Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1079: The Global Politics of Jesus: Dr. Nilay Saiya

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Dr. Nilay Saiya is associate professor of public policy and global affairs at Nanyang Technological University. He holds research interests in religion and global politics, international security, and American foreign policy. He is author of two books: Weapon of Peace: How Religious Liberty Combats Terrorism (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and The Global Politics of Jesus: A Christian Case for Church-State Separation (Oxford University Press, 2022), the later of which forms the discussion of our podcast conversation. 

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is Dr. Neelay Sia. Neelay is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He holds research interests in religion and global politics, international security, and American foreign policy. He's the author of two books, Weapon of Peace, How Religious Liberty Combats Terrorism. And his most recent book, the one we talk about on this episode is his recent book, The Global Politics of Jesus, A Christian Case for Church-State Separation by Oxford University Press. It is an outstanding book. I just recently read it and said, man, this is such a well-crafted, well-researched, well-written book. I was like,

man, I would love to have Nealey on the podcast. Now, he lives on the other side of the world from where I'm in, so we had to arrange a time. So it's very early my time. It's pretty late his time. So I was very excited that Nealey agreed to make time for this conversation, which I know you are going to. Well, you'll like most of it. Some of it's pretty challenging. We got off on a bunch

of controversial topics, which is exciting and very Theology in the Raw-esque. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Ni Le Saya. Your book, The Global Politics of Jesus, a christian case for church state separation i came across this book on a whim i think it was just looking at amazon looking for another book and this one popped up and the title intrigued me i started courting the book you know looking at who's endorsing it who's publishing it i'm like oh oxford university repressed that's it's guaranteed to at least be a a well-written engaging book and then i ordered it sat at my desk for like a month because i was reading all this other stuff like i need to see what this one's all about and i could not put it down it was

it is such a well i was saying like it put language to so much of what i was feeling and thinking as a biblical guy, you know, but you're coming at it from a political, but then, I mean, your stuff in the Bible is like so good. Like you, you hide your lack of theological higher education, you know, very well. So, but you brought this whole kind of global political side that was just so helpful. Anyway, all that to say, thanks for coming on Theology in a Row. Thanks for having me. And I'm glad someone liked the book. It's always helpful. Anyway, all that to say, thanks for coming on Theology in a Row. Thanks for having me. And I'm glad someone liked the book.

It's always a positive thing. Yeah, you may see a bump in sales after this episode because I think a lot of people that listen to this podcast will resonate with this book and probably what you're going to say in this podcast. So let's go back, though. How were you raised? How did you get into wanting to be an academic? And then what led you to writing this book? Let's start there. settled in central Pennsylvania of all places. Now, I'm not entirely sure why, but that's where they chose to settle. And not exactly the most diverse place in the world. We were probably the

only brown people within a 20-mile radius. But, you know, that's kind of the environment that I grew up in. And we attended a conservative evangelical church, very patriotic. And so, you know, this was one of those churches that had a giant American flag, not only on the outside of the church, but right there in the sanctuary as well, next to a Christian flag. And, you know, many more flags would begin to appear around national holidays like Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, that was a big one. And so, you know, this was kind of the environment that I was raised in, and the church prided itself on patriotism. So every Fourth of July, the pastor would hold this patriotic service, and we would sing national hymns like God Bless America and, you know, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and we would pledge allegiance to the flag, and, you know, we would do it all.

And eventually, I just came to question all of it. I'm like, what does any of this have to do with the gospel? You know, what are we doing here? And at a very young age, I came to see that this was really a form of idolatry. And, you know, what really hit me was the 2016 presidential election. I think that really is what made me want to write this book. Because in that election, 81% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, perhaps the most immoral person to have run for the presidency in recent history. And not only did they vote for Trump, but they were also making Christian arguments for why they voted for Trump, right? And it almost seemed like all their Christian convictions went out the window when it came to this particular individual. So, in the span of about 10 years, white evangelicals went from being the group that

said that morality mattered the most in politics to being the group that said it mattered the least, right? And even after the whole Access Hollywood tape came out and everything, you know, they just stuck by him, and I just couldn't make sense of it. And so, I think that's really where this whole idea for the book came from, you know, just questioning our assumptions about politics and, you know, how church and state should relate to one another. And, you know, I also had an experience here in Singapore. When I landed in Singapore for the first time in 2018, the taxi we rode from the airport had a large cross hanging from the rearview mirror. So I was a little bit surprised to see this. And then we got into a

conversation with the taxi driver, and he asked where we were from, and he told him we were from the United States. And at that point, he got very excited, and he said, oh, Trump, he's a good man. He's a Christian. And I'm like, okay, Singapore couldn't be further away from the United States. It's literally on the other side of the globe. And even here, I can't get away from Trumpism. And so, you know, this taxi driver went on to explain how he believed that the election of Donald Trump would lead to a great revival throughout the United States. And he expressed hope that the same thing could happen in Singapore. And of course, Christian nationalism isn't as big a thing here as it is in the United States. Singapore isn't a Christian country or anything like that. But even in some of these churches, you'll see some elements of that. So it's not just something that is confined to the United States, but you can find it all over the world. That was one of the more eye-opening things in your book is you have, I think, a whole chapter documenting all the

places where in other countries, where you have maybe a Christian, let's say a leader that claims to be a Christian or when Christians have power. It just, I don't, maybe I don't want to say always, but maybe that's true. It just has not gone well for so many countries. I thought that was helpful because I mean, yeah, with you, you know, look at like Christian nationalism in America. For those of us, I guess, who might be under impressed with that way of thinking or think it's idolatry, it can almost become low hanging fruit because yeah, yeah, it's just so in your face, right? In some churches, like the one you grew up in, it can be easy to think this is just an American problem, you know? But yeah, it's not just an American problem. Can you give us some? Well, we're getting diving. Let's go back to your story, and then I'm sure we'll come back to that.

