Religion and Politics

[00:00:05] Speaker A: This is the Return, a podcast about religious reconstruction in a world of deconstruction. I'm Jordan Maddox. [00:00:13] Speaker B: And I'm Dustin Maddox. [00:00:15] Speaker A: We are not related. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Different spe. [00:00:28] Speaker A: Before we get started with today, I wanted to just remind people that we want to hear from you and get your perspectives, stories, and questions. You could submit your questions at an email that we gmail that we have, which is thereturnreconstructionpodcastmail. We will keep you anonymous unless you specify otherwise. And we just love to hear your stories so we can connect with you and give you content that's really related to your own process. Really, this is a show meant to help people, and so by connecting with us, we can get some clarity on the things that you might need. The other housekeeping thing here at the front is Dustin and I wanted to share a little bit about why we're focusing on Christianity in particular. Obviously, deconstruction can happen in any kind of space, but the truth is that Dustin and I both come from Christian context, both cultures and religion, and. And so there's some elements of cross currents with other religions. But the reality is we can only speak so much to other people's religious deconstruction experiences. [00:01:30] Speaker B: Right. And this is what we know. So we're speaking from a place of what we know and the types of conversations that we're having with people who are in similar situations and people who come from different religious backgrounds, we would be open to learning and listening more from what they have to say versus offering something from our vantage point. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Yeah, and ultimately, I do think, broadly speaking, religion has a lot of similar patterns across at least the major world religions. I'm convinced that a lot of the content that you'll hear on this podcast will be transferable to your context. But we want to put that disclaimer at the front that we're not excluding other perspectives, we're just speaking from our own. The focus of our conversation today is going to be around religion and politics. A lot of people that I've met who are going through deconstruction, the deconstruction process often point to the role that politics plays in religion. Dustin, what's your experience with people in politics and how that relates to deconstruction? [00:02:59] Speaker B: Yeah. If the conversations that I've had about the reasons why people deconstruct were a word cloud, I think politics would probably be the central feature in that conversation. And that can come from a couple of different positions. But I think the central organizing piece is the role that politics has played in Christianity in America in particular, and the unhealthy and unhelpful relationship that has come about in between the two. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And I've delineated three reasons why I think politics caused people to deconstruct. I'm going to talk about each of them and I'm just going to summarize them to start here, I think first reason is that there's too much politics. You're imagining a church context where, and I've experienced both on the right and the left where you'll have someone from the pulpit advocating for a specific politician. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Or handing out voter guides. [00:03:57] Speaker A: Political party. I attended a church in Southern California that literally had political petitions on your way out the door. So as you're exiting and shaking the hand of the pastor on the way out, they hand you political petitions. Reason two is that there's too little politics, which I think is more of a niche reason why politics cause people to deconstruct. And I think how I would summarize that is people that feel like their church isn't involved enough in the political. They're not advocating for the oppressed enough, if you will. And so some people will have a church that sitting on the sidelines of the broad currents of society and sitting on the sidelines from important political issues and not having a loud enough voice. And then I think reason three that I would identify would be the wrong politics. So maybe you're a progressive person and you're sitting in a church thinking it's just a neutral religious community, and you hear people in the congregation or even someone from the pulpit sharing political views that are not your own. So those are the kind of three categories. What do you think is the most common one for people that you see? [00:05:07] Speaker B: I would think it has to be too much politics followed by the wrong politics and then too little coming in. Third, I think most people would likely have grown up in an environment where there was too much conversation from one particular vantage point, then maybe left that community to find a different one. And you think like you were saying, you're. You think you're in a neutral space and then all of a sudden something. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Someone says something. