0:00

Welcome to the Holy Post. Well, here

0:02

we are again. The very same arguments that were

0:04

rolled out by MAGA Christian leaders to justify supporting

0:06

Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 are back again

0:09

in 2024. A

0:13

new article in the Christian Post says

0:15

America's survival depends on Christians voting for

0:17

Trump. Why do these fear tactics

0:20

still work? Then, it's true

0:22

that all politicians lie, but PolitiFact says

0:24

Trump is in a league of his

0:26

own, and scientists explain

0:28

why negative polarization in our

0:30

politics may have evolutionary origins.

0:33

Then I speak with pastor and author

0:36

Brian Zond about his new book, The

0:38

Wood Between the Worlds, a poetic theology

0:40

of the cross. He draws

0:42

from art, literature, movies, and music to

0:44

help us see the many facets of

0:46

what Jesus really accomplished on that old

0:49

rugged cross. And Zond rejects

0:51

the idea that violence wielded by Christians

0:53

can be redemptive. Also

0:55

this week, an early church father liked

0:57

big couches and he cannot lie. A

1:00

few announcements before we begin. First,

1:02

we have a bonus interview with Brian Zond

1:05

for Holy Post Plus subscribers this week. And

1:07

his book, The Wood Between the Worlds, is

1:09

our Holy Post book club selection for this

1:11

quarter. So those who sign up

1:13

for Holy Post Plus at the $10 tier

1:16

or higher will get a free digital copy

1:18

and access to my live stream with Brian

1:20

on March 12th, where you can ask him

1:22

your questions about the book as well. And

1:25

finally, I alluded to it when we

1:27

recorded this episode, but we can officially

1:29

announce that our next Holy Post meet

1:31

and greet will be in Orlando on

1:33

March 1st. Caitlin and I

1:35

will be there along with a few other Holy

1:37

Post pundits. Tickets are

1:39

on sale now. Go to

1:41

holypost.com/events to learn more. Okay,

1:44

here's episode 603. Hey

1:46

there, welcome back to Holy Post Podcast. This is

1:49

Phil Visscher. I am here with two other people

1:51

because that's what we do. It's

1:53

Phil and two other people. It's not

1:55

the Caitlins today, but it is a

1:58

Caitlin. Hi Caitlin, Jess. Hi

2:00

Phil! And Skye.

2:02

Tawny, hi Skye. Hello.

2:06

Caitlin is at her grandmother's house.

2:08

Yep. Over the river and through

2:11

the woods? Yes. And did you

2:13

bring her treats in a basket? And have

2:15

you checked for wolves? No,

2:17

none of those things. We

2:19

have looked through lots of old family

2:22

pictures and her old

2:24

assignments when she was a student

2:26

at Moody where she translated all

2:28

of Philippians and yeah, I

2:30

didn't bring any treats. Okay. Here's

2:32

the theme song. What's

2:35

the news that you like the most?

2:38

You'll lose your favorite

2:40

hot hot toast in

2:42

this breakfast. Get your toast!

2:44

Skye and Phil in the holy

2:46

post. Skye and Phil

2:49

in the holy post. And

2:52

sometimes Caitlin! Taking

2:56

care of your health isn't always easy, but

2:58

it should at least be simple. That's

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3:24

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thanks to AG1 for sponsoring this

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episode. So

5:28

there was an event in Portland,

5:31

a Holy Post event that I

5:33

did not get an invitation to, or I would have been

5:35

there. I would have ridden

5:37

my bike across the country because

5:40

I love interacting with lots

5:42

of people in a room. It's

5:45

one of my favorite things to do. Caitlin

5:47

was there, Drew Dick was there,

5:49

and Nije Gupta was there. Is

5:54

he a pundit? Is he a Holy

5:56

Post pundit? I don't think officially. Oh.

6:00

Did you pick up on it? I think so.

6:02

Okay. I don't even know. John

6:04

was there too. John was there.

6:06

And John was there, our CEO, Caitlin. What

6:11

did you guys even do? Because Sky

6:13

and I weren't there. I

6:16

wasn't there to play the ukulele or

6:18

talk about butts. Sky wasn't there

6:20

to make

6:23

any sarcastic remarks. What

6:26

did you do? Well, John told

6:28

people a little bit about The Holy Post and

6:30

some things we're doing. And he

6:32

talked to Drew a little bit about his

6:34

new book and his experience in Christian media.

6:37

And then- John interviewed Drew?

6:40

Kind of. He more just said

6:42

compliments at Drew and Drew responded to

6:44

them. Oh. Okay.

6:48

I guess we'll have to work on that.

6:50

Yeah. And then DJ

6:53

and I had a conversation about kind

6:55

of history and Christian history and things we

6:57

learned about the church from that. Actually, he

6:59

started off by telling everyone that The Holy

7:02

Post is contractually obligated to have a bald

7:04

Indian present at all events. So

7:06

we met that requirement. Interesting.

7:09

And it was really fun. It was like-

7:12

Okay. I was really meaningful. There

7:14

were a lot of people there who brought letters

7:16

and brought like stories they wanted to tell about

7:18

The Holy Post meaning a lot to them. And

7:22

there was a little girl who came

7:24

with her parents and she had questions

7:26

about how she could read the Bible

7:28

and how she could get closer

7:30

to God. It was just a very sweet, it was

7:32

a really fun, really good time. Wow.

7:35

Okay. Well, I

7:37

guess we should do more of those where

7:40

I don't think it can be meaningful. We

7:42

have one in the works where you're not going to come. Yay!

7:46

Hopefully, it's going to be announced soon

7:48

and it will be on

7:50

the opposite end of the country from

7:52

Portland. So I'll leave that ambiguous for

7:55

now until we know more. Mar-a-Lago? Mar-a-Lago?

7:57

Ah, you got it. You got it.

8:00

You're actually very funny. Oh

8:02

my goodness. Okay, okay.

8:04

Do you know what we haven't done in a while?

8:06

Actually since the last live show. Now

8:09

it's time for News of the Butt. And

8:11

now it's time for News of the Butt.

8:18

I wasn't prepared for that. You okay, Caitlin? My

8:21

grandmother is in the room, Phil. I

8:24

think you're gonna... She can't keep your headphones on. She

8:27

doesn't know what's happening. But this is really

8:29

theology. This is more theology. And I really

8:32

think you're gonna like this. Someone put this

8:34

to me on Twitter. This is theology of

8:36

the butt. So it's a

8:38

different twist. Don't make that face, honey. I don't

8:40

like that face. Have you ever heard of Theodorit

8:42

of Cyrus? Or Theodorit?

8:45

Theodorit of Cyrus? Really, of course.

8:47

You've heard of all of those

8:49

people. But no modern movie

8:52

stars. Theodorit of Cyrus

8:54

was an influential theologian of the school

8:56

of Antioch. And the bishop of Cyrus,

8:58

which I guess was a place. He

9:00

played a pivotal role in several fifth

9:03

century Byzantine church controversies that led to

9:05

various ecumenical acts and schisms.

9:08

That's who Theodorit of Cyrus

9:10

was. He also wrote

9:13

a short piece in

9:15

praise of God's gift of

9:18

buttock. Oh, yeah. I have

9:20

read this. I don't

9:22

know this. How do you know this? Because he

9:24

went to a duke. Yeah, the duke. They

9:26

really cover all the bases. No. This

9:29

is Theodorit of Cyrus

9:32

talking. Mark, I have no

9:34

idea what his accent would have been. He would have

9:36

spoken Latin. Probably Latin. I don't

9:38

know. Mark another, so I have to say

9:41

it in Pig Latin. Arc

9:43

may. No, Mark another manifestation

9:45

of his providence. The body

9:47

provides the natural couch of

9:50

the buttocks so that

9:52

you can make a seat out of

9:54

the ground or a stone and not

9:56

be hurt by sitting on bare limbs.

9:58

You are ungrateful, notwithstanding. I think

10:00

he's referring to you, Skye, here. You

10:02

fail to recognize the gifts and rave

10:05

and rant against this wisdom that makes

10:07

such provision for you. What provision are

10:09

you wanting me to clarify what that

10:12

provision was? The natural couch

10:14

of the buttocks that

10:16

allows you to sit on hard surfaces

10:19

and not be hurt by sitting on bare

10:21

limbs. And I'm very curious what he was

10:23

picturing in his mind when

10:25

he thought about someone trying to sit without

10:28

buttocks. Oh,

10:30

don't go down that road. Okay.

10:36

Yes? I'm

10:38

also glad I realized... This is the wisdom

10:40

of the saints. I realized after

10:42

you said it, it wouldn't be Latin. He would

10:44

speak Greek. I'm glad I didn't realize till now,

10:47

because maybe you would have actually tried it.

10:49

That's a little tricky. Theodora...

10:54

Cyrus... The

10:56

person who tweeted this actually said, Theodora of Cyprus,

10:58

but that's wrong. It's not Theodora of

11:00

Cyprus. It's Theodora of Cyrus. Wants

11:03

us all to pause and reflect and

11:06

be grateful for the natural couch

11:08

of the buttocks. Wow.

11:10

This is like the original Sir

11:13

Mix-a-Lot. He liked big butts.

11:16

Oh, boy. Because it

11:18

was more comfortable to sit. And

11:22

I do not lie. The lungs will let

11:24

me bite. Okay, this has been News of the Butt.

11:31

See, that wasn't so bad, Caitlin. That

11:33

was mercifully short. Thank you. Thank you.

11:35

Well, and it was theologically rich. I

11:39

did like that better than other options. Good.

11:41

Okay. I'll try to

11:44

look for more butt news from early

11:46

church fathers. Oh, okay. Yeah, you try

11:48

that. And see what I can

11:50

find. Oh,

11:53

I'm talking a little bit. We're in

11:56

election year, and there's a lot

11:58

going on. And so I'm talking a little bit. about

12:00

politics today. If you're already sick of

12:02

politics in this election year, I'm sorry,

12:05

we won't talk about politics next week,

12:07

okay? But I'm going to talk about

12:09

this week. And this

12:11

was interesting, the Christian Post

12:14

had a guest editorial

12:17

with the headline, with DeSantis out, can

12:19

a Christian support Donald Trump? And that

12:22

made me think, oh well they're having someone

12:24

actually come in and try to, you know,

12:27

pros and cons, see where you

12:29

come out, you know, maybe you shouldn't support

12:31

Trump, maybe you think it's okay, I'm not

12:33

going to take a side, but here's some

12:35

things to think about. That is not what

12:38

it is, that is not what it is

12:40

at all. The piece was written by Shane

12:42

Eitelman, who's a pastor in Southern California, somewhere,

12:44

who basically

12:47

says, you have to support Trump.

12:49

Why do you have to support Trump? Because

12:51

there's so much at stake, Skye, there's so

12:53

much at stake. If I love

12:55

this first quote, if a leader,

12:57

because this is, you know, people say he

13:00

lacks character, he lacks character, how could we

13:02

support him when he has no Christian character?

13:04

If a leader lacks Christian character, but is

13:06

pointing the nation back to God, is that

13:09

a bad thing? That's

13:12

a pretty compelling argument. He lacks

13:14

character, but he's pointing us back

13:16

to God as a nation. So, so

13:19

the utilitarian argument, basically.