Have you done a lot of work in political theology in your own thinking? Or did this book, was your thinking kind of crystallized in this book? Or was this something that you've already had kind of in your mind for a long, long time? Yeah, I think it's something that I had in my mind for a long time. But I should mention that I'm not a theologian by training. I am a political scientist who is attempting to bring theology into the argument of this book. So, essentially, what I'm doing is I'm marrying a certain theology that I'm advocating for with the methods of social science. And so, this is something that hasn't been done. And, you know, it's interesting because when I told some very prominent sociologists about what I was doing,

when I told some very prominent sociologists about what I was doing, they kind of warned me against not doing it because they didn't think it was a very good combination, bringing theology and social science together. But then they actually read the book and they liked it a lot. And so they admitted that they were wrong and that this actually does work pretty well. Yeah. I mean, your first two chapters you lay a just a such a strong theological backbone i mean even if it's not like a work in like you know the highest level critical whatever but you you you clearly have read a ton you're as far as i've read the same stuff i'm like oh yeah he's accurately reflecting this wrestling with it and providing a very good, I think, summary of, I mean, just the radicality of the kingdom of God as a political concept in the New Testament, which the people

who are professional theologians, whatever that means, like, yeah, you're not saying anything that hasn't already been said. You're just, you were summarizing and applying it to a more political area, your main area of expertise, which I thought was fascinating. Do you have a chapter where you summarize kind of three broad, you know, broadly speaking, three different approaches to kind of church and state? If I remember, uh, Christianism, uh, detachment and prophetic witness, and even right there, prophetic witness just sounds better. So people could probably guess that that third one is going to be the one you're going to advocate for. But can you walk us through those three approaches and maybe offer some, here's why I

think these first two approaches maybe fall short of the Christian vision? Yeah, yeah, sure. So what I'm attempting to do in this book is to think about how Christians should relate to political authority. And what I'm doing is I'm taking on the conventional wisdom. And the conventional wisdom is a school of thought that is known as transformationalism. And the basic idea here is that because God is the sovereign over the entire universe, is that because God is the sovereign over the entire universe, Christians have a responsibility to manifest that lordship in every area of life, including politics, right? So, this kind of calls on Christians to transform and redeem and ultimately control their political orders for the glory of Christ. And again, this is kind of how Christians tend to think about the

relationship between church and state, religion and politics. And so, transformationists believe that Christians should seek positions within the government and try and steer politics in a more virtuous Christian direction. Now, as I see it, there are some problems with this worldview, Now, as I see it, there are some problems with this worldview, and I lay them out in the first chapter of the book. One is that the passages in the New Testament that address the issue of civil government always separate the spiritual from the profane. So we can even think about the teachings of Christ here. So, on one occasion, when Jesus is standing before Pontius Pilate, and he's asked by Pilate if he's a king, Jesus today. His kingdom is something different altogether. And there is another instance where he was being questioned about the issue of taxation. And he's asked, you know, should we pay taxes to Caesar or not? And so, he asks for a coin to be

brought to him, and he holds up the coin, and he asks, you know, whose portrait is this and whose inscription? And the crowd answers Caesar's. And then Jesus responds, well, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. And so again, we see this kind of separation between the spiritual and the profane. And it's interesting because in this particular passage, what belongs to God? If the coin belongs to Caesar, what belongs to God is your very self. Give yourselves to God. That's what Jesus is saying in this verse. And then the third problem, I think, is that transformationalism, or as I call it in the book, Christianism, it has a distorted understanding of salvation and redemption. So, as we read about it in the

New Testament, salvation is something that happens to people. Redemption is something that happens to people, right? But when the scripture talks about entities, it likens them to a drop in the bucket or to dust on the scales. So, it's people who are the recipients of God's grace, not institutions or nation states or anything like that. Now, when transformationalism becomes wedded to a quest for political power and the marginalization of non-Christians, it becomes something I call Christianism. So that's really what I'm critiquing here, but it stems from this whole transformationalist idea. Yeah, that's good. I would say that's, at least in the circles I run, it's some form of that,

even ones that want to maintain a strong separation of church and state. Um, like they're not necessarily fighting to put prayer back in schools, you know, or whatever. Like, um, there still is this idea, like the Kuyper quote you have in the book, you know, every square inch of this creation is mine. And so Christians need to be redeeming every square inch. was and yoder and others do too that there's there's this other other theme though that these specific these other kingdoms on the earth are are empowered by but in revelation terms are empowered by the dragon you know like there's there's they're not just neutral entities there's something almost competing with the kingdom of god and not that and here's where you fall you know it's not revolution that you know the kingdom of God is the same kind of political entity where it's going to overthrow

this kingdom. They're not just walking hand in hand as friends, like, oh, you're doing the secular stuff, we'll do the spiritual stuff. And we're kind of had this happy go lucky relationship separate, but you know, it's like, well, no, there's also something kind of like, we should be nervous, not eager, but more nervous getting entangled in those powers, those principalities and powers and so on. So, yeah. I mean, as I read it, it's an antagonistic relationship between church and state, really. And that's something I'm trying to draw out in the book. You know, as we read the scriptures, we see that really functional dominion over the world belongs to Satan, right? I'm thinking about

the second temptation of Christ when Satan takes Jesus up to a very high mountain, shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, and Satan says to him, all this I will give to you if you bow down and worship me. And Jesus responds, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. So, I mean, essentially this was a Christian nationalist temptation, right? And what's interesting about this is that Jesus never disputed Satan's claim to have dominion over the entire world. And if this is really a temptation, then Satan would have had to have that. Otherwise, what kind of temptation is it if, you know, he doesn't have that kind of power to begin with? And then we read later on, you know, John the Evangelist

says that the entire world is under the control of the evil one. So, you know, John the Evangelist says that the entire world is under the control of the evil one. So, you know, we kind of see this language over and over again. And or even you go all the way back to Daniel, right? You have, you know, when you peek behind the spiritual curtain, I think it's Daniel 11 or Daniel 10, Daniel 10. You see, you know, is it an angel is like going to fight the prince of Persia and then the prince of Greece is going to come on. It's like, well, there's these spiritual authorities that are sort of enmeshed with these other empires and then you have these angelic beings like behind the scenes going and doing battle against them it's like yeah this is not um well i love your phrase you know the this is there's kind of an antagonistic