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Something's. Yeah, exactly. And you get triggered or. Or whatever the case may be. Or like you said, somebody will be in a community where there are particular issues that rise to the fore. And the church in the Martin Luther King letter from a Birmingham jail type situation is the moderate middle just not taking a side or a stand on an issue and therefore colluding with maybe the position of power. Or whatever the case might be. So I. Yeah, but I think those are broadly speaking the main reasons why people have a difficult issue with politics in the church. [00:06:25] Speaker A: Why do you think it causes people to deconstruct? I'm in spaces often where I don't share the same political views, whether it's a work environment or family for that matter. And sometimes I can just look at that, identify that the person has a different point of view and just move on. What do you think leads to that next step of them saying, okay, I don't share the views and now I don't want to be part of this community? [00:06:52] Speaker B: Probably a couple different reasons, but I think the one that comes to the front of my mind is probably the God ordained piece of it. [00:07:00] Speaker A: So speaking for God. [00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah, and that is you should just tread lightly in that area always. But also maybe it's, it's a sense of the cartoon leading the horse. I think some people intuit or have an implicit understanding in some of these communities that what's setting the agenda is not Jesus or the scriptures or faith as such, but really is the political agenda that's seeking sort of theological justification. And I, I think that just feels wrong and inauthentic and is, I think, a primary reason that people want to walk away from it. [00:07:48] Speaker A: I mean, I think it's like this idea that it's religion's being weaponized to achieve a political goal. And I think when you're in that space, it can feel like a betrayal. Almost like you're here for one thing and then you're juked in the space and you're force fed something you might not agree with. But at the same time, I do see a lot of people that they'll deconstruct, let's say in a conservative context, but then they'll seek out a church that is equally political but from a different persuasion. And so then I, then that makes me wonder like if it's the politics or is it just the wrong politics. What do you think? [00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's easy to. Because it's what, you know, I think in so many of these environments where that is such a consistent drumbeat, to find yourself in a position of leaving one, but finding your way out of habit or just comfort to the opposite side of the spectrum, to a place where you are equally politically motivated, but your politics have just changed. [00:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Which kind of begs the question, is it religion and politics or is it just partisan politics? That's the issue. I think I would gravitate to the latter Because a lot of the people that I meet that deconstruct do go to those kind of opposite political churches. And so then it really raises the questions, what is the actual reason? All right, so what we're going to do now is we're going to talk about religion and politics in the church through two lenses. One, through the history of the relationship between these two realms. And then we're going to talk about how theologians and religious thinkers have thought about that relationship, because I think it's helpful to see where we've come from. I think that will be enlightening for a couple reasons, but also to see how thoughtful people in religious communities are not advocating for some kind of crude mixture of the two. I think the perspective is a lot more nuanced and I think that could provide some clarity. So let's. [00:10:10] Speaker B: We just want to nerd out a little bit. [00:10:12] Speaker A: Yeah, we're going to nerd out. So sit back, enjoy. So we're going to talk about the history. So let's start with kind of early Christianity. So early Christians, they lived under Roman rule and there was a mixed bag in terms of political engagement. They were living. They were essentially living in empire, practicing a religion that wasn't appreciated, occasionally persecuted. And so it was a lot of. You can correct me if I'm wrong here, Dustin. There's a lot of just separatism, if you will, like living apart from the political community. It was almost just a way of survival for early Christians. I would say political engagement from basically the first of the four centuries was, I don't say non existent, but it was essentially like that. There wasn't a lot of power to be had and they were living on. Outside of the kind of the. The mainstream of society. [00:11:01] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. And Christianity emerges out of or as a Jewish sect. And so they're trying to utilize the Roman imperial provisions for Judaism to eke out their own existence and survival. But they're misunderstood. And so the relationship over the centuries, the first few centuries, is tenuous at best. There are outright persecutions for the sort of subversive nature of some of the Christian claims that have a political point to them. And so that relationship just is evolving over those first three centuries as Christianity is growing pretty rapidly and exponentially within the Roman Empire at the time. And then we get Constantine, and then we get Constantine. [00:11:51] Speaker A: And what happens then? [00:11:53] Speaker B: So Constantine has a dream in which he sees an. Or an angel, gives him a. The sign of the cross and says in with this sign you shall conquer. And so Constantine officializes the Christian Religion as the state religion of the Roman Empire. [00:12:12] Speaker A: And what does that mean in practical terms? Does that just mean benefits if you're a Christian, does that mean just protection from persecution? What does it mean? [00:12:19] Speaker B: Yep, both of both of those things. And I think that the tides were starting to turn at that point. And so I think it was Constantine's way of, of being politically shrewd and saying, okay, you guys are setting the agenda now, so let me just make it official. And it allowed for Christians to have a pride of place in empire, but with all of the like, power and privileges that you would think of that come with imperial or governmental rule, like they, they had essentially won the election. And, and so that develops and takes on a couple of