13:22

How, Caitlin, how? I

13:25

don't know. God doesn't, I just have

13:28

a few quotes from this piece because I just kept

13:30

reading and going, oh my

13:32

gosh, God doesn't judge a nation based

13:34

on the character of one man, he

13:37

judges it based on the spiritual health

13:39

of her people. So,

13:42

if Donald Trump is improving our

13:44

spiritual health, then we're

13:47

less likely to come under the judgment of

13:49

God. Caitlin,

13:51

you got to say something already. That's so not

13:54

true. That's just, that's so

13:56

upsetting because that is so

13:58

counter to how most of

14:00

the Old Testament over and over and over again

14:02

describes the relationship between the character of leaders and

14:04

the Health of a

14:06

community and the judgment of God on communities

14:08

I mean even just thinking like I could

14:10

come up with more You

14:13

know obscure references to prove

14:15

this like I'm thinking of I

14:18

think in in first and second King there's a

14:20

few times this happens I'm thinking of Manasseh where

14:22

it specifically says like not only did he lead

14:24

the people into idolatry But it says because of

14:26

what he did Israel is judged

14:29

like the whole of the community is judged because of what

14:31

he did But even with an example that

14:33

people are more familiar with like if you think about the

14:35

story of David Right all

14:37

of the negative effects on the rest

14:40

of his family for his sin against

14:42

Bathsheba is Disasters

14:44

for the whole community like the conflict

14:46

between his sons the kind of chaos

14:48

in his whole community Like that is

14:50

all directly described in that story as

14:52

coming from God's judgment on

14:54

his particular sinfulness So I don't think we

14:57

have any reason to say that the character

14:59

of our leaders does not produce judgment on

15:01

whole communities And also we don't even need

15:03

to have kind of a theological defense of

15:05

this We know from history

15:07

that the way that leaders, you know

15:10

Comport themselves has effects on the kind of

15:12

culture of what's acceptable in a whole community

15:14

So even if you're thinking about the spiritual

15:16

health of the whole nation I mean

15:19

again true in biblical history and true in actual

15:21

history outside of Scripture Tons of

15:23

examples of like the way that a leader comports

15:26

themselves causes people to think certain things are okay

15:28

We can even see that in our own country

15:30

the rhetoric that's become normalized because of the rhetoric

15:32

of our leaders There are Christian

15:34

responses that we should have to not just the

15:36

actions people have but the language they use To

15:39

talk about people made in the image of God. This

15:41

isn't an abstract question We know what has happened when

15:43

leaders in our own country have used really terrible language

15:45

to describe people made in the image of God they

15:47

have made that more possible for people in the country

15:49

to use but Caitlin

15:53

Sky we cannot discuss every one of these

15:55

points both of you so we have to

15:57

take turns. Yeah, you got that one. Okay

16:00

have the next one. Caitlin, you only

16:02

think bad things about Donald Trump

16:04

because you believe the news media.

16:06

Here's our next point from our

16:08

friends at the Christian Post. The

16:10

majority of news outlets spin everything,

16:12

yes everything, to put Trump in

16:15

a bad light. And I hope

16:17

you realize this. This is talking

16:19

directly to us now. I hope

16:21

you realize this. They are really

16:23

coming after you, me, and our

16:25

Christian values. When the news

16:27

media has negative stories about

16:30

Donald Trump, what it really means

16:32

is they're coming after our Christian values. So

16:35

when the news media reports that Donald Trump has

16:37

been ordered to pay $83 million

16:40

to Eugene Carroll for sexual assault.

16:42

They want to take away my

16:44

charity, my Christian charity. That's what

16:46

they're looking for. Right. Or when

16:48

the news media shows video clips

16:50

of Donald Trump making fun of

16:52

people with physical handicaps.

16:55

They want to take away grace.

16:57

That's they're coming after grace.

17:00

I'm just thinking of Christian values

17:02

they might be. Right. Or when

17:04

the media publishes photographs taken at

17:06

Mar-a-Lago of boxes and boxes and

17:08

boxes of classified material that Trump

17:10

had accused Hillary Clinton of doing

17:12

with her servers back in 2016

17:14

and said they should lock her

17:16

up for mishandling national security

17:19

secrets. But when he has them in

17:21

the gilded bathroom at Mar-a-Lago, when

17:23

the media publishes those pictures, that's them

17:26

coming after my Christian values. Yeah. Okay.

17:28

They want to take away my.

17:30

They want to take away my.

17:32

Okay. An analogy that I often

17:34

use will bring this point home.

17:36

The head of a neighborhood, say

17:38

Trump, he's like the head of

17:40

a neighborhood watch program who took

17:42

the late night watches was occasionally

17:44

gruff and impulsive. And sometimes his

17:46

words were crass and offensive. But

17:48

he watched over the neighborhood diligently

17:51

each night. Each week he invited

17:53

church leaders into his home to pray for

17:55

him and his family and to seek their

17:57

advice. He stood against others on the the

18:00

neighborhood watch committee who wanted to enact

18:02

policies harmful to the neighborhood and to

18:05

the children such as advocating an open

18:07

door policy where residents were required to

18:09

allow anyone into their homes at all

18:11

hours of the day for handouts. Is

18:13

this not the kind of person you

18:15

would want leading your neighborhood watch? How

18:18

about when the leader of the neighborhood watch sexually

18:21

assaults women because when you're the head of the

18:23

neighborhood watch they let you do it? Oh,

18:26

oh. Do you still want that person in

18:29

charge of the neighborhood watch? Don't put it

18:31

on that footing. Here's the

18:33

bottom line. We can't have

18:35

our cake and eat it too, I'm reading from

18:37

this editorial. We can't have our cake and eat

18:39

it too. There is no middle ground for Christians

18:42

today. You can choose a president who will seek

18:44

to destroy America and parenthetically

18:46

in many ways already

18:48

has. Or you can choose to

18:50

back Donald Trump. There's

18:54

no plan B. Trump or the end of America.

18:57

Can I just say I think it's important

18:59

actually hearing some of this not because

19:02

this is the best

19:07

argument for Donald Trump because

19:10

it is absolutely not. But

19:13

because I think it's important to realize that like

19:15

people are often caught up in this logic

19:18

like it is a very powerful argument. Yeah,

19:20

I'm not really manipulative, but it's not

19:23

bringing this up because it's a weird

19:25

fringe outline. Right. These

19:27

are arguments that I've heard before. Right.

19:30

It's the existential threat America's on

19:32

the brink and therefore we should

19:35

hire this less than ideal

19:37

person to be president because the alternative

19:39

is worse. That's only been saying this

19:41

since 2015. Only

19:43

he can protect us. What never

19:45

comes up in these kind of

19:47

justifications? Yeah, he's gruff. Yeah, he's

19:50

mean. Yeah, he insults people. What

19:52

they never say is yeah, he lies at least

19:55

10 times a day. They skip

19:57

that one. They always skip the fact that

19:59

he. He doesn't tell the

20:01

truth. And I wonder why.

20:05

So PolitiFact has just done a fact

20:07

check of their 1000th

20:09

statement of Donald Trump. They've been doing

20:11

fact checks on him ever since 2011

20:15

when he started the birther movement against

20:18

Obama. And

20:20

they've never reached this number of fact

20:22

checks on any one candidate before. This

20:24

is the new record they've set. Because

20:26

they're biased, Bill. Yeah, I know. Because

20:28

they're coming after my Christian values. What

20:32

they've learned, looking back over a

20:34

thousand fact checks, is about 76% of

20:36

Donald Trump's

20:39

statements that they researched earned

20:41

ratings of mostly false, false, or pants

20:43

on fire false. And if you want

20:45

to know what pants on fire false

20:48

means, it means not just false, but

20:50

ridiculous. You know, like the

20:52

statement when meals cause cancer, or his

20:54

statement, I've been known to be

20:56

a strong Christian all my life. Things

20:58

that are patently on the

21:01

surface. Ridiculous. It's

21:04

not unusual for politicians of both parties to

21:06

mislead, exaggerate, or make stuff up. But

21:09

American fact checkers have never encountered

21:11

a politician who shares Trump's disregard

21:14

for factual accuracy. Trump

21:16

stands alone for his share of rated

21:18

statements that are some degree of false.

21:20

About 76% of his statements

21:22

earned ratings of mostly false, false, or pants

21:24

on fire. In fact, his

21:27

median rating for his 1000 fact checks is

21:29

false. They

21:32

don't have any of that's the

21:34

median is just false, not pants

21:36

on fire false, but false.

21:39

And then they list a whole

21:41

bunch like all the recent Democratic

21:43

presidents and Republican presidents and Democratic

21:46

and Republican speakers of the House.

21:48

And all of them are

21:50

at least like at the worst

21:53

are partly true

21:55

in their average. Partly

21:57

true, not necessarily completely true. In fact, someone did

21:59

a Is all I remember during

22:04

2016 the debates between Hillary Clinton and

22:06

Donald Trump And I've tried

22:08

to use this to try to explain how

22:10

unusual he is in his lying Because

22:13

some people say yeah all politicians like don't tell me

22:15

the Trump. It doesn't matter that Trump likes his all

22:17

politicians like The

22:20

debates were fact-checked very regular rigorously however

22:22

many dates debates he had with Hillary

22:24

Clinton Hillary Clinton in the course of

22:26

the two or three debates made 14

22:30

false or misleading statements okay, and

22:32

you think well, that's not great I'd prefer if

22:34

it was zero false or misleading statements She made

22:36

14 using the exact same

22:39

standard in the exact same debates Donald Trump

22:41

made 110 false or misleading statements So

22:45

he and this is what all

22:47

the fact-checkers have noted. He is

22:49

in a class by himself But

22:52

there has never been a politician Who

22:55

is so willing to say

22:57

things that are obviously false

22:59

and Just assumes that he

23:01

can get away with saying things that are

23:04

obviously false like when he used to call

23:06

the newspapers when he was building Trump Tower

23:08

And he would call the New York newspapers

23:10

and pretend to be someone else to say

23:12

lies about who was considering moving into Trump

23:14

Tower To get in the gossip pages of

23:16

the newspapers and finally the editors of the

23:18

gossip pages in the New York newspapers Compared

23:20

notes and said did you have a guy

23:23

named this who sounded a little like Donald

23:25

Trump? Call you about and they

23:27

all realized it was him and he was

23:29

just he was just messing with them He

23:31

was just lying to get things like he you know

23:33

he called the newspaper and said there's a rumor that

23:36

Princess Diana may take an apartment

23:38

in Trump Tower and like

23:40

oh wow that's big news. Thank you. What's your

23:42

name George? Oh? Thank you

23:45

George, and so they would run it in the

23:47

news and then people get excited about Trump Tower.

23:49

That's What he does and he's been

23:51

doing it. You know I mean that's in the 80s He's

23:53

been he's been lying since the 80s and

23:56

when I say hey he lies people say

23:58

you just don't like him because because he's

24:00

a Republican and you've now become a

24:03

radical socialist cultural Marxist. Yes.

24:08

I don't think it's- I'm

24:10

really, I'm kind of worked up about this. I can

24:12

tell. Because of all the people

24:14

that say, oh, you just don't like mean

24:17

tweets. No, he lies five times before breakfast

24:19

and many of his lies generate mistrust

24:21

and hate towards

24:23

marginalized people. Okay. Trump

24:26

is who Trump is. He's not going to change. He's been this

24:28

way, as you put it, since the 80s. There's

24:31

no mystery here. I think the bigger problem

24:33

is not Donald Trump. The

24:35

bigger problem is there's

24:38

a vast segment of the

24:40

US popular media, mainstream

24:42

media, as well as

24:44

the algorithms, as well as huge

24:47

segments of the Republican Party that

24:49

simply don't report this. His

24:52

own political adversaries within the Republican

24:54

Party don't talk about this

24:56

with the exception of Chris Christie during

24:58

the primaries. Fox News doesn't report this

25:00

stuff. The algorithms, if you're in

25:02

the conservative MAGA

25:05

ecosystem online, you're not going to hear any

25:07

of this stuff. It makes

25:09

sense to say, well, of course all politicians lie

25:11

and Trump's a politician. He's going to exaggerate, whatever.

