Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / Episode #12: Christian Nationalism and Grace

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Episode #12: Christian Nationalism and Grace · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: Hey everyone,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: Tim Wright here,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: along with Terry Summers,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: and this is the Deep Grace Diving Podcast with Tim Wright and Terry Summers.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: Today we're talking about something really, really important.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: something probably controversial, depending on your perspective in life.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: We are going to be talking about Christians, Christian nationalism, and grace.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: And we have a very special guest with us today.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just meeting him really for the first time, but I've admired him from afar for a couple of years.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: I first read about him a couple of years ago.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: He was featured in an article on the Arizona Republic.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: And then not too long ago, CNN did a one-hour piece, Misinformation, I think was the name of it.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: And the host went around various parts of the country just interviewing people,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: many of whom were buying into conspiracy theories,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: trying to understand why that was.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the people they interviewed, not because he was buying into a conspiracy theory, was Caleb.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: Caleb Campbell,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: and he,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: as has happened for many of our churches during the COVID years in particular,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: we went through some real challenges,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: not only because of COVID,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: but because of this thing called Christian nationalism.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: took on more energy.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's been there for a long,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: long time,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: but it,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: along with conspiracy theories,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: seemed to just get a brand new sort of energy.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: And now certain politicians and Christian leaders are throwing it around as if this
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: is who we are called to be as Christians.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I thought it would be great to have Caleb come on.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: He's got a new book coming out and he can tell us about that as well.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: But Caleb, we're so glad to have you with us.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Deep Grace Diving Podcast.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's good to meet you both.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: And Caleb,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: just so we all get a perspective on you,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: tell us just a little bit about yourself,
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: where you are,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: where you pastor.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I pastored a church called Desert Springs Bible Church in North Phoenix.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: I've been at the church.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: I actually met the Lord there in 2001,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: came on staff in 2006,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: and then stepped into the lead pastor role in 2015.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we're a non-denominational, theologically evangelical suburban Bible church.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: And about how many people would be on the weekend would you have in a worship service?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, probably about 200 to 300 right now.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Were you bigger before COVID?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we have about 600 to 700 folks.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, a lot of churches, ours too, took some big hits for a while.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: We've kind of gotten close to where we were.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: But it's taken all this time.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: And part of the fallout happened with people just being disengaged from the church.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: They realized, hey, maybe we don't need it as much as we thought or just got distracted.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: There were some people who left our church,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: I'll speak for us,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: who disagreed with our stance on COVID and trying to be as safe as possible.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: And there were people who reading into that assumed that we were
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: a particular kind of church and not politically conservative enough,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: perhaps,
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: to the point of almost a Christian nationalism type of view of the world.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: Now,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: a lot of them didn't stay around long enough to articulate those things,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: but it became kind of clear as the dust was settling.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: But you actually had some pretty hands-on experience with that.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_03: So before we talk about that,
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Let's start right away.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: What's the name of the book and when does it come out?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: uh yeah thanks for asking the name of the book is disarming leviathan loving your
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: christian nationalist neighbor and it's with intervarsity press and it's coming out
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: on july 2nd all right we're gonna we're gonna dive into the title in a moment or
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: two here's what i love about the your subtitle how to love your christian
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: nationalist neighbor there are a lot of books out right now about christian
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: nationalism sounding the alarm as they should but looks like it sounds like you're
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: going in a very
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of different direction.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: You're going to define it, I'm sure.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: But how do we love these folks?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: So let's start with this.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: How do you define Christian nationalism?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm approaching this movement or phenomenon that we're calling that I would call
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: American Christian nationalism as a missionary.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: So there's as you said,
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: there's a lot of different books and pieces that have been written looking at this
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: movement or phenomenon from a sociological,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: political,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: philosophical,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: historical lens.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: And these are great.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: I've learned a ton from many of these great resources.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the things as a pastor I noticed was I was asking the question, okay, well, now what?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so I recognize something's happening.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: People are imbibing the teaching, the ideology, the posture of this movement.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: But what are we going to do about it on the ground?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a local church pastor, so I'm asking, okay, now what?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: I just had a sense that at the time there wasn't really material to help equip us
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: to answer that question.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: So this became part of my doctoral project at Fuller Theological Seminary and
