In this episode of The UpWords Podcast, host Jean Geran sits down with Dr. Chris Seiple, a renowned global leader in the fields of human rights, diplomacy, and religious freedom. Together, they explore what it means to be a responsible Christian citizen in today’s polarized world.

Through the lens of “covenantal pluralism,” Chris shares insights from decades of experience working at the intersection of Christian faith, education, and public life. The conversation covers the threefold nature of Christian citizenship—loyalty to our country, the world, and first and foremost, the Kingdom of God. They discuss the importance of loving our neighbors, engaging respectfully with those we disagree with, and preparing the next generation through higher education to be thoughtful, principled citizens.

Chris and Jean also address current challenges, including religious nationalism, polarization, and the contentious debates around diversity and inclusion in academia. They share practical suggestions for building relationships across diverse communities, overcoming fear, and living out faith in tangible ways at both the local and global levels.

Whether you’re a student, educator, faith leader, or community member, this episode offers timely wisdom and encouragement for anyone seeking to be a peacemaker and agent of flourishing in a pluralistic society.

And if you can't love your neighbor as yourself, if you do not realize that your identity is necessarily and by design rooted in the other, that you become more fully human and more capable of contributing to the flourishing of all by working with and loving your neighbor, and that that's what God designed, then don't enter the public forum. If you can't love, don't go. It's no accident that the great commandment is given before the great commission. Love your neighbor.

But we always thought of diversity as not a goal. It's a description of a demographic fact. Pluralism is the engagement of diversity. It can be positive or negative. And so, Covenanted Pluralism is the responsibility to engage and respect and protect the other, especially when you disagree as a function of good citizenship.

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Welcome to the Upwards Podcast, where we discuss the intersection of Christian faith in the academy, church, and marketplace. Today, I have a conversation with Chris Seipel, a highly respected global leader with over 30 years experience using innovative approaches to education, diplomacy, and what it means to be a responsible citizen as a Christian. Chris and I have worked together over the years on issues related to human rights, cross-cultural literacy, and international religious freedom.

He's a good friend. And I knew he would be the perfect person to help us introduce this topic of Christian citizenship. In our conversation, we discuss how, as believers, we really have three kinds of citizenship, to our country, to the world, and first and foremost, to the kingdom of God. We discuss the role of higher education in forming good citizens, how the values and principles of our faith, especially the mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves.

should inform our engagement in a pluralistic society. And also we discuss his concept of covenantal pluralism, which provides both a framework and practical suggestions for living this out in our communities. Now onto the conversation.

Hi Chris, welcome to our podcast. I'm so delighted that you could be with us today and take this time and this opportunity to chat about Christian citizenship.

Well, thanks for having me. And what a great opportunity, if only virtually, to be in Wisconsin.

That's right. That's right. We're still going to get you up here someday. we're doing, we're starting this series on Christian citizenship and we've got a couple of programs planned over the next few months. And I just thought that you would be just a perfect person to help us kind of lay a foundation and help our viewers, listeners, participants in the programs understand what Christian citizenship is, right? It's a lot of things, of course, and we were not going to cover everything, but I wonder what

you think of having thought about this, I know for many years having written about this topic a lot, quite a bit. What do you think of when you hear the term Christian citizenship?

Well, I think of many things, like you said, and I also think of citizenship in the context of education. Education's purpose is to create citizens. And for the Christian citizen, I have always thought, although I've never written very explicitly on what I'm about to say, I have always thought that the Christian has a threefold citizenship. You are a citizen of your country. You're a citizen of the world. You're a citizen.

of the inbroken kingdom. And my theological basis for that, although I'm not a trained theologian, is Paul says he's the Hebrew of Hebrews, Philippians 3. When Paul appeals to Caesar, he says, kiwes romanis sum. There's my four years of high school Latin in one sentence. I am a Roman citizen. That's the global citizenship. But then he also says in Ephesians 6, I'm

I'm an ambassador in chains. And I've always thought of the first two citizenships as gifts from God that help you do the third citizenship, the most important one. How do you help advance the kingdom of God through the gifts of American and global citizenship? And then the last part of that relating it back to education is how do you intentionally prepare ambassadors to be

what they are. Ambassadors are intentionally prepared. So what makes you a good American citizen and a good American ambassador? What makes you a global ambassador? And what makes you a kingdom ambassador? This is not something you just say willy-nilly, hey, I feel like being an ambassador. It takes a lifetime of equipping. So that's how I think about it in brief.

