Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1015: #1015 - Truth Over Tribe: Patrick Miller and Keith Simon

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Patrick and Keith just released their book Truth Over Tribe: Pledging Allegiance to a Lamb, not a Donkey or an Elephant. They also co-host a fantastic podcast called “Truth Over Tribe” and they are pastors at The Crossing church in Columbia, MO.  We had a wonderful conversation about politics, tribalism, the kingdom of God, and whether Christians or churches should be politically invovled. 

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My two guests today are Patrick Miller and Keith Simon, co-authors of the recently released book, Truth Over Tribe, Pledging Allegiance to the Lamb, Not the Donkey or the Elephant. And Patrick and Keith also co-host a really fantastic podcast that I've been just gobbling up recently. It's called Truth Over Tribe, same title as the book. And we had a wonderful conversation about a Christian political identity. These two guys are awesome. If you like Theology in a Raw, you're going to absolutely love Patrick and Keith. And I definitely would encourage you to both pick up their book and go listen to the podcast, Truth Over Tribe. It's really fantastic. So please welcome to the show for the first time, Patrick and Keith. I am so excited about this podcast conversation.

We're getting to know each other a little bit by two new friends. I'm just going to call you friends. I think it's going to be a pretty sure case that we're going to be friends after this interview. Patrick and Keith, thanks so much for coming on Theology in a Row. Well, we're glad to be here. I have been a big fan of your podcast, read a bunch of your books and excited to hang out with you for a while. Absolutely. Well, it's, it's, it's extremely mutual and you guys got a really sexy studio over there and a really nice mic. So this is a, this is like a joint podcast and I have been absolutely loving your podcast. I love...

Well, you even said offline, and I've said it many times, that Jesus is nonpartisan, but he is political. The idea that as Christians, don't get political, don't get political. It's like, no, the gospel is a political proclamation that Jesus is Lord Caesar is not. That created lots of political waves in the first century. So yeah, I don't like the language of like, Jesus isn't political, but he's certainly not partisan. Can you just, I don't know, whoever wants to start, tell your story and how specifically like how you came to understand the need for this,

to address tribalism in the church? Is this kind of a recent thing or something that has always kind of been on your guys' hearts? Well, I'm the young one in this group, so I'm going to defer to my elder here and let him tell the story. Stop. So, you know, it's interesting because we've all gotten caught up into tribalism one way or the other. I remember, and this is a long time ago, but I remember the 1992 election. I just become a Christian in college and I'm sitting in the backyard of a friend. We're watching the political returns come in. This is back when Newt Gingrich and that crew was trying to take back Congress from the Democrats. And when they had declared the Republicans had won, I run around the backyard, whooping and hollering with my shirt off, waving it over my head.

He wasn't even drunk. I mean, that's the crazy part. Totally sober guy. And, you know, that was a long time ago, but it captures this idea that I had fallen into that if Christians could just get the right people elected, then everything was going to be okay. That the main problem with the world is that one party wasn't in power. And if we could reverse that, all our problems would be solved. And so all of us get sucked up in to this kind of tribalistic, political, partisan way of thinking. Absolutely. I mean, just like Keith, I am a recovering tribalist. I have a similar story, although my shirt stayed on the entire time. In 2008, I was in college. Barack Obama came to speak at my university because back then our state was

actually still a swing state. It's not anymore. And I remember hearing his message, hope, and that he wanted to care for the marginalized and the oppressed and the poor. And it was electrifying to me as a Christian who saw those values that I shared with him. And again, when he won, I was so excited. Finally, with the Democrat in charge, we were going to change this country. And of course, reality will wake you up. A lot of things that I thought were going to change did not change in the successive years. But I think for both of us, it was because of our relationship with Jesus that we began to realize that we had our loves, our allegiances in the wrong order. We were putting a party first,

and we really need to get Jesus into that first spot. Because like you just said, Jesus does have a politic, but he's not partisan. And there isn't a party that is perfectly aligned with his kingdom, his kingdom. In fact, I'd say it's kind of hopelessly naive on some level to expect that any human institution or group or party is going to approximate the ethics

of a transcendent king who created everything. So wait, so you came from a strong democratic Democrat background and you came from were Republicans. So you guys came from different tribes out of your tribalism. Yeah. Yeah. Essentially that's true. Uh, Patrick being younger, different generation and, you know, some of us are just shaped by our experiences. But I would definitely say that for most of my life, I leaned on the right. And I might still kind of think that way to some extent. It's not a matter of saying people can't be a Republican or Democrat or run for office or work on a campaign. I mean,

I think all those things can be really good things. The problem comes when you allow those political allegiances to take the top priority in your life and you give them your loyalty. Now, all of a sudden, you start falling into us versus them thinking, you know, paint people as the bad guys. You demonize your opponents. You start to lie or manipulate facts in order to advance your agenda. You're unwilling to critique your own side. And that's the tribalism we're trying to push your agenda. You're unwilling to critique your own side.

And that's the tribalism we're trying to push back on. Yeah. I've often said, of course, people are going to resonate with certain values that are at least talked about. I don't even want to say embraced. But in my more cynical moments, I would say the values that might be promoted for the sake of gaining power. That's a more cynical way of putting it. Do people on the left really care about race? Maybe. Or are they using that conversation in a way that can gain a bigger power base? I'm going to plead the fifth on that. I don't know people's hearts.

Do people on the right really care about life of the unborn? Yeah, maybe. Maybe they do. I'm sure some at least do. But I don't know. I feel like in the last couple of years, it's been so manifested that at least the leaders at the top on these different sides are in part just really grasping after power, which is what political leaders are going to do. This isn't anything new. And that's where you even said it. Once you start aligning with a tribe, rather than saying, oh, these values that are talked about, I resonate with that. I'm not sure about that. I think I might be over here on this one, on this.

Values that are talked about, I resonate with that. I'm not sure about that. I think I might be over here on this one, on this. But once you align with a side, all of a sudden, especially the last few years, that side has made the other side their enemy. And they will do whatever it takes to stamp out their enemy. It's like, well, Christians cannot be a part of that. That's just not helpful. Yeah.

It's funny because polarization on one level is nothing new in the United States. I mean, we had a civil war in the past. And so, you know, people talk about this moment as though this has never happened before. And I think, well, no, it has. And this goes all the way even back to the founding of our country. I'll read this little political ad from when Thomas Jefferson was running against Adams and the stuff they said about each other was hilarious. This is what Jefferson's people called Adams. They said he was a bald, blind, crippled, toothless man who wanted to start a war with France. And then in response, this is what was said about Jefferson, that if he got elected, murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced. The air will be red with the cries

of the distressed. The soil will be soaked with blood and the nation blacked with crime. Oh my God. Okay. So I'm one of those like, look, polarization is nothing new, but I think you hit on something that is new. Yes. I mean, history echoes, history rhymes, but this is a slant rhyme right now, what we're going through. Because back in Jefferson and Adams day, there was an argument over capital T truth. What is the truth? And now we've entered this relativistic moment where we're arguing over whose truth is the truth, which gets to be in control. And when you can't agree on fundamental facts, like two plus two equals four, and I can tell you stories about people who've disagreed

with me about the fact that two plus two equals four. You can't build consensus. You can't build. So then all that ends up mattering is what you just said. It's power. It's whoever has the power to exert control, to have, you know, pull the levers in society. Those are the ones who get to make the decisions. And so you can't have consensus. You can't admit when you're wrong. You can't have a dialogue because we don't even agree that there's such a thing as shared truth that all of us can come together around. Yeah. Yeah. And now I feel like I've said this several times on the podcast, but my experience is very limited.

