>> Hey, leaders, it's Kerry Newhof. I'm on the road this week, and we decided to do something to serve you as podcast listeners. A few months ago, I did a series on pastoring in a partisan age, and with the election right around the corner, we are re-issuing those episodes. I really hope you enjoy, I hope it's helpful, and I hope it's just in time as you lead your congregation and the people you care about through a very, very critical time. >> The art of leadership network. The public is so desperately looking for a way out of this partisan problem. >> An alternative. >> An alternative. And if the best the church can offer is, guys, I hope we're still here after politics has its way with us, instead of saying, what can we do with Jesus in the midst of this moment? [MUSIC] >> Welcome to the Kerry Newhof Leadership Podcast. It's Kerry here, and I hope our time together today helps you thrive in life and leadership. Well, today, we're diving into part four of our series. Pastoring at a partisan age, we know how hard it's been. I know how hard it's been. So we're doing a deep dive, because what I want to get at is the reason under the reasons, yeah, there's presenting issues. But we want to go deeper, and that's what we're doing. Today, my guest is Michael Ware. We are going to talk about our political sickness, advice on guiding your staff when they want to express their views. And if you're going to preach, what do you talk about before the election? Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at 10x10. They are harnessing the collective knowledge of more than 125 ministries. You can visit 10x10.org today. That's T-E-N-X10.org today to learn more about their free resources. And by Belay. Belay is offering our listeners a free download of their resource five ways a church bookkeeper can transform your day. Text my name, Kerry C-A-R-E-Y to 55123, to claim this offer today. And hey, because you're in the middle of this series. If you haven't yet done it, I have created a free guide that you can use to explore how to pastor at a partisan age. So I turn the key insights and concepts you're going to hear over a multiplicity of episodes into a single actionable guide that makes it way easier and less awkward to deal with conflict and divisiveness at your church. So if you want it, head to churchconflictguide.com or just click the link in the description of this episode wherever you happen to be listening. Well, Michael Ware is joining us. He is the founder and president and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life. It's a national non-profit with the mission to contend for the credibility of Christian resources in public life for the public good. He is the author of the spirit of our politics, spiritual formation and the renovation of public life. We're going to talk a little bit about that today. I think you're really going to enjoy him. He was a new name for me, but I was looking for the best experts. We've still got NT Wright, Sharon McMahon and others coming up in this series. So I think you're really going to enjoy it. Hey, my goal is to connect leaders with the training resources and tools they need to thrive in life and leadership. And our friends at 10x10 have that same goal for leading with passion in youth ministry. So right now they're harnessing the collective knowledge of more than 125 Christian ministries, organizations and denominations that are dedicated to discipling the next generation. Their online resource library will give you access to high quality resources that are created and curated by youth ministry experts. Many of them are free of charge. So visit 10x10. That's TEN x10.org today. And you'll learn more about their free resources and how you can join a growing network of 10 by 10 partners. And then you're calling, you know, this isn't finance management, but it is critical to keep your churches finances in good standing. So when you're punching numbers, gets in the way of your top priorities, maybe it's time to get help. Ballet offers a low cost solution that saves you time, improves accuracy and guarantees support along the way. With Ballet's US based virtual assistance, accounting professionals and marketing assistance, you can delegate taxes, payroll and other financial tasks. These experts will transform your workday and help you get back to the reasons you got into ministry in the first place to show just how much delegation can transform your workday. Ballet is offering our listeners a free download of their resource. Five ways a church bookkeeper can transform your day. So just text my name, carry that C-A-R-E-Y to 55123 to claim the offer today. Well, I am excited to dive into this conversation. And thanks so much for journeying deeper on this one. If you appreciate this episode, share it with a friend, your attention and your support means the world to me and to my team. So with that said, let's dive into my conversation with Michael Ware. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Good to have you. It's so good to be with you. Thanks for having me. So I'd love to begin here because you talk about it. You write about it. What is our political sickness? Like if you had to sort of talk about the malady of the age, how would you define it? I mean, I think there are a lot of ways to talk about our political sickness, but the way one framework that I think is helpful that I use in my book is that of political sectarianism. And this was a framework to talk about political polarization that a number of social scientists put out in 2020. And they say political sectarianism is upheld by three pillars. First, the tendency of aversion, which is the tendency to dislike and distrust those who differ from you politically, the tendency of othering, which is the tendency to sort of place outside of the bounds of sort of normal human community, those that you disagree with politically. And then the tendency of moralization, or what I call a misplaced moralization, which is the tendency of raising political disagreement to the level of pure good and evil. Or as a social scientist said, interestingly, they said raising political difference to the level of iniquity, which I thought was really interesting. And so they say this toxic cocktail of aversion, othering and moralization has led not just to profound consequences for government and the dysfunction of our politics, but it's actually poured over into our social relations in really profound and really profound and harmful ways. They say that out-party hate, so your contempt for those who are politically different has become so profound that it motivates voting decisions even more than in-party love. So for those of us who want to say, our politics should aspire for the common good, they're saying, no, we're like so far beyond that, not even a positive tribal sentiment, sort of like the advancement of one's own tribe. That's not guiding things anymore. For many voters, that would be too high of an aspiration. They're motivated by harming their political opponents, even if it causes them and their own tribe harm itself, which is a pretty, pretty dour way to start this interview. Yeah, but I mean, that's why we're having this interview, Michael. All right, big question. There'll be a million answers to this, but I'd