Well, and that's interesting because of course when we were talking about this or thinking about doing this topic, we were thinking about the term citizenship, which does appear. know, Paul uses it, as you said, and it's referenced. He especially references it often, but of course you have the whole, you know, tribe of Israel and all of those things. But I also, hadn't thought about the word ambassador and how that like intrinsically or it implies

citizenship, right? You're an ambassador for something, right? So what are some of the most important aspects of being a, let's use the American context first, you know, being a good ambassador for the kingdom of God, as we sort of some friends of mine like to say, we're kind of dual passport holders, right? And we just focused on the two, right, of America and the kingdom. But what do you think are some key

requirements for being a good ambassador as American citizens as well.

Yeah, well, I really do think we're threefold, three passports that we hold. And he's a global God and the church is the first NGO. We invented that. We followers of Jesus, followers of the way. But the key in whatever ambassadorship you're exercising always as a function of the kingdom ambassadorship is how you engage. How do you talk to your neighbor?

whether they work in the police force or whether they work for a foreign government, whether you're in the military, whether you're a teacher. And the Bible is pretty clear about those things, you know, from love your neighbor as yourself as much as is possible for you engage people with peace and respect. That's a paraphrase. think of somewhere in Romans 12, there's lots of conversations that

Jesus expects us to speak this way. There's somewhere in Colossians, like speak with grace and peace, truth and love, Ephesians 4.15, but speak with peace and assault, a seasoning. And a seasoning is the same thing as an ambassador. A seasoning means you've been thinking about this, you've been equipped to do it. So whatever you do when you act as an ambassador, you're engaging and the key is to be equipped to do so. And the equipping begins with the scripture.

Because the scriptures are commands about how we treat our neighbors, especially when we disagree with them.

Yeah. Well, let's get to that a little bit. you know, I was a little ambivalent about the topic given the times we're living in and some of the polarization that we're experiencing, at least in our political life, but even at a social community level, there's just a lot of division, a lot of disagreement, and including probably around this topic. But what do you think is, you know, when we think about things like Christian nationalism or other

other forms of what people might consider Christian citizenship or love of country, which I know you and I share a very strong love of our country. You are former Marine, you've served your country that way and we've both spent years in public service of different sorts. But that love of country sometimes takes, I guess, first priority. Anyway, what's a healthy approach to that?

Yeah, well, that's the essence of our times, I every time. But yeah, I'm the fourth of eight Marines and two generations of disciples, and all disciples mature and maturing Christians. And we would never put our flag over our faith, but very proud of where we live and the gift of living here and protecting it. I tend to think about these things in this following juxtaposition.

faithful patriotism versus a religious nationalism. And we start, or I would start with faith and religion. Both are good words, but I'm using them to illustrate the point. Faith is, there's mystery and majesty and the mercy of God. And there's this humble obedience that I can't know what God is doing. I can try to come alongside what he is doing through faith, through discernment.

Religion I'm using in this context is the opposite of that, which is a false certitude where I have all the answers and this is what they are. And this is what the scripture says all the time. Of course there are the absolutes, you know, and the empty tomb and those kinds of things, but there are no absolutes when it comes to how we think about what the citizenship looks like on a day-to-day basis. We just have the principles which guide us. So.

Patriotism is a healthy love and support of the country. Religious nationalism would be a nationalism that is my country above all else and my faith, my religion validates that. And when my religion validates my country and my people over other people, that's one, violation of the faith because we're all equal in the eyes of God. We're all made in his image.

And two, that means you have begun to worship your country and not your faith. And you begin to worship a God that always agrees with you as was once said of Otto van Bismarck, the German chancellor who unified the German lands into an empire. And that's where the road gets a slippery slope becomes a downward fall pretty quick.