But it seems like there's more of an emphasis on the other side is not just wrong, but is actually morally evil. Like the right thinks the left is morally reprehensible and vice versa you know and if you even align with the other side then you too are complicit in moral evil it's like oh that's a dangerous is that kind of polarization do you think that is new or do you think that was always there in the beginning because the quote you read is pretty scathing you know like it is well you can take that quote that Patrick read between Adams and Jefferson and pull it right into today, where I just saw a few days ago that Pew Research came out with information where they'd ask Republicans and Democrats to describe each other.

And what each said about the other is that they are lazy, unintelligent, immoral. What was another one? You know, there's this list of horrible things about the other is that they are lazy, unintelligent, immoral. What was another one? You know, there's this list of horrible things about each other. And when that's how you start labeling other people, well, then they're not good people you can work with to find the common good. They're the bad people that have to be defeated. And it feels like today, more than ever, we're able to live inside these bubbles where we really don't know people who are different than us. Maybe it's people who have a different political party, but maybe it's people of different generations or races or whatever it is. And so when you don't know people, then you quickly fall for whatever you're told on social media or the traditional media. I just think of like the Jews and the Samaritans.

They didn't know each other because they lived in different villages, worshiped at different places, but they knew a lot about each other. And that was probably from town gossip or rumors or stories that had been passed down from the years. And now we fall into that same trap where we're living like Jews and Samaritans in our own bubbles. And, you know, so it's no shock that they were all offended at the parable of the good Samaritan. I mean, how. And, you know, so it's no shock that they were all offended at the parable of the good Samaritan. I mean, how can there be a parable of the good Samaritan when there aren't any good Samaritans? Or it's, you know, it's not a shock that they're appalled that Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, because they didn't do that. I mean, they

say to Jesus, we don't talk to people like that. And it's easier and easier to do that now. And so we don't know people. We don't know that there's good people on all these sides and we can work together toward the common good, even if we don't agree on everything. I dare any preacher listening to preach a sermon. If you're in a, like a strong conservative church, the parable of a good Democrat, it would be, it would be a hard, a hard sermon to preach. And I do think a lot of this really is about relationship and knowing real human people. And the reason why I say that is there's a study by the ANES, the American National Electoral Survey. I think it's what that stands for, but I might have that wrong.

And every year they measure extremity and polarization over policy issues. And America was at its closest in 1984. There was an extremity index of 0.44. So zero is you agree on everything. One is you disagree on everything. They were at 0.44, which means, hey, you agree on more than you disagree on. We were at our most extreme differences in 2012 and it was at a 0.49. So still, even in 2012, which is when we were at our most extreme differences in policy disagreements, we agreed on more than we disagreed on. The number's actually gone down since then, interestingly. And so what that highlights for me is that this, again, this is not really a debate over policy. It's not really, I mean, of course that's part of it.

That's what, that's what we fixate on. I think this is really more fundamentally about knowing human beings. Do you have cross-cutting relationships with someone who has a different politic or different political agenda than you do? And as America is increasingly geographically sorting into Republican enclaves and Democratic enclaves, it's now much, much, much more difficult to meet those kinds of people. And that's part of Keith and I's background. I mean, our city is a very politically diverse city. So we just don't live in a circumstance where we're free to walk around as though someone from the other party doesn't exist there. Where are you guys at again? Are you in Kansas City?

No. We're in Columbia, Missouri, which is right in the middle of the state. It's a blue dot in the middle of a sea of red. It's where the university is located. So like Patrick said, it's a pretty diverse place compared to most places in America. The state's becoming more and more either blue or red. Is that new? So I'm in Idaho.

Idaho's very red. And we're getting... Idaho has always had this kind of steady stream of Californians coming in. I'm one of them. But now, almost everybody I meet from California, within seconds, they start talking politics and how they're fleeing, you know, this like horrible state run by a horrible governor. And, oh, you know, they have their like, you know, Ben Shapiro mugs coming in everything. And I'm like, is that, is that good?

Like, is it, is it good that a state that's probably like 65, 70% red is not going to be 75, 80%. I don't know. Like, is that again, is that new? Is this kind of a new thing? And what's good? What's the, what's going to happen down the road when that keeps happening? Political scientists talk about landslide counties and a landslide county is a county that won one of the sides, either blue or red, won the presidential election by 20% or more. So a landslide county that is a county that is decisively red or decisively blue. And just this past week in the sermon, I was showing maps of how in 1992, there were not many landslide counties. I mean, there were some throughout the United

States, but not many. But with each election cycle, it's become more and more true that we all live in places where people think and vote like us. So now over 57% of Americans live in a landslide county. So it's easier to live in that bubble, but it's not just a neighborhood or county bubble. It's an online media bubble. There's so many ways to live inside and talk to people who are like you. And, you know, when we have that issue, then we're not going to know people. We believe lies and stories about them that aren't true. We believe the worst about them. And we're just set up for failure.

Yeah. And it feels like we've gone through a number of watershed moments in the last six years, the 2016 election, and then probably even worse than that, the 2020 election. But I think what made 2020 unique was that it came on, you know, not the tail end, but kind of in the middle of a pandemic where people were literally physically separated from one another. And so your ability to know someone

who is different than you or voted differently than you was impeded by things that were totally out of your control because you're stuck at home, you're not going out into public. And so of course your close circle is most likely to agree with you on those things. But I think you add in one other element in this little cocktail that's already just a very, very intoxicating cocktail, and that's social media. Because these algorithms really are designed to force you into echo chambers. There's some interesting

studies that have been done to see how long it takes someone who starts maybe an account on YouTube with no IP address, no background, nothing. How long, how many videos you have to watch before they get sucked into a conspiracy theory, before the algorithm takes them down the rabbit hole. And it would shock you. It would shock you how quickly this happens, especially on places like YouTube, on places like TikTok, Facebook, all of these algorithms are designed to give you things that keep you on their platform. And as it turns out, outrage, anger, hating the other side, that's one of the most effective ways to do it.

And so, again, if they want you to be on their platform, that's what they're going to serve you. And they'll keep giving you worse and worse and worse stuff. And so now you're stuck at home. You're in the middle of a very, very contentious presidential election. You're living a highly online life. I mean, is it any shocker that the net sum or the result of all this is a heightened tribalism that we really haven't recovered from? My Instagram.