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: applying missiological tools to reach folks who have given themselves over to this movement.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so my definition is slightly, well, it's just through that lens.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so it may differ from some other lenses, which is fine.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I believe that American Christian nationalism,
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: when we use that phrase,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: we're talking about three things at the same time,
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: a political ideology,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: a tribal identity,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: and a spiritual idolatry.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: So ideology, identity.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: and idolatry.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: So as a political ideology, it's an argument that Christians should be in charge of the government.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's at its base level.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Nationalism, and there's many different forms of nationalism.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: There's ethnic nationalism, religious nationalism.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's an argument for who should be in charge of the state, of the government.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so Christian nationalism in America is arguing Christians should be in charge.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: When you peel back some of the layers, they usually mean a select few denominations.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: They don't necessarily mean all Christians, but that's basically what it is, the political ideology.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: As a tribal identity,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: people are referring to themselves as Christian nationalists,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: not primarily because of their ideas,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: but because of the people group they belong to.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: In a sense, it's a tribal identity identity.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: And in some senses, it's a surrogate for one's ethnicity.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: When you are saying, what kind of people are you from?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: For many folks,
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: they want to say American,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: but what they mean by American is a very defined subset of cultural expressions,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: food,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: language,
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: origin story,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: fears,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: taboos,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: things like that,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: just like every other people group or ethnicity.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so Christian nationalists in America can sometimes people will self-reference.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: They will refer to themselves as Christian nationalists to identify not just how
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: they're thinking about government and who should be in charge,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: but also the people they belong to.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: So there's all these ethnic boundaries like you would as a missionary going into any culture.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: You would want to do ethnic analysis, like what's the culture, what's going on here?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And this group of people has a definitive culture, which I lay out in the book.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally, spiritual idolatry.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: So idolatry being something that is either syncing up with the place of God in our
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: heart or going above God as it relates to our order of allegiances.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of the things that American Christian nationalism does,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: this movement has done and is feeding off of is syncretism.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: So the synthesis of aspects of evangelical,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: excuse me,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: evangelicalism with aspects of the American civil religion.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: So an expression of this syncretism or idolatry would be you're at a rally or
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: you're watching one of these groups on YouTube and you hear them say that the
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: founding documents are sacred.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: right or inspired by god okay well that's bible language applied to a very
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: uh, American thing.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh,
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: other expressions of this would be,
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: um,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: if a person refuses to,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: participate in something like a pledge of allegiance or,
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: singing the national anthem at a baseball game,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: the derision,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: that's cast towards that person,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: um,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: is so strong.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: You start getting the impression that they think it's heresy, uh, or, uh,
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: that would be elevating these, um, aspects of American civil religion with our, our Christianity, um,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Veneration of ancestors is part of it.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: So not being able to ask critical questions about some of the founders, that's part of it.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: You see that in a lot of tribes around the world.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: You're not able to ask critical questions about the tribal leaders.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: So again, the veneration of the leader as well.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so American Christian nationalism is three things at the same time.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's a political ideology, it's a tribal identity, and it's a spiritual idolatry.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: So a couple of thoughts that come to my mind,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: and you said it well at the beginning,
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: when we're talking about Christian,
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: it's a pretty small slice of this is what we think it means to be Christian.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: So you and I,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: we're both Christians,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: but we both come from a little bit different theological perspectives,
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm guessing.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: You're coming from a Bible church, probably more evangelical conservative to label you.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: I would be in the Lutheran church,
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: which would be labeled by at least some on the right as a progressive church.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so as a Lutheran, I would ask the question, well, for a Christian nation,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: well, who chooses what kind of Christian that is, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm guessing people on the far right don't want Lutheranists to run the Christian agenda.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm pretty sure Lutherans aren't all that comfortable with the far right
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_03: evangelical fundamentalists determining what Christianity is.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: So who gets to decide that is one of the big issues, of course.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: So one of the questions for me is, and there are some who've suggested this,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: Is Christian nationalism even Christian?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because it sounds like there are a lot of people who really don't identify as
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: Christians at all,
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: but would identify themselves as Christian nationalists.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: I've run into a lot of folks who identify as Christian nationalists.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: They'll say they're Christian,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: but when you lean into what that means,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: it's some kind of cultural Christianity.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: We like Christmas.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: We like Easter.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: We like O Holy Night.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: But there's not a...