Well, and it's a form of idolatry, When we raise, that's basically what you just said. And I think that we have so many idols, right, that we all struggle with and put higher priority than they should be. But this is an important one and it's an important one that is happening now. think it feels like more than ever that this supposed love of country is being raised to that level. And so...

I don't know, it's hard to, yeah, it's hard to.

And let me say this just to make your pessimism grow. It's not just an American thing. This is a global phenomenon and religious nationalism where the majority faith validates an ethnic group in power, often defined against the non-majorities, ethnic or religious or otherwise. And so we're going to put, you it's a timeless playbook. You blame the minority.

Right.

for all of the problems of the country. And there's plenty of examples from the past about that, but you have a number of examples from our present times where a leader, whether it's a cult of personality, which is a religion, or majority faith or whatever, majority religion, and they're using that to stay in power because they want their country to be known for this. And that is again, it's idolatry as you so rightly noted.

Right. Well, and maybe comment a little bit. think one of the founding principles of our country, you know, we're not only a Christian country, but our founding, one of our founding principles was the separation of church and state, right, to protect religious freedom. But as you and I have worked on religious freedom around the world, that can sometimes also be taken too far in saying, okay, well, our government or in certain contexts, we can't even

speak about faith, right? So maybe, maybe gives us some thoughts on that relationship between church and state. So kind of our citizenship and our, our kingdom, our two citizenships, guess, in some ways.

Well, I've I've often said that we are not a Christian state because we were founded by a Christian people. And what I mean by that is the example of another contrast between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Nothing against Massachusetts. I'm a Red Sox fan. I grew up in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and a Patriots fan too. But here's the thing. Massachusetts was a soft theocracy and you could believe anything you wanted as long as it was the majority faith.

Roger Williams, who has the same theology, says, I don't interpret scripture that way. I don't think the king gets to give away his land. don't think you should pay the people for the land. You should pay the Indians for the land. And that's what he does. And he establishes Rhode Island and he says, look it, we're not going to allow for that. And he does it in a very practical way. He basically says, and this is in the Rhode Island, I'm going to get all wonky nerdy on you, but in the Rhode Island Colonial Charter.

of 1663, the case is made that where people can practice their faith freely, they are more loyal to the state. But in Roger Williams' own government documents, he never talks about God because it has to be something for everybody. But in his personal writings, every other sentence is about God and about Jesus. And we have to draw the distinction that, like Winston Churchill once said,

Huh.

Americans always do the right thing after they tried everything else. Democracy is the worst form except for all the others. All of that comes true in a place where we say, look, we have to live with our deepest difference. Otherwise we're gonna kill each other. So the best way to do that is everybody gets a seat at the table. And I think this really begins with Rhode Island 150 years before the founders. And they and Roger Williams influenced John Locke who influences

Thomas Jefferson and the founders.

Well, maybe we'll jump back to the global level a little bit and some of your work on international religious freedom. I think about the case of Vietnam and other countries where you've worked quite a bit and that we both love as well. Laos comes to mind as a country that we share an interest in and an affection for. But I know that in some of your work with IGE, Institute for Global Engagement,

and some of the third track diplomacy work that you've done. I think you've used the argument, haven't you, that, you know, say oppressed Christians in Vietnam or even different forms of Buddhism that are being suppressed. But especially when it as it relates to the Christian communities that struggle in some of these regimes or governments, don't you make the case sometimes that, you know, Christian faith is going to make them better citizens of your country?

So maybe elaborate on that a little bit for us.

Yeah. One, would use the term track 1.5. Track one is government to government. Track two is grassroots to grassroots. Sustainability is at their intersection because you have to have government policies that match the culture that owns the norms. And they have to be practiced according to the best of their faith tradition so everybody can get along. That's why it says national security issue. So in the case of Vietnam, in

Okay, sorry.

February of 2001, there were Christians who wanted to separate from Vietnam, and no country would allow for that. But they turned into a religious freedom case because they were Christian. Well, Vietnam has a right to keep them in the country, but the response was to send in four or five army divisions. That's not gonna help. It makes the situation worse. So when we started engaging Vietnam after that in 2004,

And the concept that we came up with, there's always a bumper sticker because all capitals are the same. You need a simple understanding of what you're trying to do. And the bumper sticker was this, seminary is security.

