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When Church Growth Becomes Idolatry | Andrew Root · Future Christian

• 0:05
  Martha Tatarnic: This is the Future Christian Podcast, a conversation about church leadership, fresh ideas, and the future of the church.
• 0:17
  Loren Richmond Jr: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today, Loren Richmond Jr. is in conversation with one of our future Christian favorites, Dr. Andrew
• 0:26
  Loren Richmond Jr: Root. Andrew is the Kerry Olson Balson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He writes
• 0:36
  Loren Richmond Jr: and researches in areas of theology, ministry, culture, and younger generations. His recent books are Churches and the Crisis of Decline, When
• 0:46
  Loren Richmond Jr: Church Stops Working, and The Church After innovation. Andy has worked in congregations, parachurch ministries, and social service programs. He lives in
• 0:56
  Loren Richmond Jr: St. Paul with his wife Kara, two children Owen and Maisie, and their dog. When not reading, writing, or teaching, Andy spends
• 1:05
  Loren Richmond Jr: far too much time watching TV and movies. A reminder before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to
• 1:15
  Loren Richmond Jr: the podcast, leave a review, and share Future Christian with a friend. Connect with Loren, Martha, and Future Christian on Instagram. Shoot
• 1:25
  Loren Richmond Jr: us an email at Loren at resonatemediapro.com with comments, questions, or ideas for future episodes. We value your voice in how we
• 1:35
  Loren Richmond Jr: faithfully discern the future of the church.
• 1:45
  Loren Richmond Jr: This is Loren Richmond Jr., and I am pleased to be joined today by Andrew Root. Hello, welcome to the show.
• 1:51
  Andrew Root: Hey, thanks for having me back. It's good to be here.
• 1:54
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah, looking forward to having this conversation. So if folks are somehow unfamiliar with you, do you wanna just give a brief
• 1:59
  Loren Richmond Jr: bio introduction, whatever? I guess not bio, but just who you are, where you came from.
• 2:05
  Andrew Root: Yeah. Yeah. Well, right now I am in I'm actually in my basement in the in the Twin Cities. So I teach
• 2:12
  Andrew Root: at Luther Seminary here in Minneapolis, Saint Paul. we yeah, we're actually in Saint Paul, but we are moving to Minneapolis, so
• 2:20
  Andrew Root: as a Saint Paul guy that that seems like a a downgrade, but it's actually an exciting new place that we're we're
• 2:28
  Andrew Root: going. So yeah, I teach practical theology, youth ministry classes here and yeah, theology of ministry stuff so That's
• 2:36
  Loren Richmond Jr: Okay, and I have to ask you this everytime I have you on. Like what are you watching that's
• 2:41
  Andrew Root: yeah.
• 2:41
  Loren Richmond Jr: interesting to you?
• 2:43
  Andrew Root: Well, we're watching I I'm not sure if it's good or not. I mean, like I'm four episodes into Widows Bay on
• 2:50
  Andrew Root: Apple TV. It's kind of a yeah, a bit of a a kind of horror thriller kind of piece. that's okay. And
• 2:58
  Andrew Root: we're also watching something that's really interesting that it's just done in a in a kind of interesting way. It's an older
• 3:06
  Andrew Root: show called Patriot, which is a kinda like dark comedy about a guy who's a spy and It's kind of a period
• 3:13
  Andrew Root: piece, it's like based in two thousand twelve or something. And it's just yeah, it's it's it's funny in a kind of
• 3:21
  Andrew Root: dark kind of way. So it's about a it's basically about a spy who's going through like an existential crisis. So Hello.
• 3:29
  Loren Richmond Jr: Recording home with my son, so he is desperate to make an appearance on the podcast. Have
• 3:31
  Andrew Root: Yeah, there you go.
• 3:34
  Loren Richmond Jr: you watched I like never watch movies 'cause I'd frankly rather read books all the time. Hail Mary, I think you've talked
• 3:37
  Loren Richmond Jr: about in one of your podcasts,
• 3:41
  Andrew Root: No, no.
• 3:42
  Loren Richmond Jr: right? Project Hail Mary? Or am I thinking of something
• 3:45
  Andrew Root: I
• 3:46
  Loren Richmond Jr: else?
• 3:46
  Andrew Root: no, I don't I don't know. It doesn't ring a bell. I mean I I surely could have talked about it and
• 3:51
  Andrew Root: forgot about it, but no, I don't I it's not ringing a bell.
• 3:56
  Loren Richmond Jr: Okay, okay. I was gonna see if I got your take on that. But any other
• 3:59
  Andrew Root: No.
• 3:59
  Loren Richmond Jr: movies, any other movies?
• 4:01
  Andrew Root: Right, you know, I'm a bit like you. I haven't watched a movie in a in a while. I'm trying to even
• 4:08
  Andrew Root: think of the last movie I've I've I've watched. No, I'm always streaming shows. Like I don't know, I watch the the
• 4:15
  Andrew Root: Teddy Roosevelt little docuseries thing, you know. I like I I kinda like that. So yeah. That's yeah.
• 4:22
  Loren Richmond Jr: Okay, well this has been some really like tintillating conversation here, these first five minutes for our guests.
• 4:27
  Andrew Root: Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Listen to to old people talk about what they watch on TV. Really into the documentaries about historical
• 4:33
  Andrew Root: figures.
• 4:39
  Loren Richmond Jr: Well, we're here to talk about Andrew's new book. I guess I should call you Andy, right? Andy's new book, Baal and
• 4:45
  Loren Richmond Jr: the Gods of Moore, Rescuing Church Growth from Idolatry. And I suppose before we begin, like I'm dying to know, like just
• 4:51
  Loren Richmond Jr: practically speaking, you obviously have your ministry in the secular age series. You had what, the evangelism book, which I really liked
• 4:57
  Loren Richmond Jr: after that. Like ha do you consider this like a de facto like continuation of that series or tell me the Tell
• 5:03
  Loren Richmond Jr: me about that.
• 5:10
  Andrew Root: Yeah, it it is, and for the most part. I mean i it isn't officially because Jeremy Wells at at Baker and
• 5:15
  Andrew Root: I just realized we couldn't lie to people any further
• 5:21
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 5:22
  Andrew Root: because it was originally supposed to be three books, it turned into six books, and if it ballooned to nine books we
• 5:27
  Andrew Root: were f afraid of of mutiny or something. So yeah. it but it for the most part in the in the yeah,
• 5:33
  Andrew Root: like in the trajectory of the project, these these definitely could fit in. into it and there's a another one that will
• 5:38
  Andrew Root: follow this one that could definitely, you
• 5:44
  Loren Richmond Jr: Okay.
• 5:44
  Andrew Root: know, be a be a a volume nine, if you will. Though though it in another level there's these stories that are
• 5:50
  Andrew Root: going on that aren't all all connected and so they kinda stand alone in their own way. But for the most
• 5:57
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 5:58
  Andrew Root: part, these could definitely fit into kind of ministry of the secular age under under that umbrella for sure.
• 6:04
  Loren Richmond Jr: Well, I'm gonna have to just make an a s a singular like Andrew Root like shelf on my bookshelf 'cause like
• 6:11
  Loren Richmond Jr: I think I'm up to like I have about twelve or fifteen year books. I I lose track here.
• 6:18
  Andrew Root: Yeah.
• 6:19
  Loren Richmond Jr: So you've you're quite the prolific writer and I just sort of wonder like how you have time for all that, frankly.
• 6:23
  Loren Richmond Jr: but I'm excited excited to to read this and looking forward to whatever comes next. Like what getting into this book more
• 6:28
  Loren Richmond Jr: deeply. Like what do you think like what was the biggest thing you're like, gosh, I really need to tell this or
• 6:33
  Loren Richmond Jr: proclaim this
• 6:38
  Andrew Root: Yeah.
