Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / David Koyzis on Divided Loyalties | Faith & Politics #2

Transcript

David Koyzis on Divided Loyalties | Faith & Politics #2 · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian.
0:03
Speaker 2: I'm Dr.
0:03
Speaker 3: James Spencer, and I'm joined again today by David Koizis.
0:07
Speaker 3: David's been on the show a couple of times in
0:09
Speaker 3: the past, talking not only about politics, which is the
0:12
Speaker 3: topic of conversation today, but he was also on talking
0:15
Speaker 3: about the Psalms. And so it's great to have David back.
0:18
Speaker 3: He is a member of Global Scholars Canada and an
0:23
Speaker 3: author of Citizenship Without Illusions and several other books, one
0:28
Speaker 3: of which we'll get into later today. But I'll have
0:31
Speaker 3: links to his stuff in the show notes. But I
0:33
Speaker 3: would encourage you, we've talked about Citizenship Without Illusions on
0:38
Speaker 3: the show before, but he's actually got a couple of
0:40
Speaker 3: other political books that I think would be really great
0:43
Speaker 3: for folks to look at.
0:44
Speaker 1: So we'll link those in the show description as well.
0:46
Speaker 1: But without further ado, David, welcome back to the program.
0:49
Speaker 2: Thank you, James. I very much enjoyed our previous conversation,
0:52
Speaker 2: so I really looked forward to it today as well.
0:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we're going to hop back into familiar territory.
0:58
Speaker 3: I'm in this territory that you deal with a lot
1:01
Speaker 3: more than I do, actually. And so, you know, as
1:04
Speaker 3: we're leading up into in America, we have the midterms
1:07
Speaker 3: coming up. And what we're trying to do on the
1:10
Speaker 3: show is really help give Christians a little bit of
1:13
Speaker 3: a different sense of how they might think about their
1:16
Speaker 3: political participation and what it really means to live out
1:20
Speaker 3: our faith publicly in that realm as a political sort
1:23
Speaker 3: of movement. So not exactly about voting and all that
1:28
Speaker 3: kind of fun stuff, but how do we think of
1:30
Speaker 3: ourselves as political within this movement?
1:34
Speaker 1: Particular nation or any nation, really. And so maybe we
1:37
Speaker 1: can just start there.
1:38
Speaker 3: Like, I know you deal with in the book, sort
1:40
Speaker 3: of this, you situate us between, you know, being residents
1:46
Speaker 3: of earth and citizens of heaven.
1:47
Speaker 1: I don't think that's your language. That's mine. But help
1:50
Speaker 1: us understand sort of how we sit in relation to
1:53
Speaker 1: the governing authorities.
1:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we can find analogies for other communities
2:00
Speaker 2: of which we are a part as well. You know, so,
2:03
Speaker 2: you know, we can say that we're citizens of Canada
2:06
Speaker 2: or the United States or Brazil or whatever, whatever other country,
2:09
Speaker 2: you know, but, but it's, it's the same way as
2:10
Speaker 2: saying that, you know, I'm a member of a particular
2:12
Speaker 2: birth family. I was born into that, that birth family. Uh,
2:16
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a member of, uh, of a, um, uh,
2:18
Speaker 2: maybe a particular church congregation as well. I'm a, I'm
2:22
Speaker 2: a member of this and that, and a variety of
2:24
Speaker 2: different kinds of communities. And, uh, the political community is
2:28
Speaker 2: no higher, um, than those other communities. We have divided responsibilities,
2:34
Speaker 2: divided loyalties, almost structurally, just by who we are as
2:40
Speaker 2: those created in God's image. And where we find ourselves
2:44
Speaker 2: in this particular stage of history, we find ourselves embedded
2:50
Speaker 2: in a variety of communities, to each of which we
2:54
Speaker 2: have responsibilities. And I think those responsibilities are, you know,
3:00
Speaker 2: they do not, define us. No one of them can
3:02
Speaker 2: define who we are as those created in God's image.
3:07
Speaker 2: So those people who would say, well, we are Americans first,
3:10
Speaker 2: or we are Canadians first. I hardly ever hear Canadians
3:13
Speaker 2: using that kind of language. I might hear Americans, perhaps,
3:17
Speaker 2: maybe in the 1930s, you would have heard Germans using
3:20
Speaker 2: that kind of language as well. But ultimately, we are
3:24
Speaker 2: members of the body of Christ. That's our first allegiance.
3:28
Speaker 2: And that body is an international body. And then within that,
3:31
Speaker 2: we are members of a variety of different kinds of communities,
3:37
Speaker 2: all of which help to define us as those who
3:42
Speaker 2: are created in God's image, but none of which exhaust
3:45
Speaker 2: who we are as the image of God.
3:49
Speaker 3: I want to kind of think through a little bit
3:51
Speaker 3: this idea of first allegiance, because I think when I've
3:54
Speaker 3: had conversations with folks, it's been hard to get people
3:59
Speaker 3: out of what I'll call.
3:59
Speaker 1: Sort of a prioritization mentality, right?
4:02
Speaker 3: Like you have a pie graph, and as long as
4:05
Speaker 3: you're giving God 51% of that pie graph, you're in
4:08
Speaker 3: good shape or something like that. You know, like we
4:10
Speaker 3: have this sense of, well, I loved God this morning,
4:13
Speaker 3: and now I can go ahead and do everything else
4:15
Speaker 3: I need to do. And that's not really, I think,
4:18
Speaker 3: what we're talking about, right?
4:20
Speaker 1: No, that's right.
4:22
Speaker 2: That's right. And, you know, I have a spiritual discipline,
4:28
Speaker 2: of morning and evening prayer, you know, the revolves around
4:32
Speaker 2: the Benedictine pattern. I've been doing that ever since I
4:34
Speaker 2: was about 23 years old, you know, so this is a,
4:37
Speaker 2: you know, the better part of half a century now,
4:39
Speaker 2: you know, and, and, and there, the, the danger in
4:42
Speaker 2: that is that you can think that, okay, I've gotten
4:45
Speaker 2: this out of the way now. Now it's time to
4:48
Speaker 2: get on with the rest of the day and with my,
4:50
Speaker 2: my work and whatever I'm, I'm doing, you know, and,
4:53
Speaker 2: and that's not the way to, that's not the way
4:54
Speaker 2: to think about it, you know? So, I mean, there's the, the,
4:58
Speaker 2: I mentioned the Benedictines. The Benedictines have this pattern of prayer.
5:02
Speaker 2: They didn't invent it. I think St. Benedict was simply
5:05
Speaker 2: codifying something that had been in practice for centuries, even
5:09
Speaker 2: among God's people of the Old Covenant, of prayers that
5:13
Speaker 2: took place several times a day. It may seem formulaic
5:17
Speaker 2: to us, but this is the way I'm reasonably confident
5:22
Speaker 2: that Jesus himself was embedded in that pattern as he
5:25
Speaker 2: was growing into adulthood. And, you know, there's something to
5:29
Speaker 2: be said for the entire day being bathed in the
5:35
Speaker 2: awareness of God's presence. And, you know, these prayer hours
5:39
Speaker 2: are approximately every three hours. There's something like that in
5:42
Speaker 2: the Lutheran tradition, which I know you were raised in
5:45
Speaker 2: as well. And I think it's a valuable tradition. But
5:48
Speaker 2: even that we can think of, well, we've gotten that
5:50
Speaker 2: out of the way. Now we can get on with
5:51
Speaker 2: our work. But our work is actually done before the
5:54
Speaker 2: face of God. And I think that's an awareness that
5:57
Speaker 2: we need to keep with us 24-7.
5:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, the way I've been trying to explain this to
6:02
Speaker 3: people is using the imagery of scuba diving, right? When
6:06
Speaker 3: you jump, when you're underneath the water and you're immersed
6:09
Speaker 3: in that water, you communicate differently, you move differently, you know,
6:14
Speaker 3: your senses are different. you know, your senses respond to
6:17
Speaker 3: the environment differently, all those kinds of things. And it's like,
6:20
Speaker 3: that's sort of the shift I think that needs to
6:23
Speaker 3: take place. When we think about being immersed in the
6:25
Speaker 3: love of God, it changes the way now that we
6:28
Speaker 3: end up interacting with these other loyalties that we have.
6:32
Speaker 3: When we engage in our family, we do so as,
6:35
Speaker 3: as people immersed within the love of God. And that
6:38
Speaker 3: changes then the way that we interact with our family.
6:41
Speaker 3: It changes the way we interact with our politics to
6:43
Speaker 3: change the way we interact with our.
6:44
Speaker 1: Work, that kind of an idea.
6:46
Speaker 3: And I've, I've found people to resonate with that.
6:49
Speaker 1: I'd be interested to hear what you think about that.
6:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, I, I don't know that I would use
6:54
Speaker 2: such a metaphor because I've never scuba dived and I'm,
6:57
Speaker 2: I'm only a social, I'm only a social swimmer, you know,
7:00
Speaker 2: I'm completely self-taught. I can keep myself afloat, you know,
7:02
Speaker 2: but it's, but, but, but, but I mean, you're right.
7:06
Speaker 2: When you're in the water, you, you, um, Everything is different,
7:09
Speaker 2: you know, and I think for those of us who
7:12
Speaker 2: are aware of being in Christ and, you know, this
7:15
Speaker 2: is something my awareness of God's presence is something that
7:18
Speaker 2: I've had ever since I was a small child. And
7:20
Speaker 2: it's not something I could easily shake. And I know
7:23
Speaker 2: it's quite different. You know, I'm quite different from my
7:25
Speaker 2: maternal grandfather who was raised a Lutheran, but was an
7:28
Speaker 2: agnostic in his in his later life. You know, and
7:31
Speaker 2: for me, that's I can't even fathom that it's so
7:34
Speaker 2: far outside of my own experiences. But I think insofar
7:37
Speaker 2: as we are aware of being in Christ, it does
7:39
Speaker 2: affect the way that we live our lives. And it's
7:42
Speaker 2: not going to be necessarily obvious to everybody every minute
7:48
Speaker 2: of the day, but I think it'll come out in
7:51
Speaker 2: subtle ways in the way that we treat our loyalties,
7:55
Speaker 2: the way that we handle our diverse responsibilities towards family
8:01
Speaker 2: and towards friends and towards our church communities, towards our workplace.
8:05
Speaker 2: and so forth. And I think that's something that people
8:11
Speaker 2: may keep that in mind. I had the experience a
8:15
Speaker 2: few years ago of being in a local Tim Hortons.
8:20
Speaker 2: It's a donut shop that's ubiquitous in Canada. It's almost
8:24
Speaker 2: a national institution. And there's a place not far from
8:28
Speaker 2: here where I go to spend time with friends and
8:31
Speaker 2: so forth. I was meeting a former student of mine
8:33
Speaker 2: a few years ago. We were sitting there and somebody
8:35
Speaker 2: came up to us and he said, are you two Christians?
8:39
Speaker 2: And I said, well, yes. How did you know that?
8:43
Speaker 2: I don't remember the answer. Well, I think he actually
8:45
Speaker 2: asked whether we were ministers. And I don't know why
8:49
Speaker 2: he thought that, you know, but there was something in
8:50
Speaker 2: the way that we were talking with each other and,
8:53
Speaker 2: you know, comporting ourselves that he sensed that there was
8:55
Speaker 2: something going on. And, you know, and a few years later,
8:59
Speaker 2: I can't, I can't even remember, think of how he
9:01
Speaker 2: might've thought that, but it, It came out to him
9:04
Speaker 2: while he was there, and I've had that experience in
9:06
Speaker 2: that place with other people as well.
9:09
Speaker 1: Interesting.
9:10
Speaker 2: It is, yeah.
9:13
Speaker 1: Because you grew up in the States, right? That's right.
9:16
Speaker 1: How long were you actually in the States?
9:18
Speaker 3: 30 years.
9:20
Speaker 2: 30 years, okay, and then you moved to Canada. Yeah,
9:23
Speaker 2: and then 40 years here in Canada, 41 years I
9:25
Speaker 2: suppose now. But yeah, I grew up in the Chicago area.
9:29
Speaker 2: That's where I think I've lost the accent. I go
9:32
Speaker 2: back and it sounds like everybody has an accent now,
9:34
Speaker 2: you know, but I've been away from there for so long.
9:38
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's where I grew up.
9:40
Speaker 3: When you, I mean, when you're looking at the politics
9:43
Speaker 3: between the United States and Canada, and, you know, you're
9:47
Speaker 3: thinking about sort of Christian identity in both of those places,
9:53
Speaker 3: what are some of the key differences you would say
9:55
Speaker 3: that you see? I mean, I think particularly for Christian
9:58
Speaker 3: engagement in politics, I just don't know that much about
10:03
Speaker 3: Canadian systems of government and how strong that actually is
10:06
Speaker 3: within Canada. It's the little blips with certain prime ministers
10:10
Speaker 3: or what have you.
10:10
Speaker 2: Before I talk about the political system, I mean, it
10:17
Speaker 2: is a different system. It's a Westminster system. So in
10:20
Speaker 2: some ways, it's closer to that of the United Kingdom.
10:23
Speaker 2: Australia and New Zealand, it's a little bit more inflexible here.
10:28
Speaker 2: It's a bit more rigid. In the United Kingdom, you
10:31
Speaker 2: hear about backbench revolts against a sitting prime minister within
10:35
Speaker 2: his own party. You never hear about that in Canada, unfortunately.
10:39
Speaker 2: I wish you did. So in some ways, we've inherited
10:43
Speaker 2: some of the most rigid features of the Westminster system.
10:46
Speaker 2: but we've also adopted some of the worst features of
10:49
Speaker 2: the American as well. You know, we're kind of in between, but,
10:53
Speaker 2: but we haven't gotten the best of both sides, I'm afraid. So, but, but,
10:57
Speaker 2: but I wanted to start by saying that I think
10:58
Speaker 2: there's a, there's a different attitude on the part of
11:01
Speaker 2: Christians in Canada towards the, the country of, of their birth,
11:06
Speaker 2: you know? So it's, it's, you know, in the United States,
11:09
Speaker 2: there's a much stronger sense of, of American identity and
11:13
Speaker 2: that this somehow has, um, You know, it goes to
11:18
Speaker 2: the heart in a deeper way than Canadian identity does.
