Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Karl Barth on War as God’s Judgment: Romans 13 and Degrees of Guilt | Faith & Politics #9

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Karl Barth on War as God’s Judgment: Romans 13 and Degrees of Guilt | Faith & Politics #9 · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm here,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm Dr. James Spencer and I'm here with Dr. Ashish
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Varma and we are gonna be discussing the second question
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: in Bart's letter to the United States. We did the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: first question last time and so we're gonna continue and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: see if we get through two or maybe two and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: three this time, we'll see how it goes. But this
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: is a really interesting second question and I'll just read
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: it and then we'll obviously kind of return to it,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: but just to kind of prime the pump on what
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  Speaker 1: this is, Is this war to be conceived as the
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  Speaker 1: judgment of God on mankind? And if so, is there
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a distinction to be made between the more guilty and
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the less guilty? That's the question that Barth is posed
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  Speaker 1: in this letter. This is one of those that they
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: asked him to answer. And so he's going to try
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  Speaker 1: to answer that in this relatively short section within the
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  Speaker 1: second part of the letter.
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  Speaker 2: Ashish?
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  Speaker 3: He is very brief compared to the way he addresses
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  Speaker 3: the other two questions that were posed to him. But
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: he's not lacking for depth and intrigue. So I think
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: that's important. Additionally, when we take this question in isolation,
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  Speaker 3: it could be very easy to read one thing, but
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  Speaker 3: when you put it in the context of the fuller letter,
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  Speaker 3: you get another thing, right? And then again, he appeals
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  Speaker 3: to Romans 13, which we can probably talk a little
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  Speaker 3: bit about later, which could again give you one reading
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  Speaker 3: if you just read that as a blanket statement meant
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  Speaker 3: to be a once and for all time claim. And
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  Speaker 3: when you consider Bart's actions and the actions of others
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  Speaker 3: around Bart, it makes that even intriguing. So that's all
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: to say that there's not a definitive, even though it's short,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: there's not a definitive takeaway. It's more of a, there's
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: a lot to consider here. So I look forward to
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  Speaker 3: discussing this.
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  Speaker 1: I thought it might be interesting to start and just
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: clarify a couple of things here. We've talked about dominion
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: an awful lot in various other episodes, and we had
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a great conversation with Norman Wiersbo. It's going to be
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: coming out where he talks a little bit about mastery
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  Speaker 1: and human notions of mastery.
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  Speaker 2: So you all can watch for that one.
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  Speaker 1: It'll actually come out after this episode airs. But I
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  Speaker 1: think it's really crucial to understand this idea of the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: judgment of God and And so one thing that I'm
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  Speaker 1: sort of developing that I think is more and more
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  Speaker 1: compelling every time I sort of go back through it
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  Speaker 1: is this notion that as the image of God, we
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  Speaker 1: are reflecting God out into the world. This is part
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  Speaker 1: of what it means to be God's image. We represent
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: him within the world and we reflect him out to
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  Speaker 1: the world. And so that happens in Genesis 1. We're
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  Speaker 1: made in God's image, male and female. God makes us
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  Speaker 1: in his image. This continues after the fall. We could
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: go to passages like Genesis 5, Genesis 9, 6. There's
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  Speaker 1: plenty of passages that demonstrate that the image still continues.
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  Speaker 1: After the fall, though, my sense is that we reflect
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  Speaker 1: God in slightly different ways. Now, we usually think about
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  Speaker 1: that as the distortion of God's image. We're not reflecting
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  Speaker 1: him quite as clearly as we were previously. But I
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  Speaker 1: think there's also additional facets of God's character that start
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  Speaker 1: to come out after the fall that human beings actually reflect,
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  Speaker 1: one of those being judgment. I think that a lot
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  Speaker 1: of what Bart is going to talk about here is
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily derived from Genesis. He doesn't, as I recall,
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  Speaker 1: cite Genesis or do anything with Genesis. But what I
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  Speaker 1: would argue is that as God's representatives, as humankind continues
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  Speaker 1: as God's representatives after the fall, as we continue to
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  Speaker 1: work out what it looks like to reflect God after
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  Speaker 1: the fall, judgment has to be part of that mix.
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  Speaker 1: And so when I'm reading this question from Bart, is
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  Speaker 1: this war to be conceived as the judgment of God
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  Speaker 1: on mankind? I'm sort of sitting back and saying, sort of, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And it's enacted.
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  Speaker 2: Humankind to humankind.
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  Speaker 1: And so the people who are reflecting God's image are
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  Speaker 1: going to reflect a right judgment about this, maybe even
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  Speaker 1: a righter judgment, which probably gets into his more guilty
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  Speaker 1: and less guilty kind of concept. But I think we
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  Speaker 1: see this as we think about the conquest, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: ancient Israel's conquest of the various lands, when we see
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  Speaker 1: Israel displaced by Babylon, Babylon displaced by Persia, Persia displaced
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  Speaker 1: by the Greco-Roman Empire. I think these are moments where
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  Speaker 1: God is using these different nations to enact judgment.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. But I think there's also a sense in which
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  Speaker 2: as God's image, we are reflecting this aspect of who
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  Speaker 2: God is after the fall.
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  Speaker 1: Whereas before the fall, it was unnecessary for that reflection
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  Speaker 1: to come out. This sort of notion of judgment where
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  Speaker 1: we're enacting some sort of punitive judgment, punitive punishment. if
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  Speaker 1: that's not too redundant, is unique to us after the
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  Speaker 1: fall and will ultimately go away because all the judgments
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  Speaker 1: that we make, all the right judgments that the authorities make,
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  Speaker 1: all the different judgments that the church makes are anticipating
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  Speaker 1: the final judgment of God.
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  Speaker 2: So I just feel like that helps. Maybe it helps
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  Speaker 2: frame it.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe that's a good way for us to enter this conversation,
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  Speaker 1: but I'll let you chime in Ashish and see what
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  Speaker 1: you think.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I have questions. I think that does help frame judgment.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's important to recognize that judgment is an
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  Speaker 3: important thread that we've seen in the biblical narrative. Things
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  Speaker 3: don't make sense if we don't have space for judgment.
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  Speaker 3: That said, I don't know that the answers concerning judgment
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  Speaker 3: to me are all that clear. So I think, for instance,
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  Speaker 3: the book of Hosea, where God establishes Hosea sort of
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  Speaker 3: in the place of God relative to his covenant people.
