Theology in the Raw - 841: A Prophetic Response to 2020: Jon Tyson

Episode Date: February 11, 2021

Jon Tyson is a brother from another Australian mother (or mum). Jon’s one of the wisest, most intelligent, astute, prophetic, and spiritually authentic Chrisitans leaders in the church today. This dude walks with Jesus in both heart and mind. In this episode, I wanted Jon to give a prophetic perspective on 2020. How should we think about this crazy year? What should we learn from it? How should we look forward in 2021 and beyond? What should the church keep doing after Covid, and what should the church leave behind? Oh, and we also discuss the roots and symptoms of Trumpism and I actually say “you are Trump; we are Trump.” Or something like that. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I know I’ll get some emails. You can address them to [e-mail] (Just kidding...as if Jon has a hotmail account.)  Jon Tyson is a Pastor and Church Planter in New York City. Originally from Adelaide, Australia, Jon moved to the United States twenty years ago with a passion to seek and cultivate renewal in the Western Church. He is the author of Sacred Roots, A Creative Minority, and The Burden is Light. Jon lives in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan with his wife and two children. He serves as the Lead Pastor of Church of the City New York. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | 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. This is both a YouTube conversation and also a podcast. So if you are on the podcast and listening and want to watch this conversation, you can go over to my YouTube channel, Preston Sprinkle. And if you are on YouTube and you want to just listen to it, you can go to my podcast, Theology in the Raw. So on the show today, I have my very good friend, Pastor John Tyson. John is the founding pastor and currently pastor, I don't know his exact title, but he leads a church of the city in New York City, lives right smack dab in the middle of Midtown Manhattan. John is one of the most widely read, thoughtful pastors I know who is also not just thoughtful, not just an avid reader and thinker, but the dude

is spiritually in tune with Jesus in ways that few people are, as you'll see in this podcast conversation. I mean, he's just a, he's, he's really one of a kind. So if you're not familiar with John's ministry, his work, then I highly encourage you to start following him. I mean, on social media or especially this, his sermons that he preaches at his church are among the best sermons, honestly. Yeah. Among the best preachers in America, I believe. So this is the second time back on the podcast and we have a great time talking about kind of looking back on 2020 and how should Christians think through this disaster of a year in many ways. And yeah,

as John says, there's a lot of good things that have come about from it and how should we look forward? How should we think about the political tensions and racial tensions and, and COVID and post COVID and all this stuff. And he's just a gifted thinker and has a prophetic ability to cut through all the garbage and help guide the church in really significant ways. So I'm so thankful to have John on the show. If you want to support this show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw.

All the info is in the show notes. You can check that out below. Without further ado, let's welcome back to the show for the second time, the one and only John Tyson. John Tyson, welcome back to Theology in the Raw. I think this is your second time, maybe third. It should have been your second time. It's a joy to be back with you, mate. I've loved this podcast. Oh.

And you're one of those people who I resonate with at a profound level. I feel like there's a lot of theological alignment. So it's a joy to jump on and chat again in 2021. Oh, man. Vice versa. Honestly, one of my – I don't know if I actually told you this. in my 20 years of ministry was that insane Sunday preaching at your church five times, being rushed around New York City. I just read Catra Narai recently, and I felt like, now looking back, I felt like holding a caulfield being rushed around New York City. But that was, I mean, exhausting.

But there was so much joy and energy. And that was just – it was a highlight, man. I mean, who gets to preach in five different services in Manhattan? That's pretty – you do that every week. Well, you haven't done that in a while. No, that was great. And that talk was a powerful talk. I tell people – I saw another friend of mine reading Catcher in the Rye recently on New Year's Eve. And I said, it makes all the difference in the world if you've been in Manhattan. When you read that book, and you've been in Manhattan, it makes total sense. And when you don't, you get it, obviously. But the context and the nuance is very very pronounced yeah so it's so funny i i i somehow

missed that book in my life i i i just knew it was a famous book had no clue what it was about so i had no clue that it was about in in new york and all that like i it took me a while to get into it because i was like what is this this is such a odd i just read to kill a mockingbird so i was expecting something similar to that it was just i mean completely different but um yeah it was great i felt like after when when i read blue like jazz i felt like donald miller got his writing style from catcher in the ride oh i was like i'd read blue like jazz and his sentence structure and i was like gosh this feels very very similar to catching the ride but then you know he's obviously developed since then and yeah donald miller's like a master of communication

i can't believe he's selling helping toyota sell cars to millennials like i never saw that coming but he's a masterful communicator he's a master key so anyways yeah so new york, tell it, give us, New York City has been on the news a lot this last year. What, how would you, if I was an alien that landed on planet earth right now, how would you describe living in and being a pastor in New York City during COVID and 2020 and riots and all this stuff? And I maybe, I don't know. Yeah. Oh man. I mean mean gosh i mean there's there's certainly an arc and and basically a wave of emotions you know and so i think the city has processed those like the initial anxiety and trauma the you know the adrenaline rush to scramble to figure out how to response, the attempts at stabilization and care, followed by disillusionment and hopelessness, and then followed by what

I would describe as like, I don't think it's fully back yet, but like a resolve to rebuild. I don't think it's sort of back yet collectively. Someone sent me an article this morning that basically said, one of my friends who works in finance and basically like researchers the economy for a living. He said 44% of the people who make the money to pay the taxes in New York City are probably not going to be contributing to the city's taxes anymore because there's two loopholes in New Jersey and Connecticut that the states are trying to push through. So it all just feels very apocalyptic yet again.

