Theology in the Raw - Kaitlyn Schiess: Is "Exile" Really a Helpful Political Identity?

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Join the Theology in the Raw Patreon community to watch our "Extra Innings" conversation where Kaitlyn shares some horror stories about the Christian dating scene and gives some much-needed advice for anyone trying to set up their friends. Kaitlyn Schiess is a doctoral student in Christian ethics at Duke Divinity School. She has a ThM in systematic theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and is the author of The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture has been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here (Brazos, 2023) and The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor (IVP, 2020). Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The New York Times, RELEVANT, and Sojourners. Her work focuses on political theology, theological interpretation of the Old Testament prophets, and American religious history. Find more of her work at https://kaitlynschiess.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Part of my concern with the exile metaphor is to the degree that it teaches us that we are fundamentally separate. And I worry that within evangelicalism right now, we still underlying have this idea that we can be in this like bubble from the rest of the world. Like we are uninfluenced by or not responsible for or not indebted to the community, the culture, the nation that we were born in, that our church exists in. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode Theology and Raw. This is the second episode in our series of podcasts that were shot at the Holy Post studio, just right smack dab in the middle of Wheaton, Illinois. This conversation was a fun one. Caitlin is one of my favorite dialogue partners when it comes to political theology. I mean, this is what she's doing her PhD in, political theology. I dabble in it. She's an expert in it. I just realized that her dissertation topic has to do with the concept of exile, which is, I guess, kind of become a brand. I mean, I wrote a book called Exiles. I host a conference called The Exiles of Babylon.

And she is researching whether or not this concept is a good, accurate, healthy term to adopt to make sense of our place in the world. So I was a little nervous to talk to her about it. But it actually ended up being a wonderful conversation. Challenging for sure, but always informative. So please welcome back to the show, the one and only, Caitlin Chess. I am here live, or at least in person, with Caitlin Chess, just outside of, just off the campus of Wheaton College. Is that right? We are right there.

So rather than me, introduce you. Why don't you introduce yourself? Who are you? And what do you do for the five? people listening that may not know who Caitlin Chess is. Yeah, I am a PhD student writing my dissertation at Duke University. I work at the Holy Post Media Company, which the building we are in currently. So I work literally upstairs and do a podcast with Phil Visher and Skye Jitani. And then I do another podcast called Curiously Caitlin, where I take questions little kids have about God theology or

the Bible and find scholars to answer them. Yeah. And that's kind of my. My two worlds are kind of like podcast, media world, school world, and then I've written a couple books about faith and politics and spent a lot of time talking to churches or Christian college students about what that looks like practically. When are you going to finish your Ph.D.? You've got to be close, right? I have taken longer than I should. It turns out if you write a book in the middle of the program that is not your dissertation, it will take longer than you thought. And I've written two. And I've written two. I wrote the first one before the program started. And an American program,

I took lots of classes first. I took all my language exams. I just recently, like a couple months ago, passed my comprehensive exams. So now I'm just full-time dissertation writing. Okay. And I'm hoping I'll be done in like less than two years. We'll see. Okay. What's your dissertation on? It is about exile metaphors in political theology. Preston, you might get a reference in the intro. Yeah, it is really broadly looking at what makes that an appealing metaphor. and what kind of political theology follows from that metaphor. So broadly Augustinian, and that it starts out with comparing Augustine to Eusebius, the early church historian, and saying for Eusebius, there's a certain view of Christian history

where there's these particular turning points, the main one being Constantine's conversion. And for him, he describes that as akin to the Exodus. God liberates God's people physically, and God has done that now, using political leaders then and now. And so for him, there's more ability to clearly delineate what God is doing in history. And then Augustine comes along and uses this exile metaphor in Jeremiah 29 and the description of the two cities to say, actually, Christian history is more ambiguous than that. We can look in revealed history in scripture to see what God was doing. But we can't with any real confidence look at human political history post-Scripture and say, this is what God was doing. We can make guesses,

but it's ambiguous and our existence is not one of these like definitive moments of liberation but of ambiguity of exile of kind of living in this in between and then I spend some other chapters by spend I mean I will write some other chapters comparing some reformation uses of exile which are really different Calvin uses exile in this really historical grammatical literal way he also uses it in the institutes and in his commentaries on Jeremiah to argue for submission to government authorities under any circumstances. So he says if the instructions to the people of God and Jeremiah, despoiled of their goods, carried off into captivity, if they are still told to seek the peace and prosperity, and he says that means not just the rule, but the good rule

of the leaders that they are under, then if under those kinds of conditions you're supposed to submit, then there must not be any conditions in which you should not submit. And kind of comparing him to some Anabaptist folks who were using exile in a really different way. they're using it more to say, actually, exile is the way God purifies the church, and I'm kind of wanting to trace a little bit of this desire for purity through it, because that's part of my concern with some contemporary evangelical uses of it, is do we go to exile not to describe the fact that we live in a mixed community? There's some good, there's some evil. History is ambiguous. We're doing the best we can. There's moments where the spirit's working, but there's not just pure triumph or pure decline. But instead, some, I think, are using exile as some have in the past to say, say, how can the church be purified from any ability to be tainted by government power? And that, I think, is a little manichaeum. I think it treats things too starkly as good versus evil, good church versus evil empire. And that desire for purity, I think, can lead us to some wrong places.

And then another part of the dissertation comparing some more contemporary uses. So dealing with the like John Howard, Yoder, Brugamon, those kind of folks, but also comparing them with Dolores Williams, who is a womanist scholar, who she went to exile not to say, let's withdraw from government power. She went to exile to say, actually, this word in Jeremiah 29 black Americans can read with a different eye, and they can say, actually, this is a word for people who never had any access to political power. And it's basically saying, it's political realism. I mean, she has this line where she basically says, what Jeremiah is saying to the exiles is what I would say to black Americans today, which is you don't actually want the powers that be to prosper, but when America is doing well financially, we suffer less. So we should seek the good for that sense. And there's a real difference, I think, between some of the folks today who want to use exile to say, let's back off government power and oppressed Christians throughout history who have read it not as giving up power, but that'd be great if we had some, but we've never had any. And so this is really a word for those who are in a much more material political position of.

Exile. Sorry, you ask about someone's dissertation and they're going to go off for a little bit. Here's the thing is, you know, obviously I've been using the phrase exile in Babylon for a while. I have a book titled by it. My use comes more from looking at a biblical theological lens, not the biblical theological lens, as one helpful metaphor to understand our political place in the world. all that to say, to hear you unpack all the ways in which this metaphor has been understood throughout church history is so deeply informative.