relationship that doesn't lead to revolution shouldn't um but uh yeah it's not designed to be two flags on sunday morning one american one right one of the empire why so okay so i just opened up a can of worms there at calling america the empire how um should we can we how do we um correlate this antagonistic relationship to the empires during in the bible times to and let's just say if the if the you know the united states of america um i guess number two might be china or some of these superpower government entities because i don't think i mean it's switzerland an empire are they babylon too or um you know the the Tahiti or, you know, like, should we distinguish between kinds of modern government entities where some would be more empires or empire-like

and others not? Or how? Yeah. And this is actually a really genuine question I have. Like, how do we map these? Do we? And if we do, how do we map these kind of these themes on our current situation? You know, I think they're all kingdoms of the world, right?

And kingdoms of the world come in better or worse forms. Like, for example, many people would disagree with me, but I think that Singapore is a superior kingdom of the world than the United States. That's why I live here, right? Again, lots of Americans would disagree with that. And I happen to be an American. But, you know, I would rather live in the United States than, say, China, and I would rather live in China than North Korea. So, you know, I'm not arguing that they're all functionally equivalent. Clearly, there are some that are better than others to live in, especially if you're a Christian.

Clearly, there are some that are better than others to live in, especially if you're a Christian. But when we use that term empire, I don't think it necessarily applies to every country in the world. They're all kingdoms of the world. They all have their benefits and their drawbacks. Some are better than others. But empire is – that term is used to describe really big, powerful political entities. So in the modern world, there are three countries that would qualify as potentially being an empire of some sort. So you have the United States, China, and Russia. So in the study of international relations, we know these countries as great

powers, right? But others might refer to them as empires, potential empires. The Soviet Union during the Cold War, you know, it was its own empire. So I think that's what we have in mind, the really big, powerful countries when we're discussing empires. Do you have off the top of your head, because I have one written down somewhere, right? I actually went and looked at how a lot of people define empire i don't have a definition off the top of my head but it has to do with something with some kind of global like beyond your own nation not just like you're going and taking over countries but something where your decisions like radically affect other countries or they may even be willing to want to come under your kind of like power maybe for protection or whatever so even i think the example was even having i don't know how many

hundreds of military bases around the globe that the united states like that is a that is a very imperial kind of thing to do is it is america is it an empire like? What are the qualities that constitute an empire, in your opinion? Yeah, an empire is a country that has massive global influence. And clearly, the United States would fall into that category. There hasn't been a country on this level in world history, really. Even the British Empire, I don't think, was as powerful as the United States. But at the same time, the American Empire is declining, and it will eventually be superseded by China. Now, when that point in time comes, I'm not sure, but this is kind of the history of the world. You see the rise and fall of empires.

That's a bold statement. Can you go there? Keep going there? Because this is your area, I mean, political science. So China will supersede America at some point? I think most scholars of international relations believe that the transition is actually happening now. China has a much larger population than the United States. The United States keeps getting itself bogged down in these pointless wars. And so that's all facilitating this giant transition of power from west to east. And so eventually China will overtake the United States. And then when that happens, the big question is, you know, how is the U.S. going to respond to that circumstance? question is, you know, how is the U.S. going to respond to that circumstance? Interesting. Let's, because I know somebody somewhere is disagreeing with you right now, which is fine. Where my heart goes is like, for Christians living in the U.S. that just heard you say that, is that like

disappointing if it's true? And if it is, then I wonder how should, I mean, will that affect the kingdom of God? Will that possibly even make the kingdom of God maybe flourish more? Because historically, when the kingdom of God, when churches find themselves in a position of political weakness rather than power, we tend to be more effective just historically. I mean, you look at like the pre-Constantine church versus the post-Constantine church, and I'm not a historian, so I'm, you know, I'm dabbling here, but I mean, it seems like there was a, not that everything was bad during that transition, but there was kind of a Christian faith got a bit diluted, got a little syncretistic. You had people in positions of religious powers or in religion, religious powers, pastors and priests and everything that were just not loving their enemies and, you know, doing the thing that the church is very zealous to do before Constantine. So part of me is like, okay, so let's just say China does overtake America as a superpower. I would ask Christians, so what? So what? Yeah, I mean, our hope is not in horses or chariots. So, you know, we trust in God as Christians.

But, you know, I've actually looked into this question, right? And there's three types of environments that Christians have found themselves in historically. One is a context of pluralism, where Christianity exists alongside other religions and kind of has to compete with these other religions for adherence. side other religions and kind of has to compete with these other religions for adherence. There is a context of persecution where Christians are persecuted by the state. So, you know, pre-Constantine, for example. And then there is a context of state support for Christianity. And what my research finds is that Christians fare best in contexts of pluralism, where they have to compete with other religions for adherence. Now, why is that? Why would Christians fare better in conditions of pluralism? Because in these conditions, they are not receiving special support from the state.

