Theology in the Raw - 790: #790 - White Evangelicalism, Anti-Trumpism, Dialoging across the Divide, and Mitch Claiborne

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

In this long overdue Q & A podcast, Preston works through a fistful of scintillating questions sent in from his followers: Why he's not a fan of the documentary hypothesis, is his podcast anti-Trump, how to dialogue with people you really, really disagree with, unbiased news outlets, why he doesn't like the phrase "white evangelicalism," should churches post LGBTQ statements on their websites, and much more. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

🎵 Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I've got a fist full of questions in front of me, and these were sent in over the last few months. So some of these were sent in maybe, gosh, maybe three months ago. So those of you who sent in a question and got crickets in response, I am resurrecting those crickets. That doesn't make any sense. I'm getting to your questions now. So sorry for the delay, but these questions were so good. I didn't want to just toss them aside. I wanted to dig in even

if they are, even if I'm a bit behind on addressing them. So I've got about eight or nine questions here in front of me. And they range from heavy duty, kind of biblical, scholarly questions, all the way to some really practical questions. And I'm going to try to tackle as many as I can. So let's dive into the first one. The documentary hypothesis. This was a question was in response to one of my Old Testament in the Raw podcasts, which have been put on hiatus because I'm not teaching that Sunday school class at the moment because we're not meeting as a church. So I think I had maybe four or five weeks in the Old Testament class, Old Testament in the Raw that I was teaching. And in that podcast, one of those podcasts, the questioner says that I mentioned that I think Moses wrote the Pentateuch or Torah, and I'd love to know why you think that versus the documentary hypothesis. I recently took a class at Whitworth University where we read Banstra's Old Testament textbook,

as well as Freitheim and Brueggemann's, which both explained convincingly to me, the documentary theory. Would love to hear your point of view. Okay. So I'm reaching back now, probably at least, well, let's just say 13 years since I thought about the documentary hypothesis. I first came across it probably, well, must've been in the tail end of seminary. So I started in 2000, got done in 03. So let's just say 2002, I was first exposed to the, or exposed to makes it sound like a disease. I was, I first encountered the documentary hypothesis. And then during my dissertation, because I did interact in my dissertation between 2004 and 2007, when I was doing my PhD, I did interact with various books of the Bible that had to do with the documentary hypothesis. Okay, so what is the documentary hypothesis? It is a hypothesis, a theory

about the origins of the so-called Pentateuch or the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Now, traditionally, and one might say biblically, it is assumed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. And I hold to, or shall I say, I still hold to that view. I don't think the authority of the Bible rests on Moses being the author. I think he could be an awesome, sold-out believer in Jesus and not think Moses wrote the Pentateuch. And even my view of Mosaic authorship has to do with, I think Moses wrote, you know, the kind of first draft of the Pentateuch, but there has been sort of editorial updating throughout the Pentateuch. And I'm not going to give any examples because that's going to just take us too deep in the weeds. But I do think that, you know, let's just say inspired redactors did have

a hand in forming the final product that we now read, the final form of the Pentateuch. now reread the final form of the Pentateuch. So that's one view that Moses is the primary, let's just say the primary author. But another popular view or a view that was popular for a century or so is the so-called documentary hypothesis that says that there were actually several different authors or even, let's just say, schools of authors that wrote parts of the Pentateuch. And then at some point later on, a final redactor or editor put all the pieces together in the form that we now have. And the terms that are often used to describe these different schools of thought or schools of authors are the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Deuteronomist, and the Priestly sources. Yahwist, as in Yahweh, Elohist, as in Elohim, Deuteronomist, as in Deuteronomy, and Priestly, self-explanatory, Priestly sources. So what some scholars, and this goes back to primarily in, I mean, it goes all the way back to like the seeds of this, I believe, go back to the late 18th century, but it was really became well-known or popularized through a German

