Theology in the Raw - American Christian Zionism, John Howard Yoder, Oliver O'Donovan, and Political Theology: Dr. Elizabeth Phillips

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Dr. Elizabeth Phillips (Ph.D. Cambridge) is Director of Education and Engagement at the Woolf Institute, an interfaith institute in Cambridge, England. She teaches political theology and conflict transformation. Her latest book is Apocalyptic Theopolitics: Essays and Sermons on Eschatology, Ethics, and Politics, and her earlier book, Political Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed, is an introduction to political theology and serves as the backdrop of our podcast conversation. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

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forward slash theology raw. And I just want to thank the people that are already supporting the show. Thank you so much for keeping this show not only going, but also thriving. So patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is Dr. Elizabeth Phillips, or Beth Phillips, who has a PhD from Cambridge University and serves as the Director of Education and Engagement at the Wolfe Institute, an interfaith institute in Cambridge, England. She teaches political theology and conflict transformation. Her latest book is Apocalyptic Theol Politics, Essays and Sermons on Eschatology, Ethics, and Politics. And one of her earlier books is

Political Theology, A Guide for the Perplexed, which is an excellent introduction to political theology. That book is, the political theology book is the one that we are going to discuss throughout this episode. We first talk about her doctoral research on American Christian Zionism. And that just kind of came up as she's telling her story. We ended up spending the first half of the podcast talking about American Christian Zionism. I found her approach really fascinating. And then we do get into some more issues related to political theology, in particular, discussing the works of John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan. So if you're into that sort of thing, you will love this episode. sort of thing, you will love this episode. And if you're not, I think you'll still love it because Beth just has a wonderful approach to scholarship and humanizing people that you might disagree

with. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Dr. Beth Phillips. Welcome, Beth, to Theology in the Rob. Been looking forward to this for, well, at least eight months since I read your book, Political Theology, A Guide for the Perplexed. This is part of a series that has A Guide for the Perplexed as part of it. I love this series. I've got friends that have written for it, and it truly does take a complex topic and make it super understandable. And you did a masterful job with a really complex topic and made it very accessible while keeping the scholarly teeth

on everything you're saying. So I love the book. Let's go back. Who are you? How'd you get into scholarship? What's your educational background? And how'd you get into political theology? Okay. So I'm in Cambridge in England. I've been here for over 18 years now, but I'm obviously not British. Well, I am British now. I'm a British citizen, but not originally. And so I grew up in the States in Churches of Christ. I don't know if you're familiar with Churches of Christ. Yeah. We've got a lot in my area. So I went to Abilene Christian University as an undergraduate and also did a master's degree there. As an undergraduate, I studied mainly Greek and sort of thought I would be a New Testament scholar.

And then the closer I got to it, no offense to New Testament scholars, but I kind of started feeling like, okay, I'm passionate about this text, but the things I want to do with it are not the things that New Testament scholars do with it. I want to do other things with it. That's when I got put onto ethics. So I started focusing more on Christian ethics. I also met my husband at ACU who was also studying theology there. And we were getting restless. He'd grown up in Churches of Christ, too. I think, you know, the more theological education we got, the more restless we were getting with some of the answers to questions in our own tradition and some of the lack of questions in our own

tradition. And I think, you know, churches of Christ for a long time were such a culture unto themselves that I think for a lot of people, I don't know if it would be the same now, but certainly then and even more so previous to that, if you're sort of starting to look outside for other perspectives, there's not even a clear like, okay, here's where to go. And I think we decided to go to Fuller Theological Seminary, mainly because we had been reading a lot of Jim McClendon's work, we were finding a really helpful, I think, bridge between the kind of more Anabaptist elements of Church of Christ, theology and history, and a wider theological world in which theology was valued. Theology as theology has never been valued within Church churches of Christ because it's a very

Biblicist tradition. Yeah. So we went to Fuller, both planning to spend a lot of time with Jim McClendon, and he died like two months after we got there. But thankfully, his wife, Nancy Murphy, was one of the best people possible for my husband to study with. And Glenn Stassen was also there, was an excellent person for me to study with. So we both really landed on our feet. And in fact, we were both meant to be supervised by Nancy and by Glenn and, and Jim was supposed to be our

secondary supervisor for both of us, but he's, he's the, he's what got us looking into being there. So at Fuller, we kind of expanded horizons, um, theologically, but I think it wasn't very long before we realized like American evangelicalism was not the new answer we were looking for. Why not? I don't know what you're talking about. And it's really interesting because I think growing up in a church like Churches of Christ that has, or at least then had, you know, in a lot of ways, a very separatist culture unto itself. You know, that always cuts both ways. There are bad things about that, obviously, but there were good things about that. And there were some things that are sort of the, on the more distasteful side

of evangelicalism, in my opinion, that just hadn't ever caught on in Churches of Christ at that point, just because those people didn't spend time together. You know, they weren't sort of breathing the same air as a lot of American evangelicals, because they kept to just Church of Christ people. So at the same time as kind of finding broader theological horizons, it was also like, oh, wait, I'm not sure these are my people. Part of that was kind of a sojourn through some charismatic ways of thinking about and inhabiting faith. And I think there's a lot of good in that. I think where I landed eventually was that actually what I was looking for was sacrament. The physicality and the devotion and the connection with God that I initially found in charismatic groups, in charismatic groups, actually where that ended up making more sense to me was in sacramental theology and sacramental practice. We came here in 2005. So we did a very strange thing, my husband and I, we did all of the coursework for a PhD at Fuller. And we did it as slowly as you can possibly do it to be considered full time because we were both working like two or three jobs at the same time as studying.