love your take. How did we get here? How did we get here? Was it always this way? I mean, I seem to remember the 90s fairly well. I don't think it was this much vitriol. Yeah, so one thing that I like about the framework of political sectarianism is that it sort of avoids discourse about, is this the worst polarization has ever been? Because then you're inevitably led to say, well, it seems like we were pretty divided during the Civil War. And so I don't know. Let's frame it into our lifetime. It seems to have escalated over the last few decades. Here's what I'll pick out a few things. I think the sophistication of political and media technology has played a significant role. So political actors can reach more into your personal life and reach individuals in a more targeted way than ever before. That's had a significant impact. I think that a lot of what we're seeing is a result of huge societal and cultural tectonic plate shifting. And so that's part of what's going on here. We could talk about how campaigns are financed. We could talk about the fact that we do have some really serious issues that are under discussion right now. But I think people are not crazy to think that gosh, I don't seem to remember politics in croaching on my emotional and social life. And sort of how I related to others 20 years ago on the way that it seems to now, I think that's a real thing. >> Do you have any idea why it seems to have captivated Christian minds to the extent it has? I mean, my theory in a perfect world is we would have been immune from the sectarianism and the partisanship. We've gone for it hook line and sinker. Any theories on why Christians have been so susceptible to the and maybe even fueling this cultural tide? >> Yeah, I think there was a in the modern sort of incarnation. I think in the 80s and the 90s, there was this move in which there was a sense that our religion was giving politics meaning. That calcified and soured to an extent that as the social science data and I just think our own lived experience sort of suggests is that that soured and turned inward so that it was actually politics that was giving religion meaning. And so I talk in my book about this development of what I call politics sensitive churches. So we have the seeker sensitive movement. The politics sensitive movement relates to churches making decisions that are driven by and oriented around either attracting a certain kind of political persuasion or repelling a certain kind of political persuasion. And so that's not happening everywhere. That is certainly part of the dynamic, which is that we have for so many, it is hard to distinguish what are religious convictions from what are political convictions or opinions. And when you can't separate those out, when you can't distinguish what is dogma, what is the word of God from what is your translation of ultimate principles into the prudential realm of politics. C.S. Lewis called that using God's name in vain. He said it was a violation of the third commandment to claim God hath said something in our political life on an issue or an area where he hasn't spoken. And we have quite a bit of that. Well, and he was writing in England in the 1940s, 50s and beyond. I mean, literally during a raging world war, we're good and evil, we're at stake. And he's like, hey, hey. So historians, it's interesting. I mean, I have a degree in history, I'm not a historian, but historians often look back on an era, and they can say, okay, these were the factors that contributed to acts, to industrialization, to the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century, et cetera, et cetera. There were certain factors. When you look back on the 80s and 90s, do you have any theories on what made us ripe for the picking? Like what factors converged to make the idea? I forget exactly how you phrased it, but it was like we were trying to bring politics to religion or try and bring religion to politics, but we ended up bringing politics to religion. I think that really resonates as true. What made us susceptible to that? Any thoughts? Well, look, I mean, right, it's not just a binary sort of, you know, I think a lot of people care about politics because they see the way political decisions affect their communities. And they feel motivated even by their faith to participate in politics. And I think that could be a very healthy thing. I mean, I've spent much of my life encouraging a healthy, Christian civic engagement. I do think that there is a mode of affiliation that we have brought to politics that then affects how we view our faith. And so, Delos Willard, who's been very influential in my life, referred to gospels of sin management and referred to barcode faith. And the idea here is that kind of like a grocery store scanner. So long as you have the right label slapped on you, you might be a bag of green beans. But if the barcode is for pretzels, that barcode scanner is going to read you as pretzels and you're good to go. So as long as as a Christian, you are willing to provide mental assent to a few lines of key doctrine, you're going to the good place. You're on the on the politics has functioned much the same way where what it has meant to have a Christian politics is to have the right position on a few issues. And so long as you do that, you could advance those positions in the most sort of destructive, belligerent way possible. But nothing could be said about the Christian content of your politics because you were willing, you had the right answers on the right set of questions. And that synergy made a religion, at least certain slices of American religion, very attractive to politicians. And so you see politicians approaching religious communities, not as a source of accountability, or even as a source of knowledge, but as a constituency group, as a group that they would like to affiliate with, and that they would like that group to affiliate with them. And that is not a healthy relationship for Christians to have with politics. When we're going to politics to get our ears tickled, as opposed to bringing knowledge that is fit for public decision making, we undermine our faith. And I think we actually, the public suffers from a lack of real Christian contribution. You know, you're reminding me, you know, I never had Billy Graham on the podcast, but talked to some people who knew him well. And you think about Billy Graham being summoned to the White House, or Gordon McDonald's talked about it, I think here, about being summoned to the White House right after the Monica Lewinsky incident during the Bill Clinton administration. But you were being called in as a counselor, as a pastor, as an advisor, not as, hey, your eye candy for some votes, although that might have been, you know, a slight factor. But, you know, Graham, he advised Democrats and Republicans alike. And now it's more of an alliance, like we want your constituency, which is interesting. So your book, by the way, for those who haven't read it does a beautiful job. If you love Dallas Willard fusing Dallas's theology and observations with our current situation, you do that throughout, I think, quite beautifully. But you're also close with Tim Keller. And one of the conversations we had with with Tim that we were able to do before he passed