Theology in the Raw - Why the Church Fails When It's on the Wrong Side of Power: Dr. David Fitch

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Dr. David Fitch (Ph.D Northwestern University) is the Betty R. Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary and has pastored for 30 years, and has been involved in 8 church plants over the course of his ministry. He is married to Rae Ann and they have one son named Max. He is an ordained pastor in the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He’s coached hockey for the YMCA USA Hockey program for seven years. David teaches, speaks, and writes within the fields of Neo-Anabaptist theology, missiology, culture studies, political theory, and ethics. He writes from time to time on his own page at Missio Alliance, on his own substack, for Christianity Today, Outreach Magazine, ChurchLeaders.com, EthicsDaily, and multiple other sites, magazines and journals. He leads discussion on his facebook page (fitchest) and on twitter at @fitchest. He is co-host of the Theology of Mission podcast. His most recent book is Reckoning with Power: Why the Church Fails When It's on the Wrong Side of Power, which forms the backdrop for our conversion. Donate today to join OneHope and local church leaders in our mission to bring God Word’s to 25,000 children who have never known a hope that surpasses all understanding. onehope.net/TITR Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology and raw. My guest today is he won only Dr. David Fitch, who is the Betty R Lindner chair of the evangelical theology at Northern seminary. Uh, he got his PhD from Northwestern universities, written several, several books include the one that we talked about on this podcast called reckoning with power. Why the church fails when it's on the wrong side of power. I love me some David Fitch because he is a provocative thinker and he is going to say some things that are going to challenge your thinking. You might say some things that make you angry and that is okay. I just love the way he isn't

afraid to push certain paradigms. So anyway, without further ado, please welcome to show for the first time, the one early Dr. David Fitch. All right. This podcast is long overdue. Fitch. I have kind of call you Fitch or do I just call you Dr. Fitch or please call me Fitch. All my friends call me Fitch. I have, can I call you Fitch or do I just call you Dr. Fitch or Fitch? Please call me Fitch. All my friends call me Fitch. My wife calls me Dave. She's the only person other than my mother. My mother doesn't even call me Dave. So please call me Fitch. It's such a rock star name, Fitch. Well, then it doesn't fit at all, but it is my name. Black leather Jack. You got a little bit of Bono going on here. I don't

know. I think it fits. I have known about you for years. I mean, first on social media, then lots of mutual friends. And then you're one of the few people that will like, like some of my Anabaptist D posts, even on that technically at a Baptist, although I I'm more than happy to be adopted into your family. Preston So we're all anabaptists, Preston. We're all neo-anabaptists. It's the only way out of the mess we're in right now in the United States of America. Let's start there. Tell me about your journey theologically. Well, you studied under Stanley Hauerwas, right? Was that because you were already Hauerwasian? No.

You know, I grew up evangelical. If evangelical what it was in 1982, I'd probably still be an evangelical. I believe in the authority of Scripture. I believe that Jesus transforms culture. I believe that Jesus heals and works in our lives for sanctification. So I'm an old line evangelical, but there's no question I was struggling with my inherited Christianity when I was in my 20s. By the time I was in my 20s, and I had to, dude, I had to get saved again. I had to get saved twice. The first time, six years old, walking forward, condemned

to hell, got saved. But when I was 31, no, 30, oh dude, I was saved in a way which saved me out of hell. And then I started a journey. How do I engage this culture that I'm in? I came out of the financial services industry. I had a seminary degree and I went to Northwestern where the Garrett United Methodist faculty was part of the graduate faculty. And I did a dissertation and Protestant liberalism wasn't working for me. Evangelical fundamentalism wasn't working for me. I discovered Stanley Howard Wasse. I did my dissertation on him. I went to his office. He became a reader. That's what kind of got me out of this mess we're in of evangelical fundamentalism and Protestant mainline

or liberalism as the only answers to our theological problems. I don't even know if I'd be a Christian if it weren't for Stanley, to be honest. So, wait, you did your dissertation on him, or liberalism is the only answers to our theological problems. I don't even know if I'd be a Christian if it weren't for Stanley, to be honest. So, wait, you did your dissertation on him, not under him? I didn't do it under him, but he became a reader of my dissertation. I did it at Northwestern. There were already four guys, three guys and one woman on my committee. He became a reader. He was so kind, helped me, went through it piece by piece. This is way back in the 90s. And from there on, it's kind of like my dog,

folks. If you hear a dog bark, his name is Stanley. Okay. Don't tell Stanley. I named my dog after Stanley. When he asked, I said, well, it's a Stanley cup. I'm a hockey, I'm a, I'm a hockey fan, but when he's not around, that's how important Stanley's been to my growth and development as a theologian and a Christian. How would you summarize Stanley Howe was his thought? I, I, I think he has sometimes oftentimes misunderstood, misrepresented. So you've written on him, studied him. He's a, I'm gonna assume approved of your summary of his thought. Well, I would, for somebody that doesn't know, Stanley, how are us doesn't know who that is. How would you summarize?

Well, uh, I guess, I guess where I start with Stanley is, um, you don't individualistic Christianity that's all up in your head that you were sent to as an intellectual project simply isn't, doesn't make sense in the modern world. We have to have a lived Christianity. And this lived Christianity takes the Church. And so the Church – oh, let me just throw this at you, Preston. The Church becomes the center place of an epistemological expression of the Gospel, from which we can witness and live out the truth. The truth becomes much more than me arguing with you on a podcast. It must be lived out. So, Jesus becomes this, and by the way, narrative is a very important part to what Stanley does.