Hmm.

And they gathered, but enough of their security officials had heard this argument. seminary is security. We shouldn't repress them. We need to educate them. And there was no crackdown by the Vietnamese government. And instead there was a seminary that was established. It was only a satellite one of one from Hanoi, but this is when you do metrics of change, have to, the first metric is how does the mind change so that the behavior changes.

It requires the mentality for the person engaging to say, I'm going to take a lot of fire, theological, political, and it's usually from the left and the right. And that's also a measurement of success. If I'm taking fire from people who are angry for me from both sides, that means I'm probably beginning to negotiate and navigate the eye of the needle. It doesn't mean I'm right, but that usually indicates that I'm on the right path.

Well, and that's exactly what we're trying to do a little bit here, even on this topic and at our upcoming August lecture in Oshkosh on August 13th. But we're kind of staking out, we use the term the courageous middle, right? And that's always attractive to me because I'm a peacemaker kind of by personality and by nature. I like to see both sides and I do have friends on both sides. And let's just say in this country on this issue.

on different political issues and policy issues. I often have people on both sides and trying to navigate that middle. I guess that's actually getting a little bit harder, right, to do at least in this country now. Maybe we'll shift a little back to education and we care a lot about higher education and you mentioned it early on. But let's talk a little bit more about higher education specifically. What do you think are the biggest needs

for our young people and a little bit older people potentially going through university systems or what do universities need to get better at doing to really prepare students not just for the workforce and for a career, but to be good citizens.

Yeah, I sometimes I say it's the radical middle and I'm probably a little too glib. I say I'm between the left over left and the self righteous right. I want to be in that space where there are good people on both sides and they recognize the extremes in both sides because there are extremes. We should not kid ourselves that there are not to higher education. I think there's two things that have been.

maybe three things that have been going on. One is they forget that their purpose is to produce citizens. The question is how. The second thing or trend I would say is that the humanities have not been able to articulate why they are able to produce salary jobs. This is in contrast with STEM.

You know, STEM, the sciences, you say, if you do this and you get this job, then you will have this salary. And the humanities have responded in general by saying, of course, there's a lot of exceptions and I'm being very general, but we do critical thinking. Okay. What does that mean? And, and I think the humanities need to better express how they produce competencies, how to think and skills, what to do that can be applicable in any vocation.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

The third thing is the deep polarization in the academy, is overwhelmingly lopsided with people who let's just be gracious and say generally left of center and maybe the 3 % that is right of center. And so now you see because of this, whatever you think about this administration, the rattling the cage and I'm okay with that to be honest, but

I

Now you see organizations or universities saying things like, let's do a conservative think tank. Oh, okay. I don't want that to turn into a zoo. Like that's where the conservatives are and we'll, we'll go to that place for conservative thought. No, you have to, you control for culture at the point of hire and you should be hiring people left of center and right of center, foremost, according to their excellence in every discipline. And we've gotten away from that.

Mm-hmm.

We've gotten away from that. UVA just fired their president because he wanted, I'm in Virginia, and he wanted more classic DEI. Well, part of that is in the hiring process, you have to fill out a DEI statement. I applied for a professor of practice at one of the schools down there. I refused to turn in the DEI statement because I think it's an ideology. I respect the noble principles that catalyze it, but I think it turned into

and ideology which fosters group think. I wrote my letter of interest in a manner that answered all of their DEI questions based on all the stuff we've talked about about working to get everybody a seat at the table, which is consistent. Now, maybe I wasn't qualified as one of my friends suggested one time. There is that. But then the second thing was I got a form letter like three months later and it was just like, thanks for applying.

Well, there is that.

And it wasn't even mentioned in the subject. So I think there is a problem when they can't invite people into the conversation who are right of center, as I would proudly describe myself and try to include you. And it doesn't matter whether I'm white and male. It matters that I'm included because I have an excellence that other people do not possess.

Again, that's subject to what you think I'm allegedly good at. So this polarization is terrible and rampant. And in the process of becoming super left of center, you lose the capacity to teach about what is a good citizen, because the good citizen is not all left of center. In fact, it can be right of center.

