Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Politics Is Bigger Than Voting | Faith & Politics #1

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Politics Is Bigger Than Voting | Faith & Politics #1 · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr.
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  Speaker 1: James Spencer. I'm joined by my co-host, Dr. Ashish Varma.
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  Speaker 2: And today we're going to be kicking off a series
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  Speaker 2: on the intersections of politics and faith. Now, I've written
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  Speaker 2: an awful lot about this.
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  Speaker 1: We've had podcast episodes on this in the past.
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  Speaker 2: But I would say most of my work has really
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  Speaker 2: been on Christian nationalism and my problems that I see there,
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  Speaker 2: as well as dabbling into some of the American civil
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  Speaker 2: religion sort of discourses. And again, some of the theological
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  Speaker 2: issues that I have with that. But as we're running
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  Speaker 2: up on midterms this, I guess, November, we wanted to
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  Speaker 2: do a series on Christians in politics that would hopefully
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  Speaker 2: give people a little bit of a framework for how
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  Speaker 2: to discern what voting is, what it means, and maybe
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  Speaker 2: even who to vote for. Obviously, we're not going to
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  Speaker 2: go down the ballot and give recommendations. but we want
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  Speaker 2: to help Christians sort of think through their political choices
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  Speaker 2: in a more robust and theological manner. And so today
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  Speaker 2: what we're going to do is address some of the
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  Speaker 2: issues that we think really need to be a part
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  Speaker 2: of that, that we, that, Ashish and I just believe
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  Speaker 2: as we think about politics, as we think about our
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  Speaker 2: own political participation, some of the things that we think about.
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  Speaker 2: And then as we go, we're going to have a
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  Speaker 2: variety of guests on who obviously have their own ideas
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  Speaker 2: and who are going to bring different expertise to the
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  Speaker 2: table than Ashish or I have.
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  Speaker 1: And we're going to be interacting with them too.
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  Speaker 2: So encourage you to not only listen to this episode,
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  Speaker 2: but subscribe to Thinking Christian so you can catch the
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  Speaker 2: whole political series we're going to do. So Ashish, welcome.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks for having this conversation. I already kind of tipped
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  Speaker 2: my hat. I think I got into politics and political discourse.
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  Speaker 2: I think the first article I ever wrote was on
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  Speaker 2: politics was related to giving to Caesar what is Caesar's
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  Speaker 2: and this idea that there needs to be a distinction.
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  Speaker 2: And I think this has been a theme that sort
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  Speaker 2: of carried forward in most of my work on politics
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  Speaker 2: is that there needs to be a distinction between church
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  Speaker 2: and state. though not an isolation of church from state.
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  Speaker 2: And that's sort of been my, I would say my
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  Speaker 2: governing framework, because I've looked at different things like American
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  Speaker 2: civil religion, which I think tends toward more of a
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  Speaker 2: merger of Christianity and politics, or even Christian nationalism, which
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  Speaker 2: has that real strong draw of, hey, Christians should take
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  Speaker 2: over government kind of aspect. So that's definitely one of
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  Speaker 2: the things that I think is you have to almost
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  Speaker 2: start and you have to understand who you are as
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  Speaker 2: a Christian, as a member of the body of Christ,
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  Speaker 2: what that body of Christ is in the world, how
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  Speaker 2: it's supposed to function before we really even get to politics.
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  Speaker 2: So that'd be the first issue I'd throw out there.
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  Speaker 2: And we don't have to talk about that in depth,
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  Speaker 2: but just to say, when I approach politics, one of
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  Speaker 2: the things that I'm always thinking of in my mind
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  Speaker 2: is how is my political participation going to reflect either
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  Speaker 2: positively or negatively, on the church's witness.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm glad we're having this conversation. Similarly to you,
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  Speaker 3: there's a longstanding interest in this conversation for me. I
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  Speaker 3: taught a few times a class called Political Theology. That
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  Speaker 3: class actually taught me that there's an important disclaimer before
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  Speaker 3: you enter into it, because a lot of people came
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  Speaker 3: to the class saying, for one of two reasons that
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  Speaker 3: were interesting. One of them was, and this one doesn't
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  Speaker 3: help in the current moment, it was just simply, I
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  Speaker 3: want to take a class with that guy.
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  Speaker 1: You were popular. That's good.
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  Speaker 3: I was popular in some sectors, not in others. Or
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  Speaker 3: popular for different reasons, right?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And that, I want to take a class with that guy,
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  Speaker 3: doesn't apply. But then there were others who came to
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  Speaker 3: the class thinking, That what they were getting into was
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  Speaker 3: a very granular look at why.