I typically watch on Instagram. If I get lost in Instagram, I either watch surfing videos or otter videos. So now I get all these cool advertisements. Buy an otter. Or like all these surfing. Go surfing Costa Rica and all this stuff. And it an otter. Or all these surfing. Go surf in Costa Rica and all this stuff. And it's like, ah, that's great. But I can only imagine if somebody starts clicking on it.

Even start peeking into the door of some kind of tribalistic thing. Which is probably what a lot of people do on social media, right? They actually, instead of watching otters, they're watching political stuff. And yeah, that makes complete sense. And this has been shown over and over right i mean the net netflix video what's the um the social social dilemma it's so well known why are why are we still doing it like we we know we're being used like that's just not even debated anymore. It's yeah, it's there's no shocker, you know, to misquote Psalm 139. The algorithm has searched you and known your anxious thoughts and it has delivered you more anxiety to keep you on the platform.

I mean, it's it's it's their business model. And so there's again, there's no shocker here that that's what's happening to us. You know, what I try to do is I try to scramble the algorithm. So as a rule, I click on ads I'm not interested in. And I have now got Twitter convinced that I am a geriatric woman who's very interested in Medicaid. I mean, the amount of Medicaid ads, like, you know, help you sort out your Medicaid situation I get is really, it's always these like old women fanning themselves with dollar

bills. So I don't know why that's the thing, but I mean, I, I, that's what I get now, you know, but most people aren't trying to scramble the algorithm. In fact, they're just not even aware of what's happening when they're on the internet or if they are aware of it, they're, they're, they're not combating it actively. So do you think, I mean, the, so the social media has been the gasoline on, on the fireism. That is unique, right? I mean, that's a whole new added piece to the tribalism that has always existed. Yeah. I mean, in our book, we talk about a number of causes. We talk about social media. And when

we wrote it, it was pretty new thinking. But now that the Wall Street Journal has done a lot of investigation into Meta and all of its various organizations that it runs, more people are aware of what's happening there. We talked about some, we're talking about in terms of geographical sorting and social capital, the fact that we have less social capital. We are less wealthy in human relationships today than we were 50 years ago. That's another major cause. We don't trust each other. We talk about how the human brain is wired for tribalism that, you know, no one can escape their wiring. There's something fundamental about how our brains are wired that makes us tribal. We also talk about what I mentioned earlier, which is the loss of capital T truth.

So I think there's all of these facets and features coming together in a single moment to create where we're at. Yeah. Do you draw on Jonathan Haidt's work? Because he talks about this a lot that we're hive-ish creatures, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So we pull a ton from Jonathan Haidt in the chapter about the human brain and a lot of the researchers that he's pulling on. I mean, there's so many interesting things to talk about.

One of my favorite ones is oxytocin. So people might recognize that. It's a love drug. So when a mom sees her infant, oxytocin is released in the brain of both of them. And that's what they feel love, they feel connection, they feel empathy. It's what you feel if you see your lover. It's what you've lost if your relationship feels dry. And so people thought, well, that's a solution. We can end tribalism by just pumping oxytocin into the water stream.

We're all going to become more empathetic over time and care for each other more. There we can solve the problem. But a psychologist named Karsten DeDrew, I think at Leiden University, did this study where he sprayed oxytocin into two groups nostrils. And sorry, one group's nostril. And there was a control group. And what he discovered was the group that had the oxytocin, they were more sacrificial to their in-group members. So they were willing to give to each other. They were willing to care for each other. They were more empathetic than the group that didn't get the oxytocin. So, hey, it's working, right? There was just one problem. The same group that got the oxytocin became more tribalistic towards outsiders. They were suspicious of outsiders. They wanted to do harm to outsiders

when they were given the option. And so, yes, it's the love drug, but it turns out it's also the tribal drug. I kind of think about this in a Genesis 3 way. God designed us to be a part of a huge human family, and he gave us this innate ability with chemicals and everything else to connect and empathize with one another. But when we redefined good and evil, we created this darkened version of that empathic capacity. And that is tribalism. And that's why, you know, we're living east of Eden. Like there's no shock that that's why, you know, humans are going to be just by default

tribalistic. You guys. So, I mean, and this is, it's one thing to kind of look at our society we're living in, you know, look at Babylon and, oh, this sucks for you. But it's so seeped into the church, obviously. That's where my main burden is. If I was living in exile in Babylon and Babylon had all this exasperation tribalism, I'd be like, wow, that's interesting. I'll grab some popcorn.

But it's like now all the exiles are played into it and they're picking Babylonian tribes or whatever. How have you guys addressed that? Because I've heard you say that, I mean, your church is very politically diverse. I mean, I would imagine your podcast has probably resonated with the people at your church and everything on some level. So what's the secret sauce to helping wean the church off of tribalism? I'm not sure we have the secret sauce, but I will say that we share your heart in that the church is experiencing the same fracturing that we're seeing all around us. And more and more people are leaving their church, not over theological issues or over maybe bad leadership. not over theological issues or over maybe bad leadership. Although, of course, there are situations like that,

but they're leaving their church to go find a church that says what they want to hear. Because unfortunately, more and more people are being discipled by, you know, the internet, or they're being more influenced by the sermons of Tucker Carlson than they are by the Sermon on the Mount, or they're more influenced by the pages of the New York Times than they are the pages of scripture. And people have said for a long time, look, churches get people for such a small amount of time compared to their other influences in their life. But I think that the church has to speak on these issues.

You can't shy away because while I get why pastors want to, I mean, we're pastors. I totally get why you just want to avoid it and ignore it. But those people out there in your congregation are all being shaped by something. And by the time it comes to you, to your door, where you can't ignore it anymore, it's going to blow up. And I think that's why a lot of pastors are worn out. They're exhausted. blow up. And I think that's why a lot of pastors are worn out. They're exhausted. You know, we've seen the articles in Christianity Today and other places of pastors resigning or wanting to resign if they could afford to resign, burnt out, exhausted. It's not because they don't love

what they're doing. If you'll call the pastor churches and do the things that pastors have done for thousands of years, it's because they're tired of being told that they have to parrot, It's because they're tired of being told that they have to parrot whatever political pundit is the person's rooting for. It just gets old. It's discouraging when you think about what you're saying. Pastors have people or the church has people for a few hours a week maybe or a few hours a month versus all these other hours that they're just, you know, soaking in all this stuff. How do you do, like, how do you combat that?