And the founders didn't agree, but they were centrist and they believed we had to be a religious people if we were to exercise this constitution. They didn't say what religion and they would certainly welcome no religion at all. Anyway, now I'm getting on my soapbox.

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Yeah, well, and I think just to further a little bit of that, the DEI conversation, I hear you on all those points, but then you have what is now the pushback, which again, I think there needed to be some rattling and some changes made. And this could apply to many topics and many things that are happening right now, right? That there needed to be reform, there needs to be pushback, there needed to be a recalibration of some of the extreme

both at the university and in our government systems and our agencies. That said, the way you go about that, I mean, I'm definitely a more, I think I'm a radical in some of my thoughts and passions and how I approach things, but I'm definitely a more reform-minded person than tear the house down and start over sort of thing.

disturbs me about the diversity conversation or the DEI conversation is you can't even, it's harder than to protect and uphold the principles that I know you and I share of having a seat at the table for all different, you know, people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, what have you, right? And in order to have that, I think it does take some intentional effort to

make different types of people feel safe in those places, right? But if you take it too far, then you're losing the folks on, say, right of center. But my heart grieves a bit, right? Because along with that, some of the closing of the diversity offices and the just complete cutting of programs that just even use that word, we're losing and we're cutting really, really valuable work to

that reaches, even in scientific research, translating, I have a friend who works on Alzheimer's research and translating that to communities of color who are underrepresented, but overrepresented in having Alzheimer's, but underrepresented in getting the care that they need. And just because that had that word in it or it had that goal in it, they're struggling with that. I don't know, I guess it's the pendulum swing, I guess a little bit, but.

I don't know if you have any thoughts on how to maintain the principle.

Yeah, terms matter. And I was blessed to have the opportunity to work with the Templeton Religion Trust in developing something we called covenantal pluralism, which maybe we can come back to. But we always thought of diversity as not a goal. It's a description of a demographic fact. Pluralism is the engagement of diversity. It can be positive or negative. And so.

huh.

Covenanted pluralism is the responsibility to engage in respect and protect the other, especially when you disagree as a function of good citizenship. And so the point you make about how this has been done, it's never the what, it's the how it's done. And this is where good, this is where Christian citizenship should come in according to all those verses that I quoted in the beginning. As much as possible, live with peace, show respect, seasoning and salt, love your neighbor as yourself. Those kinds of things are important.

I wrote a little piece once, didn't publish it anywhere, but I put it on LinkedIn and Facebook. But I said, let's do a DEI do-over. And the D is dignity. We all agree that we have dignity. We have different sources of moral authority and departure for where that comes from, but we all agree on that. The E is engagement. When I engage somebody, and this gets back to how you equip and the purpose of education and how you do it,

When I engage somebody, that says something about my values. The process must reflect who I am as a person. The how has to be bigger than the what. But the engagement is where the relationship is. And when you have a relationship, then you have the best of inclusion because you know them. I want all of my brothers and sisters in humanity, whatever their beliefs.

Right.

Right.

were no beliefs at all to have a seat at the table, because I know I can learn from them. And I believe God uses them for his own purpose. And we have knowledge that is generated by him. But right now we're in this position where diversity is a bad thing. No, it's a great thing. It is a powerful thing. It generates ideas and different perspectives and we learn from each other.

right.

And the hallmark of the academy is that we listen to multiple perspectives. Right? now we can't, DEI became an ideology, we can only do that. They had one perspective. Now it's all over here. No, this is the perspective. No, we need to be in the middle with people capable of teaching great thoughts from multiple perspectives. And the ultimate metric is at the end of the class that students don't know what political party the professor's from. That's the answer.

Right.

just like we should have the same feeling, and this is a tangent, on journalists and on politicians, I mean, and pastors. We should not know, and military people, we should not know where they're coming from, just that they are excellent in their education, execution, and they're enabling an education that provides better and protects citizens.

