Co-Opting Christ: Misusing the Bible and Theological Language in Political Discourse

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I'm joined by my co-host, Nate Giaritano. And I think I might actually got that right today. Not quite. Dang it. It's okay. No problem. I quit. It's Nate. Yep. That's perfect. Anyway, you know, I recently went out and was at this Politics in the Pews event with Christian Post, which is great. Met a lot of great people. We're going to have some of the people who spoke there on the podcast in some upcoming episodes. And so really enjoyed the event. Had a good time. I think I was probably a little bit of a fish out of water there. I don't do a lot of political activism or report on politics a lot. You know, I'm just sort of a theological geek who ends up commenting and, you know, thinking through politics from a theological perspective. And so in that respect, I was pleased, you know, to be able to represent that side of things at the conference and, you know, talk about those things on the panel. But today, what I noticed while I was at the Politics in the Pews conference, and not just there, but that there were also times when the Bible or a theological concept were being tied to a political agenda in ways that I was a little uncomfortable with. Right. I think that's probably putting it mildly. And so we're going to talk through that a little bit today and just sort of cite a few examples, not necessarily naming names, but citing a few examples of passages that are often taken out of context and trying to untangle a little bit and and help people have a deeper understanding of, look, just because a Bible verse is quoted doesn't make this position any more authoritative or, quote unquote, Christian than it was before the Bible verse was quoted. Right. Yeah. I think it's good to note, too, that several people said to me and to you that it was refreshing and just nice to have that different pushback or kind of different perspective. And to me, kind of in vain of what we've been doing for the last several months, if you're having conversations with people all the time that think just like you, then, you know, those aren't the kind of conversations that I'm really interested in, especially this election year. I think people want to stay in their lane and kind of stay comfort, which is fine, but it's good to be surrounded sometimes by people that think differently than you. And so I thought it was awesome just to bring that contrast. And even if you were like the lone sheep up there, it was kind of nice just to have that that difference, the different way of thinking that you didn't just kind of go with the grain with everybody else. So I appreciated that. It was kind of nice, you know, because I've done I've participated in more academic conferences before. And, you know, you tend to get all the geeks sort of sitting up there and just pushing up their glasses and talking about, you know, Greek and Hebrew and how we how do we interpret this passage? And that's awesome. I love it. You know, I poke fun of it just because I love it. But at the end of the day, I really did find myself learning from the folks who were in the trenches. And, you know, the fact that there are some holes there isn't any different than them looking at me and saying, yeah, but that's not really going to hit the ground practically very well. Right. And so it was kind of nice to be in the room with practitioners, with people who are deeply involved in politics, had seen multiple different sides of it than I usually see. I really appreciated being there and had a lot of fun. So, you know, it wasn't this isn't a, hey, let's knock the politics in the pews event. That's not at all what I want to do. These are just insights that I think I gleaned as I was listening to people there and then started looking at a little bit more of the political conversation that's going on. And honestly, this is something I was probably primed for because in Serpents and Doves, one of the things that I look at is how, let's say, 2 Chronicles 7.14 is used in political discourse. How the image of God is utilized in political discourse and really tried to critique some of those things there as well. And so this is something that I've had an interest in looking at for a while and finally decided we should do a podcast on it. Yeah, it is interesting, too. Once you do see it a couple of times, you start realizing how much you do see it elsewhere. It's like, whoa, this is happening more than I realized. Yeah, it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. I would say one of the ones that I hear an awful lot aside from, and I would say the ones I treat in the book, 2 Chronicles 7.14, which is, you know, I'm just going to paraphrase it, but it's, you know, if my people who are called by my name will pray and turn and repent, I will heal this land. And that's often applied then to usually used on like National Day of Prayer and those kind of things speaks to all Americans. And then this land becomes obviously America, you know, the United States. None of that really works itself out if you look at the passage in context and understand what's happening. It's not so much. I mean, I don't think people would be surprised to know that, you know, when Solomon is praying to God and asking to bless the temple, which is really the context. And God responds like that. You know, nobody's going to be surprised to say, oh, yeah, they weren't talking about the United States. The United States wasn't even in existence back then. Right. I think the difficulty is, does it apply? And if it applies, how does it apply? So in other words, how do we bring it across to modern day? You know, who are these people who are called by God's name today? Is that the United States? Probably not. Is it a call to ecumenical prayer, regardless of your faith, if you have no faith, if you're you know, if you're an atheist and you don't believe in God and you pray, is that what this verse is really, you know, could it be applied that way today? I