Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep913: Live No Lies: John Mark Comer

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

John Mark Comer is the founding pastor of Bridgetown Church, right in the center of the city (by Powell's Books if you've ever been to Portland) and is the author of six books: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, God has a Name, Garden City, Loveology, My Name is Hope, and the recently released Live No Lies, which is the topic of our conversation. He’s also currently starting a non-profit called Practicing the Way, which aims to create resources for discipleship and formation in local churches in post-Christian contexts (coming in Fall 2022). Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today, my good friend, John Mark Comer. John Mark has been a pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland for a number of years. He's also the author of several books, Garden City, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which I think is a best-selling book. If it's not, it should be. And then his most recent book, Live No Lies, Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace, which is more or less the content of our conversation. And our conversation kind of went in various places, but largely flowing in and out of the content of that book. So please welcome back to the show for, I think, the third time.

Let's just say the third time, the one and only Pastor John Mark Homer. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in Raw. I'm here with my good friend, John Mark Homer. John Mark, thanks for coming back on the show. I think this is number, is it number three? Hopefully it's number three, at least three. I don't know. Yeah. If I had to guess, I would say number three. Number three. I think last time- You are still just so good looking. It's not fair, Preston Sprinkle. This whole sexuality and gender nonprofit theologian thing doesn't work out, you can just go into acting or modeling. James Bond, they're looking for the next James Bond.

You're about the right age. You can follow Daniel Craig. I'll let you finish. Okay, so I'm very confident and happy to invite my audience to go to the YouTube version of this conversation. Preston's thinking I will edit this out right now. I want my audience to go to the YouTube version of this conversation and you determine who's the better looking one here. Because dude, I think I made a comment. Yeah, I was watching some IG live thing you're doing. Dude, you look like literally 10 years younger than last time I think I saw you. Not that you

look old then, but I mean, you look so young, dude. How old are you? Are you 40? That must be bad Wi-Fi or something. I'm 41. I feel like I've aged so much in the last couple of years leading through COVID, worst season of my entire pastoral, not worst, the most difficult season of my entire pastoral life. I feel like it's the president before or after. I've gained weight. I'm going gray. I'm haggard. I'm ready for a sabbatical. Lord, restore me. Dude, I age so quickly that my iPhone doesn't recognize me in the morning. I have to punch in my code. It doesn't do the facial. It's like, who are you?

What do you do with Preston's phone? I've been sleeping so heavy. I wake up with these – even if I sleep like eight hours, I wake up, look at my face, and I'm like sleeping so heavy. I wake up with these like – even if I sleep like eight hours, I wake up, look at my face, and I'm like, golly. I got like more gray hair and bags under my eyes just in one night. It's crazy. Well, there's a weight. I mean, you're doing a difficult work, and I'm leading a church the last couple of years in Portland through all things.

That's not for the faint of heart. Yeah. It's tiring. You know what helps is lifting weights to Metallica. I've been getting back into my old Metallica days. No, I'm serious. Right after I get done with you, what I do is I go, because it's kind of early afternoon,

so I have this energy drink that I take. I don't know what it has in it probably stuff that's going to kill me but um and i let it kick in let it soak into the bloodstream then i go and i listen to metallica and just i don't do i mean i'm i'm 45 i'm not going for bulk but what i do is i go lift light weights with minimal rest as insane as i can until I just can't move anymore. And I come back to my desk again. It's great. It's like a whole new world. Okay. That's interesting. Cause I've always wanted to do like a midday workout. Like I love to just get up, pray, and then work like just all my deep work, writing, thinking, sermon prep, you know, and I feel like I can go to about 12 or one before my brain taps out. And then I'd love

to work out kind of midday, early afternoon. But then that's like, if you get too tired, you know, it's hard. I missed the window. But then if I go for a run early, then I feel like I interrupt all my study time. So energy drink, that's the solution, huh? Yeah. Yeah. I don't even want to know if I recommend it because it might not i mean it's legal it's over the counter it's not like i'm taking like steroids or anything but it it just gives you that kick and i got my double shot espresso teamed up with that i'm not please don't i'm not recommending this man last time i did i mean i do throw my back frequently and stuff so i don't use a good form but i just i mean like you i mean 90 of my day is literally i work at a home

and i finally got a stand-up desk so i do try to stand up but i mean i might take like 12 steps a day like the little step counter i might look at it it'll say 12 like i went downstairs and came up for lunch you know so if i i mean to me i feel like it's he sent it's it's it's not i'm taking a break from work like if i don't do some kind of exercise, I'll die at 50 because I just such a sedimentary life. Hey, let's talk about your book, Live No Lies. Okay, so I haven't read it. It's on the stack. Okay, so just confession, but you know I will read it.

I just have a lot going on. So I would love to know what this book is about. I think I can kind of guess the direction knowing you and knowing just the title and everything, but is it World, Flesh and the Devil? Like you're taking those three categories. Is that right? Correct. Yeah. Taking that ancient Christian paradigm and attempting, which has been basically lost or relegated to angry fundamentalists with bullhorns and attempting to update it for people living in our secular and sophisticated culture. All right.

So walk us through it. Give me a snapshot of each one of those. Tease us with your book. Tease us. Tease us. Where to start? Okay, let's just talk about the devil for a minute. Just because we can. So my book is not a systematic theology textbook.

It is not me attempting to lay out all the things that scripture teaches about the devil or demonization at all. I'm not even trying to do that. That's far beyond the scope of this book. It's a deep dive into one kind of aspect of the devil or the demonic. So I start off with this kind of new hero of mine. Tell me what you think of this, because you may think of him as a heretic. So let's just start there. But Evagrius Ponticus. I know who that is. Fourth century, desert father, one of the most influential theologians in my life right now.