scholar by the name of Julius Wellhausen and his Prolegamen aus der Geschichte Israels. Did I pronounce that right for my three German listeners out there? I haven't read German in over 10 years, so I'm not going to try to do that again. That was torturous. Anyway, yeah, Julius Wellhausen was a German scholar who, he didn't come up with it, but he kind of popularized the documentary hypothesis. So why would somebody say that the Pentateuch is from these four sources? Well, you do have certain emphases, certain differences within the Pentateuch. Some will focus on the name Yahweh, hence the Yahwist. Others will use the term Elohim. I mean, a classic example of this is Genesis 1 and 2. So Genesis 1, 1 to 2, 4, you have Elohim being used over 50 times

of God, but then in 2, 4 to the rest of the chapter, actually all the way through chapter three of Genesis, you have Yahweh Elohim being used. And so here you have a, you know, another name for God being used. And this is just, I mean, one of many, many examples where you have certain types of language being used, certain theological emphases being addressed in different parts of the Pentateuch. Sometimes priestly concerns are more the focus. Obviously, the book of Leviticus is very priestly, but what's interesting is actually Leviticus 26 does feel much more Deuteronomic. And so some people say, well, no, the priestly school of thought was responsible for much of Leviticus, but some Deuteronomists came along, wrote a section that ended up becoming

what we now call Leviticus 26. Maybe the redactor who put the whole thing together, you know, Leviticus 26. Maybe the redactor who put the whole thing together, you know, stitched a Deuteronomic chapter at the tail end of an otherwise priestly source. Deuteronomy obviously comes from a Deuteronomist school of thought where obedience to the law is a major theme. And what's interesting is you have later books outside the Pentateuch that do take on some of these kinds of forms or feels. And so, for instance, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are all considered Deuteronomic history or DH. In fact, in my dissertation and even in another scholarly book that I've written that nobody has read called Paul and Judaism Revisited, scholarly book that I've written that nobody has read called Paul and Judaism Revisited. I often talk about DH, Deuteronomic History, because Joshua through Kings does have a very similar feel, very similar theological framework that we find in Deuteronomy. If you obey the law,

you will be blessed. If you disobey the law, you'll be cursed. And then you have other books like, for instance, Ezekiel has a very priestly feel to it. There's a lot of congruence between the book of Ezekiel and Leviticus. So that's the documentary hypothesis. Now, if I can speak directly to my questioner here, the person who asked the question, why am I not convinced of this? I mean, for one, the documentary hypothesis had a lot of popularity surrounding it for about a hundred years. Um, but really towards the end of the late 20th century, there, there was a growing critique of it. In fact, I just checked the wiki article on this and they have a whole section called the collapse of the documentary consensus. And they even list several German scholars, one of whom, Rolf Rentorf, is a great scholar.

I remember reading Rolf Rentorf's stuff. I think he did some work on the book of Ezekiel and lots of other things. He actually has another book here in German. The English translation is The Traditional Historical Problem of the Pentateuch, and where he addresses and takes on the kind of documentary hypothesis. And he would be a liberal German scholar. He's not some American evangelical. So even within German scholarship, the documentary

hypothesis does not hold the same kind of sway that it once did. And especially now in 2020, there's a lot of other kind of approaches to the text. Typically, Old Testament scholars today are not really that interested in things like authorship or source material. Like, where did this come from? It's like, how did, we don't know. All we have is the final form of the text. And even going back to Genesis 1 and 2, it's like, okay, so you have Elohim being used over 50 times between 1.1 and 2.4, and then Yahweh Elohim is used consistently from 2.4 all the way to the end of chapter 3. Is that because these come from different authors, different schools of thought? Or did the author, a single author, simply introduce variation for theological reasons? And I think there's a good case to be made for the latter.

But at the end of the day, just we don't know. good case to be made for the latter. But at the end of the day, just, we don't know. Like we don't, there's every little difference, you know, because the author just was incapable of emphasizing different things at different points. And I think that that's probably the biggest critique is there's just, there's no actual historical evidence for the documentary hypothesis. We don't see references to a Yahwist school of thought or an Elohist school of thought or a Deuteronomist school of thought. All we have is the final form of the text. And maybe there's different authors and sources or maybe it's one author. Maybe, as I think, it's probably one main author with several redactors and editors throughout time, you know, adding and tweaking and taking away and so on.

