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Capitalism, Socialism, and the Christian's Hope: Reading the Gallup Poll · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

0:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
0:04
Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking
0:15
Speaker 1: Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world
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Speaker 1: and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that
0:22
Speaker 1: hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to
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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everybody, welcome to this
0:29
Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. Today, Nate and I are gonna
0:32
Speaker 1: be discussing a Gallup poll that came out recently. It
0:36
Speaker 1: actually shows, it's on perceptions of capitalism and how many
0:40
Speaker 1: Americans actually view capitalism as favorable. And essentially what the
0:46
Speaker 1: study showed is that the needle moved from 60% of
0:50
Speaker 1: people who view capitalism as favorable in 2021 to 54%.
0:56
Speaker 1: viewing it as favorable in 2025. So it's still a majority.
1:00
Speaker 1: But within that data, there's a lot of interesting sort
1:03
Speaker 1: of differences between various groups. And there's a range of
1:09
Speaker 1: differences between things like race and gender and age, political stance,
1:15
Speaker 1: all of those normal factors that a survey like this
1:17
Speaker 1: would look at. And It's just an interesting study. And
1:22
Speaker 1: so I thought we might talk about it today and
1:24
Speaker 1: not to defend capitalism, not to advance socialism, which was
1:29
Speaker 1: the other ism that they sort of address in the study.
1:33
Speaker 1: But just to talk a little bit about where are
1:36
Speaker 1: we placing our hope? And I think that what we
1:40
Speaker 1: want to try to do is, since the podcast is
1:42
Speaker 1: called Thinking Christian, we should probably try to think Christian
1:44
Speaker 1: about this. So that's what we're going to be talking
1:47
Speaker 1: about today. Nate, thanks for joining the show again, and
1:50
Speaker 1: glad we can have this conversation. Yeah, absolutely.
1:53
Speaker 2: I'm excited to learn and to dive into it with
1:56
Speaker 2: you and kind of just think about that, because I
1:58
Speaker 2: feel like growing up, even just 10, 15 years ago,
2:02
Speaker 2: all these isms that you're talking about weren't as dominantly
2:05
Speaker 2: in our conversation. But it's, it's like all around now.
2:10
Speaker 1: So. Well, and it's really interesting because, you know, you
2:12
Speaker 1: say that like we would have grown up in the,
2:15
Speaker 1: like I would have grown up in the eighties and nineties,
2:17
Speaker 1: you would have too. And if you look at the
2:20
Speaker 1: data in the, in the study, like 62% of people
2:24
Speaker 1: above 55 and over, right. So getting to be my age,
2:29
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm going to turn 48 pretty soon, but
2:32
Speaker 1: definitely my parents' age, the 62% of them have a
2:35
Speaker 1: favorable view. capitalism. And so it seems like maybe what's
2:40
Speaker 1: happening is that as we're growing up, this isn't an
2:43
Speaker 1: issue because there's a broad consensus among this age group. Now,
2:49
Speaker 1: I think the statistics remain pretty clear. I did look
2:52
Speaker 1: back at some of the previous studies Gallup had done
2:54
Speaker 1: on this. And so you do see a fairly even
2:59
Speaker 1: shift kind of coming across with capitalism. But if you
3:03
Speaker 1: compare that to 18 to 34 year olds, You know, 62%
3:08
Speaker 1: of 55 and over, only 43% of those between the
3:12
Speaker 1: ages of 18 and 34 have a favorable view of capitalism.
3:16
Speaker 1: And so the age group right in between us, right,
3:19
Speaker 1: our age group didn't fare quite as well. I don't
3:21
Speaker 1: have that statistic right in front of me. But the
3:23
Speaker 1: disparity between the 55-year-olds and the 18 to 34-year-olds was
3:27
Speaker 1: actually pretty drastic on capitalism. Wow. Yeah, it's really interesting, though,
3:33
Speaker 1: when you look at the numbers. So you had two categories,
3:36
Speaker 1: free enterprise, which I honestly, I had to kind of
3:40
Speaker 1: look up, right? What's the difference between capitalism and free enterprise?
3:44
Speaker 1: And it turns out free enterprise is sort of a
3:45
Speaker 1: component of capitalism is usually contained within it. Free enterprise
3:50
Speaker 1: scored really well with almost everybody. It's a 92% favorability.
