How should Christians engage politics?: Christian Nationalism, Public Life, and the Church, with Kaitlyn Schiess and Yi-An Huang
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How should Christians engage politics?
This episode with Kaitlyn Schiess (of the Holy Post Podcast) and Yi-An Huang (City Manager, Cambridge, MA) explores Christian Nationalism, what it means to bring your full self and convictions into public life, and how faith, politics, and church life intersect.
Description
How should Christians engage politics without losing their witness?
In this Theology Lab conversation, Yi-An Huang, city manager of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Kaitlyn Schiess, theologian, author, and co-host of The Holy Post podcast, explore the relationship between Christian faith and politics. What does it mean for Christians to bring their faith (their full selves) into public life while resisting the temptation to turn Christianity into a political weapon?
The conversation begins with Christian nationalism: What is at stake when Christians seek political power in the name of Christianity? Another underlying quetion here: How can Christians critique Christian nationalism without concluding that faith has no place in public life? Schiess argues that Christians should bring their convictions into public life as a gift rather than as something to coerce others with.
Huang brings a perspective shaped by his work in local government in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He reflects on the tension between Christian convictions (especially informed by how he sees Jesus conducting himself in the Gospels), public service, political power, and the surprising ways that values associated with Christian faith can also be found in communities that are not explicitly Christian.
The conversation also explores:
What Christian nationalism misunderstands about the mission of the church (see Kaitlyn’s opening line)
How the civil rights movement offers an important historical example of Christian political witness
Whether Christians should bring their full faith convictions into public life
How Christians can participate in a pluralistic democracy without coercion
The importance of humility when Christians believe they know what is best for society
What the Christian idea of the “already and not yet” means for political engagement
How churches can discern when to speak publicly about political issues
The tension between maintaining unity in a diverse church and speaking with moral clarity (a topic we look at fairly often at Theology Lab)
The difference between proclaiming a biblical conviction and endorsing a particular political candidate or policy
What it might mean to pray, “Deliver us from evil,” in a politically divided world (a question we ask to other guests in this series)
This is a Theology Lab episode of faithfulness and political involvement. For Huang and Schiess, faithful political witness involves both conviction and humility: bringing Christian convictions into the world while remaining open to being surprised by where the Spirit is at work, including outside the church.
Resources
📚 The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here — Kaitlyn Schiess
📚 The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor — Kaitlyn Schiess
🎙️ The Holy Post Podcast — co-hosted by Kaitlyn Schiess
Generated Transcript
Please note the transcript says 3 speakers, but there are actually 4 speakers when including the introduction. The main interview, however, which starts about two minutes in, only has three speakers:
speaker-0 (00:00.326)
most forms of Christian nationalism, and I don't think our current iteration is the only one. I think there's plenty of other examples in other times and places, misunderstand the mission of the church and misunderstand the mission of the church in usually pretty violent ways. On the flip side of that, in terms of where we might maybe get things wrong, is I think sometimes in our zeal to criticize the means or the method that Christian nationalists are using, w so we say there's just really shouldn't be anything Christian about your politics at all. Instead of saying, well no, you're you should as a Christian
Have ideas about what makes a good human life and how good how how human communities should function that are shaped by your Christian beliefs, you should bring those beliefs with you into public life.
speaker-1 (00:38.462)
Okay.
speaker-2 (00:46.39)
Yeah.