25:14

No big deal because they don't see this.

25:17

There was a Bonnie Christian story recently where

25:20

she was talking to her grandmother about when

25:22

the story came out about the sexual assault,

25:24

the access Hollywood tape back in 2016. She

25:28

brought it up to her grandmother before the election. Her grandmother's

25:30

like, what are you talking about? I've never even heard of

25:32

this. The

25:34

failure is not Donald Trump. He's this

25:36

force of nature that's crazy. It's

25:39

all the people who are making him

25:41

palatable and acceptable to huge segments of

25:44

the American population. That's where

25:46

the culpability lies. Okay.

25:48

I hear you. I'm

25:51

amazed at the brazenness

25:55

and the one that just stuck out to me the

25:57

most was he had just accepted. It was either the.

26:00

won the nomination or had just won the

26:02

presidency I forget and Anderson

26:05

Cooper was interviewing him live

26:07

on TV, national TV and

26:10

brought up his tax returns that he says I

26:12

won't release my tax returns because I'm under audit

26:15

and Anderson Cooper said well finally

26:18

said well why are you under audit? He says

26:20

I'm under audit every year I don't know they

26:22

audit me every year he says why do you

26:24

think that is and this and

26:26

you could see his wheels turning for a second what

26:29

can I say that would be good for me

26:31

and he said well I've always

26:33

been known as a very strong Christian so

26:38

he saw the and this is

26:41

amazing the calculus it's like how

26:43

can I use this opportunity to

26:46

win what I want and

26:48

I want conservative America to

26:51

love me think I'm one of

26:53

them so I will say not just

26:55

say you know he said I've

26:57

always been known as a very strong

26:59

Christian so not just to say I've

27:01

always considered myself a very strong Christian

27:03

or I strive to be a very

27:05

strong Christian but to say people have

27:07

always known me to be a very

27:09

strong Christian which is if you don't

27:12

know his history if you don't know

27:14

that he you know builds casinos and

27:16

fills them with strip clubs and that

27:18

he cheats the subcontractors and you know

27:20

that he lies five times before breakfast

27:22

if you don't know that and you

27:24

hear people have always known me to

27:26

be a very strong Christian there's

27:28

a sense that oh other people know that

27:30

he is oh I didn't know that so

27:32

now I know and he knows that that

27:34

works and so he does it even when

27:36

it's obvious that anyone who's paid attention to

27:38

him since the 80s that he's never of

27:40

all the things he has been known for

27:42

being a strong Christian has never been something

27:44

that he's been known for but

27:47

he got a two for one out of that because not

27:49

only does he claim something

27:51

ridiculous but he also claims the victim card

27:54

that I'm persecuted by the IRS for being

27:56

a strong Christian because I'm a Christian which

27:58

means by the way the IRS would

28:00

come after you too if you're a strong

28:02

Christian. And so I need to be president

28:04

so I can protect you and I can

28:06

protect Christianity. So it was like he

28:08

found five different ways to take that simple question.

28:10

Why do you think you're audited so much by

28:13

the IRS and make it

28:15

twist people into the place he wanted

28:17

them to be? Okay, science

28:19

is revealing why American politics are so

28:21

intensely polarized. There's some interesting stuff in

28:24

this article. I

28:26

think it's the Washington Post. One

28:28

theme that emerges in a lot of the

28:30

research as people have been looking into polarization

28:33

are politics tend to be more emotional now.

28:35

Policy preferences are increasingly likely

28:37

to be entangled with a

28:40

visceral dislike of the other

28:42

side, of the opposition. Caitlin,

28:44

are you shocked? Wow. Do

28:48

you remember when politics were less emotional?

28:50

Because you came of age in a

28:53

fairly emotional period of time for politics.

28:56

Actually, Phil, what you just said is exactly what

28:58

I'm constantly trying to tell people is that people

29:00

my age, the

29:02

beginning of our political lives, this was an

29:05

obvious fact. So I'm so glad

29:07

science is confirming what we all have

29:09

intimate experience with. There's

29:11

some interesting stats in here.

29:13

For example, like 40 years

29:15

ago, only

29:17

60% of married

29:20

couples affiliated with

29:22

the same political party. The

29:24

two members of the couple ascribed

29:27

to the same political party, today it's 85%. So

29:31

you're much less likely to marry

29:33

someone from the other side. Do

29:36

they cite that there was a Gallup poll back in

29:38

the 60s or 70s asking somebody if your adult child

29:40

married somebody from the opposite political party how do you

29:42

feel about it? Back

29:44

in the 60s, most people didn't care. And

29:47

now it's like vast majority of

29:49

Americans care deeply if their adult child married

29:51

somebody of the other party. So

29:54

our polarization is now based on our

29:56

feelings for each other, not based on

29:58

extremely divergent policy preference. The

30:00

tendency to form, and this is where they get

30:03

into science, because we love science. I mean, science

30:05

would never lie to us, right? Never.

30:08

The tendency to form tightly

30:10

knit groups has roots in

30:12

evolution, according to experts in

30:14

political psychology, who are also

30:16

evolutionary biologists apparently. Humans

30:18

evolved in a challenging world

30:21

of limited resources in which

30:23

survival required cooperation and identifying

30:25

the rivals and our

30:27

competitors for those resources. So

30:29

the evolution of cooperation, this is

30:31

your next book, Caitlin, the evolution

30:33

of cooperation, or the

30:36

couch of the buttocks. No, neither one. You

30:38

chose your two choices. Two choices. You

30:40

gotta pick one. Yeah, okay. Humans

30:43

evolved in a challenging, oh, I

30:45

said that already, the evolution of

30:47

cooperation required out-group hatred, which is

30:50

really sad, Yale sociologist Nicholas Christakis

30:52

said, but savvy political operatives can

30:55

exploit, leverage, and encourage it. And

30:57

those operatives are learning from their

30:59

triumphs in divide and conquer politics.

31:02

And that tells the interesting story

31:05

of an experiment done with Boy Scouts

31:07

in 1954. The

31:09

process of defining who is in and

31:11

who is out of a group, enmity

31:13

and derision, can arise independently of any

31:16

rational reason for it. A famous experiment

31:18

from 1954, a social

31:20

psychologist, I won't say his name, I'll get

31:22

it wrong, took 22 Boy Scouts,

31:24

here's what you do, you take 22 Boy

31:27

Scouts, you divide them in half, you add

31:29

four eggs, you bake at 400 degrees. He

31:32

separated them into two groups camping at

31:34

Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. Only

31:37

after a week did they learn that there

31:39

was another group at the far end of

31:41

the campground. What they did next fascinated the

31:43

research team. Each group developed

31:45

irrational contempt for the other

31:47

group. The boys in the

31:49

other group were seen not just as

31:52

rivals but as fundamentally flawed human beings.

31:54

Only when the two groups were asked to work together

31:57

to solve a common problem did they warm up to

31:59

a better place. one another. I

32:02

didn't know there were Boy Scouts over there.

32:04

They must be subhuman. Yep.

32:07

That's not helpful. I

32:09

think part of how they went about this

32:11

is important and some of the other studies

32:13

they've done that have replicated similar results, it

32:15

is important that sometimes there still is something

32:17

at stake usually. Like they play games against

32:20

each other in the Boy Scout example or

32:22

sometimes in other laboratory setting examples,

32:24

they'll put people in two different groups

32:26

and ask them if they want

32:28

to give money to other people in the other group

32:30

or money to people in their own group or there's

32:32

little games they'll play. I think what's important is what

32:35

politicians and pundits have kind of realized

32:37

and known really well and exploited really

32:39

well is that as long as you

32:41

can convince people that someone

32:43

else getting something means they don't get

32:45

it, that's when you really can kind

32:48

of draw on these dynamics. If

32:50

it's just hating people that

32:52

exist over there that you don't have any

32:54

interaction with, that's a lot harder than those

32:56

people. There's a zero sum game

32:58

at play here and if those people get something

33:00

you don't get something and that's powerful. Yeah.

33:04

Honestly, this is also one of the

33:06

most revolutionary things that Jesus brought to

33:08

the world is every society including his

33:10

own had basically said love your neighbor,

33:12

hate your enemy. But

33:14

I say to you, love your enemy

33:17

and pray for those who persecute you. He

33:19

changed the in-group out-group dynamic to say, hey,

33:21

you're gonna be okay. Your Heavenly Father loves

33:23

you, he has you. In fact, he's gonna

33:25

prove his love to the point where he

33:28

has sent me to die for you

33:30

and will rise again. Not even death

33:32

can harm you, therefore it's not a

33:34

zero sum game. You are going to

33:36

be okay, therefore you can love your

33:38

enemy. You can love the out-group. Your

33:40

well-being doesn't depend on their misfortune. Yes,

33:42

but what if the other side is

33:44

destroying America? Because I will be okay.

33:47

I just heard from a pastor that

33:49

the other side is destroying America and

33:51

a pastor I would I should trust

33:53

a pastor. And I would go

33:56

so far as to say that is

33:58

not being a pastor. Because a

34:00

pastor would echo the message of Jesus,

34:03

which is even if America fails you

34:05

will be okay Eternally in the hands

34:07

of your heavenly father Therefore

34:10

you don't have to hate those that

34:12

you fear but when I get to

34:14

heaven St. Peter at the

34:16

door is gonna say yes, but why

34:18

did you let Joe Biden destroy America?

34:21

We had a lot riding on America

34:25

It was a big part of our plan St.

34:28

Peter had a messed it up you met

34:30

okay had a draft Kings bet on America

34:32

that went south That

34:38

was the thorn in his flesh wasn't it his

34:40

gambling addiction The

34:42

American political system ironically

34:45

may cultivate out group

34:47

hatred one of the

34:49

scarce resources So we're kind of talking

34:51

about zero-sum game And we know when

34:53

you're worried about a zero-sum game one

34:55

of the scarce resources in this country

34:57

is Political power at the highest levels

35:00

of government the country has no Parliamentary

35:02

system in which multiple parties form governing

35:04

coalitions so at the presidential level or

35:06

running Congress or running the Senate It

35:09

is kind of a zero-sum either you're in control

35:11

either you're in the White House or you're out

35:13

of the White House There's no hey we have

35:15

to compromise and put together a team so why

35:18

did our founding fathers? Hey, why

35:20

did our founding fathers set up

35:22

a system to generate out group

35:24

hatred? Huh,

35:26

I I think they actually

35:29

Miscalculated they when you go back and read

35:32

Caitlin's nodding her head when you go back

35:34

and read like the Federalist Papers of they

35:36

assumed That the members of the government would

35:38

be loyal to their own branch that

35:40

Congress would Would

35:43

naturally band together against the executive the

35:45

presidency getting too much power in the

35:47

courts And they didn't anticipate the

35:49

formation of political parties so that even within Congress

35:51

there would be factions So I think it was

35:53

a short-sightedness on the part of the founders. I

35:56

do think there are some inherent Benefits

35:59

of a power. Parliamentary system that would avoid

36:01

some of this, but this is the system

36:03

we have. I do think it needs dramatic

36:05

reform to the point of amending the Constitution

36:07

of fix some of these political problems. But.

