31 - Heart and Soul of Honest Music - Sean C Johnson / Transcript

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.

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Sean 0:00

without Christ, like we're all dirtbags..like, so it's like nobody's better than anybody without Christ and His grace and His mercy like, we're all done here. So I think letting that be the lives that you see people through, I think that helps. That helps a lot.

Seth Intro 0:58

Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Can I Say This At Church podcast, I am Seth, your host. Before we get started, please just hit pause, go back into iTunes, hit five stars write up what your thoughts are on the show good or bad. I'd love to read them either way, let's try to make them good though people, I appreciate you. Other ways that you can help and support the show, visit our Patreon Can I Say This At Church a buck a month or if you want to do a little more you can get access to a few other parts of the show, blooper reels, other other goodies in there.

I would love to send more of you books from the book selection. So those of you that are on that level, I hope that you are enjoying the book Grateful that was sent out in April by Diana Butler Bass. Today's guest is musician, artist, poet, general good person, Sean C. Johnson. He is an Album of the Year, Signer of the Year by Kingdom Choice Awards. He has been given an NAACP Image Award he tours on multiple continents love his music and I'm excited for you all to hear what we got to discuss. I think it was open I think it was honest and if I'm being honest musicians hold a special place in my heart as I would like to think that I am some form of one so; with that being said, Sean C. Johnson.

Seth 3:03

Shawn C. Johnson, thank you so much for joining the Can I Say This At Church podcast! I am excited to, to talk with you. I have a special place in my heart for musicians because I'd like to think that I am one. And and I'm grateful to be able to do this with you.

Sean 3:19

Awesome, man. Thank you for having me.

Seth 3:21

Oh yeah. I'd also like to thank you. So for those that listened, I was able to feature your episode in a previous or your music in a previous episode, and I think it worked well. And so, on the record, I'd like to, I did say thank you in an email, but I'll say thank you again. So appreciate that.

Sean 3:38

Not a problem, man. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for that support.

Seth 3:41

Yeah. So Sean, how are you? I know you if I'm not wrong. I feel like you just got back from London, right?

Sean 3:49

That is correct, absolutely correct. I am…I am still trying to catch up. Like I'm starting. I'm still trying to just physically I think I'm naturally a night owl. So like staying up late is is already the norm for me. But I guess a little bit different this time around. So it's like my body. I think I'm bright at that point now that I'm back, like I'm recalibrating back to being in the States.

Seth 4:13

How many hours difference?

Sean 4:17

For us, they are so I'm central time. So this six hours ahead of us. Eastern time.

Seth 4:23

So yeah, so it's dinnertime in Europe.

Sean 4:26

Right. Right. They are definitely eating.

Seth 4:32

Well, I wanted to be a good steward of the time that we have, and, and I'll just asked you up front. I do have some, some, some some questions to ask as we get in later. And hopefully, I think we can speak to that in the way that you you were able to minister and tell a story through music. And I will say yeah, I first heard your music on an album with Sho Baraka…piano. Oh, gosh, I can't think of the name of the song right now. It's

Sean 4:57

Oh yeah, piano and politics I think.

Seth 4:59

Yeah. I'm over its track five. I know that I just can't think of the song right now. Um, and I remember listen to him like, man, I like this voice. I got it. I got to track it down. Yeah, so so yeah. So, what is your story shown? What, uh, what do you where you're at today?

Sean 5:15

Man, I've been singing my whole life. I grew up in a church. The two constants, always grown up with music and God. And when I got older, like, this is wasn't something that I initially pursued. Like, when I was younger, I had these groups and stuff that I would be in and we had delusions of grandeur. We thought we were going to be the next New Edition are whatever. But as I got older, that dream kind of faded.

But um, but God being God, like he brought that desire full circle, and just the friend that I worked with, he knew that I saying, and he was taking the audio engineering class, and he invited me out. It was like, “Hey, man, you sing and I get a grade” so I was like, “let's do it”. So I thought I recorded some stuff. Enough, they kept letting us come back, for whatever reason, and we ended up recording an album for free. Not I think about it, I don't know how legal that was or how how much the way we're going to have. But I had almost a free album, done and recorded for free.

So I put it out, I let people hear it. And just the reception that I got for just kind of encouraged me to keep kind of doing it. And from there, I perform a like open mics and someone would see me there. They invite me to another event. They see me at that event and get invited to another event and it started opening doors. And here I am almost 1012 years later, and you're still doing it still at it.

Seth 6:39

Yeah, I know. I've enjoyed it. And I did think of it. It's called Pianos in Jericho. I just it escapes me at the moment. So you haven't always been a singer though from what I understand. You were in the Air Force. Right? And so those two things yeah, in my mind, don't I don't know they don't go did you sing in the Air Force or did you sing to get out of the Air Force, what's that?

Sean 7:02

I was a satellite communications. I did ground communications for the Air Force. So I did that for almost 12 years. And I did sing but it wasn't, I think, I started my career I was in the Air Force. But how nice and we started singing how everybody found out I could sing without singing the national anthem for like retirement ceremonies and promotion ceremonies and changes, demands, and different things like that. So people knew that I could sing. And that's how my coworker invited me to the studio, because I was going around singing the National Anthem. But I started my career while I was in the Air Force. So I started around. Oh, 506 and I got out in 2012. So for the first six years of my career, I was in the Air Force working out working a full time job.

Seth 7:50

Well this isn't a fair question, because because it's artists to artists. Being that you sang the national anthem, what are your I didn't I didn't write this down, but I want to know, what do you think about that Fergie rendition at the game over in California?

Sean 8:09

(Laughs) You know, honestly, I didn't hear it all the way through. Like I heard the first part of it was like, good. Yeah, yeah. I heard she got ran through the ringer for it and it wasn’t good.

Seth 8:26

I don't know what it was. It wasn't the national anthem. It was…it was…it was words.

Sean 8:35

Yeah it was definitely words and a melody, but it wasn't a national anthem.

Seth 8:38

Yeah. So I hadn’t planed on asking that. So you talk about growing up in the church, but what did that look like? Like, I know you're in Oklahoma now. What did that look like? Did you Have you always been Oklahoma? What kind of church kind of what did that how did that influence the you are now?

Sean 9:02

I'm actually not from Oklahoma. I was born in Tampa, Florida. I'm an army brat so I'm pretty much from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Um, but search for me. I grew up in a very old school church very, very conservative. We didn't even have praise and worship, but we sung hymns, from hymnals. I had to dress up in suits every Sunday. But I'm grateful for that foundation because it really grounded me and rooted me in my faith. And I'm still I'm still a Christian because of that, like my because of my foundation. So I'm grateful for it.

Um, but yeah, like we grew up with alot of rules or regulations. We couldn't we couldn't do certain things. Like I couldn't go to the movies like it was just it was a lot of it was a lot of thought of rules, a lot of regulations but as I grew older, you know, kind of kind of grew out of that, but I'm grateful I really am grateful for that foundation. I look back on it, I thank God for it.

Seth 10:07

Yeah. So you have an album name 1993. And your most current album is $19.93 cents from what I can see, but i don't i don't think that I don't think that's right. I noticed that today. I was like, how did I miss that? I like I like the old price tag there. And that album Days Like This from what I can read not too long ago. I mean, you were like top 20 in the iTunes like you were sandwiched between The Weekend on on both ends. Um, yeah, massive as a big deal. There's a lot there's a lot of songs in iTunes. So was that was that expected? Or was that something that you're like, “Oh, my, how did this…what's happening here?

Sean 10:54

I didn't even realize it. So my cousin pointed it out to me. Like I hadn't checked the charts. I didn't even think to check it until he sent me a picture. I was overseas, I was in London at the time when the album came out. So I didn't see it until like, the day after, when he sent me the picture because of my signal and stuff over there, so until I got some Wi-Fi, I just got these flood of text messages. And one of the text messages was from him saying, “Hey, did you know that you're number 16 on iTunes?” I was like, “No, I did not know. I was number 16 on iTunes.” So it was really cool. Because I mean, it was something that I have always seen. I've seen people you know, they released albums, I hey, my albums, you know, top 10 Top 20 and you know you always saying I meant if I had an album that you know, kind of crack that so so to have that moment was pretty cool.

Seth 11:44

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie every once in a while. I'll check to see if I get the top 200 of podcasts, it just in theology. And so far I haven't and that's fine. That's not why I do it. Maybe one day.

Sean 12:00

When you say something, man, you see that guy? Was it not Brandon Ingram, the guy for the Lakers. teen years in the D-league and he found he played the last two games of the regular season for the Lakers.

Seth 12:15

Does he still?

Sean 12:17

No, he just he just played I don't know if you follow basketball or not, but like, he played 10 years in the D league in the Developmental League, and he just played the last two games. They called him up for the last two games. He had never played in NBA. He's probably played he ended up on like 19 points in his first game.

Seth 12:36

That's awesome. I didn't see that. I also didn't know there was a D league. Um, I'm a Spurs fan, but only when the playoffs start only when the playoffs

Sean 12:52

Yeah, they have a development of the D-G for something

Seth 12:58

For general admission ticket $3 apiece. I struggle with any sport that has more than say 50 games, so like baseball and yeah, I'm like, man, I would love to watch this. But I don't have nine months to dedicate to you. I just, I don't…I got kids. I got a job. But I'll watch it once I start.

Sean 13:22

Yeah. You have other responsibilities that make sense. I'm a single guy. I live by myself. So yeah, I get it.

Seth 13:33

So you've won many awards as I was researching you out. So you got the Kingdom Choice Awards, which, if you want an award, the kingdom's choice, I mean, God's kingdom. I feel like that's, that's on the list for Album of the Year, singer of the year. You get you know, you got the gospel blue mic awards, and most recently, the NAACP Image Award, Are those the same thing?

Sean 14:02

Oh, no, those are two different awards. But I won the award for the same thing. I won on the same album.

Seth 14:12

Yeah. And that was from a show called Green Leaf, right?

Sean 14:16

Yep. Yeah, absolutely.

Seth 14:17

Yeah, so you got a whole new bookshelf, that’s alot of awards.

Sean 14:25

Right I keep all my awards on my TV mantle now, so I just keep them up there. What's crazy I still have the…you remember the TVs with the back like the big back. Like the home. I still have that too. I never watch it. It's in my living room. It's just sitting there. sitting on top of

Seth 14:45

Your mom calls “Sean. Where do you keep your awards? It's on top of all the other ones. It's right up there with a bottle of Dr. Pepper”. (laughter from both)

Sean 14:58

It’s pretty cool man to put that stuff on your resume man is pretty cool. Cuz a lot of lot of times that's what the NAACP and the in the Civil War like those faces, they get you into the room. And it's kind of like they give you credibility. So it's really dope is really does just kind of put that on a resume that I Oh, you know he's he's one is he's one that so? Yeah, yeah. It just kind of gives you a little bit more credibility.

Seth 15:23

Absolutely. Well, what is that award for? Because as I google it like there's some big names associated with that award. So what is that awarding exactly?

Sean 15:32

Yeah. So the NAACP Image Award, they give that the one I wanted for was the Gospel Album of the Year believe it was. So it was a lot of big names in gospel. I honestly didn't think it was going to win and I was just happy to be nominated. I was I was continued to put that on my resume. And I was nominated for NAACP, but I'm for it to actually win was really dope because like I said, it's like you said there's some big names that were That will attach to it and that were in the running for. It was pretty cool. So I think and even like for the Stellar Awards, that's, that's the that's the Grammys of the Gospel community. So it's kinda like the equivalent of a Grammy for the Gospel.

Seth 16:15

So that's like, that's like another Dove award for Chris Tomlin to go with his 97 others.

Sean 16:22

Yeah, yeah, right, right.

Seth 16:24

Um, so I've listened to every album, I’ve listened to your newest album just few days ago, but I haven't listened to it enough to know what I think about it in a good or a bad way. Like I like to, I like to, to think on songs. And when I listen to music, I usually shut everything else down. And, and I'm one of those ones that sit track one to track nine because you did it that way on purpose. You're trying to say something so.

