Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1156: How Jesus Disrupts Politics as Usual: Josh Ryan Butler

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

In this conversation, Preston and Josh talk about his latest book (release date: March 5) The Party Crasher: How Jesus Disrupts Politics as Usual and Redeems our Partisan Divide, which is an incredible book about political discipleship and how followers of Jesus can faithfully engage the political world around us. Joshua Ryan Butler is a pastor and the author of The Party Crasher, Beautiful Union, The Skeletons in God’s Closet, and The Pursuing God. Josh loves shifting paradigms, to help people who wrestle with tough topics of the Christian faith by confronting popular caricatures and replacing them with the beauty and power of the real thing. He and his wife, Holly, along with their three children, live in Portland, Oregon. They enjoy spending time with friends over great meals and exploring the scenic beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and Around. My guest today is my very good friend, Joshua Ryan Butler. He's been a pastor for a couple of decades, is the author of several books, including his about to be released, The Party Crasher, How Jesus Disrupts Politics as Usual and Redeems Our Partisan Divide, which is the topic of our conversation. I just love how not only thoughtful and well-read Josh is, but he's also extremely accessible in how he communicates what could otherwise be very hard to understand truths. He's also the author of Beautiful Union, Skeletons in God's Closet, and The Pursuing God. He and his wife Holly live with their three children in Portland, Oregon. And I don't know how many times Josh is on the podcast, but this is probably at least the third or fourth time he's been on. So please

welcome back to the show, the one and only my very good friend, Josh Ryan Butler. Josh Butler, what is going on, man? Hey, Preston. How you doing, man? It's good to see you. We are releasing books on politics on the same day. The same day. Totally. Not even coordinated. Maybe divinely coordinated or something. That's so awesome. Which, by the way, I love your book, man. It's so good. I'm so stoked. Thanks, man. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm so excited. And vice versa, man. What is it about march 5th is there is there something with that day that a publisher or is it just really just it could have been march 6th march 7th or is there something about that i don't know i don't i actually don't know man yeah i don't know that was the date that the publisher suggested uh but i actually don't know if there was i'm sure there was a logic behind it uh it might have had to do with when different things were getting released by,

by the publisher as well. But yeah. Ah, that's true. Okay. I know there was knowing, Hey, we're going into the election season and everything there and wanting to, you know, put resources out there with enough time to be a resource for folks. There's a lot of books coming out on Christians and politics. NT Wright and Michael Byrd are coming out with one. I michael bird are coming out with one i know um patrick miller is coming out with one there's already been a couple i've seen come out so yeah hopefully

the the conversation well i yeah it's such an important conversation i'm glad there's multiple stuff coming out but we talked offline how our books perfectly complement each other really because i spend most of my energy on kind of like ex-jesus biblical theology you take you would very much your book kind of agrees with i would say a lot of at least what i'm saying but now you take a boots on the ground and this wasn't planned it's not like we coordinated but you're you're saying okay what does living out this kind of distinctly christian political identity look like in in the in the in the pews in society how do we do this? So anyway, I'm excited about your book, bro.

It's really, really good. I love yours. I feel like yours is like first century, like deep biblical theology. What, you know, getting into the imagination and the theological power of what was happening in the first century with some application for today.

And then, yeah, I feel like mine heavies up on like, okay, 21st century boots on the ground as you said kind of the pastor in me going how do we shepherd people in kind of the nitty-gritty dynamics of living well together as the people of god in this fragmented fractured polarized culture how did you get into this topic and i'll just say this topic as let's just call it political theology um is this something you've always been interested in or is this more of a recent thing How did you get into this topic? And I'll just say this topic as, let's just call it political theology. Is this something you've always been interested in or is this more of a recent thing? Well, with this book in particular, it was kind of getting my tail kicked during the

last few elections. I knew it as a pastor. I'd just seen the tensions of a church navigating, leading in a church during the polarization all. But deeper, bigger picture. Yeah. You know, back in seminary, someone turned me on to political theology. Someone turned me on to Oliver O'Donovan was a big one. I remember reading Augustine's City of God and just the political theology that was implicit there, just kind of rocking my world. And then getting turned on to Oliver O'Donovan,

kind of a political theologian out at Oxford and finding his stuff so compelling and powerful. I kind of went through my Howard Voss Yoder phase of reading those guys for a bit. William Cavanaugh was a huge influence. And I don't know, then it just kind of spread out and have loved as kind of a side hobby reading and reflecting on political theology. And part of that, too, even just practically as a pastor. So I was pastoring here in Portland for my first 15 years of ministry and an environment where we were working with the mayor and civic leadership and trying to really cultivate good relationships with the city and kind of going,

how do you do that? You're in kind of a cultural climate that is a bit hostile to the church and you're trying to build constructive bridges. And yet how do you know where the boundaries and kind of going, how do you do that? You're in kind of a cultural climate that is a bit hostile to the church and you're trying to build constructive bridges. And yet, how do you know where the boundaries and lines are for maintaining the integrity of your witness as the church community in relationship with the government and the state and all. And then working in Vietnam and Cambodia simultaneously, I was like our outreach pastor. So part of my role was our global partnerships. And so working a lot in Vietnam with persecuted church leaders, you know, leaders in the underground church, and then some leaders with the state sanctioned church, you know, and learning

from how they were grappling with what is our relationship as the church look like with government in a context of real explicit like persecution and all. And so that was some of the background, think pastorally theologically on those issues but then in the last uh few elections you know particularly 2016 and 2020 just seeing churches i love get hammered by the division in our culture. So, you know, one story I share in the book and the opening is a church we're really close friends with. It was a congregation in the network was a part of and they had half the church left, you know, in 2020. So they had a 1500 out of,000 people left and left angry. It was in the midst of a pandemic and political conversations. The lead pastor had put out a video on Instagram that seemed really tame, you know, but a group

of eight leaders kind of left the church and left angry, reading it really through the grid of kind of this partisan ideology that they were enamored with and began basically seeking to take down the church. You know, like they started coffee shop conversations with people they knew. They started scouring every pastor across all 10 congregations in our network, scouring every pastor's social media feeds, watching every pastor's sermon, checking our spouse's social media feeds, looking for ammo to take down the church. There were videos that started circulating saying that the lead pastor of this particular church was under the influence of Satan and was leading God's people astray. And it was just wild. And it was all like gossip and slander,

like there was no truth to it. And it worked like half the congregation left and left angry and split. And so seeing that and as a congregation that we loved and were in strong relationship with Angus going, it broke my heart. And knowing so many friends and leaders nationally who are experiencing the same thing. I just had a conversation this week with a pastor here in Portland who had the exact same experience here at their congregation here in Portland. The congregation split in half over political division. Yeah. So I'd say that's the backdrop. And in our congregation, you know, I was really blessed with, I was leading together with a good

