Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Intro Jonathan 0:04
The way that anger has been weaponized by this movement that I want to challenge, I mean, I, when I talk about the religious right, I am angry.
I'm angry, but I'm trying not to be angry and unloving way, you know, in your anger do not sin, the Bible says. I'm angry because my people have been hurt by this. This was really used to convince the people who raised me and many, many communities like that, you know, Christian communities in the country, to support an agenda that has next to nothing to do with what the Bible's really about. And now these people are so caught up in that, that they believe they have to support you know, one of the most corrupt administrations that we've experienced in this country, and one that is openly racist, that's openly alienating people around the world that you know, putting kids in cages at the border and doing that in the name of Jesus. And I just think what a terrible witness that is for the church and what it's doing to people's souls.
Seth 1:16
Hello, you beautiful people, welcome to 2020, in the year of our Lord, it's another year. I'm beginning what the second and a half there. I don't know, beginning the third year I think of this show you the three anniversary will be in November and so let's see what happens from here to there. A couple quick things. So there is a I think I've sent out for newsletters, but there is a newsletter signup on Facebook. I don't think it's actually on the website except for that little pop up that I'm sure nobody does. Every once in a while I throw out updates and different things and I usually use Patreon for most of that, but not everybody's on Patreon.
So as I began to compile 2019, like it was only over 160,000 some odd downloads of the show, which is mind blowing, considering year one was like 43/44…45,000, something like that. And that is crazy. I am so thankful for every single one of you, thank you for taking the time to download not only this show, but all the ones in the past. And for those of you that are new, how you doing? I'm Seth, I'm glad that you're here. There's a massive back catalogue. Listen to that if you want. But I'm happy that you're here. I saw on Facebook, so many different people recommending the show at the end of the year as one that had given them value and I was humbled by all of that. So thank you to those of you that did that.
Thank you especially to the patrons last year wouldn't have been a thing, and neither could this year be a thing, without every single one of you. And so I would encourage a handful more of you let's try to add a couple of those every week. And so you can support the show in any level that you're comfortable with from $1 to more dollars than that. One of the new things I want to try this year as I'm able, I'm going to try to record the video of each episode. And I will post that at a different tier, I haven't decided which tier to just add that to-over there at Patreon. For those that want to see the actual interview happen, that will include all the books, which should include all the before stuff and all the after stuff that many of you are able to hear over on Patreon. I don't know how to explain that well, but there are two episodes of the show. There's the unedited, all the stuff in between childhood interruption ups, interruptions, that type of stuff. And then there's the edited mixdown version that you get on the main, you know, feeds.
So I'm going to try that this year. I've already recorded one of those with Paul Wallace, that should be out I think sometime in January. There are some other episodes that are coming out in January that were recorded well before I decided to do that. And so for those that just won't be there, this episode is one of those with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. All that to say thank you each and every single one of you I had a blast doing this in 2009 I got to meet and talk with so many of you either via phone, text, Facebook, Skype me on FaceTime. Really, you all are a blessing in my life. And so thank you for being here.
All right, I think we did enough of that. For those of you that know me, Well, I do struggle with that type of conversation. And so I made my way through it, we did it together. Here we go.
So today's conversation is is really overtly political. So, I chatted with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, about what he calls a revolution of values, where he's trying to reclaim public faith for the common good. So a lot of his books circles about what is the common good. And when we say values, what do we mean? What are our moral narratives? How have we misread the Bible as we have become addicted to power and fear and othering people who do we need to fight against? And he argues how our religiosity has misrepresented in Christianity at the expense of the poor, the marginalized, and so many other avenues and so I really think that you'll enjoy this conversation the his book is fantastic, but I really liked this chat, small little editor's note, for some reason in the middle of it, the internet connection just got really crazy. And so you'll hear him kind of instantly revert to almost having a rasp in his voice. And so I apologize for that. I cleaned it up as much as I could. But it is what it is. And so let's get it rolling. Here we are with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.
Seth
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, thank you so much for coming onto the show. I am excited that you're here. Then a big fan from afar for many, many years. Just have yet to find the time to connect. So thank you so much for coming on, I appreciate you being here.
Jonathan 6:00
I'm glad to be with you.
Seth 6:01
There will be many that and this is one of my favorite questions that I asked that just aren't familiar with you that maybe are in a different umbrella of ideas or are just dipping their toes into whatever this rhetorical sarcastically named podcast is of Yeah, what can we say a church? And so what would you want people to know about you? What's kind of your, your story that's made you whatever you are now because I think yours is a very interesting one.