We're now living out of traditions, not out of individual rationalities. If I'm putting anybody to sleep on this podcast right now by saying individual rationalities, I apologize. But we've got to think differently. Sexuality, by the way, we have no frameworks to understand how to deconstruct all the main categories that we're working with. The church has got to start with discipleship and deconstructing what we even mean by the word attraction and why we elevate it to the central most important part of our identity and what marriage means. And so, I just opened up a whole can of worms there. But that's why Stanley Hauerwasch became really important. Gave me ways to think about things that dude, I was struggling with before

I met him and started sorting things out with him. Was it Resident Aliens that first turned you on to him? I know this is probably his most popular book, but he's written a ton of stuff. I mean- Okay, this is going to really blow your mind, but my gateway drug into Stanley Harwas was George Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, a book the Yale theologian Lindbeck wrote in the 80s. And it just helped me see the way language, culture, community, story works to shape our lives experientially and as a practice and a way of life that I hadn't seen before. And then that opened my whole mind to Stanley from there. Pete Okay. I mean, he's actually Methodist, right? Denominationally, but theologically, people always would associate him with being an Anabaptist, as I would assume you...

Pete Well, he always says now, you know, he's a high church Mennonite. But yeah, he was a United Methodist for years. I'd say it's about 20 years ago. He married his wife, who's an Episcopalian priest, and he's pretty much an Anglican or Episcopalian Christian now. Yeah. Pete Okay. And you would consider yourself Anabaptist? Well, I'm a neo-Anabaptist, holiness Pentecostal, evangelical. Okay, can you unpack that? I am, I don't want to get anybody angry, especially you, but I, Reformed theology doesn't work for me in this post-structuralist world, but I grew up Christian Missionary Alliance. I still am ordained in the Christian Missionary Alliance, and that's more

of a holiness, Pentecostal, Holy Spirit-driven, shaped faith. Jesus is more than my substitutionary atonement pardon, He is my sanctifier, healer, King, coming King and Kingdom. And admittedly, I've tried to take the CMA a little bit deeper into their fourfold gospel. But yeah, I'm a Pentecostal at heart. And yet all the experientialism of Pentecostalism, it has to be shaped. This is what I learned from Lindbeck. It has to be shaped by our practices, by the way we talk and the way we understand the world. It just doesn't pop into our minds after we binge watch Friends or something like that. We know? We're shaped by the cultural, linguistic cinematography, and we got to recognize so likewise is the experience of the Holy Spirit. So that makes me kind of like a post-structuralist neo-anabaptist.

We better get into the weeds here quick because people are getting turned off by these academic terms. I've got a pretty bookish audience. Don't worry about that. Yeah. Maybe, maybe defining some of these high terms would be helpful, but don't, yeah, we, we, we don't, don't be afraid to stay high. This is, this is a, yeah, my audience, my audience likes this stuff. How would you describe your, and then I'm going to get into your book, Reckoning with Power. I got my copy right here. I got it a few days ago. Why the church fails when it's on the wrong side of power. I'm actually really eager. I want to jump into that just a second. How would you describe

your, if I can call it, if I just say, hey, Fitch, what are your political viewpoints? How would you describe your political position? Yeah. Well, this is part of the book, by the way, but here's the way I'd describe it. Go ahead and vote. Just don't expect too much, okay? Because the power of government, the way government works, it can only preserve society. It can't save, redeem, transform society.

That's the power of God at work through people gathered as his church. So go ahead and vote. So this I learned from Stanley Horowitz, the church is my politic. This is where I work out justice. This is where I work out how I'm going to engage racism down the streets of where I live. This is where I work out how I'm going to engage racism down the streets of where I live. This is where I'm going to work out economics. What do I believe about economics? How am I going to live my life with money? The church, the local church, it's something Preston Sprinkle likes to call, we're living as exiles. And that's our politic, to share the goodness and transforming reality of the kingdom of God.

First live it as a demonstration plot, but then share it with where I live, and from there, the rest of the world. I mean, I got that a lot from Stanley as well. He put language, he put theological backing and language to what I was already feeling. I feel like I came ground up as a biblical scholar, just looking at texts, looking at this profound biblical narrative that's profoundly political. I mean, there's few passages in the Bible that aren't political in nature. Either they're talking about how to live as a nation or against the backdrop of the nations or the critiquing nations or their, you know, negotiating their relationship with the empire. I mean, so much of the Bible is political.

And so, I'm looking at these texts, kind of looking at the trees, and then I go read Stanley, and he's painting the picture of the forest. I'm like, this makes sense. Not because of my theological tradition or ecclesiology necessarily, but just from me reading the Bible through this kind of lens. And yeah, he put a language to it. So yeah, the church being the location, the church is the political identity of, of Christians, the global multi-ethnic church spread among the nations, the government, this is something I've been thinking a lot about. And I don't know where exactly I stand. Do you see the government as sort of ordained, put there by God as a good thing, or is it a neutral thing

or is it an evil thing that our God, our sovereign God can still use for good? Like, do you see the state, I guess government state aren't the same thing necessarily, but you see the government as intrinsically good, neutral or evil? All three of the above. Okay. Yeah. You know, there's some parts of the Reformed wing of the church that see government as created before the fall, as part of creation. So, people like, well, certain parts of the Reformed church will call it a created order, like, well, certain parts of the Reformed Church will call it a created order, the government. Some Anabaptists like me will say, no, government was instituted after the fall. So, it was put in place because of sin. And so, it is a preservatory order. It is an order of preservation, I think is what Emil Brunner would say. So, anyways, an old reformed theologian from World War II. But anyways, the point of the matter

is it doesn't matter because whether you believe it's for creation or after creation, before the fall or after the fall, it's still, we're all living after the fall and we need government to do its work of ordering or preserving the society. The real question now becomes, and by the way, I do a little work on these ideas in the book. I think it's chapter, I don't know, four or something. The real question is, what is the goal of government? If it's after the fall, it's preservatory in nature.

