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Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian.

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Speaker 2: I'm Dr.

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Speaker 3: James Spencer. I'm joined by Dr. Ashish Varma. And today

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Speaker 3: we're going to be reflecting on the conversation that I

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Speaker 3: had with Veronica Ogle. And I'm really excited to hear

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Speaker 3: your thoughts on this, Ashish. You know, I've sort of

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Speaker 3: played around in Augustine a bit. Her conversation, which you

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Speaker 3: all can listen to in the previous episode, was really

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Speaker 3: on Augustine and the city of God primarily. But we

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Speaker 3: did get into a few other things in Augustine, but...

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Speaker 3: I've read The City of God, I've read The Confessions,

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Speaker 3: but I am by no way, shape, or form an

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Speaker 3: Augustine scholar.

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Speaker 1: And so this should be a fun conversation, man.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, by no means am I a scholar of Augustine either.

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Speaker 2: I may have just through my historical and theological work

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Speaker 2: dabbled a little bit more than you, but not at

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Speaker 2: Gogol's level. So I enjoyed listening to it. Fantastic. A

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Speaker 2: lot of wonderful things to talk about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and her book is really fantastic as well.

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Speaker 3: And so I think she just does a really good job,

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Speaker 3: I think, of synthesizing a lot of Augustine's ideas. And

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Speaker 3: so I was really happy to have her on the podcast,

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Speaker 3: and it was good to talk with her. But I think,

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Speaker 3: you know, as we're dealing with faith and politics, Augustine's

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Speaker 3: City of God comes up a fair amount. I've written

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Speaker 3: on Josh Howley, who I believe is like a representative

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Speaker 3: from Missouri or something like that. He's referenced Augustine. As

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Speaker 3: I recall, he was at a conservatism forum or a

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Speaker 3: conservatism conference and referenced Augustine's City of God. And part

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Speaker 3: of what he did with it, and part of the

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Speaker 3: reason I got interested in having Veronica on after hearing this,

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Speaker 3: was that he talked about the United States as sort

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Speaker 3: of the epitome of what Augustine meant by the City

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Speaker 3: of God. He talked about, you know, the Christian nation

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Speaker 3: sort of bit. Augustine is trying to advance this Christian nation.

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Speaker 3: And as he does so, as Augustine does so in

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Speaker 3: his work, he's advocating for this Christian nation. That then

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Speaker 3: sort of for Howley and his audience comes together in

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Speaker 3: the United States and those founding, you know, sort of

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Speaker 3: Christian nation principles. Now, obviously, I don't love that uh

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Speaker 3: i think i think there's more wrong with that than

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Speaker 3: i can count um and i think it misses the

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Speaker 3: point of augustine which is these two cities the city

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Speaker 3: of god and the city of man have different loves

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Speaker 3: and if you're going to love like the city of

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Speaker 3: man does which is a love of self in augustine's

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Speaker 3: sort of terminology you're never going to elevate.

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Speaker 1: Beyond being the city of man.

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Speaker 3: It requires the love of God in order to be

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Speaker 3: the city of God. Now, that may be a little

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Speaker 3: bit too stark. I'll trust you to nuance it a

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Speaker 3: little bit, but maybe that's where we can start our

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Speaker 3: conversation in this dichotomy that Veronica Ogle talks about, but

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Speaker 3: then also that it seems like Josh Howley wants to collapse.

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Speaker 2: So the mild word. That comes to my mind when

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Speaker 2: I hear you say, Josh Howley saying that is concerning.

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Speaker 2: That's the mild word. My harsher words I'll keep to myself.

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Speaker 2: To my mind, if that's what he said, that just

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Speaker 2: entirely misses the point of Augustine. I don't think we

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Speaker 2: need Ogle's level of reading the work and understanding the

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Speaker 2: context to get at its base level that this is

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Speaker 2: precisely what actually Augustine's arguing against by positing two cities. Now,

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Speaker 2: they're two overlapping cities, and those two overlapping cities are

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Speaker 2: what make things interesting. But to conflate the one with

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Speaker 2: the other, concerning, again, is the word I'll use. I

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Speaker 2: think you're right, and I think Ogle, as I recall,

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Speaker 2: spent a decent amount of time reflecting upon this as well,

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Speaker 2: that the crux of the matter, and this is where

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Speaker 2: the crux just is it's confusing to hear this from Howley,

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Speaker 2: is the nature of love. What is one's love, right?

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Speaker 2: And the nature of love, how it is fulfilled, even

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Speaker 2: to the degree that we can speak of for those

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Speaker 2: who are classicists and early church experts and Greek philosophical

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Speaker 2: and Latin philosophical experts, we could speak of there's clear

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Speaker 2: borrowing from these traditions by the early Christians in the

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Speaker 2: way that they understand the virtues and the way they

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Speaker 2: understand love and the way that they understand how these

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Speaker 2: things go together in terms of thinking about early versions

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Speaker 2: of civility. But to say that they're the same is

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Speaker 2: actually to not read well, right? Because Augustine's point above

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Speaker 2: anything else is precisely that they're not the same, that

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Speaker 2: what one's love is directed towards and even how what

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Speaker 2: shapes one's love is going to change everything in the

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Speaker 2: most meaningful sense. So if one's love is not just

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Speaker 2: directed towards the triune God as revealed in the Son

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Speaker 2: Jesus incarnate and the Holy Spirit or breath of God

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Speaker 2: giving forth from that Son, that changes not just the

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Speaker 2: nature of what forms our love, not just the nature

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Speaker 2: of what our love is directed towards, but also the

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Speaker 2: very nature of what we perceive to be the goal

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Speaker 2: of that love. So classicists we'll point out that ancient

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Speaker 2: understandings of virtue, we'll talk about the importance of virtue

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Speaker 2: being the love of something for its own sake. But

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Speaker 2: as Ogle was drawing out, as noble as that would

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Speaker 2: be to move us beyond the love of something for

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Speaker 2: my sake, it still stops short in a significant way

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Speaker 2: from the love of someone and something itself. For God's sake,

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Speaker 2: which doesn't mean a used sake, right? Like to help

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Speaker 2: them elevate me, but it means my love is so

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Speaker 2: much for you that I want to help direct you

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Speaker 2: to the source of love, the triune God, right? In

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Speaker 2: whom all things consist and by whom all things were

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Speaker 2: made and for whom all things find their completion. And

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Speaker 2: that's a pretty significant difference then in terms of thinking

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Speaker 2: about what the goals or the agendas are.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I.

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Speaker 3: Think one of the things I've sort of reflected on

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Speaker 3: since I talked with her is the Old Testament studies,

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Speaker 3: love and loyalty are really strongly connected.

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Speaker 1: We see it particularly in Deuteronomy.

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Speaker 3: This has been around, I think, since the 1970s is

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Speaker 3: the earliest essay I can remember reading on it. What

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Speaker 3: does love mean in Deuteronomy? Well, it has an awful

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Speaker 3: lot to do with loyalty. It doesn't have to do

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Speaker 3: with the sort of love that we see in modern

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Speaker 3: day movies or something like that. This is about ordering

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Speaker 3: one's life and aligning one's life with the suzerain or

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Speaker 3: the superior entity in the treaty, the covenant.

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Speaker 1: And you... agreeing to be the.

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Speaker 3: Vassal in every way, shape, and form that you can

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Speaker 3: possibly be that vassal. And so we read something like

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Speaker 3: in Deuteronomy 6, 4, and 5, love the Lord your

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Speaker 3: God with all your heart, with all your soul, with

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Speaker 3: all your strength. Those three things are really all encompassing,

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Speaker 3: particularly when we understand strength, not as how much you

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Speaker 3: can bench, but in terms of All of the resources

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Speaker 3: that you have at your disposal, everything that you can muster,

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Speaker 3: this is what you're to love God with. And in

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Speaker 3: that context, that would have been your herds, your cattle,

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Speaker 3: your household, everything was to be given in service and

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Speaker 3: dedicated in loyalty to God. We see glimpses of this

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Speaker 3: in the New Testament, I think, especially in 1 John.

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Speaker 3: where we have this sort of melding together and correlation

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Speaker 3: between love and obedience and even love of neighbor and obedience.

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Speaker 3: That obedience language to me gestures back toward the loyalty

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Speaker 3: angle of love. It is love working itself out on

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Speaker 3: another's terms. And so it's always working itself out on

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Speaker 3: God's terms. One thing I do like to sort of

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Speaker 3: throw in here when we are talking about love in

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Speaker 3: this way, because I think a lot of times this

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Speaker 3: gets sort of misconstrued as well. Especially again, we got

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Speaker 3: kind of a political example on this, but J.D. Vance

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Speaker 3: at one point was explaining the order of loves. It

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Speaker 3: kind of went quasi viral on the internet when he

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Speaker 3: did it. But he talked about, you know, you love

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Speaker 3: God and then you love family and then you love,

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Speaker 3: you know, local society. Then, you know, you work your

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Speaker 3: way out all the way to nation and the stranger.

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Speaker 3: And he describes this order of love as sequential almost,

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Speaker 3: that there are rings and in the fur, you know,

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Speaker 3: there's a bull's eye, love of God. And then as

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Speaker 3: you get further out on the dartboard, right, you might

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Speaker 3: hit that outer rim at some point. I think that's

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Speaker 3: the wrong way to conceptualize it. And I don't think

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Speaker 3: that's the way Augustine conceptualizes it. Because that sort of

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Speaker 3: sequential aspect is tears that I don't actually think are there.

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Speaker 3: It's not that I want to say, yeah, there is

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Speaker 3: something specific called the love of God. There's something specific

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Speaker 3: about loving family. There's something specific about loving other people

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Speaker 3: who aren't family. I think those can be distinguished. But

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Speaker 3: I think ultimately what we are supposed to understand is

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Speaker 3: that these things are all immersed within the love of God.

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Speaker 1: So that now.

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Speaker 3: We have no choice but to treat our neighbors differently

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Speaker 3: because we are immersed in the love of God. We

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Speaker 3: have no choice but to treat our family differently because

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Speaker 3: we're immersed within the love of God. All of these

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Speaker 3: things that are informed and shaped, to use your word,

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Speaker 3: how does that love shape us? All of these things

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Speaker 3: are shaped by a love of God. And even though

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Speaker 3: we'll keep saying love throughout the episode, I think it's

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Speaker 3: important to sort of nail down that loyalty aspect of

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Speaker 3: love because it really is that notion of loving others

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Speaker 3: on God's terms, I think is just crucial to what

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Speaker 3: Augustine is saying and the way that we need to

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Speaker 3: be thinking about love of God.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is good stuff. Apparently I'm, I'm watching the

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Speaker 2: wrong YouTube channels and listen to the wrong podcast. Cause

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Speaker 2: I'm missing these political viral moments. Um, you don't get

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Speaker 2: this when you're listening to a tennis podcast, I guess.

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Speaker 3: Um, nevertheless, different sort of love in tennis, brother, different

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Speaker 3: sort of love in tennis.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Different sort of love. That's a love that doesn't make

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Speaker 2: any sense to me still after 30 years of playing

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Speaker 2: the game. Love means zero.