Hey, Greg. Greg, in this episode of Theology Lab, we've got Caitlin Chess from the Holy Post Podcast, super popular podcast, and then Ion Wong, who is the city manager of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Almost at the top of the episode, we have them talk about Christian nationalism and what some of their concerns about Christian nationalism are. And then they get into a really interesting conversation about like
speaker-1 (00:50.188)
Scott.
speaker-2 (01:12.972)
What do things look like following a criticism of Christian nationalism and what the relationship of faith and politics might look like?
speaker-1 (01:21.312)
And even the question of should faith and politics be mixed? Does that make sense? And if so, why? I'm also thinking about Christian nationalism. Has there been a time, historically speaking, when progressives have embraced Christian nationalism?
speaker-2 (01:35.97)
All right, take a moment if you would and like the video or subscribe to the Theology Lab channel below. You'll get videos as soon as they come out. Here's our conversation with Caitlin and Ion. okay, so folks can get to know you just a little bit. Can you just say in a word, a word or two, how did you get interested in the intersection, the relationship between faith and politics?
speaker-1 (01:59.712)
So so I kind of ended up in this role. You know, I I was I was actually working at a safety net hospital and I live in Cambridge and the city manager role opened up and I was watching a lot of what was happening in the city and there was tension between the city administration and the city council and I had always thought about public service. so I ended up probably a little naively thinking this was mostly an administrative job and I was excited, I was like, I'm gonna come in, do a great job.
And then obviously a lot more political than I had maybe anticipated. So I'm I'm very immersed in local politics. and and I think it has forced me to be more thoughtful and to think about, you know, how does my faith play into all of this stuff that I'm engaging with at work, at the grocery store, in the community. So a lot of, you know, it's been a it's been a journey in the last couple of years.
speaker-2 (02:52.974)
Well we'll get more into that. Caitlin, how how about you?
speaker-0 (02:55.928)
Yeah, the short version of the story is I was finishing up college, was a history and politics major, and I was at a university that was incredibly politically involved. It was at Liberty University. So my senior year, we had Ted Cruz announce his candidacy on campus, we had Bernie Sanders speak, we had Trump on campus multiple times, there was reporters everywhere. And I left, graduated and decided to go to seminary, which was a very last minute decision on my part. did not come a
Come from a tradition that ordained women. So I really wasn't even sure what I wanted to do as a job. I just thought, okay, I'm gonna go study the Bible for a while. Thank goodness it'll get me away from all this politics stuff, which is clearly just like useless, corrupt, terrible realm for Christians to be in. It always goes wrong. It's always idolatrous. And then my first semester at Dallas Seminary, the 2016 election was still happening, and it was really challenging for my peers. Most of whom knew exactly what they were gonna do when we were done. They were gonna go pastor churches. Some of them were gonna go back to churches they were already pastoring.
And they were distraught. They it felt like this is very clearly both a political and spiritual issue, not just this election, but it just, you know, it unearthed rifts in the church that were already there. It unearthed really poor theology of politics and public life. And a bunch of them were going, like, I don't know what to do. I care about this, I want to study this, but I it can't be my full-time job. And I really will tell people often it felt like God spoke the clearest I've ever heard in my life and just kind of said, like, it's you. Like you need to go do this, you need to study this.
I started writing about faith and politics in seminary and then about halfway through seminary I thought, I'm not done studying this, I gotta keep doing this so applied for PhD programs in political theology and I I fully intend this to be what I'm working on the rest of my life.
speaker-2 (04:36.174)
For a conversation on faith and politics, one of like the most self-evident kind of topics, topics that just kind of jumps out at us right now, is Christian nationalism. We're not gonna spend all of our time talking about Christian nationalism. but but maybe there's like two ways that we could engage it at the beginning here. Can you can you share with me just what is the general concern that you have with Christian nationalism as an American movement? but then also, are there any things that you see in the way Christians are critiquing Christian nationalism?
That just like raise questions for you about how Christians generally are thinking about their relationship to politics, possible things they might be overlooking or missing.
speaker-0 (05:17.294)
I think the one of the most obvious criticisms, but I think it's worth thinking through theologically what we mean when we say this, is that most forms of Christian nationalism, and I don't think our current iteration is the only one. I think there's plenty of other examples in other times and places, misunderstand the mission of the church and misunderstand the mission of the church in usually pretty violent ways. not that anyone who claims the label Christian nationalist today is is prone to violence, but the logic often leads towards violence in the sense that.