Jonathan 6:28
Well, I'm a child of the church. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church in North Carolina, in the 1980s, which was the hayday of the Moral Majority movement. I wanted to do all I could for Jesus and I thought that meant becoming President of the United States. So I tried to I tried to do that as a young foot soldier in the you know, Moral Majority-Christian Coalition, Religious Right kind of world and I went to page for Strom Thurmond in the US Senate when I was a teenager. And in that context, I began to realize that the story that had been told to me about what it meant to be Christian and public was didn't line up with what the Sunday school teachers had told me, you know, that Jesus said, and so, I've spent most of my adult life trying to learn what it means to follow Jesus in public. And I've written this book on the revolution of values to try to weave that history that had impacted me without knowing it together with what I've experienced and what many people are experiencing in the country today.
Seth 7:39
I'm going to circle back some you said, what does it mean to “page” for somebody? I'm not familiar with that terminology?
Jonathan 7:48
Yeah. So within the world of Congress, there's a way you can kind of get in on the very bottom of the pecking order. It’s quite exclusive in a weird way that I didn't understand. I wanted to be a page, because I wanted to get to know a US Senator, because I had learned that you couldn't go to the Naval Academy without a recommendation from us senator and I didn't know any. So I didn't know how you could come a page. But I went to the Senate and I learned from a security guard, in the observation gallery, that the young people who looked like me down on the floor were called pages. So I looked it up and realized that you could apply through your state senators office, you know, that your senator from your state to you. You're a gopher, you work in the office and you know, you do whatever you run from one office to another. This is, you know, I guess before as much technology as we have now, but they used to have pages. I don't know what the page is used to run, you know, meeting notes over to the Senate Armed Service Committee or whatever.
Seth 8:55
So you would fix the “he’d” sit down and go “Oh, no. Now I need the other binder. This I need the blue one. I need the blue one. They'll give me the blue one.
Jonathan 9:02
Let me get your water, etc.
Seth 9:08
I mean, it makes sense.
Jonathan 9:10
It’s very important before he gets on that elevator and give him this note. Yeah, that kind of thing. Hold the door. That's cool. I didn't.
Seth 9:14
Yeah, that kind of thing. Hold the door. That's cool. I didn't realize that.
Jonathan 9:15
Most people know about pages because of sex scandals. There have been various, you know, sex scandals over the year between female pages and old white men.
Seth 9:27
Yes, and that has been in the news quite a bit. I recently over like the last year just got so mad every time I turn the TV on more red. So I just have begun to get my news from international sources about America because they give you the Jonathan's wearing a black shirt today. Says going to go to work today. In related news, there was an earthquake also a tornado and a school burnt down. There's just no opinion. This is just literally what happened. Because I get so mad. I just get I just get angry. I feel helpless when I watch the news, but I have a feeling it may go somewhere close there as we as we start talking about.
So A Revolution of Values is the name of the book. But it's also, as I read, and I can't read what page it is, what Martin Luther King was asking for correctly, he said, we need this. So can you break that down for people that aren't familiar with that part of his history, is a lot of people are familiar with just a handful of speeches, and then on Martin Luther King Day, we'll get five names of the same quote, and then people will bicker about it, and then we'll move on to whatever day is after Martin Luther King Day.
Jonathan 10:33
Well, Martin Luther King has been memorialized and made a founding father of the United States as a civil rights leader. And, of course, has worked for the civil rights movement and the, you know, legislative change that was very real in the Civil Rights Act and the voting rights act in the mid 60s is crucial. But he always understood and realize by engaging the system in that particular way that the impact of systemic racism on this country was such that it really hurts everybody. And unless everybody who was impacted by it, all the poor people in the country, come together across the racial lines, it's impossible to change the system and to end to have a true democracy.
So what he was doing at the end of his life was bringing chicano workers from the southwest together with black folks from Mississippi Delta together with white folks from Appalachia, and building a poor people's campaign across these lines that have been used to split up the working and poor people of America. So in the midst of that, he said that this country had to address the evils of racism and militarism and poverty and the way those things intersect to benefit an elite class and you know, large corporations but not to benefit most people that had to be challenged. And it would necessarily bring about a moral revolution of values. He said, that was in his speech at Riverside Church in 1967.
Well, you know, one thing that was widely recognized at that time in the United States is that he and others in that movement were a moral voice in public life. I think people still recognize that, I mean if you go to the National Mall, and he's the only preacher on the Mall. So it was widely recognized in the mid 20th century that these were moral issues, you know, where, where the country stands with regard to its policies of racism, policies that impact for people, policies that, you know, deny immigrants and deny health care to our citizens. Those are moral issues in the mid 20th century. And one of the things I had to learn is that there was a concerted effort to redefine what the moral issues are in public, and that effort came to be called the religious right, but its origins were really in the resistance to that movement that we call the civil rights and the women's rights movement of the 60s and 70s.