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Speaker 1: What? Anyway.

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Speaker 2: Um, so, As I hear you describe what Van said,

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Speaker 2: what strikes me immediately is how, on the surface, that's

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Speaker 2: immediately the opposite, actually, of Jesus' point when he tells

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Speaker 2: the story of the Good Samaritan. That seems to me

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Speaker 2: to be the thing that he's responding to with the

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Speaker 2: question that's given to him of who should we love,

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Speaker 2: who is our neighbor. And Jesus is making it abundantly

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Speaker 2: clear that precisely the one who outside of your immediate

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Speaker 2: context exists is the one that you're inclined to think

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Speaker 2: belongs to an outer rung, is the one who's precisely

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Speaker 2: the neighbor, right? Meaning everyone's your neighbor. The Jew's a neighbor,

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Speaker 2: the Gentile's a neighbor, even that Samaritan is your neighbor, right?

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Speaker 2: Love them all. So nerd moment. I've been reading a

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Speaker 2: lot of Hans Urs von Balthasar lately. Mid-20th century Swiss theologian,

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Speaker 2: of course, everyone knows. Now he... belongs, broadly speaking, to

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Speaker 2: this Augustinian tradition. But some of the things I've been

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Speaker 2: reading lately in him actually fit very well with some

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Speaker 2: of the themes that both Ogle and you have brought up.

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Speaker 2: So for instance, this idea of love connected to obedience

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Speaker 2: is actually exactly what Balthazar is arguing with regard to

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Speaker 2: a Pauline understanding of faith. But I think what Balthazar

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Speaker 2: does to set things up So the context here is,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to say it's beautiful. Balthazar's whole point is

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Speaker 2: he's trying to give you a theology of beauty mattering,

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Speaker 2: such that beauty ultimately ought to help us see the beautiful,

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Speaker 2: which is made known in the revelation of the triune

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Speaker 2: God in Christ. So he sees faith as beautiful precisely

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Speaker 2: to the degree that he sees it as a resonance

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Speaker 2: or an attunement, as he puts it. where the image

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Speaker 2: he gives you is a violin. I love the violin,

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Speaker 2: beautiful instrument, but I'll borrow that and change it to

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Speaker 2: the sitar because I love the sitar even more. Even

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Speaker 2: though I have no musical ability, the ability of it

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Speaker 2: to resonate, right? So you think about the plucking of

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Speaker 2: the strings of the sitar or the playing of the

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Speaker 2: strings with the bow on the violin, its ability to

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Speaker 2: echo those strings, and that's where music comes from, that resonance.

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Speaker 2: such that the whole body of the instrument is involved

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Speaker 2: in the making of the noise. But to take that

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Speaker 2: a step further, Balthazar is wanting to take that instrument

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Speaker 2: and equate that in some sense with us, where what

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Speaker 2: we are doing when we resound in faith in this

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Speaker 2: resonance with God is that we begin to, in our

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Speaker 2: very selves, become attuned and to make that music present

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Speaker 2: that God is already making. Now that sounds like it's

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Speaker 2: devoid of agency, but Balthazar's point is not wanting to

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Speaker 2: say that we are like inner pieces of wood or

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Speaker 2: inner strings that are vibrating, but rather that it's the

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Speaker 2: passive active. It's the passive reality of realizing that the

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Speaker 2: fullness of who we are, the freedom of our lives

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Speaker 2: comes from our attunement to God, but it's active in

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Speaker 2: that We are deliberately posturing ourselves to be attuned in

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Speaker 2: that sort of way. And he describes that in specifically

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Speaker 2: the language of obedience, right? This isn't the obedience of,

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Speaker 2: you must listen to me because I'm your overlord. This

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Speaker 2: is the obedience of recognizing the beautiful. And that's what is,

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Speaker 2: not to be redundant, beautiful about what Balthazar is explaining.

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Speaker 2: That I see him as he's extending Augustine and very

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Speaker 2: much working in line with what you were saying and

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Speaker 2: what Ogle is saying. speaks to the nature of faith

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Speaker 2: where now Balthazar can say the experience of faith isn't

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Speaker 2: just some sort of subjective sense of I believe this

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Speaker 2: and I hope for that and I love this, but

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Speaker 2: it's rather the very love of God producing through our

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Speaker 2: active obedience into attunement the kind of faith that allows

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Speaker 2: us to have what I've previously loved to refer to

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Speaker 2: in Gandalf's words as the fool's hope, which is itself

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Speaker 2: the context within which love abounds to neighbor here, there,

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Speaker 2: and everywhere, right? Where there are no boundaries now to

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Speaker 2: what that love of neighbor is. And again, I want

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Speaker 2: to say, I think that's beautiful, you know, and even

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Speaker 2: as it's an extension of Augustine, it's the sort of

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Speaker 2: spirit of Augustine that's getting at in the big, in

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Speaker 2: the sense of big P politics, right? Politics as in

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Speaker 2: the life of the city and the communal existing together.

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Speaker 2: What he wants to say distinguishes the city of God

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Speaker 2: from the the city of man, right? Because now our

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Speaker 2: attentiveness to each other in love is to, for instance,

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Speaker 2: what I would hope for you, James, is to help

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Speaker 2: you become attuned to God. And reciprocally, your hope, ideally,

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Speaker 2: is to help me become attuned to God. And in that,

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Speaker 2: we become attuned in some ways to each other in

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Speaker 2: our differences so that we can begin to actually be

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Speaker 2: a functioning and harmonious body together in the way that

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Speaker 2: you know, the New Testament language and even the Old

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Speaker 2: Testament language speaks up in terms of bodies.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. I, I, Balthazar's passive active, I think

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Speaker 3: is really good and helpful. I had always wondered why

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Speaker 3: he didn't just go with like a choral, like a chorale, right?

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Speaker 3: Where you're singing.

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Speaker 2: I have thoughts on that, but I'll wait.

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Speaker 3: And I think it works better when you're together, like

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Speaker 3: the image that comes to my mind, which is, So

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Speaker 3: Goofy is like an acapella group where you're opting to

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Speaker 3: make the sounds in line with everyone else. And to

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Speaker 3: the extent that you could do that, that is attunement, essentially.

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Speaker 3: To the extent that you do that, it sounds really good.

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Speaker 3: And so then there's this sort of interesting extension of

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Speaker 3: the analogy, which I haven't thought all the way through.

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Speaker 3: But I often say I can't sing, which is really

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Speaker 3: just shorthand for no one would want to hear me sing.

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Speaker 3: it's not good, but you can actually sing. And so

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Speaker 3: the idea would be, you know, everybody can sing. There's

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Speaker 3: a sense in which all of us can carry some

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Speaker 3: semblance of a tune, but it's the master singers, the

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Speaker 3: one who can really sing on key and can sing

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Speaker 3: with and can sing together with one another and are

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Speaker 3: willing to follow sort of the plan for the song.

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Speaker 3: The melody, the rhythm, but also the coming in and

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Speaker 3: out together, right, in various ways.

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Speaker 1: Those are the ones you really want to listen to.

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Speaker 1: Those are the good singers.

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Speaker 3: And I think there's something there to explore as we

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Speaker 3: think through love, because I've often gotten the question, well,

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Speaker 3: if you construe love in this manner, then non-Christians couldn't

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Speaker 3: ever love. And what I want to say is, no,

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Speaker 3: that's not what Augustine is saying. And that's not what

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Speaker 3: I'm saying. Everybody has the capacity to love. It's the

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Speaker 3: sort of love that we're talking about here. Not being

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Speaker 3: rooted in God's love has deep implications and consequences.

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Speaker 1: We could think of it.

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Speaker 3: As because being rooted in the love of God carries

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Speaker 3: with it certain constraints that enable us to love one

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Speaker 3: another in ways that are on God's terms. not being

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Speaker 3: constrained by that love of God, then loosens what we

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Speaker 3: can do, right? It gives us more opportunities to do

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Speaker 3: whatever it is that we want to do. And we

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Speaker 3: can try to love one another on our own terms,

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Speaker 3: and that doesn't work out well.

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Speaker 1: But there's still love there.

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Speaker 3: And there's just something I think helpful in thinking through

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Speaker 3: the performative act of that, which Balthazar includes, obviously. But

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Speaker 3: I think there's something crucial there because what we don't

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Speaker 3: want to be conveying is that, well, if you're not

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Speaker 3: a Christian, you just can't love anyone because that's just

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Speaker 3: patently untrue. There's a finer distinction that Augustine is making,

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Speaker 3: I think, that we need to maintain. And there's just

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Speaker 3: something about the analogies that I don't recall Balthazar carrying

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Speaker 3: it that far. But I think there's something in those

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Speaker 3: analogies that we could carry that far.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Like you, no one wants to hear me sing, and

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Speaker 2: I shorthand that by I can't sing. Thankfully, my kids

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Speaker 2: are not yet at the age where they balk when

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Speaker 2: I try to sing.

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Speaker 1: But it's coming.

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Speaker 2: I know it's coming because I'm well aware of who

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Speaker 2: I am. And yet at the same time, when I

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Speaker 2: think about singing, I mean, I can think of a

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Speaker 2: friend right now who has, she has the most beautiful

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Speaker 2: voice I've ever heard in my life. And I could

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Speaker 2: sit and listen to her sing all day.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: Um, but I think to, to your question of why

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Speaker 2: he doesn't use the choral analogy, um, I think it's

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Speaker 2: because when we get, and I'm admittedly importing here a

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Speaker 2: little bit, a conversation that's going on between Owen Barfield

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Speaker 2: and Tolkien that's contemporaneous, but not necessarily something that Balthazar

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Speaker 2: is aware of. But I think that they're resonant in

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Speaker 2: the sense that they're talking about similar things, and there's

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Speaker 2: clear at least influence of Balthazar upon Barfield and Tolkien.

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Speaker 2: But in that other conversation, even Tolkien, who has this beautiful,

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Speaker 2: Aino Lindele is what it's called. It's this introduction of

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Speaker 2: sorts to the Silmarillion that gives you the whole tenor,

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Speaker 2: musical term, of what's going on there and how the

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Speaker 2: creative event is inherently tied to a musical speaking into being.

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Speaker 2: For Tolkien, this is a narrative, poetic, literary gloss on

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Speaker 2: how he seems to imagine Let There Be. But of course,

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Speaker 2: Let There Be is words, and for us, they're English.

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Speaker 2: Bible scholars, it's Hebrew, but they're still words that are

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Speaker 2: confined to peoples and places that are limited, right? In

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Speaker 2: the sense that they represent the limited imaginations of what

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Speaker 2: speakers of language do with words and the buckets that

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Speaker 2: they form in our conceptual categories. And so what Tolkien

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Speaker 2: does in the Ainu Lindelays, he then speaks of this

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Speaker 2: creative event in which it's the music of the Ainur,

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Speaker 2: these angelic beings, And we can talk about this again

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Speaker 2: at some future time, the full robustness of it. But

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Speaker 2: what I think is significant is his description. He calls it,

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Speaker 2: it's like unto a chorus. But the language of like

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Speaker 2: unto I think is deliberate for him because he's trying

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Speaker 2: to decouple. He's trying to invoke the image that we

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Speaker 2: think of that you were alluding to with a chorus,

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Speaker 2: but trying to decouple it from any sense of the

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Speaker 2: specificity of language where for him, there's a movement away

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Speaker 2: from the poetic the moment we move to words, right?