Sean 16:51

Right. I don't

Seth 16:52

I don’t know what kind of artist you are. I mean, some of the times I feel like it's soul, and then it's not and then it's gospel. And then it's not and then it's almost hip hop. But then it's, it's not. So what kind of style are you?

Sean 17:09

Man…it honestly depends on the day. I listened to a lot of music. Um, I guess my bread and butter I would have to say is so music. That's the music that I listened to the most. But like, I enjoy hip hop, like I grew up listening to hip hop. I used to rap a lot more when I was younger. I still rap now, but I used to rap more when I was younger. So it really dictates…like depends on the instrumental on the beat that I'm writing to like what comes out to me. I think it's, I think it's a blessing to be versatile like that to be able to articulate you know, different emotions or different feelings depending on the on the on the mood of the song.

I think one thing that's dope about rap is it allows you to expound a little bit more than singing it's a lot more wordy so you're able to kind of articulate stuff and, you know, dig a little deeper and explain stuff a little bit more. And so tell more of the story. So yeah, I mean it, it really does depend like I think, I think my my fans and my supporters like they have, they've been they've gone on the journey with me. And they've kind of mature with me and it kinda, you know, whatever, whatever music I put out there, they're there. They're open to it. So I'm fortunate for that. Yeah,

Seth 18:27

No, I, I enjoy it. And I know, when my son he's he just turned 9 he plays the drums so I tried, he tried. He's learning to play the drums. And I had a great time addicted him to rap music. And usually I try to make the podcast in such a way that anyone can listen most importantly him. And when your music came on on that prior episode, he goes, “Hey, rewind that you usually don't have good music”. And so I backed it up. He's like, he's like, can I listen to the whole song? I was like, Oh, yeah, absolutely. When we get home. Oh, I don't I don't have it in the car. So, so you got a fan there like he genuinely all he cares about is the rhythm and the musicality. I don't even think he's listening to the words usually, maybe when he gets older.

But yeah, so yeah it caught his ear. So yeah. Which is great. Um, so in your albums, one of the things I appreciate you is you talk about a lot of things not to play on words that we don't talk about in church. I mean, you talked about, I mean, I mean, even even most recent album, like “cooking” is stuff that you don't talk about at church. And yeah, and so I'd like to talk to you about some of those songs that just stuck with me. The biggest one is a song called 30. And I think I've seen at least two albums. How do you write or how do you even sing a song like that? Like, I know what you're saying. And for those that haven't listened, it's a song if I'm not wrong, Sean about pornography, right?

Sean 19:59

Yeah. No, absolutely.

Seth 20:01

Yeah. So yeah, how do you do something like that and be able to perform it?

Sean 20:10

Man. Um, so for me, I've always tried to be as I know, it's so cliche, but I try to be as transparent as possible. for a couple reasons. The main reason is because I realize that what I go through, it's not just unique to me like this other people that go through the same thing. And if I can, can expand on and share and edify somebody else who buy music, then that's what I'm going to do. And I think, because pornography is such a widespread issue for a lot of people, I felt like it was it was my place to say something about it, like I felt, I felt, I felt it necessary to address this issue and to not, to not allow it to sit in the dark anymore to actually you know, bring it to the light and actually talk about it. And I think that it's been beneficial that One of the songs that to this day, people come up to me and say, “Hey, man, thank you. Thank you for this song”. So for me that to me is the point of music especially at least for what I do it for. I did music to number one give God glory and then number two to edify his people. So I definitely want to use my platform and my gifts to speak life and to edify and to encourage people.

Seth 21:25

What has been so what is the feedback from say, your church then like your pastor, your deacons, your elders, you know, depend on the type of church ago what is what does that sound like? You release a song like that, you know, people in the church are going to support you, you know, they're going to know you at a level that I don't. And so you show up on Sunday to worship is it different?

Sean 21:48

No, I'm fortunate that I grow up that I currently attend the church that's it's very open. That's very non-judgmental, very loving. It helps to have that type of safe place to go into where we're able to be honest about each other. Like, I think that's one thing that we don't have enough of like, of just meeting people where they're at. And not allowing people to stay there, but it means meeting them where they're at and not judging judging them and realize that hey, like, we without Christ, like we're all dirtbags like, so it's like nobody's better than anybody without Christ and His grace and His mercy, like, we're all done for out here.

So I think letting that be the lens that you see people through, I think that helps…that helps a lot. So I said, I may not be everybody's situation. But I know at least for me, in my church, like in my community of believers, like they, they're really open to it and they encourage it like today like this is how we heal. This is how we break the chains of these different things, is by talking about it, not allowing it to be in the dark.

Seth 23:02

What is the role or what do you see as the role for a musician, regardless of the genre in instances like that, so you got stuff like, you got another song, and I'm trying to think of the name of it right now, it references Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. And so yeah, when I, when I hear songs like that, like I relate, but I have a lot of friends that are not white. And I hear that and I can relate on a different level. But usually, that's what you see the pushback on, especially lately, you know, we just had the anniversary of MLK, and I live 30 minutes East of Charlottesville, so, or West of Charlottesville. So what is the role of the church and musicians in the church, in the climate that we live in right now?

Sean 23:50

So I think as musicians, I think we are to create the soundtrack, for a movement or even for our lives like we are to take what's happening In the world, and through the lens of art, expound on it, and give people something unlike music is a very powerful medium. And I think it's meant to, to either build and assure like, because it's that powerful like you can either build something up you can or you can say people doubt. So I think any responsible artists is going to build up and is going to encourage and draw attention to different issues. Like we are, we are the mouthpieces like we are the ones who are able to get on the microphone and speak loudly. And people won't necessarily; because like if I were to get on the mic and just start talking, that's one thing and people can be sometimes too loud if I come, but if I'm able to get on that same stage and I use a melody, it's harder to tune me out.

Because the melody it draws you in and music kind of captivates you that draws you in. So the medium of music like it's powerful like you can at least get people listen, before they immediately tune you out, as opposed to just getting on a stage and talking. Like I'm able to get up there and share something through the medium of music because it is so powerful and people are more receptive to it; so we have that responsibility man to really expound to edify and the draw attention to our current moment.

Seth 25:21

I hear you say, you know, our job is to is to build up. So how can we do that without first addressing any foundational issues? I mean, there's there's going to be demolition involved in that. And so how do we do that with with care? Like, I mean, there's part of part of construction or building is, isn't it? You gotta break things. So what do we need to break?

Sean 25:47

So I mean, you said it! I think you definitely do have to, you have to do it from a place above, I think, I think people can tell when you're preaching at them or were you just kind of talking to them and and exposing some things. So I think we have the job of doing it in an artistic way to where it doesn't come across as abrasive or people just automatically tune this out. Because you can make that mistake to even do music you can come across as preachy, as they say, are just kind of like pointing the finger. But I think as artists we have to be, we have to do it in an artistic way, where people won’t tune us out. So I think you do sometimes have to tear down like, you know, I've had some songs with talks about There's a song called Shepherd me when I talk about, you know, false prophets, but the way that it comes across, like if you're a lot more receptive to it, because of the way that I spoke on it.

So I think like, that's what our job is like, we have to do it in a way to where we can, we had so and when I was in the military, we had this term called a “crap sandwich”. We basically like you start out with that In the business world, amazingly, I've never heard that you never heard okay. So it's called a crap sandwich. So basically, you start out with something good, which is the bread. And then you give them the crap in the middle and then you bookend it with something good. So like you put the bad in the middle of the day with two, you know, two compliments or something like that. So it just makes it easier to digest and to deal with so, so yeah, so that's, that's, I guess the short answer is, as artists, we have to be able to give people crap sandwiches.

Seth 27:32

Well, that mean that approach? I like that I’m going to use it. That approach reminds me a lot of, of how a lot of liturgy is is based. It's basically we're recognizing the garbage. We're lamenting and we're repenting of it. And then we're going to talk about hope in the church and hope in Christ.

Sean 27:51

Yeah, you just can't rip people down and then not giving me any hope.

Seth 28:29

So what is going on with 1993? I mean it's it's everywhere what is that, what is the significance there?

Sean 28:37

So the album Circa 1993 that album really just told it told a year my life that was instrumental like this is the year that shaped who I am as a person. So I ended up naming my label my independent label Circa 1993. So any anytime you see 1993 it’s just kind of an homage to my label and just to that year that really saved me as a person.

Seth 29:08

Well talk about that a bit. What what happened that made it so impactful?

Sean 29:13

Yeah. So 1993 that was the year my mom passed. She passed around the beginning of the in February of that year. So my mom passed. That was when, I fell in love with music. That was the first time I boot I viewed any adult material and economic graffiti that was first year I was introduced to it. And then that was also the year that I gave my life to Christ. So all four of those things kind of happen. All in 1993. So that album, and then just just kind of that year shaped who I was, like, I became the man that I am because of those four events. I can say my mom passing me fall in love with music, being introduced to pornography, and then you know, eventually giving my life to Christ like it really it really shaped me as a person.

Seth 30:00

What is your goal with Days Like This? What do you what is the theme that you're trying to hit? What are you trying to say?

Sean 30:08

Yeah, so, um, Days Like This is it saying how a lot of times as as Christians, we ignore our emotions and we we don't pay attention to our, to our humanity. So I think emotions are a gift. We're not controlled by them, but they are a gift from God. And this album is really just expressing that like what happens when, when you're in relationship and it doesn't work out? What does that look like these emotions that you deal with? When you are longing for love, and it doesn't happen when you're in relationship, and things are going the way that you want to go. We don't talk about that a lot as Christians. So there's a scripture I think it's in probably the the Proverbs of Solomon who talks about in Proverbs 34 and 18, which talks about God is near to the brokenhearted So it's like when you're broken hearted when you're hurting no matter what it's from but like specifically if it's from a relationship Are you know lost love, like, God is close to you. And I think people need to know that like God is right there with you. He's not intimidated by our emotions he's not scared off by it. He gave us these emotions for a reason like so when you want to love or you want to be in a relationship that's not a bad thing. Like for campaign when you long for companionship, that's not a bad thing. So he's not intimidated by it. So when we hurt or when we feel a certain type of way, because of that, God is still close nonetheless. So he doesn't just you know, disappear during that time and leave us to our own devices but like he's he's very much he's very much there to process.

Seth 31:49

This is probably not fair, because I mean, you wrote them all. So I think my favorite song on the album is Cooking and I'm pretty sure it's because And mostly because I like rap a little more than gospel or hip hop a little more and it's got that flavor to it. It's almost and that's why I say it's it's almost rap but it's not. It's It's It's more it's less though. So that's my favorite so what of the eight babies on the album? Which one is the one that you're like? Yeah, Mom, listen to this one. This this is if you don't listen anything else. This is the album This is the whole purpose, which was it?

Sean 32:29

Cooking is definitely on that list Cooking. Love Song and probably Baal, which is track number seven. And Baal is probably one of my favorites. This goes from an artistic standpoint. It was a challenge for me because it's calm. If you go back and listen to it, it's a conversation between three people. So the first half of the verse is the temptor or Satan, talking and then the second part of it is Me or the person has been tempted. And then the third part is God, of course, I was talking to the song. So just from artistic standpoint, it was really dealt to just kind of be challenged like that and to be able to pull it off in that manner. And for it to all, you know, flow seamlessly with the melody and all that and all that stuff. But yeah, those who probably a cooking lesson.

Seth 33:25

So in building what is the idol? I assume we're talking about Baal as idol

Sean 33:32

yeah. So the idea behind the song is that a lot of times like when we get rejected, or when we deal with heartbreak, we run the things that won't say no. So a lot of times these idols can be pornography, they can be alcohol, they can be drugs, they can be anything. So that's basically what the song saw my life. We run to these things that won't deny us, we worship these idols that won't say no to us. Even though we need to be targeting we need to be running to God with the things like so. Yeah. So it can be a lot of defects. Yeah.

