Rethinking Anne Boleyn with Martha Tatarnic | Episode 280

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Church and Main, a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. I am Dennis Sanders, your host. And by the way, happy May. Do you remember learning about Anne Boleyn? I remember in high school learning that she was one of the many wives of Henry VIII and actually ended up executed by the king. But did you know that she was also a reformer? Kind of right up there with Martin Luther. That's what you'll learn if you read the book by Martha Tartarnik, an Anglican priest and author of the book called Anne Boleyn, Reputation, Revolution, Religion, and The Queen Who Changed History. This book is actually coming out on May 12th. Martha has had an interest in Anne since she was a child, and that fascination with the late queen was also instrumental in helping her become a priest. So, I wanted to talk to Martha about the book, and I'm welcoming her back on the podcast to talk about how we can look at Anne Boleyn in a different way than we have been taught. Before we go into the discussion a little bit about Martha, she is priest at St. George's Anglican Church in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. And besides her current book, she is also the author of the books Why Gather, The Hope and Promise of the Church, and also the book Living Diet, A Christian Journey to Joyful Eating. Martha is also the co-host of the Future Christian podcast, along with frequent guest here, Lauren Richmond, Jr. So, with all that out of the way, here is my discussion about Anne Boleyn as a reformer with Martha Tatarnik. Well, Martha, it is good to have you back on the podcast. And I wanted to talk about, you have a new book coming out. And it is a book that I think is fascinating in that it's dealing with a person from history that I kind of remember when I was in ninth grade, knowing a little bit about, and that is Anne Boleyn. And unfortunately, there were only two things I knew about her. Well, three. One, that she was the second wife of Henry VIII. Second was supposedly that she had six fingers on one hand. And then third, that she was executed. And we didn't talk much more about that. But there is a lot about her that we don't know. And I think in how you've written this book, it really has a lot to say about the church and about. The role of women in the church, but also the role of women in society. So I think the first thing I wanted to talk about is what led you to write this book about Anne Boleyn. All right. Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you for having me back on the podcast. And thank you for being open to talking about my new book, because I realized when I reached out to you to see whether you were interested in an advanced copy that it's, you know, not the typical topics that you have on church in Maine. But I think that you're absolutely right that what I've tried to do in exploring this, you know, pretty popular, well-known figure from history is what it does actually have to say for us today and what it has to say for us in a really. Critical and important way. So thanks for getting into it. Thank you for being open-minded about that. So, yeah, what led me to write a book about Anne Boleyn? As you kind of noted, there are lots of things that we think that we know about Anne Boleyn and lots of things that haven't been really part of the popular narrative in any way. And I think that needs to be interrogated, really, like the stories that we have told about her and why it matters that we're a little more clear about her impact and influence. So I can tell you that, I have just had a lifelong, pretty much lifelong fascination with Anne Boleyn. I remember watching Anne of the Thousand Days with my mom when I was quite little and really being so drawn into her story from that point on. When I was in seminary in my early 20s studying to become an Anglican priest, I would find myself—and it really was just gut instinct—I would find myself gravitating in my free time to the tutor history section of the Trinity College Library. And in some ways, like that was a natural place to go as someone who was studying to be a leader in the Anglican Church because Tudor history is so entwined with the start of the Church of England and therefore of what would become the Anglican Communion. But I was particularly drawn to books about Anne Boleyn. And for me, it was really heartening, validating, I would use the word validating, to discover that this, again, like, well-known character from popular history had such a formational impact in how the English language was. Reformation was shaped, and that her fingerprints are all over the Anglican Church of today. That was really important for me as a young woman just beginning to explore a vocation in leadership in the church to know that it isn't this great big outlier event to have women serve in leadership in our church. That actually women have had ways of asserting influence and leadership in our church all along, even if we haven't been good at telling their story or recognizing their impact. And so over the years, you know, I've had opportunity to, teach Anglicanism 101 here and there in my churches. And I always have a session on the history of the Anglican Church. And I love telling people, you know, we always say that we think that our church was started because King Henry VIII wanted a divorce. But actually, the Anglican Church was started because the woman he was interested in was a reformer. And she was a smart and influential and principled reformer. Well, people are just always so surprised by this because that is not how we have told our church history. And that's not the narrative that is known about Anne Boleyn. So I was up on my soapbox one Christmas vacation going on about this to my brother of all people who isn't that interested in church