friend of mine, Jim Mullins, co-leading together. And he had so much brilliance and wisdom because we were brainstorming together back in 2019 going, how do we try and equip our people in 2020 for the election that's coming? And we didn't do everything perfectly, but there were some things that I think really helped us weather the storm and to keep united at the table, even with our different political leanings that everyone in the congregation and even us as leaders had. So a lot of the book was born out of that of going, man, in case there's some stuff here, we'd love to resource and try and help equip the church with lessons learned

on navigating the political division of our moment. I want to come back to maybe towards the end of our conversation, kind of like what this political discipleship looked like, especially now another election year, you know? Um, cause yeah, I, I, I mean, that's tragic that the first story you told about that, that's just on a theological level, that's just insane. What, what was the angle? Can you tell us like, I don't, I don't know how many details are completely relevant, but I mean, was it, as you're describing it, my, my, where my mind went in my assumptions was it was this kind of suspicion that the church was going progressive. They probably use the term woke. I don't like that term, but, um, you know, and so they're

kind of sniffing out, you know, anything that could look like social justice, CRT, BLM, you know, kind of all these things is that was that am i off on that yes yep exactly yeah totally that that was so i go into detail about justice or racism or yeah yes so one of the chapters in the book i go into a lot more detail on the whole story and whatnot but what was crazy was um dude you saw so many people like uh reading into things that were not being said. You know? So for example, I shared one story where we did,

we had this visitor at the church who was going like, why do you guys have these all lives matter posters all over your church? And we were like, what are you talking about? All lives matter posters. You guys got these all lives matter posters plastered all over the church. And we're like, did we get your feet eat or,

you know, like what's happening can you show us these posters he goes over and shows us and what these posters are are um dude for over 10 years the vision of the church is you know all of life is all for jesus like all of life is all for jesus so he was seeing all life is all for jesus and hearing that it's like you guys all lives matter and all angry you know and it was like dude hearing stuff we weren't saying so he was coming you know that that one uh more from uh the the left side of the spectrum but then you had other people from the right you know like

where we had one uh pastor who gave this message at a at a friend's church in our network. And he was talking about progressive sanctification, you know, and this idea in Christian theology that over time, God doesn't sanctify you overnight. It's a gradual process over time. It happens progressively over time. And afterwards, this lady came up to him so angry and was just like, why are you saying that if I'm becoming sanctified, I'm going to become more progressive? And he was like, dude, what in the world are you talking about? And then if that wasn't enough, he had two emails that week

from people in the congregation angry that he was saying, you're going to become more progressive as you get sanctified. Oh, so that wasn't just a one-off. Wow. It wasn't just a one-off thing, dude. And so what's crazy is how much I think people get into this ideological bent and this filter, and then they're hearing everything through that filter and it can start distorting like what

they're actually hearing, you know? Um, Josh, I mean, you've been in ministry for, you've been in ministry for a long time and you're saying this is, you've seen that this kind of thing happened way more recently than ever before. Where's that coming? Like, can you unearth some of that for us? Is it, is it just Trump and Trumpism 2016, 2020? Is it increased social media, independent news outlets, bias? What is it? Like, what, where did, how did those lenses get so thick where we will read into stuff like crazy, you know? Yeah. Well, the angle I take from the book is looking at it as religious conversion. You know, like if you were to wake up tomorrow and a third of your church had converted to another religion,

let's say someone become Buddhist, someone become Hindu, one dude's now Zoroastrian or whatever, you know, and, and you're going like, dude, what, what is going on? But there's still a part of your church. They don't leave. And they're kind of, you know, sharing their, we found faith with friends at the church over coffee and whatever else. And, but then as soon as you start confronting or unwilling to go along with it, they break fellowship, they leave the church and all. And the reality is, I would argue or suggest like that's actually happened. The problem is that we don't think of them as religions because we're not talking here about like the old school world religions but more of the new school political religions you know um and that politics today has taken on like a religious

type of character and so uh in the one of the things I try and map out in the first chapter of the book and section of the book really is looking at some of the political ideologies today that people are converting to in droves as like religious ideologies, which historically, you to do with like the sense of devotion, something that you were devoted to with like social bonds and expectations that were found up related to that. And I'd argue there's no more zeal or devotion that many people are showing today than to their particular political tribe and allegiance. And that that allegiance has taken on kind of an ultimate sense that is now competing with people's devotion to Christ. That was one of my favorite parts of the book so far. So I told you offline, I didn't finish the book. I was pretty far along in the book. Then I left it on the airplane, so I didn't get to finish it.

So you need to send me a post-release copy because I had a pre-release. But that was my favorite part because you spent a lot of time just to – because I've heard people say that, that politics has a religious quality. But you spent a good deal of time in a real accessible way unpacking why that's true. unpacking why that's true, why we can actually say that political allegiance can very easily and often does take on a religious quality. If you just take the basic sense of religion as devotion to something, even things like liturgy and authority and rhythms and practice, like all the things that go into the rhythm of a religious life, they can be easily mapped onto one's devotion to a political party. Not that any sort of voting

a certain direction will necessarily mean you are adopting a alternative religion, but it often is the case, isn't it? I mean, because that's the question I often get, because I talk about political idolatry, not giving your allegiance to a political party and people are like, what? So you don't think I could vote for whatever? They're like, you don't. And I'm like, well, I'm not necessarily saying that.

I'm just saying that it's like a vacuum. It's sucking you into the vortex of wanting your, it doesn't just want your vote. It doesn't just want you to say, well, I kind of resonate with these values over here more than these, or I think this leader might be better than this. It doesn't want to stop there. It wants your heart. It wants your full devotion. It wants your wallet, you know?

Yeah. Right? Yeah, totally. I mean, I think the reality is people are spending billions of dollars to turn your allegiance in these directions, you know, and there are liturgical rhythms and practices in American life now. One of those I talk about in a later chapter, but how America has a new national liturgy, which is the crisis of the week, you know, and the newest thing that everyone needs to figure out if they're going to respond to or how. going to respond to or how. And so how do we navigate that? You know, that's the whole thing. But there is a reality that like both in terms of the power and presence and pressure of these ideologies, the liturgical rhythms that we are now in as a nation that are shaping and forming us in these ways. And I think it's totally great. You know, I argue that the goal, as I put it,

it's not to be apolitical or centrist or anything like that. We need our different political leanings in the body of Christ. And so I try and map out what I see some of those leanings being today and how we need your lean, but the call is to bring your lean, but to submit your bow, right? Like to bring your lean to the table of the body of Christ, but to submit your bow. And a lean is having a different perspective, some different insights from your background, your experience, your political leanings and all, the bow is having a different allegiance, like ultimately being beholden to some of these ideological events that don't have Christ as their ultimate authority.

