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"The Spirit of Our Politics" with Michael Wear · The Weight

• 0:00
  Eddie Rester: I'm Chris McAlilly.
• 0:01
  Eddie Rester: And I'm Eddie Rester.
• 0:02
  Chris McAlilly: Welcome to The Weight. Today we're talking to Michael Wear. Michael is the founder, the President, and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life. It's an organization and institution based in Washington DC with a mission to contend for the credibility of Christian resources in public life for the public good.
• 0:23
  Eddie Rester: Chris, you may not know this, I know you kind of stay huddled in your hole. But there's an election this year.
• 0:28
  Chris McAlilly: There is.
• 0:29
  Eddie Rester: There's an election this year.
• 0:30
  Chris McAlilly: There's an election this year, and some people are actually putting their head in the sand to avoid it.
• 0:34
  Eddie Rester: To avoid it, yes.
• 0:35
  Chris McAlilly: Michael's not avoiding it. He's written a book about the spirit of our politics. That's the title of the book, "Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life." And we talk about that today.
• 0:46
  Eddie Rester: One of the things that he talks about is that it's not that Christians have suddenly found themselves homeless in our political world, but that we ever thought we had a home in politics. He really pushes us to say that the thing that forms us and disciples us should not be our political life. We should be formed and shaped by the good news of the gospel. And then we move into all of the world, not just politics, but all of the world.
• 1:16
  Eddie Rester: He really leans on Dallas Willard. And some of you may know of Dallas Willard, in his great work and writings around Christianity, but that really plays into how he understands the life of the Christian as a disciple living in a political world. Chris, what do you take from the conversation today?
• 1:34
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah, I mean, one is just the diagnosis.
• 1:37
  Chris McAlilly: Everybody knows that our politics are in a bad place. He calls them sick. And in need of, in the book, he says, "We need new marrow and our bones". The diagnosis of the problem, a lot of people were making that.
• 1:51
  Chris McAlilly: What's interesting and unique about Michael is his solution.
• 1:54
  Chris McAlilly: And the solution for him is discipleship. It's spiritual formation. One of the things that he says often is that the kind of people we are has much to do with the kind of politics we have. So it's not just adopting a set of policies or, you know, maybe changing the structure of our democratic life. It really is for him about becoming people of character.
• 2:17
  Chris McAlilly: It's following the way of Jesus into a different kind of engagement with with others.
• 2:27
  Chris McAlilly: What's your takeaway?
• 2:28
  Eddie Rester: Well, he really talks about being generous.
• 2:31
  Eddie Rester: Being people who are in the world around us, the world we inhabit, that we do what Jesus taught us to do, which is to serve others. And to shed the thought, well, we can't be that way in politics. We have to take on the fighting posture in politics. But he presents us a very, I think, clear, vivid, and necessary mindset for how we live and build a political life that is winsome, and not just about winning. And so it's a great conversation, and I hope that you enjoy it.
• 3:05
  Eddie Rester: And in this season, as we all ramp up towards this election, that presidential election that's coming. I think, if you're a follower of Jesus, this is one, a necessary conversation. But I would encourage you, to buy the book, to read it, maybe to share it in your small group, to spend some time thinking about what kind of people do we want to be?
• 3:26
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah, and how do we, in a time where there are a[INTRO] The truth is, the world is growing more angry, more lot of people that want to use Christianity, how do we ground ourselves in the Gospel so that when we step out into conversations--and we're all gonna step out into the public conversation from a different place, some of us with different politics. I know people in our community, in our church that bitter, and more cynical. People don't trust one another, and we are going to vote different ways, but we have to come back and we've got to worship together. And we've got to commit to the way of Jesus together before and after the election. And Michael helps us know how to do that. So we're glad that you're here. Glad that you're with us. And we hope you feel disconnected.
• 4:11
  Chris McAlilly: enjoyed this episode of The Weight.
• 4:13
  Eddie Rester: The way forward is not more tribalism. It's more curiosity that challenges what we believe, how we live, and how we treat one another. It's more conversation that inspires wisdom, healing, and hope.
• 4:25
  Chris McAlilly: So we launched The Weight podcast as a space to cultivate sacred conversations with a wide range of voices at the intersection of culture and theology, art and technology, science and mental health. And we want you to be a part of it.
• 4:40
  Eddie Rester: Join us each week for the next conversation on The Weight. [END INTRO]
• 4:49
  Chris McAlilly: We're here today with Michael Wear. And Michael, we're so grateful that you joined us on the podcast.
