Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1158: Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire: Preston Sprinkle and Ed Uszynski

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

My book Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire releases tomorrow! (3/5). In this podcast conversation, my good friend Ed Uszynski interviews me about my book. As always, we get pretty raw and real--and drive off the road quite a bit. When it comes to the Bible, I feel pretty confident about what I believe about politics. And Exiles is primarily a book about the Bible. But when I wonder into modern political questions and points of application, well, that's where it gets...interesting. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

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postureshift.com forward slash events. I highly, highly encourage you to check it out. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm very excited about my guest today. My guest on Theology in the Raw today is me. I'm going to be a guest on my own podcast. That was weird. And so I reached out to my friend, Ed Uzinski, whom I've known for years, who has been on this podcast several times. And I asked him, would you interview me about my book, Exiles, The Church in the Shadow of Empire, which releases tomorrow, March 5th. So as sort of an introduction to that book, I asked Ed to come on and interview me. And I ask Ed in particular because I think he's a great interviewer.

He asks great questions. He's a very honest thinker. And he's had to think through the intersection of the church and politics, in particular in the area that he's done a lot of work in, the issues related to race, race relations in America. And so he's had to navigate a lot of political things as well. So I thought he'd be a great candidate to come on the show and interact with me about my book. So I hope you enjoy this somewhat different conversation.

And I do encourage you to check out my book, Exiles of the Church and the Shadow of Empire. And you'll get a little sneak peek into that book here on this podcast. So please welcome back to the show myself and my good friend, Ed Uzinski. Ed Yuzinski, been on the podcast, I don't know how many times it's been, four or five times maybe? It's been a few, man. It's been a few. Exiles in Babylon, speaker extraordinaire, author of a forthcoming book. What's the title of your book again? Untangling Critical Race Theory, What Christians Need to Know and Why It Matters. And I read the book and wrote a forward to the book.

It is absolutely outstanding. I want to have you back on to talk where I'm going to interview you about your book when it comes out. But right now, I'm going to pass the mic over to you, Ed, and let you interview me about my book, Exiles, on my own podcast platform here. So I'm going to let you take it away, man, any direction you want to go. Yeah, man. Well, I'm super excited about this book. I told you, you know, how do you decide what's your most important book? I think that it is going to reach a wider audience and is going to have more impact,

maybe, than anything else. Again, you've written some important stuff, but I think it's going to have a wider audience and is going to have more impact maybe than anything else. Again, you've written some important stuff, but I think it's going to have a wider impact just because of the cultural moment that we find ourselves in. So I've got a desk copy called Exiles, The Church in the Shadow of Empire. So the first thing I even want to throw out is just shout out to David C. Cook people, man, because that i think is a super cool that's a super cool cover i agree right i just had my time they killed it man yeah picture of the ruins back there they sent me about six different markups of different cover options well very different too there and there were a couple that i really liked, but that one just jumped out.

And I don't trust myself with a good-looking cover, so I shot it to a bunch of people, and they all unanimously were like, that's the cover. I just think it's super cool. I just sit there and stared at it for the longest time when I got it. Because I like dark stuff too,

so that's probably part of it. I just like the black cover and, again, the ruins in the background. So how about this? How about we start here? What is it that prompted you to go ahead and do this? You were on a writing binge right now, right? You just wrote you've been studying on women leading in the church. You just published the, is it biblical?

What's the title of this? Is it biblical? Is gay marriage biblical? Does the Bible support same-sex marriage? Yeah. I just came out with a book last summer. This is the quickest I've come out with another book within 12 months of a previous book. book within 12 months of a previous book. Um, but this, so this book has really been marinating into my heart and mind and soul for a decade, I would say. Um, it's, it's, you know,

in some ways it's related to my book on nonviolence that came out 2013, which was a product of kind of some prior reflection. So I think in that book, which is directly related to the ethical question of violence, as people, if they're familiar with that book, know, there's this kind of political substructure that's kind of woven throughout the book or just kind of lingering in the background. So I wanted to bring that into the foreground in this book. So there's not a lot of overlap between, there's a little bit of overlap, but I wanted to dive into the deeper political roots. Well, I wanted to wrestle with what is a Christian political identity? How do we view ourselves as a church,

a global church living among the nations, and how should that shape our political questions and discourse today? So yeah, so it's definitely been mulling around in my head for a long time. I do often have done often on reading on the topic. And I've been using, I mean, publicly, I often use the phrase, we are exiles in Babylon. I host a conference called Exiles in Babylon Conference. So I felt like, all right, well, if I'm going to keep using this phrase, I need to probably put some biblical backing to it. And so that's where this book came about. Well, I want to ask you to summarize what the book is. And we will do that.

But I think I'd actually rather go here first, and that is just what do you hope happens with this book? This book will be successful if what happens in the minds of those who do an honest reading of it, say an honest reading of it, because not everybody will, but people that are going to try to read it from cover to cover and absorb what your message is, what difference do you hope it makes? I don't know if I can boil that down to one thing. So just to be clear, 80 to 90% of the book is just Bible. I like to almost think about it as prolegomena for modern political discourse among Christians. Yeah, talk about it. What do you mean by that?

What do you mean by that? Yeah, like I think the tendency is for Christians to cultivate certain political values based on their subtle or not so subtle allegiances to certain partisan tribes. And then they, as Christians, they kind of go back and find, maybe, maybe go back and find biblical support for these values. You know, should the United States of America build a taller wall or not build a taller wall?

Most Christians, you know, across the border of the US and Mexico, a lot of Christians, when they hear that, they're going to have an immediate opinion, usually pretty passionate. But do they have a well-studied set of verses and theological themes that were worked out prior to having that opinion on whether the United States of America should build a higher wall or not have a wall or whatever, whatever questions go on with immigration. So I do think that we begin, and this is, I don't think this is that debated. You could play devil's advocate if you want, but we had these values that had been formed through the political air we breathe. And then we kind of go back to scripture

to find justification for that or defend those values. I want to just flip the whole thing around. I want to say, what if we just marinated ourselves in the storyline of scripture for a long time before we even start to ask or wrestle with those political questions? So that's what I try to do in the book. I was really blown away at how much of Scripture is political in nature, meaning it's either about the political entity of the nation of Israel, or it's about Israel's relationship to other nations, or it's about the early church's relationship to the Roman Empire, or it's about even the church's relationship, Jesus's relationship to the various Jewish factions of the first century. There's so very few parts of scripture are in some way political in nature. So the Bible provides us with a wealth of resources to cultivate a political identity. What does it mean to be a citizen of God's global multi-ethnic kingdom spread among the nations? How do we as individuals and as communities view ourselves as part of that global kingdom in light of the various nations we've been scattered abroad? That's kind of my starting, as we go to application, that's kind of where I want people to start from.

What I'm hearing you say is that you believe that people are being discipled more by their partisanship maybe than they have been their Bible. Even if they've known their Bible, we're not saying how much exposure they've had to their Bible. You are suspicious through conversations and interactions and just paying attention to what's going on in culture that the greater Christian community might be guilty of becoming too closely allied with their political party. And this is interesting, both the right and the left, and we'll come back to that in a second, but they're being more influenced by what they've

been discipled and taught in those lanes than maybe they have what the Bible has to say about being a politically subversive alien or exile. It is my anecdotal opinion that that is 100% true of many, if not most Christians. Let me just confess, that was me. if not most Christians. Let me just confess, that was me. For the first 10 years of my Christian journey, my viewpoints on, I'm a Gen Xer, so my views on Desert Storm, the Iraq War, the election of Obama, the questions about economics, questions about caring for all these political questions, I grew up with a very firm opinion on these matters before I even really thought through them much. Gosh, this is so funny. I've never told, I don't think I've ever told a single soul this. I remember in high school having to give a

