1
00:00:00,890 --> 00:00:03,270
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm here,

2
00:00:03,350 --> 00:00:05,740
Speaker 1: I'm Dr. James Spencer and I'm here with Dr. Ashish

3
00:00:05,780 --> 00:00:08,360
Speaker 1: Varma and we are gonna be discussing the second question

4
00:00:08,539 --> 00:00:12,960
Speaker 1: in Bart's letter to the United States. We did the

5
00:00:13,020 --> 00:00:16,680
Speaker 1: first question last time and so we're gonna continue and

6
00:00:16,700 --> 00:00:18,619
Speaker 1: see if we get through two or maybe two and

7
00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:21,590
Speaker 1: three this time, we'll see how it goes. But this

8
00:00:21,670 --> 00:00:25,270
Speaker 1: is a really interesting second question and I'll just read

9
00:00:25,310 --> 00:00:27,450
Speaker 1: it and then we'll obviously kind of return to it,

10
00:00:27,470 --> 00:00:28,990
Speaker 1: but just to kind of prime the pump on what

11
00:00:29,010 --> 00:00:32,550
Speaker 1: this is, Is this war to be conceived as the

12
00:00:32,590 --> 00:00:35,310
Speaker 1: judgment of God on mankind? And if so, is there

13
00:00:35,350 --> 00:00:38,250
Speaker 1: a distinction to be made between the more guilty and

14
00:00:38,290 --> 00:00:42,200
Speaker 1: the less guilty? That's the question that Barth is posed

15
00:00:42,620 --> 00:00:44,960
Speaker 1: in this letter. This is one of those that they

16
00:00:45,100 --> 00:00:48,240
Speaker 1: asked him to answer. And so he's going to try

17
00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:51,940
Speaker 1: to answer that in this relatively short section within the

18
00:00:51,979 --> 00:00:52,820
Speaker 1: second part of the letter.

19
00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:54,120
Speaker 2: Ashish?

20
00:00:55,060 --> 00:00:58,610
Speaker 3: He is very brief compared to the way he addresses

21
00:00:58,630 --> 00:01:01,209
Speaker 3: the other two questions that were posed to him. But

22
00:01:02,830 --> 00:01:07,330
Speaker 3: he's not lacking for depth and intrigue. So I think

23
00:01:07,370 --> 00:01:13,430
Speaker 3: that's important. Additionally, when we take this question in isolation,

24
00:01:13,630 --> 00:01:17,039
Speaker 3: it could be very easy to read one thing, but

25
00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:18,960
Speaker 3: when you put it in the context of the fuller letter,

26
00:01:19,720 --> 00:01:24,080
Speaker 3: you get another thing, right? And then again, he appeals

27
00:01:24,140 --> 00:01:26,300
Speaker 3: to Romans 13, which we can probably talk a little

28
00:01:26,319 --> 00:01:31,140
Speaker 3: bit about later, which could again give you one reading

29
00:01:31,190 --> 00:01:34,550
Speaker 3: if you just read that as a blanket statement meant

30
00:01:34,569 --> 00:01:38,390
Speaker 3: to be a once and for all time claim. And

31
00:01:38,410 --> 00:01:41,310
Speaker 3: when you consider Bart's actions and the actions of others

32
00:01:41,350 --> 00:01:45,450
Speaker 3: around Bart, it makes that even intriguing. So that's all

33
00:01:45,470 --> 00:01:51,090
Speaker 3: to say that there's not a definitive, even though it's short,

34
00:01:51,140 --> 00:01:54,440
Speaker 3: there's not a definitive takeaway. It's more of a, there's

35
00:01:54,460 --> 00:01:56,680
Speaker 3: a lot to consider here. So I look forward to

36
00:01:56,720 --> 00:01:57,320
Speaker 3: discussing this.

37
00:01:59,610 --> 00:02:02,110
Speaker 1: I thought it might be interesting to start and just

38
00:02:02,230 --> 00:02:07,220
Speaker 1: clarify a couple of things here. We've talked about dominion

39
00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:11,100
Speaker 1: an awful lot in various other episodes, and we had

40
00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:13,340
Speaker 1: a great conversation with Norman Wiersbo. It's going to be

41
00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:15,900
Speaker 1: coming out where he talks a little bit about mastery

42
00:02:16,180 --> 00:02:17,919
Speaker 1: and human notions of mastery.

43
00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:19,200
Speaker 2: So you all can watch for that one.

44
00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:23,109
Speaker 1: It'll actually come out after this episode airs. But I

45
00:02:23,169 --> 00:02:26,370
Speaker 1: think it's really crucial to understand this idea of the

46
00:02:26,430 --> 00:02:31,700
Speaker 1: judgment of God and And so one thing that I'm

47
00:02:31,740 --> 00:02:35,600
Speaker 1: sort of developing that I think is more and more

48
00:02:35,639 --> 00:02:37,720
Speaker 1: compelling every time I sort of go back through it

49
00:02:38,380 --> 00:02:40,799
Speaker 1: is this notion that as the image of God, we

50
00:02:40,900 --> 00:02:44,500
Speaker 1: are reflecting God out into the world. This is part

51
00:02:44,540 --> 00:02:46,919
Speaker 1: of what it means to be God's image. We represent

52
00:02:47,020 --> 00:02:50,340
Speaker 1: him within the world and we reflect him out to

53
00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:55,240
Speaker 1: the world. And so that happens in Genesis 1. We're

54
00:02:55,260 --> 00:02:57,930
Speaker 1: made in God's image, male and female. God makes us

55
00:02:58,150 --> 00:03:01,000
Speaker 1: in his image. This continues after the fall. We could

56
00:03:01,020 --> 00:03:06,440
Speaker 1: go to passages like Genesis 5, Genesis 9, 6. There's

57
00:03:06,490 --> 00:03:09,410
Speaker 1: plenty of passages that demonstrate that the image still continues.

58
00:03:11,490 --> 00:03:15,830
Speaker 1: After the fall, though, my sense is that we reflect

59
00:03:15,910 --> 00:03:19,010
Speaker 1: God in slightly different ways. Now, we usually think about

60
00:03:19,050 --> 00:03:22,230
Speaker 1: that as the distortion of God's image. We're not reflecting

61
00:03:22,250 --> 00:03:27,489
Speaker 1: him quite as clearly as we were previously. But I

62
00:03:27,530 --> 00:03:30,690
Speaker 1: think there's also additional facets of God's character that start

63
00:03:30,710 --> 00:03:34,760
Speaker 1: to come out after the fall that human beings actually reflect,

64
00:03:35,020 --> 00:03:38,700
Speaker 1: one of those being judgment. I think that a lot

65
00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:41,990
Speaker 1: of what Bart is going to talk about here is

66
00:03:42,870 --> 00:03:48,390
Speaker 1: not necessarily derived from Genesis. He doesn't, as I recall,

67
00:03:48,470 --> 00:03:51,410
Speaker 1: cite Genesis or do anything with Genesis. But what I

68
00:03:51,430 --> 00:03:55,610
Speaker 1: would argue is that as God's representatives, as humankind continues

69
00:03:55,690 --> 00:03:59,260
Speaker 1: as God's representatives after the fall, as we continue to

70
00:03:59,360 --> 00:04:02,720
Speaker 1: work out what it looks like to reflect God after

71
00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:06,040
Speaker 1: the fall, judgment has to be part of that mix.

72
00:04:07,460 --> 00:04:11,430
Speaker 1: And so when I'm reading this question from Bart, is

73
00:04:11,490 --> 00:04:13,310
Speaker 1: this war to be conceived as the judgment of God

74
00:04:13,350 --> 00:04:19,029
Speaker 1: on mankind? I'm sort of sitting back and saying, sort of, yeah.

75
00:04:19,510 --> 00:04:20,330
Speaker 1: And it's enacted.

76
00:04:20,839 --> 00:04:22,220
Speaker 2: Humankind to humankind.

77
00:04:23,220 --> 00:04:26,820
Speaker 1: And so the people who are reflecting God's image are

78
00:04:26,860 --> 00:04:31,440
Speaker 1: going to reflect a right judgment about this, maybe even

79
00:04:31,490 --> 00:04:34,320
Speaker 1: a righter judgment, which probably gets into his more guilty

80
00:04:34,370 --> 00:04:37,349
Speaker 1: and less guilty kind of concept. But I think we

81
00:04:37,430 --> 00:04:40,150
Speaker 1: see this as we think about the conquest, for instance,

82
00:04:40,370 --> 00:04:43,270
Speaker 1: ancient Israel's conquest of the various lands, when we see

83
00:04:43,710 --> 00:04:47,710
Speaker 1: Israel displaced by Babylon, Babylon displaced by Persia, Persia displaced

84
00:04:47,750 --> 00:04:52,030
Speaker 1: by the Greco-Roman Empire. I think these are moments where

85
00:04:52,089 --> 00:04:55,380
Speaker 1: God is using these different nations to enact judgment.

86
00:04:55,420 --> 00:04:58,480
Speaker 2: Yes. But I think there's also a sense in which

87
00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:01,860
Speaker 2: as God's image, we are reflecting this aspect of who

88
00:05:01,900 --> 00:05:03,059
Speaker 2: God is after the fall.

89
00:05:03,839 --> 00:05:07,020
Speaker 1: Whereas before the fall, it was unnecessary for that reflection

90
00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:10,120
Speaker 1: to come out. This sort of notion of judgment where

91
00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:19,930
Speaker 1: we're enacting some sort of punitive judgment, punitive punishment. if

92
00:05:19,970 --> 00:05:25,539
Speaker 1: that's not too redundant, is unique to us after the

93
00:05:25,570 --> 00:05:30,920
Speaker 1: fall and will ultimately go away because all the judgments

94
00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:33,880
Speaker 1: that we make, all the right judgments that the authorities make,

95
00:05:33,940 --> 00:05:38,000
Speaker 1: all the different judgments that the church makes are anticipating

96
00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:39,980
Speaker 1: the final judgment of God.

97
00:05:41,020 --> 00:05:43,520
Speaker 2: So I just feel like that helps. Maybe it helps

98
00:05:43,580 --> 00:05:43,980
Speaker 2: frame it.

99
00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:46,929
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a good way for us to enter this conversation,

100
00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:49,170
Speaker 1: but I'll let you chime in Ashish and see what

101
00:05:49,190 --> 00:05:49,510
Speaker 1: you think.

102
00:05:50,930 --> 00:05:55,650
Speaker 3: Well, I have questions. I think that does help frame judgment.

103
00:05:56,310 --> 00:05:58,620
Speaker 3: I think it's important to recognize that judgment is an

104
00:05:58,680 --> 00:06:04,860
Speaker 3: important thread that we've seen in the biblical narrative. Things

105
00:06:04,900 --> 00:06:07,520
Speaker 3: don't make sense if we don't have space for judgment.

106
00:06:09,300 --> 00:06:12,130
Speaker 3: That said, I don't know that the answers concerning judgment

107
00:06:12,370 --> 00:06:16,470
Speaker 3: to me are all that clear. So I think, for instance,

108
00:06:16,570 --> 00:06:21,640
Speaker 3: the book of Hosea, where God establishes Hosea sort of

109
00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:24,620
Speaker 3: in the place of God relative to his covenant people.

110
00:06:25,140 --> 00:06:27,900
Speaker 3: He wants to make a point through the character of

111
00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:33,260
Speaker 3: Hosea about the nature of covenant Israel. And so covenant

112
00:06:33,320 --> 00:06:36,880
Speaker 3: Israel is typified by the prostitute that Hosea is told

113
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:41,339
Speaker 3: to marry, knowing full well that she won't be faithful

114
00:06:41,380 --> 00:06:43,919
Speaker 3: to him. And Hosea is now supposed to play the

115
00:06:43,980 --> 00:06:48,880
Speaker 3: role of the long-suffering covenant God, right? is a role

116
00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:51,770
Speaker 3: that ultimately none of us can bear. And so my

117
00:06:51,810 --> 00:06:55,870
Speaker 3: conclusion from that is, regardless of whoever this Hosea was,

118
00:06:56,830 --> 00:06:58,830
Speaker 3: that in the way that the parable is being told

119
00:06:58,890 --> 00:07:03,100
Speaker 3: to us, ultimately none of us are Hosea. We're much

120
00:07:03,150 --> 00:07:06,979
Speaker 3: closer to the position of covenant Israel and this dynamic, right?

121
00:07:07,220 --> 00:07:10,000
Speaker 3: Even when we experience things that might be closer to Hosea,

122
00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:13,480
Speaker 3: we have a character lapse, right? But the way that

123
00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:16,410
Speaker 3: that letter unfolds, or that parable or that book, whatever

124
00:07:16,430 --> 00:07:20,230
Speaker 3: you want to call it, God has this moment in

125
00:07:20,290 --> 00:07:25,910
Speaker 3: which he expresses the fullness of his anger. And I

126
00:07:25,950 --> 00:07:30,840
Speaker 3: think that's important because we have an uneasy relationship with anger.

127
00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:33,260
Speaker 3: On one side, we have Jesus who flipped over tables,

128
00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:36,400
Speaker 3: clearly out of anger, right? I don't think we can

129
00:07:36,420 --> 00:07:40,700
Speaker 3: call that anything but anger, over people taking advantage of

130
00:07:41,680 --> 00:07:43,850
Speaker 3: others in the way that they sold things in the temple.