was, you know, if you're starting again in ministry, what would you focus on? And he said, this time it would be identity. And he talked about how identity was such a defining issue that's infusing our sexuality. And he thoughts on politics as identity and partisanship as identity. Yeah, quite a bit. There's a lot of conversation now about sort of Christians in America feeling politically homeless. And I think that there is some, I think that there are ways in which that can gesture in a helpful direction. But what I've said is that the crisis is not that Christians are politically homeless. The crisis is that we ever thought we could make our home in politics at all. And this idea that we are sort of a longing for a candidate or a party in which we feel completely at home, in which sort of we do not have to operate as a check. Or as John Tyson and many others would say a sort of creative minority within that sort of system. That longing is one we need to be very cautious of. It suggests that we want to find an identity and secure an identity in something other than Christ. That our identity would be more secure if we could just feel perfectly comfortable in our politics and in our political community. And so I think identity plays a really key role in some of these dynamics. I think so much of the, there's a misunderstanding among both Christians and non-Christians that the anxiety and some of the belligerents that we see in our politics is a result of overconfidence. Of people who are just too confident in what they know. And I would suggest that when you see insecurity, when you see belligerents, when you see anxiety in our politics, it's not an abundance of confidence. It's actually a complete lack of it. It's a complete, you have to work up certainty because you lack confidence in where you stand and who you are. And that's a major function in our politics today. I'd love to go one layer down on that. I remember another Keller, I think this was in a sermon or talk he was giving. And he was quoting a Jewish rabbi who said, you look at what's happened in the last century, century and a half with the death of God, quote, unquote, Nietzsche, the decline of God in culture becoming a post-Christian culture, et cetera, or somewhat argue now, pre-Christian culture. He said, there were certain things that God always bore for people. It's like we trust at him probably at a deeper level than we do now. We knew that God was the center of bedrock identity of life. And Keller was comparing it to, I think, the Instagram wedding, like all the pressure that couples put on each other now, because of all you have is each other. That wedding better be perfect. That wedding better cost $50,000. I'm paraphrasing him here. But you know, and then why do marriages suffer so much? I mean, they've always suffered. They've always been challenged. But because all of my hopes and dreams are now invested in my wife. Yes. And if she doesn't deliver, if she doesn't deliver, I'm dead. And I wonder if some of that identity has been fused to other things. You know, Keller talked about job or security or church or whatever in the early, but he says, now it seems to be identity. Any further thoughts on what we may have cashed in as a people of faith and why politics has risen as the current title? I know. So there have been two ways in the modern era in which Christianity has been viewed in politics. And that is as something that is either useless or as something to be used. And what I'm focused on is how do we place politics as within and under the life we are living with Jesus? And that has been that was part of what we traded out for those who invested sort of ultimate hope in politics. Now, the good news is, I think there's good reason to think that these sort of secondary hopes are reaching their end, that people are coming to realize that kind of going, this is bankrupt. This is bankrupt. Like we can do a lot of good through politics. Politics is essential. All of these things. But it's not the kingdom come. And it is, there's a, there's a, this is a longer story, but there's a German psychologist, Herbert Plube, who studied individuals who had gone through severe depression. And he wanted to know what helped them get out on the other side of that depression. And he said exactly this, that they had reached sort of the utter disappointment in their secondary hopes. And for those who made it, when they reached the bottom, they actually went deeper into grounding their hope in real hope, in a primary hope, in an ultimate hope. And that is the opportunity that lies ahead of us right now. For those who thought that electing the right candidate was going to take care of all the problems, for those who thought that if we could, if only the church could be completely converted to my political opinions, then oh, we'd have, you know, everything would be going in the right direction. If we let go of some of those things, then it will free us up. For the opportunity to choose something more real, more ultimate, more fundamental. And that is, that is the opportunity that lies ahead of us now. And now a quick word from one of our partners. Today's episode is brought to you by preaching cheat sheet. A recent study showed that 46% of pastors say one of their biggest struggles is feeling like attendees don't absorb or use what they preach. Did you hear that? 46% of pastors feel that way. Look, I get it. Okay, we've all been there. But if you feel this way more often than not, I would love to help. 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Am I picking up in your tone, in your words, that you think maybe that reliance on politics as salvation has peaked and is perhaps on the decline or where would you say we are on the trajectory? You know, I think the political idolatry works in two ways. I think there is the political idolatry of investing all of your hope in politics. And then I think there's a political idolatry of saying that politics is this one area of life, which is cordoned off from God. I wouldn't want to be complicit in what is happening in our politics. I'm not going to vote. You know, I don't, let's keep politics outside of the four walls of the church. Well, I think we're in a moment where both of those possibilities, sort of the idolatry of we need to amass as much power in politics as possible, because that will save us or that will save the country. And we need to keep politics outside of the four walls of the church. We're in an interesting moment where I think there's enough evidence, like palpable evidence that both of those approaches are wrong, but they're still both really tempting. And I think you said you will still see folks trying to make them work. But I do think we're at a pivot point. I do think that there's a real opportunity, and as I travel the churches and colleges around the country, I do see a hunger for, okay, I want to reject what came before. But I don't want to just be a pendulum swinging, like what is a Christian way of thinking about our political life as something that is a part of the life that we're living with Jesus. And that opportunity is always present. Of course, that's the invitation that Jesus offers to us in all of our life. How do I put my relationship, my marriage within the life I'm living