So at first, mate, it was dystopian. It was I am legend. It was I am legend. Yes, on Easter last year, I went to Times Square to pray, and I was the only person in Times Square. And by that I mean I was the only visible human in my field of view. That's eerie. Yes, it was so crazy.

In the middle of one of the busiest places on earth, and it was like nobody else was here. And this wasn't like at 4 a.m it was about quarter to nine wow that's so there was just this this there's heavy sense you know it's it's and because we were just experiencing the shock of it yeah sort of the the overwhelming the uncertainty about the virus all those sorts of things. Now it's very, very different. I mean, it's almost like when Black Lives Matter and George Floyd died, the shared cultural experience was huge. But there was an African, there was actually two black men killed in Columbus, Ohio, and it did almost nothing.

No national news. One of them was even worse. A guy was in his garage and the police show up and shoot him when he's a guest at the home. And he's holding his cell phone. And I just thought, oh, the whole country is going to explode. But they just, you know, it was the election. We didn't have the shared psychological state. So it was a once in a generation shared experience that was sort of level 10 intense for everybody and now i don't

know if our society can hold that same level of anxious tension anymore how so anyway that's about yeah that's a that's a big statement for a period of time the hardest thing for people not living there like people not living in portland or seattle or whatever like you know you see stuff on the news and as as you know depending on which news outlet you're looking at you're going to get a very different portrait of what's going on but there were some versions of the media portrayal of new york that it was like violence just running all over the place like it's back to where it was back in the 70s kind of like you know if you've seen the movie joker you know like just bonfires everywhere like what was it when there was not that was not that was not an accurate representation of the whole city

okay there was certainly there was certainly pockets and parts of the city. I tell you, before the elections, they boarded up Fifth Avenue in case Trump was elected, and that felt way worse than the actual Black Lives Matter riots. Now, there were some parts of the city that got hit really hard. There was massive rioting, but it didn't represent the city as a whole. Even in the middle of the protests back in the summer, where basically everywhere you went, there was protests. Really?

I mean, there was, yeah, you're in a park and there's a protest in a park. You're in Times Square, there's a protest. Everywhere, there was just a whole city was an activist city. When the riots happened, it didn't feel like, and I'm talking primarily about the ones connected to Wisconsin. It didn't feel, it didn't feel the same as the summer. It was those pockets. It felt the summer felt like America reckoning with a history of racial injustice. Yeah.

The summer, um, the summer did not feel like that at all. I'm sorry. The latest summer did not feel like that at all i'm sorry the latest ones did not feel like that at all the latest ones felt more like a protest whereas the ones in the summer felt more like riots that could really get out of control i mean no no no no the opposite the ones in the summer felt yeah the ones in the summer felt like a lot of people were kind of having a narrative shift okay and it was like gosh america's not all it's cracked up to be like well i'm really seeing long-term consequences of injustice in this nation maybe for the first time okay and they just felt like there was a sense of grief a cry for justice these other ones sort of felt like antifa showed up to sort of disrupt and cause problems

and uh so that felt very very psychologically different but it wasn't it wasn't the joker i mean there was parts little those little pockets like that but you you didn't you you can go outside your place go yeah shopping and know where to go and it was it wasn't like your life was completely turned inside out specifically with the threat of danger or violence in the streets okay yeah not where we were okay because you're right i mean you're right in the heart you're a block away from time square it's not like you're like you know up and yeah and but the the thing that comes with that is like a disproportionate police presence so you're underneath time square i've never been under there to like you know where the police headquarters are but people tell me this they said that's where

the SWAT teams are and all of that i mean they their ability to respond to violence is probably 30 seconds yeah in that place so yeah in some places it's a higher target it's more symbolic in other places in other senses it's it's probably one of the safest places too. Yeah. Okay. How did your church do with all the political tension? I mean, racial tension, everything where, I mean, it's probably hard to even tell maybe because of COVID, but I talked to a lot of pastors and they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that I've got people in my congregation all across the spectrum. People who think wearing the mask is the sign of the beast, all the way to people saying, if you don't wear a mask, you're the most immoral person on earth and everything in

between. Trump's the Antichrist, Trump's the Messiah. And he's like, I didn't know I had this in my congregation. It kind of came out. I don't know what to do with it. Anyway, that's how a lot of pastors have described this to me what was your experience like pastoring people through covid and all the upheaval um so that is not my experience pastor ollie whatsoever

no i'm in a super liberal city 87 of manhattan voted for biden okay um i i'm thinking back to the hundreds and hundreds of comments i've received and only one of them has been against masks okay my feedback and my feedback is 99.9 why aren't we wearing more masks and staying more socially distanced so yeah i've got friends who were like on the other i think part of it's too. I had COVID. My wife had COVID. My kids had COVID. So for us, it's like we were really, really sick. And so for me, it's not I'm not like faith over fear.

I'm like, you don't say that, you know, like you don't say that about cancer. You don't say that about the common cold. You don't say that if you break your arm. You don't. So, you know know to me it was like i mean it covered's bad i've had two friends recently got it one of them got very sick so you know my friend darren darren whitehead passed he got it too he got covered at thanksgiving and he was sick so i didn't definitely feel that. Now, I'm very sympathetic as basically a libertarian.

I'm very sympathetic about government overreach. And I don't believe in conspiracies, I say, but I do believe in shock doctrine. And what I mean by that is that all politicians and all people with power have agendas and they wait for cultural people to implement the agenda that's not even that's not even controversial i mean that is that's reality well that is controversial but i would say it's true can you unpack that a little more can you restate what you said because that and i just rolled off your tongue but that's actually a pretty brilliant statement and there's a lot there. Back up a few seconds and repeat what you said.

