Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Why Should Christians Engage Politics? (Vincent Bacote) | Faith & Politics #13

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Why Should Christians Engage Politics? (Vincent Bacote) | Faith & Politics #13 · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Dr.
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  Speaker 3: James Spencer.
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  Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways
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  Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,
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  Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now,
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  Speaker 1: on to today's episode of Thinking Christian.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Dr.
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  Speaker 3: James Spencer, joined by my co-host, Dr. Ashish Varma.
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  Speaker 1: And our special guest today is Vincent Baycoat. He is
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  Speaker 1: professor of theology and director of the Center for Applied
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  Speaker 1: Christian Ethics at Wheaton College. And we're going to be
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  Speaker 1: talking a little bit about theology and politics. as part
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  Speaker 1: of our ongoing series to hopefully prepare you to think
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  Speaker 1: well as the midterm elections come up. So I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to pitch it to Ashish and let him ask the
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  Speaker 1: first question today and excited for this conversation.
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  Speaker 3: So Ashish, take it away.
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  Speaker 4: Thanks, James. Yeah, well, first I want to say I'm
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  Speaker 4: very excited. I see the gray in your hair and
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  Speaker 4: I see the gray in my hair. And I remember
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  Speaker 4: that we go back to when there was no gray
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  Speaker 4: in my hair and far less in your hair. So
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  Speaker 4: it's been a while, I guess that's saying.
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  Speaker 5: You know, I mean, if we look closely, we see
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  Speaker 5: that there's a little bit of brown hair trying to
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  Speaker 5: hold on. But the pigments in my hair are diminished
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  Speaker 5: around here.
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  Speaker 4: It does that, it seems to, over time, right? This
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  Speaker 4: is all to say that there's been some time that's passed.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: But it's a pleasure to have you here. Thank you.
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  Speaker 4: vince was my i'm not sure how we called it
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  Speaker 4: when i was in the phd program you were my
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  Speaker 4: my student teaching supervisor i.
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  Speaker 2: Guess yeah yeah i mean you were you were a
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  Speaker 2: preceptor for us when we expanded uh the freshman theology
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  Speaker 2: class to.
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  Speaker 6: You know 100 plus students typically and so you you
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  Speaker 6: were a group you were part of a trio of
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  Speaker 6: students who did the precepting and did and did the
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  Speaker 6: grading and and at least in my sections i you know,
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  Speaker 6: make sure everybody had an opportunity to actually do some lecturing.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, which was great. So it's great to have you here.
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  Speaker 4: You've had a long interest in public or political theology
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  Speaker 4: or both. You've written on the topic. Do you want
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  Speaker 4: to maybe start off by helping us understand why do
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  Speaker 4: you care about this topic?
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  Speaker 2: I care about it for, you know, because I care
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  Speaker 2: about rock and roll is really what it comes down to.
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  Speaker 2: Because because this is the 80s here, and some could
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  Speaker 2: say I was in my metal phase, if you will.
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  Speaker 2: Not that the metal phase is gone, but a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people in my Bible said it was kind of
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  Speaker 2: a problem, me listening to groups like Iron Maiden, Motley
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  Speaker 2: Crue and stuff. Hey, why are you listening to that music? Blah, blah, blah.
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  Speaker 2: And it seemed to me from an intuitional level that
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  Speaker 2: you could appreciate someone's artistry without wanting to be that
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  Speaker 2: person that you can appreciate the good that is coming
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  Speaker 2: from them while critiquing their lifestyle. I mean, using Motley
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  Speaker 2: Crue as an example, very sleazy people, of course. But
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  Speaker 2: the point wasn't being sleazy. The point was, you know,
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  Speaker 2: there's a group, right? I mean, so, but I didn't
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  Speaker 2: have any theological language for that. And so, but it
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  Speaker 2: always seemed to me that Christians ought to be able
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  Speaker 2: to engage culture And that it's okay to do that,
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  Speaker 2: that you're not worldly because you engage culture. And so if,
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  Speaker 2: if you think about people that are more culture affirming
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  Speaker 2: versus culture denying, I was around people that tended to
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  Speaker 2: be more culture denying. And so really, whether it's music
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  Speaker 2: and film, whether it's politics, whether it's business, whatever it is,
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  Speaker 2: life beyond Sunday, uh, and how Christians ought to be
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  Speaker 2: engaged in that as Christians, discerning that as Christians, has
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  Speaker 2: been something that's been part of something I've cared about
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  Speaker 2: since college. It wasn't really until I was in seminary
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  Speaker 2: that I really began to get, I would say, significant
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  Speaker 2: theological formation from my engagement with Abraham Kuyper. I heard
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  Speaker 2: of Francis Schaeffer before I went to seminary. So that
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  Speaker 2: was some... attention to that because Schaeffer was a culturally
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  Speaker 2: engaging person. And that's really how it happened. And then
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  Speaker 2: my dissertation was about the doctrine of common grace and
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  Speaker 2: the Spirit's work in creation being the dynamic force, if
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  Speaker 2: you will, of common grace, that common grace making possible
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  Speaker 2: our ongoing engagement with the first command in Genesis 1.
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  Speaker 2: So that And that command, God's never said that I
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  Speaker 2: forget that. You know, Psalm 8 is a great example
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  Speaker 2: of that. I mean, Psalm 8 can't be, gee, I
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  Speaker 2: remember when God said we can engage the creation and
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  Speaker 2: I praised you for what we had. Sorry, we don't
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  Speaker 2: have it anymore. That's not the disposition of Psalm 8.
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  Speaker 2: Psalm 8 is that we still are, God still as
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  Speaker 2: human beings gave us this privilege and opportunity to be
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  Speaker 2: the people that are stewarding the world. And so for me,
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  Speaker 2: talking about that, when we have the agency for public engagement,
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  Speaker 2: because everybody has had the same levels of agency around
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  Speaker 2: the world, that, that responsibility and opportunity still remains for us.
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  Speaker 2: And that certainly extends to politics as much as it
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  Speaker 2: extends to how I'm thinking about film, culture, education, whatever
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  Speaker 2: it is. And that, but that, that's still a culture. My,
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  Speaker 2: my inclinations are to be a culture affirming Christian, that
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  Speaker 2: culture affirming Christian doesn't mean anything goes. It means, uh,
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  Speaker 2: But that I can recognize that there are things in
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  Speaker 2: the world that come from non-Christians that I can appreciate,
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  Speaker 2: that I can engage, that sometimes we can maybe be
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  Speaker 2: persuasive to them sometimes. But also that Christians have an
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  Speaker 2: obligation as Christians to participate in the world as people
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  Speaker 2: who can help orient the world toward having, if you will,
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  Speaker 2: at least being a little bit better. Hopefully a lot
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  Speaker 2: better in some cases, but at least a little bit better.
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  Speaker 2: And if you have the agency to do that, then
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  Speaker 2: Christians ought to be doing that. And it ought to
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  Speaker 2: emerge out of our theology rather than out of having
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  Speaker 2: a kind of what I would say an ad hoc
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  Speaker 2: approach to it, which I do think tends to be
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  Speaker 2: the case with a lot of Christians. I mean, I
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  Speaker 2: sometimes wonder if you took a survey of most evangelical
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  Speaker 2: Christians in the United States and you asked them, why
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  Speaker 2: should we be involved in politics and culture? From what
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  Speaker 2: you believe, what is the basis for that? And what
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  Speaker 2: informs how we ought to be going? going into the world,
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  Speaker 2: how we ought to be discerning what we're doing in
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  Speaker 2: the world, what orients us towards the issues that we
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  Speaker 2: care about, what makes us sensitive to issues we may
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  Speaker 2: not know about, but when somebody tells us that's an issue,
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  Speaker 2: we recognize that it is an issue we should care about.