And so this book tries to tell that history in relation to particular issues that we still talk about today, and to really show how the religious right was a very concerted, and well funded effort, to teach Americans to miss read the Bible on these issues. And so what we're trying to do with today's Poor People's Campaign, and what I've really learned from people all across the country, who are who are directly impacted by this injustice, but are reading their Bibles, many of them who were who are Christian are reading their Bibles, right in the midst of that and finding a very different way to hear the good news in those places.
So the book goes about rereading the Bible by issue. You know, voting rights, immigration, poverty, issue by issue, how have we learned to miss read the Bible and how can we learn to read it again, that's really what the books about.
Seth 14:00
One of the notes that I wrote down, so I began, I didn't realize I kind of figured as I was reading the book that it would, it does build on itself. However, every time you'd add a new chapter, and there was a new issue, I kept like ticking off, like on a little tick box on my paper, like, okay, we just, we just made all these people angry. And now we just made all these people angry. And all these people angry. And I thought to myself, my, my, we're just, yeah, just because, yeah, you talk on that you talk on climate and gender and race and war. I mean, there's so many avenues. I interrupted you, sorry.
Jonathan 14:33
Well, I'm just thinking, the way that anger has been weaponized by this movement that I want to challenge. I mean, I, when I talk about the religious right, I am angry. I'm angry, but not I mean, I'm trying not to be angry in an unloving way. You know, in your anger, do not sin. The Bible says…i'm angry because my people have been hurt by this. This was really used to convince the people who raised me and many, many communities like that, you know, Christian communities in the country to support an agenda that has next to nothing to do with what the Bible is really about. And now these people are so caught up in that, that they believe they have to support, you know, one of the most corrupt administrations that we've experienced in this country, and one that is openly racist, that's openly alienating people around the world that, you know, putting kids in cages at the border and do that in the name of Jesus. And I just think what a terrible witness that is for the church and what it's doing to people's souls, to believe that that has something to do with their faith.
So that's why I'm passionate about this, not only because it's hurting the people, you know, who these policies and impacted. I mean, I am deeply concerned about those children in cages love families, separated I'm deeply concerned about poor people in the country. But I'm also concerned about the people who've come to believe that this is good! I’m pastorally concerned for that.
Seth 16:04
Yet you use a term in. It’s in the beginning of the book. It's either in the intro or maybe in the first or second chapter of what you call “court evangelicals”. And so I'll air quotes that court evangelicals, as it relates to like the church standing behind a king, if I remember that, right. Then you list some names. You know, Falwell, Robertson, Graham, and and so I mean, the current, you know, Jerry Jr, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, what do you mean when you say court evangelicals?
Jonathan 16:34
So I'm borrowing that term from John Fea, wrote a good historian. He's probably the most important historian who has challenged the myth that's been created to support the Christian nationalist movement. So a part of this movement to convince Christians that this extreme right wing politics the agenda was was a values agenda was to create a kind of religious nationalism that says part of what it means to be American is to be, you know, this kind of extreme Christian.
And that has required a whole genre of myths about how, you know, the founding fathers were these, you know, right wing evangelicals, which they weren't. And that, you know, they they established a Christian nation, in their imagination of what, you know, a Christian nation would mean, and religious nationalism is a huge issue all around the world right now. It's only Christian nationalism here, because the majority of the people, you know, who are in power and trying to hold on to power have called themselves Christian, but we have Hindu nationalism in India, we have, you know, religious nationalism has been a huge issue in terms of some of the extremism we've seen in the Muslim world.
So it's a blending of…not so much a blending as an exploitation of faith for the purpose of, you know, exploiting governmental power. And in the United States that's been done by people who call themselves Christian and did it in alliance with really folks who were trying to hold on to a history of white power that had been, you know, consolidated over generations in this country. And when the, frankly when the Voting Rights Act was passed in (19)65, and people began to realize that that was going to change the demographics of this country and the demographics of who voted in this country. It was the Voting Rights Act, and it was the new Immigration and Naturalization Act, that those laws passed in the mid-60s and were part of the winds of the civil rights movement, that that created a reaction of people who were anxious about holding on to power. And when they reach out to Jerry Falwell, and others, and said, you know, we need to mobilize the white people of the south and get them to vote along with the folks in the suburbs, and the people across the Sunbelt. But we can't do this anymore in explicitly racist language. We need to do this by calling it a moral majority. That was the foundation of this movement.
And I think many, many issues have been shaped to make people believe that they're voting their values, when in fact, they're simply supporting this movement to hold on to political power.
Seth 19:38
This is just a bit of context just because we didn't really talk about this prior so I decided to go to Liberty after high school not knowing a whole lot about Jerry Falwell at all.
