Theology in the Raw - 843: #843 - The Business of War: Justin Bronson Barringer

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Justin Bronson Barringer is a pastor, consultant, writer, editor, and a PhD candidate in religious ethics at Southern Methodist University. He’s also a star in the hit reality show Duck Dynasty. (Just kidding.) I met Justin many years ago when he agreed to read (and critique!) early drafts of my book Fight, now called Nonviolence: The Revolutionary Way of Jesus. He was very influential in helping me understand Christian nonviolence and the ethical challenges it presents. In this episode, we talk about his new book that he edited: The Business of War: Theological and Ethical Reflections on the Military-Industrial Complex​. Once we understand how profitable war can be, it sort of changes your view on the whole military industrial complex.   We also talk about a theology of country music. So, yeah... Along with his wife, Justin hosts the Rogue Ministry Podcast, a show dedicated to helping people create and sustain faithful ministries. Justin and Rachel founded Diapers, Etc. a ministry which "exists to provide diapers, feminine hygiene products, and other important goods not typically covered by government programs or other service providers." In this effort, they work alongside the good folks at Owenwood Farm and Neighbor Space, a campus of White Rock UMC, as well as with the fantastic organization Hope Supply Co., and other partners to serve over 200 families a month.  Justin has a BA in Oral Communication from Lipscomb University, and an MDiv from Asbury Theological Seminary, with a focus on Christian ethics, and he studied faith and public policy in Washington, DC. He has been a missionary in Greece and China, worked extensively among homeless people in cities as varied as Nashville and Los Angeles to Lexington and Little Rock. Justin has served at mercy and justice organizations like The Dream Center and Sojourners. He was also Outreach Pastor at Embrace Church for three years.  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. In case you didn't know, this is both a podcast and there is a YouTube version of most every episode. So if you want to watch this following discussion that I'm going to have with my friend Justin, then you can go to my YouTube channel, just YouTube, press and sprinkle, and it should pop up. Also, if you want to join the Patreon Theology in the Raw community, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw, or just look down into the show notes. There's all the details there that you can click on. You can support the show for as little as five bucks a month, become part of the Theology in the Raw Patreon community. And yeah, you can support the

work that is going on here at this podcast. If the podcast has blessed you, touched you, challenged you, made you angry or whatever, you just want to throw money at it, then you can support the show, patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. My guest today is Justin Bronson Barringer. And I do talk a little bit about how Justin and I got to know each other many, many years ago. It happened at the beginning stages of when I was writing the book, Fight, A Christian Case for Nonviolence, which actually is coming out under a different title called Nonviolence, The Revolutionary Way of Jesus. Same book, different cover, different title different forward too i got a forward uh greg boyd forwarded that new uh rebrand of the book so you can check that out um but justin was he was

really significant in shaping that book and i talked about the uh talk about it in at the beginning of this conversation um but justin he's a super super smart dude PhD student finishing his PhD or it might actually be done by the time this comes out he has edited several books the one that was really helpful that I read many years ago and thinking through non-violence is called a faith not worth fighting for oh what's the subtitle here let me pull this up addressing commonly asked questions about Christian non-violence. His recent book, though, that he edited, co-edited with a couple other guys, is called The Business of War, Theological and Ethical Reflections on the Military-Industrial

Complex. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about war as a business? A lot of people, a lot of companies make a lot of profits off of war, and that can be problematic. And that is the bulk of our conversation that you're going to listen to. We also talk about the theology of country music. Yeah. So anyway, there it is. So without further ado, please welcome to Theology in a Row for the first time, Justin Bronson-Barringer. All right, I'm here with my friend Justin Berringer Bronson. Justin, this is your first time on Theology Never All, but man, we have a bit of a history. Now, we met when I was writing my book, Fight, A Christian Case for Nonviolence, which is actually coming out in a new, it's kind of being rebranded this year. But I don't, so you probably remember how we came across each other. I remember it very vividly. You agreed to read earlier drafts of

Fight. And I'll never forget getting back your comments you had more your the word count in your comments doubled the word count of the original section that I actually wrote and you're responsible you are I mean I would say almost single-handedly responsible for pushing me from, you know, 95% of the way to embracing what I would, I don't know if there's a technical phrase for it, but I would say absolute nonviolence, that there is no violence as a last resort. And, you know, it's tough. And even now looking back, I'm like, you know, that going from 95 to 100 is, that's a, I'm not going to pretend like there's not, you know, that going from 95 to 100 is that that's a I'm not going to pretend like there's not, you know, some tough things to work through and questions that are tough. But that you you you convinced me like you pointed out that that 95 percent did have a lot of inconsistencies, you know, using violence as a last resort. So anyway, do you remember? do you remember writing all those comments? I do. I do. And so apparently I'm, I'm becoming

notorious for this kind of thing because my advisor recently wrote in the acknowledgements for a book he did on truth that I wrote something in there, like, this is the most boring chapter conclusion in the history of chapter conclusions, revise it. And so he actually quoted me in the acknowledgments and was like, this is the kind of editing I got, but I'm thankful that he spoke the truth. So I've heard from a few people that I might go a little overboard sometimes on the editing.

That's funny. Yeah, I do remember that. And I'm glad that you got that book out. And since then, your co-writer, Andrew, and I have also become friends. Yeah. So that's been great. Yeah, so I remember that for sure. For sure. I'm super excited about this. But why don't you first give us a little bit of backstory for those who don't know who you are. Give us a five-minute kind of overview of your upbringing and kind of your theological journey and so on.