3:55
Speaker 1: And even the variations within the data, like, you know, between,
3:59
Speaker 1: let's say, whites versus non-whites, whites saw it as 84% favorable,
4:05
Speaker 1: non-whites saw it as 76% favorable. And so while that's
4:08
Speaker 1: a pretty significant difference percentage-wise, it's still a vast majority.
4:14
Speaker 1: I mean, you're talking a little bit more than three
4:15
Speaker 1: quarters of non-whites viewing free enterprise as favorable. And then
4:20
Speaker 1: small business was even better. I mean, it was 92% favorable. Yeah.
4:25
Speaker 1: So you see these different components, right, within that are
4:29
Speaker 1: sort of associated with or adjacent to capitalism that people
4:35
Speaker 1: still view as very favorable. And you don't see increases
4:42
Speaker 1: in favorability for something like socialism, which is usually sort
4:46
Speaker 1: of pitted right against capitalism, right? So aside from the
4:51
Speaker 1: Democratic folks who go up one percentage point from 65
4:55
Speaker 1: to 66 percent. Everybody else was I mean, Republicans were
5:00
Speaker 1: 14 percent, I think, and independents were somewhere in the
5:03
Speaker 1: 40s for favorability. And so you just like you're not
5:10
Speaker 1: seeing a clear picture. Yes, there's an erosion of favorability.
5:16
Speaker 1: You know, maybe the shine is off the off the pot.
5:19
Speaker 2: Right.
5:20
Speaker 1: Like capitalism isn't quite the shiny new toy that we
5:23
Speaker 1: used to think it was. But we're also not drifting
5:28
Speaker 1: necessarily straight toward a different sort of ism. There's this
5:34
Speaker 1: weird variability within it where it seems to me after
5:37
Speaker 1: reading the study and looking at all the data, what
5:40
Speaker 1: people are really searching for is we need to we
5:42
Speaker 1: need to reform, not necessarily replacement.
5:49
Speaker 2: I'm wondering about those people that were just don't really,
5:53
Speaker 2: you said there was a percentage of people there that
5:55
Speaker 2: just don't know. Do you think people are less likely
5:59
Speaker 2: to be informed themselves into research or do you think
6:02
Speaker 2: they kind of just fall into peer pressure for the
6:04
Speaker 2: people around their communities, their family, people they work with,
6:07
Speaker 2: or maybe just what they constantly get seen, get fed
6:11
Speaker 2: to them from the media? Do you think that that's
6:13
Speaker 2: a factor?
6:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of the
6:16
Speaker 1: real interesting parts of what I'm seeing in the data.
6:19
Speaker 1: And obviously, when Gallup does this, they talk about the
6:23
Speaker 1: question is something like, just give your first impression of,
6:28
Speaker 1: you know, capitalism, socialism, free enterprise, small business, big business,
6:32
Speaker 1: and they have those categories sort of laid out, but it's,
6:35
Speaker 1: it's meant to be first impression.
6:37
Speaker 2: Right.
6:38
Speaker 1: And so it's almost like a word association game. You're
6:42
Speaker 1: not necessarily asking people if they fully grasp what they're
6:45
Speaker 1: talking about, when you say capitalism, right? And I think
6:50
Speaker 1: that's why you see the differences in, you know, with
6:53
Speaker 1: free enterprise and small business, right? And so what we
6:58
Speaker 1: tended to see was that capitalism was viewed a little
7:01
Speaker 1: less favorably. Big business has never been viewed favorably, oddly.
7:05
Speaker 1: And what I found fascinating was big business wasn't even
7:09
Speaker 1: viewed favorably by people who made $ 100, 000 a year or
7:12
Speaker 1: more household income. Really? It's just never really been a
7:17
Speaker 1: favorable thing, which I found fascinating.
7:20
Speaker 2: Right.
7:21
Speaker 1: And so, but it is part of capitalism, at least
7:25
Speaker 1: the way we've construed capitalism in the United States. And
7:28
Speaker 1: that's what sort of leads me to believe that we're
7:30
Speaker 1: not seeing a move toward socialism necessarily, right? The data
7:35
Speaker 1: in this particular study wouldn't bear that out, but we
7:38
Speaker 1: are seeing a movement to say, look, we want free enterprise.