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  Speaker 4: One should be a Republican or a Democrat.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And what they learned pretty quickly was that's not at
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  Speaker 3: all what the class was about. And I say that
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  Speaker 3: by way of segue to say that's not precisely what
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  Speaker 3: political theology is about. I think that actually demonstrates the
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  Speaker 3: truncated nature within which we tend to use the language political.
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  Speaker 1: Agreed.
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  Speaker 3: And even if you zoom out to other countries than
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  Speaker 3: the United States where the word political doesn't connote just
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  Speaker 3: two parties, even that would be still too truncated.
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  Speaker 4: Because the idea at play here is the root word.
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  Speaker 3: The root word of political is polis, which is an
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  Speaker 3: ancient Greek term that just meant the city. And specifically
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  Speaker 3: the political were those things referring to the affairs of
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  Speaker 3: the city. And so anything that revolves around that shared
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  Speaker 3: life together in a communal structure with formal boundaries on
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  Speaker 3: what it meant to be within that had to do
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  Speaker 3: with the political. And a political theology was very much
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  Speaker 3: geared towards what does it mean then to live as
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  Speaker 3: people who are followers of Christ within that shared environment
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  Speaker 3: of the polis. including but not limited to those or
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  Speaker 3: with those who maybe have no interest in the person
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  Speaker 3: of Jesus or the kingdom come and the will of
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  Speaker 3: the Father be done on earth as it is in heaven, right?
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  Speaker 3: And so it raises all sorts of questions that certainly
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  Speaker 3: lend to the conversations we think of as political, right?
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  Speaker 3: Some of the issues that separate Democrats and Republicans or
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  Speaker 3: in other countries, various other parties, but are certainly not
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  Speaker 3: limited to that. And certainly, can't be reduced to an
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  Speaker 3: advocacy for either party.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I think that, you know, in theological circles these days,
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  Speaker 2: it is not uncommon to hear that the gospel is
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  Speaker 2: a political gospel.
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  Speaker 1: And I think.
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  Speaker 2: In the best case scenarios, what people mean by that
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  Speaker 2: is that the coming of the kingdom of God and
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  Speaker 2: the proclamation of the lordship of Christ, King Jesus, you'll
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  Speaker 2: often hear it said, is over against the rulers and
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  Speaker 2: authorities of this world. Now, I think there needs probably
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  Speaker 2: a lot of qualification around that, but I think it's
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  Speaker 2: a point that's well made more generally, is to say
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  Speaker 2: that this notion that we can separate cleanly between politics
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  Speaker 2: and religion and that, for instance, Christianity is a religion
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  Speaker 2: and politics is politics or the American government represents the
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  Speaker 2: political realm.
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  Speaker 1: It's not really strictly that.
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  Speaker 2: As we look at the authority structures that we find
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  Speaker 2: in scripture, we do see that God is sovereign overall.
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  Speaker 2: And then there's a question of whether or not governing
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  Speaker 2: authorities recognize that sovereignty, whether the church recognizes that sovereignty
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  Speaker 2: to a degree, how the church recognizes that sovereignty through
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  Speaker 2: things like lack of compromise and of the faith as
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  Speaker 2: suffering comes, right? Are we really willing to be obedient
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  Speaker 2: when there are negative consequences to that obedience, that kind
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  Speaker 2: of non-compromise is what I have in mind. So I
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  Speaker 2: think that the point you're making is well taken, that
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  Speaker 2: there is a political, there is a sense in which
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  Speaker 2: the gospel is political because God's kingdom has a king
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  Speaker 2: and that king is above all other kings. And to
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  Speaker 2: the extent that everybody is beholden to live under the
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  Speaker 2: authority of Christ, right? We're all, everyone is obligated to
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  Speaker 2: do that. Then there becomes this question of, well, how
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  Speaker 2: do Christians do that under rulers who have a delegated
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  Speaker 2: authority from the sovereign? How do we relate to those
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  Speaker 2: delegated authorities? What is the scope of those delegated authorities?
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  Speaker 2: All of these kinds of questions, in addition to the
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  Speaker 2: ones you're raising, all come up. And That even looks
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  Speaker 2: different as we think about the way that Paul would
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  Speaker 2: have had to navigate this. And we've talked about this
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  Speaker 2: in other podcasts. But when Paul is giving his instructions to,
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  Speaker 2: for instance, bond servants and masters, there's probably a good
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  Speaker 2: reason that he's not thinking, you know, we should really
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  Speaker 2: change this part of society. We should free the bond servants.