So we were there for a long time. But then when it got to the point where you take your comprehensive exams and you're ready to move on to writing your dissertation. got to the point where you take your comprehensive exams and you're ready to move on to writing your dissertation. At that point, my husband had become really interested in Thomas Aquinas. There's a lot of great resources at Fuller Seminary, but Thomas Aquinas isn't high on the list of priorities for a lot of people in an evangelical seminary. So he just originally started looking and coming over to England, you know, like for a term or something to study with someone. And what that eventually led to through kind of a bizarre chain of events was us coming to do our PhDs here because an English PhD is just the dissertation.

So we were starting over without starting over. We were starting at the same point, but starting over a new PhD. So I was an American coming to England to do a PhD about American Christian Zionism. I saw that in your CV. I was like, wait, what? So I came over to England and then went back to America to do my field work. Yeah. And one of the reasons I got interested in American Christian Zionism was it was motivated a lot by being a part of the peace and justice community at Fuller and then encountering the ways in which people talking about peace and justice would kind of bump up against this wall of Christian Zionism, which was completely new to me. That was never part of Church of Christ theology or practice historically. And it was sort of like, what is this? And then realizing how incredibly pervasive it is. I mean, now I would say any Protestants in America that are anywhere in or right of center theologically have some element of Christian Zionism, likely.

You think even in Reformed traditions, Presbyterians and others? It depends, but commonly. It is fairly common, yeah. Real quick, most people probably know, but can you define what do you mean by Christian Zionism? I know people hear Zionism a lot since the last six months or so. So American Christian Zionism is in some ways stretches back through most of Christian history, different versions of it. some form of belief on the part of Christians that Jewish people will return to Palestine and that that's part of the fulfillment of God's plans for history and of biblical prophecy. And so there have been various forms of this, you know, in several times in places throughout Christian history. But the kind that really took root in contemporary America is aligned with dispensational premillennialism. And so that's

kind of its own version of Christian Zionism that's very much about a very specific timeline of events that are going to unfold. Originally, that form of dispensationalism was very much about just how to watch and interpret what's going on around you. And it wasn't until around the 70s or 80s, you know, the time of the rise of the new Christian right and lots of different political spheres that, that, uh, Christian Zionists first started becoming politically active in sort of advocating for, for the state of Israel and for Zionist causes. So was that, was that where the, where the, the, the late great planet earth, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye left behind. Is that, was that,

were those big catalysts? Those always come up in that when you talk about like late 70s, early 80s. Those were some of the big ways that this was all disseminated at the popular level. So a generation before that, it was disseminated through the establishment of the Bible colleges. disseminated through the establishment of the Bible colleges. So the vast majority of schools in America that were called the Bible college came out of a premillennialist movement and very often taught dispensational premillennialism. And that's one of the ways it became really pervasive is everybody training in

the Bible colleges was getting some version of this. And the, and the Schofield reference Bible, I don't know if you've, you know, the Schofield reference Bible. I was, I was,

I grew up in a dispensational background. Bring it back. Yeah. Yeah. So that was another way that that was a huge factor in sort of the dissemination of, of dispensationalism. But then, yeah, when it came to the late 20th century and Christian media started being such a big factor, then it was, you know, the Christian television as well as, you know, these series of Christian novels and everything that went along with that became a huge player in that as well.

What was your interest in studying? This is part of your story. This isn't the main reason why I brought you on, but this is really fascinating. Yeah, so it had to do with, first of all, encountering it and just being perplexed and wanting to understand it. It also had to do with feeling like, okay, this is actually a factor. This actually changes things in the way that America relates to the Middle East because it's so pervasive

that even if people aren't like, I'm a diehard Christian Zionist, there's some of that in the air that so many people have been breathing for so long that, you know, I felt like this needs some, you know, some exploration. Also, I think, you know, a thread that goes through a lot of my theological work is the relationship between eschatology and politics. I just find that really fascinating. All the ways in which that relationship can make things go wrong, but also all the ways in which good eschatology and good understandings of and employment of

apocalyptic are good for Christian theology and Christian politics. So that was part of it as well. And I think also when I first started to try to learn about Christian Zionism, most of what had been published at that time was either like evangelical Christians who decided to refute Christian Zionism. And so we're sort of writing, you know, internal, here's why we shouldn't believe dispensationalism anymore kinds of work. Or it was like journalistic exposes, you know, look at the crazy Christian Zionists and they want to make Armageddon happen, you know? And, um, and I felt sure that, um, you know, like any group of human beings,

it's more complex and interesting when you actually go and talk to actual people and find out what they believe and what that means for them and what that looks like in their lives. Um, and so I wanted to research it in that way. Well, you know, having been raised in that environment, I'm, and I don't, theologically, I'm not there. I find it problematic exegetically, theologically, and therefore politically can be disastrous. Or, well, yeah. I mean, in light of the last several months, it can be absolutely devastating. But, so I'm not there now. But I'm sympathetic in the sense that having breathed that air for so long, you have really good people that are reading the Bible a certain way.