• 6:39
  Loren Richmond Jr: this part?
• 6:40
  Andrew Root: Well, I really do th I mean to to just admit how much it comes within the kind of unfolding of the
• 6:46
  Andrew Root: Ministry in the Secular Age series, I think I was on a podcast or something and and was just trying to talk
• 6:52
  Andrew Root: about some of the themes of especially those last three books of that that series and and I don't know, it was
• 6:59
  Andrew Root: just kind of an offhanded comment that got me going, but just said something to the extent of like in these moments
• 7:05
  Andrew Root: of decline or Protestant Protestant loss of resources, we become really tempted towards fertility gods. So I just kinda started playing with
• 7:12
  Andrew Root: that idea and then reread First and Second Kings and kinda yeah, there just felt like there was something there at at
• 7:18
  Andrew Root: play and to kind of dump that into and mix it up with with Hartmont Rose's kind of work the at the
• 7:24
  Andrew Root: end of of Resonance. It just seemed like there was something there. So I I I kinda moved in that direction, but
• 7:31
  Andrew Root: then I we traveled with our our kids. our son was graduating from high school. this just shows you how long it
• 7:37
  Andrew Root: takes for a book to come out. He's gonna be he's a rising senior in college now. but he was a rising
• 7:44
  Andrew Root: he was a he was at the end of his senior year of high school. and we I cashed in my miles
• 7:50
  Andrew Root: and we went we went to Jerusalem. We went to the three holy cities of the Christian tradition. So we went to
• 7:56
  Andrew Root: Jerusalem, we went to Istanbul, old Constantinople, and went to Rome and kind of stood in those holy places and in those
• 8:03
  Andrew Root: those cathedrals and churches and just kind of thought through the Christian tradition or were just kind of there in the midst
• 8:09
  Andrew Root: of that and and having experience in museums there particularly in the Israel Israeli Museum and then in in the Vatican Museum
• 8:16
  Andrew Root: I mean just the the difference between these kind of fertility gods that you either see Hellenistic wise like Artemis who I
• 8:22
  Andrew Root: use in the book or or the clay the clay bales that you can see in the Israel in the Israeli museum
• 8:28
  Andrew Root: and then you look at the kind of pictures of the Madonna And the kind of iconography of of the of the
• 8:35
  Andrew Root: church, especially kind of Renaissance art and things. And there's just a very different logic at play. So this kind of offhanded
• 8:41
  Andrew Root: comment about fertility gods and then seeing, actually seeing fertility gods in front of my my face, and then the icons of
• 8:48
  Andrew Root: particularly the Renaissance period, just led me into I don't know, this this project. I I started pulling out a thread and
• 8:54
  Andrew Root: and here we are, you know, almost three hundred pages later.
• 9:01
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah. So I think the most thing most interesting thing that it or if I guess if I had to summarize the
• 9:06
  Loren Richmond Jr: book in that in this way, having read it, like I'd think like it's just about like the the demand for more.
• 9:12
  Loren Richmond Jr: Like I I think that's what it comes down to. And conversely, like like enough is there's no such thing as enough.
• 9:17
  Loren Richmond Jr: and
• 9:23
  Andrew Root: Mm-hmm.
• 9:23
  Loren Richmond Jr: I I think what was interesting about the book is you kinda like explore two different avenues. Certainly the most obvious is
• 9:29
  Loren Richmond Jr: this kind of church growth, d demand for incessant church growth. And you if I'm remembering correctly, you kinda contrast how that
• 9:36
  Loren Richmond Jr: or you talk about how that kinda began, like in the sixties, seventies denominational decline rate. But I think what was really
• 9:42
  Loren Richmond Jr: interesting to me was how you talked about this use this word or or create this word identarians, which you're you're pro
• 9:49
  Loren Richmond Jr: at like creating words.
• 9:56
  Andrew Root: Well, I I I can't take credit for creating that. There's a there's a French historian who who created that. But I
• 10:02
  Andrew Root: will say you are right. I I do make up too many words myself. But I'm I'm always attracted to thinkers who
• 10:08
  Andrew Root: make up words, you know, like I don't know, Heidegger and Charles Taylor and these people who make up imminent frame and
• 10:14
  Andrew Root: things like that. I just I don't know, I'm attracted to them. But there is this this French historian who talks about
• 10:21
  Andrew Root: this and and I was interested in it because, you know, i I think in a in some ways this is a
• 10:27
  Andrew Root: story a bit about capitalism, you know, and how how capitalism plays. And I was really influenced in this book reading an
• 10:33
  Andrew Root: economist named Robert Gordon who wrote this big thick book, which I guess Lord, I'm also addicted to big thick books. So
• 10:39
  Andrew Root: I I I liked him a great deal. And there's a he has this big thick book called The Rise and Fall
• 10:46
  Andrew Root: of American Growth and is really kind of analyzing the the American economy and what he calls the special century, which he
• 10:52
  Andrew Root: believes was from eighteen seventy to nineteen seventy, that it was just an unprecedented special century of GDP growth and standard of
• 10:58
  Andrew Root: living increase. And so I was interested in that. And and so kind of starting in that I mean, you know, economists
• 11:04
  Andrew Root: and theologians, there's some some that get along, but it's not our, you know, as theologians, it's not our primary reading economics.
• 11:11
  Andrew Root: So, you know, I I I feel a little bit ignorant getting into that, but just found it really, really quite fascinating.
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  Andrew Root: But one of the things he was getting at here is is you know, just this in this special century, I started
• 11:23
  Andrew Root: trying to put that together with Protestantism. And within churches, there's always kind of this assertion that there's these within denominations particularly,
• 11:29
  Andrew Root: like there's these fights between what I would call and call in this book the techno optimists. and that's
• 11:36
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 11:37
  Andrew Root: a a a term I steal from Gordon, who kind of talks about, you know, we really haven't had the same kind
• 11:42
  Andrew Root: of standard of living growth and GDP growth since the nineteen seventies, really. You know, that that the the second industrial revolution
• 11:48
  Andrew Root: kind of comes to an end or the growth that that can be extracted and and kind of ringed out of it
• 11:54
  Andrew Root: kinda comes to an end and we waited for a third industrial revolution and even when it came in Silicon out of
• 12:00
  Andrew Root: Silicon Valley didn't really bring the standard of living changes. I mean it made some filthy, filthy rich, you know, it made
• 12:06
  Andrew Root: founders of these tech companies filthy rich, but it really didn't rise all boats and standard of living like happened in the
• 12:12
  Andrew Root: fifties and the early sixties in in a quite a an amazing way. and he's saying that, you know, in the midst
• 12:18
  Andrew Root: of not having this, there are always a group of people who are waiting, like waiting for the next big thing to
• 12:23
  Andrew Root: happen. Like it's gonna be, you know, robotics or it's gonna be AI or something is gonna launch us into this huge
• 12:29
  Andrew Root: economic growth. And he just doesn't see it. And he's a little bit of a curmudgeon, which maybe is also why I
• 12:35
  Andrew Root: like him. but he calls these people then techno optimists. The people who who kind of don't face the fact that we've
• 12:41
  Andrew Root: lost growth and keep waiting for that. And I saw a parallel within churches where we every denomination has a techno optimist
• 12:47
  Andrew Root: in it, you it thinks like if we could just if we just do a different program or if we could just
• 12:53
  Andrew Root: find some kind of innovative new way of doing church, then then the growth would be back, the resources would be back,
• 12:59
  Andrew Root: the stability would be found, you know. but interestingly there's another group of people that are often in most denominations, especially mainline
• 13:04
  Andrew Root: ones, which I would call these people identitarians. You know, these are people who tend to think that the issue the church
• 13:10
  Andrew Root: faces is how it kind of I I for a lack of a better term, not to be not to be snarky
• 13:16
  Andrew Root: anyway, but kind of how they position themselves in the politics of recognition and how they think about the church's church's necessity
• 13:22
  Andrew Root: to give affirmation towards i i identities and that this becomes the driving issue. And what I'm trying to point out here,
• 13:28
  Andrew Root: in in you know, this is a reality that I have to face that I probably can have no friends. Like I'm
• 13:34
  Andrew Root: gonna probably make everybody in every denomination angry with me. Because I try
• 13:40
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 13:40
  Andrew Root: to point out building off another sociologist named Castilles. that there is a certain kind of capitalist logic in the identitarians too.
