Beeson Podcast, Episode #516 Dr. John Halsey Wood, Jr. Sept. 29, 2020 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am Doug Sweeney here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla, and today we continue with our series on the podcast called Christian Faith At Work. We’re interviewing members of our Beeson community who are seeking to advance the reign of God in business and the professions. Kristen will introduce today’s guest in just a moment. For now, let me just say that ever since I met John Halsey Wood at the Cathedral Church of the Advent here in Birmingham several months ago I have been fascinated by his life story. He’s a leading business man in town who also happens to have a PhD in Theology. How about that? I don’t know many people who have combination of things in their daily life and daily work. I returned to my office after preaching at his church and told our staff that we have to get John Halsey Wood on Beeson’s Advisory Board. Before we talk with John Halsey, let me tell you about some important admission deadlines here at Beeson. Tomorrow, October 1st, is our spring admission deadline. If you or someone you know is thinking about enrolling in seminary in the spring, please head on over to BeesonDivinity.com/admission and start your application today. Also, our next virtual preview day is October 23rd. Registration is open and free. Preview Day is a great way to hear firsthand what Beeson has to offer and to meet many faculty, students, and administrators. Those who attend Preview Day get their $35 application fee waived. Finally, Kristen and her people have put together a fantastic new tour of Hodges Chapel. You can watch it online. Lots have people have done so already and are raving about it. If you would like to do so as well we invite you to BeesonDivinity.com/virtualvisit. All right. Now, Kristen, would you please introduce today’s guest? >>Kristen Padilla: Welcome, everyone, to the Beeson Podcast. And welcome to our guest today, Dr. John Halsey Wood, Jr. He is the fourth generation owner and director of purchasing for Wood Fruitticher Grocery Company here in Birmingham. He is a member, as Doug has already said, of Beeson’s Advisory Board and the Stockholm Program here at Samford University. Dr. Wood and his wife and their four children are members of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in downtown Birmingham. And Dr. Wood studied theology at Westminster Seminary and St. Louis University and was a Fulbright Scholar to the Netherlands in 2006, which is pretty cool. He is the author of “Going Dutch in the Modern Age,” published by Oxford University Press. Dr. Wood, it is so good to have you on the podcast today. >>Dr. Wood: Thanks, Kristen. It’s great to be here with you all. Thank you. >>Kristen Padilla: We always like to begin by hearing more of your story. So, could you introduce yourself to our listeners? Who are you? Where are you from? And anything about your journey with Jesus Christ? >>Dr. Wood: Yeah, sure. I come from an old Birmingham family. As old as Birmingham is, which is about 100 years old, I guess. So, I grew up here, grew up in my family business, which is where I am now, and grew up in actually Covenant Presbyterian Church, just right across the street from Beeson under Dr. Bill Haye there. So, I came to Christianity by birth. I was born and baptized in the Church and raised in the Church, and was blessed by that. So, that’s kind of the short story of how I got to where I am. >>Doug Sweeney: Dr. Wood, the next thing we want to ask you about is how you got into business and normally when we ask a businessman how he got into business the answer is pretty straightforward. I imagine with you there’s an interesting story, given your combination of interests. How did you get into your family business? And can you tell us a little bit about it? >>Dr. Wood: Yeah, I got into business the same way I got into the Church. I was just kind of born into it. So, like Kristen said, a fourth generation family business. I grew up working in the family business since I was probably 14 or 15 years old. I had warehouse jobs in the summers. Did various things. Let’s see, I drove trucks when I was in college. So, business was just kind of ... it’s always been in our family. That’s really how I got into the family business. The question is how did I get into theology? And they way that happened is I was working in the family business after college and I took a few of the evening classes at Birmingham Theological Seminary, at Briarwood. And I was doing that in the evenings, just after work and I became more and more interested in studying theology and decided to go to a full time academic program at Westminster Seminary. So, I did that and had a wonderful four years there; training with a lot of very godly teachers there. And continued to pursue that interest in theology to St. Louis University, where I studied especially with Mike McClyman, who is I know a friend of yours. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s right. >>Dr. Wood: What I ended up studying in my doctoral dissertation was Abraham Kuyper, who was a Dutch Calvinist, a 19th century Dutch Calvinist, right around the turn of the century, actually. So, that was the topic of my doctoral dissertation. Especially his ecclesiology. I think I graduated in ’07 or ’08 and was sending out a gazillion applications to different academic positions and I taught as an adjunct at a couple of places in St. Louis at that time and continued to do that for a few years and our family, we wanted to get back to Birmingham. I was not having any success in landing a solid academic job, still had some interest in the family business and doing that. I really called my cousins before I called my father, my cousins who I work with here, and asked them if there might be a place that I could be useful there again with Fruitticher. And that’s how I kind of ended up back at the family business after studying theology for so long. And it turned out to be a really good opportunity for