I have had no clue about all that you're talking about. I mean, for me, it's never been like a lifelong kind of academic study. It's just been kind of more drawn from biblical theology. And I would say I would, you know, fit more within the yoder-ish. And a Baptist tradition. I'm not, when you describe, so first, I guess, your dissertation is more on the received tradition throughout church history of the metaphor, not necessarily like what does this mean within a biblical political theology, or is it kind of both?

Kind of both. I mean, I, my advisor and kind of my own predisposition is that any good Christian ethics, any good political theology needs to either be really rooted in history or really rooted in ethnography. So my advisor has a bunch of students who have done ethnographic studies to kind of ground the work they're doing. And that comes out of a conviction that Christian ethics is kind of like theology with people in it. Like to do it completely in the abstract is to miss that we do receive this metaphor from a certain tradition in place. And part of what I'm hoping to, and again, haven't written it yet, so we'll see what I discover along the way. But

part of what I'm hoping to uncover is what makes this metaphor appealing, underwere, what kinds of circumstances, and does that tell us something today about how to interrogate our own motives? So when, for example, there are folks in the Reformation going to it, they're going to it partially because their material circumstances are leading them with the theology they've been given to assume if I've been exiled from the country, the Christian country that I am from, I assume that's God's judgment. And biblically, exile is a form of God's judgment. So should I think that I'm in the wrong? And then trying to reorganize that and go, but I think I'm right, actually. Like, I think my theology is good and I think I'm trying to be faithful. So how do I then

come to a theology of exile that makes sense of that? And I think by comparing some of these different uses, it's helpful to then, my goal really is to be able to say not, should you say you're in exile or not, I think the different uses can be judged differently. I feel differently about Dolores Williams saying, this is a word for me, than I do for someone who may be, you know, an American Christian who has benefited for centuries from a lot of political power being in the hands of Christians going, oh, this is a word for me. I feel differently about that. But instead of just saying yes, no, I want to say, well, what broader theological framework chastens this metaphor? Like, what makes it so that exile can helpfully help us have a good perspective on our political lives

and not lead us into some of the places where I think it's gone wrong? I think some of the places it's gone wrong are in overemphasis on withdrawal. And especially, lack of responsibility for maybe what our own tradition has done with that political power in the past. The second we don't like it, it's like, well, that's not my responsibility anymore. But also part of what I'm hoping to trace, and again, I haven't discovered all of how this works yet, but I'm really interested in like the desire for purity. And there's a good part of that, right? Like the church should be holy and we should desire to be holy. But I noticed throughout history moments where people went to exile because they wanted a principled way to avoid.

avoid things that had any risk of moral compromise or any risk of guilt by association. And I think the Augustinian approach to exile actually says it's all mixed. Your motives are mixed. Your community is mixed. You under these conditions do the best that you can with what you've got. And part of what I love about Augustine's two cities is he's saying not these two cities are totally separate entities that don't touch and make sure you're in the city of God and not the city of man.

He's instead saying, these two cities give us a. framework for saying we share in a desire for these earthly goods here and now to be good. The city of God doesn't think this is the ultimate good. We have an eternal perspective, but we still share in the goods of the earthly city. And this sense of two cities and this sense of exile actually helps motivate our faithful participation in these earthly goods that we share with the earthly city with this broader perspective. That to me is a really different motivation to go, how do I serve well, the community I'm in? Then how do I make sure that my church is pure from any influences that the world around us might pollute us with.

It's like when purity is the goal, rather than mission being the goal, then that's problematic. Yeah. One of my favorite memories was going deep sea fishing in Alaska with my son a few years ago. Now I got super sick on the boat, but we brought home like 20 pounds of fish, and it was amazing. Unfortunately, I can't pop up to Alaska every few weeks to bring home fish, which is why I was thrilled to discover Wild Alaskan Company. The best way to get wild caught perfectly portioned nutrient-dense seafood delivered directly to your door. Now, I love seafood.

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Get seafood you can trust. Go to wildalaskan.com forward slash TR for $35 off your first box of premium wild-caught seafood. Do you mind if we linger here for a while? talk about the book you're working on currently at some point. We have other questions that some of them in the Theology and Raw community sent in, which are really good. But this is, I mean, I consider you kind of like a political theology mentor-ish by dialogue partner because we have a lot of overlap and some healthy differences and you're the expert.

I'm not. And so I love like laying out kind of where I'm thinking and having you scrutinize it, which you've done a few times. It's painful sometimes, but it's good. It's good for me. It's good for me. Okay. You said your goal in the dissertation is not necessarily to say this is a correct use of exile and this is not, but just try to understand a different context in which they're used. That's really helpful that it does depend on the social, political, economic, maybe even an ecclesiological context of the,

church. I mean, Palestinian Christians are living in a very different context than American evangelical Christians. And so what Excel might mean for one context might seem very different for others. And would you say that it might be closer to the heart of the biblical metaphor in this context, but maybe not in this context? Yeah, a good example of this. So Walter Bruegerman recently deceased, but like I love reading him. I have disagreed. I have disagreed. with some of his focus on exile and some of his interpretation of Jeremiah. He's big on exile, right? He uses that metaphor a lot.

Huge on exile. And I have read so many of his books on Jeremiah, and I think they're beautiful. And thank God for a biblical scholar who is actually enjoyable to read. He is wonderful and an amazing preacher. He comes back to exile a bunch. And one of the things he does with exile is he says, this is a word. And Will Wilhelmont and Stanley Harwis do a similar thing in Resident Aliens. They say, this is sort of true for.

all Christians in all times and all places, which is what Augustine says. He says this experience of exile is just what it means to be a Christian waiting for Christ's return. But all of them, and Yoder does something similar. Bruegerman, Willemann and Howerwas all say sort of a word for all times and places, but really a word for right now for American Christians. And they give different reasons for this. Howerwas and Willamon will say they kind of route it in like mid-60s some changes with, you know, religion in schools, and they actually go to, like, blue laws with, like, purchasing things on Sundays, and they say, okay, these changes, yeah, I don't know why they're called that, blue laws.