Oh, my God. He is imprinting on my brain in an extraordinary way. So first off, let's start with this. Jesus, to take Jesus seriously as a teacher, you have to take the devil seriously. Most Western people don't. Most people in the West, just we kind of laugh at the idea of the devil as like a pre-modern, pre-scientific myth, you know, right there with Thor's hammer and Santa Claus or whatever. But any serious reading of Jesus will lead you to a serious consideration of evil as a personified creature, not just a vague force out in the universe. So, um, the desert fathers and mothers who are this group of very serious Christians in the third and the fourth century A.D.

who as Christianity, as it's been called by then, is legalized in the Roman Empire. And now you have this massive shift where it's no longer the way of Jesus or the church is no longer a persecuted minority. Now it's a political majority. There's great things that come with that kind of of Christian values in particular around sexuality and gender kind of overtake the Greco-Roman view of sexuality and gender and kind of influence the wider culture. Major problems with it, compromise and complicity in particular with Roman kind of the empire's power and the abuse of power now become normal in the church. You start to have leadership scandals because now, as we do now in the Western church, because now there's power incentives for people to end up in the church. You start to have leadership scandals, as we do now in the Western church, because now there's power incentives for people to end up in church leadership, which is before the incentive was like, you're going to get fed to the lions. Now it's like, hey, you could move

up in the political hierarchy of the day by becoming a bishop or whatever. So you have this fascinating moment where the Roman Empire is in kind of decline and disarray, and the church is dealing with widespread compromise and complicity. Very similar to the moment we're living through right now in the Western church. One response, there are a few different responses. You have the response of the apologists like Tertullian and others who basically become like the Tim Kellers of the age, the C.S. Lewis of the age. and others who basically become like the Tim Kellers of the age, the C.S. Lewis of the age. These are living in major urban centers of the empire, and they develop an incredibly robust intellectual case for the gospel of Jesus and rebuttal of paganism. And intellectually, they basically topple pagan thought, and basically Christian intellectuals reign supreme until the Enlightenment. So over a millennium and a half, right? Another response wasn't anti-intellectual at all. Many of them,

like Evagrius, were freaking brilliant. There's this whole group of serious Christians that decide the best way to save society is to retreat from it. They use the analogy of like, society's like a shipwreck, you know, and a lot of people can relate to this, at least if they're on the internet right now, in the last couple of years in America, it feels like the whole thing's sinking, you know, which it's not actually, if you go outside, it's a beautiful day and walk your dog and you're having your espresso. But if you have internet and social media, it feels like it's all, this is a shipwreck, you know? So they said, society is like a shipwreck. It's

sinking. The first thing you need to do is grab a hold of a piece of wood and swim to safety before you can rescue others. So they went out into the deserts of North Africa, Palestine, of Syria, and began to just devote their life to prayer. And small little communities would grow up around an Abba, meaning father, or an Amma, meaning mother, who were just these spiritual kind of legends that were old and wizened in prayer and could teach younger disciples of Jesus how to pray and how to experience God and how to be transformed into people of love and how to overcome the evil one. and how to experience God, and how to be transformed into people of love, and how to overcome the evil one. This is where later monasticism all comes from these desert fathers

and mothers, as it kind of goes on over the years to come. Now, here's an interesting. Evagrius Apontikos was one of thousands of the desert fathers and mothers, but he's one of the most brilliant, arguably one of the most intelligent theologians of the ancient church, and wrote a few books. Just genius. Evagrius is where we get the seven deadly sins of antiquity come from his work, come from a book he wrote called Talking Back. Listen to the subtitle, Preston. It's so good. A monastic handbook for combating demons, which is just amazing. Talking back?

That doesn't sound like an eight. That sounds like a very modern title, talking back. Isn't that interesting? Talking back. And that's what this conversation, I just want to get to there in the next 10 minutes. What he means, what they meant by talking back, or it's an antarikis, I think is the Greek word. Countertalking is another way, and it was a spiritual discipline for them.

So here's what's interesting to me. So first off, these desert fathers and mothers, they, let me just say three things. Thing one, they identified that spirituality, Christian spirituality, was a kind of struggle. They did not use the language of spiritual warfare. That's not biblical language. But they identified that when you go to pray, when you go to take your discipleship to Jesus seriously and to do all you can to partner with God to grow and mature into a person of love, it's like there's this oppositional wind against you. There is something blowing against you it's like you know when i i'm over at the coast on summer vacation and i go on a run you know and

it's like i can feel great running one you know it's out and back along the beach running one way along the beach i can feel great because the wind's actually at my back and then i'll turn around and all of a sudden now the wind if you ever run on the oregon coast or anywhere really windy the wind is now against you and it's like like, oh my gosh, it's exhausting, you know, just to like not get blown backward if it's really hard, much less to run against the wind. And they just identified, hey, often following Jesus and praying is like running against the wind. There's this oppositional force against you. And based on their reading of Jesus in the New Testament and their experience of prayer, they identified what they called the three enemies of

the soul, which were like a counter trinity to the Father and the Son and the Spirit that were this oppositional force against us moving into union with God and transformation into his image. And they identified these three enemies as the world, the flesh, and the devil. Now, what's really interesting about their motivation for going out into the desert was to fight the devil. So this is very counterintuitive because our kind of updated Western, you know, modern adaptation of this ancient impulse is what we would call the practice of silence and solitude and stillness. But for them, their dominant motif for the practice of silence and stillness and, you know, it's where the contemplative tradition and prayer comes from, their dominant motif was not Sabbath. It was not like a spiritual day spa. It was Matthew 4 and Luke 4,