Seth 34:06

Yeah. And I would argue, and you don't have to respond if you don't want to that, that a lot of people make religion, or, or, or Honestly, I would argue with some people that they make the Bible, the idol. I'm a big fan of, I think the Bible is about the Word of God being Jesus. But the Bible is not Jesus. And so I find lately, most people I interact with when I, when I say that to them, they run back to a scripture verse, and I'm like, Yeah, but Jesus already said, You have heard it said, but I am saying to you, that this is the rules now. But and so. Yeah, but and that's, again, that's something we don't say in church and it's it's hard to articulate in a way that that I'm pleased with, but maybe one day I'll be able to say it without without offending everybody.

So why an independent label? Is that just something because you needed? Is it easier to do it that way? Because I see a lot of people you know, you got you, you got humble beast, you got a lot of people coming off and doing their own thing detached from a big, huge centralized powerhouse of a label, why?

Sean 35:19

Well, important reasons. So no one signed me. So that's one reason. I mean, no one has actually signed me.

Seth 35:27

I mean, you got these awards now. So I'm just saying.

Sean 35:37

But no, the other reason and the main reason is honestly, the freedom that comes with that, especially with the internet being what it is like, I can tap right into my fan base, and grow my fan base like that. And there's a lot of what I do that a label that I can do for myself that that I don't need a label for. So it's kind of like This is business 101, like if I'm going to split the pie, but the the size of the pie stays the same, like I get less of the pie now so it's like, but if the pie the size of the pie increases, then then it makes more sense to, to split that. But if the pie is just going to stay the same size, I might as well keep the pie to myself so but um, but yeah, so…

Seth 36:22

The trend that I noticed is the people that go off on their own and do an independent label or or sign with an independent label. And by that I mean something like a you know, a humble beast or something where you can do what you want to do. They seem to give you quite a bit of autonomy. There's just a lot of lot of a lot of variants in what they're doing. Did the bigger labels from your experience and with other artists not let you say what needs to be said for fear of not being able to put it in LifeWay bookstores or in wherever else sells no actual albums anymore.

Sean 36:56

Definitely. When the platform is a little bit bigger, like you have to appeal to a broader audience. So I think they have to worry about a lot of that. And as an independent artist, like I can literally do and say what I want and artistically I'm not handcuffed because like they have to, like I said, they have to appeal to a broader audience. So like, with me if I just have my own niche audience and invite my fan base that I want to talk to and express myself as an artist I can do that instead of having to you know, play like it's almost like being a politician like you can always you got to play the middle. You have to have to appeal to the widest base can really appeal to a niche audience, I guess.

Seth 37:45

I heard I heard someone say recently, and I don't know who said it. I feel like it was a theologian, but it could have been an artist, basically say, I want my music or my basically he was saying that music is music and he was talking about marketing and he said the moment that you put Christian on front of it. It's a marketing term. It doesn't make it anything special. He said, so my music is or that book is or that is what it is. But you have no business putting the word Christian in front of anything. Do you agree with that perspective?

Sean 38:18

That’s an interesting perspective, I think there's some validity to that. I think there are some things that are kind of neutral. I think when it comes to the art is like you can you can either talk about the light or you can talk about what the light allows you to see. I think as Christians we have we have that liberty. So yeah, I think and I think both of them are still God honoring, but you can still honor God by doing both. And of course, the light I speak of is Christ.

So we can talk about the light or we can talk about how we view the world as a Christians, what the light allows us to see. So I think there's some option kind of lean, lean more to one way and it is artists that lead more to the lean more to the other way. But I think we do have that freedom. So I think, like I said of a book, it's if it comes out like it can still be God honoring without being marketed as a Christian book, it can just be a book, but it can still honor God. So yeah, there's some truth to that.

Seth 39:16

Yeah, and it's and as I think about that after I said it, um there's something that holds like you know, a KLOVE for a Spirit FM, it Yeah, it's, it's palatable. So you get a whole bunch of people to come to the to the restaurant to make a horrible analogy. And then music like yours or like a, you know, a Sho Baraka or an Andy Mineo, you know, somebody like that or you can do work you can, you can do internal theological work with stuff that you're not comfortable jamming out to with the windows down in the summer. With people listen to lyrics that you just, I think, at least the stuff I listened to; what I'm listening to is a reflection of what I'm going through and so I don't always want people to know what I'm listening to.

Sean 40:04

That’s fair.

Seth 40:05

With that being said, I am curious what you're listening to because I find that when I speak to other musicians that's how I find better music. Usually you are in a different circle than I am so what yeah What are you listening to that that continues to feed you?

Sean 40:24

I'm so right now I'm listening to Jonathan Reynolds his new project Make Room is really good. Who else am I listening to? Let me look at my iTunes…what am I listening to now

Seth 40:43

All tejano-all the time.

Sean 40:47

(Laughter) Let's see here. So got actually Sho Baraka and Vanessa Hill just released a project that's a really good it's called So Many Feelings. It's a really, really good. Let’s see here…The Walls group there's a really good there's a girl the artist name Her. It's really good. Brick Liam, another guy, I think he lives in Dallas now. It's really good. Yeah, even some Rhapsody to like, she's a rapper. Listen to her.

Seth 41:23

Yeah, and at this point, I don't know hardly any of those names except sho Baraka. I had the benefit of being able to rewind it and listen again and write them down and get some other influences in my life. So, um, last, last question for you. So what is the place, I want to make sure I say this right? What is the place for worship in and or out of church? And so I asked that because I'm reading a book for an interview in the next few months. Talking about God is basically an eternal current like that. We can jump into and wade into and roll with. But worship at church should not look like four rock songs and a prayer, or three hymns and a rock song. So as an artist that goes to a church and sees both sides and I also kind of understand that as well as, as I lead some of the worship at my church, how, what should worship look like? Like how should that be cadenced for someone to be able to get the most out of it at church or out of church, I guess?

Sean 42:29

Yeah, man. So that's a great question. Um, I think the wise way to approach it is to not try to put rules on it. I think, because a lot of times that what that can lead to is to make it very legalistic; to say that something has to look like this or it has to look like that in order for God to accept that. I think God has given each of us different tastes and different things that we that we enjoy. It’s almost like food, like, there's no way everybody has different tastes like, the way you season your food I may season it differently, but doesn't make it bad. It's just different.

So I think you definitely want to…yeah, like I'm always leery about trying to put to say that worship should look like this and look like that. Because like I said, that could be dangerous, because it goes down that road of just be extremely legalistic. But number one, it should be, like worship should be something that honors God in the sense like it should. Doesn't have to be necessarily a certain temple or anything like that. But it should honor God like the lyric should be something that's doctrinally sound. It shouldn't be extra Biblical or anything like that. I think as long as the lines up in that. I think it can be worship, I think he can still honor God. Some. I don't know if that answers the question, but I mean, that's my mind on it.

Seth 44:00

And to build on the on the food analogy, I mean, if all I ever do is, is the Cinnamon Toast Crunch for worship every time I go to worship and again, that's not that's not the best analogy but if all I ever do is eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch and milk and so will you know, yeah, I'm never I'm not healthy. I'm not going to be Yeah, something's something is malnourished and so I like I like that so yeah, yeah, um well let's end on this, everybody, I'm going to need you to go either to band camp or to Sean's website or engage with Sean on Twitter. And so and so plug that a bit. Sean let's get you back in the top 20 if we can, let's let's go top 10 so where would you point people to engage with you What is the avenue that they can get ahold of you get ahold of your music?

Sean 44:55

Yeah. So the easiest way and honestly on my website, SeanCJohnson.com. I have links to everything on there. ShawnCJohnson.com have links to my iTunes, Spotify, my Instagram, Spotify, all of that. So shout out to calm or if you're on Instagram is at Johnson Johnson Twitter at Johnson Johnson. Or you can just Google, Sean C Johson and most everything should come up.

Seth 45:25

is there anywhere you won't go? I mean, we know you'll go to London. Is there anywhere you go? And I only ask that because somehow or another good, I'm good. They listen to music in Antarctica. There's like 100 people that live down there doing I'm doing real work.

Sean 45:45

Antartica..I'm sure they do. They can definitely come to a warmer climate and see me live…I’m not going to them. It’s not happening.

Seth 45:55

I'm sorry Antartica..I’m sorry. I didn't. Yeah, that's that's kind of Have to go on the show notes. Yeah, #sorryAntarctica.

So, thank you. Thank you for your time today. I'll let you get back. Yeah, I've enjoyed it. I enjoy I enjoy speaking to theologians and authors but that's not the only avenue to engage with God and so it's I enjoy talking with with artists and musicians as well. So thank you for that.

Sean 46:24

Absolutely right. Thank you, man. Thank you for having me on, this is dope.

Seth 46:46

The music in today's episode is from Sean's most recent release days like this fantastic album. Go and buy this album. Interact with Sean at SeanCJohnson.com And as always, the songs featured in today's episode will be listed on the Can I Say This At Church Spotify playlist. Thanks so much, everybody.

30 - Paul - A Biography with Professor NT Wright / Transcript

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.

Back to the Audio Episode

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Wright 0:00

I do think that we often do have our priorities wrong, and alongside church growth, and I think Paul would be horrified that we are not insisting on unity. The thing that would really shocked him, if he were to see us today is not only that we are disunited, but that we don't care. So somebody plants a church and they're successful in the church grows and they have a new building and big programs, but they have nothing to do with the church down the road or the one across the the other side of the square or whatever, because I think they think..well, God is doing this thing here. For Paul, the really important imperative at the end of Romans is that so that you may with one heart and voice glorify the God and Father Jesus, Paul saw the danger of church disunity, because frankly, if churches are this un-united the wider world doesn't care what we say.

Seth Intro 0:57

I will try to make this intro as brief as possible. Mostly because I'm very excited about who the guest is. And for those of you that cheated, you saw it when you downloaded it, but for those that just have you on autoplay, thank you for doing that and I will briefly introduce that guest.

Many of you don't know, this show is entirely funded by you. And I want to make an appeal to your good graces and your patronage. If any of the conversations that have happened over these past six months have impacted you even a small iota, I would ask you if you would be willing to help further these conversations by becoming a patron. There are different levels of perks. There are a few of you that have gotten a hold of the book club, and that is where I send out a book each month. They are fantastic books, I believe June's book will be Henry now and and you can't go wrong with Henry Nouwen.

And so the guest today is on the bucket list. If you look over at your library, as I am mine, there will be books by many theologians And I can't think that you don't have one by Professor NT Wright. If you don't, you do usually know who he is. It is a great privilege of mine to be able to speak with Tom. He speaks about Paul with a level of ease that I wish that I could. And we discussed that. So he's written a new book, Paul A Biography. So it's, we're approaching it from a different way and approaching it more from a historical context of Paul living, breathing and doing as opposed to a theological or exegetical way. And that should be enough for me. Let's roll the tape.

Seth 2:45

Professor NT Wight. Thank you so much for coming on to the Can I Say This At Church podcast and before I ask you to say a little bit about yourself, I just would like to say when I started this show, I looked on the the catalog of books that I have in there's many up there from you. And so I, I will try my best not to not to let my “fannish” nature of your work come out as we talk, but I think we'll be able to, I think I'll be able to control myself. We'll see how it goes. But thank you for coming onto the show.

Wright 3:14

Thank you. It's good to be with you.

Seth 3:18

So, I can’t think that if anyone is listening to this show that they don't know a bit about you, but can you just quickly summarize a little bit about yourself and what you do day in and day out?

Wright 3:28

Well, I basically study and teach the Bible and particularly the New Testament. I actually tried to teach the whole Bible but my official job is to be a Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Saint Andrews, which is on the beautiful sunny east coast of Scotland. I say this because I know some people think it rains all the time in Scotland and the answer is well, not here it doesn't sometimes, but we've been having a lovely day. And I write books about the New Testament and write articles and speak and lecture in various places. And I have worked over the last 40 years in a variety of jobs, some in full-time academics, some in full-time church work, and some in a mixture of both.

So at the moment, I'm doing a full time academic job, but I'm still quite involved with the church in various ways, inevitably and I've tried to combine the two. And I'm not that far off retirement, I turned 70 later this year, and the university wants me to go on for another couple of years. But I'm in some ways quite looking forward to retirement.

I enjoy my teaching, I've got some excellent students, but I'm also looking forward to in the time on the tray spending more time with my family, my grandchildren are getting older and I want to spend as much time with them as I can. So that's basically who I am.