• 4:54
  Michael Wear: So glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
• 4:56
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah, Michael has just written a book that we'll talk about, "The Spirit of our Politics," very timely. But I wanted to maybe begin the conversation, Michael, if you don't mind, just maybe giving folks who don't know your story a bit of, not just your professional, your resume story, but maybe just a bit of your spiritual journey that kind of led you to write this book at this time.
• 5:23
  Michael Wear: Yeah, great. Well, first, thanks for having me on.
• 5:26
  Michael Wear: Really looking forward to this conversation. Yes, so I grew up in Buffalo, New York, in a big Italian Catholic family, grew up in Buffalo. And in much of the Rust Belt, you know, it just seemed like people were born Catholic. And growing up, it seemed to me to be sort of a cultural Catholicism. It was a faith of fish fries and, you know, those kinds of affinities and rituals. Looking back, I have a different view on it. I think I wasn't seeing everything, like most young people don't see everything.
• 6:19
  Michael Wear: But I had a kind of indifference towards faith and at points sort of an antagonism. Sort of a pseudo intellectual, you know, religion is a crutch, da da da.
• 6:27
  Michael Wear: It's a obviously a longer story.
• 6:34
  Michael Wear: There were a number of things sort of eating into my life, I think, you know, I'd say now providentially. But the main, the inciting sort of incident was, I was handed a tract of Romans. Just Paul's letter, no commentary. It was just Romans.
• 7:00
  Michael Wear: When I was about 15 years old, and I took it home, read it, and it changed my life. I gave my life to Jesus a few days later, and that started a whole series of dominoes falling.
• 7:20
  Michael Wear: I was interested in civics growing up. My grandfather was very influential in my life. He served in World War Two, came back, was not a political person, but was civically involved. And so I had a civic bug. I was interested in politics before I was interested in Jesus. And when I became a Christian, I thought, well, now I need to go to seminary to become a pastor. You know, you just want to do the most Christian thing that you could think of. And thankfully, I had a pastor in my life who said, you know, "Michael, there are Christians who aren't pastors."
• 7:54
  Eddie Rester: That's right.
• 7:55
  Michael Wear: And I thought, oh, that's a really good observation. And so this vocational question of what does it mean to be faithful in and with public things, was something that even as a 17-year-old, 18-year-old would be something that drove me and I could articulate. That led me to DC where I pursued education at George Washington University, was involved in both ministry groups and political groups, internships, when I was in DC.
• 8:32
  Michael Wear: I end up meeting then Senator Barack Obama in the lobby of a hotel. I was there trying to attend a conference that I had the wrong date for. And so I wasn't even supposed to be there. I'm leaving the hotel, embarrassed and dejected, and in comes then Senator Obama, and we met. He had given a speech on his view of faith and public life in 2006. So I met him in 2007. In 2006, he gave the speech, where he said that left wing secularists were wrong to ask people of faith to leave their faith outside the door of our politics. He said that that was a practical absurdity.
• 9:18
  Michael Wear: That speech meant a lot to me.
• 9:18
  Michael Wear: I'd only been a Christian for a couple years and was thinking a lot, thinking a lot about these kinds of questions. So I told him I wanted to work for him.
• 9:27
  Michael Wear: And ten months later, I was in Iowa for the Iowa caucus and went from there to working in the White House with faith groups. I was in an office called the Office of Faith based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which used to be the Faith Based Office in the Bush administration. So George W.
• 9:46
  Michael Wear: Bush was president. He established this office. And so I spent three years doing that and did some additional work after that.
• 9:56
  Michael Wear: And basically for the last 10 years, I've been a consultant helping Christian leaders, organizations navigate public life. And that helped contribute, both my White House experience and my work walking alongside ministries and leaders, led me to create the organization that I lead now called the Center for Christianity and Public Life.
• 10:21
  Michael Wear: And in some ways, the book "The Spirit of Our Politics," helps define and go into the why of the work that we do and how we do it as a nonprofit.
• 10:34
  Chris McAlilly: Thanks for sharing. That's super helpful.
• 10:37
  Eddie Rester: You have such... I mean, your story has, in some ways led to this book. I mean, really as I hear you're growing up, your grandfather from World War Two, the providential meeting with Senator Barack Obama at that time in your life, and then you write this book"Spirit of Our Politics," which really helps frame for Christians, what does it mean to be Christian in the public sphere? What does it mean for us to really be who we are, and the best of who we are, in the And one of the writers, before we get into some of what you public sphere?
