We explore the profound implications of loving without hypocrisy, detesting evil, and clinging to good, as articulated in the Scriptures. The necessity of embodying love within our relationships and honoring one another emerges as pivotal, especially in the context of contemporary societal challenges. Furthermore, we engage in a critical examination of how the church ought to navigate its engagement with political structures while remaining steadfast in its commitment to justice and mercy. Through this discussion, we aim to foster an understanding of how our faith can inform and transform our interactions within both ecclesiastical and societal spheres.

The podcast episode delves into the profound theological implications of Romans 12, particularly focusing on the exhortation to love sincerely and eschew hypocrisy. Aaron Simmons articulates the imperative of detesting evil while adhering steadfastly to goodness, establishing a foundational premise for Christian conduct. The conversation unfolds to emphasize the communal aspect of salvation as articulated by St. Paul, positing that the act of loving one another deeply embodies the quintessence of Christian community. The speakers examine the necessity of honoring one another and maintaining fervent zeal in service to the Lord, underlining that such actions are not mere suggestions but rather divine mandates essential for the edification of the Church. As the discussion progresses, the speakers engage with the themes of hope, patience in adversity, and the significance of persistent prayer, ultimately advocating for a life characterized by active hospitality and the blessing of adversaries, thereby challenging listeners to reconsider their approach to love and community engagement.

The episode culminates with an exhortation for tangible action, urging listeners to engage in their communities through acts of justice and mercy while fostering unity within the Church. Benjamin Chicka articulates the notion that genuine faith must manifest in concrete actions that reflect the teachings of Christ, advocating for a proactive approach to social issues. The speakers collectively emphasize the importance of addressing systemic injustices and invite the audience to join existing community efforts rather than creating new initiatives from scratch. This call to action is underpinned by a commitment to embody the teachings of Jesus in daily life, fostering a sense of shared responsibility for the well-being of the marginalized. The episode wraps up with personal testimonies of witnessing God in everyday life, reinforcing the idea that divine presence is often found in acts of service and love toward others.

Takeaways:

1. The Church's engagement with politics requires a commitment to justice and mercy, emphasizing that faith must manifest in action towards the marginalized.
2. A critical understanding of salvation encompasses both personal redemption and societal transformation, as demonstrated in the teachings of Jesus and liberation theology.
3. Christian nationalism and social justice movements share an underlying desire to enact moral values in society, yet often diverge in their methodologies and motivations.
4. True unity within the Church necessitates active participation in social issues, as silence can breed resentment and apathy towards marginalized communities.
5. The dialogue surrounding Church involvement in politics must transcend partisanship, focusing instead on justice as a communal responsibility.
6. Practically, individuals can embody their faith by identifying personal passions for justice and joining existing communities that strive to address systemic issues.

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Romans 12, 9, 19 in the Christian Standard Bible say, let love be without hypocrisy. Detest evil, cling to what is good. Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another.

Do not lack diligence in zeal. Be fervent in the spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in affliction. Be persistent in prayer. Share with the saints in their needs.

Pursue hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.

Do not be proud. Instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone's eyes. If possible, as far as it depends on you, Live at peace with everyone, friends. Do not avenge yourselves. Instead, leave room for God's wrath.

Because it is written, vengeance belongs to me. I will repay, says the Lord. In this passage, St. Paul is describing the communal component of salvation, living as the church.

Earlier on in this letter, Paul has described the need and reality of salvation, and after, he will go on to discuss how the church should engage with the governing powers of the world. Dr. Aaron Simmons, how is the instruction to pursue church unity and peace with all men integral to salvation?

And why do you think Paul may have addressed this before discussing how he engaged with the political powers of the time?

I mean, it's a good question.

As somebody who is a hopeful universalist, it makes tons of sense that thinking about the idea of salvation as a universal offering an invitation, a maximal expression of divine charity to every being, it seems to me that unity then would be the sort of natural outgrowth of that. And so thinking well, about seeing the moral dignity in the face of each other.

As Derridos says, toutre et tu autres, every other is my holy, Other is the other who calls me to responsibility.

It seems to me that that unity then would be this sort of expectation of what it looks like to find ourselves united by the image of God, a God of love, such that we love each other.

Good stuff.

Stuff.

Love it. Hey guys, welcome to the Whole Church podcast. And yes, that music does mean that this is a round table discussion.

It's been a minute since we've had a whole church roundtable and we're excited because I think only one of our guests here today has been part of a roundtable before. You may know him. You definitely love them, even if you don't know him. The one and only Dr. Aaron J. Simmons also joined with our roundtable.

We have Jill, Elizabeth and Dr. Benjamin Chica. And introducing all of them and saying other smart things, of course, is the host with the most, one only pot almighty, TJ Tiberius Juan Blackwell.

Welcome to your show.

Thank you. Thank you. If accolades were feathers, this episode would be a duck. We don't have time to sit here and list them all. Dr. Aaron Simmons.

He writes on the substack Philosophy in the Wild. He's the author of Camping with Kierkegaard. Great book.

He is a professor of philosophy at a yet to be named school for reasons Reverend Jill Elizabeth, barbershop theologian. She's Jill. She's on systematic ecology. She's great.

Dr. Benjamin Chika, the man who truly has just too many accolades to name immediate past president of the Paul Tillic Society. Rest in peace gratefully. So I've heard. I have heard he's written what playing as others. Oh, there's too many.

He's written great people about Paul, Delusion, dreams and other things.

So if you're listening, make sure you go on our website. You don't have to purchase the T shirt. It is completely optional because it's a somewhat free world, at least in that sense.

But it helps promote the show. The T shirts are really easy way to advertise. They're really comfortable. Wear them all the time. And Josh, the shirt you're wearing, super comfy.

Great color.

I do love it.

Yeah. My favorite is the one with the TJ quote on the back, which has nothing on the back

as it should. Yeah.

But if you're listening, you should also check out the Anzh podcast network website. The link is below for shows that are like ours, shows that aren't like ours, and shows that we just like to like.

Yeah, yeah. Me, TJ and Jill are all host on Systematicology, another show on there. And it's a good time.

And some of us are friends with the good old people at Theology on the Rocks, you know, Lee Robinson, Christy Whaley. We just got to mention the people that we. We love because we love them. But I can't mention all of them. It'll take all day.

So instead we're going to jump to a holy sacrament that we like to do on this show that it's a little bit harder to do on roundtable sometimes. Hopefully this one won't be too hard. TJ and I'll go first, give you guys time to think. It is, of course, the holy sacrament of silliness. Yeah.

Because you can't be divided when you're being as silly as I like to be, Today's super straightforward. Would you rather spend a day, one day, hanging out with Winnie the Pooh or Yogi Bear? I'm gonna go. Probably a little controversial here.

I'm going with Yogi. Mind you, I love Winnie the Pooh. If it was, who could I be friends with and have an ongoing relationship with, it would probably be Winnie the Pooh.

Problem is, if I spend one day, I'm gonna be heartbroken at the end of the day. Whereas me and Yogi, we're gonna get out to shenanigans.

I'm gonna be stealing some picnics because, you know, when winning Rome do as the Romans, I'm gonna have a fun time. So that's where I'm at. Tj, what about you?

Yeah, yeah, I'm just. I'm not cut out for the criminal lifestyle that Yogi Bear leads. I just. I can't do all that.

I'm gonna hang out with Pooh, we're gonna do nothing, eat some home. We're gonna do pretty much nothing. And it's gonna be awesome.

Yeah.

So, Aaron, Dr. Simmons, would you.

Yeah. Choose one definitely Yogi for me.

And the reason is I can actually see Yogi in the woods, like you, doing fun things in the woods, which I would vibe with. Winnie the Pooh always seems like somebody who.

The Hundred Acre woods is probably kind of like Walden's cabin, where it's just right next to a suburb. So, yeah, I'm going Yogi for Deep woods backpacking adventures.

Nice. Nice. It's a good choice. Jill. Jill, what about you? Yogi or Winnie the Pooh?

So I'm always going to be the pain in the neck. I try so hard to answer a question directly, but I can't.