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: in the evangelical space,
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: there's not like a personal relationship with Jesus or a conversion experience.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: There's not a submission to the authority of scripture.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know that I'm equipped to say as Christian nationalist,
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Christian,
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: I would say that as a theological evangelical,
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: the movement directly contradicts the teaching of scripture and the example of
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus and the commands of Jesus to his people.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: I do think that the idea of a Christian nation is a categorical error.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: So Christian means to give your full allegiance to Christ.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: So the IAN, to transliterate, the IAN to Christ, Christian, means full allegiance to.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: In the same way, maybe some of the listeners are familiar with the biblical use of the word Herodian.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: The IAN is communicating total allegiance to Herod.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Herod's the leader.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: We give fealty to Herod.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so a Christian is someone who gives total allegiance to Jesus.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: The question is, can states do that?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: like can governments do that no people can do that and so people working in
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: government can be christian but the government itself can't be christian here's the
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: other thing too nation we use it in strange ways in america nation doesn't really
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: mean the government it usually refers to as a people group and so like when the
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: bible says to go into all the nations it doesn't mean go into all of the
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: bounded spaces that we call governments or empires.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's go to every ethnos, go to every people group.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so can you have a Christian people group?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you can have Christians from every nation, but there is not one nation or people group that is more
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: capable of expressing Christianity than the other because the biblical vision for
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Christianity is it's transnational.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: It is for all nations.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: So the idea that we could say,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: well,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: this nation's Christian and this nation's not Christian,
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: well,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: that's a categorical error as well because Christianity is for all the nations.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's completely unhelpful as a term.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: It confuses what happens.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing too, for anyone who cares about missions work,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: When a government,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: when Christians inside of a government say our government is Christian,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: and then that government does what the kingdoms of this world do,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: bombing people,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: espionage,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: tariffs,
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: whatever.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Are those Christian actions?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you have in Japan,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: America dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: the atomic bombs,
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: mass destruction.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: And the Japanese referred to those in the newspapers as Christian bombs.
• 14:08
  Yeah.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And one wonders why it's difficult to have missionaries in places like that.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: So if you care about missions,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: you want to get real clear on where you're at with calling your government Christian,
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: because your government's going to do things that are not in alignment with the
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: teachings of Jesus.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: So one of the reasons why we have Terry on this podcast is she sort of takes
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: theological eggheads like me and you,
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: and she tries to ask questions normal people ask,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: and I'm going to see if she has any in a moment.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: But I want to come back to a point you're making.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: History shows us every time,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: every time without fail,
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: Christianity gets into bed with government,
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: Christianity loses.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_03: it becomes corrupted by power every single time.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: From the time that Rome took on the Christian name and Christianity changed from a
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: people who were sent out to love with compassion,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: followed the cross,
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: now it was about the sword,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: even to the United States of America where we have,
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: our country is intertwined in many ways with at least theological concepts
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: But once we start trying to get power, Christianity loses every single time.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: And we see that over and over again.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: The things that nations will do in the name of Jesus that are horrific.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: And for those with ears to hear, it's happened in our country as well.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: Terry, as you listen in now, you've got these two guys who are talking way in the stratosphere.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: Bring us down to earth.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Did you understand anything we've said?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not a bit.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm totally kidding.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I actually thank you, Caleb, for breaking it down.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was sharing with my husband this morning and just,
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: refreshing myself and kind of getting a perspective.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: But boy, that was really clear what you've shared.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things when I was reading about you and about your desire to place this
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: in a missionary perspective was that the.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: the Jesus of Christian nationalists is not biblically accurate, as your opinion was.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what about that Jesus is not accurate?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so the Jesus of American Christian nationalism is an imperialistic figure, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: and a sword bearer.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: And this is... You'll define that for us, I take it.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: So he's more like Caesar than he is like Messiah.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: So... And so say the sword weaver again.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't mean to jump on you.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: So the Jesus of American Christian nationalism...