personally don't think so. And so that was that's one of those that I hear come up an awful lot. But another one that comes up an awful lot and it's sort of like the keyword approach to citing Bible passages is the second Corinthians. Excuse me, second Corinthians or two Corinthians. If you like to go back to that moment, second Corinthians 317, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And so, you know, we we can obviously resonate with freedom, right? Freedom is a big part of what we believe about believe in the United States. Freedom, just generic freedom, good old. Yeah, America, good old America freedom. Right. We got it. Yeah. I don't know. Do you ever watch the have you ever watched the HBO series called The Newsroom, Nate? No, I have not. There's a great scene. I need to check it out. The first episode, first season, like it was premiere episode. And, you know, this guy is asked a question and it's Jeff Daniels who's playing the role. And so he's he gets frustrated, goes on this really long rant. And the question was, why is America the greatest nation on the planet? And he argues that it's not. There's no empirical evidence that it is the greatest nation. And so he's interacting with these people who are on the little panel with him. One of them said, you know, it's freedom. Freedom is what makes America the greatest country in the world. And he's like, there's tons of countries that have freedom. And he just starts to roll on them off. Right. Right. It's a fantastic scene. If you haven't watched it, you can find it on YouTube. It's a it's a really awesome scene just to watch. I'll check it out for sure. But anyway, it sort of underscores this idea that, yeah, the United States and freedom are very much associated. We think about freedom with the United States an awful lot. But when this passage is cited, second Corinthians 317, it's not actually talking about the sort of freedom that we have in the United States, which maybe we refer to that as political freedom. Right. In other words, a freedom from the consequences associated with government action against, you know, some sort of right. Right. Usually refers to that kind of idea that that the government's not going to punish you for practicing your faith. And so we call that freedom of religion. The government's not going to punish you for owning a firearm. Right. If you do it in the appropriate way. And so we call that the right to bear arms. Right. Not going to punish you for speaking your mind. Right. And so we call that freedom of speech. Right. It's this it's a lack of negative consequences. What second Corinthians 317 is really talking. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? 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Here you're finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. About is the unfettered access that we now have to God in Christ. There's this renewed, we could call it, Christian freedom within the Bible that frees us from sin and allows us to participate with God in new and fresh ways. There's no more, there's fewer barriers between us and God. I just had a great conversation with Samuel Parkinson. He'll be on the podcast later in the month. But he wrote a book on the beatific vision. The beatific vision is basically just being in the blessed presence of the Lord. This is what the Old Testament saints really emphasize this, but the New Testament does as well. And so you see it throughout Scripture. Our interest, our desire is to be in God's presence, to be able to stand in God's presence, to enjoy him, to glorify him, to understand him to a certain degree, but we need to be in that presence. I think 2 Corinthians 3.17 is closer to that concept of freedom that we're now free to get closer to God than it is to the political freedom that we often think of. Sure. Yeah, I've always associated it with even some past songs. Like I remember when I was younger, when I first got saved, we did some human videos like with some of the ministries I worked with and, you know, this is how it feels to be free was the song. And I've always kind of associated that particular passage with the freedom to do what you just said, you know, to no longer be bound, no longer be held back by our sin, by our sinful nature, by our flesh. Now we have that access and it's almost like not access to bear arms, not access to vote, not access to do all these things that you mentioned earlier, but just having that access to now have the Holy Spirit guide us and be part of our lives, but have that access to enter the throne room, to enter the presence of God at any time, at any place. And I think when you, when you misconstrue that with something else, then it kind of takes away, you know, and the other, the other point I'll make with what you were saying earlier, I think this whole conversation, just reading that article and thinking about it last night and today, we tend to, as people, especially Americans, I feel like, and lately with whatever, we take the scripture and try to bend it to our agenda instead of taking our agenda and trying to bend it to a scripture or our self, our speech, like what we want. And I think that's kind of what we're trying to navigate here and talk about. So. Yeah, because it's interesting when you quote 2 Corinthians 3.17 within a political conversation, right? So where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And that freedom starts to become that political freedom that we've talked about. Well, all of a sudden, what have you really done? Well, you've, you've said something the Bible doesn't actually say. That's number one. And that is that the spirit of the Lord works political freedom, right? By confusing one freedom with the other or construing one freedom with the other, you're basically saying that the spirit of the Lord brings about political freedom. Right. And so it's, it's a way to sort of mobilize a base and it's a, it's a useful rhetorical tool. Unfortunately, I don't think it's true. Right. And so it is sort of a falsehood there. And I