I mean, do you just talk explicitly and help, like, over and over, like help disciple Christians in maybe a healthy view of social media? Or is it like, how do you combat that? It just seems like an impossible situation. To some extent, it's not something that we can equal out, at least not immediately. But one thing we've tried to do is engage online. So we've said, hey, if our people are going to be in digital spaces and if they're going to be influenced by things, then let's get involved in those. Let's don't retreat. So we've started several podcasts. We've got newsletters that go out, blog posts, social media posts, reaching out to different

people in their audience, with their interests, and trying to shape and form them. So we can all sit around and complain about the phone in our pocket. And if we want to complain about that, I'll be the first in. There's a lot of legitimate complaints. But it's the world we live in. So why don't we take that device and use it for discipleship purposes? Why don't we try to flip the script a little bit and use it for the good, the good of Christ's kingdom, the good of people's spiritual health? And so that's what

we've tried to do. You know, I'm just sure other churches have taken other approaches and maybe we'll get to heaven and find out they were right. I don't know. We just know that we have to be faithful in our generation, not the past generation, not a future generation, our generation. And in our generation, people carry this phone around and we're going to be engaged in that medium with the message of Christ and his kingdom. Do you guys, like if somebody posts something on Facebook that just is not really healthy, maybe it's very tribalistic or kind of demeaning towards the other tribe. Do you engage in that comments? Do you go in and say and try to shepherd them through that? Or is it you just more, like you said, putting out content,

podcasts, blogs? Or are you actively commenting on their posts or whatever? That's a fantastic question. And it's, it's honestly probably a little bit of both. Again, what Keith is saying that we want to be faithful in our generation. I think that it's fine to just get online and publish and project and put information out there and that's going to help people. So I don't want to wrong that, but I do think that there are relationships that can form online. I do think that people in, you know, not the same way that you do face-to-face, but that people can be shepherded and cared for online.

And so when people come to us with what strikes us as sincere engagement, and they can really dislike what we say, and they can be really offended by it, but if it's sincere, they want to have a dialogue, we try best as we can to engage with them charitably. And in some cases, that produces a really fruitful dialogue. I mean, we have people listen to our podcast who message us regularly and say, I hate what you said on this, but I really love your podcast.

And to me, that's the net win because now we're in a conversation with each other. And now we're actually dialoguing about these important issues. And chances are, we got something wrong. So I have something to learn from you. And obviously, you're listening to me if you're listening to the podcast. And so I do think that part of online life, if you want to do it in a kind of native way, is actively engaging with you. And I'll be the first person to say that's really, really hard to do charitably. I fail as many times as I succeed. But I do think that building relationships matters. I had a pastor a while ago, I think it was maybe pre-pandemic or maybe at the beginning of the pandemic. He said, I had to stop looking at people in my church. I had to just stop looking at their

posts because I liked them in person, that church. They're like, oh, delightful and everything. And I'll see them on social media. And it's like this beast comes out. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'd rather just not know that. And I really resonate with that. But then now hearing you guys, I'm like, well, wait a minute, which one's the real person, the smiley plastic Christian at church or the one who's ripping on Democrats or Republicans or masks or no masks, whatever on social media? It's like, I wonder if there's a whole huge area of discipleship needs here that aren't going to address because you're just kind of ignoring it.

And yet at the same time, if I was a pastor, I'm like, dude, I'm not going to go scour people's social media posts. But maybe we should, like you said, that is a huge part of people's rhythm of life, right? That might be more the real them than the church them. I'm just thinking out loud here. This is kind of... Yeah, it's kind of scary to think that way because we all know that put behind an anonymous Twitter account or put behind a screen where you

don't see another human being in front of you that we're all capable of saying snarky things that probably probably wouldn't say to a real person in their face. But kind of going back to something you were saying about being shaped by media, it reminded me of this story that after George Floyd's murder, you know, that was that first week after that. And nobody really knew exactly what happened other than we'd all watch this horrible video. And we were getting hit up on Facebook that Sunday morning saying, you must talk about this or we're not coming back to your church. Well, we never planned on talking about it. But as we say, we're talking about it because we're honoring the lamb, not because we're talking about the donkey or the elephant's perspective.

But we were going to mourn and lament this tragic thing that the whole country went through watching it. And so then right after we have that service, we get hit up by people on the right saying, oh, so now you believe that all police are racist. Well, no, we never said that. But what they're doing is they're interpreting the worship service through the lens of their political tribes. Or here's a similar thing that happened right after that is that I get an email from a guy in our church, great guy, who says, hey, I'm uncomfortable with kind of the social issues

that we're starting to pray about in church, the language we're using. And I was like, well, I don't quite understand. Can you just give me an example? And he said, yeah, like we're praying for justice and oppression. And I said, oh, okay, hang on. I told him to go to biblegateway.com and just look up those two works for me and put them in the search bar. And he emails me back and he's a great guy. He emails me back and he's like, oh, it's everywhere. Here are my favorite ones. And I'm like, yeah, these are word of oppression and justice. Those are biblical terms, biblical categories. So he was reading the worship service, the prayers, the liturgy, all that through the lens of

cable news networks, right? Well, that's the wrong glasses to put on, right? And so we're having to reverse that way of thinking and help people see that Christ's kingdom is a kingdom of love, justice, mercy, that Jesus cares about human relationships. He cares about our politic. And so we've got to pursue justice and we've got to pursue mercy and we've got to work on behalf of the oppressed, not because we're Republicans or Democrats, but because we're Christians. Yeah, that's so good. That's so good. Yeah, that happened. Yeah, gosh, I mean, justice in the race conversation, I feel like it got so politicized that Christians just stopped looking at their Bibles and just read the conversation through the lens of whatever political talking point they were interested in, whether it's like, are you for CRT or against it? It's like, is that the first question we should be asking? What does the Bible say about ethnic reconciliation? It says a whole lot. Let's

start there and let that be our lens. And do you see things getting better or worse or like what's. Well, unfortunately for us, we run a podcast about tribalism. So the worse tribalism gets, the better we do. So our incentives are not well aligned, but it does. It does seem like it's getting worse at the present moment. Now, I have hope that things can get better. Jesus is always working. We know how the story ends. So I'm not living in anxiety or fear about those things. But I do think that the answer is the stuff that Keith's talking about, which is we have to talk about those issues. I mean, I don't know what your take is, Preston, on the seeker-sensitive movement. I think there are lots of good things, a desire to bring people into the church who weren't

going to church. But one of the things that happened because, you know, that movement was trying to draw in big crowds of people. I mean, the measure of success was church growth. That was the main thing. Because they're trying to do that, they had to be inoffensive. You know, so politics or anything ethical was off the table because that was going to push people away.

And so the sermons became very individualistic, very therapeutic. You know, let's work on your conflict management, your parenting, your communication skills, those kinds of things. But talking, like you said, about race or talking about gender or talking about these major political issues, you know, that was, you know, escorted to a safe room in the back where, you know, Jesus could stay quiet, nothing to say. And I think the unintended consequence of that movement was that it thinned out discipleship and people, because they got thinned out on those issues, look, the mind of Boer is a vacuum. So they were going to get filled up somewhere else.