me and my family as well. >>Doug Sweeney: Just one last codicil on this one. Tell our audience just a little bit about the business. What do you all do at Wood Fruitticher? >>Dr. Wood: Oh, yeah. Sure. So, we’re a food service provider. What food service is, we sell groceries to restaurants, hospitals, schools, camps, a variety of healthcare customers. So, we’re a grocery company but we’re not doing retail groceries. We’re doing institutional sales. We are a wholesaler. We cover Alabama, a little bit of Georgia, a little bit of Tennessee, Mississippi, the northern part of Florida, and we started here in Birmingham. My great grandfather started the company in 1913. So, we’ve been around a little while. >>Kristen Padilla: That’s a nice segue into the question I wanted to ask you. And really into the topic of this podcast. And that is how you and others like you are seeking to make a difference for Christ’s Kingdom in the workplace? And so I wonder if you can talk more about your Christian faith as it impacts your work? You’ve already talked about your background and interest in theology and that you come from a family of Christians. So, it sounds like it’s already a strong Christian business. But how has your faith impacted the way you work, the way you lead at Wood Fruitticher, and what difference you’re hoping to make in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ? >>Dr. Wood: Yeah, Kristen, I’ve been thinking about this question and I think the best and most honest answer to this question is to say that a lot of what we do here at our business is it’s kind of prosaic. We’re not developing the latest software technologies or the next new camera for the iPhone. So, that said, I think probably a lot of folks are in businesses and jobs that are like that. The opportunity that I see for Christians there is just a kind of, is kind of a simple faithfulness in taking the responsibilities that are in front of you. That’s very much how I view my own responsibility at Wood Fruitticher, was it was an opportunity for me, there was a responsibility in front of me in the family business, and an opportunity to work there. And that’s kind of how I viewed it and I continue to view it that way. The virtues, I think, of a good businessman or businesswoman are fairly simple: being honest, treating your employees and all of your stakeholders, whether it’s customers or employees or your own vendors fairly, which is to say being honest with them, being straightforward, you know, not taking advantage when you’re able to, even. But I think those kinds of things are the virtues that make for a faithful Christian businessman or businesswoman in the marketplace. There’s nothing too extraordinary there, but they are the kind of things that I think a lot of us, day in / day out, have to manage, have to remember. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, that’s wonderful. John Halsey, I hope you don’t mind. I’ve got kind of a seminarian’s question for you that I think could be interesting to our audience as well. A guy like me is really interested in whether, or the degree to which, your theological education, your theological studies, your theological reflection makes a difference in your business life. Is there any kind of intersection there that might be interesting to reflect on for a minute? >>Dr. Wood: I think that’s a great question, because I have this dual interest in business and theology and I’m still trying to figure it out myself. Since I’ve been back to Birmingham and working in the family business I’ve done more and more reading kind of in the intersection, I guess, of social ethics and Christianity, as well as capitalism and Christianity generally. So, I think that the good of business is that we have this opportunity to provide for our livelihood and the livelihood of all the people that depend on us. Whether our family, our churches, communities, the softball team – just that kind of stuff. That’s not insignificant, I mean, that’s an important thing to do, to be able to provide and help support the livelihoods of all the people that depend on us. That’s that kind of prosaic responsibility. It’s a very Calvinist kind of responsibility. That’s the Protestant work ethic, isn’t it? There’s also, in my mind, though – I think there’s some ambiguity as far as what the Christian’s place in the marketplace is, what the kind of the direction of our actual concrete economy in the United States, in the West, where things are going. There’s some ambiguity there. I haven’t fully figured it out myself. I’ll just give you an example of something that’s been on my mind lately. These are the kinds of things that having that theological background ... for me, these are the kinds of questions or issues it opens up that I might not have been aware of without that. But I just happened to have been reading lately Matthew Crawford’s book, “While We Drive.” I don’t know if you’ve seen this. So, he wrote this book that was very popular a few years ago called, “Shop Class Is Soul Craft.” And that one made, I think, the New York Times Bestseller List. It’s not particularly a spiritual or religious book in any way. But so Matthew Crawford is this guy, I think he went to the University of Chicago, PhD from the University of Chicago, was on the Committee for Social Thought there. Really traveled in some high-powered intellectual circles. And now he runs a small motor repair shop in Virginia. I’m very sympathetic to someone who has this kind of a dual background. He’s very interested in ethics and he’s also just kind of living this life where he’s not actually doing ethics proper academically anymore, he’s repairing motorcycles and just kind of living that out in a very small town in Virginia is my understanding. So, he wrote this book that I’ve been reading, “Why We Drive,” and he makes some really interesting points. One of the things that he says, it’s kind of a philosophical point, is that he says that there’s a difference between freedom as a choice and freedom as agency. And one of his