And for the person who said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, I think a conspiracy would go more along these lines. Let's introduce a crisis to achieve a particular end. So let's manufacture COVID-19 and consciously release it on our own people in order to take away the rights of people and introduce surveillance technologies. I don't believe that. What I do believe is that all people with power have an agenda. believe is that all people with power have an agenda. That's not controversial. I mean, it's not controversial. People with power have agendas is not a controversial statement. Each politician got up the front and said, put me in power and here's my policies. Here's my agenda for the nation. So it shouldn't be controversial. I understand why it may be.

A step further than that is basically, I believe that there's people who are crisis opportunists, which means when a crisis happens, they take advantage of it and they may have shelved goals that they activate in a time of crisis to accelerate their agenda. I think that's very, very true. So the difference is one introduces the crisis to manipulate, the other one takes advantage of the crisis to manipulate. I don't believe in the first one. I believe in the second one. But that being said, Christians, I mean, you know, we believe we're not dealing, we're not wrestling with flesh and blood.

I mean, my devos this morning and Ephesians 6, we're talking about schemes of the enemy. We're talking about a satanic agenda for the world. And sometimes that does map onto human systems and therefore manifests itself through things like government, media, those sorts of things. So, but that's, you know, who can discern that? Well, I would just say this, certainly not the people in the Western church right now. You know, it doesn't seem so seem so doesn't seems like discernment you know i'm from the pentecostal tradition and it seems like discernment is the one gift of the spirit that we need a fresh activation of you know yeah yeah um so i just to transition a little bit but not not really i mean you kind of led us here i mean as we

so we're recording this what is it january 5th um right now this will be released in the next month or so um as christians look back on 2020 this infamous year um how should we reflect on 2020 from a spiritual perspective? What should we learn and how should we move forward in light of going through 2020? I mean, that's, that's one way to kind of frame my question, but I think you know what I'm getting at. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's probably so many, so many lessons we could learn. There's going to be, every person's going to have individual heart lessons. Each family is going to have family dynamic lessons.

Each church is going to have, you know, community and leadership lessons. Each city and region is going to have its own. And so, you know, let me just unpack it maybe in those categories even. What did i learn personally you know in many ways 2020 was a very good year for me it was a very good year internally it was a very bad year externally internally um you know it's i'm i'm i felt god say something to me that's

really hard to articulate in a way that makes sense but here's what it was i felt god say to me that's really hard to articulate in a way that makes sense. But here's what it was. I felt God say to me, enjoy me. Enjoy me. It's a derivative of John 15 on abiding. But I just felt God say to me early on, I want you to enjoy my presence. I want you to enjoy that the deepest longings of your heart have been fulfilled. I want you to enjoy that the ultimate questions of reality have been sorted out. Enjoy the inner witness of the Spirit. Enjoy fellowship with Christ. Enjoy the Father's love.

Enjoy my word. And so I spent time every morning really sitting in that. And so I tried to push off any external issues and pressure and not let them get into the inner chamber of my heart. So I try to have like a citadel of joy in the inner man and like really tend to it. And so that's one thing I was very, very vigilant along. So that's one thing I was very, very vigilant along. So my sense of intimacy, friendship with God over the course of 2020 was very, very rich. Real quick, can I – I would love – like tangibly, what did that look like?

I mean more time in the Word, more time in prayer, just more meaningful? Like it's just more depth in what you were already doing? I can imagine i can imagine some people saying i want that how do i do that pastor me pastor yeah man i mean it's so part of it is an attitude so my default mode for example when it comes to prayer like is intercession it's contending it's like declaring it's like it's all that stuff you know it's sort of like warrior metaphors for prayer, wrestling with prayer, those sorts of things. My whole posture just changed to prayers like, God, I'm just powerless. I can do nothing. I have no agency here.

I just turn to you. I enjoy you. Thank you. Have mercy on me, God god i rely on your mercy prayers of surrender rather than strength uh present weakness um prayers of gratitude um way more meditation on scripture and praying it back slowly you know so like meditating through the lord's prayer the lord is my shepherd who. Who is the Lord? Who is the Lord? Wow, the creator of heaven and earth, the one who rules and determines the times and events of history, the one who's going to give me eternal life, the one who holds all things together.

That person is shepherding me. Wow, the Lord is my shepherd. Shepherd. Wow, what does a shepherd do? Wow, the care. So just slow just slow slow enjoyable so the way i'd say um you know at uh at bryant park and in new york city they have these christmas markets and they're just selling everything and this is one famous stand that sells these um

french chocolates the truffles and the guy always says one thing, no chewing, let it melt on your tongue. And he always says, the French guy's like, let it melt on your tongue. No chewing, no chewing. And it's true. When you let the chocolate just melt on your tongue. So what I would say is, you're not chewing the meat of the word. You're letting it melt into your inner being. I would let these words pierce me

someone says that the blessed life is not the reader or even the doer of the word it's the meditator on the word and on his law he meditates that meditates day and night so it was a lot more quiet reflection meditation on scripture um yeah and then you know devotional reading you know reading reading i mean i did read some um books nowhere near as many as i wanted in 2020 i was sort of pastorally overwhelmed but i just read classic books went back into a lot of aw toes the pursuit of god like those sort of classic devotional books i just read them very slowly. That's so good. So just like a very slow pace of enjoying God.

And I found that when I did that in the morning, I could honestly get through almost anything. Wow. It wouldn't last more than two days. Like I would be straight back at cultural level anxiety if I got away from it. But I would do that in the mornings. And then at night, I would do a prayer of examine and just like take all the cares of the day and just say, God, I can't carry these. It's too much.

