Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1133: Politics, the Bible, Christian Nationalism, and Hauerwas vs. O'Donovan: Kaitlyn Schiess

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Kaitlyn is a writer, author, and a doctoral student at Duke Divinity School studying political theology, ethics, and biblical interpretation. She graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2021 with a ThM in systematic theology and is the author of two books: The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor and The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here. This podcast conversation goes all over the map, but we discuss things related to politics in general, economic policy, her book The Ballot and the Bible, Christian Nationalism, her journey away from a full on Hauerwasian political theology toward a more...O'Donovan-ish approach, and many other things.  Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

If Theology in the Raw has blessed you or challenged you or encouraged you on some level, then I would like to invite you to consider supporting the show by visiting patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. You can support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to various kinds of premium content like monthly Q&A podcasts, the ability to ask me questions and dialogue with other Patreon supporters. Gold level supporters are able to participate in monthly Zoom chats where we talk about pretty much everything. Those chats can get pretty wild sometimes and I absolutely love it. So join the Theology in a Raw community by signing up at patreon.com forward slash Theology in a Raw. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode

of Theology in a Raw. My guest today is the one and only Caitlin Schess. Caitlin is a author, speaker, and a perpetual theology student. She has a THM degree from Dallas Theological Seminary and is currently a doctoral student at Duke Divinity School studying political theology. She's the author of a couple of books, The Liturgy of Politics, and her most recent book is The Ballot and the Bible, How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go From Here. This is kind of a free-flowing random conversation about politics. It was a very, yeah, just that. There was no kind of like a single topic within politics that we wrestled with. We just kind of were talking about many different things related to our current political climate. So I really enjoyed this conversation and yeah, excited to have

Caitlin back to the show. So please welcome back to Theology in Raw, the one and only Caitlin Chess. Caitlin, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to hang out with us on Theology in a Row. Of course. Thanks for having me. It is number two, I think, right? I had you on, I think, a couple years ago. Yeah. So I don't know. Are there any other PhD students at Duke that are like writing popular books and doing a PhD? Or are you the only one? I think I'm the only one. Yeah. Are you, I'm curious, are you kind of famous there? Like are people, I mean,

you probably can't answer that, but I would imagine people sitting in class like, dude, that's Caitlin. Her book's awesome. Or I don't know. It was a little weird. I'm, I'm precepting this semester. So like, you know, the, all the MDF students have like one big lecture a week and then they're in a small group that usually a PhD student is leading. And my group, like half, over half of them came in the first day and said like, oh, I was listening to you on a podcast or like my mom has your book. Or I was like, I didn't really anticipate this part of things. It's a little weird. Yeah. No, I bet. I bet. I do want to talk about your recent book, the ballot and the Bible. I am curious. Can we start with this? I don't plan ahead of time. Like

I don't, I purposely don't like write questions and stuff. So this literally just came to me because we're, we're dialoguing a little bit offline. How would you describe yourself politically? Like if you're, if you're at Thanksgiving and there's like, we all hate these conversations, right? I mean the Thanksgiving politics conversation, like how would you describe yourself or maybe even how would somebody else maybe, well, let's start with how would you describe yourself? Not how somebody else would describe yourself. Republican, Democrat, right-leaning, left-leaning, non-partisan, independent. Yeah. I mean, I think somewhat left-leaning, but again, it would totally depend in comparison to who. I feel like in my kind of prior life in evangelical institutions, I felt so left-leaning

because I felt more economically left-leaning, and even on some social issues, I felt more left-leaning. And then now that I'm in an institution where I'm more theologically conservative than probably the average student and more politically conservative probably than the average student, I feel less left-leaning because of who I'm around. But probably if you were to like, if I was to take one of those online quizzes, it would probably put me like center left in terms of economics and some social issues. But I feel like I'm more conservative on social issues than I am on economic questions, which does kind of put you in a weird spot where you don't really have a great

party affiliation to fit into. When you say more left, so with economic issues, would you be like a Bernie bro, Bernie? What's a female Bernie bro? Um, like, yeah. So what do you mean by left-leaning economically? Yeah. Like for example, I just did an interview for, for the Holy post, the podcast that I do with, um, Matt Desmond, who's a sociologist does all this work on poverty. And, and he's like, look, if we just pretty, if we just make the richest Americans pay the taxes that they're supposed to pay, we don't give as many outs as many breaks for them. Um, we could fully fund social services that would take virtually everyone in America out of poverty. I don't think that I have quite the optimism that some of the kind of wonky policy folks have

about some of that stuff. I think there are cultural and spiritual things that make their solutions, you know, never perfect solutions. But I think I'd be a lot more in favor than that, especially in comparison to the communities that I grew up in that were pretty big fans of capitalism. I would be a lot more in favor of what some of those might call wealth redistribution that I think is more just us creating a more just society, not only for the sake of those who are impoverished, but honestly for the great spiritual harm that I think happens to those of us who benefit from the poverty of others. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to wander outside of my area. So if it sounds like I'm pushing back, it's more just like trying to get clarity or would you, would, would that be,

would you be for something like the, you know, welfare or what people, what some people might call just handouts or something like, cause like, how do you get a, how do you do that? And yet not incentivize like not working or something, you know, I think would be the Republican response or what would, yeah, maybe what would be the pushback to that argument and how would you address that? Yeah. Again, I'm thinking about all this in terms of this conversation that I just had with Matt Desmond, but he was talking about, I mean, the biggest problem that we have currently isn't a problem of people abusing the welfare system. It's actually a problem of not enough people using the benefits that we have already determined should be accessible to them.

So I think that that can be a problem and some kind of personal anecdotal level. And that's why I think I'm not quite, I'm not a sociologist, so I'm not going to think that those are the solutions that really fix everything. But I do think we've seen historically, and even in our, you know, contemporary context that the problem is less people abusing the system. That's really kind of a trope or a stereotype that we get predominantly from the Reagan era. And there are some kind of racial elements of it that really play into it. Yeah, totally. The problem actually on the ground, if you look at a lot of the numbers, is that we've made the system really in an effort to make it difficult to abuse.

We've made it inaccessible to people. Like the hoops you have to jump through mean that, and I live in a pretty low income neighborhood. So I think about my neighbors, many of whom I live alone. And in the same space I live in, most of my neighbors have five or six children. They are definitely in the income bracket where they should be able to access government services to pay for the food that their kids eat. The system is really complicated for them. Like they have to be able to take time off work to show up and wait in line and answer lots of questions and fill out lots of forms.