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  Speaker 2: Because he had no particular outlet to do so. It's
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  Speaker 2: a completely different form of government. It's a completely different
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  Speaker 2: social setting. He has different limitations on the rights that
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  Speaker 2: he has as a Roman citizen than we do in
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  Speaker 2: the United States of America. And so all of these things,
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  Speaker 2: I think, point to the idea that when we're talking
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  Speaker 2: about the intersection of faith and politics, what we're really
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  Speaker 2: talking about is both something that is particular to a
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  Speaker 2: particular country, but also particular to a specific time within
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  Speaker 2: that country. And so this can look different the way we,
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  Speaker 2: the dorky way to say it is diachronically or through time, right?
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  Speaker 1: In the same way that it can look different geographically.
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  Speaker 2: So that our, what it means to be Christian in
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  Speaker 2: the United States is going to entail different activities than
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  Speaker 2: maybe it would require to be a Christian in, let's say,
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  Speaker 2: China or Russia or any of.
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  Speaker 1: These countries over on the other side of the ocean.
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  Speaker 2: And so there's a particular, a particularity to politics that,
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  Speaker 2: That tends nowadays to be bounded within what we would
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  Speaker 2: call a nation state.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: This makes me think of another disclaimer that has to
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  Speaker 3: enter into this, that when we're talking about being political antagonists,
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  Speaker 3: we're saying at base that we are creatures that exist
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  Speaker 3: within social political structures.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: But it does not mean that the entirety of our
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  Speaker 3: agency can be subsumed within what we tend to think
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  Speaker 3: of popularly as the political entity. So your example of Paul,
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  Speaker 3: I think, is a fitting one, right? He had no
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  Speaker 3: political agency if what we mean by that is the
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  Speaker 3: power to enact social structural changes that would say slavery
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  Speaker 3: is therefore no longer okay. He had no power to
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  Speaker 3: enact that. But he was every bit the political agent
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  Speaker 3: that could say, I can undermine it, right? And you
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  Speaker 3: look at the subtleties within which he talked, not least
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  Speaker 3: of which was, for instance, the Book of Philemon. Where
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  Speaker 3: he sends Onesimus back to Philemon, but in the process
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  Speaker 3: of doing so, he lets Philemon know, hey, guess what?
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  Speaker 3: This guy who is your slave, he's your brother in Christ.
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  Speaker 3: He's set at odds one political way of forming identities
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  Speaker 3: with another political way. And that other political way is
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  Speaker 3: one that could not be enacted by any agency of
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  Speaker 3: Paul as a social structural rule. about the nature of slavery,
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  Speaker 3: but it was one in which he could undermine the
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  Speaker 3: validity of the absoluteness within which Philemon perhaps was looking
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  Speaker 3: at Onesimus.
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  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: Another way to think about this or another example of this,
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  Speaker 3: I think is, and, and here's my, here's my dread
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  Speaker 3: at the moment that I'm going to get the passage
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  Speaker 3: a little bit wrong, but you get the idea. Um,
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  Speaker 3: I believe it was Martha was anointing the feet of
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  Speaker 3: Jesus with oil. And if I'm remembering and not conflating passages,
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  Speaker 3: the disciples chastised her for wasting the oil. You could
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  Speaker 3: have sold that and you can give that money to
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  Speaker 3: the poor. Jesus' response wasn't, don't worry about the poor. Jesus'
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  Speaker 3: response was, the poor will always be with us. Now,
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  Speaker 3: I think often that's been read as saying the poor
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  Speaker 3: should always be with us. No, I don't think that's
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  Speaker 3: at all what he's saying. What he's saying is in
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  Speaker 3: this particular moment, the work Martha is doing has a
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  Speaker 3: particular vision that's superseding yours. She gets what she's doing
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  Speaker 3: in a way that you don't. But he's not undermining
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  Speaker 3: the instinct to help the poor. He's saying there will
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  Speaker 3: be plenty of time to do exactly what you just say,
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  Speaker 3: to take that oil and sell it and give it
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  Speaker 3: to the poor. Now, whether or not one feels that
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  Speaker 3: the government does a good job of helping the poor,
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  Speaker 3: doesn't change the political agency that Jesus is advocating there
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  Speaker 3: for the church to help the poor.