Wow. So, yeah, anyway, all that to say, personally, I came out of the year very, very spiritually healthy. the year very, very spiritually healthy. My family is doing better than ever because we got to be together a bunch and my kids handled it quite well, which I was thrilled with. Our church, what did our church learn? I think our church honestly learned how much privilege we have as a church. And what I mean by that is like you know people had second houses to go to their places to get out we raised a massive

benevolence fund and we're just not the kind of church where people utilize it in the ways that you would expect so yeah we did pay some relocation costs but most of where our money went went to mental health counseling for our people it didn't go for i can't afford my rent i can't afford my groceries the vast majority of people in our church have access they've died they have support systems nothing if they have credit cards like even having a credit card we forget it's a privilege to have like a bank and trust you with the ability to go into debt so um yeah we learned, I think, how much we have there. I mean, we just wrapped up our budget.

Our giving was up 26% officially, largest giving in the history of our church. So that was interesting. I've actually heard that from several, I would say a much higher percentage of pastors have told me that their giving has gone up. If you count attendance online has gone up like COVID, even though there's economic hardship slash collapse in some ways. Some churches, at least the ones I've talked to, the majority didn't feel it.

The opposite. Why is that? So to me, we're still for the most most part, in the heroic Christian response phase. We're not in the fatigue phase yet. So Keller said the fatigue cycle is two years. So he saw all of the effects of 9-11's trauma two years on. Interesting. So we're only 10 months in.

So a year from now, a year and a half from now, that's when I think it'll really, you know, the truth. It's like being in a fight and you get out of the fight, the adrenaline drops down. You don't know how hard you were hit. We still get a lot of adrenaline. Okay. Interesting. So, yeah. And God's people are generous.

Yeah. The American church is generous. It's a generous church. So I think our church learned that, you know, sort of our fundamentals are very, very strong, very strong prayer culture. So I think a lot of people learn that about their churches. I think a lot of pastors were like, I had some moments of complete and utter disillusionment. You know, I view myself as a thoughtful, careful Bible teacher. And I was amazed at how some people just got sucked into total cultural lies. Really?

Yeah. It shocked me. I was like, man, you've been sitting under this preaching. But then I felt better because Paul founded New Testament churches and they got sucked into false teaching too. So, you know, it's the nature of truth and deception, not necessarily the quality of the leader. Can you identify a certain species of false teaching

that you had to deal with oh gosh i might look i don't i mean to get into it is to unleash hell on your podcast oh bring it on. Too late. Very nuanced, man. I mean, part of it's connected to critical theory, not even critical race theory, critical theory as a discipline, which which immediately i want to say 30 things about which is the historical conditions in which it was created the reason the worldview that school of thought even formed based on the cultural conditions of their day um what i mean by that versus what other people so like i've got a thousand disclaimers but i just saw people become cynical and lose biblical hope. That's the root of it. And so people shifted from during COVID, the church is acting like the bride of Jesus

and loving and serving in powerful ways to within two weeks, the church is the root of all evil in the world. I watched that happen in some people's lives and I was like, what happened? I understand that connected to it. Can you share your thoughts on critical theory i mean i you're such a thoughtful guy you're nuanced you're i haven't done this anyway i don't hesitate i so i mean i i've i've talked about it i mean i'm i'm not i'm a learner i mean i brought in a buddy of mine who did a phd basically

in critical theory ed usinski we had an hour and a half discussion and and he's very nuanced too he's kind of like most christian critics don't understand it um there's various strands that he thinks are really wrongheaded and destructive but there's also some things that are you know heading like like trying trying to go in the right direction but the whole post-modern kind of framework is is you know so he had a very nuanced um there is no such thing as critical theory as some monolithic you know um thing to critique um anyway so i i have discussed it on the podcast a little bit i would love to hear your thinking out loud uh thoughts well i mean the the i guess the strain i'm talking so two things i would say um the challenge for african americans and critical

race theory is that anytime the black church has had a moment to contend for justice in the world the white church has lumped some kind of accusation against them to stop them being able to have a fair and honest discussion about the state of things. So you go back in history, the ways many of the major denominations were formed. You look at Dr. King and his accusations of communism. You look at what's happening now with critical race theory, that the white church often tends, I don't know its motives motives but it often tends whenever there's a movement for justice to throw something out to stop the justice conversation happening

so the real change and reckoning takes place and i think for many african americans all the stuff around critical theory is just the white church's next version of the same old stuff to not talk about the problems that we have. I think that is very, very real. And so some of my African-American friends are like, hey, half of them are like, what are you talking about critical race? I'm talking about Amos. I'm talking about the prophets. I'm talking about Matthew 25.

Why are you injecting that into it? So I think that has in many ways become a red herring. And I think I tweeted back a while ago, you can strain out critical theory and swallow and still swallow the gnat, you know, strain out the gnat of critical race theory and swallow the camel of injustice and things like that. That can happen. And so that's a thought. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about sort of like the postmodern deconstruction dominant lens of the suspicion of power that in any environment says if you have power you're abusing or manipulating someone and the axis of reality that only says power and victim and so it fails to take into account nuanced reality that forms situations and then responds to properly and it does it without the lens of christian love and sacrifice so that spirit gets in where you just walk in

with sort of a hands-folded cynical lens that becomes very self-righteous that says we're on the side of the oppressed and you're just the oppressor. There's a reason that lens exists and it's called just take a quick look at human history, but to, to have that lens without an ethic of Jesus that have that lens without forgiveness, to have that lens without a vision of enemy love, to have that lens without a vision of reconciliation. And I saw some people get swept

up into that version so quickly and you know as it's been written about i think you know maybe one of the the clearest books is cynical theories yeah but as it's been as it's been written about when young white people adopt that worldview it often um comes with a level of um intensity that is not helpful that being said i think i understand why many of them adopt that worldview that's that's super helpful you've read that book cynical theories by james lindsey and helen pluck rose was it good it was exceptional i, it was like – I mean, look, again, I mean, he's an atheist. So he's certainly not – I'm looking at all this stuff. I'm trying to have a Jesus lens as a disciple of Jesus,

how these things work out. He obviously doesn't have a Jesus lens. So when he says – his basic summary is like critical theory is a helpful diagnostic and a terrible solution. So like he would say that. And you go, I think there's definitely truth in that. But I can't live in a world where my option then is reject everything. I'm here to deal with sin.

