Transcript
The Jacobsen Group with Jon Jacobsen · Mon Jul 28, 2025
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Hi, and welcome to our show.
I'm Justin Clark, the Menard Family Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, and I am joined by Russ McCullough, the Wayne Angel Distinguished Chair of Economics, founder of the Guartney Institute, and Peter Jacobson, the Guartney Professor of Economic Education and Research.
All right.
So our podcast titles Faith and Economics and Peter wanted to talk about prayer.
So that's what we're going to take us down, maybe a little more faith-oriented one.
What do you have in mind, Peter?
Yeah, so I want to talk about prayer.
I have a specific direction we can go, but also kind of generally I'm interested to hear Justin and Russ's thoughts, but I grew up with a lot of really structured prayer, a lot of memorized prayers, and
Over the course of high school college mostly I moved away from that to more what I would call free-form prayers for memorized prayers And I've actually found myself gravitating back towards more routine prayer in a way that's valuable and so I kind of want to make a case for Teen prayer being something that I think all denominations of Christians should take advantage of and
I've got a resource that I like a lot, which I'm happy to talk about, but I also have an argument for why that's the case.
And so I don't know what direction we want to go.
Your
ball game, I'd say keep talking.
I'll start with the argument for it.
I think a lot of people get really weary of memorized or repeated or routine prayers because there's that one Bible verse about vain repetition.
And so Jesus says, don't be like the pagans who, by their many words, think they'll be heard.
that memorized prayers become vain repetition.
But I think we can really quickly dismiss that concern as one that precludes us from engaging in memorized or repetitive prayers for a few different reasons.
The first reason is that we know that the apostles prayed the Psalms.
Maybe that was singing, but it could have also been speaking and I don't think it matters whether it was singing or speaking.
I don't think that affects the argument.
So we know that the Psalms were prayed by the apostles.
and with Jesus, by the way.
So repetitive prayer can't be unbiblical because it's something that Jesus and the apostles engage in.
But you could say, well, you're only allowed to do it with the Psalms.
Fine.
But it would still be acceptable, even in that case.
And we also have, you know, Jesus gives the Our Father prayer, the Lord's prayer.
Now, he doesn't say, pray these exact words.
But when you pray, pray like this.
And one way to pray like something is to pray exactly that way.
Right.
There's
other ways to do it, too.
I'm not saying that every prayer has to be the Lord's prayer.
But what I'm saying is, obviously, when
wrong to use the Lord's Prayer.
I think the warning against vain repetition is just a warning to not say words for the sake of saying the words, like by the fact that you're saying words that you're making a magical spell that will grant you all your desires.
Like that's the inappropriate thing that's being called out by Jesus.
But here's why I think, again, it doesn't always have to be perfectly memorized.
Sometimes it can be read.
Sometimes it could even be preplanned by you, like you could write the prayer yourself.
But here's why I think that sort of prayer is valuable.
Oh, and
Sorry, one last thing before I get into proof of that.
If you want proof that repetitive prayer is not necessarily bad, look at Psalm 136.
This Psalm is just a thing that God does and the reason that He does it is for His mercy endures forever.
And it says that 26 times in a row.
So give thanks to the Lord for He is good.
His mercy endures forever.
His steadfast love, His throughout all generations that I've made up that second line because I don't remember it, but the mercy endures forever.
And it just repeats that 26 times, that exact A.
repeated chorus, be repeated chorus, and so on.
And so it can't be that repetition is inappropriate in a religious setting that just isn't compatible with what we see in the Bible.
Here's why I think people should do it.
In anything that you do in life, it is easier to do it properly if you follow
particular routines.
So think about disciplining your body.
What works for disciplining your body?
Well, what works is having a workout routine.
It doesn't work to just like, I'm going to work out today.
I'm randomly going to decide what to do.
You know, what works out is, oh, I'm going to work out these days of the week and I'm going to do this on this day, this on this day, this on that day.
The best and fittest people in the world follow routine schedules.
Now, I'm not saying every person has to be a bodybuilder, but my point is just chaotically deciding to work out does not really lead people to really good results generally.
Same
Same thing is true with reading.
What do the best readers do?
Well, they'll read for 15 minutes in the night or an hour in the morning, right?
They have a schedule.
They have a plan.
And so I think it's not too hard to abstract from that point to say that, well, what if your prayer had a schedule and had a plan?
One last point that I'll use to get this across is the argument that Steve Jobs made, which I think is maybe a little bit over the top, but I think that there is something to it about his wardrobe.
which is Steve Jobs always wore the jeans and the turtleneck.
And he gave the explanation that, well, if I always wear this, then I don't have to think about what I'm wearing in the morning.
It's just something that's done for me already.
So I think that's where like prayer aids could come in.
I think a big barrier to praying is that people don't have any plan for it.
They also feel like they don't know what to say.
And I think those two things simultaneously prevents people from engaging in prayer.
It's like, if you're trying to get the car started every single time in the dead of winter, you're gonna have a problem.
is better to keep the car running.
And the way to do that is to have a plan.
I think for some people it can look different than others.
I'm not saying everybody has to do the exact same thing, but that's my feeling.
So Justin Russ, I'd love to hear your feedback on that or what your own prayer routine is or if you disagree with me, I don't care.
Be happy to hear any of it.
I grew up very, so we would like always pray for every meal, that kind of thing, but it was always, it was never like repetitive.
It was always the kind of personal impromptu prayer and they're like praying before you go to bed.
and stuff like that.
And then when I went to Catholic school, I encountered more formal prayer.
And I'm a big fan of both.