And they started getting filled up, you know, in the early days on cable news and now on social media. And so it's not a shocker that, that where we're at right now as a church is churches full of people who think that the Bible doesn't talk about any of these issues. I mean, I have stories just like Keith's. I was talking to a woman not too long ago, who was again offended that we were talking about racial issues. And she looked at me and she said very seriously, but very, very confidently, the Bible, you need to preach the gospel. The Bible says nothing about race. You should, you need to focus on gospel. The Bible says nothing about race. You, you, you should, you, you need to focus on what you focus on. And, you know, I had to kind of sit there with regretted teeth because I thought, well, you're fantastically confident. You're also fantastically wrong right

now, you know? And so it just illustrates the point. This is a wonderful church lady who's been a part of a church for a long time. And she really honestly thought the new Testament has nothing to say about racial reconciliation or ethnic divisions. And so again, I'm just underlining, I think that's the problem. And the solution is we have to start talking about those things biblically. Paul talks more, I did, if you add up the word count, Paul spends more ink on ethnic reconciliation and ethnic tensions than he does on justification by faith just just i'm not and i'm just saying adding up the word count means it's more important or whatever it's just like yeah it's kind of shocking to people wait i want to know how you quantified that like

what were the words you were looking i didn't actually okay so i didn't actually add up the greek words it was more like just the length of the passages like if you stack all the passages you know i mean i mean the the book of eesians, obviously chapter two, but even, I mean, chapter three into chapter four, I mean, the whole book of Ephesians is largely about reconciliation across differences, even in the household codes toward the end and everything. And ethnic reconciliation is, lives at the heart of that. Paul lingers on that for for a while you know um you have the book of acts chapter 10 to 15 is pretty much all about ethnic divisions the book of galatians large chunks of romans i mean it's it's it's a huge i mean it was it was one of the main

things that the whole like jew gentile conversation in the first century and you bring in the samaritan thing with the life of christ and the ethiopian. I mean, it's just, it's, this is not a subsidiary theme, you know, but it's, it does show that, and this is true of all of us. There is no view from nowhere. We do come at scripture. So our, our lenses are just really fogged up with our upbringing, our culture, ethnicity, our, our, the time we're living in you know and like we just there's things in scripture that we just don't see because we're just programmed not to

not to see it so that late i mean i was that church lady that was like bible says nothing about it i remember i mean it was probably like maybe 15 years ago when i started seeing this i was already halfway through seminary and i was like oh this ethnic thing is kind of in the bible you know like so yeah i don't i don't fall that's just that's just true of human nature i think what we need to do is expose people to that that we all have lots of blind spots coming into coming into the text but um i agree that that that's something i came to way way too late embarrassingly too late in my Christian life. I was kind of a hyper individualist that would think about me and God and can we get souls into the kingdom and let's get out of here

and get up to heaven and all things that have some elements of truth to it, but are clearly less than biblically faithful. But I'm curious because as I've listened to your podcast, I've heard you have conversations with people. And I think, although I as I've listened to your podcast, I've heard you have conversations with people. And I think, although I might be putting words in your mouth, that you kind of come from an Anabaptist kind of perspective where you have rejected empire. And, you know, there's a lot that could be said for that. But I'm curious of how you think about Christians engaging in the politic of Jesus, Jesus's kingdom. You know, may your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. So should we be working toward bringing that kingdom?

And if we do, doesn't that involve civic, public, political involvement to some extent? And how do you think about that? Do you think Christians should be engaged in that? Or do you think we should kind of reject the empire and follow Christ separately from that public engagement? Yeah, that's a good... Honestly, I don't have an ironed out answer to that. Yeah. So, I mean, I could think out loud with you and I might change my mind tomorrow on where to draw the line. I would lean much more on,

on the Anabaptist. And I wasn't ready. I mean, I didn't know what Anabaptist was, you know, 10 years ago. So I'm coming at it from a conservative reform kind of perspective. So I sometimes call myself a,

you know, reformed Anabaptist, which makes me about one of like six in the world. But even, even my reform kind of theology is very, very low, lowercase r reformed, you know, I don't know, check off a lot of the traditional boxes there, but yeah, yeah, I am. I guess there's kind of two perspectives. One would see the nations as kind of, you know, God ordained,

Romans 13, you know god ordained um romans 13 you know god works a lot of good through the through the nations through political entities you know we're supposed to be you know um good citizens of babylon and and pray for the city and engage in the city work for the good of the city that is a theme it's also countered with, you know, the book of Revelation, where you have the beast is empowered by the dragon, you know, the beast is, you know, the political entity of the day and kind of symbolic of all political entities and that the kingdom of God has a distinct politic that runs counter to other political entities, even if they overlap. I mean, Rome made adultery illegal. It was illegal to commit adultery. Well, great. But it's still, like, we can agree with that. We can agree. There was, I mean, Caesar Augustus was actually very

conservative in many ways. Well, he, there's, was he really? But I mean, there's, there's, there was values in the Roman Empire that might have overlapped with Christianity and other ones that conflicted. But it's still empowered by the dragon. So I do think that, and again, I'm still thinking out loud about where the line is. Does that mean that Christians shouldn't be involved in Babylon's politic at all? I don't know. I wouldn't want to invest faith in that kingdom in bringing good in the world. I would want to do it as the kingdom of God. I'm a little more suspicious of like kind of national politics as bringing as something Christians should invest in local political stuff. You know, I a neighbor of mine came and he lives on a street.

The speed limit's 20 and people rip down his street at 40, 50. Actually, I ripped down his street at 40 or 50. It's a big road. It's a big road. It's a country road. It's like, why is the speed limit 20? Anyway, he's getting a petition to get speed bumps put in. I'm like, I hate... But I'm like, he's got kids and everything. I'm like, yeah, you're right. So that is a level of local politics or whatever that I think I could see more. And there's other people like Caitlin Sheese and others who have kind of argued for, you know, there's a lot more maybe hope for getting involved in more of a local political level

than getting mixed up in kind of the national stuff. But I'm not a political scientist. I mean, again, take my word to the grain of salt. I'm trying to work out theologically, like what is a Christian political identity living in the midst of empire and the nations. And is America similar to, the same as, or very different from the satanically empowered beast of the first century? I really don't know if I have clarity on that. What do you guys think? Feel free to push.

I mean, you guys seem like you're way more politically knowledgeable than I am on that side of things. Well, I agree that there's a lot of tension. And obviously, this is something the church has debated for centuries. And because it's not super clear. Like on one side, you have what you said, the beast. But on the other side, you've got Daniel and Joseph working their way up in these foreign pagan governments. So there's a lot of data that we have to take into account. We can't just separate out the ones that support our opinion. But talking about local stuff interests me also because I just saw an article in Christianity Today. I don't know if it's an

article or an opinion piece. I'm not sure how it would be qualified, in which the person writing it said that Christians just need to stop running for school board. And so, you know, I asked the question about what's your thought about Christians engaging in politics, and then you kind of took it to the local place, but that's sometimes where the rubber meets the road. And so I'm afraid that, well, maybe I play my cards too much, but, but I'm afraid that, that we as Christians are going to say, look how ugly and demeaning, dehumanizing and embarrassing to the church, our political involvement has been. So let's just back away. Let's pull away, stay pure over here, kind of go the Essene route, you know, where we're going to stay pure in our, our, uh, tribe., where we're going to stay pure in our tribe,

and we're not going to get dirty with all that. But I think it's a fair critique to say that God cares about justice, which I know you agree with, and so does the writer of that Christianity Today article. They agree with that. So how can we pull away and yet work for justice? I mean, during the civil rights movement, uh, Christians needed to get engaged if we were going to have just, uh, laws. And so are there just laws that we need to be pursuing now on behalf of the oppressed or on behalf of the poor or that reflect racial or sexual ethics or life or, you know or all kinds of issues. So I guess, like I said, I'm a little bit afraid that we're going to pull back and say,

