Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1147: What Does Christian Political Engagement Look Like? Dr. Daniel Hill

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Dr. Daniel Lee Hill (Ph.D. Wheaton) is an assistant professor of Christian Theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. He, his wife, and his young son live in Waco, TX with a jar of sourdough starter and a persistent jug of kombucha scoby. In this conversation, Daniel and I wrestle with a Hauerwasian approach to political theology, and while we find ourselves in much agreement, we try to play Devil's advocate with ourselves and wrestle with some of the challenges to this position. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, I want to let you know that I have a book coming out in March of 2024. It's called Exiles, The Church in the Shadow of Empire. If you've been listening to me for more than like five seconds, you've probably heard me use the phrase exile or, you know, that we are exiles living in Babylon. And, you know, that's something I've said for many years. And so this book is kind of the culmination of my thinking through the question, what is a biblical theology of a Christian political identity? So this book does just that. It looks at how the people of God throughout scripture navigated the relationship with the various nations and empires that they were living under in order to cultivate a framework for how Christians today should view their relationship

with whatever state or empire that they are living under. So I invite you to check it out. It's available for pre-order now. Again, the name is Exiles, the Church in the Shadow of Empire. Check it out. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. The Exiles in Babylon Conference, April 18th through the 20th is right around the corner. You're going to need to register very soon if you plan on attending live, and it is going to be one huge theology in a raw, raw party. And we're going to be covering lots of super important topics like deconstruction in the gospel, women power and abuse in the church, how LGBTQ people can be included in the church and

flourish within the historically Christian view of sexuality. And also we're talking, of course, about politics. We've got loads of different things going on during the conference. It's going to be awesome. So if you want to be there, highly encourage you to be there. April 18th to 20th, you can go to theologyandraw.com and register. Again, if you want to attend live, register yesterday because it's really filling up fast. My guest today is Dr. Daniel Lee Hill, who is an assistant professor of Christian theology at George W. Truitt Theological Seminary

at Baylor University. And he got his PhD from Wheaton College. And Daniel is an expert in political theology. I was glad to hear that we have a lot of resonances in our views of political theology. So I kind of knew that from a distance a little bit, but I actually wanted to have him on to kind of say, hey, dude, where are you at with some of this stuff? Because some of the questions I raise and the views that I hold, I think kind of resonate with where you're at, but I'd like to just know from you, you know, kind of how are you thinking through some of these complicated political questions? So I really, really enjoyed this conversation and found Daniel both to be wise and humble and a really fascinating dialogue partner. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Dr. Daniel Lee Hill.

Do you go with Daniel Lee Hill or is Daniel Hill good enough? Daniel Lee Hill, just to differentiate me from the 30 other Daniel Hills. Okay, okay. Daniel Lee Hill. Give us a bit of background on who you are. I mean, I've known who you are from a distance for a while, but for the people that don't know who you are, who is Daniel Lee Hill? Specifically, I would love to know how you got into your specific academic

area of research. Yeah. So I am originally from the Midwest. I'm a Midwesterner in exile here in Texas. Nothing against Texas. We do miss trees though. I grew up, my parents were both pastors in a church in Illinois and then in Michigan later on. I wasn't really a Christian growing up. I was active in church life, participating in church life, but didn't really have a relationship with the Lord. And then went to college at Hampton University in Virginia Beach, which is as far east as you can get from Michigan. Became a Christian there through some just wonderful interventions of friends and a professor of mine, Warren Foster.

Essentially, he handed me the book of Ecclesiastes, said, read through it and then get out of my office. And that was like a pivotal moment. Also probably shaped my faith in some significant ways, Ecclesiastes did. Went to seminary in Houston, taught in Houston for two years, went to seminary, worked at the church. taught in Houston for two years, went to seminary, worked at the church. And eventually I felt kind of the call to continue studying and went up to Wheaton College where I did a dissertation with Mark Cortez on the doctrine of the church and the doctrine of theological anthropology and how church life informs and assumes things about what it means to be human. And one of my, the people that I was writing on was Stanley Hauerwas. He was one of three.

And so that kind of opened the door for some of my interest in political theology, but always with a strong connection to the doctrine of the church and the doctrine of theological anthropology. Interesting. So, okay. That makes sense now. So, would you be sympathetic with kind of Hauerwas' approach to political theology? I mean, he's got a pretty unique, I would say fairly contagious and very controversial approach. Yeah. Would you be, on what level would you sympathize with a Hauerwasian approach to political theology?

And for our audience that has no clue what that even means, maybe tease that out. Yeah. So I guess I'll put it in, because he's so controversial, I'll put it in controversial terms. He's accused of being sectarian. So he's like, the church's job is to be the church. It's not to make America more Christian or America more just. It's to be the church and to remind and bear witness to the state. He means that in a very specific, not in terms of evangelism, but provide an image of or a sign of the peaceable kingdom to the state. He means that in a very specific, not in terms of evangelism, but provide an image of or a sign of the peaceable kingdom to the state and to tell the state. So whether that's

United States or nation states writ large, this is kind of where your jurisdiction ends. And you have to do this one thing, be the state. And we won't worship you. We won't sacrifice ourselves for you by participating in wars, and this is all Hauerwas' terminology, but we're not trying to Christianize you. He thinks that becomes a kind of a diluted church or an idolatrous church when you're trying to push for a Christian nation in some sense. And so there is a lot of that that resonates with me. I do think there are some limitations to Hauerwas' project, specifically how he thinks of church practice, which we can get into. But yeah, I think he's sometimes labeled a sectarian.