Seth 4:45

I can understand that. I'm not anywhere close to retirement, and I still like to spend as much time with not grandkids definitely not there yet. But, but I can't think of…there's nothing. There's nothing better. I think that you can do then spending time with your family. So You have written a new book and and for those listening, I feel like you've written so many books, it would be hard to say. But so the most recent book is about Paul. So to start with this book is written from a different direction. So you kind of took it more as a biographical approach as opposed to an exegetical, or a theological probe; so why?

Wright 5:25

Well, I've written obviously quite a few books and lots of articles about Paul's theology and about the detailed exegetical study of his letters. But various people have said, that's all very well for people who read that sort of academic stuff, but what about ordinary people who need to know what sort of a person Paul was and want to get into it that way? And so the publishers both in America and in England, suggested that I try and do a biography. And I found that a wonderful challenge, because of the material that we have got it’s difficult to write in detail and to see where the gaps are like those 10 years, probably in his early 30s, late 20s, early 30s, when we really have no information about him at all, but from what we know about him later, we can probe back and say what must we have been doing during that time, and he was praying and studying the scriptures and so on, but other things perhaps as well. And for me, this was not to push the theology of the exegesis aside, but rather to set what Paul was thinking, what he believed about who God was, and who Jesus was, and so on, into its full three dimensional historical, social, cultural context.

And I find as I do that, that the letters themselves come up in three dimensions again and again, so that I wanted the readers to get the sense of actually seeing the world through Paul's eyes, so that when we find him writing a letter to the Christians in Corinth, or whatever we are saying, Yeah, of course, that's what you need to say right now. Please go ahead and say it! Instead of just meeting the letters as documents in a vacuum as it were. And I found as I did that, that the letters themselves kept coming to life in new ways, which was, was a really exciting thing to get into.

Seth 7:15

if I went back in time and so to use a bad analogy, so if I, if I got on a doctor who liked TARDIS and went back to first century Rome as a Christian today, knowing what I know, and the very little at that is, what do you feel like would be the biggest shift as I'm watching Paul preach or I'm observing this early version of Christianity? What would be that thing that would just blow you out of the water?

Wright 7:40

Well, there's there's all sorts of things which would be so, whoever you are watching, if you went back to see somebody else in Paul's world, like Nero or Seneca or somebody like that. I think I mean, it's quite interesting to say the first two things that will probably strike you before anything else one will be the smell. They didn't have soap in the way that we do. And the cities particularly, were incredibly smelly. They didn't have proper sanitation, and that they lived with this the whole time.

But the other would be the crowds. Because there was no such thing as private life in the ancient world unless you are extremely rich or extremely royal. So everything that happens happens on the street. And, and the houses are very much open to people seeing what's happening and who's coming and going. And often there are tenements, with different families living literally on top of one another, and the cooking smells and noises and goodness knows what all the time; and there is Paul in the middle of that sort of world. In other words, he's not like somebody in a modern Western town where you can have your own house and nobody knows really who you are in it. And when you go to a church on a street, and it's all quite dignified. Everything is going on in the hurly burly of a muddled human existence.

But then in particular, what would strike us about the Christians, about the Jesus followers of Paul's day, would be the way that they lived as family, they really cared for one another. I've been privileged as a Bishop to see a little bit of this in some parts of the Northeast of England where I worked, where there's some areas of real poverty, and where the church really does function as a big second family too many people. And that was the reality in Paul's day where people were often thrown out by their own families, like many Muslim people are today, if they become Christians; they don't want to know anymore. And so the church functions as a kind of extended family, but it was functioning in that way by sharing resources with people who needed it, and also by sharing resources outside the churches own circles. So Paul says, “do good to all people, especially those of the household of faith”. And from the the church had it as a priority to look out for and care for the poorest of the poor. And I think we in the West, we kind of know that sort of on the radar somewhere, but we don't make it the number one priority around which we order the rest of our worshiping and faithful life. And so I think that's probably the thing that would strike us before anything else.

Seth 10:23

Yeah, I've talked about this with other guests. I feel like when when you think about the community of the church that way, we do it as a form of convenience. And for them, it was entirely more than that it and honestly, I would say arguably more holy the way that they live.

Wright 10:37

Yes. I think that's right. And they lived as what the sociologists call effective kinship group. That is, even though they knew they weren't from the same family, and indeed, they will be different skin colors. They will be different social spaces, there’d be men and women and slaves and free and certainly Jews and Gentiles and as many different nations as you can imagine in a place like Corinth or Ephesus or Rome. They actually function as a family, nobody had ever imagined that such a thing was possible. This was revolutionary! It is revolutionary when the church manages to do it, so it's really very striking.

Seth 11:12

Outside of the context of, of the church. And I say that with a capital air quotes, yeah, church. How should one begin to approach Paul not as a theologian, but also as part of history? Because I feel like most of the time, all we treat him as as a theologian, and so how do we begin to approach that in a normal way or in a good way?

Wright 11:33

I began my academic life as an ancient historian, studying ancient history, and then philosophy before I went on to theology. And so I see Paul within that world alongside people like Cicero, and Seneca, and the great thinkers and writers of their day. And when you think, who has been the most influential from all the public intellectuals of that time, Paul has quite a claim. I mean, many people have heard of folk like Cicero and Seneca, but actually, they are read today by only a comparatively small number of people, even though they're still well worth reading and the philosopher like at the thesis as well, great people, but Paul is read by millions all around the world.

And what Paul did at the time in founding these strange little communities, these churches, these effective kinship groups, was explosive sociologically and psychologically and he's had the most extraordinary effects. And I think anyone studying ancient history, and anyone studying the effects of the first century on the later world would have to say that after Jesus himself, Paul is the most astonishingly influential person and when you think here is this by his own account, rather scruffy little chap who doesn't present a very good appearance when he turns up in a town and people rather laugh at him because he's not a terribly good speaker and so on, and so on. But what he did and achieved has resonated right through and still does in so many ways today.

Seth 13:07

And especially here coming soon in our church calendar. And so as we're recording this for those listening, it's we're coming home Pentecost quickly. And so we're very soon going to enter into the part of our church season that we're going to talk about Paul a lot, and the road to Damascus. And a question that's always been hard for me to reconcile is the Saul of Tarsus, who is normally portrayed as very belligerent towards Christians, persecuting them ready to go toe to toe at any time and reconciling that with a Paul, that is not that. The Saul vs. Paul, so help me a bit with that.

Wright 13:42

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the thing is that soul becomes Paul, he is he is, he is eager he is, as we would say, in your face. He's ready to go for whatever's going on. And in the Jewish world that he grew up in that we have to you have to read book like say First Maccabees to realize what it was like. The Jews have been under the heel of the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Syrians, and now it was the Romans. And they had developed this fierce loyalty to Israel's God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, fierce loyalty to the Torah to the law of God; because the pagans have been making them compromise and making them eat pork and making them worship their gods, and so on and so on.

And the devout Jews like Paul and his family, Saul of Tarsus and his family, were determined to be loyal to Israel's God. And here's the thing, when Saul of Tarsus was faced with this new movement, these people following Jesus, and then fraternizing with pagans, and eating with Gentiles, they just thought this is appalling. This is precisely the sort of thing that we have been taught to resist. So he did resist it. But then when he discovered on the road to Damascus, that the one we've been resisting was actually Jesus, who was Israel's Messiah, and that God raised Him from the dead. This didn't stop him being zealous for Israel's God. It gave him a totally new insight into how Israel's God had, in fact, always planned to fulfill His purposes.

And so Saul had to rethink his entire view of Scripture, not to abandon Israel's traditions and Scriptures, but to read them in the light of Jesus. And when he did that, he redirects his zeal into love rather than violence, into a message of caring for the poor and welcoming the outsiders etc., rather than simply keeping Israel pure. And here's the thing, Paul didn't think that he was there by going soft on the total demand of God for purity of life, etc. He believed that the powers that have held the pagan nations captive had been defeated on the cross of Jesus, so that now when Gentiles believed in Jesus, then the spirits have worked in them so that they weren't impure they weren't unclean, and you could sit down and eat with them. And that was wonderful. So it's a total turnaround, but you can see how the same personality on the one hand, and the same love, Israel's God was shining through all the way through.

Seth 16:20

And so zeal then is a word that we don't use. Often today. I don't believe I ever have used it outside of the Scriptural context. And so what do you mean when you say turning from zeal into into something else?

Wright 16:32

In Paul’s day, zeal, means burning, it's something that happens inside you when you're burning with desire to do something or burning with eagerness to get on with the job or burning with anger if something really bad is happening, but then it doesn't stay inside you impose world zeal is something you have to get on and do. And for loyal Jews, I say if you read the book cautious Maccabees, you will see Judas Maccabeeas and his brothers Faced with the Syrians desecrating the temple in Jerusalem, the zeal for them men fighting battles of men saying your president saying holy men, making sure that these pagans were seen off the country never to come back if you could. And so it meant military zeal, but for Saul who became Paul, that zeal turned into a burning passion, to work for God to pray, to witness to the love and power of Jesus, and to bring the news of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Seth 17:32

Some of the criticism that I will hear, not personally but you'll hear it online, and it's usually from a fringe group, or someone quasi-fringe, will basically say that Paul is isn't is almost restarting Christianity is kind of reinventing. When he goes and he preaches on these missions trips. Is there anything to that? Do you feel like he's trying to reinvent or become a different version of Christianity than what Jesus was?

Wright 17:58

No because Jesus wasn't teaching a religion called Christianity and in a sense nor was Paul actually, in a sense of there wasn't a religion called Christianity Jesus was bringing Israel's great tradition to its climax by embodying the return of Israel's God, to rescue his people. And so as the Scriptures have always said, When Israel gets rescued them, the world gets in on the act. If you read the Psalms, you'll see that when God does what he's going to do for Israel, then the whole world all the nations will call him blessed as well.

And Jesus is doing the thing which has to be done launching God's kingdom, and specifically through his death and resurrection, defeating all the powers that stand in the way of Israel's God becoming king of the whole world, and then in his resurrection, launching the new creation itself. Now, once that has happened, then what other people have to do is not to copy what Jesus did, but to implement it. It is the difference between somebody who writes a symphony and somebody who, as a conductor teaches the orchestra to play it. If you try to rewrite the symphony, then you're not being loyal to the original composer. So Jesus has written the music and Paul is the one who has to go around and teach people to sing it. And of course, writing music and singing it is two different things. So if Paul looks different it's because he has a different role within the ongoing purpose. For us those since the 18th century, we have been taught to think of Christianity as a religion, different from something called Judaism that's completely foreign to the New Testament.

The point is not comparative religion but what is the trade we call messianic eschatology. In other words, the point about Jesus is that he was Israel's Messiah. But if he was Israel's Messiah, then somebody has to tell the nations of the world that the One God has sent Israel's Messiah at last. So it's time for them, the nations of the world to come And only act and that's where Paul comes in.

Seth 20:02

You write in your book, and I will do it a disservice if I try to explain it. But I written down a few notes. And I'm curious, because it's not a connection that I've ever made. Well you make a lot of those in the book, but so when I think of the connection that you make between Elijah and Paul, and then they both are fleeing from danger in Israel, you know one to Arabia, one Horeb, and then they go back to Damascus. And so what is that about? And I guess, how does that relate a bit to the “silent years” that we get from Paul in Galations 1, or does that relate at all?

Wright 20:34

Yeah, well decided the tears are a bit different because the silence he has already after that time, because from relations one we know that saw Paul, after his Damascus experience, he stays in Damascus a little while then he goes off to Arabia, which, as I've argued in the book, this is actually he's going to Mount Sinai, which is where Elijah went. Sinai and Horeb are substantially the same place. scholars argue about the precise Location of which summit we're talking about in the Arabian Peninsula. But he's, Saul, is doing what Elijah did for the same reason that he's been very zealous. And this is where he is actually quoting the passage in First Kings where Elijah says, “I've been extremely zealous for the traditions of my father's”. And Paul says the same thing. “I was extremely zealous for the traditions of my father's”.