• 13:47
  Andrew Root: So there's a certain way that the techno optimists and the identitarians are essentially sibl siblings. They're they are, for lack of
• 13:54
  Andrew Root: a better term, they're and maybe we can keep this as a lowercase C, but they're capitalists. They believe in a kind
• 14:01
  Andrew Root: of escalate escalation logic. One escalation is like the escalation of of of kind of material resources. Like if we can find
• 14:08
  Andrew Root: the programs, then we can get the people. And if we can get the people, we can have the budgets and our
• 14:15
  Andrew Root: churches can be stable. It's it's not purely like we want to take over the world financially or we want to take
• 14:22
  Andrew Root: over the world in some kind of dominant market way. But there is a kind of sense that if we can find
• 14:29
  Andrew Root: the right technology, we can grow this and we'll be stable. And on the other side it's kind of like if we
• 14:36
  Andrew Root: can grow our recognition, if we can grow our political awareness, if we can if we can grow people's consciousness towards these
• 14:43
  Andrew Root: kind of identity issues. then the church will be stable. It it will be at least politically pure enough to kind of
• 14:50
  Andrew Root: be stable in this. And I'm just trying to point out, and again, this isn't my work as much as it's you
• 14:57
  Andrew Root: know, a a liberal sociologist from Berkeley, Manuel Manuel Castile's work, that this becomes a certain kind of c capitalist logic, that
• 15:04
  Andrew Root: identity gets dislodged from actual local communities, it gets put on a platform like social media or the network, and it gets
• 15:11
  Andrew Root: it gets kind of moved into escalatory logics. It gets moved into this kind of sense that it is capital. And we
• 15:18
  Andrew Root: see this play out in social media, you know, that people really, you know, make assertions, identitarian assertions, about the need for
• 15:25
  Andrew Root: recognition or negotiate kind of narratives of victimization. And those get almost literal I mean we have analytics to tell us how
• 15:32
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right.
• 15:33
  Andrew Root: much uptake they get within the market. You know, that w it's very clear that those realities get attention in an attention
• 15:40
  Andrew Root: economy. So I'm just really trying to kind of point out here that there's certain sophisticated ways that certain logics of escalation,
• 15:48
  Andrew Root: or or those logics of escalation that when you go back in time, like before the modern period, get embedded in like
• 15:55
  Andrew Root: cultic realities, you know, like essentially like well like fertility god kind of dynamics. Like if you if you do these these
• 16:03
  Andrew Root: these worship acts for Balal, you'll it'll bring gain to your to your community, you know? It'll bring gain to your society.
• 16:11
  Andrew Root: And I'm trying to say that we've we've we've lost that. You know, we we no longer believe like in kind of
• 16:18
  Andrew Root: these cultic enchanted kind of forms of escalation, but we do believe in kind of capitalist forms. And and and one of
• 16:26
  Andrew Root: the realities of of of kind of at least modern capitalism is it strips out a la kind of Max Weber. It
• 16:34
  Andrew Root: it strips out enchantment. And so you don't get this through kind of ritualized practices or priestly activities, but it gets moved
• 16:41
  Andrew Root: towards money and business and and and capital. Capital as opposed to cult becomes what holds these. And so I'm trying to
• 16:49
  Andrew Root: kind of draw that parallel that Ahab in in the book of Kings is really trying
• 16:57
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 16:57
  Andrew Root: to do an economic reality. I mean he's doing it through cultic activity, but when he brings well when he marries Jezebel,
• 17:02
  Andrew Root: we Unfortunately it's like Jezebel's the great sexual tempterist or something we say,
• 17:08
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm.
• 17:09
  Andrew Root: like you know, you hear it sometimes in conservative Protestantism, like the Jezebel spirit or something. Complete
• 17:14
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 17:15
  Andrew Root: misread of the situation. Jezebel is not a sexual tempterist. Jezebel's like if you want to have parallel into our modern world,
• 17:20
  Andrew Root: is a Harvard educated economist. Like she's
• 17:25
  Loren Richmond Jr: Hmm.
• 17:26
  Andrew Root: got a kind of mode of escalation that can stabilize a society and it is a bringing in of bail. There's a
• 17:33
  Andrew Root: syncretism going on where Ahab is gonna r is going to marry, almost quite literally in the cultic realities, marry Yahweh and
• 17:40
  Andrew Root: Baal together. With the idea that once you put these two economic systems or escal escalation systems together, it will stabilize Israel
• 17:47
  Andrew Root: and maybe move Israel back to its golden period with with Solomon, you know, at least get kind of some some kind
• 17:54
  Andrew Root: of element of that. and yet of course Elijah thinks is this is an incredible great disobedience and and essentially says you
• 18:01
  Andrew Root: can't mix these things together. And what I'm wondering as someone who's keeps working the theology of the cross is these kind
• 18:09
  Andrew Root: of escalatory logics we have, whether techno optimist or identitarian, can they actually really be mixed with the theology of the cross?
• 18:16
  Andrew Root: I mean, can they be mixed with the crucified God? Is that really possible? So at one level what you can see
• 18:23
  Andrew Root: this book is really about is thinking about church growth, thinking about the growth of of congregational life. How do you think
• 18:30
  Andrew Root: about that through the theology of the cross? Like, can you think about it through the theology of the cross? And I
• 18:37
  Andrew Root: am not an anti-capitalist guy. I'm not a like a hardcore Marxist or even a Marxist in any kind of way, or
• 18:45
  Andrew Root: even a kind of critical theory guy in that sense. So this isn't an anti capitalist book in any stretch of the
• 18:52
  Andrew Root: imagination, but it is one that's trying to say that our frameworks of ministry and of congregational life should be embedded in
• 18:59
  Andrew Root: this very absurd logic of the crucified God, of of Christ crucified, of the relationality of the Trinitarian life, and that we
• 19:06
  Andrew Root: all of us, whether we are kind of in our denominations, quote unquote, the innovative people or the kind of political activist
• 19:13
  Andrew Root: people, we've had a hard time unhooking our views from a certain kind of capital escalatory logic.
• 19:21
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right, right. Yeah, I think what was interesting to me, like I'd had this sorta like this gut feeling for a while,
• 19:26
  Loren Richmond Jr: like n why can no one just be like enough? Like it
• 19:31
  Andrew Root: Yeah.
• 19:31
  Loren Richmond Jr: it seems like in any in any field, it's just like can never we just say like, hey, we've had enough for
• 19:35
  Loren Richmond Jr: a while and like your book details it, like no, we can't just
• 19:40
  Andrew Root: Okay.
• 19:41
  Loren Richmond Jr: say enough, whether it's political gains, whether it's economic gains, we can ever just say like, yeah, I think we're good for
• 19:44
  Loren Richmond Jr: now.