He's sometimes accused of kind of having a retreat from the world because he's trying to, again, call the church to this state of renewal or continual renewal. I don't know if that's all fair, but some of that does resonate with me. I do think historically and some of my Baptistic convictions come out and align. I might, and I've read nearly as much Harvath as you, I'm sure, but even my initial reading, I think the charge of him being sectarian is a bit unfair and inaccurate. Although I think he, because he does, I would love to know if you think this is an accurate read. He does seem to like to use provocative language, which I kind of like. I like people that aren't afraid to throw out a phrase that might go a little too far just to jar people a little bit.

So I don't mind that. But I could see where other people would take some of these more provocative statements and see them as sectarian. But if you read him in good faith as a whole, I see him. I mean, traditional sectarian is to be the church, hunker down, be the church and not care about the world. Whereas he is the best way to care about the world is by being the church. Like that is the best way in which we can actually impact the world without becoming going to bed with babylon you know by being too intertwined with the the methods the world has created for us in order to engage the world he says no we're not gonna do that we're gonna be the church and and not do that it's my initial read of him so i don't i don't i wouldn't say that's sectarian i think it's it's profoundly

ecclesial ecclesiologically centered um but i wouldn't say sectarian is that would that be fair yeah i mean that would be my reading i think some of it yeah so he would say that there's this famous uh conflagration that breaks out at a magazine he's editing, helping edit over the Iraq war. And he says, I don't think Christians should go kill other Christians in the name of America. And he puts it, he says it, I think that's almost an exact quote. Like you're killing other Christians for Caesar. And so then the interpretation is like, oh, you don't think Christians have any role in the kind of public sphere or in public life.

And I don't know that that's always fair. Yeah. I think there's an emphasis, a point of emphasis for him is on ecclesial renewal, on the churches needing to be a better version of itself. Where do you think, you mentioned, do you see some limitations in his project? What would be some of the big ones? You kind of mentioned in passing the way he maybe frames his ecclesiology or yeah i think one of the one of the ways uh he puts a lot of weight in church practice as a positive thing um so he's like the church's way of being the church is we have these practices that form us to be this community of character uh we have like the

practice of forgiveness which makes us a community like blank or have like the practice of forgiveness, which makes us a community like blank, or we have the practice of baptism. And there's a book by, I think it's Laura Winner, The Danger of Christian Practice. And she highlights how like, well, sometimes these practices don't just form us positively. Sometimes they destroy and damage one another. destroy and damage one another. And I don't know if there's kind of space in his account for that. Um, that, uh,

so she gives the example of a prayer or baptism and she uses, uh, like slave owners praying that their slaves would be more submissive. It's like, well, that print, that practice of prayer is not for not just solely forming them positively right and this is the same with baptismal liturgies uh in like the 20s and

30s which is like some of this is just just deforming us um so i think that's one side where i would ask some questions and then i don't think it's just like the action and activities on themselves do this work of witness. I would actually kind of frame them words like they're a hopeful prayer. Like we're doing these things that potentially could damage and destroy people, could hurt people. But the hope is that God will take up kind of these loose threads and weave them into something. Yeah, that makes sense. Similar to, I guess, my one, again, having not read enough of him to even have a strong opinion or shouldn't have a strong opinion on it, the one area that I think both his political theology and whatever semblance of a political theology that I have that I would be most self-critical of is this kind of idealization of the church. kind of ideal idealization of of the church um on paper so so that you know one of the things that i say that i get from harwas and yoder and others you know is that um the church should embody the

very political socio-political vision that we want to see in the world so that you know we we you know we want to pursue racial justice in the world. Well, let's embody that in the church. We want to see the poor being reached and the rich being critiqued or being generous, maybe. Well, let's embody that in the world. The church should be the place where immigrants can sign to home and be loved on and cared for. All the things that we want the state to do, the church can and should do. And I do agree with that. On a biblical theological level, I do think that the ecclesia, as I read it in the book of Acts,

and really, even as it's rooted in Israel's tradition, I think there's, I can, I can fairly easily or confidently justify that theologically. But then I get my head out of the Bible and look up at the evangelical church. I'm like, well, I mean, you know, um, I long for the days when,

you know, uh, government leaders would say like with, is it Tacitus, you know, not only are they caring for, that wasn't him. It was somebody else. They're not only caring for their poor, they're caring for our poor,

you know, like they're so into caring for the poor that they were, you know, doing more than the own government was even doing for the poor. I don't necessarily see that in the church. So I don't know. I do battle like, like the whole, whole well it's idealistic but i'm like well is it true and should we pursue the ideal not just say well that's idealistic let's just put all our faith in the state now to do what the church should be doing i don't know i wrestle with that is that is that what do you yeah i mean he's that's another uh criticism of his project is that it's like an over-realized eschaton, that he views the church now as the church as it will be.

But I think as a theologian, I'm like, you know, which is more true of the church? Her life right now or what she's called to be by God? And I think one of the – I've just finished a draft of a book on the abolitionary era and political theology. And one of the things that convicted me of is like I make these kind of broad when I when I'm tempted to despair. It's like I'm painting with this broad brush based on a very small snapshot of my experiences with the church. snapshot of my experiences with the church. I'm not thinking of people like Don Davis and the Urban Ministry Institute or John Wallace and the Homewood Children's Village in Pittsburgh when I'm talking about what evangelicals are doing or what Christians are doing. And there are some pretty significant threads within the Christian tradition, even now, that are alive and vibrantly saying,

no, we will do this work of seeking renewal and seeking to be a people who bear witness to the poor of who they are in God and that God loves them and loves them especially. Yeah, and it was pretty convicting. I was like, oh, there were pastors in the 1900s who would plant churches on the Mason-Dixon line to serve as stops on the Underground Railroad and view that as like part and parcel of being a Christian.

