Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1026: #1026 - Death to Deconstruction: Reclaiming Faithfulness as an Act of Rebellion: Josh Porter

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

Josh is the lead pastor of Van City Church in Vancouver, WA. He’s also the lead singer of the punk rock band Showbread and is an author and creative prophet. Honestly friends, he’s one of the most theologically sophisticated yet creatively gifted humans I’ve ever met. He’s a provocative prophet who’s not afraid to challenge the status quo and yet, to some people’s chagrin, he’s passionately committed to historic orthodoxy and the authority of Scripture. He doesn’t fit into any single box. He’s a contrarian–in the best sense of the word.  Oh, and he recently released a killer book that bears the title of this podcast: Death to Deconstruction: Reclaiming Faithfulness as an Act of Rebellion.   https://www.joshuasporter.com If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information!

Hello, friends. Registration is now open for next year's Exiles in Babylon conference, and I cannot wait for this conference. Here's a few topics that we're going to wrestle with. The future of the church, disability in the church, multi-ethnic perspectives on American Christianity, and a conversational debate on the problem of evil and suffering. We have Eugene Cho, Elise Fitzpatrick, Matt Chandler, Michelle Sanchez, Justin Gibney, Devin Stalemar, Hardwick. The list goes on and on. Joey Dodson's going to be there. Greg Boyd and Clay Jones, they're going to be engaging in this conversational debate on the problem of evil and suffering. And of course, we have to have

Ellie Bonilla and Street Hymns back by popular demand. And Tanika Wya and Evan Wickham will be leading our multi-ethnic worship again. We're also adding a pre-conference this year. So we're going to do an in-depth scholarly conversation on the question of women in ministry featuring two scholars on each side of the issue. So Drs. Gary Brashears and Sydney Park are on the complementarian side and Drs. Cynthia Long-Westfall and Philip Payne on the egalitarian side. So March 23rd to 25th, 2023 here in Boise, Idaho. We sold out last year and we'll probably sell this year again. So if you want to come, if you want to come live, then I would register sooner than later. And you can always attend virtually if you can't make it

out to Boise in person. So all the info is at theologyintheraw.com. That's theologyintheraw.com. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is one of my favorite thinkers and pastors in the country. His name is Josh Porter. He is the author of the recently released or about to be released book, Death to Deconstruction, Reclaiming Faithfulness as an Act of act of rebellion. If you hear Josh speak, which you will in a second, if you saw Josh, if you hung out with Josh, you would say this dude has all the ingredients to be a typical kind of person who has deconstructed from Christianity. He's the front man in the punk rock band Showbread. He's got more tattoos than I think I've ever seen on a pastor.

Has very much is sympathetic for reasons why people do deconstruct. And yet he is a pastor. He is incredibly committed to Christian orthodoxy. And he can be contrarian in his thinking, as you will see. So I'm super excited for you to listen to this conversation. We had a wonderful time talking. We could have just kept on going, but I had to cut the conversation off. We get into lots of stuff that might be offensive to some people. So a little trigger warning on this episode. If you're an easily offended person, then this might not be the episode to listen to. But for the rest of us, please welcome back to the show, the one and only Josh Porter. Josh, thanks for coming back on the podcast. I don't know when I had you on last, but it was a few years ago, at least, right? Two or three years ago, I think. Well, for me, it feels like yesterday. I order my life around my appearances on this podcast.

As you should, as you should. So you're coming out with a new book. I was just, we're just chatting offline that you asked me to endorse it. And I, it was at a time when I just, it still would be at a time when I just have no space for any endorsements, but I did read the first little bit of it. I was like, dang this. And I don't, I wouldn't say this if I didn't mean it. I would just say, Hey dude, I'm really excited about your book coming out. I know how to word things in a way that doesn't give false compliments. Oh yeah. We're Christians. We know how to your books incredibly well-written and the bit I read, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I, I really want to go back and read this. Um, even if it's not for an endorsement. So the book is Death to

Deconstruction. The subtitle is pretty BA, Reclaiming Faithfulness as an Act of Rebellion. Let's just jump into the book. What led you to write this book? I know you build your own personal story in at the beginning, which is really kind of in your face like raw, which is why I love it. But yeah, what led to you writing this book? which is why I love it. But yeah, what led to you writing this book? Well, my story, honestly, if you read the, if anyone ends up actually reading the book, most of it or a lot of it is my story, but I didn't set out to write anything memoir-ish. I don't gravitate toward that personally or usually. And you know, my primary wheelhouse is fiction. So I did want to write about deconstruction.

It's something that, as a pastor, obviously this is something that I'm having conversations about on a near daily level, even with a small church. level, even with a small church, the reach of the deconstruction fad is, you know, one can scarcely overstate what a conversation piece it is, at least in the kind of American expression of, you know, post-enlightenment, smarty-smarty-pants, spirituality kind of world. So I wanted to write about deconstruction. It's something that is interesting to me, fascinating, frustrating, alienating, but something that is also deeply relatable to me in many ways. And I set out to write kind of like a smart professor, like an academic book that would be a defense for orthodoxy, that I would say, oh, here's the

reason why you should actually believe these things that I would come up with. I guess, essentially like apologetic arguments to common quibbles that deconstructors have. And I realized that that book exists, stacks of that book exist, and some of them are really, really good. In fact, I read one right before I started the final draft. So I had already written my draft by A.J. Swoboda. He has a book called After Doubt that was, it's probably, at least in my experience, the best version of that book that I was going to set out to write by a professor, extremely knowledgeable, but readable. And when I sat down to actually write that book, I couldn't

make it work. I realized that the more that I tried to draw on my own experience, conversations that I've had with other people, the more it occurred to me that deconstruction is not, I don't think personally, primarily an intellectual movement as much as it is an emotional reaction. And that trying to write from a purely intellectual or answering intellectual questions and problems with things like the Bible or humanity, God, that kind of thing is important. It's a worthwhile endeavor. It's been done. It's been done very well. But that when I reached into my own experience and story, I realized that I had this living irony in that I have every reason in the world to have deconstructed my faith. I grew up in the Deep South, fundamentalist Southern Baptist during the satanic panic of the 80s and 90s, hyper paranoia about culture, and yet like hyper Christian nationalism, racism, hypocrisy at every level of church and leadership.