11:24
Speaker 2: You know, so to be Canadian is not to be
11:26
Speaker 2: American in some sense. It's also to have people speaking
11:31
Speaker 2: two different languages. And now we would add the indigenous
11:34
Speaker 2: languages on top of that, you know, Inuit and O'Keefe
11:38
Speaker 2: and Ojibwe and all of these other languages. and so
11:40
Speaker 2: forth on top of that. So there's a much looser identity,
11:45
Speaker 2: a much looser identification with Canada. Yesterday was one of
11:49
Speaker 2: our national holidays. It's called Victoria Day, and it's named
11:54
Speaker 2: obviously for Queen Victoria, who was queen at the time
11:56
Speaker 2: the Canadian Confederation came about in 1867. And I was
12:01
Speaker 2: joking with my wife as we were people typically, we
12:05
Speaker 2: use it to attend to our gardens, to plant plants,
12:10
Speaker 2: you know, after the long Canadian winter. And I said,
12:13
Speaker 2: I said, I think I was telling my wife yesterday,
12:15
Speaker 2: I think I think Canadians have lost the true spirit
12:17
Speaker 2: of Victoria Day. You know, we've overly commercialized it, you know,
12:21
Speaker 2: which is an absolutely absurd statement to make. And I
12:23
Speaker 2: was being humorous about that. But, you know, but I think,
12:27
Speaker 2: you know, we identify with Canada, but but it's not.
12:32
Speaker 2: But there are a lot of other things we identify
12:34
Speaker 2: with as well. And we're comfortable with that. You would
12:36
Speaker 2: never have anybody saying, I'm a Canadian first above everything else.
12:41
Speaker 2: I think people would laugh if somebody actually said that. Yeah.
12:45
Speaker 3: And I mean, we have even beyond, you know, being Americans,
12:50
Speaker 3: a lot of states have this as well.
12:53
Speaker 1: I mean, you grew up in Chicago. So, you know,
12:56
Speaker 1: there is a deeper Chicago loyalty, let's say, than being
12:59
Speaker 1: in Illinois.
13:00
Speaker 2: Right.
13:00
Speaker 3: I mean, we were laughing before the show. It's like
13:02
Speaker 3: if you go south of Chicago too far, you're no
13:04
Speaker 3: longer in Illinois.
13:05
Speaker 2: I know. It's downstate. Everything out there in Chicago is downstate.
13:08
Speaker 1: It's downstate, right.
13:10
Speaker 3: And so, you know, Texas is obviously, you know, we
13:13
Speaker 3: have the don't mess with Texas. You know, there's certain
13:15
Speaker 3: states that develop their own sort of, oh, no, I'm
13:20
Speaker 3: from whatever.
13:21
Speaker 1: That's right.
13:22
Speaker 3: And those become much more stronger identity statements even sometimes
13:25
Speaker 3: than the national.
13:26
Speaker 1: And so, yeah.
13:27
Speaker 3: There's just some sort of weird tendency that we have
13:29
Speaker 3: in America that we seem to do this and like
13:32
Speaker 3: find this sort of real cohesion around our nation or
13:37
Speaker 3: our state or I suppose even our local community, depending
13:41
Speaker 3: on where you're from. You know, Los Angelinos or, you know,
13:46
Speaker 3: New York, New York, kind of Chicago, that kind of
13:48
Speaker 3: those kind of places tend to create their own gravity.
13:52
Speaker 2: Well, that's right. And that's inevitable in countries the size
13:55
Speaker 2: of Canada and the United States. And in a country,
13:59
Speaker 2: the United States is about 10 times the size of Canada,
14:02
Speaker 2: maybe nine times the size of Canada now. We've had
14:05
Speaker 2: quite a bit of growth in recent years. And to
14:10
Speaker 2: try to identify with a community that's that large, it's
14:16
Speaker 2: not something that comes from us naturally. You know, it
14:20
Speaker 2: doesn't arise from us naturally. You can be loyal to
14:23
Speaker 2: your local community. You can be loyal to your family
14:26
Speaker 2: and so forth, a church community and so forth. But
14:29
Speaker 2: to identify with a country with a third of a
14:33
Speaker 2: billion people, that kind of stretches our loyalties to a
14:36
Speaker 2: great deal. And I think that's why probably Americans, there
14:40
Speaker 2: has been much more of a sense of, I don't
14:43
Speaker 2: want to say nationalism quite yet, but there's more of
14:47
Speaker 2: an effort to try to inculcate in Americans this sense
14:50
Speaker 2: of being American. And in my latest book, Citizenship Without Illusions,
14:55
Speaker 2: I talk about that at the very beginning, because I'm
14:57
Speaker 2: talking about my own experience of growing up as a citizen.
15:02
Speaker 2: In my grade school, my elementary school classes, we would sing,
15:09
Speaker 2: we would face the flag. I can even picture it
15:12
Speaker 2: in my grade one classroom back in 1961, 62. You know,
15:17
Speaker 2: it's just to my left, you know, the flag is
15:19
Speaker 2: hanging to my left. We'd put our hands over our
15:21
Speaker 2: heart and we'd recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing,
15:23
Speaker 2: my country, to you. You know, and that's a way
15:26
Speaker 2: of trying to inculcate this sense of being American in
15:30
Speaker 2: students who, and it might go against our natural affinities
15:36
Speaker 2: in some fashion. You know, there's no pledge to the
15:39
Speaker 2: Canadian flag. You know, our flag was designed only in 1964, 1965.
15:42
Speaker 2: You know, so it's a much newer flag. flag. Prior
15:48
Speaker 2: to that, we didn't even have a national flag. We
15:50
Speaker 2: had the Union Jack and we had the red N sign,
15:53
Speaker 2: which had the Union Jack in the corner and the
15:55
Speaker 2: Canadian coat of arms and so forth. You know, our
15:57
Speaker 2: national symbols do not quite speak to us in the
16:01
Speaker 2: same way that American national symbols speak to Americans.
16:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting.
16:06
Speaker 3: I mean, I've done a fair amount of research at
16:09
Speaker 3: this point on American civil religion. And one of the
16:13
Speaker 3: quotes that I found really helpful, but also deeply troubling
16:18
Speaker 3: was from Robert Bella's early work on.
16:20
Speaker 1: American civil religion.
16:21
Speaker 3: And he talks about it in terms of American civil religion,
16:25
Speaker 3: not being anti-clerical or militantly secular. I think it's the
16:28
Speaker 3: way he describes it, but adopting the terminology and some
16:33
Speaker 3: of the rituals out of religion, And I would say
16:37
Speaker 3: in America, particularly Christianity, in such a subtle way that,
16:43
Speaker 3: and this is his phrasing, that most everyday people would
16:47
Speaker 3: never even notice. And then he talks about this being done.
16:52
Speaker 3: He doesn't give it this sort of mustache-twisting conspiratorial tone.
16:58
Speaker 3: But the goal was really to allow people to develop
17:02
Speaker 3: a sense of national pride. so that the nation could
17:08
Speaker 3: move things forward more easily and without the friction that
17:11
Speaker 3: might come with divided loyalties between church and state. And
17:16
Speaker 3: so it's a fascinating line in his work because I
17:19
Speaker 3: think he would view that as a positive of American
17:22
Speaker 3: civil religion.
17:23
Speaker 2: That's right.
17:23
Speaker 3: Whereas when I read it, I was like, wow, this
17:26
Speaker 3: is really problematic. It's deeply problematic for Christians.