where Jesus was, quote, led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. They went out into the desert to pray because they said, look at Jesus. He went out into the desert to fast and pray to fight Satan. We're followers of Jesus. We need to go out into the desert to fast and pray to fight Satan. So that's really interesting. That's thought one, spirituality of struggle. That to follow Jesus is to face an oppositional force that is against you moving deeper into intimacy with God and transformation into his image. Thought two that is fascinating is when they read Matthew 4 and Luke 4, which are the two stories where Jesus is tempted by the devil in the desert from two different authors,

they pointed out that, you know, what evangelicals call spiritual warfare in that story, Jesus fight with Satan, it doesn't read like a Marvel movie where Jesus and Thanos are flying around the sky, throwing lightning bolts at each other, and in the end, Jesus smashes Thanos' face into the rock and vanquishes Satan. It doesn't read like that. It reads like a quiet, calm, intellectual debate about truth and lies between Jesus and the devil. Wow. And that's interesting. So they interpreted that to mean, and then they read Jesus' teaching on truth and lies in John 8, which is the famous line, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

Which if you reverse engineer, Jesus was simultaneously saying we're in bondage to lies and that's where right after that jesus said calls satan the father of lies says when he lies he speaks his native language says there's no truth in him so based on matth 4, Luke 4, John 8, they basically said the devil's primary attack, opposition, war, conflict, whatever you want to call temptation with us, is to implant lies, thoughts in our mind that are demonically animated lies. So they called these logos my Greek word, which is a bit tricky to translate to English. You know, it's like thoughts or thought patterns or internal narratives, like the videos that kind of play in our mind's eye from when we wake up in the morning until

we go to bed. And these kind of narratives that kind of poke around in our brain and imagination about how we interpret the world, thoughts, sentences that keep coming back. And Evagrius and the Desert Fathers and Mothers full-on believe that these thoughts were demons or that they were demons. They believe that just like the Holy Spirit has direct access to our mind and imagination, they believe that demonic beings have direct access to our mind and imagination. Now, that sounds a little cuckoo to us today. Yeah. But just think about like your thought life.

Think about how you have you ever had a thought that first off felt like it had a will to it. It wanted to be thought. Felt like it had a power to it. It was like almost like you could not not think it. And it felt like it had like an evil intent. consume your mental real estate, and it wanted to produce in you anger, bitterness, hurt feelings, fear, insecurity, shame. They would say those thoughts have been demonically animated and are the devil or demonic beings attempt to sabotage you, sabotage your inner life with God and tempt you. And their third thought, and I'll end here and shut up, and we can talk about whatever. Their third thought was the way you fight the devil is through a spiritual discipline that you will see on almost no spiritual formation list today that they called

talking back or counter-talking is another way to translate it. It's the title of Evagrius' book. And it's basically you find a thought from scripture that is the corresponding truth to the devil's lie. And whenever that logos my, that demonically animated thought comes into your field of mental awareness, you refuse to get sucked into the inner dialogue. Instead, you change the channel and you redirect your thought to the truth of scripture. So that was their reading of Jesus in Matthew four and Luke four, quoting scripture to the devil. They would say it wasn't that scripture was a magic incantation and it wasn't inductive Bible study, though there's a place for inductive Bible study. They would say the devil would implant a logosmy, a demonically animated thought in Jesus' mind. Jesus refused to dialogue

with the enemy about it. He refused to get sucked into the inner narrative. And instead, he would turn his attention to a corresponding truth from scripture, and he would move on. And they would say, that is how we fight the devil. We identify the logosmy, the lies, the thought, the demonically animated, we redirect our attention to the corresponding truth from Scripture. They would locate that curation of consciousness as one of the main goals of prayer, a primary act of discipleship, and the ultimate form of what we call spiritual warfare. form of what we call spiritual warfare. Hello, friends. I want to invite you to come join us for our first ever Theology in the Raw Exiles in Babylon conference, March 31st to April 2nd. At this conference, we're going to be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation, care, American politics, and what it means to love, love, love your Democratic and Republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be

presented. Everyone will be challenged to think critically, compassionately, and Christianly through all kinds of different topics. We've got loads of awesome speakers that are going to be there. Thabiti Anyubwale, Chris Date, Derwin Gray, Ellie Bonilla, Jackie Hill Perry, Edwin Wickham, John Tyson, Tony Scarcello, Sandy Richter, Kimika Titi, Heather Scriba, Street Hems, and many others will be joining us for the first ever Theology in the Raw Conference. All the information is in the show notes, or you can just go to pressandsprinkle.com to register. And I would recommend registering sooner than later. Space is limited. You can come and join us in person in Boise, or you can stream it online. Again, pressandsprinkle.com for all the info. Form of what we call spiritual warfare. And that's what my book's about.

So now I don't have to read it. Just saved you six hours, man. I have so many thoughts that are swirling. Let me give me one second and try to formulate it. So it comes out coherent. Um, let me just start talking and see if it comes to me as I'm talking. Um, the sort of, so, so you're putting this kind of spiritual warfare in battling in a sense, well, thoughts, the goods of my ideas, ideologies. I mean, the kind of, the low-hanging fruit is like the devil tempting you to like watch porn or something or hey take that second look third look you know it's kind of like personal moral things that are really clear to everybody we know when we violate

it but shame-based things what's that dirty your future or shame-based things you're dirty your future is over and people knew you they wouldn't love you yep oh well that's the other side it's like not only okay watching porn but then the shame that prevents you from going back to god when you do that shame is demonically induced i wasn't even going to go there but so that's kind of the e like as you're talking it's like okay most christians would say oh yeah this makes this makes sense. You know, porn and loud. Is your brain going to the ideological examples of the same phenomenon? Yes.