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  Speaker 3: He wants to make a point through the character of
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  Speaker 3: Hosea about the nature of covenant Israel. And so covenant
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  Speaker 3: Israel is typified by the prostitute that Hosea is told
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  Speaker 3: to marry, knowing full well that she won't be faithful
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  Speaker 3: to him. And Hosea is now supposed to play the
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  Speaker 3: role of the long-suffering covenant God, right? is a role
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  Speaker 3: that ultimately none of us can bear. And so my
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  Speaker 3: conclusion from that is, regardless of whoever this Hosea was,
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  Speaker 3: that in the way that the parable is being told
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  Speaker 3: to us, ultimately none of us are Hosea. We're much
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  Speaker 3: closer to the position of covenant Israel and this dynamic, right?
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  Speaker 3: Even when we experience things that might be closer to Hosea,
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  Speaker 3: we have a character lapse, right? But the way that
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  Speaker 3: that letter unfolds, or that parable or that book, whatever
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  Speaker 3: you want to call it, God has this moment in
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  Speaker 3: which he expresses the fullness of his anger. And I
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  Speaker 3: think that's important because we have an uneasy relationship with anger.
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  Speaker 3: On one side, we have Jesus who flipped over tables,
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  Speaker 3: clearly out of anger, right? I don't think we can
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  Speaker 3: call that anything but anger, over people taking advantage of
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  Speaker 3: others in the way that they sold things in the temple.
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  Speaker 3: And yet we also have the realization that that we
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  Speaker 3: are told to be slow to anger. We're told that
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: anger itself can be toxic to us. Right. And so
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  Speaker 3: we need to know in some sense, anger in what sense,
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  Speaker 3: how do we, how do we allow for anger in
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  Speaker 3: the way that God expresses it in the book of
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  Speaker 3: Hosea or Jesus in the temple and not the way
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  Speaker 3: that anger is seen as the sort of thing that
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  Speaker 3: creates a, creates a toxicity.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Um, So when I think of Hosea, you've got that dynamic.
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  Speaker 3: The anger is present. God is wrathful. He's trying to
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  Speaker 3: communicate through this character Hosea just how upset he is
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  Speaker 3: with Israel and what that entails for Israel breaking the
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  Speaker 3: covenant relationship and what that might mean now for Israel's judgment,
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  Speaker 3: to get us back to that point. And yet, and
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  Speaker 3: I believe the chapter is 11, Hosea 11. I didn't
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  Speaker 3: go back to look at it precisely, so it could
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  Speaker 3: be off on the chapter. you get sort of a,
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  Speaker 3: I take that back. And the I take that back
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  Speaker 3: is not a, I'm not angry, and it's not a,
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  Speaker 3: there's no judgment. It seems to be a declaration that
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  Speaker 3: something else supervenes, that if we look at it through
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  Speaker 3: New Testament lenses, there's a mercy and a grace that
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  Speaker 3: somehow is able to put aside the judgment. Now, in
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  Speaker 3: the New Testament lens, we can speak of the sacrifice
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: of Jesus. however we want to categorize the atoning work
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: as we theologians refer to it, there's something atoning about it,
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  Speaker 3: about what Jesus does on our behalf. And in some sense,
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  Speaker 3: there's a substitution at play. Theologians debate what that sense is,
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  Speaker 3: how we want to look at it. And that seems
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  Speaker 3: to be read back into Hosea, that you have this sense,
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  Speaker 3: whatever it is, that Hosea is bearing in his very life,
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  Speaker 3: in the sense of his being betrayed. whatever judgment that
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  Speaker 3: is that goes upon covenant Israel. And the payoff is
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  Speaker 3: God out of love, and the language of love is used,
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  Speaker 3: God out of love embraces the unfaithful covenant bride. So
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  Speaker 3: what does that make of judgment? Judgment is real. The
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  Speaker 3: anger is real. The necessity of judgment is real. But
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  Speaker 3: I don't think on the other side we can find
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  Speaker 3: it fully satisfying to just simply say, well, you know,
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  Speaker 3: people have done some awful things and to get us
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  Speaker 3: to the point of Barth's letter being written in light
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  Speaker 3: of World War II, so we can put a name
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  Speaker 3: on this, in light of what Hitler and the Nazi
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  Speaker 3: party are doing. We can't just sit by, is sort
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  Speaker 3: of what Barth's saying. He's not embracing a live and
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  Speaker 3: let go, this stinks, but we can't respond sort of attitude.
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  Speaker 3: Judgment does that play? But it's not clear where that
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  Speaker 3: line now exists. Okay, Hitler and the Nazi party, judgment.
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  Speaker 3: But Hosea's unfaithful wife, judgment? You know, do you get
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  Speaker 3: the sort of question that's built into my confusion of,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it's nearly as straightforward of a thing.
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  Speaker 3: And now when we're thinking in terms of ultimate consequences,
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  Speaker 3: when does that judgment make way for that mercy and
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  Speaker 3: that love?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So really helpful.
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  Speaker 1: I think I wouldn't, I think in part judgment is
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  Speaker 1: going to be relatively clear cut. There aren't a lot
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  Speaker 1: of gray areas with judgment. Let me start there. So
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  Speaker 1: it's either guilty, not guilty. And what we see in
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  Speaker 1: a book like Hosea is obviously judgment. Israel is guilty.
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  Speaker 1: That's a judgment.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, no question.
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  Speaker 1: The question is whether God is going to act on
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  Speaker 1: and in response to the way that Israel has treated him,
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  Speaker 1: or whether he is going to restrain himself in mercy and.
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  Speaker 2: In grace.
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  Speaker 1: To allow Israel to continue despite their ongoing whoredom, as
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  Speaker 1: one of my favorite books on Hosea goes. Great, great
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: book on Hosea. If anybody wants to read anything on
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  Speaker 1: Hosea and this dynamic we're talking about, Whoredom is a
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  Speaker 1: great book.
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  Speaker 3: That's the name of the title, Whoredom.
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  Speaker 1: But the question then becomes, yeah, great title. The question is,
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  Speaker 1: does that Does Israel's way of doing things, do they
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  Speaker 1: actually escape judgment? Or does God simply delay judgment, which
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  Speaker 1: is then ultimately what we would see in the cross?
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  Speaker 2: Now, that draws in a whole lot of stuff.
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  Speaker 1: But I would argue that God's judgment is never fully suspended.
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  Speaker 1: What we're seeing are delays. We're watching him give us time, right,
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  Speaker 1: to repent, time to reform, time to come about to
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: his way of thinking and his way of life. But ultimately,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: judgment is not suspended forever. And this is what we
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  Speaker 1: see in things like the book of Revelation, for instance.