17:30
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's true. And I
17:32
Speaker 2: think that's something that I, I, became aware of in the,
17:35
Speaker 2: when I was a young man in the, in the
17:37
Speaker 2: mid to late 1970s, you know, and, and at, at,
17:41
Speaker 2: at one point I, I, I adopted a, um, you know,
17:44
Speaker 2: outright hostility towards that to such a degree that I,
17:47
Speaker 2: I had difficulty singing the national anthem at all, you know,
17:50
Speaker 2: and I, and, you know, I've, I've, that's, I wouldn't
17:54
Speaker 2: want to go that far now, you know, I'm, I'm obviously,
17:56
Speaker 2: I'm an old man. I, I can, uh, you know, I, I,
18:01
Speaker 2: and I see that there, there's something positive for having, um,
18:04
Speaker 2: you know, national anthems, national hymns, if you will, that
18:09
Speaker 2: will extol pride or try to build up pride in
18:14
Speaker 2: one's country. But of course, pride, you know, there's a
18:17
Speaker 2: legitimate pride, but there's also a very bad pride as well,
18:20
Speaker 2: you know. And of course, pride is one of these
18:23
Speaker 2: seven deadly sins, you know, probably the chief of the
18:26
Speaker 2: sins in that respect. You know, there's a sense that,
18:29
Speaker 2: you know, we only have the one word in English
18:30
Speaker 2: for that. I think some languages distinguish between legitimate pride
18:35
Speaker 2: in one's children's accomplishments, for example, or an unhealthy pride
18:42
Speaker 2: which is a kind of macrocosmic egoism, if you will,
18:49
Speaker 2: which we want to try to avoid at all costs.
18:51
Speaker 2: I think there's something to be said in favor of
18:55
Speaker 2: national pride, but we also have to be aware that
18:58
Speaker 2: it can be taken in horribly distorted directions as well,
19:04
Speaker 2: which we saw in the 1930s in Europe. Certainly that's
19:09
Speaker 2: the sort of thing that we need to try to avoid.
19:11
Speaker 2: And I don't think we should lose an awareness of
19:15
Speaker 2: how things can go badly, even as we cultivate a
19:20
Speaker 2: legitimate pride in our communities, in our national communities or
19:25
Speaker 2: state communities or local communities or any kind of community
19:28
Speaker 2: of which we might be a part.
19:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's really interesting because when we think
19:34
Speaker 3: about that pride that develops, what I often see sort
19:37
Speaker 3: of coming out of that pride is also a hope.
19:41
Speaker 3: And so we just had our jobs report come out
19:43
Speaker 3: in April. We're recording this in May. And so our
19:47
Speaker 3: jobs report came out in April and it was better
19:49
Speaker 3: than everybody expected. But then there are also these reports
19:52
Speaker 3: that are talking about people still feeling sort of still
19:58
Speaker 3: despairing in where we are, despite the more positive numbers.
20:02
Speaker 3: And it's like, well, part of that is, you know,
20:05
Speaker 3: we've just been sort of.
20:06
Speaker 1: Underneath it a little bit. And I don't think it's
20:08
Speaker 1: anything like a lot of Americans aren't as bad off
20:12
Speaker 1: as many other people. But the idea is that we
20:15
Speaker 1: have been feeling more and more pressure in America economically
20:20
Speaker 1: than we have in the past. And so that's starting
20:22
Speaker 1: to wear on people.
20:23
Speaker 3: And I don't think any sort of statistical report is
20:26
Speaker 3: really going to fix that. But I'd like to think
20:29
Speaker 3: the other side is people are just starting to recognize
20:33
Speaker 3: that this is probably never going to be the, the
20:37
Speaker 3: satisfying moment, the peace that surpasses all understanding, um, that
20:41
Speaker 3: we'd love for it to be. And, and that, you know,
20:44
Speaker 3: when pride starts to cultivate that hope, I think it
20:46
Speaker 3: can become really problematic.
20:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That, that's interesting because I think, um, you know, we, there,
20:53
Speaker 2: there is hope, but there's also such a thing as, as,
20:56
Speaker 2: as false hopes as well, you know, and, and we
20:59
Speaker 2: tend to, um, you know, we, we, We want to
21:02
Speaker 2: keep hope, but we want to rightly direct our hope,
21:08
Speaker 2: which is not always easy to do. Hope is not
21:12
Speaker 2: the same as optimism. We may look at the world
21:18
Speaker 2: around us and we say we have very little grounds
21:20
Speaker 2: for optimism, but our hope transcends the sorts of pessimistic
21:27
Speaker 2: outlooks that we may find ourselves mired in. at the
21:29
Speaker 2: present time. And if we place our hopes in a president,
21:35
Speaker 2: for example, and Americans, every four years, they go through
21:39
Speaker 2: the ritual of thinking, who is going to save us?
21:43
Speaker 2: And that's the wrong way to think about a political office.
21:49
Speaker 2: In the late 19th century, presidents were fairly weak. There
21:52
Speaker 2: was no central bank. In the late 19th century, J.P.
21:54
Speaker 2: Morgan was uh, had the power to sink the whole
21:59
Speaker 2: American economy. You know, there's one, one man and he
22:02
Speaker 2: wasn't responsible to anybody other than his, I don't know,
22:05
Speaker 2: shareholders or the board or whatever to, to his boards,
22:08
Speaker 2: to his companies. Uh, you know, the, the presidents were
22:11
Speaker 2: fairly weak. Uh, the, the, um, uh, uh, most of
22:15
Speaker 2: the business was being done in Congress. The speaker of
22:17
Speaker 2: the house was a very powerful figure at the, in
22:20
Speaker 2: the last, um, part of the 19th century, you know, and,
22:23
Speaker 2: and the, the, uh, you know, the, But beginning, I think,
22:27
Speaker 2: in the 20th century, I think with people like maybe
22:29
Speaker 2: Woodrow Wilson, certainly with Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, I think,
22:34
Speaker 2: you know, the Great Society under Lyndon Johnson, the New
22:39
Speaker 2: Deal under Roosevelt, people put exaggerated hopes in a president
22:43
Speaker 2: to be able to make things right. And that goes
22:46
Speaker 2: beyond what any political officeholder can do and should be
22:51
Speaker 2: expected to do. But in many respects, democracy... exacerbates our
22:57
Speaker 2: tendencies because officeholders get elected by making promises that they
23:04
Speaker 2: have to know on some level that they are incapable
23:07
Speaker 2: of fulfilling to the extent that people would like them to. Yeah. Yeah.
23:13
Speaker 3: And it's really interesting because I think most of the time,
23:17
Speaker 3: we know they can't do what they're promising to do.
23:21
Speaker 3: Like anybody who's had even, and maybe this is sort
23:25
Speaker 3: of waning, but any sort of rudimentary understanding of civics
23:28
Speaker 3: and how our government works, you know there's usually not
23:32
Speaker 3: one guy who can do whatever he feels like doing
23:36
Speaker 3: without any other checks and balances.
23:38
Speaker 1: And so there has to be this sort of, that's
23:40
Speaker 1: why it's there. It's slower.