Like the fact that. 2 Corinthians 10, bro. 2 Corinthians 10. Okay. So I just opened it this way as you're talking. I open it up there. Oh. Just to read it.

Cause I mean it, for we walk in the, for we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war. According to the flesh, our weapons of warfare are not of the fleshizers. Maybe it was like, no, Gentiles really are intrinsically bad. They can't- Manichaeism. Yep, exactly. Take your pick. Yeah. Today though, I'm just thinking, could it be, and this might be throwing you a softball, or maybe it's a genuine question on my end, the fact that wearing or not wearing a mask, getting a vaccine, not getting a vaccine, voting for this Babylonian leader over that Babylonian leader has absolutely destroyed the unity of the church. The fact that the other political tribe is now the enemy rather than a brother in Christ who has a different political view, and on it goes are those is is that demonic yeah i mean i i think uh i mean that's one example i can i can go into like sexuality

and gender i mean obviously there's many things that i can think of yeah i mean i'm in portland so my brain first goes to ideologies around sexuality and gender or on the right ideologies around Christian nationalism, militarism, materialism on both sides, hedonism on both sides, radical individualism on both sides. So there's some that are right-leaning, some that are left-leaning, and a bunch that are just American or just Western. leaning in a bunch that are just American or just Western. Yeah, I think these are ideologies. And of course, you can trace these ideologies back to a Western philosopher or to Freud or to Rousseau or to some Instagram account or Twitter hashtag. But I think they are then often picked up and animated by demonic power, dark spiritual energies, that then become a stronghold in the church at large and in people's hearts that create a portal for the enemy to come in and demonize the people of God. And that's where there's so much bad evangelical theology around

demonization. For example, the very common thing you hear, Christians can be possessed but not oppressed, which is very unbiblical language. And I find that to be a very unhelpful categorization. Can you unpack that a bit? I know where you're going with that and I agree. I don't know if I just stepped on – I don't know if maybe you teach that, in which case I'm sorry. No, I – well, years ago I learned from – I think it was Clinton Arnold, that demon possessed, that's not even a category. It's demonized, like tormented by a demon and these kind of artificial categories of possessed, not possessed. You're kind of bothered, but you're not possessed. Like all that are just imposing categories.

People confuse and conflate it with atonement theology. And well, you're a Christian. You can't be possessed. Yeah. Exactly what you just said. The Greek word, which I can't even draw from my memory right now, is best translated demonized. And there are Torah-observant, God-loving, God-fearing people all through the four Gospels that have been demonized. There are innocent children that have been demonized. There is Paul who has a messenger of Satan sent to torment him. And so, again, this gets into your theology of providence. You get to your theology of atonement theory.

But I definitely think that in real, call it spiritual warfare, call it the clash of the kingdoms, whatever you want to call it, call it spiritual warfare, call it the clash of the kingdoms, whatever you want to call it, that real genuine harm is a possibility for even for the people of God. And there is a call to resistance on almost every page of the New Testament. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood. In terms of these demonically animated ideologies, we'll call them. Ideologies or ideas, whether it's at a national level or international level. Do you see that magnified in the last few years? Is it a post-internet thing that's exacerbated this? Is it a post-2016, post-whatever post you want to have?

Is it a lot more prevalent? Is there a lot of momentum that the devil has gained by us being a little bit more, I guess, unaware and not going to the desert to fight the devil? Is it worse now than it was 30, 40 years ago? I don't know if that's the right term, worse, but I mean, has anything changed in the last several years in what you're saying? It sure seems like it's... I mean, that's my perspective and you'd have to ask somebody older and wiser. It sure seems like it's, I mean, that's my perspective and you'd have to ask somebody older and wiser. It sure seems that way. I mean, I'm deaf. I'm of an age as you are, where I remember a pre internet and pre social media world. And I think, um, two things have happened. One is you have the rise of what Leslie Newbegin called the political religions. So, you know,

Newbegin back in the 70s, and if you're not familiar with him, a Christian intellectual, British, he was one of the first missiologists who basically helped Western Christians think more like missionaries used to think about going to a pre-Christian, you know, he was a missionary in India for decades. And so obviously, you know, intuitively, Western Christians, if they go to an indigenous people group in Papua New Guinea or India or, you know, the northern tribes of, you know, what's now Canada, they think differently about how to contextualize the gospel, what church should even look like, a holistic level of ministry. And he was one of the first people

to come back after decades in India and realize that England and Western culture was just as pagan as India was. It was different. It wasn't pre-Christian. It was post-Christian, and that's different. But yet Western Christians often don't think – this is where we get the word like missionally about Western culture. So he's kind of the godfather of what the missional movement was and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, just a – let me just – he was a smart British thinker who saw where culture was going. And in the 1970s, he predicted, or I would say prophesied, that as the West secularized,

religion would not go away. Instead, it would be transferred over onto politics. And he warned of the rise of what he called the political religions. So we are now living in the fulfillment of that prophecy or prediction where politics have always been important. But if you were around in like 80s, 90s, you know, George Bush, senior Bill Clinton, even politics were I mean, American politics has always been raucous and people have always been, you know, partisan and blah, blah, blah. But it was like more low key. Yeah. And things were going, you know, if you were middle-class American, things felt like they were going decent in the country. And, uh, but as America has continued to secularize,

politics has almost become a pseudo religion for people on both the right and on the left. And therefore politics becomes identity. Uh, and the identity of politics is not just a progressive thing. It is 120%, uh, Republican thing, 120%, 120%. Um, and, uh, then it becomes tribal. Then it becomes your sense of belonging, your sense of self, your sense of morality. And then at that point to critique somebody's tribe or political thing or voting record is to critique the deepest part of somebody's self. And that's that's full on political idolatry has massively ramped up in recent decades with secularism. And because for all sorts of reasons, we could talk more about. And then social media, 120% has amplified and aggravated this trend of political idolatry and political identity and political polarization. I mean, that's not even a question. That's been well documented now.