And I was kind of wired for rebellion and to be a contrarian and couldn't find a place to put that. And everywhere I turned, I wanted to love Jesus and people were telling me that I was doing it wrong. And I found punk rock and I went out into the world to play music. am more rooted in the ancient, historic, orthodox Jesus tradition than I have ever been with every reason. You know, I sat down and I have conversations on a regular basis with people who are either on the precipice of deconstructing or they are in the throes of deconstructing or they have deconstructed. And I can relate to almost everything that every one of them says, at least in some kind of slightly detached or comparable kind of way. If not the exact same experience, I have one like it, one that's in some way comparable. And the question that I

kept getting was, well, then what the heck? How are you still here? How did you end up where you are? And so the book became that essentially. There's still theology in it and there's still arguments from the Bible and intellectual stuff, but it's mostly braided together with my story, which allowed me to write from a more narrative kind of way, which I prefer anyway. So everything worked out. It's probably a lot more effective in the types of person you're trying to speak to in the book. Like you said, there's a lot of other books that can reach other types of people, but the very kind of people that are deconstructing are probably going to resonate more with a

more narrative form that is intellectually honest and sophisticated and yet is narratively presented. Is that even a phrase? Narratively presented? Sure, that works. Um, yeah. Um, what, so would you say you went through a period of deconstruction or just that you have all the kind of sociological ingredients that could have led you there, if that makes sense? Uh, or did you actually deconstruct your faith at one point? Well, I make, you know, the problem, one of the problems with the deconstruction conversation is that the language is so open to interpretation. You know, a lot of folks argued back to me, especially when they read the title that not all deconstruction is bad or, you know, deconstruction refers to a great many things. So I make a distinction early on in the book that what a lot of people describe as quote unquote good deconstruction, I would describe as spiritual

formation or transformation of faith. They're not talking about eradicating the institutions of Christianity. They're talking about like, I used to believe one thing, but the more I followed Jesus, I learned that it's not exactly right. So I had to develop my faith, mature my faith. That's the process that every disciple of Jesus goes through as they continue to follow Jesus years and years into their life and maturity. I don't call that deconstruction, even if it involves dismantling some of the things that we've been given early on in our discipleship. This deconstruction for me, and I think honestly at like a colloquial level, a conversational level, is more about, you know, kind of bred out of critical theory, the idea that these institutions

and leaders are inherently corrupt and that we should tear them apart, we should take them all down, and that if we do build anything else, it won't be from the pieces of this thing we've been given. We'll build our own thing or we'll cobble together a spirituality out of different ideas that we like or that gratify us or whatever it might be. And I think that, honestly, you know, yes, the term is complicated and nuanced, but when we have conversations in faith circles or in church circles or with people who are post-evangelical, in my experience anyway, that's what they mean of deconstruction, if you like, for years of my life without ever committing to a deconstruction moment per se. I had lots of the same exact problems that most people have, and I kind of couch many of them together in the book into these things that I call the great predators, things like biblical illiteracy and the problem of

evil and hypocrisy, politicized faith, these things that come along and destroy faith because lack of resources, tools, understanding, or people just bail or whatever the reason might be. So all of these, the great predators, I call them, came to me at different points in my discipleship to Jesus. And some of them came close to undoing my faith in Jesus. But I never reached the deconversion moment. I never reached the point where I effectively denounced Jesus. In fact, it was more like a kind of hanging on with the edge of your fingertips

kind of thing. And I don't, I don't know, I think I'm about to fall. I don't know if this is going to work, but I'm too scared to let go to too afraid to fully commit or what I can't for some reason. But I was there, I was in, I did all the deconstructing things for a long period of my life before leaving that period behind. So you have your own story that you've explained and you now are talking to a lot of other people who are in that world on some level and deconstructing world that you painted. You said in your own story that was kind of you were raised in fundamentalism. I have yet to meet, this is totally anecdotal, could be off. I've yet to

meet somebody who has deconstructed, is deconstructing, who wasn't also raised in Christian fundamentalism or hyper-legalistic, overtly oppressively conservative environments. Have you met anybody that was raised in a very healthy, maybe they were like women preachers and teachers or like, you know, there's a, they believed in, very healthy, maybe they were like women preachers and teachers or like, you know, there's, uh, they believed in, you know, they, they allowed for, you know, an old earth interpretation of Genesis or whatever, like humble leadership. Have you met anybody that was raised in a way you would consider a very, very healthy form of evangelicals and that deconstructed too? I haven't. The only exception to that rule that I'm aware of is a small minority of former Christians who came to faith later in life and were immediately propelled into some kind of imperfect, as they all are, evangelical movements.

And it's a little bit like what Jesus described as seeds falling on shallow soil. So in that case, deconstruction is rapid. There's a conversion moment and maybe a year passes, two a moment, some kind of like what they would describe as a spiritual moment at a church gathering or some such thing. So it's a bit like a later in life youth camp experience, especially in urban centers where you have church movements that are, and I don't mean this pejoratively, but like a hip church movement where something interesting is happening and lots of people are coming into a place like San Francisco or Portland or whatever, Brooklyn. And they're like, oh, my God, I had no idea that this was like this.

And there's something here. There's electricity here and there's love and community and human beings crave connection and community. And they reach for some kind of spiritual ingredient. And they reach for some kind of spiritual ingredient. And so they come around, but then as soon as the difficulties or the real take up your cross thing of Jesus comes out, they're like, oh my God, I had no idea that this is intense. But that's a minority of people in my experience, the vast majority. And I mean, I don't mean to overstate it, but traveling as a musician who talks about Jesus and pastoring a church and working with other churches I've talked to a lot of people who belong to this camp or kind of swept up in this movement and almost always the the key

ingredient is you know some kind of what they would describe as a corrupt Christian upbringing, uh, and, or, um, you know, uh, oppressive Christian parenting kind of story. Like, I don't want anything to do with this. And then they'll tell me about your parents. And then, you know, that, that comes out. It's, it's, it's a little bit, I mean, it's, I'll just, yeah, no, it is sad. It's sad because for several reasons, I think there's healthy forms of conservative evangelicalism and then very unhealthy forms. A healthy form would say, you know, hey, look, we believe in a young earth, we believe male-only teachers, whatever, we believe in a rapture view of end times, whatever the token kind of conservative beliefs are. Hey, we believe these, we've studied it from biblical conviction, but we acknowledge that

there are good godly people who are on other sides and there are other ways to read this text. But we believe, maybe we strongly believe in young earth way of reading Genesis, but we're not going to deny that another way of reading it is like denying the authority of scripture or something. There's other valid options that we disagree with on a lot of these secondary, what I would consider secondary issues. That would be a healthy conservatism. When you speak about liberals, which is kind of everybody to the left of you, right? You humanize them.

You don't strawman them. You respect them as human beings and then you give 18 reasons why you disagree with their viewpoint whatever you know but it's it's the the approach is just different it's more humble it's humanizing um that's healthy conservative the unhealthy kind is you know when you demonize everybody that disagrees with you everybody's on a slippery slope you're the only one that has it the right way. Everybody else is probably worshiping Satan or something. Not quite,

but actually I've heard things along those lines. The implication is there. It's funny. So I, do you know Tony Scarcello? He's out in Springfield, Oregon. I don't know Tony.

Tell me about Tony. You would love Tony. He had a major deconstruction, really like pretty brutal. And then ended up really coming back to a place where I would, as much as I know you, I think you, me, and him would all be similar. John Mark Homer and others. He wrote a great book called Regenerate, kind of sharing his story. Beautifully written book telling why he came back to orthodoxy.