tweaking and taken away and so on. So yeah, so I just think that the documentary hypothesis, as it has been traditionally articulated, I think it creates more questions and problems than it actually solves. And this was what ended up leading to the collapse of the consensus of the documentary hypothesis is it just seemed like every time, yeah, it just seemed like there was more questions than answers the more you looked at specific parts of the Pentateuch or

even later Old Testament scriptures. Next question, could you recommend some sources to check out relatively central news articles and mostly unbiased journalism. This comes in response to my podcast with John Mark Comer from several months ago, where he told me in the podcast, you need to pay for good journalism. Don't just go to Twitter for your journalistic endeavors, as I sort of tongue in cheek said that I did, I opened up Twitter to find out if the world has exploded or not. Um, and, uh, he said, yeah, you can't do that. You got to pay for good journalism. And so, um, have I found a unbiased journal, journalistic sources? And, and my answer is no. I think the ones that I've found to be the least unbiased would be AP News. And I've never actually said this next word out loud.

So I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right. Reuters, Reuters, R-E-U-T-E-R-S. So those two were recommended to me a couple of weeks ago. Because I actually asked the same question on Twitter. Can you guys recommend the most unbiased news outlet? and these were the two at the top of the list so i i would and as i've been kind of reading them i think ap news leans left i like npr i think npr leans left um reuters rooters seems that does seem to be fairly central um Other outlets, you know, that are just have drifted so far to the left or the right, you know, I used to, and let me just qualify everything I'm saying. I'm not a big

news guy. Like I've paid attention to more news in the last few months, or especially I would say since the election of Donald Trump, I've been keeping up with more news than I typically have in my entire life. But I'm not at all like the go-to source for news, the best kind of news source. So CNN to me is so far to the left that it's just if you want a good left ideological interpretation of certain events, then CNN or MSNBC is obviously very far left. You know, Fox News, I used to always mock Fox News, and obviously Fox News is on the right, but I'm going to get some of you to send some emails about this, but I don't care. As I've tried to purview several different news outlets, I have found Fox News to be less, let me say a lot less biased than CNN or MSNBC or even, or even something New York times or for sure Washington post. Like I used to always, yeah, I don't know.

I haven't watched or listened to Fox news or read Fox news in years, but just in the last few months, it's like, I, you know, when Trump does something stupid, they'll call it out. And they, they're not just all pro Trump, but MSNBC and CNN is nothing but anti-Trump. Like it's nothing but, you know, very far left ideologically. And it's, it doesn't even, it doesn't, it seems incapable of giving kind of a, some kind of a different kind of point of view. Whereas Fox News, again, obviously is conservative, obviously leans right or is right, let's just say, but I see a more variation in diversity within the Fox News articles that I've been reading.

Some of them are very far right. And I'm like, oh my gosh, just all you're doing is mirroring the same ideological drive that you bemoan, you know, from the left, but other ones I find to be fairly balanced and much more, I guess, for lack of better terms, fact-based with minimal sort of interpretation of the facts. So yeah, so I, AP News, Reuters, Reuters, and then I spot check kind of several others. I do look at CNN, but I just, every time I do, it just makes me kind of upset. I do check out Fox News. That still tends to make me a bit upset. So I try to limit my consumption of it, but the other ones I think are other articles seem to be pretty fair. So yeah, that's the extent of my knowledge of the landscape of Babylonian news. Next question. I've been asked to speak at a ministry event on a college campus

about cancel culture. Oh gosh, cancel culture. And having good, healthy dialogue in a culture that is divided on many issues. What recommendations do you have for having a healthy dialogue with people that you disagree with, especially on difficult issues as politics, sexuality, and religion? Oh my gosh. Let me recommend, first of all, for the umpteenth time that you read... Well, now I'm wondering. You probably already gave this talk a long time ago. And if it was still in the future, it's probably been canceled. So this might be irrelevant to your specific situation, dear questioner.

I apologize for getting to your question, your really good question, much too late. But let me recommend for the umpteenth time, Jonathan Haidt's books, The Righteous Mind, Why Good People Disagree on Politics and Religion. It is the guide, the answer, the book-length answer to your question. So read that, and really, that would be my answer. But let me give a few more thoughts. I would also recommend, even though I haven't read it yet, Scott Sahls' forthcoming book, A Gentle Answer, Our Secret Weapon in an Age of Us Against Them. I haven't read the book.