well, let's stay clean and pure. And I understand that. I want to do that. And I get it, but I don't think that's Jesus's solution. If he's teaching us, pray, may your kingdom come, your will be done. That's a great example. The school board, like right when he said that, I'm like, oh, I don't know. on that that's a great example the school board like right when he said that i'm like oh i don't know i think it would be good for christians to be on school boards and be involved in public school i guess i i do get for me it's like what are we trying to do like are we trying to bring back

prayer in schools or something it's like but we live in a secular democracy democratic nation so like prayer in schools means like you should be all for uh the muslim teacher praying you know out five times a day at school or whatever like prayer in school doesn't mean christian prayer in school or are we trying to bring a christian sexual ethic in the school or just make it to where christians with a sexual ethic cannot be shamed or demeaned or whatever you know so what would he and so i guess my fear is sometimes in the past, at least when Christians are getting politically involved, they seem to be kind of trying to using secular means of power to ram through kind of a Christian ethic.

And that's where it gets me nervous. And understandably so. I totally get it. And when you get into the middle of those conversations on your local school board or wherever it is that you're a part of, it gets really messy. And unfortunately, it's not really clean cut. And then there are people like us who will take you on your podcast and criticize you for whatever you do, I guess. I don't know. But like, for example, here in our own local community, the school board recently approved the creation of a gender closet where people could come to school, students could come to school

and switch out clothes that they wore so that they could take on the clothes and the appearance of a different gender and then wear those during school and return them. And, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of reasons behind that and I don't pretend to know them all. So I'm not probably not giving it a fair shake, but it's pretty easy to see that part of that is to keep it from parents. And so should the school board be advocating for the creation of this closet that at least one of the purposes is to keep this information from parents? Now, if you are a Christian and you're on that school board, is it wrong to say, no, I don't think you should do this. And my faith is part of what informs that decision.

Or is that ramming, like you said, is that ramming my Christian views through with political power? Well, people are going to have different opinions on that. It's not going to be an easy question to answer. No, that's, that's, that's, no, that's, that's a, there definitely is a messy tension there. Yeah. Rather than ramming, trying to ram a Christian ethic. Cause even, even like that, like if I wasn't even a Christian, I can say I'm concerned about that just from natural law morality, maybe, maybe. And that example is messy for several reasons, but anytime the school's trying to do something to like, for lack of better terms, disciple your kids for you and be suspicious of parental rights over your kids. That's just a bad policy in general. I don't need to be a Christian to say that that's probably not good.

Or some of the stuff being taught in schools. I mean, you can go down the long list. And I know the right likes to highlight some of the li being taught in schools. I mean, you can go down the long list. And I know the right likes to highlight some of the, you know, libs of TikTok stuff, you know, as if it's like happening everywhere. But it is obviously happening somewhere. And it's like, yeah, some of these things are really disturbing. And do we address those as a Christian or simply as a good citizen who says this is not good for a democratic, free society? Or is it a both and? I don't know. I think this is a great example. And obviously, we're not going to come to the answer. But I mean,

we are saying there's different angles into this. We could talk about it in terms of our faith. We could talk about it, like you said, in terms of natural law, you know, subsidiarity, the notion that actually a parent has more, not just more authority, but they get to see the whole horizon of a child's life. Whereas teachers have the maybe for a school year. So maybe we should trust parents to love and care for their kids more than teachers do. Although I love teachers, but I also wonder if maybe this is a little bit of a both and. I mean, the Bible doesn't give us a clear answer. Sometimes we are going to be in a kind of antagonistic relationship towards the powers that be because they are being animated by the dragon. Other times we're going to be in situations where we might have

to compromise, like you said, Daniel or Joshua. And each circumstance is almost like an improvisation. You know, we have to know the scale in our heads. Like we have to know, like, these are all the notes that fit into C major. And these are, you know, so I can play a song in this scale, but it's up to us to improvise in the moment what it is. And I know for me,

cause I'm actually probably more like you Preston. I kind of like the idea of reformed with a lowercase r and a little bit Anabaptist. That's not for me. We should start a church together. There'll be seven people there. But part of that for me just comes down to, as a Christian, I need to live loosely with regards to the political structures that be, because I know that at times they can be a means of loving my neighbor and God

accomplishing his will on earth. But there are so many other means in the politic of Jesus of accomplishing those same things. I can't limit it to those things. And that's the problem with the fixation on federal politics, as though what happens in Washington is going to shape everything that happens in my city. And why I like what you said about saying, well, let's focus locally because we actually might have a lot more power to create change where we're at than we could do or than we could have in Washington. So again, I think for me, I just I want to be loose to those things. I don't want

to over rely upon those things. I don't want to overemphasize their importance. I want to acknowledge that the spirit works through all kinds of networks, not just political networks. And if I can say all those things, you know, I get a little less agitated when I'm watching the, you know, large scale national conversation. I also, here's another thing too, like I almost want to say like before we even talk about how individual Christians should be involved in the politics of the day, I want to say is the kingdom of God embodying the ethics, the polis, the society that we are wanting the greater society to have? Are we embodying a healthy perspective on sexuality and gender?

Are we embodying kingdom economics where there is no poor among us because everybody's being cared for? Are we embodying ethnic reconciliation? Like are our churches mirroring the ethnic vision of the Bible almost before? And it's not either or, it's a both and, but I mean, I do think the priority should be us focusing on the church and making sure we're embodying the very Paulist, the kingdom that we're wanting the secular kingdom to maybe reflect on some level. And if we go that route, I'm like, oh my gosh, we have so much work to do. We have a ton to do. We, we had Tim

Mackey on our podcast. I think that will be out by the time this airs. And we were talking about Ephesians and the message of ethnic reconciliation. And of course, evangelicals are really good at the vertical part. Like Jesus reconciled. We love the first part of Ephesians too. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost Ephesians too. That's exactly right. It's like, which half of the chapter do you want to emphasize? And I want both. But Tim said something in that podcast that's really stuck with me. And he said that throughout the book of Ephesians, it's clear that the structures of the church,

how the church lives, how the church acts, is a witness against the structures of evil in the world. And so what he's trying to say is, look, when you look at the church, you need to see something different. And when you see things happening there that can't happen anywhere else, it proves that there's something different, that there is a Messiah and a king who's reigning over them who is not Caesar. So when you look at a church that has politically and ideologically diverse people worshiping

alongside one another, ethnic diversity, of course, that's going to be different depending on the demographics of your city and where you live, but it has an ethnic diversity that's hopefully somewhat representative of your city. But when you see a church like that, and they're able to get along and love one another and care for one another in a way that our world can't, everybody's going to notice. Everybody's going to pay attention. When they see a church that's generous and it's giving to people both inside and outside the church, again, people are going to notice because that's not how the world functions. And so I'm with you. We need to be a witness inside the church that the structures of the world aren't working, they can't be relied