• 11:13
  Eddie Rester: said, I want to let folks know that you quote a lot, you pull a lot from Dallas Willard. So, one, for those who don't know who Dallas Willard was, kind of a brief sketch of him. But what was it that drew you to him as you thought about writing this book? Obviously he's had a major impact on your life.
• 11:32
  Michael Wear: Yeah, he sure has.
• 11:32
  Michael Wear: My first meeting, when I started at the White House was with--my first outside meeting with an outside stakeholder so to speak--was with Gary Haugen.
• 11:43
  Michael Wear: Gary Haugen is the CEO of International Justice Mission.
• 11:46
  Michael Wear: And I have great respect for Gary, when I met him for the first time, and my respect has only grown since. But after we met, he sent to my office, a copy of "The Divine Conspiracy," and I'd never heard of Dallas Willard before. I was just weeks into my job at the White House.
• 12:05
  Michael Wear: And I thought, you know, this is almost an insult, a 300-something page book from a philosopher I'd never heard of.
• 12:13
  Michael Wear: "Divine Conspiracy" is relatively dense for a trade book. And what is he doing, sending me this book? How does he have time to read this?
• 12:24
  Michael Wear: But my pastor back home in Buffalo, just a few months later, happened to write a post recommending this book, too. And at that point, I thought, well, if my pastor back home and Gary Haugen are saying I need to read this, I need to read this book.
• 12:39
  Michael Wear: And it was like a second spiritual awakening in my life.
• 12:42
  Michael Wear: So personal decisions, as folks will see, reading the book, my view of politics, public life, and obviously, of the kingdom of God, and the Gospel, heavily influenced by Dallas.
• 12:54
  Michael Wear: Dallas was a philosopher by training. He taught at the University of Southern California for almost 50 years.
• 13:04
  Michael Wear: For a time he was chair of the philosophy department at USC. He also was a pastor, teacher, author of "The Divine Conspiracy," "Spirit of the Disciplines," "Renovation of the Heart," and a number of other books. Dallas, there are a number of special things about him. He, his view was that the gospel is the announcement, Jesus's announcement of the availability, the present availability of the kingdom of God for whoever stumbled into it. And he thought, that discipleship, that the core of what life was about, was about learning from Jesus, how Jesus would live your life, if he were you.
• 13:58
  Michael Wear: And those ideas have influenced me a great deal. And, you know, Dallas, as a philosopher brought a lot of weight to bear on thinking about what the kingdom of God meant for all of life.
• 14:18
  Michael Wear: And so he had this idea. He articulated this idea around the disappearance of moral knowledge. That's a very important concept as we think about our politics. I have a chapter on that. He had an idea around something he called Gospels of sin management.
• 14:29
  Michael Wear: There's a chapter about that in the book. And so yeah, you don't need to have read Dallas Willard to read "The Spirit of Our Politics." I will say, I do hope that people who read "The Spirit of Our Politics" will read Willard.
• 14:44
  Eddie Rester: Well, you get a heavy dose. You get a heavy dose of Dallas in the book, which is fantastic. So.
• 14:49
  Chris McAlilly: You do. And one of the things that I hear in Dallas's stories, I've heard you tell it in some other conversations and then you know, as I read the book, that is important, and I think in some ways is connected to your beginning in Catholicism, there's this idea of reality.
• 15:10
  Michael Wear: Yes.
• 15:11
  Chris McAlilly: Reality being something that you want to make contact with, with statements of faith, statements of morality.
• 15:20
  Chris McAlilly: And I think one of the things that can sometimes happen in And one of the things that, I think, is a thread from the Protestantism is that we can, and you make this case in the book, that we can speak of our faith in ways that are privatized and personal. And we can fail to kind of jump the gap to a public faith or the idea that moral knowledge is actually knowledge. In fact, we're simply asserting kind of our opinions.
• 15:50
  Chris McAlilly: You know, this is the truth is... You know, this is my opinion about what the truth is.
• 15:54
  Chris McAlilly: And that's kind of all we can say.
• 16:03
  Chris McAlilly: Catholic moral tradition, moral, philosophical, and theological tradition, to Dallas Willard, is this idea that our faith and our moral ideas have real content that connect to the real world.
• 16:22
  Michael Wear: Yes.
• 16:22
  Chris McAlilly: And I wonder if you could maybe just talk about that, the category of reality, the way in which that plays out in politics and maybe doesn't play out always in faith.
• 16:32
  Michael Wear: Yeah, well, look, I mean, I think if your personal faith is in public, then it's not even really personal. You know, like, I think Dallas is someone who grew up in real poverty, in Buffalo, Missouri, actually, and so very different Buffalo than the Buffalo I grew up in, in New York. And his life was hard enough. And I think he was a serious enough person in his life to not be interested in a faith of platitudes and of comforts that aren't actually taken to be reality.