And I think for a lot of the same reasons as Peter, I will say that growing up, prayers before dinner, when we were kids, my brother, when it was his turn to pray,
Our dog was named Lucy, and we live next to a hill named Islay Hill.
And whenever it was his turn to pray, at the end of his prayer, he would always end it with, and Jesus, please help Lucy to talk and to be able to fly around Islay Hill.
And I think there's kind of like, if you just take the view of prayer as it's just me talking to God about...
It seems like it can kind of get to a place where there's no guardrails on it, where you're just kind of doing wish fulfillment stuff.
And so one of the things that I like about having established prayers is it's like, hey, this is what kind of like a good prayer looks like.
And the types of things that you ought to be praying for.
So you're not going like, gosh, I hope Jesus, can you please help Steven's science experiment blow up in his face?
You know, like, I mean, one of my, I've always loved the serenity prayer because I think it's like a really beautiful, you know, the one that's about accepting things you can change.
things you can't and it's it's actually longer than the like the four stanzas that the AA uses you know about accepting the world as it is and not as I would have it and so yeah I'm a big fan of of both of them but I do think that a one feature of structured prayer is that it can kind of point to what
like what a good prayer looks like and maybe the kinds of things that you ought to be praying for.
And there's one other thing I really like about structured prayer, which is that and this is a point that if you remember when we did that podcast on the three acts structure of a story and we talked about David Mamet's book, the three uses the knife and David Mamet is deeply religious.
He's Jewish and he's he draws this analogy between drama and prayer.
But what he says about prayer, I thought was
It was an aspect of prayer that I hadn't really thought about, which he said that a lot of times when you're praying, prayer is something that you do when you don't know what else to do.
It's like you're admitting you're helpless.
And I remember when my son Dean got sepsis and he had to be like ambulance to Kansas City and doing that drive and I was driving and I just didn't know what to do.
So I just started to pray the rosary because it was the only thing I
I knew to do and it took up the time and it was something to do where like I didn't even know what to ask for other than what I had already asked for and so this idea that you can have a ritual for when you are in like the most despondent of places is another thing that I think structured prayer is really good for.
And so I had a bit of a disdain, I think, growing up Catholic and having the ritual prayer, we all say together, our Father, who art in heaven, you know, or even hanging on the words, hallowed be thy name, of course, you know, being 13 or whatever, going through it.
And so at some point, I
I don't know, I just wanted more meaning to it.
And so one of the things I started doing was doing different intonation on the words.
So our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
And like just putting different emphasis on different ones, even though it's the same word, because I didn't like being a part of the not meaning.
So it meant something more to me, if that makes sense, even though it was a rote prayer.
So I tried to find meaning or more meaning or more connectedness or whatever you want to call it through doing that.
And so I guess over the years, I've been more of a routine prayer person before we say grace with the Lutheran common table prayer and then church prayers.
But as I've probably even since coming really to Ottawa University, being involved with things that were more ad-lib, we're American Baptist base, but we have really people of all faiths that are here.
And so before a faculty meeting or before a gathering, when I'm maybe on an internet
national trip somewhere.
I just started to get more and more comfortable with doing prayers at live and then you kind of have your, you know, some maybe common opening and closings and then just fill in the gaps and kind of put what's on your heart or what's important at the time.
So I guess long story short, I'm a fan of having both as well for all the reasons you guys are.
Yeah.
So I think a good place to take this would be like the particular routes that you could go with this, which also highlights some advantages.
So again, I speak
out at this point probably to like anybody who's listening who either doesn't pray because you know you've just like had a roadblock for it or somebody who prays but maybe you only do the spontaneous sort of prayer which again is kind of how I prayed I'd say from whatever.
2016 until 2023 or something like that.
Not that I never did a routine prayer or memorized prayer, but I think one good resource is that all Christians should start to look at.
They haven't already is the daily office or Catholic, so sometimes called the divine office.
It's a prayer that I have recently started praying, I'd say months recently, not years recently.
If you're Catholic and you've gone to Vespers, it's the type of prayer that they pray at Vespers.
Now this isn't only a Catholic thing, the Church of England also actually has
a pretty famous daily office translation because that is actually what the Church of England used kind of as their liturgy for a really long time was kind of what they called the Book of Common Prayer.
And I like it for a few different reasons.
The biggest reason is there is a lot of standing on the shoulders of giants with it.
And what I mean by that is it incorporates a lot of different both biblical elements until the Psalms is very common to be used with the daily office.
And also it will incorporate like different hymns and they'll rotate based on the season.
And so if you're around Christmas time, the book will include what the, you know, collect is for Christmas, which is just a fancy way of saying like one of the closing prayers.
And the Psalms has a particular schedule.
If you want to follow a 30 day schedule, then you read the entire book of
Psalms in 30 days.
They also have a 60 day schedule in there.
And so the nice thing about this, you know, way of praying is it's sort of already all laid out for you.
It's kind of a, I don't want to say choose your own adventure because it isn't so flexible that you can do whatever you want with it, but it's flexible enough that like, if you feel like, oh man, I don't have very much time.
Well, there's a short version of it or there's one thing I leverage with my girls and I, there's a family prayer in there for those of you who have young.
So as I was saying, great missionaries of the 20th century, or even like fathers of the early church, like John Chris Ostum, we have some of his original prayers that he wrote.
And so I'd really encourage people to start planning your prayer, start planning to incorporate scripture into your prayer, because I think that's a valuable way to start building.
And again, you can start big, you can start small either way.
And I don't know, maybe after the break, we want to talk about some of the benefits of spontaneous prayer or some different ways to go about that in a way that's still, you know,
Routine because I think routine is necessary, but still, you know, it gives that advantage of personal discussion and spontaneous talking and things like
that.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Kind of like, you know, it's essentially why pray and what, you know, what are some benefits thinking of that way.