upon, and that the structures that the Spirit forms inside of our body politic, that they do work. I do like the idea. I mean, the ideal situation would be a church imperfectly, but, you know, pursuing, you know, embodying kingdom values in the church. And ideally, it'd be awesome if that sort of almost spilled over into the community that a church is just killing it with ethnic reconciliation. So that when there were unjust laws or racial stuff in the city, that the church is not speaking on both sides of its mouth like being so angry at that and yeah they have all kinds of racial stuff going on that they're not even addressing you know it kind of like when christians got all up in arms over are all up in arms with crt it's like i really hope this isn't the first time you kind of were publicly concerned about a racial conversation like wait crt no it's like as long as you've been pursuing

racial reconciliation in your church forever you know then you know maybe you have some credibility to voice that kind of external concern i guess that that's again i'm just thinking out loud i haven't i've not ironed this out but i mean i think that would be maybe more helpful. And again, as long as whatever good we're trying to pursue in Babylon's ethic, as long as we do so not through the power structures of Babylon or... And I use the phrase, ram through something. But really, we're supposed to do so in humility. We're supposed to love our enemy and neighbor always, right? And so as long as even our political involvement doesn't force us to kind of set aside our kingdom values, then, yeah, I'm all for that. And I think, again, I think I'm more optimistic of that happening on a local level than on a federal level.

But I don't know. and on a federal level, but I don't know. One of the things that's hardest, I think for us as Christians, is that anybody can call themselves a Christian. Anybody can put in their Twitter bio or their Facebook bio, whatever they want. And we as pastors, leaders, we can't control what people say or do or how they act.

And so it's hard for the church to have a reputation that is stellar in the community because all these people who can call themselves whatever they want, there's no gatekeeper evangelicalism, right? I mean, if you say you're a Republican or a Democrat, then you have to register for those in most states. You have to commit yourself publicly to being one. You have to be accepted into some sense by the party, but you don't do that as a church. Anybody can call themselves a Christian. So if we're going to wait until the church gets its reputation cleaned up before interacting on this, we're going to be waiting for a long time because from the very first century, the churches,

they're pretty messy. And so it shouldn't surprise us that our churches are pretty messy. But one of the things that you were talking about is, do we have a track record of being generous and loving and kind? And we tell this story in the book, there's a couple of them. The thing that our church has done that has gotten our community's attention the most is that we've done a couple different campaigns where we've raised money. The first one was to pay off medical debt. And we started out just saying, we're going to try to pay off medical debt in our own county. And we had this great partner called RIP Medical Debt. And they're not a Christian organization, but a great organization. And we worked with them to find people who are struggling financially,

and we were going to pay off their medical debt. And so we ended up, our church ended up raising $450,000, like not over pledges, but just like that day, that week. And we paid off through RIP Medical Debt, $450 million in over 30 counties in our state, all the medical debt. And then we went, the next Easter, we went and found out how many people are on the disconnect list through our utility department. And the disconnect list is exactly what you'd think it is. It's your utilities are all going to be disconnected. And then people have to move out and they can't find another apartment

because they have this bill that they haven't paid to the city. So we just found out what that was. And then we took it to our congregation and we raised another 400,000 plus dollars to pay off everybody on that list. And then to give some of it to organizations that help people stay off that list and maybe never get on that list in the first

place. And those kinds of things, they got our community's attention. In other words, when we do inner squad things, when we help other Christian groups, those are great things, but nobody outside cares. The watching world says, what will you do for the people who are different than you or the people you don't know or the people who are hurting? And, you know, we just try to make a point that when we paid that off, we're paying off for white and black and Asian and Latino. We're paying off straight and queer and everything in between. We were paying off everybody's debt that had a need. We didn't ask the question, you know, do you deserve this? Because Christ didn't ask us that question when he died for us and paid our debt. We just asked the question, who has the need? Let's help meet your need where you are. And so I think that kind of stuff gets our community's attention. I, first of all, 110% absolutely love that.

Would you consider that political involvement? Like, would you, like when you ask about how politically involved should Christians be like, is, would you categorize that as political involvement or? Well, I'll say this and then Patrick jump in.

I say when Jesus told us to pray, may your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. It's a kingdom of love, justice, and mercy. And so if we can bring love, your will be done on earth as in heaven. It's a kingdom of love, justice, and mercy. And so if we can bring love, justice, and mercy to our community in unconventional ways, then I think that's not the only way to do it, but it's one way to do it. Yeah. That's so good. Love that. I would want to say that's political. I mean, again, this goes back to redefining what politics are. We think of politics as the horse race, you know, that's happening in Washington.

That's a horse race. That's not, I mean, it is politics. Things are getting, well, not right now. The legislators really don't legislate. But where real politics happen is on the ground in people's lives. Lee Camp, he's a professor at Lipscomb University. He has this definition of a politic. It's really, really good.

And it helps me say, yes, this is a politic. He says a politic is an all-encompassing manner of communal life that grapples with all the questions the classical art of politics has always asked. How do we live together? How do we deal with offense? How do we deal with money? How do we deal with enemies and violence? How do we arrange marriage and families and social structures? How is authority mediated, employed and ordered? How do we rightfully order our passions and appetites? How much more besides, but especially add these, where is human history headed? What does it mean to be human?

And what does it look like to live in a rightly ordered human community that engenders flourishing justice and the peace of God? Now, that's your definition of a politic, which I think maps really closely into Jesus' most political sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. That's going to reorder what you think matters. I mean, one of the problems with tribalism is that it orders the things that we think of as political. You know, we want to talk about race. We want to talk about gender.

We want to talk about all the hot topics. And those are political things. But I think more fundamentally what we're talking about, canceling people's debt that is, you know, broken down. That is an incredibly political act. Serving at the local charity that's helping single moms or drug addicts or, you know, working at the halfway house, helping ex-cons come back into society. These are all really actually the political works that I think the church should be involved in. We'd be far better off if we fixated our money and energy there. Is that from Lee's book, Scandalous Witness?

Yes, it is. When I read that book, I was sitting on my elliptical early one morning reading that book. And I text Patrick like at 4.30 in the morning because we're both morning people. And I said, I just found your best book of the year, your favorite book. And he hadn't heard of it, but he read it. It is now my favorite book of that year. So yeah, I bet you'd like it too. Within seconds, it kind of seems clear that they do lean. They do kind of still value one political party more than the other. And I love that you guys really equally kind of point out areas in both – any kind of tribalism can be problematic. And I felt lead to the same thing. I was assuming it would feel a little more like left-leaning. it can be problematic, you know, and I felt lead to the same thing. I mean, you know, you read somebody,

I was assuming it would feel a little more like left leaning and it might, but not, I don't know. Like he, he really, I think anybody who put their allegiance in a party in a party would feel uncomfortable in that book equally, you know, and that's what I really loved about it. I forget whether it's the church was in Chicago or San Francisco, but they were in a neighborhood that had a lot of LGBT people. And they ended up as a ministry just doing free daycare because it was an incredibly expensive area.