7:41
Speaker 1: We want more small business. We want big business and,
7:44
Speaker 1: Big business is far less favorable to us. Maybe we
7:47
Speaker 1: want to tolerate that, but we see it as, at best,
7:50
Speaker 1: maybe a necessary evil, something around that. I'm trying to
7:53
Speaker 1: put a narrative to the data that I'm seeing, which
7:56
Speaker 1: is always a little dangerous. But I would just say
8:00
Speaker 1: it is really a reform movement, is what it seems
8:05
Speaker 1: like is needed. The differences in gender were fascinating. You know,
8:11
Speaker 1: women tended to be less favorable of capitalism than males.
8:15
Speaker 1: You're talking 45 percent versus 63 percent. Wow. Yeah. So big,
8:20
Speaker 1: big differences and big disparities. And when you just look
8:23
Speaker 1: at those stats, you're kind of sitting there going. Yeah,
8:28
Speaker 1: no matter what you what the causes are, whether it's
8:30
Speaker 1: media bias or whether it's just, you know, people's lived experience,
8:35
Speaker 1: I don't think we should discount that. Some people are
8:38
Speaker 1: going to have a different relationship to the economic systems
8:41
Speaker 1: that we exist in than others. And so while I
8:48
Speaker 1: think it's absolutely right for us to sort of push
8:50
Speaker 1: back on some of the more generalizations of that we
8:56
Speaker 1: sometimes see on the news or what have you there,
9:01
Speaker 1: we probably shouldn't dismiss it altogether. I think people have
9:05
Speaker 1: different experiences within our economy, and that's an important thing
9:10
Speaker 1: to note.
9:12
Speaker 2: And some people, I think, more and more, at least
9:14
Speaker 2: what I'm seeing in my circles, are afraid to even
9:17
Speaker 2: speak their mind on some of these topics because nobody
9:20
Speaker 2: wants to offend, nobody wants to be labeled or put
9:24
Speaker 2: in a category. I feel that pressure, especially on social media.
9:28
Speaker 2: Like I've told you many times before, and I think
9:30
Speaker 2: you're the same way, I will never engage in like, arguments,
9:34
Speaker 2: even if it seems constructive, even if it seems like
9:37
Speaker 2: it's going to be beneficial. It never has been for
9:39
Speaker 2: me and I've never really seen it be beneficial. So
9:42
Speaker 2: I just stay out of that. I still certainly read
9:44
Speaker 2: it and check in and read comments sometimes, but I
9:47
Speaker 2: won't personally ever do that because I've never seen anyone
9:50
Speaker 2: change somebody's mind over social media. But it astounds me
9:53
Speaker 2: every single day how many people think they can.
9:56
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason I don't do it is,
10:01
Speaker 1: is the reason you're expressing. I do think it's going
10:04
Speaker 1: to have a limited effectiveness, but I also think, and
10:07
Speaker 1: I'm writing a piece up for christianity.com on this, but
10:10
Speaker 1: I'm increasingly thinking that we're just asking the wrong question.
10:16
Speaker 1: And so if the question is framed, um, is capitalism
10:22
Speaker 1: a good system or, you know, should we be capitalist
10:27
Speaker 1: or socialist or what, you know, whatever, which given the
10:32
Speaker 1: differences between Republicans and Democrats on this issue, it seems
10:36
Speaker 1: like that's a really high potential framing for this sort
10:40
Speaker 1: of question is capitalism or socialism better. You're talking about
10:45
Speaker 1: a pretty strong majority of Democrats seeing socialism favorably. And,
10:51
Speaker 1: This year was the first year that the that a
10:55
Speaker 1: majority of Democrats or at least 50 percent of Democrats
10:58
Speaker 1: didn't view capitalism favorably. It 42 percent only viewed capitalism favorably.
11:06
Speaker 1: And so what you're seeing is probably what's going to
11:08
Speaker 1: be what could play out on a on a Republican
11:11
Speaker 1: Democrat sort of debate stage is Republicans being strongly in
11:15
Speaker 1: favor of capitalism. Democrats being strongly in favor of socialism
11:21
Speaker 1: and sort of everybody else who's not involved there, right? Uh,
11:26
Speaker 1: all of us who have this sort of other opinion
11:28
Speaker 1: on the matter getting kind of lost in the, in
11:32
Speaker 1: the political polarization. And so when I sort of look
11:36
Speaker 1: at this data and read this study, my thinking ultimately
11:40
Speaker 1: goes to, we are just asking the wrong question. It
11:44
Speaker 1: seems to me like the right questions maybe are, um,
11:50
Speaker 1: if we were to switch or reform a system, could
11:53
Speaker 1: we make our lives better? Yes, I think we could.