And one of the things that brought him back was he was raised fundamentalist. And when he kind of deconstructed towards him, he says, I wasn't really deconstructing my faith completely. It was more towards a very progressive view of Christianity. When I lived in that world, though, I just saw fundamentalism rebranded. Same thing, different content, you know, like a lot of straw manning, a lot of like intolerance, a lot, like all the same ingredients that drove me out of fundamentalism. I saw in progressive Christianity, I wasn't happier. Uh, I didn't love people more. I was more kind of bitter and angry and all the stuff that I just went back to square one with a different set of content, which now he came back

to more of a healthy, humble orthodoxy. Um you seen that in the conversations you're having, that if people dip their toe in a progressive form of Christianity, it looks really attractive, maybe at face value, especially when you come out of fundamentals and you're like, oh my gosh, this is where I belong. But then in some, I'm not going to broad brush, but in some progressive Christian environments, the tone feels almost fundamentalist.

Yeah, in fact fact that becomes a huge element of the book and that was part of my experience as well is that you know it's a bit it mirrors a little bit like my kind of foray into the punk rock movement because for me there was this moment where i'm like oh my god what is this thing and it was electric and it was an interesting and it felt as if it was like a place for outsiders people wired for rebellion and then you you move into these punk rock circles and it's very quickly begins to feel like its own um isolated subculture with walls around it uh that are like well it comes with a fashion sense and it comes with certain rules that you you evoke over music and you can't do that because that's not punk and

um it becomes very self-defeating uh and that was frustrating to me and part of my whole you know creative journey was well that i'm not i'm not really interested in trading one uniform for another i thought that this was something that we were doing to you know like uh um be able to escape the confines of fundamentalism the quasi spiritual progressive you know half christian or or you know however one might want to describe i'm obviously using terms that are um snarky, but it feels to me a lot like having moved into that place and read into that place and thinking that there would modes that I'd been given, raised in the church and figuring out what I really thought, reacting to hypocrisy and the ways that I'd been hurt. And then wanting to learn and grow. And I decided, you know, like, well, if I am going to follow Jesus, I would like to do it in a sincere way and was drawn to theologians and reading and eventually seminary. And there, there was at first this draw

to like, well, I don't want this. I don't want these things that give off, you know, uh, my Southern Baptist vibes, but the, uh, the upbringing to which I was accustomed, I want some, I want ideas that are interesting. I want things that are outside the box. And, um, you, you realize very quickly, it becomes this, like the repeat of the experience I had with punk rock, which is an extreme aversion on the progressive end to anything that seems to remotely hint at conservatism. And that to me is not helpful either. It seems to me, and you know, I'm not a psychologist or sociologist, but it seems to me that, again and again, my own journey with trying to help people follow Jesus in any way I can is about trying to draw people to this extremely frustrating and often ambiguous middle that becomes deeply uncomfortable for people to occupy long term unless they go through that very difficult process of spiritual formation, because sides are easier. It's very comforting to have a camp. It's very comforting to have a side

and a system. And I was really drawn to theological systems. There's nothing inherently wrong with these things per se, but they become the rubric by which we gauge orthodoxy rather than a helpful tool to work out the very complicated details of our theological beliefs. And it's fascinating. And honestly, there's a bit of black humor in the book. It's hilarious, honestly, to me to sit down with folks that have almost unknowingly traded one fundamentalism for another. And Preston, there's actually a quote from you that I use all the time in my teachings. It's probably in the book about, and it's great, people always, ooh, ooh, ooh, you know, when you read this thing off a slide. I can't wait to hear what I'm going to say.

You have this great quote about how conservative fundamentalism is, you know, the inability to listen to the other side, the demonizing of your opponents, the closed mindedness that says, I'm only right, I won't listen to. And then there's this little, you know, punchline at the end that says, progressive fundamentalism is the exact same thing. There is this kind of blissful ignorance or willful ignorance that often comes in the early transition phase of post-deconstruction, deconversion, and now I think these things. And man, isn't it crazy? I'm putting this stuff on the internet, and I believe stuff that would make my mom so

mad. And it comes with a new rule book. And the new rule book says you, you have to say these things, you know, like the, I was telling my wife the other day that cause she made a joke saying that, you know, you, you sound like your parents when you quibble about, uh, the, um, the rules of progressivism, you know? And I think that, yeah, I was like, man, you're right. I do sound like that. I wonder what happened to me. And I thought about it a lot and prayed about it. I think that it's not uniquely me, but I am deeply allergic to fundamentalism and to the kind of fundamentalist bullying. And I think a lot of that probably comes from, you know,

fundamentalist bullying. And I think a lot of that probably comes from the way I was raised, and trauma, and that kind of thing. But there is the new kind of progressive spiritualism, to me, looks identical in every way to the conservative fundamentalism bullying that went on during the 80s and 90s, which is like, you can't use these words. You have to use our words. We don't care what you believe. You have to subscribe to our beliefs. And if you don't say it right, we're going to punish you. And we want our people and political power to impose our moral ideology on you. And if you don't get in line with that, then you're a heathen, you're a pagan, you're, you know, you're unclean, we want you out. Even to the degree of like, it's taken, it's worked its way into the exact same

social circles where it's like, we want control of what's being taught in schools, or we want control of what's being said on the news. And you know, like what can be on television, what an artist can say, what lyrics are permissible, which artists need to be banished and boycotted, which shows and movies are inappropriate for consumption by the public. This was all stuff that happened in the 80s and 90s with conservative Christians, and now it's happening to the exact same extent and degree and in the exact same realms with the progressives. So to me, it doesn't really matter

whether it's, you know, I don't feel deeply antagonistic toward the conservative ideologies or the progressive ideologies in and of themselves. It's the fundamentalism and the imposition, the ideological imposition and bullying. And especially when that encroaches on like the arts you know and that whole thing uh bothers me particularly that's a big deal in uh yeah the arts in society right now with like comedians right i mean isn't there like almost like a well there's been a lot of just censoring or attempts to censure and then like a backlash now with artists saying no we're not gonna we're gonna do our art well and if change channel if you can't, if you're offended by it or whatever.

And, you know, I've been listening to a lot of standup comedians recently and that's, that's kind of a big theme. Which standup comedians are, I didn't know this until a couple of years ago. They're, they're brilliant. Yes, they are. They're great social prophets. Like they see. Deeply prophetic.