So
yeah, I'll close the first half of the podcast with just like an anecdote that I think is valuable is that
A lot of Christians, they did a survey of a bunch of churches, and they found a lot of Christians made a very serious theological error on this multiple choice test, where the question on multiple choice test was, who is the greatest created being?
And a lot of Christians marks Jesus.
Well, if you think about that deeply, that's problematic.
Jesus is human nature, we could say is created, but as a person, he's paternal, right?
That's generally what Christians think.
So saying Jesus is a created being is at least really fraught, if you don't qualify it properly.
Now,
where most of the people that are denying that Jesus is eternal God will probably know it's just that sometimes when you just like kind of go off the cuff by yourself you make mistakes if you're not careful so that's one last advantage is if you stand on scripture if you stand on the shoulders of like theological giants you don't have to mentally get all your ducks in a row when you're saying the prayer to make sure that you don't make like major theological errors in the middle of your prayer and I'm not saying you know God's going to like
destroy you if your prayer includes like a theological error.
But I'm saying like, it's better if it doesn't have it, right?
And so that's another benefit to these routine prayers.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of the prayers are prayers of Thanksgiving.
So we can kind of explore that later after we come back from the break.
We'll go back in just a bit.
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All right, so we're back and want to get into, you know, why, I guess the Bible claims prayer can make you better.
I mean, if it's about your relationship with God, but a lot of us might start thinking, well, does it really matter?
Is it, you know, Garth Brooks once had a song, some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers, so is he really going to do what I want, or is it really going to turn out, or is it just going to be what it's going to be?
So what are your thoughts on how this can really make you a better person?
Yeah, my general thought is that prayer is, we should think of it as a conversation and it's special in a particular type of conversation.
And related to our theme for the podcast so far, some conversations you plan out in advance or you do regularly.
And so, for example, you might have people in your life that you call once a week and so it's scheduled.
or you might have certain conversations that are really important, that you sort of like map out what it's going to look like, right?
So both of those things are things that you do with normal people.
You know, God is positioned in Scripture as our Father, and you know, how would you talk to a Father really worthy of respect when you are addressing Him?
Well, greater people than I have found in Scripture that there's, you could say like four types of prayers, or another way you could say it is four elements of prayers.
depending on how you conceptualize it.
But just very briefly, those types are thanksgiving, confession, or, you know, I teach little kids when we go through this.
I'm sorry, prayers.
Adoration.
and supplication.
So thanksgiving and confession are pretty straightforward.
Thanksgiving prayer, you're thanking God for something or all things.
You know, confession prayers, you're apologizing for sin.
By the way, we fight all the elements of this, the Lord's prayer.
You know, forgive us our trespasses.
We forgive those who trespass against us, right?
That's the confession part.
Adoration is reflecting on God, not just because he's done something for you in the thanksgiving sense, but because of who he is, right?
And so God is all powerful, you know, read this.
If you want adoration prayers, read this alms.
They're chock full of
describing God's attributes, how great he is, how powerful he is.
And lastly, supplication.
And that's when you're asking.
That's what most people think of when they think of prayer, probably a supplication prayer, where you're asking for something either for yourself or on someone else's behalf.
That's that supplication.
And again, if you go through the Lord's Prayer, you can see all those elements, I think more or less.
And that can kind of continue to help structure things.
And the one final comment before I pass it off, before I pass it off is, I do think spontaneous prayers are valuable.
Still, you don't plot out every conversation.
conversation of your life word for word, right?
If you're talking to your dad, maybe sometimes there's something you want to talk about in particular, but sometimes you just talk.
But I still think that you can do that better or worse.
In other words, you can pray spontaneously in a purposeful way or in kind of an absent minded way.
It's actually one of the funny realizations that I had.
I kind of disdain memorized or routine prayers for a long time.
And my reasoning was, well, it just becomes routine and you don't really think about it.
But actually spontaneous prayers become the same way.
Like you start to develop particular patterns in the way that you talk to like, Oh, you know, if you do your Thanksgiving food prayer, it's like, bless this food and use it for the nourishment.
Like how many times do you say that in these quote unquote spontaneous prayers, right?
My point here being is that all types of prayer, memorized, routine, spontaneous, you can make more purposeful or less purposeful.
So the last consideration I'll bring up and you know, Russ or Justin, you can hop in is I think a valuable thing to do if you're interested in spontaneous prayers is to consider writing them.
Because what I find is writing much more intentional forces you to come up with better words, you know, not just like the words that come up in the moment.
It forces you to reflect on if what you're saying makes sense or if it's the best way to say what you're saying.
So people have had prayer journals for a long time to scoff at things like that.
But I actually think that's really valuable because I think in general the writing process
is just the thinking process, a little bit more, at least self-accountability, so.
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense to me.
I don't do it, as far as writing them down.
I think if I had a big prayer that I was doing, you know, some sort of big event, and there's 300 people in the room or something, I probably would write something down, but.
that doesn't always happen either, because I've done that and just kind
hoc.
But when I do it ad hoc, I kind of come away from that thinking, I know that wasn't very good, Russ, you could have done better.
And I probably could have done better by writing it down.
So maybe I'll take your advice, Peter, on some of that, do that a little bit more.
So I
think one of the reasons we can do it better when we write it down is because
This is something that people who teach, like I say this to my students in philosophy all the time, like the way you figure out what you think is you write it out, right?
We often don't know, or people say like, I write in order to figure out what I think, right?
And so I think that also goes.
to a degree with actually just verbalizing something, right?