And both of them have been employing violence, and then in different ways, it's gone horribly wrong. So Elijah goes and says to God, Hey, what's going on am I still doing the right thing? And God says yep go and return to Damascus, and the nonsense or to the king or the nonsense that the prophet in your place? And Saul of Tarsus, I think he goes off and I think he's like somebody's going on a retreat when something really shocking has happened. They go away to look God in the face and say, What is this all about? And I think when he says, I returned again to Damascus, that's a direct quote from that passage. 1 Kings 20 that that's what God says to Elijah.

And so I think the point is that Elijah was one of the great role models of zeal, which we mentioned already, Elijah and Phineas, in the book of Numbers were the two great zealous characters in the Old Testament. And Paul has been role modeling them and now he is acting out the script, except now he is told, go back to Damascus and get on with not anointing someone else, but announcing the anointed one the Messiah, because he's, in fact, the king of the world.

Now it's after that, because he has to leave Damascus in a hurry because people don't like it. Then he goes to Jerusalem, and they're suspicious of him there and so they send him back to his home, which was Tarsus in Cilicias, in what we would call Southeastern Turkey. And that's when there's a long gap when we don't actually have any direct information, but we have to conclude that he must have been studying the Scriptures and praying and no doubt trying to tell people about Jesus there in Tarsus. How well that went down we have no idea, but I suspect that we see the reflection of that. When much later in writing Romans Paul says he has unceasing sorrow and anguish in his heart because of his family, his kinsfolk because they haven't believed.

And I imagine those years in Tarsus must have been pretty painful for Paul with his parents and brothers and sisters, maybe most of them saying we have no idea what you're all about. And we certainly don't think this couldn't possibly be the will of God. So out of that, then there comes this passionate man, coming back to Antioch to join in the missionary work of the church and re-engage in public life, if you like.

Seth 24:03

In Acts 17, and I usually hear this text preached as an apologetic text, and I read you argue that that's not right. And and if I'm honest, I've used it as an apologetic text as a way to preach to the God that you can't see or the idol that you should have been worshipping. But you make the case that that's not really the case. It's not intended to be an apologetic text, and that it parallels with the trial of Socrates, correct?

Wright 24:31

Yes. Well, the Areopagus in Athens, which is Mars Hill, it isn't a public debating place. It's the highest court in the land. It's the high point in the Athenian legal system. And that goes back many centuries before Paul, then the legend was that the Court of the Areopagus was founded by Apollo himself. Aesculus has a play about the founding of the Court. And why is Paul dragged before the highest court in the land, because he seems to be preaching foreign divinities. And because in the marketplace, the marketplace is where the philosophical debate to take place. Paul has been doing that. And Luke doesn't tell us what he's been saying, just as he's been arguing with the Stoics and the Epicureans, which is fine. Now, when then he gets taken to court. It's called in the ancient world each city had its own patron, we would call it like a sort of the patron saint, of divinity. In Athens, it was the goddess of Athena of course, in Ephesus. Paul gets into trouble because it's, it's Artemis, or Diana in the Roman language. And then if somebody comes to this town, saying, I want you to worship different gods or goddesses, then this means that you're not going to be loyal to the real gods and goddesses who we've all been worshipping. And if that happens, then bad things will result'; there will be earthquakes they'll be a fire, there will be a flood or something. will happen because we haven't been worshipping the gods or goddesses we should have been worshipping.

So this is a very serious charge and it is part of the same charge that got Socrates into trouble. Five centuries before, Socrates was on trial, for preaching foreign divinities and corrupting the young. Now, look doesn't say that they said Paul was corrupted beyond that kind of goes with the territory. So he has to explain himself. And now, fair enough, the explanation does involve some of what we might call apologetics today. But make no mistake, this is not apologetics as a philosophical debating society. This is apologetics with a price on your head. And so Paul doesn't mince his words. And it's extraordinary really, I don't know if you've been to Athens. But if you go there and look from the Areopagus, there's the Acropolis with this huge hill with the Parthenon on one of the greatest works of architecture ever in the whole world still to this day, de Paul says, these temples they're just a category mistake. The Almighty doesn't live in houses made with hands.

So he's not trying to curry favor with them. He's he's getting all out. It's a Jewish message. And he gets away with it because he can outsmart them he can out think them. So the court ends up scratching its head and saying, Well, okay, you've made your point. We think you're crazy, but maybe you're not actually a danger to the state after all. But Paul leaves town fairly soon after that, as though he knows that maybe someday they may try and come after him again. It's a fascinating scene it's one of the great set pieces of the whole New Testament.

Seth 27:37

I know is I am often argumentative. I don't know if I would have the gumption to do that; what in Paul's history before that, or is it just him being smarter, the smartest man in the room able to keep up with and argue for his life basically, is there anything in his training prior when he was Saul that would equip him to be able to that?

Wright 28:01

I didn't think so except for the fact that Tarsus where he grew up was one of the great philosophical centers of the ancient world. Because about the century or so before proposed time, the Romans have come and smashed Athens up because Athens got on the wrong side in a local war, and the Romans took vengeance on them. And so a lot of the philosophers who've been based in Athens, left town and they went either to to Rome, or indeed to Tarsus, excuse me, that's just a clock striking in the background, that is not putting your listeners off. And so Tarsus was a central philosophy and Paul would have grown up with these debates going on on the street all around him. He would have known what the Stoic’s said he would have known what the Epicurean’s said he would have fought his way through all that. And there were many other Jews at the time, who wrestled with the same issues. Like Philo in Alexandria. Like whoever wrote the book we call the Wisdom of Solomon. They were dealing with these philosophical issues but from within the Jewish framework. And Saul seems to have known at least some of those traditions. So words have been entirely strange to him.

At the same time, he probably didn't expect actually to behold before the highest court in the most famous city in the ancient Greek world. But I suspect he rather enjoyed that. After all, Paul knew these Old Testament Well, he knew that the servant in Isaiah 52 and 53 was the one who would startled many nations and make kings shut their mouths. And I think Paul relish the chance to say things which would stop all the nations and which would make kings shut their mouths because of the news about Jesus. And I think by then, he was, if you like, “throwing caution to the wind” and saying, I've been called to witness to Jesus, and if this is what it looks like, well, hallelujah, let's get on with it!

Seth 29:48

(Laughter) Yeah, it would be like me, well, this is hyperbolic but riding up to Washington DC and saying something so truthful and insulting at the same time that they just harming into the Supreme Court and just “get on with it correct”?

Wright 30:04

Yep! Well, that that's right. And, and who knows, I mean, we joke but in your country and mine, there might be a time in a year or five years or 20 years whenever, when actually, people who are loyal to Jesus will have to stand up and be counted and it will be risky. And I think one of the reasons that we aren't persecuted at the moment is probably because we've compromised a little bit more than we like to imagine.

Seth 30:29

Yeah, I would agree. I find from this podcast and in person conversations that result from it. The more that I talk about Jesus and or what the teachings of Christianity mean, I have to live like-I get an obscene amount of pushback. And adjectives that aren't appropriate for now.

So, when Paul is preaching to them, Christians are the atheist correct in this situation? And I know we look at it in hindsight that we call a theist, someone that doesn't believe in God, but for him to try to convert people, and you alluded to it earlier that they live communally because they're they're thrown out Christians are the atheist in this situation, correct?

Wright 31:17

Yeah. I mean, you imagine that what are the main sort of socio-cultural things that everybody in the town does. It may be everyone goes to the ball game or everyone goes to the cinema or everyone goes to whatever it is. Here in eastern Scotland, we have these lovely beaches and so on golf clubs and lots of people go to them. Now, imagine it's more than that, but not less than that.

The ancient religion means that there are temples on almost every street corner. And everybody knows when it's a festival to Lord so and so. A festival to Athena a festival to Caesar who is the new God on the block if you like, and when there's a festival the whole town shows up. I mean, I'm speaking to you now when we are about to have a Royal Wedding here in the UK. And there's all sorts of people, millions and millions of people be tuning in to watch that. I mean, that isn't, in that sense a religious event in the sense, maybe it is.

But my point is that in every city in the ancient world when they have these great festivals, which were very frequent, and great sacrifices, and so on, everyone went. And so suddenly, if you stopped going, then the neighbors will notice. And your friends will notice, “hey, why aren't you coming”? “Oh. Well, I don't do that stuff anymore. Because these actually these gods, they don't really exist. I believe in one God, the maker of heaven on earth. And in Jesus, the one who has embodied him on he's his son, and we're worshiping Him”, when they maybe say, “Well, I don't know what you've been smoking or drinking, but it sounds pretty dangerous stuff to me”.

Because as I said before, if we don't worship the gods bad things will happen to our town, and then we'll know who to blame. That's the reality of life for somebody who had been an ordinary pagan in an ordinary town and then suddenly stop. Now the Jews had a free pass, because the Romans had discovered that there was no point trying to persuade the Jews to worship their gods, the Jews just wouldn't ever do it. So they compromised - the Jews said we will pray for Roman, for Caesar, and we will not pray to Caesar lesson learned to a senior anyone like that. But then suddenly, all these people who are not choose, not ethnically Jews are claiming the same privilege. They're claiming that they don't have to do this pagan worship anymore either. Because they are going to worship the One God revealed in Jesus and powerful by the Spirit.

And this is just totally shocking, and socially, deeply, undesirable. And who are these people will and look what they're doing. They're hanging out with slaves and with women and who knows what they're getting up to. So you can imagine the socially disruptive nature of Pauline Christianity is something that most Christians today have not even begun to dream of, but it was massive at the time.

Seth 34:01

yeah, I wanna I want to ask one more, quote unquote “history” related question. And then I want to try to dovetail a few questions that I've gotten from some listeners as we come towards the towards the end of this. So when I read the latter parts of Paul's letters, at least the way that most people would date them, he seems to be more what's the word I'm looking for? More choosing the words that he use and slightly depressed and like Second Corinthians and that type of stuff. Do you see any of that in his writing? And if so, how can we learn from that on how to deal with depression ourselves?

Wright 34:43

Okay. 2 Corinthians chapter 1 describes something that has happened to Paul we don't know exactly what it was, and I write about this at some length in the book. But he says, writing to the Corinthians from Ephesus, though I think he's writing that letter while he's on the journey around Northern Greece making his way towards Corinth, but he says, Look, I don't want you to be ignorant, that when I was in Ephesus, I was so crushed that I despaired of life itself. And he said, I felt as though I had received in myself the sentence of death.

Now, I'm a pastor, if somebody came into my room and said, these last few days, I've had this deep sense inside me that I've just been condemned to death. Then I think I would say to myself, this poor person is having a nervous breakdown or something pretty close to and is in utter despair. And, you know, this isn't just a matter of a nice pastoral conversation and then a pat on the back and off they go. This is really serious stuff.

Now, we are not quite sure why he went through this experience in terms of what were the historical circumstances. My own guess is that he'd been in Ephesus, you've been very successful. All sorts of things have gone really well for him. The principalities and powers seemed to be in disarray. They were put to flight, magician's were coming and burning their magic books and so on. But the trouble is that the dark powers don't give up easily and they strike back and they don't play fair. They play nasty.

And I think something happened to Paul, which totally, totally dragged him down. And of course, if you were thrown into jail in the ancient world, as he may well have been, I think he was thrown into jail at least once in Ephesus. They don't feed you, your friends have to come and feed you. And if your friends can't find you, then you might be seriously hungry, you might be starving, you might be cold, it might be winter, you might be sick, it will be very easy to feel that everything had in fact gone horribly wrong. When you short of food and sleep and drink and you're cold and sick, then however strong your faith is then everything gets shaken. And I think that's what happened to Paul.

Now he says, “this was to make me rely on the God who raises the dead”. Now we have to tread very carefully here. I have dealt with depression. On both sides of the table as it were, it's no good saying to somebody who's depressed, “oh, you just have to trust in the God who raises the dead”, they'll probably just kick you or slap you or go and shoot themselves.