different shapes as the Roman Empire is conquered and falls. [00:13:07] Speaker A: And as per usual, Christians are late to the party. And it doesn't last long as the Roman Empire doesn't last long after that. [00:13:14] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:15] Speaker A: And then we get this kind of merging in kind of this, what's often called the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages, where Christianity, Allah, the Roman Catholic Church and secular authority are merged into one, where there's not clear distinctions between the realms of religion and politics, it becomes one. And so to even separate them like we're talking about, is a modern understanding. Back then they wouldn't understand the difference in a lot of ways. And so this is a period that lasts for, I don't know, nearly a thousand years until the Reformation where you have popes and kings working in collusion to accomplish goals. I remember I had this professor in college that would talk about gangs of monks and how they would beat up people that were doing the wrong things or whatever. And so I think we're in modern times, we have this binary between like religion and politics that just didn't exist. [00:14:12] Speaker B: Yeah, there, there was a lot of just infusion and an inability to really separate out because this is also a sociologically, this is a enchanted age. Right. Like the default assumption in the 5th century was there's a whole, there's a ton of gods. So the question is, which is the right one, which is the true God? And so then the empire claims, oh, this one, this is the right God, and with this one will conquer. But even in this a thousand year span, there's so much diversity within this. But at the same time, or within this period is the Great Schism where Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church go their own ways. And a lot of that is for what we would in a, with a modern understanding, say is for political reasons. But yeah, it's not these neat and tidy designations that exist between them. But there's the point being that there's polarization that exists within the Christian stream from the very beginning. And so that that's the first real kind of programmatic break or where they go into two different poles in. In the. I think it is 1100 or something around that. Yeah, when that happens. [00:15:44] Speaker A: And the Roman Catholic Church had a lot of power. They controlled lands, they literally collected taxes. They acted as almost a political entity. And so the separation that we're talking about doesn't really come until later. And then in 16th century, we get some challenges from some sects of Roman Catholicism that became Protestantism. Famously Martin Luther nailing his theses to the church door. [00:16:10] Speaker B: That's right. [00:16:10] Speaker A: In Germany. How did that change people's understanding of religion and politics? [00:16:15] Speaker B: I think, to put it simply, there was. Or to come at it from a more political frame of reference, that would be really when the notion of the governance of the people, by the people, for the people really emerges. When there is this sense that the Catholic infrastructure had become so separate from the common person that you couldn't even read the Bible or attend church in your own language. It was in Latin. And yeah, you had to be a highly specialized. [00:16:56] Speaker A: They tried to kill people that translated the Bible. They hunt them down across the continent. [00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. It was nuts. And yeah, this would be a time when the seed form of the separation of church and state really begins to take root. [00:17:12] Speaker A: And I think that's tied to. There was more options now. And so there's actual conflict. So it wasn't just a kind of there's one church, one king now you have all these different sects. And that ultimately leads to this really epic conflict called the 30 Years War. So the 30 Years War was really just a war between Protestants, Catholics, all these different sects across the continent. And ultimately that led to a famous treaty called the Peace of Westphalia, which really started to establish religious toleration where you have different religions existing in a space. And the violence was supposed to be mitigated through this kind of peace treaty, if you will, which ultimately leads to ideas around separation of church and state and religious freedom a la John Locke. And then we get to the 19th and 20th century and where do we go from there? [00:18:07] Speaker B: That's when the Western culture, as we typically think about it, especially in the relationship between church and state, as we would recognize it on the street, begins to form and shape and as democracy takes off in the United States in particular. And that's a Point that I think often gets missed, at least in like American evangelicalism, is the jump from the UK where the king or the queen is the head of the church. We forget that, like we reject. Americans rejected that notion. That was right. That's right. So that was a hardcore like, break from, from how things were understood. And so that things begin to develop in particular in the United States as a lot of the ideas spread from the east coast to the west coast as universities and schools and the different Protestant movements in particular kind of expand with the country. [00:19:21] Speaker A: And then that's when we start to get religion as a political faction or advocacy group where you have different sects of religion advocating for different things. [00:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good. [00:19:30] Speaker A: You think of Martin Luther King Jr. Advocating for civil rights. You think of the religious right or the Moral Majority advocating for certain moral reforms. You think of abortion or same sex marriage, something along those