Yeah. mostly in Alaska as a military brat, Air Force specifically, with my stepdad and my mom and my siblings. And we were a church-going family, pretty active in the church, but I don't know how much of that was always sinking in at home, if that makes sense. You know, it was kind of a rough home life sometimes, but grew up mostly, I was just talking to somebody else about this the other day. It was hilarious. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in like the northernmost place you can live in America, right? So that hit me. And of course, it's especially relevant thinking about why it was called the Southern Baptist Church, right? And not something else because of its history with slavery, right? And I didn't know all that as a kid. But looking back on that now, the irony, kind of sick irony of that is apparent to me. But anyway, and then when I was, I don't know,

young teenager, so about middle school, I moved to North Carolina to move in with my dad. And there we got plugged in. He was with the Churches of Christ, the Restoration Movement churches. A lot of you might know them as the ones who don't use instruments in the worship services usually. So then moved to that, and I went to a Wesleyan, generically Wesleyan, not denominationally Wesleyan seminary, where I got exposed to a whole lot more, and then, of course, now I'm doing my PhD at Southern Methodist University, sort of getting exposed to a whole new group of theological ideas and all of this. And so I'm kind of, you know, other people have said this kind of thing, a theological mutt, right? Like, if somebody were to try to label me, it would be, you know,

Christian, anarcho, pacifist, Anabaptist, social justice. I mean, you know, I don't know how I'd describe all of it now. I mean, I wish I could just say that I'm doing my best to be a disciple of Christ, you know, and here are the commitments I have that are an outworking of that. But I've noticed that so much of the way our politics has even affected discussions in our church, that we're reluctant to sort of even talk about what we think Christ demands of us, if it's not what sort of the majority of whatever group or groups we're a part of. And so I've mostly, when it comes to beliefs like nonviolence and stuff, I've mostly been in situations where I'm in the minority on that one, having been largely grown in evangelical churches. And even now that I'm worshiping in a mainline church at a United Methodist church,

you know, even there met with, not by, thankfully, church leadership, but with some of the other folks in church, met with a great deal of resistance for commitments to nonviolence and commitments to giving away your wealth and commitments to having a consistent ethic of life. So that makes, you know, my politics idiosyncratic, at least in the system we currently have trying to, you know, say, well, yeah, I'm not for abortion, but I'm also not for the death penalty. And I'm not for people lacking access to health care, and I'm not, you know, all of these things because I'm for life. And so that's something that I think continues to work its way through my, oh my gosh, I thought my cell phone was turned off. Worst possible.

You're fine, You're fine. I just thought of it. I think mine... I'm not sure if I put mine on airplane mode either, which I do, but anyway. Sorry about that. To add to the interesting muttonness of your theology, you also have... You've got a pretty good Southern accent

and you look like you belong in the duck dynasty family so i imagine when people hear that you're a pacifist they they probably don't believe you at first or there's definitely yeah and i've i've actually really tried um in recent years to think about really embracing who i am as, you know, even though I grew up largely in Alaska, a lot of my influential years in my teens and all, I was born in rural North Carolina and then moved back to rural North Carolina. You know, went to college in Arkansas, you know, went to college in Arkansas, Tennessee, that poor white folks, especially in Appalachia, often need some of the same things that we see in, say, African American liberation theology.

Well, some of the needs are similar for folks, for poor white rural folks. And I want to sort of embrace that in my theology. So in fact, I'm actually working on a project right now with a friend on theology and country music. I saw that. What's that all about? Yeah, well, we noticed we were invited or there was a series on theology and pop culture that's being put together right now by Matthew Brake with Lexington and Fortress Academic and a lot of great books in that series. So like pretty much anything you could nerd out about, there's a book for you. about there's a book for you. But what we noticed when we started, my friend and I started looking,

is there's like tons of books on rap and theology and rock and theology and jazz and pop music. Some of these musics that are much newer have this whole library of literature, but there's very little about theology and country music, and that's odd to me because country music deals so explicitly with theological topics and using theological language, and one of the things that we're trying to find, we think that is similar, James Cone made the argument that jazz and the blues, that kind of thing, provided a theology for African Americans.

Before they had a voice, say, of academic theologians, that that music shaped and reflected their a couple new books that have come out on this but like the idea that you can have something about cheating on a spouse murder uh redemption alcoholism uh being a faithful church member all that on the same album and it's not ironic because this is the real life experience of these people living in, you know, we're all Appalachian and other places. Interestingly enough, you got the sound from out there. But all of these folks came from poor backgrounds. music reflects so much of what I think can be really a positive movement in theology that could help with some of the discussions that we're struggling through right at this very moment, given all that's given, you know, happened in recent times in terms of political violence and all of that. But also what I think it can do is help introduce some important theological topics to people who have been going to church their whole lives and then they've never heard

about, you know, eschatology, or if they have, it's been in some really perverse way, you know, some really bad rapture theology or something from a novel, right? So anyway, in that book, we're just trying to sort of take country vernacular and country music and country lifestyle and look at it theologically and ask questions about how it can inform theological and ethical issues. You know, country, the country world, I mean, massive extraction of resources in West Virginia, all through Appalachia, pulling out coal, removing mountains, and the people that live there are not benefiting from that, right? So I could go on and on about all that, but basically, it's going to be a book to introduce theological topics as they relate to country music.

So we're covering kind of the basic systematic theological loci, so creation and eschatology and pneumatology and all of these kind of things. And it'll be a sort of primer in Christian theology via country music. I don't mind country music. I actually was, I only listened to country music in high school. I mean, I boots, cowboy hat, the whole deal. And yeah, chewed tobacco. My girlfriend's chewed tobacco, hunted fish. I mean, I did the whole deal um and yeah chewed tobacco my girlfriend's chewed tobacco hunted fish i mean did the whole thing right um so i actually do have an appreciation of of the culture that surrounds that i um i i wouldn't say i'm in that vibe necessarily so much now but i i and my daughter

who's a musician i've grown to try to appreciate all kinds of music from an artistic perspective, even if it's not my genre of choice. But I would not. So that's just my running start here. But I would not have guessed. I'm sure my listeners are too like country music. Theology isn't country music, just profoundly superficial, thoughtless hound dogs and pickup trucks and drinking and you know yeah but the way what would you say to that like would you say there's actually a lot more thoughtfulness going in or even if it is that that is a real lived experience that needs to be theologically reflected on or both uh yeah all of the above. Some of the very best sort of protest music has come from the country music world. about things like coal mining, the kind of coal mining that was happening.

