Theology in the Raw - Politics, Culture, and the Gospel: Ameen Hudson and Ruslan Karaoglanov

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

This is a recording of the live podcast conversation between Ruslan Karaoglanov and Ameen Hudson at the Exiles in Babylon Conference (April 2024). Ameen is the co-host (with KB) of the popular Southside Rabbi podcast and Ruslan is the host of the Bless God YouTube channel and podcast. In this conversation, Ruslan and Ameen banter around about politics, culture, theology, and the evangelical church. Get your copy of End the Stalemate today! https://www.tyndale.com/p/end-the-stalemate/9781496481153 Subscribe today to the Pour Over Today! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pour-over-today/id1583657464 Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology in Iraq. This episode is a recording of a live podcast that happened at the exiles in Babylon conference in Boise, Idaho. What was that pack in April? Uh, and this, okay. So, um, this was during the three Christian views of politics session where I had three speakers give three Christian views of politics. They bantered around, we took a break and then Amin and Ruslan hit the stage for a rather lively live podcast conversation, reflecting on that session, but just kind of the political climate as a whole in Christianity today. I'm in Christianity today. Uh, Ruslan hosts the bless God podcast and, and YouTube channel. And it's just, it's, it's actually absolutely incredible. If you're, if you're not following Ruslan, you need to follow Ruslan and, uh, and I mean, uh, co-host the South side rabbi podcast with hip hop artist KB. And that one's amazing too. So anyway, we put these two guys

in conversation with each other and just said, let it rip. So that's what you're going to listen to. So please welcome to the show for the first time, Ruslan and Amin. If any of you do not know us, we're going to introduce ourselves. So my name is Amin Hudson. I co-host a podcast called Southside Rabbi with my brother KB. And I'm a writer and a speaker and yeah, a believer in the Lord Jesus and Ruzlan is a great friend of mine.

And yeah, I'll in the Lord Jesus, and Rue Slahn is a great friend of mine. And yeah, I'll pass it off to you. I'm just filling in for KB, because he's on tour. Oh, no. I'm a YouTuber, a podcaster, writing a book based in Southern California, and excited to have this conversation.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm also based out of Tampa, Florida. This is my, as I said in my talk the other day, this is my first time in Boise. This is my first time at a P&W, I think, actually. I've never seen so much Patagonia in my life. Ever. So I got two questions.

Is, one, how do you afford it? What's your job? Because I would like to know. And two, is there a place that has it, what's your job? Because I would like to know, and two, is there a place that has it for a discounted rate? Because I also would like some Patagonia myself. First of all, this has been a great experience being at this conference.

I just love what Preston is doing. I think that he is fostering conversations with folks that have different beliefs and come from different backgrounds. And I think that in this point in time and culture, which I think that we can all agree is very polarized and politicized. It is good for us to be able to come together and discuss things with one another from different backgrounds and perspectives in a civil and loving way. Yeah. Right? Not assuming everything is the Jezebel

spirit. Not, oh yes, not assuming everything is a Jezebel spirit. And if we had a poll out here, bro, I could, I could go to work. But, um, but, uh, I, I'll aesthetics, calisthenics. Um, but I think, uh, what I, I love the civil and charitable discourse because I think that it is important for us as believers to be able to model to the world in our witness on how we can even disagree lovingly and charitably. Not straw manning each other, not assuming the total worst about the other person,

that this other person on the side of me is a demon because they don't believe what I believe. But being able to come together and actually get some understanding and practice listening to one another, because I think in the age, the digital age that we're in in the internet, where everybody is essentially given their own platform

and their own soapbox, it doesn't really encourage us to listen well. And it doesn't really teach us how to disagree well either because on the internet, it's very easy for you to find your own silos who will always agree with you and clap for everything that you say and back you up on everything. It's easy to be tribal. But in the real world, you have to rub shoulders with people that disagree with you. And I think as Christians, we should be modeling that better than anyone else and so I'm grateful for a conference like this in which we can see good examples of that. Amen. One thing I love that that BZ said was he said I may

disagree with some of the things I said on the stage. Yes. So he kind of gave himself an out but I would I would piggyback on that that sometimes we can disagree with ourselves. Yes. And that's OK. And I think of my own journey. I'm originally from a country called Azerbaijan, Baku, immigrant, former Soviet Union, came to the United States as a kid. And my politics has been all over the place.

I'm 04, I'm a Bush guy, 08, 2012, I'm an Obama guy. I don't vote for anybody in 2016. I think I voted Libertarian Party. I liked Andrew Yang, and now I'm just politically homeless. However, I feel like I've been pushed further and further in the right. And so I think that's the ability to disagree with yourself and change your mind,

I think, also requires some humility. Then I think conversations like this can foster. Because our politics, everything else in society seems to be fluid except politics. True. Right, like you're in cement, and I just don't think that's the case. Amen.

Especially on my own journey within the last, I would say, four years. I didn't like Trump either election, and I don't plan on supporting him now, but it seems like there's been so many shifts that's happened where you're like, man, I don't, gosh, I don't really agree with any of these bozos. Yeah, I feel the same way. I think my politics has also been all over the place.

Same with you. I was an Obama guy and then I also in 2016, I wrote in for my vote and I think I wrote Mickey Mouse or something like that. I made it for Jesus, I voted for Jesus a bunch of times. You didn't vote for Kanye? No, I didn't. I didn't like his view on taxes. So, I'm just joking.