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  Speaker 1: There are moments where God is going to act. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that part of the tension we have with
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: judgment is when do we participate in this? And so
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  Speaker 1: I had mentioned I read Bart's letter to Great Britain
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  Speaker 1: after we started this series.
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  Speaker 2: I read it over the week.
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  Speaker 1: And you see in Bart this really interesting dynamic where
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: he seems to think that there is a fundamental difference
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: between what happened 25 years prior to World War II,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: World War I.
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  Speaker 2: And now what's going on in World War II?
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  Speaker 1: You see him making completely different judgments, at least alluding
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: to completely different judgments about World War I than he's
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  Speaker 1: making about World War II.
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  Speaker 2: And in that there, you can either read it as
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  Speaker 2: a vacillation.
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  Speaker 1: Like Bart just in this moment, he can't bring himself
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  Speaker 1: to not condemn this war. Or you can see it
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  Speaker 1: probably for more what it is, which is him trying
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  Speaker 1: to wrestle with the intangible differences between World War I
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  Speaker 1: and World War II. Not that there weren't atrocities in
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: World War I, but that World War II has some
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  Speaker 1: sort of sense in which it's far worse. And whether
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  Speaker 1: that's a, I say intangible because of this, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know whether that's us being more sentimental about it, applying
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  Speaker 1: the this is more problematic than the other thing sort
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  Speaker 1: of framework to it, or whether there is actually something
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  Speaker 1: deeper in it that is.
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  Speaker 2: Far more.
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  Speaker 1: Worthy of judgment, let's say. My sense is it's the former,
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  Speaker 1: but I definitely would not deny the latter. I think
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  Speaker 1: that what we're seeing in Bart is that sort of tension.
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  Speaker 1: He doesn't feel the same way about World War I
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  Speaker 1: as he feels about World War II. And part of
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  Speaker 1: that is simply the way that he's looking at it,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the way that he's framing it. He can't get his
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: head around how you would go about letting this one go,
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  Speaker 1: not acting on it as a matter of course. Whereas
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  Speaker 1: in World War I, he may have been a little
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  Speaker 1: bit a little bit more flexible on these things. All
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  Speaker 1: that to say, I think as we dive into this
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  Speaker 1: question that he's asking, is this war to be conceived
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  Speaker 1: as the judgment of God on mankind? I think that
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  Speaker 1: one for me is a yes, as it is for Bart.
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  Speaker 2: Is there a.
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  Speaker 1: Distinction to be made between the more guilty and the
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  Speaker 1: less guilty?
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  Speaker 2: I never loved the more or less kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's just too opaque. Like it doesn't really
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  Speaker 1: give you anything to work with. Basically, when you're saying
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  Speaker 1: he's more guilty or less guilty, you're basically just saying, well,
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  Speaker 1: I'm privileging these bad acts versus these bad acts. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm saying these are less problematic. Like there's a sense
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  Speaker 1: in which I think that that is a little bit
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: too squishy for my taste to use a real technical term. Yeah.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: I like that term.
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  Speaker 1: But I do think to your point, Ashish, I think
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  Speaker 1: this stuff is really difficult to work out because in
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  Speaker 1: any given moment, in any given point of time, we're
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  Speaker 1: trying to reflect what God's judgment is in the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Make a right judgment, but perhaps respond with mercy versus
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  Speaker 1: make a judgment and execute that judgment with a punitive consequence.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that's a struggle for us. in part
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: because we're not God, right? That's the, that's the simple
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: way to put it. But I also think it's difficult
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: for us because we're not seeing the bigger picture. And
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: when we don't see the bigger picture, we can't always
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: understand what the downstream consequences are going to be of
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  Speaker 1: being merciful.
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  Speaker 2: We don't understand that big picture.
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  Speaker 1: And so it's very difficult for us to just to
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  Speaker 1: let somebody get by with X, Y, or Z.
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  Speaker 2: That'd be my two cents on it.
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  Speaker 3: I want your third cent. Okay, there's so much going
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: on here. Where to start? So on the side of, well,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: there's an issue of mercy. Yes. There's the side of
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: what Bart is doing that he makes a distinction. So
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: I'm not familiar with what distinction he makes between the
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: First and the Second World War. And, you know, Bart's
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: someone who lived through both. So I'm really intrigued to
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: hear what that distinction is and how he weighs that.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Someone who was born and raised well after the aftermath
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: of both of them. All I have is what the
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: historians tell me, right? And they tell me quite a bit.
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  Speaker 3: And I can understand from this angle what would have
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: possibly made the Second World War worse than the first.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: But I also know that the second, in some ways,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: comes out of the first. They're not unrelated events. And
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: the sanctions that come out of them, right? The sense
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: of overharshness that Germany feels. Anyway, those sorts of dynamics.
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  Speaker 3: So maybe that's the starting point. Because if the answer
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  Speaker 3: is in some sense, so you said you don't want
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: to make the distinction between better and worse, or worse
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: and worser, I don't know how you'd put it, versions
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  Speaker 3: of need for judgment. It seems that in some sense,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Barth has made that distinction. If he has advocated for
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: pacifism for World War I, but definitely not for World
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: War II. And it seems that maybe Jesus is saying
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: there is no worse and worse-er. I know this is
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: bad grammar, but there's no worse and worse-er when he says,
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: you condemn the adulterer, but I say how many you
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: have lusted in your own heart, you've committed adultery in
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: your own heart, and then does the same with hatred
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: and murder. And yet I'm not entirely convinced that what
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Jesus is doing there is saying, they're the same thing.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: I think what's more apparent to me is that he's
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: turning to the religious leaders who've created these lines of
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: me holy, you not holy. And he's saying you not
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: holy either, right? Because I do want to say that
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: there is a difference between murdering someone and hating someone.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: And I do want to say there's a difference between
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: cheating on a spouse and looking upon someone and saying
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: she or he is beautiful right but the point still
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: stands need of judgment over the person who hates and
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: the person who lusts right yeah so i do want
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: to hear a little bit more about that distinction in
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: bark i do want to press a little bit because
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: i don't think you would disagree with what i just.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Said And I want to know where that.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Line is of mercy, because I think mercy, to your point,
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: we don't know what mercy will bring forward, and yet
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: it still holds to reason. Again, I'm thinking Tolkien, and
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: you'll be shocked. The mercy or the pity of Bilbo
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: may yet rule the fate of many is the idea.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I play there.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: So let me clarify Bart. For one, it seems like
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: he is alluding to or using World War I as
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: more of a foil to think through World War II.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: So he doesn't actually come down and say why he
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: thinks differently about World War I. He says that he
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: thinks differently about World War I and then encourages that
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: this World War II fight must be fought. There's no
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: way to say that it shouldn't be fought. It must
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: be fought. It's lamentable, but it's something that has to
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: be done. It's sort of where he lands on this.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: My read of that, and I guess my interpretation of
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the read of that is he sees World War I
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: as something that didn't require the must. He sees it
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: as lamentable as those events were. He does not see
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: it as a must fight. Is it a different holocaust?