11:55
Speaker 1: I think reform is probably the right conversation to be having,
12:00
Speaker 1: but I would even say beyond that, I would just say,
12:03
Speaker 1: where are we putting our hope? You know, if we
12:07
Speaker 1: look at these systems, the systems themselves are probably, uh, philosophically, um,
12:16
Speaker 1: you know, abstracted from any sort of concrete reality is
12:19
Speaker 1: what I mean when I say philosophically, they're probably okay.
12:25
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know that I hate the idea
12:28
Speaker 1: of socialism, right? I think in its concrete instantiations, we've
12:33
Speaker 1: seen a lot of abuses and problems and issues that
12:37
Speaker 1: are all out there. And I think we could say
12:39
Speaker 1: the same about capitalism, right? As a theory, I don't know,
12:44
Speaker 1: maybe it makes a good bit of sense. But when
12:46
Speaker 1: it's implemented in a concrete world, we now have to
12:51
Speaker 1: deal with distortions and deviations from an ideal. And so
12:58
Speaker 1: any structure, any system that we put in place, in
13:01
Speaker 1: my estimation, we shouldn't be looking for utopia. We should
13:06
Speaker 1: be doing it because we want to improve one area
13:09
Speaker 1: and are willing to improve that area.
13:12
Speaker 2: Right.
13:13
Speaker 1: While probably. causing other areas to decline.
13:19
Speaker 2: There's always a health effect for sure.
13:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's almost like touching a baby's mobile, right? You
13:25
Speaker 1: pull one side down, it's a guarantee the other sides move.
13:28
Speaker 1: And sometimes in ways that you can't quite predict, right. But,
13:33
Speaker 1: but you know, it's going to move. And I think
13:35
Speaker 1: the same thing with these systems, if we're thinking that
13:38
Speaker 1: changing these systems will automatically, you know, make our lives better,
13:46
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's really the case. I think it
13:49
Speaker 1: makes them differently good and differently bad.
13:53
Speaker 2: I think about like a conveyor belt. If you focus
13:55
Speaker 2: on one because it needs attention, then the other areas
13:58
Speaker 2: are going to start to be dropping plates.
14:00
Speaker 1: I think that's fair. Yeah, that's a good analogy. It's
14:03
Speaker 1: just that's what I think is going to end up happening.
14:06
Speaker 1: And so to me, the compelling issue here is what
14:10
Speaker 1: kind of questions should we be asking? And I would
14:13
Speaker 1: have really loved, and they don't show this in the data,
14:16
Speaker 1: but I would have really loved to see some sort
14:18
Speaker 1: of religious affiliation question in there. Like, so you can understand,
14:23
Speaker 1: is there a generalized Christian view of these things? But
14:27
Speaker 1: all I would say is, do I have a positive
14:32
Speaker 1: view of capitalism? Do I have a positive view of socialism?
14:34
Speaker 1: Not necessarily. Like I said, as abstract systems, I don't
14:38
Speaker 1: really even know that I'm, Qualified to say yes on
14:43
Speaker 1: this one and no to this one. But what I
14:46
Speaker 1: can say is that every time we implement any sort
14:49
Speaker 1: of rigid system, we decide we're going to be this
14:54
Speaker 1: sort of people. It tends to obscure, for Christians at least,
15:03
Speaker 1: it has a tendency to obscure our identity in Christ. Mm-hmm.
15:07
Speaker 1: We tend to start molding in capitalism with Christianity, socialism
15:13
Speaker 1: with Christianity, or you name any other ism. And that's
15:17
Speaker 1: where it tends. Republicanism, you know, being a Democrat, whatever
15:20
Speaker 1: it is. Right. It tends to get molded into what
15:23
Speaker 1: it means to be a Christian. And I think this
15:25
Speaker 1: is where we see, you know, we've talked a lot
15:27
Speaker 1: about Christian nationalism on the show. I would say that
15:30
Speaker 1: that's an instantiation of merging these questions too closely and
15:35
Speaker 1: Same with evangelicals for Harris. It doesn't just happen on
15:37
Speaker 1: the conservative side, right? It also happens on the liberal side.