If it's created good, well then we want to send Christians into government so that it will reach its full potential as God intended it to be created, when He created it. Well, I'm of the first order, okay? It's preservatory. We are living in sin, in the sinful world, and we will need it. I used in the book the example of the traffic light. The traffic light does good work. We all come to an intersection. If you hit a red light, you stop and the other person goes. Nobody crashes into each other. That's what you could say is justice. That's a good thing. That's preservatory.

You know how it is when you get up at an intersection and I know how you look at your phone and sometimes you miss the light turning green and somebody honks at you and starts swearing at you and maybe the other guy is giving you the finger. Okay, the traffic light's not going to solve those kinds of problems for you. The traffic light can only preserve order. It can't transform human relationships and the inter-relational injustices and angers and antagonisms that run through our culture. So the traffic light is good. That's what government should do. But let's not expect too much. Let's not expect that the government

can do anything more than preserve society. Once we understand the way the two powers work, godly power works to heal, is never coercive. It's interrelational. It's reconciling. It's healing. It's conviction. But it won't overstep your agency.

Whereas worldly power is coercive. It's power over. It wants to get things done. If you didn't stop at that stoplight, you'd have a cop coming after you. And if you did it too many times, they'd take your license away and you'd get a fine. That's coercive, but yet that's how we keep order. That's the difference between godly power, worldly power. Government, what government can do and what it can't do, and what the

work of the Holy Spirit at work in the world through the church can do. So government power is coercive power, which is categorically different than Christian power. And would you say, but you don't want to call it necessarily intrinsically evil because it is a post-lapsar and a post-fall kind of entity. Like it's necessary for the fallen world that we live in for the time being until Jesus fully establishes his reign on earth. I mean, is that... Yes. Yes. And I'm not 100% sure whether we'll need government in heaven or not, or the new heavens and the new earth or not. But this much I do know. Government can only do so much. Now, can government become

evil? Well, I have a little section in the book on this because when separated from God, when it goes off the rails, when it's given divine authority, worldly power can go off the rails. And Heinrich Berghoff and some other writers talked about the principalities and powers becoming demon-possessed. Heinrich Berghoff, I actually have this in the footnotes, by the way, actually thought that Nazi Germany was demon-possessed, that that government became demonic. And this is what happens when we use worldly power in the name of God, when we give it divine authority. It is there for preservatory purposes only. And by the way, this happens in the church all the time. I use several

examples in the book. I talk about, you know, how Mark Driscoll started out quite – I mean, I'm going to say Anabaptist. All I know is he loved the Lord. He loved Jesus. He said, there will be no senior pastor here. Jesus is the pastor. He's talking like an Anabaptist. This is all in that Christianity Today podcast series. And then he starts to think, wow, people are getting saved, the numbers are growing, I've got 15,000 people, I must be God. Okay, he didn't say that, but he started to act like, you've got to do what I say or we're going to throw you under the bus, you're getting in the way of God.

And that's when the rails go off. And that's when abuse happens. That's when bullying starts to happen. And so we've got to keep worldly power in its place. And the church has got to be all about godly power. When I look at the question of is government good, neutral, the questions we're interacting with, I mean, just biblically, we don't have an example of any kind of nation state that is described in good terms. In fact, in probably the most political book in the Bible, Revelation does very clearly describe the Roman empire and Roman like Babylon, like empires, um, as demonically possessed, according to Revelation 12 and 13, that will

be destroyed by God. And when God destroys the empire, the church celebrates in Revelation 17 and 18. And so, and only, I guess, a good example of a nation state is that the design of the original nation of Israel, which is designed to be totally upside down. Power is none. I mean, it's, it's economic distribution to everybody. It's equal access to wealth. It's, it's a King that's humbled. It's not a massive, it's just, it looks different than like any other nation. But even then Israel went off the rails and became, you know, a nation like the nations. So I just biblically, we don't really have an example of a nation state that's described in good terms. I guess Romans 13 comes the closest, but even then it's, it's not, I don't

think Paul's praising the government there. I think he's saying submit to government authorities because God can use those. It's what you're saying there. I mean, you know, God can use these government authorities to curb evil. That's, that's the original design, whether they do that well or not. So that question, well, Anabaptist certain modern here post-World War II, Anabaptist, some names of whom I can't mention because they, we don't talk about certain people, but all that say some Anabaptists have have said that submit, subordinate, whatever that word is, submit yourself to the authorities, Romans chapter 13. Obviously, it's not just go and submit yourself to government.