Yeah, I've encountered some amazing networks of churches doing incredible work. I wish I knew more about that. Especially at this day and age, I feel like the bad press that the church gets, and it has a lot of fodder for that bad press, the bad press that the church gets, and it has a lot of fodder for that bad press, sometimes it gets highlighted, overly highlighted versus some of the amazing work that the churches are doing. I tell,

I've got a book coming out called Exiles, The Church and the Shadow of Empire, which is, oh, it's, it's a kind of a, it's more of a biblical theology of the church's political posture that is more it's fairly anabaptist without you ever using that term i wasn't i've already been inside of the

anabaptist church but my theology leads me to a very anabaptist kind of position but i just think it's theologically correct um but i you know in i tell you know i explore a few stories where the church is being the church or the church is doing what we want the state to

do and it's doing a better job there's an awesome organization network of churches and Christians in Chicago called together Chicago it's aimed at

reducing specifically gun violence in in Chicago especially South Chicago. And South Chicago, gun violence gets politicized all over the place, right? I mean, it's a tug of war in the debates about gun laws and violence, even race gets thrown in there and stuff. And leaving all that aside, or maybe not leaving it aside, just like rather than try to vote the right law or person in the office or rely on the government to fix the problem, the bunch of churches and leaders are doing just amazing work in reducing gun violence, reforming people, getting people out of gangs, helping single moms, you know, and their kids. I mean, it's just an amazing organization.

But we don't, that doesn't make the news, right? The positive things the church is doing. Daniel, how would you, so how would you, how would you describe your kind of political viewpoints or political, you're a theologian, your political theology, how would you summarize it? What are your main points of emphasis and passions and things you're, you're thinking? Yeah, that's a, I think if you,

Preston, if you were to ask me about sports teams, that's probably like the most firm categories. I'd be like, oh, Michigan, Cubs, Bulls, that's it. With everything else, it's like a hodgepodge. So there's some things from Howard Riles that really appeal to me. The need for the church to avoid kind of trying to, I don't want to say colonize, but become wedded to the state. I don't think it works well. It's a very truncated view, like even globally, like if you thought of like Christians in Singapore, are they trying to like get the benevolent leader of Singapore to Christianize? Like some of it just, it doesn't even conceptually work outside of a democratic republic. Or it just comes off as very totalitarian

outside of a democratic republic. And so I like the fact that he's in a sense saying like, I'm not playing some of these games of trying to coerce people into following a form of religiousness. of trying to coerce people into following a form of religiousness. I like a lot of that. I do also, though, there's some elements in Oliver O'Donovan's paradigm where he talks about the church is having like this missionary imperative toward the state where it's not wholly disconnected.

It's almost like overlapping spheres, not in terms of the state becoming more Christian, but that the church's responsibility is to say, this is what the kingdom of God looks like. Jesus Christ is the maker of heaven and earth, the ruler of all things visible and invisible. And this is what his kingdom looks like. And you are held accountable to the king of kings. I think that's in his desire of the nations. There's some really clear, the word labeled prophetic gets used a little bit too flippantly these days, but to say, no, you sit beneath the reign of God and you will be called into account. I like to take from O'Donovan, but then back again on the Harawassian side saying, yeah, but I don't expect the state to listen.

It's like, yeah, we have to do that, but I'm not expecting any triumph in the interim. Yeah. You used the word clear in the same context of Oliver O'Donovan. I've never used that. Okay. I'm slugging my way through Oliver O'Donovan right now. I will go pages where I know, I understand the words he's using. go pages where i know i understand the words he's using i might even understand some of the sentences but i'll read page and then look up and like i don't know what i'll walk away with

no more knowledge than i had an hour ago because i have no clue what he's getting is that how do i mean i'm not i honestly and i don't this isn't like self-humility like false humility it's just true i'm not i'm actually not a good read i'm a slow reader i didn't read my first book until i was 17 years old so i i've been you know i i love to read i can read all day long but i'm not i don't naturally absorb stuff i have to go really slow and really think to it takes me a lot longer than than other people so maybe that's part of it but what the trick to understand donovan is it that is it just like so i read like a page for an hour and just that you really read it over and over or like and why is he not so

seemingly unclean i was like when i do get his point i'm like you could have said that like much easier yeah i i don't know what like i So a friend of mine asked me last semester, he's like, how many times have you read Resurrection in the Moral Order? And I was like, I think it's five times. And I think I now understand it on the fifth time through. But that's encouraging. stuff but i tend toward the prose that is not lucid at one point i was reading he has this trilogy of it's self world and time is the first one and then i can't remember all the names they're all triads so you're reading it you're trying to trace these triads right self world time self world the faith hope love all this stuff and at the beginning of the second set or the second book he goes by now you can see that the trilogy is actually and i was like no actually i thought it was just the triad so i didn't understand anything that's the whole yeah it's like there's this fourth element like nope didn't see that the whole time so yeah what

would be the big i think you kind of hinted at it but just just to be clear what would be the biggest distinction or distinctions between Harawas' approach and O'Donovan? Is it that idea of O'Donovan saying the church should not just be the church, but it should also prophetically witness and call the state out when it needs to? Or is O'Donovan, I always assumed or thought that O'Donovan was a little more sympathetic with the church being involved with the state on some level, or is that not, I don't want to accurately summarize. No, I think that's fair. I think one of the distinctions can be seen in like their ecclesial

background. So O'Donovan being an Anglican in England, the church and the state do have a wedded relationship. The Queen of England and now the King of England is in a sense, the head of the church. So you can't view them as completely separate. Whereas a now Episcopalian former Methodist heavily influenced by an Anabaptist in the United States is not going to see that relationship as strongly. So, and it's not, it's not kind of reducible to that, but they have similar influences. They're both influenced by Karl Barth, different parts of Barth's corpus, but heavily influenced by Barth, both kind of pushing back on political liberalism in a lot of ways. But I think some of their ecclesial affiliations kind of show some of the differences in their political programs. Here's a pushback on my own, well, a pushback on the Anabaptist tradition that I'm sympathetic with on a theological level.