Jonathan 19:48
You’re not the only one
Seth 19:50
Although I met the man face to face (and he) usually was really nice to me. But there are a lot of things that you write about in the book specifically about Lynchburg Christian Academy, or LCA as most of us call it that. And all of it. I didn't. There's a quote, hold on, let me find it on 80..well, I don't know if you've changed the page numbers since this release. Yeah, so in 1967, after Lynchburg finally desegregated its public schools. You said Falwell open to the Lynchburg Christian Academy, which the local paper described as a private school for white students, which is not how it was advertised to me.
And Matter of fact, all the advertisements when I was at Liberty was if you live locally, and you put your child here, they're going to get a scholarship to come to Liberty University. So basically, you can upfront money now or you can upfront money later, but do it as an investment. But I did not know…so is LCA still that way? And I'm we may be way off turn, but I like when I read that, because I'm an alumni from Liberty. I was like, Oh, my, I didn't. I don't agree with a lot of theology or politics from Liberty anymore. Matter of fact, Jerry Jr. The President has muted me on every platform that he can because I usually just fix his proof-texting or respond to something with Scripture when he says something that I disagree with. So now I just email him because you can't mute that. But is it still that way, like inherently that way? Like, does the Moral Majority still exist in that way and in that capacity at our university type level, or is it lost its power?
Jonathan 21:20
One of the things I'm really trying to help Christians understand is how systems work. Systems work to keep the same people in power, but the ideas change. So almost no one is explicitly racist. Right? Because there's a liberal consensus in the country. And I'm not talking about you know, liberals versus conservatives here. I'm talking about like, what most people in modern America think that you know, calling someone the “N” word or having all white institutions is un-American.
So no, Liberty University does not use that kind of language anymore. They do a lot of work to scrub that history because they were embarrassed about it. And Jerry Jr. tells a very different story now, about how this came to be. But what I'm trying to say is that the power that was gained, through explicit racism, is now being maintained by cloaking that set of values, not around white values, but around religious values. Right. And so they're very white values, right, the values of a particular party being in power, a particular imagination of family being sort of nostalgicaly lifted up and, and this alliance with the, I mean, for example, just one example here.
You ask yourself, how could you call biblical values, something that is explicitly pro-corporation. The single, hallmark, legislative achievement of this administration is a huge corporate tax cut, at the end of the day. That's what everybody will say it makes it worth it, this huge corporate tax cut. How can you read the Bible and say that God's primary concern is about the flourishing of corporations and extremely wealthy people, and you can't read the prophets that way. You can't read Jesus that way. But this gets imagined as a sort of biblical value. Because the whole system that has been set up to support that way of being in that way of making money and celebrating success and progress, and you know, an economy that's doing well, has been given this kind of Christian veneer. And so you say, “it's good for the country”. You say it's, you know, “it's good for all people”. And that somehow becomes Christian over and against everything that the Bible actually says. And so yeah, so these so these are not people who are going to be explicitly racist. And I'm not saying that, you know, people hate black folks. I'm saying that people are, are religiously committed to perpetuating a system them that has maintained a wealth disparity between white and black folks for the whole history of this country.
Seth 24:04
I read some reviews of your book that came out overnight. Because if I remember that recording, I'm pretty sure it came out today, right? Like today's and so I am definitely behind the eight ball. And for those that are listening, that are like, oh, what day was that? That is December 3. There we go. I had to cheat and look at my clock.
Jonathan 24:24
December 3rd, the first week of Advent, happy new year!
Seth 24:26
Some of the critique that I've read is you're setting up straw men like about climate and about racism and about #metoo, and about sex and gender and war, and then knocking them down with proof text and like basically saying, well, he's just a social justice warrior. Racism isn't really a thing anymore. And we can't go back and change anything. So sorry. It's your problem. How do you respond to that? Because, I get that question often, even from family like, you're just reading what you want to read. And I'm like, I mean, I feel like I'm not. I feel like I'm taking Matthew 25, which seems to be categorically what Jesus said, here's what my people do. And then if it's not in that I don't do it. So sorry if it upsets you.
Jonathan 25:10
Yeah. So I've been having these conversations all of my adult life now. And so, you know, I'm not real interested in the back and forth. What I did with this book is begin every chapter with what's really more journalism than I've ever done in a book, I decided to focus pretty deeply on one particular story, someone who has been impacted by that issue. And if anybody wants to, you know, dispute my reporting, they can try but it's, it's pretty well documented, and these people, almost all of them are still alive so they can go interview if they want to.
These are true stories about how people have actually been impacted by these issues. And then I try to say how the religious right has read the Bible to you know, create policies that have impacted people that way and And to show how these very people and people, you know, in a movement, like the poor people's campaign with them read the Bible differently. And I just want to present that as a moral narrative, that it isn't about how I read the Bible. It's about how lots of people read the Bible, and how lots of people through history have read the Bible. And what I want to argue, if there's an argument to be had, is that the distortion of so called biblical values by the religious right, is what's unorthodox.