I remember working through that section and I agree with all of that. Leans can be good. Leans can be really good, but when they lead to bows, that's when it gets problematic. The lean saying, here's the values of this political party. There's several values here that I resonate with. Maybe more this political party has several things that I just don't resonate. I'm not completely on one side or the other, but I kind of lean this, maybe this direction. I guess, well, it's kind of what you said earlier, though, like there's so much baked into the whole system that is trying so hard to turn your lean into a bow. Can we actually lean and not end up bowing is, I guess, my question.

Well, maybe you can, but is it? Maybe to get a little more concrete, you so in in chapter one i talk about what i call the four political religions of trying to map out what leaning and bowing might look like with each of these right so uh and these are uh so you can imagine for those who are listening like four quadrants right so we tend to think of left right like on a left right axis um and which is true but what we often miss is there's also a top-down axis, which described from modernity at the top down to post-modernity at the bottom. And so one of the things I try and do in chapter one is show how I believe the shift from modernity to post-modernity has actually kind of split the traditional political parties and the

traditional spectrum and led to these four political religions. So if you think upper left, this is sort of the modern left quadrant would be what I call the religion of progress. And this is stuff my friend Jim and I kind of brainstormed and used in 2020. So upper left would be religion of progress, whose creed is we can change the world. And so this is like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, like iPhone, Silicon Valley, like we can change the world. The worship leader is Bono on the global stage. Like the apologists are Steve Pinker and Sam Harris. Look how great civilization has brought us.

There's a sense of like we can use institutions, technology, reason, science, all these things to transform and change the world for the better. Now, if we go upper right quadrant, so the modern modern right i call this the religion of responsibility and here this is like pull yourself up by your bootstraps and so this is uh i think classic like ronald reagan conservatism historically like newt gingrich and uh milton friedman economics you know and there's a sense of um everyone needs to take responsibility for themselves for their family for their job. If we all just took personal responsibility, then we can change the world for the better. Things would be much better.

Uh, and today I'd say the baton has been passed to maybe leaders like Jordan Peterson. You know, uh, if you want to change the world, start by making your bed, take responsibility for yourself. Um, that kind of thing. You think of Jocko Willink and kind of the extreme ownership sort of crowd, folks like David Coggins and that crowd. And so anyways, there you got kind of what I grew up thinking, like left and right, right? Like the religion of progress and religion of responsibility. And real quick, because those are both in the upper quad, upper level, there's a similarity that they share even though i mean it's almost

like those are kind of like your classical classical liberals and classical republicans right i mean there's a a big difference between aoc and bill maher right even though they would both be on the left so to speak they're going to clash just as much as they're going to probably clash more than they got then they're going to agree i don't know why those two examples came you know but but it's a good totally well i think you even i don't know if you mentioned bill barbie mentioned aoc is well you'll get to that quadrant but like i say i see some enlightenment rational kind of reasoning behind both of those camps even though they're on different sides politically i think that's really helpful to understand exactly because you know

as you mentioned one example just comes to mind off the cuff right now but is um the harper's letter in the day. And you saw folks like Noam Chomsky and Salman Rushdie and, you know, a lot of like historic left leaning upper left figures. And some of the biggest heat and pushback they got was from the postmodern left, like not from the right, you know, but from actually left wing figures. figures and um i'm looking at this in a minute but it's also i think interesting we think of some of the i don't know if they're still calling this but the intellectual dark web idw you know or like like joe rogan or ben shapiro or uh or um sam harris or you know these folks that lean in a lot of different directions right and left but what they share in common is that they're high center they're very modern, like very enlightened. They're very pro-free speech, too. Let's debate it out. Let's hash it out.

They're both against kind of cancel culture. Exactly. They're both very modern, kind of reacting against the postmodern. Yeah. So then you got the shift from modern to postmodern. And what does that mean? Well, I think all the philosophy majors are going to slap me right now for how simplistic I'm going to be. But I think if we think of modernity as like the scientist in a lab coat trying to dissect and organize and understand the observable world out there,

and we think of postmodernity as the artist painting a picture of themselves as the artists. Like there is this sense of institutions, science, reason, these sort of things have let us down. They've given us world wars, nuclear weapons, eugenics, like all these things done by institutions in the name of science and reason. And now with post-minority, there's a high distrust on any bigger story, any bigger narrative, There's a high distrust on any bigger story, any bigger narrative, distrust in those things. And so now there's a high emphasis on other things. So in the lower left, I refer to this as the religion of identity, which is live your truth. You know, the creed there would be live your truth, where now there's a sense we still want progress. We still want change, but we no longer trust necessarily institutions and science and authority and reason those things to get us there.

And so now the locus of change has now gone from the external to the internal, to look within yourself, live your truest self, your authentic desires, a high emphasis on self-expression. And here we can think of like the urban core and the revolutions around gender and race and things of that nature, you know, a high emphasis on identity, on personal identity and who you are. I think of things like personality tests today, you know, like how they've skyrocketed in popularity. Understand yourself and know the true you. Think of the Disney script, you know, like all the, I don't know, all the narratives are around finding and becoming your most authentic true self, right?

And then if we go to the lower right, I would call this the religion of security, where now there is this sense of where the motto or creed here, the religion of security is good fences make good neighbors. And here there's a sense of like, dude, the world is a dangerous place. We need boundaries and borders and rules of conduct to help insiders know how to live together and all. And the high priest of, you know, this religion, well, I think here we're talking about the distrust in institutions and all, right right and here there's high rhetoric around like dude the deep state is out to take away your rights like big pharma is pushing its pills and its vaccines on you um the fake media is pushing its narratives on you and so there's a high degree on loyalty like we need to stick together and band together against these things so they don't

destroy us and so there's still a kind of responsibility but it's not to these bigger objective moral goods out there it's kind of to deep bonds of loyalty with your in-group your smaller crowd and tribe to tend together and so to your point how do we three three names came up alex jones trump and christian nationalists in the capital C. And, you know, would all three of those belong in that final quadrant? Because a lot of kind of fear and just like that deep state stuff. Well, you mentioned, yeah, like, you know, I'd say the high priest of this religion would be Donald Trump, you know, and you think of his most viral campaign slogans. So things like build the wall that spoke to security in a context of borders and immigration

issues. You think of drain the swamp that spoke to this deep suspicion of elites and institutions. Again, kind of the postmodern distrust of authority and institution. I think of make America great again, kind of this patriotic nationalism in the face of globalization. And actually, as one friend pointed out to me, you know, he kind of grew up in 90s hip hop culture. And as we were, you know, processing through this, he's like, man, it actually feels like, you know, the religion of security maybe