Well, to your point about it being different, and I think I've said this several times in the podcast, and my apologies to the avid, faithful listener who has said, Preston, you already said this, but somebody might be listening for the first time. But as I reflect on the difference between, say, 20, 30 years ago and now, is that in the past, like Republicans and Democrats, they would see each

other as wrong. We disagree. I don't agree on this policy or whatever. But now it's like, they're not just, the other side's not just wrong. They're actually intrinsically evil. Once you cross that threshold and you put that in the church. So now if your ultimate allegiance is to a certain political tribe and your secondary kind of identity is your religious identity. And no one would say that, but I'm talking just functionally, that's how a lot of Christians are. No, functionally, emotionally, yes. I've heard many people say, I mean, secondhand through pastors and stuff saying, yeah, I can never go to church with a Democrat or I can never go to church with somebody who voted for Trump or didn't vote for Trump, whatever it is. Once you're living your life that way, that becomes your ultimate functional

identity. And in the past, it just wouldn't... Yeah, I grew up in very Republican circles. And man, we believed the Democrats were wrong. But evil? A Christian Democrat? They're just fundamentally like this place would be better without them like no no people wouldn't really say that like people got along and debated and discoursed and everything but now it's just like it's i i think i mean who is more excited than satan and all of his friends that christians are viewing each other as intrinsically evil, given which Babylonian leader they're giving their allegiance to. Like, this is just so twisted. So backwards.

Yes. Help us out, John. And here's how I think you know. Mark, how do we do that? Well, I mean, I think the beginning point, and this cuts across partisan lines, if you're more progressive leaning or more conservative leaning, the beginning point is repentance over political and ideological idolatry. The beginning point is repentance and asking God to free you from an identity and a sense of self and an allegiance that is wrapped up in a culture war and a aside in that culture war,

or a party, or a political ideology, it begins with repentance. Which, can I suggest that repentance, in its full sense of the word, might and probably would include stopping or minimizing the steady trickle of toxic ideology being fed to you through your favorite news outlet, social media, podcast. If anything is preventing, stunting your desire to love your neighbors yourself or your enemies yourself, whatever it is, it could be true.

It could be true. It could be true. It could be, I don't know, pick a couple just so I level the playing field. Whether it's, I'm blanking on it. Whether it's Fox News or CNN. If your steady diet of that is not, you might say, no, I agree. CNN, nine times out of ten is true. Or Ben Shapiro, whatever, nine times, whatever. If as a result, you're less motivated to love your neighbor and your enemy as yourself, then you have to at least question whether this is a helpful trickle.

I feel like, well, some people might be able to listen and it doesn't really do anything to their heart. They get informed, they get a different perspective. But if your heart is stifled, then you need to turn it. Part of repentance is turning that off, taking a break, take a month yes say i'm not gonna listen i mean the world's gonna exist without being aware of all the problems going on am i on this i'm here i mean and the algorithms and stuff i mean there's a whole like you peek behind the curtain on i don't know who the the hypothetical people are that aren't being deformed by that i i'm not sure they exist. Everything we do does something to us.

So reading Twitter or Instagram or the news is formation or deformation. And you know, you shall know a tree by its fruit, Jesus said. Are you becoming, The end goal for us is not getting our political power. It's not religious freedom. It's not our policy pass. Not that those things do not matter. They matter a ton. But the end goal is, are we increasingly bearing the fruit of the Spirit? Are we becoming more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more patient, more kind, more gentle, more faithful, and more self-disciplined. And is your digital intake, whatever your digital diet is, is it forming you toward the fruit of the Spirit? Which some digital things do. Listening to a podcast could do that for you. I sure hope so.

Some digital things do. Listening to a podcast could do that for you. I sure hope so. Or I sure hope so. Or not. And just because a podcast is by two Christians does not mean that it's forming you into the fruit of the Spirit. Right, right. So, gosh, may God do that through us. Yeah, I mean, I think minimum of 30 days, ideally, take like a year off, you know, and, and repent of that. And then I think, you know, this is very broadly speaking. Um, secondly, I think learning to think Christianly first and Americanly second, you know, like for, I'm in this like super left-leaning city. And one of the really sad things about, uh, the last two years for me in all all honesty, was to see how many people jumped into the conversations of 2020, predominantly about race, but also about COVID and politics,

and how quickly people jumped to adopt entire systems of secular thought. When you say people, you mean Christians, like churches and Christians and stuff? Yes, yes, yes. People in our church, friends, yes. Myself at times, but yeah. But didn't even pause long enough to attempt to think Christianly. So it just became what's Abram Kendi saying about race, or what's so-and-so saying about politics, or what's so-and-so's view of Trump, view of Biden, or view of mask, or view of the vaccine. It wasn't even like the humility and patience to stop for a minute and think, okay, race. Racism is not a new problem, not in our country and not in the human experience.