You find some great war protest songs. Really? You find, yeah, I mean, just all through the history of country music, there's really complexity there. What I think your comment points to, and it is kind of a common one, is that there, even for folks who wouldn't intend to, there's kind of an elitism that keeps us away from country music. Which is why I think there have been so few academic books written on the subjects that we're covering.

Doing an academic book on rock or rap, nobody really questions that. They're going to say, oh, yeah, there's some brilliant work out there. And, you know, this will help us understand communities and subcultures and all this kind of stuff. And I want to say, why can't we treat Southerners? And so there's been a whole history, and we'll cover some of this in the book and point to some other books that cover it in more depth, but all the way from the

very beginning of country music, basically rich city folk came to the image of poor country folk and had them record these songs that they would sing on their front porch and share with one another, and of poor country folk and had them record these songs that they would sing on their front yeah and share with one another and then they would find they would dress people in like these overalls and straw hats was the look for a while and it's called hillbilly music and and and they're like

this is not how we dress this is not but it but it had a had a a marketing look to it and so a lot of what we know of country music really uh has been influenced by the way it's been marketed and controlled by the producers a lot of more mainline country music, if for no other reason, like I said, it describes a certain lifestyle. There's a lot there to help people understand a worldview. You were just talking about, you used to chew tobacco, one of my favorite lines in all of country music. This is poetry right here, folks. Alan Jackson, one of the great, and I do mean that Alan Jackson is one of the great writers, musical writers of the past 20 or 30 years,

but he's got a, it's all right to be a redneck. It's all right to have a girl named Thelma Lou that don't mind a little kiss when you got a little chew. That is poetry right there. And so it reflects your reality because a lot of folks, and this is something that folks do often that don't mean to, and I do this. I'm now a city boy. I live in one of the biggest metroplexes in the country in Dallas. For the last many years, I've been working in urban areas. My kids go to a school where, as far as I know, and my wife works there too,

they're the only white kids at the school. And so there's a way in which I'm disconnected from that. And so even I can look down on people and say, well, those ignorant, you know, backwoods country folk, they're bringing us down when when there certainly are some maybe a lot of folks in that group who I would have issues with. But there's also some really excellent, incredible stuff in the South and in Southern culture and Southern food, in Southern hospitality. These are all real things that the church really could learn from and put into practice in other parts of the country and the world. And so I think we're not trying to make country music legitimate or relevant or any of that because I mostly think that Christianity should not seek to be relevant. But what I think we are trying to do

is just say, country, people's lives are worth studying, their ideas are worth thinking about, and there's a lot more wisdom in those traditions than we might expect for those of us who haven't investigated. That's great that but you yeah you're challenging me man that's super hot and i would acknowledge too i don't know if you can see

on your end we're having kind of ongoing audio blips here and there so i apologize hopefully my guy can clean it up he's pretty amazing um and i want to give a shout out to a buddy of mine jay newman who's gonna love love everything you're saying he's very much oh good yeah he's he's he's very forward thinking in so many ways but he's very very 100 southern and he hates it hates it when southern culture is sort of labeled as just backwards racist you know white whatever all this stuff that he's like dude that's just so horrible for so many reasons to broad brush an entire culture and not um because i mean that is when you think of like country music you do think yeah a little more rednecky probably a lot

more racism you know and and right wing this and nationalism that and stuff. But then, I don't know, to your point, you take any kind of genre of music and there's going to be a complex intertwining of Christian themes and values and profoundly anti-Christian themes and values from pop music to rap to whatever. Like it's, any kind of genre is going to have that blend. And there's also going to be wisdom and beauty and art because humans are producing it. And that's what happens when humans get together.

We are created in God's image. So if we put our hand to something and, and produce something, it's, there's going to be beauty somewhere in there. So, um, yeah, no, that's good. All of the negative stuff is there. All the things that we're we are trying to address the fact that most of country music has been white folks. Right. We had Charlie Pride, Ray. Oh, gosh, right in my mind, just go blank, Ray Charles.

In country music, there's a great song called The Girl in the Country Song that's done by a female duo where they talk about how girls are used as props in country music. So all of that is there. But it's in every genre. It's in every genre, though. It's like there's no genre that's – even – should we even start in on Christian music and some of the – yeah. I did a podcast with a guy a couple years ago who was deep into the Christian music scene and kind of like what we're going to talk about in a second.

The businesses of war peeking behind the scenes of the money and greed and hypocrisy. Yeah, I've been in that world as well, actually. I won't go into all the stories, but did spend a little bit of time in that world. spend a little bit of time in that world and I was really amazed and really loved certain people in the industry for what they were doing and who they were and there were others in the industry that yeah I I won't make comments on it but that's good I think there there were some there were some there are some significant issues and in, if you don't mind me mentioning it, since you mentioned the book, I'll mention the book is part of a series that I'm co-editing. It's called The Business of Modern Life. And the reason that's relevant is because we intend to have a volume in this series on what we're either going to call the church or worship industrial complex, where we're going to look at a lot of that. And we've got other books in the

series too. There's one that we have that's going together right now on the business of incarceration, the prison industrial complex. There's one on education. There's one on farming, education, there's one on farming agricultural industrial complex, there's two series that are in various stages of production, but one that we want to have in there is definitely that church worship kind of industrial complex to to take a deep dive into that and what's there and how money shapes theology. And I could go on, that's part of my dissertation. I could go on about that for days, but I'll just say for now, money shapes theology and money almost always shapes theology in a negative way. shaped theology and money almost always shapes theology in a negative way.

Wow. That's so good. Let's, let's transition then. By the way, the link on your website doesn't work. The business of modern life series that you have hyperlinked, I clicked over it. It's not found. Thank you. Yeah. They whip and stock, um, who, who the series is through just updated their website. Like just new one came out. So I will get the new link and get it up as soon. Thank you for letting me know.