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: wields the sword.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: The real Jesus carries the cross.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the fundamental difference between,
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: from my perspective,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: faithfully living out the way of Jesus and engaging in government and engaging in
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: politics and engaging in our common life together.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: and Christian nationalism.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: One takes on the cross and views,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: and so the person,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: the Christian who's engaging in government and politics,
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: whether that's running for office or voting or engaging in dialogue about issues,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: the posture is cruciform.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's shaped like the cross, which means I'm always looking to take on the form of a servant, foot-washing
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: uh humbling myself right instead of trying to take from others i want to use
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: whatever power and influence i have to give in service of others especially um
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: those who are being uh relegated to the margins so like jesus does stuff like he
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: says hey listen when you visited the sick when you welcomed the immigrant when you
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: gave water to the thirsty you did it to me
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: OK, government's a way that we can do that together.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: And again, so the Christian posture in government is civil service, right?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Open handed.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: The way of Christian nationalism is closed fists towards our enemies,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: laying down the cross because we don't feel like it's going to get us the power we need.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: And instead, picking up the sword of rage and toxic anxiety and anger.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Enemying others.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I would just for any listener who's like wondering how do we gauge if it's,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: authentically Christian or not.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus told us, you look at the fruit.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Look at the fruit of the movement.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Look at the fruit of the leader.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Is the movement producing,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: as Galatians 5 says,
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: love,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: joy,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: peace,
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: patience,
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: kindness,
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: goodness,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: faithfulness,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: gentleness,
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: and self-control,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: the fruit of the spirit?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it producing combativeness,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: divisiveness,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: othering,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: licentiousness,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: lust,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: greed,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: the fruit of the kingdoms of this world?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so you don't really have to get your brain around all the ideology or tribalism
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: and all that kind of stuff.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Just look at the type of people that the movement is producing.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of fruit are they marked by?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: And if they're using Jesus lingo,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: but they're marked by the fruit of the spirit of this world,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: then you know it's rotten fruit.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you know that the source is corrupted.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: However,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: if you find a people who are following Jesus and living out the fruit of the Spirit,
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: it might be the real McCoy.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: So a couple observations.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: I've been reading a book by a Christian black author, no longer with us, James Cone.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that he reminds us of is that the Jewish faith was birthed
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: out of an oppressed people.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: That God chose to use slaves and the oppressed to bring grace to the world.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: And that Jesus, being Jewish, comes out of that oppressed background.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: But Jesus, his ministry emerged out of the oppressed.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: The Jews were being oppressed by Rome.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: And that God always sides with
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: not on the side of power,
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: but on the side of the oppressed,
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: the people that you talked about,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: the marginalized,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: the hurting,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: the broken,
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: which is really challenging,
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: I think,
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: for many of us who have never lived an oppressed experience before.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_03: We have essentially been the people in power.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't mean that those of us who live in the suburbs don't go through suffering,
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: don't go through pain.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: but we have a different level of power opportunity than say marginalized people do.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: People for whom laws and systems have been created to hold them down.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: And whenever God gets angry in the Bible and he gets angry differently than we do,
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: it's when we don't take seriously those who are hurting and broken because God
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: reveals God's self through oppressed people.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: And Christian nationalism seems to be
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: about power, regaining power, holding on to power that seems to be lost.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_03: The second comment I would make,
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: and it kind of takes us to the topic of our podcast,
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: and I think you're hinting at this,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: Christian nationalism seems pretty devoid of grace and a lot of law and condemnation.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_03: And you've sort of not only seen that,
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_03: but you kind of experienced it personally in some ways,
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: haven't you?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: Talk us a little bit,
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: because you've had some encounters with some folks that have been,
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure,
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: heartbreaking as a pastor.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I've pastored people who got swept up in this movement.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the folks I pastored were,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: they weren't at the January 6th event,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: but they were there a day or two before for the prayer rallies to,
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: back kind of before,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was like January 4th or something like that.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um,
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: I've had people come over the table at me,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: because I wouldn't endorse,
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: their favorite candidate.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so, uh, I've seen up close what this movement can do.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's driving wedges and families.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: Majority of the people in my congregation have at least one family member or loved