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  Speaker 2: Those types of things. When it comes to that, my
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  Speaker 2: sense is that most people cannot give you a theological
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  Speaker 2: foundation for that. They can say, I'm a Christian, I
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  Speaker 2: should care, I should be like Jesus or whatever. It's like, okay, great.
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  Speaker 2: Can you tell me what it is about being Christian
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  Speaker 2: that makes you care, that orients you into the public?
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  Speaker 2: What is your language for talking about what that posture is?
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  Speaker 2: You know, how many people would use a language like stewardship,
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  Speaker 2: for example, to talk about that in terms of the
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  Speaker 2: way that we're thinking about engaging the world, as opposed to, well,
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  Speaker 2: I'm an American, I'm a Christian, you know, we're in
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  Speaker 2: this Judeo-Christian nation. So you're telling me these facts, but
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  Speaker 2: are you telling me those facts in a way where
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  Speaker 2: what you know about them in terms of theological basis,
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  Speaker 2: that those are the things that are themselves the reason,
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  Speaker 2: rather than you find yourself in an environment with political agency,
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  Speaker 2: at least conversations about political agency. And then you're thinking
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  Speaker 2: about being some kind of Christian who does something Christianly
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  Speaker 2: in the world. And so to me, having that theological
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  Speaker 2: foundation for that public engagement is really important.
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  Speaker 4: That's great.
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  Speaker 2: That may have been a longer answer than you were
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  Speaker 2: looking for.
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  Speaker 4: No, that was good. I was hoping for a long
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  Speaker 4: answer because that gives you.
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  Speaker 2: All these spurs.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think because the spurs that you gave us
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  Speaker 4: to work off of here, I want to put a
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  Speaker 4: bookmark in one of them in particular to come back to.
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  Speaker 4: And that's the way that you were talking about engagement
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  Speaker 4: in a way that seems broader than than the ways
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  Speaker 4: that oftentimes we tend to think of political engagement. So
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  Speaker 4: specifically the direction you want to take is where I
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  Speaker 4: want to put the bookmark. If you don't mind, can
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  Speaker 4: we talk at first, the way that you're thinking of
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  Speaker 4: political to me sounds like an older, fuller, maybe even
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  Speaker 4: more the way that Aristotle thought about the political citizen
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  Speaker 4: sort of approaching engagement where it's not limited to, but
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  Speaker 4: not exclusive against either. an engagement with the realm that
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  Speaker 4: we tend to see of as politics.
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  Speaker 3: Is that fair to say?
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  Speaker 2: Sure. That's very fair to say. What I would say
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  Speaker 2: is that what we call, what political life is a
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  Speaker 2: species of our larger engagement of or management of the world.
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  Speaker 2: I'm of the view that were there no fall, there
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  Speaker 2: would still be political realities because as humans went on,
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  Speaker 2: at some point people would have had to cooperate with
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  Speaker 2: each other around public projects. instead of everybody having their
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  Speaker 2: own way to get to what, you know, river or
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  Speaker 2: wherever it is, eventually people would get together and say, hey,
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  Speaker 2: let's band together and make a river. At some point
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  Speaker 2: they would talk about how you're going to pay for this,
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  Speaker 2: who's going to have the responsibility for this, who's going
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  Speaker 2: to manage these things, and other forms of common life.
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  Speaker 2: So that management of common life would happen regardless. We
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  Speaker 2: think of politics in terms of the need to have
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  Speaker 2: guardrails that need to have protection because post-fall, humans are
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  Speaker 2: very good at taking advantage of other humans. And so
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  Speaker 2: we need things in place in order for our life
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  Speaker 2: to be at least relatively survivable, to have some kind
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  Speaker 2: of public justice reality in place to say, hey, you
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  Speaker 2: can do these things, you can't do these things. If
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  Speaker 2: you do these things correctly, there could be consequences if
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  Speaker 2: you harm people in certain ways. Or that in order
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: for people to be able to do what they would
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  Speaker 2: like with their lives, we need to create a kind
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  Speaker 2: of society that enables people to have the agency to
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  Speaker 2: go about their lives without the fear of being attacked
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  Speaker 2: all the time. In other words, all that's emerging out
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  Speaker 2: of the presumption that when God gives humans the world
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  Speaker 2: to manage, that big picture of what we would call
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  Speaker 2: public life, and I'm calling public life life outside the
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  Speaker 2: context of worship generally, that public life and the domains
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  Speaker 2: we share with other people, that we have responsibility in
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  Speaker 2: that domain. So that's really how I'm getting at it
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  Speaker 2: when I'm thinking about this larger political reality. So I'm
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  Speaker 2: thinking about it doctrinally more than philosophically. Right. Um, but obviously, uh,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it, it resonates with what you're talking about.
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  Speaker 1: So if you were just to make a quick juxtaposition,
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  Speaker 1: like when I think about this through scripture, you have
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  Speaker 1: Romans 13, one through four, that's a little bit more
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  Speaker 1: of the restraint of evil sort of vibe, right? Like
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  Speaker 1: bad people do bad things. The government is there for justice.
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  Speaker 1: But then I think back in the old Testament, Jethro's
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  Speaker 1: advice to Moses was, to assign elders to manage the people.
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  Speaker 1: It's a form of politics to some degree, but it
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  Speaker 1: isn't responding necessarily to the evils of society. It's responding
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  Speaker 1: to the people management, the societal management of society. And
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  Speaker 1: so those two aspects of politics and others would certainly
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  Speaker 1: even make an appearance in scripture if we're paying attention.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, we all... We all belong somewhere,
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  Speaker 2: and depending upon where you belong, you may have the
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  Speaker 2: opportunity to be a person who has some active management.
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  Speaker 2: You might run for mayor. You might run for town council.
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  Speaker 2: You might run for the school board. You might run
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: for the Forest Preserve, or whatever it is. Those things
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  Speaker 2: are available to you. Not if you're in North Korea. Right.
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  Speaker 2: And not if you're not in the right family in
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  Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia. Right. Not if you're part of the junta
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  Speaker 2: in Myanmar. So, you know, everybody doesn't have the agency.
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  Speaker 2: That's why I wanted to mention agency earlier. But when
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  Speaker 2: you have a country like the United States, for all
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  Speaker 2: the problems that we have right now, people still have
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  Speaker 2: way more political agency than most people have ever had
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  Speaker 2: in world history. And so... There's opportunity with that agency.
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  Speaker 2: And that agency isn't just about necessarily what's happening in Washington, D.C.
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  Speaker 2: What's happening in your town? What's happening in your county?
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  Speaker 2: What's happening in your state? There are other domains, levels,
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  Speaker 2: where people can participate in the management of public life.
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  Speaker 2: Or at least you're paying attention to it and you
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  Speaker 2: might vote in these local elections as opposed to only
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  Speaker 2: voting locally. at the state or national level of elections.