Yes. Yes. And they come off kind of jovial or whatever i mean some come off a little more sophisticated but they have the ability to kind of like touch on things and see things that yeah and be be contrary good comedy is almost essentially contrarian drawing out the stuff the quiet part that people don't want to say out loud and are scared to say out loud but they just kind of do it that's part of the art that they perform. I don't know anything about, I'm speaking out of my turn here, but, um, I would imagine in your, especially in

the genre music that you're in, the same spirit is probably very prevalent, right? I mean, yeah. And my, uh, primary influence and inspiration as a preacher has always been stand-up comedians over and against. I mean, there's a lot of wonderfully gifted pastors and speakers that I listen to on a regular basis and draw inspiration from. at churches um my main inspiration the driving force to be like oh i would like to learn how to speak in front of people was dave chappelle for years and years and years of uh my life and and watching his trajectory from kind of like uh over the top absurdist and race satire to becoming this uh deeply sophisticated um intellectual commentary on race, politics, and social structures with, you know, a deeply offensive black comedy and outrageous, like, the outrageous ability to provoke the audience into thinking. And this was all before, was going through his are you or are you not canceled

moment. So following that, just as an example of someone who, it was kind of a darling of progressivism because they like him a lot when he talks about race, but they do not like it if he comments on gender. And there are these no-go zones, and it doesn't matter. Nuance doesn't matter, or the ability to disagree doesn't matter, or even just intelligent, this is wrong, and here's why I think it's wrong. It has to be silenced. And now it reminds me of when I was a kid, the great Don Bluth movie, The Land Before Time, had just been released into theaters. My brother and I were so excited to go see this animated movie about dinosaurs. And my parents had hyped it up. Oh, this weekend, we're going to go see The Land Before Time. But our local theater was also playing Martin Scorsese's

The Last Temptation of Christ. So our church called for a boycott of the theater. No one can go to this theater until they take that movie out. We want to send a very clear message. You can't play that movie or we won't give you our business. Not even don't go see the movie. Don't even let this theater exist. It has to be shut down unless they take that movie out. You know, my parents felt so bad. They were like, we're just going to quietly go see The Land Before Time, and hopefully no one finds out at church.

Don't just disagree, and don't even just reject the thing itself. Everything around it has to be taken down. Unless it adheres to the Comrade-approved script, it has to be destroyed. And that has been a kind of fundamentalist mantra all at least in my you know few decades on the planet i mean and you're you're in so vancouver washington just north of portland which they kind of just run together divided by a river have you had a front row seat to that kind i mean you know the assumption is portland is just you know infested by antifa and just off the rails far left and everything but is that is there a lot of truth to that and i know you when you watch like it was so comical like watching like during the pandemic

like you watch like fox news and you see portland just like burning to the ground right just i'm like oh my gosh stay within a hundred miles of the city or you're gonna just be and then you see like the you know on the other side of the aisle it's like you know peaceful protests or sit-in it was just like yeah it was just two different pictures you know just because people are they don't care about telling the truth they just want to bend the narrative in a certain direction to get clicks from the audience that they can make most angry but bend the narrative in a certain direction to get clicks from the audience that they can make most angry. But yeah, do you have, I mean, would you say as a, you're pastoring in that area, is it very much that, like, do you deal with like very hyper-progressive kind of viewpoints

inside the church, outside the church, all around? Yeah. Yeah. That's the, that's the main obstacle in pastoring people, leading a church, not just at a pastoral level, but peer-to-peer, trying to help one another follow Jesus in the context of community, friendships, small groups, that kind of thing. If I had stayed in Georgia, I think that my voice or the thing that would most aggravate me would still be the right, would be Christian nationalism and racism. These things still present major obstacles to faith in Jesus, but that are not part of the common landscape of pastoring and being a Christian where I live now, at least not on such a, you know, ugly surface level. You know, racism is everywhere, but it takes on more sinister, secretive tones in a place like Portland. Whereas in Georgia, the stand on the side of the road is selling like racist propaganda with horrible things on

t-shirts it's not a secret it's not and and it's kind of excused oh well people don't know any better this was the way that they were raised that kind of thing and it keeps it alive and in motion whereas a place like portland the thing that keeps racism alive is everyone telling themselves they're they're not really racist so they never really deal with the kind of stuff that's in the heart. And that keeps it alive. But in a place like the Portland metro area where our church is, these folks, if I stood up there and told them what I would say in Georgia, everyone would just hooray me out the door. They'd be like, hooray, Josh, hooray. It's like, he hates racism and nationalism, and so do we. And everyone would pat each other on the back, so we'd all feel really great that

we're not like anyone else. But that's not what I pick on at our church. What's the point of telling everyone what we already know? And there's a time and a place to go into things that are hidden in each of us, obviously. But when I pick on the progressive stereotypes at our church, which I do on a regular level, something of a provocateur, I'm told. So I'm trying to find these things and aggravate people in a way that much like a prophetic stand-up comedian, find the squirm squirm button and, and, and make us laugh about it, but also ask questions about it and get frustrated and, and wonder what it is that, what are we doing? Is this really what I think? And, um, and it comes at, you know,

with a tremendous amount of pushback. Uh, can you give me an example? I'm curious what that looks like. more detailed way of saying it, is kind of like an Anabaptist position on engagement in the political realm. And I did it in such a way where I'm hopefully trying to walk people gently into a different perspective by talking to them about the way that the early church understood the power and the oppressor and how the early church engaged the political system and how they didn't, the concept of nonviolence. And then I just drag you under the bus. I put your quotes up on the screen. I'm like, don't be mad at me.

This guy wrote the book. And he's not nearly as tatted as I am. Yeah, exactly. He actually looks fairly concerned. I know. I put a picture of you up there with your nice smile and they're like, what, that guy? You can Photoshop a suit and tie in like a big white Bible. I already did, man. That's what I use.

And that was fascinating because our church is small and it was every week there was blowback from closeted right-leaning congregants and uncloseted left-leaning. I think by default, we assume that if not consciously from the culture, osmosis from the culture, our church, the demographic is very young. It's people from 20 to late 30s, mostly, with a few outside of that realm. And we just assume, if you've lived in this area or if you've even been here for a little while, the message that you're getting from culture is a deeply progressive ideology. of, you know, stuff from your book, from Fight, stuff from, you know, a book like Boyd's Myth of a Christian Nation or, you know, material from Scott McKnight, reading stuff and trying to guide people into just like, man, isn't this incredible that this was the position of the church at this time and that these are quotes that we have and this is a real thing.

The reaction is so deeply, well, it is deeply reactive. There are people who are like, it sounds like you're saying that we don't need to fight the conservatives. And then the other side was saying like, it almost sounded like you were saying we shouldn't be fighting this progressive agenda, you know? And of course, the thing that I'm sure any pastor or preacher knows is you get a lot of like, you said this, and I'm like, well, I actually never said any of those words, but we can look back at the manuscript together if you want. Um, but it does reveal that kind of like, well, they heard, they heard that on some level, the inference, you know, one of the things that I heard that is still fascinating to me is, uh, we, during when the world was reacting to the murder of

George Floyd at our church, like many churches spent spent a while talking about racism and systemic racism, injustice, the Bible's perspective on race and reconciliation. And there were people who were offended but committed. They were like, this activates something in me and I don't know why, and I want to deal with it. And that was really refreshing and beautiful. And a lot of people, I think, grew a lot during those conversations. But then there were also folks who, you know, one person told me, you said that unless I was at the Portland protests every single night, that I'm not really a Christian. And that was fascinating because I didn't mention the protests at all. Oh, my word.