concerns is that they way market capitalism is going is we’re kind of reducing all of our freedom to a kind of choice. You know? A choice between this product or that product. A choice between this shampoo or that shampoo. Or this restaurant tonight for dinner or that restaurant. And Crawford says that’s a really thin kind of freedom, if that’s all that we’re left with is just choosing between these kind of consumer options. And at Wood Fruitticher we have lots of consumer options. So, I feel that on a day to day basis. But Crawford makes this point and I think it’s really interesting. He says but there’s a kind of fuller notion of freedom, freedom as agency, I think he would call it, that is being lost in our economy, especially a highly technologically driven economy. Freedom of agency is the freedom to be able to do something yourself. So, with my children, they ask me why they have to do their homework and I say, “Well, because if you don’t learn math you can’t do math. You won’t be free to do math.” I mean, you literally will not have the freedom to do math. That’s freedom as agency. Freedom of choice is the ability to go choose between any number of restaurants that you want; to have a myriad of opportunities to choose what you want for dinner. Freedom as an agent is the ability to be able to cook for yourself. The more that technology takes the place, technology and bureaucracy, these highly efficient technologies, these highly efficient bureaucracies take place of actual hand work, manual work, in a way our economy is pushing to the side this kind of freedom to be an agent for something that’s very thin, just the freedom to be able to choose between five different hot sauces on your hot wings. I think there’s some things like that, that concern me about the marketplace and kind of the direction that things are pushing right now. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, that’s a profound point, one I hadn’t thought about in those terms before. So, does that affect the way you do business? Obviously you’re a theologian who can articulate these things very well, but just practically day by day does it make a difference in the work that you do as a businessman? >>Dr. Wood: Well, that’s where I’d say I’m not sure what to do about it myself. I mean, I can kind of see the problem that someone like Matthew Crawford raises and it kind of makes me at home, it makes me take some more care, for example, with my own children – to sit down and actually do things with them. I mean, frankly, just little things like fixing things around the house. Show them how things work. >>Doug Sweeney: Right. >>Dr. Wood: There’s some dignity in actually mowing the grass yourself, for example. I get that. At the kind of macro level of business, it’s still very hard for me to figure out what that means. When you’re in a highly competitive industry like we are, a relatively low margin industry, when you find the technology that works, that enables you to be more efficient, to be more accurate, you take hold of it because that’s a competitive advantage, and if you don’t take hold of it your competitors certainly will. So, there’s just kind of this environmental pressure when we talk about something like technology to go along in a certain direction. To answer your question, that’s where I find there’s some ambiguity for me. I think those are the kinds of things that, as Christians, we can have some sympathy with what Matthew Crawford is saying. We understand what that means. We want people not to just have a great paycheck, we want them to actually have dignified work. Not just to be a key puncher or someone who is overseeing some machine that does work, but to actually enjoy and take some pride in the work that they do themselves. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s good. >>Dr. Wood: So, I have some sympathy with that. I’m still trying to figure it out. You know, exactly what that means. >>Kristen Padilla: We have a lot of pastors and other church leaders who listen to the podcast. They may be thinking, “How can I do a better job at partnering with the business people in my church to expand God’s Kingdom?” We know that businesses open doors to people and places that otherwise the local church may have a problem getting inroads to. So, maybe you can talk about what unique opportunities your role at Wood Fruitticher has opened for you, for the gospel, on an individual level, on a company level? And maybe even help us think about as we’re talking to pastors, maybe some advice that you would give them on how to relate to their business people in the church? >>Dr. Wood: A couple of things that come to my mind here as far as how business or how businessmen, business persons contribute. And the simple answer, and I think important answer, is that we make money. Generally, if a church makes money it’s not a very good thing if they show profit at the end of the day. That’s kind of something to be concerned about. I mean, it is business’s role in our community to provide and create wealth. And I think that’s important. That’s kind of the chief role I see that we have. And then to be responsible with how we use that wealth and the things that we support and provide for. I think the second thing, asking that question of what difference does it make at work, when you’re at work you’re generally, even in the Bible Belt here, you’re much a much more diverse environment religiously than you are at church, at least for me that’s clearly the case. And you’re crossing paths with a lot of people who you wouldn’t necessarily see on Sunday morning. Not that they don’t go to church, but they’re not a part of that community, at least your church community. And, yeah, you’re kind of living life with them. I spend more time with the people here at Wood Fruitticher than I do with anyone at church and probably more waking hours than I do with my children. So, I’m very aware and conscious of what’s going on in my friend’s lives, the friends that I work with. The main opportunity that I see there is