The biggest pushback I always get is they can be, I'm trying to think of how to frame it. My position slash maybe an Anabaptist position could be framed as not caring about the state, like not getting involved. You know, the state is kind of more evil. It's wrongheaded. And if you get entangled in the state, then it's just

going to dilute the church's witness. And so there's a strong separation church and state. And the pushback is, well, that's easy for a privileged person to do, but guess what? There's other people that marginalize the poor, the oppressed, that the state's behavior affects them every single day. So we don't have an option to just kind of throwing up our arms and saying, you know, whatever the state's going to do, I'm going to go just be the church, you know. What about the unjust laws? What about systemic issues that need to be reformed? What about calling the state out? Or even what if you have an opportunity to reform the state, to get involved? Maybe it's local politics. Maybe it's something else.

Doesn't it matter who gets elected? Because if the wrong person gets elected, I'll leave it to my audience to determine who is the wrong person to get elected. Innocent people are going to be harmed. Let's just go there. go there. If Trump gets elected, then democracy is going to be under threat and racism is going to abound and immigrants are going to be persecuted because of his divisive rhetoric. If Biden gets elected, then there can be more abortions. There's going to be, you know, more teenagers being transitioned or whatever because of the trans idea. Wow. You know the rhetoric. So it actually is important.

Neither is a savior. Neither is even that great. But at the end of the day, if Christians don't fight to get the right person, the least worst person elected, then innocent people are going to be harmed.

That's my own, that's the pushback to my own position. What are your thoughts on that? Where do you land on some of that? I am just so reticent to employ coercion. To get people to agree with my political agenda. Because some of that I would hope is epistemological humility

that I'm like, I think that the passage of certain laws will do this but I actually don't. I'm just anticipating. think that the passage of certain laws will do this, but I actually don't, I'm just anticipating. I don't actually know. Like if, I mean, you could use the past, was it four years ago now? It's like, who would have thought that the world would shut down for, you know, most people weren't anticipating the entire globe shutting down for two years or a year and a half. Yeah. So I'm just reticent to employ coercion on a general level. And it seems to me that like a lot of the contemporary political discourse, just I apologize in advance for using some inflammatory rhetoric, is kind of anti-democratic. So it's like we want to get the person we want elected so we

can get that person to approve Supreme Court justices so that Congress and the Senate don't have to pass laws. So they can just kind of impose my half of the country can impose its will on the other half. And that's I think that's lamentable in a lot of ways. So that's on the one side. On the other side, I think that politics has to be, politics being forming a common life together. That has to happen with people you disagree with in a democracy. That just has to be the case. We're sharing a common life, whether we want it or not. And a lot of that has to happen on the ground and on the grassroots level. And this is not a new debate. So the pushback you're receiving of this hypothetical pushback that actually both of us would be receiving

isn't new uh william still in i'm just gonna keep plugging the 1900s because i've been reading about it for the past two years uh william still abolitionary figure in the in philadelphia helps a thousand people along the records helping a thousand people along the records, helping a thousand people along the Underground Railroad escape. One of the criticisms he gets is, well, it's so easy to raise money to help fugitive slaves because I can show you the fugitive slave and their story. And you'll say, yeah, I want another person like that. But it's such a small number of people in the grand scheme of things that are escaping. Shouldn't that money go toward legislative and legal change? And you can see the merits to that, right?

Like you're able to raise the equivalent of millions of dollars to help a thousand people. Why not move that millions of dollars to help millions of people? I think the difficulty I would have is I would say, well, that person is still showing up on William's doorstep in the interim while you're waiting for legislative change. There can't be this either or. And in our day, go before your school board, start tutoring and after-school programs, start a Homeward Children's Village in your neighborhood. It takes a lot of work, but there's space to kind of do that.

If you care about the treatment of migrants or the treatment of those who are formerly incarcerated, network with the churches in your area to kind of help them transition from a life of incarceration uh find stable housing it's hard for them to find housing you know find employment it's hard for them to find employment if you don't want them to return back provide some opportunity yeah so i'm reticent on the coercive side and everything kind of devolving into who can get the most people in the supreme court to impose their will on the others and i think there's just a wealth of opportunity for us to seek a better common life together on

the ground. And we have to do that with people we disagree with. We have to live in their neighborhoods. We have to work with them. We have to go to school with them. That's interesting. Okay. So would you make a distinction then between politics on a federal level and politics on a more local level. This is something Caitlin Chess helped me think through a couple of years ago, actually. And it's, it's always kind of in the back of my mind that, that oftentimes when we think politics, American politics, we just think national elections, kind of the federal, all the big stuff that just gets so politicized, but there's, she says,

if I could put words in her mouth, you know, that like, there's just a vast difference between these two kind of spheres you know the kind of national politics and more all the local stuff the local stuff's way less you know yeah just driven by propaganda and politicalization and and partisanship and all this stuff like it actually is much more effective than thinking like wasting all not waste but spending all your time and energy and emotions and making sure the right president gets elected or whatever. That'd be one thing.