• 19:47
  Andrew Root: Yeah, no, we can't. And I mean this is it it's a similar reality that like essentially Elijah mocks the the the
• 19:53
  Andrew Root: Bale priests about. I mean, first of all, Baal isn't acting, but also there's like you can never stop. You can never
• 20:00
  Andrew Root: rest. So there's part of the reality is like once you enter and this is what I steal from Hartmont Rose, like
• 20:07
  Andrew Root: he's talking about this logic of escalation, like how we live with this sense that we can we w it's never enough
• 20:14
  Andrew Root: to your point. Like it's always a necessity to escalate. And I'm just trying to say that in different epochs in history,
• 20:20
  Andrew Root: how we've engaged the kind of logic of escalation has been quite different. You know, so in the in the na ancient
• 20:27
  Andrew Root: Near East, you did that through cultic activity. You never stop. You have you you have to continue to worship these gods
• 20:34
  Andrew Root: over and over again. Or if you're Alexander or Caesar, you escalate by by war. Like it's a you're you're
• 20:41
  Loren Richmond Jr: Conquering. Yeah.
• 20:42
  Andrew Root: just conquer c constantly conquering And putting other gods under your gods and you you you know you you you order people
• 20:48
  Andrew Root: under the hierarchy of that. For us, it is capitalist gains. Like we do it through through through capital, and it can
• 20:55
  Andrew Root: never be enough, but there is a there isn't a shared kind of common reality. When we when we get hooked by
• 21:02
  Andrew Root: escalation, it's not just that we want more for more say more sake. We fall into the logic that the only thing
• 21:08
  Andrew Root: that will stabilize us and keep our societies and our very lives good or here for the long term, hence stabilize us
• 21:15
  Andrew Root: in the sense of like keep us long for the world is escalation, is the more. And I think that's what happens
• 21:22
  Andrew Root: within Protestantism. Like people will often look at me and be like, Well, my gosh, you're the most naive person ever because
• 21:28
  Andrew Root: you think we should unhook ourselves from escalatory logic. They don't actually use that language, but like from this drive for more.
• 21:35
  Andrew Root: and are you so naive you don't think like we're gonna we need this to s to To survive. And I think
• 21:42
  Andrew Root: that is a huge issue we face is that what feels more determinative of our existence for a lot of pastors, for
• 21:49
  Andrew Root: a lot of denominational leaders, is actually the growth of some kind of form of capital, more than it is the word
• 21:55
  Andrew Root: of a speaking God, or the act of of God to take to bring life out of death in a very illogical,
• 22:02
  Andrew Root: you know, first and second Corinthians kind of way, in a foolish, foolish way, you know? And so you could read that
• 22:09
  Andrew Root: text where Paul is like, My gosh. Christ and Him crucified is foolishness to capitalists and is completely illogical to Greeks in
• 22:15
  Andrew Root: the sense of those who are embedded in a kind of s form of this this th this rational logic that even
• 22:22
  Andrew Root: has its form in these kind of cultic practices too, you know. So yeah, I mean that's that's why I think we're
• 22:29
  Andrew Root: it's just never enough. Is partly it's there are forms of greed and sin that that play into that, but part of
• 22:35
  Andrew Root: it is we just wanna We're bound in time. And so there is a big question like how do we keep things
• 22:42
  Andrew Root: stable in time? and there's a there's a legitimate good reality to that. Any leader's job is to have to bear the
• 22:49
  Andrew Root: fact that they have to help this institution or as a parent, this family,
• 22:56
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm.
• 22:57
  Andrew Root: be long for the world, like be here, be able to be able to sustain ourselves and and and yet what we
• 23:02
  Andrew Root: think will I mean we could put that in the language of what will save us, what will keep us here.
• 23:07
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing.
• 23:10
  Andrew Root: Yeah, there's a there is a certain kind of operative soterology in that. You know, what will
• 23:14
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 23:14
  Andrew Root: actually save you? And I think in most of our churches, we think what will save us is just having enough money
• 23:20
  Andrew Root: or having enough relevance that we can kind of cash into resources to to be stable. And you know, that's just part
• 23:27
  Andrew Root: of the system, but it it's an issue that we have to that we have to wrestle with.
• 23:34
  Loren Richmond Jr: Well let me lean into that because I I I was thinking the same thing. It's sort of like this idea of
• 23:39
  Loren Richmond Jr: like what is going to save us, whether it's our church, especially in this in this context. And to lean into that
• 23:44
  Loren Richmond Jr: ident I I can't say the word identitarian kind of framework,
• 23:49
  Andrew Root: Mm-hmm.
• 23:50
  Loren Richmond Jr: I think like I won't say the name of the pastor, but I was just talking to a pastor last week, this
• 23:54
  Loren Richmond Jr: week, and it was like the the church is growing and someone on their staff's like, you know what we need to
• 23:59
  Loren Richmond Jr: grow more? Like we need more like flags out front. Like and I won't even say what kind of flags,
• 24:04
  Andrew Root: Mm-hmm. Sure.
• 24:06
  Loren Richmond Jr: but we need more flags out front to kind of broadcast to to use your language to escalate our I affirmations of
• 24:12
  Loren Richmond Jr: identity. And
• 24:19
  Andrew Root: Mm-hmm.
• 24:20
  Loren Richmond Jr: I think like that's a great example of like what's gonna save the church. It's not like proclaiming the good news, it's
• 24:25
  Loren Richmond Jr: like broadcasting affirmation.
• 24:31
  Andrew Root: Yeah, and it's a it's a it's a tricky, tricky reality 'cause there gosh, I mean, there's certain la I mean, this
• 24:35
  Andrew Root: is a w we're not I think we're in a weird time where there's a lot of things we needed to unlearn
• 24:40
  Andrew Root: about the twentieth
• 24:45
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 24:46
  Andrew Root: century. But there's some things we needed to remember about it feels like we're losing. You know, like even kind of globally,
• 24:51
  Andrew Root: politically, it seems like we're back into these you know, these certain kind of nineteenth century frameworks where we're just gonna divide
• 24:56
  Andrew Root: the world over, you know, big kingdoms or something like that.
• 25:02
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 25:02
  Andrew Root: But I think one of the lessons we've lost to your point about the twentieth century is, you know, we really learned
• 25:08
  Andrew Root: through the Nazification of Germany and is that there really can be no other purpose for the church to gather than to
• 25:14
  Andrew Root: proclaim the word of God. And that any other political reality that comes into it becomes a problem. And, you know, like
• 25:20
  Andrew Root: banners and things like that that are not There's reason for those and there's there's good reasons for those, but it is
• 25:26
  Andrew Root: a very tricky reality, you know? Because I I d I mean this this again means I can have no friends, obviously,
• 25:32
  Andrew Root: it will make people angry,
• 25:39
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 25:39
  Andrew Root: but you know, if you're in if you're in some communities you can get a l people get very uncomfortable if you
• 25:45
  Andrew Root: say the American flag should not be anywhere near a church. and there's a certain correlation to other kinds of flags of
• 25:52
  Andrew Root: other kinds of perspectives, you know, like These are these in in both ways, out of both groups that diametrically are opposed
• 25:58
  Andrew Root: and hate each other, there's a certain kind of again, politics of recognition here and of what can save the nation and
• 26:05
  Andrew Root: God and the nation become linked in together. God and kind of certain kind of identity politics gets kind of linked together.
• 26:11
  Andrew Root: I mean and this is not to say that there isn't reason for the the church to make statements about what it
• 26:18
  Andrew Root: means for people to be human and protect people's humanity.
• 26:25
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 26:25
  Andrew Root: there's real reason for that. But there always is, and I guess is what I'm trying to point out in the the
• 26:32
  Andrew Root: book, is like there's always this temptation that that becomes a certain way to save us. So it's very different to say
• 26:40
  Andrew Root: we are called to speak, to defend, to prophetically point out the necessity of the shared humanity of everyone. And this society
• 26:48
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 26:49
  Andrew Root: is denying this humanity. It's a quite
• 26:51
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 26:51
  Andrew Root: another thing to say. Well, in this university town, if we signal the right virtues, then they'll come. and then and
• 26:58
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 26:58
  Andrew Root: then we'll be okay. You know, there it's just a fine line wi within that. And you know, and that gets complicated
• 27:05
  Andrew Root: too, because it's like, well, should the church never say you know, this is who we are, come come. It's our church
• 27:13
  Andrew Root: signs out front, you know, that are often misspelled and have terrible, you know, puns and innuendos and things like that. Should
• 27:20
  Andrew Root: those be just taken away? I I'm not necessarily saying that. I'm just saying it is really, really hard, I think always
• 27:28
  Andrew Root: for the church to keep the gospel as the primary thing. And yet I I just want to keep pushing pastors and
• 27:35
  Andrew Root: leaders to keep the gospel the main thing. And that is costly. And that is goes against the currents of our realities.