Both historically and in terms of world Christianity, it's just not what Christianity has meant in most places at most times. And, and so I want to challenge it as a Christian author, as a preacher, for the sake of the church for the sake of people realizing that they've been misled, not because these arguments are very persuasive, but because and this is why I think it's important to give people the history because an incredible amount I'm talking hundreds of millions of dollars has been invested in a dis information campaign.
I mean, I don't think people realize that, you know, Christian radio was not created to give you you know, spiritual nourishment. It was created by the very people who wanted to orchestrate a connection between the white Christian community and the republican party in order to build a narrative. They could call everything else fake news, and we're seeing the fruit of that, that, you know, you can blame it on Donald Trump, but it's just not the case that. He was not even there when they were I mean, he was not in their camp when they were building this thing. It took 40 years to build this and, you know, he was busy building casinos when they were beginning to build this thing.
Seth 28:01
You start with a story at the beginning, that I'd rather let people read about the border. And there's a, it's a beautiful imagery of walking through the water for families to be met that have been decimated, and I'm from Southwest Texas. So a lot of that rings true. Like a lot of that rings true. But I think that's a better story like literally was gripping as I read it.
I want to talk instead about a few of the other stories if we can and kind of break those apart, because some of these I wasn't familiar with. And so for someone like myself, I appreciate the journalism, because then I could Google it. Like, you've got quotes. And here's what's the name of this and it was on this document area, or whatever it was.
One of them is a story of Alicia Wilson and how did it hold on? Where does it start? Hold on? Yes, she was a graduate of fuller Theological Seminary. And then for some reason, I wasn't expecting Mike Pence to come into that story, but it did.
Jonathan 28:53
When she moved to Indiana.
Seth 28:55
Yeah. Well, can you break apart that story just in brief kind of what happened and why it matters.
Jonathan 29:01
Well, I tell that in the chapter on women's rights, because I think the way the christian right; religious right, weaponized, the Bible against the women's movement is really important for us to understand and shaped a lot. It's shaped a lot of what we've inherited. So Alicia's experience was that she grew up in a very white evangelical world where sort of biblical values language was in the air. She talked to me about how, you know, she and her mom listened to Focus on the Family radio growing up and that institution had, you know, had played a huge part in the story that I'm telling.
And she very much wanted to live into those values, things that she was told in that place were important. Like, you know, being faithful in marriage and you know, purity before marriage and these things that were that were told to her. And I think her story is important because, you know, in every way you could imagine, you know, from within that world, she was sort of true to the script. And then when she gets to Indiana, and she's preparing to get married, you know, to her evangelical husband, who you know, also has very much thought about preparing for marriage in the same way. She went to her doctor and got an IUD, you know, for this purpose of planning their family.
And then she got a bill from her insurance company. That said they were using the Religious Freedom Act that Mike Pence had passed to deny payment for her particular form of contraception, because they said it violated their religious freedom. And so I think it's a story that begins to demonstrate how this is much more about money than it's about anybody's, you know, value for life. I hope no one would question Alicia's commitment to life. I mean, the the sister again, you know, as a former seminarian who now works for a nonprofit, I mean she works to serve her community there in Indianapolis but she was accused of being, you know, someone who was against pro-life because of a decision she and her husband made in planning for their familyy; and a health care decision that they made that was denied because of this religious freedom.
And they ended up with this huge bill that they'd finally though they challenged it in court with help of a legal firm, they finally ended up just paying the bill because they wanted to move on. I think it's a story that reflects how twisted all of this has gotten in terms of really demonizing women and the choices that women have to make. Choices that, you know, are complicated and not simple and straightforward, but certainly aren't about, you know, whether you're for or against life. That framing of it has just been used to demonize people and frankly, to demonize women.
Seth 32:20
For context: So that same Alicia Wilson is the same Alicia Baker that was in Kavanaugh’s hearing correct?
Jonathan 32:29
She testified at Kavanaugh’s hearing that’s correct.
Seth 32:30
Which is just as I read that, I also was like, Huh. Which doesn't necessarily shed light on Kavanagh's a person, but it does, it's amazing how smaller the world really is.
Jonathan 32:42
Her testimony really had nothing to do with the, I think very credible accusations that were made against him as a teenager. Her testimony was about his legal record. Right. And his, support for these religious liberty laws that had been weaponized against her. That's why I wanted to tell her story within the whole context of the Me too. And church too.