And then also, I saw it. Yeah, it left me. But yeah, your thoughts on national versus local politics. Chris Butler also

just recently kind of drew similar attention on a recent podcast. Yeah, Caitlin's doctoral advisor. Caitlin was a former student of mine back in the day.

Oh, really? I take no credit. Oh, TTS. Yeah mine back in the day. Don't worry. I take no credit. Oh, TTS. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I take no credit. She's brilliant, doing brilliant things in spite of that Augustine class. But I think I would say there's a difference between both the federal and local level, but also what we might think of like politics as statecrafts.

And this is from her advisor, Lou Brotherton. So like how can the state and institutions ensure that they continue going? And some of that's some of that's controlling populations and that's shoring up their processes. So ensuring that the state maintains itself, but also then politics is like we're trying to figure out how to live together and the best ways to do that and how to be hospitable to one another. And some of that being hospitable means that my Christian family and the Muslim family across the street. Get to share space, get to both. We both get to shop at the grocery store, both get to send their kids together. We both have common concerns and hopes for our families and navigating that shared life together. So differentiating both levels of politics, but also kinds of politics, politics is statecraft and politics is sharing a This episode is sponsored by Kuva, an innovative streaming service that helps you understand scripture the way it was intended to be understood, complexities and all.

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And it's not as complicated as I think we can make it out to be or as daunting as we make it out to be. The way that the teachers teach and the way that the class is oriented, the way that the homework is, is it's very practical. It's very digestible and it's little by little. It's fun, you know, whenever you actually get to see progress so soon. The way that it's wired is you're not waiting months upon months upon months to grasp a language because this isn't something that you're learning to speak or write necessarily. because this isn't something that you're learning to speak or write necessarily. You're reading and understanding and recognizing. It's a lot more practical than it may come across, and it's definitely worth it. You should definitely check it out.

It's been a really great decision for me. It's so awesome when we get to bring to you the Theology in the Raw Family resources that actually make a big impact in your life. And Kairos Classroom has quickly become one of those resources that I hope you'll check out by visiting www.kairosclassroom.com. And don't forget to use our special code TITR. That's kairosclassroom.com with the code TITR. So as I think through, and this is, again, I'm really working through this and in no way claim to have it all figured out. But the question of the Christian or church's involvement in society, could it be one of priority to where it's not, should the church simply be the church and ignore society or should it just engage society and, you know, just go to church

or whatever. But what if the best way to reach society is by embodying the very socioeconomic political practices we want to see in society? So for instance, you know, with like racial justice, obviously a huge question, debate, concern in society. To me, it just doesn't seem as powerful or really theologically correct to be in a church that's not making any effort to pursue, say, ethnic reconciliation and then demanding that the state does, you know, or really putting all your energy and reforming the state when the churches we're a part of is not even coming close to what we want to see in society? Or you can talk economics, immigration, or all the hot topics. What if the church was not instead of, but just as a matter of priority and maybe as a means of? So chronological priority, let's focus on this. And also any reform of the state we want to see is really an outflow of these practices being embodied within the church. I think this is pretty just our Wastian, right? I just find that so compelling.

I don't know. Is there any, what are the blind spots I have? Yeah, no, I mean, I'm amenable to that. I think the church, I was using this analogy with a friend nothing long ago. I was like, I remember in 2017, 2018, this book came out, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. Oh, yeah. And I was involved in churches and everyone read this book and debated this book and agonized over this book. And two years later, you know, revisited some of those debates.

two years later, revisited some of those debates, and it didn't affect anything in terms of how they dealt with those released from incarceration or those currently incarcerated. No one that I know who was in these debates went and volunteered in a prison or taught in a prison or offered up housing or jobs to someone recently incarcerated. Contrast that, my former pastor, shout out to John Kelly on Chicago's West Side, was formerly incarcerated. Before this book came out, he was doing prison ministry, helping folks transition from being in prison to no longer being incarcerated and advocating on Capitol Hill for changes to penal laws and et cetera and so forth forth after the kind of clamor dies down about this book his church is still doing that yeah and so i think just the amount of the amount of capital you have to kind of spend capital in terms of relational capital but also like money to pursue legislative change

yeah i think the my question would be kind of what are you going to do about all these people right now? These people being released, there's like an 80 plus percent recidivism rate. What are you going to do to help them? Galatians says, do good to all, especially those of the household of faith. How would you do good to them? There is a kind of priority in terms of reforming the church's practice, but also, you know, you're supposed to be bearing witness across the street. So how are you going to bear witness across the street? And I think some of the way we participate in political discourse, this is both within the church and without, it's like a war, like a zero-sum game, like it's combat and i i don't see there's just so many people who are

gonna get kind of lost and i in my more cynical moments which is a better part of the day i do wonder how much of us are pawns in a in babylon's propaganda wars, you know, like, you know, like I know people that are so passionate about whatever talking point that is front and center on the left or the right. And at the end of the day, they don't know. Like, I mean, like people are so passionate about like the best economic system that are so anti-capitalistic or so anti-democratic socialist whatever like and even that even that a lot of listeners even have mentioned those terms or like they lined up on one side you know like yeah yeah for real how much do you like go back and revisit the source of your knowledge on which one is absolutely right absolutely wrong like I'm going to say it's probably

somehow rooted in a political game that we're all a part of, that one side is going to promote one view and demonize the other and highlight certain points of a narrative. I don't know. I just want us to be a little bit more alert to some of the, yeah, the, the, the power moves that secular politics, broadly speaking, as often succumb to. I don't know. I, whatever I, whatever I do a deep dive into a specific issue and actually start reading more academically, looking at stuff, it's just like, it's way more complicated than the talking points of almost every issue is.