• 17:12
  Michael Wear: And I think we get into all of these ways of shielding our faith from reality. So when we're pressed, we'll say things like, well, you know, that's just what my family believes, you know. Or, you know, that's just how I was raised. Well, like a faith that is the basis, it's how I was raised, you know, this is the culture I grew up in, that's not a faith that is going to ground you and make up your imagination to the extent to which you can be faithful in times of trial and testing.
• 17:55
  Michael Wear: When it comes to politics, I think that, I write in the book, that I think that there have been two predominant approaches to Christianity when it comes to politics, and that is the view that Christianity is either useless or something to be used.
• 18:12
  Michael Wear: So it's either irrelevant, or it's something that we can just sort of draw on to serve our political purposes. And what"The Spirit of Our Politics" is attempting to do is empower pastors, individual Christians, empower the church to place politics as within and under the Gospel, as opposed to placing politics above the Gospel, or outside and irrelevant to the Gospel.
• 18:44
  Michael Wear: And just the last thing I'd say here is, I don't think that this is an optional thing to discipleship. I think that, and what I have found in personal, pastoral settings, and those kind of... If politics is this area of life that is cordoned off from God, in which the way of Jesus...
• 19:09
  Eddie Rester: Doesn't work.
• 19:10
  Michael Wear: Doesn't hold up, doesn't work? That is a logic that doesn't stay contained there. It actually... If you don't trust Jesus for your politics, I promise you there are other areas of life in which you also don't trust Jesus. And that very quickly moves the problem from one of, oh, our politics doesn't have the resources it needs, which is true, or the common good, the public good could be so much more significantly advanced if Christians had a public confidence. Very quickly, it moves to, what are we doing as the church? What are we doing as Christians? What does it mean for us to follow Jesus if there are these areas of life in which we don't think Jesus is up to the task? And that gets, I think, into issues that are even closer to my heart.
• 20:02
  Eddie Rester: I think what begins to happen, if we cordon off politics or any area of life, what we then cede power is then instead of our relationship with Christ, our understanding the kingdom discipling us so that it changes how we do politics or money or wherever we want to go with that. Then we give actually, politics the power to begin to disciple us in an area of life that we've given up on Jesus.
• 20:29
  Michael Wear: That's exactly right.
• 20:30
  Eddie Rester: And you talk a lot about what's... There's a part of the book where you really begin to kind of drill in, in a very kind way. And that's one of the things I want you to know that I noticed in the book, you don't come out swinging with a heavy bat. But there are moments when I was reading the book going, I think he just cut me to the core right there with that understanding. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about what's discipling us and how you've seen that play out?
• 20:59
  Michael Wear: Yes. So there is a logic of our politics, which in the book I describe in part as defined by what social scientists called political sectarianism. Political sectarianism is a particular framework for thinking about the kind of polarization we have today. And it's made up of three
• 21:19
  primary ingredients: aversion, othering, and a misplaced moralization. Aversion is the tendency to dislike and distrust those who are politically different. Othering is a tendency to other, sort of make outside of the boundaries of human dignity those who are politically different.
• 21:41
  primary ingredients: Moralization refers to an elevation of, an ultimatizing of politics, to elevate political difference to the level of iniquity or sin or pure good and evil.
• 21:55
  primary ingredients: The Christian faith provides tremendous resources for undermining those three ingredients. But we are very much breathing the air of political sectarianism. And if we aren't actively drawing on other resources, then exactly your point. That is the air that will shape us. That is the air that will form us. And so I think the other thing I talk about in the book is, there's a chapter on what Dallas called the allure of gentleness, which was his book about Christian apologetics. And I just apply his framework for apologetics to just how Christians show up in public. And in that chapter, I talk about the cultivation of anger.
• 22:52
  primary ingredients: And I think this is a very, this cuts to the core, which is I think... In church... Although, I find that this is changing. I think people, we live in such a therapeutic culture right now that I actually think that we're finding even a resistance among, in some church contexts, to even platitudes about being slow to anger, which, of course, is scriptural, just a direct scriptural admonition. You take that into politics, and people just think, well, there's no imagination for politics without anger and the cultivation of anger.
• 23:37
  primary ingredients: But we need to think seriously as Christians about what we think anger is doing for us. And the hubris against the counsel of scripture and Christian tradition, that anger is something that we can use to achieve our purposes in a faithful way. I think there's cause for great caution of that.
