Praxis
Praxis
God's Kingdom Is About All People
What if the kingdom of God isn’t an exit plan but a present reality that disrupts our politics and reorders our lives? We open with a bold claim: God’s kingdom looks like Jesus’ ministry. That means good news to the poor, freedom for the oppressed, healing for the sick, and a reconciling community that previews the world to come. We unpack the “already and not yet,” grounding it in Luke 4, Luke 17, the Lord’s Prayer, and the sweeping arc of Scripture that refuses to pick between personal transformation and systemic change.
From there, we wade into contested terrain. We challenge the left’s impulse to pursue kingdom values without the King, outsourcing shalom to institutions while neglecting discipleship and abiding. We also confront the right’s habit of rejecting biblical terms—justice, peacemaking, reconciliation, creation care—because they sound “woke,” forgetting these are ancient, central commands. Policy is complex, and outcomes matter, but abandoning Scripture’s core is not an option. We show how overhearing and underhearing distort what’s said, and how to listen beyond soundbites with humility and courage.
The conversation lands with practices that move us from votes to vocation. Examine your loyalties and ask where party identity is discipling you more than Jesus. Act locally: engage foster care, food insecurity, mentoring, and community partnerships with a long obedience and real relationships. Rehumanize the “other side” by buying a meal and only asking questions. The kingdom advances through Spirit-filled people who embody justice and mercy right where they live, becoming a living preview of heaven meeting earth.
If this resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend who’s ready to trade outrage for presence. Then tell us: what one practice will you start this week?
Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. We're in a series right now focused on our mental models for missional discipleship, a framework for living out our faith as disciples of Jesus in everyday life. Whether we're aware of it or not, we all have these mental models, deep convictions and assumptions that shape how we see and take action in the world. Mental models are kind of like prescription lenses. While often invisible when wearing them, they constantly shape the way we think, feel, and act. So what are the mental models Jesus lived by? What convictions shaped how Jesus saw people, responded to needs, formed disciples, and joined God's mission in the world? That's what this series is all about. Each week we are unpacking a key conviction that shaped Jesus' way of life and explore how it can shape ours too, as we seek to be a community of disciples living on mission in the way of Jesus. And today we want to revisit and do a deeper dive on one of them that we've already discussed, and it's that God's kingdom looks like Jesus' ministry. So here's part two. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_05:Welcome everyone. My name is Katie.
SPEAKER_04:And I'm Mac. I'm Josiah.
SPEAKER_05:So Mac, you and Josie recently took a trip to New York City.
SPEAKER_01:We did.
SPEAKER_05:And it sounds like it was awesome. Um, so I'd love to hear a highlight if you want to share. But one thing you said when you came back, actually, you both told me this separately. You both said, we decided that of all of our friends, we could see you living in New York City. To me.
SPEAKER_02:You said it to me. Yep.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and that made me think, like, yeah, I could maybe do that. That'd be fine. If I were single, I don't I couldn't see living there with a family. Like that'd be really tough. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:But I could get into the New York City energy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05:But then it made me think, okay, if you guys could live anywhere but here, where would you live?
SPEAKER_01:Oh my. Uh, it would be the exact opposite of New York City. I had a great time there, don't get me wrong. It was so much fun, so much to take in. But this by day three or four, you're like, I've had enough stimulation. I've had enough people.
SPEAKER_05:Um enough past pastrami.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I did do that. The first day we had a pastrami and rye sandwich, okay, uh, which is a thing in New York.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, we went to I supposedly one of the best places, Sarges was the name of the place. Um anyway, I would choose to live in like a small mountain town in Montana. That's what I would do. I would like retreat to a place that is outdoorsy, where there's mountains, and I can hike and enjoy not needed. You know?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I can see you doing that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And Josie, for sure. I can see her living in a mountain.
SPEAKER_01:So we, in fairness, we had a total blast. It was a lot of fun. I would go back, but to your point, I definitely wouldn't want to live there. It is a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. And people lose their crap all over the place. Like, there must have been at least three times a day where we were just walking down city blocks and all of a sudden someone would like totally rage out by themselves. Like they're just standing there and all of a sudden would lose their mind and start yelling and cussing. And you're just like, what is happening right now? Well, we're in New York. And we're not in the Midwest anymore. But it didn't make me feel like such a wuss. When we got back to Oconomock, I was like, How many times have it we been like, you know, we probably on like a Friday or Saturday night, we're like, let's avoid downtown Oconomock. It's a little busy. It's like what?
SPEAKER_05:I just want to know, did you listen to the song New York by Rihanna and Jay-Z?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it played, it was playing everywhere. Like street players. Oh, yeah, they all still like 20 years later? That's Alicia Keith.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, is it Alicia Keith?
SPEAKER_04:Yes. Yeah, just don't Adam rewind because we don't want that.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, cut that. Cut that out.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, even last week I think I misquoted a scriptured uh reference.
SPEAKER_05:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04:And I remember that I did that. Um, did you say we used even more Rihanna?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, Rihanna. Okay. Whatever. Two strikes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So cut that, Adam. That was really bad. Poor taste altogether.
SPEAKER_05:So let me ask you again. So did you listen to the song by Alicia?
SPEAKER_01:I heard it several times. They played it all over the place.
SPEAKER_05:That surprises me because it's not a new song.
SPEAKER_01:Where would you live, Josiah, if you could pick anywhere but I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:It does depend. Like if I'm thinking of kids are grown and I'm retired, that changes. But I mean I've got kids. So I actually kind of like where we live. I don't I don't mind it.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, but you can't answer. I specifically said that in the prompt.
SPEAKER_04:You did?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Follow the rules.
SPEAKER_05:Pick another place. Uh you could be single in this hypothetical and just would you join me in Montana?
SPEAKER_04:Uh I like mountains. I could see you do that. Really like mountains. But I wouldn't like to be too secluded. I don't I feel just as uncomfortable when I'm in an area that is so far away from civilization as I do when I'm like being waterboarded by civilization like New York City. So I feel I feel similarly uncomfortable in both spaces. So I don't know. Maybe I'll just never be happy. Maybe that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01:We'll live a discontent life.
SPEAKER_04:A life of discontentment. I love looking at mountains, something with that's with you know that's uh cities accessible but not too close and not too big, not too small. I don't know. Yeah, here with here with here with mountains. Yeah, I'd I'd be happy.
SPEAKER_05:Got it. I would also maybe choose Spain for myself. I studied abroad in Spain in college and spent five or six months there, and I loved it. Southern Spain. Okay. It was awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:I would go back there.
SPEAKER_01:Well, speaking of people losing their crap, um let's get into today's episode because this could cause some people to lose their minds.
SPEAKER_05:That's true. Two shades.
SPEAKER_01:We are in a series right now focused on our mental models for missional discipleship. This is a framework for living out our faith as disciples of Jesus in everyday life. And in each episode, we're exploring some of our core convictions or axiomatic truths that anchor us and guide us as we go about being a community of disciples who live on mission in the way of Jesus. So today we're gonna circle back to one of these mental models that we actually already covered, and we're gonna double back on it. And it's that God's um kingdom looks like Jesus' ministry. So this is kind of like a part two. And there are a few reasons for doubling back on this one. One is we got a ton of positive feedback on the last episode. I think more than any other one, I had people coming up to me or writing emails saying I so appreciated that episode. I learned a lot. Um, which by the way, if you listen to this podcast and you haven't left us a review, please do that. Like that helps get the word out. You can share it with friends or whatever, but um, a review sometimes helps. But we got a ton of positive feedback. The other thing is we I also got some questions, and these weren't antagonistic questions. I experienced um them generally, genuinely asking, like, I want to go deeper, I want to understand more. What about the implications of this? Or how do you make sense of that? And so I just noticed people wanted to hear more and it and it surfaced or raised a lot of questions for them. And then finally, I would just say we had a lot more to say. I remember when we uh pushed the end record button on that episode, it felt like we had just scratched the surface. I know there was so much more that each one of us could have said and and really wanted to say. And in fact, probably even after today's episode, um, there's gonna be more to say. So maybe, maybe we'll do a part three. I don't know. But I think for all of those reasons, the positive feedback, some of the the curious questions people wanted to hear more, and the fact that we had more to say, we wanted to double back on this and give it another another go. What would you guys add to that? What else would you like to say as we head into this topic for round two?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I think you covered it. I too got some really good positive feedback. I think it um it highlighted some that some people in my life are really feeling um sort of just stuck in this moment, in this cultural moment, of going, hey, when I think about politics, it feels like everyone's like staunchly in one camp or staunchly in another. And I don't, I don't know how to make sense of that. And how do I grapple with my faith and still care about these issues? Like I don't want to check out. And I had a number of people say something along those lines to me. Um, and so I think it just shows that even though the certain voices are really loud and those voices feel really certain, um, there are plenty of us just kind of going about our lives that are a little disoriented, confused, unsure how to navigate through these waters. And so um, I had similar feedback, and I think it goes to show that there's a lot that could be said.