with Jesus? How do I put my job? And I think part of the theological development that I think I hope is happening in the American church is seeing that politics is just one more of those areas. It's not this totally other thing in which the way of Jesus does not hold up is not viable. No, Paul's calling collagions to take off the old self with its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed and the knowledge of the image of its creator. No, that's for politics too. >> So in your view, what is the way of Jesus in politics? Because I think you're right. You either you tend to have what I have in my circles is people who are all in politically, or people who are like, yeah, that's a secular kingdom. I'm a political, I'm bailing out. And I think what I'm picking up as we head into this election season is more people in the second camp than the first. There's a fear having been bitten in multiple elections now. It's like, yeah, I really am just going to put my head down and maybe come up for air in February, if it's all over, if we're still standing. What is the problem with that approach? >> Oh, gosh, there are a number of problems. I mean, I sense that too, and it does concern me the sort of idea that our politics is happening to us. And that's the only thing that's happening. Our politics is happening to us, and we just need to make it through. We got to hope that we see it through. I think there are a number of problems with this. One is just politics is going to be saturating our culture, and it's going to be, it's going to be one of the most obvious questions the culture is asking over the next six months. Do we really believe and want to suggest that we have nothing to offer there, that what we have to offer is our heads in the sand, and that they're, now, hear me. What I'm not saying is that, well, that means what we have to offer should look exactly like what the rest of the world is offering. What that has to mean, is that we need to line up our people behind a particular Kim. No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying, what are the Christian contributions in this area of life? Then the second thing I'd say, as a Christian, as a person living in America, or Canada, or any place with a representative democracy, you do not choose to have political responsibility. You already have it. And so your choice about what to do, by withdrawing for our politics, you do not relieve yourself of responsibility or complicity. I think that term is used to much harm. Your choice is how you're choosing to steward the responsibility that you've been given ultimately by God. And again, to our last point, the Christian life is about how we place that which is within our responsibility, within the range, as Willard would say, within the range of our effective will, within the range of God's effective will. How do we place our life in the flow of the life that God is living? And politics, I talk about politics as an essential form in which we can love our neighbor. So it's not the essential. It's not the only. It is one essential form in which we want to steward the influence and responsibility that we have toward the good of our neighbors. Now, of course, like the question is, well, what's the good of our neighbors? And what I'd say is we have mountains of resources from the Christian faith, from Scripture, from Christian tradition, from Christian history, from reading the signs of the times that can help inform us. But the second that we step into politics, the best that we can be is translators of ultimate ideas, say the dignity of the human person into the prudential realm of politics. And we're imperfect translators. And so we want to hold lightly our political opinions, while holding firmly to our confidence that the Christian faith offers real knowledge that is fit for public consideration. And we bring that knowledge to the public square. So how would that be different? Like when you think about the Christian contribution or what we can offer, how would that be different than say towing the Democratic or Republican or independent or libertarian line, whatever a particular natural flavor might be? Yeah. So Christians join political parties because they believe things. They don't believe things because they joined a political party. I think there is this idea. And it suits the political parties and political powers really well that if you belong to a political party, you have thereby signed over your conscience to every jot of the party platform. That is not the role of political parties. Political parties are about mediating difference, not just between the parties, but within the parties themselves. So that would be the first thing. We need to get our minds right on what it means to be a member of a political party. I think the other thing we need to get our minds right are as much as certain ideologies and certain approaches can be helpful in informing the Christian point of view. The Christian faith confounds and contradicts these man-made ideologies at various points. And so we do not see our thoughts. We do not see our ideas or principles to these political ideologies. We are the ones who can take, T.S. Eliot has this great line. He says, the folly of the human endeavor has been to try to find a system so perfect that people no longer have to be good. This is like the primary political concede of our age. If we just got the right system in place, then everything else would, then the system would impose on us a kind of order. And instead, what I'd suggest, what I think is the testimony of the Christian faith is that actually many kinds of systems can work more or less if we are good people. And then if we are good people, we're free to choose among the systems to find the better and the best. But the kind of people we are has much to do with the kind of politics that we have. And unless we wrestle with that as opposed to offloading the responsibility to the powers and systems of ideas and alleviate ourselves of the responsibility that we have and the kind of person we are, then we're really, it's an interesting act of obfuscation. You get to actually take on the responsibility that's not yours and alleviate yourself of the responsibility that is yours, which is like, who are you? What kind of person are you when politics is in the room? And these are the kinds of questions. I think one of the things that's helpful is that conversation falls quite naturally in the ongoing conversation and life of the church. What does not fall quite naturally in the life of the church is, have you seen the latest poll numbers? Have you followed the latest, did you see what the campaigns, their latest financial numbers? But we think that's what politics is and what it must be. And so it creates an odd fit when we try and squeeze that into the life of the church and think that's what it means to be doing politics. So I think I want to get to the church in a moment. I'm going to get hyper practical because leaders are looking for advice. But you know, I used to be involved in politics and that was like way in my late teens, early twenties. I don't talk about it a lot. But there was a sense even then in the 80s that it was freedom of conscience. You had people who were a little more right leaning, people