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  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: That's the kind of distinction we have at play here,
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  Speaker 3: where there is a political agency that's outside of the
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  Speaker 3: typical received notion of politics, as we like to interpret it. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And theology, at its best, it's knowingly attending to that.
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  Speaker 3: At its worst— it fails to recognize that it is
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  Speaker 3: already enacting as political agents, right? Because we exist in context.
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  Speaker 3: We exist relative to powers and authorities and principalities. We
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  Speaker 3: exist relative to leaders, dominions, rulers. And we have to
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  Speaker 3: make decisions that don't just simply honor the lines that
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  Speaker 3: those political powers and dominions and rulers and authorities set
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  Speaker 3: in place.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So would you agree that, Or what would you think
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  Speaker 2: of this idea?
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  Speaker 1: Maybe that's the better way to phrase this.
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  Speaker 2: So James Gibson wrote this book called, I'm going to
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  Speaker 2: blank on the title. It's an ecological theory of visual perception,
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  Speaker 2: I think is the title. But basically what he says
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  Speaker 2: is that this is really a profound insight. Smaller things
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  Speaker 2: are contained within bigger things.
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  Speaker 1: Right. And so everything is nested within this large area.
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  Speaker 2: Now, If I'm thinking about that from a Christian perception,
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  Speaker 2: what we're really saying here is that everything is nested
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  Speaker 2: underneath God's authority. And so what you end up with
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  Speaker 2: is God is the sort of all-encompassing biggest environment you
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  Speaker 2: can think of. And so as Paul is moving about
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  Speaker 2: and like, you know, talking, you know, sending Onesimus back
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  Speaker 2: to Philemon, for instance, What he's really doing is he's
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  Speaker 2: calling Philemon to have a bigger vision. Don't allow yourself
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  Speaker 2: to be fully nested within the Roman Empire and the
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  Speaker 2: conventions and practices within that empire. Don't be slave to
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  Speaker 2: that because you have, again, to use Gibson term, affordances
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  Speaker 2: beyond that. In other words, when Gibson thinks of affordances,
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  Speaker 2: these are the tools that you encounter along the way Right.
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  Speaker 2: That all of these have some sort of a utility
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  Speaker 2: for humankind, for lack of a better term. And all
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  Speaker 2: we have to do is recognize that utility and then
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  Speaker 2: we can use it as such. It's not quite that utilitarian,
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  Speaker 2: but you get the gist. And so for Philemon, what
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  Speaker 2: Paul is trying to open up is to say, look,
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  Speaker 2: Onesimus is coming back, but he's not a slave.
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  Speaker 1: He's a brother. Onesimus is coming back.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, he ran away. You could treat him harshly. I'm
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  Speaker 2: asking you not to. I'm asking you to treat him
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  Speaker 2: like a Christian who has come back to his family.
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  Speaker 2: And now you guys have a completely different relationship, not
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  Speaker 2: because what he did was right, necessarily, but because the
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  Speaker 2: way you're going to welcome him back is going to
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  Speaker 2: be attuned to God's authority and not to Roman conventions.
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  Speaker 2: This to me is an interesting way of sort of
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  Speaker 2: saying that Paul is, sometimes I phrase it as relocating
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  Speaker 2: a particular set of practices back underneath the authority of God,
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  Speaker 2: but it might be better to say he's resituating these
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  Speaker 2: practices underneath the authority of God.
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  Speaker 1: Since they're never actually located somewhere different.
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  Speaker 2: So I don't know, does that get at what you're
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  Speaker 2: talking about there, Ashish?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I see Paul redrawing lines right there, right? That
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  Speaker 3: even if he can't go and say, hey, Caesar, this
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  Speaker 3: practice is horrific.
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  Speaker 4: This isn't the way it's supposed to be. He can't
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  Speaker 4: do that.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 4: And there's no elections.