And so that's really what we look, when we look at the numbers, what the real problem is. And this is what Matt Desmond says. He's like, it is sinful for us to ask the kinds of questions we ask about, do we have the money to pay for this? Or are people going to abuse this? When what we know from the numbers on the ground

is people don't actually have access to services that they should have access to, especially those services that go towards people who we can't be asking the question of, does this disincentivize them working? This is about whether children have food on the dinner table. That's something that I want us to throw money at. If that's the phrase we're going to use, I'm fine throwing money at that. No, that's helpful. I was deeply impacted deeply impacted by the book when helping hurts years and years and years ago. Um, which, which, yeah, I kind of threw a rent cause I, I, and I, I, I don't want to wander in an area that, that I, I am not, I'm not an economist, never will be. I've got a decent grass, I think on biblical economics on a kind of theological level. Yeah. But, but thinking modern day, how to apply that to modern society.

I, I, yeah, that's way above my pay grade, but yeah, the whole, when helping hurts idea of giving, there are certain times when people need just raw relief, just here is money. Cause you're going to starve to death if you don't have money in the next few days, you know? But I think, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but like it's when, when a hurricane strikes Haiti, you know, there's, there's that kind of need. There's other areas where that might be necessary, but most often we addressed what needs, I forget the language he used, like, um, we'll give it, getting up, giving people opportunities to kind of have, have a

sustainable living rather than a handout. If you give a handout to somebody that needs more opportunities for sustainable living, you're just going to, you know, you're not going to reverse the cycle of poverty or again, however he put it. Anyway. So, okay. I kind of want to go down the list now. So what's your view on, is that okay? Or I don't want to, if you're not prepared to like. I mean, I'm with you in that most of what I do is thinking about this biblically and theologically. I'm not a policy wonk or a sociologist, but I do think it can be helpful for people to know kind of where you're coming at, you know, with policy.

But most of the time, what I'm doing is spending time in churches or in Christian schools and saying similarly to what you just said, you know, I'm very open spending time in churches or in Christian schools and saying similarly to what you just said, you know, I'm very open to there being a variety of policy responses to these questions. I have some preferences and some of those are rooted in what I think are false or truer stories we tell that support those policies. So part of my concern, part of how I've ended up being, you know, center left on some of these economic questions is I think we've told some really false stories about wealth and poverty in our country. But none of the work that I do is showing up to a group and saying, here are the policies that I think are the most Christian.

I think that lands us really in the realm of practical reason and wisdom, and it's so contextual to the community. But I do want us to think about what stories, especially stories that, as most do, tell us about what kind of creatures humans are and what kind of communities we should live in and ask whether those stories are really compatible with the way that Christianity talks about those things. And I do think that then plays into some policy questions because we're always using stories to support those policies. But I fully think that there can be a variety of Christian responses that are faithful when it comes to the kind of wonky policy part of it. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. I get nervous, and I'd love to hear your thoughts about this. I get nervous when Christians talk about the economic prosperity of one particular nation as if that's like an intrinsic Christian value.

I mean, okay. So, you know what I mean? Like, okay, America, I think, you can correct me if I'm wrong, is probably the wealthiest country in the history of humanity. Would that be? One of, at least. Yeah. And it's like, oh, see, that's good. We need to keep that. I have so many questions

about that. Like, is stockpiling excessive wealth, is that a Christian value? Is it good when a secular nation does that? Where did that wealth come from, is America's economic prosperity hindering other countries around the world as, as a member of the global church? That's an important question. If, if the country that I happened to be born in became extremely wealthy and we had a, let's just say a president who had an economic policy that was just, I mean, just wealth just pouring into the country. I don't, to me, just wealth just pouring into the country. I don't, to me, that raises a lot of really nervous questions about, usually that's at the expense of some other country. And for a Christian living in America to not care about that, I think is an unchristian posture. Am I onto something or am I off the rails here?

No, I think you're totally right. I mean, it reminds me of one of my favorite things to talk about is John Winthrop's really early document. A of people will point to to kind of describe a Christian founding of our nation prior to the founding of our nation, but this document from 1630, A Model of Christian Charity, which is where Reagan, you know, way later will get this idea of America as a shining city on a hill because Winthrop uses that phrase from the Sermon on the Mount. But one of the other things that he does is he explicitly describes in this document his band of colonists as entering into a covenant with God and quite boldly is like, here are the terms of the covenant. And he even says, God has ratified this covenant, which he sort of decides himself, this is what's happening.

And in some ways he draws on really appropriate biblical interpretation for the terms of this covenant. He goes to the Old Testament and says, God promises to judge Israel, and then in other instances to judge other nations for how they mistreat foreigners. So he says, if a stranger is at your door, we will be judged if you do not welcome them in and feed them and take care of them. But he also says, if we are faithful and we have a good Christian witness in this new world, we will be blessed with kind of stereotypical, not only from the Old Testament, kind of appropriating promises of land

and kind of prospering in that kind of material sense, but then of course reading in his own ideas of what prosperity looks like that are not even just these promises he's misappropriating of land to Israel, but just sort of his sense of what makes a prospering community, which then when Reagan takes up this language,

you know, 200 years after that, especially does it. When Reagan says he's talking about America as a shining city on a hill in his farewell address, he says, I should finally tell you what that means. And his description is a nation humming with commerce that, you know, draws the people of the world because of our prosperity. And I love talking about this because I think it's such a good example of it's really easy to look at someone like Winthrop or someone like Reagan and say, hey, you said America is a city on a hill. Jesus wasn't talking about America, bad biblical interpretation, case closed, which is true, but it's just like not as helpful as saying, well, no, actually what they're doing is something a lot more difficult to discern in ourselves, which is taking this passage and not

just misapplying who it's addressed to, but filling this biblical language with other meaning, foreign meaning that's all of our values and the things that we think make for a flourishing community are now read into this passage from Deuteronomy or this passage from the Sermon on the Mount. And that's, I think, something we're much more susceptible now, even among Christians who are wary of, you know, talking about America as a Christian nation, are wary of this legacy of appropriating promises to Israel, to America. We might be really good at not doing that, but we're not very good still at not reading into biblical passages

all of our ideas about what flourishing are. That might be really counter to when Jesus calls the people of God a city on a hill, it's like five verses before that, that he says, blessed are the meek and the persecuted. Like that's not a vision of flourishing that fits with an American ideal of, you know, prosperous economy and military might. Well, this kind of takes us into your book. I don't, we didn't plan it this way, but I mean, the subtitle of your, you know, the Bible, how scripture has been used and abused in American politics.