• 27:43
  Andrew Root: And I And I am trying to point out that it feels like there's one current that's taking us one direction, but
• 27:50
  Andrew Root: we try to fight that current, and I'm trying to say we I don't know that we've done it radically enough. It's
• 27:58
  Andrew Root: the same kind of capitalist logic in a different guise. that is not I don't know if it's prophetic enough, to be
• 28:05
  Andrew Root: honest. Like we have we have to break that.
• 28:13
  Loren Richmond Jr: Let me ask this because I mentioned to you before we start recording, I just got back from a gathering with the
• 28:17
  Loren Richmond Jr: Iowa Preachers Project. So I've been getting this like crash course on law gospel. And so I I totally could be butchering
• 28:22
  Loren Richmond Jr: this for someone who's not Lutheran
• 28:27
  Andrew Root: Yeah.
• 28:28
  Loren Richmond Jr: or shaped in Lutheran theology, but h having just heard that and this now being in this conversation, and I'm thinking like
• 28:34
  Loren Richmond Jr: so much of this is if I if I understand the f the framework correctly, law gospel is like like so many
• 28:40
  Loren Richmond Jr: of these to use the word the Affirmations like are law, like they're not bad per se, they're good in many ways,
• 28:46
  Loren Richmond Jr: but they can't save us. Is it does that track?
• 28:53
  Andrew Root: Yeah, I think I think that I think that's that's true. I mean th one of the ways I often think of
• 28:57
  Andrew Root: law and I'm not I'm n by no means would anyone think like Andy Root is like the ultimate law gospel theologian
• 29:02
  Andrew Root: or anything like that. Like I'm not purely a law gospel guy, but I am a dialectical guy that kind of that
• 29:06
  Andrew Root: builds off that kind of law gospel stuff. And and then there is something really good about the law that that tries
• 29:11
  Andrew Root: to keep human life human, but
• 29:16
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 29:18
  Andrew Root: in and of itself it it cannot particularly cannot do the the work of bringing life out of death. And in many
• 29:25
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 29:26
  Andrew Root: ways the law kills and the law can kill in a just way, but what's always needed is life to come out
• 29:33
  Andrew Root: of out of death. And the law is a no. And it says no to like excluding certain people because of you
• 29:40
  Andrew Root: know, their orientation their sexual orientation or because of their racial
• 29:47
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 29:49
  Andrew Root: background. It says no to that. It it it
• 29:51
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right.
• 29:51
  Andrew Root: absolutely says no to that. But there has to be also this movement of what says yes within it, and what it
• 29:57
  Andrew Root: means then to be taken into very in God's very presence. And and this is why I I in this weird kind
• 30:03
  Andrew Root: of Protestant way, maybe odd for a Protestant to do, try to look at kind of Mary and and the Madonna and
• 30:09
  Andrew Root: the child as
• 30:15
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 30:15
  Andrew Root: as a very different kind of example than the escalation that we see in fertility god. You know, that there's a kind
• 30:21
  Andrew Root: of relationality that plays here where we where we do see the gospel is embedded in this kind of relationship that's much
• 30:28
  Andrew Root: more or if we just want to put this in the language of growth, like we should be wanting to grow, but
• 30:35
  Andrew Root: the growth we're called into is this kind of growth of the mother and the child. Like the no one thinks of
• 30:42
  Andrew Root: escalatory growth when they think about you know what it means to love their kids necessarily. You know, like You're not thinking
• 30:49
  Andrew Root: like, I want this to be an epic kind of love. I mean, I I know, maybe we have some songs like
• 30:55
  Andrew Root: that where people for Instagram reasons want a a kind of epic kind of love that's like, I don't know, a movie
• 31:02
  Andrew Root: or something. But for the most part, like, you know, really deep loves are we just wanna we wanna fall deeper in
• 31:09
  Andrew Root: love. We wanna be more committed. We wanna we wanna we wanna grow into that reality and you do grow into that
• 31:16
  Andrew Root: reality. that's very different than than escalation. And so that's what I'm I'm trying to kind of cast us here is like
• 31:23
  Andrew Root: the gospel that's bound in the absurdity, the beautiful absurdity of the cross, gives us a kind of growth that's a growth
• 31:29
  Andrew Root: into a deep kind of relationality. that's much more like a mother and a child. It's much more like a father to
• 31:36
  Andrew Root: children, which is basically Elijah's point. Like you if you try to mix Baal and Yahweh together, you go back to Egypt.
• 31:43
  Andrew Root: How could you do that? Like you you you become slaves to a cultic system again. This God of the desert, this
• 31:50
  Andrew Root: this God made known that gives us the name Yahweh, this God is is not known through escalation. This God wants to
• 31:57
  Andrew Root: be a father to children, gives us the children of Israel, and these children are given rest, like the gift of rest.
• 32:03
  Andrew Root: But the the Baal priests and the one who worships Baal and worships escalation can never rest to your point earlier. Like
• 32:10
  Andrew Root: There's never enough because you can never rest. And that is a sure sh a sure sign that you have fallen into
• 32:17
  Andrew Root: idolatry when you can never rest. And I find it fascinating on both sides. Like when when is when is it enough
• 32:24
  Andrew Root: innovation? When is it enough identity affirmation? When when when
• 32:31
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah. Yeah. Never.
• 32:34
  Andrew Root: it when is an end? There there are no end to it because they're interlinked with capital. And capital can never stop.
• 32:40
  Andrew Root: I mean, this is the power of of capital as capitalism, it it's or when money gets attached to the or happens
• 32:47
  Andrew Root: after the machine really in in an industrial economy is is that money money becomes in a certain sense a kind of
• 32:54
  Andrew Root: godlike figure that operates on its own, operates outside of human logic. It grows on its own. And the smartest the smartest
• 33:01
  Andrew Root: people, we our money works for us. You know what I mean? Like we
• 33:08
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right.
• 33:09
  Andrew Root: our money we we get you have enough money And you can just put it in the market and it it works
• 33:15
  Andrew Root: it works for for you. so one I you know, like I mentioned another book that that needs to come out of
• 33:21
  Andrew Root: this because ending this book and trying to push us to grow into this relational logic of a father to children, of
• 33:27
  Andrew Root: a mother to a son, I mean that's all great and good. And I think I I hope I make a good
• 33:33
  Andrew Root: theological point into that. But of course the question for a congregational pastor then is like what do you do with a
• 33:39
  Andrew Root: Because even if you would like not to be bound by capital and by the logic of escalation, you do still, well,
• 33:45
  Andrew Root: especially if you're an American pastor, are kind of running a small business. You know, you're you're you're dealing
• 33:52
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right.
• 33:53
  Andrew Root: with money. And so the the the next book that will come out come out come out of this is really thinking
• 34:00
  Andrew Root: about a a a pastoral theology of money, that my friend Mark Samson, who's much more better read in economic theory and
• 34:07
  Andrew Root: I have have have worked on. But it really is looking at this kind of fact-value split that that Max Weber talks
• 34:14
  Andrew Root: about, or the is ought reality of of David Hume, that's this sense that there are facts and there are values. And
• 34:21
  Andrew Root: and for the most part, in a in a kind of scientific world, the the hard sciences look at at the facts.