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: He doesn't disagree. He doesn't talk about it. He doesn't specify.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And I think that's, you know, at least in the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: part of the letter that I remember where he's talking
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: about this, he doesn't specify. So I think, you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: there's this interesting way in which these two situations, one really, which,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you know, World War I was Weimar Republic kind of stuff.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: It was like, it was a fundamentally different sort of
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: war than what we're looking at at World War II.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And that gets into your second point. I don't like
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: worse or better because I always think it lets better
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: off the hook.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: We talked last time about Churchill's. I can't remember whether
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: we did this on air or off air. But we
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: talked about Churchill and what he was doing to fund
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: essentially the war, World War II, and the oppression that
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: he wrought on the Indian people, you know, allowing their starvation.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And allowing this to happen. And so you sit back
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and you say, well, but he was fighting for the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: better cause. Like, no, I don't want that distinction at all.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: So what I want is I want us to sit
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and say, these are fundamentally different or they have differences.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And then I want to talk about what those differences were.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: And then I want to talk about because they're different,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: how do we respond differently to God in this situation
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: of difference? I don't like the better or worse or
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: the more or less those kind of weights because it
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: seems like every time we do it, right? We say, oh,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: we have a better culture than X, Y, or Z.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And what we really mean is, so we're not changing.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: or so that change can be incremental. It's just not
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: a great way to think about it. And so we
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: need to be looking at it, I think, in terms
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of these differences, recognizing that some of these differences are
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: good on one side and bad on another, right? And
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: that some of these differences are bad on both sides.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And that when we're looking at it as bad on
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: both sides, neither of them gets a pass. Like, to me,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: it's sort of an extension of there is no partiality.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: And so if we're going to exercise judgment appropriate, that's right.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: If we're going to look at this appropriately, you cannot
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: countenance what you described to me, what Churchill did to
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the Indian people. You cannot countenance it by saying, well,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: he was trying to stop Hitler.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: That's what I think more better gets you.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Or better or worse gets you, right? I don't want that.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I want both bad, both deserving of judgment, both happened, right?
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: So how do we deal with it from the perspective
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of God's judgment? What does that look like? And if
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, people want to say, well,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I'm going to let Churchill off the hook because he
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: was fighting Hitler and And so we're going to show
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: mercy on this one, but we're not on this one.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: That's at least a judgment. The judgment is true regardless.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: He's done something evil. We're going to give him mercy
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: for it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Fine.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: That's your call, right? But let's not frame it in
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: terms of worse or better because I get really uncomfortable
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: when that happens because the better tends to become the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: best and it's never questioned again. That's true to where
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I sit with it.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: That's fair. Let me press in a little bit further.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: I'm just curious what you would say. Murder hatred. We
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: want to prosecute the murderer. But with Jesus, we want
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: to say the hatred is not conducive of the pure
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: and the holy.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: 100%.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: We don't want to prosecute the hatred, though, right?
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: So, apart from... The language of better, worse, or worse, worser.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: How do you describe that? Because I'm with you. Don't
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: hear me as saying, let's go prosecute the hatred.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: No.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: No, but I do want to take seriously Jesus as saying, hey,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: by the way, you're not holy either.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: So I would say that what we do is we say, again,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I want to have a moment of judgment that is.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Let's call it cognitive, right?
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It's a recognition that something is wrong here. It's a
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: recognition that something is right here, right? It's just a recognition.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: We're seeing it the way God sees it. When I'm
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: saying recognition, what I'm saying is we are looking at
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: reality rightly. And so we make a judgment about these things.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Hate, not good. Murder, not good. Okay, great. There's your
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: moment of cognitive judgment, of real recognition.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Now what we have to do is we have to
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: decide what we're going to do with that judgment. Right now, ultimately,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: these are like more connected than I'm suggesting, but heuristically,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: this is just easier to explain it, I think. So
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: now we have to decide what we're going to do
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: with that judgment. Well, it's very different to say to
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: someone who has murdered another person, and who seems to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: like killing people, that we're just going to let this
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: guy go.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Right? Hey, mercy. It's all good.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Or even if he doesn't like it, couldn't withstand the impulse.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: That's right. Like he's going to do, he's going to
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: kill again. Right?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: This is not a self-defense. This is like, you know,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: serial killer, and we just keep giving him extra chances.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, in that sense, you're looking at
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the judgment, you're saying, we recognize something has been done
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: wrong here. Now, as we execute judgment on this, now
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: we're going to put this person away for life. We're
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: going to institute the death penalty. We're going to do
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: whatever we're going to do. But there's going to be
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: an execution now of that judgment. On the hate side,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: we don't look at that and say, we're not going
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: to kill this person. We're not going to put them away.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: We're not going to prosecute the hatred. These are very
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: difficult things to do in the first place. But what
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: we may do is something different than that. The Bible
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: prescribes social ostracization as a means of dealing with persistent sin.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's that.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's something else. It could be a number of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: different things. In the abstract, we just know that we're
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: not putting this person who hates other people in prison.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: We're doing other things to sort of either help them
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: get past their hate, Or to let them live in
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: that hate such that we're hoping it will be that
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: ultimately that pitiless situation will be redemptive. And so there's
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the judgment and there's the execution of judgment. But then ultimately,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: there's always this potential to show mercy, right? To let
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: something play itself out further. to forgive the wrong that
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: has been done. But even in saying it that way,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you're still recognizing it's wrong. And so that initial sort
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: of cognitive judgment that I described, that recognition that this
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: is not right, that it is not aligned with God's reality,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I think is absolutely crucial. Because otherwise, we're running the
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: risk of calling evil good and good evil. And that
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: is the fundamental act of judgment that we are to exercise.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: We're to recognize good as good and evil as evil.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: This is helpful. So to me, the action points are
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: still hazy to me, right? Because I think about This
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: is going to sound too specific. Forgive me. The person
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: who hates, perhaps as someone who has a very loud
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: and public pedestal to stand upon, to be able to
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: declare that hate. And though that person may not actually
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: go out and commit the heinous act, and you might say, well,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: you know, it's not the same, so we just excommunicate you.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: We live in a time in which there's no way
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: to actually silence such people. And inevitably, in the crowd
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: of those listening to him, you have someone more apt
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: to radicalization who takes that hate and internalize it and
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: actually does go and kill, right? Or actually does go
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: and do heinous things. Now, of course, it's the person
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: who does that that we want to hold responsible, but
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: we also want to hold responsible the one that we're saying,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: that wasn't okay, right? That we're not using the language
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: of worse and worse, worse-er. So it gets complicated. I
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: don't know that there's any way to judiciously deal with
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: that because we don't have the ability to look down
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: and say, well, your actions and your words affected this
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: other person in precisely this way. We're not God, right?