Which is why I think that impromptu prayers are good for that reason too, is that it forces you to actually articulate, to put into language either, you know, your appreciation, your devotion, what you want, etc.
And you can know when you do that can notice patterns in yourself too.
So I think it's important not only for like what your
You're giving to God with that, but also like it can aid in self-knowledge in a way that I think is important.
So I had to just outside
question.
Do we pray for people who died or just the ones who are left behind?
Russ is trying to open up a big theological can of worms in the middle of this.
Generally the prayer for those who have died tends to be something more that Catholics do and the reason the Orthodox will do it as well.
The reason they do that is because like the belief in a purgatory or for Orthodox is toll houses.
If someone dies and their destination is immediately bestowed upon them, heaven or hell, if that's like your
theory of how things happen at the end of life doesn't really make very much sense to like, I pray that you're happy in heaven.
It's like, well, there's that, I mean, that's already guaranteed.
So that doesn't seem necessary.
I think a really interesting response to this, I don't want to weigh into the dealer.
I don't pray for the dead, but I don't want to weigh into the theological debate too much, except for to say, if you're interested in defending that position, CS Lewis actually had this really interesting quote that I think there's like, it's worth consideration, something that I grapple with.
or C.S.
Lewis said, he was asked if he prayed for the dead.
And he says, I do pray for the dead because it would seem very unnatural for me not to, not because he believes in purgatory or anything like that.
But he just said, like, well, when someone dies, the natural response in me feels like, oh, I need to pray for that person who just died.
And so, you know, C.S.
Lewis is basically like, proof to me that it's evil.
Otherwise, I'm gonna keep doing it because it seems like the natural thing to do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually, what I was gonna bring up, I don't either, but I kind of feel like maybe people who aren't think about theology,
which is most people, that it is a natural thing to do.
So I didn't know that about C.S.
Lewis, but it kind of makes sense at a human level to, it's not gonna hurt, and if that's where your emotions are at the point in time, and then maybe once you think about the person who just passed, and now you're like, oh, what about their family?
And then all of a sudden, you're back into praying for them as well.
I don't know,
Justin.
I side with Lewis.
It seems like an expression of care, and we don't deny that the person stops existing after...
they've died because we're religious.
And ironically, that seems like something like it's very close to like the atheist position, right?
That like, oh, they're dead.
It doesn't matter.
Like, like you can't change what's already happened.
And so I, and I get that like, well, no, they're either, you know, if they're in heaven, it can't help them or something like that.
But not all prayer or even prayer for people, it seems like is, I mean, is an act of asking for intercession.
I mean, you can pray like about people who have died too.
And maybe that's,
yeah, it's different.
You know,
yeah, I agree with it.
The tricky part about it is that, and this is where a lot of the disagreement comes out, is the 66th book Protestant canon you will not find in any prayers for the day.
And I actually think that is a pretty strong argument that like there should be some consideration given to whether or not we should.
But if you do expand out so that the Catholic canon is larger, and this was a, you know, sometimes people say, ah, Catholics added books from the Bible or Protestants removed books from the Bible.
The history is much more complicated at the very beginning of the church.
There are some
Some people embraced the smaller version of the canon, not exactly that, but they removed the books that the Roman Catholic Church keeps.
And at the same time, at the beginning of the church, there were a lot of people who kept the beliefs in the larger canon.
So it's a complicated story, which one is right.
But if you look at the larger canon...
in second Maccabees, you actually have, I believe it is the Maccabees who pray for their enemies after they die.
And so like that, and they don't, sometimes Catholics will say this is proof of purgatory.
It actually doesn't extend that far to like explain like that you're trying to get them out of purgatory, like that.
That's maybe a bit of a stretch, but there is prayer for the dead, like very explicitly.
So I think it depends on what stance you take on that.
My personal view is I don't tend to do it and I don't tend to do it because I don't see it a lot in scripture.
It's not
It really modeled for me, but you know, I don't I also believe prayer transcends time or it can so I don't have like, you know You can make it like less it mentally if you want to and so it's not a big like hill I'm gonna die on either way
Yeah, yeah, and probably if it's a gray area you could go with still praying about it I don't pray for the dead either, but if if if you're on the fence at all It's not gonna hurt now that as opposed to praying to have somebody
be hurt or something, then you might be getting yourself into the sin realm there.
You might be in some real trouble, so it's not like just pray for anything.
All right, so then you answered that one very nicely.
How about pray for my football team to win the championship or that
game?
I think that's fine.
God asks that we come to Him with our requests, right?
And you're allowed to have requests that are like personally beneficial.
In fact, most of our requests are.
Now, we shouldn't give ourselves like some sort of illusion that like it is God's will.
We know that God answers prayers that would be in accordance with His will.
And really quickly, someone might say, well, does that mean God's not answering any prayers at all?
Well, no, I mean, you know, maybe you could pray for
you know, you to have a more devoted following of Christ, right?
Well, that's God's will.
And maybe your prayer could actually cause that to come into being because God answers the prayer.
So I do think prayer can be effective.
And I think it is always effective when it is God's will.
So in other words, prayer will always be effective when it's something that God would will you do or want you to pray for.
But we shouldn't trick ourselves into thinking that's our football team winning, right?
So I actually am a big fan of people praying
for the things that they want.
That is the natural thing that human beings do.
I think poo-pooing people, like, oh, that prayer is too small, is exactly how you get to this state of prayer becomes this weird religion thing that, like, it's only allowed to be about very high matters and high-minded things.
No, I prefer prayer to be very common.
I prefer that every time someone wants something or is interested in something or wants discernment or whatever, that they pray.