I mean, you probably know this better than I do, but some people view that period where Romans was written as the Roman government was persecuting Christians. So, Paul's not saying go and run and be persecuted and love it and submit to it. He's not saying that at all. He's saying by submitting to it, it's an act of presence or an act of power, but not worldly power, and it undermines the institution. And so we all know that Nazi Germany and the Lutherans of the post-Weimar Republic of Germany in the 1930s were using that text to say, we must give full authority to the Nazi government. And that's called the, I mean, I think Niebuhr called it the quietest problem in the German church. That's not what Romans 13 is about. It's actually quite a significant presentation of oneself in resistance when the

government is not acting, when the government is getting demon possessed. I don't know enough about political science. Here's where I'm just kind of taking the biblical narrative and just trying to like ask questions about modern day things. But I do think it's legit to make a distinction between simply a nation state of government and a nation that's acting like an empire. Because imperialism does seem to be pretty ruthlessly condemned all throughout scripture. And I think that's what's lying behind Revelation, the whole book of Revelation, really. It's the Roman Empire, the imperial nature of the Roman Empire. And this is where I think if there were a few nations today that would come close to that picture, United States being, being one of them with 750 military bases in over 80 countries. That is, that is by definition empire like, you know.

Yeah. So I think what you're doing, you're making a distinction between the nation state as a, is a good utility, a governing process for people's lives as a nation versus those that are using worldly power beyond any kind of organizational structure to take on the world. And yeah, I think... Like, I don't think the Book of Revelation applies equally to the United States of America and Switzerland or Costa Rica. Like, those are different... Costa Rica, I think, doesn't even have a military, I just recently heard. Like, you know, they're not... Or, you know, Switzerland's notoriously... Or some of the Scandinavian countries, you know. Again, I think, doesn't even have a military, I just recently heard. Or Switzerland's notoriously, or some of the Scandinavian countries. Again, I don't want to be on my skis and

know much about these countries. But you know what I mean? I think a nation state that is imperial by nature versus one that's just simply a government that's existing to try to keep order, I think the Bible might say something different to those. Yeah, but normally, nation states form around cultures and it just seems I don't care who you are. I mean, we definitely know this about Euro cultures. There's a tendency to divinize and make our own Euro culture the culture to be imposed on the rest of the world.

But that's true of, well, for instance, Russia right now in regard to Ukraine, that's true for almost every culture. Some are more humiliated, I should say, or humbled. I mean, World War II humbled a lot of Euro cultures from becoming empires ever again because of the horrific destruction that they imposed on the world. But we all got those propensities. All the nation states have those propensities, I think. So why, let's see your subtitle, why the church fails when it's on the wrong side of power. So let me ask that question. Why does the church fail when it's on the wrong side of power? And do you see the church on the wrong side of power today? That's a big question,

the church, but yeah, let's, let's tease out your concern here in your subtitle. Well, in the epilogue, I go into quite some detail as to how often the church has been deemed on the wrong side of history. We're on the wrong side of history when it comes to condemning slavery. We were way late on that. We were all on the wrong side of history when it comes to women. Women in ministry but women, suffrage. We were late on that. Now, evidently, we're on the wrong side of history in regard to sexuality. And it always seems like we're on the wrong side of history. And I go, well, now, wait a minute. If you look at who was on the wrong side of slavery, it was people like Charles Hodge sitting in Princeton seminary and Princeton University. Very, very, very wealthy place, especially at the time that he was there. And so, he was using scripture to justify slavery. On the other hand, you had the

whole- Charles Hodge? Yes. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yes didn't know that. Oh, yes. Wow. On the other hand, you have holiness movements, free Methodist movements, Wesleyans at the time, who were among the poor, who went to be among the poor, who went to be among the enslaved peoples.

This is prior to the Civil War. And they became the source of abolitionist movements. They weren't perfect. There was a lot of embedded ideological racism everywhere. But the abolitionist movements came from people who, like Charles Finney left the high Presbyterians, he was then called a low Presbyterian, went to be among the everyday people. He started the abolitionist movement at Oberlin College. And so, what I'm saying is, were we on the wrong side of history or on the wrong side of power?

Because when we're on the right side of power, abolitionist movements sprung forth. Same way with women in ministry and women's suffrage movements. It was the people who had the money that were the patriarchs. People who like the Salvation Army, the Nazarenes, even the Christian Mission had the money that were the patriarchs, people who, like the Salvation Army, the Nazarenes, even the Christian Missionary Alliance, that's another story, the Free Methodists, the Missionary Church movement, all those Holiness have ordained women from the beginning because they were among the poor and they saw what God was doing by the gifts of the Holy Spirit with women. Same way with poverty, the great anti-poverty crusades,

you know, Salvation Army. They, as opposed to trying to hold economics intact as they were, these people were working for equality and economic renewal from the bottom up. And my question is, and by the way, I go into the great stories on where the Jim Crow South got disrupted by prayer meetings and local go into the great stories on where the Jim Crow South got disrupted by prayer meetings and local gatherings among the poor through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committees. It's always been when you have been among the poor, among those, the so-called powerless, worldly powerless, where the power of God takes root and springs for justice and renewal and transformation. And my argument is then, when the church is on the wrong side of power, in other words,

where it sits out of privilege and posture of money and power, that's where it finds itself on the wrong side of history. And we need to once again return the church to being with the poor, not posturing with power. Speaker 0.(1h 10m 48s): So I was raised in the eighties, but I was a kid and I didn't pay attention. I was a kid that never even asked about Santa Claus. I just cared that presence were under the tree. So I lived through a really interesting time in America without realizing it. But I'm now looking back, you know, looking back and I'm told that that was a time, late 70s or 80s, when the, you know, the moral majority, the Christian right sort of were grasping after and kind of gained a lot of political power. You would see that as just

fundamentally at odds with what the church should be, like trying to grasp after cultural and political power. Right, right. You know, again, it's not just, I'm going to go run for government and I'm going to try to improve the efficiency of government and I'm going to try to help government do the things it's supposed to be doing. It's now, we are going to use the powers of government to enforce a Christian morality on our country. We're gonna do the work really that only God can do by His power. We're gonna do it through government power.