I know the gist of it. And I know Scott really well. And he's amazing. He's, anytime he opens his mouth, just, you should have a pen and paper in hand and just take notes. He's amazing. Um, and so I can only imagine, I can only, no, I'm not going to do it. Um, uh, I can only imagine that, that his, his book is going to be a really helpful guide to your important question. A few things off the top of my head, how to have healthy dialogue with people you disagree with. Number one, charitable listening.

Try to interpret what they're saying in the best possible light. Don't try to interpret what they're saying in a direction that will allow you to refute what they're saying easier, more easily. Rather, interpret what they're trying to say in the direction that most resonates with what they're actually trying to say. So charitable listening, trying to understand what they actually believe. Do you desire, this is a generic you, do you actually desire to know what the person actually believes and why? Or are you simply, you know, chumming the surface of their rhetoric so that you can find something, some loophole, something to pin them on. And again, this is one thing that irritates me with 99% of all political commentators is that they seem to be profoundly incapable of thatiring to know what the person is actually trying to say

and then to charitably evaluate it, analyze it, and if you still disagree, to give a humanizing yet thoughtful and evidence-based response to the person with the hope not that they would be shamed and publicly shown to be wrong, but that they might come to a better knowledge of the truth. And oh, by the way, you should hope that they would do the exact same thing to you because you do not have the corner market on the truth. And that is not a generic you, that is an absolute you. You, y'all, yous, at a neighbor in Ohio, they used to use the plural, youse. Youse want to come over for dinner. It was awesome. He was so awesome. So youse, y'all, you don't have the corner market on truth. So you should be eager for your, let's just say,

opponent, the one you're disagreeing with to show you where you might be wrong. Do you actually have that desire? Okay. So you need to have that desire and you need to, if you expect him or her to have that desire. So those would be, oh, showing respect for the person, even if you disagree with their ideas or even their behavior or whatever. You can still respect the person, their humanity, and show them honor in the midst of disagreement. I would also recommend finding points of agreement. Again, I've used, I think I've used this illustration a few times, you know, let's just say you're very, very anti-Trump and your parents are very, very pro-Trump. Is there anything, this may be really hard for some of you, or you can just flip it around. Some of you,

let's just say your parents are very anti-Trump and you're very pro, whatever, I'm just using this as an example. Is there any kind of common ground if there's not that i would say i don't like i then have you really fairly evaluated the situation trump is somewhere between satan and the messiah right he's not satan he's not the messiah he's not 100 evil he's not 100 good um there might be something even no matter how anti-trump you are, there might be some things he says and does that are commendable, dare I say. Or if you're, again, maybe you're a Trump fan, there might be some things that Obama said and did that are commendable. Are you willing to commend that act, that speech, that thing he said, if you really think that nothing the person does

could be considered good, then I would say you're probably blinded by tribalistic ideology and you're not actually giving a person a fair shake. So finding points of agreement helps lower the volatility, the energy, the anger levels in these kinds of conversations, finding points of agreement, humanizing the other person, and charitable listening. Next question, I got to pass over a few here. Okay, what is your personal definition of white evangelicalism? What is your personal description of what makes a person an evangelical? This is a really good question in response to a podcast that I had with my friend Steve Patton on Kanye, Kanye West and white evangelicalism. And within that conversation, I think I, I don't want to say pushed back,

but I maybe explored what he meant by the term white evangelicalism. Because, well, to answer your question, I don't like that term, white evangelicalism. I don't like the term brown evangelicalism or black evangelicalism. I don't like attaching a racial description to an entire branch of religion. Because I just, I really, and this, I've learned this over the years in the sexuality and gender conversation where a big part of my mantra is helping people to not use broad brushed categories and think that applies to every single individual within a

particular group, subgroup, or tribe. I think that's just always, always, I think that's just unhelpful, you know? So I, yeah, I don't, I, so let me say that I understand what Steve is, is getting at with the phrase and I, and I understand the content of what he's saying. And, and I, I, I resonate with almost all, if not all of what he's saying about what he describes as white evangelicalism. I just, I personally don't find the phrase white evangelicalism the most helpful phrase, and I do think it is problematic for various reasons. I mean, not all people within what he would call white evangelicalism are white. So right there, I just think that that's problematic. There's much diversity within people that are white and part of