• 34:28
  Andrew Root: You know, the facts of that's science. Science deals with facts. And values also exist in human societies. You know, so like
• 34:35
  Andrew Root: ethics and religion and those things are are values, but there's facts and there's values and that's how the university, you know,
• 34:42
  Andrew Root: kind of breaks things up. And this becomes the idea isn't that within the modern imagination, this becomes just implanted in our
• 34:49
  Andrew Root: heads. And I see this function in churches all the time, where money actually is functionally more powerful than God because money
• 34:56
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 34:57
  Andrew Root: moves between fact and value.
• 34:59
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:59
  Andrew Root: Money's just a pure fact. Like the roof is leaking. We don't have a budget. We have to do this. It also
• 35:03
  Andrew Root: is it also moves into the world of values because it like, you know, what what value do you have? Do you
• 35:07
  Andrew Root: want to take your kids to Disneyland? You know, like what what what's it moves between those? But God in a late
• 35:12
  Andrew Root: modern world, in a secular age of of like capitalism like this, God does not move between fact and value. God is
• 35:16
  Andrew Root: a value, not a fact. So you'll have pastors
• 35:21
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 35:23
  Andrew Root: will this will happen all the time. Like, you know, they'll be leading the church And then there is a kind of
• 35:26
  Andrew Root: financial crisis and there'll be folks in the church that are like, Okay, Pastor, that's cute. It's great that you want to
• 35:29
  Andrew Root: teach
• 35:33
  Loren Richmond Jr: No.
• 35:34
  Andrew Root: us to pray and you want us to, you know, think about service to our neighbor and how we, you know, you
• 35:37
  Andrew Root: and you wanna preach a law of gospel. That's that's all great and cute, but now the facts have arrived. And the
• 35:41
  Andrew Root: facts
• 35:45
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 35:45
  Andrew Root: are we just need to get more money in this capital campaign or we're sunk. Our issue is we need to find
• 35:51
  Andrew Root: more revenue. And so now the adults need to take over. The fact people need to take over over the value
• 35:57
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:58
  Andrew Root: people, you know. And part of what we've done with kind of financial literacy with pastors is said, well, you have to
• 36:02
  Andrew Root: be able to operate in both fact and value. You know, don't don't
• 36:06
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 36:06
  Andrew Root: just concede the facts to those certain people on your church council. You need to be able to operate in the both
• 36:13
  Andrew Root: those. That's good. But I think we need something deeper. We actually need a theology that tries to obliterate the fact value
• 36:20
  Andrew Root: split and does not allow God just to be Housed within the value, but we need to think of money as somehow
• 36:27
  Andrew Root: embedded in the realities of how we live before God. Which something like, you know, S St. Augustine absolutely believed. He absolutely
• 36:34
  Andrew Root: believed that your life before God in obedience to Jesus Christ, how you how you dealt with your money was a big
• 36:41
  Andrew Root: piece of that. Like your faith formation and what you did with your money was a a huge piece. And for the
• 36:48
  Andrew Root: most part, And this is like a critique to me, like Augustine was completely against Pelagianism. I mean Peter Brown makes this
• 36:55
  Andrew Root: point, which is phenomenal. If you read Augustine's sermons on money, he's against Pelagianism because he thinks it's a doctrinal problem. But
• 37:02
  Andrew Root: he also thinks if you could perfect yourself and you could kind of throw off your sinful nature, you wouldn't have to
• 37:09
  Andrew Root: give alms to the poor. And if you don't have to give alms to the poor, then the poor are left out
• 37:16
  Andrew Root: of the circulation of money and the poor are pushed to the side. Well, this is exactly what f fiscal capitalism has
• 37:23
  Andrew Root: done. And I'm as culpable in this as anyone. Like my retirement is completely based in stocks in a market where the
• 37:30
  Andrew Root: poor have no access to those markets. You know, unless you have a four one K and y and
• 37:37
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 37:37
  Andrew Root: and and you know, y they're completely left out of that. And so there is a kind of movement of how do
• 37:43
  Andrew Root: we even think about money? What is money? And and that becomes really important because you can wanna be outside this escalatory
• 37:50
  Andrew Root: logic all you want, but money beckons. You know, money calls and a pastor has to deal with money. So I'm I
• 37:57
  Andrew Root: won't give away how I answer that until next time I'm on your your podcast and we can actually talk about how
• 38:04
  Andrew Root: to deal with money that way. But it is to say, like this trying to free us from the logic of escalation
• 38:11
  Andrew Root: and the way capital works, even when to your point we're not we're identitarians, we're just thinking about kind of affirmation capital,
• 38:18
  Andrew Root: or we are thinking of like innovative capital, you know, trying to get creative as a kind of form of capital, i
• 38:25
  Andrew Root: it it it does it it makes the imminent frame more plausible in in some sense. And it it it it malforms
• 38:32
  Andrew Root: people because it does, if we're not very careful, prop up this fact value split and God becomes a value for you,
• 38:39
  Andrew Root: a psychological reality for you. but no say over facts. And absolutely
• 38:46
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah, something I can control and and pull out when it's helpful, when I need it. Right.
• 38:52
  Andrew Root: Great psychological reality. but you know, doesn't stretch kind of deeper than than any any realm
• 38:58
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah, this is
• 38:59
  Andrew Root: that you would have value in. Yeah.
• 39:00
  Loren Richmond Jr: this is like the this is this is something as as someone who's been sitting in the pews for the last year,
• 39:07
  Loren Richmond Jr: this is something that I hear all the time from fellow congregants, so to speak, is like like I shared a story
• 39:14
  Loren Richmond Jr: about sitting s next to someone in a hospital bed as a chaplain who was like really escalated, anxious. And
• 39:21
  Andrew Root: Mm-hmm.
• 39:22
  Loren Richmond Jr: like I shared with someone like, you know, I was praying for them, was sitting in silence, I was reading scripture, and
• 39:27
  Loren Richmond Jr: then like they calmed down and eventually like the the doctors came in like, we're gonna release you. And they were like,
• 39:32
  Loren Richmond Jr: yeah, the anxiety meds did its work. Like that's what my y fellow church folks said. Like there was no sort of
• 39:37
  Loren Richmond Jr: thought of the fact of like the spirit inner might have intervened. Like again, I can't speak to that, I don't know
• 39:42
  Loren Richmond Jr: for sure. But that wasn't a
• 39:48
  Andrew Root: Mm-hmm.
• 39:50
  Loren Richmond Jr: not a factual even option to consider.
• 39:53
  Andrew Root: Right. Yeah, it was just kind of periphery that it's a little vi it's vitamins potentially to the r to the real
• 39:56
  Andrew Root: to the real thing, you know. A nice
• 39:59
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right. Right.
• 40:01
  Andrew Root: little supplement that can add it. Not the that the main force of agency within it. And and yeah, that that becomes
• 40:09
  Andrew Root: that becomes the struggle. So, you know, the question is is growth like the growth of resources or is it growth into
• 40:18
  Andrew Root: a very different w way of imagining yourself and the world and and what God has Doing in it. I do think
• 40:27
  Andrew Root: there's something about the Christian tradition that calls us to grow. I think Paul calls his churches to grow, but the growth
• 40:35
  Andrew Root: is a growth into the absurdity of Christ and Him crucified, you know, as the hope of the world, as salvation, that
• 40:44
  Andrew Root: the baby in Mary's arms will topple the greatest military and industrial complex ever. You know, like these are absurd assertions, you
• 40:53
  Andrew Root: know, and to grow into those are something very different than just thinking of like, how can we find market share?
• 41:02
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah. Let me ask this 'cause I I think it it came to mind as I read the book. Like traditionally it's
• 41:08
  Loren Richmond Jr: always like at least I've always heard it, like church does better when people are suffering. Yet I think
• 41:14
  Andrew Root: Mm.