I think that I can relate with being politically homeless, even in how we have been discussing politics here, I have come to a place where I feel like neither the left or the right, again, has all of the answers. And I am a person that has constantly kind of talked about the Christian's political witness being not left or right, but up. And what I mean by up is that the kingdom ethic in what I believe transcends

left versus right partisanism. Right? I think that what God is calling us to be in his world is bigger than a political than any one political party can hold. Right? And so it doesn't mean that I don't believe that Christians can identify on the right or the left. And I do as you, uh, Ruzlan, Lena, a little more right. Um, but it does mean that I think I cannot give fealty or loyalty to either side because I believe that my loyalty to the kingdom, uh, transcends my loyalty to the side. And I just can't, I can't see myself being as tribal Especially at the expense of blowing your witness The last election season. I mean from the Trump prophets to the QAnon stuff I saw a lot of friends and Christians that jumped out the window and just you know, okay

January 20th came he's gonna get in power in April. And then it's due, and it was like, whoa, we're jumping out of the window and blowing our witness, whether it's being politically charged and ruining Christmas dinner, or being weird into conspiracy theory land, right? And completely just blowing relationships that way. I think that the ethic that you speak of is not at the expense of the gospel.

Right. Right. Hold your opinions and positions politically and that that's all good and well. But when you start blowing it at the expense of the gospel, I just go, oh, that's not a good look. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love the Christmas thing. It's like Uncle Jim, man. I'm just trying to enjoy this turkey and eggnog and you're talking to me about baby blood. Baby blood and adrenochrome. I just don't, I don't wanna go there. Can we just watch a Christmas story and instead of you putting on this documentary from Infowars, but I think it happens.

But I think that the witness thing is important, I think in my own life, when I talked a little bit about my deconstruction story before, I talked about how I came from kind of the reform Calvinistic space. I think that a part of where my disillusionment happened and deconstruction kind of occurred was around the issues of racial justice because I'm in Tampa, Florida, right? Trayvon Martin gets killed. He gets killed in Sanford, Florida, which is not very far from where I am in Tampa.

You know, there's a big uproar about this. And then when Mike Brown gets killed, Ferguson, that's a real big watershed moment for America and then also for the church. And so at this time, right, I'm moving in predominantly, I guess I would say, white reform spaces, though I had a lot of friends that were also black and reformed. I was writing for a website at the time that was called

Reformed African American Network by my good friend Jamar Tisby, who now has changed that site to The Witness. And so I was in this kind of space. And when these kind of injustices occurred and we started seeing it hit the mainstream, I for sure thought that the people that I knew, the leaders, the theologians, brothers and sisters that I was in fellowship with the community with, whether it was in local community or abroad, we're going to come out and stand in solidarity with people of color in regards to what had happened. I, it didn't cross my mind at all that that would be a problem.

I was like, of course they're going to say that this is wrong and we should speak out about injustice. Of course they're going to say that police brutality is wrong. Of course they're going to say that there is a historical precedent here when it comes to the racial component of this. It did not cross my mind at all that what I was going to get in return was, well, it was Trayvon Martin's fault. It was Mike Brown's fault. Or you all that are now, now that you're talking a lot about this injustice stuff and this racism stuff, this sounds like neo Marxism or you're a liberal or you're a social justice

warrior, or you sound like a democrat, right? That is when I started saying to myself Hold on This seems like this is more political Than it is theological, right? Because we still believe the same things theologically i'm talking about in my camp But now that I believe something different than you sociologically when it comes to how we're viewing racial justice. All of a sudden I'm a Marxist or all of a sudden I am a liberal. And that even took me a while because I was like what do you mean by liberal? You can't mean theologically liberal of course because you know that our theology is the same. So then that's when I started saying oh you mean politically liberal. And then that's when I started saying, oh, hold on, there seems like there is

something attached to your Christianity, again, that I didn't know was there. And as my sister said when she was talking about more white evangelical spaces, not talking about politics, and contextualizing passages from the pulpit when she said, you know, someone may, your pastor may, the pastor may be talking about love for the poor and the vulnerable and the sojourner, but not connected to what that looks like in culture and society. I think that I was experiencing that, right?

A group or tribe that I was a part of that didn't really start talking about what they believed about politics until we started talking about racial justice politically. And then all of their politics came out and I was like, whoa, I did not know that this was here. Right. And so I think that that's where I started to say, oh man, I want to distangle my Christianity from a kind of political tribalism that I feel like exists and this kind of partisanism that I feel like exists, uh, that is influencing the way that you are seeing how we are to engage and love our neighbors within culture and society.

And it seems as if though it's being more influenced by the partisan orthodoxy than what we are reading in scripture. You know what I mean? Especially in reform circles where the T in the tulip is for total depravity and you understand that man is broken whether you hold to total depravity today or you're holding to original sin or whatever you're holding to, man is sinful.

We know that. So it's interesting to see people who would acknowledge that man is sinful but wouldn't acknowledge that sinful people can corrupt institutions. And those people should be held accountable. And there was a weird disconnect. And I would say that affects us to this day. I'm not sure if you guys heard about the situation in Florida.

I'm sure you heard about this, where there was a police officer who had a suspect in his car handcuffed, heard an acorn fall, and then unloaded his clip into a car, excuse me, his cartridge, into a car where the suspect was, thought he was hit, you know, hit him, hit him. And there was no charges, he resigned on his own, and you go, well, that doesn't seem right.