So I am picking the namesake of Yogi Bear, who Yogi Bear was named after, which is Yogi Berra, the baseball player for the New York Yankees. And who wouldn't want to spend a day with that guy? He'd just be cracking me up.

That's pretty funny. Yogi Berra is a good answer. That's cheating.

I know.

All right, Ben, where are we going here, Yogi? Winnie the Pooh.

So these are two bears that spend every day of their lives without pants on.

And one of them clearly has security issues about this and just lashes out in their behavior, and the other is just at peace with themselves and who they are. And I think I could learn from that. So I'm hanging out with Money the Pooh.

That's Fair answer.

That's fair. I started my Taoist journey thanks to Pooh, so I can't fault anyone for saying that. The Dao of Pooh Benjamin. Ha. Fantastic book.

But that's for another time.

Two of the most common ways we hear, you know, we're talking about church engagement today, social justice, Christian nationalism, all that kind of things.

The most common ways we've heard this address seems to be either, like, this social justice gospel, social gospel message, or the Christian nationalist rhetoric. So you'll have, like, progressive Christians who are speaking about social justice issues as a salvific manner.

And then some more conservative evangelical Christians might be like, oh, you're belittling the gospel, so it's just about that. And then you'll have a lot of evangelical Christians who, again, I'm going to disagree with on this note. We'll talk about Christian nationalism.

And they try to say that that's just a means to make the nation more country. More country to make the nation more Christian.

Probably also country according to Kid Rock and influence politics kind of in favor of Christian principles or whatever the stuff that they care about in the social wars are, you know, and then progressive Christians will tend to see that as power grabbing and criticize that. So you have a little bit of this on both sides where people are trying to criticize how the other one's engaging.

I tend to think that the social justice people are more like Jesus, but there is criticism both sides and engagement on both sides, just in very different ways.

Yeah. So in just a couple of sentences, each, if possible, how might each of your studies or work speak into the conflict?

As you know, a small business owner, pastor in his community, whatever it is, professor, scholar, authors, what are we talking about? Jill, in a couple of sentences, if you could.

Sure. So I can address this not so much as a small business owner, but as a reverend without a flock.

So I have stepped away from the church, have zero desire to build or pioneer something brand new as far as, like, church is concerned. But I have a deep desire to love people the way Jesus asked us to love people. And to me, that doesn't just include Christians.

It's an interfaith movement. It is across socioeconomic status. Just I try to build tables and invite people to tables as much as I can. That to me feels like the work of Jesus.

And I get disheartened sometimes when I hear people saying that social justice has no place in the modern church. I just feel like that is said by people who never read the Gospels and, and don't understand what Jesus is asking us to do. Now.

I don't think of that social justice as salvific in the way that like, I don't think it gives us salvation into heaven. I think it is salvation as wholeness making, which is creating heaven here on earth. And I It's our duty.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Underlying soteriological question behind it of like, what do we even mean by salvation?

Or you just get out of hell or talking about wholeness making. Because if it's wholeness making, this seems to fit. Aaron, I just threw you up assuming you'd go next. For some reason I don't know, I

was going to ask you to go next.

So I tend to think that Micah6, often quoted, still should be quoted more. So do justice, love mercy, walk humbly. I think the right tends to be really garbage at the doing justice and loving mercy.

And I think the left tends to be pretty bad about walking humbly. And so if we could find a way maybe to bring those three together and recognize that doing all three, and here we'll have to parse out our words.

But as a philosopher, I would say we can do all three without quote unquote being political, because I think that is a very particular technical mode of discourse. And I think what we've allowed ourselves to do is think that we are being political whenever we do any of those three.

And that I see as an utter disaster for democratic life together.

All right, Ben, how are you feeling on the issue?

If I could slightly rephrase the wording of it.

Another way to think of it is like it's sometimes thought of as like those that engage culture and those that are just like within the walls of the church, talking about what they believe about Jesus, salvation, just what their own personal journeys and lives, etc.

Back in Nazi Germany, those two sides came together in the most ardent of critics of one another and in Karl Bart and Paul Tillich, because they couldn't be more diametrically opposed on basically every theological issue except they stood up and said basically every Lutheran church in Germany supported Hitler and the Third Reich.

And this like kind of biblical church theologian and then this philosophical theologian engaging like artistic movements and culture and kind of changing all sorts of radical ideas were like quite friendly on all churches are failing in their duty by supporting a politician instead of doing the work that they say they do. That's what the prompt made me think of.

That's a different way of thinking about a commonality or a third way in relation to historical precedent of two Major figures.

Yeah, yeah. I think a little bit more before TJ takes us to the next thing. Just some stuff. I was thinking about hearing you guys on another podcast recently.

I was hearing somebody talk, and the story they told kind of gets at why I get irritated when people are like, let's stay out of politics. I'm like, do you know what you mean when you say that?

He's talking about a pastor of a local church and lived in the suburbs, and he saw the people in the neighborhood next to him that was far poorer than the neighborhood he lived in. Suddenly the city decided, we don't need to do their trash anymore. And then it's, wait a minute. How are they going to rebuild?

What's going on to this community, seeing people hurt? And he talked to his church and said, well, let's. Let's do something about it. So it's a pretty big church.

When he went to the town council, all this stuff pretty easily convinced them, hey, we should pick up the trash over here. That's pretty clearly, hey, the church is doing something, helping people in the community. That is a good thing. We get it to, what is that? Salvific?

Or not all the other stuff later on. But, like, that's politics. And I think that's what Jesus would do. Like, I think Jesus would say, hey, these people should have their trash picked up.

Right? And I think the problem is usually when we think politics, we're really thinking partisanship of, like, Republican or Democrat.

And, yeah, the church doesn't need to speak to that all the time. I do think there's things the church should be criticizing that both parties are doing in America, but that's not my point.

When I say we need to talk politics, I'm saying we need to say, hey, these are systemic issues and we should be doing something about it. I don't care if you think it's salvific or not. It's definitely what Jesus would do.

We could address those other technical theological questions later, but the church should be in politics, and it should be helping their neighbors. I think that's probably something all of us here would agree on.

And then to play a little bit of devil's advocate so that somebody can jump in here, I think if we had someone who was claiming Christian nationalism on this right now, which we don't, what you would typically hear is that that's what they want to do now. I think it's because in America right now, they don't understand what nationalism means, because that's not what it means.

Is not, oh, I want to prioritize Christian ethics. Nationalism is our nation is better than others and more about this purification, putting your nation above others. That's power grabbing.

That's self aggrandizing. That's not Christian at all.

But what they think they mean when they say Christian nationalist, A little, most people, not all of them, is that, well, I want to see Christian ethics in my politics and that's going to help everybody because I believe if everyone did the right things under God that that would help them have better lives. So they, in theory, what they think they're doing is still prioritizing this thing in politics that's going to help everybody.

I disagree with how they're going about it, but I think that that's what most people who say Christ nationalism are claiming to be doing, I hope. Yeah.

At least.

Yeah, yeah. Most people I've encountered. I should say it that way because yeah, it's hard for me to know what everybody's thinking, but not possible.

But what are your takes on that as far as, like when we're defining politics, Christian nationalism, how people are trying to engage with this stuff? Do you have anything to add or thoughts for us to ponder?

I mean, I don't. I think it's, it's decidedly rarer than I thought it would be to know someone who's really just like a Christian nationalist. Because the.

I think it's a minority. It's such a loud one. It's kind of absurd that it's literally everywhere.

And I don't know anybody living in South Carolina. How many people who I might classify as Christian nationalists but would not classify themselves that way. It's weird.

I kind of think that what counts as like, oh, you're engaging in politics now versus what somebody else is doing isn't politics is whether you're at the center or margins of society, if you're expressing politics, but it's kind of mainstream at the moment. You don't get criticized for playing politics.

And if you point out those being like marginalized and if marginalization doesn't necessarily entail mistreatment, it just makes it really easy to mistreat people who are then marginalized in society. And then the mistreatment can be ignored because they're marginalized and it becomes the cycle that kind of repeats over and over again.

When you point that stuff out, then you're playing politics.

But if you just kind of say, oh, well, like we're just like supporting kind of what's currently, like, I think of it like a bullseye you know, and like playing darts, you know, if you're at the center currently, you're. In fact, you can be effectively doing politics, but you don't get criticized for it.