Oh my word. What, okay. What led you to want to write this book? And then I want to get into kind of the, you can give us the, the, the gist of it. Yeah. Honestly, I had no desire to write a book during my doctoral program. I had told people after my first book, like zero chance that's happening again. And then true story. My first editor who had Caitlin Beatty, who had moved from IVP to Brazos reached out and I was like, no way. And then true story, my first editor, Caitlin Beatty, who had moved from IVP to Brazos, reached out and I was like, no way. And then right before I answered her, I went in and got a cavity filled and truly outlined this book in my head while my cavity was getting filled. Oh my word.

So I've told the Brazos folks that, and they're like, we need to get people into the dentist. Maybe this is how we get these books figured out. But really like practically, it really was a combination of two things. I was doing a lot of work in 2020 after my first book came out, going to churches, going to Christian schools, talking about faith and politics. And the number two most often questions I would get afterwards was first some Bible verse

and just like quoting the verse and saying, explain that. Romans 13, given to Caesar, what is Caesar's? You know, the Jubilee and in the Old Testament, whatever it was, explain that in political life. So I was like, okay,. Romans 13, given to Caesar, what is Caesar's, the Jubilee in the Old Testament, whatever it was, explain that in political life. So I was like, okay, people really are, I'm glad people are thinking about the Bible and what that means and they have questions about it. But then even more than that, the most common question was, how do I talk to my aunt at Thanksgiving? How do I talk to this person in my small group? How do I talk to my family member, my neighbor? And what I really kind of discerned

as people were asking these two questions was a lot of what they were asking wasn't about how to have conversations with people who were not Christians, which is an important topic. They were really struggling with their closest relationships, which tended to be with people who were Christians. And it often centered around cherry picking, throwing Bible verses back and forth on social media or in person. And so what I wanted to do was have something that addressed how to faithfully read scripture for political life. But I figured if I went in straight

with like contemporary examples, does Romans 13 apply to Black Lives Matter protests? Does Romans 13 apply to COVID restrictions? I was like, you know, walls are up, temperatures high, like there's no way we're having a good conversation that way. So I thought, what if I asked, is the way that loyalist priests use Romans 13 and the revolutionary war an appropriate use of Romans 13? That feels close to us. We have a sense of American identity. We care about this history. It still relates to us

deeply, but it's not the hot button topic of the moment where we just can't have a good conversation about it. So I went to history. I thought I both want us to have examples that feel more distanced from us that we can think about well, but also I picked examples, sort of representative examples throughout American history to also give us some sense of what habits do we inherit? Habits of not just interpreting the Bible based on our theological tradition or denomination, but habits for interpreting it for public life that we inherit? Habits of not just interpreting the Bible based on our theological tradition or denomination, but habits for interpreting it for public life that we inherit particularly as Americans. And could some of the like weird contradictions in our history that kind of discomfort us make us better readers of scripture, actually make us uncomfortable enough that we go,

okay, I don't love this example in the past, even though I like the outcome. What does that mean about what really matters when I interpret scripture? How could I see my own biases and prejudices by seeing them in someone else where I can see them more clearly? Can you give us an example of what you're talking about? A concrete example? You kind of mentioned Romans 13 in passing. There's several others you could probably go to. Yeah. So the first example that I thought of with the book was Romans 13. It's easily the passage I get asked about the most. And it's probably the passage that prior to writing the book, I had thought about the most um prior to deciding i should do a theology degree i had really thought about new testament in part because i was reading a lot of like paul

and empire jesus and empire stuff i really cared about romans 13 i was curious about that i learned quickly at the end of seminary that i'm a theologian and not a biblical scholar but i still loved that passage and was interested in it and And I found it really fascinating how many sermons there are from the revolutionary era where loyalist priests go very enthusiastically to Romans 13 and when it says similarly in first Peter, it's even more direct. It literally in the King James says, fear God, honor the King. So it's not Peter, it's the king. That's really helpful if you're supporting a monarchy. So I went to these sermons and just wanted us to think together about are these good interpretations of Romans 13, not only because they discomfort those of us that really confidently use Romans 13 today against policies we don't like, and yet the most kind of literal,

direct interpretation of this would preclude the American Revolutionary War. And so there must be were helpful not only in, I think, seeing the way that the context that you were in, your own financial interests, your own political interests might shape your desire to use Romans 13, but also then kind of prompted some questions about, well, what was the revolutionary kind of preacher's responses to this? What kind of interpretive moves did they do? They very often went to Old Testament stories of unjust kings. Funnily enough, they really loved Esther because they still had some sense of wanting to revere the king that's so important so in the story of us well you can say there's an unjust government that needs to be rebelled against but you can really pin the blame on the evil evil underling not so much on the king the

king's just sort of pushed along by the evil underling so they would go to these stories and see themselves in those stories and say what's the role of us as daniel what's the role of us as esther how can we add in the context we're in and so in most of these chapters the kind of response to this history for me was not here's the person who was wrong and here's the person who was right though sometimes in the case of the civil war we can make some pretty good judgments about who was wrong and who was right but more than that i wanted to say what kind of interpretive moves are most comfortable for those people what are they drawn to and then asking us are we picking and choosing which side do we prefer testing grants that are just easy

cherry universes do we like narrative stories that we can play an exciting role in which of these are we drawn to and why and what does that say not only about our habits of interpretation, but really, for me, foundationally, the conditions of our hearts. A lot of the book is not, here's a list of hermeneutical rules that we can discern from this story. It's how does this convict us or challenge us? How does this lead us not just to read the Bible better, but to read ourselves better, to read the world that works better, to focus more on what kinds of practices and community make us the kind of people who can read this well for the moment that we're in. It's almost like the book has a psychological undertone to it. Like, what are the circumstances that sort of shape how we read certain passages? I found that fascinating

because I've done a bit of work on Romans 13. It is fascinating. I mean, I'm just going to repeat what you said, but how different interpreters, how we have these lenses on when we read Romans 13, the lenses are created by our certain relationship to our current government. If you're living in, you know, under some dictatorship, you know, that's terrible. You're going to read Romans 13 different than if you're super patriotic and think your country is, you know, the city on the hill or whatever. So do you, you don't, so you would, you, you don't think that the revolutionaries were violating Romans 13?