Yeah, well, and that reminds me, too, of just working at the State Department. I went into government not really wanting to do it, but wanting to get a little experience with public policy because I thought people maybe were kind of power hungry or whatever. had my own kind of vision of what people say working at the State Department would be like. But what was so beautiful to me and resonated so well was the fact that we were

truly civil servants. And everyone took very seriously allegiance to the Constitution, right? We uphold, we take that oath to the Constitution, but then we serve any administration that is elected by the people because that is our system and that is our Constitution. And, you know, of course, there was plenty of trying to, you know, for the career folks trying to undermine the new administration, whichever, either side, right, back or forth.

And then, you know, negotiating with Congress over money, et cetera, et cetera, was always, you know, had different, different fields depending on the administration and the individuals involved and what they, what their beliefs were. But it was, I found it fascinating and refreshing because I tell people I love policy, but I hate politics. Hates the song word, but I really dislike politics. And people are like, well, those two things go together. And yes, they do. They're important. They're both.

You know, they rely on each other in our system, right? But, I didn't know, I didn't know how the political party affiliation, obviously I knew of the political appointees, it was during the Bush administration. And I've always been an independent, so I don't have one. but, so I didn't talk about that a lot, but for the career professionals and our foreign service, I didn't know for the majority of them, I really didn't know.

And we would argue over policy almost more from, you a human rights person? Are you a counterterrorism person? Those were the distinctions of what we stood for, but it really didn't have anything to do with our politics. So I think that's just an interesting observation. And I long for that again, right, in our university settings as well. But it's so hard to keep that out of the conversation.

Let's get back to a little bit the covenantal pluralism and think about it a little bit on the on the community lot like the local level because for me at least I feel like Given everything going on at the global level and this is happening in other countries and you know similarly difficult policies politics, etc But then the change is happening at our federal level, which I'm also grieved by having worked at the State Department a shout out to my

former colleagues, right, who are suffering now. That has to be said. I'm upset by that. But because of all that, my way of staying true to my faith, following Jesus, loving my neighbor as myself, caring about immigrants, refugees, you know, I've gone from thinking mostly at the macro level, which you and I are prone, I think, to do.

but maybe help me a little bit as I am really focusing in order to stay true to my faith and saying, quite frankly, I'm focusing on this type of engagement at the local level. It's the only thing that's keeping me hopeful, right? Which we have a faith of hope, like Jesus gives us hope, right? And there is hope. But where I'm able to act on that is in

more local relationships. So, and I wanted to pull it back to that engagement piece and you use the word relationship. And I think that is just the critical piece, right? And it's hard to have you, you you have a lot of global relationships. I have a few too, but the relationships where we're really invested in are tend to be usually local. And so talk a little bit about how you do build relationships with people.

that you might disagree with very strongly, but you're living in the same geography.

Yeah, this question comes up all the time when I'm teaching cross-cultural religious literacy, is covenant pluralism is a new term that we created because of all the toxicity. But it's hard to fund a new term if nobody knows what it is. And we said there's three enabling conditions. There's freedom of religion, freedom of belief, freedom of conscience, character development, part of education. And

the engagement process itself. When you put those three together, we think you're more likely. And cross-cultural religious literacy actually embodies the first two of freedom of conscience and the character development. So I teach a cross-cultural religious literacy course in Indonesia. And we have trained through a partner there who got one of the Templeton grants, 11,000 plus K through 12 teachers. So they're the ultimate local.

Yeah.

And they have a, they live in a country where there is antisemitism and they live in a country where there's extremism, which drives the antisemitism, but they're good people and they're thinking, well, what do I do? How does this look like? And we can go through the competencies and skills, but here's the answer with that broad context. I think you, you need to, there's two ways to go about this. Three ways, maybe one is you should do some reading. If you feel like it.

and find examples of people like us who are trying to do this. If you don't feel like doing that, find somebody that you know that's doing that. And if you don't know anybody that's doing that, think about the following two options. One is get involved in a community project. When you sweat together, you see the world differently together because you're not talking about politics, you're serving your city.

huh.

One of my friends is a teacher, a professor at the University of Haifa. And after October 7th, when Hamas came across and murdered all the Jews, 1200 Jews, he brought together all the faith leaders in his community. He's a medieval historian of gender. What does this guy have to know about it? His name is Yuriel Simonson. And he said, look, we're not going to talk about the macro.