And I never said anything about whether or not someone was or wasn't a Christian based on their participation in any social event. But there was this really, even though it was not true, but there was this sincere, I mean, she was saying this to the person that she claimed said it. So you know I know what I said. this sincere, I mean, she was saying this to the person that she claimed said it. So she, you know, I know what I said, you know? So it wasn't like she was trying to trick me into thinking I said something I did not say. There was this, she felt like that's what the message that had come across when other people were mad that I wasn't encouraging more. You know,

like, why didn't you say anything about how anything about where to join up at the Portland protests? Wherever you go, I have found that even in a place like the Portland metro area, yes, the majority of people are entrenched in the progressivism. That's the worldview that they take for granted. But there are these flowers of, you know, right-leaning ideology that are either ingrained from upbringing or that they've taken from where they've come from. You know, they're like me and they moved from a different place in the world and some of them carry them around without knowing. And other people, you know, they're more on the surface, but there's a mix. And again, the middle thing is what aggravates people so deeply. The idea that Jesus is neither this nor this.

Yeah. And that to follow him, it alienates you from this and this. And that is a terrifying idea to a lot of people. They're like, well, can't I stay here and also follow Jesus? here and also follow Jesus. And, you know, that I think that they, we all find more and more, the more that we follow Jesus is that he's calling us out of the sides, calling us away from the allegiances and commitments that, you know, compromise our faithfulness. Would you call yourself a Christian anarchist? Do you use that phrase? I forget. Yeah, I used to use it all the time because it sounds so cool.

forget and yeah i used to use it all the time because it sounds so cool you know so uh so okay so two questions then do you so do you still use the phrase and if not has the content of reviews changed have you just ditched the label i don't consciously not use it it's just that i find in my context now it's not really helpful when i was uh in a punk band we we use that terminology all the time we put it in lyrics and on t-shirts and everything and not the cap that sounds so capitalist not to exploit the movement 1995 i think yeah i find it very aesthetically interesting the just those two terms put together the first time i heard it i was like whoa what a weird um seemingly dichotomous thing. And that put me on reading. And I read Jacques Ellul and Dorothy Day. And then the reader level Christian anarchist is

Greg Boyd, that if you find the right interviews, he's using that terminology. But to me, it's not all that different, especially since there's no Christian anarchist denomination. Most of them lean on other thinkers and some of them who weren't even formally self-espousing Christian anarchists, people like Yoder, who didn't use terms like that, who was thoroughly Anabaptist. But the anarchists all use his thinking and writing and, you know, the politics of Jesus is one of their like handbooks. So it depends, you know, if I'm certain people trying to use terms like Anabaptist, it can be helpful for them to know what I'm talking about. If it's helpfully provocative, then I like the terminology, but it doesn't really matter to me. It looks, it sounds cool. I don't have any problem with being called that. Sounds punk rock. Well, how would you describe your political identity? Um,

so unpack your terminology aside, how would you describe your political identity or how everyone to phrase it? Um, I, I think, you know, and I'm, I'm really just going to summarize other smarter people than me, but I believe personally that the paradigm that we're given in scriptures is that the institutions of political power, or you might call them kingdoms of the world like Boyd does, or that they are kind of built up in a way that has to function with, you know, top-down power over other people, coerce behavior with the threat of punishment, and that there's a time and a place for that kind of system and structure, and that, you know, that God orders it, if you like that language, but that the kingdom that

Jesus came to inaugurate and that is growing now and will be realized in full eventually cannot function with top-down power over other people, you know, coercing behavior with the threat of punishment. Because Jesus, you know, paradigm for radical change, enacting radical change was, you know, bottom-up power, if you like that, or self-sacrificial radical love that does not coerce, it does not impose power with the threat of punishment. And so my position is that the state, the governments of the world, they can't do what the kingdom of God does because they're fundamentally established to do something altogether different. And the kingdom of God cannot do what the state does because ideas like radical self-sacrificial love, radical generosity, enemy love, nonviolence will not be recognized and upheld by nation states. that there is a decidedly narrow place where Christians can and can't overlap these two realities.

That our temptation is, I think, to buy into the idea that we're getting from the 24-hour news cycle from both sides, which is that the only real effective way to enact change in the world is through political power, and everything hangs on whether or not our people are in power, whoever your person is. And if not, everything goes to hell in a hand basket. And I think that that is a dangerous position for a disciple of Jesus to take. I think that if people have opinions about the way that the kingdoms of the world work, that that's completely valid. If they have preferences, if they think, oh, this person's probably better to run the state than this other person, or these policies probably make more sense for the state than these other policies, the danger is in

beginning to describe them as Christian votes, Christian policies, Christian. They may have things that are in common with the teachings of Jesus, but I don't think a political system can hold up under the weight of this is going to be the Christian vision for policies and politics and politicians. It's kind of, to me, a doomed enterprise, if you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. Do you think it's, I got a buddy who would say he's a Christian anarchist. He believes it's a sin to vote. I've got views on voting, but I wouldn't say – I don't think I would say it's a sin to vote. But he makes a good case about just casting like it is a symbol of allegiance to a certain tribe that has built its foundation upon hating the other tribe and using whatever means possible to destroy that other tribe. There's so many, kind of what you're

saying, it's the vote is attached to a whole different system of views of power that are being fundamentally abused. So he's like, that's a Christian should never do that. Again, I wouldn't necessarily say that, but would you, do you have thoughts on voting just as a whole? Yeah. So I don't disagree with everything that you've described about your friend's viewpoint. And I think that honestly, anyone would be hard pressed to disagree on the whole with everything that you've just said, not necessarily like, okay, take out the whole voting is sin thing. Cause that's, you know,

like the, the firecracker part of it, but then take all the reasons that you just gave for why he believes that voting is inherently sinful. I think that if we're being honest, uh, you, you have to, if you're going to vote, you do have to make your peace with two different things. One is everything that you just said or that your friend believes. the political machine is, I think even the most active political parties would agree, corrupt, and that it functions with a kind of power that is antithetical to the kingdom of God. And then the second thing that you have to make your peace with is complicity across the board. I think that the reason people vote is for complicity. The arguments that we make to encourage voting is that you have a responsibility to participate and that your vote matters.