presentation on, I was like, what was it? Something like Democrat versus Republican. I remember being shocked when I overheard that my teacher was a Democrat, public school. And I was like, how in the world? And so I remember going home to my brother who was well, he was kind of well-studied on this. And at the time he was, I think, pretty Republican. I'm like, hey, hurry up. Can you tell me what to say in a speech? Because I need to show people that Republicans are way more right than Democrats. I didn't have a – I never read a – I didn't even get a single book yet, let alone a political. I didn't know anything. sweating. Cause I'm like, I don't even know what I'm, I'm just defending a viewpoint that I'm so committed to, even though I know no clue about what I'm talking about. But as I got older, I still felt that I had these very strong political viewpoints. I didn't even know, like, this is just right. This is, this is what Christians believe. This is right. And like, you know, my, you know, at that time,

you know, Rush Limbaugh, you know, I was listening over here, Rush Limbaugh say something. And that influenced my thinking more than like a raw, ripe, fresh, honest study of the Bible. So maybe that's not people's experience. I don't know. That was my experience. that their passionate viewpoints on various political issues are primarily formed by whatever side of the political aisle they're drinking from in terms of news outlets and so on. So I could be way, someone could say, no, you can't prove that. You know what? I guess I can't. Again, it's my anecdotal opinion. I will let my audience decide if this has been their

experience in the Christian community or not. Well, and one of the criticisms of you that I've already seen in social media, and it's always kind of hovering around you anyways, and I don't want to dig into this yet, but we'll at least throw it out so that people know we're going to come back to it, is that you punch to the right, but you coddle to the left. So I think one of the perceptions out there is that your critique is almost entirely geared towards those who would find themselves on the more conservative side of the political spectrum, or they would align with republicanism, or Fox News is a common target. Let's come back to that, because I think I have some idea of how you feel about that. But before we go any further, let's just talk some more about what's in the actual book, because you are saying over and over again, I read it, I read all but two chapters so far,

and it seems like you're saying over and over and over again that especially first century church, let's say, so when the church starts, there would be no confusion about the fact that this Jesus message was actually a political message. And I want you to talk about what you mean by that, that it was using political language that caught the attention of the Romans, not because it was a new religion, but because it was a threat to their power. As a political message, as a kingdom, as a, you know, use this word empire, these kind of big words that they took very seriously, the Christian message was a confrontation with that. Talk about that.

I'm setting you up to go wherever you want to go with that. This is something that's well known in the field of New Testament studies. And it's becoming more, you know, N.T. Wright kind of drew attention to it. And he's a widely read writer. Yeah, but just this idea that so many terms in the New Testament, including the term church, ecclesia, including the term church ecclesia including the term lord kurios uh son of god kingdom peace faith i mean all of these little churchy kind of terms were used they were political terms in the first time like the the pagan greco-Roman Empire were using the same terms to refer to their, to political questions of their day.

They had a kingdom. They had a lord. Their lord lived in Rome and he brought peace to the empire, to the kingdom of Rome. So when Christianity used these terms, they were, I would say, I want to be careful. I would say they were, in most cases, subtly, in some cases, not so subtly, polemical. When they announced that Jesus was Lord, everybody in the first century would hear a whisper, maybe a pretty loud echo, that that means Caesar is not. Claiming allegiance to Jesus was confrontational. Let me say something provocative here. I say it in the book and I'm going to stand by it. Claiming Jesus as Lord, as King, who established a kingdom that rules over the world, that brought

peace to God's kingdom on earth, like that was perceived as being profoundly unpatriotic. And that's what got the early church into trouble. And in the book of Acts, you see, quite frequently, it wasn't because they were saying, hey, this, you know, Jewish Messiah reigns from heaven, and now he lives in your hearts as some individual Lord and wants you to pray more and stop lusting and live a good, holy individual life. There's parts of that that are true. But what got them interested, like Rome, they're like, fine, go worship your private little, you know, that wasn't subversive, but they were constantly in hot water with the Roman Empire because their claims were viewed, rightly so, as political in nature. If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not, I do kind of tease out, okay, what kinds of applicational questions can we explore if my reading of Scripture is more or less correct? Well, let's talk about the punch right and coddle to the left.

Just to set the table right, I think if anybody reads this, they will see that you really are saying this in both directions. Why is it, though, that you really are saying this in both directions. Why is it though that you maybe feel it more? I don't want to answer this for you because I feel like we've talked about this and I've been thinking about it pretty intensely for myself. Why is it that you maybe do wind up punching more right? Not so much that you coddled to the left, but you definitely punched to the right. Why is that? I got several responses to that. First, let me just begin by saying in the book, I make it extremely clear that I said, please don't mistake any critique of the right as support for the left or critique of the left support for the right. If anything, I'm not punching

right and coddling left. I'm punching Babylon and maybe coddling the Anabaptists or something like that. Even the whole punch right, coddle left just misunderstands kind of the very political grid I'm even working from. So that would be like saying when the Christians, that would like saying when the Christians critiqued Nero, that meant they were for Caligula or they're coddling Caligula. I'm like, well, no, they just happened to critique Nero because that was what's in front of them at that moment. So that's my first response is even that very critique. I think if they read the book in good faith, we'll see that that's their very basis of that critique is misunderstanding the whole foundation of where I'm even coming from. However, I do want to, I guess the question I have is where are they getting that from? Are they judged? I guess I have, you know, some people base that on like my,

my tweets or something, you know, as if, if you took all of my tweets, that would add up to my complete value system. That's just so dumb. That's just a weird Twitter world. They're like,

that doesn't make any sense. Like when's the last time I've tweeted about the Holy spirit, like on my twitter account i'm probably not even trinitarian i might not even care about all you know like it's just not so i think what people see every now and then i'll tweet something it sounds like i'm punching right they think that that's the kind of totality of my belief so i will tell you this ed i don't know a single person who would be on the left who thinks I coddle left. I mean, I've written how many books on sexuality that have critiqued a progressive view of sexuality. So I... Do you not think it is a fair assessment that on the platform that you built with your books, with this podcast, platform that you built with your books, with this podcast, with conference, that the people that wind up probably feeling critiqued the most, though, would find themselves on the right side of

the ledger more often than not, maybe even just because of the subject matter that you are choosing to go after. Whether it's same-sex attraction and just everything in the in the sexuality realm and gender realm that what you're writing and what you're defending will wind up maybe again i'm not putting you in this corner i'm asking you to respond no it's fine yeah it would that it would trigger more people that are on the right side of the ledger maybe for no other reason than those are the people that you came from yourself and so you're almost critiquing you you're critiquing the family, so to speak, rather than poking in the other direction. Yeah, there may be some of that there, Ed. I do say in the book that while my critique of political allegiance and political idolatry is equal, like in essence, it's the exact same thing,

whether it's left or right. Like, um, I, I don't know if I say this in the book, but like, I think Trumpism and anti-Trumpism are kind of two sides of the same coin, you know, in, in the sense of to defeat Trump at the support, the left and do all this stuff. You just, you're still caught in the same political wars of Babylon. And we need to expand our horizons and ask different political questions and situate our political identity in a completely different place from which we even wrestle with these questions. Which kind of political or of the two options, idolatry on the right, idolatry on the left, which would be numerically more of a problem for the American evangelical church, obviously it would myself belonging to or working within would, again, numerically probably lean, right? There is this a little bit of a critique in the family, critiquing, you know, Jesus seeing himself as an insider within Judaism, critiquing Judaism from that perspective. So there may be some of that. I don't know how

much of that is intentional on my part. It may just be more subconscious. Because I have seen evangelicals that I would say do punch right, coddle left. And they typically critique the right from the perspective of the left. Any critique I have of the right is from the perspective of the global kingdom of God, not from the perspective of the left. So I think that's a really important, extremely important distinction. Yeah, explain that a little bit more because I think it is too.

Maybe unpack that a little bit more. I'm trying to think because that's, yeah, how would I, it's one of those things that I feel in my bones, but how can I articulate it in a way that would would make sense let's start here and see if this will warm you up to be able to put some more sentences together what do you mean when you say that that the critiques that you typically find that are problematic where how did you how did you just say this they're when they're critiquing the right they're basically affirming what the perspective

of the left yes the perspective it's just on a very practical it's just on a very practical level it's like they will echo and even cite articles written by clear left-wing outlets or whatever news outlets about some disastrous thing that trump did or whatever and like and then they quote it and oh can you believe how horrible trump is? It's like, well, you're – maybe, but all you're doing is just drinking the propaganda on the left who's using anti-Trumpism to get into power. It's all the same kind of power-mongering game back and forth. And in many ways, I feel like – I do. I feel like the right and the left are two sides of the same empire. The right just kind of says the quiet part out loud.