So Christians in these contexts, they have to make persuasive arguments against the arguments being made by other religions. And in context of state support for Christianity, Christians in the church, they're reliant on the state. So, they become distracted from their missions of evangelizing and looking after the poor, marginalized, and so forth. Now, in terms of persecution, it's a mixed bag. In some cases, Christianity has grown in context of persecution. The Roman Empire, for example, China in the 20th century, Christianity saw explosive growth, despite there being massive persecution against Christians, especially during the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution. But, you know, there are other cases of persecution that have been

dreadful for Christians. I have in mind 7th century North Africa, 17th century Japan. You know, the Christian community in Japan even today hasn't recovered from that persecution. And even today hasn't recovered from that persecution. But, you know, of those three arrangements, persecution, pluralism, and power, clearly the best for Christianity is pluralism. So to answer, I guess, my question that might have sounded obnoxious, you know, so what? Well, because America would fit the pluralistic framework, right? America would fit the pluralistic framework, right? And if we end up losing that and becoming subsumed under somebody else's power, we might move toward a more persecuted church, possibly. So somebody could say, well, that would be the so what. Like, okay, we shouldn't be pro-America, we shouldn't be whatever, but the ingredients are here for Christianity to thrive in America versus

if another superpower took us over or something like that? Not us, but took over America. I wouldn't worry about that. No country is going to overtake the United States anytime soon anyways. So what I'm more concerned about in the United States is what Christians themselves are doing. And we see this movement to try and Christianize the country, right? So Christian nationalism has become a major thing in the United States. And Christian nationalism, as I define it, is an ism. It is a political program or ideology that seeks to privilege a certain rendering of Christianity in the public square over other religious traditions. And so what Christian nationalists want is a relationship of privilege with the state. And so my research shows that will not be good for Christianity.

That's going to lead to declines in the overall Christian population. Is that, and would you say that that is what happened with the quote-unquote salvation of Constantine and the Constantinian kind of revolution? Was it when Christianity went from a position of weakness to political power? Yeah, I mean, it's not something that happened overnight, right? Right. But it did happen over time. So I can give you one example, right? So before Constantine, Christianity was a pacifist religion, right?

Every early Christian thinker who addressed the question of war and peace before Constantine did so from a pacifist perspective. And that all changed after the political empowerment of Christianity. Christian thinkers make arguments, Christian arguments for participation in warfare. So, you know, we see this with Augustine of Hippo, for example. He believed that coercion, including violence, could be used to protect Christians from heresies. And so, we can trace the doctrine of just war to thinkers like Augustine and later Aquinas. But eventually, Christians began marshalling arguments, not just for just war, but for holy war, you know, trying to conquer lands in the name of Christ and convert people to Christianity. And so, you know, it wasn't too long before we have Christian participation in the Crusades and colonization. And I think Christianity suffered greatly as a result. You mentioned Christian nationalism a few times.

Do you, I mean, well, so you left in 2018 from America, which actually might give you a unique perspective. Sometimes an outside perspective, having been on the inside is really helpful. In your viewpoint, do you think, yeah, Christian nationalism is getting stronger and more vibrant and more populous in America, or is it declining? Do we have data on that? There are some sociologists in the United States who collect data on Christian nationalism. So I have in mind people like Andrew Whitehead and Samuel say, back in 2016. But at the same time, the Christian nationalists who remain are becoming increasingly vocal and increasingly violent. So it's still very much something that we have to be guarding against. And we also know that Christian nationalism is growing outside of the United States as well in places like Brazil, Central African Republic, Uganda.

We see a different form of Christian nationalism, what I call Christian civilizationalism in Europe. Of course, we know what's happening with Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church and the invasion of Ukraine. So, yeah, it's something that's not just an American phenomenon, but it's growing around the world. That was, you jogged my memory. Yeah, when you summarized how the Russian church and I think even Putin, how Putin kind of tapped into his religious base and had this kind of somewhat of a marriage between the state and the Russian Orthodox Church, which already had, you know, kind of a long history there. the state and the Russian Orthodox church, which already had, you know, kind of a long history there. It almost sounds like you're describing kind of like the, the 1980s in America and this, this marriage between the, you know, the Republican party and the moral majority. And, and I know people who are maybe supportive of that in America, like, yeah, but we're doing it.

Well, we're the good guys, Russian Orthodox church, not even Christians anyway. And Putin's a tyrant. And it's like, well, well okay there might be some truth to some of that but it's more the the fundamental idea of is it healthy for the church to kind of get too chummy with one side of the political aisle anywhere really like has that ever gone well for the gospel and you yeah you i mean you answer pretty clearly It just seems to me like as I read world history, whenever the church has become entangled with political power, both the church and the state have suffered. And Christianity has often become complicit in terrible abuses of human rights and abuses of power. So I have in mind Christian support for the dictatorship of Rios Montt in Guatemala, a Pentecostal dictator who ended up killing tens of thousands of his own people. The Catholic Church's support for the dirty war in Argentina, Christian complicity in the Rwandan genocide, the support of the Dutch Reformed Church for the racist system of apartheid in South Africa. And of course, you know, the Russian Orthodox Church's support for the invasion

of Ukraine, that'd be a contemporary example. So yeah, it just, it always leads to the denigration of Christian witness. All right. So that's, that's a Christianism. We were still on point one. So detachment, we could probably guess what that's about, but yeah, what's a detachment kind of mindset? What does that look like? So I kind of think of detachment as the opposite of Christianism or transformationalism. Detachment refers to the idea that Christians should be separated from the world, that Christianity really doesn't speak to matters of justice or politics or anything like that. So, Christians, with that in mind, should take a step back from the world and kind of isolate themselves from what's going on, focus on preaching the gospel and evangelism. So, in this viewpoint, the world is seen as a sinking ship, and the job of the church is to save as many people from the doom ship as possible before the end of the world.

And so, this kind of jives well with the whole idea of religion being an opiate of the masses. of religion being an opiate of the masses. And so, you know, detached theology is not the pervasive theology in the church today. I think much more prevalent is the theology of transformationalism and Christianism. But, you know, it's still there in certain fundamentalist communities. You can see it in certain Amish and conservative Mennonite communities as well. You might be familiar with Rod Dreher's book, The Benedict Option. I kind of see that in line with this whole idea of detachment. But again, it's not the greatest threat to the church in my view.