Because if it's serious depression, this telling them to snap out of this is probably the worst thing you can do. However, what I think happened in Paul's case, and we can't prove this, but I think that, like a plant in a harsh winter, Paul has had to put his roots deep down into the truth that he believed. But now he has to find them in an even deeper way. Paul has always prayed and somebody who has the habit of praying in the way that Paul lifelong that the habit of praying, he didn't stop praying when he was depressed. He just prayed his way deeper and deeper into the Jewish traditions about the One God who is the God of Israel.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one

Paul had already learn to pray that in a Christian There is one God the Father, one Lord Jesus Christ. And he’s also learned to pray, the Jewish prayers about the Exodus, the Psalms and so on. He was praying them with Jesus in mind. And I think Paul in his praying, even in despair, his heart is going on praying, and he's going down deeper than anyone have been before. And he comes back with these amazing poems that we find in Philippians 2 and Colossians 1, which are poems about Jesus victory over the powers to use his victory over death.

And I think that was how slowly…slowly he managed to crawl his way back out to the pit. I think it was through the habit, the lifelong habit of prayer, with the gospel now reshaping the ancient habits of Jewish prayer. That's the best analysis I can do, of how he got out of the bed, but what it was like when he was in there, he just tells us those two lines, it was obviously pretty awful.

Seth 38:57

Do you think that the Bible that we have today, or the history that we have of Paul today, would exist without Barnabas?

Wright 39:06

Good question. Good question! I mean, who knows what it is? It's like, you know, supposing somebody had bumped off Hitler in 1919. What was the 20th century have been like, and we can play those games. Certainly under God. Barnabas had a very strong hand, because he was he who sold that they needed somebody in Antioch, who was a good teacher who understood Scripture, and could speak the languages and get on all fours as people and he went to Tarsus and got Saul. And if that hadn't happened, who knows what what might have happened? I suspect that in the providence of God, somebody else would have done it but yes, the way things were Barnabas is pretty well responsible for that.

Seth 39:48

I hear that and what I hear in that when I read about Barnabas is don't be afraid to answer the call that when you feel called do it because it could have impacts in so much as we're still talking about it today.

Wright 40:02

Yeah, absolutely

Seth 40:03

but yeah. Alright, so changing gears a little bit, and I mean it in a way that is culturally relevant today. And I've spoken about it with with other guests about there's just a lack of historical contextual knowledge of any ancient times much less ancient Israel or, or, you know, the early church. And so do you feel like our obsession with church growth and I say that in air quotes again, now has led us to having a poor reading of Paul's letters in that we misconstrue cultural suggestions into must follow laws and must follow dogma?

Wright 40:46

Yes, I don't totally understand the church growth movement because the churches that I've worked in and I’ve worked a long time in many different churches and not part of that kind of style. I've seen church growth I've also seen shows decline, which is aligned to other things that are declining in society. So for all sorts of socio cultural reasons, I know God can do extraordinary things and rejuvenate churches, and I've seen that happen as well. So I'm not saying that God only wants small failing churches, that will be ridiculous.

But I do think that we often do have our priorities wrong. And instead of, well not instead of church growth, but alongside church growth. I think Paul would be horrified that we are not insisting on unity. The thing that would really shocked him, if he were to see us today is not only that we are disunited, but the we don’t care! So somebody plants church, and they're successful in the church grows and they have a new building and the programs that they have nothing to do with the church down the road or the one across the the other side of the square or whatever, because they’re thinking well, God is doing this thing he proposed to really important imperative at the end of Romans is that so that you may With one heart and voice glorify the God and Father Jesus. Paul saw the danger of church disunity because frankly, if churches at dis-united the wider world doesn't care what we say, they take notice.

That's why in my country, the newspapers love it! Any sign of church disunity, the newspapers reported instantly. And the churches can do all sorts of good things which won't get reported. The papers love it. Because if the judges are disunited, then they, the wider secular world, don't need to pay any attention to what we're saying. And that's the real thing that we ought to be addressing,

Seth 42:34

Is it…and this has been in the news a lot lately because of Piper, at least in my country, and I can't think that you don't follow it. But do you think it's fair to blame the bulk of the way that we treat patriarchal roles and misogyny and homosexuality and homophobia and the role that women can be in leadership in in any form of worship, on Paul's letters? Does he bare the bulk of that blame or is that us doing it wrong?

Wright 43:03

Let me say first, the fact that you mentioned all those different things that you just listed in the same breath shows that in our culture we have totally, totally misunderstood Paul. Because the question of the role of women in churches is something that I think Paul will be very clear about, face it when he writes the greatest letter ever written, mainly the letter to the Romans, who does he give it to take to Rome? Phoebe, who is a deacon in the church in Cenchreae, it was on an independent business trip to Rome. And it's to her with the entrusts this incredible lesson. That almost certainly means that Phoebe is the first person to read Romans out loud to anyone, and she's highly likely to be the first person to explain it to anyone.

And when you just stop and think of the earth shattering implications of that, then all sorts of things look different. But when we're talking about the homosexual question, and the fact that we talk about homosexualal(ity) that's a modern idea, the idea that there's an “ity” a condition called this, but also the fact that we don't distinguish between inclination and behavior.

For Paul inclination and behavior would always be radically distinct. Because Paul knew as actually most wise people have always known that all human beings at some stage in their life have all kinds of inclinations, which they know or they find out quite soon, they ought not to act on. And the question of which inclinations you act on which inclinations you don't act on, is one which our modern Western world has been singularly bad addressing, because we've somehow imbibed ever since the 60s, the idea that spontaneous impulses must be good and must be obeyed.

And so the fact that we don’t think through these things shows that we are not enough on the same page as Paul was not on the same page as Plato and Aristotle, or any of the other great moral thinkers. So we've got ourselves in a moral mess. If we blame Paul for it well, so much stupider are we! Because Paul is actually very clear on these issues? And if only we would actually understand him instead of bouncing our models back off him like echoing off some wall, then the better.

Seth 45:16

Don't turn them into a yes man then?

Wright 45:20

Don't turn him into a yes man or a no man, turn him into somebody whose whole aim of life was to get people to think, and to think clearly and to think Christianly, and if we follow that imperative, we'd all do a lot better.

Seth 45:34

How do I deal with the with what you said about Romans and Phoebe, knowing that many people will use Romans and Timothy to say that my daughters, maybe one day, cannot be ministers? How do those two reconcile?

Wright 45:48

Try going to first Corinthians Chapter 11, where Paul talks about what women should be wearing on their heads when they are praying or prophesying in church. So clearly in First Corinthians 11 he wants women expect women to be leading in public worship. He just wants them to look like women while they're doing it and dress in that way, and not try to be as men or androgynous in some way.

Now, I know there's another passage in First Corinthians 14 it’s difficult passage I and others have written about it, which says women should keep silent. I suspect that's because in a divided congregation with men on one side and women, the other the men might understood who might be more educated, might understand what the sermon was about, the women might not be getting it so they might start to chatter or gossip. And that's, that's one way of reading that passage. The passage in 1 Timothy is a difficult passage partly because it uses several words which are, if not unique, at least very rare, unique in the New Testament, and which can be translated in several different ways.

And I and others have argued variously, for instance, that 1 Timothy may well be written to a situation in Ephesus, where the main religion in town is an all female Religion, The Cult of Artemis. And it's quite possible that people in the Christian church in Ephesus was saying, “Well, if we've got a new religion called Christianity, obviously we'll have to get the women running it because that's what we in Ephesus do; we have women priests, we have this that the other.” And so 1 Timothy would be saying chapter two, no the women must not use the role of men. Now, that's not all it's saying. But that is part of the cultural context, which might help us to explain why that passage is very different.

But actually, when I'm arguing this case, I start with Mary Magdalene in John 20. This is off topic from Paul but when Jesus wants to condition somebody to be the first person ever to tell anyone else, but he's raised from the dead, that he's ascending to the Father, which is the foundation of all Christian proclamation, then the person who gets chosen is Mary Magdalene, and I just think there's a big QED after that, let's lighten up and get on with it.

Seth 48:00

Yet no, I agree and and being that I have two daughters.

Wright 48:04

Oh right. Yeah, I have two daughters, two and two sons.

Seth 48:08

I don't think that I could ever attend a church. I don't think I could ever be part of a local church, that somehow said that they can be president, Supreme Court Justice, astronaut, Professor, but not minister, anything but that.

Wright 48:24

I think, also the difficulty there is this, I would want to say very clearly, there is a big difference between being a man and being a woman. The old modernist view that men and women were identical apart from some minor biological function, I think is just crazy. And I think we were seeing a backlash against that now and part of the confusion on gender identity comes from and within that backlash. But having said that, this does not mean that I am then taking what people used to call a complimentarian position as though men can only do x,y&z and women can only do A, B, and C never the twain shall meet, there is a huge overlap, just as there is a huge overlap in various sorts for the men or women. So men and women are different, but God wants them both exercising part of the various ministries of the church. There's no question about that in my mind.

Seth 49:16

Last question for you, Tom.

Wright 49:18

Okay

Seth 49:20

What is one thing, besides buying your book and reading it, and I can't recommend that and there are other texts as well, there are many reviews of your book online that reference other other texts to help complement this. So what would be one thing that we could take away from Paul, the man, that would help us do better church today starting tomorrow or starting the moment that you listen to this? What is the one thing that we could take away?

Wright 49:43

Wow…wow! I would love to see the church learning from Paul the value of Christian poetry. There are so many things which we want to say as Christians, but it's hard to say them all together. In Philippians 2 and Colossians 1 and other passages as well; but especially those and perhaps 1 Corinthians 13; we have the earliest Christian poems ever written.

I think Paul probably wrote them himself. And there he is saying beautifully, Scripturally, Christ focused-ly, what has to be said in terms of a celebratory prayer. And we sort of read those passages out and we might preach a sermon on them. But actually, we need to think maybe there is a new vocation for people today, to think theologically, not in order to write 400 page books, but to write poems, which will go to the very heart of the matter, and which will appeal to people not just intellectually, but emotionally and culturally. To enable them to praise and worship in rich Scripture fueled ways.

I really…I mean, you didn't expect me to say that in in a sense, I didn't expect me to say this, but I've been thinking about this a lot. And I think that's something that Paul has to give that most people do not expect to learn from him; but my goodness, we could it would be very good for us.

Seth 51:03

I was not expecting that. In full transparency. I have eight pages of eight point pieces of paper in front of me with questions to answer and that thread of thought was not anywhere on any of these. So I appreciate that. I'll give you back the remainder of the evening. Thank you so much, Tom.

Wright 51:20

Thank you very much. It's very good talking to you and greetings to all your listeners. Oh, and one last thing. I assume that you know, or your listeners know that I've done these various online courses including this book there at www.ntwrightonline.org

Seth 51:37

I do that but they may not I will put a link to that in the show notes.

Wright 51:40

That will be brilliant. Thank you so much.

Seth 51:42

Yes, sir. No problem. Have a good evening.

Wright 51:44

Very good talking to you!

Seth 51:46

You as well!

Seth 52:05

Man I hope that you enjoyed that as much as I did. I can't express how thrilled I was that Professor Wright agreed to come on to the show. And I hope that we can all take a page out of his book that there's more than one way to view the Bible. The Bible is not just some huge amount of stories that matter in only a theological way.

These are real people that existed in a real time in a real culture. Specifically, we talked about the New Testament and that that culture and that history cannot be looked at in a vacuum. context matters whom was being spoken to matters. So much to learn. can't recommend enough, please go get Professor Wright's book, it is a great book on Paul, there are other books as well, that will approach it from a different way and he's written some of those but it is well worth the time and effort and energy to dig through it but work your way through it slowly. And I think that the reward at the end will be well worth the time and energy that that tape.

Today's music was used with permission from one of my favorite artists composer, producer songwriter based out of Chicago Ryan O’Neil, who goes by the name Sleeping at Last. The music specifically used today is from an album that he released a little while back called the spring the money and the proceeds raised from that album go to support the Ministry of Charity Water. Charity Water is an extremely worthwhile organization what they do is they take money and they build and help sustain wells in places that there is no clean water no functioning water and water is life giving. If you don't believe me then don't drink any tomorrow Water is life giving and so please if you have a moment go to the show notes support the Ministry of Charity Water there are extremely easy ways to get involved with that. Also please support sleeping at last and his partnership with that and and i will tell you he is recently releasing albums about the Instagram the tone of each song matches the number for the in a gram. He hasn't made it to number eight yet for me, but I'm Looking forward to when he does. You'll find all those links in the show notes will also find the music today in the Spotify playlist. Remember to rate the show on iTunes, follow the show at CISTACpodcast on Twitter. Find us on Facebook as well be blessed and we'll speak to you next week.