We have no control over any of that. But we can talk about the safety of our city. Here's a common project. Can you clean up a park together? Can you do something as an apartment complex? Can you do something as a small town that serves everybody? There's always something that needs to be done. What is it that brings people together? That's one thing. The other thing to do is, and this sometimes you got to be in the right mood.

Right.

but go knock on the door. If you've got a Sikh temple, you've got them in Wisconsin or a Muslim mosque or a Jewish synagogue or a Christian church or whatever, walk up and say, I don't know anything about you. And I would like to. Is there somebody in your congregation, your parish, your place of worship that would want to have a conversation with me who does not believe as you do?

And I am willing to bet that 10 out of 10 times, you're going to get a positive answer, especially if it's a minority tradition, because the relationship between the majority and the non-majority is in every culture. And the non-majority, there is always a feeling that they are second-class citizens, even though they're told they're equal. Right. In my experience, and especially with, for example, my Muslim friends in America.

They would love the opportunity. They're going to be suspicious. They should be because they feel like they're maligned and blamed, but just say, can we have tea or do it with two or three people? Set something up to say, how can we serve our city, our town as American citizens where you're bringing the best of your faith and the best of your values to the table? And that's the thing. We may have different points of

a theological or moral departure, but we have a lot of common values to include justice and mercy and peace and passion. So how do we care for the least of these? And like I said, you're going to spend some time with the relationship, building the trust. But I can guarantee you that people will respond positively and say, I'm happy to have that conversation. How do we do that? Maybe it starts with a tour.

You know, can I bring over some of my fellow Christians to see the temple and learn? And the promise has to be you're coming to learn because the first thought for them is going to be you're coming to find a way to blame me for something. And they will never say that, but that's going to cross their mind. it's So let's get people having conversations about serving the city. That's the bottom line.

Mm-hmm.

Good.

Right, right. Well, and think one thing that drives a lot of the division and again, given the context we're in now, even at the local level, is fear. So maybe let's end with some, or wrap things up a little bit, with some thoughts on how our faith, our shared faith in Jesus, in the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven, we pray for that to happen, but we won't.

realize it until the end. But how often in the Bible does scripture tell us or God tell us or angels tell us, don't be afraid, fear not, I'm with you, know, so, so many times. So we know it, but it's still, it can be scary, right? And it's, there's more, there's fear on both sides more now, especially, you know, immigrant, refugee communities, they're afraid.

I'm afraid for my refugee friends who live in my city. Yeah, how can we help others overcome fear? mean, obviously you gave great examples, but from the faith perspective, give us some thoughts on focusing on or not letting fear stop us or drive the train.

Yeah, and it's a hard one. It has to be a daily decision. But back to the subject of our entire discussion for just a second. People talk about rights all the time, but there are also responsibilities. And so this conversation might be better termed perhaps as responsible citizenship as a Christian, because we're citizens with other people who are from other traditions, other beliefs, other whatever.

So we want to be responsible citizens. And the only way to do that first and foremost is we have to live our own faith. We have to live our own faith. All those verses that we quoted at the beginning. So that's step number one, and it's a decision. And if you can't love your neighbor as yourself, if you do not realize that your identity is necessarily and by design rooted in the other, that you become more fully human and more capable of contributing

to the flourishing of all by working with and loving your neighbor. And that that's what God designed. Then don't enter the public forum. If you can't love, don't go. It's no accident that the great commandment is given before the great commission. Love your neighbor. If you don't love your neighbor, hey, I don't need you. Yeah. And by the way, God doesn't need you. He's God.

it.

But he longs for you to come by your side if you're practicing the way that he engaged. And if you want a real example of that, look at, know, John 4, Jesus at the well of Samaritan woman, and he's living out the parable of the good Samaritan by loving the bad Samaritan, exercising truth with grace and finding ways to engage and serve. So that's got to be our principle.