131
00:07:44,950 --> 00:07:47,900
Speaker 3: And yet we also have the realization that that we

132
00:07:47,940 --> 00:07:49,820
Speaker 3: are told to be slow to anger. We're told that

133
00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:55,640
Speaker 3: anger itself can be toxic to us. Right. And so

134
00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:59,929
Speaker 3: we need to know in some sense, anger in what sense,

135
00:08:00,210 --> 00:08:03,290
Speaker 3: how do we, how do we allow for anger in

136
00:08:03,310 --> 00:08:05,170
Speaker 3: the way that God expresses it in the book of

137
00:08:05,210 --> 00:08:08,110
Speaker 3: Hosea or Jesus in the temple and not the way

138
00:08:08,130 --> 00:08:10,000
Speaker 3: that anger is seen as the sort of thing that

139
00:08:10,100 --> 00:08:11,820
Speaker 3: creates a, creates a toxicity.

140
00:08:12,460 --> 00:08:12,620
Speaker 2: Right.

141
00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:18,280
Speaker 3: Um, So when I think of Hosea, you've got that dynamic.

142
00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:21,580
Speaker 3: The anger is present. God is wrathful. He's trying to

143
00:08:21,640 --> 00:08:24,960
Speaker 3: communicate through this character Hosea just how upset he is

144
00:08:25,080 --> 00:08:28,440
Speaker 3: with Israel and what that entails for Israel breaking the

145
00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:33,880
Speaker 3: covenant relationship and what that might mean now for Israel's judgment,

146
00:08:34,460 --> 00:08:36,960
Speaker 3: to get us back to that point. And yet, and

147
00:08:36,980 --> 00:08:40,620
Speaker 3: I believe the chapter is 11, Hosea 11. I didn't

148
00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:42,970
Speaker 3: go back to look at it precisely, so it could

149
00:08:42,990 --> 00:08:46,250
Speaker 3: be off on the chapter. you get sort of a,

150
00:08:46,420 --> 00:08:49,580
Speaker 3: I take that back. And the I take that back

151
00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:52,900
Speaker 3: is not a, I'm not angry, and it's not a,

152
00:08:53,780 --> 00:08:57,760
Speaker 3: there's no judgment. It seems to be a declaration that

153
00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:00,500
Speaker 3: something else supervenes, that if we look at it through

154
00:09:00,559 --> 00:09:06,110
Speaker 3: New Testament lenses, there's a mercy and a grace that

155
00:09:06,230 --> 00:09:10,610
Speaker 3: somehow is able to put aside the judgment. Now, in

156
00:09:10,670 --> 00:09:12,770
Speaker 3: the New Testament lens, we can speak of the sacrifice

157
00:09:12,809 --> 00:09:16,760
Speaker 3: of Jesus. however we want to categorize the atoning work

158
00:09:16,840 --> 00:09:20,359
Speaker 3: as we theologians refer to it, there's something atoning about it,

159
00:09:21,559 --> 00:09:25,300
Speaker 3: about what Jesus does on our behalf. And in some sense,

160
00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:28,880
Speaker 3: there's a substitution at play. Theologians debate what that sense is,

161
00:09:29,580 --> 00:09:31,480
Speaker 3: how we want to look at it. And that seems

162
00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:34,340
Speaker 3: to be read back into Hosea, that you have this sense,

163
00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:39,640
Speaker 3: whatever it is, that Hosea is bearing in his very life,

164
00:09:39,840 --> 00:09:46,079
Speaker 3: in the sense of his being betrayed. whatever judgment that

165
00:09:46,160 --> 00:09:49,160
Speaker 3: is that goes upon covenant Israel. And the payoff is

166
00:09:49,640 --> 00:09:51,880
Speaker 3: God out of love, and the language of love is used,

167
00:09:52,250 --> 00:10:00,880
Speaker 3: God out of love embraces the unfaithful covenant bride. So

168
00:10:00,980 --> 00:10:04,260
Speaker 3: what does that make of judgment? Judgment is real. The

169
00:10:04,340 --> 00:10:09,020
Speaker 3: anger is real. The necessity of judgment is real. But

170
00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:10,530
Speaker 3: I don't think on the other side we can find

171
00:10:10,570 --> 00:10:12,970
Speaker 3: it fully satisfying to just simply say, well, you know,

172
00:10:13,050 --> 00:10:14,869
Speaker 3: people have done some awful things and to get us

173
00:10:14,910 --> 00:10:18,910
Speaker 3: to the point of Barth's letter being written in light

174
00:10:18,929 --> 00:10:20,449
Speaker 3: of World War II, so we can put a name

175
00:10:20,530 --> 00:10:22,910
Speaker 3: on this, in light of what Hitler and the Nazi

176
00:10:22,929 --> 00:10:29,550
Speaker 3: party are doing. We can't just sit by, is sort

177
00:10:29,570 --> 00:10:34,750
Speaker 3: of what Barth's saying. He's not embracing a live and

178
00:10:34,770 --> 00:10:39,310
Speaker 3: let go, this stinks, but we can't respond sort of attitude.

179
00:10:41,870 --> 00:10:46,040
Speaker 3: Judgment does that play? But it's not clear where that

180
00:10:46,140 --> 00:10:49,340
Speaker 3: line now exists. Okay, Hitler and the Nazi party, judgment.

181
00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:57,640
Speaker 3: But Hosea's unfaithful wife, judgment? You know, do you get

182
00:10:58,100 --> 00:11:00,450
Speaker 3: the sort of question that's built into my confusion of,

183
00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:03,020
Speaker 3: I don't think it's nearly as straightforward of a thing.

184
00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:06,059
Speaker 3: And now when we're thinking in terms of ultimate consequences,

185
00:11:08,500 --> 00:11:13,620
Speaker 3: when does that judgment make way for that mercy and

186
00:11:13,640 --> 00:11:14,070
Speaker 3: that love?

187
00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:22,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. So really helpful.

188
00:11:22,179 --> 00:11:29,520
Speaker 1: I think I wouldn't, I think in part judgment is

189
00:11:29,580 --> 00:11:35,179
Speaker 1: going to be relatively clear cut. There aren't a lot

190
00:11:35,210 --> 00:11:38,330
Speaker 1: of gray areas with judgment. Let me start there. So

191
00:11:38,610 --> 00:11:42,190
Speaker 1: it's either guilty, not guilty. And what we see in

192
00:11:42,230 --> 00:11:45,860
Speaker 1: a book like Hosea is obviously judgment. Israel is guilty.

193
00:11:47,720 --> 00:11:48,439
Speaker 1: That's a judgment.

194
00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:49,260
Speaker 3: Yeah, no question.

195
00:11:49,970 --> 00:11:56,130
Speaker 1: The question is whether God is going to act on

196
00:11:56,150 --> 00:12:06,110
Speaker 1: and in response to the way that Israel has treated him,

197
00:12:07,010 --> 00:12:11,100
Speaker 1: or whether he is going to restrain himself in mercy and.

198
00:12:13,120 --> 00:12:13,740
Speaker 2: In grace.

199
00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:20,030
Speaker 1: To allow Israel to continue despite their ongoing whoredom, as

200
00:12:20,590 --> 00:12:24,190
Speaker 1: one of my favorite books on Hosea goes. Great, great

201
00:12:24,230 --> 00:12:26,690
Speaker 1: book on Hosea. If anybody wants to read anything on

202
00:12:26,730 --> 00:12:29,599
Speaker 1: Hosea and this dynamic we're talking about, Whoredom is a

203
00:12:29,630 --> 00:12:30,130
Speaker 1: great book.

204
00:12:31,100 --> 00:12:32,440
Speaker 3: That's the name of the title, Whoredom.

205
00:12:33,260 --> 00:12:38,600
Speaker 1: But the question then becomes, yeah, great title. The question is,

206
00:12:38,980 --> 00:12:43,290
Speaker 1: does that Does Israel's way of doing things, do they

207
00:12:43,390 --> 00:12:51,890
Speaker 1: actually escape judgment? Or does God simply delay judgment, which

208
00:12:51,970 --> 00:12:54,329
Speaker 1: is then ultimately what we would see in the cross?

209
00:12:55,809 --> 00:12:57,790
Speaker 2: Now, that draws in a whole lot of stuff.

210
00:12:59,050 --> 00:13:05,590
Speaker 1: But I would argue that God's judgment is never fully suspended.

211
00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:15,990
Speaker 1: What we're seeing are delays. We're watching him give us time, right,

212
00:13:16,110 --> 00:13:21,770
Speaker 1: to repent, time to reform, time to come about to

213
00:13:21,890 --> 00:13:25,589
Speaker 1: his way of thinking and his way of life. But ultimately,

214
00:13:25,690 --> 00:13:28,700
Speaker 1: judgment is not suspended forever. And this is what we

215
00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:31,260
Speaker 1: see in things like the book of Revelation, for instance.

216
00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:35,890
Speaker 1: There are moments where God is going to act. And

217
00:13:35,929 --> 00:13:38,290
Speaker 1: I think that part of the tension we have with

218
00:13:38,390 --> 00:13:44,460
Speaker 1: judgment is when do we participate in this? And so

219
00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:47,960
Speaker 1: I had mentioned I read Bart's letter to Great Britain

220
00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:50,080
Speaker 1: after we started this series.

221
00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:51,000
Speaker 2: I read it over the week.

222
00:13:51,980 --> 00:13:56,319
Speaker 1: And you see in Bart this really interesting dynamic where

223
00:13:56,440 --> 00:14:00,540
Speaker 1: he seems to think that there is a fundamental difference

224
00:14:00,600 --> 00:14:03,740
Speaker 1: between what happened 25 years prior to World War II,

225
00:14:04,660 --> 00:14:05,089
Speaker 1: World War I.

226
00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:08,320
Speaker 2: And now what's going on in World War II?

227
00:14:09,740 --> 00:14:14,059
Speaker 1: You see him making completely different judgments, at least alluding

228
00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:17,020
Speaker 1: to completely different judgments about World War I than he's

229
00:14:17,070 --> 00:14:18,310
Speaker 1: making about World War II.

230
00:14:19,630 --> 00:14:21,970
Speaker 2: And in that there, you can either read it as

231
00:14:22,170 --> 00:14:23,050
Speaker 2: a vacillation.

232
00:14:23,070 --> 00:14:27,630
Speaker 1: Like Bart just in this moment, he can't bring himself

233
00:14:27,730 --> 00:14:31,480
Speaker 1: to not condemn this war. Or you can see it

234
00:14:31,600 --> 00:14:34,640
Speaker 1: probably for more what it is, which is him trying

235
00:14:34,700 --> 00:14:44,960
Speaker 1: to wrestle with the intangible differences between World War I

236
00:14:44,980 --> 00:14:48,619
Speaker 1: and World War II. Not that there weren't atrocities in

237
00:14:48,640 --> 00:14:53,590
Speaker 1: World War I, but that World War II has some

238
00:14:54,650 --> 00:14:59,450
Speaker 1: sort of sense in which it's far worse. And whether

239
00:14:59,490 --> 00:15:04,510
Speaker 1: that's a, I say intangible because of this, I don't

240
00:15:04,580 --> 00:15:08,740
Speaker 1: know whether that's us being more sentimental about it, applying

241
00:15:08,820 --> 00:15:13,520
Speaker 1: the this is more problematic than the other thing sort

242
00:15:13,540 --> 00:15:17,760
Speaker 1: of framework to it, or whether there is actually something

243
00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:19,830
Speaker 1: deeper in it that is.

244
00:15:21,950 --> 00:15:23,090
Speaker 2: Far more.

245
00:15:24,390 --> 00:15:28,850
Speaker 1: Worthy of judgment, let's say. My sense is it's the former,

246
00:15:29,310 --> 00:15:33,730
Speaker 1: but I definitely would not deny the latter. I think

247
00:15:33,750 --> 00:15:36,580
Speaker 1: that what we're seeing in Bart is that sort of tension.

248
00:15:37,060 --> 00:15:39,940
Speaker 1: He doesn't feel the same way about World War I

249
00:15:39,980 --> 00:15:42,640
Speaker 1: as he feels about World War II. And part of

250
00:15:42,680 --> 00:15:44,910
Speaker 1: that is simply the way that he's looking at it,

251
00:15:45,420 --> 00:15:48,280
Speaker 1: the way that he's framing it. He can't get his

252
00:15:48,330 --> 00:15:51,830
Speaker 1: head around how you would go about letting this one go,

253
00:15:53,890 --> 00:15:58,650
Speaker 1: not acting on it as a matter of course. Whereas

254
00:15:58,710 --> 00:16:00,890
Speaker 1: in World War I, he may have been a little

255
00:16:00,930 --> 00:16:06,670
Speaker 1: bit a little bit more flexible on these things. All

256
00:16:06,690 --> 00:16:08,550
Speaker 1: that to say, I think as we dive into this

257
00:16:08,630 --> 00:16:11,360
Speaker 1: question that he's asking, is this war to be conceived

258
00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:13,760
Speaker 1: as the judgment of God on mankind? I think that

259
00:16:13,860 --> 00:16:17,360
Speaker 1: one for me is a yes, as it is for Bart.

260
00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:20,960
Speaker 2: Is there a.