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Speaker 2: So we tend to know of poetry with words, and

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Speaker 2: the poetry of words is different than the prosaic use

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Speaker 2: of words. And one can use prosaic discourse and use

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Speaker 2: them poetically, and one can use a poetic structure but

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Speaker 2: be speaking prosaically, right? But the idea is that the poetic,

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Speaker 2: whichever form that it's in, can do more. And yet

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Speaker 2: even that more is limited by the conceptual framework, categories,

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Speaker 2: allusions that are contained within those words, right? Even at

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Speaker 2: the fullest expanse, right? So chorus-like is meant to invoke

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Speaker 2: the idea of the chorus, and it's meant to then

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Speaker 2: draw us to, but it wasn't a chorus, because there's

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Speaker 2: something that music is able to do that can transcend

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Speaker 2: the specificity of language, right? So you think about this,

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Speaker 2: I think of actually Arab music. I don't know a

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Speaker 2: lick of Arab or Arabic, but when I hear good

390
00:24:09,350 --> 00:24:14,290
Speaker 2: Arabic music, it resonates with me. Right. And I'd imagine

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Speaker 2: you could say something similar with any number of languages

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Speaker 2: because the music is able to speak in a certain

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Speaker 2: way that transcends even our comprehension of particular linguistic frameworks.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's why both what Balthazar is doing

395
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Speaker 2: as well, the direction he's taking it, um, But I

396
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 2: think this is all relevant to us here because I

397
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Speaker 2: think as an extension at the very least of this

398
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Speaker 2: idea of love, if we're seeing this as love as

399
00:24:40,490 --> 00:24:45,209
Speaker 2: a resonance and as an obedience, it's going to potentially

400
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Speaker 2: move us when we're thinking of the city of God

401
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Speaker 2: in a direction that maybe Augustine never had reason to

402
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Speaker 2: conceptualize and maybe the church following him didn't, not maybe,

403
00:24:56,990 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 2: I think they didn't fully grasp the possibility here. But

404
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:03,180
Speaker 2: what we can do is say, The city of God

405
00:25:03,460 --> 00:25:05,899
Speaker 2: as a resonance and as a resonance that for us

406
00:25:05,980 --> 00:25:09,060
Speaker 2: is tied to places and languages and therefore the cultures

407
00:25:09,100 --> 00:25:14,140
Speaker 2: formed within them has multiple versions within it, right? We're

408
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Speaker 2: not limited to having to reimagine what does it look

409
00:25:17,020 --> 00:25:20,219
Speaker 2: like for the Christians to live under a Roman situation.

410
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Speaker 2: First as people on the margins, then in the case

411
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Speaker 2: of Augustine as someone who's now having to write something

412
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Speaker 2: of an apologetic as to why the sacking of Rome

413
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Speaker 2: wasn't Christian's fault. but also for us now to be

414
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Speaker 2: thinking about in a totally different context with a totally

415
00:25:35,210 --> 00:25:40,669
Speaker 2: different set of agencies involved in our political life. To

416
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Speaker 2: imagine still something like what we're seeing in biblical discourse

417
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Speaker 2: and in different layers of historical church discourse, but be

418
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Speaker 2: able to say, we have to imagine something different, but

419
00:25:55,090 --> 00:25:58,629
Speaker 2: it's still the same, right? I'm thinking here of the

420
00:25:58,670 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 2: difference that Kevin Van Hooser makes between Not important to

421
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,460
Speaker 2: think of the Latin terms, but he uses ips and adem,

422
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:08,310
Speaker 2: identity or sameness, right? The one kind of sameness is static.

423
00:26:08,430 --> 00:26:11,810
Speaker 2: It's just repetition, rote repetition. But the other kind is

424
00:26:11,830 --> 00:26:16,250
Speaker 2: an improvisational sameness. It's working through it, being able to

425
00:26:16,330 --> 00:26:19,010
Speaker 2: pick up the patterns, as we've talked before, of what's

426
00:26:19,030 --> 00:26:22,179
Speaker 2: going on. What does it mean to feel out the margins?

427
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:25,580
Speaker 2: What does it mean to be able to embody the

428
00:26:25,660 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 2: spirit or the breath of what God is doing now

429
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Speaker 2: in this particular environment? and to love accordingly, right? With

430
00:26:32,910 --> 00:26:36,230
Speaker 2: different sets of challenges, different sets of situations. Does that

431
00:26:36,250 --> 00:26:36,730
Speaker 2: make sense?

432
00:26:38,030 --> 00:26:38,410
Speaker 1: It does.

433
00:26:38,490 --> 00:26:42,490
Speaker 3: And I actually think that distinction that you're making and

434
00:26:42,510 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 3: that Van Hooser makes in his book is in part

435
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:52,180
Speaker 3: what we see in Hebrews 11, the Hall of Faith, right?

436
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,850
Speaker 3: Where you have all these different people. This is all

437
00:26:55,640 --> 00:27:00,250
Speaker 3: recognized as faithful action, right? They're very different actions across

438
00:27:00,310 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 3: a very long time period. We see something of this

439
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,780
Speaker 3: in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, where

440
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:12,060
Speaker 3: Jesus comes down and is calling balls and strikes and saying,

441
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:14,990
Speaker 3: you know, you've epitomized faithfulness.

442
00:27:15,369 --> 00:27:15,950
Speaker 1: You haven't.

443
00:27:17,230 --> 00:27:20,770
Speaker 3: And really sort of driving those churches to come back

444
00:27:21,030 --> 00:27:25,470
Speaker 3: and exhibit the sort of faithfulness that is necessary and

445
00:27:25,530 --> 00:27:28,889
Speaker 3: commensurate with you know, the broader witness of the church.

446
00:27:30,010 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 3: And so I think that's a really important aspect of

447
00:27:32,540 --> 00:27:36,659
Speaker 3: this that, again, I, you know, I spent a lot

448
00:27:36,700 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 3: of time over the last couple of years thinking through

449
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 3: the whole Christian nation shtick, I'll call it, because I'm

450
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:46,930
Speaker 3: not sure I would call it a theology. I find

451
00:27:46,970 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 3: it to be problematic on these deeper layers of Because

452
00:27:51,340 --> 00:27:55,540
Speaker 3: we're applying a name to something, describing a nation as

453
00:27:55,600 --> 00:28:01,369
Speaker 3: something it simply can't be. It's paradoxical by its very nature.

454
00:28:01,410 --> 00:28:06,010
Speaker 3: The two things just don't fit. And so where we

455
00:28:06,050 --> 00:28:09,409
Speaker 3: find ourselves, I think, in this moment is in deep

456
00:28:09,470 --> 00:28:16,670
Speaker 3: confusion about what it really means to pursue the city

457
00:28:16,690 --> 00:28:20,460
Speaker 3: of God. in the way that Augustine was talking about,

458
00:28:21,340 --> 00:28:26,060
Speaker 3: to create this sort of attunement with God, this resonance

459
00:28:26,100 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 3: that you're talking about from Balthazar, to have this sort

460
00:28:29,540 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 3: of similar identity, although extremely different and distinct within the

461
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:38,970
Speaker 3: modern era, where we have a relatively high degree of

462
00:28:39,010 --> 00:28:45,850
Speaker 3: tolerance for Christianity. We're not being persecuted in I know

463
00:28:45,890 --> 00:28:49,850
Speaker 3: some people would argue that, but we're not being persecuted

464
00:28:51,190 --> 00:28:55,370
Speaker 3: at all. We may be being poked with a stick,

465
00:28:55,450 --> 00:28:58,410
Speaker 3: but we're not being stabbed with a spear. I just

466
00:28:58,450 --> 00:29:01,570
Speaker 3: don't find that the persecution, at least in the United States,

467
00:29:01,650 --> 00:29:05,350
Speaker 3: is really happening. And so where I think we've gone

468
00:29:05,410 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 3: wrong is we've done something akin to what Howley did,

469
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:13,700
Speaker 3: which we've accepted the notion that, yeah, the United States

470
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:17,190
Speaker 3: can be a Christian nation. yeah, we can collapse the

471
00:29:17,210 --> 00:29:18,890
Speaker 3: city of man and the city of God to a

472
00:29:18,930 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 3: large extent. Probably people would not say the whole way,

473
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:25,260
Speaker 3: but I think they would say to a large extent,

474
00:29:25,340 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 3: we can collapse those two, right? They might keep a

475
00:29:28,460 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 3: distinction for more of a utopian notion of the city

476
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:33,230
Speaker 3: of God when Jesus comes back and all that kind

477
00:29:33,250 --> 00:29:39,190
Speaker 3: of good stuff, sort of an eschatological city. But within time, yeah,

478
00:29:39,230 --> 00:29:41,940
Speaker 3: we can kind of emulate the city of God as

479
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 3: a nation, right? I think those are fundamentally flawed simply

480
00:29:48,180 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 3: because of the things that we're talking about. The nation

481
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,510
Speaker 3: doesn't start in a love for God, and it doesn't

482
00:29:53,550 --> 00:29:56,910
Speaker 3: live on God's terms. It's not attempting to attune to

483
00:29:56,970 --> 00:30:01,570
Speaker 3: what God is saying in his revelations. Part of what

484
00:30:01,610 --> 00:30:05,270
Speaker 3: we lose when we accept that notion is that the

485
00:30:05,330 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 3: church is supposed to be a prophetic voice. The church

486
00:30:08,460 --> 00:30:11,660
Speaker 3: is supposed to remind the governing authorities that they sit

487
00:30:11,820 --> 00:30:15,420
Speaker 3: under God and that they are supposed to be attuning

488
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 3: to his justice, attuning to his mercy, attuning to his

489
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:25,790
Speaker 3: governmental sort of authority and judgment. These are things that

490
00:30:25,950 --> 00:30:29,690
Speaker 3: every government is supposed to do, but because they don't

491
00:30:29,750 --> 00:30:33,950
Speaker 3: acknowledge Jesus has authority over all things on earth and

492
00:30:33,990 --> 00:30:34,430
Speaker 3: on heaven.

493
00:30:35,790 --> 00:30:36,730
Speaker 1: They often don't.

494
00:30:38,470 --> 00:30:40,890
Speaker 3: And so the church is there to remind the governing

495
00:30:40,910 --> 00:30:44,210
Speaker 3: authorities that they are not the highest authority, that they

496
00:30:44,250 --> 00:30:47,890
Speaker 3: are under authority. And part of the way that we

497
00:30:47,970 --> 00:30:51,470
Speaker 3: love our nations is not just, hey, let's go along

498
00:30:51,510 --> 00:30:54,750
Speaker 3: with everything that is good about our nation and ignore

499
00:30:54,790 --> 00:30:58,060
Speaker 3: everything that is bad, or let's make sure that our

500
00:30:58,100 --> 00:31:02,060
Speaker 3: nation is making everything healthier rather than sicker. Those things

501
00:31:02,100 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 3: may not, you know, making your nation healthier rather than

502
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 3: sicker isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I think for Christians,

503
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 3: we also have to love our nation and recognizing that

504
00:31:13,060 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 3: there are people here who just don't acknowledge.