Or do you have a strong opinion on that? I've wrestled with this question, but I don't know enough to, I don't know. I don't have a super strong opinion of if they were right or not. I do think that on one hand, it's helpful to look at some of the revolutionary interpretations and say, okay, some of them were just kind of cherry picking themselves. We're just going to selectively go to these Old Testament examples. Some of them really were saying, how do we harmonize or at least how do we reconcile something like Romans 13 with Acts 5.29, we must obey God rather than human beings and trying to do a real biblical theology of it, whether or not that biblical theology that I do think is the right kind of approach or method,

whether or not that justifies rebellion under the particular political conditions they were in, I'm not sure. I'm not in that context and I would be kind of hesitant to offer a judgment on it. But I do think it complicates the situation, especially when you consider how many of those people that said, you know, freedom is important. They went to Galatians that are like, this is not just a spiritual truth. This is a material and a political truth, immediately turned it into a spiritual truth when the enslaved people that they had brought to America said, actually, that freedom has material implications for us too. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah.

What do you think? What's that? What do I think? You think it was justified? I don't think I have a strong opinion. I don't think I have a strong opinion. So the specific question is the whole, yeah, we can do 1 Peter 2, Romans 13, submit to governing authorities. Obviously, there's examples of faithful Christians not doing that. And so were the revolutionaries disobeying Romans 13 or were they following one of the caveats? Um, yeah, I,

I don't know. I mean, cause we're, we're taking a very unique first century situation and trying to map it on a very unique, what? 17th, 18th century situation. So I,

yeah, I don't know. I mean, cause also the church, the church was a, I mean, the main point of Romans 13 seems to be like, don't participate in these kind of like, um, Jewish revolts against Rome that, you know,

that have flared up from time to time, especially if you, if you, a decade after Paul wrote that, right, you have the whole, uh, the, the war of 80, 70. So I think he's discouraging violent revolt. He's not, I don't think he's giving some absolute, like always obey the government kind of thing, you know? Um, so I don't know. I don't know enough about the revolutionary war to say, I know, I know more about like Paul's situation for a century. I don't know enough about our, the revolutionary war to say whether this would fit or not. So I don't, I don't know. I don't know. It's an interesting question. I think just raising the question sometimes can flare up people's emotions. How dare you even? I'm like, Hey, it's worth wrestling with. I mean, so, um, you, you mentioned

a passing that you had, you, you, you used to be on a kick of like pulling empire. And I think offline, we talked about how you were kind of more into a Hauerwas kind of approach and now not so much. Can you, would be curious what your journey in that brand of political theology has looked like? Because I'll confess, I'm kind of, yeah, I'm still maybe in that Poland Empire kick. Yeah. I mean, Hauerwas is a theologian? I'm a biblical studies person. So whenever there's always that tension, you know, um, but so Yoder, I mean, in terms of his exegesis, at least not his life, unfortunately, but, um, uh, yeah, I think, I think he got a lot

of things right. And a lot of the Paul and empire guys that they do seem to see empire kind of around every single verse, which I try not to, I know in my own heart that I'm prone to that. So I try not to, but I do, I think there's more empire than the average person realizes, meaning a lot of these biblical stories that we take about, you know, or sayings, you know, about kind of spiritual truths. They are that, but they also include some political subversive things as well. Just confessing Jesus as, you know, son of God was kind of throwing shade on Nero. And we have this kind of language pretty pervasive in scripture. Anyway, so yeah, what's your relationship with Hauerwas, Hauerwasian approach to political theology? What does that look like? I think Hauerwas is lovely.

He's a very kind man. He still wanders the halls of Duke Divinity while I am there. So greatly appreciate him. But yeah, I did kind of, especially I think in the aftermath of 2016, I was a seminary student and I wasn't really in a seminary

that gave a lot of instruction on politics or ethics. That just was not classes that were offered. It wasn't something we really thought about. And so I was hungry for reading something and I read Resident Aliens, I think my first year and loved it. Read a lot more Hauerwas over the next few years and other folks like him in the kind of Anabaptist-y political theology world. Part of my move away from that was partially just I decided to go do a degree in political theology and I read a lot more people. And part of that was also realizing that that's one particular tradition. And I think a lot of the folks that I was around at the time in my seminary, this was the only political theology they'd ever heard of.

And so it felt so refreshing and so exciting. And so to get to read some other folks throughout history, but also contemporary folks, did just kind of moderate me a little bit. Especially, I think, I spent a lot of time towards the end of seminary studying Augustine and kind of thinking about that political context, Constantine and kind of the fall of the Roman Empire and all of that political context and realizing, having a lot more sympathy for the folks that said, what happens actually if the emperor does repent? What happens if the king says yes, is like the famous line by the political Augustinians, right? It's like, what happens then? What if the ruler does become a Christian? What does that change? And having more sympathy for asking questions that were new questions at the time and trying to come up with really good answers. And then that leads into kind of how I ended up in a place where I have some frustration with the kind of Anabaptist-y approach is partially because I look at the history of Western political thought and I think Christians have a lot of responsibility for the language and concepts that have shaped all of our political life.

America's founded as a Christian nation or the new Israel. But in the sense that it is true, but especially, I mean, we act like the kind of Reformation era, Enlightenment era was a real separating of politics and theology. That era was full. It was like a resurgence of interest in political theology, especially the concept of the Hebrew Republic and looking to the Old Testament as a model for political life in like 16th, 17th century. And so for me now, I look at the history of the country that I'm in and I think Christians have a lot of responsibility for the hand that our communities have had in shaping the life that we have together today. And so I'm a little more reticent to the idea

that the most faithful response to the political life that we have had a huge hand in creating is some degree of withdrawal from it. I think to a certain extent that can be really faithful and good, but part of the reason that I'm wary of some of the like, you know, this is the famous criticism, right? Of resident aliens is like too much aliens, not enough resident. And I worry about that sometimes, not just as an abstract theological question, but in part because what I am really concerned about for political theology is that we don't just

think about these questions in the abstract. We are bound to the place and time that we're in. And for American Christians, especially today in a moment where I think it makes perfect sense that we would feel like political power is waning, cultural power is waning, I'm worried about a response that says, okay, let's reclaim our kind of status as really, you know, not really citizens of this place as resident aliens, in part, because I worry that we're getting out just when the ideas that we handed to the communities that we're in aren't working very well for us and are starting to feel like not our own. And I worry that, that that impulse comes from a good place, but can lead us to a place where we really are not fulfilling the obligations that aren't just universal Christian obligations, but are