261
00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:23,490
Speaker 1: Distinction to be made between the more guilty and the

262
00:16:23,520 --> 00:16:24,110
Speaker 1: less guilty?

263
00:16:24,130 --> 00:16:27,350
Speaker 2: I never loved the more or less kind of stuff.

264
00:16:29,060 --> 00:16:32,220
Speaker 1: I think it's just too opaque. Like it doesn't really

265
00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:35,580
Speaker 1: give you anything to work with. Basically, when you're saying

266
00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:38,540
Speaker 1: he's more guilty or less guilty, you're basically just saying, well,

267
00:16:38,570 --> 00:16:41,750
Speaker 1: I'm privileging these bad acts versus these bad acts. And

268
00:16:41,790 --> 00:16:46,650
Speaker 1: I'm saying these are less problematic. Like there's a sense

269
00:16:46,710 --> 00:16:49,690
Speaker 1: in which I think that that is a little bit

270
00:16:52,830 --> 00:16:57,360
Speaker 1: too squishy for my taste to use a real technical term. Yeah.

271
00:16:58,260 --> 00:16:58,920
Speaker 3: I like that term.

272
00:16:59,740 --> 00:17:02,060
Speaker 1: But I do think to your point, Ashish, I think

273
00:17:02,100 --> 00:17:04,700
Speaker 1: this stuff is really difficult to work out because in

274
00:17:04,859 --> 00:17:07,920
Speaker 1: any given moment, in any given point of time, we're

275
00:17:07,980 --> 00:17:12,459
Speaker 1: trying to reflect what God's judgment is in the moment.

276
00:17:12,820 --> 00:17:18,150
Speaker 1: Make a right judgment, but perhaps respond with mercy versus

277
00:17:18,690 --> 00:17:24,490
Speaker 1: make a judgment and execute that judgment with a punitive consequence.

278
00:17:25,430 --> 00:17:28,439
Speaker 1: And I think that's a struggle for us. in part

279
00:17:28,500 --> 00:17:32,580
Speaker 1: because we're not God, right? That's the, that's the simple

280
00:17:32,619 --> 00:17:34,800
Speaker 1: way to put it. But I also think it's difficult

281
00:17:34,820 --> 00:17:41,869
Speaker 1: for us because we're not seeing the bigger picture. And

282
00:17:41,910 --> 00:17:44,290
Speaker 1: when we don't see the bigger picture, we can't always

283
00:17:44,369 --> 00:17:47,530
Speaker 1: understand what the downstream consequences are going to be of

284
00:17:48,450 --> 00:17:49,350
Speaker 1: being merciful.

285
00:17:50,930 --> 00:17:52,369
Speaker 2: We don't understand that big picture.

286
00:17:52,410 --> 00:17:54,030
Speaker 1: And so it's very difficult for us to just to

287
00:17:54,130 --> 00:17:57,240
Speaker 1: let somebody get by with X, Y, or Z.

288
00:17:58,410 --> 00:17:59,510
Speaker 2: That'd be my two cents on it.

289
00:18:01,250 --> 00:18:03,950
Speaker 3: I want your third cent. Okay, there's so much going

290
00:18:04,050 --> 00:18:12,300
Speaker 3: on here. Where to start? So on the side of, well,

291
00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:15,800
Speaker 3: there's an issue of mercy. Yes. There's the side of

292
00:18:15,900 --> 00:18:18,359
Speaker 3: what Bart is doing that he makes a distinction. So

293
00:18:18,420 --> 00:18:20,960
Speaker 3: I'm not familiar with what distinction he makes between the

294
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:24,320
Speaker 3: First and the Second World War. And, you know, Bart's

295
00:18:24,359 --> 00:18:27,260
Speaker 3: someone who lived through both. So I'm really intrigued to

296
00:18:27,300 --> 00:18:29,440
Speaker 3: hear what that distinction is and how he weighs that.

297
00:18:29,740 --> 00:18:33,200
Speaker 3: Someone who was born and raised well after the aftermath

298
00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:35,659
Speaker 3: of both of them. All I have is what the

299
00:18:35,700 --> 00:18:38,540
Speaker 3: historians tell me, right? And they tell me quite a bit.

300
00:18:38,840 --> 00:18:41,850
Speaker 3: And I can understand from this angle what would have

301
00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:44,389
Speaker 3: possibly made the Second World War worse than the first.

302
00:18:44,490 --> 00:18:46,210
Speaker 3: But I also know that the second, in some ways,

303
00:18:46,290 --> 00:18:50,030
Speaker 3: comes out of the first. They're not unrelated events. And

304
00:18:50,070 --> 00:18:52,510
Speaker 3: the sanctions that come out of them, right? The sense

305
00:18:52,609 --> 00:18:57,180
Speaker 3: of overharshness that Germany feels. Anyway, those sorts of dynamics.

306
00:19:01,900 --> 00:19:04,460
Speaker 3: So maybe that's the starting point. Because if the answer

307
00:19:04,510 --> 00:19:07,050
Speaker 3: is in some sense, so you said you don't want

308
00:19:07,130 --> 00:19:13,470
Speaker 3: to make the distinction between better and worse, or worse

309
00:19:13,550 --> 00:19:16,810
Speaker 3: and worser, I don't know how you'd put it, versions

310
00:19:16,930 --> 00:19:19,880
Speaker 3: of need for judgment. It seems that in some sense,

311
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:23,000
Speaker 3: Barth has made that distinction. If he has advocated for

312
00:19:23,060 --> 00:19:26,940
Speaker 3: pacifism for World War I, but definitely not for World

313
00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:31,760
Speaker 3: War II. And it seems that maybe Jesus is saying

314
00:19:31,820 --> 00:19:34,040
Speaker 3: there is no worse and worse-er. I know this is

315
00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:36,899
Speaker 3: bad grammar, but there's no worse and worse-er when he says,

316
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:39,899
Speaker 3: you condemn the adulterer, but I say how many you

317
00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:41,950
Speaker 3: have lusted in your own heart, you've committed adultery in

318
00:19:41,970 --> 00:19:43,470
Speaker 3: your own heart, and then does the same with hatred

319
00:19:43,510 --> 00:19:47,389
Speaker 3: and murder. And yet I'm not entirely convinced that what

320
00:19:47,450 --> 00:19:50,950
Speaker 3: Jesus is doing there is saying, they're the same thing.

321
00:19:50,970 --> 00:19:53,670
Speaker 3: I think what's more apparent to me is that he's

322
00:19:53,710 --> 00:19:56,490
Speaker 3: turning to the religious leaders who've created these lines of

323
00:19:56,730 --> 00:20:00,300
Speaker 3: me holy, you not holy. And he's saying you not

324
00:20:00,380 --> 00:20:04,119
Speaker 3: holy either, right? Because I do want to say that

325
00:20:04,140 --> 00:20:07,800
Speaker 3: there is a difference between murdering someone and hating someone.

326
00:20:07,859 --> 00:20:09,280
Speaker 3: And I do want to say there's a difference between

327
00:20:09,780 --> 00:20:12,940
Speaker 3: cheating on a spouse and looking upon someone and saying

328
00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:18,510
Speaker 3: she or he is beautiful right but the point still

329
00:20:18,550 --> 00:20:23,270
Speaker 3: stands need of judgment over the person who hates and

330
00:20:23,290 --> 00:20:26,490
Speaker 3: the person who lusts right yeah so i do want

331
00:20:26,510 --> 00:20:28,060
Speaker 3: to hear a little bit more about that distinction in

332
00:20:28,100 --> 00:20:30,520
Speaker 3: bark i do want to press a little bit because

333
00:20:30,540 --> 00:20:32,359
Speaker 3: i don't think you would disagree with what i just.

334
00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:35,330
Speaker 2: Said And I want to know where that.

335
00:20:35,250 --> 00:20:38,310
Speaker 3: Line is of mercy, because I think mercy, to your point,

336
00:20:38,350 --> 00:20:40,149
Speaker 3: we don't know what mercy will bring forward, and yet

337
00:20:40,170 --> 00:20:43,060
Speaker 3: it still holds to reason. Again, I'm thinking Tolkien, and

338
00:20:43,100 --> 00:20:47,220
Speaker 3: you'll be shocked. The mercy or the pity of Bilbo

339
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,140
Speaker 3: may yet rule the fate of many is the idea.

340
00:20:49,940 --> 00:20:50,360
Speaker 2: I play there.

341
00:20:52,109 --> 00:20:55,040
Speaker 1: So let me clarify Bart. For one, it seems like

342
00:20:55,100 --> 00:20:58,679
Speaker 1: he is alluding to or using World War I as

343
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:00,980
Speaker 1: more of a foil to think through World War II.

344
00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:03,380
Speaker 1: So he doesn't actually come down and say why he

345
00:21:03,580 --> 00:21:06,399
Speaker 1: thinks differently about World War I. He says that he

346
00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:10,730
Speaker 1: thinks differently about World War I and then encourages that

347
00:21:10,750 --> 00:21:14,910
Speaker 1: this World War II fight must be fought. There's no

348
00:21:14,950 --> 00:21:17,590
Speaker 1: way to say that it shouldn't be fought. It must

349
00:21:17,670 --> 00:21:21,109
Speaker 1: be fought. It's lamentable, but it's something that has to

350
00:21:21,150 --> 00:21:22,770
Speaker 1: be done. It's sort of where he lands on this.

351
00:21:24,090 --> 00:21:26,790
Speaker 1: My read of that, and I guess my interpretation of

352
00:21:26,830 --> 00:21:29,669
Speaker 1: the read of that is he sees World War I

353
00:21:29,730 --> 00:21:36,350
Speaker 1: as something that didn't require the must. He sees it

354
00:21:36,390 --> 00:21:40,090
Speaker 1: as lamentable as those events were. He does not see

355
00:21:40,150 --> 00:21:43,030
Speaker 1: it as a must fight. Is it a different holocaust?

356
00:21:45,310 --> 00:21:49,690
Speaker 1: He doesn't disagree. He doesn't talk about it. He doesn't specify.

357
00:21:49,850 --> 00:21:53,210
Speaker 1: And I think that's, you know, at least in the

358
00:21:53,260 --> 00:21:55,740
Speaker 1: part of the letter that I remember where he's talking

359
00:21:55,780 --> 00:21:59,959
Speaker 1: about this, he doesn't specify. So I think, you know,

360
00:21:59,980 --> 00:22:04,420
Speaker 1: there's this interesting way in which these two situations, one really, which,

361
00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:08,550
Speaker 1: you know, World War I was Weimar Republic kind of stuff.

362
00:22:08,609 --> 00:22:11,230
Speaker 1: It was like, it was a fundamentally different sort of

363
00:22:11,290 --> 00:22:13,169
Speaker 1: war than what we're looking at at World War II.

364
00:22:14,170 --> 00:22:17,890
Speaker 1: And that gets into your second point. I don't like

365
00:22:18,170 --> 00:22:22,020
Speaker 1: worse or better because I always think it lets better

366
00:22:22,180 --> 00:22:22,700
Speaker 1: off the hook.

367
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:24,480
Speaker 2: Right.

368
00:22:24,500 --> 00:22:30,040
Speaker 1: We talked last time about Churchill's. I can't remember whether

369
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:32,010
Speaker 1: we did this on air or off air. But we

370
00:22:32,050 --> 00:22:34,640
Speaker 1: talked about Churchill and what he was doing to fund

371
00:22:34,900 --> 00:22:38,459
Speaker 1: essentially the war, World War II, and the oppression that

372
00:22:38,500 --> 00:22:42,840
Speaker 1: he wrought on the Indian people, you know, allowing their starvation.

373
00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:45,000
Speaker 2: Right, exactly.

374
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,619
Speaker 1: And allowing this to happen. And so you sit back

375
00:22:47,940 --> 00:22:49,700
Speaker 1: and you say, well, but he was fighting for the

376
00:22:49,740 --> 00:22:53,909
Speaker 1: better cause. Like, no, I don't want that distinction at all.

377
00:22:54,570 --> 00:22:56,590
Speaker 1: So what I want is I want us to sit

378
00:22:56,650 --> 00:23:01,350
Speaker 1: and say, these are fundamentally different or they have differences.

379
00:23:02,130 --> 00:23:04,290
Speaker 1: And then I want to talk about what those differences were.

380
00:23:05,790 --> 00:23:08,190
Speaker 1: And then I want to talk about because they're different,

381
00:23:08,670 --> 00:23:12,020
Speaker 1: how do we respond differently to God in this situation

382
00:23:12,190 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 1: of difference? I don't like the better or worse or

383
00:23:16,500 --> 00:23:20,740
Speaker 1: the more or less those kind of weights because it

384
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:25,120
Speaker 1: seems like every time we do it, right? We say, oh,

385
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:27,680
Speaker 1: we have a better culture than X, Y, or Z.

386
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:30,199
Speaker 1: And what we really mean is, so we're not changing.

387
00:23:31,790 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 1: or so that change can be incremental. It's just not

388
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:38,580
Speaker 1: a great way to think about it. And so we

389
00:23:38,619 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 1: need to be looking at it, I think, in terms

390
00:23:40,540 --> 00:23:45,129
Speaker 1: of these differences, recognizing that some of these differences are

391
00:23:45,790 --> 00:23:49,429
Speaker 1: good on one side and bad on another, right? And

392
00:23:49,450 --> 00:23:51,369
Speaker 1: that some of these differences are bad on both sides.