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  Speaker 3: It's nothing like that, right? Caesar's in control because Caesar's
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  Speaker 3: in control. Ambassador political power that he has, right? The
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  Speaker 3: military that he has, the support that he has. And
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  Speaker 3: so he goes to the person that he can, the
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  Speaker 3: person that he knows he can direct towards a different
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  Speaker 3: different sort of authority, a greater authority, right? To the
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  Speaker 3: degree that Philemon has a belief in the person and
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  Speaker 3: authority of Jesus, he knows that he can appeal to
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  Speaker 3: that and he can begin to redraw lines. You may
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  Speaker 3: know that you have the political power in terms of
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  Speaker 3: this or the social capital in terms of this structure
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  Speaker 3: to have this slave, but I'm telling you, Onesimus is
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  Speaker 3: more than that. And of course, there is, by the way,
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  Speaker 3: I shouldn't say of course, it's not obvious, but there
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  Speaker 3: is a Greek play on words there, right? He's sending
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  Speaker 3: back the one who is, in name, useless. I'm sending
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  Speaker 3: him back to you useful, right? He's recasting, and in recasting,
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  Speaker 3: lines are also being redrawn in terms of the demarcation
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  Speaker 3: of how we understand this person, that we're beginning to
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  Speaker 3: value this person. Even as the social structures are what
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  Speaker 3: they are, We've undermined them in various ways. I think
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  Speaker 3: another way of saying this is he's reshaping the imagination.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: And I think that's a.
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  Speaker 3: Powerful word that is going to have to have a
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  Speaker 3: lot of value within the conversations of political theology, that
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  Speaker 3: there's an imagination that we bequeath just because we are people.
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  Speaker 3: We all imagine the world in certain kinds of ways.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: But what a good political theology does is it pushes
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  Speaker 3: you to reimagine the world as a different sort of thing. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: than what our received structures are. I think kids do
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  Speaker 3: this beautifully and wonderfully. I'm honestly actually really hesitant to
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  Speaker 3: ever buy my kid's very particular toys. So one of
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  Speaker 3: my kids loves the Ninja Turtles. His birthday is upcoming.
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  Speaker 3: And I want to see the excitement on his face
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  Speaker 3: by buying him a Ninja Turtle action figure. But there's
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  Speaker 3: another part of me that says, this kid takes anything
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  Speaker 3: and everything... And he can somehow imagine it to be
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  Speaker 3: a tool of the ninja.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And he does it because he has a more, kids
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  Speaker 3: have this, they have a more open-ended imagination, right? They
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  Speaker 3: can take things and they can make whatever they want
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  Speaker 3: out of it. That's why they see, they see the
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  Speaker 3: box packaging that's sitting by the door, ready to go
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  Speaker 3: in the recycling bin.
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  Speaker 4: And they get excited. They quite literally get excited. They say, Papa,
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  Speaker 4: can I use this? Sure.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Just on recycling day, it's still going out, but for
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: now you can use this. Yeah. And I watched them
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: to the point where I've actually started putting them in
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: a bag when I get packaging because I know they're
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: going to get excited and be creative and use it.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: There's an openness to their imagination where it hasn't been
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: so set that they can see things for other purposes.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Another parallel here I would say is being the child
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: of an immigrant, you start to see the different ways
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: that being, frankly, closer to the center of global world order.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: It's very different than being on the periphery of global
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: world order. I remember we opened up, the car wasn't
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: starting and we opened up the hood as kids. And
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: my dad says, look at this. And he shows me
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: the corrosion on the battery terminals. Now, my parents, they
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: weren't particularly keen on letting.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: Me drink pops, sodas, Cokes, whatever you want to call them,
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: depending on the part of the country you're from.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: But we had some. And it was kind of one
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: of those things of why do we have these if
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: we're not allowed to drink them?
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: My dad went and.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Got one of them and he says, watch this. And
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: he pours it on the battery terminal and the corrosion
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: just melts away. And what he wanted to show me was,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: there could be a secondary lesson. The secondary lesson could be,
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: you want to put that into your mouth?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: You want to put that into your stomach?
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: But that wasn't actually his point. He was just showing
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: me what he did. We have tools all around us
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: that can get the things done that we need to
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: get done, even if it's not the prescribed way our
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: imagination has said they ought to be used, right? It's
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: the same sort of thing as kids do. And that's
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: the sort of thing that I think a good political
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: theology could do. It can sort of say, I can
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: work with that. I live within this structure. How can
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: I redraw lines? How can I take and flip the narrative?
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: How can I place myself within one imposition of a
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: way of being and bring freedom, the freedom that is
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: in Christ in the midst of that, if that makes
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: any sense?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: It does.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Let me try to, I think, illustrate what you're talking about,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: and then I'll try to tie this into another point
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: that I think is really crucial for us to wrestle with.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: I got asked to be a panel on Christian nationalism,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: and so I was talking with people there, and I
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: had mentioned some of the ways that I vote and
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: don't vote and different things like that, and they were
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: sort of appalled. Um, and they said, you know, how
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: can you not, cause I don't, I don't vote in
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: every general election. I'll just say it like that. Like,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: and so they were wondering, why don't you vote?