SPEAKER_01:People are feeling discombobulated. Like it reminds me of going through TSA, and at the end, you're like grabbing all your stuff and you're trying to find your belt and get your shoes back on. Like, you know what I mean? Like there's that I've got to put this back together. And I feel like a lot of people are just feeling like when it comes to politics, their stuff is all over the place. Uh, they don't know how to integrate this with the way of Jesus. And when someone can step into that space, and it is gonna require a fair amount of nuance, I think people are experiencing it as helpful.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Uh I mean, this is why this podcast exists. Like topics like this are not something you can just tackle with a sermon on Sunday morning. Like we didn't we don't do this podcast because we're hoping to reach the masses. This is here primarily for our church community to expand conversations that can't just happen on Sunday morning. And so this is one of those topics that's clearly um, you know, it's it's it's clearly important. It it ends up uh involving a lot of different aspects of our lives. And, you know, uh we love the opportunity to say, hey, this seemed to be a bigger issue than not only could we not cover it on Sunday morning, but also couldn't just cover it in one podcast episode. So yeah, let's double click on it, as you say, and um and keep expounding on it.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And yet, and yet I feel some anxiety, and I would imagine the two of you do as well, whenever we step into a topic like this, it just it requires a greater amount of maturity to have these kinds of conversations and a willingness not to just see things through a black and white or certain lens. We have to actually soften our certainty, increase our humility, and learn how to listen intelligently. Um, and so toward that end, I think we need to just invite not just each other, but our listeners to just let's lean in with maturity and and charity as we as we dialogue.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And um you you said something about listening well. I think it our listeners have a responsibility to do just that, to listen well to what we're saying. And I think I would name specifically there are certain things we can tend to do that inhibit our ability to listen well. I might just name two of those that come to mind sort of up top at this conversation. There are two two common ways we miss hear. One I would say is overhearing. This is when we listen and we hear things that someone isn't saying. For example, if you've ever had someone say to you, like, we need to talk, and your mind starts racing of like Oh, I hear you hate penguins.
SPEAKER_01:Great.
SPEAKER_05:Maybe. Um Wait, what?
SPEAKER_01:It had nothing to do with what she was saying.
SPEAKER_04:I was reading into what she was saying. I was overhearing, right?
SPEAKER_05:Overhearing.
SPEAKER_04:I was like, is this an inside joke I'm not in on?
SPEAKER_05:Well, okay, they say we need to talk. Your mind immediately fills it in with penguins or whatever. You start ruminating about past conversations, and you think, oh man, they must be like livid, ticked off at me. What did I do? And your mind just kind of goes, right? But but maybe that's not what they're saying at all. Maybe they just want to catch up. Maybe they want to talk about plans. Like there could be anything that they that they mean, and we hear more than what they're saying because of our own emotions, past experiences, whatever. Another example, that maybe a church example. Uh, let's say a pastor says something like, Hey, we want to be a church that's welcoming to everyone. We want to be a welcoming community. Some people might hear that and go, uh-oh, I know what that means.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a subtext for tolerance and so on and so forth.
SPEAKER_05:It kind of takes certain like progressive or certain theological beliefs because they associate that language with specific cultural debates. So, again, what's happening when we overhear is I think the listener brings their own associations, their own experiences, their own emotions, and then immediately sort of lump all of that onto what the person is saying, even if that may not be in fact what the person is saying at all.
SPEAKER_01:Can I give an example?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, please do.
SPEAKER_01:Um, this was probably shortly after all that was 2020, maybe even in that same year, 2020, we were in a Christmas series and going through the Advent themes. So you have like love, joy, peace, and I was preaching on peace. And of course, peace in the scripture, we've talked about this. The biblical um word is shalom, and it has to do with everything being rightly related. And I started talking about how like we are to be peacemakers. And one of the primary things Jesus did um in going to the cross and rise being raised from the dead was to tear down the dividing wall that separates a Jew and Gentile and kind of brought in, hey, we have these racial tensions in our culture, and and the gospel is to be restoring and reconciling those. This is part of our work. This is part of our work as a church, is to be building bridges and tearing down walls and pursuing right relationship, not just vertically with God, but horizontally with other people. And I had someone come up to me, and Katie, your dad was standing right next to me at the time, and he was angry and accused me of um talking about systemic racism through our country. Like it was clear he had downloaded, he he oriented very conservatively politically and sort of heard everything I said through that lens. And your dad, I was so grateful, was there because he said, All the things you're saying he just said, he didn't say. He didn't use one of those phrases that you're worked up about. So why don't you go back and listen to the message again and try to hear it rightly. And I was just very grateful for that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:Because there are those moments where, like, I'm trying to faithfully present. Here's what scripture says, you're hearing it through an entirely separate lens, reading over and into what I'm saying. And now you're worked up over something I actually didn't say.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's a great example. And I think um illustrates like what we're talking about here, like this problem of overhearing. Similarly, I think if overhearing is hearing more than what someone's saying, as that person did in your example, I would say underhearing could be hearing less than what someone's saying. Okay. So let's say you're like in a work context and someone says something like, Yeah, I'm not so sure that this plan will work. And they go on to give some examples of that. And you hear that and you think you kind of immediately dismiss them as like, oh, they're lazy or they're being resistant or they're just stubborn or whatever reasons. And be because of that association or that assumption in your mind, you actually don't hear any of the legitimate reasons that they're bringing to why they think your solution won't work, right? So that's that's underhearing. Um, or maybe a pastor says something like, God loves you just as you are, but you're like, eh, generic church line, heard it before, it just sort of goes in one ear and out the other. We think we can actually, just as we can overhear, we can underhear by failing to appreciate what someone is actually saying.
SPEAKER_01:I've experienced that one too. Um, the the times I most often experience that is when I'm attending to some sort of like deconstruction or um nuance related to a common belief that people hold and maybe challenging it or presenting something slightly different or more nuanced. I notice people often hear it and quickly like reframe it in terms of what they already know in a way that like deflects or reduces the full punch or weight of what I'm saying. And it's a way of like relieving their own anxiety so as not to have to deal with the full force of what might be corrected or dealing with the anxiety of learning a new categorical category entirely. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_05:It does. Can you think of an example?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like maybe for Easter this year. I had some things to say about how evangelicals have often understood heaven and how it's not an otherworldly place that you go to, but rather it's a this worldly place where heaven integrates with earth, a new heavens and a new earth. And I just noticed a strong sort of uh disposition to kind of like orient back to the thing I was correcting in a way that disregarded what what I was saying. Um so I could think of probably more examples if you gave me a little bit more space.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but but I I just noticed that's when that tends to happen a little bit more.
SPEAKER_05:Sure. Yeah, feels like preaching might be a common.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. Well you're yeah, preaching is the most common place I hear this, or environments like this, like this podcast, because you're communicating and you're entirely relying on listeners to hear what you're saying, and you're you're you're preaching to a diverse group of people. I remember my therapist once told me, she goes, Mac, let's say you have 600 people in the audience. You have 600 psychologies you're preaching to who have a unique lens through and ear holes through which they're listening that's gonna distort or contort what you're saying, right? And so it's a really challenging task, which is why Jesus often said to his listeners, be careful how you hear. Be careful how you hear. Uh, because just like our listen, just like I can distort what someone's saying or mishear what they're saying, um, Jesus was aware his listeners could do the same thing.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, love that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, other a couple other reminders before we get into some of this stuff. Um I just think that it's good for us to understand the importance of untangling ourselves from our political identities. Uh everybody has convictions about um their, you know, political values and things, but I think that our political convictions are often far too closely tied to our identities, um, which essentially is just making an idol out of these political convictions. And for many, identifying as Republican or Democrat has sort of superseded our identity as followers of Jesus. And the fact that we can be so easily offended and defensive when things like this are brought up sort of just exposes how closely tied these affiliations are to who we are, um, ultimately identifying them as an idol.
SPEAKER_01:I came across a study recently that said um people are more likely to go to a church where they disagree with their doctrine or theological opinions, but have similar political, um, they're in a similar political, like politically aligned versus staying in a place where they're doctrinally or theologically aligned, but there's like a lack of political alignment.
SPEAKER_05:Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:So it totally gets at what you're saying, which is like you could be in a denomination or a church for 30 some years. And right now, in this cultural moment, because our political identity is actually taking priority over our identity as followers of Jesus, you're more likely to go to a church where people, where you feel people align with you politically than actually theologically.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Wow. That's pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_01:That's crazy.
SPEAKER_04:So another uh another reminder is just to remember that you don't have to agree with everything we say. Uh it we just have to understand that it's actually your responsibility as a person um to own your own beliefs and not other people's. Like it is okay for you to listen to something and say, I disagree with that. We're not trying to tell you you can't. In fact, um like there's often a lot of anxiety that that gets created between people and in relationships simply because we don't agree with them. Um and uh the truth is we don't have to. So um, and it's even okay to uh to disagree with your church leadership on an issue or two. It's like that's okay. Yeah, it's okay to see things differently and to have good discussion about it. Um, so I mean, we're gonna be presenting some ideas that we've thought through a lot of, and we're just asking that you would be willing to think through them too. Yeah, that's good news.