393
00:23:52,850 --> 00:23:54,760
Speaker 1: And that when we're looking at it as bad on

394
00:23:54,800 --> 00:24:00,090
Speaker 1: both sides, neither of them gets a pass. Like, to me,

395
00:24:00,140 --> 00:24:02,310
Speaker 1: it's sort of an extension of there is no partiality.

396
00:24:04,270 --> 00:24:07,450
Speaker 1: And so if we're going to exercise judgment appropriate, that's right.

397
00:24:07,490 --> 00:24:12,609
Speaker 1: If we're going to look at this appropriately, you cannot

398
00:24:12,730 --> 00:24:17,570
Speaker 1: countenance what you described to me, what Churchill did to

399
00:24:17,609 --> 00:24:21,870
Speaker 1: the Indian people. You cannot countenance it by saying, well,

400
00:24:21,890 --> 00:24:23,030
Speaker 1: he was trying to stop Hitler.

401
00:24:24,350 --> 00:24:26,050
Speaker 2: That's what I think more better gets you.

402
00:24:26,950 --> 00:24:27,130
Speaker 3: Right.

403
00:24:27,810 --> 00:24:31,150
Speaker 2: Or better or worse gets you, right? I don't want that.

404
00:24:31,630 --> 00:24:38,190
Speaker 1: I want both bad, both deserving of judgment, both happened, right?

405
00:24:38,890 --> 00:24:41,450
Speaker 1: So how do we deal with it from the perspective

406
00:24:41,690 --> 00:24:46,780
Speaker 1: of God's judgment? What does that look like? And if

407
00:24:46,820 --> 00:24:48,500
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, people want to say, well,

408
00:24:49,180 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: I'm going to let Churchill off the hook because he

409
00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 1: was fighting Hitler and And so we're going to show

410
00:24:55,220 --> 00:24:57,160
Speaker 1: mercy on this one, but we're not on this one.

411
00:24:57,900 --> 00:25:02,440
Speaker 1: That's at least a judgment. The judgment is true regardless.

412
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:04,420
Speaker 1: He's done something evil. We're going to give him mercy

413
00:25:04,460 --> 00:25:04,740
Speaker 1: for it.

414
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:05,879
Speaker 2: Fine.

415
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,780
Speaker 1: That's your call, right? But let's not frame it in

416
00:25:09,820 --> 00:25:14,110
Speaker 1: terms of worse or better because I get really uncomfortable

417
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:17,810
Speaker 1: when that happens because the better tends to become the

418
00:25:17,869 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 1: best and it's never questioned again. That's true to where

419
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:23,980
Speaker 1: I sit with it.

420
00:25:24,780 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 3: That's fair. Let me press in a little bit further.

421
00:25:27,820 --> 00:25:34,399
Speaker 3: I'm just curious what you would say. Murder hatred. We

422
00:25:34,420 --> 00:25:38,880
Speaker 3: want to prosecute the murderer. But with Jesus, we want

423
00:25:38,900 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 3: to say the hatred is not conducive of the pure

424
00:25:42,740 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 3: and the holy.

425
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 2: 100%.

426
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 3: We don't want to prosecute the hatred, though, right?

427
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 2: That's right.

428
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 3: So, apart from... The language of better, worse, or worse, worser.

429
00:25:56,660 --> 00:26:01,500
Speaker 3: How do you describe that? Because I'm with you. Don't

430
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:04,140
Speaker 3: hear me as saying, let's go prosecute the hatred.

431
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:05,160
Speaker 2: No.

432
00:26:05,260 --> 00:26:08,330
Speaker 3: No, but I do want to take seriously Jesus as saying, hey,

433
00:26:08,369 --> 00:26:10,130
Speaker 3: by the way, you're not holy either.

434
00:26:10,810 --> 00:26:12,369
Speaker 2: That's right.

435
00:26:12,970 --> 00:26:17,250
Speaker 1: So I would say that what we do is we say, again,

436
00:26:17,270 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: I want to have a moment of judgment that is.

437
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,570
Speaker 2: Let's call it cognitive, right?

438
00:26:26,690 --> 00:26:31,310
Speaker 1: It's a recognition that something is wrong here. It's a

439
00:26:31,390 --> 00:26:35,730
Speaker 1: recognition that something is right here, right? It's just a recognition.

440
00:26:36,690 --> 00:26:39,050
Speaker 1: We're seeing it the way God sees it. When I'm

441
00:26:39,090 --> 00:26:43,889
Speaker 1: saying recognition, what I'm saying is we are looking at

442
00:26:43,970 --> 00:26:48,530
Speaker 1: reality rightly. And so we make a judgment about these things.

443
00:26:49,310 --> 00:26:56,709
Speaker 2: Hate, not good. Murder, not good. Okay, great. There's your

444
00:26:56,750 --> 00:26:59,050
Speaker 2: moment of cognitive judgment, of real recognition.

445
00:27:00,230 --> 00:27:01,570
Speaker 1: Now what we have to do is we have to

446
00:27:01,609 --> 00:27:05,810
Speaker 1: decide what we're going to do with that judgment. Right now, ultimately,

447
00:27:05,850 --> 00:27:09,890
Speaker 1: these are like more connected than I'm suggesting, but heuristically,

448
00:27:09,930 --> 00:27:12,640
Speaker 1: this is just easier to explain it, I think. So

449
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: now we have to decide what we're going to do

450
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:17,980
Speaker 1: with that judgment. Well, it's very different to say to

451
00:27:18,020 --> 00:27:22,449
Speaker 1: someone who has murdered another person, and who seems to

452
00:27:22,490 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: like killing people, that we're just going to let this

453
00:27:24,390 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: guy go.

454
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:29,300
Speaker 2: Right? Hey, mercy. It's all good.

455
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:33,700
Speaker 3: Or even if he doesn't like it, couldn't withstand the impulse.

456
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:36,139
Speaker 2: That's right. Like he's going to do, he's going to

457
00:27:36,180 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 2: kill again. Right?

458
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:40,470
Speaker 1: This is not a self-defense. This is like, you know,

459
00:27:40,570 --> 00:27:42,870
Speaker 1: serial killer, and we just keep giving him extra chances.

460
00:27:44,070 --> 00:27:46,730
Speaker 1: And so, you know, in that sense, you're looking at

461
00:27:46,750 --> 00:27:49,330
Speaker 1: the judgment, you're saying, we recognize something has been done

462
00:27:49,410 --> 00:27:55,060
Speaker 1: wrong here. Now, as we execute judgment on this, now

463
00:27:55,140 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: we're going to put this person away for life. We're

464
00:27:57,600 --> 00:27:59,340
Speaker 1: going to institute the death penalty. We're going to do

465
00:27:59,380 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 1: whatever we're going to do. But there's going to be

466
00:28:01,020 --> 00:28:05,340
Speaker 1: an execution now of that judgment. On the hate side,

467
00:28:05,619 --> 00:28:08,550
Speaker 1: we don't look at that and say, we're not going

468
00:28:08,570 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 1: to kill this person. We're not going to put them away.

469
00:28:10,420 --> 00:28:13,110
Speaker 1: We're not going to prosecute the hatred. These are very

470
00:28:13,150 --> 00:28:15,530
Speaker 1: difficult things to do in the first place. But what

471
00:28:15,570 --> 00:28:19,940
Speaker 1: we may do is something different than that. The Bible

472
00:28:19,980 --> 00:28:25,470
Speaker 1: prescribes social ostracization as a means of dealing with persistent sin.

473
00:28:26,210 --> 00:28:26,889
Speaker 2: Maybe it's that.

474
00:28:28,010 --> 00:28:33,250
Speaker 1: Maybe it's something else. It could be a number of

475
00:28:33,270 --> 00:28:36,730
Speaker 1: different things. In the abstract, we just know that we're

476
00:28:36,750 --> 00:28:40,730
Speaker 1: not putting this person who hates other people in prison.

477
00:28:41,860 --> 00:28:44,900
Speaker 1: We're doing other things to sort of either help them

478
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,470
Speaker 1: get past their hate, Or to let them live in

479
00:28:48,510 --> 00:28:52,050
Speaker 1: that hate such that we're hoping it will be that

480
00:28:52,170 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: ultimately that pitiless situation will be redemptive. And so there's

481
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:02,020
Speaker 1: the judgment and there's the execution of judgment. But then ultimately,

482
00:29:03,020 --> 00:29:08,340
Speaker 1: there's always this potential to show mercy, right? To let

483
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:13,260
Speaker 1: something play itself out further. to forgive the wrong that

484
00:29:13,300 --> 00:29:16,580
Speaker 1: has been done. But even in saying it that way,

485
00:29:17,740 --> 00:29:24,030
Speaker 1: you're still recognizing it's wrong. And so that initial sort

486
00:29:24,050 --> 00:29:27,790
Speaker 1: of cognitive judgment that I described, that recognition that this

487
00:29:27,910 --> 00:29:30,690
Speaker 1: is not right, that it is not aligned with God's reality,

488
00:29:31,270 --> 00:29:36,150
Speaker 1: I think is absolutely crucial. Because otherwise, we're running the

489
00:29:36,170 --> 00:29:40,940
Speaker 1: risk of calling evil good and good evil. And that

490
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:44,540
Speaker 1: is the fundamental act of judgment that we are to exercise.

491
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: We're to recognize good as good and evil as evil.

492
00:29:50,030 --> 00:29:54,490
Speaker 3: This is helpful. So to me, the action points are

493
00:29:54,530 --> 00:30:00,150
Speaker 3: still hazy to me, right? Because I think about This

494
00:30:00,190 --> 00:30:04,020
Speaker 3: is going to sound too specific. Forgive me. The person

495
00:30:04,060 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 3: who hates, perhaps as someone who has a very loud

496
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 3: and public pedestal to stand upon, to be able to

497
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:15,500
Speaker 3: declare that hate. And though that person may not actually

498
00:30:15,540 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 3: go out and commit the heinous act, and you might say, well,

499
00:30:18,580 --> 00:30:21,420
Speaker 3: you know, it's not the same, so we just excommunicate you.

500
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 3: We live in a time in which there's no way

501
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:31,210
Speaker 3: to actually silence such people. And inevitably, in the crowd

502
00:30:31,230 --> 00:30:33,610
Speaker 3: of those listening to him, you have someone more apt

503
00:30:33,710 --> 00:30:37,250
Speaker 3: to radicalization who takes that hate and internalize it and

504
00:30:37,410 --> 00:30:42,050
Speaker 3: actually does go and kill, right? Or actually does go

505
00:30:42,110 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 3: and do heinous things. Now, of course, it's the person

506
00:30:46,380 --> 00:30:49,020
Speaker 3: who does that that we want to hold responsible, but

507
00:30:49,060 --> 00:30:54,180
Speaker 3: we also want to hold responsible the one that we're saying,

508
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:57,660
Speaker 3: that wasn't okay, right? That we're not using the language

509
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:03,910
Speaker 3: of worse and worse, worse-er. So it gets complicated. I

510
00:31:03,950 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 3: don't know that there's any way to judiciously deal with

511
00:31:08,300 --> 00:31:10,740
Speaker 3: that because we don't have the ability to look down

512
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:13,940
Speaker 3: and say, well, your actions and your words affected this

513
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,620
Speaker 3: other person in precisely this way. We're not God, right?

514
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 3: I get the uncertainty of it, but that to me

515
00:31:20,060 --> 00:31:25,290
Speaker 3: maybe further blurs the line between a Barth kind of

516
00:31:25,310 --> 00:31:27,410
Speaker 3: statement with World War I and World War II without

517
00:31:27,450 --> 00:31:30,570
Speaker 3: knowing the internal workings of how he precisely adjudicated that.

518
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,940
Speaker 1: Well, let's just say this, because I think it's also

519
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:41,380
Speaker 1: important to understand. When Barth cites Romans 13 in this section, right,

520
00:31:41,420 --> 00:31:47,500
Speaker 1: he's recognizing one authority that exercises judgment. Whatever we think

521
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:49,980
Speaker 1: about his reference here, and we can get into that.

522
00:31:50,770 --> 00:31:57,390
Speaker 1: But the governing authorities that God has established are to

523
00:31:57,610 --> 00:32:01,650
Speaker 1: execute judgment. And so you have this sort of sense

524
00:32:01,710 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: that the governing authorities are to recognize when something is

525
00:32:06,210 --> 00:32:10,740
Speaker 1: good and bad. And this comes out in Romans 13, right?

526
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:13,660
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be afraid of rulers if you're doing good

527
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,070
Speaker 1: because they're a servant for your good.

528
00:32:16,730 --> 00:32:19,430
Speaker 2: They're God's servant for your good. So you shouldn't worry

529
00:32:19,940 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 2: if you're doing good.

530
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:23,500
Speaker 1: You shouldn't have a problem with the governing authorities that

531
00:32:23,540 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: God has appointed. Now, we know that in practice, that

532
00:32:26,220 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: does not necessarily come to pass, right?

533
00:32:29,860 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 3: And Barth invariably had to know that, right? Because he's

534
00:32:32,260 --> 00:32:35,060
Speaker 3: writing this in the middle of precisely the circumstances in

535
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:38,910
Speaker 3: which he said, you've got to stand up to Hitler

536
00:32:38,930 --> 00:32:39,670
Speaker 3: and the Nazi regime.