Again, qualified with the fact that it's like, well, God, if I don't win, then I
I'm gonna stop leaving in you.
Like obviously that's inappropriate, but the prayer itself is not.
Yeah, I don't
pray for football victories either.
I kind of gave up on that.
I guess I'm a little bit more of a, not to open up too big a can of worms, but open theology type setup that God's kind of watching things along with us and he can nudge things either way, but he has no interest in nudging the victory of the football game.
Although maybe it could be, it could construe a story that because this team won or this team lost that it
led to this other good thing and somebody came to Christ because of it or whatever, you know, you can always have, tell some anecdotal story that might nudge it that direction.
But Justin, what do you think?
You know, it's funny when we're talking about the prayers for the dead thing, I thought like, well, this is just like an authentic expression of, you know, by wants and desires.
And so I think that's
great.
And then I have the exact opposite response, just immediate internal reaction with sports where I go like, that's ridiculous.
And with the like, with the press for the dead thing, I think like, you know, I imagine somebody saying like, what are you trying to bother God with praying about something that's already
been decided?
You know, like, and then, and then, but my reaction to the sports thing is like, what are you trying to bother like, bother God with whether or not the Eagles are going to win or something?
Like, so I'm obviously like,
My intuitions are severely inconsistent here, I think.
Yeah, I actually don't think they are.
And here's why.
So actually when Russ imagines, when Russ asked the question, I imagine to myself as being part, he said, your team, I imagine is me being on the team, right?
Oh, and I actually think in that case, it makes more sense, but.
I don't think there's any problem in principle with praying that a football game's outcome goes a certain way, but I do think there's a problem with being so concerned about the outcome of football games that you want to pray about it.
Now, that doesn't strike me as true with the well-being of a dead person, right?
If you care about someone, it's okay for you to want that person to have had a good outcome or something like that.
But again, the football game, it's not the prayer that it's the problem, but I think it's the emphasis, the priority,
Like as adults, we sort of recognize that like these things are supposed to be like fun.
They're not supposed to be super high stakes.
And so like by virtue of that, it seems like a prayer for football.
It's not emphasizing a problem of prayer, but it is emphasizing like the priority of the person seems a little bit like a skew.
Maybe I don't know, Justin.
But then I
would pray about like football.
When I was like, when I was a really competitive athlete, even before games, the prayers would always be something like,
I know your will is going to be done.
I pray that you help me accept it kind of thing, where it's
my mental state.
Because that also seems like, what do I think?
Do I really think God's going to correct my spiral myth?
It seems like that seems like a more adequate or responsible thing to pray for is my own mental state regarding what happens.
No, that I agree and I think an argument could be made.
Well, at least the person who's praying for the victory that the field goal went, you know, goes in or something is.
putting God first of mind, like, oh, this is really God who's determining this, not me.
You know, so I don't know.
I can kind of go back and forth.
I still am not going to pray for the victory myself because I think there's other things, other things more pressing.
Maybe that's why I was never a great athlete, right?
Other people were praying for the wins.
Yeah,
well, and maybe it could cause you to turn.
Like, I've been praying for the Vikings to get to the Super Bowl.
And so by the time year 40 has elapsed, I'm like, maybe
God doesn't exist because he's not listening to me at all.
I haven't done anything since.
I haven't even made it to the Super Bowl, so maybe it would cause you to eventually turn away from God, so I don't know.
We got arguments at all directions, so this is one of those podcasts where I don't know if we've come to... Peter's probably the most theologically sound, I think, with worship.
We don't want to be worshiping our football team.
Put God before everything else, so...
Yeah, I would, at the end of the day, I'd caution against anybody thinking that there's any prayer too small.
I don't think there is.
At the end of the day, if you want to take a second to pray for a football team, in prayer would be better than not in prayer, I guess.
So I, personally, I don't have a big issue with it.
But I guess I would just, I think we're pretty close to the end here.
I would close out with saying that I actually recommend everybody listening and you don't, if you're not interested in this and you like, or you
Try it.
You think it's not for you.
That's fine.
But there are book of common prayer apps that will like you if you just have your day it'll tell you like this is the morning prayer for today and this is the evening prayer for the day and it will auto load the right one and you know it'll give you each of the prayers and you know if you think oh that's too much for me you can skip them right there's it's not like God's like oh you got the book of common prayer out of order you're in big trouble
now
right there there's no police on this but I think it's if you haven't prayed
regularly or your prayer life is suffering and you need some place to start.
The way that we teach our kids things is by giving them really basic instructions and letting them follow those really basic instructions and then they start to grow and they can internalize and they can come up with things on their own and we're all
children in the kingdom of heaven, right?
No one should think like, oh, if that's how we teach children, I'm above that.
I think that's the wrong attitude to have.
If you need benefits in your prayer life, I really recommend Book of Common Prayer.
I use the 2019 edition if it makes a difference to anybody.
They're really old ones, like 1662.
I personally can't recommend anything out of the Episcopalian branch of Anglicans.
So I stick to 2019 from the Anglican Church of North America.
But that's my pitch is that you should consider that, I think.
Yeah, my last pitch
should be just open up that dialogue and just talk to God.
And I have made up my own routine prayers.
There's another avenue that I took being the materialistic guy that I am and was.
I kind of knew that I didn't want to focus there.
So my quick little prayer to God was, dear Lord, everything I have, have had, or will ever have, I owe unto you.
And it was just kind of a short little reminder when I would get kind of wrapped up in maybe material things or something.
And so you can come up with your own.
routine prayer too, but I think all the things we've talked about here with using common prayers on the shoulders of giants is a good place to start to look so that it is something that theologically sound as well.