I'm here to deal with the consequences of sin. I'm here to seek first the kingdom of God. I'm here about Jesus with the consequences of sin. I'm here to seek first the kingdom of God. I'm here about Jesus' reconciling mission. So, you know, like the classic response of like, therefore, I just dust my hands off and look for a political solution like classical liberalism. And that's enough for me. I'm not here thinking the solution to postmodernism and critical theory is classical liberalism, though that is probably obviously the form of government that I think is the best. I'm here for the kingdom of God.

So I've got a whole set of a different agenda that is brought to this discussion that mediates and moderates the entire discussion. But that being said, I watched people in a vulnerable moment latch onto it because it was such an emotionally satisfying view of the world that so much angst was available. That's such a helpful summary, man. I think, yeah, that's about where I'm at, I think. And again, this is an area that I do not claim any sort of expertise.

Me, I have a pastoral level i have an above average reading level on it but certainly nowhere close to an academic level but i james lindsey has been kind of my my i would say my go-to critic he's not my only voice but his understanding is far exceeds most people who advocate for critical theory they don't even understand yeah i agree like he's he said he's a he's an academic yeah he knows what he's talking about right yeah yeah that's good well yeah we've kind of a bit of rabbit trail so um so yeah let's circle all the way back so yeah so so christian's looking back on 2020, what should we learn? You, you gave some personal stuff. Can you expand it a little bit? I would, I would love to hear your thoughts on the future of the church post COVID. We're not quite there yet, but what, what, what should the church have, what should the church have learned going through what it did and what are the things that we should keep? What are the things we should ditch? What are some things on the horizon that we should be pressing into as,

as a big C church? I mean, I can't, I mean, all I can give you is sort of pastoral musings, you know, um, um, what we learned is that we're at a time of such decline in the Western church that even the greatest crisis of our lifetime cannot sustain an urgency around prayer. That is one thing we've learned. So at the start of COVID, everybody was like 24-7 prayer, pressing in, praying for, you know, now people are contemplating their mortality. This is a moment where the imminent frame is being shattered.

People are thinking about, you know, meta things again. Wow. And we just couldn't sustain that. So like, you know, it's the first national crisis without explicitly religious framing. All of the debate was about science. And so there was no, why did God let this happen on Good Morning America? You think back to 9-11, why did God let these attacks happen to America? And the classic things where you said you didn't want God, and so he's lifted his hedge of protection. 20 years later, none of that.

It's all just about science and pro-trump or anti-trump it's like politics it's the solutions of man it's the government of man so we learned how profoundly secular our society has become in the midst of the greatest crisis um yeah the church couldn't sustain uh us couldn't sustain a movement of prayer in the midst of it dependence of god on the midst of it um i think we saw that the church is is that being said is still a remarkably innovative robust thing you know it's it's amazing i mean i don't understand the algorithms of youtube but you know one thing i get fed up all the time is tiny, obscure churches whose online services have 13 views. And I poke around and just see, you know, what King's Anglican Church in the northeast of England is doing with their live online service for whatever reasons, the algorithms. And I'm often amazed not at how bad the quality is, because if you compare it to something like big major churches

that have been doing on you know video production whatever i'm amazed at how a congregation of 75 year olds is still staying connected and streaming through facebook like the church has pivoted and is responding and is doing their bit the best of them to the crisis so i i just think you know i'm tremendously hopeful that Jesus will build his church in any and all circumstances. So that was refreshing to see. What will stay, what will go? Well, it depends on the lens that you view this. I'm not necessarily one of these people who's like, I'm suspicious of all online numbers, period, all the time, ever. Views mean nothing. So they're not an indicator of discipleship. They're not an indicator of character. They're

not an indicator of mission. They just mean for any given percentage that that was online, someone poked their head in. So it's hard to delve meaningful data in terms of discipleship from that. That being said, we will always have an online church from now on, period, because some people are immunocompromised, and the new world we're living in is going to be very hard for them to ever return to fully normal. I think some churches realize they have a larger ministry or window. They're helping more than they're just local their local church so some people are going to organize secondary ministries

um you know so let's say how did like charles how did in touch come to be how did chuck swindoll come to be well they realized hey there's something here that's better than it's more helpful than just for our local congregation i think quite a few churches have realized that, so they'll develop secondary media ministries. That's probably a good thing, to get God's word out in ways that people can access it. But it should not be people's normative experience. The church is an embodied thing. We're not Gnostics. Being physically present to one another matters.

Receiving communion together matters. Watching people be baptized, you know, those things are embodied realities for the church. So, yeah, I don't know if I'm adding anything particularly insightful. But mentoring is great on Zoom, as it turns out. You know, and I think seminaries knew this. The cohort model where you come together for 10 days and then you meet monthly online, that's how I did my theological studies. That works pretty well for mentoring.