But then if you're doing something on behalf of the outer regions of the board, the metaphor breaks down because some of the outer regions, like, score more points, but you get just rings going out from the center. I think that has a lot to do with it.

Yeah. We have a series on another podcast that we do, Systematic Ecology, called Primarily Political.

And I think that's one of the biggest things I've seen when people talk to me about it is that they were like, I don't think I knew what politics were because, like, we're talking about, like, the politics in something. So whether it be like, Star wars or something like, wait, that was politics.

The Federation and the debate, I'm like, yeah, that was very clearly politics.

Or I think we did one.

Yes, we did one. I'm pretty sure that this was one of them.

But when we talked about My Little Pony, me and Christian, we got on the political stuff, because My Little Pony very clearly has. Here's how we're gonna help all the other ponies. Here's why this mass apple production instead of farming yourself is a bad thing.

And I'm like, yeah, that is very clearly politics. You guys just don't think of it as politics because it's become normalized. So I like to swear I like what Ben said.

Yeah, I just play off of what Ben said. Using that analogy of the bullseye is that if you are the, you know, majority. So in this case, for.

I think the issues we're talking about today, if you're a white CIS male in America, you don't think that things are political. Oh, but. But you are. I get it. If you are just a woman, issues that you're talking about are political.

Like, if you're talking about your own health care, that's now a political conversation where you may not be even realizing you're dipping into the political. If you are a black child going to public school and you're talking about your education, you know, we're. We're into the politics of it now.

Yeah.

And that's the issue that I have when people usually say, oh, don't bring politics into this, is that people are not politics. We're talking about human rights. I don't consider human rights a political issue.

Right.

That's why they're called that.

Yeah. Also really entertaining.

If you just take people back a few decades when contraceptions, I'm trying to find, like, you know, PG versions because I know we had a lot of family listeners, but contraceptions were really political at one point. A lot of surgeries for men to not have babies have become not as political. That used to be very political.

And similar surgeries for women are somehow political. And that's pretty much what they're talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna disagree slightly, but it's not actually disagreeing with anything that's being said, but more of a semantic challenge to the way we're saying it. I grant. Absolutely. Ben and Jill, you're exactly right.

I affirm everything you've just said about what counts as political depends on, well, who's saying it and where you're located. And if you speak from the margins, everything you say often gets characterized as dismissible.

Right.

Whereas if you speak from the center, what you're saying just counts as normative because it becomes default. Right.

However, I was just today in my philosophy class teaching a lovely book by Paul Woodruff called Reverence Restoring, Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. And he makes the following claim, which I think is right.

He says, reverence requires us to maintain a modest sense of the difference between human and divine. If you wish to be reverent, never claim the awful majesty of God in support of your political views. I think that's right.

Now, let me explain, though, why I think it's right, because for me, that plays out at two levels. One, what would it look like to claim the awful majesty of God in support of your political views?

I think it would play out as what in the sort of traditional political philosophy debates we would call it's thinking that private reasons, or even, let's just say, revealed authority structures, can be deployed as legitimate and immediate evidence in the context of public discourse. I think that's a awful idea.

And the reason I think it's an awful idea is not because there is some actual metaphysical distinction between public and private, but because what counts as public and private is itself a political decision about how we understand the hearing of voices.

And so part of why I am a defender of public reasons is not because I think it is some, you know, natural kind, but because I think it actually acknowledges the reasonable ability for all members of society to engage with each other as reason givers.

And what worries me about private reason giving is, though it can cut in favor of marginal voices who've been traditionally excluded, more often than not, it will just allow the default center to remain default and normative.

And so if we say, look, use reasons that your interlocutor can recognize as reasons, even if they disagree with you about very big, deep things, then you aren't claiming God to defend your political view. What you're doing is saying, I've got good reasons for this view. Now engage it.

And if it turns out that I have also theological support for why I stand here, awesome. Let's have that conversation in the context of a theological discursive community.

But the second reason that I would just tweak here, I think we've got to recognize the difference between the political and politics. This is drawing from the theorist Chantal Muff.

And politics is the thing I think we should avoid in discursive communities that especially are theologically laden.

And the reason is because as soon as you allow them to do politics again, we've now justified Christian nationalism as a legitimate mode of public discourse from behind the pulpit. I think that's a disaster. So what does it mean to do politics?

For me, it's a very narrow conception of defending particular policy views as if there is no reasonable defense of a different policy view. And that's where I think our commitments to public reason should cause us to be really wary of saying, you know, if.

If we all agree on the importance of healthcare, especially for those traditionally excluded in our social structure, that is not a politics claim. That for me is just a commitment to doing justice.

The fact that there might be a free market capitalist and a social democrat differing about the best strategy in public policy for enacting that access to healthcare, I actually think that's a thing that we should be hesitant to wade into as theologically supported now as members of society who claim to be theologically committed? Heck yeah. But that's where I think we do that work best as reason givers, not as Christians or as Buddhists or as atheists.

I think that's where we tend to get really squirrely and it cuts against the very voices we're trying to empower.

Help me out a little bit just to make sure I am understanding you, because I think I like what you're saying, but I'm not as smart.

Is this similar to if I were talking about the difference of dogma and virtue of like, hey, we're following the rule of the law of the Bible as opposed to what's actually the meaning behind it? When you're talking about, like, politics and political. Is that kind of similar?

I mean, so a. I'm sure you're way smarter than me, Josh, but the idea is the political is Simply the structure whereby we understand oppositional discourse to define community membership. And we, of course, should be political. This is the whole church world dichotomy.

This is the idea of an us them that is not destroy the them, but recognize the them as the ones to care about. This is the 99, leaving them to find the 1.

So I don't have a problem with the political as a structure of orientation that defines communities such that we can then be ruptured, challenged, contested by the other, and also called to care for those within and those without. Right.

It's when we go from this political model of communal identity and organizational integrity that we then start saying what it means to be a member of this community, in this case the church, Christianity, whatever our, you know, idea would be. It means therefore to agree with this public policy on school choice or this model of immigration strategy. I think that's a disaster.

And it makes us the very people we try to oppose. Again, I'm on the left, like, that's what I oppose about the right. And so we just got.

That's why, I mean, I don't think the left tends to be humble when it comes to being aware of that error in its own thinking.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that a lot. That challenges me. I have to think more about it, which means I can't talk about it on a podcast when you just said it.

But I can say I do always love a chance to get more semantical. So thank you for helping me with that as well.

Can I give a brief follow up, Josh?

Yes, please. My brain's still catching up, so I need time to breathe.

I just, like, I do largely agree, like, what you described, like, what it looks like is like, Carl Schmidt and political theology that informed the Nazis. And like, that's being talked about again, like, political theology went away after the Nazis.

Now it's like a thing that people are talking about again. But I think it's a pretty simple point that he makes and it, I, I think it's correct.

Jeffrey Stout at Princeton talks about democracy and tradition and like, basically a democracy is a kind of tradition. And like, Republicans have a tradition, Democrats have a tradition, and religious reason giving is a sort of tradition.

So like, those traditions have very different backgrounds that like, and assumptions and worldviews that conflict with each other, but they, in the political realm can talk with one another. So the private public breakdown, he's. He's breaking that down and saying, like, religious folks can say, these are my reasons for doing a thing.

And it's basically what politically opposed People do when they tell each other their reasons for doing a thing. So, yeah, so, like, I guess that's my slight addendum. Like your slight addendum.

What I said, and I would say so Muff is drawing directly on Schmidt. And what I'm suggesting is we can appropriate Schmidt's definitions and reject what he thinks are the consequences of them.

It doesn't mean, therefore the US dominate the them radically defend dictatorship and authoritarianism. It can be. Look, only if we have a them does hospitality make any sense. Right? So I'm flipping Schmidt on a Levinassian head.

That would, of course, course make him, you know, gag. But I.

But I would say, just as a critique of my own, acting like this is obviously the case, not only Stout, but like Nick Wolterstorff, who's one of the best philosophers over the last 50 years, radically disagrees with me on public reason.