think that, you know, what I never quite understand, and maybe this is something that we just need to sort of put out there for people to own, is that There's this desperate desire, it seems to me, on the part of some people to tie Christianity to politics. Right. Now, in my mind, it's like, are there passages that would inform our politics and our political participation as Christians? A hundred percent. No, no doubt about that. Are there passages that would justify one political system over another? Maybe. But I think that's less on the passage level and more on the biblical theological level. Right. Could we make a case that there is a certain type of government that is closer to or bears a greater resemblance to the sort of order that God seeks to institute in Scripture? Probably. Right. I think we could make that case. But that's a broader case. Right. You know, when it gets down to individual issues, yes, we have certain biblical passages that we can point to and say, look, this issue is informed by this particular passage. But I also think that we need to release ourselves a little bit and realize that we don't always need to prooftext this. Right. There are some things that are just okay to say without any biblical backing. Right. So just as an example, it seems to me that avoiding the negative consequences from the government for practicing our faith, we could just argue that on its own merit. Right. But if we look at Scripture, what we usually don't see, right, is we don't see that as a necessary condition for practicing our faith. In other words, Paul, Jesus, probably put those in the wrong order, but any of the biblical writers, right, they're not looking at this and saying, what you need to do first is establish a political framework that won't punish you for being Christians. That's part A. And then part B, live out your faith. It's not that. It's, hey, here's part A, live out your faith. Part B, you may run into some trouble and there could be suffering and persecution. And guess what? That doesn't have to change in order for you to live faithfully. You live faithfully no matter what, whatever conditions you're in, you just live faithfully. That's it. That is not a call for us to design governments that will cause us to suffer. Right. Right. It also sets it in context. And so there are certain things like, like just that, you know, freedom of religion. I think we could argue on its merits. We don't actually need biblical, theological arguments necessarily. We can just look at it and say, no, this seems like an appropriate way for us to order ourselves in a mixed and pluralistic society where there are multiple people who are, you know, practicing multiple faiths. This seems appropriate. Let's not punish one group or another. Let's just let everybody do their own thing. So long as there is a gesturing toward or a movement toward peace and, you know, general civility within society. You know, you could say the same thing about a moral center for society. Right. Having a set of values, morals, not necessarily tied to theology, because that gets really problematic. Right. If we look at it from the biblical tradition, this is, you know, again, I think part of what we could get into is, you know, how is it that our morals and our values are? Could properly be called Christian. You know, what, what does this really look like? But I think there's, we've, we've done that because we don't feel comfortable just saying that. No, a society actually needs to coalesce. It needs to have some sort of cohesion around a set of morals and values in order for the society to even hope to function. Right. And it's quite arrogant for us to think that that is for here and now for just America, for this political landscape, because what about all the other people? Like God came, you know, to free all of us, the whole world, mankind, not just Americans. And so, and I know that sometimes people's hearts probably aren't always in the wrong place. It's easy to get focused on one thing when you live in that space. And that's all you think about. It's all you talk about. It's all you research. It's all you're on panels for, you know, et cetera. But it is important because people are going to hear it, but also like, we're just, we're, we're a small fraction. Like we're just a one piece. America is not the whole thing. Like, So I think it's important to step aside and step back and be like, well, he means for everyone, not just, not just for here and now, not just for what is taking place since it's an election year, you know, all that kind of stuff. So that's what I think.

I was kind of thinking as I was reading that and thinking about this. Yeah, and I think there's there's another aspect of it too. And I, I think I heard this and I usually don't mention names on the podcast, but this one, it's just very specific. And so when I say the name, I'm not intending to defame him at all. But the idea that he conveyed in his speech to the national conservatism conference, I think is pretty problematic. And so that was Senator Josh Howley. He looked at Augustine's city of God and Augustine's political theory and kind of wove it into his speech at the national conservatism conference. It's a very difficult thing to do. Right. And I, I probably listened to that speech five or six times just trying to pinpoint the areas where I think he got it right and the areas where I think he got it wrong. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579 like where it starts to break down. Because when we read Augustine's City of God, what we're seeing with Augustine is he's saying, love is the organizing principle for a political entity. Right. And so whatever the common love is, people will coalesce around that common love. And so for the city of man with the earthly city, that love is never a love of the triune God. It's always a self-love. And that manifests in a love of something else. And so the challenge that Howley has in citing this is, of course, the United States isn't constituted by people who love the triune God. Yes, there are Christians in the United States. Yes, there were Christians involved at the founding. But the freedom of religion, the freedom for other faiths to practice within the United States automatically disrupts what Augustine is trying to say. And so the city of God is rooted in, based on a love for the triune God. And that love is not simply a, you know, sort of a devotional affinity. It's a loyalty. It's an allegiance to, I am only going to serve God. Right. We don't have that in America. And so when he references things like, you know, we need to get back to the loves we had at first, loving God, loving, you know, our neighbor, loving, you know, respecting labor, right? All these different kinds of things. What he's gesturing back toward, I think, is a love for a tradition and a love for a particular vision of America. Right. And again, you know, as it as an earthly city, right, to use Augustine's terms, those aren't necessarily bad things. Sure. Right. Again, societies need to have some sort of cohesion and some sort of moral compass. That moral compass isn't going to get them to the love of God. Right. But it can help to restrain the sort of evil that we often see in societies. And so there's nothing wrong with what he's advocating for. Right. I think his problem was that he tried to justify his argument, weave his argument around with Augustine, who is saying something very different. He's saying something very different. And even the conversation around, you know, we need to love God. When I talk about Augustine, Augustine doesn't actually use love the triune God because it's assumed that he know, we all know what God Augustine is going to be talking about. He's talking about the Christian God. Right. When Howie uses God, it's unclear what God he's thinking of because he admits that there are going to be people who aren't Christians, who practice a different faith, have no faith at all. How do those people love God? And so there's a there's a tension, even in even as he talks, if you're paying attention to it, there is this tension that it's clear he's not advocating Christianity as a religion. Right. He's giving a political talk. But he's intermingling all of these theological Christian words into that talk. And so that's where I sort of come out on the other end of it. Again, having listened to it multiple times and I don't think it was a bad speech. I just think that it advocates for something that I find potentially dangerous, I'll say, which is what I would call American civil religion. It's these tying and this sort of co-opting of Christian terms into a political narrative that I find a little bit problematic. I think he could have made the same points that he made, in other words, without ever referencing theology, without justifying, trying to justify it through Augustine and come out sort of at the same place. But when he when he talks about, you know, Augustine's dream becoming reality at the founding of the United States, I feel like he's probably shorting Augustine's dream. Right. And kind of bending it to what he's trying to say at that point. Right. Pretty sure Augustine wasn't just looking forward, you know, and saying, you know what I'd really love? Something like the United States. That was not his vision of where where he was going with the city of God. And so I think where you could find some agreement is, yeah, are the are the principles that the United States is built on, you know, some of these core freedoms that we have, are these gesturing toward the sort of freedom that maybe God wants us to have? Possibly. You know, there's ways to talk about that. It's just when you tie them together so tightly, I think you start to. Again, sort of promote American civil religion or that love of a tradition, love of a vision of America, as opposed to really a love for the triune God. And to me, the language used, the Christian language used, the theological language used, the referencing of the Bible, all of that is then suspect. Deeply problematic, actually, because you're you're putting the Bible in service of something that isn't. You know, the true aim of man, what it's into and glorifying the triune God. Yeah. But but we do have to recognize that we can't just say, well, if if we can't use theological language, then we can't advocate for morals or justice or freedom or anything like that. Well, that's not true. Right. They're two separate. They can be two separate conversations. They aren't always, but they can be two separate conversations. And for Christians, we need to have those conversations informed by what the Bible says. Informed by our theology. And where we can integrate it in, we should. But it can't be integrated in at every point. Right. A lot of times what we are claiming as Christians simply doesn't, in my mind, fit the definition. Yeah. And I like how you worded it where it can be entangled because the truth is, if you have a new believer, a new Christian that doesn't really understand or know, they hear Howie's speech and then they could just start putting those two things side by side like they're synonymous. And then if you go to the other side of things, it's just as confusing because Kamala just recently said something. And I was trying to look it up a moment ago and I can't find it. I wish I would have looked it up before. But something to the effect of like, you don't have to give up your religious, you know, thought process or your morals, your moral compass to let people have freedom to choose what they do with their bodies. Or it was something to that effect. You've probably seen that quote. Yeah. Yeah, it was in conversation with Tony Dungy, I think. Right. Yep. Yep. Exactly. And he kind of fired back. He kind of fired back and kind of more with what we're talking about today. So I'm glad we're having this conversation because I think too many people, especially young believers, young Christians, don't really come back to the authoritative, like end of the day, this is what the scripture says. And it's not to be...