36:11

It is the only remembers we've. Had this

36:13

for. Nearly. Two hundred and

36:15

fifty years and some our with.okay we

36:17

had our problems, but why is it

36:19

getting so much worse? Now That's a

36:21

question worth asking. Is not like we

36:23

suddenly have this new political system and

36:25

now it's become a problem. We've had

36:28

the same system. What's changed is not

36:30

the system. What's changed is the media

36:32

and. Cultural. Dynamics And as

36:34

a big sort yeah and end of

36:36

are you know the cultural revolution of

36:38

the Nineteen Sixties that half of us

36:40

thought were progress and a half of

36:43

the start where the end of western

36:45

civilization. So that I talked about last

36:47

week with you know interviewed Rob Reiner

36:49

last week. Yeah. We live near.

36:51

Meathead, Me me me, It was

36:53

great. A recent public paper and

36:55

this is where I'm swinging at

36:57

around or a recent paper published

37:00

in the Journal Science argue that

37:02

the three core ingredients of political

37:04

sectarianism our number one other ring.

37:06

Number. Two of version and

37:08

number three Moralization. So.

37:11

They are the other. We. Don't

37:13

like them and our side is

37:15

the good side. Basically.

37:18

And then this researcher says ah this

37:20

is a core I would give it

37:22

to Trump he has figured out how

37:24

to cash in on polarization of they

37:26

talk about. How

37:29

good he is at pushing these

37:31

buttons on people Were evolutionarily predisposed to

37:33

pay attention to conflict because we

37:35

might be in danger. We don't turn

37:38

our had really quickly to look at

37:40

a beautiful flower. We turn our

37:42

heads quickly to look at something that

37:44

may be dangerous that's a part

37:46

of human nature that anyone can exploit

37:49

Their our politicians who are good

37:51

at this. This research, research or says

37:53

Trump is the best. Was

37:56

Nancy just go back and read the reread that piece

37:58

you did to be gained from the passer. Chris

38:00

impose it is it. And it's all

38:02

that fear, fear, fear, danger, danger, danger,

38:05

work. it's all over. We have this

38:07

a vote for Trump because. As

38:10

as snake come after us and

38:12

it when about grouping of engineering.

38:14

And moralization and exactly.

38:17

Those are good words. Be afraid

38:19

that my next book how to

38:22

ah versioning as and moralization thing

38:24

Okay spots. But. There's good

38:26

news everybody. there's good news because Andre

38:28

Henry road apiece or Religion new Service

38:31

where he says Trump is not are

38:33

bigger. Our biggest problem. He's. Not

38:35

our biggest problem we can overcome trump. Or

38:38

biggest problem is this is the headline.

38:40

America's lack of faith in our own

38:42

collective power is a bigger problem than

38:45

Trump. And he

38:47

talks about people set making statements like if

38:49

Biden is reelected, you can vote for whoever

38:51

you want and twenty twenty eight. But if

38:53

Trump is reelected, you'll never get to vote

38:55

again. Dot. dot.com He says

38:57

Our andre says at the heart

39:00

of this sort of are speaking

39:02

and campaigning as a deeply problematic

39:04

assumption the notion that of the

39:06

worst case scenario where to play

39:08

out and Trump becomes a dictator

39:10

president for life that America's story

39:12

ends there it displays of poverty

39:14

of imagination and a sense of

39:16

denial about America's history and ignorance

39:19

about America's collective power and that

39:21

fatalism that we no longer believe

39:23

we have the collective power to

39:25

solve big existential. Problems is

39:27

a much bigger problem than

39:29

just Donald Trump. Caitlin,

39:33

Thoughts. Agreed.

39:37

I just also I think one thing

39:39

that struck me reading this piece blaze

39:41

Not only that we need historical him

39:43

as nice and we need to remember

39:46

economics. I was just saying fight like

39:48

we've been through some significant difficulties. Why

39:50

in our past can help help us

39:52

discern what to do here and now?

39:54

But I'm also think. especially for

39:56

christians and we've kind of been hinting at this

39:59

the whole time that one of the greatest resources

40:01

we have is not just, you know,

40:03

what what Sky was talking about, that Jesus really reshaped

40:05

how we think about enemies and gave us reason to

40:07

say, you don't have to be so afraid. You don't

40:09

have to fight for everything you need. But

40:12

another part of our imagination that Christians need to be

40:14

cultivating is an eschatological imagination,

40:17

an imagination of the coming restoration

40:19

and redemption of all things. And

40:22

I think many of us grew

40:24

up in contexts where that was used

40:26

to justify political inaction. Right?

40:28

Jesus is coming back. Like, this is the deal

40:30

moody. I don't even think actually moody said this,

40:32

but it gets attributed to moody all the time.

40:34

Like, I've got a lifeboat, and God said, save

40:36

as many as you can. And so it's like,

40:38

don't care about structural issues, don't care about social

40:40

issues, just kind of save as many souls as

40:42

you can. And if that's gonna fix it all,

40:44

like, why do we have to care about I

40:46

heard this recently from someone who said a family

40:48

member was like, global warming can't be real, because

40:50

God's fixing everything. God's got it all in control.

40:52

It's fine. Right. I think

40:55

though, because we've heard all of that,

40:57

we have acted as though our belief

40:59

in Christ's return doesn't have much political

41:01

meaning because we've seen it misused for

41:03

political ends. Whereas if you

41:05

read civil rights activists, if you

41:07

read abolitionists, they were so often turning

41:09

to the to the eschatology they believed

41:11

into the coming return of Christ and

41:13

to the coming judgment of Christ in

41:15

order to say some weight is taken

41:17

off your shoulders. Yes, you fight for

41:19

justice and mercy and goodness on earth.

41:22

But you don't have to use unjust means to

41:24

achieve that just end, because it's not completely up

41:26

to you. If your efforts fail, if you do

41:29

try and vote the right person in, or you

41:31

try and get the right justice on the court,

41:33

or do you try and get the right law

41:35

passed, and it doesn't happen, that doesn't mean you're

41:37

a failure and everything is going to hell in

41:39

a handbasket, like God will redeem and restore all

41:42

things. And to the point

41:44

many abolitionists often made, if

41:46

God judges all evil, this is what Paul

41:48

says in Romans 12, right? Like don't repay

41:50

evil for evil for it is God's wrath

41:52

that is coming against injustice. You

41:55

don't have to be the total arbiter of

41:57

all good and evil, you don't have to

41:59

exactly. revenge on others who disagree

42:01

with you. You don't have to do

42:03

absolutely anything, trample over other people, harm

42:07

people made in God's image in order

42:09

to achieve even the best intended ends.

42:12

You have the freedom to work faithfully and

42:14

know that if it seems to be a

42:16

failure in the eyes of the world, it's

42:18

not a failure in the whole of God's

42:21

economy, that the coming kingdom of God vindicates

42:23

those efforts even if they seem like failures

42:25

on earth. And that's imagination that I wish

42:27

our churches were talking about is not just

42:29

God's got it, so don't worry, but God

42:31

has got it so you can work with

42:33

a lot of energy and a lot of

42:36

faithfulness without having to use unjust means to

42:38

get it. I mean, I

42:40

agree with you, Caitlin, entirely on the eschatological imagination,

42:42

but you don't even have to go that far.

42:44

You can just go to the cross.

42:47

The whole message of the cross is

42:50

when it looks like you have failed, when it

42:52

looks like the world's evil has won, hold

42:55

on a couple hours because Sunday's coming and

42:58

he rises from the from the dead. And Jesus

43:00

explicitly says this like he doesn't take up arms

43:02

against his enemies. He tells Peter to put his

43:04

sword back. He says that he

43:07

will drink the cup that the father has prepared for

43:09

him. He says, I could call

43:11

on 12 legions of angels, but how would the

43:13

scriptures be fulfilled? He goes to the cross. He

43:15

allows the world to think it's one because he

43:17

knows the greater victories to come. So all

43:20

these calls to say, well, America is going

43:22

to be destroyed if we don't elect Donald Trump, even though

43:24

he's a horrible person and a liar

43:26

and all the

43:28

other stuff. We need we have to

43:31

do that because we have to win. The cross

43:33

stands in direct opposition to that way of thinking.

43:35

It says, no, you do what's right and you

43:37

hold to your Christian convictions. And even when it

43:39

looks like you failed, God can

43:42

redeem it. What you intended for evil,

43:44

God intended for good. Joseph's words to

43:47

his brothers in Egypt. But all these

43:49

MAGA people and these Christian nationalists have

43:51

completely abandoned that core teaching of the

43:53

gospel to say we can't trust God

43:55

with this one. We have

43:58

to take control and we are trust. in

44:00

Donald Trump. That is the

44:02

very definition of idolatry and heresy.

44:07

Didn't Jesus send the disciples out into

44:09

the world to win? He already

44:14

won. Yes.

44:18

But this is why

44:20

I think the eschatological part is

44:22

really important is having

44:25

a vision of what the

44:27

coming truly good life looks

44:29

like is again not just

44:31

hope and comfort that God will actually produce those

44:33

things, wipe every tear from every eye, that God

44:35

will dwell with his people and be their God,

44:38

but also that we have

44:40

because of the death and resurrection

44:42

of Christ every motivation to seek

44:45

glimpses of that now and if we don't

44:47

pay attention to that coming vision we can

44:50

lose sight of how different that way of

44:52

life is supposed to be than

44:54

what we have here and now. It's like

44:56

I think a couple weeks ago I talked in

44:58

the podcast with Michael Weir about his book and

45:00

he said something about how people sometimes basically say

45:03

some version of like well Jesus couldn't have known

45:05

how hard it would be. His way

45:08

of life was good for him but he couldn't

45:10

have known how hard it is and it's like

45:12

the witness of Jesus is so important

45:15

and then the coming kingdom that he

45:17

was I mean this is what his

45:19

ministry was doing was saying the kingdom

45:21

of God is at hand. There are

45:23

particular pictures of that that help us

45:25

get a sense of what we're doing here and now and

45:28

when we have failed like to Sky's point of

45:30

like it's not over yet but when we have

45:33

failed I really think it can be a spiritually

45:36

formative practice for us to look to

45:38

those texts in Scripture that describe the

45:40

new Jerusalem the new heavens and new

45:42

earth and say this is the hope

45:44

that I have so even

45:46

if I feel like I am failing now

45:48

that's that's the vision that is promised to

45:51

come and I'm not the one

45:53

that has to enact that myself. Wow

45:56

okay Caitlin have you ever read

45:58

the book liturgy of

46:00

politics. Yeah,

46:03

yeah, I'm familiar with that one. It's

46:05

a good book. We should probably

46:08

bring it up every election year.

46:11

Maybe go back and read that one more time.

46:13

I'd be a fan of that. It's Caitlin's first

46:15

book, Everyone's Liturgy of Politics. Go check it out

46:17

wherever fine books are sold by

46:19

Caitlin. Thanks, Bill. Yeah,

46:21

thanks, Caitlin. You even have some

46:24

strong feelings about this whole arena.

46:26

I do. Yeah, did you

46:28

inherit those from your grandma? Would you say?

46:30

Honestly, yes. You know what she told me

46:32

this morning? No, she told me this morning.

46:35

She was like, people

46:37

need to turn off Fox

46:39

News. Oh,

46:41

wow. She was like,

46:43

it's making them scared. It's making them anxious. And

46:46

like, it is not doing anything good for you.