within a conservative party who were a little more left leaning, you had blue liberals and red Democrats, you know, all that kind of stuff. So you end up with a real mix. And I think you could say even in American politics, there was a time where if you had a right wing Democrat and left leaning Republican, you could almost switch parties and you wouldn't notice much of a difference. And there was, if you read Doris Kieran's Goodwin stuff, a lot of collaboration between parties, bipartisan motions. So I think that agrees with what you're saying is freedom of conscience within the political system, you make a contribution. But that's not where politics is gone. You have the radical left, you have the radical right, and almost an expectation of conformity and a loss of freedom of speech and a loss of ability to say what you think, not what the leader thinks. I mean, it's very, it's changed very much. What do you do when that is the partisan reality or am I missing the partisan reality in my analysis? So I think that's very true for, I think those are real challenges that I think require a particular kind of both pastoral and practical advice for people who are in elected office, for those who are striving in political careers. I think what's so interesting is talking with people that don't have a political responsibility beyond being a citizen, who sort of allow the political culture to impose its logic on them. And when you try to interrogate it, they can't really name what they're afraid of. Who cares if Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer aren't happy that you disagree with them? Yeah, you're really not that important. Yeah, fair enough. Right. And so I do think that we do have a suffocating political culture, if we don't, this is why the identity question is so right. If we don't understand who we are, and if we don't understand sort of, if we think of ourselves as just an amalgamation, the sum of all these various inputs and influences vying for our attention, then we can start sort of diluting ourselves. Well, I can't, I can't speak up against my party. But like the, it's like dot, dot, dot, you know, or else dot, dot, dot, and it's like, okay, if you plan on running for your party's nomination to be the senator, let's have a practical conversation about that. If not, then maybe, no, no, here's where I think it gets practical for pastors, which is that for pastors, they may be clear on where their responsibilities are. But if their congregants are imposing a political logic on everything that they say and do, then that leads, that can lead to real difficulties. And I think that's really what a lot of, lot of leaders, community leaders, pastors are facing, which is, which is, I don't think my objecting to the party litmus tests or the ideology is, is an issue except for people around me make it an issue. And that's what we think more about that. But I think that's sort of part of it. Well, that's a great signal to go there because in 2020, a lot of pastors, and this shows up all over life, right? Just as you were saying, a lot of pastors thought, I'm not, I'm not going to let's, let's exclude the pastors who took a strictly partisan line. Here's who to vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden is right on everything. Let's exclude those people. I think 80% 90% of the audience listening to this tried to steer a reasonable line. And maybe they leaned a bit right or a little bit left, but they had some independent agency and they thought, I'm going to bring these folks together and a blew up in their face. It's like big chunks of the congregation left because they said the right thing in the wrong tone. They said the right thing, but not quite the right way. They were a little too left, a little too right, a little too, like whatever, it just seemed, and I got all those DMs, you know, over time. And then COVID hit and it was the same thing, right? In the midst of that, just explosiveness, it's like, well, we're following public health mandates. Oh, yeah, but too strictly or well, we're not really, we're taking the most aggressive interpretation. Well, you should defy the law and then boom, people left. And this is showing up in families, right? Parents who vote differently than you. And if you were to reveal where you stood, you'd get this diatribe that sounds like it came from the White House press secretary, right? So that's what people are facing. What do you do when you're in that kind of a situation? And you're going to hear from the people who have swallowed the partisan pill. Yeah. So I think right now it's a lot of triage in the American context, we have an election in a matter of months. And I think triage is necessary. It's why they call it triage. And so I'm not dissuading folks from doing the work that's necessary now, but it isn't, it's not the ideal setting. And so as pastors who are listening, as others who are listening are thinking about the triage that's necessary, I would ask that they be attentive to what are the broader theological implications of this conversation, how my congregants are reacting to the conversation. And what does it suggest about the work we're doing at other times of the year? What does it suggest about the overall story, narrative theology of our church, that politics is so combustible. And I think it's a reasonable, I object to it, but I think it's a reasonable expectation. I think so. So so many pastors have been caught off guard, the election heats up, it's in the news, everyone's talking about it. And they say, well, I have, I want to say something that's true, that is scriptural in this context to help sort of clear out some of the clutter. But if what they're saying in the heat of the moment is not what they is not sort of is a surprise from what they were doing when it was an election season, then I kind of, I understand my congregants would say, you're being political. So I did an event with a number of a number of pastors and a pastor said, a pastor asked me, you know, and I knew this pastor well. So I felt like I we could have a direct conversation, and it wasn't recorded. Switch is a real challenge these days. Yeah, please don't record me. Yeah, exactly. But he said, you know, in the wake of George Floyd, you know, I spoke about racial justice, and there were members of my congregation that left, but I was just being scriptural. I wasn't, I wasn't supposed to be political. He's not alone. The difficult thing I had said, I asked him, is would someone who was in your church prior to George Floyd think that attending to racial justice fit in fit in that moment? In other words, if you don't build the scaffolding, if you don't build the overall expectation. So I think I think someone like John Tyson is in New York. Does it does a great job of this? John can preach about politics. But when he does so, he's built up an expectation in his church that this this what I'm saying on politics fits in the life of what we're doing as a church as a whole. So it's not surprise. And he spent years talking about it and building the scaffolding. So it's not hey, I'm being responsive to a one of the newspaper. It's hey, what's happening in the news is responsive to the theology that that we've been living out over the course of years. So of