And it's not like you're talking about people that believe in a flat earth or something where you don't have like, well, I guess, do you have Bible verses to go on? people that believe in like a flat earth or something where you don't have like, well, I guess, do you have Bible verses to go on? I mean, you do have all these promises in the Old Testament and, you know, Israel is going to return and you have Ezekiel 37 and all the familiar passages that people cite. You have the third temple in Ezekiel 40 to 48. You've got prophetic tradition that interpreted through a certain lens. It's like people like, yeah, Israel belongs to the land. And they make the correlation between biblical Israel and modern state of israel and they're both called israel like so i i almost

don't i'm almost yeah i'm sympathetic to people that have just breathed that air for so long it's the people that i think maybe haven't done haven't put that like the maybe the leaders of theologians the people pushing this that have not put that viewpoint to some kind of scrutiny with alternative, you know, pushback. They kind of just let it marinate in a certain framework, you know, certain environment and they don't, everybody else is the enemy. Don't touch this kind of theology. And if you do, you're, you're, you know, a horrible person. Like, I mean, I, I,

I grew up believing that like all millennials were like satanic almost, you know, like it was like, no, it millennials were like satanic almost, you know, like it was like, no, it was really like, you know, and the sticky boy was like, but John Calvin was not a dispensationalist.

Well, yeah, maybe he'll get it. You know, like, but I think it's that it's, it's some of the militancy that can pervade certain environments in which they hold to that viewpoint, I think is, is what I find extremely problematic.

But, but the average person grew up in the church, just absorbed it. I'm like, I don't really like, of course they would have that viewpoint, you know, but what did you, so you, you growing up outside of that looking in from the outside, that's a, so it's, I feel like, like, I'm, I'm like the zoo animal and you're kind of looking at me like, or the old me maybe like, but that's a, that's a really interesting perspective. So I would, yeah. What, what, uh,

how did you analyze Christian Zionism from, from. I mean, I think some of the things that stood out to me, I, I spent, before I did my field work, I spent a few months doing a real deep dive into the Schofield Reference Bible. Oh, really? Wow. And just following all the, you know, it's a complex chain reference system. And just following all the ways in which, because it's really interesting when you talk to people who've been taught this stuff. My experience is that almost no one would ever say to me, so-and-so taught me this, or I learned this growing up in this kind of church, or I learned this from reading these kinds of books, or, you know, so and so convinced me that this is the best way to read the Bible.

It was always like, how, you know, why do you understand the Bible this way? Where did you get this understanding of the Bible? I would always get back narratives of, I hadn't been reading the Bible right. And one day, I suddenly realized what the Bible actually says. And then it was, it all became clear. And now I know what the Bible right. And one day I suddenly realized what the Bible actually says. And then it was, it all became clear. And now I know what the Bible actually says. So there's like this, that was one of the things that was interesting to me is, is that there was like this shared conviction that this wasn't a system that anybody had developed and taught. This is just what the

Bible says. But actually, when you look at the Schofield Reference Bible, it takes this really complex chain of cross-referencing and making notes about that to make these connections and to sort of layer that system on top of it. And the interesting thing to me sort of sociologically is that like most of the people that I was talking to didn't know the Schofield Reference Bible. They weren't, you know, certainly weren't using the Schofield Reference Bible. It wasn't part of the church's, you know, practice at all. And yet they would say things to me that I knew from the research, like there's no reason to think that that verse says that except from the long tradition that comes from these notes

and cross references in that way of reading the Bible. I mean, that in and of itself is fascinating to me that people can look at a text and say, mean, that in and of itself is fascinating to me, that people can look at a text and say, well, it just self-evidently says this, but actually it took a few generations of people developing a really complex argument to say that it said that, and they don't know that story necessarily at all, but it's still, it's still to them, this, the self-evident interpretation of these texts. I mean, first Thessalonians four is a classic, classic example. Like they will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and people will say, see pre-tribulational

rapture. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of things going on there. Well, they caught up, but that's, that's an interesting exegetical thing to explore. But, but where do you, where do you get the timing?

Where do you get? And you can't, and you can't, it's because you have to put it together with the way they were reading Daniel and the way they were reading Revelation. And it's only by putting those things together in a really specific way that you can get that interpretation. But that, that is, I mean,

again, maybe it's because I swam in those waters for so long. That was just so self-evidently how you read the Bible. You look at this verse and then you, you know, you have a verse in Thessalonians and you go to Matthew and then you go to Daniel and then you're just dancing all around. It wasn't really until I would say halfway through seminary when I realized that that just from an interpretive framework that, that, that we have to slow down, hit the, hit the brakes a little bit, like maybe look at the context of the letter,

the historical background of the letter and the, you know, uh, just kind of slowly build up your theology a little bit rather than thinking the Bible was just kind of like fell out of heaven as one ironed out text with no kind of individual tensions and context with it. But, uh, yeah, that's interesting. So what was your conclusion of your project was it just like a critical evaluation of zionism looking at the background and stuff or was it was there kind of an end and like therefore so what i did was i spent time doing field work with a specific congregation in in the denver area that's's like a mega church that's been very committed to Christian Zionism