And I gotta tell you, every time in the history of Christianity, when that goes on, bad things happen. It never works. You wanna know why, folks? Because godly power, the power of non-coercion of His presence, of His conviction of the Holy Spirit, of the work of the interrelational God who comes to be with us in Jesus Christ by His Spirit, that's where transformation,

healing, that's where, if you want to talk about morality, that's where Christian marriage is possible. Outside of God and His presence, it's not possible. Don't even try out there, folks. I know firsthand. But now when we try to do the government's work, we're going to enforce Christian marriage on everybody. Okay, it's so screwed up. I'll give you an example of what happens. The quietest revolution

in Quebec post-World War II, the Catholics tried to take over and use their power and authority to enforce Catholicism and its morality across Quebec. Today, Quebec is, I think, don't quote me on this, but I've heard this at least 500 times. Quebec is the most secularized, if it were a state under itself, it's the most secularized Western country in the world. It just never works. I mean, getting six Supreme Court justices to go around and tell everybody you can't have an abortion. And I do believe the pro-life and the anti-abortion, the sense that God has created all life, even in tragic circumstances, for His purposes and can redeem all life through tragedy for glorious purposes.

I do believe you have to know Jesus and know who God is as creator through Jesus for that to make sense. Otherwise it becomes an enforced rule upon people that just get angry at you and wanna give you the bird and walk away. And that's the way enforced morality will not work in this country. ["Inforce Morality"] Since 1987, OneHope has been reaching young lives for Jesus

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OneHope partners with local Christians to bring the hope of Jesus into the midst of their circumstances where there is not much hope. The challenges are many, but God is moving and OneHope is responding. So here's what I want you to do. Two things. Number one, I invite you to check out this ministry by going to onehope.net. Look at their mission, look at their leadership, their goals, and then go to onehope.net forward slash T-I-T-R and please consider donating toward this ministry.

OneHope has the goal of reaching 25,000 more children with the gospel. And again, these kids live in places where missionaries typically can't get into. So if you have a heart and passion to see kids in closed countries, hear about Jesus, then go to onehope.net forward slash TITR to financially partner with them today. I want to, I want to push on this a little bit. Let's let's take abortion. Cause that's, that's a non non-controversial. I mean, we wouldn't see, would you, I mean, I'm thinking on the fly here, folks. So just bear with me. I don't edit my podcast. It stays as it

is. So this is just an open air conversation. If the government said it's okay to kill homeless people, they said it's perfectly fine. You can do that. They're kind of a drag on society anyway. Like we wouldn't see it as forcing Christian morality to say, no, that is not right. That is ending an innocent human life. The argument for abortion would be the similar. In fact, it would be even more innocent.

If it is human life in the womb, then we would say the termination of a human life for any reason really, maybe there's some exception, maybe some extraordinary circumstances, but we would say that's not forcing Christian morality. That's just a basic morality that we should all affirm. First of all, by logic there, what do you think about that? Because, because you would have people that would protest the Supreme court justices and over, you know, overturning Roe v Wade, but the same people that would be against that would turn around and say, we need to have universal healthcare. They, we need to have anti-racism. We need

to have, and, but that's just a, that's also saying we believe these are moral goods and we do want the government to advocate for these things. So isn't it kind of a universal thing that people are trying to enforce some version of morality on the government or making the government mandate certain rights and wrongs, if that makes sense? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a totally legitimate question, a totally legitimate way of thinking about things. So earlier I was making the distinction between God's power and worldly power and that worldly power can preserve society, but it can't save society or redeem society or transform or sanctify society. Okay, having said that, I think it's a legitimate argument,

a legitimate rational way to think that saving people's lives is a preservatory function of the government. Okay? And therefore, since I believe a pregnancy is a legitimate human life, it's a legitimate function of the government to outlaw and enforce the preservation of that life. I acknowledge that that is a legit argument. And I'm not going to get mad at people for making that argument. My question is this. There is a long history of Christianity, a long history of discerning this. I mean, I've read as far back as Thomas Aquinas on this question as to when does human life begin? Is the IVF, infertilized embryo life? Is it life once it is makes, I forget what the term is, when it becomes attached to the uterus

and becomes, I forget what that term is now off the top of my head. Or is it when, like Thomas thought, when the quickening, when the first movement of the feet? Okay, so these are all legit questions to discern. But I thought a lot about it. I think that's what the local church should be talking through instead of turning it into a government ideologized position. Where by the way we vote, I hope I don't turn anybody off by this, but we vote for one of the most... A man who is a misogynist of the worst degree who represents why the abuse of so many women... Do we vote for him? Why? Because he'll get us anti-abortion legislation. It's just a bad witness. But having said all that, I think there's an argument to be made. And I think it shouldn't be made on a national level. We should talk about it at our local churches. So we get out of this ideologizing antagonizing environment

where we vote for this guy for one reason and only one reason that he'll get some judges to Institute anti-abortion legislation. I, yeah, I see that. I, I, and you and I have very, very similar political positions. So I, yeah, this is me just kind of, very similar political positions. So I, yeah, this is me just kind of trying to represent people out there. Like, what about this? What about that? I, I, I understand some of the complexities about exactly when life begins as a conception is attaching the uterus, you know, there's, there's, but you know, I mean, once you get it, I don't, I don't, my point is not really to get lost in those weeds, but like, assuming that several weeks into gestation, is that the right word?