Doesn't seem right at all. And so I think what happens is a lot of these same people who are skeptical of institutions, skeptical of big government, weren't skeptical of people who have positions of power and authority potentially misbehaving. And that just seemed like a disconnect. Like we're skeptical of the FBI and what they're doing to Trump and whatever, but we don't think local police officers with not the best training can potentially make mistakes and then there's no accountability.

That doesn't make any sense. And so that gets backdoored. And to be fair, on the other end of the spectrum is a lot of words like justice will get hijacked by actual Marxists, Black Lives Matter organization, not the sentiment. And then before you know it, what do we mean by justice? When you're saying justice, when I'm saying justice,

I think we mean, hey, there should be accountability. There should be just scales. Someone in power and authority misbehaves, whether it's a teacher, whether it's a social worker, whether it's a police officer, there should be accountability because they carry power. And then the Marxist position of justice tends to be equal outcomes, equity.

And I don't think either of us hold to a position of equity or equal outcomes. Right. He was saying, no, no, no, no. There should be accountability, and there should be due process for people that misbehave, even if they have power, despite the fact that they have power. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

And I think that the disconnect is there. Of course, I'm speaking from my background of the folks that I come from, right? I mean, Preston talked about it earlier on when he talked about simple refermanda being a kind of a quote or banner that we say in reform circles, which means kind of like always reforming, right?

And so I think that that is another disconnect that I see that we're simple refermanda, but we're not always reforming when it comes to this, right? So always reforming stops here. When it comes to the politics, when it comes to the issues of justice, we stop there. And it's always reforming stops here. When it comes to the politics, when it comes to the issues of justice, we stop there. And it's always reforming what I'm comfortable with reforming.

And I think that if we take that approach, we don't grow. And we're not taking the approach of humility. And I think that all of us, Christianity in general, we have to have the ability to do self inventory. And we have to have the ability to do self-inventory, and we have to have the ability to do self-examination and say, hey, I'm willing to examine, like examine what I believe and why, and then also hear from others. And it's easier to do that when you're hearing from others that don't

agree with you. It's hard to do that when you put yourself in the silo of people that think exactly the same as you, right. And I think that engaging in politics, you have to be intentional because I think that the way that our political culture is set up is that it is very much set up in a way that's tribal. And so you kind of have to, you have to be intentional about putting yourself around people that, that disagree with you. It's kind of almost like a muscle you have to work in. And, but I think that it's the best for us

and our spiritual growth and development. Well, I think to your point, even engaging in politics versus completely fleeing, it is possibly why we have some of the issues within politics. Right, right. You see Christians that flee the cities, flee the institutions, flee the arts, flee the media.

And then we wonder why the arts and the media and the institutions have gone to hell. It's like, well, we left. We left. We left the cities. So in that, I think of David Gazak, who's a teacher, a professor, and I was going through his series on the early church.

One of the interesting things he talks about the early church is sometimes we'll demonize meeting in buildings, and we should just meet in homes. And a point he makes that was very interesting to me was the moment the church could legally meet in buildings, they did get in buildings. And so I think the same thing with politics is like, OK, sure, within a Roman context, some folks

perhaps weren't Roman citizens. But the moment we can, we should, right? That it doesn't have to be compartmentalized. And I wanna see us engage more, but not at the expense of our witness, not at the expense of the gospel. Not at the expense of the witness and the gospel. I think that's the main point.

We live in an argument culture where one third of people say that they have stopped talking to a friend or family member due to a disagreement and nearly two thirds of people say that they stay quiet about their beliefs due to the fear of offending others. So let's face it, we're just not good at talking to people that we disagree with. This is why I'm so excited about the new book by Sean McDowell and Tim Muehlhoff, two professors at Biola University. The book is called, End the Stalemate, Move Past Council Culture to Meaningful Conversations.

Tim, he's an expert in communication theory, and Sean has spent like many years engaging in meaningful conversations with people who disagree with him. In the book, End the Stalemate, you will be able to revive the art of meaningful conversations. You'll learn how to make connections. You'll learn about emotional awareness and engage in perspective taking and more. I got a chance to read a pre-release

copy of the book and it was so good that I just eagerly ended up endorsing In the Stale Mate. I found it to be very well researched, easy to read, and also just incredibly practical. So I would highly, highly recommend buying and reading this book. And The Snail Mate is available now wherever books are sold. Hey friends, my book Exiles, The Church in the Shadow of Empire is out now. I am so excited and a bit nervous about the release of this book. This is a topic I've been thinking about for many, many years and finally put pen to paper to write out all my thoughts. Specifically, I'm addressing the question, what is a Christian

political identity? As members of Christ's global, multi-ethnic, upside down kingdom scattered across the nations, how should we as members of that kingdom think through and interact with the various nations that we are living under? So the book is basically a biblical theology of a Christian political identity. We look at the nation of Israel, we look at the exile of Israel, we look at several parts of the New Testament, the life and teaching of Jesus, several passages in the book of Acts, the letters of Paul, do a deep dive into 1 Peter and the book of Revelation, and then explore some contemporary points of application.