particular Christian obligations for those of us that should feel some responsibility for the kind of Western political culture we've created. Exiles in Babylon 2024. That's right, folks, we're doing it again. Our third annual Exiles in Babylon conference will be held on April 18th through the 20th, 2024 here in Boise, Idaho. And this one is going to be an absolute barn burner, as we say here in Idaho. The topics we're going to discuss are deconstruction and the church. And we're going to actually hear from people who have deconstructed and others who maybe should have deconstructed, but didn't. We're also going to discuss women, power and abuse in the church, which is obviously a huge issue that we absolutely

need to discuss. We're going to talk about faith and sexuality, specifically how can churches become places where LGBTQ or same-sex attracted Christians can flourish within a traditional sexual ethic? Lastly, we're going to discuss, I can't believe we're doing this one. We're going to discuss politics. That's right. Politics and the church where we're going to have various speakers present. We're going to have a right-leaning Christian, a left-leaning Christian, and a, I don't know, what do you call them? A nonpartisan or Anabaptist Christian share their perspectives, um, share their perspective. And there were, we're going to put them all in conversation with each other. And of course we're going to have Evan Wickham

and Tanika Wyatt, uh, leading us in worship throughout the weekend. I really, really, really want to mix it up this year. We're going to hear from leading thinkers in each of these areas. We're going to, um, we're going to be having different viewpoints in conversation with each other. It's going to be honest, it's going to be raw, and you're not going to want to miss out. I really think this one's going to fill up quickly. So if you want to attend in person, Boise, Idaho, April 18th through the 20th, register very, very soon. Just go to theologyintheraw.com. That's theologyinRaw.com. I really hope to see you there. So Jamie Smith, his book, Awaiting the King, sounds like you would probably really resonate.

I feel like he took a lot of Harawassian... I mean, his personal trajectory sounds like yours, you know, where he was very much 100% all. And he's rounded himself out a little bit. So still takes a lot of that. Yeah. We both read a lot of Oliver O'Donovan. That's a huge part of it too. That's it. He's, he's the Pied Piper that leads people out of an Anabaptist way. Is that, I can't understand him. I mean, not, not, I, I, it's so hard for me to read. And I feel like I feel so stupid because everybody raves about O'Donovan. Like, oh, this book will change your life and I'll read it.

I remember reading Resurrection of Moral Order, which, yeah, see? I know. And the parts that I understood, which is about 4%, I really liked. It's not him. It's me. This is, again, my- No, he is really hard. He is hard to read. It's me. This is again, my... No, he is really hard. He is hard

to read. Really? Yeah. I mean, people who have written dissertations about him will always start off with a joke about like, we all know he is impossible to read. So it is not you. Oh, that warms my heart. So, but again, I think it goes back to this clash between biblical studies and theology where theologians will read biblical studies and all these word studies and this, that, and they're like, what are you even talking about? And then we read systematic theologians and it's like, you're just making stuff up. You're just asserting all this stuff and not even reading the Bible. So he reminds me a little bit more of Barth where he does do a good exegesis too from the Parast i remember anyway i was i was wondering as you

were talking yeah because i just recently read smith's book and i was like oh this is this is good like how i respond to some of this i i don't i think howard was and you know you know better than i do gosh you live in the same school as he does um i didn't i don't interpret him as much of a separatist as you sometimes get accused although he does sometimes use language that kind of hyperbolic, brash, harwass like whoa

but then he'll round it out a little bit even in Resident Aliens he said some things and I'm like that in of itself sounds very separatistic but then he comes back and says no I'm not saying that I'm saying we should embody by removing ourselves from the kind of empire, we can better serve the empire as a distinct polis, you know, however he, you know, words it. So what would be your main

point of departure or points of departure from a more Anabaptist? Is it that Christians can influence American politics for our context for good? And if we have that opportunity, we should take it. And if we just take the hand off the wheel, like we're not taking advantage of positively influencing society the way we could, is that, or how would you? I mean, yeah, I should have said earlier that part of this change too also happened in that I grew up Baptist and in seminary, I became a Presbyterian.

So there's also just like larger theological changes that come along with this. But I will say I was recently, not to name drop this, but I was in a reading group over the summer with a bunch of students, all of my advisor, Luke Brotherton, we were all reading a bunch of Augustinian political theology. Hauerwas literally does wander the halls, so he kept wandering into our meeting and talking about

this stuff with us. And at one point he was talking about these, all these books we were reading were kind of in some way critics of him. They were all sort of saying like, no, an Augustinian account requires this really robust political life to a degree that the requires this really robust political life to a degree that the, you know, the separatists like Milbank or Hauerwas are not that. And he, at one point, his description of the difference between him and these other folks was, they're asking the second question, you know, what does this mean for our political life? I'm stuck on the first question, who are we and what do we do together internally? And when he said that, I thought it was a good description of kind of the difference between him and these other people. But what I

heard was, I just don't think those are two different questions. I don't think the question who we are as the people of God, and then what he describes as the second question, what does that mean for our life in the world? I don't think those are separate questions. And so I think sometimes it's not so much an isolationist or a separatist thing, because I think you're right. Sometimes folks like him can get unfairly targeted that way, though, again, sometimes it's fair, especially among some of their followers. It might not be so much a Howard West thing, but some of the people who pick him up definitely, I think, do that. But for me, it's not so much the separatist, isolationist thing, though it can be that. It's

really where are you rooting the beginning of your theology? And I want it to be in the church, but I don't think of those as separate questions of who are we and then what do we do in the world? And I worry that actually his critics can then end up playing into those two questions as two separate questions. And they can say, okay, yeah, you're right. We're dealing with the second question. And I would rather say those are not two separate questions. Okay.