white, quote unquote, white evangelicalism. There's rich white people. There's poor white people. There's racially sensitive white people. There's racist white people and everybody in between. So it's just there's so much diversity within what it means to be white or what it means to be black or brown or whatever. black or brown or whatever, there's so much diversity within these broad racial categories that I think it's unhelpful to use a racial category to attach to an entire group of people. Now, what Steve means by the phrase and what others mean by the phrase is that you do have

a brand of evangelicalism that is led by, and one might even say controlled by, mostly white people who are largely, let's just say unaware or underappreciative of the fact that their whiteness influences how they view church and how they interpret the Bible, our ethnicity, our socioeconomic status, our sex, or as some would say, gender, our geographical region, the time when we're living in, in 2020 or, you know, 1520. All of these things influence the way we interpret the Bible, influence how we live life, how we view life. Your interpretation of life depends upon who you are and where you're standing. That's a rough quote from my good friend,

Luke Thompson. We, we, our situatedness, our socioeconomic, ethnic, gender situatedness influences how we view the world. It doesn't simply determine how we view the world, but it does influence how we view the world. It doesn't dictate how we interpret the Bible, but it does influence how we interpret the Bible. And so I think, I'm pretty sure Steve would basically agree with what I'm saying here, that when he or other people use the term white evangelicalism, if you're really to get down into the meat of what they're saying, they're referring to a brand of evangelicalism that is mostly led by white people who are largely, or at least to some extent, not, how do I want to word this? That aren't as aware, how's that? Aren't as aware

of how much their whiteness does affect their view of church and their, the way they interpret the Bible. Next question. Do you think churches should have a public statement on their LGBTQ stance? I have been recommending no. And by public statement, I mean like something on their website. Now I'm not, you know, this is a, I would say in an informed opinion. Okay. So this isn't gospel truth. Don't go rip your statement down from your website if, you know, because you think think I just have all the answers to this conversation. Let me just tell you why I think it's more unhelpful than it is helpful. Well, let me begin by asking you a question. Has the evangelical church traditionally humanized the LGBTQ conversation or not humanized the LGBTQ conversation?

In other words, as we've gone about the LGBT conversation, have we cultivated a reputation of really being relational and getting to know people and listening and being thoughtful and humble and how we've understood and presented and even defended our position. Is that the reputation we have? The answer is no. There is a right answer to that one. It's no. So let me ask you another question. Do statements convey more relationality or less relationality? And again, there's a right answer to that. Statements, black and white words on paper, no matter how well they're presented, will always feel less relational, less humanizing than an actual embodied conversation.

Now, sometimes there's no replacement, right? As one who writes books and doesn't just hang out with people, like I think there is a really good place for, you know, the written presentation of truth. Okay. I do think books are always going to be better than blogs, especially if you're, or short pieces, longer pieces where you can really explain and nuance things are always going to be better than short pieces. And again, statements are going to be short pieces. You're not going to put an 80 page statement or you shouldn't put an 80 page statement on your website. Typically statements are very short and the shorter they are, the less relation, relational they are. And even if they are longer, um, it's just impossible to convey the same kind

of relational posture, um, in a, in a document, especially on a website, than you can in an embodied relationship. So because of that, and because there's so much misunderstanding of what the so-called traditional or historically Christian view of sexuality is. There's so much misunderstanding. So if you have a statement on your website and all you mean to do is communicate that you believe in a traditional view of marriage, that will, in this day and age, be interpreted by people who aren't able to ask questions or sit down with you or get to know you or hear your voice and see your tone and look at your face and look at your smile and ask you questions. If they don't have that opportunity, they can, people could very easily interpret the

so-called traditional view of marriage as being just homophobic, bigoted. And, oh, thanks for that statement. I guess now I know that you hate gay people. I'm not going to even come to your church. So I would rather have, understand something as complex and misunderstood as a Christian view of sexuality. I would much rather have them understand the church's view in an embodied personal relationship. Um, now, um, I, I don't, but I do want to avoid the whole bait and switch. And this was the concern with, you know, the,'re familiar with church clarity and that movement or that website, I don't know if it's, is it around anymore? Where they, you know, they literally judge churches based on how clear their state, their website statement is on sexuality and gender.