SPEAKER_01:Think through it with us. There's about 3.73 things you've already said today that I disagree with. So it's okay. And we've named that like the mark of emotional maturity is not just, you know, surrounding yourself with people who you completely agree with. It's actually being able to define what you think and believe, giving other people the permission to do the same and staying connected at the same time. And so that's what we're trying to pursue together. Right. Spread work. Oh, it's so hard. It's so hard. So it's okay if you hear something, you're like, I don't know about that. Maybe you don't know yet. Maybe go, oh, I think differently about that. Okay, great. Um, typically I read people all the time I disagree with. And sometimes I notice my perspective changing because I've listened, um, even beyond what's comfortable. Uh oftentimes I won't agree with them. And it just strengthens my own conviction. Either way, it's often a win to dialogue with people with charity and humility. So that's what we're inviting you into today. Let's do a quick review. Um, the the axiomatic truth, truth is that God's kingdom looks like Jesus' ministry. So I'm not gonna do all of what we covered in the first episode, but maybe just a quick refresher so we can get the big points. Remember that um at the center of Jesus' ministry was the proclamation and demonstration of God's kingdom. Like, you know, when you're uh in college and you had to write an essay, you had to have a thesis statement that then like captures what your entire paper or essay is going to be about. We could say the thesis statement that um centered or everything hung on that Jesus did was like the kingdom of God is here. It's breaking in right now through me. Repent and believe the good news. That is that is the epicenter, that is the very center of the center of Jesus' life and teachings and ministry. Remember that the kingdom of God is the dome in which God is king. It's the king's dome, it's the in-breaking reign of God into our present reality. We mentioned that this isn't a new concept entirely. It's not like Jesus just came out of nowhere announcing something that nobody had a box for. We talked about how in the Old Testament there was this uh Hebrew phrase, Melchut Shamayim, which meant kingdom of heavens. And there were maybe two big implications of this. One is that is the the people of Israel were to have no other gods before Yahweh. God, God demanded their total allegiance. So, no, in a polytheistic culture, they're like, nope, there's only one God. And the other implication is that they were to have no other kings, right? No other human rulers were to kind of rule or reign over them. And so Jesus comes and he announces, hey, I am that king. And the kingdom of God is breaking in through my life and ministry. Notice we talked a lot about um in our last episode that everything Jesus did and said actually had political implications. So, one example we gave is when Jesus fed the hungry. It wasn't just like a miracle about God's abundance. This took place in a culture where 95% of the people are living hand to mouth because of exploitation and oppression. And so when Jesus feeds the 5,000 and the 4,000, it is a miracle about God's abundance, but it's also an indictment of the very systems and structures and ways of relating and behaving that led to hunger in the first place. And in that episode, we named a bunch of things that Jesus did that had massive political implications. And the big through line I love for you to be reminded of is then following Jesus isn't going to be apolitical. It's not going to be politically neutral. It's going to be politically supercharged. It's going to be politically disruptive and even subversive, which is what we saw throughout the book of Acts. I mean, our congregation, God bless them, they tolerated like a 60-week series through the book of Acts. I mean, I just went after it. And um, but what we saw there is that the disciples lived just like Jesus did. They performed some of the same miracles, they associate with the same kinds of people. And lo and behold, who are they getting in trouble with? They're getting in trouble with the religious authorities and the Roman authorities. Why? Because they're disrupting the status quo. If you're following Jesus and it doesn't have political implications, you may not be following Jesus. That's what I'm trying to say. Is this making sense so far? So all of that's just a review. I wanted to maybe uh step into a brief excursus based on a question I got in light of that episode. The question I got was someone who has spent maybe the last 30 years in a traditional evangelical environment. And one of the things that they had been told is that the kingdom of God is like exclusively future. Okay. Like, nope, the kingdom of God is about going to heaven when you die. Remember, again, the traditional evangelical gospel has sort of been reduced to the plan of salvation. So it's all about praying a prayer so you can go to heaven after you die. And so in their mind, it was kind of like, wait a second, I thought the kingdom of heaven was about what happened after you die. But it seemed as though in your last episode, you were saying that, like, no, the kingdom of God has implications for here and now. So I thought it might be helpful as we step back into some, like enter into some new space today to start with that. Because it it it is what we're saying. We're saying that the kingdom of God isn't just about what happens after you die, it has present implications. So, how would you guys speak to that question?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, well, I too long uh carry that idea of like God's kingdom solely as like a futuristic, distant future place that you go when you die. But when I began to read the gospels um with that question in mind, I notice that Jesus speaks about the kingdom differently than that. For so, for example, in Luke 17, Jesus says, the ki the coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, Here it is or there it is, because the kingdom of God is in your midst. So in this verse and many others, I think Jesus is announcing a kingdom that does exist now. Jesus announces that when he came to earth, he actually ushered in the kingdom, and that kingdom is a reality which exists today because of his rule and reign. So I do think, Mac, this offers a corrective to the idea that heaven is just like a future place by saying, no, heaven is a current reality. If heaven is God's kingdom, well, Jesus tells us that it's breaking in wherever he is, although it won't be fully compute complete until a future time. So it's like the already, but the not yet. Um, one theologian that really helped me grasp this concept was N.T. Wright. He's written like books on this topic. Um, but what kind of simple quote that I liked is he says, Our culture is so fixated on dying and going to heaven when the whole scripture is about heaven coming to earth. So again, think of Jesus saying the kingdom of God is in your midst. Like where Jesus' rule and reign is is the kingdom. Um another theologian, Tim Keller, says, Wait, wait, wait, time out.
SPEAKER_01:You need to say that again.
SPEAKER_05:Um T-Right quote.
SPEAKER_01:Right after that, you said that heaven is where God's rule and reign is breaking in. I think that's really important to circle, like underline, highlight, because there's a mental model around what heaven even refers to. And again, I'm I'm speaking more to what I've experienced in pastoring those who grew up in an evangelical environment. My under their understanding is I've asked questions and attended to what they think is often more influenced by like Plato than the person of Jesus. It's sort of this um Greek philosophical understanding of heaven being some other place you go to rather than God's rule and reign um pervading our space.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Does that make sense? So when Jesus, for instance, teaches us to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, that's like a reference for him praying that heaven would pervade here. Heaven, take over this God's rule and reign. We want it to be a reality right now and right here. So instead of thinking of heaven as some other place, think of it as just the dome where God's rule and reign is being perfectly lived out in a way that um fosters the right relatedness of all things. So I wanted to pause and just go, oh, that felt really important.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I love that. Uh Tim Keller, who also likes, says it this way. He says, The gospel of the kingdom is the good news that the perfect king that we all long for is here and is setting all things right. The kingdom is here, yet not yet in its fully finished form. So I think that's good news.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's like uh I don't know. I when you when you reflect on the Lord's prayer that we all would be able to know so well. What is that line? Your kingdom come, your will be done. What are we praying for if we're not praying for it to happen here and now?
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Are we just praying that God make heaven someday that we could go to? Or are we actually in praying the prayer, inviting at like inviting God to usher in his rule and reign, as well as responding to the invitation to join him in in the work when we pray it?
SPEAKER_01:That's why there's that old, I don't know who said it, but there's like that critique where it says some Christians are so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. That's kind of what I'm I'm trying to surface is if your connotation of heaven is some other place after you die, you're so heavenly minded, if that's what you view heaven to be, you're gonna be of no earthly good. You're you're gonna be of no good to actually joining God's work and the kingdom breaking in right here and right now, which obviously raises questions about okay, well, if God's kingdom is a reality right here and right now, if if his rule and reign can break in, right well, then what does that look like?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well it looks like um I would argue that it looks like when Jesus quotes Isaiah in Luke 4, when he goes to the temple and he opens up the scroll and he reads it, and he sits down and says, This has been fulfilled in your hearing. I'm gonna read it. Um and he said uh the passage says, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. So the arrival of God's kingdom doesn't just give us a get out of jail free card. Someday Jesus is pointing out that God's kingdom ushers in the restoration of all things. And he describes what that looks like, right?