thrives in the Midwest, kind of the heartland, but also thrives in historically in kind of hip hop culture. You know, like you think of gangs, for example, and there's this high emphasis on loyalty, like the streets are dangerous, The police are out to get you. Society doesn't understand you. Like we need to stick together. Our safety's at stake. And the loyalty is not so much to a sacred code of contact out there, but rather to those of us in here, the insiders. You've got patriotic signs of identification, like gang colors and tattoos. like gang colors and tattoos uh the biggest sin is being a snark or a niche or a traitor um so i'll have to say though that uh real quick the worship leader the worship leader is uh the rich man north of richmond guy yes yeah yeah so the worship leader yeah so the worship leader

and the religion of security is the north of richmond guy and the worship leader in the religion of identity would be like uh lady gaga and little nas x you know like constantly performative self-reinvention you know yeah yeah and it's funny because the people the people in the upper quadrant tried to adopt that guy as their worship leader and he kind of gave the finger to him so i'm not i'm not just because they're both on the right he's like no we're in different quadrants this is josh i mean that yeah the more i think about it because i remember reading that chapter and constantly thinking okay what about this person what would this person and you're trying just to be clear i didn't see you trying to develop these airtight category these are these are you know the lines are fuzzy and you know these are kind of generalized heuristic kind of grids. But it was really helpful to understand how people on the same political side can often kind of have come at the same questions from a very different angle.

Anyway, yeah. Totally, man. Yeah, well, and to your question, yeah, and definitely I acknowledge in this chapter. I'm painting with broad brushstrokes, you know, so this is uh you know speaking generally but i do think there's you know there's interesting there was a fascinating cover story in the atlantic while back on like the four americas and he was essentially charting out these same four categories and we've been preaching about those at redemption or walking through this stuff and uh at our church and what struck me was like oh my gosh he called them he used different language for them. He called the, um, there was, um,

free America, just America, smart America, and real America. And so smart America was like the religion of progress, Silicon Valley and so on. Um, free America was like the one of responsibility upper right adjust America was religion of identity, lower left. And real America was the religion of security. And so he was mapping these on sociologically in kind of this really powerful article. And what struck me, I was reading it and going like, oh, my gosh, he stole those categories from Jim, my friend who we got to develop this stuff together.

And I'm sure he didn't actually listen to our sermons or anything like that, you know, so I'm joking. But he was describing it sociologically, these four categories. But what I liked about Jim's terminology and the categories we used is it actually helps us to give some theological categories, kind of like value, values that we can can engage and so what i mean by that is it relates to your question of how can we lean without bowing i think it's recognizing that each of these four values are actually god-given values right like we see in the garden of eden we see progress we see responsibility we see identity and we see security. And so we see progress. There's a call to cultivate the garden. It starts in a garden and the story ends in a city,

you know, the cultural mandate. We see responsibility that Adam and Eve are giving responsibility for their family and their job, their work and the things, the mandate that they're given. We see themes like the image of God and their identity as male and female and the nations that are going to come from them are emphasized in Genesis. We see security that's called to protect the garden and God as ultimately a protector and defender. And so these are basically, these are biblical themes when they become ultimate and kind of uprooted from god's creational design like they become distorted and idolatrous and and can actually unleash havoc and destruction and so i think i think we're seeing that today

and how many people are treating these ideologies and all and so i think part of leaning bringing your lean is recognizing hey there's insight i have in my whatever quadrant I lean towards. There's insight that I have that is good for the body of Christ to have that perspective present. from the broader body of Christ and go all in on this political religion, it can wreak destruction in my own life. And our political religion can wreak havoc in the world. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you clarified that because when you were,

when you, even when you're describing the different quadrants, people could think that you're like critiquing them, but it's just purely descriptive. You're not, you know, um, so if people were like,

wait a minute, like, you know, like when I heard you say, you know, deep state, I'm like, well, I'm totally, Hey, Hey man, get a little closer.

There is a deep state and it's totally corrupt. And you know, but I'm not Alex Jones, you know, when he talks about the deep state, I'm like, no, no, no, you're not. But, um, but you're, you're, you're saying like there there's pros and cons and neutrals that, you know, there's things in all of those that, um, are on a spectrum of good, neutral, bad, whatever. It's just when they become kind of tribalized and when your allegiance – yeah, when they become religious, right? Because even people – I listen to some secular commentators that also talk about the deep state and I might be like, oh, yeah, yeah. But then they start to get a little tribalistic and they use this we us them kind of us who are opposed to deep state them who you know it's like ah i can see myself getting sucked into that tribe i already have a tribe i already have a tribe uh i joined it 2 000 years ago long before i even knew it you

know like yes yes but my reform leaning is coming out really quick on that though dude i do think the best way to tell which quadrant you lean towards is which one you get most defensive of. Like the one that you find yourself defending going, ah! But like you're saying, yeah, the goal is just to be descriptive at that stage, just trying to map out. Because I found it's helpful. I think so many of us are going like, what the heck just happened?

Like the last 48 years or, you know, like what in the world? what the heck just happened like the last 48 years or, you know, like what in the world, like feels like something, something hit that's hard to make sense of for many of us. And so I found taking some time to try and map the lay of the land helpful for just giving some clarity. For me, it's been helpful. And I think for many that I know, and even our church to kind of go, Oh, I can see where people lean that are maybe coming from a different place than I am that actually has some value. Hey, friends, 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. I'm only mildly pushing because I don't necessarily disagree, but can your lean be just a lean and not a bow? But again, it just goes back to the point that there are forces at work. And I'm not even talking spiritually. Well, I would include that for sure. There is a dragon behind the beast that is doing things to pull your allegiance away from the kingdom of God.