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  Speaker 2: You have a role as a citizen where, at the
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  Speaker 2: very least, you can be involved in choosing those people.
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  Speaker 2: You can communicate to those people. And so that's a
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  Speaker 2: form of participation that, depending upon whatever political system you're in,
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  Speaker 2: you can't assume that everybody has that.
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  Speaker 4: I think that's an important detail that we often miss
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  Speaker 4: when we're reading scripture. And we tend to make, in
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  Speaker 4: the broad sense of we, we tend to make too
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  Speaker 4: easy of steps to, the Bible says, Romans 13, 14. Therefore,
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  Speaker 4: here's how we should act in the present. When I
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: think about someone like Paul, we've talked about before in
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  Speaker 4: this podcast.
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  Speaker 2: That.
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  Speaker 4: Even as he can appeal to having Roman citizenship, he
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  Speaker 4: has no real political agency in the sense of the
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: ability to bring about any sort of change. when he's
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: writing to Philemon and sending Onesimus back to him, he
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: has no ability to overcome social structures within the environment.
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  Speaker 4: So he's now thinking in a real way from the margins.
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  Speaker 4: To your point, that's not the case by and large
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  Speaker 4: in the United States and for Christians. So what kind
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  Speaker 4: of a challenge for you does that set up rather
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  Speaker 4: than simple sorts of ways of thinking about, well, the
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  Speaker 4: Bible says, attend to your government leaders as from the
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  Speaker 4: Lord and respect them and honor them. To our situation
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  Speaker 4: where there's a lot more at stake in terms of
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  Speaker 4: our personal involvement. How does that change things for you?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think part of it is, it's interesting to
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: think about this. When people are talking about, whether they're
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: quoting Romans 13 or they're quoting 1 Peter 2, and
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: saying God puts those people in place, What are people
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: assuming in the original context about how those leaders got there?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And when we think about, okay, the way our leaders
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: show up are not the way those leaders showed up
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  Speaker 2: in the United States. And how, because the audiences that
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  Speaker 2: Paul's writing to, none of these people are telling their kids,
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  Speaker 2: you know, and one day you might be president of
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the United States of America if you're an American citizen.
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  Speaker 2: None of these people are, you can't imagine that. But,
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  Speaker 2: you know, some kid somewhere is learning about the way
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: that things are in terms of our government in the
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  Speaker 2: United States of America. And because some were the teaching siblings,
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  Speaker 2: even if not everywhere. And when they're learning at some point,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: somebody is saying, and maybe one of you will be
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  Speaker 2: president one day. Now, obviously, most of the time those
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: teachers are lying. But the fact is, the reason they
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: say that is the citizen is can be the person
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  Speaker 2: who has that managerial position. That big stewardship position. Really
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: that big service opportunity position. That's a very different reality
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: than you've got to be in the right family or
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: you have to get close to the right family to
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: play the game. Now that's the way it is in
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of other places around the world. But that's
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: not generally the way it is in the United States.
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  Speaker 2: Because there's all these stories about how did this person
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: get there? And they didn't always get there because they
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: made all these connections with the people in charge. Sometimes
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: they got there in spite of those people. All that
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: to say is that we can still say that God
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: puts in place government for these purposes. And it's important
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: to have rulers, government officials. But there's been all kinds
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: of processes for how that's happened. And if you're in
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  Speaker 2: an environment where there's more agency, because you're a participant
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  Speaker 2: in that process, then that probably, I think what we
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  Speaker 2: can presume faithfully is, however people are winding up in
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  Speaker 2: those positions, we're not just passive. Because we don't, because
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  Speaker 2: we're actually in a situation where people wind up in
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  Speaker 2: those situations because they emerged from the citizens. And they
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: participated in that larger process, which if you're a citizen
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  Speaker 2: and you take advantage of being a citizen, it's one
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  Speaker 2: of the things you can do. If you think about
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: what's happening at First Peter, for example, where they have
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: about this much political agency, they're told to be good citizens, right?
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  Speaker 2: And they're also told, you know, don't use your freedom
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: for indulgence, basically. So there's some kind of, at least
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  Speaker 2: a little bit of agency they have, at least in
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: terms of the kind of people they're going to be,
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  Speaker 2: which I guess means don't just join, you know, Honor
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  Speaker 2: the king, but don't join the party of the people
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  Speaker 2: that are living lives of debauchery. But if we're thinking
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  Speaker 2: about a situation where you're not in that exilic reality,
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  Speaker 2: then we have to say, I think, that there's forms
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: of Christian faithful participation that can include, okay, I'm in
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  Speaker 2: a situation where I can write to the governor. I
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: can write to the president. I can write to the mayor.
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  Speaker 2: I don't just say, okay, they're in place. I'm merely
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: a subject. I have more agencies. So, and I'm, and I'm,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: and just by virtue of being a citizen, you might say,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: and this is speculation, of course, if first Peter is
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: writing to people in the United States of America, then
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: they might be being told to be, okay, leaders are
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: in this place, etc., etc., but then they're being told,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: be a good citizen. Be a good citizen doesn't mean
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: just let other people drive the bus. You're in a
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: place where your responsibility as a citizen actually includes a
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: way to seek the good of others by your participation
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: in the political system. That doesn't mean that everybody has
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: to run for office, but in other words, you have
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to do things like vote, and if you
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: vote for the right people, you might have a better
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: type of common good because you vote for better people
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: than worse people. And so that participation would be presumed
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: as opposed to participation being absolutely not presumed. In fact,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: the opposite. In a situation like First Peter. And so
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I think we have to take into account what's assumed
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: already about how you get leaders. The fact of leaders
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: is important. Merely being subject to them as if they
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: just showed up and it's just passed down from family
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: member to family member, or if people are killing off.
• 20:55
  Speaker 7: Each other, the people who replace the people that they kill,
• 20:58
  Speaker 7: they replace, whatever it is, then you're just subject to that.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: But if you're in a country where it's like, hey,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: you're a citizen, it could be you. In theory, then
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: there's already something about presuming that participation that I think
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: we should think about.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: How do you think?
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Like, I can remember growing up and not really knowing
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: who my parents were voting for. I knew they voted,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: but it was a much more private thing back then.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: And you didn't have the sort of public presentation of...
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: you know, statistics, evangelical Christians voted this way, or at
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: least it wasn't as in your face. How do you
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: think about that sort of, because now it becomes part
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: of our public witness, right? It becomes just like you
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: would judge a Senator or a legislator who's voting for
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: a particular law or not voting for a particular law.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: It becomes part of their voting record. It feels like
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: we've been, we've gotten like sort of a public voting record.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just interested to hear how you would think through that,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: given the polarities and the vitriol that our political process
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: often raises.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I would say is that, you know,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: it's funny because my mom would never tell us who
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: she voted for. Yeah. I would say, Mom, who did
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: you vote for? None of your business.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think there are probably still people who
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: would say that, but... And also, I mean, I'm not
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: the kind of person, am I where I voted today?