46:48

And I was like, that is amen. Yeah,

46:50

there's not a whole lot of I

46:52

think everyone should be required to watch

46:54

the PBS News Hour, because

46:56

it is the most boring presentation

46:59

of the day's events. There is

47:01

no fun spin.

47:03

There's no hyperbole. It's just this is what

47:05

happened. What do you know about that? And

47:07

every now and then, you know, David Brooks

47:09

comes on to give his point of view

47:12

on it. And he's like, Oh,

47:14

that seems reasonable. I think we should

47:16

have holy posts, like public

47:18

service announcements, and we should have Caitlin's

47:21

grandmother. Yes. Like

47:23

people. Eleanor. Yeah,

47:25

there you go. Yeah. And our public

47:27

service announcements. Moments with Eleanor. Please stop

47:29

watching Fox News. It's

47:31

not good for your whole your soul,

47:34

honey. Okay, I gotta

47:36

go. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for you, Portland

47:38

friends for coming to the event last

47:40

week. Thanks for everybody

47:42

on on Patreon, our holy post

47:44

plus supporters for helping us actually

47:46

have people help us with

47:49

this thing. And we've got a great

47:51

interview. Stay around for it. And we'll see you next week.

47:53

Bye. This show

47:55

is sponsored by better help this year, Lisa and

47:57

I will celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary.

48:00

Yes, that's a long time. I'd love

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along on the wings of our undying

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love. But I'd be lying. We've

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48:17

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50:35

We're entering the season of Lent

50:37

and then Easter when we remember again

50:39

the sacrifice and victory of Jesus on

50:41

the cross. In C.S.

50:43

Lewis's classic book, Mere Christianity, he

50:46

said this, quote, we

50:48

are told that Christ was killed for

50:50

us, that his death has washed away

50:52

our sins and that by dying he

50:54

disabled death itself. That is

50:56

the formula. That is Christianity. That

50:59

is what has to be believed. Any

51:02

theories we build up as to how

51:04

Christ's death did all this are, in

51:06

my view, quite secondary. Mere

51:08

plans or diagrams to be left alone if

51:10

they do not help us and even

51:12

if they do help us not to

51:15

be confused with the thing itself, end

51:17

quote. I've always found

51:19

Lewis's words really helpful. There's a difference

51:22

between the cross and our

51:24

theories about the cross but

51:26

that hasn't prevented some Christians from getting

51:28

really heated and even divisive over one

51:30

particular view of the cross versus another

51:33

but that's often the outcome when we

51:35

approach the cross as something to be

51:37

dissected or examined and intellectually understood but

51:40

my guest today takes a different

51:43

approach, choosing instead to approach the

51:45

cross of Christ aesthetically and not

51:47

just intellectually. In

51:49

his book, Brian Zahn illuminates the

51:52

meaning of the cross through art,

51:54

literature, movies, music and poetry. Rather

51:57

than reducing the cross to a single theory, he

51:59

accepted the cross. spans the cross to

52:01

capture many facets of Scripture we often

52:03

overlook. The book is

52:05

called The Wood Between the Worlds, a

52:07

poetic theology of the cross. And

52:10

it's our selection this quarter for the Holy Post Book

52:12

Club. Holy Post Plus subscribers will

52:14

receive a copy and in the coming weeks we'll

52:16

do a live stream with Brian Zahn for you

52:18

to ask your questions about the book. Brian

52:21

Zahn is the founder and lead pastor

52:23

of Word of Life Church in St.

52:26

Joseph, Missouri and is the author of

52:28

a number of books including A Farewell

52:30

to Mars, An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward

52:32

the Biblical Gospel of Peace, Beauty

52:35

Will Save the World, Rediscovering the

52:37

Allure and Mystery of Christianity, Sinners

52:39

in the Hands of a Loving God,

52:42

and Postcards from Babylon, The Church

52:44

in American Exile. As

52:46

you'll hear in our conversation, after his

52:48

early years in the Jesus movement, Zahn

52:50

was drawn to the writings of the

52:52

early church and traditions far beyond his

52:55

own Pentecostal background. Those

52:57

non-evangelical, non-Western understandings of the faith

52:59

are evident throughout his work and

53:01

his vision of the cross. Here's

53:04

my conversation with Brian Zahn. Brian

53:06

Zahn, welcome to The Holy Post. Thank

53:09

you, Skye. Good to be with you. Okay, so before

53:11

we talk about your new book, I want to talk

53:13

a little bit about your story. I

53:15

have been following some of your writing and some of your

53:18

social media postings over the years and usually enjoyed it

53:20

quite a bit. I didn't know

53:22

a lot about your story until I read

53:25

Tim Alberta's recent book, The

53:27

Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, which is all about the

53:30

recent swing to the right of

53:32

Christian nationalism and some of the craziness politically.

53:35

But you're featured in the book and your story and your

53:37

background. And it's just a fascinating

53:40

story. We could take an hour just to talk about

53:42

that, but can you sketch for folks who don't know

53:44

your background, the big pieces here

53:46

of your

53:48

pastoral ministry and what changed in

53:50

your outlook over the last, I

53:52

don't know, 15, 20 years? I

53:56

came to the Lord in the Jesus movement

53:58

if people have any ideas. what that

54:00

is in the 1970s and it was very

54:02

dramatic and I kind of like overnight went

54:05

from being the high school Led Zeppelin freak

54:07

to the high school Jesus freak although

54:10

I still like Zeppelin and by the

54:13

time I was 17 I was

54:15

leading a ministry which sounds

54:17

bizarre that

54:19

was you know it was like it was a copy house

54:21

is what we called it which was mostly a music venue

54:24

for the Jesus music scene that

54:27

turned into it just became Word of Life Church

54:29

by the time I was 22 we just sort

54:31

of said okay this is I

54:33

think we're a church and

54:35

so we we started meeting on on

54:39

Sunday mornings instead of calling it the catacombs

54:41

we called it Word of Life Church and

54:43

so that's you know I just I tell

54:45

people look I've been a pastor longer than

54:47

I've been an adult. How

54:51

would you describe the church in that in

54:53

those early years? Well it was you know

54:55

it was the Jesus movement as close towards

54:57

the end of it by this time and

54:59

we're all young we're all in our early

55:01

20s I mean everybody and

55:04

we're pretty idealistic

55:06

there is kind of an almost a communal

55:08

aspect to it it's the

55:10

Jesus movement and and it's small

55:12

and poor and and

55:15

what it is but fervent and the

55:18

Jesus movement just naturally just it

55:20

just fed us into the charismatic

55:22

movement which I described as good

55:24

until it wasn't there

55:27

was a time when I described it as good and

55:29

then it became about something else and

55:32

then that leads us into kind of you

55:34

know Word of Faith and and

55:36

at least some aspect of religious right

55:38

I mean there was never a decision

55:40

to do that this sort of happened

55:42

you're just on the bus you know

55:46

and then as I entered my 40s I

55:50

began to have misgivings

55:52

I began to sense that something

55:56

had gone wrong I began to

55:58

feel And

56:00

I thought, you know –

56:02

go ahead. Are you looking

56:04

back? Are you able to identify what

56:06

planted those seeds of discontent? Were there

56:09

any circumstances or events or stuff you

56:11

read someone you encountered that created

56:13

that dissonance for you? I

56:16

don't know what – I think I just

56:18

became more aware that it was thin and

56:21

that it was too consumerist,

56:23

too American. And I

56:26

didn't really know what to do. I mean, I knew

56:28

everything you could know within

56:30

American charismatic Christianity. And I

56:33

thought, if this is it,

56:35

then I'm really disappointed. And

56:37

so it was leading to a kind

56:39

of crisis of faith, not

56:42

doubting Jesus, but just thinking, you know,

56:45

Jesus deserves a better Christianity than what

56:47

I know. And I didn't

56:49

know what to do about it. I was like, you know,

56:51

I'm in my early 40s when this is happening. And so

56:55

I just started reading Church Fathers because I didn't know

56:57

where else to go. I just thought, well, I'm just

56:59

going to back up and start from

57:01

– I mean, I know the Bible. Let's back up,

57:03

you know, the next step. And

57:05

I started reading Church Fathers, and that started

57:08

changing me. Eventually,

57:10

though, I was able to find my way,

57:12

kind of grope my

57:14

way toward what I would call the

57:16

good stuff. I began to find really

57:18

good, substantive theology,

57:22

some of it ancient, some of it

57:25

classical, some of it contemporary. And

57:27

that began to change me, as

57:30

you can imagine. And I remember – it was 20

57:32

years ago, okay? I'm talking about something that happened 20

57:34

years ago, exactly 20

57:36

years ago, in fact. And

57:40

I remember the Sunday that I stood in our

57:42

church, and I said, I'm packing my bags from

57:44

the charismatic movement. I'm moving on. And

57:47

I did it with enough rhetorical

57:50

skill that people applauded, yes, yes, yes,

57:52

until I actually did it. Yeah, right.

57:56

As a bit of rhetoric, they were in favor of it.

58:00

doing it and there were

58:02

a number of things that changed, you

58:04

know, our emphases began to change and

58:06

I think most people could

58:09

have stayed with us, you know, except

58:13

when I began to critique

58:16

America, not as a kind of

58:18

biblical Israel but as a kind

58:20

of biblical Babylon and

58:22

I began to untangle Christianity from,

58:28

you know, Americanism. You're

58:32

not the first pastor I've talked to who faced

58:35

that. They rethinking some theology and it's

58:37

interesting like the church doesn't react when

58:40

you rethink your soteriology or your ecclesiology

58:42

or your, you know, pick your various

58:44

Christian doctrine. They don't really freak out

58:46

about that but when you start questioning

58:50

their nationalism, their country, that's

58:53

when they head for the doors. That's

58:55

why I lost a thousand people. It

58:57

wasn't rethinking soteriology or eschatology which I

58:59

did. I was able to pretty much

59:01

bring the congregation along. But

59:05

see the thing is America is a,

59:08

it's a behemoth. It's so big. It's

59:10

not just one thing. It's

59:12

a nation. We know this. It's

59:16

a culture. I mean I

59:18

travel the world but I never leave America because it's

59:20

everywhere. You two said outside it's

59:22

America, right? It's

59:25

an empire. I

59:28

mean I use that technically. I

59:31

describe empires as rich, powerful nations who

59:33

have a desire to rule other nations

59:35

and believe they have a manifest destiny

59:37

to shape history and

59:39

America is a religion. That's

59:42

the one that shocks people. Now as a

59:44

nation and a culture, America is a mixed

59:46

bag but there's plenty that's admirable. I

59:50

get that. I mean I feel that myself.

59:53

As an empire it's problematic and as

59:55

a religion it's idolatrous. And

59:57

when I say it's a religion, I don't know if you say, oh come on B.