I went to, like, Democrat, blue. No, no, no, it's about, yeah, how much you can do commerce on Sundays. Oh, wow, okay. So they point to some of those changes as, like, this shift in Christianity's predominance, culturally, and they'll say, okay, we are now in an exile because of this, because Christianity is not as predominant as it once was culturally politically. Brueggemann does something even more kind of particular and like striking. He'll say in even some of his later books, for him it's 9-11 because he says what the experience

of exile was for the people of God was not just this material exile. Other theologians, Calvin and others would say, no, like the most important thing is the material experience of exile. Bruegerman says it's not just that. It's this experience of a loss of a familiar structure. world where your symbols are honored, where your practices are shared, where you kind of know who you are and where you fit in it. And he says 9-11 was this like loss of American certainty and sense of dominance. And since then, this word of exile is a more meaningful word to the

church in America. So what they're doing with exile is not only saying this is this is a more important word for us now, but they're framing that turning point around a previous power that has been lost and a previous dominance that has been lost. Lost in, okay, so is that just objectively this is what has happened? Or is it like, is there like remorse over losing that power? It depends on some of the writings. It kind of goes back and forth. And often there is a sense of this is judgment. You used the power wrongly and you have been judged. But for them, it really is objectively there was greater power, now there is less. That is very different in my mind in terms of how applicable the exile metaphor is than, as I said earlier, what Dolores Williams is

doing. Her lifespan is pretty similar to Brugamens a little later than Yoters, and she's not saying, okay, there was this great power and it was lost. She's saying this word to the exiled people in Babylon has been a word to persecuted Christians in the past. And so now who it's a word to is not the white Americans who had a loss of certitude post 9-11. It's a word to black Americans who are basically trying to learn wisdom from Jeremiah to just get along to get along. Like you don't have to like the person in power. You don't like Calvin, have to submit to absolutely everything. You have to seek the good of the place you're in because we will be scapegoated less if this power is successful, financially prosperous, secure. And that seems to be

more in line with actually what Jeremiah is saying in terms of who he's speaking to. But I also think, again, part of what I'm interested in is, like, what makes it an appealing metaphor. And I think for her, what makes it appealing is it's saying something that resonates with her community's experience. And I think what makes it appealing to some of the other folks who are pointing more to white Americans' loss of power is, like, I'm looking for a justification for something I don't actually like. Like, I don't like that we've lost power. but if I can go to this metaphor, it can help me make more sense of things. And something I have said a lot to people.

I don't know if I'll actually include this story in the dissertation. But when people ask me, like, why do you care about this? Why are you spending years writing about it? I'll say years ago when I first started traveling and speaking about faith and politics and churches, I would mention, and I've been, I wrote a proposal for Wheaton's PhD program years ago. I've been saying I was going to write a dissertation on exile for like eight years now. And I would tell these pastors, I'm new and a piece. PhD program, they ask, like, what are you going to write on? And I would say, oh, I'm going to

write something on exile. I don't have it figured out yet, but something on exile. And almost every time the same thing would happen. The pastor of the church would say, oh, love exile. I've been preaching to my people about how we are in exile. And I'm just trying to comfort them that, like, I don't want them to grasp onto cultural or political power. If they feel like it's waning, that's okay, we're supposed to have that experience. We're in exile. I'll go, okay, that's not bad. I don't mind that. That seems like a good pastoral word. But then, Almost every time I would go and talk to the congregants of the church and I would say, okay, your pastor told me he's talking about exile. She's talking about exile. What do you think about that? And almost every time the congregants would say, I love that our pastor knows that we are the belagored minority in this country, that we are the oppressed ones, that we are. And it just struck me, like this is the beauty, but also the slipperiness of these metaphors is the pastor probably heard this metaphor reading Brookerman or reading Howerwas or reading later you. and going, this is a really helpful metaphor for assuaging the fears of my congregation, for saying there is a path to faithfulness, even when it's not the path that maybe your evangelical upbringing taught you of like, you know, getting to the heights of power and changing the culture. Maybe there's this other path to faithfulness that's good. But he's reading exile or she's reading exile in that way because of the whole context of the things they're reading and the news they consume. But when that metaphor is given in a sermon without all of that context, the congregation,

hears it in the context of all the messages that they are hearing and the news that they are listening to. And suddenly exile doesn't mean, don't worry there's a path to faithfulness. Suddenly exile means you understand that we are in this literal position of oppression. And I think it really matters how we situate ourselves in the biblical text. Where we see ourselves says a lot about them the ethics that we receive from it. I've said this so many times it seems like a cliche, but like there were tons of enslaved people in the Annabellum South that described themselves as God's people in slavery in Egypt. I have read tons of sermons from enslaved folks and from slave owners and pastors of slave owners. I have yet to read a sermon where a slave-owning person said,

I am like Pharaoh. How you paint yourself in the story, the person you identify with really matters. And I worry that the slipperiness of this metaphor means people are being asked to identify with an oppressed position that we live in a culture of grievance. And they're being told, don't worry, you're in that position. You actually can leverage that sense of being oppressed in a political way. And I worry about that. Do you think there's any legitimacy to Christians in America right now feeling like they are? Maybe not physically oppressed, but are kind of oppressed, maybe ideologically oppressed?

Or like, I'm scared to. share my actual viewpoints. I might get fired for my job or lose my friends or people might really get upset at me or if a Christian out of college campus might feel like, really, could I raise my hand and say, I agree the marriage is between a man and woman. Oh, trust me. I took a gender studies class at Duke University. There are so many things I did not say that I was thinking.

This is where, again, part of what I hope to do with the dissertation, I don't want it to be totally relativistic. Like, oh, it just depends what context you're in or what position you're in. But I wanted to have some sense of that, in part because some of what worries me about the modern evangelical landscape is a pastor in Portland, writes a blog post about being an exile. And it, like, means something very different to be a Christian in Portland than it does to be a Christian in Flowery Grove, Georgia. I was just talking on the phone with someone yesterday. Is that a real city? It's a real place.

And she was just saying, like, she moved there recently. And she was like rural, very Christian Georgia. Yeah. Like, she moved from Atlanta. which was like the universe I am in is different. Like in terms of how Christianity is talked about, what it means, how it's valued. So I think part of the challenges, we keep trying to make judgments about, I mean, even this is the Hower Was Willem and Yoder. I mean, they're trying to say, like, where is America with Christianity?

It's so much more complicated than that. It depends where you are in the country, but it also depends what you mean. Because on one hand, it's really easy to say, totally. On the campus of Duke University, there were lots of things I was not going to say. say because it would have been just completely anathema. At the same time, there are a lot of Christians using supposed biblical arguments to wield serious political power in this country. So it just seems hard. Part of what people tend to do with exile is make a judgment about what moment in history we are in and what kind of power we hold. And it seems to me to just be so much

more contextual than that kind of judgment typically can be made. I think a pastor in a particular area trying to exeatheat that within the very particular context of the area they're in could be really faithful and good, but also the media landscape we live in means, again, like I said, he could be going or she could be going like, this is what it means to be a Christian in our particular place. And actually, maybe in the particular place they're in, Christians have a lot of freedom and maybe some power. But the people in their congregation might be watching a lot of news coverage that shows all the stuff happening in Portland or in a really progressive city. And so their imagination for what's possible has been really shaped by that.