The other thing to think about is we may not think that we can do something, but when people of faith gather and live out their faith, big things can happen. I don't know if you can see it, but just over my shoulder, there's a little concrete rock. And the picture is me in front of the Berlin Wall. I happened to be there studying as a student. And the Christian faith and Catholics especially played a huge role in the fall of the wall.

because they showed up, because they continued to do things no matter what the situation was, and they had faith. Their job is not to know the future, but to be present. John Paul II was the seventh choice by the Communist Party of Poland to be the Archbishop of Krakow, because they thought the first six were gonna cause problems.

And this guy goes on to become the Pope, the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years. If he wasn't chosen for Archbishop or even for Pope, is he going to keep being himself? You better believe it. You better believe it. So we have a responsibility. And when we keep showing up, our excellence is going to attract. We do all things unto God, that means they must be excellent.

Right.

In a mediocre world, you're going to attract people of all faiths and none because you're excellent. And if we keep seeking the justice for everybody, more people are going to come. So we have to take hope in ourselves. We have to be edifying ourselves and equipping ourselves, not just through the sermons on Sunday, but with each other. You should be in a small group. You should be accountable with people. You should express your concerns and your fears, but you always have to step forward in faith.

loving your neighbor practically. And so back to covenant of pluralism, this is the reason we designed cross-cultural religious literacy the way we did, because it's a framework for everybody, where everybody gets a seat at the table, but the first competency is know your own faith at its best. The second competency, collaborative competency, is know your own neighbor's faith and understand it as they do. It doesn't mean you're an expert, but you're not listening to social media.

What does it mean to be a Muslim in Oshkosh? Have that tea. Sit down and you have tea. And the third competency collaborative is, okay, what are we gonna do together? What are the problems we have to solve? How do we serve the city? And there's skills that you can think through, evaluation, negotiation, communication. All these things are endemic, intrinsic to everything that we do. So it's a non-threatening framework that allows you to bring all of your faith to a conversation. And I think,

Right.

Right.

part of the polarization of our times, which means we're not being good citizens, is we don't feel like we have permission to talk about what we hold most dear. And this framework says, we want you to exercise the essence of your identity. But when you do, that means the other person gets to do the same thing. And so now you're in a position rooted in the self-interest of the community. We need to get stuff done, but you're in a

Uh-huh.

Position where you have permission to say this is what I believe and why it's different from what you believe Guess what you've just exercised the Great Commission, but it's from a perspective of relation responsible citizenship and respectful relationship Which I think is what God calls us to do but we got to step up and say it we can't respond to the fear-mongering on Facebook and respond with a bunch of exclamation points on Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever the case may be

Yeah.

and immediately pigeonhole people in one category or another without knowing them and knowing who they really are.

Yeah, you've just committed a sin when you do that.

Amen. Well, and I think to sum it up, I'm guessing as well that those Catholics at the wall were probably praying as well, right? And I think that's almost the first step, right? We need to get right ourselves with our Lord and continue to work on that relationship, which will then help us not be afraid and engage in love with our neighbors. Right.

Well, that's the cross. And that's what we've taught our kids in the beginning. Love God, love people. There's a reason why the cross was chosen for the example of sacrifice and atonement. if we can't, again, if we can't do that, then why, what are you doing here? Don't be a cultural Christian. You're called to live it. And living it means you are called to suffer sometimes. And you suffer and sacrifice if you're loving the non-Christian.

You will see.

I've been accused by, the only people who ever lied about me are Christians. And I've been accused of being Muslims. I'm a Muslim now because I love Muslims, really? Last I heard they were made in the image of God. Last I saw Jesus was engaging, he sat down before the woman, he's submitting to her. John 8 says he stoops before her and the Pharisees. You have to submit to serve. Let's love everybody.

Amen. Well, thank you, Chris. This has been just wonderful. Thank you for being willing to help us set a tone for the future conversations. We're going to have some historical analysis in our next couple podcasts on this topic, but this was a great start and just thank you so much.

Well, thank you. Your blessing to all of us, Gene.

Thanks, Chris.

Thank you for tuning into the Upwards Podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. For more information about the S.L. Brown Foundation and Upper House, please visit slbf.org. Go in peace to be a light on our campuses, in our churches, and in our businesses so that all may flourish.