Think about militarism. It's usually the Republicans that were all militaristic, and the left, it was all about peace and everything. But can we even say that anymore? I mean, Biden that's funding a plausible genocide. It was Obama that droned tons of children in the Middle East. It was Hillary Clinton, who's one of the hawkish war people there are. So there's this rhetoric of peace and for the poor and everything.

And we're against racism and all these things. And it's like, I don't know. How much of that is just propaganda from the empire trying to use people to get into positions of power. So I, um, I, I'm getting this, this might get a little sidetracked. I might cause a lot, you know, I don't want to open up too many doors at the same time that we can't enter into. Um, but, but I do see, yeah, in general, I think that the right says the quiet part out loud or the left has more rhetoric to kind of cover over that. But again, this is just me. This is me as a member of the global church that happened to be born into a land that is now called the United States of America. But I'm trying to look at the movements in this country, just how I would say if I was living in France for a year and I was like trying

to pay attention to the politics of France, it would still be from this marked distance. Like, well, this isn't really my land. I'm kind of sojourning in France right now, you know? So these issues are kind of distant from me a little bit, but I'm living in France. And so I need to be a good citizen here. I need to obey the laws. And if I see injustice, I want to confront it. But there still is this distance I feel. I don't feel like I fully belong in this country. And I want American Christians to have that same kind of sojourning perspective. Well, one of the things that you say several times is that you're not trying to stake a position in the middle of those two positions

no nor are you you know with your back to the progressives pointing a finger at the conservatives or whatever whatever we want to call on that right side you're not siding with them you're actually trying to present a completely different way of thinking about the whole picture at least that's what i got yes And I think what ends up happening, even with the critique, we were laughing about this the other day, the critiques so far that have come out from people that obviously haven't even read the book yet are making assumptions. And they are, they sound like partisans. They sound like people who are fully entrenched on one side of this discussion. In this case, the people I've

read are all on the right. And what they know is that everything that's over on the left is demonic. They don't realize that the position that they're in has also been influenced satanically. And you're trying to say they both are. And I'm not even against some of the stuff they say is demonic. I'm like, yeah, it probably is. Because i think the empire has a demonic thread to it you know according to revelation 12 and 13 so yeah we haven't talked about that yet the empire has a demonic thread going through it riff on that a little bit yeah i if there's one biblical theme that i would love for you ask originally several minutes ago now you know what would I want people to walk away with? It would be a healthier suspicion, well, a more robust theology of empire that would cultivate a healthy suspicion of empire today. People could walk away just a little bit more like, ooh, I need to ask some deeper questions

here. Then that would be, I think, a win for me. So yeah, in the book of Revelation, this is so well known, I mean, among scholars at least, that in Revelation 12 and 13, John says as explicitly as he possibly can that the beast, which is in the first century Rome, but kind of can apply to any Rome-like empire, the beast is empowered by the dragon and they are in cahoots together. That doesn't mean everything the beast does is bad. I mean, Caesar Augustus was a pretty socially conservative guy. He was like the first century focus on the family guy. He was all pro-marriage

and rewarded people for having three kids and was against adult, made adultery illegal. There's some good things there you know like there's um uh they built roads and kept thieves at bay and they you know i i think there were some people even elites that were very generous and cared for the poor like not everything about the first century roman empire was evil but the entity at so that it was still according to explicitly according to revelation 12 and 13 and really the whole book of revelation. There's, I mean, yeah, the dragon hasn't powered the beast.

Like it comes right out and just says that. So I want people to at least take that more seriously that in as much as there is some overlap between the Roman Empire slash the Beast slash America today, and I think there's differences, but there's similarities, and we need to explore those, in as much as we should consider and appreciate the similarities that this category of Babylon, this category of empire as unpacked in the book of Revelation and other parts of scripture, in as much as this could apply to the United States of America, that should at least cause foreigners and sojourners, you know, sojourning in the land now, and I'll call it the United States of America, to be a little bit more theologically cautious. I just want to open up that conversation and not claim to have all the, here's how we must apply all this.

Well, one of the notes that I took to myself, just as I was reading it, there's a question that came to myself, is that when you look at the current kingdom, I think part of the problem is that when people look at the empire, the secular governments that we are called to submit to, is that primarily a conservative fascist empire or is it a progressive fascist empire? And depending on who you're talking to, and again, this is why we're left with one of two sets of lenses to look through. one of two sets of lenses to look through. I spent five years with people who believe that the empire is hyper conservative. It's, it's fascist in the way that it smothers and dehumanizes people with, with what typically is on a conservative agenda. The people that are criticizing you on social media, obviously they see that it is a progressive fascist empire that is, you know, destroying marriage and is encouraging all sorts of dehumanizing behaviors. What I'm reading from you, though, is you're saying, yes, both of those are actually going on.

both of those are actually going on the question is do you recognize it inside your own camp from the position that you're in whether you align with yourself with a more progressive view of the world or you align yourself with a more conservative view of the world you're saying both sides of that equation are fueled by satanic impulse they're anti-kingdom of God. Even if some good things are represented by both sides, we should know as sojourners, both sides of that equation are satanic. Again, I don't know if there's a softer or more accurate way to say it, but they're satanic. So don't get snuggled up to them. I think that's your concern is that people get too snuggled up to them and then they lose a Christian vision for the world, even as they're arguing for trying to preserve something of their Christian vision of the world. They've actually lost it because they got too ensnared

in the empire's values on either side of that line. I mean, you said, I would echo everything you said word word for word yeah you put it better and better than i could well i got that just from reading what you said so again everybody this this is one of the clearest and most accessible books on this conversation that i've read that's why i told you it's not just because you're my friend i haven't agreed with everything that you've written or even understood everything that you've written. But this book just so resonates with how do we think as a Christian in the cultural moment that we find ourselves in? Now, some people, though, are already hitting you with this. And I think it's a good question. So does this mean we become Anabaptists? Does it mean

that you become apolitical then because you're a sojourner? People are saying, do you vote? You know, they're trying to be kind of sarcastically come at you because it sounds like maybe you're saying then that we just detach and that we don't stand for any kind of justice. And again, you don't say that in the book, but talk about that. Is that what you're saying? That we should just kind of go hands off and just let things happen as they may and God will work it out in the end? That's a great question. I'm glad you asked that because I did want to bring it up that my critique of the empire, my suspicion of partisan power plays in the empire, that does not mean that we detached. In fact, one of the chapters you might not have gotten there, I lay out kind of three different

kind of what do we do now kind of approaches. And I talk about detachment, I talk about transformation, and then I talk about prophetic witness. Detachment is that you kind of, okay, this whole thing's corrupt and bad and evil and so we need to detach and kind of you know the classic example might be the amish or something you just kind of remove yourself from society you don't care about injustice around you and again i'm going to show this is a fair assessment of the amish but um they're often described this way you know um so i talk about you know some some some good things with that approach and also say, here's some problems I have with that approach. I don't think it's the best approach. Then transformation is the opposite.

We need to do the, yeah, we need to engage society. We need to, in a sense, impose our values on society. We need to transform the political structures, transform culture and bring good in the world and confront injustice and so on and so forth. And I say, there's a lot of good things with that too. I also see some problems with that. My first critique with the transformation view is what I said earlier is I just, I don't think it takes as seriously as it should the pervasive scriptural theme from Daniel 10, Matthew 4, Revelation 12 to 13, Paul's principalities and powers language, that these governing authorities are demonically influenced at the very least. Manifestations of empire should make Christians nervous, not excited.