I mean, really, I can think almost every single one. And it's like, if I do a deep dive, if I peek behind a curtain, I see legislation, I see lies, I see manipulation, I see coercion, I see people doing whatever they can to demonize the other side, to promote their side so that they can get more power, more money, get elected, stay elected, stay in power, whatever. It's like, oh my gosh, it's like, it becomes such a, I don't know. That's what I just, I do kind of get like, gosh, but what if we just do it as a church? What if all these concerns we have? I mean, I do a lot, I deal a lot with, you know, sexuality and stuff in the church, sexuality, gender stuff. stuff in the church, sexuality, gender stuff, that becomes so politicized about males and female athletics and teenagers transitioning and all.

And I have deep concerns about a lot of that. I look around like, no, these are really real concerns. But then I get the emails from everybody in the church saying, 20 years old, and I came out as trans in my Bible study, and now I'm ostracized and made fun of and mocked and whatever. I get emails from people saying, oh, I would never tell my story to the church because they're so glued to Fox News or CNN or whatever. I don't know how they... So I'm like, well, we have this issue that's out there that we're all fired up about. Every Sunday we're sitting next to the people that are that issue.

every Sunday we're sitting next to the people that are, that are that issue, you know? Yeah. And when, if we can't do it as a church, how are we going to expect society to embody the, the vision of the good life? So I don't,

I keep coming back to, I keep defending my own Howard Washington kind of things. I'm, I'm still waiting for you to sell it. I think the, so if I were to put on my, so I'm pretty, so you're saying that it's like you're preaching to the choir in a lot of ways so this is me trying to put on my when i teach uh i always like put on the hat of the person that i'm not i think before i do that though i

think the and one of the i think advantages to that kind of vision is you can move that someplace else like you can say, I remember teaching political, a political-ish, theology-ish class, and a student was leaving that class to return to a closed country. And he was like, okay, so what do I, what does politics look like for me going back where we're hiding from the state? And, you know, we're talking about voting and voting in local elections and national elections, or trying to get ranked choice voting, all these issues. None of that is good. Like in a week I'm getting on a plane and I'm high and I'm going off the grid for the rest of my

life to pastor. So what does it look like for the church to pursue, you know, a common life? What does that look like? Um, and for that person, it's not going to be to pass a law. That's not an option on the table. It's just not going to happen. And so that's where I think there's some kind of translatability for the church saying, we're going to seek the good of our communities and our neighbors, and we're going to pursue greater conformity to God's call on this

body. Some of the criticisms that you've kind of raised, and it's like, okay, so what about, it's 1962. Is the church just supposed to be the church? Or should the church pursue anti-lynching legislation and, you know, the end of Jim Crow laws? Or should the church just say, well, you can drink from any water fountain here, or you can sit wherever you want here. And we refuse to participate in kind of the segregation of bus systems. We're going to let people sit wherever they want. And if I own a bus route, we're going to defy the state because we don't bow to Caesar. Okay, that's all well and good. You're going to get some loss change

so that people can vote? Yeah, right, right. Which I agree with. But that is the kind of prophetic witness. And I think How Ross even talks about that, right? How the civil rights

and other movements, abolitionists and everything fits within his kind of vision, I think. Like, I don't think he would say, yeah, the civil rights and other movements, abolitionists and everything fits within his kind of vision. I think like, I don't think he would say, yeah, the civil rights shouldn't have happened because they're getting too involved with the state of weather,

but then it's either standard. And again, I'm no, no expert at all, but like, you know, the civil rights movement had at least pursued distinctively kind of Christian practices of nonviolence.

Um, they, uh, as far as I know is very bipartisan it wasn't like they were like just it was kind of like a a reform movement that wasn't sort of and again if i'm wrong please call me out it wasn't like in bed with the empire to change empire you know um king turned right around towards the end of his life right and started protesting the vietnam war and it wasn't nearly as popular but it was like again he was

prophetic being a prophetic witness so i i don't know i yeah i'm not i'm i'm i'm all for and if this is more o'donovan than harvast and soviet i'm all for the church as the church through christian means protesting the evils of the state. I just don't want to take my marching orders from the state, one side of the empire, to protest the other side of the empire, which is how we just keep the churches gets manipulated into this kind of... So maybe it comes down to partisanship, but partisan kind of idolatry, not political involvement, but partisan allegiances. And this is where I would say very confidently, I think that that's a massive problem in the church, in America, at least, partisan idolatry and allegiances, not so much political involvement per se. Yeah. And I think in line with that, allowing a state, whether it's United States or any state to determine the horizons of political action.