So I would highly encourage you to check out my book, Exiles, and would love to hear what you think. Whether you hate the book, love it, or still thinking through it, I'd love to hear what you think by dropping a review on Amazon or, I don't know, post a blog, just, you know, ripping it to shreds. I don't really care. I would love for you to just wrestle with this really important topic in this really volatile political season that we're living in. To be honest, I want to see Christians in both political spaces. I want to see them on the right. I want to see them on the left as long as we are being salt, light, and prophetic.

Right? Salt, light, and prophetic. And we can't be salt, light, and prophetic, I think like brother Brian said, if our loyalty though is to the partisanism of where we are, that takes away our prophetic voice. Right? And I think that that's the prophetic voice for us is important. All throughout scripture we see that. You see John the Baptist being prophetic. I mean, it kind of cost him his head. But I think that as Christians, that's something that we do have to consider. In America, you may not have to consider that as much, or it could look different.

But we are called to be prophetic. I think about Nathan, even though he was talking about David's personal sin. He came to the king like hey, let me tell you a story This is you. Yep, right um, I I think that I think the same with paul and then even when you're thinking about our engagement it makes me think about Jeremiah where you know the children of israel are being told to Seek the welfare of the city that you're in. You're in Babylon speaking to Preston's book. Please go get it. Exiles if you don't have it already. It's very good. You, this is a, you, you being in Babylon are to seek the welfare of the city because in

the city's welfare and you seek it, it's welfare. You find your welfare, right? You don't find your welfare by just totally disengaging and trying to put a bubble around yourself You find it in being salt in the city massaging it as our sister said Massaging the salt into the meat so that it does not go bad Right. That's who we are to be I think within culture and society But we have to live as exilic people in order to do that If we look at where we are right now, which I will say America, and I think we've seen this in politics and how Christians have done

politics, especially since like the eighties and the rise of the religious right and all these things. If we look at the place that we are, this nation as not like us being in a type of Babylon, but this is kind of like a pre-promised land, right? That we know that the other promised land is coming. The promised land is like us being inside the doctor's office, like the doctor's room. But the pre-promised land is us being in the waiting room. Right? If we look at our nation as kind of a pre-promised land, we won't live as exilic people, right? But I think that we have to look at this as a place where we are temporarily because the Bible says so

Yeah that we are kingdoms. I mean we are citizens of another kingdom. So we have a kind of dual citizenship I am an American citizen I value being an American citizen and I am grateful for a lot of the freedoms and liberties that we have in America I think it's easy to criticize it. But when you go to other countries, you can find out very quickly that it's not the same everywhere. But I think that we have to keep in mind that our citizenship mainly is of another nation. And our loyalty is to another, if I could say party, which is the kingdom. And I think that if we have those kind of lenses, that can help us navigate through the political discourse that we're in and the kind of the political kind of culture

that we find ourselves in as a group. What's so beautiful about what you said is that same passage that you reference, which is Jeremiah chapter 29. 29, yep. Is Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world. But that doesn't mean that his kingdom is not in this world. Right?

And so the verses right before that, Jeremiah 29 verse five, check this out. It says, this is the command to the children of Israel who were exiled in Babylon. So if we're living in a modern day Babylon, listen to the instructions. This is from, this is as the Lord says, build houses and live in them and-hmm and plant gardens and eat their produce

Take wives and father sons and daughters and take wives for your sons and daughters and give your daughters to husbands so that they maybe give Birth to sons and daughters and grow in number and do not decrease Right. So we're talking about building houses. planting gardens, and thinking multi-generationally. And a lot of what we're seeing is this doom and gloom. Jesus is coming back any second right now, which I believe in the eminency of Christ. But even if I read through Matthew chapter 24 and Matthew chapter 25, it's one long stream of consciousness. I just did an email on this. And Jesus goes from the destruction of the temple to the last days to the wise and the foolish virgins not being ready when the bridegroom

returns to the parable of the talents. Whoa! Jesus is talking about the last days, Babylon, and he flows into the parable of the talents, which is extremely capitalistic if I may say so myself. parable of the talents, which is extremely capitalistic, if I may say so myself. Yeah. And then goes right into caring for the least of these. Many people don't know that the chapters in the Bible weren't added until the year 1200. Verses were added around the 1500s. And so we have the eminency of Christ. Jesus is going to come back to live prepared, to be faithful with your time, talent, and treasure on this side of eternity. Why? For the benefit of the least of these. Yep. Right. For the benefit of I was naked. Amen. You clothe me, right? You guys can clap for that. It's not my thought. It's Jesus. And I think if we held that posture, then perhaps we can get to a place of building better culture.

Right. Instead of engaging in the culture wars, we could win people over by the culture we're building by plants and gardens, by building houses, by starting families. I don't have to chase down every bad idea. I could just live a life that says, come examine how me and my family and my local family and my extended family, and my church family and my community are living. I think that's so good what you say because that flows throughout the whole Bible, right?