And what I really want is for like scriptural metaphors to confront the imagination that the media has given us for our place in the world and our place in time. But doing that really faithfully is just a challenge. Yeah. Okay. So I want to hear from you like what kind of use of the exile metaphor, and let's just say for American Christians. Like what is the best way in which we can use that metaphor if you think it should be used? Because do you say there's a place for it depending on what you mean by it, your social, ecclesiological location, being sensitive to all the dynamics you do unpack. So maybe the questions, if I say it for American Christians, even that's not specific enough, right?

Well, and this is where part of what I want to say is like I think there's a really contextual use and that especially in preaching that needs to be done. but part of what I love about Augustine I kept joking with people like my committee I was like no one's shocked that my dissertation is probably going to end with like Augustine was right about this but I think what's helpful about what Augustine is saying is he is saying this is

the position of Christians in all times and places but he's not saying that that has any correlation to like actual political power right he's writing in such a weird hinge moment people forget that like even though he's writing post Constantine's conversion how that's all going to shake out is not clear, and there are real divisions in the church.

And so he's writing in a weird place that in some ways is similar to ours of great power, but also a lot of persecution in some ways, or at least not freedom to speak in certain contexts. And so his description of exile is not about the material position that Christians are in. His position on exile, like I said, is you are under these two sets of authority,

and those two sets of authority are temporal. They're not about government versus religious. Like the church state question doesn't exist in his time. States don't exist in his time. But the question of these two authorities is more about temporality. One of these is the temporal power. We live in the secular, this time in between. One of these authorities is eternal.

And your perspective as a member of the city of God is eternal. But because you now share in the earthly go, of the earthly city, your exile means, along the lines of what Jeremiah said, seek the peace and prosperity of the place into which I have brought you. For Augustine, it was actually a reason to say, like, these goods actually matter. You're not just waiting, you know, pie in the sky to get out of here. Your lot is bound up in the lot of the people of the earthly city, who might be members of your church or might be in your family. It's not like there's the government and then there's the church, it's whether it's within the church, within the city, within my family, the line that

divides us is not institutional. The line that divides us is not our outward behavior. The line that defines us is, are you, in a spiritual sense, a member of the earthly city or a member of the city of God? And he goes to the wheat and the tears. And he's like, and I can't know totally. But while we're in this mixed experience, the secular, this time in between, we seek the good of the earthly city because we actually, not just like for their sake, not just to be nice, but like these goods matter to us. They matter to us in a different way. This is Augustine's whole thing about loving God and using things. Like he doesn't want us to love the things of the earth for themselves. He wants us to love God and in pursuit of loving God use these things for that love

of God. But we actually do care about them and we seek the good of them in community with the city that we're in. If that's what we mean by exile, and then we say what that actually practically looks like will be so dependent on the time and place that we're in, I love that. What worries me about exile, whatever the community is, is when it's used in this way of right here and right now, we are in a unique kind of exile, and that changes how we should act. And I think making that kind of judgment about we are, I mean, this has been like a fight amongst a lot of theologians for a long time, is exile or exodus, like a better metaphor for describing Christian political life? And a lot of the fight will end up being about, well,

what time is it right now? Is this the moment for Exodus? Is this a moment for bucking the powers that be? Or is this a moment for enduring and withstanding and trying to be faithful under these conditions? And those are really contextual judgments that I don't think can be made by going, okay, let's read the Bible really well. Let's use appropriate hermeneutics. If we just exegette these passages correctly will know what to do, I think it takes a lot more like contextual work to figure out what that looks like. Okay. All right. So let me, let me try to explain how this is super helpful, by the way. Gosh, I feel like I've really helped me fine-tune my thinking on this. Let me explain to you how I understand how at least I'm using the Excel metaphor,

maybe the motivation, what I mean, what I don't mean. Actually, I haven't thought through this in a few months at least. So hopefully this is not, I don't have any, I'm not, I do have notes, but I don't have these, these notes. So, um, I don't mean, uh, for sure, and this is where people misunderstood, but I didn't realize this until I started being misunderstood. I'm like, oh, gosh, I need to be clear. I don't mean, and this is maybe popular among some conservative or right wingish Christians, um, that, oh, we used to have had power, the good old days and now we lost it and we're in exile. And maybe they don't say it, but like, we need to get power back.

Yeah, yeah. I don't mean that at all. Yeah, yeah. I also don't like it when people use it in this, to kind of, like what you're saying before, like to kind of say, I'm persecuted, I'm this, that when they're really, maybe not relatively speaking. And I don't mean an isolationist. And this is where I had to really fine tune my understanding because there is something.

And this is where, as I read Harawas, some things he says can sound a little more isolationist. that I'm comfortable with, but then he comes back and he'll explain himself. And I think he loves to be provocative. Yeah, he's a hard one to pin down. Yes. And part of me, I'm kind of like that. Like I understand people and appreciate people that will make an overstate a point just to stir things up, jar your thinking, come back and explain it. So I think because I have, I don't know, like an appreciation for that kind of writing, I feel like I understand what he's saying, but I can see where people would say. Sure. He's overly isolationist. And I've had to find, yeah, I've had to make sure that is not what I'm trying to communicate.

For me, my emphasis on exile and Babylon in our current political moment, I think is very similar to what the New Testament writers, especially Paul, was dealing with and John in the first century, where you had converts getting saved out of this Greco-Roman environment. they, you know, the allegiance to the empire and the emperor was extremely strong. You think about like, I mean, just the shared terminology. And, you know, you've done a lot of stuff in empire studies and, you know, but even just terms like gospel and savior and Lord and salvation and peace and hope and Pax Romana and Roman citizenship and all the, you know, all these categories were, were such a fundamental part of a new convert's identity wrapped up, like everything is so wrapped up in the hope of the empire and the Caesar at its helm.

And so much of what's underlying, sometimes is on the surface, but sometimes it's kind of lingering behind the scenes in the early apostolic preaching, it is kind of wrenching people away from that political allegiance and redirecting that political allegiance toward a renewed political allegiance to Lord Jesus Christ. So I look at that, just from a biblical standpoint, and then I look at our situation today, I'm like, gosh, there's a lot of similarities. I'm not one to just map Rome, I'm on America. There's a lot of differences.