And this is a view that lots of very, very, very serious political philosophers just say, look, public reason is a tool to reinforce the normative hegemonies that we then ignore as already operative. There is no public reason. There's always someone's reason declared as public. And I am very sympathetic to that critique.

And in fact, held Woltersdorf's view, which is called consocial impartiality. I absolutely held that view for the majority of my academic life and my adult life.

The reason I changed to a public reason defender is because one of my atheist friends, an amazing, amazing, amazing philosopher named Scott Akin, I highly recommend his book why We Argue and How We Should. And then his other book, I wrote both of these with Rob Talese.

His other book called Reasonable Atheism, what Scott and I were bickering about behind the scenes, just as friends. He's like, aaron, I get that you think, hey, everybody, bring the reasons that motivate you, and then let's just see where the conversation goes.

And this is actually what allows for communities to emerge and flourish. He's like, but notice if I, as an atheist, secularist, you know, humanist guy, like, all of my reasons are accessible to you as a Christian.

Your Christian views are inaccessible to me as an atheist. And as soon as I started realizing, oh, shoot, things, that's just a public reason version of standpoint epistemology.

This is what feminists and womanists and queer theorists have been saying for a long time, right? It actually motivated me to be committed to the public reason that, ironically, so many of those standpoint people have rejected.

And so it's this tension between, I don't think either of these views bring whatever reasons motivate you. No, you need reasons that your other can acknowledge. I think both of those are legitimate strategies for engagement.

I just think the private reason view has cut in favor of the very hegemonies that traditionally public reason was deployed to defend. And that's where it just, it caused me to change my view.

And now I think, man, I can talk to anybody if they're committed to reality, reason giving in good faith. I don't know how to talk to somebody if they are shutting down the conversation by appealing to evidence.

I can't acknowledge whether that be something they heard on Andrew Tate's podcast or something they read in the Bible as interpreted through their pastor. Both of those end up being inaccessible in a way that I think marginalize the already marginal.

And that's why I have landed in a really boring, absolutely dull, John Rawlsian defense of public reason. I get that it's not sexy, and yet I think it's absolutely where we kinda need to land.

Yeah, I will say that public reason bit that you said sounds very whole church. So as soon as we get whole church badges or trophies, I'm gonna send you one, but I don't know when that'll be. So.

Yeah, we used to have trophies, actually.

We'll at some point, of course have to have you on to talk about what is sexy philosophy and defense of public reason.

And we'll call the episode Bringing Sexy.

No, I'll have to recommend, you know, my sexy friends like Scott Akin, because I definitely am not the guy for that one.

Right, right. But there is one thing that we do for every roundtable, and we call it the Roundtable Roundup. So I'm gonna read four questions for y'.

All.

You just need to choose one to answer. No one's allowed to respond yet. No one's allowed to ask any follow ups yet until we're done.

So I'm gonna read all four and then we're gonna go through. Everyone's gonna pick one to answer, you're gonna answer it, and we're gonna move on. You can choose the same one.

If everyone just really wants to answer question B, that's fine. But there are four, so pay attention. Think about which one you want to answer. Are we ready? Cool.

Many evangelicals and other conservative Christian groups have taken up Christian nationalism as an identity, claiming to want the nation to have Christian values and leadership. Historically, nationalism has had a different meaning.

But how might we find a way to appreciate the desire to better one's country and live about the values you care about and how you vote and engage socially while still critiquing and criticizing the apparent desire for power from those in these groups.

Question B is, what might we be able to learn about social justice and prioritizing the gospel message from traditions like those found in liberation theology?

C is what's the difference in pursuing peace and unity and taking the mindset of some who say the church should stay out of politics and avoid conversations about social justice and matters of this world completely?

And D, is is there any overlap in how some who claim to be Christian nationalists and those who prioritize social justice in their orthopraxy in how they engage culture, politics, culture war, conflicts, and the voting booth? So I'm now going to start with Ben. Dr. Benjamin Chica, which one of these would you like to answer?

I am answering the last one.

Okay. So D. Do you want me to read it again?

No, I'm good.

Cool.

Can we read it again for listeners who might not remember them all and don't have the outline?

That's a good point.

So is there any overlap in how some who claim to be Christian nationalists and those who prioritize social justice in their orthopraxy and how they engage culture politics, culture war, conflicts, and the voting booth?

So, yes, there's a going. Relying on my. My Paul Tillich scholarship. There's a really great book called the Religion of White Supremacy in the United States by Eric Leed.

And Tillich has this concept of faith as ultimate concern. And it kind of functions, I tell my students, it functions like a lie detector test.

So you can claim to believe these things and what they mean for your life, but the way you behave sort of reveals what's actually ultimate to you. Because if something's actually ultimate, it's unconditional, whereas other things are conditional in your life.

If it's conditional, I'll do it if you do something for me, or I'll get to it if I have time. But if it's unconditional, those qualifications are no longer in place. And he gives a really good analysis of, like, not just modern politics.

And, like, when did it come out? I have it on a tab. It came out during, like, the heart of the Black Lives Matter protests, I believe. Yeah.

It haven't if you include the colonies. But that leads me to. So, yes, there's that? So I think there's, I wanted to highlight his work and mention that.

So actually like, so you can put like God and like actual faith in God there, or it can be money, power, fame, etc. And you treat that as God.

But there's something that actually relates to what we were just talking about, which is there's a distressing lack of this on both kind of conservative and liberal theologians, which is philosophical theology, in my interpretation. A big fan feature of it is fallibilism. So it's philosophical theology, not just theology, because it's not dogmatic, it's fallible.

You open it up to philosophical questioning. So the thing about bringing religious reasoning to the fore is that nothing is actually private if you mean it seriously.

It should be open to anybody who's got serious questions about it. And that's a minority view, certainly in the academy, and I think in a lot of churches as well. It's either. I hear a lot of that.

I don't have graduate students, but I hear a lot of this from my colleagues with graduate students. They basically just want to show up and be told that they're correct about how woke they are. And they don't want to engage with any of the work.

And it's like there's criticisms of this stuff and you need to know, like, you can be wrong and that the fallible nature of theology and it's not private. And if you actually think this is true, open it up to criticism.

Because if you don't open it up to criticism, that's a sign you don't actually think it's true, is a feature that's missing on both sides.

Okay, thank you. Happy Mario Day. By the way.

I gotta, I gotta represent my video game stuff.

I just now noticed today's Mario Day.

Yes.

What makes it Mario Day?

It's March 10th. So while you're answering, I was like, oh, he's got the Mario shirt on.

So I know my video game stuff. Look, I, I this, I know what I'm doing here.

Yeah.

So, Aaron Simmons, which one of these would you like to answer for us today?

I'll take, Take a. Which I would summarize as how can you desire to better your country while critiquing the power of those who lead it?

And my, my response to this very briefly would just be, years and years and years ago, I was in a philosophy class in grad school where a professor of mine said, you know, it's, it's fine for all of we Derridians and Levinasians running around saying, justice is never just enough. There's always the justice to come. There's always the infinitely better and ever increasing justice.

But then the professor said, his name is Martin Kavka. He's like, yeah, but surely there's got to be a Dridian patriotism that would be possible, too. And that was the incident of the conversation.

We didn't explore what that meant or how that would get unpacked. But here's why I think that's right. As I said earlier about hospitality, it, it, this is a Druidian lesson.

The only way that you can model hospitality is if you have a place into which you are inviting someone to come.

And I think that one of the great hallmarks of why we would be patriotic about the legacy or ideal of the democratic conception of the United States is the radical hospitality that defines at least our founding narratives of how we make sense of who we are now. That is certainly contested currently.

That is certainly being violated in our models of police state practices, our dehumanization of immigrants, immigrants and, you know, our others. However, it seems like a really good idea to say I am patriotic in the sense that I defend the ideality and not the actuality.

And that tension is what motivates me to be ever more committed to this place, this we, this us being more inclusive, more hospitable, more invitational. And this is, I think, a true sign of what commitment to justice would look like as a lived practice.

And that then definitionally would mean you are critical of the power structures, because the power structures are almost always defined by a reinforcing of the status quo as just enough. Right? This, this is why you'll get lots of narratives currently about wanting to go back to when things were perfect and we've now messed them up.