So all right well that looks like a good spot to rap and we pray for all of you listeners, at least I do, not necessarily on a regular basis but like I said prayer is just kind of an open thing and make it your own.
So this has been a production of the Gorton Institute here at Ottawa University.
I'd like to thank you all for listening.
A short review with Five Star helps other people find us.
Other than that, be fruitful and multiply.
Thanks.
you're enjoying this KXEL podcast, then we invite you to listen to KXEL's great programming in real time too!
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You can always listen to us live though and you can catch the podcast this show on KXEL.com here with a great Curtis Hames.
How well named is this gentleman here?
The wonderful people at Hames Homes with those beautiful, safe, affordable.
manufactured homes and it's a july saturday in iowa and in eastern iowa of course folks uh high likelihood yet of rain here this saturday morning uh our peak precip chances uh for cr we're at six this morning and as we're uh heading now toward noon we dropped from about a 60 chance down to about a
35% chance.
We're going to have a high of 82 and a low of 71 this Saturday.
And I tell you guys, we've had a lot of weather in the Midwest, both hot and some cool, a lot of rain, a lot of dry.
Curtis, one thing's for certain, no matter what season of the year, it's comfortable in those beautiful, safe, affordable Hames homes.
Absolutely.
We couldn't be more happy to
keep you warm in the winter and cool and dry in the summer.
Avoid the corn sweats here in the southwest side of eastern Iowa.
That's well said with Curtis Haymes versus grandfather also Curtis Haymes along with Norma the founders of this wonderful multi
Generational Business Enterprise, and we often alternate between Barbara Hames Bryant and Curtis.
Curtis, last time with Barbara, we did part two of you belong in a Hames home.
Let's go to your part three also found on your wonderful website, HamesHomes.com, condo shoppers and owners.
Curtis, take it away.
I think our folks might be surprised because how much more they can get for their money, their lifestyle, and their peace of mind if they go the manufactured home route.
We have some of our most satisfied clients are people who have previously lived in or shopped the condo lifestyle.
Exactly.
We provide a more valuable home.
As far as dollar per square footage, obviously there could be some exceptions, but by and large, our product is more affordable per square footage.
So right out the gate, more space for your dollar here in our communities.
The benefit is always having your own space.
No shared walls, no zero lot line style, no apartment style living.
You have your own home.
You have the benefits.
of a planned community that you would see in a condo.
We don't have an HOA per se, but we are a planned community and our desire is to have the safest and cleanest community in Iowa.
And so we maintain that as a planned community is the terminology we like to use.
Keeping a standard for a background check of people who come and live and guidance on how to maintain the exterior of your home
to ensure a high quality living environment.
So we think that we really thread the needle between flexibility for the homeowner and then allowing a certain standard to be maintained.
We think we provide all the benefits of condo living at a more affordable price.
Curtis, I couldn't agree more.
I have been out to your beautiful communities multiple times at Grandview and Summit.
And let me tell you, these are beautiful, not just safe and affordable, but these are beautiful homes, landscaping, beautiful pristine streets, wonderful evening time, lighting, plenty of green space, a pastoral
backdrop you've got a dog park and a frisbee uh golf you've got a food pantry you've got neighborhoods and yards that are vetted for family friendly neighborliness and again guys uh why would you want to share a space i've done the condo hoa route uh it it's
You lose that privacy, you lose that independence.
And guys, if you've got your own beautiful, safe, affordable manufactured home, you're going to have more home for your investment, monthly savings that add up, and your own space, your own yard.
Check out these great lawns that they've got out there, the garages, the playgrounds, and Curtis Freedom.
and flexibility.
That's key too.
You aren't under those strict HOA rules in all the politics.
Again, our terminology is a planned community.
We have a certain standard and we do want to have homes cleaned, well maintained.
We do not have that tyrant
that you're gonna hear about from HOA where if someone lording over or pet you know their petty grievances on to their peers we want to clean safe well maintained community and if you want to have a flower bed or have blue shutters instead of gray or white siding instead instead of brown you're welcome to do that
well that's
no no
Yeah, that's what's great about it.
That's what we love.
And I mean, you've got the two great choices, the two communities, but think about it.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are so close to the airport.
You are so close to Iowa City if you're even going to school or hitting the hospitals or an athletic event down there.
And guys, highways 100 to 18, 30 and 380, you're close to all of the great commercial and all of the amenities, all the retail,
all the healthcare of the hospitals.
Curtis, you're perfectly situated in that growing corridor of southwest Cedar Rapids.
We couldn't be happier about that.
We really consider ourselves the suburbs of Cedar Rapids here on the southwest side.
The airport is six or eight minutes away.
The highway is just around the corner.
These things are not in your backyard where you hear the highway behind your home.
But it is just a hop, skip, and a jump to get onto the highway.
And if you're heading towards Marion, you need to get on 380.
We have a great location for real, real ease of access for people who are commuting to different places around the corridor.
Come and drive by and in through these wonderful communities, Emory and Frankie Samples say, Summit View is a great place to live.
We are a retired couple and happily settled in the quiet community, a safe place, neighbors with pride in the appearance of their homes and lawns.
Meanwhile, over at Grand View,
Daryl and Linda Gehr say, Grandview is a model park and Mr. Haymes with all his employees are what it takes to keep the park the way it is.
Your folks love you guys, Curtis Haymes.
Well then, I'd love those compliments.
I spoke with Mr. Gehr yesterday and we had a nice visit.
So it sounds like we're still on very good terms.
We appreciate all the kind guidance that people have given.
And there's no advertising that's better than a firsthand experience with a satisfied homeowner.
We're very, very proud to have many of those and count them among our friends.