505
00:31:15,340 --> 00:31:18,070
Speaker 1: Jesus as Lord. And no matter how.

506
00:31:20,190 --> 00:31:25,900
Speaker 3: Good we have it, settling for wholesomeness as a substitute

507
00:31:25,940 --> 00:31:28,510
Speaker 3: for holiness is just never going to cut it.

508
00:31:30,020 --> 00:31:31,780
Speaker 1: And I think that the.

509
00:31:31,740 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 3: Way that Veronica Ogle talked through this, I think your

510
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:38,140
Speaker 3: stuff on von Balthasar, you know, the way we're discussing

511
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:42,910
Speaker 3: love should push us toward something different as an entity

512
00:31:42,970 --> 00:31:46,270
Speaker 3: within the United States, a group of people within the

513
00:31:46,310 --> 00:31:50,590
Speaker 3: United States that not toward one political spectrum or another,

514
00:31:51,770 --> 00:31:56,490
Speaker 3: but toward a love for neighbor that refuses to allow

515
00:31:56,550 --> 00:32:02,190
Speaker 3: people to sit in a wholesome environment and assume that

516
00:32:02,290 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 3: that wholesome environment is good enough. I've often talked about

517
00:32:08,100 --> 00:32:15,060
Speaker 3: this as not allowing people just to be less lost, right?

518
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,410
Speaker 3: We push them towards some sort of morality We get

519
00:32:18,450 --> 00:32:22,219
Speaker 3: some law passed. We ensure that some aspect of our

520
00:32:22,260 --> 00:32:25,780
Speaker 3: society is better ordered and better attuned toward God's justice

521
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:30,020
Speaker 3: or what have you. And then we're just, we stop there.

522
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:36,770
Speaker 3: And that's what I would call getting people less lost.

523
00:32:36,950 --> 00:32:41,130
Speaker 3: They're still lost. They're just close. They're closer than they

524
00:32:41,170 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 3: were before. But I just don't see that as being

525
00:32:44,700 --> 00:32:47,220
Speaker 3: the place that we as the church and as Christians

526
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:50,790
Speaker 3: can actually stop when we understand what the love of

527
00:32:50,830 --> 00:32:54,209
Speaker 3: God is, when we understand what love of neighbor really is,

528
00:32:54,430 --> 00:32:57,470
Speaker 3: when we understand what love of nation really is. It

529
00:32:57,530 --> 00:33:01,850
Speaker 3: requires something different of us than I see us doing today.

530
00:33:02,950 --> 00:33:04,770
Speaker 3: So I'll let you respond to that.

531
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, my response, in terms of the substance of what

532
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,130
Speaker 2: you're saying, I'm with you. My response maybe is I

533
00:33:14,170 --> 00:33:17,959
Speaker 2: want to push to say that those things that you're

534
00:33:17,980 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 2: hesitant to call theologies, I understand why. But I want

535
00:33:22,900 --> 00:33:24,860
Speaker 2: to push to say we should call them theologies.

536
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 1: Good. Yeah.

537
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:30,990
Speaker 2: Not meaning that they're inherently good theologies.

538
00:33:31,950 --> 00:33:32,170
Speaker 1: Right.

539
00:33:32,710 --> 00:33:36,050
Speaker 2: But maybe in the way that J. Cameron Carter uses

540
00:33:36,090 --> 00:33:39,210
Speaker 2: that term pseudo-theologies, right? By which he just means they're theologies,

541
00:33:39,250 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 2: they're false theologies. But what makes them false and what

542
00:33:43,700 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 2: makes them theologies in some sense are the same and

543
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 2: that's they are movements to order our loves yeah and

544
00:33:51,180 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 2: this in some sense is the rub of where there

545
00:33:53,660 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 2: is a contrast that is a is a contrast that

546
00:33:58,350 --> 00:34:02,110
Speaker 2: can't the gap can't fully be closed right to the

547
00:34:02,150 --> 00:34:06,610
Speaker 2: degree that one might say ideally the government does the

548
00:34:06,650 --> 00:34:09,930
Speaker 2: work of bringing about justice the work that the government

549
00:34:09,969 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 2: does is meant to protect the voices of the least, right.

550
00:34:15,460 --> 00:34:17,939
Speaker 2: Or whatever sorts of things we want to put within that.

551
00:34:19,620 --> 00:34:23,299
Speaker 2: The thing that we can't fudge is that there, the formation,

552
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:29,899
Speaker 2: the shaping of our loves, there's a gap between those

553
00:34:29,940 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 2: two cities.

554
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:31,580
Speaker 1: Right.

555
00:34:31,620 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 2: And I think Augustine got that. I think that's what

556
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:38,299
Speaker 2: false theology is getting at. And to the degree that there's,

557
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:40,980
Speaker 2: there's a battle, I would agree. There's not, there's not

558
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,460
Speaker 2: a context of persecution of Christians in this country. And

559
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:45,580
Speaker 2: I think I might take you a step further and

560
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 2: say it's not... I don't even know that Christians are

561
00:34:47,739 --> 00:34:52,549
Speaker 2: being poked. I think Christians have, you know, sort of

562
00:34:52,570 --> 00:34:56,250
Speaker 2: done what my kids like to do, right? Deliberately pester

563
00:34:56,450 --> 00:35:00,529
Speaker 2: and then get smacked. Well, stop pestering. If you get

564
00:35:00,550 --> 00:35:02,930
Speaker 2: smacked when you're pestering, then that's your own painful lesson

565
00:35:02,950 --> 00:35:04,009
Speaker 2: that you just learned, you know?

566
00:35:04,030 --> 00:35:05,270
Speaker 1: Yeah.

567
00:35:05,330 --> 00:35:10,489
Speaker 2: And that's maybe a little harsh, right? There's sometimes... might

568
00:35:10,530 --> 00:35:12,850
Speaker 2: be good reasons to quote pester but i think the

569
00:35:13,030 --> 00:35:16,540
Speaker 2: mechanisms the ways of going about it the motivations are

570
00:35:16,739 --> 00:35:22,020
Speaker 2: often less jesus inclined less city of god inclined and

571
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:27,819
Speaker 2: more um control the city of man force the city

572
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:30,330
Speaker 2: of man into the mold of making it into the

573
00:35:30,370 --> 00:35:34,009
Speaker 2: sort of ways you represented senator howley's motivations you know

574
00:35:35,350 --> 00:35:37,089
Speaker 2: but back to the pseudo theology let me say this

575
00:35:37,190 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 2: real quick that Insofar as its attempt to shape our loves,

576
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:46,300
Speaker 2: there's a major difference in terms of the nature of

577
00:35:46,340 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 2: the cities. The nature of the modern nation-state has a

578
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:59,089
Speaker 2: sacred function, a pseudo-sacred function. And it's an exclusionary sacred function.

579
00:35:59,140 --> 00:36:05,210
Speaker 2: You cannot have a nation-state that's completely inclusively abounding. Conversely,

580
00:36:06,070 --> 00:36:08,430
Speaker 2: the message of Jesus is open to all. And I

581
00:36:08,469 --> 00:36:14,149
Speaker 2: don't mean that in some sense of anyone who says

582
00:36:14,190 --> 00:36:17,150
Speaker 2: whatever they want is part of the kingdom that Jesus

583
00:36:17,210 --> 00:36:20,150
Speaker 2: is proclaiming. I mean this in the sense of there

584
00:36:20,210 --> 00:36:24,260
Speaker 2: does not need to be a remainder. Every single person,

585
00:36:24,340 --> 00:36:27,540
Speaker 2: according to the strictures and structures of the ways in

586
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:31,779
Speaker 2: which Jesus is reorganizing creation around his own flesh, and

587
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:35,979
Speaker 2: doing so in this notion of weakness being the counterintuitive

588
00:36:36,060 --> 00:36:40,700
Speaker 2: place in which we we find inclusion and love because

589
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:44,870
Speaker 2: weakness is the place in which we, we delegate. Is

590
00:36:44,890 --> 00:36:49,430
Speaker 2: that a word? The opposite of elevate ourselves. And we

591
00:36:49,469 --> 00:36:53,750
Speaker 2: begin to see ourselves as articulated in and through the other, right?

592
00:36:54,570 --> 00:36:58,590
Speaker 2: Which means an elevation of those around us. The nation

593
00:36:58,610 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 2: state can't do that because it's not its purpose. It is,

594
00:37:02,060 --> 00:37:05,280
Speaker 2: it is exclusionary. So there's going to be inherent tensions

595
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:09,439
Speaker 2: that creates that necessary gap between the two. Now, again,

596
00:37:09,500 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that those who see themselves as working

597
00:37:14,140 --> 00:37:16,860
Speaker 2: towards the formation and shaping of loves for the city

598
00:37:16,900 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 2: of God can't be involved in the city of man,

599
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:22,360
Speaker 2: but it does mean there's an inherent conflict of interest

600
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:27,299
Speaker 2: that creates a tension. And it's a sacred tension, right?

601
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:28,900
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.

602
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 3: And I like you drawing in the false theologies. I mean,

603
00:37:32,700 --> 00:37:36,259
Speaker 3: we've interviewed William Kavanaugh on the show, he wrote The

604
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,280
Speaker 3: Uses of Idolatry. He tends to sort of read these

605
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 3: as false theologies, and I don't disagree with that. I

606
00:37:42,780 --> 00:37:47,810
Speaker 3: think that as soon as we decide that the way

607
00:37:47,890 --> 00:37:52,330
Speaker 3: our country is ordered is good enough, and I'll just

608
00:37:52,450 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 3: use those terms, we're setting ourselves up to adopt portions

609
00:38:01,020 --> 00:38:05,950
Speaker 3: of a false theology that that don't do us any

610
00:38:06,050 --> 00:38:10,230
Speaker 3: favor as Christians. So let me unpack that a little bit.

611
00:38:11,690 --> 00:38:14,270
Speaker 3: When I talk about it, I usually just shorthand it

612
00:38:14,310 --> 00:38:18,660
Speaker 3: and say, we can't settle for wholesomeness when only holiness

613
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 3: will do. Juergen Moltmann in Theology of Hope talks about

614
00:38:23,780 --> 00:38:28,780
Speaker 3: sin in terms of complacency, of passivity, not an overt

615
00:38:28,860 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 3: rebellion necessarily, but the way he phrases it is something like,

616
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 3: an unwillingness to.

617
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:36,380
Speaker 1: Be what God requires.

618
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:40,540
Speaker 3: And I think that at times what we've done is

619
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:45,500
Speaker 3: we've accepted and adopted a false theology that then breeds

620
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,259
Speaker 3: this complacency because we're no longer shooting for what we

621
00:38:49,300 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 3: should be shooting for, that sort of beatific vision at

622
00:38:51,900 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 3: the end of time where we're standing in God's presence.