There's a lot of talk right now about how women have been hurt by this purity culture. But I really want to focus on the policy. And say, yes, there are individual victims. But we can't just, you know, say we're going to take more responsibility about the bad actors, because there are systemic issues that had been there all along, and that the narrative has been used to support
Seth 33:27
Do you know, if that company, I cant remember the name of the company that declined her IUD, if they had the same issue with just regular birth control pills? Or is it like, is it like a policy of “Yeah, just no birth control period”, or we're just going to silo out this one, just because reasons.
Jonathan 33:44
I don’t think that that particular company is entirely against birth control, although there are some companies usually more connected to the Catholic world that are entirely opposed to birth control. This one was called calling it a form of abortion. You know, based on their
Seth 34:03
interpretation,
Jonathan 34:04
this is a you don't want lawyers arguing medical or ethical decisions, right? They have reasoned to that, you know, they're not because it's a it's something that gives them an out right. Yeah, it's an argument they can make for why not to pay for something.
Seth 34:22
I'm trying to find the page and I can't so hopefully you can remember there is a guy Bill Buckingham. And so I wanted to pivot a bit because especially in the coming months, you know, as we walk into January into the remainder of the year, immigration is going to get a massive amount of talk and as will climate, and then you know, young earth creationism and it's just it's a hot mess.
But Bill Buckingham is a name that I wasn't familiar with, nor was I really aware of the impact that that person had on the textbooks that I had in Southwest Texas growing up, you know, as well as I'm sure many others because Texas, California, New York, They set the textbooks for the entire country because those are the biggest. Yeah, like McGraw Hill, you know, if I'm making it for Texas, that's 50 million copies. So I'm not making a different edition. They all get this.
Who is Bill Buckingham? And what has been kind of his story and the impact that it's had on us for today?
Jonathan 35:18
Well, on the issue of immigration, I really don't want to make this about any particular individual. I mean, there are there are instances in the book that I'll encourage people to read, because, you know, you have to get specific in order to, you know, see how things work, but I don't want to suggest that it's about any single actor, let me just get clear about that. Yeah, it’s not that there's one bad guy behind the curtain.
Seth 35:43
Oh, no, it's been there since, it's been there since like what Johnson, President Johnson. You know, as we there's a lot of stuff. I remember actually listening to a different podcast about I forget what President it was, it might have been Johnson, where they moved the border security into a different department and then they guy that ran the Department of the Secretary was like an ex Marine, like, whatever the highest General, Admiral, whatever that is.
And he's like, oh, this is too porous. It's not safe. And then changed all those policies where people came to do some migrant work, expecting to go home because that's what we did last year. And now I have to choose, I can't go home. I didn't cross the border, the border kind of crossed me to use a line from Propaganda. And then now do I have to break the law to get my family here? Or do I need to break the law to go back? I also made some money and my kids are hungry, but baby girl has a birthday coming up maybe in a week, like what do we do here? Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it's, it's decades of people.
Jonathan 36:38
Yeah. So the stories that I try to tell that I think is important is how, on the issue of immigration, actually, conservatives tried for some time, folks within this religious right movement, tried for some time to convince what they thought of as, you know, potential hispanic voters to get on board with their pro family, pro life agenda; and so there's a whole history of that in the 80s and 90s. But one of the things that happened ultimately and this is a lot of what led to the kind of Trumpism and you know, build that wall, kind of sloganism that we see today is the movement realized. The political movement realized that the demographics were such that they simply couldn't convince enough black and brown people to embrace white values, just to put it crasssly, that's what happened.
And so it necessarily had to become an anti immigrant movement in order to keep the same agenda. Yeah. And we've seen that really turned, you know, vicious, I think, largely since 9/11. Right, because its first an anti-muslim, you know, so called anti-terrorist movement, and then increasingly demonizes, all brown people who might come from the south as a potential threat. Now, that's not new, anti immigrant sentiment has been there many times through American history. So they had a lot to appeal to, as a matter of fact, you know, the original sin of America first language from the 1920s and 30s was a was very anti immigrant in the sense that, you know, “real Americans” are like this, you know, government and people coming from elsewhere, you know, you know, or not so so so that's what I think romantically, you know, talk about how we were a country of immigrants we, you know, we've always been a country of immigrants, but as a matter of fact, there may be periods that which, particularly when, you know, immigration numbers went up that people in control saw that as a potential threat and blamed those people.
And that's what we're experiencing today. I think when it comes from immigration to voter suppression, it really is about holding on to power. And the threat of people who simply wouldn't embrace the way that the language of America and democracy has been twisted to support the perpetuation of power for an increasingly smaller minority. You know,
Seth 39:23
I want to circle back to my question I'm going to go. So Bill Buckingham, I found the page says that he says…so for those who should be context. He's a school board member who chaired curriculum committee and Dover. I'm assuming it's Delaware. Is that unless there's Dover somewhere else? I don't know of another Dover.