29 - Christian Hospitality in An Age of Fear Rev. Dr., Matthew Kaemingk / Transcript

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.

Back to the Audio Episode

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Matthew Intro 0:00

The biggest issue is fundamentally the widespread belief that Islam is simple, that it's one thing; that I can describe a global faith of 1 billion people in a couple of sentences. To say that Muslims are all “this”, or Muslims are all “that”. Really the biggest problem for American Christians is simple stereotypes. So, rather than actually having a conversation with a Muslim, or reading a book by a Muslim, or just simply listening to Muslims tell their story. We prefer to simply create a stereotype that makes sense to us. You know, so, a simple stereotype like all Muslims are terrorists. Now once you define them as a terrorist, the solution is simple, right? Kill them, throw them in jail or kick them out of the country. Right? Once you've defined them as a simple problem, you're allowed to provide a simple solution.

Seth 1:40

What does it mean to embrace someone that you know, at the onset of the relationship, you most likely will not agree on huge topics that matter for the way that you live? The way that you work, the way that you pray, the way that you raise your children. What do we do when we come to something like that, specifically as a country, and as a church? How do we interact with those that don't share our faith, but do deeply believe in their own? How do we do that with people of the Muslim faith and the people that follow that faith? How do we live and breathe with them? How do we join into community with them? I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Matthew Kaemingk, to discuss just that.

He has written a book on the topic called Islamic immigration and the Christian hospitality in the age of fear. And I will say that is the history of the news if you just turn it on today we live in an age of fear be at North Korea. The anything that is other be at Native Americans be the Syrian refugees or Mexico or Russia anything. And so how do we live with that? How do we enter in a relationship of community, loving our neighbors? And bit about Matthew, e teaches theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary and as a scholar in residence for Fuller's Max Dupree Center for Christian Leadership. His research mostly focuses on public theology, religious pluralism, faith, work and vocation. And so with that being said, I hope you enjoy it.

Seth 3:36

Matthew, thank you so much for joining us on the Can I Say This At Church podcast, I’ve excited to talk to you for a while I like the topic and the premise of what you're doing. I like the ministry that you're doing. And I can't see that what we'll talk about today that the relationship between Christianity and the Muslim and Islamic faiths or any other faiths for that matter is going to go away anytime soon. So I appreciate you making the time this afternoon to come on with me.

Matthew 4:02

Thank you for having me.

Seth 4:03

Can you just briefly tell people a bit about yourself; kind of how your upbringing in the church and how you became to do what you do now?

Matthew 4:13

Sure, I grew up in the church in the Christian Reformed Church, to be exact, out in Seattle, Washington, and I was a political science major in college and was always very fascinated by how Christians thought about issues of faith and politics, the Bible and justice, and what God's Will was for our political life together. And I remember feeling a sense of dissatisfaction with the way in which many Christians both on the political right and the political left thought about the connection between faith and politics and really wanted to go deeper. So after college, I went on to study theology and public life and Fuller Seminary, Princeton Seminary, and the Free University in Amsterdam, studying all kinds of issues around faith, and politics,, and economics, and issues of religious diversity and how we live together within deep, deep religious, cultural and racial differences while still being deeply faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ

Seth 5:27

How do we that? I find it hard to be both a committed Christian following after what Jesus tells us to do and still being nationalistic or, or patriotic. I find the two seem to butt heads often. So how do we do that?

Matthew 5:44

Yeah, well, I think maybe division between those two words is important. One is patriotism. The other is nationalism. So I take patriotism to be a love and affection for one's country; a sense of duty and a sense of responsibility to serve one's country. And I think of nationalism as a sort of idolatry of one's country, a placing of one's country above all else. And as Christians, we're taught that we have only one Lord and Savior, not two; and so, Jesus and America cannot both be our Lord and Savior.

And so I very much think of myself as a Christian patriot. I love my country very much, but I will never call my country my Lord and Savior. And so if there are times where the two butt heads, I have to follow Christ over my country.

Seth 6:43

I agree with that. And I find that people don't like that, they don't like that, they like church to be on Sunday only, at least in my experience, and the rest of the week…I'll bleed red, white and blue. Getting to the to the topic at hand. So you've written a book on it's titled Islamic Immigration and Christian Christian Hospitality in an Age of Fear. And I can't agree any more. I recently read, I like the pew research study. And so I recently read that. According to them, there are 19 million people that identify as the Muslim population as of I think, a few years ago, and they anticipate that in 2050, roughly 8.1 million people or the the entire state of Delaware will be a Muslim faith. And the inverse seems to be the opposite for Christians, the Christians seem to be reducing at the same rate that other religions, not just Muslims, but Buddhism and other things, gain. And so why does it matter that we as Christians engage in anyone else's religion?

Matthew 7:55

Well, a number of things. One is that the last thing that Jesus told us to do while he was on Earth was to go out to all the nations and proclaim the good news. And so I don't view Muslim immigration primarily as a problem or a challenge, but as a profound opportunity to share the gospel. It's actually really great news that you don't have to fly a long distance to meet a Muslim and tell them about Jesus. They're coming to you. So I see it primarily as an opportunity. And, moreover, for Christians who respond to those numbers, with a sense of fear…my only response is that if you truly believe that God is Lord overall that he is in control, that Easter is real. If you truly believe in the Spirit's power and the resurrection then how can you live by fear?

So, to me the question is more on the inverse. How can the politics of fear ever connect with the politics of Easter? So it just doesn't fundamentally does not make sense to me. One of my favorite scholars about Christianity and Islam, he says that if you listen to Christians talk about Muslims, you know, when Christians are talking amongst themselves, you won't actually learn very much about Islam, but you will learn a lot about Christians; it'll tell you quite a bit. So if Christians, amongst themselves, are speaking about Muslims with a great deal of fear, you know, a great deal of anger that'll tell you a lot about who they are and about the quality of their faith. But if, amongst themselves, they're speaking about Muslims with the sense of excitement and eagerness to demonstrate the love of Christ, the opportunity to live the gospel, then that demonstrates something as well. So I think of it primarily as an opportunity.

Seth 10:17

I find, at least where I'm at here in Central Virginia and I, I grew up in Texas, I don't find myself often in the same places as people of other faiths. Muslim faith, specifically, I never…either people don't talk about it for fear of being I don't know what the word is persecuted, or maybe I was just in such a small bubble that I was unable to break out of it. And so how do we, as Christians get out of that bubble? Do we need to seek out people and if so, how do we do so genuinely, so it doesn't look like lip service or we're doing this to feel superior?

Matthew 10:56

Yeah, well, I think those bubbles aren't going to last much longer. In a globalizing world, Muslims are moving in quickly. They're moving into Georgia and Tennessee and South Carolina and I live right here in Eastern Texas. And we actually have one of the highest rates of mosques and Muslims of any city in the United States, you know, right here in the Bible belt. So those bubbles aren't going to last long.

And so what my book is really arguing is that Christians need to start preparing and start to think about who they are, and what it means demonstrate the love of God in a religiously diverse culture, because that is the future, that is where this country is going. And they can spend time sort of complaining about that fact or they can begin preparing and asking, who do we need to be to respond to this? And what is Christ calling us to? You know, you can complain that it's not the 1950s anymore, or you can sort of ask Jesus, “Jesus, what would you have me do”? Difference, be it racial, cultural, religious differences, the name of the game and the 21st century and difference is coming at us quickly. That difference is deep. It's close. It's fast and thoughtful Christians need to think really, really carefully about what faithfulness looks like as as difference comes near.

Seth 12:38

Did you lean or have the same thoughts before you went to Amsterdam in the Netherlands or, or was living outside of the country something that was just an eye opener, where you were like, “Oh, my I was I was missing it”?

Matthew 12:51

Well, I think I've always been fascinated by by the question of difference and how we handle it. And I think of myself as a more conservative evangelical. And so I'm never one who wants to sort of water down my faith, or sort of say, “Oh, we all basically agree” or sort of cover over differences. But I've always lived in cities where I was a minority. So Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, you know, these aren't sort of hotbeds of evangelical theology right.

So I've always had to think about it, you know, whether it was with friends who are Muslims or friends who are gay or friends who were African American or Latino, having to think about what is Christ call me to in terms of faithfully loving him because, and them because if Christ made space for me, you know, if Christ loved me then I have a responsibility to make space for others and I have a responsibility to love others and if I don't demonstrate that love and hospitality for Muslims then I'm, I'm somehow saying that that, you know, that that love was not extended to me. And I'm actually dishonoring the cross that made space for me.

So I've always been interested in it. But when it came to the question of Muslim immigration, and Amsterdam and Europe, I was really asking this singular question is, Christians are very, very good at defending their own religious freedom, their own rights, their own dignity, from from oppression, right. We're very good at talking about our our own persecution. The question to me was, are we capable of defending the rights indignity of a faith that is not our own a faith that we might deeply disagree with? You know, I have real differences with Islam, on theology, on politics, on a whole number of issues. But am I capable of defending their rights and dignity? So that was really my question because to me it's a good thing when Christians defend their own rights and freedoms. But when they defend the rights and freedoms of people who are different than them, that's a gospel thing. That's a gospel thing. So that's what really grabbed me.

Seth 15:42

How do we do that without being accused of being lukewarm or being…the way that I was raised it was when you go to evangelize to people. You are inherently in a position of being right. I have something to tell you and once you understand it, you too can be saved. So how do we then register that with someone of a different faith and defend what they believe without obviously knowing much about what they believe? How do we, how do I do that without somehow demoting what I believe?

Matthew 16:19

Yeah. Well, I think just starting out, I would just deny the whole premise and basically say, you're absolutely wrong. That being mean, makes you a good Christian or being full of yourself makes you a good Christian. I would say actually being humble is what Christ calls us to. Being prideful and imagining that you're a Christian because you earned it or you did something wonderful or because you were so right or so smart is antithetical to the gospel. Right. We did not earn this. And so that, you know, that's the first thing. But I'd actually like to tell you a quick story.

Seth 17:09

Sure.

Matthew 17:11

In the Netherlands, there was this hard right wing swing in politics against Islam, there was a terrorist attack. And in response to that a number of Dutch citizens started to burn mosques to you know, set them on fire. And so I think it was about around 20 mosques and Muslim schools were either damaged like graffitied, pillaged, or burned after an attack. And this Christian pastor walked down to a local mosque and knocked on the door and said to the Muslims,

I'm here to guard your mosque for you.

And he walked around the mosque all night long and did so for the next few months to make sure that that mosque was safe. And not only did he do that, but he called his other fellow pastors and they all guarded mosques around the country.

Now when I met this Christian pastor, he was actually a very, very conservative, Pentecostal pastor. And he was very clear with me said,

You know, I, to be honest, I really don't like Muslims very much. I think a lot of these immigrants are making problems in my city.

He says, I,

to be really honest with you, I kind of wish they weren't here.

And so I said, so I said,

Well, why did you do this? You're guarding their mosque, you're calling other people to help. You know, you're putting your own self in danger by trying to keep this mosque safe. Why did you do this?

You know, and he said to me,

Well, Jesus loved me even when I was a sinner, and he commands me to not only love my neighbor, he commands me to love my my enemies too.

He wasn't watering down his faith. He was pointing to Jesus. And he was saying, look, there's a real difference between Christianity and Islam. And I'm not watering down that difference at all. But that difference is the cross. And that's the reason why I have to defend my neighbor. So I would argue that for those Christians who did not defend the mosque, right, those Christians who joined in, in demonizing Islam and attacking mosques. I would argue that those Christians are guilty of watering down their faith. Those Christians are not taking their faith seriously enough. Because if you take your faith seriously, you're actually going to be much more humble.