And I see people that are maybe too invested in transformation. They almost see governing authorities as kind of neutral or even good entities that we can make better rather than demonic. That is a strong word, Ed. I don't know what other, the dragon in power, the beast, Revelation 13. I don't know what else to... Either you say, well, that was just first century, not today. And you can try to make that case. I think there's more parallels. But yeah, I think we should be, well, you know, the example often comes up and you'll appreciate this is a civil rights movement. I think that's a good example, not that it did everything right, but a good example of what Christian

engagement in Christian confrontation of injustice could look like. It wasn't really partisan. It used Christian means of nonviolence. Again, I'm not saying violence did never break out, but it was kind of ad hoc. It wasn't like, because MLK turned right around and critiqued the Vietnam War and the very people that were on board with the civil rights stuff were like, what are you doing? He's like, I'm not on your side. I'm not on anybody's side. I'm fighting for justice as I see it. And that's not – maybe in some cases it wouldn't be points from this side.

Other cases might – wouldn't be favoring the other side. I'm not here to curry favor with the powers to be. So I do – and you, you know way more about the civil rights movement than I do. But is that transformation or is it more with the third category I talk about, prophetic witness, where, yeah, I think the church can, when it sees an injustice, to confront injustice, but do so as the church, as members of God's global multi-ethnic kingdom. What does that mean? What does that look like? So I give several examples in the book. So I talk about immigration, I talk about gun control, I talk about abortion. Let's see, let's go immigration. So obviously it's a major political back and forth. If you read left-leaning or left left wing news outlets, you'll get one perspective on the border crisis. You read right wing,

totally different perspective. And you can get caught up in this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Well, I talked to a pastor friend, or he became a friend who passes a church right around the border outside of San Antonio and has dealt a lot with him and his church has done a lot with uh working with immigrants and i asked him i said how much of what i'm seeing on the news is correct like i'm reading there that he says about 10 he turns on the new and he's living he's like this is just people are cherry picking whatever part of this story to bolster their political narrative for the sake of keeping that side of their island power.

Like, and that's just, I don't think that's too debated, you know. He says most of the migrants we're encountering are evangelical believers, like brothers and sisters in Christ. Not just Christian in name, but they're like solid evangelical believers. Most of them are fleeing out of, you know, for legitimate reasons, you know? And so rather than getting caught up in the back and forth of, do we build higher walls or lower walls or no walls? And is Biden at fault? Is Trump at, who's the worst? You know, you can get so sucked into this kind of political back and forth

that you actually don't do anything helpful for justice. So he's asking a question as a member of God's kingdom, what does it say about how believers should treat immigrants and foreigners? There's a lot of verses on that. So let's do that. It doesn't talk about building walls or not, but the exiles weren't, you know, sitting around dividing over whether, you know, the Babylonians should keep the Assyrians out or whatever. Like those questions, like what would the ex Jewish exiles, what would they care about? Like Babylon's policy, Babylon's Babylon, Babylon's going to do it. Babylon's going to do where we should embody a, a virtue as exiles. And if we meet somebody in need, we're going to care for that person in need.

And so this church, anyway, it's a really small church, but man, they've reached out to hundreds of migrants. Some are documented, some are not, some are seeking asylum, but they saw people in need right in front of them. They cared for people in need in front of them. people in need right in front of them. They cared for people in need in front of them. So, you know, that's just a tiny example of a community of an outpost of the kingdom of God asking different questions and drawing on scriptural resources to do what God has called his people to do and not let Babylon's culture war issues stifle their pursuit of justice. I'm not saying that, you know, maybe, maybe we can have an opinion about Babylon stuff. Maybe there are certain laws that need to be tweaked and change or whatever. In the meantime, can we at least pursue justice toward people in

front of us, you know, while Babylon's sorting out what it should do about the border crisis? Well, you just said it. People, that was what my mind was just going to, that so often even when we talk about immigrants or migrants, they're avatars in our minds. They're a topic. They're an idea. And what you're saying is that, no, this is the Imago Dei.

Whether they're supposed to be here or not supposed to be here, whether they've got a work permit or they're going to have to wait three years for a work permit, they're here living in our midst today. And what does it look like to be, and it's cliche, but the hands and feet of Jesus,

the hands and feet of a different empire that's being brought to bear in this current one, right? I even want to keep using that language that you're using. How do we subvert the options that are being handed to us that don't necessarily see people and make sure that we see people and minister to them where they're at? Yeah, exactly.

And so even as I talk about immigration, I could, I think, and here's where I, I, I, I so try to situate my value system in the kingdom of God that I don't even, I think when I talk about immigration, people say, oh, that sounds left wing. And I'm like, see, you're, you're doing it. You're, you're doing it again. You're, you have these two lenses, left wing, right wing. And if something sounds left wing you're like okay you're in that category not this category and i like that that's that's like so so i just want to

i want to explore the possibility of not letting babylon develop the very political grid that we get to play on it's almost like somebody takes us to a football field you'll appreciate this ed sports analogy coming yeah somebody takes us to a football field. You'll appreciate this, Ed. Sports analogy coming. Somebody takes us to a football field and says, okay, are you going to start on the 20-yard line or the 30-yard line or the 50-yard line? Which one are you going to start on? And I'm thinking, I'm going to play baseball.

I don't want to play football. Don't tell me which yard line to start on. I'm not even in this category. I'm playing baseball. Now, there might be some overlap, you know, uh, speed is probably going to be beneficial for both, you know, frameworks, uh, upper body strength might work, but like tackling your opponent might work in one grid, but not the other. So, you know, um, like if I, you know, if you're playing, if you just thinking in terms of football and like, this guy's not tackling anybody. He must be on the left wing.

He must be a bad defense. I'm like, well, no, I'm playing baseball. Like, then we don't tackle. So even trying to put me in left or right or centrist or whatever, which I oppose that category altogether, is coming from a completely different way of a different political framework that I'm trying to say, let's let the Bible dictate our political framework so that if we care for immigrants, we don't get accused of advocating for the other side of the Babylonian aisle. I'm just not even interested in whatever side you think I'm on,

because I'm trying to cultivate a biblical posture toward these political questions. Well, it seems so obvious that we shouldn't have to keep saying this, but it should affect our posture first and foremost, our approach, our attitude, the demeanor with which we come. The Sermon on the Mount gives us a very different ethic in terms of how we approach our enemies, right? And how we approach situations altogether. And most of the time, and I do, I feel this coming from every direction. Most of the time, I don't sense the spirit of Christ in the posture when there's disagreement, when there is an enemy. There's not a spirit of Christ posture. It's mean. Again, man, I don't know how you deal with just the mean things that get said

to you and the snarky things that get posted. And that's the culture that we live in where we're just mean to each other in the disagreement. So just from the get-go, I think you're throwing a flag on that and saying that's already an indication that something's wrong. that's already an indication that something's wrong. That's not a sojourner or an alien posture to begin with. Now, I wonder, I think we need to hit pause, but I would love to talk more, though, to the critique of, then what does it mean when you see things that are happening,

let's say, in the government right now? How do we stand against that? What are we, okay do we stand against that? What are we? Okay, we have politics. We have a political framework and a political system that we've been handed, the way our government works, and our role in it as voters, as protesters, as people who try to get the right people in power. What do you end up saying about what our role is to be in all of that? I think that's where people start getting agitated and thinking we're trying to preserve a certain way of life

that smells more like the kingdom. But the people that are running things right now are doing the exact opposite of that. And we feel like we need to stop them. Again, that's happening on both sides. Right now, there's a, the Democrats are in power, right? So it's the Republicans and the conservatives that are saying that whole thing is demonic. We absolutely agree like exploring the foundation upon which we stand to address those questions. My quick answer is I'm not sure, Ed. Again, I'm not an isolationist, a detachment. My view, which has been – the phrase prophetic witness is kind of the viewpoint that I'm exploring that I think is the best, most faithful to the biblical theology of a political identity. What does that mean with our current kind of involvement with the political system? And when do we seek to change laws that we think are harmful and destructive and wrong? And I don't know. I want to have that conversation.

I want to explore that. I want to hear and learn from other people, but I don't want to ditch a healthy biblical theology of a political identity in order to wrestle with those questions. So that's really my goal is to cultivate a better way in which we go about exploring those questions. Another one I wrestle with is abortion. Very, I would say, pro-life. Here's one where, so I don't punch right, coddle left, but if there's anything, it'd be the opposite. And I can keep going. Let me just not defend that right now. Let me just assume it. If people need a defense that, you know, there's- Assume what? Assume what? Just to be cool? That, yeah, assume that taking the life of an unborn child in the womb is immoral.