• 22:31
  Speaker 7: That's all you're going to know. I'm not going to
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: tell you everything. I'm not going to give you a
• 22:35
  Speaker 7: rundown of what's on my ballot. But I think when
• 22:40
  Speaker 7: we think about things like 81%, perhaps.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: That those are opportunities, I think, to inquire about Okay,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: what is it that led to this 81%? Part of
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: my argument about why you get the 81% is Trump
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: was going against Hillary Clinton, not against someone like Joe Biden. Now, apparently,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: you know, Biden was told by the operatives. Probably a
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: combination of it's her time and also even if it
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: was your time, you wouldn't win. Whereas I think after
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Beau Biden died, he kind of had like a sympathy
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: vote that might have won it for him. But especially
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: if he was going against Trump. I mean, but they
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: didn't know that he was going to be going against
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Trump when my time that he wasn't even doing this thing.
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: So I said to my classes after Tuesday, Thursday class.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: So Thursday, go to my class after Trump gets elected.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: And I say, here's what you have to understand. Some
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: people are relieved and some people are devastated. Who are
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: the devastated are the people that are thinking about how
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Trump announced himself using xenophobic language about rapists, thugs, all
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. The other people that are relieved
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: are all the people that thought post Obergefell that there
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: was a gigantic progressive snowball at the top of a
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: mountain and that a Hillary Clinton guy elected. She's the
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: one appointing Supreme Court justices. She's the one that's going
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: to bring people who have traditional morality, if you will,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: to heal, especially around sexuality. And that institutions like mine
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: were going to be either forced to go private to
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: maintain justice our positions around those things or we were
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: going to be forced to a lot of accommodations if
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: we were going to still be able to have state
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: funding and all those types of things and it was
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: that and so for i think for a certain percentage
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: of people someone who said i'll make a deal with
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: you was trump did say to certain christian leaders hillary
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: clinton met with no christian leaders at all yeah uh
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and i mean such the miscalculations are on that are
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: just amazing but um But some people, I think, inside
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: the beltway types were really kind of enjoying what they
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: thought was a certain kind of momentum, and then that's
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: not what happened. But Trump makes a deal, and people think, okay,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: he's going to do what we want. And if someone says,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I'm going to support you around the issues you want,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I'll make a deal with you, people chose... To either
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: not vote. Occasionally there are people who voted for like
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Jill Stein or somebody. But some people voted for Hillary
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: because they just couldn't stomach Trump. But most of the people,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: they're thinking cultural wars have been lost. A lot of
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: people have been articulating that narrative. And he may not
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: have been the person that I wanted. Some people did
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: want him. But at least he'll do something for us.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, and I realize for some people, they're like,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I still don't understand how, et cetera, et cetera. Which
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: I want to say is, if you keep hearing that
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: basically we're all about to get steamrolled around this, and
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: we've been losing for the last few years anyway. Yeah.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: On all this stuff. I think some people are like,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to vote for him. And then,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: you know, some people, you know, there's just this interview
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: with Tucker Carlson. where he talks about being in a
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: room with Donald Trump. And he said, it's like the
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: man has a spellbinding powers. And that's what I call
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the apprentice version of Donald Trump versus the art of
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: the deal version of Donald Trump. The art of the
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: deal version of Donald Trump is you're boorish. You're a liar.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: All this other kind of stuff. The apprentice version of
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. I remember watching the show myself thinking he's
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: just not, he's not the villain. It's Omarosa. It's other people.
• 26:35
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: And he, The point being that, in fact, Tim Alberta
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: also said this, who wrote The Kingdom, Power, and the Glory.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: So when he was here, he was talking about being
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: in the room with Donald Trump. And depending upon which
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: version you get, it's easy for people around him to
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: think he's not that bad. Interesting. And also, if you
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: add to that, though, also just whatever kind of aura
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: he has, because I remember Donna Brazile, a Democratic operative, saying,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: There was no way Ron DeSantis was going to get
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: the nomination because he doesn't know how to work a room.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump knows how to work a room. And so
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: all I have to say is that sometimes when people
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: are saying, how could anybody ever vote for that guy?
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: And how did some of these Christians who were in
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: the same room with him, why would they do it?
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Because when they went in the room, they got mesmerized
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and they remained so. And so you, I mean, I
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: think there are a lot of people that are, if
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: you will, kind of just caught up in a certain
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: you know aura we'll call it um but the point
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: is is that and then if you're in and then
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: pragmatically they're thinking about certain things being delivered to them
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: yeah and and and never mind everything that was said
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: about character prior to 2016 because of the sense of
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: crisis prior going into 2016 yeah yeah so now i
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: didn't vote with trump okay so But the point is
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: that I think it's important to understand what the environment was.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: So a lot of people, they were at least relieved
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: that Trump won. Because it's like, okay, you know what?
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: We've been saying for years that we're up against it
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: because we're evangelicals. We're really going to be up against
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: it if she gets elected. And didn't you add to that,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: by the way, I said to my class, I said,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: for most white evangelicals, only an angelic visitation would have
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: made them vote for her. Because the image of Hillary
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Clinton that lots of evangelicals had from the 90s when
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: she was the first lady, you know, all these people
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: who are remembering whether it was a 60 Minutes interview
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: or whatever it was, where she was talking about she
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: wasn't going to be a traditional first lady, stand by
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: your man, all this other kind of stuff. Some people
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: were so turned off by that. And then on top
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: of that, people were thinking, And I think she's really
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: this kind of feminist Marxist character, even though she was
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: a pretty mainstream secretary of state. None of that matters.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: That initial impression stopped for a lot of people. And
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: so they were like, if you think I'm voting for her,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: wait on it. It was kind of what they would say.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: And so the point is, is that I think the
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: problem is, so even if everything that I said is
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: completely accurate, which I think is mostly accurate, I mean,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: I'm not omniscient, so I could be missing something. But
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: when the public reputation of evangelicals prior to 2016 was
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: we wanted Bill Clinton to be impeached. And we kept
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: talking about character matters. And now you're equivocating about character.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: And you have people saying things like it sounds like
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: you just like being around. You like finally being in
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: the room with power. Yeah. And you, and, and, and,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: and as long as things don't get too crazy, you'll be, you'll,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: you'll say you rather explain it away. Uh, I mean, you,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: you won't say he's not a perfect, I mean, everybody
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: would say, well, yeah, he does things that make me nervous, whatever,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: but they would say, but yeah, but he's our guy
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: that makes, that does those things. Yeah. And so I
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: think to other people and to some of the people
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: who grew up in homes or churches where people were
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: talking about character, massive dissonance around all of them.
• 30:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: So you get that reputational piece that then when people
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: are thinking about voting and voting being a dimension of witness,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: and that voting, by the way, also happening by a
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: point when, because these began to happen at least after
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: 2005 for certain, You start hearing people saying, well, of course,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: you know, you're going to vote Republican if you're a Christian,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: which obviously is for people who've never been in a
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: black neighborhood since 1965. I mean, you know, when all
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: the thing begins to change, because it's like, who do
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: you think most people in these black churches are voting for?