• 24:02
  primary ingredients: And those are the kinds of discipleship questions I'm seeking to raise in the book, both in the context of politics, but obviously, this has an effect for the whole of our lives.
• 24:12
  Chris McAlilly: I want to come back around to this idea that the content of the Bible or the resources of the Christian tradition offer moral knowledge rather than... Because I think this is a crucial point that you're trying to make in the book, that decisions get made...
• 24:32
  Chris McAlilly: It comes down to how political decisions get made. And, you know, one of the things that I think plays into the decision making of any leader, any executive leader, any political leader, any person working at any scale--locally, statewide, nationally, or in any kind of business or nonprofit context.
• 24:59
  Michael Wear: Yeah.
• 24:59
  Chris McAlilly: You're making decisions on the basis of some set of resources. And a lot of times today we talk about data driven decision making, or we talk about efficiency, or we talk about a range of different things. When you... And you're talking about the the content of the Bible, the content and the resources of the Christian tradition, as if they have the same level of credibility. And I do think credibility is one of the words that you lift up as any sciences, data, or whatever.
• 25:34
  Chris McAlilly: And just, I would love for you to continue to kind of flesh out that case, for someone who maybe hasn't thought about it in those terms.
• 25:44
  Michael Wear: Yes, Christianity offers publicly available knowledge that you can count on.
• 25:47
  Michael Wear: And there is, I think, in some And sometimes those are told, as if even years after the just Christian traditions, though, I will say this is very much in the West. And kind of to your point, this is, I say this as an evangelical. I'm so thankful for the evangelical tradition. I don't know that I, practically speaking, I'd be a Christian without it. It was an evangelical tract handing out volunteer that gave me Romans.
• 26:20
  Michael Wear: But there have been strains of evangelicalism, and Mark Noll wrote the book, "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind," that treat faith as opposed to knowledge, or knowledge opposed to faith. And we have this sort of culture, sometimes, of testimonies, of people saying, you know, we almost value testimonies that circumvent knowledge or rationality or any sense of a journey to coming to believe the faith is true. The testimonies that we value in some Christian cultures are, you know, "I just believed." believing, there's still not an actual confidence, you know. I was just blessed with this realization, but I don't really know anything. And there's nothing that I could really share with anybody. Because it's, I have beliefies, you know. And so when Scripture calls us to love the Lord, with all of our soul, strength, mind, hearts, we read mind differently. So soul, strength, heart, we know that that is about sort of our capacity. All of who we are, our capacity, our strength, our hearts, our will, we know those are to be directed and submitted to the Lord. But mind reads like a negation in some traditions.
• 28:12
  Michael Wear: What it means to love the Lord with all your mind, in some interpretations are sort of the... I think the intuition we have is, "I need to cast my mind aside, so that God can fill up that void with something other than knowledge." Just sort of with with faith, with certainty, with these kinds of things. But I would encourage people to just do like an inductive Bible study on the word "know," or the word"knowledge." People will be very surprised how many times we're called not just to believe, but to know. And this is fundamental in all of life.
• 28:52
  Michael Wear: To your point, trust and knowledge are intimately connected. It's very difficult to trust something that you don't know. Providing mental assent is another issue. Mental assent doesn't require knowledge. But trust requires knowledge. It requires a foundation. Now, in politics, one of the things that has happened is this idea. And I argue in the book that I think this is part of the sort of philosophical overflow of the legal principle of the separation of church and state, which the legal principle Dallas Willard thought it should be zealously upheld. I think the legal principle of separation of church and state rightly taken is vital. But it seems to carry with it this philosophical idea that that means that Christian knowledge or other forms of religious knowledge are impermissible, do not hold up in decision making matters related to self-governance, and that I think just has to be rejected.
• 30:01
  Michael Wear: It has to be rejected by the Christian.
• 30:06
  Michael Wear: Now, just one word on this, I think a lot of people hear this and go, well, you know, whose Christianity? And I think that's a good question to ask. As CS Lewis in "Mere Christianity," says, you know, "Scripture does not offer a particular political program. Scripture is to be applied by Christians in their time and place." And so this is not about sort of when we talk about Christian knowledge, we're not saying, "And therefore capital gains should be taxed at X percent." No, what we're saying is that the Christian faith offers resources about the human person, knowledge about the human person, institutional resources, historical resources, theological resources, that are fit for guiding decision making.