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: And I tried to explain, like, I live in Illinois.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: And so if you're a Democrat, they don't need you.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: And if you're a Republican, you don't matter. Like we're
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: a pretty deep blue state. Like, it's not like one
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: vote is going to make that history.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: At least in recent history, it's not going to make
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of difference, you know? And, uh, And
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: so finally, I said, listen, I said, I don't view
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: voting as a sacred duty. I think understanding it that
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: way is problematic because at some point, whenever we vote,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: we could have a detrimental impact on the church's witness.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And I think we should be able to, as Christians,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: choose not to have that detrimental impact. And so I
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: don't view it as a sacred duty. I see it
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: as a voluntary right that we can exercise or not,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: depending on and constrained by how this does or does
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: not advance the gospel. They still didn't like that. So
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I finally said, and I don't mean this as a
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: virtue signal, but I'm just saying, I said to them,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: my wife and I recently adopted. How many kids have
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: you adopted? And they said, well, none, which I think
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: was lucky for the illustration of my point. But when
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: they said none, I said, well, why not? Why wouldn't
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: you adopt? Why wouldn't you take care of the widow
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: and the orphan? Now, in some ways, it's a loaded question, right?
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not suggesting that all Christians go out and adopt children, right?
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: But the point is this, that there has.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: To be some level of discernment within our political ideologies,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: our political theology and understanding to allow the church to
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: be the church in the various and manifold ways that
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: the church can be the church.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: And I think the.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Core layer to this is that once we get tied
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: into the political machine where Christians just need to get
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: out and rock the vote, Christians need to like the
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: posts that rally against or rail against a particular policy
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: we don't like. I don't really have too much of
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: a problem with some of those things, but I would
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: say that because that's become the primary mechanism in the
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: United States that we use to engage politically, We have
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: lost resources that come along with being the political body
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: of Christ committed to the gospel and unwilling to compromise,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: even though there are negative consequences that may come along
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: with obedience. In other words, I think that we have
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: to start thinking in terms of, and I almost hate
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: to borrow this language because it's got such a pejorative
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: effect in other places, but we need to be Christian first.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Like, Who we are, our.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Identity needs to be rooted in this notion that the
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: church can have and is intended to be for the
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: sake of the world as much as it's intended to
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: be for the glory of God. And what I mean
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: by that is that without the church, the world has
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: no way of seeing the divine self-disclosure. Like we're supposed
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: to embody that to some way, shape or form. And
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: I think that that is an aspect of our political
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: theology that has to come out here. We can't just
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: get stuck with our primary vehicle of let's get the
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: right guy elected. Let's get the right policy enacted. We
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: also have to be boots on the ground, actually doing
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: the work and being the church, regardless of whether a
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: particular leader or set of policies is right. quote-unquote, going
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: our way or not. Does that make sense to you, Ashish,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: what I just said?
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: It absolutely does.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: So I want to draw out the significant strands that
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: I think align here, and that's that let's give a
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: name to it, right? One of the primary voting bloc
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: issues for especially evangelicals and conservative Catholics in this country,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: if not the primary voting bloc issue, is abortion, right?
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: One of the, but not the only, critiques of the
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: pro-life movement, as it's called, is that Christians advocate strongly
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: against abortion, but do very little to help people that
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: find themselves in a position such that they end up
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: choosing abortion.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: One of the ways in which we see this manifested
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: in is The extreme issue that many orphanages have in
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: which they have children that age out, right? There's a
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: fairly small window in which children tend to be adopted.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: And once they age out of a certain range deemed
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: to be the cute range, they're no longer really the
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: kids that people want. And now they're left in a
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: situation that is often, not necessarily, but often tragic, right?
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: A growth in the sense of being not wanted, a
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: growth in the sense of displacement. And it ends up
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: creating other cycles that are deeply problematic, right?
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: And what you're advocating here is, or what you're at
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: least implying, I should say. I don't know the full
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: way in which you made your speech. But what you
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: seem to have at least been implying is that the
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: ways that we've drawn the lines... fail to take into
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: account that there's other sorts of ways of being in
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: the world that create an environment that if you don't
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: want people to commit abortions, then you create avenues of
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: opportunity that are viable.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: So how many of you have adopted?