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: You probably have a few Republicans in those churches, but
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: not a whole lot. And I think a lot of
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: those people are authentic Christians. Those people aren't even on
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: the horizon when people are saying that. And it's because
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: people are thinking about sexuality and abortion. Yeah. And so
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: all I have to say is that I think 2016
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: is when there's the presumption that if you're an evangelical,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: you're voting for... I think with conservative Catholics, it's always
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: kind of been more divided because of the social thing.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: But with evangelicals, It's like, well, since Reagan, at least,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: it's like, well, you're going to mostly vote Republican, even
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: though you would have people that would explicitly be Democrats
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: for life, like in the 90s and in the early aughts.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: But at some point, the presumption that these are just
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: the people who do that. And of course, here's another
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: problem that's happening along with that. The assumption that evangelical
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: identity is more about those political commitments than about something
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: like the Bevington-Rodrell Act. Yeah. About the Biblicism, Conversionism, Activism, Crucicentrism,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: all those things. Or what I call a Bible ecumenism, right?
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Where Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, and Anglicans and others, and Pentecostals
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: are all saying we're part of the same family, even
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: though we have massive disagreements about many other things. We
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: have nothing in common that we say we're family. That version,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: that Bible ecumenist identity of evangelicalism, massively obscured by the
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: presumption that you're mainly talking about a voting law. Now,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: is that Karl Rove's fault? I mean, I don't know.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Or the media taking evangelicals seriously because of their association
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: with Bush the Younger. Maybe you have Gerson and others
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: in the White House. Now you've got Primetime Live and
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: all these people interviewing people about evangelicals. Now, why they
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: interviewed Joe Laustein to talk about evangelicals on that program,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: I don't understand. But he was one of the people
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: they interviewed. I thought, you've got to be kidding. But hey,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: big church, I guess, right? He wasn't the only one,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: but that threw me off. I'm sorry, go ahead.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I was just going to say, it goes to your
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: early point.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: We don't allow these ideas to emerge from our theology.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: We're ad hoc-ing it, and then it opens us up
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: to being defined politically as opposed to being defined theologically.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, when I've thought through this, I've always
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: argued people, look, our politics should emerge from discipleship. It
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: should be rooted within it. And so, you know, like
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: if you don't do that, then you're just, it's wins, right?
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Like whatever political wins you're carrying and whatever seems to
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: be the right approach at this moment, you tend not
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: to see things holistically because the politics is inherently narrowing.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: And that narrows you, and then you find Bible verses
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: and theologies that will support whatever agenda you're moving toward.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: But theology has a way of widening you, not narrowing you.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I think another reason that it happens is the
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Biblicism that people do have is, to your point, what's
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: the verse that's helping me to support X, Y, or Z?
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: And it's really not about having a kind of systematic
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: way of thinking about things. And it's not about having
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: a clear connection between theology and ethics. The ethics is
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: about either a crisis that emerges for me personally, so
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I care about it, or an authority figure I trust
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: tells me about something I should care about. And so
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: the issue is either on my doorstep because of some
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: way it's close to me personally, or because it's put
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: on my doorstep by the people that I trust. yeah
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: and so i'll talk about those issues because hey these
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: are the things that we talk about why well because
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: an answer is almost because it's what we talk about
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: the answer because because no no hey it's what we've
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: been told well in 1970 for example whatever evangelicals were
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: thinking about in terms of ethics abortion was not the
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: issue right yeah sexuality was divorce was an issue you
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: know um You know, I'm sure drugs were the issue.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Such a revolution was the issue. But the things that
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: became the issues, they get presented, okay, here's the issue
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: that we care about. And when it's what we care about,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: even if somebody gives reasons for it, the point is
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: presented to you as a crisis.
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: And then, again, you're trusting your leaders, arguably. here's the crisis.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: And my point isn't that they're not necessarily legitimate crises,
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: but just to put an obvious point on it, a
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: lot of these same people, if I said to you,
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: do you realize that racism has been a crisis for
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: a couple of centuries? And when I bring it up
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: to you, you say that that's political and why are
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: you bringing it up? Or it's only about personal prejudice.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't talk about that. Why are you being divisive
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: by bringing that up? I mean, It's like abortion is
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: not divisive. I mean, and on it goes. In other words,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: it's not mattering because what's leading people to care about
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: things is like, well, here are the things we care about.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Here are the things that we're committed to. You're making
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: it complicated if you're bringing race into this. Yes, it
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: is complicated. Do you know why? Because some people, you
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: talk about race and they're African-American, they're really mad. because
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: they've been like an impression cooker. Other people, strangely, they
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: also think it's an important issue, but they're just not mad. Yeah.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: And so you can't just nail down how people can
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: talk about the same thing, but there are all these
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: differing emotions around it. Right. And they're telling you about
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: different experiences. Some people are talking about personal prejudices. Other
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: people are talking about systemic realities, et cetera. It's a
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: complicated thing. But you bring that up, and people are like,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: why are you bringing that up? Can you show me
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: in the Bible why I should care about this? And
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I think it just didn't get put on the radar
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: as one of the issues. And to the extent, maybe
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: for some, that it's a quote-unquote democratic issue, or the
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: ways that it was being, the policy that was happening
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: around it was happening more from Democrats. For some people,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: that was probably also a complicating factor, I imagine. Yeah. Interesting.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: The point is just that why are some issues the
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: issues that matter to people? It's not because the question
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I'm asking is, all right, if somebody tells me that
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: something is an issue, and let's just say it's assisted suicide, which,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: of course, we really do have to think about now,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, because it's happened. I mean, more states are
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: talking about these laws.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Well, if I haven't thought a whole lot about it,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: I might go, well, you know, the government needs to
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: tend to those things, but it's not one of the
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: things that we need to put on the front burner,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: like we're putting abortion on the front burner. Well, and again,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: if I'm thinking about it, because what seemed to be
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: our issues for whoever the we is, that's very different
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: than if I'm oriented to ultimately care about those things
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: because of my theological anthropology.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Because of The way that I think about love of neighbor,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: to say, oh, of course it makes sense. Of course
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: it's worth it. one of our issues, or it should
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: be an issue, even though it hasn't been an issue
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: for me. I see it as something I should at
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: least care about. But if I have the bifurcation between
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: theology and ethics, it's a much harder thing to do.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: So there were a lot of strands there that I
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: think are really important. I don't mean that in a
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: bad way. I mean in a good way. I think
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: what you're showing is... Well, on one level, you gave
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: the number of 81%. Sometimes it's been as high as 85%.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: You pointed out that if you walk into a Black
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: evangelical church, you're not necessarily getting the same voting splits.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Right. Highly unlikely.
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: Right. So the dynamic of race that's often seen to
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: be a political issue... and the way that many churches
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: and even institutes talk about it, and I have stories there,
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: we won't go into them, seems to be a way
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: of saying, let's not talk about race. Race is not
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: a real issue, it's being derived by politics. But on
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: the other side, what has been overwhelmingly the issue for
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: white evangelical voting over the last 45 years is not
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: seen as a political issue. I said I wouldn't go
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: into stories. I'll give one quick story without names and places.
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: The majority of my work over the last decade has
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: been in issues of race and theology. And at an
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: institute that I used to teach at, I was outright
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: called out for being politically motivated, even though I never
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: once mentioned politics, never once mentioned elections of any form,
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: never once told students who to vote for or who
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: not to vote for. And yet the person who led
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: the way in making that declaration to me sat in
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: a meeting with me and in a discussion of abortion stopped,
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: as an aside, proclaimed to the room, I don't understand
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: how anyone could vote for fill-in Democratic candidate.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, of course.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: And I thought it was an interesting moment of, I'm
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: politically motivated, supposedly, because I'm talking about real issues in
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: race and theology. but you're not politically motivated even as
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: you deliberately bring up voting. So as a setup here,
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: I think about many years ago at this point, I
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: don't even remember how long ago, you were the leader
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: or you're the panel host of a group that included
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: Randall Balmer. And the topic, as I recall, was on
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: evangelicals and politics. Randall Balmer was has been very outspoken
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: on especially, uh, the political motivations behind the ensconcing of
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: abortion as the evangelical issue.