And in fact, there's actually something to like about detachment theology because it calls on the church to retain its purity and holiness in the midst of an unholy world. That's what I appreciated about your analysis of each of these views is you do, first of all, you do it very, so like, um, fair and you're not like railing on any of them. I mean, you even say like, here's some, here's some good things in each one of these that we can appreciate, you know, but here's why maybe overall, this is not the best approach. The detachment was interesting to me because when you're talking about what in my mind when you're talking about people that are just you know saving souls from a sinking ship um like i know a lot of christians that are not so much anymore but like i grew up in kind of environment that was like that but then it also had a kind of like very exclusively kind of right

wing political commitment not not from a reform transformational sense not in a kuiper you know it was more it was kind of schizophrenic a little bit it was like it's like when it was a democrat in office like oh we're exiles we're being oppressed and the answer is not you know to live like an exile in babylon no matter who's in office. The answer is like, we need to get a, you know, Christian into office or we need to get the right person in office. So, but it still had kind of a detachment theology of like salvation, the individual, you know, the kingdom is not my kingdom is not this world is like, yeah, Jesus reigns in our individual hearts, you know, and he didn't get involved in politics. I'm like, I, that's not quite what he was saying either. You know, um, is that, is that right to kind of say there might be a blend people kind of,

depending on the time of the day, have a detachment idea, but then kind of have more of a, and it always is kind of a right wing kind of political interest or. That can definitely happen. And it's important to note that these three categories are not necessarily discrete. There can be some overlap between them. Just to give you an example. So, you know, as I mentioned, I grew up in central Pennsylvania and there was a point in time when the Mennonite communities in central Pennsylvania, they would almost always just stay out of politics altogether. But around 2016, I began to see Mennonite farmers, they were starting to put up pro-Trump signs. I would go to some Mennonite stores and they would have political

pamphlets there. That would have never happened, you know, maybe 10, 15 years before, but things started to change as things were changing throughout the whole country, even within those communities. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, 2016 did rattle everybody's cage on so many levels. It certainly did. Yes. This episode is sponsored by Biola University. Biola is consistently ranked as one of the nation's leading Christian universities. Biola has over 300 academic programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, which are available both in Southern California and online.

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put in the code Preston and get your application fee waived. Some restrictions may apply. Just visit www.biola.edu for more information. The one danger I've seen, I know we've been a little bit right-wing heavy here, and I think that's a bit, you know, it's a low-hanging fruit. It's just there's so much in your face to kind of like not be excited about. The one danger I've seen, I think it has there has been an uptick after 2016 is kind of this critique of right wing Christianity from the perspective of left wing Christian, you know, like or, you you know the answer to trump is hillary or bite and it's like well hold on like yep that that's not that's not what we're trying to say here that's just the

same version of the the different side of the same coin and i think of course in the christianity america numerically the biggest problem would be you know um an idolatry of right-wing politics or however you want to frame it but i have seen at least in circles i run which is fairly broad it's like ah i think you're getting too political on the other side now and i i see danger in that you know if if trump is the messiah that's problematic but if he's also the antichrist jesus is the messiah not you know hillary or biden or wherever you know it's like i don't know do you have any thoughts on that? Because I appreciated your book to very much, yeah, seem to take that line as well. I think there are absolutely forms of Christian nationalism on the left. They just look different than they do on the right. And, you know, they're perhaps less

discernible. But, you know, we can think back to Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign slogan, and he ran on this platform of restoring the soul of America as if countries could have souls. And this is – it's a form of progressive Christian nationalism. It looks different, but it's still there. You know, I remember back in 2019, AOC tweeted something about her support for a law that would prohibit usury. And her justification for her support of that law was that usury happens to be banned in the Bible. And so we need to ban it in the country as well. Bible. And so we need to ban it in the country as well. So if you look closely enough, you can see it across the spectrum, but it tends to be more pervasive on the right, I think. I don't want to get too cynical, but maybe just a little bit. A lot of this is kind of a game. Any, at least in America, I would say it's probably true outside. A politician is going to

use religious language and appeal to a religious base when it's solidifies their base or gains more power and keeps them in office like they will quote the bible in certain contexts when you know yeah anyway i don't want to keep going on that but i just see it it's like can't we see what's going on here like oh absolutely you know yeah and, you have quotes of, you know, even when left-wing politicians in certain contexts, maybe it's a Catholic context or maybe in an African-American churches that might vote more Democrat, you know, you'll use religious language to solidify that base. I mean, okay. Prophetic witness.

How is this viewpoint, this approach distinguished between the first two and why do you find this the most compelling representation of scripture? Yeah, so I think that this choice between Christianism or transformationalism and detachment theology is really a false choice. Like, it's not a choice between utopianism and pessimism. There is a third way that Christians can approach public life, and I call this third way prophetic witness. So in the Bible, the prophets were countercultural radicals, and they lambasted the values of their surrounding culture, and they were depicted as thorns in the flesh of those in power. And so, I kind of see this as being the way that Christians need to think about how they live in

the kingdom of the world, and they kind of take on the role of being a prophet. And so, what does prophetic witness look like in practice? I think we have some clues in the book of James. The first chapter, verse 27, James says, religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. So there are two different aspects of prophetic witness that we find in this verse. The first is a justice aspect to look after orphans and widows in their distress, but we can expand that to include all marginalized and oppressed groups, the groups that Jesus would stand in solidarity with. And the other aspect is to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. And this is equally important. So I remember when I was an undergraduate in college, I would tell people that I was majoring in political science because I was justly people in Washington who can set the country on the right course. And I thought about it, and I quickly realized, you know, Washington is where godliness goes to die. Like, how many godly politicians can you think of that serve in the House of Representatives or the Senate, you know, and actually, you know, are outspoken about their faith,

and they act like Christians are supposed to act like. Very few, right? And that's because there's a leveling effect that happens in the kingdom of the world. Christians end up succumbing to the rules of the kingdom of the world, when in fact they're supposed to be forming an alternative political community with only Jesus as being the king. So that's the whole idea behind prophetic witness. Can you unpack this, that last phrase? Because I think that's something, I mean, you touch on your book, Howard Wass is famous for doing it, that the church is to be an alternative polis, you know, the Greek word for a city or a society almost like we are to embody the political themes economics race relations uh