Jonathan 39:44
Okay, we're looking at the controversy, the textbook controversy in Pennsylvania.
Seth 39:51
So you said it's laced with Darwinism. And then you go on to say, you know, for Buckingham, David Barton, who's a previous author that you quote, Literally on the other page, you know,
his myth of a shared Christian past wasn't enough to guarantee that the next generation of Americans will embrace the values of Christian Nationalism.
And so he started arguing against, you know, the the textbook that had any, let's say current science in it, you know, as if the Bible is a science book. It's not. I'm just gonna…I very rarely give blunt opinions, but I'm just going to say that one the Bible is not that.
Jonathan 40:26
I’ll agree with that opinion, I don’t think it’s a science book.
Seth 40:29
So what has so what did that do? So Bill Buckingham does that. And then with like, what happens like how does that impact us today?
Jonathan 40:39
Right, so he's a he's a local person and a local community who embraced the narrative that was being pushed by the whole Creation Science movement. And then, as that was debunked, it increasingly became an intelligent design movement. But they have found different ways to basically argue that you can use the Bible to discredit science and that the two are opposed to one another thereby, you know, trying to compel people of faith whenever there's a an issue where science opposes their agenda to say, on the basis of their faith, we just won't believe the science.
And this is the primary argument that's been used against climate science. I mean, the science is pretty indisputable. It has been for a long time. The conversation is beginning to shift a little bit because the science is not only predictive, it's also descriptive now, right! Like, we're seeing the floods and the fires and droughts that were predicted for 20 years, more than 20 years.
And so that's beginning to change a little bit. It's a little bit harder to deny what you see obviously, some of that too. The way to combat it, though, was with this anti science narrative. And folks were encouraged by the religious right and by the institutions the results to run for the local school board, to get on there, to have a position of influence and to use these textbooks that their companies were created, again it is a business and the people have some interest in it also use these textbooks or two, to at least argue that, you know, this in terms of like fairplay, you know, these textbooks had to get a hearing to, even though they weren't based in really incredible science.
It's a way, you know, I think it's instructive in another way, because it's a tactic that has actually spread through the movement in which this movement has decided that you don't actually have to convince most people that your position is true or good for most people. You can, through using the tactics of disruption, you can simply create enough chaos, that it's not possible to build a coalition that can oppose you.
And I think we see that a lot across a lot of issues right now. Yeah, the, you know, this current administration is often not really all that interested in getting anything in particular done. They just want to create enough chaos that, that people can't unite against them. And I think it's important to know the history that in order to understand how we need to organize in the present.
Seth 43:30
Yeah, I want to I want to read a bit here, but I want to segue it into my last question, because in my mind, and you're talking about young people of faith, and I'm going to classify myself as young because I feel like it. I don't know what the age limit is young, but I'm going to say young, why not? Um, so you say and this is in that same part about science.
Young people of faith have been drawn, however, to reread their Bibles, alongside the struggle for climate justice at places like Oak Glat and Standing Rock. And these places where non natives have been invited to learn what a world looks like from the perspective of colonized indigenous people. The Bible is concerned for land takes on new meaning.
And then I'll paraphrase the rest, which is basically that we have the same obligation to keep God's commandments that we do to keep the earth like it's the same Hebrew word like that keep matters. It's not to have dominion over it but to keep it. And then that suggests that creation care is important as any religious obligation. But the part that I want to zone in on there is “young people of faith have been drawn, however, to reread their Bibles.” And you talked about this way at the beginning, like everything, it's one of the first thing you said, you know, how should we read the Bible?
Because as people and personally as well as I wrestle with theology and God in a way that I am being stretched and I learn new things, I lose community, I, people get attacked, and then when you lose community and you're attacked, your anxiety just goes through the roof. And so as people struggle with not only your book, but the current concepts of the book as they begin to dig in. And I would argue and agree with you, yes, that there's massive systemic issues, whether or not you want to agree with that. That's up to you. But I believe that there are and obviously you do as well.
So how do we read the Bible in such a way that we are enticed to new communities? But we can also handle that anxiety healthfully? Because if not, I feel like also many young people are just jettisoning from the church pulling the eject cord. I hope that I land in the ocean somewhere, and I'm safe, because I can't be involved with that garbage anymore. And I wouldn't…I wouldn't argue against that. Actually. I agree. I also can't be involved in that garbage anymore.
Jonathan 45:37
Yeah, no, I think this is an important issue. You know, if you go back and study abolitionism in the 19th century, the people who were the most ardent abolitionists, they wrote down their arguments, which is fine, you know, we can listen most closely to them. They were, almost across the board, people with deep faith, they wrote about why they were opposed to slavery in terms of their faith. But they were also intention with the established church in most places, right.