But notice any account of going back, a nostalgia about when justice was enacted is definitionally a refusal to live into the hospitality that justice would call from us. So I think, yeah, like, I'm all for patriotism. There's a reason to say I'm proud to be an American.

But what that would mean to me is because we in America fail every single day to live up to the call that says, are you inviting, you know, the suffering, the marginal, the oppressed, the poor? Are you saying, come in? Yes, yes, come. That Derridian expression. And that seems like a really, really cool political model.

Even if then the politics of how that plays out is in, you know, undoubtedly going to be fraught.

All right, so last, most, certainly not least, the one and only, you And

I gotta play too, you know.

Since when?

Since always. We've always played.

Are you sure? I don't think so, but that's fine with me. Well, then we'll make Josh go last anyway, because I already started introducing her. Jill.

Reverend Jill.

Elizabeth, which one of these would you like to answer?

I will take B.

Which was what might we be able to learn about social justice and prioritizing the gospel message from traditions like those found in liberation theology? So I was thinking of a quote from a liberation theologian from early 19. His name is Dom Helder Camera. And he was a Brazilian priest.

And he said, when I feed the poor, everybody calls me a saint. When I ask, why are the poor hungry? The line switches and everybody wants to know I'm a communist. And I think about this all the time in our.

Our answer to the call to do what Jesus said when he asked us to take care of the least of these and where the church recognizes. Okay, that's good. Yeah, we definitely want to give our money to feed the poor. We definitely want to give our money to help the unhoused.

But it's like whenever you take it to the next step of, like, how about we talk about those systems that have allowed those people to end up in the situation they are. That's when it gets called not politics, but political. Right? Or I guess it gets called politics, but.

But what we're actually doing is being political to talk about what Aaron pointed out earlier. And I just think the message of Jesus is so clear.

You had freezing temperatures, like where you had never had temperatures before. And I remember a headline about Dallas in particular having such. I think it was January. So it was probably 21, right.

Of this horrible winter where so many unhoused people. Sorry, I just get emotional when I think about it because it angers me so much. Were dying on the streets. It was like a record number of people died.

And then I also remembered the mega churches that I had visited in Dallas that had, oh my gosh, saltwater tanks in their foyers. They have all of these programs for the youth and these sound systems that are just state of the art and incredible.

And I thought, how dare you let people starve and freeze on your streets and not open up your sanctuaries? And I at the same time, I remember having a conversation with someone in my barbershop, because I am a barbershop theologian, after all.

I care deeply about every person who walks in my doors, and I always want to engage in conversations with them, mostly to find out what they need and how I can help their lives, but also to get perspectives. And there was a Catholic woman who was in. Her son was getting his haircut, and we were having a discussion sort of about this.

About me saying, like, this moment, this.

I just think we're called to tithe and we should just hope that our money goes in the right place and take care of our own families. And I love this woman, and I love her family, but I just did not see Jesus as she was speaking.

And I said a prayer right then and there, like, lord, let me be a Christian who.

Who sits with the least of these, does everything I can to feed and house and clothe and befriend those on the margins and not do it in a way that isn't humble, but do it in a way that says, I'm over here where Jesus asked me to be, and if you want to come join me, it's a great big table. It's also a table with really good food and really fun people. You come hang out with me, or you can keep doing what you want to do over there.

Right. So, yeah, that's it for now.

For now.

For now. Josh, do you want to go, or do you want me to go? You can go last if you want.

I'll go. Because mine kind of builds off of Jill's, even though I'm answering a different question.

So I'm gonna take c. What's the difference in pursuing peace and unity and taking the mindset of those who say, churches, stay out of politics. Politics, which written before Aaron said anything. So I'll rephrase it.

Stay out of the political and avoid conversations about social justice in matters of this world completely. Yeah. There are a lot of people who are like, oh, yeah, just like what Jill's talking about. Keep the social just stuff out of church.

Preach Christ alone. That's a famous phrase or something. Okay.

Anyway, you know, there's a lot of stuff along those lines of like, let's just make it about spiritual stuff and act like this physical world doesn't matter.

And as someone who was raised Pentecostal, hopeful, universalist, like Aaron, I like all this, like, hey, yeah, future, you know, two kingdoms, you know, God's world. Yeah. Like, I love it. I am about the spiritual, but I don't think you can separate that from the physical. And what I see.

And I think the Bible says, be at peace with all men, unity. I'm gonna pull a little bit from Taoism here. And, like, I think it's more like that idea of harmony.

And when you're seeing a church on a street and there's a bunch of harm, homeless people who are hungry, starving, whatever, and that church clearly has plenty of money. The people who aren't part of that church see that you are not at peace with them, they are going to hold resentment against that church. Right.

Like to be at peace. The best man also ties into. Feed your neighbor, care about those who are less fortunate than you, all of that stuff.

And even politically, if you're not saying anything about those who are marginalized in the US Being mistreated, you're not saying anything about those who are dying in the Middle east right now, anything about how our transgender neighbors are being treated, our queer neighbors. That silence, that inaction, to me, the world sees that that's hatred.

Like, you might not be saying, like, terrible things like some of the other churches, but sometimes inaction, silence, to me, is just as much an act of hatred. Anything else. And to be at peace, to have unity, peace with all men, does not look like silence, because silence breeds resentment.

And I think justified resentment. Yeah.

Yeah. I was gonna answer C as well. Maybe it's the whole church thing.

Yeah, maybe, Maybe.

But what's the difference in pursuing peace and unity?

And take the mindset of some who say the church would stay out of the political and avoid conversations about social justice and matters of this world completely. Unity and apathy are not synonyms. It's very different to say, oh, I don't really care what that person believes. We can. We can just work together.

Than just say that you and I are unified in the pursuit of our goals. The absence of reconciliation kind of makes unity nothing.

Yeah.

What does unity mean at that point? It's. I understand that the semblance of unity is there.

You can feel unified because you're working towards the same goal, but it's just kind of hollow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Yeah.

So now that the roundup is complete,

if you took notes or just have your Mind fortress ready to go. Is there anything that anyone would like to say in response to anything else anyone said during the roundup?

Okay, so I was gonna respond to what Aaron said about the patriotism, like, beautiful patriotism. And I just, like, lit up when you said it.

And I was thinking about mlk, who's just like, this great example of maybe not marrying our theology to our politics, but using theology in a way to bring about the best good. And I think he played on this idea of patriotism by convincing Americans of the ideals that they espouse to live up to. Right.

He somehow put up a mirror and said, this is what you believe you are, but you're not. And also called into the greatest of us of like, but we can achieve this. We can have freedom for all.

We can have, you know, this beloved community that he talked about. Now, I would be one of those critics that say we didn't even get close to it and we have a long way to go.

But I do think that's where patriotism has a place in this.

And not nationalism, but patriotism, that we can say, yes, we are proud to be Americans because we come from this beautiful tradition of working to live up to the ideals that are exposed before us.

Yeah. That's all without getting too American.

I also think being a patriot in America runs directly contrary to being nationalist, because the whole ideas of our country were built on welcoming others in, of being that melting pot. And nationalism is the exact opposite. That aside, the thing I wanted to add was making evangelicals happy.

I want to shout out a casting crown song, I think, and it's one of those where sometimes I think the prophetic word has to come from within the church. The song, if we are the body, I could see like a more I hate religion grunge version of that being really cool, by the way.

But I think it's good that it came from CCM world of saying, wait a minute, why aren't the hands healing? Why aren't we feeding? Why aren't we being Christ in the world? If we say we're the body, where's the proof of that? And that builds on the unity thing.

Our podcast is about church unity. If you're going to say you're the church or senior, you're the body of Christ, we got to address that before we get to the unity bit at all.

And then even more so, again, it goes back to that whole. It's very evident when you say, oh, I believe in Jesus and caring for the others more than myself than your church.

Looks a certain way and your community does not. And it's like, are you though? Are you the church? Yeah.

Yeah. I also was a big fan of what you said, Aaron, just because it's so easy.

I really hate the fact that I'm a patriot is now just a dog whistle for racist douchebag. But the ideal of patriotism I'm a big fan of We Are Our country.