And if these things are true, then when there is the results of any given election, you have complicity in those results. Now, I don't know to what degree one would carry that or what level of guilt we would assign someone for that complicity. But even if you're not going to say, oh, voting is inherently sinful, I think that if we're being intellectually honest and spiritually honest, you do have to find a way to make, and there are, there are people who say, I understand that. I do think it's screwed up, but I also think this and this. So what I'm trying to give people, and I have a whole thing in the book on, you know, the politicized faith and what I believe is a more sustainable position to maintain faith in Jesus and not bail out. But what I'm trying to

encourage people is into the consideration that the kingdom of God is not coming from political power, and then to begin to engage those inferences. I did not say in that series, for example, that I did at my church. So at the end of this, the conclusion of this, and it ended right before the election, no one should vote. You'll be on church discipline if you do vote. But I do think that probably people came away from it saying like, it sounds like voting is at least problematic. Problematic doesn't always mean, you know, like forbidden, but it's at least a conversation. You know what I mean? Well, I think we have to be, we have to make sure our vote isn't. We have to detach our vote from some sort of

allegiance to one of Babylonians' power moves to rule Babylon. We have to really work hard to detach that. We have to almost vote with some level of theological indifference, theologically rooted indifference. So even if you think that this side will run Babylon better than this side, you have to separate that and exercise healthy cruciform caution with what even that symbolism will do to your heart. So even if your candidate, I wouldn't say that phrase, if the candidate you cast your vote for wins, you shouldn't use the phrase, we won.

If he loses, you shouldn't say we lost. Your identity is not wrapped up in that tribe. Even if you, I like what you said, even if there are certain alleged values, I'm going to come back to that, alleged values that you think this side has more of than the other side. Like you resonate for Christian reasons with some of the values promoted by this tribe over that tribe.

I can get that. But your allegiance is never to that political entity. I mean, I want to say obviously, but it's not obvious to a lot of people no and that you know it requires such a profound level of maturity to pull that off almost it's it's really similar to a lot of other what we would call vices you know like if something like alcohol or money yeah um in that it may not be inherently evil, but it's dangerous. And it requires such an intense level of spiritual formation and maturity to wield these things responsibly. Money, for example.

The overwhelming portrait that you get from the scriptures is that money is this, like money is this, yeah, this insurmountable obstacle to the kingdom of God, almost impossible for a rich person to go to heaven, that wealth is an affliction, that wealth, the rich are going to be destroyed. And yeah, you know, throughout the Christian movement, you've had, even in the New Testament period, like people following Jesus who were wealthy. And so it becomes this like, oh my God, the warnings are just so intense. And yet there are, and I've known at least one or two wealthy disciples of Jesus who seem completely unencumbered by their own wealth and who distribute it freely and who seem uncorrupted and lavishly generous.

But it must require such a tremendous amount of maturity, a deep change of the heart to be able to release the death grip on what you're entitled to, your finances. And I think the same thing must be true of voting, especially in our hyper-divisive, partisan, hateful world of sociopolitical vitriol and rhetoric. The idea that someone could come to the voting process with indifference, with holy indifference. It's like, I've got an opinion. I think that this opinion probably makes the most sense. And so I will. I will cast my vote along those lines. But nothing in me is attached to that. That's not my identity. That must be a difficult thing to do.

Well, I would also question, like, so even if somebody, I'm going to send all my emails your way. This is really. I didn't know we were going here. I didn't either. No, I did. This is great. I might renounce everything I am saying tomorrow, but I would question whether people, the average citizen has the ability to even say this, for instance, we're just sticking on presidential election, whether this candidate truly is the better candidate, because our knowledge of what that person says, who they are, has been so filtered through a, I would just call it a corrupt medium of how we even receive news that comes to our table. news that comes to our table. Like we, we, it's been so narratively driven. I mean,

do you trust the news outlets on the left to give us an accurate portrait of who Trump is? They're going to go out of their way to build the worst narrative possible. Why? For power. They want him out of power and they want to be in power. They want to control your lie. You know, do they, does the left care about, do they really care about racism or are they using the racial conversation to achieve power? I'll let the audience decide, you know, what they think about that. Or on the right, do they really care about whatever hobby horse they're on or are they trying to maintain? So it's, and maybe like 30, 40 years ago, maybe there was a more honest form of journalism where you can actually get a decent, honest picture, complex picture, because humans are complex, a complex picture of each candidate. And then you have a more, you have, you have a more honest

ability to say, okay, this guy does seem to be 60, 40, maybe, maybe going to do better for Babylon than this candidate. But now I just questioned whether we even have access to that, you know? Um, yeah, you know, it's, it's not, it seems like a controversial position to take, but it's really not. The, the news media is a for-profit business and there has been to some degree like an admission from these institutions of journalism that we have embraced a kind of hysteria uh for the sake of marketability you know we we want to click on the thing that will make us mad um that will fire us up and we like outrage porn and we like um the idea of demonizing the other person. There's a certain corrupt satisfaction that comes with, you know, back to your thing about Portland.

The hilarious reality is that both things were entirely true the whole time. period that it was being presented on one side as the Rome burning and on the other side as a kind of hippie commune where everyone was hugging and singing kumbaya to combat racism. Both things were true concurrently. If you drove around, and we did, we were all just living in the city and driving around, you'd look down a side street and see looters and fire and windows breaking. And then you'd turn a corner and there would be a group of people having a calm conversation. I mean, within a square mile of one another. And one thing continued to rage on, but it would be isolated to a certain spot. And kind of, you know, like more or less, I mean, it was chaos, but it was under control to the degree that the whole city wasn't this terrifying world.

And then, you know, that was, I'm still going to the store down the road from the place where, you know, cops are yelling through megaphones and, but that's not, that's not interesting on a, on channel six. You know, what's interesting is either that it's burning to the ground or that we're being lied to. It's not burning to the ground. That's just what they want you to think. Either thing gets us all riled up against our enemies and that's what we want. And it feels good to be so angry all the time, but not really. Uh, so it's not really a controversial position. I think that even people who, uh, watch a lot, I don't watch a full disclosure and again, send all your complaint emails to Preston. I'm sure he gets plenty. He can take it. He wrote Fight. Now he just writes

books about gender and sexuality. Surely he can take all the complaint emails that you have to send. This is a side story because I have ADD, but we, I took it. One of my last classes in graduate school was used all your material on gender and sexuality. And every, you know, there are people flipping out in this class one way or the other. And I was like, oh man, I wish I could just send him videos of this. This must be happening all over the place all the time. So he can handle your emails. But you know, the, the, it's not a secret that even the people that love the news, watch the news religiously, get riled up by the news. I would be shocked if they said with true sincerity and integrity, like, no, I believe, I deeply believe everything that's coming to me. I think that we're in on the con to a certain degree.

I don't watch any news at all. I find it terrible for my soul and my mind. I'm not interested. Again, you can even send your complaint emails about me to Preston. It's fascinating to me, even from a church perspective, and this is something we've talked about in our church a lot, like the news hysteria and the way that it affects people's minds and their hearts. I have a couple of friends who also don't watch any news and there is a marked

amicability that comes in these conversations. They step into conversations, they're like, oh, really? Tell me more. They're not fired up. They're not hostile because they have no stake in this propaganda. Whereas other people are like, what the heck? You don't know this. They're already angry. And this person's just like no tell me more you know so i i think we know that we know that we can't get the clearest truest picture um but we're we're you know working with what we have and the news is what we have uh you know i i'm you know, Preston, a Calvinist, but I have a deeply dim view of humanity, of human nature. And not that I don't love people and that I believe in the image of God and people. I do on a deep, profound soul level.