537
00:32:40,190 --> 00:32:42,550
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm kind of mixing my letters, but I think

538
00:32:42,590 --> 00:32:44,970
Speaker 1: in the letter to Great Britain, he even references the

539
00:32:45,490 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: embattled church in Germany, right? So He knows very well

540
00:32:49,940 --> 00:32:52,860
Speaker 1: that this doesn't always work and that there are corrupt

541
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 1: governing authorities who have moved beyond their scope that God

542
00:32:58,740 --> 00:33:02,770
Speaker 1: has given them and decided to exercise judgment apart from

543
00:33:02,810 --> 00:33:06,670
Speaker 1: God's reality. They're no longer recognizing judgment. They're determining good

544
00:33:06,710 --> 00:33:13,430
Speaker 1: and evil, right? Just a slight difference. But in Romans 13,

545
00:33:13,430 --> 00:33:18,610
Speaker 1: what you're seeing is, I think, Paul instructing the Romans, hey, look,

546
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:22,940
Speaker 1: when the government is functioning properly and when you are

547
00:33:22,980 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: doing good things, you don't have anything to worry about, right?

548
00:33:27,260 --> 00:33:29,660
Speaker 1: And we see in other places in scripture that if

549
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: we're suffering for Christ, that's, you know, that's sort of

550
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 1: par for the course.

551
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 2: And so you've got both those things held in tension.

552
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: Sure.

553
00:33:39,220 --> 00:33:39,820
Speaker 2: So as one.

554
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:43,410
Speaker 3: Scholar I've read, sorry, as one scholar I read put it,

555
00:33:43,810 --> 00:33:46,870
Speaker 3: Romans 13 is putting just as much upon the government leaders.

556
00:33:46,910 --> 00:33:51,530
Speaker 3: It's almost like Paul is saying, I'm speaking of the ideal. Hey, wink, wink,

557
00:33:52,110 --> 00:33:55,670
Speaker 3: be the ideal, right? Knowing full well that he was

558
00:33:55,730 --> 00:34:00,750
Speaker 3: living under a regime himself. That was far from that ideal, right?

559
00:34:00,810 --> 00:34:01,570
Speaker 2: A hundred percent.

560
00:34:02,650 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 1: And I think that goes then to the second aspect,

561
00:34:05,620 --> 00:34:08,379
Speaker 1: the second entity of judgment, right?

562
00:34:08,420 --> 00:34:09,240
Speaker 2: Which is the church.

563
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:16,650
Speaker 1: And so the church does hold the keys. We're making

564
00:34:16,710 --> 00:34:20,420
Speaker 1: judgments all the time. Now, we don't enact those judgments

565
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:23,819
Speaker 1: in the same way that the government can or the

566
00:34:23,860 --> 00:34:28,319
Speaker 1: government is called to. We don't hold the sword. But

567
00:34:29,100 --> 00:34:32,210
Speaker 1: it's incumbent upon the Christian community to recognize some of

568
00:34:32,270 --> 00:34:36,690
Speaker 1: these things as opposed to celebrating them. And so I

569
00:34:37,150 --> 00:34:40,129
Speaker 1: think part of the complexity of all of this is

570
00:34:40,810 --> 00:34:43,970
Speaker 1: how does one entity exercise judgment as opposed to the other?

571
00:34:45,260 --> 00:34:47,700
Speaker 1: How do we as people who sort of belong to

572
00:34:47,739 --> 00:34:52,540
Speaker 1: these two groups advocate for judgment on either side, whether

573
00:34:52,580 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: that's the recognition or the enactment? And then how do

574
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,950
Speaker 1: we look at a complex situation and say, this one

575
00:35:00,070 --> 00:35:03,230
Speaker 1: could really deserve some mercy, whereas this one needs to

576
00:35:03,310 --> 00:35:08,580
Speaker 1: not have mercy given? Those are all really complex situations.

577
00:35:08,660 --> 00:35:11,060
Speaker 1: And in the hypothetical, I don't think there's any real

578
00:35:11,100 --> 00:35:13,459
Speaker 1: way to sort of sit back and go, well, here's

579
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:15,819
Speaker 1: the pattern that God used. And so we'll just use it.

580
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: That's not there. But I think we're living in the

581
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: midst of an imperfect system where the glimmers of God's

582
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,760
Speaker 1: glory are trying to shine through in the imperfect judgments

583
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:29,740
Speaker 1: of political authorities and the church.

584
00:35:33,010 --> 00:35:34,690
Speaker 3: I wonder if we can look at the pattern of

585
00:35:34,730 --> 00:35:37,130
Speaker 3: God and say there is actually a way forward if

586
00:35:37,170 --> 00:35:39,810
Speaker 3: what we see as the normative is the long-suffering, which

587
00:35:39,870 --> 00:35:43,730
Speaker 3: I think is the normative of divine act in Scripture.

588
00:35:44,850 --> 00:35:48,370
Speaker 3: That the normative is that these things pile up, and

589
00:35:48,410 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 3: it's only in that extreme moment where it's not the

590
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:58,439
Speaker 3: divine patience. And I don't think divine patience means look

591
00:35:58,500 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 3: the other way. It's watchful. It's I'm paying attention.

592
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 2: It's exhort.

593
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:06,450
Speaker 3: It's It's nudge. It's, you know, this isn't okay. You

594
00:36:06,469 --> 00:36:08,570
Speaker 3: need to fix this. And to me, the analogy is

595
00:36:08,590 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 3: with kids. Whatever form of discipline one believes in, most assuredly,

596
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 3: the normative is not the worst form of that discipline.

597
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:25,180
Speaker 3: The normative is to give the child a chance to

598
00:36:25,219 --> 00:36:27,580
Speaker 3: correct things, to fix things, but to make sure the

599
00:36:27,620 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 3: child knows that things need to be corrected or fixed.

600
00:36:31,030 --> 00:36:33,540
Speaker 3: And whatever that most extreme form is that one parent

601
00:36:33,580 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 3: is going to enact, that becomes the, okay, we've reached

602
00:36:38,260 --> 00:36:41,180
Speaker 3: an exhaustion, right? So that's, let's call it three strikes.

603
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,760
Speaker 3: You've reached your third strike, and now we institute whatever

604
00:36:44,820 --> 00:36:50,710
Speaker 3: that strong form of discipline is. Or, this moment was

605
00:36:50,750 --> 00:36:57,090
Speaker 3: an exception, right? You physically and intentionally harmed your sibling.

606
00:36:57,570 --> 00:37:00,450
Speaker 3: So we're jumping straight to the highest form to make

607
00:37:00,489 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 3: it crystal clear that there's no room here for nudge fix,

608
00:37:05,219 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 3: nudge fix, right? Now the consistent here is the nudge fix.

609
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,580
Speaker 3: I think that's important. That is not just simply a

610
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:16,319
Speaker 3: look the other way. It's no, the thing that needs

611
00:37:16,340 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 3: to be addressed needs to be addressed. And if it's

612
00:37:18,460 --> 00:37:22,550
Speaker 3: not being addressed with any sense of this is a

613
00:37:22,570 --> 00:37:25,070
Speaker 3: problem and you need to see this as a problem,

614
00:37:26,930 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 3: But then we're looking the other way, and that's not

615
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:30,979
Speaker 3: helpful to anyone. It's not helpful in the micro case

616
00:37:31,020 --> 00:37:34,020
Speaker 3: of kids. It's not helpful of the boss towards an employee.

617
00:37:34,060 --> 00:37:39,100
Speaker 3: It's not helpful for the government relative to the student.

618
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 3: I mean, I think of the banal reality of sports,

619
00:37:42,780 --> 00:37:45,180
Speaker 3: but it drives me nuts in the NBA when a

620
00:37:45,219 --> 00:37:47,359
Speaker 3: ref calls travel because I think you let travel go

621
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 3: 10 times, then you call it once. What's the point

622
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 3: of that? If I'm a player, I'm thinking, I don't

623
00:37:52,100 --> 00:37:53,819
Speaker 3: know what travel is then because you let it go

624
00:37:53,860 --> 00:37:56,450
Speaker 3: those other 10 times. Or maybe more to the point

625
00:37:56,469 --> 00:37:59,009
Speaker 3: of carrying the ball. If a parent lets it go

626
00:37:59,010 --> 00:38:03,710
Speaker 3: 10 times without addressing it, the kid should be confused.

627
00:38:04,210 --> 00:38:08,029
Speaker 3: If the cop lets no seatbelts or phone in one hand,

628
00:38:08,090 --> 00:38:10,529
Speaker 3: ticket in the other, if he doesn't enforce that the

629
00:38:10,550 --> 00:38:13,489
Speaker 3: first 10 times, then shouldn't I be confused when the

630
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 3: 11th time you do? Those sorts of things. So there's

631
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 3: got to be some form of push, but there are

632
00:38:18,739 --> 00:38:22,219
Speaker 3: certain things where you jump to. There's no strike one,

633
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:24,840
Speaker 3: there's no strike two. It's just This needs to be addressed.

634
00:38:24,860 --> 00:38:27,779
Speaker 3: And maybe that, when we think about the murder situation,

635
00:38:28,580 --> 00:38:31,779
Speaker 3: murder is that moment where it's, no, this needs to

636
00:38:31,820 --> 00:38:34,339
Speaker 3: be addressed right away. Whatever, you know, and wisdom has

637
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 3: to be involved, right? Where exactly that line is, I'm

638
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:38,470
Speaker 3: not sure, and I don't know that anyone is. But

639
00:38:38,489 --> 00:38:40,850
Speaker 3: murder is definitely on that other side. And in the

640
00:38:40,870 --> 00:38:43,489
Speaker 3: case of Barth, Holocaust is definitely on that other side.

641
00:38:43,510 --> 00:38:46,270
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you gotta, you know, so I

642
00:38:46,330 --> 00:38:47,810
Speaker 1: agree with the long-suffering comment.

643
00:38:47,930 --> 00:38:49,610
Speaker 2: I agree that that's God's pattern.

644
00:38:50,370 --> 00:38:52,969
Speaker 1: I would say that that's sort of the overarching message

645
00:38:53,980 --> 00:38:57,260
Speaker 1: We could call it the metanarrative of God's judgment, right?

646
00:38:57,660 --> 00:39:01,460
Speaker 2: That he's long-suffering. Before he executes judgment, he is long-suffering.

647
00:39:03,110 --> 00:39:05,210
Speaker 1: I would say on the micro level, when we look

648
00:39:05,250 --> 00:39:09,069
Speaker 1: at Old Testament law, for instance, the casuistic law particularly,

649
00:39:09,530 --> 00:39:12,970
Speaker 1: you do see punishment meted out, and it is pretty

650
00:39:13,070 --> 00:39:15,750
Speaker 1: clear that it needs to be meted out in the

651
00:39:15,790 --> 00:39:19,870
Speaker 1: way that it's done. God usually ends up long-suffering because

652
00:39:19,890 --> 00:39:23,029
Speaker 1: Israel doesn't execute the law in the way that he

653
00:39:23,070 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 1: has asked them to. Now, we see that most prominently

654
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: probably in things like Sabbath, the strange offering of sacrifices.

655
00:39:32,500 --> 00:39:38,320
Speaker 1: But there are very day-to-day laws that carry specific consequences

656
00:39:38,860 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: if you break them. And my sense is that part

657
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:45,410
Speaker 1: of the wrinkle that we'd have to deal with if

658
00:39:45,450 --> 00:39:47,990
Speaker 1: we were really going to deal with this whole issue

659
00:39:48,150 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: is that the law is given to help restrain evil.

660
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:58,980
Speaker 1: And so it isn't simply a matter of is this

661
00:39:59,060 --> 00:40:01,739
Speaker 1: right or is this wrong? It's also a matter of

662
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: how do we keep it from getting, how do we

663
00:40:06,060 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: keep evil from getting out of control? And so that's

664
00:40:09,180 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 1: an aspect of what we do when we make, when

665
00:40:11,820 --> 00:40:16,180
Speaker 1: we do judgment. I think that part, when we look

666
00:40:16,219 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 1: at World War II, when we look at what Bart

667
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: is talking about here, if we think about it in

668
00:40:20,910 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 1: terms of Bart saying, if we're not careful, evil is

669
00:40:24,420 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: going to get out of control here. Arguably evil is

670
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:29,580
Speaker 1: already out of control, but what's going to end up

671
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: happening is evil is just going to continue to spread

672
00:40:33,260 --> 00:40:34,300
Speaker 1: and be out of control.

673
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:38,170
Speaker 2: This now has to stop. It's a must.

674
00:40:38,989 --> 00:40:41,130
Speaker 1: I think that's a really compelling way to read Bart

675
00:40:41,210 --> 00:40:44,790
Speaker 1: on World War II. It, His framing of, is it

676
00:40:44,830 --> 00:40:47,049
Speaker 1: more guilty or less guilty in the question? And that's

677
00:40:47,070 --> 00:40:50,010
Speaker 1: not his framing. That's the question supposedly he was given.