I remember your grandfather and grandmother, great people that they are.
And I know that second generation, which includes Barbara and the rest of her siblings, including your dad and Curtis.
How can they find you?
I want people to either call on the phone or visit you guys in person.
If you can give that Great Marion Legacy number in your address, I will say hop on that wonderful website, Hames Homes.
Guys, nothing easier to remember.
H-A-M-E-S H-O-M-E-S dot com.
Curtis?
We want to keep it real simple for everybody to be able to reach out to us.
Website is great, hamshomes.com.
We're very proud of that.
That will have a lot of great information about financing, about our communities, and all of our current inventory.
We keep that always up to date.
In addition to that, we're on Facebook.
Please reach out on there.
We have an active community.
We'd love to see your likes and comments.
The simplest thing to set an appointment is always to just give us a call.
Clint or myself in the sales department, we're here seven days a week.
Come and visit us on Wabash Street, Southwest.
Give us a call at 319-377-4863.
Talking
here with the great Curtis Haymes.
Curtis, your family have been such great custodians.
of bringing safe, affordable, beautiful homes to folks.
I just went on that wonderful Facebook site, Hames Homes, and you have yet another like out of many, many multitudes on that site there.
So wonderful Facebook Hames Homes.
Hit like and take a look at this treasure trove of information.
You can look at that great 1997
TV commercial with Norma Hames.
Curtis, always great to have you on.
We look forward to talking to you and Barbara again here next week.
Very good.
Thank you so much, guys.
Have a great weekend.
You betcha, guys.
Hames Homes, get down there and buy one of those beautiful, safe, affordable and literally just.
wonderfully beautiful homes.
Again, you talk curb appeal, very, very, very marvelous family living there.
We'll be back in 30
seconds.
we can learn how they lead to human flourishing.
This is the Faith in Economics podcast, a presentation of the Gorton Institute at Ottawa University.
This is Dr. Russ McCullough, Professor and Wayne Angel Chair of Economics here at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas, right here in the heart of the Midwest.
I founded the Gortney Institute, a think-and-teach tank back in 2018.
We've been building and building on student programs.
We have a capital campaign right now for our goal of $1 million.
It's going to take small donations and big donations to make that happen, but it's all part of an overall capital campaign for Ottawa University.
The Institute includes two other professors, Dr. Peter Jacobson in Economics and Dr. Justin Clark in Philosophy.
Where else can you find a place that has student programs of debates, movie nights, speaker nights, book clubs, colloquiums, and game nights?
These event topics include stuff like immigration, federalism, the Constitution, individual freedom, Bitcoin, voluntary exchange, free enterprise, rule of law, faith, family, community, and local self-governance.
Where else could you find a university that's providing that kind of education to students?
If you want to learn more about what we believe and teach, check out our Faith in Economics podcast.
It's available on all the major channels.
You'll see that the titles we have really show what we discuss with students on a daily basis.
This capital campaign is important.
Donations big and small are welcome.
Contact me directly at Russ McCulloch at Ottawa.
edu.
That's r-u-s-s dot m-c-c-u-l-l-o-u-g-h at Ottawa o-t-t-a-w-a dot edu.
Or just call me directly, 785-242-2558.
That's 785-242-2558.
Love to chat with you more about our programs and what we do for students here at Ottawa.
Thanks.
Welcome to our show today.
My name is Peter Jacobson.
I'm the Gortney Professor of Economic Education and Research.
Joining us today we have Dr. Justin Clark, the Menard Family Professor of Philosophy and Ethics.
Dr. Russ McCullough, the Wayne Angel share of economics and founder of the Courtney.
All right.
Well, we got an email in from a listener, Austin C, and had a couple of podcast topics that we'll try to hit.
So we're just going to hit one today.
And he asked about utility.
So utility is a concept in economics that we use to kind of reflect happiness.
It's not maybe
Happiness isn't a perfect substitute, but something that is measuring welfare of somebody.
So here's his question.
I discuss the idea of utility a lot in classes, particularly with entry-level students, to help them grasp trade-offs of the free market and etc.
However, when we get into the weeds with conversation, the biggest hold-up on the student's end is how economists can put a value on human life when doing a cost-benefit analysis.
Therefore, as a Christian,
How might we do these formulas of utility when it comes to things like loss of life, sin, or other things that are hard to put a value on?
Oh, I want to throw it to Dr. Jacobson,
I guess, to lead off.
Sure.
I think the best way to start off is to just explain to the audience the concept of utility and economics.
So in economics, we are trying to explain more or less why in particular circumstances, especially when circumstances are changing, that's kind of the key, how behavior will change with those changing circumstances.
So for example, if you have an increase in income, what's that going to do to your consumption of ramen noodles?
Or what's it going to do to the amount of leisure time that you spend?
Those are the sorts of questions that economics asks.
how will people change their resource use patterns when their institutional environment or personal situation changes?
That's kind of the the go-to thought in economics at the micro level.
And that was kind of what he was talking about trade-offs to highlight trade-offs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I so this in order to discuss this
question economists use different concepts.
So one of the concepts we use is utility.
Utility is the idea that you get a certain amount of enjoyment from doing certain activities, whether that's consuming certain goods or like enjoying certain services or just leisure.
All of these things in an economist's mind come with a certain sense of satisfaction that we call utility.
And in particular, economists are interested in what's called marginal utility.
So how much enjoyment do you get from eating one more apple?
or going on one more vacation, or from having one less car, how much marginal utility would you lose?
Or how much utility would you lose?
That's the concept of marginal utility.
And so one of the things that economists will say is, if the marginal utility of something is greater than the marginal cost of something, people will do that thing.