And I just, I have problems with that for several reasons. One, I don't think we should be judging other churches that we've never been a part of based on the words they say on their website, which is quite literally what they are doing. They're giving ratings, judgment calls on the church's clarity on their view based on what's on the website or not on the website. So, and well, so to their credit, um, their concern is the whole bait and switch that churches in an effort to be so welcoming and, and, um, loving and, um, kind and inclusive that they don't have any kind of public presentation of their view on sexuality. And then, you know, LGBT people are showing up and get involved and becoming parts of small groups and leading this and leading that and becoming heavily involved. And then two years down the road, they find out that the church leadership

actually has a traditional view of marriage when they come to the pastor and saying, hey, I've fallen in love and gotten engaged. Can you officiate our wedding? And the pastor says, oh, we don't believe in that. And they're like, what? Wait, I've been a part of your church for two years and you haven't told me that? I've built up all these relationships. No one has had the courage to tell me what they actually believe about a significant part of my life. So I understand that those who do want statements on the website are concerned about the whole bait and switch. So my sort of mediating position is let's not put statements on the website, but let's talk about our position frequently for those who are exploring the church, who are engaging the church, who are just, you know, wanting to be members of the church. Like

I would want anybody who is part of a congregation for several weeks to at least somehow be aware of the church's position on something as significant as marriage and sexuality. Next question, two questions really. For LGBTQ plus stuff, the methodology you start with is marriage and build out from there. For annihilation, it feels like the methodology is to start with some verses about judgment, destruction, and go from there. Why aren't we starting with salvation, kingdom of God, eternal life, redemption, whatever you prefer, and go from there? That's a great question. And I'm going to linger on this. I will say my approach to the annihilation, or let's just say judgment question does, or it should,

and maybe I haven't communicated this clearly. It should begin with the question about humanity and immortality, which is why most so-called annihilationists prefer the term conditional immortality, that humans are not intrinsically immortal, that immortality or that humans are not intrinsically immortal, that immortality or living foreverness, whether in misery or in bliss, is contingent upon the death and resurrection and faith in that event for you to be immortal. Humans are not intrinsically immortal. So,

the Augustinian position, if I'm interpreting him correctly, which says that the human soul is just intrinsically immortal. It can't be destroyed. Therefore, it's going to exist forever somewhere, whether in heaven or in hell, in some conscious state. That assumption, I think, is not biblical. And I thought in my series, my two-part podcast, that I did begin there. But if I haven't made that clear, then let me clarify that now. I do think that the question of humans and immortality is the fundamental starting place. And then from there, we can go look at the judgment passages.

I do think it's a bit of apples and oranges to compare the marriage question with same-sex relationships, that whole marriage and sexuality, with themes of redemption and eternal life, with passages about judgment. Yeah, I don't know if I'm – I'm not going to get into all that. I don't think it's an exact parallel. So just because I do emphasize marriage as a starting place for the sexuality conversation, I don't think that necessarily means that I should begin with redemption and eternal life before I get to the judgment passages in annihilation. I don't think it's an exact parallel. Nonetheless, I do think, yeah, I do think we should begin with questions about immortality and humanity. Next question.

Oh, this is from the same questioner. You also ask, what do you think about the whole idea that sin is its own reward and judgment? So that, you know, we're not really punished for our sins, but that God gives us over to our sin. And that giving us over to our sin, that's, you know, letting us keep sinning. That is our punishment. I think there's something true to that, but I don't think it's an either or. So for instance, in Romans 1, you have this kind of rolling theme, Romans 1, 18 to 32, where in verses 24, 26, and 28, where you have this phrase over and over and over in those three verses, you know, God gave them over to this sin. God gave them over

to this sin. God gave them over to this sin. And it's almost like the giving overness of God's action is itself, I'll say part of the punishment, but then even at the end of the chapter in verse 32, you know, he even mentions that those doing such things, you know, those who practice such things deserve to die. Like, I still think that you can have a both and, that God is giving us over to our sin, but then also there is, you know, an end time judgment for sin. I mean, this is something that I just feel is pretty clear and widespread that in the end, there will be a judgment day where God will actively dish out punishment for sin. I mean, this is everywhere in the prophets, in the Old Testament.