lines. And the reason that they're an advocacy group now is because they're. They've been taken out of power. [00:19:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:50] Speaker A: And so they don't have the same power that they had for the first 1800 years of Christianity or 1500, because we don't include that first chunk there. And so religion takes a new form in relationship to secular authority because they're no longer in power. [00:20:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think one of the ways, I think through this is the way that the question gets Frank framed in each kind of era. And once we get into the, the 19th through 21st century, at least the beginning of the 21st century, the question was really like, are you the right type of Christian? [00:20:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:28] Speaker B: And so that played into all the different advocacy things because you're, you've got your horse in the race that you want to make sure wins, whether you're a Methodist or a Catholic or even when K was a candidate, that was a huge point of controversy because. Gasp. He was a Catholic. [00:20:47] Speaker A: Yeah. They thought the Pope was going to control him. [00:20:48] Speaker B: But that. What a great metaphor for how all this kind of begins to get more complex and fraught. But yeah, I think that then really, when we get into the late 1970s onwards and, and the rise of the Moral Majority, that's when like conservative politics and evangelicalism really fuse, whereas progressive politics and like mainline Protestantism also fuse at the same time. They were a little bit earlier to the party, but that's when that polarization really settles in. And we've been enjoying the ride. [00:21:31] Speaker A: Yes, we have. Yes, we have. [00:21:33] Speaker B: Or not. [00:21:58] Speaker A: All right, so we went through the history of the relationship between politics and religion and there's been a lot of important thinkers within religion, theologians, philosophers that have sought to conceptualize how Christianity should engage. It's not spelled out in Christian scriptures the right way for Christians to engage with the political world in the 20th century, read into the text and use kind of analogy and metaphor to think about it. And so there's been a lot of people that have sought to try to give Christians and religious people a framework to use. So Dustin, who would you say is the most helpful in this lens for how to think about the relationship between politics and religion? [00:22:40] Speaker B: So in my mind, H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture is the title of the book that he wrote in the late 50s, early 60s, something like that, which sets out the different types of relationships that Christians have had with culture, with political power. So there are five of them and we'll just take each one in turn and chat about it. But the first is Christ against culture. And this is the understanding that Christianity is in fundamental opposition to the surrounding culture or to the political power of the day. And followers of Jesus are supposed to separate from, from any and all worldly influences. [00:23:24] Speaker A: And what does it, what does it mean by separate? What does that actually look like? [00:23:27] Speaker B: So that looks. Monastic communities. That looks like a lot of the early Anabaptists or, or even would that. [00:23:36] Speaker A: Be the, would that be the Westboro Baptist Church even? [00:23:39] Speaker B: Yes, they, at least from their posture right. Of against this adversarial type of tenor. Yeah, they would definitely be in that category. Then second is Christ of culture, where this understanding is that Christ is fully aligned with culture, affirming its best aspects. And where Christianity and culture are seen as, as totally in harmony. So the best of culture equals the best of Christian ideals. And so this would be liberal progressive Protestantism where these, where what is best in culture is advocated and highlighted. The finer things in life are meant to reflect the goodness and grace of God and in people's lives or the proper organizational structures of a government reflect how God wants the world to be organized. Things like that would be interesting. [00:24:38] Speaker A: Is there a kind of a conservative version of that? Like I'm imagining Christian music at a rodeo? [00:24:45] Speaker B: I think this is probably the Moral Majority would fit into this. Where the underlying impulse is like the syncretism, right, where, where political power is seen as a good, whereas other approaches would have different evaluations of what political power is. [00:25:08] Speaker A: What's the next one? [00:25:09] Speaker B: Number three is Christ above culture. This is the understanding that culture is good but incomplete. It's culture has a God sized hole in its heart that it needs Jesus to fulfill and in, in so doing will achieve its highest potential. This, see, this view sees human reason and civilization as valuable but in. In certain need of God's grace. So this would be the approach of medieval Catholicism as the sort of moral conscience of culture. They're the ones who are the sort of chaplains to culture. And there's different. There are versions of this in evangelicalism. [00:25:57] Speaker A: What does it look like today? [00:25:58] Speaker B: I think, I think this probably looks like the megachurch pastor who is the NFL team's chaplain. [00:26:06] Speaker A: Ah, I see. Okay. Where there's Christian influencers. [00:26:10] Speaker B: Christian influencers? Yeah. Creatures with sneakers. Types of people. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Those are the kinds we like. [00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah, they do have great shoes. Then four is Christ and culture in paradox? This one's a little tricky and a little paradoxical. No pun intended. But Christians live in tension between the demands of Christ and the realities of the world. Culture is. It can't be ignored. There. There are just certain human realities. When you get down to brass tacks, that the Bible, much of which was written centuries before the modern world, doesn't quite speak in a one to one coral correlation or a direct application to the realities that we live in the world. [00:26:56] Speaker A: So this is like Christianity meets severance, where you're separating your brain out and like part of you deals with one space and another part of you. [00:27:03] Speaker B: That's brilliant. Yep, exactly. Five, number five is Christ transforming culture. And this is the approach where Jesus seeks to redeem and change culture, restoring it to God's intended purposes. This view emphasizes engagement and mission within society. So you think of John Calvin's Geneva. [00:27:29] Speaker A: About like Martin Luther King Jr. Like civil rights movements. That would be an example. [00:27:33] Speaker B: He was a Baptist preacher who had this approach of. [00:27:37] Speaker A: Would you say this is pro life movement as well? [00:27:39] Speaker B: Pro life movement could fit in this. The idea being that there are certain cultural mores that Jesus would want to change in order to better reflect the values of the kingdom. And. Yeah, so each of these has a little bit of something. [00:27:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Does Niebuhr see him in a hierarchy form or just as like options? [00:28:03] Speaker B: Niebuhr lands in the Christ transforming culture camp. That's the point he's advocating. [00:28:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:28:10] Speaker B: And I think it makes sense given his social location as a mid 20th century mainline Protestant who is going to see political power as neutral would be probably generous, but I think he would see it as a good, like something that needs to be utilized for. For the sake of the world and its flourishing. But I think others have come along after. After him, particularly from more. I would say more marginalized people groups and. Or even some of this separatism that isn't necessarily against culture, but would want to advocate that political power is inherently corrupt and inherently corrupting. [00:28:59] Speaker A: Does this transforming happen outside of the context of Capitol Hill? Or is this in terms of are they marching down the streets or are they lobbying in the hallways of Congress? [00:29:11] Speaker B: I think all of the above. [00:29:12] Speaker A: Okay. [00:29:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I think looks like the. I think the best image that comes to my mind is the ring of power in the Lord of the Rings. If we. If you just put the ring on the right hand, you could do the best possible good for the world. And I think Tolkien would have a different understanding of how that looks, too. But that's perspective. [00:29:39] Speaker A: I have hairy feet. Okay. [00:29:42] Speaker B: That's true. [00:29:43] Speaker A: He's seen him. So let's talk about our current situation. I very much see the polarization that exists outside the church. Inside the church. I see kind of two main strands of Christianity that have very clear politics. You have your evangelical white Christianity that's been subsumed into conservative and Republican politics. And then on the other side, I see a very aggressive, progressive mainline church that's finding its space in kind of opposition to that by advocating for press, press groups, minorities. And essentially the politics of today is mirrored in the pew. Yeah. And. And like we talked about before, a lot of people that I meet who have deconstructed but still attend church just swing to the other version. [00:30:50] Speaker B: Yep. [00:30:51] Speaker A: Now, I will say, at least on the right, I don't feel like the same kind of white evangelical energy that we had in the 90s. The compassionate conservatism of George W. Bush, it's just not as present anymore. It almost feels like Trump has made, you know, has really pushed for this kind of almost secular version. And it feels a little bit to me like there's a lot of evangelical churches that have subsumed that politics. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:19] Speaker A: It's. It doesn't have the same kind of influence they used to have where. [00:31:23] Speaker B: And I think he sees them more as a voting bloc than the ticket. [00:31:27] Speaker A: Yeah. They're not guiding him in the same way. And is that kind of similar to what in the space right now? [00:31:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I totally agree. I think the main piece for. I think people who might be listening to this is if the first step of your deconstruction or even reconstruction is to let the pendulum swing and to go to the other side, then that's a great first step. And I think where I am, at least, is I. And not from a. Honestly From a very humble position is like I saw this. I can see the same thing happening in terms of politics, determining theology or whatever in the different churches that I've been in. And so I think I've come to, to an acceptance that it's a feature, not a bug. [00:32:22] Speaker A: It's a variable that is always in. [00:32:24] Speaker B: The works and different and I are healthier and less healthier ways to hold that. Something that I tell my people all the time is have your convictions like, and your political convictions and hold them. But how you hold your convictions is as important as the convictions you hold. And there are churches who hold their convictions like a baseball bat that they want to just beat anyone who is opposed to that perspective down, whether it's the Christian nationalist on the one side or the. The woke progressive on the other. But I think to want, want