Just this is a human life and some ethicists will make a distinction between a life and a person. I haven't found those compelling. It isn't so like, I'm just trying to think that the kind of like lesser to evils or not in like that phrase, but like, okay, so you had this, you know, Trump misogynist, a walking bag of immorality. That's not even really dispute, dispute it. Right. Like these guys are trained, right? Morally speaking, he's so narcissistic. He believes it on lies. But if he was, enders debates about whether a pro-life president actually does anything towards reducing

abortions. In fact, I saw a graph for the day that abortions increased tremendously under Trump's presidency. So leaving all that aside, wouldn't advocating for the life in the womb, wouldn't that way significantly though? Like if, so you take this guy's massages, all these things and then, but the other guy wants to kill hundreds of thousands of babies in the womb. That's not my wording, but that's how people would, would, would, you know, frame it like, well, Andy's funding a genocide. I will throw that one in there. Like, so, I mean, I, I, I don't know. Like I, the complexity of voting to me is complex because you're dealing with two Caesars that one says the quiet part out loud. The other one does stuff behind the

scenes and kind of, I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with this day. I'll tell you where you're going with it. The government is a pile of trash right now. And, and, and we're not going to get it back on track by divinizing it. That's not its role. We're going to get it back on track. And we're not going to get it back on track by making everything into an antagonism. I mean, one of the things in this immediate discussion about abortion and the use of government to outlaw abortion is it turns into an antagonism, an

ideological antagonism. I personally, I can hardly watch the Democrat and I am not a Republican and I am very anti-Trump, but I can't help but turn the television off when I see the way Democrats are talking casually, dismissively about abortion and abortion rights. So what they've done is they've turned it into an ideological position, either for it or against it, and making people angry on both sides. And we're not actually dealing with real people, real lives on the ground. And this is just another illustration about how the church has got to get busy and start discerning not only the issues of legislation and abortion, but how are we going to care

for those who are born in our midst without a mom and a dad? Well, and this is something I've talked about in the podcast before and I even write about in my book, Exiles, that it's debated, but many women who get an abortion are Christians who believe it's morally wrong, but they're in conservative Christian environments that the shame of having a baby outside a wedlock is more horrific from their vantage point than actually going and getting an abortion in secret. So there's a church, there's an ecclesiological social problem going on there. Also, what about the

15 year old girl? They got pregnant. Like they can't afford to care for the child. And if the church isn't going to come alongside and say, Hey, all right, maybe, maybe you made a bad decision or maybe you were violent. You know, there's something happened here that was not, you know, God's know, God's not happy with this, but can we step in and help you provide the structures so that you can actually care for this child. Maybe give it up for adoption or something like that. Maybe somebody in the church can adopt, you know, like, let's be the community of God's people so that we can create an environment where people don't see abortion as the best option. That's

an ecclesiological problem. There are so many levels here, Preston, so many grievous levels. And the persons that are involved, it's like they get turned into a political football. And the church has got to be the place to engage these issues from the ground up to be on the right side of power for once, not the wrong side of power. So I just see this. You and I, we're not going to solve this problem, but there are multiple layers here that just get glossed over.

And most importantly, the victims get glossed over and we just got to be with people. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. You have a whole chapter on Christian nationalism. I'm only a few chapters in your book. I haven't gotten there yet. So I'm curious. And we're talked offline because both of us are not very much anti-Christian nationalism. That's just going to be taken for granted. I do wonder how big of a threat Christian nationalism is. First of all, we need to define it because sometimes anybody that's has an American flag, which I don't, but some people do. And you know, they would say you're a Christian nationalist. I mean, the definition needs to be teased out, but some people see Christian nationalism

as the greatest threat to democracy in the church in America. Other people say, you know what, it's by constantly talking about it, we're giving it more oxygen than it deserves. I don't know where I stand on that. It depends on what time of the day. Do you see it as a major threat or something that's... Well, yes, I do. I do see it as a major threat. I think, I don't know if it was online on my Facebook page or someplace where I was... Ryan Burge is this sociologist in Illinois here, Eastern Illinois University. He's actually supervising a dissertation for Northern Seminary where I'm a professor and I'm over the thesis. But anyways, all this to say Ryan Burge is a sociologist with a

lot of statistics and he came up with a lot with these, I don't have the actual statistics, but the grand majority of people calling themselves evangelicals now do not go to church. The grand majority don't even go to church once a month. The ones that do go to church only go once a month. Very few are part of an active church life with a so-called evangelical church. So the word evangelical has now become more of a political Christian approach to government. And I wonder what that signifies. Does it signify that these people have exchanged church and the practice of being a people under the lordship of Christ

for the state. I am now going to put all my energies, allegiances, and everything else to the state. And I think it's really dangerous, really, really dangerous in the chapter on Christian nationalism. Like I already said, I talk about how these principalities and powers this government was created for good can turn into a demonic force for evil if we give it divine power, get divine authority in our lives. And that's what's happening, I think, with not the majority, but with about 30% of the population of the United States that calls themselves evangelicals. That's something I something I thought about recently too, is like the people who would be bold Christian nationals, are they even Christian? And I don't say that like that, that, you