So I think that it feels like what God is always doing, especially even Old Testament to New Testament, is he's always saying to his people, I am trying to prepare you all to look like something. Right? So I think about in the Old Testament, one of the ways that you see that the people of God would show their faithfulness to Yahweh was by how they treated their neighbors. Yeah. Right? All the time. This is what you know, you have God say, man, take away the new moon, the Sabbath. You guys have blood on your hands. Correct oppression first. I don't even want to hear your, I don't even want to see your, your religiosity until you correct the way that you are treating your neighbors first, right? And I think that what we see even in the Old Testament is the reason why you see Yahweh constantly talking to his children about how they are to treat others, how you are to treat the sojourner, how you are to treat the vulnerable among you, the widow, right? The orphan, because as he's saying to these

people that he's moving to this promised land, I am taking you all to a place and in that place that I'm taking you, that place looks like something socially, right? And I'm trying to make you into that people now, not when we, not necessarily when we get there. I am trying to create that in you now so that when you get to the place that I'm taking you, it looks and smells like the kingdom. Right? And I think that that's what God is always doing is trying to make us kingdom people. And a lot of our, the kingdom people is, is in what John Wesley would call like social holiness. The social holiness is how are we treating folks in society?

How are we living within culture and society to show what the ethics of the kingdom look like in bringing them to where we are, right? And I think that that's why you have, you have Yahweh saying build homes, take like, like, I want you plant gardens, right? Bring the kingdom here because the kingdom is coming. Right? And. And, and I think, um, can you imagine like being a people group from somewhere else? I mean, that's what happens all the time. People come to a place and they bring their culture with them. That's why America is such a great melting pot of culture because we have people here from all over the world. And what do they do? Bring their culture with them. So you got people that are, you have people that may be super extremist against

immigrants, but they just they eat Mexican food. But you hate the culture that this came from, right? Like and I think that what we see is that when you have folks that are in, when you have folks that are that are in a place that they're not originally from, they bring culture with them. We are to do the exact same thing as believers here. We are from the kingdom. And if we are living in a nation, it doesn't matter where we are

because the kingdom is multinational, which is why nationalism is such a, extreme nationalism is such a crazy idea for me for Christians to get behind. But the kingdom is multinational. And so wherever we are found as Christians, we bring the culture of the kingdom with us. We bring our language. We bring our charity. We bring the smell, the flavor, the feel of the kingdom of God with us and if we are in the place and it doesn't feel different Than the the the culture that was already there that we may have a problem

Yeah, right. We may have a problem if we are in certain spaces and we do not enact change And bring that kind of cultural that kingdom culture there then we may be a little bit more Behold into the space more than we are to the kingdom of God. Yeah, I think to kind of piggyback this idea of culture and nationalism, I think what's tricky is that when a lot of the rhetoric right now currently used towards white evangelicals and Christian nationalists, I think it's interesting because it's not, there's a couple of misnomers. One, that that's exclusive, like Christian national is exclusive to American white evangelicals. No, it's definitely not.

You must have never met any Armenians. Or yeah. OK. Christian national or kind of. Ethnic identity, Christian identity is right on top of each other. Being merged, yeah. Right?

You look at Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. Absolutely. Christian identity, ethnic identity, right on top of each other. You look at Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. Christian identity, ethnic identity, right on top of each other. It's indistinguishable. I mean, in Armenian culture, if you're Armenian, you're Christian, which is theologically pretty tricky.

So I think sometimes we'll do these things, like, well, why evangelicals this? Why evangelicals this? It's like, whoa, no, no, no, this isn't unique to white evangelicals. No, it's not. This is people. I think another misnomer, and this is Dr. Sean McDowell, okay, is this notion that all white

evangelicals, the majority of white evangelicals voted for Trump. Dr. Sean McDowell did a podcast and digged away at the numbers. And what they found is actually about 50% of white evangelicals didn't vote. And out of the ones that voted, 70% of the ones that voted, voted for Trump. So that means that the majority of white evangelicals didn't vote for Trump if we're going off the actual data. And so you're lumping everybody in because sometimes the loudest voices represent everybody. And I don't think that's fair to then hypergeneralize all white evangelicals as these red hat, mago wearing, January 6 people.

And so in navigating this, when people are having these discussions, the question then becomes, well, what backdoor? What are things getting backdoored? What are things that are getting backdoored on the right? Well, we just go, wait, wait, wait. We don't know about that. What are the things getting backdoored on the left?

Well, we go, oh, yes, that's not a good look. And I think when we can assess those different things, and we talked about this yesterday a little bit, right? When we're talking about justice, when we're talking about these things, we have to first define our terms, because those words have been hijacked, right? And then we have to go, okay, well,

how do we fix these things? How do we fix these things? Because you're in Florida, I'm in California. Yeah. Our tax situation is very different. That's right. If my tax situation was your tax situation, you might feel a little different about I might have a buffalo hat on in a speedo with an American flag. Right. In the county of Los Angeles, they passed the $3 billion homeless relief package. The vast majority of that was completely squandered. So I am skeptical of the government running the social programs.

Where? Show me. You guys did efficient work. Uh-huh. Have you been to the DMV? Right. Have you called any, any, any lines where you need to call the IRS to pay them the money you owe them? Have you just give them the money you owe them? What are we talking about? And so I think when we're talking about, okay, so what does that mean? I mean, when we're saying justice, justice, and I think where me and you landed, but you had some caveats, which I think could be helpful, is that I said parable of the talents into caring for the least of these. Personal responsibility, faithfulness, so that we can be faithful with those of us who've been given much, which by the way, if you're in America, you're in the 1% of the world's wealth, okay? You are the rich young ruler, right? Those of us who've been given much are expected to do much.