A lot of similarities. But like that, I do see it as a major discipleship issue that needs to be addressed, that Christians in America across us. political spectrum, have deep, deep, nationalistic, political, partisan allegiances that are so buried into the fabric of our worldview. Yeah. And I have found that this metaphor can be one way to help kind of expose some of that, you know, even like, you know, so that's really, it's really trying to reorient a Christian

political identity. And then that's kind of like, as far as the practical stuff, like, I explore some of that in my book and I, you know, but like, I don't even, I'm free it's like, we can, let's have that conversation, but I just, let's just, like, for instance, could you go a day without using the plural pronoun to refer to your nation? Like, like, I don't use the phrase like, our troops. or our this, our that, hour of that, hour of that, our borders, our, and it's just a remind, it's just like, my primary political identity is I'm a member of Christ's global

multi-ethnic kingdom with Jesus as Lord, and that's where my primary allegiance lies. Like, what if by plural pronoun describe that reality? We're a non-militaristic kingdom, so we don't have troops. We have missionaries. Maybe those are our troops. And I'm not, I could probably be pushed back. Can I about the portfolio by now? This, yes, please do.

This might be a little bit just overstating something, just to kind of help on earth some of these unexamined allegiances. Totally, totally. So, yeah, please. I think that's really helpful. No, that's really helpful. And I do think part of, this is what I said is like the beauty and the slipperiness of these metaphors is like I think they can really help jolt our imaginations. but the difficulty is in the practical of like how it works out with what people use that imagination for or what possibilities seem real and what possibilities seem closed off by the imagination that's

been shaped by those metaphors. Part of my concern with the exile metaphor is to the degree that it teaches us that we are fundamentally separate in a way that like in a certain sense that's true, right, set apart and also our primary allegiance is not to this country. And yet to me there's like two ways that we respond to that separateness that are both not great, but both are rooted in this sense that we are fundamentally separate from the world we live in. Whereas Augustine, like I said, the beauty of his two cities is like, it's ambiguous, it's mixed, like you are, you are bound up with these people and you are, your lot is bound up in theirs. And I worry that within evangelicalism right now, we still underlying have this idea that we are fundamentally

separate, that that's possible, that we can be in this like bubble from the rest of the world. What do you mean fundamentally separate, separate from what? Like we are uninfluenced by or not responsible for or not indebted to the community, the culture, the nation that we were born in, that our church exists in. And I think on one hand that that manifests itself in terms of dominance. Like we are the ones with the Christian ideas versus the rest of the world that has non-Christian ideas and we will dominate in order to have Christian ideas dominate. But it doesn't seem actually that different to me to go, we are the ones with Christian ideas, uninfluenced. influenced by the evil ideas of the world. And so we will do the counter community thing in our church and we will maybe a little

Benedict option, maybe a little Howard Wassey and kind of, but we both of those are rooted in the idea that I just think is not theologically helpful and is not practically true that we somehow exist in real separation from the communities that we're a part of. Part of this goes back to what I think a lot of evangelical deconstruction has been is going, there were ideas that I thought were just like biblical ideas that now I recognize were like, well, no, my seeker-sensitive church was picking up on a bunch of cultural things that were hot at the moment in and outside the church. And that's what shaped the architecture and the culture. And I just think my wariness about exile sometimes is not just about isolation from government power, which does concern me.

I honestly, some of this was rooted in 2016 to 2020. I was in seminary in Dallas, Texas. I watched a lot of evangelical peers of my friends. mine who I didn't know what I was going to do with my degree, but they were going to go be pastors. 2016 is happening. They're going like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with the, you know, I'm interning at this church in Dallas.

Most of my congregation is like fighting or is captive to Trumpy kind of stuff. I don't want to say anything against it, but I think it's bad. And like, what is my, like, what is appropriate pastoral response to political thing? What is inappropriate partisan stuff in the pulpit and what's not? And in all the angst of that, a lot of them went and really. read resident aliens for the first time or read some John Howard Yoder, read some Brueggeman. And I think there was something really helpful and provocative about those texts for them. But what I worried was that it also became this really helpful way to have a principled reason

to not engage with the things that were actually spiritually malforming their people. Like, I don't have to say anything about the immigration stuff that's happening in Texas right now because we are resident aliens. And this, like, it's not our borders. It's America's borders. and we belong to a different country. That's not, yeah, so I need to be clear because it's not at all what I'm saying. I just worry that it becomes a really helpful way to avoid responsibility for things that

as Christians, I mean, I think that's part of Jeremiah's instructions. It's like it's not just like the peace and prosperity of this city in this really. I mean, I love how Tim Keller talks about like really being in the city and for the sake of the city. I don't even think it's just that, though. I think it's this recognition. I think Dolores Williams is right that some of this is just a realistic, like God has given us through this letter to the exiles a really truthful account of what it means to belong

to a community. And it's not just that you should seek the peace and prosperity. But the end of that, like, in its prosperity, you will find your prosperity. That's not just like a promise from God. I think it's what it means to live in a community is that your lot is bound up in theirs. And I worry, not that you intend this, but that people pick up exile language as a really helpful way to go. I'm not responsible for what this country has done because it's not us. Oh, I'm not response. Hmm. I think that I benefit greatly from many of the good advantages of this country.

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available anywhere else. That's Brooklynbetting.com and use the promo code TITR for 30% off sitewide purchases. Make sure you enter our show name after the checkout so that they know we send you Brooklynbending.com promo code TITR. so okay this is really helpful because i'm fine i'm fine tuning my thoughts here um yeah i absolutely think the church as the church good how rossian when the church is being the church should speak up um against any inhumane treatment of people whether it's at the border between the country that's now called the United States of America and Mexico, or the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, or wherever.

Like, it's like, wherever the global Christian community is, if there's injustices committed toward humans within their sphere of influence, then, then, yeah, absolutely. What would I, I guess I would, I know you agree with this. I hope you. I just want to wrench American Christians away from when they think immigration, borders. They immediately go to right, left, political, whatever. Totally.

I want to say, let's go to Deuteronomy, Exodus, Amos, and let's go to the border and see image of God's image of God bearers and not try to like figure out what side are we on or even ask the question. See, this is where it gets little tricky. is it good for this country for undocumented immigrants to come in? Is it good for the economy? Is it bad for the economy? What about the criminals and rapists?

And what about the drug? What about the fentanyl problem? Is that a right-wing thing? And we can go all this. So is it good for the country as kind of the category, the primary lens that Christians are thinking through? And I'm like, that's a really interesting question that I don't know if it'll be able to answer because it's so highly politicized.

You can't, unless you're going to do your, like, spend a few decades researching, what does that even mean? And good for the country. What, good for the economic prosperity of the country? Is that a Christian Valley? Should I care about the economic prosperity of America? At what expense? What if our economic, our?

What if the economic prosperity of this country now called the United States of America actually leads to economic, as it often does, especially in South American countries that we've absolutely pillaged? leads to their destruction. So it just gets so messy when if we just look at it biblically, like this is a person made in God's image that is in need. Let's focus on meeting that person's need and not just think through it through these kind of nationalistic political categories.