Okay. No, that's good. I'm curious, who's who's like the primary disciple of harawas like uh if you wanted to um you can i mean he's not young and uh like yeah the ones that come to mind lee camp comes to mind as somebody who's kind of captured he hasn't written extensively but a couple books um i'm trying to think of others that would be kind of well known long steven long he's at he's at smu he was a harwa student oh right i haven't read him but yeah i know the name it is interesting

though that it's i think that the the general tenor at duke is less um shaped by him as it used to be so i think your your difficulty kind of naming who the successor is is kind of true here too well i yeah in and this is totally anecdotal could be totally off but it's um yeah i would imagine the duke environment like you said you know it's it's way more left-leaning than, than you are. Like you almost would sound more conservative maybe in that environment, but you know, I'm a fundamentalist here. Yeah. But Howard was, he, and I had him on the podcast and even asked this question and he, you know,

I said, you, you equally kind of combated both left and right wing kind of political identities where I think it seems like now people very easy to combat the right but I feel like it doesn't it kind of falls into you combat the right with the left or on the side of the left you you know, like, like I think whoever got elected, I think Harawas would probably shrug his shoulders a little bit. Whereas I think people now who are critical of the right would kind of freak out if, if a right wing president got elected, would that be a fair characterization?

I mean, I, I, I can't quite put my finger on it. It just, it feels what people that seem to follow Harawas critique of the right don't equally critique the left. And maybe it's a numbers thing too. Obviously, the biggest problem in the evangelical church is being in bed with the right.

I mean, just statistically speaking. Personally, I think it goes both ways. It's just not as prevalent of a problem. Yeah. I do think it's harder to do what he did today in terms of being the person that can really not fit well in any category and can critique both sides. And I should say at Duke, I mean, in the Divinity School, there are lots of fairly conservative faculty and lots of more conservative students, especially students that come from more conservative backgrounds. But the general tenor of like big Duke, Duke University, there is a kind of liberal orthodoxy that can be challenging for people in the divinity school to figure out how to respond to,

because many of them are coming from really conservative Republican leaning church evangelical contexts where that does seem like the concern is to critique that. But then suddenly they're in an environment where, as you just described, like suddenly it seems like, actually, no, that's maybe not the main problem here. And that it's been really good for me to be at this place to moderate a little bit. I feel like I spent my first, you know, what was it? Nine years of higher education, college and seminary in exclusively conservative evangelical environments where I learned what the side was

that I felt needed more critique for the place I was in. And what I worry is that sometimes my friend Hannah Anderson said this to me once, I think it's brilliant. She said, most of the time when you go to seminary, you figure out what you think the problem in the church is. And the problem is a lot of pastors and ministry leaders spend the rest of their lives never changing their mind about what they think the problem in the church is. Whatever they thought it was in seminary is what they think it is for their entire ministry. And I feel really thankful and really just like blessed that I got to be in two very different environments because I think it helps me be more aware that it is so contextual. Like this is what drives me crazy about the internet. We're all kind of telling

each other what is the problem and how you address it. And I think for most people, it's going to be so dependent on the place that you're in, the time, the congregation. What needs to be said at Duke by a professor in a class is not the thing that needed to be said by a professor at Dallas Seminary. And both of them can be totally faithful responses that sound like opposite things to the students they're talking to. But because of where the overemphasis is in the place they're in, that's the more faithful

thing to say. Do you find that's, I a hundred percent agree. And I think your, your educational journey is absolutely perfect for that being in, yeah, heavy conservative context, now a heavy, not so much, uh, context. Do you find yourself just on a personal level? Do you tend to kind of push back on the dominant perspective of your environment or do you tend to morph into it? It sounds like you're going to, I think it's the first one that you would, if you're in a heavy conservative environment, you're going to say, well, wait a minute, let's see things a different way. And now maybe you're having somewhat of a different reaction. Yeah. My mom used to joke because I went to Liberty University for my undergrad. And my mom used to joke that if they had sent me to a state school,

I would have come back like a really conservative person because she felt like going to Liberty. Just, I was like, I think this is wrong. And I do think part of this is a personality thing of like, do you want to be the, and it's partially an academic thing, right? The people who become academics are the people who can find the little nitpicky things to criticize about everything. But I do think, as you said, it's really, it's shaped the advice that I give to students who are applying to programs. A lot of people now will ask me about the programs they're applying to, doctoral programs, usually after seminary. And I will tell a lot of them like, part of this is personal discernment about what you need. I can't give you a universal answer, but I way more

prioritize for them diversity in the places they've been now because it's been such a gift to me. I really think it's shaped me in positive ways. My best experience educationally was being in, well, being in the United Kingdom in a Aberdeen University. It's a pretty even, the biblical study, the religion department, it's fairly conservative. And I use that term very, very loosely. I mean, like you had Christians actually there, you know, like, but a lot of denominational, there was a lot of diversity

denominationally, theologically. Yeah. And I just, I, it was such a, I love that environment compared to any environment where it's just very much group thinkish, you know, and I just, I, it was such a, I love that environment compared to any environment where it's just very much group thinkish, you know, and I just think that can be so, yeah, so dangerous. Um, I have a political question for you that, that me and a buddy of mine, I'm not going to name him cause I, I, but he'll know if he listens to this, he'll know who he is. He would be very much a left, not, a you kind of like um grew up fundamentalist and had a really like crisis like allergic reaction to that and you know very politically

you know like like in tune and stuff and he he's he's adamant that christ Christian nationalism is like the greatest threat to America right now. Um, and he cites all this data and everything. I don't, I I'm, if anybody knows me for more than five seconds, they know I'm the furthest thing from a Christian. I mean, goodness gracious. Um, so I'm, I'm on board with like, yeah, that's actually, it's absolute syncretism, idolatry. It's not even it's, it's might be nationalism. It has no scent of really anything really Christian about it on and on and on. So I can go on and on, but I'm like, I don't, is it really that great of a threat? And like, who are, you know, I look at the, some of the main proponents and I'm like, I don't know anybody. I've never met anybody that

either knows who they are or likes who they are. Like, and I'm in dozens of different denominations and, um, anyway, so I know I'm not even that, like, maybe he's right. I don't know. I, maybe there's, there's a bigger world out there that I'm not aware of. And maybe I'm in my own little isolated, weird, lowercase evangelical camp that I don't know. So is it, is it a huge threat? Is this like a threat to democracy? The Christian nationalists, do they have a lot of power and could they actually take over America for Christ? they are question. I will say I spent a lot of time thinking about the kind of Christian nationalism debate writing this book in part because one, I was spending a lot of time talking about the black church and the civil rights movement. And I immediately went any definition of Christian nationalism or critique of Christian nationalism that would loop in what the black church was doing in the civil rights movement, I don't think is a good definition. And it's shocking how many