No, no. They told me they had a new website coming and it's up now. But yeah. Sounds like my website constantly has links that aren't put in right. Let's talk about the business of war. Again, the subtitle of this book, Theological Ethical Reflections of the Military Industrial Complex, co-edited, co-edited with James McCarty, came out October 1st, 2020. And by the way, I mean, we're pre-recording this, obviously, but you're going to get a discount code that should be listed in the show notes below. listed in the show notes below. We're not 100% sure on what kind of discount there is,

but there's going to be a discount if you go to the Whip and Stock website through this code and purchase it there. You can get it for a cheaper price. So why don't you give us background, overview of the book? I mean, the title, especially the subtitle, says a and you, you know, I can read between the lines and probably guess what you're getting at here. But yeah, I would love for you to talk about the book and also more specifically just the content, this idea that war could possibly be a business, which is a really frightening thing to consider. Yeah. So it all started several, many years ago, actually, that my co-editors, Jimmy McCarty and Matt Tapey, they are longtime friends of mine.

And we were having a discussion because a conference that we all attend, the theme for the next year was going to be on business ethics. And I was thinking, I don't have any, like, that's not my area, right? I write about nonviolence and wealth and poverty. And maybe I, you know, and so all of a sudden I was like, wait, maybe if we talked about business ethics, ethics as it relates to war, there's got to be something there, right? And so as I got to talking to Matt and Jimmy, they're like, yeah, absolutely. And so we knew immediately that this was a good idea. So the next year at that same conference, we had a panel that presented some of the original stuff that got edited and put in this volume. And what was interesting, two things,

lots of people showed up to the panel. And for those who have been academics and been to academic conferences, often it's you in a room with five, six, maybe 10 other people, and you're presenting your work. And that's just the reality of it. And this one, the room was packed.

And a whole lot of more well-known theologians were there. And one of them came up to me afterwards and said, can I have a copy of your paper? And for those who, again, who aren't with me, that's a high honor when somebody asks for that, because that usually means they think there's something really worthwhile in there that they want to dig into. So that's kind of how it all started. And then we discussed, OK business. There's one analogy in the book that compares war to cinema, and it says the movie industry is first and foremost a business. Occasionally, it does put out good art, something meaningful, but first and foremost, it's a business. Well, war, I think, would be looked at the same way in some sense. We might say there have been good outcomes.

Even though I'm nonviolent, I can still acknowledge that sometimes, you know, some good things come out of a war. I think, you know, even though it wasn't America's or the Allies' intent for a long time, but, you know, I think rescuing prisoners, Jews and others in Nazi camps. I appreciate that. But when you look at so many of the wars that the U.S. has been involved in, you can tie them to economic interest of particular people. And so there's a whole group of people that really benefit.

I mean, if you own a defense contracting company, you generally benefit when there's some kind of violent conflict because you produce the goods or the services necessary for that to happen. And so those folks have, you know, lobbyists in Congress, those folks often are in Congress. A great example of this, I don't know that we talk about this much in the book, but Dick Cheney is an excellent example of someone who both was in government and had very strong ties to the defense industry. And I told this story, I think, on another podcast, but I'll tell it here because I think it's relevant. I was at a meeting at the Capitol building, actually, several years ago. Not last week. You weren't there last week. No, definitely not there last week. No, you will not find me among the proud boys. There were people that kind of look like you, though. You might be.

I could blend in. I think I would definitely maybe I should go as a subversive. By then they can really say Antifa was there or something. But anyway, years ago I was at I was at the Capitol and we were doing a study on faith and public policy. And we met with some folks from kind of the world of national defense and like kind of thinking about how that works related to our faith and all this kind of thing. And one of the people came in and he basically said this. He said, I was working during the Bush administration. He goes, I don't think I'm probably supposed to tell you this is what he says. So I was like, this is going to be good. I've already put it out there in the world.

So I'm not worried about saying it again. So he says that one day Dick Cheney comes into this office or this this room where he and several others are. And he says, we're going to war in Iraq. Now, find me a reason. we're going to war in Iraq. Now find me a reason. And I kind of always thought it probably went down like that. But to hear somebody who was in the room say that, and then we have this whole weapons of mass destruction debacle, and we have all of that. It's evidence right there that I think war is a business and a business's job is to be profitable. And so in order for these businesses to be profitable, they have to be doing business, which means they have to be either preparing people for war or fighting wars or providing, again, the goods and services. So I can kind of, if it would be helpful, just briefly list off some of the chapters in the book.

And that way, if there's a couple, like one or two that you maybe latch on to that you find that are interesting and want to ask about. I do just want to acknowledge how disturbing that is, that statement. Isn't it though? And yet if you peek behind the curtain, it's not that. It's not that. I mean, just like you said, if there are businesses that survive and succeed in wartime, they're creating products for war, then when there is no war, there is no business. When there is no business, your own business is not like you. It makes me curious.

your own business is not like you. It makes me curious, like what does marketing look like for a company that makes a lot of money when there's a war? Yeah. And what happened? And we've got, there's some interesting stuff in here, both about America and some other countries about how essentially defense contractors, weapons manufacturers, all these kind of things can basically charge whatever they want. If they I mean, there's there's been you know, we've heard of these billions and trillion dollar projects that didn't even work out right. Like jets that were intended to be built and failed for whatever reason and different things like that. But these companies can charge astronomical amounts of money. And so there's so much incentive for and I don't there's there's a point at which this could become sort of conspiracy theory ish. Right. Like, I don't know that they're sending people out in the world to start conflicts, I don't, you know, or something like that. But I do know