In other words, if you get more enjoyment from a thing that costs you...
then you're willing to engage in that activity now only individuals have utility companies don't have utility so you know that changes when we talk about companies but that's the idea now utilities kind of a tricky concept because
Economists don't really believe utility is real, at least not the ones who kind of properly track with the method.
In other words, there's not like, and some economists have tried to do this, by the way.
I'm not saying none do, but smart economists don't try.
That's maybe cruel to this.
Economists don't generally try to go into a lab and measure brain changes and say, oh, that brain change represents 4,000 utility or something like that.
No, utility is a way that we think about conceptually.
the benefits people get from certain things.
In other words, utility is a feature of our model to understand the world.
It's not necessarily a feature of the world, right?
We don't believe that people get ex-utilities from apples or something like that.
Instead, it's just a way to think about the satisfaction people get.
That's how I think about utility.
The key finding with utility, if we're being good economists in consistency, is that utility cannot be compared to interpersonal.
In other words, we can't say that Russ's enjoyment of an apple is greater necessarily than my enjoyment of an apple.
We could say that he's more willing to pay for apples, but we can't go into somebody's brain and say, certainly, oh, the total utility
getting is greater than the total utility.
I would only push back a little bit when you said we can't put X utility because I think we claim we can put a number on it but then that number can't be compared.
So for example, an apple gives me 100 units of satisfaction.
Russ, if I give you a second apple, how much does that give you?
Well, it's not 100 anymore because I already had one apple, so maybe 30 units of happiness.
But then Peter gives his numbers, those numbers can't be compared with each other.
Yeah, they're not complicated.
in the sense that they're ordinal, not cardinal.
And so I can say the second apple was less enjoyable than the first, but I can't say it was one and a half times less enjoyable.
That is where utility theory gets sort of weird.
And so all of this, so what's the point people might say?
Well, that helps us learn things about people.
One of the laws in economics is the law, you're decreasing marginal utility.
that representing what Russ just said, that is if people get more of something, everything else have constant, they're going to enjoy it less and less and less.
So the first scoop of ice cream is the most enjoyable, second scoop a little bit less, the thousandth scoop, the marginal utility solo is negative and you wouldn't even want, if I could give it to you for free, you wouldn't want to eat a thousand scoops of ice cream.
All right.
And so this is the idea of utility.
I want to also add what Dr. Todd Sandler said to me in my PhD public econ class.
He's like, OK, so we all know that we can't add up utility, but we're going to create a social utility function anyway.
And then it leads to policy decisions.
So that's where Peter and I both agree that the economic expression goes wrong.
And this kind of speaks to Austin's question on how would you really use utility with valuing in terms of cost-benefit analysis of some policies and other things?
As Peter just said, it gets
kind of wonky when you start trying to use it for some sort of social gaining, social welfare gaining maneuver.
Just to put one more thing in perspective, I like to give this example.
So my wife tells me, I said, I'm going to go fishing the next four hours.
And she says, oh, you love fishing more than me.
And I'm like, no, honey, you don't understand the difference between total utility and marginal utility.
I totally love you more than fishing.
But at the margin this next four hours, I actually like fishing more than spending time with you because
I've already
spent a lot of time with you and I love you way more.
But the incremental benefits of me going fishing on the next four hours.
So that usually falls flat on its face, but that is kind of the difference in why it's important in decision making at the margin.
It's always the incremental benefits and costs of the next move that you're focusing in on to be efficient.
Justin.
Well, I think everything that's been said so far might be wrong.
I don't think we have a good definition of utility.
I think that we have two maybe competing definitions.
And I think that there are some problems when we try to define utility coherently.
One thing that I want to point out, I really want to hammer in on one thing Peter said, which is that utility is often thought of.
And Peter said it's something that doesn't exist in the world.
I'm not sure I want to go that far, but I think he's 100% correct that we think of it, or a lot of people think of it as a kind of theoretical postulate.
That is, it's not directly observed.
We postulate it in order to make other people's actions and even our own actions for ourselves in some
sense rational.
This has been a production of the Gorton Institute here at Ottawa University.
I'd like to thank you all for listening.
Please pass this along to your friends and family that might like to take a listen.
Other than that, be fruitful and multiply.
Thanks.
This is Dr. Russ McCullough, Professor and Wayne Angel Chair of Economics here at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas, right here in the heart of the Midwest.
I founded the Gortney Institute, a think-and-teach tank back in 2018.
We've been building and building on student programs.
We have a capital campaign right now.
for our goal of one million dollars.
It's going to take small donations and big donations to make that happen, but it's all part of an overall capital campaign for Ottawa University.
The Institute includes two other professors, Dr. Peter Jacobson in Economics and Dr. Justin Clark in Philosophy.
Where else can you find a place that has student programs of debates, movie nights, speaker nights, book clubs, colloquiums, and game nights?
These event topics include stuff like immigration, federalism, the Constitution, individual freedom, Bitcoin, voluntary exchange, free enterprise, rule of law,
faith, family, community, and local self-governance.
Where else could you find a university that's providing that kind of education to students?
If you want to learn more about what we believe and teach, check out our Faith in Economics podcast.
It's available on all the major channels.
You'll see that the titles we have really show what we discuss with students on a daily basis.
This capital campaign is important.
Donations big and small are welcome.
Contact me directly at Russ McCulloch at Ottawa.
edu.
That's r-u-s-s dot m-c-c-u-l-l-o-u-g-h at Ottawa o-t-t-a-w-a dot edu.
Or just call me directly, 785-242-2558.
That's 785-242-2558.
Love to chat with you more about our programs and what we do for students here at Ottawa.
Thanks.