People are working two jobs. Sometimes daycare could cost like, I don't know, 50 grand a year or something. They did free daycare and knowing that like probably half of the people that were going to drop their kids off were going to be lesbian, you know, parents. And yeah, they, they were doing good in society, serving people around them. And man, that just is so their, their, their love for each other and their love for the church spilled over into the neighborhood. And they said they had so many people that were like, I can't believe you're doing this. Why would you do this for us?

And the lesbian parents were like, I looked at your website and I kind of cringe at some of your statements on homosexuality but you're loving us more than i this is crazy so that you know that showing up the church and um having great conversation so yeah i guess that when i absolutely i think the church the church's embodiment of the kingdom of god should spill over and and produce good in society. There's that famous statement, you guys probably know it. Was it from like a second century Roman leader? Like they're, you know, talking about Christianity, you know, they're not only taking care of their own poor, but they're taking care of our poor. Like that. I think that's the sweet spot right there. And I think, I think that's the, that's the politic that we want. And, you know, we're,

we're lucky because we live in a relatively small city. It's 150,000 people. So our ability to influence a city as a decent-sized church is pretty tremendous. But I'm really not lying when I say this, and it's the thing that makes me most proud about the people who are part of our church, who are volunteers and working. If you're a refugee and you come to Columbia, and there's a lot of refugees who want to come to Columbia, there's a good chance the first person you'll meet is someone who goes to our church. If you are coming out of the prison system and you're trying to get acclimated back into society,

there's a good chance that one of the first people you're going to meet is going to be a person at a church. In fact, there's a good chance that the first person to give you your first job out of prison is going to be a person at our church. If you're a single mom or you're homeless and you need services to find housing for you and your kids, there's a good chance that the organization that you go to in our city, the first person you're going to talk to is going to be someone at our church. And that's why when you go to our church, I mean, our church, you know, by the world standards can look a little bit shady because you walk around and you just see people from every socioeconomic bracket there.

And they're largely there because someone loved them first. And they said, that's different. That showed me something I've never experienced before. And that draws them to Jesus. And I think of that as the kingdom politic. That is what doing politics in the kingdom way really looks like. It's not about who you voted for in the presidential election, as important as that may be. Well, and you were talking about Celsus who said, I think it was Celsus who said they don't take care of their poor but ours as well. And isn't that exactly how the Roman world came to faith in Christ? Just like Patrick saying that it's the Christians who stayed.

And we know these stories, but we've gotten away from them. It's the Christians who stayed and sacrificed during the plagues. It's the Christians who cared for babies that weren't their own. And instead, we've gotten wrapped up in trying to gain power. And we want the most votes on the school board. We want the most seats on the Supreme Court. We need to control the legislature. And I don't want to minimize any of those things because I'm all for bringing justice and kindness and mercy and grace and God's kingdom, however we can. And sometimes it's the school board and the Supreme

Court and the legislature that has to wrestle with those issues. But we can only do that if we're also working alongside of people in their time of need or people trying to meet needs in our community, whether that's being a mayor and giving leadership to a community that brings people together who are different and who can work together for the common good or whether it's serving in a homeless shelter. We've got to have both of those. And if we don't, well, we're going to stay stuck. Tell me about your church more. How big is it? What's your denomination? I hate asking how big, but it's just trying to picture it. In 2000. So we started with 35 people in a basement in 2000 and we've grown substantially. Now COVID has thrown everything into a weird place, right? So I'll tell you where we are today is that this past Sunday, we had about total people in the building, about 3,600 and probably about another 3,500 online. Okay.

That's a big church. It's a decent size church. Yeah. It's a decent size church. And what's your, are you guys co-pastors or what's your guys' role? My friend Dave, who's older than me, he and I started the church a long time ago, back in 2000. And then Patrick became, you tell them your story. Yeah, I became a Christian at the crossing. I became a Christian

when I was 19. And so I've had, this is the only church experience I've really had in any sort of long-term sense as being at this church. And then eventually came on staff in 2010, became a pastor. And Keith and I, we do a lot of writing and projects together. We start podcasts together. We share an office together. We share an office together. So we're a good tag team with one another. But this is a church that, I mean, for me in a very real way is the reason why I'm walking with Jesus and following Jesus. So, you know, I love it profoundly. Is it part of a denomination? We are. We're part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. However, we always kind of say we're

Presbyterian with lowercase p. It's not on the front door. You got to become a member to find out that layer of secret, what denomination we actually are. But yeah. We think there's a good role for denominations and the EPC has been good and generous to us. It's just that most of our pastors, maybe all, we didn't come from Christian backgrounds. We became Christian in college students or a little bit later in life than your typical pastor. And so we don't have these allegiance to denomination like we grew up Lutheran or Methodist or Presbyterian or Baptist or whatever it is. So we are connected with the denomination.

There's some really good things about that. But if you just walk in the door, you probably don't know that for quite a while where's the epc on the sort of spec theological spectrum of like the opc usa ec uh the the pc usa you know back in the early 70s the pca split out of them right and so in so in 73, and then in, I think it was 83, the EPC split out of them. And so what was the issue? Well, well, so there were multiple issues. PCA was, this is, this is a fun little history lesson. We should not be the people talking about this. I went to Trinity. He went to covenant. So he got baptized. Okay. Yeah. I'm a Trinity guy, so.

No, just to make it simple, it was over, in the PCA's case, the ordination of women. The PCA did not want to ordain women. There was a separation there. And then with the EPC, it was the PCUSA's position on homosexuality. And the EPC, so I guess you put this thing on the spectrum, you know, you have like hyper-conservative Oative, OPC, next conservative is probably PCA. The EPC, I would describe as being moderate, but theologically conservative. So we don't at our church, but other churches have female elders and pastors. The thing I like about a denomination is that we are united on a lot of the central, essential things. And there's a lot of space for disagreements and different practices outside of those, which I think is a healthy way to manage a diverse denomination.

It sounds a lot like the ECC, the Evangelical Covenant Church, where they're kind of right in the middle of kind of evangelical kind of convictions, uh, very heavy into like race conversation. They ordained, they do ordain women. They've been doing that long before it was, you know, like long time ago, but they, they're very Orthodox and sexuality questions and stuff.

That's cool, man. Um, well, Hey, I've taken, I've taken you guys. I didn't realize the time taking over the hour that you promised to give me,

but, uh, yeah, I can keep talking to you guys for hours, but I'm going to'm gonna have to just uh close out and turn on your podcast and keep listening to you so uh just a reminder so the book is truth over tribe pledging allegiance to the lamb not the donkey or the elephant which that title is pretty ba i love that um and the podcast is you have two podcasts right truth over tribe and then what's the other one again? 10 Minute Bible Talks. Truth Over Tribe comes out weekly.

And we have conversations with people and the leaders across the nation or with each other about political topics. And 10 Minute Bible Talks is exactly what you think it is. It is 10 Minute Devotions led by Patrick and I or Tanya or Jensen, two of our other co-hosts. Okay, cool. Awesome. Well, thanks guys for joining me. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.