that there's lobbyists in Congress. I do know that, like we were just talking about, the way that these businesses profit is by selling these goods and services. And so those goods and services, like a bomb, it's kind of like any company, right? Like if I buy a product, I'm going to come by and buy that product again when the first one I bought is worn out, say a toothbrush, right? Well, the same thing works with, let's say, a company that makes bombs. In order for them to dare to be restocking, right, the ones that they sold prior need to be used. And there's sort of, there's a truth in that, but there's also sort of a case where a number of countries have weapons stockpiles that are just massive. It's not just the US. One interesting case that we talk about in the book is South Korea and basically how South Korea, their military power and the money they put in their military is exponentially more than North Korea. And that's just what South Korea themselves

have done. And then we talk, the author of that chapter talks about the U.S. and other countries and basically this little tiny country of South Korea is one of the most well-armed countries in the world because of the – and I don't about that is that even though that's the case, South Korea keeps building up their arsenal with newer, better, more stuff. So anywhere there's a perceived conflict also becomes, or perceived possibility for a conflict also becomes a hot market for weapons trade. So there's more than just weapons trade. That's kind of what I've been focusing on. But we also have, so the book is broken up into four sections, and all of the books in the series will be the same section. So we have first one, Theological Foundations, then we have The Business of War and History, Practicing the Business of

War Today, and Resisting the Business of War. So each book will have basically that same setup. And so we have The Business of War and the Bible that Myles Wurts, who's an excellent theologian, has written some really compelling work on nonviolence, among other things. He's kind of like me. So he was in the Baptist world, but he just moved to Abilene Christian University, which is a Church of Christ school. So Miles and I share that in common. We got Christian ethics and the problems of war and business. So kind of looking at just what are the basic issues that are here. And in that chapter, of course, the issues at play are some of the things that we've we't talked about the fact that the American economy largely depends on these businesses being successful. Plus, there's, and I talk about this a fair bit in the chapter I wrote, but there's a reality that actually comes out great.

There's a country song that actually addresses this well. The one about cornbread and chicken by Zac Brown Band. And they go through this whole life. We get to drink our beer. We get to wear our Rango jeans or whatever we get, we get cornbread and chicken, uh, corn, cornbread and fried chicken. And it's like this really nice song. And the end of it though, it goes into this very patriotic, thank the soldiers for letting me live a life basically that's comfortable and convenient. And so we talk about that too, about how so much of what we think and talk about in terms of things like freedom in America, they're really freedom to consume and freedom to convenience. Those are

really the things that are most often being defended in contemporary conflicts or in this economy that revolves around the military industrial complex that brings in all the other businesses, because you have to think about all these manufacturers, of course, they buy metal, they buy, I don't know what goes into making a Patriot missile, but whatever the materials are, they buy those from other companies who buy raw goods. So there's a whole economy in this. And so much of it ends up being for just,

when we think of freedom, we're mostly talking about our comfort and convenience. And I think that's an important note. Would freedom of religion come in there as well? The vast majority of violent conflicts that the U.S. has been in have little or nothing to do with at least American freedom. Okay. And I would argue they generally have little or nothing to do with the freedom of the people in those places. Stan Goff is one guy who's written a lot on this. the freedom of the people in those places. Stan Goff is one guy who's written a lot on this.

He's worth reading. He was a former army ranger. And so he tells personal stories about the horrific stuff that he was a part of, and he is now very outspoken about this. But we have one on the Business Award in Latin America. There's this whole series that has been bipartisan where democratically elected leaders of South

American countries that the U.S. doesn't like, the U.S. finds a way to get rid of them and try to put in people in power they like. This happens in the Middle East. This happens in a lot of places where we see we bring democracy and the people vote and the person or people they vote for are not the people we want. And by we, I mean certain people in American leadership don't want. So then they go in and change the results of those elections and stuff so there's well that real real quick on that i mean it's really important to note that most people don't even know this but that's what we did we did that exact thing in iran back in the 50s a democratically elected leader um was put in the power and i've just been years since i researched this but it's very well known it's not like a conspiracy theory at all. But a democratically elected leader who happened to not be kind of pro-America was elected. We wanted a pro-American person.

So we went, took him out and installed a guy who was horrible towards his own people. But he was in, you know, in cahoots with America in the 50s or 60s or whatever. And that started this whole thing where all of a sudden in 1980, you've got the, what was it, the kidnapping or whatever. Some American people were... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a lot of Americans are like, how come they hate us so much? And they're like,

you guys, how come you hate it? You guys have been meddling in our affairs for 40 years. Everybody here knows it. You guys are oblivious to it. Then even that's linked to the gulf war and saddam and all these things and and then i hear people here's if you can play devil's advocate maybe or just help me understand like what am i missing here i hear people say you know the middle east people that are you know running planes through our buildings

and all this stuff they just want to take away our freedom. But if you think about that, in what world would some person unprovoked on the other side of the world wake up one day and say, that country over there on the other side of the world that means nothing to me, I don't want them to have freedom. I'm going to go take it away. They don't like that America has freedom. So you're gonna go take it. Like, that just doesn't make any sense. Am I missing something there? Like, what's the logic behind they just want to take away our freedom kind of, therefore we need to

go and defend ourselves, you know? Um, so I actually, uh, last year TA'd for a course called Islam in the West. And we went back through kind of early, mid 20th century and looked at some of that. We read we read a lot of primary source materials like for these different historical time periods and a number of things happened. And a number of things happened, but the way that I understand it most is that after World War II ended, the great global powers or the USSR and the US that came out of World War II were trying to figure out how to divvy up the world essentially. And so part of that meant getting into certain places in the world. And so for the U.S., oil obviously was a big driver. If you can control oil, you can have a lot of control in the world because so much of our modern life relies on that. because so much of our modern life relies on that. The greatest polluter in the world, by the way, happens to be the American military.

Really? So when we talk about things like global warming or climate change, the biggest contributor happens to be the u.s military is that is that is that a in art a perspective or just an observation like is that can that be easily backed up factually if somebody's like no no no way it's it's been quantified i wish you know obviously i don't have the link right in front of me but it's been quantified where folks can can figure out how much um where folks can figure out how much exhaust comes from planes and boats and so on and so forth. And quantify that and say that that is a larger quantity of toxic gases and stuff and whatever other things. So yeah, I think that folks can find that.