for a long time. And the reason that I chose the particular congregation that I did was because in some ways they were really representative of, you know, very mainstream American evangelicalism, you know, very mainstream American evangelicalism, you know, just sort of your average American megachurch in most ways. But then they were pretty exceptional in that since the 70s, they'd been financially sponsoring an adopted settlement in the West Bank and sending a group of young, like teenagers and 20-somethings every summer to go do a singing and dancing tour of Israeli military outposts. USO kind of thing where they perform for Israeli military officers and tell them that God has chosen them and blessed them and has sent them to do what they're doing. So they were really, a really fascinating group to spend time with. And I spent time with them at the church and then also went to the settlement in the West Bank to meet the people that they partner with there. And yeah, so it was a lot of it was just kind of a theological ethnography of, of them to sort of

put actual, you know, faces to all of this instead of this kind of, you know, journalistic expose from the outside. And I think because my interest was in the relationship between eschatology and politics, one of the conclusions I came to in the thesis was that, I mean, you know, I went into it completely with a completely critical approach and, you know, came away from it still with completely critical conclusions for the most part, except that the thing that surprised me that I was able to say something constructive about was my assumption had always been, and this is how the people who do expose always write about it as well. My assumption had always been that there's this belief that if you do the

right things, you make Jesus come back sooner. And that it's sort of, here's the things that are going to happen in the end times. So, you know, let's do these things politically. And that gets the ball rolling. And which is, you know, I think bad Christian theology, no matter what political things you're doing, you know, we don't sort of run God's clock for God. But also, you know, it's very much against what premillennialism itself was, which was saying this isn't about human action. This is all divine action. You know, post-millennialism was supposed to be about, you know, Jesus will come and then, you know, human beings will do all of these amazing things in the millennium and establish the kingdom on earth.

And pre-millennialism was about, you know, no, everything that humans do is going to fall apart and fail. And it's God that will come and make everything right. So I was expecting to sort of be arguing against, you know, notions of being able to speed up the clock. I mean, apart from the entire issue, of course, I don't want to understand any of those texts as a chronology of events that are going to happen. What I actually found is that they had a narrative of God's plans for history and for humanity. And they really simply believed

that they wanted to participate in those plans as they were unfolding here and now. And actually, I think that's basically the way we should think about eschatology and ethics and politics, that God is doing the work. Our job is to try in the partial and failing ways that we can to try to understand God's ways in the world and participate in that. So that wouldn't lead me to any of the same conclusions, because we have a different narrative understanding of what that looks like. But I actually found that they kind of put their

finger on something important there in terms of how these things are related to one another. I love that you were open-minded enough to not just come in with an ax to grind and then leave with the same – like you truly wanted to explore from the inside maybe some of the complexities that aren't apparent from the outside. And I would imagine too, I mean, you didn't quite say this, but I can almost hear it in your tone that by going and being there with these people, you probably humanized a viewpoint that you ultimately disagree with and maybe very passionately,

but you saw the human being behind the viewpoint. Is that an accurate summary? And how did that affect your you yeah absolutely absolutely and i think this is you know this this is because of a an overarching commitment that that i have that's come from lots of different places an overarching commitment to um to to non-violence to conflict transformation, understanding people across difference. And so I've been trained in and I teach conflict transformation. And now most of my work is in interfaith relations. And all of that is of a piece with how I like to do research as well. I think ethnographic research is really important in theology because it's too easy for theologians to sit at desks with books and think that we've done the work.

And I think because I'm into moral theology and political theology, this is about real things in the world as well. And so I think our research has to show that this is about real things in the world. and nonviolent resistance to injustice and to interpersonal conflict transformation, all of that means, you know, whatever you think about anyone else, nothing good can happen without listening, without actually listening to who they are, what they're saying, where that's coming from. And I think that's what we need across the board. I think we need that in our research methods. I think we need that in our teaching. I think we need that in our faith relations. We can set up an opponent to argue against and tear down, to argue against and tear down, or we can encounter actual human beings and deal with the reality of who they actually are and where they're actually coming from. Oh, man, I could not agree more.

I could not agree. It's so hard to do. It's so much easier as scholars to sit behind to do the thing you said we shouldn't do, to sit at your desk, read books, see people as just ideas to critique or, you know, do battle with, especially in the age of social media. And it's just so easy. I mean, right now I could literally call out and shame a thinker that's like has 4 million followers or something, you know, and they probably won't see it, but I mean, I could, or maybe they will, you know, it's like that, that's a weird world to just sit back,

to be able to sit back and be able to do that so quickly. Hey, friends, the Exiles in Babylon conference is just a few weeks away, April 18th through the 20th here in Boise, Idaho. Space is filling up really fast. It's going to sell out. So if you want to attend, I would sign up like today if you're going to attend live. If you can't attend live, there's also the virtual option. All the information is at theologyintherod.com. We're tackling a ton of really important topics, the theology and politics of Israel-Palestine. We're talking about women, power and abuse in the church, LGBTQ people in the church. We're talking about deconstruction of the gospel.