history and doesn't give me a free pass on any of my ideas like he is not generally just interested in hearing what I have to say about this that or the other thing but he was genuinely interested in hearing this and like interested in realizing that there is a whole um a whole. Way of looking at both our history and the person of Anne Boleyn that he had never considered. And that really triggered something for me in thinking, okay, if my middle-aged accountant brother who isn't interested in my ideas or the church thinks that this is something that deserves to be talked about, then I think that there is a book here. Yeah, I think one of the things that is fascinating is how learned she was, especially for her time and especially for a woman. When you talk about her as a reformer, because when we think of all the great reformers, and you even mentioned this in the book, whether it's Luther or Calvin or Erasmus, they're all male. And I think we don't normally think, especially historically, when we think of Anne Boleyn or any of Henry VIII's wives, we don't really look into them that much. It's kind of cursory and I think maybe sometimes the way that we look at it I mean we'll talk about the split and the English Reformation the Church of England. We will kind of more focus trying to focus on Henry getting a male heir, but we don't focus on the fact of who these women were and especially with, and that in many ways she had all of these ideas because of books becoming new. The printing press had only been around maybe a few decades earlier. And really, the influence that she had in creating the Church of England, it wasn't just Henry getting angry and deciding to split it off. There was actually some thought in all of this. Yeah, a huge amount of thought and she had a huge amount of influence in how the Reformation was going to shake down in England. And I think that you're right to point out her level of education and intelligence. And we think of that being very unique for a woman of her time. And yet, what I was really surprised to discover in my research was... Actually, like that she was a product of her time, that she was part of a whole circle of well-educated women who were asserting leadership and influence in pretty remarkable ways and who were very invested in church reform, who they were reading these books and they were accessing the scriptures in their own language. And they were on fire with what they were reading and discovering. And these new worlds that were opening up for them as well, they were very invested in those same eternal questions, structural questions, philosophical questions, theological questions. They understood that their eternal souls were on the line as well, and they were full throttle into investing themselves in the same things that the guys were, right? Like, it's not that it was just the dudes who thought that this stuff was important. And I think a big reason why she was the way that she was is because she was so formed by these other women who were normalizing the idea of education for women and leadership. An impact that women could have. You think that this all kind of went hand in hand with the Reformation in general, and this was also kind of happening at the same time that humanism kind of was coming to fore? Do you think that she was very much a product of the time or the changing times? Yeah, I think that, you know, she's a fascinating character and she comes to us from this fascinating hinge point in history, right? Where you can see these pre-modern ways of understanding the world and understanding society and society's relationship with God. You can see all of that still in full effect at the same time, that because of the printing press, because of access to circulating ideas and reading the scriptures in one's own language, and how that began to shape people's ideas about more universal access to education and those humanistic ideals that you note. Um, all of that is bubbling up at the same time as. Um, as, you know, we continue to see the old world in full effect and, and the new world just beginning to be born. You can see all of those seeds of modernity in Anne Willen's life. You can see those seeds of that much more individualistic way of thinking about the world that would come to challenge sort of all of those societal norms of people. And you can see it in Henry VIII, right? And you mentioned this quest for an heir being at the heart of what was driving this massive religious question. Because for Henry, not having a male heir wasn't just a personal problem. It wasn't just a political problem. It was a religious problem. And again, he and Anne and Henry. Basically everyone around him, was fully committed to the idea that the king's relationship with God impacted everyone. That this wasn't just about Henry and God, this was about the whole English realm. And, you know, I'm not saying that the whole English realm supported his madcap, you know, quest for heirs stampeding through six different wives and, you know, unleashing all sorts of chaos on the people of England. But the premise that was kind of driving his pretty erratic, at times, behavior was a premise that people recognized, which is that, We are all in this together in terms of the country's relationship with God being mediated through the king. There was actually something in the early part of the book that I found interesting. It was something you were... Had you received something, it was a school book from a friend of yours in the UK, and you have a paragraph about it, and it basically talks about everything about Anne Boleyn, but then it says at the end that had she known how she was going to end up, she may have not entered into going into getting married and all of that, into a relationship with Henry. And it was interesting reading that. And I will be honest, when I thought about that at first, I didn't