Like that, you know, theologically, that's not hard to justify. But even just on a more practical level, even if we don't overly spiritualize things, like I just constantly think of things like social media algorithms, the billion dollar marketing industry that's designed to suck you into a tribe. Um, so you spend more money and you get more fearful and you keep clicking and clicking and you click on this YouTube video and it says, oh, you like Ben Shapiro destroying this, you know, lib? Oh, here's 10 more. And, you know, and you get sucked into this echo chamber, really. And the whole system is kind of,

when I say system, I think people could, you know, just, yeah, between media, social media, forces at work, the high priests of all these different, you know, just, yeah, between media, social media, uh, forces at work, the high priests of all these different qualities, you know, like, like they're, they're, they don we should be very vigilant and aware of that at the very least. But then even that, like, I don't know. I find myself, I'll listen to certain news outlets. And I go across the board. I'll listen to all kinds, but I'll listen to like, even this 10 minutes of like this tribe. And all of a sudden I could totally see within seconds how somebody could be so tribal. You listen to like Ben Shapiro for like 10 minutes or something, or you listen to whatever the pod save America guys on the other side, wherever the opposite is, or Rachel Maddow or, you know, like you can get easily sucked into this kind of this, this, this bow bow really and think that the other side is the enemy and everybody else is stupid and you know i i just don't i don't know it's hard it's uh

i i am a little skeptic suspicious about being able to lean and not bow and by lean not maybe well maybe maybe this is where we where i totally like i lean towards maybe certain values that happen to intersect at certain points across political parties. But they're dealing just with a completely different playing field than I am when I talk about immigration. They're coming at it from this nation-state perspective. I'm coming at immigration from a member. I'm a stranger sojourning in the land that we now call the United States of America. And how do I think about when I encounter the immigrant? And like questions around the wall

and not wall and all this stuff with like, those are empire questions that are just not unimportant to me, but are just not, those aren't the primary questions I'm even asking about immigration. I'm getting off on a tangent. This is, this is, I'm so sorry. No, no. Yeah. A couple, well, a couple of thoughts, you know, the first one would be that, yeah, you know, I think that, um, one of the biggest ways that I'd say maybe the biggest sign that you're being is becoming about is your quickness to break fellowship with people who see the world, you know? And so I think this is a major,

one of my big hopes and the goal is to help equip us as the church to stay united together in jesus even with our different opinions you know and so uh i i would suggest today like this is the new church split like we're seeing all over the country churches split and reorganize and fracture around the four political religions and so i'm even seeing many churches almost like marketing campaigns plant a flag in one of the four quadrants and we're going to be the security church and they're getting tons of growth we're going to be the security church. And they're getting tons of growth. We're going to be the identity church. And tons of growth. We're going to be the responsibility. We're going to be, you know, and I think that we're facing a

danger that the new denominations, so to speak, are not like around doctrinal lines, doctrinal lines. They're actually around cultural division. And so one of the, I think, a crisis that the church is facing today as it relates to politicalhip, is that the church is fracturing and reorganizing along political fault lines. Basically, I think one of the biggest signs that your lean is becoming a bow is that you are contributing to and participating in that reality. You know, you are allowing your political allegiance to fracture and divide the body of Christ for which he died, you know, so that would be one observation, you know, a second observation, I think would be that I really spent a lot of time in the book, especially in the second half, trying to get

very practical in what I call, you know, formational practices for a polarized world, and what are practices that we can do as the body of Christ to keep our ultimate allegiance to Jesus and to stay together, even with our different political leanings. And it's not necessarily like I'm trying to create like a ton of new practices. Hey, you got to add all these things to your busy life, but more looking at how a lot of the contemporary, you know, a lot of historic Christian practices that we already do are political in nature. And when we recognize them as such, they can help us. So to give an example, I have one chapter on kind of our, you know, scattered practices. So things that we do scattered in our individual lives, the people of God.

And one of those is simply like reading scripture and the whole story of God. Um, because each of the political religions has a particular narrative that it's telling, you know, kind of the narrative of we can change and transform the world on our own power apart from God, you know, the progress one, or their religion of responsibility. Like like just you don't need grace just take responsibility for yourself and pull yourself up by your bootstraps or their religion of identity you know like um just look within and find your deepest truest authentic desires and express those world that's how you're going to find meaning and fulfillment or a security like we just need to fear others from the outside if we can establish you know like there are these

distortions that the political religions can fearer towards. And we need the narrative of scripture to actually confront those narratives with the true story of Christ and his kingdom for our world. And so I think when we look at reading scripture, not just as a personalized thing I do in my study over here, but actually a way of engaging the story of God in a world with competing stories that are vying for my allegiance. It can help shape us to be a unique and particular type of people in our polarized world. Another quick one, but just like, sounds simple, but table fellowship, like meals, you know, like having meals with people who lean different directions. And even one of these we sought to do at our church was to have our small groups, people staying equipped to stay united with people in their groups who had different needs and were from different different perspectives.

Because there's a book, The Big Sort, with Bill Bishop, an book on, on polarization and stuff today. And one of the observations he makes is mixed company moderates and homogeneous company pushes you to the extremes. And so if you're only hanging out in the echo chamber, whether online or in your neighborhood or with people who see the world the same way you do, it's going to push you into more the extreme divisive, dangerous thinking.

If you are in relationship and proximity and conversation and all with people who lean different ways, um, that's going to moderate your views in ways that I think will be more healthy. And, uh, it's not necessarily, again, it's not saying you got to be centrist or but it's saying that you're going to understand maybe the complexity involved a different level or um so i think valuing community with people who see the world differently from you and um and how quickly today families friendships churches are fracturing along these political fault lines is it by its very nature that reality is pushing us into more extreme positions and views that conflict with our allegiance to Jesus. And so I think simply throughout being committed to staying at the table

together is a commitment to keeping your lean from becoming a bow. And I, yeah, that's, that's really helpful. It's a lot. Imagine when you come face to face with an actual embodied human being and share a meal and talk about all the commonalities you have, whether it's your favorite sports team or favorite kind of food, or you both like to travel or something like we, we have so much more shared humanity than opposing humanity. That doesn't, it's kind of a weird way to word it, but you know what I mean?

Like, um, but I, but you know what I mean? But yeah, I do wonder too, and I know social media always is a boogeyman or whatever, but at the end of the day, I think it actually is pretty true. People that spend a good bulk of their social environment simply on typically Twitter. I don't know, TikTok, maybe that's similar. I don't know.

Or even YouTube's a different animal, but that too, typically twitter um i don't know tiktok maybe maybe that's similar i don't know or or even like youtube's a different animal but that too like if that's how you view the world like man you just get so incredibly polarized like it yeah every now and then i'll glance at like twitter and people that are just it's the same people always on there all and it's like they're just so angry and it's like so dry so us versus them and stuff and it's like they're just so angry and it's like so dry so us versus them and stuff and it's like yeah i don't know it's yeah that's got to be a big that is a big part right that's been pretty good that's yeah you know as i mentioned on the you're going to a bunch of practices but one of them also talk about fasting and even you know a digital fast and

you know basically one of things we did in 2020 was the 40 days leading into the election, we asked our people to fast from social media. And the idea was, the idea was everybody's minds already made up by this point. You know, that's when I think, and sadly, I think that's when a lot of churches or leaders are thinking, okay, it's September, let's start talking about politics. And we're like, dude, I think you need to go way back on the front end. We should be talking about this stuff now to help prepare people for what's coming and so uh you know so we spent more of the earlier part of the year preparing and equipping and all that and then when it came to the 40 days prior we're like hey everybody's minds

