of those kind of more vulnerable conversations, and one of the guys kind of broke down when he was wrestling with God. And I remember just being there, having my hand on his shoulder, praying for him, not knowing what he was dealing with, but feeling like this is holy ground and I should take my shoes off. And I'm not the kind of person that would normally think that, I don't think. And it was also a field where like the guy that owned the field had just plowed up the field and there were a bunch of prickly pear cactus and stuff, and it was actually not like advised to walk around without shoes. But I just, I don't know. I felt like in the moment this is holy ground, God's doing something here in his heart, and it's special to be with him as a group of guys supporting him, and and I should take my shoes off. And I remember feeling that way in Israel, at least once, too. We were at a place that was supposed to be one of Abraham's wells. I mean, a well going back 3,000 years or whatever, and just feeling like the presence of God is more accessible to me here. Like I think God is always here, God is always with us, but sometimes our awareness of his presence is more real. And then there was one time I was traveling and an ATM machine destroyed my card, and I didn't have a cell phone, and the person that was supposed to pick us up didn't, and I didn't know what to do. And I just went outside and sat down and prayed, and there was like a gentle breeze, and I remember sort of feeling like I could feel God in the breeze, or at least the peace of God, because I was anxious and I didn't know what to do, and I just sort of felt like maybe God was blessing me with some peace through that breeze. It was a little bit like when, you know, Elijah was on the mountain and he doesn't see God in the big stuff, the powerful stuff. He he sees God in the or hears God in the silence that comes after that.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

But you also had both of us, you kids, before that. So on to my next question. How have we shaped if we have shaped your faith in any ways, how have we done it? What are your experiences with us, like talking to us?

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Hmm. That's a really good question. Yeah, I mean, being a parent is one of the most meaningful and sometimes difficult things you can do in life, and I know that raising you and your brother has definitely shaped my life dramatically. I don't know that I have an easy answer for exactly what it's done to my faith. I think maybe it has helped me understand God as a father more. Because in Christianity, sometimes we focus a lot on the idea that like we're sinful and we deserve punishment, and because of Jesus dying on the cross, God can forgive us. But I feel like I sometimes still felt like, sure, I you know, I believe in that transaction, if you can put it that way, that God can like forgive me. But does he really like love me? You know, has he just chosen to forgive me? But does he actually like me and think highly of me? And there's an emotional, relational side to that that's hard to just come to a conclusion purely intellectually. And I think that becoming a father and like knowing my love for you and Garrett, I have come to understand a bit more, maybe like how a parent can look at their children, and if you know the Bible calls God father and uses motherly language for God sometimes too, especially talking about you know raising Israel in the old testament. And um, and Jesus refers to his father as Abba. And I think you know, maybe I can understand God's love a little better because of that experience.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, also sounds similar to like one of my teachers, Mr. Bachardi, said he said that God the Father laid down Jesus his son to save us from death, which is when you're a parent, you can understand that better because you of course you would lay down your life for for someone that you love, like me or Gareth, but you wouldn't lay down like our lives for someone that you love. But God in the sense of the Father, He laid down God and the sense of the Son, Jesus' life, for us so that we may live through him. And so that concept would you say that became a lot clearer after you became an actual father?

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I I agree. Hmm, what else? I have not had a super interesting life, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

You have had a super interesting life. You're just laying you're just not relaying all your interesting facts.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

What kind of facts do you want to know about? I mean, there is a story where you told your Sunday school teacher you've had you've had like thirteen other siblings, and she's like, You're lying, you only have one other sibling.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Thirteen would have been a lie, but um I told the truth, which is that I had six other siblings. So yeah, I come from a very unique family. My dad had five kids, and then his first wife passed away, and he remarried, and then he and my mom had two more, me and my little sister. And so there's seven of us total, and a kind of big age gap in the middle there in between. So when my mom started taking me to church when I was three years old, and my little sister was just an infant, it was just the three of us going to this church. And so, you know, the people there only knew my mom and her two kids, and my mom was probably in her late 20s at that point, young mom with two young kids. And I went to Sunday school class, and I told my teacher that I had three brothers and three sisters and two gigantic dogs, and she just thought I was telling a tall tale. She wanted to set the record straight, so she came up to my mom after church and was like, You just need to know that your son has been fibbing in Sunday school class. And my mom had to tell her he was not fibbing, that that was true, that I really did have six siblings and two great Danes and you know, a backyard full of other pets, and uh, we were just kind of a wild family.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Anything else you want to share? I mean, your life is pretty interesting as you uh my father and you've lived more than double the times longer than me. And if I have sixteen years of twenty-five minutes of podcast to share, you have more things to share. So, anything else you want to say?

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Dramatic pause. Thankfully, there's editing software and I can cut all this time out.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, so I said in my interview that I heard God like reach out to me through Christian hip-hop. Is there like anything that you liked that you felt that God reached out to you through it?

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Hmm. Yeah, so I mean I feel like I have felt God reach out to me mostly through relationships, and so I feel like there have been a few key people in my life that have helped me in my faith journey. One was my youth minister when I was. Back in Austin, Rick McCall. Um, I had a good time in in youth group. Yeah. It was a meaningful time for me, and I think a lot of that was due to Rick. And then when I was in Houston at one point looking for a church, he actually changed from youth ministry to preaching and became the preaching minister at our church, BAML. Our church now, it was not at the time. So the way I found BAML was through Rick, and I'm really glad I did because BAML is a great church and has been really meaningful to us. We've been going there since before you were born. So over 16 years now we've been at BAML and it's a really, really good community that has shown me, you know, how a diverse community with people that come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives and things can love each other and form a good community. And um, I've taught Bible classes there and gotten to know a lot of people, so that's been really meaningful. And then uh the college professor that I mentioned, Randy Harris, really helped me think through faith and philosophy. And later in his ministry, he focused a lot on the Sermon on the Mount and spiritual disciplines, like Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline book. And um I think he has had some really great sermons and lectures, and so I've learned a lot from him, and he really did kind of set me down this road of trying to understand the ancient worldview better, so that was really meaningful. Yeah, so I I feel like I've seen God mostly in relationships. I do like Christian music a lot. I still listen to Five Iron Frenzy and Reliant K, and then you have helped me discover Christian hip hop. And so I really do appreciate a lot of those artists. I don't listen to them just because you do. I actually get a lot out of that music as well, and so I'm glad to be on this journey with you of Testimony Tracks, um, because that has also been a blessing in my life.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

So I think that's about it for this uh episode of Testimony Tracks.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

That's a wrap?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yeah, it is it is a wrap, and so we mentioned that I'm leaving Kadesh, and it's about a week, so this episode will come out during my time at Kadesh.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Um you're trusting me to edit this episode and publish it while you're away.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

I am trusting you to do that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Should we maybe we should tell our audience a little bit about the plan for the podcast? So yeah, the first two episodes have been just us. But the idea is that this is an interview podcast, right? So we're gonna broaden here. Let's not overpromise details until we actually confirm interviews. But yeah, we'll probably include some personal friends for you know, maybe a couple episodes.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

And then we'll get to the Christian rappers.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

So you don't want to start with Drake and Kendrick Lamar?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

No. If they're not Christian, then they may not have a testimony.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Alright. Anything else you want to say about our podcast plans?

SPEAKER_00 25:08

No, nothing else. But I will say that it has been an honor interviewing you, and we're gonna end the episode right here. Goodbye.