But so playing devil's advocate, I would say that the U.S. is largely responsible. The U.S. and the U.S. allies, Western allies, are largely responsible for a lot of the conflict in the Middle East because in the early 20th century, it was the chic thing to do. That's funny, chic can also be, but anyway, didn't mean for that wordplay, but it was the cool thing to do for wealthy people to travel to the Middle East. The Middle East was like one of America's big party grounds. And people would go over there and they would go to Egypt

and then they would go to Jordan and they would explore all the ruins. And there were beautiful, luxurious hotels. There was this whole thing where that was a big deal. But then we had some of the history that I just gave you kind of unfold. And it's way more complicated than that. But that was a big piece of it was how these two world powers and now China and some other players, in fact, a player or two in the Middle East, right, that have pretty good

wealth. They're all kind of battling for territory. But I think more than territory now, it's battling for being able to get one's goods and services to as many consumers as possible. This is really important, right, that we have access to get goods from China. In fact, years ago when I was teaching, I dumped out a bag of random stuff that I had brought from the U.S., an alarm clock, a T-shirt, a bunch of other stuff. And I said, where do you all think this was made? And they had a lot of guesses. And I said, come up and look at it. Right.

And my students came and looked. Every bit of it was made in China. And they were so fascinated by this because they didn't even realize that China was doing this. And so it makes sense, too, that these countries that are trying to be economic powers build up militaries because they want to protect economic interest. they want to protect economic interest. And this is one that's hard to say without going in too much. So goods and capital are treated better in their movement often than people. So we care about getting good services safely to where they're supposed to be. And yet we have a huge, one of

the greatest refugee crisis in history going on. And we're more concerned that our goods, our package from that big company that starts with an A, that's named after a river and a jungle, that we get that package that day or the next day, right? And so we, a lot of the war, again, this goes back to the convenience, goes back to where we don't pay attention to the fact that there's a conflict in Yemen right now that's absolutely disastrous, that the U.S. is playing a major part in. We don't pay attention to the fact when, this is one of the chapters we have, when the U.S. says no more boots on the ground in whatever place, usually what they mean is no more official military boots on the ground, and they replace those folks with private military

contractors. So you could still have thousands upon thousands of these private military, American private military contractors functioning in the place of the. government kind of is made up with business interests. So at least sometimes the military has theoretically rules of engagement and stuff. Private contractors don't necessarily have the same kind of rules of engagement. They might be more like based on your conscience or these kinds of things. And also, I would add for the fiscal conservatives out there, these private military individual soldiers, basically they're they're they're essentially mercenaries. I mean, that word has, you know, but they're being paid outside of the official military to go to be fighters. Are they real quick, just to clarify, and I'm sorry this might be a stupid question, but are they still sent by the American government?

It's just not the American military that's going? Or are they just going on their own? Who's sending them there? Who's sanctioning this? Or is it countries overseas that are saying, hey, can you come over and we'll pay you? Yeah. Who's? It seems that there's some mix, but I think most of it is the American government.

Basically, it's contracting out work. Officially, not like under the table. I mean, it's like, OK. No, this is contracted work. Um, and same way that, that the government contracts, you know, private companies to build roads maybe, or whatever, different kinds of things that happen in society. Um, but they're, they're outsourcing or contracting for these private military contractors. And what I was getting at with the, for, for the fiscal conservatives out there is that it costs way, way more to send one of these private military contracting personnel than it does one military personnel. So these private

military contractors might be paid three, four, five, six times. I mean, the scale is going to vary depending on what kind of work they're doing, but paid more than the American military personnel themselves. So in fact, what happens a lot is that folks will do a shorter career in the military with the intent of moving to the private sector because they know if they do their time in the military, that can get them into this private sector where they can then make more money. In fact, I know an individual that did that and now owns a PM pmc a private military contract there they they do i think software stuff related to like military drones and whatnot but but that group of people that started that company moved from military roles where they had learned a lot of the how-to of this kind of stuff into the private military

contractor roles. And now they're making bukus of money compared to what they would have ever made as a four-star general or whatever in the military. And so it's a very expensive thing, the business. And I think that is something that's worth considering, again, for fiscal conservatives. Why would the government do an independent contract, an independent military group, rather than just sending our military? What's in it for the government? Is it they save face or they can say like, hey, we pulled out of Afghanistan or whatever? Yeah, yeah. That's it?

A lot of it is that. So you can save face also people have a really soft spot in their heart for very personnel that get killed during battle or during you know whatever kind of con if they get killed or in a helicopter crash all those kind of things but and then there's a usually big ceremony that goes with that. And they bring, you know, bring body spag caskets and salutes and, and there's like a, that a real, you know, touching kind of feely, you know, touchy feely kind of thing about that. But a lot of the private military contractors, if they get killed, they went over there as a business person, as somebody who chose to go over there to get paid. And so we don't tend to mourn their deaths. There's no pageantry or pomp and circumstance around their remains being returned home. There's none political good reasons for optics and the like to have these private military contractors.

And then frankly, and this might be me speaking just beyond a bit beyond my expertise, but this is what I think is going that often these private military contractors have more freedom to do certain dirty work and the like than actual military personnel, right? their oversight, even though they've been sent as a contractor of the government, their oversight comes primarily from their company, not from the Congress or whatever. Congress is not out of ton of legislation about how these folks need to act when they're in these situations. But again, the military officially has rules of engagement that, that, and, and, you know, they're not always followed. Um, but at least they're there theoretically to try to restrain or guide the actions of military personnel that are in conflict zones, whereas these other folks not. So there's, yeah, it's a combination of some of all those things. And that chapter was written by Bradley Burroughs, who is also just an excellent scholar.