to pray for them. I try to, on a regular basis, keep in mind the people that I work with, my friends here and their needs and the things that I can be praying for them for. Because everybody is kind of just going through life. They have the normal challenges and struggles and occasionally tragedies of life. And I probably see these people here, my friends here, as again, like I say, I’m kind of walking through these things with them. We’re kind of encouraging each other and trying to take care of each other, get through these things. So, I think for a pastor just to encourage and support business people, realizing their kind of needs in this kind of environment. I mean, I think that’s tremendous. I think constantly reminding, reiterating the gospel. I mean, that can’t be underestimated - the importance of that, I think. >>Doug Sweeney: John Halsey, how has the covid epidemic affected your group, Wood Fruitticher? Has it been devastating? Has it been not so devastating? And is there some way in which the Christian faith of some of the folks in leadership at your company has made a difference there? >>Dr. Wood: I’ll tell you a little bit about where we are as a business and kind of how we’ve handled it. And that’ll give you some idea of what it looks like. Early on, in the coronavirus crisis, back in March and April, there was some very scary times, I would say. There were several weeks that were really difficult and kind of scary weeks where we did not know what the future was going to hold. Our sales were probably, for a few weeks there, about 40 or 50 percent of the same weeks the previous year. And that would be absolutely unsustainable for us as a business, we just wouldn’t last. Some things are sustainable and some things are just “shut the business down,” we can’t survive. At those rates we would have been at “shut the business down” kind of situation. That didn’t last long, thankfully. That went on for several weeks. Everybody here was tremendous, to be honest. Everybody in the organization knew that the livelihood of the business and all that was attached to it was at stake. It just wasn’t time to stay home for us. We have this kind of place in the economy, in the food chain, where if we don’t show up to work nothing happens. And that means, I mean, that’s like, “go home” again kind of situation. So, we had to show up at work, had to make sure that people were getting their groceries. Whether it’s a nursing home ... the nursing homes obviously don’t shut down, hospitals don’t shut down during a crisis. And we have a lot of customers that are like that. Some schools that were still open, various things like that. Nursing homes, daycares, things like that. So, it was very difficult for a few weeks, but gradually through the end of April and May business began to pick back up. And we’re not where we were last year, but we are doing well, I would say, again. So, we went through this period where we just had a lot of uncertainty and that was actually surprisingly difficult to me personally just to actually consider the possibility that we would not be able to sustain the business. And I know it was difficult for everybody in the organization. I mean, because we’re talking about a lot of people looking at the future of their own livelihood. I’m thankful to be where we are now. I’ll tell you, I think the difference that Christianity makes – that we have the hope of the gospel – has been that we do know where ultimate things lie. And they don’t lie at Wood Fruitticher or our economy or our worldly jobs. That definitely takes a certain amount of anxiety away, I think, a certain amount of pressure. It’s not to say that it’s easy to persevere in those situations, but I think there’s a tremendous amount of comfort there in the middle of this. And I was thinking about this yesterday. Are you familiar with the journalist Ezra Klein? >>Doug Sweeney: Yes. >>Dr. Wood: So, editor, I think, of Vox? And I was listening to one of his podcasts yesterday. I mean, this was just yesterday. And you just have to listen to the introductory five or ten minutes and he’s genuinely afraid. He is still kind of talking in apocalyptic terms. And I get it, because I know what it’s like to look down and see, “Well, wow, this may all be gone tomorrow.” And I don’t know what Ezra Klein’s livelihood looks like right now. But it was clear, just from the rhetoric, the claims that he’s making. I think he said it was like he was living in the Book of Revelation. And that’s what his experience today, in September, six whatever months, is still like. And I take that fear and anxiety sincerely. I mean, I think that’s real regardless of how we may view the actual kind of situation on the ground. There’s a lot of frustration, anxiety, fear, our political environment ratchets that up for everybody, I think. It is important to know that the Kingdom of God is going to stand forever. I look at Wood Fruitticher and business as mainly part of the city of the Earth, in Augustine’s terms. And that city has a certain shelf life. But the City of God, of course, is going to last forever. And as Christians we have membership in that eternal city. To me that’s tremendously helpful in the midst of what we’re going through. I think that is what God has really been pressing on me, to direct my hope to the City of God. Certainly. >>Doug Sweeney: Wise and helpful words. You have been listening to Dr. John Halsey Wood, Jr. of the Wood Fruitticher Grocery Company. He’s also a theologian. He’s a friend here at Beeson, serving on our Advisory Board. He’s a Stockholm Program Fellow at Samford University. He’s a father. He’s got all kinds of things going on in his life. And so we are especially grateful to him for sharing some time with us today, sharing some wisdom for us, with us, today. And we’re grateful to all of you for tuning in. We love you. We’re praying for you during these difficult days. We ask you to keep Beeson Divinity School in your prayers. We’ll see you next week. Goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.