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: And he, he goes so far as to argue, I'm
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: inclined to say persuasively that it was a deliberate effort
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: to distract from fallouts of the civil rights movement and
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: to minimize sort of gains that were had, especially by
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: black Americans in that period. Do you have thoughts on that? Um,
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: I realize there's a lot right there.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Yes. Well, part of what Randy's talking about is the
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: original reason that, in a way, evangelicals became, at least
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: the larger populace, became more engaged. Because a lot of
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: people are saying evangelicals were always involved in politics. If
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: you mean evangelical leaders were always involved in politics, fine.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: That's not what they were telling the laity. They were
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: telling the laity to stay out. The laity were getting
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: involved in the 70s, initially around Bob Jones' death. losing
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: this tax status because of the interracial dating policy. And
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: so that made people nervous about the government doing something
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: that kind of put the squeeze on Christian institutions. And
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: at some point people said, you know, it's not a
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: good look. If that's our reason we're getting involved in politics,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: then it seems like we're getting involved in politics because
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: we want to kind of be propping up you know,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: kind of views of racial hierarchy and stuff. And it
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: may be that people also thought, look, I don't, they
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: may have personally not liked the policy. They cared about
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: what was happening with institutions, et cetera. But so it
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: really winds up, it winds up happening that they change
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: it to abortion because of, I can't remember what, Paul
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Weirich was the one who said that they should make
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: that change, but they made that change. And then that
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: became the issue really. I don't know how much of
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: the effort was actively trying to obscure or push against
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: things that were happening in the civil rights movement. I
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: would say, I think, for a lot of white evangelicals,
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: there are probably a lot of people of goodwill that
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: just didn't know what to do about a changing world
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: when you had these assumptions about things and now you've
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: got to take more seriously. The law is saying you can't,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: you know, hey, we're pushing against discrimination in certain ways.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: I think for a lot of people, if your formation
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: has not really told you that actually caring about every
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: human being in practice, is more than just singing a
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: song about we're all in the same family. And that
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: you really have to think about what that means. And
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: of course, if you start thinking about what that means,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: then you have to start thinking about one, you're arguably
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: state of your own heart, but second, uh, the way
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: that you've kind of organized your life where when you
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: wanted to, you could hang around minorities. You didn't want to,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: you could almost act like they didn't exist. Um, And remember,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: act like they exist. It's not because you're trying to
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: erase them. It's just that your ordinary life just doesn't
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: include taking into consideration the circumstances of people. And now
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: you've got to take into consideration things that maybe you
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: didn't have to before. And for some people, that's an
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: extremely uncomfortable thing because people don't know what to do
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: about it. And of course, and also if you're used
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: to kind of managing things and being in charge And
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: you discover you don't have any tools in the toolbox
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: for this thing. You know, there's going to be either
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: apathy or pushback, I think. And so I think for
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, I think that that's kind of
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: part of the circumstance. I mean, I think, you know,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: you know, I've done this documentary about black evangelicals called
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Black Plus Evangelical. And in one of the interviews I
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: did with Bill Pinnell and Carl Ellis, and it's in
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: the film. This is a year or two, I think,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: after the Skinner speech in Urbana in 1970. At some point,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: somebody says to Penel, and I guess to others, you
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: need to understand that there are people who want you
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: to succeed, but not too well. Because, you know, I
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: think it was Penel who said this. when Skinner makes
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: this address in the 1970 Urbana conference, okay, you have
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: more black students there than you did in 67. But still,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: you're not talking about like a thousand students. You're not
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: even talking about 500. And in this auditorium, in this stadium, this,
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: you know, basketball arena, you're getting this raucous applause from
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: at the end of Skinner's Address for mostly white kids.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: And so it's crazy, right? It's like, what? What's going on? And,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: you know, a message that ends with the liberator has come.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: And so that was very unsettling to some people because
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: they didn't know, well, what does that mean? You know,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: what are the implications of that? And my sense is
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: that it's more the uncertainty about what that means and
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: what ways that that creates alterations of a status quo
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: that really makes people nervous because, I mean, people just
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: don't know what that reality is going to be. And
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: maybe for some of those people, they're thinking, I kind
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: of like the reality that we have and I also
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: like being in charge. Can we just keep doing things
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: this way? And it's great to care about your things,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: but still let us run everything. And let us tell
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: you what to do. And for some people, it's just
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: hard to give that up. And for other people, I
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: don't think they know what to do in terms of facing...
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: the ugly realities of the history of race and then
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: trying to actually be part of a witness that, where
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: at least Christians are in pursuit of a society that
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: makes things better. That's a complicated thing, I think, for people.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Because if you don't, I think with anyone, if you
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: get in a situation where you have this uncertainty, then
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: you're probably going to default to certain things to help
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: you keep the situation in control. The tendency is not
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: going to be, let me dive into the discomfort. And
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: in diving into this discomfort... I don't know what this
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: is going to look like, but it's way better for
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: the kingdom witness. I mean, to me, that is a very,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: it could be a very exceptional response for anyone. The tendency,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I think, is more to say, can I just find
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: a way for this to make me still remain kind
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: of comfortable rather than to see this discomfort as a
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: doorway into something greater. Some people do step into that doorway, but...
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Other people, it winds up being complicated. And then other
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: people that did step into it sometimes, it was more
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: complicated than they anticipated. And it just becomes, to my view,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: unsurprisingly messy because caring about, say, reconciliation, diversity, whatever language
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: you use, the fact that I care about that does
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: not give me the sanctification and competence to execute that. Right?
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of times people desire that. things
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: to be better around race and culture. I think sometimes
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: there's this idea that it shouldn't be so hard if
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: we all care about it. It's like, yeah, but you're
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: all still people who are on the way. And you're
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: also on the way in probably ways you don't even recognize.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: And all that stuff is going to show up when
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: you're trying to move into this thing that is so
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: antithetical to the way that most ways humans have lived
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: in world history, which is, hey, We're over here. You're
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: over there. Maybe we have a truce or maybe we
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: have a war. Yeah. I mean, there's also the, let's
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: all have, you know, really live together and live and
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: work on doing it.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Well, this might be a good time to pivot to Davison,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: but I, I think too, there's these sort of structural
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: elements that sort of catches.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: And, and I think that on some level, people don't
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: want to do the small things because they don't feel
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: like it has an effect. But if we try to
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: do the big things, we were working constantly. It feels
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: like against machinery that we are never going to beat.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: And so there's this sort of inertia that kicks in
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: where it's like, I don't think the small things matter.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: And I don't think I can do the big things
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: that there's these, you know, there's that sort of start
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: and stop of it. If you know what I mean,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: that I think is really interesting.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know about that quite that way, but no,
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: I think that's really helpful.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: It's an old consulting trick. When I go into institutions,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I'd always give them near-term things that they could do
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: without putting any money toward anything because it kick-started the momentum.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: They could start to see results.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: They could start to actually get some traction. And once
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: they started getting that traction, then it was easier to
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: do something like midterm where they might have to put
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: a little money into it, you know, in longterm where
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: they might have to transform the institution toward it.