And I forgot to mention Christina McRory did the second chapter in the book. I forgot to mention Christina McRory did the second chapter in the book. I mentioned her chapter, which kind of addresses the kind of big picture, the ethical problems of the business of war. And she's a wonderful scholar. We felt really good about this group of people. We also had in kind of the business of war history. Justin, what was her name again? Oh, Christina McRory. And she does a fair bit kind of in this world around issues of war and peace and violence and the like.

And then another chapter that I think is fascinating as part of the history section, we have one on globalization and war making and how globalization has contributed to global wars. the business of war would become part of what we would call something like a global neoliberal capitalist system. That's basically what it is that now globally is a huge business. So it's a, you know, trillions of dollar business around the globe, not just for the U S even though we mostly focus on the U S because the U S obviously has the biggest military, the biggest defense budget, all of that by, by, by a massive margin. Um, so, uh, and, and in that chapter, she argues that the military spending actually produces fewer jobs than other areas of the economy. And it reduces funds for job creation, other sections that are more directly justice oriented. So, you know, there's the old quote, I believe it was Eisenhower who talked about for every military ship that sails, for every bomb is dropped, you know, that takes away from education and health care and all of these kind of things.

And so if we think about this as a business, how might this business be brought into a little bit of control, have some restrictions around it that would help potentially reduce funding. And there's actually a great essay in here on, again, for fiscal conservatives. There's a great essay in here by a wonderful just war scholar, Tobias Winwright. And he writes, he wrote it with one of his grad students, Nathaniel Hibner, but he writes about the cost of certain parts of the just war tradition. So what does it look like to go in and clean up after a war? What does it look like, what does it cost to go in and do peacemaking work prior to a war? That kind of thing. So thinking of, again, it's a lot cheaper to send Peace Corps or to work with the United Nations or whatever, if we're genuinely interested in conflict zones and trying to prevent, reduce, stop conflict, it's way cheaper

to try methods like that. And these methods have been shown in a variety of ways to be successful. That's part of what I'm writing about in my dissertation, a guy named Bayard Rustin, who was Martin Luther King's mentor in nonviolence and he had he a lot of impact on the way that pacifists and stuff think about war and accomplished more than probably any other person in the civil rights single person in civil rights who i think but but um he was gay too right he was back in the 50s and a real interesting discussion there too because he was born in the early 20th century and he lived um through you know he he was actually a conscious conscientious objector in prison for a few years during world war ii um because he even refused to participate in the work camps that they had

made for conscientious objectors because he said that might contribute to the war effort and i don't want to do it so he spent three years in jail or in prison for that. And while he was there, he actually organized for the prison to become racially integrated. So amazing, amazing work and life that he has. And so he lives through this. He lives through, of course, the Vietnam War. He lives through the, when it comes to in terms of sexuality, Stonewall riots. For those who don't know, that's kind of what started the the modern LGBT rights movement. He lived through, you know, as a pacifist. He also at the very early part of his activism, he had some very brief ties with the Communist Party in America, which he broke off very soon and actually denounced him. He was a democratic socialist, slash had some ambivalent anarchist tendencies.

But this is getting way off track. But I will say that these issues that we're bringing up, a lot of them are not new. Yeah. They just have never been talked about precisely in this way, especially with chapters. So this is a book that hopefully brings together multiple facets, right, of the business of war. So there's one on the the role of the of American evangelicalism in the Cold War and the buildup in the Cold War by excellent, excellent historian David Swartz, who's already got a book out on the moral minority that was about the evangelical left, like Ron Sider and Jim Wallace and stuff, during the rise of the religious right. So he's got a history of this, like how this happened in the U.S.

Justin, we only have a couple more minutes, and I do want to come back to the evangelical piece, or maybe more a broad kind of pastoral, how in light of everything you're saying and what the book's addressing how should christians think through this i do have a question that i've been wanting to ask somebody because i heard it in some news outlet i can't remember i i try not to pay too close attention to news outlets but i do try to get in my information and i quite honestly have little trust for much of what they say yeah it's hard to find truth in some places.

It's so narrative driven that I just take it with a grain of salt. But I did hear – Can I say that's also an interesting thing because there's a media industrial complex as well. And again, it's like most of these industrial complexes. It's not partisan. The individual ways are partisan, but Democrats, Republicans, everywhere in between that have been in positions of power have continued to at least ignore those issues and let them kind of rise up or they have supported some of this very partisan news making that draws people in because the goal is again to make money

for most news outlets anyway so here's my question and it's kind of shocking but it has to do with trump we got to at least mention trump at some point um and when this comes out we're gonna hopefully bring him up we're to be in a post-Trump era. I always have to, I'll qualify this. I hate always qualifying stuff, but neither you or I are Trump supporters at all. Here's my question is I heard that Trump, as militaristic as he is as a person,

like a personality, I mean, he just embodies, as I said in a previous podcast he kind of embodies america whether you like him or not but um but very very you know narcissistic militaristic step on my foot i'll step on 10 other feet you know surprisingly i heard somebody say he's the first president in years that hasn't actually started a war gotten too entangled if you go all the way back to obviously reagan was highly militaristic you have george bush with the gulf war clinton i think he was wasn't that with the serbia yugoslavia kind of conflict jimmy carter was the the last president that that didn't the u.s into yes it. And then Obama with his whole drone program

that a lot of people don't care to acknowledge as peaceful as he is, but he drones so many times. And then is it true that for whatever reason, Trump is actually not done the least in bringing America into some of these conflicts? And even I I know he, there's so much pro-Trump hysteria or anti-Trump hysteria that he can't get us straight, whatever.

But like, you know, him being very diplomatic with the North Korea, you know, he got, if you're pro Trump, they liked it. If you're anti-Trump, you hate it, whatever. But to me, I'm like, as a neutral observer, I'm like, isn't that kind of what we try to advocate for like of course he he barked really loud but um he was weirdly diplomatic there and i you know but like and other things he did nuke that iran iranian terrorist you know but it wasn't he didn't drone the whole village you know to take him down and again i'm a pacifist i don't celebrate any of that but is is that true that he has actually, surprisingly, again, not gotten into conflicts like many other presidents have? So there's a couple of things. America is currently involved in what are called proxy wars in in places like Yemen, where it's not directly America. It's America's allies, but America's providing Intel or providing weaponry.