15:42
Speaker 1: And so I would just advocate as we're looking at
15:45
Speaker 1: research like this that the questions we ought to be
15:48
Speaker 1: asking is maybe something like what really gives our lives meaning? Purpose. Yeah.
15:55
Speaker 1: How do we think about how the world works with
15:59
Speaker 1: the understanding that God is active and present in it?
16:02
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
16:03
Speaker 1: And if God is active and present with us in it,
16:07
Speaker 1: and we're sort of co-creating along with him what our
16:14
Speaker 1: lives look like, trusting him, obeying him, recognizing that our
16:19
Speaker 1: obedience is going to open up new ways of seeing
16:21
Speaker 1: the world, open up new ways of understanding how God
16:25
Speaker 1: acts in tandem with us and helps us, gives us
16:28
Speaker 1: true provision. I think that's what Christians need to be
16:34
Speaker 1: focusing on. And as they focus on that, I think
16:38
Speaker 1: that we'll have better insights into how to reform some
16:42
Speaker 1: of these systems. We're only going to gain wisdom if,
16:47
Speaker 1: you know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning
16:49
Speaker 1: of wisdom. It seems to me that we should be
16:53
Speaker 1: focusing on the fear of the Lord if we want
16:56
Speaker 1: to wisely reform. you know, sort of structure a broken
17:01
Speaker 1: world in a way that is quasi-just, right? You know,
17:10
Speaker 1: in other words, what I mean by I say quasi,
17:11
Speaker 1: it's gesturing toward the justice of God, but it's never
17:15
Speaker 1: actually achieving it. And so, that's sort of my take
17:21
Speaker 1: on all of this is that When we're framing the
17:24
Speaker 1: question about which economic, which political, which whatever system we're
17:29
Speaker 1: going to ascribe to, we've missed a step probably. Right.
17:36
Speaker 1: And we need to go back and realize that humanity
17:39
Speaker 1: has fallen. These systems, structures, laws, all those kind of things,
17:45
Speaker 1: to some degree, just restrain the evil that human beings
17:50
Speaker 1: are going to do. It doesn't stop that. It doesn't
17:54
Speaker 1: eliminate poverty or, or, you know, bad actors or whatever.
18:00
Speaker 1: None of it does. Right. And so the only thing
18:03
Speaker 1: that's going to do that is regeneration through Jesus Christ,
18:07
Speaker 1: preaching the gospel, building at the kingdom of God. And
18:11
Speaker 1: so Christians just, it's not that we never address these issues.
18:14
Speaker 1: It's that I think we have to address them as a, um,
18:21
Speaker 1: downstream from discipleship, right? These are opinions, our thoughts, our,
18:29
Speaker 1: our actions need to emerge from a life of discipleship
18:32
Speaker 1: in these areas so that, you know, the church is
18:36
Speaker 1: being built for the sake of the world. Right. Yeah.
18:42
Speaker 2: And I think it's important to mention, man, like we've
18:44
Speaker 2: talked a great deal about this, but like where you
18:47
Speaker 2: said many times already today, where is your hope in?
18:50
Speaker 2: Like what, We're asking the wrong questions. We're putting hope
18:53
Speaker 2: and faith in the wrong thing. I know so many Christians,
18:56
Speaker 2: as probably you do too, if Trump wouldn't have gotten
18:58
Speaker 2: in this last election, they let that kind of be
19:01
Speaker 2: the barometer of if they feel like God's in control
19:04
Speaker 2: or not. Do you think God needs the left or
19:07
Speaker 2: the right? He doesn't need one certain purpose. Our hope
19:10
Speaker 2: and faith should be in Him, not if our guy's in,
19:13
Speaker 2: not if our party or our agendas or what we
19:16
Speaker 2: want is happening or taking place. I think our hope
19:20
Speaker 2: and faith needs to be in Jesus. Otherwise, you're putting
19:22
Speaker 2: him in a box and you're like, well, we didn't
19:23
Speaker 2: get in this time. So we'll just wait and hopefully
19:26
Speaker 2: we'll do a better job in four years.
19:27
Speaker 1: Like, what does that say?
19:29
Speaker 2: How much you put your hope and faith in God
19:33
Speaker 2: or if you put it in a system?