Christian, the Bible was written mostly by people of color who were oppressed by an empire of a different ethnicity. What did they have? What did the New Testament writers have to say? What did Jesus have to say about race? What did the New Testament writers have to say? What are the church fathers and mothers have to say? What did faithful Christians down through 2,000 years of history, are there similar moments in the church history where the church of Jesus has dealt with problems like this? And there've been Christians who've been both culpable and oppressor and oppressed. And is that how Christians thought about these categories? And what wisdom do

they have to teach us? And what can we learn from them? And how would a uniquely Christian view of race and ethnic unity or racial injustice give shape to how we think about this and talk about this in the language we use and what we advocate for in culture and don't advocate for, like, these should be the first kinds of questions that we ask, whether we're talking about race or sexuality or masks or COVID or Democrat versus Republican or Trump versus Biden versus whatever. Our first thought should be, how do I think Christianly about this? And that involves, you know, the discipline of the mind to immerse yourself in scripture and the best of the Christian tradition. And so when people just immediately jumped onto

whatever secular ideological system is out there on either side, then they're no longer able to critically think about it and engage with it from the safe ground of Christ's teaching. Hey friends, hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. And if you are enjoying this conversation and others like it, would you consider supporting the Theology in the Raw ministry by going to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. You can support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to lots of different kinds of premium content like monthly Patreon-only podcasts and blogs and Q&A sessions.

Again, you can go to patreon.com forward slash TheologyNaral or all the info is in the show notes. The safe ground of Christ's teaching. I'm curious. This is a little, well, not off the topic, but what is it like in Portland? Because it's like depending on again this is like all the rumors are true what's that all the rumors well i

mean all the rumors are true you know you watch one for it's like antifa right like you watch one news outlet and it's like oh it's an idea they don't exist another one it's like they they're taking over portland about the burn to place down you know like is it like are you can you walk downtown portland without getting mobbed and attacked is it peaceful is it are there burning buildings all over the place still or i don't know i just yeah yeah yeah no i mean it is yes it's safe to walk around downtown i wouldn't walk around it at night right now um and all of the federal buildings it's like you're in it's like you're in beirut they have like four foot tall giant concrete barriers followed by like 10 foot tall chain link not like rent a fence like chain link you know stuff um to protect all the

federal buildings businesses down there ironically most of which were owned by people of color have been decimated and gone out of business you know on one hand yes a lot of it is true there are full-on anarchists antifa is very real it is not a myth um that are here they're a tiny minority of the population but they get an incredibly sympathetic hearing from the wider progressive population who aren't, you know, walking around downtown, you know, in Kevlar, but who are tweeting and Instagramming kind of stuff like that. I mean, we literally in our mayor, mayor oral election last year, the main runner up who was supposed to win

in all the polls was ahead by 10 points. And thankfully she did not. Ran as her like slogan was everyday Antifa. She ran as I am Antifa. That was her like slogan that she ran by. And she was supposed to win. She was ahead in all the polls and ended up not getting

elected, which is just fascinating. When you said they're supported by the wider population, did you say wider or whiter or both? Well, in Portland, it's both. I said whiter, but in Portland, that is both. I wonder if that was intentional.

This is going to be so controversial to progressives, but white progressives uh tend to grossly misrepresent the people they claim to be advocating for that is a now well-documented fact yeah um so i was on a run a couple of months ago around the waterfront it's like a friday morning at like 10.30 is my day off. It was a beautiful sunny day. I'm going to run around the waterfront, which is kind of a nicer place called the Eastern Esplanade. If you've ever been to Portland, it's a great like, you know, people go jogging and ride their bikes. Beautiful. You can see down the river. And there's this guy walking toward me dressed to tone black, has not like a beanie on, has like a mask. It looks like it's from like a G.I. Joe movie.

It looks like a cobra mask or something. It's like a rat. He just has two slits for his eyes. His mouth is completely covered. It drapes down around his shoulders. Full black, wearing full tactical gear, Kelar vests uh military cargo pants big old boots as and hanging from his gloves uh like the the not steel toad but like the steel embedded kind of gloves you see like special ops where hanging from his kevlar vest are brass knuckles and a huge knife.

And he's just like walking on the balls of his feet. And I'm like, what the heck? This is like out of a movie. It's like I'm a G.I. Joe movie. But this is just like a Friday morning in Portland on my run. So I moved to the far other side and ran as fast as I could and just hoped that he wouldn't know I was a Christian and catch me. I thought you were going to say you pulled some ninja move or something and did a roundhouse to the face or nothing like that. No, man, it was, it was actually really,

it was a scary moment for me. So yeah, no, I mean, most of Portland's it's spiritually, it feels really oppressive, but, uh, no, I mean, the city is, the city's fine. The city's great. Most of the city is just normal it just has you know ideological signs everywhere what's your church what's your that's surreal what's your church experience then been like last couple years i don't know if i have nothing we might have talked about that last time a little bit but like how how is that yeah just a broader cultural tensions and shifts affecting the churches do. Have you experienced a lot of polarization in your own church at Bridgetown? Not within.

I mean, Portland is politically homogenous. So we're an Orthodox Christian church with very strong, clear, biblical teaching. So the super far left people are not going to be happy in our church long term, as neither would the right leaning people, but there aren't, there isn't, we're not in a purple kind of, you know, political context where there's people on both sides, the internet is that. So there's a lot of pain between generations in our church. You know, a lot of young Portland's

the most overeducated city in America. I read one thing said, so there, a lot of young, Portland's the most overeducated city in America, I read one thing said. So there's a lot of kind of 20 somethings that move here after college just for the lifestyle to live in Portland. And often they come from the South or the Midwest or a place like Idaho, and maybe they've had something about that experience they didn't like. They wanted to get out of that conservative environment. And they were drawn to the progressive environment of Portland often. And so often there's a real felt self sense of alienation between kids and their parents. Over the last election, a lot of broken or broken down relationships between kids and their parents that were pastoring people

through. And the main challenge in Portland, as I would imagine, would be the main challenge on the opposite level if you're in, you know, small town Idaho, would be, you know, so many Christians that were just sucked up in ideological idolatry, which for us would be on the left, and either lost their faith over it or deconstructed their faith or left the church and attempted to kind of remake Christianity in their, you know, more progressive vision. And it was very hard and it was very sad. Most of our church, thank God, held together, held faithful to Jesus and his teachings. But there was a noticeable and loud minority of the church that, you know, walked away, at least from our church, if not from Orthodox Christianity,

and if not from faith in general, over the last couple of years. And it was one of the saddest pastoral seasons I've ever been through in my life. Really? Gosh, I can imagine. Especially people I've talked to, other pastors have said, like, I've known this person for years. And it's like, what happened? I get a lot of that. And it's almost like turning on a dime.