course, I'm going to talk about, of course, I'm going to talk about how an election fits in to how we think about the kingdom of God, because we're talking about the kingdom of God every week, no matter what season it is, no matter what elections are happening, and I think that is the the bigger question that we need to ask. What what concerns me is if we if we just view an election season as something to dread, then once it's over, we go few, thank goodness, don't have to do it that for another three and a half years. Yeah, exactly. In the same spot and our people are no more prepared to deal with. Actually, they're less prepared because political technology is only going to increase in its sophistication. And so so that would be the channel. You know, what can you do in 2025 that has an eye towards the moment? So Willard would call it sort of off the spot training. What does the off the spot training look like so that when you're on the spot, your people react, they're different kind of people. They will respond to the kinds of provocations that our politics offers in a different in a different way. So that's great long-term advice. And I agree, Rich Velodis has talked about that, Jim Tyson and other preachers who kind of build that scaffolding. So I love that off the spot thing. But when this releases, we're almost exactly two months to the date away from an election. I'm going to guess that the vast majority of people listening to this are like, okay, I haven't got any scaffolding. What do I do? So I want to give you a scenario and this may change. I'm doing a handful of interviews. I may have a different thought on every interview. Great. But as you're talking, I'm thinking, okay, if I'm going to address this, I might do a series angled around something like call it combustible. All right. Why, why are some topics so explosive? And don't talk about the issue, talk about the issue behind the issue, and then talk about our identity. Where is it secure? Where is it not secure? Where an identity gets threatened? It gets threatened by politics. It gets threatened by sexuality. It gets threatened by income. It gets threatened by, do I own a house? Do I not own a house? It gets threatened by prestige or shame or whatever. I'm just making this up as I go along, right? But it's sort of getting at the issue, under the issue. I'd love your comment on that. Also, after issue, my legal disclaimer, this is not advice. I am not intending to lose 50% of your congregation overnight. So please take all under advisement. Anyway, with that said, Michael, I mean, is that a reasonable approach? Or do you think this is such a tinderbox? Any attempt is just going to explode at this point. And you start after the election to build the scaffolding. No, I mean, I think, as I said, sort of, I think the triage is necessary now. So I do think, for pastors who are attentive to their congregation and have determined that this needs to be addressed, I think that approach is why I am a proponent of the issue behind the issue and not sort of taking politics on its own terms, particularly. So not A1, like Biden says, Trump says, or whoever's running for office by the time this airs. Here's what I'd also say. I think that there are some principles, some Christian knowledge about politics that I think are helpful footholds and sort of grasping points for people to hold on to so that when they leave church and then are bombarded with, if you're a real Christian, you'll vote for so-and-so that they have some touchstones that they go, I don't think that's quite right. And so in the spirit of our politics, I talk about politics as not ultimate, but pen ultimate. I talk about politics as not the area of the dogmatic, but the area of the prudential. I talk about politics as mediated and contingent. I talk about politics as an essential form in which we can love our neighbors, that a Christian politics is inherently necessarily oriented towards the good. So redefining politics as the illogical, not partisans. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. Okay, so let's, because we're coming up on time, trying to make these a little bit shorter so that people listen to the whole series, because it's going to be so good. Worst practices, if you were to blow up a church and ruin someone's pastoral joy between now and November, in this partisan age, what would you do? What's a formula for disaster? In other words, what are some things to avoid? Punditry from the pulpit. And by punditry, you mean? I mean confusing and misusing the authority of the pulpit as to place that authority on the authority of your political opinions. I think that there are some that have gained numbers in doing that, but have lost Christ at the center. And I think there are real serious pitfalls there. Look, there's just so much pressure on pastors. And often when pastors are asked to meet a need, well, I'll just say sometimes they're ego sort of getting, getting the way and they go, well, this person is asking something from me. And I should try and give it to them. I have an opinion. And nine times out of 10, maybe 99 out of 100. Unfortunately, when your congregant is asking you to speak on Sunday morning about your political opinion on this or that, they are not doing so because they are just so eager to hear what the pastor has to say so that they could follow. I've been wondering what to think about this. And the second you say it, I know typically what it is, is they want to use the authority of the pastor to tell the person in their small group. Like see, now you have to shut up because pastor said, I'm right and you're wrong. And of course, if pastor says that they're wrong, then they go, well, I'm out the door. And so I just think we need to and with room for different traditions and pastors know their congregation best congregations have different expectations along these lines and some things work in some church cultures that would that would be sort of that wouldn't fit in the expectations in another. But I just caution, seriously, if I could add something on the positive side, I know you said we were going to go there. We're going to go there. I guess to frame it. Well, yeah, let me frame it positively, which is for traditions that allow for prayers of the people or for communal prayer at some portion during the service. I have found that other than loading all of the burden on the sermon that communal prayer, particularly communal prayer that is not manipulative. So so on the bad side, it would be like, we pray for governor so and so that he does the right thing and you know, vetoes, you know, HR, whatever, like that's not what we're talking about. But I found it to be an exceptionally like imagination forming act. So my church used to live in Virginia. We had a Republican governor, Democratic president, prayed for each of them by name during service that that they and their families would be blessed and that their leadership would be a blessing to the commonwealth and to the country. Just that, the fact that you're sitting in a church where you know, I know down the road, they work for a different party or they work in, they work serving the governor and on the other end, they tried to kick the governor out of office. But with Jesus at the center, our