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: You're redrawing lines, right? It's a signal for a political
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: change of imagination, by which I mean, again, not in
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: the narrow sense, but in the broad sense, rethinking the
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: way that boundaries are. I think another way of looking
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: at this is to think about racial politics. I live
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: in the Chicagoland area, and it's impossible to deny that
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: historically Chicago and the Chicago area has deeply drawn racial divisions.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: If you look at the aggregate of it, it's quite
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: the diverse place. But if you look at the drawing
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: of the boundaries, both historically and even the way that
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: they're maintained in various ways today, You have clearly demarcated
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: areas where you can point to.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: This is where such and such people live.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Right down to the very community I live in that
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: has a very heavily Islamic community that draws upon people
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: ranging from northern India through the UAE, right? Immigrants from
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: these different areas. But you can, again, look at the
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: community and you know where people live.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Now, I was involved in a church for a long
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: time in which I was trying to have conversations with
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: a pastor. And I'll leave names of church and pastor
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: out of this. But I was trying to advocate that
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: this church is hard for me to attend. I have
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: my reasons for why I was attending the church, but
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: I said it's hard for me to motivate myself still
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: on a weekly basis to come and to be involved in.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: And I was involved at the time at that church because.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: There seems to be very little effort made to recognize
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: that there are barriers within this church, social imaginary barriers
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: to people who don't look like the pastor or sound
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: like the average person in this church, that I have
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: to overcome those barriers every time I come here. And
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: he seemed like he was listening. He seemed really attentive.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: But then he said, you know what, Ashish, I hear you,
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: but we also have to reckon with basic facts of
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: this community just as white. That was a really disappointing
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: answer to me, not least because I could immediately point
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: to the pockets that.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: Were very not white. Mm-hmm.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: And I could point to the fact that, you know what,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: if I walk into this church on a Tuesday, you
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: know what I'll see? I'll see those people coming in
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: here for language classes.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: English as a second language class.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: But if I walk in here on a Wednesday or
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: on a Sunday, nope. Why is it that they don't
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: feel welcomed or invited to come in on a Wednesday
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: and a Sunday in a way that they'll walk in
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: for a completely non-religious experience of learning English as a
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: second language? And to his credit, he said, that's a
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: good point. I never thought about that. And my larger
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: point was because we've organized the ways that we think
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: as a church and the things that we prioritize and
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: the ways in which we organize our life of worship
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: and the ways in which we signal out social being
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: and political being. That's very exclusionary, meaning those same lines
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: we see in the Chicagoland area that demarcate what spaces
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: are safe for whom, are the same lines within which
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: this church operates. What if, just what if, the church
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: challenged that imaginary and said, we're building, whether physically or metaphorically,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: on borders rather than within those boundaries, right? Now, I'll
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: leave off the story of that church and speak more
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: optimistically and just simply say, I think that's the sort
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: of thing that you were getting at, it sounds to me,
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: with your comments about adoption. It's the sort of thing
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: that I'm definitely trying to get at by signaling that
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: there's great opportunity in imagination and expanding that imagination. Because
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: often the sorts of boundaries that we take for granted,
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: often implicitly, are things formed in us, but we're not
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: even aware of, right? And it's the same reason that
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: kids who haven't yet been rigidified, if I can make
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: up a word, in those sorts of ways- can pick
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: up one thing and imagine it to be something else
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: and be entertained for hours with it, right? So what
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: if the church could think in those sorts of ways, right?