23:43
Speaker 3: You know, it doesn't lend itself to quick knee jerk decisions,
23:46
Speaker 3: but that's by design. And so these things have to
23:49
Speaker 3: be worked through and negotiated and sort of nudged in
23:53
Speaker 3: a direction as opposed to shoved in a direction. And so,
23:58
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, when you listen to some of the
23:59
Speaker 3: promises that are being made, it's like, well, you can
24:02
Speaker 3: promise to work toward that.
24:03
Speaker 1: You can promise to push toward that. You probably can't
24:06
Speaker 1: promise to actually do that because it's dependent on all
24:09
Speaker 1: these other systems and people to actually get that done.
24:13
Speaker 2: That's right. I think it was Harry Truman, before he
24:20
Speaker 2: yielded office to President Eisenhower in 1953, said something like,
24:25
Speaker 2: poor Ike, he's going to find out that the government
24:29
Speaker 2: doesn't work like the military. In the military, you can
24:34
Speaker 2: issue commands to people. That doesn't work that way in government.
24:37
Speaker 2: Eisenhower was a wise enough man that I think he
24:41
Speaker 2: he probably understood that on some level, you know, but I,
24:43
Speaker 2: but I wouldn't doubt that, that there were, there were
24:46
Speaker 2: some moments when he, when he realized, oh boy, I wish,
24:49
Speaker 2: I wish things were a little bit different. So.
24:53
Speaker 3: Well, let me, let me flip back to a different conversation.
24:56
Speaker 3: You'd mentioned, you know, at one point in your life being,
24:59
Speaker 3: having tension, even singing the national anthem.
25:01
Speaker 1: I would admit to that myself.
25:03
Speaker 3: Like I think, I've had those moments where I'm like, man,
25:06
Speaker 3: should we be participating in some of these that are
25:08
Speaker 3: really reinforcing an American civil religion that seems to be
25:11
Speaker 3: diluting our Christian convictions.
25:14
Speaker 1: On some level? I definitely don't take that line now.
25:19
Speaker 3: I've sort of come out of that and said there
25:21
Speaker 3: has to be a better way for us to bridge that.
25:24
Speaker 3: political engagement and Christian faith, not isolation, but not all
25:29
Speaker 3: in all buy-in, you know, like this is the only
25:32
Speaker 3: thing I'm doing. How do you think about that sort of,
25:35
Speaker 3: I don't know, middle space, right. Between, you know, becoming
25:39
Speaker 3: a monk and living in the desert and, and jumping
25:42
Speaker 3: into politics full force.
25:44
Speaker 2: Well, very carefully fear and trembling, you know, I don't,
25:48
Speaker 2: I don't think there are any easy answers to that.
25:51
Speaker 2: You know, it's, you know, I mean, in terms of
25:53
Speaker 2: like the American, American national anthem, you know, the official anthem,
25:58
Speaker 2: I think, is a really ugly tune, you know, it's not,
26:00
Speaker 2: it's not a very, but we grew up, if we
26:03
Speaker 2: were singing anything, it would be My Country Tis of Thee,
26:05
Speaker 2: or it would be America the Beautiful, you know, which,
26:07
Speaker 2: and I, North the Beautiful, I quite, I quite resonate with,
26:10
Speaker 2: and in many respects, that's probably the, the best, the, the, the,
26:16
Speaker 2: the most, the best counterpart to to Oh Canada, our
26:20
Speaker 2: home and native land, you know, Oh Canada, our home
26:23
Speaker 2: and native, you know, and it extols the beauty of
26:25
Speaker 2: the land and the communities and so forth. And I
26:28
Speaker 2: think that that's, that's much, that's much better, you know,
26:30
Speaker 2: and it's, and it, and it has America, the beautiful
26:33
Speaker 2: has a much narrower vocal range than the star spangled banner,
26:37
Speaker 2: you know, it's much easier for children and to sing
26:41
Speaker 2: and for people in, you know, singing at sporting events
26:45
Speaker 2: and the like, you know, so it's, um, And that's,
26:49
Speaker 2: you know, personal aesthetic sensibilities on my part. But, you know,
26:52
Speaker 2: I think there's a place for that. I don't like
26:55
Speaker 2: to hear anthems sung in church. You know, even the
27:02
Speaker 2: Presbyterian Church, of which we remember is here, you know,
27:05
Speaker 2: around the Remembrance Day on the 11th of November, they
27:08
Speaker 2: would sing God Save the Queen in Old Canada, you know,
27:11
Speaker 2: but they would get it out of the way before
27:13
Speaker 2: the actual worship service started, you know, okay, that's, that's
27:16
Speaker 2: probably a good way to do it. If you have
27:18
Speaker 2: to do it at all, that's probably the best way
27:20
Speaker 2: to do it. But, but, you know, I, I'm not
27:24
Speaker 2: entirely comfortable having those sorts of things, having flags sitting
27:28
Speaker 2: in church sanctuaries and so forth, you know, maybe in
27:30
Speaker 2: the foyer outside, but even that it's, I'm, I'm uneasy
27:35
Speaker 2: with that.
27:35
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I grew up with that.
27:37
Speaker 3: Lutheran church usually has an American flag up on the dais. And, and,
27:43
Speaker 3: At least the ones I went to did. And, you know,
27:46
Speaker 3: so as a kid, you know, you just kind of
27:48
Speaker 3: walk in and you do your thing and you don't
27:49
Speaker 3: really notice much anyway. But as I've reflected back on
27:52
Speaker 3: it as an adult, I'm like, how strange. What an
27:55
Speaker 3: odd way to do that.
27:58
Speaker 1: That's right. It just seemed very odd to me.
28:03
Speaker 3: Now, I got to go to a Lutheran service in Germany.
28:08
Speaker 1: Um, and you, you definitely get a German flavor in.
28:12
Speaker 3: Those Lutheran services in Germany, aside from the language, like
28:15
Speaker 3: it is very different. And so I, I, it's not
28:18
Speaker 3: about local expression, but it seems to me that the
28:22
Speaker 3: flag being there could denote something of a, um, a
28:27
Speaker 3: split devotion, let's say.
28:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, there's no reason,
28:32
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're going to have that, why not
28:33
Speaker 2: have a state flag and why not have the, a
28:36
Speaker 2: city flag, you know, a family coat of arms, you know,
28:40
Speaker 2: if you will. I mean, all of these are, you know,
28:44
Speaker 2: symbolic of our diverse loyalties, you know, and privileging the
28:50
Speaker 2: American flag and the Canadian flag, if you will. I
28:54
Speaker 2: don't see that there's much to be said for that. Yeah.
29:01
Speaker 3: Well, let me, Let me ask this because I know
29:04
Speaker 3: you'd mentioned– I think I'm getting this right. Before, we
29:07
Speaker 3: were talking about your new book that you're working on,
29:10
Speaker 3: not Citizenship Without.
29:13
Speaker 1: Illusions, which is already out, but it's a new book
29:14
Speaker 1: on the catechism.
29:16
Speaker 3: And so maybe explain what that book is and then–
29:20
Speaker 3: If I'm recalling, you talked about gratitude and public life
29:24
Speaker 3: as being the last chapter.
29:25
Speaker 1: And I'd just be interested.
29:26
Speaker 3: I think that has some application to what we're talking
29:29
Speaker 3: about with politics.
29:30
Speaker 1: And so I'd just be interested to kind of talk
29:32
Speaker 1: through that with you.