You know, C.S. lewis says some cool stuff about patriotism and the four loves. Sorry, contract. I have to mention that once.

It does happen to mention that at

least once an episode I was trying to find though it's not popping up exactly. A theologian we've not mentioned that I think needs more discussion in especially progressive Christian circles today is Reinhold Niebuhr.

And the reason that and and his brother H. Richard. But like we often hear discussions of Bonhoeffer, we I think especially in process spaces, hear a lot about Tillich.

Niebuhr though, is I think the philosopher for our time, the theologian for our time in the sense that he demands an impossible ideality does not distract us from the necessity of acting here and now. Right. And this is one of the things that I think Bonhoeffer sometimes can get read as minimizing.

Even though I think a best a good reading of Bonhoeffer doesn't do this. But where Bonhoeffer, you know, many read him as like selling out his pacifist commitments by engaging in the Valkyrie attempt.

Others read the Bonhoeffer Metaxas and others as the great example of what it looks like to enact perfectly this Christian vision of human existence. I think both are wrong.

But Niebuhr does not make it possible for you to think that you can sleep easy despite him having some pragmatic inclinations that I'm a little bit more skeptical of. Niebuhr invites us to say there's evil in the world. And I was looking for the Obama quote. When Obama gets asked who's your favorite theologian?

He responds niebuhr. And then explains why.

And in fact his account of Niebuhr was used by the Niebuhr society for a long time as like the best intro to Niebuhr and theology. But can you imagine today a sophisticated account of a theologian coming from the upper echelons of American governance. Right? I can't.

And so the sheer idea that impossible ideals cultivate the necessity of practical action that then motivates the requirement for us to be self critical about the failure of our own action. Right. And that's what I Think MLK did beautifully. I think we see a lot of this in James Cone. I think we see a lot of this in Emily Townes, right?

Like, there's a. The whole tradition of thinkers who understand what it looks like to be Christian is not yet to be Christian enough. Right.

And it's not in a perfectionist way, but in a Christian realist way. I mean, this is why Soren Kierkegaard, when asked basically, are you a Christian? He says, no, but I'm trying to become one.

And that ideal is what I also would say, like, are you an American? Well, no, but I'm striving to be one. Like, in that sense, notice what a cool and sexy version. Like, we are all immigrants, right?

None of us are American. Because to be an American is to misunderstand what it means. Like, the whole point is we're striving ever toward. We're striving to be Democrats.

We're striving to be, you know, Christians. We're striving to be Americans. Not as.

Not that other thing, but insofar as justice constantly demands the embrace of an impossible ideality that cannot stifle the necessity of practical action here and now. But it also then requires that humility on the backside. So, hey, watch yourself. You think you got this figured out now you've lost it.

Now you've jumped ship. And that's what's so cool when Martin Luther King says, I have a dream.

Like, it's so slick how he does this, because what he describes is a literal impossibility in the legal and social and political context in which he's speaking. He's articulating an impossible demand, but he's also necessitating a practical mode of engagement and action where we find ourselves.

And had he not declared that in impossibility, then it couldn't have been possible.

Right?

So the whole idea is only by saying yes to that which is not yet, can that which is not yet impinge upon whatever we now do. And for me, that eschatological draw is something that. Man, I wish a lot more pastors would step up and be neighbors today.

Yeah, yeah. I. That brings me to kind of a. An etymological joke, semantic joke between.

Inside joke between me and one of my other good friends is we often say we want to be American, but not Mericans. There's a story behind that. Short version is when I was in Charleston, I walked in on a terrible conversation of a man cussing a cashier out.

And the last bit of it was, it's not America. It's the America. Literally, someone said that. And forever. Now, there is a difference in my mind between an American and American. Yeah.

But I want to go ahead and. Sorry, move on to the next question.

Semantic jokes aside, there are some versions of this conversation that seem to have existed from the very beginnings of the church. Right.

Like, one of my favorite things to, like, really pay attention to when I read the New Testament, because, like, I'm a Bible geek, is like, how Paul in James the Liter of Jesus kind of had this, like, kind of like a subtle, subtle conflict thing. If you're really paying attention, like in Acts, at some point, James is like, you know, just send some.

Some followers out there, make sure Paul's doing the right thing. And you're like, wait a minute. You don't do that to somebody you like.

You know, like, I'm not sending people after TJ, seeing if TJ's, you know, podcasting. Right. That's weird. Yeah. I love these two, though. You see a little jabs here and there forever.

And what I love in their writing, though, that one of the ways it comes out is Paul's always talking about, you're saved by faith. And James throws out there and adds the, yeah, you're saved by faith, but that's meaningless without works. And that's like.

I think that's a lot of the crux of these conversations are, like, are we talking about, like, are you saved and the works don't matter? Or do the works part of salvation?

One of the interesting things, the difference between Protestant and Catholic theology isn't that Catholics think you're saved by works, but Catholics actually, actually still think you're saved by faith, but that it comes out while you're doing the works. Whereas Protestants will say, you're saved by faith, and then afterwards you do works. Again, semantic difference splitting the church.

But I kind of want to hear from Dr. Benjamin Chika on this one, because I think Tillix idea of the God beyond God really might turn this question on its head.

So I kind of want to hear, like, when we think of, like, maybe this version of God who's judging faith or not or works or not is not even a good way of thinking about God. I think that might be an interesting voice to this conversation. So, Ben, do you want to add something here?

Well, sure. You threw a curveball at me at the last second.

But I'll just say since Niebuhr was brought up, I mean, Niebuhr is one of the ones that convinced Paul Tillich to leave Nazi Germany and come to the United States. And literally, the SS soldiers knocked on Tillich's door the day after he left, and they were gonna kill him. So they were, like, there by one day.

I mean, the influence of Niebuhr was clear in terms of, like, a ground of being God. There's kind of like, I. I tell my students, it should be like a light bulb goes off at your head at some point.

He and Karl Bart, again, despite all their influence, all their disagreements, totally different models of God were right on two crucial things. They resisted the Nazis, and they were basically universal salvation theologians. The ground of being grounds. Everything that has being.

You're a being. You're grounded in God. Congratulations, you're saved. You're grounded in the ground of being.

If this realization dawns on you, you should be like, oh, I'm, like, trying to prevent other people's being in the here and now. Like, for Tillich, it was. I already mentioned the criticism of the Lutheran churches. And then he comes here and he's so.

He's ripping the German churches to shreds, which is why they wanted him to immigrate here, because they're like, hey, they're gonna kill you. Because you're like. You're actually speaking truth to power instead of shutting up.

So he did, and he starts just speaking at New York City art scenes. He spoke at Met gala openings, and he's talking philosophical theology without the jargon. And they're just like, hey, it's great. We love it.

Wonderful. And to Tillich, it's like, this is religion. They got it.

Like, they are affirming the beings of other people, and it's not infringing on their being, and it's becoming more inclusive. He had strange terms for it that we don't have to, like, go over now for the podcast audience.

But it creates both a wider circle that's also deeper because it's more people, and more people in the group are included versus less included. And there's an awareness of, like, oh, like, I was excluded once. Now I'm included and my being matters.

And somebody said that for me, and I probably did that to somebody else, and I should stop that because From Tilik's perspective, the ground of being grounds all beings. And if you have that personal realization, you can realize immediately all the ways you should stop hindering that realization here and now.

Because it's, like, it's one thing ontologically to be affirmed, but you can, through, like, concrete cultural means, have that be affirmed. And they should both happen. So, like, while you're being murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust, you can have, like, ontological faith.

But Tillich wanted that to mesh with a real cultural faith, which is why he ripped the German churches to shreds and why he basically went to the New York City art scene is like, you're. The church is here because the Germans sucked at this. So I'm gonna just speak at art scenes now.

Yeah, yeah. And I just. I do think it's really helpful. And then putting it in context with Nazi Germany really helps, too. Of, like.

I think it's easy for those who only really see God as, like, this transcendent thing, and salvation's all about, like, are you gonna go to hell or heaven? Kind of deal to ignore the political stuff.