But I think that it really shouldn't surprise us that people suck, that people lie, and that they're crooked and twisted and broken. This is a huge point of my... I'm stepping all over my spoilers for my book, but this is something that I discuss at length in the book, which is... I have this whole chapter called, My Father Was a Racist and I Loved Him, called My Father Was a Racist and I Loved Him that argues that we should expect people to be terrible to some degree. And then we shouldn't be surprised when people can also be good, that they can inhabit both things at the same time. But again, that's so frustrating because it pulls us into this ambiguous middle that people can be horrible, capable of the most horrible things imaginable and be capable of really good things. How do they do that? What does that mean? We can love people that are set up yeah, my dad. And be honest about who he was. But believing in the political machine forces us to kind of bypass a lot of these things and believe that one guy or gal is completely corrupt and the other person isn't to the degree that, you know, I passed a mural in Seattle that was like hilariously death metal looking of Trump and Hillary shoulder to shoulder as kind of like zombified mutants.

And it's like, choose the destroyer, the line from Ghostbusters when a loser threatens the Ghostbusters by forcing them to stay puff marshmallow. Spoilers for Ghostbusters, by the way, if you haven't seen it. And I was so furious about this mural. I got painted over and everything. And I thought, what a funny thing to just take a position that people are bad, that both politicians are probably bad. But we don't like that. We want to camp. But I think even that assumption that one is clearly better than the other, I do think that that assumption is, that competes with, I think, a biblical worldview, right? I mean, it's very eschatological. It's very, I don't think it just neutrally, that mindset neutrally exists alongside a

biblical view to where you can be, you know, hey, we're supposed to be good citizens of Babylon, this, that, we can do both. And we can do the political thing and do the Christian thing. Like, I think there are ideological clashes if you hold this kind of right-wing or left-wing narrative and try to hold that in one hand and a Christian view in the other. Biblically, it doesn't work at all. That seems pretty obvious. But then somebody could say, well, the empires and the kingdoms that the Bible was written in are way, way, way, way worse than America. Yeah. And it's funny that it forces us to kind of turn a blind eye to the inherent contradictions to just operate at all. And then it forces you

to kind of summarize complex arguments in a way that's unhelpful and then get mad about someone else summarizing complex arguments in a way that is unhelpful. And I mean, the easiest example, you ready for this? More angry emails. Easiest example of the dichotomy of the political vitriol is stereotypically, you know, the right cares about a, I'm going to put this in quotation marks, pro-life position. And what I mean by that is that they're anti-pro-choice legislation. They want to, you know, crack down on the legality of abortions. I wouldn't actually call it pro-life. That's a bad term. So that's the stereotype.

The right hates abortions. And then the stereotype is on the left, they don't like war and violence, and they want to encourage more peace and that kind of thing. Now, divorced of all the complex nuance in both of those conversations, even divorced of the political climate and the necessary political inferences, the idea of life in the womb, for example, you could declare this a biblical value and you could build a cause on it as a disciple of Jesus historically, theologically, scripturally. And certainly, you know, you and I would argue that on the other side, that to oppose violence and war and militarism is again, you know, you can make a clear argument from the scriptures theologically and as a moral imperative for a disciple of Jesus. And so then it becomes this ridiculous, like, well, which thing do you like more?

And it forces you to then also behave as if having these conversations on a political level is entirely different than having them on a practical theological level, person to person. And it forces you to just talk past the other person and to essentially strawman them and be like, well, you say this, and oh, that's not what I say, but it's easier to knock that down than it is to be like, acknowledge the complexities. It goes back to what you said three hours ago about that balanced evangelicalism that exists but is missing from a lot of our backstories, wherein there was someone who took, say, a complementarian position on female preachers, but did so humbly and gently by saying that, like, look, you can go down the

street and find a great church that loves Jesus and disagrees with me. I believe this is what the Bible teaches. I'm willing to admit I could be wrong. That does not sell in the political world, that kind of nuance necessary to even make sense. It does not sell. It doesn't sell. And yet I feel like deep down, a lot of humans are hungry for that, which gets, I think is, if I'm true, if that's correct, then it gets frustrating when the church mirrors this kind of binary, like you're evil, I'm good, whatever, like this tribe's way better than this tribe. When it mirrors that, I think people are hungering for somebody to step up and provide a better way of being human in the world. The church has the blueprint to do that very thing.

So when we echo the kind of values of Rome, if you will, rather than the humble values of the kingdom, not only is that not biblical, but I think we miss out on an opportunity to shine a light where people are hungering for it. Yeah. And we create this ridiculous, I shouldn't say ridiculous. I understand that this is extremely complicated. But it forces us to crush people into these little cubes for consumption, to objectify people, essentially, and to demonstrate no patience whatsoever for people that are in process. people that are in process and, and that, you know, it, it's a lot like the, you know, the mother of all hypotheticals that you get when you talk about nonviolence, which is, you know, so you're telling me that if someone came into your house and had the gun to your wife's head, that you would just say like, Oh, killer, I guess, instead of, you know, you've got all, you also have a gun in this paradigm and you have a perfect aim right on their head. So it's either

you have to shoot them in the head or let whatever is about to happen, which I always say like, when am I – how is this ever happening? You walk around the home with a loaded gun. Yep, yep. I have it in my hand. I train every day for a couple hours to make sure my shot is – Yeah, Liam Neeson, ask him that question. Ask his character from taking that question. But it forces us to create this ridiculous hypothetical in which, like, oh, okay, so you're saying that we should do nothing and allow the kingdom of the world to oppress people and that we should stand idly by and be like, oh, it's not our place to comment on corruption and political power. And, you know, my response to that is always like, it's really fascinating to read Jesus in the four gospels and to read,

you know, the early writings of the Christian movement, which existed in a deeply politicized world and in a politically oppressive climate. And that in many ways, at least in the abstract, mirrors a lot of our issues, you know, oppression of persecuted people groups, and the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, you know, financial motivation for politics and policies, moral corruption at a political level. And to read Jesus who had absolutely no issue speaking truth to political power and condemning evil in the political realm. But that, you know, I think is surprising to learn the way that the early church did and did not engage Rome in a way that I think would earn them the charge of naive or passive by today's kind of fiery political mob,

like though they were lazy or they, you know, they were uninformed, they didn't understand their political responsibilities. And, you know, you can, like you said, you can make different arguments for nuance and the way that it does and doesn't translate today, but it's at least a conversation piece and one that we kind of avoid because it puts us in a compromising position. That's the pushback I get is on several levels. And one is really good. I really still process in it that, well, it's easy for you to say you're a middle-class white guy who has the freedom to be able to not care too much about kind of political decisions. I guess I would go back to my earlier point on that political decisions. I guess my, I would go

back to my earlier point on that. Well, first of all, I truly, I don't want to just dismiss that. It's a great, it's really good criticism. I would raise the question again, whether we have a lot of clarity on which policy, which candidate is actually going to produce more justice in the world. I think assuming that this one clearly will over this one for this people group or that people group, I think you're relying on very corrupt systems that are channeling information to you. The other one is more kind of the local political involvement, civic engagement with the local community.