We're also talking about politics and lots of interesting things going on at the conference. Again, theologyintherod.com, register now if you want to attend live or really anytime if you want to attend virtually. I want to transition to political theology. In your book, I love how you set different political theologians in conversation with each other. And two of the ones you do up front are John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan. And I know, so I appreciate what you said in your most recent book, Apocalyptic Theopolitics, about your struggle with Yoder since a lot of, both you and I have had our theology formed by his work I think in a good way and yet when the abuse alley not just allegations but when it came out that he was

abusive I mean that that just threw I think a lot of us for a tailspin I actually talked with Stanley Hauerwas a year ago actually and and he shared you know he they were good friends you know and and it was just devastating for stanley obviously and um so you know i just know yoder just from you know he's an author or whatever but um anyway just want to acknowledge that there's there's some tensions as we even you know wrestle with him and his work but um you put yoder in conversation with uh oliveronovan. Can you tease out, yeah, maybe just for people that are maybe hardly familiar with those names, maybe in the most simplest terms, kind of summarize big picture, what each one is arguing for and what are some overlap and what are some differences?

And I would love to maybe focus more on those differences because I'm personally, I'm wrestling with those differences right now myself. because I'm personally, I'm just, I'm wrestling with those differences right now myself. So, yeah, I think, yeah, I've been thinking lately about whether to ask the publisher about doing a revised version of the political theology book because it's very dated now. And it'd be interesting to think about if I would do that, if I would do that part the same, because I think what's helpful about putting O'Donovan and Yoder in conversation with each other, because basically now I won't use Yoder at all. But I think what was very helpful about putting them in conversation in particular is, is thinking about both of them were really committed to using scripture, appealing to the authority of scripture to say there is a grand overarching narrative through scripture of what our political life is meant to look like.

But both of them, but they were each you know reading a completely not completely different but a very different narrative and O'Donovan um in the in the work that I talk about in that book was really focused on the telling of Israel's history that can be traced through monarchy. And, and for him, this, um, then had, you know, continued a trajectory into forms of Christendom, which he, you know, uh, was a proponent of, whereas, and I'm, I'm speaking of him in past tense, not because he's gone, but because this is old work of his. So I don't want to talk of it as if it's current. He's still with us. Last we checked, he's still with us.

Whereas Yoder was picking up the counter narrative, picking up the verse in 2 Samuel where it's like, you don't want a monarch. Yahweh is your King. Monarchs are always a bad deal. And then like, okay, fine. If you, if you want a monarch here is, but here's what it's going to be like, and it's not going to be good. And then the prophets always having to, uh, remind the monarchs and the people of what they're called to and that Jesus picks up on that trajectory. So they're helpful to read side by side to think about, first of all, you know, you can be a very well-intentioned, very careful reader of scripture and still pick out a completely different thread than someone else who's also a very careful reader of scripture. There are multiple threads, scripture. And, you know, there's the thread of conquest, for instance, but that's not the only story that's told in Hebrew scripture. Because there's another version of the story where people, they just kind of go and settle and kind of assimilate. And there's both of those versions in the historical books.

You know, so both O'Donovan and Yoder were the types of thinkers to say, okay, I'm picking this thread and here's why, and it's the authoritative thread. And so I think it's interesting to see the differences between the two. But I think it's equally interesting, you know, to ask the question, are those the only threads? Is the point to choose the one thread? Or is the point kind of the complexity of seeing seeing the many different ways people have told their own story and related that to their relationship to God. That's super helpful. And your opening chapter, I think it's chapter two, no, chapter one. Yeah, you go back and forth and put them in conversation with each other in a really helpful way. So I'm hearing you say, this might be super general, but just for clarity. So Yoder had a more negative view of specifically the Hebrew monarchy

where O'Donovan had a more positive view that any kind of critique of monarchy wasn't of monarchy per se. It was just evil monarchs or when the monarchy goes bad, where Yoder might say the whole thing was maybe a concession that wasn't part of God's original plan. And you even mentioned, I think the difference in how you read Romans 13, where Yoder would, you know, I think, I would assume, but Donovan would say, you know, God established a state for good. And sometimes, maybe a lot of times it doesn't fulfill

its divine mandate, where Yoder would read, I think, 13.1, right? He's kind of famous for scholars, you know, of God arranges these corrupt governments to do something. He takes these corrupt governments and sovereignly can use them, but they weren't originally part of his original kind of plan. Would that be kind of the key? I mean, because fundamental difference, because that would that be kind of the key i mean because fundamental difference because that would have a lot of different implications if you see the state is intrinsically not part of god's original plan or intrinsically part of god's original yes so what some people say is the dividing line in christian political thought and that everyone has been one or the other and it's and it's the crucial

defining difference is um the the state or or more precisely government because of course there are other forms of government than the state as we know it was pre-lapsarian or post-lapsarian was it something that was part of God's intention for creation, is part of God's good creation, human beings order themselves through various forms of government, and that's how God created us and that is good? Or was it post-lapsarian? Because human beings are so sinful, there had to be an accommodation, allowing some people to have power over other people, because that's the only way to keep sin in check. Now, I think most people now would want to say, the line's never been that stark. And one of the things that I do in that book is talk about

