I don't think that means what you think it means.

In our last podcast, we talked about how hard it is to sound smart and say exactly what you mean in the public sphere all the time. We pointed out that we often have to edit dumb things we’ve said from our podcast that would have made us sound like idiots or just wrong. This week’s podcast had an outtake that’s a good example, and I thought I would share it.

I was trying to demonstrate how people are faced with hard choices, so I gave a hypothetical: “So, some guy has a gun to my head and says deny Jesus. So of course I’m going to deny Jesus, I mean he has a gun to my head. Otherwise I would die!”

What I was trying to demonstrate was how the thought process of others might have gone in an effort to justify doing what was wrong. Instead, it literally just sounded like I was saying I would deny Jesus. This statement sounded so serious and intentional that it has me reeling. How many times have I said something like this in other contexts and not been able to edit it out? And how many times have I heard something from someone else that they might not have meant and taken it to mean the worst?

This happens all the time in the media, I think.