know, I disagree with so many aspects of the theology, but they're not like, you said they're not even going to church. Not really. They're not, they're not, there's no like tangible evidence that they're actually Christians other than they say they're Christians and worship, say, you know, praise God and you have a bumper sticker, God and country and guns and all that stuff, whatever. But like, cause that, cause that, you know, I, I like you, I go and preach a lot, probably 20 different denominations I might be in, you know, Pentecostal reform, whatever, like a broad range of Christians. And I don't think I've ever met an actual Christian

nationalist. So these, these are conservative evangelical, you know, they, they might even vote Republican or whatever, but they, they would, they would be horrified at some of the rhetoric from actual Christian nationalists. So I'm still, I live in Idaho, which is the, the main state I just learned has the highest percentage of white supremacist communes. Like, you know, like we, I've been here 10 years. I've never met, never came across that they're here. Obviously. My question is, it's just, at least numerically, it just doesn't seem like people inside, actual people devoted to Jesus going to church are involving them, you know, that Christian nationalism is really sweeping them away. It just seems to be people outside the church calling them Christians.

Is that legitimate or am I too naive with that? I mean, I put this on my Facebook page and I think Ryan came on the page and said I had gotten some of the statistics wrong. I copied the little graphic from his, I don't know if it was his Twitter page or whatever. But anyways, all this, I don't even know if we know exactly what's going on here. But my sense is that the Christian nationalists that claim Jesus is, that Trump is the Messiah, that stormed the Capitol January 6th, that have Jesus on their bumper stickers. My sense is these are not people going to church and cultivating a submitted relationship to Jesus as Lord. My sense is when I say something on Facebook or Twitter or X or whatever Elon Musk wants

us to call it, and some people come after me, those are not the ones going to church. Those are actually the people who are getting every single piece of identity off of the social media and they're mad as a hornet because of it. There's just a lot of that stuff going on in our culture though. And it is significant and crazy. And this just means one thing. We who are followers of Jesus got attend to being his body locally, visibly embodied and present. So people see Jesus and not that Twitter, not crazy person as, as what it means to be a Christian. So do you think it's a, you say, but you do think Christian nationalism, whether it's

something that's a problem inside the church or just outside the church, would you see it as a, as a, is it a growing movement? Is it a huge threat to democracy? Is it, uh, I'll do the occupied positions of power. I mean, I do see some people up in political positions that would, I think, very much be Christian nationalism, and that's a little concerning. But I don't know how to answer that question, except to say that, yeah, I am a little worried. You know, famously, Stanley Harawas was a critic of democracy. They did become a form of Christian nationalism. But in talking to him, I think just like eight months ago or so, and being with a bunch of

Duke people, I don't know, a year and a half ago, yeah, we are concerned because we definitely think democracy is a better option than authoritarian fascism, okay? And so, I am concerned about it. And I am concerned that Christian, you tell me, but everybody I know that I've ministered with and alongside the last 30 years who has kids under the age of 25, they're all walking away. And they're walking away. And I talked to my friends, we're so sad. How could this happen? And one of the big reasons why is Christian nationalism and the duplicity and hypocrisy that lies therein in terms of Christianity. And so,

I am concerned on all those levels. But I think, and by the way, anybody who's listening who is a Republican right now, I mean, we have some of the same Christian nationalist craziness on the extreme left as well. Maybe they don't call themselves Christian nationalists, but they believe government's going to do the work of God. And that's why it's so important for them to take over and institute their policies. And we got to be somebody different. We just got to be somebody different. We got to follow Jesus and be people of His power, not worldly power, and let Him work in all the places. We live and inhabit and play and go to work and eat at restaurants, etc. We got to let Him work.

Do you see right-wing authoritarianism as a bigger problem than left-wing authoritarianism? Or do you see it as two sides of the same coin? That's a big question, but... I think they feed off of one another. And I think that, yeah, there's equally so. Oh. It's hard. Yeah, it's hard. Depends on what you mean. Like, because yeah, I mean, you deal with like, are you talking like politics, like politicians? Are you talking about social entities like Hollywood, the movie industry, music, you know, like there's so many, you talk about culture, yeah. I'll say this.

It depends on what aspect of... I see as much craziness going on in a much more sophisticated way, but it's still crazy with progressive Christians and social activism, as they do on the right Christian nationalism. And what the missing thing here with both sides is a trust and a submission to Jesus as Lord, as a center of our lives and the center of our churches, and a trust that His power actually will accomplish great things in our neighborhoods for justice. And I'm telling you, dude, we are in crazy times on both extremes. And I'm part of the Jesus Collective now and some other organizations. We're seeing some organizations rise up to say, let's get back to making Jesus the center of our lives,

and the center of our justice, and the center of our work in our neighborhoods. And that's where I think the future is. And I think actually, once we all get tired of smacking each other over the head and shooting bazookas at each other and hurling and hurling at each other, when we finally get tired out and realize it's getting us nowhere but mayhem, maybe the church will get back to being the church again. When you say we live in crazy times, do you think it's... What do you mean by that? And is it worse than it ever, than it has been in the last several decades or has it always been like this? Well, there's some dynamics that make it worse

than it's ever been, at least in my lifetime. I mean, in 19, World War II and post coming out of post-World War II, more people were going to church in the United States and Canada than ever before. And I don't know what the numbers are, 70%, it was 90% in Canada. Over the time from the 60s on, that cultural authority was, the rug was pulled right out from underneath Christianity. You had a bunch of Christians that were used to just coasting. They didn't have to think about, is my son gay? Is my daughter lesbian? Is this happening here? Is the school system telling me my son to do this? They didn't have social media.