Okay. I hesitate the word murder. That implies intent and stuff. But yeah, I think it is killing a human life. And I don't think killing an innocent human life can ever be that that is a moral thing to do. There's complications. Okay. I don't want to get lost in the weeds

of like a mother's life is at risk or rape or all those things. You know, I'm pro-life in terms of what that wouldn't typically mean to people. Now, so some Christians, they immediately go to their sides. Okay, well, that's Republican. So you need to fight this law

and you need to oppose that and you need to get Roe v. Wade overturned. And we won, we got it overturned. And now we need to get overturned on a federal level. So they just, when they think of abortion, they live in the political realm. Meanwhile, statistically, according to one big survey, over 50% of women who get an abortion are Christians, many of whom believe it's wrong to do so. believe it's wrong to do so, many of whom were faced with two options. Either face the profound shame of having a kid out of wedlock or have a kid that you can't care for. And if nobody is going to

help you financially care for a kid that was a result of your sin, what are you going to do? And what are you going to do? So there are certain church structures that are enabling and fostering and in a sense, unintentionally encouraging women to, Christian women to get an abortion. So if all we do is change Babylon's laws, I'm not saying that's not a good thing to do, but maybe that's a good thing to do. I'd probably think it's, yeah, it's probably a good thing to do. But if we stop there and think we won because we won, you know, our team won. It's like, wait a minute.

There's some deep, deep, deep, multi-layered issues that are surrounding a woman's decision to get an abortion in almost every case. So let's think like the kingdom of God. How can we holistically approach this very politicized conversation around abortion? Yeah, and I think it's interesting. That's such a good one, Preston, and I love that. I'm not sure. I'll throw this out. I'm not sure I believe that statistic, that over 50% of them, 50% or more, are Christian.

50% or more are Christian. But what I want to say is regardless of what the percentage is, what you just described, and I've read it in other articles, I've read other commentary about it. We, again, we is a very broad term in evangelicalism and Christianity that you and I have been brought up in and that we hang out in the most of the time. We haven't done a great job of cultivating an environment where either the woman that gets pregnant or the woman that chooses to have an abortion is going to find the grace and the hands and feet of Jesus that meet her there. That's not been our reputation. That doesn't mean there aren't any examples of it. I know very, very good churches that have great ministries

in those directions. I know those examples, but that's not our reputation. And that's your point. And we don't usually think about that stuff. We just fight the law. Hey friends, the Exiles in Babylon conference is right around the corner, April 18th through the 20th in Boise, Idaho. All the information is at theologyintherod.com. If you do want to attend live, and I would highly recommend if you can afford it, if you have the time to come out to Boise, Idaho, attend the conference live. Space is filling up, so you want to register ASAP. We are tackling loads of really important and very controversial topics. We're talking about deconstruction and the gospel. We're going to hear from people who have had a journey of

deconstruction, tell us why they did so. We're going to hear from women, talking about women, power, and abuse in the church. We're going to talk about LGBTQ people and the church. We're talking about different Christian views of politics. That should be loads of fun, if not really intense. And we just added a very important pre-conference symposium on the theology and politics of Israel-Palestine. And we're going to have different viewpoints represented. Various discussions are going to be engaged in with that really important conversation. So come to Boise. You can ask questions. You can engage the speakers, engage other people who are at the conference. It is loads of fun. It really is, I would say, the highlight of my year. So again, April 18th to the 20th at Boise, Idaho.

Check out all the information at theologyintheron.com. at theologyintheron.com. So yeah, just returning to this, you know, the study I'm drawing from to say, you know, 50% of women that got an abortion were Christians. So this is, I'm drawing this from a 2015 LifeWay study that actually said,

I'm reading this, this is from page 173, that 70% of women who get an abortion identify as Christian. Of these women, 23% are evangelical and 26% attend church at least once a week. At least once a week. I thought you only – anyway, so my percentages were – yeah, so I shouldn't say 50%. This is – how do you define evangelical?

Where are they getting at? Either way, all that to say, the point is – oh, here's another quote from that study. It says, two in three women who've had an abortion say church members judge single women who are pregnant and are more likely to gossip about a woman considering abortion than helping her understand her options. The point being, whatever the statistics are, you have these two levels, abortion on this political law, Roe v. Wade, was it Dobbs, or Dobbs-Jackson, what was the one that was, oh, shoot, I forgot it. Yeah, Dobbs v. Jackson, the reverse Roe v.

Anyway, you have all that stuff that's highly politicized. The left will make it about, you don't like women and you want to manage women's rights. And then the other side is like, you're killing babies. And we need to, each one's trying to ram through certain laws to advocate their viewpoint. Meanwhile, there's a culture that's very pervasive in the church that is not helping actual women navigate this really complex and heart-wrenching situation.

So that's my whole point. I don't want to take these political issues like abortion and just live at this secular political realm. I want to keep asking the church, how are we as the church, which is a political community, embodying the very political ethics we want to see in the world? Another, let me throw this out, Ed. Let's talk about race. You have churches that are not embodying any kind of ethnic reconciliation that are voicing concerns over CRT or BLM or all of a sudden are very

interested in race conversations when they become politicized and yet aren't embodying any kind of like biblical theology of race relations, which again, the Bible supplies us with many passages and verses and themes that are very relevant to things like racial reconciliation. Do you have any thoughts on that? I'm trying to throw you a softball there because I know you've had to navigate that political world with care and disruption. Yeah, and you know we could wind up going off on that tangent.

It really is the same kind of thing. What I think when I'm listening to you speak about any of these issues, and this is going to be different from congregation to congregation, is how biblically founded are we? I was going to say biblically based. Everybody that's in an evangelical type church wants to say they're biblically based, but how much Bible do you really have in you? And it seems like such a cliche type of question or a cliche application, but it really, I would say that even for myself,

Preston, let's just say this. I've got two seminary degrees. I go to church all the time. I've listened to messages for years. I listened to podcasts on different Christian topics, but I haven't read the book of Isaiah in 20 years. I'm just pulling that out, right? I mean, pick a book of the Bible that I've not done a deep dive into, let's say the minor prophets, as I really do an audit of what my Bible intake has been. And so even if I learned stuff in seminary 25, 30 years ago, you know how that is. It's largely gone. If I'm not constantly replenishing my tank. And I'm a person who swims in biblical waters. I hang around around people that talk Bible, which not everybody does that, you know? And so I think we just have to be willing to not get defensive about the fact

that all of us are probably predisposed in the moment we live in, unless we've been very, very intentional to counter that. And I think this is another plea to do that. Let's counter the air that we typically breathe, which is the air of empire. Let's counter that by making sure we're getting enough biblical input on any one of these issues so that we can rethink what it means to be a christian exile in a demonically infused political environment that we all live in like that's what i'm hearing you say and i just i just think it's a great reminder you're gonna get killed for it you already are getting killed for it you know by people and it's like now, that's just such a fundamental idea that we should be able to accept the truth of that.

Yeah, that's funny. There's a – get killed for it. Yeah, I posted a comment on Twitter about the danger of partisan allegiance. And I got critiqued by a bunch of people that were clearly demonstrating partisan allegiance. And it's like, I don't, what do you do?

You know, that that's my biggest, one of my fears is that the kinds of people that I think I want to read this book so that they can at least just question some of their political presuppositions. I don't think, I don't, I'm pessimistic over whether they will hear what I'm trying to say. Maybe, I don't know.

Maybe I should say that the day before my book launches, but I mean, but I guess that's true of any hot, hot issue. People are so entrenched in their viewpoints. It's hard to sometimes unlodge that unless they're wanting to unlodge their presuppositions. I agree. And I wonder too, Preston, if so many of the people in those feeds – it's interesting because I was actually distressed after – I asked you where are people commenting and I went to some of the spots you told me. And I'm a big boy, man. I've been in these conversations for a long time.