623
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,060
Speaker 3: What we've done is we've said, no, no, no, God

624
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 3: would want us to be here. And God will be

625
00:39:01,460 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 3: here with us. not because he's determined it, but because

626
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:10,060
Speaker 3: we've determined it. And I think that we get very

627
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:15,380
Speaker 3: comfortable and that comfort, that comfort and complacency then keeps

628
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:20,029
Speaker 3: us from really recognizing this as a false theology and

629
00:39:20,070 --> 00:39:22,710
Speaker 3: breaking through to that sort of prophetic witness that we

630
00:39:22,750 --> 00:39:29,800
Speaker 3: should be having within our nations. All that said, I,

631
00:39:30,219 --> 00:39:32,259
Speaker 3: wanted to kind of key in on a little bit

632
00:39:32,300 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 3: of what you said, like when you think about Jesus

633
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:39,320
Speaker 3: being available to all, yes, agreed. Then you think of

634
00:39:39,420 --> 00:39:45,259
Speaker 3: nations as being inherently constrained by resources, by just sheer space, right?

635
00:39:48,980 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 1: Special concerns. Right.

636
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:52,919
Speaker 3: You just, you know, sometimes you just can't fit more

637
00:39:52,940 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 3: people in a room. And that's just all there is.

638
00:39:56,460 --> 00:40:00,790
Speaker 3: There's a max capacity. And I think that as Christians

639
00:40:00,890 --> 00:40:06,130
Speaker 3: navigate those lines, we have to be very careful to

640
00:40:06,370 --> 00:40:13,400
Speaker 3: understand that for a civilization to continue running, there have

641
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:17,140
Speaker 3: to be hard choices made. At the same time, we

642
00:40:17,180 --> 00:40:22,140
Speaker 3: should be pushing to make sure that those we encounter

643
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,219
Speaker 3: who are about to be displaced, we're being kind to.

644
00:40:26,850 --> 00:40:28,850
Speaker 3: And I don't know exactly how to, I don't think

645
00:40:28,870 --> 00:40:30,770
Speaker 3: there is a solution to that, but I think this

646
00:40:30,830 --> 00:40:32,730
Speaker 3: is where sort of city of man and city of

647
00:40:32,790 --> 00:40:33,790
Speaker 3: God wedge.

648
00:40:35,489 --> 00:40:35,689
Speaker 1: Right.

649
00:40:35,750 --> 00:40:38,770
Speaker 2: Right. I think that's the chasm that you can't, you

650
00:40:38,790 --> 00:40:39,430
Speaker 2: can't conflate.

651
00:40:39,830 --> 00:40:42,290
Speaker 3: You can't because to your point, and I think it's

652
00:40:42,310 --> 00:40:44,650
Speaker 3: a really important one. That's why I'm coming back to

653
00:40:44,690 --> 00:40:47,590
Speaker 3: it is, There's always room in the kingdom for more.

654
00:40:48,650 --> 00:40:50,750
Speaker 3: It's not like Jesus had room for the 12 and

655
00:40:50,810 --> 00:40:54,370
Speaker 3: not 13 or 14 or 15 and so on. He

656
00:40:54,410 --> 00:40:58,430
Speaker 3: has infinite room. And so he just adds additions as

657
00:40:58,469 --> 00:41:03,230
Speaker 3: people come on. Your nations, none of them can do that.

658
00:41:04,170 --> 00:41:07,180
Speaker 3: They simply do not have the resources and capacity to

659
00:41:07,260 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 3: care for an infinite number of beings. And so this

660
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 3: is where we start to see that hard wedge. I

661
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:18,299
Speaker 3: think it's a crucial point in part because as we

662
00:41:18,340 --> 00:41:20,620
Speaker 3: look at the Old Testament again, when we see the

663
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 3: formation of Israel, so much about the Israelite law that

664
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 3: was revealed, in my reading of it anyway, it's divinely

665
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 3: empowered practice. This isn't wisdom that you can just pick

666
00:41:36,100 --> 00:41:42,310
Speaker 3: up and move, right? God working within that setting makes

667
00:41:42,530 --> 00:41:46,150
Speaker 3: so much of that possible. We can see it very

668
00:41:46,230 --> 00:41:50,890
Speaker 3: clearly in things like the sabbatical year where God promises

669
00:41:50,950 --> 00:41:53,529
Speaker 3: to give Israel, you know, two years or three years

670
00:41:53,590 --> 00:41:55,509
Speaker 3: worth of crops in order for them to take one

671
00:41:55,550 --> 00:42:01,140
Speaker 3: year off. We see it clearly there. I don't think

672
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 3: we should look at that and say, that's the exception.

673
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 3: The rest of this is just good everyday wisdom that

674
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:08,060
Speaker 3: we could execute without God.

675
00:42:09,180 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: I think that's the wrong way to understand it.

676
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:14,529
Speaker 3: And so again, As we look at that context and

677
00:42:14,570 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 3: we understand how integral God is as a sociological actor

678
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:22,060
Speaker 3: within the life of Israel, where he's actually present, where

679
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,340
Speaker 3: he's actually empowering these practices, where he's actually giving Israel

680
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:29,500
Speaker 3: the ability to carry out the law, not simply from

681
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:33,090
Speaker 3: a heart perspective, but from a practical perspective.

682
00:42:33,870 --> 00:42:35,590
Speaker 1: He's going to make all of this work.

683
00:42:38,130 --> 00:42:42,010
Speaker 3: I don't think there's another nation that has that potential.

684
00:42:43,460 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 3: That was a covenant relationship with Israel. That was something

685
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:49,739
Speaker 3: special that he was doing with them to demonstrate to

686
00:42:49,780 --> 00:42:52,910
Speaker 3: the rest of the nations that Israel had this wisdom

687
00:42:52,950 --> 00:42:57,230
Speaker 3: and that their wisdom involved fearing the Lord, obeying his commandments.

688
00:42:58,510 --> 00:43:01,350
Speaker 3: And that was going to make the nations curious. As

689
00:43:01,390 --> 00:43:04,710
Speaker 3: we carry that into the New Testament and the formation

690
00:43:04,750 --> 00:43:07,150
Speaker 3: of the church, I think what the church has now is.

691
00:43:08,930 --> 00:43:13,129
Speaker 3: That same sort of capacity on a non-national level. We're

692
00:43:13,150 --> 00:43:17,310
Speaker 3: a different sort of entity. And so we have always

693
00:43:17,390 --> 00:43:21,290
Speaker 3: the capacity to welcome more people in, to care for

694
00:43:21,330 --> 00:43:24,830
Speaker 3: more people, to do the things that would be commensurate

695
00:43:24,870 --> 00:43:28,310
Speaker 3: with the city of God, whereas our nation simply doesn't.

696
00:43:30,150 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 3: And I think that's, I don't know how to tease

697
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 3: all that out in like the next 20 minutes, but

698
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:40,790
Speaker 3: I do think this is where the wedge sits. The

699
00:43:40,850 --> 00:43:46,690
Speaker 3: church has capacity that the world doesn't, that the nation doesn't,

700
00:43:47,670 --> 00:43:51,130
Speaker 3: because we have the Holy Spirit, because God is actually

701
00:43:51,210 --> 00:43:54,109
Speaker 3: present with us in a way that he's not present

702
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:55,800
Speaker 3: with the United States.

703
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: For the church to be.

704
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:01,980
Speaker 3: That distinct and that entity that knows God, that participates

705
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,779
Speaker 3: with God, that obeys God, that loves God in this way,

706
00:44:05,910 --> 00:44:07,690
Speaker 3: opens up opportunities for us.

707
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: It doesn't close them down.

708
00:44:09,100 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 3: I think this is commensurate with a lot of our

709
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:15,660
Speaker 3: narrowing conversation with a lot of our assimilation and, you know,

710
00:44:16,100 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 3: the diagnosis that we've sort of talked through, because what

711
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:23,140
Speaker 3: you begin to realize is that, you know, the God

712
00:44:23,180 --> 00:44:25,160
Speaker 3: who can do abundantly more than we could ever ask

713
00:44:25,219 --> 00:44:29,630
Speaker 3: or think is actually the God that Christians have accepted

714
00:44:29,650 --> 00:44:33,430
Speaker 3: and embraced and are attempting to live according.

715
00:44:33,070 --> 00:44:34,030
Speaker 1: To his rule.

716
00:44:35,350 --> 00:44:40,790
Speaker 3: And when we do that, interesting things happen. We have

717
00:44:41,190 --> 00:44:44,190
Speaker 3: different decisions that we can make because we're not dependent

718
00:44:44,270 --> 00:44:46,129
Speaker 3: on the resources that we just have sitting in front

719
00:44:46,150 --> 00:44:46,350
Speaker 3: of us.

720
00:44:48,890 --> 00:44:51,239
Speaker 2: So it's worth dwelling on that wedge for a moment.

721
00:44:51,739 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 2: And I hope that it leads us into... Ogle talked

722
00:44:56,520 --> 00:44:59,460
Speaker 2: a lot about this notion of pilgrim or wayfarer, because

723
00:44:59,500 --> 00:45:02,700
Speaker 2: I think these are significantly tied and one of the

724
00:45:02,739 --> 00:45:06,110
Speaker 2: most powerful parts of understanding City of God logic, if

725
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:11,370
Speaker 2: you will. This idea of the wedge, as we're discussing

726
00:45:11,410 --> 00:45:16,029
Speaker 2: this here, doesn't create an easy solution, right? And that

727
00:45:16,090 --> 00:45:19,469
Speaker 2: might be probably one of the big takeaways, because I

728
00:45:19,510 --> 00:45:21,629
Speaker 2: think we might be inclined to hear the way you're

729
00:45:21,650 --> 00:45:26,049
Speaker 2: describing it just on an informational basis and say, well,

730
00:45:26,070 --> 00:45:29,609
Speaker 2: then obviously the solution is fill in the blank, right?

731
00:45:31,060 --> 00:45:33,900
Speaker 2: But I don't think it's that simple one way or

732
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 2: the other, right? It requires the development of a theological

733
00:45:39,660 --> 00:45:41,860
Speaker 2: imagination to say, what is it that the church, if

734
00:45:41,930 --> 00:45:46,070
Speaker 2: we have infinite possibilities, and I agree, we have infinite possibilities,

735
00:45:46,430 --> 00:45:51,290
Speaker 2: obviously within the realm of possible actions, right? Like the

736
00:45:51,330 --> 00:45:54,029
Speaker 2: church isn't going to quite literally build a church on

737
00:45:54,050 --> 00:45:58,010
Speaker 2: a cloud or something like that. But there's a possibility

738
00:45:58,090 --> 00:46:05,700
Speaker 2: at play here. And that possibility, is the capacity by

739
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 2: the very holy breath of God proceeding from the mouth

740
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 2: of Jesus and filling our lungs and hopefully proceeding from

741
00:46:13,180 --> 00:46:17,939
Speaker 2: our lungs to be able to do things that show

742
00:46:17,980 --> 00:46:21,419
Speaker 2: that there's no remainder. So, while there might be limitations

743
00:46:21,500 --> 00:46:26,899
Speaker 2: for a variety of reasons of the balance of the state, again,

744
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:33,180
Speaker 2: there's no limitations of the population possibility of inclusion at

745
00:46:34,340 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 2: the feet of Jesus.