think much about it. But you kind of talk about how this kind of frames how we kind of look at her and really kind of bringing in some modern talk about, well, she asked for it. Or that she's kind of both, is kind of basically ending up to blaming the victim. And I think what I'm curious about is how has history looked at Anne Boleyn and how they misjudged her? Yeah, I mean, that is a real hornet's nest that you have just identified. And I think that it is right in the thick of the problematic way in which Anne Boleyn has been talked about and represented. I've been amazed at the number of times that I have, over the course of writing this book, just kind of casually told someone, oh, I'm writing a book about Anne Boleyn. And the number of times that the response has been, oh, well, like, she tried to land the king. Oh, well, like, she set herself in Henry's sights. She was trying to get his attention. and and then yeah the quote from that lady bird history school book um that you note in the early part of the book uh and the musical six and um and so many other popular um representations of ann's life all succumb to that like. That very subtle, implicit, well, you know, if she, if her husband killed her, like, she probably asked for it. Like, she probably, she shouldn't have been so ambitious. She shouldn't have wanted power so much. She shouldn't have tried to get the king. She shouldn't have. it's a very and and then you look at the labels that have been associated with her over the years that she was a whore that she was a seductress that she was a bad woman that she was a witch that she was um that sixth finger you know that is part of the anvil in lore it is has no basis in history, but it is part of how she has been painted as this evil woman, as someone who is dealing in nefarious dealings. And all of that kind of stacks up to this very easy way of telling her story as someone who, yeah, like had a tragic end, but kind of set herself up for failure. When you get into the actual history and what the evidence really tells us, it's amazing to discover that even that most basic narrative about Anne Boleyn, that she, you know, refused the king's. Offer to become his mistress. And so he upped the ante and decided to marry her instead. That even that most basic idea is not really borne out in the evidence. But really, probably what we know about Henry and what the evidence tells us is that he was in the market for a wife. And he decided pretty quickly, he went from noticing her to deciding that she was going to be that wife. There's actually not a lot to suggest that she was the one... Kind of keeping him on the back foot or playing this master class of deferred gratification. They were in lockstep together. Once she kind of realized that resistance was futile, they were in lockstep together with this grand religious agenda, which was to secure a marriage that would secure legitimate heirs and that would signal that the king and England's relationship was right with God. That's a very different way of looking at the story. And you know what, even if she was somebody who somehow was able to keep the king on notice for six years until he married her, that doesn't mean she deserves to die. It doesn't mean that she deserves to be killed by her husband. So I think we have to be super careful about how we tell these stories. And, you know, that really did become, as much as I have enjoyed getting into the history of Anne Boleyn, I really tried to keep my eye on that prize in terms of, like, why does this matter? Why does it matter how we talk about this particular woman? And what does our language and our narratives about her tell us about patterns about how we talk about women? And why does this matter for us? And I think that, you know, you don't have to get too far in the weeds before you realize that that kind of victim blaming and that kind of those kind of stories can support a lot of systemic violence and injustice. In your study of Anne Boleyn, I mean, how do you think that this is also related to this? How is it talked about how we look at women historically in general and throughout history? I mean, I'm going to be certain that there have probably been other cases where we've kind of. Blamed a victim or judged women in different ways that you kind of learned through this journey. Yeah, I think that there are some real patterns that we can identify in Anne Boleyn's life and the way that it has been discussed. And the victim blaming isn't the end of the story. I mean, if you look at the tendency across history to take strong, assertive women and to label them as sexually problematic, that's another pattern. And, you know, I would point your listeners to Mary Magdalene as like a parallel figure, right? Like here is a woman who was clearly a leader in the Jesus movement at the forefront of the disciples. And how has she been known across history? She's been known as a prostitute. There's no biblical evidence for that. And that has been the label that has been affixed to her. I think that we could point to any number of examples of where strong women who maybe don't behave in the way that we think that they should, who kind of stick out, get slapped with labels of sexual deviancy. So that's another pattern that I would identify. I think that just a pattern in general, and I really tried to pull at this in a variety of ways through the book, is that we've had such a narrow focus on telling the stories of who shaped the world that we have today. And primarily, we have told those stories through the lens of white men. And the reality is that although white men in the Western world have more often than not been the ones in the power positions... We can certainly, with just a little digging, find all kinds of evidence for the ways in which other sorts of people were shaping the history that we have and shaping the world that we