1:00:00

I mean

1:00:05

it's religion complete with

1:00:07

creation myths and

1:00:09

sacred documents and sacred places

1:00:12

and liturgical gestures and on

1:00:15

and on it goes. I mean you

1:00:17

talk about the apotheosis of Washington in

1:00:19

the rotunda of the topic. Washington

1:00:22

is depicted as ascended to heaven

1:00:24

as a god. Actually

1:00:29

taking the place of what in Christian

1:00:31

iconography would be Jesus, it's

1:00:34

a religion. And so let me

1:00:37

say this one more thing. The

1:00:40

greatest challenge I know of as a pastor

1:00:42

in America, and I've done it for 42

1:00:44

years, is that we

1:00:46

are tasked with making disciples

1:00:48

of people who are already

1:00:51

thoroughly discipled into a rival

1:00:53

religion. And that's a challenge. Okay,

1:00:56

so before we turn a corner and start talking about your book – and

1:00:58

there is some overlap here – one

1:01:02

of the conversations I've been having

1:01:04

recently is with folks in pastoral

1:01:06

ministry who are recognizing the

1:01:08

problem you've just identified. They see that we're

1:01:10

trying to make disciples of people who've already

1:01:13

been discipled into the American idolatry.

1:01:18

But what they've said to me and what I've heard

1:01:20

them say to others is, we

1:01:23

want to address this, but we want to do it

1:01:25

in a method that quote unquote work. And

1:01:28

what I think they mean by that is we want to

1:01:31

do it in a way which won't lead

1:01:33

a thousand people out the door, but

1:01:35

we'll keep them engaged. So

1:01:37

when you look back on your experience,

1:01:39

two questions. First, what

1:01:41

gave you the courage to address

1:01:43

this problem in your church? And then

1:01:45

number two, is it even

1:01:48

possible to address this without losing lots

1:01:50

of people? Well,

1:01:52

first of all, what gave me the courage? Look, I

1:01:56

tell this story in various books, probably mostly in

1:01:58

a – Kind

1:02:00

of a memoirish book called watered

1:02:02

wine and I have received literally

1:02:05

Hundreds of letters and

1:02:07

emails and all of that from other pastors

1:02:09

I'm not exaggerating hundreds from other pastors and

1:02:11

they all say kind of the same thing

1:02:14

and they'll say I admire your courage

1:02:16

I appreciate that But I

1:02:19

think I was I didn't feel courageous.

1:02:22

I felt terrified I mean really I

1:02:24

felt like I'm gonna wreck what I've

1:02:26

given my life to my

1:02:28

life's work I'm gonna burn down with my own

1:02:30

hands. I felt terrified But

1:02:33

I didn't feel like I had a choice. I mean you

1:02:35

can't unknow what you know and be

1:02:38

true to yourself and so I just I

1:02:42

And look I was in a position where at

1:02:44

least I had the opportunity To try

1:02:46

because it's just the nature of our church and how

1:02:48

we came about. I wasn't gonna be

1:02:51

fired I didn't have a

1:02:53

bishop that was gonna come in and yank me out Now

1:02:55

I could just wreck the whole thing so that

1:02:58

it would longer be viable but

1:03:00

at least I had an opportunity to try

1:03:02

and And

1:03:07

It was very costly and it was very

1:03:09

painful. I want to say because you know,

1:03:11

you're referencing Tim Alberta's book one

1:03:14

the one thing I would push back on the

1:03:16

chapter where he talks about word of life and

1:03:18

me is I Don't

1:03:21

know. I felt like he felt like we were Despondent

1:03:24

or something like that. I

1:03:26

went ten years being despondent. We're not now

1:03:28

and we're growing we feel good

1:03:30

We're happy. So we made it through that

1:03:33

but it took ten years. It

1:03:35

took ten years to I Don't

1:03:38

know to Segway, that's not the right

1:03:40

word transition. I don't know what word to use

1:03:42

bring the church into a new place It

1:03:44

took ten years and it was costly But

1:03:48

I'm not I'm not putting a try to put a

1:03:50

brave face on it. I mean this sincerely it was

1:03:52

worth it It was worth it Because

1:03:55

I don't I don't want to lose my soul. If you know what I

1:03:57

mean. I want to be true to myself That

1:04:00

doesn't mean that you're reckless, and you

1:04:02

just try to be as offensive as

1:04:04

possible. You know, I

1:04:07

think I took 10 years to do this. Now, that

1:04:10

seems pretty slow in one sense, but yeah, I

1:04:13

don't think there's a way to do it without loss.

1:04:16

But isn't that kind of

1:04:18

what Jesus calls us to

1:04:20

risk? You know, take up

1:04:22

the cross. There's your segue. There's your segue. All

1:04:24

right, take up your cross. Well, I think that's

1:04:27

exactly the challenge we're in, is there's quite a few

1:04:29

people who recognize

1:04:31

a problem, know that it's costly to

1:04:33

address it, whether in their ministry or

1:04:35

church or family, whatever it is, and

1:04:38

they just decide it's not worth it.

1:04:40

It's not worth it. I'm going to continue. I'm not

1:04:42

here to tell a pastor what

1:04:45

their decision should be. But

1:04:48

it will be costly either way. Okay,

1:04:50

let's talk about the wood between the worlds.

1:04:53

This is the subtitle is a poetic theology

1:04:55

of the cross. I really didn't

1:04:57

know what to expect when I cracked this book open. I

1:05:01

loved it in the way that you engage

1:05:04

the cross in each chapter, sort

1:05:06

of a standalone almost essay,

1:05:09

but you'd use so much

1:05:11

art, literature, poetry, films, music

1:05:14

as different angles in on the cross. Your

1:05:17

approach is to say, I mean, it's

1:05:19

in the subtitle, is a poetic theological

1:05:21

approach rather than prose. Why?

1:05:23

Why use art and poetry to

1:05:25

try to help us grasp the

1:05:27

cross rather than the

1:05:30

popular model of the least last 500 years

1:05:32

in Western theology, which is just articulated with

1:05:34

bullet points? Well, prose

1:05:36

may be precise.

1:05:39

I think at times it can be.

1:05:42

I mean, you don't want a poetic

1:05:45

description of how to assemble a washing

1:05:47

machine. I

1:05:49

get that. It can be precise,

1:05:52

but it's also very

1:05:54

limiting. And it

1:05:58

prevents. someone

1:06:00

from reaching for almost

1:06:02

the ineffable. You're

1:06:06

broaching on what cannot be spoken.

1:06:09

And who is it?

1:06:14

Ludwig Wittgenstein, at the end of

1:06:16

his tractate, his seventh point was,

1:06:18

of that of which we cannot

1:06:20

speak, we must remain silent. I

1:06:23

would say, well, maybe before you

1:06:25

remain silent, maybe you attempt a

1:06:27

more poetic approach, which includes just

1:06:30

the employ of the arts. And that's

1:06:32

why I make so many references to

1:06:34

literature, poetry, film, music. Because

1:06:38

those are other avenues that I'm

1:06:40

not trying to replace just what

1:06:42

people might think of as

1:06:45

plain language about

1:06:47

the cross. There's plenty of that. I mean, the

1:06:49

book is mostly prose. It's just now and then

1:06:51

I sort of

1:06:54

reach for something other. Well,

1:06:56

you're not afraid of the ambiguities. And even

1:06:58

the paradoxes that exist. At one point early

1:07:00

in the book, you say that if you're

1:07:02

going to dabble in atonement theories, at least

1:07:04

keep it plural. C.S.

1:07:06

Lewis says something very similar, that there's no

1:07:08

single way of looking at the cross and

1:07:11

understanding fully what occurred there. It's a

1:07:13

multifaceted jewel that has all these different angles on

1:07:15

it. So at least engage it as

1:07:18

a plural idea. Why do you think

1:07:20

we are so not getting these debates

1:07:22

online with people with their theological points

1:07:24

of view? But why are

1:07:26

we so tempted to boil the

1:07:29

cross down to a single theological

1:07:31

dissertation? One way of looking

1:07:33

at it that explains exactly what happened

1:07:35

rather than embrace the

1:07:37

multiplicity of angles that even the New Testament speaks

1:07:39

of, let alone church history. I don't know if

1:07:41

I can answer that question. I don't know if

1:07:43

I know why. I

1:07:46

mean, maybe they just think it's simple. Somehow

1:07:49

we have been conditioned to think there must

1:07:52

be just one answer. I mean,

1:07:54

there's a lot of books out there on atonement

1:07:57

theory. And then there's.

1:08:00

books that kind of present, well here's

1:08:02

like present, here's ransom theory, here's penal

1:08:04

substitution, there's moral influence. It'll give you

1:08:07

four or five and then you're supposed

1:08:09

to decide which one you think is

1:08:11

best like that. I think

1:08:13

that's all wrong-headed because

1:08:16

if you reduce the cross to a single

1:08:18

meaning, it's so easy just to go, all

1:08:20

right, there you go, done with that. What

1:08:22

is the cross about? I can do it

1:08:25

in two sentences and thank you very much.

1:08:27

Next question please. And I

1:08:29

just have an instinct that that's

1:08:32

really wrong, that that

1:08:34

is not how

1:08:36

we should engage with the

1:08:38

cross as Christians. It

1:08:41

seems to me like rather it's something

1:08:43

that we can never be done with

1:08:45

because it's so central to

1:08:47

who God is. And so if

1:08:49

you take it that way, if you say, who

1:08:52

is God? And you just can

1:08:54

you give me some sort of like

1:08:56

theological dictionary to say, okay fine,

1:08:58

but are we done with the

1:09:01

subject? And so

1:09:05

there's a, I'll tell you a little secret,

1:09:07

in almost every book I've written, I use

1:09:09

the same line. It's

1:09:12

basically a paraphrase of

1:09:14

something Hansers von Balthasar

1:09:16

said. And I think in

1:09:19

earlier books I said, you know, I'm kind of

1:09:21

paraphrasing von Balthasar, now I just say it. But

1:09:25

it's the same, I mean you'll find it in

1:09:27

really, I know the last seven or eight books

1:09:29

of it, the exact same sentence, it doesn't change.

1:09:31

I've never had an editor go, you

1:09:34

keep saying that. So the

1:09:36

sentence is this, being

1:09:38

disguised under the disfigurement of

1:09:41

an ugly crucifixion and death,

1:09:43

Christ upon the cross is

1:09:46

paradoxically the clearest revelation of

1:09:48

who God is. I

1:09:51

think that's just, I mean that's kind

1:09:53

of me rephrasing some things that Balthasar

1:09:56

said. But I

1:09:59

love that sentence. It might be my all-time

1:10:01

favorite theological. So I'm gonna say it again,

1:10:03

because I like it so much. Being disguised

1:10:05

under the disfigurement of an ugly crucifixion

1:10:08

and death, Christ upon the

1:10:10

cross is paradoxically the

1:10:12

clearest revelation of who God is. Well, if

1:10:14

there's any truth in that, I don't think

1:10:16

we can just say, oh, the cross means

1:10:18

this and now we can move on to

1:10:20

the nextology. I don't think so. Yeah,

1:10:23

I mean, as Christians,

1:10:26

we look at Jesus as the image

1:10:28

of the invisible God in whom all the fullness of

1:10:30

God was pleased as well. But then when you realize

1:10:32

that a disproportionate amount of the

1:10:35

gospel accounts focus on his

1:10:37

passion on the cross, then you

1:10:39

can't cut that out

1:10:41

of the depiction of who God is.

1:10:44

Yeah, if you take the

1:10:47

Bible as a whole, Hebrew

1:10:49

Bible Old Testament, canonical

1:10:51

Christian text, put them together, call

1:10:53

it the Christian Bible, it's

1:10:56

a big book. I

1:10:59

mean, it's a big book. It's, you

1:11:01

know, over a thousand pages and it's

1:11:03

a bit unwieldy because

1:11:06

you can kind of get lost in the

1:11:08

weeds and you can kind of

1:11:10

find whatever you're looking for. So

1:11:13

you need somewhere to center your reading. And

1:11:15

I think it becomes pretty obvious

1:11:17

as Christians. I'm speaking as Christians.