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: I get the uncertainty of it, but that to me
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: maybe further blurs the line between a Barth kind of
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: statement with World War I and World War II without
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: knowing the internal workings of how he precisely adjudicated that.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Well, let's just say this, because I think it's also
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: important to understand. When Barth cites Romans 13 in this section, right,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: he's recognizing one authority that exercises judgment. Whatever we think
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: about his reference here, and we can get into that.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: But the governing authorities that God has established are to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: execute judgment. And so you have this sort of sense
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: that the governing authorities are to recognize when something is
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: good and bad. And this comes out in Romans 13, right?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't be afraid of rulers if you're doing good
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: because they're a servant for your good.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: They're God's servant for your good. So you shouldn't worry
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: if you're doing good.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't have a problem with the governing authorities that
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: God has appointed. Now, we know that in practice, that
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: does not necessarily come to pass, right?
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: And Barth invariably had to know that, right? Because he's
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: writing this in the middle of precisely the circumstances in
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: which he said, you've got to stand up to Hitler
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: and the Nazi regime.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm kind of mixing my letters, but I think
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: in the letter to Great Britain, he even references the
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: embattled church in Germany, right? So He knows very well
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: that this doesn't always work and that there are corrupt
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: governing authorities who have moved beyond their scope that God
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: has given them and decided to exercise judgment apart from
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: God's reality. They're no longer recognizing judgment. They're determining good
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: and evil, right? Just a slight difference. But in Romans 13,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: what you're seeing is, I think, Paul instructing the Romans, hey, look,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: when the government is functioning properly and when you are
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: doing good things, you don't have anything to worry about, right?
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: And we see in other places in scripture that if
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: we're suffering for Christ, that's, you know, that's sort of
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: par for the course.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: And so you've got both those things held in tension.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: So as one.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: Scholar I've read, sorry, as one scholar I read put it,
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Romans 13 is putting just as much upon the government leaders.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: It's almost like Paul is saying, I'm speaking of the ideal. Hey, wink, wink,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: be the ideal, right? Knowing full well that he was
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: living under a regime himself. That was far from that ideal, right?
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: And I think that goes then to the second aspect,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the second entity of judgment, right?
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Which is the church.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: And so the church does hold the keys. We're making
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: judgments all the time. Now, we don't enact those judgments
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: in the same way that the government can or the
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: government is called to. We don't hold the sword. But
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: it's incumbent upon the Christian community to recognize some of
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: these things as opposed to celebrating them. And so I
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: think part of the complexity of all of this is
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: how does one entity exercise judgment as opposed to the other?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: How do we as people who sort of belong to
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: these two groups advocate for judgment on either side, whether
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: that's the recognition or the enactment? And then how do
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: we look at a complex situation and say, this one
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: could really deserve some mercy, whereas this one needs to
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: not have mercy given? Those are all really complex situations.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: And in the hypothetical, I don't think there's any real
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: way to sort of sit back and go, well, here's
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the pattern that God used. And so we'll just use it.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: That's not there. But I think we're living in the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: midst of an imperfect system where the glimmers of God's
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: glory are trying to shine through in the imperfect judgments
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of political authorities and the church.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: I wonder if we can look at the pattern of
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: God and say there is actually a way forward if
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: what we see as the normative is the long-suffering, which
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: I think is the normative of divine act in Scripture.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: That the normative is that these things pile up, and
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: it's only in that extreme moment where it's not the
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: divine patience. And I don't think divine patience means look
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: the other way. It's watchful. It's I'm paying attention.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: It's exhort.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: It's It's nudge. It's, you know, this isn't okay. You
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: need to fix this. And to me, the analogy is
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: with kids. Whatever form of discipline one believes in, most assuredly,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: the normative is not the worst form of that discipline.
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: The normative is to give the child a chance to
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: correct things, to fix things, but to make sure the
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: child knows that things need to be corrected or fixed.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: And whatever that most extreme form is that one parent
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: is going to enact, that becomes the, okay, we've reached
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: an exhaustion, right? So that's, let's call it three strikes.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: You've reached your third strike, and now we institute whatever
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: that strong form of discipline is. Or, this moment was
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: an exception, right? You physically and intentionally harmed your sibling.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: So we're jumping straight to the highest form to make
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: it crystal clear that there's no room here for nudge fix,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: nudge fix, right? Now the consistent here is the nudge fix.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I think that's important. That is not just simply a
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: look the other way. It's no, the thing that needs
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: to be addressed needs to be addressed. And if it's
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: not being addressed with any sense of this is a
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: problem and you need to see this as a problem,
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: But then we're looking the other way, and that's not
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: helpful to anyone. It's not helpful in the micro case
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: of kids. It's not helpful of the boss towards an employee.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: It's not helpful for the government relative to the student.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think of the banal reality of sports,
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: but it drives me nuts in the NBA when a
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: ref calls travel because I think you let travel go
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: 10 times, then you call it once. What's the point
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: of that? If I'm a player, I'm thinking, I don't
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: know what travel is then because you let it go
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: those other 10 times. Or maybe more to the point
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: of carrying the ball. If a parent lets it go
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: 10 times without addressing it, the kid should be confused.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: If the cop lets no seatbelts or phone in one hand,
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: ticket in the other, if he doesn't enforce that the
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: first 10 times, then shouldn't I be confused when the
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: 11th time you do? Those sorts of things. So there's
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: got to be some form of push, but there are
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: certain things where you jump to. There's no strike one,
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: there's no strike two. It's just This needs to be addressed.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: And maybe that, when we think about the murder situation,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: murder is that moment where it's, no, this needs to
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: be addressed right away. Whatever, you know, and wisdom has
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: to be involved, right? Where exactly that line is, I'm
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: not sure, and I don't know that anyone is. But
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: murder is definitely on that other side. And in the
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: case of Barth, Holocaust is definitely on that other side.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you gotta, you know, so I
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: agree with the long-suffering comment.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: I agree that that's God's pattern.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I would say that that's sort of the overarching message
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: We could call it the metanarrative of God's judgment, right?