746
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:37,879
Speaker 1: So what is it that.

747
00:46:37,780 --> 00:46:40,290
Speaker 2: We're called to do that might not align with what

748
00:46:40,330 --> 00:46:42,330
Speaker 2: the state is able to do, or that might not

749
00:46:42,370 --> 00:46:46,430
Speaker 2: align with certain senses, I'll call them little p politics, right,

750
00:46:46,469 --> 00:46:48,569
Speaker 2: in the sense of what we strictly think of as

751
00:46:48,610 --> 00:46:52,270
Speaker 2: politics these days, that might be within our balance in

752
00:46:52,290 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 2: terms of big P politics, the ability to act in

753
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:59,380
Speaker 2: polity that doesn't have to register the kinds of barriers

754
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:04,330
Speaker 2: and and borders that little P politics does. And how

755
00:47:04,390 --> 00:47:08,610
Speaker 2: might that influence that aspect of our big P politics

756
00:47:08,670 --> 00:47:11,569
Speaker 2: as we engage with little P politics, right? Perhaps part

757
00:47:11,610 --> 00:47:14,779
Speaker 2: of it is that we can put pressure on the

758
00:47:14,820 --> 00:47:17,620
Speaker 2: state not to do things for us, though maybe sometimes

759
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:21,799
Speaker 2: that might be the case, but to empower us to

760
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:24,859
Speaker 2: be able to do what we know we should do, right?

761
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:27,859
Speaker 2: You know, a simple example of this might be what

762
00:47:27,900 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 2: you've described before of There's a lot of attempts to

763
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:36,070
Speaker 2: make legislation regarding abortion, but very little attempts by the

764
00:47:36,110 --> 00:47:40,210
Speaker 2: church to actually help women in need. Very little attempts

765
00:47:40,270 --> 00:47:44,930
Speaker 2: to help children that are overflowing from orphanage situations and

766
00:47:44,950 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 2: foster situations. That's a church problem, right? Why is it

767
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 2: that we're not doing it? Is the work just advocacy,

768
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 2: or is there actually a responsibility upon us? Or I

769
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:58,919
Speaker 2: think of, as we've mentioned before on this podcast, this

770
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,400
Speaker 2: often forgotten part of Galatians, right, where right after he

771
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 2: talks about the Jerusalem council, James and Peter have sent

772
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:07,299
Speaker 2: him to be a minister to the Gentiles, he adds

773
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:10,430
Speaker 2: on that forgotten element of, and to help the needy,

774
00:48:10,530 --> 00:48:16,469
Speaker 2: the poor, which I already do, right? We not only

775
00:48:16,530 --> 00:48:19,310
Speaker 2: forget the, to help the needy and the poor, we

776
00:48:20,070 --> 00:48:23,830
Speaker 2: probably often can't say, which I already do, right? And

777
00:48:23,870 --> 00:48:26,130
Speaker 2: why don't we tag that onto Paul as something that

778
00:48:26,150 --> 00:48:28,819
Speaker 2: ought to be imitated? Or, When we think about the

779
00:48:28,940 --> 00:48:33,009
Speaker 2: deep racial divisions that are quite frankly geographic, right? We

780
00:48:33,050 --> 00:48:36,989
Speaker 2: think about my beloved city of Chicago, right? As I

781
00:48:37,010 --> 00:48:40,989
Speaker 2: just look out the eastern window of my home, it's

782
00:48:41,110 --> 00:48:43,410
Speaker 2: one of the most segregated spaces on earth. And there's

783
00:48:43,469 --> 00:48:46,290
Speaker 2: quite literally roads and highways that are built in order

784
00:48:46,330 --> 00:48:50,450
Speaker 2: to maintain that segregation historically. Why does the church honor

785
00:48:50,510 --> 00:48:54,630
Speaker 2: those boundaries? Why is the church building in spaces and

786
00:48:54,710 --> 00:48:59,569
Speaker 2: buying in spaces historically? that's meant to reaffirm that kind

787
00:48:59,610 --> 00:49:02,280
Speaker 2: of racial geography. These are the sorts of things that

788
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 2: church has the capacity to overcome, right? And I think

789
00:49:04,739 --> 00:49:09,100
Speaker 2: two of the sorts of things that William Kavanaugh, he

790
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:11,420
Speaker 2: mentioned things that his church is up to that are

791
00:49:11,460 --> 00:49:14,750
Speaker 2: trying to reimagine these sorts of things. But there are

792
00:49:14,810 --> 00:49:17,489
Speaker 2: possibilities even amid the chasm to be able to say

793
00:49:17,570 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 2: the role of politics isn't to recreate the work of

794
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:23,500
Speaker 2: the church necessarily, though there might be things that they

795
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:26,359
Speaker 2: can do to help, right? Perhaps there are social nets

796
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 2: that can be formed. But at the end of the day,

797
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:34,510
Speaker 2: perhaps Christians should be thinking less about legislating their ways

798
00:49:34,670 --> 00:49:38,210
Speaker 2: and more of how the government or how little-p politics

799
00:49:38,270 --> 00:49:41,800
Speaker 2: can help the larger polity Of what is actually the church's,

800
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:46,380
Speaker 2: not just responsibility, but blessed hope that they ought to

801
00:49:46,420 --> 00:49:50,580
Speaker 2: be breathing forth into the world. And I guess what

802
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:55,920
Speaker 2: concerns me is that we don't often think of politics,

803
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 2: little p politics, in terms of that big p polity

804
00:49:59,930 --> 00:50:05,750
Speaker 2: of church's responsibility, church's mission, church's loves as the extension

805
00:50:05,810 --> 00:50:07,390
Speaker 2: of the very love of God in Christ.

806
00:50:08,770 --> 00:50:08,989
Speaker 1: Yeah.

807
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:13,700
Speaker 3: Been sort of captivated by Oliver O'Donovan's, he makes this

808
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:16,839
Speaker 3: statement in The Ways of Judgment, I believe it is.

809
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 3: And he says that the governing authorities don't lose their

810
00:50:21,060 --> 00:50:26,090
Speaker 3: identity once Christ is crowned king, but that once Christ

811
00:50:26,170 --> 00:50:30,670
Speaker 3: is crowned king, their identity shifts and changes. It's resituated

812
00:50:30,770 --> 00:50:33,629
Speaker 3: under that new authority. And so what he talks about

813
00:50:33,650 --> 00:50:39,350
Speaker 3: is the governing authorities are a secondary witness to to

814
00:50:39,510 --> 00:50:46,290
Speaker 3: the judgment primarily of God. And so they are gesturing

815
00:50:46,390 --> 00:50:51,110
Speaker 3: toward reflecting in some way, shape, or form the justice

816
00:50:51,170 --> 00:50:54,089
Speaker 3: that God is to bring. But they're doing it as

817
00:50:54,270 --> 00:51:00,380
Speaker 3: a secondary theater. And the implication is the primary theater

818
00:51:00,510 --> 00:51:00,879
Speaker 3: is what?

819
00:51:00,930 --> 00:51:04,760
Speaker 1: It's the church. We're supposed to be exercising these things.

820
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,109
Speaker 3: But I love that notion of And I don't think

821
00:51:08,130 --> 00:51:11,450
Speaker 3: he would necessarily construe it this way. But the idea

822
00:51:11,550 --> 00:51:17,050
Speaker 3: of the church is first. We're Christian first. We're whatever

823
00:51:17,110 --> 00:51:21,230
Speaker 3: nation we happen to live in second. And so we

824
00:51:21,270 --> 00:51:24,330
Speaker 3: need to be thinking, to your point, little p polity,

825
00:51:24,650 --> 00:51:27,730
Speaker 3: the politics of the nation, who's going to represent us,

826
00:51:27,790 --> 00:51:30,489
Speaker 3: who are we electing as president, you know, who gets

827
00:51:30,530 --> 00:51:32,180
Speaker 3: to be a senator, who gets to be a judge,

828
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:37,790
Speaker 3: whatever that is. Those really are secondary issues to a

829
00:51:37,950 --> 00:51:43,650
Speaker 3: big P polity that Christians are to coordinate around within

830
00:51:43,710 --> 00:51:47,390
Speaker 3: the boundaries of a given national setting. And so we

831
00:51:47,430 --> 00:51:50,410
Speaker 3: can properly speak of the church in the United States

832
00:51:52,070 --> 00:51:55,510
Speaker 3: and the way that that polity, that big P polity

833
00:51:55,770 --> 00:52:02,330
Speaker 3: is coordinated together in order to influence public life, thus politics.

834
00:52:03,950 --> 00:52:08,090
Speaker 3: The politics of who gets elected, what laws are passed,

835
00:52:08,130 --> 00:52:13,730
Speaker 3: what policies are passed, that's not trivial. But we have

836
00:52:13,770 --> 00:52:18,580
Speaker 3: to put it in its proper place and scope it appropriately.

837
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:23,820
Speaker 3: Because if we continue to lean on it as heavily

838
00:52:23,860 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 3: as we are, it's going to break. I love the image.

839
00:52:28,180 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 3: I believe it's in Isaiah, and I can't remember exactly

840
00:52:30,660 --> 00:52:34,980
Speaker 3: the verse, but there's this warning not to lean on

841
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:39,719
Speaker 3: the bent reed of Egypt because it will break.

842
00:52:39,420 --> 00:52:40,360
Speaker 1: And pierce your hand.

843
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:45,320
Speaker 3: And I feel like that is being patterned right now

844
00:52:45,980 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 3: on a lot of what we're seeing in dependency of

845
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:55,779
Speaker 3: politics and even the importation or importing of notions like

846
00:52:55,840 --> 00:53:01,190
Speaker 3: Christian nation onto the United States. You know, Christian nationalism

847
00:53:01,230 --> 00:53:04,990
Speaker 3: does this an awful lot. And I think it's wrongheaded

848
00:53:05,070 --> 00:53:09,029
Speaker 3: maneuvers like that that are gesturing toward the fact that

849
00:53:09,050 --> 00:53:13,260
Speaker 3: we're leaning too heavily on the broken reed and eventually

850
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:17,180
Speaker 3: is going to pierce our hand. When the strategy really

851
00:53:17,219 --> 00:53:22,480
Speaker 3: should be coordinating with one another, becoming a churchly polity

852
00:53:22,940 --> 00:53:28,340
Speaker 3: within the United States that now has a shared sense

853
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 3: and understanding of the way that the world works and

854
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:35,820
Speaker 3: and can begin influencing the rest of society from the

855
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 3: standpoint of Christ, from the standpoint of discipleship.

856
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:43,340
Speaker 1: Yeah.