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: one that they're estranged from,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: or that the relationship's almost over because they've given themselves over to the,
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: Constantly outraged, conspiratorial, anxiety-inducing rhetoric and posture of this movement.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it is heartbreaking.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: And Christian nationalism isn't the only thing going that creates that in people.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of forces in this world that are anti-Nationalism.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Christ that create division and disunity.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: This is one of many.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: One of the reasons why I called the book Disarming Leviathan is because one of the
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: one of the ways that the ancients understood Leviathan to be was many headed.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it lived in the sea, lived in the sea, so you could never see what was going on underneath.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it could sometimes present itself in different ways.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was the same force of chaos and evil, but it would be presented differently.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this is one of many forces.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: one of many expressions of the same power, namely Chaos Eagle.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: And when people give themselves over to that movement, it's just like the humans in the garden, right?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: They're seduced not by something that sounds bad,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Evil never presents itself as a bad thing.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's always like 98% good with a slight distortion.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of the talk track for American Christian nationalism sounds great.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, let's make our country great.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: I like that.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Let's have a safe place to live.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm into that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: Let's make sure that our government honors God.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds good to me.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: But when you get close enough,
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: you realize,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: oh,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: the means that you're using to get to those ends,
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: it's actually more like Machiavelli than the Messiah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's calculated, it's dehumanizing, it's called.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that Jesus was so clear about was the ends do not justify the means.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: How you are in the world and how you're pursuing the
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: whatever end you're going for matters a ton to the Christian way of being in the world.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus would often say things like,
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: if I can condense it,
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: it's like,
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: you live with Christ-centered integrity,
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: let God figure out the end.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: And what Christianity,
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: Christian nationalism in America tries to do is it tries to force the kingdom by
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: means of the kingdoms of this world.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that I hear some of my more theologically conservative folks
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: say is that liberals,
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: theological liberals or political liberals,
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: they want the kingdom without the king.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: which may be you know whatever but if if that's true christian nationalism it wants
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: the kingdom without the cross it doesn't want sacrifice it doesn't want service it
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: doesn't want foot washing it doesn't want jesus telling uh his disciples that the
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: kings of this world lord it over their subjects may not be so with you yeah uh that
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: stuff is completely absent from this movement
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: I was going to say, as is Jesus' whole perspective on nonviolence.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: His response was never to meet violence with violence, but to absorb it and defang it.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so a January 6th thing was probably not what Jesus is thinking about.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that makes this movement so effective is two things are happening simultaneously.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: You have a within American Christianity, especially evangelicalism.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: You have a high view of the Bible.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And a low engagement with the Bible.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: So you have a group of people,
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: a demographic,
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: who have a high degree of trust in and authority in what the Bible says.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: I want to know what the Bible says.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: I want to have a biblical worldview.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: I want to have a biblical view of masculinity.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: I want to have a biblical view of abortion.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the desire.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then almost no engagement with it.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: In fact,
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: most people have been trained that the person on the stage with the Bible tells me
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: what the Bible says.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: so i get or i get bible in little devotional like my every morning i get my cup of
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: folgers and i read one line and then somebody explains it to me in like an easy to
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: read you know
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: five by five by four by five piece of paper and that's bible their their ethic
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: their uh deep story their origin story who they recognize themselves to be in the
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: story of the world it's not being shaped by you know broad readings of scripture
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: deep engagement discussion with people who are nothing like them that are reading
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: the same texts
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of isolated individuals who have a high value of the scripture and they've
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: been told that when the person on the stage says bible words that their application
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: is the right application and so you've got these movement leaders who like figured
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: it out and they're like all i have to do is quote a bible verse yep and it's like
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: abracadabra my you know and and i'm not trying to make this political argument but
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: i have watched people do things like this
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourself,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: which is why we have to protect our God-given Second Amendment rights to bear arms,
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: because you can't love your neighbor as yourself if they're being attacked by a
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: person with a gun and you don't also have a gun.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: So that's rapid fire.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: I quoted Bible, right?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone's saying, amen, hallelujah.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then I did the hard work of modern day application, but I did all the work for you.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: and now it sounds like the second amendment my posture towards guns or whatever it
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: might be is coming directly from the bible and i have been in the room multiple
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: times where hundreds if not thousands of people hear this and nod their head in
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: affirmation believing this is how one engages with the bible yeah so what it what
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_03: it basically is doing is it's it's um
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: Training people,
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: robbing people of this gift that God has given for curiosity and question and doubt,
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: that that's the prelude to faith,