definitions or criticisms potentially could. If they're too broad, such that any kind of motivated by scripture, motivated by Christian theology work in the world that tries to make the nation more reflective of Christian principles, that would describe the real motivations and work of a lot of Black church members in the civil rights movement. So that research has really shaped my, I think my initial overreaction to the last few years that said, maybe we just pull the Bible out of this. Maybe we pull Christian faith out of our political lives. The civil rights movement in America has really shaped

how I think about all of those questions. But the other part that shaped this, I have a chapter in the book on the social gospel and particularly one sermon that Washington Gladden gave, an the book on the social gospel and a particularly one sermon that Washington Gladden gave, an important leader of the social gospel movement. And he really does come out of like the liberal Protestant tradition. He would not be considered an evangelical, but at the same time, like most of the social gospel, he was living and working prior to the fundamentalist modernist split for most of his life. And so it didn't quite have the same contours that we assume

of evangelical versus mainline but he gives this sermon to an american mission board american mission organization where he's he's preaching on this passage from isaiah but he spends the whole sermon talking about the need to christianize the nation how in the old testament the main kind of subject is not the church it's the nation and so we should think in terms of the nation and he has all these sort of ridiculous things where he talks about our greatest missionaries have been folks like woodrow wilson like all these political leaders and and there's parts of that sermon that are fully worthy of critique and yet it has really again kind of questioned for me some of the over generalizations

that have been made about christian nationalism because when he's talking and he was not the only one this was common language at the time christianizing the nation when he's talking about that he's talking about stronger unions and a social safety net and things that do not read as right-leaning political questions, but left-leaning political policies to support. And so to me, when I get most frustrated with the Christian nationalism conversation, it's that I don't think it's historically rooted enough. There've been a lot of examples in American history of trying to either, in general terms, apply Christian principles to national policies, or even this explicit language of Christianizing that didn't fall into some of the same tropes of the kind of

right-leaning stuff we see today, which doesn't mean he was right. It doesn't mean his interpretation is good. But I do think it forces us to be more specific with what we mean. I don't think what we mean is just applying Christian principles to American political life, but also then to ask, what were the failures of something like the social gospel movement? It wasn't that they tried to do something politically. I don't think. I don't think that was their failure. I think they saw something really true about the social implications of the gospel and the message of the prophets. Part of the problem was they were overly confident that they were the ones that were going to kind of enact kingdom on earth, and they missed how paternalistic they were, how often racist and sexist they were.

And so I think looking at that history, I think should both help us kind of more narrowly define what Christian nationalism is, and then see what are the real problems here. I don't think the real problem is that there should be Christian principles in forming policies. I think the problem is our overconfidence that we're the white hats that are going to save the country. And that's why I think the civil rights movement is a better example for us to look to what it looks like to have Christian principles inform political and social work, because partially the position they were in was not one in which you could kind of wield power the way some people are trying to wield power now. But also, they were under no

illusions that they could magically fix everything. They saw over and over again the way that civil rights protections failed to actually provide the justice that they were seeking, which didn't stop them from doing faithful political work, but did keep their focus pretty eschatological. Like, it's pretty incredible to hear some of the things that they said that were deeply Christian statements of faithfulness oriented towards the coming of God's kingdom that were not escapist, that were not separatist, but did put limitations on what kind of methods for seeking the political goals you had you could justly do. You don't respond with violence because Jesus will vindicate you. You don't respond with a kind of separatist black Christian nation, which some, you know, there

were some theorists that proposed that. That didn't feel like an appropriate political posture for many people in the church, in part because they were like, we're awaiting the new Jerusalem. We are not creating it. So that's a way long, complicated answer to not even the question that you asked. But I think that history is really important. This is so helpful. I mean, I do think the definition is super important because like, as you said, as I, I have not entered that conversation. To me, like the, the, the real kind of hardcore Christian, the, the, the William Wolfe's, the Charlie Kirk, the, that crowd, like to me, that's so far outside of my orbit of the brand of Christianity that I find interesting that I just don't even have an interest in that. So if that's what you mean by Christian nationalists, I don't know, but like applying Christian principles as you see them to national policy that then anybody involved, any Christian

who cares about politics. So apart from the Anabaptists, let's say in the Mennonites, everybody's kind of a Christian nationalist in that sense, right? If you use a definition that broadly, if you're like, Trump is the worst thing ever and Biden, not the best candidate, but hey, he's better than Trump. And why do you think he's better? Well, what's going to come out of your mouth as a Christian is going to be, well, he cares more for the poor. He's, you know, whatever. You're gonna start stating economic policies that reflect your version of Christianity, if I could put it like that. So, yeah. Okay. So it seems like the problem people have with Christian nationalism isn't the underlying principle of applying

Christian principles of the nation. It's the kind of principles that a certain group is trying to apply, you know, making it illegal to be gay. Somebody told me that, um, some Christian nationalists would, would say, or just, they're just, yeah, just, I mean, all the kind of far right wing stuff that I find, you know, toxic. Um, so, okay. So let me be more specific then In your opinion, if you don't have a strong one, that's fine. The kind of Charlie Kirks, the Doug Wilson, the they're influencing or what kind of power is building underneath the things that they're saying. And I do think that they concern me politically. I think there's some real damage that can be done, not only kind of on a national policy level, but what concerns me is often the people who consume a lot of that media and show up to a city council meeting or a school board meeting in their local community, and not only really kind of can threaten the stability of the community that they're in,

but in those local communities where I think real political work is happening that can be really fruitful, the basis of all of that is relationship. And so if someone comes in and they have been consuming a lot of media that teaches them to treat the other people in their community as irredeemable evil people, then that's what concerns me when it comes to a threat to democracy. I can't make predictions. I'm not a political scientist. I can't make predictions about what happens on a national level. But I know enough about local political situations in my community and in communities of people I love who say this is undermining the trust that our neighbors have with each other or

the ability we have to have a reasonable conversation about things that we should be able to disagree but still work together on when it comes to, are we feeding the poorest people in our communities? Do we have accessible public schools for impoverished kids? Questions that we might disagree on, big national questions, but we should be able to work together to solve these things. And that stuff is filtering down in a way that makes those relationships that are necessary to do that work a lot more challenging. And that concerns me. So the social impact of their rhetoric, their approach could be, that could be way more

concerning than maybe the, how many voices would be characterized as a Christian nationalist or how many books they're selling. That's the thing. Like whenever I see, again, I don't even know who, I just know the name William Wolf and he wrote a book defending Christian nationalism. I haven't read it, so I don't, whatever. But like whenever I see him, which I spend such little time on X or Twitter or whatever anymore, but whenever I did, it's like whenever he'd open his mouth, it's like, he has like 10,000 people mocking him and critiquing him and stuff. I'm like, where's his followers, where are his fans?