So I think there's a lot of leadership networks and environments with whom this is like, hey, this really works. And there's some other things where it just does not work. Small groups do not work well long term over zoom as a primary mechanism you know so day-to-day life requires presence and personhood in place um but secondary kinds of environments you know they work online um one thing that's interesting our church did alpha online evangelism online is going better than ever really so you know people are taking

those questions and searches online and the obstacles are gone so we our church has been a big alpha church for many years alpha is an evangelistic bible study for people who aren't familiar it's basically the angle scale live is how i describe it it's it goes for depending on how you configure it between 10 or 12 weeks and you just go from how can there even be a god to jesus is lord over the course of that time and um but it but it relies heavily on creating a welcoming environment hospitality home-cooked meals well for a lot of people that's still terrifying to show up now you just pop into a zoom call and you can say what you want without any fear of repercussions. And you don't have to dress up and you can be socially awkward.

Like there's no social anxiety is taken out. So Alpha Online has gone very, very well in that. I think online search, online evangelism will remain from this and be very, very helpful. Same with apologetics. So I don't know. They're just a couple of initial observations. The church needs to gather. And so in some sense, like the church is not the building,

it's not the Sunday service. Yeah, I guess. And legally a marriage is not you sitting in a room with your spouse, I guess. But for the dynamics of a healthy marriage, you must be present with one another. And so I think we're learning the value of gathering and some other side digital options as well.

Yeah, the way I would put it is gathering is part of the DNA of what church is. You can't have church without some kind of gathering. And Sunday morning service service as it's traditionally performed in 2021 western america you know that's one kind that's one way to gather um but yeah so so you you could reframe the church service whatever as long as you're still gathering on some level if you're not gathering and is a zoom gathering i think yeah i think that would qualify on some level but like you said that it is quite gnostic in some ways and yet

i don't know i just thinking out loud that you know we're kind of in a post printing press shift in culture and just like the the the world that came to be after the printing press was vastly different than prior to the printing press so also with you know post online post social media post covid even you know um yeah i don't know like is our online platforms the new marketplace where the gospel needs to go? I definitely think that's true, yes. Yeah. My lens is maybe it's like primary and secondary. Yeah.

The primary lens should be an embodied lens of relationships where you are known, loved, held accountable under spiritual authority somewhere. Now we're getting into like, what is a church? But I think like there's some fundamental things that need to be in place in order for you to be in healthy, functional, biblical church. But there's all sorts of secondary means, supplemental means, and powerfully supplemental means that are very, very helpful. So I say all the time, people say, what do you think of video venues?

I'm like, I don't think Paul would do video venues for church, but he would absolutely use them for apostolic ministry. So would Paul send in a message every two or three months to a congregation he was overseeing for? Absolutely. Would that be completely valid yes it would but that's different as a secondary medium then you know you have no primary gathering no pastor preaching but that's another he wouldn't if he was pastor in a local church he wouldn't

make the video sermon like the kind of dna of the gathering but like you said as a yes that's helpful yeah he'd skype back into the antioch church give updates from philippi and you know no totally 100 yes send a kick video to corinth and tell them to get their act together i'm gonna be there in a couple weeks you better get your stuff together that could have happened on zoom maybe you know uh actually dean could have been on zoom or there's or there could have been people zooming in you know there could have been people who couldn't make it that still contributed so i'm not a lot of by any means i love technology i think it should be um it should

be discerningly used and leveraged but um we have to always be aware of the unintended consequences and so often if you're a trend chaser you don't even bother talking about those things it's all upside no downside and so i want to yeah you know leverage the upside and minimize the downside you think after the vaccine does its thing maybe by summertime when the majority have been vaccinated that things will go back to largely normal or not because you kind of reference like there might be a two year from now kind of like fatigue um you know descending upon the church so i tell you i tell you something interesting it which is has huge ramifications for the whole of american life so i we did this game in every environment that I'm in called take it or leave it.

Very simple game. What would you leave in 2020 and what would you take from it? You know, basically what was the good, what was the bad, what do you want to be in 2021? And every single person without fail, 100 out of 100, very small sample size, but very consistent, said my pace of life was off. And the new pace of life has been a gift to me. Better relationships with my spouse, better relationships with my kids, way, way healthier, and I've got to figure out how to maintain this and not go back to the craziness.

Every single person said that. So I think one of the – will we go back to normal? single person said that so um i think one of the will we go back to normal if by that you mean will will uh uh in-person events happen will we be in restaurants again and wearing masks seemed like a bad dream yeah that was slowly resumed to normal but i think again i i saw another article as wall street journal so you know depending on how you view it, a credible source, but certainly a legitimate source of some kind said in Midtown, 90% of the skyscrapers are still empty, meaning 90% of the workforce is not back in the workplace.

And so a lot of folks are finding that they can do something on Zoom and it's some sort of split, two days, five days, three days, four days, whatever. I definitely see that being a permanent feature of American life. So I think, yeah, we'll go back. Of course, life will resume in some capacity. But I think definitely the way we think about work and pace

will change for a lot of people. And we'll sustain that as long as we can okay what about like politically um i mean that this politically 2020 was was just a disaster by that i mean the church letting the the profound divisiveness among the political parties just just seep down into our soul as christians it's it's it's it's insane like are we going to recover from that or how like do you think now that you know trump's gone sort of it's not The ghost of Trump still exists. I mean, is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing?

Are we going to get beyond? Or is it going to keep getting worse? I mean, in four years, are we going to experience this profound divisiveness again? Well, the problem with Biden is that Biden's terrible too. He's just terrible in different ways. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So Trump was terrible in very explicit ways.