aspirations and our hopes are higher than just partisan warfare and just the the the horse race. So so using prayers of the people using a Sunday school and using, you know, I'm doing a number of like Thursday or Friday night church events that aren't the Sunday service, but are the church asserting itself as saying the Christian faith has something to offer in this context. But we don't need to do it on Sunday morning. I think that's a really healthy thing. You know, and for those in the evangelical tradition, I have a fusion of both. When you were talking about prayers of the people, it reminded me, I think it's the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. There's some very, but you could find variety of traditions that have excellent prayers for government and people in authority. And again, if you want to contemporize it, but just to even get a touchstone on what some of the other longer traditions have to say about that, it is very neutral and very affirming of whoever happens to be in power. And you're right, that's great modeling. So from the other perspective, if you're going to do a couple of really wise things between now and the election, what might that be? Find a way to affirm civic leaders, civic actors that are within the congregation. Help make clear that there are people within the church that have a political vocation that is a part of the life of the church and see how you could tap into their skills, their knowledge and provide an opportunity to affirm them. I mean, it could look like a number of things. It could look like a time of prayer, concluding a service, saying we're going to pray over the people. If you work in government, if your work touches on the governing of our community, we want to pray over you. Could even be municipal civil servants, federal civil servants, et cetera, got it. Public service people. Exactly right. Could look like hosting an event at your church that has a panel of folks that have roles related to politics in civic life where they're able to provide some leadership. So I think those are helpful. There are a whole array of spiritual practices and disciplines that I think we need to think about how they directly apply to and counteract some of the destructive political impulses of our age. Obviously, study of scripture, prayer, I think the memorization of scripture is something I've been attending to. Much more, I don't come from a background or childhood where that was prioritized, but it's become more valuable to me. I'd also think about fellowship and service. I think study, I mean, I think silence and solitude are especially essential spiritual disciplines for this age, particularly when it applies to public life in politics. You're right. Sometimes in our loudness and our haste, you say things that are not wise. Yes. Sometimes just shutting off the inputs that tell us those who disagree with you politically are evil. Sometimes just shutting those off. Our vision can be clear to see the image of God in people that we disagree with. We realized, well, maybe something else is going on in the life of my uncle that has bad political opinions that I'm called to address more than fixing his bad political opinions. So I think that we could be much more attentive to disciplines and practices. We run a podcast called The Morning Five. The idea with this podcast is it's five to seven minutes, Mondays through Thursdays. The idea is we open with Scripture, we cover headlines, just like the driving headlines of the day, and then we close with prayer. The very simple blunt message of this over time is that you can, trying to build up the habit and expectation that God is not anxious about the news and that we could bring the worries of our day, even political current events to Jesus. That is something that should be well within the flow and life of local churches. Again, this can be misused. It can be Lord, make the politicians do what we want them to do. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about bringing the aches and sufferings of the world, particularly as they affect our congregation and the community that we're placed in before the throne. That can be a really healthy thing. Again, reposition the responsibility that we have within a political and civic life beyond just partisan warfare. Any tips on news consumption heading into the next few months? I think it's become an ongoing issue. My own philosophy is try to spend less than 10 minutes a day on it. Just be a fair and from reasonably objective sources, I know everybody can debate all day long about whether that's even possible. What tips would you have on news consumption? One, I think the search for the one unbiased, holy grail news outlet from which I get all my news. I don't think that exists. I encourage both limiting your time, but also having select publications, outlets that are all on different places on the political spectrum. So, somewhat right, somewhat left, et cetera, et cetera. I've started doing that. I've started to read from different perspectives. And you start to go, okay, if I was reading about this, I thought one thing about the story because I read in one outlet. But if I was just reading this other outlet, I can understand. Now I understand the reactions of my neighbors better. And if I was them, I'd probably react the same way. Yes. And there was something, often I'll say there was something that I was missing when I read the first outlet that is true, reading the second outlet, even if I still disagree with like the ultimate sort of slant of it or whatever. Do you have recommendations of one or two sources to the left or to the right that you think that isn't just Foxy and that kind of thing. But just that would be helpful for people to investigate. National Affairs is a quarterly publication, but I think really, really helpful to sort of understand conservative arguments. Their editor is Yaval Levin, who I think is one of the most brilliant public intellectuals that we have today. And so I'd really recommend National Affairs. I get a lot, it's far to the left than I am, but there's a publication called The Boston Review that really helps me understand. I'm less surprised when I hear certain arguments because I check in on the Boston Review every now and then. I do think it's helpful to read The Times, The Journal, The Washington Post. And I try and read Jamel Booley at The New York Times and Ross Douthat. I read just about everything that they write. They're both disagree probably on, I don't know, 70, 80%, but it's really helpful for me to follow certain thinkers over the long term. That's been helpful to me. So this is my vocation. And so I want to relieve people of too much responsibility. I think just the simple rules of try to read varied news when you can. Try to be skeptical if certain news tickles your ears or your particular sort of resentments or passions. Usually if the news strikes you too closely, like if you think like that is just like, I can't believe that that is happening. Usually there's more to the story. Sometimes there is it, but usually there's more to the story. So you want to be skeptical of things that particularly strike a sort of, especially like gossipy sort of cord within you. And to that point, I avoid following, I don't know of