29:34
Speaker 2: Sure. For a long time, I wanted to write a
29:36
Speaker 2: book that would express my faith. in God through Jesus
29:42
Speaker 2: Christ in an articulate way that would reach people, admittedly
29:47
Speaker 2: educated people. For the gospel, maybe there's an evangelistic purpose
29:53
Speaker 2: behind this in some fashion. But I wanted to do
29:55
Speaker 2: so in such a way that I would would show
30:03
Speaker 2: my connection with an ecclesial tradition, a church tradition in
30:08
Speaker 2: some fashion. So I decided to take the Heidelberg Catechism.
30:12
Speaker 2: This is a catechism that was published in 1563. It's
30:18
Speaker 2: the most ecumenical confessional document in the Reformed tradition. You know,
30:26
Speaker 2: Reformed Christians, unlike the Lutherans, the Lutherans have the the
30:30
Speaker 2: formula of Concord, the Augsburg Confession, and so forth. And
30:34
Speaker 2: they're applicable, they're binding on Lutherans around the world. The
30:39
Speaker 2: Reformed tradition has taken a different approach to that because
30:42
Speaker 2: different Reformed churches have had different confessions that express the
30:49
Speaker 2: substance of the faith, but in a way that speaks
30:51
Speaker 2: to a particular local situation. So Presbyterians have the Westminster
30:55
Speaker 2: Standards from the middle of the 17th century, The Dutch
30:59
Speaker 2: Reformed have the Belgic Confession. The Swiss and the Hungarian
31:04
Speaker 2: Reformed have the Second Helvetic Confession and so forth. But
31:08
Speaker 2: the Heidelberg Catechism is something that is accepted by virtually
31:12
Speaker 2: all Reformed Christians. So that's the one I decided to
31:14
Speaker 2: work through. And so I took the text of the
31:18
Speaker 2: Tricentenary edition of the Catechism from 1863. I updated it
31:22
Speaker 2: to the language to the 21st century. And then I've
31:27
Speaker 2: tried to explain the catechism in a way that will
31:33
Speaker 2: speak to public life. So it's drawing up, I suppose,
31:37
Speaker 2: the ethical implications of the catechism. And so I did that.
31:42
Speaker 2: I wrote most of this manuscript, the vast majority, about
31:47
Speaker 2: 10 years ago. And then I got to working on
31:51
Speaker 2: other projects. My First book, Political Visions and Illusions, went
31:55
Speaker 2: into a second edition in 2019. It was translated into
31:59
Speaker 2: Portuguese and Spanish in that order. My most recent book
32:04
Speaker 2: is Citizenship Without Illusions. That was published at the end
32:08
Speaker 2: of 2024. So this book, I don't know exactly when
32:15
Speaker 2: it's going to come out. I imagine it will be
32:16
Speaker 2: within the next year or so. It's called Belonging to God,
32:22
Speaker 2: A Catechism's Relevance for Private and Public Life. That's the
32:27
Speaker 2: working title. Maybe it'll have a slightly different title, but
32:33
Speaker 2: that's the working title at the present time. And so
32:36
Speaker 2: once that comes out, I will see this as being
32:39
Speaker 2: the first volume in a kind of tetralogy. So eventually
32:44
Speaker 2: when that comes out, if you want to probe my
32:48
Speaker 2: thoughts in depth, you would start with that book. because
32:52
Speaker 2: that's the faith basics for everything else. And then from there,
32:56
Speaker 2: you would read my second book, We Answer to Another, Authority, Office,
33:01
Speaker 2: and the Image of God, which expands on the philosophical
33:06
Speaker 2: implications of the faith for understanding the nature of authority,
33:10
Speaker 2: for understanding the image of God. Then move on to
33:13
Speaker 2: Political Visions and Illusions. Then finally, Citizenship Without Illusions in
33:18
Speaker 2: the World.
33:19
Speaker 1: Very cool.
33:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:20
Speaker 3: So circling around back to the foundation, really, because obviously
33:24
Speaker 3: you had the Heidelberg Catechism around, so you didn't need
33:27
Speaker 3: to write about it. But I think it's really great
33:29
Speaker 3: that you're doing it. I also find it interesting that
33:32
Speaker 3: it's about private and public faith. Now, if I probe
33:35
Speaker 3: that public faith, I mean, it'd be easy to assume, OK,
33:38
Speaker 3: that's politics. It's the realm of politics, probably, but it's
33:42
Speaker 3: not exhausted by politics.
33:46
Speaker 2: True. No, no, no. Public is, you know, sometimes we
33:50
Speaker 2: use public and political as synonymous. We'll talk about the
33:55
Speaker 2: public square, if you will. Sometimes we think of political life,
33:59
Speaker 2: but it's really much wider than that. You know, if
34:02
Speaker 2: you think about the cinema, if you think about art,
34:06
Speaker 2: if you think about charitable activity and so forth, you know,
34:11
Speaker 2: all of that could be seen as part of public
34:13
Speaker 2: life in the broader sense. If you think about protection
34:17
Speaker 2: of the physical environment, that could be seen as part
34:20
Speaker 2: of public life as well. And, of course, political life
34:24
Speaker 2: touches on all those in some fashion, but public life
34:29
Speaker 2: is not exhausted by the political. And I think that's
34:33
Speaker 2: something that we need to keep in mind. The final
34:38
Speaker 2: chapter in this new book will be called Towards a
34:43
Speaker 2: Politics of Gratitude. And I use politics there because I
34:49
Speaker 2: think it speaks to people, but I think gratitude is
34:51
Speaker 2: something that should characterize the whole of our life before
34:56
Speaker 2: the face of God. And I want to contrast that
35:02
Speaker 2: to an attitude of constant complaint, which I think we
35:08
Speaker 2: have cultivated in our lives, in our public life and
35:11
Speaker 2: in our private lives. We come to... life from a
35:16
Speaker 2: critical standpoint. I'm the first to admit that because I'm
35:20
Speaker 2: an academic. I'm paid to be endlessly critical of everything.
35:25
Speaker 1: That's right.
35:26
Speaker 3: My wife always says, all you academics are the same way.
35:29
Speaker 3: You're just inherently disagreeable.
35:31
Speaker 2: I know. I'm married to an academic. We encourage that
35:38
Speaker 2: in each other. If we're watching a period of film
35:43
Speaker 2: on television, you know, and immediately I think, that's anachronistic,
35:48
Speaker 2: you know, they didn't have those kind of things back
35:50
Speaker 2: in 79, you know, and, you know, why can't we
35:53
Speaker 2: just enjoy something for what it is, but, you know,
35:56
Speaker 2: I constantly have this critical, you know, my wife and
35:59
Speaker 2: I are both the same, we don't get invited to
36:01
Speaker 2: many parties, as you might imagine, so.
36:07
Speaker 2: So, you know, in writing this, I'm not just speaking
36:11
Speaker 2: to other people, I'm speaking to myself as well. You know,
36:13
Speaker 2: I'm probably the chief of sinners to quote the Apostle
36:16
Speaker 2: Paul in that respect.
36:20
Speaker 3: You know, when you're talking a little bit about that,
36:22
Speaker 3: it makes me think of Deuteronomy 8 and God's warning
36:27
Speaker 3: to the Israelites that, And it's not exactly gratitude, but
36:31
Speaker 3: he contrasts this, you know, you're to remember me when
36:33
Speaker 3: you go into the land and you're living in the
36:35
Speaker 3: midst of all this prosperity that I'm going to give you.