And how does that flesh out who does the charity, who does the work, who cares for the least of these? And so I understand folks on the right that are skeptical that go, yeah, I don't know if I want the government doing all these programs and taking 50, 60%, which is the effective tax rate for some people in New York and California, and fixing the homeless problem while $3 billion goes missing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. I think that for me, and I love that because I understand the skepticism to say, Ken, is the government actually going to take this and be efficient with it? And are they going to do what they said they're going to do? Right? And so I understand the skepticism because the government is not always the most efficient at things.

And as we all know, I feel like when I'm in a DMV, it's like the cartoon movie when the sloth is in there. Like, yeah, that's how it really is. So I think for me, like me, you had a very great conversation about things because we were talking about, is the way of empowerment like more so a kind of way that folks will see it on the right, which is more self-responsibility, entrepreneurship, bootstrapping,

right? And I think that it's a little bit of both. I think that as you were talking about the parable of the talents and how it's like very capitalistic, there's also parables in scripture that seem very socialistic as well. And so I think, and kind of concepts like, right, when I think about, I always talk about like the gleaning laws in Leviticus, when I think that Yahweh is talking to the children of Israel and is saying, hey, when you all are going and taking, gleaning from your crops, make sure you leave some on the outside for the widow and the orphan and the sojourner.

And I could hear my staunchly Republican friend saying, wait a minute, Yahweh, that's my field. Why do I have to leave? They should get their own field. Why is it my responsibility to leave stuff on the edges for them? Can't they get their own field? Aren't they being lazy?

Aren't I incentivizing their laziness by just leaving stuff on the field for them to glean and they don't have to work for it apart from just going out there and, I mean, gleaning wasn't a very easy thing, but I'm just saying like it, this seems like a kind of welfare, right? And I think that though that's the kind of biblical ethics that I'm thinking about. How, what do we look like? How do we take that? And what does that look like within culture and society? Now we could talk about, does that mean we have a welfare program, right? I'm for welfare programs. I think they're needed. Coming from where I've come from, I've

seen them help people. I think the idea that some people have that folks are just getting on welfare to be lazy is not necessarily a true one. I've come from the ghetto. I've seen folks be helped by those programs and then move on, right? But I think that it's good for us to have the discussion that me and you have on how do we do this? We agree that something should be done. What does this look like practically? What I'm saying is that in some of my circles,

I can't even get to that point. I can't even get to the point where we can agree that something should be done. Wow. You know what I'm saying? Some folks could say, you know, for something like we can talk about like the reparations conversation. Like I can, I believe in it, but how does it flesh itself out practically? That's something we should discuss, right?

Can we get to a place of us talking about there should be some type of restitution? Can we even get there before we can get to talking about how, what, where, how, like what it would look like? And so I think that those conversations are important, but we have to be able to at least get to that place where we can say, well, yeah, something should be done here. This is a problem. Let's talk together about what does that look like? You know what I mean? This episode is sponsored by the Pore Over podcast. Oh my word, I love the Pore Over podcast.

It is a trustworthy news resource guiding people toward eternal hope. It's not Republican, it's not Democrat, it's not conservative, it's not liberal. Instead, it is a Christ-centered summary of the major events going on in politics and in culture. Like most of you, I am so tired of news outlets that are so clearly biased toward the right or to the left. I want to stay informed with what's going on, but I hate how traditional news outlets shape my heart and try to win me to a certain side. I mean, if you don't believe me, just ask yourself this question. After listening to, say,

I don't know, CNN or Fox News for like 30 minutes, am I less or more motivated to love my neighbor and my enemy? If the answer is less, then Houston, we have a huge problem, a discipleship problem. This is why I'm so excited about the Pour Over podcast. Each episode is only about seven minutes long and they just tell you about what's going on in the world. They don't tell you how to interpret the various events or how you should feel about what's

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who might vote differently than you. Instead, check out and subscribe to the Pour Over podcast in your favorite podcast app. Hey friends, if theology in a raw has blessed or challenged you in any significant way, favorite podcast app. as little as five bucks a month. And in doing so, you get access to all kinds of different premium content. And most of all, you just get access to the theology in the raw community. We have all kinds of awesome chats and messages back and forth. And it just, it means the world to us that you support the show. As the show has grown, so have all the expenses and all the work that goes into pulling it

off. So again, if you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology and raw. And I just want to thank my, uh, 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 and raw. Similar to you, I grew up single parent household, my mom, and we were on welfare for about five years until my mom was able to finally find a job. My dad left, she became an alcoholic, a lot of issues, and so it took her a while to bounce back and get on her feet.

And so I remember living in San Diego, our welfare check was $650, our rent was $450, and we had to then make that work. Right. Right. So, so I'm with you that like welfare, cash aid, uh, EBT, these are not, uh, like you ain't living large on welfare like that. Right. And I'll say in my, in my personal journey as an entrepreneur, I did really well in 2012 and I was not able to, like we were able, I was able to quit my job financially to sustain me and my wife, but we couldn't afford health insurance because health insurance at the time on the market was like $1,200, $1,500. And then in 2012, and this may trigger some of you, affordable

healthcare got passed, right? And in 2015 I was able to quit my job and just buy healthcare on the open market, well, through the Covered California thing. And then it went from $1200, $1300 on the free market to like $350, $400 for me and my wife through Covered California. And the value of someone like myself who could not make the jump to become an entrepreneur because I could not afford health insurance, I think that's a solid program. Now, to be fair, that program came

at the expense of other people's premiums going up. Which, that sucks. And now, we have amazing health insurance for my whole entire staff of people that we cover 100% of as a company. And so I think that was a good program for some people that got an ROI of someone like myself creating economic opportunities for others

and then buying them health insurance. Now the flip side is like trying to get out of their covered California system is very difficult with all the bureaucracy. So I'm with you, but then again, it's just that give and take and like at the expense of whom, you know? And hey, that was great. I was able to pay for health insurance and quit my job

and be a creative entrepreneur, but at the expense of other people's premiums, going to probably people in this room who had their health insurance. Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. I think I was one of those people at the time. Look at that. Thank you, RuthLion. No, but I think that there's