SPEAKER_01:So feeding the poor is the disappearance of economic injustice, and the blind receiving sight is that people who are sick are being cared for and experiencing healing. The oppressed going free. Well, that's about domination and exploitation being excavated, undone, right? We're digging out of that, and something new is beginning. And our job as Kingdom people is to live lives that look like Jesus and give people a foretaste of that kingdom that's coming, will one day come in its fullness. I I at one point gave our entire church pink spoons um because of the Baskin Robins. Uh, you know, when you go into Baskin Robins, it's like 31 flavors, and you can like sample and they give you those little pink spoons. You're to be a sample of the type of of God's kingdom. When people run into you, they should get a little taste of here's what the future is going to look like. Here's what God's kingdom is like.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's so important for us to understand what the aim is and what God cares about because it helps us to discern what it looks like to live along to live within that kingdom now. And again, going back to this idea that heaven is primarily a future-oriented thing, um it just it just uh it just narrows our focus into something that ultimately can distract us from the more important matters, which is what we do now. Because even if that future kingdom is there the way we believe it is, like someday everything is going to be made right, and it's just it's gonna be awesome. Um participating in God's kingdom now is not going to be spent waiting around for it to happen. It's gonna be spent joining him in ushering in that kingdom, breaking into the world as we see it now.
SPEAKER_01:And what's more, and this is maybe upping the critique a little bit, because I'm not just wanting to critique someone's um understanding of heaven as being a future otherworldly place rather than something that's breaking in here now. But if that is your mental model around heaven, then what ends up happening, if it's just something you're waiting for in the future, is you'll actually not live into the kingdom in the present. It leads to people who proclaim to follow Jesus, but then just live a life for themselves, you know what I mean? In many ways, rejecting the very kingdom that Jesus came to bring in their lifestyle because it doesn't even matter right here, right now. There's waiting for the future. So if we go back to the question that was asked, which is, hey, I thought it was mostly future, what you're hearing us say is, well, it's neither entirely future nor entirely present. We want to avoid both that that false, that binary. It's both present and future. Um, the theological phrase that many theologians have used is already, but not yet. It's already available, and in some ways it's breaking in, and we are invited to participate in that in real time. And yet, this side of heaven, i.e., God's kingdom coming in its fullness when Jesus returns, we will only get so far.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so we do, we are waiting, in a sense, the fulfillment of God's kingdom, the coming of God's kingdom in its complete form, where everything is made, made right. But at least the implications of this already, but not yet, is that we do have work to do and it matters. You're not just sitting around waiting for something to happen in the future. God's justice, God's rule, God's reign is taking shape around us, and God invites us to be part of it. What's more is that Jesus, when his kingdom does come in its completed form, will build on the kingdom that is being built right now. And so, in other words, the work you're doing to join God's work is it's going to be eternal to the degree you're actually cooperating with God. That's laying a foundation that Jesus is going to build on. And so your life, your effort, your participation, your cooperation in what God is doing will last forever. Yeah. It's it makes life, you want to talk about a purpose-driven life. Yeah. I mean, this is what you're being invited into. You get to join what God's doing, and God is going to build on that foundation when Jesus completes it in a way that lasts forever.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's motivating to me. So it's not all future, it's present. It's not all present, it's future. It's both present and future already, but not yet. How are we doing? You guys need a breather?
SPEAKER_04:No, I'm good. I'm I'm curious, honestly, and and we're the one doing the podcast, like how we've we've set up this idea of God's kingdom being not yet, but happening now and breaking in now. So, what does that mean? And how does that inform what it looks like to participate in the world? And what does that have to do with politics?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, that's let's get into it. Because one of the things we attempted to highlight in our last episode on this topic is that God's kingdom is political. It's not apolitical and it's not neutral, but it's also not partisan, right? And so the kingdom of God is not centered, first of all, on one nation. Any form of Christian nationalism, I would submit, is idolatry, because the kingdom of God is about all people, all people, every tribe, tongue, and nation. So it's all inclusive without geographic borders or territory to defend. So the kingdom of God doesn't center on a nation, not even the nation of Israel, let alone America. It's an all-inclusive kingdom, and therefore it can't possibly be reduced to, quite frankly, our myopic American political spectrum, right? It transcends. Jesus transcends our American political spectrum and our partisan loyalties. And in so doing, critiques our political spectrum, albeit in different ways and to different, in different, to different in different degrees, in both degree and intensity. But I thought, let's give people a sample of that. You and I, we talk about this all the time, you know, not from the stage, but in interacting with one another. We're constantly doing the work of going, okay, how do the life and teachings inform all that's happening politically in our country right now and around the world? And my conviction is that Jesus has things to say that critique the left, the right, and even the center. And so I thought maybe we could just invite people into some of our dialogue around how we see Jesus doing that with the goal of making everyone upset today.
SPEAKER_05:You know, like still a roast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Love it. Yeah. So wherever you happen to be on the political spectrum, um, you're gonna hear a critique today. And I'm inviting you to go, oh, but that shouldn't offend you if you're trying to go, my ultimate allegiance is to Jesus into joining his kingdom breaking in. Of course, Jesus is going to be Lord over each political tribe that exists in our in our country. And no one political uh tribe is going to get the king has the corner on the kingdom, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that our aim is always to follow Jesus more closely. So if our political affiliations are in question or are not aligned with that, then um it may be difficult to hear, but it should also be welcomed as followers of Jesus who want to be more like him. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So let's start with the left. Let's uh Katie, I don't know. Why don't you give it a go?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How would you say, yep, I think that Jesus may critique the political left in these ways.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so this is an interesting one. I've always identified as politically conservative. I've mentioned before that I worked in Republican politics for um a time before coming to Cross Point. But I've also always had people in my life that identify more in the political left. Like I went to undergrad at UW Madison. I went to law school out in Los Angeles. Then I lived back in Madison. So I've no way been in like a conservative bubble. Many of my close friends I've always had close friends that would identify in the left and I would say it's those relationships and dialogue has been a super important part of my journey of just thinking through and making sense of things. One thing I've maybe noticed as I've gotten older with some of my friends, and I think I would say this is more common to those on the left I've noticed an increasing number of people my age who I would say like grew up in the evangelical church, which tends to be more conservative, and then at some point like deconstructed their faith, asked questions, ended up changing their beliefs, maybe some even walked away from Jesus, yet still seem to care about many of the things that Jesus cared about. And that's important. A lot of these, I would say they still care about you know caring for the least of these, advocating for justice across racial, gender, ethnic lines they care about human rights. Like the list goes on. But what I would want to name is that we can't have the things that Jesus cares about without having Jesus himself. So often I look around and I see an effort to create social change, but it can tend to be totally focused on the government and totally focused on societal structures and entirely removed from Jesus. And I think when we do that, we're missing the mark. Like we're fooling ourselves into thinking that we can create the kingdom here on earth by sheer human force alone. So yes, of course we want to liberate people from oppression and injustice and of course we want to care for the least of these. But if we tend to do this apart from Jesus, we'll at be best putting lipstick on a pig. And and this is I would say really a critique of the political left. And I think Jesus backs this up. I mean you look at okay John 155 for example Jesus says apart from me you can do nothing nothing right so Jesus constantly ties the work of justice back to relationship with himself. Jesus doesn't just care that the poor are fed he invites his followers to feed the poor as an expression of his rule and reign in the world. But our modern political left I think office often pursues care for the poor as more of like a human achievement rather than a divine calling. It's like activism divorced from abiding in the vine. And when this happens when we have this type of work detached from Jesus I think it almost becomes its own religion in a way and that can produce all sorts of bad fruit it can produce self-righteousness right I see a lot of self-righteousness on both sides but on the left it can produce burnout. Like we just get burned out it can produce a whole lot of division over in place of the reconciliation that Jesus offers. I also think the political left tends to talk a lot about like love and inclusion um but in a way that equates love with maybe like unconditional tolerance or affirmation as if it's like all grace but no truth. Right. But Jesus to the contrary talks about love as grace and truth. I see Jesus affirming human dignity in every person every person is made in the image of God while also calling all of us to repentance and transformation. So perhaps another critique of the modern left would be kind of emphasizing that need for inclusion and affirmation while perhaps underhearing Jesus's call to holiness and obedience which are also part of his love. Like they're those are inseparable.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah those aren't like a call to truth like embracing truth as part of Jesus's love.
SPEAKER_05:Totally totally totally Jesus looking love is radically inclusive and radically transformative at the same time.
SPEAKER_01:I love that yeah I I remember uh I was invited to do a a wedding for a couple and um I was sitting with I was meeting the bride for the first time and she had kind of walked away from from faith. And it was so interesting because she was in many respects as we began to talk about spirituality and faith um had deep conviction about things that I think aligned with Jesus's heart things that like you're naming like care for the poor and treating people with equality and things of that sort things that I would totally agree with and I think Jesus would advocate for but had no openness to Jesus. And so it's like you can't I I kept wanting to say and eventually did you can't have the values of the kingdom without the king. You just can't. From where I sit those on the left tend to rightly draw attention and emphasize the need for societal change. I think they do a better job than those on the right recognizing systems and structures that are harmful and that need to be transformed. The problem to me is that they often underestimate or underattend to the fact that we also need to be personally transformed. And those very systems and structures were created and maintained by sinful human beings. So if we don't attend to also their personal transformation we're just going to continue to perpetuate that. Does that make sense? Totally and so um I don't know I think we need both I I think we need both. I think we need to see individuals hearts transformed and we also need to advocate for the transformation of systems or structures that are harmful to people. Those aren't like uh you don't have to choose between those two those things that we can both be working towards addressing as followers of Jesus yeah and well okay can I offer one more critique related to what you just said yeah go for it. Are you critiquing me?