36:37
Speaker 3: And you're to do so by keeping my commandments and
36:40
Speaker 3: you're to avoid forgetting me. And part of that forgetting
36:45
Speaker 3: is they begin to say it is through my own
36:48
Speaker 3: power and my own strength that I have gotten this wealth.
36:51
Speaker 3: And God says, no, you need to remember that I'm
36:54
Speaker 3: the one who gives you the strength. You know, I'm
36:56
Speaker 3: the one who gives you this power and this strength
36:58
Speaker 3: so you can get this wealth.
36:59
Speaker 1: It's this sort of step back.
37:01
Speaker 3: And it feels like to me that that always when
37:03
Speaker 3: I read that passage, I always think there's a certain
37:06
Speaker 3: degree of not only sourcing that we need to recognize,
37:09
Speaker 3: like all that we have comes from the Lord, but
37:12
Speaker 3: also a sense of gratitude and dependence that we need
37:15
Speaker 3: to have. And because God is the one who is
37:19
Speaker 3: giving us strength.
37:20
Speaker 1: What we need to survive on this world.
37:22
Speaker 3: And so I just, that sort of comes to mind
37:26
Speaker 3: as you're talking through that, that last chapter.
37:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that, that whole pattern is, it repeats itself
37:31
Speaker 2: throughout the whole of history. You know what I mean?
37:34
Speaker 2: And you, you see that in the Bible itself, you know, the, the,
37:36
Speaker 2: the Israelites would be at peace for a while and
37:39
Speaker 2: then they would start to worship idols and so forth.
37:41
Speaker 2: And then they would, they would, they would, their, their
37:44
Speaker 2: enemies would attack them again. And then they would cry
37:46
Speaker 2: to God for, for, um, um, um, for, for deliverance,
37:50
Speaker 2: he would send a delivery, you know, you see that
37:52
Speaker 2: in the book of judges, but you also see that
37:54
Speaker 2: in the, um, in the, throughout the, the, the Kings
37:57
Speaker 2: as well, you know, through the, through the, the divided
37:59
Speaker 2: monarchy period as well. And I think, I think we've
38:03
Speaker 2: seen that in our own history as well. You know,
38:06
Speaker 2: fewer people go to church now than they did maybe
38:09
Speaker 2: a hundred years ago or, or 150 years ago. And, but, but,
38:14
Speaker 2: you know, and, and, the sorts of things that we
38:17
Speaker 2: experience now, the fact that we are talking to each
38:20
Speaker 2: other across great distances, seeing each other, you know, I
38:23
Speaker 2: have this computer sitting in front of me and I'm,
38:26
Speaker 2: you know, all of the things that, you know, my
38:29
Speaker 2: work now with Global Scholars depends on the sort of
38:32
Speaker 2: communications that we're doing right now. You know, it'd be
38:35
Speaker 2: so easy to think, you know, we human beings are
38:38
Speaker 2: really amazing. You know, look what we're able to do.
38:41
Speaker 2: And then we start to rely on ourselves and we
38:44
Speaker 2: start to forget where everything came from, you know, in the,
38:48
Speaker 2: in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, there
38:50
Speaker 2: was a bit of a religious revival in the United States,
38:54
Speaker 2: you know, part, I think the Billy Graham crusades were
38:56
Speaker 2: part of it and so forth. You know, I think even,
38:59
Speaker 2: I think even the queen, you know, the late queen
39:01
Speaker 2: was influenced in some positively by, uh, by Billy Graham
39:05
Speaker 2: and other, other people at this point. And you could
39:07
Speaker 2: see that in her Christmas messages, you could see her
39:09
Speaker 2: faith coming out. Um, I don't think that her, her
39:13
Speaker 2: heirs and successors, uh, carry the same faith that she had,
39:16
Speaker 2: you know. But we live amidst this amazing stuff that
39:23
Speaker 2: our predecessors would have regarded as utterly miraculous. And we
39:26
Speaker 2: forget where it comes from because we think, boy, we
39:29
Speaker 2: are great. Look at what we are capable of doing.
39:33
Speaker 2: And then we start to lose our dependence on God
39:37
Speaker 2: until some catastrophe or something happens to pull us back
39:42
Speaker 2: to where we ought to be. I don't know what's
39:45
Speaker 2: going to happen. Something may happen in the future. Maybe
39:48
Speaker 2: the pandemic was part of that. Maybe the current conflicts
39:53
Speaker 2: in the Middle East, Ukraine and so forth will be
39:56
Speaker 2: part of that. But yeah, we very easily lose a
40:01
Speaker 2: sense of gratitude.
40:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really, again, as you're talking there, what came
40:08
Speaker 3: to mind was Albert Borgman wrote this book, Technology and
40:12
Speaker 3: the Character of Contemporary Culture, I think is the name
40:15
Speaker 3: of it, although I always get that title wrong. but
40:18
Speaker 3: one of the things he talks about in there is
40:19
Speaker 3: he says technology will rule by cultivating these inconspicuous patterns,
40:28
Speaker 3: these inconspicuous patterns in our lives that, that we then.
40:31
Speaker 1: Just take as givens is the implication.
40:35
Speaker 3: Like these are just things that we have in front
40:37
Speaker 3: of us and they become part of our warp and
40:39
Speaker 3: woof and we all, they almost disappear from view. And,
40:43
Speaker 3: and I think that's like, I think that's what happens
40:46
Speaker 3: in a lot of our lives, not just the technology.
40:48
Speaker 1: The technology is a part of it. But I think
40:50
Speaker 1: that we get used to things being a certain way.
40:53
Speaker 2: That's right.
40:54
Speaker 3: And we start to forget that, no, there's someone holding
40:58
Speaker 3: this together. There are other people who are holding these
41:01
Speaker 3: things together, right? There are anonymous folks who are doing
41:05
Speaker 3: various things to keep this video stream.
41:07
Speaker 1: Going, right?
41:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
41:10
Speaker 3: But there's also a God that stands behind this who
41:13
Speaker 3: is sustaining us and providing us with everything that we
41:17
Speaker 3: need to do life in the way that we.
41:18
Speaker 1: Are right now.
41:19
Speaker 3: And that is that sort of– I can understand how
41:23
Speaker 3: it's easy for us to forget how to be grateful
41:25
Speaker 3: in the moment.
41:26
Speaker 1: It really is hard.
41:28
Speaker 2: It is, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think these teenagers
41:31
Speaker 2: who simply depend on these phones, which– we didn't have
41:38
Speaker 2: when I was growing up, you know, but then I think,
41:40
Speaker 2: I go back and further, I think about something like
41:41
Speaker 2: flush toilets, which we take for granted, you know, and
41:44
Speaker 2: in the absence of those, you know, you had waves
41:47
Speaker 2: and waves of cholera epidemic sweeping through major cities in
41:50
Speaker 2: the 19th century, you know, and before that, and we
41:53
Speaker 2: take for granted that we have plumbing systems and our
41:56
Speaker 2: waste is flushed out of our homes, you know, where
41:59
Speaker 2: we're living in healthy environments, you know, and it's, you know,
42:03
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm aware, my maternal grandparents both of them
42:08
Speaker 2: died when they were the age that I am now.