• 41:15
  Loren Richmond Jr: you talked about this in the book, like the data is the opposite. Churches
• 41:18
  Andrew Root: Yeah.
• 41:19
  Loren Richmond Jr: do well when people are doing well. Like essentially this is Ryan Burge data too of late. Like church attendance is down
• 41:27
  Andrew Root: Yeah. Well I think
• 41:29
  Loren Richmond Jr: 'cause economics are down.
• 41:31
  Andrew Root: Yeah, I think true I think well, I mean this is an interesting I again I someone else a a sociologist religion
• 41:38
  Andrew Root: would be better at this than me. But it appears and I think this this fits the data, is that in America
• 41:45
  Andrew Root: it's different. But it oddly like other places in the world it it appears that, you know at least there there's more
• 41:52
  Andrew Root: of a logic to things are going bad, people turn and look for a church. In America, there's this weird kind of
• 41:59
  Andrew Root: sensibility, especially when we think of our kind of congregational form of Christianity that we're living with now, you know, denominational Christianity
• 42:06
  Andrew Root: in congregations, in communities. There seems to be a direct correlation that when you are moving, when your standard of living is
• 42:13
  Andrew Root: going up, you start looking for a church to be part of and to be a member of. And like also all
• 42:20
  Andrew Root: those kind of mid-20th century mechanisms of like I become a member. I give, I send my kids to Sunday school. I
• 42:27
  Andrew Root: volunteer to teach VBS. My kids go through confirmation. We have confirmation Sunday. You know, like all of that stuff, it it
• 42:34
  Andrew Root: seems to work best when standard of living is going up. And I you know, I try in the book to draw
• 42:41
  Andrew Root: a a a pretty strong almost glued together, maybe a little little bit not quite glued together, but almost glued together between
• 42:48
  Andrew Root: Gordon's special century. And this GDP growth, standard of living growth from eighteen seventy to nineteen seventy, and what we call the
• 42:55
  Andrew Root: Christian Century. We even have a publication called the Christian Century,
• 43:02
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:05
  Andrew Root: which really means the Protestant Century, for the most part. It means like the the rise of Protestantism. And so it's just
• 43:11
  Andrew Root: there there's just a direct direct to me, there's a direct historical correlation between standard of living increase and people going to
• 43:18
  Andrew Root: churches. So it's no surprise to me that no one talks about or There are no at least big time conferences of
• 43:25
  Andrew Root: church growth and no church growth movement until the mid-1970s. Because this is when the the s the special century, Allah Gordon,
• 43:31
  Andrew Root: ends in the nineteen seventies. And so people start becoming very aware at the end of the nineteen seventies, and poor Jimmy
• 43:38
  Andrew Root: Carter loses an election for this, that the growth is all disappearing. It's all
• 43:45
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 43:45
  Andrew Root: it's all going away. And so you get a very different kind of economic system that comes about neoliberalism and and and
• 43:52
  Andrew Root: you get Thatcher and Reagan who are gonna release the markets to do their thing. And it becomes much more of an
• 43:59
  Andrew Root: entrepreneurial culture that allows some to really thrive within it and allows others to kind of struggle. And you kind of see
• 44:06
  Andrew Root: that in American Protestantism. By the 80s you have huge, massive churches we call megachurches, and then a lot of smaller churches.
• 44:13
  Andrew Root: and so kind of there there's a certain correlation to that that reality. And I think it's still kinda does exist today
• 44:20
  Andrew Root: is that when you start to feel yourself being pulled into the middle class by education, by just social capital, that you
• 44:27
  Andrew Root: start looking for a church to belong to and particularly this may be changing a little bit, but you particularly in the
• 44:34
  Andrew Root: middle of the twentieth century, you start looking for a mainline church to be part of, you
• 44:42
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 44:42
  Andrew Root: know. Like you start looking you may have grown up in a kind of Pentecostal, kind of borderline fundamentalist church, but now
• 44:49
  Andrew Root: you're educated, now you are, you know, a low level executive at your corporation, you move to a suburb and you start
• 44:56
  Andrew Root: looking at that Presbyterian church and saying, I think we're supposed to be Presbyterian here, you know. there's a certain kind of
• 45:03
  Andrew Root: connection there. And and to me that that just there's a there's there's an interesting connection that Protestantism thrived in that and
• 45:10
  Andrew Root: then since the seventies we've been on the downside of a golden arrow. and we're we're still of the generation and maybe
• 45:17
  Andrew Root: those coming after me, which I I can't admit that I'm old yet, but you know, I'm of the generation at least
• 45:24
  Andrew Root: that has a lot of people I don't have any first hand really connection to the golden era of pro American Protestantism.
• 45:31
  Andrew Root: But the institutions I were in had people who taught during the Golden Era, you
• 45:39
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 45:39
  Andrew Root: know, people when I was a y young person in a denomination, their older generation had it. Like, you know, I I'm
• 45:44
  Andrew Root: been working with my friend David Wood, who tells a story all the time of, you know, like his first year in
• 45:49
  Andrew Root: his denomination, there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pastors and there was this deep sense that like you basically were
• 45:54
  Andrew Root: in this in a very strong institution and could do whatever you want. I mean, y in the sense that like everything
• 45:59
  Andrew Root: was there to to thrive.
• 46:05
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right, right.
• 46:06
  Andrew Root: And you know, at the end of his career, it's the complete opposite of that. And so we kind of still have
• 46:10
  Andrew Root: the memory like those kings in in the book of Kings, we remember Solomon. We remember the Golden Era, but we don't
• 46:15
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:18
  Andrew Root: know how to get back there. And we start like them becoming obsessed with trying to get back to this golden era.
• 46:22
  Andrew Root: Maybe we, you know, if you can think about it on the downside of it, can we get ourselves back up there
• 46:27
  Andrew Root: a little bit? If we could just if we could just innovate, if we could just merge seminaries, if we could just
• 46:32
  Andrew Root: find some new way to do this, maybe we could at least taste a little bit of the the golden era. And
• 46:36
  Andrew Root: I do think we're in a major transition in Protestantism because the main line, which since the nineteen seventies, has been kind
• 46:41
  Andrew Root: of living off, well, quite literally, the the capital of the golden era, the endowments.
• 46:46
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah. Yeah.
• 46:48
  Andrew Root: of the golden era, those are starting to become empty. And evangelicalism, there's a strange thing about Protestants that when things are
• 46:54
  Andrew Root: going too well, we start to worry about ourselves. Like we think we've kind of it's embedded in the Protestant imaginary. Like
• 47:00
  Andrew Root: things go too well, you think, well, we're probably being disobedient. So you you kind of disestablish yourself. And and I think
• 47:06
  Andrew Root: I think you could say conservative Protestantism right now, you know, since the eighties for sure the nineties became the form of
• 47:12
  Andrew Root: Protestantism, you know, conservative evangelical Protestants,
• 47:18
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah, I was gonna ask you about this.
• 47:20
  Andrew Root: right? And the in part of the reason is they could they thrived much better against the headwinds of lower economic growth
• 47:26
  Andrew Root: than the mainline. and the mainline didn't really need to adapt to it because they had the the coffers full with endowment
• 47:33
  Andrew Root: money, you know. but since twenty sixteen, since, you know, twenty twenty four, evangelicals, I think, you know, obviously some who want
• 47:40
  Andrew Root: to hold that name, but are really more fundamentalists, are really gr happy to wrap themselves around MAGA and and and and
• 47:46
  Andrew Root: in the flag and do that. But classic evangelical institutions, you know, where the intelligentsia has rested is trying to wonder like
• 47:53
  Andrew Root: what do we do? What
• 48:00
  Loren Richmond Jr: Mm-hmm.