You see it throughout Jesus' preaching, Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1. You see it in 2 Peter 3. Is that what I'm thinking of? You see it. I don't know. There's loads of passages where God's agency, God is viewed as an active agent in punishing sinners, for lack of a better terms,

who don't accept Jesus on judgment day. So it's not just, because that would be superfluous, right? Well, he's already given us over to our sin. What's the whole, what's the function of judgment day? So I do think it's both. And I do think that giving us over to our sin is kind of a way in which we, um, uh, experience punishment or the misery of choosing evil and not God. It's kind of like, you know, my mom used to tell me when I was a little kid, if I ever get caught smoking a cigarette, she's going to put me in a closet and I'm not allowed to come out until I smoke a whole pack of cigarettes. So I'm just green in the face and throwing up everywhere. I don't know if that's legal anymore, but that's how Gen X was raised. So yeah, so I'm not, I guess, a huge fan of somebody who says that sin itself is, um, sin's only, um, uh, punishment. Two more questions. Uh, do I have time for two more? Um, no, let's just get to one more here. Um, cause this is a really interesting

one. I, I, this, I need to clarify some things here cause it's a, it's a bit of a pushback. Um, uh, I'm going to summarize the first part of this question. This person says, I'm new to your podcast. I found them because I was a believer struggling to work through the whole LGBTQ question. I found your episodes to be really thought provoking. However, I listened to episode 769. And especially after listening to this podcast, I found this one to be lacking in the same grace and tolerance and seemed quick to accept a false narrative about what you and Shane, Shane Claiborne, sneered as white evangelicals. So let me just be honest right now. I don't, I don't, I would need to go back and re-listen to that whole episode to really see how much of this questioner's view of that podcast episode is accurate.

And you've heard in this podcast that I actually don't like the term white evangelical. And if I was sneering at white evangelicals, then let me just publicly apologize for that and say that is not, I don't even, if anything, I don't like the term white evangelical. So you want to say trashing Liberty University, Franklin Graham and Trump supporters and being so quick to put them in a box and pass judgment across the board. I also struggled with the whole gun narrative y'all pushed. Is there only room in your podcast for the left? I found it interesting how much Mitch, Mitch, I think he means Shane, but he says Mitch, railed against the death penalty and guns,

but quickly brushed by abortion, which kills an exponentially more than either of the two Mitch was focusing on. So again, there, I, I, let me just say, I, um, it's interesting that you said that, you know, is there only room for the left? left. I, if anything, I feel like I get accused of being more right-leaning, if anything. Anybody who listens to or reads everything or most of what I say or, you know, write would clearly put me as a centrist, but or even not even on the political landscape. Again, I believe all political leaders, left, right, and center are Babylonian leaders, and I'm an exile. This isn't my allegiance isn't to Babylon, it's to the kingdom of God. And so I have a very equal view of all of Babylonian leaders. I think for the most part, they're all grasping after power. For the most part, they've got a mixture of maybe

some biblical values and a lot of unbiblical values that they're holding on to. And I don't see, I don't want to put a lot of emphasis in any one of Babylonian leaders as that much better than the other. So I would hope that Obama followers and Trump followers would feel equally challenged and angry and uncomfortable and blessed by my podcast. Like I would hope that in Babylonians political landscape, all are equally, you know, would, you know, feel the same in a sense by my position. So I, again, if I gave the impression that I'm sort of anti-Trump follower, if anything, I think a lot of the anti-Trump rhetoric has in the last year or so in my life been more irritating than Trump himself. Quite honestly, as somebody who didn't and won't

vote for Trump, I am almost, yeah, I would say almost more irritated at the hyper anti-CNN kind of Trump rhetoric that just spins everything he says in the worst possible direction. It's just incapable of any kind of charitable listening or incapable of even understanding the diversity of those who voted for Trump. Some people voted for Trump are very pro-Trump. Some people voted for Trump think he's a very immoral person, but has good policies. Some people voted for Trump because he's, you know, a sneeze better than Hillary. Um, some people voted, you know, there's all kinds of different reasons why people voted for Trump. Not everybody who voted for Trump is a blatant white hood wearing racist.