And so there’s a whole group of them who call themselves come outers back then, and I think about the come outers of the 19th century, a lot when I look at Pews data today on the nones, you know, so if you look at the history of the religious right, but I Chronicle here, you know, 40 year history. And you can also put that history beside the Pew data on the nones, people who've been asked, where's your religious affiliation? They say none. And it maps where that number has doubled every decade that this movement has been building, right. So it's the fastest growing religious group in the temporary and it's a lot of people who have some previous history With this kind of Christianity that has been co opted by political operatives, and they want nothing to do with that, and so they call themselves none now.
Which often means like you're saying they don't have a, at least a place where they feel spiritually at home. And that can create a lot of anxiety and loneliness and a sense of distance, not just from community but from God. And I really do consider this work to bring about a revolution of values, and to build a movement of people who are connecting their deepest faith commitments with a pursuit of justice and the common good and public life as pastoral work. Because we have to build new institutions. We have to build new movements for people to be part of and you know, that's not simple. It's not going to look like you know, the parish you can walk to in your community in every place. And so, you know, I'm really committed to doing this work through the poor people's campaign. And that's movement building work. So it's about, you know, creating networks of people who can gather to bear public witness together. But I also am committed to helping people learn prayer practices that they can share in their homes.
And I've been part of this common prayer movement that hundreds of thousands people around the world used to have spiritual practices with vertical practices in their living rooms and in there in a community centers, and then prison cells and other places where people are using it to to have a way of rooting themselves and a story that tells them who they are. So I think this is a moment of transformation that we're living through. And I don't think we know entirely what it's going to look like. My friend, who has crossed over to the other side now, Phyllis Tickle, used to talk about The Great Emergence. She talked about it with alot of enthusiasm that there's something new is emerging. We don't know what it's going to be yet, but we're part of that. And yeah, I feel that way too. And I do meet people who are anxious but I also meet people who are discovering new ways of being church together. And I'm encouraged by that.
Seth 49:17
Phyllis has worked I forget which she was she call it the grand rummage or grand rummage sale or something like that. Which when you kind of look back through your life, not quite 500 years on the dot, but it's a rounding error. You seem to be on the money here, which makes the generation that you and I are living in that generation. Like if there's 100 year wiggle room, that's mine in your generation, maybe my kids which is both encouraging, but also really scary because you can just as equally burn the house down as you can renovate it. You can just as equally do both.
Jonathan 49:50
And you know, we have we the church remember Saint’s from these areas, because there's you know, powerful witnesses come out of these, but we also remember saints because they died Yeah, you know, and I yeah, I mean, I think it's important to realize that a lot is at stake in these moments and they're hard choices that we made.
Seth 50:09
Absolutely. Well, Jonathan, it has been, so it was a joy to be stretched a bit by your book. uncomfortable, but it was a joy. But I really have enjoyed the conversation. I appreciate you making the time to come on.
Jonathan 50:21
Well it''s great to be with you and your listeners. bless y'all!
Seth Outro 50:36
So as I've pondered Jonathan's book and our chat, one of the things that is entirely hard about redefining of what value should be attached to churches, often you're going to lose your community, which is one of the reasons I'm so thankful for the community that is been sprung out of the out of the conversations from this podcast. My last few years would have been really difficult without every single one of you. So thank you for that.
But as you're wrestling with this, as we walk into this politically charged year, especially in America, be mindful of what you say, I know I'm going to try to be and realize that other people are going to disagree on so many different things, but we really need to come back to agreeing on the value of humanity; regardless of socioeconomic structures. The abuse of fear and bondage. And just when we talk about truth, everybody's truth is going to be tinted with what is being poured into their head, and that doesn't make anybody's truth “more better” than the other. Because the one huge truth is Christ and it's love. And so if it's not in line with that truth, it's just not true. And that's just my personal opinion there.
Gor the foreseeable future. I'm trying to dedicate my time to finishing the backlog of transcriptions. And so I reached out to Salt of the Sound and asked, “Hey, can I use your music in a more ongoing way because it's really beautiful”. I pray often to it when I pray, and I want to get quiet, I still want to have a little bit of background noise because for me, music is very divine. And I often hear and talk to God through music and so special thanks to them for their use of music in this show, as well as many in the in the weeks to come. Do click through the link, support their work, it's fantastic stuff really, really good stuff.
And then yeah, rate and review the show last year, the show grew it like a 94% clip. So tell a friend about the show, review it, share it, and do please consider supporting the show either through glow or through Patreon. You'll find both those links in the show and notes are over at the website. There's just a little button in the top right there that says Patreon. It'll take you to all the places and all the links. so thankful you were here.
Can't wait to talk to you next week. Got a huge January in store for you.