1:11:20

Okay, so it's going to be with Jesus. Well,

1:11:24

what about what is the central moment

1:11:27

of Jesus, the cross? And

1:11:29

so we stand there. We're

1:11:33

locating the heart of the Bible

1:11:35

at the cross, little

1:11:38

asterisk. When I say the

1:11:41

cross or crucifixion, I mean the

1:11:43

cross and the crucifixion in the light of

1:11:45

the resurrection. I mean, you

1:11:47

need to clarify that to people that

1:11:50

without the resurrection, look, Jesus

1:11:53

of Nazareth is just one of

1:11:55

thousands of unknown Galileans crucified

1:11:57

by the Roman Empire, who nobody would ever.

1:12:00

of. It's, you know, I

1:12:02

just envision light emanating from the empty

1:12:04

tomb upon the cross and that's why

1:12:06

we speak. So when I say cross,

1:12:09

I hear me say cross in

1:12:11

the light of resurrection. And

1:12:14

so this is, this is, rather

1:12:17

than just treating the Bibles like this encyclopedia

1:12:20

of God facts, that

1:12:22

you can take each one

1:12:24

having equal value. You know,

1:12:27

that a prohibition against eating shellfish is

1:12:29

the same as the passion

1:12:33

that. No, we don't do

1:12:35

that. And so it's from

1:12:37

that vantage point that we read the

1:12:39

rest of Scripture. I think

1:12:41

this illuminates a problem that I've faced

1:12:43

regularly, especially on social media, which I've

1:12:46

been more disciplined about, not engaging. But

1:12:48

it feels like, and

1:12:50

you make this point in the book, you can pull

1:12:52

all, you can justify all kinds of things with the

1:12:54

Bible. You have a chapter on

1:12:56

capital punishment and people always refer to verses in

1:12:58

the Old Testament. Of course, you can justify polygamy

1:13:00

and all kinds of other things by finding verses

1:13:02

or crusade or holy war, whatever it might be

1:13:04

from different parts of the Bible. And

1:13:07

your argument is when you stand

1:13:09

at the cross, when you, when you view the

1:13:11

Bible first and foremost through God's self revelation, revelation

1:13:13

of the cross of Christ, that

1:13:15

becomes the defining interpretive framework

1:13:18

for everything else. And

1:13:20

that changes then how you read Old

1:13:22

Testament law. It changes how you see

1:13:24

various parts of the Bible. But there

1:13:26

are plenty of folks out there who

1:13:28

don't have that hierarchical view of God's

1:13:30

self revelation and they simply view all

1:13:32

of Scripture. If it's on the page,

1:13:34

it's equally valid, no matter where you look

1:13:36

at it from. And then you get into

1:13:39

some really bonkers ideas and theology, which Christians

1:13:41

use to justify all kinds of craziness. Well,

1:13:43

this is what Christian Smith calls making

1:13:46

the Bible impossible. And

1:13:50

people wrongly assume that, okay, I

1:13:52

just take the Bible as it

1:13:54

is. No, you don't. Right. But

1:13:58

they feel like there's some sort of I'm not going

1:14:00

to even acknowledge that I'm interpreting this

1:14:03

text. I'm just going to take the

1:14:05

Bible as it is. Well, first of all, you don't because

1:14:07

you probably are not reading in Biblical Hebrew, in Koine Greek.

1:14:12

So you're, first of all, you're reading in translation.

1:14:15

But then you have the reality. I'm,

1:14:17

again, drawing on Paul and Christian Smith who says

1:14:19

he talks about the phenomenon of pervasive interpretive pluralism.

1:14:25

So we can say I'm a Bible-believing

1:14:27

Christian. Okay, we'll say that. I'll

1:14:29

say that. I'm a Bible-believing Christian. It's

1:14:31

an empty signifier. It doesn't mean anything. But

1:14:34

it doesn't really mean anything because the

1:14:36

text still has to be interpreted. And

1:14:40

then we have the phenomenon of divergent

1:14:42

interpretations. So

1:14:45

we don't really get anywhere by just

1:14:47

saying stuff like that. And so we

1:14:49

are going to have any hope of some sort of

1:14:51

a new phenomenon. And

1:14:54

so we are going to have any hope

1:14:57

of some sort of consistent or

1:14:59

valid or I would maybe say Christian

1:15:02

interpretation of the text. We need to find

1:15:04

an interpretive center. And I

1:15:07

think that's the cross. We stand there

1:15:10

and we interpret everything in the light

1:15:12

of that. I don't think that's a

1:15:14

radical position. I think it's very orthodox.

1:15:17

I agree. I think it is very orthodox. I think

1:15:19

the implications of it, though, would freak some people out

1:15:21

when they start actually doing that. Okay.

1:15:25

One of the things you bring up in the book that I

1:15:27

was trying to read it through the lens of some of our

1:15:29

audience or people who might not be as familiar with some of

1:15:31

your work, or certainly many

1:15:33

of the patristic writers that you reference in here. And one

1:15:37

of the things I think people who read the book are going

1:15:39

to not chafe at

1:15:41

but certainly question is

1:15:44

you in multiple chapters talk about the myth

1:15:46

of redemptive violence. And

1:15:50

early on you quote N.T. Wright and

1:15:52

some others talking about how in a

1:15:54

lot of popular Christianity we have essentially

1:15:57

paganized the cross or we've paganized our

1:15:59

atonement theory. Let's

1:16:01

start with that. What does that mean to

1:16:03

paganize our Atonement Theory of the Cross?

1:16:06

It means to employ a Gentile

1:16:09

understanding of sacrifice instead

1:16:11

of a Jewish understanding

1:16:13

of sacrifice. And

1:16:16

we're so far removed from actual

1:16:18

practice of sacrifice that we

1:16:21

just, I think we reach for that which is

1:16:23

nearest, which is actually a pagan understanding. And

1:16:26

that at the cross, God was

1:16:28

punishing Jesus so that he could

1:16:30

find the wherewithal to forgive us,

1:16:32

which does incredible violence to the

1:16:35

Trinity. The

1:16:38

cross is not what God inflicts

1:16:40

upon Jesus in order to forgive.

1:16:42

The cross is what God in

1:16:44

Christ endures as he forgives. And

1:16:47

so with a pagan idea of sacrifice,

1:16:49

we are appeasing the gods and we

1:16:51

are changing their disposition toward us in

1:16:53

some way. So we throw the virgin

1:16:55

in the volcano or whatever it is

1:16:58

we do, and this

1:17:00

changes the disposition of the

1:17:02

deity toward us. And

1:17:04

this is filtered into Christian

1:17:07

Atonement theology, at least in the West, not

1:17:09

in the East, nor the other. We've never made this

1:17:11

move. But in the West, it's happened

1:17:13

kind of with Anselm and then it really took off

1:17:15

with Calvin. And that's what,

1:17:18

to cite N.T., he calls a pagan

1:17:21

soteriology. So think

1:17:23

about the Gospel of John, where

1:17:26

one of his main themes is,

1:17:29

well, in the Gospel

1:17:32

of John, Jesus is saying repeatedly things

1:17:34

like, if you've seen me, you've seen

1:17:36

the Father. I only do what

1:17:38

the Father does. I only say what the Father says.

1:17:40

The Father and I are one. And

1:17:43

then to make a theological statement from that,

1:17:45

which by the way is extraordinarily orthodox, the,

1:17:49

and I mean that, small though, although it

1:17:51

could be big O2, the

1:17:53

Son never acts as an agent of

1:17:55

change upon the Father because the Father

1:17:57

is immutable. The Father doesn't change. If

1:18:01

anything, what changes is we're changing.

1:18:04

But that can be difficult to

1:18:06

discern. So

1:18:08

what's the most recognizable

1:18:11

fact in nature? Well, the sun rises in the

1:18:13

east and it sets in the west and it

1:18:15

happens every day. Except

1:18:18

that's not true. That's

1:18:20

not what's happening. Actually, we're the ones that are

1:18:22

moving. But that's so counterintuitive.

1:18:24

We never say, I saw the most

1:18:27

beautiful earth turn this morning. We

1:18:29

say sunrise because that's how we see it. But

1:18:32

if we perceive in God

1:18:34

some sort of change in

1:18:37

disposition from one

1:18:39

of antagonism or vengeance towards one

1:18:41

of love and mercy, understand the

1:18:43

changes occurring in us. We are

1:18:45

now coming to understand who God

1:18:47

is. We're the ones that are

1:18:49

moving. And so the

1:18:52

cross is not where Jesus saves us

1:18:54

from God. The cross

1:18:57

is where Jesus reveals God

1:18:59

as Savior. And it's more than just

1:19:01

that. Because that could

1:19:03

sound like it just falls into

1:19:05

moral influence theory. Look, you've

1:19:08

read the book. I have 19 chapters and

1:19:10

kind of a long poem at the end. And

1:19:12

I make it very clear I'm not

1:19:15

anywhere near exhausting the interpretive meanings

1:19:17

of the cross. But

1:19:19

yeah. Okay, so for those who are hearing this for the first

1:19:21

time and you're blowing their minds, maybe

1:19:24

they're coming from a reformed camp or

1:19:26

from some admiration of Calvin's theology. What

1:19:29

do you then do with those many verses in

1:19:32

the Bible? Romans 3, Romans

1:19:34

5, 1 John 2, even Isaiah 53, the

1:19:36

Lord laid on him the iniquity of us

1:19:38

all. And the various

1:19:40

verses that talk about propitiation, atonement

1:19:43

for our sins. How would you say you... How

1:19:45

do you... What I... How

1:19:47

do you... ...goes in a non-pagan way? We can go through them one by

1:19:49

one if you want. No, no, no. I don't

1:19:51

want to go through that. I think just in general... What

1:19:54

is that word? That's

1:19:56

the word from in the Septuagint that is

1:19:58

referring to the mercy seat. The

1:20:00

cross is the place where the mercy

1:20:02

of God is extended. So

1:20:05

I don't have any problem

1:20:08

with a substitutionary atonement.

1:20:10

What I have a problem with

1:20:12

is the penal aspect that God

1:20:15

was somehow the source of punishing

1:20:17

Jesus. No. The

1:20:20

violence of the cross is

1:20:22

entirely human, or perhaps

1:20:24

demonic if you want to also insert

1:20:26

that. The grace and

1:20:28

forgiveness that comes from the cross is

1:20:31

entirely divine. So one of the ways

1:20:33

I talk about the cross as it

1:20:35

pertains to forgiveness is

1:20:37

that the cross is where the

1:20:40

sin of the world coalesces into

1:20:42

a hideous singularity. It

1:20:45

becomes a single thing that it might be

1:20:47

forgiven en masse. So that's

1:20:50

one way of thinking about it. I

1:20:52

think we get in trouble too because we have this – we

1:20:55

know the word ransom as an

1:20:57

economic metaphor for the cross shows up

1:21:00

a couple times in Scripture in

1:21:02

the mouth of Jesus. He's talked

1:21:04

about the Son of Man giving his life as a

1:21:07

ransom. It shows up in the book of Revelation. And

1:21:11

interestingly, this is how the early

1:21:13

church most frequently talked

1:21:15

about the meaning of the

1:21:17

cross. They used ransom language. They wouldn't have

1:21:19

called it an intonement theory. They didn't think

1:21:22

like that. But they used the word

1:21:24

ransom. But here's what's happened over time. We,

1:21:26

since Calvin – and

1:21:29

maybe Anselm, but certainly since Calvin –

1:21:31

have imagined that the ransom is being

1:21:33

paid to God. God

1:21:36

were the one who was the kidnapper holding

1:21:40

us captive. The church fathers

1:21:42

unanimously – and we have

1:21:44

replete examples of their sermons

1:21:46

and their hymns. No,

1:21:48

the ransom was not paid to God. The

1:21:50

ransom was paid to – they say it

1:21:53

different ways – to hell, to death, to

1:21:55

the devil. And it was as

1:21:57

a kind of – and they use this language – it was kind

1:21:59

of a – of a trick that

1:22:02

what happened is death

1:22:05

swallows Christ because he is

1:22:07

fully human, thus mortal, thus

1:22:10

capable of entering into death.