• 48:00
  Andrew Root: are we even even can we even use the word evangelical? So they're in a some sense going under their own kind
• 48:06
  Andrew Root: of disestablishment mode of trying to figure out what is this what does this mean going forward. And so you know, it
• 48:13
  Andrew Root: becomes an opportunity for us to really think theologically and lean into that. It also becomes much like most of the kings
• 48:20
  Andrew Root: and first and second kings, we become very tempted to looking around and thinking, maybe a little syncretism will work. Maybe if
• 48:27
  Andrew Root: we can really get deeply i i into the waters of certain capitalist forms of escalation,
• 48:34
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 48:35
  Andrew Root: maybe that's what we need to do. And it all comes out of this desire to taste again a bit of the
• 48:38
  Andrew Root: golden air.
• 48:41
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 48:42
  Andrew Root: And yet again, you know, here's here's the logic of Paul's theology of the cross is that your God primarily comes near
• 48:50
  Andrew Root: to you and brokenness, loss, death. some sense, you know, your law gospel move says no to all human forms of stabilizing
• 48:58
  Andrew Root: ourselves. and asks us to be embraced, in the logic of the relational, and the logic of a mother to a child
• 49:06
  Andrew Root: and and a father who calls children to come and and to rest and no longer be cogs of production and capital
• 49:14
  Andrew Root: gains, and escalation ultimately, and to come and to rest in God's presence.
• 49:22
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah. Yeah, I love that quote from your from your book. That was sort of riff, I think, of one of your
• 49:25
  Loren Richmond Jr: quotes from
• 49:28
  Andrew Root: Mm.
• 49:28
  Loren Richmond Jr: this book. I wanna ask you one more question here before we're done.
• 49:31
  Andrew Root: Yeah.
• 49:32
  Loren Richmond Jr: Certainly we can talk about like going off the rails with identitarianism or techno optimism, but you do talk about innovation or
• 49:39
  Loren Richmond Jr: identity affirmation affirmations needing to be shaped by prayer and confession. do you want to talk about what that might look like?
• 49:46
  Loren Richmond Jr: 'Cause I think that was an important addition.
• 49:53
  Andrew Root: Yeah, I mean I do think that there's something yeah, I mean I I I could easily be seen as the, you
• 49:57
  Andrew Root: know, the old man get off my lawn guy about both
• 50:02
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right.
• 50:02
  Andrew Root: of those things, you know, like why is this all why are we only about affirmation and and and signs and things
• 50:06
  Andrew Root: like that? Or you know, like, well, we don't need to we don't need to be creative at all. And I don't
• 50:10
  Andrew Root: wanna be either
• 50:14
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right.
• 50:15
  Andrew Root: of those things. I I I do think that Both of those there's there's something really good in both of those demands
• 50:22
  Andrew Root: towards the affirmation of the depth of people's experience as well as the drive towards kind of creativity in response to the
• 50:29
  Andrew Root: constraints and realities we live in. I just want to center the human person within that. I don't want to center the
• 50:37
  Andrew Root: ideology in one, which often happens, or center the performative self that a actually happens. the other. And actually they both they
• 50:44
  Andrew Root: they both do that. That the performative self
• 50:52
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 50:53
  Andrew Root: and the ideology kind of play it in into both I want the human person my neighbor and I I use that
• 50:59
  Andrew Root: in a kind of you know Martin Luther kind of sense that I am called to my neighbor I'm not called to
• 51:06
  Andrew Root: an idea I'm not called to a project I'm called to find Jesus Christ at the very center of my neighbor's life
• 51:13
  Andrew Root: and And particularly at the center of their suffering and their loss, and to be with them, be with them. How? Be
• 51:19
  Andrew Root: with them in this kind of relational dynamic that I just simply am with and for them is Mary is with and
• 51:26
  Andrew Root: for Jesus and all those icons, you know, like
• 51:33
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 51:34
  Andrew Root: and you know, that's what's beautiful about those icons is that in many of them, the infant, Jesus looks at Mary, and
• 51:41
  Andrew Root: Mary looks at you, the viewer. and invites you into this. Like she will pray for you to participate in this life
• 51:48
  Andrew Root: with her son. And I think that's where I I I want to go with this is that Mary is the one
• 51:55
  Andrew Root: who teaches us what it means to respond to the word and what it means to to follow into this reality. And
• 52:02
  Andrew Root: there is political ramification. Apocalyptically like the Magnificat is is an
• 52:10
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right. Right.
• 52:11
  Andrew Root: apocalyptic prophetic statement. That God will tear down the high and lift up the lowly. You know, there is something about that.
• 52:19
  Andrew Root: And there is something about a a a reality of change here. Like the world is turning now. The world is turning,
• 52:27
  Andrew Root: but it's turning in the utter, utter mystery. And again, the backwardness that it's this teenage girl in this Godforsaken place that
• 52:35
  Andrew Root: receives the word, responds obediently to the word, and bears this child that invites all of all of humanity, all of creation
• 52:43
  Andrew Root: to come and find life within. that's a mystery that's worth us thinking about how we live into and calling people to
• 52:51
  Andrew Root: to live into it. and so I guess I want I want the pastor to be someone who invites us into that
• 52:59
  Andrew Root: mystery more than just things like, how am I the person called into the failing company to try to get it help
• 53:07
  Andrew Root: it help its find its groove, you know, get its groove back. I want I want the pastor
• 53:15
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 53:15
  Andrew Root: to be the one who who holds mystery and invites us into those mysteries in a in a significant way.
• 53:21
  Loren Richmond Jr: Well what I hear you saying, if I'm hearing it right, is sort of like again, thinking about this logic of escalation
• 53:26
  Loren Richmond Jr: and and having to respond quickly. I think about there's just not there's just not time to like where is God calling
• 53:32
  Loren Richmond Jr: us to respond? They're just like we gotta act now because
• 53:38
  Andrew Root: Mm. Yeah.
• 53:40
  Loren Richmond Jr: more and quicker and and rather than where is where's God calling me to see Jesus and my neighbor and and and
• 53:47
  Loren Richmond Jr: that sort of like deeper relationship, I think that's the that's the challenge I see so often.
• 53:55
  Andrew Root: Absolutely. Yep. And escalation and acceleration for Rosa
• 54:00
  Loren Richmond Jr: Right.
• 54:00
  Andrew Root: are tied together and there's a certain utter hubris in us that we think that like God is just too slow. You
• 54:04
  Andrew Root: know, like
• 54:08
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah, yeah. Yep.
• 54:10
  Andrew Root: we need something a little faster than God. So
• 54:13
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah, I mean that's it. Well, the
• 54:15
  Andrew Root: Mm.
• 54:15
  Loren Richmond Jr: book is Baal and the Gods of Moor, Rescuing Church Growth from Idolatry. I've already kept you a long time here, so
• 54:20
  Loren Richmond Jr: I won't keep you any longer. Anything else you want to say about the book? How folks can connect with you, get
• 54:25
  Loren Richmond Jr: the book, all any of that.
• 54:30
  Andrew Root: Yeah, I mean you can you can find it where books are sold. And you know, you can help my escalatory logic
• 54:34
  Andrew Root: of book sales go by, you know,
• 54:38
  Loren Richmond Jr: Yeah.
• 54:40
  Andrew Root: going to Amazon or wherever you feel comfortable getting books. yeah, and so people can I have a website that's just Andre
• 54:46
  Andrew Root: Root dot org. You can find me there. But you know, I'm I I I am someone who can have friends, even
• 54:52
  Andrew Root: though it seems like I'm trying to make everyone in the world mad at me. I hope that hope some people will
• 54:58
  Andrew Root: I don't be my friend at some point.
• 55:04
  Loren Richmond Jr: Well, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate the conversation. may God's peace be with you.
• 55:08
  Andrew Root: Thanks. Appreciate it.