They didn't have everything, all these influences. And the church has just lost its center of authority in the culture. And now you've got all these people worried, fearful, defensive, angry. The rug's been pulled out from underneath them. That has created more anger, defensiveness, poor thought out theology, Christian nationalism than I think we've seen maybe since the Civil War. And I just think this is really, really as bad as it's been. And it's time, it's a moment, it's a cultural moment for the church to think about who it is, what it's doing here, and how to do it all over again, because we're in bad shape. Pete What's your advice to pastors that in this election season, which is just going to exacerbate all these tensions and animosity and anger and fear, what's your advice to pastors to

what can pastors do to help disciple their people during this volatile season? Yeah, well, of course, the temptation is to just appease as many as possible, keep them in their seats, keep those ties rolling, keep the finances up. But that's not what we're here for, pastors. I know it's easy for Fitch to say because Fitch's livelihood now is not tied to any particular salary for a church. In fact, I'm a pastor of a church and I don't get a salary right now and it's quite comforting actually. But I have other pastor of a church and I don't get a salary right now, and it's quite comforting, actually. But I have other means of earning a living. I'm a professor. But having said that, I think we got to preach and center people's lives in Jesus all over again. Point to Jesus, let Jesus do the work, Jesus, let Jesus do the work, call people into an allegiance to the Son of God, the Messiah, Jesus, Lord of the universe, and let him work in our lives, in our work, and even in our politics. And keep voting and the national politics in its rightful place.

Don't let it become more than it is. That's the big mistake. When we use worldly power to accomplish things in God's name for God's purposes, it's got to be kept in its rightful place as a preservatory function. That's my advice. Yeah. Are you hopeful? I mean, on the one hand, I'm hopeful, but on the other hand, I'm like, gosh, and we went through, I mean, the 2016 was bad. 2020 was even worse. Of course you had the pandemic and race riots and other things, but this is this, this election season is going to be, I don't, I don't know if we learned. I mean, I saw so many churches divide, like literally divide the whole church divide over whether we should or shouldn't enforce a mask

policy or something like, like it used to be like, what's your view on the Trinity or what's your view on justice or like, you know, like now it's like, what's your view on vaccines or something? You know, it's like all these like politicized issues are dividing the church. Oh, I've said so much, especially in 2020 that I'm like, okay, did we learn from that? What do we, what are we going to do differently? So that our allegiance to King Jesus is an, is enough to keep the unity of the church and we can within that unity have humanizing dialogues and maybe even debates about some of these political issues, you know, but let, you know,

Speaker 3 I don't know if I'm hopeful for the United States of America, but I am hopeful. I do see churches arising out of this mess to recenter their lives in Jesus. And if there's any pastors that, I could never do that, I'll lose this, you're going to lose it anyways. So why not be on the right side of power in the title of my book? Not the right side of history, the right side of power. Be on the side of Jesus' power and releasing His power. You know what? I'll read this text, if I can find it, from Ephesians, okay?

Because this is the kind of stuff we need to be preaching, folks. I'm getting my skills tested as to whether I can find a text in a paper Bible, paper Bible. Okay, but this is from Ephesians chapter one. Paul says, I pray, and I'm going to skip a few words here, that you might know what is the hope to which he has called you, that you might know. By the way, to know is not control. It's to recognize and discern. And he says, I pray that you might know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power. For we who trust, will you trust him and his power according to the working of His great power?" And then it says, God put this power to work in Christ when He raised Him from the dead

and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all other rules or principalities, including the government of the United States. Can we live in that power? Can we call people into that immeasurable greatness? We've lost an imagination for what God would do because we've been so reliant on human power, worldly power, government power. And so, let's get back to Ephesians chapter 1, knowing His power. Oh, man, that's so good. That's so good. That passage is so powerful. And it sets the tone for the whole book too. And it made me think of like just Philippians 2, that it's through submission and humility and service, self-giving love, self-sacrifice, that that is a pathway to

exaltation. It's just such an upside down way of even looking at power. This resurrection power demonstrated through Jesus was because He first submitted nonviolently, right, to the violence of the empire. Man. All right, one final question, Fitch, and I'll let you go. What was it like filming The Shining? Was it as scary for you as it was for me watching it? you knew that's funny stuff. Yes. I need my wife calls me Jack Nicholson. Sometimes I go dear. Okay. That's not good for our marriage. You know, I mean you could freak people out really because oh man, that's funny. Well, um, highly encourage people to get your book reckoning with power. Why the church fails when It's on the Wrong Side of Power. I'm a few chapters in, and

I just love how you start thinking, dude. I mean, you provoke, you're provoking my heart and mind. And I love that, man. So thanks so much for your work. And I got to have you back on, Sam. This is this, I can't believe this is the first time. Dude, thanks for having me. The Austin Errah. back on soon. This is this, I can't believe this is the first time. Dude, thanks for having me. I enjoy your work. I admire your work and your skills in not only theology, but technology. So may the Lord bless you. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.