678
00:40:50,630 --> 00:40:54,030
Speaker 1: I think that framing's off, but I do think that

679
00:40:54,180 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: what he's seeing in World War I is like, this

680
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:02,020
Speaker 1: wasn't going anywhere, right? This was going to end one

681
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:04,380
Speaker 1: way or the other. It was not going to end

682
00:41:04,420 --> 00:41:09,060
Speaker 1: in world conquest, but World War II feels different. It

683
00:41:09,140 --> 00:41:10,980
Speaker 1: seems like if we don't get a handle on this

684
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: guy and what he's doing and the ideology that he's promoting,

685
00:41:14,739 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: this could go everywhere. He doesn't articulate it like this.

686
00:41:20,510 --> 00:41:23,790
Speaker 1: That's just sort of my instinct reading it, I suppose.

687
00:41:24,590 --> 00:41:26,969
Speaker 1: But to me, that sort of restraint of evil is

688
00:41:27,030 --> 00:41:30,310
Speaker 1: a crucial aspect of what we do when we execute judgment.

689
00:41:30,370 --> 00:41:32,830
Speaker 1: It's almost the same thing, Ashish, that you're talking about

690
00:41:32,850 --> 00:41:36,140
Speaker 1: with somebody who's spewing hate speech. Well, why would we

691
00:41:36,180 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: address somebody who's spewing hate speech, broadcasting it or what

692
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:41,720
Speaker 1: have you, as opposed to somebody who makes an offhand

693
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:46,330
Speaker 1: sarcastic comment? Someone else hears that goes off and kills someone.

694
00:41:47,710 --> 00:41:51,610
Speaker 1: Those are two fundamentally different cases, right? One is a

695
00:41:51,650 --> 00:41:54,670
Speaker 1: flippant comment that somebody probably very much regrets.

696
00:41:54,390 --> 00:41:55,049
Speaker 2: That they've made.

697
00:41:55,070 --> 00:42:00,739
Speaker 1: The other is someone who is benefiting from, um, you know,

698
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 1: spewing hate speech over the airwaves. They're actually getting something

699
00:42:04,580 --> 00:42:08,219
Speaker 1: back from doing that. And so I think those are

700
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:11,410
Speaker 1: two fundamentally different cases. But the point is, the one

701
00:42:11,590 --> 00:42:16,810
Speaker 1: is relatively isolated and probably is unlikely to spread beyond.

702
00:42:16,390 --> 00:42:17,230
Speaker 2: Just a few people.

703
00:42:18,370 --> 00:42:20,950
Speaker 1: Whereas the other, the guy who's up on stage promoting

704
00:42:20,989 --> 00:42:25,610
Speaker 1: this huge YouTube channel or the podcast or whatever, highly

705
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:29,140
Speaker 1: likely that this evil is now not going to be restrained.

706
00:42:29,700 --> 00:42:35,170
Speaker 1: in an appropriate manner. Go ahead.

707
00:42:35,410 --> 00:42:37,790
Speaker 3: I would guess that in the case of the flippant

708
00:42:37,890 --> 00:42:42,370
Speaker 3: comment that becomes regrettable, there's also a difference in layers

709
00:42:42,410 --> 00:42:46,589
Speaker 3: of repentance. The person who's up there consistently spouting off this, that,

710
00:42:46,610 --> 00:42:50,240
Speaker 3: and the other that is in fact hate speech doesn't

711
00:42:50,340 --> 00:42:54,340
Speaker 3: come off as particularly repentant either for what he or

712
00:42:54,380 --> 00:42:57,280
Speaker 3: she says or for what he or she has spawned.

713
00:42:58,989 --> 00:43:01,290
Speaker 3: Versus I would imagine that the person who made a

714
00:43:01,350 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 3: flippant comment that resulted in something directly regrettable would be

715
00:43:07,300 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 3: quite repentant, right? Even as he or she would want

716
00:43:09,980 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 3: to separate from the actions that came out of it

717
00:43:13,260 --> 00:43:15,760
Speaker 3: would be just deeply mortified over what happened.

718
00:43:16,430 --> 00:43:16,810
Speaker 2: That's right.

719
00:43:16,830 --> 00:43:21,610
Speaker 1: Because it wasn't something they were anticipating or seeing forward.

720
00:43:21,930 --> 00:43:24,410
Speaker 1: And I just, I'll let you keep going, but I

721
00:43:24,450 --> 00:43:27,390
Speaker 1: wanted to say something because I thought about it. I'm

722
00:43:27,510 --> 00:43:32,109
Speaker 1: not suggesting that restraint of evil is the sole criteria, right?

723
00:43:32,969 --> 00:43:38,549
Speaker 1: A husband who murders their wife is arguably, you could

724
00:43:38,590 --> 00:43:40,890
Speaker 1: make the argument, well, he doesn't have another wife. And

725
00:43:40,930 --> 00:43:42,690
Speaker 1: so I guess it's safe to just let him off

726
00:43:42,730 --> 00:43:47,700
Speaker 1: the hook, right? That is not a restraint of evil

727
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,700
Speaker 1: judgment in that point. But I think that restraint of

728
00:43:50,860 --> 00:43:53,759
Speaker 1: evil has to be sort of in the equation, in

729
00:43:53,780 --> 00:43:56,570
Speaker 1: the mix of as we think about some of these things.

730
00:43:56,610 --> 00:43:57,310
Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying.

731
00:43:58,969 --> 00:44:01,989
Speaker 3: Yeah, but even to that point, okay, that person doesn't

732
00:44:02,010 --> 00:44:04,569
Speaker 3: have another wife to kill, but the idea at play

733
00:44:04,610 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 3: perhaps is this person terminated a life because he couldn't

734
00:44:10,620 --> 00:44:13,760
Speaker 3: control the impulse that led him to that moment, whatever

735
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:18,940
Speaker 3: that impulse is. Incredible anger that stemmed from somewhere. So

736
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,750
Speaker 3: on what basis do we trust that this person, once

737
00:44:21,850 --> 00:44:27,180
Speaker 3: that can has been opened... will constrain himself next time

738
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:30,110
Speaker 3: when anger inevitably rises up, right? This person needs to

739
00:44:30,130 --> 00:44:32,089
Speaker 3: be dealt with in the fullest way, I think might

740
00:44:32,110 --> 00:44:34,410
Speaker 3: be the logic there. But I think to the point

741
00:44:34,430 --> 00:44:37,390
Speaker 3: of guilt, actually, Barth does seem to address that in

742
00:44:37,430 --> 00:44:40,370
Speaker 3: that second question, where he says, to admit to oneself

743
00:44:40,410 --> 00:44:42,750
Speaker 3: that over against this judgment of God, that there are

744
00:44:42,830 --> 00:44:46,170
Speaker 3: no degrees of guilt, is something that he regards as

745
00:44:46,210 --> 00:44:49,190
Speaker 3: important with regard to the present war, where he's not

746
00:44:49,230 --> 00:44:52,280
Speaker 3: letting either side off the hook. And he knows full

747
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 3: well that the acts at play by the Nazi regime

748
00:44:57,020 --> 00:45:01,509
Speaker 3: are different than the acts at play for, let's say,

749
00:45:01,530 --> 00:45:03,270
Speaker 3: the Americans who are part of the Allies, who are,

750
00:45:03,450 --> 00:45:05,810
Speaker 3: by the way, in the midst of Jim Crow and

751
00:45:05,850 --> 00:45:08,870
Speaker 3: don't seem to be willing to get over that. FDR,

752
00:45:09,630 --> 00:45:14,020
Speaker 3: who himself personally seems to have regretted the very reality

753
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:17,180
Speaker 3: of Jim Crow, was not willing to shred his political

754
00:45:17,219 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 3: capital to actually take action to undo it. That's guilt-worthy.

755
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:28,140
Speaker 3: FDR knew full well what Winston Churchill was doing in India.

756
00:45:29,100 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 3: And he did speak against it, but he spoke against

757
00:45:31,580 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 3: it not with any sort of ultimatum. It was more

758
00:45:34,140 --> 00:45:36,750
Speaker 3: of a, we don't agree with this, stop that, as

759
00:45:36,790 --> 00:45:39,110
Speaker 3: he continued to ally with them because he didn't want

760
00:45:39,130 --> 00:45:44,170
Speaker 3: to lose Winston Churchill as an ally. That's more than regrettable.

761
00:45:44,390 --> 00:45:48,330
Speaker 3: That's culpability. Even if it's not the same thing as

762
00:45:48,370 --> 00:45:50,489
Speaker 3: what Hitler's doing or what Churchill is doing. Now, in

763
00:45:50,510 --> 00:45:52,859
Speaker 3: Barth's case, I have no reason to know that... think

764
00:45:52,900 --> 00:45:55,279
Speaker 3: that he knew about these other dynamics that Churchill was

765
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 3: involved in. But I do think it's important that he

766
00:45:57,980 --> 00:46:04,890
Speaker 3: recognizes that guilt is guilt. So he's not demonstrating a

767
00:46:04,950 --> 00:46:08,029
Speaker 3: distinction in degrees of guilt, even as he does recognize

768
00:46:09,110 --> 00:46:12,029
Speaker 3: for people who are guilty to resist in the name

769
00:46:12,090 --> 00:46:15,050
Speaker 3: of something righteous, the righteous state, as we've mentioned in

770
00:46:15,070 --> 00:46:19,430
Speaker 3: the first episode, him calling it, still have a responsibility

771
00:46:19,450 --> 00:46:21,719
Speaker 3: to So what he does here right after this, he means,

772
00:46:21,780 --> 00:46:24,990
Speaker 3: who will measure the amount of culpability? It's a rhetorical question.

773
00:46:25,570 --> 00:46:27,750
Speaker 3: I should like, therefore, to give to the first part

774
00:46:27,770 --> 00:46:31,860
Speaker 3: of the question the answer that we must heed Romans 13, 1-7.

775
00:46:31,900 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 3: That's where he brings in Romans 13, this sense of

776
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:39,290
Speaker 3: the ideal of what government ought to be doing. And

777
00:46:39,330 --> 00:46:41,670
Speaker 3: so if we recognize what government ought to be doing,

778
00:46:41,870 --> 00:46:44,629
Speaker 3: our responsibility is just to do well. And if we

779
00:46:44,690 --> 00:46:47,359
Speaker 3: do well, we shouldn't have the expectation of facing trouble.

780
00:46:47,420 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 3: He knows full well people doing well are facing trouble, right?

781
00:46:51,580 --> 00:46:55,339
Speaker 3: His own comrades in Germany who are trying to help

782
00:46:55,450 --> 00:47:00,850
Speaker 3: the Jewish people are not being treated well. Let's put

783
00:47:00,870 --> 00:47:01,750
Speaker 3: it that way, right?

784
00:47:02,430 --> 00:47:02,569
Speaker 2: Yeah.

785
00:47:02,980 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 3: But he puts alongside that the second part, and this

786
00:47:05,219 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 3: is what stems his notion of degrees of guilt that

787
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:10,219
Speaker 3: he also doesn't want to get into. And to the

788
00:47:10,300 --> 00:47:13,140
Speaker 3: second part of your question that we must place beside

789
00:47:13,219 --> 00:47:21,870
Speaker 3: Romans 13, 1-7, the above words, the words from Romans 3.23,

790
00:47:21,870 --> 00:47:24,070
Speaker 3: which is that all have sinned and fallen short of

791
00:47:24,090 --> 00:47:27,919
Speaker 3: the glory of God. Meaning, we all bear some guilt.

792
00:47:29,250 --> 00:47:31,970
Speaker 3: The question here isn't about less guilty and more guilty.

793
00:47:32,030 --> 00:47:34,089
Speaker 3: The issue here is, regardless of the fact that we

794
00:47:34,130 --> 00:47:36,650
Speaker 3: bear guilt, what do we do right now? Or if

795
00:47:36,710 --> 00:47:39,589
Speaker 3: I can quote Thomas Wayne, Bruce Wayne's father, why do

796
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:43,180
Speaker 3: we fall? So we can get back up. If we're

797
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:46,180
Speaker 3: not going to get back up, shame upon us. But

798
00:47:46,219 --> 00:47:48,620
Speaker 3: in the case of the guilty, the Romans 3.23 group,

799
00:47:48,660 --> 00:47:51,930
Speaker 3: which is Jews and Gentiles alike within the context, which

800
00:47:51,969 --> 00:47:55,810
Speaker 3: is all of us, if we're all guilty in some sense...

801
00:47:56,430 --> 00:47:58,970
Speaker 3: The question here isn't of who is more and less guilty.

802
00:47:59,030 --> 00:48:01,670
Speaker 3: The issue is, do we get up and in the

803
00:48:01,750 --> 00:48:06,180
Speaker 3: moment respond appropriately, or do we continue to justify guilt?

804
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:09,460
Speaker 3: Or do we, in the moment, not only continue to

805
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 3: justify guilt, but refuse to resist it? I think maybe

806
00:48:15,160 --> 00:48:17,500
Speaker 3: that's the issue at play here. Is that fair?

807
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:21,270
Speaker 2: It is, I think. Yeah. I'll say two things.

808
00:48:21,310 --> 00:48:24,089
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that Bart begins this question with,

809
00:48:24,140 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 1: you know, is this a judgment on mankind? Answers that

810
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 1: with a resounding yes. And doesn't exactly clarify who's being judged.

811
00:48:33,340 --> 00:48:33,700
Speaker 2: I think.

812
00:48:34,820 --> 00:48:35,870
Speaker 3: I think he means everyone.

813
00:48:36,830 --> 00:48:37,350
Speaker 2: I do, too.