And it's the same problem on the right. I just don't deal with that. I see it on the internet and it looks horrible, but I don't deal with that. Because you have a younger congregation that might lean maybe more traditional or orthodox theologically, but socially they're going to be much more on the left, right? Would that be accurate?

Yeah. I mean, I'm probably politically disinterested, but yeah, socially they'd probably be like center-left. Like they wouldn't need a lot of Trump voters in your congregation, but they love the Bible and not but. No, yeah, yeah. Trump would be viewed morally as reprehensible. Um, I'm curious, uh, people wouldn't would be, you know, kind of Christian Orthodox Christian kind of people. I get this question a lot. I'm curious. Cause

you mentioned like, so I imagine you're working with a lot of kids who are very anti-Trump parents, maybe pro-Trump. How do you help them navigate that? I get that question a lot. Like, hey, how do I talk to somebody who's relative, parent, whatever, who's so entrenched on the other side? Do you have any magical formulas that you give them that helps mend that relationship or at least? Just avoid the subject I could play. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's really sad if parents are sucked up in political idolatry and the kids are trying to be more mature than their parents about something, you know.

So you can pass your basic don't. You know, your parents are not going to respond to judgment. They're hearing different. They're receiving different digital algorithms than you. You know, you need to understand where people are coming from and, you know, and so some of that work, you know, but man, I, yeah, I don't have a great answer to that. It's really painful and really hard, you know, for a lot of people. I'm reading a killer book right now. Have you heard of Adam Grant, Think Again?

Yes. Have you read that book? I've read his book, Originals. Think Again's his new book, right? Dude, dude. I can imagine being a pastor and not knowing this book. I always like to overstate how when I get into a book, I just start overstating my case. No, that's helpful.

It really is like, if you want to learn how to navigate conversations where there's intense disagreement and be able to try to get the other person to see things a little differently and for yourself to see things differently, it's gold. It's so good. Wow. I did see that on the shelf. Yeah. If you're not going to genuinely listen to... With authentic curiosity, listen to somebody else's viewpoint. So deep down, you're actually wanting to learn what it is and explore it. You're curious about it. If you can't do that, they're not going to do the same to you. That kind of posture is so disarming, you know, and when the walls are up and intense

and you're defending and arguing and pointing out, everybody hunkers down, nobody gets anywhere. And it just, I've known it years intuitively, like, yeah, even in my, you know, conversations with sexuality and, you know, some people maybe on the far right accuse me of being, well, he doesn't yell loud enough, you you know he's not really that passionate about orthodox views on sexuality and gender which is just ridiculous it's like they just don't they don't get it like just by pounding and pounding an argument or argument and i actually is there anything good in this other argument no there's nothing it will you know the broken clock is right twice a day like there are some seeds of truth and beauty in

many different kinds of arguments that might ultimately be wrong but if you can't acknowledge that how do you think they're even going to list give your time your view a time the time of day you know but anyway i'm getting off track yeah i'll never forget like um no i'm in this good spot to kind of end the conversation i think the first step is just to recognize there are demonically animated ideologies that have become strongholds in the church of Jesus, in our country, in our generation, and in our own churches and hearts. And we need to identify what those strongholds are, what those ideologies are, what the demonically animated lies are embedded in them.

And we need to repent and partner with Jesus to let him liberate us from slavery to these ideologies that are driving us to anger and anxiety. And I think you're absolutely right. It starts with listening, it starts with humility, it starts with thinking critically and thinking Christianly. I'll never, I mean, the election of Trump, again, because I'm in a, I don't even say this in a moral way, just I'm thinking Christianly. I'll never, I mean, the election of Trump, again, because I'm in a, I don't even say this in a moral way, just I'm just in a left-leaning city, was baffling to, if you're in a Portland, the election of Donald Trump five years ago was baffling because it doesn't fit the narrative of the city, which is a progressive, secular, evolutionary, we're all evolving.

Portlanders think they're the future, which I actually think they're a future. They're not the future. They think, you know, everybody's going to become progressive once they're enlightened like we are. And that's built into the very name progressive. We are. It's an evolutionary view of history. Human history is evolving toward a utopian future where we finally shred the oppression and repression of religion and God and superstition, all of which are the same thing of traditional sexual norms and even the concept of gender and biology itself. And we're just free to remake our body, our biology, you know, sleep with whoever we want, be in whatever kind of relationship we want, do whatever we want, as long as it doesn't harm everybody. Of course, nobody agrees on what harm

is. That's a non-breaker, but let's set that aside. And so we're just, and everybody else is just going to eventually catch up to us. So that's that's that's a caricature of the of the Portland or coastal city or just progressive kind of view of the world. And that's a caricature. A thoughtful progressive would also say, no, we really believe in systemic sin and generational injustice. And we have a critical view of power. So there's great things in it too. Again, there's a lot of truth in the progressive view. A lot of it's critique of power is very helpful. But that doesn't, you can't make sense of the election of a president, Donald Trump,

or of a lot of the backlash against BLM or other things like that over the last few years. And so, you know, I remember after his election reading Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance was beyond helpful for me because I realized, and I don't think Portland realizes, I realized I don't understand what poor people's experience of our country is like. I don't understand what poor people of color's experience is like. And I don't understand what poor white people's experience is like. I grew up really comfortable, not rich, but middle class, kind of normal, you know, what to me was normal. I realized, oh, wow, there's a lot of other people. Look, I just said that. I just said that. Normal. It's not normal.