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: That he's long-suffering. Before he executes judgment, he is long-suffering.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: I would say on the micro level, when we look
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: at Old Testament law, for instance, the casuistic law particularly,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: you do see punishment meted out, and it is pretty
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: clear that it needs to be meted out in the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: way that it's done. God usually ends up long-suffering because
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Israel doesn't execute the law in the way that he
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: has asked them to. Now, we see that most prominently
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: probably in things like Sabbath, the strange offering of sacrifices.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: But there are very day-to-day laws that carry specific consequences
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: if you break them. And my sense is that part
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: of the wrinkle that we'd have to deal with if
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: we were really going to deal with this whole issue
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: is that the law is given to help restrain evil.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: And so it isn't simply a matter of is this
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: right or is this wrong? It's also a matter of
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: how do we keep it from getting, how do we
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: keep evil from getting out of control? And so that's
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: an aspect of what we do when we make, when
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: we do judgment. I think that part, when we look
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: at World War II, when we look at what Bart
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: is talking about here, if we think about it in
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: terms of Bart saying, if we're not careful, evil is
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: going to get out of control here. Arguably evil is
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: already out of control, but what's going to end up
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: happening is evil is just going to continue to spread
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and be out of control.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: This now has to stop. It's a must.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's a really compelling way to read Bart
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: on World War II. It, His framing of, is it
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: more guilty or less guilty in the question? And that's
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: not his framing. That's the question supposedly he was given.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I think that framing's off, but I do think that
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: what he's seeing in World War I is like, this
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't going anywhere, right? This was going to end one
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: way or the other. It was not going to end
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: in world conquest, but World War II feels different. It
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: seems like if we don't get a handle on this
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: guy and what he's doing and the ideology that he's promoting,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: this could go everywhere. He doesn't articulate it like this.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: That's just sort of my instinct reading it, I suppose.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: But to me, that sort of restraint of evil is
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: a crucial aspect of what we do when we execute judgment.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: It's almost the same thing, Ashish, that you're talking about
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: with somebody who's spewing hate speech. Well, why would we
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: address somebody who's spewing hate speech, broadcasting it or what
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: have you, as opposed to somebody who makes an offhand
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: sarcastic comment? Someone else hears that goes off and kills someone.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Those are two fundamentally different cases, right? One is a
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: flippant comment that somebody probably very much regrets.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: That they've made.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: The other is someone who is benefiting from, um, you know,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: spewing hate speech over the airwaves. They're actually getting something
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: back from doing that. And so I think those are
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: two fundamentally different cases. But the point is, the one
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: is relatively isolated and probably is unlikely to spread beyond.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Just a few people.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Whereas the other, the guy who's up on stage promoting
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: this huge YouTube channel or the podcast or whatever, highly
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: likely that this evil is now not going to be restrained.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: in an appropriate manner. Go ahead.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: I would guess that in the case of the flippant
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: comment that becomes regrettable, there's also a difference in layers
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: of repentance. The person who's up there consistently spouting off this, that,
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: and the other that is in fact hate speech doesn't
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: come off as particularly repentant either for what he or
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: she says or for what he or she has spawned.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Versus I would imagine that the person who made a
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: flippant comment that resulted in something directly regrettable would be
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: quite repentant, right? Even as he or she would want
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: to separate from the actions that came out of it
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: would be just deeply mortified over what happened.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Because it wasn't something they were anticipating or seeing forward.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: And I just, I'll let you keep going, but I
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: wanted to say something because I thought about it. I'm
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: not suggesting that restraint of evil is the sole criteria, right?
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: A husband who murders their wife is arguably, you could
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: make the argument, well, he doesn't have another wife. And
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: so I guess it's safe to just let him off
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the hook, right? That is not a restraint of evil
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: judgment in that point. But I think that restraint of
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: evil has to be sort of in the equation, in
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: the mix of as we think about some of these things.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but even to that point, okay, that person doesn't
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: have another wife to kill, but the idea at play
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: perhaps is this person terminated a life because he couldn't
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: control the impulse that led him to that moment, whatever
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: that impulse is. Incredible anger that stemmed from somewhere. So
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: on what basis do we trust that this person, once
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: that can has been opened... will constrain himself next time
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: when anger inevitably rises up, right? This person needs to
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: be dealt with in the fullest way, I think might
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: be the logic there. But I think to the point
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: of guilt, actually, Barth does seem to address that in
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: that second question, where he says, to admit to oneself
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: that over against this judgment of God, that there are
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: no degrees of guilt, is something that he regards as
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: important with regard to the present war, where he's not
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: letting either side off the hook. And he knows full
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: well that the acts at play by the Nazi regime
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: are different than the acts at play for, let's say,
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: the Americans who are part of the Allies, who are,
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: by the way, in the midst of Jim Crow and
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: don't seem to be willing to get over that. FDR,
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: who himself personally seems to have regretted the very reality
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: of Jim Crow, was not willing to shred his political
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: capital to actually take action to undo it. That's guilt-worthy.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: FDR knew full well what Winston Churchill was doing in India.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: And he did speak against it, but he spoke against
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: it not with any sort of ultimatum. It was more
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: of a, we don't agree with this, stop that, as
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: he continued to ally with them because he didn't want
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: to lose Winston Churchill as an ally. That's more than regrettable.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: That's culpability. Even if it's not the same thing as
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: what Hitler's doing or what Churchill is doing. Now, in
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Barth's case, I have no reason to know that... think
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: that he knew about these other dynamics that Churchill was
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: involved in. But I do think it's important that he
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: recognizes that guilt is guilt. So he's not demonstrating a
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: distinction in degrees of guilt, even as he does recognize
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: for people who are guilty to resist in the name
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: of something righteous, the righteous state, as we've mentioned in
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: the first episode, him calling it, still have a responsibility
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: to So what he does here right after this, he means,
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: who will measure the amount of culpability? It's a rhetorical question.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: I should like, therefore, to give to the first part
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: of the question the answer that we must heed Romans 13, 1-7.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: That's where he brings in Romans 13, this sense of
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: the ideal of what government ought to be doing. And
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: so if we recognize what government ought to be doing,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: our responsibility is just to do well. And if we
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: do well, we shouldn't have the expectation of facing trouble.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: He knows full well people doing well are facing trouble, right?
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: His own comrades in Germany who are trying to help
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: the Jewish people are not being treated well. Let's put
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: it that way, right?