There is a a misunderstanding of what the mission of the church is and the means the church should use to achieve goals that might be very good goals. on the flip side of that, in terms of where we might maybe get things wrong, is I think sometimes in our zeal to criticize the means or the method that Christian nationalists are using, which very often include let's upend. I mean, on some levels of like the talking heads online, it's up, let's upend democracy. Like God has told us what is right and just. Let's enact it, let's coerce people into believing exactly the same things we believe. Sometimes in our zeal of
Of criticizing that, we end up focusing our criticism on the goal rather than the means. So we say there just really shouldn't be anything Christian about your politics at all. Instead of saying, well, no, you're you should, as a Christian, have ideas about what makes a good human life and how good how human communities should function that are shaped by your Christian beliefs. You should bring those beliefs with you into public life. You shouldn't use unjust means to achieve the justice that you are looking to see happen in your community.
and this is where I think having some historical understanding is really helpful, both to go back to ways in which Christians were really unfaithful in the past and ways Christians were really faithful in the past. So sometimes when we think about Christian nationalism, we we think of just this exact moment and we think of white evangelical Christians. in my historical study, it's interesting. There's w other times than places you could go to, but we there's a consistent thread of Christians in this country saying that they want to Christianize the nation.
They've had various political goals that they associated with Christianizing the nation. In the early 20th century, the Christianizing the nation goals were creating a social safety net because Jesus said that you should care for the least of these, you know. So we might go back to that history and go, wait, I actually I like that form of Christianizing. I just don't think I like this other form of Christianizing. So I think we need to be thoughtful about let's not have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that gets labeled Christian nationalism. Let's ask what are the goals it is trying to achieve? Are they truly Christian?
speaker-0 (07:39.458)
And what are the means they are using to achieve those goals? Are they truly Christian? And the greatest positive example I think we have of this in in our country's history is the civil rights movement, where both of those things are at play. There is a very deeply Christian view of the human being as made in the image of God, a deeply Christian view of what a faithful, loving, just community looks like. And then very Christian means of achieving that end. I mean, activists often saying we're praying together, we're practicing spiritual disciplines together before we go out and protest.
And also saying we won't use unjust means to achieve this justice we're seeking because we believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. That's Christian in a really thorough sense. And that's the kind of thing I want I want to applaud wherever it happens. Where it goes wrong, I think, is when again we misunderstand the mission of the church and we misunderstand the means that are uniquely Christian for achieving the maybe very good goals we want to achieve.
speaker-2 (08:33.771)
Yeah. I think that historical perspective is really helpful. Ian, what what are you thinking?
speaker-1 (08:39.534)
Yeah, no, I think I think that that sort of picture of how we see Christian nationalism in its various forms today compared to the civil rights movement is maybe a good contrast. You know, I I think one of the one of the parts of Christian nationalism in today's political world that feels feels very off to me is, you know, it's engaging mostly in politics as an exercise of power. there's a very like tribal
motivation behind Christian nationalism to say, you know, this is a Christian nation, Christians should be running the show. we want more prominence for Christian symbols and imagery. there's a push to have the Ten Commandments everywhere. And and so the the outcome is very odd when I when I read the Gospels, I don't see that as a motivation where, you know, Jesus is not preaching that the Romans should be overthrown, that
that you know what he is saying needs to become the law of the land or become more prominent in that way. and and sort of all of all of everything that gets wrapped up into what we see as Christian nationalism feels feels very off from I think what we read in the gospels. And then I look at the civil rights movement and it is such a different motivation. You know, you have a movement that's built on a sense of justice. You have a much deeper spiritual
driver around love and and what it means to be protesting but to love your opponents and to be acting out of that out of that desire, not just for your own good or for the good of a community that's really oppressed, but actually to seek the good of of the whole community, including the people that you might be in opposition with. That's not something we hear. In fact we hear the opposite in a lot of the forms of Christian nationalism where it's about dominance.