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: not certainty all the time.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's wrestling to see where Jesus takes us.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: And also then leads people to that point where you're saying,
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: well,
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: if this guy says it,
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: it's sort of like if the Bible says it,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: then I believe it,
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: that settles it.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this leader said it.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not going to question this person because this person is God's,
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: usually man,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: but this person is God's woman.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't matter how nutty it might sound.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: This is God speaking.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: And there does seem to be very little given play then for,
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: it's even hard,
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: and this is where we're going to pivot here.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: I know Terry's got some questions, but how do you talk to people who live in that bubble of,
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: live in that algorithm, have that belief system that is political, baptized in Christian language.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe at best.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: You do it like a missionary.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: So this was the big aha moment for me.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Christian nationalism ripped through my personal life, my church life.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: I have over 300 broken relationships that I can recount to memory by name that have
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: been impacted by this stuff.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: I've become their enemy.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: I've been at this church since 2001.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: 80% of the folks that were there in 2016 were gone by the end of 2020.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so my posture initially,
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: and by the way,
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: just for some context,
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: one of the largest purveyors of American Christian nationalism is now headquartered
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: here in Phoenix,
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: three miles from where I'm currently sitting.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: And who is that?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: So Turning Point USA.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Moved here in 2020, I believe.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: They host monthly rallies, many of which I've been to.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: They've got this huge multimedia.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what to call it.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Behemoth.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started attending this stuff like a super spy because I wanted to figure
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: out what was going on so I could crush it.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so my initial posture towards American Christian nationalism was,
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: was that as a heresy to defeat and enemies to defeat.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I had a meeting with someone from,
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: from that organization who,
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: and it's a long story,
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: but I was meeting with this person and we spent two hours together and they were
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: saying things that I just thought sounded crazy.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know,
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: We have to protect,
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: like the Bible says,
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: we have to protect our God-given right to bear arms or our God-given right to
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: school choice or stuff like this.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, that stuff's not in the Bible.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: But this person said, you know, Pastor Caleb, politics is really important.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the day, I just want to follow Jesus.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, oh, me too.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt my heart softening.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, tell me, how did you meet Jesus?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, oh, last year at a Turning Point rally.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it was in that moment that I felt the Spirit of God say, Campbell, you're an idiot.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: These people do not need an enemy to fight them.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: They need a missionary to reach them.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yes.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: So,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: Caleb,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: one of the things that we were talking about,
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: a couple things,
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: and probably we're going to have to have you back because this is such a deep topic.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: What is it about this thing, Christian nationalism, that attracts people?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: people,
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: and particularly why from the,
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to say far right,
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: tends to be more of a political far right experience than it does the left.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: The left has other things that they're thinking about.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: What's going on?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: What is it that attracts people to this, to the conspiracies, to the movement itself?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Safety, belonging, and purpose.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: So our three core needs that we all have,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: I need to feel safe in the context of a community with others,
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: right?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Safety, so belonging.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: I need to feel like I'm part of something, part of a family, part of a neighborhood community.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then purpose that we're doing something together,
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: that we're on some kind of mission or there's some kind of point to life.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: And if you'll notice that most American Christian nationalist talk tracks stir up anxiety about loss.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: Namely, we're not safe.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: So if I'm in Phoenix, oh, we're all in the valley.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so conversations about immigration generally start like this.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: There are 25,000 drug dealing rapists who are invading our country.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: Just that statement.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: makes me feel anxious.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's scary, right?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I'm anxious about loss, I'll do anything to feel safe again.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so purveyors of American Christian nationalism will stir up anxiety about loss,
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: usually by pointing to something that's true,
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: but then amplifying it.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: For instance,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: you'll hear them say things like,
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: have you noticed on the bus that most people don't speak English like they used to?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: In the lived experience of people who ride the bus in Phoenix, that's true to a degree.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they're checking in with that lived experience,
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: but then they're pointing it to,
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: and that's proof that you're not going to have a community to belong to anymore.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: Your way of being in the world is under imminent threat.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that calls into question my safety, belonging, and purpose.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: You'll hear it even in the slogan, Make America Great Again.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: What do I want?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: I want to feel safe.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: When did I feel safe?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: Back then.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: When did I feel like I belonged to my community?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: Back then.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, back when?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, is the question that everyone's asking.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: But what that statement,