how we treat the outsider what do we do with our enemies what do we do with people in financial need um what does social class look like like the the church is to embody the very political vision that we sometimes want our country to do, but sometimes we skip over embodying it as a church, and we just focus so much on the country doing these things. Can you unpack that a bit? Because I think that's really, really crucial. Yeah, so the New Testament word that the authors use for the church is ecclesia, and that is a term that has all kinds of political connotations to it. And so, the idea is that Christians do not have dual loyalties. They have only one loyalty,

and that loyalty is to Jesus. Now, transformationalists will argue, no, Christians have dual loyalties. They have one loyalty to Christ, an ultimate loyalty, and they have a secondary loyalty to their countries. But I don't think this is what we mean when we use the word ecclesia. Christians have one loyalty to Christ alone, He is King, and really, there are no other loyalties. And the reason I say that is because it will frequently, And the reason I say that is because it will frequently, if not almost always be the case, that the kingdom of the world will be in tension with the kingdom of the cross. And the reason why is because they operate according to entirely different rules, such that success in the kingdom of the world would mean failure in the kingdom of the cross and vice versa. So the way I think about it is like trying to advance the kingdom of God through politics is like trying to play the game of basketball using the rules of the game of football. It doesn't make any sense.

And if you do that, you might get lucky from time to time, but generally it's going to be a train wreck. And so, you know, another way of thinking about it, let's take a hypothetical example. Let's say you have a hitman, and this hitman decides, you know what, I've had a change of heart. I'm going to convert to Christianity. I'm going to become a Christian. But then he says, I'm going to be a Christian hitman. You know, that would be completely absurd, right? And Christians would call out that individual, and rightfully so, you can't be a Christian hitman. So how much more sense does it make for Christians to participate in the kingdoms of the world and yet behave like

they're Christians when they have to follow a completely different set of rules while in the kingdom of the world? It becomes impossible, really. So are you saying Christians should not be occupying positions in any kind of government? I don't know that I would say that Christians can't interact with the state or Christians can never hold any positions within the state. I do think, though, that there are certain positions that are completely off-limits for Christians. To give you one example, I think that military service is completely off-limits for Christians. I don't see how you can reconcile serving in the military with Christ's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. Wait, as a combatant, or what if it's like a chaplain or a medic or something like that?

Yeah, so I mean, that becomes a little bit more open to debate. And even among Christian pacifists, you will find that debate. I think there, it might be a matter of conviction, but certainly not as combatants, right? How do you reconcile killing someone on the battlefield with Christ's command to, you know, turn the other cheek and to love not only your neighbor, but also your enemy and to do good to those who hate you, to bless those who curse you, to pray for those who mistreat you. I don't know any way that you can reconcile that tension and still retain your Christian convictions. Now, again, this is not the dominant perspective among Christians anywhere in the world today. And so I expect that that will always be a minority position.

Yeah. Yeah. Global globally. It's more, I was more popular. Would you say, or not necessarily than like, I know in America,

it's definitely a minority view, but outside of America, I'm just trying to think different places I've been. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe not. When I was living in the United Kingdom, it was,

and I don't know, people would be walking around calling themselves like pacifists, whatever, but they would see the church in America is just way too gun happy and militaristic. And I remember I did a speaking tour in the UK and I, my overarching theme was like controversial topics. So I talked about hell, sexuality, and then non-violence i remember everywhere i went they're like when i brought the non-violence they're like i thought we're talking about controversial stuff like they're probably like yeah yeah but if i do that in america it's like

i i blow up a room if i even talk you know um talk about non-violence i i think i think it depends on the kind of country that you live in, right? So if you live in a country that's considered a great power that fights lots of wars, then you're much less likely to be a pacifist, right? So think of the United States or Russia today. The Christians in those countries tend to be much more supportive of violent means to solve disputes. to be much more supportive of violent means to solve disputes. It wouldn't necessarily be that way in countries that are not constantly fighting wars. So maybe that might explain why you had the experience you did in Europe. Yeah. Yeah. So how about a governor? Should you think again, and I know you're taking your political theology and trying to make practical application, which is always going to be like, you know, I don't know if we should be 100% confident on some of these things.

But like in your thought, like how high up in the political rung do you start getting really nervous? So it's like, okay, you run for like a city council or something, you know, like something like local political thing that just might feel different. But then what about like Congress, Senate, governor, something like that? Or is that a right way for me to even ask it? Like there's kind of a, the higher, the deeper you go into the belly of Babylon, maybe the more nervous we should be about that. I think the key question that Christians have to ask themselves is, can they participate in any occupation, whether it's in the government or in business or anything

else, and still retain their Christian convictions, right? And if the answer is no, then it's probably not a position that a Christian should find himself or herself in. But I don't make recommendations for each level of government or anything like that. Well, and Christian convictions too. Here's where I want to open up. Well, and we don't have time to open up fully right now. But I mean, like, people say, yeah, see, we should be, you know, anti-abortion and pro-military and pro-Second Amendment. These are our Christian convictions. So, of course, a politician can easily do that. I'm like, no, I'm talking like, let's widen our lens a little bit on what Christian convictions should look like. like um sure it may include may include you know um standing up for the unborn it also i don't know sometimes our quote-unquote christian convictions held by governmental christian people christians in governmental positions i'm like are those actually christian convictions like is there you know standing up for the second amendment you know is that i'm not saying i disagree with it on

like maybe a political of whatever but it's like is that a christian conviction you know so which is hard i don't know it's a whole a political of whatever, but it's like, is that a Christian conviction, you know? So, which is hard. I don't know. It's a whole different framework though. I mean, it's interesting because on some of these questions, you will find Christians of good faith on different sides. Right. So let's take the issue of abortion, for example. And that's easy. Yeah, I know. You know, most Christians, both on the right and the left, would agree that abortion is an evil, and we should do whatever we can as a society to at the least reduce the number of abortions that are taking place. But Christians on the right, they have one way of going about it, and Christians on the left a completely different way. one way of going about it and Christians on the left a completely different way, right? So the standard way that conservative Christians have tackled the issue of abortion is through politics. So you vote for the right political candidate to become president, and that president will appoint conservative Supreme Court justices, and those Supreme Court justices will then

vote to overturn Roe-Wade. And of course, this is exactly what happened with the Trump administration. So Trump appointed conservative Supreme Court justices who eventually did overturn Roe-Wade. that abortion should be reduced, but they would pursue policies like poverty alleviation, expanded access to health care, even sex education in public schools. And all of these methods have been proven to work. So from 1990 to today, we've seen a dramatic reduction in the number of abortions that have been taking place. And it's largely because of these progressive policies, not because of the conservative activism. So, you know, it's just very, yeah, it's fascinating, right? Because these other policies seem to have worked to reduce the number of abortions.