• 52:30
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: But that's what I find most difficult.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I think with people is they, they get, there isn't
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: a small thing that seems like.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: It's worth doing.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: And, and I don't mean that in a, you know,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: really horrible way, but it doesn't feel like it's having
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: a bigger effect. I should say it like that small
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: thing that doesn't seem like it's having a bigger effect.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: And so you, you start to feel that sort of
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: futility of even bothering.
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: And then we default to leaving it to the politicians
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: and the leaders and all those kinds of things, which again, I,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: I haven't read Davidson in a long time. So correct
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, but in part, that's what I
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: feel like my problem with Davidson is that part of Yeah.
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: Sorry. Yeah.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: That's my problem with it. It's almost like it's not sociologically.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: I understand where he's coming from, but just sort of psychologically,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: I think he's missing some things. And certainly I think
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: theologically he's a little off. So I'll just leave that
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: as a touch point.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the small interesting thing about the small
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: things part is I do wonder how much the small
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: things part is almost anti-American. What I mean is.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: That's a great point.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: Because you and I, we like to go big. We
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: like to go big. It's like, what story are you
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: going to tell when you go, you know, it really
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: was about the incrementalism that did it for us. That's
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: how we got here.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: Let me tell you about the 999th step. It was
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: really crucial.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: Everybody's just like... That's very different than a story where,
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: and then, you know, if somebody said, either they start
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: with a little step, they go, you know, and six
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: months later, boom, this many people were doing this, right?
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: And it gives the impression of like a revival type
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: of event happened where, look, voila, ladies and gentlemen. Right.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: And it all happened because they all made one decision. Yeah.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's one decision and look at all this stuff. Listen, spectacular,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: isn't it?
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: And the reason we all love watching highlights of Steph
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Curry and never want to watch him practice, you know,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: shooting his thousand basketballs in practice. It's like, that's what
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: it takes, but that's not what we want to see.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. I think with Hunter's book, the attraction of Hunter's
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: book was, I think it dialed back for some people,
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: the fact of needing to make a big change. in
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: order for Christians to do something. And also you have
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: more Christians all of a sudden in the late 90s
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: starting to talk about, we ought to be involved in culture,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: we ought to be thinking about transformation. And I think
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: there's this way, and maybe it started more with missions
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: than with politics and stuff, but among evangelicals, there are
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: these big, massive things that we need to do for God.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: And so I think a lot of people read Hunter
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: and thought, okay, you know, one of them takes a
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: load off of trying to, do I need to do
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: some big spectacular changing the world thing to do something significant?
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: And I think they also probably picked up on the
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: fact of, and do I have to make people my
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: enemies in order to accomplish it, accomplish this? Especially if
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: the people that you're talking about are people that I know.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: And it's like, they're not, I don't, I don't have
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: to be enemies. Like a certain nerd was told me
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: that they're, they're the people that we need to overcome
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: or beat or whatever. Um, and, and, and obviously there's
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: an understandable and proper attraction to saying, if we're going
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: to be like Jesus to people, we can't be making
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: them enemies or fundamentally treating them like enemies. Who's going
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: to disagree with that? My hesitation about Hunter's work with
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: the way that it all kind of lands is on
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: the one hand, he, he, regards the way that most
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: evangelicals were going to seek change as you mainly get
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: change in society through political means. His argument was that
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: it happens more by these networks of social elites. It's
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: almost like, hey, if you get the right people in
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: the room, those are the decision makers. That's how change happens.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's true to that, obviously, but it doesn't
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: attend to the way that sometimes you do have these
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: grassroots realities that get to the movers and shakers, but
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: they started it. The grassroots played a big role with this.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: I think for someone like myself, the biggest problem was
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: that there's a false dichotomy between choosing a big spectacular
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: thing and incremental actions of faithful presence that might make
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: things better. Because everybody doesn't have the luxury of the
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: incremental thing. And some people, they really, they want a
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: significant change in circumstance to happen around something political, something environmental,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: something cultural, whatever it is. And so they're hoping that
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: there are ways that change can occur. And there's the
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: whole question about whether Christians should seek that. And my
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: argument would be Christians should seek that as long as
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: they do it with humility and not with a kind of,
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: mindset of that. I see so clearly that when we
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: do this, we really will have a realized eschatological society.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: We've got way too many people trying to that one,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: and they all kind of wind up in the same categories.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: And yet another group of people who thought that they
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: would bring the fullness of the kingdom, and then we
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: saw that they were just wrong. Hunter also says at
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: the end that for some people, their way of wanting
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: to change the world is that the world can be
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: managed And also that if you think that you can
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: change the world, that there's this way that your mind
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: works where you just justify what your plan is because
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: of the end that you're intending. I'm happy to say
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: that there are people that do that. But that's not
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: the only thing I'm going to say, because I'll also
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: say that that's not what everybody who's thinking about change
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: is doing. They're not thinking about how do I get
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: my aspirations for change to be things where... Whatever the
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: principles are, or whatever the theological argument is, is, I'm
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: going to find a way to form and shape that
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: to serve what are really more my ends than what
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: I'm discerning are a Christian response to seeking a world
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: with more love for neighbor and seeking the good of
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: all people. as opposed to a world where we're continuing
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: to put up with the ways that people are less neighborly,
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: in ways that are from the interpersonal to the structural
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: realities of society. And so, to me, Pay the Prince
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: is a great place to start. It may be what
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: some people are only able to do because of their
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: work and cultural circumstances, but there has to be more
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: if we're going to attend to the fact that there's
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: a world where there's all kinds of big injustices that happen. Yeah.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: and where people's everyday lives are being impacted by certain forms, certain,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: certain negativities. So we, we can aspire to things and
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: pray and seek them, but we do that with humility,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: always with an eye on knowing that whatever planet it is,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: it has to be subject to revision because our minds
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: are limited. Our perspective is limited, but we want a
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: better world. Yeah. And if we have agency, of some
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: sort in that, then how am I helping to play
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: some role in that? And so to me, that's a
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: really important thing, I think, for us to think about
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: asking those kinds of questions while saying, in the meantime, yes,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: there's a definite and important place for doing the small things.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: And also, for some people, the best thing to tell
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: them is, Hey, guess what? Do you know you're not
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: the Messiah? That's right. You're not. Therefore, you start small.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: You are not the person who's reading 2 Peter 3
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: about hastening the end. I've got to be the person
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: that does all the hastening, which I always wanted to
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: be a kind of a post-millennial disposition. And if I
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: do that, Jesus is going to be back and we
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: did it. Well, really, I did it because I did
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: my part.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: I think the point about those texts, I would argue,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: about hastening the end is, yes, God says he wants
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: his people to live more and more like him and
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: to be in terms of their character, but also in
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: terms of the way that they're living with others in
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: the world. And of course, God says, more please all
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: of you. And that more please all of you is
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: somehow part of God's plan about there's going to be
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: more of this. And at some point he's going to
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: show up. makes the world completely perfect, then he's going
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: to come back. Right. Especially, you know, there's all these
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: other things about, it's like, yeah, by the way, you
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: can't really know the time. Yeah. And even if it
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: says the day is going to come like a thief,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: even in the verses prior to that in 2 Peter 3,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: it's obviously not the hate. And when we do enough,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: the trumpet's going to blow. Right. So we need to
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: cast aside any of messianic pretension, is what I would
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: call it. Being willing to do small things, but also
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: to dream big.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And we can do both. And some people,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: they're just dreamers. I mean, don't tell them not to dream.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Doesn't mean that because they dream that it's magically going
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: to happen. And sometimes the big dreamers need people that
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: are saying, you know, we need the granular people to
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: show up. And to say, let's talk about the million
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: little steps. that are necessary and maybe how we can
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: do one or two of them and decide which ones
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: to do. We need all of that.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: No, that's really helpful. Go ahead, Ashish.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: Well, one of the things that Hunter says that I
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: think this fits well into what you are articulating is
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: that he fears.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: So he calls for faithful presence of pullback from politics.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: I think that's moving in a direction that you're not
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: compelled by. But one of his rationales for it that
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: maybe is more compelling, but maybe to lead us in
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: a different direction, is he says that he fears that
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: politicians have drawn too many of the lines for us
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: as to what we think matters and why it matters
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: and to what degree it matters. Now, if he's right
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: about that, But the answer is not to pull back
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: and to be disengaged. How do we, as we enter
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: into an election cycle, but also even when we're not
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: in the middle of an election cycle, as we prepare
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: ourselves to be thinking more broadly, how do we avoid
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: letting politicians draw lines for us?