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: But he puts alongside that the second part, and this
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: is what stems his notion of degrees of guilt that
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: he also doesn't want to get into. And to the
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: second part of your question that we must place beside
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: Romans 13, 1-7, the above words, the words from Romans 3.23,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: which is that all have sinned and fallen short of
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: the glory of God. Meaning, we all bear some guilt.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: The question here isn't about less guilty and more guilty.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: The issue here is, regardless of the fact that we
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: bear guilt, what do we do right now? Or if
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: I can quote Thomas Wayne, Bruce Wayne's father, why do
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: we fall? So we can get back up. If we're
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: not going to get back up, shame upon us. But
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: in the case of the guilty, the Romans 3.23 group,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: which is Jews and Gentiles alike within the context, which
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: is all of us, if we're all guilty in some sense...
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: The question here isn't of who is more and less guilty.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: The issue is, do we get up and in the
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: moment respond appropriately, or do we continue to justify guilt?
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: Or do we, in the moment, not only continue to
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: justify guilt, but refuse to resist it? I think maybe
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: that's the issue at play here. Is that fair?
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: It is, I think. Yeah. I'll say two things.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that Bart begins this question with,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you know, is this a judgment on mankind? Answers that
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: with a resounding yes. And doesn't exactly clarify who's being judged.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: I think he means everyone.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: I do, too.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: I think normally our normal thought is obviously the Germans
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: are being judged.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: The Japanese were being judged. You know, whoever their allies
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: were being judged. I don't get that that's what Bart
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: is saying. He's saying, you know, things like they are
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: an indication of the divine judgment on human society. That's
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: not a human society. That's not this particular human society
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: or human society that has run amok. That's human society.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: He's not making this distinction between the good guys and
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: the bad guys, the white hats and the black hats.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: He's basically saying, no, war is a judgment on all
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: of us. It's a judgment on how far this has
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: gone now. in his second part of this, when he
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: talks about the sort of similarities between the police state
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: and nation going against nation, it's clear that there is
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: a nation that is functioning there as the police. They're
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: saying this has gone too far and it can't go
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: any further. We've got to stop this. And so there's
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: a sort of recognition and judgment that happens there that's appropriate.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that he's suggesting that any of
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: us escape judgment when there's a war on. It's always
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: a human society problem. We've not been able to solve
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: our differences. We've not been able to recognize what is good, right.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: And beautiful in any other way other than to fight
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: one another.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: And so I think he does see this as a
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: judgment on both sides, um, which makes a lot of
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: sense because both sides end up losing things. Um, whether
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: one wins a war or not, whether, you know, you
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: come out and you're like, okay, the allies won.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Yes. We also lost an awful lot.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: And I think that that is an aspect of the
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: judgment that Bart would probably admit that we does not
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: delve that deeply into it in this letter.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: So to that point, um, And I would imagine, well,
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: maybe not. I was going to say I'd imagine Barth
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: would have some knowledge of this in his time, but
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: maybe not actually. If you go to Nuremberg today, which
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: was the center, it was where the headquarters of the
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: Nazi party was, at the actual ground zero of the
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: Nazi headquarters, there's a museum known as the Document Center,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: which was also the place, if I remember correctly, where
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: the Nuremberg trials were held.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Different spot.
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: I could be wrong about that.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, different spot. Not at the document center. It was
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: a different spot. Okay.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but there is a museum at the Nuremberg, at
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the building where they had the Nuremberg trials.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Or at the place. At both places, yes.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, okay. So at the document center, which is at
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: the place of the headquarters, which is this great ostentatious
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: grounds that in some ways Nuremberg has retrieved as a
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: stain on its legacy. And what they've done is they've
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: retrieved it by, on the one side, documenting, and that's
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: the museum, and the other side making it a public
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: grounds site. to recapture it as a, as a life-giving
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: creational space. And it's beautiful, but you can't help, but
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: also see the hideous and Nuremberg makes no, no effort
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: to hide that it's the hideous, right? In fact, they
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: want to preserve it as a monument of hideousness so
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: that you know it is.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: So as you walk through the museum, which for my
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: money is actually as a historical museum, the best museum
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: I've been to in terms of its ability to communicate
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: with clarity, the steps that are involved in this.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: Agreed.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Uh, In one section of it, it's an attempt to
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: show you the rise of the Nazi Party alongside the
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: reception around the rest of the world. And what's particularly
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: hideous about this is that countries like the U.S. and
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: Great Britain, while you have some voices of concern as
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: to what's going on in Hitler's regime, the by and
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: large result is to say, Either he's doing a good job,
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: or yeah, there's some problems, but that's their problem, not ours.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: As I recall, the only country that consistently voiced concern
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: and sounded the alarm and said, basically, their media was saying,
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: please help, we've got to address this, was Poland. Now,
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: part of that is Poland is the neighbor, and they
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: probably had access to more understanding. Part of that is
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: probably a sense of their own mortality. they know what's coming.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: And it's quite possible that Hitler's invasion of Poland, to
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: the degree and heinousness that he undertook it, was partly
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: because they sounded the alarm in this way. Now, there's
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: something culpable within that. So if we want to speak
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: of the judgment of the war, how did we get
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: to the point where these are the measures needed? Now,
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: maybe if we go back 10 years before it, it's
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: not quite 10 years before the start of the war
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: when Hitler comes to power, but you know, close and
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: countries take poland's sounding of the alarm more seriously or
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: concern themselves with what is a very concerning and troubling
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: trend that's beginning to happen under hitler's regime and not
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: just simply say well their problem not ours or but
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: look at the good things mr hitler is doing which
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: unfortunately happened a lot um there are there are records
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: from christians in chicago i'll put it that way of
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: prominent places that wrote a letter praising Hitler. Let's say
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: mildly that's problematic. It's much worse than that. Therein is
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: where I think you can see the guilt, the culpability. Sure,
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: I suppose we could start to make rules and say, well,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: Hitler did it, the other people didn't, so there's the
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: degrees of guilt. But I think to Bart's point, can
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: we really say that one is more guilty than the other?
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: And therein we can begin to see the claim that
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: this is a judgment upon everyone. The fact that we
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: got to this point where we need this kind of
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: war isn't something that happened because we casually went through
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: life not realizing what was happening. No, there was a
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: lot of looking the other way. There was a lot
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: of okay, maybe this problem, but this good thing, right?