You have an enemy and and it's it's to win. And there isn't really a desire. There's not a vision for for in in today's movement for Christians to have more power. There's not movement for what that means for anybody who's not Christian, which is very odd. and and so I think there's there's something where I, you know, I I worry in terms of what it means for the church in this day to feel like that.
speaker-1 (11:00.682)
idea of what it means to be a witness, to to take what Jesus has called us toward and then it's being distorted in this in this incredible way where I don't think people can recognize Jesus between what they see on TV and and what you might read in the Bible.
speaker-2 (11:17.966)
Well our next question is going to get us more into a positive vision for what it looks like to engage politics. Caitlin, you said right that that Christians should bring the full conviction of their Christian faith into their public life. I wanna have you spell that out. Like what does that mean for you?
speaker-0 (11:36.45)
Yeah. a couple things I mean by that. One is I don't think it's helpful to a truly pluralistic democratic country for us to for any religious person, Christian, a Muslim person, a Jewish person, to kind of leave a chunk of themselves in their private life and then kind of pretend in public to be this kind of neutral observer of things. you know, I there's nowhere these convictions are coming from. I'm using all the same facts you're using. I'm not, I'm not
coming in with any particular convictions. I think it's unhelpful for a few reasons. One, it cuts us off from many of our really ancient traditions wisdom. And I want Christians to bring their wisdom to to public life. I want people of other faiths to bring their wisdom to public life. I don't think it's all the same. In fact I think it's deeply different. But I want us to both be honest with each other about where we're coming from and bring as Christians the gifts of our tradition. I said earlier when I was thinking about kind of Christian nationalism and some of the criticisms that can go wrong.
I think on both ends of that spectrum, there can be a failure to understand the Christian faith as a true gift to the whole world. On one end, people tend to think it's not really a true gift to the whole world because they think you have to coerce other people into believing it. That's not treating it like it's a good gift. You're treating it like it's a weapon that needs to be wielded against other people. On the other hand, there are people who say, you know, out of respect, out of a desire for pluralism, I'm not gonna say anything specifically Christian, I'm gonna kind of leave that in private.
That's, I think, a failure to understand that this is a genuine good gift for the world as well. One thinks it's not good enough, I need to coerce you into believing it. The other goes, I should probably keep that private, because I really think it's just for me. And I think somewhere in between is these are real good gifts we have to offer. And they've been corrupted often, they've been misused often. And yet in the history of Christianity, there are plenty of examples in our own kind of Western political tradition, in our own country, and outside in lots of other places of those.
Theological gifts bringing great flourishing and good to human communities, even from the earliest church, right? The earliest church that witnessed to the larger Roman Empire a concern for the most vulnerable, including women and children who had been abandoned. So we have great gifts of our tradition. And I think it's it's a failure to recognize that to keep them hidden, but it has to be offered in a spirit of hospitality. I use this example all the time because it was such a kind of striking moment in my own life.
speaker-0 (14:02.114)
So much of my most recent work has been shaped by living in Durham, North Carolina, where I lived in a pretty low-income, largely immigrant neighborhood in a progressive city in the South. And a lot of kind of interfaith dialogues would happen in Durham. And I would get invited to some of these. And the kind of joke about interfaith dialogues is that very often they end up being only the most progressive members of every religion. Like those are the people that tend to come to those conversations. And it and it's a joke for a reason. It tends to be the more conservative or moderate.