But it hurt my heart a little bit just to see it did it just bothered me how easily people were just slaying the you know your 32nd or whatever it was video that i just think is i don't know this is just a good reminder of course this is true what preston's. But I think a lot of those guys, I wonder if they're even. Yes, they are rehearsing Partesian viewpoints. I also think they've got you caricatured in such a way that almost no matter what you say anymore to a certain crowd, you're a progressive sellout. you're a progressive sellout. You just got called a heretic, for gosh sakes. It doesn't get any worse than that for a theologian to get called a heretic from conservative people that are calling you a heretic. So it shouldn't surprise me that there's a large group of people out there that are going to just assume that whatever you say, you are trying to sneak progressive ideas in front of the body of Christ. And it's their responsibility to keep confronting you and to keep putting you in your place. That's funny, man. I mean, does the charge of heresy, does that even make sense

in Protestant Christianity? Have you thought about that? We don't have a creed. We don't have a creed that we all fall back on, say, here's what we all believe and you violated. That's just some pastor in Kansas who wrote his own doctrinal statement last week. And it's like, you don't agree with my doctrinal. I'm a Protestant through and through, capital P Protestant, Sola Scriptura. But I mean, the whole charge of heresy just seems like it's a more of an Eastern or Catholic kind of charge when you have an agreed upon thing that you've departed from. Well, the agreed upon thing is the authority of the, an Orthodox view of the Bible. And, and I think, you know, with the same, it's the same sex attraction is the major topic that you are presenting a view. Don't bring me back into sexuality, man.

I know. I can't get away from it. I've been trying to get you to do other stuff for years. I've been one of your chief tormentors. Preston, there's more to you than this. Give the world something more. Now you're doing it and I keep dragging you back in. But I think you've been caricatured, whether it's right or wrong. Again, maybe you've been wrong about some stuff. Okay, I still don't think that should qualify you as a heretic. And especially when it comes to just calling people to be separated from worldly thinking. That's the irony, is you're actually calling people to be less worldly.

Yeah, yeah. 100%. I made a note here. You made a comment on page 119 where you said, it doesn't mean we should resist governing authorities. And I think about people who feel like it's their Christian responsibility to preserve values, to preserve. And let's just think the best about this, that there were some good values in place in this country alongside some bad ones, but there were good values in place that are just being ripped to shreds by radical secular progressivism. Let's

just make that statement. And they feel like it is a Christian responsibility to stand against that, that we should resist. I thought this even when I read it. We should resist the governing authorities if they are trying to encourage us to not think biblically about men and women anymore, doing what they're doing with sexuality. Again, I don't need to list everything. I think there's a lot of pushback towards you from people who feel genuinely concerned. Are we just supposed to sit back then and let them continue to destroy our culture with very ungodly, unbiblical views on matters of what it means to be human. So what would you say to that?

And again, I think we already kind of brought this up earlier, and I know that there will be some case-by-caseness to it and that you want this to be a prolegomenon, but you still got to jump in somewhere. So just take a swipe at it. What would you say to those people that are concerned that we need to push back? We need to fight back. Yeah. I don't know if I, that's a thank you for that question.

And I genuinely mean this when I say those are the kinds of questions I would love to really wrestle with from a solid biblical theology of a political identity. So let me just say it really clearly. Absolutely, if there's injustices happening and people are being hurt and we have opportunity to address those, again, I hold to a prophetic witness position, meaning, yeah, when there's things like Jim Crow laws or whatever, you know, like, yeah, I think, um, the, the church can and should engage those. It's the manner in which we pursue engagement that I want to be careful of. Let's do so as exiles, not as Babylonians. Um, and what do you mean by that? What do you mean? Yeah. For one,

um, Stanley Harawas has a, has a, uh has a phrase that I quote probably three times in a book, that the main political task of the church is to be the church. For instance, let's take another example. I think the best way maybe to tease this out is by giving kind of illustrations of the kinds of things we're talking about. So sex reassignment surgery for minors. Good. Hot political issue. Should 15-year-olds be legally allowed without parental consent to get a double mastectomy because they identify as trans, knowing that the whole youth conversation with the trans conversation as applies to youth today is just, it's so messy and volatile and there's a lot of confusion and ideological stuff. I do not think it is wise, and I would say this if I wasn't a Christian, for a minor to get some invasive surgery that's irreversible.

I do. I think that that is not a wise thing for a society to do. Does that mean we make it illegal? My libertarian friends are going to say, let people do whatever they want. You be you, I be me. Don't force your beliefs on me. I won't force mine on you. Let's just... Or it's like, no, this is harming people and we need to protect people. So that's an interesting tension we should wrestle with. I also want to bring up the church though. Where is the church when a 15 year old, when several people in all of our youth groups are wrestling with their biological sex? Why are 15 year old girls feeling distressed over the biological sex? Are they being made to feel like they, if they're a little more tomboyish, that they might be a boy? What is a church doing to address or cultivate these narrow gender stereotypes that

maybe feel oppressive to women? I'm always going to bring up the church side of things. What are we doing in the church regarding this quote-unquote political issue that we just think is out there somewhere? How are we being the church and embodying a better way to be a political community in society? So anyway, I'm not directly answering. I'm not deliberately dancing around, but just trying to say there's always going to be broader questions I want to raise when we get to these narrow, like, what do we do about this injustice? What do we do about that issue?

There are, and you just said you always come back to the church, which I think the people that most want to fight politically, and again, this is a generalization, but maybe aren't as concerned or maybe aren't as inspired by what it would mean to challenge us within the church. Or they even go to church. Yeah, I know. So it's way more, fun's not the right word, but way more exhilarating. It feels more meaningful to fight.

If they're going to pass a law saying that as a parent, I don't have any more control over my 15-year-old's body. I totally understand wanting to fight that and standing against it. Transgender men who are competing in women's sports, that comes up. I just literally had a lunch with somebody that was bringing it up in their community in Indiana. I think we should stand against that. I know you do too. Again, the posture matters. I don't think we're supposed to just let that happen. No. Yeah. I agree. But even every time this comes up, every time this comes up though, you do say that we can,

we actually have more control over what will happen within our local community and local communion than we do fighting things at the governmental level. We should fight, but we have more control over something down here that we don't usually give much attention to. And that's the environment that we're creating as a congregation. That's what I'm hearing you say. We should give more attention to that. Two things that came to my mind. The first one's not going to be controversial.

The second one's going to be extremely controversial. But that's the theology in the raw, so I'm just going to let her rip. The first non-controversial thing is like, I wonder if there's more benefit in being in, as we engage society, get involved in quote unquote politics in the traditional sense of the term. If doing so locally is better and more effective than fighting some Twitter justice war on, you know, like some people, they do all their justice fighting like on social media or something. It's like, come on, that's just, all you're doing is exacerbating the anger. And how much pull do we really have on the federal

level of stuff? And how much does that actually just anger our soul and divide the church? But yeah, if you had biological males participating in female sports, and that's a local issue, and you have means to address that in a humble, Christ-like, nonviolent, gracious, but forthright way, I would be all for that. Also, I would say anecdotally, for every one biological male that's trying to play in female-only sports, there's 999 that are not, um, many of whom might be in our churches. Many of whom might be suffering from debilitating gender dysphoria. Many of whom are, have their own persecution towards them. You know, like I have a friend, a trans friend who was, uh, they were attacked in a bathroom. People are always worried about trans people in bathrooms.

They use the bathroom of their biological sex and they were assaulted, you know? So anyway, I always want to put all of these hot button issues will be politicized by one side, taking some part of the conversation and politicizing it. And if all you do is focus that one little shiny object over here and get all upset, you're going to miss kind of the broader conversation. That's my non-debated, that's my non-debated point. Okay, what's going to get us in trouble? Yeah, no, that will. It's fine.

I'll get the emails and I'll send them to you. I'm also, I'm also at least want to constantly push people to consider blind spots within their political allegiance. So if you are, okay, so here we go. Let's talk about Palestine. According to almost every single nation in the world, and according to an 84-page detailed report put out by the country of South Africa. And according to experts in the field of genocide, what the nation of Israel is doing to Palestinians is, what's the phrase they use? It's plausible genocide. It already passed the international court. 15 to 2 read the entire report, voted based on the legal definition of genocide. This is a plausible case. At the very least, it's crimes against humanity. At the very least, it's 30,000 dead innocent civilians and counting.