Seth 20:34

I do want to caveat what I asked you is not necessarily what I believe. What I asked you is…

Matthew 20:42

I understand.

Seth 20:44

…what I hear often just in, you know on the news. You hear it as soon as the gun violence goes away in the media cycle, although the gun violence won't go away. You'll hear it as we talk about refugees again and everything else. So I do want it for those listening. I do not agreeing with what I said, I was playing devils advocate.

Matthew 21:03

I understand, but I would say that it's important to note that that statement, can I mean, that sort of a posture towards Muslims, confirms what secular liberals believe, which is this. Secular liberals believe that Christians are incapable of tolerance. That Christians cannot be trusted to be democratic, and that Christians are a danger to democracy; because they are prideful, because they believe they're right. And so my book is really an argument against that as well; against the arguments on the liberal side that would say that Christians can't love people who are different from them.

Seth 21:53

Well, leaning into that, what are some of-and this is where I'll show my ignorance-I have no idea what are the biggest misconceptions that the church or Christians or American Christians as a whole, get wrong about the faith of Islam. Because we only see one side. We only see ISIS and there's not a mosque where I live, I'm sure there's one across the mountain, but there's not one where I live, so I only get one “channel”, of information for Islam. So what is what are those biggest misconceptions that we think that are just wrong?

Matthew 22:25

Yeah so that's easy. So the biggest one, the biggest issue is fundamentally the widespread belief that Islam is simple, that it's one thing. That I can describe a global faith of 1 billion people in a couple of sentences.

To say that Muslims are all this or Muslims are all that. And really, the biggest problem for American Christians is simple stereotypes. So rather Rather than actually having a conversation with a Muslim, or reading a book by a Muslim, or just simply listening to Muslims tell their story. We prefer to simply create a stereotype that makes sense to us. You know?

So a simple stereotype like, all Muslims are terrorists. Now, once you define them as a terrorist, the solution is simple, right? Kill them, throw them in jail, or kick them out of the country. Right? Once you've defined them as a simple problem, you're allowed to provide a simple solution. Or all Muslims are oppressive…you know, I'm kind of knocking on the political right right now, but I could also knock on the left.

So the left tends to look at Muslim immigrants as people who are in need. So they are in need of economic help. They are in need of education. They are in need of modernization, they're culturally backwards and we need to enlighten them. So, you know, both the right and the left, the Christian Right and the Christian Left stereotype Muslims, and the truth is, is that Islam is just as complex as Christianity. You know, when we look at Christianity, you have everything from Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox, to Pentecostals, and, you know, random church plants and…

Seth 24:44

Westboro Baptist

Matthew 24:45

everything to make to the KKK. Yeah, right. That's the KKK claims itself to be Christian. And so you have a wide diversity and a long history of the Christian faith and the same is true of Islam. So I think the biggest problem is is those simple stereotypes that really get us nowhere.

Seth 25:04

Have you found that that goes both ways as you speak to people in the in the circles that you're in, that are of Islam faith? Do they have the same stereotypes of Christians?

Matthew 25:14

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's awful.

Seth 25:18

Yeah. That's awful. That makes me sad, because I feel like to look at it that way would be to say that we're all the KKK or Westboro Baptist, and that's the only avenue that you get to read is we're all that. That's awful.

Matthew 25:29

It doesn’t feel good, does it?

Seth 25:32

No, no. That's awful. You wrote in a post in December of last year for religion news, I think about about Muslim immigrants functioning for us as as a scapegoat. And what do you mean by that?

Matthew 25:48

The United States, you know, has been walking away from the Christian faith for some time now. And for you know, for many decades in our early history, we understood ourselves to be a Christian nation, whatever that means we understood ourselves to be under God and connected to some Judeo-Christian values. But as our nation walks away from that identity, America is having a bit of an identity crisis. Right, who are we? What what are American values? What do we believe in? You know, if we don't believe in God, then who are we going to be?

And so in that vacuum, that sort of spiritual darkness, America is looking for an identity. And a lot of political thinkers argue that when a nation is looking for a political identity, one of the things that can help is if you find a scapegoat, sort of a common enemy around which you can rally. So you know sort of after 911 there was this tremendous unity in America. And that unity was really a fixed on we are against, you know, Muslim terrorists; or in the 1970s and 80s it was communism right as the sort of international threat around which, you know, America could rally.

And so scapegoats play a large role in every single society sort of a way to place blame on one specific group. And it's a great way to ignore all of your problems because you can place those problems you can place, you know, Biblically, you can place the community sins on this small group of people. They may be Mexican immigrants or they might be Muslim immigrants, but whatever it is, we can just blame this, you know, small group for all of our problems,

Seth 28:02

Yeah. How do we make our churches open to those of faith that aren't ours?

Matthew 28:08

That's a great question. I think, you know, preaching and talking about it is one thing, but I honestly, I really, you know, I wrote a book-so I believe in the power of words. But so, you know, obviously, everyone go by the book, and that will fix all of your problems.

Seth 28:28

Buy two copies and give one away!

Matthew 28:30

Yeah, there you go. No, it's seriously beyond words. I really think hospitality is something that we have to practice, and it takes time. And so if I, you know, I was just preaching and teaching Sunday school this last Sunday to a church in Pittsburgh, and they have a mosque in their neighborhood and they were asking, you know, what should we do; should we do some kind of interfaith dialogue with him or something like that? And I actually told them No. I don't think that's the way to go. I actually think that hospitality is something that needs to be practiced through really simple things. And simple things like playing a soccer game together, starting women's sewing group between Muslims and Christian women, having meals together, asking each other to share each other's story. How did you come to this country? How has that been? Has that been hard? What do you love about America? What's been hard for you? What don't you understand about America. Just asking questions and listening. Rather than making these people into a project, actually building a relationship with them and seeking to love them and learn from them and can have a relationship with them. That takes practice because, yeah, Christians are kind of awkward sometimes.

Seth 30:07

Yeah, no, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, I found that, at least personally, I had an issue with gay people until I knew some. And I realized, and these are these are people, whoever I have an issue with. If I can get past my my stuff, my problems, and just get to know them, maybe learn with their kids names are when their birthdays are, what kind of ice cream they like. It is really hard to hate somebody that you personally know. Very hard, which is, which sounds like that's what you're saying. And I interviewed earlier in the year, Sean Palmer who said the same thing. Basically I asked him, I said, Well, what do we do to embrace, you know, a beloved community of church, and I think he's at Ecclesia Church there in Houston as well. And he said, basically, just draw a circle around your church. Whoever is within a few miles, five miles, one miles, whatever it is…just own them and say we're going to love these people. And we're going to minister to them outside of the walls of this church with no expectation that they will ever become members that they will ever tithe that they will ever do anything, but they will be loved and they will be taken care of.

Matthew 31:16

Yeah, yeah. And you ask God to move, because you have to say, fundamentally, God owns this neighborhood. God is sovereign over these neighbors, not me. God is the one who saves not me. You know, my profound responsibility is to demonstrate His love and His hospitality and to trust that He will move when and how He chooses. And that's what it means to to give Christ the throne and not to take it as your own. So, yeah, and it just takes practice. You know, I think CS Lewis says that “true friends stand next to each other and they look at something and work on something in common, something that they enjoy in common. They don't look directly in one another's eyes, they enjoy something together.”

And I think that if we're going to befriend our Muslim neighbors are gay neighbors, but you know, whatever sort of whatever different race is near us, we have to find ways to do things together, to practice life together. We don't need to sort of look one another in the eye all the time and discuss all of our differences and sort of like very intense way but actually just live together practice that hospitality.

Seth 32:45

I did have one follow up question and I like to end with grace. I try to ask a similar question to every every guest. So the last question that bugs me is, I am terrified that my church the Christianity that I know and that I love, if it doesn't learn to change, will look like and this is Mennonites and Amish that are hearing this don't hear this as a put down, but we'll look like a quaint old thing that we used to hold to in 52, you know, 70 years if we don't learn to embrace some form of change. And so do you agree with that? What do you see as the future of our church, that you and I are part of now, if we cannot learn to put down differences and embrace other people? What does our church even look like anymore, for your kids?

Matthew 33:38

Well, I think the good news is that God is moving in a very powerful way. And we have an opportunity to be a part of that. And I think that churches that refuse to acknowledge that, that opportunity that refuse to move with the spirit But choose to sort of worship what was, instead of worship the moving and dynamic God? Well, they're going to get left behind. They won't get to be a part of what God is doing, and that's too bad. But the good news is that God's God's moving with or without, you know, certain congregations. And there's that profound opportunity for churches to move. And so that's that's the good news. And the good news is that God is in control. And so whether the church is ready for this moment or not, God is in control and God is moving.

Seth 34:40

So in closing, what would what would be the one thing if there's a pastor listening, a deacon listening later listening, what would be the one thing that they should do this week, next week tomorrow that they could begin to change? What is the easy what is not the easy what is the hard first step to actually begin to learn how to do hospitality?

Matthew 34:58

I think the first thing that they can do is gather their elders, you know, their deacons, their, their leaders, whatever they might be in their specific church and ask this question and really ask it in prayer, who in our community is in deep need of hospitality? Who are those people that God is calling us to make space for? How can we extend the table of God's banquet? And so I would say that the call of the pastor is to ask the question, that's the pastor and the leaders responsibility is to ask the question, and it's the people's responsibility to imagine and to act on what that would be. And so I think if the pastor is not asking that question, the pastor is really falling short. Right? Who are the people in our community that are on the margins in need of hospitality. And we have a Biblical responsibility to look out for them. And we're going to be asked, you know, Matthew 25, we are going to be asked on judgment day, how we respond to those people. So it's the pastor's responsibility to ask the question, and it's the people's responsibility to answer it.

Seth 36:20

Good, good. Matthew, how can people engage with you? How can they interact with you definitely go and buy the book. I have not finished it, but I have begun it…it was more than I thought I could chew. And in one sitting, which is good and bad, it's just it makes me have to reflect on myself and I'm not happy with that sometimes. So just being honest. So where would you Where would you point people to to get in get involved engaged?

Matthew 36:49

Yeah. You know, if they're not ready to jump into the depths of the book, they can read some short articles that I've written that can function as great Conversation tools for a congregation. And those short articles can be found on my website, which you can share a link. Yeah, you can share a link to that website. And they can find lots of articles about Muslim immigration and hospitality and all sorts of issues there. They can also they can also follow me on twitter where I, I shared a lots of content about these sorts of issues. And yeah, there's another podcast if they, you know, they're listening to you. So I imagine they like podcasts. It's called neighborly faith. And it's a group of evangelicals who are exploring issues of how, how we might be good neighbors, as committed evangelicals to other faiths, and so that's an interesting conversation as well, so you can get all filled up on podcasts.

Seth 37:55

Yeah, yeah, well, I find that I like podcasts more than radio anymore. So Hear the same song six times in a row. So well, good. Well, I'll end it there. Matthew, thank you so much for your, for your time this afternoon.

Matthew 38:07

Thanks for the call, good to chat.

Seth 38:31

Man that hits me. As I have let that sit for a few weeks, and then have come in to edit. I've realized a few things I miss so much during the conversation. And I wish on every single one of these that I could go back and ask different questions. And that's not fair because it implies that I learned something and that that wasn't worthwhile. So I encourage you to do that as you hear these things reach out to these guests and these authors and your pastors and your friends. And most importantly, reach out to people outside of your circle of influence and make your circle bigger, being hospitable, learning to love as Christ would have this love. The danger of not doing that, of not being understanding and not meeting people where they are, whether or not we agree with their dogma or their doctrine, or their faith, or their practices, does a disservice to who we profess to worship. So I'm challenged and I hope you are as well.

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The music that was featured in today's episode is from Salt of the Sound they write extremely reflective, and contemplated music and I can tell you, I often listen to them as I pray. They have some beautiful instrumentals and they have a couple albums that will come out just this year alone. You can find their music at Salt of the sound calm and as with past shows, You can find the music featured today on the podcast playlist Can I Say This At Church located at Spotify, find the link to all that in the show notes, go get Matthews book, go get their album both are worth all of the time and energy required to do so.

Be blessed. Speak to you next week.