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of weighing the scales that meant
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: the sort of function of a Romans 13 was not
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: actually in force anywhere, or in most places, I shouldn't
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: say anywhere, in order to address these issues before they
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: became so intense that conflict had to be done. So
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: to your point that everyone suffered losses, everyone reached the
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: point where they had to deal with this to their
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: own guilt.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think number one, I've been to that
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: museum and I think you're right. It's my favorite place
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: to go.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: And not because it's a happy place.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: No, but they do such a good job and it's
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: so fascinating. It's like you walk through it and you
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: see something different every time. You get new wrinkles on
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: the story every time. It's fantastic. I mean, it's a
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: really well done place. The last two times I've been
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: in Germany, it's been a more constrained experience because they
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: were renovating.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: And I'm always a little disappointed.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: So I'm hoping the next time I go, it'll be
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: done and I can actually walk through the whole thing again.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: But either way, I do think that you're right. I
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: think that we tend to, and this is another one
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: of those reasons I'm not a big fan of the
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: better and worse sort of framing.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: It just lets us off the hook.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: It doesn't require us to do the sort of self-reflection of,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: and really taking a hard look at how these things
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: came about, it starts to become about, this was Hitler
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: and the Nazis, period.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, obviously, they have a lot to do with it.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: But there were other factors that came into play there
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: that allowed this to spiral out of control. And if
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: we're not going to address those and consider them, we're
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: opening ourselves up to it happening again or to having
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: a slightly similar situation arise. And I think these are
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: the challenges that Bart wants to hold out for us,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: or at the very least, if he doesn't want to
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: hold them out for us, the way he thinks through
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: it is leaving this much room for us to open
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: it up and say, okay, how is everyone culpable in
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: this moment? What was going on here and how did
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: it all operate? because you are seeing these reverberations across.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a really powerful section in this letter,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: as short as it is. I mean, it's like three paragraphs,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: but it's just such an interestingly complex. He fits a
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: lot in, in those three paragraphs that you're just going,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: what the heck did he just do? But at the
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: end of the day, it's a really powerful part of
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: this letter. I, I, That judgment aspect is very difficult
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: to wrestle with, even in a long form.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: As we've sort of demonstrated here.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: As we've demonstrated. There's so many questions. Yeah.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: Lack of certainty.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: So many little rabbit trails you can go down. So
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: many components that sort of glob onto it. You know,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: this idea that, you know, there can be bad judgment. Well,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: what do we mean by bad judgment? Well, it can
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: mean a whole host of things. And so you have
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: to chase a lot of those down. But here I
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: think Bart just does a masterful job of sort of
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: laying this out in a way that's really intelligible without
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: over specifying things and leaving that room just to go,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: we're all responsible. We had to do this, but we
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: shouldn't forget that we're responsible. But these people needed to
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: be dealt with. But we're all responsible. He just keeps going.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: It provides that sort of in and out that I
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: think is really crucial in this conversation.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: So I'm thinking Batman all over the place. Forgive me.
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: So to go with the Thomas Wayne saying to young Bruce,
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: why do we fall so we can learn to get
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: back up? I have alongside that, in light of what
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: you just said, that flag. the Ben Affleck version of
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: Batman that begins Batman versus Superman with what falls is fallen,
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: which is a bit tautological. But I think the larger
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: point is actually meant to be something of a precursor
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: to that tagline of Thomas Wayne that took on a
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: life of its own, that the Batfleck version is living
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: in a state of despair because in his mind, what
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: falls is fallen. so anything that comes down isn't a
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: state of fallenness there's no sense of grace into his
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: actions and that sets the tone for the entirety of
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: that movie and we don't have to get into that
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: movie but to your point here the two kind of
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: have to go together what falls has fallen okay now
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: what do we live in that despair let's not lose
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: what's fall what falls has fallen but now what do
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: we do when we fall why do we fall so
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: we can get back up yeah yeah i think that's
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: a good architects of batman that's right.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, those two quotes really do summarize
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: well what Bart, I think, is in part trying to
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: say here, because he really is trying to say it's
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: all fallen. But that doesn't mean that we live in
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: the despair of it. There are going to be these
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: moments where we do exercise God's judgment. And what always
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: comes to mind is this great quote from Oliver O'Donnell
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: in his book, The Ways of Judgment. He says that
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: the political authorities don't, they're not abolished when Christ takes power.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: When Christ ascends and is glorified and stands at the
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: right hand of the Father and has authority over all
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: things on heaven and on earth, the earthly authorities don't
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: lose their purpose. It's reframed. It's contextualized in Christ. And
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: so what they do now, they are secondary theaters of
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: the judgment of God, is the way he describes them.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Secondary theaters. And what I think he means in part
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: by secondary theaters is a little stronger than imperfect. What
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I think he means is almost they're incidental. They can't
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: be primary because they're not recognizing God as the person
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: that they're reflecting, as they're judging. And even when they
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: get it right, they tend to own that judgment as theirs,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: as opposed to recognizing it as a reflection of what
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: God does. And so I think he has sort of
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: that If I'm reading him correctly, that secondary language is
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: designed to sort of say they can't be primary because
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: they're not actually saying glory to God. They're doing what's right,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: but trying to accrue that glory to themselves. It's almost
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: what we talked about with the city of God and Augustine, right?
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: It's the self-love that sort of gets in the way.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: And so even though they can gesture toward it, they
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: can't really be the witness to it. We have to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: have the eyes to see and ears to hear to
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: recognize this is the judgment of God. And it's being
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: enacted by these earthly authorities. And yet they're not recognizing him.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: And for that, they are also culpable. So you almost
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: get all of it sort of rewrapped up. It's very similar,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: I think, to what Bart's saying. I think the Batman
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: quotes are great. And yeah, Oliver O'Donovan stuff I always enjoy.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: So I don't know.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: I think we've, I mean, we're at the end of
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: the episode. We could probably go another hour on judgment
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: pretty easily. We shouldn't, at least right now. We'll probably
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: return to this topic later, but really helpful conversation, Ashish.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, same. If I have one final thought to leave
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: with is my disappointment that you took my words on
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: Batman and you trumped it with a patron saint of
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: theological ethics, making me look pedestrian. Oliver O'Donovan, come on.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Somebody's got to do it. I just couldn't think of
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: another movie quote. Yeah.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: I guess I could have gone with Talladega Nights and
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Baby Jesus Prayer, but that's harder to work in a
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: conversation about judgment.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I wouldn't even know what you're talking about
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: at that point.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: You need to get out more, man.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: Apparently, I need to get outside of Batman more.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, hey, everybody, thanks for listening. Hopefully you
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: enjoyed this.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: We're going to do the third question next episode, so
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: stick with us, and we'll catch you on the next
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: Take care.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got
• 1:03:40
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