So so there's still those realities. But also in this, I'm about to say some stuff that's really going to probably make some of your listeners angry. But I that's what we're here for. I get the impression and I talked about this when when the last election cycle was coming around, when when it was him and Hillary Clinton. him and Hillary Clinton. And I said, I think Trump is undoubtedly going to be worse for the people of America and the people directly south of America. But I had a concern that Hillary Clinton might be worse for other regions of the world. And I think it comes to this. I think two things are at play from my observation. One is that Trump seems to lack a certain level of to war is something that takes planning and time and we're seeing what happens when we're 20 years into a war that was rushed into. So I think one thing is just sort of a lack of basic competence to sort of bring that about. Whereas, like I said, someone like Hillary Clinton, I think,

is kind of a war hawk with the competence and the international experience and all that. The second thing, well, so that's one, that's one, I have three issues. Another one is Trump has global business interests. Here goes the money piece. Yeah. So he has global. I mean, there are Trump properties and various things in all kinds of places around the world. And after this, he's going to want to continue to try to do real estate or whatever he does. And so there's business interest in not going to war in this case for him, because some of the people who are interested in his goods, countries like, say, Russia, perhaps, we don't want to get in direct conflict with because that could jeopardize his future and his children's future business plans, all that.

So I think that plays into it. And then finally, I think that sort of strongman leader, sort of dictator types, whether that's communist dictator, fascist dictator, there's an affinity that they share. And I think Trump is a wannabe fascist dictator. I don't think that's an overstatement. But whatever the case, he wants and so much of what we've seen recently has showed that he wants or wanted to have more power than our system is supposed to allow. And this is a problem that's been built up by both parties for years where the executive branch is getting more power, all of that. But I think he wants like another level of power. And so therefore he shares certain affinities with Kim Jong-un. Where are we at? Kim Jong-un. And with Putin and with other folks who have that strongman type of leadership, he's got a certain admiration for them. And so it looks like diplomacy is not, I don't think, directly intended to be diplomacy. It's actually him working on aspiring to be be the kind of leaders they are

he would love to have the kind of power over his country that these leaders have over they're like almost absolute unquestioned authority and this makes sense for all the the and people are diagnosing from a distance and i get that's that's that's problematic. But I think a number of psychologists and stuff have have said we think Trump has think that that was an intentional move on Donald Trump's part other than him looking at not trying to jeopardize potential business interests overseas. It's not like he's a closet pacifist or something. No. He does seem to be from a military, a little more of an isolationist, just from a political,

which is kind of a different, that's like you said, the motivation for that's really very different than any kind of like nonviolent or low violent ethic or anything. But Justin,in i actually got to run um i have to run oh man this has been enjoyable i feel like we're just getting started it's been an hour and 10 minutes yeah yeah um well i guess you have to have me back on that and that and that's what so i'll see you again in a few months from now and we'll talk there we go there we go in the book the business of war i uh i don't

know if you sent me a copy or if you have one, your publisher could send, I would love to check that out. Theological and ethical reflections on the military industrial complex. So again, there should be a code in the notes. If you guys want to get a discount on that book. So Justin,

thank you so much for your work. Wish we could hang out. I wish we didn't touch base every several years, but yeah. Yeah. I wish we could too. And we didn't uh touch base every several years but uh yeah yeah i wish we could too and and i have to mention um the other the other book that i have out is much older it's the one that i think probably connected you with me originally was the book the edited volume i did with trip york called a faith not worth fighting for responses or responding, no, addressing commonly asked questions of Christian nonviolence.

And it's all of the what-if questions, which you address many of them in fight. But it's the what about Romans 13, what about protecting our loved ones, all of those important questions. And we have a chapter addressing each of those. That's another book that if folks are interested, thank you, if folks are interested in nonviolence and have these questions and objections, then this is a good book because each chapter addresses one directly. And so you can go to, well, I'm really concerned about this, and this is what's keeping me at the 95%, right, that you mentioned at the beginning of the show.

at the 95%, right? That you mentioned at the beginning of the show. And maybe reading one of those essays helps you get that final, you know, 5% to really embracing the nonviolence that Christ has called us to. Greg Boyd's essay, I think he did the Romans 13 one, right? No, Lee Camp did Romans 13. Oh, that's a good one too. But Greg Boyd's essay in there is fantastic. It's so clear.

Yes, does God expect nations to turn the other cheek was the one he addressed. Yeah, there are some, I mean, Shane Claiborne did the afterword, Stanley Howard at Watt did the foreword. The quality of scholarship in this book just blows my mind. And that's the case with both of these. of scholarship in this book just blows my mind. And that's the case with both of these. Like, I am just this like little nobody up and coming scholar and that these really incredible established scholars have chosen to do this. I just, I'll say thank you to all of them right now, because I honestly just feel privileged and honored that these folks would take the time to be a part of something that I'm putting together and do something that we all intend to be a service to the church. These books, though the second one especially is a little more academic, ultimately I write theology and ethics in service to the church. My hope is that these will influence the church towards both embracing the nonviolent ethic of Christ and realizing how purchasing decisions and these kinds of things influence in some horrible ways people's lives in other parts of the world. And that also goes with, you know, the rhetoric of support the troops.

And that also goes with, you know, the rhetoric of support the troops. I don't know what that means, honestly, because what does that mean when they're doing something that's bad for people in other countries, but may benefit me in some way to keep my convenience? You know, like all of that. lot in this, but ultimately I hope it gets discussions started in the church just about how do we look at all of this in a way that points to the Lordship of Christ. Justin, that's a great way to end. Thanks so much for being on the show, man. Keep up the great work. Thank you.