Augustine and Aquinas because, you know, the stereotype is, is that Augustine is all about, um, sin and Aquinas is all about, it's all optimism. And it's, it's, it's not that, it's not that stark at all. Um, the half full for Augustus, or no, half empty for Augustus and half full for Aquinas. So it's not that clear of a dividing line, even in Christian tradition. But, you know, you also have to think of the ways both of those schools of thought have been put to good use and to really dangerous use. So it's also thinking about how those ideas about where the state comes from and why it exists have actually played out in Christian history. So it is those are definitely questions that people should grapple with. Is government, is the ordering of social life through structures of power,

is that inherent to who we are as human beings? Because that's how God created us. because that's how God created us? Is it more that God never wanted anyone to have power over anyone else? And it only happens because we're sinful and we always strive for power. Or is it something that kind of blurs the lines between those? That there is something inherently good about the fact that we order our common lives, but something inherently bad about the way that it's very difficult for us to maintain systems that don't depend on dominating power. Would it be too nice? So, and this is where I read a lot of political theology, but I will

always be a biblical scholar. And I mean, some people are like, what's the difference? You know the difference. So I'm constantly, I don't know, like I'm coming. I just hear that question, the pre-lapsarian, post-lapsarian, and that's not as interesting as identifying what I would see the rather clear thread in the New Testament that the kingdom of God as a political entity is diametrically opposed to that ordering of power. Like that is, you know, that's Mark 10, Matthew 20, where, you know, here's how the kings of the earth rule, lord it over them. It's not not so among you and you have just such pervasive threads of this inversion of power of turning the social pyramid on its head of having slaves eating a meal with their masters you know and just this this leveling of social class this this leveling of or this inversion of power if you do happen to have power you know like ephesians 5 the husband is to serve his wife

you know and just everything is just becomes inverted so that whether it's like jesus says the the kingdoms of the earth will have this power structure it's not so among you now now whether that kingdoms of the earth and the power structure is was was originally good that went bad or whatever i just don't see those questions as entertained as much as regardless of where they came from, what the, here's what they are and here's how you're to be and you're to, you're to live basically just not like that. What are your thoughts on that?

Well, so that, you know, that goes back to another interesting contrast between O'Donovan and Yoder, which was O'Donovan saying that Jesus, you know, is explicitly, you know, explicitly takes up the inheritance of David. Whereas Yoder says, basically, Jesus spent his ministry rejecting the idea that he is a monarch in the line of David in terms of, you know, how he is inhabiting what it means to be king. So I think, you know, you can't read the New Testament and dispute that there is a lot about how the kingdom of God is different from worldly kingdoms. But then again, is, you know, that could easily be interpreted as, you know, because we're sinful, we're not doing it right. That doesn't mean there couldn't be a good worldly kingdom. And also, all of that language in the New Testament is very much

of the moment of relating to the Roman Empire specifically, you know, it's not happening out of nowhere. There's a specific kind of power in place when those passages are being written. But I think, I mean, here's where I am now is I can't, you know, I can't sign up to either O'Donovan or Yoder in any significant way, O'Donovan or Yoder in any significant way, because I think on the one hand, you can have too easily a baptizing of structures, which keeps us from having the critical distance that we need and the kind of, you know, what you're talking about of seeing the kingdom of God as the primary allegiance. On the other hand, I think that what Yoder and Hauerwas did, the thing is, theology always happens in its time. No one is doing timeless theology. No one is doing timeless theology.

And some of the people that Hauerwas and Yoder hated the most, like Reinhold Niebuhr, were saying something important in their time. There was something important about what he was doing in his time. The ways in which some of that became timeless principles for somebody, then I think it was important for people like Yoder and Hauerwas to critique that. I also feel like the moment for their particular kind of critique has passed insofar as it has not given anyone, it hasn't given anyone the tools that they need for a moment like the moment that America in particular is in now politically. If the conversation stays at the level of Christians shouldn't take control of government, Christians shouldn't be seeking that kind of power, the kingdom of God is different. It's subversive. And I agree with absolutely all of that.

However, the conversation can't stay there because then what do you actually do with that right now? the far right is in ascendancy in many places around the world, when someone like Donald Trump could actually be elected to another term with the support of Christians, like was there anything in that critique that people could actually use to resist right now and to, to be the kind of witness within politics that I think in moments both Yoder and Harawas would agree is needed, but could very rarely be pressed to that next conversation about what does that look like. And I think that some of the more liberal traditions and also the Catholic social teaching tradition, you know, have really specific tools for social analysis, for identifying what's happening here, what's good about that, what's bad about that,

what are the tools that can actually be used to help with this situation? And that's not necessarily about grabbing power or being the ones in control, but it is about having real concrete ways of analyzing and reading the signs of the times and being a transformative witness in the face of them. And I'm not sure that the Yoder-Harwas generation of theologians that I and perhaps you also kind of came of age theologically with. I'm not sure that it included those tools. Would you say then that like different times might call for different political action? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think, you know...