42:14
Speaker 2: I'm in much better shape than they were. They were
42:19
Speaker 2: born half a century before I was. I'm in much
42:22
Speaker 2: better shape now than they were at the same stage
42:25
Speaker 2: in life that I am now. It's not that I'm
42:29
Speaker 2: particularly virtuous in that respect, but they were growing up
42:33
Speaker 2: in times when they had outhouses of during the two
42:39
Speaker 2: world wars and so forth, the Great Depression and so forth.
42:42
Speaker 2: They had dentures by the time they were in their
42:45
Speaker 2: middle age and so forth, which I can't even imagine myself.
42:50
Speaker 2: And it's something that I think all of us have
42:55
Speaker 2: to learn to be grateful for what we have been
42:58
Speaker 2: given and for what even through history we have been
43:01
Speaker 2: given down to the present time. from our predecessors and
43:07
Speaker 2: ultimately from God himself.
43:10
Speaker 3: You know, when I think about the four-part work that
43:13
Speaker 3: you talked through, that tetrad that you've developed, and then
43:17
Speaker 3: just some of the things you said earlier on in
43:20
Speaker 3: this episode, it seems to me that part of what
43:23
Speaker 3: we need to do in order to really participate well
43:25
Speaker 3: in politics is focus on our own formation, discipleship, whatever
43:31
Speaker 3: it is that we would, you know, fill in the
43:33
Speaker 3: blank and that. But there's a sense in which everything
43:38
Speaker 3: we've talked about is going to lead us back to
43:40
Speaker 3: something that is deeply theologically formative in us, that we
43:44
Speaker 3: need this sort of theological disposition, an underlying theological sense
43:49
Speaker 3: of the way the world works. And that these are
43:52
Speaker 3: the things that we want to have this sort of pre-reflective,
43:55
Speaker 3: instinctual sort of move toward. Obviously, we cultivate disciplines for
44:00
Speaker 3: that too, but we really want to be living in
44:03
Speaker 3: the world in the presence of God, as you said earlier.
44:06
Speaker 3: And it just feels to me like that's the sort
44:08
Speaker 3: of trajectory that maybe we're missing. Like we're coming to
44:11
Speaker 3: this as political animals and trying to integrate our faith
44:14
Speaker 3: into it when really we need to be shaped and
44:18
Speaker 3: formed in the image of Christ to whatever degree we
44:22
Speaker 3: can do that, and then holding that shape as we
44:25
Speaker 3: participate in the political realm.
44:28
Speaker 2: That's right, yeah. And I think that's why the cultivation
44:31
Speaker 2: of spiritual disciplines, like reading through the scriptures on a
44:35
Speaker 2: regular basis, praying through the Psalms. I pray through the
44:39
Speaker 2: Psalms on a monthly basis, following the pattern that's in
44:42
Speaker 2: the Book of Common Prayer. And I think those are
44:45
Speaker 2: the kinds of disciplines that we need. in order to
44:53
Speaker 2: be in a posture of radical receptivity to God's Spirit
45:00
Speaker 2: and to what He has for us in life. I
45:02
Speaker 2: don't think there's any substitute for that. There's no substitute
45:05
Speaker 2: for that. And that also includes weekly church attendance as well. Yeah.
45:10
Speaker 3: Really getting into that Christian cadence, we might call it, of...
45:15
Speaker 3: You know, sort of how is it that we continually
45:17
Speaker 3: engage with God, with other Christians, so that we're shaped
45:20
Speaker 3: and formed in the right ways? And then maybe some
45:23
Speaker 3: of these political questions, I don't think they get any easier.
45:26
Speaker 2: No, no.
45:27
Speaker 3: But we may very well orient ourselves differently to them,
45:31
Speaker 3: which I think is actually pretty crucial.
45:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. And I think that's, you know,
45:40
Speaker 2: if the faith basics are straightened out, and if we
45:44
Speaker 2: take the attitude that we cannot simply accept the faux
45:49
Speaker 2: redemptive narratives offered to us by the political ideologies, which
45:54
Speaker 2: is the subject of my first book, Political Visions and Illusions.
45:57
Speaker 2: If we recognize that we have to use spiritual discernment
46:01
Speaker 2: in coming to those particular ideologies, then that's going to
46:05
Speaker 2: change the posture that we have towards life in general,
46:08
Speaker 2: certainly political life. Yeah.
46:12
Speaker 1: Well, David, it's always a pleasure to have you on
46:14
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'll just leave it with this.
46:18
Speaker 3: Any final thoughts, maybe even from your work on the
46:21
Speaker 3: catechism and stuff, but any final thoughts for folks who
46:25
Speaker 3: are entering a political season in the United States, Christians
46:29
Speaker 3: who are entering a political season in the United States,
46:31
Speaker 3: any final thoughts or encouragement to them?
46:34
Speaker 2: Well, I would encourage you to read Citizenship Without Illusions,
46:38
Speaker 2: which is my most recent book that came out about
46:41
Speaker 2: a year and a half ago. I could wish that
46:44
Speaker 2: Christian universities, and there are over 100 Christian universities in
46:49
Speaker 2: North America, that they would use this book or something
46:52
Speaker 2: similar to really educate their students, undergraduate students, about citizenship.
46:59
Speaker 2: I do think that that book could also be used
47:02
Speaker 2: for adult Sunday school classes, possibly an upper-level secondary school
47:10
Speaker 2: classes as well, to get people to thinking about the
47:13
Speaker 2: issues that I raised in that book. You know, the
47:15
Speaker 2: book probably, you know, I try to offer answers, but,
47:20
Speaker 2: you know, ultimately I've tried to give people things to
47:22
Speaker 2: chew on and things to talk about and to discuss
47:25
Speaker 2: is how are we going to go about when it
47:27
Speaker 2: comes time to vote? How do we vote in a
47:29
Speaker 2: way that's spiritually discerning? You know, I don't offer any
47:33
Speaker 2: hard and fast answers to that, but if people could
47:36
Speaker 2: even start to think about that and to discuss that
47:38
Speaker 2: with their fellow Christians, especially those who might think differently
47:42
Speaker 2: from themselves, then that would be a good place to start.
47:46
Speaker 3: Well, we'll have the book linked to, uh, in the
47:48
Speaker 3: show notes. Uh, I encourage people to read it as well.
47:51
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed it. Um, it was actually nice to
47:53
Speaker 3: revisit it before we got into this interview. Um, I
47:56
Speaker 3: know we didn't talk through it like the same way
47:57
Speaker 3: we did the first time, but, um, it was really
48:00
Speaker 3: good to revisit it, David. And I think you did
48:01
Speaker 3: a great job on it. Um, IVP gives us a 20%
48:05
Speaker 3: discount on those books. So if you click the link,
48:07
Speaker 3: buy it off the IVP site, there's actually a code
48:10
Speaker 3: in the show description you can use and get 20%
48:12
Speaker 3: off the book.
48:12
Speaker 1: So I'd encourage you to go check that out.
48:15
Speaker 3: And other than that, David, hopefully I'll have you back
48:18
Speaker 3: after your Catechism book is published and we can talk again.
48:21
Speaker 1: So always enjoy having you on the show.
48:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I enjoy talking with you, James. So yes. Okay.
48:28
Speaker 2: All right.
48:28
Speaker 1: Well, take care, everybody. And we'll see you on the
48:30
Speaker 1: next episode of Thinking Christian.