Is it good for the country? Is this person good for the country or not? I'm like, it's not my main question. I don't know. On one hand, I'm so with you. And on the other hand, I just think, again, part of what I'm asking so often is like, what is our motivation for some of these things? And I worry that for many people, the logic you just described is really appealing because it moves us from a really complicated, practical, in the trenches kind of question, to a really simple one. The Bible says love immigrants, I will love immigrants.

I think loving immigrants is straightforward in scripture. where the rubber meets the road is where you get into like the really important tricky questions of what kinds of policies actually yeah well of what kind of policies really positively impact people and our yeah the tricky thing is it would be really nice to go okay the Bible says love immigrants I will love immigrants and loving immigrants in the abstract has no cost I mean it might have a cost to me like financially or you know I might have to help a family set up their apartment or I but there's no trade off there's not like well what's the best possible solution that hurts the least amount of people and helps the most amount. But policy has those kinds of questions because we live in a fallen world. And I don't think every Christian needs to become a policy expert. To your point, something is as twisted and partisan and difficult and historically difficult as immigration, I don't think Christians need to, to every single Christian needs to be able to vote based on having tons of policy knowledge. But it would be good for the church to have some people who are. Yes. And I think it would be good for the spiritual formation.

Charles Matthews, a political theologian, has a wonderful book on kind of the ascetic value of political participation. And I think this is a good example of it of like, I think it's actually good for our spiritual formation for us to say, yes, first scripture has taught me these ethical truths. Like this is not just love immigrants, but there's so much in the Old Testament about how practically to love them and how practically to care for the poor. I'm going to go to that. structures that help the immigrant. You know, don't, don't harvest the edges of your field so that someone can, all of those, like, details teach me things about what God cares about, not just for how I individually treat people, but for how human communities should function down to nitty, gritty details.

I'll get those general, universal truths from scripture, and I'll also get tons of examples in scripture of what it looks like to deal with, like, really messy, tricky issues. Like, you know, what happens when, yes, you have these laws, but the, like, the story of Ruth is like a story of like, okay, well, practically, like, what happens when we put these provisions in place? But this woman's, you know, husband has died and she's here with her mother-in-law, and actually someone else is supposed to be the redeemer for her. And how does this? So scripture gives me all of those imaginative examples and these universal truths.

And then the really tricky thing is going, in the time and place I'm in, how do I be most faithful with the information I have, with how scripture has shaped and formed me? And I'm most concerned just that we not look for the easiest way out. And I don't think you're doing that. But I think many people hear the policy stuff is complicated, but the Bible is clear and go, great, I don't have to think is hard and I don't have to do as much. That's super helpful. I mean, so being, if I can summarize as concise as I could, everything you're saying, which I agree with, being in exile doesn't remove the Christian from the responsibility of not just loving individuals around them, but also in as much as they have the opportunity, power, and knowledge. to address deeper structures that are unjust or sinful or whatever. My worry, not worry, but the question that I raise, because I agree with that,

but then I do ask the question, and maybe we've talked about this before, I don't know if we have, but like, how does that not become Christian nationalism? I believe abortion is one of the great, greatest moral injustices of our day. Does that mean we do everything, use whatever means possible, or let's say use Christian means to ensure that that justice is accomplished and try to ban abortion? What about, I won't get, well, do we want to get into foreign policy? I mean, that's, most Christians don't agree with me on my views on.

Sure, sure. Because you can go on their list, and it's like, well, okay, at the end of the day, what we think is just is based on the Bible. It's Christian justice. So are we didn't trying to fight for a Christian nationation? And how is that different than all the Christian nationalists? Yeah. I mean, I am of the camp that we have like way overly broadly defined Christian nationalism. And I think we've done that in part because we're not, we're uncomfortable making some of the distinctions we really want to make, in part because we haven't actually been very thoughtful about it. I think sometimes we just kind of go like, Labels are easy. Really conservative people claiming Christianity for their political goals is something I don't like. So I will call that Christian nationalism. I won't call it Christian nationalism when, for example, historically, I mean, I had a class of students at Duke Divinity School where we were reading a bunch of articles for one week. We spent a week on, it was Old Testament class, a week on the Old Testament in politics. And all of the articles were about basically like conservative evangelicals in America's history going to the Old Testament for.

or not working on Sundays for prohibition, for whatever. And some of the students in this class, you know, 22 years old, really zealous, really often coming from evangelical institutions and wanting to leave that behind, said this is terrible. No one should use the Bible in this kind of way. The Old Testament should not be a blueprint for any political action. You should be Christian in your demeanor and your behavior. But when it comes to your voice in public, you should not be using Christian arguments.

You shouldn't be using scriptural arguments. And I said at the beginning of class, like, I want us to put everything we say about this through the lens of, does this make sense of the civil rights movement? I was just going to say. Because most of the students in that class, and it's not because I think they did everything correctly. But most of the students in this class would say when conservative evangelicals use the Bible in politics, it's bad. When civil rights leaders used the Bible in politics, it was good. That was a point I brought up in the ETS last year with you. You kicked my butt on it.

And I think that their judgment about those two things is actually correct. but we're not thoughtful and why. And so we end up basically saying when people use the Bible for political things I don't like, it's Christian nationalism. And when people use the Bible for political things I do like, it's good, faithful political theology. And what I instead want to say is we should bring the full strength of Christian convictions to public life. And we should not be afraid to say when I advocate for more compassionate immigration policies, I'm not doing it just because I think that's nice or that it's good for the country. I'm doing it because I think this is not just. that God has said individuals should care for immigrants.

I think God in the Old Testament has said nations are judged by how they treat foreigners. And I live in this nation and my lot is bound up in it. And I both want that for the sake of those individuals. And I want us to be the kind of nation that operates the way God has described nations should operate. And I don't think I should hide that. I also don't think that I should treat that argument like a trump card against any other kind of argument that can be made in public. So for me, I mean, maybe I've said this to you before, but one of the most kind of formative experiences I have had, and I learned this in my courses on political theology, but I learned it so much more strongly, living in a neighborhood, a pretty low-income, high immigrant neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina, where most of my next-door neighbors were Muslim immigrant families, and I lived there for four years and got to know some of them who lived there the whole time with me, and I will never forget one of my Muslim immigrant neighbors asking me one day if I was a traveling evangelist. And I was like, I don't know why you're asking me that.