Like World War II might have... Or even have like the Civil Rights Movement. Like that was a certain form of civic involvement that was pretty aggressive and and determined and but non-violent it used christian means at least in its attempt to accomplish christian values without well i don't have i don't want to speak out of turn. I mean, I think, I think different people try to use MLK and the civil rights movement in service of their political theology. And I just want to let, let him be him and not, not try to, you know, enlist him in support of, even if I find a certain viewpoint to be more correct, but, um, he, yeah. Um, or yeah,

World War II or, you, or there's different phases. Yeah, I guess I don't know enough about the modern political scene. I'm not an expert in that area. But as I look back, there does seem to be just kind of ongoing evils. And depending on our modern conflict, depending on which news outlet you're looking at or which commentator viewing, like you might think one side is more evil than the other. So like I, and I, you know,

I, I stand, you know, my, I now swim in pretty broad, even joke of water. So I've people on all sides, you know,

like, yeah, it'd be like at all costs, like Donald Trump cannot be elected. The other side's like, well, the other guy's funding a genocide and getting away with it. So like,

let's not like sweep that under the rug, you or or people that are you know very pro-life will say that this is the worst thing that can ever you know have a pro-choice president you know it just keeps going back and forth the volume is just like well i i don't know um is it too simplistic to say that it's two sides of the same empire and empire will be empire and internal factions within the empire will keep trying to make the other side of the empire look worse? Why? To achieve power. are worse players in that. And there aren't some people who are doing things that genuinely cannot be tolerated and other people who are being fallible human beings that, okay, yeah, we need to work on this. And I think that right now, so many American Christians don't have the tools to really seriously analyze what's happening. People are just pushed to their corners, especially by social media, and then just keep getting fed the same stuff in their echo chambers. fed the same stuff in their echo chambers.

And it has nothing to do with being faithful or what's genuinely Christian. And it has everything to do with actual people with power manipulating people and knowing that if they can be kept in those corners, then they can be kept fighting against one another instead of fighting people who are actually ruining the world. It's a huge problem. And I, it, it's like, we all know it's happening, but it's, it's so powerful. These, these systems that are just sucking you into their tribe and their back and forth. And's yeah i i don't and i guess that's where i'm coming like i because i'm just i'm not in any kind of political tribe i have people that are and sometimes i'll i'll look into this echo chamber and say what's going on over here i'm like whoa my word like yeah i'd be angry and you know militant too if i listen to that for more

than five minutes and i'll go to the other side I'm like ah it sounds very similar over there and and I this is I almost yeah and again I'm just totally thinking out loud I um and that my application of my very loose political theology to like modern day is is constantly just thinking out loud but I think almost more than ever we need maybe an appreciation of the embodiment of the kingdom of God as a political force in the world, not a separatist thing. I think when I read Hauerwas, I can see where people see him as a separatist, but he qualifies that too many times. And I think he's not, yeah. I just wonder if exploring some of those things could be what the church needs today, especially in America. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. And I think that, you know, I think a lot of the, not specifically what Harawas himself said, as much as the kind of thought world that arose around all of that, I think made it too easy for some people.

Okay. So for instance, there's a chapter in that book about liberalism and the debate about whether or not, so this isn't liberal versus conservative. It's liberal as in all modern democratic states are liberal in that sense. there were you know there were these big philosophical and theological debates about whether liberalism was a good thing or a bad thing and of course um harwas and everyone aligned on that side of things were massive critics of liberalism um and that's definitely where um you know i situated my myself for a long time but then i think okay when we're in a moment you know when things were peaceful when the far right was not actually threatening to re-emerge as a global power when, you know, when Christians weren't, you know, explicitly

publicly aligning themselves with things like racist white nationalism. You know, when we were in a moment that that seemed so much more peaceful and calm looking back then yes let's talk about what's wrong with the liberal state let's talk about how this doesn't quite hit the mark and the ways in which it arose from some some misconceptions and some some things that were right in a moment of history that aren't right now and we need to do better. Yes, let's have those conversations. But in this moment, like give me the liberal state any day, because, you know, I would rather have liberal democracy than totalitarianism. And that's what's waiting on the doorstep. You know, I'm not sure that people are really opening their eyes to that's what's waiting on the doorstep. So I think there's a time where you kind of have to put down that critique because there's a more important critique.

You know, a critique of white nationalism, racist nationalism is much more important to me than a critique of liberalism. is much more important to me than a critique of liberalism. Not because there aren't true things in the critique of liberalism, but because you have to know what time it is and what's the right time. Do you see, and this would be interesting because you are American in your background, at least, and now living on the outside looking in. Do you see white Christian nationalism, particularly in America, the the far right kind of all the stuff you're talking about do you see that as having grown since you left america or do you see it just having more exposure because that's i and i i don't know if there's a

i wish i could take a survey to see how has it grown or is it see does it seem like it's grown because every time i open up twitter some people are critiquing Christian Nationalists and showing videos and all this stuff. I think it just was unleashed. I think it became vocal. And I think people were given permission to openly espouse things that 10 and 15 years ago, everybody knew that even if they believed them, they shouldn't openly espouse them. And I think that, I think that there's, it's interesting because what, you know, when I, when I talk with people here about what, what it's been like to be an American living outside of America for the past 18 years. In some ways, I feel like

when I look at America now, it is a different country from the country that I left 18 years ago. It feels like a completely different country. On the other hand, the part of me that knows history and philosophy and political theory knows that the seeds of everything that's happening right now were there for a very long time. And you could have asked the me of 18 years ago, is something like this possible 18 years from now? And, you know, in a really clear eyed moment, I might have said, well, yes, all of the seeds for that are there, you know, in a really clear eyed moment, I might have said, well, yes, all of the seeds for that are there, you know, are here in American thought and American culture. But still, it has been astonishing and surprising to me how quickly so much of this has

unfolded in the way that it has. that's in you know it's funny i arrived in the uk the same year you did uh 2005 um in aberdeen right and uh but i came i came back in 20 2007 seven or eight seven um so there's just three and a half years um uh but i remember when you stepping outside of the american scene even though the internet was around and everything it's just you just feel you're just having different conversations. You're seeing different people. You do feel like you're looking at what's going on in America from the outside. And I just – I fell in love with, yeah, British evangelicalism.