That's so good. So good. So it's like, this is what it means to participate meaningfully in political life. So do this and nothing else. This is the only viable means of, of using your agency. And I think the Christian community,

we should say, no, we, first off, we function by a different politics. We take different marching orders and forgiveness is part of our code of conduct that we will forgive one another and that we are one, that the body of Christ is not divided. And so we won't let you determine what is possible for us to do. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I like that. Going back to the previous thing you said

about your friend going back to a closed country, do you think a big part, this kind of goes without saying it, as I say it out loud, I'm like, do I even need to say it out loud? But like, you know, the church's relationship to the state will look very different depending on which state they're living under. I mean, it's, and this is where I do think that Christians in the United States of America, which is the closest thing we have to a modern day empire, is going to be different. Well, it's funny. A Christian view of empire, I learned over the last six months, is very different when you talk to Christians living in America versus when I talk to my Palestinian Christian friends. They talk about empire and the state

very very differently well their social their political location is just so vastly yeah different and one might even say a little bit more biblical where they are not chummy chummy with the empire but are not just going to start a whole new i don't want to get into it all on this podcast at least but i I mean, they, they, they would see themselves as being very much a victim to the empire. So they don't get into the empire. They run from the empire's, you know, gunfire.

So whereas the Christians in America, where you just keep wanting to climb and better the empire, you know, we've been doing it for decades. So that, that location, that's that political sociopolitical location, I think will frame things differently.

Yeah. I was telling a class last semester about the, we were about the indonesian oh yeah 1960s indonesia united states involvement uh to put it very loosely it's like if you're an indonesian christian the united states not the greatest country in the world it's not this harbinger of freedom it's like they're inciting genocide i don't wait indonesia in the 60s what was yeah like i can't give you the exact dates it's like mid 60s um there is the threat of kind of communists and this is not it's not just in indonesia there are a bunch of uh places like this where it's like the threat of communism arising taking a shape a separate form and so in order to pursue particular political

ends you inspire unrest or the united states so in order to pursue particular political ends you inspire unrest or the united states inspires unrest or promotes a particular political figure which will then lead to forms of civic unrest if you're an indonesian christian if you're christian the dominican republic while you know chujo's in power uh in chile I mean you just have a very different disposition towards a state that is trying to ensure its survival and the way it's going to

do that and I'm not like it's just the way states and empires function as they try to ensure their survival the way you do that is you gather more resources and you have to gather resources from places that have resources. So, but a Christian who's under the foot of empire is going to have a different perspective, but still has possibilities for meaningful political

pursuit of a common life. And you see that all over the globe. Stephen Kinzer, I know who he is, but he wrote a book called Overthrow and it documents in the last hundred years all the times the United States was involved in overthrowing a democratically elected leader in another country out of self-interest.

It's so disturbing. And yet you read this and like, this really happened? Why is this talking about? All the way back to, I mean, so much, I can get into foreign policy stuff, but we overthrew with the democratically elected leader in Iran in the 50s and installed some brutal shah

because he was sympathetic to the West, led to loads of deaths and persecution of Iranians and everything, which all was part of the backdrop of i guess 1979 and i just all kind of even stuff today it's like we wake up one day and you know how could people so many people in the middle east hate america then what's the response well they hate us because of our freedom they're over there just stewing oh we wish you had your free you know i think it's george bush that invented that myth right they hate us because they're freed us we need to go that's just so like how do we like really like

that sounds convincing to you it had nothing to do with us like overthrowing democratically elected leaders and setting up military bases all over the middle east like that has nothing to do with why you know we succumb to terrorist attacks anyway it's um okay this is actually leading somewhere i going back to see a logically um when i do read political theorists oftentimes other than the kind of hauerwas yoder kind of camp i feel like the other camps that are more critical of an Anabaptist position, I do feel like they have a bit of a weak theology of empire. When I read the Bible, especially the book of Revelation, and I mean, all throughout the Old Testament, and I would say it's more pervasive in the New Testament than people realize, there is almost like this fundamental competition between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world and the more empire-like that they are. And again, today, the United States of America comes very close to, and some people will just call it an empire. In my more cautious moments, I want to say it has imperial qualities to it for sure. Whether we call it an actual empire

that's overtly trying to conquer the world like the Roman Empire was. Okay, maybe it's not as explicit, but again, when you keep overthrowing other democratically elected leaders around the world, that's pretty imperialistic. So I think this is where I think Christians should have a profound fear and nervousness of getting in bed with the empire and to not view the state as some neutral entity, God forbid, a positive entity, but in fundamental competition with the way God wants to rule the world. I think to me, that's kind of a starting point. And I just, I do see that kind of lost in a lot of political theology do you

again unless i read howard wasser kind of the more anabaptist or yeah yeah i mean howard wasser's main critic or not critic uh one of the mainstreams of uh critiques for howard wasser is the nebarian right right reinhold and richard neber and one of of Hauerwas' criticisms of Niebuhr is that, first, Niebuhr at one point is like the United States is not doing enough to stamp out communism within the United States. There needs to be more arrests. There needs to be more.

He isn't going far enough. And secondly, he says Niebuhr never actually criticizes the United States. If you ask president after president who's their favorite theologian, it's Niebuhr. Yeah. And Niebuhr never stands critically himself over figures like FDR. kind of, I don't want to say chummy chummy with, but his, his program goes along with their political ends and can be co-opted for the sake of their political ends. It's kind of like realistic.

And he says, I'm a realist. You know, we have, we are all sinners, but you can't advocate for policy based on Christian principles. And so the pushback from the Hauerwasians will be if you're not advocating, if you're not living Christianly, believing that the revelation of God in Christ kind of materially changes how you live and the reasons for why you live. If that's not present, it's not Christian anymore. It's something else. It's like Diet Coke. It's like, sure, it's Coca-Cola, but it's not really. It's some facsimile. It's a simulacra, but it's not the real thing. If we believe that

the pursuit of justice is conditioned upon the revelation of God's justice in Christ, then diluting that is not like you can't it's like an either or it's not like you can have more or less revelation of god in christ that's good now that doesn't mean i don't like seek a common life with those who disagree with me and try to form a common life but um i should be wary of yeah viewing christianity as something that can be abstracted or taken away. Yeah. Yeah. One more question for you and I'll let you go. One of the more approaches that was somewhat critical,

influenced by, but also critical of Harawas and others, Jamie Smith is awaiting the King, which I thought was a really good, gosh, challenge around so many levels. I do think, and he'd probably kick my butt if he was here. So, Jamie, I don't think he listens to the podcast. My humble impression is, again, I love so much about that book. Agreed with a lot of it.