19:35
Speaker 1: That's right. And I think when we look biblically, there's
19:37
Speaker 1: only a few places that really address what I would
19:40
Speaker 1: call structure. Right. And so when we look at something
19:44
Speaker 1: with a liquid governing structure, as Israel is coming out
19:47
Speaker 1: of the period of the judges, they're dealing with Samuel,
19:50
Speaker 1: who was the main judge in Israel at the time.
19:53
Speaker 1: This is the book of first Samuel. Samuel's kids are no,
19:57
Speaker 1: you know, they're not great. They're, they're manipulating things. They're
20:02
Speaker 1: doing things for their own in, you know, pursuing their
20:05
Speaker 1: own interests as part of their vocation. And so Israel
20:09
Speaker 1: comes to Samuel and they say, we'd really like to
20:12
Speaker 1: have a king. We're sort of done with this whole
20:15
Speaker 1: who's going to be the next judge thing. We'd like
20:18
Speaker 1: more stability. We'd like a clearer understanding of who's responsible,
20:22
Speaker 1: when they're going to be responsible. Like, that's what they're
20:25
Speaker 1: asking for when they're asking for a king. Right. They're
20:27
Speaker 1: looking at the earthly structure that's been set up and
20:32
Speaker 1: they're saying, this doesn't work for us.
20:34
Speaker 2: Right.
20:36
Speaker 1: Samuel initially pushes back. Ultimately, God says, hey, look, they're
20:40
Speaker 1: not rejecting you. They're rejecting me. They're rejecting me as
20:42
Speaker 1: king over them. So give them their king. It's fine.
20:46
Speaker 1: But when Samuel announces that to the people, he describes
20:51
Speaker 1: what's going to end up happening. And basically what he
20:54
Speaker 1: says is, look, your problem was never the judges. Your
20:58
Speaker 1: problem has always been obedience. You had to fear the
21:02
Speaker 1: Lord then and keep his laws and his statutes. And
21:06
Speaker 1: guess what? Now that you have a king, king has
21:09
Speaker 1: to fear the Lord and you have to fear the Lord.
21:13
Speaker 1: The structure changes, the underlying dynamic doesn't. And I think
21:19
Speaker 1: that's something that we really need to capture as Christians.
21:22
Speaker 1: We need to understand that God's going to move the
21:25
Speaker 1: pieces around on the world stage. You know, I'm sure
21:30
Speaker 1: the Israelites were not going to you know, democratically elect
21:35
Speaker 1: in Nebuchadnezzar to come in and take over Israel during
21:39
Speaker 1: the exile. But God saw that as a necessary correction
21:45
Speaker 1: and a discipline for where Israel had been going. He
21:48
Speaker 1: actually calls Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar his servant. And then when
21:53
Speaker 1: Persia comes in, Cyrus is actually called his anointed or Messiah.
21:58
Speaker 1: Shiach is the Hebrew term. And so you see that
22:02
Speaker 1: in the book of Isaiah. And so he's using these
22:05
Speaker 1: pagan rulers to sort of move things around. But the
22:08
Speaker 1: underlying dynamics of Israel never changes. If you want to
22:14
Speaker 1: be in, you know, if you want to be an
22:16
Speaker 1: Israelite and you're following covenant, your first priority is always
22:20
Speaker 1: fear the Lord, obey his laws, keep his commandments, remain faithful,
22:24
Speaker 1: remain faithful even unto death. We see that all across
22:27
Speaker 1: the book of Daniel. And so as we think about
22:30
Speaker 1: some of these things, that's what I guess I mean.
22:34
Speaker 1: Maybe it's more when we're asking these questions about our structures,
22:39
Speaker 1: which is totally appropriate, what we need to remember as
22:43
Speaker 1: God's people is that the governing dynamics never really change.
22:48
Speaker 1: Whether we shift to socialism or stay with capitalism and
22:52
Speaker 1: make some tweaks, our job is always fear the Lord,
22:56
Speaker 1: walk in His ways, imitate Christ, conform to his image.