857
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:48,350
Speaker 2: And I think that actually, in this remaining time, maybe

858
00:53:48,390 --> 00:53:50,950
Speaker 2: gives us an opportunity to then reflect on the wayfarer

859
00:53:51,030 --> 00:53:57,170
Speaker 2: idea or the pilgrim idea. I've largely come to the

860
00:53:57,210 --> 00:54:00,250
Speaker 2: significance of that in Augustinian thought through Aquinas, who was

861
00:54:00,290 --> 00:54:08,610
Speaker 2: deeply But this notion of pilgrim then sets forth, I

862
00:54:08,650 --> 00:54:11,310
Speaker 2: think through Kavanaugh, he does a wonderful job again of

863
00:54:11,330 --> 00:54:14,069
Speaker 2: describing this, that the pilgrim is not the same as

864
00:54:14,170 --> 00:54:19,150
Speaker 2: the tourist. The tourist goes somewhere and the goal of

865
00:54:19,210 --> 00:54:24,060
Speaker 2: that something is to take my experience and have my

866
00:54:24,100 --> 00:54:25,259
Speaker 2: experience enriched.

867
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:26,540
Speaker 3: I go to.

868
00:54:29,780 --> 00:54:32,400
Speaker 2: In my case, I prefer to go to a wonderful

869
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:35,259
Speaker 2: historic site or a place of natural beauty. Maybe someone

870
00:54:35,300 --> 00:54:37,950
Speaker 2: else prefers the sunny beach, right? And just relax on

871
00:54:37,969 --> 00:54:39,690
Speaker 2: the beach. Whatever it is that you're thinking of for

872
00:54:39,730 --> 00:54:43,670
Speaker 2: a vacation, as a tourist, your goal is not to

873
00:54:43,710 --> 00:54:46,250
Speaker 2: go and integrate with a place and to receive that

874
00:54:46,330 --> 00:54:50,210
Speaker 2: place into yourself as having been open to it and

875
00:54:50,250 --> 00:54:53,279
Speaker 2: then to bring that experience back. Your goal is to

876
00:54:53,340 --> 00:54:57,140
Speaker 2: take yourself there and to have yourself enriched in order

877
00:54:57,160 --> 00:55:01,510
Speaker 2: that you might come home more yourself. The pilgrim, by contrast,

878
00:55:01,570 --> 00:55:07,780
Speaker 2: as Kavanaugh points out, is on a pilgrimage, is entering

879
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:13,560
Speaker 2: into a space not for one's own enrichment, though in

880
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:17,280
Speaker 2: fact gets enriched because the place that the pilgrim goes

881
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:21,790
Speaker 2: to is about opening oneself up to the significance of

882
00:55:21,830 --> 00:55:25,089
Speaker 2: that place and allowing that place to change you from

883
00:55:25,130 --> 00:55:28,029
Speaker 2: the inside so that you might then be able to

884
00:55:28,790 --> 00:55:31,610
Speaker 2: enrich the places around you because you have been changed

885
00:55:31,670 --> 00:55:33,989
Speaker 2: by it, right? Rather than what you are going to

886
00:55:34,010 --> 00:55:36,170
Speaker 2: a place to impose yourself. Now, I'm not saying don't

887
00:55:36,190 --> 00:55:40,210
Speaker 2: go on vacation and don't be tourists, though maybe Kavanaugh is.

888
00:55:41,670 --> 00:55:44,969
Speaker 2: Maybe we should have asked him that. But what I

889
00:55:45,070 --> 00:55:48,450
Speaker 2: am saying is that as we think about this chasm again,

890
00:55:48,469 --> 00:55:55,609
Speaker 2: to begin to think less in terms of citizenship, right?

891
00:55:56,130 --> 00:55:59,290
Speaker 2: You and I are citizens of the United States. We

892
00:55:59,330 --> 00:56:01,690
Speaker 2: have certain rights that come with that, certain privileges that

893
00:56:01,710 --> 00:56:03,930
Speaker 2: come with that. We have certain baggage that comes with that.

894
00:56:04,630 --> 00:56:06,570
Speaker 2: But the goal is less to think in terms of

895
00:56:06,630 --> 00:56:08,350
Speaker 2: what are my rights and what are my privileges and

896
00:56:08,370 --> 00:56:11,049
Speaker 2: what are my baggages with that citizenship. It's more to

897
00:56:11,090 --> 00:56:14,790
Speaker 2: think in terms of as I also have that citizenship,

898
00:56:15,090 --> 00:56:20,310
Speaker 2: what might my ultimate polity of seeking to further and

899
00:56:21,130 --> 00:56:23,700
Speaker 2: be formed by the loves of the city of God be?

900
00:56:24,550 --> 00:56:27,590
Speaker 2: What might that enable me to enter in as a

901
00:56:27,670 --> 00:56:30,950
Speaker 2: pilgrim into another space in order to be able to

902
00:56:31,130 --> 00:56:35,049
Speaker 2: see this space as a place ripe for transformation? In

903
00:56:35,090 --> 00:56:39,760
Speaker 2: this case, not because I'm transformed, hopefully, by Washington, D.C.

904
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:43,540
Speaker 2: Let's just give a little peapolitics name to it. But

905
00:56:43,580 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 2: rather that I might be able to enter into that

906
00:56:46,700 --> 00:56:50,739
Speaker 2: place carrying back with me what I've already received on

907
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:55,110
Speaker 2: this pilgrimage into this hope of the blessed assurance of

908
00:56:55,170 --> 00:56:59,569
Speaker 2: something better, right? That that's more, that's eternal, that, that

909
00:56:59,610 --> 00:57:01,910
Speaker 2: reflects the loves that are ordered for the thriving of

910
00:57:02,070 --> 00:57:08,830
Speaker 2: all with no exclusion, with all possible inclusory, right? Possibilities.

911
00:57:09,969 --> 00:57:10,569
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?

912
00:57:12,180 --> 00:57:12,550
Speaker 1: It does.

913
00:57:12,590 --> 00:57:14,509
Speaker 3: And I'll, I'll throw this in and I know we're

914
00:57:14,530 --> 00:57:15,969
Speaker 3: getting close to time, so we won't be able to

915
00:57:15,990 --> 00:57:20,140
Speaker 3: delve into this necessarily, but I wrote a piece a

916
00:57:20,180 --> 00:57:25,060
Speaker 3: while back on, and I, I compared, I talked about

917
00:57:25,100 --> 00:57:28,960
Speaker 3: Las Vegas and I said, Las Vegas is probably the

918
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:33,640
Speaker 3: most honest place in the United States because it's not

919
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:37,970
Speaker 3: giving any, it's not giving any artifice, right? Um, come

920
00:57:37,990 --> 00:57:40,090
Speaker 3: to Las Vegas and you get to see the New York,

921
00:57:40,150 --> 00:57:43,070
Speaker 3: New York, the fake New York, New York, the fake Paris,

922
00:57:43,170 --> 00:57:45,630
Speaker 3: the fake, you know, you get to, you get to

923
00:57:45,670 --> 00:57:48,110
Speaker 3: eat food from around the world. That's all sourced right

924
00:57:48,130 --> 00:57:52,950
Speaker 3: there from Vegas. Um, um, You know, it's a place

925
00:57:53,010 --> 00:57:55,730
Speaker 3: of excess. It bills itself as a place of excess,

926
00:57:55,790 --> 00:57:57,750
Speaker 3: and it's not pretending to be anything but a place

927
00:57:57,790 --> 00:57:59,270
Speaker 3: of excess was.

928
00:57:59,170 --> 00:57:59,910
Speaker 1: Sort of my point.

929
00:58:01,180 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 3: I think the, and it's not like, oh, Vegas is

930
00:58:05,380 --> 00:58:07,820
Speaker 3: full of virtue then, and we should all just gravitate there.

931
00:58:07,980 --> 00:58:09,340
Speaker 1: No, that's not what I'm saying.

932
00:58:09,820 --> 00:58:11,840
Speaker 3: What I'm saying is that if we look at Vegas

933
00:58:11,900 --> 00:58:13,640
Speaker 3: and we say, okay, that's the most honest place in

934
00:58:13,660 --> 00:58:16,100
Speaker 3: the United States, what we have to admit is that

935
00:58:16,140 --> 00:58:19,100
Speaker 3: all these other cities, all these other places that we go,

936
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:25,180
Speaker 3: We need that pilgrim mentality because they're deceptive.

937
00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:29,360
Speaker 1: They're going to try to pull us into.

938
00:58:29,180 --> 00:58:31,510
Speaker 3: Something that we shouldn't be pulled into and that we

939
00:58:31,550 --> 00:58:34,590
Speaker 3: really don't want to be pulled into. We want to

940
00:58:34,850 --> 00:58:39,050
Speaker 3: be there as a blessing to that place, as opposed

941
00:58:39,090 --> 00:58:42,460
Speaker 3: to having the experience of that place and allowing the

942
00:58:42,540 --> 00:58:45,440
Speaker 3: experience of that place to just form us with no

943
00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:51,020
Speaker 3: governors around it. As the pilgrim, we go in and

944
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:57,870
Speaker 3: we are looking to benefit that place. And as we

945
00:58:57,930 --> 00:59:02,410
Speaker 3: do that, as we go out on this pilgrimage, it

946
00:59:02,530 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 3: seems to me that being a pilgrim, that analogy that

947
00:59:06,540 --> 00:59:08,939
Speaker 3: you're drawing out, is a much.

948
00:59:10,430 --> 00:59:12,260
Speaker 3: I'll use this term, although I'm not sure I really

949
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 3: mean it, safer way to travel. Because we have a

950
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:21,700
Speaker 3: clarity of vision about what it means to be a

951
00:59:21,720 --> 00:59:24,060
Speaker 3: pilgrim and what we're trying to do in a given place.

952
00:59:25,140 --> 00:59:28,520
Speaker 3: it gives us additional resources to resist what that place

953
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:31,540
Speaker 3: is trying to do to us that would turn us

954
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:35,010
Speaker 3: from being pilgrims into citizens or turn us from being

955
00:59:35,050 --> 00:59:36,130
Speaker 3: pilgrims into tourists.

956
00:59:39,250 --> 00:59:41,910
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the sort of thing I was trying to say.

957
00:59:41,930 --> 00:59:44,690
Speaker 2: I think you said it much more succinctly. Thanks for that.

958
00:59:45,130 --> 00:59:49,169
Speaker 2: I think one final thought from me that relates to this.