One thing from a Christian perspective that I often don't see touched on, I remember reading the stats somewhere, and so don't quote me on this, but it was something like, I'm going to say 20 to 30% of people that get abortions are in a religious conservative environment to where having a baby outside of marriage is way more shameful than secretly going and getting an abortion and not having to deal with all the religious shame. It's like, well, wait a minute. Are we addressing that problem where somebody made a mistake,

had sex outside of marriage that we come around them with grace and community and care for the child. And if they would rather go get an abortion than face this kind of Christian culture, I'm like, we got a lot of work to do there. Just changing a lot. That might be one of the things that could lead to, but as you're saying, there's a complex web of why people are getting,

why somebody would go get an abortion that also needs to be addressed. I'm not an expert on abortion. I just, that was one thing that always stuck in my mind when I read that stat. I'm like, man, that's, can you verify that? Have you come across that at all? Yeah, I'm not an expert in abortion. I just, I, that was one thing that always stuck in my mind when I read that stat. I'm like, man, that's, can you verify that? Have you, have you come across that at all? Or, um, yeah, I'm not, I'm not an expert in abortion either. So I haven't come across that stat,

but I wouldn't find it surprising. I think it's so stigmatizing. Uh, and it just, you know, tells you where the church really is today. Um, that, you know, that women who find themselves in that position would opt for an abortion rather than to have a child. Um, yeah. I remember meeting somebody who like, yeah, we, we were, had a discussion about abortion, like in a small group and, and, you know, she came out and said, man, yeah, I, this is, um, back in when I was in California years ago. Um, and she was kind of in tears after she's like, yeah, when I was a teenager, I got an abortion.

I haven't told hardly anybody, you know. And, you know, and she told the story of why she did it, what was going through her heart or angst. She was, she wasn't raped, but it was kind of just an unhealthy relationship, you know, and the guy ended up taking off. Like, this is a bad situation.

Like, she was so, she was a victim. Okay, like, she was not, I want to go kill my baby it wasn't i mean she was scared to death um scared her parents would find out i mean all this stuff oh my gosh like that at least puts flesh on what is a very complex situation that does include the evil of killing an unborn child. I did not plan on wandering into the abortion. I might get some emails about this one. Yeah, but I guess, okay, so here's my point. This actually is a good example of when Christians think that their primary moral call with political stuff is to work through the channels of, I'll say, Babylon to kind of implement

Christian values in society. If that's kind of their focus, I think there's a lot of other kingdom, actual kingdom work that they miss out on when they think, if we can just get the right person in office to do this, to get this law passed, then righteousness has been done. We can move on from the abortion thing. So let's before i let you go uh so prophetic witness can you give us uh maybe a a an airtight summary of of well actually i do need you i do need you to address the pushback that this perspective often gets that like well wait a minute we need to seek the good of the city we need to you know the state is orchestrated for our good and to punish evil and reward good doing you know you have these more positive statements about these empires or government entities and so um some people use those passages jeremiah 29 romans 13 verse peter 2 um examples of soldiers getting

saved or whatever in the gospels of like no this has more of a pot we can we can have this dual allegiance you know how do you respond to the critique that prophetic witness is removing your Christian influence from society and letting evil run more rampant? I guess it's sometimes how it's framed. I don't think that I see it quite that way. I don't believe that prophetic witness requires Christians to remove their influence from society and calls on Christians to take certain actions on behalf of the marginalized, just like Jesus did in his ministry or the prophets did. So, no, it's not calling on Christians to remove their influence. But at the same time, you know, I'm not making some kind of screed against the state here. I do believe that Romans 13 gives the state a legitimate role in punishing evildoers and upholding the common good, creating the conditions that will allow for societal flourishing and whatnot.

So I definitely think that there is a role for the state to play. So I definitely think that there is a role for the state to play. But if you read Romans 13 in its context, starting with Romans 12 all the way through Romans 13, you'll find that the job of the state is something that is separate and distinct from the mission of the church. And while the state can act legitimately to protect itself or to use the sword to maintain domestic order and stability, that's not a role that Christians can take on. So, to give you a practical example, the United States, in my view, had every right to assassinate Osama bin Laden in 2011. This was a man who was responsible for taking the lives of thousands of innocent Americans. And the United States was right to assassinate him in Pakistan in 2011, just like Ukraine today has an absolute right to defend itself against Russian aggression. So I'm not saying that states don't have a legitimate right to bear the sword. There are people who would say

that, but that's not an argument that I'm making. I'm saying that the two realms are separate and there are certain tasks that Christians can't take on within the state interesting yeah um i think i'm reading how our was again right now it's uh the community is toward a social christian or i forget that it's what he wrote way back in like 1980 like pre-resident aliens and i think he he was yeah he had a good discussion about that kind of like the different viewpoints on some would say no the christian ethic is creational it should be um applied everywhere but the nation simply won't like these kingdoms have been co-opted by satan they're not going to do it so it's kind of this like the nations will do what the nations are going to do um versus a more positive kind of like no it is actually a political right and good