I think that that's the balancing game of policy, right? And I think that when we can have these kind of conversations about it, this is when we can do it in charitable ways to try to collaborate in and have understanding and then get to a place where we can say, okay, what do we do, right? But I think that in culture being so polarized right now, we can't even get to that point, right? In some regards. And I think that, you know, that's kind of the goal for what I would see as me, even as a Christian engaging in those spaces is,

let's get to a place where we can talk about it and have that kind of understanding. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think, I think it's hard because for me as well, like I told you, I, I didn't vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 and I don't plan to vote for him this year, but I do feel the Overton window shifting further and further to the left where I feel like very reasonable things all of a sudden are if you aren't for very reasonable things, you're on the far right. Yeah.

And I had somebody sit me down, a close friend of mine, somebody you know, I'll tell you who it is offline. And they sat me down and they were like, hey man, so how long have you been on the alt right? And I was like, why do you think I'm on the alt right? And he's like, well, because you came out pretty pro-life. And I was like, why do you think I'm on the all right? And he's like, well, cause you came out pretty, pretty pro life. And I was like, uh-huh. He's like, yeah, it's just, you know,

those are folks on the all right. So now you're like cool with Richard Spencer and all of the Nazis. And I'm like, you don't know what the far right is. And so I, so someone I'm close with who would say, oh, I'm personally prolife because I was okay with The overturning of Roe v. Wade thought I was now on the far right Yeah, simply for having a position on that right and that's what I'm saying Like things are shifting further and further to the left. We're

I'm not talking an abolitionist pro-life position. I'm talking just like a regular pro-life position. Let's put restrictions Let's help prevent babies from being slaughtered, is now considered on the far right. I don't think biologically born males should compete against biologically born females in sports. You're a bigot. Yeah. Huh?

Have you seen women's basketball in comparison to men's basketball? Right? Yeah, and I box, so. So you? Yeah. Right? Yeah. And I box. So you know what I'm talking about. I box also with women. And so that's what I mean by the Overton window has shifted. And now those of us that were center left, center right

are considered on the far right. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think that's part of the polarization of society and culture, right? Cause I do think the Overton window has shifted and I would even say it shifted left. But then I also have like same similar experience to you on the other side. I have a friend that sat me down who I discipled, whose wedding I was in, whose children I've

seen, you know, they're bringing his new children home, being involved in him and his wife's life, sit me down and say, hey, you and KB and that Southside Rabbi podcast, man, y'all are Marxists. Wow. And here's a book on critical race theory. You should read it because this is what you guys are deceived by. Was it by that guy Neil? I don't have no problem saying it. It was Voti Bakum's fault lines.

He gave it to us and he said, this is what you guys believe. He was in our, and he also attended our church. And he said, I'm leaving the church and this is a book on critical race theory because this is what you all believe and you all are Marxists. And he was calling me every single day and you all are Marxists. And he was calling me every single day to argue with me about race. And now I was also on the far left. And I was just like, I don't get it. But I think that that's the polarization.

And again, the reason why I'm glad we're having stuff like this is because I want to prevent that. And I want to have an alternative to that for us as believers who may find ourselves on different sides of the spectrum. And I think that it's important for us to, again, model that for the watching world to see. Well, when you label someone far right or Marxist,

like now I have to, we have to get into definitions, right? Cause that label is like- You understand what that means? Right. You think I'm talking about the means and modes of production and you know, the superstructure of, yeah. So yeah, then that gets to like, what are we talking about?

Do you actually, and I appreciate my brother, Ruzalon here, who he's heard those accusations come against us before. And Ruzalon is like, hold on, I lived under- Yeah, I remember communism. Actual Marxism, like I've lived under communism. That's not what these guys are. And I've heard folks try to call you a Marxist. And so I just think that that kind of polarization

is very discouraging. But go ahead. What are you going to say? Yeah, I think there's a skepticism of people's motives. And it usually comes down to that. You're either brainwashed or you have ill intent. Where it's like, no, sometimes people may be in error on certain positions too.

Sometimes they haven't thought through how coherent their position is, but to assume it's an appeal to motive fallacy, to assume you know someone's heart and their motive and their intent, or that they are just incapable of critical thinking and are just regurgitating. It's like a very dehumanizing approach in terms of these sorts of conversations. incapable of critical thinking and are just regurgitating.

It's like a very dehumanizing approach in terms of these sorts of conversations. It is. Yeah, it doesn't look at the person as fully human. And I think that that's where ideology takes place because now it's I only see you in regards to the ideology and not your humanity. And I think that that can sum up, I feel like, how we have seen political discourse go. You are not human. You're just an enemy, right? Especially in the culture war. That's, I mean, it's a war, right? And so it's, you're not a brother in Christ anymore.