a better definition of it, but like gossipy political story. So I don't follow every, I mean, we've had a lot of court issues. I don't follow every day in court. I don't follow, you know, there will be all these news stories about leaks from different lawyers and different departments. I just avoid things until they, if they seem to be suggestive as opposed to factual, factual reporting. Because I'm not in a role right now where I need to assess the reliability of information that I'll need to react to within four hours. I could wait a day. I could wait three days and see if it actually pans out. There have been other times in my life where I haven't been able to do that. But I would advise, yeah, not sort of following these sort of political entertainment stories too closely. Well, the other thing too is attention spans have shrunk, but I'm in the habit now of actually subscribing to a couple of magazines, leadership with longer form thinking. A friend of mine took an economist subscription, which is sort of a global look at things. And, you know, if you're talking about national affairs, I think I remember reading that in college. It's been around for a while. Those are longer form 3,000 word, 4,000 word essays that help give you the underpinning and the understanding. And again, if you're going to build a scaffolding, that's a really good discipline to have. All right, I'm going to throw a softball at you for my final question. When you have staff and elders or senior leaders who disagree politically or want to bring their partisan views to the table, any tips on managing that or how do you lead people when they want you to be partisan? Yeah. So it's a big important question. One of the things I seek to do is just try and draw, be very clear about the values around why you're gathering. So I work with a lot of people who work in politics, and advocacy is sort of part of their nature. And I affirm that in them. And I'm able to say, I think it's important too. I've done it. I do it now in other areas of my life. And I've done it in previous stages. That's not why we're here. And to sort of set the values while affirming people is really critical. And not just saying what's not a part of the gathering, but being really clear on what is. So this image of Jesus at the center. And so we run a fellowship program. And to open up the program, the fellows are sitting a circle. And without any to do or without even referencing it, we set up a stool in the middle of the circle with the cross on it. And that cross is at the center for the first conversation that we have as a group. And that we're able to point back to it later on. As just a symbol of what is holding us together. And so this is and maybe this is a great place. And so the problem with looking at the election is just something to get through as politics just happening to us. The public is so desperately looking for a way out of this partisan problem. An alternative. And alternative. And if the best the church can offer is, guys, I hope we're still here after politics has its way with us. Instead of saying like, what can we do with Jesus in the midst of this moment? How might the way that we hold together be a witness, not just for our own edification, but for the edification of a watching world who has the expectation that people who disagree politically can't share a space together. And so that would be like that's the vision we need to cast. That's the hope that we need to set. That we are a community that is known by its love for one another. And that testifies to the love that the Father has for us and that we have for God. I want to see the church not wait until after the election to think about what we have to offer to the public. I want us to be thinking about what do we have to offer? What is God calling us to now in this moment? And I'll say like one of the reasons there's certainly like an over investment in politics that happens that tears apart the church. But one of the other things that happens is that we leave a vacuum with no positive vision for what God can do in a moment like this. And where there's a vacuum of course other sentiments and other passions and other idols are going to go into that vacuum. And so I've seen this at churches around the country. I think it's something that's viable. We just need to have confidence that the Holy Spirit can and will be at work in our churches that Jesus mediates our relationships with our brothers and sisters. And he could do that even in the context of politics. Wow. Well, that is a great place to close. Michael, thank you so much for today. Your latest book, very helpful is called The Spirit of Our Politics. It's available everywhere. Where's a good place to find you online these days? We want to track with you. Yeah, sure. So I run the Center for Christianity and Public Life. And so folks can learn about us at CCpubliclife.org and would love to have folks join us at our summit in DC October 7th and 8th. And then I'm also on X at Michael, our wearer and Instagram at Michael Ware. Michael, thank you so much. I'm really grateful for this conversation. You've added a lot to the dialogue. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks. I've listened for a long time and glad to be it's great to meet you. Well, I love going deeper on the issues. And if you want more information, you can get show notes by going to carrynewhuff.com/episodes673. We have transcripts there as well. And a quick opt-in will get you everything you want and a whole lot more. Hey, make sure you check out what our friends at 10 by 10 are doing. They are harnessing the collective knowledge of more than 125 Christian ministries, organizations, and denominations. Go to 10 by 10.org today to learn more about their free resources. That's T-E-N-X-1-0.org today. Head on over there and belay is offering our listeners a free download of their resource. Five ways a church bookkeeper can transform your day. Text carry C-A-R-E-Y to 55123 to claim your offer today. Now, next time we are going to sit down with NT Wright, and we're going to talk about why Christians have bought into the culture war, how the gospel is political, advice on leading through the election without losing people, also still coming up in the series, Mark Sayers and Sharon McMahon, and then coming up for the 10th anniversary of this podcast, Jim Collins. And then we flipped the mic with Mark Clark, and he talks to me. We've also got Lisa Turkers, Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, and a whole lot more coming up. I'm very excited for what's ahead on this podcast. And because you listen to the end, thank you so much. We have something free for you. If you want to have healthier conflict as a church, I'm afraid conflict is inevitable. Destructive conflict is not. Then I've got a free church conflict guide I'd love to get in your hands. So if you want to start leading a more united church in this very explosive era, go to churchconflictguide.com or click the link on the description of this podcast wherever you're listening. If you enjoyed it, hey, leave us a rating and review. Maybe share it with a friend and we'll catch you next time on the podcast. I hope our conversation today has helped you identify and break a growth barrier you're facing.