959
00:59:49,250 --> 00:59:51,650
Speaker 2: I've been thinking a lot about the provision of God

960
00:59:51,690 --> 00:59:54,410
Speaker 2: and you mentioned piqued it again in my mind when

961
00:59:54,430 --> 00:59:57,640
Speaker 2: you mentioned just the reality that what the church has

962
00:59:57,740 --> 01:00:02,820
Speaker 2: is the inexhaustible reality of the Holy Spirit that we

963
01:00:02,860 --> 01:00:08,140
Speaker 2: draw from and that enables us. This Holy Spirit, this

964
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 2: Holy God that gives us of His own abundance, that

965
01:00:10,860 --> 01:00:13,890
Speaker 2: speaks in Psalm 23 of filling our cups to overflow,

966
01:00:14,630 --> 01:00:16,230
Speaker 2: though we have walked through the valley of the shadow

967
01:00:16,250 --> 01:00:21,170
Speaker 2: of death. This is a promise that's amazing. And I

968
01:00:21,210 --> 01:00:24,580
Speaker 2: think we're very ill equipped to see it. So I

969
01:00:24,620 --> 01:00:27,380
Speaker 2: was talking to a friend the other day and I

970
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:32,220
Speaker 2: was expressing how through certain trials in my own life,

971
01:00:32,360 --> 01:00:34,640
Speaker 2: I've actually come to a place in which I have

972
01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:41,890
Speaker 2: less anxiety over things like finances. Right. Um, then I

973
01:00:41,970 --> 01:00:46,930
Speaker 2: once had, and I was relaying some experiences in which, um,

974
01:00:48,350 --> 01:00:52,030
Speaker 2: I have no recourse to explain provision, but by saying

975
01:00:52,170 --> 01:00:54,710
Speaker 2: God did this, right? Some pretty incredible things that were

976
01:00:54,730 --> 01:00:57,709
Speaker 2: just blew me away and that set you at ease.

977
01:00:58,190 --> 01:01:00,440
Speaker 2: But what's remarkable to me in this notion of provision

978
01:01:00,500 --> 01:01:05,980
Speaker 2: is that while it's easy to gravitate towards the financial

979
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:10,260
Speaker 2: element of it, the nature of provision in scripture is

980
01:01:11,450 --> 01:01:14,430
Speaker 2: is rarely actually straight financial. Now, we live in a

981
01:01:14,450 --> 01:01:17,740
Speaker 2: world of this technology of the financial that's meant to

982
01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:21,000
Speaker 2: carry within it the potential energy of what we can

983
01:01:21,020 --> 01:01:24,280
Speaker 2: then use it for for a variety of things. And

984
01:01:24,300 --> 01:01:26,440
Speaker 2: in that sense, it makes sense to think of provision

985
01:01:26,480 --> 01:01:29,350
Speaker 2: in some sense like that. But it's really much richer

986
01:01:29,390 --> 01:01:32,590
Speaker 2: and deeper, right? You think about the sheer absurdity of

987
01:01:32,670 --> 01:01:34,910
Speaker 2: Elijah in the midst of a famine, a famine that's

988
01:01:34,930 --> 01:01:38,590
Speaker 2: been brought about by the unfaithfulness of Israel, being led

989
01:01:38,710 --> 01:01:42,640
Speaker 2: by God to this secret brook that he's able to

990
01:01:42,700 --> 01:01:45,440
Speaker 2: drink from, while crows bring him food.

991
01:01:45,620 --> 01:01:45,900
Speaker 1: What?

992
01:01:47,920 --> 01:01:50,110
Speaker 2: And that comes right before he goes to the woman

993
01:01:50,120 --> 01:01:57,570
Speaker 2: of Zarephath, and God then blesses that woman by allowing

994
01:01:57,650 --> 01:02:01,510
Speaker 2: her jars of oil and grain, not to overflow, but

995
01:02:01,530 --> 01:02:04,630
Speaker 2: just to never run out until the harvest comes. There's

996
01:02:04,650 --> 01:02:08,350
Speaker 2: a provision in there that I think we have not

997
01:02:08,410 --> 01:02:12,750
Speaker 2: enough audacity to expect from God, and that I think

998
01:02:12,790 --> 01:02:15,750
Speaker 2: that speaks to the atrophy of our own resonance with God,

999
01:02:15,790 --> 01:02:19,130
Speaker 2: that faith muscle, right? Our understanding of the sheer abundance

1000
01:02:19,170 --> 01:02:24,750
Speaker 2: of the love of God. We're too worried about minimizing

1001
01:02:24,790 --> 01:02:28,630
Speaker 2: the chasms and playing by certain rules because we're worried about,

1002
01:02:28,650 --> 01:02:31,870
Speaker 2: will we have enough? Will we have enough money for

1003
01:02:31,890 --> 01:02:34,260
Speaker 2: our church doors to stay open, for institutions to stay open?

1004
01:02:34,280 --> 01:02:37,580
Speaker 2: Will we have enough on my own individual play? Will

1005
01:02:37,640 --> 01:02:40,200
Speaker 2: I have the relationships be fulfilling to me in the

1006
01:02:40,220 --> 01:02:44,010
Speaker 2: way that I want them to be? And arguably, and

1007
01:02:44,050 --> 01:02:45,970
Speaker 2: so this gets back to that conversation with a friend,

1008
01:02:45,990 --> 01:02:48,030
Speaker 2: one of the things he said to me was, you know,

1009
01:02:48,070 --> 01:02:51,060
Speaker 2: it's interesting to see that when he works with an

1010
01:02:51,100 --> 01:02:56,020
Speaker 2: organization in what many people think of as the developing world,

1011
01:02:56,140 --> 01:02:59,700
Speaker 2: which I don't love that language, but that's maybe for

1012
01:02:59,740 --> 01:03:02,060
Speaker 2: another time and place. But what he said is that

1013
01:03:02,100 --> 01:03:05,390
Speaker 2: Christians there he find far less anxious, even though they

1014
01:03:05,510 --> 01:03:08,970
Speaker 2: quite literally every day are thinking about what's the next

1015
01:03:08,990 --> 01:03:11,840
Speaker 2: thing they'll get. But there's been such a development of

1016
01:03:11,860 --> 01:03:16,120
Speaker 2: that faith muscle that the Lord does, in fact, provide,

1017
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:21,470
Speaker 2: regularly provides. And it's not this occasional thing. And as

1018
01:03:21,490 --> 01:03:23,770
Speaker 2: a result, the anxiety just isn't there. And there's a

1019
01:03:23,810 --> 01:03:25,770
Speaker 2: joyfulness there, right? And he said that to me. And

1020
01:03:25,790 --> 01:03:28,650
Speaker 2: I just thought, to a certain degree, through the things

1021
01:03:28,690 --> 01:03:30,890
Speaker 2: that I've had to deal with, I can understand that.

1022
01:03:30,910 --> 01:03:32,810
Speaker 2: And I haven't even had to understand it to that degree.

1023
01:03:33,510 --> 01:03:37,930
Speaker 2: How much more can this faith muscle be developed? where

1024
01:03:37,950 --> 01:03:40,070
Speaker 2: it's not just simply let go and let God, that

1025
01:03:40,140 --> 01:03:42,740
Speaker 2: sort of thing, Jesus take the wheel. It's that I'm

1026
01:03:42,840 --> 01:03:44,860
Speaker 2: active and faithful and present with the things that are

1027
01:03:44,880 --> 01:03:48,700
Speaker 2: before me today, not anxious, knowing that the Lord will

1028
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:53,300
Speaker 2: be faithful. And I think that pilgrim's mentality can be

1029
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:56,580
Speaker 2: deeply enriching then as we think about how to operate

1030
01:03:56,660 --> 01:03:59,730
Speaker 2: with that big peapolity and not reduce it all to

1031
01:03:59,750 --> 01:04:02,830
Speaker 2: the little peapolity while still being engaged. This isn't a

1032
01:04:02,870 --> 01:04:03,730
Speaker 2: call to Amishness.

1033
01:04:04,650 --> 01:04:07,240
Speaker 1: Right, right. No, there is something....

1034
01:04:08,400 --> 01:04:10,920
Speaker 3: I wrote a little piece on the Lord's Prayer, you know,

1035
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:16,180
Speaker 3: give us this day our daily bread. There's something freeing

1036
01:04:16,260 --> 01:04:18,660
Speaker 3: about just asking for what you need that day.

1037
01:04:19,660 --> 01:04:22,240
Speaker 1: And I think it would produce.

1038
01:04:25,360 --> 01:04:29,770
Speaker 3: That mentality, maybe not that reality all the time, because

1039
01:04:29,790 --> 01:04:34,230
Speaker 3: I realized that people do lack, right? So I don't

1040
01:04:34,250 --> 01:04:36,400
Speaker 3: want to be flippant with that. But I think the

1041
01:04:36,440 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 3: mentality of saying God will give me what I need

1042
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:44,470
Speaker 3: for the day would really draw us away from the

1043
01:04:44,530 --> 01:04:48,570
Speaker 3: sort of anxieties we tend to exhibit around little P politics.

1044
01:04:50,530 --> 01:04:53,060
Speaker 3: It would just change the way we think about it.

1045
01:04:53,850 --> 01:04:56,350
Speaker 3: And that is, again, sort of to draw us back

1046
01:04:56,410 --> 01:05:00,390
Speaker 3: and close this out. I think that's what Augustine is

1047
01:05:00,450 --> 01:05:02,550
Speaker 3: talking about when he's talking about the city of God.

1048
01:05:02,610 --> 01:05:06,230
Speaker 3: It's those sort of ideas, that deeply enmeshed sort of

1049
01:05:06,310 --> 01:05:09,550
Speaker 3: notion where we are immersed within the love of God

1050
01:05:10,230 --> 01:05:13,740
Speaker 3: and learn to think and act and respond in the

1051
01:05:13,780 --> 01:05:17,520
Speaker 3: world differently than a love of self could ever cultivate.

1052
01:05:18,660 --> 01:05:22,570
Speaker 3: And I think Veronica Ogle pulled that out beautifully in

1053
01:05:22,610 --> 01:05:25,690
Speaker 3: her episode. I think we've talked around it and to

1054
01:05:25,770 --> 01:05:29,350
Speaker 3: it today. And I'd just encourage listeners, if you didn't

1055
01:05:29,390 --> 01:05:32,520
Speaker 3: listen to the episode with Veronica Ogle, I'd just encourage

1056
01:05:32,540 --> 01:05:33,120
Speaker 3: you to do so.

1057
01:05:34,080 --> 01:05:35,840
Speaker 1: Pick up her book. The link to that is in

1058
01:05:35,860 --> 01:05:39,180
Speaker 1: the show description. And I think you'll really enjoy it.

1059
01:05:39,280 --> 01:05:41,460
Speaker 3: It is an academically written book, but I found it

1060
01:05:42,140 --> 01:05:47,210
Speaker 3: sufficiently accessible as a non-Augustinian expert. You may have to

1061
01:05:47,290 --> 01:05:51,870
Speaker 3: Google a few Latin terms, but you'll get there. Nothing

1062
01:05:51,890 --> 01:05:57,490
Speaker 3: wrong with Googling Latin. But this has been a great

1063
01:05:57,530 --> 01:06:00,960
Speaker 3: conversation and I think a fitting one as we continue

1064
01:06:01,020 --> 01:06:05,660
Speaker 3: our Faith and Politics series. So thanks, Ashish. Appreciate the conversation. Thanks, everybody,

1065
01:06:05,680 --> 01:06:07,840
Speaker 3: for listening. And we'll catch you on the next episode

1066
01:06:07,880 --> 01:06:08,540
Speaker 3: of Thinking Christian.

1067
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:09,090
Speaker 1: Take care.