have today. And again, you know, my focus was really on Anne Boleyn, but I came across one scholar who was absolutely fascinating in terms of, her name is Sharon Jansen, and just the ways in which she was able to articulate how women of all different classes, not even just like educated elite women, women of all different classes were part of political agitation and religious reform and speaking up and getting their voices heard and making it clear what they believed and being willing to stand behind that. But again, we haven't told those stories. So that invisibility is a pattern in how we have talked about who shapes the world. And it's a fiction. It's a fiction to suggest that it has just been white guys who have made the world that we have today. I have thought about the history especially of um the black church here in the united states and a lot of that story is usually going to be focused on the pastors and of course especially years ago they were mostly men, But the church wouldn't be the church if it wasn't for all of the women who were running it. And they also have some important stories that are, I think, only now being told, but we don't always, haven't heard about them. But if you didn't have those women who were really the backbones of the church, none of this would happen, especially things like the civil rights movement here in the States. Yeah, I think that is like such a good corollary. And again, like. People of all different walks of life have always found their ways of getting their voices into the mix and getting their fingerprints smudged across, you know, the whole shaping of history. There was a whole chapter that I had to cut out. I had to cut out so much because I really got carried away. There were so many different aspects that I wanted to highlight, but there was a chapter that I wrote that made a connection between the telling of Anne Boleyn's story and Indigenous Canada and the Truth and Reconciliation Movement in Canada. And I realize there is not an obvious connection between an elite woman of the 16th century who married into royalty and Indigenous peoples of Canada today, except to say, isn't it interesting that at the heart of the truth and reconciliation movement in Canada is this insistence that indigenous people's stories be told as part of our history. That that is going to be baked into our education systems. It is going to be part of our history books. It is going to be what school children start to learn about the history of Canada. That that is an essential step in any work of truth and reconciliation, is to make sure that we are telling the stories. and you know like I um. I think Anne Boleyn is a fascinating character who lived in many ways in a time of history that can be read almost as a soap opera. And at the same time, I think that there is something just so incredibly critical and serious about what I'm trying to say, which is telling these stories really matter. Telling better stories matters. Telling more stories matters. Just any way that we can put to bed the lie that it's just one type of person who has been important in our history. And, you know, especially like in our church history, too, because our church history has been so dominated by the voices of men and Christianity has walked a pretty intimate path with the patriarchy. And I don't think that that's representative of Jesus and what he was all about. But I think that we do Jesus a huge disservice by not better representing how God actually works in our world and through whom God works. And that kind of leads me to this question is, what does this book have to say, especially to the modern church? Obviously you wrote this being yourself an Anglican priest this is in some ways a lot about the beginnings of the Anglican church and the Anglican communion but. What does this, what happened four or five centuries ago have to say about this current moment? How is this, how is it speaking to our moment? Yeah, well, a couple of different things. I mean, again, yes, so much of the book is focused on Anne, her story, the English Reformation. But I really did try to also just touch on how much women were involved right across the board in that very cataclysmic time. So to say that Anne, and I think it is absolutely fair to say this, historians say this, to say that Anne Boleyn was one of the architects of the English Reformation is a very fair statement and one that Anglicans should know. They should know that along with Cranmer and Hooker and Parker and. You know, all the guys, that Anne Boleyn was one of the key architects of how the English church would be shaped. Um, and at the same time, the, the same can be said of, uh, how the reformation shook down across the board, right? Like you, she's one of many women who were part of, uh, shaping the history of the church at that really important time. Um, yeah. This year, the Anglican Church of Canada will mark its 50th anniversary of the ordination of women. And just in the last couple of weeks, the first female Archbishop of Canterbury was installed as the kind of flag bearer of the Anglican communion. And there is a tendency to treat this, the ordination of women and the movement of women into the highest offices of the church as a new thing. And it is. I mean, it is a new thing in the grand scheme of things, even though women have been ordained longer than I have been alive. in my church, it's still a very relatively new thing. And I have had many experiences of running up against the intractability of how people view who should be in leadership in the church. And at the same time, as we're kind of making history and all of this newness is unfolding, I think it's really important to frame it in the context of a long history of how women have been leaders in our church, a long history that you can take all the way back to the disciples of Jesus and further back into the history of Israel. Yeah. Maybe there's a new chapter unfolding in terms of women's legitimacy and visibility in leadership, and I celebrate that. But let's be honest and fervent about claiming this as foundational to the people of faith and to the body of Christ and to the life of the church. And I think that that's important, not just for women who are trying to, you know, take on these new chapters. I think it's important for all of us in terms of how we understand how God is at work. Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with that. I think, I remember years ago saying something, because I knew, and this is when I was growing up and were in more kind of, let's say conservative backgrounds where women ministry was very limited. And maybe this just comes from having a very strong mother but i just always believe that the spirit moved in choosing leaders and if the spirit chose someone who was a woman or or black or gay whatever then i don't think we have much to argue with because i think that is the Spirit's movement in that. And I think too often we think that there's this rule on high and it's like, that's not how I read Scripture. I mean, that's, you know, God would always raise up people to become leaders. I mean, there's obviously the story in the Hebrew Scripture of Deborah being a judge and it was God's movement in all of that. And I think sometimes we don't always…. We don't always understand the workings of the Spirit and how the Spirit moves and the Spirit calls who the Spirit calls. Yeah, and always has, you know? And I think that any time that we can have our arrogance dismantled a little bit in terms of thinking that we rule the roost in how God operates, we don't. Yeah, the Spirit moves how the Spirit moves. Last year, I read the biography of Rose Hudson-Wilkin, who was the first Black woman bishop of the Church of England, and I got to interview her on the Future Christian podcast. And uh she grew up in a church a part of the anglican communion that was not ordaining women at that time and then she went to serve in england she grew up in jamaica went to serve in england um and was feeling this sense of calling all throughout like from the time that she was a teenager and she describes like meeting with her bishop when she's a teenager, and saying, like, I'm feeling this call. And the bishop saying, well, the church doesn't do that. Like, you can't be ordained. And she describes, like, just this inner knowledge of, like, well, maybe the church doesn't do this. And maybe you don't do this. But I know God does this. And, like, this is going to happen. And uh like to have that inner conviction and that strength of faith for her to continue to pursue that call across all of that like no we don't do this no we don't do this no we don't do this and here she is like a bishop of the church of england like god does do this amazing mm-hmm. And I think you were talking a little bit earlier about the calling of the first woman to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. There was still friction about that, which maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but I was somewhat surprised because it's not like they just picked her out of a hat. I mean, there's a lot of discernment through all of that process. But there was a lot of friction. Yeah, and there will continue to be, right? Like from the get-go, as soon as the church started ordaining women, there was a big hue and cry about how this was going to be the ruin of the church. And, you know, there's been a hue and cry about any time that the church takes those steps to recognize the ways in which God calls and works, right? So that is not surprising. The friction will continue to be there. The opposition is real. And again, that has a lot to do, too, with why I'm so insistent in framing her as, okay, yeah, it's a new chapter, but it's also not a new chapter. It's a faithful continuation of what has been taking place all along in our faith. And, you know, that's really important to me as a person of faith to say that, but it's also just really important to, like in much more practical ways like I talk in the book about Malcolm Gladwell and his work around a tipping point that you know when a woman is seen as as you know kind of rising into ranks that. Are brand new, that she's kind of alone in. And that goes for anybody who's kind of breaking through whatever glass ceilings there are, anybody who is seen as an outlier in a position of leadership that they previously have been excluded from, that there is a tendency to exceptionalize that person, to turn them into a novelty, or to judge them according to a very different sort of standard than someone who is seen as more normal in that position would be judged, right? So, you know, a woman gets into a position of leadership, and she thinks that she has to represent all women everywhere for all time. Otherwise, like the whole thing will be judged as a failed experiment, right? And I've certainly heard Black people talk about a similar dynamic, that when they are thrust into positions that they have previously been excluded from, there's a sense of responsibility that I have to represent the whole Black community in this moment. Malcolm Gladwell talks about a tipping point when representation of a previously excluded group reaches around one-third and suddenly. Suddenly it allows people to be judged just according to the standard of how they're doing the job rather than like the standard of like, should this kind of person be here? Um, and, and, you know, I think like for Sarah Mullally, the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, for women in leadership, for black people in leadership, for gay people in leadership, for them to understand that they're part of a team and that they're part of a long and faithful history. I think really counteracts some of those very unhelpful