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: Make America Great Again,
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: is doing is it's appealing to my need to be safe,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: to belong,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: and to have purpose.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so as America grows in its varied expressions of pluralism,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: religious pluralism,
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: ethnic pluralism,
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: socioeconomic pluralism,
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: uh neighborhoods are changing that's very real there are very real losses you know
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: the the laundromat down the street had to close the factory shut down uh the
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: drive-in movie theater is gone those are very real losses um the losses however
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: attributed to another an outsider the woke the libs the mob you know immigrants
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: whoever the enemy is it's the enemy's fault
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're going to rally together to conquer the enemy and take back what's ours.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so at the root,
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: American Christian nationalism thrives on anxiety about ethnic erasure,
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: that my way of being is under imminent threat.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then if we can rally together, I'll be safe again.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'll belong again and I'll have purpose once more.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_03: And this is in part why there are those who say that there is a lot of racial elements involved.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_03: attached to this.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: Do you say that this is mainly a white people movement?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't have a problem with folks who make that argument.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm more concerned about with what to do on the ground.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: So like everything in America, race is part of the conversation.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: I, I, my very unsophisticated analysis is it's more about ethnicity than race.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the ethnicity component is more about an, how one imagines real America to be.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they feel like they are part of it and that it's under imminent threat.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: As part of that, you have people of different races and,
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: uh, also anxious about it.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: So here in Phoenix at these rallies, it's probably a quarter, if not a third Latino.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of the motivating factor, uh, there is family values.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, any sort of threat to the home.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I don't think, I don't disagree with those who see the thread line of race through this.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm in agreement that,
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: For the actual people in the room,
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: if you said this is white Christian nationalism,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: they'd say,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: absolutely not.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: And they'd point to the people in the room who are not white.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they'd say, I don't know what you're saying.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: So from a missiological lens,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't see a benefit in referring to it as white Christian nationalism,
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: perhaps through sociological lens,
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: historical lens.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think those are good conversations to have.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I use the term American Christian nationalism because I don't see it only in the actual room.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's not all white.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: And they would not identify as white Christian nationalists,
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: but they will say,
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm an American Christian nationalist.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: Got it.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for that.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: I want to defer in those spaces.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for that.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, go ahead.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead, Terry.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: What about generational energy behind it?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is that...
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just say this.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: I had this memory come to me of watching something on television,
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: and I'll probably be tattling on my age.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I got choked up when they were singing God Bless America.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: But that said, I know there are generations beneath me
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: that came after me that might not have that same reaction.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just doing something uber general just to paint a picture.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: How does that play in to the energy behind the movement, if anything?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a great question, Terry.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: I would notice that patriotic expressions ebb and flow in American history
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, for instance, I'm 42.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: I remember growing up people saying I knew where I was when Kennedy was shot.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: That was not my experience.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Not mine either.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to make that clear.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I am now...
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: That for for children and 20 something saying,
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: I remember where I was,
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: where I was and what I was doing when the towers were hit and they're learning
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: about in history books.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: So when I see and I'm with people roughly my age and we see something about JFK,
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: there's not a deep level of emotion.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: When I experienced something about 9-11, I experienced a deep level of emotion.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: And when I see the memorials or I've gone to the museum and I see aspects of our
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: civil religion,
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: Americana,
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: I tear up when those things are joined together.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: But when I see like a picture of like Abe Lincoln,
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have that same response because it's not,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm proud of it,
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: whatever,
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: but it's not my lived experience.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so in my own life and in the generation above and after me,
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: our patriotism kind of gets connected to different things in different ways.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I still feel something spiritual happening when I'm at the baseball stadium and we do.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: the national anthem.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm having an experience.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: These are my countrymen and women, right?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: On Memorial Day, I'm right.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm about a mile from the Veterans Memorial Cemetery, excuse me.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: By the way, if you've ever been to seminary, you know, it has a lot in common with cemeteries.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just down the street from the cemetery and we go on Memorial Day.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a deep level of what I would call patriotic love and pride.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I remember going to the cemetery in Normandy and feeling overwhelmed,
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: feeling overwhelmed with what I would call patriotic affections.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know that it's only generational.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: I do think that this particular movement,