to, to make peace with a healthy version of whichever way a church is going to lean, then you can engage with that from whichever way you lean. And there are plenty of churches who like there was a survey that came out in the, in this last election cycle of a church that had, I think it was 10% of people who said I want everyone in this church to think and vote like me and on either side. But then there was the 80% in the middle of this church who was like, no, I want to be a part of a community where people see things differently but hold them respectfully. [00:33:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:57] Speaker B: And I think that's. [00:33:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I think the fringe tends to be the loudest. [00:34:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:02] Speaker A: And I think there is something, I don't know what the word is idealistic about this idea that we can compartmentalize religion and politics. [00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:11] Speaker A: And separate them out on Sundays. And I just think that's not realistic. I think our ideas are all mixed in this cauldron of our brains such that it can be hard to know whether you're saying something from a political perspective or a religious perspective half the time. But I think what's interesting is the solution just to go to a church that matches your political convictions. Almost like that seems like what we're almost suggesting here. Do you think that is Because I know there's lots of churches out there that are quasi neutral in the space somewhat. But I think that's rare. I do think it's rare. And so the question I have for you is should people just choose a church based on politics? [00:34:56] Speaker B: I wouldn't go so far as to say that, but I think it depends on who we're talking about. My position and my perspective would lean in the direction of doing as much as possible to rightly order politics. Augustine had this notion of the ordering of our attachments or our loves and love of God, love of neighbor. Like that's got to be number one and two. And then everything else flows down from that. And so as as much as you can get into a position where you're trying to. Right. Size your political energy and notions, I think that's just going to lead you to live a better life. And at the same time, if it's going to keep you connected to a community, I think that could be a. It could potentially be a solution, at least in the short term. But I think also are like you're saying it's all muddled. And I think our positions and our perspectives change based on our season of life and what's going on. But I don't know, what would you say, where are you at in. [00:36:12] Speaker A: Yeah, so I. My deconstruction process wasn't deeply connected to politics and religion in part because I just assumed I have politics and so does everyone else. And I think conservatives have just the right to participate in a religious community as progressives do, and vice versa. And so like this idea that they shouldn't be able to operate in a religious context and advocate for things that they believe in, even if those things are hard to hear or potentially harmful. That's what they're trying to do. Like, that's. And so I just think it's. Part of me was like, it's unrealistic for people to separate politics out of religion. [00:36:51] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:52] Speaker A: So that's my kind of first kind of point. And the second point is I don't know if it's my job to get into people's business and tell them to distinguish and separate out these two things. And so the conclusion I came to is, and I think this. It started as I need to find a community that fits me. And then after that, once I had built a kind of internal stability, then I became open to be in a more heterogeneous community. So I see it as a step. Yeah, you start out with people who are similar. That helps you feel safe. And then if you're brave enough, you can branch out from there and go to a place where maybe you're in a church that's a lot more heterogeneous. You have a lot of conservatives, a lot of liberals in the same place and you can get to know each other. Because I do think being siloed is part of the reason why we have problems out in the political space now. [00:37:47] Speaker B: And so it just breeds more and more. [00:37:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's just a vicious cycle that just goes on and on. And so I think my encouragement would be if you don't feel like you fit in in your religious community, find one that you feel like you fit in with for starters, and then you could branch out potentially, or you might just find a community that works for you. So I think the bottom line is here is choose something that works for you. [00:38:10] Speaker B: And I think maybe to just nuance. What I said before briefly is when if you're self selecting into a community that you resonate with their politics, that's a much different approach than the community self select, like opting somebody out because they don't agree with their politics. [00:38:32] Speaker A: That is very different. [00:38:33] Speaker B: And so that's the nuance I would want to. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Yeah. If you're being self selected out of a Christian community for your political beliefs, they have some major problems at that church. [00:38:41] Speaker B: I agree. [00:38:42] Speaker A: And so I, I think it's. We're operating from a perspective. What should you do? And I think you should do the thing that makes you feel the safest and most comfortable in order to participate. [00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And we would love to hear maybe what you have done, whether successfully or not successfully. We'd love to hear your stories and help us think through this all together.