adherents of any religion that are kind of like, no, what I believe is actually true and what you believe is not true. And somehow we've we've come to this place where we think that means we can't have a conversation. And I actually think we could have really great conversations with people who genuinely believe very different things religiously. But that was kind of the world I was marinating in. And so both of my neighbors on other either side of me were Muslim families from Muslim majority countries. And I just sort of assumed like they will not want to know about my faith. I don't want to be aggressive about my faith, you know
And one day I was walking out of my house and my next door neighbor who I'd gotten to know pretty well asked was just chatting with me and asked me, you know, I've just been curious, are you a traveling evangelist? And I was like, What? I'm not a traveling evangelist? What are you talking about? So I asked her what she meant. And she said, Well, you carry a Bible out to your car on Sunday mornings. And almost every week I see you put a suitcase in the back of your car. So I'm just wondering if like you're going around preaching to people. And I said, actually, kind of, yes. Not exactly, kind of. And I was in this moment, I got nervous because I was like,
She's gonna know I'm one of the people that's on a different team than her. And I wonder how this will shape our relationship. And I've been pretty hesitant to say anything about my faith. And and then she thanked me because she said, I I appreciate both knowing that you're a religious person. We were in a pretty progressive city. There weren't a ton of religious people. that was actually, you know, that felt like security to her. That was comforting. But also she was a woman who, by conviction, you know, wore a head covering.
So she goes out in public, and every day it is very clearly visible that she has religious commitments that shape her life. I actually have the privilege as a Christian in this country of it being rarely publicly visible that I have religious convictions that shape my whole life. And she wanted to thank me for carrying my Bible out to my car because it helped her feel like there were other people that were very publicly religious. And that's just shaped how I think about this a lot because it's a combination of both. actually, our differences were not necessarily a reason for.
speaker-0 (16:24.216)
Conflict or avoidance, they were a reason for dialogue. But also she had known enough about me at that point to know that I wasn't like going to whip that Bible out to, you know, hit her over the head with it. Like she was ext I had extended hospitality to her already, and she had extended hospitality to me already. Her kids had been in my house eating Halloween candy. I had received gifts of food from her house. So there was prior relationship and there was already a spirit of hospitality. And when I say bring the full conviction of Christian faith into public life, I imagine it as a gift.
as an offer, not as either something to be dominating over other people with or as something to hide.
speaker-1 (16:59.596)
And I love I love that vision and and I think I think I really agree, you know, in terms of how our faith is expressed in values and how we're engaged. I mean, I think I think there is a calling for Christians. I mean, we we have a lot of gifts, we have a lot of privilege and and many of us have a lot of choices in terms of how we engage in the world. I mean, this isn't the first century Roman Empire where, you know, most people really didn't have a lot of opportunity to exercise any kind of political power.
And so I think the idea that we should be withdrawn from the world, you know, I think there there's a space for that. There's a space for for asceticism. But I think for for the majority of us, we're going to be engaged in one way or another. And and I think that makes sense. you know, I I think there is an oddness sometimes where where I actually feel deeply in terms of the calling that Jesus has to care for the poor, to care for the vulnerable. I think that's a big part of
you know, how I've ended up deciding what to work on. And and I think that's something that that has really influenced me in terms of my politics and and the ways that I think about policy. there is an irony because, you know, I'm I'm in the city of Cambridge. We are like the most progressive place in the United States. You know, I have a city council of nine people who are all different shades of blue. and and so that's that's sort of Cambridge. it's the people's republic.
not very religious, you know, as a city. So there there isn't, I think, a very deep sense of faith in politics. and yet I will just say, you know, for as much as there is so much for Christians to bring into that conversation, I have found in Cambridge there is such a depth of care for the vulnerable, for welcoming strangers and immigrants, for caring for the homeless.