pretty much already made up people know who they're voting for people know where they're going uh we want to call to a digital fast um and one of the pushbacks that you know a couple people gave was like well it feels like we're disengaging from the real world you know and and my pushback was like dude social media is not the real world you know like like dude social media it's algorithms and people spending loads of billions of dollars trying to get your attention capture your attention and push you into market like uh i'm not saying it's bad i'm on social media i enjoy being on it but uh but i think having a health of you like the goal here is to actually engage with the real world to get off of this manufactured world that's fine for your allegiance and to connect with real people with real flesh and bone and for sure and to dig in and get to

know their stories and to hear you know a lot of tips in the book on how to have good healthy conversations around politics and these things but going like that those practices of fasting from digital stuff today like can actually help us reconnect with the real world and be healthier and more realistic in our political engagement. Along those lines, we've talked offline quite a bit about different political approaches, kind of the Donovan versus Harawas approaches. So I'm constantly trying to find the balance or tension of not letting national politics suck my heart into its vortex to turn my lean into my bow. So I'm resisting that. And sometimes if I resist that too far, I can become very,

almost force myself to become indifferent towards national politics. The pushback, of course, is, well, that's nice for you because you live this privileged life out in Boise, Idaho, and you're not affected by who's running the White House or whatever, but there's a lot of people that are. And so, because I absolutely do not believe in a separatist position. I argue that very clearly in the book. I'm not arguing for separating yourself from society, just engaging society in a, in a different manner than is, than is typically proposed. Um, how do you, how do you personally navigate that? Like when it comes to the, when it comes to November, do you just kind of shrug your shoulders and say,

ah, whoever gets elected fine. Or are you like, ah, I really think this, hope this person does, but if not, I'm not gonna lose my mind. Not gonna lose my mind, but this is not gonna be good. i'm gonna try to like vote in the other direction so that this other person doesn't get elected because i think that is actually going to be harmful for society where do you how do you navigate that tension versus like indifference or over different overly invested to where it's like you're yeah you understand what i'm saying totally no that's great yeah one of the ways i love to navigate this is trying to expand our frame for what we

mean by political involvement you know so i have one chapter called creative options for political involvement because i feel like a lot of us feel like we only have three options which is kind of what you mentioned we've either got like the donkey option or the elephant option you know democrat or the ostrich option which is bury your head in the sand and wait till it all blows over, you know? But actually, I think we actually have both in scripture and in church tradition, many more options.

So I lay out six other options and just kind of summarize them. Like the local option, which is really going, you talked about national politics, but I think there's actually so much that we can do locally in our community. We started these things called prayer and action groups in 2020, just going, man, often these get pitted against each other. You've got the crowd that's like, we're just going to pray about it, but not do anything. And they grow up, we're going to be

all about action, but they get burnt out and, you know, like on their own steam and going, man, we want to invite people to commit. So we started the first two. One was on sanctity of life and one was on criminal justice, which an issue that, you know, people lean right and left each to care about strongly. to invest a year in one of these groups with a dozen other people that you would read some of the best resources on the subject that you would meet with local leaders in our city who are working on this issue and that you would find and commit to something practical that we could do as a church to make a difference in this area here in our community and that you would pray throughout this whole process intentionally and all and it was going to we're going to get invested locally and the impact was dramatic like actually the tangible stuff that we saw. And I feel like so often the long game of, it's like Jesus' parable of the yeast and the dough, you know, the stuff

that makes the biggest impact long-term is not always the outside in, it's the little seeds that you begin planting and nurturing and so on. And so I think if Christians around the country, if we were invested locally in our communities with that kind of impact, it could have a huge deal and still vote nationally, but work locally. Like I'm going to vote, I'm going to put my national vote in. But one option that gives me a lot of hope is getting my hands in the trenches, you know, into the soil of my local community and working for the kind of change I want

to see nationally in our city. Second option, I was the Daniel option, which is going to there are some people like Daniel in the Old Testament who are, I believe, called to political office who have maybe a vocation to be in that environment. We've had a number of people in politics in the last two churches where I've pastored and recognize man there's some complexities that come when you're like Daniel's working in Babylon and I love the story where at the beginning he they want in Babylon they want to you know change his name to the name of a pagan god and to give him this diet of the stuff you know he, he refuses the meat from the King's table, but he lets them name him the name of pagan God. And I'm going like, what the heck, Daniel? Like,

dude, take the steak, but don't let them name you after, you know, like some foreign God or whatever. And scholars are torn on like, why, why that decision? Uh, but it's praised and commended in scripture. And I think there's a sense of going like, often like Daniel, there can be situations where politics is the art of compromise. And for politicians being in that place as a follower of Jesus with the local politics or national, there may be places where you make decisions that might be hard to understand from the outside looking in. And I think we need a lot of space and grace. That's not to say that you should compromise in your character, ethics or, you know, convictions, but that you can work for the common good in ways that, like Daniel, are going to be

complex and difficult, you know. And there I'm drawing, you know, on the local option, I'm drawing on the subsidiarity tradition in Christian theology that places a high emphasis on the local with the Daniel option trying on the kind of the Kuyperian tradition of sphere sovereignty of I don't go more into that in the book I'm going too long here so just to sum up the others you know they've got the the prophetic option which is more like the MLK prophetic imagination working from outside the system rather than within, but expanding the imagination for what's possible through creative and prophetic action. Then fourth, there's the scuba option, which is kind of like the William Wilberforce, like diving really deep on one particular issue for a long time. I think friends of mine who've done tremendous work in areas like foster care, vulnerable children in our city, and they're not directly involved in politics, but they're the

people that the politicians come to when they're working on policy and changes because they have the expertise in the field to actually know how to make a difference. And then option five is the local, or I'm sorry, is the monastic option option which i think drawing more on the anabaptist tradition where i think some of your leanings might be you know which is going like dude i think the monks often get a bad rap as like being escapist or isolationist but dude the monks transformed the world like they actually revolutionized agriculture and education and learning all these things um by forming an alternative community in the midst of the empire that actually became like that yeast in the dough had dramatic long-term impact and so I think there may be some

people like you mentioned you know and I know some people who are kind of going like dude I just don't feel like I can engage in that political sphere without just feeling compromised or corrupt or I don't know you you know, and going like even still there, I'd say, well, then pour your energy into your local community. Ideally, like a local church community or a place where you get to embody the alternative that you want to see in the world. And that can have dramatic impact. And the final option is the reform option, which is looking at some ways to reform the

system when it comes to how our political system is broken and ways that people can work across party lines to actually transform the political system. Yeah. So are you laying those out as equally valid options? Or would you say that depending on your situation, I mean, we're living in the United States, so we have a distinct political situation. Somebody else might be living in China, South Sudan or something, and they might have a different system. Are you saying that one or two or possibly three of those different approaches might be more faithful than others, depending on your context?