• 31:00
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah, and I think the pressing point, and this is a really old philosophical idea. I mean, this goes back to Aristotle, it goes back to the virtue ethics, is this idea that if we want a good society, if we want to live in a public that actually is good, then it would require of us more than engaging in tweets, and, you know, kind of offerin, our opinions on social media about XYZ thing or like fighting or bickering about politics. It would require of us becoming different kinds of people.
• 31:34
  Chris McAlilly: And ultimately, that's kind of the thrust of the book. Yes, we live in a politics that's sick, that's disoriented, disintegrating, that's fractured. And you know, what's going to help us is not learning a set of techniques or even engaging in certain ways. Your argument is that it's becoming a certain kind of person. And there are their resources. There are biblical resources. There are resources from the Evangelical and the Catholic and the mainline tradition, and otherwise, that come together.
• 32:02
  Chris McAlilly: And particularly, you know, Dallas Willard pulls all these threads together to present a picture of what it would look like to become, ultimately, Christ-like, and Christ's likeness is an antidote in some ways to... You know, the mind of Christ, or taking on the fruit of the Spirit would be an antidote to a lot of what ails us across the the entire political spectrum and at every level, you know.
• 32:32
  Chris McAlilly: And for me, that's why the book just sings. You know, it just...
• 32:37
  Chris McAlilly: There is... It's so beautiful, to be given a picture of a different kind of person that I could become, and a different kind of politics that we could engage together. And, you know, I just, I was just blown away by the book, man. I just so grateful for it. I'm sorry.
• 32:58
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah, go for it, Eddie. Jump in.
• 33:00
  Eddie Rester: The quote that I think speaks to this from the book, you write, "Christians participate in politics, not as an act of imposition, but out of a spirit of loving service." That's a very different approach to politics, not just by Christians. So what does it mean, to say, "out of the spirit of loving service?" What does that practically, pragmatically begin to look like for us? And I want to talk about the spiritual disciplines in just a minute because you don't just say, do this differently. Be better people. Here's how we can be shaped into it. So I want to get there. And you may want to go there. But what does it mean, this loving act of service?
• 33:41
  Michael Wear: So the kind of people we are has much to do with the kind of politics we have. TS Eliot wrote, you know,"the folly of the great human endeavor has been to try to create a system so perfect, that people no longer have to be good." And so you mentioned technique earlier, this is the idea that, you know, if we just set the structure up right, then we could somehow force goodness onto ourselves and society. And the reason why that's folly, generally, especially in democratic systems of government, which is what we have, is those systems are emerging from somewhere. The state of our politics is a reflection of the state of our souls. And I think we can become so enamored with obfuscating our own duty saying, "Oh, look, at those bums in the state capitol," or well, they're responding to incentives that you might give them.
• 34:52
  Eddie Rester: We give them.
• 34:52
  Michael Wear: And so, so, yes, this question of formation in and for politics is critical.
• 34:56
  Michael Wear: What it means, you know, love is to will the good. And so this is a question of the orientation of our heart. When you go to politics, what are you doing? I advance in the book that politics is an essential forum in which we can love our neighbors, not the essential forum, not the only forum, but an essential forum. And you can make a solely political argument for that. Which I could make.
• 35:34
  Michael Wear: But the real foundation for the argument is, that's what we're called to do as Christ followers. We are called to love, love of God and love of neighbor.
• 35:47
  Michael Wear: And so everywhere where we're showing up in life, we want to... You know, Willard defined kingdom as the range of your effective will. So God's kingdom is the range of his effective will, where what he wants done is done. But we each have our own little kingdoms, the range of our effective will, and politics falls within the range of our effective will, not political outcomes, generally speaking. We certainly don't choose who we have to vote between or anything like that.
• 36:18
  Michael Wear: But we do have political activity that is within the range of our effective will. And like all else, we want to place that which is within the range of our effective will under the jurisdiction of God's love, under the jurisdiction of God's will to good. And so that's what we're seeking to do.
• 36:41
  Michael Wear: But, you know, I have been spending a lot of time in Colossians 3, over the last couple of years. I think that there's this kind of unfortunate sort of quandary that we put Christians in, when we suggest that the decision you have to make is to raise your hand in a church auditorium. And then sort of God takes over from there.
• 37:13
  Michael Wear: And so if you are not growing in Christ's likeness, it's probably that your decision back in that church auditorium was deficient in some way. When actually, that is in some ways, the beginning.
• 37:34
  Michael Wear: And then we're seeking to follow Jesus with our whole lives, led by the Spirit, led by God, but God invites our participation.