And, and those who say they are just, that makes me almost more angry than some of the stupid stuff that Trump himself says. Going on. Oh, he, Mitch, aka Shane Claiborne, said he picks his candidates based on how closely they resemble Jesus, but the whole Democratic Party is wanting to increase abortion and even allow infanticide. That's just not true. The whole Democratic Party is not trying to allow infanticide. Infanticide is the exposure of a newborn baby, not just the abortion of an un, somebody back East, um, who said something that I, when I listened to it, it did sound like he was almost being okay with infanticide. It wasn't as clear as some of the critics made it out to be, to my mind, but maybe it was, maybe I'm, maybe he's on a campaign to elevate the number of babies after they're born that we kill. Maybe that's true. I didn't get that impression when I did hear it, but I could be wrong. I don't think the whole Democratic Party, while almost all of Democrats would be pro-choice, I don't know if they would all be wanting to increase abortion.

Some certainly are, but I don't know if that's accurate to say the whole party is wanting to do that. But I don't know if that's accurate to say the whole party is wanting to do that. While Trump, sorry, paused mid-sentence. The whole Democratic Party is trying to increase abortion and even allow for infanticide, while Trump and his party are actively trying to reduce abortion. I don't understand the disconnect. How do you reconcile your and Mitch's position on guns and death penalty being a more pressing concern than abortion? So again, let me clarify. I don't see it as a more pressing concern than abortion. So again, let me clarify. I don't see it as a more pressing concern. I am, I would equally be, um, anti-death penalty, um, and, uh, concerned about gun violence or any kind of violence. And also I, I am, um, I don't speak about this much on

the podcast, but I would be very, uh, be very passionate, passionately against abortion with the same kind of passion and fervor that I would be with the death penalty. Maybe even more, if I could even weigh the two. So for me personally, and again, maybe that didn't come out in the podcast. Maybe Shane would agree with me or not. I really don't know. I do hear, you know, he does focus largely on guns and death penalty. I don't hear him, you know, marching in anti-abortion parades or anything. So maybe that's true of Mitch. But no, it wouldn't be of me. And my position on guns, I don't even know what you're referring to. I own guns. I own several guns.

And even in that podcast, we talked about how I hunt and I don't. And even Shane was like, no, I'm not talking about gun owners. And he even said, like, I know actual like hunters and stuff who use guns for hunting. And then they're not looking to kill people who, you know, you know, cross over their front lawn or something. So even his position on guns does in that podcast, I do remember it just seemed a little more qualified than sometimes, um, his, his view can be taken. Um, how do you, uh, Oh, I'll be listening to a few more episodes before I shut you out. Uh, but if it's more of what I heard from you and Mitch, I think I'm done. And that's perfectly fine. Like I don't – there's no – and no hard feelings.

Like if any of you are listening and you're like, I just – I don't like what you're saying. I don't agree with it. So I'm going to shut you out. Like I'm perfectly okay. Like that's not – like I mean I don't even know it, right? It's like I get a ping on my podcast that some listener shut me out or whatever. Yeah. that some listeners shut me out or whatever.

Yeah, but again, I do think that maybe your concerns in this that you got from your listening of this podcast are not an accurate representation of what I actually believe. But again, some of that might have been on me not being clear with my belief. So for that, I do apologize. And if you haven't shut me out already, then hopefully if you've listened to several other episodes, you've maybe gotten a more well-rounded perspective on these issues as it pertains to my beliefs and my rhetoric on this podcast. Okay, friends,

that is it. That's all for today. If you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw and support the show for as little as five bucks a month. There's a lot of stuff that I do that's behind a small paywall. I mean, lots of blogs and podcasts that you get access to that go back a few years now. Lots of juicy stuff. Some of you asked for, you know, what about this? What about that? What do you think about this? And a lot of those things I've, I've have addressed on a Patreon only podcast or blog. So if you do enjoy this show and you do want more, and you do want to contribute a small portion, five bucks,

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