It was my normal, but we assume that our normal is normal. It's not. It's just said that. Normal. It's not normal. It was my normal, but we assume that our normal is normal. It's not. It's just our experience. So yeah, I remember reading Hillbilly Elegy was so helpful. And then all of a sudden reinterpreting the Trump phenomenon through this new angle of compassion, like, oh, wow, there's people who are experiencing the breakdown of Western society and secularism through a whole other lens and a whole other pain point. And it definitely, it didn't change my political opinions, but it sure as heck changed my heart posture and my view of people that may have voted differently than me. So good. The book is Live No Lies. John Mark, you got tons of other books. I'll listen to show notes. They are all so good in content and beautifully written.

There's one more question quick that's been killing me this whole time. This whole time, I've been trying to read your tattoo on your right arm. It looks like a cadian or something what what is that yeah what is that that's so embarrassing this goes back forever ago my little brother and i did this it's uh arabesh which is the star wars language what they actually made up a a language for star wars it's it follows normal English grammar, but they have their own alphabet. And it's the line of Han Solo in all three of the original trilogy movies,

never tell me the odds. What? How did I not know this about you? I was wondering if it was like Elvish or something, but you went beyond that all the way to Star Wars. I was really into star wars until the new trilogy came out which i think is horrible and uh just an absolute capitulation to the worst of capitalism and uh just an embarrassment to the star wars name and uh i'm still in grieving over

it so now i wish i want to have my tattoo removed but it'd be really painful and expensive and i haven't done it so it's not even like a Bible verse or something. It's not like, Oh, it's not even a Bible verse. I just assumed it was like Greek or my brother was like, Hey, let's get, let's get tattoos together. And I was like, okay. He's like, I have a good brother bonding experience. You know, my brother's 12 years younger than me. So we're like kind of trying to become friends in adulthood, you know? Cause I was like out of the house by the time he, you know, he was six when I left the house, you know. So it's been great. So I'm like, all right, it'll be a bonding thing.

And he's like, let's get Star Wars tattoos. Right. This was before the new J.J. Abrams one come out and we were all I'm soured. He likes him. I don't like him. And so I'm like, great. And he wanted to get like the Death Star on the shoulder or whatever. And I'm like, bro you you will regret

that the rest of you like what about the rebel like symbol on my bicep i'm like no no no no you will regret that so like we have to get something that most people just think is like some cool indie art thing and the only people who know what it is are like diehard star wars nerds and they'll love it just because they'll know what it is so arabesh he got may the force be with you on his arm and i got never tell me the odds online the next time okay so i got a few tattoos the next one i want to get if my wife will give me the okay let me know because you have a good cool radar and everything so i want to make sure it's not a stupid idea because i'm 45 so most of my tattoo ideas are pretty lame yeah you never know i no longer trust myself i'm now running all my ideas by my 16 year

old son yeah yeah yeah so the face of a lamb but a stern lamb like a stern lamb crown of thorns maybe that might be a little too much but with basilea the greek word for kingdom written upside down somewhere somewhere in the crown upside down kingdom a lamb with it with a stern like he's steady he's a lamb so he's weak he's been conquered he's crucified but he's he's he's but he's resolute he's resolute resolute i can't find any of the picture online what i imagine i can't draw it in some kind of upside down kingdom basilea i have too many greek words on my body already so i don't want to do another like just you almost need like a like a lamb version of uh eastern orthodoxy icon iconography oh where if as a late modern westerner

you look at all the icons of the saints and they looked they look kind of depressed almost or not depressed they look like they're not smiling and we're like we're to smile for photographs, which actually is a very Western thing to smile for a photograph. Most people around the world don't smile for photographs. Um, it's a Western phenomenon. And actually what they were communicating was not that they were stern or unhappy. It was, they were, they were communicating that part of the goal of becoming a saint was becoming so detached from the world and fear that you achieve what they called apatheia, like a deep sense of peace and abiding calm and a sense of detachment from the world and contentment in God. So they're actually

communicating with the pursed lips and the not smiling. They're communicating, these are people who have been free from their attachment to the world and come to a great place of peace. Wow. So you need a lamb. Yeah. A lamb expression of like an icon of St. Gregory or something like that, or St. Basil the Great. Because I do have kind of some Eastern leanings

that I'm unaware of, but my Eastern Orthodox friends tell me several of your kind of beliefs are very well at home. I know, man. I've been reading a bunch of Eastern Orthodox theology recently, and I literally asked my wife a couple of weeks ago, I'm like, would you ever consider, I don't know if converting is the right word, but becoming Eastern Orthodox? And she's like, absolutely not. Walked away. A good friend of mine converted. If comers are becoming Eastern Orthodox, it's going to be a very long, slow process. Hey man, I got to let you go. I've taken you over an hour. I got tons. I could talk to you.

Love chatting to you. Yeah. Thanks so much, man. Blessings on you and your work. I respect you so much. Love the work that you're doing. Just recommended your book on gender last night. Again, I recommend it all the time have my kids read it it's so helpful to me sharpened my thinking opened up my mind to new possibilities so grateful for you thanks man i really appreciate it all right dude take care okay much love Thank you.