1:22:12

But remember, Christ is also

1:22:14

fully divine. And so though

1:22:16

death could swallow Christ

1:22:19

in his mortality, death could not digest

1:22:21

Christ in his divinity. And

1:22:24

so death is destroyed

1:22:26

from the inside out. So a ransom

1:22:28

that the devil should never have taken,

1:22:30

or death or hell, should never have

1:22:33

taken because it destroyed them. That is,

1:22:35

you know, for a thousand years,

1:22:37

that's how the church talked about it and still

1:22:39

how the Orthodox talk about it. Okay.

1:22:41

Some people are probably glazing over all this theology and

1:22:43

you're throwing out all these historic names and stuff like

1:22:45

that. But I want to get to the implications of

1:22:48

this because that's where I think your book just

1:22:51

speaks beautifully. If you

1:22:53

begin with God's wrath

1:22:55

is what is poured out on Jesus on

1:22:57

the cross and that his atonement is to

1:22:59

appease God's wrath. He's paying a ransom to

1:23:01

God for his anger and all that. That's

1:23:03

where you get this idea of redemptive

1:23:06

violence, that the violence that God

1:23:09

pours out on Jesus on the cross has a

1:23:11

redemptive value. But then it's a very easy turn

1:23:13

to say, well, if God can use violence redemptively,

1:23:17

maybe we can too. And

1:23:19

you talk in the book about different ways,

1:23:21

particularly in the American Christian scene, we have

1:23:23

come to view violence as a value that

1:23:27

Christians should embrace because it has

1:23:29

redemptive power. Talk about

1:23:31

that a little bit. How do you see

1:23:33

American Christianity embracing violence in a way that

1:23:35

is antithetical to the cross and to the

1:23:37

nature of God? Yeah, that's the most seductive

1:23:40

myth for

1:23:42

we Americans. We're just sort

1:23:45

of raised in that. We're surrounded by

1:23:47

that. And the idea

1:23:49

is that ultimately the way to

1:23:51

overcome evil is to kill the

1:23:53

bad guys in

1:23:56

one way or another. That's kill the bad guys.

1:23:58

But when we look at Christ at

1:24:01

every turn, especially

1:24:04

as it surrounds the passion, when

1:24:06

there was an opportunity to employ

1:24:09

violence, Jesus turns away from it.

1:24:12

And so, you know, you can have all

1:24:14

kinds of discussions about why Jesus arms the

1:24:17

disciples with two swords as they go into

1:24:19

the Garden of Gethsemane. Well, if you just

1:24:22

read the whole story, it's pretty clear. He

1:24:24

arms them so he can disarm them, and

1:24:28

so that Scripture can be fulfilled. And there's

1:24:30

some other things there. But the point is,

1:24:33

if Jesus is the one who is ultimately

1:24:35

the innocent one, and

1:24:37

for Jesus to be taken captive by

1:24:39

the principalities and powers for an unjust

1:24:42

execution, then that should provide the moment

1:24:44

for some sort of just use of

1:24:46

violence. But when Peter asked the question,

1:24:48

shall we strike with the sword and

1:24:50

doesn't wait for an answer and begins

1:24:52

to strike with the sword, Jesus says,

1:24:55

no more of this. And

1:24:57

then he says, look, if we're going to

1:24:59

do it by violence, you know, I don't need

1:25:01

you and your two piddly swords. Don't you think I

1:25:03

could call upon my father and I could have

1:25:05

12 legions of angels? I

1:25:08

could have this mind? No,

1:25:11

this is not the way it happens. And

1:25:14

so, and then this becomes the

1:25:17

position of the church, the early church, that

1:25:20

in this, well,

1:25:22

one of the church fathers says, in disarming

1:25:25

Peter, Christ disarms every soldier. And that's

1:25:27

the position the early church takes. I

1:25:31

know some people are going to want to just dash

1:25:33

off to the book of Revelation. So

1:25:36

I deal with that. I don't know if you want to talk

1:25:38

about that. Yeah, actually, I think that it reminded me a lot

1:25:40

of what Scott McKnight did in his recent book on Revelation and

1:25:43

the rest of us. Yeah,

1:25:45

a lot of people say, yeah, of course, Jesus

1:25:47

was all about peace and nonviolence and all that.

1:25:50

But wait, because when he comes back, that's

1:25:53

when the blood's going to get spilled. He's going to turn

1:25:55

into Ganges Kong. Right, exactly. And he's going to come on

1:25:57

a war horse, you know, before he came on a donkey

1:25:59

peacefully. into somebody's gonna come on a warhorse and

1:26:01

he's gonna draw a sword and there's blood on his

1:26:04

you know white robes and all that craziness. Your

1:26:08

unpacking of those scenes from Revelation which

1:26:10

are obviously highly symbolic. They're

1:26:14

not, they're entirely

1:26:16

symbolic. Right, exactly. I'm

1:26:19

trying to find a quote I had it underlined here. Oh you

1:26:21

said this, instead of Jesus

1:26:23

Christ is the same yesterday and today and

1:26:26

forever Hebrews 13 8 it becomes Jesus Christ

1:26:28

is the same yesterday and today but look

1:26:30

out for tomorrow because when he comes back

1:26:32

which a lot of us in

1:26:34

American Christianity would say yeah okay well we're supposed to

1:26:36

love our neighbors now we're supposed to love our enemies

1:26:38

now we're supposed to turn the other cheek we're supposed

1:26:41

to you know leave room for the vengeance of God

1:26:43

all that ballot when he comes back he's

1:26:45

really gonna stick it to him because just read Revelation.

1:26:49

Briefly explain why that

1:26:51

interpretation is completely bogus. Yeah first of

1:26:54

all the book of Revelation is in

1:26:57

the form of Jewish apocalyptic literature

1:26:59

and it just overflows with symbols.

1:27:04

Symbols are in it it's got to run into the hundreds I should

1:27:06

do that one of these days and just tell you. So

1:27:11

for example if I say to you do you

1:27:14

believe that Jesus is

1:27:16

literally literally a

1:27:19

slain lamb and it's got throat

1:27:21

slit with seven eyes and

1:27:24

seven horns literally you

1:27:26

said no that's symbolic of

1:27:28

his power his wisdom and his sacrificial

1:27:30

death okay do you

1:27:32

believe that Jesus is gonna literally come

1:27:35

back on a flying white horse and

1:27:37

kill 200 million people

1:27:39

with a mouth sword. Oh yeah I think

1:27:41

so. What's

1:27:43

your system here? Is

1:27:45

there literally going to be like

1:27:48

a Godzilla monster with seven heads and ten

1:27:50

horns come up out of the Mediterranean Sea

1:27:52

which admittedly would be cool but I

1:27:55

don't think anybody actually thinks that's what's gonna happen.

1:28:00

And he wrote one time saying, he

1:28:02

said, if someday I look up and I see Jesus riding through

1:28:04

the heavens on a flying white horse, the first thing I'm going

1:28:06

to think is, well, I'll be damned. Yeah,

1:28:09

I was— Apocalyptic

1:28:14

imagery is so funny. So

1:28:17

remember, Jesus goes into this

1:28:19

battle with his robe

1:28:21

drenched in blood before the battle.

1:28:24

This is not the blood of his enemies. This is his own

1:28:26

blood. And the sword

1:28:29

is not in his hand. I

1:28:32

mean, look, all over the world, you

1:28:34

see this honorific statuary of somebody, of

1:28:36

a warrior upon a horse, holding

1:28:39

the reins of the horse and holding a sword. This

1:28:42

has been common for millennia. But

1:28:45

it's subverted here. The sword is not in

1:28:47

his hand. It's in his mouth. And

1:28:49

so I would press it a little further. I say, you know what?

1:28:52

I believe that I am among those who

1:28:55

have been slain by

1:28:57

the word that comes from Jesus

1:29:00

and then been raised to newness

1:29:03

of life. And somebody says,

1:29:05

yeah, but at the end of that chapter, the

1:29:07

fowls of the heaven, you know, dine upon the

1:29:09

corpses of the flame. I say, oh, yes, amen.

1:29:12

Yes, may the fowls of

1:29:14

heaven consume my flesh,

1:29:16

not my embodiedness, but my

1:29:19

carnality. This is

1:29:21

the spiritual reading of Scripture that

1:29:24

was how the early

1:29:26

church fathers approached it. And

1:29:30

you start literalizing passages and revelations.

1:29:32

You make the book entirely impossible.

1:29:37

Well, you end up with Jesus repudiating

1:29:39

himself. So

1:29:42

it's as if Jesus at some point says, you know

1:29:44

what? Screw the sermon on the mountain. We're

1:29:47

just going to kill the bad guys. Well, if

1:29:50

you can save the world by

1:29:52

killing the bad guys, the cross

1:29:54

was entirely unnecessary. Just go

1:29:56

kill the bad guy. In

1:30:00

a lot of people, Athena, Sir Chris and

1:30:02

they've been Christians a long time. We're about

1:30:04

to enter into to Lens and the Easter

1:30:06

season and we've familiar with the stories about

1:30:08

the cross and what you're doing is a

1:30:10

challenging assumptions and through the artistry of what

1:30:12

you've written and the aren't you reference in

1:30:14

this you just help a see that cross

1:30:16

and new dimension. So I really recommend for

1:30:18

those of folks are listening to this who

1:30:20

are wholly posts plus subscribers. they're going to

1:30:22

get this book because it's er it's er

1:30:24

book of a quarter for lollipops book clubs.

1:30:26

If you're not, pick it up the would

1:30:28

between the worlds. Even if you find

1:30:31

yourself chafing on some of the theology and

1:30:33

hero maybe are not a pacifist, are you pulled

1:30:35

a reformed theology about of our whatever, it's

1:30:37

gonna challenge you to think. More

1:30:40

deeply about across and in ways you hadn't

1:30:42

considered before our brain we didn't even get

1:30:44

a chance to talk about run a Gerard

1:30:47

and the scapegoat and stuff I I, I

1:30:49

really love it. Metics can

1:30:51

you stick around for like fifteen minutes

1:30:53

We do little bonus conversation about that

1:30:55

are the so again for whole post

1:30:57

plus folks. were going to have a

1:30:59

bonus conversation brian about scapegoat theory and

1:31:01

how that applies to not just across.

1:31:04

Buys. Modern. Politics blinds so much

1:31:06

for being with us. Thank you for writing

1:31:08

this beautiful book. I can't recommend it enough.

1:31:10

It's gonna be the great conversations were going

1:31:12

to have some conversations with folks in upcoming

1:31:14

life seems about the book and how they're

1:31:16

processing Epa. Thank you so much for being

1:31:18

with us. Think. You got. The

1:31:21

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