The parts I didn't agree with, I was very challenged by. And even like not that I disagree, I'm like, oh, I need to really think through this. with, I was very challenged by, and even like not that I disagree, I'm like, oh, I need to really think through this. I still think there was a somewhat of a weak theology of empire that I didn't see addressed enough in the book, specifically just how the book of Revelation talks about the empire being literally demonic or symbolically demonically empowered, like it's going to be destroyed in the end. Like where's Revelation 13 and 17, 18 in all of our political theologies you know that we await

not the redemption of these imperial systems but the absolute ruthless celebratory destruction of babylon of which i think america is babylonian like. We await the destruction of it. I'm getting, okay, I was going to throw people. Okay, so anyway, but one of the best, most challenging points of his approach, which is also in many other approaches, probably O'Donovan, I just can't understand a word he says, by Christianity being involved in society has left, I think he called it like craters of the gospel, that even things like, you know, societal goods like democracy, free speech, equality, concern for the marginalized and poor, like all these goods in society are Christian values. Because the church wasn't sectarian, because it was involved, have left these craters of the gospel all over society. I thought, I don't know if anything I'm saying would disagree with that,

but it does kind of advocate for more political involvement than maybe I had previously suggested. Is that a right summary of his approach? Yeah, you think he's awaiting the kingdom? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, he's drawing lots of other... He draws mainly, I think, on Onodotov, and so I'm assuming he's interpreting it correctly. What are your thoughts on that?

Because I think it's a valid point. Yeah, I think it's difficult for me. I would want to say, sure, I guess. But it's difficult because you could kind of selectively choose so you'd be like uh democracy yes the modern university maybe the health care system no like it's like but all of those I could tie back I can tie hospitals back to the monastic era I can tie the university back to the monastic era. So at one point, does the crater get filled in? I am amenable to the idea that there can be a distant,

this is someone else's, this is Paul Nimmo's language, a distant creaturely echo of the gospel in the world. I am more than amenable to that. I am reticent to identify it both, I guess, for two reasons. One, I don't know if I am the kind of person that would identify it correctly because of my doctrine of sin. I think that I would pick the things that I like and say this thing is, even in my most critical critical moment that I'm still going to be inclined. I would never say football is a distinct creature. I go with the gospel because I don't like football. But, you know, basketball, of course, chess, of course. And I'm being speaking tongue in cheek, but I think I think we would just kind of pick and choose the things that were more amenable to.

I think we would just kind of pick and choose the things that were more amenable to. I think the second reason I would be reticent to kind of identify something as a necessary kind of imprint or crater of the gospel is because of the just kind of the radically distinct nature of the kingdom of God and its inbreaking. And I would want to maintain that distinction. It just is, it just looks different than I would expect. Um, now that doesn't mean that there are political arrangements that are more conducive to, you know, to the practice of hospitality and a shared common life. I would number democracy among them. Um, I think again, I'd just be reticent to be like, is my, is the thing that I'm seeing as democracy conditioned upon things that I don't actually want to tie to God? Is it like that I don't want to say is contingent upon divine action in some necessarily positive

way? I would just be a little reticent to do that. That's good. That's good. Fill in the craters. Some of the craters don't fill out. That's good. That's a good point.

And I need to think through this much, much more. But my initial thought is I don't see that as completely disagreeing. I don't see like Jamie Smith at other's point as completely even disagreeing with the Anabaptist vision. than a Baptist vision, because I, I, again, I would still go back to the best way to leave traitors of the gospel in society is by the church being the church, which is kind of my fundamental starting point. And also recognizing having a, I would say a rich theology of empire that whatever craters or whatever, whatever good made of the empire, it still isn't that like, it still is an empire um it still is something a way of ruling the world that is fundamentally at odds with god's way of ruling the world that's got to be judged in the end now does that mean we shouldn't pursue it you don't know of course yeah

and yes we should take action when there's blatant injustices going on and stuff but again not leaving like but again yeah just repeating myself again, like by, by being the church, it's the best means to start with. Um, Daniel, I'm running out of steam,

man, but this is my, my, it's like I'm reading O'Donovan again. I'm sorry. Just, I will finish this book, man.

I, I did read resurrection of moral order. I, I felt like I understood that one a little bit better, but Desiring the Nations? Desire of the Nations. Yeah, that one's just, man. His little kind of Bardian exegetical, you know, nine-point font asides,

as an exegete, I actually like, oh, I like with Bard. When I read Bard's Dunion as his 10-page footnote or whatever on some word study, I'm like, oh, I like with Bart. When I read Bart's 10-page footnote or whatever on WordStudy, I'm like, ah, I can handle this. Yeah. Anyway, hey, I really appreciate you, man. When does your book,

title of your book, when does it come out? Does it have a title yet? It does not have a title yet. We're working on that. It comes out spring 2025. Oh, gosh. Okay, it's ways out. Well, hey, I'll have you back on. Remind me and we'll talk about your book when it comes out. Okay. I appreciate it. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.