814
00:48:37,770 --> 00:48:40,630
Speaker 1: I think normally our normal thought is obviously the Germans

815
00:48:40,670 --> 00:48:41,350
Speaker 1: are being judged.

816
00:48:42,250 --> 00:48:42,489
Speaker 2: Right.

817
00:48:42,650 --> 00:48:45,630
Speaker 1: The Japanese were being judged. You know, whoever their allies

818
00:48:45,670 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: were being judged. I don't get that that's what Bart

819
00:48:49,140 --> 00:48:53,940
Speaker 1: is saying. He's saying, you know, things like they are

820
00:48:53,980 --> 00:48:59,219
Speaker 1: an indication of the divine judgment on human society. That's

821
00:48:59,260 --> 00:49:03,589
Speaker 1: not a human society. That's not this particular human society

822
00:49:03,739 --> 00:49:07,750
Speaker 1: or human society that has run amok. That's human society.

823
00:49:08,650 --> 00:49:11,190
Speaker 1: He's not making this distinction between the good guys and

824
00:49:11,210 --> 00:49:13,210
Speaker 1: the bad guys, the white hats and the black hats.

825
00:49:13,310 --> 00:49:16,069
Speaker 1: He's basically saying, no, war is a judgment on all

826
00:49:16,090 --> 00:49:18,299
Speaker 1: of us. It's a judgment on how far this has

827
00:49:18,340 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 1: gone now. in his second part of this, when he

828
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:29,140
Speaker 1: talks about the sort of similarities between the police state

829
00:49:29,380 --> 00:49:32,930
Speaker 1: and nation going against nation, it's clear that there is

830
00:49:33,070 --> 00:49:36,870
Speaker 1: a nation that is functioning there as the police. They're

831
00:49:36,910 --> 00:49:39,089
Speaker 1: saying this has gone too far and it can't go

832
00:49:39,150 --> 00:49:42,050
Speaker 1: any further. We've got to stop this. And so there's

833
00:49:42,110 --> 00:49:46,259
Speaker 1: a sort of recognition and judgment that happens there that's appropriate.

834
00:49:46,780 --> 00:49:49,259
Speaker 1: But I don't think that he's suggesting that any of

835
00:49:49,340 --> 00:49:52,420
Speaker 1: us escape judgment when there's a war on. It's always

836
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:56,859
Speaker 1: a human society problem. We've not been able to solve

837
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:02,780
Speaker 1: our differences. We've not been able to recognize what is good, right.

838
00:50:02,860 --> 00:50:05,779
Speaker 2: And beautiful in any other way other than to fight

839
00:50:05,860 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 2: one another.

840
00:50:07,310 --> 00:50:08,790
Speaker 1: And so I think he does see this as a

841
00:50:08,810 --> 00:50:11,870
Speaker 1: judgment on both sides, um, which makes a lot of

842
00:50:11,910 --> 00:50:16,470
Speaker 1: sense because both sides end up losing things. Um, whether

843
00:50:16,590 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 1: one wins a war or not, whether, you know, you

844
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:20,720
Speaker 1: come out and you're like, okay, the allies won.

845
00:50:21,739 --> 00:50:25,520
Speaker 2: Yes. We also lost an awful lot.

846
00:50:25,540 --> 00:50:27,779
Speaker 1: And I think that that is an aspect of the

847
00:50:27,820 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 1: judgment that Bart would probably admit that we does not

848
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:31,819
Speaker 1: delve that deeply into it in this letter.

849
00:50:34,130 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 3: So to that point, um, And I would imagine, well,

850
00:50:39,100 --> 00:50:41,180
Speaker 3: maybe not. I was going to say I'd imagine Barth

851
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:42,900
Speaker 3: would have some knowledge of this in his time, but

852
00:50:42,940 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 3: maybe not actually. If you go to Nuremberg today, which

853
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 3: was the center, it was where the headquarters of the

854
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:53,009
Speaker 3: Nazi party was, at the actual ground zero of the

855
00:50:53,070 --> 00:50:57,270
Speaker 3: Nazi headquarters, there's a museum known as the Document Center,

856
00:50:57,330 --> 00:50:59,930
Speaker 3: which was also the place, if I remember correctly, where

857
00:50:59,950 --> 00:51:01,169
Speaker 3: the Nuremberg trials were held.

858
00:51:02,370 --> 00:51:02,770
Speaker 2: Different spot.

859
00:51:02,790 --> 00:51:03,509
Speaker 3: I could be wrong about that.

860
00:51:03,850 --> 00:51:05,650
Speaker 2: Yeah, different spot. Not at the document center. It was

861
00:51:05,670 --> 00:51:06,160
Speaker 2: a different spot. Okay.

862
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:08,540
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there is a museum at the Nuremberg, at

863
00:51:08,580 --> 00:51:10,460
Speaker 1: the building where they had the Nuremberg trials.

864
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:12,839
Speaker 2: Or at the place. At both places, yes.

865
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 3: Oh, okay. So at the document center, which is at

866
00:51:16,300 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 3: the place of the headquarters, which is this great ostentatious

867
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:22,920
Speaker 3: grounds that in some ways Nuremberg has retrieved as a

868
00:51:23,060 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 3: stain on its legacy. And what they've done is they've

869
00:51:25,500 --> 00:51:28,140
Speaker 3: retrieved it by, on the one side, documenting, and that's

870
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:30,140
Speaker 3: the museum, and the other side making it a public

871
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 3: grounds site. to recapture it as a, as a life-giving

872
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:37,319
Speaker 3: creational space. And it's beautiful, but you can't help, but

873
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:40,250
Speaker 3: also see the hideous and Nuremberg makes no, no effort

874
00:51:40,290 --> 00:51:43,150
Speaker 3: to hide that it's the hideous, right? In fact, they

875
00:51:43,190 --> 00:51:45,830
Speaker 3: want to preserve it as a monument of hideousness so

876
00:51:45,870 --> 00:51:46,549
Speaker 3: that you know it is.

877
00:51:47,250 --> 00:51:47,469
Speaker 2: Okay.

878
00:51:47,489 --> 00:51:49,170
Speaker 3: So as you walk through the museum, which for my

879
00:51:49,230 --> 00:51:53,250
Speaker 3: money is actually as a historical museum, the best museum

880
00:51:53,310 --> 00:51:56,109
Speaker 3: I've been to in terms of its ability to communicate

881
00:51:56,870 --> 00:51:59,190
Speaker 3: with clarity, the steps that are involved in this.

882
00:51:59,910 --> 00:52:00,170
Speaker 2: Agreed.

883
00:52:00,190 --> 00:52:05,890
Speaker 3: Uh, In one section of it, it's an attempt to

884
00:52:05,989 --> 00:52:09,660
Speaker 3: show you the rise of the Nazi Party alongside the

885
00:52:09,700 --> 00:52:12,180
Speaker 3: reception around the rest of the world. And what's particularly

886
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 3: hideous about this is that countries like the U.S. and

887
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:22,180
Speaker 3: Great Britain, while you have some voices of concern as

888
00:52:22,219 --> 00:52:25,700
Speaker 3: to what's going on in Hitler's regime, the by and

889
00:52:25,739 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 3: large result is to say, Either he's doing a good job,

890
00:52:31,550 --> 00:52:36,390
Speaker 3: or yeah, there's some problems, but that's their problem, not ours.

891
00:52:38,650 --> 00:52:43,310
Speaker 3: As I recall, the only country that consistently voiced concern

892
00:52:43,350 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 3: and sounded the alarm and said, basically, their media was saying,

893
00:52:46,260 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 3: please help, we've got to address this, was Poland. Now,

894
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 3: part of that is Poland is the neighbor, and they

895
00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:55,819
Speaker 3: probably had access to more understanding. Part of that is

896
00:52:55,880 --> 00:53:01,810
Speaker 3: probably a sense of their own mortality. they know what's coming.

897
00:53:01,850 --> 00:53:05,180
Speaker 3: And it's quite possible that Hitler's invasion of Poland, to

898
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:08,420
Speaker 3: the degree and heinousness that he undertook it, was partly

899
00:53:08,460 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 3: because they sounded the alarm in this way. Now, there's

900
00:53:13,180 --> 00:53:17,279
Speaker 3: something culpable within that. So if we want to speak

901
00:53:17,300 --> 00:53:20,029
Speaker 3: of the judgment of the war, how did we get

902
00:53:20,070 --> 00:53:22,129
Speaker 3: to the point where these are the measures needed? Now,

903
00:53:22,210 --> 00:53:25,850
Speaker 3: maybe if we go back 10 years before it, it's

904
00:53:25,870 --> 00:53:27,730
Speaker 3: not quite 10 years before the start of the war

905
00:53:27,750 --> 00:53:32,030
Speaker 3: when Hitler comes to power, but you know, close and

906
00:53:33,890 --> 00:53:37,020
Speaker 3: countries take poland's sounding of the alarm more seriously or

907
00:53:37,140 --> 00:53:40,940
Speaker 3: concern themselves with what is a very concerning and troubling

908
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:43,980
Speaker 3: trend that's beginning to happen under hitler's regime and not

909
00:53:44,020 --> 00:53:46,560
Speaker 3: just simply say well their problem not ours or but

910
00:53:46,580 --> 00:53:48,600
Speaker 3: look at the good things mr hitler is doing which

911
00:53:48,820 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 3: unfortunately happened a lot um there are there are records

912
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 3: from christians in chicago i'll put it that way of

913
00:53:57,719 --> 00:54:04,739
Speaker 3: prominent places that wrote a letter praising Hitler. Let's say

914
00:54:04,860 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 3: mildly that's problematic. It's much worse than that. Therein is

915
00:54:10,690 --> 00:54:19,230
Speaker 3: where I think you can see the guilt, the culpability. Sure,

916
00:54:19,290 --> 00:54:22,009
Speaker 3: I suppose we could start to make rules and say, well,

917
00:54:22,030 --> 00:54:24,049
Speaker 3: Hitler did it, the other people didn't, so there's the

918
00:54:24,090 --> 00:54:28,569
Speaker 3: degrees of guilt. But I think to Bart's point, can

919
00:54:28,610 --> 00:54:30,950
Speaker 3: we really say that one is more guilty than the other?

920
00:54:31,530 --> 00:54:33,850
Speaker 3: And therein we can begin to see the claim that

921
00:54:35,030 --> 00:54:38,410
Speaker 3: this is a judgment upon everyone. The fact that we

922
00:54:38,510 --> 00:54:40,840
Speaker 3: got to this point where we need this kind of

923
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:47,500
Speaker 3: war isn't something that happened because we casually went through

924
00:54:47,540 --> 00:54:50,279
Speaker 3: life not realizing what was happening. No, there was a

925
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 3: lot of looking the other way. There was a lot

926
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 3: of okay, maybe this problem, but this good thing, right?

927
00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:58,570
Speaker 3: There was a lot of weighing the scales that meant

928
00:55:00,070 --> 00:55:02,290
Speaker 3: the sort of function of a Romans 13 was not

929
00:55:02,390 --> 00:55:05,830
Speaker 3: actually in force anywhere, or in most places, I shouldn't

930
00:55:05,850 --> 00:55:09,970
Speaker 3: say anywhere, in order to address these issues before they

931
00:55:10,010 --> 00:55:14,399
Speaker 3: became so intense that conflict had to be done. So

932
00:55:15,260 --> 00:55:18,340
Speaker 3: to your point that everyone suffered losses, everyone reached the

933
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:21,719
Speaker 3: point where they had to deal with this to their

934
00:55:21,780 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 3: own guilt.

935
00:55:23,739 --> 00:55:24,340
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.

936
00:55:24,400 --> 00:55:26,440
Speaker 1: I mean, I think number one, I've been to that

937
00:55:26,460 --> 00:55:28,759
Speaker 1: museum and I think you're right. It's my favorite place

938
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:29,100
Speaker 1: to go.

939
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:31,780
Speaker 2: And not because it's a happy place.

940
00:55:32,500 --> 00:55:35,540
Speaker 1: No, but they do such a good job and it's

941
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 1: so fascinating. It's like you walk through it and you

942
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:40,840
Speaker 1: see something different every time. You get new wrinkles on

943
00:55:40,860 --> 00:55:43,660
Speaker 1: the story every time. It's fantastic. I mean, it's a

944
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:46,880
Speaker 1: really well done place. The last two times I've been

945
00:55:46,900 --> 00:55:49,299
Speaker 1: in Germany, it's been a more constrained experience because they

946
00:55:49,340 --> 00:55:49,940
Speaker 1: were renovating.

947
00:55:50,630 --> 00:55:51,969
Speaker 2: And I'm always a little disappointed.

948
00:55:52,010 --> 00:55:53,509
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping the next time I go, it'll be

949
00:55:53,550 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 1: done and I can actually walk through the whole thing again.

950
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:00,880
Speaker 1: But either way, I do think that you're right. I

951
00:56:00,940 --> 00:56:04,460
Speaker 1: think that we tend to, and this is another one

952
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:06,620
Speaker 1: of those reasons I'm not a big fan of the

953
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:08,089
Speaker 1: better and worse sort of framing.

954
00:56:10,570 --> 00:56:12,050
Speaker 2: It just lets us off the hook.