It's not to help make our point one side or the other. And I think too often I've probably been guilty of it in the past with other instances. Like, the heart's in the right place, but we have to separate that. You can't put them together. Just because we have a thought and we think something's right, we can't align it with Scripture because, again, it's very cocky and almost arrogant to think that when God was inspiring those Scriptures and, you know, putting that in the heart of man for us to look back on, that he was thinking of these things all these years later. You know, it's just kind of crazy to think about it like that. What I find interesting, and I'll just comment a little bit on that Twitter back and forth, right? Because I think it encapsulates in a lot of ways the whole argument, right, of whether we should be pro-life or pro-choice. And one of the things that I would say is, Stanley Hauerwas is one of my favorite theological writers. He has this line, he's talking about ethics, and he says, you know, it's not fair, really, and I'm paraphrasing, but it's not fair to judge an ethic by how well it keeps two teenagers from misbehaving in the backseat of a car. And it's like, yeah, that's true, right? And so there's part of me that says, there's no set of laws. There's no prohibition. There's no moral or ethical teaching, right, that is going to keep people from making bad choices, making choices that aren't in their interest, let's say. And so there's that aspect of it. But I would also say that there are ways for us to arrange our society so that we make it easier for people to make decisions that are in their interest. And so we don't usually talk about the abortion debate in these terms. But, you know, when we talk about the government shouldn't prohibit what people should do with their bodies. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide. Or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Fair enough. I have my other thoughts on that, but I'll leave it aside just for a minute, and then maybe I'll circle back to it. But here's what I would say. We don't usually ask the question of, how is it that we have allowed people not to take responsibility for the choices that they make? We're always looking at this sort of a back-end choice. Right. But fundamentally, we all know the potential, at least, when you have sexual relations with someone else, right? Right. What could happen? Right. And so there's a preparedness that I don't think we're really helping people get to, and I don't know how to do that. I know I met a gentleman on the Reformation tour I went on. His name's Scott Phelps. He works with abstinence and marriage with public school kids. And so ministries like that, I think, are actually fantastic, you know, looking at and helping kids understand what their options actually are and thinking through how to be, really, this is, in my mind, a question not of, yes, it's a moral question. I shouldn't frame it like that. It's absolutely a moral question, but it's also a question of, what does it look like to be a responsible citizen? Yep. And so how is it that we contribute to society through childbearing and childrearing? You know, that aspect of it. The other side of it I find really interesting, too, though, is the argument that, you know, we shouldn't tell people what they can do with their bodies, because fundamentally, laws are prohibiting what people can do with their bodies. Right. I mean, that's sort of fundamentally what they are. I'm old enough to remember when the seatbelt laws came in force and the uproar, the rights that were being violated. I should be able to drive my truck without putting my seatbelt on, dang it. You just sit back and you're like, really? Like, is it that big? It's not that big a deal. Right. I can remember people I was close to, you know, being really frustrated about that. And so I think those two aspects are really kind of crucial to keep in mind. But I would also just say, Kamala Harris's comment, and I read it, but I can't, I couldn't quote it. But it was something around that. You know, you don't have to give up your religious principles in order to recognize that the government shouldn't be, you know, regulating what someone does with their body. I think this is another one of those instances where I would say, yeah, you kind of do. You kind of do. Right. Yeah. And that's where I find, you know, another, this is, I would argue, where because many of us, the public discourse has been around less about Christianity, biblical theology, you know, actually what the Bible teaches and holding it up as the authoritative word of God, the final authority for life and faith. Our public discourse is seldom about that. Right. It's more often about, as I like to say, the wholesomeness, you know, the America and apple pie, baseball sort of nostalgia than it is about Christian conviction. And so what I read her saying there is your religious convictions, which are actually just convictions about America's civil religion. In other words, these sentimental notions that you may have about children in the womb. Well, you know, you could hold all these other religious convictions and, you know, still recognize that you could have a right to choose. That's what I kind of hear her saying. Yeah. We don't have to unpack this one, but I do have to say there is a little bit of hypocrisy there because when you hear, like, you know, it's nobody's position to tell somebody what they can do with their body unless it's 2020 and you are going to lose your job unless you get a mandated vaccine. Like, I don't know how those two things, when they're in close proximity of each other, like, because that conversation was even happening in 2020, 2021. But I personally know people that lost their jobs and their livelihood because of that decision. So the hypocrisy there, and like I said, we don't have to unpack it. I know it's not a popular or a very, you know, exciting conversation people want to talk about. But that double standard there just kind of irks me. I get it. I've generally stayed away from COVID, so I'll give you a different example. But the draft. Oh, yeah. That one's always been sort of interesting to me. And as far as I know, there, you know, the government still has the power to institute a draft, so they could technically tell you where your body's going to be located and what you're going to be doing with it for an extended period of time in the service of our military endeavors. That is taking away one's right to choose. Right. Now, there's mechanisms there where you could say there are exceptions. You could be a conscientious objector and those kinds of things. Those generally come with negative social consequences. But the concept of the draft where people aren't volunteering anymore. Hey, I'd love to choose to go into the military. No, no, no, no. You don't get the choice. We need a body. Your body's the one we're taking. No matter what you're doing, it goes, it gets put on hold. And now you're going over here. And so that's not a comment on whether the draft is immoral or anything like that. But it's one of those. We have these dichotomies all over our society. We do. And they're not as trivial as wearing seatbelts and, you know, they're not as tragic as sending somebody to war, but we have them. And so I think, again, those are sort of talking points that are thrown out there. Right. They're not particularly well nuanced and thought through. And because we're not particularly good at nuancing and thinking them through, we tend to justify them like we've been talking about today with a Bible verse or two or some theologian or, you know, something like that. Or, you know, activating religion, whatever. Or, and I think this happens more often than we'd like to admit, we tend to ignore the real solutions to the problem.