SPEAKER_05:Because that's not no I am I am building on what you said. It made me think of another critique which is that um I think we see Jesus locate God's missions of justice not in government structures but in spirit-filled community. In Luke 4, remember Josiah you said the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he teaches us that the kingdom advances through people who are fully surrendered to God's work, not just through like bureaucratic programs. And I think many progressive approaches miss this and instead tend to outsource kingdom work to institutions and structures rather than embodying it through local presence and discipleship. Again, not to say that those institutions and structures and policies don't matter in my opinion a lot of those solutions end up that they end up putting forth do create unintended consequences that sometimes do more harm than good. But that's more than we have time to get into today. But this I think this is maybe the most significant critique that I would offer I think that while many on the modern political left have good intentions, what happens is they point to government as the answer and expect government to do the work that really only the church can do in the way that God envisions. And to pull the thread a little bit further, I think the result is that at least here in the US, the government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. And the bigger it gets, frankly the lazier the church has gotten and it's kind of created a vacuum, right? Like if these are all issues that the church should care about, then we should that we should be leading on justice and all these things we're talking about. And we haven't done it. Instead we sort of outsourced it to secular institutions um we've created this vacuum that of course someone's gonna step into step into yeah again going back to NT Wright I was listening to his a podcast of his back in 2020 and he's like well it's not no surprise that when we hear the word justice, we have like a liberal connotation because maybe the church hasn't been on the forefront of this issue as as much as it should have been, as much as God you know had called us to and that's created a vacuum and this secular political cause has stepped into the vacuum. So now we go to that association first rather than it's our responsibility.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah I I see that too and I think um you've you've taught me a lot in this area Katie one of the things that okay first of all what I hear you saying is um our Jesus gave his best energy not to um sort of co-opting or transforming these structures that existed he did plenty to disrupt them and critique them and call them to repentance but his best energy was actually creating a community that embodied these things. Yes that is exactly what I think and the church exists to further that mission. If you want to talk about justice, we're to be a just community. If you want to talk about equality we're to be a community where equality is is um pursued right okay one of the things you've also helped me see as someone who's more politically knowledgeable on the policy level is that oftentimes the policies are that that we think are doing good work aren't doing the work that we that they actually claim to be. Okay so the moment we start going well here's our conviction and then we start getting into policies it gets way more complex because then we have to actually analyze and is that policy doing the thing it says it's doing let me give you just one example of how you kind of planted that seed on like up there it is. My sister does foster care. Okay and um it's incredible. They've had maybe five or six kids over the last I don't know five or six years. And all of them are infants often they get them right from the hospital and sort of I mean we're talking hard work. And then they give them back to the parents or hand them off in some way and it's it's often heartbreaking right well everybody would say hey I mean James 127 says here is pure and undefiled religion to look after the orphan and the widow if you're a New Testament follower of Jesus you should be able to say with no hesitation that look um caring for orphans is a good thing. Right? Yeah but then like so then you'd think I would think okay so of course I'm gonna support legislation that you know has a good I don't know emphasis on foster care and right it seems to be a clear logical connection. And yet as I've walked with my sister and brother-in-law and seen all their the kids that they've had they have highlighted how broken the system is I mean the the the the child they have right now they've had this child for just over a year and they're estimating that that child has cost over$250,000 of like government resources between helping the parents helping this kid like all of that. Now I just sit there and go, okay, so that's that's the that's hard work to go, okay, yes, as a kingdom person I I want to care about orphans. I think legislated who would say yes let's increase and yet the foster care system is totally broken. So what do we do with that? And now we have to sit in that complexity of going, well what does this mean when it comes to casting a vote or backing legislation or whatever. It's more complicated than I originally thought.
SPEAKER_05:Right, right? It does. If I could add just another example just on the news last night I heard um Chuck Schumer say literally verbatim say um Democrats care about people having health insurance and food. And so like if you care about that you'll vote for this. And it's like okay like I I could take that legislation and think of a million ways that I think it actually works counter to the um to the goal that you're stating. So yeah I totally agree. It's it's nuanced work it's complicated work. Just because you say hey this policy advances this value therefore if you if you care about this kingdom value you must vote for this policy. Like I'm like that's when my um that's when my kind of antenna goes up especially having worked in politics I've just seen how complicated that is and how oftentimes I'm like actually might be doing the opposite.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah yeah and maybe a counterexample I know we're gonna critique the right but I've you've shared stories you have a family member who works at a crisis pregnancy clinic and I would say the right tends to be obviously more of a pro-life right uh pro-life and yet some of her categories have been challenging going yeah but just because you say that doesn't mean this is the work that's actually happening. Totally.
SPEAKER_05:Yep. Yep when you're on the ground you tend to see things a little differently.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah I think the example with your your sister Mac is as uh sort of like it's sort of the it's the it's the prime example of what it looks like to identify over identify with a political part of the spectrum and not be as invested as opposed to what your sister's doing. Actually doing the work. So if you're actually doing the work and you have skin in the game then your your your affiliation with a certain with a certain political movement is going to be less than what's actually going to benefit the things that you care about. Right. So if I'm standing at a distance and I'm offering critiques, I'm often going to be uh there there's more chance that I'm gonna be inundated with the with the ideologies of one side right and because I'm just gonna be reading it from a piece of paper and it's like oh that that sounds nice and all those things I want. So I'm gonna vote for the person who's gonna go do those things as opposed to someone who's like hey I'm putting skin in the game here I'm I'm going and I'm gonna do the work that God's calling me to do that that his his kingdom is doing. And then what happens like now my my uh associations are less one-sided it's more like hey on this specific issue now like I care more about it and now I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna want to be more involved and it may look like uh it it's probably not gonna look just like the typical left or right person.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's easy to vote your values it's much harder to live your values and that's actually what we're called to do. Go ahead and cast your vote on the few days a year where you get to the privilege to do that. Absolutely. But in the meantime in the meantime get to work and um yeah kind of it kind of drives me nuts that people could sit there and go, well I care about for instance uh children who don't have parents and they can simply cast a vote and then kind of sit back arrogantly as if they like some sense self-valid validating like I care about this because I voted this direction and you don't even know on the policy level how complicated it is nor are you actually doing the work that like my sister and brother in law are doing to actually do that.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:You know what I mean? All right so that's I I big picture we're saying hey there are some values on the left that it seems Jesus would want to affirm um but you can't have those without the king. And on a policy level it's often more complicated than just casting your vote and going, oh yep, so we're good to go.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right? Totally. And of course there's some values that I think Jesus really cares about that the left does not affirm at all. So I'll just name that. Let's make our right leaning listeners upset. Equal opportunity. Yeah. We're equal opportunity critiquers here.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah so um let's critique the right um I would also say with uh some of our listeners are sweating right now I can just feel it I am yeah I mean are we gonna be friends after this episode. Well yeah I mean let's just be honest like you know we live in a very conservative area so I'm assuming that most of our most I would say the vast majority of our listeners are probably identifying more on the right side of the political spectrum. Along with you Katie I was also raised in a very politically conservative home. Those values were very um very much encouraged and uh very indoctrinated.
SPEAKER_01:Were they fused with faith for you?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Okay. Yeah yeah quite a bit and um yeah I guess if I name if if I just like the the thesis of the of the critique is um how easily the political right will reject kingdom values simply because the language sounds woke. So essentially we are we aren't hearing through kingdom ears we're hearing through political ears. And if a word is associated with being more left on the American political spectrum, it's disregarded because it's liberal or or woke and rather than rather than viewing it through the lens of is this something we should care about because Jesus tells us to care about it. If the word is a buzzword, it's simply rejected and um but the risk is that we end up disregarding Jesus and his values in the process. So some people on the right will support certain values of God's kingdom but sort of suspicious of initiatives associated with left leaning forms of justice and peacemaking and essentially we've um you can just completely swap out the the lens for how you see things and um political influences end up being the discernment if this is something that should matter. Right. Instead of seeing through the lens of Jesus and his teachings, we use political language and rhetoric as the filter for discerning if something is good or bad. Completely fused. Kind of going back to that overhearing underhearing yeah yeah for sure I think that I think the overhearing happens a lot with people on the right and here's just a here's just an example okay caring for the poor I I don't I don't think that like as a church caring for the poor and needy is quite obviously meant to be a priority for us. But how many of us you know raised in a a political conservative type of framework will associate it with left leaning or progressive initiatives? Yeah so I think that like that's a is just a it's it should be good critique for any of us living in an environment that's more uh conservative politically that if something as as basic to our job as a church as a as the hands and feet of Jesus could could could be slightly rejected or pushed against simply because it sounds left leaning like that should be a good wake up call for us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And of course we still have to do the policy work in saying we should care for the poor that doesn't automatically mean oh vote for this person. Of course right we still have to do the hard work of looking at actual policies and how they're caring for those people and are are they actually empowering people to get on their own two feet and provide for themselves and so on. Or are we just you know perpetuating dependency and all these things matter. All of these things of course matter but what shouldn't be called into question is that as kingdom people we should care for the Poor. Yes. Now there's all sorts of questions about how to do that. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:How do we best do that? Yeah, the and there's there's a lot of examples of those that are that are what I think we would name around the table as clear kingdom values that get rejected because the language has become rhetoric, I guess. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Let me give an example too. I shared the one about uh racism. I mean, uh you guys at the center of the gospel is the reconciling of human beings to one to each other, right? In Christ Jesus, there is no Jew or Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Someone was unable to hear that and instead rejects the work of creating a kingdom where we're rightly related to each other out of their political right connotations that being anti-racist or whatever is like woke or Marxist or whatever it is. And I want to say to that person like, you are literally rejecting the work of the gospel because you've confused that with partisan allegiance. That is bad work. As kingdom people, we are to be tearing down walls that divide people and we'll build bridges that reconcile people. Period. This is like the this is why the church was so complicated, is because you have Jews and Greeks who never associated with one another, now commingling and doing life together, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Let me give you one other example. Um, this was, I think this past summer, maybe the summer before, but my dad sent me a podcast. Okay. I love when he does this.