And in contrast, Biden is like way nicer, but I think many of his policies are terrible. Well, nobody voted for Biden. I mean, they voted against Trump, but nobody who voted for Biden. I mean, they voted against Trump, but nobody who voted for Biden. I mean, that's not, he could have been a hologram of people would have voted for him. I mean, some say he is a hologram. Well, I mean, you know, growing up in Australia, it's still, I still find myself in total disbelief in American politics. You know, I think that the whole world kind of like just folds its hand

and sort of watches the American circus. It's very hard for people in America to understand how people around the world perceive them. But getting back to the church component, oh, my gosh, the compromise was just if Jesus wrote an eighth letter to the American church, he would have spanked them on the political part. I mean he would have just raged against them. That was like a horrific political idolatry. That was as great a political idolatry as any king in the Old Testament, defying the covenant conditions and relying on a pagan

nation to save them i mean it was just it was heartbreaking to me on both sides on both sides um yeah we i think the church found itself in a in a with weakened discipleship with consumer christianity didn't have the antibodies to fight off the political virus, and it got utterly infected. And so people found themselves. Now, look, to be clear, apart from Eric Metaxas, who I've known for a long time, I don't know anybody personally, I don't have any friends personally, which shows sort of like the environment that I live in. I'm in the Northeast, I'm in a very, very liberal environment. Who was excited about Trump?

Right. I don't know anybody who was like, Trump's our guy. I know a lot of people who were like worst case scenario and a lot of people who were like Supreme Court Trumpers and court Trumpers. I know people who were Trump for the economy. I know people who were like, Trump is better than Hillary. So I don't know anybody who was genuinely excited. Now I have friends in the South and other parts of the country

and in the Pentecostal prophetic world who were like, Trump is King Cyrus. I struggled to take that seriously. But the compromise has been horrific, and it will take possibly a decade to recover from it. In fact, it will have to to be you know how people who are alive right now don't really remember the moral majority they know it as a cultural reference point right but it hasn't shaped hasn't shaped their lives or hearts we may need another generation

whose lives and hearts are not shaped by this before we get our credibility back wow is that maybe 10 years yeah probably, probably 10 years. So you're talking both. You said both sides. Both Trump is our guy. If you're not pro-Trump, you're not a Christian. All the way on the other extreme of the kind of anti-Trump hysteria that if you're for Trump, then you're basically a part of the KKK and are voting for Hitler.

And, you know, how can you even call yourself human? Like both of those extremes. And it's hard because I don't see a lot of middle ground there. It's like. Well, yeah, it's, you know, I agree. And the part of the challenge was people were making false equivalencies. Yeah. There were so many false equivalencies and false framings of the issue

you know so to compare america uh and president trump to hitler and germany is a false equivalence it's terrible yeah but many people did and so it was very very so people who were like in the middle trying to sort of navigate a third way were often accused of cowardice and not taking a stand. And there is many, many times when being a third-way person was a failure of courage at an important moment. You know, it's, again, part of it was all lumped in. A lot of it was lumped in with the racial conversation as well, you know, and Trump. I don't know if Trump is a racist or not.

I will say this he agitated and i do think consciously racial tensions in the nation and so for people yeah so for people who were you know minorities or whatever i mean that that touched them at a visceral level and then you know white christians not pushing back on that or commenting that or dismissing that there was so much credibility lost right there yeah now again you know so it was it's it was a it was a total disaster it was a an absolute um it was a scan of our idolatry and it was manifest so powerfully and we i genuinely think we've a lot of repenting to do we've blown so much credibility god i grieve over it yeah yeah i i think yeah i don't know i

i had to delete all my news apps from my phone i deleted all my social media from my phone um like i just had to, because I'm not even like you, I'm explicitly capital A apolitical, not even nonpartisan because I don't even want to acknowledge those categories as legitimate ways of the kingdom of God. I've been exiled to the land of America,

which is my Babylon. I seek the good of the city to the best of my ability, but it's within a completely different framework than the politics of the day. And so to me, I look on to the partisanship and the polarization and the power, the power plays equally on both sides. And this is where this is where I don't know if you fall on one side or the other, whether pro Trump or anti Trump. I think you're just blinded by the fact that it's all one big power play. And both Biden and Trump are largely creations, narrative creations of particular media outlets too. And I would even say, and I might need to unpack that.

No, I'm not going to unpack that. I'm still working through that. But what was I going to say? I had something brilliant I was going to say. Oh, oh. oh i was gonna say i had something brilliant i was gonna say oh oh transcend as somebody who is is on neither side if i was kind of if you want to ask an exile hey can you give us some of your outsider perspective on what you see going on as somebody who's not invested on any other side out of principle i would say i think the anti-trumpers need to understand the the the what like what led to trump trump trump's a byproduct he's a symptom he he's he's not it's

not like people he's not the foundation he he's the symptom of something much much deeper and i also think come on like trump is if you were going to capture America in one person, it is Donald Trump. He's arrogant. Yep. He's sexually immoral. Yep. He's after power. Yep. He's after money. Yep. He doesn't tell the truth. That's the embodiment of America, left or right. Trump is you. He is. And I think people who are very anti-trump don't want to face the reality of that that deep down they are trump yeah anyway i hate even saying anything about politics publicly because people are so embroiled on both sides it's like you're gonna tick somebody off and make somebody happy and confuse everybody else. But whatever.