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: Well, first thing is, are we actually willing to be informed?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: Are we actually willing to take time? to think about
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: these things as opposed to merely being reactive and using
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: slogans and thinking that somehow a slogan is a doorway
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: into a totalizing understanding of something. And so I think
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: one of the things is that am I willing to
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: actually be informed? Am I willing to at least look
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: at what candidates are really telling me? Am I going
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: to go to their websites? Am I going to read
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: what they have to say? Or am I going to
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: just instead choose which alarmist commercials are going to tell
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: me that the apocalypse will come if the other team wins?
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: And then react in accordance with that. And of course,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: to me, no Christian should ever do that because you've
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: hit the end of the book. So you don't need
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: to be agitated and thrown into a kind of froth
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: of fear. because somebody's telling you, you know, if our
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: team loses, I'm not sure that God's able to handle it.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, you know, the history of the church
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: is really quite a winding road, you know, wins and losses.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: And so we should never be surprised about that. And
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: certainly anybody in the United States needs to step back
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: anyway and recognize that the Bible says nothing about countries
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: on this side of the Atlantic, except for the ends
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: of the earth and the nation. That's all we've got.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: So we can't, overly center ourselves in god's narrative of
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: salvation history we do have the uniqueness of the united
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: states where again as i said earlier we have more
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: agency than most people have had in history in political
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: agency people have had in history we're a country where
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: you've had religious pluralism where religious pluralism means the process
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: the catholics aren't killing each other And none of them
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: are killing the Quakers and Mennonites. I mean, all of
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: that is amazing. But none of that means that we're
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: the center of salvation in history. It means we're in
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: an interesting moment, an interesting time. And now we're in
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: this time of a lot of agitation, polarization, a lot of,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: I think, recognizing that whatever people think about the trajectory
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: toward whatever they imagine the American dream to be, that
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: it's a good time to interrogate when I think about
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: what's important in life when I think about the life
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: I ought to have how much of that is really
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: informed by what scripture is telling me is a good
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: life versus what's marketed to me by arguably corporate America
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: and by politicians saying if you vote for us we'll
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: help you get to whatever kind of consumer you can
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: be to construct your own version of a personal kingdom.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: And we need to be asking those kinds of questions
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: amid saying, all right, these midterms are coming up. Am
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: I willing to just pay attention rather than to just
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: pay more attention to the ways that alarmist voices are
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: will make us just nervous about everything rather than saying,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: all right, I want to actually learn and know something here.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: In fact, one of the ways that I recommend to
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: people is pick a single issue and really learn about it.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: And really learn about what's a way that this issue
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: will make things better, whether that's how you're dealing with
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: child care, how you're dealing with access to healthcare, how
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: you're dealing with better attention to infrastructure in certain places.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: There's all kinds of things that are very mundane, but
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: they do actually play a role in a lot of
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: people's day-to-day lives. And politicians do care about them, but
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: those aren't the things they're going to run on. So
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: I think we need to... be willing to pause and
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: to say, am I willing to do things in a
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: certain kind of slower way and to be a learner
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: about this? And as I'm being a learner, am I
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: asking God to help me to think about what are
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: the ways that things can be better for all of
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: our neighbors? Yeah. And recognize that all of our neighbors,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: what's better for all of our neighbors doesn't necessarily mean
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: that everybody's commitments are on the same level. You may
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: have very particular ideas about what you think is going
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: to be good for all of our neighbors, but whatever
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: those are, if you're thinking about those things, are you
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: really thinking about all the neighbors or are you thinking
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: more about self-preservation, self-protection, all those types of things? Or
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: are you thinking about really a common good and how
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: the people that are running are, that you're looking at
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: wherever you are, that here's someone who's really thinking about
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: how to seek the good of not just, you know,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: dog whistles to me about, well, make things better for me.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: And it inclines me to either ignore others or to
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: see that I need to resist what would happen for
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: others in order for me to have what I need. Well,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: is there another way that's neither of those things where
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: indeed here's something that's going to enhance the possibility of
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: a better common reality for all of our people in society?
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: And what's one issue connected to that?
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: I actually think that's great advice. We got to kind
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: of wind down the episode here. We're about done, but
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: I'll just say this. I mean, I had the opportunity
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: the last couple of years to address some of those
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: minor issues. I remember writing a piece on tariffs. And
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: I had no idea what tariffs were. I mean, I
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: had a general idea what tariffs were. But until you
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: start digging into it and you're like, okay, these had
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: their place at one point.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: So do they have a place now? What do they do?
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: How do they work?
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: Once you start digging into them, you just get a
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: better sense whether these are good ideas, bad ideas, some
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: mix of the two. And I think when I dig
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: into those issues, I do get a different perspective simply
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: because I didn't know all the history of tariffs and
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: why they were done and what they used to do
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: and how it all changed and.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: Those kind of things. I mean, it was a fascinating history.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: And so you just sit back and go, I don't
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: know that they're going to work now, but it's a
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: fascinating history.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: And you.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: At least have some other frame of reference to go, well, maybe. Um,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: even if you don't necessarily agree with it, I do
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: think it grants that sort of broader perspective.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: So yeah, really helpful. Thank you, Vince.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being here, man. This has been great and, uh,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: really appreciate your work. I've read a couple of your
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: books over the years. And so, um, just really appreciate you, uh,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: being on the show and Ashish, thanks for arranging it.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: And, uh, yeah, we'll call it a day there.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: So thank you. All right. Well, thanks. It's a Glad
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: to be part of the conversation. And I hope that,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: you know, many people get to be well informed, informed
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: by what you're doing.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: Very cool. All right, everybody.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: We'll call it a day there. Thanks for being here
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: and catch on the next episode of Thinking Christian.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: Take care.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got
• 1:12:14
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