SPEAKER_04:Um parents send you a podcast. That's good.
SPEAKER_01:It's good. But I pulled it up and listened to it, and it was a conversation among politically right-leaning Christians. I think it's important to note that none of them had any formal biblical or theological training. Um, but they had a big platform. And this podcast was how a left-leaning agenda, the focus of the podcast was how a left-leaning agenda is infiltrating the American church. So kind of raising the alarm bells that like leftist ideology is infiltrating the American church. Okay. And it's distorting the gospel and it's going to destroy the church. Now, to be fair, and I want our listeners to hear this, um, and this is just my opinion. I actually I agree with that. I actually agree with that assessment, but I actually think it's happening on both sides. So some churches, maybe there is like left-leaning ideology that's infiltrating the church and compromising their faithfulness. It just so happens in my context that I see it happening way more on the right. Okay. So I'm just naming it. It's happening in both places, but yes, there is political ideology that is taking over churches in a way that's compromising faithfulness. Totally got that. So I listened to this episode, and at one point, the example they gave was a phrase to be concerned about. Like it was sort of like you need to know that if you hear this phrase from the pulpit, that is leftist ideology, and you need to be concerned.
SPEAKER_04:Encouraging their listeners to overhear what they're hearing from their own pastors.
SPEAKER_01:This is it. Like you're you're now exactly what you're saying, Josiah. It was like, here's a code word for leftist ideology. And if you hear this, yeah, it it it you're sort of like conditioning people to overhear and read a bunch of stuff into that. The phrase was creation care. Creation care. Like if you hear your pastor talking about creation care, they are importing all sorts of they are leftist ideology has infiltrated your church community. Okay. And I remember circling back to my dad and just being like, I I I I I don't get this. Um, I don't get this. The very first command that God gives to human beings in the Garden of Eden before sin has even entered the world was to look after and care for creation. The word is subdue, to be fruitful and multiply, and then he gives them the command to subdue creation. The whole intention there is in the same way that I lovingly cared for and created this place, I'm now inviting you to care for and love this place as well. Tend to it, nurture it, look after it. So I just said to my dad, I I don't, I honestly don't understand. Here is a very clear teaching in scripture that goes back to the literally the first chapter of the Bible. We're to lovingly care for creation that God created out of love, and now it's being associated with leftist ideology, and this podcast is perpetuating overhearing. The moment you hear this, oh, alarm bells go off. I think a better assessment of what's happening is the people on this podcast disagree about the extent of climate change, right? And the policies attach in light of climate change. Here's what that means on a policy level, right? And out of that difference, they're now calling into question the entire thing. Does make sense? So I'm going, yeah, we can have an intelligible conversation, a nuanced and charitable discussion about what's actually happening with climate change right now and what that means on a policy level. But let's not throw out the fact that we as human beings, from the very beginning, we're called to called to care for creation.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, totally. And that tactic you're talking about, Mac, is is very common. It's been around for a long time. Um, the idea that sort of telling people, hey, there is this underground agenda, it's infiltrating, and you are, you need to be like an agent of guarding good and true and and orthodox. And you need to be on high alert. High alert because this is insidious and it's it's it's coordinated, and a lot of people are blind to it and they don't see it, but you need to see it. And here's how you do that. And so this this kind of priming has been happening for a long time. And again, I would affirm some of that too. Like, yeah, it is that is happening in some places, but it's not happening every time you say creation care.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And it's frustrating. I'll just um can I have an honest moment? It's frustrating for me because I'm not listening to loads of of political media every week. I'm not downloading like a leftist ideology through what I consume. I spend very little time consuming political media or political talking points. I'm a pastor and a theologian who studies scripture. And so what's so infuriating to me is when I'm just like, I'm just pointing to God's word here and somehow being accused of like this insidious, you know, coalition that I'm a part of, and I'm not even aware of it. And that's not the only place. I mean, just read the Mosaic Law. Like Moses gave a lot of teachings around how to care for the land. The land was supposed to rest. Like they're you know what I mean? It's just like this is all over the place. And so I want to pull my curly hair out sometimes.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well, at least the gray ones. I think that it just exposes when when my goal and aim is to resist the opposite side of the political spectrum rather than become more faithful to Jesus. And and I think this what is this is what it exposes. Now, like you have, I mean this podcast is one of many, and and the the critique here is that our goal has become to resist the opposite side of this as the as the political spectrum. Like, is that really is that really our goal now as followers of Jesus, that we need to make sure we're not left, or should we make sure we're faithful to Jesus? And if that s happens to line up some way or not, um to reject an entire value that should be a valuable. Now, at the same in the same breath, I do under I I I can understand that saying I'm not gonna swallow the whole pill just because on the outside it's supposed to be something we care about, like you were saying. Do these policies actually matter? Sometimes, right? You you want to critique about how certain policies could actually undervalue human life and overvalue something else. Like, of course, talk about talk all day about it. But at the end of the day, if you're rejecting something simply because it could come from the other side of the aisle, and that becomes the only lens you're using. Uh, that's a problem.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I'm not even saying if you care about it means this politically, like in terms of how you vote. It's like, but we can't even begin talking about what that means politically until we can agree that this is a scriptural command. Right?
SPEAKER_05:Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I had someone ask me recently about um three terms, kind of all on this topic. I'm hoping I actually think it'd be good to talk about now because it's very related to what you guys are saying. Um, this person said to me, Hey, you know, I've noticed some terms being used around, I don't know, church and other circles lately. And um, it's kind of new language to me, and I'm wondering, like I kind of have my connotations, but I'm wondering what they mean. Can you fill out for me what what we're talking about when we talk about these things? And so the three terms that came up in conversation were justice, peacemaking, and reconciliation. Okay. Those three terms I think um this person saw them as more progressive. And if I'm honest, my first reaction is like, okay, I get that. Again, having worked in politics, I do understand how some of these terms immediately conjure up an image of people or causes on the left. And that's because, again, the left does tend to use these terms more than the political right. They say things like, hey, if you care about justice, you'll support this foster care policy. And if you don't, you don't care about justice. So because the voices in the political arena are so loud and they're talking about them so often, we then hear the term justice and we go, ah, I know what you're saying. Again, we're overhearing because we're carrying in all those associations with us. But I would want to challenge the notion that these terms are specifically leftist or progressive, and offer instead that they are first and foremost Jesus terms.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:They're gospel terms, they're biblical terms. This is in fact kingdom language that conveys kingdom values. And the fact that we might associate them more so with the political right or left should really make us question like, why is that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Why, why is that?
SPEAKER_01:Um So again, the the dynamic is because these uh words or phrases are associated with the left, then we end up denying them, even though they're core to scripture and what it means to be a kingdom person.
SPEAKER_05:Exactly.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Because our associations are so strong. But it's almost like I hear the term justice and my brain immediately pulls the file labeled um political left talking points because I'm exposed to so much of that and these loud voices, rather than pulling the file labeled like Jesus' teachings or gospel, and then immediately going to all the things that he says about it. Yes. I actually have to work harder to put the American political left file back in the file box, pull out the gospel file, look at what that says first.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_05:Right. And then use that at my starting point. I can maybe come back to the political file, but but using that gospel as a starting point.