All I know is all the people that think he's just, you know, just so ridiculous. It's almost like, is this a bot? Is this a real account? Like the stupid stuff he says, or I did, somebody sent me a tweet from Charlie Kirk, I think, where he was defending colonialism, that colonialism is like good for the world. I'm like, is that a really like, to me, it's so stupid that it's like, I kind of like yawn, like, ah, do we even need to be, do we even need to respond to this? But again, my buddy that I'm thinking of, he's like, absolutely we do. Cause this is, yeah, he's tons of pastors are actually believing it and following it and stuff. So I don't, yeah. And I think, I think part of the problem though, too, is that people like you and me who read a

bunch of books and spend at least some time on Twitter see this stuff and think, okay, we have to decide. Like, do we spend time kind of intellectually, rationally responding to all of this? I think the problem is that it's not just people like you and me. It's the pastor who went to seminary who likes reading books and is upset about this William Wolfe book and spends a bunch of time constructing an intellectual response to it. and spends a bunch of time constructing an intellectual response to it, when the effect that the folks like him are having in our churches, I don't think, is churning out a bunch of people who have this really complicated political theology of Christian nationalism. They're impacting people who now are really afraid of immigrants in their community or who are really anxious about the direction the country is going.

They're not really consuming. I mean, the book, I have the book. I haven't read all of it, but it's a pretty big book. It's not the kind of book I would, if I even liked it, hand to someone in my church because I would have thought it was pretty inaccessible. So I don't think that's the kind of threat is that people are picking up this as a developed, coherent political theology. What I am worried about is that people in a lot of our churches are really afraid of things that I don't think they should be afraid of. And even more importantly than just like responding to what

is actually worth being afraid of, I think that it's distorting the Christian message because it's leading people to think that a faithful Christian response to the world is full of fear, full of anxiety, and us versus them that we have to fight. And I worry that too many of us are tempted to become really well-versed

in answering the intellectual arguments of the case for Christian nationalism, rather than the pastoral response of, let's work through what you are afraid of it's probably not actually rooted in this media you're consuming it's probably that your next door neighbor had this thing happen and you're afraid that someone will break into your house too or you watched your teenager walk away from the faith and you're worried that the world is going to hell in a handbasket because of this deep very understandable pain of your child walking away from the faith. And our pastoral response to that being, here's an intellectual refutation of the case for Christian nationalism does not address all of those deeply held fears

and anxieties that are not just politically problematic, but are really theologically and spiritually concerning. I don't think we've done enough work to have the right resources for that if we're spending all of our time writing treatises against the case for Christian nationalism. That's really wise, Kat. That absolutely makes sense. Yeah, that's super helpful. I mean, for me, if I can say my opinion, this kind of Christian nationalism, I think is, I could totally be wrong. It seems like it's small in numbers, but the impact could be greater in ways we don't foresee. But I would, as a still Anabaptist-ish person, to me, just, I think an idolatry of

America, or I would just say, I'll use a phrase, maybe unhealthy patriotism. If you're going to ask me, I'd just probably just say patriotism, but let's just say a patriotism that has sort of diluted your allegiance to Christ. To me, that's a huge, to me, and that's very pervasive, you know, to where again, we wouldn't even ask questions, but we would celebrate America's prosperity without even asking deeper questions about the global church in particular. that has manifested itself around the world, to me, that, if you're going to, and this is a very bipartisan issue, I think that's probably one of the biggest problems of the empire really right now.

So I don't know. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on American foreign policy, the military? If you were in charge, would you keep the bud to military? I mean, you're concerned about poverty. I'm like, well, can we borrow a little bit from our out of control military machine that has stations in what 80 different countries? Like, is that good for the world? How would we feel if like China

had a military base outside of Los Angeles? You know, like I, I just, I think there's such deep rooted problems there that I think most people don't even really consider, but your thoughts on the military industrial complex. I am a military kid and so have a complicated relationship to this. So maybe you can't speak publicly if you don't want to. Maybe we'll have a little chat at ETS or something. Yeah. Oh, I would love that. I would love that. Okay. I'll leave it. I mean, okay. So I, well, no, I'm not gonna, I'll save that for a podcast without you on it. But okay. Last question. Last question. Can you tell us who you're

going to vote for or no? Oh, okay. Last question. Last question. Can you tell us who you're going to vote for or no? Oh, I, I don't know. I, how, how, yeah, I would not know yet. I did. I will tell you, um, I, I won't tell you the names cause it doesn't matter to anyone, but I will tell you that I just very recently voted in my local election and that I am, I'm thankful for the ways that spending time thinking about those local candidates refocused what I am concerned about when it comes to my actual community, because there are people that

I might run into. There are people that are addressing immediate concerns in my community and not to like briefly get on my own soapbox, but I just wish we would spend more time thinking about those things than the kind of sexy national election topics. You changed my mind on that. I didn't have an affirmed opinion anyway, but you're just, last time you're on the podcast, making a firm distinction between kind of the national political, all the sexy stuff, the media versus local politics, which there's wide open space to actually get involved in and make a difference in society. That stuck with me, you know, to now I try to make a distinction when I critique what I would consider unhealthy political involvement. It is the national stuff,

not necessarily the more local, local stuff. Oh, I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, no, it's good. It's really good. I thought, uh, what Cornell West, uh, he's an interesting cat. Is he popular out there? I don't know politically, but a lot of people at the Divs will read him. I've read a lot of him and I've enjoyed reading his work, but I don't know politically, but a lot of people at the Divs will read him. I've read a lot of him and I've enjoyed reading his work, but I can't say if I will vote for him or not. Okay. He's interesting. I love listening to him on interviews. I still think, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, he's interesting. Well, Caitlin, I've taken you up to an hour. So thank you so much for the work you're doing. And again, the book is The Ballot and the Bible, How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where to Go From

Here. The name of your first book again was what? The Liturgy of Politics. That's right. The Liturgy of Politics. Okay. So thank you, Caitlin, for the work you're doing. And your voice is really wise and impactful. So thank you for keep pressing into this really important conversation. Thank you so much. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.