23:01
Speaker 1: That's what we do. And that sort of movement in scripture,
23:07
Speaker 1: that there isn't a biblically authorized form of government, as
23:12
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, right? The biblically authorized form
23:16
Speaker 1: of government is a theocracy, but not in the sense
23:20
Speaker 1: that that's often used in Christian nationalism. The theocracy is
23:24
Speaker 1: God's people, who have come under the authority of the
23:27
Speaker 1: King Jesus Christ, serving the Lord in the kingdom of God,
23:32
Speaker 1: regardless of the consequences that had that has when they
23:36
Speaker 1: rub up against the other empires of the earth. And so,
23:41
Speaker 1: you know, those are the sword. That's the framework we
23:43
Speaker 1: need to come with when we're looking at these different systems.
23:48
Speaker 1: And I, I'm just convinced that as we do that,
23:52
Speaker 1: we are going to come with a different set of eyes,
23:54
Speaker 1: a different set of ears, uh, and a higher degree
23:57
Speaker 1: of wisdom and trying to sort of sort through some
24:00
Speaker 1: of these things.
24:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. Cause you're focusing on the right thing and, and,
24:04
Speaker 2: and kind of removing emotion from it.
24:05
Speaker 1: That's right.
24:06
Speaker 2: Cause you have a central, uh, point that everything's, you know,
24:11
Speaker 2: coming back to and coming out of. And I think that's,
24:14
Speaker 2: what's missing here. People are putting their hope and faith
24:16
Speaker 2: in the wrong thing as well.
24:18
Speaker 1: When I think there's just a, a realistic expectation that
24:21
Speaker 1: this brings spent it, and only for Christians, I won't
24:25
Speaker 1: even say especially for Christians, it's only for Christians. It
24:29
Speaker 1: puts this in perspective that changing our economic systems isn't trivial.
24:37
Speaker 1: It can be very important, right? It can be something
24:43
Speaker 1: worthy of doing. And yet it's very provisional. And so
24:50
Speaker 1: the church doesn't do it because it's seeking to establish
24:54
Speaker 1: The church does it in response to the word of God.
24:58
Speaker 1: It does it because it's the right thing to do,
25:03
Speaker 1: regardless of whether it's effective or not. And I think sometimes,
25:08
Speaker 1: you know, when I read it, when I look at
25:10
Speaker 1: the study, like what Gallup put out, there are aspects
25:12
Speaker 1: of this where I suppose maybe cynically, and I know
25:15
Speaker 1: I'm kind of reading into the data a little bit,
25:17
Speaker 1: but what it makes me think is we're all sort
25:20
Speaker 1: of voting from our own experience and And voicing our
25:25
Speaker 1: opinion based on what we think will make our lives
25:30
Speaker 1: a little more comfortable. And I would just argue that
25:35
Speaker 1: that perspective, that approach is way wrongheaded. Especially when we
25:42
Speaker 1: think about the governing dynamics that the Bible shows us,
25:47
Speaker 1: that Christians are to be obedient, even obedient unto death,
25:52
Speaker 1: even obedient unto inconvenience. And if we adopted that posture
25:58
Speaker 1: and just said, we're going to do what's right, we're
26:00
Speaker 1: going to do what God is calling us to do,
26:02
Speaker 1: we're going to do what seems appropriate and fitting theologically,
26:09
Speaker 1: regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us, we're living in
26:12
Speaker 1: a very different world at that point.
26:15
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. That's a great point.
26:19
Speaker 1: So it's an interesting article. Like I said, I'll have
26:22
Speaker 1: the write-up in Christianity.com. I encourage people to go over
26:26
Speaker 1: and read it. And I don't know, we don't need
26:29
Speaker 1: to beat a dead horse. I think we can probably
26:32
Speaker 1: stop it there. But we'll have the link to the
26:35
Speaker 1: Gallup poll article and all that kind of good stuff
26:38
Speaker 1: in the show notes. If you wanted to look through
26:39
Speaker 1: the data, you can actually download the PDF and get
26:42
Speaker 1: more granular in some of the data that they presented,
26:44
Speaker 1: which is kind of nice. But just an interesting study
26:47
Speaker 1: that kind of came across the old interwebs and it
26:52
Speaker 1: caught my eye. And I thought it was just kind
26:54
Speaker 1: of interesting. So, yeah, I appreciate your interaction with it, Nate.
26:59
Speaker 1: And we'll leave it there unless you have any other thoughts.
27:02
Speaker 2: No, I think that's good, man. It definitely was an
27:05
Speaker 2: interesting topic. I certainly want to go and look at
27:07
Speaker 2: the data myself.
27:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, we'll call it a day there.
27:13
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