• 37:48
  Michael Wear: Willard would say grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. And so we are seeking Christ in all that we do. And trying to learn from him, drawing on practices that are available to us, drawing on things like study, scripture, worship, celebration, fasting, silence, solitude, we are seeking to learn from Jesus by participation with, with the Holy Spirit, how to put on how to take off the old self with its practices, and put on the new self, which is being renewed and the knowledge of the image of its Creator. And that's for all of life, and it can take place in politics as well.
• 38:33
  Eddie Rester: One of the things you slipped in, in that answer, and I heard it, was that we often treat politics as the ultimate.
• 38:44
  Michael Wear: Right.
• 38:45
  Eddie Rester: The ultimate kingdom is the work of politics.
• 38:47
  Michael Wear: Yes.
• 38:48
  Michael Wear: Yes.
• 38:48
  Eddie Rester: We put, people put a lot of faith on the left and the right in the work of politics. But when we remember that our ultimate is the kingdom inaugurated brought to us by Jesus, it shifts the view. Then we understand politics, as you just said, it's just one realm.
• 39:04
  Eddie Rester: One realm where we get to love, love our neighbors.
• 39:10
  Eddie Rester: You ran quickly through some of those spiritual disciplines real quick. And, and this is one of the reasons I would encourage people actually to get the book for those two chapters on gentleness. And then the people, the kind of people we are. I would have paid twice as much money for the book just for those two chapters. I'm glad I didn't.
• 39:30
  Chris McAlilly: Michael, after we get off, if you could just send your Venmo over and we'll let Eddie send you just an extra twenty dollars.
• 39:37
  Michael Wear: Maybe I should just do a rerelease of just those two chapters and see how it does.
• 39:46
  Eddie Rester: But it was so good, because so many times when I've read books about why politics are broken, it doesn't leave us with okay, how do we practically change. And in that chapter, you actually talk about the three things that political sectarianism is. The... I'm gonna mess it up.
• 40:06
  Chris McAlilly: Aversion.
• 40:07
  Eddie Rester: Aversion, otherness.
• 40:08
  Chris McAlilly: Othering.
• 40:10
  Eddie Rester: Othering I'm sorry.
• 40:11
  Chris McAlilly: And moralization. Did you read the book or not?
• 40:12
  Eddie Rester: Moralization.
• 40:13
  Chris McAlilly: Did you read it?
• 40:15
  Michael Wear: He did. He did.
• 40:15
  Michael Wear: He's kidding.
• 40:16
  Chris McAlilly: I'm just kidding. I'm joking. I'm sorry.
• 40:18
  Eddie Rester: You give some, you give spiritual disciplines for us to push back or to live through, live beyond those things. So would you talk about those three disciplines right quick. I think that's important for folks to hear.
• 40:32
  Michael Wear: Yeah. So, confession will help address misplaced moralization in your life. Fellowship, particularly within the context of the local church will help address othering. Service will help address aversion. And these are spiritual practices that have been practiced for literally millennia by Christians and have found to be edifying in the pursuit of Christ's likeness.
• 41:09
  Michael Wear: These are things that we could take up.
• 41:13
  Michael Wear: Now what's important when we talk about spiritual formation, particularly when we talk about spiritual practices, and by the way, just some like definitional things: Spiritual formation is without regard to any tradition.
• 41:23
  Michael Wear: Spiritual formation, everyone has a spiritual formation.
• 41:28
  Michael Wear: There's no getting around it.
• 41:31
  Michael Wear: Spiritual formation is just that process by which your character, your will takes on a particular shape. Christian spiritual formation is entirely focused on and centered on the person, life, an interactive relationship with Jesus Christ.
• 41:51
  Michael Wear: Spiritual practices are not what constitutes spiritual formation.
• 41:56
  Michael Wear: So I think a lot of people, especially if you're like a particular type, if you're sort of achievement minded, I think the worst thing that you could do is hear about these practices and go "Oh, gosh, another list of boxes I need to check to be an honor roll Christian student." That's not what this is about. This is about assess your own life. Assess what you're struggling with. And a good place to start is aversion, othering, and a misplaced moralization. Do you identify those things in yourself? Are there people in your life that know you well enough that you could invite their speaking into, "hey, what kind of person do I become? What kind of person am I when politics is in the room with us?" And then pray. Discern in community with the Holy Spirit, whether there are practices that can help you. You know, practices are off the mark training, an indirect means of shaping the character. They're a kind of training. I think of Paul and his metaphor in Hebrews about training to run the race.
• 43:12
  Michael Wear: That's what we're talking about here. And so you might find...