It's projected 50% of children will probably die of starvation in the next couple of years as a result of – I mean, it is a human catastrophe. And plausibly, genocide. The United States of America is funding it. The right wing and left – this is a bipartisan problem too. And by the way, it happens to be the left wing that's in party that's actually funding this plausible genocide but at the right wing is very supportive of it too they've they've they've said things that would be called genocidal rhetoric just wipe them all out turn it into a parking lot this is genocidal rhetoric and the american church is largely in support of its empire's endorsement and funding of a plausible again i'm just saying legally it's

plausible genocide regardless of what the reasons or justifications are that's not the point the point is the the activity the behavior and the results are genocidal okay keep going you can and i do absolutely condemn the terrorist attacks by Hamas and any other terrorists. The killing of an innocent person is a killing of innocent person. Full stop. But yeah, you don't, there's no such thing as like, well, they did it first. So that justifies a plausible genocide. There's no justification for genocide. Anyway, so I want to open up that category and somebody that is like supportive of that

verbally, whatever, like, no, no, turning in a parking lot, like they're on the one side of their mouth is like supporting a plausible genocide and then turning around and saying no biological males and, you know, female only sports. I'm going to say, let's, let's, let's explore what a more holistic biblical worldview, biblical ethic looks like. And we best do that when we stop listening to our partisan news outlets, the steady drip of discipleship that happens all the time, right? And we say, okay, what does it mean to be the global kingdom of God and not get caught up in the partisan battles? Because when you get caught up in the partisan battles, you say males in female sports, bad, killing Palestinian civilians, that's self-defense. And it's like,

what are we doing here? Let's stop being sheep and let's actually think on our own, on our own, meaning let's think as the kingdom of God that it has a different political identity than the powers to be. So I've already talked about this in the podcast. So people that have heard it, they know kind of where I'm at on that. All I'm arguing for is let's at least explore ways in which our partisan allegiances have jaded and colored our ethical lens in a way that needs to be defogged up by staring more deeply at scripture. All right, let's talk about this for a second. You said... You got nothing on that? I thought...

You got nothing on that. No, because again, I'm too much aligned with you in separating myself from the details of the politics. And you're talking about the Palestinian-Israeli thing. As your recent podcast has shown, I told you about that Promises documentary I watched 20 years ago. It's way more complicated. It's way more religious. And we never talk about that.

You will never hear about the religious ramifications of what's going on over there from the secular media. hear about the religious ramifications of what's going on over there from the secular media and and it is being driven by there's a huge percentage of what drives those folks over there that's religious that we don't have categories for in our in our secular secular media does not know how to process that so you're not going to get anything on that unless we pull, you know, you bring in guests that are able to bring in the religious dimension and the relatively speaking handful of commentators that know how to talk in religious history, know how to talk about theological difference and theological debates. Most people are not going to come anywhere near that. They've only got a secular political view of what's going on over there.

So that's problematic too for a Christian. And my point, let's leave aside the problem, because that's very, very complex and can't be just... Yeah. tendency for people that are too aligned with a certain political party to feel like they have to check off all these same boxes that they have been handed. Like, well, if you're pro-life, then you must be pro-death penalty kind of thing, or you must be pro-life and pro-military. Well, that's Babylon. That's one side of the empire handing to you the script and saying, here are the things you must line up. And that's where I just get super nervous because I was like that, dude. Going back to my story, I tell this in the book.

Like, yeah, I grew up in that Republican only where you couldn't be a – there's no such thing as a Christian Democrat, pacifist, anti-military. All these things were just like, how are all these values all of a sudden related to each other? And why do I have to sign off on all these, you know, boxes that have been handed to me? Yeah, I feel the same way. And just the discomfort that comes with thinking about somebody who is holding on to positions that are on both sides, which I think is a very Christian idea. I think that's what you're arguing as well. But now that's seen as being a middle grounder,

what's some of the derogatory language they use for being in the middle of things and not taking a position. People can talk to me about that. The centrist, the moderate. Yes. And I'm like, I'm really not trying to be a center of anything. I'm really trying to think with a kingdom, a Jesus kingdom perspective. Look, I'm all for going in and just blowing things up. That totally appeals to my flesh. Let's fight back. I love insults.

I love sarcasm. Let's be mean as snot. That's not hard for me at all. I signed up for something different. When I said yes to Jesus, and I bowed my knee to him, he said, then you're going to have to operate in a completely different way. So again, that bothers me even when I look at the posture and the tone of people that are responding to you. And you can see this all over the place. But I just think, where are we getting justification to talk to each other like this on social media? I just don't know where... Somebody called you Preston Tinkle, which I thought was really funny, man.

Am I the athlete in me and the locker room side of me thinks Preston Tinkle, that's really witty and mean and will hurt somebody's heart. And then it made me want to cry a little bit. It just did. Like you're making fun of his name. Like we're in seventh grade. My seventh grader comes home and talks about getting bullied in his school. And so it's like, yeah, you're going to grow up into a world that just bullies each other all the time

man welcome to it i would take i didn't see that comment i would i would take a different approach i would be most upset at that comment because it was so uncreative like that's just like yeah i'm like dude there's way more creative things you could do with my name like don't be so lazy that's lazy we're like opening up a donut shop you know how many times i've been asked if i've been to open up a donut shop come on get some original material dude like here's a good one here's a good one i heard preston is so open-minded that his brain fell out of his head or something like that. I thought that was creative.

I was like, that's good. He's so open-minded, his brain fell out. That's got some zip to it. So that totally appeals to my flesh. Good job, fellas. Way to drag me back into the worst parts of myself in the name of Jesus. I don't want to do that. Jesus. Like, I don't, I don't want to do that. You said we typically have a higher, more positive view of earthly kingdoms than other Christians across the globe. We, we, the United States,

those of us in the United States typically have a higher, more positive view of earthly kingdoms than other Christians across the globe. Talk about that a little bit. Why, why do we have, the globe. Talk about that a little bit. Why do we have, and I think you're saying we as Americans, we as American Christians tend to have a higher, more positive view of earthly kingdoms, of earthly leadership than do others across the globe. Talk about that a little bit. That's a great, yeah. I would probably want to add more specificity to that. Say Christians in America have a higher view of their, the kingdom that they belong to. I think Americans don't have a high view of other kingdoms around the world.

So I think it is more of an American-centric perspective. And I think that, I mean, I think you're the sociologist. I mean, do you call yourself a sociologist or historian or what's your with people that that'll work with i mean so it just seems clear like america the myth of america as a christian nation i mean even have you know people that frame the coming to america in terms of the new israel conquering the new canaanites and we had to rid the the land of Native Americans that we called Canaanites. And there is this kind of like Christian rhetoric that's just so deep into the American narrative.

So yeah, I think, of course, that's going to lead to kind of a Christianized form of American exceptionalism. So sociologically, it makes perfect sense. This is why I want to try to wrench people away from that kind of assumption. I think what you just said is true. And any, you know, I don't know when this started, but any shrewd politician knows how to play to that theme and that idea, right? You know, God and apple pie. What's the other one that goes in there? God, baseball, apple pie, or just kind of these themes

that, you know, when you go to a football game, we've talked about this before, and you mix military and you mix singing the national anthem and you have got guys kneeling in the end zone, praying and then pointing up to heaven and you kind got guys kneeling in the end zone praying and then pointing up to heaven and you kind of mash all that together. Or I used to tell you about going to the basketball games at my Christian school and first they would pray and then they would sing the national anthem. And they're always mashing those two things together in a way that just makes it very difficult to try to think about how to separate them like you're encouraging us to do. And in fact, you seem offensive for even suggesting it. I wonder too, if we just have,