I think it's easier for them to ignore these kind of conversations of, like, how are we engaging the culture? Who's hungry amongst us? Who are the marginalized? It's easier to ignore that.

Well, let's just talk about God, because this is a finite life, and it's really all about heaven. That's going to be infinite instead of finite.

Whereas if you kind of turn this view of God on its head a little bit, you think, like, the ground of being, we're all grounded in God. Or if you want to use more conservative language, even, let's talk about the image of God being in all men. Right. Imago dei.

I think that makes it a lot harder to only focus on eschatological heaven, hell, and that's it kind of stuff. But. So that's why I wanted to start with that. But, Jill, I want to pose the same question to you real quick.

Is there a good way of finding balance between this, like, hey, it's all about salvation, or we're going to ignore salvation and only talk about what's here?

Yes, absolutely. And I think, just to answer, like, something that you just said, is that it's so much easier to think about salvation as, are we getting to heaven?

Are we going to hell? Yeah, that's by design.

Like, those conversations are placed before us by design because it's beneficial for the power structures and for systems of power, if that's what we're focusing on. Instead of focusing on our life here on Earth and whether it's good or whether it's horrible and how to get through it.

And I think Aaron mentioned James cone earlier.

Like, my big takeaway from all the books I've read of his is that the religion of Jesus, not the religion about Jesus, but of Jesus, is a religion for those with their backs up against the wall. And it is to make life bearable here on Earth.

But.

But I do think that there's a balance, and I think that we can think about our eternal salvation and also our ultimate concern here on earth being relieving the suffering of as many of God's creatures as we can.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah.

So is there anything else that we feel like needs to be discussed today in regards to how the church engages culture or politics or the political, as it were?

There is one theologian that I think should be mentioned in this conversation, and it's Kelly Brown Douglas. She was a protege of James Cones and her book, stand your ground, Black Bodies and the justice of God.

I feel like really throw some enlightening pieces in this conversation.

Good book. Yeah. Well, all right, then. One thing before we start wrapping up or anything else, we do always like to ask for a tangible action.

Like, what's something that people can practically go do to help engender Christian unity?

And I think one thing conversations similar to this tend to have is like, we all feel good about whether or not we should be voting one way or another or whether or not we should ignore politics. And usually it's really hard for people to have these kind of conversations like, okay, but now practically, what do I do?

Like, what do I do about this? Like, okay, cool, I agree with you guys. We should give a crap about the hungry people on the street. Now what do I just go give one guy a sandwich?

Feel good about it? What's next?

So what is something practical our listeners could stop and do right now that's going to help better engender Christian unity that maybe is relevant to this conversation?

I have an answer to this, but it's a really bad one. But it's the one that I'm at least trying to do right now.

So over at my substack philosophy in the wild, I'm doing a series called Listening to Critics for Lent. And it's trying to take seriously and charitably show maximal hermetic charity toward views that we find otherwise false, wrong, problematic, etc.

Now, it doesn't mean that I'm trying to make reasonable, unreasonable views Right. Unreasonable can't be made reasonable.

But what would be the best defense of something that one could give such that now that other person is not dismissed but is taken seriously as a critic. Right. And what this has caused me to do is think about the following. So my practical. Here's what to do. Again, I apologize because it's a.

Here's what you can do. Do the following thought experiment which is such a cop out. It's so abstract philosophy. Here's the thought experiment.

What if that homeless person you are called to serve, that marginalized individual that you are trying to make room for happens to be a Trump supporter? How then do man, like, so I am really struggling with this because I think, and this is a view, again, I'm sorry y'. All.

But what then if the person who is that now I'm declaring unreasonable person is the very person I am called most deeply, most desperately to see and seed place to in the context of my Christian identity. And I don't have a good answer for that.

So there's my thought experiment challenge because it's currently wrecking me in the context of my own listening to critics. Lenten practice.

Yeah. But struggling with questions together, I feel like is pretty, pretty unifying sometimes.

Like when we all want to know what happens next in that show, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. But Jill, I'll throw it to you next.

What do you think as far as like practical action that people could do help better engender the unity in the church along the lines of kind of the stuff that we've been talking about today.

Yeah. The advice I always give to people is find the thing that lights up your heart. Like, where do you want to seek justice and mercy?

And it's different for everyone. There's no criticizing. Like, if you just love animals and you want to work with the Humane Society and you know, that's your service to the world.

Like, do it. Just take the next action step. Join in a community that's doing it. I will say I'm not a big fan of starting things.

There are already so many groups and organizations and communities, community seeking justice. So again, find the thing that lights up you if it's making sure there's healthy lunches in schools, great.

If it's making sure that young students have an opportunity to read at the library. And so you donate your time that way, great.

Whatever it is, find a community that is working to seek justice in the area that you want and just take the step to join them.

I think Michelle did enough to put healthy lunches in my schools. But I do want to understand.

Yeah, yeah. It's a real issue in my public school system by my group. That's why that one always comes up for me.

Ben, did you want to add any practical actions for everybody?

Yes, I was. I. I maybe had a worse answer than Aaron, and I was just gonna give, like, the easy plot log of, like. And I do mean it, though.

So, like, I'm wearing my video game shirt. I write and speak about video games. PAX east is coming up this month. It's a huge video game convention in Boston.

I'm on a panel with Taylor Thomas, who TJ and Josh know. Go out and just speak to people. Not about, like, why your religion matters, but just get to know them and realize you have common values.

Was gonna be my bad answer. Just like building bridges sort of a thing. Because I had nothing else.

But what Aaron said made me think of a colleague, for obvious reasons I won't name. I heard give a talk at a conference about the 12 step program and his theological take on it personally from going through it.

And he basically spends most of his life now hugging MAGA folks also going through the program. And he loves them dearly because they're helping him. So, like my addendum to your mental exercise. Aaron would be like, hug some people.

We're all closer to being homeless than we are to being millionaires. And we're all closer to being in some situation like that than we are to whatever we deem quasi comfortable right now.

Yeah.

So I'd leave you with that instead. Forget about the building bridges. I mean, do that. Do that too. But I mean, yeah, yeah.

You'd be a real piece of garbage if the political, like, opponent you disagreed with was going through addiction.

Or like I tell my students, the stereotypical biblical version is like, if a bunch of Republicans were in a burning building or Democrats or vice versa, and you wouldn't save them. But that's like, the way we actually behave sometimes. And my. My friend's addiction example just immediately came to mind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can I add one more thing?

Yeah.

And because it's not dumb to build bridges, and I'm Gonna like, swing it back around to our systematic ecology folks. You know, Black Panther says in times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers.

Like it.

Like it's good.

Since we mentioned the geeks,

my bridge building example was dumb.

No, no. But since we mentioned bad answers, geeks, and gaming, I'm gonna answer it too. BioShock. If you're a gamer, play BioShock.

That'll make you more united because you'll realize all of society might just collapse if you don't have enough empathy.

Yeah, also I'll do it too. Another bad answer. Play Signalis. It's not popular, it doesn't look good, it plays like Resident Evil 1, but it's got a great message.

Recommendation for our gamers.

Yeah, that's what we're doing now.

But typically I would ask all of us what changes in the world if we take our advice, I'm gonna go ahead and say the church will unify, cover all of these bases. That's our hope.

Well, and in unifying, I think we'll see more hungry, fed, more homeless, homed. And more copies of Bioshock Bot.

Yeah, which there's no way that's profitable anymore. Surely there's not still new copies of BioShock. But to continue, we like to do what we call our God moment.

And we just ask everyone to share a moment where they saw God recently.

Whether it be a blessing or a moment of worship or a challenge, whatever it is, wherever you saw God in your life recently, that's what we want to hear. And I always make Josh go first to give the rest of us time to think. Then I'll go, and then Aaron will go, and then Aaron can go.

Yeah, I. Because other people asking off work messed up our schedule somehow allowed me to be able to go to church on a Sunday morning. I usually have to work.

So it was a very unique circumstance that allowed me to do it. And I almost didn't go, but then the homily that was delivered spoke really directly to me and finding God in places and it spoke.

It helped me bridge my Pentecostal roots to where I am now. And remembering that the spirit of God isn't attached to a place and it's just kind of a. Oh, yeah, that's right. It was good. Something I needed

for me, my.