Because we get caught arguing the soundbite. That's good. And I think, you know, the soundbite is the wrong way to do this. It's just not, it's a serious issue. And it's a serious issue not just because we want to save unborn lives. It's also a serious issue for once you save that unborn life, the difficulties and challenges of having a sustainable and generally good life with as a single parent are not trivial. Right. And so, you know, there seems to be a need to solve for some of those other things. You know, my wife and I have been involved in foster care for a long time now and have a lot of respect for the people who work in foster care. But the reality is the foster care system is not, it is far from a perfect system. And so to think that kids aren't getting lost in the foster care system is crazy. Right. You know, and so there's just aspects of this that I think we don't think through well enough because we get caught on this little crux. And that that crux is not unimportant. It's just not sufficiently nuanced for us to really decide as a society, what are we doing here? Right. And I think it's based on individuals. It's based on human beings. So, of course, there's going to be snags and flaws and hiccups, just like anything, like anything we're talking about today. And coming back to what the scripture says, I think we just get it wrong a lot of times. Just like, you know, the heart's there, the intention's right. Like, let's help everybody. Like when when we created the foster care system, like it was for a good purpose. It was good for a reason, for a good reason. But that doesn't mean that it's just because of that, it's like blankets it and covers it that it's going to always be what it intended to be. So I will say, you know, I mentioned a couple of other Bible verses and, you know, Senator Hawley, who used Augustine and that kind of thing. This isn't just a conservative issue. I know it sort of may seem like that, but it's not. There are there are people on the left who do this well, do this as well. In my in Sermons and Doves, I talk about President Biden's activation of the image of God during the transgender visibility day conversation that he had on Easter. You know, yeah, so I work through some of those sort of problems. But more recently, Kamala Harris is she spoke to the I believe it's the African Methodist Episcopal Church. And I can put a link to it in the show description. But she quotes Luke 179 or at least alludes to it. She I don't think she I would say she wasn't meaning to quote the whole thing. She actually omits a chunk of the verse. Right. But that's not uncommon either. Right. Even in, you know, Christian settings. And so I don't want to knock her too hard for that. But she does reference Luke 179. And she says this as the gospel Luke tells us, faith has the power to shine a light on those living in darkness and to guide our feet in the path of peace. Let me ask you a serious question. 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And then she goes on to say, in moments such as this, faith guides us forward. Faith in the promise of America, freedom, opportunity and justice, not for some, but for all. And so this is one of those moments where you sit back and you're like, I understand why she's quoting a Bible verse. She's talking to a church, right? Right. I mean, you know, she welcomes the bishop. She's, you know, like she she's in that context. And so quoting a Bible verse. Sure. It sort of makes sense. You can see why whatever speechwriter wrote this for would do that. Right. Yeah. But to move from the Bible verse, which is comes at the end of. So John the Baptist is has just been born and his father is sort of giving this prolonged psalmic sort of prophecy about what's going to happen with John. And so this verse actually refers to the coming salvation of the Lord and what's going to happen. It doesn't talk about faith at all. And so to weave not only to import faith into this passage, which is a little strange, not completely unheard of, but a little strange. Right. And then to move from faith in a savior, which is the biblical context for this or the coming salvation of God, which is the biblical context for this. But to move from faith in any sort of Christian sense to faith in the promise of America, opportunity, freedom and justice. Is, I think, illustrative of the sort of moves we often see when people are using the Bible in political spaces. It completely decouples the biblical passage from any sort of theological grounding. You know, Christ is no longer essential to this this passage. What we're really looking at is is some promise of human flourishing that's coming through some political means. The American dream, the opportunity, all that. Yeah. Yeah. And so I just think we, you know, that one people would probably catch in part. I think Christians would catch it more easily because they may have more conservative leanings and just be more on the alert of what Kamala Harris is saying than, let's say, what Donald Trump or some other conservative individual would would suggest. But the reality is that this happens on both sides. Oh, yeah. And that as Christians, I think part of what we need to be wary of is cheering every time someone quotes a Bible verse. Or, you know, saying amen whenever somebody talks about faith. We have a very particular and exclusive faith. It's only through Jesus Christ that we are part of this new covenant community. And so many times what we're ending up doing is we're we're ending up listening to people who are quoting Bible passages or talking about faith or talking about freedom or talking about, you know, the spirit, whatever. They're saying the same words that we would say, but they mean something completely different by them. Oh, yeah, totally. And so we end up diluting, I think, our witness by saying, yes, I agree with what you just said. I agree