Caitlin Sheese brought this out and several others that said that they would agree that on the kind of national level, yeah, that's a whole animal. But on a more local level, Christians can, without giving their allegiance to each side, but can do things, have civic engagement that does actually achieve some level of justice. I'm really, I would love to explore that more, whether we should make a strong distinction between local, quote, politics and sort of the national kind of, you know, stuff that looks like the capital of the Hunger Games more than anything, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that there, I think personally that there is a difference. Um, but defining the qualities of that difference, uh, are, is kind of difficult. Like I have a friend who is part of my church. He, we're in, he and I are in a community group together and he's recently trying to get the city to put some signs on his road for cars to slow down so he's having to like go and talk to these city officials and it you know it'd become a thing that eventually it's a very grounded civic conversation that is happening with the people in power in our city and he's

trying to enact social change in a way and it's is the most, you know, slow stakes example of this kind of thing. So I tend to take the position that it's like, I think that for me personally, it's not a violation. He and I have a similar theological position. I don't think it's a violation of that position to participate in civic government in a way that, you know, like, I think that this is probably better than that. And this is probably better than this. And the argument obviously comes back that like, well, what's the difference? You know, you're like voting for on just a larger scale. And people in civic positions of power are corrupt too. And that's, I wouldn't deny that. I think, so I think that there could be a nuanced way to participate in local

government. Uh, I would, you know, err on conviction, uh, on that kind of thing. And when working out exactly what the implications of, of that participation are, but I also have no problem with the straight edge position. So it's like, I, you know, I've, I've never had any alcohol. I don't think that it's wrong inherently for a Christian to have wine with dinner or drink a beer with friends or whatever it is. But people seem to think that those two are the same thing. I've just decided personally, I just don't want to do any of it. I realize that there's a dangerous warning in the scriptures. I'm not dogmatic about it. It doesn't really interest me that much. So it's easier for me to just say, I'm just not

going to do any of it. And I'm, I feel fine about it. Save a lot of money. Um, but I, but I really feel no, like if I'm, you know, I'm kind of the only person I know like that. So if I'm sitting with another friend and they're having wine with dinner, I'm like, Oh, I can't believe you did that. I don't try to convince anyone. I think that the straight edge position on civic government is totally fine if, you know, like if you feel like it's a consistent outworking of your position on national government. And I also feel like there's probably a time and a place to participate. I wouldn't pretend to know exactly what all those details are. But, you know, I know we're almost done. The thing that, to me, brings the entire thing back to the deconstruction conversation is what you said a minute ago, that pushback of, isn't this easy for you to say, which I agree is completely valid, and something that people like you and me need to think about and need to give serious consideration.

to give serious consideration. And it's something that I've been asked a lot and not even just about, you know, like politics and government and nonviolence is one of the first things that brings out this kind of, isn't it easy for you to say, you know, you live in this cushy environment and that kind of thing. It was like, well, yes, it is. It is easy for me to say. But the thing that I think is often missing from that answer is that I'm not forming my worldview based on what is and isn't easy for me to say. I am, to the best of my ability on my best day, forming everything that I believe and how I live as a human being on the teachings of Jesus and obedience to the way of Jesus. So there are inevitably things in the way of Jesus that are easier for me to follow because they align with my wiring or my season of life or where I was born in the world. The same is true of everyone. And there are other things in the

teachings of Jesus that based on my wiring and my season of life and where I was born in the world are deeply, deeply challenging and that great against my sensibility. I don't want him to tell me to do this. I fight him on these things. And the realization that everyone, I think, has to come to at some point if they want to follow Jesus and in their deconstructing moment, if and when that happens to you, or even seasons of doubt that we all endure as disciples of Jesus, is that there are times when it feels like the dying that you have to do. Jesus famously said, you have to die to yourself and come follow me. The dying that you have to do is so much harder than the dying someone else has to do. And there are seasons when someone is going to accuse you of dying less than they're dying but the reality is is that everyone everyone who wants to follow jesus has to do a lot of dying

to follow jesus and some of that dying is easier for this guy and harder for that girl or whatever but we don't make these i'm you know like i don't take these positions because oh comfortable convenient they may be, honestly. They may be easier for me to say, but I'm doing them out of what I believe is faithfulness to the way of Jesus. I mean, it's a good thing to reflect on. It's a good relational or just self-aware thing to reflect on how your situatedness, your life trajectory has given you certain advantages or privileges or things. Yes. And you should be aware of that. As an ethical, logical argument, it's a terrible argument. I

mean, it just says, I'm going to ignore the content of what you're saying and just basically do some kind of ad hominem thing to try to discredit what you're saying. It's like, well, you haven't done what I said. Like two plus two equals four. Well, that's easier for you to say. You had math class because you were rich and wealthy. I'm like, but two plus two still equals four, right? Right, yeah. So yeah, I think it's a great thing,

but it doesn't deal with whether or not, for instance, nonviolence accurately reflects the teachings of Jesus. And this is the, it was honestly, the main reason why I even wrote a whole chapter on the early church in my book on nonviolence was almost in response, well, partly in response to that criticism. Because the early church was not living in a paddle. I mean, they were writing about nonviolence with their head on the chopping block, you know? So they very much read scripture the same way that I was reading it.

And yet they were in a hundred percent different social context than I was. Not easy for them to say. No, not at all. Not at all. Well, Josh, man,

this is, we'd love to have you back on next week, but I try to diversify my guests. Well, you know what I said? I just, I base my comings and goings around the appearances on this podcast. Too deep. I'm feeling pretty good. I want to be like Saturday Night Live.

I need to, I need to have the most appearances over time. I'm going to be the Alec Baldwin of theology. The book is Death to Deconstruction. the book is death to deconstruction. Um, I, if, if, if the book reflects anything of what I've heard you talk about, uh, today, then I would, I can, I can endorse that, but thank you, man. Thank you for your mind, your creativity, your courage. And I love the fact I just, I'm very attracted to people who aren't afraid to be contrarian in their thinking that are constantly wanting to not just preach to the choir, whatever choir they find themselves in, but are wanting to say, Hey, yeah, but what about this? And let's consider this. And I just, I love that about you, man. I wish you were pastoring here

in Boise. I would be a faithful member of your church. Thanks, man. It's my best and worst quality. All right, bro. Take care. Have a good day. Thanks, dude. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.