And she said, you sometimes carry a Bible and you very often are putting a suitcase in your car and leaving for the weekend. And I was like, actually, I thought about it. And I was like, I kind of am a traveling about. Like I go and talk about Jesus with people in public. But she was thanking me one day for carrying my Bible, for having a cross around my neck at times. And I was so surprised by that because Durham's a pretty progressive city. And I thought most of the assumptions here are you will think I'm a danger to you. because the Christian nationalists, because the angry evangelicals, because, so why would you, like,

in progressive Durham, like, I shouldn't bring my convictions to bear in public life, but my neighbor should. She should wear her head covering and she should give her, but I shouldn't. And she pointed out to me, like, we live in such a progressive city. It's hard to be religious in public. And she said, you have the choice to be or not. Nothing about Christianity requires you wear a cross around your neck when you leave your house or you carry your Bible. You could put it in your backpack. my religion requires me to visibly be religious in public.

And so it's actually like a comfort to me that you are choosing to do that too. It makes me feel less alone. Wow. And that to me is a picture of what I would hope would be an alternative to the Christian nationalism that says the Bible says it. That's the blueprint for our nation. And no one else gets a say in it. This is just what it is. The alternative is I want my Muslim neighbor to bring her deeply held convictions about what a faithful good community looks like to bear on public debate.

I want us to go to a city council meeting together and have different ideas about how to best serve the people in our community, hers that are based on her faith and mine that are based on mine, and we will have deep disagreements. We might actually find ways. I mean, I actually think increasingly religious people of different face will find some overlap in many ways. But that kind of, I think this is actually truly a Christian practice of hospitality to say, hospitality both requires that I treat your gifts as gifts and not threats to me. But hospitality also requires that I'm honest about the place that I am coming from. Like hospitality says you're welcome into my house. It's my house. Like it looks a certain way and I make certain kinds of food and I'm welcoming the dish you made that smells different and I might never have tasted it before and I don't know what it'll be like. But it doesn't require either that I treat your gifts as threats or that I hide the particularity of the place that I'm in for the sake of your comfort because that's not actually real relationship. And I don't think that's real pluralism to say we leave our convictions at the door. Real pluralism is it'll get really messy when I come and say, I think God told us to do this. And you say, I think God told us to do

something different. But I think anything less is pretty dishonest. And I don't think it brings the best gifts of our various traditions to bear on the community we now live in. So going back to my original question, do you think Christians should fight to establish Christian values and a Christian view of justice in our country? Yeah. Because I think God not only gave us that gift, but I also think, and there are trickier questions under that, right? Like what is practically or faithfully legislated and not, right? Like I do think there are still practical, quite, I don't think it's like we should just take the whole of scripture and say this, you know, we fight for the same things at the same level, right? Like I'm less concerned.

I'm not going to say like Christians should start going to their city councils and saying every family farm or garden. needs to leave its edges unharvested so that the poor can. But I do think it's right for Christians to say, scripture describes not just for the people of Israel, but for the other nations in the Old Testament, describes these principles of caring for the poor and the foreigner and for principles of justice and how people are treated. And I'm not going to pretend that's not my reason for advocating for that in the community.

Like foreign nations are held accountable when they violate just creational principles. Yeah, they're not held accountable for not following all the particulars of how Israel should worship Yahweh. but they are held accountable for, I think, really, the principles that are rooted in the Noahic covenant of like, for blood shed, human blood will be shed. Like, there are creational and covenantal reasons that God has given for how human community should function. And that's why I say parsing out, like what in this requires a regenerate human heart to make sense and shouldn't be legislated and what in this does not require that and is just a good principle for humans to live well in community is a very tricky practical question. I don't think there's a Bible verse that helps you parse that out entirely. But I think the current options of either every word of this is a blueprint for government and we should put the Christian flag on the top of the Capitol or the leave your convictions

at the door and only have kind of abstract principles that you bring to public. I don't think either of those are totally faithful. Well, there's a difference between saying a nation should be a Christian nation versus the way it organizes itself is shaped by Christian values, right? Yeah, by Christians who have persuaded the nation to make those kinds of decisions. Yeah, we're not saying that even like putting prayer in schools or Ten Commandments or, you know, I would maybe argue for the sermon on the Mount in schools. I've had a big fight with Sky about Ten Commandments and public schools. And my big issue is just like if I think they are good principals and if Christians persuaded enough people in their area to like legislate that, I wouldn't say it's on face wrong.

Do I like want that to happen? No. But like I think that that's a good example of like I would draw the line differently than other people about what should be legislated and what shouldn't. But I think all Christians should be going, I believe these are good principles to live by. I think God has revealed how human communities should function. I will do the best under the principles of a democratic, you know, government to advocate for those things. And I will be kind and hospitable to people who bring very different reasons for the things that they're advocating for. I think Ten Commandments would be theologically naive. I don't think Paul would have law of Moses. there. I think that's like, why are you going back to a slave master? Like I just, I mean, whatever. And who's keeping the Sabbath in the literal sense and no other gods before me? My word, well, that is kind of what that means is Yahweh manifested in Jesus Christ.

So my Muslim neighbors is going to be disobeying that commandment by virtue of their existence. So I, yeah, put, yeah, Matthew 5 in school. Sure, sure. Love your enemy. And yeah. Going back to how empires are talked about in the book of Revelation, which I think is the primary lens in which we should view politics. As you know, the apocalyptic genre in first century Judaism was it was political in nature. It was designed to pull the mask off of political realities

and empires. And so I do think Revelation is a primary lens in which we should form our political theology, and it has, I mean, just straight up, Babylon is demonically empowered, Revelation 13. We are commanded to come out of Babylon. We celebrate the destruction of Babylonians, not Babylonians, not every Roman, we're seeking to bring those under the Lordship of Jesus, but the demonically empowered structure of Babylon, which is characterized by opulence, it's characterized by militarism. It's characterized by arrogance. Who can fight the beast? Look how powerful we are. It's characterized by sexual immorality. It's characterized by economic exploitation. These are the, Scott McKnight has seven characteristics of Babylon. Those are five that I remember. And I look at those

cat. I'm like, okay, opulence, luxurious displays of wealth, check. Militarism. Double check. Sexual immorality, of course. Arrogance. I mean, look. Literally, American exceptionalism, which is on my commercial sometimes. Mm-hmm. Dude, that's like a quote from the Book of Revelation of what not to do. Like, if you're saying you're exceptional, you might be Babylon. Totally. So I go down here and I'm like, okay, this does not discount somebody to government authorities,

fighting for the immigrant, even pushing to change policy. But where is the place for seeing this oppositional character between being a follower of the lamb who was crucified by the dragon-empowered beast, that is a lens in which I think we should view the United States of America. Yeah. Where am I off? I mean, I think I agree. I'm always nervous when I talk about politics. No, no, no. I, this is where, unsurprisingly, I think Augustine is really helpful in that I think he reads what Revelation is doing as describing the earthly city and the heavenly city and saying those are not institutional realities. So the United States federal government is not Babylon, just like Rome was not