• 43:18
  Michael Wear: When I hear that someone voted for the candidate that I oppose in church, a flip switches, and it's like, I can't relate to this person. I distrust this person. I don't like it. And I want that to change. Well, there are some disciplines that you could pick up to do that.
• 43:37
  Michael Wear: Fellowship being a being a main one.
• 43:43
  Michael Wear: And so I offer these in the book, at the end of the chapter, you're at the end of the chapter on disciplines. Because I wanted to avoid it being this sort of abstract detached list of things that you could do. I offer a sort of composite character.
• 44:03
  Michael Wear: Laura, I named her, and it's actually named after the person who recommended to me that I do this. And so that's... For my next book, if anyone listening has any recommendations, you might...
• 44:16
  Eddie Rester: You might end up in the book.
• 44:18
  Michael Wear: Yeah, you might end up in the book. But I sort of depict a week in the life of Laura, who has other obligations, isn't politically obsessed, isn't sort of, what would it look like in a normal week to take up practices that might contribute to your formation, first for and in life with Jesus, but in a way that has implications for politics, for the life of the community in which we live.
• 44:44
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah, and I've heard this stated. John Mark Comer, for folks that may have heard that name. He's recently written a book called"Practicing the Way." It's just practicing the way of Jesus and doing that together. And you know, one of the encouragements that I take away from the chapter is that, at its best, this is what the church just does. The church, if it actually does its work, is doing the work. And so I think it's for pastors or for parents, you have chapters on kind of giving encouragement to both of those groups of folks. It's just have confidence that the work that you're doing is doing the work that needs to be done. And just lean into it, even when it's hard, even it was when it's difficult. And I want to set that down.
• 45:27
  Chris McAlilly: I just want to end with one question about hope. Because I do think that hope is an important dimension of political rhetoric, and a lot of times our--certainly for your former boss--but I also think that sometimes hope gets undermined or undercut by the reality of the world that we live in. And I guess the way that I want to ask the question is not just what's giving you hope. But where do you see the Living God at work across the country as you're interacting with people? You know, what is God doing in our day and time against the sickness of our politics? I guess, where do you see God at work?
• 46:08
  Michael Wear: Man, people who show up in our political life, but reject the logic of our politics stick out like a sore thumb. And they're everywhere. I mean, that's the thing. What this book is about is not oh, we need to... I love what you just said, like this is not about the invention of something new. This isn't about something that has never been before, and, you know, doesn't exist today. No, this is about people being filled with the Spirit of God, and taking that with them wherever they go.
• 46:50
  Michael Wear: The mistake that we make is we think that to show up in politics, we need to be grounded in politics. And that is the dangerous place to be. The safest place to be, the most edifying place to be, the way that we can actually bless our politics is to have our political engagement grounded in the Gospel. It is not safe for Christians to participate in politics with their feet planted in politics. But when their feet are planted in the Gospel, then all kinds, a horizon of possibilities opens up. And so that's where I get hope. That would be an encouragement I'd give to others.
• 47:35
  Michael Wear: I think we need to, I think the church has been too, has had too reactionary of posture towards politics, thinking that what it means to participate in politics means taking up the tools of our politics. So just very quickly, someone after my first book, someone said, a pastor said, you know, "You really convicted me.
• 48:03
  Michael Wear: I didn't really care much about politics before. But now I'm engaging in politics. I check in on the polls every day." And I just went that is not what the aim was. That is not what the aim was. That is, with rare exceptions, I think that is not the contribution that we have to make.
• 48:29
  Michael Wear: No, the contrary, exactly what you said, which is no, we need to take up confidence in the gentleness of Christ, in the joy of Christ, in the loving kindness of Christ. And understand that those things hold up in all of life. That even right, the issue is not can we prevent the ship from going down? The issue is that the kingdom of God is a place where we are secure even if the ship goes down. This is what Jesus was talking about in the Gospels. And so that's the call.
• 49:09
  Michael Wear: It's a call to the life of the Church, to the Church being the Church, and then sending us out to live all of life empowered by the Spirit of God.
• 49:19
  Chris McAlilly: Praise God.
• 49:19
  Chris McAlilly: Thank you for ending there.
• 49:21
  Chris McAlilly: That's awesome.
• 49:22
  Eddie Rester: Amen. Thank you for your book. The book is "The Spirit of Our Politics." I just appreciate your time, your spirit, and just your joy today.
• 49:28
  Eddie Rester: Thank you for being with us.
• 49:33
  Michael Wear: Thanks. Great to be with you.
• 49:34
  Eddie Rester: [OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.
• 49:42
  Chris McAlilly: If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]