You're an enemy of the other side. And not only that, it is the friend. I mean the, the, um, the, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So if I'm Christian and I got this, this dude over here that's an atheist, but he's against you too. Hey man, how about I come in, have him speak at the church against critical race theory or whatever it is. Right. Stuff that we would not have done 70 years ago, right? And so, um, and so, yeah. I think, I think that's why defining terms is so crucial because a lot of this becomes a hijacking of language. In terms of, you mean something very different by justice than what KEMD means, in my

opinion. Yeah. Something very different. And so I think when, when, when that happens, you know, it becomes very confusing for people because they're hearing justice and they're thinking, Yeah. Something very different. And so I think when that happens, it becomes very confusing for people because they're hearing justice and they're thinking, again, they're thinking equal outcomes. They're thinking we're going to erase the meritocracy. And it's like, I don't think that's what I'm actually, I'm certain that's not what KB and Ameen mean because you

guys are entrepreneurs. You guys run businesses, rather successful businesses. And I know that that's not the angle. And so I think it becomes a hijacking of language. Even the word woke in the way that's been completely hijacked where it meant something very specific. As a black man in America, I'm very upset with how

woke has been hijacked, just to let you know. We used to use that word all the time amongst our own culture. And it had nothing to do with what we're talking about now. And the way in which that was hijacked is crazy. But you're right. Language does get hijacked. Language does get co-opted. And I think that becomes an issue and it becomes a problem.

But what would you say for folks who maybe don't have as robust of a spectrum of people that have access to as we've had at this conference, as we do life in our personal lives, we tend to have pretty diverse ranges of opinions and we could disagree on things. And that humanizes people with different opinions. What would you say that looks like for folks

who maybe don't have that? Maybe they are in, hey, everyone kind of thinks like me and this is kind of like my circle. It's not intentional. Right. It just is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I think that if you are recognizing, if someone can, it's recognizing that they don't have that, then I think what that means is intentionally seeking it out. Right. Don't decide not to come to an exiles and sorry, man, people going, I'm sorry. I know that sometimes I could be a little controversial, but don't decide not to come to an exiles and Babylon conference because we have gay Christians speaking there. Maybe that's a good approach.

Maybe you should start putting yourself around folks that think differently than you. But if you can't do it physically, man, there's so much re we're living a digital age now, man. We're in the age of information. There's so many resources, so many ways that you can seek out hearing different perspectives that don't necessarily align with yours, right? I think, I forget what philosopher it was that said, the mark of maturity is being able to hear an opinion

different from yours, listen to it, really be able to ingest it, digest it, and not necessarily think that you have to agree with it. You know what I mean? And I think that there's, I think that sometimes folks may not, even if you're in more homogeneous circles, we don't even want to hear an opinion that's different than ours. And we don't intentionally seek it out. And I think that we have to do that intentionally, especially if you're not around that a lot. You have to be intentional. I got a friend who is running for city council and I think

a lot of this in my opinion should really go back to hey you could be as charged up about the election as you want to be but are you charged up about what's happening locally? Locally which is much more important. So here's a very very very very practical example of this. He's a friend. He, this may get me in trouble, he's registered Democrat. Uh-oh. And he's done amazing social activism locally. Here's a great example. There's a valley and ocean side. There's a neighborhood in the ocean side

called the Deep Valley. Probably the most poor, poverty-stricken area, and it's on the outskirts of the city. That neighborhood is about two miles away from Maricopa College. Maricopa College planted a satellite campus in Rancho Santa Fe, which is the most expensive real estate in California, to get funding from the property taxes.

So arguably the best community college in California. So Great Resource College in Oceanside, two miles away from the deep valley. To get to the deep valley, it was a little longer, two miles away from the deep valley. They, to get to the deep valley, it was a little longer than two miles away. People would have to take a bus all the way to the Oceanside Transit Center at the pier, take another train, take another bus,

and it would turn into an hour and a half journey to go a 10 minute drive. Yeah. Right, so it wasn't two miles, sorry, I exaggerated. So he was able to advocate through the local community activism and created a direct route From the Deep Valley right to Maricopa College, which completely revolutionized the life of people who actually they have the Pell Grants They have the they just got to get there They just got to get there and so you're now alleviating a three hour back-and-forth commute

That's at a college 15 minutes away, 10 minutes away. And now there's a direct bus route that takes them there and back. So I think in all of that, like I see us being politically engaged, looking much more like that on the ground than being angry over Thanksgiving dinner because Uncle Ron is a Democrat. Right. Yeah. Thanksgiving dinner because Uncle Ron is a Democrat. Right, yeah. Very true. I think that that's a much more practical way to do it. And I think that we have 45 seconds.

I think that, what would you leave everyone with as we wrap up? I really would encourage everyone to go and read Matthew 24 and 25 and see that the eminency of Christ requires us to live faithful with our time, talent and treasure so that we could be the hands and feet of Jesus for the least of these. And I think if we as Americans understand that we've been given much, we've really been given, we've been given a lot. And if we can view our life instead of all this politically polarized stuff, but like how are you loving your family, your extended family, your community, your neighbor, the nations? Yeah. And I think and to me that's where the real opportunity is. Amen. Amen. I agree. Well thank you all for hearing me in Rueslaan rant at Paul. That wasn't so bad, was it? That wasn't so bad, was it? Ha ha ha ha ha. Applause. Music. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.