for making the community better. I mean, this is a city where where, you know, I think there are thriving churches, but relative to like a Durham or other places in the country, I mean, there are not nearly as many Christians. And yet, I see so many of the same values reflected in our community. And I think there's there is a part of me that
speaker-1 (19:20.962)
Does wonder, and I think Caitlin, this is sort of this is sort of an interesting dynamic. I mean, it is that diversity that you talked about in terms of how people are interpreting that full conviction. and I see I see the challenge where sometimes I think we see ourselves as Christians or the church that we have some unique picture of of goodness to bring. And I think that is both really true. And yet also I look at
You know, we just we were just talking about Christian nationalism. I see in the church so much that's broken and so much that I don't recognize. And then I look outside of the church, even in my own community, and I see, I recognize the love that I read in the gospels in that community, even though they don't have Jesus. And and I think that has made me it has created a lot of tension in me when I when I think about, you know, how do I think about that underlying narrative? And it's it's present both
among people who are Christian nationalists to say, we know better because we know Jesus. And even among more progressive Christians, there's a sense of like, well, we know better. We have a gift to give. And sometimes I I sort of step back and I I think, you know, there is something special and beautiful and unique that we have to offer when we when we have that genuine relationship with Jesus. But I also feel some level of deep humility that that we've got to continue to be searching for that because actually like there are parts
where that, you know, that that deeper sort of you know, it's it's where it's where Paul says, you know, even in Romans, even those who don't know God, there's the seed of that faith there somewhere and it's guiding people. And I see that in our community too.
speaker-2 (21:04.906)
Let me see if I can try to actually, you know, play out some general example of where this where there's a tension. And that is like within churches themselves. This like you still have this, we have this kind of tension between let's say right now, like, hey, should we as a community be right there out on the front lines denouncing ice and everything it does and taking a stand together? And in that we'll be giving a voice to what God's doing in the world, to
Another approach that's saying, well, no, like the church's job is to form people within their character so that they will go out and do these things. And I realize that like, you know, you could say like those are not mutually exclusive, but like people do have different impulses towards one or the other. And they're at churches together. What does it look like to like be in community amidst some of these differences? I don't think that there's like a
an answer that you know, some some one answer to this that's gonna like solve at this dilemma entirely. But I do wonder if you have any wisdom in speaking into this tension that we feel within our church communities.
speaker-0 (22:08.416)
It is so time and context specific. And I do think one of the ch unique challenges we are facing right now is many people in churches, pastors and congregants and Bible study leaders and and small group leaders are getting a lot of their guidance. They're not only getting a lot of their guidance politically from cable news and social media, they're getting their guidance about what the church should be doing and what they should think theologically about from
influencers from pastors. It's not bad that we have an influx of online resources, but it does mean that some of the specificity of discerning what is the spirit leading this community to do right now is lost because a pastor in Portland said we should be doing it. So this pastor in, you know, Sugar Creek, Georgia is saying, okay, that's, you know, my congregants are saying we should be doing that too. And and it is so dependent on your context. Now it there's times when it's universal.
Right? Like scripture gives us some some very general universal truths about what it means to be a faithful Christian under unjust political conditions, for example. But the big challenge here is defining what rises to the level of the le you know of unjust political conditions to the point where the commands that scripture gives are warranted. People, I you know, I I write about this in the bout in the Bible. People go to either Romans thirteen, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, or to Acts five twenty nine, we must obey God rather than human beings, not based
always on just kind of cherry-picking verses. They do it based off of their discernment of what this situation demands. And the challenge is we can deeply disagree about which of those is like the right word for this moment. And I think that's not all solved by just kind of having local communities discern that, as you all know so well. And I know in my own church leadership experiences, like one local congregation, that can be the hottest debated thing is not just
How do we respond to any particular political issue? But what how what does it mean for us to be the church in relationship to this neighborhood? The church that I was at at for a very long time and was in leadership in for a while, one of the big issues for us was how closely did we affiliate with a local community organizing group? You could at any given moment, that conversation might be about a particular issue. I'm sure if I was still there right now, one of those would be back community organizing groups work with ICE and opposition to what was happening with ICE.
speaker-0 (24:33.24)
But it that wasn't really the underlying question. The underlying question was like, what does it mean for our witness in our neighborhood? Is that a witness of collaborating with people who are different from us? Or is that a witness that says we don't want to be compromised by the by the positions this organization might take? So I say all that to say it's not that just thinking in specific contexts fixes the problem. But I do think it makes sometimes the problem worse when in a local community,
There's not enough attention to like, are we together discerning what the spirit says? Are we reading scripture? Are we praying together? Are we assuming that scripture will speak to us, but maybe not in a very straightforward systematic theology kind of way? We're gonna have to figure out what texts are we drawn to and how are they shaping us and where are we most confronted actually? Where are we not going to scripture just to find something comforting, but something confronting? I think all of that process that is really good is sometimes disrupted.