Oh, you can go ahead. No, sorry.

Go for it.

I had messed up. You gave very, very explicit instructions and I blew up.

Sorry, I'm just. That's usually my job to mess up.

There's another world where I'M enrolled in the class that you're about to teach. And then I have to say, sorry, I don't think I'm gonna make it. We're doing.

We're doing Sartre's existentialism as a humanism and Camus myth of Sisyphus tonight. So believe me, it is not a fun possible world.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'd still go to that, but. But I'm a nerd.

Yeah. God in my life is everywhere. It makes this way harder than that, than it sounds.

You'd think that would make it really easy, but actually it just makes every answer feel like a cop out. So there's that, but it does. And we've talked about a little bit today. Just today.

And honestly, most days we get at least one person that comes in with just a homeless person who was outside just to buy the homeless person food. And it happens again today. And I like it when it happens.

I also abuse my station unless someone is listening from corporate and I don't let the customer pay for the homeless person's food. So I just love when it happens because it's incredibly consistent, you know?

Yeah. What I. What I love about corporate.

What I love about the corporate world is depending which person heard you say that, you're either getting fired or you're going to be on restaurant weekly of the best manager.

Yeah.

Hard to say. Also.

Yeah, we'll see.

For those listening, TJ's answer was basically, God is the ground of being and he exists. That's true.

That's the same answer every week. So, Aaron, do you have a God moment for us?

I do and it's going to.

He doesn't work at a restaurant. That was a joke. Or anybody.

Restaurant perfect.

Ben, I don't know. This is a very pseudo Dionysian divine names, you know, that God as restaurateur or God as waiter is just as appropriate as God as, you know, holy.

So mine's going to be actually self indulgent, but it mattered to me. So this past week was my spring break at my university.

And so I went downhill mountain biking with a buddy of mine the day before I left to go downhill mountain biking on some of the gnarliest trails in at least the eastern seaboard. I rode the very, very, very easy, all green, all ridiculously simple trails just to kind of stay loose.

And I managed for the first time ever to crash really badly on those stupidly easy trails and broke a rib and messed up my heel to the point where I can't walk on my right foot. Very well and gashed my leg pretty bad and still went downhill mountain biking because it was like, this is stupid. I'm not going to let that.

I thank God I wasn't, like, genuinely injured, Right. But went up there. The first day, downhill mountain biking was.

It was really painful and I crashed several times, and it was not fun and it was super scary. And the next day, though, I was like, God, this is just stupid. So it wasn't any sophisticated prayer about justice. It was just.

You've got to be effing kidding me. Really. I so want to go ride bikes today, and I want it not to hurt. And to my utter, utter surprise and gratitude, it didn't hurt while I rode bikes.

It hurt now. Every time I got down the bottom of the mountain, putting my bike back on the shuttle was like a thousand pounds, and breathing to the top was hard.

But then every free ride the second day, I felt okay. And it meant a lot to me. Like, it was genuinely this redemptive moment of transcendent grace being shown undeservedly. And it mattered.

And so I really, genuinely appreciate God letting that second day of writing happen. So I know it's selfish, but it mattered to me.

No, it's great. I love it. I'm hoping.

And I am going to slide off. I have to go teach class. So to everybody listening, thanks as always for supporting TJ and Joshua and all of the systematic geekology crowd.

Whole church podcast, and it has been my honor to be with you all. And so, yeah, come check out Philosophy in the Wild on Substack and would love to get to know folks over there as well.

So thank you guys so much for having me.

Great to have you. Appreciate you, man, and have a great class.

Absolutely appreciate you all.

What a kind soul. The plug for us on his way out.

Also, his God moment, hopefully is going to be similar to my next one, because I've been, like, checking Cumberland reservations, like, every day. I'm like, God, I need a. I need a camping trip. I need you to make it happen because they're just. They're booked and I need them not to be booked.

Yeah, I want to go meet just to allegedly hang out with Michael Morelli, but I actually want to go to Whistler Bike park to ride mountain bikes at Whistler, because it's awesome. But, Ben, do you have a God moment for us this week?

So Josh was correct. Your answer, T.J. was very Tolikian, and I. As will mine be, which is. It's a bad question. It's like, where's God?

Well, it's kind of technically in everything. So where is God and all things that have being. So what do you want me to pick from? But I do think of one of my.

One of my main mentor, Robert Neville published a book of sermons from like an extreme to Lickian angle. And they just sing beautifully. And it's like if God is in all beings, things like love thy neighbor and love thy enemy are not just nice sayings.

They're like metaphysical challenges that are also like true from that perspective. So like I'm against the war in Iran, but you know, the Ayatollah has been a problem for a while, but doesn't deserve to be murdered.

You know, do you like there's going to be a power just like George W. Bush created a power vacuum that ISIS filled. But you need to love isis.

It really throws a wrench into the ease with which we engage in these international struggles with quote, unquote, obvious enemies. So obvious enemies will be my example and that you should see God in them.

I like that though. That's a good one.

So no pressure, Jill, round us out. Give us the best God.

That's so good, Ben. Obvious enemies. My friends Jeremy and Jessica Courtney have been living in Iraq, in Syria for the last, oh gosh, maybe 15 years. I really.

If you don't know their work, like, check out Jeremy's book. It's fantastic. About loving isis. God moment for me. I am currently in Sedona, Arizona, celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary.

Nice.

And yeah, while my.

My view of who God is in my marriage has certainly evolved and changed over 20 years, I know definitively that the two humans in this hotel room could never have gotten to where we are now without God. But to Benjamin's point, like, duh. Well, God's in everything. And I don't think my life is prescriptive by any means.

But I just me leaning into my faith and into God has brought me such sweet REWARD in this 20 years of getting to practice being a human with someone else.

Yeah.

That's awesome. Twenty years ago I was six. Small difference.

I remember when you were like seven or eight.

He's known me since I was about that age. But if you are you. Are you booing me for being six years old at one point, Ben, or for it being only 20 years old?

So young. Yeah.

Okay.

For being a baby.

That's fair.

I'm gonna do a weird thing recommendation thing here too, because we did not have with us. Someone almost made it.

Reverend Shayna Watson, who preaches at an Anglican church in D.C. washington, D.C. so Trinity Anglican Church, they do awesome things like they're a multi ethnic, multi national church there in D.C. they do so many good things for the community there. So it would have been cool to have her since she wasn't here.

I just want to recommend people look up Shayna, see what their church is doing, because that might be a God moment. It'll just make you feel good to know, hey, someone in D.C. is doing good stuff for other humans. Yeah.

Yeah.

Them and the Commissioner of the Smithsonian. So if you like this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend. Share with your enemies, your obvious enemies. Share with a cousin.

Especially your cousin.

Especially your cousins.

Yeah.

But check out the website. Buy one of our T shirts. Super comfy, super nice. Super good at advertising the show. Did I mention that?

They're comfortable, but it lets others know about our mission to educate and unite the church and the importance of it as such.

Yeah. Also make sure you check out some of the other shows on Lanazol Podcast Network. You know, mentioned earlier, Theology on the Rocks.

I like to shout out Paige and Pixel. Even though it's probably the show least like ours. I just really enjoy them. Let Nothing movie with Christian Ashley. They're all great, so.

Yeah, but we hope you enjoyed it.

Coming up, we'll be having on Olivia Hasty to discuss her work with the ministry l', Arche, which administers to people who are neurodivergent in academia. After that, we will be having Dr. James McGrath back on the show to discuss his newest book, Beyond Destruction, Building a More Expansive Faith.

If you don't listen to all of our episodes, you should listen to that one. Yeah, we love James, but if you're listening to this, you probably do listen

to all of our episodes.

They won't be talking with Dr. Tom Ord yet again about his newest book, A Systematic Theology of Love. Finally, at the end of season one, Francis Chan's gonna be on the show.

Yeah. He doesn't know it, though, so if someone does have to tell him at this point, you might have to twist an arm and make him.

I don't know how much he would really like us, but I don't think he's just, you know, tell him he has to. Don't give him a choice.

Yeah, yeah.