I don't know. I think – what are your thoughts, John? I read Chris Wright's book. Chris Wright wrote a book called Here Are Your Gods. And it was recorded off a series of lectures he gave. And the second part of the book or the last part of the last couple of chapters are all on politics. And on politics, it's basically to what standard in the bible old and new testament does god hold leaders and to what standards old new testament does god hold nations

and i'm telling you it was an absolute it was like i read it and i was i was like gosh this guy's so harsh and chris christopher wright you know he's a scholar he's a missiologist guy's so harsh and chris christopher wright you know he's a scholar he's a missiologist normally has such a beautiful tone and he was so prophetic and harsh on america as a nation he basically says america was founded on the violation of three of the ten commandments and it's got arrogance and it's turned away from god and so i'm so i affirm a lot of what you're saying. I'm a sympathizer, though, with movements that get America to repent movements. I'm a sympathizer for the National League of Congress. That's a good response to me. Sadly, though, it is often the most conservative people that are calling for that, the ones who are enmeshed with Trump.

We should be repenting for our idolatry, not looking to human leaders as saviors in the midst of it. So I definitely agree. It has been tragic. I've lived in America 24 years now, basically my entire adult life, and it's been tragic to watch the decline of the United States as a nation in many, many ways. And we've just got to stop putting our trust in America and put our trust in God. We have to be kingdom people, and we have to realize, hey, I love America, meaning I'm here by choice. There's much about the values of the United States that I resonate with. It also has a complicated and complicit history that it whitewashes literally over many times and fails to take into account.

And so I have very little hope for the future of America. I have very, I have a lot of hope for the kingdom of God in the world. And you just look at where the church is thriving. Fastest place the church is growing in the world is in Iran. Is it really? So I think, yes, the myth we have taken into is that you have to have a Christian nation for Christianity to survive and thrive. Yeah. False. Yeah.

And so I think our emphasis is off. I'm a renewal junkie. I'm always looking for the redemptive side of things. So I'm always pushing for that. But it certainly feels like – now we we're at geopolitics but it certainly feels like the future belongs to china really doesn't fit yeah yeah i mean i mean i mean um it's it's too meta to unpack meaningfully yeah but certainly the future will look different from the past and you you even mentioned it a little bit based on the printing press.

If you study the Ark of Nations, the cultural advantages that they carry, you know, so in many parts it used to be, you know, the central places of agriculture and plains. And then the reason the British Empire was so effective is because it dominated the seas, the access to shipping and coastline. And we're just not in a world anymore where geography is defining things.

It's about tech. It's about online. It's about how culture is formed. It's shifting economies. So I think where those things are heading are going to radically reshape the power structures of the coming century. That's a good word, man.

I mean, it's sobering. And to say you have little hope in america but much hope in the kingdom of god that that to use your own phrase from earlier you know that's not a controversial statement and yeah it is right i mean that shouldn't at all be controversial but gosh so i guess that's my hope and prayer is that going through 2020 i hope that people see the bankruptcy both personally spiritually culturally the bankruptcy of partisan secular politics and hopefully we can move beyond that hopefully we can do i mean come to see the beauty and sober reality what you just said that our hope is in the kingdom of god and not just

what christian's gonna say no they're gonna agree but i mean practically do you do you live your life in agreement to that truth you know um yeah Yeah, I mean, politics matters. Laws matters. Laws move horizons of possibility. They have huge influx. I think that politics obviously plays a definitive role in our lives over the last four years. The point I'm trying to make is when the church derives its

hope, I just preached this past week on Jeremiah 17, when it draws its strength, when its roots, when it looks for life and energy and nutrients and sustenance, when its roots draw water from politics and political leaders rather than God himself. Jeremiah says, you are cursed. And the Hebrew language, he's referring to the curses of Deuteronomy 28 and 29. It's covenant violation to put your hope in anything other than God. So, you know, I just said to people, you know, you have way less agency than you know. The gift is you live in America, you get to vote for your political candidate.

So vote to the best of your, to vote in the way that your conscience allows you, or don't vote if your conscience allows you, and then spend the rest of your life seeking first radically the kingdom of God wherever you are, and using the almost unlimited agency you have in daily life to embody the teachings of Jesus and seek first his kingdom. And if that was an approach Christians had, I think our nation would look very, very different. If Christians were living the way of Jesus, a salt and light in their daily lives, rather than fending it off and projecting it onto leaders

you know much of this was a giant excuse for our failures of our own discipleship easy to yell at trump hard to critique myself easy to advocate for biden you know making you know repairing america rather than me doing the hard work of repairing relationships so again it's all it's all i want's all, I want people to take responsibility for their own lives and to embody and seek first God's kingdom where they are. And I think so often this was all a distraction from us doing that. Pastor John Tyson, I think that's a good word to end on there. People want to find more of your work. My audience, a lot of them not only know who you are but love who you are but for

those who don't um you're a pastor out in new york city you got uh your sermons are on a podcast you have the websites what's website yeah if you just got if you just got a church.nyc that's it that's robust church.nyc that's where all this stuff is okay and your books are all listed there and everything i mean you do a lot of writing i don't think that i don't think they are man i don't know where any they're on amazon you've written so much stuff that people aren't even aware because it's all like for your local church and stuff and and uh which is i think it's i think it's awesome actually it's it's it's different than the typical american pastor but um it's fascinating. Yeah, the stuff I've written, my latest book, I've got another one coming out soon in May.

My one before this was called Beautiful Resistance, The Joy of Conviction and the Culture of Compromise. And the whole thing was about trying not to get sucked into politics and radically, defiantly, explicitly following Jesus. So that book's got some teeth to it that I hope sell people in their discipleship. Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks so much.

Sweet. Thanks so much for being on, man. We've got to do this again before 2021's over. That'd be great. Cheers, mate. Thank you.