By people getting the majority of their guidance from people who are not part of that particular community and don't know specifically what's going on and are writing books and doing podcasts, all of which are wonderful things, and I'm making my livelihood off of doing those things. But I I just was with a group of pastors in the last couple of days and I just kept telling them, like, my goal is to give the resources that then you can work with. I don't want to be in opposition to you because I can't do the thing that's actually much harder that you're doing, which is saying for these people in this time in this place, Holy Spirit help us know what we should do now.
speaker-1 (25:55.08)
You know, I think I think I have two like pretty contradictory pictures of of like what this looks like and and I and so I would say I think I think there's a part of me that sees both the long history of the church being wrong about so many things and dividing and fighting over things that we don't actually you know, theological disputes that have historically led to bloodshed and churches splitting.
over issues that today we're not even fighting about. and and that's before social media. And and now we live in a world where, you know, there is such a such a demand for understanding where people stand on a host of issues. And and that is a little different, you know, than before. and so I think I think I see the challenge where on the one hand
It is actually a beautiful part of social media that you can find your tribe. You know, there are communities that come together where where you could never find 500 people who all cared about knitting little stuffed animals. And they can find each other and there's a beautiful community there. But now I think it's turned into something where we are looking for people who believe the same things we do. And there's just there's not enough that binds us together. And even in churches where
You know, you would think that there is, I think at HIROK, right, we talk about this a lot that like Jesus is at the center. And then there's a lot of space for people to believe different things. But I can feel it that we all are pulled because we do have a diverse set of beliefs about a whole host of different issues that are actually all really important to us. And there's a part of me that that looks at that picture and sees it happening.
That all of our churches are splintering and resegregating so that everybody who believes the same things are gonna find each other. And and there is something broken about that. There's something broken about like we're not able to live with these like broken and jagged edges of our souls that don't agree with each other and and find some common love. So there's a part of me that looks at this and says, my gosh, like we gotta like hold together, even in communities that disagree.
speaker-1 (28:17.996)
And that'll actually mean that politically we might not be in the same place. And then on the other hand, I look at like these other moments where you will have church leaders stand up and say, you know, in a moment of moral clarity, like this is what this is what I'm discerning when I look at scripture. And there's an issue that we need to speak. And and actually we do have to pull the congregation in a direction. And if some people leave, some people are gonna leave.
And and you, you know, you sort of go back into history and you see that happening, right? You see that happening all over the South, where during the civil rights movement, there will be moments where there are pastors who are ha are making that decision. They find themselves convicted that they need to stand up and say something and they know that if they say it, they're gonna lose half their congregation. And you'll see some pastors say, I'm not gonna do that, because the church has to be the church. And you have some other pastors
Stand up and say, look, this is a moment where we've got to say that that, like, you know, segregation is wrong, racism is wrong. We're gonna say that. And if if I can pull some people into that picture of moral clarity, that's worth it. And so I I kind of see both of those, and I'm like, ooh, how do I hold on to some version of both of those? but then I think Caitlin, it's what you said. Like there is such nuance and local context there around the specific issue, the moment, the congregation.
and and I think it's it's maybe just it's more prayer and and discernment with the Holy Spirit to understand, you know, what does it look like to be faithful?
speaker-2 (29:56.65)
Ian and Caitlin, thank you so much for being guests at Theology Lab. I've really enjoyed this conversation.
speaker-0 (30:02.904)
Thank you so much, Scott.
speaker-1 (30:03.822)
Thanks so much, Scott.