SPEAKER_01:And then I have to wrestle with, okay, and then what does this look like? Obviously, in a very nuanced way regarding different policies and so on, but let's not get rid of those concepts entirely. Right.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:You know, part of what's startling to me is just that like uh like justice might be a new term for you. Uh if you've ever read your Bible, it's all over the place, right? That uh can I just maybe give some homework? Okay. If you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I didn't know that like justice does feel kind of like wokey to me and um maybe a term that Marxists use or whatever, like let's just time out. Um get a pen and paper out and write down some verses, and then read these, and then you can come back and assess that. Okay. Um because first and foremost, God is a God who is just, it's part of God's character. Like God is just the source of justice.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So go look up these verses: Deuteronomy 32, 4, Deuteronomy 10, 17 and 18, Psalm 9, 7 and 8, Psalm 33, 5, and Isaiah 30, 18. I could keep going.
SPEAKER_05:The whole book of Isaiah, I feel like just keep going.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, this shouldn't be new to you. God is a God of justice, it's part of his very nature. Secondly, God commands his people to do justice. In light of who he is, you are saying you're related to God, you know God. If God is just and you're to become like Jesus, then you're to live out justice. So look up these verses. Leviticus 19, 15. Do not pervert justice, do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge fairly. Micah 6, 8.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_01:He has shown you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you to act justly. Zachariah 7, 9 through 10, Isaiah 1:17, Proverbs 32, 8, 9. Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly, defend the rights of the poor and needy. It's all over the place. And then know this God judges his people for failing to do justice. Read Amos 5, 21 and following, Isaiah 10, 1 and 2. Notice that Jesus continues the seam of doing justice. Matthew 23, 23, whatever you do, the least of these, James 1, 27. Do your work. You know what I mean? Do your work. There's no way you're going to read all of those verses that I just rattled off and come back and go, whoa, justice is just a term invented in the last few years by the political left, and it's slowly infiltrating the American church, much to our, you know, dismay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And to that same in that same vein, like it's not hard to see how different political sides have co-opted terms that should be kingdom terms for us. Right. So uh again, there is a critique, but it's also like, like you were saying, I get it, because the terms have been co-opted. Yes. And in a lot of ways have been watered down and twisted.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. In saying I care for justice, I'm not saying therefore vote left because they're the ones who are using this language. That's not what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_04:No, both sides have c have probably co-opted, but you know, and and in a lot of ways, yes. Uh have co-opted terms that that for us should bring to mind a kingdom, uh like a kingdom context, um, instead of a like a uh partisan political one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, if you're right-leaning, let me just give you a little like uh treat here. You can care about justice, biblical justice, and go on a rampage, prophetic rampage, calling the left for using that language and corrupting the term. Go for it. Yeah. Because that's what's happening, in my opinion. The the the left, we've already critiqued the left, but I'm gonna circle back. They've co-opted some of these words that are thoroughly scriptural and biblical and center to the way of Jesus, and yet are distorting them and setting them aside in the process. And that should frustrate you. Yeah. That should frustrate you. It's the same thing with peacemaking, you guys. Let's just, I don't, we don't have to spend a ton of time here, but it's the same thing. Uh, peacemaking um is not a new concept with American politics. It's a deeply scriptural term again, shalom. It it goes back to the very beginning. I could get like should we give some homework too? Or just go for it. Okay. Um, okay, here's one example. I'll give one example, especially as we head into Christmas time and who knows when this episode will be released. But in Isaiah, I mean, Isaiah has all this stuff, but Isaiah uh nine, six, and seven says it talks about how uh God's Messiah, the Messiah is going to the title is Prince of Peace. And that is government will have no end. And notice this government peace, that that's a political term, right? The kind of peace is not just a private serenity or an inner calm. Oftentimes we take peace, biblical peace, and just make it about our own emotional state. That's not what peace means in scripture. It's about uh stuff that's actually it includes that, but it goes beyond that. Um, it's it's political and public. So when the Messiah comes, the Prince of Peace, he's gonna establish a new type of government that's gonna create real peace between people. And that is gonna be established because of justice and righteousness, and it's kind of peace that brings about wholeness of right relationship where everybody everybody's gonna be rightly related to one another. Okay. So Jesus is the prince of peace. Okay, if you read Luke 2, so this is one example of this theme of peace. There's this promise that the Messiah is going to be the prince of peace, he's gonna establish a new government order that actually creates it. And then in Luke 2, 14, um, it is announced when Jesus arrives that peace on earth. You see that connection? Like the authors are intentionally creating that connection between here's what was predicted and here's who's arriving. And of course, Jesus uses this all the time in John 14. He says, Um, my peace I leave you, my peace I give to you. And then in Ephesians 2, we see that again through the blood on the cross, he's establishing peace between formerly former groups that didn't associate with one another, Jew and Greek, they're now reconciled and restored to one another. So this is just another example of if you hear peacemaking, you immediately go, Oh, that's a lefty liberal sort of term.
SPEAKER_05:Thinking of like the anti-war protest. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Whatever it is, whatever it is. It's like, yep, you're taking something present and actually setting aside something that predates it and is central to God's heart. Same thing with reconciliation. Reconciliation, you guys, is not just uh a thing in scripture, it's like the gospel. I don't even know what to do with that one because at the heart of the gospel is God reconciling us to himself and then giving us the ministry of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5. So again, the substance of this critique, and I could give you lots of verses on reconciliation, is just we set aside the clear teaching and emphasis of scripture because we don't like uh the policy, the stuff that's happening on the policy level that's associated with the left, which is which is very valid. It'd like to to critique it. The critique of the policy is okay, but the disregarding of the scripture is not. Yes, don't do that. I encounter that so much.
SPEAKER_05:We are ministers of reconciliation, right?
SPEAKER_04:It's like core to the back to scripture, go back to that and and redeem those terms for yourself, don't just reject them and throw them out.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Lauren, how are we doing? Are you upset? Are you sweating? What's going on?
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_04:I'll bet she's just struggling that she wants to talk so badly and can't, right?
SPEAKER_01:Okay. We haven't made everybody upset yet. The people on the left are like, you know, totally ticked now. The people on the right are losing their minds. But the people in the center are feeling really good about themselves right now, those moderates. Um let's make them upset too, shall we? I know many people who want to sort of stay above the fray, right? They see that we're no longer living in a bell curve but a well curve, and they look at these two extremes and they want nothing to do with it. Um, and so they don't identify with the radical left or the alt right. And there might even be some pride and arrogance around that. Um, some of them I know are just totally checked out. They're sort of apolitical. They're they're not engaged at all.
SPEAKER_05:Kind of apathetic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, just apathetic, Josiah. Calling you out.
SPEAKER_04:That's fine.
SPEAKER_01:Um I've noticed that these folks tend to embody a little bit more emotional maturity in conversation than those who have been radicalized to either the right or the left. Like they're able to um sort of maintain conversational space with both sides and attend to nuance a little bit better. So that's something I'd want to affirm about them. But here's my primary critique is I often experience people in the middle uh seeking safety while muddying Jesus' teachings. So they end up blunting the full force of the radical nature of Jesus' teachings in an effort not to offend anyone. They stay neutral and politically balanced at the expense of the kingdom. They do the least controversial thing instead of abodying Jesus' values. They avoid taking firm stances in the name of niceness, but dilute discipleship in the process. They confuse appearing open-minded with standing for kingdom truth, and they end up valuing valuing neutrality more than obedience to Jesus. My concern here, and this is what I notice, is that Jesus didn't seek um the middle ground. When when you look at the gospels and how he oriented all oriented to all the stuff that was happening around him, um he didn't just stay moderate and sort of in the center. He actually took sides. I mean, when we go back to that term justice, to the degree there's some matter of injustice taking place and you remain neutral, well, then what ends up happening is the person who's doing the exploiting or or oppressing usually remains in power and then you become complicit in the injustice. So you see how remaining neutral in the face of injustice, remaining in the center when there's actually stuff problematic that's happening, you become part of the problem. This was Martin Luther King. He wrote that famous letter from uh the letter from the Birmingham jail. The whole context of that letter was he was writing to white moderates who were agreeing with him on, hey, we want to support the change you're advocating for, but you need to slow down, be less radical, be more patient. And he writes them a letter that to this day still rings true for moderates. Like, no, easy for you to say be patient when you're not on the underside of injustice. So this is my concern with just staying safe or trying to some sort of so in some way fuse the left and the right and become like a purple church. Yes, everybody could anybody who has a political come to our church. Yes, absolutely. But that doesn't mean the kingdom is purple. Jesus actually says things and does things that sides with people, and it's disruptive, right? It's not always just staying neutral and listening to both sides, especially when there are victims involved. You never see Jesus taking an oppressor and a victim and going, hey, the solution is for us to sit at a table and try to understand one another.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_01:That makes sense.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it does. It does. You know, it's um a common term in the sort of political lexicon has become like both sidesism. Yeah. Like it's easy to go, like, well, both sides do it. And there's some legitimate, like we've done some critiquing of both sides today. Like there's some, again, legitimate nuance that needs to be worked through, and it is important to hold, you know, lots of these different things in tension. But I agree, Mac. I see sometimes people in the middle um kind of using the like, well, it's nuance to dismiss waiting through some of the hard stuff that's actually required to get to the point to articulate a conviction.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Like we are to have convictions, and those convictions can be held um with open hands and open to like new information or new perspectives. Um, but man, Jesus had conviction.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_05:And he didn't just sort of both sides everything. Well, both sides have a point, and you probably both have a legitimate perspective. So you know, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:No, it seems like Jesus didn't think that both sides had a legitimate perspective.