dynamics when glass ceilings are broken. Kind of wrapping things up, I wanted to know what is your hope for this book when it releases next month? Well, I have a pretty specific agenda about the book, and I welcome your prayers for this because it's a bit ambitious. But I really want to be part of dismantling the fictional idea of a church history that is just shaped by white dudes. I want to challenge that. I want people in our churches. This book isn't written for a church audience. It's written for a general audience. I think that Anne Boleyn has a lot to say to people, whether you're a person of faith or not. But I will say that, like, as a Christian leader myself, my specific hope is that at least in our churches, people will know something of how women have shaped our church, too. And I want it to become widespread knowledge that Anne Boleyn was a major influencer and had a huge impact in how the Reformation in England and therefore in Europe came to be and took place and what it looked like. Okay. One final note before we end is that I remember actually in seminary, And of course, my seminary, I went to Luther Seminary. So, of course, you learned a lot about Martin Luther. But they talked a little bit about the importance of his wife, Katie Luther. Yeah. And we talked about it a little bit, but we kind of forget that she was also in some ways a partner in his ministry and in his helping to shape the Reformation. And that doesn't always get I've seen a few books about her but we don't always acknowledge that it's something I've thought about again there were parts of the book that I had to chop and there were parts of research that I sort of had to cut off at the pass but I also was quite intrigued by Luther's wife and again by the number of really prominent female reformers that were agitating all across Europe in the early 16th century, how important all of them were. So if people want to chat with you, especially after they've read the book, where should they contact you? Well, I am on Instagram, Facebook, Substack, Medium. I think those are kind of the main platforms that I'm on. I'm really easy to find because I'm the only Martha Tatarnik in the whole world that I know of. It's not a common name and so if you just put in my name in any of those platforms i'll be the one that comes up and i really am excited to talk about this book as widely as possible so i hope that your listeners will feel free to reach out to me all right i hope that they will and so the The book is Anne Boleyn. Reputation, Revolution, Religion, and the Queen Who Changed History. And that comes out on May 5th. So blessings to you. I really do hope that this gets read widely and that people will learn a lot about a woman that we may know a little bit, that we think we know, but I think that we will know a whole new chapter about her. Yeah well thank you for such a thoughtful conversation and for engaging with all of the ideas and the the great big agenda from this book thanks Dennis you're welcome. So, I really hope you enjoyed that discussion with Martha about Anne Boleyn. I will put a link to the book in the show notes. Again, that book is coming out on May 12th. And I will put a link so that you can pre-order that book as well. And also, I'll probably put a link to her personal website just to know so that you can all know a little bit more about Martha. Also, as usual, if you want to learn more about this podcast, listen to past episodes, you can check me out at churchandmaine.org. I'd also suggest that you check churchandmaine.substack.com to read articles that I've written. I also do try to post the podcast there. Usually it's a few days after it has launched on Podbean. And so you can watch for it there. If you want to donate to the podcast, you can do that. There's a link in the show notes. If you're listening to this on Podbean or on other podcast platforms. Also, you can make a donation and subscribe on the Substack page. And there's a button if you go to Substack. I'd also like for you, the most recent article that I wrote on Substack is... I'm a big star trek fan a very big trekkie and one of the interesting things that has been happening in in uh among uh trek people these days um about a month ago it's a recent cancellation of the newest of the of the series and the franchise starfleet academy um what was interesting about that following it on social media um like on on youtube and on facebook was that there was pretty much an active campaign, maybe. I don't know if that's the right word, but just really a lot of campaign against the series. And a lot of it kind of bordered, I want to say, on racism and homophobia. And I was curious about this. I didn't want to write about it, and I didn't want it to be kind of a political screed, but to understand what is behind some of this anger over a TV show. So that is one of my latest articles on my, sorry, on my Substack. And I will put a link to that article. The article's title, which I'm forgetting right now, but um is uh when itic met the culture war and itic um stands for infinite diversity and infinite combinations and it's kind of a a philosophy that came out of star trek um, which probably proves that I am an incredibly big geek. But I hope that you will consider reading the article. It's an interesting take on the times that we live in, how a TV show became so divisive and kind of polarizing. And so please give it a check. Give it a read when you have the chance. Also, please consider leaving a review. Or a rating on your favorite podcast app. When you do that, you can make sure that other people find this podcast. And I would love if people could find this podcast. So that is it for this episode of Church in Maine. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. As I always like to say, thank you so much for listening. Take care, everyone. Godspeed. And I will see you very soon.