I'll say this for myself, I think I've become cynical or maybe I've just become more biblical in that I recognize that there are very sinful people who hold power. And I don't necessarily give them the benefit of the doubt that they're going to do the right thing to benefit the majority of people, even if it costs them. I don't believe that about our politicians, any of them on any side. I don't know when I gave up on that, but I think just from reading history and reading the behind the scenes story that comes out years later about what really happened in these different historical moments. It's like, oh yeah, man, everybody in, on all sides of the political spectrum are driven by, let's just say ungodly motives and power messes with their heads and access to money and access to military and access to sex and all the usual suspects,

it's a very, very, very difficult thing to navigate that and keep values, keep principles, be a Christian. So that seems so self-evident to me. What would be the push? Do you know people that actually do have a higher view of elites and politics and think, no, no, some of them are really, really good and honest? Does anybody think politicians at the federal level are really honest? Is that? That's a very good question. And I'd like to hear you answer that as you think about what I'm about

to say. I don't think they would say that they think that they're honest, but I think intuitively they think if their party is in, in office, our people are going to do right by us. And you always hear this. Yes. Our side is always better than the other side. We, that, that's what I, part of what I think you're trying to chop up a little bit is there's this almost naive assumption that even if it's a lesser of two evils, which we like to say that, it's not all that evil. Our side's got the most righteousness on it. And our people, if they're in office, they're going to do right by us and the things that we ask them to do, the things they promised us. And then they, I want to say they never do, they maybe do a little bit. But when was the last time there was a president that was able to pull off all the things that he said he was going to try to pull off? If for no

other reason than you get in office and, you know, there's stalemates all over the place and the other side makes it difficult. I just don't think they ever really intend to do all the things that they say they're going to do. They just say what they need to say to get the office held and to get in position. That sounds horribly cynical. No, I think it's so – again, I would kind of say, well, of course that's true. What would be the – to me, that just seems so self-evident. I guess this is where I – well, again, I want of course that's true. To me, that just seems so self-evident. I guess this is where I, well, again, I want to stay in my lane. I don't want to get over my skis. I'm a biblical

theologian wrestling with what the Bible says about a political identity that has implications for these kinds of observations. So I don't want to pretend like I'm an expert in modern politics. What I do know is every time I peek behind the curtain and do a little deep dive on some modern political issue, it's nasty, dude. It's incredibly disgusting. I'm doing a study right now on all the regime changes that the United States has been involved in, in overthrowing a democratically elected leader. Just in the Cold War era, between 64 and 81 different countries, we have overthrown a democratically elected leader, usually for the sake of money and power.

I just this morning read the chapter in Stephen Kinzer's book, Overthrow, on the 1954 U.S. created coup of Guatemala, where they finally, for 10 years, were enjoying actual democracy. But because of some stuff with the United Fruit Company and the money that was coming into the States, you can go read on it. It's not, this is very public stuff. It was sinister what the United States did behind the scenes. And that's been done over and over and over. So when you talk about democracy, it's democracy for me, but not for thee when it doesn't, when it benefits them.

So every time I peek behind a curtain, all I see is empire. All I see is power moves and all I see is a lot of lying and self-interest and not the lesser two evils, but just a whole lot of evil. That might be a little overstated, but only a little bit. I know, but I feel the same way. I mean, that's what I'm trying to say too. So I think the realization I came to is just how vulnerable I am to propaganda. I came to is just how vulnerable I am to propaganda. You don't like to think of yourself as being vulnerable to propaganda, but I have been very vulnerable to American propaganda. I want to, you say it in the book, I do love this country. I do. I'm not a, you know, I'm not a tear down America kind of guy. That's what ends up happening when you start talking like this. Then the assumption is that you're you're a communist and you want to destroy the nation. It's like, no, that's not really that's not it either, man.

It's just that I don't trust that any of it. There's a different kingdom that is coming to take its place. And I'm supposed to be aligning myself with it. And so the more that I can recognize, this is the other thing I was going to say personally, I think people are afraid that when you start to get cynical like that and things start to get darker, you start to lose hope. And it starts to become kind of nihilistic. And you start to maybe spiral down into a place of despair because there's nothing to hope in anymore. And I think your point is, our hope was never to be in governments to begin with. And we say we

know that, but when you really start to explore how much security we derive from being a superpower, from having a military that does what it does, from the propaganda that we have willingly bought into and loved about America, it can lead to some despair if the bottom gets taken out from under that. It can. And the more you read Psalms, you recognize there's actually a lot of despair in the Bible of people who I think have taken a hard look around them, and they don't see salvation coming from any earthly government. They see oppression. And they, you know, they haven't fallen for propaganda.

They have just felt the pain of the oppression that they live with. And they say, Maranatha, you know, come quickly. I think it's a true point. It can produce despair. But that, again, I would point back to the problem. It shouldn't at all produce despair. For instance, if the Jewish exiles in the 6th century BC, every time they peek behind the Babylonian curtain, they're like, gosh, these guys are corrupt. I thought, I knew Nebuchadnezzar is bad, but now I'm looking at Nabonidus is bad too. And every time I look behind the system, like Babylon is kind of a lot more of a evil empire than their propaganda makes it out to be. Would the Jewish exiles lose despair? Like that's like, they'd be

like, yeah, Babylon's Babylon. That shouldn't be shocking. Or if in the first century, you know, the apostles visited Rome and they looked around and every time they talked to politicians, it's like, these guys are kind of creeping me out. I don't know. I can't trust a word they say. And they say one thing and they do another and kind of all sides of the Senate and the Roman empire are kind of corrupt on some level, a lot of elitism and money and just, ooh,

this is very not what we as a kingdom of God, like would they be, they'd roll their eyes and say, it's the empire. Like why be shocked? So this is where it's only shocking if you begin from a place of America is really just doing a great job. It's a light of the world, as so many presidents have said. We're the city on a hill. And then you find out that

it's actually not that then that produces despair but that's only because you begin from a place where i think is wrong to begin with you know but that's right the reaction is always i can even feel people right now wanting to say but it's better than this country and it's done this and it's done that and yes all those things are true just like you said about, what was the one Caesar that you were mentioning earlier who did very, very positive things in the midst of being a tyrant? Who was pro-family that you were talking about earlier. Augustus, yeah.

That dude is too focused on the family, man. He was hardcore. You know, his daughter was a wild card. She got, she was like the, he was like the Baptist pastor and his daughter was like the wild daughter that ran around. And she was, anyway, Roman politics is interesting. It looks, I mean, when I look, because I do a lot of reading and studying Roman Empire, it's kind of the area that I focus on.

And I just, I see so many constant parallels, you know, like it's not the same thing. The Roman Empire is not America. There's as many differences as there are similarities. But there is enough similarities for us to take seriously what the Bible says about empire and specifically the Roman Empire to at least add some caution. says about empire and specifically the Roman empire to at least add some caution, like at least add that to the mixed of our political reflection is one of my main, I guess, takeaways I want from the book. But I hope people will hear that. And I really do, man. I hope it's very, very accessible and very, very relevant. So I hope people will give it a chance. I hope the people that most need it will give it a chance. I mean the people that most need it will give it a chance.

I mean, we say this all the time. It doesn't do much good only to be encouraging your own tribe, although I think this book will encourage your tribe, just because you've done such a great job biblically of drawing attention to language that was used. And I think most people won't realize how political the language was that was being used by Paul and even Jesus, that it had political implication inside the Roman Empire. I think that'll be super educational to people. And you've said it a number of times, the goal is that we'd be more thoughtful, that we would be able to step back and maybe do an audit of our own allegiance to the government. And then we'd be able to think more Christian about issues and topics as they come along. I think that's always a good exercise, and it's

always a good corrective to be reminded by pastoral theologians like yourself. So I appreciate it, man. You're my friend, but I really do thank you for taking time. This one meant a lot to me as I got into it. I appreciate it, man. I wasn't sure how I was going to land. And the fact that you speak positively of it. Yeah. Well,

you're still going to get caught up in the tinkle by people for it, but people, it will separate people that know how to step back and, and take it for what it is. I think we'll be inspired by it. I appreciate it, man. We should probably end this before he actually does fall into heresy, if he hasn't already.

So I'm going to drag you into my heresy charges. Thanks, bro. I really appreciate you. And thank you for doing this podcast interview on Theology's Hurrah. Loved it, man. Thanks for having me. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.