955
00:56:13,469 --> 00:56:16,610
Speaker 1: It doesn't require us to do the sort of self-reflection of,

956
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:21,240
Speaker 1: and really taking a hard look at how these things

957
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:26,359
Speaker 1: came about, it starts to become about, this was Hitler

958
00:56:26,410 --> 00:56:28,250
Speaker 1: and the Nazis, period.

959
00:56:30,290 --> 00:56:32,500
Speaker 2: Yes, obviously, they have a lot to do with it.

960
00:56:33,390 --> 00:56:36,250
Speaker 1: But there were other factors that came into play there

961
00:56:36,330 --> 00:56:38,660
Speaker 1: that allowed this to spiral out of control. And if

962
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:43,390
Speaker 1: we're not going to address those and consider them, we're

963
00:56:43,570 --> 00:56:46,710
Speaker 1: opening ourselves up to it happening again or to having

964
00:56:46,850 --> 00:56:50,950
Speaker 1: a slightly similar situation arise. And I think these are

965
00:56:50,969 --> 00:56:55,840
Speaker 1: the challenges that Bart wants to hold out for us,

966
00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:57,500
Speaker 1: or at the very least, if he doesn't want to

967
00:56:57,560 --> 00:57:00,700
Speaker 1: hold them out for us, the way he thinks through

968
00:57:00,739 --> 00:57:05,660
Speaker 1: it is leaving this much room for us to open

969
00:57:05,700 --> 00:57:08,509
Speaker 1: it up and say, okay, how is everyone culpable in

970
00:57:08,550 --> 00:57:11,430
Speaker 1: this moment? What was going on here and how did

971
00:57:11,469 --> 00:57:16,920
Speaker 1: it all operate? because you are seeing these reverberations across.

972
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:22,760
Speaker 1: And I think it's a really powerful section in this letter,

973
00:57:22,900 --> 00:57:25,790
Speaker 1: as short as it is. I mean, it's like three paragraphs,

974
00:57:26,810 --> 00:57:30,410
Speaker 1: but it's just such an interestingly complex. He fits a

975
00:57:30,470 --> 00:57:32,690
Speaker 1: lot in, in those three paragraphs that you're just going,

976
00:57:32,990 --> 00:57:36,340
Speaker 1: what the heck did he just do? But at the

977
00:57:36,380 --> 00:57:39,880
Speaker 1: end of the day, it's a really powerful part of

978
00:57:39,920 --> 00:57:46,730
Speaker 1: this letter. I, I, That judgment aspect is very difficult

979
00:57:46,750 --> 00:57:48,750
Speaker 1: to wrestle with, even in a long form.

980
00:57:50,330 --> 00:57:50,550
Speaker 2: Right.

981
00:57:50,930 --> 00:57:52,690
Speaker 3: As we've sort of demonstrated here.

982
00:57:52,710 --> 00:57:55,460
Speaker 2: As we've demonstrated. There's so many questions. Yeah.

983
00:57:55,840 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 3: Lack of certainty.

984
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:00,140
Speaker 1: So many little rabbit trails you can go down. So

985
00:58:00,180 --> 00:58:02,940
Speaker 1: many components that sort of glob onto it. You know,

986
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:07,080
Speaker 1: this idea that, you know, there can be bad judgment. Well,

987
00:58:07,120 --> 00:58:09,180
Speaker 1: what do we mean by bad judgment? Well, it can

988
00:58:09,220 --> 00:58:10,860
Speaker 1: mean a whole host of things. And so you have

989
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:13,050
Speaker 1: to chase a lot of those down. But here I

990
00:58:13,070 --> 00:58:16,350
Speaker 1: think Bart just does a masterful job of sort of

991
00:58:16,450 --> 00:58:19,710
Speaker 1: laying this out in a way that's really intelligible without

992
00:58:19,850 --> 00:58:23,470
Speaker 1: over specifying things and leaving that room just to go,

993
00:58:23,810 --> 00:58:29,280
Speaker 1: we're all responsible. We had to do this, but we

994
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 1: shouldn't forget that we're responsible. But these people needed to

995
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:37,980
Speaker 1: be dealt with. But we're all responsible. He just keeps going.

996
00:58:38,660 --> 00:58:40,300
Speaker 1: It provides that sort of in and out that I

997
00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 1: think is really crucial in this conversation.

998
00:58:45,900 --> 00:58:48,720
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking Batman all over the place. Forgive me.

999
00:58:48,900 --> 00:58:53,800
Speaker 3: So to go with the Thomas Wayne saying to young Bruce,

1000
00:58:54,700 --> 00:58:56,500
Speaker 3: why do we fall so we can learn to get

1001
00:58:56,540 --> 00:58:58,360
Speaker 3: back up? I have alongside that, in light of what

1002
00:58:58,380 --> 00:59:02,490
Speaker 3: you just said, that flag. the Ben Affleck version of

1003
00:59:02,510 --> 00:59:09,300
Speaker 3: Batman that begins Batman versus Superman with what falls is fallen,

1004
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:12,800
Speaker 3: which is a bit tautological. But I think the larger

1005
00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 3: point is actually meant to be something of a precursor

1006
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:21,160
Speaker 3: to that tagline of Thomas Wayne that took on a

1007
00:59:21,200 --> 00:59:24,050
Speaker 3: life of its own, that the Batfleck version is living

1008
00:59:24,090 --> 00:59:26,669
Speaker 3: in a state of despair because in his mind, what

1009
00:59:26,730 --> 00:59:32,340
Speaker 3: falls is fallen. so anything that comes down isn't a

1010
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:35,840
Speaker 3: state of fallenness there's no sense of grace into his

1011
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 3: actions and that sets the tone for the entirety of

1012
00:59:37,920 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 3: that movie and we don't have to get into that

1013
00:59:39,340 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 3: movie but to your point here the two kind of

1014
00:59:42,900 --> 00:59:46,250
Speaker 3: have to go together what falls has fallen okay now

1015
00:59:46,310 --> 00:59:49,070
Speaker 3: what do we live in that despair let's not lose

1016
00:59:49,230 --> 00:59:52,230
Speaker 3: what's fall what falls has fallen but now what do

1017
00:59:52,250 --> 00:59:54,030
Speaker 3: we do when we fall why do we fall so

1018
00:59:54,050 --> 00:59:57,890
Speaker 3: we can get back up yeah yeah i think that's

1019
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:00,020
Speaker 3: a good architects of batman that's right.

1020
01:00:00,670 --> 01:00:04,190
Speaker 1: I think, you know, those two quotes really do summarize

1021
01:00:04,230 --> 01:00:06,650
Speaker 1: well what Bart, I think, is in part trying to

1022
01:00:06,710 --> 01:00:09,330
Speaker 1: say here, because he really is trying to say it's

1023
01:00:09,370 --> 01:00:12,370
Speaker 1: all fallen. But that doesn't mean that we live in

1024
01:00:12,390 --> 01:00:14,590
Speaker 1: the despair of it. There are going to be these

1025
01:00:14,650 --> 01:00:17,890
Speaker 1: moments where we do exercise God's judgment. And what always

1026
01:00:17,910 --> 01:00:21,690
Speaker 1: comes to mind is this great quote from Oliver O'Donnell

1027
01:00:21,710 --> 01:00:24,850
Speaker 1: in his book, The Ways of Judgment. He says that

1028
01:00:24,930 --> 01:00:29,770
Speaker 1: the political authorities don't, they're not abolished when Christ takes power.

1029
01:00:30,740 --> 01:00:33,550
Speaker 1: When Christ ascends and is glorified and stands at the

1030
01:00:33,590 --> 01:00:35,970
Speaker 1: right hand of the Father and has authority over all

1031
01:00:36,010 --> 01:00:39,310
Speaker 1: things on heaven and on earth, the earthly authorities don't

1032
01:00:39,390 --> 01:00:44,890
Speaker 1: lose their purpose. It's reframed. It's contextualized in Christ. And

1033
01:00:45,170 --> 01:00:50,250
Speaker 1: so what they do now, they are secondary theaters of

1034
01:00:50,290 --> 01:00:52,660
Speaker 1: the judgment of God, is the way he describes them.

1035
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:56,240
Speaker 1: Secondary theaters. And what I think he means in part

1036
01:00:56,280 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 1: by secondary theaters is a little stronger than imperfect. What

1037
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:07,240
Speaker 1: I think he means is almost they're incidental. They can't

1038
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:12,550
Speaker 1: be primary because they're not recognizing God as the person

1039
01:01:12,570 --> 01:01:17,630
Speaker 1: that they're reflecting, as they're judging. And even when they

1040
01:01:17,650 --> 01:01:21,150
Speaker 1: get it right, they tend to own that judgment as theirs,

1041
01:01:22,090 --> 01:01:24,860
Speaker 1: as opposed to recognizing it as a reflection of what

1042
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 1: God does. And so I think he has sort of

1043
01:01:26,580 --> 01:01:31,640
Speaker 1: that If I'm reading him correctly, that secondary language is

1044
01:01:31,680 --> 01:01:34,300
Speaker 1: designed to sort of say they can't be primary because

1045
01:01:34,320 --> 01:01:39,820
Speaker 1: they're not actually saying glory to God. They're doing what's right,

1046
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:43,240
Speaker 1: but trying to accrue that glory to themselves. It's almost

1047
01:01:43,260 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: what we talked about with the city of God and Augustine, right?

1048
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:48,120
Speaker 1: It's the self-love that sort of gets in the way.

1049
01:01:48,160 --> 01:01:50,520
Speaker 1: And so even though they can gesture toward it, they

1050
01:01:50,560 --> 01:01:54,700
Speaker 1: can't really be the witness to it. We have to

1051
01:01:54,740 --> 01:01:56,580
Speaker 1: have the eyes to see and ears to hear to

1052
01:01:56,660 --> 01:02:00,480
Speaker 1: recognize this is the judgment of God. And it's being

1053
01:02:00,540 --> 01:02:06,140
Speaker 1: enacted by these earthly authorities. And yet they're not recognizing him.

1054
01:02:06,340 --> 01:02:09,070
Speaker 1: And for that, they are also culpable. So you almost

1055
01:02:09,090 --> 01:02:12,330
Speaker 1: get all of it sort of rewrapped up. It's very similar,

1056
01:02:12,370 --> 01:02:14,770
Speaker 1: I think, to what Bart's saying. I think the Batman

1057
01:02:14,810 --> 01:02:19,930
Speaker 1: quotes are great. And yeah, Oliver O'Donovan stuff I always enjoy.

1058
01:02:20,510 --> 01:02:22,130
Speaker 2: So I don't know.

1059
01:02:23,190 --> 01:02:25,110
Speaker 1: I think we've, I mean, we're at the end of

1060
01:02:25,130 --> 01:02:28,210
Speaker 1: the episode. We could probably go another hour on judgment

1061
01:02:29,270 --> 01:02:33,380
Speaker 1: pretty easily. We shouldn't, at least right now. We'll probably

1062
01:02:33,410 --> 01:02:37,080
Speaker 1: return to this topic later, but really helpful conversation, Ashish.

1063
01:02:37,100 --> 01:02:37,740
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.

1064
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:41,820
Speaker 3: Yeah, same. If I have one final thought to leave

1065
01:02:41,840 --> 01:02:45,140
Speaker 3: with is my disappointment that you took my words on

1066
01:02:45,180 --> 01:02:49,020
Speaker 3: Batman and you trumped it with a patron saint of

1067
01:02:49,060 --> 01:02:53,580
Speaker 3: theological ethics, making me look pedestrian. Oliver O'Donovan, come on.

1068
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:56,080
Speaker 2: Somebody's got to do it. I just couldn't think of

1069
01:02:56,120 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 2: another movie quote. Yeah.

1070
01:02:58,640 --> 01:03:00,860
Speaker 1: I guess I could have gone with Talladega Nights and

1071
01:03:00,880 --> 01:03:03,780
Speaker 1: Baby Jesus Prayer, but that's harder to work in a

1072
01:03:03,840 --> 01:03:04,970
Speaker 1: conversation about judgment.

1073
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:06,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I wouldn't even know what you're talking about

1074
01:03:06,740 --> 01:03:07,320
Speaker 3: at that point.

1075
01:03:10,690 --> 01:03:11,690
Speaker 2: You need to get out more, man.

1076
01:03:12,470 --> 01:03:14,750
Speaker 3: Apparently, I need to get outside of Batman more.

1077
01:03:15,350 --> 01:03:15,650
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1078
01:03:16,790 --> 01:03:16,930
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1079
01:03:18,110 --> 01:03:22,270
Speaker 2: All right. Well, hey, everybody, thanks for listening. Hopefully you

1080
01:03:22,290 --> 01:03:22,770
Speaker 2: enjoyed this.

1081
01:03:22,810 --> 01:03:25,050
Speaker 1: We're going to do the third question next episode, so

1082
01:03:25,070 --> 01:03:27,290
Speaker 1: stick with us, and we'll catch you on the next

1083
01:03:27,370 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian.

1084
01:03:28,470 --> 01:03:28,800
Speaker 2: Take care.

1085
01:03:29,080 --> 01:03:30,560
Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team

1086
01:03:30,620 --> 01:03:33,020
Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the

1087
01:03:33,060 --> 01:03:36,660
Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find

1088
01:03:36,740 --> 01:03:40,110
Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got

1089
01:03:40,150 --> 01:03:42,970
Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.