for them to to do this i'm not sure i'm not sure i'm kind of sorting through no, it is actually a political right and good for them to do this. I'm not sure. I'm kind of sorting through all that. The one thing I would say is I do think that yeah, the Christian ethic, you know, is directed towards the church. It flows from, you know, an ecclesia, a church, a kingdom where Christ is Lord of that. I think, and I think that's where Howard Austin's up going, right? I mean, um, the Lordship of Jesus is not irrelevant for following an ethic. So if an entity is not naming Christ as Lord, then of course it's not going to be following a Christian ethic. I think that's probably where I'd lean right now, but that's a tough one. I mean, cause people say, what do you, cause I wrote a book on nonviolence and like,

what? So you think America should just be nonviolent? like, I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't know how to even answer that. All I know is the ethic I'm arguing for is for followers. the Romans 12, the direction of the church, regardless of whether the state is allowed to, is, you know, should do it, shouldn't, whatever, however you want to frame that, like this nonviolent ethic is directed to Christ followers, not government entities. Exactly. And I don't even know if it's possible for the United States to act nonviolently or any other country to act nonviolently. You know, that's kind of just hardwired into how states behave. And of course, states can bear the sword in unjust ways, but there's also a just bearing of the sword. And I kind of distinguish my Christian pacifism from a more universalist kind of pacifism. So, universalist pacifists or liberal pacifists believe that violence is always wrong,

no matter who is undertaking the violence, whether it's an individual in society or a state or even an intergovernmental organization. Violence is just wrong across the board, and that isn't the view that I take in this book. My form of Christian pacifism calls on Christians to renounce violence in all of its manifestations, but also recognizes that states may have to bear the sword when necessary. Yeah, that's a tough one. Even like the bin Laden, you know, or even just America involvement in the Middle East, like from one lens, you could say, no, this is just, we're fighting against evil. But then you peek behind the curtain and like, we've created power vacuums that have been now occupied by and created almost ISIS. If I remember correctly,

some of the leaders of ISIS were like trained by us military back in the eighties, back when we were using them to fight against Russia or whatever. And it's just, gets so so messy and then you have you know the the whole the drone wars i mean i read the other day hundreds of children were killed by drones under obama's administration during that time in our quest to fight you so it's just it's like if you step back and look and say has righteousness been accomplished like well even if we say that killing of bin laden was that individual act you look back and it's like when you start swinging that sword around

it just perpetuates more violence right i mean it just it doesn't seem to end the cycle of violence but i'm getting on my skis here this is more your i'm not i just i've kind of peeked behind the curtain i'm like oh this is raw like blind celebration of military, I'm like, oh, this is raw, like blind celebration of military victories. I'm like, uh, it's, it's, once you wield that sword, it's never a clean hit, if you know what I mean. You know, the, the, the problem that I see is that in the United States, at least you have very large portions of the church that have lent their spiritual support to American wars of aggression. And, you know, the part that's never talked about is the terrible suffering that Christians in other countries have to endure as a result of American militarism that is supported by American Christians.

You know, so it ends up being the situation of Christians killing Christians, and the Christians who are doing the killing don't know that they're actually killing their brothers and sisters in Christ. So, in 2003, the United States launched its war against Iraq. Coming in line with the war effort were major Protestant denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention. And it would have been much more difficult for the Bush administration to have gone to war in 2003 if it didn't have the support of these domestic Christian groups, right? And so, one by one, they began lining up behind the president.

Now, here's the part that's never talked about. In 2003, before the U.S. invaded Iraq, there was a fairly substantial, now the Christian community in Iraq is under 100,000. And that has been a direct consequence of the Iraq War, which, as you said, led to a power vacuum. Eventually the rise of ISIS and the forcible displacement of hundreds of thousands of Christians to surrounding countries, or they were killed. And so I think, you know, this is the side of the story that Christians in the United States and other countries, they have to understand when they get behind the war efforts of their governments. Man, it's, yeah, it's, I mean, now with that war, as I understand it, we look back and there really was no WMD. There's a lot of just, right? I mean, is that that war, as I understand it, we look back and there really was no WMD.

There's a lot of just, right? I mean, is that pretty much well known that that was not a good war, even though some people kind of really support it? I think most people look back and say, I supported when it happened. But now looking back, it's like, that was not good at all. I think that that's true for most people. There's very little good that came out of that war. But, I mean, you'll find conservative thinkers who still think that the war was justified. I have in mind David French. Oh, really?

He's a very thoughtful person. I like his work a lot, but even today he'll defend the war effort in Iraq. Oh, interesting. rock oh yeah yeah he's way smarter than i am so maybe i don't want to again speak out of turn and and saying you know if i don't have all my facts but uh all that i think we could all agree that um there was a lot of uh innocent people that died as a result an unforeseen damage that was a result of that whether or not you know the cost benefit that the good outweigh the bad. I don't, I don't know. What are we even talking about? We would say good and bad, you know? Well, we, we, uh, yeah, I've already taken you way past your bedtime, apparently. So it was so good getting to know you. First of all, it was great. And, uh, maybe, uh, I passed through Singapore easy, maybe once

every couple of years or whatever, but, um, next time I do, I'd love to grab a coffee with you or something. Please do stop by. That'd be wonderful. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Oh, again, the book is the global politics of Jesus by, uh, Neal Asaya. And, um, it is, it is, I would say it's a very readable academic book. Um, it's, it's, you don't need to be an academic to read it.

Uh, you deal with a lot of, you know, you bring your academic background into it. But it's a very, I was so shocked because not every Oxford University Press academic book is so lucid. But it's a very clear book. And I would recommend it to anybody that's interested in all the stuff we talked about. And especially those who are like, I disagree with half of what you guys said. I said, good, go read the book because a lot of it is filled in and to give you some food to wrestle with. So thanks, Neela. If it opens up a discussion among Christians, you know, that's what I'm hopeful for.

Yes. And as an academic, it is not a rant or, you know, it is a very fair treatment of alternative positions. And you've done your homework. You've digested other viewpoints. And it's presented very level-headedly. So, yeah, thank you for it again. Thanks for having me. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.