synonymous with Babylon. Babylon's an elastic category. Yes, and it helpfully describes the community of creatures, human and non-human, whose wills are turned against God and towards themselves to the point of their destruction. And that is a power and a spirit and a principality that animates much of what happens in human governments under the conditions of sin. But part of the reason I think his distinction between the earthly city and the heavenly city and then the government and the church and these institutional forms. One of the reasons I think that's so important is Augustine is fighting. I said this earlier. He's fighting against manichaeism, the idea that there are these two eternal good and evil powers in the world and the material and the spiritual. But part of

what he's so concerned with, even in his conversion from manichism to Christianity, is manichism had a simple explanation for why evil exists in the world. And that was appealing. to someone who had experienced evil in the world. But Christianity was able to say evil is actually not real. It is probation. It is lack. It is corruption of good creation God made. And so Augustine takes that really philosophical approach to where did evil come from and this question pestering him and applies it to this broader question of evil, which is how can there be such evil in human communities? And yet I don't want to say this entire nation is so evil and wrong. that like throw it in the fiery pit of hell.

And where I find... I wouldn't say that either. No, totally, totally. You know, they kept thieves at bay, they built roads. There was... There were glimpses of real goodness, and that's part of what he's trying to describe. And this is where not to counter your revelation

with Romans 13, because that's just like the most annoying thing anyone ever does. But I actually think Romans 13 has become one of my favorite passages, in part because I think we so misunderstand it in a bunch of ways. some of the ways along what you have said, right? Like, it is really powerful for Paul to say, actually, these really powerful political authorities that you think are divine get their power from Jesus Christ, who you crucified. Like, there is a very subversive element in that. But I also think Romans 13 is paralleling Jeremiah 29.

I mean, the end of it in terms of saying, you know, after all of the like God has instituted this, it's complicated to interpret that, but the end of this is why you pay taxes, the authorities are God's servants who give their full-time to governing, give to everyone what you owe them, if you owe taxes, pay taxes if revenue than revenue, if respect, then respect, if honor than honor. And the idea throughout that whole first half of the chapter, and before that, in the end of Romans 12, where it's talking similarly about, like, leave wrath up to God, and you love the neighbors that you have even and do the best that you can to be at peace with them and leave wrath up to God. all of that sounds very much to me like Jeremiah 29 in terms of there is this ultimate judgment

of what is what are the evil powers and where is God actually work? Where is the Holy Spirit working and where is the power of the Antichrist working? That level of judgment, we get a glimpse of it in revelation, but a certain amount of it we are waiting for God's judgment on. In the here and now, you have obligations to the people in the community that you are in. Your lot is bound up with them. And that wasn't just true prior to the death and resurrection of Christ. it is still true. Even though Christ has relativized all those powers, has disarmed them at the cross, has also revealed that this is what the end of the story looks like. It's not Rome is nothing compared to the power of God. And yet still, I don't think this is just political realism. I don't think it's what some scholars will say of like, well, Paul's writing to an oppressed, persecuted religious minority that had no power. And so he's just sort of, he would have said something different if they could have done anything different. But I think he's saying what Jeremiah said to a similar group of people. Yes, you are.

the minority here. But also, these are still universal commands for all times and places, which is there is still possibility for goodness here in the very complicated, full of moral compromises, full of potential for good intentions that go wrong. Like, still here in the mechanisms of government are possibilities for you to enact the obligations you have to others. I mean, I think it's, on one hand, it's interesting. People go to Romans 13 way too much to just go, okay, do whatever the government says. The Bible says that I believe at that. I think it's interesting we don't go to Romans 13 to say the real like actual straightforward command here is pay your taxes, which to me is not just the government is good. It's saying like

whether you like it or not, even though your community has been relativized, which is what's even happening, you know, prior in Romans 12 where it's talking about your obligations to the Christian community. Now it's saying, and if you think that those obligations to the Christian community mean you don't have obligations to the political community you're a part of, you're wrong. You not only owe taxes, you owe honor and respect to people in the political community that you're a part of. And I think rather than going to Romans 13 to say, obey the government under any circumstances, we should be going it to say the command from Jeremiah is the command from Paul, which are both commands from God to us to say, it'd be great to say that your allegiance to the kingdom of God and the family of God means that you don't have these obligations anymore. But turns out you do. And actually, they're a form of worship to God for you to fulfill them. It's so, it's so, I mean, yeah, I agree with. with that because you're just quoting Paul, so I have to pay your taxes. And even like the government is there for your good, you know, just do it as good. And they'll be fine. It's like, well, not really. I was just reading Esau's book rereading, you know, his book reading while black.

You know, it's like, yeah, tell that to black people, especially in the last several decades, you know, just if the couples you're over, just do what he says. I mean, and I think actually on some level what Paul is saying is like you will ultimately be okay. Like you actually have the same, this is one of the real gifts

of the civil rights movement. Going back to the Christian nationalism thing is to say part of the reason that you are able, this is a unique, I think, Christian gift. Part of the reason you are able to advocate for the things you are advocating for without resorting to unjust means to achieve them is because you know

leave wrath up to God. but also you know that God's wrath is coming. Like it's a real ability to say you are ultimately okay if you do good. Like ultimately, will you actually be rewarded earthily for that? There's no way Paul actually thought that was true. But in the context of like leave room for God's wrath, I think he actually can say you do the best that you, you know, live at peace as far as it depends on you. Isn't just like, don't ruffle any feathers. I think it's like to the best of your ability, do what God has asked human communities to do on earth.

And there's an incredible documentary about the civil rights movement where there's a clip of someone saying this, basically, of some protesters coming out of a church to go to a sit-in and a reporter asks one of them, like, you're going to fail. Like you can't possibly believe that this will change anything. And one of the people coming out of the church says, if they kill us, they kill us, but God will vindicate us. And I think that's the message there, which is neither a message of withdrawal from this because it's evil and requires moral compromise of you. or a dominate using whatever means necessary. Okay. It's just Romans 13, I mean, a couple things that we can wrap up. It needs to be, it participates in a kaleidoscope of ways in which the Bible talks about political entities.

I mean, Romans 13 and Revelation 13 feel like they're written from different religions. I mean, you've got obey the governing authorities and you've got Acts 529, we must obey God rather than human beings. Yeah, Caitlin Chess, thank you again for being on Theology Nara. I don't know what number of this is, three or four, five, six, whatever. First time live in person. So, yeah, really appreciate your work and helping me think through my political theology. You're like my Master Yoda of Political Theology. So thank you for the wonderful conversation. Thank you for helping me think through it as well, Preston. It's helpful to have some provocations. Are you looking for news with a faith-based perspective, then tune in to the pour-over

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