Or are they all kind of equally valid, if that makes sense? I'm kind of thinking of this question on the fly a little bit, just trying to think through. Yeah. You know, I believe they can all be equally valid at the same time. So I, you know, first off, I don't think these are like the exhaustive, the only options for all time, you know, even, and I think for many of their circumstances might push them into a particular option, you know? So I think of when I was working with the persecuted church in Vietnam and kind of underground churches, they're going to have to, they veered very much into the local option, you know, of like, well, even the, I'm sorry, more of the monastic option of going, we don't

really have the option of political involvement in any way because we're not being allowed to. And so we're going to try and be an alternative community that's salt and light and everything in in our context so i do think though that all of those six options have deep roots in christian tradition again themes like subsidiarity with the local option which is uh or kyperian so subsidiarity especially is emphasized in like the catholic tradition um the kyperian is especially emphasized in the reformed tradition with like the daniel option and things there i think of mlk and the black church particularly the prophetic imagination option i think of um the deep history of the monastic movement you know and and some of the deep history of the monastic movement, you know, and some of the Anabaptist themes with the monastic option. I think of powerful leaders throughout history like Wilberforce or like John Chrysostom in the early church when it comes to the scuba option.

I think are deeply legitimate, valuable options and different individuals, depending on their opportunity, place in life, um, are going to maybe be best suited to engage in different, different ways. Yeah, I, I do. I mean, I, you said I resonate with the monastic, I would say a blend of the, I, I, I see as perfectly compatible, the monastic category and the MLK category. That's kind of why in my book, I talk about prophetic witness, where our, you know, the classic, you know, speaking truth to power, and even before that, embodying the truth that we hope to see in the world so that we are, and this is very Harawasian, obviously, you know, the best way the church can shape the world is by being the church, being the alternative policy, alternative center.

Yeah, yeah. So that rather than putting all your energy in ethnic reconciliation in society, which is a good thing, let's make sure we're embodying that as a community so that that sort of embodiment of this multi-ethnic community is spilling over outside of our walls and we can even show the world this is what it looks like you know not just as a signpost but as a tangible means of of actually addressing uh the world this is where i do think howard was gets a bad rap of being more isolation i don't i don't think he's isolationist i think he's changing the kind of way in which we engage the world um the daniel option you

described i mean i talked about about Daniel very briefly in my book and I'm not completely opposed to it. I do struggle with the category of compromise. And I should clarify there. I don't mean like compromise ethically. I mean, hey, we want this, you want this, let's work together and okay, well, we'll give up this in order to, yeah, if that makes sense. I got some examples, but I'd probably take a, yeah. If I did not compromise in my marriage, I would be in big trouble. Oh, I see. Okay.

So not morally, because part of me is like, at least on a national level, like, can you actually be involved in the system of the empire and not sacrifice some fundamental Christian values? Like just this morning, I was rereading Matthew 20, where the rulers of the Gentiles lord over them, but for you, it shall not be so. The first will be last. If you want to be great, be the slave of all. Can you even make it to any kind of political office by washing the feet of your opponent, by not spending exuberant amount of money to get office, to even get recognized? I think it's morally questionable to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars to get into a position of power in the empire, if I could even word it

like that. i don't know like i i've got verses that would challenge that whole the whole the whole system has a view of power that is just i think fundamentally at odds with the kingdom of of god um so could you and you know daniel he was you know he was taken into exile against his will while his friends and family and neighbors were being slaughtered to death and raped by the empire that he was serving. So, I mean, it's not like he like ran for office or something and was like patriotic towards Babylon or something. But I don't know. I honestly, this is where I don't want to get beyond my skis.

Once we start getting into like, I feel fairly confident about kind of cultivating a theologically robust political identity. How does that work out in the different situations we find ourselves in today in the global church? That's where I'm like, I don't know. Let's have that conversation. I don't know how all this works out. I do want to see maybe more of a suspicion of the empire and imperial ways. I want to see more suspicion about that system and how that is at odds with the kingdom of God. I guess maybe that's a good starting point. And then let's talk about, you know, how can we be involved and not be involved and what kind of

involvement would be, you know, maybe unfaithful or other types of involvement would be faithful. But I don't know. Yeah, two thoughts on that. You know, one is, you know, again, I think we immediately kind of jumped to the national and like, could you be president and what it takes to get there? And, you know, that's an important question. But I think it's helpful to even go, okay, in my city, what are some of the different political offices and positions there? And there have been people in our church that have had three people who've been in office, you know, in church and kind of going, how do I disciple them, you know, and as their pastor, how do I shepherd them with some of the complexity of their position, you know, and the things that they're

wrestling through and navigating. But a second too, is I've often wondered what if what if the mayor in our city came to Jesus, you know, like if he actually encountered Christ and then and he came to me as a pastor or whatever and was going, hey, how do I do this? How do I follow Jesus? Do I need to leave office? Do I stay at home? You know, or and what's interesting is you actually see this in the early church you know as you actually see uh civic officials coming to christ and i think this is some of what donovan's claim is like dude the it wasn't we often think like the conversion of the empire um you know is like this top-down thing and he really is more it's this grassroots like the the the kingdom spread over the first few centuries and um if you're rodney stark kind of the grassroots momentum and movement of the church, and then the officials start taking notice. And there could be kind of the cynical, some of them, it's a power play. Well, hey, this thing's got momentum,

let's hop on the train. And there could be some of them that seem like an authentic deal. But either way, they're coming to church leaders like Augustine or Ambrose or others and going, okay, I want to follow Jesus. How do I do this? And I think the question of, does the church have a constructive political vision in those kind of things for a political vision ordered by love, you know, like the love of God for his world, his desire for the fortune of the world with justice, with peace, with those kinds of things. Is there a role that those positions have? And my own bent, I know this is getting us into a whole bigger conversation, but my own bent is like, I think there's a lot of wisdom. There's definitely a lot of mistakes the church has made over the centuries, but I think there's

also a lot of wisdom in the Christian political tradition for having processed through and worked through a lot of those questions in some ways that are pretty profound. Yeah, that's super helpful, man. By the way, I am inching my way through O'Donovan. It's not as hard as I think. He's so hard to read. Well, I couldn't even understand. So the first chapter, yeah, when he was more thinking like, talking like a theologian, but when he gets into that, when he does the Karl Barth, like these kind of dives into the text, and he's actually does a lot more biblical scholarship stuff than I'm like, no, this is okay.