It was just a brand of Christianity that I just resonated so much more. And then I went back to America and I felt like I just opened the you know, opened the doors and everybody's like this huge, like brawling. I don't know. It's just, it's just the atmosphere is just so different. You know, I'm like, Oh, I kind of miss the, just the atmosphere and the, the, the, the way Christians engage each other in the UK to me, it was just so vastly, vastly different. And I would say just much more healthier. Maybe it's different now. I don't know. I mean, because again, that was pre-social media. We've got our problems for sure. They're not all the same as American problems, and they certainly don't play out in the same way necessarily, but we've definitely got our problems. I've noticed even just the geographical size of the UK.

Like these scholars you're interacting with, you end up seeing at conferences and at the pub. And here it's like I can blast thousands of people and I would never, ever in a million years even see them face to face or be forced to have a pint with them or something. And I think that actually added just a different level of humanization like i would see yeah scholars just go after each other in a in a in a in a conference you know just i mean not hold back and then an hour later i see him at the pub having a bite laughing to ask you how are you how's your family and everything i'm like what is going on like americans just would not know how to do that. No. Okay. Last question. Uh, well, um, no, I was gonna actually ask something more fun in person. So you, you, you live in Cambridge. Cambridge is like my favorite city on earth.

I absolutely love Cambridge. I was going to ask you what your favorite restaurant or pub is in Cambridge. I have a few of my own that I love to go to when I'm out. Gosh, let's see. My favorite. I love the go-to when I'm out. Gosh, let's see. My favorite. Here's my problem. My problem is this. No one's going to feel sorry for me for having this problem. My husband is the most amazing cook.

He does all of the cooking and he's like really, really, really, really good. So almost every time we go out to eat, it's like, oh, why did we pay someone money to make stuff that you always do better? But I'll tell you the restaurant we went to recently, this is going to make me sound like a horrible elitist. And it's, this is a restaurant I've only been to once on a very special occasion. But there is this amazing, more recent restaurant called Vanderlyle. Vanderlyle. And it is – so I think – this is a TV show here that I think there's a version of in America too. Master Chef?

Is Master Chef in America? Oh, I think I've heard of it. So it's one of those TV chef competitions. But this is like regular people who want to become chefs do you know, do this. He, he was a finalist on there. I think, I don't know, 12, 13 years ago or something like that. Anyway, he started a restaurant, um, in Cambridge. It's a tiny little place. It only seats like 20 people. And it's the whole menu is, um, plant-based it's not vegan. The whole menu is plant-based. It's not vegan.

There's some dairy, but it's almost entirely plant-based. There's just one menu for a month. It's a ton of courses, a ton of little tiny courses. You have to book a table at least a month. There's a day each month that the tables become available, and you have to book a table on that day for the next month that you're not going that was one of the few dining out experiences um that was not only not disappointing but like blew my mind amazing because most most places when i go out like, oh, it was better at home. Why did I pay so much for this? Well, British food is not known for its cuisine.

I like the pub grub, the fish and chips, and the steak and ale pie, the stuff that you should never, ever eat more than two of in your lifetime. Yeah, but the thing is, whatever people say about traditional British food, some of it's true, some of it's not. But what is true is that in this country, it's much easier in many more ways and many more places to just eat healthy, wholesome food. In America, trying to get food that is not ultra highly processed, you know, full of sugar food. It's so hard. And here it's like there's much better. And that's changed. Like even in the period of time that I've lived here, the food scene here has completely changed.

And it's, you know, eating fresh, healthy food is so easy here. Whereas in America, depending on where you live, obviously, like American food is pretty brutal. Yeah. Oh, it'll kill you. Yeah. No, no. You go outside your home and yeah. I love some of the hole in the wall, Middle Eastern places on, is it Mill Street? Mill Road. That's where Vanderlyle is. It's on Mill Road. Oh, it is. It's okay. I love walking down there and ducking into the shops and people are hanging out. You feel like you're kind of in the Middle East a little bit. People are so friendly and you can strike up a conversation.

There's just random restaurants that are really awesome. So yeah, Mill Road. Wow. I'll be there this summer. I usually go out a couple of times a year to do research because I live in Idaho and there's no theological library here. So I fly to Cambridge. Well, Beth, it was great, great would highly encourage the listener to pick that up. Also, your recent book, Apocalyptic Theopolitics, Essays and Sermons on Eschatology, Ethics and Politics. I just started that and so far it's awesome.

But just even look at the table of contents. I'm like, oh, this is going to be spicy. This is going to be good. So thank you so much for your work, Beth. Really appreciate you. Thanks very much This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.