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: That's the challenge and the hope.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love, I mean, one of the passages I
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: reflected on a pretty good bit here lately is 1
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Corinthians 7, and I think it has deep application to
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: a political theology. And part of the reason I think
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: that is because Paul is urging Christians people to remain as.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: They are called.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Now, what's he doing there? He speaks to married people,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: single people, and then ultimately bond servants. I don't think
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: what he's saying is, if you're single, just never get married.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Or if you're a bond servant, never seek your freedom.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: In fact, in the passage, he says, but if you
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: can gain your freedom, do it. So he's not arguing
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: that you should never change your social status. This is
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: not Paul saying that we all have our destiny and
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: we all have our lot to live. And so just
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: stay where God put you and don't have any ambition.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: That's not the point of the text. What I think
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: the point of the text is, is this. We don't
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: have to change our social situation in order to serve God.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a really crucial lesson for the
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: church in the United States today and probably in other countries.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I'm just most familiar with the United States is to
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: say this, that. We've tended to lean into the politics pretty,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: to the political realm, I'll say, the government pretty hard.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: We've engaged a strategy.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Or a big portion of the evangelical community, at least,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: has engaged a strategy that says, if we can get
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: the right judges on the Supreme Court, if we can
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: get the right people in office, if we can get
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: the right policies in place, if we can get the
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: right laws changed, we're going to be better off. I
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: don't disagree with that being the case at all, right? Like,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Some of those things are fine. Like, go ye therefore
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: and do. My problem is that there's a capture within
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: that political realm that says, if we don't change it,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: we can't really serve the Lord. And so people begin
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: to default to changing the world, as opposed to serving
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: the Lord where they are, doing what they can. And
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: there's just something in me, maybe it's the old personal trainer, man, like,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: you know, you develop strength one rep at a time.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: It's just all it is.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: It's always about the next rep. You either get it
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: or you don't. But it's small steps, right? And we
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: can construct them as bigger workouts or year-long programs or whatever.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, it comes down to,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: you're still doing one rep at a time. And to me,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: I think that if we lose this notion that the
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: church has the ability to do one rep at a time,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: that we can do small things that are going to
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: add up to big service to the Lord, whether that
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: changes the country's political landscape or not, is not really
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: my concern, right? But my concern is that when we
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: live into faithfulness, we're living into the responsibility we've been given.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: And I would just argue that we are not, Christians
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: aren't responsible for changing the world. We're responsible for living
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: in the world faithfully as we wait for God to
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: transform it. That may very well entail certain changes in
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: the world. It may very well mean that we, to
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: your point, the poor will always be with us. It
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: may very well mean that we keep running into the poor, right?
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: And helping the poor until the end of the world, right?
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: And nothing changes about that. The poor will always be
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: with us, right? That problem never gets fixed until the end.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: I think our job is not to fix it. It's
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: to live faithfully within it. And this is, that's where
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: I think that first Corinthians seven passage really resonates with
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: me as we think about sort of the political theology aspect,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: because in it, Paul is saying, you don't have to
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: change your situation in order to serve the Lord, serve
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: where you're found.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Don't miss opportunities to change things. That's fine. but serve
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: the Lord where you're found, serve the Lord where you're called.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Um, so yeah, I, you know, any last comments on
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: that and then we'll, we'll kind of close off the episode.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: I want to look at your comment from a slightly
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: different angle, but to say the same thing where you
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: said you don't have to change your, your situation in
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: order to bring about the sorts of public changes or
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: public efforts.
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: Um, Right.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: We can continue to be where we are, but that
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: requires us to begin to see with new eyes, to
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: hear with new ears, to maybe hear from those we
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: haven't previously been willing to hear from, to be willing
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: to give an ear to those who we might incline
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: to be thinking, well, they're coming from some position that
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: I know I'm going to disagree with, and listen charitably, right?
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: It'd be the willingness of the pastor to look and say,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: you know what, this community maybe isn't quite as homogenous
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: as I thought it was. I'm just drawing lines in
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: the wrong way. And so there's a willingness to challenge
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: the givenness and to allow the opening up of an
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: imagination to see things more broadly or from a different
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: angle or in terms of different sorts of goals than
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: what's given to us from the pulpit of the political
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: stands or podiums.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: I think this is going to be an interesting series
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: because I think what we're going to start to open
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: up and recognize is that the church has a really
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: unique political role to play. And it's a, to borrow
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: a William Kavanaugh term, a theo-political role to play.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: In the world.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: We've obviously already mentioned imaginaries, which is Charles Taylor's language.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: We're going to be able to dive into a lot
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: of these ideas in greater depth across this series. And
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: so We're just barely scratching the surface on it here.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: So I'd encourage everybody to come back and continue on
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: with this series. We've got some really great guests lined
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: up and so excited to have some folks on the
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: show and hopefully continue lining up some additional people. We've
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: got one guy who Ashish and I worked with for
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: a long time that we're excited about, but many.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: People might not know, Michael McDuffie.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: We've got Kevin Flatt, who wrote a book on secularization,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: social order, and world history.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Who's got some really interesting stuff. And we're bringing back
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: some old favorites like David Kiosis and a few others
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: that have been on the show before. Veronica Ogle is
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: going to be on, who wrote on the City of
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: God and Augustine. We've just got a really.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Great lineup of people who are going to bring a
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: lot of diverse perspectives and thought process to this. And
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: so just encourage you all to come back and subscribe
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: to Thinking Christian so you don't miss any episodes. But Thanks, Ashish,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: for being here today. Thanks for the conversation. And thanks, everybody,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode of
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Thinking Christian.