with the words you used and I agreed with the concepts behind them. I agree. It's very confusing when you look at it from a faith perspective, when you're trying to articulate our testimony, unique testimony as Christians. It just feels very confusing. So I think we need to be really, really careful about how we. How we avoid holding people accountable for the way that they are using our sacred text for the you know, the way that they are talking about our faith and incorporating that faith into something where it simply doesn't apply in the way that they're suggesting it was. Yeah. Tell me if this takes this takes us off topic here, but I'm curious just because as you're saying that I'm thinking about this. The last 15 or 20 years, I've noticed like a big change in like, and we've talked about it maybe a little bit, but the churches that I think it's a slippery slope. Like when megachurches, for instance, like it's becoming more and more about all these big things and these theatrical theatrical productions, lights and all this crazy stuff. And it's like becoming less about scripture, less about God, but more about entertainment, more about, you know, monster trucks and all this different kind of stuff. I saw a meme actually the other day that kind of made me laugh. It was like, you know, it's all about God. But then the preacher's talking and then he's like got hidden wires and he like flies into the thing and it's like an Easter service and it's like this huge production. And so do you see any correlation there where it's a slippery slope, where we're kind of getting like numb to that or immune to it to where we're kind of going further away from that? And do you think that that that these kind of go hand in hand a little bit where maybe people can not catch or notice the stuff we're talking about because we're, it's being dumbed down all the time. I You ever see Remember the Titans, Denzel Washington? Yeah, yeah, great movie. So Remember the Titans is sort of an interesting, I think, illustration for this. Denzel Washington starts coaching and he, he says, I only run six plays, split veers, right? They're like Novocaine. Just give it time and it'll work. Right. By the end of the movie, they're about to lose their championship game. And the other coach comes up to him and says, they're expecting the veer. You got to do something else. And he does.

And they win the game and they go on and they, I don't know, they win second in state or whatever it is. To me, I think that's a really good illustration of what we probably should be thinking about the church, the Bible, teaching the Bible, teaching solid theology, doing solid worship, right? That's the split veer. It's like Novocaine. It's just going to work, right? What we're supposed to be doing, we're supposed to be pounding that into people, and it's not always exciting to watch, but if we want to be effective in the right way, if we really want people to grow in faithfulness, grow toward being and making disciples for Jesus Christ, those elements can't not be there. Right. We have to just keep plowing in with them, keep plowing in with them, keep plowing in with them. But then there is an aspect where I think we have to understand that at some point, people are just going to need a little bit of a goose. They're going to need to be surprised. Their curiosity needs to be piqued. And that isn't to say that, you know, maybe teaching God's word gets boring or something like that, but the reality is we deal with people who are coming with different interests. They're coming with different questions. They're coming with different for different reasons. And so I don't mind when churches sort of sometimes come up with a little trick play to to pique people's interest and to be curious. I think the problem is that it can't all become a gimmick. It can't all become trick plays. Trick plays run every game. And, you know, to go back to the football analogy, if all you're doing is running the Statue of Liberty play or you're, you know, running flea flickers or you're, you know, doing fake punts and like all this stuff that works on sort of an ad hoc basis, right, can work in certain instances during a game. If that's all you're doing, you're going to lose most of the time, I have a feeling. Right. Hey, people are going to catch on. Yeah. Right. And so peppering it in at the right time makes perfect sense to me. Well, I totally get that. And I wasn't saying, and I'm sure there's like, I know my church is more like that. Like every once in a while, maybe something. But if we're going to do something extra, it's like a, it's an outreach outside of the service. Sure. But then it's to get people to get in and then hear, you know, you know, no matter what, whatever Sunday you come to church, you should know that you're going to get biblical sound teaching and not, not a whole bunch of other fluff and all the other stuff. And that's where I would say that that's what I don't say that analogy to say, you know, the church should never do these gimmick plays. I think there's a place for them. Sure. I think we just have to avoid becoming the whole gimmick. And to some degree, I think that sort of sums up what we've been talking about is we've allowed others to, maybe we participated in ourselves at certain points. We've allowed others to make the Bible into a gimmick or to incorporate it into their gimmick. Yeah. Culture changing makes this change a lot. I think culture drives a lot of it. And so I think we just have to be really, really careful with that. Because if we don't know our Bibles, if we can't recognize this stuff, if we can't actually see what's going on in front of our faces, that when, you know, our, our favorite politician or, you know, whomever gets up and starts talking about Christian values or, you know, our Christian founding. If we can't tell that that's different from what we