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: directly to your question,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: it appeals to different generations by and large on different needs.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I think for the older generation, it's appealing to safety.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: world is growing pluralistic,
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: your neighborhood is changed,
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: you feel unsafe,
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: join the movement,
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: give dollars to the movement,
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: click like,
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: subscribe.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's giving purpose to the younger generation.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: You're going off to university and your woke liberal professors are gonna give you
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: a D because you're a Christian or because you have a cross or because you love your country.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so join us and we're gonna transform America back again.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think for the older generation, it's appealing more to safety.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for younger generations,
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: they don't,
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: they're not even calculating what it means to be unsafe.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: They do a lot of unsafe things all day, but that purpose bit, right?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: What's my life going to be?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so really, it's actually fascinating.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: These are very chronologically diverse gatherings, right?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: You've got tons of 20 year olds who are loving it.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you've got folks middle-aged and you got grandma and grandpa there too.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, I, I think it's funded primarily from boomer generation.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but it, it's staffed by 20 somethings.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to make a comment and ask you one final question to go back to this fear
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: of the different ethnicities.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: How ironic, of course, that the whole dream of Scripture is that one day.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: Every tongue, every nation, every ethnicity will bow down before Jesus.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: We'll all be one big, happy family.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the vision of the kingdom of God.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: And American nationalism seems to be in opposition to that grand vision.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_03: So you've got a book coming out, and we don't want to give the whole book away.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: Give me one key...
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: to talking to my Christian or American national Christian nationalist friend.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_03: That would begin to open up a conversation.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is not in the head, but in the heart.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so in every conversation, make it your aim to steer to the heart.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: And here's what I mean.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: If they say something that sounds untrue or like fear mongering or hate speech,
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: that statement is connected to something going on in their heart.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to initiate actual change, you just let the thing that was said
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: exist.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: But don't meet them there.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: Don't say, where'd you find that out?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds like bad data.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're listening to conspiracy theories.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: Ask instead heart-level questions.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: When you hear that, how do you feel?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know that when I hear you say that, I feel afraid.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: Are you also feeling afraid?
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then try to get into that space.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then if they're Christian,
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: which most American Christian nationalists say they are,
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: steer it towards Jesus.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: When I'm afraid...
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: What does Jesus say about my fear?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: And again,
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: inviting them to re-examine the teachings of Jesus as it's directly related to
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: what's going on inside of their own heart.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because all American Christian nationalism is, is it's a false solution to a real problem.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: I have need for safety, belonging, and purpose, and that feels under threat.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I will go pick up the sword of American Christian nationalism.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the only way to disarm that is to invite them to loosen their grip on the sword
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: of American Christian nationalism in order to pick up the true power,
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: which is the cross.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the day, the only thing on the other side of the sword is death.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: But the teaching of scripture and the example of Jesus is what's on the other side
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: of the cross is resurrection life.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you want true meaning, belonging and purpose, pick up the cross and follow Jesus.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_03: So a couple of closing comments.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, this has been fantastic.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: And Caleb, when the book comes out, send me an email.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_03: I want to have you back because I want to spend more time on this part of it.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we sort of define the issue, but we'll talk more about it.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_03: And secondly, you just had a Lutheran and an evangelical Christian have a conversation together.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_03: And we didn't call each other names.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: We don't hate each other.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: We both love Jesus, as does Terry.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: And we all care deeply about what Jesus cares about, even though we may say things a bit differently.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: And this is how Christians should be having conversations and learning from each other.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I've learned a ton from you today.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: Your perspective is so fresh on this.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_03: I really appreciate it.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us the name of the book.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: Disarming Leviathan, Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_03: And it should be out.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know when this will come out, but it'll be on Amazon.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_03: Is it available for pre-order?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: You can pre-order it now on Amazon.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I hear if you pre-order it on InterVarsity Press's website, you get it early.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: Very, very good.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_03: Congratulations, Caleb.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_03: Here's how we end the show.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_03: We're not saying anything.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just going to play a little Morse code.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_03: And the Morse code is...
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: is the word grace being typed in Morse code.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_03: So we're going to leave with God speaking to us in Morse code, the word of grace.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Caleb.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Terry.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks to everyone for listening.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: Send your friends,
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: by the way,
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: to Apple or to Spotify or to recklessgrace.substack.com with a slash at the end.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: And you can get more information about this podcast.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks everyone.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.