SPEAKER_05:Right. At times, that's how I intended it to come across.
SPEAKER_01:And nor did he um propagate some sort of pseudo-piece rooted in niceties. He didn't do that. Um, he seemed to have profound convictions around what God actually wanted, and to the degree it didn't happen, he took hard stands. And this is where I think those in the middle fall short. Yes to emotional maturity, yes to being able to have charitable conversations across the political spectrum, yes, yes, yes, and you know, have some have a backbone.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Right? Well, it just be all the all the both sides just becomes an excuse to not care. And I think I think the the motivation for being seeing both sides matters. I think in this case, um apathy is not a kingdom value. And I think that we can just name it as that. Um and I would name it for myself. Mackard, you already called me out. I I consider myself uh I I'm very, very disengaged from the political scene. It exhausts me. And if I'm being honest, like I look at both sides and I'm just like, I don't want to associate with either one of those.
SPEAKER_01:And yet you are passionate about the kingdom of God. Yeah. And um and and very much seeking to figure out how do we embody that here and now.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm disengaged uh from everything in life. I'm just naming that the the actual political talks. It's just it it I I am it's like I I poke my head in the room to the talks because it's fun to like say, Okay, what are people saying? And then I'm like, ah, whatever. I got other stuff. I got other stuff toward you.
SPEAKER_05:Um, right a couple of weeks ago. We all went out to dinner as a staff.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And Mac, you and I were kind of at the end of the table and we started talking about something political. I don't know what.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they were getting into it.
SPEAKER_05:It was like workforce policies with with um communities of color, I think. Anyways, and and just thought you did exactly what you were just talking about. Like, you guys talking politics, you like listen for a little bit and you're like, all right, cool, I'm gonna go get some pizza.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's like, okay, cool. Yeah, yeah. I it's easy to get disillusioned, uh, just given the the political environment right now, and especially um, there's just such a wide uh variety levels of maturity that that affect how well a conversation's gonna go. I would say I love talking about this stuff with people who can hold a mature space and have some degree of open-mindedness. I really struggle with those who are highly combative and closed-minded. Yeah. That's just me. Well, now that we've sufficiently um made everyone upset, it's praxis time. Um, so let's, you know, let's get into some practices that people can engage as they listen to this conversation and go, I can go deeper. These are things I can actually do.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, let's do it. Um a first practice might be just examine your assumptions, as we've talked about, and examine your loyalties. Like again, I would encourage our listeners to identify, okay, where might my political loyalties um be shaping my understanding of Jesus' values? What assumptions am I bringing to the table that might be causing me to overhear? Am I supporting a cause because simply because it like aligns with my party or because it aligns with Jesus' kingdom? Are there kingdom values that I'm resisting because I feel like they're associated with like quote unquote the other side? And what would it look like to take a fresh look at those things through the lens of Jesus' teachings? That's a continual thread you've heard in both of these episodes now. Um, we want to lift our eyes above American politics and ask ourselves: where am I prioritizing my political identity over my identity as a disciple of Jesus? Because that's our core. We should all be anchored in our identity as a disciple of Jesus. That comes first, like full stop.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. 100%.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, as the kids say. Um, yeah, another practice is just actively actively seek to join God's kingdom work here, like locally. It is so easy to get distracted by everything going on in the world. I remember this very specifically. Um, your uh it was actually your husband. Um Max. Well, Lauren's also that's true. No, Alex uh is in one of my groups and he um a a group that I lead on uh uh during the week. Anyway, he he um he mentioned something that happened in the news. Something happened at Disneyland or something or Disney World. Okay, something bad happened, uh like someone died or or something. It was just a tragedy. But he he said it in a way, I was just like, man, I wonder how much news we need to know. Like what what does that help us? And and he's just like, well, it's helpful to know. And I'm like, for what? What like you know, like uh we hear so much. Now what? Yeah, now what do we do? It just doesn't help, you know. And uh we we teased about it for a while.
SPEAKER_01:But well, Alex, if you're listening to this, um, you've been called out, you know. He's used to it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, no, it's fine. Uh the but the point is is we uh we are so connected to so many things all around the world that it actually can it it pulls all of our focus away on what might God be God be inviting me to join in on right here in my own community.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:And that I think is helpful on two realms. One, if you are someone who is like we talked about more on the political right, where you're critiquing things and rejecting terms because they're part of a a woke agenda, um, there are ways for you to engage these kingdom values in a way that could be very redemptive to the term. And there's lots of opportunities, even in our own church, that we want to make sure that there's ways for you to join in these words in in the in this work in a way that would be redemptive to the term itself and to the people around you. Um and and and the second part of this is just maybe stop watching the news so much. And I mean, I I want to be careful about how much I overstate it.
SPEAKER_01:I can see the intensity in your face right now.
SPEAKER_04:But I I have just I would just try I I would just name, I I remember I had a gym membership to Planet Fitness for a while, and I don't watch the news. I I I check headlines and I have some ways of knowing what happens, but I don't watch the news on the channels. Unless you're at Planet Fitness, unless you're at Planet Fitness. And I looked at the headlines from MSNBC and from and from uh Fox News, and both of them were absolutely ridiculous. Like when you step away from it for long enough and you come back with like some clearer eyes, and it's not it's not you're not completely inundated and swimming in the soup of it, it it'll be it'll it it starts to look some of it can almost look silly. Alarmist and fear-mongering and all of it. So just a little less time with the news, a little more time spent in engaging God's work here in your community.
SPEAKER_05:And maybe just a side note here, because I totally agree. There are, I've noticed over the past couple years, I feel like there are increasingly uh more avenues to be informed without that hyper alarmist. Alarmist.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you turn me on to the pour over. I'm not like that's not an endorsement, but I get a like three times a week as someone who's not as like consuming as much uh political media. Three times a week in my inbox, I get a little like here's what's happening around the world. It seems fairly neutral and objective. There's little prayers in it along the way. It's helpful for me as someone who's sometimes hearing they have a one for kids too, like a family one. All right, final practice, and this is a really important one, is to rehumanize the other side. Again, I think there's just a lot of like distortion that happens when we're mostly learning about the other side, quote, the other side from our own side. And one of the things we need to do is bridge the gap and befriend those who are different from us with a posture of humility and care and seeking to understand. You want to do a great exercise? Seriously, uh invite someone who votes differently than you out to lunch. You pay for it, buy them lunch, buy them a cup of coffee, and do nothing but try to listen and understand their point of view. Don't interrupt, don't try to correct, don't try to get your own opinion in. Just simply ask questions and try to understand their point of view. If you do this, my guess is you'll actually um learn some things. You might realize you actually care about some of the same things more than you thought initially, and this person will gradually um not sound or appear as crazy as you thought they were before you went out to lunch.
SPEAKER_05:So someone did that with me once. I'm not kidding. I was working for Governor Walker. It was during all the Act 10 stuff. So if you're in Wisconsin during Act 10, like you know how hyper divided that was. And she and her husband went to my church and they were also public school teachers. And they weren't radical.
SPEAKER_01:They weren't like radical left, but she they were they thought you were radical right.
SPEAKER_05:They're like, okay, well, they knew I worked in in in, you know, I worked in politics, and they were surrounded by, you know, a certain worldview and narrative of what was going on. She's like, I would love to hear from you, just like what's going on. And that's all she did is listen and like ask questions. And it was so awesome. She and I bec ended up becoming really good friends.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So there you go. Like, that is the work. And all of a sudden they saw you not as like just like a political opponent, right? Um, but gradually rediscover each other's humanity and you become friends. And what's significant about that is it happened within the context of a church. So here you have a kingdom community where centered on Jesus, not on political loyalties. And as you move toward each other and build a relational bridge, it ended up transcending where there was a difference before. Totally.
SPEAKER_05:And it was not only formative for her, it was actually really formative for me too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Awesome. Couple of resources that I just wrote down that if you go, hey, I want to learn more about how to do this work. Um, Love Over Fear by Dan White Jr. is a great book uh around rehumanizing the other side. And then there's another book called Disunity in Christ by Christina Cleveland that I'd encourage you to read if you want to go a little bit deeper. Well, thanks for joining us today. If you are upset, please email Katie at crosspoint wi.com. Um, she'll be happy to uh respond to you next time.
SPEAKER_00:Um, Lauren, since you're sitting here, would you please read the outro?com. If you have any questions, comments, or have any suggestions for future topics, feel free to send us an email. Also, if you enjoyed the show, consider leaving a review. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast.
SPEAKER_05:Awesome.