mean when we say Christian doctrine or Christian worship, we've got issues. Totally. I've said this on the podcast before, but we've got to be able to differentiate. It's easy for us to differentiate between a bath and a baptism. We have to get good enough with our Bibles, with theology, that it becomes just as easy when somebody quotes a Bible passage, when somebody, you know, highlights Augustine, right? That we can go, nope, that's a bath, not a baptism. To have that discernment. Yeah. That's right. That's a bath, not a baptism. This is, this is not, this is sort of a mundane, profane activity. We don't, and I don't mean that in a negative necessarily way, but this is not an appropriate, this is not sacred, right? It's, it, it's something different than a baptism. It's something different than what we would really be saying. We've got to be able to get to that point where we know it well enough that we can differentiate and we can sort of read through it and say, while I don't love the way they just use scripture or while, while I'm going to hold them accountable for that misuse of scripture, I don't have to disagree with the point being made. And that's what I mean when I say every, I believe it, every nation has to have some sort of organizing principle that can be done through, you know, the strong hand of a dictator who just decides everything for the people, or it can be done through a more consensus driven cohesion that arises from the people, which is largely what we try to do, at least in the United States. But either way, there has to be some sort of organizing principle and people have to respect that organizing principle. And when that's not respected, we have problems. It's why we have laws to sort of protect against people who decide that those organizing principles don't work for them, right? And so I'm going to do something else. But it's also why we have the checks and balances that we do, the multiple elections that we do, because we're trying to sort of negotiate and make sure that we have release valves so that these things don't get to a point where it just becomes anarchy and chaos. Like that order is important for any society. We can all agree on that, and agree that order is good for any society. We don't have to pin that to a particular Bible verse, right? And so I think that's where, you know, as we've talked through this today, where I'd kind of like to end it is just to say, this isn't a question of, hey, let's, you know, just cloister ourselves off and be the kingdom of God and let the world do what it's going to do. That can't happen. It shouldn't happen. It can't happen. But what I would say is, we still have to remain distinct while we rub shoulders with a lost world. We're going to be salt and light. We have to be distinct. It has to be discernible why we're different. And a lot of the times what we're allowing by not speaking out against it, and I've got an op-ed coming out that sort of hopefully will, you know, give people some deeper thoughts and more consistent thoughts about this. But if we're just allowing people to co-opt our speech, to co-opt Christian language, to co-opt theologians, to co-opt Christ for their purposes and their agenda, and we're not pushing back against that, I think we are eroding our distinctiveness and we're allowing ourselves to become less and less interesting. Yep. And we're called to be in the world, but not of it. And so if you, if we don't push back and kind of hold that line and try to hold that standard and practice and get better and show others how to get better to have discernment, I feel like we totally missed that whole part of the scripture where it's saying in the world, but not of it. There should be a distinction and it should be clear. It should not be like, well, let me take another, let me take another few looks. I'm just not quite, like when I, when someone sees me or you or any of us, like they should be able to know that they know, oh, there's something different about them. They have conviction. They stand firmly on that. It's not muddy. It's not blurry. You know what I mean? So. Yeah. And it's not about protecting the word of God, but it is about respecting the word of God. And I think part of our prophetic task, again, sort of the negative task of theology is to call out falsehood. And so we need to be thinking about that as we're listening to the people that we may very well support and vote for and all those kinds of things are trying to, quote unquote, woo us through the use of some Bible passage or something like that. I don't need that. You don't have to play down to me. Right. Just tell me your ideas. Tell me your policies and let me sort through them like an intelligent human being. I don't really need the rhetoric. It's not helping your case, but up to this point, I'm afraid it has. And so that's why they keep doing it. Yeah. Because people just blindly go with it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. I agree 100%. This has been really good, man. Yeah. Hopefully people enjoyed it. And, you know, we'll, we'll be dealing with this and other issues as we sort of lead up to the election. And so if you're looking for some good conversation or think other people might be feel free, keep tuning in to Thinking Christian and we will catch you on the next episode, everybody. Thanks for being here. Thanks, Nate. Appreciate it. Thank you. Take care, everyone. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Hey, I'm Dr. Sean McDowell, professor, author, and host of The Sean McDowell

I tackle the hardest questions about God, truth, and culture, combining solid research with practical insight and engaging stories so you can build a confident, informed faith. Now available on the Life Audio Network to reach more listeners like you. Follow The Sean McDowell Show on your favorite podcast app or visit lifeaudio.com to start listening.