I don't always see, you know, I'm on, I know he's trying to put together the pieces of this larger puzzle. So I'm thinking, I agree with this piece you're crafting with like kingship in the Old Testament and judge and, and prophetic, you know, he's, he digs, he's an exquisite biblical scholar in many ways, even though he's a theologian. But I'm kind of like, well, what's the puzzle you're trying to build here before I kind of jump on board? But all that to say, I'm actually enjoying, it's not, it's, it's less, it's more readable than I made it out to be when we first started talking. I was like, this guy's might as well be speaking German. I don't understand a word he's saying.

Is that a desire of the nations, right? Is it the, yeah, yeah. I is that a desire of the nations right is it yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm like i'm like a third of the way in so i'm excited to see how the if i can understand how he puts it together because i know for those listening i've mentioned o'donovan and harawas a lot and that's kind of the the camps that i'm that i'm wrestling with and i know a lot of people that were they went through this they always call it their harawasian phase and then they came out on the other side a little more level-headed with the Donovan. This is how a lot of people kind of, you know,

the Caitlin Schatz and others who they talk about their Hauerwas phase. And I'm like, am I still in that phase? Or is that actually the end point? It's a good phase. It's an important phase. But I don't think you can be in, you know, in the political theology sphere and go around it. You got to go at least through it, you know, which is a good thing.

But yeah, you know, it's funny. I took a group of uh you know there are about 10 friends back here in portland here back in the day that were going hey we want to kind of go deep theology all of them were kind of interested in the political conversation whatnot and so uh i went through like six different books that year every two months but one of them was o'donovan's desire the nations and oh my Oh my God. And it was, uh, yeah, like that, that was a fun conversation, but man, it was, uh, if you're not used to reading that kind of stuff, it's thick. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, let's, uh, the few minutes we have, let's talk about political discipleship. It is, uh, we're coming up on March, um, at the time of the release of this podcast and, uh, already things are tense. Yeah. Speak to Christian leaders listening and who are maybe aware of some of the,

oh, here we go again. How are we going to keep the church together during this election season? What kind of advice would you give to a Christian leader? Definitely. A few thoughts. One would be, I'd suggest starting sooner rather than later. You know, I do think there can be this sense of like, hey, we'll do something. Because often August, I mean, the summer, I know things can often slow down for churches.

And so then you hit, you know, okay, we'll kind of slow down in the summer and then we'll hit September and it'll be about time. But at that point, it feels like everything's, the formative work of our culture against healthy discipleship has already taken place. And so my advice, even if it's not like a full throttle, maybe there's more that you do later. But I think the sooner the better, you know, like to even be looking at in the spring, like what are ways we can start preparing our people during the winter and spring for what's coming in the fall.

One resource that I just want to throw out there is by the time this podcast releases, it should be up on my website, but I do have what we call a Christian political commitment. We kind of jokingly referred to them as 10 political commandments back at our, our church. 10 commandments, you know, joking because we don't want to confuse them with the actual 10 commandments. But these are things that are commanded by God in scripture. And so this Christian political commitment we used with our people and I think gave a helpful expectation.

Here's how we're going to engage the political season. And so things like the first commitment is worship. I commit my allegiance to King Jesus over all idols and ideologies. The second one, love of neighbor. I commit to participating in civic life as a means of loving my neighbor rather than just serving my own interest. And then there's eight more on like the image of God, biblical wisdom, biblical justice, fruitful speech, peacemaking, removing the log, humble learning, loving enemies.

But we found this helpful just to give a concrete kind of sense of expectations for wherever your political leaning might be. As we go into the season, here are 10 things we want to ask you to commit to as the people of God, you know, as a church that we want to commit to as a church in terms of how we approach our political posture in the season. And we're not going to be perfect. We're sinners. We'll make mistakes.

But at least we're finding clarity on, we believe this is what a healthy political discipleship looks like that can keep us together, even in the midst of our different leanings and all. There's a great book that I read and endorsed by Sean McDowell and Tim Yulhoff. It's called End the Stalemate, Move Past Cancer Culture to Meaningful Conversations. It's a, you know, Jonathan Haidt and his whole, you know. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. So it's like, it takes a lot of those principles about how to have meaningful conversations when we're just at odds with these different viewpoints. It is a really good practical book. I wish it was coming out sooner. It's coming out in June. Because yeah, I do think understanding the deep psychological neighbor of why people even hold so strongly to these commitments, even understanding that helps you go about addressing it in a more healthy way. Because gosh, yeah. My heart goes out to pastors that it in a more healthy, healthy way, you know? Um, cause that, gosh, yeah, I, I don't, my heart goes out to pastors that are in a kind of a mixed congregation that you got people on different sides. It could be an incredibly beautiful thing if it's a lean and not

a bow, but once again, when it's, when you have people bowing in different directions and it's not toward King Jesus, oh man, I pity the fool. I pity the fool. Well, Mr. T-Action. That's really helpful, Josh. So your book, The Party Crasher. What's the subtitle again? I forget the subtitle. Yeah, How Jesus Disrupts Politics as Usual and Redeems Our Partisan Divide.

Did you think of that title, The Party Crasher? Oh, actually, it props to my friend, Jesse Lusko. So I was on a phone call with him back in the day. He's a good buddy, a pastor here in Portland. He's so good. Every preacher needs, like, dude, we'll call each other up to brainstorm ideas when we're working on sermons and that kind of thing, you know. And he's the best. And so I was struggling with the title. I was like, Jesse, I need help with the title.

I had two or three, but just was not stoked on them, you know. And so we spent one night brainstorming. And he was like, oh, there's this sermon series I wanted to do back in the day for the last election called The Party Crasher on politics and all. And he was kind enough to let me use it for this book. And he also had the idea for the cover. Oh, man, where's my book? Anyways, the cover, if you see it, it's got these pinatas, like a pinata of a donkey and that, that was his idea as well. So props to Jesse Lusko for the party crasher title. Yeah. Yeah. The cover is awesome too. Yeah.

It's pinatas. I didn't catch that the first time I just saw the elephant. Um, yeah, it's, uh, yeah, I, uh, from, from both what I've read, it's an outstanding book. And Josh, what I love about your writing is, uh, as you can sense from even our conversation, you're very well read. You typically read in the academic realm, but man, your prose is so readable. I just love how accessible, I mean, it's just so practical. And if you didn't know any better, you would think that you're just kind of like, you know. Yeah, if you go look at the footnotes, you're like, oh, this guy's like read all this stuff. He's actually thought through this on a real academic level.

But it doesn't say there. So I encourage everybody to get the book. And thanks so much for being on Theology Journal, man. Thanks, Preston. Great for you, man. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.